Truthscript Tuesday: The Failed Gospel-Centered Movement

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We are live now on the truth script Tuesday podcast no intro music this time

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I decided to do it live across all the platforms that we stream to and Just going over a few articles today from the true script website.

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We have some really good ones from the last week I titled the podcast something like The problem with gospel centeredness.

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I don't remember exactly actually what I put but it's zoning in on one of the articles that we're going to be talking about and There are some other articles we're gonna be talking about but that's one of the ones

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I want to camp on Because I do think it's relevant and I do think it's it's something that needs to be written on people

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Need to think through what went wrong the last few years Last you know decade or two with the gospel centered movement people kind of involved in that young reformed restless movement

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That's kind of the same thing ish. It's if it's not there's a lot of overlap there So I'm looking forward to talking about that.

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I still see by the way a lot of hints of that even in organizations that have ascended Since that time and and that language has been it's changed a little but it's it's been preserved that that gospel centeredness or Attaching the word gospel to things that they're not the gospel.

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So we're gonna talk about that a little bit Today, but I want to let everyone know before we get into the articles today

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We have some on devotional things and other things We do have a men's conference coming up Most people who listen know this in the

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Adirondack Mountains September 21st to 24th but I do want to say you you're gonna want to you want to get in on this soon because time is short

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September 21st to 24th is coming right up on us and There is a schedule if you're curious about the tentative schedule

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People have asked various questions. One of them is about sleeping arrangements if you do want to sleep

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Just a room all to yourself. You can contact me and we can figure it out. It might be an extra cost but It's they're really nice rooms and And I do bring earplugs for all the guys and they get to know each other

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So it's it is a great time and and you do sleep. I mean at least I did

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It doesn't matter though if you're at a room by yourself I've noticed on these things if you're at any it doesn't matter how thick the walls are at any camp setting

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You're gonna hear with a bunch of guys. You're gonna hear snoring. It's just unless you have like an earplug

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You're gonna hear it. So if that's the kind of thing that you can't sleep with then, you know Maybe you should just get a hotel

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Even then even then I've had bad luck sometimes with hotels with that like someone's in the other room sawing logs

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But but anyway, I'm probably not selling it that well. Am I talking about snoring the first thing

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I bring up? No, but in all seriousness People had a blast last year and I just really hope that a lot of men can make it out

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Let me know if you have financial difficulties. Let me know if you need accommodations Info at true script calm info at true script calm.

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Okay Well, let's get into some of the articles that we have here because we do have some articles today on the true script website and we're gonna start off with Let's start off with this article.

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This is by actually my brother David Harris and the title of it is seeking the

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Lord in a desolate place and He starts off he quotes Matthew 14 where it says he sent and Had John beheaded in the prison and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl and she brought it to her

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Mother and the disciples came and took the body and buried it and they went and told Jesus Now when Jesus heard this he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself

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And I know that's everyone's life verse, right? the the whole John the Baptist situation there but David says there are a number of passages that mention

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Jesus seeking solitude in a desolate place But not just in moments of sorrow or pain We see a pattern of Jesus routinely looking to get away from the crowds and spend time alone with the

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Father As people who bear the name of Christ, it's worth asking What is Jesus pattern of withdrawing to desolate places mean for us?

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What does it mean to spend time with God? so he talks about having a quiet time and that's that's a habit cultivated by a lot of Christian and it's a good habit and He gives some biblical examples for it

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Enoch who walked with God Abraham was called a friend of God Moses seeking approaching

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God in a barren wilderness of Horeb Job David Jesus Peter all of these people demonstrated a consistent walk with God and Why seek

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God though in a specific place why a desolate place? I mean, you don't have to write you can pray to God wherever you are but there is a an element that helps you

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I suppose focus more on God when you're in a place where there aren't distractions and In the things you are surrounded by of course remind you of him

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While trying to maintain a quiet time is a crucial spiritual discipline to cultivate We should we would do well to set aside time to withdraw to a desolate place a place where all

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Or most of what can be seen is of God's and not man's handiwork Specifically places that are devoid of development and people desolate sounds like a negative term in English like a barren wasteland

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But it really just means solitary or lacking in population And so he goes through some bullet points here.

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We are trying our best to follow Christ's actions and patterns We pray as he prayed we fellowship with others as he did and most importantly we strive to model the sacrificial love that he

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Demonstrated by dying on the cross for our sins. We should pay attention to his habits as well A second reason

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God's attributes are on display in the natural world It says the heavens declare the glory of God in the sky above proclaims his handiwork

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Thirdly, we are not capable of handling the noise of life perpetually Jesus has to withdraw partially because he was being intentionally

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Intentional about spending time with the father, but also because of the crowds that were increasingly seeking him out

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And then he goes into just the need that Christ displayed in his human form on this earth and so So anyway, that's that's the intro to it and then he gets into some

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Barriers to seeking because I think we all have those in a modern world What time do you have to get away to a desolate place right?

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What time do you have to escape the attachments that you have in this life? And he says there are significant potential barriers to withdrawing to a desolate place

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Unconfessed sin will deter us Time and space can make it seemingly impossible to get time alone

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And yet time alone in the wilderness or even our backyard Is important we should be doing that And I look at it this way.

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It is fuel for life. It doesn't take away from your life It actually helps you live your life.

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It's a necessary thing just like Not to make it as trite as this but just like going to the gym just like eating

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Right. These are things that you have to do in order to survive So this may mean that we need to turn off the phone and leave it somewhere not just mute or silence it

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We know the instantaneous anxiety that sets in when our phones die or get lost, but somehow we survive before them

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So keep those distractions away and then he gives a little personal testimony as for himself and and how he

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Lived actually in the region. I live now in upstate new york And he drove to a forested area one day and took a walk and he climbed a fire tower and he saw some storms and the wind picked up and He was in awe and audibly said praise god and thank you lord, and i've had those experiences, too um

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It's it's amazing to see That kind of power we feel small and we want to feel small and it's good to feel small and you won't feel that way

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And feelings are part of this Gaining that perspective unless you do go to a desolate place

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Or at least uh put yourself in situations where you're surrounded by the god's creation So I thought that was a really good article

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The next article is called the return of dad the dad theologian the dad not the dad body the dad theologian and um

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And this is actually related in a similar way. It says we live in a complicated and busy world between church Work home life social media vacations keeping up with long -distance relationships with friends and families

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Extracurricular activities or their children it goes on and on about all the things All the things that that buy for our time and I should probably mention.

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This is justin puckett uh who has written before and and done a great job for truth script and so Um, so i'm sure he's describing his life here.

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He says unfortunately, it seems that more men place those responsibilities down on the list next to um

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Let's see home and car and meaning spending time shepherding our families um and he gets into uh

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Theology and the importance of theology i'm actually Wondering if I already did this article before or if it's just really similar to another article on the true scope website

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It might be just similar uh, but uh, he makes the point that um

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That theology is the study of god and Rc sproll said that the issue for christians is not whether we are going to be theologians

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But whether we are going to be good theologians Or bad ones and so that that is really what we ought to be looking at Is we're going to be theologians, but are we going to take the necessary time to be good theologians?

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To accurately handle the word of truth to be able to convey that to our loved ones And as a data as a leader of the home, that is a responsibility god has given to the leaders of households

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And um, it's it's not just a heart religion There there takes it takes work it takes work to do this

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So he says what do I mean by a dad theologian to me the name father feels too formal and detached from the family

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I realize this is part of my upbringing but each culture has its own endearments for the male head of the house So my point is using the word dad is to show that this is not a detached male figure

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In the house or church, but a man who is involved intentionally engaged and loving He is a man who both plays and works with his children.

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He's actively teaching and discipling his children He is proactively loving and shepherding his wife Now half of us are guilty right now half of us are feeling

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Man, I don't do that the way I should and that's not a bad thing to be there, but don't stay there. Okay? Christ offers grace for that for failures in that area

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And and you do your best with the time you have not everyone has time Some of some of us have very short periods of time.

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We have to get creative and how we approach this But it is important. Uh, it is important to seek god, uh in the desolate places

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It's also important to disciple our families and um

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So he he talks about that. We must learn that um

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We men can spend hours in sports and and you know Time working on their cars and other things.

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Why not theology? Why can't that be one of the things that men pursue? So it's a good point.

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Uh, he says that shepherds, uh, he compares This dad theologian to a shepherd shepherds would often bring their flocks into sheep pen at night to rest these pins

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We may be made of high rocks With a narrow opening where the shepherd would spend the night anything or anyone who wanted to get to the sheep would have to go through the shepherd and uh, and he quotes john 10 where jesus talks about being the good shepherd and um, and he says that this is

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You know, this is the bar that we're supposed to be reaching for How can we expect so much from a regular standard typical dad

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How can we expect him to teach his family theology to defend them from heresies, etc? Well, it's not a new or radical idea that men should do this.

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It's the ordinary view of christian fathers throughout church history and the absence of the dad theologian today is

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A problem we've seen in in his absence the rise of women taking those spiritual roles of leadership including in churches

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And the issue is not that there are no men but that men have become all too willing to give up their god -given role and be passive And so this is a call to activeness

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And and that god has grace for you in this and that You know get off the couch and I learned some theology.

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So there you go return of the dad theologian now this is the the piece that I wanted to camp out on a little bit just because um

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I suppose it's in my wheelhouse a bit. I I do another podcast called conversations that matter that probably many of you are familiar with and um

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This is something that we've talked about before but i've never seen an article really on it.

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I'm sure there are some And this is from jamie Bambrick now jamie brambrick, I believe is a pastor who made who makes really good youtube videos.

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He's made some youtube videos Based on information actually on the true script website. He did one on cultural christianity.

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That was phenomenal You can go check him out. Jamie brambic brambrick and I want to read this article for you.

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He says picture the scene You're a youngish preacher preparing for what may be something around your 10th sermon ever

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You've been on a steady diet of gospel coalition together for the gospel and acts 29 for a good couple of years at this point

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And so, you know that the bible is not about you Whatever happens in this upcoming message

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You are determined that the main focal point should be anyone who is present by any means other than the holy spirit

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If you do you're terrified someone may stand up and shout something akin to you're not david And lead a mass exodus from the room after which you'll never preach again.

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Unfortunately You've hit a snag your text for the week is one of those awful bits in the bible that talks about something practical

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You know like the second half of most of the epistles or the bulk of the torah Or most of the prophets or significant portions of jesus teaching first use of law at this point you are left with two options one

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Of which is to use the text as a first use of the law case If you don't know what that is offhand, it means to use it by saying that this is god's standard

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This is how you've broken that standard and this is how jesus fulfilled the standard for you And before you know it you're preaching christ penal substitutionary death again for most of your time on stage which by the way

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I give a hearty amen to which can be legitimately done because the gospel is the foundation for all our practices as christians.

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However The problem is that by the time you've done all of that You've not done a whole lot of unpacking what the hearer is practically supposed to do after all this

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Of course that is by design. You've been told not to insert yourself or anyone else into the story One must not learn courage from daniel faith from abraham or boldness from david perish the thought

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The other option is worse though And by the way for those who are scratching their head. I have actually seen this

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I have uh, there's a whole like There's there's a whole group of I don't know if it's hyper exegetical or what you would call it

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But you know, you shouldn't apply the scripture. Holy spirit does that um, it's

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It's new and it's novel. It's this isn't something that you would find in the ancient church They're always applying the scripture to their predicaments

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The other option is worse though, that would be to actually spend the time talking about the practical implications of the text

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Properly applying them to the hearers in today's context in a way that would help them live their lives faithfully to christ trusting them to understand

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That this is done in a broad context of being christ -centered and yes, even gospel centered But in which your particular message would be mostly about the hearer

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And the problem with doing this is that you would feel guilty for doing it because it's foreboding

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Borderline heresy one might say you choose option a everyone says you preach the gospel, but in reality they learned very little

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Have you ever been to a church like that? By the way, have you ever have you been to a church where every sermon was kind of the same thing?

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It doesn't matter what the text was Um, there are churches like that And this may be a slightly hyperbolized version of events, but only very slightly and I say that Because that was almost exactly how

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I used to feel when preaching As if I were a gambling man I'd be willing to bet that there are plenty of others out there who felt the same way a practical sermon was in my mind a poor one

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Thankfully over time. I learned to just follow the text and not stress so much about fitting it into a particular paradigm

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But I didn't really have any language for this until I recently hosted an interview with joel webbin And he pointed out how limiting god's law to merely its first use was so common in this movement.

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That's a great observation by joel Wyatt fell apart He says on the face of things there wouldn't appear to be much wrong with using the law in this case or in this way

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Rather and many people heard the gospel through this kind of preaching and were saved praise god. It might be a bad

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A tad out of balance, but hardly something likely to be the undoing of a movement.

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Well, that's where you'd be wrong Fast forward to 2020 There's no need to recap everything but you've got covid blm mask and vaccine mandates, etc

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You you remember you were there? Yes, I was Anyway here we have a key moment in time when the practical instructions of the bible god's law has become absolutely essential

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It's how the church should respond Startled and harassed bodies of believers across the world under the pressure to conform to all sides actually needed to know what to do

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They needed to know this in detail with clarity and with conviction and because of the lack of attention paid to god's law

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This gospel center movement didn't have a great answer. This is such a good point This is we were running against up against this all the time in 2020 with these weird like virtue signal stuff something like trying to even fit in like the vaccine to I think duke kwan said it's like the already and the not yet and like cramming into these gospel frameworks and And it's like what are but it's not in the category of gospel.

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This is in the category of ethics And what should we do? What has god commanded us to do as a church?

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or as people What ended up happening was that the movement took two basic responses one was to almost entirely compromise

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On what god's law actually says essentially using a biblical about vocabulary to cover for marxist terminology and thereby baptize things like critical theory and covid policy

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Uh, and we we have On the conversations that matter podcast I have in depth, uh chronicled this um, the other option was to not say much about anything and those who followed this pathway, even if they technically agreed

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As to what god's law said essentially refused to use it as a means for instruction to the church Instead merely responding to these challenges by saying just preach the gospel

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Basically one side ditched god's law In all but name whilst the other side only used it for a small portion of its intended purpose

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Both issues come back to the ironic problem with the gospel center movement, which was that it did not know how to use god's law a radical thought rather than outlining

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How the decline of the gospel center media conferences and books has aligned neatly with the events of 2020 it's true uh, let me instead make

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What may be a rather obvious but apparently a necessary point maybe god actually intends his law to be obeyed

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Perhaps the reason god gave us the law was both to show us his standard We should have kept and have failed to keep and and To be the standard we actually try to keep as believers

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No, not as a means to salvation. No, not in our own strength, but as a justified saints By the power of the spirit.

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Maybe he actually wants us to do some of the stuff. He explicitly told us to do And maybe just maybe that means we could talk about it in church from time to time without feeling bad for doing so Amen to this amen to this and this is it's not just the gospel centered movement.

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Like I said at the beginning The sort of like the hyper exegetical preaching movement does the same thing in a way

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They even if they rightly explain what the law is in a given passage

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Applying it to your life isn't something that they're into And this leaves sheep starving they don't uh

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They might get the crumbs they might get certain things but it's not being some some of them need it hand fed to them some of them need milk instead of meat and some of some of them don't know greek and hebrew and hermeneutics and they they need

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That they're in a work day, you know seven or six days of the week five days of the week all day

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And they they go to church on sunday and in a sermon that's like 45 to an hour long they need refreshment

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And sometimes they don't get it. They get a bunch of they get a technical technically detailed talk. That's academic where they get.

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Um, something that's just really so basic and gospel centered that there's You miss the point of the passage and how it applies to our lives here in the now

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There are countless examples of this but perhaps the most distinct is that jesus message was summarized as being The gospel of the kingdom rather than say the gospel of personal salvation

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And the kingdom though by no means less than personal salvation is bigger than one topic Indeed the gospel of the kingdom is big enough to include god's law

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See and this is actually a place that I probably disagree with the author. So i'm i'm going to just read what he says um, and and then

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I might uh I think I agree with the main point the author's making. I don't know if I agree with this particular point But anyway, he says i've heard.

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Dr. Joe boot neatly define the kingdom of god as the reign of god However being from a less educated province of the uk

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Than he is i'm northern irish and therefore not fully understanding the implications of that phrase at first glance I like to slightly oversimplify it by simply defining the kingdom of god as his blessings and his laws

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When you have a king you get the benefits of that king and you get his commandments to you

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Now there is a point I I believe there's a point to be made here in that When you receive christ as savior, he's also lord.

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That's his identity and there's laws with that He expects in fact, how do we know that we love him?

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He says keeping my commandments. That's how we know So so so that's an outward indication that we actually are in christ

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Um, would I call that the gospel? I I actually have happened to think the gospel of the kingdom Is solely the work of christ.

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It's the grace of god. It's not anything we do Okay, so, um the question about you know, the kingdom of god

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Yes, the kingdom of god does include laws, but the gospel of the kingdom of god, I believe Is is the gospel it's the gospel paul talked about it's not in conflict with the gospel.

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Jesus talked about The gospel paul talked about in colossians um It's the gospel that the judaizers were corrupting by trying to add law to So I probably i've been reading through the mission of god by joe boot and I probably disagree with joe boot on this point as well

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Um, and and that's just that's my aside i'm doing the podcast So I guess I get to say the areas that I disagree with but but there's still a

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Big point to be made in this in that there's more than just the gospel in scripture. I know parish the thought right?

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It's there's more than just the gospel There there are other elements there are we're supposed to be getting to know god

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We're supposed to be understanding his character his nature His law is part of that And his gospel is also part of that Now this was a key part of jesus message

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Then perhaps it should be part of ours Perhaps it should be part of ours particularly in times and seasons when the church is being perpetually land blasted

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Over what that law means and whether or not the church will stand up by obeying this law or fall back in the name

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Of being gospel centered perhaps when the world sees the insanity of man's law apart from god on display

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Teaching the law of god will be a light to the world. Once again, perhaps avoiding doing so Uh does not in fact advance the gospel but truncates it and perhaps that is why the gospel center movement ultimately failed

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Let us not Do the same So this is jamie, uh bambrick, and I think he makes a powerful critique of the gospel centered movement.

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This would be Uh, like the the tgc types In fact, I I won't say what organization because i'm i'm trying to be nice, especially on the true script tuesday podcast

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It's my nice day Uh, but but there's another major evangelical organization who has members in it that have prominent positions saying the same things

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I just saw a tweet yesterday from someone uh trying to say Trying to say your political posture or the way you conceive of politics should be uh,

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Gospel, what did it say gospel? I think I oh I don't have my phone with me. I had it saved on my phone because I thought

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I thought this is rich Uh, it was gospel steadiness. I think we need to have gospel steadiness

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Like what's what's gospel steadiness? I mean, I guess you could you be calm knowing the gospel's true, but it was like comparing

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People I guess those christian nationalist types with people who have gospel steadiness and it's just so pervasive

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That was the movement right? Everything was a gospel issue Um, we had to ever think of every issue as paralleling some kind of a gospel framework

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And it really diluted the gospel. We don't we didn't know at the end of that, you know, what is the gospel anymore?

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Uh, it's even and there were times when law and gospel were pretty conflated Uh, we saw that during covid to some extent loving your neighbor was now

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Some would say part of the gospel and that meant get the backs or something like that so so we saw this the gospel you being used as a branding, uh instrument as as a a buzzword, um as lance burkhart says and it became meaningless and it's time to recapture it.

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It's time to Recapture the term gospel and put it in its rightful place And when it comes to the law preach it and apply it to the lives of people and i'm hoping that as this gospel centric movement has

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I think Uh, it's still around but it's gone downhill. I I hope that there's some room for that so Um, anyway, uh, that's the the podcast i'm looking at the comments now since we did do a live show

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Uh, there are comments coming in um And yeah, I appreciate

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Everyone who's uh commented um you know, I want to address this one jennifer herb says i'm still obeying god to win my husband without a word

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I hope before My children are fully grown. My husband will be a dad theologian and you know Let's all pray for for jennifer.

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Um That's hard. That is hard, uh that I know several people in that situation

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You you listen to me talk about an article about being a dad theologian. You're like, oh man I wish

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I had that my husband's not even saved. My dad's not even saved And and that does make it harder, but I do think god gives you grace in those situations as well

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You know, just like he gives you grace when you're in situations where the government's not favorable and working against you

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Uh, and and maybe you you even have a bad church experience at the time and or you know

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Your job is is a terrible environment for your christian faith or something in those moments

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God does give grace and so that's what we look to all right. Well god bless more coming. Uh, of course, uh, as always uh

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If you want to support true script go to truth script .com Scroll to the bottom and there's a donate.

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Uh, it is 501 c3. We appreciate it. And uh, If you want to submit an article, there's also an article submission portal, uh at truestrip .com