What is a Reformed Baptist? (Rural Church Podcast 2.0)

Providence Baptist Church

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00:02

How many days till fall, Eddie? Man, I don't know. What is today?

00:07

It looks like a month, right? Yeah, we're recording. We're recording on August 23rd, which means it's one full month until fall officially begins.

00:18

Yeah, by the time this comes out, it should be officially fall. I've lost... It's got to be cooler than it is today.

00:26

It's got to be. It's got to be. I've lost some weight, but I'm still just north of 200 pounds, like 210.

00:34

Yeah. And that's not built for this August Arkansas weather.

00:40

Yeah, I weigh about 220, and it's not either. Hey, but check out what's in my background.

00:46

I see your Christmas tree. It's beautiful. Hold on, let me plug in the lights. You know,

00:57

I did tell you we sang a Christmas song a couple of weeks ago. Good for you, bro.

01:03

Yeah, yeah. So, welcome to the Rural Church Podcast. I'm Alan Nelson, your co -host.

01:10

Providence Baptist Church, one of the pastors. With me is Eddie Ragsdale, my good friend, partner in the ministry.

01:18

Brother, say hello. Hello, everybody. I have a question for you.

01:24

Yes, sir. What is a Reformed Baptist? That is a great question.

01:30

I actually had the opportunity to answer that just yesterday. Some people asked, and it's interesting because we actually,

01:39

I would say that I don't think I qualify as a Reformed Baptist, the way that I would define it.

01:49

And I think that you do qualify as a Reformed Baptist, although we don't have that much that's different.

01:57

But I think the difference would be, I think there are certain things you have to have if you're going to be

02:04

Reformed, and then we can talk about Baptists. So, maybe first we have to just define what's it mean to be

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Reformed. So, what would you say it means to be Reformed? Well, I think that there is a broad category that people use, and then

02:22

I think there's a more technical definition. Right. So, a lot of times when people talk about Reformed theology, they're talking about the five points of Calvinism.

02:34

They just mean if someone is Reformed. In fact, in a very broad sense, you don't even have to check all five petals of the tulip, right?

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Or whatever. You could be a four -point Calvinist, whatever. But in this broadest sense, people say

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I'm Reformed. They mean I ascribe to tulip, which is, by the way, we'll just talk about that real quick.

03:02

Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.

03:10

So, you're saying that men are unwilling and unable to come to Christ. They're dead in their trespasses and sin.

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There's an effectual call that comes from God to the elect through the heralding of the word that's irresistible grace.

03:25

Jesus died not for an amorphous blob.

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He died not for potential. He died for his people, Ephesians 5.

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He gave his life up for the church, limited atonement. Oh, I did the

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I backwards, didn't I? Sorry. I don't know how to spell tulip,

03:51

Eddie. It's all right. Get them all in there. Unconditional election before the foundation of the world. God chose a people for himself, passing over others, leaving them in their sins, and then perseverance of the saints.

04:03

Those who become Christian actually endure to the end. Right. So, that's a real short summary.

04:10

But what I'm saying is in its broadest sense, some people mean reformed equals

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Calvinist soteriology. But it really means something more than that.

04:26

That's included in there. Right. But it's not all.

04:33

Right. You really can't be reformed if you don't hold to those five doctrines, whether or not we put them with Calvin's name or not.

04:43

But there's more to being reformed than that. Yeah. And technically, you could be a reformed

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Arminian. There is the reformed Arminian stance. For example, our other pastor here,

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Jacob, came out Free Will Baptist, and there is the reformed

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Arminian position. Basically, the idea of the necessity of grace.

05:17

I mean, I don't know. It's complicated. But the way I'm using reformed, I would actually say that you need to have, you need to be able to check the boxes of TULIP.

05:29

That's one. Yeah. I guess the definition that I've always thought about when it comes to reformed is you hold to a historic reformed confession, you confess a historic reformed confession, and covenant theology would be necessary basic structures for being truly reformed.

06:00

Yeah. I say something like five solas, the five points of Calvinism, and then confessional, historic confession.

06:15

You like Free Will, and I know that some people don't want to call. Our argument today is not about whether Baptists can be reformed or not.

06:22

It doesn't really matter. That label's around. So you can either deny the label exists or you can seek to define it.

06:28

So reformed is affirming the five solas, affirming the five points of Calvinism, and then affirming a historic, basically 17th century confession of faith, like the

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Westminster or the Savoy Declaration, or I would include in that, obviously, the 1689.

06:49

So it affects more. We've got a long way to say it, but it affects more than just your soteriology, but also your ecclesiology is very important.

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So a lot of people that I know that would affirm to be Calvinist, but it doesn't really affect their ecclesiology.

07:07

And for me, it's disappointing. Yeah, I agree. But I also want to say this because we have a good friend who not long ago, by the time this comes out,

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I guess it'll be about a month ago, did a episode on why he's not a reformed

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Baptist, and that's our friend Harold Smith. And I talked to him on the phone a little bit, and I think

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Harold is a wonderful brother, and he's preached in my church.

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I've preached in his church. We have become good friends over the last almost 10 years, and we remain good friends, but we come up on different sides of the reformed

07:46

Baptist camp. But he and I both agree, sometimes some of the most contentious people

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I come across are the so -called reformed Baptists. Now, I'm in that world.

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I guess if I was a Presbyterian or something, I would say some in that camp, but I don't talk to them a whole lot.

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But I do run in reformed Baptist circles, and so I run into reformed Baptists, and sometimes they can be quite contentious.

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And so we would encourage our brothers who embrace the label 1689 or reformed

08:18

Baptist to not be so contentious and not turn others off to the position that I hold is biblical and right.

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But that's where I'm at, reformed Baptist, five solas, five points of Calvinism, and then

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I affirm the 1689, which includes covenant theology, meaning that I affirm the covenant of works and the covenant of grace and that we're saved by the covenant of grace and the

08:46

Old Testament saints were saved by the covenant of grace. Though I would differ with the Presbyterians, there's not one administration of the covenant or multiple administrations of the covenant of grace.

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That's not how it works. Rather, all the covenants in the Old Testament are pointing forward ultimately to the covenant of grace.

09:07

Anyway, I've talked enough. Well, I would agree with everything you just said. Yeah, I would affirm the way

09:14

I have used reformed, referring to myself in the past, was, of course, the five doctrines of grace, the five solas, and then...

09:27

Run through those real quick. We didn't mention. I mean, I know... Yeah, yeah. Sola Scriptura, the Bible alone, sola gratia, grace alone, sola fide, faith alone, sola

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Christus, in Christ alone, and soli Deo gloria, to the glory of God alone.

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So we would hold to those five as necessary foundational doctrines.

09:52

Yeah, so we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and through the glory of God alone.

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We know all this because of Scripture alone, which remains above even creeds and confessions, the highest authority.

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Not the only authority, but the highest authority. Right, and the reason why we even would use the word, why the word reform has anything to do with it, is because the material and the formal issues at stake in the

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Reformation were the Scripture and the teaching of justification by faith alone.

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Those are the issues that were the rallying points of the

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Reformation. And so because that's the case, that name reform has come along with this.

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And I was just affirming that everything that you said, I would fully agree with. The reason

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I said that you would be considered more reformed or reformed than I maybe wouldn't be, is really the only difference would be that our church doesn't confess as historic a confession because we confess the abstract principles, not 1689.

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Of course, abstract would be more like a Fifth Notes version of the 1689, something like that.

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Yeah, and I think a lot of people dance around these things.

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I will mention our friend Harold Smith again. I think Harold Smith has done a really good job of laying out, this is what a reformed

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Baptist is, and this is why I'm not that. And a couple of things he mentioned are things like the regulative principle.

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And at its base, and he's right, he and I have talked. At its base, the regulative principle is just saying, we only want to worship the way the word of God says.

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That's a very, very loose. And now some people take that to mean you can't have offering, you can't read the catechism, or you can't read a catechism during the

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Lord's Day worship or whatever. I think that's a misunderstanding. I think you can make a case for taking an offering.

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I also think that Sam Waldron does a good job of that. I also think that reading a catechism or confession during a service is just part of teaching.

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And that's what we do. But anyway, I'm just saying, there are some hyper -regulative principle guys out there that I would not agree with.

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But at its base, what a reformed Baptist wants to do is worship God the way that God has said, this is how

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I want to be worshipped. Well, and on that point about the regulative principle, different Christians could be holding to the regulative principle, but their perception of what that means the church service would look like could look a lot different.

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So, for example, I recently watched a video, there's a Presbyterian pastor in Pennsylvania named

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Matthew Everhard, a lot of good content, but he put up a video comparing their church's service to Jeffrey Rice's service.

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And that's a reformed Baptist church in Tullahoma, Tennessee. And he was just comparing basically their order of service, their liturgy, and how similar it was between this

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Presbyterian church and this reformed Baptist church. But if you compared their service to our service, well, there was quite a bit of difference between the way both of them did things and the way we do it here at Marshall.

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And then you and I both, we have some brothers in the

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Lord who their churches meet in home congregations on the Lord's Day in Kansas City.

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And so they would also say that they only want to worship the

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Lord the way that he has instructed, but their service would look a lot different. So they wouldn't be anti -regulative principle because they would be saying, we just want to do what the

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Bible says, but they would be interpreting it differently.

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Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think there's, and one thing, this is not to be a reformed

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Baptist, dispensational Baptist, Armenian Baptist, free will Baptist. This is, if you're going to be a

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Baptist, then this is a necessary component. You have to like to fight.

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So Baptist historically like to fight and we like to fight whether you're reformed, not reformed.

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We like to argue and we like to push each other. And you know what?

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On one hand, I kind of bemoan that and it's sad and frustrating. On one hand,

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I don't mind it so much because at least, at least when you run into a Baptist, they're pulling out their

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Bible and they're ready to go spar with you, you know? And so again,

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I'm not condoning a divisive or mean spirit or a fighting or contentious spirit, but it is something true.

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And so it seems to me that when you get into some of these finer aspects of reformed

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Baptist theology, that there is a spectrum and there is some maybe volatile opinions.

15:45

Yeah. But a couple of things I want to say. One, I want to say that being a reformed

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Baptist is very historical. That is, you really can't, no matter where your

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Baptist church is, it'd be really hard to trace it back through the beginning of the

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United States and not cross paths with reformed Baptist somewhere. The reformed

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Baptist were predominant influence in the United States in the colonial days, the pre -revolution days, a predominant influence.

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Yeah. I think there's some misunderstanding sometimes when it comes to Baptist history, and I'm no

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Baptist history scholar, but I think that there's some misunderstanding sometimes amongst many

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Baptists about Baptist history, because they just assume that, well, my ancestors must be the

16:53

Anabaptists. Yeah. Which is not necessarily true. It's actually, most of the time, not true.

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At least in the sense that most Baptists, especially in America where we're at, are probably receiving at least as much heritage from the 17th century reformed

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Baptists as they are the Anabaptists. Yeah. Well, I think that history is important.

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You know, reformed Baptist didn't just crop up in 2023. It's important to connect.

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I also want to say that it's important to work together. I'll give you an example. John MacArthur is not a reformed

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Baptist. Grace Community Church is not a reformed Baptist church. Nevertheless, I love

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John MacArthur. I've been to their church. I've been to Shepcon a couple of different times.

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I'm grateful for the influence and the teaching and all those things. Obviously, there are some things that I'm going to say, look, that's not right.

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I don't think that's right. I don't agree with that. Right. But I think we do need to have a spirit of friendliness, or you're going to isolate yourself.

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When they throw us in the gulags, they're not going to say, which brand of Baptist are you really?

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Well, it's not even that big of a distinction, because you mentioned

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Harold. Harold's not the pastor there anymore, but you and I have both been greatly blessed by the brothers and sisters of Lee Creek Baptist church and brother

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Joseph Allen. It's pastoring there now and thankful for his ministry in that church. If somebody from my church moved to Van Buren, Arkansas and they're not brother

18:48

Eddie, you know where we should go to church. I'd say the very first church you should go visit is

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Lee Creek Baptist church. And I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be saying, no, we got to find a church that is reformed

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Baptist. I would say, go to Lee Creek Baptist church. Those people are going to love you. And then if for some reason they ended up at another church, well, that's between them and the

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Lord, but I would tell them to go there. I wouldn't be saying we got to find a church that uses the 1689, which

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Lee Creek uses Philadelphia confession, but still my point would be go there. That's a godly church.

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And that's something else too. Let me address that because there's a lot of churches out there that subscribe to a confession of faith, but not really, you know what

19:31

I mean? It's like, and, and, and I think it would probably be better to not hold to say the 1689 and just hold to an abstract.

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Does that make sense? Like when we say abstract, we mean a summation. So like the 1689,

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I would argue is a summation of the teaching of the scripture, but you can hold to an abstract, which is a summation of the 1689 and just leave out the things that you don't agree with.

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You know, if you don't agree with chapter 22 on religious worship in the Sabbath day, then leave that out.

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And, and, you know, I mean, I'm not saying at all, I'm not at all implying that churches are being dishonest, but there is this weird kind of popular thing today.

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Like we're 1689. Well, yeah, but not really, you know? And so I think it's just,

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I think that if we're going to have a confessional standard or a statement of faith that that confessional standard, whereas the

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Philadelphia, the New Hampshire, the 1689, like it should actually articulate what we believe.

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You know? And so anyway, I think that I definitely think that, that churches should work together.

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Oh, another thing I was going to mention, Eddie is eschatology being a reformed Baptist removes you from, being, you know, dispensational pre -meal.

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You can be a reformed Baptist and be historic pre -meal, all meal, or inconsistently post -meal, but, you're going to have to, you're going to have to tell me, what's the inconsistency with being a 1689 post -meal?

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I just think that, I just think the, the understanding of the, of the two kingdoms, produces in us, an eschatology that is not,

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I'm trying to think my words here on the fly and eschatology that understands the state of the world today.

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And the, the continual coexisting of the two kingdoms until, until Christ returns.

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And the best. And the reason I say that for our audience is the vast majority of post -meal people would deny two kingdoms for sure.

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Yeah. They would be very anti as a matter of fact, many of them will, they will label anybody that, that holds to two kingdoms as radical to kingdom.

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Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I just think I'm, I'm not this all over the board with this episode.

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Yeah. This episode is not about. He really about bashing anyone.

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I'm, I'm just saying, I'm just calling it. Like I see it. No, that's right. That's good. Yeah. Yeah.

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So, and I'm, and I'm happy and I have to my knowledge, I have interacted and befriended and probably preached or had someone preach of all these various positions.

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You know? Yeah. And even to be a member of our church. So we're a confessional church, but to be a member of our church, you have to have a general agreement with the 1689, which basically every

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Christian. Basically should be able to say, well, I have a general agreement.

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Right. But the gospel's present. That's right. You know, and that affirmation of the scriptures is the word of God and all those things.

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But if you hold a different position and say, well, I don't know if I agree with chapter three on, on, you know,

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God's decree, you know, an election and all those, I'm not sure where I'm at on that. You can still be a member of our church.

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You just can't be divisive. Right. Right. So, so that's the thing too.

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Like our church holds this position. Her pastors are going to teach on these based on these positions.

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If you hold these, if you hold contrary positions or you're just not sure, that's fine. Like it's not trying to beat each other up, but we're just not going to be divisive about it.

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And by the way, that doesn't mean that we can't talk about it or ask questions. Absolutely. We can.

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We're transparent, but there's a difference between talking about issues and being divisive over the issues.

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And I think it's important that we recognize we are all, and I don't want to use the kind of squishy modern day language.

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We're all on a journey, but, but we are all progressively growing in our faith and in our understanding of truth.

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And if we, we can't have such a rigid definition of what everybody has to believe that you, that you couldn't have any baby

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Christians in your church. Yeah. Because if our churches are proclaiming the gospel, they ought to have some baby

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Christians. We ought to have Christians of all different maturity levels. Yeah. If you, if you hold a strict confessionalism, meaning they've got to check off every box to be a part of your church, what are you going to do with that?

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Then you need another church down the road. That's raising up godly Christians that can then come be members of your church.

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It doesn't even make sense. Like how the 13 year old that's genuinely converted, like how are they going to join your church?

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They can't. Right. They're not, you know, so I think it's inconsistent with our own confess.

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Like, I think it's inconsistent with the 1689 to be a strict confessionalist.

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Right. Well, I'm preaching right now through Philippians chapter three. And, you know,

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Paul there's talking about maturity and the point that he's making in, in verses like 12 through 16, he's making the point that one, and he's saying this about himself.

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He says, I have not arrived yet. I have not obtained this. I'm not there yet.

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And every Christian needs to realize no matter how advanced they think they are, theologically or in their studies, none of us are there yet.

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We all also need to realize we have a long way to go. Cause Paul goes on to say, but I press on to make it my own.

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I'm wanting to lay hold of Christ and I'm just pressing in to know the Lord more.

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And, and whether I've been a Christian for three months or for 30 years,

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I still need to grow in the Lord. And then, and then Paul urges those

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Christians that because Christ has laid hold of them, he urges them on to maturity.

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And he says, let those of us who are mature think this way. And so all we're doing,

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I would say with the confession is we're saying that if, if we're not understanding something, well, we just want to go back to the scriptures because all of us want to grow up into maturity in the

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Lord, Jesus Christ. And I think if, if you don't like the way another church is, is doing things, then a simple answer.

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Don't go. Right. Like, like obviously there are things that I think we should call out prominent churches doing foolish things.

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It's like, look, we shouldn't do that. You know? But if your Baptist brother and friend down the road has special music on Sunday, and you're like,

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I don't know if I agree with that. Okay. Don't go to their church. Right. Stay at your church.

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But if you, if you have an opportunity, yeah. Discuss these things. Talk about these things.

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Talk about the Sabbath day. Talk about the Lord's day. Talk about the regular principle of worship.

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Have these discussions. They're important. By the way, I'm not minimized. I am. I do embrace that label.

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I am a reformed Baptist and I'm happy with that label. I'm happy to be in that camp.

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I think these issues are really important. Yeah. And I think that the motivation is the glory and honor of Christ.

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What we say here is Christ is worthy of a healthy church. And, and so that's what we're striving after.

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I think these things are important, but I don't think that they ought to be used. They ought to be weaponized as clubs to beat one another over the head with.

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And even people coming into the church, we ought to be patient, loving, teaching, you know, and no reformed

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Baptist I know was converted. And like you said earlier, basically arrived.

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It's like they converted and they arrived at all the convictions I have now at the moment of their conversion. Right. Right.

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We've got to grow. We've got to learn these things. And these things are important, but it's why we aspire to have health church.

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In fact, I want to, and I would encourage, I would encourage my Baptist friends to read the 1689 to study, to see the things that you disagree with, study the scriptures and see why

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I, I do think. Oh, not just Baptist. I think all Christians should subscribe to the 1689.

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But of course, I understand that's, you know, we live in a, in a fallen world and we're going to have these disagreements.

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I get it. And we need to be able to have them charitably. So I'm a reformed

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Baptist. I think everyone should be a reformed Baptist, but I'm happy to cooperate and work with and befriend and labor and partner with those who are not.

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And, and here's something else we can point out. And I appreciate what you were saying.

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Because, and I may even take it just a, just a step further, we can be thankful for what

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God is doing in churches, even where we have significant disagreements, if they're true, if they're truly

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Christians preaching the gospel. So, for example, just this past week, actually last

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Wednesday, right after we got off the podcast recording, I attended a funeral of a, of a young woman from our, from my community where I grew up and she, she had been converted actually just in the last several years and was walking with the

30:03

Lord and was attending an affinity -based church. And you and I both in the past made our views of affinity -based churches known that we didn't, we don't think that's a good practice for a church to build its identity around a shared affinity for bikers or cowboys or whatever.

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And yet I'm thankful that she was genuinely walking with the

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Lord. I'm thankful that it was a, it was a good service. It was acknowledging Christ. The gospel was preached.

30:38

Praise the Lord. Yeah. You know, I'm not gonna, oh, that's affinity -based churches.

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No, no, the gospel is being preached and I don't think it's best. I don't think,

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I clearly don't believe that's a good model, but at the same time,

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I don't have to assume that there, that God can't be doing any good thing when the gospel is being proclaimed.

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You know, I think that it's okay to say, you know what, Lord, they're your servants.

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You, you can do what you want to do. I just, I'm going to work here in my church.

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I want to see my church be as healthy as possible. I don't want to lie about the fact that I think there are problems with affinity -based churches or whatever.

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But at the same time, I don't have to constantly have my stomach in a knot about what's happening in every other church because we don't have time for that.

31:39

Yeah, I think that I'm in agreement, agreeing with what you're saying. I think that we have to, you know, bad ecclesiology is not okay and we're not condoning that.

31:50

Right. That's what I'm saying. The Lord has been so merciful with us and patient with us when our ecclesiology was lacking.

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And so what is a Reformed Baptist? A Reformed Baptist affirms the five solas were saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

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And scripture is our highest authority. They affirm the five points of Calvinism, tulip, if you will.

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And they affirm covenant theology and a historical confession of faith, which typically includes, you know, the regulative principle.

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And we could do a whole episode on the Sabbath day or Lord's Day.

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But all of this is included. So that is what we mean by Reformed Baptist.

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I want to close by just exhorting anyone listening, our brothers and sisters listening this, like let your, our theology, like we can't just move from a high doctrine of God in soteriology.

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Like we can't have that and not let that flow over into our ecclesiology. If God is sovereign over soteriology, he's also sovereign over ecclesiology.

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He's also sovereign over worship. If this is how salvation works and we affirm that with God, then we also have to affirm that with ecclesiology and the church and membership and worship.

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So I would just encourage some of my brothers and sisters out there listening, who may be inconsistent on these things to let it all bleed together.

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And affirm God's sovereignty in each of these areas and see how soteriology bleeds over into ecclesiology.

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Anyway, that's just some thoughts. And I know we've kind of drug this on a bit.

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What else would you want to close with? You know, yeah,

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I would just close with the very admonition that Paul gives here in Philippians 3.

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He says, this is verses 15 and 16. Let those of us who are mature think this way.

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And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

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So wherever you're at, just don't go backwards. Go to the word of God where he has revealed the truth so that you can grow in maturity and let all of us who are mature think this way.

34:34

Amen. Amen. Sounds like it's time for you to sign us off.