February 13, 2017 Show with Conrad Mbewe on “Foundations For the Flock: Truths About the Church For All Saints” PLUS Andreas Kostenberger on “Women in the Church”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 13th day of February 2017 and the day before my birthday,

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I might add. The second hour of today's program, 5 to 6 p .m.

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Eastern time, will feature a live interview, God willing, with Dr.

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Andreas Kostenberger. He's going to be discussing a book he contributed to with other authors titled,

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Women in the Church, an Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2, verses 9 through 15.

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But the first hour of the program, I am airing a partial rerun of a recent interview

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I conducted with my dear friend Dr. Conrad Mbewe, pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, on his book,

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Foundations for the Flock. The reason why I'm airing a part of this interview, the first half of this interview that I recently conducted with Dr.

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Mbewe, is because Dr. Mbewe is one of four featured speakers at the

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Sola Scriptura Reformation Conference to be held at New Life Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California on February 24th and 25th.

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I wanted to air this interview with Dr. Mbewe as added publicity for this conference, which

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I hope that you will attempt to attend, if at all possible. The other three speakers include

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Dr. Michael Horton, host of the White Horse Inn radio program, Dr. Robert Godfrey, president of Westminster Seminary in California, and Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You, the ministry of world -renowned radio and television

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Bible teacher and author and conference speaker and pastor, Dr.

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John MacArthur. If you want more information on the Sola Scriptura Conference, go to sola500 .com,

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sola500 .com. But now here is our interview with Dr. Conrad Mbewe.

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Thank you. Thank you, Chris. I'm glad to be back with you on this occasion. And I can tell you, as many of you heard me yesterday raving about what a blessed time

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I had at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, the way I was overwhelmed by God's grace and encouragement through all the brethren

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I met there who listened to Iron Trump and Zion radio from all of the United States and even some from the

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UK, some who also have listened to my show going all the way back to the old days in New York, starting in 2006, and some who have followed the debates, the live public theological debates that I've arranged with Dr.

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James R. White, going all the way back to 1996. The only drawback, the only thing that really let me down during that whole week in Atlanta, Georgia, was the fact that I did not have the opportunity to interview

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Dr. Conrad Mbewe face to face for the first time. I was looking forward to that.

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I was actually only two booths away from you when you were being interviewed by somebody else, Conrad, and I kept looking over, looking over to see if you were still there because I wanted to jump on the chance to interview you immediately after, and then something distracted my attention and I looked over and you were gone.

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But I figured, you know, it was probably providential anyway because I assumed that you were probably by that time of day exhausted and it's probably better that the

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Lord has providentially opened up this opportunity today for us to have a more lengthy discussion.

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And I'm going to let our listeners know right off the bat what our email address is if they'd like to join us on the air with a question.

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It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com,

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and please include at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. And before I even go into our main topic,

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Foundations for the Flock, Truths about the Church for All the Saints, I want to know something about you,

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Conrad. We've had you mention this before on the program, but we have new listeners all the time it seems.

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Every week it seems I have new listeners to Iron Sharpens Iron. So I'd like our listeners to know something about your own childhood, the religion of your family if any, and how the

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Lord providentially drew you to himself and saved you, and then subsequently how you came to embrace the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, also known as Reformed Theology.

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Thank you. Well, I grew up in Zambia. My parents were already churchgoing to what is called in Zambia the

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United Church of Zambia, and my mom died when

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I was nine years old. I was then fostered together with my two sisters by her immediate elder sister, but they were still going to the same church, and consequently we continued in that sense attending the place of worship.

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It wasn't until 1978 when my elder sister got converted that I consequently saw it changed life, what it meant to not simply be churchgoing, but regenerate, converted to Christ with a transformed heart, and that challenged me in terms of my own relationship with God.

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So for the next three months going into the year 1979, I was actually seeking, and with every succeeding month it was getting clearer to me that whatever it was my sister had,

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I didn't have, and so that intensified the search until around April, May, rather March, April 1979.

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I then read a tract that was pointing me to Christ.

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The previous December, a friend of mine had written a letter in which he challenged me concerning faith in Christ.

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So those two things, my sister's testimony and that letter, finally resulted in me seeking

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Christ for salvation, and so by the time I was going into May of 1979,

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I had become a Christian in the biblical sense of the word.

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My elder sister's conversion took place at a local Baptist church, and so invariably

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I then joined her at that church. I found a new pastor.

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He had just taken over a series in the Book of Romans, and when he took it over he was in Chapter 5, and for the next two to three years made his way to Chapter 8, and it was really during that period that my own faith was challenged, it was built up, and I came to an appreciation of the

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Reformed faith. You can as well imagine making your way through Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8.

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I mean, that's real solid Reformed faith. You can't find it any better anywhere on the planet.

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And then he was also often quoting Banner of Truth books, and so being a university student in those days, together with my friends, we would sort of read up ahead of time the section that you'd be preaching on over the weekend, and that opened us further to an appreciation of the

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Reformed faith as it had been expounded by the

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Reformers, by the Puritans, by the great preachers of the

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Evangelical Awakening, and so forth, all the way to Martyn Lloyd -Jones and Charles Adams Spurgeon.

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Yeah, so that's how I came to the Reformed faith. Praise God. Well, how did you know that God had put a call upon your life to become a

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Gospel minister? Well, you know, looking back now, it was just a strange situation.

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About a year into my Christian life, I found that whenever I was, or at least on a number of occasions when

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I was praying alone in my closet, I would really be burdened about lost souls and about preaching to them.

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Now, it troubled me because I was sort of visualizing myself in the pulpit and I'm hardly a year in the

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Christian faith, so I was assuming that I am, what's the word,

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I am just envying my pastor. So, this thing wasn't going away, this burden, if I could call it that, and so that's how

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I finally sought the counsel of an older Christian, who basically said to me, it's one thing to know if God is calling you, it's quite another to know when

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He's opening the door. So, if it's the Lord calling you, you simply trust in Him and wait on Him to open the door.

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So, I became fairly involved in Christian service because I was told as He opens various doors, you go ahead and serve

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Him. So, that's how I began to do that, and by and by, seven years later, the door opened for me to go into ministry at Kabwatha Baptist Church.

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So, was Kabwatha Baptist Church an existing congregation, or was it something that you started as a church plant, or how did that come about?

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What happened was that while I was a student at the University of Zambia, the church

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I was attending then, Lusaka Baptist Church, decided that they were going to proceed to start

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Kabwatha Baptist Church, and so what they did was they asked a number of individuals who were interested to commit to become a team that would establish the church.

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So, I was one of those who committed myself to this project until I graduated from the university, which was three years later, and then went to work in the mines in another town.

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So, during my period of absence, the church was then formally weaned off.

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It was constituted, and they began to look for a pastor, and my name was given to them.

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That's how they then called me. So, I was with the church plant from the beginning, except for a three -year gap when

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I then went to work in the mines. Then I came back and became the pastor in 1987.

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Well, praise God. And tell us something about also Lusaka Ministerial College and the

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African Christian University. Well, first of all, with the Lusaka Ministerial College, it's evolved over time.

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I think it's been in existence for at least 20 years. It began as simply a preacher's class in my own church, and then two other churches asked that we join hands so that it becomes a joint project, and so that's how it moved from simply being a preacher's class to being called the

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Reformed Baptist Preacher's College. It ran like that for some time until an

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American missionary asked to come over to Zambia and manage it on our behalf.

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So, we agreed, and when he came over, he then changed its name to Lusaka Ministerial College, and then after two years, he resigned, and consequently, it fell back again into our laps.

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But this time, it then became a ministry of Kabwatha Baptist Church instead of a joint project with other churches, and that's what it has been since then.

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And we've been training pastors primarily within Lusaka itself, as the name says, and basically, the students come in on Wednesdays, on Fridays, as we have the same team, and then on Saturday, we have a completely different category of students, usually those who work elsewhere during the week, and that's what

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I would say about that. And then the African Christian University is a project that we began in the year 2008.

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Within Lusaka as well, it's a joint project between quite a number of our churches, the

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Reformed Baptist Churches in Zambia. And after approximately eight years of background work, five years involved getting everything into place, then the next three years involved trying to get license from the government.

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Finally, last year, we opened doors, and we had our first year students.

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This year, we're now having both first and second year. We're just starting. It's a mammoth project.

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We're currently looking for land where we should induce them to be building the campus, but we have started.

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It's based on a Biblical worldview that looks at all the courses in terms of their careers from a

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Biblical perspective, and including theology itself.

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So we're currently with education, agriculture, business, and theology.

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Now, I've noticed that quite a number of prominent preachers from the

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U .S. who are from Reformed and Reformed Baptist backgrounds have been traveling overseas to be in some way in cooperation with you and the

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African Christian University. Yes, yes. We're definitely very grateful to God for that.

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The kind of work that we have undertaken cannot be accomplished by ourselves.

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We've needed all the help that we possibly could get. I mean, just the conditions that were given by the

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German government to begin this institution demanded a lot of faith.

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For instance, they wanted us to obtain letters of endorsement from universities that were already in existence.

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So I'm very grateful for the Masters University, under the leadership of John MacArthur, and the

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Bethlehem College, under the leadership of John Piper. Both of them endorsed our college at a critical time when, you know, there was nothing on the ground, and we needed people to believe in us that what we're doing is credible.

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And these two great servants of God gave us the needed endorsement.

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Then we've had individuals like Vody Bokum, who has quit his ministry.

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This is a job here in the U .S. and moved over to become the dean of our seminary.

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And so that's been something we're very grateful to God for, because it is showing that God is moving many hearts to join hands with us.

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Of course, the main challenge now has to do with more faculty to come over to the

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U .S. who, I mean to Zambia, who are self -sponsored, and then also funding to put up the main campus.

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How is Vody Bokum and his family adjusting to the, I'm sure, quite a stark contrast of living from being in the

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United States over there in Zambia, Africa? Yeah, well, obviously, it's quite a challenge.

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I mean, it speaks of their commitment to the greater kingdom challenge and kingdom demands.

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It can be easy malaria and mosquitoes. You have power cuts.

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You have water outages, water drying up.

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You have a lot more thefts, petty thefts, than you normally get here in terms of in your homes, all kinds of illnesses.

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So it's not easy. They've come with seven kids that they have adopted.

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They're all very young and just managing them in a place where you don't have all the comforts that you normally have here in the

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U .S. I mean, God bless that brother and his wife for taking on such a challenge when they could quite easily have been enjoying something of the comforts of American life.

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Amen. I had the privilege of hearing Vody Bokum for the first time preach, that is, in a live public setting in a church, not long ago in New Jersey when he was speaking at a conference, and I was totally blown away with the power and the gift that he has, the command that he has of the scriptures, and was thoroughly edified and blessed, not only by hearing him preach and teach, but also meeting him personally.

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And let's also mention the Central Africa Baptist College and Covenant College of Zambia.

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Yeah, as you will notice, I'm involved in quite a number of other institutions that are developing preachers.

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The reason is quite simple. It's the fact that in Zambia, to try and get people to leave their location and come and dwell within a specific town and then pay for their theological education would very much limit the number of people that you would train.

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And yet, because Christianity is galloping forward, we really need to have as many methods and institutions in which we can train pastors.

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So, CABC, which is the Central Africa Baptist College, is situated in what we call the

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Copper Belt, and it's probably the most developed of all the colleges that I'm involved in thus far.

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And it offers not only a bachelor's degree, but also a master's through Piedmont University here in the

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USA. And yeah, it's a great work that's taking place under the president,

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Phil Hunt, who is a missionary under the International Baptist Mission here in the

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US, doing a sterling job. And anyone having a bit of time can check it out using

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Google, Central Africa Baptist College. Then Covenant College is a smaller college out on the eastern part of Zambia, in the rural part of Zambia.

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It basically trains pastors with basic education, probably just finished primary school, but they are out in the village in the rural areas.

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They do basic subsistence farming, so they come in on Tuesday and train.

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Then Tuesday itself, Wednesday, Thursday, and then

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Friday after lunch, they cycle back into the villages, where they then proceed with their pastoral work and also a little bit more of their subsistence farming.

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So it's at a very basic level, and yet it's a decisive work in the eastern part of the country.

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There isn't any other college that is strategically placed in developing evangelical pastors as the

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Covenant College is. Under Zambian, Emmanuel Sakala is the new principal.

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In fact, he only began at the beginning of this month. And last but not least, we can't forget about the

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African Renaissance University project of the African Alliance of YMCAs.

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Why don't you tell us about that? Yes, I'm involved with the YMCA. The YMCA in Africa is a little different from the

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YMCA here in the U .S., in that here the YMCA seems to major in gyms, whereas in Africa, the

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YMCA majors in vocational training, providing the many youth that go out of school but are unable to find themselves in the few universities that we have in Africa.

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So they tend to provide them with basic courses in accounts, basic courses in carpentry, metro work, preschool teaching, et cetera, et cetera, so at that level.

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Now, I've been involved not only in Zambia, but also at African level to then develop a university with three campuses, one in Togo, one campus in Kenya, and the third campus in Zimbabwe.

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And right now as I speak, the Togo campus has opened, and we are just about to open the one in Nairobi, and then we're struggling quite a bit with Zimbabwe.

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But that's the project I've been involved in, and I've been asked to chair it primarily because of my experience as Chancellor of the

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African Christian University. And some people might be wondering if you are in Zambia, Africa, why you have repeatedly used the phrase over here in the

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U .S. during this conversation. That's because Dr. Conrad Mbewe is still here in the

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U .S. after having preached at the G3 conference, and that was one of the, certainly as far as I'm concerned, one of the great highlights of that conference is to hear my brother preach again.

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And I don't want to swell his head, but he is truly one of the most, if not the most, powerful preachers of the gospel

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I have ever heard in my life, and I relish every opportunity to hear him and see him preach the gospel.

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And it just so happens that providentially he will be at Grace Baptist Church of Canton, Michigan this

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Sunday, January 29th at 9 .45 a .m., 11 a .m.,

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and 6 p .m. And if you could tell us about what you'll be speaking about at this church.

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Well, basically, first thing in the morning I'll be giving a presentation on the work of the gospel that I'm involved in out in Africa.

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And then in the morning service, a basic gospel presentation that I will be giving in order to challenge the unbelievers with the exclusive claims of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. And then finally in the evening, a message to believers, again, just challenging them with respect now to respond back in loving our

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Lord Jesus Christ and living for him. I love the phrase that Piper uses when he says, don't waste your life.

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And it's so easy for brethren in the U .S. with so many benefits that you tend to take for granted to end up wasting a life instead of investing our entire being into the great matters of God's kingdom, which will last forever.

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So basically, those are the areas I hope to touch on this coming Sunday. Well, this church,

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Grace Baptist Church of Canton, Michigan, has one of the best websites I've ever seen. They must have grabbed this in the early days when websites were first being made available.

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It's sermon .org, S -E -R -M -O -N .org.

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And what a great website and easy -to -remember website they have. So if you need any further information on how to get there or if you cannot make it to the services this

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Sunday, how you could get recordings of it, go to sermon .org, and I'm sure you'll be able to get all the information that you need.

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And if you are able to get to Canton, Michigan, this Sunday, I strongly urge you to do so because you will have cherished memories that you will never forget of hearing

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Pastor Conrad and Bailey preach. That is, if you truly love the word of God, love the gospel, and love biblical preaching, powerful preaching, thunderous preaching.

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I just cannot come up with enough adjectives to commend my dear brother in the gift that God has given him to proclaim his precious and holy word.

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So I hope that you go to sermon .org and find out more information about that conference.

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The book that we are going to be addressing as soon as we come back from the break is

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Foundations for the Flock, Truths About the Church for All the Saints. And I just want to thank

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Granted Ministries for providing us with copies of this book today, and the wonderful folks over at the church that is affiliated with Granted Ministries Christ Fellowship of Hannibal, Missouri.

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But if you would like to join us on the air with a question for Dr. Conrad and Bailey when we come back from the break, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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That's c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Don't go away.

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We'll be right back, God willing, with Dr. Conrad and Bailey and Foundations for the Flock, Truths About the

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Church for All the Saints. And don't forget about the Sola Scriptura conference that is

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February 24th and the 25th at the New Life Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California, featuring

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Dr. Conrad M. Bailey, as well as Dr. Michael Horton, Dr.

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Robert Godfrey, and Phil Johnson of Grace to You Ministries, the ministry of John MacArthur.

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So we'll be back with more of this rerun after these messages. Bible. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference

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Tired of box store Christianity, of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert?

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Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

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Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience, featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

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And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.

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631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us.

32:53

That's wrbc .us. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

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Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

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.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

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Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions. Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.

33:30

Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

33:37

And we're returning now to our rerun of our interview with Dr. Conrad M.

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Bayway. And as I said earlier, he is one of four speakers at the

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Sola Scriptura Conference on February 24th and the 25th at New Life Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California.

33:58

For more details on this conference, go to sola500 .com, sola500 .com.

34:07

Welcome back, this is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned in, our guest today for the full two hours of the broadcast is my old friend

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Dr. Conrad M. Bayway, who I have known since 1995 when he first came to preach at Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island, New York, where I was once a member while living in that area.

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And I am glad, I'm so delighted that the Lord has continued a friendship all these years between us, and I've had the opportunity to interview him a number of times.

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He is pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, as I mentioned before.

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And today we are addressing his book, Foundations for the Flock, Truths About the

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Church for All the Saints, which has been published by Granted Ministries.

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And just in case I forget to mention it later when time is running out, the website for Granted Ministries is grantedministries .org,

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grantedministries .org. And tell us, Dr. M. Bayway, how you first came up with the concept for this book.

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What was the catalyst that led to the compilation of this book?

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Well, you know, since I became pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church, I was burdened about Reformation in the church.

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Reformation being that we learn to go to the Bible and learn how to do church from the scriptures themselves.

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And so I knew that if I simply began preaching on Sundays, I wouldn't be giving the opportunity for the members to be asking questions and consequently getting clarity.

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So I began an annual seminar at our church every year in November.

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And what I would do during that seminar is come up with a topic and then teach it from a biblical perspective.

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And the topics really varied from issues to do with baptism to issues to do with church government.

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It would be, you know, the Lord's Supper, for instance, the role of women in the church, and so on.

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So I would deal with those issues in three sessions. And then after each session, have a

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Q &A so that members were able to seek further clarity. And from that background, then would be making changes in the life of the church to bring them in line with scripture.

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So that when it's continued up to today, I still do the November seminars.

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But somewhere in the mid, I think about 2005, 2006, maybe 2007,

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Paul Washer of HeartCry Missionary Society came to Zambia. And oh yeah, before I come to that, what we would do is whenever we do a seminar like that, the seminar materials would then be compiled into a little booklet that would simply be photocopied and stapled and then sold for something like 50 cents.

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So when Paul Washer came in 2005 or 2006 or 2007, he found approximately 30 of these little booklets scattered,

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I mean being sold. And he asked if he could get a copy each and take them to a publisher in the

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U .S. with a view that the publisher would then choose whether he can publish them or not.

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And I mean, for me it was a surprise that anyone would want that material in order to take it across the

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Atlantic and make something out of it. Well, that's exactly what he did.

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And he shared it with Granted Ministries, Chad Thompson.

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And Chad induced and got in touch with me and asked that he takes 10 of those booklets and compiles them into a book.

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And that's how Foundations for the Flock came together. And I want to give Pastor Chad Thompson a plug.

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His congregation is Christ Fellowship of Hannibal, Missouri, as I mentioned before.

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And if anyone wants to find out more about that church, go to ChristFellowshipHannibal .org.

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And Hannibal is spelled at H -A -N -N -I -B -A -L .org,

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ChristFellowshipHannibal .org. And well, you begin the book on something that shouldn't be controversial, but seems to be very controversial.

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In fact, it has been controversial for centuries. It is the issue of baptism that is not only something that has divided true believers from false, but also even to some degree divides we who call ourselves

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Reformed Christians. The issue of credo versus pedo baptism, believer -only baptism versus infant baptism.

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But you have in the first chapter your baptismal class notes.

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And if you can explain what you mean by that. Yeah, basically, what I thought was that it would be good for young believers, as they are considering the subject of baptism, to have a little booklet in their hands that they would then make their way through and understand the basics.

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And so, when it was a booklet in Zambia, now it's the first section of this book, basically it covered four topics.

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One is how you became a Christian. So that's your history.

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This is what was happening in the background, which has produced the you that is there today.

40:29

And then the second was how you grow as a Christian. So that now that you know how you became a

40:35

Christian, you can know what you need to put into place for you to be making progress spiritually.

40:44

With that out of the way, I then handled what baptism is all about. And I would understand that probably that's where the contention would be with pedo -baptists.

40:57

But that's only one section or one chapter. And then I deal with what church membership is all about.

41:05

So that the new believer, upon understanding that baptism is the way in which he is entering into the visible, localized body of Christ, can now begin to understand what he should be doing inside the body of Christ as a covenanted member of that body here on earth.

41:33

So that's how I put all that together. And I must have put it together probably in maybe 1991 or 2 or 3.

41:46

And so it's been there for quite some time. Now, we who are theologically reformed do not believe that baptism is salvific.

41:57

We believe it is something that an obedient Christian must do in order to obey and honor

42:07

Christ. But it is not something that saves them. And in response to that, there are many

42:16

Christians who would share the idea that baptism is not salvific, that unfortunately, therefore, conclude that it's not important.

42:27

And they think it's a very trivial issue. But this is not the case at all, is it? No, no.

42:34

I mean, it would be wrong to think that the Christian faith is only about what saves you.

42:41

Salvation is where everything starts. But then there's an entire life that needs to be lived in obedience to the

42:50

Lord Jesus Christ. And so baptism is simply one of those commands of our

42:58

Lord that we then obey because He is now our

43:04

Lord. And it's one of the first commands that we obey, having repented.

43:12

Because as the in the scriptures, so it's you showing that you have now come under Christ's Lordship.

43:31

What He says, you will do. Where He sends, you will go, as one of the hymn writers puts it.

43:40

So it doesn't, baptism itself doesn't save. If you're a non -Christian, you just become a non -Christian after your baptism.

43:49

It doesn't change your stand before God. But if you're a believer, surely you ought to be interested in obeying your new master, the

43:59

Lord Jesus Christ. And He wants you to be identified with His church through baptism.

44:07

Amen. And perhaps if the Lord grants us many more opportunities for interviews, we can go through each of these concepts and actually devote a whole program to each one.

44:19

But since we have a broad range of subjects here, we'll move on for now until we address some of the listener questions, which we already do have a couple of folks waiting for their questions to be asked.

44:30

But I will address them a little bit later after we get through some of these major topics here.

44:37

This is another chapter that is quite controversial in the church that Brethren in Christ disagree with, a biblical church government.

44:48

We who are Reformed Baptists, as you know, Conrad, we have folks that disagree with us both from the

44:56

Baptist background and from the Presbyterian and other Reformed groups who disagree with us because they, the latter, those that are

45:07

Presbyterian and from Dutch Reformed backgrounds and other denominations have a denominational structure.

45:14

They have presbyteries, they have boards and denominational hierarchical structures that extend beyond the local congregation.

45:25

And although our Fundamentalist Baptist friends and other Baptists on the other side would agree with our views on local autonomy and independence as congregations, they would disagree with us, many of them would, on the plurality and parity of elders in the church.

45:43

But if you could address those issues. Yes, again, you know, at the point when

45:49

I was teaching this to our own church, we did not have a plurality and parity of eldership.

46:00

We were largely, no, we did have an eldership in place, but we just hadn't thought through matters biblically.

46:11

We had inherited a system. And what was wrong at that point was that for us, the deacons and the elders were basically functioning together as a kind of executive committee.

46:28

And when there were more deacons than elders, since they were all entitled to one vote, every so often the deacons would outvote the elders over issues.

46:41

So it was very clear that there was need for us to get to the

46:47

Bible, learn what the Bible itself teaches, and then reform our own church's government.

46:55

So at that stage, I wasn't thinking should we go Presbyterian, should we go

47:00

Congregational. I simply said, let's get into the Bible and see what the

47:05

Bible teaches. And some of the individuals that I was studying were people like John Owen, who was not

47:18

Baptist, although he was Congregational or independent.

47:26

But that was very helpful. I also went to other books like biblical eldership, again, not necessarily written by a reformed

47:41

Baptist and so forth. But at the end of the day, what I wanted was to get to the scriptures and see what the scriptures teach.

47:50

And then out came everything that is covered there. I knew that some of the issues would be fairly controversial in our own church as well.

48:03

But we did need to open up the Bible and see what the

48:09

Bible says. And I'm glad to say that out of this, we were able to make major changes, which have saved us a lot of heartache and confusion over the years as a church of the

48:24

Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, there are very helpful, beneficial, and perhaps even crucial vital checks and balances when you have a plurality of elders.

48:35

It does not tend toward preventing, although nothing that we humans do is perfect.

48:43

And it doesn't absolutely with perfection prevent dictatorships in a church. But it very often can when you have one man as the sole leader of a congregation.

48:55

That can be potentially a very dangerous thing, can it? Yes. As I said, in our own church at that point, we already had inherited a plurality of elders as a model.

49:10

And consequently, that was not the major issue. However, it was important for the rest of the church to appreciate how within the eldership there is mutual accountability.

49:26

I think that was vital so that the elders don't feel as though they are the next rung of the ladder at the bottom of the pastor.

49:39

But really that the individual that we refer to as pastor is really the one among the elders who labors in the word and doctrine.

49:53

And that's what primarily gives him double honor in terms of recognition and also double honor in terms of remuneration.

50:04

So it's really helped to clarify issues. And we've been functioning together in a context of mutual accountability as elders.

50:16

So the parity aspect of the plurality of elders, would that be that the men are recognized for their different gifts and abilities, but at the same time have equal authority?

50:30

Would that be some way of describing parity of elders? Yes, yes, because it's one eldership.

50:38

So you can't have one eldership, but individuals having more authority than others.

50:45

It is one eldership. And consequently, you function together. Now, granted, as long as you have more than one individual between yourselves, there is leadership inside that eldership.

51:00

But it is a leadership that simply recognizes gifts and roles, rather than it being an extra authority that somebody actually has.

51:14

And so once that is properly clarified, there is a very healthy atmosphere within the context of the eldership.

51:24

And there are, I mean, sometimes people listening may think that I'm broad brushing too much or making

51:31

Reformed Baptist a cookie cutter concept where everybody's the same. There are churches that identify as Reformed Baptist who do not believe in the plurality of elders.

51:41

But there are also Reformed Baptist churches that have one pastor, not because that is their church, that is not their adopted church polity.

51:50

It's just because there are no other men in the congregation that are qualified. Would you say that every church that only has one pastor for that reason should be always praying for and seeking for other men to be raised up in the congregation so there is a plurality of elders?

52:07

Yes, definitely. That's the way to go. They may not necessarily already be there, but still it must be something that they are working towards.

52:21

There's no need to rush to the point where you end up bringing unqualified people within the eldership.

52:32

But sometimes we lift the position of eldership so high that hardly anyone less than Angel Gabriel would qualify.

52:49

That's again an extreme that we need to be careful of. So there's need for some level of balance.

52:56

However, we must all as churches be working in that direction. Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of the spectrum that we have some disagreement with is in regard to denominational structures of polity and government.

53:16

Our dear Presbyterian brethren and other Dutch Reformed, Pato Baptists, and other groups, perhaps even if you want to include some of our

53:26

Calvinistic Anglican brothers, they obviously have a denominational structure and a hierarchy that extends beyond the local church.

53:36

Now, what is, in your opinion, the most valuable reason that we who are

53:44

Reformed Baptists are not a part of denominations? We believe in the independence and autonomy of local congregations.

53:54

Although, having said that, we do believe that it is very important that congregations cooperate and have communication and fellowship with each other.

54:03

But we don't believe that there is authority outside of that local congregation other than Christ himself.

54:08

So if you could let us know what you think is so valuable about that concept. Yeah, well, again, the basic approach that I took as I was teaching out on church was to say, let's see what the

54:23

Bible says. Sola Scriptura, that's what Reformation is all about.

54:29

It's what does the Bible say. And in fact, the Bible stands alone in teaching us concerning faith and practice.

54:41

And when we went to the Bible, it was very difficult for anyone to try and find a denominational structure there.

54:51

What you seemed to find is churches having elders ordained over them.

55:00

And then the churches are left to be under Christ.

55:06

As the Apostle Paul said when he was bidding farewell to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, that I now commend you to Christ and his

55:19

Word, which is able to give you a place among the people that God himself is sanctifying.

55:28

And so that's really what you do. And then when we went to the book of Acts, rather to the book of Revelation, again, you could see

55:41

Christ among the lampstands. In other words, he was dealing with each family, each localized entity of his people.

55:54

He was speaking to them directly. There was no area superintendent.

56:00

There were no other individuals who were in charge of multiple churches and so forth.

56:10

It was right to the messenger or the angel of the church of Smyrna or Laodicea, Ephesus and so on.

56:21

And the Word went straight to them. And each one ended with the appeal, let him who has ears hear what the

56:31

Spirit is saying to the churches. So each local church was to respond to Christ on its own.

56:39

Now, if you'd like to hear the rest of that interview, you can go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

56:49

ironsharpensironradio .com, and go to the archive.

56:56

And you could actually, if you wanted to search for the interview by name, you could type in Conrad, C -O -N -R -A -D, and that will come up for you to listen to.

57:16

We are going to be going to a live interview after the break with Andreas Kostenberger, who's going to be discussing a very controversial issue, women in the church.

57:30

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Dr. Andreas Kostenberger, you can email us at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

57:39

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

57:48

USA. Right now, if you would like to also go to sola500 .com,

57:56

that will give you more information on the Sola Scriptura conference at New Life Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California on February 24th and 25th, where Dr.

58:09

Conrad Mbewe, who you just heard speaking on a rerun I was airing, Dr. Conrad Mbewe will be speaking along with Dr.

58:17

Michael Horton of the White Horse Inn, Dr. Robert Godfrey, president of Westminster Seminary California, and Phil Johnson of Grace to You Ministries, the ministry of John MacArthur.

58:30

That's sola500 .com. But don't go away, we are going to be right back after these messages, and we will be joined live by Dr.

58:42

Andreas Kostenberger on our discussion on women in the church. So don't go away.

58:52

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01:01:46

This is Chris Aronson, and if you just tuned us in, we are now going to be in a moment conducting a live interview with Dr.

01:01:54

Andreas Kastenberger. We're going to be discussing his book Women in the Church, and I just want all of you to remember that Iron Sharpens Iron is in urgent need of donations and new sponsors.

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

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01:03:59

Iron Shopper's Iron Radio. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and once again,

01:04:05

I want to remind you, for those of you who are listening to the pre -recorded interview, the rerun that we had on for the first hour with Dr.

01:04:15

Conrad Mbewe of Coboata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, if you're interested in going to the

01:04:22

Sola Scriptura conference that he will be speaking at in San Diego, California, at the

01:04:28

New Life Presbyterian Church in San Diego, you can find out more information about that conference at Sola500 .com,

01:04:38

Sola500 .com, and Dr. Conrad Mbewe is going to be speaking along with Dr.

01:04:44

Michael Horton, Dr. Robert Godfrey, and Phil Johnson, so we hope that you can make that conference.

01:04:53

And now, as we had mentioned before, our guest, who is live right now,

01:04:59

Dr. Andreas Kastenberger is Senior Research Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology and Director of Ph .D.

01:05:08

Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He's the founder and president of BiblicalFoundations .org,

01:05:16

an organization devoted to encouraging a return to the biblical foundations in the home, the church, and society.

01:05:23

Today, we are going to be discussing his book, Women in the Church, and if you'd like to join us on the air with an email or with a question,

01:05:32

I should say, you can email us at chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:05:40

but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr. Andreas Kastenberger. Dr.

01:05:47

Kastenberger, the subject at hand that we are going to be addressing is a book that you co -authored along with other contributors, and I believe the other contributors are taking different sides of this very controversial issue on women and their role in the church, but if you could tell us something about the genesis of this book,

01:06:15

Women in the Church, and why this project was first launched. There are other books in print about this very controversial issue, but if you could tell us how this came to be.

01:06:29

Absolutely. So, the first edition of that book actually appeared 20 years ago, over 20 years ago, in 1995, and the book has become some sort of a, you know, the standard treatment of 1

01:06:41

Timothy 2 verses 9 to 15, and it went to a second edition in 2005, and then last year the third edition appeared, and I think that's a tribute to the sustained power of the discussion on the role of women in the church, and the new research that is continuing to be done, and so that third edition is featuring fresh articles on various aspects of the passage, and even some new chapters, and so we're just very grateful that the conversation continues.

01:07:22

And I understand that when you first began to do exhaustive research on the issue of gender roles, you actually set out with an egalitarian mindset that you really wanted to see, to find in the scriptures, that women had the freedom to be involved in any role in the church, and perhaps even in the home, without restrictions, but then you came to discover something quite different during your exhaustive research, if you wanted to be honest with what the data had told you.

01:08:02

Well, it's very interesting. It was Tom Schreiner, who's my co -editor, and also Bob Yarborough, who's one of the main contributors to the volume, they both write in their chapters, just like you said, that they started out actually believing and certainly wishing to believe that egalitarianism was true, but they also had a firm commitment to the authority of Scripture, and so, as you mentioned, as they began to engage in thorough study of that passage, they became convinced not only that the passage, properly interpreted, says that women ought not to serve as pastors or as elders in the local church, but also that that was not just Paul's message for Timothy in the first century, but that that passage continues to be relevant today.

01:08:59

And how long during your life as a Christian did you have an egalitarian view, and were you a pastor or a professor at that time when you held that view?

01:09:16

Well, my personal life story is actually quite unique in that I grew up Roman Catholic and never read the

01:09:24

Bible until I was about 23 years old, and at that time, someone witnessed to me while I was traveling, and I started reading the

01:09:34

Scripture on my own, and then had a fairly radical conversion experience and felt the call to the ministry, and as a result then, simply read the

01:09:43

Bible, essentially, inductively, just trying to make sense of it, you know, without anybody really guiding me initially, and so it was just a gradual process of putting all the pieces together, and then also connecting with some other people who had done some extensive research, background research.

01:10:03

We have one chapter in the book that is on first century Ephesus, written by someone who wrote the dissertation on first century

01:10:10

Ephesian inscriptions. There's thousands of inscriptions that we have, and so he really helped me understand the backgrounds, you know, a lot better, and also some of the other contributors in the various aspects of the passage, whether it's exegesis, whether it's hermeneutics, whether it's even, you know, the relationship between the passage and contemporary culture.

01:10:34

Now, you said that this book, Women in the Church, that you contributed to was first published in its first edition in 1995, and it is now in its third edition.

01:10:48

What has changed, if anything, in the Church at large in regard to this issue, or the view of this issue, since then?

01:11:00

Well, there have been some massive changes, certainly in the culture, with regards to not even just, you know, the role of women in the

01:11:09

Church, but the way, you know, people conceive of gender altogether, not only the

01:11:16

Supreme Court ruling on same -sex marriage, but also the transgender revolution, and so clearly, you know, the culture has moved a lot further away from the biblical teaching in the last 20 years,

01:11:33

I would say even in the last five years, than many of us ever thought would be possible, and certainly in such a short time.

01:11:43

And it'll probably be helpful for us to give definitions right off the bat on what we are discussing here.

01:11:52

There are two major views, and of course, I'm assuming that there are other views in between the two extremes, but you have the complementarian view of gender roles in the

01:12:07

Church and in the home, and then you have the egalitarian understanding of gender roles, if you could define each of those.

01:12:15

Absolutely. Certainly, that's very important to define our terms, and you know, labels sometimes can be a bit misleading, because the fact is complementarians too believe in gender equality, and egalitarians also believe in complementarity, and so in some ways those labels are not perfect, but I think the way they're conventionally used, complementarians believe both that men and women are equal with regard to their status before God as, you know, with regard to salvation, but when it comes to roles in the

01:12:51

Church, there is a primary responsibility assigned to the man, both in the family and also in the

01:12:58

Church, and as a result, men should be the ones ultimately in charge of the

01:13:06

Church and of the home. And egalitarians, on the other hand, they also call themselves biblical or evangelical feminists.

01:13:13

They believe that men and women are equal not only with regard to, you know, personhood and personal status before God, but also with regard to role, both in the home and in the

01:13:27

Church. So, there ought to be no, you know, authority on part of the man in the home or in, you know, women should be pastors just like men in the

01:13:41

Church. And what, in your opinion, are the prevalent arguments that are most compelling made by egalitarians as to why they believe women should not be prohibited from any role or function in the home?

01:14:05

Well, I think what I've seen egalitarians do is reinterpret some of the main passages on the topic.

01:14:17

I think they typically use Galatians 328, which says that there's neither male nor female, but all are one in Christ, as some sort of a foundational passage.

01:14:33

And I think that is important to understand, that the Bible does affirm male -female equality when it comes to salvation.

01:14:45

I think when it comes to 1 Timothy 2, 12, which says that Paul says, do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man,

01:14:58

I think what they say is either that the passage only applied to Paul's day because of unusual circumstances, such as women's lack of education, but it does not apply today anymore.

01:15:13

There, I would say that 1 Timothy 2, 13, and 14 ground

01:15:19

Paul's command in creation order, God making Adam first and then

01:15:24

Eve, and then also in the role reversal where that happened at the fall. And so I think my concern there is they substitute a rationale that is not made explicit in Scripture for the one that is actually stated explicitly in verses 13 and 14.

01:15:42

You know, it seems sometimes the feminists and the egalitarians who are pushing for equal opportunity for women in every role and function in the church and home, they sometimes,

01:16:00

I think, say things that backfire on their own agenda. Like, for instance,

01:16:06

I have heard the argument, perhaps you have, that one of the reasons why the apostle

01:16:13

Paul prohibited women from speaking in the church or that women should remain silent in the church was that they were prone to gossiping during the worship services or just chatting on other matters that did not involve what was taking place.

01:16:34

And to me, this seems to be actually playing into a stereotype of women being gossips and chatterboxes, if you will.

01:16:45

It seems to be against what a feminist mindset would be in regard to women.

01:16:52

Yeah, I think what I've seen egalitarians do is they play on the cultural aspects of Scripture and often affirm that various commands in Scripture are given just because of a given abuse in a church or a given temporary circumstance.

01:17:17

And it's clear that all of Scripture is occasioned by a particular need in the church or a need for instruction, but I think at the same time, because of that need, then the inspired authors would give instructions that are not just limited to that particular circumstance.

01:17:38

Even if, for argument's sake, you would say that Paul only told women not to teach men or have authority over the church because there was a particular problem in the church, because he grounded it in creation order,

01:17:54

I would argue that even so, there's still an abiding command that is transcultural.

01:18:02

I'm going to repeat our email address. It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:18:08

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

01:18:17

If you live outside the USA, I want to remind our listeners that if you are listening on Monday, February 13th, this is a live interview.

01:18:26

We transitioned from a pre -recorded interview with Dr. Conrad M. Bayway during the first hour over to a live interview, so you may participate with your questions for Dr.

01:18:40

Andreas Kostenberger on women in the church. We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who has a question for you,

01:18:49

Dr. Kostenberger. He says, I have heard that even complementarians disagree on various ways that women may use their gifts in the church.

01:19:01

For instance, I know some who have a more strict view of male headship that would even prohibit men from reading books written by learned women and things of that nature.

01:19:18

What is your guest's opinion on these different opportunities for women to use their gifts in the church that may involve teaching men, but do not involve holding the office of teacher?

01:19:33

Yes, absolutely. It's true that within the boundaries of the definition that we gave a minute ago as to what would roughly fall under complementarian versus egalitarian, there's a range.

01:19:49

As a matter of fact, that's the reason why in the third edition we include a brand new panel of men and women to discuss application issues.

01:19:58

I think your listener and others like him would be very interested to look at that final chapter.

01:20:04

There's five women and two men who engage in a virtual roundtable, and we showcase the fact that those are all complementarians who agree with the basic premise that women ought not to serve as pastors or elders, but then beyond that, there's a certain amount of applicational range.

01:20:24

Now, if you ask me personally, I believe that women should certainly engage in scholarship, and I certainly have learned much from reading books written by women.

01:20:39

You know, 1 Timothy 2 .11 says, let a woman learn, and certainly that would entail then for her to share her learning and for others to benefit from that.

01:20:50

I think the biblical concern is simply for women to occupy a public authoritative office, which would involve them, you know, to compel authority over men, institutional authority over the church, and Paul did not permit that, and I think the church still should not permit that because Paul's apostolic authority still extends to the church today.

01:21:17

Was some of the reasoning behind it being completely permissible for women to write scholarly or educational books about theology and doctrine, and why it would be permissible for men to read these books and learn from them, would it be because it's a voluntary thing for men to participate in the learning?

01:21:44

Exactly, and I think that is the critical difference there, that nobody's compelled to read that. You know, it is voluntary,

01:21:51

Terry, as you mentioned, and so, you know, at that point, nobody's conscience is violated, and also no biblical injunction is violated, because unlike in a church, if you're a member of a church, and if you have a female pastor, then, you know,

01:22:04

I guess you could always say you could go to another church, but still it becomes a matter of biblical fidelity at that point.

01:22:11

And I think, on the other hand, women engaging in scholarship, that is an area where you move from the principle of scripture to more, you know, an indirect mode of application.

01:22:24

Now, your wife is quite accomplished academically, is she not? Yeah, thanks for picking up on that.

01:22:31

She has a doctorate of theology, and she's a director of women's programs and mentoring at a local seminary.

01:22:41

She's a published author. She's published her dissertation, Jesus and the Feminists, and she now co -wrote a book out designed for men and women, so I definitely consider her as a scholarly peer and a partner, and at the same time,

01:22:54

I think she, you know, also is a complementarian, and we, you know, see eye to eye on what the

01:23:01

Bible teaches, and I think, if anything, sometimes she's more conservative than I am, and she might not feel comfortable with doing certain things that I feel are biblically permissible, just because she wants to, you know, be faithful to what she understands scripture teaching.

01:23:18

By the way, RJ, you have won a free copy of the book we are discussing,

01:23:25

Women in the Church, and this is compliments of Crossway Books, and you'll be getting that through our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

01:23:39

cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for BibleBookService .com. We'll be shipping that out to you,

01:23:45

God willing, within the next week or so. The full title is Women in the

01:23:50

Church, an Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2, verses 9 through 15.

01:23:57

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, should we regard churches that have female leaders as genuine churches?

01:24:18

Well, genuine churches, I would think that the way

01:24:25

I would look at them is that they're not faithful to scripture at this particular point. Now, they may be faithful to scripture in every other point, so I would say at that point,

01:24:37

I would think that they are not faithful to scripture. And so personally, since I tend to think the leadership of a church is a very, very important part of the church,

01:24:51

I personally would not feel comfortable to be a member of a church that is not faithful to scripture in as critical an area as this one.

01:25:02

Now, I understand that, oh, by the way, Arnie, you have also won a free copy of Women in the

01:25:08

Church, so please make sure we get your full mailing address and we'll have that shipped out to you by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:25:18

Thank you for contributing to today's program with your question. And Chris, if I may add one more thing to that question, one of my colleagues has done some very interesting research that has shown that, while it doesn't inevitably follow, like in a slippery slope, that churches that are not faithful to scripture in this area necessarily also end up compromising doctrine in other areas, the fact is that it often does follow.

01:25:50

And so we've seen many times that this is only the beginning, and then as a next step they might be open to homosexual pastors and to other forms of unorthodox doctrine.

01:26:06

Isn't that because a lot of the time when you have liberal scholars or just Christians in general, or liberal individuals professing to be

01:26:18

Christians, when they use a hermeneutic that permits women to have leadership, it often involves cultural arguments that surround the days in which the scriptures were written, and therefore there is a lot of baggage that is not necessarily binding on 21st century individuals in their minds.

01:26:48

So therefore, if you use that same kind of hermeneutic for allowing women to have leadership in the church, you very often can come up with an open door for homosexuals, as you just mentioned.

01:27:01

Exactly, I couldn't agree more with that. That's exactly right. The same hermeneutic applied to other questions would likely lead to similar results, and you end up having more of a

01:27:10

Christianity that is more conformed and palatable to our contemporary North American culture than it is still one that is corrected by, where needed, the

01:27:22

Bible itself. We're going to go to our final break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:27:33

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we will be right back after these messages.

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01:28:55

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to a visit to the pastor's study every

01:30:05

Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

01:30:15

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

01:30:23

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

01:30:29

Eastern Time for a visit to the pastor's study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back, this is

01:30:35

Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the remaining 25 minutes or so is

01:30:43

Dr. Andreas Kostenberger. We are discussing his book, Women in the Church. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:30:56

Now, Dr. Kostenberger, I was just wondering, as far as church history goes, going back to the apostolic era,

01:31:05

I am not a historian, but the only churches or organizations that had women in the clergy or in the ministry or in roles of leadership that I can recall are, we have the

01:31:24

Quakers had them, we had and still have those in the

01:31:30

Wesleyan and Pentecostal movements, we have the Salvation Army who has women in leadership, and now you have that really broadening in different evangelical areas, but of course, the mainstay, the dominant areas where you have women in leadership are those denominations that are extremely liberal.

01:31:59

Many would even categorize them as apostate because they have completely overturned the scriptures on so many vital areas, even sometimes questioning or denying the deity of Christ and the bodily resurrection and many of the pillars of the faith.

01:32:15

But what is, to your knowledge, the origins of women in leadership in the church?

01:32:23

Yeah, I'm not a historical theologian or historian myself, but I've learned much from my wife's research, whose doctoral research was, as I mentioned, on feminist hermeneutics, and so what she found is that very much what you said is true, that really for the first 1800 years or so of church history, essentially the common understanding of men being church leaders prevailed, and it was only in the 1830s, the so -called first wave of feminism, that there were occasional women who started to want to be ordained or to preach the gospel in terms of a pastoral capacity, and that was linked with the abolitionist movement, and so there was a connection between the abolition of slavery and terms of a larger human rights push that, on a national level, ended up in the 19th

01:33:35

Amendment allowing women to vote in the United States, which was not even 100 years ago,

01:33:41

I think in 1920, and so it's really part of feminism that you see the argument that women ought to serve as pastors, and what my wife and I would argue is that this is essentially, this did not grow out of biblical exegesis.

01:34:00

This did not grow out of people looking at the Bible, and after 1800 years, all of a sudden seeing something in the

01:34:08

Bible that everybody missed up to that point. No, it was the Enlightenment, it was kind of a more egalitarian human rights philosophy that then led people to basically use their feminism to revise scripture in keeping with contemporary culture.

01:34:31

Now, I understand that the Greek term, which is translated to exercise authority over, is a very important aspect of this new edition of this book on women in the church.

01:34:50

That's right, so in the third edition, we have a fresh chapter on this important word written by the leading authority worldwide,

01:35:00

Albert Walters, who's a Canadian scholar, and he has left no stone unturned to look at every instance of this rare word.

01:35:08

It occurs only in 1 Timothy 2 -12 in the New Testament. It's found only once or twice prior to that in extra -biblical material, and is still rare after that, and egalitarians have sometimes used the argument that this rare word means something other than exercise authority.

01:35:32

They've said the only thing that women are forbidden to do in that passage is some sort of a domineering attitude or usurping a man's authority in a negative sense, but what

01:35:46

L. Walters shows in that argument is that that's not accurate, that the word is likely to be positive, and so what

01:35:56

Paul had in mind there was that he did not want women to exercise authority over men in the church, just period, because even in a way that would be appropriate for men to exercise, simply because God ordered creation in such a way that men ought to bear primary responsibility both for the family and for the church.

01:36:24

Now you have those that, I don't know if they would actually claim the term complementarian for themselves, but they would be at least leaning that way, but they may have a different understanding of the eldership or pastorate than the biblical text would allow.

01:36:47

For instance, they may view it very permissible to have an associate pastor or an assistant pastor be a woman because she has a male pastor over her, or they may have women teaching adult males or in mixed groups in Bible studies, but as far as the loophole of allowing women in leadership because they are having a male head over them, a senior pastor if you will, that is not even really a biblical distinction at all, is it?

01:37:31

I know churches do have adopted in their polity such roles as senior and associate and assistant pastor.

01:37:40

Those are not biblical roles, are they? No, and I think you're right.

01:37:46

I mean, people, if they are looking for loopholes, of course, you know, any of us who really,

01:37:57

I think, love the Lord and love His Word will not want to, you know, find loopholes to get around what the intent is behind what

01:38:10

Scripture is teaching, and I think the intent is simply to order the God who, as the Creator, had every right to assign roles to the man and the woman as He saw fit, and I think, you know, rather than, you know, trying to, you know, maybe craft roles that are at least not in blatant violation of what

01:38:32

Scripture teaches, I think it'd be much better to just simply rejoice in the difference that, you know, the roles that God has assigned, and for women to be involved in many of the other legitimate ministries that women are, you know, allowed to have in Scripture, it's a little bit like, you know, in the garden where Satan tempted the woman and said, so did

01:38:57

God tell you you couldn't eat from any of the trees in the garden? And so feminists are telling women, so, you know, there's some sort of indication given that just because God does not want women to serve in the pastorate, whereas elders, you know, they're second class.

01:39:19

I don't think that's the case at all. They're just, you know, to complement the man and to be responsive to his leadership, and if that's done in love and in respect, then it can honor

01:39:33

God, because it shows that both men and women are submissive to the roles the way

01:39:40

God, the Creator, assigned them in the first place. Now do you think sometimes men, or might even include women, but those who would have a complementarian understanding of male headship, do you think that sometimes we can fall into an error where we are also eisegeting unnecessarily content into the

01:40:08

Scripture and into the discussion that doesn't even need to exist? For instance, men by nature are more suited for leadership roles and so on.

01:40:21

I mean, when there are examples I have heard, even from complementarian, of women who are far superior in their homiletic skills, then they might even be more brilliant and more scholarly and more knowledgeable and educated than their own pastors, but that doesn't necessarily give them, or does not give them, the freedom to enter into that role of pastoral headship.

01:40:48

But the fact that that we introduce these ideas that men are by nature more suited to these roles, is that a dangerous ground for us to be treading on that is not even necessary?

01:41:02

Yeah, no, I would totally agree with everything you just said. I think probably most of the more informed complementarians

01:41:12

I know would not actually argue that those different roles are a matter of gifting or some sort of superior skill or ability, but that it's simply a matter of God's sovereignty, through no merit on the man's part, simply choosing to assign those roles in a way that would fulfill

01:41:39

God's creation purposes, and so certainly any sense of superiority on men's part would be uncalled for.

01:41:48

I think the other thing I would point out is that it's not just a matter of authority, it's also a matter of responsibility, and in many ways it's a serious responsibility to have to give an account to God for shepherding his people.

01:42:02

And so this is not just, you know, sometimes it's misconstrued as people being power hungry or just wanting to lord it over other people, but it can be, as we see when we read

01:42:12

Paul's letters in the Bible, it can be a very heavy burden to bear for leaders who take their responsibilities seriously.

01:42:19

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks, you brought up in discussion a little while ago about women who are not ordained leaders in the church but who are teaching mixed groups in Bible study that include men in the audience.

01:42:40

Does your guest believe that this is permissible as long as this woman or these women are not ordained pastors or elders?

01:42:51

Well, I know ordination is sometimes brought into the discussion because certain denominations believe that ordination itself is something that should be only reserved for men.

01:43:05

In my work on, you know, and I've written one commentary, I have another one about to come out on 1st, 2nd

01:43:11

Timothy, and Titus. Ordination, there's actually very little in Scripture other than in 2nd

01:43:18

Timothy, so I think there's definitely some room in Scripture to understand what the role of ordination is, and I know different churches handle that a little differently.

01:43:30

So I think regardless of whether a woman is ordained or not ordained, personally,

01:43:35

I don't believe that women ought to teach mixed

01:43:41

Sunday school classes because it would seem to be that the same principle why they should not be, you know, teaching the church as a whole would still apply even to parts of the church, you know, like a

01:43:56

Sunday school class. So I think the same principle would still apply there. And I'm assuming you would believe it would be permissible for a woman to teach a mixed

01:44:06

Sunday school class of children. Absolutely, yeah. So in other words, male children included.

01:44:12

Yeah. Right. The diaconate is obviously something that even divides complementarians, because you have many churches.

01:44:26

I happen to be a Reformed Baptist, and most of the Reformed Baptists, in fact, I think every Reformed Baptist church that I'm aware of, there may be those that I'm not aware of that have women deacons or deaconesses.

01:44:39

But there are people that I do revere as great men of God.

01:44:48

I believe Grace Community Church there in California, where John MacArthur is the pastor,

01:44:56

I believe they have deaconesses. But what is your opinion on that issue?

01:45:02

Because it is a debated one. Yeah. That's right. And I believe that the passages in Scripture that address it, first Timothy 3 .11,

01:45:14

and then also Romans 16 .1, the mention of Phoebe, that Scripture does allow for women to serve as deaconesses, especially if that role is biblically defined as a serving, you know, non -teaching, non -authoritative role.

01:45:32

The problem is sometimes, as you know, people are called deacons and serve, in effect, as elders in a ruling function.

01:45:41

But with that qualification, I personally actually feel this is a great opportunity for the church to show that there's no discrimination against women, but this is an opportunity to affirm women in legitimate, valuable ministry and to recognize them for that service.

01:46:03

Yeah. One thing I remind egalitarians of is that, to repeat something you said earlier, that we believe that in God's sight, male and female are equal.

01:46:16

There is no one superior to the other. But because we have an equal access to heaven and we are equal in God's sight does not mean that we have equal opportunities for all the roles that God has provided in the church and in the home.

01:46:37

And one thing I remind egalitarians when they think this has something to do with superiority, I remind them that there are men who are gifted and brilliant and learned and scholarly and have great oratory abilities and so on who are not called to be in the pastoral role for one reason or another.

01:46:59

They may have something in their life that prohibits them from being a pastor or an elder, but that doesn't make them inferior to anyone.

01:47:08

It just means that they do not have that call in their life. Would that be an appropriate way to set that truth forward?

01:47:17

No, that is certainly true, Chris. I agree with that entirely. And I think, you know, my wife and I just the other day again were just commenting on the fact that, for some reason, egalitarians simply are not willing to consider that a difference in roles does not necessarily mean that, you know, one side, like women, are inferior.

01:47:41

That it's very possible for God to assign different roles while at the same time people having equal worth.

01:47:49

It's just a matter of difference, not a matter of inferiority. But I found that typically, you know, egalitarians or feminists are just unwilling to even consider that possibility, unfortunately.

01:48:03

And by the way, I believe I forgot to tell Bibi in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, you have also won a free copy of the book

01:48:12

Women in the Church, co -authored by our guest Andreas Kostenberger.

01:48:18

Can you please lay out a list of things, it may not be exhaustive, but a list of prominent areas in the church that you believe women have the freedom, where women have the freedom to lead, in your opinion?

01:48:37

Absolutely. So there would obviously be educational opportunities, like I mentioned, my wife is director of women's programs and women's mentoring at a seminary.

01:48:50

There could be administrative functions, certainly missions, you know, whether single women or obviously, you know, missionary -wise,

01:48:58

I'm thinking of biblical examples like Priscilla as an example. Women can be involved in informal instruction or teaching, again, the way

01:49:09

Priscilla was, certainly various women's ministry or children's ministry roles, and you know, mentoring older women, mentoring younger women, tremendous need, tremendous discipleship opportunities,

01:49:24

Titus 2 type of ministry, and certainly sharing their faith, evangelism, you know, and the list goes on and on.

01:49:34

And like I mentioned in our book, God's Design for Man and Woman, my wife and I just have a whole chapter talking about ways in which women can serve in the local church.

01:49:47

We have CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says, I have heard some egalitarians say that the

01:49:54

Apostle Paul was solely prohibiting women usurping the authority of a man, which would mean taking over through some hostile fashion.

01:50:07

Have you heard this argument, and what is your response to it? Yeah, absolutely.

01:50:13

I've definitely heard that. I think, ironically, the King James Version actually translates that word, that rare word, to have authority, translates it as domineer, and so that has not helped.

01:50:28

You know, it's a rare word, so I understand it's hard to get it right when you have a limited number of manuscripts available like the

01:50:34

King James translators did, but certainly others also have said that Paul simply told women not to usurp men's authority.

01:50:45

Well, I think certainly our book would be, I think, of great help to people who have that question, because, as we talked about,

01:50:53

L. Wolters has a very exhaustive chapter and thorough chapter on the actual meaning of that word, and the word simply does not mean to usurp authority.

01:51:02

It is a positive term. It's used in parallelism in 1 Timothy 2 .12 with teaching, which clearly was a positive term.

01:51:09

When you look in the letters to Timothy and Titus, teaching is used at least a dozen times, always with a positive connotation.

01:51:19

You know, it's something that Timothy and Titus are strongly urged to do, so the problem is not with teaching or with having authority.

01:51:27

The issue is just that God, according to Paul, wanted that to be reserved by men, and I would also encourage people to consider the two verses immediately following verse 12 in 1

01:51:40

Timothy 2, which is 13 and 14, which talk about, you know, Adam being created first and then Eve, and the role reversal would happen at the fall.

01:51:49

Well, thank you, C .J. You've also won a free copy of the book, Women in the Church. Just make sure you get us your full mailing address in cvbbs .com,

01:51:58

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com. We'll get that shipped out to you, God willing, in the near future.

01:52:06

One of the most difficult passages to understand, in my opinion, in the New Testament, alongside the reference to baptism for the dead, which the

01:52:18

Mormons have picked up on as an actual practice in their church, a very primary practice.

01:52:25

Another one, and I think this is also one that the Mormons have distorted, that women will be saved through childbirth in 1

01:52:33

Timothy 2 .15. Can you explain that? Well, I've actually studied that very, very thoroughly, and to the best of my ability,

01:52:44

I believe it talks about the fact that childbearing is used as a figure of speech for the woman's, you know, devotion to her home, to her family, to her children.

01:52:58

You have a parallel passage in 1 Timothy 5, I think verse 14, that actually does use childbirth in parallelism with managing their homes and, you know, being married.

01:53:12

And so I think, and the word saved, I believe, is probably better translated as spiritually preserved.

01:53:20

It's an alternative meaning to saved. I don't think here women are literally saved by bearing children.

01:53:29

I think what Paul is saying, that they're spiritually preserved, well, what are they preserved from? I think they're preserved from falling into the same error that Eve fell into when she, you know, was tempted by Satan, saying that, you know, she should not be satisfied with the role that she had, and she struck out on her own, acted independently from her husband.

01:53:50

And so I think Paul, after talking in verses 12 through 14 about what women should not do, then in verse 15 brings some closure to the argument there and says, well, women will be spiritually preserved, unlike Eve did, if they devote themselves to their family and their home.

01:54:08

And I'd like you to basically summarize, before we run out of time, why you believe this is such a vitally important issue in the

01:54:16

Church, why you don't think this is just a live -and -let -live kind of an issue, where we should just let each local congregation decide how they prefer to have their own polity in this area.

01:54:31

Well, I appreciate that question, because I've seen increasingly churches shying away from even addressing it out of fear that it might be divisive or otherwise, you know, limit their

01:54:42

Church growth, and my wife and I are united in believing that our gender identity as male and female is foundational to who we are as people.

01:54:52

You know, we don't exist as generic disciples, we exist as, you know, men and women, as fathers and mothers, as wives and husbands, and so we believe that to basically extricate that from the

01:55:04

Gospel and say this is some sort of a second -tier issue doesn't really do justice to the importance of the issue.

01:55:12

Nobody can be neutral about gender roles, and we just see, even in our culture, to some extent, the harvest that we're reaping as the

01:55:22

Church of Christ for failing to tell our culture and, you know, even people in the

01:55:29

Church, what God's Word says about God's design for man and woman by seeing an incredible amount of gender confusion, and I think to some extent the

01:55:38

Church bears part of the blame for that. Well, I know that one of your websites is biblicalfoundations .org,

01:55:50

and the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary website is sebts .edu,

01:55:58

S -E for Southeastern, B -T -S for BaptistTheologicalSeminary .edu. Is there any other contact information you care to provide for our listeners?

01:56:09

No, I think the biblicalfoundations .org is the best one to go to, and again, if they're interested in not just 1

01:56:16

Timothy 2 -12, which is the main subject of women in the Church, I'd certainly invite them to look at God's Design for Man and Woman, which is a biblical theological survey from Genesis to Revelation on what the

01:56:27

Bible teaches about His plan for men and women in the

01:56:32

Church. So that's another book you've written? Yes, my wife and I've co -authored that.

01:56:38

Well, I'd like to have you back on the program, perhaps even with your wife, to discuss that in the near future if you're able to.

01:56:46

Well, if you could hang on the phone, if you could hang on the phone after we go off the air, let's schedule an interview, another interview with you.

01:56:52

Okay. And I want to remind our listeners about the

01:56:59

Sola Scriptura conference that I mentioned earlier when we were airing our pre -recorded interview with Dr.

01:57:06

Conrad Mbewe. That's February 24th and the 25th, and that's going to be held at the, let's see here, it's going to be held at the

01:57:17

New Life Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California, and along with Dr.

01:57:23

Conrad Mbewe, Dr. Michael Horton, co -host of the White Horse Inn program, is going to be speaking.

01:57:30

Dr. Robert Godfrey, president of Westminster Seminary California, is also speaking, and Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You, the ministry of world -renowned

01:57:43

Bible teacher John MacArthur. So if you want more details, go to solafivehundred .com,

01:57:50

solafivehundred .com. I hope to hear from you tomorrow with your questions for our guests on Iron Sharpens Iron, and I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:58:04

Savior than you are a sinner. Please keep praying for Iron Sharpens Iron that we receive the necessary sponsorship and funds required for us to remain on the air.

01:58:17

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