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THE HERE I STAND THEOLOGY PODCAST Interview with Keith Foskey - The Church = Theological Training Ground
All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have a tremendous episode lined up today. We have got your Calvinist from Conversations with a Calvinist, Keith Foskey. We are going to be talking about why the local church should be the theological training ground for God's people.
Stay with us.
The Here I Stand Theology Podcast is a ministry of Reverend Ramada Baptist Church and a member of the Truth in Love Network. Please consider heading over to YouTube, Spotify, or your podcatcher of choice and subscribing to the Here I Stand Theology Podcast today.
And blessed by Scripture and by plain reasons and not by popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves.
And welcome to the Here I Stand Theology Podcast, where we are a podcast devoted to a pointed debate of biblical doctrine pointed and spirited debate of biblical doctrine, might I add. Nonetheless, we are here today and we are not going to waste any time.
We are coming at you with a live recorded episode for New Year's Day, just so that there is no show of impropriety. I want it to be known that this show is being recorded on Tuesday, December the 27th, but we are pretending like it's New Year's Day.
So we will have a good time. With that being said, let's go ahead and bring in our special guest for today. Again, we mentioned him to you a moment ago. His name is Keith Poskey. Keith has been pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church since January 2006.
He is a graduate of Ashford University and Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Jennifer, have been married since 1999 and they have five children. So that being said, let's bring in Keith Poskey into the studio today.
Hey, brother, this crowd is wild.
Yes, I can hear every one of them. Also, I want to mention we have six kids now. Our latest was born. Theodore Foskey was born. So we are now the Foskey Bunch. I have three boys and three girls, and we're the Foskey Bunch for sure.
Awesome. Sorry about that. So you call him Theo, right? Or do you call him Theodore?
Theo is his nickname. I wanted to go with Ted or Teddy. My wife has vetoed that pretty strongly. But at some point, yeah, I figured a child like mine, he's going to be round, furry and funny. I figured Teddy would be perfect, but it's not exactly what she wants.
So Theodore right now, or Theo.
That is awesome. That is awesome. So Keith, again, we've got to know each other a little bit through the Facebooks and watching you on YouTube. By the way, I should have said this in your introduction.
So Keith is a TikTok phenom.
Well, I'm always afraid to say that I do TikTok because most of what people think of TikTok is people either dancing inappropriately or using foul language or something. TikTok has sort of got a bad reputation.
So when people say, oh, you're on TikTok, they like almost always have this like look of fear. It all started by accident. I made a video. I was sitting around one day with my wife and I said, you know, it would be funny if you got all the denominations in a room and they all had to talk about how they were doing their church.
And so I ended up making a video where I played the part of different denominations. And it was only five denominations. It was Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, what I call Big Eva or non-denominational.
And I forget what the other one, but anyway, I've added more since then. But that first one, the first video I did, a friend of mine who does TikTok, he said, well, let me load, let me let me create an account for you.
I don't even have it on my phone. He created the account on his phone. He loaded the video. And within a day, it had gone over 100 ,000 views. That was on a Saturday. He and I were out shooting. We were at my at my dad's shooting range.
We're shooting. He loaded it on his phone Saturday around two o 'clock by by the next morning, which was Sunday morning. It had gone over 100 ,000 views by the by the end of the week. It was like, you know, a couple hundred thousand.
Well, now my TikTok page has been viewed over over a million and a half times. The videos that are there and the hashtag hashtag CWAC, which is conversation with the Calvinist, has over a million hits.
So so just so so TikTok has been by far my my widest reach as far as what I've been able to do.
That is fantastic. And what we'll do, we'll have a we'll put a link down below as well for that, too, so folks can get to that. So we are today we're going to be talking about a pretty serious subject, the why the local church should be the theological training ground for God's people.
But before we do that today, because just so that everybody knows, I know your placard here says the Keith Foskey. But if you want to find Keith on Twitter, you would go to at your Calvinist. That is Keith's tagline on on conversations with the Calvinist.
He is your Calvinist. And today he is the Keith Foskey. So, Keith, what we're going to do today, we are going to play a never before played game on the Here I Stand Theology podcast. Normally, the arm wrestling question would come now and that would stand alone.
But I'm going to ask the arm wrestling question and then we're going to play a game called You Big Dummy. So so the arm wrestling question, since you have some cohorts, you have Rich, you have Matthew Henson and you have Jake Corn, right?
Yes, sir. That's the three guys who are regulars on the on the program. We call the CWAC regulars.
So so I would I'll ask about Jake first. So if you and Jake had to arm wrestle, who would win?
Jake is in the army. He's a chaplain and he's he's very, very strong. But I outweigh him by a ton. So I it would be a tough one. I want to say I would win, but I hope he's I hope he's not too mad. I feel like I would win by being so much bigger.
But I can't I can't say for certain.
Challenge set forth.
But when he's in Jacksonville next, we'll we'll we'll record it and I'll send it to you.
Well, that was better than Doug Wilson's answer. Doug Wilson, you know how sly he is and the wordsmith that he is. I don't know if you saw the episode, but I asked him if if him it was right before him and James Watts debate on Pato communion.
And I asked him if him and James White had to arm wrestle, who would win? You know what Doug Wilson said? He said I would win, but I wouldn't tell him. So I thought that was that was a good answer. Most folks try to be gracious.
But listen, if you're going to put them down, you just got to put them down. I mean, we are men. So how about you and Matthew Henson?
Now, Matthew Henson was actually he's a slender fellow, but he was a weightlifter in high school. I've seen pictures of him doing deadlifts, which were pretty impressive for his stature. So I feel like he's got technique on me because, you know, it takes technique to lift weight.
So I would say he probably would win by virtue of technique.
All right. And what about Rich? And let me ask this as a sub question. Is Rich really your uncle? And why do you call him Uncle Rich?
Okay. No, he's not my uncle. Rich and I graduated high school together. We grew up together. We weren't we weren't we weren't really good friends as kids. But when we were in high school, we had some classes together.
And after high school, we worked together on a bread truck. He's still a bread man. He's actually a little Debbie man now, but he he delivered for a local bakery and I worked at that company, too. It's actually where I was working on 9 -11.
And I remember being in the back of a bread truck when I heard or I was at a Publix delivering bread when I heard the first plane hit. So that's a snapshot from that time period of my life. And Richard and I spent some time in the truck talking about Christ because he was helping to train me.
And he became a better friend to me after that because he loved the Lord and because we both were committed to the church. And so he is just a dear friend. I actually purchased his house. I live in the house he used to live in.
We are we are you know, we just had we had our festivus celebration the other day. And by the way, he did beat me in arm wrestling. So I don't have to wonder who would win. He beat me soundly. He's got he's got the little Debbie muscles and, you know, from carrying around all those boxes.
And the reason we call him Uncle Rich is actually a joke because that's Matthew Henson's. Everybody got a nickname. Matthew is the tech romancer. Jake is the Jake is the the tag king. But he's also the we call him the Inquisitor because when he worked for the army, he was he did he did interrogation for the army.
So like one hundred and fifty interrogations of people from, you know, other countries and stuff. And so we call him the Inquisitor. And I am your Calvinist, obviously. But Rich is just Uncle Rich, the muffin man.
Oh, and my kids also like look at him like an uncle because he's at our house all the time. And so he's like he's like my brother. So Uncle Rich, that's the Lord.
That's awesome. That's awesome.
All right.
So now what we're going to do, we are going to move to a segment again, first first time being revealed on the podcast. And this segment is going to be called Right Wrong or You Big Dummy. So what's going to happen is I'm going to ask you questions.
There might be right answers. There might be wrong answers. Right. Or it's just so obvious that you have to say you big dummy.
And I have to say you big dummy.
Yes, if you want to or if you don't. And I feel like it needs to be said. I'm going to say it. And because you don't have a button there, I'm going to hit the button.
Gotcha. I got you.
I got you.
So we're going to make this easy to start. OK, are you ready?
Yes, sir. You're all ready for it.
Here it comes. First question. Right, wrong, or you big dummy, you should take the garbage out the first time your wife asked you to.
Oh, I feel like you shouldn't have had to think about it.
You big dummy, you big, big dummy, big dummy. See what you did. Oh, no.
You I guess I guess I thought of it. Like, do I do it? Not should I? You said should I say, yes, I'm going to take the garbage out the first time your wife asked you to.
All right. Next question. Athanasius or Arius?
Oh, Athanasius.
Good. Calvin or Luther?
Oh, see, Calvin.
I agree. I agree.
OK, I agree.
All right. Here's a here's a real one. Conversations with the Calvinist or the Here I Stand Theology podcast.
Oh, man. CWAC all the way. I'm sorry.
You big dummy, you big, big dummy, big dummy. See what you did. Oh, no. You big dummy.
So you told me earlier, you know, like the arm wrestling thing, you got to come out strong.
So there was no there. Both would have been acceptable there. Both answers are acceptable. And for my audience, I would defer to CWAC. I would defer to conversations with a Calvinist myself. That's what I'm going with on that.
All right. So the next question, just in your estimation, which is better? Reformed Baptist or Presbyterians?
Well, you understand that it's the Presbyterians who have the superior theology. Well, of course, it's the Reformed Baptist. The Presbyterians just didn't keep reforming enough. They kept that hold, which is that infant baptism.
Man, they got to get rid of that.
Oh, you're preaching to Jesus. So there we have it. Last question. Last question. Here it comes. Jesse Duplantis or Joel Osteen?
I think I would rather jump into a swimming pool full of Wolverines.
But if we were, if we're playing right, wrong, what would you say?
Both are wrong.
I don't know.
Jesse Duplantis is funnier. They're both terrible.
You would have to look at me in the eye, Keith, and say, you big dummy.
You big dummy.
There you go. I'm sorry.
You big dummy. You big, big dummy. Big dummy. See what you did. Oh, no. You big dummy.
There we go.
All right. All right.
There we have it. The first installment of You Big Dummy. Thank you, Keith, for being such a good sport and playing along there.
I love playing games.
Absolutely.
By the way, again, if you haven't checked them out, go over to the TikToks, check out Keith's denominational videos. They are super funny and hilarious.
Also, if I could mention too, some people don't want to get on TikTok and I get that, it's, you know, if you'd prefer not to go to there, you can also see all of my short videos at calvinispodcast .com.
It takes you to our YouTube page and that's sometimes easier for folks.
Calvinispodcast .com. Excellent. Excellent. All right, so let's switch the camera angles here and let's jump into our topic today. So I wanted I was especially excited about getting to talk with you, Keith, about this this topic, because it's obvious you have a passion and a desire and that you are firmly rooted and grounded in the local church.
And I don't know if people realize it or not, but you are a phenomenal teacher. This past eight weeks I spent under your tutelage. I considered calling you rabbi when you came on, but I greatly appreciate your ability to communicate the truth of God's word that does not weaken or water down the truth of the scriptures and to listen to you preach by recorded message on Sundays.
It's just a tremendous blessing. So I wanted to say that publicly. I wanted to thank God for you and your ministry and the work that you do.
Well, I'm very I'm very humbled, brother, that you would say that, and I'm very encouraged that you took the class. And I was very I was thankful to have you there because I like to have other pastors who can sit in on the classes and give me feedback.
And it really does encourage me because the classes are designed for anyone. We call it seminary for everybody is that is what our Sovereign Grace Academy is. But to have somebody like yourself who I know knows the word, who knows the scriptures to sit and listen and give me feedback has been a blessing.
So thank you.
It is a blessing. You couldn't hear me, but I was hollering Amen at the TV screen.
So so our question today is why the local church should be the theological training ground for God's people? Why should the local church be the theological training ground for God's people?
OK, so so right away, I think that and this is such a broad thing to consider. But I think that we we did ourselves a disservice as the body of Christ by outsourcing the the theological training of our ministers to to universities and to seminaries, not recognizing that the the building up of men and the training of men for the for the ministry can happen within the body.
And actually, that's the that's the ministry model that we see in scripture is that the church itself trains and raises up men from within. And so I think that and I'll talk about this later, I'm sure I'm not saying that seminaries are inherently evil or wrong or anything like that.
But I think that if the church were doing what we should be doing, then they would be they would be less necessary, if not completely unnecessary.
I would agree. I would agree there. There we go. There we go. I would agree. Absolutely. So what are what are the current options for Christians to learn theology, both good options and bad options? What would you say?
Let's start with the good options. What are some good options for Christians to learn theology?
Well, when we talk about the options, good and bad, I want to go back to the seminary concept. A lot of people don't even know they hear the term seminary. They don't even really know. They think it's just college for pastors.
But it's not. In many ways, a seminary is a postgraduate study. So if you are if you're going to go to Southern Theological Seminary or if you're going to go to Southeastern or any of these seminaries, you have to have a prerequisite degree before you can go there.
You have to either have a four-year degree from a university or like at Southern, they have Boyce College that's there. And so what people don't realize is it's a seven-year study. You know, you do your four years of undergrad and then another two or three years of what's called an MDiv or a Master of Divinity, which is different than a regular master's degree.
Regular master's degree takes about 12 to 14 months, depending maybe two years for maybe an MBA or something like that. But an MDiv is almost a three-year program and includes original languages and things like that.
And it's very useful and it's good. But that's you're talking about seven years out of a man's life. That is the average person is not going to be able to do that. Now, the average person doesn't become a pastor either in the sense that that's not it's a calling.
We're going to talk about that later. But in the sense of we're talking about theology for everybody, not just pastors. Right. And so where should theology be being taught? It should be being taught from the pulpit.
It should be being taught immediately and primarily from the local elders. The local pastors in the church should be teaching not just Bible stories, not just, you know, this is the the books of the Bible or whatever, but should be teaching the theology within those books.
And, you know, Sunday mornings, I believe, is for exegesis and exposition through books. And that's when we get our biblical theology. And then we have other times that we gather, like Sunday school and Wednesdays and things like that, when we can do systematic theology or we can do dogmatics or we can do any of those other things that are accompany a robust exegesis of the scriptures.
And all of that is it should be being modeled and trained first and foremost from the pulpit. And so if you're not in a church that's preaching and teaching sound theology, then that's your first problem right there.
If you want solid theology, but you're not in a church that's preaching it, that's a problem. I have a friend online who is who sends me messages quite a bit, asking me questions. And one of the things that he asked me is about his church and his pastor really downplays theology, really downplays that, you know, and I don't want to get too much into his personal situation, but the stories that he tells me, I'm like, how is this man doing what God has called him to do if he's downplaying the proper exegesis scripture, downplaying theology?
So it's just that to me, it hurts my heart to even hear that that happens. So the primary thing is to being a biblically functioning church is preaching and teaching solid scripture and theology. If you want to go to Bible college, you want to go to seminary, those things are available.
There are a lot of money, a lot of time. I don't think that they're the best avenue for your average person. Now, let's talk about some other. I'm sorry, I'm going long.
No, that's good. You go right ahead. You're doing great.
Because there are some other avenues for people, even people who want to go into ministry. One is that there are more and more classes that are being made available through online training, such as you just mentioned Sovereign Grace Academy.
Everything we teach is free. There is Ligonier Academy, which is online. Now you have to pay for that, but that is that does teach solid theology. A lot of seminaries now are offering their classes for auditing, which means you're not taking it for credit.
You're taking it just to get the information and you can do that relatively inexpensively. I've even thought about auditing some classes at Southern and auditing some classes at some other seminaries like Reformed Theological Seminary, just so that I could sit in.
I'd love to sit in John Frame's apologetics. I've taught his apologetics book. I've taught it in our academy, but I would love to sit in and be able to ask him questions. And so that is available for people if they want to do that.
Let's talk bad for a minute. The worst thing that people do, I think, is they get all of their information from unreputable sources. And by unreputable, what I mean is not just because somebody is on YouTube doesn't make them unreputable because you're probably watching this on YouTube.
And so that would be somewhat arrogant of me to say, well, everybody on YouTube is bad because I'm on YouTube. But I do know that a lot of people get their information from unvetted teachers. If the teacher who's teaching the YouTube video or whatever is telling you to avoid local churches, if he's telling you to avoid being under the authority of elders and pastors and teachers, if he's telling you to only listen to him and not listen to anyone else, and he's not giving you anybody outside of his immediate circle, then you got to be careful with that.
Because those people often are leading you astray.
That would be a you big dummy right there. That would be it. So along those lines, then, I know it's an unused word, but a bastion or a bulwark of theological training, what would you say are some of the causes or reasons why that the local church isn't being this bulwark or bastion of theological training?
Well, again, historically, we can look at some things like after the division of the Protestant Reformation, and of course, you then have different denominations that begin to arise out of the Protestant Reformation.
Obviously, you have the Lutherans in Germany, you have the Calvinists and in Switzerland and the different groups that begin to arise. And then, of course, you have the Anglican Reformation. And each one of them is preaching and teaching something slightly different.
And what was produced out of that is you end up with schools of teaching that sort of teach those things, that sort of teach those ideas. And that gave birth to what we see as the seminaries that we have now that are all different, right?
You've got the Southern Baptist Seminary and you've got the Lutherans, I'm sure, have their seminaries in different places, have different things. And it's a byproduct of the need for solidly trained pastors, because we do need pastors who know the word and a lack of that training in the church.
And again, that's why I'm saying I'm not willing to say that seminaries have never been necessary because there have been times, especially in church history, where there wasn't the access to education, there wasn't the access to training in the original languages and these things, which pastors need to study these things.
And there wasn't this access available. And so these schools sort of rose out of that need. The question is, what's it going to look like 50 years from now? And my big concern right now, and I know this might be getting to a, I might be jumping a little bit, but a big concern I have is when the seminaries, which many of them cost so much money and they have so much expense that's going on, when these seminaries begin to lose tax-exempt status and things like that because of legal issues that are going to arise, the training of ministers, I think, is going to, by nature, fall back to the churches because I don't think the seminaries are going to be able to last forever, not in the current legal situation.
And somebody may want to call me on that. Somebody may hear this on Twitter or on YouTube and say, oh, he's an alarmist or.
Whatever.
But I remember hearing Dr. MacArthur make the point, he said if they ever lost tax-exempt status. Where they're at, talking about Master's Seminary, he said if they ever lost tax-exempt status, they wouldn't be able to stay in business because they own so much property in Sun Valley, California, that just the property taxes alone would be so exorbitant that it would be more than they would be able to afford and maintain a reasonable charges and things like that.
So, I see a possibility that it's going to, by nature, have to force back to the.
Churches.
But again, I'm not a prophet nor the son of a prophet.
Well, the Lord has a way of shaping and molding his church. So, and a lot of times, persecution, suffering, and the giving up of the added accoutrements that we have nowadays are sometimes the mode that he uses.
So, there wouldn't be anything at all wrong with that. If that did happen, it would be a good, good thing. So, real quick, before we get into the next question, let's take just a moment here. Let's play the 1689 Design promo real quick.
All right. And we're back, Keith. So, by the way, if you've not yet done it, I encourage you to go over 1689designs .com. Check them out. They've got some great gear. I just got my new hat in the mail here recently.
So, also, we did not mention at the beginning of the podcast, Keith and I are on the Truth and Love Network. I encourage you to go over to the truthandlovenetwork .com on the interwebs. Check them out.
Bread of the Word podcast is a fantastic podcast, as well as the Laborers podcast. But I'm telling you, this young man, Tyler Noe, he is a blessing. He is a blessing and an encouragement to listen to when he teaches and walks through the.
Scriptures.
Right now, he's in Ecclesiastes. So, Tyler, if you end up watching this, praise the Lord for you, man. All right. So, back to our conversation at hand. Again, we're talking about why the local church should be the theological training ground for God's people.
And Keith just spoke with us a bit about the root causes of why the church maybe isn't doing the things that it should. And so, Keith, historically, the church was always the one who taught and catechized congregants.
Let's stop right here for just a minute. I wonder how many... Now, we know that there's plenty of Reform folks and some Presbyterian folks that likely recognize the term catechism and likely don't cringe, you know, draw back when they hear.
It.
But how important is the catechism, catechizing our children and the congregants, members of our church? How important is catechism in helping our congregants grow in the Word and in the faith?
Well, it's one of the essential things that we do. And that is a good point. And regarding theological training, that's the first step of theological training, is learning the basics of the faith. And we learn the basics of the faith through catechesis, which is the simple memorization of questions and answers.
And a lot of people, a lot of modern teachers sort of downplay classical education, and they're going for more modern pedagogical systems, modern training and teaching, and they sort of downplay, well, if you're just memorizing rote questions and answers, then that's not really training.
I'm not agreeing. I'm just saying this is what they will say. And my secular degree is in education. I have a degree in social science with a concentration in education, and I spent eight years teaching as a substitute teacher in public schools.
So I've seen the evolution in modern education. And what they would argue is that rote memorization doesn't help you grasp ideas. It simply puts facts into your mind. But what they don't realize, and what I think is often overlooked, is that the classical model, which is teaching by rote memorization, does put facts into your mind, and those facts later become the basis by which you are able to formulate your ideas.
If I talk to a young man who's been catechized, like I have a young man in my church who I know was raised up being taught the word and being catechized, when I talk to him about the word, what comes out of him, now that he's an adult, he's a believer, what comes out of him is much more robust than when I talk to someone who has not been.
It just doesn't have the same grounding. And so I would say, you know, it's very, very foundational. We believe it with our kids. Our older kids didn't get it as much. But we adopted our older ones when they were four and six years old, and we weren't as committed at that point to family worship and things as we are now.
My wife and I did a podcast about that, about the change that's happened in our home. Our home now is more committed to family worship and catechesis, which is, I think, something that when you go back to what's the training center, it's the church, but it's also the home.
The home begins that training, and I can't force men in our church to catechize their kids, but we can certainly model it, and that's the goal.
Amen. Amen.
So, I mean, the catechetical questions, I'm assuming I pronounced that right, catechetical questions, I mean, just like the basic, but it's amazing how those basic questions build one upon the other. I mean, it's the basic theological knowledge that most Christians that have been in church their whole lives can't answer, right?
Sure, yeah, and there's nothing wrong with it. I mean, the children's catechism is great, and like you said, if you're 50 years old and you don't know the answer, then it's no longer a children's catechism.
That's exactly right.
It's your catechism, too.
That's exactly right. Who made you, right? Why did God make you? Most Christians can't answer that. Well, He made me for His glory.
That's right.
I mean, it's those basic things that are just so beautiful, and it's just, I guess, when it comes down to it, the next question on our list, you see it there, but who is to blame? Number one, I would say, like you, I would start, lead into this by saying this, I would say that, like you've said, the theological training should begin with the church, but it should be communicated in such a way that the families of the church understand that primarily it's the family's responsibility, then it's the church's responsibility.
Would you say that's correct or off base there?
Well, the way I look at it is, and the way I explain it in our church, is my primary role as pastor and one of three elders, three pastors that we're all ordained, our role as pastor elders is to train men.
Now, that doesn't mean that we don't train women. That doesn't mean that we don't train children.
I'm glad you said that.
But the men receive our focus because if we are training the men, then they will, through that, hopefully be the ones who train. Because the Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 14, if a wife has a question, she should go to her husband.
What's the insinuation of that or the inference that we can draw from that text? The husband should know the answer. The husband should be the one. And I put that on us every time I preach that text. I say that if a woman is supposed to go to her husband, the inference is that the husband knows how to answer.
And so we train men. We train men to train their children. And we used to do something called dads and dudes. I'm a big alliteration guy, in case I hadn't said that, like coffee with a Calvinist, conversation with a Calvinist, dads and dudes.
Dads and dudes, I did it for a couple of years, and it was a once a week training for men where we would come in and we would just talk about how you're leading your children in worship and how you're leading your wives.
And it was just a one-hour men's study where we sought to encourage men to do that. So I do think that the first and foremost goal of the elders should be to make sure they have mature men in the body.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree.
So along those lines, stepping up. So we talked about the importance of the family, right? And we touched on the pastors. Would you say that pastors in general, and I know we're making kind of a sweeping statement here and we're covering a lot of territory, but would you say that pastors, men who proclaim to be called of God, to preach the gospel and teach God's people have shirked their responsibilities maybe because it's simply just too much or they have such a low view of the scriptures or the low view of their congregants?
We're going to be real. This is the Hero Outstanding Theology podcast. Do you think that some pastors have such a low view of their congregants that they feel it would be a wasted effort to teach them in-depth, systematic theology?
I feel like I'm about to go for an hour. So pull out the whip and pop me if I...
Hang on, let me put you full screen here. There you go. Preach.
All right. So a couple things. We talk about pastors shirking their responsibility. What I think has happened, and again, this is me looking at this from a sort of 30 ,000-foot view, is the role of the pastor from both sides has changed.
And I think that what we've seen, especially in the 80s and 90s, moving into the new millennium, was a model where the pastor's job was to attract people and to keep people by whatever means necessary.
And the big P word is pragmatism. And that is the idea that we do whatever it takes. If you got to catch people with a pizza party, we're going to do pizza party every week. If that's what it takes to keep people, then that's what we're going to do every week.
And if me using the word, any word that's a theological word, if I use the word propitiation in a sermon and that doesn't score well among our people because I made people feel dumb, well, then that word's got to go because I don't want to do anything that's going to cause my people to feel uncomfortable.
And that's the mindset. We've gone from pastors to CEOs. Churches have gone from being, what I say is that the church is an institution of higher learning. We've gone from being an institution of higher learning to being a social club whose job it is to get people in and keep them there.
And again, I look at the 90s as a turning point because, and you say, why 90s? Well, here's why. The 90s was when we saw this youth group, the youth group model sort of took off and you had these huge youth events and huge, huge youth things.
And what happened was those youth groups became churches. And a lot of churches today are just the kids who were in the 90s youth group wanted the same youth group experience in church. So they created churches that look like their youth groups.
And what do youth groups not do? Typically, not in Reformed Baptists, but in a lot of churches, what do youth groups do? They typically don't get very deep. And so the church by nature doesn't get very deep.
And there's more to it than that. I mean, you can go back and say, with the advent of liberalism in the 19th century and the idea of all of the things that came as a result of that. And then you have the liberal denominations going so far to the left that they've abandoned the gospel.
And then you have the counter of that, which was the fundamentalists who went the other.
Direction.
And you have these wide divergence. And there's a lot of things that happen, but ultimately it's pragmatism wins the day. Because let me tell you this, it doesn't matter in the minds of many people, it doesn't matter how spiritually deep your people are.
What matters is how many people are there. And so if you've got a church of 500, you're doing good. If you've got a church of a thousand, you're doing better. If you've got a church of 3000, it doesn't matter if you're showing Sesame Street cartoons during your sermon, because what matters is you're touching 3000 lives, no matter what you're touching them with.
A mile wide and an inch deep.
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, the Big Eva, my character in my videos, the Big Eva with the Santa Claus on the zipline, that was a joke. I made a joke, Santa Claus coming in on a zipline and riding out in a Harley.
And then somebody sent me a video of a church in Texas where they had a drum line. Now it wasn't Santa Claus, but it was a drum line on ziplines coming down during Christmas.
Service.
And I was like, I'm not a prophet, but I nailed it. I absolutely nailed it. So again, this is that church is a show and shows aren't about making you think. Shows are about making you happy. And this is why we have sermon series that are on pop culture, like the Top 10 Friends episode sermon series or the latest movies, the Marvel movie sermon series.
You want to be an Iron Man for Jesus or you want to Hulk up for the Lord or whatever, it's always something. And the world looks at it and you know what the world says? How stupid. How stupid.
Because the world knows when we're trying to be like them, we're not as good as they are at being like them.
Amen.
And so it looks like a parody because it is and it's ridiculous. And the only people that satisfies are shallow Christians.
I agree. And that brings us full circle. I mean, back to the original question, right? And this is what is being communicated in many of the larger seminaries, right? It's the pragmatic, practical approach to ministry.
You got to do this. You got to meet felt needs.
It's a CEO model. They teach pastors how to be CEOs rather than shepherds. And you had a few men who tried to do it differently. You know, John Piper wrote the book Brothers Were Not Professionals where he tried to speak out against that CEO model.
But there's just another side of it, which is very much professional. If you tried to start a church and you tried to get money from your local association, again, I'm not speaking authoritatively here.
I'm just going off the things I've heard.
It's just two Calvinists having a conversation.
Solving the world's problems.
Yeah, but let's say you and me, let's say we lived in the same town and let's say Claude and Keith are going to start, you know, Claude and Keith's family church. I don't know what we were going to call it.
And we go to the local association. One of the first questions that's going to be asked, and I'm basing this off of several people who've told me this, who've tried to plant churches. Well, how many baptisms do you expect to get in the first year?
Because that's the rubric, right? It's about how many seats are you going to fill in the first six months?
The real issue is not about how many people we're going to get wet. It's how many people are going to hear the gospel. And what is, what would you say? I think it was maybe, no, I think it was Ryan Denton that I heard say this, but I thought it was a profound statement.
How do you define successful evangelism? And he said something to the effect, you preach the gospel to individuals. Conversion is the Lord's responsibility. It's not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to faithfully and consistently preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And he does the converting. He does the redeeming. He does the sanctifying. He does the keeping. He does the growing. He does it all.
And I love that answer. What's successful evangelism? It's when the gospel is proclaimed. That's successful evangelism. If you fail to preach the gospel, then you weren't successful.
That's it.
Moving to our closing section here, our closing statement. Again, Keith, I want to thank you for giving us of your time. I know you're busy, but man, I am enjoying this.
Me too.
So with pastors kind of shirking their responsibility, I, because I'm just a pastor of a little country church in the city, but I'm still just country. And I like how like the old timers, you know, I call them old timers, but Spurgeon, you know, folks like that were so quick just to speak plainly.
Right.
No gospel, no, no, no Christ in your sermon, then just go home.
He was the original go home guy before MacArthur ever said go home.
And it's, it's that kind, I think it's that kind of communication that we need to give to the young men that are coming up in that are talking about wanting to be in the ministry that we actually ask, not that we ask, but as, as saved men, as, as men of God who are, who have been called into the ministry.
I say we do like you said, by the way, put the onus on them. I like that, that country term, right? Put the onus on them to make them realize that this is not a vocation. This is not a, this is not a way to make a living.
This is a calling. And if our listeners want to go there at some time, I encourage you to go to the cripple gate, the Puritan call to the ministry. It's a great article, but very quickly, we'll just run, run through these.
It's important for young preachers to understand that preaching is a sacrificial calling. Number two on that list is a, it's a divine calling. Number three, it's a privileged calling. Not that it makes us better than anyone, but it is a privilege and a blessing.
And it's a dangerous calling. Now it's not a dangerous calling in the day and time we live. It's not because again, people are wanting to be popular. They're wanting to see how many follows and likes they can get, how many people will love them.
But the truth be told, if we go, if we go to, if we sit in to preach in the gospel as it is to men, as they are, there's a guarantee there's going to be some folks that ain't going to love it. But the good news is, oh, go ahead.
The good news is, I got to say this. The good news is the same folks will lap it up. They will relish it. They will enjoy it.
Go ahead.
What were you going to say, sir?
Justin Perdue. I was just going to say, and as far as it being a dangerous calling, you know, you're right. We don't, we don't live under the threat of immediate persecution in the United States, even though there are our brothers and sisters around the world who do, we don't.
But, but there are, there are dangers that I see even, even coming on the horizon. Things like, you know, we proclaim the gospel and, and, and we offend people and therefore we become the object of lawsuits.
We become the object of people coming and wanting to want to know, you know, well, are your children being taught hate and bigotry and, you know, things like that. And so I do think, I do see there's a danger in, in, in people being willing to preach the truth in the sense that there is a, there, there is, there is all that's coming, but there's also another danger.
And I, and I just, again, don't want to take all the time, but there, a minister has, has a, has a big, a big danger and that is making his ministry about himself and also becoming the object of the love of others, whether it be, whether it be fans who want to, who want to have you, your ear.
And that can be people in your own church. That can be people online. That can be people who just, they just want to have a fan. They want to be your fan. And that's dangerous. And, and, and women who, who want to, you know, well, you're such a good pastor, you know, you're such a good man, you know, whatever, and then want to give you attention that you don't need.
So there's a lot of dangers that, you know, it's only one paragraph in the article, but there's a lot more there. And this is why I think every pastor needs other pastors that he talks to, so that he can talk through things like this.
And last of all, it's a call to resident ministry, and that may not make much sense to some folks, but the truth be told, again, the idea of, of satellite churches, satellite campuses, where everything is live streamed from the mothership to all the little, the little, you know, the little baby ships.
I mean, that is garbage because of being an elder, being a pastor of a church, and we both hold to the idea of a plurality of elders, again, primarily because of ego and power. You said this in class several times, right?
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts.
This is why God has set forth the biblical model of plurality of elders in the local church. But a man can't serve a congregation if he doesn't know the congregation.
And yeah, we could do a whole other show. Maybe I'll have you come on my show and we could talk more about that, because the whole idea of satellite campuses and the lack of having a pastor who, you know, I heard years ago, Steve Camp said this, Steve Camp's a little weird now, but I knew him a long time.
Ago.
I don't know if you know who Steve Camp is, a Christian singer.
I listened to him.
Yeah, he sang at our church a few years ago, but he did say this. He said, a shepherd should smell like sheep. And ever since I heard that, that's sort of become my model for interpersonal ministry within the church.
Everybody in this church, one time or another, has been in my home. I mean, not every single person, but almost everybody. Everybody's been invited. Some people just don't come, but been in my home. They've seen my floors when they're not 100 spotless.
They've seen my backyard when it needed to be cut. They know that I'm not perfect, but yet at the same time, they know my door's open. They know that I don't have a policy, which I heard of. I heard a local pastor who was a big, big name pastor who said, you know, he said, I don't have an open door policy because I don't want people come in and asking me stupid questions.
And when I heard that, I said, you know what? That's a man who doesn't have love for God's sheep.
So people get mad at me if they want to, because some people might know who I'm talking about, but there's no love for God's sheep. If you're going to say, I don't have time for stupid questions.
You know what?
You got to have time for God's people.
Then you're not a shepherd.
I agree with you 110%. So last of all, let's close out with this then. So how can we, Keith, as individual elders and pastors help to restore, help to restore theology, the theological instruction within the church and evangelism to its rightful place?
I would say, first of all, raise the bar. Don't put it out of reach for your people, but don't do what the, everybody I've ever heard in seminaries, and I've taken many seminary classes, you know, and I've listened and so many of them say, you got to preach at a third grade level.
You got to preach at a second grade level. You've heard them say that, right?
Yeah, I've heard them say that.
That is that I do not agree with that. And I've never followed that model.
16 years of preaching. I always try to always lift the bar up so that people have something to aspire to rather than keeping it dumb and keeping it soft and keeping it shallow. If you will raise the bar, you will be surprised.
I have little kids in our church who are grasping things that are amazing because we, they, we have family integrated church, so they don't go to children's church. They sit in with us and they hear me use words, propitiation, and they hear me use words that they've never heard before.
They ask daddy, daddy can answer because daddy's been trained to answer that question. And so raise the bar and, and, and, and, and get training yourself. If you, if you're, if you're a minister who maybe you didn't get to go to seminary,.
That's good.
I mean, that's fine. You don't have to go to seminary to be a pastor, but you do need to be educated. Uh, you know, Charles Spurgeon, I, I think I served once somewhere said one time he read a book a week.
Now I don't expect you to read a book a week. I don't read a book a week. I don't have that. I don't have that level of intellect, but you need to be, you need to be growing because if you are not growing, your people are not growing.
And, and they will never grow. They will never outgrow you. Well, I won't say never. They're not likely to outgrow you if you're leading like you should. So you lead by example, you, you know, lift the bar and you raise your own expectations.
If it's getting up an extra hour in the morning so that you can study harder or whatever you need to do, that's my recommendation.
Praise the Lord. Those are good words, Keith. If you don't mind, share the gospel with the folks, we'll put you on full screen. Let her rip, sir.
It is an interesting thing when we hear the word gospel because the word gospel means good news. And yet at the same time to understand the good news, we must first understand some very serious and very sublime bad news.
And the bad news is this, and that is that every man in the world, every man, woman has sinned against God. And that is not a small thing. Sin is high treason against the Lord of the universe. And all of us have sinned and we have all fallen short of the glory of God.
And because of that, we all deserve God's punishment. But God is rich in mercy and God loves his people. And he sent his son into the world to be a propitiation. You've heard me say that word a couple of times on the show, to be a propitiation.
What does that mean? That means that the wrath that he had against our sin was satisfied when his son died on the cross because he took the sin that we had done and he placed the weight of the burden of that sin on his son who took it.
And the Bible says he drank the cup of God's wrath down to the very last drop. And so now the wrath that believers should receive has been transferred to the son. And we use the word imputed. It has been imputed to him or charged to his account and his goodness, his righteousness, his holiness has been given to us as a gift.
And so if you're a person today who doesn't know Jesus Christ, you sit under the wrath of God. You sit as a sinner without a savior. But I will tell you this, Jesus Christ is a better savior than you are a sinner.
And he can save you if you would humble yourself and you would bow the knee and trust in him as your Lord and say, forgive me of my sins and come into my heart and change my life. And it's not just about a simple prayer.
It's about a true commitment to the Lord that will result in a changed life. And my prayer is that Christ would change your life by his gospel today.