Patreon Q&A - August 2019

Patreon Q&A and Support Update

Well, hello there, time for another Q &A. I am excited about this to answer some of your questions and we're going to, well, first of all, before I get started, thank you so much for supporting me. Your support means a lot to me and my family and it allows me to spend more time reading about this stuff, watching videos about this stuff, making videos about this stuff and so I am very grateful for that.

I hope you found my videos lately helpful and again, thank you so much for your support. It does mean a lot and it goes a long way and just so you know, I'm going to be launching some new things in the coming weeks, both on the Patreon page but also other places as well.

So there's some exciting things in the works and I'm also gonna be teaming up with my biological brother who is an elder in the PCA about a few things. So that's gonna be interesting too. So I hope you enjoy it.

All that kind of stuff is in the works and I'll make announcements soonish, I guess I'll say. But anyway, so yes, and I hope you had a good summer. It's just about over here in Vermont. Overnight, it gets into the 40s.

As you can see, I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt and which probably not too many people are doing that in August. But anyway, it's been great and I hope you're having a good year so far. Anyway, so let's get to the questions.

I'm gonna go back and make sure that I answer all the ones that have been asked over the last few months. I don't wanna miss anything, but Patreon's kind of interface is not the greatest. So if I do miss something that you've asked before, please message me, email me, whatever you can do and I'll make sure to get it answered.

So if I miss it, it's not intentional, I just have a hard time using Patreon's interface. Anyway, so let's answer these questions in order. First question comes from, for the new Christian intellectual, if you don't know them, check out their podcast.

It's interesting stuff, interesting stuff. All right, here's what his question is. I think this is Cody. Could you tell us how you organize your time and keep up with different clients plus keep up with your family and your content creation?

Time Management, Discipline, and Avoiding Multitasking

Yes, I can tell you that. And this is, there are times when I'm more disciplined at this and sometimes when I'm less disciplined at this, there's no question about it. So it's always an ebb and flow and I try to be as disciplined as possible, but it's not always possible, especially when you have young kids and stuff like that.

And life has a tendency of just happening. And so it kind of makes it hard to do this. But here's what I do. The first thing I learned a long time ago, I remember sitting in a seminar about this and thinking to myself, this is very true, even though very few people know it.

It is literally, biologically impossible to multitask. So don't even try. Focus on one thing. There's actually one exception to this. You can multitask if you're doing a physical activity and then like maybe listening to a podcast or something like that.

So like if you're chopping wood or something, you can multitask in a way that you could still chop the wood and listen to a podcast or listen to a book on tape or something like that. That's possible, but it's impossible to multitask in almost any other conceivable way.

And so what happens when you quote unquote multitask is all you're doing is switching in between focuses and you always lose a little bit of time when you switch. So when I go, because this happens to me, I'll be working and then I'll be like, oh yeah, I wanna watch a YouTube video.

So I'll put it on YouTube and then I'll go back and forth between focusing on my work and the YouTube video. And what happens is I'm losing that little few seconds of time in between. And if you add all that up in the course of a week, you end up losing a lot of time.

So what I do is I have two things. I have a lot of calendar reminders on my computer. So I spend a certain amount of time doing a certain task. And I also set a lot of timers. So that way it interrupts me.

So I'll say, Alexa, set a timer for 30 minutes. No, she didn't work that time. That's fine, because I didn't really need a timer. But then when the timer goes off, I switch tasks and I focus on something else.

So, and if I have to adjust it throughout the day, something else comes up as a priority, I'll do that. But I try to stay disciplined. I say, okay, I'm gonna dedicate an hour to this video. And if I'm finished, I'm finished.

If I'm not, I'm not. And I move on to the next thing. And I try to do that as much as possible and stick to it. Because when you focus on one task, usually you accomplish it more efficiently and usually you accomplish it better.

So that's what I do. That's what I do. I try to set my day up in such a way that I get reminded, you have to switch your task now. And I try to stay as disciplined to that as possible. Again, it's not always possible.

Sometimes my kids will come into the office and need something or whatever. But that's something that I try to do. All right, thank you for the question. And I hope that was helpful. Okay, here are a couple questions from Sam P.

Approaching Social Justice Gently and Biblically

Okay, there's three questions here. So I'll answer all of them. The first one, how would you approach the topic of social justice with someone that's a little bit woke, but hasn't really thought things through?

This is a good question, because I think this is the majority of people, to be honest with you, that are on the woke spectrum. I don't think the majority of people are total zealots. You know what I mean?

Most people are kind of like, well, this sounds good. I'm against racism. I'm for justice. I'm for social justice, obviously. Because these terms are designed in such a way to make it like, well, how could you oppose justice, right?

The way I would approach someone like this is gently. I think that I would reserve my harshest rhetoric for people that are teaching and leading people astray. That's what I think Jesus did. I think that's what Paul did.

And he had compassion on the crowds. And so I would approach him gently. And I think that the way that I would talk about this is I try to be laser focused on the Bible and the sin of partiality and all of that kind of stuff.

Because if you get too deep into the weeds when it comes to like regular political talking points, saying, hey, well, like owning the libs kind of stuff, I think it's just way too easy for them to turn their brains off.

Not that they should do this, but they could just say, oh, you're just a Fox News. People will say that about you anyway. But so just focus on the Bible. So you say, hey, you're trying to get woke. And so you think that we should engage, or here's a good example I saw just the other day.

This sounds good to someone, right? Like if you don't have women teaching the Bible to you, then you're missing out on their perspective. So you don't have a very well-interpreted Bible if that's how you do it.

And I think that if, so that's something that sounds good to someone like, yeah, you know, yeah, women have a word for us too. And so what you would say to something like that is like, look, let's look at the Bible for a second.

And the Bible specifically says, women should not teach or have any authority over a man. And if you look at how the Bible was written, it was written by men. So don't you think if it was true that women had to be involved in order for you to have an accurate theology, don't you think God would have known that and maybe had some women write some of the books of the Bible, but he didn't.

And so clearly that's not correct. So where are you getting that? Why do you say that? Why do you think that? You know, and things like that. There's so many Bible verses and Bible teachings that you can bring to bear on someone who's a little bit woke that I think will make them really think about things.

You know, hey, if we should be seeking to empower minorities at an eldership, where is that in the Bible? Why is skin color not one of the things that we need to take into consideration when we're deciding who should be our pastor?

Like, you know, various things like that. So I would approach it gently. I would approach it, try to be as focused on the Bible as possible because that's what's gonna have the most impact. And I would try to avoid the typical talking points, not because you have to, not because the talking points are incorrect, but it's just too easy for them to dismiss it.

You see what I'm saying? Anyway, that's a piece of advice. Okay, second question. Are there any other reasons for your optimism on the defeat of social justice other than your post-millennial eschatology?

Postmillennial Confidence and the Failure of Evangelical Leadership

No, not really. Oh man. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Because, this is a funny question. Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm laughing. It's not a bad question, but I'm just trying to think of how to answer it because it's really my post-millennial eschatology that gives me confidence.

It's my confidence in God and his plan for the world and his plan for the church. And I'm thinking that's probably the only thing, because if you really consider how things are going, it doesn't look like they're going very well.

You know what I mean? And again, maybe there are something, but I can't think of anything right now. I mean, think about what we're being told by our evangelical leadership, right? Homosexuality, it's no big deal.

I mean, it's just like a sin, just like drinking. It's like being gay and having sex with men. It's just like having one too many at the bar. It's the same thing. The Bible whispers about it. You got egalitarianism.

I know it says, don't allow a woman to speak. Rather, she should be silent, but she could speak in some instances. She's got a word for us. Convention doesn't have room for Beth Moore, doesn't have room for a lot of us, right?

Think about critical race theory. Oh, that's just a useful analytical tool. Yeah, you know, it's helpful. It's helpful. You know, I know it chops up the world and into power dynamics and things like that completely inappropriately according to scripture, but it's very helpful for us.

In fact, we need it. The Bible doesn't, isn't enough for this. Goodness gracious. Aye, aye, aye. Well, family, the biggest problem that we face is the idolatry of the family. Yeah, I know it says, you know, be fruitful and multiply, but people take that way too seriously, the idolatrous.

I mean, like on every major issue, our evangelical leadership is wrong, is trending to the antichrist side of these things. So there's really not a lot to give me confidence in that. What I will say though is, Sam, and maybe this is what you were getting after.

I don't know. What I will say though is I think that those on our side of this issue who are on the right side of this issue, we might be smaller in number. We might not have as much funding, but we are having a disproportionate impact on this debate.

And so maybe I do have more confidence in something other than my post-millennial eschatology. I don't have a, look, I don't really know if this is answering your question, but what I see though is little nobodies like me, little nobodies like for the Christian intellectual who just asked this question.

You know, we don't have big budgets. We just, you know, we have a YouTube channel. We have a Facebook page. We do, you know, Cody does those videos where he's walking and he's got his like, you know, selfie stick or whatever.

And, you know, I mean, I like Cody. I think he's smart, but you know, he's an unknown out there. He's an unknown. And the work of Cody and Jacob and me and, you know, and Jordan Hall and a lot of these people that have smaller platforms, we're forcing guys like Al Mohler to communicate with us, to respond to us.

I mean, this is huge. This is huge, man. We're forcing them to go through their websites and delete videos and delete blogs. We are having a disproportionate impact on the big Eva machine. And so I think we're winning.

I don't know if I would base my beliefs on that, my optimism on that, but I think we're having a good impact here. And I think we are going to continue to have it. That's kind of a roundabout answer to your question.

I think, I hope it was helpful. I don't know. In a nutshell, what should Dark, this is the third question. In a nutshell, what should Darth Mickey Mouse have done with Star Wars? I'm not a filmmaker. I'm not a storyteller, but I think the formula, so I don't know the details of what they should have done, but the formula would have been very simple.

The first movie, The Force Awakens, it should have been majority original characters, Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, Chewbacca, R2-D2, all those guys, majority them with a smattering of the new characters to introduce the new generation, right?

And then the second movie, Last Jedi, should have been a combination of both characters. They're helping each other out, it's a mix. And then the last movie could have been all the new characters and less of the old characters.

That's what the people wanted. We wanted to see what happened to Luke and Leia in like a real story, not like an afterthought. That's what we wanted. That's all we needed. This new stuff, the first order and stuff like that, it could have been cool, but instead it's stupid.

That's what I would have done. So as far as the shows and stuff, the shows are okay. The Star Wars, Darth Mickey Mouse shows, they're okay. If you guys, I don't know if you guys have watched Star Wars Rebels.

This was made for kids, but it was okay. Then they had another one, Resistance, which is awful. And yeah, I don't know. That's my opinion of what they should have done. What they did do is just horrible.

And I'll definitely take out the SJW narratives. Come on, I mean, that's a given. Get woke, go broke. All right, Paul Lucas has the next questions for me. He also has three, which is great. So here we go.

Confessionalism, the Young Restless and Reformed, and Social Justice

Question one, do you see any connection between those who are part of the new Calvinist Young, Restless, and Reform movement and those who have embraced social justice in the church? What do you think might be the cause of that connection?

Well, it certainly seems that way, right? I mean, I haven't studied this. I don't know a lot about it. And to be honest, I came to Christ when the Young, Restless, and Reformed had kind of already peaked, I guess you could say.

So they were on the downswing already. And I very quickly found confessionalism. So I didn't spend too much time with the new Calvinist Young, Restless, and Reformed types. But anyway, so it certainly seems to me like there's a correlation between that and that.

But I don't really know a lot about it. And so I'm probably not the right person to ask that question. If I had to guess, and I'm certainly willing to just throw this out there, this is an uninformed opinion.

So just go ahead and take that for what it's worth. If I had to guess, the lack of confessionalism, the lack of really sort of in-depth sort of acknowledgement of the tremendous platform that we stand on from all of the theologians of the past that have done so much great work here, all the Puritans and things like that, I would assume that the Young, Restless, and Reformed types, they kind of disconnect themselves from some of that.

Even some of them these days are like, well, was George Whitfield even a Christian? Like disconnecting yourself from the past like that is detrimental to anything. I mean, you think you're the first ones to find the truth when it comes to racism.

Like if that's how you think, I mean, you can be convinced by anything. That's a way to be pushed this way and that by the winds of doctrine. That's why I think confessionalism is so great, because it gives us a standard.

It's not an infallible standard, but we can look to this and say, okay, this doctrine that I'm coming up with, why am I the first one to come up with this? Why are we the first generation to come up with this?

People have dedicated their entire lives to studying the scripture, and nobody came up with this. So it doesn't mean it's wrong, but what it means is maybe we should tread carefully. That's what conservatives do, you know what I mean?

They tread carefully when we have a new doctrine. You see, this is the thing. This is why, on the one hand, so I work with the cross-politic guys, and obviously they're connected to Doug Wilson. Doug Wilson gets a lot of flack for a variety of different things, and some of it is inappropriate, I think, but some of it is appropriate.

Like, you should question when somebody says something that sounds different than what you've been taught in confessional churches. That's legitimate to question that. That's legitimate to question that.

Wait a minute, paedo-communion? That's not what we've done as Presbyterians, you know what I mean? So that's a good thing to pump the brakes a little bit. Let's talk about this, right? I think that's a good thing.

So I would say, again, this is an uninformed, just kind of an opinion I'm giving you, but I would say that sort of the lack of connection, the sort of willingness to sort of, you know. It's kind of like when Obama came out in support of gay marriage, and he basically called everyone before him, and including him before, when he was running for president, a bigot, for what they've said.

If that's how you think, like everyone was just an idiot back then, and now you're with a first generation, there's a recipe for disaster. So anyway, cool. Second question. Do you think the Southern Baptist Convention has had special obligation to address its historical support for slavery?

The Southern Baptist Convention, Slavery, and Corporate Apology

What do you think the proper response to that denomination should have been? Well, you know, this is an interesting question. I think, look, I don't have a problem with apologizing corporately for things that your ancestors did, or, you know, your institutions have done in the past.

I don't have a problem with that. I mean, a lot of times it strikes me as kind of a meaningless virtue signal, but, you know, there's nothing wrong with it necessarily. So do they have a special obligation?

I'm not really sure I'd say that, but the fact that they've apologized for it is fine. The problem though is that it's never over, right? So, you know, they have to apologize yearly. They have to flagellate themselves every so often in order to, I guess, maintain legitimacy or something like that.

That's my biggest problem. It's like, what's the end game here? Where's the reconciliation? Okay, so the Southern Baptist Convention has apologized. Is that enough? Of course it's not enough. Of course it's not enough.

So I guess next year we'll have to apologize again. You know, it's just, I don't know. Do they have a special obligation? I wouldn't call it an obligation, but the fact that, you know, I don't know, slaves built such and such a seminary or whatever it is.

I don't even know what the accusations are. I don't study the SBC that much. But yeah, I mean, if you want to apologize for that, that's fine, that's fine. I mean, you're not gonna get any pats in the head for me.

I mean, if you're gonna apologize for someone else, it doesn't really mean much. And it certainly does not excuse unbiblical things now. So like, okay, you want to apologize for the sin of slavery in the past, fine, okay.

But don't think that that excuses your partiality today and bringing critical race theory to the church today and bringing these unbiblical doctrines into the church today. That's not an excuse. It's just not an excuse.

So I don't know if they had a special obligation. The fact that they've done it, I'm okay with it. Anyway, cool. All right, last question. And this is a good one. So you have said that American slaveholders were guilty of the sin of man stealing.

Man-Stealing, Slavery, and Exodus 21:16

However, most European slave traders bought their slaves from African slave traders. Africans were not typically kidnapped by Europeans and forced into slavery. He references a book that I do not own.

Okay, how then were they guilty of man stealing? This is a good question. So here's the thing. So whether they're guilty of specifically man stealing or not, the Bible holds them accountable for having someone who was man stolen.

Is that a grammatically correct sentence? I don't know. But here's Exodus 21. This is a good verse, right? So Exodus 21, verse 16. Whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death.

And so the idea here is that you should know if someone was stolen. You know what I mean? You should know if someone was kidnapped and sold to you and that you're accountable for that, not that for having that knowledge.

So if you're gonna buy a slave, you better know where that slave has come from. You better know where that slave has come from. And if that person was kidnapped and you hold him and you're found out on the evidence of two or more witnesses, that's the death penalty for you.

And I would say, I would interpret this as saying, you are guilty of man stealing, whether you actually stole the person or not. If you have the person, if you own the person, that's the same penalty.

It's the death penalty for the man stealer and it's the death penalty for the person who bought the man stolen person. And so that's why I would say that they're guilty. Could I be wrong about that specifically?

Like maybe it's a different crime and not necessarily man stealing. Yeah, I could be wrong about that. But I think that the general equity of this particular law, whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found possession of him shall be put to death.

I think the general equity of that law is pretty clear and pretty easy to interpret. So if you kidnap someone and sell them, you're put to death. If you kidnap, if you buy someone who was kidnapped, you're put to death.

So you better be careful who you're buying. You know what I mean? I think that's the idea of this. It doesn't wanna, I think the scripture is intending not to create a market where you can buy with impunity servants and slaves in kind of a way that, you don't really know where they came from.

You don't really know how they became enslaved. Like it doesn't wanna create a market that can muddy the waters that way. That's what I think the scripture is intending to do. And so that's why I said that.

It's a very good question. And I'm certainly willing to be corrected on that one because I am not an expert on the law of God. But I think this one seems to be pretty easy to interpret and pretty easy to apply to our modern context.

God doesn't want people stealing other people to sell them into slavery. And he does not want to incentivize a market for that. And so the person who bought them and the person who stole them both get the same penalty.

That is the death penalty. It's a very serious crime in God's eyes. That's a great question though. Thank you so much for it. There was one question that I think I might've missed. This is from Christopher and it was back in May.

Women in Authority, Proverbs 31, and Female Superheroes

And so if I answered this question already, then great. If I didn't and I just missed it, I am sorry that I'm getting to this three months late. But here's the question. He says, with all the Beth Moore shenanigans going on, the topic of women in authority has come to the fore.

I agree. It's unbiblical for women to hold positions like pastor and elder, but what of civil states or roles? If women are barred from this as well, can there ever be an exception? Like if there were hypothetically no men to do it.

What about in business? If women are to be industrious, would that allow for being the boss of a number of employees in some capacity? And finally, what of the female superheroes? Should such a thing in fiction be frowned upon?

I think that this is a good question. And I think that a lot of people who are very conservative would have disagreements on this question. I can give you my opinion on this. And I think that it's informed very much by Doug Wilson.

If you've never read Doug Wilson's Federal Husband and you are a husband, I highly recommend you picking it up and reading it. It is extremely helpful in a lot of different ways. And so this question is much, it's a much better question to be asking than whether a woman should be able to preach because that's a very easy answer.

No, the Bible says, no, the woman should be silent. Ask her husband at home when she gets home if she has a question. I mean, that's easy to interpret, right? I mean, we're not talking complicated interpretation here.

Should a woman be a pastor and elder? No, obviously not. This person agrees. And that's not really the right question. But this guy is saying, what about leadership in secular cultures or contexts? Like leader in the government, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

What about business, owning a business or having employees, being a manager? What about a female superhero? Does that need to be avoided and things like that? And I think these questions oftentimes make a difference, the why behind it, right?

The why behind it. So the Proverbs 31 woman, right? The one who had, you know, she had business dealing. She would consider a field and buy it. She was selling her goods and stuff like that. The thing about that woman is that she was home oriented.

In other words, also in Proverbs 31, let's not forget that she was taking care of her family. She was getting up early, taking care of her family, going to bed late, taking care of her family. And she also did all this kind of stuff.

So the question would be, what is the purpose of you going into business? I think that the Proverbs 31 woman was going into business for her family as her husband's help me, taking care of her kids, taking care of all that stuff.

If you are a woman that's career minded and putting your kids into daycare and putting your kids into the care of others and because you want a career, the question is the why behind it, right? Like if you have no choice, right?

You have no choice but to work for yourself and you have no choice but to put them in daycare, that's not a sin. But if you want to become the CEO one day and you've got this ambition to be a CEO one day and because of that, your kids have to suffer, your kids don't get to be raised by you and all that kind of stuff, well, that's a problem, right?

And so the Proverbs 31 woman, we can't just, and I'm not accusing you of doing this, Chris, but a lot of people do do this. They'll take the parts about business and they'll try to take it out of the context of Proverbs 31, which also says all of these other things that the Proverbs 31 woman is doing.

The Proverbs 31 woman is a helpmate for her husband. I mean, that's just simple, it's just simple as that. So yeah, I mean, as far as like, there's no one to lead the state and no men to do it, can a woman do it?

Yeah, sure, sure. I mean, the Bible has examples of that, but it certainly seems like in the Bible that that's actually a curse on your nation, if that's the case, if there's no men to lead your nation or no men to go to war for you and your soldiers become women.

The Bible uses that as an insult and there's a reason for that. We gotta come to terms with that kind of thing. And then a female superhero, right? Like, look, I know that there are good arguments for avoiding the female superhero stuff.

I personally don't really care. What I do care though is if they blur the lines of gender. So in other words, if there's a female superhero that is basically a male, except for the fact that she has long hair, I have a serious problem with that.

I have a serious problem with that. Anyway, I don't know if that answers your question. I hope it does. I hope it does. And yeah, so thank you so much for the questions, guys. Thank you for the support again.

I much appreciate it. Our family very much appreciates it as well. Thank you so much. I hope this video was helpful. God bless.