Online Church: Is Online-Church the Ecclesiastical Equivalent of Transgender-Male?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the work of ministry. We're your hosts,

Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett. Today we seek to answer the age old question, is online church the ecclesiastical equivalent of transgender male?

But before we answer the question, since this is our first episode, it might be helpful, Tim, for you to explain the purpose of the podcast.

So the name we chose for the podcast is Bible Bashed Podcast, and the reason why we chose that kind of name is because when you're living in a society that is really filled with a lot of nominal

Christians, there is like the moment that you try to bring the

Bible to bear on a particular situation. If you say, hey, but what about this verse that says this?

One of the things that you're going to realize is there's any number of names that the society we live in will have for you as that kind of person.

I mean, you'll be called a Pharisee, you'll be called a legalist, you'll be called a hypocrite, and oh, you think you're so spiritual, and one of the things that's kind of a funny way that will be attributed to you is that essentially you'll be told that you're trying to Bible bash people.

So if you have that, you develop a reputation to be that kind of person who is always trying to Bible bash people.

And what's funny about that phrase is if you look up the term Bible basher in the

Cambridge Dictionary, it says this, it says someone who tries in a forceful or enthusiastic way to persuade other people to believe in the

Christian religion and the Bible. And I mean, it's just a hilarious definition because I mean, that essentially is

Jonathan Edwards, sinners in the hands of an angry God. He's someone who's trying in a forceful or enthusiastic way to persuade other people to believe in the

Christian religion. That's John the Baptist. You bearded vipers who warned you to flee from wrath to come.

That's Jesus, right? The time is near the kingdom. God is at hand, repent and believe the gospel.

I mean, that's faithful Christian Christianity one on one. And so one of the things that we're trying to do is just basically say, hey, we're gonna be unashamed and we're gonna enthusiastically and forcefully try to persuade you to actually believe what the

Bible says and obey it. And we're gonna do so without apology. And we know that you have a word for people like that.

And we're happy if that's what we are, if we're Bible bashers by trying to just get you to obey the Bible, then so be it.

And so that's what we're thinking with the title. It's just an ironic way of saying, well, if that's what the word means, meaning the word's termed by usage, then sure, whatever.

Okay, well, hopefully that's a helpful answer for anyone listening who might've been kinda on the fence about the approach of this podcast.

I'm sure there'll still be certain people who are very upset, honestly, no matter what we do or what we say.

So now as we turn our attention to the actual question, is online church the ecclesiastical equivalent of transgender male?

I think it might be helpful just to kind of talk about, start off with saying, what is online church?

What are we talking about when we're using that term online church? If you could kind of explain that for us a little bit,

Tim. Sure, so I think for many years, you've had a movement towards the idea of online church.

And online church is just the idea that instead of the

Christians coming together on the Lord's day and gathering at a particular place or particular building or something along those lines, you can just watch a live stream of a church service on Zoom recently or just on a church website or something like that.

And the idea behind the project is that since Christians are personally, in some sense, the dwelling place of God, and the time is coming and now is where Christ's followers will not worship

Him in Jerusalem, but will worship Him in spirit and truth. And Father's looking to draw such believers to Himself.

I mean, these ideas are being presented in such a way that there really isn't anything sacred about the in -person gathering of the saints at a particular place, et cetera.

So you have the idea of online church being an idea that basically you can just watch a church service online and basically get your check mark for Lord's day attendance in some metaphorical sense in that way.

And it seems to be something that, well, it's of unique relevance to us right now, considering all that has happened with this

COVID stuff that has been going on. And so I think it's a discussion that really has gained steam since the pandemic or whatever you want to call that.

It's been a discussion that really has come to the forefront and one of the things that I think has been pretty disturbing about the discussion itself is the fact that you're talking about an idea that the vast majority of churches, like faithful biblical churches, have rejected for years.

There's been plenty of people trying to push this idea for years and years and years. And then one of the things that's been kind of disturbing to watch is that even faithful churches seem to be, like immediately, okay, the government tells us to shut down and we can't meet for in -person worship and the liquor stores and everything else can stay open, but we can't and we all follow suit.

And then there's some churches that I think said, well, okay, let's just make the best of a bad situation and stream some kind of online singing and Bible study together via Zoom format or something like that.

But I think one of the things that's been disturbing to watch is that so many people seem to all of a sudden realize, like not have any biblical arguments in their arsenal as to distinguish that from what the church has done for 2000 years.

And so it seemed that there's plenty of churches out there that are governed by pragmatism and they really have functionally zero ecclesiology.

And so when the government tells us to shut down, I think it's been somewhat shocking to me to see how many churches that I thought were faithful just seem to accept the idea of online church in a way that they never would have before, but now all of a sudden due to pressure, it seems like they have no tools in their toolkit in order to critique that in any way.

But - Yeah, it really seems like within the last year or two years,

I mean, it feels like this kind of came in some ways out of just nowhere, where obviously churches were streaming their services and I'm sure there were plenty of people who did view those stream services as, quote unquote, attendance to the actual church.

But then it really seems like in the last two years, especially with the COVID stuff going on, that everyone, yeah, whole churches really started encouraging this kind of practice as almost the primary way to worship.

Do you agree with that? Well, yeah, I mean, it's kind of like the fast food restaurant phenomenon to where post -COVID, it seems like customer service is dead and fast food restaurants seem to have it.

I hate to draw a parallel at this point, but look, I mean, customer service is dead, but then

I think many of the churches, or many fast food restaurants realize that, hey, why open up when it just costs more money and there's overhead, all the overhead that's associated with an in -person staff.

It's like, we can just do this drive -through thing because everyone's so afraid and terrified.

And we can actually increase our profits by just having a minimal drive -through crew that's operational and we don't have to worry about cleaning a dining room and do all this stuff.

And it seems that there's many churches that have just, the truth is,

I think they're pragmatic to the core and that's what governed them anyways. And they're making a similar kind of calculation as it relates to this.

And it's like they've never thought through the issue before. And I think that's what's been somewhat surprising to me, even though I probably shouldn't be surprised, but it's been a little bit surprise.

I mean, and I shouldn't be surprised because we've been doing nonsense like this with multi -site churches and everything else, or we've been toying around with bad ecclesiology for years and secret sensitive churches and everything else.

But then it seems that right when there was societal pressure put on the corporate in -person gathering of a church, many churches just seemed to roll over and cave and actually probably think, oh man, this is a better business model as far as that goes.

Careful, Tim, you're gonna upset the multi -site church people. We're just going for the online people right now.

Well, okay, you said something about, this is just something that a lot of people really haven't thought through critically before.

So talking about that a little bit, when it comes to attending online church and whether you should or whether you shouldn't, and this is really a moral decision that's being made, a moral question that's being raised by a lot of people.

And so in light of that, obviously as Christians, we look to the

Bible to inform us of what is right and what is wrong. So what exactly does the

Bible have to say about whether a person should attend church, quote unquote, online as opposed to in -person?

I mean, obviously the Bible doesn't say anything about, there's no command that says thou shalt not watch

Facebook Live on Sunday morning, right? So what does the Bible say that could be helpful for us in answering this kind of moral question?

Yeah, well, I think the way that you frame that does get at the nature of our question, as far as the question being that is online church the ecclesiastical equivalent of transgender male?

When you say attend online churches, immediately one of the things you realize is that you're doing something funny with language, right?

And so you're using words in ways that are very unconventional.

And not only are you using words in unconventional ways, you're using words in ways that, I mean, no one throughout church history would ever recognize.

And so part of the thing is that we believe in a book that's a time -bound document. And so the

Bible has relevance for today, but then whatever practice that we come up with that we're trying to establish from the scripture, it needs to have some sort of precedence in the

Bible, either through precept or example or command or whatever else, right? And so I think the thing is, this is a new idea that has come about.

And it's a new idea that's come about, in many ways, just,

I think, the people who've been pushing this kind of idea for years, they really haven't had a robust ecclesiology when it comes to it anyways.

But then now it's just something we've latched on to out of some sort of desperation, as far as that goes. And so, biblically, you have to ask, what does the

Bible actually command us to do, right? And so the author of Hebrews 10 .25

tells us, essentially, that we are not to forsake the assembly of the saints, as is the habit of some.

Mm -hmm. But encourage one another, as you see the day drawing near, this idea of not forsake the assembly of the saints.

The thing is, if you want to understand what the church is in terms of its essence, what is the church?

Part of the answer to this online church kind of phenomenon is to go back to just Church 101, and what is the church, what is it, right?

Well, the word for church that you're gonna find in the Bible is the word ekklesia. Now, ekklesia is the word for church, and that's the word where we get ecclesiology, which is study of a church, or even the book of Ecclesiastes comes from that word, or ecclesiastical matters, which are matters that are pertaining to the church, or clergy, or anything else.

And so this word ekklesia is the word in Greek that we translate into English as church.

And so if you wanna know what that word means, well, one of the things to realize is that in the

New Testament, so this word ekklesia, 94 .3 % of the time, by my own calculation, ekklesia is being...

I looked them all up. But 94 .3 % of the time, it's translated as church.

1 .9 % of the time, it's translated as congregation, okay? And then it's translated as assembly 3 .8

% of the time. So those are just rough figures. But that'll give you some idea. But if you wanna know what the word means,

I mean, it's really... I mean, you can look it up in any kind of good

Greek dictionary, like the BDAG or something like that, or Greek lexicon, and you're gonna find that they're gonna translate it as assembly.

And the reason why they're doing that, it's not mysterious why they're doing that. Why are they translating it as assembly? Why is that the primary meaning of the word?

Well, I mean, all right, look, you just read through the Old Testament, right?

And there's a... If you wanna get an idea of what these words mean, I know this is somewhat technical, but I'm just trying to tell you where this comes about.

But you read through the Old Testament, like there's a Greek version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, or the LXX. And you can look up ekklesia in the

Old Testament. And you can look it up in every single case. And one of the things you're gonna realize is that ekklesia is always a translation of the

Hebrew word kahal. And the Hebrew word kahal is a word that's translated into English as either assembly or congregation.

I mean, the word ekklesia means assembly. That's what it means, okay? So that's what it means.

And so if you understand what the church actually is, the church is an assembly of people, okay?

So what is assembly? What is an assembly? I mean, what does that mean? Well, an assembly is a thing that we,

I guess, a very easily definable concept. It's a group of people gathered together, usually for a particular purpose, whether religious, political, educational, or social.

It's a group of people gathered together. That's what it is. So if you're gonna have an assembly, you have people gathered together, right?

So you have a word that's basically like a spatial, temporal word. In order to have an assembly, you need to have a group of people come together in a particular place at a particular time.

That's what it means. And that's the word that God chose to use to describe what the church actually is. And if you think about what that means, what that means is that Christians are the church when we gather together on the

Lord's day in His name and in His presence. You understand what I'm saying? We're not the church.

You know, we've had, I think, years and years of a pretty poor ecclesiology to where we tell people, you know, go out and be the church.

It's like, well, you can't go out and be an assembly, can you? Like, that doesn't make any sense, okay?

Like, we are the church when we gather together, right? And so when Hebrews 10, 25 tells us not to forsake the assembly, assembling together, that's the word epesunagage, which basically means assembly.

Like, we're the assembly, right? So I basically just give you a biblical case.

First, I mean, church means assembly. That's what it means. It means assembly. And then, you know, this is like stated in so many ways in the

Bible. I mean, there's language of coming together, right? So 1 Corinthians 11, 18, it says, for in the first place, when you come together as a church,

I hear that there are divisions among you and I believe it in part. Like, think about that phrase, like when you come together as a church.

What does it mean? Like, what does it mean to be the church? It means to come together as a church. When do we do that? We do that on the

Lord's day, right? Matthew 18, 20, and there's a lot you can say about this passage, and people have, you know, corrupted the meaning of this passage to basically talk about, you know, the church, you know, whenever, you know, three individual

Christians are gathered together, you know, in the context of some sort of home Bible study or something else, that God is there, and so you don't need to come to some sort of corporate gathering or anything like that.

But, like, the whole idea there is that that's said in the context of church discipline, and where, you know, two or three are gathered as witnesses, you need, every fact will be confirmed on the basis of two or three witnesses.

When two or three are gathered, my name, the Bible says, there I am among you. You know, the church, like, is described as a gathering of people, an assembly of people who come together on a particular time at a particular place, right?

So, just think about every intro in the Bible, right? Every intro in the

New Testament, the church of God, where? In their own homes, you know, Skyping each other.

That would be a little bit anachronistic, Facebook Live. No, but, I mean, the church of God at Corinth, right?

The church of God, so the assembly of God, like, if you think about church in the way that the word means, the assembly of God at Corinth.

That means a certain thing, right? And so, like, the church, you have all this come -together language, the church, when gathered, is described as the temple of God, right?

So, 1 Timothy 3, 15, if I delay, you may know how you want not to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God, a pillar and the butchers of truth, right? And the house, like, the church, when it gathers together, is a picture of the temple of God, right?

And so, and I think, when you think about the way that this word is actually used,

I mean, I could just go on and on and on about, like, all the ways in which the

Bible describes the church, and I think this is what's just so troubling about it. It's just like, hey, like, those arguing for online church, it's like, have you ever read the

Bible before? That's what you wonder. Like, you know that this is like a bunch of, like, the

New Testament's a bunch of letters written to churches, and you don't even know what a church is, right? It's a gathering of people, but then,

I mean, the whole idea of the church is basically, it's like, the whole metaphors of the church, they're picking up on all the imagery of the

Old Testament and the Old Covenant, right? So, like, just think about this, okay? So, Adam and Eve are walking and talking with God in the cool of the day, right?

And then, when they sin, they're cast out of Eden, away from the presence of the Lord, right?

Cast out of Eden, so where was God's presence? His presence was found in the garden, right?

And then, if you just do a simple, like, get a Bible search program and look up presence of God, and one of the things you're gonna find is, after Cain sins, what happens?

He's cast out of God's presence, right? And he's forced to be a wanderer. And, I mean, theologically, what does that teach you?

It teaches you that sin separates us from God's presence, right? All right, well,

Jonah, what does he do when he's in rebellion against God? It says he basically went away from the presence of the

Lord, right? And so, instead of going where God calls him to do, it says he went away from the presence of the

Lord. This whole presence of the Lord language, like, sin separates us from God's presence, but where is God's presence found in the

Old Covenant? In the Tent of Meeting, right? I mean, it's found in the Tent of Meeting, it's found in the temple.

And so, like, the whole idea of God's presence is God's, like, people, basically,

God is said to dwell uniquely in the Tent of Meeting and in the temple and in the tabernacle.

And then, all this language is picked up in the New Testament to where now, no longer is God uniquely in Jerusalem, right?

So, why does Daniel pray facing Jerusalem? Because that's where God was. That's where his presence was. His presence was in the temple. Now, obviously,

God's omnipresent. And, you know, David knew that. He says, you know, where can I go to hide myself from your presence?

You know, behold, if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. So, it doesn't say anything about the omnipresence of God, but, like, the issue is just to say that God's presence was uniquely there in the temple.

And then, all of a sudden, the church, when it gathers on the Lord's day, they now become the new temple of the living

God. And so, you know, that's just a few,

I think, biblical reasons to understand the church as a particular thing.

Now, when you talk about the idea of, like, online church or something along those lines, then what you're doing is you're fundamentally toying with this notion of assembly and basically redefining it to, basically, to basically just to communicate semantically the exact opposite of what's actually, the word actually means, if that makes sense.

Mm -hmm, mm -hmm. Man, Tim, you're going Greek on them on the first episode.

Well, yeah. It is what it is. Yeah, no, okay, so, obviously, there's a biblical precedent for why, why, you know, this should be a pretty clear, this should be a pretty easy moral question to answer, should we do online church as our primary, you know, means of attendance or not?

But what, and I think you've explained that pretty well, New and Old Testament, why it should be clear that we shouldn't use online churches as a substitute for gathering together in person, but then, and I think you kind of addressed this a little bit already, but then could you go into a little more detail in terms of, you know,

I'm sure there are people out there who are familiar with some of these verses that you're mentioning, that you're bringing up, but then, for whatever reason, they still are convinced that it's totally fine, given the circumstances of everything that's been going on throughout this year, and especially last year, that still justify, hey, no, you can stay at home, and that's just as good,

God's still honored, and you turning on your computer, or pulling up your phone, or turning on your

TV, and watching church, and singing by yourself in your pajamas. So, what is the, you know, explanation that these kinds of people are giving in spite of the verses that, it seems like are really clear and hard to argue with?

Yeah, no, I don't think that every problem is an intellectual problem, as far as that goes, and so,

I don't think that, look, the job

I'm working at right now, I was talking to a guy, and he,

I basically told him I was a pastor, and everything else, and he basically, just as I was doing work for him, he gave me his testimony, or whatever, and he said, you know,

I used to be one of those Christians who, you know, every Lord's Day, essentially,

I would go out fishing, or hunting, or everything else, and I just, I didn't see the need for, need to go to church, right?

And the way that people typically justify that kind of thing is just, you know, the standard tropes,

God didn't come to give us a religion, but came to give us a relationship, and, you know, there's kind of low

Protestant errors along those lines that are basically just anti -authority, anti any kind of rules or regulations that functionally are just governed by kind of an antinomianism, that hate any notion of commands, right?

Or any requirements that God has given us, and anything that feels formal, or anything that feels religious, like, seems like Catholic, or something like that, and so, like, that's, so, you know, we, you know, if I'm a

Christian, like, the kind of thinking goes, then I become, you know, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of me, and, you know, the priesthood of all believers, and all that kind of stuff, they may not communicate those ideas, but those ideas are coming together in a uniquely kind of anti -authoritarian, anti -religious kind of way to end up to where, you know,

I could, you know, worship to them, you know, becomes all about where they feel, you know, close to God, or something like that, and so you have, like, an anti -authoritarian thing that's happening, you have a, you know,

I think a vast biblical ignorance that's added to that anti -authoritarian sentiment, right?

And then you add to that kind of an individualism, and a kind of antinomianism, and all that, and you put it all together in a pot, and you get this idea that, and then you get, like, worship is all about me, like a man -centered kind of thing, you put all that in a pot, and you end up with the kind of guy who thinks that they can, you know, feel

God's presence, and worship God just as well while they're hunting, or something like that, right? Because the creation declares the glory of God, and all that, and so, and these kind of people have existed for a long time, and part of it is,

I think, the fault of many churches who seem to totally, you know, undermine, like, a biblical ecclesiology almost at every single point, right?

And so, I think there's been these people for many years, many, many years. And then,

I think you've had, you know, many, what's the right term?

I mean, you have, like, the seeker -sensitive movement come along, and basically treat individual

Christians as consumers, and everything else, and in order to, you know, figure out what you're gonna teach, and figure out how you're gonna, you know, what kind of, you know, programs you're gonna use, and everything else, you poll the audience, and figure out what the people want, and so there's, and we have, you know, thousands of churches here, and, you know, a church for every, you know, person, type of person, you know, you have a cowboy church, you have a, you know, a church for homeless strippers, or whatever else you have.

We, we have every kind of concern. I don't know if I wanna be in that church.

Yeah, well, yeah, I'm somewhat, almost, you know,

I wish that I was, like, almost any kind of church like that you can come up with, is some kind of monstrosity like that, you can probably do an internet search, and find it, you know,

I mean, it's that bad at this point, but the thing is. Didn't you say that there was a church that was totally, like it was for video gamers, or something like that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a church that. Like it's just for video, people who play video games.

Well, that's where, like, it's almost beyond parody at this point, right, and so with that kind of thing, it's all just, you know, the customer's right, and, you know, whatever the people want, and everything else, and so it's all person first, and so I think you put all that, all those kind of things together in a, like, and then you don't have like a generation of strong Bible readers anymore.

We spend far too much time doing other things, and just, you know, opening a Bible and reading it, and so there's,

I think, the American church is just characterized by vast biblical ignorance at almost every single conceivable point, and so church for many people was just that thing that we did, and we never had a real rationale, a reason why we're doing it as far as that goes anyways, right, and so you have all those things that have produced the kind of person who just, like, you know, they prayed the prayer one time, they walk an aisle or whatever, and then, you know, then they ask

Jesus into their heart, and then, you know, basically at that point, once saved, always saved, and God makes no moral demands upon them anymore, and they can just go live, like, the world, the flesh, and the devil, and they don't, you know, understand anything the

Bible says about what it even means to be a Christian, right, and how, like, precarious a position you place yourself in when the

Bible says they went out from us because they were not of us, but they left that it might be shown that they are not of us, and so, like, you don't have a generation of people who understands that God's plan for this age is to build a church.

He says to Peter, you know, you are Peter, and on this rock, I'll build this church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Like, that's what he's doing in the world. He's building a church. He's building an assembly of people, and when we gather together in his name on the

Lord's Day, we are his building project. In a very unique sense, we are what he's doing in the world in the primary sense, like, his plan for this age, and so, anyway, so all those things get put into a pot, and I think it's, like, you end up with just almost no understanding of ecclesiology, period, right?

Okay? No, that's pre -COVID, though, okay? And so, then the COVID stuff happens, and then,

I think, you have a different dynamic that's going on, okay? And so, meaning,

I mean, like, basically, there is the type of person who, like, basically, we spent, who wants to claim to be a

Christian, but then, you know, goes to Alabama football games, like, with their season pass, and passes, and, you know, misses every single church gathering during football season, or hunting season, or whatever.

Like, there's that kind of person. Like, there's the kind of person who shows up to church on Easter and Christmas, and, you know,

I try to be a good person and all that. I mean, there's been that kind of person for a long time, but now, all of a sudden, with the

COVID stuff, then, now, that kind of person has the moral high ground to essentially forsake the assembly of the saints out of, like, concerns about safety and everything else.

And so, for them, I think, I think this whole thing has been, you know, kind of revealing, and,

I mean, quite frankly, I don't think many people who are actually claiming to do this online church thing are actually, when it comes down to it, sitting there and watching the service and singing along anyways, you know?

So, it's just... Yeah. But it is a very easy way to kind of excuse their functional apostasy and everything else.

Then, I think you have, like, the, you know, then you have all the churches, like, I think the leaders, like, that's happening at the congregation level, but I think you have,

I think you have plenty of leaders who really have not thought very deeply about what it means to, to stand in opposition to a culture which is hostile to the things of God.

I mean, it's kind of, like, it's kind of funny. I mean, going to seminary, this is a question that, you know, just is relevant as a side note, but,

I mean, it's one of those things that you, I can't tell you how many times it was brought up in the context of seminary classrooms and everything else where, you know, individuals say, you know, all right, what, like, the

Bible says, you know, be subject to the governing authorities and everything else. What are times where we would disobey the government?

And almost, you know, every single, I can't think of a time where it's like, well, if, you know, if the government says we can't go to church or if the government says we can't evangelize, then you don't need to listen to them, right?

But then, you know, but then, like, immediately COVID happens and, you know, or whatever that is.

And then all of a sudden it's just like, well, I guess it's unsafe to go to church, you know, for the next year or whatever.

And it's like, hey, I thought this was one of those situations that we've been told for years was one of the times where we disobey the government.

And yet, you know, when push comes to shove and you're now actually in that situation, it's gonna actually require courage.

You know, it's much easier just to keep the people happy and not have to have a faith that cost you anything and go to the, you know, and then basically just butcher your ecclesiology beyond recognition, you know?

So that's the point, but yeah. So there's basically two different ways we can kind of take this conversation.

I guess the way we'll go is first just starting off. So since you were talking about the

COVID nonsense that's been going on for the last year and a half or no, two years now,

I guess. So in light of that, in light of the

COVID thing, you know, do you think there's any kind of precedent for saying, hey, you know what?

At this point, like we can't keep meeting in person. Is there, you know, we talked about the

Bible has a very clear, has very clear commands about saying, no, you need to actually gather in person.

Do not forsake the assembly of the saints. Right, right. Like those are very clear verses. So does that mean like there's no room to ever say, hey, you know, we can't meet in person, you know, for this reason?

So what do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what I thought was happening was something along these lines.

And so, I mean, if you just imagine that, you know, the

Bible talks about like the destruction of Jerusalem, right, and so in the destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus says, pray that your flight is not on, you know, a

Sabbath, essentially, right? Or pray that, you know, it's not when you're pregnant and everything else, or on a

Sabbath or whatever else. And like the issue is, like if the Romans are coming to destroy you,

Jesus tells them, he tells them to flee to the mountains, right? So flee to the mountains. So if like you're about to die, like you run away, right?

And then he says, pray that your flight is not on, you know, winter or Sabbath or whatever else, right? So like the thing is, like,

I think we all understand that like God can, you know, if God is sending judgment upon a people or something like that, or if there's a plague coming, whatever, let's just, you know, pretend that it's a real plague for the sake of argument or whatever else.

But in cases like that, you're being chased by an enemy army, what do you do? I mean, you run, right?

You flee, you flee, okay? I mean, like if you're living in, you know,

Europe or whatever, and the Black Plague comes and half the population of Europe is like dead from the

Black Plague, I think you, you know, well, you might wanna stay inside and see what happens.

You know, if China were to drop nukes on us or something like that, I think we would probably not go to church, we would probably try to hide in our bunkers that we made because we saw the signs coming or something.

I mean, because COVID has turned us all into preppers or something, but no, I mean, look, look, I mean, you're hiding in your bunker, you're waiting the nuclear fallout out or whatever else, right?

Okay, all right, so just imagine though that you're in the first century and you're fleeing from the Romans and you're being chased, and it is on a

Sabbath day, like when they worshiped and everything else. Like, what do you do if you have, like, just think of an anachronistic example, you have a cell phone in first century

Jerusalem, right? And you're all running from the people, like,

I would imagine that faithful believers at that time, if they had the ability to, like, say, okay, well, we can't gather together as God commands us to do, and so what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull out our phones and, like, we'll make the best of a bad situation, let's have a

Bible study and sing some songs, you know, via video, and just hope that, you know, cast ourself on the mercy of God and say, hope this is better than nothing, right?

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think everyone can imagine that kind of scenario, and quite frankly, when churches did that kind of thing during the pandemic,

I mean, you're told that, like, millions of people would be dead in a few, you know, in a month or something, and it's just like, whoa, whoa, like, what in the world is happening?

And, like, obviously that didn't happen, but look, I mean, it's just like, I think many churches, like, said, all right, well, let's make the best of a bad situation, and I thought what was happening was that they were not,

I thought they were just basically saying, all right, well, let's, you know, use the technology we can and try to, you know, make the best of a bad situation, but what

I realized pretty quickly was that that wasn't, like, that wasn't what they were doing. They weren't making some distinction between, you know, trying to make the best of a bad situation and just, you know,

I was, like, we can't come together as a church because God is sovereignly preferring it or whatever, so let's, you know, just have a

Bible study and sing. You know, what I realized was actually happening was that people actually couldn't tell the difference between a

Zoom call and a corporate worships gathering in person on the Lord's Day. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.

So basically, you know, there are certain situations where the danger is so prevalent that you're essentially forced to say, hey, we can't meet, right?

But then the hope is, we can't assemble as a church.

Right, like, it's impossible right now, but the hope is we'll be able to soon, right?

Right, so we're just gonna try to do our, like, in lieu of meeting, like, what we're going to do is we're gonna, you know, as church leaders, we're gonna still try to teach our congregation the whole counsel of God, still try to do everything we can do except meet, but then what actually happened is what we did was we totally redefined what we were actually doing.

Does that make sense? Instead of just trying to make the best of a bad situation and try to fulfill as many responsibilities as we can, knowing that God's sovereignly preventing us from meeting, what we did was just redefine what meeting was and accept this, like, basically oxymoron online church as if it was actually a thing, if that makes sense.

Right. Yeah, so, you know, we're talking about, hey, the hope should be, the hope should be that, you know, we get to meet again soon, and maybe for some people that maybe are even listening to this, that might be kind of a strange thought to have because the

Sunday gathering is just so low on the priority list for so many people,

Christian and not. So what exactly, going back to the commands that God gives us for gathering together to worship

Him, why exactly is God giving those commands? Obviously, we need to say, hey, one of the main reasons why we meet is because God's told us to meet.

We wanna obey Him, but then why is He, why is He giving those commands in the first place? What's the, like, is there benefit?

Is He trying to, you know, is He trying to, you know, just get us to worship

Him and that's it? Or is there other stuff, you know, is there blessing that comes from that? Is there, like, what's the point of those commands beyond just, like, hey, we're supposed to, we're supposed to do what

He says? Sure, well, I mean, you know, we should, we're supposed to do what He said is,

I mean, enough, right? Right, right, right. That should be the, that should just be, like, all right, let's move on to the next question.

No, no, I know, I know, I understand. But that doesn't go without saying because I think there are many people who approach that Bible that way if they don't understand why a certain thing can happen or it doesn't make sense to them, then, like, they have a posture that essentially says, well,

I'll wait till I understand why it's there before I obey, and I would say, well, you know, if you don't have an answer to the question that you just asked, okay, like, yeah,

I think you should try to get an answer to that question, but don't wait to obey until you get an answer to it because God's always right and He knows what

He's doing and He's smarter than you, right? So there's that. But no, I mean, I think the idea of meeting together is, why would

He command such a thing in general, right? Right. Now, I think the reason why a person probably has to answer a question like that is because their view of the church is so man -centered anyways, right?

So, like, when you have a man -centered view of the church, then, I mean, how often have you heard people say when they're gonna go to church, you know,

I'm just gonna go there and see if I can get something out of the sermon, you know, or when they don't wanna go to church, they're like, well,

I'm not getting anything out of it, I don't feel like I'm being fed, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Like, I don't feel like I could worship there because the music that's being played does not fit my particular musical taste and style and everything else.

And so, like, we're trained to think of the corporate worship service as consumers, where we go and we consume certain products.

And the two primary products that you have there is the music, right, which is the product designed to, like, tailor to you.

And, I mean, that's essentially what the Seekers Initiative churches did. They pulled the audience, they say, hey, well, you know, how do we get a big gathering of people, well, people like Top 40 music, and so let's play

Top 40 music, and that will, you know, that's how you get a crowd and everything else.

And, like, well, you know, people, their attention spans are going down, so you need to have shorter services that are gonna be tailored to them.

And then, you know, like, well, we have a lot of people who are seeking God, you know, even the Bible says no one seeks after me.

And so, therefore, like, let's have the services primarily designed for the, you know, church for the un -church,

Andy Stanley kind of stuff and everything else. And so, I think when you have the consumer view of the church in general, then you look at it like a product.

And so, functionally, like, to that kind of person, there actually is no difference between an in -person gathering and an online gathering, right?

In fact, the online gathering, I mean, if you just ignore the absolute butchering of language that has happened, which we're, you know, accustomed to doing because we live in a relativistic time in general, and we, you know, don't realize that words actually have meanings.

But here's the thing, if you do that, it's just like, well, hey, you know what? I actually like sitting on my couch in my pajamas better than coming to a church service.

Right? I mean, I like sitting on my couch in my pajamas, just not on Sunday morning.

Well, I mean, just think about it this way. I mean, like, you don't have, you can go and you don't have to, you know, put on clothes, whatever.

I mean, you can just sit down and be comfortable, put your feet up, you know? If you want to get a drink, you can get up and, you know, listen to a thing and go get a drink.

You know, you're not being put on display. You know, if you have kids that are crazy or whatever and misbehaved, you don't have to, like, worry about them making noise or dropping things or whatever else and all that.

And I mean, you can just sit there in the privacy of your own home and see if you can get a few things out of it. I mean, that's assuming that that's actually what happens when, you know, in practice,

I doubt that many people are actually doing the online thing. They're just like to know that it's there in case they want to.

But it's a good thing to tell people. But yeah, so to that kind of person, you know, that's just a long way of saying,

I just, I don't, like, there isn't any significant difference between the two things.

I get the same product at home, what's the point? Right? Right, right. So it's the same product, same thing.

So, but then, so then in that kind of framework, you say, well, what is actually the difference, right?

What is actually the difference and why would God actually command it and us to come together, you know, and inconvenience us and make us, you know, get up off our butts and drive a car and, you know, when we can just get the same product at home.

Well, because it's not fundamentally about you, right? It's not about you and about what you want.

It's about Him. Like, that's what worship is. Like, we gathered together with His people in order to worship

Him as He tells us to. And so, like, fundamentally, this is not about you.

It's about Him. It's about God. And so, so now, why would

He design it that way? Why would He get the most glory in having an in -person gathering of a bunch of people?

Well, because if you look around, you know, you look around, look, I mean, I could, there's a hundred answers to this question.

I'll try to give you a few, but I mean, just look around at the church and, you know, Paul says, not many are mighty, not many are noble, not many are educated or whatever else and everything else.

It's like, God's chosen the weak things of the world to shame the wise. I mean, when I go to church, you know what?

Like, maybe my kids aren't as interested in church as me, as the assembly, as I am. And like, for many people, that's like, well, you know, you gotta make them interested in it.

You gotta, whatever. But it's like, no, I want you to know that God is the most important reality to the universe to me.

And you don't care about this. And the reason why you don't care about this is because you have hearts of stone that are blind, but I care about it.

And so I'm making a testimony, me, when I come and I gather together with God's people, all of us together are gathering together and we're a diverse group of people, like, who are very different, who might not be natural friends, right?

As far as that goes, but there's something that holds us all together, that ties us all together.

And what that is, is that is our commitment to God, right?

And so I'm saying to you, my kids, like, I love God more than I love you. I'm saying to you, world, I love

God more than I love you. God is more important to me than you are. And when he commands me to do this,

I'm, this is a public testimony to the entire watching world that God is more important to you.

And in a man -centered age, I mean, that's just unthinkable. And that's the whole thing that, you know, the pandemic, plandemic has revealed, is that it's just like, well, you know, you can't gather together because it's not loving to your neighbors.

It's like, well, you know what? I love God more than I love my neighbors, and that's why I'm gathering, because he's more important than they are. And for you, they are more important, like, they are more important to you than God.

And that means that you're not worshiping the actual God, you're worshiping other people, right? And so,

I mean, that's just one reason why he would come, is because, you know, he got a tax collector and his elite, and, you know, a

Pharisee and, you know, and lawyer and everything else. They put them all together in a pot and basically said like, hey, like, this is a testimony to a watching world that look what

I can do. I can reconcile these kind of people to myself, right? And so when we come together, we're a picture of that.

But then not only that, we have responsibilities to each other. We're told to encourage one another, to greet one another, to welcome one another, to have kindly affection towards one another, to admonish one another, exhort one another, correct one another, embrace one another, greet one another with a holy kiss, you know?

Like, we're like, there's like, we come together and we're to build each, this is a picture of the church.

We're coming together. We're gonna build each other up with love. When the church gathers together on the

Lord's day, what we're doing is we're a picture of what's going to happen on the last day. Like when, like the angels, like every day, day and night, they're standing before the presence of the

Lord. They're saying, holy, holy, holy is Lord God almighty, right? And they're there before his presence day and night.

When we come together as a church, we are entering into his presence and we're a picture by faith.

We trust by faith that he is here. He is with us. We trust that by faith. And one day we won't have to trust it by faith.

We're gonna have, we're gonna trust it by sight, right? Like we're gonna see with our eyes.

And so like every day, this is a gathering that anticipates like an eschatological gathering in the future. And so I, there's just so many things you could say,

I mean, about why he would do that. But those are a few.

Yeah, yeah, I, you know, obviously it's a huge, but you know, for me for a long time,

I didn't really take church seriously until honestly, I mean, really just, you know, maybe,

I don't know, five or six years ago, maybe a little longer than that. I can't exactly remember, but then it's really remarkable to see kind of the difference in my life.

Now, I think a part of that is just due to the fact that, you know, I think generally if you're not taking, going to church on Sunday seriously, it can be a generally a safe bet to assume that you're probably not really taking much of anything seriously, you know, in the

Christian faith at all, or when it comes to worshiping God or obeying God, you're probably not really taking much of anything seriously, but then it is remarkable to see just how, how much truly valuing coming together on Sunday can really do to, you know, help you grow spiritually in an exponential kind of way.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think for me, just in terms of my own personal testimony, I grew up in a Christian home, and then when

I, you know, went to college, it's like, all right, this thing's my own now, and I didn't darken the doors of church for years.

I went to churches to basically see like where the cute girls were, and if I couldn't find any, so it's just like, well, forget this, right?

And so that showed what I was after, but I mean, like the thing is, like when I, there was a point in my life where it's like there has to be a transition.

Like if I say I'm a Christ follower, I need to obey Him, right? And I think at this point in my life is where I really became a

Christian. I surrendered to His Lordship, but the first thing that I thought was, like the very first thing that came to my mind was, okay,

I have to obey God. Like not in order to earn my salvation, but out of gratitude and obedience for Him saving me.

I have to, like, there's no such thing as just this disobedient Christian. It's like, I don't know anything the

Bible says. Right, I don't know anything the Bible says, but I know it says to go to church. Don't forsake the assembling of the saints.

I knew He was 25. I have to go to church. I can't forsake the assembly of saints. It's like, I'm looking around. It's like,

I don't know what a good church is. So it's like, well, I'm just gonna go to a bad church until I can figure out what a good church is because I have to obey

God. And like, He's just gonna have, show me what a good church is. And so, and then I start reading the Bible to figure out what a good church is.

But like the first step of obedience for me was, I gotta go to church, right? And like that step of obedience has pushed me in so many ways.

It's made me other centered. It's made me others focused. And it makes me aware of the real problems that, like how are you gonna bear someone's burden and so fulfill the law of Christ if you don't, like you're not a part of their life?

How are you going to encourage one another as you see the day drawing near if you're not have some sort of regular mechanism to be around them and ask them, how are you doing?

And then they say, I'm fine. And then you say, really? You know? You weren't supposed to ask another question.

You're supposed to say, oh, good. All right, see you later. So how are you gonna ask those intrusive questions if you don't have a good occasion and opportunity to do so?

But I mean, the whole point though is just to say, hey, we're singing to one another and we're encouraging one another.

And like there's this body that's being equipped by church leaders to build itself up together and love.

And this is like God's blessing to us that we get to have a family that's supposed to be more important than our earthly family to us.

And I mean, I can't tell you how encouraging it is just to see the testimony of lives of your friends like in your faith family who were gathered together on the

Lord's day committed to the faith who have plenty of other things that are important to do but this day we set aside to be devoted to God.

And that, I mean, that's a testimony, it's an encouragement, it's opportunity to be equipped and everything else. But yeah, I mean,

I think just taking that one step and saying, hey, I'm gonna run with it. For me, that was the first step of my

Christian life is just to say, every time doors open, I'm gonna be there. And unless I'm sick or maybe a vacation

I take once every two years or something but I mean, I'm gonna be there. And that's been a tremendous source of blessing and encouragement and growth for me.

But anyways. You mentioned being sick or going on vacation once every two years or whatever.

You're trying to stir the wrong pot. So, obviously there's plenty of people who

I think faithfully attend church on a regular basis but then there are times where they can't be there on Sunday for whatever reason.

And it's not just like, hey, my son had travel ball so we couldn't make it or I was fishing or hey,

Sunday's NFL day. It's not a person like that. It's a person who regularly attends who genuinely values the

Sunday gathering but then they get sick one week or whatever. So, when they have to miss, they say to themselves, you know what,

I'm just gonna, I can't be there in person but I'm gonna watch, maybe my church offers a live stream.

I'm gonna watch that live stream. Does that kind of fall into the same category that we're talking about when we're talking about online church or biblically, do you think that there's a distinction between those two different scenarios?

I mean, I don't think, I think churches that do offer live stream and things like that have to be very vigilant that they are clarifying what it is that they're doing in a way that is clear.

And so, the acceptability of that is not dependent upon the attitude of the person doing it or the motive of the person doing it or anything else.

I think we just have to be very clear that if you watch either a live showing of a church gathering that you are not a part of, right?

Or if you're watching a replay later of a gathering that you're not a part of, we just have to be very clear that you missed that gathering, okay?

Right. Now, is it better, is it better if you're sick? Like, you know, if you have people who are sick and like, would it be better for them to catch a replay of the service?

Yes. Were they there? No. Not in any metaphysical way or not in any literal way or not in any like analogical way.

They're not there, right? That we don't need to take words and like pervert them beyond, do violence to their very meaning.

They're not there. You're not a part of this gathering. But is it like a, would it be a good thing to say, hey,

I don't wanna get behind in the teaching, right? So Paul says, you know, for three years

I labored to present to you the whole counsel of God. And so, if you miss part of that, like shepherding, that was like your pastor is, you're supposed to obey your leader, submit to them for their keeping watch over yourselves as those who are gonna give an account.

And you're supposed to submit to yourself to your pastor's teaching. You might wanna know what it actually is. And if there's some situation that came up, like let's say legitimately, like you're saying a legitimate reason why you had to miss part of that instruction, it seems to me you might wanna catch up on it, right?

And so there's been times I've been sick, even as a pastor in a team of churches with teams of pastors.

And yeah, I listened to the message afterwards, but I don't think I went to church and I'm not pretending I did, you know?

So I'm not pretending I was there in the IP address or something like that. I wasn't, you know,

I was not there. I literally wasn't there, you know? But I still like,

I made the best of a bad situation and I still wanted to keep up with what was going on.

So if that makes sense, is that what you're asking? Yeah, yeah, no, I think that answers it pretty soundly overall.

So I guess the last question we'll end with is, you know, how should we, like we said all throughout this episode, there's plenty, this has really kind of given rise in an extremely concerning way, at an alarming rate, online church and the acceptability of it, even to the point where you said earlier, you know, all the people that you were in school with were saying, hey, you know what?

The line is, once they start violating our ability to share the gospel, our ability to meet together and worship the

Lord, that's where we say, you know, here's our line and you can't go past this without us putting up a fight.

But then 2020 comes around and really it seems like a lot of those people are nowhere to be found now, right?

When the going gets tough. So it seems like it's grown in popularity, online church, to such an alarming degree.

So in light of that, how should we view these churches that are either accepting of, you know, people who are watching only on the live stream and never actually trying to come to the in -person gathering, or people that are actively, churches that are actively encouraging online quote -unquote membership?

Well, yeah, I mean, I think to tie it to the overall, to tie that answer to the overall question that is online church the ecclesiastical equivalent of transgender male?

I mean, I think what the issue is, if you just, like we're living in a relativistic society right now that basically is at every single conceivable level trying to do violence to the plain meaning of words, okay?

And so like the idea of online church, that's an oxymoron, you know, that's an inherent contradiction. It's not a thing, right?

It's just like, that's like you're, basically it's an oxymoron, like same difference or something like that.

I mean, you're a word that has an inherent contradiction in the very meaning, just like transgender male is an inherent contradiction.

And I mean, you can take a man and you can put him, you know, give him like breast surgery and put him on a dress or whatever and put on some lipstick to him and he's still gonna look like an ugly man.

Like he's gonna, he's not going to look like a woman no matter what you think. He's not, you know, it's not gonna work.

And so like the issue is like what makes a man a man is not like just putting some plastic in his chest, right?

Like that's not what makes a man a man, but what makes a church a church is that it is an assembly.

That's what it makes a church a church. And so you can call it an assembly all you want.

You can say, hey, I'm glad you're here with us or whatever else. It's not an assembly by any meaning of the word assembly.

And that's what makes a church a church. And so that being said though, then your question then is like, well, what do we make of the fact that there are churches who are doing this?

And I do think that 2020 and 2021 have been revealing for the body of Christ. The Bible says that they went out from us because they are not of us, but they left that it might become plain that they are not of us.

Like the whole Hebrews 10 .25 is not neglecting to meet together as is habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near that.

That's in the context of a warning passage. So, I mean, that's like in the context of like, if you wanna know,

I could just read through the context of Hebrews 10, right? And one of the things you're gonna see is that as you read through Hebrews 10, right?

Like you're in the middle of a warning passage that is basically telling us, let us hold fast, in verse 23, let's hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering for he who is promised is faithful and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some.

But then what is the next verse? Hebrews 10 .26, for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice or sin, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled on the foot of the

Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and outraged the spirit of grace? Here's the thing, like, I mean, these are not trivial issues as far as that goes.

Now, I mean, just what I think, let me just take a step back for a second and say, hey, look, if you're in the middle of a black plague, where half of Europe is going to die, and there's bodies literally piling up in the streets, and like, you can identify who they are, and you know people who are dead, because like half your family's dead, right?

In the ditch, on the side of the road, and there's nowhere to put them. Like, look, like, I think everyone would say, well, that's the situation, or you're being chased by the

Romans or everything else. Like, you flee to the mountains, right? And so like, you're given permission by God in the cases of like extreme providence to temporarily not meet in order to keep from dying, okay?

Yeah. All right, temporarily. But here's the thing, like, here's the thing, right? So I don't, you know, just related to your question,

I don't fault churches who basically just were sold a bill of goods and were, you know, told millions and millions of people were gonna die, and they thought, hey, like, this is weird.

The NBA canceled the season, whatever else. Like, this is strange, right? I don't know what's going on.

Like, let's wait and see temporarily, right? And let's make the best of a bad situation.

Let's stream, you know, singing in a sermon, you know, and, you know, whatever.

I don't fault particularly those kind of people, but I mean, at a certain point, when it becomes absolutely clear, and if it's not absolutely clear right now,

I don't know what it will be, that like, this is not what you said it was, right?

We're not in that situation, and we're fleeing, but no one really seems to be pursuing, and we're in a different kind of situation.

Like, you know, at a certain point, like somewhere along the path between, you know, then and now, you know, almost, you know, for as long as it's been going on, right, at some point along the line, preferably towards the front end of things, like, and I don't know when the exact point is, and I'm not gonna pretend like I'm the definitive answer on that.

At some point, though, it should be clear to anyone with half a brain that, you know, if you can go to a

BLM rally and you can't go to church, that tells me to some level of how serious you're taking this thing, right?

If you can go to Walmart, you can go to a liquor store, you can't go to church, that tells me something about the makeup and the constitution of your faith.

And I think like for many people, this has been a defining moment to help us to see like who really is committed to God and who isn't, right?

As far as that goes. And which churches out there are really going to obey God, even when it costs them something, and what churches out there, which are just basically, you know, businesses that are more pragmatic in their orientation.

And so I don't know if that's direct enough, but yeah. Yeah, no, no, that's good.

Well, that's all the questions I have on the topic. Is there anything else that you wanted to say that maybe we didn't cover throughout the episode?

I think we could probably go on for hours and hours and hours, but at some point you just say, all right, enough is enough.

Yeah, we definitely could keep going on for hours. And we have before in conversation, just the two of us.

Well, okay. Well, this has been the first episode of Bible Bash.

We really do hope that you've been encouraged, that you've been blessed through our discussion. Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.