Patreon Q&A Sept 2019

All right. All right. Well, before we get started today, this is Patreon Q and A part.

I don't know. I don't know what part it is, but it's for September 2019. Before we get started,

I just wanted to thank you so much again for another month of your support. It is highly, highly appreciated.

You know, I just, just so, so, so grateful that, that, you know, the work that I'm doing on YouTube and, and elsewhere is helpful for so many people.

And just want you to know that if you find my work helpful and you're supporting it, there are lots of other people out there that also find it helpful that for whatever reason aren't supporting or can't support.

A lot of people reach out to me and wish they could support, but they just can't right now. And that's totally fine. But I want you to know that you're helping, you know, get this message out and you're a part of that because I don't know if you've noticed, but over the last few weeks,

I've been, you know, pumping out content pretty much every day. And I could not do that without the support that I get from you guys.

So thank you so much. I believe that the YouTube channel is having an impact on a lot of people.

And I get, you know, feedback constantly about people who say, Hey, this is going on in my church.

This is going on in this and that my friend said this or that, and, and your work has been so helpful for me to help to understand these things and to talk to these things, talk through these things with my friends and stuff like that.

And that just is awesome. I'm so glad for that. And so if you support this work, thank you so much.

And I will get to your questions in just a moment. But I also wanted to say this too, and there's a few of you that support me that we've talked, you know, kind of online and stuff like that.

And we don't, so I have, I have beliefs as a Christian that are pretty unpopular.

And so there's a good chance that you don't share all of the same beliefs that I have. And there are even a few people is one person in particular who said,

Hey, you know, are you okay working with me? Because, you know, there are certain things that you believe that I stand against with everything

I have. And I'm like, you know, we're going to have to learn how to deal with that. You know, it's okay for us to disagree on some issues.

Obviously, there are some non negotiables as well. But on the negotiables right now, look, we got to be on the same team here.

Because the reality is that the movement that we're facing and a lot of the political stuff and the cultural stuff, it's pretty tremendous.

And so anywhere where we can find allies and not compromise ourselves is going to be very important.

So the fact that we disagree on some things is totally okay by me. Obviously, again, there are some non negotiables.

But But anyway, let's get to the questions. And again, thank you so much for your support.

And for being a patron, I appreciate it, and my family, it really does help my family as well.

So thank you. All right. First question today. The question is, at what point do those push?

Do those pushing the social justice agenda rise to the level of false teacher? Do you believe the social justice purveyors within the church are preaching another gospel?

If so, at what point should we mark them as false teachers and begin to treat them as unbelievers?

This is actually kind of a providential question. Because you know, the person who asked this, you know, may know about sort of my history and some of those things

I've said on YouTube, and I've very much hesitated to call people false teachers. I've said that I disagree with them.

I say that their beliefs are very dangerous. I say that they're certainly their teachings on social justice are false.

But I've hesitated to call them false teachers and to call them unbelievers. But just this past week, if you haven't seen the video, it's called

Kyle and Jamar have revealed who they are, and we should believe them.

I put it out last Friday, and it's about Kyle Howard and Jamar Tisby. And in the video,

I do call them false teachers. I finally take that step with them. And I still am going to hesitate to call most people false teachers.

However, there is a line that can be crossed. And I think for every so the real the real answer to this question is it's really going to depend on the person because there are some things that are clearly non negotiable.

Like if somebody says, you know, Christ can't forgive your sins, or Jesus didn't come as Jesus is not

God in flesh or something like that. Obviously, that's an unbelief, you know, unbeliever right there, obviously, but, but there are false gospels that are more subtle than that as well.

And so if you didn't watch that video, what I said was that, if you can turn, because Kyle and Jamar Tisby, they were they were lamenting the fact that Christians were praising the brother of the guy who was killed by Amber Geiger, because he forgave her and they were saying,

Oh, my goodness, this forgiveness is kind of dangerous, because people might forget our justice movement and, and things like that.

And, and black forgiveness can't be demanded and things like that. And I said, I said,

Look, you know, if you are going to use something so good, as a brother forgiving his, his brother's killer, and you're going to use that to divide the church between white and black, and you're going to keep doing that no matter what is in the news, you're all you want is division, division, division.

And you might say you don't want division, but all you do is divide, like, at that point, if you're going to even use a good thing to divide the church, at that point,

I have to treat you as if you don't understand the gospel, you don't get it, you don't teach it, and you don't want the unity that is promised in the gospel, you don't want it.

And so, you know, I think, I think the point, unless it's a very clear sort of heresy, obviously, we have to all agree that if somebody says

Jesus was not God in flesh, that that was that would be a heretic. Unfortunately, we don't all agree out there because you know, still people will say

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian, he clearly wasn't, he clearly wasn't. So I think it kind of depends, you need to decide for yourself, what are your sort of indicators?

What what how much is too much? Because the reality is that, that, you know, my threshold for what what's a perennial divider of the church might be different than yours.

But we all have to have a threshold, we all have to try to apply it consistently. So if somebody is dividing up the church like a pizza constantly, well,

I mean, I think it's a pretty good warning sign. So unfortunately, I can't really answer this question for everybody, everyone's going to be different for the most part.

But for me that, you know, if you if you haven't watched that video, watch it, because I kind of explained myself and why, though I've hesitated,

I'm not going to hesitate anymore. And you know, it's, unfortunately, it's not a clear cut thing.

It's not a clear cut thing. Because on the one hand, we want to separate from Christians who are unbelievers.

But the other on the other hand, we want to have a little bit of grace, because we all know that, like I said, in the beginning, there are certain things that we think are important that we're going to differ on.

And we don't want to necessarily separate with everybody. I think I happen to think that and look,

I love Baptists, and I love and I understand why they believe what they believe.

But I happen to think that that that infant baptism, Presbyterianism is the best, you know, summary of the

Bible's teaching. And I think that if you don't baptize your babies, that some sometimes bad things can happen or bad lessons can be learned, sort of, so to speak.

But I'm not going to divide with Baptists, just because I believe that. So I don't know, that's kind of a rambling answer.

But unfortunately, it kind of, it's a, it can be a judgment call at times, it can be a judgment call at times.

Thank you for your question. All right, here is another question. Says this, it says, thank you for your work.

I'm always trying to learn more about properly applying God's law to every area of life. And you've been a big help with that.

My question is, what are your thoughts on NATO? It's my understanding that one of the roles given to government by God is to defend borders and to fight defensive wars.

But what if a nation you're allied with is under attack? Would it be biblical to make a promise to a different nation to protect them from harm in the first place?

Yeah, this is a good one. And this is so one of the things about, about believing, you know, about God's law the way

I do is that I fully admit that I, I understand that there are going to be some debatable points and we haven't got it all figured out yet.

We need to have these conversations about God's law and all of that. But sorry about that,

I had to answer a quick question from my wife. But just because we know God, I believe

God's law addresses everything and gives us the foundations for everything that we need to do in civil society, doesn't mean that I have it all figured out, or it's going to be very easy to figure out how to apply it.

Because some things are very easy to figure out how to apply, you know, you murder someone, the death penalty, right?

That's very easy to apply. But other things like this NATO question are not quite as easy.

And I think that there's, it doesn't necessarily, so, so I would, I would say this,

I would say this, that there's nothing inherently in God's law that would say that we could not help defend an ally, if, if that's something that we chose to do, that we couldn't help defend an ally from attack or something like that.

But at the same time, like something like NATO or something like, like, or something like, you know, some of these other treaty things, they might get us entangled in situations that we shouldn't be entangled in.

Because as the questioner says, like, we can defend our borders. Yes, that's definitely true. We can fight defensive wars.

Yes, that's definitely true. But it starts to get squishy when we're involved in other people's wars.

Is it truly defensive or not? Did the other people do something that they shouldn't have done? Did the other country, you know, overstep its bounds and things like that?

So I guess, so I wouldn't have a problem necessarily with alliances and, and treaties and things like that with other countries, so long as those other countries were also committed to, you know, a biblical understanding of what they should be up to.

You know what I mean? Like, if we had a treaty with a country that was like, you know, doing all kinds of shady economic, you know, you know, sanctions and, and various kinds of things.

And then as a result, they got attacked by, you know, someone and now all of a sudden we're their allies.

So we got to come to their defense, like, that I wouldn't want to be a part of, right? So I guess I would, in theory,

I don't have a problem with alliances and, and helping out neighbors and stuff like that. Or you know, helping out people that are that can't defend themselves.

Like, in theory, I don't have a problem with any of those things. But all of that would be premised on the idea of, you know, still you only going to war when it's truly defensive or when it's truly for a good cause, you know, and that gets a little squishy, that gets a little squishy.

So I don't really know the answer, to be honest. It's a great question. And it's a question that I think needs to be debated and teased out and really studied when you look at the

Old Testament and what happened and how they did things and the law of God and, and how that worked. But anyway, yeah, that's a great question.

And unfortunately, I'm just not equipped to answer it completely. But I think it's one of those things that kind of proves that we need to study

God's law more, we need to study God's law more, because there is a good and moral answer to this question, right?

And we need to believe that, of course. And I think that if we, if we search the scriptures, and we, we really, you know, thought about it and studied it and prayed about it, and all these things that we would have the answer.

Okay. Let's go to the next question. This is a good question. I like this question.

I don't really know the answer. You guys are asking some good questions. Like a lot of these questions are nuanced, if you know what

I mean. Nuance, my favorite, my favorite word. Okay. He says this, he says,

I've really benefited from your work, but I have one question about one style of video that you do sometimes, namely live reaction videos.

Wouldn't it be more biblical to read and watch the content beforehand in order to get a firm grasp of it so that no mistakes are made and that no accidental false accusations occur?

Why or why not? Great question. Great question. And yes, I do sometimes do live reaction videos and oftentimes, actually,

I think almost every time when I'm doing a live reaction, I'm, I'm actually,

I tell you upfront, hey, this is a live reaction. You know what I mean? I don't want you to think that I've read through this and I'm like faking my reaction or something like that.

So, and, and sometimes what I'll do also is, is I'll, I'll, uh, I'll read like the first paragraph and I'll say,

Hey, I got to do a live reaction to this. And then, so, so not all of it is live reaction, but that, but most of it is. And, um, honestly,

I don't really see anything unbiblical about doing a live reaction video.

So, so cause, cause here's the thing, like if I'm doing, if I'm talking to someone and, um, we're having a conversation or something like that, that's a, that's a live reaction.

I'm, I'm, I'm listening to what you say, thinking about it quickly and responding. Um, so there's nothing wrong with like not having thought things completely through when you, when you talk to someone.

And I don't think that there would be anything wrong with, with putting a video out like that. I think that the biblical issues arise with what you said here is that if you make a mistake and you make a false accusation or something like that, um, and I'm not going to say that I've never done this.

Uh, I've never made a mistake or never made a false accusation. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have done this kind of thing before, but oftentimes what

I'll do if I'm doing a live reaction video, and I'm sure you can find an exception cause I'm not perfect, but oftentimes what

I'll do is I'll say, Hey, look, I'm not a hundred percent sure. I don't know, but here's what I would think based on what

I've read. And I'll give you my sort of my take or my opinion there. And so it doesn't, you know, look,

I'm, I'm, I'm like, I'm, I'm, uh, before God, I have to account for every word

I say. And so a live reaction video, if I do it in a careless way, that could potentially be a problem, but if I'm not doing it in a careless way,

I don't really see the problem with it at all. And also the other thing too, is, um, you know, if I do a live reaction and I think what

I've said is wrong, I won't post it. I've done that before. I've actually done that before. I don't post every video that I make.

Sometimes it just doesn't turn out the way I thought it would. And I just don't post it. Um, so I don't think there's anything wrong with sort of a live reaction kind of video.

There is something wrong with misrepresenting someone and making a false accusation. And do you run the risk of doing that more in a live reaction video than you do with a, with a kind of a produced video?

I would say probably, but, um, I don't think that that makes the medium in itself off limits, if that makes sense.

It means that you need to take, be more careful, maybe be a little bit more measured, maybe not say as bombastic of things that you would when you've thought about it.

Um, so if we're going to do live reaction videos, and if I'm going to do live reaction videos, I need to be extra careful,

I guess is what I'm trying to say. Um, but it's a good question. It's something to think about. And it's something that I will think about the next time

I decide to do a live reaction video. So thank you so much for that question. All right. So the next question from for the new

Christian intellectual, thank you again for your support guys.

First question is books on theology that you would recommend for people getting started doing their own platforms?

Well, I'll, I'll say this, uh, I'd recommend pretty much the same books to, uh, to, to everyone, regardless of the reason, whether they're building a platform, whether they're just trying to understand the world, whether they're just trying to understand theology.

And that's, uh, you know, there's really, there's really five books or four books.

Let's go, let's call it four for right now. So the first one is, um, is, uh, Calvin's institutes.

I mean, that book is a huge book. You could spend years reading it. Um, but you know, John Calvin, I mean, let's just be honest,

John Calvin was a genius. It's just that simple. You don't have to agree with him on everything. You don't have to agree with him on, on most things, but you will definitely get value from Calvin's Institute.

So that's, that's number one. Number two, uh, I would recommend that you read Rush Dooney's Institutes of Biblical Law.

Again, you don't have to agree with, with his, uh, with his, uh, conclusions and stuff like that to get value from it.

He goes through the old Testament and the law of God step -by -step and has so many insights into it.

It's just fantastic. So we've got the Institutes of the Christian Religion from Calvin and, uh, the

Institutes of Biblical Law by R .J. Rush Dooney. The second or the third book rather that I would recommend is, um, a book called, uh, well, actually it's, it's three books in one.

It's a trilogy from Francis Schaeffer. Uh, so this is talking about culture and society from a, from a biblical perspective and, you know, different things regarding art, philosophy, cinema, you know, all kinds of amazing, amazing insights into culture and why things happen the way they do, the flow of history, the flow of philosophy and all of that kind of stuff.

Fantastic book. I highly recommend it. It's actually three books in one. So it's his three primary books.

Francis Schaeffer trilogy is awesome. The last one I'll recommend is called

Millennialism and Social Theory by Gary North. Millennialism and Social Theory by Gary North.

What it seeks to do is apply, um, apply the word of God to the issue of history.

And it's talking about millennialism, not like millennials, like I'm a millennial or something like that. It's talking about like, you know, post -millennial, pre -millennial, and sort of the different views of history and how it affects social theory.

And so, uh, this is a book that is tremendous. It helps you. It's really good.

I hadn't ever heard thinking or, or, or writing like this when I read it. And it's been helpful for me and kind of in the same way that Francis Schaeffer books,

Francis Schaeffer's book was helpful for me, helpful, helpful to interpret society and to understand how, what your beliefs on millennialism has to do with what ends up being your social theory.

So anyway, those are the four books that I would recommend for anybody. Um, not just if you're building a platform, but it will help you interpret, you know, society and news and things like that.

Anyway, uh, the second question that for the new question, intellectual asks is what would you do with your own platform?

If it was a hundred times as big two years from now, I don't know.

What would I do with my own platform? If it was a hundred times as big two years from now? Well, I think if I, if I had a platform, a hundred times as big,

I would have, you know, almost 300 ,000 subscribers. I'd be making a decent living off of my platform.

Um, most likely if I had that many subscribers, um, what I would want to do is

I would want to, you know, probably get involved with doing actually like well produced, you know, documentaries or, or, or movies that, um, where I could go on site places, you know, fund, you know, sort of travel and things like that.

Interviewing, you know, maybe even debating things like that in a, in a produced kind of way. I probably, I mean, obviously

I know a couple of, uh, of movie producers that I could team up with that I could pay to do some of that stuff. I think that would be awesome.

Kind of like, uh, if you, I don't know if you guys watch, um, I know I'm kind of outing myself here a little bit, um, but it's okay.

I don't care. Um, if, I don't know if you guys ever watched Stefan Molyneux's YouTube channel. I find

Stefan to be fascinating, fascinating person. I disagree with a lot of what he says.

I agree with a lot of what he says, and I just find him to be such an interesting, and he seems to be a very honest character.

Um, and I say character, he's obviously a real person, um, but, uh, one of the, one of the most interesting people that I know on the, on the internet anyway, he's recently been doing, um, movies.

He did a series about California and how California has gone from being a great place to kind of a, kind of a crappy place, um, and, um, kind of a bad place and, um, really well done, well produced, and he's interviewing people and all that kind of stuff.

I think that kind of stuff could be really effective. And I think that I, I think I have a skillset that could lend itself to that kind of thing.

I don't really know cause I've never done it, but, um, anyway, that's what I would want to do. I'd want to start making some,

I would still do the YouTube stuff, like kind of like the vlog stuff that's not quite as produced, but I would want to do some stuff like that.

Like, like, uh, like those documentary type movies. Anyway, um, thanks for the questions.

Thanks for the support. Last question for this month. The question is, have you thought about doing a walkthrough of the

Old Testament laws? Yes, I have thought about doing that. And, and honestly, um, what I would be doing would be nothing new, most likely.

So, so the book I recommended just a second ago, uh, Rush Dooney's Institutes of Biblical Law. Even if you don't, even if you're not a theonomist, even if you don't agree with him on everything, that's okay.

But that goes through the Old Testament law very well. And what's great about that book and, and books, not, not a lot of books do this these days, especially the popular big

Eva types, but in the back, it has a list of scripture and you can look at any scripture essentially, and it'll be in that reference.

And he talks about it and explains it and stuff like that. Sometimes better than others. I mean, let's just be honest.

There are sometimes he's explained to scripture that I'm like, I don't know if that's really what it's saying, you know, but, but, but, but most of the time

I find it very helpful. So, um, if I were to do something like that in a video form, what I would try to do is

I would try to make it a little bit more accessible, um, and hopefully take out some of the parts about Rush Dooney that are, you know, maybe not quite as good, because let's just be honest, if you know anything about Rush Dooney, you know, that there are some things about him that make him slightly unpalatable, let's say, plus he looks like Count Dooku anyway, but yeah,

I have thought about it. That would be a tremendous undertaking. Honestly, that would be something that I would do if I was able to dedicate more time to YouTube.

Because again, right now I've said like, I have a day job, you know, I have a recruiting consulting business that I run, and it's not a big business.

It's just me, really. Um, and I, and that's how I, that's how I feed my family. So I need to dedicate most of my time to that.

If I was able to dedicate more time to videos and stuff like that, I probably be more tempted to do something like that, because that would take a lot of time and research and care.

That might be something I would want to do for a documentary, something like that. But anyway, thank you so much for the questions today, highly appreciate the support.

And, um, again, if there's anything ever I can do for you, don't hesitate to reach out to me. God bless.