Talking with Trey Fisher from Cultish!

Parish Reform Podcast Introduction and Church Planting in Jonesboro

Welcome to the Parish Reform Podcast. And I got two of my buddies here from Jonesboro, Arkansas. Jeremiah Nortier, is that right?

If

That is the French version.

If I was French. And Nathan, Pastor Nathan Hargrave, PhD. We call him Dr. Nate. Is that right?

Don't misrepresent, man. I wish, I would love that, but I can't claim it.

I'm sure you could pass it. I'm sure you could do it. So you guys have a church, the 12 -5 Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and y 'all just planted it not too long ago, correct?

Right, September of 2020, right in the middle of a crazy pandemic. We started in my living room. It just literally me, my wife, and our four kids.

Nice.

And then this guy came along, what, a couple of weeks later?

A couple of weeks later. So, me and my wife.

How did you find out about it?

So we used to do ministry together at a previous church, and a lot of things happened. We just, we looked to God's providence, and he had a hand in it. And I've loved Nathan since the first time that I met him, and always wanted to do ministry with him, and God just opened up those doors to make it happen.

Yeah. Nice.

So we've been so grateful for that too, because you can imagine planting a church on your own. Our supporting church is 1 ,000 miles away. It's my home church from Ormond Beach, Florida, a riverbank community church.

And they have nine elders, and they affirm us, and they're actually gonna be coming up and establishing Jeremiah as one of our elders soon.

Nice.

So, 1 ,000 miles away from your home church and your support, it's nice to have somebody like this guy in the trenches with you.

I bet. So we had a church just 15 miles, maybe, from where we came that pushed us out to go to this community. And so we're autonomous from them, but they gave us the blessing. They encouraged us to go and plant the church here in this community.

And so that's what we did. We did it, we're probably almost four years old, maybe. And yeah, went through the pandemic. I was telling my wife, didn't have any classes in seminary on how to pastor through a global pandemic.

So, but we worked our way through it.

So it was fun, interesting. So here's what I wanna talk to you guys about. So I've been talking to Jeremiah quite a bit for probably how long, Jeremiah, before your debate with Brock?

Yeah, so the better part of three weeks, four weeks for sure.

I think I bug him all the time. I call him pretty much every day.

You guys talk every day, don't you?

Pretty much.

He calls me in the morning.

Yeah.

I get the phone call from him after you guys have been on the phone for an hour.

But we got a text thread going, Dr. Nate.

That's true, that's true. This is actually our first time talking in person, isn't it?

First time to meet, buddy.

We've been communicating for a while now, but it's good to meet you.

Yeah, I call Jeremiah because I'm like, man, I thought of something because I got a little something coming up down the road. I cannot wait for it. So here's what I wanna know real quick. I wanna know more about you, Nate.

But right now, from what I know about Jeremiah, he's done a lot of debates. Debate Mormons, Church of Christ, Roman Catholics. He was just on a podcast with somebody from Ireland. Was it Conor McGregor?

Because I would love to share with Conor McGregor.

I send Robert Boylan, Conor McGregor memes all the time, though.

I love Conor McGregor. Because my thing is, if you're gonna be a heathen, be one.

Just do it.

Don't act like you're gonna be a Christian and then be a heathen. Go all in, right? And so that's why I love and respect about Conor McGregor. So of these debates that you've done, which one was, I don't know, which one stands out the most to you?

From Mormons, Roman Catholics, Church of Christ.

Debates on Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, and Church of Christ Teaching

Honestly, they're all unique in their own way. So I enjoyed all of them for different reasons. And I think one of the most challenging was the Roman Catholic trying to study and understand their doctrine of who Mary is as being sinless and perpetually a virgin and having to study the magisterium and how Rome's tripart structure differs with our understanding of sola scriptura.

Because it's a completely different worldview and they claim Christianity and they claim the scripture. And so really trying to understand their position well to correctly represent. So then you can show how it's faulty.

That was really challenging. And in the same respect, it was hard to learn the Greek Orthodox position because I was defending sola fide with the Greek Orthodox. And I just found that very difficult, but that time of study and preparation was very sanctifying.

And then the Mormon debate was three and a half hours long and we covered about six different topics. And it was just kind of comparing and contrasting different worldviews. So we got to talk about the gospel of grace as I see it and understand it from the scripture.

The Mormon was basically, they believe in universalism. There's some nuance there. All that was very good for different reasons. And with the church of Christ, this stands out more to me because our hometown is saturated with the church of Christ culture, doctrine.

And we were able to do a public debate with Marlon Wilson, his channel, The Gospel Truth in person live. That was his first live debate. So that was very special for those reasons. And we had a ton of people show up and actually be there in person.

We had over 200 people show up to the debate.

What would you say? What would you say is those 200 people that showed up percentage wise? I would guess more.

Oh, really?

I would guess more church of Christ.

Yeah, I think it was probably about half and half or possibly even 60, 40 church of Christ. There was a ton, cause I'm standing on stage and to my right, I'm getting all those glares. And I felt every one of them.

That had to have felt like more.

Yeah, maybe so.

And when we watched the debate, I watched it and the sound, I guess some things were off and you said that, but I wish we could have heard the audience's questions. What was one of the questions that was stood out to you that they asked anybody, whether it be for or against?

There were two questions that stood out to me in a way that I really, really appreciate it. Cause I really wanted to talk about James too in the debate and it really didn't happen. And when I was asking Brock about Romans 8, 8, about those who are in the flesh cannot please God, they have to wrestle with that.

Every religious form that believes in the scripture has to realize that those in the flesh cannot please God with their decisions, with their getting up and doing certain works of whatever. That's a tall order.

And we understand we are dependent on God regenerating us right by the spirit. And then now we are regenerating. And we desire to do things like repent and believe the gospel, to be baptized, to please God.

That's the only way how it works. So I felt like Brock really didn't understand the question very well, but there was at least one person in the audience that was Church of Christ that did understand it.

So when he got up to the microphone, he said, okay, you mentioned Romans 8, 8, those are in the flesh cannot please God. He says, then how do you understand Romans 10 verse 9 about confessing Jesus as Lord?

How do you answer that? Well, I was so happy to get two minutes to explain. Well, this is a huge predicament for all of us because all of us at some point in time were in the flesh. So how did we come out of that?

So in the audio, I think you can hear more of my answer to the question rather than him set up that question. And then there was another guy that asked about James 2. He says, you don't see sanctification in the text, but how you get around that, how he was framing the question was, well, you say it's a justification before men.

And I absolutely do believe that. And he said, so what about in Genesis 22 with Abraham? And so I got two minutes to just explain the context in Genesis 22 there with Abraham, and then go back to James 2 in the immediate context to show how this is a human to human interaction.

Nice. And so, but they didn't have any chance to rebuttal that, did they?

No, they only had up to 30 seconds to ask their question to me. So then I get two minutes to respond and then the interlocutor gets about a minute to give their input.

Right.

All right.

Nate, Dr. Nate, I'm sorry. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Seriously, Dr. Nate, have you done any debates?

Man, debate is not my thing. I don't think quick on my feet like this guy does. And like yourself, that's definitely not my gifting.

Nathan was eye candy up there with me though.

That's what, I was up there with him, man.

Was he with you? That was me.

Okay.

What were you doing? You know what? That was hilarious. So when he was, pretty much, that's exactly what I was doing. I wanted to look important, so I was writing things. So when he was meeting with Brock, Brock was involving Aaron, which was the other guy on the other side.

And they were determined to have a second guy up there that didn't engage.

Right.

What we kind of figured it was, was kind of a silent debate partner. Somebody to maybe kind of bounce ideas off of, and maybe catch certain things. And so Jeremiah, you told them, you were like, you guys can do that, and I'll just be up there by myself.

And they refused. They were like, that would look bad. And so they're like, could you get somebody up there? And so he asked me to be up there, and I was like, well, heck, I would love to be up there.

You know what I felt like? I felt like the guy in the corner of the boxing ring when the bell goes off, and I've got a towel and water.

Yeah.

And I put the little bench out there. That's all I did. Now, I will say, I had my log off set up on my iPad, so I was looking up Greek terms, and passing him some notes.

Absolutely.

I don't know how useful any of those were.

One thing you did that really stood out to me, because remember Brock was mad that I didn't engage with the proposition the way that he wanted to. And so he didn't use it.

Time out real quick, Jerry. So on, he didn't like the way you didn't engage the proposition. So explain that in more detail.

So do you remember, if you go look at the video and the little show notes, it has the really lengthy proposition. And it was something like, the New Testament teaches that the liberty from the past sins is at the point of an external act of obedience.

And Trey

That's what I call a word salad.

Word salad. And that's why we advertise it as a water baptism debate, because no one's gonna read that proposition and be interested in it. And he said, yeah, y 'all can advertise it however you want.

And I'm thinking, I'm gonna make this about water baptism, because that's the external act that he's talking about.

But

He didn't wanna say it though.

He didn't wanna say it as a church of Christ, which was interesting.

Well, he didn't wanna say it because I think they kinda know that they don't have any standing. He wanted to fixate on those two passages there, and he did not want you to leave. He didn't want you to bring context.

He didn't want you to do anything, but answer his question based upon two verses out of context. And that's why he didn't wanna go to anything practical. He kept saying that. He kept saying that I don't have to define the works.

We just know that it is an external act of obedience, that you're delivered from past sins is what he wanted to word it.

Yeah.

And I think that there's some people who will just come out and say, no, we're talking about water baptism.

Most do.

I think the dude I got coming up, he ain't scared to say it. And I appreciate that. I mean, I think, look, I appreciate it. Just come out and say it, because I promise you, I'll come out and say it.

You know?

I'll tell you what I believe. So go ahead, Jeremiah.

Yeah.

I was gonna say real quick. So after he was kind of mad in his rebuttal, he didn't use half his time and said he can use the rest of it. I just want him to begin with these two verses. Nathan passed a note.

He says, remind everybody that you were laying a foundation. And that was the first thing I said. My opening statement was laying at a foundation. And then I read verses 17 and 18 in Romans six. And I said, hey, let's keep going to verse 19 and see if this helps us with the context of sanctification.

Right. Right.

And because he's given an example, right? That's what he says. He says, I'm putting it in human terms, right? Because you can't quite understand this.

Exactly.

Which is, I think, a key phrase. So tell me what you like about debating, Jeremiah. Why do you think it's a good thing? Because, you know, wait. So let me preface that. Our culture today, right, is not like those who came before us or biblically.

They say, that's mean, you shouldn't do it. Don't, like, there's no point in it.

It's just, let's all get along, you know?

So.

We get that all the time here.

Yeah.

We're getting so much pushback from even our, you know, more Baptist leaning friends in the area. They kind of separate and distance themselves from us because of things like this debate. So yeah, we're with you.

We know how that feels.

Yep.

So what's your take on it, Jerry?

Well, you already alluded to it. It's biblical, first and foremost. When you go to Acts 15, and I'm so grateful for this, we have this apostolic witness of Paul and Barnabas. They, it was no small dissension, but they were debating with the Judaizers that were adding circumcision to the gospel.

They went to war over gospel issues. And I try to remind people, the apostle Paul would have spoke the truth in love, Ephesians 4, 15. And it has to be always grounded in love, but you have to go to war over truth.

And so I'm a highly competitive person, Trey.

I've never been accused of that.

And over time, David Miller actually was the wonderful man I've had pleasure of meeting and going to one of his conferences.

Love that guy.

It was a conference on preaching. And he said, if you're going to go to war over anything, let it be truth. And that resonated with me, Trey. I thought I will go to bat for the truth.

Yeah.

And that's what I tell my kids too. I mean, if you're going to fight for something, fight for that. And I mean, plant your feet and do not budge. But I want to read this text to you because it's kind of interesting in the debate you were having and I'm coming up about debating.

So I'm just going to read it to you. Acts 15, I'm gonna start with verse six. It says, the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, brothers, you know that in the early days, God made a choice among you, that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

That's it.

There's a period and it goes next. It says, and God who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

And that just seems very clear. And that's something that was his argument. Like Peter's like, look, we're having this debate here. They're supposed to hear the word, believe it, and their hearts will be cleansed by faith.

That's Peter. That's his final closing hammer down. And some people just say, no, that doesn't mean that.

This is how the conversation goes. And you and I have talked about this a lot over the past number of weeks. And just with my experience with church Christ, what is a key component in all this is Romans four, right?

And what Brock and Aaron would continue to say, even in their little podcast afterwards, they would say like, this is talking about works of law. And the whole context with Romans four verse two is not with Abraham.

He precedes the Mosaic law when it says that if Abraham was justified by works, it would not be before God. What works would be in mind? It would not be works of Mosaic law. It would have been the things that he has done early in Genesis about being circumcised, willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, or leaving the land of Ur of the Chaldeans.

So the whole point is absolutely, we're not gonna be justified by works of law, right? Neither the people that lived under it, neither Christians that are afterwards, neither Abraham before, but it's so much deeper than that.

And I always wanna drive the focus also back to Ephesians chapter two, verses eight, nine, and 10. It doesn't say works of law. There it's just saying your human accomplishment, the works that you do.

And that's why I know you know this, but defining obedience and works, they are not the same thing. You can be obedient from the heart and that is faith. And like that passage you just read, that is so clear.

That's how we are cleansed. That's how we have a clear conscience. And that's how we are saved and have our sins forgiven when our faith is looking alone to the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Right, that's good stuff.

But you know, you say Romans four, I like it. Let's see, so I'm not gonna say anything, okay? Because I think people watch these things and try to get some ideas of what is he gonna say, right? And all I really got out there is a cultish video I did with cultish.

And man, I got a phone call today from somebody in Illinois. It's amazing, I get them all the time. And thank you God for that. That I got to do that and talk to these people. But that's all I got. And all I did on there was just tell people what they believe and why they believed it.

I didn't really go into depth of how I would talk about that. So there's really not a lot out there. So I do like Romans four.

But I

Now real quick, there was more going on with that cultish episode. It was actually supposed, y 'all were supposed to have some guests come on and say cultish with y 'all.

Yeah, for the second one. And we're still probably gonna do another follow up later on. But yeah, there's two pastors. Anyway, that reached out to me and they want me to come on their show. And I just, we invited them to come on the cultish and do that, who disagree with me.

They're from the church of Christ. And they both declined. Have an email. I'm sure they would say that that never happened. But that's why we keep everything on email. So we can go back and make sure somebody said what they said, because things get twisted a lot with these guys.

Or they'll take out a snippet of something and they'll put it on their Facebook page or their YouTube channel and they'll piecemeal things together to make their points.

And that's their basic hermeneutic with scripture, isn't it?

Well, yeah.

And that's what I tell people when they get upset when that happens, because it is wrong, right? It's lying. It's not honest. It's not Christian. You know, when you take things out of context and piecemeal things together, just to prove your point, it's not a Christian thing to do.

But I tell people, listen, like, I don't believe they take the Bible in context. So I don't assume they're gonna take a conversation in context or a video in context. They're gonna take what they want, cut out the rest and try to prove their point.

Because what they care more about is their point, not the truth, right? And so, but there's some very good scriptures in here. So I come at it like with this conversation I'm gonna have with this guy on May 10th, right?

Or debate. That's such a hard word for today. People have a hard time with it. I'm coming at it from a different angle because I, I know what he's gonna say, right? I was in it for 18 years, taught it.

I was probably more hard than him,.

You know?

So I know what he's gonna say. I know the arguments.

I know,.

You know, you bring up Abraham and the law and all this stuff.

It's just,.

Anyway,.

I'm coming at it from a different perspective. I want to say so much right now, but I'm not.

Sure.

Cause I want to say it.

I'm wanting to say a whole lot too. Like, who are you? And what are your motives?

Yes.

Like, who are you?

What are your motives?

It's crazy.

So.

Well, it's anyway. That's very similar to when he was building up to this. Brock and Aaron, they kept having conversations. They were hitting him with questions left and right until finally it got to the point to where we were both like, you know what?

You probably want to just kind of hold back now. Cause you can only go so far. And I think, honestly, I think that's what led into the change of the proposition and why he didn't want to go into baptism.

Because I think after talking to Jeremiah, I think he realized I don't want to go down that route.

Right.

So I'm stuck in this debate. So let's make, let's muddy the waters and then let's try and pinpoint him to something that I think might trap him. And that's the way it went because of the information that you were giving over to them.

And then on top of that, stopping that information. I then, I then think that made them a little nervous too.

How do you like it Jeremiah? When they say, look, let's just look at these two verses and nothing else in all the scripture. Just look at these two verses. What does it say?

So talking with you, my experience for about the past 10 years, I'm very familiar with that approach. And that's why I was so intentional about the debate being structured the way that it was. I'm all for there being just 10 minutes of somebody asking questions and it's kind of just, we'll see what happens.

But if you're suspicious that someone's not going to be charitable or going to overtalk you and hog the time, you want to be very structured in those minutes. And so I knew he could ask his set up yes or no question.

Do you believe this verse? And he's going to take 15 seconds to do that. And he can't do anything about it when I get two minutes to explain context, whether he likes it or not. So I use those rules to my advantage in every way possible.

And the thing is, he could have done the same thing. But if you know context, that it gives you more time to develop it. And if you don't know context, you're going to just say, well, the Bible says what it says.

And that's, I think people understood the difference when they saw me up there by the grace of God and then saw him, he's just reading it. I'm reading it in its context and trying to help explain its meaning.

That's what pastors, preachers and teachers do every Lord's day in the pulpit.

Right?

Yeah.

And yeah,.

There's, I'm not going to say much cause there's so much I want to say right now.

I know you do, is the thing.

J-Lo, I'm calming down.

Suppress it, keep.

I'm suppressing it. I don't know if I can hold it till May 10th. I'm so excited.

Y 'all should try to move the debate up a little bit. I'm sure Travis and Marlon can make that happen.

We'll see. Cause I mean, I'm like, gosh, on May 10th, I'm not, I don't know if I can wait that long.

We're getting texts from him, like weekly of how, how much he's suppressing it.

And he's about to explode.

I am.

I came to sleep at night. I'm just like, oh, I got to write this down.

You know?

And so, cause I'm just trying to get back in that mindset. And I'll tell you what I do. And I tell people all the time, you know, on one hand I'm like,.

Gosh,.

But on the other hand, I thank God that, that I was there. And I don't ever want to forget,.

You know,.

What it's like to read something, just not see it. Like for so long, it's right there. But then all of a sudden, when God opens your eyes, you're like, how did I miss this?

You know,.

It's just such a great thing.

And,.

And helping disciple people through that, who also go through that same experience.

I'm like,.

Look,.

Don't forget, don't ever forget that there, I was that dude once, you were that person once,.

You know?

And so God can still do miracles and open your eyes. Humble you before the cross of Jesus Christ. And it's an amazing, amazing thing. That's what I'm so thankful for.

But.

Regeneration, Blindness, and Discipling Former Church of Christ Members

Well, we're grateful for our relationship with you. We've been talking about it lately. Your background, brings that insight, that sometimes it's easy for us to forget. Like we were just as blind as you before salvation, just like everybody.

We're dead in our trespasses and sins. We don't understand, but there's something unique about your circumstance when it comes to the church of Christ, because of your background, that you can then sympathize, in a way that, that maybe, maybe the two of us can't.

So,.

You know, iron sharpening iron, we're able to gain some sympathy, and in some of those arenas because of your experience. So we're grateful for that.

Yeah.

Oh, good. So, I mean, y 'all have a passion for the church of Christ, cause there's so many around you. I have it cause I have like, I was there for 18 years and then,.

You know,.

My family, my wife's family, so many friends and stuff.

I mean,.

So that's where my passion comes from, obviously. So in Florida, where in Florida did you come from and how did you get to Jonesboro, Arkansas?

Yeah.

So,.

My dad was a pastor. He was a Southern Baptist preacher.

Here we go, J-Lo.

Little church rat. Raised perfect his whole life.

Yeah.

That,.

Yeah,.

That wasn't, that wasn't my story. I wasn't saved till I was 17, actually. But we grew up Southern Baptist preacher. My dad was a pastor at a small Southern Baptist church, just north of town here in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

And this is his old stomping grounds. He grew up just an hour north of here. And this is where my folks are from. We have so many roots in this area. I still have, my grandmother's still here and aunts and uncles.

Do y 'all have any hunting land?

Well, we did.

We did,.

But I had some family, family sold it. So unfortunately we do not, but if you ever want to come up here, we will make sure we have a place to go.

What were they thinking, selling hunting land?

Now, duck hunting, we do have access for, and this is the place. This is like duck hunting Mecca, right?

Yeah.

I grew up duck hunting my whole life and I just, five kids, I have time to take my five kids deer hunting and that's about it. I have no time for duck hunting.

But anyway.

It's time consuming for sure. Well, I,.

You know,.

So I grew up in this area and when I was about 11, my dad ended up taking a position at a church down in Ormond Beach, Florida, which is kind of like a, a small town right next to Daytona Beach.

And,.

And so we were there from then on. And he, he pastored there at River Bend Community Church and he pastored for 25 years. And, and we held a lot of the founders conferences there. So I got to grow up listening to guys like Tom Askle and James White.