Patriarchy and Feminism

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture, for the honor of Christ, and the edification of the saints.

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Thank you for joining us at Have You Not Read. With me today are Michael Durham, David Kassin, and I'm Chris Giesler.

Today we have a discussion about an interaction with one of our podcasters and his travels abroad or maybe domestically, and I think at this point

I'll kick it over to you to kind of fill in the interaction there and then the situation. Well, in this instance,

I found myself in Albuquerque. It was a Sunday morning and I was supposed to leave very early, like five, six in the morning, and we had a change in the schedule, big huge change in the schedule, so then

I wasn't going to be leaving until like two, so I had all morning, and unfortunately the church that I used to go to years ago was just really far away.

I would have had to get like a $30, $40 Uber, so I looked close to where the hotel was and I found a church that I thought

I could worship at that morning. I looked through the website just a little bit, but it didn't have a really good statement of faith, but it was the service was going to start in about 45 minutes, and it was a five -minute walk.

Okay, and there was another church on the other side, and I was like, well,

I looked at that one as well, but they were very clearly on their statement of faith, this dispensational premillennial with this, this, this, and they were very, very clear with what they believed, and I looked over there and everybody was wearing suits.

I was like, I'm not really dressed for this. I may have to go to a little bit more casual,

I don't know, maybe a church that's in the doorfront, or maybe a hipster church. I've been,

I've been in those where, you know, you can come in, it's okay to wear a t -shirt, but they were very, they were very welcoming.

It was called City Church, and everybody who welcomed me in, you know, they're very, very smiley.

They directed me towards the visitor desk, and they had, they had free coffee, and I was like, okay, there's a plus. Oh, and they said, by the way, you can take this coffee into the sanctuary, it's totally fine.

I'm like, okay, this, this is gonna be great. Well, the pastor was preaching through Galatians chapter 5.

He started up with with 5, and he said, we're gonna get into a couple of uncomfortable topics today.

You said it, Galatians. I'm sorry, Ephesians. Thank you, sir. Yes, Ephesians.

Thank him. Somebody's paying attention. It's Ephesians chapter 5, and he said, we are going to get into some difficult topics, and the

Bible just says what it says, and we're gonna go from there. And I'm like, rock on.

This guy's gonna be great. And as he preached through it, I mean, and this is where, it's kind of where he starts.

Therefore, do not be foolish, but be, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the

Spirit. He says, that's kind of the beginning of this passage. Be filled with the Spirit. And this is what it looks like, to be filled with the

Spirit. And he goes through, just as I was saying, hymns, psalms, spiritual songs, going through to verse 21, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, and goes through, wives submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives, and kind of starts with that.

He said, okay, would it surprise anybody to know that the word submit is actually not in the

Greek in verse 22? And I looked, I opened up my app, and that's technically true.

I was like, okay, this is gonna be, this is gonna be interesting, because he's going into some

Greek. And he used that as a launching pad to have a very, what's the right word, egalitarian style of church polity.

And as he was talking through this, he changed, submission didn't really mean submission.

And then he said, you know, it's actually not a command. Now husbands are to love their wives. And he went through that section really well.

And he went through the above section really well. When he got to this wives section, it is, it was tortured.

So, quite literally, the Greek says, you know, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, to your own husbands, as to the

Lord. That's what it says. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body is the middle of the

Savior. So, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should in everything to their husbands.

That's how the Greek kind of reads, because it's not, but it's pretty clear in the construction, that's normal way of speaking in Greek.

All right, as Christ, as the church submits to Christ, wives to their husbands.

That's how it reads. Is there any other way to read it? It says, well, he made a huge deal.

It doesn't actually say submit. And the way he was presenting it, it was so awful.

You could tell he was trying so hard not to make the women in his congregation mad.

And I heard so many, and I started to pick up on his wife, the co -pastor.

Now, I didn't know this when I walked in. I'm looking up their website as he's preaching, and I'm like, oh, what did

I just walk into? Free coffee. Free coffee. And I could bring it into the sanctuary. So, we may want to talk to our staff about that.

And so, the fact that he was going through this passage and that he was actually pretty good on some of the stuff above, and he actually was pretty good on some of the stuff below, shows me he's just not ignorant.

He changed the meaning of this passage, changed the words. He didn't talk about the church submitting to Christ as a picture of marriage.

He focused instead on the servant leadership of the husband and how they are to love sacrificially their wives, and goes through that passage really well.

I'm like, okay, you know what you're doing with the passage. You just chose not to read it the way it's written.

And it's like, you know what? Maybe the word isn't in there. Maybe it's just some, but is there any other place that it does say that?

Well, you could turn to Colossians. You could turn to 1 Peter, and it uses that. And that word submit is be subject to, as in be subject to the earthly powers, be subject to your local government.

It goes through over and over. And it was it was interesting to sit and listen to someone take the word of God, who knows what it says, and then changes it to something that it doesn't say.

So it is a, do we, do I answer this? Do I address this?

Do I talk to this pastor? I elected to not talk to him and to just thank him for their hospitality.

And I walked out. And went back to the hotel, changed him and went out to the airport.

And for about two days, I thought, do I respond? He is not going to listen to anything that I'm saying, but do

I respond? And I decided with some counsel from good brothers that in this case,

I was going to answer him. I was going to go through and says, look, this is a letter.

I wrote it to the pastor. I sent it to the church office and I sent it as an attachment. It wasn't an angry email.

It was, you know, I thanked him for their hospitality and said, these are the people that were really helpful to me.

Thank you for putting them on staff, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then here's a letter that is for the pastor's eyes only.

And I did not refer to his wife as another pastor. I just mentioned that there are some very nice people there and that you and your wife probably have something to do with that.

You know, that was, you know, just tried to give him a compliment before I unloaded both barrels on the, on the, on the attachment.

And, and it was about, it really was about about four pages, but I just went through the passage itself and what

I thought it meant and said, look, I really think that you were just trying to keep the women from getting mad.

And, and I mentioned that the women were very vocal and I didn't hear a sound from the men.

Mm -hmm. The women were in leadership in that church, in the congregation. And his wife was, was quite a dominant force.

The men were not leading in that church and it was a matriarchal society.

It was, it was, it was amazing to watch. And some of the greeters were actually quite aggressive with me and they were all women.

Yeah. So. You sit there. Yeah. Well, you know, it was just, it was, it was just, you know, they were just.

Very effusive with their, and, and very, very, you know, I wouldn't say affectionate, but you were just very in your face without it.

I'm like, thank you. You know, I appreciate that, but I'm going to take a step back here.

It was, it was interesting. So this guy was a pastor and he knew better.

He absolutely knew better and he deserved a written, written, written response, but not every situation demands that.

So Proverbs 26, verse four says, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. There are times to give a response to someone.

I am pretty sure that the church office, if they opened it up, they put that right in the, in this, in the, in the circular file there in the corner of the room, or maybe they sent it on to him, but he opened it up.

He goes, Oh, this is one of these patriarchal guys. And he just, you know, hit, hit delete. I've never received a response and I don't, and I'm, and I probably never will, but I would,

I've prayed that he at least opened up, read it and says, okay, here's another one.

But when this question comes back up, maybe, just maybe it will jog his memory and encourage him to go back through the passage and preach it honestly, preach it with integrity, just like he said he was going to do.

This is uncomfortable, but it says what it says, and that should be enough. So my question to you guys, and I, and, and you guys gave me, gave me the advice that you probably can, can respond.

I decided to, is there a time to respond? Is there not time to respond? Is there a time that you could answer a fool?

Time that you should not answer the fool? When were the, when are those times? Yeah, no,

I think that's a really good question. And there's like, so there's the topic itself, like the patriarchy, and then there's the pastoral concern.

Well, he kind of missed it on that. He's got a congregation. There's people that aren't, they have an open

Bible in front of them. Hopefully people were reading it and like, wow, this, this is kind of not tracking, but that's a question that comes up a lot.

We've dealt with some of those topics as far as like women in ministry and things like that.

We have a question we plan on dealing with soon, and you can hear some of the, the pastoral concerns in the question.

And then there's the issue that you're bringing up as far as when do you, when do you address it?

And when, and when do you let it lie? So I thought we'd read the question because you can kind of hear some of that in, in what you were talking about.

Yeah. So the question is, the question, person asking this says, I'm recently become aware of Christian patriarchy and believe it is true.

As a result, I see how far I have drifted from God's ideal in my marriage and desire to lead my wife in this.

How do we guide our wives and family in this, especially given the feminist ground we've all grown up in?

And I think David, you were observing that the feminist ground did not make for good exegetical plowing.

When you come to this, you know, not just this passage, but it wasn't like, this is the only passage and it just doesn't fit the other ones.

And so you have to find some way to harmonize them. The other passages are pretty clear as well.

Yeah. I would say this passage is clear. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So then the question as far as the, the pastor did the sermon and then responding.

So when we find that we hear something, how do we know, is this something I need to answer or do

I let it lie? The way I chose to do it with this individual was to go back over his sermon and I, and I said, you said this, you said this, and I took careful notes.

So I wanted him to know that he was listened to, that I'm not just hopping off, but I had a substantive disagreement.

Like when he said he started off with, no, hey, this is, this is what it means to live in the spirit.

Submit one to another. Okay. It does say that. Submit to one another out of reference for Christ, which is a general statement as akin to outdo one another in showing honor.

Treat one another as more important than yourself. It says this, this is a general statement that you are to have, have, we submit to one another out of reference for Christ.

And on an individual basis, what does that look like? Well, if you're a wife, it looks like this. If you're a husband, it looks like this.

When you have children, it looks like this. If you, if you're a master, it looks like this. If you're a slave, it looks like this.

That is out of reference to Christ. And that's a pretty, pretty wide range. And it's like, okay, it's just, it flows.

I have no idea how he's going to treat slavery. Oh, heaven sakes. He's probably going to, you know, blow, blow a gasket.

But he was so clear with his careful, and it was simple as to the point of this is what husbands do.

Boom. Yeah, clear. He had no trouble rebuking husbands or calling them to the, to, to a very noble endeavor as, as Christ loves the church and sacrificially does so.

Couldn't do that with the women in his congregation. Which leaves them vulnerable and without instruction that the

Bible gives. He was, quite frankly, he was cowardly. Yeah.

Doug Wilson has a saying about, there's a problem when you get to the stage of your exposition, when you're on the ground, flat on your back and your, and your heels are kicking up on the ground.

You know, this is the throwing of fit stage of your exposition because you don't like what the text says.

It's like, I totally resent where this is going and that I have to preach this because what is it going to do to me?

The perception of me, what's going to happen? This is going to blow up.

Yeah. And so if you're doing that though, and you're trying to find a way to make it fit, like, you know how it is when you're, well,

I know how it is mowing roots and gravel. When I was, when

I was, you know, 15, 16, 17, you know, I was mowing our lawn at the house and it was just a bunch of roots and sticks with some grass here and there.

And there's just certain ways you have to go over the roots with that mower. You just, you don't treat it the same way as you do the rest of it.

And when I went up to the, they'd throw that poor little mower in the back of the minivan and haul it up to the church and to go around and mow the gravel and the roots and the grass that was in between.

There's just certain places you just didn't know the same because you're going to put, you know, gravel into your shins.

And sometimes the Bible gets treated that way. Certain passages get treated that way.

In preaching, I'm not going to go over this the way I do the other parts because of what's going to happen, the blowback, the kicks

I'm going to get. And so you just treat it differently, but you have to be intellectually honest with yourself and say,

I'm doing this differently because, you know, and so, but to, but to come at it from that angle,

I would say, you know, what is your responsibility as a pastor? And you have a responsibility to inform your congregants of some things.

Yeah. When you go to that verse in verse 22, if you're reading from the critical text, from the critical manuscript, the word submit isn't there in Alexandrian texts, but in the

Byzantine texts and the majority text, it's there. So in the majority of all preservation of scripture, it's there.

That might be worth talking about. He did mention that. He did mention that. And as, and even if it isn't, obviously it's understood in the context, that's the active verb as any bit of language learning about the

Greek would tell you. And of course, in the other passages, as David has already said, that word is there in the other passages.

So to try to work around it in that way is egregious. And in this case, you can, you know,

David, you feel compelled to respond to this because this is not actually well -intentioned, right?

This is not something where somebody is trying to be well -meaning.

This is somebody who is actually not being well -meaning, you know, maybe he's not sinister, but he's being self -serving in this.

Yeah. He's definitely put himself in his position first versus doing what he knew the text said, which would be as Chris, as you had mentioned, most helpful for the women in that congregation.

It doesn't appear on, you know, from your discernment, from what you can see, it didn't appear that there's going to be anybody who's going to hold them accountable in that context.

In the providence of God, you were there to give him an opportunity to reflect and say, hmm, you know,

I need to be more, I need to be more faithful in my exposition. Hopefully that's the case, please convicted by that.

So in this sense, I think there is a good opportunity. Now the merits of when, when do we engage is kind of the question, like, obviously this was a definite, a definite egregious thing to treat the text this way, you know, but that's going to happen in a lot of contexts.

I remember, you know, back in the 2018, 2019 post -revoice, moving on into the full onset of COVID -19 lockdowns and all of the wokey exegesis that happened.

There's a lot of incidences like that in the churches where there was egregious handling of the text, and I'm going to give a clear, robust explanation of this part of the passage, but when

I come over here, it's going to be some tortured, weird kind of workaround. And yeah, we're never going to talk about Christian slave owners and how they treat their slaves properly.

You know, we're not going to ever talk about that. And so there's parts of the Bible that get mowed normal, parts that get mowed weird, and then parts that don't even ever get touched.

That's how you get more weeds. Yeah. Then, then you've got more of a mess to deal with. You do.

And so, you know, we've seen a lot of that, you know, when is it our responsibility to say something?

Well, again, I think we have a freedom to, I think we have a liberty to, of course, the manner in which we approach it is, you know, we need to be thoughtful about that as well.

I, you know, but I would be like David, I would be more compelled to write a letter or say something where I see a pastor in the course of, he's been charged by the same under shepherd that I, the same great shepherd that I serve.

Here's an under shepherd and he's not handling the text well, and it's detrimental, truly detrimental to the church and to the people there.

I feel more compelled to say something in that context than perhaps another one. You know, for example,

I've talked about this before, but, you know, last year and the year before we went out to abolition day at the state

Capitol and, you know, very strong biblical religious themes being dealt with.

And, you know, there's screaming charismatic women and stuff like that. And I don't feel compelled to do anything about that.

But then you have people who are saying things to, to the church folk that are there, including people who are under my watch care as an elder and there, and people from my church are being told that they need to repent for abortion being present in the state and the nation.

Basically, you're guilty. You need to repent and confess the sin of living in a state where abortion exists and happens.

Well, to me, that's pastoral abuse. I think it's an improper hermeneutics. I think that it's, you know, bad application.

And so I would say, I say something to my own congregants about that. I get the word out and say, by the way, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And no, you are not guilty for abortion. And please don't bear that burden. Thank you for going out there and opposing abortion.

That's probably what should have been said. You know, something like, thank you for coming up to oppose abortion, not you need to repent.

You know, so I try to handle that with my own congregants. I don't feel compelled to go.

I mean, I appreciate the folks who said stuff like that. Again, I don't think that they were being sinister.

I think they were being well -meaning. I think they really, really are entrenched in their understanding of why they would say that.

I think they have been thoughtful about it. I just disagree with them. And so I'm not going to go try to rebuke them or so on and so forth.

If I ever was in a conversation with them, I would counsel them and encourage them to kind of get off that talking point for all sorts of reasons, doctrinal and practical.

But I don't feel compelled to go rebuke them or send them a letter and say anything, especially, you know, I look, they put way more effort into this whole movement than I ever have.

I show up, I try to support it, but they put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and I appreciate it. There was another guy who got up there and well -meaning politician guy, he got up there, told an

Old Testament story and just completely allegorized it into the political fight we were in.

And we all had a good little chuckle about that. You know, just the, it wasn't the David and Goliath and five smooth stone thing, but it was, it was pretty close.

I mean, it was just straight up allegory. 5 smooth stones become 5 bills. Yeah, exactly. We all chuckled about that, but I don't feel compelled to go like, you know, dude, you know, again, why?

He was, it was well -intentioned. And in the end, what he was saying, the principles of what he was saying was in agreement with the

Bible. And so I'm like, okay, look, I'm not, I'm not going to go pick on him for that.

I'll pray for him. Just, I'm glad to hear his warm devotion to Christ and his best attempt to try to encourage the troops, so to speak.

Thankful for those kinds of things. Do you think? I don't see, in the context of a pastor in a church where there should be more accountability, that seems to be a bit more serious than...

Like a lay person. Yeah. And, but if there was, but if there was perhaps something that happened within the movement, abolitionist movement, and they brought someone in, let's say they put a

Catholic priest up there in front of everybody. And he was starting, and, you know, he started calling on Mary and inviting everyone else to do so.

And then we're going to have words with the movement leaders and say, this is why we ain't coming back. Because I don't think you should be doing that.

I don't think they would either, but anyway. Do you think the Proverbs that David read, and it's, what is that?

Proverbs 26? Yeah. 26 verses four and five. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.

The very next verse, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. Rather than this being the metric for discerning when, is this more of the how?

Yeah, definitely how. Because when I think of like my college days, I'm taking a biology class and it's evolution, evolution, evolution.

And I'm a Christian. But if I try to get into the fight and say, well, scientifically speaking, and I try to argue for the biblical faith using evolution and convince them that evolution is wrong using science, that's answering him according to his folly.

I'm joining him in it. And he's smarter than me, so he's going to think I'm hot stuff,

I'm wiser. But if I stand, you're foolish. You're not even right out of the gate, because God says this in his word.

I'm not answering him in the same way. I'm not using his metrics to answer his folly.

I'm using, I'm not joining him in that same fight. And so it seems like this is the method in how to disagree.

But then the question is when, like when to step into that? Yeah. So, well, part of that is, so there's a connection point that if the, if, for your example, if somebody is pushing the

Neo -Darwinian hypothesis and they're doing so with just basic arrogant assumptions.

Okay. Well, if I were to answer back to him, I'm not even using science, whatever, but if I were to answer back with arrogant assumption, am

I not engaging in the same folly? Even if I were to use different authority sources, like I'm claiming a different authority point by what standard,

I'm using a different standard than he is. But if I'm using the same haughty attitude, then I'm still doing it according to that folly.

And I'm just being just like him. So if I were to use unbiblical assumptions, also that would be answering him according to his folly being like him.

So there's more than one way to be like the fool in answering. So sloppy exegesis for the point of self -preservation, if I were to be offended by what he said, because it opposes my basic positions, and that makes me feel insecure.

So I'd come back with my own, like, you know, slop. Yeah. You know,

I'm also trying to preserve Phil, because I'm trying to, you know, like, you know, you disagree with my position that threatens me.

I want to try to preserve, you know, how I feel confident about what I believe in. So I'm going to come at you with a bunch of slop, too.

Well, I'm answering the fool according to his folly. Even if objectively from God's point of view, more or less,

I may be in the right side of things, maybe possibly, but I could still be answering the fool according to his folly being like him, because of the way

I'm approaching it, and the motivations are all wrong. So this has a connection to when, right?

Because when do I do this? Definitely not if my motives are all bad, and if I'm not ready to answer, then

I'm being told right then, it's not the time, right? So we are to be prepared, but what if we're not prepared?

If I'm not prepared, I need to take some time to prepare. There's preparation of the heart, preparation of the mind, preparation in getting counsel, preparation in crafting an approach.

You know, David, you didn't stand up in the middle of service, right, and just kind of confront him to his face, or right after the service go, you know, just go kind of...

Go off on him. Right. So there was a timing, but part of the reason why you chose the means of your response and the timing of your response were connected to doing it well.

I wanted to make sure my response was substantive, that it was careful, because I admit for about the first 24 hours,

I was hot. I was angry, not at him just being a liberal.

That's not it. It's that I knew that he knew better and that he was being purposely evasive for his own benefit.

He didn't want to lose his position. He didn't want to make his wife mad, and he was making a very good living doing what he was doing.

Now, he might be a true believer in this view, but the cognitive dissonance that he had to engage in, he could do this well, didn't do that well.

It was maddening, and I knew I needed a little bit of time, and you guys gave me the perspective that I thought that I needed to give a good response, but I'll tell you right now,

I desired to talk to him alone right after that, and I knew that would have been a bad idea.

But yeah, that's what my flesh wanted, and I'm really glad I had to catch a van, so I ran out of there right as it ended, and I booked it back to the hotel and took a shower.

Do you think that ties in? You were talking about the timing and preparing, and then your example of giving some time to cool down.

Jesus, when he's talking about, you see someone has a speck in their eye, and you've got a log, and how are you going to see to take the speck out of your own, take the log out of your own so you can see better to take the speck out of there?

Because when we're dealing with sin or failings or any type of thing, we're all in that condition, and we're all prone to that, and we can always make a bad situation worse by adding to it.

And so having the discernment to say, I'm in a state where I can do this now, or the mode that you do it in writing in person or whatever, it's going to vary, but it seems like that's an issue that Jesus is telling people.

Don't just go around poking people in the eye. Examine yourself. Yeah. And I will say that when you hear someone misusing the scripture in that way, and it could be on a variety of different topics, but when you see people misusing the scripture that way, and I mean, it gets me riled up.

Is that less of a speck in their eye, and the log is in their eye when they're messing with the text that way?

Well, you should always recognize that when you hear somebody manipulating scripture, and they have a platform where they are manipulating the scripture, they're to be accountable in how they are handling the word of God and how many people they're influencing.

You see pastoral malpractice going on intentionally, because again, this is for the aggrandizement or the preservation of the pastor.

It makes me angry, and that's not necessarily bad. As it's been said, anger in and of itself is not a sin.

Wine isn't a sin, and strong words aren't a sin. Easy to sin with these things.

Okay. I think it's harder to use strong words than anything else, and to not misapply them.

I think that's the hardest thing James tells us. It's hard to tame the tongue. It's hard to handle your wine, hard to handle your anger.

These are not bad things. They're just challenging, difficult, so we want to handle them well.

But when I hear people doing nefarious things with the scripture, and they're in a position of spiritual authority, and they need to be held accountable,

I mean, I get pretty angry. That usually launches me into study and writing and working these things out, wrestling them out, because inevitably, if it's in the water, if this is getting passed around,

I'm going to end up engaging with folks and trying to help shepherd folks and counsel folks who are going to be affected by this stuff.

For example, the Revoice movement from 2018, 2019, and so on, all the

Wilkie McWilk base stuff that came down the pipe, all of it, as I see it coming, it's making me angry because I can see what they're doing, and I know it's going to be problematic for the folks in my church, and lo and behold, it ends up being that way, and I've got to be ready for that.

But you see people with these opportunities, and they're totally mishandling it on purpose, they're being nefarious in that.

That's what really gets on me. And so then it's like, how do you handle that?

I feel like at some point, something needs to be said, something needs to be done, and sometimes

I end up encouraging those who God has gifted to do it well and giving them the ability to do it well.

Some people... And there's some really good people that are out there, they're so quick on their feet to be able to do that stuff.

Yeah. So, for instance, Conversations That Matter with Jonathan Harris, I don't agree with everything John Harris writes and says and does, but he does such a good job of bringing a proper biblical polemic against a lot of this nonsense, and he's done so for a very extended period of time, and he does so humbly.

And again, I don't agree with how he does everything or what all he says, but nonetheless,

I've sent him a few notes over the years to encourage him, so I want him to know, it's like, I appreciate what you're doing here, man.

And I'm glad to hear that. And he takes a different approach on some of the things to deal with it, but I feel the need to respond sometimes.

Yes, I do. But what is my responsibility? Well, I think in some cases,

I'm not necessarily... I'm not responsible, but I am free.

I am free to respond. So, for example, I think

I am free to respond if I hear somebody at Abolition Day saying some kind of stuff that I think is ultimately not good for the saints.

I'm free to respond to that. But if I am going to respond to that, then I should do so in the way that would be pleasing to the

Lord in a way that is appropriate to the context in which it was. I'm not their spiritual accountability.

You know, a lot of these men are pastors with fellow elders and have their own congregations and they're accountable to them.

I'm not in charge of these guys, but if I do... If I'm going to say something to them, I'm going to do so in the proper context.

You see, I'm free to do that. I don't think it would be wrong for me to do so, but I could do it in a wrong way.

Now, if I look at that and I recognize that I have the freedom to do that,

I also have the freedom to not. I have the freedom to not do that. But there's other contexts wherein, for instance, as a pastor, when

I read through 1 and 2 Timothy, when I read through Titus, when I read in 1

Peter Acts 20, so on and so forth, I am not free to let false teaching, strange doctrine, etc.

run amok. I'm not free. That stuff starts popping up in the church and amongst the people, even if there is a sincerity behind it, even if they have a very warm narrative behind the stuff that's being pushed and so forth.

I am not free to let that slide. I am to, with all longsuffering, preach the word, rebuke those who contradict, hold fast to the word, and to shepherd.

But if there's false doctrine, strange doctrine, doctrines of demons, all sorts of stuff coming through and popping up,

I have, I will swing at every pitch. I must swing. So then it's almost like a triage.

So him preaching about instruction to women versus the person of Jesus, the work of Jesus.

When you say strange doctrine, there are things that rise to a certain level, like heresy.

And in this case, it seemed like a manipulation or twisting of scripture and obscuring of it.

But it touches on practice and instruction. And obviously, husbands with their wives, and then there's the application of Christ with the church.

So then you could get into some weird cults that do weird stuff with that and have weird doctrine.

But this seems to be more of a kind of just how things flesh out in practice. All right.

So he's not denying the Trinity or the doctrine of the incarnation. He's not directly saying that the

Bible has error. But there's something fundamental about the clarity of scripture and the sufficiency of scripture that's being denied.

There's something there that's being, there's a failure on that level that's underscoring this, both on clarity and sufficiency on that doctrine.

I wouldn't call this bullseye grade A heresy, but this is troubling. And when it comes to trying to circumvent and try to do these, this does not mean that women have to subject themselves to their husbands and respect them as the authority of the house.

This is not what this is meaning. That's strange doctrine.

In other words, strange teaching. Doctrine is just teaching in original word. And I think of it like this, what is strange doctrine?

It's doctrine that claims to be on familiar terms with scripture, but when it meets scripture, scripture says, who are you?

Like, you're a stranger to me. I don't think we've ever met.

To me, that's what strange doctrine is. Doctrine that's a stranger to scripture, even though they claim to know the

Bible. Yeah, because you could, someone could elevate his argument. Okay, if wives don't have to submit to their husbands, then the church doesn't have to submit to Christ.

Now, he's not, he didn't say that. But that's the implication because that's what the passage is teaching.

And you'll have people that say, well, the church, we don't have to submit. And that's where you get, I guess, your women pastors, and we don't have to submit to what the text says.

It comes out in practice. Oh, do you want wives to worship their husbands? That's idolatry. They can make it say whatever they want, given enough words.

It was just funny. He had to use a whole lot of words to obscure the text. And the portions that were simple were very, very clear, and just kind of, it was what it says.

It was interesting. Now, we read a question about patriarchy that somebody sent in.

Now, we promise we will get to that question in another episode, because I would love to have

Dylan and Andrew in here. So, this was just an occasion to give a response.

And I think that the conclusion that we've come to is that you don't have to give a response to everything.

Not everything is your responsibility. You had mentioned people like that, who feel like every single thing that comes up has to be attacked and addressed.

If you hear of it, then you've got to - Heresy slayers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we talked about you have the freedom to, and you have the freedom not to.

Now, there are certain things that rise to the occasion, but then you're using your discernment on that.

So, you're dealing with, you know, not every topic deserves a response, okay. But some do. Is the person well -intentioned or whether they're sinister?

Is it something that you would do publicly? Would you do it one -on -one? In some cases, you might do it verbally.

And in my case, I wrote a letter. So, what method are you going to be using?

And just, is it in your wheelhouse? I mean, is this something that you're supposed to be addressing?

I mean, if someone is a guest in your home, and they're staying with you for a couple of days, and they're teaching your children something really unbiblical, just because they're an error.

I mean, they could be well -intentioned, but it's like, that's really an error. As a husband and father, you have a responsibility to address that now.

I mean, take, I don't know, take a couple of minutes, but you know, you don't have to sit there and flagellate them in front of the whole family, but you take them aside, you know, one -on -one and says, this is how things are done in this house, and this is what the scriptures say, and let's talk about this.

And if they're like, oh, I'm so sorry, and they're an error, and they repent, great, we're all good. If they refuse to, then it might be time to remove them from your house.

That would be an example of a time, a method, you know, it was something that egregious that it needed to be responded to, and it was in your house.

It was part of your responsibility. Okay, great. And I'm sure that we can come up with a whole bunch of scenarios where it's just not, it's not, it's not only not your responsibility, it's not really worth your time to respond to this, this, this, because you will spend the rest of your life on the internet arguing with strangers, and we know how effective that can be.

Yeah, there is a, there's a, so in trying to answer this question, when should

I respond? And of course, it's connected to how do I respond when I hear somebody doing something improper with the text and so on?

There is, there is a lot of, obviously, wisdom and truth to the proverb that the glory of young men, young men is their strength.

And so I have found in my own personal experience, and also in doing discipleship and so on, that it is a, it is a signal of, of youthful verve, energy, excitement about the word to get into doctrinal sparring, exegetical strife, to try to contend for the faith, to contend for what is good.

And in this most, in the most positive expression of that, there's going to be some sparks flying that end up with iron sharpening iron and good things come out of that.

However, there is a form of that wherein I only feel alive if I'm fighting someone.

I only feel like I'm faithful to Jesus if I am fighting some doctrinal error somewhere.

And because I can draw a logical chain between any doctrinal error and the

Trinity, right, then everything is a grade A heresy that has to be stopped and fought.

And if you're not willing to do that, you don't love Jesus. Right? And so there is, there is a, there is a sense in which that makes sense to some people.

They can see all the connections and they are exceptionally burdened to be fighting all the time.

And if they're not fighting, they don't feel like they're spiritually alive. I would say that that, that for some of those,

Paul named names about some people who did that. Right. And they're like, you know, these, these guys, you know.

07. Mark and avoid. 07. Mark and avoid. Done. Not going to be part of the church. The difference between Demetrius and Diocletian that John recognized, one of them was good for the church.

One of them only wanted to put himself first and these things happen. And so we have to recognize that now some people are just trying to grow.

Right. Some are just trying to grow and they, they find that they grow best by contending for what they believe and wrestling through it.

And as a pastor, or if you're discipling, if you're trying to work with someone and trying to be a good brother in Christ to somebody, it helps to try to think about that, discern that, you know, are they just being contentious?

Are they just wrestling with words? Are they just trying to be right about everything?

Are they trying to justify themselves or are they actually, is this just how they, this is how they grow?

They got to get a little spark going, you know, in order to kind of sharpen some things. So I think that that will, so that helps us in two ways.

One, why am I wanting to answer? Am I trying to justify myself or am

I trying to, I really like, I am very burned about what this, what, what happened here in this person.

I can't let this lie. I just, I need to tell them like, look, that was wrong.

You really need to not do that. And like you were saying, Dave is like, I know, you know, you were, you were, you were mowing differently.

You were plowing differently. And you did that because you were afraid. And that, that just can't, we can't let that lie.

That was pastoral malpractice. And I'm just, I'm recognizing that and calling you on it because after all,

I think you are a brother in Christ and I have the freedom to do that. And I want to, and in this case, that can be very loving, even if it's a little unsettling to go through because you want to make sure you do it right.

It was actually Andrew that asked me and says, do you love this guy? Yeah. And it's like, you know, that, that was, that was a really helpful question to ask.

Yeah, exactly. Cause that helped with the whole motivation and approach, you know, but if I'm, if I'm wanting to answer because this guy has a bigger platform than I am and a whole lot of people were amending him about something

I disagree with, and I want to prove him wrong because I feel insecure. You know, that's, that's not spiritual maturity.

So I think that there's a need to kind of work through some of that. Why am I, why am

I responding? Then I'll know when and, and how, and all of that, of course, flows together as a, as a ring of integrity about it, that what

I think and say and do all agree. Yeah. Yep. Very good.

Well, let's move on to our recommendations, Michael. My recommendation is going to be kind of a,

I've recommended this before, but it's probably been a little bit. I want to recommend the Free Grace Broadcaster, which is a quarterly publication from the

Mount Zion Bible Institute down in Pensacola, Florida. Chapel Library is another name they go by, but they have a lot of free publications.

Basically they stitch together excerpts from the writings of the

Puritans and other people like Spurgeon on various themes, and they'll stitch together about anywhere from 10 to 12 of those, and they put them into the

Free Grace Broadcaster, and they mail it out quarterly. And what they'll do is with these older writings, they'll even, they'll let you know who the author was and kind of a little bit of background.

So you get to be familiar with some of these older authors. And then any old fashioned words, they'll put a footnote and a little definition at the bottom, just kind of guide you through.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They'll let you know what that means. And then you can sign up for it, and they'll just send it to you for free.

They don't ask for donations. You're free to give it if you want, but they never ask for any donations. And they even offer, here's our free giveaway this quarter.

And there'll be maybe a large booklet, small booklet, a couple of tracks, just good, wholesome stuff to read from previous generations of Christians.

And it's free. So there you go. Free Grace.

Yeah. I love it. Yeah. I am trying to remember if I recommended this or not.

I've recommended a book by Joe Rigney before, The Set of Empathy, but this one is Leadership and Emotional Sabotage by Joe Rigney.

Resisting anxiety that wrecks our families, destroys our churches, and ruins our nations.

It's really talking about institutional leadership, which it would be anything from your company or in government or your church, and the weaponized empathy and emotionalism that makes men power.

And I thought that was very fitting based upon the topic that we were discussing.

Now, this is when do you answer someone, when do you not? I hope we've addressed that.

But this particular book, I should get a copy of it and I should send it.

I should send it to him. Or the next time I'm in Albuquerque, maybe I can just swing past the city church and just says, thanks for having me as a visitor.

Enjoy this book. Hugs and kisses, Dave. So I enjoyed it, but it has a lot of those themes of not letting the emotionalism of the people in your charge or people that are attacking you from the outside destroy what you know to be right.

This guy pulls in a lot from history, a lot from literature, and he calls us to courage.

Courage in the home, courage in the church, and courage in the world. And that is what leadership takes.

So Joe Rigney, leadership and emotional sabotage. Yeah. If you did do that, then he couldn't just write you off as just another hate mail from someone.

Like, oh, that guy was actually not being mean. Who knows, man.

He may take this and he may take the book and throw it in the trash, and he might read it and says, oh, maybe

I need to change. Then he'll just get yelled at by his wife and a coward. And then you can listen to the podcast on the question of patriarchy.

I gave a monograph of Joe Booth on Christ's kingdom and politics to our mayor.

Yeah. For a Christmas present. No kidding. Cool. Yeah. Very cool.

I don't know if he read it or not. My recommendation is an older book, and one of my friends has been bugging me about reading it.

So I'm going through it. I've not gone through all of it, but it's been pretty good. The chapters are really short.

It may be one page, a chapter, and there's like 142. But it's called

Dialogue with Trifo. It's Justin Marder. Oh, no way. Really? Yeah. Cool. I've never read it.

It is neat. And so, I think it's chapter five. It's a

Jewish person that he's talking with, and the Jew is like, hey, we were told you're the guy to talk to about philosophy, so teach us something.

They follow him for several days, and he's teaching them stuff. So then he dives into how he learned about philosophy.

And in chapter five, he talks about his conversion, Justin Marder. And he's just talking to this.

He's walking down the road, and some Christian runs into him, and he's not a Christian yet. He's like, oh,

I've talked about this philosophy and that. And the Christian's just asking him questions. It seems very

Socratic. He's asking Justin these questions. It's like chapter five is against reincarnation.

It could just be titled that, because they just deal. In each chapter, he's arguing philosophy, and he's talking about Christ.

And he also puts some really interesting connections, too, because he's familiar with the

Jewish arguments. So one of them was, in the Old Testament, there was always a prophet in the world, a mediator between God and man to speak for God.

The Christian contingent is Jesus was the last prophet. If Jesus was not the

Messiah and the last prophet, then can you point me to who the prophet is now on earth? And they're like, well, there aren't any.

Right, because it stopped. It stopped with Jesus. There is no prophet in the world anymore. There used to be, but now there's a change.

So that's a pretty good argument. He's talking to this Jewish person. So it's interesting to hear how he addresses the

Jewish people and things like that. So it's called Dialogue with Trifo by Justin Marder.

Let's move on to what we're thankful for. I am thankful for my fellow elders here at Sunnyside, and thankful to the

Lord's providence in bringing our church along in leadership.

I was thinking about when I first visited here in view of a call back in May 31st, 2014, there were four elders here.

And two of those elders are now basically retired because of age and health and family concerns and so on.

So they're no longer serving as elders here. So two of the four, right?

To me, I hadn't thought about that before. But to see the

Lord's providence that we have six elders now and a seventh one coming along, and I'm just thankful to the

Lord for the way that he builds his church and that he's faithful. And he just grows his church in the way that he sees best.

And I could never have anticipated that this is the arrangement of things, but he is good.

So we continue to look to him to provide and stare real hard at, okay, what do we do now?

He tells us what to do. There's prayer, and then there's discipleship and training, and then there's looking at the qualifications, and there we are.

And is there the desire? And is there the opportunity? And in his timing and in his way, the

Lord provides. And so I'm extremely blessed to not only be a member of a church and to be helping to pastor a church that is full of families where men are leading their families, but that also out of that, we're at the prospect of having 12 deacons and seven elders.

We're well on our way to that. And that's just the Lord's providence. That's evidence of his grace.

And the fact that we have the health and the unity of the church that we do is a testament to how good of a shepherd we have in our

Savior. We just kind of lean into what he says to do. Amen to that. David?

That you stole mine. That's actually what I wrote down, that I wanted to be thankful for the leadership in our church, our elders, you, our elders, and our new deacons that we have just appointed.

These are—the Lord has provided wonderfully for us, especially with our new deacons, just men that would have continued to serve and just do things for their brothers and sisters in the congregation even without that.

They just would have kept doing it because that's how God made them. And I'm just incredibly grateful for them.

And based upon the things, the very hard things we were discussing tonight, cowardice in the pulpit, how to respond to people, and then that Joe Rigney book,

Leadership and Emotional Sabotage, and how real leadership takes courage against weaponized empathy and weaponized emotionalism, our church elders have had to do that.

Actually, I do execute church discipline, and they have stood strong against that tide.

So, I am thankful for our elders who have served, the new ones that have been appointed, and our deacons as well.

Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. I'd actually like to echo that as well.

You know, we're two or more gathered and that type of thing. But mine is more, I'm thankful for the example of the elders that we have and the ones being appointed and the way that they lead their families.

I've got, you know, my family and love those kiddos, love my wife.

You run into challenging things and struggles that you're working through, you know, the way that you were raised and examining all that stuff.

But just having men that are going through it, have their own families, are leading their families well, as an example.

You know, as Paul says, if you can lead your household well, and just have men that do that, it's very nice to have elders that are leading that way that impact the other men to lead their families as well.

And just to be surrounded by men who are doing that, it's a great blessing to have those resources.

Men that love the Word of God, that love God, want to see the best for their families. Even if it's different in practice, you know, different homes have different flavors, but they want to love each other in that way.

And it's just been a real blessing. And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Having Not Read.