December 5, 2016 Show with Lyndon Unger on “Addressing the Dressing: Modesty in the Bible” AND “The New Apostolic Reformation Examined”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all happy Monday on this fifth day of December 2016 and I am delighted to have a guest on the program for the very first time that a number of my listeners were urging me to interview and I began to scratch my head wondering if I should interview as a thoroughgoing five -point

Calvinist, whether I should interview a Mennonite, but I was very interested, pleasantly surprised to see how many

Reformed people, theologically Reformed Christians seem to be blessed and benefited by the writing of my guest,

Lyndon Unger, aka the Mennonite, that's M -E -N -N -O -K -N -I -G -H -T.

He is a Mennonite pastor and blogger at the cripplegate .com and Watch Your Life and Doctrine Closely, which is another one of his blogs which can be found at Mennonite .wordpress

.com and today we are discussing two different issues. We have our guest on,

Lyndon Unger, for the full two hours and the first hour we are addressing the dressing,

Modesty in the Bible, and the second hour we are going to discuss the New Apostolic Reformation, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Lyndon Unger.

Thanks so much Chris, it's a pleasure to be with you. It's a pleasure to have you on the program.

Well let's give some background to your being a

Mennonite because obviously just like many other branches of Christendom, you have varieties of those different branches, like not all theologically reformed

Christians are alike, not all who identify themselves as Calvinist or Arminian or Wesleyan, etc.,

are cookie cutters of one another. Tell us what is unique about your identity as a

Mennonite. Well, Mennonites are very different in Canada than they are in the

U .S. I'm in Western Canada, in the Vancouver area, and up here, the denominations that are big in the

U .S. are not big in Canada. So like Southern Baptists up here are very small, don't have a lot of influence at all, and same thing for some of the

Presbyterian circles, but in the area I'm in, it's heavily Mennonite Brethren, and the Mennonite Brethren would be a denomination of the

Mennonites that would be evangelical, and among the Mennonite Brethren in Western Canada, there's been a huge revival of Reformed theology, so all of the biggest

Mennonite churches in my area, and there are several churches that are, you know, several thousand people, they're

Reformed and Complementarian and have become actually theologically quite conservative and strong Bible -teaching churches.

Wow. And yeah, it's something that 25, 30 years ago, nobody would have expected.

So would that be the same with you personally? Are you also theologically Reformed and Calvinistic?

Oh, definitely. Oh yeah, I'm definitely in the five -pointer, just like yourself, and a big fan of James White, and he's been a distant help in sorting through some of those issues over the years.

And yeah, I kind of, when I was in Bible college, I was struggling through all those issues, and I came to...

By the way, whatever you're doing right now, keep doing it, because your voice sounds perfect, but sometimes it fades away for some reason.

Okay, I'm on my phone, and I may have, my signal might kind of... Okay, because right then, you were perfect.

But anyway, go ahead. Awesome. Yeah, so I went to a historically

Mennonite Bible college, and I just was really struggling through the Scriptures as I was there. I grew up in a church that wasn't really a strong Gospel -preaching church, so when

I got to Bible college, I realized I didn't really understand the Gospel. I could repeat it, but I didn't understand it.

And so sorting through all of that, that led me through a whole bunch of theological changes, and it led me to, yeah, become

Reformed in my faith, understanding kind of the role of God's sovereign grace in election, and predestination, and regeneration.

And yeah, working through a whole bunch of other issues, too. Now, what would have been the soteriology of Menno Simons, or Menno Simmons?

Menno Simons would have been... He would have been somewhat

Arminian, although Menno was not... I mean, Mennonites historically, theologically, are pragmatists, and they don't...

They kind of hold multiple positions in a way that's somewhat contradictory, but yet they kind of...

They try their best to read the Bible and do what it says, but Mennonites, of course, historically have been an agrarian people. They've not been educated at all, and so you've had...

I mean, up until fairly recently, they haven't really even had a seminary or anything. And so they have, theologically, have been kind of all over the place.

But yeah, Menno would have been somewhat Arminian -ish, but yet at other times he would talk about the sovereignty of God, and you'd think you're reading a reformer.

And what century did Menno live in? Well, he was 1500s, early 1500s, so he would have been a contemporary of Martin Luther.

Right. Are you aware of whether or not Luther knew him? Well, the

Anabaptists in general weren't terribly loved because, of course, they... Well, much to my chagrin, when

I was in school and doing some history, I realized that when they started out, a lot of them were fairly eccentric.

Yes, that's... That's one of the reasons why, unfortunately, I'm not advocating the fact that Martin Luther did not give them safe passage, but many of them were anarchists, weren't they, and also polygamists and all kinds of strange things.

Oh yeah, there was no shortage of theological, I don't know what you'd call it, confusion and confusion in practice.

And so the Mennonites often were... I mean, they were persecuted people, so they moved around a lot.

They went from Holland to Germany, they ended up in Prussia and the Ukraine, and they more were just trying to survive.

And of course, a lot of the people were illiterate, they theologically were just totally confused, and then there were some leaders who kind of went off the deep end rather quickly.

But the Mennonite Brethren emerged out of the Mennonite movement in December of 1859.

A Lutheran evangelist went through southern Russia and brought the gospel. And at that point, the

Mennonite Brethren splintered off because they became a very gospel -aware and gospel -oriented people.

Well, going back to my other question, I got... What's the word

I'm looking for? I got distracted by somebody walking into my office, so I hope you didn't answer this. But did

Luther, do you know, personally ever meet or encounter Menno Simmons? I don't know.

Okay. And the Anabaptists that we know of from history and even today, they would hail him as one of their heroes, but I'm assuming you think that many of our modern -day

Anabaptists, also known as Mennonites, and even Amish folk, you believe that they have departed from that ancestry in many serious ways?

Yeah, they would have grabbed certain aspects of his theology. So one example of that would be kind of separation from the world.

And the Amish and the Hutterites and some of those groups have taken that as the signal doctrine of fidelity to the teaching of Menno Simons.

But Menno Simons said a lot of good things, he said a lot of bad things, he said a lot of confusing things. I don't really...

I mean, I'm definitely not a blind follower of Menno Simons. I'm a Mennonite more...

For me, it's more kind of like being Jewish, where there's a theological aspect, but there's also a cultural aspect, and so that's more a personal, cultural, historical identification than a theological identification for myself.

Oh, okay. Now, I believe one of the hallmarks of your average

Mennonite or Anabaptist is unlike... well, like the Baptists, they believe in believers -only baptism.

Unlike the Baptists, they use effusion or pouring rather than immersion.

Is that the case with you and most... Yeah, the

Mennonites are actually broken on that. There's what used to be called the General Conference, which is now called the

Mennonite Conference in Canada, and they would do effusion, and the Mennonite Brethren are specifically baptismed by immersion.

Oh, okay. And yeah, then there's also a group called the Dunkards, I believe, that are triple immersion.

Yeah, there's lots of small Mennonite groups that are kind of all over the map on that, too. Okay. And well, tell us something about your personal journey and the providential things that the

Lord brought into your life to bring you to a saving knowledge of Him, including let us know something about your own religious upbringing, if any, etc.

Sure. I was born... I went to a church. I'm from Prince George, British Columbia, which is basically in the middle of BC.

You look at Seattle, it's probably about an eight -and -a -half, nine -hour drive north of Seattle, and if you look at the province of British Columbia, it's basically in the right center.

It was a big logging town. I went to a Mennonite church in that town, which was the big church in town. The church

I went to was Westwood Mennonite Brethren Church, and it was kind of... We were in the era of Bill Hybels and kind of the seeker -driven stuff, and our church got into that a bit, but there were some splits in town, and our church inherited a lot of people, and so it grew very quickly.

I was involved in music a lot. I grew up in the church, and I was... In my church, I was one of the only drummers, so I played in...

We had two services, and I played in both services, and because of the way it worked out, I actually didn't attend a

Sunday service for all of high school. I would play drums in the morning service, and then the worship musicians, they would go off and go get coffee during the sermon, and then kind of prepare for the second service, and we'd play the second service, and we'd leave right before the sermon, and then we'd all go home.

And so I ended up not hearing any preaching for my entire high school. And I was doing music, and I mean,

I grew up in the... I mean, in the church, the Mennonites like to call themselves, or at least back then, they like to call themselves the people of the book.

They like to pride themselves on being simple, we just kind of read the Bible, do what it says, we're not kind of highfalutin theologians, but of course, what that means is they just adapt any theology that comes along, rather uncritically at times.

And so I knew the Bible was true, I knew the Bible was good, and I was very pro -Bible for a long time.

But when I was in eighth grade, Mennonites kind of are, if you think of your independent fundamentalist

Baptists you have in kind of the southern U .S., who are notorious for things like judging people on the basis of skirt length and Bible translation.

Oh, they're not isolated in the southern part of the United States. I knew quite a number of my friends, even, in the heart of New York City are toward that end of the spectrum.

Yeah, and that kind of blind traditionalism that manifests itself in anger when it's confronted,

Mennonites have that too, we have that in spades. And when I was in eighth grade, I brought some non -Christian friends to the youth group, and we showed up late.

We were like five, ten minutes late, and one of the youth sponsors told us, he took us aside and said, you guys, this is the house of God, and if you're going to come late, then don't come at all.

And so then we were like, okay, well, we're not going to come. And then we ended up looking around town for the youth group that had the best -looking girls, and we all decided to go to the

Full Gospel Church, because they had a lot of outreach, and there was a lot of rather attractive single ladies there.

So we decided to go and try our luck there. And out of that, I kind of got into the

Full Gospel Circles, which in Canada, like the Assemblies of God in the U .S. is that same organization in Canada, it's called the

Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. And so I was going to a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, or they call it the

PAOC, and I was going to a PAOC church, and the youth group there, and I got involved there, and of course

I picked up a lot of Charismatic theology, and so because of that, I noticed my church wasn't doing that, and of course the

Mennonites aren't, back then at least, they weren't Charismatic, but mostly because they were scared of it, they didn't really understand it, and they didn't really have a response to it, they just kind of didn't do it because it seemed spooky.

And so for me, telling my friends that I went to this church where people spoke in tongues and everything was very exotic and intriguing.

And so I kind of got into that, but when I went to Bible college, I wanted to go to pursue music, and at that time

I was involved in a PAOC church that was near my Bible college, and I kept studying the

Bible, and I started learning things like hermeneutics, and learning Bible interpretation, and historical theology and stuff.

I started realizing there was kind of some discrepancies between how I was hearing the

Bible taught, and the theology I was hearing at church, and what I was getting at Bible college, and then also a discrepancy between that and what

I learned growing up, that really prompted a lot of soul -searching and a lot of kind of study, late -night study on my own, just digging through the

Gospel and trying to figure out the Gospels and the New Testament, trying to figure stuff out. And so that led to me, in my third year of Bible college, after studying for two years and really struggling with various issues and trying to figure out kind of, in a nutshell, trying to figure out how some guy getting nailed to a plank of wood makes it so I didn't steal a car.

In my head, that was kind of the Gospel. And how does

Jesus somehow, why does Him getting killed mean anything? What does that do? And really understanding the economy of that.

And it took two years for me to work through that on my own. And of course, I went to a Bible college that was fairly eclectic, so there was lots of theological traditions there, which meant you go to one class and get one answer, and the next class the professor would tell you that the professor number one was crazy and a heretic.

And so that made it more difficult to sort through those issues. But eventually

I came to a recognition that I was a sinner, that Christ had died and the atonement had provided a way for the escape from the judgment of the wrath of hell, and that Christ had provided the way for me to escape the power and the penalty of my sin.

And I kind of had a moment in the summer after my second year of Bible college where I came to that realization, and then

I realized I wasn't a Christian. I gave my life to the Lord. And from that point on, things went on from there.

And when was it in your journey that you actually discovered these theologically -reformed

Mennonite brethren? Well, my Bible college time, when

I got saved, would have been about 1997, and those in the early 2000s is when kind of the young Recluse and Reform movement started moving north.

And so we had that kind of coming out in the early, early 2000s.

And so the biggest Mennonite church in Vancouver, the biggest Mennonite brethren church, is a church called

Willingdon. And Willingdon is a church of probably 5 ,500. The pastor there was a guy named

John Newfold, and he would do—he was a big—he was big into expository preaching. He would do conferences and bring up John Piper, Bruce Ware.

John MacArthur spoke there at one point, and he really kind of introduced those ideas to the

MB conference on the whole. And that was kind of in the early days of the internet, too, like 2001, 2002 sort of thing.

And that kind of took off. And then the other big Mennonite church in the areas in my town of Abbotsford, which is one of the suburbs of Vancouver, in Abbotsford there's a church called

Northview. And Northview's a church that's a—it's a Mennonite brethren church of about 4 ,000.

And they had a senior pastor who left, and they were looking for a long time, and they couldn't find the guy. And so they kind of did what a lot of churches do, and the youth pastor kind of inherited the reins because they couldn't find someone else to take over.

And it turned out that the youth pastor there, the guy who was actually the college career pastor, was a guy named Jeff Bucknum, and he is a

Dallas grad, a Reformed guy. And Bucknum, because the church is so big, and Bucknum's a fantastic preacher, he has been really strong in bringing that theology to the

Mennonite brethren circles, and Bucknum's been pastor there for at least six years. So the Reformed resurgence has been a little newer, mostly post -Y2K, but at the same time that I was kind of discovering that, it was also infiltrating the churches, and I had a lot of friends in Mennonite brethren churches in other towns who were hearing about this, and it was kind of a new thing, and some of these big churches were really coming out being

Reformed and complementarian, too. So what, in essence, would be the difference between a theologically

Reformed, you know, soteriologically Calvinistic Mennonite brethren church and a

Reformed Baptist church? Um, in practice, not a lot.

Are you confessional? Like, for instance, many, not all, but many if not most Reformed Baptists adhere to the 1689

London Baptist Confession, some of them to the Philadelphia Confession, which is nearly identical, and then you have some that, you know, adhere to the

New Hampshire Confession of Faith, but is there typically a confession adopted, or are they non -confessional?

Which actually, I don't believe that really anybody is non -confessional, but if you could comment on that.

Yeah, the Mennonite brethren tend to be non -confessional just because it's not something that's historically part of their

DNA, but yet of course they have their Statement of Faith, which is fairly exhaustive, and is stolen ideas from lots of confessions.

So yeah, they definitely have their own confession, but it's just kind of an internal thing they've made. And in practice,

I mean, Mennonites, one of their distinctives is pacifism, but that's starting to change a little bit.

Like, the church I grew up in was kind of a carte blanche pacifism that, you know, you never fight back, you never defend yourself, military's wrong, police are wrong, you know, anyone ever carrying a gun is basically an opponent of the

Gospel. And I grew up in that theology, I've long since moved past that, and some of the bigger

Reformed -leaning churches in the Mennonite Brethren Conference have talked about that openly and rejected that too, and have kind of talked about just war theory.

And the Mennonite Brethren historically have basically ignored the entire Old Testament when it comes to that subject.

And Jesus Christ never told any of the Centurions to recant of their careers there.

Oh yeah, no, I know, and that's, I fully agree, that's, I'm not at all carte blanche pacifism.

I definitely think Christ gave us some examples for non,

I don't know what you call it, non -retributive violence, maybe? You know, fighting in general for fun is definitely not something that's fitting with someone who professes

Christ, but— And John the Baptist even told the soldiers to be content with their wages, did he?

Yeah, sure. That's what I mean, yeah, definitely Christ was, he was not silent on the issue, and he was not anti -military or anti -law enforcement or even anti -justice when it comes to government dispensing justice.

And I mean, Paul talks about that in Romans 13 and all that, right? So I'm, yeah, go ahead.

So I was going to say, so they would even be against law enforcement? Yeah, yeah, there's some,

I remember growing up when there was some, there was once a guy who was an RCMP, like a Canadian Mounted Police, and he came to church in his uniform with his sidearm, and he was quietly ushered out and asked to kind of come appropriately dressed for church.

Wow. Yeah. Now, some of the other things,

I know that some Mennonites have a strict a cappella form of worship in regard to their singing.

Is that a practice of the Mennonite Brethren, or is it different from congregation to congregation?

No, Mennonite Brethren generally have embraced almost all the modern worship, and the

Mennonites actually have been fairly, I mean, they're fairly traditionalistic in that they're some of the only churches in the area that still have choirs, for example.

But they definitely have modern worship. All the big churches have worship pastors, and kind of they, you know, sing whatever.

I mean, a lot of, sadly, a lot of hill songs, music, and a few other things, but, you know, Gettys as well, and all the kind of contemporary hymns and whatnot.

So the strict a cappella, that's not been a thing. I don't even remember that being a thing.

So, I mean, I haven't been around that long, but that wasn't a thing in the early 80s, even that I can remember. And do you know anything about,

I don't know if they exist in Canada, or if they're that big of a group in Canada, but the

Brethren in Christ, they're nicknamed the BIC churches, B -I -C,

Brethren in Christ. They are very, very common where I am living now.

I never had heard of them until I moved to Pennsylvania. But they are an offshoot of the

Mennonites, but have adopted a very modern and contemporary style of worship.

They're into church growth. They have, some of them, have very, very large facilities here.

And, of course, there are some megachurches in other parts of the country where they would chuckle if I would call something out here a megachurch.

But for a Reformed Baptist, if you're over 300 people, you're a megachurch. But do you know anything of them?

Because they seem to be tilting towards the liberal end of the spectrum now. I've heard of them, but I'm honestly not familiar enough to really talk intelligently about them.

Now, lastly, I have a friend who, if you don't know him, you've got to get to know him, Chuck Volo.

I don't know if you know Chuck Volo. He is a pastor of New Life Community Church in Maryland.

And he has an evangelistic ministry in Kingsville, Maryland, by the way.

He has an evangelistic ministry to the Amish. And he has been used of God to bring

Amish folks to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Because he, I mean, it was a real eye -opener interviewing Chuck. And I have to have him back on because, tragically, when he was on my program, there was a malfunction and the interview was not recorded.

So I have to have him back on so I can have that archived on my website. But it was a real eye -opener interviewing him and also seeing a documentary called

Trouble in Amish Paradise about two Amish folks, two

Amish men, who became born -again Christians and were shunned from the

Amish community. Because I did not know these certain things. The Amish are very opposed to public evangelism.

You have to use a German Bible. And even more tragic is their gospel is completely a

Pelagian or works righteousness gospel. I mean, in certain Amish groups, you could go to hell for wearing the wrong suspenders.

And I'm not even joking. But that obviously is nothing, you have no connection or similarity to that group.

But they somehow, historically, did break away from each other, didn't they? Yeah, I couldn't, again, talk about that too much.

I'm fairly limited in my knowledge of that. Okay. Well, I do want to give, just because Chuck is such a dear brother in Christ and has got such a wonderful ministry,

I want to give a plug to his website, newlifemd .org

for New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland, where Chuck Volo is the pastor. And we are going to be taking your questions after this break.

If you'd like to join us with a question of your own for our guest, Lyndon Unger, my email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. If you prefer to remain anonymous because perhaps you are going to be criticizing the church where you are a member or something like that, we will grant your request to be anonymous.

But if it's just a general question on theology or on the specific subject at hand, addressing the dressing, modesty in the

Bible, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and your country of residence at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We will be right back with Lyndon Unger, the

Mennonite, that's K -N -I -G -H -T, right after these messages.

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Pastor Bill Shishko. If you've just tuned in, our guest today is the Mennonite, Lyndon Unger.

He is a Mennonite pastor with the Mennonite Brethren. He is a theologically reformed or Calvinistic Mennonite and he is a blogger at the

Cripplegate. .com That's the Cripplegate .com and also watch your

Life and Doctrine closely. And that website is Mennonite, that's M -E -N -N -O -K -N -I -G -H -T .wordpress

.com Tell us about the Cripplegate, Lyndon. What exactly does that name come from?

Well, the Cripplegate, as it says kind of on the website, in the

Puritan era of London, there was Baptists and Calvinists and they often found themselves expelled from their churches.

And so they wanted to continue teaching and preaching and so they would hold informal gatherings around the city and there was a place, a park known as the

Cripplegate. It was a gate where people would meet for what they called the morning exercises and that was really a church service that was kind of unofficial.

And so lots of guys talked there over time, John Milton, John Fox, Oliver Cromwell, John Bunyan, Richard Baxter, and a lot of other names that would be kind of familiar

Puritan names. And so the Cripplegate is just a place for people to come together and get casual instruction in the Scriptures.

And I hope that our listeners begin visiting that blog. It's quite fascinating. And in fact, one of the things we're going to be discussing today is addressing the dressing, modesty in the

Bible. And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Now, the topic at hand, obviously, modesty involves different things.

Under the sovereign plan of God, the American people have just elected a man to be our next president that is not known for modesty, but that would not be because of the way he dresses.

He is not immodest in his dress. It's in regard to his pride. But you are not talking about this issue of modesty today.

You're talking about the way people dress, are you not? Well, modesty, when

I started out looking at the issue, my wife and a lot of her friends have often had questions about this.

Because, of course, for women, the issue of dress comes up frequently. And so my wife would often read stuff, and she'd come and talk to me about something and share something in a book and say, well, look at this, would you agree with this?

Is this right? Because something would seem off. I'd read it with her and we'd think, what in the world is this talking about? This is making up just arbitrary rules and this and that.

And so kind of at her request and the request of several friends, I decided to really dig through what the scriptures talk about when they talk about modesty.

And my conclusion was that modesty in the Bible really isn't about dress so much.

It is about dress, but not in the sense that we typically think. I kind of started digging through history and the various New Testament passages talking about modesty and what was kind of the symbolism of hair and gold and jewels and stuff.

And looking at what that indicated in ancient Eastern culture, I realized that when the

Bible talked about modesty, I came to the conclusion that more the aspect what's being addressed is using your clothes and basically overall deportments to advertise your wealth.

And when women dress up and when they put gold in their hair and jewels in their hair, it was often something that took several house slaves to put the hair together.

It was an elaborate hairstyle that took hours and hours and hours to do. And women who did that, what it meant was they could afford slaves, they could afford imported wigs.

Like having gold in your hair would be either gold leaf or often it would also be accent wigs that were blonde and those would be imported from kind of places like Germany, which was kind of the far reaches of the

Roman Empire. And so imported wigs would be very expensive. And all of the stuff that the

New Testament talks about, I kind of came to the conclusion that it really seems it's more addressing the idea of exploiting or using or advertising your wealth with your dress.

That doesn't mean that it's okay to dress provocatively, but rather that what we tend to equate modesty with was not even on the radar for the people in the

New Testament. Yeah, I mean, it would have been very uncommon for a woman to walk into a gathered assembly in those days that was scantily clad.

There were women in our culture who regularly attend worship services in outfits that at one time people would have thought were scandalous for a prostitute to wear.

Of course. And really, when I came to the conclusion of it,

I mean, I kind of dug into it. I may turn into a small e -book one day because I ended up being 10 posts on the cripple gate, which made a couple people get nosebleeds because it's too much to read.

But I wanted to document stuff and kind of really work through the issue as comprehensively as I could. And when it came to the end of it, the whole, what we tend to think of modesty is, the

Bible's really talking about prostitution. And the whole idea of willfully uncovering your sexual organs or your kind of your, you know, the parts that normally are covered up by your undergarments.

And then, of course, even burying legs and stuff like that. That kind of stuff is not even on the radar in the

Bible. And so you'd see things like in Leviticus, when they build steps to go up to the altar, they're warned against having steps, or they're forbidden to have steps going up to the altar in case you could uncover the priest's nakedness as he goes up the stairs.

And you think about that, and you're like, wait a minute, I mean, they were wearing robes that were down to the ankle, essentially, and yet they don't want them going upstairs because the rule is to not uncover their nakedness.

Well, you can't exactly see up into the underwear when the guy's coming upstairs in a priest's robe.

So the level of what is expected of covering is far higher than what we would expect.

And admittedly, in the past, I'd often thought, well, you know, it's about kind of just not unveiling or not uncovering kind of your sex organs and stuff like that.

But really, the Bible draws the line a lot farther down than that. So this area of modesty that you're addressing is something that is equally something that men and women should be taking heed to.

Now, obviously, even in the other end of the spectrum where you're talking about provocative dressing, a man could be guilty of that, but it's just not as typical for a man to be walking into a church wearing provocative clothing.

He may do that in other areas of life or places, but it just seems to be such a commonplace thing for women to be, not in every church, but in many churches, even very conservative churches, you'll have women with very, very short skirts and, you know, backless dresses and all kinds of things, and teenage girls.

And obviously, this is an important issue, but it's not the focus of what you wanted to discuss today.

And by the way, I don't want it to even sound like I'm beating up on our sisters in Christ. One of the reasons why that particular issue is so important, it's because of the weakness of your brothers.

It's because of our tendency to be prone towards sexual weakness, to be, you know, easily seduced and so on.

But as far as this issue of not flaunting wealth, why is this such a negative and disturbing and dangerous thing, in your opinion?

Well, the Bible talks about that. I mean, we have pastors like James 2, where you have the poor man coming into the church and the rich man coming into the church, and then the rich man is treated better than the poor man, and that's splitting the church.

And in our churches, I mean, if we focus simply on, if we are confused on the issues of modesty and we focus specifically on scantily clad women or scantily clad men, and the

Bible's not talking about that, then we're off on what the Bible's talking about when it talks about modesty. And so when the

Bible talks about modesty, as far as I've come to understand it, it is talking about the flaunting of wealth and how destructive that can be in splitting the body.

An example that I used in one of the blog posts was that, you know, men and women who have money, they can flaunt their wealth very simply, very subtly.

And I worked with a woman who made a lot of money, and she had a handbag that was,

I think, worth about $7 ,000. And she would, you know, nonchalantly wear it and whatnot, and then she would, if she would take it, no, she didn't go to my church, but if she would go to church and other people who went to church with her would see it, and they would just, they would recognize it by its distinct brand, its distinct logo and stuff like that, and they would kind of right away be thinking that she is spiritually superior to them or something like that.

And of course, she would talk like that. And she would, and it was, well, it was more that the women were kind of feeling inferior, and this woman who was wealthy kind of thought she had some sort of spiritual credibility because she was wealthy.

And of course, the New Testament talks about that and judging people on the basis of wealth or poverty, like I said, James 2 and some other passages.

And that's something that I've, I actually, when I started looking around and seeing it and talking to my wife, and as we were working through this, we realized that's something that really happens in churches that flies under the radar because it's kind of, people don't think about that.

Not in the sense that we have to shame people who have money in order to buy things that are inexpensive.

That's not it at all. But it's more the people who have money seeking to flaunt it and rub it in people's faces with the understanding that there is some sort of spiritual corollary that they are superior.

Yeah, like many in the word of faith movement would definitely agree, they would disagree with your intent here, but they would agree wholeheartedly that the more one spends on their clothing, the more one is reflecting to those around him that God's blessing is upon them.

And of course, that goes hand in hand with the house they live in and the car they drive and the watches and the jewelry they wear.

Yeah, and I remember listening to R .C. Sproul a long time ago, and he kind of,

I didn't understand it at the time as much as I do now, and he talked about one of the problems we have in the church is when we have subtle heresies that sneak in, and they fly under the radar because they're not overt.

But the example he used was men who are on the board of elders simply because they're rich.

And that idea that sneaks into the church that men who have money, why is it that all the guys on the board of elders in many of the churches you see are the richest guys in the church?

Why is that? The fact that they have money doesn't mean anything spiritually about them, yet there's this subtle computation we have that kind of wealth equals blessing or something like that.

Yeah, I remember a story that I heard years ago from a man who was talking about the church that he was raised in, and there was a couple that were well -to -do, and the wife was a regular attender of the church and a member of the church, and the husband was hardly ever in the church at all, and she was having a meeting with the elders and deacons of the church to come up with ways that would entice her husband into joining the church, and the consensus of the elders and deacons were, why don't we make him a deacon?

By the way, your topic is actually, and I'm asking my audience to please forgive me for bringing up George Carlin.

I don't recommend George Carlin, especially his filthy, very profane humor, but in his younger years, he wasn't always filthy, and we had a lot in common.

We both went to Catholic school, and I remember him talking about his days in Catholic school, and he said that you had to wear uniforms in Catholic school because if everybody dressed the same, you would not know which students were wealthy and which students were poor, and he said, but the girls always knew how to flaunt how much money their parents made in some way.

They would wear those gold crosses, actual size, so obviously, people can get around those rules even with uniforms, but you're really talking about people who are taking pride.

When I use that phrase, taking pride, people misunderstand what that term means.

I don't mean that you are unashamed and thankful for something that is a gift from God, but when you are boastfully proud of something, they really want to rub it in the faces of those around them so that they will be looked up to from those who perhaps have less money.

That's really what you're driving at here. Yeah, for sure. And that the churches, unfortunately, will look upon them preferentially.

Yeah, and I've seen that all over the place, and it's not something that's overt, and we don't articulate it ever, but yet it is a problem that sneaks in the back door when we kind of just equate wealth with spiritual maturity, and then we take people who are wealthy and they're put in positions of power, and I mean,

I even have a really good friend who had a guy who was on his Board of Elders of his church and had been for years, and the guy was, he was basically on that board because he was, well, actually, yeah, he was on the

Board of Elders, I believe. That may not be true. I'm forgetting now if he was an elder or a deacon, but he was in leadership in the church, and he had been there for a long time, and it turned out that he had been living just a reprobate life, and when some people found out, they were just utterly shocked, and the question was, well, you know, well, how could that be?

He was, you know, a great Christian guy, and then the question followed up, well, what do you mean, great Christian guy? Nobody had any example of anything he did except for the fact that he supported the church financially.

Yeah, we do have some listeners, and for some reason, none of them are about your subject.

We do have quite a number of listeners, though, that have written in questions. We have Joe in Slovenia, and he says, please ask

Brother Lyndon to comment on the Passion Bible translation, which seems to actually be a very bad paraphrase.

I've heard one review that exposed it as an NAR equivalent of the

New World Translation, published by the Jehovah's Witnesses.

It is reported to include many alterations of the biblical text to add and incorporate

NAR false doctrines. What can Brother Lyndon tell us about this?

Now I'm realizing what NAR is. That's New Apostolic Reformation, which is the subject of our second hour, so I apologize for bringing this up earlier than I should have, but if you could comment on that, if you're aware of this

NAR translation. I am loosely aware of it.

I have heard of it. I haven't had time to dig into it, so anything I say about it, it's just going to be me making stuff up, so I won't refrain from giving any sort of opinion about it.

I apologize, but that's, yeah, I've heard of it, but I just haven't had time to kind of track it down and see what it's about. Okay, we do have a question that is actually on your topic.

Lyndon, and I have to enlarge this, so if you'll bear with me because the typeface is so tiny on this email that I cannot read it.

So in the meantime, while I'm doing this, if you would like to join our listeners with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Okay, here we have a question from Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Thanks for the great show. What a refreshing good historic look on the plating of hair in a historical biblical sense.

I've dealt with the same issue as a Christian who sells jewelry. The reference to pearls in the hair was an expression of wealth in the

Near East that was sometimes above that of gold. The rarity of the Persian Gulf pearls was world -renowned in the first century and the

Corinthian temple prostitutes were the target of Poles chiding for the excessive display of wealth borne from the payment for their services.

And I guess that is just more... Oh, the question is, which of the following two problems would the

Mennonite brother confront first? Number one, excessive display of wealth by a church attendee, too much jewelry, expensive coats, expensive automobiles.

Number two, excessive display of nakedness, low -cut dress that exposes too much.

If there is a first choice, why? Well, I would think that,

I mean, you'd want to deal with both. I mean, my wife is a good basically resource for this because she will be the one who will go and talk to someone about this.

I don't tend to get in people's faces about that mostly because the defenses come up when it's cross -gender.

And my greater focus, or if you are going to rank one, I wouldn't want to, but if you are going to rank one, you're going to probably rank the nudity because the sexual temptation and the consequence of sexual sin in the church is just greater,

I would say. That's not like you want to rate sins, but you want to stomp sexual immorality out of your church and you want to get rid of any of the temptation that would lead to that.

You want to be as aggressive against that as you can, you know, doing so in love and not coming against someone unnecessarily or cruelly.

But, I mean, I was preaching through First Thessalonians chapter four this last, probably a couple months ago.

I ended up preaching through chapter four, verses two to six. And I remember teaching through that and I was always going through the church, talking about sexual immorality in the church and preaching through that and realizing that it's one of the things that God actually said something very frightening when you get to First Thessalonians four.

First Thessalonians four, three says, it's the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality and that each of you know how to control his body in holiness and honor, not in a passionate lust, like Gentiles who do not know

God, so that no one transgresses his brother, that no one transgresses and wrongs his brother in this matter, because the

Lord is an avenger of these things as he told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. And that passage talks about sexual immorality in the church and of one

Christian brother taking sexual advantage of another or of a sister -in -law or vice versa.

And it says in verse six, the Lord is the avenger in all these things, that when you cross that line and take sexual advantage of someone in the church,

God promises to step in and take vengeance on behalf of the victim. That is a frightening promise.

And because of the level of seriousness of that sin and the level of kind of, you know, the sternness of the warning,

I would want to nail that down and get rid of that and address that. But I definitely would not want to make room for either one.

Right. And the one flaunting his or her wealth through the way they dress,

I would think is far more prone to interpretation. Because, let's face it, most of us dress in a way that in nations much more impoverished than our own, or even in cities that are much more impoverished than our own, we would be dressing in a way that would seem to be flaunting wealth.

So there is much more room for disagreement,

I would think. And of course, that even in some sense comes to play with provocative clothing.

But I think that there is much more reason for Christians to be of one mind when a woman or a man is scantily clad, is wearing something that is way too sensual, sensual, provocative, seductive, etc.

So I would think that there'd be very, there'd be a lot less room for argument when it comes to provocative clothing.

Yeah, I would agree. And of course, you do, as you were saying earlier, there are more strict fundamentalists out there who would even say that a woman should never have a skirt above their ankles, or even below the knee is too short, if they should never wear sleeveless blouses.

And I even know of one fundamentalist church that disfellowshipped another fundamentalist church because the men on one of the softball teams were wearing shorts.

So I mean, that is kind of, to me, absurd. But so they both do obviously have some room for debate.

But I think that it would be a lot more, you'd be a lot more likely to get a unanimous sense that a woman or man is dressing provocatively or sensual.

Yeah, it's more kind of objectively obvious to the viewer. And I think also the importance would be in the repercussions of it, that a woman who, or a man, say, we'll go with a guy, we don't want to pick on the girls at all.

A guy who is dressing in a way that shows off his wealth, he wears a really expensive watch, like a $30 ,000 watch, and wears kind of clothes that other guys who are interested in fashion see that, they recognize it right away.

They're kind of coveting and wondering what he does for a living. And when he talks, they listen more for some reason.

You know, when he's at the Bible study, he opens his mouth, all of a sudden they're paying closer attention because of his wealth. He knows that he loves that.

The implications or the impact of that would be, you know, these guys feeling kind of like an inferior brother in the

Lord, could feel judged, they'd be elevating him unnecessarily and whatnot. I mean, the impact is bad, it's wrong, it's divisive in the church, but the impact is not really on the same level as, say, a guy who is dressing in a way that shows off his body, someone who's physically in good shape, you know, somebody who's athletic and very muscular and whatnot, and dresses in a way that basically displays that to the women of the church and ends up having impact on women and that would end up doing something that would cross the line of sexual impropriety.

I think the impact there is just a little bit more significant. And before we go to the break, a woman using...

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought this was a different listener that usually goes by the alias

Lam Lam. This is a woman named

Ayanna in New York. And she is asking, what is

Brother Linden's view on prayer coverings, and I'm assuming that means head coverings, for women?

In a real quick summary, head coverings, I would say, are a historically limited practice.

There's room for debate on that, and I really don't pick fights on it because it's not terribly important to me.

If you want to cover your head, go for it. If you don't, fine. But as far as First Corinthians 11, I would say that Paul there is talking about a specific manifestation of having a sign of authority over you, and so I would limit that to that historical period.

And actually, I have a blog post on First Corinthians 11. I've been asked about this a lot, and I actually have something that's in my draft that's going to be going on this week on that specific text.

And I assume you would agree that, because I know pastors, even within Reformed Baptist circles, who believe in head coverings for women during worship services,

I'm assuming you would agree that whatever your personal view is, that you should, as a woman, wear the covering if you're attending that service at that particular church, or even joining that church.

Yeah, yeah. If you're going somewhere where they cover their head, then great, cover your head. Right. I'd put that on about a level five theological triage, it's kind of, you can do that or not, it really is of minor consequence, unless to you it becomes something that's related to the gospel, where women who don't do it are subpar believers or something like that.

Okay, well, Ayanna, I believe you're a first -time questioner on Iron Sharpens Iron, Ayanna in New York.

So if you could give us your full mailing address, your full name and full mailing address, of course, off the air, email that to me, and we will send you out a free

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the New American Standard Bible, and also it'll be sent to you compliments of the

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com,

who ship out all of the winners in our audience, their free Bibles, books, CDs, DVDs, and all sorts of other things that they win by submitting questions to our guests.

And today we are giving out, and every day actually, we give out free New American Standard Bibles to first -time questioners.

I don't know if Ayanna is a first -time listener, but she may be a, well, she is a first -time questioner,

I believe. So we look forward to getting that information from you, Ayanna, and we'll have the Bible shipped out to you very soon,

God willing. We're going to our second break right now, and if anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and we do have a number of other listeners waiting patiently to have their questions asked and answered, so we should get to you when we get back.

We'll get to as many of you as possible when we get back from the break. chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, don't go away, we'll be right back with Lyndon Unger. Chris Arnson here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia, and here's my friend

Dr. James White to tell you why. Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. I hope you join me at the

G3 Conference, hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church, at the

Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st, in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Balcom, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Rosaria Butterfield, Todd Friel, and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars of what

G3 stands for, Gospel, Grace, and Glory. For more details, go to g3conference .com,

that's g3conference .com. Thanks, James. Make sure you greet me at the

Iron Sharpens Iron exhibit booth while you're there. Thriving Financial is not your typical financial services provider.

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Contact me, Mike Gallagher, Financial Consultant at 717 -254 -6433.

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Our time will be lively, useful, sometimes controversial, but never dull. Join us this

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Heard worldwide at that website via live streaming, and also in the New York Tri -State area on the radio dial at 540 a .m.

And that's 540 a .m. on the dial, and that's 12 noon to 1 p .m.

eastern time. And we're back with our guest, Lyndon Unger. He is known as the

Mennonite. He is a superhero of the Mennonite Brethren. The Mennonite.

And he is the host of the blog thecripplegate .com and Watch Your Life in Doctrine Closely, which can be found at Mennonite, that's

M -E -N -N -O -K -N -I -G -H -T .wordpress .com. We were discussing modesty, addressing the dressing modesty in the

Bible, and we are going to be transitioning over to our second topic, the

New Apostolic Reformation Examined. But I do want to get to some of our questions that came in from the first hour, even though they have nothing at all to do with the topic we were discussing.

We have a listener in Valley Stream, New York, and this is who I thought Ayanna was before, because to my eyes that are going bad,

Ayanna looked like Lamb, and especially with the small typeface. Lamb Lamb, someone who goes by the alias

Lamb Lamb, and I still have not discovered what her real name is. She asks, what is the name of your friend who ministers to the

Amish? Okay, that is Chuck Volo, and he spells his name V as in victory,

U -O -L -O. And you can find his website, and I've already clicked off of it, so I'll announce that website later.

But I think it's newlifemd .org, if I'm not mistaken, newlifemd, for Maryland, dot org.

And yes, it is. That's what it is. newlifemd .org is his website. So Lamb Lamb, you can go to that website for Chuck Volo, V as in victory,

U -O -L -O. We also have, let's see, we have

Jeff from Clinton Township, Michigan.

I have heard a friend in Ontario who talks about the Mennonite Mafia in and around his neighborhood.

I thought he was pulling my leg for the longest time until I did a little research and found out the reality of this group.

Can your guest give a brief history of how these criminals came to use the

Mennonite label? Is this, to your knowledge, is this actually a real phenomenon, a real group?

Yep. Yeah, it is. The Mennonites, when they left the Ukraine in kind of the early 1900s, late 1800s, they settled in a few places.

So some of them came to Canada, some in Ontario, other ones in Saskatchewan. Another batch went to Mountain Lake, Minnesota, and then some other guys went to Paraguay.

And there are some Mennonites who move, well, actually a fair amount, who move in between Paraguay and Canada.

And there is, it's not so much the Mennonite Mafia, but there is an organized crime syndicate that is in the

Mennonite circle, in the Old Order, which would be the Amish -style Mennonites. Now, I'm not Old Order.

I'd be Mennonite Brethren. We kind of use electricity and cars and internet and all that kind of stuff and are kind of very different than the

Old Order guys. But there's Old Order guys who, yeah, we're kind of in the media for actually running drugs in church pews and stuff like that.

So I assume if the Mennonite Mafia wants to give you a warning, you not only will wake up with a horse's head in your bed, but perhaps the wheel to your buggy.

Yes. There's actually an old joke. And the joke was, what goes clop, clop, clop, bang, clop, clop, clop, bang?

It's a Mennonite drive -by. Well, you hear something new every day.

Well, thanks, Jeff, for contributing to the program with that question.

All right, now we're going to transition over to the New Epistolic Reformation. And first of all, tell us about what this group is and the origins of it.

Well, to give you a real kind of brief history, the New Apostolic Reformation...

I mean, I'd have to take some time to really back this up, but my claim would be that the

New Apostolic Reformation is, in reality, just the rebranding of old

Word, Faith, Prosperity, Gospel Pentecostalism. And so the

New Apostolic Reformation, where that term comes from, is in the 90s, well, actually, starting in the 70s,

Peter Wagner and John Wimber worked together at Fuller. And they ran the Charles Fuller School of Evangelism and something or other.

I can't remember what it was. And they started that, like, in 72 or 73. And so they worked together for a long time.

And Wimber was the theologian. And, of course, we know him from the Vineyard Church.

He kind of started the Vineyard as a denomination. And Wimber was the theologian there. And then Wagner is more of a sociologist -slash -church -growth guy.

And he does a lot of traveling and monitoring church growth and whatnot. And in the 90s,

Wagner noticed that there was kind of a strain of Christianity that was growing very fast.

And he learned from John Wimber. Wimber kind of gave him the theology that said, every time

God does something new, he provides what they call new wineskins. Now, new wineskins is kind of charismatic parlance for new structures or new ways of doing things or new theology.

Whenever God is doing something new, he changes the way things have been historically done and modifies it in some way.

And they call it a new wineskin. That's just kind of one of their buzzwords. And so Wimber told Wagner to look out for new wineskins.

Basically, the main way of recognizing it is numerical growth, which, of course, they call that blessing.

So when Wagner was traveling around the world and looking for churches that were growing, he noticed that a lot of churches internationally and in the

U .S. that are growing very quickly were Pentecostal churches that were breaking away from Pentecostalism.

Now, when I say that, it's more kind of Pentecostal denominations. And so in the late 90s, you would have things like Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia.

Hillsong was an Assemblies of God church, and Hillsong broke away from the Assemblies of God.

And the same thing for Bethel Church in Redding, California. They were an Assemblies of God church that broke away from the

Assemblies of God. And you can have other examples of that, where these churches became independent, and Wagner noticed these churches were growing and becoming influential.

And so Wagner was trying to think of a theological, or not a theological, but just a kind of a term to reference this new movement of churches, and he called it the

New Apostolic Reformation. And so according to Wagner, these guys are different than what we think when we think of historic

Pentecostalism, and he named nine differences. The differences are fairly straightforward.

They have a new name, because, of course, you need to have a new name for this movement. They have a new authority structure.

And so what that meant was the churches are no longer really denominational, but are more independent, and their relationship is not a denominational relationship.

It's more kind of an independent fellowship where they just willfully kind of work together. They had new leadership training, where they were doing more in -house training, where you see these schools of ministry and supernatural schools of ministry and whatnot popping up, and less of the traditional kind of seminary and Bible college model.

So more schools of discipleship and stuff like that in their churches. They also have the fourth thing is a new ministry focus.

And these guys were, you know, they started really focusing on talking about vision and focusing on the future, and they're really disinterested in history.

They're more interested in the new, like the word new becomes kind of a buzzword of new move of God and new wineskins and new this and new that.

The fifth thing was their worship style. They kind of embraced the new styles of music, and they really moved towards what

I would call free -range worship, which we would really say is just disorder. I mean, they would walk around, dance, lie on the floor, and it's kind of back in the 90s is when you started seeing the fish -shaped tambourines appearing in the church services and stuff like that, and the flag dancing and all that kind of stuff.

These new churches really let anything go, because older Pentecostal churches tended to be more kind of piano, organ, a guy up front leading singing, and it was very regimented, whereas these new churches would have anything goes in their worship.

The sixth thing was they had a lot more concentration on prayer, and they also did what

Wagner called new forms of prayer, and so one of those new forms is what he called concert prayer, where these churches, they would have absolute chaos where they have everyone in church praying in tongues at the same time, and they called that concert prayer, and they could, of course, give it a name that makes it sound better, right?

Now, the big one that I really found that's really interesting is what they call new financing, and Wagner, I'm getting this all from his book in 1998 called

The New Apostolic Churches. He totally writes this up and is very upfront about everything, and so the new financing,

I'll just read a quote from the book where he talks about tithing, and Wagner says, quote, first, generous giving is expected.

Tithing is taught without apology, and those who do not tithe their incomes are subtly encouraged to evaluate their

Christian lives as subpar. Second, giving is beneficial, but not only to the church and its ministry in the kingdom of God, but also to the giver.

Tithes and offerings are regarded as seeds that will reproduce fruit of like kind for individuals and families.

Luke 638, which says that if we give, it will be given to us in greater measure, is taken literally. So there you see

Peter Wagner is taking a boilerplate prosperity gospel text and saying these new churches all adopt that.

They, and when he says that they, you know, the seeds, planting a seed, that's the idea of seed faith, Oral Roberts really made that big, and then producing fruit of like kind is you sow money, you reap money.

That is the essence of the prosperity gospel. The eighth new thing, there's the new mark, is new outreach, and these churches really focus on social justice work.

A lot of foreign missions and a lot of just meeting needs in the community. These churches were very action oriented.

They didn't talk about missions. They were really interested in doing it. And the ninth one, again, is really important.

New power orientation. That's what Wagner called it. He says that the majority of these new apostolic churches not only believe in the power of the

Holy Spirit, but they regularly invite them into their meetings and they expect supernatural activity.

So healings, demonic deliverance, spiritual warfare, people being slain in the spirit, prophecy, tons,

I mean manifestations became a focus in new apostolic churches. And so Wagner, when he was pointing to who would be a mark of the apostolic,

Wagner started in 98, when he wrote that book, he also started a thing called the Wagner Leadership Institute.

He recognized that kind of the traditional seminary is not so popular and it's not really serving our needs.

And so he started the Wagner Leadership Institute where he could just train whoever he wanted and make his own curriculum and do whatever you want.

And he also started a council of apostles in 1999. And then in 2001, the thing that really kicked it off was there was a revelation they got that in 2001,

God Almighty re -established the biblical office. I'm not talking spiritual gifts,

I'm talking about the proper office of apostle and prophet. And so God re -established those in the church and to kick off what they, you know, the real kind of shifting into high gear of the new apostolic reformation.

And it's that same year, 2001, Peter Wagner moved his training school, all his ministry work to Colorado Springs where he joined

New Life Church and ran his ministry out of there because the pastor of New Life Church was

Wagner's choice to run the new apostolic reformation. Not to run it, but to be the kind of the public figurehead of it.

And if you know your history a little bit, well, a little bit after that, the pastor of New Life Church, Ted Haggard, came out and had been living a double life for a long time where he was doing narcotics, he was doing, or not intravenous drugs, but doing,

I think, cocaine and stuff like that. He had been, quote -unquote, getting massages from homosexual prostitutes, and he left, and that was a debacle.

And since then, Wagner has kind of, he's died recently,

Wimber is also gone, but the people that they kind of got going in this have taken over, and it has emerged to be the face of Pentecostalism.

And when you talk about new apostolic reformation, it's not a proper organization.

There's no denomination. That's one of their points, is they're anti -denominational. They don't want other people to get involved and kind of mess everything up.

They don't want other people to limit the spirit, quote -unquote. But there is a loose association, and you see a lot of the same guys endorsing one another's books, speaking in one another's conferences, and kind of all just patting each other on the back, and kind of, they have very, a very self -serving network of guys who all endorse one another.

And so the new apostolic reformation, it's not new, it's not apostolic, it's not a reformation.

What it is, is a rebranding of a bunch of churches that emerged out of Pentecostalism who rejected the oversight of their denominations, embraced the worst aspects of their own theology that their denominations spoke against, and they just cut themselves off from their denominations and went forward to, you know, basically experiment in the

Holy Spirit. They adopted a whole ton of doctrine that's just crazy. So that would be an overview of the new apostolic reformation in a kind of historical quick look.

We do have another first -time listener to I Interrupt and Zarn, or should

I say first -time questioner, Caleb in Morton, Illinois.

The church I go to is solidly Christian with expository preaching and a very high regard for scripture.

We do sing songs that are hill song, bi -hill song, and some others in the

NAR movement. But the songs we sing are generally on the theologically, are on the theologically deeper end of their songs and aren't generally the mindless repetitive songs.

Would you recommend I bring it up to the elders or let it go as long as they don't use the more problematic songs?

The worship question comes up often, and is it Caleb is the guy? Yes, Caleb in Morton, Illinois.

So Caleb, that's always a touchy issue, because of course, I take the tact with hill songs that the danger in hill songs is not the music, but the teaching.

The music serves as the appetizer, and the teaching is the main course, and the teaching is what is the problem.

If your church is singing hill songs music, I mean, there's no such thing as spiritual cooties where somehow you sing hill songs, you sing a song from hill songs, and then all of a sudden your church somehow, something happens that's negative in your church, you know, people leave, or somebody falls into sin, or all of a sudden your pastor stops preaching the

Bible just because you're singing hill songs. But if it becomes an issue where people are either pursuing hill songs or looking into where these songs come from, if anyone's bothered by it, yeah,

I'd probably stop. But I mean, hill songs, they're worship stuff. A lot of those guys are victims of the bad leadership in their churches.

There's, I mean, I have lots of friends who are in charismatic circles who are even in what would be NAR churches who don't know the theology, they don't believe it.

When I talk to them about it, they're completely stunned. I want to even show them quotes in the books from some of these authors, and they just can't believe it.

But the music isn't really the problem. It's, the music at best is shallow, at worst is just nonsense.

But the teaching is really what the problem is. So if someone listens to the music and then goes and investigates it, finds hill songs, starts reading

Brian Huth and stuff, listening to his sermons, I would then really say, okay, well, we have to deal with this.

If that's not happening, if people aren't paying attention to it, and it's just kind of a song that people like because they heard it on Christian radio,

I'd probably let that slide because it's really, the damage there is minimal and hypothetical.

But that's just me. That's my take on it. Yeah, for much the same reason, but he took a different, he had a different conclusion from what you drew.

Our friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, he used to love listening to Phillips, Craig and Dean.

And then he found out that they were oneness Pentecostals. And he has since stopped listening to them and does not encourage anyone else to listen to them either.

In fact, he dissuades people away from listening to them. And because of the fact that, as you mentioned, there can be a domino effect when people become your music heroes, they can eventually become your theological heroes or mentors.

Yes. And so therefore, I guess, obviously though, that is an individual thing between your conscience and God, as far as whether you're going to listen to that or not.

But by the way, Caleb in Morton, Illinois, please give us your full mailing address because since you are a first time questioner, you're also getting a free

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will be shipping that out to you.

That's cbbbs .com. Look for that on the label cbbbs .com.

And hopefully that will get to you in about a week or so. Thanks a lot for joining us on today's program. We're going to our final break right now.

So join us on the air with a question of your own. We still have a couple of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered. So we'll get to you as soon as we can.

But we'll be right back, God willing, after these messages. So don't go away.

Chris Arnzen here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia. And here's my friend Dr. James White to tell you why.

Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. I hope you join me at the G3 conference hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church at the

Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Vodie Balcom, Conrad M.

Bayway, Phil Johnson, Rosaria Butterfield, Todd Friel, and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars of what

G3 stands for, gospel, grace, and glory. For more details, go to g3conference .com.

That's g3conference .com. Thanks, James. Make sure you greet me at the

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New Apostolic Reformation and that is a dangerous group according to our guest and according to many people who

I highly respect and if you'd like to join us on the air our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com and we do have RJ in White Plains, New York who said who asks is there a direct link between Hillsong and the

New Apostolic Reformation? I understand that Hillsong despite their objections to the claim are really soft on the sin of homosexuality a lot softer than they would pretend to be.

Is this true? And also are they connected to the New Apostolic Reformation? Oh yeah the

New Apostolic Reformation I mean there is no concrete connections among all the people so there's no kind of governing body and there's no real there's lots of quote -unquote apostolic networks but each one is independent and under a specific guy so Brian Houston and Hillsong they're not there's no kind of systematic or maybe kind of structural connections to anyone but they tend to be speaking together at the same conferences endorse one another's books

Brian Houston definitely walks in the circles of many of the guys who would be in the New Apostolic Reformation and he would definitely be

I would lump him in as part of that um theologically Brian Houston is a blazing prosperity gospel guy actually got a copy of his book from uh a while ago called

You Need More Money and he in no uncertain terms basically draws a connection that if you are a

Christian and you are in God's will you will have an abundance of financial riches and so he doesn't beat around the bush in the slightest with that um as for Hillsong's and homosexuality there's a lot of talk about that with there was a choir

I believe and that the specific issue was actually Hillsong's New York which is under Carl Lentz so nailing down Brian Houston on that stuff and Hillsong's and that stuff is hard because of course

Hillsong New York is a separate church and any time it's in this network one of the things with the world one of the things with the

New Apostolic Reformation is because they are not centralized and they do not have some sort of judicial connection or structural connection anytime anyone in the entire movement does anything or says anything crazy everyone says well it's just not me so it doesn't matter what he says or what you know

I'm only responsible for what I say and Houston so far has not had any big scandal with homosexuality himself although very very interesting is that Brian Houston's father

Frank Houston left the church and Brian Houston inherited the church from his father

Frank when Frank it came out that Frank was a pedophile and he was a homosexual pedophile so he took advantage of several of the youth pastors that had worked there and Brian Houston just a few years ago went through court for months because there was tons of charges that came against him for that and so because of Frank's you know open he lived a homosexual lifestyle and he was a pedophile for decades and so because of that I would not be suspicious at all if Brian Houston was kind of soft on that subject mostly because he's seen that from the other side and it would be easy for him for all the pain his father endured that he watched when his father was condemned by everyone under the sun for what he did now when you say his father was an open homosexual you mean he he had was an unashamed public practicing sorry no he wasn't he wasn't an unashamed public he was private and hidden but it came became open in the early 2000s and so if Brian was around someone who was an open homosexual it would be easy for him to have a lot of sympathy towards that well as I can tell you is that I know of a

Christian apologetics ministry in Australia that wants me to conduct an interview specifically on that issue because they believe that the

Hillsong group is clearly soft doctrinally or actually perhaps even more in in regard to disciplinary matters they're soft on homosexuality

I'm not saying that they are in that the Australian apologetics group that I'm speaking of is saying

Hillsong endorses homosexuality but I'm saying that they seem to be soft according to them in regard to disciplining it as a as a wicked damnable sin right and when

Frank Houston when that all came out Frank was not disciplined he just disappeared so when that all came out that he had been living a double life there was no public discipline there was no nothing said

Frank just got a golden handshake left the church was kind of made a chancellor and nobody talked about it because of course they knew that there was already threats of criminal charges and whatnot and Brian has already gone through court under that and I don't know what the the court findings were on that because I think those records are sealed or I haven't been able to find them online and thank you very much for contributing that question we also have

CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York who says are or is the

New Apostolic Reformation Trinitarian I know of a congregation called the

New Apostolic Church nearby where I live that was a Oneness Pentecostal congregation and I'm wondering if it's in any way affiliated well any church that calls itself

New Apostolic it's probably coincidental because I don't I haven't seen that as a trend in any of the

New Apostolic churches they don't call themselves New Apostolic that would be that would be kind of coincidental if they if there was a church that was called that but the

NAR churches New Apostolic churches tend to be Trinitarian but they one of the problems with them again is that they're a disconnected group and a disconnected association of churches and like T .D.

Jakes would be definitely traveling in the same circles as some of the guys in the NAR and he is definitely

I mean he's a blazing modalist and so and they of course don't have

I mean the guys in the New Apostolic Reformation they don't have any sort of doctrinal feet to stand on to say anything negative about pretty much anything at all which is of course one of the problems but for them it's a freedom because they don't have

I mean a lot of these guys come from backgrounds where like for example the Assemblies of God spoke out and wrote a paper condemning

Todd Bentley it was not terribly widely circulant but Todd Bentley was condemned by his own denomination which is of course one of the reasons why these guys have

I believe they've gotten out from denominations it gives them the liberty to do what they want without any sort of fear of reprisal or any sort of discipline or theological chastising but yeah whether or not the

Trinity is a core issue I don't believe it is most of the guys I've seen are confessing I would suspect that most of these guys couldn't defend the

Trinity if their life depended on it though they're not really concerned about stuff like that yeah and unfortunately there are a lot of evangelicals who are very soft on the

Trinity and who welcome into fellowship one is Pentecostals anti -Trinitarians and T .D.

Jakes seems to have an open door to a lot of professing

Trinitarian people and congregations and ministries and so on and yeah so it's

I don't understand why these professing

Trinitarians don't have red lights flashing in their heads warning lights because typically it's interesting and I can't speak for T .D.

Jakes but typically one this Pentecostals they take it very seriously they think that if you believe in the

Trinity you are a polytheist you are worshiping three gods and you're a heretic and you will go to hell if you continue worshiping this so -called

Trinitarian God yeah so oh go ahead no no you go ahead

I'm going to stay on just what you said most Christians being kind of weak on the Trinity I mean remember the elephant room back a couple years ago with James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll yes how

T .D. Jakes walked into that room and ate those guys for breakfast they had no idea how to respond to all of his talk and even his aftermath from the fallout when you had guys who were evangelical theologians kind of somewhat defending

T .D. Jakes and you realize these guys may understand theology in an academic sense but they have never encountered a one this

Pentecostal yeah and there is still seems to be confusion and disagreement over whether or not

T .D. Jakes is still a modalist and I think that's because he very cleverly will refuse to specifically claim clearly that he is a one that's

Pentecostal and he will use language with a different dictionary and people will people will assume that he is

Trinitarian yeah Jakes is many things but stupid is not one of them he's very smart he knows how to play with rhetoric and he knows how to say one phrase and have it mean two things to do to two different groups of people so that he can you know someone challenges and says what do you mean he says well

I meant this and they're put at ease but the opposite side says well hang on a second what do you mean oh no I meant this what you guys believe right right right right very good at that yeah see that's that's one of the reasons why

I disagree with some of my brethren who I love dearly who are opposed to labels and opposed to using any extra biblical language is because sometimes that gives the opportunity for a false teacher to hide behind a smoke screen because T .D.

Jakes is basically saying I'm not going to be forced to use an unbiblical term like the trinity and many

Christians would say well who could fault a bible -believing Christian for that he doesn't want to use an unbiblical term but the thing is that enables him to hide behind a smoke screen in that that he may be in fact denying what the bible teaches about the trinity and but by and hiding behind the fact that he doesn't want to use a non -biblical term for it right well the same guys that want to give him a pass for that would probably have you tarred and feathered if you ever thought of getting rid of potlucks because potluck doesn't appear in the new testament what might say that again oh

I said like the kind of the same mentality that says well we don't want to judge T .D. Jakes you know he's good for not having he wants to stick to biblical terms and that's okay that same group of people often would have you tarred and feathered for daring to challenge the church stop having potlucks just because potlucks aren't mentioned in the bible yeah well yeah and then another thing is that as I've mentioned to some of my friends and I understand the concept of saying that you don't want to use the term calvinist because you're because in their minds they are somebody who is using that label is attributing calvin for the teachings rather than the bible and giving undue honor way too lofty in honor to a human being who's a fellow sinner rather than to christ and that kind of thing but when you just say

I want to stick to strictly being called a bible -believing christian well the problem is many cults do the same thing you know so you know what does that mean yeah you believe in the bible but so did herbert w armstrong and you know there are a lot of people who say that they're just going by the bible alone harold camping who passed away not long ago that was his big that was his big chant was that he only used the bible alone and and that kind of thing so anyway

I digress what are the what are the what is a summary that you could give us now of reasons that christians should be alarmed and stay clear of the new apostolic reformation not that you shouldn't still remain friends with people involved so that you can you know educate them about the dangers and heresies but as far as being seduced into the movement yourself what are the what's the summary of what you'd like to give today that should really give christians every reason to stay clear of them well i'd want to just before i say that i want to make sure and articulate that the new apostolic reformation is because it's not a kind of monolithic movement or it's not a you know denominationally seen movement there's a lot of variety and there is a lot of good people that even attend nar churches i have lots of friends who are in our churches who are christians who are they're deceived they're confused and they have horrible leaders over them who just lie to them and so i don't want people to think that i'm i hate them or that i'm angry about this or something but the nar the biggest problems with new apostolic reformation number one is they get the gospel wrong and so there are people in new apostolic churches who get saved yes but they do that in spite of what is taught not because of it and so the nar these guys tend to have the gospel wrong they tend to focus on the gospel being about well it's involves prosperity that's a big thing there's word -faith theology that comes into it where in essence i mean word -faith theology and prosperity theology are really there the veil worship of the old testament just gussied up with christian terminology in the end of the day god is served as a tool to give you what you want and you learn the right techniques to manipulate god to either give you money influence power fame whatever it is you require there's universal law god is subject to that law and you can manipulate that law using words and faith that is not christianity that is not the gospel not everyone in the nar teaches that overtly but it is prevalent and the guys who reject that for some reason like in the nar churches the guys who will say they reject prosperity theology still end up sharing stages with blatant prosperity preachers and there is no ground for them to stand on because of course the second problem is these guys have abandoned any sort of objective interpretation of scripture second problem with the nar is that hermeneutics goes out the window bible interpretation goes out the window and you have because they believe in modern revelation and you're hearing the voice of god that basic comes out in two ways a interpreting the scripture the bible means what god tells you it means has nothing to do with the words in the bible has everything to do with what god tells you and when you read these guys like guys like bill johnson from Bethel church jenson franklin um you read james gold you read john devere you read joel osteen you read uh rick joiner um you know sydney jopins you read these people and they write and when they use scripture you look at what they're saying and you look at the verses they're quoting and you think what in the world are these guys literate are they illiterate can they not read how can they get that but of course what it is is well they read something and the holy spirit just trumps everything and says this is what the verse means don't read it don't worry about what it says here's what it really means and they can just shred the bible do whatever they want with it and the people who are caught in those churches have no way of understanding the scriptures because they're taught systematically to ignore the clear meaning of the text of scripture that will yes i mean if you do somehow hear the gospel get saved and then they are church and i think that we somehow lost our guest are you there brother i thought that i heard a click there so i'm hoping that our guest lyndon ugger calls back we only have a few minutes left but uh hopefully and that is i i'm assuming that is our guest lyndon ugger and uh is that you but is that you brother lyndon yeah i think my phone just dropped the call there yes it did sorry about that i had missed the last few sentences what i was saying well why don't you just repeat this the last sentence sure sure so so in any of our churches people are taught to trump the scripture via private revelation that i mean if somebody does hear the gospel somehow you know they're on the internet they read something they hear the gospel they get saved great if you're in a new apostolic church you will be in a position where you will be perpetually immature because the people around you are constantly shielding you from the scripture and teaching you to systematically misinterpret it that is very very bad for your spiritual life when you're surrounded by people who mishandle the scriptures and of course theologically they will be giving you a bunch of error and so that is some of the big problems with the nar it's abusive i mean the whole idea of apostolic governance really means pastor is king and you know the the verse touch not the lord's anointed gets thrown out all the time and anytime anyone disagrees with the pastor they are just tarred and feathered and ran out of town the obsession with signs and wonders they're they focus on the new new moves of god new manifestations new signs new wonders again that teaches you that the mark of christian spirituality is falling on the floor barking like a dog you know having angel feathers appearing in your services or gold dust or having gold teeth or now this stuff is different i mean there's different manifestations but it keeps happening and people are taught that's the mark of maturity when people have it happen to them and when people can do that when you can make you know there's guys who have oil that apparently comes out of their palm they have like this oil stigmata and that's the mark of spiritual maturity and there's guys who they're traveling evangelists and speakers who really the only reason they're on stage is because they can fabricate oil coming out of their hands that's not spiritual maturity spiritual maturity is when you read the scriptures you understand it you submit to christ and you basically read the bible and do what it says when you understand it properly and you're submitting to the rule of the scripture and the spirit in your life and there's change being produced and you will be conformed to the image of christ instead in new apostolic churches people just run from revival to revival constantly chasing the new move of the spirit hoping that somehow that will have a positive impact in their life and so i remember when i was in charismatic circles for about a decade i had so many friends that would drive city to city going to revivals and they would go to have these uh you know they'd go to worship conferences and stuff like that and they would do that because their marriage was in shambles and they thought in order to for my marriage to get better i need a fresh impartation or a fresh anointing of the holy spirit and they'd drive six hours to go to a worship service and they'd come home their wife was like well where were you i went to a worship service also they have a big fight well the problem is not that the guy needs more holy spirit the problem is that he's got to love his wife like love the church the guy's got to weigh himself down for his wife instead of running around chasing all this stuff and so the very thing that they think will help them often hurts them i've seen that time and again and it breaks my heart to see that but yeah that's those churches there it's just this there's error there's a lack of gospel and there's a lack of true spiritual maturity which when i have friends who are in that i see you know they seem to like the scriptures they seem to want to learn there's nobody around to teach them and even even today i have a guy who messaged me today who i was his called her pastor 15 years ago he is part of this circle and even now he still emails me when he has questions about stuff because nobody in his church can give him any answers on anything and nobody disagrees with him and i and he knows that i know that he thinks i'm a heretic yet he still emails me because i'm the only guy who ever gives him answers from the bible on anything that to him make a lick of sense and i feel so sad for him that he constantly is just kind of flailing like this and trying to find somebody who can help him understand the scriptures help him kind of make sense of his life and his life is just a mess and it's because he's surrounded by people who are spiritually immature and theologically they're just total imbeciles the uh the uh oil stigmata is the is a new one for me i haven't heard that one i think the only the only reason why somebody should have oil on their hands is if they're an auto mechanic a person with a glandular problem or perhaps it's just somebody with bad hygiene or maybe somebody who's tossed a salad with their bare hands i don't know but anyway uh that's that's not a miraculous manifestation and and uh let's stop let's stop borrowing from our roman catholic friends this uh superstitious nonsense yeah uh well anything that is coming up that we should know about on uh cripplegate and also watch your life and doctrine closely and why the why what's the difference between those two blogs uh well the uh cripplegate is actually a team blog that i'm part of and it's a bunch of guys from master seminary who have all gone off into ministry and whatnot and so i'm part of that team so they are constantly putting out they put out stuff every day and it's the cripplegate is kind of very broad lots of subjects lots of stuff um and they they cover hermeneutics and evangelism and theology and preaching and shepherding and tons of stuff so the cripplegate is you go there every day there's always something new coming up and it's always good there's a lot of guys i i i love being the dumbest guy on that blog and it's always it's always wonderful oh that that explains why john macarthur showed you ronald reagan's grave i didn't uh what the connection there with john macarthur is the master seminary there yeah the only the only person that ever showed me a grave there was a uh guy from new jersey who showed me my grave if i didn't pay him the money that i owed him but anyway and uh and of course you could go to mennonight m -e -n -n -o -k -n -i -g -h -t dot wordpress .com