Patreon Q&A Sept 2020

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00:00

All right, well, let's jump into this today. Got a lot of great questions. Thank you so much, again, for another month of support.

00:06

It's been awesome, guys, seriously. I know I said this last month, and I'll probably say this every month, but your support makes it so much easier to pour more time into this content, and I think that this month's content was really good.

00:20

Exciting news coming up. I'm gonna be getting a new microphone to hopefully improve the quality of the audio side of this, and potentially even a new camera, but we'll see about that.

00:30

Waiting till the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference to happen so I can talk to some of those pros about what to do in that regard.

00:36

Also have another exciting announcement coming out on Thursday, so be on the lookout for that one as well.

00:43

Lot of really cool stuff happening behind the scenes. I know some of you guys know about some of it, some of you don't, but there's a lot of interesting, interesting activities going on in the

00:51

Christian world, especially the people that I associate with online. So be on the lookout for this.

00:57

I feel like this month has been a tremendous momentum swing, but we'll see. I mean, I'm not a prophet or a son of a prophet, although I have had a lot of very interesting things happen as far as people

01:12

I've talked to and things like that, and we'll talk about that tomorrow, which is the Patreon Hangout.

01:18

If you can join us at eight o 'clock Eastern tomorrow, love to have you. Shoot me a message if you haven't already, and we'll do our

01:25

Patreon Hangout as well, and we'll talk about all kinds of stuff. But anyway, since we have so many questions, let's jump right into it.

01:31

First one comes from Cal. Cal says this, "'What is the Christian approach to boycotts?

01:36

"'Cancel Netflix is trending, "'and I see divergent opinions about whether Christians "'should or shouldn't cancel a service. "'Is it a matter of conscience?

01:43

"'Probably. "'This is a small skirmish "'in a broader cultural engagement in culture. "'A broader engagement in culture.

01:49

"'It seems we need to do more to create good content.'" Well, that's in the works, Cal, definitely. The push to create better content, the push to figure out how to fund that content, the push to make sure that it doesn't stink is underway, no question about it, and there's some very exciting things happening on that front.

02:09

But as far as boycotts are concerned, I've never been a very big boycotty type of a person. And for a long time,

02:17

I didn't understand why I wasn't, because it seems like right up my alley. People like to think that I'm a big fundie, and I like to jump on all the fundie trains and stuff like that, but I never, it was just never in me.

02:27

I would see something like cancel Netflix or something like that, even before I had Netflix, and I just never, there was a

02:33

Disney Plus, cancel Disney Plus thing for a while, and I did have Disney Plus. And I just never even thought about doing that.

02:40

It just didn't seem like the right thing to do, and I couldn't really put my finger on why until I read an article that really kind of,

02:48

I had some ideas as to why, but I couldn't articulate it very well. But I read an article by Doug Wilson that articulated it perfectly, because, so here's what he said in this article.

02:58

I'll try to remember to put the link in this email. Basically what he said was, there's a tactic of boycotting, and then there's a moral purity argument of boycotting.

03:08

And the moral purity argument is very weak, because it's never consistent. So his example that he used, you can organize a cancel

03:14

Netflix boycott on Facebook, which is just as bad as Netflix in many ways.

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But for some reason, Facebook's not being boycotted and cancel Netflix is. And so when you use the moral purity argument, like I have to disconnect from any part of the economic system that is tainted in any way, it never is consistent, it's never very, it's not that powerful, it's just a very poor argument.

03:37

And I agree, it kind of reminds me of the meat sacrifice to idols type thing. The consistency there doesn't make any sense, and you don't have to disconnect from every piece of a system that has a tinge of sin in it, much to the chagrin of the systemic racism police.

03:52

But as a tactic, boycott can be effective. So the example he uses in this article is a very small town whose gas station decides he wants to sell pornography like the gas stations that the big towns have to make a few extra bucks.

04:06

Well, if the town is small enough and enough people boycott the gas station because he's selling porn, you don't have to have a very big critical mass of people to make that boycott actually effective.

04:16

And as a tactic, you can keep a pornography store out of your town with just a handful of people stopping buying gas from this small town gas station.

04:24

So as a tactic, it might work and you can join it, it's definitely a matter of conscience. But I just don't see, you know,

04:31

Cal, I don't see that the tactic of boycotting Netflix over cuties as something that's actually going to work, especially when you do it on these platforms that, you know, very borderline child predatory as well.

04:44

So I don't know, that's kind of, you know, that article helped me understand really why

04:51

I was never really a boycott -y type person. I'm not saying that there's no place for them, but I just never participated in them, mostly because what

04:58

I get from people is you have to do it because of the moral purity thing, and I just don't agree with that. But thanks for the question, man.

05:04

All right, cool. Someone here asked me to invite Allie Beth Stuckey on our show

05:11

Reform Jellicle. I'll ask Matt about that. I don't really know too much about her. I know a little bit about her, and everything

05:16

I do see about her seems good. And she is on Fox News, so that would be something.

05:23

But anyway, but yeah, it's an interesting idea. I'll ask Matt about that this weekend. All right, this same person asks about Neil Shenvey.

05:30

He says, on Neil Shenvey, he's done fantastic work on his blog researching critical race theory. Someone needs to ask him this question.

05:36

Neil, how are you personally confronting this error when it's taught in your own local church?

05:44

This is the 800 -pound gorilla in the room with Neil, isn't it? Leading critical race theory expert belongs to a 12 ,000 -member church whose pastor happens to be the president of the

05:51

SBC. How does this get overlooked? What are your thoughts? Yeah, I don't think it does get overlooked.

05:59

I think that lots of people bring this up, I think. And Neil, I don't know if he's answered a direct question about this specific thing, but Neil is intentionally trying to avoid doing exactly this.

06:12

He's personally confronting people on errors that may be influenced by critical race theory, so long as they're not overtly saying,

06:19

I'm a critical race theorist. That's a decision that Neil has made, unfortunately. Neil's a nice guy.

06:25

I like Neil. I think Neil's work is very helpful. But if you just had Neil, there would be nothing, there would be no momentum in this fight.

06:35

There just wouldn't be, because it's too easy to say, I don't like critical race theory for X, Y, Z, even as you smuggle in ideas based on critical race theory,

06:44

ABC, and Neil will never really call you out on it, because he's a really nice guy. And so,

06:50

Neil, I've done a video called Neil Shenvey's are not enough, or Neil Shenvey is not enough. And it's really not about Neil, per se, although he's the case study, but it's about Ezra and Nehemiah, because Ezra and Nehemiah were very different people that had very different approaches, but they worked on the very same things.

07:06

And Neil was more, Nehemiah was more of a brute, Ezra was more of a scholar, and they accomplished, they were working for the same goals, the same kingdom, they had different approaches, they probably facepalmed each other so often, you know,

07:18

Nehemiah, not again, you know what I mean, like that kind of thing. And that's kind of how I feel about Neil. Sometimes I'll see something

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Neil says, and I'm just like, man, right on. So like, why don't you ever reply it? You know what I mean? But I don't begrudge

07:31

Neil. And I know a lot of people on my side think he is kind of like a secret weasel, secret snake working for the other side kind of thing.

07:38

And listen, you know, you might think I'm naive. I don't think that that's the case. I think he's working for the right team.

07:44

I think he is a very sensitive soul. I think he's a very nice guy. I don't begrudge Neil. I'm very happy that he's pushing back on this in his way.

07:52

I just wish that Neil would kind of, here's what I wish about Neil. I'll say this, I wish Neil would just kind of back off of the you can't criticize that way kind of approach that he takes sometimes.

08:03

You know, I get it, I understand to some degree, but it would be a whole lot easier to fight this fight as one of the brute

08:10

Nehemiah tank types from World of Warcraft if you didn't have Neil, you know, shooting you from the back kind of thing.

08:17

It would be a lot easier, Neil. So if you ever do watch this, that's what I wish from you, but I wish you all the best. All right, next question.

08:26

What are your thoughts on Christians leaving poorly governed states like California? This is kind of interesting because it's sort of related to the boycott question.

08:35

Although I think there's a key difference because a state like California, so here's what

08:40

I would say. I would say there's always a time to flee a state that's incompetently run, and California is incompetently run.

08:48

I mean, not only is it just morally a disaster, but it's also physically a disaster, and they don't know how to manage their forests, and they don't know how to manage lots of different things like that.

09:00

If it was me, I would leave California right now. I wouldn't want to pay the taxes involved. I wouldn't want to be involved in the state stuff that's going on there.

09:08

I wouldn't want to risk forest fires and things of that nature. It's just not really worth it to me. So I think that Christians should consider taking their families out of states like that and moving them into states that are a little bit more sane because you just never know what's gonna happen.

09:23

You just never know what's gonna happen. That being said, California's a great place for missionaries, you know what

09:28

I mean? So you just have to weigh out the options and decide what's important to you. I wouldn't live in a state like California at this point.

09:35

But then again, I could see God putting something inside me that says you need to stay or you need to go because we're supposed to be discipling the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

09:44

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I look at a state like California as a mission field, just like every state really, but more so than some,

09:52

I would say. So it just all depends on where you are in life, what you desire, what your goals are, what you do kind of thing as well.

10:03

There might be a good reason to stay in California based on what you do, your family situation and all that kind of stuff.

10:08

But personally, I wouldn't live in California. It would have to be a very interesting situation for me to want to live there.

10:16

But thanks for your question, appreciate it. Okay, next question. Mentioned on Twitter.

10:22

Will Big Eva support indoor worship this year when it is too cold to be outdoors anymore? Another question. There have been a few articles about masculinity making the rounds, notably this one from Theopolis.

10:32

Wondered if you've read any of these and had any thoughts? I have not, sorry about that,

10:37

Caleb. I have not read this Theopolis article in Institute or some of these other ones that you're referring to. But so I'll answer your first question.

10:45

I think that Big Eva is gonna continue to stay divided on the indoor worship situation.

10:51

I think that certain churches will wanna meet indoors and will start to make pushes to do that.

10:57

In fact, we see that a little bit with the Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington, D .C.

11:02

I mean, it's become so abundantly obvious that this pandemic was not what they said it was. And so what you're gonna have are people that are just gonna be like almost embarrassed into the position of saying, hey, we need to meet indoors kind of thing, even though they don't wanna displease the culture and stuff like that.

11:19

So you're gonna have some of those people. Then you're also gonna have people that are just gonna do literally whatever the government says as long as the government says so.

11:25

So it's gonna be a split way more than it has been. But what you won't get is blanket decisive leadership that look, the church needs to meet.

11:35

The government has no authority to tell us when to meet. And so we should just meet. You're never gonna get that kind of thing.

11:41

That takes too much cojones, that takes too many balls. And unfortunately, Big Eva cojones are in short supply, which is actually related to your question about masculinity as well.

11:51

I will say this about masculinity. There's a lot of really bad information out there regarding masculinity, the manosphere and stuff like that.

11:58

So I don't know about the articles that you're referencing here. But what I do know is that oftentimes I would read, in the past,

12:04

I would read articles about being a man and every point was a point that would equally apply to a

12:10

Christian woman. So it's just so stupid. It's like a real Christian man asks for forgiveness when he's wrong.

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And it's like, well, yeah, that's true, but that's really not helpful because that's just what

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Christians do, right? A real Christian man forgives people. And it's like, yeah, yeah, that's true, but it's not helpful, right?

12:32

So what we wanna know is what are the difference in nature? Like what am

12:37

I built to do? What does God require of me as a man, as a husband that's different?

12:44

That's the point of some of these articles. And I think for my money, I always shout these guys out, but I'll shout them out again.

12:50

The website, It's Good to Be a Man is probably the best website that I know about, at least at this point, about this exact thing.

12:57

Also, the stuff from Aaron Wren is pretty good as well. So check those out. And Doug Wilson, I mentioned him already today.

13:05

He does good stuff on this as well. In fact, in my opinion, there's a lot of things I like about Doug Wilson, but in my opinion, his stuff on the family is probably the most helpful stuff that he does.

13:14

Okay, let's, got a lot of questions here. So I don't know how many I'll get to. So I'll get to as many as I can.

13:20

All right. So this person wants to ask a couple of questions about some of the law of God stuff that I've been talking about, which

13:29

I'm glad to do. But just so you know, I'm not, this is not an expertise of mine, but I can understand like, you know, how you might want me to work through some of this and how

13:39

I would think about it. So I totally understand this, but you know, this could be debatable. Okay, that's my point.

13:46

Anyway, so follow up from the question about the no victim, no crime. So this guy asked the question a month ago about what

13:52

I meant by if there's no victim, then there's no crime. He said, work through a couple of case laws like this. Number one,

13:58

Sabbath work, and number two, worshiping false gods. So this is very important.

14:03

So theonomists also argue about this stuff. So not only is this not like my specialty specialty, but this is a very debatable point because a lot of theonomists would argue that the first table of the law, so the laws about not having any other gods before the

14:19

Lord and Sabbath breaking and what's the other one?

14:25

Graven images, stuff like that. They would say that those laws, that's for the church. That's not for the civil governing authority.

14:33

Other theonomists would say that there's actually a, there is like a connection between the two. So the civil governing authority would have the right to execute a

14:41

Sabbath violator or something like that. This is extremely debated within theonomic circles.

14:47

The people that agree with it say, you're just being an antinomian in the law of God. And people that don't agree with it say that you're going too far.

14:54

You're saying that we actually literally are Israel, which I'm definitely not saying. I'm talking about the general equity of these things.

15:00

So what I would fall into, excuse me, the camp of that the first table of the law isn't for the civil governing authority, it's for the church.

15:10

But at the same time, I understand the arguments that it should be because if you start letting people proselytize other religions within your nation, that's a recipe to sort of undermine the whole foundations of the nation and things like that.

15:24

So it's a tough one, it's a tough one. But as far as the no victim, no crime thing, the way

15:30

I look at it is that there are victims of those crimes. So number one, we have to understand that God is the

15:38

King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. He sets these things up for our goods. And so when you're worshiping false gods, and you're spreading false religions and stuff like that, you're actually undermining and twisting up people's minds to such a degree that they end up denying things that are obviously true, they end up doing things that are evil and stuff like that.

15:59

And so it's almost like information warfare almost. Sabbath, likewise, people need a day off of rest to worship the

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Lord. And even in God's law, it's like the animals need the day off, the servants need the day off, regardless of if they're

16:15

Jews or not. And so to take that away from them is also likewise, there's a victim there as well.

16:22

However, again, like I said, this is not as clean as some of the other things that I believe. So you could probably poke holes in that one.

16:30

But that's kind of how I think about it. As far as the incorrigible children here, this is another difficult one as well.

16:39

So he's basically saying, what's the threshold, right? What's the biblical threshold for capital punishment? So he says, for example, let's say

16:45

Bob commits X, Y, Z, and his parents repeatedly try to correct him. Is there a case where he could be put to death for those commissions?

16:52

However, in an alternate universe, let's say his parents had been hit by a bus and therefore were unable to correct him. Could he not be put to death for the same

16:58

X, Y, and Z? The way I look at the general equity there is that the idea of the parents trying to correct him is that people have tried to stop him.

17:06

It's not like you, on his first offense, you executed him. The point is people have tried to stop him. So I don't think it necessarily needs to be his parents, like if his parents didn't exist or something like that.

17:15

Whoever his guardians were, whoever was in authority over him could be a placeholder for that.

17:20

That's kind of how I would see that playing out. But thanks so much for the question. Okay, here is another question.

17:28

In college, I took a class on conspiracy theories, learning about the NWO, Bilderberg, Reptilians, 9 -11 truthers, and even got to write a paper disputing the claim that Michael Jackson attended his own funeral in disguise.

17:40

The professor wasn't a TGC type. What is your favorite conspiracy theory that has the backing of more than a handful of people?

17:46

I actually answered this in a separate email, a separate video, actually. So check out that video when you can.

17:53

But my favorite conspiracy theories are the fun ones. For example, like Flat Earth. I think that's a fun one.

17:58

I think that the Apollo missions being faked is a fun one. And the reason why I call them fun is because they're interesting, and if they're true or false, it has no effect on me.

18:08

So it's like, I'm never going to space. I'm never going to the moon. I'm never gonna see the

18:14

Earth from a distance to see the ball or the square, the square piece of paper that people say it is.

18:20

Actually, people don't say it's a square piece of paper. They say it's a circle. Anyway, so it doesn't really matter. I mean, one way or the other, my life is the same, right?

18:27

That's a fun conspiracy theory. It's fun to look into it. It's fun to look at the evidence. It's fun to poke holes in the evidence.

18:33

It's really fun to do that kind of stuff. Those are my favorite types of conspiracy theories. Aliens, UFOs, that kind of stuff.

18:41

But then there are some that's conspiracy theories that are no fun at all. And what I mean by that is like vaccines, the different problems potentially with vaccines, the different problems with geoengineering, and things like that.

18:57

I find those to be horrifying because if they're true, it's really bad for me, you know what

19:03

I mean? Because I've been pumping my kids full of vaccines that are poisoning them. And so I don't find a lot of joy looking into those kinds of conspiracy theories.

19:12

Not because I think that they're necessarily true, but if they are, it's severe. The consequences are severe.

19:17

To me, if the world was flat, that would be an interesting anecdote.

19:23

But people believe the world was flat for millennia, and everything was the same. Everyone did the same stuff that they're doing today, you know what

19:31

I mean? They worked, they played games, they had their families, everything was the same. But if vaccines are damaging, there's some serious changes that need to be made, and I need to figure out what to do with my own kids that I've pumped full of poison kind of thing.

19:47

So I don't have a favorite conspiracy theory, but I put them in two buckets.

19:52

I put them in the fun category, and then the not so fun category. So I hope that answers your question, but that's kind of how

20:00

I think about that kind of stuff. The ones that you've mentioned here, like 9 -11, Michael Jackson, Bilderberg, like some of these

20:08

I would put in the fun category, some of them I wouldn't, but I think you get the idea. Anyway, thanks a lot.

20:14

Okay, next question. This one comes straight out of New York, where I used to live. My family and I live in New York City, where we used to belong to a city to city church plant.

20:23

After the death of George Floyd, this place has become unbearable, to the point of us not being able to do

20:28

Zoom church with them anymore. To be honest, it's always been a place where social justice was central, but now it's the worst.

20:35

Now it's worse. My question is, what does one do when you can't find a sound church where you live? This is really a struggle for us, as it seems like a sound biblical church doesn't exist in New York City.

20:44

Well, I can say this to the user. Definitely good churches do exist in New York City, but it takes a little bit of work.

20:52

I came from a church in Brooklyn called King's Chapel, which was fantastic.

20:59

I was very sorry to leave that church in Brooklyn. King's Chapel, look it up. It's Pastor Troy Green.

21:06

But New York City, even though Brooklyn's probably not too far from where you live, I don't know exactly where you live, it could be too much just to get around in New York City a short distance.

21:16

So check out King's Chapel for sure. But I would suggest, oh, and by the way, for viewers, the city -to -city church plant means that's a church plant associated with Tim Keller's church.

21:26

So of course they're gonna be very social justice -y. So you just have to do a little due diligence ahead of time.

21:34

When you are looking for churches, find some online that look good, and then send some emails and make some phone calls.

21:40

Because I think that there are some things that you can get right off the bat about your concerns with your current church and your desires for a new church to not be so focused on this social justice stuff that you can get right out of the way, and a good pastor will be very honest and open with you about their positions on it.

21:57

So it's gonna take a little bit more work. It's not necessarily gonna be the easiest thing in the world. But the work that you put in on the front end could really help in the long run.

22:07

So I know how it feels. I used to live in New York City. I know that tons of churches in New York City are 100 % woke,

22:14

I get that. But not every church is. Definitely check out King's Chapel in Brooklyn. It's a small church.

22:20

I know of a church in Queens that is really good as well, if you live in Queens. I know of a church in Manhattan that's good, that's not social justicy, but they've got some other things that maybe aren't the greatest, depending on your background.

22:36

So shoot me an email, shoot me a private message, and I'll send you the names of these churches that I know of that are good.

22:43

But I hear you, I hear the struggle. It's unfortunate that we're in this situation, but if I can help out,

22:50

I certainly will. And yeah, there are good churches, so don't lose heart, don't lose heart.

22:56

Okay. Next question. This person wants me to analyze a tweet.

23:02

So I'm going to. Let's check this. Okay, so the next two questions are asking me to, they're asking somewhat complicated questions, and to be honest, and I'm sure this is not you guys,

23:15

I just don't really understand exactly what's being asked. So I'm gonna try, but if this is not answering the exact question that you've asked, please send me a direct message and let me know and maybe clarify it a little bit.

23:27

I'm trying here, but one of them tells me to analyze a tweet, but it's actually a tweet thread, and it's actually a tweet thread that quote tweets three times.

23:36

There's like thread inception. So I don't know exactly which one you're actually asking about.

23:41

So let me just try my best. This is the thread that he asked me to analyze.

23:47

It says, when being in Christ is an individualistic enterprise, then it's easy to view the church as an accessory rather than as an attailed right.

23:55

Many right now are willing to forsake a biblical ecclesiology of church as family to follow after the latest hot take of their online shepherd.

24:02

The same group seems also to be troubled by the idea that sin, in addition to being individualistic, is also corporate, because their faith is more

24:09

Western, perhaps more American, than it is biblical. And the tragedy is that in a moment where the church could shine brightly and demonstrate the beauty of Christian freedom and liberty and unity in the pursuit of justice, many are choosing individuality, think

24:23

Western American freedom, over their church family. This is heartbreaking. And I think, so, and again, this quote tweets

24:30

Brett McCracken, who quote tweets Nate Pyle. So I'm not entirely sure how to go about analyzing this.

24:37

There's like inception of tweets, like I said. So my comments, though, are this. When we look at the

24:43

Bible, we see that there's certainly an individual aspect to justice and a corporate aspect to justice, and we need to consider both in the ways that the

24:53

Bible considers both. And so we know from Scripture, very clear, that each man pays for their own sins.

24:59

You don't pay for the sins of somebody else. And when I say sins, I mean crime. So like if you commit a crime, you pay for that crime.

25:06

Somebody else commits a crime, they pay for that crime. We know this from clear scriptural teaching. That's not debatable.

25:12

But we also know that God can judge nations for corporate sins as well. God does, not only can he do that, but he does do that.

25:21

So we see that from Scripture as well. And so we need to hold both of those two things together. We need to hold the individual nature of justice and also the corporate nature of justice together.

25:30

And we can't just do it in any way we want. We have to do it in the way the Bible does it. And so that's actually what most

25:37

Western Christians are doing. They understand that God can judge a nation, but they know that when we're judging people for their crimes, their stealing, for their murder, whatever it is, it has to be on the individual level.

25:49

Now, people like this thread, the poem that wrote this thread, want to pretend like that's making it an

25:54

American gospel, but it really isn't. All it is is applying what the Scripture says in the way the Scripture says it.

26:00

And so I don't know if that's really what you're getting at here, commenter or patron, but that's kind of my take on that.

26:10

Anyway, so I hope that helps. And then the same person, and I'll answer this question too, just because I'm not sure if I answered your first one.

26:18

You asked me if I liked Rogue One, because you liked my takes on the new Star Wars movies, especially the Rise of Skywalker film review.

26:24

Thank you, I put a lot of time into that review. So I'm glad you liked it. But he asked me if I like Rogue One, and I did.

26:30

I did like Rogue One. I thought Rogue One was the best of the new Star Wars movies. That's not a very controversial opinion, I don't think.

26:35

I like the characters, I like the story. I think the story was good, because they had to land at a certain place at the end, so they didn't have too much wiggle room to give you a shock and awe surprise ending, because Disney wants to do these surprise endings, and none of them make any sense, and they're just stupid.

26:51

They're very bad at it. So Rogue One had to land somewhere, and so they had a specific guideline that they had to stick with.

26:57

And so I think it actually ended up working out better. I like the characters in Rogue One. My favorite character was

27:02

Saw Gerrera. He was awesome. And I even like Jyn Erso, because even though she was kind of unrealistically strong for a female character, she did have weak points.

27:12

She did have flaws and stuff like that, which Rey never did. So it's just she's a more interesting character in general.

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I like Jyn Erso, and yeah, I guess that's it. That's what I'll say. All right, here's a question from one of my patrons,

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Craig, and he's asking for his 17 -year -old daughter who watches the content too, what is my favorite name for God?

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And he provides a few examples, and my favorite name for God is Lord, because it's the most commonly used name, at least in American English Bibles.

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Plus, I like the, it reminds you, excuse me, it reminds you more of where you are in the hierarchy.

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He's your Lord, he's your master, he's your sovereign, and you're his subject. And I like that.

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I like reminding myself that he is my master, and that's it. I do what he says, I say what he says,

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I believe what he says. I have allegiance to him. I've pledged my allegiance to him, he's my Lord. And so I treat him as such.

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That's why it's my favorite name. So anyway, I like that one, and it's probably just been programmed into me at this point,

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Adonai, Lord. Lord's in the Bible so many times. All right, next question.

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This is another one I don't quite understand. So if I don't answer your question here, I'm sorry. I'm definitely trying.

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So if I don't answer it, shoot me a message, an email, whatever, and maybe clarify it a little bit. Here's what the question says.

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I'm hearing more and more men I trust and respect telling listeners, quote, if this or that thing is happening, you should leave your church, end quote.

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I've heard it from good Presbyterian brothers. I personally experienced a very similar situation. To go along with these ordeals,

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I've heard many times churches plant churches. Will you explain this? Those who have heard and read it from cannot seem to logically follow it out.

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From a Protestant tradition, I don't see how we could possibly place this constraint on all churches going forward. Yes, churches planting churches would be best policy, but as the tsunami of apostasy overtakes, so many churches finding a solid church has become more and more difficult.

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And so I don't really understand the question because I think he's trying to connect something here between leaving your church and then planting a church.

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And so if that's the connection, I don't think that if you are forced to leave your church because they're preaching some kind of heresy or their focus is all wrong or something,

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I don't think that you're required to plant a church if you leave that church. I'm not sure if that's what you're asking though.

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So if that's not what you're asking, I'm sorry. I've always thought that when someone says churches plant churches, that just essentially means that churches send missionaries places, who those missionaries should be planting churches.

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Like that's always how I took that, but maybe I'm misunderstanding that. And so yes, the mission of the church is to make disciples of all nations.

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And so teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded, one of those things would be to set up churches.

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So that's what I would say. But just because you're leaving a church doesn't mean that you're required to plant a church. So I think that's what you're asking, but I'm not 100 % sure if it's not.

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I'm sorry, I'm not trying to dodge unintentionally. It's just I don't understand. But anyway, I hope that helps.

30:16

Next question. This person says, we all know the social gospel is a false gospel, but my pastors disagree.

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They continue to give platform to someone in our church who hosts deceptive woke church onboarding classes.

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Along with prayer and fasting, what's the clearest and most concise way to help pastors understand this teaching opens the door to a false gospel?

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Yeah, this is a tough one, man. People reach out to me about this all the time. This is happening everywhere. So you're not alone, my friend, you're not alone.

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Brother, there's nothing you can do to convince someone of something that they don't wanna be convinced of. Prayer, fasting, these are very important, of course.

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Asking God to change hearts, asking God to move and stuff like that. These are very important. My opinion is that the best way to do this is through conversations, personal interactions, personal relationships, personal conversations with your pastors.

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Now I know that in some ecclesiologies, mega churches and things like that, this is impossible. You can't get an audience with Matt Chandler if you wanted one.

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You can't get an audience with certain people if you wanted one, it'd be very difficult. And so I don't really know how to help you in those situations.

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But I think that to try to communicate your issues with the social gospel and the woke church movement,

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I think conversations are necessary. Long conversations, asking a lot of questions because questions are less threatening.

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The questions can be very effective into helping people see your side of it when you start to ask questions like, how do you defend this biblically?

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How does this woke program, what it says here, not contradict what the

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Bible clearly says here? Can you help me understand your thought process there? Because sometimes when you're asking questions, they'll figure it out for themselves.

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And again, they're less threatening, you're not accusatory. My advice is to come up with questions that get you to where you need to go.

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Whatever your specific concerns are with the specific statements, ask them to compare it to the

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Bible. Ask them in a way that's not threatening. I might be missing something here, but this seems to contradict what

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Proverbs 26, whatever says, that kind of thing. That's my advice. I think it has to happen through personal relationships and communication in that way.

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Don't just send him an A .D. Robles YouTube video because then they'll think you're crazy. All right, here's another question.

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Do you think there are currently tensions within Begeeva over critical race theory and how far it has gone?

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Some seem to be more outspoken about the threat of CRT, for example, several SBC professors promoting James Lindsay's book, while others seem to be getting ever more radical,

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Thabiti, Eric Mason, Tisby. This seems to be leaving a lot of the churches, a lot of the clueless white guys confused.

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For example, David Platt felt the need to denounce critical theory and Black Lives Matter organization, even though he had just given a lecture a few weeks before that was steeped in critical race theory.

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Okay, this is a great question, Paul. I do think there's tension, no question about it. I don't think that the lines are kind of where you drew them here.

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I don't think David Platt feels any tension at all. I think that David Platt is playing a little political game here.

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But anyway, that's just my opinion. But no, I definitely do think there's tensions and I've had conversations with people within Begeeva, and I can't name them because I've promised not to, but I've had conversations from people within Begeeva that are extremely uncomfortable with a lot of what's going on.

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These people are in the guild, right? They give me recommendations on videos to do, articles to talk about, things like that.

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Most of the time they're things I was already doing anyway, but they're extremely concerned.

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And I think that we're on the precipice of some of these people coming out guns blazing.

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And I mean that in a respectful sense. There's gonna be breaking ranks that's gonna happen,

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I think, sooner rather than later. I think this coming election's gonna break a lot of people because the things that we're seeing from the

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Thabetes of the world, the Eric Masons of the world, the Tisbys of the world, is just, it's going so far that eventually they're going to force some hard decisions to be made.

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There's always gonna be the political guys like Platt. There's always gonna be the political guys like Mueller, Russell Moore, all these guys that are gonna play, try to play both sides until the cows come home.

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But strong men are gonna rise up from these ranks. And there's preparations being made right now for exactly this kind of thing.

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And so take heart, man. I think we're gonna see a lot of tension bubbling to the surface.

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I think it's gonna be a good thing. I think some division is a good thing, and we're gonna see that. So yeah,

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I definitely think that there's some tension. I think that that David Platt situation about denouncing critical race theory, Matt Chandler did something similar.

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Matt Hall did something similar. That was a tactic. I think that a lot of people did it all the same kind of couple weeks, and it was a tactic.

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They're denouncing critical race theory by name to keep their conservative bona fides because they have to at this point, because the president of the

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United States shamed them at this point. He came out stronger against critical race theory than they did, even though they ought to.

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So they have to, they had to do that, even as they're still teaching big tenants of critical race theory as gospel imperatives.

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So that game is very exposed now, and so I think that we're gonna see a lot more tension bubbling to the surface, and I think it's a great thing.

35:41

So thank you for that question, and I think, personally, this is one of my biggest encouragements. So I'm glad you're seeing this kind of thing too, patron, because I'm definitely seeing it, and it should give you a lot of encouragement because it definitely does me.

35:54

Last question, here we go. The other day, you came across my People You Know on Facebook. Naturally, I Facebook stalked you and saw that you have the

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X -Wing miniatures game on your likes. Do you play any other miniatures games? I also noticed other

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TGC geeky stuff. Approved, TGC, TCG, that's trading card game, not gospel coalition.

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So he's asking me if I'm a nerd, and the answer is definitely yes. I've even painted a miniature on YouTube before.

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Yeah, so I started off playing X -Wing. I really like X -Wing. I haven't played all year, which really stinks.

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But I also play Star Wars Legion. I also play a little bit of Key Forge. I also used to play

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Star Wars Destiny. When I was younger, I played the Star Wars CCG game. All my stuff is pretty much

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Star Wars except for Key Forge. And I used to be a video gamer as well, but I don't have the time for it anymore.

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I just can't justify the time sink that sometimes it takes.

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But yeah, man, I love geeky stuff, man. And I've got a bunch of miniatures that I haven't painted from a gift card that I got from work.

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I got a Canadian Amazon gift card, which you can only spend on Amazon Canada.

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And everything was not able to be shipped to the United States that I was looking at except miniatures.

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So they shipped me a bunch of Canadian miniatures, which was great. So I've got a bunch that I can't wait to get started on this winter.

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But yeah, man, definitely. If you're ever in the same town, bring some geeky stuff in,

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I'll play some games. All right, that's it. Once again, thank you for the patronage, patronage?

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Yeah, thank you for being a patron. You've helped this channel grow. You've helped people get this message. I get encouraging messages almost every single day from people that are finding value in the content.

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And you guys are part of that. So thank you very, very much. God bless you. Thank you for the questions. Also, if I didn't answer your question today, if I misconstrued it or accidentally skipped it or whatever, please send me an email and I will rectify it as soon as possible.