Is God Concerned with Proportional Representation?

AD Robles

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

Have you ever seen this video? What we're witnessing here is the spread of Christianity, and this is, you know, this is mere

00:16

Christianity. We're not talking about, you know, Protestantism or anything like that, but this is supposed to depict sort of how the gospel and where the gospel spread over time, and as you can see, the time is running up on the timer up on the top left, and you can see it spreads throughout the

00:36

Middle East, it spreads to Europe, it spreads even towards Asia. Even though the Bible tells us that God prevented the gospel from going east, the

00:44

Holy Spirit prevented the gospel from going east and instead went west, but you can see over time it does spread east, and then what we can see is, you know, the

00:53

Islamic Empire sort of spreads a little bit and then it's beaten back.

00:59

We've talked a lot about how, you know, why that's happened and things like that. One thing

01:05

I noticed about this map, if you've seen it, is it also tends to show you sort of where God's covenantal blessings go to.

01:12

I mean, if you look at these regions, these were the regions that had political power, that had material blessings.

01:20

I mean, Europe and then the United States, you can see these are powerful nations. They have a lot of resources, they have tons of covenantal blessings from God, and that's no surprise.

01:31

And look, I mean, this is where the map pretty much ends up. Let's just stop talking for a second and I'll show you where this ends up.

01:38

So look at this map, right? This is where the gospel has spread. Christianity has influenced a majority of the whole world.

01:44

I mean, there's some, you know, more Islamic areas here, there's some communistic areas here.

01:50

This is not quite the end of the map, but you can see that this is a pretty interesting map and there's no equity really where the gospel goes.

01:59

Now there will be. I think God's mission, God's great commission will be fulfilled before he comes back.

02:06

But if you look at this map and you can see where the blessings, kind of the covenantal blessings of God have gone.

02:13

And there are some areas, I mean, look at this big area here, this big area here, that the gospel has not penetrated completely yet.

02:21

And it ebbs and flows. I mean, those areas were influenced by the gospel, Saudi Arabia, all this stuff. They were influenced by the gospel for a time and it ebbs and flows.

02:28

And this is the reality of the situation. Now what's the point of all this, right? That's the question. And here's the thing, you know, reformed people, we understand that the gospel will penetrate and will reach a soul and will save a soul according to the will of the

02:47

Holy Spirit. God will open some people up to the message of the gospel, will regenerate certain people and others he will not regenerate.

02:55

And this is true for people groups as well. For whatever reason, God has chosen that the

03:01

Middle East for the most part, China for the most part, is not, has not, it's not the time for the gospel there yet.

03:08

And it's all in his timing. And I, again, I think that eventually Christ will convert the nations, the

03:13

Holy Spirit will convert all of the nations and they will all be put under Christ's feet. And this map will look completely white, according to the,

03:23

I don't mean white like that, obviously. Anyway, according to this map. So what's the point of all this?

03:31

So here's the thing. I saw this tweet by Matt Smethurst here, and it's a little small here, but so you won't be able to read it.

03:38

But what he says was true racial equality isn't a willingness to be with people of color. It's a willingness to be led by them.

03:46

And the reality is like, first of all, I don't think that there's really many Christians out there that, you know, would be like,

03:53

Hey, you know, I'm not, I'm not willing to be led by a person of color. I think that if you, if you, if you, if you somehow could do the numbers on that, it would be like less than 0 .01

04:02

% of people that would be unwilling to be led by a person of color. And then, but, but, but, you know, here's the thing.

04:08

So this, this guy, Brad Mason here, he says, this is right. This is why black Americans in this country have been wondering for hundreds of years why white

04:14

Americans disproportionately hold the seats of leadership in conservative denominations and seminaries to this day,

04:21

Matt Smethurst is addressing this persistent problem. And my question to Brad is, is what is the proper proportion of black people to be holding positions of leadership, right?

04:31

How do you know what the proper proportion is? And this is an unanswerable question. I'm sure

04:36

Brad will give me some kind of an answer. Most people would say, well, if the, if blacks represent 11 % of the

04:42

United States population, then they should represent 11 % of the pastors. Now I don't know what the percentages are, and I'm pretty sure

04:50

Brad doesn't know either of what the percentage of black pastors are or whatever. I bet you if I, I mean,

04:57

I don't know this, but I bet you that they're pretty close to proportional in that way. But the reality is, is that the proper proportion?

05:04

And how do you know? Because I don't have any expectation. I don't think that there's any biblical expectation that you should say, okay, well, there should be exact equity in, uh, in, in, in, um, proportions of leadership.

05:17

So if there's 2 % Puerto Ricans, then 2 % of the pastor should be Puerto Rican. If there's 11 % black, then 11 % of the pop of the pastor should be black.

05:25

If there's 12 % Chinese, then 12 % of the Chinese pastor should be Chinese. I don't see any biblical expectation of that.

05:31

In fact, if you go ahead and look at this map, it does, it seems like there are some serious inequities here, and this is what the

05:39

Holy spirit has done. Do you, do you see what I'm trying to say? So, so there's biblically,

05:44

I don't see any reason to expect that there should be perfect equity or perfect proportions. What however you define it, because however

05:50

Brad ends up defining proportional, uh, he, it's going to be from his own opinion. There's nothing in the

05:55

Bible that talks about the proper proportions of skin color, uh, elders or deacons or whatever.

06:01

There's nothing in there. I mean, I've read the Bible cover to cover and there's nothing in there that says this is the proper proportion based on skin color.

06:08

Basing anything on skin color is partiality. And so the Bible is against partiality in all of its forms.

06:15

The whole point of this though, is there's like this lure of some kind of proportional equity or whatever.

06:22

There's even, there was even an article that was, uh, criticizing John MacArthur's seminary because, uh, they didn't read enough

06:28

African American, uh, or, or not even just African American, but, but, uh, black, um, brothers in Christ, their books or their, their, their impacts on theology.

06:37

Well, there's a, probably a pretty good reason for that. I mean, again, if you look at this map, we of course had some solid

06:42

Christian brothers from Africa. I mean, um, I remember doing a video about Augustine and how someone was pretending that like we were hiding that Augustine was from Africa and that's just not the case at all.

06:53

I knew Augustine was from Africa from the very first time I knew about Augustine. This is just, this is just not true.

06:58

But, um, if you look at this map and how Christianity has spread, uh, wouldn't you expect that many of the people we read would be

07:05

European based on how the Holy Spirit spread the gospel of Jesus Christ? Now, I would suspect the way that this map has changed, probably the future will change.

07:15

So in other words, seminaries in the future, we'll start to read more books from other kinds of ethnicities.

07:20

And the, uh, and the reason that that would do that is just because of the spread of the gospel, the way the Holy Spirit spread to do it.

07:25

It won't be any forced diversity or anything like that. You can't, you won't be able to say that, but you will be able to say, well, the gospel has spread differently now.

07:33

And so there you go. That's why we are reading these people. Now, the reality is that this whole idea of equity is just completely bogus.

07:41

It's a siren song. It's childish. It's impossible. And honestly, I think it betrays the attitude that they're decrying is within them because Matt Smethurst says, well, we really need to be willing to be led by people of color.

07:55

And I agree with that. I mean, if there was a qualified pastor of color and, um, and, uh, you know, you refuse to be, uh, to be at his church because he didn't like black people.

08:04

Well, that would be a sin. You'd be in sin. But this whole idea of we need more black pastors, we need more people of color pastors.

08:11

That to me demonstrates an unwillingness to be led by a white person. And frankly,

08:17

I don't understand that at all, because the Bible does not in any sense talk about skin color or race or ethnicity as a qualification for elders.

08:27

So if you're looking for a pastor and one of your qualifications is black, and I've seen this a lot,

08:32

I've seen a lot of people say, well, I want my kids to be seen black people in power. That's I want them to see that.

08:39

And so one of their qualifications for the church they go to is they want a black pastor. I think that's a sin. I think that that's showing partiality.

08:45

I don't think I think that's counterproductive, too. I can guarantee you I will not spend even one millisecond looking for a

08:52

Puerto Rican pastor to be an elder so my kids can see a Puerto Rican in power. That's not how

08:57

I'm training my kids. I think that's very counterproductive to the whole supposed mission of avoiding racism or avoiding partiality or whatever like that.

09:09

And so this idea of equity has to be perfect equity. I don't see it in the Bible. And it doesn't seem like again, if you look at this map, right, doesn't seem like the

09:17

Holy Spirit is that concerned with equity either. I mean, look at all of these Asians and Africans that died without salvation from Christ in these centuries.

09:29

God's not really concerned with equity. I don't think there's any reason to expect that the eternal state will be perfectly proportional the way guys like Brad Mason say it should be proportional for elders and leadership.

09:41

God's not concerned with that. I'm not sure why we're concerned with that. I'm just hoping that God expands the gospel everywhere and does his work.

09:51

But I am completely satisfied with the way he's done it up until now. Anyway, I hope this was helpful.

09:57

God bless. As a side note, if you look at this map, the way it ends up, this is 2016.

10:23

You still see this Islamic rule here in Africa and things like that. This is where my ancestors are from right around here.

10:29

And I've said this on video before, and I'll say it again. I don't think the slave trade was a good thing.

10:34

I think that was evil, wicked, vile rebellion against God. But I thank

10:39

God for his providence in bringing my family over from this area that's completely ruled by Islam over to this area.

10:48

And he did it through the slave trade. And that's, you know, that's reprehensible for the people who committed the slave trade. But I thank

10:53

God and his providence for that slave trade, because that's how he spread the gospel to many Africans.

10:59

It's just how it happened. I'm not saying we should emulate that or do it again, but that's how God did it. And I am not shaking my fists at the

11:06

Lord. I thank God that I don't live here and I do live here. Anyway, I hope that was helpful. God bless.