Is Allie Beth Stuckey a Grifter?

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01:28

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the work of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:34

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by Pastor Conley Owens as we answer the age -old question, is

01:43

Allie Beth Stuckey a grifter? Now, as we kick this episode off, Tim, what

01:49

Bible verse do you have for us related to the topic of Allie Beth Stuckey? Did you find her name mentioned anywhere in the scriptures?

01:57

Yeah, sure. So James 2, 1 through 6 talks about her specifically.

02:04

Okay. Wow, I'm surprised. I don't remember James mentioning her, but let's hear it.

02:11

He says, Allie Beth Stuckey, show no partiality as you hold the faith in her. Lord Jesus Christ, the

02:17

Lord of glory, for if a man wearing a gold ring and a fine clothing comes into your conference, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, you pay attention to the one who pays you $5 ,000 and say, you come sit here at a good place and have lunch with me.

02:32

While you say to the poor man, you stand over here and sit down at my feet. Have you not then made distinctions among yourself, become judges with evil thoughts?

02:41

Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor of the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love them?

02:49

But you've dishonored the poor man. So there, see, it was all there. Wow. Sounds like the message.

02:57

I must have missed that when I was reading over it in preparation for this episode. Yeah, so basically what

03:08

Tim's getting at is, you know, we posted about this a couple days ago, or maybe four or five days ago at the time we're recording this, but Allie Beth Stuckey, we saw this graphic that was going around on her website mentioning a conference that she was putting on.

03:30

It looks like back on September 28th. And I'll go ahead and I'll share this image with you guys so that you can just see a little bit of what

03:41

Tim is talking about here. He mentioned $5 ,000. Look, we even have a little painting here for you done on, it looks like probably

03:50

Microsoft Paint to point out to you the most egregious offender on this list of ticket options you can pick from.

03:59

And so basically you've got conference ticket prices here, $150 general admission ticket.

04:06

That gets you into the conference. A $500 breakfast package where you get to join

04:13

Allie Beth Stuckey for breakfast on Saturday and you get VIP seating and parking at the event.

04:22

And then you get a nice little silver lanyard. And then for $1 ,000, you get to join

04:30

Allie Beth Stuckey and Candace Cameron Bure for dinner and then do the breakfast.

04:38

You get the seating, you get a little tote bag and you get a gold lanyard. And then for the price tag of $5 ,000, you can enjoy backstage access throughout the entire conference.

04:53

You get to do the dinner, the breakfast, parking, seating, all that good stuff.

04:59

The VIP tote bag, which I don't know what's in the tote bag, but it's gotta be some pretty nice stuff for $5 ,000.

05:06

And then a black lanyard. So those are the things you get when you pay $5 ,000 to go to this conference.

05:15

So you're seeing that price tag, $5 ,000. Tim Conley, what are your initial reactions to hearing that price tag again?

05:27

Are you not able to park if you just get a normal ticket? You have to park a couple blocks away probably and walk, you know.

05:38

What about you, Tim? What are your reactions to seeing a $5 ,000 price tag?

05:45

I mean, all of that. I mean, it sounds very much like what James is talking about. And James too, you know, minus the church setting,

05:52

I mean, you have conference setting and it seems like a lot of people are unable to understand how there could possibly be a parallel there because it's not in church.

06:04

But yeah, I mean, to me, that screams like the kind of thing that James is warning against in general.

06:10

I mean, that's just one thought related to this whole situation.

06:16

And you tweeted that out basically citing James too.

06:23

This is an example of violating those commands, right? And so we had a bunch of people comment and they commented a lot of various things.

06:32

Some people were just balking at the price tag, which I mean, frankly, I think you probably should at $5 ,000.

06:39

It's not that much money after Bidenomics though. Yeah. I wonder how much they took into account inflation in that price tag and how much has it changed?

06:52

Because we're in October now. So how much should that price have even gone up if this conference were happening a month later?

06:59

But we did get a lot of pushback on this tweet.

07:07

And like I said, some people were just balking at the price tag. Like, hey, this is okay in general, but $5 ,000 is too much.

07:15

So why don't we just start there? How do you respond when you're looking at this and you're saying, hey, look,

07:23

I get it. You're hearing people say, hey, look, I get it. $5 ,000, that's a bridge too far.

07:29

But the practice in general to say, hey, you get this extra commodity, which is the person's time or maybe several people's time.

07:41

You get to have one -on -one conversations with them, share meals with them. In a way, most people at the conference will not be able to.

07:50

That's okay. It just can't be $5 ,000. What are y 'all's response to that kind of pushback?

07:58

My initial response is just to think about what the Bible says about these things. And any passage that forbids the sale of Christian teaching, forbids the sale of the proclamation of the gospel, does not forbid it for particular price tags.

08:16

Well, as long as it's not too greedy, as long as it's not too much. It's just very simply, do not be a peddler of the

08:24

Word, for we are not like so many peddlers of the Word of God, but we are men of sincerity.

08:32

There's no provision for peddling it for $5. And so some translations will say, peddle for profit, or they'll add for profit in there.

08:44

And then a lot of people get the notion that, oh, well, as long as you're not profiting from it, or as long as all your life expenses are just barely met or something.

08:53

It's only once it goes over that amount. But that notion of for profit is something that's added by translators for various reasons.

09:02

But yeah, it's not what the text says. It just says, do not peddle.

09:10

Tim, what about you? Do you agree with Conley there? This is not an issue about how much the price tag is.

09:21

It's about the fact that there is a price tag at all. Yeah, definitely.

09:27

I think that's something that a lot of people don't understand as it relates to this topic in general.

09:33

And it's obvious in the comments that people have some kind of standard of what's exorbitant that they're working off of.

09:39

But I mean, you think about the example of Simon the magician. He's not rebuked for the amount he wants to sell it for.

09:45

He's rebuked for the principle that he wants to sell it. I mean, that's certainly a relevant consideration here.

09:52

It's not really the amount. Now, I mean, when you look at the amount, I mean, certainly that's pretty egregious.

10:01

It certainly makes it easier to disagree with what she's doing, right? Yeah, I mean, some people have mentioned the fact that maybe some of this exorbitant ticket price is being used to offset the price of tickets for some.

10:16

So they're viewing it as some kind of charity scheme where you basically get some people who have more money to pay more, and then that will lower the price of tickets for everyone else.

10:26

And I don't know if that's part of what's going on. I don't know if, you know, like a thousand of it's going to her and four thousandths of it's going to the ticket cost or whatever.

10:37

I mean, whatever else. I imagine that a lot of that is going to the speakers, and there may be part of it going to her, but I can't confirm that.

10:45

I don't really know what's going on at that point. But in principle, like the idea of paying a speaker that much money in order to be in their presence.

10:54

I mean, it kind of – let me make a qualified statement. If that's what's actually happening, and this isn't just a price -lowering scheme or something like that, then there is like – you do have an impulse to look at that and say, man,

11:09

I wonder if she should get the Catherine Zeta -Jones Megalomaniac Award here for her low self -importance or something.

11:17

I mean, it is kind of a funny thought to think, oh man, like I'm going to charge people to be in my presence.

11:23

I don't know that I have that kind of impulse just to think that my time is worth that much.

11:29

But I mean, I guess when you run in those kind of circles, you can normalize things that on the face of it seem somewhat absurd too.

11:36

Do you have any thoughts related to that, Conley? Yeah, I've got lots of thoughts. I'm trying to keep track of them in my head here.

11:46

I just want to go back to the passage from James 2 that you brought up, like the degree of partiality of saying to the rich, you sit here.

11:56

Now some people were pointing out things like, well, it's not partiality if everyone is able to pay the same price.

12:03

So you're not treating people differently because they're rich, but because they pay. And that just seems odd.

12:10

Because everyone has the same opportunity to pay $5 ,000. That's right.

12:16

You're just choosing to not exercise that right. I mean, if you take a step back from that kind of thing in general,

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I mean, the fact that people are getting different lanyards to display how much they pay at a conference is, I mean, leaving the issue of selling your time aside,

12:32

I mean, there's something utterly bizarre about that, that everyone should be able to recognize, that you're paying for some kind of status symbol, you're paying for some badge of honor.

12:41

I mean, I would be embarrassed to wear. When X started allowing people to get verified,

12:52

Twitter started allowing people to get verified if they pay their $14 a month or $9 a month or whatever it was, there were many people who kind of reacted to that as if they didn't even want to get verified because they didn't want to advertise that they're paying to look special or something like that.

13:12

I mean, that's worth $9, you know? But you think about that related to $5 ,000 or $10 ,000, and I know that this is taking us a little bit far afield, but I mean, there is something very odd about that, that you're paying to get a special recognition about how much you paid.

13:31

I mean, you could do the same kind of thing without all the recognition. I mean, you get the privileges, so to speak, without the name tags broadcasting it.

13:41

So all of it is very bizarre. There's a lot of things that are bizarre about it in general that Christians should look at and think, hmm, that's odd, you know?

13:50

Yeah, it definitely doesn't feel like it passes the smell test, right?

13:56

Like, even if you can kind of justify aspects of it, there are still questions around things like, well, hey, why do you have to have something that signifies, hey,

14:09

I paid this much to everyone? Yeah, step into that for a second, and let's assume that this is some kind of lowering the price scheme so that the people paying more are paying as an act of generosity.

14:21

Let's say that that's all that it is. I mean, still, then you have different biblical commands that are applying to that situation.

14:30

So, I mean, you're supposed to let your giving be done in secret. You're not supposed to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. So I think the whole idea, if this is just an act of generosity on the part of these people with more money, why do they need to broadcast to everyone that that's what they're doing at that point?

14:47

I mean, so that becomes odd in a different kind of way, too. But I know that's not the main thing we're talking about with the grifter thing, but there are other considerations related to this, too.

14:57

Well, I think it is worth considering a little further that even if it is some kind of charity to offset costs, because this is something that has been tested in church history.

15:11

This is not as novel as one might think. There were about 200 years where it was very common in churches to have seat rents, right?

15:21

So to rent out particular pews, and if you paid a certain amount, you would get a pew up front, et cetera, right?

15:28

And this would offset the cost for everybody else who wanted to come to the services, and this was considered more tasteful than passing a plate or asking for money in other ways.

15:37

This was very common. There's a lot of books that were written about this. The one that I found the most helpful is called

15:45

Seat Rents Brought to the Test of Scripture, and that is by James Begg the

15:50

Younger, who was pretty high up in the Church of Scotland. So this is not a novel thing.

15:58

This is something that the church experimented with, realized it got wrong, stopped doing it because really good theologians wrote about how awful it was for 100 different reasons.

16:10

But it's a conference, man. It's a conference. Yeah, it's a conference. It's not worship. But go back and read that homepage of that website, and it's like, you get a chance to worship with these famous people, et cetera.

16:22

It's billed as a worship event. And so just taking it for what it claims it is,

16:29

I don't know why we would play this game where, oh, for the sake of advertising, we're going to call it a worship event, but for the sake of defending what we're doing, we're going to say it's not really a worship event.

16:43

It's all a game that people are playing. And if it is really something that's supposed to be

16:48

Christian, it's supposed to have the power of the Spirit there, it's something spiritual, then you shouldn't charge for it.

16:56

And if it isn't something spiritual, then just go ahead and advertise, this has no power of the

17:01

Spirit, by the way. Disclaimer at the bottom. CB.

17:07

Well, yeah, that was something I was going to ask about because we did get that pushback too.

17:13

When you're looking at James 2, a lot of people were coming back and saying, hey, look, this is about specifically the church itself and the pastors that are leading that church and the congregation in that church and how they're all supposed to behave towards one another and towards those who presumably are coming and visiting perhaps as well.

17:37

But then that does not apply to these essentially like para -church organizations, which

17:49

I have my own thoughts on. It seems like your argument is just indirectly saying, hey, yes, because you are not yourself a church, you're a para -church organization, you are now allowed to show partiality.

18:08

It seems like that's kind of the indirect argument that's being made. Obviously, no one wants to say that out loud, but what are your thoughts on it?

18:18

Is that a correct assumption or is there more to it than that? We have several examples of scripture of either apostles refusing money or Jesus commanding not to take money, and these are not in strict church settings, right?

18:36

Matthew 10 .8, Jesus says, you receive freely give to the disciples as they are being sent out in order to proclaim the gospel.

18:46

Now, you might say, oh, well, that's just evangelism. That's just when you're talking to unbelievers, and these are believers.

18:53

Well, think about who these people are being sent to. These are being sent to Jews. The people that they are being sent to are those who already know that the

19:03

Messiah is coming. And so, though they're receiving the gospel proper for the first time, in a sense, these are not people who are to be regarded as rank unbelievers or something like that, right?

19:16

It's not evangelism the way that we might think of evangelism. It is trying to give the spiritual benefit of the gospel to those who already are part of that kingdom, that they need to hear that the kingdom is not just here in some nascent sense, but actually manifesting through Jesus Christ and his ministry.

19:38

I mean, Simon, the magician, that wasn't a church service that was happening there either. That's right.

19:45

And that's something that has really stuck with me since I've studied that more.

19:51

When I came on your all's podcast the first time to talk about this topic, that was pretty soon after I had published the book,

19:59

The Dorian Principle, on this. And one thing that I regret not having included or having thought more about was the implications of Simon's activity.

20:10

So he treats the Holy Spirit as something to be bought and sold, right?

20:15

And a lot of people would say, okay, well, how does that relate to Christian teaching?

20:21

Because this is something where you're talking about laying on hands, you're talking about something miraculous and supernatural, right?

20:27

But there is a very good connection to the work of proclaiming the gospel, to the work of Christian teaching, right?

20:37

And if you look at 1 Corinthians 2, and 1 Corinthians, just pulling it up here.

20:44

I thought I had pulled it up. I pulled up 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians 2, 12 says, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the

20:54

Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. That phrase, freely given us by God, is fairly significant, given that Jesus' statement was freely received, freely given.

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So we've received things through the Spirit, it's been freely given by God, and we impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the

21:16

Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. So a lot of people would argue, okay, look, what

21:22

I'm saying is just natural stuff. It's stuff that I have, I've earned this wisdom basically through my own study, et cetera, right?

21:32

We're not talking about laying on hands and something miraculous, something supernatural occurring.

21:38

But this is saying that the work of Christian teaching ought to be something supernatural. It ought to be not words taught by human wisdom, but taught by the

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Spirit. And if your goal in Christian teaching really is to produce, is to be the instrument of God by which some effect of the

21:56

Holy Spirit in someone else as he is teaching them, like you teaching as an instrument, but then ultimately the

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Spirit of God teaching their heart, if that's the goal of the teaching, then there is something supernatural, and you can't charge for what

22:10

God has freely given. It's been strictly prohibited by Christ. So a lot of people, yeah, there was a pushback that a lot of people gave related to that to where,

22:20

I think one of the guys, Unnamed Sources, I think he's a pretty solid guy from what I can tell in general.

22:27

But he mentioned the idea of paying to,

22:33

I think at some point in his life, he paid to have lunch with a famous author or something talking about RPG, tabletop

22:44

RPGs or something like that. And so he paid to pay for that experience of having lunch with the author.

22:51

And in his mind, this was a similar kind of thing. So what would you say related to that, that kind of objection that you pay a famous offer for that?

23:01

So what's the difference here? That wouldn't be an example of partiality is the argument. So that's not an example of partiality.

23:07

You're just paying for a product. You're paying for a service. So there you go. Right, so we're pretending like all you're getting is the company and not the teaching too, right?

23:18

I mean, that's the thing. This is a muddier issue. But if we pretend like, yeah, all that she's selling is breakfast with her, yeah, it's just weird.

23:32

I mean, we've seen the effects of celebrity culture recently, right? A lot of people have talked about the problems of Christian celebrity culture when it comes to some recent failings.

23:44

Things like that. I'm curious what your thoughts are. Because there's nothing wrong with me selling my services as a mechanic or as a software engineer.

23:59

But what you're selling at that point is not just breakfast, right?

24:05

It's not like you're selling breakfast as a cook, right? You're selling your company because you've got some kind of, because of your status in the kingdom, right?

24:14

Something that's been, once again, something freely. Yeah, what is the product? Yeah, I mean, what is the product here? And I mean,

24:19

I think that's where if you just step into the question and ask, well, what are we actually saying the product is?

24:25

And I mean, I assume she's not just giving her own like baking tips or something like that.

24:31

Like, I mean, I assume that that's not what's happening. I assume she's not just giving like random, you know, tips on...

24:38

Childcare, perhaps. I imagine that's not what's happening. No, but no,

24:45

I mean... While they're at home with the nanny. Yeah.

24:52

So what is the product that's being sold here? And this is where it is entirely relevant what we're talking about.

24:58

So, I mean, she is promoting herself as a Christian woman who is giving biblical teaching to women.

25:06

If that's not what you're doing, I don't know what this conference is for at that point. So what is it about? You know, are you giving a biblical perspective as a

25:12

Christian woman on topics? If you want me to... If the mission here is that there is nothing biblical that's happening here, you're not giving any...

25:22

You're not giving any biblical teaching whatsoever. You're just giving, you know, words of human wisdom. Then, okay, fine.

25:28

All right, that's what you're doing. But it doesn't seem like that's how it's being filled. You know, so I think you can't have it both ways.

25:34

You can't say on the one hand, like, hey, what I'm giving is biblical teaching. And on the other hand, like, let me divorce myself from the implications of that.

25:42

So I mean, if this is... Like, the issue is if it is biblical teaching that you're giving, then partiality concerns are relevant concerns.

25:50

You know, so when you think about the nature of what partiality is, it's showing preferential treatment to people who have equal claims.

25:57

So the idea of partiality is related to the idea of equal claims. And so everyone has a claim on being told the gospel, right?

26:07

Being told the Bible. There's not some people that...

26:12

I mean, if you were the kind of person in general in your life who are going to give special access to biblical truth to people who pay you more, like, that's a huge issue.

26:26

I mean, James even talks about that in the passage. I mean, the passage starts out with, my brothers show no partiality.

26:32

And then he gives an example of how that would look. And you're not meant to say, well, this is the only way that it can possibly be done.

26:40

Like by willingly applying it in one particular situation, you're supposed to extrapolate out, like, well, this is one example of partiality.

26:47

How else could I do this? Well, I would think as a Christian, if you're basically saying,

26:54

I'll give special access to biblical truth to you if you pay me exorbitant fees, or even fees at all, then

27:01

I think we're in that territory. Part of the problem too is, if you were to have some hypothetical church that was showing partiality in a different way, for example, that wasn't related to the financial, but instead was related to like skin color or gender or age perhaps or something like that, they would still go to that same passage and say, hey, look, it says show no partiality.

27:32

Well, it depends on what color. Doesn't it?

27:41

Only if the color is white, Harrison. Is that what you guys are doing over there? But people would go to that same passage and say, hey, you can't show partiality in this way.

27:54

People were going to that passage when all of the 2020 BLM stuff was going on.

28:01

They were pointing to that passage and saying, hey, look, they were talking about examples that were outside of the church.

28:10

They were talking about individuals even saying, hey, we've all been called to not show partiality.

28:18

They were talking about it typically in the form of racism. So I say all that to say it seems like people really don't have a problem with taking this passage like you're saying and applying it and at least realizing, hey, this verse doesn't only apply to the entire congregation of a single local church and whether or not they're putting the rich people in front and telling the poor people to go sit in the back where no one will see them or smell them.

28:56

Now, were they always applying it correctly in terms of being able to accurately identify the partiality as it related to racism?

29:07

I don't think so. I think it was very questionable, pretty dubious in a lot of instances.

29:14

But then they're at least understanding, hey, this passage doesn't only apply to this one specific scenario.

29:23

It seems to apply to a lot more, but then we're given the one scenario that's meant to inform us about how we ought to apply it in all of the other situations as well.

29:35

Do you guys agree with that or do you think there's more to be said there?

29:42

Oh, yeah. I am always just very surprised, and I shouldn't be surprised at that point at how wouldn't late people apply scripture, that they are not willing to see the breadth of it.

29:54

Psalm 119 .96 says, I've seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad.

30:01

God's word applies to many situations and to take the words of scripture, which are supposed to be for the edification of people.

30:14

All of scripture is to edify, not just parts of it. And they say, oh, well, this doesn't apply because this is just narrative, so it doesn't have any application here.

30:24

Or this example that's given of a law doesn't apply because it's written for this particular people or something like that.

30:34

It's just very wouldn't. Jesus was willing to apply scripture much more broadly than we see.

30:41

The example I always go back to is when he was talking with the Sadducees, and he proves the resurrection not from any of the very clear passages in the

30:51

Old Testament. And there's a theory as to why this is. It's possible that Sadducees only affirmed the first five books.

30:59

And so, he says that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, and he's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

31:05

Therefore, there is a resurrection. And I always look at that, and I think, man, whenever I make arguments that are twice as direct as that, people reject it as crazy speculation or something, you know?

31:23

And here, Jesus is saying, you were obligated to see the resurrection from this basic truth.

31:30

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, and people just aren't willing to do that.

31:37

Yeah, but it's amazing. I mean, you think about, so think about this scenario. James says, show no partiality, my brothers.

31:44

Show no partiality. And then he gives an example of that. And the example is you telling the rich person to sit in the better seat and telling the poor person to sit in the worse seat.

31:54

But I mean, everyone would know instantaneously. I don't think anyone would argue about this if a pastor were to, just change the situation a little bit, if a pastor were to basically have a pay -per -shepherding scheme with his congregation members, right?

32:14

To where the rich people get, get special time with him or something, right?

32:20

Like, you know, I mean, if he were at a mega church and, you know, it's like - Some do that with counseling. They do that with counseling.

32:26

But I mean, imagine like in their church, if they were to have like, hey, you can have breakfast with me, your pastor, if you pay $500, you know, and you can have a whole weekend, you know, with me if you pay 5K or whatever.

32:39

I think people, a lot of people, well, I may be over optimistic at this point that they would even be able to apply it.

32:45

But I mean, people would say, okay, well, that's the same kind of thing. That's the same kind of thing in general, right?

32:51

Even though it's not directly in a church service, it's the same kind of thing that James is talking about.

32:57

But I think once we get the, once we get to the parachurch level of things, I do think you have a, this is one of the most significant problems with parachurch ministries, is

33:07

I think that they exist to basically allow people to violate every rule of scripture in a different setting.

33:14

So I think that's almost their whole purpose for existing, basically.

33:20

Well, and that's one thing I was going to ask you guys about. Even though it's not, you know, it's kind of off topic, kind of not off topic, but, you know,

33:30

I mean, you're looking at a situation where you have someone coming along, they're putting on a conference.

33:39

I guess either they're putting it on or they are, you know, they're being asked to put it, they're being asked by someone else to put it on and they're kind of being put up as the main speaker.

33:54

I'm not exactly sure how it was organized, but it seems like it's probably one of those two. And so you have this conference, everyone's coming to it, they're paying whatever ticket price from $150 to all the way up to $5 ,000.

34:08

And then they're coming to hear, you know, Allie Beth Stuckey teach. They're coming to hear, what was the other lady's name?

34:15

Rosario Butterfield was there, wasn't she? Candice Cameron Bure. I don't see her name on here, so I don't know for sure.

34:26

I thought I saw it. And up here at the top, I'm looking back at the screenshot and it does say

34:32

Blaze Media Events, so it could be that they're the one putting it on and they're asking her to be sort of the, you know,

34:38

I don't know the arrangement there, but essentially what I'm getting at is, hey, you've got this conference.

34:44

There's going to be, there's going to be teaching done at this conference. That's why you're coming.

34:50

You want to hear biblical teaching. And it seems like it's coming primarily from women.

34:58

Now, I'm assuming it's probably primarily advertised for women as well, but just in general, do you think that this is a good idea to have women teaching at these conferences?

35:13

I know there's a big conference that happens every year now all around the

35:21

South. I think they change locations a lot, but the Passion Conference, I know they do this all the time.

35:27

They have women come up and speak to everyone, man, woman, and child. They're teaching them.

35:34

There's plenty of examples of this. We really don't even have to list them all out because it's so common at this point.

35:40

Do you guys think that that is an issue, that there are other passages of Scripture that we're now violating?

35:48

With these parachurch organizations, this being one of them, hey, women are now quote -unquote allowed to teach men because they don't technically have authority over those men because they're a parachurch organization.

36:09

And they get to charge at least $150 to those men that are coming to hear that teaching from them.

36:18

There's a lot of questions here. For this event, this was an event for women, right?

36:24

I think so, yeah. As far as parachurch in general,

36:30

I don't think it's... It depends on how you define parachurch. It's not really a thing. Even this podcast could be considered a parachurch ministry in a sense because it's not really an official church ministry, at least not at the moment.

36:47

But yeah, like Tim said, they are typically created in order to subvert the rules, in order so that you can run them without the people qualified to run them.

36:59

You don't have to be an elder or a deacon to manage very large budgets, even though God has set particular regulations for those who would manage the money of His people for the work of ministry.

37:18

And then you have these things come up too because if the church is called to support that work financially, it has a weekly way of gathering funds for this work, but it's in parachurch ministry where it doesn't have a way, and so it has to resort to sales because it doesn't have this just default way of funding the work.

37:44

Sorry, there's a lot more things there. I'm hoping for Tim to pick up all the slack that I left on the table. A lot of people might look at us and say, hey, you're a bunch of hypocrites because currently

37:55

I'm looking at a Patreon logo on the YouTube here. You guys are charging for your podcast, aren't you?

38:04

In the same way that these ladies are charging for their conference.

38:10

What do you think, Conley? Are we a bunch of hypocrites? I don't know if I've ever looked at your

38:16

Patreon page, but I'm pretty sure you are not giving any perks for different donor levels. No.

38:23

It's just a donation mechanism. You can get the podcast for free.

38:30

And there's no special access that's granted for donating a certain amount.

38:37

Your name doesn't show up somewhere, I don't think. You don't get special access to Tim or anything.

38:44

Oh, no. We don't put ads on any of the episodes.

38:51

I think we did at one point, and then Conley rebuked us after remaining quiet for too long.

38:59

And then he just couldn't stand it anymore. He said something, and we said, you know what?

39:04

You're right. And we took him off. So now none of the episodes, there's no ads.

39:09

There's no, hey, if you pay this, then you can get this type of access to us.

39:16

Everyone has the same access to us as everyone else. At one point,

39:24

Tim was doing biblical counseling through the podcast for anyone that they could request it.

39:32

I think it was a situation where Tim didn't always have the time to take on every single person who requested it.

39:41

But then there was no charge related to that. It was more just a question of what's feasible with the amount of time given in the day.

39:51

So we don't have any sort of pay. I don't know who would want to pay $5 ,000 to have breakfast with us, but I wouldn't want to charge them $5 ,000.

40:03

I don't know. Would you, Tim? I mean, I guess if I were marketing a secular product,

40:11

I suppose, then I could feel like, yeah, I'm worth it.

40:16

I'm worried about it. I'm worth it. I'm worth it. Bask in the honor of my presence.

40:29

But no, maybe you could explain the difference between reciprocity and co -labor there for people who might be.

40:34

Yeah, sure. So the distinction you see several times in scripture, Matthew 10, 8 through 10, being a significant one, where Jesus says, freely you receive, freely give.

40:45

And the next two verses says that a worker's worthy of his food. You get that distinction, right?

40:52

Those things that you have freely given, you should, you have been freely given, you should freely give. The gospel should be freely given.

41:01

There should be no reciprocity, no exchange for it. But don't you study? Yeah, I mean, don't you study to show yourself approved?

41:08

And doesn't that work? Didn't you? Right, isn't the worker worthy of his wages? Well, that's why it says in the very next verse, or the next two verses, rather, that a worker's worthy of his food.

41:19

So it is true that a worker's worthy of his food. Now, who is the employer of the worker in that context?

41:25

People don't typically ask this question. You know, this is not, it is not describing a seller -buyer situation.

41:32

It's describing an employee -employer situation. Those are very different, right? The seller and the buyer, you know, one gives something, he gets in return from the one he was selling the thing to, the product to, or the service.

41:47

The employer -employee, the employee works, and then the employer gives him whatever provisions are needed in return for his work.

41:58

And so the employer in this circumstance is the Lord. There's a parallel text in Luke 10, it includes the same context in everything, where before this,

42:06

Jesus has said, pray that, you know, God would send more workers into the harvest.

42:11

You know, he's called the Lord of the harvest. And so you have God as the employer.

42:19

This is the metaphor. It's not, once again, you know, not seller -buyer. It is employer -employee. And God is the employer.

42:26

His people are the employees. And so, he is the one that is providing the funds.

42:32

Now, he's doing this through, I think it's the Son of Peace in Luke, and then in Matthew, it's the worthy household.

42:42

Or maybe I got those backwards. But you have you have those who are already part of the kingdom, right?

42:50

Already doing the work who are co -laboring, right? Because they're both working for the same employer.

42:56

One's providing, you know, one's providing the provisions, the other's providing the labor.

43:02

And so they're coming together, servants of the same master, in order to make sure that this is done.

43:07

And so it's not reciprocity, it's co -labor. And you see the exact same thing in the Old Testament, which Paul appeals to in 1

43:13

Corinthians 9, where he makes the analogy of the priests and the temple, right? The priests, they are not paid by those

43:23

Israelites who are served by them, right? They are paid by the Lord. The Lord is their inheritance.

43:29

And so, as the people bring their sacrifices, the Levites and the priests, they get to benefit from those sacrifices and from those tithes.

43:37

Now, if this were something that were direct, as though it were a direct payment from the people, this would be idolatry.

43:45

They'd be offering their sacrifices, not to God, but to the priests. The Balaam kind of situation?

43:52

Yeah, or the Hophni and Phinehas situation. Go ahead, sorry, explain what you meant there.

44:00

Well, I mean, you have Balaam, who's offered the priests for hire, and then you have the own personal priest in the

44:06

Book of Judges, but... Oh, yeah. But yeah, keep on going. So, right,

44:14

I think it was Judges 10. But yeah, Hophni and Phinehas, right,

44:19

Hophni and Phinehas want the sacrifices before they are sacrificed, right? They want the meat beforehand.

44:25

And it's not clear to me why they would want the meat beforehand, but regardless, the point is that God is furious at them because they are taking the sacrifices directly for themselves rather than being offered to God, and then

44:37

God giving them to them as workers. So this is what you see throughout scripture. Just one more example. 3

44:44

John 7 and 8 says, For they went out for the sake of the name, not accepting anything from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to be supporters of them that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

44:54

We ought to support people like these that we may be fellow workers for the truth. So, what is good about them?

45:01

They are not accepting money from the Gentiles, right? They are accepting nothing from the Gentiles. They are not exchanging the message for money.

45:08

And so, what should you do? You should support them. Basically, servants of the same master giving them the funds necessary to make this happen.

45:18

And it's all over scripture. There's a lot of examples, but these are some of the most explicit.

45:25

And so, the implication there is just to say, hey, look, the best way to lower the cost of the general admission ticket, for example, is to figure out a way to drum up support from people who want to give to the work that you're doing in some sort of biblically approved way so that the tickets really don't even have to be charged to anyone who wants to come.

45:54

They can just sign up and then show up and not have to pay anything. And so, that would be more like the co -labor example that you've sort of explained.

46:07

But as it's laid out right now, it is not the Share the

46:13

Arrows event is really not that. Correct, Conley? Right.

46:18

Yeah, exactly. Sorry, that was Judges 17, not Judges 10. Okay. All right, well,

46:23

I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation in talking about this.

46:30

And I think it's probably I think it's probably hopefully people have gotten this through the conversation.

46:37

But, you know, one thing I'd want to point out is that while the price tag here is certainly egregious and thankfully there were a lot of people who balked at that $5 ,000 price tag.

46:52

But it's really not even about Allie Beth Stuckey as an individual.

47:00

It's about everyone who's doing this, right? But, you know, as we're closing here,

47:07

Tim, Conley, do y 'all have any final remarks y 'all want to give related to Allie Beth sharing this, the landscape of parachurch organizations in general right now?

47:20

What are y 'all's final thoughts on everything? Yeah, I mean, this could go anywhere. There are a lot of implications for this, but I do want to I do want to make it clear what's being said and what's not being said.

47:30

So one is, yeah, this is not just a problem with Allie Beth Stuckey. This is not just a problem with this event.

47:35

Almost every Christian conference that I've seen is violating this, right?

47:41

Because even if it's not different levels of seating, you either can come to the event or you can't.

47:47

And some even charge to stream online, right? But even if they're not charging to stream it online, they're saying, okay, well, if you can pay this much, you get to see it up close.

47:56

If you can't, then you get to watch it later, you know, or live from your home. And so people look at this and they say, well, you know, conference centers cost money.

48:07

Like, how would you do this if you didn't charge? Well, I think there's a few answers.

48:12

First, it's not just a given to me that it's so important that this happen, that these concerns of James 2, et cetera, be thrown out the window.

48:23

People wouldn't run a church this way, right? You wouldn't, you know, going back to the church example, like no one would say, well, you know, it costs money to rent the church, so we've got to charge people to come in here.

48:34

You wouldn't do that. And so conferences, once again, should be supported by co -labor.

48:40

They should be supported by Christians donating, you know, giving voluntarily their funds to make it happen or churches, you know, pooling money together as needed to make it happen.

48:51

And this is not so crazy. I've looked at how different churches organize their conferences and how much they cost and they talk about them being too expensive, but I know what kind of budgets these churches are working with and it would really be nothing for some of these.

49:06

So I don't understand the resistance, especially when, if there's obviously a demand for it, if this many people want it to happen, they're all mostly

49:16

Christians anyway, and they're willing to put a certain amount of money toward it, why not have them do it voluntarily rather than, you know, as purchasing a product?

49:25

And then they can, you know, be giving to the Lord. They can pray about the matter because, you know, it's a spiritual investment that they're making, right?

49:34

They're putting their funds to this work that God is doing.

49:40

And when you purchase something, you're not treating it the same way, right? You don't feel the obligation to pray for what you're giving to, et cetera.

49:49

So anyway, this is something that a lot of people are violating. Almost every conference is violating this, and it would not be hard to fix despite the pro -clutching that some do around whether or not you could run these conferences without charging.

50:06

And if they really can't be run, I don't think that's the worst option to simply not do them.

50:13

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting when you think about a topic like this. You know, having gone into biblical counseling,

50:18

I think I've always had an impulse to recoil at the thought of counseling someone for money.

50:26

So I don't know that I always share, I mean, I obviously didn't share all of these concerns at all points in my

50:32

Christian experience. It seemed like it would make intuitively more sense for a conference or books and things along those lines.

50:39

But then, yeah, there is something that is fundamentally disturbing about the thought of, you know, someone looking to the

50:47

Bible, looking to you to provide them biblical help and then turning them away because they're not going to charge you.

50:53

There's some kind of impulse there to say, hey, that's, something is really wrong that's happening there.

51:01

But then when you think about these other mechanisms, it's, I mean, if you just look in the mirror and say, hey, what is the product we're selling here?

51:10

What are we selling? I think that's a pretty profound question that needs a real answer.

51:16

And I mean, if the answer is, like, we're not selling God's Word, then

51:22

I don't know what you're doing. And you may need to market it and market it a little bit differently, you know? So, I mean, if this really is,

51:28

I mean, if this is Allie Beth Stuckey's, you know, just her own, she's, if all she's selling is her presence here and it has nothing to do with the

51:38

Bible at all, then, like, then I think this is a failure at marketing.

51:44

So there's that, right? There's that, if that's all that's happening. I mean, if all she was selling was, like, her personal brand of cookware or something, and access to her thoughts about how she came up with it, then that's one thing.

51:59

But that certainly isn't what's happening. And if we are going to put, if this was about, like, lowering the cost for everyone or viewing it as an act of charity, then

52:07

I really do think that, well, let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing in your giving.

52:16

I think everything certainly applies to this. I don't know why we're broadcasting the different color lanyards at that point.

52:23

I mean, so I think there's multiple issues that are happening with something along these lines. No matter which way you want to push it, there's something not good, for sure.

52:32

Right. Okay, cool. One last thing that's not being said. We're not saying that there should be no honorariums, right, or that the worker's not worthy of wages, right?

52:45

It's just a matter of co -labor versus reciprocity. Is this something where, yeah, people are being charged for the gospel, for Christian teaching, for hopefully something that will be instrumental to the work of the

53:05

Spirit in them, to stir them up to love and good works. Yeah, but the worker is still worthy of his wages, and we would hope that anyone who does put on a good

53:17

Christian conference that's not charging for it, that is teaching sound doctrine, would be supplied mightily by fellow workers in the

53:27

Kingdom for the work that he's doing. Yeah, yeah. It definitely doesn't help your case when one of the perks is specifically you get

53:38

VIP seating, right, when you're looking at all these packages. Parking, seating, and lanyards.

53:45

Yeah, you know, it definitely doesn't help your case, but okay. They should just call it the James 2 package.

53:52

The James 2 package. There you go. Well, thank you guys for answering all my questions related to this stuff and talking through this issue.

54:02

Yeah, it does. I don't know. I would hope for most Christians that they look at something like this, and even if they don't necessarily share all the same scriptural convictions, that there would just be something about this that it just feels, you know, like I said, it doesn't smell, it doesn't pass the smell test.

54:21

It feels icky somehow. Hopefully, there is at least that response, you know, because this is just a very strange, and frankly, for me personally, just a little bit of a discouraging kind of thing, you know, to see others doing.

54:44

Hopefully, the Lord will use this as an opportunity to open people's eyes to some of these issues that are going on in the

54:53

Christian community right now. Certainly, that should probably be our prayer with all of this stuff.

55:00

Yeah, I appreciate you guys answering all my questions and helping us flesh out this topic a little more.

55:07

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55:27

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55:42

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56:13

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56:19

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57:20

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57:29

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57:41

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58:01

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