Arrested for Speaking Against LGTB and Creation Science | Apologetics Live 0034

Opening Banter and Technical Setup

This is Apologetics Live with Matt Slick and Andrew Rappaport, part of the Christian Podcast Community.

All right, we are live. Apologetics Live here to answer your questions. Anything that you have on the plate today, we do have one question that did come in already. We'll get to that in a little bit. Sorry for the delay, folks.

Technology is what it is. Technology is a wonderful thing when it works. So we're starting a little bit late. Weird, weird stuff that Matt was having some issues with. It seems that if you use Chrome versus Internet Explorer, he was able to hear everybody but me, which Anthony Silvestro, who's here, loved that idea that everyone else could be heard but me.

Anthony was saying before we went live, if there was a way Matt could sell that feature, he would be a multimillionaire. But unfortunately, he hasn't figured out what went wrong and how he did that. So I guess, Matt, no luck today.

You're still going to be broke.

Well, the only way for me to become a multimillionaire by having people silence you is to promote you so they could silence you.

Actually, for those who weren't watching live, Matt Slick's sitting there with a cup of tea. He's moving his hands so quickly, I thought the tea was going to spill over.

It's actually coffee, and I'm thinking it's on this white shirt.

Oh, the day you had. So let's start off. I think I went to bed about 5 o 'clock this morning, got up at 7 .30, and when I went to bed, you were on your way somewhere.

Yeah, I got up at about actually 20 to 6. My wife had another back surgery. It's her third, actually technically it's her fourth back surgery she's had. And that's the third one within the past couple of months.

Now I'm hearing my feedback. The surgery went well, and she got a little gripey, which is normal, you know, and got her something to eat and all that kind of stuff, and she's doing much better right now.

But poor girl, you know, she's going through it. So thanks for all of your prayers for all the people who lift her up in prayer. She really is struggling emotionally because of it. It's a depressing thing to have to deal with constant problems and stuff.

And in fact, Andrew, you haven't seen her physically in months and months. You'll notice a significant difference when you do see her again.

Well, I saw it in the picture. You know, the thing I said that I, you sent me the picture of her in the hospital bed, and I said to my wife, it's amazing. She's still trying to smile. Like you could see her smiling, and I'm like, I know she's in pain, but you could see she's trying.

And it's like, I just don't know how I, you know, I remember reading R .C. Sproul had a book on suffering, and he had some that he talked about a vocation of suffering, that some people just can suffer for God's glory where others would.

I mean, I probably would cave. I mean, I had a, you know, something strange coming back from the Philippines where I just had an abdominal pain and a flu. We didn't know if I got some something while I was over in the Philippines.

And I'm like sitting there upset because I can't sleep for a couple nights. And what she goes through is like, I don't know if I can do it.

You know, there are a lot of people who are worse than she, but, you know, she's a good woman. And, but it's a lot to bear. And I'm emotionally, mentally adjusted to just the rest of our lives. I'll be taking care of her.

And so, you know, she can drive. So, you know, if her normal health is here and complete invalid is here where, I mean, she needed a walker to go three feet to go to the bathroom. And I was in constant pain and, you know, on painkillers just to get through the day.

She's about here now. She's only elevated this much. So she's got that much to go out of, you know, that whole thing. So if 10 is you're doing great and one is you're basically wiped, you can't do hardly anything.

She's about a three or four.

We're hoping she get to a five. Yeah. Well, actually, you know, five minutes in and we didn't even introduce ourselves. That's right. I'm Andrew Rappaport from Striving for Eternity. And with us is our resident apologist here, Matt Slick from CARM .org.

And yeah, so I guess this is just going to be an off day. It's been a crazy day for both of us. A little sleep for both of us. But we have Anthony Silvestro here, Dr. Anthony Silvestro. We'll just make him carry all the weight for us.

Sound good?

Yeah. Well, there's not much that you and I can carry anyway, so he's got it made.

Yeah. Make him carry that five pound bag, you know. All right. So actually, I did do some calculations. By the way, Matt, I do have to correct the record. There's very few times I have things I could brag over you.

And I realize there's something we were talking last week about the number of times I spoke in the Philippines. So actually, three times on, let's see, was it Thursday? Three messages Thursday, two on Friday, two on Saturday, three on Sunday.

So in four days, I did what you did on the cruise in seven. Now, if we give you, say, okay, we will not count the departure date and starting date of that. So we get you down to six. I still have you beat on that.

Just for the record, I got 10 in four days.

Except there's a big difference between your teaching and my teaching. Mine is good. That's exactly what I was going to say. You read my mind. Mine's good.

Hey, listen, Jason Manning gave a super chat, says Jesus is Lord, praise Jesus, of $2. So thank you for that, Jason. Amen. As I always try to say, the folks who give to the super chat, you could do that just by hitting that dollar sign in the chat window.

That money goes to CARM .org. The way we've worked out the show with CARM, we do it on CARM videos because they can monetize, and all the money goes to them for the advertising and for the super chats.

So anything that comes in from there, that will go to CARM. If you want to help support the show, Striving for Eternity is actually the one who puts on the show. You can go to strivingforeternity .org slash donate.

And that's where you could donate to Striving for Eternity if you want to do that. So with that, Matt, we did get a question. I know we got a bunch of folks in here. And we got a question that came in, and I was hoping Cody would come in here.

But he wanted to have us address a clip from Stand to Reason. Stand to Reason is Greg Kokel. He was asked a question about women, really women preaching. And so it's a 10-minute clip. So folks, for you to understand, Matt, because of his day, could not listen to this beforehand.

We're going to play the full clip so he can hear it, and that way he and I can respond. All right? Sounds good. So we're going to play that now.

Women Pastors, 1 Timothy 2, and the Question of Church Authority

Let's see. Mosuri, let's go there. To Mason from Monat, Mosuri. Wow. A lot of Ms in there, Mason.

Thank you. Well, Greg, first of all, I'm really new at your program. About two months ago, I discovered you, and I've been kind of eating up everything that you guys got. Oh, that's sweet. Thank you. No problem.

So thank you for everything you guys have. Well, I did want to ask, last week you had a gentleman on your segment who was talking towards the end, and you talked about women being pastors. Correct. And you had mentioned 1 Timothy 3, and that was the qualifications for overseers and beacons.

Yeah. But you had also mentioned 1 Timothy 2, and you said you wouldn't go into it, about what you really felt. Sure. Yeah, you felt like that had meant something else. Right. What was it I meant? Yeah, you said at the time you couldn't expand on it.

I wanted to know if you could expand on that. I'd like to get your take on that, if you don't mind. No, of course.

I'd be glad to do that. So this is 1 Timothy 2. This is a passage that is frequently pressed into service to limit women's involvement in leadership roles in the church. And I'm just going to read it now out of the New American Standard, okay?

And here is the way the relevant passage reads. I'm starting in verse 11, okay? Let me start in verse 9, because there's a change that you need to notice. He says in verse 8, I want men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension.

Good. Likewise, I want women, not a group, right, to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly, discreetly, not with braided hair and gold pearls, costly garments, but rather with good works. Okay.

Verse 11. A woman, that's the way the next verse starts. A woman. Now he's not talking about the group. He's talking about a definite article. A woman. All right, let's keep reading. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

For it was Adam who was first created, then Eve, and it was not Adam who was deceived, but Eve, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so there's more there, but I just want to focus on this passage. Okay. Now, this is the passage that is meant to be the proof text for women not being in pastoral roles.

Actually, sometimes they're in pastoral roles, but they're not called pastors. It seems to me it doesn't matter what they're called. It matters what they do. Yeah. Okay. Well, it says here, well, really what's going on is it doesn't say that a woman shouldn't teach at all, but this phrase, exercise authority over a man, has a suggestion of usurping authority.

So as long as the woman pastor is under a male pastor, then that makes it okay for her. And see, what happens is people, they look at this. They don't want to say, okay, no woman says anything in the church because that's kind of what it says.

I mean, at the kind of a bare reading, that's what it seems. They don't want to say that. So then they find all these kind of little nuances that, and in my view, they got one foot on the pier and one foot in the boat, and they're rocking back and forth.

They're going to fall into the drink. This is untenable kind of way of dealing with it. And it's not necessary because there's a very simple solution to this. The Greek word translated woman is gune, like G-U-N-E, right?

The Greek word translated man is aner, A-N-E-R, and that's what they are in the passage. Gune woman, aner man. By the way, that's not the only way to translate gune and aner. Gune is also the Greek word for wife.

I noticed that aner is the Greek word for husband. Well, how do you know when it's the gune and aner, whether you translate it woman or wife, or aner, you know, which way they go? Gune for woman, or how do you know what to do?

And the answer is it's always the context. When you look at all the other passages, and I've done this where these words appear, when it's clear that the two are not involved with each other intimately, personally, then they're translated man and woman.

But there are a couple of exceptions, only two that I can think of. And when they're together in kind of an intimate kind of situation, well, they're translated husband and wife because it seems like the context calls for that.

This chapter is one of the exceptions. Now, I want you to think now about the language. I'm going to read the passage over again, because what it says of a woman is that she must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.

Verse 11, okay? Verse 12, remain quiet. Man talks with authority, not you. Are you married? I am. Okay. On this reading, your wife has to be entirely submissive to me. She's a woman, I'm a man. She must receive my instruction with entire submissiveness on this reading of this passage.

Whoops. That does not sound quite right, does it? In fact, on this reading, it seems to me that every woman in the body of Christ has to be responsive to his submissive to every man. That's ludicrous.

And given the fact that this is an oner and a gune, together with the gune receiving instruction with entire submissiveness to the oner, gee, that seems to be more appropriate to translate that husband and wife.

So it would say, I want the women to adorn themselves, the men to pray, the women to adorn themselves, but when it comes to a woman, a wife, she must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, for I do not allow a woman to usurp the authority or exercise authority over a husband.

But to remain quiet before Adam was created first and then Eve. It makes perfect sense. There's not a speed bump in the entire thing when you translate it that way.

Still with me? Yes, sorry, I'm just waiting, just listening.

Yeah, so what this means is that this passage has nothing to do, no application at all to church leadership, as people have tried to employ it in awkward, convoluted ways. It's not even speaking to that.

It's speaking to the relationship of a husband and a wife in terms of spiritual leadership. And by the way, this does not prohibit a wife from teaching her husband something, but rather that she not be the teacher.

Okay? So, I mean, there's something in the Greek here that indicates that she can have moments of instructing about something, but she's not the teacher. The husband is the teacher. That's the Jewish tradition.

That's the Christian New Testament tradition. It means no speed bumps. It's perfectly consistent. And if you want to say, well, it was Adam first and not Eve, that's not just Adam the first man and Eve the first woman, but it was Adam the first husband and Eve the first wife.

So the parallel is not destroyed, if you understand it in that way. And by the way, the only other passage I found where the pattern of translation was not followed consistently, when Oner and Gune are together in clearly an interactive relationship, is in 1 Corinthians 10, where it says that man is the head of woman and Christ is the head of man and God is the head of Christ.

You know that passage? Yes. Yeah, well, it's the same situation there. It's Oner and Gune. And I don't think that Paul is teaching that every man is the head of every woman. That means your wife is under me and my wife is under you.

I think it's saying that there's a pattern of leadership in the family and the husband is the head of the wife. You're accountable to Christ, who is the head of the church, and Christ is submissive to the Father.

Okay, and again, no speed bumps there. Thank you.

That's a really interesting take on it. I've been doing studies about it recently. I've got kind of a relative who's going to a church, a local church, that has a woman as a pastor. And so I've just been kind of questioning that, and his mindset was really, well, I don't really want to question her call.

Oh, yeah, don't even get me started, question her call. Well, this is the very question, whether she has a call or not. The question is whether it's biblical. Now, I would not discount, if this woman is the head pastor, is she the head pastor or just part of the pastoral staff?

She's a co-pastor. She's the one who founded it, and then she kind of brought somebody else. Then she is a de facto elder.

Yes. Yes, and Chapter 3 says no, no, no on that.

Okay, that's what I figured. Yeah, that's my take.

That's what we talked about last week. But Chapter 2, some people would invoke that. I don't think it's fair to invoke that. It's not related to that. So on my view then, women cannot be head pastors or elders because a head pastor is an elder, or even an associate pastor in an elder role, in a de facto elder role.

But as long as she's under the leadership of the rest of the group, then she can do all kinds of functions in the church. I don't see any restriction at all. What about teaching men? Where does it say that a woman can't teach a man?

Only if she can't be the teacher of her husband. That's all in Chapter 2. So I think that sometimes this is an occasion where the translation has been influenced a little bit by bias, and that's why it doesn't say husband or wife.

I've been holding this view for years. I've never heard anybody give me anything like a fair refutation, especially when I'm looking at the context, and it just says a woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.

What relationship is that in the church? Minimally, I mean, that's the, if at all, if anything, it's the marital relationship. But as testified by Ephesians 5 and Titus 2 and other passages, particularly Chapter 3, the same thing.

So I think this is in that category.

All right. So first of all, before Matt responds, I want to give a quick shout out. Someone gave a $20 super chat, said, God bless you, Matt and Andrew, just before we got started. So sorry about that.

And I think it's NAVTIMER1884. Thank you very much for the $20 donation to CARM .org. We appreciate that. Matt, there's a lot of things that I noticed in here, and I will say up front that I do know Greg Coco personally.

I like him as a teacher. There are some areas he and I disagree. This is going to be one of them. It seems he makes a distinction, Matt, between being a head pastor versus a pastor under a male pastor.

So it seems like he's okay with a female pastor under a man, and that she can teach according to that verse. What say you?

Well, I didn't get that out of what he said the very last segment. I was on the same thing. I'm going, wait a minute. Is he going to say it's okay for that? And then I think he said associate pastor is not okay for her to be associate pastor.

No, he was saying that she could be an associate pastor under the head pastor, because he asked the question to the gentleman.

We should play that again. Should we play that last minute just to verify? Because it'd be important.

That's what he talked about last week. But chapter two, some people would invoke that. I don't think it's fair to invoke that. It's not related to that. So on my view then, women cannot be head pastors or elders because a head pastor is an elder.

Okay, so there's the head pastor or elder. Right. And now we get the question of, is this woman a head pastor?

An associate pastor in an elder role, in a de facto elder role.

Okay, get back to that, because I wanted to hear what he said. The whole flow. Just back up to 15 seconds.

That's what he talked about last week. But chapter two, some people would invoke that. I don't think it's fair to invoke that. It's not related to that. So on my view then, women cannot be head pastors or elders because a head pastor is an elder, or even an associate pastor in an elder role, in a de facto elder role.

But as long as she's under the leadership of the rest of the group, then she can do all kinds of functions in the church. I don't see any restriction at all. What about teaching men? Where does it say that a woman can't teach a man?

Only if she can't be the teacher of her husband. That's all in chapter two. So I think that sometimes this is an occasion where. Okay.

Yeah. So he did say what I thought, but he's contradicting himself. And, you know, being a radio guy myself, I understand. We can certainly say things and then you'll read it later. Listen to it later.

You go, I should have said it better. And, you know, that's fine. I've talked to Greg Koch on the radio before too. He's a great guy. But he did say women cannot be head pastors or elders. And he said, cannot be the associate pastor or he said, or even an associate pastor in an elder role.

Yeah. So he's, he's saying no, no head pastor, no associate pastor. And he says in an elder role, that's really interesting because by definition, any pastor is an elderly first Timothy five 17, which we can talk about that shows that that is the case.

But then he says, I don't see other than that. I don't see any restrictions at all. Well, wait a minute. That's he's refuting himself because if there's no restrictions at all, then they could be associate.

They could be a pastor. But he said, there are no, it can't be pastors, but there's no restrictions at all. So he's not, you know, he just misspoke with the asking about the clarification on that. And he said only that she cannot be the teacher of her husband.

So as far as that whole exegesis of that, I don't really have a problem with that. That whole exegesis that it's just about a woman and a man or husband and a wife. I mean, I could leave that alone and say, fine, that wouldn't have any bearing on the issue of whether or not women can be pastors and elders because Titus chapter one, first Timothy three clearly negates it.

Hold on a second. And he said in, in chapter three of Timothy, that would negate it because of the fact that yes, can't be husband and one wife. If you're a woman, although nowadays, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Who knows? It was saying this family member of the caller was, had a founding pastor who was a woman and it sounded like he was saying it was okay in that case because there was a man over her.

I didn't quite get that, but that's something we've got to ask him if he does say that it's okay. I don't think he did, but if he did say or intend to say that it was okay, if she was under another pastor, then that would, he's, then he's wrong.

Yeah. I don't think he was saying that, but let me go through my notes a little bit.

Now, let me, let me say this. There's one thing I picked up on. He was saying there's a definite article. Cause he was saying when he read through it, I desire that in every place, the man. And he said, that's a definite article.

Then he kept, he kept going through and he kept referring to in verse 12, a woman. He was saying that was a definite article. So as he went through, he was talking about the definite articles and they aren't actually definite articles in the Greek.

They might seem that way in English. The only definite articles that we have in this pericope and a pericope is just a section of scripture. Verse eight, when it says the man should pray, man is a definite article there.

The only other definite articles in verse 14, where it says, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman, the word woman there is a definite article.

Sorry, but we got it a little bit. The definite article in Greek is the word the, that's just, that's all it is. The definite articles, the word the. Yeah. Yeah. This is, uh, and, uh, there is no indefinite article.

I noticed what he said because he said, uh, he said, um, a woman, uh, a woman is, uh, where's my notes, a definite, uh, a woman, he said is a definite article. That's not correct. It would be the indefinite article, but there is no indefinite article in Greek.

We have the word, like I went to a store today. A is the indefinite article in English. Uh, I went to the store today. V is the, is the definite article. A is the indefinite article. V is the definite article.

Greek only has the definite article, the word the, which has 24 different forms. And then the nouns have to match the definite articles. But he was, he was grammatically incorrect in what he said there.

Yeah.

I think that sometimes in English we add the words and that may be what he was, because he was English.

And then, you know, it's just, he wasn't precise, but you know, whatever. So while he was talking, because you and I both have logos, we know how great Logos is. So I went in and looked up the word on there, which is a husband and, um, or man and Strong's number, uh, 435.

That occurs 216 times in the new Testament, 52 times. It's rendered in the English as husband 141 times. It's rendered as, um, man. And there's a few other different, different translations of other topics, but, uh, by far it's at almost three, three to one man to husband.

That doesn't prove anything. It's just showing that the majority English translation is not husband, but a man and he's right. Context determines the meaning. So I also had time to go look at Gune, uh, which is a Strong's number.

What was it? I got it. Whatever Strong's number one, one, three, five. And, uh, it occurs 216 times. What? 14. According. Well, wait a minute. Don't tell me. I gotta check something out. 216 times. That's the word Gune 216.

According to what I see. And then you're looking at NASB. Yeah. And the, yeah, I just do the NSP and then I'm gonna go back and look at this on the, cause that's 216. Maybe I just put my numbers in wrong, but, um, 435.

No way. It's also 216 times in, in this. Interesting. Hey, you've never had that happen before. So it threw me for a loop. How could I get numbers wrong? How about that? So, uh, that means coincidences.

I like coincidences. They prove evolution is true. So, uh, uh, anyway, it's a wives, 81 times men or women 127 times. Um, so anyway, they mean what they mean in context. Uh, but here's, here's some ramifications of the idea.

Let's just, I think, you know, I think what he's exegeted is, is within orthodoxy. I wouldn't, if I was debating him, I wouldn't say, no, I totally disagree. I'd go, yeah, that makes some sense. It does.

However, let's look at something. Okay. I do not want a woman or a wife to teach her husband or exercise authority of him over him, but remain quiet for first husband, Adam was, was, uh, he was first created and then the wife Eve was created.

That's a loose translation. All right. So the woman, the wife is not to teach or exercise authority over the man or the, over the husband. Now, some women have said to me in defense of women, pastors and elders, that this passage is talking about husband and wives.

And so I thought he might be going a different direction with this, but I don't have a problem with what he said. I mean, necessarily agree with it a hundred percent, but you know, it's not, I wouldn't debate him on it.

It's not that big a deal. We could discuss probabilities and some things because he's right. It's actually tied to chapter one, first Timothy chapter three, first Timothy five 17, that really put this whole issue to rest.

But since he says this in first Timothy two 12 and first Timothy three 15 says that Paul says he's given instruction on how to behave in the household of God, which is a church, the pillar of foundation of truth.

He's talking ecclesiastically. He's saying he's giving instruction to the church. Now the church, of course could be the proper building, but it could also be the body of believers. So no problem either way we can, we can go that.

And there's some discussions either way. It'd be fun. So when I've talked to the two women about this, who believe in women, pastors and elders, they will, they'll sometimes say, well, a woman, a wife can't teach her husband, but she can be a pastor.

Because this is about husband and wives, not about pastors and stuff. And I go, okay, let's work with that. So a woman is not to teach her husband, excuse me, a wife is not to teach her husband and she gets up to preach in the church.

Sorry, he can't attend, right? Yeah, you couldn't, it'd be a problem. And so that, that exegesis, what I was doing with it. And from my perspective here to demonstrate that that position is ridiculous does not challenge, nor does it need to be challenged by what Greg Coco said.

I think what Greg Coco said is, is, is fine. But I do believe that it says a woman and a man, it could be understood in different senses. It doesn't have to be husband and wife because it doesn't necessarily mean husband and wife with Adam and Eve.

Cause he didn't say husband and wife. He didn't say that. I didn't say it was marriage, but he talked about the created order. It's a created thing that God has and where the woman is not to be an authority over a man.

And we know if it's at least in the, in the marriage context, well, we go back and we look at what Paul was talking about in the context. You'll notice that in Genesis three, Satan came to Eve, not to the husband.

Why? Because the authority was that Adam had the authority. The system was, the setup was that Adam had authority over his wife period. And the reason we know that it, because he named the animals and he named her, it's a symbol of authority that he had.

He named her and Satan usurped or went around the goalposts, so to speak, and went to her. And then she went to the husband. So we could make the case from looking at the old Testament. And this is not just an issue of husband and wife, but an issue of authority flat out period, because that's how it's supposed to be.

But there's strengths and weaknesses with that as well. So on this, I'm saying that this is not as easy to wade through his position. I don't have any, I wouldn't say it's false. Yeah. So grammatically it's,.

It's plausible, but looking at the context, and I think you brought up one of the things I noted was, the issue, the argument Paul is making of this command, this prohibition is dealing with creation.

It's not giving the Adam and Eve as a symbol of husband and wife, because it's dealing with creation order. Then the next verse deals with the sin order. So it, it has to do back in creation where this is the way God ordered things with Adam, then Eve, and the sin was Eve, then Adam.

Those are, that's the reason for this instruction. So I guess it was, as we worked through this, when we look at this and he gives the instruction and then in verse 13, four, that's a purpose clause. So the, the instruction in verse 12, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over men, but to remain quiet.

The reason for that goes back to creation. Adam formed before Eve, not just general husband, general wife, but Adam and Eve in creation, then Eve sinned. It's actually the woman sinned and then, you know, what was deceived.

So it goes back, both those points go back to creation. And I think the thing that, where I see the difficulty with the argument being made there is just because as we look at the verse, the purpose statement doesn't support a husband and wife.

Because he would be saying that a wife must, you know, must be quiet, receive instruction submissively, and a wife must not teach or have exercise authority over her husband, but remain quiet because of creation.

Well, if that, if that's true, actually, I think this would end up having a reverse effect because if that's true, just be it by nature of husband and wife, not church roles, then realistically, yeah, woman shouldn't be able to speak to a man because that would end up putting it where this is a creation issue.

You know, I don't, I actually don't think the context supports the argument that he's making. I think we agree that first Timothy three, Titus makes it very clear. Women can't be pastors. It doesn't matter if they're good teachers.

It's just, this is what God has ordained. And the reason, as we said, and you've talked about this a lot on this show and on your radio show, the issue of federal headship, that's what we see in this.