Should Grape Juice Be Served in a Sippy Cup for Communion?
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- 00:03
- And so I'm like, well, I mean, you're acting soft. You're acting wimpy.
- 00:09
- You're acting effeminate. And then I find out his church has mandated COVID protocols pretty thoroughly.
- 00:20
- Warning, the following message may be offensive to some audiences. These audiences may include, but are not limited to, professing Christians who never read their Bible, sissies, sodomites, men with man buns, those who approve of men with man buns, man bun enablers, white knights for men with man buns, homemakers who have finished
- 00:31
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- 00:45
- The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject
- 00:51
- Christ, therefore, forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.
- 00:58
- The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our head.
- 01:09
- They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.
- 01:19
- God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the
- 01:32
- Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us. Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.
- 01:49
- Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.
- 01:55
- We're your host, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by Gabriel Wrench, co -host of CrossPolitik, as we answer the age -old question, should grape juice be served in a sippy cup during communion?
- 02:09
- So like I said, we've got Gabriel here joining us from CrossPolitik, and so before we really dive into this question and sort of the spirited discussion,
- 02:20
- I would say, that's been going on online for a few weeks now around communion, and should you use wine, should you use grape juice,
- 02:28
- Gabriel, why don't you take just a second and tell us a little bit more about you for those who are listening who maybe haven't seen a lot of your stuff before?
- 02:38
- Yeah, certainly, thanks for having me on, guys, appreciate it. I'm gonna start here, because I grew up in Texas, so I'm a
- 02:45
- Southern boy at heart. Love, love the humid nights and the lightning bugs. Okay, but now
- 02:51
- I moved up to Oregon in 97, my dad was a pipe fitter, fab worker at Texas Instruments in Texas, and then went to college in California and then ended up in Idaho, so now
- 03:03
- I live in Northern Idaho. I basically am the business guy behind CrossPolitik, which is our
- 03:11
- TV show and podcast, we're on DirecTV and Xfinity also, and then I run our conference, if anybody knows or ever been to our conferences, so I run the
- 03:19
- Fight, Laugh, Feast conference. Fight, Laugh, Feast is our tagline, and we came up with that tagline because we believe
- 03:25
- Christians need to fight together, feast together, and laugh together, and that's been something that I don't think the church has done very well over this last 40 years.
- 03:34
- I was born in 1979, so I kind of categorize everything on my experience in the church these last 40 years, and so we have a conference called the
- 03:42
- Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, and this year it's in Fort Worth, Barbecue, Promised Land, and it's on Prodigal America, prodigalamerica .com,
- 03:52
- where does America need to repent, is kind of the theme of the topic, so really excited about what
- 03:58
- God's doing there, and then I'm an entrepreneur, I run a podcast hosting business, which, if you guys aren't hosting on my platform, your podcast is probably gonna be canceled.
- 04:11
- I run a podcast hosting business, and I run a public relations agency on top of everything that I do, so, and I coach my,
- 04:21
- I gotta say this, I coach my girls' basketball team at school, and that's probably my funnest thing
- 04:26
- I do. You know, I was about to say, too, because you're just ragging on me for liking football and not liking basketball before we started the episode, and then
- 04:34
- I thought you weren't even gonna bring up basketball. One of the reasons why we wanted to have you on was because of your recent infamous tweet, and really,
- 04:43
- I mean, it kind of reminded me of the Baptist, do Baptists cause transgenderism kind of discussion, and so there was a similar internet meltdown related to that, that I know that you,
- 04:54
- I don't, that was Farley that said that, that wasn't you that said that, but then I'm sure that you fielded some of the heat related to that, but it was a similar kind of thing, and I'm gonna go and read the tweet that you said, and then elaborate a little bit on the reaction there, which was a little bit interesting to me, but you basically said, how many masculine men emphasize scare quotes, sit under pastors who serve them grape juice for communion, might as well serve them a baby bottle with a nipple and milk in it, and yeah,
- 05:25
- I mean, so the internet, I mean, it basically collectively lost its mind on this one, and it's funny, because Harrison and I, we're both
- 05:32
- Baptists, and we actually serve grape juice for communion at our church, and so with both of these things, like I mean, with both of these events, with the do
- 05:40
- Baptists cause transgenderism, and we're not gonna really talk about that, but we could talk about that a little bit, if you want, yeah.
- 05:47
- But I mean, with both of them, what was funny to me is that I didn't take offense to either one of them. I just,
- 05:53
- I mean, I understood where you guys were coming from, considering that you're post -millennial and all that, with the do
- 05:58
- Baptists cause transgenderism kind of conversation, and I disagreed with it, but then I could understand the logic.
- 06:04
- I could understand how you get there, and then with this one, I can also understand the logic and how you get there, even though I'm not fully persuaded that that's right, but then in both cases,
- 06:14
- I didn't really take offense to it. So part of how we wanted to start was I wanted to get your take on, like why do you think that so many people were so predisposed to light their beards on fire and burn down the internet because of this one?
- 06:31
- Yeah, a couple things there. For one, I do want to point out that we're equal opportunists.
- 06:38
- Like I can't tell you how many times we've gone after Presbyterians and our own people on our show. So when we say
- 06:47
- Baptists are responsible for transgender, I've said on our show,
- 06:52
- Presbyterians who wear robes in the pulpit are responsible for the gay revoice movement.
- 06:58
- Right. So I don't want to act like we're just like, we only wanted to go after Baptists and what we think are their sins connected to some of their theology.
- 07:09
- Now this tweet was after, part of the context of the tweet too was
- 07:15
- Kevin DeYoung just kind of came after us and the Moscow mood. Did you guys read
- 07:21
- Kevin DeYoung's article? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he kind of coined the term
- 07:26
- Moscow mood, which has turned into its own thing, which has been pretty funny too.
- 07:32
- But my tweet was actually more in context of that. So Kevin DeYoung came after Moscow for largely kind of our serrated edge theology is what we call it.
- 07:42
- Kind of using the punchier and kickier verses and scripture and employing it on our culture.
- 07:52
- That's what kind of one of the things Moscow is known for is kind of like what's been coined as a serrated edge.
- 07:58
- So taking Ezekiel, taking Paul, taking Elijah, taking Jesus and kind of taking some of their harder rebuking edgy rebukes.
- 08:08
- And we've kind of embodied that here in Moscow and used it on our culture, the church and so forth.
- 08:13
- So Kevin DeYoung kind of came after us for our serrated edge and called it in a couple of things in context there and kind of coined the term
- 08:24
- Moscow mood to describe what we're doing. And there's a certain mood to Moscow.
- 08:31
- And, but it got me thinking - The fight left the food, right? The fight part. Yeah, the fight left, the fighting part.
- 08:37
- That's a good way to, yeah, that's right. And so it kind of got me thinking and part of like the problem with Kevin DeYoung, kind of I've gone to Kevin DeYoung.
- 08:45
- He has a regional conference up here in Spokane, Washington. Five, six years ago, I went to,
- 08:50
- I met him there, I talked to him, you know, so I've sat under Kevin DeYoung's teaching. I've read his book. It was
- 08:55
- The Hole in Holiness or whatever. And so I've liked
- 09:02
- Kevin DeYoung's writings and theology, but he came after us for this particular issue but has refused himself to, he's still on the
- 09:15
- Gospel Coalition's author list. He's still, he's on the council at the
- 09:20
- Gospel Coalition. He's, the PCA has dealt with revoice for, you know, five years or something, six years.
- 09:31
- We're the, cross -politic was one that blew the lid off the revoice thing, not Kevin. Now Kevin has, to his credit, he has written some good things on revoice, so I'm not, but like he's kind of refused to kind of hold his own ranks accountable.
- 09:45
- Yeah, I mean, he doesn't - And then kind of came after us. Yeah, he doesn't, like, I haven't seen any, you know, strident articles about all of Brett McCracken's, yeah, movie reviews with all the endless wherewithers and everything else around there.
- 09:59
- Yeah, so that got me thinking though about Kevin DeYoung.
- 10:05
- And so I was actually, my comments were more directed at Presbyterians than probably anybody. And then, so I said, Kevin, my original tweet, and then the second tweet was the effeminate tweet, my original tweet was, this whole
- 10:18
- Kevin DeYoung thing got me thinking that those pastors and ministries who do not like the serrated -edge theology, which is literally about what 5 % of Moscow actually writes about, speaks about, blogs about, podcasts about,
- 10:32
- I mean, it's not, but that's really what we're known for. It's hilarious. Like you go through Camden Press's books and there's one book on serrated -edge theology out of their, you know, 500 books of family and other stuff.
- 10:47
- But Kevin, so, but I said in the tweet, I was like, you know, those who reject the serrated -edge theology are the same people who serve wine and communion or serve grape juice and communion, meaning they're just weak sauce ministries.
- 11:03
- They're just, they're all foam and no beer kind of people. And so then
- 11:09
- I followed up with, and then those congregants, those men in the congregation who sit under pastors who give them grape juice are being effeminate.
- 11:22
- And so that's the context. And so, and then I wrote a blog post. I don't know if you guys caught the blog post on it.
- 11:28
- And I started, when I started writing through the blog post, I started thinking further about this.
- 11:34
- The real trifecta of effeminacy in a church is the church that rejects biblical theology around the serrated -edge, a church that serves grape juice instead of wine and a church that willingly mandated government protocols in their own pews.
- 11:51
- And I did my research and that was actually Kevin's church. He mandated government
- 11:58
- COVID protocols in his church, masking, social distancing and all that stuff. And you can go to his website and it's on their website talking about it.
- 12:05
- I kept screenshots of it in case they ever take it down. But that's, he's just submitting.
- 12:11
- So I guess part of this conversation will define effeminacy. Define what's the definition, a biblical definition of effeminate man or effeminate.
- 12:21
- And basically a good definition of someone, a man who's being effeminate is basically taking good and godly women characteristics and embodying them in a way he shouldn't.
- 12:36
- And so the man who's, a man who's wearing women's clothes,
- 12:42
- Deuteronomy 22 five, he's being effeminate. A man who is, when he knows better to obey
- 12:51
- God rather than man, he's being effeminate. And so, and then you got a soft man in first Corinthians chapter six, nine, the word for soft there is malakoi.
- 13:04
- It's literally the, basically playing the submission role in a homosexual relationship, soft, malakoi.
- 13:13
- And the word soft applies a lot, way beyond just a homosexual relationship.
- 13:20
- It goes into the world of man being soft. And so, go ahead.
- 13:25
- It sounds like you wanna ask a question, Tim. Yeah, well, I think one of the reasons why I wasn't so predisposed to take offense to it, even though what you're saying directly applies to what we're doing in our ministry as a church.
- 13:36
- I mean, I think part of the reason why I'm not so predisposed to take offense to it is because I agree with the basic premise, like meaning,
- 13:44
- I agree that the major failing of the church is essentially at the topic of effeminacy in general.
- 13:52
- So I mean, it's just overwhelmingly obvious, like we're just, we're a society right now that's being ruled by women, essentially.
- 13:57
- And this shows up in every single area imaginable. So then, like that is,
- 14:03
- I think, the central failing. I mean, and that's something I see just related to counseling situations, church situations, everything else.
- 14:12
- I mean, almost every single situation you can imagine, you have a very passive male, and you have a lady who basically is, you better give her what she wants, or else she's gonna be, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
- 14:24
- And that's, I mean, that's basically the situation. And that's, I mean, that's obviously the problem that's present in the garden.
- 14:30
- When I'm looking at that, and I see this, like the basic, you know, the church in America, if you're gonna talk about it in that kind of language, that is overwhelmingly the problem that we see.
- 14:41
- You have a bunch of, like you have a bunch of men who are basically spineless and cowards.
- 14:48
- And I mean, COVID and all that, everything that you're mentioning about COVID, there's just a great example of just how feckless and cowardly the standard
- 14:56
- American man actually is in our nation today. So all those things are true. And we've been, like all of our impulses are basically geared that way.
- 15:05
- So then if you mention that as it relates to communion, I might say, hey, well,
- 15:11
- I don't, I don't know if that applies in the way that you're trying to apply it, but I'm willing to consider it.
- 15:20
- You know, so first I'm willing to consider it. I'm willing to hear you out. I'm not just predisposed to say, okay, well, that's crazy.
- 15:27
- But then too, like, I'm not like, I don't quite understand the response that says like, like if you challenge men's masculinity,
- 15:37
- I'm not predisposed, I'm not trained in such a way to like roll over and just get all bent out of shape about it, right?
- 15:45
- Like, I mean, I think part of the function of men is to call other men to be more manly than they are, to be better embodiments of their gender.
- 15:53
- So, I mean, if there's something you're seeing and that maybe I haven't seen yet, I'm at least willing to hear it out.
- 15:59
- And go ahead. Let me give you a couple of qualifications that you can't put in a tweet.
- 16:07
- So there's a couple of qualifications there. One is we've been doing this practice for about 200 years.
- 16:13
- So I think there's a lot of churches who are doing it who aren't being effeminate. I think there's a lot of churches who are doing it because that's been the tradition of the church for the last 200 years.
- 16:23
- So there can be other reasons for putting grape juice in communion.
- 16:29
- And we just need to, I think the church just need to grow in knowledge there. There's a challenge to be like, okay, we need to know why we're doing this and why we've been doing it.
- 16:37
- The other thing related to that issue is like my church,
- 16:43
- King's Cross, Pastor Toby's my pastor, Pastor Doug planted our church here in town.
- 16:50
- I still call Doug my pastor. I mean, I went to help the church but served as a deacon at Doug's church.
- 16:58
- But my church, we have wine in the communion trays and then we have grape juice in the back that those who kind of have religious scruples and tender consciences can go in the back, grab the cup and come and sit down and drink with everybody, the grape juice.
- 17:11
- But again, we're doing that because whoever comes to these convictions should go slow with their church.
- 17:19
- You should, I said in my article, anybody who's coming under the conviction of like, hey, yeah, we need to serve wine in communion because that's what
- 17:26
- God commanded in the scriptures. That's what Jesus drank out of the cup. That's what he said, do this in remembrance of me. We need to serve wine in communion.
- 17:34
- If you're new to these convictions, go as slow with your congregation as God went as slow with you.
- 17:42
- Be as patient with your congregation as God is patient with you on this issue, which means it probably is gonna take five years to bring your congregation along.
- 17:51
- Don't just plop wine in communion. Teach them robust biblical theology and teach them walking through, do some sermons on communion and fellowship.
- 18:00
- So I think the caveat and some of the qualifications that don't make it a tweet, I understand hits brothers like you guys where it's like, okay, that's not us, but he didn't explain himself.
- 18:09
- I wanna hear him explain himself. So I appreciate part of that explanation is explain myself. The fallout of this,
- 18:16
- I think kind of, so I'm trying to get at like what you were saying, the broader effeminate issues in the church.
- 18:25
- The reason why we have women in the pulpit is because men were being bad women in the pulpit. Men were trying to do relational sermons.
- 18:35
- And then, oh, let's just put a real woman in there that can do that sermon. And so the effeminacy in the church has just been so well adopted because the male pastors had embodied it for a long time.
- 18:47
- And then it's no wonder a woman can slip right into the pulpit and no one notices the difference in the preaching. And so there really is,
- 18:54
- I'd say the center of effeminacy and cowardness is a big issue in the church and COVID showed us that.
- 19:01
- And so I think when you throw a rock into a pack of barking dogs, and the one that got hit yelps, the one that yelps is the one that got hit.
- 19:12
- And so I think that's part of why the tweet went so viral is because I think it made a lot of dogs yelp.
- 19:20
- And I think when you're, I believe what
- 19:28
- Jesus taught, dude, this remembers to me, it's very clear that he served one in communion. And so, but that's one of the other challenges to me was, well, it wasn't clear that Jesus did that.
- 19:41
- And so I think because I was stating something dogmatically that they were saying was not very clear, that was, so the two problems, the two feedback
- 19:49
- I had was that one, I'm stating dogmatically something that wasn't very clear. And then you're drawing effeminate conclusions from that and you shouldn't do that, you're being divisive at the church.
- 20:00
- And so that's why I think the tweet went viral. And then you get the feminists actually adding to the flame and you get the perfect recipe for the tweet.
- 20:09
- Yeah, you definitely get like a, once a few, this is what I've noticed being online and getting interaction with people is once you get a few people who just totally light their hair on fire about something, it's like they're all leaning in together to light everyone else's hair on fire as well.
- 20:27
- And it's like sharks smelling blood in the water or something sometimes, that's what it feels like where it's like all these people are coming in and it's like,
- 20:36
- I've never seen you before in my entire life. Where did you even come from? But in terms of like, hey, your tweet, you were saying, hey, maybe part of why some people were just getting so bent out of shape about it is because I was speaking so dogmatically about something that is at least in the minds of some is not very clear in scripture.
- 21:05
- So us being the people, you mentioned the analogy of like, hey, when you throw the rock into the pack of barking dogs, you'll hit the one or the one you hit.
- 21:14
- The one that yelps. Yeah, it's the one that yelps. I guess Tim and I, we're probably like, we're not the dog that got hit by the rock, but then we're the dog that's right next to the dog that got hit by the rock.
- 21:25
- And we're wondering, oh man, why'd that dog get hit by the rock? We better figure out why.
- 21:32
- So give us your argument for why, what is it in scripture that convinced you that, hey, this isn't just some obscure, hey, we'll just throw our hands up.
- 21:45
- We'll never really know the answer. There is actually an answer here. So give us that, what convinced you in scripture that serving wine and communion is the faithful way to go?
- 21:58
- Yeah, so I think there's kind of an exegetical answer to this, and then there's a historical answer to this.
- 22:05
- The exegetical answer is kind of basically falls under kind of, it's twofold. When Jesus commanded us to do this remembrance of him, so we all believe that the
- 22:14
- Lord's Supper is a commandment. Do this remembrance of him, we should do it. And we should do it in church.
- 22:21
- It's a sacrament that we do in the church. It's not a sacrament we do at home by ourselves. There might be some disagreement there.
- 22:27
- But it's a commandment. Okay, so it's a commandment he gave to the disciples.
- 22:32
- He gave to the church that the church should continue on. And Paul reiterates that in the first Corinthians. So when
- 22:38
- Jesus says do this remembrance of him, well, the next question is do what? Do peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Dr.
- 22:45
- Pepper? Do what? So, well, Jesus showed us.
- 22:51
- He showed us what he's doing. He took the bread and he took the wine. Now, the argument for wine, when
- 23:00
- Jesus said, this is the fruit of my vine. And this is the fruit of my, not my vine.
- 23:05
- This is the fruit of the vine. It's Friday, so I'm a little slow at this point. But this is the fruit of the vine.
- 23:12
- The word fruit there, the Greek word for fruit is actually product. It's like, you know, what's the fruit? What's the product of the vine?
- 23:18
- Well, the product of the vine was wine. That was the only thing that, no grape juice had been invented then.
- 23:25
- So it was the only thing that was in Jesus' cup. You're telling me Welch's wasn't around yet? Yeah, yeah, we'll get there.
- 23:32
- That's where we're going. So Gabe, I wanna push back on you a little bit on that because this is something I looked up as well.
- 23:38
- And, you know, as you, so the verse you're talking about is Matthew 26, 29. He says, I'll tell you,
- 23:43
- I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day. And when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom, so one of the things
- 23:53
- I did was I looked up, because I was curious about this as well, but I was looking up oinos. And oinos is the primary
- 23:59
- Greek word for wine, essentially. But then they also did, they had a category for unfermented wine.
- 24:07
- So just, I mean, reading out of the BDAG here, you have oinos is a beverage made from fermented juice of the grapevine.
- 24:15
- The word for must or unfermented grape juice is trux, essentially. So they had a word for that.
- 24:21
- It doesn't actually show up in the Bible anywhere. And so that may make your case stronger, the fact that the word trux doesn't show up in the
- 24:27
- Bible anywhere. But then there is like a Greek word for that at the time, and it was a concept. And both of them were essentially described as the fruit of the vine.
- 24:36
- But then your argument is more though, just because overwhelmingly, wine is the word that's showing up, then it's the natural assumption is that's what they're gonna be drinking.
- 24:48
- Is that fair? I mean, yeah, well, I'd say, and then you jump to Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul rebukes the
- 24:54
- Corinthians for getting drunk at the Lord's table. And his solution wasn't to come up with some non -alcoholic beverage.
- 25:00
- His solution was to pretend of getting drunk and do it rightly. So that would relate to the historical argument.
- 25:06
- The historical argument you're making is they, I mean, if there's a possibility they're getting drunk at the
- 25:11
- Lord's supper, then that means they're probably using the oinos and not the trux, right? Yeah, correct.
- 25:18
- And also, I mean, it's just, and then you have the biblical culture of just wine and the
- 25:23
- Passover meal. So the Passover meal had wine. And in the New Testament, the Lord's supper is the new
- 25:30
- Passover. And so you have this, deep embedded connection with Israel and wine for centuries.
- 25:44
- And so it wasn't like an odd thing for Israel to receive from Jesus the
- 25:51
- Lord's supper and it not be something other than wine.
- 25:58
- I know that's kind of a weaker argument, but let me add this real quick, where that's also why
- 26:05
- I think the symbolism, I didn't talk about this in my blog post. There was so many things I could have brought in there, but the symbolism of wine is very powerful.
- 26:15
- It symbolizes the blood of Christ, the death barrel, the bleeding of Christ on the cross.
- 26:23
- Wine, I think one of the reasons why wine is symbolically so important in the Lord's supper is because there's a kick to that gospel.
- 26:31
- Grape juice is just blah. There's no, symbolically, there's just no kick there.
- 26:37
- I was gonna ask you about that. It's not dangerous. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because I know a lot of the arguments that I hear related to wine.
- 26:46
- So I mean, just full disclosure, I went to John MacArthur School. So I went to the Master's College and then I went to SBTS after that, but then
- 26:54
- I repented. But no, so a lot of the arguments
- 27:01
- I'm used to hearing related to this topic are centered around the idea that, okay, why do they drink wine?
- 27:09
- Why was wine such a big part of the culture in general? Well, a lot of it's just related to the fact that when you have bad water, you need something to preserve it.
- 27:17
- And so then the arguments that are related at this point is, the arguments
- 27:22
- I hear are one, why do they drink wine? Well, because dirty water kills people.
- 27:28
- So fermenting the grape juice, like letting it sit is gonna preserve it, remove the impurities out of it.
- 27:35
- And then the secondary argument is that, yes, they had a category for strong drink, but then also you have like wine, like wine is being used.
- 27:45
- And it's not like near the alcoholic content that we have here today in general. So then the idea is that the alcohol itself is just kind of like an afterthought.
- 27:55
- And then maybe that's why you have these vague descriptions in the Lord's Supper, like in that, he's saying,
- 28:02
- I'm not gonna drink the fruit of the vine again. Maybe that's ambiguous as to what it is. It could be something that looks like blood.
- 28:09
- So like the issue is both grape juice, wine, they both look like blood. Like in terms of visually, they look like they're symbolizing what we're talking about, but then why is the alcohol so central, right?
- 28:20
- So what about the fermented part is necessary? And you explained some of that related to the kick part, and that's probably why you're leaning into the masculinity direction.
- 28:31
- But then I guess the main question I'd have, and then we can kind of transition into some other thoughts. But my main question is, what about the symbolism of the alcohol is important to this being what it's meant to be in your mind?
- 28:44
- Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't just, I guess
- 28:49
- I wouldn't first and foremost make the symbolism connected to masculinity. I want the symbolism to be connected to the gospel.
- 28:57
- So the gospel has a kick. The gospel is powerful. The gospel is dangerous.
- 29:04
- And I think that's one of the reasons why the symbolism of wine is so helpful and powerful in this context.
- 29:10
- Grape juice has no kick. Grape juice is not dangerous. Grape juice is just a bland cold drink that's good to drink.
- 29:21
- I don't mind. But there's just no connection to what
- 29:27
- Jesus was teaching us in the Lord's Supper versus, and there's no connection in terms of the symbolism of what grape juice is beyond the blood.
- 29:37
- I can see, I can understand the connection there. You can still draw the blood connection, the blood of Christ to grape juice, just like you could wine.
- 29:46
- But the gospel is what's powerful like wine. And even when you make wine, you gotta crush the grapes.
- 29:55
- You gotta work them. You gotta put pressure on them.
- 30:00
- You gotta break them. And that's what happened to Christ on the cross. And then that wine is better in a new resurrection, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.
- 30:10
- You crush the grapes. The grapes are good by themselves. You pop a grape in your mouth, that's great. But then you crush them. And then on the resurrected side of that vine is this bold, beautiful Merlot.
- 30:21
- And the same way that I think kind of typifies or symbolizes Jesus dying and rising again and in the resurrection, we're on the sunny side of the cross.
- 30:31
- It's beautiful and better. And so, but you also, there's also a very practical problem in this is that grape juice, grapes, once you crush them, they just start fermenting.
- 30:45
- You just sit them on the ground and they fall off the vine and they just sit there and they break.
- 30:50
- They're just gonna start fermenting. And it wasn't until Thomas, Pastor Thomas Welch in the late 1860s found a process to basically pasteurize the grapes so they wouldn't ferment.
- 31:04
- But what you need there is a refrigeration. There was no refrigeration in historic
- 31:14
- Israel time. So no matter what you did, you would get wine unless you went immediately from the wine, the grape juice being pressed into the cup, into the sermon or into the
- 31:26
- Passover, into whatever, which was not happening, was not the case. So I think there's a practical issue of just the inability to create grape juice before refrigeration.
- 31:36
- You know of any passages - Go ahead, sir. Do you know of any passages in the New Testament that are drawing any symbolism from the, well, a couple of questions.
- 31:47
- One, like, do you know of any passages which are drawing any symbolism beyond just the blood symbolism related to the
- 31:53
- Lord's Supper? And then two, I mean, so practically speaking, like, how do you, you know, we're
- 32:01
- Baptists. We live in the South. This is a tradition that we've had. I don't even know how that works practically.
- 32:06
- So, I mean, you guys, I'm sure that you, from what I've heard, I mean, you guys give, you know, communion to your babies too, correct?
- 32:14
- Yeah. Yeah. But you wouldn't be giving them grape juice, right? You wouldn't be giving them wine, or would you?
- 32:21
- I'd give them wine. I gave my babies wine. But let me explain that because that can sound really weird and foreign.
- 32:29
- Well, I'm asking about it because I don't even know if it's legal. So I'm asking, like, what are the legal entailments of this?
- 32:35
- Like, you walk us through what this looks like because we're Baptist aliens on another planet here.
- 32:41
- Yeah, that's the, we're kind of aliens. We're both aliens on this topic with one another. So legally, it's a religious sacrament and you're allowed to do it legally.
- 32:51
- But even if it was illegal, the government can't tell me what I can give my kids and what they can't.
- 32:58
- But legally, it's a sacrament, it's a religious experience, a religious service, so the kids are allowed to do it. Now, our view is, so we feed our kids communion.
- 33:08
- And I think there's where Baptists would get us, would get us. So Presbyterians, which
- 33:15
- I am one, we believe that the covenant sign, the New Testament covenant sign of being in covenant with God is baptism.
- 33:25
- Just like the old covenant sign was circumcision, now the new covenant sign is baptism. And Colossians chapter two, verses,
- 33:33
- I think it's 10 and 11, you were buried in a circumcision.
- 33:43
- You died, let me, I don't want to butcher this. It's at the end of my week. And I will butcher this in a way that probably won't be helpful to everyone.
- 33:57
- There we are, Colossians chapter two, verses, yeah, 10 and 11.
- 34:06
- And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power, in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, wherein you also are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
- 34:28
- So basically Paul is comparing, hey, the Old Testament sign of circumcision represented this and the new sign of baptism represents this in Christ.
- 34:39
- And so I take, I think that's just a clear example, not so much of what
- 34:44
- I'm gonna talk about here about the covenant here in a minute, but it's just a clear example that Paul is saying, hey, this is the Old Testament circumcision, it points to Christ, and this is the
- 34:52
- New Testament baptism, it points to Christ, okay? Now, in terms of covenant, we believe that baptism replaced the
- 35:02
- Old Covenant sign of circumcision. And so that's why, that's a good explanation. If any of your friends ever asked, this is why
- 35:09
- Presbyterians do it, is because we believe baptism's the New Testament sign, the new covenant sign.
- 35:15
- And so that's why we'll baptize our babies. They're born, we baptize our babies, just like in the Old Testament, they would circumcise their male on the eighth day.
- 35:22
- Yeah, and I mean, a lot of Baptists understand that basically, they misunderstand and think that you're basically saying that they're saved by virtue of their baptism, which is not what you're not saying at all.
- 35:35
- But all right, so you would give your babies, you would give them wine, but then you do, well, you do allow -
- 35:43
- Let me explain that connection real quick. And so if we believe that our children -
- 35:48
- I wasn't arguing with that as if it's like a, I understand where you're coming from with that. No, I'm trying to answer the question about the baby wine thing.
- 35:56
- Yeah, yeah. Okay, so basically my point by just describing the baptism thing is, so if we believe our children are in covenant with God, we don't know if they're saved or not, but we believe they're in covenant with God because mom and dad are in covenant with God and we're a
- 36:11
- Christian family. Did we believe that? Well, why wouldn't our kids get to participate in the covenant meal?
- 36:20
- Sure. And so I think you guys would do this just a little differently. You guys would say your kids need to become, come into a saving faith, and then they need to confess publicly that Jesus is
- 36:30
- Lord, and then they get baptized, and then immediately they come, they get to come to the Lord's Supper. Right. And that all makes perfect sense based on what you believe about the covenant and what we believe about the covenant.
- 36:40
- And so we believe that the new covenant is for regenerate people, and that's the distinction between the old and you don't.
- 36:47
- So, I mean, that all makes sense to me. Actually, I think that you guys are a lot more consistent Presbyterians than those who wouldn't practice paedo -communion.
- 36:54
- Like, it doesn't even make any sense to me at all. No, whenever I have this conversation with my Baptist buddies, they're like, oh yeah, you guys are way more consistent than the halfway
- 37:02
- Presbyterians, what we call them. Yeah, I mean, they're more Baptists than they are Presbyterians at that point. So, I mean, it never made, that doesn't make any sense to me at all.
- 37:10
- So I actually understand where you're coming from with that. So, but then you would go, with your children, you would go ahead and give them wine at that point because it's a convictional issue for you that, now, like related to that.
- 37:23
- Now, I did have a question about that. So you believe it's a convictional issue for you, but then you also allow for grape juice at your church.
- 37:34
- And so then you're making some sort of accommodation for the wicker brother, so to speak, but then how do you reconcile that in your mind?
- 37:41
- Because the rhetoric you're using is pretty strong. And I'm not even resentful of your strong rhetoric.
- 37:48
- I think it's funny, and I understand where you're coming from. So I understand where you're coming from. I'm not like a hostile on that one.
- 37:56
- I just, I get what you're communicating. I may not necessarily connect it in that kind of way, but I understand what you're saying.
- 38:03
- But then how do you justify making an allowance if you, because it seems like you don't even believe it's the same thing, right?
- 38:13
- Is that true? Like, you don't believe it's - I don't believe it's what Jesus commanded.
- 38:19
- I don't have a problem with arguing that both wine and grape juice come from the vine. But the way you argue it, though, yeah, but the way you argue it, though, you're arguing that it's about as, like grape juice and wine is about as different as like grape juice to grape soda or something like that.
- 38:36
- So then is that an overstatement? So then why would you - Well, I would, what
- 38:43
- I would say, I would just say, well, I wanna do what Jesus did.
- 38:49
- Yeah, grape juice, grape juice. I wanna do what Jesus did in Lord's supper. If he gave us an example and he said, do this in remembrance of him, then we should do what he did.
- 38:58
- So I wouldn't even wanna, I don't even care about the distinction between wine and grape juice. I just wanna do what
- 39:04
- Jesus did in the Lord's supper. He did wine. And so that's what we should do.
- 39:11
- So I think there is a distinction there. I think there's an obvious distinction between wine and grape juice.
- 39:16
- Everyone in our society recognizes it. That's why you gotta be 21 to buy it. Yeah, but you wouldn't, as an accommodation, though, serve like tomato juice to someone or like Mountain Dew.
- 39:27
- You wouldn't serve Mountain Dew to someone for communion because they had a conscience issue. So why are you making it with grape juice?
- 39:35
- That's what I'm wondering about. Yeah, that's a great question. And it made me think of one other,
- 39:42
- Mars and Venus point here. When our babies are born, we baptize them, but we don't serve them communion until they can start eating.
- 39:52
- We don't take a - Put it in the baby bottle. Tear drop, yeah, we don't put it in the baby bottle. The sippy cup.
- 39:58
- We don't put it in their sippy cup, though. We don't put it in their sippy cup, right? That's right, no, we don't do that. And so when they become capable is when they get to sit at the table.
- 40:07
- So this is just kind of natural growing in life. They don't get to sit at our table or they're sitting in the high chair or whatever.
- 40:13
- They don't get solid food until they themselves are able to eat solid food. So there's just a, so usually it's about one years old,
- 40:20
- I think, when we started giving our kids communion and everything. So that's just a, I'm trying to clear up even more weirdness that might -
- 40:26
- Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Good qualification. Yeah, yeah. So here's the problem.
- 40:33
- And part of this discussion is those who are arguing for grape juice and communion are, the church for 1800 years never served anything but wine and communion.
- 40:53
- And then, so what happened in the beginning of the 19th century? Prohibition, yeah, prohibition. First, first is the temperance movement and then prohibition came later.
- 41:02
- So the first wave feminism kicked the dust up with the temperance movement.
- 41:09
- And then the church were early adopters like we are in all these funny things. And then the pastors started pushing abstinent bowels into the pews.
- 41:19
- And so you had this weird binding of conscience from pastors that came from the influence of first wave feminism.
- 41:29
- And a lot of these, some of these women were even pastor's wives. And so there was no debate in the church historically about do we serve wine or grape juice?
- 41:38
- For one, there was no such thing as grape juice. You can find a debate. I think it was Martin Luther who, debated, was debating, can you do, is it white wine?
- 41:49
- Should you do white wine or red wine? And so the debate was, not over unfermented, it was always over fermented what drink what kind of thing.
- 41:59
- And so in the early 19th century, you had the first wave feminist temperance movement come in. And then in 1860s,
- 42:07
- Pastor Thomas Welch created grape juice and he created grape juice because he saw a market in the church.
- 42:16
- And so that's where grape juice was. The grape juice came out of feminist temperance movement. Pastor Welch figured out how to capitalize on the brand and make money off it.
- 42:29
- And then the temperance movement is what got prohibition going in 1919, or finally it got illegal federally in 1919.
- 42:38
- And so our theology of grape juice is only 200 years old and was influenced by first wave feminist movement.
- 42:49
- And so in one sense, how effeminate is that? Is that we've constructed a whole narrative on a whole theology on grape juice based on first wave feminism.
- 43:01
- And then now what we've done is, okay, the church lady's got us in a corner over here. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna back, we're gonna now that we're here, we're gonna figure out how to create theology around it to be able to make it sound biblical.
- 43:14
- And that never happened for 1800 years in the church until first wave feminism. So I think honestly, so this goes into your pushback on, okay, well,
- 43:25
- Christ Church and King's Cross put grape juice in the back of the church. Why did they do that?
- 43:31
- Are they being hypocrites or whatever? And this goes back to my comments about go slow with your people.
- 43:37
- If you come in any theological conviction that you, any biblical conviction that you come into as a pastor or as an elder, you know, go slow with your people as God, as slow as God went with you.
- 43:52
- And so we've had 200 years of this modern theology on grape juice.
- 44:00
- And so our church is trying to go slow with those who still need to come along. And we are trying to bind, go ahead.
- 44:08
- Mountain Dealer would be a bridge too far. Yeah, because R .C. Sproul said, he was,
- 44:14
- I said this in my article, he was asked about the PB and jelly scenario
- 44:21
- I gave earlier. And he said, why can't we just, one of his students said, why can't we just serve Dr.
- 44:28
- Pepper and peanut butter and jelly? And R .C. Sproul like kind of got enraged by the question.
- 44:35
- And he said, basically said, because what God has set apart to symbolize is death and resurrection is holy.
- 44:45
- And if we want to toy with the symbolism of his holiness, and he characterized that question, he's like,
- 44:54
- I took it as this guy was like being almost, you know, asking a prideful question. Like, no, you need to submit to the holiness of God and what he has consecrated as holy.
- 45:03
- And so that's why I would absolutely reject the peanut butter and jelly stuff because Jesus consecrated and he said, do this in remembrance of me.
- 45:12
- And God, Jesus called that holy. Jesus said, by holy, I need to set apart. And Jesus called it holy.
- 45:19
- Jesus set apart bread and wine for us to participate in the Lord's supper and to do in remembrance of him. And I, you know, in talking about this, hey, we've had 200 years of, you know, sort of modern theology where we've been pushing grape juice as essentially the, for a lot of people, the new norm, at least here in the
- 45:39
- South, you know, all the churches I've ever been to, they only serve grape juice. There's not even an option to drink wine.
- 45:46
- And you don't typically have people coming in and finding out that they only serve grape juice and then pitching like a huge fit about it, right?
- 45:56
- So they're gonna come in, they'll drink the grape juice and they don't even think anything of it really.
- 46:02
- I wonder, and I wanna hear your opinion on this. Let's say you were to have the opposite scenario happen.
- 46:08
- And you have a church that only serves wine, right? Someone comes in and realizes, hey, there's no option for grape juice.
- 46:17
- Do you think the same reaction happens where the person doesn't just pitch a fit and, you know, try to change everything and, you know, tell the pastors how wrong they are for not even giving the option to drink grape juice?
- 46:29
- Do you think the same sort of response is given when the roles are flipped there?
- 46:35
- Or do you think it would be like, hey, typically when people find out that they can't drink grape juice, they get disproportionately upset about it?
- 46:47
- So, yeah, that's a good question. There's a couple answers to this. I'll probably forget them all by the time
- 46:54
- I'm done with a couple of them. But one is that view.
- 47:00
- So I think we're kind of dealing with broad evangelicalism needs to go slow on this issue, including
- 47:07
- Christchurch and King's Cross, because we're trying to undo, I think, 200 years of theology that was crafted out of man -made sensibilities, man -made, you know, not biblical theology, basically.
- 47:30
- And if it wasn't Friday, I would have said that sentence way better. And so we're trying to undo 200 years.
- 47:37
- So we need to go slow and be helpful. But also, I think related to this issue, there was alcoholics in the 1500s.
- 47:45
- There was alcoholics in the 1200s. There was alcoholics in Jesus' time. There was drunks in the 1750s.
- 47:53
- And at no point, I can't find any debate in church history, but I'm not a church historian at all.
- 48:02
- But from what I know, there was no debate on, well, how do we handle the drunks in our congregation when they get their cup of wine?
- 48:10
- Right, yeah, that was something else I was gonna ask you about, because there were a lot, you know, I saw a lot of people responding, essentially saying, you know, how dare you not even consider the alcoholics that might be in your congregation?
- 48:24
- And it's because, so that question's coming from, we've been so affected by modern psychology and the terminology alcoholism.
- 48:34
- Alcoholism is a disease. No, it's not. Biblically, it's a sin. And so we've categorized people who have a sin problem into a disease problem.
- 48:45
- And that disease means it's kind of something that's outside of them affecting them. It's not something that they, you know, so we've modernized the sin of drunkenness into alcoholism.
- 48:55
- And the word alcoholism now means, well, I'm not fully in control of this. I'm a victim of this disease, just like cancer.
- 49:01
- Yeah, so this is who I am, right? Yeah, I don't know if you know this, Gabe. Yeah, most of our, a lot of our videos are about psychology and biblical counseling, essentially.
- 49:11
- And so we do have a video on that topic too. It's called, I think it's something along the lines of, is it loving to call alcoholics worthless drunks or something like that?
- 49:21
- But yeah, we're making essentially that point that you're making, that psychology is basically redefine sin as sickness.
- 49:29
- So we're totally on board with the project for sure. That's right, yeah. So I think that that's where that question's kind of coming from.
- 49:37
- And that would bring me to the third point that I told you I was probably gonna forget. What was your original question? See if it'll jump.
- 49:43
- I was asking about, you know, if you have a church that serves only wine, no grape juice, would they get the same response?
- 49:51
- Yeah, and I think, no, they wouldn't, but they would, that person would portray probably the victim to get them to try to put grape juice in communion or something like that.
- 50:03
- But what I would want to do, so I believe eventually probably in, I don't know, 50 years or whatever you wanna call it, that our church will probably have exclusive wine.
- 50:14
- Probably that's where we're heading. Been heading there for a long time, for about 20 years.
- 50:20
- Our project, so this whole wine, grape juice and wine project for us started, I think, in like 1999.
- 50:26
- That's how slow we've been. And so I think eventually we'll not have any grape juice in the trays and not any grape juice in the building.
- 50:34
- It'll just be wine. And so I would, for that church, I would just say, I would, in the same way, let's say,
- 50:42
- I actually, I might be poking some eyeballs here, but in the same way, a church, let's say, uses modern worship and starts to sing the
- 50:50
- Psalms. And probably what they do for a while, they kind of have some Psalms and some modern worship, and they do that for a while.
- 50:57
- And eventually they kind of go to Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and they try to get away from kind of the modern view of worship.
- 51:04
- And eventually they get away from the band up front, which is what I would encourage all churches to do. And then someone new to the congregation comes in and says, hey, where's the band?
- 51:13
- I would feel more welcome there if you had a band there. I would just say to that church, I was like, no, just keep maturing in the way you're going.
- 51:20
- And if this family or guy that comes to your church wants the band to say, go down the road, that's a better fit for you right now.
- 51:29
- So I would encourage churches, churches have to mature. Bodies, church bodies have to mature. And I would want to constantly kind of reconstruct our worship service to, you know -
- 51:41
- Match the sensibilities of the most immature person imaginable, basically. Is that what you mean?
- 51:46
- Yeah, right, and so you have this weird tug of war between, okay, we just started singing songs and now we're doing both.
- 51:53
- And then now we're kind of getting rid of the worship band and we're growing in the Lord and we're maturing and we're kind of figuring out, hey, the concert thing probably isn't the most honoring and most, you know, honoring way to worship
- 52:04
- God. And plus the congregation doesn't really sing because the worship band's so loud, whatever. So I would encourage maturity there and not to go back to maybe some immature ways that where God had you.
- 52:18
- And so we want to encourage maturity. And so I wouldn't go back to, let's say, at that time.
- 52:25
- And those things that you were doing that were immature were fine. God was happy with it. My kid drawing colors all over the paper,
- 52:33
- I'm happy there. Eventually I want my kid to draw within the lines, right? And I don't want my kid to go back drawing outside the lines again and being all crazy.
- 52:42
- And that's how it encourages the church. It's like, just grow, go slow with your congregation, go slow and be patient.
- 52:47
- But, you know, keep maturing and don't go backwards. Well, sure. So Gabe, yeah,
- 52:53
- I mean, I know that we appreciate having you on here and I want to see if we can close this off in a certain way, but I know that I'm not totally persuaded that the point of communion, like being given wine is necessarily an indication of masculinity in the way that you're saying it.
- 53:11
- And that was the intention that God had. But I, like I said, I mean, I'm not even predisposed to be offended by that.
- 53:16
- And I can actually understand where you're coming from a little bit. And I actually thought it was kind of funny because I mean, in general, you know, as if you're just thinking about it in terms of, yeah, when you're an adult, you drink alcohol.
- 53:26
- And when you're a baby, you drink grape juice. Like I understand that argument. Now I can't make that out of scripture.
- 53:33
- I don't know how to make that out of scripture, but I understand that as like a natural revelation kind of argument, if someone wants to make it that way.
- 53:41
- And I don't particularly resent it, but then, you know, as you said it, I understood what your point was. And I'm able to generalize.
- 53:47
- I'm able to understand general statements and the fact that you can only make a tweet that says so much content.
- 53:53
- And there's a lot of clarifications that you could have, but if you're expected to make a tweet that anticipates every possible objection that any reasonable or unreasonable person could ever imagine, then you probably should never tweet again.
- 54:11
- But so there's that. But you know, after this whole debacle, what, would you say anything any different?
- 54:19
- And then, you know, what were some of the, if you got any pushback that you thought was good or was it largely unhelpful or how would, and you may have said some of that in your blog, but maybe you could end us out here with just a summary of your thought process on it now that the internet got mad at you.
- 54:40
- Yeah, I mean, the pushback, most of the pushback I find helpful because it makes me sharpen my iron and it makes me do better.
- 54:48
- And it makes me have to, I mean, I never would have written a blog post about this issue if I didn't get pushback from my friends.
- 54:56
- And so it made me think through, you know, I had to come up with 1500 words that were, that I had to think through.
- 55:02
- I mean, I already had some ideas on why I said it, obviously I didn't just pull it out of my, you know, out of thin air.
- 55:08
- So, but when I went to write the blog post, I started kind of making more connections with this issue where the church is in general effeminate.
- 55:17
- And I think grape juice is a sign of that. At the same time, I don't think every church who's doing it is being effeminate because I think the tradition of the theology that was kind of just made up out of thin air, out of the temperance movement is been driving a culture that I think has been unhealthy.
- 55:34
- And we need to at least answer that objection and have a good answer for it.
- 55:41
- And so I think the, being able to, what helped me kind of even think bigger about the issue, you know, noticing the effeminacy and even in my own
- 55:55
- Presbyterian circles with Kevin DeYoung and stuff where it's like, okay, this guy has a problem with the word wimp and wimpy.
- 56:04
- Literally, it's what he said in one of his words he listed in his blog post about what word we've used in a, probably to address the evangelical church.
- 56:12
- I don't even know the context of that word, but he had a problem with us saying wimp and wimpy. And so I'm like, well,
- 56:18
- I mean, you're acting soft. You're acting wimpy, you're acting effeminate.
- 56:24
- And then I find out his church has mandated COVID protocols pretty thoroughly in his church.
- 56:30
- And they have shepherdesses. Did you know about that? They have shepherdesses? I didn't even know that. They have a shepherdess position in their church too.
- 56:38
- That's crazy. So it all lines up. Like you look at how they didn't push back on government tyranny.
- 56:44
- They didn't show any backbone there. You look back on how soft they are about certain words that offend them while the
- 56:54
- Gospel Coalition blogs about movies full of hundreds and hundreds of cuss words.
- 56:59
- And then he comes after us about the serrated edge. And then you find out he's got grape juice in his church and it's like, oh, that don't make sense.
- 57:06
- It's like the pronouns in the bio, right? 100%. And I am a man.
- 57:13
- I am a he, him. But if I state that, it's putting off certain signals and symbols of where we're weak and where we're wimpy.
- 57:25
- And so it turns like you guys, I don't think you guys are being effeminate. I think you guys have bought into some new theology that you kind of backed into because of something that was crafted in 1860s from a temperance pastor whose wife was massively involved in the whole movement.
- 57:46
- Yeah, we don't even have a theology of grape juice here. So it's more just an inherited thing.
- 57:52
- You inherit the grape juice and you don't really, and then you have to ask, well, I mean, is the wine like an essential feature of it at this point?
- 58:01
- And is it worth, is the wine what makes it it?
- 58:07
- Is that the thing that makes it authentic in the same way and justify it?
- 58:13
- But then at that point, we definitely didn't start out with a fully formed theology of grape juice.
- 58:20
- And I mean, I think all the alcoholic arguments are just ridiculous anyways, and based on man -centered psychology and all that.
- 58:27
- So for sure. That's right, that's right. And I would say that's, I 100 % agree with you on the alcoholic arguments is based off of man -centeredness, and that's what the temperance movement did to the grape juice in modern theology, is it was woman -centered changes in the church that pastors eventually implemented.
- 58:47
- And that's what, so those, I would say those pastors were being effeminate. They were not standing up to the busy bodies in the church about the issue.
- 58:54
- And now we have this man -centered tradition on grape juice and communion that never in the history of the church was there until the temperance movement.
- 59:05
- And that's why Kevin DeYoung has, I didn't even know about the shepherdess thing.
- 59:12
- It makes me wanna rethink all his theology and what he's doing. But he, whatever culture he's inculcating there, they're going to immaturity, right?
- 59:22
- That's going backwards. That's going away from scriptures. And so that's why I can, again,
- 59:28
- I don't know much about Yale's church, but I'm making some assumptions there, but that's why conversations like these is like, you guys are wanting to go towards maturity.
- 59:37
- You guys wanna become more biblical in your theology, whether, and draw on the Lord. And I said in my article too, it's like, you want a biblically literate congregation.
- 59:46
- That biblically literate congregation is a blessing to you guys and not a threat. But you know, if everybody in your church was reading the whole
- 59:54
- Bible every year, what a blessing. And then one of those congregants come up to you guys and like, man,
- 59:59
- I've been reading my Bible. I've read my Bible five times in five years. I think it's saying this. What do you guys think?
- 01:00:06
- You guys are gonna be far more excited about talking with that congregant because you know he's been in the word.
- 01:00:13
- And even though maybe it's challenging you on something, whatever, but he's been in the word and you guys like, I respect him because he's been reading the
- 01:00:19
- Bible every year and I know it. And he's going to the Lord. And I wanna hear what he has to say. It changes the whole thing.
- 01:00:25
- Even if you guys never come to, let's say agreement on this guy's conviction or whatever, like the love for Jesus is there, the love for his word.
- 01:00:32
- You have a biblically literate congregation. That's where we're all want to head. And that's why I think this conversation is helpful because like I said in the article too,
- 01:00:40
- I was like, if you come under these convictions that you believe wine should be served in communion and I could have used all sorts of adjectives to describe this, but don't be a fathead and go down to the
- 01:00:56
- Anglican church that's going gay so you can get wine in your communion. Stay at your
- 01:01:01
- Presbyterian church, stay at your Baptist church that is actually understanding the times and growing in the knowledge and fear of the
- 01:01:07
- Lord. And maybe they just haven't come on to this conviction. So a lot of people took my article, like it was just like, is
- 01:01:16
- Gabe's way or the highway? And I had multiple caveats in there. Don't do this, don't do this.
- 01:01:21
- There's a big yellow flag paragraph here, you know, and everything. And so people were just saying, oh,
- 01:01:27
- Gabe's being divisive. Gabe's wanting to split the church on this and all that stuff. And I gave all these caveats. They never read any of them,
- 01:01:32
- I guess. But the point is, is like, stay, you know, commune at a church that's growing in the
- 01:01:39
- Lord. And if you come under the conviction that wine should be served in communion, which
- 01:01:44
- I think we should, then you work slow and steady. And regardless of whatever happens, it's been a great conversation.
- 01:01:52
- I think this conversation's been very good for the church. This is my third interview this week on this issue. So I think the conversation's been really good.
- 01:02:00
- Well, you know, personally for me, I do think it is a little bit eye -opening. I think regardless of wherever your stance is on this issue, it is something to think about the fact that, you know, grape juice hasn't really been around that long, relatively speaking.
- 01:02:18
- But then there are a lot of people when you get, when you talk about this subject who do seem to treat drinking wine almost as if it is morally wrong to do, you know, which
- 01:02:30
- I, you know, I don't think you should, I don't think you should always base all of your beliefs off of the way other people interact with them.
- 01:02:38
- But I do think that is at least something helpful to notate, right? And to keep in the back of your mind.
- 01:02:45
- So, but Gabe, we appreciate the time. We appreciate you coming on the show. And before we go, we actually wanted to ask you, where can people find more of what you're doing to, you know, hear more that you've got to say, or, you know, the things that you've got planned coming up?
- 01:03:03
- What have you got for us? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you can go to CrossPolitic .com, CrossPolitic, that's
- 01:03:09
- Jesus over Politics, Cross of Christ, CrossPolitic .com. You can go to FightLaughFeast .com, and that'll pretty much get you to everything that we're going.
- 01:03:17
- Join our email list, download our app. Our app is Fight Laugh Feast app. There's all sorts of content in there. We don't just, CrossPolitics is not the only show on the app.
- 01:03:25
- We have all sorts of shows on our app. We kind of have this little Fight Laugh Feast network that we've been building since 2018.
- 01:03:32
- And then of course, you can find me on social media, Twitter, if you haven't already found me on Twitter.
- 01:03:38
- Yeah, The Water Boy, right? You can find me there. Where did that come from, The Water Boy, by the way?
- 01:03:43
- I feel like it should be The Wine Boy now. I should totally change my title.
- 01:03:51
- That's great, man. Thank you for that. I'm gonna use that on the opening of the show sometime. You're welcome.
- 01:03:57
- Hey, I want credit though. I want credit. Yeah, you got it, Harrison.
- 01:04:03
- That's not Garrison. Yeah, not Garrison. Don't say Garrison on it. Yeah, so my nickname,
- 01:04:11
- Water Boy, it's a good question, but not really exciting. What happened was when we started our show in 2016 with Pastor Toby and Chuck Knox and me,
- 01:04:20
- I would intro the show. I'd open the show. Hey, this is CrossPolitics with Pastor Toby, Chuck Knox, and I am
- 01:04:26
- Gabe. And so we're like, that just doesn't rhyme or flow. It doesn't flow.
- 01:04:31
- We didn't care about rhyming. That doesn't flow. And so we came up with, basically
- 01:04:38
- I serve as a deacon at my church. And deacon, we're deacon off the table server.
- 01:04:44
- And so somehow Water Boy ended up being the final nickname that, you know,
- 01:04:50
- I think I final, I came up with it or something, I don't know. And I wasn't even that excited about it. I was like, but I'll just try it. And so I started calling myself
- 01:04:56
- Water Boy and then everyone, it just stuck. So that's how the name came forth. They just eventually stick and it becomes a thing.
- 01:05:02
- All right. Well, thanks again, Gabe, for coming on the show, for giving us your time. And, you know, thanks to our audience as well for supporting us week in and week out on social media, interacting with the polls, supporting us through Patreon, which you can do down in our description.
- 01:05:20
- We've got links to all our social media where you can follow us there. We've got links to Patreon where you can support us financially if you want to.
- 01:05:27
- And until the next episode, we'll see you. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.
- 01:05:34
- We hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion. We thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to Bible Bashed and share our podcast with your friends and on social media.
- 01:05:45
- Please reach out to us with your questions, pushback and potential topics for us to discuss in future episodes at BibleBashedPodcast at gmail .com
- 01:05:55
- and consider supporting us through Patreon. Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.
- 01:06:31
- God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless.