May 21, 2020 Show with Rosaria Butterfield on “The Gospel Comes With a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in a Post-Christian World (& Overcoming the Challenges COVID-19 Has Placed on Hospitality)”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carwile, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 21st day of May 2020.

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I'm so thrilled to have back as a returning guest one of my favorite people to interview,

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Rosaria Butterfield, a former lesbian and feminist who served in the English Department and Women's Studies program at Syracuse University from 1992 to 2002, having critical theory as her primary academic field, specializing in queer theory, who was later transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ and is now very happily married to a conservative

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Christian pastor, Kent Butterfield, of First Reformed Presbyterian Church in Durham, North Carolina.

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Today we are going to be addressing her most recent book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key, practicing radically ordinary hospitality in a post -Christian world and also overcoming the challenges

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COVID -19 has placed upon hospitality. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Rosaria Butterfield.

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Thank you so much, Chris. It's always a pleasure to be here with you. Oh, it's always a pleasure to have you on.

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And before we get into the topic at hand, why don't you let our listeners know something about First Reformed Presbyterian Church in Durham, North Carolina.

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Ah, all right. Well, we had the great privilege of meeting corporately last Lord's Day.

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Praise God. Praise God. Exactly. Exactly. The mayor of Durham had one set of expectations and the governor of North Carolina had another.

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And then a First Amendment -loving judge put forward a staying order so that churches, at least for the next two weeks, will not be harassed.

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And it was an amazing thing to sing the Psalms together after six weeks of meeting on Zoom.

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It was wonderful. And you know, we practice social distancing. I have a good distance between each other.

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It was an amazing opportunity. And I'm so grateful, both to God's provision, of course, first and foremost, but also to my husband and our elders, who are courageous men of God, and know that this is a time when we need to be brave.

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Amen. And I know that your congregation is in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, who are also nicknamed the

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Covenanters. Yes, that is correct. And one of the few things that I know that separates you from other conservative

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Reformed Presbyterian groups is that you practice exclusive psalmody and also exclusively acapella worship.

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Yes, that is correct. And I hope to pay a visit there one day. We would love to have you.

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I've been meaning to travel to North Carolina to visit an alcohol rehabilitation ministry that I spent some time in when

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I was backslidden into that sin in Hebron Colony Ministries in Boone, North Carolina.

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And I've been meaning to get back there at some point, and I would love to stop by while I'm passing through. We would love to visit with you and to show you some good

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North Carolina hospitality, too. Great. Well, the website for that church, if you want to look up more information about it, is firstrpcdurham .org.

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That's D -U -R -H -A -M dot org. First, F -I -R -S -T, R -P -C for Reformed Presbyterian Church, Durham, D -U -R -H -A -M dot org.

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Well, this book is something that has really been put, there is a challenge being put to it because it involves hospitality, and many of us have been living like hermits the past couple of months due to this

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COVID -19 pandemic. But before we go into some of the ways that you think that we can overcome those challenges,

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I want to get into the heart of the book itself. And I want to first read a commendation written by one of my other favorite guests,

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Carl Truman. Carl Truman says of this book, One of the hallmarks of the people of God is supposed to be hospitality, but in an age of commuter churches, towns disembattled by shopping malls, and lives that are overscheduled and full of ceaseless activity, hospitality is something which, like true friendship, is at a premium.

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In this book, Rosaria Butterfield makes a bold case for putting hospitality back into the essential rhythm of the church's daily life.

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She sets the bar very high, and there is plenty of room here for disagreement on some of the proposals and details, but the basic case that church is to be a community marked by hospitality is powerfully presented and persuasively argued.

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That's Dr. Carl R. Truman, who I hope to get back on this program soon.

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One of the things I know about hospitality is that when

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I hear about people who are disgruntled and hurt, and when

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I ask them about a church that they have been visiting, it might even be a church where I am a member or another church, they may say,

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I'm not going back there because nobody was warm to me, nobody reached out to me. And, of course, that could be real or imagined, but if you could, set forth the driving force behind you writing the book to begin with.

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Right, right, right. Well, the driving force was really a question. I mean, many, many people over these years have wanted to know how

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Ken and Floyd Smith reached out to me 21 years ago when I was a gay rights activist, and they were a conservative

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Christian pastor and pastor's wife who lived in my neighborhood, and I think just the juxtaposition of those categories is somewhat mind -blowing, and so I've, over the years, been asked to just explain how that happened.

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And so the book itself is meant to do that, but it's also more than that, of course.

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It's not just a story of how God blessed me richly through the hospitality of Ken and Floyd Smith.

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It's also a little window into what my husband, Kent Butterfield, and I practice today.

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And part of the backstory on us is that for years and years and years,

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Kent and I were the only believers in our families until our two youngest children came to faith, and then my mother came to faith on her deathbed.

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And so when you are a Christian on the front line of things, which

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I would say would be any Christian, and no one in your family can share with you that union with Christ and that love for Christ and that optimism, that hope that comes with the

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Christian life, it's very, very lonely. And so because Kent and I understood loneliness, we were,

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I don't know, driven, compelled, there might be a stronger verb there, to describe how we were blessed and what we do to try to use hospitality to do some very basic things.

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To seek the stranger, because strangers don't fall from the sky, they never have.

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You know, to seek the stranger, to welcome the stranger as a neighbor, and if God so wills, to watch that neighbor become part of the family of God.

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And then to live like a family, not just like a set of people who share a certain worldview and gather together two hours a week.

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That's just inadequate. So that was really the impetus behind the book.

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And, you know, I've heard many times conservative

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Bible -believing Christians mock our leftist friends, those who are in opposition or in disbelief when it comes to the inerrancy of Scripture.

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They mock the leftists when they bring up the fact that Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed because of a lack of hospitality, and that there's no mention of homosexuality.

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But I think it's equally wrong for we who are believers in biblical inerrancy and who love the

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Scriptures and who have a love for truth, allegedly. We leave that out, because that was a part of God's wrath towards Sodom and Gomorrah.

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It certainly was homosexuality was a part of it, a major part of it, but there was a lack of hospitality there.

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Right, right. And there's actually an interesting connection there, too, because, you know, certainly as someone who spent many years in the gay community in New York during the, you know, first wave of the

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AIDS epidemic, there was a great deal of gathering together and breaking down barriers and caring for one another and, you know, turning homes into AIDS hospices and doing some, you know, very remarkable work, but that's not hospitality.

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That's liberal communitarianism. Hospitality has a very specific

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Christian impetus. So I would say even, you know, even in Genesis 19, there would be almost no way for that particular community of Sodom to practice hospitality, because the fundamental truth of hospitality is that you love your neighbor not in the way you feel most comfortable, but in the way

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God intends. So, you know, there's a link there. But definitely when I met

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Ken and Floyd Smith, part of my comfort in entering their home and entering

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Christian hospitality was that there was, it was familiar to me, because at that point, at least, you know, in terms of externals, the gay community was practicing a good bit of gathering in homes, sharing burdens, and trying to come up with solutions.

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Now, what I wasn't prepared for in Ken and Floyd Smith's home was family devotions. That time when

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Ken would just say, okay, we're going to stop talking now, and I'm going to read this passage of Scripture, and we're going to talk about it, and then we're going to pray about our concerns, and we're going to leave them at the throne of grace.

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We're not, that's what we're going to do. We're going to leave them right there. And that was really startling to me, because I will tell you that before I was a

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Christian, I think I lived in a constant state of anxiety. There was never, you could never let your guard down.

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I mean, how could you? On what grounds? It wasn't safe, and everybody knows it. But that's one of the, you know, one of the imperatives of the

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Christian life is to not worry, and instead thank God for all things.

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And because God is God, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the

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King of Kings, and the power of the Resurrection is something that we live through, and see, and understand through our union with Christ, that's the only reason that we can leave things at the throne of grace, because it's real.

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And that's, of course, what we want to communicate in our lives, and communicating that to hospitality is just,

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I think it's easier. I mean, I, you know, I just, I think it's easier, because I'm a homeschool mom.

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I'm home anyway. It's, you know, this is in my domain.

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There's some pretty simple things that you do when you want to put, when you want to share with your neighbors why you believe what you believe.

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But, you know, one important thing to remember is it means that there will be awkward moments.

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You know, this is not Better Homes and Gardens. This is not hospitality where nobody's ever uncomfortable.

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That's just, that's just not even real. So I think Christians need to just embrace the fact that awkward doesn't mean you're doing the wrong thing, because in any kind of moment, if you're really going to be a

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Christian in this world, the conversation has to shift. You know, it's got to shift, and if you're going to shift it, there might be an awkward pause.

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So what? People don't die of awkward. You know, it might be a good idea, since you've been mentioning it, even though we've already conducted an interview with you exclusively on your testimony, uh, and also on your previous books, uh, why don't you, in a summary form, tell our listeners just exactly what you mean, how

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God used the hospitality of a pastor and his wife to eventually lead you to Christ, and also to lead you to your husband.

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Right, and we've been married for 19 years on the 19th, so.

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Oh wow, praise God. Very best 19 years of my life. Oh, praise God. Yeah, well,

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I was a professor at Syracuse University, and very much wanted to do good in the world.

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I, you know, was a do -gooder from before that phrase was, I think, invented, and I cared about injustice and oppression, and I did not understand why

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Christians would not leave consenting adults alone. And I had been living at that point in serially monogamous lesbian relationships, and had co -authored the university's domestic partnership policy, which means that I wrote the forerunner to gay marriage at, you know, state and local levels.

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And in the process of, I'd finished my tenure book, and I was working on a book, really trying to understand the religious right.

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I basically wanted to understand why, you know, people like you hated, or that's how what

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I would have said about people like the person I used to be. And so, in the process of writing that book,

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I met Pastor Ken Smith, and he immediately invited me to his home for dinner to meet his wife,

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Floyd. And I thought that was great, because I thought Ken would be my unpaid research assistant.

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You know, I know what I don't know, and I was interested to really dig into this.

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I had a stickum on my desk that said I'd rather be wrong on an important point than right on a trivial one.

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I still feel that way. And I wanted to dig in, and Ken was more than happy to help me do that.

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And so, I probably had, I don't know, 500 meals at Ken's house. You know,

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I was not an easy nut to crack. But one of the things that he made clear to me is if I wanted to understand why

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Christians believe what they believe, I needed to understand not only what the Bible said, but what the

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Bible is. And so, that began a wonderful journey in reading and rereading the

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Bible. I read it seven times before I walked through the door of the church that Ken Smith pastored.

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And it's a very long story. I mean, that's why I wrote a book about it. But basically, the

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Bible got to be bigger inside me than I. And I came to Christ, not because I, at that point, stopped feeling like a lesbian, but because I was absolutely positive that Jesus is who he says he is.

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Praise God. Yeah, but you know what? That was a messy process, and it was a painful process.

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And I was, as you can imagine, the recipient of much laughter and disrespect, and sometimes even pure hate.

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And during that... You mean from professing Christians? No, I mean, at that point,

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I'd definitely been the recipient of that from professing Christians, but that's more recently.

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No, that would have been, really, the gay rights movement, because I'd betrayed them. I mean,

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I did. I did. I did betray them. It's not that they weren't wrong in saying that.

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But during that time, what broke through the loneliness of that was this church, and they became my family.

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And I don't know where I would be today without them, and without that reality.

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Well, praise God. And then they wound up introducing you to Kent Butterfield?

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Well, well, it's not... Yes, you know, we're, you know, Chris, we're a very small, very, very small denomination.

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And so I was a visiting professor at Geneva College, and I was teaching in an urban ministry program that borrowed a little space from our denomination seminary, the

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Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And it was there that I met

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Kent Butterfield, because he was a student there. So that was how

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I met Kent. But then Ken Smith did... He walked me down the aisle when I married

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Kent. And Ken and Floyd, over all these years, have been dear, dear friends.

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Floyd went to be with the Lord a few years ago, but Kent Smith is so very much, very much alive and well, and continues to give me good advice.

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And his prayers for me and his counsel are just the most precious thing. Amen. Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address if they would like to join us in the conversation with a question of their own.

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Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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What do you mean by the merit of hospitality? Well, I think that we tend to think of hospitality as something that is set apart and different from all the other things we do.

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That we look at our calendar, and we look at our checkbook, and we say, hey, the house is going to be cleaned on the third

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Thursday in November, and I'm going to be able to go to the grocery store before then.

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And so that's the day we're going to have hospitality, and we're going to invite people over, and it'll be at 7 o 'clock, and all of that.

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And what I'm trying to say in this book is that there is a merit, a meaning, a purpose, and a grace of living hospitably with the door open, and having opportunities for hospitality that are more open -ended and regular.

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And part of the reason that I say that is, and I talk about this in The Gospel Comes with a

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House Key, but particular intense hospitality that Kent and I had been practicing happened because we woke up one morning to realize that the house across the street was actually a working meth lab.

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And the people in that house, we were their only known friends in the neighborhood.

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And so, needless to say, our neighbors wanted to know all kinds of things about, you know, had we lost our minds?

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You know, so we discovered at that moment that a table with food is a wonderful place for people to linger over their differences and then conclude with family devotions.

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And so it was really at that point that we started understanding also that the problem sometimes with a hospitality that is a little bit too micromanaged, we discovered that many of our neighbors were suffering from both abuse and also addiction.

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And your neighbors might not know if they're going to be sober or safe the Thursday, you know, in November, but if you say, well, every

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Thursday at six o 'clock, we have soup and bread and we'd love to get to know you, you know, one of those

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Thursdays, they really will be sober or be safe and you will have the opportunity to meet them and to share the gospel with them.

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And so those were the things that we wanted to do. We wanted, you know, we wanted to be fishers of men.

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We wanted to be accessible to people and we wanted to better understand what the barriers were to having meaningful conversation with our neighbors because we don't believe what the world says.

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You know, the world says, well, you can't have meaningful conversations because if you don't all share the same worldview, you can't talk across differences.

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If you don't approve of people, you can't really love them. And that's just not true. I mean, some of us are old enough to remember our grandparents playing cards on the porch with neighbors who voted differently, maybe even spoke different languages.

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So, you know, we're downstream from a number of worldviews that have inserted truth claims about personhood that are just not accurate, intersectionality, feminism, gay rights.

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And one of the ways Christians can just interrupt that is to not obey the rules of this new world, to open the doors wide and to open your arms wide and to welcome people in.

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One of the things that happens then is sometimes you'll see that when your relationships are strong, your words can be strong too and people are not offended.

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What did you mean by micromanaging hospitality? That seems like an oxymoron kind of a thing.

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Oh, does it? Okay. Well, it's just where you want it to not be ever awkward. You know, really want to make sure, and let me just say, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be excellent at what you're doing.

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There's nothing wrong with wanting to have the house cleaned and wanting to have a nice meal on the table.

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But sometimes people just need to talk with you before you have a chance to get your act together.

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So, you know, to be willing to practice hospitality, that's a little off your game.

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You know, to share peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead of the best meal you know how to make.

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Just because, quite frankly, it was a tough week and that's what you're having that night. So, that's all

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I mean, to be willing to let the meaning of hospitality be the relationships that you're developing with the sole explicit intention that you want people to understand why you have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

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It's a call them to put their faith and trust in Him as well. If that's the primary goal, then some of those other issues, like whether the plates match or whether, you know, the kids have swept the house that day, those become a little bit less significant.

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Yes, and also visitors in your home very often will feel less comfortable if they feel like they're in a museum or in a five -star restaurant where they have to be on their best behavior with manners and and all that kind of thing.

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Right, right, right. No, absolutely. You know, we also, one of the things that we learned, you know, we've learned a lot when there is a working meth lab across the street.

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Let me just say this, it's not like Kent and I sat down and said, well, you know, let's write a book and tell people how to do this.

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No, no, no, no, no, no. We really learned how deep and how stressful people's lives are without Christ in a new way.

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I mean, we remember that, but by God's grace, He softened the edges of our own memories of that.

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And so when you realize that there are people, you know, dying of crushing loneliness, and not only people outside of Christ, but singles in your church, you know, to not really think about the family as a family of God and anticipate those seasons of loneliness and move in with, quite frankly, a house key or just, you know, an open door.

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To not live like that can really, you know, unwittingly, of course, set your

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Christian brothers and sisters up to just feel like second -class citizens in Christ's Kingdom, and there's no such thing.

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There's no such thing as a second -class citizen in Christ's Kingdom. We will judge the angels someday, and so to treat each other with dignity means to know the hardships in real time and not try to find some church program to fill that, because there's no church program that can fill that.

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What fills, what meets loneliness is relationships, and relationships are best developed during regular seasons of meals and Bible.

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And that's, you know, when you do that, when you just say, well look, interesting, everybody eats dinner every day.

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Why don't we just let the singles in our church know that they're always welcome? Great. Well, we have to go to our first break right now.

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We'll have you pick up where you left off there. Sorry to interrupt you. And again, if anybody would like to join us, we already have some folks waiting to have their questions asked and answered, but if you'd like to get in line, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, please give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

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If you live outside of the USA, please only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away.

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We'll be right back with Rosaria Butterfield, and the gospel comes with a house key.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest for the full two hours today, with a little less than 90 minutes to go, is

40:49

Rosaria Butterfield, and we are addressing her book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key.

40:55

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own about hospitality, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

41:03

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

41:09

And please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

41:14

USA. We have a question from Erin in Indianapolis, Indiana, and she says,

41:21

Good afternoon, Chris. I have a strange question, which makes me sound like a horribly selfish person, but if you think the question and answer might help listeners, here it is.

41:34

What advice might Mrs. Butterfield offer for a single Christian who would truly like to practice hospitality in order to share the gospel, but who also has a spiritual gift of mercy, who has lots of experience internalizing and taking to heart the struggles and sins of others far more than is emotionally healthy?

41:59

In other words, are there ways I can fully love my neighbor and show hospitality while also protecting myself from being overly involved in my emotional and spiritual detriment?

42:11

Well, first of all, let me tell Erin that she should be ashamed of herself for asking this question. I'm only kidding.

42:19

I'm only kidding. Yeah, Erin, that is the best question, and it gets to the heart of something that I haven't mentioned yet, and I'm so glad you asked it.

42:30

Hospitality is not a one -woman show. It's not a one -family show.

42:37

Hospitality, Christian hospitality, is a reflection of the Church in the world, and here's what

42:44

I mean. It's when the Church is gathering, and you see that in the book of Acts. In the book of Acts, you see clearly that God's people knew where to gather, and it wasn't some kind of a program, and so Christian hospitality works best when it's not one family or one person, but it's really the

43:04

Church, having really thought this through, saying maybe, hey, this house would be a great house because maybe it's got a wheelchair ramp, or the parking is great here, or it's right in the city, or whatever, and then the elders of the

43:19

Church and others in the Church thinking, how can we resource this particular home so that Christian hospitality can happen?

43:32

And one of the things that you do is you're never alone with that, because anyone, but especially someone who's sensitive and empathetic and willing to take criticism, those are all very good things, but if you're all alone on the front line of hospitality, then you won't be able to stand up to some of the attacks of Satan and also some of just the genuine sadness and difficulty of life, both life inside of Christ and life outside of Christ.

43:59

So it's a mission of the Church that manifests itself in a particular home, and you should never feel like you're on the front line, and I know what that's like, too.

44:10

You know, you're on the front line of a ministry, and you're looking back, and there ain't nobody behind you. It's you and nobody else. That's not what this is supposed to be like.

44:18

It's a mission of the Church which has certain outposts, and maybe your home is one of those, and if your home is one of those, then you need other people in the

44:27

Church ministering alongside you as you open your home to hospitality. And it's especially helpful,

44:34

I would say, to have other families over as well, so that during the time of Bible teaching, for example, the, you know, perhaps one of the elders or one of the men who's really quite accustomed to leading family devotions, it can make a very natural, albeit maybe awkward, because remember, awkward's not bad, but nonetheless, a natural segue into, now it's time.

45:04

Thank you. That was a great conversation. Kids, can you bring the dishes to the sink? Now it's time to open our

45:11

Bibles and pray to the Lord, because we've talked about a lot here, and we don't want to be alone with this.

45:18

So does that answer your question? Does that answer Aaron's question? Sounds like it to me, and if she has any follow -up, if she has any follow -up questions, she can send in another email.

45:27

Well, Aaron, you made our guest very happy with that question, and guess what? I hope I'm going to make you very happy, because you just won

45:35

The Gospel Comes with a House Key by our guest, Rosaria Butterfield, compliments of Crossway Books, so please make sure we have your full mailing address in Indianapolis, Indiana, so that Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

45:50

who sponsor the show, can ship that out to you at no charge to you or to Arnie Trupp and Zion Radio.

45:57

And thanks again for the great question. Let's see here. We have a question from Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, and he asks, what would you consider to be a full list of the minimum things required for Christian hospitality to be fulfilled?

46:22

Yes, okay. The first is, just to repeat on Aaron's question, the first is to have the mission of the

46:32

Church behind you. So in other words, the Church knows that on Thursday nights, the

46:38

Butterfields open their homes to their neighbors, and especially if we are, we know maybe there's something really up, and we might need to really deal with a problem or an issue, we want some other folks from the

46:52

Church over that night, too. So the first is to have other believers with you, and to make that a regular part of hospitality.

47:01

And then the other, I would say, is to adjust your expectations. Hospitality simply shares what you have.

47:09

So I would say that there are no minimum expectations, except for, you know, to think through what would be some basic comfort issues for your guests.

47:23

So one of the things that we've definitely noticed in our neighborhood is that people are not likely to walk through the door of our house at a first meeting.

47:32

So what we do instead is, every fall, we have something called Fire Pick Fridays. We take, usually the month of September, every

47:40

Friday night, we have a cookout, followed by a psalm sing. We'll sing some psalms around the fire pit.

47:47

Yeah, kids will do s'mores. And we have gotten to know a wide range of neighbors that way, and we also just deal with issues.

47:57

So one of our neighbors is moving in across the street. We noticed that during one of these Fire Pick Fridays, we sent our teenagers over with a cooler and some water and cokes and things, and we invited them to come over.

48:09

And they came over, they said, well, we'd love to come over, but we can't. We're a Muslim family, and we can't eat your meat.

48:15

And we said, great, bring your own meat. And they did. You know, and they did.

48:21

And we've gotten to be very good friends over the course of time.

48:27

And so we would say, just make sure that there are other believers that are with you. Share what you have.

48:33

But, you know, think about the fact that you don't want people to be too impressed with you.

48:38

Really, you really don't. You want people to be, not very impressed at all, but you want them to be able to, you want to be able to communicate that it is only through the grace of God and through the love of the

48:53

Lord Jesus Christ that you can do the things that you do and fulfill his expectations for you.

49:01

So I would say, you know, minimize this list and maximize the things that prepare for hospitality, which is having your community with you, but also bathing it in prayer.

49:15

One of the things that often comes up at this point is, what happens if a husband and a wife are in disagreement over hospitality?

49:23

And that's a really easy thing. You go with what the husband says. And if you don't like it, then you pray.

49:29

You pray and you ask him to reconsider. Some of, you ask him to reconsider, but hospitality should not be a dividing, a divisive issue within families, nor should it be a very stressful thing.

49:45

It's certainly an opportunity of scoring, and as I've said many times, there will be some awkward moments.

49:52

And they're awkward moments because people are not used to having honest conversations with each other. They're used to mouthing off the way people do on Twitter.

50:00

They're not used to actually saying, huh, I've never met somebody who thinks this way, let me think about it.

50:07

So there will be some awkward moments, but it's not supposed to, you know, suck you dry or leave you without any kind of resources.

50:17

In fact, it's a very fulfilling thing because you see God at work in the lives of the people that he has entrusted to you.

50:26

Those neighbors that you have are precious. God never gets the address wrong, and he has appointed you to speak the gospel truth into their lives.

50:36

And so hospitality is simply one way to do that. So all the stuff, the mac and cheese and the vacuum carpet, if it is vacuumed, and the kids who are showered or not, all of that is just secondary to what is really the heart of the issue, and that is sharing the gospel with your neighbors and having the time to manage conflict without it becoming an issue of betrayal.

51:05

Now, yes, and when you mentioned before that you always inform your church ahead of time, that they're fully aware of what's going on.

51:18

They often have other members of the church over there.

51:25

Is this a hard and fast rule or just a general practice? Because someone might say, well, what happens to spontaneity in your life when you meet somebody in the grocery store?

51:36

You can't just say, hey, come on over, we're firing up the barbecue, you know. Right. Yeah, you can. You absolutely can.

51:42

I think it's a both and. I think it's a both and, but I think if you've already planned, like you've already planned to have a particular event, you know, a series of events that are open to your whole neighborhood, and you know that you're going to want to share the gospel, not just, you know, share the things that you already have in common as neighbors, then since you already have planned that, it makes sense to also invite your church family over.

52:14

But absolutely, spontaneity is fantastic. I absolutely love that.

52:19

And you can certainly do that. That's not off the table at all. And I would think it might be awkward, almost make you sound like you're in a cult, if you were to say to somebody,

52:30

I'd love to have you over, but I got to ask my church permission first. You would never say that.

52:37

And it's not meant to be programmatic. I would just say, and again, many of these things that I'm talking about now came out of a moment when our neighbors were angry with us.

52:49

There's a working meth lab across the street. We're the only people that knew these people well.

52:55

We certainly didn't know there was a meth lab across the street, so obviously we didn't know them that well, but we knew them well enough to take care of their dog and know how to get their aging mother and those kinds of things on the phone.

53:07

And when you know you're going to have an angry mob over to your house, and you don't want it to just be a shouting match, it helps to have other

53:14

Christians there, because there's just too many concerned people for Kent and Rosaria to manage.

53:24

Part of it is just do the math. Right. And Erin has a follow -up email here.

53:32

Oh, awesome. It's not a question. She's just saying, oh, Mrs. Butterfield, thank you so much for your always gracious, complete, and comforting response.

53:43

Chris, and she says, Chris, not so much. And she says, thank you so much for the book,

53:51

Chris Crossway and CVBBS. I'm so thrilled. Our blessings to you,

53:57

Erin. And we have to go to our midway break right now, folks. The midway break is longer than our normal breaks, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

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FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show, because they have to, by SEC regulations, localize

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida, and therefore, while we air our globally heard commercials, they are airing their local public service announcements.

54:27

So please be patient with us during this longer break. Make wise use of the time by writing down as much information provided by our advertisers as possible so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them, so that subsequently, our advertisers will be happy and they'll want to stick around as our advertisers and keep us on the air, because keep in mind that we depend upon our advertisers to exist.

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We would never survive solely on the basis of donations that come in. We require these advertising sponsors.

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So please try to patronize them, even if it means just sending a letter or an email or a phone call to them to let them know that you appreciate their sponsorship of this program.

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And also, obviously, use this time to write down some good questions for Rosaria Butterfield, and our email address is

55:20

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be back after these messages with more of Rosaria Butterfield.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And please don't forget, folks, that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends on the sponsorship of Solid Ground Christian Books.

01:12:14

So please, whenever you're thinking of a gift to purchase for someone you love, or people that you love, plural, go to solid -ground -books .com

01:12:25

because not only are you going to be blessing someone by letting them know how much you love them by giving them a gift, but also the words contained in these books published by Solid Ground Christian Books can edify and greatly bless your

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Christian friends and loved ones, but they may also lead the lost in your life to an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ.

01:12:53

So I would strongly urge you to go to solid -ground -books .com for all the upcoming events that would lend themselves to gift giving, like Father's Day, birthdays, there's lots of anniversaries, wedding anniversaries typically in the spring and summer.

01:13:11

And I would even suggest that you start stocking up on Christmas gifts, start early.

01:13:18

But go to solid -ground -books .com and always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arns and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:13:25

Before I return to our guest Rosaria Butterfield and our discussion on The Gospel Comes with a

01:13:30

House Key, I just want to make a couple of very important announcements. First of all, tomorrow we are planning a tribute to the late

01:13:40

Ravi Zacharias. Many of you may have heard that just about two days ago,

01:13:47

I believe it was, Ravi went home to be with the Lord that he loves so much due to cancer.

01:13:56

And we are going to have Dan Buttafuoco start the program tomorrow. Dan was a personal friend of Ravi Zacharias, Dan Buttafuoco, whose ads you've been hearing on this program for his law firm,

01:14:09

Buttafuoco & Associates, and also the Historical Bible Society. He not only was a personal friend of Ravi's, but Ravi wrote the foreword to a book that Dan Buttafuoco wrote.

01:14:24

So we're starting off the program with Dan, and we may have some others join us, but the last hour will be an encore presentation of an interview

01:14:33

I conducted with Ravi some years ago that I hope will bless you.

01:14:39

So we are postponing our next coronavirus update that we typically have on Friday with Pastor Joe Jakowitz of Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California, in order to have this tribute to Ravi Zacharias.

01:14:54

Also folks, this is the part of the show that I hate doing, but I've got to do it.

01:15:00

If you love this show, and you don't want it to disappear, and you love hearing the guests and the topics that often are never heard anywhere else, if you love receiving free

01:15:09

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01:15:16

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01:15:29

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01:15:35

The two caveats that I always try to remember to tell you when making these appeals for donations is that I never want anybody siphoning money away from their regular giving that they're accustomed to, to their local church where you are a member, in order to give the

01:15:52

Iron Sharpens Zion Radio. Please never do that, especially during this time of the coronavirus pandemic when many churches have been hit really hard financially.

01:16:02

So especially now, don't do that, but I'd never want you to do it anyway. Your church comes first when it comes to giving, and never put your family in financial jeopardy either by giving to Iron Sharpens Zion Radio.

01:16:16

Those two things are commands of God in Scripture, providing for church and home. But if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, you have perhaps a lot of extra money that you've been able to save because you haven't been going out for evenings of fine dining.

01:16:33

You haven't been going to your favorite sporting events. You haven't been going to movies. You haven't been going to theatrical performances.

01:16:40

You haven't been going to Bible conferences and many other things that would usually occupy a lot of your checking account.

01:16:49

Well, please share some of that money with us. And that is, of course, if you want us to remain on the air.

01:16:55

Go to ironsharpenszionradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now. You can also advertise with us as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe.

01:17:07

You don't have to believe identically with me, but as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe, that'd be great.

01:17:15

We'll help you launch an ad campaign immediately because we certainly could use your advertising dollars. Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:17:23

chrisarnson at gmail dot com and put advertising in the subject line. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a local

01:17:28

Bible -believing church, and you're having a hard time finding one where you live, I have lists of Biblically faithful churches all over the world.

01:17:38

And I have already helped many people in our audience find churches near where they live, either that they have visited and joined themselves, or that they have referred to friends and family and loved ones who are without a church home, or sometimes they visit these churches on vacation.

01:17:56

But I hope that you will reach out to me as well if you are having a difficult time finding a church. And send the email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:18:04

chrisarnson at gmail dot com and put Uneated Church in the subject line. And that's also the email address where you can send in a question to Rosaria Butterfield.

01:18:14

That's chrisarnson at gmail dot com. chrisarnson at gmail dot com. We are talking about her book,

01:18:20

The Gospel Comes with a House Key, and Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post -Christian

01:18:27

World. That's quite an interesting phrase there that you've coined, radically ordinary.

01:18:36

Too many adjectives, I know it. No, I love it. We do have, as I said, some listeners waiting for you to answer questions.

01:18:45

We have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina. How far is Asheboro from Durham? Yeah, it's about four hours.

01:18:54

Asheboro is beautiful. It's in the mountains, and it's one of my favorite places to visit.

01:19:00

Well, Grady, maybe it's worth a four -hour drive to spend some fellowship with the

01:19:05

Butterfields, since they seem to have an open house there at least a couple of times a week. Grady is a very faithful listener and a very faithful financial supporter of this show, and he says,

01:19:17

Hi, Brother Chris and Sister Rosaria. How do you handle someone if they are coming over and it seems all they're interested in is the meal?

01:19:26

Grady, I told you not to bring that up in public. I've apologized many times. Do you keep inviting them, praying that the

01:19:34

Holy Spirit will work in their heart? Okay, that's hilarious, and I will tell you that there's one category of people, and I know it's always dangerous for Christians to say this, but I'm going to do it anyway.

01:19:47

I'm going to take the risk. There's one category of people for whom that is consistently true, and it's just okay, and that would be college students who are really middle -class homeless people.

01:20:01

So there you have it. If you want to break into the cycle of just the soul -crushing experience that many of our

01:20:17

Christians are experiencing at colleges, both secular and Christian, you will put up with them eating all of your hot dogs.

01:20:25

It will be worth it. There will be kingdom blessings for you, so just persevere, brother.

01:20:33

Persevere. Yeah, there's a local Christian college campus ministry.

01:20:40

Excuse me as I pour myself some coffee. There's a local college campus ministry that actually has free—they advertise it to other students—free grilled cheese sandwiches that they give away, and the gospel comes along with it.

01:21:02

And of course, people who have soup kitchens and all kinds of things like that as a regular ministry, they're very used to people coming just for the food.

01:21:13

And I would just seriously say that you just don't really know the depth of some people's loneliness and issues.

01:21:22

That might not come up for years and years and years, but in general, I think that one thing that you can do if you think that people are just kind of larking around is put them to gospel use.

01:21:39

And what I mean by that is—and I would say the gospel comes with a house key, but it also comes with a chore chart.

01:21:45

So if somebody's kind of a regular here, that person knows how to use the vacuum cleaner and knows how to peel potatoes, enlist that person in ministry, and I think you'll be blessed.

01:22:01

And so will that person. Amen. And we have to be careful about not thinking that we're clairvoyant.

01:22:06

You might think that that's the only way. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Grady, and we have your address already, and we are going to have cvbbs .com

01:22:16

ship you a free copy of The Gospel Comes with a House Key. Thanks a lot for your question. We have

01:22:21

Patty in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Now you already addressed this, so maybe Patty tuned in late, but she says—maybe you'll have something to add to your previous comments on this—she says, does hospitality involve a sit -down dinner with the good china?

01:22:41

Well, not if you're coming to my house. Maybe if I'm going to yours. I don't know where the good china is.

01:22:48

Well, I'll tell you a funny story about that, too, because last Christmas, I think we had about 40 people over here, and I usually use the corral, you know, but then after you run out of corral, you go to paper plates, and then after you go to paper plates, and then some kids, they just do this.

01:23:04

They just grab, you know, a good dish from the top, because they're all taller than I am, so they grab a good dish from the top of the cabinet, and the day after Christmas, I found a stack of dishes on the trampoline.

01:23:18

That's right. On the trampoline. And, you know, that's—yeah, yeah.

01:23:25

Okay? And then when I complain about it, when I go, and I'm like a crazy person, and I go to my kids and their friends, and I scream, you know, right?

01:23:33

Because I'm Italian, so I'm screaming about dishes on the trampoline, and my son, you know, will just look up really innocently and say, but Mom, we stacked them up, right?

01:23:45

They were willy -nilly all over the trampoline, like Robert T. Heathens. We stacked them up, so that gives you a little snapshot as to what kind of a motley crew

01:23:56

I'm talking about here, and yeah, fine china just doesn't quite fit in with that, but I will tell you that you're going to do it your way, and that's wonderful, and if your way involves that, and it just involves just a delicate and aesthetic appreciation of how good china and fresh flowers go together, that is wonderful, and so I think that's just a style question, but it's not mandated, and you just won't see it at the

01:24:29

Butterfields. Let's see here.

01:24:35

We have, oh, Patty, you're also getting a free copy of the book,

01:24:42

The Gospel Comes with a House Key. Thanks for your question. We have a listener who has actually given me permission to identify himself in full.

01:24:56

He has actually been a guest on this program several times.

01:25:02

His name is Mitch Tepper. He's a Jewish believer, and he is a missionary to the

01:25:08

Jews, both domestically and globally, representing Christian Witness to Israel, which is a reformed outreach to the

01:25:18

Jews. One of the oldest such ministries, Robert Murray McShane was involved in it,

01:25:26

Charles Spurgeon, and it still exists today. It wasn't always called Christian Witness to Israel, but it's been called that for quite a long time.

01:25:35

He says, and this is kind of breaking stride from the hospitality theme, if you don't mind, but he says,

01:25:44

I have not spoken to my transgender son in three years. I was wondering if Rosaria had any ideas of reaching out and connecting with him again.

01:25:54

It's been very difficult and heartbreaking for me. Yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

01:26:01

What an important question, and I don't think this is off topic at all.

01:26:08

What I would say first and foremost is that this is probably the most difficult situation for any

01:26:18

Christian to be in, to have a ministry and to have seen God bless your ministry with strangers and to have your children, for this season, and this is not, you know, we're not making any eternal statements for this season, not respond to the gospel.

01:26:36

And so that is a very, very painful thing. What I would say is, first of all,

01:26:43

I'm going to recommend a book, and it's not my book. It's Christopher Yuan and Angela Yuan's book,

01:26:50

Out of a Far Country. And while it's not about transgenderism per se, it is about homosexuality.

01:26:58

At least half of the book is Angela's story, that would be the mom's story, of how she prayed for her son

01:27:07

Christopher while he was rejecting the gospel and living a very dangerous life as a gay man at that point.

01:27:19

Christopher is now probably my dearest, you know, friend in the world, and he is a professor at Bible Moody, and so, you know...

01:27:29

Wow, praise God. Yeah, but it's an amazing book. It's probably my very favorite memoir of all memoirs, and what it does that is just so powerful is it opens, it just shares

01:27:41

Angela's prayer life and her vulnerability and what that journey was like and how the

01:27:48

Lord showed his love to her in that lonely time.

01:27:54

And so first, I would just recommend that book. And then secondly,

01:28:00

I would also want to be reading books that are helpful to understand transgenderism, you know, from a

01:28:10

Christian context. And I would say, you know, there are a couple of very good books.

01:28:16

One of my favorites is by J. Allen Branch called Affirming God's Image, Addressing the

01:28:22

Transgender Question with Science and Scripture. This is Lexham Press. And then finally,

01:28:29

I would recommend looking at the Sex Change Regrets website, and that is run by a man who's also a personal friend of mine named

01:28:40

Walt Heyer, H -E -Y -E -R, Walt lived as a transgender woman for,

01:28:49

I believe, at least a decade, maybe more, having gone through the entire battery of the sex change operation and then did what's called detransitioning and now has an amazing ministry.

01:29:04

And so I think just to really wrap your mind around it from a Christian perspective is extremely helpful.

01:29:11

And then finally, you know, I always suggest that you, you know, it's a very hard thing.

01:29:18

You have probably, you probably feel like an accidental missionary, someone who was just airdropped, you know, from the plane onto this, the front line of this mission field without a bottle of water or inoculations or even knowing the language.

01:29:34

And so, you know, I would just say that that is, that is a very, that is a mind -boggling experience.

01:29:42

But God is good, and God is just, and God is wise, and He is all those things all the time.

01:29:48

So He knew that you need to be the dad of this son, and you need to continue to be the dad of this son, even as this son rejects you and rejects, you know, himself in many ways.

01:30:02

And so, you know, I always encourage connecting on safe terms if that's possible.

01:30:10

And if it's not possible, then getting every single human being on the planet that you know to pray for your son, specifically praying that the

01:30:19

Lord would raise up Christian friends who can maybe make an inroad where you can't.

01:30:27

And then finally, another important prayer is that you would pray that the Lord would remove all unholy relationships from his life.

01:30:36

But I will tell you that I will pray for you, and I will pray for your son, and I will pray for restoration, because that's what the gospel is.

01:30:45

And your son is not any further gone than you were or that any of us were.

01:30:50

The Lord knows and is the author of not, certainly never of sin, but He is appointed over that what seems like a very long distance.

01:31:02

It is not a long distance to the Lord. And so those would be my suggestions.

01:31:11

And if, you know, it sounds like this might be a longer conversation, so maybe, Chris, we can find some way to have that longer conversation as we need to.

01:31:21

Oh sure. In fact, I forgot to mention that Mitch has a connection with you and your husband.

01:31:29

He's a graduate of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Okay, wonderful.

01:31:35

Well, then we can take this offline, have this conversation. Great. Well, thank you,

01:31:41

Mitch. Oh, well, I'll read a follow -up question that's actually more on your book that he has.

01:31:47

Okay. Many Christians have been very divisive and have caused many divisions in the

01:31:52

Church during the pandemic. Being hospitable with these former close friends hasn't been easy.

01:32:01

Help. You know, it's so funny, I'm so glad you did ask that question, because Butterfields have been so busy with hospitality during the pandemic that we're starting to call it, you know, we're starting to say that gospel comes with the hospitality with training wheels.

01:32:19

And I think, you know, it's been a fascinating thing. But the reality is that there are people who don't want to receive,

01:32:27

I mean, you know, there's a fear factor, and you want to respect people's boundaries, and you must.

01:32:33

But one of the things that we have been doing as a family is we've all gotten jobs as grocery delivery people.

01:32:45

And I'm going to tell you, people will share with you their deepest, most heartfelt fears as they're putting their order together.

01:32:57

And so that has been a real opportunity to connect with people.

01:33:04

So I would just say respect people's boundaries, pray for them, and stay off of social media.

01:33:15

I would say that in general. I mean, I will just tell you that people allow, people will engage with people in social media, that if they showed up at your front door, you would call 911.

01:33:29

You know, just don't, you know, social media is not the place to work out anything of significance.

01:33:37

In fact, quite frankly, I don't think they, they might not even know they're doing it, but people who work out theology on social media are actually working towards a low

01:33:47

Church culture, because they are stealing the job that is the job of elders and pastors.

01:33:55

So if you think Church discipline needs to happen, contact the

01:34:00

Church pastor and elders. But to engage in this ridiculous, shamefest expose that happens on social media is, it's actually what heathens do, because the proximity between that and the violation of both the

01:34:19

Fifth and Ninth Commandment is almost inevitable. So...

01:34:24

And you know who you are, folks. You know, I don't do it anymore.

01:34:31

I used to cave in and allow the vacuum cleaner of time to suck hours out of my life by getting embroiled in theological disputes on Facebook, and I won't do it anymore.

01:34:48

I just abruptly tell people, this isn't the time or the place, and I'm not going to waste my time.

01:34:54

Right. Right. Exactly. And that's exactly what it is. So... Well, thank you,

01:34:59

Mitch. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. No, no. I just encourage all of us to not have any important conversations there.

01:35:06

And thank you so much, Mitch. He loves your answers. And Mitch, give me your mailing address in Pittsburgh, because you've also won the

01:35:16

Gospel Comes with a House Key. And we're going to take our final break. It's going to be a much more brief break than the last one.

01:35:23

So please, if you want to have a question asked before we run out of time, send it to me now at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:35:31

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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01:46:21

As host of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

01:46:27

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

01:46:37

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how He shall be worshiped and how

01:46:43

He shall be represented in the world. They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

01:46:51

God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a

01:46:56

God -centered focus. Reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, baptism, and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.

01:47:11

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

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.com. That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com

01:47:26

or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

01:47:36

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

01:47:44

This is Chris Arnzen, and this is the last segment of our interview with Rosaria Butterfield on The Gospel Comes with a

01:47:50

House Key. If you have a question, I would send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

01:47:57

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Rosaria, we have an anonymous listener. The anonymous listener says, do you think that it is a wise idea to invite a homosexual couple into your home, especially if you have young children present?

01:48:17

Right. That's a very, very good question. My answer might not be satisfying because it simply is it depends.

01:48:28

There's a lot of variables in that question. First of all, if that couple is your sister and her partner and it's

01:48:38

Thanksgiving, the answer might need to be yes for a host of reasons.

01:48:46

In general, if you are trying to witness to a homosexual couple, it is very difficult to witness to a couple because they will help each other keep their guard up.

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It is always my preference to invite people individually.

01:49:15

That's my preference. As far as children, again, it depends upon what age.

01:49:24

Children are picking up on a lot of things right now. I don't know if it's really struck anybody yet, but this is the first June in almost 50 years in some communities that there will be no

01:49:39

Gay Pride March. I know, seriously, it is a virtual event this year, and that means that this is the first year in sometimes 50 years that there will be no opportunity to normalize homosexuality.

01:49:54

Praise God. I know, praise God, yes. The other thing that will happen, certain identities and homosexual identity is one of those, it requires the affirmation of the world.

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To deny that is to really deny the oxygen to the fire. This is a really big deal.

01:50:15

If there is a way that you can, well, first of all, if there is a way, your primary responsibility is to your family and to protecting your family.

01:50:29

Sheltering them might not be protecting them. It kind of depends, but certainly what you don't want to do is help normalize homosexuality.

01:50:37

Amen. So it just, it really just depends. I mean, I will tell you that our children were really in many ways just, you know, raised by, you know, sometimes we tuck them in and we discover that they had crawled out of bed and they were falling asleep under the dining room table with their teddy bears and their pillows, and we realize, you know, that for years they've been falling asleep listening to their parents plead with their neighbors to put their faith in Jesus.

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And, you know, so it just, it really does depend. But you never, ever, ever want to be in a situation where you feel like you're pitting some kind of Christian ministry against caring for your family.

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Because if that's the case, there's something wrong with the order there. Take care of your family first.

01:51:25

Amen. Yes, I can recall back in the 1980s when

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I was dating my first Christian girlfriend, and she was from Virginia.

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I was on Long Island, New York, and we were having a long -distance relationship where every three months one of us would go to the other's hometown and spend like a week there.

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And I remember I was invited to her Long Island uncle's

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Thanksgiving dinner, and her cousin is a homosexual, and he brought his partner with him.

01:52:08

But the thing that I was very thankful about is that they never acted like a couple in public there at the

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Thanksgiving meal. In fact, they just looked very uncomfortable and frightened, to be perfectly honest.

01:52:24

But there was no affection demonstrated toward each other, and so on. Now, that might not be the case in 2020, just because of the normalization of homosexuality.

01:52:36

But I also think it's really helpful, and this is just, you know, this is definitely an aside. And this is a very, you know, this is one of those things that when tweeted, it really gets me in trouble.

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But there's really no such thing as a gay person. There's gay sex, there's gay communities.

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But, you know, gay can tell me how a person feels, but it does not ever tell me who a person is, because, you know, the image of God and your sexual difference is certainly ontological.

01:53:10

Being born male or female is an ontological issue. But sexual orientation is really a 19th -century category mistake that we've inherited from Freud, and I think

01:53:20

Christians of all people should just be done with it. I really do, and I'm not saying we shouldn't live in reality.

01:53:28

I understand that people identify as gay, but that is a category mistake, because gay is not who anyone is.

01:53:35

It may be very well how, you know, people feel, but it's not a who. And I think people get really, you know, this is where the gay

01:53:44

Christian movement comes in and, you know, inserts any number of categories that are not biblical.

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And the Church is confused, often, about how to respond.

01:53:58

And when I say gay Christian movement, I'm talking about the Matthew Vines, the Metropolitan Church, but I'm also talking about the celibate gay

01:54:06

Christian movement, because that is equally problematic. Yes, and it's even more problematic,

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I think, because they come from conservative theological denominations.

01:54:18

I agree with you entirely. So, we need to be careful of all people on how we, you know, represent this as well.

01:54:26

Yes, in fact, I typically try to not refer to people as homosexuals, but say something like a person involved in homosexual activity.

01:54:36

Yeah, right, right, right. I slipped there when I was... That's okay. I'm watching you, brother.

01:54:45

By the way, Anonymous, thank you for the question, and if you want to send me your full name and address,

01:54:53

I will not obviously reveal it over the air. You have also won a free copy of The Gospel Comes with a

01:55:00

House Key, so send it to me as soon as possible. I'd like you to spend some time, before we run out of time, summarizing what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners when it comes to the book,

01:55:14

The Gospel Comes with a House Key. Yeah, well, I think the thing I would most want to say is that Christians do not need to fear anything, you know,

01:55:28

COVID -19 or what appears to be a gay rights movement that is winning, you know, on some level.

01:55:37

We really don't need to, and what is extremely effective about having a pattern and a practice of hospitality is your home does become a place where hard things can be discussed, and where strong relationships can carry those hard things.

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Christians need to help people understand reality. A few years ago,

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I had a friend, an old friend, call me up and say, we just can't be friends anymore, Rosaria. I'm a lesbian now, and you don't approve of me.

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And I had to say, Ruth, I'm so sorry that you ever thought I approved of you.

01:56:20

I never approved of you. And Ruth, you never approved of me.

01:56:28

You know, so we disagreed on any number of significant differences.

01:56:34

Spanking, potty training, Pixar films, chicken nuggets, you know, those things.

01:56:41

And so why are you telling me all of a sudden that I need to approve of you to be your friend?

01:56:48

I mean, if love and approval go together, then no parent ever loved a child. And you know, she laughed exactly the same way you laughed,

01:56:57

Chris. I never approved of you. I thought that, you know, spanking's barbaric, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:57:04

She said, I don't know why I said this. You're right.

01:57:09

It doesn't make sense. Acceptance and approval are different. And you don't need to approve of me to love me, and you've shown that.

01:57:18

So I think sometimes it just helps you to realize that hospitality provides the, you know, more private moments, really, to have a word in season.

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And that word in season is both a gospel proclamation, put your faith and trust in Jesus, repent of your sin, identify your sin, understand how to deal with indwelling sin.

01:57:41

I mean, this is, who knows that but a Christian? Who knows that for indwelling sin, that's the sin that's in the house, not the one that's out there, that you need to starve it first.

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I mean, who knows these things, that you need to mortify it, that you need to separate yourself from it, that you need to learn how to hate your sin without hating yourself.

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These are all key things, but if Christians devote too much time on social media, what's going to happen is you are going to lose the ability to understand the difference between the private and the public.

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You know, social media collapses that difference, and hospitality restores it.

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Hospitality reminds us that private conversations are those places where people can, without shame, repent of sin and commit their life to Jesus.

01:58:37

Amen. And that's what we want to see. Amen. You just reminded me of a conversation

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I had with Todd Friel not long ago, where I said, Todd, you haven't agreed to come on my show in quite a while.

01:58:54

Is it that you don't like me anymore? And he said, Chris, I never liked you. He assured me he was kidding after that.

01:59:05

And I'll try hard to believe the second comment. But I want to make sure that our listeners have your contact information.

01:59:13

We have rosariabutterfield .com, rosariabutterfield .com.

01:59:19

And also don't forget about First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham, North Carolina, firstrpcdurham .org,

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that's d -u -r -h -a -m dot org, firstrpcdurham .org.

01:59:32

Rosaria, it's been such a joy. I can't wait to have you back on the program again. In fact, if you could hold on after we go off the air,

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I wanted to see if I could schedule another interview with you. And I want to thank everybody who listened, and especially those who took the time to write.

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I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.