Matt Slick Live: August 20, 2024

The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network.

It's Matt Slick Live! Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm .org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers.

Taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

The Now and Not Yet in Theology

Hey everybody, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. Make your list of Matt Slick Live if you want to give me a call as usual, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276. I want to hear from you. Give me a call and if you want, you can email me.

That's easy to do as well. Just send an email to info at karm, C-A-R-M, info at karm .org and put in the subject line radio comment, radio question, and hopefully everything's working great. All right, we have callers coming in.

Oh, and I'm going to do an article on that. Let's just jump on. Let's just jump on the line and get to Alan from Virginia. Alan, welcome.

You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. How's it going?

It's going, man.

It is going.

So what do you got, buddy?

I talked about it yesterday and I saw you commented on it, but I wanted to hope if you could explain the now and not yet for everyone.

Yes, it's a theological perspective that deals with the now for God and not yet for us. And also deals with the now for us and not yet for us. What that means by that is, for example, Jesus was on the cross and Jesus bore our sin, but we didn't exist yet.

So for Jesus, it was now, but it was not yet that we were alive. So the now and the not yet deals with time and deals with things that aren't, but will.

Be.

And so there's different places in scripture to talk about this kind of a thing. And another one I'll go to is in, let's see, in Romans 8, 29 and 30, it's what it says, for those of me forenew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren.

Pay attention to the tense here. All these are past tense. And these whom he predestined, he also called. And these whom he called, he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified. Well we can understand that glorification is something that is future for our body.

Now there is a sense that we can have the glory of God upon us and in us, so it can be understood in different ways. But the main idea here is to understand, it's a good place of seeing that we are guaranteed the fullness of the resurrection, the fullness of all things, yet it's not yet for us here, but it's spoken of in the past tense, it's so sure.

So the now and the not yet deals with differentiation between the actuality and potentiality, but the potentiality will become actuality, if that makes sense.

Okay?

Alright.

I had another question too. Was the blood of Jesus imputed to those before his birth?

Yes, imputed. So his blood is not imputed to us. What is imputed is our sin to him and his righteousness to us. It's called double imputation. To impute means to reckon to another's account. So it's a legal thing.

So I could impute ten bucks to you by simply writing you a check, mailing it to you, you deposit it. You now have an imputation. And the word imputation doesn't really take that kind of a common meaning with us, and.

That's okay.

That's alright. But that's what it means. And so all sin, now I personally believe just of the elect, past, present, future, were imputed to Christ and he then paid for that sin on the cross and canceled the sin debt at the cross according to Colossians 2 .14.

So it could not have been canceled for everybody because if it's canceled for everybody then no sin exists for anybody and nobody could go to hell. So that's the imputation of our sin to him. That means people before the cross, during the cross, you know, Jesus' life, and after.

That's us.

And also his righteousness is imputed to us. And when you can go there and you can find, let's see, Philippians 3 .9, I believe it is, for not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law but that which is through faith.

The righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. And also Romans 4 .5, for the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. And legitimacy is the word there and to reckon to and to give to, okay?

All right, I appreciate it, Matt.

Okay.

Does that help?

Yep.

Thank you so much.

All right.

You're welcome so much. Well, God bless.

All right.

Tithing, Church Partnership, and the New Covenant

Now, we have three open lines if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276. Let's get to Mark from Raleigh, North Carolina. Mark, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Pastor Matt. How are you doing today?

Doing all right. Hanging in there, man.

Hanging in there.

What do you got, buddy?

Well, hey, I'm going to try to really condense this, but forgive me if I stumble on my words because I'm still processing it. But I've been a believer for, I would say, about like eight years, and I'm not one to bounce around from church to church.

I've only been to three churches in my life, but in the first two instances, I left the church due to just relocation. However, I've been at my current church for about three, almost four years, and I've had to struggle with not growing in my discipleship.

So I'll just get to the question here. So about eight months ago, my pastor, he spoke on tithing and how he believes that there's a specific 10 mandate. And he's used verses I'm sure you're familiar with, like the Malachi 3 passage, and other passages in the Old Testament, like Macca's attack.

However, I think the main verse that he likes to use whenever speaking about tithing is his claim that Jesus affirms the tithe in Matthew 23, when he's rebuking the Pharisees. And so long story short, I've had a conversation with the pastor because, like I said earlier, I haven't been growing in my discipleship, and so I've been trying to learn how I can either host a discipleship group or anything like that.

However, since I don't tithe a specific 10 amount, and basically it's against my own conviction to pretend like I do, because I doubt that he's checking people's, you know, their giving and things like that.

But according to my conviction, I know I'm not tithing 10%, and so technically, I'm not a partner of the church. And so in the eyes of the church, I'm not...

Wait, hold on.

So there's a status of being a partner of a church. If you tithe 10%, is that what you're.

Saying?

Yes.

To be a partner of the church, there's certain things that you have to have unity in.

So they use the term partner in the church regarding tithing, do they?

Yes.

To be a qualified leader, you have to be a partner of the church.

To be a partner, you have to tithe 10%.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, I would dust my shoes as I'm leaving that church.

Yeah.

Okay.

In Mormonism, in order to get into the temple, you have to have a full 10 tithe of your income to the church. They have to know it. Then you're qualified to go into the temple to give a secret handshake, secret hugs.

Nothing in the New Testament says we're obligated to tithe. In Matthew 23, they're still under the old covenant. And the legalists, the Pharisees, et cetera, they would tithe, they would boast in their tithing.

Now, the new covenant is established with the death of Christ, Hebrews 8, 13, Hebrews 9, 15 through 16. There's no legality requiring us to tithe in the New Testament when the new covenant is in effect, which is after the death of Christ.

You're free to tithe. You're free to give what you want, 10%, 100%, 5%, 1%, no percent. You do what you want before God. If they start saying, in order to be a partner of our church, you have to, in order to work and do this and that, you have to have a 10 tithe of your income to the church, I'd say, where's the exit?

Yeah.

After we talked to them and rebuked them and said, nothing in the New Testament requires.

That.

And if you're going to say that tithing is something that is necessary because Jesus condemned the Pharisees how they tithed, and this is what you want to go to, you know, it just makes me mad. You know, there was George Mueller.

He was the orphan king. He's my hero. And he died around 1898 or something like that. And he was a pastor for a while of a church, and the elders wanted him to pastor, and he was a good man. And he told them, and he said, look, I'll be the pastor of the church under a couple of conditions, and it was interesting stuff, but one of them he said was that you do not tell the congregation this, that.

He's living on the tithes that come into the box, that's how it was in England at the time. That there was a box in the church, and that he would tithe. He wouldn't preach on it unless a text required it.

And no one wants to let them know that he was living off of that, and he said, I'll know when it's time for me to leave when the tithes stop, when God is putting on their.

Heart.

Now that's the answer, not this idiocy, partner with us, you've got to have a 10 tithe, and then with a 10 tithe, the partnership, now you can do this and this in the church. I just take a hymnal, put a rubber band around it so the pages don't come open, and then frisbee it up at the stage at them.

Sorry, that's my head.

In love, you could do it in love, though.

Right.

And so what's really disheartening is that I have spoken to the pastor about it, and then recently he's brought up all of this again to the church, and he's saying he's rebooting small groups, and like I said earlier, I feel like I haven't been growing, like I'm trying to do things myself, but even during the sermon, just seeing, I just have more questions than I have answers, and so long story short, I went directly to him and asked, like, hey, can we meet and discuss this?

You know, I just feel, you know, I just have a difference of opinion on generosity, but I still am, and this is going on week two now, and I still haven't gotten a call or anything like that, so I feel like there's some element of neglect in the church as well on top of this whole thing.

Could be. I mean, it could have been circumstances you're not aware of. It could be circumstances that got in the way of stuff that happens.

That's true.

But I understand what you're saying, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so...

Look, brother, you're not obligated to tithe. Nothing in the New Testament requires it of you, but the implication of the people supporting ministers is there. It doesn't say how much.

Yeah.

Now, we've got a break, so hold on. Okay, we'll get back. We'll talk more about this. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Mark from Raleigh, North Carolina. Mark, welcome.

Hey there.

You there?

Yeah.

So, the break kind of stopped there, but let's see if we can continue if you want. Does that help at all?

Yeah. Yeah.

And so, I would say the last element that I wanted to go over was that my wife goes there, and I've seen her grow a lot this past year because I think she really enjoys the community. And so, I guess my question is, how can I, like, have healthy conversations with her and, like, just kind of express my thoughts on the situation and that, you know, I would love for us to leave because the worst thing I want to do is or the last thing I want to do is just pull her out of the church and have that be detrimental to her growth as well.

However, I have been visiting another church nearby that I really do like.

Well, what I would do is say that you talk to a guy named Slick on the radio, and he said that you need to change. See how that goes over, all right?

Yeah.

And then, when you give her the real reasons, it'll just sound better because that sounds so bad.

You what?

But what I would do

Well, we've already yeah, we've already been talking about it, but

Okay.

It's just also helpful hearing another opinion.

Yeah.

Well, now, granted, I'm only hearing your side of what you say the pastor's doing. This bit about partnering at a certain monetary amount given, that really concerns me a great.

Deal.

I think that is very dangerous, and I don't approve of that at all. That alone tells me that there seems to be a qualification manipulation based around.

Money, and that's it.

It should not be about that. It should be about your spirituality, your calling before God, and how the pastor can equip you in that and lift you up in that. If that's not being met, then you need to move on.

Me, I'm different. I would call the pastor on the carpet on this and say, This isn't right. And then you leave if he doesn't change.

And that's it.

That's what I would do.

And you tell your wife, and you say, We need to go to a different church. I'm sorry, but we can't go to this one because and we're not going to go to this one because because you are the spiritual head in the family.

And from what you've told me, I get it, and I agree with you. And hopefully she'll agree, and you can do that.

Got it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Okay.

And you can. You can let me know how it goes. Hopefully your wife isn't too emotionally invested with people.

Yeah, and I definitely will. And I think the timing is pretty intentional because this up-and-coming Sunday, I believe the pastor is speaking on generosity again. And so, yeah, I think that this will naturally bring up conversation at the church.

I'll talk to her about it and move forward. But, yeah, I do appreciate it. I can update you in the future.

Okay. Good.

And let me know. You know, this is not an easy thing to do. And sometimes wives are more emotionally invested than we men are, and we can make decisions and move along. But, you know, from what you've told me, a warning flag is all over the place.

So, okay.

Got it.

Okay. Thanks for your time.

All right, brother. God bless.

Okay.

All right.

Wow. That's disturbing.

Church Culture, Diversity, and What to Look for in a Church

Let's get to Janet from Raleigh, North Carolina. Janet, welcome. You're on the air.

Thank you, Matt. How are you tonight?

Melancholy, I think. I've got to check.

Oh, really?

A little bit.

You know, the obstreperous level is down, and melancholy is a little bit of excitement, because that last caller excited me a little bit.

So, you know, people ask, how are you doing?

I give them a detailed analysis, because I think it's more interesting.

Well, that's what I wanted, so that's good.

All right.

Hey, I want to ask you, let me tell you a little quick story, and then kind of get your opinion on some stuff. So, I don't have a church home or anything, but I visited this church a couple of times, and I'll tell you something.

I just really, really, really felt the Spirit. I felt like they were on board with the Scripture. They were just, you know, it was just wonderful. The praise and worship was wonderful. I left there just feeling like, oh, my gosh, this is just a great place to be.

The problem I'm having with it is culturally it's different from what I'm used to. It's not a diverse church. It's all white, and I'm black. It's not a problem, but I just felt like, you know, in terms of having a community, that might feel a little different.

The other thing is they're pretty much college-age kids. They're probably from college to about 45 years old is probably the average age. I'm 60. So, I just felt like I might not find people who have as many similarities to my life in that church as I would, but I loved it.

I mean, the Spirit was really there. So, I guess my question to you is, part of the question is, can you go to a church like.

That?

I mean, is it wise to do that, or should you look for people that are like you?

Maybe God wants you there in order to share what your experience is. Maybe your blackness is something some white people need to be exposed to more. Maybe they need to hear what you've got to say. You just don't know.

What I would do is just let the Lord guide you. Say, Lord, you want me here? I have an article. What things should we look for in a church?

That's my next question.

I've got an article on karma. You can go look it up. You can look up doctrinal issues. You can go to the website. In fact, if you were to give me, if you knew the website, I could look at it and see if there's any good or bad stuff in there.

Oh, man. I know the church name, but that's about it. You can't do it off that?

Yeah, I can't.

Well, let's try it. Let's try it right now, live.

Okay.

Let's do some sleuthing.

Okay.

All right, what's the name of the church?

Cool, cool.

Okay, it's got a strange name, but anyway, it's called Vintage.

Vintage?

Vintage.

Vintage.

Yeah.

Vintage.

Yeah.

And that's it. That's it. Okay.

What city state?

Oh, I'm sorry. Raleigh, North Carolina.

I learned how to spell. Raleigh, North Carolina.

Vintage.

Downtown. Vintage church.

There it is. There it is. I'm seeing something. Vintage church downtown, right?

All right.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

There we go.

Come on.

Hurry up. Okay.

I'm impatient with my internet. Older hugging. Oh, that can't be good. Oh, look at that. So, it's a big white church?

Is that it? It's got a white

Yeah, that's it.

Okay.

All right, good.

Yeah.

I'll let the hugging slide for we Asperger's people.

You hug me? I'll let that go.

All right, let's see. First thing I'm going to do is go to the pastors and staff.

Okay.

And what I'm looking for is any women pastors and elders, okay?

Okay.

And they have directors who are female. That's fine.

Let's see.

Local pastor, worship director is a woman. Group pastor is a man. College director, woman.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

They may just call them director instead of pastor. So, I'd ask about that.

Why don't you go to the pastors?

Okay.

And I've got a break coming up.

I don't think there are.

Perfect timing. I'm going to look at their statement of faith and their history and their beliefs during.

The break, okay?

Okay.

So, I'm going to look at that.

Okay.

So, hold on.

We'll be right back. Okay.

Okay.

Please stay tuned, folks.

We'll be right back.

It's Matt Slick Live! Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right.

And welcome back to the show.

Let's get back on with Janet from Raleigh.

Janet, you still there?

Yeah, I'm still here.

All right.

So, I went through their stuff. Their statement of faith is good.

Okay.

It's really solid.

Okay.

And I really liked how in eschatology, they didn't, you know, they didn't have a lot to preach a particular view. And they said that he's coming back, though, and that hell is eternal, et cetera. It seems like a good church.

Okay.

Okay. Oh, I'm glad you said that.

Yeah.

I've really been enjoying it, so I wanted to go. Is there anything else that I need to look for? Because I'm still kind of a visitor, so do I need to ask questions? Do I need to...

Yeah. Heck, yeah.

Okay.

Say, what do you think of Matt Slick? And if they don't know who I am, get out of there, okay? That's it.

If they don't like you, get out of there, right?

If they don't like me. Well, that may be a good sign, though. If they don't like me, that might be a good sign. So you want to look at... I would recommend you go to the article there, what things to look for in a church.

And...

Okay.

So how do I do that again? Just go to karm?

Yeah.

Go to karm .org and just go to the search engine and just type in, you know, what things to look for in a church? And you'll find it.

Okay.

Okay. What things should we look for in a church? And I have stuff in there, expect to find a good church, good doctrine. And I looked at her statement of faith. It seems pretty good.

Okay.

And I'm sure to have good moral integrity and things like that.

So...

Okay.

If any church denies the essentials, we have women pastors and elders, if they support homosexuality, that's a question I would ask them. You know, just say, what do you think about homosexuality, LGBTQ?

If they say, well, we're for it, get out of there. If they say, well, you know, it's sinful, but we love them, you know, that kind of thing.

That's okay.

Okay.

Here's a question that hardly nobody ever asks. Are unbelievers being paid to be in the worship team or any worship team? I've been to a church where they actually paid an unbeliever to come on the worship team as a trumpeter.

This happened in San Diego and I never forgot that. I thought it was abhorrent. Require baptism for salvation? I assume they don't. And you want to ask if they teach preterism, universalism, annihilationism, positive confession.

These are just things you're going to ask about. Soul sleep. You know, so there's a lot of stuff on that article that are worth just looking at. You could even print it up and take it to the church and say, just hide my name, a guy named Slick.

And so, and then, you know, so you can read, you can look at that and, um, and just say, get some questions, you know, and just, and anybody worth their salt will say, yeah, ask away, you know, yeah, this and that, and that's what you want.

If they're chicken to answer, then it's not good.

Okay.

Okay. The only other question I had was, um, pertaining to this too, if they do a, um, you've probably heard of those like small group Bible studies, they have communities of Bible studies that go along.

I like that idea. Cause I get to know people, you know, on a smaller level. Is that okay? Is that good?

Of course it's good. Oh, it's really good. It's good for people. Unless I go, then it's a problem because I usually ruin it. I usually ruin it. I'll say one thing and then they don't want to talk anymore because, you know, I don't go to small groups if for that reason, I can't say anything.

Right.

You're talking about Petrie. I'll be like, Oh no, you've got to go.

Well, you know, I'll just, you know, I went to one church and, uh, the pastor wanted me to, uh, you know, preach and teach and stuff like that. He goes, but I want you to go to Bible study of small group fellowship for a while.

First I said, okay, no problem. So I went and, uh, and, uh, I just decided not to say very much. I want to say too much. It's not about me. It's not about, I'm just not going to say anything. And, uh, you know, and they're, they're doing great, you know?

And, uh, so after two months they finally, one guy says, Matt, you just don't say much about a certain topic. He says, and by the way, Matt, you don't really talk much. I look over at my wife and she actually said out loud, go ahead.

And then that kind of, you know, like, uh, so I gave a small answer for 30 seconds. About something that related to it, it changed the entire Bible study. And then they started asking me questions and I didn't want that, you know?

So I'll tell you, if you know how to sound like you know what you're talking about and you can sit with a raised eyebrow and one eyebrow, yeah, okay, they'll believe you.

That's scary. But anyway, Matt, this is great. I'm so excited because I really, I was like, I hate to tell you about this church because I didn't want you to say anything that I couldn't go. I'm like, Oh, I'm going to mention it anyway.

But it looks good.

Good, good, good. I'm going to try to go and I'm going to probably call you in a couple of weeks or something just let you know how my experience has been.

Okay.

Here's one last thing. I need to put it in the article. See what kind of music they do. Do they do, um, Hill song. If they do, that's, that's not good.

Okay.

No, but you know what they do, they don't have a choir. They have, um, you know, a praise team that has four people or whatever, but they, but they put the, they put the words on the, um, the big screen.

Those words are so powerful. I don't even like the type of music I'm black. I like, you know, whatever, but I'm like, I'm going to go with this. But the words were so amazing on those songs. I was like, Oh, this is on point.

This is on point. I can worship to this.

You know, you're a black person going to a white church. I want to be a white guy in a black church. That's reformed. That's what I want. I'm dead serious. I do because you get white guys getting preached.

They'd go like this. They go,. John three 16 is a good verse.

Let's look at it. And I'm like, no.

And you know, I like, I like the life in the black church, you know, and people are just alive. I love that. You know, it's an excitement.

My dream is to have diversity. I would love to have a mixture of everything. That's what I really like, but whatever, like you said, I'm probably there to bring some.

Diversity to the church, maybe, you know, you sound good, a good person for diversity. So, you know, I like it when you call and stuff like that. So good for you.

Go check it out.

He'll use you.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, I hope so. That's the plan. That's what I really wanted to happen. So, um, you know, I think there's things for me to do, so definitely, but I'm going to keep you posted though and let you know how it goes.

All right.

I want to know.