Conservative, Reformed, Complementarians - Prepare to be Appropriated!

You know a number of you have asked how I stay so calm in my videos and how I keep such a balanced approach when

I'm critiquing these things. And I know that's all opinion, it's all in the eye of the beholder because I've also had people say that they don't like my tone and things like that.

But here is how I do that. If you don't have kids you might not remember the character

Daniel Tiger. Daniel Tiger is, or at least he was, a puppet character in the land of make -believe in Mr.

Rogers' Neighborhood. He was turned into a spinoff show which is an awesome kids show called

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. And here is where I learned how not to get mad. When you feel so mad that you wanna roar, take a deep breath and count to four.

One, two, three, four. So you see that's all

I do. Every time I see something on Twitter or see a new video that's crazy, I just take a deep breath and count to four.

One, two, three, four. So that makes me so mad.

Me too. When you feel so mad that you wanna roar, take a deep breath and count to four.

One, two, three, four. All right, well

I can't believe that we're being appropriated like this.

Actually I can, and honestly it doesn't really bother me that much. But these terms like complimentarian, reformed, conservative, these have been completely appropriated.

There are lots of people running around out there saying that they're reformed and they're not. They're saying that they're conservative and they definitely aren't.

They're saying that they're complimentarian and they definitely aren't. Let's look at this tweet here for a second.

He says that he has no problem with women in authority. He has no problem with women who have teaching gifts, holistically teaching in the church.

He has no problem with any of those things. But the reality is that this is unscriptural.

And I know that he'll have a hermeneutical way to get around this, but it's just very obvious that the conservative, exegetical, obvious reading of the text is what it is, and it's not what it's not.

Here's what Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 2. He says that he says,

Likewise, women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self -control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness, with good works.

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. That's part of a woman's good works.

Part of a woman's adornment, part of her good works is to learn quietly with all submissiveness.

He does not say the same thing to males. He also goes on and says, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

Rather, she is to remain silent. That is completely in contrast to what

Kyle Howard says. Kyle Howard doesn't have a problem with women in authority over men. The Holy Spirit does.

And then he explains himself further. Paul explains himself, kind of projecting and seeing into the future.

People are going to say, well, this is a contextual thing, right? This is a contextual thing for their context. Paul says this is the explanation of why he does not allow a woman to exercise authority over a man.

He says, Because Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self -control.

Part of that self -control is to not usurp authority in the church setting, to not exercise authority over a man in the church setting.

That's part of a woman's good work. That's part of her self -control. But Kyle J. Howard says, oh, no, no problem. I don't have a problem with it.

Well, guess what, Kyle J. Howard, conservative, reformed, complementarian people do have a problem with it.

So it doesn't matter if you don't or not. I know that you don't care about these things, but this is what

God cares about. And here's the thing, too. You know, Paul tells us why he's writing this thing, writing this stuff.

He says this. He says, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.

So he's saying, look, this is my instruction in case I don't show up. And I haven't seen

Paul around lately in case he doesn't show up. This is the instruction to know how we ought to behave in the house of God.

Now, this is the reality. There are lots of people that are running around saying that they're conservative and they're the absolute opposite of conservative.

They're saying they're reformed and they are not reformed. They're saying that they're complementarianism and they're really egalitarianism in sheep's clothing.

Here's the thing. It's not just an arbitrary. I think a lot of people have this idea that there's just a sort of arbitrary kind of thing that God just decided that men were going to be pastors and leaders in the church.

And there's really no reason for it. It's just that God just decided it. And so we have to listen to it. And so begrudgingly they say, okay, well,

I guess men have to be pastors, but basically women could do anything else. They have all the same skills, all the same attributes.

And so they're able to do anything except this one thing. God arbitrarily said they can't be pastors or elders.

And that's just ridiculous. And the reason God chose to make men the elders of the church, to put men in authority in the church, to have men as the authority in the household is because he has created them in a very specific way that tends to those things.

And so to say that I think women have the ability to exercise authority in the church, well, that might be fine and dandy, but here's the thing.

Complementarianism used to mean that women and men have different traits and attributes and some lended more to other things and this and that.

And so it's not that God arbitrarily said men are the ones to be pastors. No, he designed them to lead in that way.

He designed them to be effective in that way. And he designed women to be effective and helpful in other ways.

And so that's just the reality. Example of this, my son, he's a toddler and he's got this really bad habit of not looking where he's walking.

So he'll be walking this way, but looking this way. And so he'll often run into things and things like that.

And so the other day he ran into something and he hurt himself. And my reaction was to explain to him,

AJ, this is why I tell you every day to look where you're going. And he's crying, all that. And my wife thought that was too harsh.

She didn't need that kind of tough love right there. And so she's just kind of comforting him. And what I thought to myself is, well, from my perspective, this is what he needs.

He needs someone to explain to him why he shouldn't be doing this. And hopefully he'll learn his lesson.

Finally, my wife thought he needed to be coddled and comforted and things like that.

And I'm not saying who's right in that situation, but we have completely different viewpoints sometimes on what our son needs.

And he probably needs both is really what the answer is. That's why God provides children with fathers and mother.

Because they're just different. Anyway, but at the end of the day, this attack on complementarianism,

Kyle J. Howard says he's a complementarian. What he means is that he is a non -Western, non -white complementarian, which is essentially egalitarianism.

And I have some tweets here. We'll go into this. Like everything for Kyle J. Howard, this is a black and white issue.

Everything that you know about complementarianism is actually just white complementarianism. And it's evil and it's white supremacist and all of these things.

And so he stands for this different kind of complementarianism, which essentially looks like egalitarianism, except for this one thing, women can't be pastors arbitrarily.

And so this stuff really doesn't make me that mad, but it's just kind of silly that these terms are being appropriated.

Just understand that not everyone running around out there saying they're a complementarian or a conservative or even reformed actually is.

These words actually have meanings. And so we can see what someone like Kyle J. Howard talks about all the time, and we can understand he's none of these things.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful. God bless. I'm mad too!