QA2: Question and Answer with Jim Osman and Owen Strachan
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In the Q&A session hosted by Pastor Jim Osman, Dr. Owen Strachan discusses how humans are image-bearers of God and the implications of this belief. Strachan emphasizes that being image bearers of God is not limited to specific attributes but encompasses our entire humanity. Osman and Strachan address how this concept influences our interactions and responsibilities within the Christian faith. Their insights provide a deep understanding of what it means to be image-bearers of God in today’s world.
Questions Asked:
1. In what ways are we image-bearers of God? Is it only the communicable attributes?
2. What guidelines would you recommend for how much time we spend with the world and how we spend time with them?
3. How should a church handle visitors and/or regularly attending homosexuals, trans people, etc.?
4. Can a man be truly saved if he is passive and checked out, angry, neglectful of family, not growing in fruits of the Spirit, prideful, and unwilling to hear correction or rebuke?
5. If a family rejects you because you won’t use their pronoun requests, do you step back and wait or try to engage, and if you engage, how?
6. How about someone who wants to be referred to by a different name? Should you honor that request?
7. Is there a difference between gender and sex?
8. Should women be wearing hats and head coverings in church today?
9. How do I learn to submit to and respect men as leaders and someday as husbands, seeing as how the only example I know has lost my respect?
10. How does one know if they’ve been called to singleness or marriage?
11. If Adam tried to stop and warn Eve, but she didn’t listen, would God still hold him responsible?
12. How far do you take the biblical directive that men are to lead and women are to nurture and help? Does it apply only within marriage? Can women lead in business, industry, or government positions? Women soldiers? Female marriage counseling?
13. How do the proponents of the modern-day cult of death deal with the reality that abortion and euthanasia were part of the Nazi regime?
14. What was your toughest conversation, and how did it end?
15. How do we, as leaders and parents emphasize God’s non-utilitarian purposes for humanity as we obey Him? What are God’s purposes for us as His image bearers?
16. Is there a war on women?
17. How much fun was it to drive Squirrel’s Miata?
18. Are you going to sing the Christian rap song that people wanted you to hear?
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- 00:05
- You're listening to the expository preaching ministry of Kootenai Community Church, located in Kootenai, Idaho.
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- We pray that Christ is exalted and your spirit is blessed by the teaching of God's Word. For more information about Kootenai Church, please visit us online at kootenaichurch .org.
- 00:31
- All right, we're going to start our final session, the Q &A. So I've already looked through these and read through these, and I have good news for you.
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- Since I've already read through these, I know that we're not going to get into another estrogen bath like we had last night with a discussion on Little House on the
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- Prairie. You said you were sweating during that, it's because you started menopause halfway through that answer.
- 01:00
- I don't even know where that came from. All right, it's behind us. We're not going to mention it ever again, except publicly, maybe publicly, but we're just going to put it behind us.
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- All right, in what ways, and we got quite a few questions here, so I'm going to get through as many as we can, so we have time to do some of these might be rapid fire answers.
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- In what ways are we image bearers of God? Is it only the communicable attributes?
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- Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think that we are supposed to isolate what it means to be the image in terms of one attribute.
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- There's a lively debate in the Christian tradition over which attribute it is, or is it our relationality?
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- Is it our reasoning capacity? Is it our capacity for faith?
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- Luther, Calvin, and others disagree all about what the image precisely boils down to.
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- In my view, and I wrote about this at some length in my book, Re -enchanting Humanity, if you want to read more about the image of God as I understand it,
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- Re -enchanting Humanity, I spell out that I think we are the image of God. So I don't think even that the image reduces to the communicable attributes.
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- I think it is simply that God made us as a little representation of himself.
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- Now, we are communicating people like he is a communicating people. We are loving people like he is a loving God to that question.
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- So there's truth in that. We are like God in some respects in terms of our personal makeup,
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- I mean. He's of a different order than we are. But that would be what I would say. I would say the image is us.
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- So the attributes that we have, the thing, our functionality, our utilitarian functionality does not undo us with the image of God.
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- We are able to do those things because humanity is the image of God, and the image of God is humanity.
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- It is our humanness which is the image of God. That's something unique to humanity that other creatures don't have.
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- That's exactly right. So I'm in a little different place than some theologians and exegetes because a lot of them in the
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- Reformed tradition emphasize that the image is lost in the fall or diminished or marred or all sorts of language like that.
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- I don't actually think that. I think that we are still image bearers, Genesis 6 and 9, if anyone sheds man's blood, his blood will be shed for man is made in my image, those kind of texts.
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- I think that that actually signals that the image is an ongoing reality, though I affirm total depravity as was quite clear here.
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- But yeah, I don't think if you have less reasoning capacity, you have lost the image or you are less an image bearer or things like that.
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- I don't think that if you're not married, you're not fully an image bearer because the image actually is relationality expressed in marriage.
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- That was Karl Barth's view. So we could talk more. So if your image of God is based upon your functionality, then at some point if you lose your memory, you lose your creative ability, you lose your ability to communicate, you have dementia, you lose your memory, if that's what gives you the image of God, those attributes, then we would have to conclude that somebody who gets older and loses some of those capacities is diminishing in the image of God and we would never say that.
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- All right. What guidelines would you recommend for how much time we spend with the world and how we spend time with them?
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- Thoughtful question. I'm not going to be able to give any kind of hourly allotment or something and it's going to vary for all of us.
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- We want to exercise two principles. We want to be in the world but not of the world and that reduces in exegetical terms to what
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- Jesus says in John 17. And so we need a lot of time where we are not of the world.
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- So, for example, we need to be with the church. We need to be with the fellowship of the saints to some degree in our week.
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- But then we also need to be in the world to some degree and we need to be around sinners even to the extent that people would label
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- Jesus as a friend of sinners. And I just, there again, I said this in my session, but I think a lot of us are on the far end of being away from the world.
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- We need to be to a serious degree but if we're not in and amongst unbelievers, no one's going to be.
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- We are the light of the world, Jesus says. I heard testimonies from former homosexuals whose churches didn't confront their sin right away but they still eventually repented and turned to biblical sexuality.
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- How should a church handle visitors and or regularly attending homosexuals, trans people, etc.?
- 05:41
- Yeah, that's become a thing where you don't address homosexuality head on you kind of say, like Tim Keller did a version of this.
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- We're going to set that aside because that's kind of a nuclear issue and what I'm going to do is
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- I'm just going to talk to you about idolatry and sin. And that was kind of Keller's approach in Manhattan.
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- I don't have a biblical basis for that because, for example, in Matthew 14 with Herod, John the
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- Baptist called out Herod for having his brother's wife being in that sinful pattern publicly and directly.
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- All throughout the Gospels, Jesus engages sinners and he doesn't just say, this thing you're doing, that's wrong and disappear, vanish, you know, in a cloud of smoke.
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- He works through the heart, he asks them questions, there's a broader discussion. But fundamentally, he identifies the sin of the people he's talking to, the woman at the well in John 4, he doesn't say, let's set aside adultery and sexual promiscuity for right now.
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- I don't want to be too on the nose with you. Let me just establish a general rhythm of sin is bad.
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- And we'll get to that six months from now. No, he says, you've had five and the one you're with now isn't your husband.
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- Now, I don't think he's doing that in a hateful way. I think he's doing that in a very kind way.
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- But he's also quite direct with sin. Homosexual or trans person shows up in a church service, should they be allowed to stay there?
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- Oh, yeah. Should they be allowed to become members? No, no, no. No, I mean, upon repentance.
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- Yes. And we've got to be clear about that, that we used to have more of a view in some conservative circles where conversion was like a bug zapper with homosexuality for some strange reason.
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- Homosexuality was treated like if you became a Christian, there's a way to sort of pry out that sin and you would never have that again.
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- And there got to be some pretty interesting and strange, if you follow them down the line, efforts at things like orientation change.
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- And I would affirm some of what was attempted there, but not to the fullest extent because we are in winning people to the
- 08:08
- Christian faith, helping them leave behind sin patterns. But a lot of us who get saved have to battle heterosexual lust throughout our lives.
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- Just to cut it straight for a second. We didn't think that when we got saved, there was a kind of bug zapper way for us to never experience lust in that way.
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- I don't know why the church 40 years ago was saying, if you convert to Christ, you can kind of get zapped and you'll never have homosexual lust in your heart.
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- So I don't want to communicate to somebody that if they get born again, that they'll never battle that.
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- They might. That's not the sign that they're not born again, though. Just like somebody having to kill lust in a heterosexual way.
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- That's not a sign they're not a Christian. So you got to be careful. Is it possible for a man to be truly saved if he is passive and checked out, angry, neglectful of family, not growing in fruits of the
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- Spirit, prideful, and not willing to hear correction or review? Will the saved always manifest being a new creation?
- 09:17
- That's a tough situation right there. Sounds like from that litany of qualities, sadly.
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- If that doesn't immediately sound like somebody who is experiencing a whole lot of victory in Christ, I guess somebody who's living that kind of life could be a
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- Christian but be in a bad place. I think we have to have a category for that. We know that Peter wandered from his
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- Lord. We know that we can all stumble. We all stumble in many ways. James 3 .2.
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- But over the long haul, a godly man will be able to hear correction at some level, will want to grow, will fight his sin, will confess his sin.
- 10:04
- And so that person that is being described there, it sounds like, could either be a man who's unregenerate but thinks he's a
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- Christian. That might be the most likely reality. Or he might be a Christian who's just really not doing well and he needs kind of the electric clamps to his chest from the
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- Spirit. And he needs to wake up and start repenting and confessing a whole lot of sin. At the very least, he should be warned that given his current trajectory and his current manifestation of those qualities, that that could very well be indicative of the state of his soul.
- 10:40
- For sure. And honestly, if that is representative of a situation in this room, then
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- I would encourage a woman who has a husband who is professing faith and maybe smiling on Sunday morning, but then is living in the utter gloom of misery
- 10:56
- Monday to Saturday. I would encourage her in a respectful way to reach out to godly women in the congregation, talk to them, and then it really may be the case that there needs to be elder care for that couple.
- 11:09
- Not in a kind of Navy SEALs break the door down in the middle of the night on the guy, handle him carefully, but try in a gracious way to get this couple with a wise and godly elder and maybe his wife and talk through some dynamics of marriage.
- 11:28
- Had a lot of questions about this. So if I don't get to your specific question, just know that I'm trying to hit this subject and probably incorporate a whole bunch of different questions that all kind of do the same thing.
- 11:38
- If a family rejects you because you won't use their pronoun requests, do you step back and wait or try to engage?
- 11:45
- And if you engage, how? To put it another way, do we go ahead and honor people's requests that we use their preferred pronouns?
- 11:57
- No, no, I don't think so. No, I don't think we can.
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- This is a sticky one because I don't think that we have to go in and like if we're trying to engage family members,
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- I don't think we are trying to have an explosion socially from the outset.
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- We're trying to talk to that family member to have some kind of communication going on.
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- So we're using wisdom in how we address people. If there's a transgender individual,
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- I don't know that I would be trying to use a ton of pronouns or something like that. What I'm trying to say is you don't need to be obnoxious as a
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- Christian to be a witness. You don't need to say, well, what he is doing is he is saying this, and what
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- I would disagree is he, you know, right? So you can do this, I think, in honestly a wise and careful way.
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- But you should not consent, I would say, to we will use your preferred pronouns.
- 13:03
- So I think I cannot use the preferred pronouns, but still exercise some degree of pastoral sensitivity in that situation.
- 13:10
- Right. Does that make sense? Yeah, and if you do bend to that and use their preferred pronouns, then basically you're affirming a lie.
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- You're saying something with your mouth and with your demeanor that is patently untrue and in fact is affirming their rebellion against God as creator in the created order.
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- Yeah, like I can't use their pronouns if they want to be called kitty cat. Yeah. I'm not trying to be silly.
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- Like if that person, if that family member, I'm trying to be a witness to them and we finally get to the table and they say,
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- I will talk with you, but you need to refer to me as kitty cat. You know, and I'm a cat, and my pronouns are cat pronouns.
- 13:46
- You know, seriously. Yeah. I can't do that. But I'm not necessarily, if they say that, going to then go ballistic about,
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- I am going to try to engage them well.
- 14:01
- What do you say to them specifically? They make that request. This is your niece or your grandchild or your aunt.
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- What do you say to them? How do you respond to that request? Look, I'm here at Thanksgiving, and I heard you speaking about me in the other room.
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- You said I'm a she and I'm not. I identify as a he or they them. And I want you, when you're referring to me and I'm not in the room, to use my preferred pronouns.
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- I think you need to do what we were trying to talk about throughout the conference, and you need to have that good, open, honest communication.
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- And you need to say something like, I love you to the core. I want your good.
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- I am not here to get in a fight over, you know, what you are called. I cannot use those pronouns that you request that I use.
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- But what I can do is I can talk with you. Let's talk together and seek to hear the other and reason together.
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- And I want to show you love. And just like you wouldn't be loving me if I was doing something wrong in my life, and I said, affirm this, from where I stand,
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- I can't affirm you. But again, I want to talk to you. I want a relationship with you.
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- And let's see if we can reason things out and at least have a civil, mature conversation.
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- I would start there. And in that conversation, I would try to get to the gospel and sin and those kind of things.
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- That's a better answer than I would give. I would tend to be far more sarcastic and biting and flip the premise on them and say, okay, every time you refer to me,
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- I want to be referred to as handsome and brilliant. And when you're speaking to me in any situation, anytime you refer to me,
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- I get my own adjectives. You get your own pronouns, I get my own adjectives, handsome and brilliant. Maybe that's the best strategy.
- 15:46
- Okay, so how about on a similar vein, somebody was once known as Jackie and now they want to be referred to as Jack.
- 16:03
- Those are rather than Jackie Chan, I guess I was trying to think of non -dual gender names or Michael wants to be referred to as Michelle.
- 16:15
- Do you go along with the name change and begin to use a different name for that person? There again, my personal approach would probably not be to aggressively repeat their birth name 20 times in a 10 -minute conversation, honestly.
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- Just like if I'm talking to a gay person, let's say, I'm probably not in a 10 -minute conversation going to say 20 separate times being gay is a sin.
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- But what I am trying to do is be truthful, you know, hue to the truth, stand for what is true.
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- And so I'm neither afraid of using their birth name, nor am
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- I acting as if that is the ultimate issue. The ultimate issue is the heart.
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- And that's where I'm not where those churches are that say, we're not going to talk about homosexuality.
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- Put that to the side for eight weeks. Just hear us out on idolatry. You know, the idolatry of identity and chasing work and satisfaction and money.
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- That's what we're going to talk. I'm not there. I'm not there. I'm not willing to say, let's set that to the side.
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- But I'm also not the guy who's going to come in and use a bullhorn and shout at you directly about the one sin.
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- I know that you're enmeshed and I'll talk about it with you, but I am happy to talk about sin more broadly.
- 17:37
- And I don't think we have to have what I'm trying to say, Jim, is what these questions are getting at is
- 17:43
- I fear that sometimes we feel that we're being unfaithful in evangelism. If when we're face to face with a sinner, we don't only say this sin is wrong, like repeatedly.
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- If you don't do that, you're a bad evangelist. You're compromising the gospel. And what I want to say to people is no.
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- Look at how Jesus converses with sinners of many kinds. Look at where the conversation goes.
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- He's able to talk with them. He's able to reason with them. I think we can laugh with them. I think we can form a bond with them.
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- If there's something we like in terms of movies or culture or sports teams, I think we can forge that connection.
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- Christians don't have to be the weirdest, most offensive person in conversation that they possibly could be to be a faithful conversant.
- 18:28
- When I talked earlier about Rosaria Butterfield, the pastor there, I think his last name was Smith, the pastor who engaged
- 18:35
- Rosaria, you can read her testimony. Some of you probably read this, Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert.
- 18:40
- If you want a good book about a pastor engaging a professor of queer theory, which is all these situations, right?
- 18:47
- He did it well. I didn't say perfectly, but he did it well. And he was clear from the outset in a gracious, firm way.
- 18:57
- He didn't agree with her being a lesbian. But he let the relationship develop.
- 19:03
- And he let the conversation go all sorts of places. She had lots of questions about the Bible. And he would patiently talk through Old Testament passages.
- 19:12
- Oh, so you do believe in mixed fabrics being sinful? You know, all that sort of stuff, right? And he wouldn't say, no,
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- I'm not talking about that. You must repent now. He would talk all the way through it.
- 19:24
- And it took her time. I'm not saying we don't share the gospel in a given conversation. I think we do.
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- But it took her a long time to become, she calls it her train wreck conversion.
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- Because it was just an unfolding series of smashes in her life.
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- And it took a long time. So I think the church today, I think our wing feels too much pressure to kind of get the bullhorn out, click it in, and just go at level 1 ,000.
- 19:54
- I think we need to calm down. And we shouldn't do relational evangelism in terms of setting sin aside.
- 20:02
- But we should feel free to be friendly and kind and nice and hospitable and loving and funny and truthful.
- 20:11
- And truthful. On a similar vein, this is going to get increasingly more difficult.
- 20:19
- More difficult than this? Yeah. Your HR department sends out an email saying, we would like you to include your preferred pronouns in your email signature from now on, so that everybody else in the company knows how to refer to you.
- 20:34
- Do you go by that? Do you abide by that? Or is that affirming a lie? I don't know that it is a lie for you to say that you are he him or she her.
- 20:47
- So I don't know that that's in itself sinful for you to say. But isn't it a lie to affirm that any of us has a right or responsibility to prefer our pronouns.
- 20:59
- Pronouns are a feature of reality. So it would be a lie to affirm the premise because really what we're talking about is the premise of their position is that we should abide by other people's preferred pronouns.
- 21:11
- The premise of their position is that one can choose their pronouns and make that known so that they can be referred to however they want.
- 21:18
- If that's the premise, the premise of that is a lie. The premise of that is rebellion. And if we go along with that with our HR department, isn't that affirming a lying or an untrue premise?
- 21:27
- Yeah, I mean, it could be. I want to leave open that possibility. I guess I'm not convinced that if you ask me, am
- 21:36
- I a he her or a they them? I think I can say I'm a I'm a he him. I might have said that wrong just a minute ago.
- 21:43
- I think I said he her. Yeah, it's it's 320 at the end of all seven sessions today.
- 21:49
- And I'm after last night's book episode that we had. It's a little. We're all a little confused. I'm starting to get a little bit internally.
- 21:57
- Yeah, we get it. Myself. No, I don't know about that. You were confused before you showed up here. Go ahead.
- 22:03
- Listen, you just need to like literature more. There's some good literature out there written by women. So, yeah,
- 22:10
- I don't I wouldn't. These are hard questions. And I want to be a little bit careful about like this is the line in the sand.
- 22:17
- I just want to be careful because people are people are in humongous corporations where you have to give your you have to say your pronouns.
- 22:26
- I want to leave some room for conscience. This is me. You may be in a slightly different position. Your position makes sense to me.
- 22:32
- I don't think it's unsensible, but I want to leave a little bit of room for like, here's the line for me.
- 22:38
- Here's the line for you. I can't say I can't even play by the preferred pronoun game. That's that's defensible.
- 22:44
- Someone else might say, I'm going to say I'm he him, not he her. I'm he him.
- 22:51
- But what I can say is a red line is I don't think you should you should use preferred pronouns of someone who is going against their
- 23:02
- God given sex. That to me is a clear red line. OK, how about I'll give you a tactical response to this.
- 23:08
- Would it be appropriate? This is how I would suggest handling it. Tell me what you think about this. I would email back and say
- 23:15
- I am a biological male. So you use what pronouns are appropriate for biological males.
- 23:23
- It's good by me, right? I'm not picking pronouns because you're I reject the premise that I can choose my own pronouns.
- 23:29
- But the reality is the truth is I was created as a biological male. Therefore, use the language that is appropriate to refer to biological males.
- 23:39
- I will not give you my pronoun. You use English. Try that again.
- 23:44
- Back to this. This is my default. Sarcasm is my spiritual gift. So I go back into the default sarcasm and I have to always pull back from that to be gracious like Owen.
- 23:55
- So there's sarcasm and there's then there's Owen. I don't know about the standard is Owen, but I don't want that pressure.
- 24:02
- But I would. Yeah, I like that. And that's actually that was maybe not articulated on my part a minute ago.
- 24:09
- But I can actually say my my pronouns are he him.
- 24:15
- That's not a preference. So I think that's a statement in a very similar position. This is how you should refer to me.
- 24:22
- HR. I'm a he him. There's no preference. So you know, yeah, something like that is great by me.
- 24:28
- Yep. All right. A little bit more difficult situation. And I bring this one up not because anybody asked it. But because I know that there is a family in this room here who knows somebody who has family.
- 24:40
- There's a person in this room who has family members who are in this situation, who have dealt with this situation recently. Yes. You own a business, you hire somebody as a receptionist.
- 24:48
- Michelle comes in. She does a great job you refer to as she her it's Michelle Smith. This this relationship goes on for five years, then you find out that this was once Michael.
- 24:59
- Yes, Smith. And because of surgery, because of drugs, because of the presentation, you had no idea that this person is actually a biological male.
- 25:11
- They pull off the female act very, very well. Now that you know this information, how do you refer to this person?
- 25:20
- You refer to this person as he him. Do you refer to him as Michael? Because you do that.
- 25:25
- You're going to jail in the state of California. It was almost at that point. How do you handle a situation like that?
- 25:34
- That is a very difficult situation from the outset. So let that be said. But it's probably one that a number of us are going to face.
- 25:44
- Because in that situation, you've been affirming a lie for five years, not knowing it. You've been going along believing what you thought was true and acting according to what you thought was true.
- 25:52
- Now you find out that something else is true. You continue to do that, then you are living by lies and affirming something.
- 25:57
- You're affirming an act of rebellion. Yeah, I mean, the employer relationship is a sticky one because you get into discrimination law.
- 26:07
- And so you have a place as an employer for as a
- 26:12
- Christian, I mean, for going, this does not cut it with what
- 26:17
- I know to be true from Scripture. But that can be a very sticky reality in terms of getting sued and those sorts of things.
- 26:24
- So someone just has to know that. To make it a little more of a handhold morally, this premise you're giving me would be similar to you have friends who you find out one of them is transgender, so to speak.
- 26:41
- One of them transitioned the way that you're talking about. They didn't actually become the opposite sex, but they tried to. And you've been affirming their marriage.
- 26:48
- Can you go on affirming that marriage if one of the individuals transitioned, so to speak?
- 26:54
- And I would say no. No, I don't think I can. I can't pretend you're
- 26:59
- Kathy when you're Michael. Yep. But that is going to be a whole barrel of monkeys fun, you know, and trying to be a witness to people in that situation.
- 27:10
- I think that there we come back to the principles. The underlying principles is we have to be truthful and honest.
- 27:15
- We have to speak the truth in love. This may sometimes cost us. And I think unless the Lord brings revival and changes some things in our nation, there's going to come a point where we are going to be.
- 27:24
- It's going to cost us to affirm things that are basic truth. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. All right. Dial off a little bit that those were tough ones.
- 27:32
- Let me back up a bit. What about those who want to dress as a boy when a girl or a girl when a boy, and they want us as family to support their change.
- 27:40
- How do we deal with friends who support their child's or grandchild's change. Even when they are believers
- 27:45
- Christians who have children that have gone through the people who claim to be Christians or children are doing this and they want to affirm it.
- 27:52
- How do we handle those people who are affirming that. Yeah, very similar kind of approach to what we've been talking about we're trying to be as loving as we can.
- 28:02
- And we recognize there are broader issues than just the clothing decisions but we cannot affirm that.
- 28:08
- And I believe that love would, especially with a child in question, call us to try to have a conversation over that where we would warn them of the danger of what they are doing.
- 28:21
- What is first wave feminism second wave. Oh, sorry, I am so sorry. No, rude, but that's what kicked up in our circles, a few months ago.
- 28:32
- That's exactly what happened with a certain very famous preacher. And it's all over, it's all over the nature of what it means to be loving of people living in lies.
- 28:44
- And the broader principle that you and I are getting at here, there's going to be some gray areas there are in this we need to honor that.
- 28:53
- But at base at base to find the wall behind us in all the fog of this gender confusion.
- 29:00
- It is not loving to affirm somebody's lie.
- 29:06
- And so, the grandparents who have a grandchild who is getting married to someone of the same sex.
- 29:16
- Right. They are not being loving in going to that ceremony in sending a gift in, in any way affirming that all the loving thing for that genuinely loving grandfather or grandmother what a horrible situation to be and we have great compassion for that.
- 29:34
- But the loving thing is to do what we're talking about. It's to have hard conversations, we're so terrified of having hard conversations, by the way, yeah, we're just terrified of it.
- 29:43
- And I understand why because there can be severe consequences that come to us, but we can't be terrified of hard conversations, we've got to draw on in a
- 29:52
- David like way the power of the spirit, and we've got to pray a lot of prayer we need a lot of prayer, a lot more prayer than a lot of us are giving about these things.
- 30:00
- And we've got to then say to grandma, who is very confused about going to the gay wedding of their grandchild do not go.
- 30:09
- Do not send a gift. That was terrible counsel that was given publicly devastating awful damaging counsel.
- 30:18
- Instead, what needs to happen is hopefully you grandma or whoever it is you know grandpa
- 30:24
- I don't know who it was, but you, you try, reach out to your beloved grandchild, set up a time to talk to them and say, say,
- 30:32
- I love you so much. I love you because of the gospel of grace that is forgiven a sinner like me.
- 30:39
- I'm a sinner just like you. And I've got to say to you, you, you are putting your soul and mortal peril by going further down the road in the sin of homosexuality, please in love,
- 30:52
- I beg you, don't do this. Run away from your sin and run to the forgiving arms of Jesus, he will wash you clean to the uttermost.
- 31:01
- You are not in a different category of super center over me because I'm a heterosexual center, you are just like me.
- 31:08
- That's, that's the advice that should have been given, not because I'm perfect but according to scripture.
- 31:13
- That is the advice that should have been given to that precious grandmother facing a hard situation, never to affirm the sin of any center, not just homosexuality.
- 31:25
- That's culturally palatable now, but of any center, you have to, you have to try to do the hard work of having,
- 31:32
- I'm sorry, having a hard conversation, but a true conversation, a gospel conversation and pray for their soul and pray for them to come out of that.
- 31:41
- He's talking about Alistair Begg just in case anybody didn't catch the illusion. What is first wave feminism second wave feminism third wave feminism, what are the distinctives between that quickly just you just kind of give a brief description of it first wave feminism centered in the right to vote the right for women to vote in public elections and related related issues, women in the workforce, some of those kind of things.
- 32:10
- Sometimes first wave feminism is presented as like yay evangelicals affirm all of that.
- 32:16
- I'm personally good with women voting I don't have any biblical basis to say women shouldn't vote, which would be a separator with me and some in the patriarchy camp who would say men of rulers of the household, they're the only ones who should vote.
- 32:29
- I find that an extension beyond what scripture would say, I understand where you could get to that position
- 32:36
- I'm not saying it's it's wicked of the devil. I just think that's probably a click or two beyond where scripture is.
- 32:43
- And there was a lot of feminist energy and some very bad theology and first wave feminism. Second wave feminism is 1950s and 60s feminism, it's women rejecting traditional gender roles.
- 32:56
- Third wave feminism is feminism of the 80s and 90s it expands to feminism expands to include homosexuality lesbianism as a cause that's linked up with feminism, and then fourth wave feminism embraces even further transgender ism as an as a dimension of the feminist project and so feminism has gone reverse the direction has gone further and further to the left to the degree that now the feminist cause has lost its way, because there are men who are supposedly feminists who are presenting themselves as women, and that does not fit in particular with the second wave feminists who were totally about womanhood and a real understanding of womanhood we were disagree with them strongly on a number of issues, but they really did believe in womanhood.
- 33:49
- And so the movement is eating itself. Yeah, I've heard an analysis of all four ways of that, basically saying that the seeds for fourth wave feminism second third and fourth wave feminists were laid with the, we would look at say women should have the right to vote but the arguments that they used and the way they went about doing that paved the way and laid the foundation for second third and fourth wave feminism.
- 34:11
- So basically the fourth wave feminism today is not a refutation of women have a right to vote with the arguments that they use fourth wave feminism now is a, it's really the fruit or the flowering of that first wave feminism.
- 34:25
- Yeah, there are, there are for example, first wave feminists who believed in the motherhood of God, God is mother.
- 34:33
- Yeah, like clear as a bell. Yep. And that is a no bueno reality. They may have argued for some things like you just said that I think
- 34:42
- I can affirm from a biblical standpoint, not their standpoint. I think women can vote
- 34:47
- I'm, I'm personally good with that. But, but yes, the seeds that were planted were not actually all good seed.
- 34:57
- So went from women being equal to men to women don't need men to women can be men.
- 35:06
- Yep, kind of a full circle it's not even a spectrum it's just we'll get right back to the point now where they're eating their own really, yeah and you would expect that the feminist movement would be up in arms at men, transgender men entering girls bathrooms and changing rooms for example, and there are a few of the old guard feminists who have spoken up, but largely they have been silenced.
- 35:31
- And these are all secular people very secular people, largely, the older feminists have been silenced by the newer pagan forms of feminism.
- 35:41
- Yeah. And so they're not defending girls much at all and now you've got a video of, you know, some hulking kid in eighth grade girls basketball league in Massachusetts like smashing these little girls, and, and all the liberal parents are just watching and clapping and you're like, oh my word.
- 35:58
- But this is a missions moment for us, because there are people out there on the left and middle and right, who are not
- 36:06
- Christians and we can say we should I think we should point them to these things and say do you believe this is right.
- 36:11
- Do you believe guy at, you know, the local grocery store if you get into a conversation, do you believe it's good that men are going into the little girls rooms.
- 36:21
- And you should absolutely take that as an evangelistic opportunity to say the reason you know that's wrong is because God gave you a conscience and we ultimately need
- 36:31
- Jesus so use these moments everybody wants to Sergeant, everybody always wants to evangelize the left, the far left.
- 36:38
- What about people on the right. What about conservative people who actually agree with us on some of these things, but they're not they're not born again, not even a little.
- 36:47
- We need to use these moments to evangelize them to show them that the reason that these they objected these things because because they're a worldview that they will not affirm by faith.
- 36:58
- Yeah, so, so but basically feminism now has ended up resulting in an attack upon women.
- 37:04
- Totally the second, third and fourth wave feminism has now resulted in women under attack as one podcast host
- 37:10
- I heard recently said if you, you think that this country is horrible under the patriarchy wait till you see it under the matriarchy.
- 37:15
- That's going to be bad. Is there a difference between gender and sex. There is in the, in the handbook of the left.
- 37:25
- Okay. More on the biblical handbook in just a second but gender is how you perceive yourself.
- 37:32
- Sex is your anatomy. Sex is your biology. So if you're at a public school around here and it's a secular public school, kids are being taught these things, your gender is different from your sex in the, in the same way, your body is different from your gender identity.
- 37:49
- So you might have the body of a girl, but you perceive yourself to be on the gender, which is a real thing, beyond gender all the genders.
- 37:59
- And so your gender identity is your true self. And what we need to say is, and that's why I've used the word sex, most hearing.
- 38:07
- There's some reasons why you don't always use that, because it can get confusing, but the best term is sex to talk about manhood and womanhood because sex refers to something that is fixed and sex means the correlation of body and identity.
- 38:20
- So I don't actually like the term gender very much, I don't, I try not to use it I'm sure I have used it, but just because it's in, it's in the stream, but the best term is sex.
- 38:32
- And to stay away from the term gender entirely. Because gender, not necessarily for somebody you're talking to in a church might hear gender and mean sex, something fixed by God, but on the other side, talking with a leftist person, let's say they, you might use gender, and they will hear you to be saying,
- 38:53
- Oh, that which is your perceived self identity. Yeah. So it's best not to use gender to refer to one's sex, simply because of the way that the world is using it.
- 39:04
- So to back up until about five minutes ago in human history, we all recognize that sex and gender were synonyms, they were the same thing.
- 39:09
- Right, so sex, the world would say refers to your biological reality, whether you're XX or XY gender refers to your perceived reality how you feel on any given day.
- 39:19
- And therefore they have divided these things so that they can talk about your sex is a fixed reality XX XY, but gender is how you feel and so that what they want to do is conform the body to the way that they feel never questioning whether or not their perception of reality is accurate.
- 39:34
- They always assume that the presentation of their body is what is the problem or inaccurate not their perception of themselves.
- 39:41
- And so they want to try and change the appearance of their sex to match their gender.
- 39:46
- And this is where the confusion comes in. So it would be helpful for you guys to recognize the distinction between gender and sex in terms of how the world is talking about those issues, which
- 39:57
- I think creates a lot of confusion in people's thoughts. Exactly. That's very well said. And yes, I should have just answered that myself using using that using that whole framework is you building a house in midair, because this is what we see with youth who embrace some kind of cross gender identity, you know,
- 40:17
- I'm not my identity isn't the same as my body. When you do that, you are rejecting the firm ground of your
- 40:26
- God given identity, not that that's saving that's not you're not saved in affirming that but God made you that so that's good.
- 40:33
- And you are then catapulting yourself into the heart of a hurricane. And that is why tragically so many
- 40:41
- LGBTQ etc affirming youth end up committing suicide and it's not first and foremost, because lots of people say hateful things to them at Starbucks in the drink line, it is, it is,
- 40:51
- I'm sure there are, there is sin that occurs in that way. In our world there's not always love toward people in those situations that's true, but the major reason is because you are leaving behind firm ground, and you are entering the whirlwind and and outside of the grace of God, you will not come out of it.
- 41:11
- If you start leaving behind your God given sex. And if you start beginning to experiment with you know dressing like a girl, if you're a boy or even haircuts and these kind of things, you should watch out, because that is a way that Satan wants to lure you away from the solid ground of your
- 41:29
- God given identity. This is something that's important it's not that there's a perfect hair length, you know, in terms of how long a woman's hair should be, but we do want to honor
- 41:39
- God's design for example in first Corinthians 11 and we recognize that Paul in a very pagan context, a context where temple prostitutes are shaving their heads.
- 41:48
- The Apostle Paul does not say to the Corinthians, hair length doesn't matter, your hair doesn't matter what matters is your heart and trusting
- 41:55
- Jesus. Paul says, the woman's long hair is given to her for a covering, he goes on to say it is her glory.
- 42:02
- So God what my point is here is, especially with our younger people, God's glory is in presenting ourselves as a man if we are a man and presenting ourselves as a woman if we are a woman, of course there's some gray areas there right what is the perfect hair like people always ask me when
- 42:18
- I say this. I don't know. But what I know is, honor and glorify God and don't go the way of the gender neutral androgynous culture.
- 42:27
- We want to raise our girls understanding girlhood and womanhood is good. We want to raise our boys understanding boyhood and manhood is good and they're distinct.
- 42:38
- And so since we're on this subject first Corinthians 11 the head covering is that something for today should women be wearing hats and head coverings in church.
- 42:46
- I think that is a possible position, and some are convicted, because of their study of first Corinthians 11 that a woman should wear a, you know, kind of head, head covering on their head in that way.
- 42:59
- The passage first Corinthians 11 goes back and forth in some interesting ways. Paul's talking about the angels for example in it, and so it's a challenging passage you know preachers and teachers can affirm that there are some passages that are more challenging than others, that's that's a challenging one.
- 43:16
- I land, personally, I do think what is happening in Corinth is that some women are using a hair shawl or whatever you want to call it to show that they are under authority, the authority of their husband.
- 43:29
- But if you actually read through the whole passage, I think what he, what he says in verse 16 that her, her long hair is given to her for a covering means that you actually don't have to be wearing a kind of hair covering your long hair is your covering it is your glory it's the woman's glory.
- 43:48
- So that would be my position, which doesn't mean a woman has to have, you know, waist length hair until she's 90, and a lot of cases women can't because of how a woman's hair changes over time, it does mean that a woman is trying to distinguish herself in a godly way joyful way for men.
- 44:07
- Okay, that's my position. Okay, is it cutting out back there. I'm sitting on my belt back mercy sakes alive.
- 44:17
- I'm getting heat for my literary choices, sitting on the belt pack sound guys blaming me.
- 44:24
- I'm having to handle head coverings and public notes. I'm just kidding. All right, as somebody got 15 minutes left to someone who grew up with an angry harsh
- 44:32
- Christian quote unquote Christian father. How do I now learn to submit to and respect men as leaders and someday as a husband, seeing as how the only example
- 44:40
- I know has lost my respect. I have an embittered view of men and I struggle to trust them to lead me without causing great pain and harm.
- 44:49
- I absolutely love the honesty and open communication of that question.
- 44:56
- Praise God, whoever wrote that and and and had the courage to say that a public.
- 45:02
- We need more of that. It's going to be hard. It's going to be hard for that, that woman, young woman perhaps to trust a man.
- 45:13
- What a young woman in that position needs to know is that it is possible for her to read that experience which is a real experience sounds like onto all men.
- 45:25
- And if she lets herself do that, that won't necessarily be a good place to be, because that man sounds like he was harsh let's just assume he genuinely was harsh, but not all men are that way.
- 45:38
- And not all men who lead in a genuinely biblical way are harsh.
- 45:43
- And so be careful whoever this is in the room. Be careful. Treat each man as he comes.
- 45:50
- Don't make the devil's mistake that the devil wants you to make and read one man onto all men.
- 45:57
- That's that's what has happened so much. That's why there's so much. One reason why there's so much discussion of toxic manhood, because there are there are nasty men out there who have caused terrible damage.
- 46:09
- And I think a lot of feminists out there are people some at least some of them are women who went through genuinely bad circumstances but you know the mistake they made.
- 46:18
- They made the mistake of now writing off men, and if you read feminist literature you read it. You try to be perceptive you're like, this woman was sexually abused.
- 46:28
- And now she thinks that all men are out to get all women. It's not at all true, even even outside of Christianity, it's not true of all men, it's just not, but then with within the church.
- 46:38
- God saves men, God changes men, and God will help this young woman if she finds a godly man.
- 46:44
- He will help her. It's going to be a process though for it's going to be hard probably to trust that this, this man she would marry if that happens, loves her, and if he gets upset at her as, as even godly men do in marriage in the in the early years in particular as they're working things out that may flare for her, and she may need a godly woman to call and talk to like really someone who's kind of on notice, because she's like I'm about to freak out and I'm about to drive to, you know,
- 47:13
- Tacoma here, because this guy. I think he's I think he's just like my dad, and she really might need godly women around her to say okay,
- 47:21
- I don't think he talked to you the way he should. That's not good. But, you know, that's also not blow the marriage up and leave.
- 47:28
- And from a pastoral counseling perspective you should have that conversation with your prospective fiance to tell them this was my experience and I want to judge you by that but understand that there's stuff there that from the background that needs to be known, walking into that marriage.
- 47:42
- That's the kind of honest healthy communication we have to have a ton of exactly right where she she signals to him.
- 47:49
- I may freak out if you get a little too upset with me I don't mean he's, you know, doing something horrible to her, but even just the way that it happens in marriage right and she needs to say to him to any man who would win her heart.
- 48:03
- Yeah, exactly like you said, I may I may freak out. Stay patient with me stay calm, stay gentle, that's going to help me.
- 48:10
- You don't want to ramp up, I've learned this in my own marriage. Sometimes if my wife is upset, I ramp up and get upset.
- 48:18
- And that is, oh man, it's just so often the case with a girl in that situation that you need to go down you need to, you need to be gentle and does it help her to tell her, calm down, you need to calm down.
- 48:32
- Hey, how does one know if they've been called to singleness or marriage. It can be hard to know.
- 48:39
- This can be one of those difficult gray areas of the Christian faith the Christian faith is not all perfect black and white sliced and diced like cold cuts on a tray.
- 48:47
- The Christian life can be difficult, and sometimes you're not sure but in general, a lot of people are driven toward marriage because they want to be married.
- 48:58
- And so that desire drives them to then be in the market, if you'll excuse the crass terminology, and then you know if there's a suitor on the other side or if there's a girl they potentially like that pushes them off the sidelines right, but then there are difficult situations and that may be behind this question where you have the desire to be married but you don't have the circumstances to be married.
- 49:19
- And that can be challenging. In that case, if that is what is behind the question then you keep praying you keep trusting the
- 49:25
- Lord, you keep, you know, storming heaven with your requests if you want to be married. Sadly, I alluded to this, there are a lot of people today in our delayed marriage culture, who want to be married there are a lot of young women who want to be married but the young men are not mature and are not pursuing marriage, and that leads to hard circumstances, that doesn't necessarily mean though that you can't get married.
- 49:48
- Okay, if Adam tried to stop and warn Eve, but she didn't listen would God still hold him responsible. This would go for husbands who warn their wives.
- 49:57
- God would still hold Adam responsible yes but not. He wouldn't be in the wrong, you know, so culpable, he's not culpable.
- 50:07
- He tried husbands. This is a very important question actually if you double click on it.
- 50:12
- Husbands are not responsible for single handedly keeping their wives from sin.
- 50:19
- And this is part of what troubles me about some of the patriarchy stuff, including some of the stuff that's in Idaho.
- 50:25
- I have real concerns with any language that is like husbands.
- 50:30
- You are the one who keeps your wife from sin. No, you are not. You are not the one who keeps your wife from sin.
- 50:37
- You are a voice in your wife's life and you have authority to shepherd her. And so yes, there's responsibility there, but you don't have charge of her heart or mind.
- 50:49
- And the more you try to take that over, the less good I think occurs. Instead, do all the things,
- 50:56
- I think, hopefully we put some things on the table that are helpful from the Bible. Do all the things to be a godly husband, to love her well, to point her to the
- 51:04
- Lord, to have a culture in the home of going to the word. But don't think that if your wife, and this is part of your joking about calm down or whatever.
- 51:18
- I'll just tell on myself here. Some of us may have been in a situation where our wife maybe wasn't hitting an all -time high in the
- 51:26
- ESPN top 10 list of submissive moments in marriage. And maybe we said something to the effect of, you know, would you just please just submit?
- 51:35
- And so now I lost the women in the room after the conference. But honestly, as a young man, this is the honesty we need to have.
- 51:43
- Husbands say these things to their wives and wives say some pretty spicy things to their husbands too. If that's your approach to dialing up submission in the home, have fun with that.
- 51:57
- Better to hear me in the right way. Let her sin.
- 52:05
- If she's not in a submissive moment, don't try to forcibly stop unsubmissiveness.
- 52:11
- Instead, choose godliness on your part. You ramp down.
- 52:16
- I mean this genuinely. You ramp down and you effectively say to yourself, I will meet her when she calms down.
- 52:23
- But I'm not going to try to wrangle. You stop being unsubmissive to me. That is not, that's not the model for us.
- 52:31
- I mean that genuinely. I think though, with some of the patriarchy stuff, the rule, the rule of the man,
- 52:37
- I think men are tricking themselves into thinking this sort of overbearing leadership is, oh, that's the way a wife's going to become godly.
- 52:45
- No, it's not. She might even conform to you. She might even perform the behavior you want from her.
- 52:54
- But probably what you are doing is creating a little legalist or fomenting a little legalist or a man -dependent wife, not a god -dependent wife.
- 53:02
- It's hard to live with a sinner, husband to wife, wife to husband. But we have to be pointing each other to the
- 53:07
- Lord, not taking control of each other. Women do this too, with men. Women try to control men too.
- 53:14
- This is what the sexes do in a sinful world. We try to control each other. And honestly, we influence each other, we speak truth to each other, yes, all sorts of ways, but we don't control each other.
- 53:25
- So stop. Stop the controlling project. Wife to husband too. Don't control him. Don't nag him to death.
- 53:32
- Don't oppose him. Don't make nasty, passive -aggressive comments that are communicating anger at what he's doing.
- 53:39
- You've got to lay off of that, and you've got to do what we've tried to talk about.
- 53:44
- You've got to say, all right, I'm really ticked right now with this man. He's a sinner, and it ticks me off, but I'm going to let my blood cool.
- 53:50
- I'm going to ask him if we can have a calm time to talk, and then I'm going to say, this I don't think is you at your best.
- 53:57
- Can we kill sin together in this area? You know, those kind of things. That's a way better approach than him controlling her or her controlling him.
- 54:05
- You just had an episode of your podcast a couple weeks ago, should a man dominate his wife, which was excellent.
- 54:10
- I would point you to that episode of Truth and Grace. Since you brought up Doug Wilson, your thoughts on Christian nationalism, what is it, good or bad?
- 54:17
- Does it focus too much on patriotism for America and not enough on the sovereignty of God, or maybe not enough on the gospel?
- 54:23
- And then what are your thoughts on Doug Wilson? I think we got into some of it last night, but to reiterate,
- 54:28
- I don't agree with Christian nationalism. I don't think the Great Commission teaches that we are called fundamentally as believers to Christianize our nation.
- 54:39
- I don't think that we are called, many Christian nationalist people emphasize this, to bring
- 54:44
- Old Testament civil law to bear on the public square. When you look at Paul's, this is such a big conversation.
- 54:51
- I just wrote a 20 ,000 word article for G3 about Christian nationalism. You can find it on my social media.
- 54:57
- If you can find my social media, good luck with that. But if you find it, I wrote a 20 ,000 word response to Christian nationalism.
- 55:04
- It took me months. When you look at what Paul talks about in the New Covenant for government,
- 55:09
- Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, 1 Timothy 2, Matthew 22, Jesus words, you don't see any call to change
- 55:18
- Caesar, to stop Caesar from being Caesar. You actually kind of see Jesus and the apostles saying, you're under Caesar.
- 55:27
- So the call of the church, the mission of the church is not to make Caesar Christian.
- 55:33
- That may happen. Leaders may be Christians in nations, and if so, that's wonderful. They should make good law.
- 55:39
- But the church's mission, here's the last thing I'll say, the church's mission and the state's mission are distinct.
- 55:47
- The church's mission is to make disciples and be the church corporately and then scattered.
- 55:53
- The state's mission is to restrain evil and to reward those who do good.
- 56:00
- So create a civil order. I think it's a pretty minimal mandate, frankly, for government in the
- 56:05
- New Testament. But that's what the state does. But the state in no New Testament text, this in the
- 56:11
- Old Testament, it's different. There's a covenantal switch in the New Testament. The state does not police doctrine.
- 56:17
- The state is not responsible for recognizing the lordship of Jesus even. And you say that on Twitter and people then say, you don't love the lordship of Jesus.
- 56:25
- Don't you want it expressed everywhere? Well, I want it expressed everywhere. It's supposed to be expressed, but I don't go to my local donut shop and pressure them and harangue them and yell at them.
- 56:34
- You should be recognizing the lordship of Jesus. I recognize I'm in a world where people may recognize it or not, but my mission is not to get the donut shop or the local police office to have a
- 56:46
- Christian flag flying over it. The mission of the state is to punish evil and reward good.
- 56:52
- And it is not to get into theology. It's not to say what is blasphemy. It's not to hold heresy trials.
- 56:59
- And so I am in a different place than men in Moscow. Men in Moscow have done good work on a number of issues.
- 57:07
- Doug Wilson has said a lot of true things about manhood. There are some things he says about manhood I disagree with. He called for men who are courageous, but not careful men.
- 57:15
- He said the careful men will come later and write the biographies of the courageous men. And I think that very idea that picked up a lot of steam and coven days
- 57:23
- I know why it did because there wasn't a lot of courage. So Wilson has been a voice among the public leaders of the church,
- 57:29
- Wilson has been a voice who has showed courage, for example, but if you are not both courageous and careful.
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- You will end up in the territory I fear the CN movement is in the Christian nationalist movement is in, and it is not being exegetically careful it is not careful about the mission of the state, and it is not careful about the mission of the church, it is fusing them, it's infusing them in part because we're in evil days and it's very hard and so Christians are going.
- 57:55
- Oh no, we're losing America. We've got to Christianize it and and and we've that's fusing the missions and I think that's even though it's very hard to be in evil days, we need to be exegetically careful
- 58:07
- Joshua one seven says that we should both be courageous Joshua needs to be courageous and very careful to do all the law.
- 58:14
- So for meant for this is a this is a pioneering mission Joshua's on, you would think the
- 58:20
- Lord God would say, just be courageous go just go take the promised land right. So what he says, he says to a strong young man, be courageous, but also be very careful.
- 58:31
- So I think Wilson's error starts out small and ends up big part of the problem with the
- 58:37
- Christian nationalist movement is that we don't have you don't have clarity on what it means to be a Christian national so probably five six weeks ago you had somebody on the left who said if you believe that your rights are given to you by God that makes you a
- 58:47
- Christian nationalist true. Well, I happen to believe that but I'm not a Christian nationalist so it's best to avoid that title altogether, in terms of what my political philosophy is and say
- 58:56
- I refuse to let you label me and then define your labels. I agree. Yeah. All right. What do you think about women saying that they should have a right to vote is that feminism,
- 59:04
- I guess we covered that one sorry, I don't think it is. Samson in heaven. I think he is
- 59:09
- Samson praise at the end of his life and he seems to recognize the truthfulness of God and the need for God and so I read
- 59:18
- Samson I mean there's debate in the commentaries among scholars but I read Samson as a very flawed, but, but, but true follower of God.
- 59:28
- In, I mean I think the door to the to heaven might have hit him on the way in on it on his on his ankle kind of bumped him.
- 59:36
- I think you get kind of bumped into the king. All right, but I think he got in maybe. I think isn't isn't
- 59:42
- Samson in the Hall of Faith Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith is a man of faith so. Yeah, I think that would be your answer.
- 59:49
- I think the door to the hall closed on his ankle. I think we're going to see him there. How far do you take the biblical directive that men are to lead and women are to nurture and help.
- 59:59
- Does it apply only within marriage can women lead in men in business in industry and government positions, women soldiers female marriage counseling counseling a man.
- 01:00:08
- Oh my word. Just you're doing you're throwing this at me at four o 'clock. Well, okay, let's do this.
- 01:00:15
- Yeah. Can women lead men in business. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I don't want to.
- 01:00:21
- That's where I'm trying to be exegetically careful as a complimentarian. Okay, she can. I think she can. There might be situations though where we would say,
- 01:00:29
- I think she can. That might not be what I'm training my daughter to be like I'm not training my daughter to be a
- 01:00:35
- CEO, we're more ordering our daughters pointing our daughters that is in the direction of, you know, marriage family homemaking,
- 01:00:43
- Christian ministry that sort of thing. Okay, but I'm not going to say it is sinful. If my daughter becomes a manager at Panera, and there's a couple, you know, there's young men under her
- 01:00:53
- I'm not gonna say that I don't have any biblical text that I know of to say that's wrong. Okay, so when I say this this that's like a yes or no.
- 01:01:00
- For the next part of this. What about government positions. It's okay.
- 01:01:08
- Yeah, it's it's it's permissive. I would, I'm serious. I think it's permissible. I do think
- 01:01:14
- I'm not I'm not being I'm not being squishy. I mean you have Isaiah saying in Isaiah 312, that it is not good that women are ruling over Israel, Deborah, that was a judgment of God, it's a judgment of God, and Deborah knows
- 01:01:27
- Deborah Deborah who's acting courageously and righteously and did what she should have done is saying to Barack, you are being a wuss, and this is not good.
- 01:01:35
- Basically, right. So, but we're not in the Old Testament. So what I'm trying to do is say, it seems like the biblical trajectory is that men lead in the home church and in public, but I'm not willing to say on the other hand, it is absolutely sinful for a woman to hold public office or something like that.
- 01:01:53
- That feels like a step too far that feels like I'm going beyond what Scripture says and I want to own I want to affirm what
- 01:01:59
- Scripture affirms, and I want to prohibit what Scripture prohibits rapid fire, the cult of death abortion euthanasia was the foundation for the
- 01:02:06
- Nazis in the Third Reich. How did the proponents of this modern day cult of death deal with that reality how do they interact with that do they recognize that those things were part of the
- 01:02:15
- Nazi regime, the cult of death is the culture of death is part of that. Some of them probably do but I think they refresh they've they've taken
- 01:02:24
- Rawlsian rights this is political philosophy language but they've taken that concept of rights, every person has sovereign rights, basically, and they've applied that to their bodies, and they say, yeah, the
- 01:02:37
- Third Reich devalued life but that's not us. We're not trying to put anybody in a concentration camp. This is just about me as a woman reclaiming my body.
- 01:02:45
- And by the way there's all these horrible patriarchal men who force us to have all these kids and we don't want to have them. So that's how they that's how they get a lot of steam in the public square.
- 01:02:53
- And what we have to say to them is, yes, God has given you your body but God has also given you the child in your room their body.
- 01:03:00
- Yeah. So the problem with the Third Reich is they just didn't have the right people in charge. Okay, the problem is socialism all the past attempts of socialism.
- 01:03:13
- Yeah, they just didn't have the right people. Yeah, yeah, they failed. They never tried it the right way. That's right. What was your, what was your toughest conversation and how did it end toughest conversation what and how did it end this one.
- 01:03:27
- All right. This one should be quick. How are we as leaders and parents to emphasize
- 01:03:34
- God's non utilitarian purposes of humanity, as we obey him. We are, what are God's purposes for us as his image bearers.
- 01:03:43
- Huge question very good question. We have to show people in part by the way we live, that we value human life and human life is itself valuable.
- 01:03:58
- It's not valuable because of what we extract from it. We need to communicate to people that humanity has intrinsic worth, not extrinsic worth extrinsic worth identity means that you have worth as you prove your merit, or you prove your value or you earn your capital, and we are saying something very different we are saying that human beings have intrinsic merit by virtue of being human, and then the whole human experience is itself
- 01:04:24
- God given. And, you know, in moral terms, valuable and meaningful and all dimensions of life have meaning and so we're not simply saying as I talked about earlier that, for example, worship is only what happens on Sunday morning, we're saying that all of life is enchanted by the glory and the grace of God and just living.
- 01:04:43
- Honestly, we're always trying to figure out this, like how do I, what's the secret to evangelism secret to winning a post
- 01:04:49
- Christian culture and there's no secret. It is to plant gardens build homes and have sons and daughters, meaning, by which
- 01:04:57
- I mean, it's to live out the Christian life, but to not live it out in a in a in a compound closed off from people to live it out, where you're inviting others in and you're trying to be a witness, and, and not to shame people.
- 01:05:12
- But to show them what God does and sinners like us. Is there a war on women.
- 01:05:19
- Yeah. Yeah, feminism is a war on women. It's a war on women that weirdly conscripts women into the war against themselves.
- 01:05:28
- Yeah, but that's that's been the war that of prior decades now there's.
- 01:05:33
- How much fun was it to drive squirrels Miata that got thrown in here extremely, extremely fun, and I think
- 01:05:40
- I'm going to do it again. Are you going to sing the Christian rap song that people wanted you to hear.
- 01:05:45
- I got what's hidden shock is his optimism is up the missing and avoided like a logarithm can't stop and keep a drop of this locked in prison not a cop a cop songs to see
- 01:05:52
- God within and brought the venomous grace like it's often and then I'm going to sit and win a grin and win an awful and it's been a bit of my will present on the scale while so many transfers to the shine so many minutes will find the lines between some of the concept of on its kind of being the realize the real prize.
- 01:06:03
- It's feeling what's real not to tame a strain and maintain and I just deal not trust and steal a trust to heal disgust is a must in the dust to Neil I must appeal to the
- 01:06:10
- God who defies the men denying his soul what he sees with his eyes. This might be this might be the first time anybody's ever spoken tongues in this church.
- 01:06:30
- The first and the last. Yeah, yeah. We are we are a cessationist church so Owen will not be preaching tomorrow.
- 01:06:41
- Thank you for listening to the latest podcast from Kootenai Church. If you'd like to learn more about Kootenai Church or to donate to our church ministry, you can do so online by visiting
- 01:06:52
- Kootenai church .org. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and pray you'll join us again next time.