Gospel Shrewdness and Discernment Ministries | Theocast

Today is a conversation that John and I wanted to have because we look around at the Christian landscape broadly. We even consider members of our own churches. And it seems that many of us operate out of fear and are so concerned with going in aberrant directions theologically that it's possible that we hinder our ability to partner with other sincere, well-meaning Christians to promote the gospel.

And it's possible that we even stunt our growth and our ability to learn from others who might be outside our tradition, who have said some really good things about a lot of topics in the Christian life.

So this is two pastors processing things in real time. And we hope this conversation is helpful, freeing, comforting for you. Stay tuned.

Pietism, Rest, and the Difference Between Burden and Joy

If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called pietism. You ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy? That you wake up worrying about how well you're gonna perform instead of thinking about what Christ has done for you.

It's dread versus joy, really. That's pietism. Pietism causes Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing. And we have a little book for you.

It's free.

We want you to download it. And we're gonna explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism. Reform theology, really. How it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like?

You can download it on our website. Just go to theocast .org. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a reformed perspective. Your hosts today are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and I'm John Moffitt.

I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. And if you skipped those intros, some of you might be in our town. And I've heard this, where you've skipped it for years, and three years into listening, you realized we were in your town.

So there you go.

If you want to know what we're about.

That's what you get for skipping.

If you want to know about what we're doing, we just want to pull the clutter off the gospel. And we want to show you how awesome our king and his kingdom is. So that's the goal. That's the goal today.

And Justin, we've got a couple announcements for them. We're getting closer to our conference. It's starting to, people are already starting to come in. So tell them a little bit about what we're doing in April in your town, in your hometown.

The Upcoming Conference and Theocast Community

So true. April 11 and 12, God willing, in the year of our Lord 2025, we are going to have our first planned like Theocast conference. Like this is, we've had some small events in the past, like single day things that we've kind of slapped together in the 11th hour.

But this is the first time that we've tried to get out in front of one and plan a conference. And so that's what's happening there. We'll probably be like a pre-conference hang on the Thursday night, the 10th, but this will be a Friday morning pre-conference, like meet and greet with the speakers, live podcast recording, and then Friday afternoon and evening, Saturday morning and afternoon sessions.

We're going to be considering the law and the gospel and things related to that. Subject matter that's near and dear, not only to you and me, but I trust all the people listening, probably part of the reason you tune in.

And care what John and I have to say. And so we've got a couple of friends joining us, Chad Bird, who many of our listeners will be familiar with, and Ken Jones, who many of our listeners will be familiar with too.

Both of these guys are brothers and friends that we've had on the podcast before and are really excited for what they'll bring. So I'm looking forward to it. I mean, it's going to be a great time. Spring is a good time to be in Asheville, North Carolina.

There's a lot of good food and drink in this town. And there's going to be a lot of time baked into this event to just hang together, get to know each other, be encouraged. You come to the conferences kind of for the talks,.

But also largely for spending time.

With like-minded people, man. It's the fellowship. And so register. The registration is live that you can sign up for that, I'm sure, at theocast .org, maybe other ways, but certainly in our website.

And we do have limited spots available. So we hope to see you next April.

Yeah.

Speaking of fellowship, another way that people are asking questions, being encouraged from outside your church, please always go to your church to find your discipleship encouragement accountability, be underneath the shepherding of your elders.

But we can encourage one another globally. The Theocast community, it's an online community. You can access it through your computer and a phone. It has classes that we've taught, all of our past episodes, sermons, conferences.

So you can go check that out. If you'd like to support us, that's a simple way of doing it.

Shrewdness in Gospel Promotion and Partnering Across Traditions

Yeah, you can.

Justin, today is one that's kind of, you know, it's, I would say, well, I'm gonna let you introduce it, but it's definitely kind of born out of experience in ministry, experience in life, and experience in being podcaster.

So talk a little bit about what we're gonna talk about today.

People have probably seen the title. I wanna clear up any misunderstanding. This is not gonna be a podcast about discernment ministries directly. This is gonna be a very free-flowing, unscripted conversation between two pastors.

Now, John and I never really script our conversations, but today, we really do want to let you in on what a conversation would sound like between the two of us when we're just off the cuff, popcorn and ideas around, and talking to each other, talking to each other like we do on the phone about what's going on in our lives or what's going on in our ministries.

So yeah, we're podcasters, obviously, and we're pastors of local churches, and we get criticized. I mean, that's not a shock to anybody. It's not a shock to us either. I mean, it's not a deterrent. But it is interesting, the things that people get really concerned for and things that really do get people worked up.

And so John and I wanna talk today about being shrewd in promoting the gospel, like the clear, unobscured gospel and the sufficiency of Christ or being clear on the law and the gospel, promoting that kind of theology.

That message, we wanna talk about being shrewd as it pertains to that. We wanna talk about being shrewd in partnering with other like-minded ministries, but then we wanna talk as well about the reality that there's a lot of stuff, speaking about Christianity broadly or even evangelicalism broadly, there's a lot of stuff that people disagree on.

And so what do we do with that? Are we able to engage with people from different traditions? Are we able to read people from different traditions who, from our vantage point, might be sincerely wrong about some not unimportant stuff, but then also might be very helpful when it comes to particular things?

And are we able to read and engage with those people with discernment, eat the meat, spit out the bones? What does that look like? Is that something that should be frowned upon? How should we look at that as Christians?

And I think part of our goal, I'm just gonna say it, is to help us not only be wise and shrewd and discerning, but I do hope that this conversation today is helpful to people in thinking about how to calm down a little bit.

And that's not meant to be a shot at anybody, but it is very interesting to me how worked up people can be. It's like how hair trigger. It's like, man, everybody is on pins and needles and ready to pounce over anything that seems remotely, well, that could, in some conceivable universe, be concerning.

And so that's what we're gonna do. And I think we'll start, John, if you're cool with it, let's start by talking about shrewdness in gospel promotion. So we're gonna be pretty direct in this conversation too.

I mean, we're gonna mention some folks by name that we have had conversations with or we've gone on their shows or whatever it may be just so that people are not like, what were they? That was kind of veiled and cloaked and I'm not 100 sure what they were talking about.

We're gonna try to be pretty clear on this. So like, for example, John, we'll start here. Recently, you and I went on a program called Remnant Radio. We were asked by their hosts to come on and talk about the law and the gospel, law and gospel distinction.

And Remnant's got a pretty large platform. The guys that are the hosts have some views that we certainly do not agree with. And we have views that they don't agree with. And we're very clear on all that.

The response to us going on that show to talk about the law and the gospel has been interesting. Not surprising, but interesting. And so what's our thought process, bro, about going on a show like Remnant Radio and talking about the law and gospel distinction?

Some people would ask you, hey, John, you're a co-host of Theocast. You went on Remnant Radio to talk about the law and the gospel. Why'd you do that?

Law and Gospel on Remnant Radio and Other Cross-Promotion Opportunities

Yeah, well, we've been doing this for years. I mean, you and I have been going on podcasts separately and together for, well, I don't know, five, six years now. And, you know, we've gone on all different kinds where it would be Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, OPC, URC.

I mean, it's been all kinds of different. Anglican, yep. Yeah, we were recently on an Anglican podcast. So each one of those, we would have, I would say, secondary and tertiary issues where it's not a primary gospel problem, but we would definitely disagree with, you know, almost the majority of the podcasts that we're guests on, we probably would disagree with, right?

So

Yeah, on some of those secondary and tertiary matters,.

For sure.

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, once in a while, we get to be on a Reformed Baptist podcast, but not often. We're really kind of, it's a broader, and because the Ocast, it can cross-pollinate. We do talk mostly just about the sufficiency of Christ for all of life.

That's, you know, what does it mean to rest in Christ? And really all denominations can benefit from that.

Yeah, let me interject briefly. I mean, we're doing that from this position. I mean, so we are confessional Baptists. We subscribe to the Second London Baptist Confession. We are a part of something called the Grace Reform Network that is a confessional network of Second London Confession Baptist churches.

I mean, so we are definitely planting our flags in certain places when it comes to our theological framework. So we want to be very clear about that. But then what we're talking about here is something different.

Like we can, from the perspective and with the posture of a confessional Baptist, understanding ourselves to be planting our flag within the Reformed tradition, there's a lot that we can say regarding the sufficiency of Christ and Christ for you that, man, a lot of people who have nothing remotely to do with the Reformed tradition could agree with and might find actually very encouraging and comforting and hope-giving.

So that's a lot of the aim.

Which is, you know, like for instance, you and I both have been on and spoken at different 15, 17 conferences.

Sure.

We've done a conference with Chris Gordon and people would say, well, they kind of, they fit in the Reformed camp. Remnant Radio would be an example of maybe someone that would be more charismatic.

Yeah, Pentecostal.

Pentecostal, definitely fit in the Reformed camp. Okay, so this is true. We would agree. I think they're Calvinistic. I appreciate those brothers. I think they mean well. I think they do believe, I think they are disciples of Christ.

I think they're genuinely wanting to lead others to Christ. They're not, I don't think there's ill intention. I wouldn't say that about other people that are famous on the internet. I think we've made our thoughts clear on that.

All right, so let me say, let me briefly on this and then I'm going to go where I think you want to go. So for us to go on Remnant Radio in no way means that we are agreeing with or endorsing their entire theological platform.

Just like, let's use an example. If we were on a podcast with a friend, Chris Gordon, who is a part of the URCNA, or with Chad Byrd, who is an LCMS Lutheran, nobody would ever think that we are, that we have now left the Second London Baptist Confession and have become Pato Baptist reform guys or have become Lutheran.

Like nobody would think that. But then yet it's interesting how, it's almost like, oh, I mean, you guys were on a podcast with more Pentecostal charismatic leaning dudes. Is this an endorsement of their theological platform?

No, we're not trying to do, in terms of things that we disagree with them on, no, that's not what the goal was. But like you said, from our vantage point, these guys trust Christ. They do seem to be like Calvinistic.

There's a lot of things about which we agree. And they are sincere disciples of the Lord Jesus. And it's like, yeah, there's a lot of good things.

We can do together. Absolutely.

Another brief example before we go where I think you wanna go is, so Sean DeMars is a Calvinistic Baptist pastor who does a podcast called Room for Nuance, where he talks with all kinds of different people.

I mean, this is, he's a good example of trying to do this sort of thing, where he sits with people with whom he does not agree often and has conversations about things. Well, Sean's a friend, and Sean hit me up a few months ago and was like, hey, I would love to have a Room for Nuance with Theocasts and talk about assurance and everything related to it.

What do you think?

And I was like, yeah, I'm open to it. I'll talk with John. And Sean was like, look, in the secular podcast world, people do a lot of really good shrewd cross-promotion stuff. We should do the same thing as Christians, to which I was like, absolutely, man.

I mean, Luke 16, we should be shrewd as sons of light. We can operate in a way where we aim to promote this message of the sufficiency of Christ, which is what you and I are trying to do. All right, now take us where you wanted to go.

Right, I mean, in this conversation you and I were having, I was in my truck, you'd even mention, like if someone famous like, what did you, who did you say?

Joel Osteen. I'll run with this for a second.

I would even say, you know, Joe Rogan, you know? I'm like, hey, speaking of Joe Rogan ever does want, if Joe Rogan ever does want to have a son, the answer would be yes.

We're just waiting for him to call. Hey, Joe, bring us on, Joe. But here's the deal. I think a lot of, like for Joe Rogan, wouldn't upset people. But if you were to be on a show or a podcast with somebody who claims to be a Christian who is a false teacher, that's a very different thing.

And I think what, like if Joel Osteen said, so let me try to explain the distinction. If Joel Osteen said, hey guys, I want you to come and talk about, like I've heard a few of your episodes. Not this is ever gonna happen, but who knows?

The Lord does miraculous things. Like I've heard a few of your episodes and I think that the things that you are saying about the sufficiency of Jesus Christ as a savior have some merit and I've been affected by it.

Or I think the things you're saying about the law and the gospel, or the things you're saying about covenant theology and how the Bible hangs together. Like I'm somewhat persuaded that what you're saying is true and I'd love to have you guys on and interview you about that.

My answer to that is without hesitation, absolutely. We're gonna go and do that.

Why?

Because whether it's Remnant Radio or using a very aberrant example, like a Joel Osteen or somebody with a huge platform.

Or Babylon B, we were on the B y 'all.

Or Joyce Meyer or pick your person, I don't care. It's like if they wanna have us on to talk about law and gospel or the sufficiency of Christ or something that is a message that not many people hear and a lot of people that would never hear it otherwise are gonna hear it, why in the world would I not do that?

I mean, Paul went to Mars Hill, man. He went to Areopagus and is reasoning with the philosophers. And it's like, we're happy to do that and be winsome. But then if I can, last comment here. I also gave this example.

Let's just, you know, because right now, ex-evangelicals and deconstructing the faith, all this is like a buzz, right? And there are a lot of podcasts that are effectively out there just deconstructing the historic Christian faith.

Well, what if like one of those podcasts that was really big, large, influential, were like, hey, John Justin, we'd love to have you guys on and just have a real meaningful debate and dialogue about the Christian faith.

You and I, again, the answer to that would be, sure. All right, here is a distinction I would draw. If we were to go on a podcast that was about deconstructing Christianity and we participated in deconstructing the historic faith, that's terrible.

We should absolutely, I mean, that's really bad. And people should absolutely raise significant concerns. But if we went on said podcast and we're defending the historic faith and also making comments about, hey, here are some things that we think lie underneath this whole deconstruction project.

Like, you think that you can have peace without grace. You think you can have peace without forgiveness. This thing is a problem from Jump Street and here are our thoughts on that. If we got on the podcast and we're saying those kinds of things, then I think that is actually a good, reasonable, and upright way to use our voice and to use our platform and to try to bring some light to a conversation that is full of a bunch of confusion and darkness.

And so that's how we view it when it comes to our appearing on other shows or whatever.

I'll give a shout out to John MacArthur. He's been doing this for years, going on the different news broadcasters.

Larry King.

Larry King.

I mean, goodness, yeah.

Yeah.

And so, look, I think there's a way that you can go on there and speak truth and you're not affirming everything that that particular network podcast or person is associated with. And so if there is some confusion, we'd like to clarify that.

We're sorry for any confusion of any podcast that we've ever been on. But we've, you know, I can't think, we've never been on an unbeliever's podcast. I don't believe that's ever happened, not knowingly.

That doesn't mean that we agree with every host they bring on. That could be, we were on the Babylon Bee and they have brought on all kinds of, they brought on Elon Musk. They brought on all kinds of people, you know?

Doesn't mean we agree with everything that they do, but they wanted to talk to us about law, gospel, and resting Christ on the bee. And we're like, sure. We don't know how many people will hear that. We'd love to talk about that.

And I think they fairly represented us and they played the clips that represent our theology. And I think Remnant did the same thing in any time we've done any other kind of partnership. So I just, what we wanna, I just, I'm gonna go a little bit more direct here.

Some people have a hard time, I understand. So I'm gonna speak to this. I understand when you see maybe a ministry or a denomination or a movement that has hurt you in the past, and then you see someone like us partnering with them, that's like a, it's like, you know, oil and water.

It's just really hard for you to wanna stomach that. And so I wanna say, look, I understand that. And there is this ex-smoker syndrome where that comes out of people where, you know, you're gonna be hypercritical.

You know, you were a chain smoker for 30 years and then you broke it and you're gonna be hypercritical of a guy that would like to have a cigar, you know, once a month. And it's just really hard for you to understand.

And so, and I am actually very sympathetic to that. At the same time, Justin and I are, we don't see, I don't think we're leading anybody into sin or into confusion, and we're using it as an opportunity to proclaim the truth in places that, you know, they may not have that clarity yet, or they not have had, they haven't had people on their podcast.

And Remnant, to be frank, they don't bring a lot of law gospel guys on the pod. So this was a good, unique opportunity for us.

Agree, and I wanna say this. I hope this is heard and not skipped over. What John and I are talking about right now is entirely in the realm of wisdom. This is not, thus saith the Lord. And John and I, we could be wrong in how we think about a wisdom call, one.

So don't hear us saying that we are just, without any shadow of any doubt, we are absolutely right about this. And if you disagree with us, you're wrong. That is not what I'm saying. We're just having a conversation here.

So we could be wrong about a wisdom call. But then, like, I think what we're trying to do here, too, is promote a kind of good, shrewd, gospel-promoting, ecumenical kind of posture, and even a charitable posture where we can celebrate the good and appreciate the true things that are said by people that might disagree with us about other matters while operating with discernment and discretion when it comes to the things that we might disagree over.

And I just want people to understand that we are not here saying that our perspective is the only perspective that a Christian should hold and that you're wrong if you disagree. We could be wrong about this, but this is how we approach this wisdom issue.

And so I hope the listener understands that. This is not meant to be a pronouncement of the only way to view these things. You might disagree with us. You might generally agree with our posture here. This is also important.

And you might disagree with us about a particular case, and that's fine, because so many of these things are case by case. It's like, well, hey, guys, I think I do agree with your general posture and the spirit of what you're saying, but I think the decision you made in this particular instance was wrong, and here's why.

Or I think what you did here was problematic, and here's why. That's entirely legitimate. And I would happily have that dialogue, preferably via phone call. I mean, you're probably not gonna have that dialogue on social media.

But yeah, I mean, those are things we've just gotta be able to do with one another as Christians.

Reading Christian Resources with Discernment and a Broad Historical Lens

Hey, guys, real quick. Some of you are listening to this, and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions. So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources?

We have started something called the Theocast Community, and we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like-minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there, and you can share it and ask questions.

You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. We wanted to talk a little bit about engaging in Christian material, Orthodox Christian material. And one of the questions we get often, and maybe we just, one of my dreams is to one day have a page that we can put this together.

So if you're listening to this and you wanna manage the recommended book and commentary page, let us know. We'll put you in charge of editing it for us. And I'm sure someone's gonna contact us, so I'm excited to hear from you.

But that probably is one of the questions that ends up in the community a lot. Do you guys have a recommendation of a law gospel distinction or covenantal or whatever it is that they're looking for, reform view of the Bible?

And there isn't necessarily one commentary that we can point to. And I wanna take 30 seconds to talk about how we are to use resources, understand how they work. Resources are written in kind of really three categories.

You have what's kind of like a pastoral category where this is like a guy's sermon or a devotional. It either comes from a guy's sermon or it is a devotional. And it's not meant to be an actual like commentary as much as an application.

Like they're taking what the text says and they're applying it to you in a devotional sermonist type. And then you have more of what I would say a general commentary where you aren't gonna get into the Greek and Hebrew and the textual criticisms and you're gonna get into the history of it.

So a lot of the reform commentaries can kind of be this way. Calvin's commentary would kind of work this way where he's gonna give you some general comments that are theologically. So he's using his framework.

To kind of drive it theologically.

And then you have critical commentaries where they are dealing with the structure of the text, nuances, cross-referencing, are there textual variants? Are we dealing with a historical influence? Like, is there something in that city during that time, during that culture that would influence, something like greet each other with a holy kiss was something I was recently looking into, like trying to determine was that cultural?

Is it not? Things like that. So to say that there's one commentary that can like house all of that, it's called everything that's ever been written and then you have to use filters. So Justin, you and I, when we preach, let's say you're going through, what are you going through right now?

You're going through Exodus, right?

I just finished Exodus.

All right, so you went through Exodus. My guess is, get my hand in the camera here. My guess is your stack of books started like this. And then by the time you got done with Exodus, you found the ones that really were helpful.

Probably came down to like that, right?

No, that's a whole other conversation, dude, when it comes to commentaries and preaching. But yeah, you're exactly right. I will start, when I'm beginning to prep for a series, you start with a number of volumes and then yeah, you end up finding the one or the two that generally not more than two that are like helpful in any way.

And I don't need to get into that whole thing. That might be a different shop talk for preachers kind of podcast. But your point is well made. There are different kinds of Christian resources produced.

I'm talking written resources. You talked about like the pastoral, kind of the theological and then the technical, so to speak. And then even books of theology in general, there are different kinds written, whether they're of a systematic nature or a biblical theological nature or just a particular topic that they're trying to unpack.

So let's talk a little bit about this, John, because being straight up, if we were only ever going to read from people that are thoroughly reformed, law and gospel distinction, covenantal, Calvinistic, that were at least significantly all of those things, ordinary means of grace, confessional, like if we were only going to read from that pool, that pool would be quite small.

Now, there would be a lot of useful stuff to read there and it's safe and it's good. And you and I absolutely enjoy reading from our stream.

And we want to drink deeply from that.

But you and I also would be advocates, excuse me, of reading from other traditions and reading from individuals with whom we might have very sincere or even strong disagreements about other theological matters, but on this particular topic, they're helpful.

And I think that we would definitely stunt our growth and stunt our learning, stunt our development if we are only ever able to read from a very small pool of resources. We have to trust the Spirit of God to minister in the church broadly, that there are His people in various traditions with whom we will spend forever in eternity with the Lord who have really useful contributions to make.

And they might've spent a ton of time studying and thinking and reflecting and expounding upon subject matter that maybe people in our own stream have not thought a lot about for the last 100, 200, 300 years and there are reasons for that.

And we need to be open to reading with discernment, eating the meat, spitting out the bones, and that needs to not be something that freaks us out, that we need to be afraid of doing.

No, when I was, anytime, just what, I know you do the same thing, Justin, when you get ready to do a book, so I just finished 1 Peter, getting ready to go into 2 Peter. First thing I do is I want to know the general outline and what are my problems?

Like, what am I going to face? Is there problem passages? Is there textual variance? Has there been disagreement through history? And guess what, the Reformed, because there's a thing called progress where we, over time, our theology progresses.

And I don't mean like, that sounds so bad, but it is true. We're building upon what we've heard before.

We're standing on the shoulders of those who came before us.

Yes, and so depending on what topic or issue I might be dealing with, the Reformers and post-Reformation Puritans may not have addressed those issues, right? So for a number of reasons, who knows what they are.

It may not have been an issue or it may not have been discovered or whatever. So I have to go in and look at different commentaries and they're going to be ones that sometimes, I'm like, I don't even know if this person's a believer, but they're powerful in linguistics and this is a linguistic issue and I need to get down to the bottom of what the issue is.

And so I'm going to use this resource to help me out to find out, make sure I interpret this correctly. And then I can see how it's been interpreted in the past. So you just have to understand, there are times where it's helpful.

I've been doing a lot of research and thinking over the last few years, just on the spiritual realm and angels and demons and thinking about when Paul says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood and

The principalities and powers of darkness and the heavenly powers.

That's right.

I found certain resources that are not Reformed, but I found very helpful. I found recently one that was a dispensationalist brother. I reached out to him, he's a professor. And I was like, hey, can we talk?

I really appreciate what you wrote. I'd like to ask you some questions about it. But I don't agree with him on a lot of his theology. But in this area, I felt like he wrote some things that were very helpful to me and they're very clarifying and he used scripture appropriately in this particular subject.

And so I am really looking forward to talking to him. And so I think it's healthy to remember that God has gifted and used people in ways throughout history. Bondage of the Will is a great example with Luther.

That's just a powerful book, right? But there's not everything that Luther wrote that I would just dive into and agree, and ask you to promote. Same would be true of Calvin or John Owen. Even in the Reform world

Pick your favorite theologian. It's like, you're gonna disagree over certain things. Of course, we wanna have

Keller's that way for me. There's a lot about Keller I disagree with.

There's a lot.

I think The Meaning of Marriage is one of the best books he's wrote. I mean, it's a powerful book. I appreciate it.

And for me, this is how I process things. It's like, all right, I have a very significant appreciation, as I know you do too, for the history of the church and what the church has deemed orthodox and heretical through history.

So we have those categories. And we also, because of the fact that we understand that the same Spirit of God has been ministering in the church for 2000 years, if I were to read something that was utterly new, meaning, I don't mean like, oh, well, we've got more modern categories now and this is a different way of articulating it new.

But I mean, like this whole concept is entirely new.

There's a fourth person to the Trinity. There's a quadruple.

Right, or whatever. That's entirely different. Like those things are out of bounds. But when it comes to stuff that has been written about in the history of the church before, like there have been other saints who have seen this, and maybe we are re-articulating it or articulating it now in a newer way, given that we live in the 21st century, that's fine.

We have more categories, whatever. This is the kind of discernment that you need to operate with where has anybody ever said this before? Has this been deemed heretical through the history of the church?

But if there have been Orthodox Christians who have held these views before, then it's fair for me to wrestle with and engage them. And then I wanna process things based upon my understanding of the scriptures wholesale.