WWUTT 1845 Q&A Year in Review

It's a mega episode today as we review the 40 biggest Christian news headlines for the year.

May the mercy of God fall upon us as we finish up this year and head into another. When We Understand the

Text. This is

When We Understand the Text, a daily study in the word of God that we may be conformed to the image of Christ.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky, who is not with me this week as we had planned on her to be here.

But as we shared with you last week, a friend of ours recently lost her dad very unexpectedly to a heart attack and Becky went with her to the funeral.

They're traveling back to East Texas tomorrow, so pray for a safe journey.

God willing, Becky will be back on with me next week when we do a countdown of the top 10 most watched

What Videos for the year. Today we're looking at the 40 biggest events that happened in 2022, or some of the biggest headlines in Christianity, mostly affecting

America. There's going to be a few things on this list that Christians in other parts of the world are going, I don't know anything about that, nor do

I even care. Sure. And there are things that are happening in other parts of the world I wish

I knew more about. I wish I was better read on the protests that are going on in Iran and in China and how those things have been affecting

Christians there or how the churches have been responding to things like that. But that's some news that I need to catch up on myself.

We'll have some of those things, some of those international stories will be mentioned on this particular list, but you'll notice most of these are affecting the

Western English speaking world. Now, even though we're going through 40 of the biggest headlines of the year,

I still got some questions to answer. Being Friday, we respond to questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

This first one comes from Neil in South Carolina. He says, hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky, if present.

And of course she's not. But I'll I'll pass this email on to her. I hope this email finds everyone well in body and spirit.

Would you have any recommendations for podcasts that I could add to my rotation in 2023? I currently have what the dividing line and wretched radio.

Are there any Becky listens to? Although I doubt she has time. May the Lord bless your family and ministry in the new year.

Thank you so much, Neil. Well, I'm still a regular listener of Renewing Your Mind with R .C.

Sproul, which updates daily. Now, if you're looking for news, the world and everything in it from World Magazine is really good.

Justin Bullington is doing a great job with Theo Bros. I was privileged to be a special guest on his program earlier this year for good discussions about confusing doctrinal topics.

I like the pactum, although I don't always agree with the host, for example, concerning their defense of Thomas Aquinas or their critical spirit against biblicism.

But but otherwise, great podcast. And of course, just thinking with Darrell Harrison and Virgil Walker remains one of the best.

Some runners up, the MacArthur Center podcast, the Hard Men podcast with Eric Kahn, Cooper Stuff with John Cooper, Relatable with Ali Beth Stuckey, Walking Worthy with Dustin Binge and the

Truth Be Known podcast with Nathaniel Jolly and Eki Tepsi Pornkai. And I've got another podcast to recommend here in just a moment, a special guest that will join me in just a few minutes.

When in doubt, open up the Refinet app and hit play. If you can't think of anything else to listen to, download that Reformation Network app.

It's always an easy find. Becky does not have any additional recommendations as she listens pretty much the same podcast that I listen to.

If she ventures out to listen to anything else, she usually hates it. This next question comes from Brian in Arizona.

Dear Pastor Gabe, when you do your list of the 40 biggest news stories of the year, could you cite some of your sources as to how you decided which stories were truly the biggest?

Thanks in advance, Brian. Well, the number one source that I rely upon to kind of go through the most popular stories of the year is the

Religion News Association. I used to actually be a member of this organization when

I was in Christian Radio, and every year they take votes from the members as to the biggest stories of the year.

And the top 10 list is always right on. I don't know that I've ever disagreed with what they narrow down as being the 10 biggest stories to happen in Christianity or in religion in general that year.

I also read the Gospel Coalition's list, Colin Hansen, who does his 10 biggest stories every year.

I don't recommend the Gospel Coalition for a lot of stuff, but I do read Colin's list.

The publishers Weekly Top Religion Stories of 2022, Christianity Today puts together several different lists, and so I'll read their stories, although I don't recommend that publication either.

But that's just a few of the lists that I'll look at to narrow down these particular stories.

So let's go ahead and look at them over the course of the next 50 minutes here. We're going to review the 40 biggest

Christian headlines of the year, and we're going to go in order. So it's not like the last headline is going to be the biggest story of the year.

We're going to start January 1 and go all the way to December 31st. Though we're not at December 31st yet, but I'm just hedging my bets that there's not going to be another big story tomorrow that's going to miss out on this list.

So let's begin. January 1st, the first big story of the year happened on the first day of the year, as 43 congregations of the

Reformed Church in America, the RCA, split from the national denomination because it had approved the ordination of LGBTQ clergy.

The new group, the splinter group off of the RCA, is called the

Alliance of Reformed Churches or the ARC. So we got a new denomination this year.

The second biggest news story of the year happened on January the 14th, just two weeks later, when the

Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of an ex -football coach who had been fired because he was praying at midfield after football games.

Now, the way this came about was when the games were over, the teams would meet at midfield and shake hands.

But the coach, whose name was Joe Kennedy, would kneel and say a prayer of thanks. And this kind of developed into the players joining him, even the players from the opposing team.

Well, the school tried to encourage Kennedy to go off and pray by himself. Don't pray with the students, but you can continue your practice over there on that side of the field or something like that.

Well, Kennedy declined and said he was going to continue to do the practice the way that he had always done it.

And the school put him on paid leave and eventually sued him. And the lower courts sided with the school.

But this went all the way up to the Supreme Court again on January 14th. The Supreme Court decided to hear it in June.

They ruled in Kennedy's favor, and it was announced just a couple of months ago that he would be back to coaching this next year.

By the way, all of this happened in the Seattle area in the Pacific Northwest. So praise the

Lord for a victory on this freedom of religion case, one of the big conservative cases that the

Supreme Court made a decision on this past June. Of course, there was a bigger case than that, which, you know, will be on this list.

It'll be coming up a little bit later on January the 16th. This this next story is a little bit gross.

Michael Todd, a pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, had a video go viral when he spit in his hand and rubbed the spit on the face of one of the members of his congregation.

Now, he was illustrating something that Jesus did in Mark 8, 23, when he spit on the eyes of a blind man and healed him, restored his vision.

Todd was saying that sometimes receiving a vision from God can get nasty.

Well, the clip went viral, like I said, and eventually led to Todd apologizing for the gross gesture.

And then that made a headline itself, his apology. Just a couple of days later, there was other weirdness from Michael Todd that went viral over the course of the year.

But that was that was by far the grossest one. Who is this guy? Who is

Michael Todd? And to answer this question, I turned to a friend of mine who's watched more Todd sermons than I have.

On the line is Chris from All Things Theology. What's up, brother? Doing good. Thank you for having me on your show.

Yes. So I saw that you were just covering something about Michael Todd yesterday. What was the weird thing he was doing this week?

Yeah, there's a lot of weird stuff that comes out of Transformation Church, but just really representing

God. Funny enough, we'll probably get into that in a bit. But re -explaining the Trinity and with the comparison to the computer, the father is the 1 .0

version. Jesus is the 2 .0 and the spirit is 3 .0. Oh, boy. Extreme wackiness.

We need our we need the St. Patrick video in here. That's modalism,

Patrick. Exactly. Absolutely. Modem, modemism. Anyway, I like that.

I'm trying too hard for a joke there. I think that's good. So you mentioned his church,

Transformation Church. You said it's the name of it. That's correct. When did it start? What's it about? Like, where did where did

Michael Todd come from? Yeah. So I'm not sure when it started per se, but before Michael Todd was a gentleman by the name of Gary McIntosh.

He comes out of Oral Roberts University, Zuzu Conferences. So if you're familiar with a lot of the extreme charismaticism, that's right up Gary McIntosh's alley.

Yeah. Oral Roberts right there in Tulsa. Correct. And so he then plants this church,

I believe, which is Transformation Church. Yeah, I think it's actually existed for 15 years. OK, actually, at this point, probably 20 plus years around 2015.

Right. It's in a multi -ethnic area. I think that's actually important because in 2015, he sees

Michael Todd for whatever reason, says, hey, you're called the pastor. And Michael Todd's like, no,

I didn't tell you that. Like, it was a bit of hesitance on Michael Todd's end.

And so that's where Michael Todd comes into the picture. Michael Todd actually got a lot of fame and notoriety from his story from doing being a producer.

That's what he used to do. So music, art, something like that. He's actually very talented when it comes to that.

Sure. OK, so that's where Michael Todd comes into the picture. He does a lot of gimmicks with his sermons,

I've noticed. Yes. I remember seeing something earlier in the year where he was eating junk food and like a whole pile of junk food on stage.

Yes. Every sermon has to have a prop. I mean, he was talking about adultery.

So, of course, you got to get a bed up on stage to talk about adultery rather than just preach.

I really hope he doesn't try to preach the resurrection one day because that could be dangerous. Now, speaking of that, does he really have any understanding of the gospel at all?

Have you caught any of that from his sermons? The only time you hear the gospel preached is at the end of the sermon when he's doing the center prayer.

So it's it's by default. Right. But but explaining the gospel, you won't hear much of sin.

You won't hear much of God's wrath. You won't hear anything on repentance, atonement, what what the cross actually satisfied.

Right. I mean, because he doesn't talk about God's wrath. So the only time he actually gets to the gospel is in very shallow.

Yeah, we did a sermon on titan. Come to Jesus. It's kind of like, wait, what's the connection there? Right. What's the gospel connection?

Yeah. So very little gospel. It's a lot of self -help, feel better, you know, moral therapeutic deism that comes out of his pulpit.

Is there any connection with the new apostolic reformation at all? Like who are some who are some of the people in Michael Todd's circles?

So he has done stuff with he doesn't do a lot of connection stuff, but I've seen him like with pictures with Joel Osteen, Stephen Furtick.

So that mainly seems to be his influences. I saw I saw one with Craig Groeschel.

OK, so, yeah, so he's I call Michael Todd the quasi prosperity gospel stuff.

OK, because in one statement, he'll say something that's actually true. You know, he's talked about the abuses of Malachi three.

Right. So a man robbed God. Right. He's like, you know that we've man, I've heard this all my life. And people have, you know, misquoted this verse.

And he's he'll be right. But then he'll go on to teach something like that's exactly what the prosperity gospel.

Right. So I think Michael Todd is dangerous because he's confused. I don't think he's actually intentionally trying to create false doctrine.

Right. He seems like a nice guy. So not a charlatan. Yeah, he just man,

I think he has the right maybe motivations or attentions, but he's just not trained. OK, you know, yeah, there were some things about him.

It kind of seems Stephen Furtick esque to me only with with a lot more stage props.

Yeah. You know, he's a great speaker. I mean, he holds your attention. Like even when you're critiquing him, you're like, man, this guy is gifted.

But communication is not a qualification of an elder. That's right. Must be able to teach, meaning that he has to he has to teach the word of God.

Absolutely. Very much scripture at all in some of the stuff that he's doing. So there's different versions of Michael Todd part in the modalism analogy.

OK, but in one sermon, you'll hear a lot of scripture, a lot of scripture. But and then another sermon, it's like no scripture, like one scripture.

And then what I call the Christian TED talk for the rest of the time is just talking. But even when he does give scripture, it's a lot of eisegesis like he cannot properly handle

God's word. Like you see when he teaches, even when he does give the scripture, it's like, man, no, you completely missed it.

Like if you'd have read the next verse, you would have seen how, you know, so. So he's either reading himself into the text or he's trying to get the audience to read themselves into the text.

Yeah. Or to make his profit like what the verse is saying. I see. You know, yeah, the prop has to you got to kind of get it close enough to what the

Bible saying, you know, right, right. He had an idea for a prop and then he kind of gets a text to support it.

So, yes, makes sense. He talked about gluttony, right? Gluttony.

That might have been the one with all the junk food on stage. Is that the one? Yes, that is. So the sermon prop for that, he puts a lot of food on him, right?

It just shows like, oh, I got all this food on me. Oh, man. See, well, that's not actually gluttony.

Right. I mean, that's just a lot of food on you. I mean, that's not a sin. It's foolish. I mean, it's silly, you know, but it's not a sin.

So even his sermon prop was not gluttony. Yeah. So that just shows you like just how he'll try to do the bait and switch with his props.

Sure. So we got this guy has books that are on the bestseller list at Mardell's.

Like when you walk into Mardell's and they have their their top selling books, Michael Todd's been on there,

I think, for more than a year that I've been walking into Mardell's. I've been seeing his face. So very dangerous theology, very much prosperity, kind of like neoprosperity, you might consider it.

That's right. I definitely would consider it the new age version of prosperity gospel. He's not quite in your face.

Creflo dollar money run on the stage. Right. Yeah. Talk about money coming. He's not that far out, but he's not right.

Someone in our camp, right. So we're formed when it comes to the gospel. So, yeah, definitely.

Well, Chris, give us a plug for your podcast. Where can people find you? Yeah, they can find me on all things theology, any streaming podcast app, also on YouTube.

Just search that and I should come up. All right. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you joining me today. Hey, thank you for having me.

The number four news item of the year was on January the 21st with the release of Redeeming Love in theaters.

Now, this was based on a Christian fiction book that is based on the biblical book of Hosea.

When the film came out, it was extremely controversial because, though it was touted as a Christian movie, there were sex scenes in the film.

So I did a what video on this talking about the book and the movie and why Christians should have nothing to do with it.

Here's the video that I did. Good. Redeeming Love is a historical romance by Francine Rivers, published in 91.

Rivers says that when she became a Christian, she began to adapt true Bible stories into fictional romance.

Redeeming Love is a retelling of Hosea set in the American Old West. In the Bible, God told

Hosea, go take for yourself a wife of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the

Lord. So we married a harlot named Gomer who represented Israel's unfaithfulness. Hosea prophesied of the judgment of God, who is faithful to his promise, though his people were not faithful to him.

The only similarities Redeeming Love has to the Bible story are that the main character's last name is

Hosea and he marries a prostitute. Gomer is replaced by Angel, a victim of sex abuse her whole life.

Gomer and Israel were not victims. Angel catches the eye of Michael Hosea, who hears

God tell him to marry her. After getting married, Angel runs away and goes back to prostitution.

But Michael forgives her and Angel learns true love. The story is now a movie pitched as a

Christian film, though it contains nudity and lengthy sex scenes. Do not be entertained by sin

Christ gave his life to redeem you from. The Bible says, flee from sexual immorality.

You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body, even in what you set before your eyes.

Redeeming Love is a perversion of Scripture and of people. Call out to the Lord. Psalm 44, 26.

Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love. When we understand the text. The number five story of the year was on January the 30th with the murder of Christians in Nigeria.

Now, there were several headlines over the course of the year about the murder of Christians in that particular country.

It began with 48 Christians that were killed in an attack on January the 30th.

More than 30 homes were burned and farm produce destroyed. Christian solidarity worldwide reported later on in the year.

In June, a gunman killed at least 50 people at a church in southwestern Nigeria, opening fire on worshippers both inside and outside the building in a coordinated attack before escaping the scene.

And then later on in September, it was estimated that several dozen Christians had been murdered and 6 ,000 displaced in terrorist attacks in Nigeria's middle belt as international advocates are urging the

U .S. State Department to cite Nigeria for religious liberty violations. Pray for the

Christians that are undergoing such severe persecution in the nation of Nigeria.

Number six, on February the second, Megan Basham exposed evangelical leaders for partnering with the federal government to spread false covid propaganda to churches.

Guys like Ed Stetzer, Tim Keller, Russell Moore, Rick Warren and many others hosted these podcasts or public forums in which they would interview the director for the

National Institute of Health, Francis Collins, on why Christians needed to mask up or get vaccinated to honor

Jesus. Here is Megan Basham with more on this story. So just as you saw

Anthony Fauci out everywhere in the secular media, Francis Collins has been specifically dispatched and this wasn't really denied.

It was kind of openly covered in Time magazine and some other outlets that he was openly dispatched to convince

Christians and church members to get on board with the government's covid policies, things like masking, shutting your churches, staying home, abiding by lockdowns and especially getting vaccinated, all of those things.

So he made the rounds to just a number of very high profile pastors, high profile media outlets and ministries sort of preaching this message of follow the government guidelines regarding covid.

And very particularly, he presented it as a gospel issue. Follow the guidelines to show that you love your neighbor, to show that you're following Jesus.

And he was presented in that way as someone who is just like you, a Christian brother. And that's why you should listen to him.

So that was kind of the nature of the story. But there's a little bit more to Francis Collins than that.

And that was the part of the story that was not presented on all of these podcasts and in all of these media interviews.

And that's the fact that Francis Collins, though he professes to be pro -life, has directed record level funding to fetal tissue research.

And that has included some experimentation at the University of Pittsburgh that involved grafting the scalps of aborted infants onto lab rats.

It involved harvesting the organs of full term babies, 40, 42 weeks that had been aborted.

There were some charges. This is not confirmed, but some doctors have alleged that that University of Pittsburgh research involved extracting the ureters, kidneys and a couple other organs from still living infants.

So some fairly horrific stuff. So to wrap up this somewhat long winded answer, there's also another element of Francis Collins's work, and that is the fact that he launched an initiative in which he declared himself an

LGBT ally and advocate. And that funding went to something called

Sexual and Gender Minority Research. And one of those projects has involved directing eight million dollars to a research grant that gave opposite sex hormones to children as young as eight.

And mastectomies to girls as young as 13. So these are the things that all of these pastors and Christian ministries did not tell their audiences and their church members about Francis Collins.

Now, I wish that this meant the end of guys like Ed Stetzer, Russell Moore, Rick Warren, these people that push this false narrative and heaped legalism onto Christians by saying that you have to do these things in order to be a good

Christian. But sadly, those people are still in power and still doing their thing. And they are continuing to lie to Christians unchecked, not facing the consequences of their actions.

But they will have to stand before the Lord and give an account. So I do pray for their repentance, that they would be removed from influence here on Earth, but that they would also repent before they have to stand before God in judgment.

May it be a reminder to all of us to pursue the truth and not add to the word of God, but understand what he says and how to apply these things rightly according to scripture.

Thanks to Megan Basham for her great reporting. She had several big stories this year. But when I asked her what was the biggest, she said the one on February the second definitely stirred the most pots.

We had Megan on the podcast along with her husband, Brian, earlier this year when Becky and I did our interview with the couple.

I don't remember which episode that was. But Brian, if you'll recall, works for World Magazine. He's the guy that you see doing the

World Watch News updates on YouTube. So thankful to have this dynamic duo in journalism.

The number seven story of the year was on March the third. Now, this was after Russia invaded

Ukraine, which happened on February the 24th, if memory serves. But right at the beginning of March, videos went viral of Christians in bomb shelters, praying and singing songs.

In particular, there was a video of Ukrainian Christians praying Psalm 31 from bomb shelters as Russia declared war on Ukraine.

Now, there were many other stories that happened over the course of the year as well. As a result of this war, one of the stories that I read just recently is that 400

Baptist churches have been lost as a result of this war.

And there are people, Christians that are missing, missionaries that have been displaced and so on.

So continue to pray for Christians, not just in Ukraine, but even Christians in Russia, some who have been forced to fight in this war that don't want to.

There are Christians on both sides. Pray that the Lord will protect. Let me read to you here from Psalm 31, verses one through five in you.

Oh, Yahweh, I have taken refuge. Never let me be ashamed in your righteousness.

Protect me. Incline your ear to me. Deliver me quickly. Be to me a rock of strength, a fortress to save me.

For you are my high rock and my fortress. For your name's sake, you will lead me and guide me.

You will bring me out of the net, which they have secretly laid for me. For you are my strength.

Into your hand, I commit my spirit. You have ransomed me. Oh, Yahweh, God of truth.

And indeed, it is through the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that we have been ransomed, bought with a price.

Your sins have been paid for by the precious blood of Jesus. And so follow him, worship the

Lord, and he will deliver you out of your distresses. Pray for those Christians that are being persecuted in different parts of the world or going through a war -torn areas that the

Lord will protect. We look forward to that day that he delivers us ultimately into his peaceful kingdom, where these things will be no more.

The number eight story of the year was with Grove City College that became a battleground in the woke war.

One publication covered the story like this. Since 2020, concerns about wokeness, a term used for those aware of systemic racism and recently often connected to critical race theory, have pitted

Christians against one another in the pews and in the classroom. Grove City College, an hour north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has been one of those battleground areas.

On February the 16th, the college's board of trustees stated that it categorically rejected critical race theory and similar critical schools of thought as antithetical to GCC's mission, really antithetical to Christianity.

John Fee, professor of American history at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, said the following.

What's happening at Grove City is what's happening within the conservative movement in America. And indeed, critical theory is dividing

Christians. It doesn't unite anybody. It divides us. These things are contrary to what we are taught in scripture.

In first Timothy chapter six, beginning in verse three, the apostle Paul warned Timothy, if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our

Lord Jesus Christ and the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited, understanding nothing but having a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words out of which arise envy, strife, slander, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth.

That is a perfect description of the kind of havoc that these critical race theory discussions have been causing in churches and in Christian colleges all over the place.

Grove City College has been one of those places that's been a battleground, and it has been indeed an example of the kinds of arguments and fights that have been happening even in various churches in America.

If you've got critical race theory in your congregation, get it out. It's not uniting you.

It is dividing your congregation. And as I know, Daryl Harrison and Virgil Walker have discussed on just thinking critical race theory.

Wokeness is racism. The number nine story of the year, March 21st,

Twitter suspends the Babylon B over a joke about Rachel Levine.

Rachel Levine, of course, whose birth name was Richard Levine. He's a male pretending to be a woman.

He's the American pediatrician who has served as the United States Assistant Secretary for Health since March 26th of last year and is also a four star admiral in the

United States Public Health Service Commission Corps. Well, the Babylon B made a joke about Rachel Richard Levine and said or declared him to be man of the year.

Again, this is a man who's pretending to be a woman, and it's required of all of us that we have to refer to him as a woman and even use feminine pronouns.

Well, the Babylon B, which is a satire site called Rachel Levine man of the year, and they got banned from Twitter for that.

Well, that which happened on March the 21st set off a chain of events that would eventually lead to Elon Musk buying

Twitter. Musk, who's a huge Babylon B fan. So he bought the social media giant for over 40 million dollars.

Sorry, not 40 million, 40 billion dollars. I don't remember exactly what the amount was, but then had the

Babylon B reinstated all of these events going on over the course of this year. And from a satire site that was started by Christians.

It's amazing the kinds of waves that the Babylon B makes in the public sphere.

Now, even though the Babylon B was restored on Twitter and Adam Ford, he was another one.

There have been many others who were blocked or banned by Twitter over the course of this year that had their accounts restored when

Elon Musk took over. But I am not one of them. As you probably know, I was banned back in June because I was proclaiming something that the

Bible says. I listed several sins and said that the Bible says these sins are worthy of death.

But then I said, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and live. And I was banned for that because one of the sins that I listed was homosexuality.

I appealed my ban even since Elon took over. But Twitter has said they're not going to restore me.

They said that I was using my account to incite violence and hatred. So even though a new wave of, quote unquote, free speech has come into the

Twitter verse, it's still Elon's version of free speech. And he's not a Christian. So that doesn't allow for sharing what the

Bible says and then the gospel. My appreciation to the Babylon Bee and also

Creation News for covering that story about me when all of that happened. The next story was on March the 22nd, 10th biggest headline of the year.

Brian Houston resigned from Hillsong, one of the founding pastors of Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia.

And because of sexual abuse allegations made against him and against staff and stuff that's been going on, even in the history of the church, he ultimately resigned on March the 22nd.

The court proceedings involving Brian Houston just recently started, and I haven't been keeping up with any of that.

But I'm sure as we get into 2023, we're going to be hearing about the results of that particular trial.

The very next day, March the 23rd. Ketanji Brown Jackson refused to define what a woman is.

Do you remember this? Seems like this story was so long ago, but no, it is just earlier this year.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Supreme Court justice nominee from Joe Biden. Of course, she has to go before the

Senate and get asked all kinds of questions. And it was Senator Marsha Blackburn that asked her this question.

Can you provide a definition for the word woman? Can I provide a definition?

Yeah, I can't. You can't. Not in this context,

I'm not a biologist of the word woman is so unclear and controversial that you can't give me a definition.

Oh, my goodness, that has to be one of the most absurd moments in the history of American government, somewhere in the top 10.

The only reason I wouldn't put it at number one is just in case there's some other event that I can't think of.

That is ridiculous that she cannot say that a woman is an adult human female.

How hard is that? How can she as a Supreme Court justice try cases that have to do with women if she doesn't know what a woman is?

And of course, after all of this, she was touted as the first black woman to be appointed to the

Supreme Court. Well, how can you say that if you don't know what a woman is? How can you say this woman is making history?

I mean, after all, the government appointed a man who's pretending to be a woman to the position of admiral.

And then he said, I'm humbled to serve as the first female four star officer of the

U .S. Public Health Service Commission Corps. And he's not the first female anything. But as Romans 1 22 says, professing to be wise, they became fools.

Verse 25, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. God have mercy on this nation. But this whole thing that's happened with Richard Rachel Levine and with Katonji Brown Jackson just kind of reveals that God has turned this nation over to its own debased mind.

After this whole thing happened, Katonji Brown Jackson's defenders came out and just like washed her with her resume.

Oh, look at how much experience she has, her education, what she's accomplished, her degrees, all this kind of stuff.

None of that matters. She can't even define what a woman is. Professing to be wise, they became fools.

The next story, this was the number 12 story of the year, April 19th. Pastor Tom Buck, whom

I work with here at First Baptist Church in Lyndale, Texas, revealed that a story his wife wrote years ago detailing an abuse situation early in their marriage was leaked in retaliation against Tom.

Now, this is a complicated drama, and I don't want to spend a whole lot of time talking about it, but let me give you the summarized version that I wrote in a blog earlier this year.

I've been on the inside of this every step of the way. In March, I and another elder from our church were with Tom when he privately approached

Willie Rice with a matter of urgent concern. Rice, pastor of Calvary Church in Florida, was running for president of the

Southern Baptist Convention at the time. If he won, he would be expected to lead the reform initiatives recommended to the

SBC in the wake of the sex abuse scandal that made national headlines. Tom discovered that Rice had a deacon at his church who had sex with a student while that deacon was a teacher in a public school years before.

Tom knew this because he knew that deacon. Rice knew of that deacon's former sins and made him a deacon anyway.

Tom first consulted with Rachel Denhollander, who verified that Tom acted immediately and did not sit on this for a political advantage, unlike what

Russell Moore did a couple of years ago. Long story short, Rice withdrew his name from consideration as president of the

SBC, but not before a plan was hatched to blackmail Tom in retaliation.

Someone connected with Rice had obtained a rough draft of an article written by Tom's wife, Jen, who had written about the struggles they had early in their marriage, specifically a trial they went through while Tom was in seminary.

This was before he became a pastor. In the draft, Jen recalled a moment when Tom smacked her arm, and that was when

Tom realized he needed help with his anger issues. The two were reconciled to one another in a beautiful story of Christ redeeming a marriage.

Jen did eventually finish that story and published it through G3, and I helped her with the editing of that particular story.

You can still read it on G3's website. However, the first draft mentioned more than Jen intended to have published, including details of sex abuse before she ever met

Tom. She never wanted any of that to be made public. She was just jotting down thoughts to have someone help her write her article.

Well, the person she and Tom had asked for help was Karen Swallow Pryor, professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Pryor was the only one who was given Jen's rough draft, and somehow that draft made it from Pryor to someone else who circulated it, among many others, in an attempt to use it against Tom to keep him silent.

There's all other different kinds of players involved in this as well, and some of those things have been published through various outlets, including churchleaders .com.

I know that they've had some stories on this particular drama. Just absolutely disgusting.

But it also demonstrates that the Southern Baptist Convention doesn't really care for sex abuse victims.

Only certain kinds of sex abuse victims. And Jen Buck doesn't count.

I love Tom and Jen. It has been a privilege for me to get to know their family and have drawn as close to them as my family has become.

My daughter hangs out with their daughter. They are a very sweet and generous and loving couple.

But because Tom is a principled man who stands on God's word and he calls out some of the godless practices that have been going on in the

Southern Baptist Convention, he has made enemies who have attempted to bring him down. And in this particular case, they tried to use his wife's story in order to do it.

But like with the story that I mentioned earlier regarding some of those evangelical leaders and the lies that they spread in the midst of the covid pandemic, they will have to stand before God and give an account for their words.

And though justice may not be obtained in the Southern Baptist Convention now regarding the people who did these things to Tom and Jen, they will have to stand before God and give an account one day.

And I truly hope that they repent and even publicly apologize before that day comes.

The number 13 story of the year was on May the 22nd, when Guidepost Solutions released their report on the findings in the

Southern Baptist Convention about sex abuse cover up. And the report was largely a big nothing burger.

There was nothing new that they revealed that we didn't already know, except for a matter of sex abuse that happened with Pastor Johnny Hunt in Georgia.

Hunt admitted that the occasion happened, although he said that it was consensual. It was not abuse.

That turned out to be a whole other story in itself. The investigation that was done by Guidepost resulted in a 288 page report of their findings.

So surely out of 288 pages, they mentioned all kinds of instances of sex abuse cover up, right?

On pages four and five, Guidepost discovered that August Bodo, former vice president and general counsel for the executive committee, had a staff member who was maintaining a list of accused ministers in Baptist churches, including the minister's name, year reported, relevant news articles, state and denomination.

The list contained the names of 703 abusers with 409 believed to be

SBC affiliated at some point in time. Guidepost went on to say, our investigative team reviewed the list and conducted significant research to assess whether any of the alleged abusers were still associated with an

SBC church. Based on these efforts, it appears that nine people remain in active ministry or connected to ministry.

Two of those people appear to be associated with an SBC church. The remaining seven appear to be associated with churches that are not

SBC affiliated. We will provide this information to the credentials committee for further review, including whether the seven additional churches mentioned above are in fact not

SBC affiliated. We will continue to review the latter material to determine whether any referrals or other action needs to be taken."

So again, out of 409 abusers going back decades, only nine were connected with an active ministry in any way, and only two in a

Southern Baptist church. From 409 accused down to two active.

Do you know what that looks like to me? It looks like most autonomous Southern Baptist churches did their jobs, and this was really not the crisis that everyone said that it was.

You have about a 1 in 100 chance of walking into a Southern Baptist church where sex abuse by a volunteer or staff member happened in that church sometime in the last few decades, and that's a loose estimate, granting that there's surely abuse that goes on unreported.

By the numbers that we know, it's more like 1 in 125. By comparison, 1 in 10 public school students, 1 in 10 public school students claims to have been sexually abused at school, 1 in 10.

But do you hear about that story in the news? No, you hear more about how the Southern Baptist church and even the

Catholics are full of sex abuse. That's all that you hear, not that the public school system is really what is full of sex abuse.

Now, it turns out that Guidepost Solutions, which the Southern Baptist Convention hired to do this investigation, they're a pro

LGBTQ law firm. So the Southern Baptist Convention paid millions of dollars to a law firm that actually wants to bring the

Southern Baptist Convention down. Next story was also on May the 22nd.

A video went viral of a pastor confessing to adultery during Sunday worship service.

He confessed during the service, and the survivor unexpectedly got up and took the stage, describing it not as adultery, but as sexual abuse.

This was on Sunday, May the 22nd, same day that this Guidepost Solutions report had been released.

Pastor John B. Lowe, the second of New Life Christian Church and World Outreach in Warsaw, Indiana, confessed to his congregation that he was in an adulterous relationship 20 years ago.

The pastor's victim, Bobby Gephardt, took the stage to give clarity to Lowe's confession, claiming that it wasn't an adulterous relationship, but rather sex abuse, and she was 16 years old when it started.

Not going to go into further details on that matter, but the video went viral and you can find news stories elsewhere.

The number 15 story of the year was the very next day, May the 23rd. The Church of Scotland voted to allow gay marriage, and we also saw later on in the year,

I believe this was in September, that the nation of Cuba approved gay marriage.

The number 16 story of the year, May the 24th, was the Uvalde school shooting that took place at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

An 18 -year -old former student at the school fatally shot 19 students and two teachers and wounded 17 others.

We saw the faces on the news. We heard the cries of the parents who lost their children. We mourned and sympathized with them.

But this also started a discussion among churches and a discussion among Christians that continues to this day about gun control and whether or not it's okay for Christians to own guns or even use a gun in self -defense.

I believe that Christianity Today conducted a poll and had posted that poll through their magazine.

The number 17 story of the year was on June the 3rd, when Rick Warren announced his retirement and also his successor, which turned out to be a husband and wife couple.

Now, this, of course, was after Rick Warren's church, Saddleback, had ordained women to the position of pastor.

That happened, I think that was last year, 2021. So it's not surprising that he chose a husband and a wife pastor duo to replace him since Saddleback was already approving of women pastors.

The husband, Andy Wood, sees women clergy in the SBC's future.

He has even said so. So this guy who is pastor of one of the largest churches in the

Southern Baptist Convention, he thinks the day will come soon when SBC churches will be approving and appointing of women as pastors.

Rick Warren's last sermon was delivered on August the 28th. The number 18 story of the year was on June the 14th.

It was the Southern Baptist Me Too moment, as the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting was held in Anaheim, California, June 14th and 15th.

The messengers overwhelmingly voted in favor of sexual abuse reforms. But again, what were they reforming?

Based on the story that had been published a month before by Guidepost Solutions, there really wasn't a lot to change, except that certain persons who were named as sex abuse survivors were going to be paid by the

Southern Baptist Convention. That was one of the things that the messengers decided on. Bart Barber was, of course, voted to be president of the

Southern Baptist Convention, and he became the guy that appointed the persons to the sex abuse task force. Some of the persons that are on that task force were persons that were involved in the blackmailing of Tom Buck.

They have no business being anywhere near a sex abuse task force. But all of this is just for show.

It's just virtue signaling, knowing something about how the task force works.

They're not really doing anything to prevent sex abuse. It's it's just to say, hey, look, we're doing something about this story that ended up in the

Houston Chronicle back in 2020. It's all just a it's a big show. It's a big sideshow.

The next story, number 19, June the 24th, the Supreme Court overturned

Roe v. Do I really need to give any more details about that? That's just a story in and of itself.

Praise God for that. The absurd stuff that came about after that were all of the so -called

Christians who were mourning over the fact that Roe v. Wade was overturned.

They're not really pro -life. They just it was just politically expedient to be pro -life.

And now it's expedient to oppose or mourn over the fact that Roe v.

Wade has been overturned. I don't doubt that Joe Biden is going to do everything that he can to codify

Roe into law and actually make it because it's never been a law, even though the Supreme Court decided on this back in 1973.

Abortion has never technically been legal in the United States. And so Joe Biden wants to push this into law, that abortion would be protected as a woman's right and the murder of unborn children would continue.

There are various reports that have come out since the overturning of Roe v. Wade that has said tens of thousands of babies have, in fact, been saved since the overturning of this wretched court decision.

And praise God for that. The way that we change the minds of the people in this nation regarding abortion and sex and other things, we've got to be preaching the gospel.

Get out there with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's really how we turn this nation around.

Proclaim repentance. Turn from your sin for the wrath of God is coming. And to the

Lord Jesus Christ, by faith in him, your sins are forgiven and you have everlasting life.

And if we're doing that and we're doing that work diligently and God is merciful to us and turns the hearts of this people, then this nation really will be turned to a people for his good.

The way things look right now, though, really looks like God is turning us over to destruction.

But time will tell. Be humble before the Lord and we who are in Christ Jesus have nothing to fear of the wrath that is to come.

The number 20 story of the year was on July the 13th when Benny Johnson died.

Benny was the wife of Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California.

Benny had cancer. And if you know something about this church, you know that they believe that they can heal anybody.

There was even a couple of years ago they were trying to raise this little girl named Olive from the dead, a girl who is the daughter of a couple of the youth minister or sorry, worship ministers there at Bethel Church who had died very unexpectedly.

And the church had like a multi day revival where they were trying to revive this girl, raise her from the dead.

And of course, they can't do that. They don't have the power to do that. But nonetheless, people continue to be fooled into thinking that they have the power to heal even when their own pastor's wife dies of a disease that they could not pray away.

Also, something that happened this year, Chris Volaten, who is one of the pastors at Bethel Church, he was hospitalized with kidney stones.

This is a church that has prayer healing rooms where you can go to heal people.

They have a ministry where they go into the hospitals and they heal people in the hospitals. And yet the pastor's wife dies and one of the other pastors goes into the hospital with kidney stones.

You think maybe they're preaching a false gospel? Just maybe. The next story was on August the 8th, number 21 story of the year.

We're just over the halfway mark. The Lambeth Conference was held at the University of Kent and gay marriage was at the center of the controversy of the conference.

They were meeting for the first time in 14 years, an attempt to bring the Anglican communion together.

More than 650 bishops registered to attend, including more than 100 from the

Episcopal Church, representing some 85 million Anglicans worldwide. But the documents produced in advance of the conference, which ran through August the 8th, provoked outrage among those belonging to the liberal wing of the church.

Those documents included a reference to the entire communion being wholly opposed to same sex marriage.

The protests forced Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to revise the statement and make an embarrassing last minute

U -turn on how the talks would be conducted. So this continues to be a matter that is splitting the

Anglican and Episcopalian churches. On August the 28th, number 22 story of the year,

Matt Chandler's temporary resignation. And this was a really confusing story. Matt Chandler of the

Village Church, one of the largest Southern Baptist churches, if not one of the largest churches in America, he was caught having an inappropriate discussion with a woman via direct messages on Instagram.

And because of those inappropriate comments, he resigned his position at the church and was just reinstated.

What was that a month ago or was it earlier this month? I think it was in December. Anyway, it's been a whole confusing matter.

We don't even really know what kinds of things were said between Chandler and this other woman. I covered the story on the podcast and reviewed things that Chandler said and the elders of the

Village Church said. They did not handle this in a biblical way. This was kind of like how a scandal is going to be handled in the wake of the sex abuse crisis that's going on in the

SBC. So because of how the Southern Baptist Convention has handled these things, the

Village Church has likewise handled these things in a very unbiblical manner. But this was one of the biggest church stories in the country in 2022.

The number 23 story of the year was on September the 5th when news circulated around the nation about a woman named

Eliza Fletcher, who was kidnapped and murdered. This was an incredibly sad story, but it brought a lot of Christians together on social media.

Fletcher was a wife and a mother of two and a kindergarten teacher. If you saw any of the videos with her talking to her kindergarten students, she was a very charming woman, an active member of Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis.

She was also an avid runner, and she was abducted during a run at 430 on Friday morning near the

University of Memphis campus. Her husband called police when she didn't return home.

And then, of course, it would be later discovered that she had been murdered. Fletcher's family released a statement saying they were heartbroken and devastated by this senseless loss.

And the church, her church, Second Presbyterian of Memphis, went on Facebook Live with a call for prayer and a hymn for all who are struggling to find the words to express their cares, concerns, and emotions to the

Lord on behalf of the Fletcher family. They also referenced Psalm 46 .1,

which says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. And they said, people of God, his mercy seat is open still, and he attends the mourner's prayer.

Let us continue to breathe our sorrows to him and wait beneath his feet. He is our only trust.

Number 24 story of the year on September the 6th, Irish teacher Enoch Burke was arrested and sent to jail because he would not refer to a student by their preferred pronouns.

This is not a joke. This is a real story. After he was arrested and appeared in court,

Burke said, I am here today because I would not call a boy a girl.

And he said he is willing to remain in jail for the next 100 years before using a student's preferred pronouns.

Burke is a Christian and do not think that this is an isolated incident. This is an oppression that will come against Christians for wanting to stand on the truth.

And we will see stories just like this one in the next year and even in the years following.

Number 25 story of the year happened on September the 8th. The death of Queen Elizabeth II, who, of course, was the head of the

Church of England. Whoever is the reigning monarch is the head of the Church of England. So now that would be

Charles III. Elizabeth II had the longest reign in the history of the United Kingdom, but only the second longest reigning monarch in the history of the world.

She reigned for 70 years, but it was King Louis XIV of France who was king for 72 years.

That's a record that may never be broken. Incidentally, the number 26 story of the year,

September the 16th, the wave of protests in Iran and how this is affecting Christians and churches there.

As I said in the very beginning, this is a story I don't know a whole lot about, and I'm only just getting caught up on it.

But basically, these protests began with women publicly burning their head coverings and doing the same to pictures of Iran's supreme leader.

The protests started as women supporting other women, but that has since turned into something different.

There have been oil workers, university professors, teachers, students, Christians, people from old and younger generations, all with the hope that the country can be free from the brutal, evil government that has been oppressing this people with such violence.

And not to mention the heresy of the Muslim religion that is being forced upon the people.

Pray that this would be an opportunity for the gospel to go out, that they would hear the life -saving message of Jesus Christ and truly be saved, not just from oppression in this lifetime, but saved from the judgment of God that is coming upon the sinfulness of man.

The number 20, what are we up to? 27 story of the year. This was a story that broke on September the 27th.

Evangelicals want a balanced approach to immigration. Lifeway Research conducted a study in which they found that more than four in five evangelicals describe legal immigration as helpful to the

U .S., and around two in three believe the country should at least maintain the current number of legal immigrants approved in a year.

Specifically, 25 % say legal immigration is helpful, and we should increase the number allowed each year.

40 % see it as helpful, and we should maintain the current number. 19 % believe it's helpful, but we should decrease the legal immigrants approved each year.

As you probably know, immigration is a hot topic in the United States right now, as it's coming about at the end of 2022, that more illegal immigrants have entered the country this year than perhaps ever before in the nation's history.

That's the failure of the Biden administration. Number 28, a story on September the 28th.

John MacArthur wrote an open letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Newsom had been buying pro -abortion billboards in pro -life states. I've seen them here even in Texas, and he was quoting the

Gospel of Mark, trying to tell people that abortion, the murder of unborn children, is somehow loving your neighbor.

Pastor John MacArthur wrote an open letter in which he said, Our church and countless

Christians nationwide are praying for your full repentance. Please respond to the

Gospel. Forsake the path of wickedness you have pursued all your life. Turn to Christ, ask for forgiveness, and use your office to advance the cause of righteousness, as is your duty, instead of undermining it, as has been your pattern.

And then MacArthur quoted Isaiah 55, 6 to 7, Seek the Lord while he may be found.

Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the

Lord, and he will have compassion on him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Governor Newsom, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

2 Corinthians 6, 2. For the Master, John MacArthur. You can still find that letter, which is longer than what

I just gave you, on Grace2U's website. The number 29 story of the year was on October the 3rd.

Phil Vischer, the VeggieTales guy, comes out defending gay marriage and abortion.

Here is the what video that I did about Phil Vischer's change of mind regarding unborn children.

William Wolfe, former White House official, had an exchange with Phil Vischer, creator of VeggieTales.

Vischer said, can you tell me exactly when the Bible allows abortion? William replied, never. Easy. What's your answer?

Vischer said, and what scripture leads you to that conclusion? Have you not read, You Shall Not Murder?

In God's law, justice for the death of a child in the womb is the same as justice for an adult.

You shall pay life for life. In the Gospels, when the Virgin Mary became pregnant and Joseph planned to not marry her, an angel appeared to him in a dream and said,

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the one who has been conceived in her is of the

Holy Spirit. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would be with child, he said, And behold, your relative

Elizabeth has also conceived a son. By the testimony of angels, life begins at conception.

But Phil has lamented on his show about the downsides of making the murder of pre -born children illegal.

He claims to be pro -life but only wants abortion minimized. And he believes it's okay to murder a pre -born child if daddy is a rapist.

He makes Bible shows for children. But he does not understand something as basic as when a child's life matters.

The Bible warns about those wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.

As for you, keep faith and a good conscience when we understand the text.

It was a little later in the year, just earlier this month, in fact, when Phil Fisher ripped on Christians who oppose same -sex marriage.

Really sad to see the direction that the voice of Bob the Tomato has gone, no longer standing on the word of Christ.

He is trying to appease the world. The next story, number 30 story of the year,

October 7th. Really, I had kind of put on this particular date all of the drama surrounding Kanye West.

It was on that date that he had an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News. He said, I perform for an audience of one.

He talked about abortion being the murder of unborn children, and there were a lot of evangelicals that came out in support of Kanye.

But of course, as the drama would continue to unfold, he made some very, very foul -mouthed comments, some things that sounded kind of Nazi and anti -Semitic against Jews.

The guy is just a basket case. So, of course, though he says some things that are certainly true in principle, things about like abortion being the murder of unborn children, many other things that come from his mouth that demonstrate that Kanye really doesn't have the fear of God in him.

Seems like he's being more influenced by the black Hebrew Israelites than he's being influenced by the true words of scripture.

The number 31 story of the year, October the 13th, the controversy of the He Gets Us campaign.

Once again, I turn to a what video to summarize the details on He Gets Us and how it's not really helping anyone understand or come to Jesus Christ.

Perhaps you were watching college football and you saw this strange ad about a teenager who got pregnant and had a baby.

And wait, this is the story of Jesus. Only Mary had to take a pregnancy test and she was sad about it.

The ad directs viewers to a website called He Gets Us dot com. When you go to their about page, they insist they're not a church or political, even though they sell shirts that say

Jesus was a refugee. They say, we simply want everyone to understand and relate to the authentic Jesus as he's presented in the

Bible. But then there's nothing about the Bible. So you go to the topics page and they have articles like, how did

Jesus deal with injustice? How would Jesus be judged today? Why did Jesus cry? But not one of these pages, yes,

I read them all, say anything about Jesus being savior or God. One page says, some believe

Jesus lived a perfect life. For others, that's a stretch. Either way, Jesus set a high bar for himself and for others.

Jesus said you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. If you don't think Jesus lived a perfect life, you don't get

Jesus. If you get on their chat and ask them if Jesus approves of homosexuality, they will say he does.

They'll even connect you with a church that loves your sin. These guys are heretics spending $100 million in advertising to preach a different Jesus.

But evangelical leaders, Ed Stetzer and Kevin Azzell think they're great. Makes you wonder how much they're getting paid.

The Bible says that if anyone preaches a different Jesus, they are accursed. Jesus gets us in that we're sinners in need of a savior.

And he is that savior when we understand the text. Now I mentioned

Ed Stetzer and Kevin Azzell in the video, who is the president of the North American Missions Board.

But there have been other evangelical leaders that have put their full support behind He Gets Us, cooperating with this nonsense campaign that doesn't introduce anybody to Christ at all.

Andy Stanley has been another big voice behind it. Even Relevant Magazine loves the

He Gets Us campaign. Relevant is about as liberal as a Christian publication can be.

Quote unquote Christian. They're not really Christian. They're leftist. But you know, when they put their chips behind He Gets Us, you know there's something wrong with it.

It's not actually introducing anybody to the Christ of the Bible. Number 32.

A report was published October the 17th from the American Bible Society revealing that printed

Bibles remain the most popular choice among Bible readers rather than Bible apps.

So people still prefer printed Bibles to digital Bibles. You might think no one is reading printed

Bibles anymore. Research posted on the report. Actually, print is still the Bible format used most often.

Nearly 7 of 10 Bible users say they have read on their own in the past month from a printed version of the

Bible. But several tech options are vying for second place, chosen by nearly half of Bible users.

So amazing to hear printed Bibles are still the preferred Bible of choice. In the words of my friend

Justin Bullington, buy more Bibles. And if you're thinking about getting a new good

Bible in 2023, might I recommend the Legacy Standard Bible?

I already own a couple and I'm planning on getting another one because they have their reference Bibles coming out that have the cross references in the margins.

I'm looking forward to that. Number 33 story of the year. October the 28th. Calvin University, named after John Calvin, decides that sex outside of marriage is no longer sinful and faculty members that officiate same -sex weddings, which that was kind of part of the controversy, how this whole controversy even started at Calvin University.

They were not going to lose their jobs, but they could continue to decide that indeed a man and a man could be married and even conduct those weddings without fear of losing their jobs.

The student body president, I think it was last year, was a professing

LGBTQ person. So this has been coming in Calvin University for some time.

It's a heretical university. They're not actually teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are proclaiming the sexual immorality of this world.

Eastern University is another seminary this year that voted to allow for the hiring of LGBTQ faculty.

Very, very sad to see so many seminaries going this particular direction. But as we know from scripture, marriage is to be between a man and a woman.

That's from the very beginning in Genesis 1. Jesus repeats it in Matthew chapter 19. The wrath of God is coming against the sin of homosexuality and other kinds of sexual immorality.

Since of course, the decision that was made here at Calvin University is that sex outside of marriage isn't a sin.

Romans 1 .32 says, although they know the righteous requirement of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

I'm going to repeat that verse again in a what video coming up here in just a moment. The number 34 story of the year,

November the 1st, a book entitled The Case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolfe was published.

And it was also discovered in a certain survey that more than three quarters of Republican evangelicals want the

U .S. to be declared a Christian nation. Christian nationalism was a big debate this year, and it will continue to be a big debate next year.

But I cannot recommend the book The Case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolfe as he does not use a biblical basis to argue the case for Christian nationalism.

If there ever is going to be a case for Christian nationalism, you won't find it in this particular book.

The number 35 story of the year, November the 8th, a red wave turns out to be a red trickle.

We expected that the elections that were held in America on November the 8th were going to turn out to be a red wave, that the

Republicans were going to dominate the House and overtake the Senate and make Joe Biden into a lame duck president.

But that did not turn out to be the case. We saw a lot of election corruption still going on.

You know, I mean, the Democrats really have gamed the system in 2020 because of COVID.

With the allowance of mail -in voting, they can control elections from here on out. I don't really see how the

Democrats will ever turn out to truly be losers in elections because we have mail -in voting now.

It is a ripe situation for fraud. The number 36 story of the year, on November the 17th, a controversial

Jeopardy question ignites a worldwide debate over who wrote the book of Hebrews.

The clue, which came from the New Testament category, was the following. Paul's letter to them is the

New Testament epistle with the most Old Testament quotations. One contestant,

Amy Schneider, answered, who are the Hebrews? While another contestant, Sam Buttrey, answered, who are the

Romans? Schneider's answer was deemed correct and Buttrey's incorrect, eventually leading to Buttrey's inability to win the evening.

He lost the game over this particular question. However, the question of who authored the letter of Hebrews has long been debated among New Testament scholars.

And it was because of this debate that I made this what video? The book of Hebrews in the

New Testament teaches from the Old Testament how Jesus Christ is greater than any angel, priest, or old covenant institution.

He is the greater Moses, the greater word, the greater sacrifice. The author says at the end that this is a letter of exhortation, encouraging the reader to endure in faith.

The audience are Hebrews, that they would know Jesus is the Savior whom God spoke about through the prophets.

But who is the author? That's been a debate throughout church history. Martin Luther thought the author was Apollos. Most scholars believe it was

Paul. There's language that sounds like Paul, but it doesn't start like any of his other letters. In fact, it doesn't start like a letter at all.

It's structured more like a sermon. There's also this line in chapter 2, verse 3. How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

That salvation first spoken by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard. Paul would not have said that.

In Galatians 1 .12, Paul said of the gospel that he preached, I neither received it from man nor was

I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Hebrews, originally written in Greek, contains some of the most challenging

Greek in the New Testament. In fact, it sounds like Luke's writing. So the likelihood is that Hebrews is a sermon that was preached by Paul, written down by Luke, so more people could hear it.

Whether Jew or Gentile, the book of Hebrews will equip you in every good thing to do his will by doing in us what is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.

Amen. When we understand the text. So my argument is that Luke wrote

Hebrews out of a sermon preached by Paul. The number 37 story of the year on November the 18th, the season three premiere of The Chosen in theaters.

The Chosen is the largest fan supported entertainment project of all time. You can watch it for free through their app.

But with the premiere of season three, they put it in theaters and it even charted among the top 10 most popular movies in the country.

Now I'm not gonna talk a whole lot about The Chosen here because we're gonna talk about it on next week's episode of the program, when we take down the 10 biggest what videos of the year.

It's looking like the video that I did on The Chosen is going to be the number one what video of the year.

So Becky and I will talk about that next week. As you probably know about this show, it is the story of Jesus and his disciples as chronicled in the gospels,

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and put to screen. So it's a TV show about Jesus and his disciples.

We'll talk more about that and the controversy surrounding the show next week. The number 38 story of the year on November the 28th,

Soccer Baby Jesus at the World Cup. Soccer Baby Jesus, what?

Yes, indeed. As you probably know, the World Cup, the biggest soccer tournament in the world, invited teams from around the globe to compete for the coveted

FIFA World Cup Trophy. One of those teams being Mexico. And soccer fans from Mexico pray to a figure that's supposed to represent the

Christ child, who is dressed in knee -high soccer socks and Mexico's National Soccer Team jersey.

The figure holds Mexico's flag while sitting in a small throne -like golden chair, praying fans hope it will bring a win for the team in the

World Cup. But as you probably know, Mexico did not win the World Cup. Soccer Baby Jesus is so widely recognized, it is considered to be the 12th starter for the team.

This is the influence of Roman Catholicism in the nation of Mexico. The number 39 story of the year on December the 9th,

Amy Grant, after being the first Christian artist to be honored by the Kennedy Center for her artistic achievements, revealed that she was gonna be hosting her niece's same -sex wedding.

And here's the most recent What video that I did about this. In December of 22, the

White House awarded Amy Grant for her artistic achievements, the first time an artist in contemporary

Christian music received such an honor. A few days later, Grant made headlines again because she was hosting her niece's same -sex wedding, and suddenly it made sense how she got her award.

For years, Grant has supported the gay pride movement. A growing number of CCM artists are doing the same.

Reliant K brought on tour a foul -mouthed artist who goes by similar and claims to be queer.

Dan Hasseltine of Jars of Clay, John Foreman of Switchfoot, and Kevin Max of DC Talk are gay -affirming.

Similar comments have been made by Lecrae, Andy Mineo, and Kirk Franklin. You might remember Lauren Daigle's I don't know response when asked if homosexuality is sin.

Members of MercyMe and Elevation Worship have also given ambiguous answers. A church co -founded by David Crowder is now doing gay weddings.

Dolly Parton and Carrie Underwood have won Dove Awards from the Gospel Music Association, though they openly support the

Gay and Lesbian Alliance. Jennifer Knapp, Ray Bolts, Vicki Beeching, and Trey Pearson of Everyday Sunday say they're

LGBTQ. And there will be more. Professing Christians who lust for sex, money, and the world's approval will show what they truly worship.

Romans 1 .32 says, although they know the righteous requirement of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but give hearty approval to those who practice them.

Beware this movement of apostasy by holding fast to Jesus Christ when we understand the text.

Now, when I say contemporary Christian music artists, I'm using the word Christian very loosely there, for they have embraced heresy.

They've gone exactly against what scripture says about men and women and marriage.

My number 40 story has to do with this as well. So let me read this scripture leading into that.

I said a moment ago that Jesus clarified in Matthew chapter 19 exactly how he created marriage to be.

Matthew 19, beginning in verse four, Jesus answered the Pharisees and said, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female?

And said, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate.

It is very tragic to see the direction that marriage has gone in this country, not just the acceptance of quote unquote, same sex marriage, but even how unsacred marriage is treated between men and women.

Fellas hold fast to your wife, wives submit to your husbands as unto the

Lord. Let's honor God with our marriages, make it a goal in 2023.

I mean, change your minds about it right now, but if you have to make a new year's resolution, make this a resolution for 2023 to build up and improve upon your marriage, grow with each other in the

Lord Jesus Christ. It is the most rewarding earthly relationship that you can have.

Take it from someone in a very happy marriage. The number 40 story of the year.

This is the last one on December the 13th, Joe Biden, president of the United States signed into law the respect for marriage act, which is more appropriately titled the disrespect for marriage act.

It is this act that has been codified into law that now guarantees a man can marry a man if he wants to, or a woman marry a woman.

And we're going to see this particular act used against Christians. It will become oppression against the church.

Just wait and see. I will likely have some stories about that next year. If God willing, he allows me to continue to do this podcast for another year.

I thank you so much for listening to when we understand the text and supporting our ministry. The best way you can support us is by watching our videos and sharing them with other people.

That's why they were made. So go to youtube .com slash WWU TT, subscribe to the channel, copy and paste the links on those videos, share them on social media.

You can rip the videos off if you want to, like download them, share them on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook.

I don't care. That's what I created them for was to be shared. I am not monetarily profiting off of those videos in any way.

I'm just glad that the gospel can be shared through the sharing of these videos. Just one aspect of ministry that I do.

My wife and I thank you. And please pray for my wife as she's going to be journeying back from West Texas.

There's like half the country away. She's in El Paso. I'm in Lindale. It's still like an 11 hour trip.

So be in prayer for her and Sonia as they're making their way back to the east side of the state. And she hopefully will be on the program with me next week as we count down the 10 biggest what videos of 2022.

Let me conclude with prayer and then we'll finish up for the day. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness to us for another year.

Yeah, we read about mostly bad news things that happened in 2022. It seems like most of the stuff that makes news is bad news, but we've been given the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And it's that news that keeps us going and motivated every single day. When we know that your mercies are new every morning and great is your faithfulness.

Jesus Christ was given your son to die on the cross for our sins and rise again from the dead so that whoever believes in him will not perish but we will have everlasting life.

If there is anybody listening who is not a Christian, may they be convicted of heart and turn from their sin to the

Lord Jesus Christ and live. Lead us as your people, your saints in the year and even the years to come that we would continue to hold fast to the truth of your gospel, live according to your word and sharing these things with others that many others may come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and live.

Let your mercy fall upon us, Lord. May the gospel be proclaimed in 2023 more than in 22.

But Heavenly Father, we are so anxiously awaiting the return of Christ. Praying with the Apostle John at the end of the book of Revelation, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

May your justice be done in the earth. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. This is

When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web and we thank you for selecting ours.

But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good gospel teaching

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