Jerks For Jesus - Jared C. Wilson Still Trying To Manipulate the Game

All right, well, what you're about to see was supposed to be a Fight Laugh Feast Network Club members exclusive.

And it actually has been for the last year. I looked at my notes and it's been up there for about a year. I recorded about a year ago.

And it was a response to this article by Jared C. Wilson on the For the Church blog, which is a blog

I used to write for before I got memory hold. So I got that going for me. It's called Jerks for Jesus.

It's one of these, you know, anti -social justice meanness articles by Big Eva.

And they actually just retweeted it today. The Gospel Coalition, even though it wasn't a Gospel Coalition article, is sharing this today about three hours ago.

And if you looked, Tim Challies released an article about how to deal with people on social media as well.

And if you remember, Matt Smethurst was commenting about social media the other day. And this seems to be a drum beat in Big Eva right now.

They are trying their darndest to stop the bleeding, I think. They're getting their teeth kicked in on social media, no question about it.

And so they want to switch the game up. They want to make it seem illegitimate somehow. And I've got a lot of content about this exact thing.

If you want to look at some of my previous content, I did a biblical theology on internet trolling and things of that nature.

I talk about this quite often because this is a topic I've thought a lot about. But I've decided to remove this from the members -only section of Fight, Laugh, Feast.

And I want to make it available to the public because I think this is a very helpful article. Like I said, I did it a year ago.

It's just as helpful today. Plus, they're resurrecting their article, so I'm going to resurrect my video.

If you like it, please share it. Please comment on it and all of that kind of stuff. Oh, don't forget to subscribe to the channel as well.

And I will see you in the next video. I hope you enjoy this. What it does mean, though, is I need to put some new exclusive club content into the

Fight, Laugh, Feast network club to replace this one. So anyway, I hope you find this video helpful.

God bless you. Well, welcome to A .D.

Robles and his first members -only content for the Fight, Laugh, Feast network.

Welcome. I hope you enjoy it. I'm excited about it. I hope you are as well. And so we'll see.

I don't know how much content I'm going to put in the members -only section, but hopefully it'll be more than this.

But anyway, what I'm going to do is I'm going to read you a tweet that I tweeted out last week at some point.

It was right after the Founders Ministry trailer dropped. And if you don't remember, I'm in strong support of the original cut of the trailer.

But anyway, I wanted to talk about a quick topic that, you know, I've thought a lot about this.

This is something that I've thought a lot about in the last year or so I've been forced to. I mean,

I'm glad I've been forced to, but I've been forced to really consider what I do online and how I do it and the strategies that I use in order to fight what

I think is a very dangerous movement within Reformed Christianity. And so here's the tweet.

I said this again. This is about the Founders Ministry trailer. And this is after I saw the response to it, all of the people clutching their pearls about how they were so troubled by it and stuff like that.

So this is my tweet. I said this, Today's message to the elites and evangelical intelligentsia is clear.

We don't play by your rules anymore. Your rules sound pious and virtuous, but they aren't.

You have allowed this mess to occur under your noses, and some men aren't going to stand by and continue to let that happen.

We aren't going along with it anymore, and that's that. Frankly, we love Christ and his church too much to allow this to go on the way it has been.

Enough is enough. We don't play by your rules anymore. And a lot of people understood exactly what

I was talking about, but some people didn't. And I think that's fair because I was being kind of vague, and I wasn't intentionally being vague, but it was just sort of a summary statement that I wanted to make.

What I wanted to do in this video is give you an example of what kind of rules I was talking about.

I actually gave a few examples in a video shortly after that, so if you want to look up on my

YouTube channel, I think it's called We Don't Play by Your Rules Anymore, something like that. But here is a perfect example.

This is an article on the For the Church blog, which is a blog that's put out by Midwestern Theological Seminary.

Midwestern, in my opinion, this is just my opinion. It's a Southern Baptist seminary. It's one of the better ones, okay?

So I don't have any shade to throw their way. They are kind of woke, but they're not as woke as some of the other ones, and so I have nothing against the seminary, nothing at all.

But this is an article that I think is not that helpful. It's not terrible though, so I don't want you to hear me say that there's no good advice in this article.

There is actually good advice in this article, but it's imbalanced, and I think that it tries to set up a code, it tries to set up a standard by which it says

Christians ought to live by. That is not a biblical standard. I don't think that it's akin to what the

Pharisees were trying to do. They were setting up their own version of righteousness and holding people to that standard, when it's not a biblical standard at all.

It, of course, draws from biblical passages, of course, but this is what I'm talking about when

I say, I don't play by your rules anymore. Or rather, I said, we don't play by your rules anymore. We don't want your kudos, your pats in the back.

We don't want your speaking positions. We don't want to be held by these rules, because these rules, not only do they not work, but they're not biblical.

They sound pious, but they're not pious. They sound virtuous, but they're not virtuous in many ways that are used as an excuse to be cowardly.

And so, full disclosure, I know Jared Wilson, the author of this article, personally.

I think—I don't know this, I'm not going to accuse him of this—I think he had me in mind when he wrote this article.

We'll see. Anyway, so here's the Jerks for Jesus article. Why the temple cleansing, etc.,

isn't permission to always be fighting. Okay, here we go. I also especially like this picture chosen for us.

He's probably a white supremacist. He's probably in the KKK. Look at him, how angry he is.

Very, very tastefully done. I like it. Okay, here's what he says. He says, it's becoming a common trope on social media.

Certain figures who spend an inordinate amount of time arguing, picking fights, insulting other

Christians, or mocking them with scathing sarcasm or silly memes, when reprimanded, citing the biblical prophets,

Paul's harsh words for heretics, or even Jesus's cleansing of the temple as a defense for constant platform pugilism.

Now, I went to public school, so I didn't know what pugilism meant. I looked it up. It means like a boxing match.

Okay, he says, they are contending for the faith, they claim. Perhaps the motives are good in these endeavors, and I'm sure for some they are.

But I don't think I'm alone in thinking the fruit is not. The spirit is not.

Because certainly the Bible says at least as much, if not more, about speaking the truth in love, not tearing down, and letting our speech be gracious, as it does for, quote, letting people have it.

In any event, what are we to make of the biblical support for this kind of online behavior?

Now, let's just stop right there, okay? This is so interesting to me.

This is so interesting to me, because this is, in my opinion, an example of attempting to pit the

Bible against itself. So, it's clear he doesn't like people being what he would call jerks online, letting people have it.

And what he says is, the Bible says just as much, if not more, about being nice, essentially, is what he's saying.

I'm not quoting him, but that's what he's saying. He's saying the Bible says just as much about being nice, maybe more about being nice, than it does about letting people have it.

So, the problem, though, is it says both. It says both.

We ought to be kind. We ought to speak the truth in love. And we also not tear down, but we also need to let people have it.

And so, we need to account for both. You can't pit the Bible against itself. So, this really isn't,

I mean, he's setting this up as an argument against being, quote, a jerk for Jesus. But even in the first paragraph, it's like, well, but obviously the

Bible does say that you can let people have it at times. And so, I'm just,

I want to accept everything he says in this article. So, if you just accept it at face value, he's got a problem, because the article kind of makes itself irrelevant.

Because what he's going to say is, you shouldn't be a jerk for Jesus. But what he just got done saying is the

Bible does talk about letting people have it at times. And Jared is 100 % right. It definitely does.

And the things that he's quoted are that. The prophets let people have it. Jesus let people have it.

Paul let people have it. Every faithful minister in the

Bible, not every, that's an exaggeration, but most faithful ministers in the

Bible had situations, had occasions, had people that they let have it.

And you need to account for that. Okay, let's go on. And again, we're going to try to take everything at face value and see if it holds water.

I think that the first paragraph, the second paragraph rather, makes it not hold water already.

But anyway, here we go. Number one, the prophets wept and pleaded too. This is something missing in far too many of the online prophets.

Tears. Setting aside the fact that the biblical vocation of God's anointed messengers isn't really a one -to -one correlation with self -appointed pundits on Twitter, we can certainly learn from them and many other places in Scripture that there is a certainly a place within the church for pastoral rebuke, prophetic witness, and courageous calls to repentance.

But this is only one aspect of prophetic ministry. The guy spending all day every day looking for people to fisk, mock, or otherwise use for his own promotion and praise isn't echoing biblical prophetic ministry.

If anything, he is more like the pharisaical enterprise of nitpicking, condemning, and laying traps to catch people in alleged errors or missteps.

Where are the tears, brothers and sisters? Where's the pleading for the objects of your scorn? We know you're angry and have the firmest of your convictions.

What we'd love to see is a softened heart for people, including people who are ostensibly your brothers.

Now, this is what I mean when I say that this article by Jared C. Wilson is not terrible. I think he's right.

I think he's right. Not in the sense that I think that this is missing from online prophets, but what he's right about is that prophets did do this.

Prophets pled with people. They pled with tears. They were anguished for people.

The reality is, again, I think he wrote this article at least partially with me in mind. I can't prove that, of course, but I think he did.

The reality is that I've, number of times, have been close to tears. My voice has cracked on my

YouTube channel. I've pleaded with people. I've begged people. I've been nice.

I've been angry. I've been direct. I've you know, softly spoken. I've done all of these things, but the thing about YouTube and the thing about your online presence that I think people need to recognize, and honestly, for Jared in particular, he's been online for a long time, so he knows this.

You get to curate your online presence, right? It's not real all the time because if it was real, you would see me losing my temper with my kids online.

You actually maybe have seen that in a video before. But you can edit your videos, right? There have been times.

Let me just be honest with you guys. There have been times when I'm talking about black and brown brothers and sisters in Christ who

I think are on a dangerous path, who I think are lost and need to be found kind of thing, where I do tear up.

The reality is that I edit it out a lot of times because it's distracting, and it's not useful, and I start tripping over my words, and I have to stop, and I edit it out because it's not what

I want the video to be about. I don't edit all the times when my voice cracks out, but many of them

I do. So the reality is when you see somebody online, like honestly, I really want you to understand this, and I'm going to use an example, everyone's favorite enemy,

Jordan Hall, right? Jordan Hall, a pulpit in Penn. Look, I know that there are legitimate -sounding criticisms of Jordan Hall, no question about it, but if you pretend for one minute that Jordan is this one -dimensional villain, and everything he does is just villainous, and he never pleads with people.

He never cries. He never has emotions. He doesn't do these things, and he's just one -dimensional.

He's a villain. If that's your view of Jordan Hall, I urge you to remember what you present online.

Do you present all aspects of your character online, or do you curate it? Now, we might say, well, he shouldn't curate it the way he does.

Okay, fine. That's a debate you can have, but let's stop pretending like Jordan Hall, a pastor, isn't pastoral with his flock.

Do you think that if Jordan Hall was vicious with his own flock that people would stay there with him? I suppose possibly, but I think there's a better chance he's pretty pastoral as a pastor.

I mean, look, I don't know Jordan very well. We've talked in a comm box a couple times, and I've never spoken to him on the phone.

I don't know him, so I don't know everything about him, but the reality is you're fooling yourself if you're saying, well, this guy who has this

YouTube channel online, that's just who he is. There he is. He never pleads. He doesn't care about people.

See, that's such a false view of people. Anytime you get this one -dimensional view of someone in your mind, like I say the same thing about Trump, when you start to think of Trump in one dimension, he's

Hitler, chances are you're lying to yourself. Trump is not a one -dimensional person.

Neither is Jordan Hall. Neither am I. Neither is Jared. That's just not how it works.

The other thing about this one too is you can see just sort of the, this is not a fair article.

What he says is, the guy spending all day every day looking for people to fisk, mock, or otherwise use for his own promotion and praise.

He's not doing it because he believes in it. Nope. He's doing it for his own promotion and praise. That's just, it's just not fair at all.

This is just not a fair way to view people. It's not, it's just, it's just, this is, this is slander is really what it is.

It's, it's slander. Now he doesn't use people's names, but it's still slander. You could still slander someone anonymously.

It's possible to do that. Anyway, and by the way, that's why I use names because I want you to know who

I'm talking about so that way you can verify what I'm saying. Am I lying about them or am I telling the truth?

That's why I use names. I think everyone should use names. Okay. Here's number two. Paul was not a

Christian insult comic. Oh, before I move on, this is why

I, so I don't, I don't play by this rule. I don't play by this rule that you have to a certain percentage of crying videos, a certain percentage of pleading videos, a certain percentage of angry videos.

That's not, I mean, that's, that's, that's a, that's an unbiblical standard. It's not a standard that any of the prophets met. It's not a standard that Jesus met.

He didn't have a certain percentage. What he did do is though he did, he did reserve his mock, um, his mockery and his rebukes for certain class of people.

It was usually the leadership. That's a, that's a, that's an example I like to follow. So anyway, let's go on.

Number two, Paul was not a Christian insult comic. Like the old Testament prophets before him, Paul issued more than a few harsh words for both brethren and heathen alike.

Okay, full stop. Exactly. And so what you just said, isn't a good defense.

You just cite it as a defense of having a ministry where you mock and rebuke and have harsh words for people.

So again, if I'm taking you at your word, what is the problem for being a quote jerk for Jesus? How was

Paul not, uh, open to the same, uh, the same criticism could not have someone in Paul's time said,

Paul, I mean, you're, you're really being a jerk when you told us to cut our balls off. Like could not have someone said that.

And, and if, if they couldn't have, why not? You see what I'm saying? Like, this is just not very helpful.

It's not very balanced. It doesn't do the work that he's hoping for this article to do. Anyway, let's continue. He's telling

Judaizers to emasculate themselves. Excuse me. He's in Peter's face. He's not shy about actually contending for the faith.

And it's a key facet of his apostolic ministry. And yet to take these instances as a defense for an entire online disposition of harshness,

Mrs. Paul, by a very long shot, the general tone of Paul's ministry to the lost and to the church was one of gentle, loving, fatherly shepherding.

It was evident that he cared about those he interacted with and the harsh rebukes were exclamatory interludes in the normal course of his ministry, not the other way around.

So until we find an entire letter, that's one of X or X I went to public school.

I don't understand that word and sarcastic directive after one another, no, your steady stream of insults, making fun of all the other

Christians who are getting it wrong. Isn't Pauline, not even in the slightest. Again, this is, this is taking this one dimensional view of people online and saying, well, that's it.

If you look at my videos again, I, I know this looks like a defense of myself and it sort of is. I don't have a problem defending myself.

Some of my videos have harsh words. Some of my videos have direct mockery.

There's no question about that. And some of my videos don't, some of my videos are pleading. Some of my videos are teaching.

Some of my videos are patient. Some of my videos are calm. It's a mix, just like Paul, you know what

I mean? And I think that if you were honest with yourself, a lot of the ministries that you would say are jerks for Jesus are like this as well.

It's not just all one thing. Usually. Okay. And I'd be open to hearing examples of the kind of things that he's talking about where it's inappropriate.

I'm open to hearing that it's not a problem for me, but what I'm saying is that, um, the fact that Paul insulted people, the fact that Jesus insulted people means that in order to be following the example of Christ, there are certain situations.

There are certain times and certain people that we should insult and mock. If, and let me just turn this back around on the person who would make these arguments.

So this, this article is about jerks for Jesus, right? And I'm going to say this, look, you, you don't think we should be jerks all the time.

Granted. I agree. We shouldn't be jerks all the time. We shouldn't insult people all the time. We shouldn't rip people all the time, but we should rip people sometimes.

And if you don't rip people sometimes, and if you don't insult people sometimes, and if you don't mock people and have harsh words for people sometimes, then you're, you're the one with the problem because you're not actually following Jesus's example.

If you say kind words to people that are killing the flock and eating widows and, and, and, and, and stealing from the flock and fleecing the flock and leading them astray.

If you've just got nothing but kindness for them and you don't harshly rebuke them, you have the problem.

You see, this is why I say it's imbalanced because this is good advice. You can't be a jerk all the time. You can't rip people all the time.

Granted, completely granted, but you have to, sometimes you have to sometimes, and if you don't, you're the one that's imbalanced, not me.

Okay. Number three, you aren't Jesus. I really, this is the one that, that really gets me.

So here he goes. I've seen the meme, perhaps you have as well. It's an artist's depiction of Christ's cleansing the temple with the big white block letters reading, the next time someone tells you to be

Christ -like, remind them that overturning tables is a real option. There are a number of variations of this meme out there and it's shared textually often, textually often, contextually often in the defense of someone's harsh demeanor and unedifying speech towards believers.

The idea is that since Jesus overturned the tables and drove out money changers of the temple with a whip, verbal exoriations,

I got to look up that word. Listen, I can't be blamed for this. I went to public school.

I don't know what that word means. Maybe someone in the comments could tell me. Aren't really even that bad.

But the fact remains that temple cleansing first wasn't what Jesus did every day. Well, okay. Spiritually speaking, perhaps it was.

You see what I mean by this article is just a mishmash. I mean, there's some helpful advice here, but there's no balance and it doesn't do the work he wants it to do.

Let's continue. But the gospels only show him using that whip twice at the most. It's not like he kept it by his bed and got up every day looking for names to take.

Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you the biggest butt whooping of your life. No, like the prophets,

Jesus wept over his countrymen far more than he cursed them publicly and verbally. He longed for them to see his glory and the normal course of his ministry was pastoral, caring for the lowly and sick, confidently teaching and storytelling, speaking words, not of condemnation for the world already stood and condemned, but out of grace.

On top of that, citing the temple cleansing is a curious defense of one treating others harshly. To begin with brothers, you aren't

Jesus. Stop. Would you stop this? This defense of this kind of an idea is so stupid.

Brothers, we know we're not Jesus. Okay. We know this is stupid.

Stop saying this. Imagine if someone was doing something good and saying, look, I'm going to try to obey God and everything.

Love the father with all my heart. I'm trying to love my neighbor as myself. And someone said, what do you think you're Jesus? We are supposed to follow

Jesus's example. All of it. That includes harsh words for people that are dangerous.

That includes mocking people who need to be mocked because they're leading people astray.

That includes taking down someone, a few pegs that needs to be taken down a few pegs.

There are times for both things. There are times to speak calmly and gently and with, and with, with, with passion, compassion for, you know, for, for, for the center and things like that.

There are times to plead with people. There are times for that, but there are times to zing them as well. So if we're going to be

Christ -like, we need to try to discern the difference between the two. And the advice in this article that I really like is it should be a balance.

It should be times when you're, when you're talking nicely to the woman at the well, but there should also be times when you're telling someone that they're a tomb.

They're a whitewashed tomb, look good on the outside, dead on the inside. There are times when you need to mock people there and we have to discern the difference.

I'm not saying you don't be careful with that. It's not flamethrower all the time, but if we're going to be Christ -like, you need to have both.

You need to have both. When someone's coming in and fleecing your flock with critical theory, it's not time to say how much of a wonderful person they are and how you should listen to everything they say and all that stuff.

That's not the time for it. So yes, we know we're not

Jesus, but you need to follow Jesus, his example, all of it, not just the kind that you like, not just the kindly, the kindly patient kind, not just the kind that only says gracious words to people.

Look, Jesus's words were always gracious, but we have to have a definition of grace and kindness that includes the possibility of mocking someone.

We have to, if we're going to follow Christ's example. We just have to. Here he continues.

There are things that... Oh, Jared. Is this really where we're going?

Okay, let's just read it. There are things Christ did that we cannot and should not replicate.

He died for the sins of the world. Oh my goodness. He died for the sins of the world.

You and I can't do that. He healed the sick. You and I probably can't do that. None of us can be

Jesus. Jesus was Jesus, and because of that fact... Jesus was

Jesus because of that fact, and his cleansing of the temple was a unique event, an apocalyptic act in a space that he owned.

The temple cleansing in the context of Christ's ministry and the inbreaking of the kingdom was an act of messianic judgment.

You charging key denominational leaders with being George Soros -funded Marxists isn't quite the same thing.

You're right, Jared. It isn't quite the same thing. Okay, so what is your point?

I don't see any of the people that you're talking about making whips and cleansing the temple, okay?

We're not Jesus, granted. I don't see any of the people you're talking about saying, oh, we can die for the sins of the world.

Yeah, we can heal the sick. I don't see it. I do see some of them calling some people

George Soros -funded Marxists. That's true, but what's your point? Is it true or is it not true?

If it's not true, okay, then that's slander, right? If it's true, what's the problem with it?

You see, this article, it's meaningless. It's in its main thrust.

Again, there's good advice here, but it's not good advice that I think is new to anybody. We all know this.

Everyone that's doing online ministry knows this stuff. This is true. We can't just be flamethrower all the time.

I get it. I get it. We're not Jesus. I get it. I mean, yeah,

I get it. So what's the point? I just don't understand.

The thing is, you're not Jesus. Okay, neither was Paul, but Paul told people to cut his balls off.

Cut their balls off, right? Was that okay that Paul did that?

Or was he open to the charge of being a, quote, jerk for Jesus? Would you, if you were in that time, written a blog article about how

Paul was unloving? This is a question that we need to ask, and this is what I mean by we don't play by your rules anymore.

This tries to set up a system that Jesus himself doesn't meet. If it's not a sin to mock people at times, then stop holding me to that standard.

That's the point. That's the point. If Jesus won't meet your standard, your standard is nothing.

It means nothing to me. Nothing. I know I won't get to speak at your conference.

I get it. I don't care. I know I won't get a book deal. I don't care.

You know what I mean? I don't hold myself to your standard. Now here's, here's the, here's where it gets.

Okay. Isn't it possible, just possible, even if not probable that because of the deception in our own hearts, that we may be more harsh than we ought to be.

Jared. Yes, definitely possible. Definitely possible. This is a fact

I think about almost every single day. Every time

I do a video, I think about my tone. I think about what's necessary.

I think about what would be most effective. I think about my heart and sin against God. I think about making sure that I'm not going overboard, but also that I'm not going under board.

If that's, I don't know if that's a phrase. In other words, I'm making sure I'm not going too far.

I'm trying. I'm trying to make sure I'm not going too far, but at the same time, I'm trying to make sure that I'm not, not going far enough.

And so I ask you, Jared, and anyone who holds this kind of opinion, what are you doing to make sure you go far enough?

And I'm not saying that you have to, you're not held to my standards. See, I wouldn't hold you to my standard.

I wouldn't say, well, you need to be harsher. Otherwise you're a wimp for Jesus. I wouldn't say that.

This is a personal thing between you and God, right? I'm not making a yoke, a burden, a standard based on my own opinions for other people to use.

But you can't hold me to a standard that's not biblical. There's a time for harshness and there's a time for gentle words.

And we need to discern the difference between both. We cannot say that you can't be a jerk for Jesus because you're not

Jesus. You can't mock. You can't say harsh words. You can't say aggressive things. You can't make a whip of cords because you're not Jesus. He continues.

He says that in fact, what we think is Christlike behavior doesn't strike men. He is genuinely favoring the aroma of Christ.

Well, I honestly, and I say this with as much candor as I can, don't care if people that are dangerous to the church think that I'm being mean to them.

I don't care. What I care though is what God thinks about what I do. And I care about what others say about me.

And let me, let me rephrase that. I care about others opinions about what I say. And that's why I've got people in my life and people in my life that can say, look, man, maybe you crossed the line there.

Maybe you crossed the line there. Maybe you should reconsider. I listen to people like that. I do. I do. What I won't listen though is when people say, well, you can't, you engage in any kind of harsh words, mockery or jokes or insults or anything like that, because I know that's not biblical.

So if that's what you're going to come to me with, I won't listen to that because it's not biblical. But if you come to me and say,

Hey man, this is an example of where I think you crossed the line. And I think you crossed the line. Here's why I'll listen to that, man.

I will. And I think all the people you're talking about probably will. Isn't it possible?

He goes on. Isn't it possible you're contending for the faith, but you're just being a jerk that you aren't contending for the face, but are just being a jerk.

I asked you, would Paul have been open to that charge? What would prevent it? What would have prevented him from being open to that charge?

He said, let, let, let any of us take heed. Let any of us take heed. We stand, take heed.

We stand, lest we fall. And let's remember that the Bible says too much about the danger of the tongue and the poison of anger for us to take these matter matters lightly.

And again, that's where I say that the article got good because that's true. You should all consider that in your online interaction.

I need to consider that in my online interaction. And I do. And I try my best to walk a good line, to walk a line of balance between, you know, maybe having harsh words and maybe being more patient.

I try to distinguish who I should use, which strategy with, with, with what, what situations

I should use, which strategy, which with, and that's the reality.

But, but, but here's the thing. This is why we don't play by your rules anymore. This is why I wanted to use this article because this article attempts to set a standard for you.

And it's just tempting to say, this is what Christian behavior is like, and this is what Christian behavior is not like. And it's a standard that the

Bible can inform. And it does inform in some ways in this article, he uses Bible verses well, but it's imbalanced because it says we can use these

Bible verses over here about being nice, but we can't use these Bible verses. And these examples over here of being direct and harsh and rebuking as much because why you're not

Jesus. So you can't. And honestly, that's just not a, a balanced view of Jesus.

It's not a balanced view of Jesus, because if Jesus would not meet your standard, then it's not a real standard that I need to worry myself about.

It just isn't. If Paul, when he says imitate me, if Paul doesn't meet your standard, then

I'm sorry, I trust Paul more than I trust you. You understand what

I'm saying? So, so yes, we should all consider our tone. Yes, we should all consider how we engage in what we engage in, who we engage in, how we engage in all this stuff.

But this kind of a standard, this attempt to set up a, a standard that just doesn't make any biblical sense whatsoever to use is not something that I'm going to take seriously.

And I don't think anybody should. And so that's why I say this is not helpful. We don't play by these rules anymore. Yeah, we might have to play by these rules if we want conference speaking gigs and, uh, and book deals and, and, uh, teaching positions and stuff like that, but we don't want that.

We want to honor God and we want to fight for God's cause and that's what we want. And so we're going to go by God's rules, not yours.

We don't play by your rules anymore. Anyway, I hope that this was helpful. God bless.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that. You know, I, I had a good time doing that video and I think the content will be very helpful for you.

If you'd like me to continue talking about this topic for this week and maybe respond to that Tim Challey's article about how to love your enemies on Twitter or whatever, uh,

I'd be glad to do that. I thought that was actually a pretty decent article as well. Although again, very similarly imbalanced, which we just have to face it.

Big Eva is going to be big imbalanced in that way as well. They certainly like the very lovely side of Jesus, but they don't seem to like the zealous side of Jesus quite as much.

Um, but I, I I'm committed to liking it all. I'm committed to following the whole example and I think you ought to be as well. Um, if you instead want me to respond to their article about rare steaks, which people have found to be really stupid, but I learned something.

I mean, I, I didn't know that that red liquid wasn't blood, but anyway, if you wanted to respond to that, I'll do that. Or if you have another idea, please contact me.

I'd be glad to, to, to take requests. I don't, I can't promise to do every request, but I'll certainly try to do the ones that I think will be the most beneficial to the most people.