Episode 99: Keith Foskey, Comedic Fun, & Christmas Festivities

Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

Jesus in a local, visible congregation. There's always next year, Eddie. Always next year?

Yeah, that's what I say as a... Razorback fan. Yeah, perennial... Cowboys fan. Razorback and Cowboys fan.

Hey, don't worry, man. Next year is the year. Speaking of Cowboys, though, as people are listening to this, of course, as we're recording it, it hasn't quite started yet, but we ought to be right in the thick of the

NFR. This is the old saying my youngest son has, and I think it applies to that.

Nobody cares. Yeah, his brothers be picking on him, still be like, no one cares. I care, though.

I guarantee, I promise you, I could be wrong about this. There's not a single person listening to this podcast that cares about the

NFR. Your dad doesn't listen to our podcast? Oh, I hope he does. He might care a little bit about the

NFR. Hey, listen... What is the NFR? Hey, you don't talk yet, man.

I've got to get... The National Finals Rodeo. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Right, exactly. What is... Hey, that's a good place to say that finally, after all these years,

Eddie, we get someone famous on the rural church podcast. That's right.

Not people like Dr. Waldron, but like really famous. Right, yeah.

Why don't you introduce our guest? Yeah, who's that guy? That's right. Who is that guy? Well, our guest today is known by many titles.

He bears the weight of several accolades. He is the husband of Jennifer, father of six children, ranging in age from two years old to 24 years old.

This brother is blessed to be one of the pastors of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

Using the tagline, striving for superior theology and denomination on unity, one joke at a time, the undisputed king of the all meals, and the nicest

Calvinist anyone will ever meet, brother Keith Foskey. Keith, it's good to have you with us today, brother.

Well, thank you both for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, I want to say you're a Calvinist.

It's a big secret. I don't tell people. Literally, it's a big secret.

You're not filming this. So my shirt that literally says you're Calvinist. Yeah, you're

Calvinist. So Keith, I do want to say this. I guarantee you that never in your life, even when in your younger days as a child, you never could have imagined that one day you would be on the

Rural Church podcast. No, you're right. This was not on my radar at all.

Yeah, until a few days ago, he didn't know that the Rural Church podcast existed.

He didn't know NFR existed. He didn't know the Rural Church podcast existed. He just lives in a rock somewhere.

Yeah, I'm oblivious. I don't, it is, yeah,

I'm just out there, man. I don't know nothing. Well, we appreciate you. I'll just tell you, I didn't tell you this before the show, but I really do appreciate you.

I appreciate just, it seems to me that you're a man that doesn't wade into just every online controversy.

I appreciate that. You seem like you're able to maintain healthy brotherhood.

And man, it's just, that's an encouragement to me. This is coming from one that sometimes slips up and grabs that dog by its ears as it's going by.

Not always the wisest. So I appreciate that, brother. We appreciate what you do. And it really is, in all honesty, a joy and honor to have you here with us today.

Well, I appreciate that. And I do hope people recognize that I often do try not to get in the middle of other people's fights because there's a lot of them out there right now.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Eddie, I'm kicking it over to you, man. This is your show today.

Well, yeah, it's interesting because I've been following brother Keith for a few years now.

I can't remember, actually, when I first, I think I first found your podcast back in the days when it was known as Conversations with a

Calvinist, and I was listening to some episodes of that. And then, of course, began to see probably what the most people that would recognize you would recognize you from your short videos, doing the denominational characters, the

Presbyterian. I was sharing it with a brother at our church just this morning, actually. And when

I was going through the way that you'll dress up as each one, and I was describing one, and he said, before I could even get it out, he went the

Methodist. Yeah, that's right. So people will probably know you from that.

So thinking about that issue of comedy, can you share with us just a little bit, and I know you've talked about this on your own channel a lot, but share with us kind of how, not your whole history of getting into comedy, but how you've used that comedic impulse in ministry and in engaging people, both online and simply serving the

Lord. Kind of how do you see that? Well, you mentioned that I had

Conversations with a Calvinist. It actually goes further back than that. My first show was called

Coffee with a Calvinist, and it was a daily show that I did for a whole year, and nobody cared.

And then I did, and then I switched to Conversations with a Calvinist. The daily show was just me talking about the

Bible, and it was started as a way to sort of do daily devotions with our church members. That was the goal.

And then the next, it switched to Conversations with a Calvinist because I started having opportunities to interview people, so it became a weekly show.

Still, nobody cared. I mean, you saw it, but not too many people did. It wasn't that big of a deal.

But we were working on it. My wife and I were really working on wanting it to succeed, and we wanted it to do what we thought it could do, and that was reach a broader audience and make an impact in the

Christian world, which is what you guys are trying to do, which is what every podcast is trying to do. I mean, you're not doing this so nobody will listen.

You want people to listen, right? I mean, that's the goal. And one night, and I don't mean to make this story too long, but I've always been into comedy.

I've always been into performing arts. I was a magician when I met my wife. That's what I did professionally.

I was a professional magician. So I've been in performing arts forever. My wife and I have been married 25 years, so that gives you an idea how long.

But my wife, when TikTok first caught on, and these short videos were all the rage, my wife had this idea.

She said, we should make some funny videos that would point people toward the podcast. They were basically meant to be commercials for the podcast.

That was the idea. It was make short videos. People watch the short videos, find out who you are, and then they'll watch the podcast.

Well, it worked amazingly well, because now most people only know me for the shorts.

They only know me for what we would call at one point commercials. And because the first one we did was the denomination sitting around a table arguing about or having a discussion.

We called it the denominational meeting. And when we posted that on TikTok, it hit 90 ,000 views in one day.

And that was really what we said, okay, there's an audience for this type of humor.

And this is something that we know we can do. My wife and I, again, have been in church together and ministry together now all of our lives.

So we just started making fun of everything we saw in church. And I tie it to everything else.

I did the denominations go shooting. I did the denominations go to a coffee shop. I did the denominations do martial arts.

I did the denominations do Thanksgiving. Denominations celebrate Christmas. And then I did the other denominations celebrate

Christmas, because I left some out. So I had to do a second video where I included Orthodox and Anglicans and people who

I don't normally do. And so it just built. Now I have 37 episodes of the denominational meetings, which has now been two years running.

And I'm working on a Hallmark film. The denominations make a Hallmark movie.

That's the Christmas episode this year. So that's what we do.

My wife and I write the scripts together, and it works really well, and people seem to respond well.

And it points them to the serious stuff, because we do have an entire library of serious material on our website.

Everything from interdenominational debates, of which I've done several, as well as a library of sermons that our church has produced.

We have over 2 ,000 sermons on Sermon Audio that we point people to. So let me ask this,

Keith, because I know I'm just thinking in my mind. I know we have some people that listen, at least from my church.

We have church members that listen, and they don't have a big online presence. So could you just tell them real quick, how could they go?

What was an easy way for them to go and say, I want to listen to some of this? Oh, the best way, just my name, keithfoskey .com.

I had a blessing of a brother. His name is Steve Powell from Fellowship Studios.

He reached out to me about a year ago and asked if he could create a website for me that would bring everything I do together.

Because I'm on YouTube, TikTok, and all these different places, but he made me a website that's like a hub. So just go to keithfoskey .com.

You can find all my sermons. You can find all my debates. You can find all the serious stuff and all the funny stuff, and it's right there.

So keithfoskey .com is the easiest way to do it. Warning, he is a Calvinist. Yeah, absolutely, and that is like every episode.

I'm Keith Foskey, and I'm your Calvinist, sort of like Doc Holliday was your Huckleberry.

I'm your Calvinist. That's kind of the joke. You know, another person that you guys,

I know, both appreciate, he was recently, I think it was just last week, on your show,

Keith, is Brian Borgman. Yeah. And so that's a good episode as well, and I would encourage anybody, go to keithfoskey .com.

You can go to YouTube and look up your Calvinist, and you're going to find a lot of interviews.

They're not just funny, although there's a lot of humor in everything, but really helpful interviews on all kinds of topics.

And so that interview with Dr. Borgman, I found that very helpful on Ecclesiastes. Yeah, Brian's one of the most brilliant expositors in the world today, as far as I'm concerned, top -tier guy.

Yeah. Our man went through his book, Don't Waste Your Breath. That's what I interviewed him about.

Excellent, excellent stuff. On this idea of comedy, now, how should we think of,

Keith, kind of what's your theology of using comedy without making light of, you know, the things of God?

Like, we don't want to make, we don't want to turn the Sunday morning message into, you know, into a bit.

We don't want to turn it into a stand -up show. But at the same time, we do want to use humor, even we see in the

Bible, that the Bible uses humor. So how do we think theologically about the use of humor for the glory of God?

I know that you've taught on that theology before. That's how, maybe shaping that question, too, is like, is there a theology of humor,

Keith? Is there a theology of comedy? So anyway, all that. That's good, brother. That would be good to answer.

Yeah. I actually, I was sort of forced to answer this question a little bit more precisely than I had previously.

Last year, or actually, no, earlier this year, so I guess it was January of this year, I was invited by Uri Brito, who is the pastor of a

CRAC church in Pensacola, which is about five hours from my house. And he invited me to his church to speak to a group of his men.

And it was on the subject of comedy. He wanted me to talk about comedy in the Christian life.

So I wrote a message entitled, The Theology of Comedy. And so if anybody's interested, you can find that on my channel.

It's an entire, it's an hour message. But I'll give you the short answer. I was looking at the passage in scripture which says, a merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones, or withers the bones.

And I addressed both sides of that. I addressed, you know, what is it that means, what does it mean to have a merry heart?

And how does it do good like a medicine? And what does it mean to have a broken spirit? And how does it wither, dry the bones?

And the conclusion that I came to is this is obviously more than just humor.

But that humor can contribute to this. And I tell a story about how one of my elders lost two of his sons within a two -year span of time.

Within 18 months, he lost two of his young adult sons. And when that happened,

I spent, you know, several days at his home with him after just spending time with him, loving on him and loving on his wife and just being there.

And he didn't want me to leave at night. Like I'd stay there all day and I'd stay into the evening.

And when it came time for me to go home, he would like, he always said he didn't want me to leave. And part of the reason was because when

I was with him, we could talk and we could take his mind off of the pain and sort of talk about things that were not related to the struggle that he was currently facing.

And it gave him an opportunity to not get consumed by the grief that he was going through.

And it gave him an opportunity to have a merry heart in the midst of a very grievous time.

And to this day, we still talk about that. We still talk about how sitting and talking and just telling stories and making each other laugh in the midst of grief was actually a form of medicine.

It was a form of balm for him to help him overcome that time of tremendous grief. And so I do think there is something to be said for men laughing with other men, men joking with other men, even to the point of sometimes teasing other men and poking at each other.

I think that's part of how Iron Sharpens Iron is we sometimes get a little even sarcastic with one another, but not in a way that's meant to devolve or hurt one another, but to tease one another and joke with one another and give each other.

How do you know who your friends are? They're the guys who can joke with you. They're the guys who can really, just like you guys were doing before the show.

You guys are ugly. You guys are late. You're saying those things as a joke because you know no one's going to be offended.

It's all for the sake of building camaraderie. And that's how men do.

Men show respect to one another by their willingness to joke with one another.

One of the things I know is if I've got a man in my life I can't joke with, that's a man in my life

I can't be serious with. Wow. You know. It's funny, Keith.

I'm sure you've done this, you guys, but I was like, have you ever thought about it's just a different, you know, it's like one.

There's so many differences between men and women. It's just by God's design, you know.

Absolutely. Can you ever imagine sitting around a group of women talking to each other like men do?

Like, you're fat. You're ugly. You're like, that's how men like build relationships.

That's how women destroy relationships. There's a great meme, and I don't know if you've seen it, but it's two women at the top, two men at the bottom.

And the top says, a woman says, oh, I feel fat. And the other one says, oh, you're beautiful.

You're not fat. And the bottom is the man. He goes, I feel fat. And the other guy says, I know five fat people and you're four of them.

It's like, that's how men do. Like, we joke and we love each other through that.

And it is, I think there's great value in that. Just the simple, like you said, brother, the way we're built.

Where men are built to, we trade in the commodity of respect.

Women trade in the commodity of emotional attachments. Men trade in the commodity of respect.

And how do men show respect for one another? Their willingness to give each other a push and the other push back and then not get angry.

Like, joke with each other. Push each other. Encourage one another. This is why guys in the gym, come on, man, push it.

You're not mad. You're wanting the guy to do well. And so there's a big part of that that I think comes out in humor.

And there's really no other replacement for that. Let me ask you this. How weird is it when some guy sits down, looks you in the eye and says, we need to talk?

That's your Methodist voice. It is. Or somebody says,

I really want to get serious with you about Jesus. It's the most awkward feeling. You know the guy's sincere, but it's like, why do you have to be effeminate?

You're a man. Just say, dude, let's talk. That's how you do it. And so I think there's a straightness that we've lost.

I think we've given over to somewhat of a feminine entity to how men address one another.

And I see this in a lot of the Big Eva stuff. A lot of these guys who are really popular in Big Eva have sort of a feminine mannerism.

And I can't take it. I don't like the other side either. There's the guys who are the field bros with their walking around all tough.

I don't want that either. I just want a normal guy. Somebody I can joke with.

You said the straightness has been lost. Is that a pun? That's a lot.

It could be. Sorry. I'm just getting over a cold. No, what

I mean by that is. Yeah, it's okay. But I do want to add to it. One of our elders and I, he's a very straight speech guy.

And we talk about the value of straight speech and how it's been lost today. Our speech has been feminized to the point where everything has to be nuanced to the hilt.

We can't just speak straight to someone anymore. And we can't just talk.

We have to cover everything in 40 layers of apologies and nuances and all this stuff.

It's frustrating. This is the Rural Church Podcast. One thing that we've talked about before and I've talked about in our own church.

Pastors be willing to just preach truth. Straightforward.

Give it to your people. You don't have to nuance. In fact, often nuancing is a way to dull the blade, if you will.

Here it is a sword to cut so that God will heal through it. But you're not allowing it to cut because you're dulling the blade by nuancing some sort of truth into oblivion.

I've joked a couple of times about, oh, you're a Calvinist. That label, I understand, especially in a small town where we're at and all that.

That can carry a lot of negative things. Sometimes I'm not always just throwing that out there.

We're a Reformed Baptist Church. We hold to the 1689. Look, man, this is just who we are.

There's no need to try to do the Trojan horse method of just sneak this in there.

We're just going to come out swinging like we love Christ. We love the Bible. We love the church. We love evangelism.

We love prayer. Anyway, I'm going off way on a tangent, brother. I'm just thinking about the idea of speaking straightforward.

That really resonated there. Comedy. I'm sorry, brother. No, go ahead, Keith. I was just going to say comedy allows, to get back to sort of the original question of why comedy.

Comedy allows for that. You can say more in one sentence when it's done comedically that might take you a page when you're saying it with nuance and having to qualify everything to the hilt and make sure you don't offend the hims or the hers.

The best example of this, and I don't know how you guys feel about Doug Wilson, but just for a moment.

I was about to mention that you're the Harbor Freight Doug Wilson. I am the Harbor Freight Doug Wilson, but let me tell you what

Doug did say. Whether you like him or not, you have to agree with this. He said in a lesson he taught called

Winsome Tartness, and I talk about this all the time. This was actually a watershed moment in my sort of understanding how humor works in ministry.

He said, if you come across a guy who wants to argue for the inclusion of transgenderism in Christianity, right?

Let's just say somebody's coming up and saying, we believe transgenderism isn't wrong. It should be accepted and fully embraced by the church, right?

He said, you can respond to that with an entire list of theological answers, which are erudite and articulate and able to overcome tremendous objections and explain your position very well.

Or you can just look that guy in the eye and say, I don't think so, Skippy, because that's it.

This is such a ridiculous thing. It doesn't deserve 10 pages of response.

You just look at something so ridiculous and go, you know what? I don't think so, Skippy. We're not doing that. We're not doing that, because that's ridiculous.

And we don't engage in the ridiculous. And so call ridiculous ridiculous. It's funny, but it's also the easiest way to get to the truth is just say we're not doing it.

And you were talking about how the good medicine that humor can be. But even what you just mentioned about there's a time when we can say more with something that's short.

You know, I listened to your episode with Hans Feeney, and he was making that very point in that a lot of his satirical videos are able to say in a couple of minutes what it would take 20 minutes to explain if you were just laying out the theological points.

And so there's a value to the good medicine part of humor. But there's also a way, you know, to get back to the

Harbor Freight Doug Wilson, but there's a serrated edge. There is that satirical idea where we can use humor to sometimes bring it to that point that's going to cut, that's going to actually penetrate and be effective.

We're getting the truth of the gospel, the truth contained in scripture. Even in the

Bible, we see, you know, I think of a story like when they take the Ark of the

Covenant in and they place it in the temple with Dagon. If you don't laugh when you read that story and you see how that it's just it's just pointing and cutting at the idolatry of the

Philistines. Well, then you've missed the point of this, of what's being said there is that Yahweh is so much greater and you should laugh.

You should laugh at silly Dagon laying there with his hands and his head broken off.

You're supposed to laugh at that. Elijah, which is a serious moment, but Elijah is mocking.

He's like, maybe Baal's using the bathroom. Yeah, that's one of the great moments of absolute sass and all the

Bible. Because it's not even like, that goes beyond sarcasm. That's what we call sass.

That's just you're letting them have it. You say, why don't you get, what's your God doing? Is he taking a dump?

Sorry, you can cut that. No, that's fine. But that's what, you know, he's saying, you know, your

God relieving himself. You know, what's he doing? Yeah, it's good. Well, you know,

I've been waiting all episode to try to turn this conversation, but is that what you were about to do or what?

Yeah, that's what I was about to do. You mentioned taking a dump and I was going to say, you know.

What? What? I'm going to turn it this way.

So recently you wrote an article and that article.

If I'm right, it was called Liberal Arguments Against Christmas. And if I'm right, it ended with are actually a steaming pile of reindeer feces.

And so as it is Christmas season, you know, should we even be celebrating

Christmas? Is it not just a pagan holiday that's been appropriated to Christianity?

And we should really get away from trees and we should get away from Saturnalia, which is what we're really celebrating.

I mean, what should we do? I mean, are the liberals right?

Does Christmas belong to Mithras? I know some of that was mentioned earlier, but kind of to turn this from just talking about comedy to really talking about the

Christmas season. I know both of you brothers both love Christmas and I do too. But I know both of you guys are avid lovers of the

Christmas season. So Keith, should Christians celebrate

Christmas? Well, when you ask the question, are the liberals right? The answer is always no. Amen.

That's right. So just keep that in your mind. If anybody says, well, are the liberals right about?

You can just stop them and say, probably not, most likely not. And the answer is no. And here's the thing.

I have a couple of different things that I would point people to. I would point people to the article because I deal with things like the date of Jesus' birth, the history of Christmas trees, the history of even

Santa Claus, which is a ridiculous thing. But I do deal with it in the article. I deal with the accusations that the celebration of Christmas are just all stolen from paganism, which is not true.

And I cite an article in my article of another man who proves emphatically that most of the celebrations that we actually do that are now related to Christmas are less than 200 years old and most of them developed within a

Christian context. These did not come out of ancient pagan rituals and repackaged Saturnalia and stuff.

That's the reindeer feces. That's just a pile of poopy. And so the people connect things because they see these connections and they're just not there.

And I talked about this with Hans because Hans' video called Horace Ruins Christmas.

I used this video to teach. Even though it was a comedy video, he shows in that short comedy video how liberals will often say, well, the story of Jesus is just repackaged

Mithraism or it's just repackaged Horace worship, which Horace was the god in Egypt and Mithras was the god in Rome.

And this is just repackaged. And the reality is it's just not true. It's just fabricated.

There was a movie that came out called Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist tried to prove that all of these gods were actually the predecessor to Christianity and Christianity stole from all these god myths that existed.

But Zeitgeist, a lot of it was just made up. It was stuff that wasn't true. It was based on false information.

And I try to tell people every year, don't apologize for celebrating the

Incarnation because that's what Christmas is. You can talk about Christ mass and you can talk about his connection to Roman Catholicism and all that stuff.

But the reality is it's the celebration of the Incarnation. Historically, the church has celebrated two major seasons of the year, the

Lenten season, which leads up to Easter, and the Advent season, which leads up to Christmas. And whether you want to call it

Resurrection Day and Incarnation Day, or if you want to call it Easter and Christmas, and people say, well,

Easter is connected to Ishtar, the god Ishtar. No, it's not. That's not true. Easter actually probably comes from the

German word Easter, which is the word for the dawn of the day. It has nothing to do with Ishtar, the goddess of fertility.

That is, the connections are tenuous. They're not there. And people make such a big deal about it.

I'm sorry, I'm getting kind of on my soapbox here. But this is a huge deal. People want to make these connections without actually looking them up.

And I've made videos about this. I did a video on Easter where my Lutheran character showed that, no, the

Ishtar connection is not there. So, anyway. Yeah, there's the other side.

So, you kind of deal with the liberal side. But then there's the truly reformed trademark, you know,

Uber reform. And, look, I resonate. So, cards on the table, anybody that knows me at all,

I'm always counting down to Christmas. In fact, we're only three weeks and 12 months away from Christmas 2025.

So, I'm pretty excited. But the idea is, as of today, not when this episode comes out.

But then there's the idea of, well, so I resonate with the Puritans.

But my argument is that, yes, Christmas, especially during the

Puritan time, could have been, or certainly was, drunken revelry for some.

And, of course, you're lashing out against that. You're spawning. But I think they respond too far. I mean, I'm willing to say, hey, look, what the

Puritans outlawed Christmas. I'm willing to say, well, they went too far. Right? And I think

I'm going to actually give you guys just a little out -of -the -way place of a defense. It's from Nahum 115.

I preached on this recently. But Nahum 115 says, behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace.

And then God says, keep your feast, O Judah, fulfill your vows. For never again shall the worthless pass through you.

He is utterly cut off. I'm not going to give an exposition of that. I'm just going to say this. God promised to destroy

Nineveh. And in response, he tells, essentially, the people of Judah, hey, celebrate.

And so there is a theology of celebration that should be present in the

Christian life. Here we are in the midst of darkness. Here we are in the midst of, we're almost to the shortest day of the year.

And yet we are celebrating light. So I'm like, hey, man, I got the tree up.

I got the lights on. We're doing the Advent candle. We're laughing. We're feasting.

We're enjoying. Why? Because God provided a sin bearer. And his name is Jesus Christ.

So there's my spiel. No, I think that's exactly right. I agree. And I, like you,

I have to address my friends in the Reform community who would argue that we shouldn't celebrate any holidays.

Especially those who would say the only holiday the church should celebrate is Sunday, the

Lord's Day. That's the only holiday. Everything else is Roman or whatever. And I say historically, because the

Puritans aren't the first Christians. The Puritans, they're within a context.

Historically, the church has always recognized certain days and seasons as having significance.

Now we can say, well, I don't agree with that or I don't want to do that. Okay. But don't say it's not Christian. Don't pretend like Christians haven't done this for a long time.

As I said earlier, I'm currently teaching a series in church history the first 500 years.

People always talk about the fact that the Council of Nicaea was so important because of the doctrine of the

Trinity. And that is very true. But you know what else was discussed at the Council of Nicaea? When to date

Easter. That was actually one of the issues that was debated, argued, and settled at the

Council of Nicaea. When should we celebrate Easter? Why? Because it mattered. In 325, they actually cared when to celebrate this day.

So yeah, having days is not an unchristian thing.

It's a part of our history. We celebrate. It's like we're wired for celebration.

And there's all sorts of good things we celebrate. For example, you celebrate your marriage. You date the anniversary.

I don't know very many of the... And I'm a Reformed Baptist. I'm happily and gladly and openly in the

Reformed camp. So I'm just saying that there are some among us that are like, well, you know. But I guarantee you they're celebrating their anniversary.

We've been married today 15 years. Well, that's not in the Bible, right? Or they're celebrating their children's birthday.

I don't know how old my son is because we don't celebrate birthdays. Like, come on. Yes, you do. Or you celebrate.

You got a raise at work, so you took your wife out for a nice dinner. Or you celebrate our country, right?

I mean, hey, I'm blasting fireworks off on July 4th, baby. I'm ready. We're doing it. And none of that's wrong.

It's all good. These are good gifts that we should celebrate. So if we can celebrate these things, why can we not celebrate

God becoming man? I want to be gentle with consciences. Look, if someone's like,

I'm not putting up a tree, I'm not going to come down. I'm not like, hey, you know. That's okay. I mean, you don't want to do that, don't do that.

I'm not putting up lights. Okay, fine. But don't be the guy that comes around with cold water and you're trying to throw it on our heads.

Because we just want to revel in the glory of Christ. So on that point, brothers, let me throw something out to you.

We would all acknowledge, I think, feel free to disagree here. But we would all acknowledge there are going to be differences in the way we would celebrate

God's birthday. We celebrate these things in our homes and in our churches. Of course. There are things that would be acceptable in the home that might not be acceptable in the church meeting.

And there may be things that we do in the church meeting that we don't necessarily do at home. I don't know. Maybe. Lord's Supper.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would say that. Lord's Supper is for the corporate body. So what

I'm thinking, especially about Christmas. So I was thinking about that. When you do have brothers and sisters in the church body who are weak in their conscience around these things, they have maybe fallen prey to some of these liberal arguments.

And their conscience is truly troubled. Because they think that the tree, that what

Jeremiah is talking about is a Christmas tree and not a Christmas tree. an idol or something like that.

How do we, how would you brothers suggest that, that we think about how to love them well, uh, celebrate

Christmas, but not in a way that is, I mean, we want to encourage, we want to encourage them.

We want to inform their consciences. We don't want to unnecessarily offend them, but at the same time, we don't want to say, well, we can't have anything

Christian in our church because we got this one family that's got a problem or not

Christian, that's wrong. Christmas, we get everything Christmas related in our, in our church meeting, because, uh, we have this one family that thinks it's, it's, uh, it's a problem.

So what, what would you guys say to that? If we're thinking about how do we deal gently with people's consciences while still celebrating, uh, what

Christ has done? So I'll just say something real quick and then let Keith take it over. But so at our church, one thing

I'm not going to pick on pastors, you know, doing this, like, I'm just telling you what, how we handle it. We don't, we don't put our, we do have a

Christmas tree with some ornaments and stuff on it and lights and all that, but we put that in the foyer.

So we take it out of the sanctuary. Now we don't have anybody to my knowledge. We don't have anybody.

No, one's ever come to me and said that they're offended if we would put the Christmas tree in, in the sanctuary or whatever.

So we just kind of, we kind of try to, uh, separate that we did have last year a family that was visiting, but around Christmas, they stopped, went on and they were hardcore, like they weren't reform, but they were hardcore.

Like, Hey, this tree is, uh, is the Jeremiah idol, you know? And I was like, and sometimes you just have to be like, look, that's just not true and you're just going to have to deal with it.

However, you know, but I do think so for, for me, I am willing to be careful and say, Hey, look, we're not, we're going to take this out.

We're going to, it's going to be in the foyer. That's what we're going to do, but that's just one way we handle it.

Uh, anyway, I'll kick it over to Keith. Uh, brother, I think you're muted. Thank you.

I muted myself to cough earlier and I forgot to unmute. So I apologize. Um, we don't have a tree at the church.

Um, that's just a decision that we made, but we still decorate. We just don't use a tree and it's not because of Jeremiah passage.

It really is just a decision. The elders may, we're just not going to do a Christmas tree, but we are going to, we have poinsettias and we, we decorate, like if you see our.

Sanctuary, you can see it on our live stream. It's our, our, our pulpit and the wall behind the pulpit are white, which is terrible for video, but we didn't think about that before we painted it.

But, um, cause white reflects light. And, uh, but we, we put up red.

On set us all over the chancel and we put them in the windows and everything. So it's a very beautiful time of year.

We have big banners that have the four weeks of Advent, which are hope, peace, joy, and love.

You know, the, the banners are all around. So it's not as if we're opposed, we just choose not to do

Christmas tree just because there have been in the past a few issues, one of our elders specifically didn't, and this was 10 years ago, but he didn't want

Christmas trees. And we, we acquiesced to his conscience. He was an elder and we felt like that was okay. Um, but, but here is, you asked the question of somebody in the church, if somebody came, that man was an elder, so there was a little bit of a different position there.

We wanted to, you know, we wanted within our eldership to have, uh, you know, uh, comfort, but even if we, even if there was somebody in the church who we thought had offended, we would probably address it with them or, you know, have something, we'd have a conversation, but let's say this, let's say somebody came to the church and said, we don't think you should celebrate

Christmas. And we don't think you should have Christmas trees because Jeremiah says you shouldn't. Like, like what you just said, brother,

I would, I would correct them. I would say, that's not what Jeremiah is talking about. Uh, Jeremiah is talking about fashioning a piece of wood, overlaying it with a precious metal and turning it into an idol.

That's not what we're doing with the Christmas tree. Christmas trees didn't exist. At that particular period in time.

And you're reading it anachronistically. So you are incorrect. I do not think that Romans 14 demands that we never correct anyone because that's what it doesn't allow for the tyranny of the tyranny of the weaker brother, you know,

R .C. Sproul talked about that. I've talked about that on my show. We cannot simply because someone disagrees automatically say, well, you disagree, so I'm going to acquiesce to you.

No, there are times where people need to be corrected. And in regard to the issue that we're talking about, sometimes it's necessary to correct people and, um, to do so lovingly and not, you know, not heavy handedly, but that's why

I wrote that article. Um, that article was intended to say, Hey, most of what people are talking about here are just not right.

And spend some time actually studying it. You'll find, you know, you don't have as much ground to stand on as you think you do.

So, so that's, I think it's fine. Romans 14 does not require that everybody in the church gets their way all the time.

That's, that's, that's, that's a good little rule. And you guys are both pastors. So you know what I mean?

If, if we had to acquiesce to everyone's peccadillos and everyone's opinions on every single subject, we'd never be able to do anything because no matter what we do, there's going to be someone who doesn't like it.

So this is why I do think the elders have to sort of set the standard. The elders have to be the ones who are, um, one, they don't have to have their way all the time either.

If it, if for the elders think one way and one thinks the other way, if you have five elders, then maybe that one needs to realize he doesn't get his way all the time, um, just because, but unless it's a real conviction and then the elders have to decide, are we willing to, you know, so there's, there's a lot to, to discuss with that.

But certainly as a church body, we come together and we bear with one another.

That's what scripture says. Bear with literally the word bear means to put up with someone else. That means if, if, if I don't like everything that everybody else is doing, as long as it's not out overtly sinful,

I need to bear with it and get over. Amen. That's good. Yeah. There's, there's so much you could, you could talk about there, but I do think, uh, you know,

I would draw the line of someone's like, Hey, you can't mention Christmas or celebrate Christmas about, look, we're going to do that, but, you know, there, there's some other things, you know,

I'm be willing to, to lay down my preferences for the sake of the weaker brother, you know, for the sake of, you know, like I said,

I'm, I'm not going to tell everybody. Like, I'll give you a great example this year, Christmas on a

Wednesday, this year, we're having a service, um, because it just fits good, you know? So we're going to do an 11 a .m.

service Christmas day. But I've, I've told our church family, like, you're not, this is a Wednesday.

You're not required to come. It's not a, it's not a commandment in scripture that you have to gather on this day, you know?

So if you got something going on, you're going to your family, you're going to grandma, something like that. It's okay. Don't feel guilty or bad about it.

But for those of us that want together and to worship, you know, we're going to do it.

Yeah. I think that's great. Yeah. And, and it's a, it's encouraging to hear that you're doing that.

I think having a service on Christmas is a good idea. A lot of like the Lutherans, they have a, they have a service every Christmas.

Yeah. I think that that's cool. Yeah. Then we were talking about our other elder and I talked about the, uh, the next couple of years, you know,

Christmas on a Wednesday and then a Thursday and Friday is like kind of good days during the week to, to gather.

So we're, we're thinking about, you know, maybe making a tradition if we can. So, uh, that, that's, that's good.

But it's always great. Uh, I feel like the movie elf, you know, uh, to meet someone with, uh, my affinity for Elvish culture, except to meet someone with my affinity for Christmas.

So, uh, I'm, uh, I'm grateful for that, brother. I'm grateful for you coming on today. Kind of winding down here, maybe a few more minutes left,

Eddie, Eddie, anything else that you had on your heart to. No, I think that was, that was great.

And like you said, I mean, there's so much more we can talk about and we don't have time to get into all of it.

I do want to say, and I thought about, I'll say this after we, after we stopped recording, but I want to say it, um, for everybody to hear, uh, brother

Keith, I'm I've really been blessed, uh, by your ability to, to really have helpful discussions with brothers all across the spectrum, you know, your bow tie dialogues.

Very helpful. Um, I, I also, uh, I'm an avid, uh, consumer of, uh, brother, um,

Matthew Everhards, uh, content. And so the discussions you, you have both had, even your, your debate, if you want to call it that the other day was very helpful and so, uh, really, really thankful for, you can talk to brother

Matthew, you can talk to Hans Feeney, you can, uh, you even were able to talk to the fundamentalist

Baptist. I mean, you could talk to anybody, so that very helpful, very helpful content.

And I just want to commend you for that and say how, how I've benefited from, from that content and, and from your gracious spirit.

So it's been good. That's worthy of imitation for sure. Keith, I got one thing and we'll, we'll kind of wind down at this, but we didn't really talk much before about this and like our podcast stuff, but we're called the rural church podcast.

We just, we just kind of started this a few years ago and quit and then started again, but our whole idea is in the podcast world, it seems like maybe the little out of the way places are not, are kind of forgotten about, you know,

I pastor in a town of what depends on which way you're coming into town, but one sign says 1500, another sign says 1300.

So we don't even know how many people are in our town. Eddie's in a small town, small churches.

I just wonder if you have any word of exhortation, word of encouragement for the rural church scene as we close out today.

Well, you know, our church is not a large church, our church, um, you know, for years and years, we were 70, 80 people on Sunday and now we're right at a hundred people regular.

So it's, it's not grown a ton since I've been there, but you know, we've had a little bit of growth, but still as far as churches go, it's not huge.

It's not the smallest church in the world, but it's not a big church. And, um, I have a real heart for small churches and small towns.

I had an opportunity to come up and preach at Burial Baptist, which is there with Wade Lentz, which is where I met you, brother.

And, uh, isn't that right? That's where we met at the church. And, and I was so, I was so encouraged by the hospitality that the church showed, the encouragement that they showed and yet still the heart for wanting to know the word and hearing the word, people were there every night, preach four nights in a row, people were there.

Um, I, I just think, I just, God's people are everywhere.

Every soul matters, whether you're in a small church or in a bigger church, just know that if God has you planted somewhere, bloom where you're planted, be thankful that God has placed you to, to serve his people and serve them well.

And know that, uh, Paul Washer said something years ago, he said, um, he said some of the most beautiful flowers in the world bloom where no one ever sees them, but God.

He said, but God is still glorified. Even if no human eye ever sees those flowers, because those flowers are blooming for the glory of God.

And I thought about that and I thought about my, my ministry and I thought, you know, I have a small ministry, but at the same time,

God sees what I'm doing and he's glorified in what I'm doing. So I'm thankful for that.

So for any small church, any small town, God sees you and is glorified if you're serving him.

That's good, brother. I do have two things I need to say that the first is. I love Wade. I send people to wage church.

I recommend wage church, but Wade's a mega church pastor. You know what I mean? That's a, that's a metropolis man.

But, uh, and then the other thing I was going to say is no matter where you're at, what location you're at, big church, small church, big city, small city, no city,

Christ is worthy of a healthy church. And that's, that's what we believe, what we push for Keith, man.

It's been such an honor to have you on with us today. Thank you for taking time out of your day to come on and to humor us a little bit, to encourage us, challenge us all, all good things.

May the Lord continue to bless your ministry in the days of days ahead. Eddie, you got anything? I would just say,

Hey, everybody go to keithfoskey .com and, uh, enjoy more of this brother's content and we'll see you guys next week.

If you really believe the church is the building of churches, the house, the church is what

God's doing. This, this is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemas, the masterpiece of God.