Robert Canipe: Is Podcasting a Ministry? DMW#203

Dead Men Walking

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Exploring Theology, Doctrine, and all of the Fascinating Subjects in Between, Broadcasting from an

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Undisclosed Location, Dead Men Walking starts now! Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking Podcast.

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I'm your host Greg Moore, thanks for coming along on the ride, thanks for sharing with a friend, thanks for going to dmwpodcast .com,

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checking us out there, we've got a merch site as well, you can support the show, pick up a snarky t -shirt, a mug, something like this here, if you're watching on YouTube right now, the

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Dead Men Walking Podcast mug, we appreciate it, it helps us do things like go to conferences, get guests, put out content, so we do appreciate that, and actually, when you're listening to this, it'll be about three weeks until we get to the

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Y -Kelvinism conference down in Tullahoma, Tennessee, and we'll be doing some live podcasting there, so um, he's looking out for that, sorry.

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So let's get right into it, because usually, you know, I say a few words, or I, you know, goof around a little bit on here and talk about something, but I want to get right into it with our guest.

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He is a, well, I'm gonna read the official bio here, okay, he's a servant of Christ, husband, father, foster parent, he's been in ministry of some kind for 25 years,

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Gardner Web U alum, elder, pastor at FBC Newton, co -host of the Truth and Love Podcast, love those guys over there, co -host of the

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Laborer's Podcast, another good one you need to check out, founder of Truth and Love Network, which has a whole bunch of great podcasts on it, and he fixes water lines for a living, and loves family history, it's

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Robert. Robert, how are you, sir? I'm doing well, how are you? Now, make sure that you say the last name, so we get it right, because I almost,

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I think I was going to mispronounce it. How do you say the last name? Canipe. Canipe, okay, yeah,

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I would have said it wrong, absolutely. So, I've watched some of your stuff when you're doing stuff with Claude Ramsey, who's been on the show before,

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I've seen some of the live streams you guys do, I've listened to a few episodes over the last year or so, but I'm really not too personally familiar with you, so I wanted to have you on the podcast so we could just talk about, one, what it is that you're doing over there in the

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Truth and Love Network, what it is to be in podcasting, how do we view that, is it a ministry, is it something extracurricular, and I thought, you know, no better person than you, who's been around it for a while, and who does a really good job and puts out a lot of good content, but before we do that for our listeners, can you introduce yourself, give us a little short bio,

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I know I introduced you, but give us the origin stories of Robert. So, yeah, that was a really short, but succinct and very good bio,

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I can't add much more to that, I started podcasting around January 2020, right before COVID, right before anybody knew anything about COVID, I tried to go back, scroll back through all the videos and see what the actual date was, so it was right before COVID is when

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I started, and we'll probably get into this, because our subject is going to be podcasting, and so I'm sure we'll get into my philosophy of podcasting and why the network and why we do what we do, but I was just like so many other of us, we have

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Facebook, we're scrolling through Facebook, we're in Facebook groups, and at that time, it's not, it doesn't seem to be as popular now as it was then, but in these

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Facebook groups, popping up on my feed, I would see all these folks going live in these groups, and they would be selling their wares live, and you could purchase them, you know, live or whatever, and it was just an array of different products, and so many people were doing it, and I was like,

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I can do that. I can, I mean, Facebook is free.

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It allows you to go on there live or record or whatever. You can put a video on Facebook. I can get on Facebook. I can get in these groups, and I can share

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Jesus with my community, and so that's at the origin, and still to this day,

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I think my focus and my heart is for my community and reaching out to the everyday church -going folks.

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That's what I'm thinking about, and so that's kind of how I started. I was like,

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I can do that. I can get on there. I was looking for an outlet anyway, and so I wasn't looking for a platform.

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I wasn't trying to copy anybody else or follow anybody else's way of ministry.

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I was just looking for an outlet, and there it was. Yeah. Yeah, kind of in the same boat with you, we started this podcast.

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I say we. I had a co -host at the time, April 2020, so it was right about a month after I was, as a real estate broker, the governor said

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I was non -essential, so I had about a nice 12 -week vacation there, and I said, well, let's start a podcast, and now we're coming into our fourth year this year, so absolutely, it's cool when the

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Lord provides you those opportunities, and what kind of stuff are you guys talking about on the podcast, on the

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Laborers podcast and also co -hosting the Truth and Love podcast? So I guess we're still trying to figure out our niche, so we have done book studies, books of the

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Bible, chapter by chapter. We've been trying to hit some of the hotter topics within, it seems like probably our circles, eschatology, the gift of the

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Spirit, and also going back to Scripture. After we do those more topical podcasts, it seems like on my podcast,

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I would do the Truth and Love or the Laborers podcast with the collaborators in the

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Truth and Love network, but then on the Truth and Love podcast, I co -host with Dan. We seem to tackle more of the books and go through the books where we break down where we get our doctrines from in those topical podcasts that we do.

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No, that's good. So what is the Truth and Love network for those listening? What is it when you say,

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I have a podcast network? Okay, so the Truth and Love network was kind of birthed out of, and for lack of creativity, it carried over the name of our podcast.

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And of course, even that podcast transitioned with different names, but then it was birthed into a network because the

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Lord so graciously and out of His kindness brought other brothers, like He's doing now with you and I, who are other podcasters, other content creators, brought them into my life, and they graciously accepted the offer to collaborate.

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And so it started out as a collaboration. Hey, let's get together and do a podcast on a certain night and we'll talk about different things.

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And the collaboration podcast, of course, developed into the network to where we, of course, we have a chat room.

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We pray for one another, support one another, love on one another, support each other in their personal life, on their podcasting.

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And so that's basically what we do in our network is really love and support one another in what we're doing in our ministries, and then come alongside one another ministering together.

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And one of those things, you talk about upcoming conference that you're having in the same general area in Eastern Tennessee, we're going to be, you mentioned

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Claude Ramsey, we're going to be at his church at Reformed Baptist Church at the end of April. Last weekend of April, we're going to have our second laborers conference.

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So we're looking forward to that. You can check more out at laborersconference .com. Are tickets still on sale for that available?

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It is actually a free conference. Oh, wow. You've heard the old saying, you get what you pay for, but I promise these guys, these guys are quality guys.

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And the free aspect of it comes from those of us who have been going to conferences and traveling with youth groups for many years and everything costs so much, travel expenses.

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And we want to do our part in offering good content, good preaching, great fellowship, worshiping the

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Lord together at no cost to the best of our ability. So we're having to raise some funds for the travel costs and all, but there's no ticket prices.

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Seating is limited. So we'd encourage you to register if you are interested in coming, and you can do that at the website, laborersconference .com.

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Laborers conference. And we'll link that up. So we'll make sure that that is attached to this episode here so people can just click through if they're interested.

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So I'm always interested in asking this question, especially to someone who's either elder, teaching elder or pastor at or of a church.

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And this is going to get us into our broader subject here, which is how do you view podcasting? Because I was just talking to a gentleman,

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Keith Foskey, I think you might know him. Maybe you know him through Claude. He's been on the podcast a few times, and we were talking in a group chat on our phones, and he was talking about, does he view it as a ministry?

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Is it a paraministry? Is it part of what he does as a pastor? And then even saying for those who aren't pastors, such as myself, who are walking through the

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Word and talking about theological and doctrinal issues and things like that, how do I view it? And that was something where I started out four years ago, and I just went, oh, well,

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I want to interview people that are interesting, that I can learn from, that pique my interest, that might be able to explain something to people that they don't necessarily understand.

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And I've always said it's like cheating for me. It's like getting another sermon every week. When you have guys like James White or Claude Ramsey or yourself, or even people who you disagree with a little bit, but look at the perspective, like Sam Storms, or we have guys from Ligonier.

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I mean, the list goes on and on, Doug Wilson, all these guys. And I go, well, geez, I'd rather enjoy just sitting here and asking questions and getting great answers, but also at the same time going, well, there is some type of responsibility that I have as the audience grows and people listen and comment and send in questions or comments.

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I'm kind of wrestling with, well, then how do you kind of view that? I was wondering as a pastor, how do you view the podcast that you either host or co -host?

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Are you looking at it as part of a, is it a official ministry or non -official ministry or what do you think?

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So it depends on how you define those categories. Sure. You know, a 501c3 or not.

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See, I've started off trying to use everything as inexpensively as possible.

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So I have inexpensive equipment. The Lord has graciously advanced technology and you can just jump on here and do it free if you wanted to, be on YouTube or Facebook and do it all for free.

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And you can do it inexpensively if you wanted to. And we may incorporate so many answers from your questions here into this one segment.

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We'll start with the big one up front. Yeah, the big one up front. And before I forget, I'm glad you mentioned Keith Fossey.

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He's actually part of our network and he's going to be preaching Sunday morning at the Labor's Conference at Rep.

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Armando Baptist Church. There you go. I'll come full circle. Absolutely. So how

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I view it, I was trying to think, come up with the definition of Christian ministry.

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And I said it like this, any act of service to glorify God in the name of Christ. And so I'm sure you've heard teaching, you've heard preaching that says all

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Christians are ministers of something. You can minister in everything that you do.

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And of course, there's different categories of ministries, different levels of ministry. Vocational, some people nowadays don't even like to use the word vocational ministry.

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But vocational, where you do it full time, you get paid or voluntary. All these things are ministry service to others to glorify

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God in the name of Jesus. And so that's what we're doing as podcasters. It's not to, and I was talking to a gentleman who may be interested in coming onto the network and I was telling him, look,

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I know, and all the guys in the network know, your family comes first. Your church is your number one priority.

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This is supplemental, even as a contributor to the podcast, your contribution to the laborers podcast that where we collaborate together is a no guilt, come when you're available podcast, because your life busy, you have other priorities.

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And so you have to be mindful of that. But if you do this,

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I see it as a ministry. I see it as a wonderful ministry, a way to supplement, a way to reach people that may otherwise not be reached.

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And you reach people that I can't reach. You touch people that I can't touch and so on and so forth, vice versa.

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And that's the same way with the guys on my network or our network.

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You've got a guy in Colorado, guy in New York, two in Florida, two in South Carolina, two in Tennessee, several here in North Carolina.

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You know, we're all over the place. And so we're, we're supporting one another in, in reaching people that we normally may not have been able to reach otherwise.

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And yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty amazing how technology can be used for good or evil.

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It's like for everything you hear about, you know, phones and the access to stuff you have on there and what can be used for the flesh.

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Technology can also be used to glorify God. And like you said, very inexpensively reach a wide audience of people, advance the kingdom, preach the gospel, glorify

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God and all those things. And I'm amazed by that as well too. But I'm also, the longer

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I've been doing this, I get, there's a seriousness about it because there is, you know, a type of accountability when you're speaking on a microphone or if someone's listening to you weekly or biweekly or monthly or whatever it is, there, there is a responsibility that I've started to take a lot more seriously with maybe the way

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I say something or the jokes I make or the content that I'm covering or, you know and I think that's, that's good because I think we should be that way anyway, right?

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When we're out in public, when we're around non -believers, believers, whatever, right? We're always reflecting Christ. So I've taken that seriously.

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The other issue I had with when I started a podcast and let me know if you felt the same way about this Robert was, you know,

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I knew some young guys that would almost substitute their, their pastor sermons for the podcast that they wanted to listen to.

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And in a few cases, I had some guys that were not going to church, but they're like, Hey man, I'm getting it in my podcast.

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I'm still getting the sermon in. Right. And I've said many times on this podcast, if you're listening to this podcast, you're a believer and you're not in a church, go, go to a

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Bible believing church, submit yourself under authority to your pastor, pastors and elders as the Bible calls you to do. That's the number one thing.

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Don't, don't be listening to me or anyone else in substituting that for your shepherd. And I had a real issue with, with not wanting to be you want to make sure that I'm not part of that group.

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Not that I think anyone's, you know, I'm so great. They're just listening to me. I'm saying in general, okay.

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Uh, you know, you see a generation where look at, uh, Jen, Gen Z and the younger millennials leaving churches, not going back, uh, watching their videos, listening to their podcasts.

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And, and it's just tough because as podcasters too, and you're in the ministry, you're, you're, you're a pastor and an elder as you know, they, they need to be in fellowship with other believers in real life under this, uh, authority of a pastor and elder.

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So was that something you thought about as well to, um, also just being a pastor and you're, you're talking and probably counseling and leading people spiritually that are not members of your church.

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I mean, do those things kind of roll around in your head when you started podcasting or was it, no, I look at this, like you said, um, it's just an extension of, uh, of a ministry of who we're, who we're all called to be in Christ.

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Absolutely. And I've been thinking about this for a while. And this was one of the reasons why I sent this as a option to talk about, because I think this is such an important conversation to have.

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And I really think that, um, not because of my influence or anything like that.

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I think this conversation is going to come up maybe in, in higher levels of, of our Christian conferences or higher platforms in, in podcasting.

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Uh, I really do think this conversation is going to come up and I, and I really liked the word that you use responsibility.

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Um, you talked about the listeners, no exception podcaster or listener that just like I mentioned before, your priorities, your family, your home church, whether that's your time or your money, that that's your priority.

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Um, the conversation that I think we, we need to have, because you were talking about the listening and podcasters have a lot of influence on those, especially those mid, um, listeners that you were talking about who, who really listen and maybe listen to podcasts more than they do their sermons.

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They, and I have been influenced by podcasts and been influenced by, um, um,

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TV ministries. Um, and, and I, I really think that many of us, um, who are podcasting now, if we were to sit down and talk,

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I think we would have very similar stories about how we got to where we are. I really think that we would, um, similar influences, but the conversation that I think we need to have is responsibility and where, where your heart was and what you were talking about.

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And, and I don't know the solution, but, and, and I don't know that there really is one because we're not a church.

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We're, we're all doing our, our separate ministries. So I really think it's going to come from the, the same spirit that we have living with in each of us is going to have to steer us all in the same direction, uh, toward this responsibility because we're, we're not going to form some kind of, um, hierarchy where we're responsible to, to somebody.

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So it's going to take a lot of personal responsibility and maturity that you were talking about.

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Um, because I understand where people coming from where, and I think is a good thing. And I think it's needed where your, your personal church, whether you're a member or whether you're an elder at that church, they're aware of your podcast.

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You're they're aware of your ministry. They support your ministry and that your accountability accountable to the elders.

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However, how many of those elders have time to, you know, listen to your content, make sure you're staying on the right track.

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That's where I think this, this brotherhood of, of Christian podcasters is so important.

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And these networks, because my brothers in my network are free to call me out.

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They're free to keep, keep me in line and, and help grow me in, in maturity in Christ, in my sanctification.

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Um, and, and make sure that I'm, you know, I'm staying on the right track when

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I'm creating this content that I'm, that I'm putting online, where members of the church or your elders in your church may not have that, that time to invest in that.

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And so that's why you, one of your questions is how important is the unity among podcasters and, and networks.

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I think it is necessary that we become unified and that we come apart of these networks at these networks, find some kind of connection with one another so that we are, we find some kind of accountability with one another.

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We find support with one another because it's ultimately it's I, and I'm thankful.

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I'm really thankful at that, that many, many of you guys, um, that are podcasting, um,

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God has graciously gifted you with wonderful voices. Um, you know, literal, literally your, your voice is wonderful made for radio, made for TV.

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Um, you're, you're well studied. Yeah. Um, you speak well, you communicate well, and God has gifted so many, um, podcasters with that ability and it's turned into, um, you know, support, support me, you know, give to my, give to Patreon so that you can support my podcast and it's become part of your living.

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And, and, um, God is allowing podcasters to use that to help support their families.

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And that's wonderful. That's a wonderful ministry to have. I don't want to take anything away from that, but ultimately it's not about platform.

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It's about Christ. Yeah. And so if we can support one another,

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I know if it's okay to, to name some names and, um, and I think this is where we'd have some commonality,

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Ray comfort where the master radio, Todd frill, Todd frill has given a lot of these guys that we, that we love and support.

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Now, Todd gave these guys platform because he had them on his television and radio show.

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And, uh, you know, that's where they got their platform. And so I think we all need to be supporting one another.

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And I want the dead man walking podcast to have a great platform. I want them to, um, be glorifying

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God and reaching as many people as possible. And I think, you know, you have the heart for that type of heart for other podcasters, you know, that's why you have, you know, somebody like me who has a very small platform.

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You're having somebody like me, a brother in Christ on, because we want to support each other because it's about Christ. It's about the gospel.

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It's about the kingdom. And that's our main objective. And so unity in, in conquering for the kingdom and accountability with one another, where we can speak to each other and love and keep each other, um, on the right track.

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I think that's a wonderful reason why we should seek unity in our, in our podcasting, in our networks.

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Yeah, no, those are all really good points. You know, uh, I would say in the, in the broader sense.

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Okay. So you can like narrow down and go within kind of the reform Calvinistic podcast world. I see a really tight unity, even between my

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Presbyterian and Anglican and Baptist Baptist brothers. Even when you zoom out a little bit and you get into podcasts that really are focusing on the orthodoxy, uh, they believe in the orth, you know, orthodox

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Christianity. I'm not talking about some of those fringe ones that are out there doing crazy stuff. There's still pretty good unity there too.

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And I love to see that I go, Hey, the more I tell everyone, Hey, yes, start a podcast. Start talking.

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If you're preaching the word or talking about, uh, the true gospel of Jesus Christ as, uh, as written in the

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Holy scripture. Yeah, let's do it. That's one of the ways we can pat combat the culture too. When you go into apple 200

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Christian podcasts and out of the top 200, um,

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I'm looking at 75 to 90 of them that are solid reform brothers in the

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Lord. And half of those I know personally you go, yeah, this is, this is a good thing. Let's, let's keep doing that.

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Let's keep making sure, uh, that your network grows and, and, and you have to hear what

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I'm saying here too. So I'm not saying for, uh, recognition or for platform or for popularity, because that was a big thing with me was starting with this is, you know,

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I, I, uh, I've always been very independent, kind of do my own thing. I'm my own real estate broker. Um, I ran for County commissioner here.

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I do that. I, you know, I, I've got these things where I kind of, and I'm in things where I'm front facing, right.

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And I'm, I'm fine with talking in front of people. And, but the one thing, and I don't mind talking to someone and going, yeah,

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I'm the best darn realtor you probably ever worked with. Let's get this thing done. I have, that's not bragging. That's me confident in my 15 year craft.

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But when I came to, to speaking about the word of God, right. I was very humbled when

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I started thinking about starting a podcast because I don't want to mess with this in any way.

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And I definitely don't want to get any type of notoriety when God is supposed to be getting the glory.

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That's why we sign off on this podcast. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Okay. That's my chief end here is glory to God.

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It's, it's not for me or anything else. And I've seen in the four years, I've seen plenty of four years is a short time in podcasting.

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I've seen plenty of guys start a podcast, not get to the mega numbers that they wanted and then just stop and go,

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Oh, well, because in their mind, they thought I was going to have this platform. I'm going to have this voice. People will look at me a certain way.

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Right. Uh, which I think is all the wrong reasons to do it. Right. People ask me, they go, geez, you put out one to two pieces of content, you know, every week for the last four years and you run a business and you have a family and you, you know, and you're elected office.

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And this year I'm running, I'm running again. Uh, you know, I guess got to start the campaign golf outings up and stuff like that.

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How do you do it? And I go, well, I just, I just enjoy talking about God. I enjoy knowing him. Uh, it's a passion.

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You could sit me down and go, what would you rather do? You know, a or B talk about God and with a group of 15 guys for the next four hours.

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Yeah, let's do that. That's, that's where I love to debate and to talk and to discuss. Right. So it's something that naturally has passion.

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What, why I enjoy doing it. And I think that's a big part of podcasting, especially within the believer space is there has to be a passion to talk about, know, and love

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God to be able to, to speak to that with passion instead of going, Oh, I gotta put out another episode.

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What am I going to say? What am I going to do? What, what hot button issue will get me some likes? It's like, it's none of that, man.

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I don't care if one person's listening or a hundred thousand people are listening. Um, I'm going to talk to who

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I want to talk to, ask the questions and glorify God in the end of it. And I feel that you guys have the same heart over there too.

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Um, which is why I think we connect on, on so many levels, because when I jump into your guys' lives on Facebook, I find myself being there for 20, 30 minutes and going, geez,

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I'm getting a, I'm getting a sermon here, man. These guys are rocking through the word right now. And no matter what it is that you're talking about, it's edifying, it's edifying, edifying to my spirit and God's being glorified.

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Um, so, so I guess I say all that I'm a, I'm sorry, I'm being a little wordy here, but I'm saying all that, that I do agree that the unity is key.

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I think the podcast networks are key. I think that's a, that's a big thing. I guess I would transition into what do you think the state of podcasting is now when you look at the landscape of podcasting in general versus five years ago or even 10 years ago, heck,

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I was an early adopter podcast. People didn't even know what they were. And I was downloading them off my iTunes, transferring them to an iPod 15 years ago.

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And they're going, what you're listening to a radio with that's not the radio, you know? Um, and I fell in love with them instantly that night to university, which they took away from us.

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I, I watched a, uh, 16 Siri part series from Oxford professor on CS Lewis, and it was all free and it's the same education you're paying a hundred thousand dollars for over in the

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UK and I'm watching it for free, you know? So my whole point was, what do you look at when you look at the landscape?

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Where do you think it's going? Where do you think it is now? Are we in good shape? Um, are we in bad shape? I don't know.

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What are your feelings on it? I think it's up to us. I think we're in our, I think we're in our infancy and it goes back a lot of what we were just saying about responsibility, about maturity, about coming together.

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I think podcasting is in its infancy. I think technology is just going to continue to, to boom, to grow, to advance.

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And we were going to be able to utilize it even more and more, but what we're doing is, is in its infancy.

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And that's why this conversation is so important right now. I believe that, and that we continue to have it.

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What are we going to do as Christian podcasters? Are we going to compete with one another? Are we going to support one another and build each other up and point to Christ in our unity?

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Um, we, we're talking about unity. Do we all have to believe the same thing? No. In the Truth and Love Network, we, we have

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Reformed Baptists who are cessationists and continuationists. We have a gentleman who's an ordained minister in the church of God, yet he has a super high view of scripture, conservative guy.

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And, and we have wonderful fellowship with him. And so we, we see unity in Christ, knowing that there's, there's substance to what

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I'm saying when I say unity in Christ. It's not something that's shallow. Um, and so I think we're in our infancy in where podcasting is right now in our communication.

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Um, we don't want to neglect our family, our church, our, um, face -to -face evangelism, but so many people are on social media, are online and use this to supplement, um, whatever, everything.

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And this is, this is our marketplace, I think. And, and I think that this is, this conversation needs to continue and it's,

30:41

I think it's up to us. And I, I would really love for us to, to get ahead of this thing and, and help each other go in the right direction.

30:51

Um, part of that conversation, the sister conversation, what we're having tonight is what we see online, where, you know, we, we grow in, in so many different areas in our theologies and our theologies change like my theology and doctrine has changed over the years.

31:07

Um, and we're familiar with the term cage state. So many people become cage days when, when they learn a new, um, doctrine and they, and they begin to hold tight to it and they want everybody else to, to hold to it as well.

31:21

Um, and then we, we form these, these groups and, and find unity in people who are yes men and, you know, have the same doctrine of philosophy that they do.

31:32

And then we want to jump on people, um, who, who don't believe the same thing that we do or people who we once loved, like, like John MacArthur.

31:41

And, you know, when we, when we first become Calvinists, you know, he was our hero, but then we become post meal.

31:48

Oh, he's dispensational. We got to get rid of John MacArthur. He's, you know, he's bad. Why do we do that?

31:54

Why do not, why don't we continue to love and lift up our brothers, no matter, you know, these secondary theological issues.

32:04

I totally agree with you. And I do see that a lot to where we like to kind of come.

32:10

What's the word? Uh, kind of put it in little boxes and separate them out and say, well, you're in this camp, you're in that camp. I'm in a weird situation too, to where I find myself much like you having a broad spectrum of friends and guests on from, you know, you get, you get the

32:26

Joel weapons and the Doug Wilson, and I'm part of the fight left feast network with the cross politic guys to the

32:31

Claude Ramsey's and the Keith Foskey's to the Josh Boyce has been on to ask school has been on to, you know,

32:38

Ligonier guys have been. And it's like, um, look at man, if, if we can, if we can believe in these core tenants here, okay.

32:44

Some of these secondary issues, um, are just that they're, they're secondary issues and the

32:49

Lord will set us straight when we're in glory one day. Um, but, but, but if you, but if you believe in the core tenants, the orthodoxy of Christianity, I can have a conversation with you and I can call you a, a brother or sister in the

33:03

Lord. And I wish there was a little bit more of that because what I see a lot of believers, and especially in social media, if you're on Twitter, X you're on Facebook, you're on Instagram, you see them just kind of squaring off into the, their little camps, right?

33:16

And then at your camp versus my camp. And then it's also, um, we need to realize as podcasters as well, because you know, when you host a show and you've been doing it a while, such as yourself, you do, whether you want to admit it or not, you do have some influence over the, if you say something, there's someone out there listening, going,

33:34

Oh, is that what Robert thinks? Okay. I should look into that or shouldn't. And they have to realize that no one man has the perfect theology, just like your, your example with MacArthur, right?

33:46

When, when, uh, you know, because I was a big in my twenties, um, in the early, the early 80 video, eighties video of R .C.

33:54

Sproul in his red seersucker suit and his fro when he's out there doing the professor thing and he's injustice verse on justice and he's breaking it all down.

34:02

That marked my life, man. I mean, I, I, I watched those and studied those and absolutely devoured those and loved him as a brother in the

34:11

Lord. And then, you know, and then one day you find out what, he was a Thomas. He was a, he had some weird, well, why is that bad?

34:18

What's going on? Oh, wait, because he was in the, you know, philosophy and he's not a, you know, it's a secondary issue, but no one is perfect.

34:26

And everyone has a problem with someone, uh, on one little issue. I mean, there was only one person that had perfect theology and that was

34:33

Christ right here on earth. So, so, um, I, I'm agreeing with you too, that, uh, yes, the, like you said before, the unity is important, but also to the, the, the kind of, uh, not divvying up in camps just for camp sake.

34:49

Uh, and you want to know what, and let truth be the divider. Let the, let the word of God, the word of truth, divide what is right and wrong.

34:57

Not that's my guy and that's your guy. So I'm going to go to battle for my guy. Cause you see that a lot too, with some of these, these bigger names, uh, you know,

35:05

Doug Wilson puts something out or James white may say something. And then you got the wolves, uh, Christian nationalism.

35:10

And then everyone has to start gearing up on sides and we go, well, what does the word of God say? Right. What, maybe that's what we should stand on, especially as podcasters that are talking about this every week, we should have that attitude, right?

35:24

Exactly. And, and yeah, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to name the podcast network, you know, truth and love, because we want to, we don't want to be in either ditch the whole time.

35:34

We want to be in the middle, speaking truth and love to one another and to our, to our listeners. And I don't know how you feel about this, but I, I said this many, many years ago, teaching

35:43

Sunday school to my Sunday school class, because it's, it's always been so popular to say, well, well, we can just agree to disagree.

35:51

And to me, that was just a way to brush off an issue. Sure. Oh, we can just agree to disagree.

35:57

I'm like, no, I don't want to say that anymore. It's exactly like you just said,

36:02

Jesus was the only one with perfect and is the only one with perfect theology. And so there is a truth out there that is black and white.

36:11

Yeah. None of us are perfect. We're not there yet, but I want to agree to eventually agree.

36:18

And I want you to help me on my journey to get there. Yeah. We can, we can talk with one another.

36:24

We can disagree. We can sharpen one another as iron sharpens iron. We can go through scripture, but eventually

36:31

I want to be working on this with you. And I'll just say, I agree to disagree and which is an easy brush off of the conversation.

36:38

Yeah. All right. So as we kind of put bookends on this here, uh, we've been, we've both been doing this for almost four years.

36:46

Well, you're, you are four years. I'm what has been the most popular and we're talking, you know, we both talk about theology doctrine.

36:54

I'm sure you, you guys get into probably the culture and politics a little bit if you need to, because they're so closely intertwined now.

37:01

Um, what are some of the most popular, uh, doctrinal or theological issues that you've seen over the four years that you've been podcasting that have kind of rose to the top and become important to listeners or you felt important to talk about?

37:17

So what's been most popular, the most view, the most popular listeners is the, is the issues that have been the most popular or the most, um, relevant at the time topics within, you know,

37:31

I would say our circles, the, um, cessationism continuation argument, the post -millennial argument, the theonomy argument,

37:40

Christian nationalism argument, those have gotten our most views and, and that's fine. Um, it's just us having our own conversation about it, working through it together with one another.

37:50

And to me, the, the content is important, but for me and for us talking about the content and how we talk about the content with one another is just as important as the content itself.

38:05

And that's what I want people to see from the network is whatever the topic, whatever the content might be, it's how we speak to one another in that content.

38:16

Yeah. Whether we agree or disagree. I'll tell you what's crazy is I was just thinking about this, uh, about a week ago, if you would have told me in the mid nineties, and I grew up in church and, uh, said the sinner's prayer at seven, but the

38:31

Lord saved me at 24, as I always say, um, and went to a very kind of legalistic church when

38:36

I was younger. And then in my teens, uh, much more, it was Pentecostal and associated with kind of the Bethel movement, stuff like that.

38:42

So I've seen this spectrum at both ends. Uh, if you'd have told me in the mid nineties, like there would be this huge resurgence in 30 years of just reformed

38:53

Calvinistic theology, not only that, but, but, but church history battling back at what is the charismatic

39:00

Pentecostal movement. It's only about 120 years old and seeing people shift away from that, I would've said you're crazy because the eighties and nineties and even the early two thousands, uh,

39:10

America that I grew up with, it was like, everyone was Pentecostal and charismatic. I mean, you had charismatic

39:16

Catholics, even when you weren't part of the Baptist church, you were a Baptist light and you, and you believed in the gifts and, and speaking in tongues.

39:25

And it was, you're just, and we're still saturated with it. I'm not, I'm not saying, you know, it's completely flipped, but how much the needle has moved with people actually waking up and saying, you know, let's read this and see what's in here.

39:40

Let's see if, if the Bible actually talks about a second baptism and that tongues is the only proof of BAP, you know, of the

39:47

Holy baptism of the Holy spirit. Let's see what that has to say. And then actually doing a little research and I'm actually here a little free plug for Jeffrey rice.

39:54

That's a Jeffrey rice rebuying right there. I'm holding up, but, um, let's see what it actually says.

40:00

And I see people through, I think this has a lot to do with podcasting and I could be wrong, but I say talk to more people in the last five to maybe eight years that know more about church history and Bible history and kind of what the word actually says and not just believing their church traditions.

40:17

They were brought up in, uh, than I have in my whole entire life. And I think it really has to do with, you can go online now and you can go click on truth and love.

40:29

And guess what? They're talking about these issues. They're opening up a Bible and in doing it in, in a, in an entertaining way.

40:35

And I'm not saying that you have to be entertaining to preach the word. I'm saying it draws people in.

40:41

They get to know you. They see you every week. Um, you know, all these things.

40:47

I just think it's a beautiful thing to where I believe in, look at, I don't have any, uh, national polls to back it up, or maybe

40:53

I could find some, but I, but I'm usually right about these things. There is a shift to biblical truth in the culture within believers.

41:02

And Gen Z is actually one, there is a poll that came out in Gen Z says, well, we don't really go to church, but they are much more doctrinally doctrinally sound and spiritual meaning.

41:13

They actually look and see what the Bible says now. I don't think that's right. I think they need to be fellowship as well, but it tells me that Gen Z is looking for truth and they're going, you want to what the traditions of man haven't worked.

41:25

The traditions of the church haven't worked. I need to see what the word of God is saying. And, and when you have podcasters doing that day in day out weekend week out, such as yourself, myself, other people,

41:36

I think slowly, but surely in the, in the grace of God, it moves the needle towards truth.

41:42

And I'm telling you that I I've seen that just, uh, in personal conversations with people,

41:48

I don't know if you feel the same way, but I talked to people that, uh, had been dormant in the church for 20 years.

41:55

And in the last five years, they've woken up. Now, maybe that's also cultural. There's cultural things going on, right? The COVID stuff really woke people up, the trans stuff, the pagan culture that we live in.

42:05

It's waking people up that were just kind of coaster Christians. And they took for granted the laws and the principles and the morality of God, just because our country kind of abided by them a little bit and was like, well, a man's a man and a woman's a woman and you know, men should protect women and chivalry and this.

42:23

And we went, Oh yeah, that's good. And you could coast by as a Easter and Christmas Christian. And now their world is turned upside down and they go, wait a minute.

42:30

Men can menstruate. Wait a minute. We can chop off the prepubescent breaths of seven -year -old girls and it's okay.

42:37

Like now they're going, hang on. What does the Bible say about that? And I think it's a good thing that we have, uh, we, we have guys like you and others that go every week, we're going to preach truth.

42:49

Um, no, no matter what cost. And I, I just, I, you know, not only in your church as a pastor preaching that, of course, that's the most important, but also extracurricularly doing it on social media, in a platform where anyone can access it.

43:03

Absolutely. Thank you for that Robert. It's a big internet and we need as many people sharing the truth as possible.

43:10

And at the beginning of the podcast, when I was telling you, my heart goes out to my community, in my mind, my audience is me.

43:17

You talked about the eighties and nineties, me in the eighties and nineties, when I went to college and I began to take these religion classes, all these other students were 50, a hundred miles ahead of me in their theological knowledge.

43:32

I'm like, what in the world are you talking about? It's because of my, where I grew up in church and not being taught.

43:41

And so my audience is me in the eighties and nineties. I want people to, to hear the truth and know the truth and be able to say, and be able to test what they're hearing with scripture and learn and grow in truth knowledge of the

43:55

Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, that was a, so I'm 42, I'll be 43 this summer.

44:01

And so I'm an 80 slash nineties. So grew up in the eighties, but you know, to young teens and into high school in the nineties and looking back on that, man, the, the, the, the evangelical culture was just a weird space.

44:15

Cause like I said, I grew up to where it was like, you know, you, when you're a little more fundamental, it's like, don't touch it.

44:21

Don't look at it and don't, you know, ignore it. And that's no way to raise children either, because then they get it into the actual world and they go, what the heck is all this.

44:31

Right. And they can really go one of two ways, uh, revert back into themselves or go totally extrovert and kind of do what

44:37

I did and just try everything, do everything and rebel against God and go, I don't care. Um, but my point is you had like the moral majority.

44:45

And I don't know if you remember like the Jerry Falwell and the moral majority, like, Hey, we're going to get our way through voting blocks and things like that.

44:52

And, and I'm just, and I, you know, and I, I didn't really agree with that, which is funny to say as a locally elected official who's also a believer, but, um,

45:01

I look back on that and I go, I thank God for the men who had, who kind of plowed through that in the eighties and nineties.

45:08

And we're building things into the two thousands and now we're in 2024 and we have some really solid churches, some solid, uh, organizations that are godly, biblical,

45:22

God -fearing. And, and I don't think they could have produced unless they had gone through that kind of eighties and nineties nonsense.

45:31

That's kind of how I refer to it. It was just a, when, when you were, I'm saying not everyone, but I was in that, you know, the whole

45:38

ATI, a thing with bill Gothard, we did that for a few years in homeschooling. It was a very weird time, late seventies to early nineties.

45:44

It was like, everyone was freaking out about the culture and we just went, we went one direction, you know?

45:51

But, um, I think, I think it's good to see that we now have, like I said, organizations, churches and stuff that I look at and I go, man, these are, these are hardcore

46:01

Bible believing Christ preaching churches. And I think that's ultimately what changes the culture.

46:08

I, I had a few, a guy on, um, a few months ago and we're talking about Christian nationalism and theonomy.

46:14

And I said, look at the, you can change all the laws you want, but the number one thing is to preach

46:19

Christ crucified in repentance. That's what changes a nation through the, through the working of the

46:26

Holy spirit, changing man's heart. Um, and you know, I'm still there to this day, but, uh, let's wrap this up here because, uh, we, we could just go on forever, man.

46:36

I love talking to you and you probably let me talk a little too much, uh, for you being the guest, but so truth and love, uh, network, you got the podcast out there, throw it out there to everyone.

46:46

Once more, we'll link it up. Where can they find all your stuff at throw it out for them? You can find us on Facebook and YouTube, especially true at truth and love network on both platforms,

46:56

Facebook and YouTube. Uh, check out our website that has links to all of our content creators who are part of the network.

47:03

It has, there's a link on there. If you're interested in becoming part of the network, uh, seeing what we believe, what we kind of signed to, um, like I said, family, their own personal churches.

47:13

Number one, it's just kind of a document that kind of helped hold us together. It's nothing really binding, but check us out at truth and love network .com.

47:22

Check on our conference, labors conference .com. If you are available to come the last week in April, uh, to Eastern Tennessee reprimando

47:30

Baptist church, pastor Claude Ramsey's church. We would love to fellowship with you that we can and see you at that conference, but Facebook, YouTube, good love network.

47:40

Love to have you join us. Yeah. We'll link all that up to you guys in the episode. Just click in the description.

47:45

You can find a, where you can find a Robert at, uh, where you can find the conference at. And I love it, man. The unity, absolutely.

47:51

The accountability, which we didn't touch on too much, but the net networks also help with accountability. I'm listening to some of our guys on our network and kind of nitpicking and saying, what was that?

48:02

They do that to me, kind of holds us to that higher standard that we really need to be held to.

48:07

But ultimately, if you're listening, if you are a podcaster and you're listening, uh, you're, you shouldn't be under the authority of your shepherd as well.

48:14

Who's under the authority of Christ. Uh, we say that, uh, first and foremost, but, um, Robert, so good to have you on, man.

48:21

You're gonna have to come back. Uh, and I don't know, maybe we'll get into something specific instead of being a little more, uh, broad, uh, in subject over, you know, truth and love and podcasting and things like that.

48:32

I'd love to have you on and we'll just, we'll just nitpick through a, I don't know, through a chapter or verse or something and go at it.

48:38

How does that sound? Nice. That'd be great. I was so blessed tonight to be with your brother. I so appreciate you.

48:44

Thank you so much. I appreciate you too, man. And everything you do and for my beard brush. Oh yeah, absolutely.

48:50

Yeah. Send me one of your truth and love beard brushes used it this morning. It's up in the bathroom.

48:55

I didn't bring it on. I should have brought on the camera here, but, uh, you got some, you got some cool merch over there too. So we'll make sure we link that up guys.

49:02

Thanks so much for listening to another episode of dead men walking podcast. We appreciate you so much. We thank you for your support, your comments, your constructive criticism, and supporting our sponsors as well.

49:12

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49:18

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49:27

So we'll be talking about that pretty soon as well. Guys, as always remember the chief end of man is to glorify

49:33

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49:41

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49:49

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