July 16, 2018 Show with Alistair Begg on “Name Above All Names” PLUS Josh Buice on “The Need for Further Clarity on the Complementarian Position on Gender Roles in the Church & Home”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, We are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour. And we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now, here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 16th day of July 2018.

And I am so delighted and excited to have back on the program for the first time since June 14th.

That's Monday, June 14th, 2010, was the last time we had our guest on.

And it is so much of an honor and privilege to have back on the program. Alistair Begg, author, conference speaker, senior pastor at Parkside Church, Cleveland, Ohio, and Bible teacher on the globally popular radio program

Truth for Life. And today he's going to be discussing a book that he co -authored with Dr.

Sinclair Ferguson, another one of my very favorite preachers of all time, Name Above All Names.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Alistair Begg. Thank you,

Chris. I'm sorry that it's been so long, but it's a privilege to be back on and be able to talk with you.

Amen. Well, before we go into the heart of our subject today, which is the

Name Above All Names, why don't you let our listeners know something about Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio.

Well, Parkside Church is situated about 20 miles south and east of the city itself in suburbia.

I've been here for 35 years now in this role.

I followed the founding pastor, who was present for five years and then moved on.

And I came here in 83 at the invitation of this church, leaving

Scotland behind, where I had both grown up and had begun in ministry and had been ordained to gospel ministry.

So it's an ordinary church in every good sense of the word ordinary.

It's congregational in its form of church government. It's baptistic in its mode of baptism, and we have a variegated congregation, both in terms of ethnicity and in terms of socioeconomics and in terms of age range.

So there's everything here to encourage us, and there's everything here to keep us on our knees in prayer.

Amen. And I will be giving contact information for the church towards the end of our interview today.

Now let us know something about Truth For Life. I mean, I'm sure that most of my listeners know a lot about you, but believe it or not, we have non -Christians that listen to this program.

We occasionally even have Muslims and atheists and people of other religions and non -religions.

If you could let us know about Truth For Life. Sure. Well, the radio program is the vision of somebody other than myself.

It's my voice, but it's someone else's vision. And it began as a daily program over 20 years ago now, simply as an extension of the pulpit ministry here at the church.

They take what I say at church and try and edit it in such a way that some of the nonsense is removed and try and make it sound better than it was in its original form.

But the whole notion is that the entrance of God's Word brings light, that the truth of God's Word is inerrant truth, and that when it is proclaimed in the fullness of the

Spirit, that God's Word does its work. And so that's what we do.

We simply, as Spurgeon would have said, we simply try and let the lion out and allow the

Word of God to do what God has purposed for it to do. Well, I appreciate that description of Truth For Life, Alistair.

And one thing that I want to ask you about, which I think is quite remarkable in this day and age when people are either theologically or doctrinally ambivalent or very hostile towards one another over doctrine, your

Truth For Life program, your preaching and teaching ministry and your writing ministry, even though you happen to be theologically

Reformed, as I am, and in fact a Reformed Baptist, as I am, or at least Reformed and Baptistic, you have a really considerable following amongst

Calvary Chapel folks, Calvary Chapel pastors and churches. And I have a friend on Long Island, New York, who actually runs and operates a

Calvary Chapel radio station, and you are a regular on there. And can you tell us about why you think that is, that you seem to have such a loyal and faithful following, even from within people that are outside your orbit, theologically?

Yeah, some days I think it must be because I'm speaking out of, you know, three sides of my mouth.

And I think maybe I'm not making myself clear. And then

I say, well, perhaps it is because I have been so heavily influenced by Spurgeon and by his ministry, insofar as, you know,

Spurgeon was very, very clear about his theological underpinnings, and he didn't disguise them in any way.

But, you know, he said, if you ask me to state my creed, my creed is Christ.

And that was not because he was trying to be vague or accommodating in some way, but he was absolutely true to that.

And when you listen to him preach, you realize that he was not just Christocentric, but he was crucicentric.

He was focused on the cross of Christ. And so I think it is that when one is committed, if you like, to the essentials of the gospel, and that that is the mainspring of what is being said, then all who love the gospel or are drawn by the message of the gospel will find that that becomes, if you like, the unifying factor.

Similarly, you know, in the ministry of, in the 17th century, of Bunyan, you know,

Bunyan actually operated on the same premise. You know, he said, there are many things that are controversial and are controverted.

He said, but I'm not going to focus on those things. I'm going to focus essentially on Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And I've never really thought about it until this moment, but I know that Spurgeon was influenced by Bunyan, and maybe he was actually influenced strongly in that direction for those very same reasons.

Yeah, in fact, I remember, I may be misquoting Spurgeon slightly, but I know that the basis is correct.

He said about Bunyan, anywhere you prick him, his blood is bibline. Yep, yep.

Well, I think then I, you know, to the extent that Bunyan starts with a

B and so does Beck, you know, that's about it. Well, now

I'd like you to give an abbreviated version of your own testimony of salvation.

What kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and what providential circumstances our

Lord brought about in your life that drew you to himself and saved you? Yeah, well, my roots in terms of going up the line through my father and to my grandfather and so on, my roots actually are in Scottish Presbyterianism and a highland form of that, the kind of Presbyterianism that would be marked by the ministry of the late

John Murray of Westminster. But by the time I was born, that highland dimension was now firmly embedded in industrial

Glasgow, and actually in a large inter -dominational mission hall that had been established by the visit of Moody and Sankey at the turn of the century.

So I was brought up in the context of a kind of fervent evangelicalism that was sort of tempered, if you like, or theologized by a sort of Westminster confession kind of conviction.

As a young boy, I was thrust into the midst of that. Both of my parents were believers.

And on a Sunday afternoon, after having been exercised very much by whatever was said to me in the

Sunday school program that day, I had asked my father what was really involved in knowing that one could trust in Jesus.

And he very wisely explained to me that it wasn't about age, and he very tenderly just led me to Christ.

And as a boy at elementary school, I professed faith in Jesus. I went back to my school and told them what

I had done. They thought I was crazy. I asked the teacher if I could sing one of the songs for them from Sunday school, which when

I look back on it now, I find quite incredible. But it must have been as an expression of the sense of conviction that I had as a result of what had taken place.

Going on from there into my teenage years, working out my salvation with fear and trembling at the age of 15,

I was baptized as a professing follower of Jesus. And on from there, it is to this day a long obedience in the same direction.

Well, I am thoroughly delighted that the Lord has called you and called you into the ministry and that you have been blessing the body of Christ and being used by him to draw the lost to salvation globally.

And it is my honor again and privilege to have you on the show. And in fact, I thank you for your patience with me at the

Banner of Truth Ministers Conference in Elizabethtown because I was becoming somewhat of a stalker to you.

And you graciously accepted my invitation to be on the show and put me in touch with Kay.

So I'm so delighted that this took place. And by the way, for anybody listening who wants to get the audio of the 2018

Banner of Truth Ministers Conference, where Alistair Begg was one of the speakers, you could go to banneroftruth .org.

That's banneroftruth .org. And if you click on Store, you could type 2018 into the search engine and that audio will be appearing on your screen.

In fact, right now when you go to banneroftruth .org, that conference's audio is the very first thing you see at the top of the screen anyway without doing anything other than going to the website.

Well, this book that you have written with Sinclair Ferguson, who Sinclair Ferguson has a very special place in my life and heart.

When I was saved in the mid -1980s on Long Island, New York, at the

Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville, Long Island, which is now Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island.

But Calvary Baptist Church was where I was saved, was where I was baptized, and where I was nurtured in the faith in those early years.

And Sinclair Ferguson was an annual or nearly an annual visitor to our church when he was visiting the

United States and preaching at various places. And I thank God that he accepted the invitations to preach where I was a member.

And I can still remember his series on sin,

Dealing with Remaining Sin was the conference series. But when this book, the idea for this book came about, was this something that Crossway had invited you and Sinclair to cooperate on together?

Or was this book, Name Above All Names, something that you and Sinclair had already discussed privately about doing together?

How did this come about? Well, actually, the genesis of it was that Sinclair and I had been invited to speak at a conference in,

I think Memphis, if I remember correctly. I may be wrong.

And the theme of the conference was on the person of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And Sinclair and I had been talking for some time about the possibility of doing a book that would be a fetch script for Derek Prime, to whom

I'd been assistant and for whom Sinclair was, you know, very, very thankful.

And we realized that it was going to be a huge undertaking. And so Sinclair said, why don't we take what we have done audibly and look at the material and see if there isn't something there that would be worthwhile in print.

And so that was the genesis of it. And the chapters came out as a result of the seven addresses that we had given at that conference.

Well, I know that we're not going to likely have time to get to all of these different aspects of the names of Christ and his roles as a second person of the

Godhead. But why don't we start with where you start in the book with Jesus as the true prophet?

Yeah. Well, what a wonderful truth this is and how amazingly helpful it is in a world that is, you know, listening for all kinds of voices and listening to all kinds of voices.

And that we're able to turn to the Bible and discover that Jesus Christ is the very voice of God himself.

You know, people are concerned, they're wondering, and they're wandering.

And, you know, just at the very point where I think there is a, despite all of the opposition, there's tremendous hunger on the part of men and women for some kind of prophetic and authoritative word.

And unfortunately, just when they're looking for that, in many places the church seems to have lost its own sense of mission and its own sense of confidence in the very message which is at the heart of the mission.

And so to be able to focus on Jesus as a fulfillment of all that was anticipated in the

Old Testament and for him to declare in his day and now through Scripture to declare in our day that he is the very expression of God's plan and purpose from all of eternity is a staggering thought and yet it is a tremendously helpful one to be able to say, have you considered who

Jesus is and have you considered what Jesus had to say? Well, let's move on to Jesus as the

Great High Priest and then we will go to a couple of our listener questions. We've already got people waiting to have their questions asked and answered by you.

But let's move on to the Great High Priest which is obviously another very core essential truth about Christ upon which our salvation hinges.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, obviously included in these chapters is the fact that Jesus Christ fulfills the anticipated role of the prophet and the priest and the king.

And the book of Hebrews gives it to us in great and helpful detail contrasting all the work of that which had gone before.

And the writer says if what had been done before was sufficient then there would be no need for anything else.

And then points out that Jesus has accomplished a once and for all atonement for sin.

That he has sat down at the right hand of the father, that his work is finished, it is accomplished. And that the message of the gospel is that we might come then to rest in that finished work.

That he is not only the prophet who declares the word of God but he is the priest who deals with the wrath of God by the sacrifice of himself.

And I have always found it to be a tremendous encouragement to realize that when

Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, I have in Jesus the one who has made an end to all my sin and the one who ever lives and who pleads for me.

And I think that when people come to an understanding of that then it is a tremendous reassurance when the evil one comes to assail us and to attack us.

Amen. Isn't this one of the very key and core issues that separates historic reformational

Protestantism from the Church of Rome? And of course we have to distinguish historic reformational

Protestantism from mainline apostasy that we see rampant within Protestantism or at least that label.

But as far as the actual real reason that the reformers either involuntarily or voluntarily separated from Rome, this was really at the core of it, wasn't it?

It absolutely was and it's a message that many people are fudging now.

The idea of making sure that we're not being offensive to anybody or that we're not calling things in question.

It really is a very unhelpful perspective to take in these matters. Because what we're talking about is the very essence of what it means to be put right with God.

And if the Roman Catholic plan had been sufficient in itself then there would have been no need for Luther to do as he had done.

And that of course is in a large strain of evangelicalism even today where people are beginning to say, you know,

I'm not sure that the reformers were anything other than a bunch of cranky old men. When in actual fact we stand on their shoulders and the blood of the martyrs is the seat of the

Church in this regard. And so yes, you're absolutely right. The work of Christ is absolutely finished.

The Roman Catholic mass does not say that. And the fact that many

Roman Catholic people do not understand that does not call in question the reality of Roman Catholic dogma and doctrine.

And so we need to be very clear about these things. And we can rest then on a work that has been accomplished and finished so that it is a redemption, as John Murray used to say, a redemption that is accomplished, that is now to be applied.

And if a person is believing that by their good deeds they're adding to the work of Christ, or if as a result of their baptism they are secured by Christ, then we need to help them and speak very clearly to them about what the

Bible says concerning these things. Amen. And we have a listener in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania named

Gordy. And Gordy asks, in your opinion, is there a danger in broader evangelicalism of referring to the name of Jesus in sort of a nebulous way, void of substance, such as the magnificent ways described in your book?

I think he meant to say as opposed to the magnificent ways described in your book. It appears to result in an experiential love affair with Jesus that has no biblical foundation.

That is Gordy of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Yeah, well, that's a great question, isn't it?

And I was just thinking the other day in preparing for an address on the

Belt of Truth in Ephesians 6, that, you know, when Paul says to Timothy, remember

Jesus Christ, he is obviously not just saying, don't forget that there was a

Jesus Christ. He's saying, remember Jesus Christ as who he is, as the one who is the atoning sacrifice for sin, as the one who is raised from the dead, as the one who is the ascended

Lord, as the one who is the coming king. And so, yes, to Gordy's question, it is distinctly possible to speak about Jesus in a way that lacks any kind of doctrinal definition, thereby allowing just about everybody and anybody to find themselves gathered under that kind of vague and accommodating banner.

But Jesus himself didn't do that, and the Gospel writers did not do it either. It is not a

Jesus of our own making, but it is the Jesus as he is revealed to us in Scripture, to whom we come, and on whose life our life is lived, and in whose death and resurrection our hope is secured.

Amen. Well, thank you, Gordy. You've won a free copy of the book, Name Above All Names, for contributing a question today.

Thanks to our friends at Crossway for donating those. We have Duane. I usually don't give a full name of a person, but this person is a colleague of mine in broadcasting.

Duane Atkinson, who is host of the B .A .R. podcast in Greenville, South Carolina.

The B .A .R. stands for Biblical and Reformed. And Duane, because he is a black brother, he gets frustrated because people assume

B .A .R. stands for Black and Reformed, but it actually stands for Biblical and Reformed.

And Duane says, I haven't read the book, Name Above All Names, yet, but would love to.

My question is, in this book, what are some practical applications of knowing and understanding

Jesus' authority? That's good, isn't it? Well, I think one of them is to realize that when we think about the issue of Jesus' authority, you know,

Jesus says to his disciples, he says, the words that I speak are not my own. They are the words that the Father has given me to speak.

And so, ultimately, when we talk to people about the authority of the

Bible, we're talking about the authority of Jesus himself.

And so that the Lordship of Jesus Christ provides for us, amongst other things, our doctrine of Scripture.

And therefore, we come to the Scriptures underneath the Lordship of Christ. And the practical application of that is that then, if Jesus Christ is

Lord, I have no freedom to believe anything other than what Jesus taught.

I have no freedom to behave in any other way than that which Jesus demands.

And I have no freedom but to belong united with Christ, to be united with those in Christ who are of like mind in relationship to these foundational and substantial doctrines of the faith.

Amen. And Dwayne has one more question. He says, My 10 -year anniversary is this

Thursday. I see you wrote a book called Lasting Love. What tip or wisdom do you have for me, from the book or not, for my next 10th, 20th, 30th, or 40th anniversary?

That's good. That's good. Well, I think

I often say to people, you know, marriage is a bit like swinging a golf club.

It's not easy, but it is straightforward. And in the cultivating of the relationship that we enjoy with our spouse, as sort of strange as this may sound, friendship is so vitally important.

You know, Abigail Adams used to write to John, and she didn't use his name, but she just wrote, to my

MDF, to my dearest friend. And what I've discovered as time goes by is that some people have never really cultivated friendship and have developed friendship.

And so don't assume that the work is done at the 10 -year mark. I'm just about to celebrate 43, and I'm more excited about the friendship that I enjoy with Susan than I ever have been in my life.

And so I want to encourage others along the same path. Amen. We actually have – oh, by the way, you've won a free copy of the book as well,

Dwayne, so make sure we have your full mailing address in Greenville, South Carolina. And Alistair, you should very seriously consider one day being a guest on the

Barb podcast. It is excellent, and we thank Dwayne for his excellent work. We have – in fact, we have our second guest,

Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, who is also the founder of the

G3 Conference. He has a question for you as he's waiting in the wings to be our second guest.

He said, please ask Alistair Begg to describe the moment he was greatly impacted by a high view of God's Word and the preaching of Scripture.

Oh, the moment? That's what he said. Yeah, there have been so many moments. I mean, yeah, sorry?

He must be – I don't know if he's referring to a specific incident that occurred in your life that he heard about, but he said, describe the moment he was greatly impacted by a high view of God's Word and the preaching of Scripture.

Well, you know, I think that as a boy, again, going along to church, to the

Presbyterian Church in the center of Glasgow, being – sitting there waiting for things to begin and being struck by the way in which the beetle, as B -E -A -D -L -E, the beetle ascended the pulpit steps carrying this gigantic big book, laid it out on the pulpit, opened it up to what particular reference it was, and then went back down the stairs again.

And I can remember thinking as a boy, you know, that's quite a dramatic beginning. And it made very clear to me the fact that whatever was supposed to happen now definitely had to do with that book.

And I guess I learned at a very early age that effective ministry was directly tied to a

Spirit -dependent commitment to the unfolding of the truth of God's Word, and that when

God's Word is truly taught, then God's work is done. But I don't know if my brother has a particular –

He actually just – I didn't know about it. He just emailed, that's it. Okay.

So you hit the nail on the head there. Well, before we go, and I hope the next time you come on, if God enables that, that you're on for at least an hour, because this has gone by way too quickly.

But I want you to tell our listeners something about what seems to be a fascinating tour coming up that you're involved in with Salem Media.

I was employed by Salem for 15 years with their New York station,

WMCA, 570 AM. And so tell us about this trip from Prague to Budapest and then to Northern Ireland.

Yeah. Well, they're two separate trips. The first one begins on the 31st of this month in Prague, and a walking tour for four days.

We will be in Wittenberg. We'll be in Prague. We'll be in Nuremberg. We'll be in different places directly related to Reformation sites.

Then we get on one of these river boats, and we begin our journey that goes down with various stops, including

Vienna and Salzburg, and then eventually ending up finally in Budapest.

I think it's all completely sold out. I hope it is. That was their hope, their plan.

And my role in it is to give instruction along the way, so I'm preparing for that now.

The other thing is that at the end of the month of August, I am due to be back in the north of Ireland at a historic conference there in Bangor up on the ocean, the

Bangor Missionary Conference, where I give addresses Monday through Friday in the mornings.

I think I do a couple of pastors' events. I do at least one of the evenings, and I play golf at Newcastle County.

And then I come back in time for, God willing, in time for Labor Day.

So anybody that happens to tune in over in the north of Ireland, do check that out, and I look forward to seeing you there.

Yeah, we have a lot of listeners in the U .K. and Northern Ireland specifically, and in the Republic of Ireland, so I hope that you all take note of that.

And I'm assuming that you get all the information for these events at truthforlife .org? Yes. truthforlife .org,

that is the website for Alistair Begg's global radio ministry, Truth For Life.

And also, if you want more information about Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, you can go to parksidechurch .com,

parksidechurch .com. Alistair, it has been a joy, it has been an honor and a privilege. I hope that we don't wait another decade before you come back on the program, and I look forward to,

God willing, frequent visits from you in the near future. Thanks, Chris. God bless you. Blessing to you.

You too. God bless you, brother. Bye -bye. Bye -bye. And don't go away, folks, because for the remaining 90 minutes of the broadcast, we have

Josh Bice joining us. Josh Bice, who is the pastor of Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia.

He's also the founder of the G3 Conference, Grace, Gospel, and Glory, which is what that stands for.

And we are going to be discussing a very controversial issue, but an issue that needs to be discussed in the body of Christ, because even within conservative

Christianity, which adheres at least professedly to the inerrancy of Scripture, there is some debate and dispute and disagreement over gender roles in the

Bible, gender roles in the church and in our home, and even amongst those that would profess to be a part of a narrower view of that, those who would profess to be complementarian in their understanding of that.

So we will be having Pastor Bice join us momentarily, just after this quick break from our sponsors, so that we could enter into that discussion.

Our email address, if you have a question of your own, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and I could readily understand that that would be the case with many of you who may have a different view of gender roles than your own congregation, or your pastor, or your denomination, or your fellowship.

But we will, God willing, be right back after this brief break with more of the program and with Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church, so please don't go away.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And Mike Gaydosh, my dear friend for many years, my first pastor as a born -again

Christian who plunged me beneath the waters of baptism and thankfully raised me back up again from the waters of baptism.

I can't describe how important this dear brother in Christ is to me. He has given me permission to extend to you publicly a prayer request for him, a very serious and urgently needed prayer request.

Mike is facing some very serious and life -threatening heart surgery.

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And of course, whoever is operating upon Mike, guide the surgeon's hands very carefully and meticulously that they may be very precise and successful in this surgery and that Mike would rise up from that operating table a new man, a healthy man physically, and that he might even be a more powerful ambassador for Christ spiritually because of this experience in his life.

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Yeah, so please keep Mike in prayer. Well, I am so delighted to have back on the program one of my favorite guests,

Pastor Josh Bice. Pastor Josh Bice, who I have said earlier, is an author, conference speaker, and pastor at Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia, and he's the founder and director of the

G3 Conference, which stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory. And Pastor Josh, before we go into any other matters, why don't you tell our listeners about the

G3 Conference? We've been really promoting it very heavily on the show for quite a while, but for those of our listeners who may be even tuning in for the first time, it seems we get new listeners joining our audience every day.

If you could let our listeners know about the G3 Conference, and specifically about the 2019 G3 Conference.

Sure, happy to do that, Chris. So the G3 Conference, as you've already stated, stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory, and it's a theology conference each

January in the Atlanta area. And it was originally created, established to be an encouragement to local churches in the

Atlanta area. And the first year we had sold out attendance at our local church, and a waiting list was established.

We had college students sleeping in their cars in January, so we had to, you know, invite them to my home to sleep in our guest bedroom.

And that was sort of the way things started out from year number one. And so for the first four years, it was here on our local church campus until we decided that in 2017 we would move to a convention center here in the

Atlanta area. And so the conference, God has grown it from year number one to really turn it into a national conference that first year.

And so people not just from Atlanta were coming, but people from all over the nation and outside of the nation.

And so now we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 ,000 last year, and then this year we're anticipating as many as 4 ,000 to 5 ,000.

So this coming up conference is going to be centered on the theme of the mission of God.

And so it's a biblical understanding of mission, and so we're going to have many different preachers who are going to be here to discuss that from various different vantage points.

So how can parachurch ministries help the mission of God, the proclamation of the gospel, church planting?

But what is the role of the local church? And so we're going to be talking about those things, and those particular points will be developed throughout the weekend.

So it's going to be a great time, and so we encourage you to join us if possible. Yes, and we'll be repeating this, but the website is g3conference .com,

g3conference .com. I am so excited about it. This has become my favorite conference of all, and this will be my third conference at the

G3 Conference, God willing, where I am manning an Iron Trip and Zion exhibitors booth. And the Lord has used my presence there in some remarkable ways for Iron Trip and Zion radio.

In fact, the last one where I was manning a booth, the

First Love Publications and First Love Radio Ministry was right next to my booth, and the individual who is the founder of that ministry,

Pastor Joe Jackowitz, invited me out to lunch, and he said, We want you to be our flagship program here on First Love Radio.

And within about three or four weeks or so, I was on that network,

First Love Radio, and that is as a result of God using my presence there at the

G3 Conference to bring that about. So I'm so excited about what God has in store in January.

Yeah, amen. And I've met so many new listeners that I had never met before or heard from before.

I've met face -to -face for the first time many people who are regular questioners on Iron Trip and Zion radio, and I have also met a couple of people who have become sponsors of the show, so it's really,

I'm excited about it. And also, folks, don't forget that you can not only register to be an attender of the

G3 Conference by going to g3conference .com. You can also register for an exhibitor's booth, and just like I will be manning,

God willing. And can you tell our listeners something about that aspect of it, Pastor Josh?

I know that you don't just let anybody man an exhibitor's booth, so if you could tell us what would be the requirements of that, at least in summary form, and anything else our listeners need to know.

We may have a church, a parachurch ministry, a business, or some kind of a special event they're promoting that they would like to promote amongst the 4 ,000 to 5 ,000 people at the

G3 Conference at an exhibitor's booth. Yeah, so to be an exhibitor at the

G3, you would need to fill out an application. You can find that on the g3conference .com

website. And we would simply review that application. To be an exhibitor, we would simply need to feel comfortable that that organization would be in the neighborhood of our belief system.

In other words, not just a Christian, someone who embraces Christ, but someone that we can put our stamp of approval on, someone that we believe would be beneficial to the local churches and the believers who will be present at the conference.

So, you know, we would like for someone to fit within our framework of doctrine and be closely knit with us.

So, you know, as you well know, Chris, we have people who are Reformed Baptists. We have people who are just general

SBC churches. We have Presbyterian churches. But we want people to know up front that, you know, we're standing on a

Reformed tradition at this conference. And so, you know, if you're coming from some other vantage point or theological distinction, it probably would not be a good idea for you to be present in that capacity.

In that capacity. Obviously, you want Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims and Mormons to be in the audience. Absolutely.

Right. And just to relieve a little bit of the anxiety for anybody wanting to register for a booth,

I'm assuming that you would be somewhat more lenient towards a ministry that may not be a five -point

Calvinist ministry, but is involved in a specific ministry that has more of a universal need and approach and mission.

Like, for instance, just off the top of my head, like some kind of a Christian adoption agency, or something like that, where the theology behind the great divide between Reformed and Arminian is not necessarily involved at all in what they're doing.

Would I be correct on that? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. In fact, we want to be clear. We don't think that if you're not a

Calvinist, that you're not a Christian. That's not at all what we believe. So we work with people who certainly don't share the same distinctions that we would hold to in those various different capacities.

So yeah, we have various organizations each year that will be at the conference who would fit into that very category.

All right. We've done this every time you've come on the program, but as I said, we have new listeners joining us every day.

I get contacted from all over the world from people who have never heard the program until recently.

So tell our listeners about, in summary, Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia. Yes, so Praise Mill Baptist Church is a 176 -year -old church that is located just west of Atlanta, Georgia.

I grew up here as a boy. My wife grew up here as a girl in the church. So we met as children.

We eventually married, and I moved away. We both moved away to attend seminary.

So I went to Louisville, Kentucky to attend the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And in God's providence, seven years later,

He would call me back to serve the church where we grew up as children. So it's been an absolute joy, a privilege of mine to serve the people who served us as children, to preach the gospel on a weekly basis to those very people.

Just yesterday at 2 o 'clock, I had the privilege of preaching a funeral for one of the women who, you know, was a longtime member of this church and served us and encouraged us as children.

And so, you know, the circle of ministry is quite unique in God's providence for us here in this role.

But God has certainly been gracious to us, and it's a privilege to be a pastor in this particular church.

Praise God. And for anybody who wants more information, and we'll be repeating this later as well, but for anybody who wants more information about Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, if you happen to live in that area or plan on visiting there or have friends, family, and loved ones living there and you want to refer them to this church, it's

PraiseMill .com, P -R -A -Y -S -Mill .com, P -R -A -Y -S -Mill .com.

And once again, Pray was the name of the man who offered up his property or his land to plant the very first congregation there, right?

That's correct. It was the first Baptist church in this county, that's right. Well, we are going to be going to a midway break right now.

This is a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, which actually adopted

Iron Sherpins Iron Radio as a result of me meeting them two years ago at the G3 conference.

They have been airing Iron Sherpins Iron Radio in a rerun form every single day, twice a day, in morning drive and evening drive ever since I met them at the

G3 conference in 2016. But because of the fact that they require an elongated break between our two major segments because they air their own commercials and public service announcements and other things, this is a longer than normal break.

So please use this time to not only write down questions for our guest

Josh Bice of Praise Middle Baptist Church on the theme of complementarianism, but also use this time to write down the information provided by our advertisers because the more you patronize and support our advertisers, the more they will likely, the longer they will likely remain as paying advertisers to keep this program on the air.

So we would really appreciate that if you take the time to write down their information as well. So don't go away,

God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages with more of Pastor Josh Bice and the theme today, complementarianism.

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So please make sure that you mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are going to be returning any moment with our guest today,

Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia.

He's also the founder and director of the G3 Conference, and we are going to be discussing the need for further clarity on the complementarian view of gender roles in the church and home when we return to that discussion.

But we just have a few more important announcements to make before we return to that discussion.

First of all, coming up very soon, August 2nd through the 4th, the

Fellowship Conference New England returns to Portland, Maine at the Deering Center Community Church, and the speakers include

Pastor Tim Conway of Grace Community Church in San Antonio, Texas, Pastor Mac Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

He's also an author and book editor and publisher. Pastor Jesse Barrington, who is the pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, which happens to be the sister church or a sister church of Grace Life Church in Lake City, Florida, who runs

Grace Life Radio, who airs Iron Sharpens Iron Radio every day in a rerun format twice a day in morning and evening drive.

Author and pastor Nate Pikowitz, who is the pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmont and Iron Works in New Hampshire, is also one of the speakers.

If you want more details on the Fellowship Conference New England, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

Then, coming up in November, on November 9th and the 10th, our friends at the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is once again having their Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

Not to be confused with the Reformed Town Conference on Quaker Theology. It's the

Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology, and this year the theme is The Glory of the

Cross. The speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortlund, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

If you would like to attend this conference, which is held at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quaker Town, Pennsylvania, November 9th and the 10th, go to alliancenet .org,

alliancenet .org, click on events, and then scroll down to the Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology, and the theme, once again, is

The Glory of the Cross. Please tell the folks at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that you heard about the conference from Chris Arnzen and Iron Sherpins Iron Radio, and I do intend to be there manning an exhibitor's booth on November 9th and 10th at the conference, so please greet me during the breaks while you're there if you register.

Then coming up in January, the event that I have been raving about for weeks now, and in fact for years now if you take into consideration the other

G3 conferences that I've been promoting, but I'm so delighted that once again

I will be manning an Iron Sherpins Iron exhibitor's booth at the G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, specifically in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, at the

Georgia International Convention Center. And the theme is on missions, as we had mentioned earlier, and the speakers, once again there's a very long lineup of very impressive speakers, which include,

God willing, Paul Washer, John Piper, Stephen J. Lawson, Votie Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad M.

Bayway, Phil Johnson, who is the Executive Director of John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you,

Josh Bice, who is my guest today, the founder of the G3 conference, and Anthony Mathenia, who happens to be

Paul Washer's pastor, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, and the list goes on.

There are many more involved on that roster. If you would like to join me at the G3 conference in January of 2019, and specifically, by the way, it will be held,

God willing, from Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th, and with a special Spanish -speaking edition, a special Spanish conference on Wednesday, January 16th, so everybody that you know in Spanish ministry, or whether they are

Spanish -speaking or bilingual, perhaps you should, in fact, you definitely should let them know about that Spanish -speaking edition of the conference on January 16th.

But if you want to register for this conference, as we mentioned earlier, whether as simply an attender of the conference or as an exhibitor, if you want to register for an exhibitor's booth, go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com. Please make sure you tell the folks there that you heard about the conference from Chris Arns and on Iron Sherp and Zion Radio.

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But now we are back with our discussion with Pastor Josh Bice of the G3 Conference and of Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia.

And our theme, as I mentioned earlier, is A Need for Further Clarity on the Complementarian View of Gender Roles in the

Church and Home. And if you would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Pastor Josh, obviously, this is a highfalutin, fancy, book -learning word, book -learning word, as they say, complementarian.

If you could define that for our listeners who don't know what we're talking about. Absolutely. Complementarianism actually is a word that just simply means that God created men and women equal in their personhood, their value, but that they have very distinct roles that God has rooted in creation.

And so while they're both created man and woman as created equal in value as image bearers of God, there are specific roles that God has designed for the man to carry out that the woman is not created to carry out, and vice versa.

So that's the idea that we see rooted not in a modern understanding of roles, but it's actually rooted in creation itself.

So obviously, and of course, let's just say to contrast this, there are egalitarians, as they are known.

Some would even call them Christian feminists. Some would even identify themselves as Christian feminists.

But there are those who have varying degrees of parity in roles within the egalitarian camp.

Some believe that there are absolutely no distinctions between the genders in regard to their roles.

Some would believe that although a man is to be the head of his household, that women can still pursue the highest levels of office within church polity.

They can be pastors, they can be senior pastors, even though some of those distinctions aren't really biblical.

And of course, you have those that are in disagreement over whether or not women can be deacons in the church.

And sometimes that has to do with whether or not the deacon role in that specific congregation or denomination bears a connection with authority over men.

Because as you may well know, even our very conservative brother in Christ and modern -day hero

John MacArthur, he has women in the deaconate at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, but they do not have authority over men in the church.

They are servants there. But if you could, if there's anything further you have to say about the view that is contrasted with complementarianism known as egalitarianism.

No, I mean, I think that that's a good overview. I mean, I think that the rub between the two positions becomes what is the actual role that God intends for women to carry out?

And so you would have the complementarian who would say, that's very clear in Scripture from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, we see a clear understanding of those roles.

And so the egalitarian would say, well, it's not clear, and women should be empowered to the highest levels of leadership in various capacities, whether it be culture or whether it be the home or whether it be the local church.

And so, again, as you've mentioned, there are differing positions even within both camps.

But what I would like to talk about today focuses on what I would say is an assault on complementarianism in the evangelical circles.

And it's becoming more and more apparent that there is a push to empower women in our present day.

And so we just need to ask an honest question, do we really stand on biblical complementarianism or do we not?

And so should we redefine these positions? Have we really oppressed women?

I think that that's a valid question that we need to consider as we think about these very arguments.

Yes, now I'm assuming, I could be wrong, but I'm assuming because of the fact of the way that you specifically worded the theme today, a need for further clarity on complementarianism, that you believe that there are those who identify themselves as complementarian, but perhaps who have drifted from the core meaning and parameters of what that actually means.

Yeah, absolutely. So you have, historically speaking, in recent church history, you have the evangelical culture that was very much confused on the inerrancy of the

Bible. And so you have this massive push back in the 70s, leading through the

Southern Baptist Convention and other evangelical circles, over a battle for the Bible.

Is the Bible inerrant or is it not? And so you have conservatives that would suggest that the totality of Scripture is

God -breathed. And then you would have liberals that would say, well no, the Bible contains the Word of God.

And so there was this confusing distinction between the liberal and the conservative on the subject of the

Bible. Yes. And so eventually the conservative group started to champion the idea of, you know, the sufficiency and the validity of God's Word.

And so from that we started to see a move back to Scripture that would say the

Bible is able to give for us these distinctions and show us, you know, what it means to worship

God. And so we see this clear understanding of these different aspects of both life and worship that are flowing from the

Scriptures. And so through that era you have the feminist movement that's, you know, championing the idea that women should be liberated from men.

I mean, you have people like Gloria Steinem that would say things like this. She would say, a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.

I'm sorry if I'm laughing at that, but it is kind of funny. Yeah, I mean, she would say things like that, and it would get a lot of attention.

She would say things like, a liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.

Wow. And so the idea was that women need to be liberated from the oppression of men.

Right. And so it was from the Scriptures that we were saying, the idea of headship and submission is not somehow a result of the

Fall, but it's something that God actually instituted and designed before the

Fall. And so you can go back to Genesis 2, and you see God creating Adam, and then from Adam he took a rib and fashioned a woman and joined them together in marriage, the first marriage ceremony there in the

Garden of Eden. It was a beautiful picture of marriage, and yet you see headship and you see the design of leadership as far as male leadership rooted in creation.

It was not a result of the Fall. And so you have these feminists years ago that were saying things like, you know, women need to be liberated.

I mean, the militant feminist was arguing years ago, and by the way, they still argue this, that caring for children is some form of, you know, it's on the same level as slavery or imprisonment.

So it's oppression. That's what they would say. So the idea is that we need to liberate women so that they can go out into the workforce.

But modern -day statistics actually tell us that about 70 % of mothers with children under the age of 18 actually work outside of the home.

That's a staggering statistic. If you think about the fact that 70 % of mothers with children under the age of 18 actually make up about 34 % of the total labor force, that's staggering.

And then we start thinking about this idea that today we have evangelical leaders who are suggesting that we have somehow held women back from flourishing, and so we need to empower them to the highest levels of leadership.

I don't see how that's, you know, I don't see how you can make that connection logically.

But let's go beyond logic. Let's go to the scriptures. And so the question must become, have we as evangelicals oppressed women and held them back from doing exactly what

God has called them to do? And that's the question mark. Now, we do have a listener.

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who asks, how specifically are those who identify themselves as complementarian violating the true principles of complementarianism and making protest or drifting from the parameters of that definition of church polity and even home life?

Yeah, that's a fantastic question. So I'm a Southern Baptist, so we try to, as a church, partner within the big tent, if you will, of the

Southern Baptist Convention, about 47 ,000 churches. We don't all agree, and we certainly as a local church don't agree with much of what takes place within the

Southern Baptist Convention. But we try to partner within that group, if you will, as much as possible to accomplish missions and to accomplish church planting and Christian education through good seminaries like the

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. But today, you know, in our recent day, we have a debate that's moving its way through the

Southern Baptist Convention when you have certain leaders or certain voices within the convention.

For instance, there's a particular voice within the Southern Baptist Convention who suggested that he would actually have nominated at the convention this past June, he would have actually nominated

Beth Moore to be the president of the convention, but he said in a tweet that was on June 2, 2018, he said that tradition, sexism, fear, and other non -biblical factors would probably prevent any woman from having or from being elected as the president of the

Southern Baptist Convention. So when you hear that type of language, you hear other leaders within the

Southern Baptist Convention suggesting that there is no reason whatsoever that a woman should not serve as the president of the convention.

We're starting to ask questions about what does it mean to then have women holding authority over men, and so that takes us back to, you know, 1

Timothy 2, and we need to develop and understand, unpack, what it was that Paul was actually teaching in that very letter.

Now, does Beth Moore have an egalitarian view of her ability to be something like the president of the

SBC or local congregation? Well, it's kind of a mixed bag, if you will.

So Beth Moore would say that she rejects any idea that she could serve in the office of an elder, okay?

So she doesn't see that she fits the qualification for that particular office. But she would absolutely say that women could serve in a leadership position in a convention of churches like the

Southern Baptist Convention, for instance, because it's not occupying the actual office of the elder.

But the question becomes when she takes that office and she is in a leadership capacity where she's organizing business affairs for 47 ,000 churches at an annual meeting, when she's being invited to speak in chapel services at, you know, the

Southern Baptist schools or seminaries, when she's actually being invited to speak in various churches and that type of thing, is she violating 1

Timothy 2 in holding authority over men in that capacity? And I would actually say that that is a violation of 1

Timothy 2, but she would say that that's not a violation of 1 Timothy 2. Let me ask you a question of my own that I was surprised to discover was a belief amongst conservative, theologically reformed brothers in Christ that I have gained much from and gleaned much from in their writings, in their conference messages, their sermons.

I'm not going to mention names, but during lunch break at conferences, sometimes

I speak to some of these men who will say, although I don't believe a woman can be a senior pastor,

I don't believe the Bible would prohibit her from being an elder or from teaching adult men in a

Bible study, a regularly held Bible study. And I have responded, well, there is no such thing technically as a senior pastor in the scriptures.

I mean, as far as I can see, there's two offices. There's elder and deacon, and elder would be the same thing as a pastor.

Now, I understand that churches, congregations, do make a distinguishing office from senior to assistant or associate pastor.

In fact, the church where I'm a member does. But to say that a woman cannot be a senior pastor but be an elder or associate pastor, that's really destroying the biblical qualifications in the

New Testament for being a shepherd or an overseer in the church, isn't it? It absolutely is, because when you go to the text in 1

Timothy 3, and you see that that first paragraph for the qualifications of the elder is actually very closely related to the next paragraph, which is the qualification for the second office, which is that of deacon.

But the distinguishing difference is that the first paragraph, you see that one of the qualifications is that he must be able to teach.

And so it doesn't matter if you're the main preaching elder in the church or if you're an elder in the church who isn't the main preaching pastor.

The fact of the matter is simply this, you have to meet those qualifications. And so when you have

Paul saying that an overseer must be above reproach, he must be the husband of one wife, and then he goes on down and actually talks about the fact that his own household must be managed well with dignity, keeping his children in submission.

How can a woman actually fulfill those roles? And again, that's that distinction of role that God has rooted in creation.

And so from the home in creation and in the garden, the management there, to the home and then eventually to the local church, as we see that role playing its way out through redemptive history and through Scripture itself, to put a woman in the office of elder would be a clear violation of 1

Timothy 3 and Titus 1. And we have to go to a break right now.

It's our last break, and it's a very brief break. If you would like to ask a question of our guest, Pastor Josh Bice, you want to get in line with those who are already waiting to have their questions asked and answered.

I would highly advise you do so immediately because we're rapidly running out of time. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city, and state and country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. By the way, Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, you have won a free copy of the book that we were discussing during the first half hour,

Name Above All Names by Alistair Begg and Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. Since the time went by so quickly during the first half hour, we still have some books left over, so you have won a free copy of that book.

Please make sure we have your full mailing address so that cvbbs .com can ship that out to you.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Pastor Josh Bice of the G3 Conference right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen, and we are now conducting our last 25 minutes or so of our interview with Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia, who is also the founder and director of the

G3 Conference. And if you'd like to join us on the air, do so now or forever hold your peace, because we're rapidly running out of time.

Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, and it is quite timely, providential, and a little bit humorous,

Pastor Josh, that I just got an email from the gospel coalition

Women in the Local Church. They're having a special women's gathering on that issue.

So I don't know if we would agree or disagree or have a mixture of both with that event, but it was just,

I found it kind of providentially humorous. Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, that goes back to what we had discussed earlier, is that there's a big push today about empowerment, and so this idea of we need to somehow empower women today.

And so as I think through these things, I think for me it really just centers on this idea that femininity is not a bad thing, but feminism is a bad thing, and masculinity is not a bad thing, but male domination and abuse of headship is absolutely sinful.

But the idea that we somehow today in evangelicalism need to repent of the oppression of women,

I just simply can't see that. And so there may be certain areas where we can say certain examples that certain organizations or maybe even denominations have held back women in some capacity, but as I see it today, women are free in Christ to serve in the way that God has created and designed them.

And so for us to somehow redefine what that role looks like today to fit into a modern definition in our modern culture,

I think would be a severe mistake. So in other words, to empower women to roles that God never designed them to occupy would be detrimental,

I think, for evangelicals moving forward. We have a listener, John in Bangor, Maine, who asks a question that I remember others have asked you before when you've been on this show.

He asks, I am not saying this question because I disagree with some of the members of your speaking roster, but I'm just curious how you would defend it knowing of your complementarian position.

I know that looking at your website, you have Cindy Curran and Martha Peace speaking in 2019, and in the past you have had

Rosaria Butterfield and other women speak on the roster. How is this possible when you're holding a complementarian view that you believe is historically accurate and biblically accurate?

That's a very fair question, and it's a very valid question, so I want to thank the gentleman for asking that question.

When it comes to the G3 Conference, as well as our own local church, we are happy to create an atmosphere for investment in women, to have certain women come that could be an encouragement to women who might be there, such as pastor's wives or maybe single women, missionaries, and various other types of situations that might be found in the conference setting.

So what we do is we invite women, such as Rosaria Butterfield or Cindy Curran or someone like that, to come in to speak specifically to women.

And so the idea is not to invite that woman or that particular individual to stand on the platform and to open the

Bible and to exposit Scripture to a mixed audience. That's not the goal of that type of thing.

So, yeah, we defend our position and stand firmly on the Word of God there, and so we would not be violating

Scripture because we're creating that atmosphere specifically for women's involvement in the

G3. We have Bebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

Do you believe that there are professed complementarians who are in their hearts egalitarian and are coming into our midst by stealth to try to make radical changes while still remaining under the label complementarian?

Wow, that's a very good question. So I like the way that the question is framed.

I actually do believe that that is true. I do believe that there are people who are saying,

We believe in complementarianism. But at the very same time, they're pushing the boundaries.

And so what I mean by that, let me give you an example. When you have the previous example that I used earlier about the whole controversy over biblical inerrancy, back in the day, you had people that would say,

Do you believe in inerrancy? And they would say, Oh, yeah, absolutely. I believe in inerrancy.

And then they would say, Do you believe that the Bible is inerrant? And then they would say, Absolutely. And then you say, Look, let me press the question a bit further.

Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God? And they would say,

Well, I believe that the Bible contains the Word of God. And so they would try to get around the question while affirming a view of inerrancy.

And so they were really rejecting inerrancy altogether. And I think that what we have today is we have people who say,

I believe in complementarianism, but they really believe in something other than what we mean when we say complementarianism.

So I believe we need to really get down to business and have a clear understanding of what it means to hold to historic complementarianism.

And so the idea that women can teach or preach to a mixed audience, even in a local church, so long as she's not occupying the actual office of elder, or, you know, in some senses you have women who come to a local church setting and they say,

Well, I'm coming under the authority of the elder who invited me. And they use language like that.

I find that very concerning. I find it a bit deceptive. And I just think that it's time that we define these lines clearly from the

Scriptures. We have Sikali, which is, as we've been told, a

Dutch name, very unusual name, Sikali. He is in Ponoka, Alberta, Canada.

And he asks, What would Pastor Bice recommend as a good starting point and pointers to have a discussion with egalitarians and hopefully swing them to believe the authority of the

Bible and the proper view of the issue? Thank you, brothers. Yeah, that's a really good question.

Well, again, I think that our authority comes not from our opinions. It doesn't come from creeds and confessions.

It doesn't come from statements of faith or anything else. It comes from the Scriptures. And so if we're going to have a conversation over these matters,

I think that the best way to do it would be to ground that discussion in the Bible and to take people back to the created order itself and to show where God created these distinctions, these role distinctions of male headship and the submission and the leadership of women, submission to their husbands, is all rooted in the

Garden of Eden prior to, before the actual fall that took place in Genesis chapter 3.

And if you will, I think one of the critical junctures is to go to Genesis 3 and see where the serpent actually came not to Adam, but he actually came to Eve.

And what we see there is it's the first role reversal. The very first time that we find a woman taking authority over her husband and making a decision to eat of that very fruit that was forbidden by God himself, that's the first role reversal.

And that's where sin entered the world and death by sin. And so when we think about having this discussion,

I think it's essential that we root it in Scripture and then we trace from Genesis 3, really

Genesis chapter 1, and go all the way through to the New Testament, and then you see the very same distinctions, those role distinctions that God instituted that creation, we see them playing their way out in the life of the local church.

And so you really can't get around this idea of male leadership when you come to the actual qualification.

Those texts of Scripture, 1 Timothy 3, Titus chapter 1, you see the masculinity that's just rooted there in those texts.

Well, that's connected back to Genesis. And so I think we have to establish this conversation in the

Bible itself. We have Christopher from Suffolk County, New York, who asks, forgive me if you've already addressed this, but I have heard some women, and also those that agree with an egalitarian view who are men, say that a woman is not to usurp or steal the authority of a man in the church.

But other than that, if she is elected by the congregation, she has the freedom to pursue and ascend to the ranks of overseer, pastor, and elder.

Yeah. Well, that's a very faulty interpretation, for one. So that's the first problem.

The second problem would be that a church can vote to do whatever it likes to do, but it's going to be held accountable according to God's Word for its decision.

So just because a church elects a woman to the office of pastor doesn't mean that they're going to somehow evade accountability to God for what

God says that the office itself should be. So in other words, you know, a church can have a voting session and can absolutely elect a homosexual to be the pastor of the church if they so desire, but that doesn't mean that they're going to evade

God's standard for what it means to be a Christian and for what it means to be a pastor.

And so, again, we're held accountable to God's Word. God's Word is the authority, not the local church.

Yeah, it doesn't mean they're going to be able to evade God's wrath either. Absolutely. And so there's going to be consequences.

But the fact of the matter is simply this. A church or any group of people can make a decision to do whatever they so desire, but there will be consequences, and they will not escape what

God's Word actually says. So if they choose to say in 1

Timothy 2 .12, if they say, well, we're not going to say that a woman is forcing authority over the church.

We're going to actually give her authority. Well, now what do you do when you come to the very next chapter when it talks about the office of elder must be a man who is the husband of one wife?

How does a woman fit that category? And then when you go down to you see that it talks about the fact that he, the man, must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

Again, how does a woman fit that category, that distinction? And the fact is she can't.

And so you see God's intention all the way through the

Scriptures, from Genesis all the way through the New Testament. So again, just because a church votes to do something doesn't mean that they somehow evade the standard that God has set forth in the

Bible. Amen. Let's see here. We have Christian in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

And Christian asks, When we as men pick up a book by a sister in Christ and learn from it and applaud it and share it and promote it, are we violating complementarian rules?

Well, that's really a good question. And there's mixed reviews on this particular question. There are different positions that people take, even within the conservative complementarian camps.

So I personally don't believe that if a man reads a book that's written by a woman where she cites

Scripture, that she's somehow holding authority over that man. For one, there is no truth that's not revealed to us in Scripture itself, so that the actual truth is rooted in God's Word.

And again, when we think about the fact that she's not actually preaching and teaching to the men, the man's reading the actual truth, the truth itself is not found in her as the source.

It's found in God himself. So personally, my own personal opinion is that I don't think that you're violating

Scripture by reading a book, choosing to pick up a book and read what a woman has written. But I do think that when it comes to the actual proclamation of the

Word and the assembly of the believers together for the purpose of learning and worshiping

God, for a woman to occupy that post of preaching the

Bible would then be a violation. Now, that doesn't mean that a woman can't sit in a small group

Bible study and have a conversation with other men who might be there. So I don't think that that's at all a violation of the text of Scripture itself.

So again, we have all of these differing positions. Again, you have some that would say that asking a woman to even give a testimony of conversion in the assembly of the brothers and sisters in Christ the

Church is a violation of the text of Scripture. And again, I wouldn't necessarily suggest that that's true.

So that's a great question, but you have some people that would say it is a violation and for that reason there are many men who would not read a book that was written by a woman.

I just simply disagree on that particular point. Yeah, I remember clearly I was at a worship service and I was standing next to a brother who when we were singing a hymn and he realized that the author of the hymn may have been

Fannie Crosby or some other woman, when he realized that he was singing a hymn written by a woman, he actually threw the hymnal on the floor.

Now that's going into a level of complementarianism that's a bit deranged, isn't it?

Absolutely, absolutely. Again, all truth is God's truth and it doesn't rest in the source of that particular author.

I think that you can definitely grow by reading a book that was written by a woman and I think that that can be something that is very much a healthy thing.

Yeah, and going back to the book question, because if you're reading a book where a woman is either much wiser or more intelligent or learned than you, or who has just seen something in the

Scripture that you've overlooked, or she's citing something from history that you didn't know about, you are learning from her, you are being taught by her, but the difference is that you are not bound to be under her authority in any way.

She is not in the place of the role of a teacher in the church.

You are voluntarily picking up that book and learning from it. Isn't that one of the ways it would be different? Oh, absolutely so.

I believe that. And again, to that point, Chris, I want to mention this. When we talk about complementarianism, we're not at all suggesting that women are inferior, somehow subpar as far as their intellectual capacity, or anything of that nature.

In fact, there are many women in local churches that could dance circles around their main preaching pastor.

But the fact of the matter is simply this. We have to come back to what is the role that God has instituted from the beginning.

And so we want to be champions of the Bible, and we want to not apologize for that.

And so when we talk about the actual teaching, the preaching of the Word of God, that word, the Dasko in the

Greek, again, that has in mind the actual authoritative transmission, the actual authoritative proclamation, if you will, of that text of Scripture.

And so that has been God's plan from the beginning, that men would occupy that post.

And another thing, I mean, I know that there are women who may be offended by this, and there is absolutely no intent behind that, but I'm just trying to convey with clarity the fact that you could read and learn from someone, and not violate a biblical principle.

Because even, for instance, if a gifted teenager were to write something, even his parents and those who are his elders could learn from that and benefit from it, even though this child is in a position of submission over not only his own parents, but the elders in the church and so on.

So therefore, there's no violation there if you are voluntarily picking up a book. And I'm not saying that we are to look upon women as children.

I'm not saying that. I am just saying that you could prove that the concept of being taught by someone who is not an authority over you in a technical sense is still valid in the realm of reading a book or other ways of conveying thought.

Absolutely so, and I would agree with that. I think that to suggest that women can't say anything that's valid that could actually be profitable to any man would be,

I think, beyond what God has intended in Scripture itself. Right.

Well, I want to make sure within the next three minutes that you really summarize what you most etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners in regard to this subject of complementarianism and being more clear as to what we believe about this issue.

Well, Chris, I'm really passionate about just standing firm on the Bible. And so when we look at today's evangelical world, we see what

I would say is a social justice agenda. And so there's this idea that we have oppressed women, we've oppressed people of color, and we've oppressed

LGBT individuals. And you see that in our culture at large, but you're also starting to see that type of language coming into the local church or coming into evangelical circles and organizations.

So now there's this idea that we actually need to somehow empower these women.

We need to empower people of color or empower these individuals to these levels of leadership.

And that's certainly not so. I think it's a danger for us to actually think that way. And so what we need to do is we need to actually stand on the

Word of God to empower people to positions that God did not call them to,

I think, is to our detriment. I think it implies when we say we need to empower someone, we are implying that we have somehow held them back.

And so that's what I'm fearful of is this idea that we've held people back from what God actually has called them to do.

So I hope that makes sense. I want to make sure that we're very clear on that. I don't know what happened to your voice,

Pastor Josh, but you're very muffled right now. Well, we've somehow lost

Pastor Bice. Can you hear me? Yes, now I can, yeah. And, of course, to make it clear, you're not saying, obviously, people of all skin colors and ethnic origins have the same level of opportunity as whites in the

Scriptures. A black man or Hispanic man or an Asian man or a

Native American man can be a pastor over an entirely white congregation if he is called to do so.

Absolutely. The thing that I'm concerned about today is this idea of social justice so that there's a lot of sympathy where people are suggesting that we need to fight for the oppressed.

We need to fight and stand for the oppressed woman that's been held back or the oppressed person of color that's been held back or now we're suggesting, at least our culture is, is that we need to stand and defend the oppressed homosexual.

And what we need to do is we need to just stand on the Scriptures and we need to ask ourselves an honest question, have we held back in evangelical circles, have we held back women from serving in the capacity that God has designed them to occupy those roles?

And if we're honest with ourselves and we believe that we need to be using women in the life of the local church for discipleship, for the purpose of training younger women, for the purpose of working in their homes, and we start looking at what the

Bible actually teaches, I think that we don't have a reason to apologize. I think that we have this conversation of empowerment and it's somehow a veiled, pragmatic goal that we have to use sympathy to maybe grow organizations or to get spotlight in particular areas so that we can say that we champion the idea of equality of men and women.

Well, we actually do. But we want to make sure that we're not violating the actual role distinction that God has rooted in creation.

Amen. And we're out of time and I want to make sure that our listeners have all the information that they need to get a hold of you and to learn more about your church and your conference.

I know that Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, once again, their website is praysmill .com,

praysmill .com, and the G3 Conference is g3conference .com,

g3conference .com. If you could hold on the line, Pastor Josh, I want to say a proper goodbye to you off the air and I want to thank you so much for being our guest today.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater