THE DOREAN PRINCIPLE Interview with Conley Owens

All right, so today on the Here I Stand Theology podcast, we are going to be examining the

Dorian Principle, a biblical response to the commercialization of Christianity written by Conley Owens.

Today we have the pastor, the author, the man, the father, here on the

Here I Stand Theology podcast. Hang tight. We'll be right back. Here I stand.

I can do no other. Will you recant or will you not?

Since your majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer.

Unless I am convinced by scripture and by plain reason and not by popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves, my conscience is captive to the word of God.

To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. I cannot and I will not recant

Here I Stand. I can do no,

I can do no other. Welcome to the

Here I Stand Theology podcast. You heard it. Repent and believe the gospel.

That is the message. If there's anything that we want you to get out of this podcast, it's this, that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and that he arose again.

Repent and believe the gospel. We are so excited to have our guest on today.

Well, as I mentioned in the intro, he is not only an author, but Conley Owens has his

MDiv from the Logg College and Seminary. He is pastor at Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church, as well a senior software engineer at Google.

He is the husband to one wife, the father to seven children.

Ladies and gentlemen, we want to bring him in now. Welcome Conley Owens. All right,

Conley. So glad to have you today. I'm not hearing you.

There we go. Oh, yeah. That's quite the intro. Thanks for having me. You're welcome.

You're welcome. Oh, man. So you are a fellow pastor.

I pastor here in Knoxville, Tennessee at Reformed Baptist Church. You pastor there in Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church.

That's right. I'm going to go ahead and get this out right up front. I know that my accent might be the worst accent that you have endured on an interview.

I'm from Virginia, and so a lot of my relatives are from far Southwest Virginia.

So you would be surprised. Their accents are really, really strong. Awesome. Awesome. So it's not going to throw you off or anything.

That's a good thing. No. My mom, my mother's name is Lila, and she came here to visit one time and she ordered food at KFC and they were calling her name and they said, is

Lala here? They had written her name down as Lala, L -A -L -A. All right.

So let's begin here. I wanted to actually begin just by reading your conclusion, which, you know, it's only a page in a passage of scripture.

But let's begin with this. What we'll do, we'll start at the end and we'll pretend like we're in a movie and we're just going to work our way back from the beginning back to the end here, because you have, there is so much good content in this.

So in his conclusion to his book, a final word about the gospel, Conley writes this.

The prophet Isaiah described salvation as water that is offered without money and without price.

In the gospels, Jesus explains he is the source of that living water. On the final pages of scripture,

John records the repeated assertion that the Lord offers this water freely. As we consider the relationship between money and ministry, there is nothing less at stake than proper advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If the Dorian principle correctly summarizes the ministry fundraising ethic of the

New Testament, the implications are far reaching. In regular church work and activity, this truth may round out some rough edges, but in other areas it demands radical transformation.

Equipped with this one maxim, we may curb the commercialization of Christianity and usher in a new era of uncompromised ministry.

In the context of gospel proclamation, accepting support as anything other than an act of co -labor compromises the sincerity of ministry.

The modern church has unintentionally gone astray, blindly following the model of the world.

What blessings await if we will reform our practices, calling ministers and ministries to repentance?

In Micah 3 .11, the scripture says, Its heads give judgment for a bribe,

Its priests teach for a price, Its prophets practice divination for money,

Yet they lean on the Lord and say, Is not the Lord in the midst of us?

No disaster shall come upon us. So Conley, what led you to write the book?

Yeah, well, I guess the medium -length story would be that I had become kind of dissatisfied with the way

I saw a lot of ministries using copyright in order to restrict the transmission of their teaching in order to gain funds.

It didn't seem ideal to me for a lot of reasons, a lot being that because I come from a software background,

I'm used to a lot of creative or innovative thinking around copyright.

So I felt like there were better solutions, but I didn't know if I could really require this of people, or maybe it was just my own private opinion.

But then as I saw scripture addressed many times, money and ministry, it seemed that there was a lot there.

And so as I began to study this more and more and just collect all the biblical data, I realized it wasn't just one or two verses, you know,

Paul just is nonstop talking about money and ministry. You know, the Lord's Supper, he only talks about for half a chapter, but money and ministry, he's got whole chapters on that, and he just brings it up epistle after epistle.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. So let's, let's just go with chapter one.

So for our listeners, for our watchers today, our aim and our goal in this hour, by the way,

Conley has requested that we not make this a Joe Rogan length podcast. And by the way, disclaimer, we are not threatening to pull our podcast from Spotify.

Is that not the craziest thing? It's wild. Yeah. I can't tell if it's one of those things where, you know,

Neil Young was planning on leaving Spotify already and decided to like make an act out of it or something, you know,

I could see that, like, maybe it wasn't producing enough revenue for him and he was already on his way out.

I was like, well, let's, let's, let's make them kick me out first. Yeah, that was, that was quite the story there.

So beginning in chapter one, let's just start there at the beginning. So the, you, you, you use the terms reciprocity and co -labor.

So how do we differentiate? How do we make practical distinction between reciprocity versus co -labor and basically what are those two?

Right, right. So just to back it up a bit, Dorian is the Greek adverb that means freely,

Jesus said in Matthew 10, eight, freely received, freely give. But then right after that, he says the worker's worthy of his food.

So this is a book about how do you put those two together? How can you say that the minister is not supposed to get paid and that the minister is supposed to get paid at the same time?

And I believe the distinction that Jesus is making is the distinction between co -laboring with other believers, which he, which he encourages and reciprocity where you're exchanging religious instruction or the gospel for money and that he forbids.

And this is, you see the same distinction in Paul. You see the same distinction in third John. So so yes, reciprocity is where one feels a direct obligation to a minister.

And so gives out of a, out of a sense of direct obligation and co -labor is out of an indirect sense of obligation where one understands his primary obligation is to God.

And because of that, gives to the minister. Amen. So, I mean, well, first Corinthians talks about that, right?

Or second, I'm sorry, second Corinthians nine, correct? Yeah. First Corinthians nine, second Corinthians 11 are some of the biggest chapters.

Yeah. I had those backwards there. That's true. So does it mean that selling anything that is gospel, let's be very specific as we go through this.

I watched your, your interview with A .D. Robles, watched a couple of couple of others, but I don't know if that A .D.

Robles video was a early interview or not, but is, is it that selling, selling quote unquote anything that is gospel related, is that considered reciprocity?

Yeah. It depends on what we mean by gospel related. Anything that attends to the proclamation of the gospel needs to be offered freely.

You know, when Jesus said freely, you see freely give right before that, he said, raise the dead, heal lepers, cleanse, sorry, cleanse lepers, cast out demons, et cetera.

So if they had given the, the, those miracles at a cost, but then the gospel freely, that wouldn't have been good enough.

Everything that attends to the gospel needs to be offered freely. Paul didn't charge for his food. He didn't charge for a ship ticket.

You know, he, he gave everything that attended to gospel ministry freely. Now take, if you flip it around and you say, well, let's say

I've got this product I'm selling and then I slap Bible verse on it or, you know, I put something gospel oriented around it or I'm offering a, you know, a math education, but I frame it a biblical worldview.

I don't think any of those things, yeah, that doesn't become gospel ministry at that point just because you've, because you've, you know, acknowledged the creator in the process.

So I don't think that this, that this ethic regulates things outside of ministry proper, but within ministry proper, it regulates everything that attends to that ministry.

Amen. Much, much like what we see in, we'll, we'll get to that late in the, in your later chapters, but what we see in the modern church, particularly in the prosperity gospel, the faith move, the word of faith movement as well.

So chapter two, would you care to explain what the meaning of the word pro pimpo is?

Sure. So pro pimpo means to send forward. Literally. That's what it means. Practically.

It means to financially support someone on their journey. At least it has a very heavy financial overtones.

So this is used often throughout scripture to describe sending out a missionary, but you see it.

The reason why I bring this up in, in chapter two is because you see Paul preparing to come to the

Corinthians so that they will be able to pro pimpo him. So they'll be able to send him on his way.

And that's a little surprising given that he says in first Corinthians nine and second

Corinthians 11, that he would never take their money. Right. So how does he say that he's willing to come to them so that they can financially support them, but also saying that he'll never take their money.

And different contexts. One is in the context of reciprocity. I believe in the others, in the context of co -labor, obviously to send someone on a missionary journey is co -laboring for the sake of the gospel.

But the Corinthians, having been a plant of Paul's, they wanted to, they wanted to pay him back for his ministry.

And that becomes especially clear in second Corinthians 11. And even prior to that in 10, where it seems apparent that the super apostles were claiming to be the true fathers of Corinth and that they were receiving money.

Amen. So for our listeners, in case they're not aware, who were these super apostles or what was it that they assumed?

And why are they called super apostles? Right. So I suppose there are some theories that Paul, when he speaks of the super apostles, he's speaking of the other true apostles and he's comparing himself to them.

I don't think that idea is that popular and I don't find it very compelling. But the super apostles were essentially these other missionaries, not commissioned by Jesus Christ, but had elevated themselves to that level.

And they had, what seems very apparent to me in second Corinthians 11, or excuse me, 10, is that they were setting themselves up as though they were the true planters of Corinth.

It was because they were there that Corinth had their existence. And so in this context, they were receiving money back for their ministry.

And so they're exchanging the gospel for money in that context. And you see

Paul refer to them as false teachers. And yet he never picks a particular false doctrine.

Now it could be that any one of the things that he addresses with the Corinthians, he has that in mind, that maybe they were supporting some of these things.

But it's very surprising that Paul elsewhere, so willing to directly contradict false doctrine, doesn't do it with the super apostles.

And so I believe their falseness is primarily that they're boasting in self rather than boasting in Christ.

And this is reflected in the way that they receive money as though they're the source of the gospel, instead of God being the source of the gospel using his ministers as vessels.

That's right. They boasted in his labors as though they were their labors. Right. It would be,

I mean, a natural illustration, would you say, it would be a fair illustration for us to say that it would be akin to something like you going to work as a software engineer at Google and somebody coming in and saying,

I'll pick up his check for this month. Sure. He's already done the work.

I'll take the credit and I'll take the pay. Right. But then there's an added layer of irony in that Paul isn't claiming that he did this, you know, of his own accord and of his own strength.

The super apostles are claiming work that they didn't even do. Paul did the work, but he's acknowledging that ultimately his ability to do so was from God.

So there's an added layer of irony that not even Paul would claim credit for his own work in that way.

Amen. He said that about preaching the gospel itself. Woe unto me if I preach not the gospel.

Right. All right. Ian, on page 20 of chapter 2, about midways down on the page.

Well, I'll just read the blessedness of shared suffering, the short section there. The apostle

Paul has no qualms with others experiencing this hardship for the sake of the gospel, because while they suffer together, they receive comfort together.

He said in 2 Corinthians 1 7, Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that you share in our sufferings.

You will also share in our comfort. On the other hand, as Conley states here in the book, reciprocity lacks any similar spiritual benefit.

One who gives out of a sense of duty to man does not experience suffering in service to God.

That was a tremendous illustration or analogy there, or tremendous making that truth come to life.

I think for me, as I read that, that was so plain and so clear. Right. Yeah. When ministers engage in reciprocity and they charge for the ministry, there's a lot that's going on there that's wrong.

But one of the things they're doing is robbing Christians of the joy that they would have had if they had been giving this as support, you know, out of honor to God, rather than, you know, paying someone for a service that they're directly providing.

Amen. Amen. And something else worth mentioning that I found very impactful as I did this study about this whole idea of shared suffering.

If you look at Paul's list of his persecutions and his hardships, where he's shipwrecked, beaten, etc.,

he always lists that he worked with his hands. And when I discovered that, I found that so surprising. Manual labor, how does that sit with beatings and shipwrecks?

But he really considers that one of his afflictions, that he had to forego some of the fruit of his labor so that he could do this work.

And so when others forego the fruit of their labor so that Paul can do his ministry, they are colaboring beside Paul, sharing his suffering, taking that affliction on themselves.

And we can do the same thing as we work with pastors and ministers. Amen. Amen. Moving forward,

Chapter 3, you titled it the Triangle of Obligation. So in this chapter, you use the terms immediacy and indirection.

What do you mean by those terms and how are they contrasted? Right. So earlier

I said reciprocity is when someone feels a direct obligation to someone else or to a minister and then gives out of that sense of obligation.

And colabor, there's still a sense of obligation, but it's indirect because it is primarily to God.

The Bible does speak of us being obligated to our pastors, etc. But it's not a direct obligation.

It is because of our obligation to the Lord, who is the true source of the gospel, that we ought to give to his ministers and honor them.

So yeah, and Paul goes through in 1 Corinthians 9 a lot of analogies that reveal this.

And a lot of people, when they're reading 1 Corinthians 9, they see him talk about the right to receive support.

And I think they just zero in on that. And they think that Paul is justifying that he has a perfect license to receive anything, which is at odds with the direct point of the text, which is that he would never take this money.

There's something wrong about taking the money that they've offered him. And so anyway, what those illustrations show, and the best of them being to the priesthood, he talks about even the

Levites received of the offerings. The sacrifice and the offerings were made by the

Israelites, but they weren't made to the Levites. They were made to God. It would be idolatry to make sacrifices to the

Levites, but the Levites were still able to take that. And so it's that same triangle of the people giving to God and then

God giving to his ministers that needs to characterize giving. And you see that very same thing in Matthew 10 where Jesus talks about it.

That's exactly what's going on there, too. Amen. So you wrote this for your

MDiv, correct? Correct, yes. And I know there's several other things that you talked about.

Most folks don't read the appendix of books, and I'll be honest. This is the first appendix of a book that I've read of the books that I've read.

But I love what you included here in the bibliography, basically, in some of the further things that you discuss in the thesis that you wrote.

You've got even a deeper analysis of 1 Corinthians and Paul's concern over matters of conscience, a dedicated treatment of each of the four apparent discrepancies in Paul's financial policy.

You vaguely mentioned that a few minutes ago there. A biblical theology of co -labor, which,

I mean, I think you include that well here. An analysis of objection. Yeah, if I could interrupt.

What I mean by biblical theology, so I don't know how familiar your audience would be with this, but systematic theology is where you have a question, and you come to the

Bible to get an answer for that question. Right? Like, what should we believe about the Trinity? Something like that. You know, is Jesus God?

Biblical theology is where you consider the Bible as literature, and you ask, how does God reveal this to us?

You know, it's not necessarily about whether or not it's true. It's like, how did he decide to reveal it to us?

What books of the Bible did he do this? What narratives? And so the biblical theology of co -labor is like, let's start in the

Garden of Eden, where Adam is working alongside of Eve, supposedly, to form the garden.

He's walking with God in the garden, and then that fellowship is lost.

Let's see, other ways that it's abused with Babel and so on. And, you know, just look at all these different examples of the people working together, building the temple with Bezalel, right, and all these statements about volunteers, and times when help was rejected from the outside.

So there's this very longitudinal biblical theology that can be built out of co -labor.

Praise the Lord. And by the way, we'll mention this again a couple of more times, but the thesis itself is at thedorianprincipal .org,

correct? Right, yes. Right, thedorianprincipal .org, so make sure and go there for that.

Another thing is an analysis of objections to pastoral salaries during the time of the

Reformation and in the modern era. So just very quickly, how did you cover that in your thesis?

Sorry, I missed it. What was the question? The analysis of objections to pastoral salaries during the time of the

Reformation. Oh, right, in the thesis, yes. Yeah, in your thesis. Yeah, because I didn't bring that into the book.

I'm crossing over. That was one of the more interesting things that I covered. Yeah, so there were – well, during the time of the

Reformation in particular, Anabaptists, a lot of Anabaptists rejected salaries. And there's a lot of people today who feel the same way, that basically if there's any irregularity to support, that you're not trusting in God.

And so a lot of people have seen the same verses I have and come to very different answers about how to resolve them.

And I honestly don't feel like they have a lot of merit, so I didn't necessarily spend a lot of time in the book trying to respond to them.

But yeah, you have Minnow Simons and others who basically said that, well, it's okay if someone wants to give to a minister, but you shouldn't ever set up a salary or something like that where they'd be able to rely on people and not be relying on the

Lord for their next meal. Yeah, and you see that carried on through people like Watchman Nee and Witness Lee and even people like George Mueller.

A lot of people really think highly of his approach to the faith, and there is a lot of good there.

But I think some of it was a little misguided about money because he didn't think that it was okay to ever be able to rely on some kind of salary.

So would you say that that is due to— and let's just look at ministers, pastors, preachers.

Would you say that it would be fair to say that this view is due to an imbalance in a proper theological understanding of the

Scriptures on the part of pastors, preachers, teachers, elders?

Right. Well, I think that those who would reject salaries would still say that the people are obligated to support the minister.

They just are opposed to any kind of formal mechanism to accomplish that.

They would say, you know, decrease one's faith because they wouldn't be relying on the

Lord to make sure that it gets accomplished. It's kind of hard to understand what a lot of the motivations are because these are all disparate people kind of coming to the same conclusions.

It's not really a certain stream of people working off of each other's writings.

Right. Well, and I'll be honest. I think one of the reasons that your book resonated so much with me is that's basically how

I've came up as it— well, I'll be 49 years old this year. I announced my call to preach when

I was 17 years old. Didn't pastor my first church until I was 30.

And I pastored my first church for five years. They gave us a salary.

You know, they were a Southern Baptist church, so they were, you know, established somewhat.

When I left the church there, a period of time passed, and I planted

Reformation Baptist Church. And since the beginning of the plant, I have refused salary, right?

We're still a very small congregation. But let me brag on the

Lord and the people. The people are faithful. The people love the Lord, and they are genuinely hungry and thirsty for the truth of God's word.

And there have been times where they have said, we want to give you, you know, we want to pay you.

And I've been that, what you just described there, that's me. I've said no. But I have always followed that with no, because just as the

Apostle Paul had stated, he didn't want to be a burden to the people. He didn't want to be a weight to them, right?

He didn't want everything to hang in the balance or for them to feel obligated.

Because in the ministry, I think, I don't think there's any man who's pastored for any period of time who hasn't wrestled with the idea that, well, if I continue to preach sound doctrine, it's inevitable that I'm going to lose some folks, right?

And what happens if I lose folks, right? So, and this is the only way

I know how to say this. For me, personally, it is freeing not to be tethered to the congregation as though they have their hands on a leash saying, oh, you've done this, we're choking you out, right?

Sure. So how can ministers, preachers balance that?

How can I balance that? Right. Yeah, I mean, that is the hard part of trusting the

Lord, right? Like, you know, a lot of people, like I said, think that they're trusting the Lord so that they have to wonder where their next meal is coming from.

But yeah, another part of trusting the Lord is, you know, being faithful knowing that, you know, it could have financial impact on you.

So, yeah, I don't know all the answers to that, how to steel yourself for those kinds of changes.

Yeah, I mean, but again, that's why it resonated because I've grown it. That's what I've heard, right?

That's what I've always came up under as far as church and ministry. You know, if you travel to another state and preach, the common practice was for one of the old people to walk up to you after church to shake your hand in their palm on a $20 bill, right?

And the response is always, you know, especially as a young man, but I've learned as I'm older that if they're doing that freely, right, it's an act of co -labor.

My responsibility is not to say, no, you don't have to do that.

My responsibility is to say, praise the Lord. Thank God for your gift to hug them and to make my way back across the mountain.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for this opportunity to work with you together here. You know, a church is a group of believers who are trying to proclaim the gospel in this one area.

So, yeah, if you were, you know, selling courses and going and, you know, teaching that group, that would be a problem.

But, you know, they need help. You're coming to help them and you're all working together.

You know, they're providing the money. You're providing the labor and skills. So it's, yeah, that's an act of co -labor.

Amen. Amen. Thank you for taking time on that. I know that wasn't on our list, but. No worries.

So let's talk about chapter four, the burden of support. You open this chapter in a very interesting way by sharing your affinity for riddles.

So let's get to know Conley just a little bit here. So were you the three -year -old that came up questioning the adults with riddles?

I think I like to ask jokes a lot, but they were not good jokes.

You know, very, very bad puns. And I would make them up and I would think they were funny, but I didn't understand. Now my kids do that to me and I see it, you know.

And then we laugh at them because they're so absurd, the things that they ask and the answers they come up with, that it encourages them more and they think it's really funny.

Oh, man. So let's talk about the difficulty versus obligation in this, the burden of support.

What were you aiming at in making this contrast, difficulty versus obligation?

Right. So a lot of people identify all different kinds of motives for Paul not receiving money, right?

And he gives a lot of different motivations, at least it appears on the surface that it's a lot of different motivations and doesn't have a real center to it.

And one of those is that he doesn't want to burden anybody. And so this is a handling of that particular one before I go into a lot of the others.

What does he mean when he says he doesn't want to burden anybody? And this primarily comes out in 2

Corinthians 11. But he says that he didn't burden anyone, and then he goes on to say that he robbed from the

Philippians. So of course he didn't literally steal, but he was willing to place great burdens on them if burden means difficulty, right?

If it means hardship. Paul was never concerned about burden as difficulty. He calls

Christians to all kinds of difficult things. He calls them to all kinds of hardship, and he engages in all kinds of hardship that he wants them to follow him into.

Burden in this context, and other times when he uses that word or similar words, refers to obligation.

That he does not place a direct obligation on someone else. Once again, going back to that triangle, that he wants them to be obligated to the

Lord, not directly to him. Amen. So from the churches to God, to the

Jerusalem church. That's your illustration there in the book. Right.

From the church to God, to the widow. From the church to God, to the elder.

You did a very good job there. Appreciate it. Yeah, exactly. And that's actually a great example, the widow. In 1

Timothy 5, where you have that, a lot of people say, well, look, right here it says you've got to honor your elders.

Therefore, you know, you've got this real direct—and it is financial. I suppose there are some people who say that it's not financial.

It is financial, saying they ought to be worthy of double honor. And a lot of people read that to say that those who labor in preaching and teaching are worthy of double honor, and the other elders are worthy of single honor.

But it says all the elders are worthy of double honor. And the comparison there is to the widows.

So whatever sense that you feel that the widows are paid is the same sense in which the pastors are paid.

It's not out of, oh, you did this thing for me, we're going to do this thing for you. It is God has called us to honor these particular people.

You know, if you look up forward in that chapter, you see that honor was used to speak of the widows.

And so the double honor is not comparing elders to elders. It's comparing the widows to elders. Yes, very good.

Very good. All right. The next chapter, the prerogative of servanthood. Your contrast here is freedom versus duty.

So freedom, liberty versus duty, responsibility. You must, you must, you must versus I can't help it.

Here you go. Right? Right. Right. So, yeah, the question here is when

Paul talks about his rights, you know, what really is he? What really is he talking about? Is he saying that he has a perfect license to take as much money as he wants or from whoever he wants?

And he has chosen just out of, you know, kind of subjective wisdom that he's going to not take it in this particular circumstance.

And he, you know, he carries this with him all the way through second Corinthians, where he says he doesn't matter how many people it upsets.

He's not going to do it. So this is more than just a, you know, a small subjective wisdom thing. This is an absolute role that he's putting forward.

So when he talks about his right to receive, I believe it's best understood as a right of stewardship.

Like he has stewardship over the matter. So he has the, you know, prerogative to make his decisions.

But that doesn't mean he has a perfect license from God in how to use that stewardship. Adam had a stewardship over the whole garden, but there were ways he could violate that stewardship.

So that's – and just as one proof of that real quickly. In chapter 10, so 1

Corinthians 9 sits in the middle of chapters 8 and 10. It's an illustration for how we should think about eating meat sacrificed to idols.

And so in chapter 10, he says all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. And remember this – most people understand all things are lawful to be a statement coming from the

Corinthians that he's responding to. So when he's talking about, you know, eating meat sacrificed to idols, when he's talking about receiving money, and he says all things are lawful, he doesn't mean he has a perfect license.

Because when he says not all things are profitable, go back to chapter 6 and see how he first dealt with that phrase.

And one of the examples he gave was sleeping with a prostitute, right? You're allowed to use your body for sex.

All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. And then he gives that example. And so he's calling sleeping with a prostitute lawful, but not profitable.

So he has something totally different in mind when he says lawful than, you know, perfect license. You can do whatever you want, but you can also go above and beyond.

Yeah, that's not the idea. On page 48 in this fifth chapter, you wrote these words,

With these considerations in mind, we must conclude that Paul's financial policy does not merely represent his own preferences.

It's not a personal quirk, but an absolute ethical code. His pattern establishes a prescription that binds all who minister in the name of Christ.

It is a prescriptive pattern. That's what you're saying, correct? Right, yes. And so many people who look at this, they – you know, people write lots of words.

I'd say whole books, but there aren't that many books written on this. You know, just analyzing Paul, and they don't come to real serious applications at the end of it because they really think this was just him.

You know, it might tell us a bit about how we want to free ourselves, like you were talking about earlier, so that we don't – you know, we aren't under the thumbs of the congregants.

Or it might tell us, you know, just how we want to think about money a little.

But it doesn't – it's not anything that binds us the way that he felt so bound by it. Right. Man, there is so much here, so we've got to keep – we've got to somehow keep moving.

Let me read another sentence from page 51 of that same chapter.

The one who receives reciprocity does not operate as a sincere servant of Christ, but as a free agent after his own reward.

This is just echoing what you've already told us thus far, but so true.

So it really has to be in the mind – in the heart and the mind of the minister to communicate the biblical truth, the biblical theological viewpoint and understanding of co -labor to our congregants, to those other

Christians that we come in contact with, correct? Right, yeah. Yeah, in 1

Corinthians 9, when Paul talks about, you know, being obligated to preach the gospel, the idea is that if he were to receive, he'd be a free agent.

He'd be as though, you know, he doesn't have the Lord over him, as though, you know, he is the source of the gospel, and so he's free to charge for it as he pleases.

All right. Chapter 6. Chapter 6, disparate motivations versus unified motivations.

What did you mean there? Right. So this is addressing that question of Paul talks about all different kinds of things.

You know, in Thessalonians, he says he wanted to give them an example, and he also says that in Acts.

And you have the notion that he wanted to be independent, which is interesting, because out of all the list of things that Paul says, that's not one that's ever mentioned, but that's the most common if you read a lot of commentaries.

That's the most common thing people arrive at, is he was trying to stay independent so that they couldn't, so they wouldn't have any sway over him.

You know, he talks about his servanthood. He talks about all different kinds of things. And so what this chapter does is groups all those together under sincerity, that he is demonstrating his sincerity.

Second Corinthians 2 .17 says that for we are not like so many peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.

So it is essential to sincerity that there not be some ulterior motive like money that you're doing this for.

Amen. And the word of God is so clear there that you don't become a peddler.

The word of God is not for sale, just the same that the word of God is not bound, right?

Right. Yeah, and Second Corinthians 11, just another example, you know, people look at that and they say, well, he's distinguishing himself from the super apostles.

So maybe he's doing it just to defend his apostleship. And if they weren't around, he would go back to charging money.

People really write this stuff. Well, if it distinguishes him from the super apostles, why?

It's because this shows that he is a true apostle, that he is a sincere apostle, and they are insincere apostles.

He's not picking something arbitrary. It's not they wear blue hats, I'll wear a red hat. He's not being contrary.

Yeah, yeah. This demonstrates his trueness, not his difference. Not just that he's different.

Sincerity propels the Dorian principle. That's the first from the last sentence in the last paragraph in chapter six there.

How true that is. So talk very briefly about that. Sincerity propels the

Dorian principle. And refresh us again on what Dorian is. Yeah, so Dorian meaning freely.

If you were to receive funds as a minister, as reciprocity, you would be exposing an ulterior motive.

And so you'd be compromising the sincerity of ministry. When I define the Dorian principle in the book,

I don't just say this thing is bad and this thing is good. Co -labor is good and reciprocity is bad. I say that to take money as reciprocity is to compromise the sincerity of ministry.

So this is the motivation. It's not just a law without a reason. It's not just don't put your hand on the stove and then maybe one day you'll find out why.

The reason is right up front. It's because the sincerity of ministry is preserved by following this command.

Amen. Which leads to chapter 7, the greed of wolves.

Feature versus essence. You wrote this. One may play down greed as merely a peripheral feature of false teachers, but the recurring drumbeat of the

New Testament places it at the heart of false teaching. Right.

Yeah, so feature versus essence. Is greed just an occasional feature of a false teacher or does it lie at the heart of all false teaching?

And the answer I give is it's at the heart of all false teaching. And of course, in practice, you're going to come across false teachers who are ascetics.

Maybe they live on very little, but God makes it very clear. Jesus makes it very clear that you either serve

God or you serve mammon. And so if someone is not teaching true things, they are necessarily – 1

Timothy, it's in a lot of places that someone is motivated by something else to do this thing.

And that motivation of self -interest is greed and most often exposes itself in money.

It doesn't necessarily expose itself in money, but that's what we're to generally expect. And it's a consistent indicator.

Right. Go ahead. So the practical thing is like right now, the

Dorian principle isn't well -practiced. There's all kinds of ministries, good ministries, like ministries I respect a lot that are charging for books, for whatever, this ministry that they're offering.

And if we don't have that in place, we can't really use that as a discernment tool. We can't say, well, the ones that are selling the ministry, that's a good sign that they're not true because all the good ones are doing it right now.

But if we can recapture that, that can become, once again, the main tool in the Christian's tool belt to say, hey, that's a good sign that this person – the fact that they've got this ulterior motive, that's a good sign that their heart is not right before the

Lord. Amen, which means reforming, as you wrote in the conclusion there. And reforming – repenting and reforming is not always the easiest of actions, but it is absolutely necessary.

You also wrote, the New Testament does not merely offer the Dorian principle as a way to honor

God in ministry, but additionally as a way of discerning true teachers from false teachers.

That's what you just said. But let me say it publicly. I wrote it in our notes. Amen and amen.

Appreciate what you said right there. Chapter 8, the super apostles. You've touched on those a bit.

Partiality versus equity is your contrast there. Basically, as you've already communicated this to us,

Paul's stance against the super apostles. You talked about it just a little bit earlier there. Do you want to say anything else about that?

Yeah, I'll just add that what I'm getting at there with those words, partiality, the specific question is, why does

Paul seem to be okay in 1 Corinthians 9 with Peter coming and taking money from the Corinthians but not himself?

And why Peter but not the super apostles? Is it just because they're false teachers? But he seems to be saying that there's something wrong with the way they're doing it, not just that these are false teachers and, therefore, it's okay for some other good apostles to do it.

So there's four different – I've identified four different apparent contradictions in Paul's ministry that I believe need to be answered by anyone who tries to answer this question.

And usually people only try answering one or two. But why does he accept money from the

Philippians and not from Corinth, Thessalonica, and Ephesus? The answer is he's partnering with the

Philippians, and the others are trying to pay him back. And then, yeah, secondly, why

Peter and not the super apostles? Why Peter and not

Paul and himself? And then there's a fourth one that I'm blanking on. But anyway.

So his consistency toward the Jerusalem apostles, his disposition toward other ministers, a false claim on Corinth.

And then, yeah, sorry, the fourth one was actually the first one we talked about. It's why was Paul willing to take money from Corinth in support of his missionary journeys but not in this other context?

Once again, reciprocity versus co -labor. Yep. Chapter 9, theory versus practice, the pattern of co -labor.

Theory versus practice, Elijah and Elisha. You used

Elijah and Elisha as an example. Go ahead and talk about those for just a second. Yeah, so Elijah and Elisha both receive help, support from women outside of the nation of Israel.

And so why is it that they'd be willing to do that if we're talking about co -labor? Well, you know, in each they seem to really be desiring to honor

God. And then interestingly, you have this other situation with Elisha where he heals

Naaman miraculously. And Naaman wants to give back in return for what he received.

And Elisha says no. And then Gehazi goes and takes it anyway, Elisha's servant.

And then Naaman's leprosy is put on Gehazi because he did the wrong thing by receiving in exchange for that ministry.

So it really doesn't have to do—a lot of people identify it as, oh, well, as long as it's a well -established church or as long as it—it really doesn't have to do with that.

It just has to do with—it just comes down simply to co -labor. And yeah, in a lot of the literature about this, you'll see, well, you know,

Corinth hadn't entered the co -labor stage, but the Philippian church had entered it. Or they don't actually use the word co -labor, but they, you know, this more mature stage.

And so he's willing to partner with them. Like I said, he was willing to co -labor with Corinth from the beginning.

It wasn't— Amen. And so anyway, what you see here is they accept co -labor from these women, but they refuse reciprocity from Naaman.

Amen. Amen. And then the rest of this chapter is all just like, well, are there any narrative examples that we should look at before we just accept it based on this didactic teaching?

And so I go through all those, you know, and they all—I believe they all check out. There are some that are a little more curious, like what about—well, let me look at it here.

But Malta, yeah. At Malta, it might look like, well, are they paying back for having—paying

Paul back for having done miracles there? I don't believe that's the case, but I'm just trying to do due diligence and go through all the narratives.

Yeah. It was—I think it was genuine hospitality after that. Right. After he reminded them, we are not gods.

Yeah. Right. Well, that's an interesting thing is that you don't see that there. He never denies it.

So it's just a very truncated narrative. Yeah. But, you know, as they send—as they board the ship again, you know, and send him out, it seems like they are engaging in pro pimpo, you know.

They're sending him out financially supporting him. Amen. Amen. So, Conley, we are at 52 minutes.

I want to respect your time. Oh, no. We can keep going. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. So, by the way, do you need to take a drink or take a breath?

I'm good. I'm not trying to go too rapid fire, but— Oh, no. I'm fine. Yeah, I was—as long as it's not four hours,

I'm good. Yeah, no. It won't be that much longer, brother. Not that much longer at all. So chapter 10 has to—had to be my favorite chapter in the book.

You make the statement, a claim is only a claim apart from evidence.

So talk to us about that. That's a—it's a small statement with profound truth coming out of it.

Right. So what I'm getting at here is that, given that this is a practice in the church rather than just a more theoretical doctrine, right?

Theoretical doctrine, it's okay if you don't see it present in the early church and it's only understood as people contemplate

Scripture for centuries. But a practice, you would expect there to be some kind of traces of it having existed in the first century and the second century and maybe being corrupted and declining.

Like, for example, you and I are Baptists, so we believe in church independence stuff.

But you see very quickly a monarchical episcopate arise where you've got one bishop over many churches.

But if you look at earlier church documents, you see that that's not how it was. And so you see traces of what we would believe would be right church polity, even if it's corrupted pretty quickly.

And so the question is, were there any traces of this? And I provide some evidence that there was some embrace of the

Dorian principle. You have the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, and Apollonius, who all taught that if someone was charging for their ministry, they were to be considered a false teacher.

Yes, and you actually quote the Didache in that. I'll read the Didache 11, 4 through 6 and 12.

The quote is this. Let every apostle, when he cometh to you, be received as the Lord. But he shall not abide more than a single day, or if there be need, a second likewise.

But if he abide three days, he is a false prophet. And when he departeth, let the apostle receive nothing save bread until he findeth shelter.

But if he ask money, he is a false prophet. And whosoever shall say in the spirit, give me silver or anything else, you shall not listen to him.

But if he tell you to give on behalf of others that are in want, let no man judge him.

So the Didache, we know this is not Holy Writ. We know that it's not considered inspired scripture.

But if you would, for a moment, talk to us about the nearness of the writing of the

Didache to the New Testament and just how important it is for us.

That is one of those non -biblical texts that we can put some stock in as far as historical reliability.

So it's a very, very early document, first century. I'm not sure how many other first century documents we have, if any, outside of the

Bible. So you've got the 27 books of the New Testament, and then you've got the

Didache. And I'm not sure what else. Most of the stuff after that is all second century. So yeah, the

Didache is very important. And then on top of that, you also have many people in the second century and third century speaking highly of the

Didache. So it's not just a matter of were there people during the first century who said this, but did the people later agree with it?

And given that people speak highly of the Didache, that seems to be others' understanding as well.

Would it be reasonable to you for me to make this statement? It would be analogous to the truthfulness and the veracity of our confessions, the

Didache, in relation to our confessions, so long as they agree with what the scriptures already say.

Possibly. It doesn't quite have the same character, given that it wasn't written by a counselor or anything.

It's not necessarily like the Proverbs would say, like the counsel of many. But it does have similar character in that you have so many people confirming that it's a good work.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. So let's move to chapter 11, the scope of ministry, impunity versus jurisdiction, receipt, request, and requirement.

So what is the scope of ministry? Sure. So just before we move on from that last chapter, one of the things

I point out is the Reformation. In the Reformation, you have – the whole

Reformation basically starts over this one issue, the sale of indulgences, basically the sale of forgiveness.

And yeah, so I think that's significant. Basically, as you see this, it exists in the 1st century, 2nd century, it starts to be corrupted, and then it's corrupted so much that it has to be recaptured.

And then recaptured only as much as needed. So a lot of people are, and I think rightly so, concerned that I'm trying to offer something new.

This is my accounting for it, that it's not really new. It's just this is the first time that we need such a clear articulation.

During the Reformation, it was addressed very directly, but not in such a nuanced way because the errors were so egregious.

Now they're not quite as egregious, and it needs more of a nuanced handling. So now your question about, yeah, what is the scope of ministry?

So that's what I'm trying to answer, is what needs to be regulated? And you kind of asked that at the beginning of the show.

What counts as gospel ministry? And I talked about religious instruction. Just to build that out a little bit more, if you've got a

Reformed view of scripture, then you understand that it all points to Jesus. It all points to the gospel.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2 that he knew nothing among the Corinthians except for Christ and Him crucified.

Colossians 1 says something similar. And then you also have Luke 24 where Jesus says all the scriptures are about Him.

So if that's the case, the point isn't just, well, as long as you're not teaching from the first four books of the

Bible, or the first four books of the New Testament, or as long as you're not talking about salvation.

No, really, if you're doing this right, all of it points to salvation. And so it's really any religious instruction.

Now, sure, someone doing some kind of Bible archaeology book or whatever, or like an archaeology book about the ancient

Near East or something like that, that doesn't necessarily have to be considered ministry. But yeah, that kind of gives you an idea of how

I think about this. Yes, yes. And real quick, receipt, request, and requirement. Right, so that's basically addressing the common idea that a lot of people have.

Well, as long as it's voluntary, it's okay, as long as I'm not requiring it. Well, really, once again, it's co -labor versus reciprocity.

So if it's reciprocity, it doesn't matter if you were requiring it, you were requesting it, or you're just receiving it after having not requested it.

That's still a problem, right? Paul didn't solicit the money that he's rejecting, right? They're offering it to him freely, voluntarily, and he still rejects it.

However, at the same time, co -labor in any of those categories could be accepted, right? No one has the capacity to minister full -time without any kind of support, right?

Like I couldn't, I mean, unless they're independently very wealthy, right? I don't minister full -time right now because it wouldn't work out for the church financially.

And so I have a day job, and I'm not ministering full -time because I have this day job.

I can't. But it would be right for someone to say, look, you've got these resources,

I've got these resources. I can only make this work if you are willing to co -labor with me to this degree.

So there's nothing wrong with requirement when it comes to co -labor, but even receipt is bad when it comes to reciprocity.

So while some of those are worse than others, it's wrong to require reciprocity.

That's worse than just receiving it. They're all problematic. Amen. Amen.

All right. We are moving toward the end here. Chapter 12, church structure versus parachurch structure.

So church structure versus parachurch structure. Hopefully many of our listeners understand and know the difference between or know what a parachurch ministry is.

But just for the sake of those who may not be aware, would you care to explain a little bit about what a parachurch ministry is versus a ministry of the local church?

Sure. So para is a prefix that means alongside of.

So a parachurch comes alongside the church, but it's not a church, right? It doesn't have elders, deacons, members necessarily.

It doesn't have communion and baptism. So it's not a church, but it comes alongside the church.

And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. Honestly, any individual is doing something not as a ministry of their church.

You know, a lot of podcasters are not necessarily doing that as a ministry of their church. There's nothing necessarily wrong about that.

However, it leads to a lot of temptation to violate the Dorian principle because one thing the church has is the weekly giving of the saints.

And if you have the weekly giving of the saints, well, you've got an income stream. You don't have to get very creative about how to raise money. If you don't have that available, well, you start getting creative and selling things, which is what a lot of ministries do.

A lot of publishing houses sell books. A lot of seminaries have to sell tuition, etc. So real quick, you mentioned that.

Let's bring this out front here. So the Dorian principle by Conley Owens, it's free of charge.

Yes, right. Yeah, a lot of times I'll be telling people about this, and they're arguing with me or whatever.

And then I say, well, look, you can get my book, and I explain it there. And they're like, oh, you're such a hypocrite. You're trying to sell me a book.

It's like, no, I'm not. Yeah, the book is free, and the publisher even covers shipping. Yeah, First Love Ministries, they even cover the shipping.

Hey, man, that is wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. So 13 and 14 altogether, copyright.

You talked at the beginning a little bit about that issue, and on a personal note leading into that.

So you're a senior software engineer at Google, right? Right, yes.

So how – I mean, obviously,

I work at the Home Depot, okay? I'm a base -level job, right?

You are a software engineer. So how do you personally, just real quick, balance a family, a wife, a family of seven, being a software engineer, which obviously takes a high level of intellectual knowledge as well as effort, as well as you co -pastor a church,

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church. How do you balance all of those things?

Yeah, the answer is poorly. No, really. I mean, I don't think my family suffers too much, but I do feel like I don't do a great job of –

I feel like I'm doing a half job. It took me a long time to become senior at Google, a lot longer than it takes most people, because I'm studying seminary.

And then at church, I always feel like I could be doing things better. I preach weekly, but my sermons don't feel quite as good as they could have been, or there's just a lot

I'd love to do there. So it is hard. But yeah, the Lord is faithful. Just keep – yeah,

I keep trusting Him that He's got me in this place for a reason. Praise Him. Well, I know He does, but the question is, like, when will

I be able to pursue full -time ministry? Yeah, I don't know the answer to that yet, but yeah. So concerning copyright, you wrote this on page 125, the last sentence before the section of alternative licensing.

And this is what you wrote. Regardless of the intent of those behind such ministries, to require payment in exchange for religious education is to engage in the practices condemned both by Scripture and the early church.

Now that, again, I'm going to say amen. I'll stand with you on that, brother.

That is a statement, though, that I'm sure you probably caught heat for.

Am I correct in assuming that? Well, people haven't necessarily quoted that. But sure, yeah, there's some people who aren't a fan of the final conclusions of the book.

Honestly, it's a lot less than I thought it would be. I really thought very few people would find the message of this book attractive, and most would be pretty repulsed by it.

But I've been very pleased. A lot of Christians realize there's something not quite right about the way things are typically done, and they're very happy to have a biblical answer to it.

So I've been pretty satisfied with the dialogue so far. I wish there were more of it. I wish there were more people considering it.

But as far as the ratios, I'm very happy that people have generally been responsive.

Again, I don't know how folks, a

Christian, someone who's rooted and grounded in the Word, could argue with this. Not that we would agree on everything, of course, but the general principle, the idea, the continuity of thought throughout this entire book.

Amen. So, real quick. Well, I feel like I ought to go back to the earlier question about balance.

One thing I failed to mention, my wife, excellent, takes care of everything really well.

I wouldn't be able to do it without her. I feel like I've got to mention that too. That's a good man.

She may not ever watch the Heroes in Theology podcast, but if she does, you've done good.

It's true. I don't think – yeah, if I had chosen a different woman, I don't think it would necessarily work out.

We'd probably have to readjust what I was able to do. But she really enables me to accomplish a lot.

Praise the Lord. Thank God for a good wife. I'll give a shout -out to my wife right now.

She's upstairs. Hopefully, she'll hear this. All right, sir.

So, we have basically worked our way through The Dorian Principle by Conley Owens tonight.

And again, Conley, I want to thank you so much for being on with us tonight.

Is there anything else that you would like to add or that you would like to say in closing?

Let's see. We just talked about the chapter about copyright. I feel like I should mention that that's one of the big conclusions here is that – and honestly, this is what

I was most interested in when I first started reading about this. Like I said at the beginning,

I had some thoughts about copyright and what would the Bible say about copyright. And my conclusion is that, yeah, copyright is abused, and ideally no one should be willing to – no minister should be willing to use the power of the government to enforce any kind of restrictions on religious instruction.

So, don't the – I'll play devil's advocate here. Sure. But don't the

King James Only -ists – don't the King James Only -ists say that the reason – one of the reasons they hold to the

King James Version of the Bible because it's not copyrighted? Right. I assume you're pointing out that it actually is copyrighted.

Yes, yes, yeah. That's a leading question. Yeah, it actually is copyrighted.

Now, no one's enforcing that outside of the UK, although in theory they could.

But no, it's only enforced in the UK. So, yeah, there are other modern translations that are not copyrighted, but I don't personally use any of them because either they're very liberal or they're good ones too, but they're based on the

Texas Receptus, which we already have the King James it is. So, if I wanted a different modern translation,

I would go to something else. All right. Anything else that you'd like to bring forward tonight?

No. Yeah, I feel like the questions people have are usually just about like, you know, well, does it apply to this thing?

Does it apply to this thing? So, yeah, you know, Bible's being copyrighted. I've mentioned books and seminaries a couple of times, so people are kind of aware that that's one of the areas that this is violated.

People selling tickets to gospel conferences where you come and hear the gospel. Those are all the kinds of things that this addresses.

And yeah, to be really clear, hopefully people understand the heart with which I'm saying this. I don't. I think very highly of most of the people that, you know, in our circles that are.

G3. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's great. A lot of these ministers, you know, and I launched this book at G3.

And so, you know, I'm balancing like complimenting people and also like saying when people would come and ask me what the book was about,

I would give them examples. I say, you know, right now, if you want to live stream this conference, it would be $14 .99. So, you know,

I think highly of a lot of these ministers, but I don't. I do think there's a lot of room for reformation right now.

And now is the time for it specifically. Yeah. And just to cover that history a little, you know, modern copyright law didn't exist until 1710.

And prior to that, the authors would write and the publishers would publish. And the publishers were the secular entities that would be making money off of it.

But the authors weren't doing it for money. Then after the 1700s, you have, I assume the church just followed the model of the world.

And you have royalties start coming in. And then in the past, you know, 50, 60 years or whatever, you have the advent of digital media.

And now the content is being sold directly without, you know, without some physical good where you could say,

Oh, well, you're paying for the paper you're paying for, you know, it's really clear. It's the teaching that's being sold.

So now, now is the time for reformation. I believe that we are in a very providential point in history.

Amen. Amen. Well, Conley, brother, if it's okay with you,

I'm going to put you on our prayer list on Sunday mornings. Oh, absolutely. Thank you. We'll be praying for you on a weekly basis.

I mean this, I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate you, the work you're doing, the ministry.

I appreciate this book that you wrote and your faithfulness. And if we can ever do anything to encourage you or help you, you holler and let us know.

Okay, sir. Yeah. Well, I mean, the biggest way is just to tell other people about the book, you know. Yeah. Tell other people about the book.

And on Facebook, if you're on Facebook, there's a group called Money and Ministry. I'd like it if more people join that because I think that's the biggest place where we're going to try to organize to figure out where to go with this.

Money and Ministry. It's a Facebook group? Yes. Or page? Group. Yes. Group. All right.

So if you don't already have the book, if you want a physical copy, they will send you,

First Love Publications will send you the book. You can go online. You can go online to TheDorianPrinciple .org

and get Conley's actual thesis on that page, which

I suggest you're looking at there. And don't forget to remember him on a weekly basis in prayer.

Encourage him in the faith. That's what we're here for, brother. Thank you again so much. All right.

Thank you. All right. I'm going to play us out and then real quick, we'll close out.