Handling Disagreements

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Deere, David Kassin, Chris Giesler, and Andrew Hudson.

We have a question about arguments or argumentation today and how to deal with them between brothers, but it's kind of written in a funny manner.

I'm going to read the first paragraph and then I'll summarize a second. For one episode, could your team get into a fight?

I'm not joking, but let me explain. I work with two individuals who move through various topics as they relate to Scripture.

More often than not, these two have differing views and the depth of the difference varies according to the subject.

However, even through heated debates, they go home as friends, unified in Christ, and do not let divisions come between them because of their disagreements around these non -heretical topics.

Recently, I left the church because the prosperity gospel began to enter the church as a core teaching, and I was strongly convicted to leave despite the pastor's demonstration of his love for others.

Was my act unloving? In the second paragraph, he goes on to say he wants to hear either an example of or how to handle these disagreements in a loving way, but that allows you to be reconciled and unified with one another whenever you finish up these disagreements.

So why don't we just go ahead and dive into it, Michael? I don't really like what you said. I'm trying to practice disagreeing with you.

Okay. You read that question wrong. Yeah. I wasn't even listening, and I disagree. There you go. Well, yeah, it does sound like on the podcast that we just agree about everything, and I would say everything critical and subjective, you know, we are very much in unity about.

But again, the spirit of unity is more than agreeing with each other's particularities in doctrine and confession.

Like, the spirit of unity is much deeper than that. And so when we think about when to disagree and how to disagree,

I think we're given some guidance in the Scriptures. There is the example of Paul disagreeing with Barnabas, and the example of Paul disagreeing with Peter.

The disagreement with Peter was when Peter was not acting with clarity regarding the gospel of Jesus Christ at the church in Antioch, and Paul confronted

Peter to his face, is the record of Galatians 2. So this was a disagreement that was public in front of everybody, but it was for the good of everybody.

Everybody needed to know that something wrong was occurring, and their clarity had to be...clarity regarding the gospel needed to be established by Peter's confrontation and Peter's repentance.

There was a disagreement related to that very same mindset that came up in Acts 15.

There was a council of the church, they came together, and there was disagreement there. And both

Paul's rebuke of Peter and the resolution of the council in Jerusalem in Acts 15, both of those had to do with reflecting on who

Jesus Christ is and the reality of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And that's the resolution of those. Now in a different situation, we have Paul and Barnabas disagreeing about John Mark, about whether John Mark should be allowed to go back on another missionary journey after turning back on the first one.

And the division was so sharp between them that they had to go their separate ways. How can two walk together unless they are agreed?

The Old Testament prophet wonders. And indeed, in their division,

God made that into multiplication, there was more missionaries going out than before, and then at the end, near the end of Paul's life, he says, send me

John Mark for he is useful for me for ministry. And so we see that there ultimately was a reconciliation where there once had been some heated debate, disagreement.

These are just some basic observations. Disagreement can happen on a primary level where it gets real public and real important, and you cannot compromise whatsoever on the gospel of Jesus Christ, neither his person nor his work.

You cannot allow there to be a, oh, we're gonna agree to disagree about the Trinity, we can agree to disagree about the person and work of Christ, we can agree to disagree about...

No, actually, some of these things you can't ever be fine with counterclaims.

You must always firmly, clearly oppose false

Gospels, false doctrine, heresy. You must always oppose that. Now, you may find such traces of false

Gospels and heresy amongst those who are confused, and they're not trying to spread heresy and false

Gospels, but they've just picked it up as they've gone along and it's just been kind of rattling around in how they talk about things.

And this is an opportunity to take them aside and teach them more accurately the way of Christ, as Aquila and Priscilla did for Apollos.

And look at the fruit that came out of that. And so when they first sat down together at the table,

Apollos and Aquila and Priscilla didn't agree, did they? But then unity was achieved by the grace of God and they agreed about the

Gospel. There was some confusion about exactly what was Paul saying and exactly what were the

Apostles saying in Jerusalem, but then through them coming together and hashing it out, it was made clear, here's where we agree.

So, where you disagree but you're still considering each other brothers, well, it may be about secondary issues.

Now, we have to agree on the primary issues. That's where our unity is. One faith, one Lord, one baptism, one

Holy Spirit. So, we have agreement there. We are in unity there. But there are going to be some secondary issues and some tertiary issues that we're going to disagree about.

And I don't know about you guys, but the secondary issues tend to send

Christians into different churches where we can worship in like faith and practice. And then the tertiary issues sometimes send

Christians in different directions, but I don't think that's correct. I think that we could have tertiary differences and still be members of the same church.

Secondary issues that we sincerely disagree about, I want to help you find a good church to go to where you could worship in like faith and practice.

I'm not against you. Where that church would be in agreement with you on the primaries. Yes, exactly.

Exactly. So, if somebody... Now, I would totally disagree with someone wanting to baptize their infants and considering the promises of the

New Covenant to extend to their infants and then therefore I need to baptize them. I would strongly disagree with that and I would have tons of reasons why.

And I would have tons of concern about that, but I don't think that's a primary issue.

It's not a primary issue. Now, if someone was just dead set on that and they were at this church, they couldn't worship freely.

They would be going against their conscience. Same with a strict Sabbatarian who would be like very offended and stumbled by the fact that others in this church are not strict

Sabbatarians and it is not preached from the pulpit nor taught in our classes. And I would...

It would burden me that this person would not be free to worship with us, but I would understand and I wouldn't want to stumble them and let's make sure that they find a good church to go to who would be in agreement with the primary issues.

And I would say that those are kind of like secondary level issues. Sabbatarians, Presbyterians, you know, baptizing infants, those kinds of things.

And then there's some tertiary issues. But what do you all... How do you all see those things breaking down in terms of why you can be a part of a church or not part of a church?

You could still be brothers in Christ and recognize fellowship, but even though you can't be at the same church, or what things shouldn't be reasons to leave or separate?

Well, I have some brothers that are more on the... One in particular, he was

Baptist, raised Baptist, and has now gone Presbyterian. And it was as much of a betrayal as the one when

I tried to get him to go to the Air Force Academy and he went to the Naval Academy instead. It was almost that bad.

But he... I was mentoring him and I imparted,

I think, a love of Reformed literature to him, and then he took that ball and ran with it and went full

Covenantal, full Presbyterian, and we have some wonderful discussions to this day. I think that's a good example.

One that I come across is Free Will Baptists.

We have some disagreements on the sovereignty of God in Salvation, Calvinism, Arminianism, and I can have some interesting discussions with those guys.

And I could worship with them on a Sunday, but I couldn't join their church, and I think that they would be a little uncomfortable in some of our

Sunday school classes, but they would be most welcome here, and they would be loved and taken care of.

But I think that they would be more comfortable in a church that's more aligned with their views on Arminianism versus Calvinism.

There may be people who are in disagreement with me, call that a primary issue, they call it a gospel issue, because it says, well, if they're in charge of free will, that's a work.

That's a work of salvation, and we don't. We don't, so it's all by grace through faith, and faith itself is a gift.

Therefore, if you put anything in there, you're basically just a Roman Catholic. Like, okay, slow your roll, okay?

I would put that in a secondary issue, not a gospel issue, although I think it is a serious error, and it creates more errors, and then you can go off the deep end.

But I wouldn't break off fellowship with that person. I just think that we'd probably be in different churches, and this one may get me thrown out of the room, but I would have singing—yes, already started off disagreeing—singing from the psalter.

There's a tertiary issue. I like it. I'm glad we do it.

And there are some people who are like, this is awful. What's wrong with just the hymns that people have been singing for 100, 150 years?

These are wonderful old hymns, and now we've got to sing out of this? That's a tertiary issue.

Are you saying exclusive psaltery? Yeah, that's another. There are some people that are exclusive psalms only, and it's like,

I'm not sure that I could join that church, but I would be very happy to join them on a

Sunday. I think it's great. I like it. But somebody said that singing hymns or any of these more modern praise songs is wrong.

It's like, well... Yeah, because they don't necessarily like it. Songs. And spiritual songs.

Songs. Spiritual songs. Those are just some examples of maybe some secondary, possibly some tertiary issues.

I'm glad that other people's idea of what sin is is not actually what sin is. Well said.

But there's a grave concern in thinking about the worship of God and how we're to approach

Him and getting it wrong and the kind of burden that's upon the heart, which leads to a variety of particularities where I don't think that they should be reasons to separate over, but for others, it's a matter of grave conscience breaking, like something from Romans 14.

So for someone, we can only sing the psalms, but then for somebody else, they'd say, well, you can only sing the psalms straight from the scripture.

And then they would say, well, yes, but which translation? Okay. And okay.

So something's like, well, you have to have the communion every Sunday. Every time you meet, you have to have communion.

If you don't, then you're in sin. Okay. We'll have communion every week, but now it has to be one loaf, one cup.

Is it leavened or unleavened? Leavened or unleavened, wine or grape juice. And so there's grave concern.

How large will this congregation be? Do we finally get down to the congregation of one? Yeah. And what vintage?

And so, I mean, I think that the concern that we would worship

God as he has prescribed us to worship him, and that we would do it right, knowing, having that confidence that we are doing so well can give rise to a lot of separation over these kinds of convictions.

I had this exact conversation with Jehovah's Witnesses, which might be a strange idea, but they are a people who literally have to believe exactly the same thing everywhere across the planet.

All JWs have to believe exactly the same thing. There is no room for mental reservation or personal piety towards what the scriptures actually teach.

If someone who's just a regular witness reads the scriptures and they come away with it thinking, that's not what the

Lord... These guys are telling us the opposite of what this says. They cannot just have that own,

I'm not going to do that. That's wrong. They can't tell other people about that, and they have to submit to the current interpretation of what is right.

And I was telling one of the people who were there, you could look at all the denominations of Christendom and see, see, this is schismatic divisions.

They don't have anything right. Look at them. They're divided against themselves. We as the Witnesses, or I think even the

Catholic Church could claim the same thing. We have the truth. Everyone's united by the same set of teachings.

We're all in one spirit. We actually do have unity. And I said, but the reason why we have denominations is when people read the scriptures, they want to worship the

Lord in spirit and in truth. They are driven to follow their master by what is being said in what the scriptures teach.

And so, you could look at it like it's division, or you could also look at it like, these are sincere people who want to follow the

Lord according to their conscience. They have to be convinced. Paul It's the difference between unity and uniformity.

And in Christ, there's freedom. So, it's not surprising that you have people with different convictions that are free to practice those convictions.

The scriptures allow for it. David Yeah, we have liberty and unity. We do not have tyranny and uniformity.

And I think that's the part of the joy of worshiping Christ.

And the question was given, okay, I was at this church, I hear the prosperity gospel being taught, just doesn't sit well with me.

I can see that the pastor loves others, and there's obviously brothers and sisters here.

Don't think I could stay under that preaching. I need to leave. Was that unloving? Well, I wouldn't say it's unloving.

If you are, Romans 14 says, don't go against your conscience, and there'll be sin for you to continue in that.

So, if you're saying, look, I don't think ill of this person, but I just cannot ascribe to what is being preached from the pulpit, right?

So, like, David, you mentioned, could I visit and worship with some free -will

Baptist? Sure. Could I join that church and be brought under the spiritual accountability of a man telling me that I can lose my salvation and get it back and then lose it and get it back?

No, I couldn't. That's okay. That's okay. You shouldn't submit yourself to that spiritual authority.

You couldn't possibly agree with it, and you have real biblical reasons why you can't. And so, that's not an unloving thing.

It would be an unloving thing to be very prideful and arrogant and demeaning in this separation.

But if you're saying, I see the love of Christ in you, but I just can't really fellowship here.

I don't think it'd be wise for me to keep my family here and under that kind of teaching. Yeah, it takes a little bit of wisdom to know how to depart from that.

I mean, it seems most that if the scenario you're describing, that's one where you want to have a one -on -one meeting in private with that pastor, and he says, this is what

I respect, and I do love you, but this is why I feel like as the shepherd of my family, the most loving thing

I can do for them is to take them to this kind of church, but it's not anything against you.

There's nothing, as far as I would still like to be brothers and friends. I think there are ways to handle that in wisdom, but I wouldn't stand up in the middle of the congregation and say, we're not going to listen to this anymore, and then storm out in a huff.

Right. So that's something to keep in mind. For some folks, they feel most spiritually alive when they're in conflict, right?

They feel close to God when they're fighting about doctrinal distinctions.

It's God's Irish mention. Well, here,

I got a tweet for y 'all that is going to put this in context that I found earlier today, and I know you guys would absolutely adore it.

So bear with the poor podcasting here. We'll just get Joel.

All right. So this man tweets out, being of German slash Scots -Irish descent is dangerous.

You have Teutonic autism plus inherent honor culture. It means everywhere you look, all you see are hills to die on.

And as a German Scots -Irishman, I can attest to this. Wow. Well, that's good to know.

The Lord knows our frame that we are but dust, but not all dust is made up of the same exact ingredients.

So yeah. So know your propensity, right? And if you're bound to see every hill worth dying on, then you might need to, you know, get some counsel and some counseling.

Is that why they have blinders for horses? So they don't see the hills to charge them?

I mean, that single -minded focus, it can be useful when it's directed, like the horse with the blinders, that can be useful.

But, you know, that's... Who the real enemy is, right? Exactly. Yeah. That sums it up well.

That kind of gets to the heart of the question. There's in -house discussion and there's out, out -facing.

Having discussions with brothers about serious issues. Because look, we can talk Christian nationalism, a hot topic.

Okay, you want Christian laws. I'm not for taking the Mosaic Law and imposing it.

These are Christian brothers that are advocating for something like that, I wouldn't be for that. But that's an in -house thing that we should vehemently argue about, but it's in -house.

How would we do that versus when we publicly say things to an unbelieving world and we take strong stances, there's a danger in that as well.

So there's an element of trust, hopefully, and character that you can... We were talking about this off air about our emotions.

When we enter into those discussions with people that are claiming to be believers, we're believers, how do we fight?

How do we argue? Yeah, the category is brothers. You're not dealing with personal or public enemies at that point.

You're dealing with brothers. And we have that discussion before on the podcast. I can't remember if it was last season or the season before.

You have to recognize there's a massive difference. And we can toss the cover term over it, the image of God, but the

New Testament tells us to clearly deal with our brothers differently than those who are personal enemies.

And there's a difference between dealing with personal enemies and public enemies and who is supposed to deal with those enemies.

There are these categories and they're laid out for us. The principles are laid out for us on how to deal with them.

But you were talking about the in -house discussion over Mosaic laws, right?

And that is a small corner and a small subset of even the

Christian nationalist thing. But that's still an in -house debate. That's still a brotherly debate. They're not your enemies.

And as soon as you pick and choose them as being your enemies, you're not acting like a brother to a brother anymore.

This, so again, think about 1 Corinthians 13. Think about the characteristics of love, right?

Faith, hope, love, the greatest of these is love. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples by the love that you have for one another.

If the most distinctive thing about Christians should be about the way we love each other. Okay. So is it okay then to disagree?

Yeah. Yeah. Because I would want, there's going to be disagreement because I think you need to be more clear on the scriptures or you need to be more free in Christ.

Or I think that your burdens are unnecessary. We're going to disagree about these different things and I care about you.

And so we're going to disagree, but in love. So in other words, when I disagree with a brother, I'm not going to straw man his argument.

I'll steel man it. And I'll believe that he has best intentions at heart. And I'm not going to imply a big chain reaction of disaster into what he's saying.

So for example, someone who is not convinced of, you know, the five points of Calvinism.

Okay. And they're more of a Armenian semi -Pelagian bent, and they have no idea what those things mean anyway.

Okay. They just don't want God to be accused of evil. All right.

And so they think the best way to go forward in this is, you know, God is loving.

He wants people to come to him out of free will because this is the purest form of worship. And he's compelling them to come.

I could imply through logical progression, all manner of malice into their doctrine about what they're really saying.

They're a bunch of open theistic heretics. Universalists. Oh yeah. It doesn't take me long to get there, especially given my presuppositions and the debates that I've, you know, been exposed to whatever.

But if I'm following through out of love in 1 Corinthians 13,

I am not going to be believing sinister things about my brother. It may become evident through the course of our conversation that this guy is a false teacher, and he's just trying to do all sorts of horrible things, you know, but that's going to come out in the end.

But for right now, we disagree about some doctrinal issues that I think are pretty important.

But I'm not going to impute to him all manner of evil, sinister motivations and plans, and thereby treat him as an enemy when he's not my enemy, he's my brother.

Wouldn't that apply whether it's a primary, secondary, or tertiary issue? You're still following that kind of that same playbook.

You're still listening very carefully. You're starting off in love. You're trying very hard to understand the other person's argument.

You're steelmanning that argument, not the straw man, where you kind of create a caricature of the argument that's easy to knock down, but really understand that person's argument.

You're listening to them, and then you just assume the best of intentions. Regardless if that's a serious gospel error, or if it's more of a tertiary, it's still the same playbook.

Think about all the ways in which you thought about these issues, whatever they are, and how dear they are to you, how convinced you are that this is the right thing.

Part of your convincing is, what's the alternative? What if you would believe differently? What are all the implications to one's spiritual condition and what you would actually believe about the gospel if you follow this logical chain?

All of that is near and dear to you, and then here's somebody who disagrees with you, and you see all of that as a direct implication of what they're saying, and you import all of that into what they're saying.

And all of a sudden, they're a false teacher to oppose. Oh, well, maybe they're not a false teacher to oppose.

Maybe they don't have those connections in their head. Maybe they're not even thinking about that logical implication.

Maybe, just maybe, you disagree about this issue, and you have different definitions of terms.

You've got the same, you have the same vocabulary, but you have different dictionaries, and it's going to take you a little bit to figure out where each other is, and especially from the fact that they were probably discipled from a whole different trajectory than you were, and it's going to take a little while to know exactly what you're talking about.

And if they're a true brother in Christ, you're going to have all manner of opportunities for agreement and love for one another, even as you find out where you disagree.

The difficulty comes when someone's disagreeing with you about some issue in the life of the church, and you sense that this is one of those hills upon which to die, because the implications lead you to a false gospel.

That other person's not trying to peddle a false gospel. They're most likely trying to do something to preserve the gospel and to keep true to God.

And if you can appreciate that and affirm that while still finding a way to disagree, it's like, well, brother,

I think you're trying to do the right thing. I think we're both trying for the same thing. I just disagree about how you're going about it.

I just want you to think about the implications of this, if you'd be willing to think about the implications of what you're doing here and what you're saying here.

This is my concern. You're like, well, I never meant that. I don't think that's what that means. I think that is what it means, but I can tell that you're not trying to say that.

That takes, like you said, that takes time to build up that level of trust.

It really does. Truly. We had talked about this off mic in preparation for this episode.

I made the statement, and I'm going to state it publicly here, that I am real uncomfortable having a knockdown, drag out fight over a serious topic with one of you guys in public.

Now, because I know you and I trust you, I would have that discussion one -on -one or maybe one -on -two with a closed door, but I wouldn't want an audience.

I certainly wouldn't go challenge a guy to a fight, meet him at the playground so that everybody can watch the show.

I'm not here to put on a show for you guys. This is a serious topic, and let's just say that it can be kind of fun.

It really can. The chess match, the mental, that can be kind of fun. It can be exciting, but there are places to do that.

I would do that around my dinner table. I would have any one of you over for a meal, and this is, okay, let's go.

It would just be us, and then we would go through it, and we would part as brothers.

Even if there was no resolution, we at least understand each other's arguments a little bit better and say, okay,

I'm going to go back, and I'm going to take this argument now that I understand you better and really steal, man.

I really understand where you're coming from, and now I'm going to, whether I agree or disagree with it, it's impossible to agree or disagree with any argument that you don't understand.

So that takes time, and that takes trust. So I don't think that I would have an on -mic debate with you guys that the rest of the church would listen to.

I know that there are people that are ministries built around that, and I have heard debates between people that love each other and respect each other that I found really helpful.

It was like, oh, because it helped clarify the issues. I've even recommended some debates on this podcast.

So at the risk of being a little hypocritical, I don't know if I would do that in this room with you guys for the rest of the church to listen to.

What do you think? I was going to ask, because in the question, there's an idea of modeling it.

So the term that comes to my mind is discipleship. So would this be more of, rather than two people that know how to do it, and then other people gather around and watch them do it, it's more of a, here, brother, this is an area we can work on.

We have a disagreement. Let's walk this road together. And that's, rather than modeling it, it's more of a discipleship.

Let's go through this. Because, Dylan, you mentioned when you're going through it, there are things that happen, emotions rise up, where you can know all the arguments, but that's different.

You can model the arguments. You can teach the arguments and things to know. But then when you get in an argument with someone, it's vastly different.

It's like practicing to stay calm throughout a game, to stay even, like that always said, stay even keeled up there, stone face, poker face, whatever you want to call it, and continue to work away at the goal.

So it would be like somebody going into something not knowing what emotions are going to hit them, so they don't know how to react to those emotions.

And so they'll react, you know, flippantly or angrily or personally to somebody.

And if they haven't practiced debating before that, or if they haven't, it's like, even if you have it modeled for you, right, like we're talking about, you can do your best to imitate it, just like you can do your best to imitate

Shakespeare sonnets. But I'll guarantee you, even if you write out all 152 of them on your own, you're not going to end up being able to write something equivalent to what he's finished and his finished product on your own.

But you will, as you practice these types of debates, and, you know, one of those practices, Dave, is doing it in private, right?

Like that is a practice of that. It doesn't have to be practiced publicly. My brother and I practiced private debate and argument before, you know,

I was able to go out and do it publicly anywhere else, like about a lot of these things about the gospel, about Christ, about the

Bible, about the sufficiency of Scripture, about the inerrancy of Scripture. I was doing these things with him while he was still in college and I was just out of college.

And there is absolutely no way that I should have been let out of that household to do it to anybody else, right?

Like there just wasn't. Like the Lord actually had me in the cage of the cage stage. And it was great because I wasn't able to go out and do it to anybody else.

And I learned with him because that's the guy I wanted the most to be saved.

During that time in my life, that is the guy I wanted to be saved most. And I knew he could look at every bit of my sin that I still had because he lived with me and he spent time with me.

And he saw where I was shirking certain things or where I would be inconsistent with my thought or my life.

And it was so difficult for me to at the same time be in the cage stage, him see my sin and have to walk through that.

But it was the best thing, the best training that I could have had for that to learn how to control those emotions, under heated debate, to treat him as a brother in blood until finally he became a brother in Christ.

And now I have to handle both, right? And I'm able to now, right? The Lord has brought me to that point.

I'm able to do it. And it's the same for him. Some of the practice in debate is a sanctifying work.

It's nothing like marriage and having children, but it is a practice in one arena where the

Lord is sanctifying you to be able to do either some form of apologetics ministry or sharing the gospel through argumentation like that.

That practice is essential sometimes to some of your sanctification. Yeah. Because I think of the idea of a fight or debate or argumentation with brothers, there should be the assumption that they have my best interest at heart.

I know entering in, they have my best interests at heart. Now, for the Christian and unbelieving world, we should also have their best interests at heart, but they don't know that.

So they may be hostile, and that's okay. That's where you have to make that risk assessment. Do I enter into this?

Do I say this publicly? Where can I go in this conversation? But when it's two brothers and you've got either doctrinal or even you've got two brothers and one says,

I think you're in sin, and the other one says, that's not a sin. I'm not convicted about it.

And then he's trying to say, well, this is clearly sin. The Bible says this, the laws in our land are this way.

I think you are. What do you do with that? If you know and trust the brother, you know their character.

I know that they want what's best for me. I don't have to shrug it off and I don't have to get mad at them.

We can continue down the same road because we're brothers. Yeah. And you show honor to your brothers.

Christian honor culture is almost largely killed at this point. We used to show a little bit of it when we'd have sporting events in this country.

You shake the hands of your opponent before and after the game, and you just slugged it out for an hour and a half.

I remember doing that as a kid growing up all the way through college and being able to do that. Look those men's in the eye that I just put stitches on his shoulder.

And for the reason that he got up on my plate, that was the only reason I had for it.

And I still would do it. Today, if you got on my plate, you'd get hit with the stitches because you're in that moment, you're my opponent.

At the end, I honor you because you've been my opponent in an honorable fashion.

This is the same thing, but it's like to the nth degree because they're your brothers. And I knew those guys across from me, they weren't my

Christian brothers playing baseball against me or football or whatever it was. But I was still able to show the honor that is usually inherent in the game that we're playing with each other.

But man, it should be so much more for your brothers. I think of the issue of sin, you could get defensive and say, how dare he call me a sinner?

But that's true. Or I could say, thank you for caring for me.

Thank you for looking out for me. I don't see it yet. I'll look,

I'll examine. Thank you for pointing it out and being bold enough, strong enough to tell me about it.

So going in the other direction about someone saying, well, that's sin. And if you're with them, we can take the opportunity to limit our behavior in a way that honors that confidence that they have towards God.

And the same way that honoring the weaker brother, this is someone for whom

Christ has also died. And if it's well within your capability to not eat meat, sacrifice idols and in this instance,

I won't do that around this brother. I won't do that. So not every situation is a point for debate.

It may be a point for humility for yourself to put yourself as your brother's servant by serving them with what they believe to be is right.

There's another scenario where you're dealing with, in my case, one of my mentors, my father -in -law is a spiritual mentor and has a certain amount of spiritual authority just because he's my elder.

And he also serves in his church. And there are things that I can talk about the things of God with him that I can't with my own father.

So I go to him for those things. And he and I have stark disagreements. And that eldership and mentorship adds another dynamic.

There are times when, frankly, I just keep my mouth shut because of who that man is.

I'm in his class. When I visit in Virginia, I'd like to go to his class and he was teaching through revelation.

Do you think I kept my mouth shut? Yes, I did. And I thanked him for standing up there and saying, this is the word of God and then teaching through it and was respectful to the other really godly man that were in that class as well.

So there's, I like how you said it. There are times to just be humble. And it's not a point for debate.

I'm just very thankful that there's a man of God there in Virginia and that my own daughter can go to his house and be loved and cared for and prayed over.

So how would I just be thankful for that? So there are times to fight about things. And there are times to lovingly back away from it.

And frankly, there's other times to keep your mouth shut and don't pass up an opportunity to say nothing.

There are pseudo -delphoi. There are dogs. They're not all pseudo -delphoi and dogs.

Yeah. So not all of them are false brethren. So if you do your very best, we talked about some debates where there is two people disagreeing and they're both brothers in Christ.

But in some of those debates that you recommended, it's interesting. Those brothers disagreeing about those fairly significant matters, they're not members of the same church.

That's right. Yeah. They're not members of the same church. And I'm thinking of an instance not so long ago in my life where I had to meet with one of our missionaries and let him know, based on a turn that he had, he's not unique.

We had this with other missionaries as well, based on a turn in their focus and their public face where they've declared this is what they're all about now.

That was like, we're going to have to part ways. I'm not saying you're a bad dude. Okay.

And I'm not here to rebuke you. I'm just letting you know, based on what you've said and the commitments that you're making publicly about the direction you're going, we're going to need to withdraw our support.

And it was one of the dynamics of that meeting was that, by the grace of God, I was very, very calm and trying to be very pleasant the whole time.

And he was irate. And there was nothing that I could do. I was trying to, all that's like, soft answer turns away wrath.

In this case, the soft answer was making him more angry.

And he mentioned that my calm demeanor was a signal that something was wrong with me.

But in this case, the problem is true that the soft answer also turns away your wrath, by the way. It doesn't say whose wrath is getting turned away by that soft answer.

But he was making claims that God had given him a special vision from heaven with special authority to go back and tell the churches after he'd gone to heaven.

And he died, went to heaven, came back, and he had a special word from God to tell the churches to straighten up or else.

And I was just letting him know that we were under his authority. And we weren't subject to that authority or that message.

And we weren't going to continue to support him since that was his new focus.

And extremely upset with me and our church. There's nothing

I could do in that moment to walk away and feel like, hey, we're at peace. There will be times like that.

There will be times like that. I don't think he's a non -Christian. I don't think he's a terrible guy.

I think he's guided. I'm just not going to be in agreement with him. And we can't be in cooperation.

Sometimes you just can't be in cooperation with others who name the name of Christ because the distance in your convictions is too vast.

How can God use something like that? God can use something like that to get ahold of someone's attention, recognize, oh, hang on a second, maybe

I'm far out of field here. Maybe there will be an opportunity for a turnaround and a reworking together and that kind of thing.

I was talking to a missionary on the phone just the other day, and he's looking at, can

I continue with my original supporting church as they over the years have moved in a bad direction?

So the other direction from what you're talking about. So it's not you initiated, it's like, oh no,

I'm seeing something that my sending church. Yeah. And so he's like, well, can I do that? One of our missionaries, he won't mind me saying this, but Ryan Powell, he had to leave

France, get reset with another missions organization to go back so he's on more solid ground.

He had to break with his original to go back better on solid ground. And there was a huge disruption in your life.

But again, it's like, why would you do that? Because he wants to be properly aligned. He wasn't being unloving, but then you have to find a way to navigate those convictions.

And people are going to get upset and mad about some of those things. Our church has changed over the last 11 and a half years since I've been here.

We just watched what Jesus does with this church. And then there are some people who they look around like, this isn't my church anymore.

And they leave. And they're not really mad. They leave because they don't recognize what's going on anymore.

Or we don't speak about progressive issues enough, or we didn't handle the lockdowns right, or we're too old fashioned, or whatever.

And then people leave and they go other places. To me, some of those things are even beyond the tertiary issues.

But even though I think there was no reason for some of these folks to leave, there's not bad blood and you're an awful person and all that kind of thing.

This just goes to show, and this is a big, big issue, is more often than not, and there's a good concern,

I don't want to be a divisive person. I don't want to be involved being divisive and having a big division. More often than not, the reason why there's divisiveness is because of pride.

Pride's the issue. I love pastoring small churches.

And in a small church, you can run into each other's disagreements really fast. In a large church, it can kind of get glazed over.

Keep everything really broad. In a smaller church, you run into each other more often. You get to learn more about each other more often.

And there's more opportunity for disagreement based on your convictions and your doctrine. And what's going to keep us together in the love of Christ is the grace of Christ and humility.

I mean, you can put two humble people in the trunk of a car and they're going to make room for each other. Are you comfortable?

You put two private people in a warehouse on security duty at night, they'll find a way to fight. Right? It really comes back to what's going on in our hearts.

So I think that that's something to keep in mind. Am I being loving? When do

I need to separate? So on and so forth. Finding ways to do that with grace.

And even if somebody else gets upset, it doesn't mean that you did it wrong. It's not just be result -oriented.

It could be that you've had to make this move and they got upset, but maybe that was just something that they're going to have to be confronted with.

Why did I get so upset? And you got to be ready to reconcile with them if given your opportunity. All right.

I think that about wraps it up. What are we recommending this week, Michael? I've got a little book by Jim Wilson.

This is Doug Wilson's dad. How to be free from bitterness. I wasn't sure

Doug Wilson had a dad. Yeah. I just figured he just sprouted out of the ground with a giant beard and was already had six books published.

Yeah. He was writing in the crib. But this is not a difficult or a long read.

This comes from Jim Wilson's pastoral ministry as a very traditional Baptist pastor.

But also doing a lot of counseling with people about and just recognizing how big of an issue is bitterness.

I would say, see, I've been preaching regularly now for 20 years and doing pastoral work as an intern all the way now.

And it's amazing to me how symptomatic bitterness is.

You can just begin to identify it. You can just be like, oh, well, okay, there's bitterness.

Because as a pastor, that's one of the main things I think that you have to be aware of in order to try to shepherd a flock.

Like Hebrew says, you know, be watchful and you'll be ready to help people get that bitterness out of their life.

Because that will definitely poison a church really fast. And so you've got to be very careful, very ready, just try to help people recognize what's going on and then help them.

And then sometimes, either through teaching or preaching or personal counseling, or even, you know, the one -to -one

Matthew 18 stuff, you've got to help people, you know, confront and recognize when bitterness is invading their life and bitterness always travels.

And recognizing what that looks like in your life and how to get rid of it. That's what this little book is about. And so it's a really helpful thing.

You can just come alongside someone, it's not a hard read. And so it's a very practical, good book.

Dave. So Jim Wilson is a

Baptist? And so was Doug. Doug grew up very, very

Baptist. Wow. That's why he's so good as a Presbyterian.

Yeah. Why he's so good in his job and just the way that he's able, his focusiness.

Yeah. Interesting. Wow. I didn't know that. So you want to talk about modeling disagreements.

I wonder how their conversations go and if the son is showing great respect to his father and then they're working together despite their disagreements and they have brotherly love and familiar love with each other.

My sense is that he honors his father very well. That's great. My recommendation for this week is

The Big Print. I have thoroughly enjoyed this one.

The Big Print, what happened to America and how sound money will fix it.

It is a tour de force of history. And there are a lot of charts and numbers and things, and you can kind of gloss over some of that stuff to get to the second section.

And it talks about the more principles. But if you like the history and you like what happened, you talk about the second bank of the

United States, for example, which I know that our own Deacon Dylan knows a lot about.

But this book was written by Lawrence Leopard in December, 2024.

Recent book, less than a year old. And I really liked it, even though it had a lot of data in it,

I still found it to be very readable and very accessible. So you want to learn about international monetary system, the macroeconomics or just what really sound money principles are.

And I would say biblical money principles. Read this book. It has a lot of Bitcoin in it, but the principles apply, whether you're a gold bug or something like that.

So The Big Print written in 2024, highly recommend. Well, it looks like the rest of us haven't been doing enough content or at least book reading recently outside of our regular

Bible reading or devotional stuff to recommend anything else this week.

So we'll go ahead and say what we're thankful for, Michael. I am very thankful for family in our church, the

Goulets who are going to be hosting as many people as can possibly find where they live tomorrow for soup and s'mores.

And just I'm thankful for their model of Christian hospitality and the way that they live in faith and hope.

Just thankful for their... And it's a good reminder just of what you can do with...

How much you can do with just a little, the Lord gives. And they're just...

Their generosity and hospitality, we just rejoice in that and the gift that they're giving to the whole church opportunity to have our fall picnic there.

So I'm just very thankful for them. Amen. Dave. I got to spend the afternoon with Amy.

We went to a movie and it could have been any movie.

It was just nice to have a break. We've been spending a lot of time in the house, working in the house, working in the shed, working in the yard.

I've been... It sounds like a Dr. Seuss book. I do not like it,

Sam I am. Just doing a lot of work, necessary stuff, cleaning out the shelter.

But we just took a break and we went and saw Truth and Treason, World War II, True Story.

It could have been any movie. It almost didn't even matter, but I was very thankful for the time, thankful for the time with her, and we just enjoyed it.

She had her butter popcorn. I had my Milk Duds. That's kind of our pattern.

That's what we liked and would like. And then of course, I'm sharing with each other. It's a lot of fun. So I'm very thankful for that movie time today.

Chris. Real quick, are you one that puts the Milk Duds in the popcorn? No, no, no, no.

There's... That's a thing. That is a gospel issue. It's a primary issue and we would break fellowship over that now.

Well, I'm in your camp, so we're going with it. Okay, good. I thought we must disagree. No, you want to do the, what are those?

The mints? Junior mints. Junior mints. People put junior mints on popcorn. Yeah. Yeah, that thing too.

That one's okay. You don't break fellowship over that. Holler insult. Yeah.

I am thankful for the group of men that has faithfully done the audio and sound here.

I'm looking at you two. Big brother. Yeah. Government shutdown happened and we had some men affected by it and they spent a lot of time working on things.

And then even outside of that, just Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, running the sound, running the video, keeping things balanced, working on things to improve it.

The sound coming to the singers and to the instrumentalists. And then there were all, everything involved with that.

I'm grateful that we have men that take care of that, that are concerned about improving it and serving the congregation in that way.

And they make my job really easy. So I'm grateful for that. I teach

Sunday school for younger kids. And on the board, one of the things that we pray for every week is the work of the

Holy Spirit here at Sunnyside. And after this discussion, thank the

Lord for this place, a body, his very body here at Sunnyside, that he is working through each and every person and causing us to become fuller and growing into the stature of Christ himself.

So I am thankful for the work of the spirit here at Sunnyside. Amen. Amen. I am thankful to the

Lord for my in -laws who are in town this week, at the end of this weekend.

And they're back with my brother -in -law, Austin, and he is bringing with him a young lady that we are hopeful they will continue the relationship and pursue toward marriage.

But I'm thankful for my in -laws, but I'm also thankful for marriages of young Christian men and women pursuing that noble calling and work and the purpose in their life that it is to fill the earth, to have children, to disciple them, and to honor the

Lord in holy matrimony. And I'm just extremely thankful to see more and more of that as I look around.

My brother got married this year as well, during the summertime. And I want to pinpoint those moments, and I really want to be thankful for them, but also encourage them and say, this is a good thing that you're pursuing.

This is good. I'm proud of you. Because I remember coming into our own marriage,

Heather and I, and our family would do that with us, but I wasn't seeing loads of that outside of just family.

And I'd like to make it a point when I see it from people who aren't even family members.

But if we have young people here at church or young people that I know getting married, hey, good job.

Proud of you. I'm praying for you. And I'm very thankful for that. And that wraps it up for today.

We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?