June 30, 2023 Show with Tom Buck on “My Personal Experiences with the Southern Baptist Convention” PLUS Buz Taylor on “God’s Lawsuit”

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July 3, 2023

June 30, 2023 TOM BUCK, Senior Pastor @ First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas & Board of Directors member @ G3 Ministries, who will address: “MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES with the SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION” *PLUS* BUZ TAYLOR, former frequent co-host of “Iron Sharpens Iron” Radio, who will address his new book, “GOD’s LAWSUIT” & announcing the 2023 G3 National Conference!!

00:02: Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father
00:08: James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister
00:13: George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.
00:20: This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:31: Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:38: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:50: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:57: And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
01:10: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
01:15: Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is
01:21: Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 30th day of June 2023.
01:29: I am thrilled to have back as a returning guest Tom Buck, who is senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, and board member of the board of directors at G3 Ministries.
01:44: And during the majority of today's program, we are going to be discussing Tom's personal experiences with the
01:52: Southern Baptist Convention. He has to leave our program a half hour early, so during the final portion of our program, we will be joined by an old friend of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
02:04: If you listened to the program starting in 2015 when we relaunched after relocating to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, you will remember the name
02:17: Buzz Taylor, who was frequently a co -host on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio right in the studio with me.
02:25: Well, he is going to be giving an update on his life and discussing a new book that is nearly complete and ready to go to print called
02:35: God's Lawsuit. So, make sure you stay tuned to the tail end of the program so that we can hear
02:43: Buzz Taylor with you. And anybody who would like to ask a question of either
02:50: Tom Buck or Buzz Taylor can send your questions to ChrisArnson at gmail .com.
02:57: ChrisArnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. But first of all, let me welcome you back, my dear friend,
03:05: Tom Buck. Thank you, Chris. It's great to be with you always. Thank you for having me back.
03:11: Oh, it's great to have you back. And why don't you remind our listeners or inform them for the first time, if they haven't heard you on the program yet, something about First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas.
03:24: Well, we're located in East Texas, about an hour and a half east of Dallas. And I've been the senior pastor here for 17 years now.
03:36: It's hard to believe it's been that long, but it is. And thankful for the ministry that we have here.
03:44: We'll talk, I'm sure, about Southern Baptist. We've been a Southern Baptist church for many years. And I think our church started about 1876, so a long history church.
03:54: Well, if anybody would like more information about First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, go to fbclindale .com,
04:04: F -B -C for First Baptist Church. And Lindale is spelled L -I -N -D -A -L -E dot com,
04:12: F -B -C Lindale dot com. You're also a member of the board of directors for G3 Ministries.
04:20: Why don't you briefly tell us about G3 Ministries and the upcoming conference that I am excited to once again attend and be manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio.
04:35: Yes, I am on the board at G3 Ministries. I have been on the board since they became a ministry.
04:43: Apart from conference, they began as a conference. And we have a conference every other year now.
04:49: It used to be annually. After 10 years, it moved to being an every other year conference.
04:56: This year, we're going to be having the conference in Atlanta, September 21st through the 23rd.
05:02: On the topic of the sovereignty of God. Great lineup of speakers that are there. I'm not speaking in the main sessions, but I will be doing a breakout session there.
05:11: I also oversee the expository preaching workshops that we have with G3, where we help men, particularly pastors we're trying to help, develop their exegetical skills and better handle the
05:26: God's Word in the pulpit. And then this summer, we began a workshop for women.
05:32: This is an expository teaching workshop. So not a preaching, obviously, workshop, but one to help women in developing their handling of the
05:40: Word of God as well for teaching older women, teaching younger women, and teaching children and being used of God in the life of a local church in those ways.
05:51: So G3 is expanding greatly. We've got G3 Press that is printing books that help the local church, and that's our desire to educate, to equip, to encourage the local church.
06:03: That's what we're all about, and we're trying to do everything we can to do that. Yes, and the upcoming conference is on the theme,
06:10: The Sovereignty of God. It will be held September 21st through the 23rd, which is a
06:15: Thursday through Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia. And the huge lineup includes such powerful speakers as Votie Baucom, Stephen Lawson, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, who's the executive director of John MacArthur's Grace to You Media Ministry, Dr.
06:36: James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, Justin Peters, Ken Ham. And there is a very long list that continues after that.
06:46: And my friend who's my guest today, Tom Buck, is also doing a breakout section.
06:53: So why don't you tell us about that? Yeah, we don't always keep the breakout sessions strictly along the line of Sovereignty of God, or whatever the theme of the conference is, but they've asked me to talk specifically about expository preaching and how we make proper biblical connections to Christ.
07:15: So I'll be examining the Christocentric view of interpretation of Scripture and evaluating whether that is a legitimate approach to sound expository preaching.
07:29: So that's what I'm going to be dealing with. Well, if anybody wants to register for the
07:34: G3 Conference, and I strongly urge that you do, it is, and I'm not exaggerating, my very favorite of all conferences that I attend.
07:45: The times that I have been there, manning my exhibitors booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio, have without question been the most fruitful experiences.
07:57: And I just really look forward to every time I have the opportunity to return.
08:02: And if you would like to join me there, go to g3min .org, G -3 -M -I -N .org,
08:10: and for a 30 percent discount off the registration fee, all you have to do is enter the promo code for Iron Trip and Zion Radio, which is
08:21: G -3 -I -S -I -R, G -3 -I -S -I -R, and you will get 30 percent off the registration fee, and you will be hearing our mutual friend
08:34: Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministry in commercials throughout this program reminding you of that information.
08:42: Well, the Southern Baptist Convention has never been a stranger to controversy.
08:50: At one time, as you know very well yourself, Tom, it was nearly completely engulfed by leftism, liberalism, and by God's mercy, there was a 180 -degree shift in the theological emphasis of the
09:12: Southern Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and so on.
09:19: And even though that was something with which many who are
09:25: Bible -believing Christians, especially if they are members of the Southern Baptist Convention, many were rejoicing from the rooftops over that, the controversies haven't disappeared.
09:37: And I want you to basically tell us about your experiences with the
09:43: Southern Baptist Convention. Perhaps you might want to start with something positive, but then please tell us about some recent events that have troubled the hearts, not only of you and your wife, but of people who know and love you and respect you and highly value you and your ministry.
10:05: Well, I've been a Southern Baptist my entire life, was raised in Southern Baptist Church, came to know
10:11: Christ in Southern Baptist Church. I was going to seminary and Bible college at the time that the conservative resurgence began to be coming on the horizon and the problems in the schools at that time, so I didn't go to Southern Baptist Bible college or seminary mainly because I didn't want to engulf myself in those type of theological controversies.
10:33: I just wanted to go get trained well in the word of God. When I came out of seminary in 1993, Al Mohler was just then becoming president of Southern, and that really was what prompted me to stay in the convention.
10:48: I was making the decision whether I would. I had never been a member of a church other than Southern Baptist, but as I began my ministry, which began actually in 94 after I graduated in 93,
10:58: I made the decision that I wanted to stay in the Southern Baptist Convention because there's so much good that has been done with the
11:06: International Mission Board, the seminaries that we're turning in a good direction. It's really only been for me in the last, oh, probably six, seven years that I have seen things that have just been really disturbing to me.
11:24: I began to see that there were issues, particularly what
11:30: I've called adrift. Others have called adrift as well regarding the role of women in the church.
11:38: Then, of course, one of the big issues was the infiltration of the concepts of critical race theory that began to infiltrate the
11:47: Southern Baptist Convention long before 2019. But in 2019, it surfaced in what's become known as Resolution 9, which was pretty much advocating for the positive things of critical race theory and intersectionality, saying that Scripture still is supreme, but that that ideology can help us in understanding what's going on in our world today.
12:17: Tom Askell and I began then speaking out against that. We were deeply concerned about what was going on within the convention regarding those things.
12:29: And so here we are today, several years later. Last year, the convention would not deal with Saddleback, even saying that they wanted to form a committee, a task force, to determine what does the word pastor mean, quote -unquote.
12:51: One year later, for whatever reason, a year ago we couldn't define what a pastor is, and this year they did remove
13:00: Saddleback and remove another church that had a woman pastor that was near Southern Seminary in Louisville, and she's been pastoring there for 31 years.
13:15: But all of a sudden they decided to deal with that. I'm not exactly sure. I have some theories about that. We can maybe talk.
13:21: But I feel that what we have is a disconnect between the local
13:26: Southern Baptist Church and the leadership of the convention, and I believe there has been a drift.
13:34: I believe there continues to be a drift, and I think that they're scrambling to try to figure out how to patch this great chasm that exists between the local
13:46: Southern Baptist Church and the institutions. So you and your wife actually had unfortunate run -ins, if you will, or reactions from key figures in the
14:02: Southern Baptist Convention, and they have troubled your friends. Can you tell us something about that?
14:09: Most people know that I've been vocal about the problems in the SVC, again, somewhere around 2018, 2017, somewhere in that time frame, vocal, sharing my concerns about the drift that's taking place.
14:26: And in 2021, I guess it actually was 2022,
14:36: I had reached out to the person who was the presidential candidate at the time, one of the presidential candidates,
14:43: Willie Rice, and when I reached out to Willie Rice initially,
14:49: Tom Askill wasn't even running. They said I did it as a political hit job on Willie, but I didn't even know that Tom was running when
14:56: I reached out to Willie initially. The reason I reached out to him is he had an individual in his church who
15:04: I knew, who was a deacon in his church, and had about 15 years earlier, when he was a teacher in a high school, at a public school, had been involved sexually with one of his students.
15:19: And so I felt, having that knowledge, that I needed to go privately to Willie Rice to have that conversation.
15:28: I was concerned about the fact that the convention had been engulfed in these type of problems regarding how we have handled issues of sexual abuse.
15:38: And when I reached out to the individual that I knew, he told me that Willie Rice knew.
15:45: When I reached out to Willie Rice, he told me initially that he wasn't aware of what
15:50: I was talking about. And so we set up a conference call, it was private, between me and two of my elders,
16:00: Willie and one of his staff members, and I shared with him my concerns. He then told me that he did know about the situation and that he would address it.
16:11: Of course, it was an hour phone call, much longer than just that brief quip.
16:18: But within 32 hours of me calling Willie Rice about this, a rough draft that my wife,
16:29: Jennifer, had written back in 2018 that talked about our early years of struggle in our marriage, that God gloriously redeemed through the gospel and transformed us, got leaked to the media.
16:49: We were unaware when it initially was leaked. We became aware several days later.
16:55: But it's pretty much just absolutely unthinkable that it wasn't released directly in relation to me calling
17:05: Willie Rice. So that's what happened. Now, when you say leaked into the media, are you talking about the secular media in Lyndale, Texas, or beyond?
17:15: No, we're talking about Baptist News Global, for certain, that it was leaked to them. And it was clearly leaked to be a smear piece.
17:24: I think they thought that we had never talked about the problems in our early marriage.
17:29: I think they thought that, hey, we'll show that Tom had patterns of abuse, quote -unquote, in his own life, and that disqualifies him.
17:39: I think they were wanting to disqualify me in some way because I had come forward and said something to Willie.
17:46: I never threatened him. I told him I wasn't going to go public with it. But I think they were fearful that I would, they not being
17:52: Willie, but they being other people in the SBC. And the thing that made it damaging to my wife was not that our story of our struggles in marriage, because we had told that our entire ministry.
18:04: But my wife had included in that rough draft that had not been seen by, we didn't know it was even out there, other than one person that Jennifer had given it to.
18:16: It included private information about abuse that happened to Jennifer when she was a child that she had never told anyone about publicly.
18:25: And abuse that had happened in my life before I met Jennifer that I had not told anyone about publicly.
18:34: And so it put us in a very awkward situation of what do we tell about this, what is in the story?
18:44: Because people began to wonder what are they trying to hide? What is it they want to hide from people knowing?
18:50: It wasn't the struggles of our marriage, it was that very private information. So what was it about this individual whom it came to your knowledge was having an unbiblical sexual relationship?
19:12: What was it about this person that was so valuable that this information would be leaked out in order to defame you?
19:23: To somehow counteract the information that was public about the individual that you approached?
19:31: Yeah, I don't think it was something special about the person who had the, for lack of a better term, sordid past.
19:39: It was me going to the individual Willie who was running as the presidential candidate.
19:47: And I think the powers that be in the SPC saw me as acting politically to try to get
19:52: Tom Askle to destroy Willie so Tom Askle could be elected again when
19:58: I first contacted Willie. I didn't even know that Tom Askle was running. He didn't tell me. I found out that he was running when he told everybody else.
20:07: And so that wasn't true. I wasn't acting politically. I think they thought that I was out to destroy him,
20:16: Willie Rice, and destroy his candidacy, which was not true. So they, whoever was behind this, decided that they would preemptively strike and try to destroy me first.
20:27: And that's the only thing that makes sense with it going 32 hours later to the
20:32: Baptist media. Now, if you could, I mean, anything that you feel comfortable saying since it has already been made public.
20:42: What was it that was leaked about the article that your wife had written talking about how your marriage had victory over this problem or problems, plural, and has brought you to a place where God has mightily used both of you and blessed not only your enjoyment of your marriage, but the usefulness of your marriage, your marriage being used as a ministry to others, in addition to being a wonderful oasis for the both of you to retreat to.
21:23: But tell us, what was it, as much as you care to, that was attempted to vilify you or scandalize you?
21:32: Well, real quickly, Kuiper Productions did a documentary. They can find it on my pinned tweet on Twitter.
21:41: If they go find me on Twitter, which is just at Tom Buck, they will see that there was a four -part documentary there that explains everything that occurred.
21:49: So if they want to get the in -depth, behind -the -scenes look of everything that happened, of me going to Willie and it being released and everything.
21:57: But essentially what Jennifer had done is she had, back in 2018, she talked with me and said,
22:04: Tom, you know, it might be good for us to share our story publicly of what happened in our marriage early on.
22:13: We've been married 36 years now, so we've been the first four or five years of our marriage. By the fifth year,
22:18: God had restored everything. And the Me Too movement was hot at the time, the
22:25: Church Too movement. And what Jennifer felt was that they were just writing off people, telling people, you know, if you have any type of trouble in your marriage, if there's verbal abuse or whatever it may be, just there's no hope for that.
22:39: There was no gospel hope being given. And Jennifer said, I think it might be good for us to tell our story publicly.
22:47: We'd already told it in our church back in Florida and then in Texas whenever it was appropriate, which if I'm preaching through Ephesians 5 or talking about marriage,
22:56: I would talk about it very openly from the pulpit. So what happened early in our marriage is I just didn't know how to be a godly husband.
23:04: I was going to school. We were in seminary even at the time. I was verbally abusive.
23:14: The language would be today to my wife. I was there was even emotional stress that caused on her because of that.
23:23: And then we've told this over and over again. And she put it in her story as well about this instance where she playfully put a
23:30: Coke can on the back of my neck and it angered me. And I turned around and grabbed her hand and I slapped her wrist like you would a child and said, don't you ever do that?
23:39: And it was in that moment that both of us, as we looked at each other, knew
23:44: I needed to get help with anger issues that were in my heart and in my life.
23:53: And shortly after that, there were some other things that occurred, not problems with us, but just other circumstances of other people helping us say, hey, yeah, this is how you need to get help.
24:04: We began counseling. I went to counseling. We went together. And Jennifer had a woman in her life who had been pouring into her by the name of Dottie.
24:15: And her husband, Bob, was who ended up counseling us. And God took our marriage that was really at the brink of divorce, to be honest with you.
24:25: I think it may have would have ended in that had God not turned things around and God restored our marriage through the power of the gospel.
24:33: And so Jennifer wanted to tell that. And so in telling it, she wanted to also she wanted to communicate to the survivor community, if you will, that she knew what she was talking about, that I knew what
24:49: I was. This was not some small thing. And so she was deciding about whether she needed to come reveal her abuse in her past.
25:01: And she wanted to also decide for us together of whether it would be important for people to understand the abuse that I'd experienced that had been kind of the fuel to a lot of the anger that I was experiencing in my life.
25:16: So it's like, hey, we weren't just you know, Tom wasn't just a monster and she wasn't someone who didn't have her own issues.
25:23: But we were two sinners married together who had a lot of baggage in her past who were trying to work through those things.
25:29: And so she had written this rough draft in a very just tell it all type thing and then had reached out to someone
25:37: I'm with her to say, can you help us give us some feedback to know how we take all of this stuff and what we need to make public?
25:46: How do we do this for public consumption? So it wasn't ready for public consumption. It was very raw.
25:52: As you know, rough draft isn't ready to go be printed. It needs to be sifted through and determined.
25:57: And so there was a lot of very personal, raw data that was in that. It's all public now to one degree or another.
26:07: But that's what that's how they decided that they would take that information and use my wife and weaponize her story as a means by which to attack us politically in the
26:17: SBC. So tell us how this leaking of this information has harmed you in any way.
26:26: And tell us something about perhaps your sense of betrayal and how you get through that and over it and not hold sinful bitterness about it and so on.
26:40: It was extremely devastating. More to my wife than anything else. I mean,
26:46: I've been attacked in the SBC before. I've had political things done against me before, but I've never had my wife used against me.
26:53: And I've never had them willing to tamper with a marriage and potentially cause destruction in someone's ministry and try to make it look like that, you know,
27:04: I'm not fit to serve as a pastor. I mean, it was the most direct assault that we've ever experienced in our ministry ever.
27:11: The most the most satanic assault that we've ever experienced in our ministry. Again, that documentary will spell out a lot of it for you.
27:20: But my wife felt exposed. She felt betrayed. We had gone to the person that we went to was
27:27: Karen Pryor, who was a professor is now a professor at Southeastern or was at least until recently.
27:34: And at the time she was at Liberty University. We considered her to be a friend. And something happened.
27:41: She's not the one who leaked it to the media, we don't believe. But we certainly do believe that she shared it, leaked it to one degree or another.
27:50: Once she went to Southeastern, because the video shows how Keith Whitfield, who was the provost at Southeastern, still is on staff at Southeastern, was the one who was approached to ask
28:03: Karen to authenticate it. So it could Jennifer's rough draft so it could be published. So they knew that that Karen Pryor had it, whoever they knew who to go to to get it authenticated.
28:13: And so we felt betrayed. Then when we went to Southeastern and asked for help, they were not they were not willing to help us.
28:22: And they chose to protect their people rather than helping my wife.
28:27: And even when she wrote and appealed to meet with them, they refused to meet with her in person. Well, we have to go to our first commercial break.
28:35: And if anybody has a question, please submit it to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com.
28:40: Give us your first name, at least your city and state and your country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
28:48: Let's say you have experienced something similar to my guest, Tom Buck, and you don't want to identify yourself.
28:54: We can understand that. But if it's a general question, please give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.
29:00: We'll be right back with Tom Buck right after these messages from our sponsors. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.
29:19: I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the
29:28: G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd.
29:33: On a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.
29:41: I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.
29:53: And there's more great news. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 percent discount off the registration fee.
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30:15: Chris Arnzen, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd for the
30:20: G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God. Make sure you stop by the
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30:31: Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 percent discount off the registration fee.
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37:07: So go to royaldiadem .com and mention Chris Orensen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Tom Buck, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, and member of the board of directors for G3 Ministries.
37:21: We are talking about his personal experiences with the Southern Baptist Convention, and our email address is chrisorensen at gmail .com.
37:32: And before we go to any listener questions, Tom, has this leaking of this information had any long -lasting, damaging effects to you, your ministry, and your church, other than perhaps your own feelings of betrayal and that of your wife as well, her feeling betrayed by people that she thought were friends, and that kind of a thing where you once loved and enjoyed the friendship and fellowship with people who turned on you and stabbed you in the back?
38:11: I guess probably the biggest long -lasting effect is that the lies that have been perpetuated by what they've done continue to be out there.
38:21: So Jennifer and I are even contemplating about just totally disengaging and getting off of any type of social media stuff, because there's barely a week that goes by that she doesn't get said something to her derogatory or me, something said about me being a wife abuser, even using the term wife beater, not qualified for ministry, just all kinds of things.
38:47: So it has been damaging in that way. I mean, the people that know us best know that these things aren't true.
38:55: But on the flip side of the good, what God has done in it is how we've continued to ask the
39:02: Lord not to allow for a root of bitterness to take root in our hearts.
39:08: And God has continued to be gracious with us to help us battle that type of thing.
39:14: But we've also had plenty of people that have come forward that have now heard our story, have taken the time to listen to it.
39:23: And we've had women come to Jennifer and men come to me and husbands and wives come to us together saying that they too have experienced that and have felt the hope to come out and say, if it's possible for God to change you all, it's possible for God to change us.
39:41: So it's actually opened up doors and opportunities for ministry to help marriages that have been struggling.
39:47: So God, what they meant for evil, God has used for good. Well, praise God for that.
39:54: Let's see here. We have a listener question. We have
39:59: Seth in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. Greetings, Chris and Tom.
40:05: What is G3 Ministries' relationship to and stance on the Southern Baptist Convention?
40:13: Well, G3 Ministries doesn't really have a relationship at all, does not have a relationship at all with Southern Baptist Convention.
40:21: Josh Bice, who is the founder and president of G3 Ministries, used to pastor a church that was Southern Baptist.
40:26: But they left a couple of years ago because they were so dismayed with the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention.
40:32: So it's never had any official ties, only those unofficial ties. As far as its stance on the
40:39: Southern Baptist Convention, I would say it probably really doesn't have a stance because they don't have a dog in that fight, so to speak.
40:46: G3 is clearly about promoting the gospel of Jesus Christ, the glory of God, the gospel of God.
40:55: That's what we're about. And so G3 does not want to get itself engulfed in the politics of the
41:03: SBC. And I think that Josh is more than happy not having to wake up worried about that any day of the week.
41:10: He's just getting about good gospel -centered ministry. I will say this.
41:15: If there are those who are looking for a home, who are leaving the
41:21: Southern Baptist Convention and looking for a home to be and partnerships to have and getting busy about doing good gospel -centered ministry,
41:30: G3 is the place for you. And what I love about it when I go to the G3 Convention, when
41:36: I go to the Southern Baptist Convention, I feel like I'm out of place. It's not my people. I hate to say that, but it's just the case of it.
41:45: But when I go to G3, I feel like I'm going home because it's a place where we are theologically in agreement.
41:53: We don't agree on every single issue, but the issues that matter, there's unified agreement across the board.
41:59: And so that's probably the best way I could put it. Well, to get further clarification, does
42:07: G3 permit vendors that specifically promote
42:15: Southern Baptist institutions like the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and other seminaries, colleges, and so on, where they once did,
42:26: I'm almost certain, when I used to go there, perhaps when I first started attending the
42:33: G3, it's possible that Josh was still in the Southern Baptist Convention. But as far as things like that, and even the
42:40: G3 church directory, do they allow churches to be members of the Southern Baptist Convention still because of the serious disagreements they've had with conclusions and decisions by the
42:54: SBC? Well, the G3 network is what you're alluding to, and the church is belonging to that, and we want churches to join the
43:03: G3 network, which is like -minded churches that want to partner together in ministry and receive all kinds of resources from G3.
43:12: We do ask every church that's a part of the G3 network to be in agreement with the 1689
43:18: London Baptist Confession. If they have any areas that they disagree with, to spell that out, because you're not going to necessarily have someone that dots every
43:29: I and crosses every T the same, but that's a general starting point. So there are many that may –
43:35: I don't know how many there are, but I know there's quite a few. I'll put it that way. I know there's quite a few churches that are affiliated with the
43:41: Southern Baptist Convention who are also a part of the G3 network. So you do not have to leave the
43:47: SBC to be a part of the G3 network. Now, as far as the conference goes, I don't want to speak out of turn, but I'm pretty sure that there are not any vendors from Southern Baptist seminaries or colleges that are having tables at the
44:03: G3 conference. So I don't want to speak out of turn. I don't know that there's a policy against that, but I certainly would think it would be uncomfortable for both the seminaries,
44:18: SBC seminaries and G3. There's no like -mindedness there, so I doubt that would take place.
44:26: We have an anonymous listener who says, I have quite a number of friends in pastoral ministry who are in Southern Baptist Convention churches, even some who recently joined the
44:41: SBC. Should I approach them and tell them to seriously pray about leaving that group?
44:51: I don't know that I would say to tell them to pray about leaving, but I would say they at least need to encourage people to get informed to know what's going on.
45:04: You know, a local congregation has to make a decision on what their affiliation, if any, is going to be with Southern Baptist Convention.
45:13: And of course, being affiliated with the convention just simply means that you give a dollar to any of the entities.
45:18: If you gave a dollar to the IMB, you can seat at least two messengers at the annual meeting.
45:27: So it's not truly a denomination in the truest sense.
45:33: It's a cooperation of churches that come together to seek to do missions together.
45:39: So they don't have any governance over us, but I want to be a part of a group of churches that I feel like that I can embrace enough to give to and cooperate with them as much of a level that I can.
45:56: And that is decreasing by the day, by the minute at times. So I think churches, the bad thing is churches that don't get informed.
46:05: You shouldn't give your money to anybody if you don't know that there are potential problems. And there's plenty of places that you can go.
46:11: You go to Founders Ministries and see what the issues are and getting people educated in what's going on.
46:18: We have another anonymous listener who says, I recently saw a video by Justin Peters, who
46:27: I know is greatly loved by the host of this program, Chris Arnzen. And he's and he based his video on why he believes
46:37: Saddleback should be reinstated to the Southern Baptist Convention. I know that he meant that somewhat tongue in cheek because of the fact of there being women ordained into ministry in a rampant sense within the
46:54: Southern Baptist Convention anyway. So what are your thoughts on that? Well, I saw
47:01: Justin's video. What he was basically arguing was that it's hypocritical for the
47:07: Southern Baptist Convention to vote out Saddleback while they allow for other churches that have women pastors to stay in.
47:23: So he was essentially saying either reinstate Saddleback and keep them in the Southern Baptist Convention or deal with everything.
47:30: Don't use Saddleback as window dressing. Right. By the way, both of our anonymous questioners, if you are first time questioners, let me know because you have won a free
47:44: New American Standard Bible, as all first time questioners in our audience do.
47:51: And if you're wondering what that beeping is, I believe my guest is getting a lot of text right now. I'm trying to tell people to stop.
48:03: Or just silence it. That's that's fine. Let's see. We have
48:10: Christian in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
48:17: Christian says, Do you believe there is anything positive taking place in the
48:24: Southern Baptist Convention that would give one reason to be optimistic that there could be within a reasonably near future a turnaround and great improvement made?
48:40: Yeah, I think that, you know, it's one of those things that's so hard to know. Let me just say it this way.
48:46: I had a professor in seminary when the conservative resurgence was taking place.
48:52: Dr. John Hanna, who was a historical theology professor at DTS. He told us that, you know, the convention may turn back in a negative direction again.
49:04: And he said, if it does, don't be the first rat off the ship, but don't ship, but don't be the last rat ship.
49:12: And so when do you get, you know, if you do need to disengage, when is that?
49:18: I mean, there are some good things. I'm very thankful for for many of the things that I see
49:24: Paul Chitwood doing, who is over the IMB. He has personally assured me privately.
49:30: He's personally assured the convention publicly that he's not going to allow women, for example, to serve or function in the role of pastor on the mission field.
49:40: So that's a good thing. I'm thankful that Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has taken a stand regarding Saddleback and regarding the issue of stopping women pastors from growing and stopping them from being able to be in the convention.
50:02: So there are a lot of things there to be thankful for. I think probably the biggest thing is there's so many good local churches that are
50:09: Southern Baptist. You know, Southern Baptists that I know that are just rank and file
50:14: Southern Baptists are conservative. The disconnect is between the leadership, much of the leadership, and the local church.
50:23: So Tom Askell is much more positive than I am right now. If you want to get a really good someone to tell you this is why you should stay in,
50:31: Tom Askell is the guy to ask. I'm still conflicted, and I want to be honest that I don't know how much of that is because of the personal pain that Jennifer and I have been through this past year.
50:42: So I want to be forthright and say that there is a lot of pain that Jennifer and I bear from what's taken place.
50:51: So I believe there are good things. I'm just not sure that it's good enough to try to preserve everything and stay in, that each church will have to decide that.
51:05: Robert in Westchester County, New York asks, Are there things that you believe biblically sound conservative churches that are complementarian in their view of leadership and perhaps even patriarchal are missing out when it comes to what women can biblically do legitimately in the church?
51:29: Are there things that they are wrongly being prevented from doing, in your opinion?
51:37: Well, I mean, I don't personally know of anything. So let me just tell you what happens in our church, and I would say that anything where they're preventing women to do things that our church would say women are definitely qualified to do.
51:55: If a church is saying that women can just serve in the nursery and can just teach children, that would be problematic to me.
52:03: There's many things that women can do. What we see in 1 Timothy 2 .12 is a woman is not to teach men or exercise authority over men.
52:12: So we don't have women serving in the role of pastor elder. We don't have women serving in spiritually authoritative roles in the church.
52:23: But we have women that teach other women. We have women, the older women, teaching the younger women.
52:29: We have women that serve on various committees in our church. We value the voice of women.
52:35: I value the voice of my wife. I learn from women as well in an everyday ongoing just brother -sister discipleship relationships that we have in the church.
52:48: If a church is silencing the voice of women altogether, that definitely is problematic.
52:55: We have women that serve in our worship service ushering, even in our offering time and things of that nature.
53:05: I've had people from the outside say that women shouldn't do that. I don't see where that's prohibited in Scripture.
53:12: So if churches are doing that, that's problematic. But there is not any type of a movement that I'm aware of at all in our convention or of churches that are like -minded
53:23: Baptist churches where they're trying to squash the voice of women. G3 just had a workshop where women came in and learned from the
53:32: Scriptures. And there were Becky Anuel, Scott Anuel's wife, and Kerry Bice, Josh Bice's wife.
53:41: Both had a time where they taught a passage of Scripture to the women that were there to encourage them.
53:49: So if there are churches that are shutting out the voice of women, I'm sure they exist.
53:54: I'm just not personally aware of them. Well, we have to go to our midway break. Please stay tuned because we're going to conclude our discussion with Tom Buck around 5 .30
54:07: p .m. Eastern time. And so please stick around. And if you have a question, send it in immediately to ChrisArnson at gmail .com
54:15: since he is leaving early. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be back with Tom Buck right after these messages.
54:23: Yeah, back together again.
54:35: James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the
54:46: G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd.
54:51: On a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life.
54:57: The sovereignty of God. I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.
55:11: And there's more great news. Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 % discount off the registration fee.
55:19: Go to g3min .org, that's g3min .org, and enter promo code
55:25: G3ISIR. That's G3ISIR for the 30 % discount.
55:33: Chris Arnson, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the
55:38: G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God. Make sure you stop by the
55:43: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnson while you're there.
55:49: Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 % discount off the registration fee.
56:17: It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.
56:24: Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,
56:33: Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Attoye in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.
56:43: One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.
56:50: Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.
56:58: Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
57:05: Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.
57:10: Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the
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57:49: That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com, or call 678 -954 -7831.
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58:01: Joe Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, from a tie in County Kildare, Ireland, send you.
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01:09:00: Tom Buck, I have some very important announcements to make. If you love this show, folks, and you do not want it to disappear from the airwaves,
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01:11:45: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries will be speaking at a conference that I am arranging with Mid -Atlantic
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01:12:25: Finally, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, doctrinally sound, theologically solid church, like First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, well, no matter where you live on the planet
01:12:38: Earth, we have extensive lists spanning the globe, and we may be able to help you find a church anywhere in the world, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where you live, as we have done many times with people all over the world in our audience.
01:12:53: So if you are in that predicament of not having a theologically sound church, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com
01:13:00: and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Tom Buck.
01:13:06: That is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:13:12: Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the
01:13:18: USA. Tom, you are a man of great experience and gifts.
01:13:27: Any books on the fire that you are in the process of writing that may be available in print at some point in the near future?
01:13:37: Well, I am actually a little bit behind on getting a proposal for a book. I'm hoping to write something on woke hermeneutics, which is looking at how critical race theory and intersectionality is infecting our interpretation of Scripture.
01:13:57: That's whether it be looking at books like Reading While Black, looking at where it interprets the
01:14:06: Scriptures according to a racial lens. There are various lenses that are used to interpret
01:14:14: Scripture that I think are dangerous right now. So that's kind of the project that I'm working on.
01:14:20: Now, when it comes to the Southern Baptist Convention's admiration for things involving critical race theory as being helpful tools, do you think that the individuals who have been involved in promoting these things, even if they don't necessarily adopt the philosophy for themselves and their churches, but as being helpful tools in some way, do you think that they really believe that?
01:14:54: Are they ignorant of the Marxist worldview that is unmistakably present and saturated in the whole ideology of this movement?
01:15:11: Or are they doing it perhaps out of – I mean, I can't ask you to be a prophet or a mind reader, but perhaps you even know firsthand that there are people promoting these things just out of fear of a backlash.
01:15:28: I certainly think there are people that are promoting it because of a fear of a backlash.
01:15:34: They're responding to everything that's going on in our culture. They don't want to be called a racist.
01:15:41: They want to – they have some level, some of them from what
01:15:46: I have seen, what's called white guilt, where they feel like they need to buy into this concept of white supremacy.
01:15:56: But I think there are probably some players that know exactly what's going on and don't have a problem with mixing the ideologies of Marxism and other things.
01:16:07: There are those who are just ignorant of the issues, and they're responding to it out of sympathy because they hear the stories of brothers or sisters in Christ that feel like that they're being oppressed in the culture that we're in.
01:16:21: But the problem is they're not understanding Colossians 2 .8 that warns us of being captive, taken captive through philosophy and empty deception.
01:16:31: So much of what's going on in the critical race theory discussion is worldly ideologies that are infiltrating the church.
01:16:40: So just take, for example, the Supreme Court's decision just this week regarding the fact that we shouldn't be discriminating – educational institutions should not be discriminating against people or showing favor, we should say, to people of particular races in admitting them.
01:17:01: And Clarence Thomas wrote about the fact that, hey, just because you see that there are disparities that exist among races doesn't mean that it's racism that's driving all those disparities.
01:17:14: Yet you have books like Divided by Faith that pushes that very idea being introduced into evangelicalism, and the
01:17:26: SBC – there are people within the SBC that have been pushing that for some time.
01:17:33: So I don't know what it is, what's driving everything, but I do know this, that we have been taken captive by worldly philosophies, even in the
01:17:43: SBC. And the
01:17:48: Southern Baptist Convention and its founding members were clearly, as we all are, sinners, and unfortunately the
01:18:01: Southern Baptist Convention in the 19th century sided with the
01:18:06: Confederacy over the issue of slavery. Is it perfectly acceptable and enough for a modern -day office bearer in the
01:18:20: Southern Baptist Convention, especially a president, to say we totally disavow ourselves from the past views embraced by our founders in regard to race and slavery, and that should be sufficient?
01:18:37: Or must there be more ongoing actions and statements of repentance as if the current -day office bearers themselves need to repent of believing and acting upon those previously held sinful views?
01:18:58: That's basically what the woke movement wants us to do, and I don't think that they will ever be satisfied no matter how many times you make statements of repentance.
01:19:08: They don't seem to be particularly concerned with that at all. They want you to be forever labeled as a guilty racist.
01:19:16: But is it enough to just say we disavow our past in that regard?
01:19:21: Obviously not the theology. In fact, one of the reasons, or the very reason, that Tom Askell has named the wonderful ministry that he oversees, the founders' ministries, is because of the theology of the founders, which was thoroughly
01:19:38: Calvinistic. But as I said, is it enough to just say we're not our great -great -great -great -granddaddy's
01:19:46: Southern Baptist Convention in regard to race relations? Yeah, I think that it's totally appropriate for the convention to at some time in its history, and it has long ago, acknowledge that there were sinful, wrong views regarding the issue of slavery and regarding the issue of race.
01:20:10: And that, yes, we disavow that, that it was unbiblical. It was wrong. It was sinful.
01:20:15: There were people that were hurt because of that. There were people that were mistreated because of that. I don't think,
01:20:23: I don't understand why there has to be an ongoing perpetual repentance of that as if, as you said, as if today anybody holds to that.
01:20:37: We have made clear statements against racism. We've made clear statements against what's happened in the past.
01:20:44: And we are all sinners. And there are always, I think it was
01:20:50: C .S. Lewis called it chronological snobbery, where people look to the past and believe that if they were alive at that time, that they would have no way of being involved.
01:21:00: Even the left -wing Bill Maher acknowledges that, that that's ridiculous. Yeah. So I think that we, you know, we're not, our gospel is not one of penance, right?
01:21:15: I don't understand why we can't apply the gospel to what we're dealing with. None of these people are alive.
01:21:21: It's impossible for us to go back and confront the situation. Had we been alive at the time, many of us may have been blinded because of our own sin to what was going on in the culture of that day.
01:21:32: And we need to draw a big line, a gospel line in the sand and start moving forward to talk about how we address issues today.
01:21:40: Because I think that 40 years from now, there are going to be people that look back, or 100 years from now, there are going to be people that look back and see the things that we did wrong.
01:21:49: Are they going to throw out everything that we've said and everything we've written? But that's what we're dealing with.
01:21:54: If we go back to what happened with Jennifer and I in our marriage, they want to go back and say that everything's invalidated in my ministry because of what happened in the first five years of our marriage, which was repented of.
01:22:07: The gospel has to be able to redeem. And if it can't redeem us, what is it we're preaching? And isn't one of the reasons we must all be vociferously opposed to the woke movement, to the social justice warrior movement, to the critical race theory ideology?
01:22:27: Isn't one of the primary reasons we must oppose it is because it itself is perpetuating racism.
01:22:35: It's just a different target or different targets. The targets of this new racism are white heterosexual males primarily, but whites in general, and Asians.
01:22:48: They're unmistakably targets of racism in this new paradigm. Absolutely.
01:22:55: And you have this big, broad brush that if you have white skin and if you're male, you are a part of the oppressive, patriarchal culture that has oppressed other people.
01:23:09: It doesn't matter if it's actually true about you as an individual. It only matters that you possess that particular type of skin color and gender.
01:23:19: That in and of itself is discriminating. That in and of itself goes against what
01:23:26: Scripture teaches, that you're not to show partiality. And we're not going to fix or address the sinful partiality of the past by practicing sinful partiality in the present.
01:23:39: And they're giving not a biblical way to deal with their cultural problems. They're looking at the unbiblical worldly ideologies to give an answer to these things.
01:23:48: And that's why we're in the mess that we're in in the church. OK, and let's see.
01:23:57: We have a listener named Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.
01:24:04: And Ronald says, how do we cut through the accusations of racism when we are having a conversation with somebody who has bought into the whole woke terminology, grammar, and philosophy when they bring up that our views are racist to try to shut down the conversation, it seems, in my opinion?
01:24:30: How do we bypass that quickly to get to the core of the conversation?
01:24:38: Well, I don't know how you bypass it quickly. I've had a hard time getting quickly through any of these discussions.
01:24:45: But I think that if you're going to have a conversation, you've got to establish what's going to be our standard.
01:24:51: If the Word of God is our standard, then we both can put ourselves under the authority of the
01:24:57: Word of God and have a conversation regarding that. But if we're going to introduce into the conversation things outside of Scripture to be the standard by which we judge these things, you're never going to be able to quickly move past that.
01:25:09: So that's why I used a moment ago the biblical view on partiality. Am I showing partiality towards someone?
01:25:17: If I'm showing partiality towards the rich or the poor, Scripture says, I'm out of line with God's Word.
01:25:23: So if the rich are being oppressive to the poor, then the answer is not to show partiality to the poor.
01:25:32: It's to practice the equality that we find in Scripture. So I think when you're having a conversation with somebody, you have to ask them, what's your standard?
01:25:40: What are you using as the measure of standard? If they refuse to use the Word of God solely as the standard by which we discuss these things, you will never be able to move forward and advance the conversation in a biblical way.
01:25:55: Yes, and we have to remind ourselves that even the poor can be just as guilty of greed and being lovers of money as the rich are.
01:26:10: The love of money is not isolated to rich people. And that is why you have people who are poor even murdering other people to get their money.
01:26:24: And you have all kinds of crimes and things happening amongst the poor themselves.
01:26:32: In fact, it is interesting that a key person in the parable who punished someone who owed him a debt financially after that very person was forgiven his debt, that was a poor person, no doubt.
01:26:55: That was the key example of a hypocrite who was treating somebody else and their debt toward him in a different way than they wanted to be treated in regard to their debt to somebody else.
01:27:13: I wholeheartedly agree. And let's see, we have time for one more question.
01:27:21: We have C .J. in Lyndonhurst, Long Island, New York.
01:27:29: And C .J. says, are you available for Bible conferences, and how far would you travel to participate one, even if the church perhaps is relatively small?
01:27:47: Well, the size has nothing to do with it for me. I have preached at conferences with a church that only has 25, 30 people in it.
01:27:57: So that has never been an issue to me. So, yes, I do, but I am trying to be careful about the number of times that I'm away from my church.
01:28:06: I'm primarily working with the expository workshops to try to train men in preaching the word.
01:28:15: But they certainly can send a request to me, and I will give it my best consideration and would try to fit that into my schedule down the line, probably 2024, 2025 at this point, because I'm acting on very few requests just because of the time factor.
01:28:36: But it would have nothing to do with size. Now, how would the listener, including C .J., contact you?
01:28:43: Just at Tom at FBCLyndale .com. So Tom at F -B -C -L -I -N -D -A -L -E dot com.
01:28:51: Great. Well, it has been such a pleasure, Tom. I know that you have to leave early. Please, folks, don't go away because we have
01:28:58: Buzz Taylor joining us after my guest Tom Buck departs. Buzz Taylor is going to be discussing his book,
01:29:05: God's Lawsuit. But for more information about First Baptist Church of Lyndale, Texas, go to FBCLyndale .com,
01:29:14: FBCLyndale .com. For more information about the G3 Ministries, where Tom serves on the board of directors, go to G3men .org,
01:29:24: G3men .org, and click on Events and find out more about the upcoming
01:29:29: G3 National Conference on the Sovereignty of God. And don't forget, when you're registering, to use promo code
01:29:35: G3ISIR, the Iron Trip and Zion Radio discount code, so you can receive 30 percent off the registration fee.
01:29:43: Tom, it's always a joy to have you on the program. I look forward to sharing fellowship with you and your lovely wife in Atlanta, Georgia, this
01:29:51: September. And please don't be a stranger to Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Thank you, brother.
01:29:56: I appreciate your ministry. I appreciate you, too, brother. God bless you. You, too. And don't go away, folks. As I said,
01:30:02: Buzz Taylor will be joining us after this commercial break, so please send in your questions to Buzz Taylor at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
01:30:12: chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back.
01:30:19: Yeah. Back again,
01:30:26: Ricky. Yeah. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.
01:30:34: I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the
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01:43:17: We are now being joined by my second guest today, my old friend of many years,
01:43:24: Buzz Taylor, former frequent co -host of the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program, and we're going to be getting an update on his life and how
01:43:33: God is using his gifts. And we'll also be talking about his book that, God willing, will soon be in print,
01:43:40: God's Lawsuit. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Buzz Taylor.
01:43:46: Well, thank you very much, Chris. It's wonderful to talk with you again, and especially here on the program.
01:43:52: It has been quite a while now. Yeah. A number of years. I've been out of Pennsylvania now for about three years.
01:43:59: And where are you now? Tell us the exact city and state. I'm in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, which is up near the
01:44:06: New Hampshire border, about halfway across the New Hampshire border, comfortably far from Boston.
01:44:13: And, I mean, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Boston.
01:44:19: Yes, yes, and traffic, not to mention. And, well,
01:44:24: I know that you have been using your gifts recently by preaching from time to time at the church where you are now attending.
01:44:34: Tell us about that. Well, when I first arrived to town, my first thought was, let's find a church that, of course,
01:44:43: I look for a church in my own denomination, which I could not find for like 40 some minutes away, which
01:44:49: I can't do every Sunday. So I decided, well, you know, it's a good chance for me to bloom wherever I'm planted.
01:44:57: And I looked out my window of my apartment building, and I saw this quaint -looking church across the street, and I said,
01:45:02: I'm going to go ahead and check them out. And I've been there now for two years. And what's really nice about it is, though I am not officially a pastor or anything in the church, the pastor recognizes my background, my giftings, my calling.
01:45:20: And you are an ordained minister. Yes, I am. Yes, I am. And I have plenty of opportunities to take the pulpit.
01:45:29: I'm teaching a Bible class of the Book of Acts right now a couple times a month. But the main thing is the pulpit.
01:45:36: And I've been able to preach. Oh, in the last two years, I've been there probably about a dozen times, and I'm scheduled three more times over the summer.
01:45:45: So it's keeping me busy between that and the classes. So if somebody happens to be traveling through your area, or perhaps they already live there, how would they visit this church?
01:45:54: What's the name of the church? And is there a website or any kind of other information? You would ask me that.
01:46:00: I didn't have that information readily available. But if they ever wanted to look it up online and come visit, it's
01:46:06: Elm Street Community Church, and that's in Fitchburg. That's F -I -T -C -H -B -U -R -G,
01:46:13: Fitchburg, Massachusetts. And they should be able to find it from that.
01:46:20: We are on YouTube. You'll recognize our logo as a light bulb with a cross inside as the filaments.
01:46:29: All the services are live streamed, and then they are archived.
01:46:35: So if you want to hear me preach even, you can go to YouTube, go to their page, and you can,
01:46:42: I guess, what do you call it, their channel. And you can, you have to know which sermons
01:46:47: I've preached to find me, though, because they just go by the dates and the titles.
01:46:53: So, but if anybody wanted to visit, they can contact me, buzzwords 422 at gmail .com.
01:47:02: And what's the name of the church again? Elm Street Community Church. Okay, well, I have the website right here.
01:47:08: Okay, there you go. If anybody wants to look up, and I see the logo that you were just describing, the light bulb with the cross in it, elmstcc .org.
01:47:20: Elm, S -T for street, C -C for communitychurch .org. Elmstcc .org.
01:47:28: Well, tell us about this long -awaited book that has been in the works for a number of years on eschatology that you have titled
01:47:39: God's Lawsuit, and perhaps you can remind me of the subtitle, and tell us about the stage of the publishing process that you're currently in.
01:47:49: This work started actually many, many years ago when some friends of mine were talking about going into the ministry, and I had been studying eschatology from a post -millennial and Preterist standpoint for a number of years at that time.
01:48:06: And before they went into ministry, I wanted to at least inform him so he had the opportunity of, if I may say so myself, getting it correct.
01:48:16: And I met with them once a week, but it caused me to formulate my thinking into outlines to organize my thoughts for them, and then it gradually grew.
01:48:29: I started teaching a Sunday school class at a church I was attending at that time up in Maine, and it grew from that.
01:48:37: Then I pastored a church, and I did 14 lectures on Bible prophecy, and I stopped simply because there was enough
01:48:44: Bible prophecy for them, but there was a lot more that could have been said. Since then, I have taken those lectures and expanded them even more, and I finally realized, okay,
01:48:53: I need to put this in book form. I want something that's going to last longer than me. Plus, I want to have something in people's hands.
01:49:01: You can imagine I get into discussions all the time with people about Bible prophecy, and they come up with, you know,
01:49:08: I say this, they say that. They come up with all kinds of reasons why what I said couldn't be true, and I don't even have a chance.
01:49:14: I say so many times, sound bites don't work well in theology. You got to get the whole picture.
01:49:20: So here's something, hopefully, that I'll be able to just put in their hands to say, read this, and then later on we'll discuss it.
01:49:28: After they've been exposed to it, because most people have not been exposed to it, my life was radically changed when
01:49:36: I learned the difference in eschatology, and as one of your frequent guests on Iron Sharpens Iron used to say,
01:49:47: Joe Moorcraft, I quote him in my book, because he mentioned that eschatology is usually a discipline that's thrown at the end of most systematic theologies, but in actuality, it is the warp and woof of all theology.
01:50:02: And I found this to be so true that when I started to change my views of eschatology, all of a sudden, my interpretation of all of Scripture was changing.
01:50:12: I understood Israel a lot better. A lot of the parables, a lot of passages in the Bible suddenly had a reason to exist, and they made sense with each other, and it was just amazing how, and I say so often, the
01:50:26: Bible interprets the Bible, and that's what I'm trying to show. Fortunately, I joined an organization while I was still down there, just before COVID hit in Pennsylvania.
01:50:35: I was part of an organization for nonfiction writers, and at one of their sessions, they told me, keep your titles short and catchy.
01:50:46: Well, you know how it is, Chris. You read a lot of Puritan stuff. You tend to get long titles, so I had a long title.
01:50:54: The title was Bible Prophecy Like You've Never Heard It Before, Dot, Dot, Dot, But Should Have, and I was told it was too long.
01:51:02: You need something catchy, so I'm thinking, and I said, how about God's Lawsuit? And the woman running the meeting said,
01:51:10: I hope you end up using that one. I said, well, I'll tell you what, I will. Why God's Lawsuit?
01:51:16: Because the book of Revelation is actually John writing as a prophet the legal lawsuit, the covenant lawsuit against first century
01:51:27: Christ rejecting Israel. So many interpret it today as a historical narrative written ahead of time, but it is far from that.
01:51:38: It's a covenant document showing the failures of Israel and why
01:51:44: God is justified in what he actually accomplished by the year 8070 in wiping out
01:51:50: Judaism, as we've known it for thousands of years before that. No more temple, no more
01:51:55: Jerusalem, and that's the way it was after that. So that's basically what the book is about.
01:52:02: And you asked me about when it's going to be out. That's a tough one.
01:52:09: It's right now with three different proofreaders. I have I'm happy to say
01:52:15: I finally finished writing it, although I have to admit I'm constantly tweaking things here and there and trying to put in more up to date examples and things.
01:52:24: But it's with three proofreaders. And as soon as I'm done with them, I will be contacting a publisher that I've already contacted before.
01:52:33: But there may be others that I will check first. So I'm not going to disclose the name just yet, but I hope this year that it will be published and available.
01:52:42: And just to clarify, you are a post -millennial partial preterist theonomist.
01:52:51: Am I correct? Yes. Thank you for mentioning partial. Yes. Because there has been some controversy over that.
01:52:58: In fact, on my blog, I responded to an article that a fellow had written online that basically accused me using the arguments of the full preterist, which
01:53:12: I am not. He didn't know the difference between full and partial preterists. As a partial preterist, what
01:53:19: I believe is that many of the scripture texts that we use to prove that Jesus is coming soon are actually written about and therefore were fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
01:53:33: But there are still other scriptures that have not been fulfilled yet. There's still prophecy out there that's going to happen.
01:53:39: But primarily with the Olivet Discourse and 2
01:53:45: Peter 3 and so forth, those are about the destruction of Jerusalem. And, of course, that's what my book is about.
01:53:52: I'm presenting my burden of proof. And I'm sure you agree with me that anybody that is passionate about their eschatological views, excited over them, have to be very careful not to alienate brothers in Christ who differ in those views, especially when they are biblically debatable.
01:54:19: They're within the realm of what has been historically accepted pre -millennialism, amillennialism.
01:54:28: We have to be careful not to declare people with differing views as heretics and not as brethren at all, other than such folks as are in the hyper -preterist movement, which is going way too far.
01:54:43: So glad you mentioned that, yes, because, of course, there's always going to be all kinds of accusations about that.
01:54:50: But like David Ramsey once said on his program, never confuse extreme confidence with arrogance.
01:54:59: Well, when you discuss these with people, it's an important issue, but it is not an essential issue.
01:55:05: And we need to understand that we should not divide the body of Christ over these things. We should be able to sit in a congregation and worship
01:55:13: Jesus Christ together, no matter what our eschatological—I can't even say the word.
01:55:19: I'm just bragging about it. Chris remembers when I was in radio and had trouble saying certain words.
01:55:26: Community was one of them. Community, yeah, what he said, yeah. But, yes, these are not issues to divide over.
01:55:34: But as I say that, people will divide over that. And it's unfortunate because it is not an essential of the faith.
01:55:41: It has nothing to do with the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the authority of Scripture. In fact, it is because I believe in the authority of Scripture that I changed my views to post -millennialism.
01:55:51: I was forced by the Scriptures to do so. And, of course, everybody says that, so I realize that.
01:55:57: And, of course, the gospel itself is not violated by holding to any of the major historical views.
01:56:06: Exactly, exactly. And, by the way, if you do not want to get into an eschatological debate or argument,
01:56:16: I would advise everyone listening to stay as far away from Buzz Taylor as you possibly can.
01:56:21: Because he will find a way to bring that up in conversation no matter who you are.
01:56:27: Yes. You could be a teller at a bank. You could be behind the desk at a post office. When I say it's not an essential doctrine, that does not in any way insinuate that I mean it's not an important doctrine.
01:56:39: Because, like I said, I found that it affected my interpretation of many, many other
01:56:45: Scripture passages that I had wrong because they were eschatological and I didn't realize it.
01:56:51: Or the opposite. Many of the passages that we think are eschatological actually are not, but they are history now.
01:56:57: And your eschatological view can affect, either positively or negatively, the very way that you declare the gospel, the manner with which you approach lost people, the way you live.
01:57:15: I mean, I'm not a post -millennialist, at least not yet, but I know one of the things that has grieved me most about the way that many dispensationalists evangelize the lost, they will not warn them about hell, and they will not offer the joyful hope of being with Christ for eternity in glory.
01:57:40: They will warn people about not being caught up in the rapture and spending the tribulation on earth, and offer them the wonderful hope of being caught up in the rapture.
01:57:52: Those are not the things that we should be emphasizing when evangelizing lost people. Well, Jesus said in Matthew 24, when you see these things, do not be alarmed.
01:58:00: And yet, preachers all over North America are using these very things to alarm people in hopes that they're going to come to Christ through that.
01:58:07: I find the truth is very adequate for reaching people for Christ. They don't need to make up stuff for that.
01:58:14: Amen. Well, I want to make sure that everybody listening has the website for the church where you are frequently preaching.
01:58:22: Once again, that's Elm Street Community Church, and the city is
01:58:28: Fitchburg, Massachusetts? Yes. And that is F -I -T -C -H -B -U -R -G.
01:58:36: And the website is elmstcc .org.
01:58:45: elmstcc .org. And, Buzz, why don't you repeat your email address for anybody desiring to get in touch with you.
01:58:51: Buzzwords. Now, anybody who knows me knows that I spell Buzz with one Z, but everybody's computer corrected it, so I changed it.
01:58:59: So it's B -U -Z -Z -W -O -R -D -S. Buzzwords422 at gmail .com.
01:59:08: So you can send your emails if you'd like to be put on a list to be updated on when God's lawsuit, the book by Buzz Taylor, will be available.
01:59:17: I want to thank you so much, Buzz, for filling in the last portion of our program today with very little notice.
01:59:23: I look forward to you coming back to a full two -hour show. I want to thank everybody who listened.
01:59:29: I want you all to have a very blessed, safe, happy, and healthy and joyful weekend and Lord's Day.
01:59:36: And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.