WWUTT 860 Q&A Sermon Series, Interim Pastors, and God Told Me?

What happened to the end of the 2nd Corinthians sermon series? Is there a biblical argument for an interim pastor?

And how does God still speak to us today? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, teaching and admonishing one another through the word, with thankfulness in our hearts to God.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. We are getting ready for G3 next week.

Yes. I think we're ready to go for the most part. For the most part. I got my pins in. Yep. So if you come by the what booth at G3, you get a pin.

Yep. I've got the banner. And while supplies last. While supplies last. It's 500 pins, but of course there's going to be 4 ,000 people there.

Exactly. There is, let's see, the banner is in, t -shirts and sweatshirts are in, books.

Do we have a tablecloth? Oh, yeah. I need to get a tablecloth. Yeah. That's easy to come by, but yeah.

Important. I think I've got, yeah, I've got a black cover from somewhere. And I think it was from back when

I was doing a band. Oh, yeah. So I still have that black table cover, which she made a face at me, but really it highlights everything on the table.

Yes. I mean, I get it. I'm just worried about it being in the sun. I don't know where it's been stored.

If it's dusty. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's going to have plenty of moths in it and everything. Right. Yuck. Yeah. I'll just pull that puppy back out.

Yeah. We'll shake it out right under there. It's been in a big plastic container. They're not supposed to, nothing's supposed to be able to get into those.

Supposed to. Yeah. Keyword. And then we're going to have a TV set up out there that's going to have the what video is playing.

Yeah. It'll be so cool. So that nobody who's or anybody, nobody, anybody who has never seen a what video of what video before gets to, you know, learn something about the ministry

I'm walking by. And I have little cards, but I mean, really the cards just have WWTT .com

on. I just didn't see there was any need to make a brochure when the whole ministry is kind of self -explanatory.

Yeah. Just go to the website and use the videos. Right. What else do you need? Right. So it's just there to raise awareness about when we understand the text.

And then you can write your name and number on the back whenever you hand it to a friend and you can be like, here, call me. Yeah. For those of you who

I have no problem, right. For those of you, I have no problem with handing my number to, I'll write my number on the back of the card.

But for those of you, I don't really want to hear from every day. I'm not going to put my information back there.

I'm looking at my phone and I'm totally ignoring you. Yes. Yeah. Well, I get that, but it's an opportunity.

Yeah. It's been a busy week. It has. Very, very busy. Very, very busy week. Yeah. So prayers for our church.

Greatly appreciated. Yes. This has been an interesting start to the year. We'll just put it that way. But anyway, so Becky and I are very much looking forward to hopping into the vehicle and driving, hopefully not through snow.

Oh, hopefully. We miss all that. Between here and Atlanta. So we're looking at 10 inches of snow in St.

Louis this weekend. And if they're not - So far anyway. Right. If it's going to cause like a state of emergency, then we're going to have to avoid

St. Louis. Maybe have to take a Southern route to get down to Atlanta, which could take an hour or two longer. Right.

But it's still doable. It would take an hour or two longer anyway going through St. Louis. Yeah. No joke.

Plus the travel hazard with that possibility of snow. Yeah. Yeah. With the snow that they're going to get.

But once we get through Nashville and Chattanooga, it's all just supposed to be rain. Hopefully the temperatures won't drop far enough down and at least no snow in Atlanta.

I'm good with driving through snow or having to beat snow to get there. Right. But it's the snow in Atlanta last year.

That was what was - Oh, that was so crazy. That was crazy. In their sheet of ice. Yeah. They had like an inch of ice or something. You don't think about an inch to two inches of snow just crippling the daily procedures of everything.

It was awful. But it did in Atlanta. Poor Atlanta. Last year. Sorry guys. Sorry that happened to you.

We didn't bring it with us though because you were - We didn't. It was ahead of us. Yes. So you can't blame us for last year.

We prayed. We prayed for it not to hit. Yep. But that's all right. That was a rough trip. God is sovereign. Yes. We are -

Give us something to talk about. We're getting far enough ahead here I think that we're able to compensate for any lost time in case we run into weather like that.

Right. Anyway. Yeah. Pray for us. Pray for safe travel. Safe travel for everybody heading to the G3 Conference in Atlanta.

I really loved seeing the stuff that came out of the Founders Conference in Florida which was just last week.

Right. And I think they are putting up all their sermons and like panel discussions and things like that still going to be hitting the

Founders Ministry website. Oh, wonderful. You can look up all of that there. I did post one on Twitter and it was the social justice discussion that they had which is the guys from CrossPolitik, also

Votie Bauckham, Josh Bice, Tom Askell, and some of those guys are even going to be at - there's a pre -conference that is being put on by Grace, Sovereign Grace Media?

No, it's not Sovereign Grace. Ah, it's terrible that I can't remember who they are. Anyway. I'm rubbing off on you.

There's another ministry that's putting on like the pre -conference of G3 and they're going to be talking about the social justice - the statement on social justice that was put out in 2018.

And guys that are going to be part of that panel include Phil Johnson, Tom Buck who was part of drafting the

Dallas Statement, Josh Bice who was also there, Votie Bauckham, Dr. James White. So, those guys that helped to draft the

Dallas Statement on social justice and the gospel are - we're going to have kind of a pre -conference,

I guess that's Wednesday night. Right. And looking forward to that. That one does cost though. It costs extra in addition to the conference.

I think it was $19 a ticket. Something like that, yeah. Which may have gone up leading - you know, as we get closer and closer to the conference.

You just have to check out G3 to find out. Yep. G3conference .com. The letter

G, the number three conference .com. I know you second -guessed .com. I always, always do because it's another name.

Yeah. .org, .com. I'm like, ah, I don't remember. Okay, here we go.

It's Friday. We're taking questions from listeners and you can submit your questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

First one comes from Keith in Nevada. Hey, Pastor Gabe, what happened to your sermons? I haven't seen one among your podcasts in a while and I missed the end of 2

Corinthians. Uh -oh. Yeah, our recorder went out. Oh, right.

I forgot about that. And the flash drive that I was using to capture the sermons on the recorder,

I lost that. Oh, no. I found it. I've since. Oh, okay, good. I've since recovered it.

Making sure the recorder is going to work again. I've still got to test that. My sermon from this Sunday might get recorded and it's just a

Q &A. So I'm not sure if I'm going to record that and include it on the podcast or not.

I might just wait until we start Galatians and then I'll start putting. Start fresh. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll start putting the sermons up again. But yeah, so what you missed. I think the last sermon that made it on the podcast was 2

Corinthians chapter 12 verses 1 through 10. So then you missed the second half of chapter 12.

And I think I did two sermons through chapter 13. I actually did chapter 13 fairly quick.

I was sick during most of that time. Yeah, that's true. You were. I remember that. And then. So I don't remember anything.

And then at Christmas, I did a sermon prior to Christmas out of Matthew 2.

And then the Sunday between Christmas and New Year, I actually finished up that sermon in Matthew 2 because it was so long,

I couldn't do it in one Sunday. And then this past Sunday, I went through highlights of 2

Corinthians, which this actually started when we were in Romans, where it was just such information.

And we did Romans for a year and a half. So trying to capture all of that information in the most basic points.

What we did was we split it into two Sundays where we highlighted the major sections of Romans chapters 1 through 11.

And then there was another Sunday where we went chapters 12 through 16. And we underlined key passages and explained those key passages in context.

So it was kind of like a year and a half in Romans. And then we had two more Sundays where we just went through all of it again to catch the summary of everything.

And after I did that, and I went through passages saying, here, underline this, mark this in your margin, put a bracket around this part.

That was kind of how we went through that. That was so well received that ever since then, then when

I went to first. It was kind of like a crash course after studying so much. So then after we did first Corinthians, then

I had members of the congregation going, are we going to do like we did in Romans? We need to go back through and highlight all of this.

And I said, okay, fine. So we did it. I love it. Oh, good. I do. So we went back through and did that with first Corinthians.

And then this past Sunday, I did it with second Corinthians. But again, the recorder was out. So I didn't get any of that.

So you're going to have to sit down with me and go through mine since I was in the nursery. Yeah. You had nursery duty on Sunday.

I was finally better though. Yay. I could just hand you my Bible. It's got everything highlighted. There we go.

I think there was, of all that I told the congregation to highlight and underline though, I think it was only two thirds of what

I actually had highlighted and underlined. Oh, yeah. Because there were some things that are like, that makes sense to me.

And I understand why I highlighted that, but it may not have necessarily a key point to it that would be as connecting with somebody else trying to understand, okay, why did

I underline that? What's the point of that part? More personal moments.

But then, so finishing up all of that, we're done with second Corinthians this Sunday when we do our final

Q &A. And then I start Galatians when we get back from G3. And so it's after Galatians that I'll start back and recording sermons again.

But I'm glad you're interested, Keith. I appreciate your question. That's what happened to the sermons, this recorder went on the fritz.

One thing we're talking about doing, and I know this is going to sound controversial.

One thing we're talking about doing is streaming our services on Facebook. And it's because we've had some members of our congregation move to a place in California because they're military.

And we've had a few families now that have gone from our church and cannot find a good church out there.

And I've done some research, if anybody knows of a good church, maybe on the

Reformed Baptist leaning in around Fort Irwin, California, let me know.

Because I would love to pass this on. But if they can't find a good church out there, we're going to stream the services on Facebook for their benefit.

Now some of you know my hesitancy to do anything satellite related.

Right. But the purpose of this would be to provide them with a place that they can gather and get good teaching and hopefully it will turn into a church.

So it's certainly not for my ego. It's not for me to have my face beamed into another place, but at least to be able to provide some sound teaching from where folks from our church, well, formerly from our church.

Well, there's still, I mean, whenever they move out, we still consider them members until they've established themselves in another church.

So we still look out for them because military, they move all the time. I mean, if you know anybody military, you know, they haven't been in a place more than four years, max.

Like that's considered a long time for them to live anywhere. So I even made contact with one of our former members this past week and said, hey, we have another former member where you are who's having a medical problem.

So do you think you could go visit? And it turned out I had the location wrong. See, I don't keep up with the military bases and I thought it was the same place and it wasn't.

Oh, bummer. Anyway, so one of the guys that has left our church and is out in California now is one of our former deacons.

So you would even have a deacon there, but being able to welcome people to come and join and be a part of sound teaching and then training up some guys there that would be able to step into an eldership role and lead that church.

That would be awesome. That would be great. That could be kind of a church planting endeavor without us ever having to invest any money in that or of our own resources, except for putting the things together that we need to do in order to stream the services on Facebook.

So that's one thing that we're looking into doing. And if you find our church on Facebook, facebook .com slash

FSBCJC, that's where it's going to, that's where the streaming will end up coming up.

And I'm hoping to get all that done before we start the Galatians series. So I can start those guys out there with us on Galatians since they're what, two hours behind us.

Is that what you say? Not two hours ahead. They're two hours behind us. Two hours behind. So we get done with service and then it uploads to Facebook and then it's there in time for them to get ready with their service.

Yep. Or you can record at the same time. What do you mean? Like streaming means that it's live.

Well, right. But that would be an early enough service that they may not want to start service at early.

I don't know. Our service starts at 1030. If they want to start out there at 830, more power to them. They're military guys.

They're used to getting up. They're used to early up. Yep. It's just a matter of the wives and kids. They wake up with the.

How is that again? That's my bugle. Anyway.

Okay. Where are we going at here? That was Keith's question. Did I answer Keith's question? Oh, hang on a second. Okay. I wanted to clarify that while we are gone, our church is still having service.

Yeah. I just wanted to put that out there. Pastor Dwight. Yes. He will be leading. Yep. Is going to be leading service in my absence.

Mm -hmm. And let's see, Alistair is going to be doing the music. Awesome. While I'm gone.

I don't think he knows that yet. Surprise. Yeah. He's a fellow that used to be a deacon with us about a year ago, and he went down to Texas to help his family, and now he's come back to Kansas, and I'm going to throw him into service right away.

You're working, dude. He'll love it. Here's a pitchfork. He's so great. Start shoveling. I'm so glad they're back.

Yeah. It's wonderful. It's very rare for us to have somebody come back. I know. So it's. It just makes me all giddy.

We're always praying for people to go out. Yes. Lord, if we don't see each other again this night of heaven, and tears flowing.

Yeah. But this time, he came back. Yep. I didn't know if maybe after he got out of Fort Riley, Junction City, he's going,

I'm free. Nope. Came right back again. They actually like it here, so.

That's great. That's a plus. And we do actually get quite a few people that will end up in Junction City that love it.

Yeah. Especially if you love hunting. Yes. If you're somebody. That's a big draw.

And there's quite a few soldiers that do. Yep. Because it has to do with guns. So, if you love hunting, you'll end up in Junction City, and just how low -key everything is, and not a lot of traffic, and yet so many amenities that are available, so you get kind of a big -town feel, but still small -town

Kansas. And the hunting, of course, is great. Hunting all year long, there's always something to hunt.

There is. So there's guys. Yep. Guys that end up coming back to Kansas and retiring. Yep. Because they can.

This is the best fishing in Kansas. Kansas is not really a fishing state. No. But because we've got

Lake Milford right next to it, which, by the way, when you look at me on Twitter, my

Twitter page, twitter .com slash Pastor underscore Gabe, the banner that I have at the top of the page, that's

Milford Lake. Yeah. Lake Milford. Yep. So pretty there. Best fishing in Kansas, but, you know, we've had some guys that have come here, and their thing is fishing, and they're just going, yeah, well, you can call this fishing if you want.

I mean, you can catch some big fish in that lake. It's not like deep -sea fishing, but.

Deep -sea fishing. Isn't that what it's called? Well, yeah, if you've lived on the coast. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Okay.

It's not like that. It's not that eventful. But, I mean, there's some big hunk of fish in there.

Deep -sea fishing as you're jumping in the water. Oh, no. Yeah. Are you?

You're thinking like pier fishing or something. No. Like fishing off a pier? Off a boat. Off a boat? Yeah. When they go out with a boat.

I don't know. Do they call that deep -sea fishing? I thought so. I don't know. I don't know if they're trying to catch a marlin or a swordfish.

Yeah. I don't know. Okay. Well, thank you, Keith. Yes. Thank you.

More than you wanted to know. This next one is from Jeremy in Pennsylvania. Hello, Gabe and Becky.

Thank you for your faithful ministry and rightly dividing the word of God in such an accessible and delightful way.

Jeremy, thank you for spelling my wife's name right. Yeah. You always make that a thing. I don't know.

I'm picking on you. If you can't spell Becky's name right. She chose the spelling of this name.

I did. I did. It was a nickname. Yeah. But I like it because then our names together are Gabecky. Yeah. First, a comment regarding a question asked on the podcast last week.

Can you ask Alexa to play the what podcast? Now, I've just said that and everybody's

Alexas are going off again. Hey, Alexa, Becky mentioned being able to do it, but needing to pay a monthly fee for the service.

Well, I received an Apple HomePod for Christmas from my wife, Becky, this year.

Oh, fun. She spells her Becky B -E -C -K -Y like normal Becky's.

Yeah, that's how I did it before seven or before eighth grade. Yeah, because she had a lot of Becky's in her class.

I did. It was a lot of Becky's. That way she could get the right page, the right paper back.

Right. Yeah. And then I'd get the right grade for my paper too. Always important.

You know. I finally opened it up, finally opened up his Apple HomePod and set it up yesterday and I decided to see if Siri could complete the task.

Well, I said, hey, Siri, play the most recent episode of the podcast, WWUTT and boom, it was like the two of you were with me in my kitchen.

That's so cool. See, I'm telling you. Apple. Seriously, that thing sounds fantastic.

No monthly fee required. That is amazing. And the answer is no, we are not going to Apple.

I know. He and I disagree on this, but it's okay. I don't need to be paying twice as much as I'm already paying and then have to learn all the software all over again.

Well, it's because it doesn't think like how you think, but it thinks how I think because we think differently.

I know we go back and forth. So Jeremy, Jeremy continues here.

Stop interrupting Jeremy. On the question front, I would love to hear you address the concept of interim pastors.

Is the role of interim pastor biblical? Okay. Before getting to his next question, because like we were jumping around here and I forgot that he shifted subjects.

So that's the instruction related to Apple Home Pod. And then you've got Google, the

Google, what do you call that? Smart home? Home? Google Home. Yeah. I think it's the Google Home. But honestly, we figured out that Alexa is a

Bluetooth, is Bluetooth compatible. And once you can play them on your phone and connect with Bluetooth, it really doesn't matter.

Yeah. You don't really have to ask Alexa to play it. You just play it on your phone and it's connected there through your

Bluetooth. That's what I've been doing is I've been working downstairs on that shelf of yours that I'm building.

Yay. And as it's kind of a birthday present, even though I've been working on this for a year and a half.

Yeah. This project has been a year and a half long. Not the shelf itself.

It's everything else that's been going with the shelf. But the room we added. That's okay.

I'm willing to wait it out. It's gonna be awesome. Added an extra wall, tiled a floor, put in plumbing.

All kinds of stuff is added to it. Anyway. So while I've been working downstairs, it's, you know, I listen to RefNet and then

I'll just connect Bluetooth to Alexa. So once you can figure that out, just connecting with Bluetooth, there's really not a point to have to have it play for you the podcast, though it would be nice to be able to just say, hey,

Alexa, play for me WWTT. I will say this about Apple. They figured out the podcast market better than anything

Google or Android related. Yeah. Everything else, Google or Android, it always seems like you have to pay for an extra service in order to get that to go.

But yeah. Yeah. Apple kind of includes all of that together. But you also pay for it anyway.

What do you mean? Like one way or another, you're paying for it because Apple costs more. Well, you put it that way.

Okay. Now, here's the next part of Jeremy's email. On the question front,

I would love to hear you address the concept of interim pastors. Is the role of interim pastor biblical?

Does that role have a place in a plurality of elders, or is it a relic of the CEO pastor model that was and still is in many circles prevalent for so long and is now simply a concept that is taken for granted?

To be clear, what I'm referring to here is bringing in someone from outside the body to serve as the interim pastor, as opposed to simply giving that title to someone, someone already within the body.

In a sense, it kind of seems like it's contracting out the shepherding of the body, and that doesn't seem right on the surface.

And yet it seems that this is what most churches default to doing. And I haven't seen it being questioned anywhere for context on that question.

I'm currently serving in a small reformed Baptist body without a vocational pastor. We subscribe to the belief that all elders are pastors, as we feel that is the biblical model for shepherding the body, as well as expressed well in Timothy Whitmer's book,

The Shepherd Leader. We are convicted that it is our responsibility as elders to lead and care for the church during this transitional period.

And that is not a responsibility that we can farm out. While this time has stretched us in many ways, even as God has chosen in his good and perfect will to make us wait longer than we would like to find the right vocational elder to join our body, it has also grown us both as elders and as a body as a whole.

We have seen that his grace is sufficient for us, for his power is made perfect in weakness.

2 Corinthians, chapter 12. I have to wonder if some churches are missing out on experiencing some of that grace by using an interim pastor.

Thanks for everything that you both do to serve the kingdom in Christ, Jeremy in Pennsylvania.

I wasn't going to interrupt. Well, thank you. So now you have a thought? Because I was, no, you just said 2

Corinthians, so I thought you didn't write that. Oh, you wanted to chime in with that.

Okay. Yes, but I refrained. I thought you were patiently waiting to add something to the end of that.

Well, I was, honestly, as you were reading this, I was thinking that interim, I mean, you were positioned as interim pastor from within the church.

But I was there already, right? So I served as interim before they made me senior pastor, but I had been there for two years already, serving in the associate pastor position.

And yeah, as the associate pastor, why would you need to have another pastor coming to serve as interim if you already have a pastor installed?

And so I'm glad he clarified that because I wouldn't have thought of that being the norm of people bringing in someone new.

I guess it is, I just never thought about it. So anyway. Now, our church in the past has had interim pastors and it was before I got there.

But I think Jeremy is touching on a very good point there related to if you have the people that are within the body that can do it, why would you contract somebody out?

Especially when you already have a plurality of elders installed, the requirement for eldership is that you must be able to teach.

So you've got guys who are proven teachers among you who are elected to those positions that are just as faithful to the teaching of the word as the pastor.

And maybe a guy who's devoted his life and his livelihood to pastoring is certainly more knowledgeable than maybe the rest of the elders are because he's invested his whole life into this, is likely even educated in it.

This was his degree. He went to seminary. He came out with the equipment needed in order to lead and shepherd a church in a knowledge of the word of God.

But nonetheless, those men who have been selected for eldership, whether they're lay elders or they likewise have an education to be able to serve in that particular position.

You have elected men who fit the qualifications that are listed in 1

Timothy 3 and in Titus 1 and even in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and other places where qualifications for eldership are named and they are someone who is able to teach.

So if they have met that qualification, I would expect their teaching because that's one of the requirements of an eldership.

If that person is not teaching somewhere in the church, why is he an elder? Right. And we're kind of in need of elders.

We had that company of elders that we had over our church.

But even that number of elders, we decided wasn't enough and we really could use one or two more.

I can't remember who this was, I think it was Jared C. Wilson. He was talking about the church that he pastored up in Vermont and they had something like six or seven elders.

I thought it was seven. I think that church was smaller than ours. If I remember the story right. But you've got guys that are able to teach and oversee the administration of the doctrine and the sound teaching of the word of God in your church, then they should be in those capacities teaching.

Whether it's a Bible study or a Sunday school class or you're alternating teachers in the pulpit so that you've got every elder, if you have seven elders, every elder at some point during the year has a chance to do a sermon.

The pastor, of course, is going to handle the bulk of the teaching. I think it was Mark Dever that I heard say his responsibility that's upon him is something like 40 to 45 sermons a year.

And then he's got guys that are handling the other 12 weeks that are teaching sermons. But then he's also got

Sunday evening services, which Mark Dever doesn't teach at all. And it's always other elders that are leading those particular services.

And I'm saying that kind of off the top of my head. I know that the structure of the church is built that way somehow.

So he is primarily responsible for leading the teaching that comes on Sunday morning.

And he does the majority of that. But then other services are handled by other elders in the church.

So there should be a responsibility upon those guys who are supposed to have an ability to teach that there will be opportunities and occasions where they are exercising that particular gift.

So in Titus chapter one, verse five, Paul says to Titus, this is why

I left you in Crete so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

For an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self -controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.

He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

In verse five, when Paul started this particular instruction of Titus, he said, this is why

I left you in Crete so that you might put what remained into order. And the picture that we have of those churches that Paul started on the island of Crete is that they were churches.

They were established believers who were there desiring to worship God and had been converted by the gospel of Christ.

And so they're there to worship Christ in a common heart, in a desire to hear his word and learn from his word and sing praises, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in their hearts to God.

They have, you know, they exercise the Lord's Supper. They practice baptism, everything that a church should be doing, except they did not have plurality elders that were over the church.

Maybe there was one guy that was there that could teach and lead perhaps in the synagogues with the

Old Testament scriptures that would have been gathered there. But there was not the plurality eldership, which was part of Titus's role.

That was part of his responsibility was to establish plurality eldership in those churches.

And part of me has to wonder how much of that did not also involve Titus teaching himself.

Yeah. So in that sense, he may have served himself teaching. That's why I put enough pause in there.

I was just clarifying because my mind puts it together. But I'm almost positive that you meant to put it not teaching himself.

Yes. But he himself taught what's supposed to be a teacher.

Right. So in that sense, he may have served as kind of an interim.

Okay. Yeah. But you're talking about a church that does not have plurality elders. Right. They're not understanding.

Yes. Right. In which a person would be serving as the interim role. And there's in some sense,

I mean, some people could probably argue that Timothy was that way. So let me go back to First Timothy chapter one here.

But his his installment in the church in Ephesus was definitely more long term than Titus's would have been in any of those churches in Crete.

Yeah. And Paul then in his second letter to Timothy and in Second Timothy is calling

Timothy from the church that he's pastoring to come visit him while he's in prison in Rome.

And in which case, one of the other elders at the church in Ephesus would probably be stepping up.

But but let me read this. Second Timothy four twelve. Well, let me start in verse nine. I kind of keep all this in context.

Verse nine. Do your best to come to me soon for Demas in love with this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me.

Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus.

When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books and above all the parchments.

And then he goes on from there. So you have that mention of Tychicus there in verse twelve. And he says,

Tychicus, I've sent to Ephesus. Well, that's where Timothy's at. Right. And he's pastoring there, along with a plurality of eldership.

We see in Acts chapter 20 that there was a plurality of eldership installed there in the church in Ephesus. Titus or I'm sorry,

Timothy is sent there to be the senior pastor, so to speak, or the head elder. And when

Paul is beckoning Timothy to come to him in Rome. He sends Tychicus.

Now, we don't know what Tychicus's role was, but it does seem to be that Tychicus is going to take over the teaching while Timothy is leaving to go see

Paul in Rome. OK. In which sense, like a sub. Yeah. You could argue in that sense that Tychicus is serving as an interim while Timothy is gone.

And then Timothy is going to go back there because according to church history, Timothy died at Ephesus. That's where he was martyred.

So eventually he goes back there and that's where he ends up losing his life, preaching to a bunch of pagans in evangelism.

And then they they turn and kill him. But Tychicus is serving in Timothy's stead.

So it's curious why Tychicus would have to do that if there's already a plurality eldership there.

Maybe it was just to comfort the Ephesians. Maybe they were still in kind of such a state at that particular time that they could not be left alone, that there were still wolves that were rising up among them, as Paul warned them of in Acts chapter 20.

Maybe that's the reason why. I don't know. So is there a biblical precedent for a for an interim pastor?

You could make an argument for that. Yes. But I think if you've got a plurality eldership installed, why would you need an outside?

Like Jeremy put it, you're contracting out the shepherding of that body to somebody else.

Now, with Tychicus coming to Ephesus, they're not really contracting out the shepherding, the shepherding still being done by the other elders that are in that church.

But for whatever reason, Tychicus is just going to be handed the responsibility of leading the apostolic teaching in that church.

Anyway, so like I said, you could make an argument for interim. I don't think it's inherently wrong.

Right. But the way it gets used, I think, does not have to be as utilized as we often do if we were more devoted to plurality eldership, which is the picture of eldership that we're given in the

New Testament. Yeah. Otherwise, Jeremy, I love your points. And I think it's a great question. And I thank you so much for writing.

And I hope that in the midst of all of that, we gave you some some direction and focus. Some sort of answer.

Yeah, that's right. Last question here. And before we get to this question, I'm going to go ahead and play a video. This is the what video that was entitled

God told me dot dot dot question mark. OK, there's that video link because this this question has to do with that particular what video

Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 says long ago at many times and in many ways,

God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world.

That's something to keep in mind. Anytime someone says that God told them something, everything we could ever want to hear

God say has already been said in the Bible. God spoke through his prophets who gave us the Old Testament.

And in these last days, he has spoken through his son, Jesus Christ, whose apostles gave us the

New Testament. Now, the Bible is not just an old book of what God said in the past. When we read the book of Hebrews, the writer quotes the

Old Testament is something God is saying to us right now. We read in Hebrews 4, 12 that the word of God is living and active.

God does speak to us. He speaks through the scriptures. He does not speak to us through visions or inner voices.

If a person says to you, God told me what comes next should be a passage from the Bible. Otherwise, what they're claiming is that the subjective voice they heard in their head is equally as reliable and authoritative as the

Bible. Proverbs 28, 26 says whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool. Proverbs 3, 5 says trust in the

Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Psalm 119 says that God's word is firmly fixed.

It is by his word we can test all other words. As Justin Peters has said, if you want to hear God speak to you, read the

Bible. If you want to hear him speak to you out loud, read the Bible out loud. We hear the very word of God when we understand the text.

In response to this video, Terrence has written in and said, Pastor Gabe, I had a few questions about your

God told me blog, and I think the reason why he references it, it references it as blog is because the transcript of the video is on the website www .utt

.com. All right. At least the videos that I've tried to produce over the last year or so, generally the transcripts end up on there as well as the video itself.

So he says it seems to reference Hebrews 1 as a support for the statement that everything we could ever want to hear

God say has already been said in the Bible. And he speaks through the scriptures. He does not speak to us through visions or inner voices.

Both are statements that come out of that video. I share your skepticism of people claiming to hear

God's voice, and we seem to agree that he does speak, but your resoluteness surrounding the medium of God speaking does confuse me a little.

Does your view exclude the times during Paul's conversion? Ananias in Acts 9,

Philip in Acts 8, or Paul in Acts 22? Are you saying that God's intention to speak through visions concluded with the completion of the biblical canon?

When Hebrews 1 describes God speaking through Jesus, aren't we receiving that word through the author of Hebrews?

Does God speaking only through his son leave the authors of the Bible exempt because it's

God breathed? In scriptures, there seems to be a need for the Holy Spirit to give you access to understanding, wisdom, truth, and to hear

God's voice at all. Is the work of the spirit confined to the words in the Bible in your view?

Just like the examples in scripture, God's voice outside of scriptures does seem to serve a purpose.

That purpose seems just as valid today as it was in the times of scripture. In Acts 8, it seems like God spoke through an angel, slash vision to Philip in tangent with speaking through his word in Isaiah to fulfill his will.

I'm not writing to change your mind or to argue. I just wanted to hear more about your view, about how your view reconciles your interpretation of how

God speaks and alternative examples in scripture. Well, even if you are disagreeing with me,

Terrence, I think that was a very respectful approach and I appreciate the tone of your email.

Let's go straight to Hebrews chapter one. And instead of answering every one of the questions that you presented directly,

I'm going to, I'm going to do it this way. And then if there's anything more specific to share with Terrence, I'll put that in the email that I replied to him with in the meantime, let's just go straight to Hebrews one.

Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world.

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Terrence, if you don't mind, I'm going to summarize the various questions that you ask this way. Am I saying in that video that only

Christ speaks? So therefore, how do I reconcile all these other speakings throughout the

New Testament, like James or the writer of Hebrews or Jude or these occasions in which the

Holy Spirit spoke through the apostle Paul or Paul hearing the voice of Christ, like in whether it was at his conversion or Ananias speaking or God, I'm sorry,

God speaking to Ananias in Acts chapter nine, where he talks about, Hey, Saul of Tarsus, that guy who's been coming to kill a bunch of Jews, right?

We're sorry. Kill a bunch of Christians. He was upholding Judaism. He was persecuting the

Christians. Uh, this guy is, uh, is at a house on the street called straight.

He's blind. You're going to go and you're going to baptize this guy. And Ananias is like, whoa, whoa.

I've heard about him. What are you thinking? I'm walking right into a trap. You know, and it seemed to be, uh,

Ananias is response to all of this. How do I reconcile then if, if the word of Christ is spoken, how do

I reconcile these other occasions of God speaking to his apostles, or you have the occasions in which somebody, whoever this is writing the book of Hebrews or Luke writing the gospel of Luke, well, here's the response to that.

All of this is being written. The entire new Testament is written during the apostolic age, which means that Christ had appointed his apostles to go out with his word to the nations.

What an apostle said was the word of Christ. What we read in Hebrews is the word of Christ.

Now, Hebrews may not have been written by an apostle. I don't subscribe to the view that Paul was the one that wrote the book of Hebrews.

But likewise, you talk about the book of Luke or the book of Acts, which was not written by an apostle.

It was written by Dr. Luke, but Luke was writing what Paul preached and with acts, he's writing down what he witnessed the apostles preaching and doing it's it's why that book is called the acts of the apostles.

So Luke is merely a scribe, but he's still writing as the Holy spirit is carrying him to do so.

And what he is writing is writing is the word of the apostles, which was the word of Christ that was given to his apostles, which, which they were taking out to the world, there's nothing in the new

Testament that does not come from the apostolic ministry. All of this was written during that apostolic era.

So this is all the word of Christ. So when we read in Hebrews one. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.

God has spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed the heir of all things. God speaking through the apostles is

God speaking through his son, right? It's the same thing. It is. And the way that the apostles spoke, the word of God is the same as the way

God would speak to his people through a prophet. It's just that in Christ, he, the son specifically has chosen them who are going to go out with the gospel in the, in the old

Testament, it was God speaking through a prophet and using various times and various ways in which these things were done.

And it's kind of like an indiscriminate period of time. Like there's a, there's this, this period of time that God is speaking through one prophet and somehow here in this time, he's speaking through another prophet.

But at the time that God is speaking through his son, that's a very specific set time.

There is not anything before that. We have the intertestamental period between the final prophets,

Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who were the last prophets to speak in the old Testament. So we have the intertestamental period between them and then

John the Baptist, who is preparing the way of Christ. And John the Baptist is the last prophet before Jesus Christ comes, who is an even greater prophet.

And then Jesus appoints his apostles. So in, so at many times, and in many ways,

God spoke to the fathers by the prophets through a burning bush, through visions, like a vision to Isaiah, which is an example that Terrence gave.

And it was always kind of indiscriminate periods of time when God appeared to this person, when he appeared to this person, when he spoke to this prophet.

And when a prophet spoke, yeah, right in a cloud, when a prophet spoke, what they spoke was the word of God.

And if what they spoke did not come to pass, then they were a false prophet and they were to be put to death.

That's what's stated in Deuteronomy 13 and 18 in the requirements for a prophet. Anybody who comes speaking to you a word that God has not given them to speak.

If what they say does not come to pass, they're a false prophet and they're to be put to death. That's how serious it was that what you say must come from God and it must be clear.

And we have gotten so abusive with prophecy today. So bad. With people who will say,

God has given me a word. And one time out of a hundred, they might be right. Which is exactly what you would expect if a person is playing the odds.

Occasionally, they're going to get something right. When you're wrong 99 times out of a hundred, you are not a prophet of God.

And that one time does not prove anything at all. You are a fraud.

And according to the Old Testament, you would be put to death, which I must warn. A long time before the hundredth time.

Yeah, right. Which I must warn and caution you, that's still going to be your sentence.

If you don't repent. That's true. You will have to stand before God and give an account for every careless word that you've spoken, as Jesus said in Matthew.

And if what you said, what you claim to be speaking something from God that did not come from God, you spoke blasphemously in vain and you were careless with what it was that you said.

And there's going to be judgment for that. And it's yeah, that's a scary day. Yeah, it is very scary.

You should not take those things lightly. You need to be certain that what you are hearing truly comes from God.

And it's certainly not in a random dream that you had or a random voice, which is really just the voice in your head.

How do you tell the difference between the voice in your head and the voice of God? That's something that somebody who leans more on the charismatic side of things has never been able to clarify for me.

Sarah Young, for example, who wrote Jesus Calling never clarifies how she knows the difference between her own voice in her head and the voice that she says is

Jesus Christ, which she's writing out in her book. How do you distinguish between those two things?

Beth Moore, when she says that God is speaking to her, what does that sound like? Yeah. How do you know that's not your own thoughts?

And yet, in Jeremiah chapter 17, it says that the heart of the man is deceitfully sick.

Who can understand it? That's true. You cannot rely on your own thoughts and trust your own ways.

In Ezekiel 13, 7, have you not seen a false vision and uttered a lying divination whenever you have said, declares the

Lord, although I have not spoken? And Deuteronomy 13, 3, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the

Lord your God is testing you to see if you truly love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

So it is not okay for us to be so easily willy -nilly with this statement, thus saith the

Lord. What's in the Bible? Thus saith the Lord. Yes. What you think you heard in your head is not thus saith the

Lord. And there are signs that are going to verify whether or not the word that a person has spoken has truly come from God.

And this is Hebrews chapter 2. Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

It was declared it being the gospel. It was declared at first by the

Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the

Holy Spirit distributed according to His will. So how do we know that the word that came from the apostles or that came from anything else that we read in the

New Testament actually came from God because it was verified by signs and wonders and miracles? Paul says in 2

Corinthians chapter 12, and this was the sermon that you didn't get to hear because I wasn't recording them anymore and putting them on the podcast.

But but here in 2 Corinthians 12, Paul says the sign is verse 12, 12, 12.

The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.

And this is Paul verifying to the Corinthians, you know, I'm a true apostle because I performed the signs of apostleship among you, that it would be verified.

I was one who was sent by Christ and the word that I speak is the word of Christ. Therefore, everything that we have in the

New Testament is the word of Christ. Right. Whatever somebody is saying through some sort of random vision that they claim they have is not the word of Christ.

That's merely the distinguishing characteristic I'm meaning to point out in that particular video.

And understand, too, that these 90 second videos are not meant to be exhaustive. Yeah, there's no way you can cram all of that in there.

Right. So I appreciate your question, Terrence. So my follow up question would be, like, do you think that the

Holy Spirit guides you like to go, I don't know, help somebody or something like that?

Oh, sure. Yeah, but not necessarily like. I know what you're saying is where we were just talking about is different than this situation.

Right. This is, I'm just asking a little bit further of how do you explain that?

Your question has to do with the providence of God. Yes. So it's just God's providence lining up things to be able to put you in a place to be able to serve in a particular way.

So you have that longing to go help and that's where you're supposed to go help. Right. And it's just a matter of obedience at that point.

Right. If you're going to serve, serve and do it to the glory of God. But don't try to add things to it that you can't verify.

And you can go serve somebody and you can feel called or led to serve that particular person or help with a particular need or something like that.

And you give glory to God in it without having to add this authority that you don't have.

You kind of put yourself on the pedestal instead of God. Yeah. Yeah. When you say, well, the

Holy Spirit, I mean, there's not even anything inherently wrong with saying the Holy Spirit put me here. Because sure.

Yeah. God had put you in the place and equipped you in such a way that you were able to serve or help a need or something to that effect.

But to use it as like a Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch sort of a thing, like God just transported me here and here

I am to help this person and something like that. That's God does not work in that way.

It is according to the times and the places in which he had positioned these people in preaching the gospel at that particular era in the apostolic era.

And he doesn't work that way anymore. Now, I'll say he doesn't work that way with regularity.

I'm not a cessationist to the extent that God does not perform miracles at all.

And by the way, guys like Justin Peters, which I mentioned in that video. Kosti Hinn, John MacArthur, any of these guys that get pegged with this absolute cessationist view, like God is not doing miracles anymore today.

None of us are making that argument. God absolutely will perform miracles. But it's certainly not happening with the regularity that it was happening with in the book of Acts through the apostles.

And you yourself are not going to hear the voice of God booming from heaven saying something to you.

The word is already completed for us in the Bible. Right. And maybe there are events and paths that will line up in a certain way that will lead you to a particular person or people to share the gospel with them.

But that's the providence of God. Right. That's not the same sort of miraculous working that we saw taking place in the book of Acts.

The Holy Spirit speaking through dreams or an angel appearing to Peter or any of those other kinds of things. That's not going on today.

Because the word of God, as it was being proclaimed in the world, the gospel, which we read about in the

New Testament, is finished. We've got it in the Bible. So now we go through the process of going out with this gospel.

And there's not a reason for us to have to reach for any extra word beyond what we've already been given.

Right. It's J .I. Packer who has said that if there is any sort of prophecy outside of the word of God that doesn't line up with this word, then it's false.

And if there is some sort of prophecy that does line up with this word, it's needless because you've already got it in the

Bible. Right. You don't need it again in some sort of vision or voice or dream or otherwise.

Anyway, it's always a controversial topic, and there's going to be people who are going to disagree. But I hope that wherever you stand on this, even though you might believe that the

Holy Spirit is still speaking through dreams and visions and other things, you might say it's happened to me. I would say to you it hasn't.

But nevertheless, let it be the gospel of Jesus Christ that speaks to others that you need to be speaking to.

You need to be evangelizing, sharing the gospel with, not trying to verify it through visions and voices or lifting yourself up, elevating yourself to claim that you've been given something that you haven't actually been given.

You've been given the word of God in the Bible. Preach the gospel. Amen. And that's that. All right,

Terrence. I'll be a little bit more specific with some of your other questions in an email that I respond to you with.

Did I say that right? I think so. Yeah. In the meantime, God bless. We'll be back next week.

Yes. God willing. Yes. And we're heading out to G3 on Monday. Yeah. Pray for safe travels.

Yes, please. And our church at home too. And our church at home. Let's pray. Great God, we thank you for this medium that we're able to respond to questions and dive into your word and understand what it is that you have to say, and that you've given us a spirit that can understand what is said in your word, a spirit to understand spiritual things.

And I pray that we'd be patient with one another and that we would help one another in understanding those things that maybe those who are less mature don't understand.

And bearing with those who are stubborn in their viewpoints that they're not willing to give up, but that we are still responding to one another with patience and gentleness, not turning into quarreling, for that certainly is a very poor witness to outsiders who see

Christians squabbling over these kinds of things. May we be gentle to one another as we approach these subjects and hold fast to the main things, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the bedrock of our faith, and build each other up upon that foundation.

It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen. Amen. That wasn't going to be an issue.

Check. That was for you to check. Check. Oh, no.

Hello. Hello. Just ignore that irritating sound and listen to my voice.

Oh, that was weird. Yeah. I hope it's going to be okay.

Oh. Not anymore. I'm sure without context, these sounds are, what is he doing?

It's hard to explain. Ready? Ready? Ready, Freddy. Right, said

Freddy. You didn't eat your chocolate yet. No, because it's chocolate.