January 16, 2024 Show with Jared Moore on “The Pop Culture Parent”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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.

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.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy, what's today?

Tuesday on the 16th day of January, 2024.

And yes, folks, I do hear that wind tunnel noise, and neither my guest nor myself have any idea why that noise reoccurs on occasion, and hopefully it will not be a constant background noise for us today.

But I'm thrilled to have on the program for the very first time, Jared Moore, who is

Senior Pastor of Homesteads Baptist Church of Crossville, Tennessee.

And today we're going to be addressing a book that he co -authored, The Pop Culture Parent, Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jared Moore.

Chris, thanks for having me, brother. It's good to be here. And thankfully that wind tunnel noise has disappeared for now.

Well, let our listeners know something about Homesteads Baptist Church of Crossville, Tennessee.

Well, I've served there for eight years, the church is over 80 years old. The Homestead community was, it was part of, it's interesting, it was part of the

New Deal that Roosevelt's wife actually kind of spearheaded, and they bought up land and they sold it.

You had to apply to get a piece of land in the Homesteads community in Cumberland County, and those who got the land, they would build a barn first and then build a house afterward, but they farmed the land, bought it from the government.

So our community has a big heritage. And there was one church that was, it didn't have a particular denomination in our community.

And then the Baptists were the first to break away and start Cumberland Homesteads Baptist Church. And we're continuing in the tradition they began with.

They actually put particular Baptist doctrine in the deed of the church, saying that if the church ever departed from it, the money would go back to the local, or the property would go back to the local association.

You know why I find that fascinating is that a friend of mine at one time was pastoring a

Baptist church on Long Island, in the east end of Long Island. In a church that was at one time a biblically solid congregational church that was originally founded in the 1700s.

And the congregational church over the centuries became a part of the apostate leftist denomination, the

United Church of Christ. And when my friend addressed the denomination to purchase the building for his

Baptist church, where he was pastoring, they looked at the deed. And the deed said that the owners of that building had to be not only congregationalist, but Calvinist.

And the thing that's ironic is that the owners of that building at that time, several years ago, were not

Calvinists, and yet they were owners of it. As I said before, they were part of the United Church of Christ, which has fallen into apostasy quite a while ago, totally leftist.

There are a remnant of biblically faithful churches in the United Church of Christ. In fact,

I know one that I've interviewed not long ago, and he is seeking to bring his congregation out of that denomination.

But I just thought I'd mention that since it's a similar circumstance to what you've experienced. And that's amazing because my community,

Cumberland County, we have a United Church of Christ retirement community.

It's probably one of their biggest churches in the nation, I'd imagine. I mean, it's only like 150 to 200 people, but it's retired ministers.

Last I heard, well, I don't know who their new pastor is, but their last one was a married lesbian in Pleasant Hill, Tennessee, which is part of Cumberland County.

By the way, I live in Cumberland County too, but in Pennsylvania, I'm sitting here in my studio in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, but obviously there are a number of Cumberland counties across the nation.

I'm assuming that your church stands on the bedrock of the doctrines of sovereign grace.

Well, I am a Reformed Baptist, but my church does not have a Reformed Baptist confession.

I wouldn't say our church is necessarily a Reformed Baptist, but we do affirm the

Baptist faith in Message 2000, and we use the Second London and the Baptist Heidelberg for our catechisms for our children.

But as far as it being an overt Reformed Baptist church, it's not.

Now, when you say the Baptist Heidelberg, is that Hercules Collins Baptist version? Yes. Okay.

Yes. Well, if anybody wants more details on Homesteads Baptist Church in Churchville, I'm sorry,

Crossville, Tennessee, the website is Homesteads Baptist Church.

I'm sorry. I'm really screwing up today. HomesteadsBC, which stands for BaptistChurch .org.

HomesteadsBC .org. And God willing, we'll be repeating that information later on in the program. Well, we have a tradition here,

Pastor Moore, or should I say Dr. Moore, whenever we have a first -time guest on Iron Trumpet and Zion Radio, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, and that summary would include the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, the guest was raised in, and what kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them.

And I'd love to hear your story. Sure. I was raised in the church, in a church of God of prophecy.

Oh, yeah. It was in Florida, Tennessee. Yeah, I have heard of them. And they were a split off from the

Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee, weren't they? That's right. That's right. They're very close, too.

My dad was raised Free Will Baptist, and my mother was raised Church of God. And her family, they actually started this church.

Her and her sisters and their husbands all started this Church of God of Prophecy. It still exists today.

My dad ended up being a deacon of the church. But I was, you know, they loved me there.

But I did not get, I did not understand the gospel, and I was not saved until I was 17 years of age, even though I was going to church every time, every week, every

Sunday. And I just had a low point there in high school. It was over, you know, typical teenage stuff, didn't make the basketball team.

And I had a girl that broke my heart. And so long story short, came to a point where I was just really battling and dwelling sin and finally understood the gospel that salvation was by grace through faith in Christ.

Began attending a Southern Baptist church with a buddy of mine that was about three or four miles from my house.

And I came to salvation at that church. It was primarily, we're actually in between youth pastors.

And there was a couple who were leading the youth group, a

Marine who had fought in Vietnam. And the

Lord used him and her, his wife in a mighty way to teach me the gospel.

And I was saved when I was 17 years of age, even though I grew up in the church.

And then ever since then, I've been becoming more and more reformed in my understanding of soteriology, doctrine of salvation.

And I consider myself a particular Baptist now and have been for probably 10 or 15 years.

Praise God. But I started out Arminian. But what kind of drew me to the doctrines of grace?

I mean, I understood grace from the beginning of salvation, but my doctrine of sin was off and my understanding of eternal security or the perseverance of the saints was off for the first few years of my ministry.

But the pragmatism and the emphasis of pragmatism and just how detrimental it is eventually led me to have a more biblical understanding of salvation being of God's grace alone and what that means.

That apart from the drawing of the Holy Spirit, we are incapable of repentance and faith.

And when I started, you know, I studied the doctrine of sin heavily in my dissertation.

And, you know, Paul argues in Romans 7 that nothing good comes from his flesh.

And that's all we are before we're saved is flesh. We're contrary to God.

And so where does that initial spark of being brought in right relationship with God come from?

Well, it has to come from God. It cannot come from the flesh. And so, you know,

I would say regeneration precedes faith that is due to the drawing of the Holy Spirit.

And that is an effectual drawing that the Holy Spirit brings about in our hearts. We still really believe that he is the source, not our sinful flesh.

And who are some of the primary influences upon your theology in regard to you being drawn deeper into the doctrines of sovereign grace?

John Popper was extremely influential in my early years, and I just stumbled upon Popper because I was looking for some devotionals that were not fluff, but that actually dove into the

Word. And so Popper's, it's actually, you know, his little book, it's called

Pierced by the Word. And it's just like 30 devotionals that you do every day.

And that was instrumental. I was listening to a lot of sovereign grace music, a lot of indelible grace out of Nashville.

And the hymns really helped to catechize me to think rightly, to think biblically about salvation.

And then John MacArthur, John Piper, and then those who influenced me in seminary, most of the theology books that we run to, only until recently, are from the reformed tradition, the

Protestant reformed tradition. As far as, you know, systematic theology books and things, who do folks recommend?

It's primarily, I mean, to this day, it's primarily Protestant reformed

Christians who've written the most biblically sound theology works.

Amen. Well, I'm delighted to hear that, being a Reformed Baptist myself.

And you used a phrase earlier that some of our listeners might not be familiar with.

You say you identify as a particular Baptist. That, of course, is what

Calvinistic or Reformed Baptists used to call themselves. It fell out of popularity probably sometime in the 20th century, maybe somewhat prior to that.

But it was to identify themselves as believers in particular redemption.

Which is just another way of saying limited atonement or definite atonement or substitutionary atonement.

But the particular redemption is referring to the fact that Christ did not die for a nameless, faceless sea of humans, hoping to save them, in fact, only providing a hypothetical salvation.

He actually redeemed a particular people, his elect, on Calvary.

And I think the more common phrase Reformed Baptist came about because Calvinistic Baptists wanted to be known for a broader spectrum of doctrines outside of just the doctrine of the atonement alone.

But I'm sure you would concur with my explanation there, correct? Yes, yes.

I mean, I lean towards that there is a I'm still working it out, but I lean towards that there is a general aspect of the atonement, but that it's particular in scope as well in that it accomplishes the purposes.

So part of part of what I wanted to write my dissertation on, but I kept getting rejected in seminary, was my advisor approved it, but the two co -advisors didn't, was

I wanted to wrestle with the Noahic Covenant and how the

Noahic Covenant is a common grace, special grace covenant that is fulfilled in the ultimate covenant head,

Jesus Christ. And so in what way does his atonement apply to the non -elect?

And I want to argue that there's a temporal aspect of the atonement. It's still accomplishing exactly what

God intended. It is still a particular temporal provision for the world.

But the gift of faith was only purchased by Christ for the elect is what

I was going to argue. So it's still particular. It's just that there I wanted to say more than the

Reformed tradition had said that God did for the world by arguing from the Noahic Covenant.

But but it ended up it was it was going to be too broad. It probably would have been a thousand page dissertation because of all that I would have to argue.

But but but anyway, long story short, I've never taught that publicly.

I've never said, well, you know, taught that about the Noahic Covenant. But it's something that I would still like to investigate and wrestle with.

But what I have taught is what you just said concerning particular redemption, concerning what

Christ's work actually did on the cross. And he only saved the church.

I mean, there's no there's no possible way to say otherwise. You look at the book of Jeremiah concerning the prophecies and who benefits.

It's only those who believe. Well, who believes? Well, the elect. Right. Amen. And so your dissertation was only approaching a thousand pages.

That's only about 300 pages less than mine. Well, I'll tell you,

I can't even spell. I can't even spell dissertation. I never wrote a dissertation. But anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

They never let me write it. And so I ended up writing on the issue of homosexuality and the reformed tradition.

And that's one of the new books that you have come out with. We'll briefly address that as well before we dive into our primary theme today, the lust of the flesh, thinking biblically about sexual orientations, attractions and temptations.

This is published by Free Grace Press. And providentially, I didn't even know this when

I booked your interview for today. But my guest yesterday was Owen Strand, and he wrote the foreword to your book.

Yeah, Owen was a big proponent. You know, Owen was my outside reader at Southern.

So Southern, you have to have an outside reader for your dissertation. And Owen was at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at that time.

And so he read it and critiqued it. And then when he left Midwestern and went to, oh, he went to Arkansas.

I can't think of the seminary offhand. Oh, Grace Bible Theological Seminary. Yes, yes.

That's the seminary that also is affiliated with your publisher, Free Grace Press. Yes, yes.

And Owen really believed in my work. And I couldn't get anybody to publish that lust of the flesh book.

I mean, no, no publisher wanted to touch it because I didn't think they could sell it. And because, well,

I mean, it's arguing something that's unpopular. It's arguing something that literally the church taught for near 2000 years.

But it's unpopular today that anything in us contrary to God is sin.

It doesn't matter whether you chose it. It doesn't matter what your memory says. It matters whether or not you have measured up to God's command.

And so anything in us that doesn't measure up to God's command, like love him with all your heart, soul and mind is sin.

And today people want to talk about, you know, their experiences. Well, I'm experiencing envy or I'm experiencing lust or I'm experiencing same sex attraction when they're trying to disconnect themselves from being culpable for what their heart is desiring.

And in my book, I argue that that is morally culpable sin. You have to kill it at the root so that it doesn't come out and harm you and others.

But for Christians, it's imputed to Christ. You know, all our sin has been transferred to him and we've been justified by his.

He's taken our sin away and he justifies us based on his own righteousness. Amen. And by the way, folks, if you want to see a debate that I recently orchestrated and also moderated one of the few times

I've actually moderated a debate, people very often say that they saw videos of me moderating

James White's debates. Well, actually, most of them I emceed. I've only moderated a couple of them.

But this time around, I both arranged and moderated his debate with Dr. Gregory Coles on whether or not it is biblically faithful to identify for a member of the body of Christ to identify as a homosexual, even if you remain chaste.

And it was an interesting debate because most debates that I've seen and heard of are between Christians and those who are actually actively involved in homosexual behavior physically.

But Dr. Gregory Coles was one of the people that represent something that has become known as Side B Christianity, as opposed to Side A.

Both alleged sides are identifying as homosexuals, but Side A believes you can actually marry somebody of the same gender, whereas Side B recognizes that homosexual lust and physical activity are sin, but there is nothing wrong, in fact, everything right with identifying as a homosexual or as a gay person, even though you believe that physical activity and that lust for the same sex is sin.

Very strange position to take, but I thought that the debate was beneficial.

I don't know if you've seen that debate. Yeah, I've watched that debate, and I thought it was excellent.

Dr. White did an excellent job against Coles, kind of exposing his errors.

I mean, Coles is a type of Pelagian. I mean, he argues for a pre -lust desire that is not sin, even though it's a evil desire.

Both Roman Catholics, modern Roman Catholics up to probably the 1700s and all

Protestants up to probably the 1900s would say that that's heresy to say what

Coles is arguing. Right. And if you want to look that up, folks, you can just go to YouTube and type in the search engine

James White versus Gregory Coles, C -O -L -E -S, and that debate will come up.

We have to go to our first commercial break, and when we return, we're going to delve into our main theme today, which is the book that Jared Moore co -authored,

The Pop Culture Parent, published by New Growth Press. And if you have questions for Jared Moore, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say it's something about your own children.

You're having a difficult time with your children in this pop culture age, and you don't want to identify yourself.

We understand that. But if it's a general question, please give us your first name, at least, city and state and country of residence.

Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Jared Moore. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lynnbrook Baptist Church, a

Christ -centered, gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the

Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio advertising family.

At Lynnbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired

Word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear

God's image. If you live near Lynnbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the

Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit Lynnbrookbaptist .org.

That's L -Y -N -Brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lynnbrook Baptist Church, reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast of the

Lord's blessing and the knowledge of himself. Hello, I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I've been a frequent guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I highly recommend this show. But today

I want to tell you about one of its advertisers, Rare Document Traders. Far and away my favorite source for quality

Charles Spurgeon memorabilia. Are you looking for that special, unique gift for your pastor or missionary friend or a loved one?

Why not purchase a piece of church history that any believer would cherish? Rare Document Traders is your one -step source for Spurgeon's handwritten manuscripts and letters, as well as other rare books and collectible items from church history.

In 15 years that they've been in business, they've earned a stellar reputation in the Reformed community with thousands of satisfied customers all around the world, including me.

Visit RareDocTraders .com today. That's RareDocTraders .com.

Don't forget to mention you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. That's RareDocTraders .com.

Chris Arnzen here, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I strongly recommend a church

I've been recommending as far back as the 1980s. Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshipped and how he shall be represented in the world.

They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

God in spirit and truth. They endeavor to maintain a God -centered focus and to protect worship from the intrusion of carnal entertainments and distractions.

Reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, baptism, and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbc -nj .org.

That's gcbc -nj .org or call them at 908 -996 -7654.

That's 908 -996 -7654. Tell Pastor Dunn you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm Brian McLaughlin, president of the SecureComm Group, and an enthusiastic supporter of Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron radio program.

The SecureComm Group provides the highest level of security, closed -circuit television, access control, and communication systems for Manhattan's top residential buildings, as well as churches, commercial properties, municipalities, and more.

We custom install exactly what you need to protect yourself, including digital recording, off -site viewing, and connectivity from most smart devices.

From simple code -activated systems to the latest technology using facial recognition, the

SecureComm Group has it. We also provide the latest in intercom and IP telephone systems.

In addition, we provide superior networking platforms. We'll create, maintain, and secure your local network.

Whether it's a Wi -Fi or hardwire network, we'll implement the latest secured firewall, endpoint solutions, and cloud backup.

I would love to have the honor and privilege of helping protect the lives and property of Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners and their associates.

For more details on how the SecureComm Group may be of service to you with the very latest in security innovations, call 718 -353 -3355.

That's 718 -353 -3355. Or visit securecommgroup .com.

That's securecommgroup .com. This is Brian McLaughlin of the SecureComm Group, joining

Chris Arnzen's family of advertisers to keep Iron Sharpens Iron radio on the air.

We here at Iron Sharpens Iron radio praise God for the generous monthly financial support of Royal Diadem Jewelers, educated by and affiliated with the

American Gem Society, Jewelers of America, and the Gemological Institute of America, for the perfect custom -designed engagement ring or any one -of -a -kind piece of jewelry created exactly according to your imagination and specifications,

Royal Diadem Jewelers has you covered. No matter where you live in the world, Royal Diadem will walk you step -by -step through every stage of the process, and even hold a high -tech internet virtual visit using state -of -the -art jewelry design technology to serve you.

They start by listening carefully to determine your needs. They're interested in making what you want, not what they want to sell you.

From rough design to digital model, to photorealistic image, to wax prototype model, to the finished product, they're continually listening to your input, likes and dislikes, making any changes necessary along the way.

This will ensure that your custom jewelry will turn out exactly as you dreamed, and well beyond your expectations.

Visit royaldiadem .com. That's royaldiadem .com today.

Sterling Vandewerker, owner of Royal Diadem Jewelers, his wife, Bronnie, his business partner and manager,

Brian Wilson, and the entire family, thank you all for listening to, praying for, and supporting the work of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And don't forget folks, royaldiadem .com is still offering

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio this mind -blowing opportunity. They are giving us 100 % of the profits from any sale of jewelry to an

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener, simply by that listener mentioning that they heard about royaldiadem .com

and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. So, please, if you have any interest in purchasing jewelry for yourself or someone you love, especially with Valentine's Day coming up, please go to royaldiadem .com

soon to make your jewelry purchase because we have no idea when they're going to pull the plug on this amazing offer where we get 100 % of the profits.

So, whether you're buying a piece of jewelry they already have in stock at royaldiadem .com, or if you're having something customized, please go to royaldiadem .com

and mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with my guest,

Jared Moore, who is a co -author of the book The Pop Culture Parent, which he wrote along with Ted Turnow and E.

Stephan Burnett, or perhaps it's pronounced Stephen. And this is a published work of New Growth Press.

And if you could explain the origins of why you even wanted to get involved in this project on The Pop Culture Parent.

Sure, sure. So, I was raised in a very, well,

I'm 42 years of age. So, I was raised at the time whenever movies had

PG was the rating, G and PG, and then later

R was added. And so, kind of on the scene whenever television, color television, and having a

TV in every room of the house, and all that kind of happened whenever I was a kid. And so, my parents, even though they were very conservative, theologically conservative, we were allowed to watch almost anything.

I mean, almost anything as far as movies, TV shows. But at church, at the

Southern Baptist Church that I was saved at, they were telling us that we can't watch things.

And we would actually have bonfires where we would throw our secular music into the fire to burn as a sign of repentance.

And so, I was being taught both of those two things. And biblically,

I didn't find either one of them well represented in scripture. You know, it totally hands off, watch whatever you want to.

No, let's restrict what you watch based on secular rating systems. And even as a teenager,

I was wanting to approach pop culture the way that, well, the way that we approach any area of life.

You know, if you're with a coworker who's using foul language, or, you know, you're in an environment that is not distinctly

Christian, then how do you navigate that in a way that still honors the Lord? And that's the way that we need to approach pop culture.

And the big premise of this book is that we live in a pop culture world. And so, you know, you're going to, your kids are going to participate in pop culture, or at the very least, they're going to be around teenagers and children that do.

And so, we thought that a better approach, rather than totally rejecting or totally diving in, was to embrace what is good, true, and beautiful in pop culture, and reject the idols, reject the lies, and be able to enjoy the

Lord, where his fingerprints are found in pop culture. And then use that as an opportunity to talk to the children that we're going to school with, or our friends and parents, particularly training their children to be ambassadors for Christ, and using pop culture as an avenue through which to do that.

And that's basically the premise of the book, where we're training parents to raise their children to be the ambassadors for Christ in a pop culture world.

And the actual involvement of children in this, there is two points of view, world views, that are involving children.

Some would say that many evangelicals view their children as missionaries at far too young of an age.

That's why they will send them without any pang of conscience, they will send them to government schools, confident that their classmates and their teachers are not going to corrupt the minds and morals of their children, because they're absolutely certain their children are truly regenerate, even if they're very young, and they think that they can handle being a little missionary in the school.

And the other one would be that a hedge needs to be kept around children until they are, perhaps even of college age, where they believe not only that the fruits of their conversion are able to be discerned, and that they have true confidence that these children are indeed new creatures in Christ, and should be missionaries wherever they go when they leave the nest at home.

And of course, there are levels in between those two extremes.

So tell me where you are in that orbit of those two extremes.

Yeah, so concerning children being missionaries in public school,

I think emphasizing that too early, you know,

I think that it is a danger. We have our children, we homeschooled them, and then now we have them in a private classical

Christian school. And, you know, pop culture is something you participate in.

You can participate in it for three hours or seven hours or however long, but I mean, public school is, what, 35 hours a week?

And that's if you don't do any extracurricular activities, that's a lot of time. As far as being a missionary, that's a lot of time.

So you're going to put your kids in that environment for 35 hours, and then you're going to train them for how many hours a week?

You know, one, two, three, four. I mean, great parents may do 10, 15, but that's like a quarter of what they're enduring or receiving in the public school.

Now, I realize that some parents, that's the options they have, and they do have to retrain their children when they return home.

But as far as ideally, I would discourage that. I would discourage public school.

I would discourage especially the missionary argument, because in most cases, what we see and what

I've seen in ministry is that their friends influence them more than they influence their friends.

That's not always the case, but that is usually the case. And it's really putting your children in a lot of, under a lot of pressure to fit in and things like that.

But, you know, there might be exceptions to that. I'm not going to judge parents who disagree with me on that.

But the other one was, so you're talking about, you're talking about the missionary argument, and what was the other extreme you said?

Where you're basically keeping a hedge around your kids and not really allowing them to have too much involvement with the children of unbelievers until they're in college.

Yeah. Some of that, I would recommend just, you know, trying to postpone some of the hard decisions that children have to make as far as promiscuity and drugs and things like that to where hopefully their brains are more developed and their consciences are more built up and their spiritual maturity is greater before they're faced with those types of decisions.

But I would still, our children need to be, you know, there's only one world and we're not in heaven yet.

And our children are going to have to learn how to live in this world. I mean, by the time they enter college, they're an adult.

So I think that that is too, waiting too long. I would permit children, you know, my children are able to be friends with unbelievers now and really at any age, but I would be hesitant on how much time they're allowed to spend with unbelievers.

I'd much rather have the unbeliever come here than my children go there. But, so somewhere in between.

You mean you hesitate having them go over the the homes of unbelieving parents, you mean?

I do. Yes. Just because of the, you know, the standard of righteousness, especially today, as far as, you know, alcohol, potentially drugs, pornography, you know, what things are tolerated or even encouraged in some of these homes are seen as natural that are contrary to scripture.

But we have permitted our children to go to people's houses, but we go pick them up.

We don't let them stay the night. And a lot of that's just from me and my wife growing up where we were allowed to stay at people's houses.

And most of the trouble we got into was overnight events.

And, you know, I was offered drugs in fourth grade, man, was the first time I was offered drugs.

And I was in a little rural community. Yeah, a little rural community. And were you offered the drugs by older kids or adults?

Well, like sixth graders. Wow. Yeah. And I mean, it was just I say it was just it was just marijuana.

But, you know, a fourth grader having to decide whether or not to smoke marijuana is and I was offered alcohol not much longer after that and was shown pornography.

I was probably fourth grade. So that's that's 10 years old, you know, and that that's in like a rural, tiny, small community that has like one gas station.

So, you know, today it's so much worse. Everybody has all this stuff mostly on their phones they're carrying around.

And so I would try to limit those things, limit some of those decisions. But the goal is to train up.

It is to train up missionaries, ambassadors for Christ who can live in this world for God's glory, not who can build a

Christian sub world on this side of glory, though. I'm not I'm not against building a

Christian sub world, but you have to evangelize outside of that world. And so you have to reach out outside of that world in order to be an ambassador for Christ.

And so that, you know, that's what we're trying to do using pop culture as a avenue through which to kind of bridge that gap between unbelievers and believers.

And, you know, look at this. A lot of what folks love about pop culture, why they like the particular stories they do.

I mean, all this superhero phenomena that we've seen in the past 15, 20 years.

I mean, Jesus is like a real life superhero. And by that, I just mean he's

God, the sun incarnate. Right. He's not a demigod. So like you could use like Thor's a demigod,

I believe, or he's a you know, he's a created God. Right. And so this half

God, half man type God, whenever Jesus is not half

God, half man, he's truly God, truly man. And so you can use, you know, their fascination with Thor to talk about a real superhero, if you will, who's not a demigod, but is the

God man. All this good fighting evil. How do you define evil?

And you're able to point at scripture and point at natural law that's subservient to scripture.

You know, in pop culture gives us avenues through which to do this. And if we can train up our children to point out these things and recognize these things, they'll be able to live in this world for God, for Christ.

Because if they can watch a particular movie, a secular movie or TV show with their parents and they can train how to engage those worldviews, those worldviews that are in pop culture, if they're not in secular society right now, they will be in just a few years.

And if you can train them in the comfort of your own home, how to engage those worldviews, they can engage those worldviews in real life when they encounter them.

Okay, we have Miles in Stone, Montana. And Miles said, if you could please clarify something that you said earlier.

I'm wondering if you believe that someone such as myself is legalistic, because I do not allow my children to view movies that have either compared to today's standards, tame pornographic images and foul language and gratuitous violence.

Are you saying that that's too old -fashioned? I don't understand where you're coming from. Please explain.

No, everybody's conscience is different. Now, I do believe that seeing someone in a state of undress in a sexual situation is sin.

It's inherently sin. But it's not inherently sin to hear a cuss word.

It's not inherently sin to see simulated violence. But if somebody's conscience is pricked, you know, during that,

I would encourage parents to put something in front of their children that is going to harm their conscience.

God has particularly given consciences to humanity, particularly Christians. He uses the

Holy Spirit applying the word to a Christian's conscience so that they will feel convicted whenever something goes against that conscience that's informed by the word of God.

And so don't go against your conscience. Don't, you know, don't encourage your children to go against their consciences.

But you do want to train them to live in this world.

And, you know, I don't think you have to put necessarily violence in front of them or, you know, curse words in front of them.

I'm just curious what avenue, like, you know, The Land Before Time presents an evil worldview due to evolution.

And it's a cartoon that doesn't have foul language in it. Or let's say

Moana, Moana, a Disney movie that presents a demigod named

Maui who is half God, half man. So there's evil worldview in that cartoon as well.

But it doesn't have any of the violence or the nudity or the curse words. And so, you know, if you're wanting to avoid those things,

I'm not against avoiding those things. But I will say this. I don't believe it's inherently sinful to hear curse words or to even see simulated violence.

But to see someone in the state of undress, it is if it's not loving

God in your neighbor. Like doctors see nude people all the time. Nurses do as well.

But it's due to loving their neighbor. But what's going on in a movie or a

TV show is not, you know, something that we should see. Well, like,

I think I get where you're coming from. For instance, when you're watching a movie and a villain in the movie shoots someone and that person that he shoots may even be in the movie killed, that actor is not killing anyone.

He is not violating the law of God because he is acting. It's make -believe.

But when a person is nude in a movie, they are really nude.

And when they are performing even soft core sexual activity, they're really groping and they're really doing things that are sinful.

But when it comes to the foul language, though, a Christian actor who is using extremely vulgar language is even in the movie when he's acting using vulgar language.

How do you separate that? Yeah, the actor would be sinning, but us particularly hearing it would not be sin unless you're enjoying the sin like we can't enjoy sin.

And so, you know, if we're watching something with our children, we tell them, you know, you shouldn't say that.

We do our best not to put anything, any nudity in front of them or any, you know, even, you know, girls scantily clad or we try not to put that in front of them at all either.

But and so I think there's a difference in yes, an individual may be sinning in the use of his or her language in the movie, but you hearing it is not inherently sinful unless you're enjoying their sin.

And we have to go to our midway break right now. Please use this time wisely, write down as much of the contact information as you possibly can for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully contact our advertisers.

And we hope that you at the very least when you contact our advertisers, at the very least, if you could say thank you for sponsoring

Iron Trump and Zion Radio, even if you can't use money to buy their products or use their services.

So please at least thank our advertisers for sponsoring the show, because we absolutely positively depend upon them to exist.

And also send in your questions to Jared Moore at chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

We'll be right back. Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church.

We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

Christ. This is Pastor David Reis of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com.

I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the

Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity by Dr. Joseph Morecraft.

It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

Dr. Morecraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the

Saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr. Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the

NASB. This is Gerald Bernard Harrison, co -host of the Just Thinking Podcast, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Tom Buck at First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Kent Keller of Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Andrew Rapport, the founder and executive director at Striving for Eternity Ministries, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Mark Romaldi, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Greenbrier, Tennessee, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Christopher Cookston, pastor of Prineville Community Church in Prineville, Oregon, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Matt Tarr, pastor of High Point Baptist Church in Larchville, Pennsylvania, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart?

Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

Hello, my name is Anthony Uvinio, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

Apple's iTunes app by typing Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in the search bar. You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work.

Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show at any time day or night.

Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnzen has on the show.

Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news. Subscribe to the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio podcast right now. And while you're at it, you can also sign up for the reformrookie .com

podcast and visit our website and the YouTube page. We are dedicated to teaching Christian theology from a

Reformed Baptist perspective to beginners in the faith as well as seasoned believers. From Keech's Catechism and the

Doctrines of Grace to the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Leviticus, the Reform Rookie podcast and YouTube channel is sure to have something to offer everyone seeking biblical truth.

And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. If you love

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.

One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Hansen is doing is

Daniel P. Buttafuoco, serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.

Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society. Their mission?

To foster belief in the credibility of Scripture as the written Word of God. They go to various churches, schools, and institutions to publicly display a rare collection of biblical texts, along with a presentation by Mr.

Buttafuoco demonstrating the reliability of Scripture. To advance the cause of the gospel, they created a beautiful, perfect facsimile of the genealogy of Jesus Christ from the original engravings contained in a

First Edition 1611 King James Bible. This 17th century hand -engraved chart shows the family tree of Jesus Christ going back to Adam and Eve.

This book is complete with gorgeous full -size illustrations of Noah's Ark and the

Tower of Babel, and an explanation of why the genealogy of Jesus is so important for his claims to the throne of the universe.

Originals of this work are in museums and nobody has ever made it accessible to the public in a large book form before.

You can have your own copy of this 44 -page genealogy book for a donation of $35 or more.

Visit historicalbiblesociety .org. That's historicalbiblesociety .org.

Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor.

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio has had a long -time partnership with our friends at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

They specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable for everyone.

CVBBS has been a family -owned book service since 1987, operating out of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

They seek to bring you the best available Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices.

Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available or popular because, frankly, much of what is being printed is not worth your time.

That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting materials promoted by the secular book vendors.

Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

Order online at cvbbs .com. That's cvbbs .com.

Or you can order by phone at 1 -800 -656 -0231.

That's 1 -800 -656 -0231. Please let our friends at CVBBS know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio financially.

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

Long Island Youth for Christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need Jesus. We are rural and urban and we are always about the message of Jesus.

Our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on Long Island, New York by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following Christ.

Long Island Youth for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959. We have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world.

Help honor our history by becoming a part of our future. Volunteer, donate, pray, or all of the above.

For details call Long Island Youth for Christ at 631 -385 -8333.

That's 631 -385 -8333 or visit liyfc .org.

That's liyfc .org. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, give yourself unto reading.

The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the

Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting books for all ages.

We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com. That's solid -ground -books .com

and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And don't forget folks, solid -ground -books .com

is experiencing a crisis in book sales. So I'm hoping as many of you in my audience as possible will come to their rescue by going to solid -ground -books .com

today and making a purchase. Whether you've never purchased from them before and you want to make a first -time purchase, or even if you're a regular customer,

I'm asking you to make today your very largest purchase ever if you can afford to do so.

And please keep in mind you're not only going to be doing solid -ground -books .com a favor by purchasing books from them, and you're not only going to be doing

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio a favor by keeping one of our most important advertisers happy, you're going to be doing yourself and anyone for whom you purchase books at solid -ground -books .com

an enormous favor of incalculable value because they bring back into print lost treasures of literature from the past, and also they bring into print for the very first time books by such modern authors as Dr.

James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. So please visit solid -ground -books .com

and make your purchase today, and please mention that you heard about them from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Before I return to my guest today, Jared Moore, and our continuation of his book

The Pop Culture Parent, I have some more important announcements to make.

Please folks, if you really love this show and you don't want it to go off the air, I'm urging you please go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

click support, then click click to donate now. You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion, and if you prefer snail mail, mailing a physical check to a physical address at your post office the old -fashioned way, there will also be a physical address that appears on your screen when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com

where you can mail your checks made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And if you want to advertise with us, whether it is your church, your parachurch ministry, your business, your private practice like a law firm or a medical firm, or maybe it's just a special event you want to promote, whatever it is, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

and put advertising in the subject line. As long as whatever it is you want to promote is compatible with what

I believe, I would love to help you launch an ad campaign quickly because we're just as much in urgent need of your advertising dollars as we are in your donations.

And also folks, please remember, I never want anybody in my audience cutting in to the finances that you have set aside to give to your own local church on the

Lord's Day in order to give to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. In other words, never give your own church where you're a member less money than you normally give your church in order to bless us with a financial gift.

There are two things that are very clear in the Bible about our finances. The money that God has blessed us with is really

His money, and we are in the Bible commanded to provide for our church and our family.

Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God, but if you love the show and you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to provide for church and family, you have extra money for benevolent, recreational, and trivial purposes, please share some of that money with us so that we can continue to exist.

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click click to donate now.

Last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Homestead's Baptist Church in Crossville, Tennessee, well

I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I may be able to help you find a church no matter where on the planet

Earth you live, and sometimes I may be even able to find churches for people all over the world within a couple of minutes from where they live, and that may be you too if you are without a

Christ -honoring church home. So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put

I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Jared Moore on our topic, the pop culture parent, helping kids engage their world for Christ.

Send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put your name and your city and state of residence and your country of residence and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's see here. We have Justin in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and Justin says, you mentioned earlier in the beginning of the program that you send your kids to a classical school.

Is what you are talking about today, and is the theme of your book largely connected to the classical

Christian school movement, which teaches children what the world believes about certain things, such as Darwinian evolution, so that the children will be equipped to respond to that?

They don't teach those things as if they are true, but they let the children know the information and how to grapple with it as far as comparing it to biblical truth.

Is this where you are coming from? Yes, in one sense.

Our children learn history by learning about pagan gods and goddesses so that they might oppose them, so that they might see how

Yahweh is different than the various false gods of human history.

Yes, that is partly, but the classical

Christian school is not using pop culture in that particular way. They use history in that way, but as far as modern, and they read largely old works,

I mean important works, like the Odyssey and things like that, but they also read, my 10 -year -old read the kid's version of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and so they are being trained how to interact with history and some of the great works of history, but not today's popular culture.

In our book, you could say our book applies what the classical Christian school system applies to historical works.

We apply to modern and post -modern examples of popular culture.

It is very, I mean, it is just worldview engagement. We are just using pop culture to show how to recognize

God's fingerprints and God's image -bearers and in the popular cultural works that they create and also recognize the fallenness, the sin, and usually there is an idol presented in pop culture in the various works that they make a false promise, and then they claim that the idol can bring about what the goal is when the truth is that only

Christ can satisfy us, and so that is part of what our work does. You have to usually add the gospel to it, and I do not know that the classical

Christian school system is emphasizing that part of adding the gospel. It is more about what is biblically right and biblically wrong, but I do not know that they are particularly applying the gospel, for example, to the

Odyssey, which is what we would do. We would encourage, if you are going to be a pop culture parent, you would need to apply the gospel to the

Odyssey and to literally every work in history. I hope that answers your question.

Well, Justin, please give us your full address in Old Lyme, Connecticut, because you have won a free copy of the book that we are discussing,

The Pop Culture Parent. Thanks to the generosity of New Growth Press, and also thanks to the generosity of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

We'll be shipping that book out to you free of charge, and that goes for anyone in the first hour who has submitted a question as well.

You have all won a free copy of The Pop Culture Parent. Let's see here.

We have Bernadine in Hoboken, New Jersey, who said, so if I'm understanding you correctly, do you sit down with your children, and you go over a plan or some kind of a strategy on how they can engage their friends and acquaintances in the world with the truths of Christianity by involving things that they have experienced in pop culture?

Yes and no. You know, the main thing that we're encouraging is parents participating in pop culture with their children.

In some popular cultural works, you'll need to engage first and then see if it's suitable for your children as far as conscience, but then you would sit down and watch it with them.

We recommend in the book, for example, depending on how young they are,

I think we call it spot the hooey, which is just the lies. What are the lies that are being presented in this show or movie?

What is good, true, and beautiful? Do kids know what hooey means in this day and age? That goes to back, that's like a pre -World

War II word, hooey, like it's fake, it's phony, it's a lie. Yeah, well, my wing resurrected.

But we argue that, and then we encourage them to recognize the story because you want to be, you want to handle the creator of the work with integrity, and so you want to represent the story well, and then you help your children to identify the idol and the false promise, and then to talk about the gospel.

Now, there'll be times when you can just stop the, you know, push pause on whatever you're watching and talk briefly.

Every now and then, I'll do that. I'll stop and say, okay, do you see that lie there? Sometimes the kids,

I mean, if you train your children to think this way, they'll bring it up. They'll just look at me and say, that's wrong, you know, or that's baloney.

And then, you know, but lots of times they need help pointing out the particular idol and how

Christ actually delivers what the false idol promises, and how basically we're saying that Jesus is better than what popular culture promises.

Now, do you sit down with your kids and listening to Iron Sharpens Iron radio and hear them say, oh, Mr. Ronson's lying again.

Oh, we haven't done that. That's funny. That's funny. There's the hooey. I just heard him.

So, this, what it sounds like to me, and maybe you could correct me if I'm wrong, when you send missionaries out to a foreign land, it's always wise for the missionaries to understand the culture of whatever people group they are attending to bring the gospel to.

And in this same way, since so much of what young people think about and so much of what they base their worldviews on, even if unconsciously, they might not and probably don't understand that everybody, to some extent, has a worldview that's either a biblical one or a false one.

But you're enabling the young to engage their friends and their teachers or whoever with the truth of the

Scriptures and somehow relating it to what they are familiar with in this pop culture saturated society.

Am I anywhere close to hitting the nail on the head? Yeah, yeah.

That's basically the gist of what we're doing. Because, you know, when I was growing up,

I had a TV in my own room. And so, I watched things, my family and I rarely watched things together.

I might watch football with my dad. We might catch a movie every now and then. We never discussed it, never talked about it.

And I'm not saying anything negative about my parents or even the churches that I grew up in.

But I do think that there is a more biblically faithful way that we can, instead of totally shunning popular culture, we can use these as opportunities to train our children.

Because pop culture is presenting, usually they present, I do think they're downstream from the academy lots of times.

You know, they're arguing this stuff in ivory towers and then it trickles down to pop culture and then it gets to our children fairly quickly once that's argued.

But I think that we need to use it as an opportunity to train them to live in this world for God's glory rather than totally shunning it.

Because kids will get together and they'll talk about these things or they'll, you know, they'll play video games or if they have any friends that are watching, participating in pop culture at all, it's a good opportunity to discuss these things, especially today with all the

LGBT stuff that's everywhere. We need to train our children to live in this world where,

I mean, just to be clear, you're not going to be able to protect your children from being around the

LGBT stuff in this world unless you create a totally Christian subculture. And so we got to train them to be disgusted with it while still loving those folks.

In other words, not seeking to be tolerable or not seeking to be praising or patting on the back, but seeking to love the individual even as you condemn what they've chosen that's contrary to God.

And so we treat it as a moral issue in our house. And so when we're watching something, let's say we're watching

Survivor or, you know, The Amazing Race, there's almost a token, always a token or two

LGBT person on there. Yeah, I say person. I don't think they're any different than us.

They just chose a pathological sin pattern. But our kids will actually cheer against these folks because it's similar to if there was a guy on there who's very promiscuous and that's what he was celebrating.

We'd be cheering against him, too, because it's a moral issue. It's not a neutral issue.

And so just training, just using that as an opportunity to train our children that that is morally reprehensible in God's eyes and needs to be treated as something that is immoral.

And so I'm training, I'm training my children. And I realize that there's anybody who's pro -LGBT stuff listening to this, they would think that that is awful, like that is, oh, you're being so mean, you're training bigots and all this baloney, you know.

But I'm going to train my children to live and represent Christ in this world and to not be

OK and not to pretend that things are morally neutral that God calls an abomination. They're not morally neutral.

They're pure evil. And it will bring America down. And the more that America embraces the

LGBT idolatry and the paganism that comes along with it and worships false gods,

I mean, the more that America will be destroyed as a nation. And so I want to train my kids to love everyone while also condemning immorality, regardless who's doing it, and to call folks to repentance and faith in Christ and the beauty of the gospel.

So, you know, I realize the LGBT stuff is everywhere, but if you can sit down and watch some of these things with your children, you can train them to live in a world where that is accepted as normal and train them to see it as not normal, as immoral, as ungodly, as wicked.

And so that's what we're trying to do with our children. But really, it boils down to being jolly.

I know that sounds strange, probably, but if you're a

Christian, if you'll just be a happy Christian in front of your children, a joyful Christian, rejoicing in the

Lord, I mean, that will really impact them in a way, because the world is largely a miserable place.

And if you are happy in the Lord, regardless what you're doing with them, I mean, it will impact their lives and their kids' lives.

And we have Heather in Worcester, Massachusetts. I'm probably pronouncing that in a way that those that live there do not.

Worcester? Worcester? Something like that. And Heather actually is asking about something that you've already done a bit, but maybe you could just add to it.

You just mentioned the TV show Survivor, I think.

But Heather says, can you give us specific examples out from pop culture that you would use for a project with your children to achieve exactly what you want to achieve in your household when it comes to equipping your children to engage the culture?

So I guess other movies, other TV shows, whatever, music, whatever it is that you're talking about as far as pop culture.

Yeah, one of the best ones that's out right now, as far as a positive example, is the movie

A Quiet Place. It was directed by John Krasinski.

And if you want to see what a biblical, patriarchal home would look like if there's an apocalyptic alien race.

Yeah, I saw that. In fact, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I believe

Jeff Durbin wrote a movie review of that on the very aspect that you are talking about right now, about how it depicted a male headship in the home that would be honorable as far as the way that the father and husband is depicted, unlike the way the father and husband is normally depicted in movies and TV as the idiot.

Right. Yeah, he, the husband in that movie from beginning to end is basically the hero of the story.

Even, you know, I don't want to give it away or anything, but he either saves the day or he puts his family in a position to where they can then survive.

Like it's pro -father, pro -husband. And so there's so much in that movie that is beneficial.

Now, there's not an overt presentation of the gospel or anything like that. You'll have to add that and point that out.

But it is one of the few things that have come out of Hollywood in the past five years that is pro -husband, pro -father, pro, you know, the different roles of men and women in the home and even in taking care of their home and vocation.

It's all displayed beautifully in that movie. And then as far as another one that would be beneficial to talk about would be, oh,

Moana is one where you could talk about a false demigod. Another one, you know, in our book, we list three different ones.

We talk about the movie Frozen. We talk about Star Wars, The Force Awakens.

And we talk about Fortnite Battle Royale as, you know, two movies and a video game on how to talk about those with your kids, with your children.

You know, there's several Disney movies. But most of the time, the horror genre is the easiest one.

And I know parents may be freaking out over that. Wait, horror is so bad.

But usually there is a clear good and a clear evil in the horror genre.

Not always, but in most cases, it's one of the few genres that still has a clear good and a clear evil.

Like even in, you know, when we watched that superhero movie, it wasn't called

Endgame, Infinity War. Infinity War, it was basically all the

Marvel superheroes in one movie. And it was called Infinity War.

And Thanos, his whole argument is that the humans are destroying the world.

Overpopulation is the issue. So he's going to get Infinity Stones and he's going to snap his fingers and the population is going to be immediately cut in half.

And the way that Infinity War presents that is that that's kind of a good idea to save the planet, you know.

I mean, it gives you an opportunity to talk to your children about how utterly nonsensical that is.

I mean, right now, I'm in Crossville, Tennessee. The temperature tonight is supposed to be negative six degrees.

And supposedly global warming is this huge problem. But here we're freezing to death today because of global warming.

Anyway, I just it gives you an opportunity like that Infinity War movie. They talk about how, well, maybe

Thanos has got some truth here, because they talk about it like a news station says ever since Thanos snapped his fingers and half the population's been gone, the water has been purer, the air has been cleaner.

Like it makes those arguments. But it can't help but also argue that Thanos is the bad guy and all these family members have lost their loved ones.

You imagine if half the population was was gone overnight. So I would say some of those superhero movies, because usually there's a clear good and clear bad.

I don't like the I don't like the movies like Venom, where Venom, you know, the antiheroes, where the heroes are bad, where they kill bad guys, kind of like the

Punisher's an antihero, Venom's an antihero. I like my heroes to be good and my villains to be evil.

And I think those are the easiest. Those are the easiest types of pop culture to engage with your children to where they can clearly see it.

And then, you know, as they get older, you might be able to delve into some to some movies, some of the antihero stuff to where they can kind of wrestle with that because, you know,

Venom only they he only kills bad guys is the argument. But that's evil.

That's still murder. It's not a self -defense thing at all. But Spider -Man's always arresting them.

Batman's always arresting them. And so I think those are the those are the heroes that I like the best.

But I hope that answers some of your question. But the the best thing I could recommend is

I've got a podcast called the Pop Culture Corum Deo, and we have about 100 episodes on there where we apply the principles in this book to that.

Now, we've only done like one episode in 2023, but we did like five or six years where we kept that thing going and we still plan to do it in 2024.

But my co -host has had like six. They've had he's had several babies and we just had a lot going on in 2023.

Tell him to knock it off. I know he's got four kids and he's got he's got six.

And so he's he's really and he started milking cows. He decided to do this homestead and stuff.

So. So anyway, we haven't we haven't had time to to get back to it. But we engage a lot of the

Disney movies. There's probably 10 Disney movies that we've engaged and applied the principles in this book.

And so you could literally listen to one of our Pop Culture Corum Deo episodes and then watch the the movie or TV show with your child.

And we will give you all the things to point out, you know. And I think that'll be beneficial.

By the way, I want to recommend to parents listening if they are looking for a clean, old fashioned movie to bring their whole family to.

I was pleasantly surprised that a new movie that was actually directed by George Clooney, The Boys in the

Boat, about the Olympic rowing team for the

United States in the Berlin Olympics in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

I was amazed that there was not to my memory. Now, I'm not I'm not going to say

I'm 100 percent certain, but to my memory, I don't think there was a single curse in the movie. There was definitely no sex scenes in the movie.

In fact, when the lead character, when his girlfriend takes her takes him up to her dorm room to get romantic, there is an older woman who works for the the school who starts banging on the door and the young man escapes out the window.

But nothing happened. You didn't see any undressing. You didn't see any passion going on. And I really recommend it.

The only thing that I was disappointed about in the movie is that I was hoping to see more character development with the

German rowing team that they competed against in the

Olympics. You didn't get to know any of the personalities on the German rowing team. And so therefore, the rivalry in the competition perhaps was not as exciting as it could have been when you when you really like, for instance, if you remember

Chariots of Fire, you got to know the athletes that Eric Little was competing against, and specifically the

Jewish athlete who had a completely different worldview than Eric Little being the

Christian athlete and the Jewish athlete was a secular

Jewish individual. But anyway, I don't know if you've seen that yet, but I highly recommend it. I haven't seen it yet, but I appreciate

I've seen the preview. I appreciate that recommendation. And in fact,

I'm looking at an advertisement for here, and it's rated PG -13 for language and smoking.

So I guess I was wrong. I don't remember what language, what off -color language was in it, but I could tell you it didn't dominate that.

And most of our reformed listeners should have no problem with the smoking. But anyway, we've got to go to our final break.

If you do want to join the conversation with a question of your own, send in your question immediately to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know

I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.

And besides that, they feel so good. I'm so delighted I discovered Post Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding.

No radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot. Jeffrey Rice of Post Tenebrous Lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan.

All his work is done by hand from the cutting to the pleating of corners to the perimeter stitching.

Jeffrey uses the finest and buttery soft imported leathers in a wide variety of gorgeous colors like the turquoise goatskin tanned in Italy used for my

Nestle All in 28th edition with a navy blue goatskin inside liner and the electric blue goatskin from a

French tannery used to rebind a Reformation study Bible I used as a gift. The silver gilding he added on the page edges has a stunning mirror finish resembling highly polished chrome.

Jeffrey will customize your rebinding to your specifications and even emboss your logo into the leather, making whatever he rebinds a one -of -a -kind work of art.

For more details on Post Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding, go to ptlbiblerebinding .com.

That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the

NASB. I'm Dr. Joe Moorcraft, pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Anthony Uvino, founder of thereformrookie .com

and co -founder of New York Apologetics, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Tim Bushong of Syracuse Baptist Church in Syracuse, Indiana, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Eli Ayala, founder of Revealed Apologetics and staff member with the

Historical Bible Society, and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Joe Bianchi, president of Calvi Press Publishing in Greenville, South Carolina, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jake Korn of Switzerland Community Church in Switzerland, Florida, and the

NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small group study?

So often, we experience great preaching from the pulpit, but when it comes time to study God's Word in those smaller settings, well, let's be honest, it leaves a lot to be desired.

It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the

Word of God and is built upon sound doctrine, much less it's hard to find curriculum that will actually teach people how to study the

Bible. Hi, there. My name is Jordan Too, and I am the Executive Director of the Baptist Publishing House.

Our ministry is dedicated to providing local churches with sound Bible study resources.

Our quarterly curriculum is titled The Baptist Expositor, and for good reason. We are

Baptist, and we exegete the Scriptures. If you want to have a curriculum that teaches your people how to study the

Word of God, I invite you to go to our website, download a free study, baptistpublishinghouse .com.

May God bless you. I'm Brian McLaughlin, President of the

SecureComm Group and an enthusiastic supporter of Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron radio program.

The SecureComm Group provides the highest level of security, close -circuit television, access control, and communication systems for Manhattan's top residential buildings, as well as churches, commercial properties, municipalities, and more.

We custom install exactly what you need to protect yourself, including digital recording, off -site viewing, and connectivity from most smart devices.

From simple code -activated systems to the latest technology using facial recognition, the

SecureComm Group has it. We also provide the latest in intercom and IP telephone systems.

In addition, we provide superior networking platforms. We'll create, maintain, and secure your local network.

Whether it's a Wi -Fi or a hardwire network, we'll implement the latest secured firewall, endpoint solutions, and cloud backup.

I would love to have the honor and privilege of helping protect the lives and property of Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners and their associates.

For more details on how the SecureComm Group may be of service to you with the very latest in security innovations, call 718 -353 -3355.

That's 718 -353 -3355. Or visit securecommgroup .com.

That's securecommgroup .com. This is Brian McLaughlin of the SecureComm Group, joining

Chris Arnzen's family of advertisers to keep Iron Sharpens Iron radio on the air.

Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

Christ. This is Pastor David Reis of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. puritanphx .com

It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, 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. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.

Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger Catechism. Heritage is a member of the

Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,

Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.

For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com or call 678 -954 -7831.

That's 678 -954 -7831. If you visit, tell them

Joe Roiland, Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, from Itoi in County Kildare, Ireland, sends you.

And we want to thank Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia for renewing their annual contract with Iron Sharpens Iron radio.

They continue to be one of the very largest financial supporters of this program, and we thank

God for them. I also want to remind our listeners, you've been hearing ads every single day for years now, for the

Historical Bible Society. Please don't forget that that fine ministry was founded by its president,

Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law. If you are the victim of a serious accident or injury or medical malpractice anywhere in the

United States, please call Dan Buttafuoco at 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, or visit his website 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com.

That's the law firm of Buttafuoco and Associates. Please make sure you mention that you heard about them from Chris Aronson of Iron Sharpens Iron radio.

Also, I want to remind all men in ministry leadership in our audience, whether you are a pastor, an elder, and by the way,

I believe that's the same office, a deacon, a parachurch, ministry leader, whatever you are, if you're a man in ministry leadership, we would love to invite you to my next

Iron Sharpens Iron radio free pastor's luncheon on Thursday, June the 6th, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is

Perry County, Pennsylvania. For the very first time, my guest speaker will be Dr. Joel Beeky, president of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and not only will your admission be free and your lunch be free and your ability to feast both spiritually and physically while there and enjoy fun and fellowship with your colleagues in ministry for free, everybody will receive a heavy sack, maybe even two heavy sacks, of free brand new books personally selected by me that have been donated by Christian book publishers all over the

United States and the United Kingdom. So you can't beat that, and if you're able to get to Perry County, Pennsylvania, Thursday, June the 6th, 2024, 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m., we hope that you will join us. Send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

and put Pastor's Luncheon in the subject line. Well, before we run out of time and before I go to any of our listener questions that remain,

I want to make sure that you have several minutes to fully share with our listeners the primary things that you want to let them know about that are included in this book that you have co -authored,

The Pop Culture Parent. Sure.

So our goal is really to encourage parents to sit down and participate in pop culture with their children, to think biblically as they participate, to not view pop culture as mere entertainment or as something secular that we just participate in neutrally, but instead to view it as an avenue through which to glorify

God, to represent him well as you participate, and also to recognize the devil's fingerprints, to reject those, to train your children to reject those, and to train your children to recognize

God's fingerprints, the good, true, and beautiful, and to see how Jesus is better than whatever the pop culture is arguing is better, and to encourage your children to take those conversations to their friends and teenagers to do the same, and those are the big things that we're encouraging in this because we've seen just kind of two dominant positions where people either dive into pop culture or they shun it, and we're saying, no, there's a more biblical way where you can participate but using discernment so that you can train your children to live in this pop culture world for God's glory.

Well, we do have time for a couple more listener questions.

Let's see, I was just looking at one, and let's see, where did you go?

Well, we have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, and Bobby in Hartsdale, New York says, do you ever take your kids to secular concerts?

It is very difficult, I believe, for Christians to do that in this day and age, although, obviously, many

Christians have seared consciences and are not bothered by anything that takes place in pop culture, but what

I mean by that is sometimes even when attending a concert where the music is relatively tame in regard to the lyrics, if it is a female artist especially, they usually are half undressed, etc.

What is your experience? Do you do this? Meaning, I guess, do you take your kids to secular concerts?

We haven't taken our kids to secular concerts because if you do something like that, you take them to a live event, you're not really going to be able to determine what they're able to hear and what they're not permitted to hear, so we have not done that.

I wouldn't necessarily be against that per se because you can talk about it afterwards with your children, but like with a

TV show or a movie or in the movie theater, you can have them look away if something catches you by surprise or you can mute it or you can pause it, but especially today, everything's so politically charged and even religiously charged that you don't know what's going to be said at a concert.

I mean, they may condemn biblical Christianity as crazy fundamentalists and especially if your children are exalting a particular artist enough to go see a concert,

I just wouldn't want them unnecessarily having too much influence over my child, so I'd rather listen to particular songs in the privacy of our home to where we can discuss it rather than being at a concert, but I'm not saying it's inherently sinful to do that.

You can obviously do that, but we just haven't done it. It costs an arm and a leg and it sounds better at home.

We don't go to a lot of concerts. And I think we have time for just one more.

We have Paige in Chappaqua, New York. That's actually where Bill and Hillary Clinton live.

I think they still live there, but we're not going to hold that against you, Paige. Paige wants to know, do you have a

Bible study that you could recommend using your book as a tool?

Well, I guess it wouldn't technically be a Bible study. It would be like some Christians have book studies, but if you could answer

Paige's question before we run out of time here. A Bible study or a book study to recommend on the issue of engaging pop culture?

I think what Paige asked was, using your book, is there a specific study that you have created or that you can suggest where people can use your book for a book study and use it to apply it in a group setting?

We haven't made a study guide for it, but you could.

I mean, it would not be hard to do. I mean, we provide five particular questions that we ask of all pop culture, and y 'all could get together in a small group and watch a movie and apply those questions and talk about them.

The questions are real simple. Why don't you state it? Yeah, it's what is the story?

What is the moral and imaginary world? So basically, what is the story? What are they arguing?

What kind of world is it? Is it like our world, or is there a fantasy world, or what's morality look like?

What's good and evil in that world? Then what's good, true, and beautiful in this world, common grace?

Then what is false and idolatrous? Then finally, how is Jesus the true answer to the story's hopes?

Those five questions are what we ask and answer. That's what I ask and answer on my podcast,

Pop Culture Quorum Deo. I think if you read this book and you listen to that podcast, you'll have a good idea of how to apply these questions to pop culture and to wrestle with it.

I mean, it would be great to get together with people near your age and watch a movie and discuss it using these worldview questions, and I think it'd be beneficial.

And you can order the book, The Pop Culture Parent, from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

Just mentioned The Pop Culture Parent by Jared Moore, and there's two co -authors, and the publisher is

New Growth Press. That's cvbbs .com for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. And you can find the book that we mentioned earlier on,

The Lust of the Flesh, at cvbbs .com as well, and mention

Free Grace Press as the publisher. I want to thank you, Jared, for being such a superb guest.

I want to thank everybody for listening today. Also, I forgot to mention the

Homestead Baptist Church website is homesteadsbc .org.

Homesteadsbc .org. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater