An Interview With Susan Heck On Beth Moore
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Beth Moore has finally eschewed biblical complementarianism and come out of the egalitarian closet. In this program, I interview Susan Heck (who has every book in the New Testament memorized and several in the Old) about her concerns with Beth Moore. I also ask Susan about the egalitarian arguments of Priscilla, the women at the tomb, and Deborah.
- 00:02
- Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Justin Peters. I hope that you and your family are doing well today.
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- I want to thank you very much for joining me. And it is my special honor and privilege today to be interviewing
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- Susan Heck. Susan is a dear friend of ours, Kathy and me, my wife
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- Kathy. Kathy and I met Susan and her husband Doug about nine or so years ago when we were living in Edmond, Oklahoma.
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- And while we were living in Edmond, we discovered that Doug, Susan's husband, is pastoring a church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
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- And once we made that realization, we started attending their church, Grace Community Church in Broken Arrow, which is right outside of Tulsa.
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- And we drove about 105 miles one way every Sunday. But we did it joyfully because Doug and Susan became fast friends of ours.
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- And Doug is a wonderful, wonderful guy, fantastic preacher.
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- If you happen to be watching this in the Tulsa neck of the woods and you're looking for a good church,
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- I would highly commend Grace Community Church of Broken Arrow to you. Very good church.
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- But I am interviewing Susan today. And Susan has her own ministry.
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- And I will tell you this because Susan probably won't tell you this herself. But I'll toot her own horn a little bit.
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- But Susan has the entire New Testament memorized, the entire
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- New Testament, as well as, Susan, Ecclesiastes. And you're working on Job now, is that right?
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- Genesis. Genesis. You're working on Genesis. OK, so all 27 books of the
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- New Testament, Ecclesiastes. Jonah. And Jonah. And Jonah.
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- Yeah. Yeah, so Susan really knows her stuff.
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- But we're going to be talking about Beth Moore today and the concerns with Beth Moore.
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- And I figured it would be just a tremendous help to have a female
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- Bible teacher on to kind of give us her perspective. And as you can tell from the number of books that she has memorized,
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- Susan really knows her stuff. So Susan, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do in your ministry.
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- Well, I serve the Lord. It's such a desire that I have to equip women in the scriptures.
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- When God saved me at the age of 30, he gave me a hunger for his word, and I just couldn't put it down.
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- And so I began to memorize books of the Bible. And after Doug graduated from seminary, we moved back to Oklahoma.
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- He started a church, and I wanted to teach the women the Bible. So actually, I went to a bookstore, and I couldn't find anything.
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- So I just thought, well, I'll write my own. So I started writing for equipping my women.
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- And then through the encouragement of my husband, Martha Peace, and some others, I had them published and continued publishing and continued writing
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- Bible studies. And not ever expecting to be asked to speak somewhere or do anything like that, but through just the
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- Lord, I haven't sought any promotion of myself, but just through his gracious kindness,
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- I've been able to travel throughout the US and even overseas and teach the
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- Bible to women and now have a YouTube channel and a lot of other things. And so getting the word out, and it's such a great thing to see how women are so hungry for scripture.
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- And a lot of women start memorizing the Bible scripture through my influence. I'm very thankful for that.
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- So they're seeing truth from error. And so I've been doing this for about 30 years now and traveling for about 25.
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- And this year is picking up a little bit now that COVID kind of hoping coming to a halt.
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- So it's gonna be a joy to be able to see some of these precious sisters again.
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- So it's been a great journey, Justin. I've really loved it. Yeah, yeah.
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- Well, everywhere I go, I have ladies come up to me and tell me that you've been a tremendous impact, had a tremendous impact on their lives.
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- And so it's a great encouragement to me as well. So Susan, we're gonna talk about Beth Moore today.
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- And I guess let me just start with kind of a general question. And I'm very grateful that you're here because obviously as being a woman, you can't be charged with being a sexist or being against women, which is kind of the common accusation that comes my way and other men's way.
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- You know, John Arthur, one of, you know, when we raise red flags about Beth Moore, oh, you're a sexist, you're a misogynist.
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- You know, you don't like women. So it'd be kind of hard to charge you with not liking women.
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- So tell us a little bit about your concerns with Beth Moore, your evaluation of Beth Moore.
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- Well, the first time I heard her name was through a lady who was discipling me. And she wanted to know what
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- I thought about her. I didn't even know her. She said, if I get you a video, will you watch it? And I said, sure.
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- So it was a VHS, so that tells you how long ago. Put it in the TV one evening,
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- Doug and I sat down to watch it. And after 15 minutes, he said, I'm going to bed. And I said, well, I wanna watch the whole thing in its entirety so I can give a proper critique to my friend.
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- So I did, I watched the whole thing. And honestly, when I turned the television off,
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- I bowed my head and I said, Lord, that was disgusting. And if you wanna use me for your glory,
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- I'll go wherever you want me to go. And that was actually the beginning of when things started happening with the
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- Master Ministries. But just on that one VHS, I still can remember, it was really bizarre.
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- She said, you know, the problem with Christians is they have Christian spiritual deficit disorder.
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- And the cure is they need to be still and know he's God. And I thought, what? What is she even talking about?
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- And so there were just little things like that throughout the video that disturbed me and really upset me that she was adulterating the word of God and very psychologized, even way back then.
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- And so my concerns about her, Justin, are poor hermeneutics.
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- She has terrible rules of interpreting scripture. She is very narcissistic.
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- She is very dramatic. She doesn't exegete scripture.
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- She doesn't apply scripture. The things that I've seen, I have looked at her
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- Twitter account, her Instagram account, other things like that. And I have screenshotted several things and have taken those with me on journeys.
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- When people challenge me about Beth Moore, I just hold up my phone and I say, let me ask you, is this a woman you want to emulate?
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- Is this a godly woman? And so the proof isn't, I'm not trying out to condemn her.
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- I feel great sorrow for her because she is the blind leading the blind.
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- They're both gonna fall in the ditch. And unless she repents, the blackness of darkness is reserved for her forever.
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- That doesn't make me happy. I pray for Beth Moore every week.
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- I pray that she'll repent. I pray that she'll consent to wholesome truth. She's leading so many women astray and it grieves my heart.
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- I'm not happy about it, it grieves me. And so I also, I don't know, but there's something in the last few years, she's just gotten bizarre.
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- It's beyond poor hermeneutics and poor exegete. It is bizarre to the point that at times
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- I've thought, is she medicated? Is she drinking? I don't know.
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- And I can't know, cause I don't know her personally, but I'm very concerned about her.
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- But you know, I was encouraged. I'll have to say, she's coming to my hometown in a couple of weeks and there's a big advertisement.
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- It was interesting to look at the comment section because I would say 90 % of the people that commented said, no way, she's dangerous.
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- I wouldn't pay a penny to see her. She's a heretic. I'd rather have a root canal than see her, some guy said.
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- So, I mean, I'm not, again, I'm not trying to condemn her. I'm just saying, I'm thankful. I think at least people are waking up and that's here in town where I live, where it's a very heavily word of faith, as you well know,
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- Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagen are here. And right, so I'm very thankful that even in my hometown, there are people that are waking up to her ridiculousness.
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- Yeah. Yeah. And I agree in the last several years, say in 2016, she has just become, she's become very outspoken about racial issues, gender issues.
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- She is Johnny on the spot. Anytime there's a whiff of something in the news dealing with racism, she pounces on that and is very quick to condemn the person that has been accused of whatever.
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- And several times she's been proven factually wrong. But yeah, it's just unhinged almost.
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- It is. It is. I am very grieved about it. So I have many concerns about her.
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- And, but I do believe that through people like you and Michelle Leslie, Elizabeth Prada, others,
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- I do think that more and more women are becoming very aware of the concerns and the danger it is to follow her.
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- Yeah, right. And she's really left the authority of scripture. The scripture to her is no longer authoritative.
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- It's no longer inerrant. She kind of writes her own sometimes. I think that's very dangerous for anybody who's a teacher of the scriptures.
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- Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the effects that you see in the ladies?
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- Because you not only travel and teach ladies and that's going to get, we're going to get into the complimentarian issues here in just a second.
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- But what are some of the effects of her teaching that you have noticed in the ladies that you counsel?
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- You counsel a lot of ladies as well. I do. And in fact, that has increased quite a bit through the last year, counseling new women, discipling new women.
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- The things I've seen mainly are they don't know the Bible. They know quips and quotes of the
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- Bible or phrases of the Bible. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me or in everything
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- I'm to be content, but they don't understand the context of what they're saying. So the
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- Bible taken out of context, I've noticed a lot of that, very psychologized using a lot of psychologized terms that are not in scripture.
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- So also I think very weak, they're running around in their, I could say like Howard Hendricks said, running around in their spiritual diapers.
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- So they're not overcoming sin. I've noticed that very, they're not knowing what to do in a difficult marriage.
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- They don't know what to do about sexual, just all kinds of things because they don't know how to go to God's word and see what he has to say about those areas.
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- And so it's more of a, they base their Christian life on their emotions and how they feel instead of faith.
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- And I remind them, the just live by faith, not by our feelings. If I lived by my feelings,
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- I'd be a monster probably. But we live by our faith. My faith is in Christ alone and not in some feeling that I might have.
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- So that's a lot of the things that I've noticed. They're very weak, just weak
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- Christians, if Christian at all. I honestly have had a lot of opportunity to share the gospel with some of these women.
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- And I wished I could tell whoever's listening, just the amazing, several women have come to faith in Christ in this last year through seeing some of my
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- YouTubes and realizing they weren't even redeemed. And so very thankful for that.
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- The lady that travels with me is doing a Zoom Bible study class on my first feeder class.
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- And she thinks several ladies on there have just come to faith in the last year because they're getting the meat of the word.
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- So yeah, so that's exciting. Yeah, indeed. And I've watched a lot of Beth Moore.
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- I've watched a lot of her teaching on YouTube and television and read some of her stuff.
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- And I'm not saying that she's never presented the gospel, but one thing that is noticeably lacking,
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- Kathy, my wife, Kathy, and I both noticed this, it is rare that you hear her actually present the clear, simple gospel.
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- Is that your observation as well? Yes, I have. And the few times I've seen things on her, you rarely hear the gospel of repentance.
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- That's what I've noticed is missing. Is there the gospel of repenting of your sin and then also the
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- Lordship of Jesus Christ. Those are the two things I would say are missing. Sure, she gets the facts right.
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- Jesus Christ died for our sins. According to the scripture, he was buried. He rose again according to the scriptures.
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- She's got that right. But she forgets repentance. And that's over and over repeated in Acts.
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- Repent, repent and believe the gospel. Jesus preached it. John the Baptist came preaching repentance.
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- So I don't, you don't hear that, nor do I see it in her life from what I can see on her teachings, on her social media accounts.
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- She's a very, I'm gonna say one more thing. The other thing I've noticed about women that follow her, they're hateful and they're vindictive.
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- Yes. I have never seen the likings of it, honestly. When I went on,
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- I think it's Doreen Virtue interviewed me a year or so ago. The women that attacked me that were
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- Beth Moore fans, it was vicious and mean. And you know, the Bible says you become like your teacher.
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- A student will become like their teacher. And so to me, that says a lot that there's no humility.
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- The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be humble. And so we need to be humble as we confront.
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- Even the heretic, of course, after the first or second admission, you get away from them. But we're supposed to go with meekness so that they'll be recovered from the snare of the devil.
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- So I don't see that with her followers. I have yet to see one that has approached me with kindness and humility.
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- But I always respond with kindness and humility. One lady even thanked me. She said, wow, she said,
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- I'm surprised you responded that way. And I said, well, you know, this is God's word. This is truth. So anyway, that's another thing
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- I've noticed with her followers. Yeah. And I would echo that as well. I tell people from time to time, you know,
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- I obviously get my fair share of criticism from word of faith folks, you know, obviously. And, but I tell you,
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- I do not get attacked as viciously by word of faith people as I do
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- Beth Moore supporters. I agree. And that tells me something's fundamentally wrong. You know,
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- I've noticed that even in our own church, my husband, as you know, loves people, loves God's word.
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- He's very friendly. Do you know what? That's the one thing that people say about our church. It's very friendly.
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- Well, that comes from the top. The sheep have become like the shepherd. And so that's the same way it is with Beth Moore.
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- You become like her. And so that grieves me even more. The type of women that she's grooming in this
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- Christianity that she has. So I use that term lightly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
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- Yeah. And Susan, you're not, you're not jealous, right? Cause I know that's gonna be -
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- Oh, absolutely not. Those ladies are gonna say, oh, you're just jealous of Beth Moore. She has a bigger platform than you.
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- And she's so - You know what? I don't want a bigger platform. Honestly, I don't. My husband says the worst thing that could happen to anybody is to be famous in the
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- Christian world. And honestly, Justin, those that have become famous, it's the exception that hasn't fallen.
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- Fallen doctrinally or morally. We've just seen it with Ravi Zacharias. We've seen it with Josh Harris. I mean, a week doesn't go by that somebody that we might know of has fallen.
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- And it's usually someone that's, they think they're something. And I pray often the
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- Lord will keep me. And I'm thankful for a husband who loves me enough to rein me in if I need to be.
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- And so I think, no, I am not jealous. If she would repent and start preaching the
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- Bible, teaching the Bible to women, I would be happy because I'd be more women out there that can hear the truth.
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- So I want God to be glorified. Right. So I don't want any self glory, so.
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- Right. Indeed. And Susan, we have to be delicate with where I wanna go now, but what you just said kind of spurred something.
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- And this is not gossip because Beth Moore has stated this publicly on many occasions.
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- This is not gossip, but she's very open and has openly admitted and said that her husband,
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- Keith, is not really interested in the Bible. She says, one tweet,
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- I think she said, I don't have in front of me, but my man is not much for doctrine or theology.
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- You know, he doesn't read the Bible much. I mean, there's multiple, multiple times that she has said that.
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- Now, she clearly loves Keith. We're not saying that she loves Keith and Keith loves her. You know, we're not saying that anything is wrong in those regards, but by her own admission, her husband, who is supposed to be the spiritual leader in the home is for whatever reason, not doing that, cannot do that.
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- So what would your, do you think that plays a role in what we see from whether it's
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- Beth Moore or any lady who tries to have a ministry and does not have a spiritual head, if you will, in the home, does not have a husband who can lead her spiritually.
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- What are your thoughts on that? Oh, I think it can have a serious impact on her because as Paul says in Ephesians, the husband washes the wife with the water, with the word, and he is to be the head.
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- And so if I didn't have my husband, who is greatly knowledgeable of scripture and theology and has studied, we've been married 45 years and I keep threatening to bury him with a yellow marker because he just, that's been his life, is books and the
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- Bible. And when I met him, he had most of the New Testament memorized. And so I'm so thankful for that.
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- And I've thought if something happens, I would go to my son or my son -in -law, who are both in the ministry for guidance and help because I need to be under the authority of someone who's stronger than me, more knowledgeable than I am, and is a male.
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- And so my husband I've known through the years, single women who don't have a head, sometimes they tend to get off on things they shouldn't get off on, conspiracies and different things, and they don't have anybody to rein them in and say, this isn't a good way.
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- So yes, I would say her husband, Keith, I've seen different things like that too, where she said he was building her a place to study and he doesn't study much.
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- I've seen those things. And I think that is a big concern. So who is her head?
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- Who is holding her accountable? Who is in charge of living proof ministries? I don't know.
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- So I'd say that is fundamentally a problem, even biblically it's a problem with the role of men and women and where we're supposed to be under their authority and even obeying those that have the rule over us.
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- They watch for our souls. So that's a big problem. Right. And I think
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- I know you well enough and know your theology well enough that let's just say your husband, Doug, was not who he is, and he is very sound, he's a pastor, of course, but let's just say he was a nominal
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- Christian or someone who maybe kind of professed to be a Christian, but really showed no interest in studying scripture, didn't understand theology.
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- You wouldn't be doing what you're doing right now. Probably not, no, because I would feel like I needed to be sensitive to him as a nominal believer.
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- I think that my role would be very, very different in trying to win him in a different way. I think the other could be more of a irritant to him.
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- And I have to say now, my husband, he's my biggest supporter. There's been many times I've said, do you want me to stop traveling and speaking?
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- And he says, no, the work of the Lord goes on. I want you to use your gifts for the God's glory. So if he weren't saying that to me,
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- I would pull back. And I mean, that would be a no -brainer to me. So I think that could become a deterrent for the gospel for him, more than an endearing of the gospel to him.
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- And also usurping a role that I shouldn't have. Right, right.
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- Okay, so that's a good segue into our discussion on complementarianism.
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- And for those who are watching, maybe you're not familiar with these terms. Complementarianism is the belief, the biblical belief, that men and women are of equal value before God.
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- Galatians 3, very clear about that. All scripts are very clear about that. We have equal value before God.
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- As believers, we are indwelt by the same Holy Spirit as men and women, but we do have different roles, complementary roles.
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- As opposed to egalitarianism, which is the belief, unbiblical, but people claim it to be, that men and women can do the same things, fulfill the same roles.
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- A woman can pastor, a woman can preach to men. So that's the egalitarian belief and the complementarian belief is that to which, of course,
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- Susan and I would hold too. So Susan, Beth Moore made big news just a few days ago as of this recording.
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- We're recording this on April the 10th. So three days ago on April the 7th, Beth Moore came out and I'll just read this tweet for our listeners or viewers.
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- She says, let me be blunt. When you functionally treat complementarianism, a doctrine of man, all caps,
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- M -A -N, as if it belongs among the matters of first importance, yea, as a litmus test for where one stands on inerrancy and authority of scripture, you are the ones who have misused scripture.
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- You went too far. I beg your forgiveness where I was complicit.
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- I could not see it, complementarianism, for what it was until 2016.
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- I plead your forgiveness for how I just submitted to it and supported it and taught it.
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- I trusted that the motives were godly. I have not lost my mind nor my doctrine, just my naivete.
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- And then she ends by, and dudes, do not DM me. Spend your energy tending to your house.
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- So it was last month that Beth Moore left the Southern Baptist Convention.
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- And undoubtedly that was to free herself from what she perceived to be the artificial restraints on letting her full theology be known.
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- And so then I'm just a few weeks removed from that. She has come out of the egalitarian closet.
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- She says that she is no longer a complementarian. She apologizes for having believed it and even taught it and asked people's forgiveness.
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- So take it away, Susan, what are your thoughts on this?
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- Oh goodness. Oh, when I saw that, I just grieved. But I was talking to my husband and he said, well,
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- I'm not surprised. She wants to open the door to bigger venues, bigger word of faith people.
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- This just opens the door for all inclusive, whatever. Case or I, it'll be just amazing to see what happens from here on out.
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- I expect her to begin to adopt same -sex marriage. She never did answer our letter on that, that several of us ladies did.
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- Transgender, I expect it to be a full gamut of wherever the world's going, she will conform to the
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- Aeon of this world. And that was so grieving to me. And Justin, she will be sending so much confusion to women.
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- And I saw that and I went to her Twitter account and I was just grieved at the amount of women that were applauding her and giving her that steam to keep up that ridiculous idea.
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- And as I mentioned earlier at the beginning, she's left the authority of scripture. Scripture is no longer authoritative.
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- It's not sufficient. It's not everything she needs for life and godliness. And so she's, the chains have been loose now.
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- No telling where she's gonna go. Yeah. And she self -identified as complimentary and up until very recently, she always said,
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- I'm complimentarian. What would you say to those? In fact, I'm looking at it right now, an article in the
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- Atlantic, which is dated 2018. So just three years ago, it actually says, like other
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- Southern Baptists, Moore considers herself a complimentarian. She believes the Bible teaches that men and women have distinctive roles and that men should hold positions of authority and leadership over women in the home and in the church.
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- Yet her husband, Keith, a retired plumber, sees his vocation as helping his wife succeed.
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- That's what I do, he told me. I lay blocks so OJ can run. Referring to OJ Simpson.
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- So twice in this article, just three years ago, she called herself a complimentarian.
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- And yet at the same time, whenever she gets an invitation to preach at a church on a
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- Sunday morning, I shouldn't say whenever, but she does preach on occasion on a Sunday morning if a church invites her to do that.
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- Mixed genders there, men and women together. Good morning, church. Good morning, church.
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- I don't know why Jesus loved me enough to let me serve here this morning, but I am mighty glad he did.
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- Anybody say amen this morning? Amen. Can you be a complimentarian and still say it's okay for a woman to preach on a
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- Sunday morning as long as the pastor asks you to do it? No. No, because I mean, you know what the word says,
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- I permit not a woman to usurp authority over a man. And first Timothy's written so that you know how to behave in the house of God, which is the church of God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
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- So that's a whole book written on church order. What do we do in the church? And in the church,
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- I am not allowed as a woman to usurp or teach a man. That is very clear, has to do with the created order for Adam was first formed, then
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- Eve. So no, she is not allowed, but she - Well, I think now,
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- I mean, according to the plain meaning of her text that three days ago, that she has renounced complimentarianism.
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- But I mean, it's one of those things like, you could tell by the things that she was teaching, by the things that she was tweeting for the last several years, she was not complimentarian, even though she held on to the title, but she was clearly not complimentarian.
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- Now she's just made it very clear. Now that she's been freed from the, as I said, the artificial restraints of the
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- SPC and trying to keep that audience, she's just freed from that. And so she's gonna, and I agree with you.
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- And this is gonna be a future video, but talking about the homosexual issues. But so let me push back a little bit and play devil's advocate a little bit because the egalitarians have a few arguments in their quiver, and they shoot those at us complimentarians.
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- And one of them would be Deborah. Well, what about Deborah? Deborah was a judge in the
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- Old Testament. So I'm sure Susan, you've encountered this argument. What would you say to those who try to play the
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- Deborah? Yeah, well, she was a judge and she was a judge, not a preacher, not a pastor, not an elder.
- 29:59
- If a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good thing, a man, not a woman. So yes,
- 30:04
- I've been, also you have to look at the end of the judges. Every man was doing what was right in his own eyes. It was a horrible time in the nation of Israel.
- 30:12
- The guy cut up his concubine in 12 pieces and sent her all, I mean, it was a perverse, wicked time.
- 30:19
- Men were, there was obviously a vacuum, a leadership vacuum of men, and that was very evident by Barak.
- 30:26
- And so God appointed her as a judge. She was the fourth judge, but she wasn't a preacher.
- 30:33
- She sang that song in Judges 5, her and Barak had that song, but that like Mariam in the
- 30:40
- Old Testament with Moses, his sister. And I don't see the issue with Deborah.
- 30:46
- She was never up in a synagogue preaching the Bible. She was appointed at the time for that purpose in a very perverse time in the nation of Israel.
- 30:58
- She was tending to civil and military issues. That was her whole reasoning.
- 31:04
- So that doesn't fly anywhere. I haven't seen anybody really proof text that very well to say that that gives women the right to get up on a
- 31:13
- Sunday morning and preach to an audience of people. I don't see it. That's really going beyond scripture, which we're forbidden to do.
- 31:22
- Yeah, absolutely. And not the least of which reasons, I mean, we're talking about Old Testament opposed to New Testament, New Covenant church.
- 31:31
- And you're trying to compare apples and oranges there. It's just not. Well, and when people talk to me about this,
- 31:38
- I just, the proof is on them. I say, show me in the Bible where you had a female pastor.
- 31:43
- It says, if a man desires the office, none of the apostles were, none of the disciples were women.
- 31:49
- They were men always. And so to me, it's a no brainer unless you're gonna do what she's doing,
- 31:57
- I believe is denying the authority of scripture. It is no longer authoritative.
- 32:03
- It's gonna be the Bible according to Beth and that's very dangerous. And the
- 32:08
- Bible says, if you add or subtract, you know what happens. Right. It's not a good thing.
- 32:13
- Yeah, that's exactly right. Not a good thing at all. And her daughter, Melissa Moore, writes a lot for her and helps her with her studies.
- 32:22
- And Melissa Moore, for years, has been openly endorsing and embracing female pastors, gay
- 32:32
- Christians, LGBTQI, XYZ, whatever, letter Christians, openly so.
- 32:39
- And Beth Moore hasn't done, well, she did endorse a lady who tweeted one time, and maybe
- 32:47
- I can find this, put in the video, but this lady tweeted and she said, next Sunday will be my first Sunday as the pastor of fill in the blank church, whatever.
- 32:54
- Yeah, I saw that. Did you see that? Oh yeah, I saw that, yep. Yeah, and Beth Moore commended her, encouraged her.
- 33:00
- Yeah, I saw that. So on April 18th, 2020,
- 33:07
- Lisa Saunders tweeted this, I assumed my new and first pastorate on Easter Sunday.
- 33:14
- I was on the phone preaching and singing with my new parishioners. I thank these dear people for trusting me to shepherd them.
- 33:22
- I'm now busily seeking God's wisdom on shepherding from afar. And she says that in reference to the
- 33:27
- COVID restrictions. It's daunting, but there's grace. And Beth Moore replied to her and said this, thank
- 33:36
- God there is no limit to his grace. I had to take a few minutes last night and mourn what may never be again and steady myself for the blessings ahead.
- 33:45
- These are new ministry days, Lisa. And he who calls us knows exactly how to equip us.
- 33:52
- So when Beth Moore sees a lady saying that she is about to assume her first pastorate and she is seeking
- 33:59
- God's wisdom on shepherding, Beth Moore does not reply by saying, hey,
- 34:05
- Lisa, since you're wanting God's wisdom on shepherding, the first thing to know about shepherding is that that is a role and responsibility that God has delegated to men only.
- 34:20
- No, she doesn't say that. She doesn't correct her. She encourages her. Beth Moore cheers her on.
- 34:28
- And just out of curiosity, I did a little bit of research and I found this. Lisa Saunders, this is a screenshot of her, whatever you call it on Twitter, homepage or whatever.
- 34:39
- But look at her, look at how she describes herself. Lisa Saunders, yep, a woman pastor.
- 34:45
- So she's very open about this and quite proud of it. And then look at the description. I'm Lisa Saunders, wife, mom,
- 34:52
- Grammy, pastor. And look at this, prophetic decreer, declarer, and atmosphere shifter.
- 35:01
- So not only is she a female pastor, she's also word of faith. And apparently more of the social justice stripe of word of faith.
- 35:12
- But I mean, she's word of faith and she's a female. I mean, this is a theological hot mess.
- 35:21
- So Beth Moore can claim all day long how she's complementarian. Clearly, she is anything but complementarian.
- 35:30
- And she has not been for a very long time. Now back to Susan.
- 35:36
- So yeah, so she hasn't been complementarian. No, she hasn't. She's just finally come out of the closet, so to speak.
- 35:45
- Yeah, and we'll have a lot more coming out of the closet in the days to come. I really believe that unless she repents, it'll get just worse and worse.
- 35:54
- Evil men become worse and worse, so it's not gonna get better. That's right, that's right. And one of the things you're saying that,
- 36:02
- I would not say that Beth Moore's studies, her books have ever been good or sound, but you can go back to the stuff that she was putting out 30 years ago, 20, 30 years ago, and it was less bad, if I could say it that way, than it is now.
- 36:20
- It's like her, she's progressing in the exact opposite direction of what you would expect from someone who is actually qualified to be doing what she's doing.
- 36:32
- Right. Her teaching is not getting better, it's getting worse. It's getting more bizarre, would you say?
- 36:38
- It is. When she first started, my husband would call her a female Charles Stanley, very psychologized.
- 36:44
- She has a cute little outline, three points in a poem, and he said she's very dramatic, and she's a charismatic speaker.
- 36:53
- I don't mean that sense in the charismatic movement, but she's got a lot of charisma, and that's very attractive to women.
- 36:59
- Unfortunately, women, and I am a woman, so if you're listening and you're a woman, I'm not criticizing our gender, but women don't sometimes think biblically and intellectually with their minds.
- 37:11
- They think with their emotions, so that appeals to their emotions. Right. And that kind of teaching, but it doesn't leave you to take anything home of substance that you can then go home, and then how do
- 37:23
- I be a better wife to my husband, or how do I help love this neighbor next door that is driving me crazy, or it doesn't, it might give you a warm fuzzy up your spine, but it doesn't last.
- 37:35
- Yeah. It does not last. Exactly, right. All right, well, let me ask you about another arrow in the egalitarian quiver, and that is dealing with Aquila and Priscilla, Acts chapter 18, because I hear this a lot too.
- 37:50
- Well, Aquila and Priscilla, they instructed Paul, both of them together, they instructed Paul more, I mean, not
- 37:56
- Paul, Apollos. Apollos, yeah. Yeah, Apollos. The way of baptism, yeah. So is
- 38:02
- Priscilla an argument, a valid argument for egalitarianism? Yeah, again,
- 38:08
- I don't see it. She wasn't a pastor, and in fact, they took him aside, aside, privately, and explained to him the way of God more perfectly regarding his air of baptism, and some people believe that the
- 38:21
- Greek order as Priscilla was first there, and that she might've been most of the talking, the study
- 38:26
- I've done on her in church history, she was supposed to be a little bit more knowledgeable than her husband, but again, if you and I and Kathy and Doug were sitting here at my house right now, and we got into a theological discussion, and I would say, hey,
- 38:40
- Justin, have you ever considered this? There's nothing wrong with that at all, but I'm not standing, again, in the local gathering of God's people on a
- 38:50
- Sunday morning or Wednesday night or whatever, and preaching exegeting scripture to you, but I'm doing it in my home in a casual way.
- 39:00
- There's nothing wrong with that, and that's where I see Priscilla and Aquila, again, never says she was a pastor, she wasn't a deacon, she wasn't a bishop, she wasn't any of that.
- 39:09
- So I don't see the, again, I don't see the argument. It's like they're trying to do spiritual gymnastics to me.
- 39:16
- And again, the proof is on them. I always say, the proof is on you. You prove it biblically, I'll believe it, but they can't.
- 39:23
- Right, yeah, and as you mentioned a few minutes ago, it's not just a flip of the coin that all of the disciples, all of the apostles were men.
- 39:32
- That was not just a random decision. That was intentional by Christ. It was. Well, yeah, for sure, yeah, you're right.
- 39:42
- And none of the books in the Bible, none of the 66 books were written by women, all of them written by men.
- 39:51
- So this is not just a random thing, this is intentional. And let me bring out that God, there's nothing wrong with women.
- 39:59
- I mean, the Bible's full of women. There's four of them in Jesus' genealogy. God loves women, there's no, like you quoted, mentioned in Galatians three, with Christ, there's no male or female.
- 40:12
- We're equal in His eyes as far as our value, as far as redemption, but as far as what
- 40:19
- He's created for us to be on earth is very different. Yeah, absolutely. And I've told people in some of my own preaching,
- 40:27
- I've said, Kathy is indwelt by the same Holy Spirit who indwells me.
- 40:33
- And there have been times that she has brought things to my attention and I've realized she was right.
- 40:39
- I'm like, you're right. So there's nothing wrong with that, but it's a totally different thing when you're talking about the gathered church on a
- 40:51
- Sunday, under the authority of a man who is exegeting scripture. And that's a different.
- 41:00
- What about Junia in Romans? In Romans 16. Yeah, the
- 41:05
- Romans 16 is full of women, and Phoebe and I forget,
- 41:11
- Nereus, her sister, Mary, there's a lot of them in there, Romans 16. So a lot of women that Paul mentions.
- 41:17
- Well, it says she's a note among the apostles is what King James says. She's noted among the apostles.
- 41:23
- My understanding of that is that she was, the apostles just made notation of her. She was recognized by them.
- 41:30
- She must have been some kind of a great woman. You can't find out a lot about her, but she was just noted among the apostles.
- 41:41
- It doesn't say she was an apostle. You can't, you look at the Greek language. It does not say she was an apostle.
- 41:49
- It just says she was noted among them. Like, I serve in my local church and maybe my elders would say, there's five of them, say,
- 41:57
- Susan's noted among us. She does, she's the heads of women's ministry. She teaches the ladies of the
- 42:02
- Bible. She disciples lots of women in the church. So she's noted, she's given recognition or whatever, something like that.
- 42:09
- But again, Justin, all those three women, it's like, I prove it.
- 42:16
- The burden of proof is on them, not on me. It's on them to try to figure out how to make that work in the
- 42:22
- Bible. Yeah, yeah. It's not there. No, no, it's not. They're really, they're isogeting these texts.
- 42:29
- They're taking them to an extent that they obviously were never intended to be taken to.
- 42:35
- Right. Stretched beyond any credulity. One other argument that I hear a lot, well, what about the women at the tomb?
- 42:45
- It was women who first reported the resurrection. So how can you say that women shouldn't preach when it was the women who were at the tomb and they went and reported to the disciples that Jesus was raised from the dead?
- 42:58
- Is that a valid argument? No, not at all. And again, there's nothing there that said they preached.
- 43:05
- They didn't go run to the nearest synagogue and push the priest aside and say, let me have the podium.
- 43:14
- They didn't do that. And one of the last people Jesus saw was a woman, the woman that washed his feet with her hair and anointed him with oil and kissed his feet.
- 43:23
- I think it's a great, to me, it's a humbling thing to see all the women in the Bible, whether they're at the tomb, whether they're at the cross.
- 43:32
- Jesus loved women. He loved women. He loved men. He loved children. He loved all those he created.
- 43:41
- And so I don't, again, where's the proof in that? They just ran and told the disciples, hey, he's risen from the dead.
- 43:48
- That's not preaching. Yeah, it's reporting. Yeah, it's just reporting what happened or wrote it when she saw
- 43:55
- Peter, that she went back and told what had happened to him. He'd gotten out of prison.
- 44:01
- So again, she wasn't, wrote it, wasn't preaching either. So I don't know. I guess we could go through every woman from Eve to Jezebel at the end of Revelation.
- 44:11
- I don't know. Right, right, exactly. Yeah, so I don't know. Crazy, crazy, crazy.
- 44:17
- But I think when you are in a situation like that and you want to prove your doctrinal argument, you will rip scripture out of its context to try to make it say anything that you want it say for proof of argument and for proof of being right.
- 44:35
- And it's not about me being right. It's about me rightly dividing the word of truth. That's what
- 44:40
- I'm supposed to be about. So I always just put it back on them. You show me from scripture and I'll change.
- 44:49
- Exactly, yeah, that's what John MacArthur says. You convince me otherwise from scripture and I'll change. Yeah. So Susan, how does this flesh out in your own ministry when you're, let me put it this way.
- 45:01
- So you travel and speak at ladies' conferences. What is the complementarian view, your convictions on that?
- 45:11
- How does that fleshed out in your own ministry? If you were ever asked by a pastor to speak to a mixed group of men, how would you handle that?
- 45:21
- I don't, and I won't. And usually when I go some,
- 45:26
- I mean, they know that it's for women only, but I have been in places where I was in a situation,
- 45:33
- I think you know about this years ago, where the men wouldn't leave. And so the man who had invited me got up and he said, until you men leave, because it was a mixed audience, but then they were supposed to have breakout sessions and the men wouldn't leave.
- 45:47
- And so he said, she's not gonna start till you men leave. And I made some men mad.
- 45:53
- I do biblical counseling. And so when I go to the counseling conferences, I do workshop for women.
- 45:59
- And it says very plainly for women only, but I have to have my friend that travels with me,
- 46:04
- Debbie, stand at the door, because often men try to get in there. And so now
- 46:11
- I will say this, there are times in some churches are funny about this. They have a man do the recording. So he'll start the recording and run out the back door, but sometimes they're not able to do that.
- 46:21
- And so I don't feel like I'm breaking my rule or God's rule, but sometimes in those situations, there's not much
- 46:29
- I can do, but it's very clear that they know I do not teach men. And so I really haven't had a lot of issue with that, because I go to more churches that are like -minded, but I have been to some places where they've wanted me to bend that rule and I haven't.
- 46:45
- I was in a church one time where they had to have security. It was a very dangerous area in Massachusetts, and they had men with guns to protect us.
- 46:55
- And so in that situation, I wasn't quite sure what to do, but it was for our protection.
- 47:01
- They said it was bad area of town or something. I don't know. So those kinds of things are kind of hard, but no,
- 47:08
- I make it very clear. And I remember one time I was doing a dinner sometime for ladies and the men that were serving wanted to stay in.
- 47:17
- And I told the lady who invited me, I said, they need to go. So she told them and they left, so.
- 47:23
- Okay, yeah. That's kind of my rule. Right, right.
- 47:29
- And Kathy and I have long appreciated your consistency in that and your fidelity to scripture.
- 47:36
- And you don't feel slighted in any way. The egalitarians will say, oh, women are just as spiritual as men are.
- 47:45
- They're just as close with God. And to say that a woman can't preach, you're demeaning women.
- 47:51
- You don't feel any of that, do you, in your own? No, I'll tell you what I do feel when, I don't know how
- 47:56
- Beth does it and others do it, because if I were to get up in the podium and start, and there were men there,
- 48:03
- I would feel such a heavy conviction before the Lord. I don't think,
- 48:09
- I don't know how I could do it. I think my spirit would be so grieved. Now, does that mean men can't read my stuff?
- 48:16
- I mean, you read one of my books to critique it, but that doesn't mean that I'm, again, I'm not standing in the church preaching to men.
- 48:25
- But I know that there've been men that have read my books. That's up to, you know, it's up to them. I don't know why, but, you know, but I would feel so heavily convicted.
- 48:36
- I would not be able to do it. I would feel such condemnation from the Lord that I was sinning.
- 48:43
- I couldn't do it. Right. So I don't, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I've got so many women that want help and in their lives right now that I, I'm not missing out on anything.
- 48:56
- Right. And you're doing Titus too, right? The older women, younger women.
- 49:02
- Amen. And I'm grateful for that. The Lord's given me a great ministry.
- 49:07
- I'm so grateful and humbled by it. Thankful. Right. And we're not saying that a woman does not, that some women don't have the spiritual gift of teaching.
- 49:19
- Clearly you do, but you use that gift properly and you teach other women, which is what scripture says.
- 49:26
- Yep. Yep. Well, Susan, if I can ask you to kind of go off on a little bit of a tangential direction here.
- 49:33
- I get emails pretty real frequently from ladies who are basically in a situation in which they are believers.
- 49:43
- They are growing in Christ. They're growing in their knowledge and understanding of scripture, but their husbands don't share that desire.
- 49:51
- They're, they're either unbelievers or they're very weak believers in all likelihood unbelievers.
- 49:59
- And sometimes even ladies will say, my husband doesn't want me to go to church. So what does a, what would your advice be to women in that kind of a situation?
- 50:09
- I want to go to church. I'm growing in the Lord. My husband doesn't want me to, my husband's not, what would your, what would your encouragement be to them?
- 50:19
- Well, in that situation, what I would do is encourage her first of all, to find a older woman that can help her and mentor her and pour into her, pray for her, hold her accountable for being the wife.
- 50:32
- She needs to be the first Peter three wife. And then I would also encourage her to obey the
- 50:40
- Lord over her husband. But let me, let me explain what I mean by that. Let's say she wants to go to church.
- 50:46
- I, our church, we have Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night. We have Wednesday night prayer meeting. I would tell her so that her husband can still lead is that, honey,
- 50:55
- I, you know, I love you. I want to be under your authority, but I, the Lord is my ultimate authority and he commands me in Hebrews to not forsake the assembling.
- 51:07
- So I do want to go and I will go, but I, what service would you like me to go to? You know, you, you want me to go
- 51:14
- Sunday morning, Sunday night so that he still is the head, but she can't deny her
- 51:19
- Lord in order to obey her husband. But again, I think she needs a lot of training, how to do that with all respect and graciousness that she might incur persecution from that.
- 51:31
- But then I would teach her how to handle persecution from her husband, things like that. So it's more than just a pat answer and how to do that graciously and kindly.
- 51:41
- But I never, ever tell a woman to disobey the Lord so that she can obey her husband.
- 51:47
- But there's a way to do that. That's kind and gracious and still with an attitude of humility and submission.
- 51:54
- Right? It's hard. It's hard. It is hard. And I usually go through the excellent wife with her by Martha piece.
- 52:01
- I think that's a great book on just teaching her what the role is of the wife to be submissive and how to respect him, how to love him, how to be the keeper at home.
- 52:11
- She used to be in things like that. So I usually go that through that with her. Yeah. Yeah. The excellent wife and the exemplary husband.
- 52:18
- They're kind of two companion. Kathy and I both read those. Well, I haven't read the exemplary wife.
- 52:24
- I mean, the excellent wife. I've read the exemplary husband. So I would commend those, those books to our viewers here.
- 52:32
- Absolutely. Very good. Yeah. That's a hard situation. Very hard. Yeah, it is. It is hard.
- 52:39
- Well, Susan, where can, where can ladies find out more about your ministry? What's your website? www .withthemaster
- 52:48
- .org. So also they can find me on YouTube. Now I have a lady in my church running my
- 52:53
- YouTube channel. We have five of my whole series on there. Plus we're trying to get them all up.
- 52:59
- I've written 13 studies to date, working on number 14 so they can get those there.
- 53:05
- Then that's a good place to go to, but the website will lead them to all that. So. Okay. All right.
- 53:12
- Excellent. And Susan, as we close, if by some chance
- 53:17
- Beth Moore ends up watching this, would you have a word to Beth Moore?
- 53:24
- Yes, I would love to. I would, you know, my daughter lives in the Houston area and I've always wanted to figure out how
- 53:31
- I could go to her, Beth Moore's house with an open Bible. So if Beth Moore is listening,
- 53:37
- I would love to sit down with you with an open Bible. And talk about God's word together and reason with her.
- 53:47
- I would encourage her to back up everything that she is doing even now by the word of God.
- 53:55
- That was the other thing I noticed when she did that tweet about complementarianism. Do you know that she had no scripture to back up her view?
- 54:03
- And I don't know if you noticed all the people that were heralding her had no scripture.
- 54:09
- Yeah. None whatsoever. Yeah. That to me, Beth is a, is a dangerous place to be very, very dangerous.
- 54:18
- If you can't say that says the Lord, then she really should probably step out of that role of teaching women the
- 54:26
- Bible. So I would encourage her to step out of that role unless she can repent and find, you know,
- 54:34
- I'm sure by now she's got plenty of money to live. And I don't mean that unkindly. I mean, I'm pretty sure she's made a lot of money on her books and her teaching, you know, her speaking and just be enjoy her grandchildren in her home, you know, but she shouldn't be up teaching the
- 54:50
- Bible if she can't teach it in its, in its fullness and context. So that's what
- 54:55
- I would say to her. Yeah. And I would say, even if she did by God's grace, come to that realization, then she would need, she would need her own time in Arabia.
- 55:07
- You know, like Paul had before he, before he started his, his ministry.
- 55:14
- So she would, because there's, there's a lot of, a lot of deprogramming that, that she's got to, she would have to do a lot of reevaluation on, on many, many things.
- 55:24
- Well, the warnings to false teachers in second Timothy and Judah are frightening to me. They're terrifying. Yes. And so I, I don't understand it, but you know, so many of them are deluded.
- 55:34
- They've deceived themselves. And so she's probably just doesn't see it. I mean, she's probably blind.
- 55:40
- You can't see it. So it's very dangerous. And yet she's been confronted lovingly.
- 55:45
- Maybe some people have confronted or not lovingly, but I tell you, if I had people coming after me, like they go after her,
- 55:52
- I think I would stop and think and listen and evaluate my ministry. yeah, you know, and, and when you have a man, for example,
- 56:01
- John MacArthur, a man of his stature, and he's asked all the, all the publicity was about those two words, go home.
- 56:10
- But he had a lot more to say in, in answer to that question regarding Beth Moore. But when you have a man of the stature of John MacArthur, it's been pastoring now for,
- 56:19
- I think close to 52 years, written a commentary sets, preached through every verse in the new
- 56:26
- Testament. I mean, and, and he indicates that there's a, there's a problem, some things you need to consider.
- 56:32
- I, if John MacArthur came to me and said, Justin, you've got some serious things here that you need to be evaluating.
- 56:38
- I would listen to him. If your husband, Doug came to me and said that they're just, you've got some serious error here in your theology.
- 56:45
- I would listen to him. And it's, it's unfortunate that Beth is not.
- 56:50
- I agree. And when women come to me and say, I, could you explain this? I don't understand what you just said on your teaching.
- 56:57
- Then I do. I, I respond to them and I think through it. And sometimes I'll ask my husband, you know, so, um,
- 57:03
- I, I try to be open, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna deny scripture. I'm not gonna change my views just to suit some woman who doesn't like my interpretation of first Timothy or something else.
- 57:16
- So I have to stand before the Lord. And I've heard you say this many times, Justin, you've got to worry about pleasing one person and that's
- 57:23
- God. I can't worry about pleasing people. So. Yeah. We've got one person to whom we will give an account.
- 57:31
- Yep. Amen. Well, Susan, thank you so much for your time. You're welcome.
- 57:37
- It was great. Yeah. So thanks for letting me be on. And I hope the
- 57:43
- Lord will use it for his purposes and maybe awake, awaken more women to the truth.
- 57:48
- That would be my desire. Indeed. Indeed. Thank you very much, Susan. All right. All right, dear ones.
- 57:55
- I hope that this was an encouragement to you and thank you very much for joining Susan and me until our next time together.
- 58:02
- May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of his Holy spirit be with you all.