WWUTT 2270 Q&A Entertainment Choices, Women Speaking in Church, Responding to Dan McClellan

What are good, healthy relations between a husband and wife in marriage? How do we decide what entertainment is okay for us to consume?

Music, movies, television? In what capacity can women speak up in church? The answer is when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wtt .com. Once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone. Becky is not with me again this week, and we both apologize.

Last week, she wasn't able to be on because I misplaced the microphone. It was totally my fault.

I only had one mic. And then this week, she's on a three -day migraine. So your prayers for her would be greatly appreciated.

She's been totally wiped out. And I even asked her, I said, hey, I've recorded the other half of the broadcast already.

Can you just do half of it with me? And she tried, but to no avail. So this is harder for me.

Every time I have to do this by myself, I would much rather do it with her, not just because we enjoy doing this together and talking this out with one another.

But whenever she's on, and we're just having a conversation, I'll just blow right through it.

Whenever I'm doing it by myself, I second -guess everything. I'll stop and make edits. It takes me longer when

I'm doing it by myself. So your prayers for her, greatly appreciated. And as always, we thank you for your emails and your voicemails.

You can send an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Voicemail messages, go to wwutt .com,

click on the voicemail tab on the top right corner of the page there, and take a minute and a half.

Record a comment to us, or if you have a question for the broadcast, and I'll get to a voicemail here in a moment.

Let's get back to our study in Proverbs, chapter five. I'm picking up in verse 15. And this section, by the way, this section of Proverbs, probably better that Becky is not here, and I'm just doing this by myself.

I might embarrass her. You'll understand very shortly. Proverbs five, beginning in verse 15, drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.

Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.

Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always with her love.

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman, and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths.

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.

He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly, he is led astray.

If you'll remember the context of what we're reading here in Proverbs chapter five, this is the warning that a father gives to his son to stay away from the adulteress, from the forbidden woman.

Instead, he tells his son, drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.

Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets, let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.

And as you can tell by the context of what we read here, the father is telling his son, have a wife, and enjoy the intimacy that God intended for a husband and wife to share only between the two of you.

You don't share it with anybody else. You don't drink from somebody else's well. You don't let your springs be scattered abroad.

Remember that we read previously in Proverbs chapter four, to guard your heart for from it flow the springs of life.

So let this romance, this passion that you share with your spouse, let it be between the two of you.

And God intended for that intimacy to be shared between a husband and a wife.

It's good. It is a good thing when a husband and wife can enjoy even physical pleasures with each other.

That's not a bad thing. There have been some prudes over the years in various decades that have said things like you should not even have such carnal desires.

I don't know if you remember David Koresh, who was the leader of the

Branch Davidians, you know, the whole Waco thing that happened back in the 90s. But David Koresh, who was from the

Seventh -day Adventists, he claimed that he was a messiah himself. But all of this kind of spun out of Seventh -day

Adventism. That's where his whole messiahship began. Anyway, he would say that a man should not have carnal pleasure at all.

Even a husband should not enjoy intimacy with his wife. Just totally absurd.

Of course, he told all of the men in his cult that they couldn't sleep with their wives anymore. Their wives actually had to sleep with David Koresh.

So yeah, anyway, but yeah, you will find some radicalism out there, even among evangelicals that will say you shouldn't get too excited when you're with your spouse.

Now, of course, everything in moderation. But God did intend for the love that a husband shares with his wife, that a wife shares with her husband.

He meant for a husband and wife to enjoy that. The Apostle Paul sang in 1 Corinthians 7, because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband.

For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self -control.

And so the father says to his son here in Proverbs 5, 18, let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a graceful doe.

Which is a similar description that she's given in the Song of Songs as well. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight and be intoxicated always in her love.

It is okay for you as a husband and wife to enjoy each other's bodies.

That's where that enjoyment should take place in marriage. It wasn't that God made

Adam and then God made Eve and then Satan snuck into the garden and stuck parts on them that God didn't intend.

No, he made this man and this woman and looked at them and said, it's good. It's very good.

It is good for a man and a woman to love each other and to be fruitful in that union and multiply.

And so as the father goes on to warn his son, why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

What will happen if the son does so? Verse 21, for a man's ways are before the eyes of the

Lord and he ponders all his paths. I said this to you. I can't remember if it was last week or the week before.

But if a person has secret sins that he doesn't want anybody else to know about and he does not have the fear of God, then all he's concerned about is man.

He has the fear of man, but he doesn't have the fear of God. As long as I can keep these sins hidden and nobody else knows about them, then what is his fear of?

Not God. It's as if he's forgotten that God watches and God knows all.

And it is God who will judge these sins that you love and try to keep shrouded in darkness.

Nothing is hidden from God. All a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord. So know that and fear

God and repent. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, verse 22 says, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.

The more you continue in this sin, the more it will hold on to you.

He dies for lack of discipline and because of his great folly, he is led astray.

There are many who think that I can sin a little bit. God will just forgive me for it. Well, how do you know that God won't turn you over to a depraved mind to be consumed by your sin?

Don't think so highly of yourself and don't take advantage of God's grace, thinking that he will just forgive you of it.

Because then you're actually demonstrating you're not in God's grace. You're still a slave to your sin.

As Paul talks about in Romans chapter six, repent, turn to the Lord. First John 1, 9, if we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Remembering also David in Psalm 51, created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and walk in that joy, that light, that grace all your days.

Well, let's get to some questions here. Once again, you can send those questions via email to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

First I'm going to do a voicemail, so that's www .utt .com and click on the voicemail tab there.

Record the voicemail either from your phone or from your laptop. This is from James.

Here is James's question. Hey Pastor Gabe, I had a quick question as to why you are hesitant at letting people know the media you're consuming, shows, podcasts, et cetera.

I've been listening to you for a while and you do say you don't like to, but I'm just curious as to why.

I know that when I'm suggesting podcasts or shows to some people,

I will give different disclaimers about what the show is about, what the podcast is about, and if I even think it would be edifying for the person to listen to because it might be more spiritually mature or get into the weeds that that person wouldn't be edifying to that person.

I'm just curious as to one, why you're hesitant about letting people know what you listen to and what wisdom you would give to suggesting content to other people.

Thank you. I appreciate your question, James. Some things I don't have any problem talking about, like I listen to Renewing Your Mind pretty regularly.

Well, I say regularly, I'll actually go three weeks or something not listening to it and then

I'll binge a bunch of episodes and just knock out like three weeks worth at once. That's the program that R .C.

Sproul was doing when he was alive and is still on the air, still a daily podcast.

That is one that I'm happy to recommend, especially as right now I think what they're airing on Renewing Your Mind is stuff about the five solas since it's the month of October.

Of course, we remember the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, so that's usually the teaching series that they will go through from Sproul during this particular month and some of the other teachers at Ligonier as well.

If I can't think of anything else to listen to, I pull up the Refinet app, which is put out by Ligonier.

So Reformation Network, if you have either a Droid or an iPhone, whatever store it is, it's the app store on the iPhone, it's the

Play Store, I guess it is on Droid. Then you look up Refinet or Reformation Network, and it's internet radio for free right there on your phone.

And I don't have to sit there and kind of scroll through podcasts and decide what I want to listen to. I just pull up Refinet and hit play, and it's playing no matter what

I'm doing, whether I'm driving, taking a shower, doing some other work where I want some teaching in the background.

That's about the easiest resource to go to. And then I still listen to Wretched and Renewing Your Mind, the

Dividing Line, James White, also Albert Moller, The Briefing. There's some other news podcasts and some one -offs that I'll listen to.

There was a podcast I was listening to recently on the history of Rome, and it's not done by a Christian guy, but I just found it was interesting because I wanted to know more about the history of Rome.

I'm about to jump into a series on the Book of Romans, so I figured that would even help me with some background, some of the introductory stuff

I'm going to do when I jump into the Roman series and the sermons that I'm preaching on Sunday. We'll start that one in November.

So some things I'm more than happy to say, hey, here's what I listen to, it's what I recommend, and you can catch it yourself.

But usually, especially when it comes to entertainment choices regarding television, movies, and music,

I do tend to be hesitant to share those things because it's so subjective, and I don't know what will cause somebody to stumble.

There might be a PG movie that me and the kids watch that we enjoy, and if I say something about, oh, we watched this, it was hilarious, it was a lot of fun, hey,

I want you to be careful though, somebody said a bad word here or something like that, even if I do that kind of a thing,

I will get an email about it. It seems like if there's anything that is most guaranteed to generate complaints, it's when

I talk about entertainment and the media consumption that we do.

And I'll have somebody who'll say, you let your kids watch that? Or didn't you know that it was made by this studio and they support this thing?

And so for that reason, and it's not that I'm trying to avoid the complaints. It's that I don't want to cause somebody else to stumble.

If it's a weakness for somebody else, because these things are, they're Christian liberty issues, it might be okay for you and it doesn't cause you to sin at all.

But if somebody else can't watch that or enjoy that with a clear conscience, then it would just be better for me to not talk about it at all, or to not even watch it at all.

I mean, I've made that decision too. I don't even want to watch it in case somebody comes to me and says, hey, have you seen this?

And if I say yes, I will have to, because I need to tell the truth.

If I say yes, am I going to cause that person to stumble? And they're like, wow, the pastor watches that? Or something to that degree.

Now there are things that as Christians, we absolutely should not watch. I'm not saying that any and all media is okay for Christians.

Christian liberty, so you can watch or listen to whatever. There are things we definitely should not be putting before our eyes.

And I hope that goes without saying, that I don't have to tell you, you should not be watching movies with sex scenes in them.

I'm on the side that's a little more lenient about violence, because all of the violence in a movie or a

TV show or whatever, I mean, there's gratuitous violence, of course, you can go way too far out there. But all the violence is pretend.

Nobody's actually dying. And in a lot of cases, nobody's even getting hurt. It's all makeup and effects.

But with a sex scene, it's not. And people are doing sexually immoral things with one another on a screen, and you're paying for it, which is prostitution.

I mean, it's contributing to pornography. And these people are doing on a screen something that should only be enjoyed between a man and his wife in the bedroom, in the marriage bed, as we just talked about, reading from Proverbs 5.

You become a participant in it when you watch it. And these people, this actor and actress or whoever else might be involved in the scene, they're getting paid to do that, which is prostitution.

It's legal prostitution. And so there are things that we as Christians should absolutely not be entertained by.

Do not be entertained by sins that Christ died for. But when it comes to those other media things that we can agree to disagree on,

I'm very limited in what I talk about with those things, because I don't want it to cause somebody else to stumble. And it's not that I don't speak about it in any capacity whatsoever, because in the company of certain friends, we'll talk about what shows we're watching.

Sometimes we'll watch things with the kids, and then we ask them questions about it. Now, what was okay about that?

What wasn't okay? And in what ways can we see the work of God through a program like this?

Maybe the characters in the show didn't believe in God. Maybe the actors don't believe in God. But was there something there, like natural theology, that will show to us through some general revelation how

God works in his creation? And we'll talk about that with our children. When it comes to music,

I've shared different bands and stuff like that. Every once in a while, we'll get an email saying, hey, can you recommend good music?

We've talked about Seeds Family Worship or any of the music you hear on RefNet, though that tends to be very light, very kind of classical sounding.

My kids love listening to the music that I listened to back in the 90s. They like that stuff.

They really don't care for the newer, modern stuff. They liked what Becky and I listened to. So we'll listen to classic contemporary

Christian music, things like Michael W. Smith, Stephen Curtis Chapman, and DC Talk. But even talking about that can be a stumbling block, because somebody will say, don't you know that Michael W.

Smith partners with Bethel Music, and you're still being entertained by his stuff? And so again, it's very selective with regards to what

I talk about, because I don't want it to be something that might cause somebody else to stumble.

Christian liberty is really the category that this falls into. So like 1 Corinthians 8 -10 and Romans 14, chapters like that.

Philippians 4, verse 8, the Apostle Paul says, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

And that's a good standard to apply when it comes to deciding what kind of entertainment is healthy for you or for your family.

If anything is worthy of praise, think about these things. Are you setting something before your eyes and ears, even, that will cause you to sin, will pull you into sin?

Are you the kind of person that can't watch something with a lot of foul language in it? Because you will start to say things like that.

Personally, I can't stand a lot of foul language anyway. I don't want to watch something that is just going overboard with all of these excessive curse words.

I don't even enjoy that. It just makes my soul feel dark. Even if it's not something that might cause me to stumble in the sense that I will start repeating things that the characters are saying on the show, it just leaves a darkness in me.

I feel totally unfulfilled. And once again, going back to that verse in Proverbs, guard your heart for from it flow the wellsprings of life.

It is the conscience that guides you and that conscience needing to be equipped, filled with the

Holy Spirit to guide us to do things, say things, participate in things that are

God honoring and not just trying to satisfy our entertainment whimsies.

There's the old Sunday school song we teach to our kids. Be careful little eyes what you see. Be careful little hands what you do.

Be careful little feet where you go. And we might shrug it off as a Sunday school song, but it's still good counsel.

It's still good advice that we meditate on those things that are God honoring, that draw us to think about godly things instead of pulling us into the world.

Remember Colossians chapter three tells us, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Are you being entertained by things that are helping to pull your attention that way? Or is your entertainment making you feel more and more worldly and even envying the things of this world, thinking more in a worldly way instead of in a godly way?

So thank you again for your question, James, and I appreciate you listening. This next one comes from Aaron.

Hey, Pastor Gabe, I have a question about women in the church. Recently I attended a Bible study open to the whole church, co -ed, no age restrictions, et cetera, just a good old fashioned

Bible study. I was surprised when after the passage to be studied was read and explained by an elder, discussion time included both men and women sharing their insights and thoughts on the passage.

I was further surprised at the conclusion when it came time to close in prayer and all were encouraged to pray.

Everyone prayed one at a time if they wanted to, out loud for all to hear, and I was surprised to hear the women leading prayers in a room full of men.

I ask about this with 1 Timothy 2, 9 -15 and 1 Corinthians 14, 34 -36 in mind.

It literally says women are not permitted to speak in church and rather they are to ask their husbands at home.

It also says they are to learn in quietness. I'm reading out of the LSB, he says. I apologize for the long email, but I want you to have the full details so you can understand where I am coming from.

I do not want to be legalistic at all here, but I also don't want to be a squishy fellow when it comes to God's word.

Amen to that. So I simply took the scriptures listed above at face value and thought women couldn't do that in church.

Please help me out here and thank you so much for your faithful ministry. P .S.

This is a sound biblical reformed church with faithful male pastors, male elders, and male deacons.

Hence, why I was so shocked at the above occurrences with my possibly wrong understandings of the aforementioned

Bible passages. Thanks Aaron. Well, I appreciate you brother. Hey, this might surprise you, but we do this in our church.

Now, we have a co -ed Bible study that we do on Wednesday night. It's husbands and wives together, some single men and some single women that will attend these as well.

And it's open discussion. And what we talk about is what was preached in the sermon on Sunday.

That's usually what's driving our conversations on Wednesday.

It is further elaboration on the sermon. All small groups are being led by questions that were submitted by the elders.

But the conversation is open floor. Yeah, even wives can chime in and share some of the things that they thought regarding the sermon.

And when we pray, a woman might be praying in our groups as well. We also have a

Wednesday of the month that will be just for women and another Wednesday of the month that will be just for men.

We have a Saturday breakfast that we do once a month. It's a prayer breakfast and prayers are open to anyone to pray.

Anyone can raise a voice and pray. We begin praying by just lifting prayers unto

God, praises unto him for just how good he is. That's how we start.

We praise the Lord. And then prayer requests will be submitted and we're praying for one another.

And that's what's going on in the prayer breakfast. Sunday morning, when it comes to the gathering of the church in formal congregational worship on Sunday morning, that is led by men, whether it's the teaching or a reading, a congregational confession or the music, it's all led by men.

Now, a woman may sing, may be singing along with the man. I'm thinking of the husband and wife duo that we have that will help lead the music on Sunday morning, but it's still led by men.

All of that is led by the elders and the deacons in the church. All of the officers of the church are involved in that worship service.

But when it comes to other things, Sunday night, too, is mostly led by men. The prayer requests may be submitted by women, but the one who leads prayer on Sunday night.

So for Lord's Day worship, it's the men in our church that are leading that.

So how does this go with what we read in 1 Timothy chapter 2? I'm going to limit myself to just one passage here for the sake of time.

But 1 Timothy 2, 11, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

Rather, she is to remain quiet. And the reason given for Adam was formed first, then

Eve and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

The way that Bible studies are working in our home on a Wednesday night is a much more informal sort of gathering.

It wouldn't be too much different than, I mean, if all of us were just sitting around the dining room table and talking with one another.

So in this capacity, there's not a woman that has authority and is not even teaching men.

It is it's just conversation. It is led by an elder. All of the small groups are led by an elder.

And this passage in 1 Timothy 2 is not saying that women should not be talking about theological things at all.

I talk about theological things with my wife all the time. You're witness to that. You've heard that here on this podcast.

So by that same token, that we can have these kinds of discussions in in coed groups.

But when it comes to that corporate worship on Sunday morning, the gathering of the church in which we hear the word preached, we partake in the

Lord's table. We might even rejoice in baptism. We are confessing with one another, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in our hearts to God.

All of these things that we do in the corporate service guides everything else about the church. I believe it was

Spurgeon who said, as goes the pulpit, so goes the church. And when it comes to when it comes to that management of the household of God, then that is where the teaching and the guiding principles and everything, the authority is resting upon those qualified men in the church.

Because even when you have the instructions in Titus 2 about women mentoring women and men mentoring men, well, all of that comes after the appointment of elders in the church.

So those men filling the overseer position is guiding everything else in the spiritual life of the church.

It begins there. There are other facets in which we as a church might gather and meet.

But when it comes to that corporate worship service, that's where those principles especially would be applied.

And when it comes to the offices of the church, elder and deacon, well, the office is the function and the function is the office.

So for the person that fills that office, especially of pastor, he is the preacher, all of the elders holding equal authority with that man, though there might be one person that is more devoted to the preaching and teaching to the others.

But these are godly, faithful men that are helping to guide the direction of the church. And it's supposed to be men who are filling those offices.

If there's anything else about that you want me to elaborate on, then Aaron, you're certainly welcome to email back and ask me some more.

And we'll come back to this question again. This ends this first segment. If you're listening on the radio, there's a whole hour in which we respond to questions and comments.

You can go to www .utt .com and find the full broadcast there.

God bless. The doctrine of Sola Scriptura, or Scripture alone, is the understanding that God's Word, written in Scripture, what we might also call the

Bible, is the sole source of divine revelation, the only inspired, infallible, and final authority of faith and practice.

As 2 Timothy 3 .16 says, all Scripture is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

What Scripture says, God says. There is therefore a difference between what the Bible says and what man says.

This doctrine was prominent during the 16th century period called the Protestant Reformation, because the church in Rome had come to believe that our final authority was somewhere other than God.

They had given equal authority to Rome's Tradition as another source of revelation, with the

Pope and the Roman Catholic Magisterium as the final authority of the Christian faith. As Rome has declared, it is not from Scripture alone that the church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed.

Therefore both Tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same devotion and reverence.

What inevitably happens is that Tradition is elevated over Scripture, thus making Scripture a slave to Tradition.

As Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, "...you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men."

Mark 7, 8. According to the Council of Trent, in response to the Reformation, no one is permitted to read the

Scriptures as meaning anything other than what Rome says it means. Popes and councils will err, but God's Word never errs.

The church does not define Scripture. Scripture defines the church. All its clergy and councils, creeds and confessions are subject to God's authority, according to His Word, in the

Scriptures alone. For you have exalted above all things your name and your word.

The Word of the Lord remains forever when we understand the text. Earlier this week

I crossed paths with a guy named Dan McClellan. And I've seen his stuff before. Every once in a while something that he posts will come across my ex -feed.

It's very theologically liberal. I've never interacted with his stuff. We've never had an exchange until this past week.

But you know, I was kind of somewhat familiar with him. Watched a couple of videos of his.

Straight down heretical. I don't even think the guy claims to be a Christian. But he does claim to be a

Bible scholar. And boy does he claim to be a Bible scholar. So anyway,

I had made this post on Ex in which I said the church does not define the Scripture. The Scripture defines the church.

Now of course I'm responding to Roman Catholicism when I make a comment like that. Because Rome will say that they have all of the control of whatever

Scripture says. And if you believe anything about the Bible that Rome has not taught, the

Scripture says, then you're wrong. You have to submit to the Pope and the Roman Catholic Magisterium, which tells you everything that you need to believe about the

Bible. But we don't define what Scripture says. The Scripture defines what the church is supposed to be.

Church does not have authority over the Scripture. We are to be in submission to the Scripture because the

Scripture is God's Word. It is the highest authority. But anyway, after making that post,

Dan retweeted it. Not coming from a Roman Catholic perspective. But he said,

LOL, entirely false. The Trinity, Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Original Sin, Creation Ex Nihilo, Anti -Anthropomorphism,

Inspiration, Univocality, Inerrancy, Abolition, etc. are all ways the church renegotiated what the

Scriptures were allowed to be and say. So in other words, Dan is saying that doctrines like the

Trinity, even the Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Omnipotence of God, Scripture actually doesn't speak of this.

We came up with these ideas and imposed them on the Scripture. You won't find anything in the

Bible about Original Sin, according to Dan, or that God created all things out of nothing. Anti -Anthropomorphism.

I don't know what that's supposed to mean because the Bible does use anthropomorphism to describe

God. You know, when he says that I uphold you with my mighty right hand. God doesn't really have a right hand.

He's Spirit. So I don't know what Dan means by that. Anti -Anthropomorphism, because we would say the

Scripture does use anthropomorphism. Inspiration, that men who wrote the

Scriptures were led by the Holy Spirit. Univocality, that it all has one meaning, one voice talking about the same thing.

Inerrancy, the Scriptures are without error. Abolition, I'm supposing he's referring to the abolition of slavery.

So he's claiming the Bible doesn't speak on any of these things. We've imposed those views onto the text.

They're always the church renegotiated what the Scriptures were allowed to be and say.

And all of that's complete nonsense. It's almost as if he's coming at this as though he were, if Roman Catholicism could be atheism.

That sounds like the way that he's approaching this. But I responded to him and I made a snarky quote.

I put it in quotations. So, you know, I'm just being snarky. I said, God wouldn't even know what he meant without us.

And Dan replied, here, you're dogmatically presupposing your interpretation is what God is saying, quote unquote.

He put God in quotes. I don't know why he did that. Rather than acknowledging your interpretation of the Bible is one of many possible interpretations of a collection of texts written by a humans.

I guess that's a typo and mediated by lots of different frameworks and lenses.

So I'm just I'm just making one of many interpretations. In other words, we can't possibly know what

Scripture says. Scripture is so abstract that it's beyond our reading comprehension.

I mean, if that's true of one text, then it's true of all of them. If Jesus said, love your neighbor, well, that's just abstract.

You can't really love your neighbor because you can't really know what Jesus meant by that if we're going to go by Dan's hermeneutic here.

And so I replied, there are not many possible interpretations. There's only one interpretation.

And he said more assertions of unthinking dogmatism. So I said to him, you have he him in your bio in his bio on X.

He had preferred pronouns, usually an indication that person is pro LGBTQ. So I said, is an

LGBTQ ism your dogmatism? In other words, he's pro homosexuality. And Dan said, nope, you should get better educated about your own

Bible before you start pretending to lecture people about things you don't even pretend to know about, which doesn't make any sense.

You you need to get better educated about your own Bible before you start pretending to lecture people about things you don't even pretend to know about.

He made a typo earlier, so I don't know if that was another typo or not. Well, I went to Dan's Instagram page.

And of course, I immediately found videos that were arguing for why the

Bible would actually be for homosexual behavior. Well, let me explain it a different way.

He makes the argument that God is in favor of LGBTQ perversions, that LGBTQ persons, homosexuals are not in sin.

They're not doing anything that God disapproves of. And you can even come to that conclusion through reading your

Bible. Here's one such video where Dan attempts to make this kind of argument.

It's a lot of spin, but hang tight here. If you believe that the God of the Bible does not support enslaving other human beings, then you have all the tools, resources, and experiences that you need to believe that the

God of the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan. I'm a scholar of the

Bible and religion. Let me let me stop there. So like I said, yeah, he loves to remind you that he is a scholar of the

Bible. He has PhD in his bio. And in every video of his that I watched, he started like this.

I'm a scholar of the Bible. I'm like, I'm really important. I really know what

I'm talking about. And you need to listen to me. And there are five passages across the Hebrew Bible and the

New Testament that condemn different kinds of same sex intercourse in different ways and for different reasons.

I thought there were eight. So it's interesting that he uses the number five. I think it was

Matthew Vines when he did his videos and series of lectures about homosexuality in the

Bible. There's only eight passages. That's kind of the common description of it anyway.

So I'm not sure how Dan came up with five, nor does he explain which passages he had in mind, but neither conclusion is correct.

There's more than five. There's more than eight. In fact, any time the

Bible speaks against sexual immorality, that would include homosexual behavior, because in other places in scripture, homosexuality is grouped as sexually immoral behavior.

God created sex to be enjoyed between a man and his wife in marriage.

And that's it. Anything else outside of that context is immoral. It is sin.

And for this, God will judge, as said in Colossians 3, 5, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Even the desire of it is sin and idolatry against such things.

Verse six says the wrath of God is coming. And so it is very clear where the

Bible stands on this particular issue and speaks of it in dozens and dozens of places, not just five, not just eight.

But the Bible invests far more real estate to talking about the ways that God would prefer you enslave other people.

So his argument here is going to be that the Bible talks more about slavery and in what ways you can enslave a person than the

Bible talks about homosexuality. This is a somewhat new argument.

I mean, meaning that I've never heard a person piece it together just like this before. Usually when when a person will make this kind of argument, they will they'll come up with other things like the

Bible says more about dietary laws than it even speaks about homosexuality or something like that.

I mean, that's a that's a common form of argument. I've heard that before. This is the first time I've ever heard this argument phrased in this way.

The Bible says more about slavery than it says about homosexuality. And so if you think slavery is bad because God actually permits slavery.

So if you think it's wrong, then you have all the tools you need to come to the conclusion that God is actually

OK with homosexuality. That's going to be his argument here. So going on. And then well over a thousand years later, society decided to change and to reject that practice as evil.

Slavery is what he's talking about. And it was right to do so. But it meant that a lot of people had to turn around and look back at the

Bible and renegotiate their relationship with it and their understanding of the

God of the Bible so that they could move forward with the Bible, along with the observation that buying, selling, abusing and enslaving other human beings was evil.

So if you are one of those who endorses the outcome of that renegotiation and believes that the

God of the Bible does not support enslaving other human beings, then you have all the tools, the resources and the experiences that you need to do the same thing regarding homosexuality and the

Bible. So you get where he's coming from. You see how he kind of he wonderfully weaseled through all through all of that.

So if you think slavery is bad now, you've renegotiated what the

Bible actually says about slavery to come to the conclusion that slavery is bad. And so you can employ that same tactic regarding the passages that the

Bible talks about homosexuality being a sin. And you can renegotiate those passages to see that God is actually approving of same sex intercourse and same sex behavior.

God would actually approve of that because, I mean, you think God is against slavery now when the

Bible is permitting slavery. So if that's what you think, you can follow that same trajectory, that same reprogramming of your thinking to draw the same conclusion now about homosexuality.

Yeah, the Bible used to condemn it. It used to be bad. But we've come to now see how good it is for people.

This is such a snaky argument. I mean, if there's anything that is characterizing of Satan in the

Garden of Eden, did God really say, it's this argument right here.

Same strategy, different day. The only thing that is getting in the way is fear.

Fear of having to dismantle and reconstruct a worldview that has been so central to us.

Fear of losing the access to power and resources that has been facilitated by that identity marker.

Fear of what will become of the relationships that have been so central to our experiences.

And so what about fear of God? That didn't seem to make his list, did it?

Now, the reason why you don't want to move beyond your dogmatic belief system that homosexuality is bad.

The reason why you don't want to move beyond that is because you're just afraid. I mean, you're really just a coward.

You've gotten so comfortable in the friendships and the relationships that you have and the power structures that you're used to and all these kinds of things.

And you don't want to let those things go. Hey, they're familiar. I get it. But you need to man up and you need to move beyond all of that.

And you need to be welcoming of your LGBTQ neighbor. Romans 3 18.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. And that's Dan McClellan.

Fear is standing in the way of endorsing that renegotiation with the Bible. Well, OK, now that part's true.

Fear is standing in the way of my renegotiation with the Bible. Fear of God, as said in Proverbs 1 7, the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of knowledge and fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Here is a man who has no fear of God. And so he's going to renegotiate the

Bible to say whatever he wants it to say. Word of God itself is not standing in the way it is negotiable.

And if you believe that the God of the Bible does not support enslaving other human beings, you've already been through those negotiations and you are already comfortable with them.

OK, that's the end of the video. And really, that argument might work on somebody who is very driven by emotions when it comes to what they believe about the

Bible and their affections toward things that God has commanded. Like they've come to believe that the

Bible says slavery is wrong. All forms of slavery are wrong, because that's really what you would have to conclude in order for Dan's argument to work there, that all forms of slavery are wrong.

So there are people that have come to that conclusion. And the reason they've come to that conclusion is because they're more driven by their emotions than they have a real understanding of what

Scripture says. So the affections in the United States of America are very anti -slavery, largely because of our slaveholding past.

And so now, since the culturally acceptable understanding is to think that slavery is wrong, all forms of slavery are wrong, therefore we have that in our minds, that any kind of enslavement is godless, it is sinful.

And so we've come to believe that that's what Scripture says about slavery, which is all emotionally driven, rather than understanding what the

Scripture actually says about slavery. There are places in Scripture where we are told that we are to be slaves.

Romans 6, 19, just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.

So we are to be slaves. We are to be slaves to righteousness. We are to be slaves to Christ.

Consider the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, 14. For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted them to his property.

And by the way, the word there for servants is doulos, it means slave.

Correctly translated, it's slave. So he called his slaves and entrusted to them his property.

To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability, and then he went away.

He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more.

So also he who had the two talents made two talents more, but he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money.

Now, after a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying,

Master, you delivered to me five talents. Here I have made five talents more.

And his master said to him, Well done, good and faithful slave. You have been faithful over a little.

I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.

Now, as far as this parable goes, that's as far as I'm going to go. But I read that much to make the point that you know that saying of Jesus that we often repeat, where we're looking forward to entering into eternity.

And on that day, when we enter through heaven's gates, we want to hear him say to us what? Well done, good and faithful servant.

Now, great is your reward. That's the saying. That's how we often repeat that. But that comes from a softened translation of the text that doesn't want to use the word slave.

And so they translate due loss into servant so that it sounds a little more friendly.

It's a little more palatable to us because of the stigma that surrounds that word slave, especially in the

Western world. So that's one way in which cultural sensitivities have actually affected the way that scripture gets translated.

The legacy standard Bible, when it came to doing their translation, they wanted to restore all those places where due loss gets used.

And it would be translated slave instead of bond servant or servant. But that's the word.

The apostle Paul, where he says, I am a bond servant of Christ. It's really,

I am a slave of Christ. And we are indeed called to be slaves. Scripture does not say to masters, hey, if you've got slaves, you got to let them go.

Because that's wrong now. We're no longer going to perpetuate some sort of system of slavery.

So if you have slaves, you've got to release them. That's bad. We're saying it's bad now.

No more slaves. That's not what scripture says. Ephesians chapter 6, 5. Slaves obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.

There's an expression of fear again. With a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a goodwill as to the

Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the

Lord, whether he is slave or free. Masters do the same to them and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him.

So Paul doesn't come back at this saying, hey, slavery is an unjust institution. We're now doing away with that.

If you're a Christian, you can't own slaves. So let them go. No. In fact, there are certain contexts in which slavery is perfectly permissible by scripture, but a master must treat his slave a certain way, knowing that he has a master who is watching him.

And that master is Christ. The way that he treats his slaves. Well, it could be the way that Christ treats him on the day of judgment.

We also have in first Peter chapter 2. This was the passage that Martin Luther King Jr.

hated so much that when he read it in his jail cell, it caused him to throw his Bible across the cell. Slaves be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.

Even if you have an unjust master, you are still to be subject to that master.

For this is a gracious thing. When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.

For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

So there's instructions there to slaves saying that even if your master is unjust, you still must be in subjection and whatever abuse you receive at the hand of your master, vengeance is mine, saith the

Lord. That's from Romans chapter 12. So where do we get this idea from then that slavery is bad?

Well, scripture does discourage man stealing. God has said you cannot steal another man.

You can't take a man and force him into slavery. That's what the

Bible calls bad. And that's why the slave system in the United States back in the 19th century was so abhorrent.

That's why the North American or North Atlantic slave trade was so reprehensible because it was man stealing.

And it wasn't just the white people stealing the black people, although that's typically the way that that's characterized.

There were black men in Africa stealing other black people, black families, splitting them apart, beating them, persecuting them, putting some of them to death, and then selling them to white men who would pack them into ships like cargo and then send them across the

Atlantic to the United States, where they would continue to be treated in very inhumane ways.

But this was a cooperative behavior among ethnicities.

This was not one ethnicity oppressing another ethnicity. And there were even white people who were involved in this slave movement as well.

The Irish, for example, were also put on slave ships and brought over to the United States.

So it wasn't just all one skin color. There's a whole lot of myth that's even surrounding the history of slavery in America.

But scripture does discourage man stealing. And in fact, going as far to say, as a man who would steal another man will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Consider First Timothy chapter one. And this is a passage where we find a condemnation of homosexuality.

First Timothy one, eight. Now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully.

Understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers.

And by the way, that word strike means murder. So those who murder their fathers and mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for men who practice homosexuality, for enslavers, for liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed

God with which I have been entrusted. So homosexuality is mentioned right there with enslavers.

Those who enslave. Man -stealers is literally how that's translated. Those who would steal another man and force him into slavery.

The Bible says that the law is opposed to such things. These things are contrary to sound doctrine.

It is contrary to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. So it's interesting that Dan McClellan makes this argument when right there in 1

Timothy chapter 1, verse 10, you have exactly those two sins side by side.

Homosexuality and enslaving or man -stealing. Not saying that all forms of slavery are bad, but specifically that you would steal another man and force him into slavery, make him your slave or sell him off to somebody else.

And in the law, it says whether a person has stolen a man or you have bought the stolen man, you're both guilty of the same crime.

That was even in the Mosaic law. So this is not some new thing that has come about.

This isn't some progression over the course of the scriptures where we finally get to this place of deciding, oh,

OK, well, I guess all slavery is bad. This is completely consistent with exactly what the law has said.

The Bible's been consistent on this issue from Genesis to Revelation, on both of these issues, on homosexuality and laws pertaining to slavery.

So Dan's argument, as I said, once again, Dan's argument would really only appeal to a person who's probably emotionally driven or maybe has been culturally affected by how they understand what the

Bible says regarding certain sins and not truly reading the scriptures and studying the scriptures for themselves to know what the scripture says.

Now, all I've done here in this exercise is I've read to you exactly what the Bible says.

And we come to that understanding from exactly these words. Dan wants to say that I am driven by a certain dogmatism, but he condemns himself when he says that because he's also driven by a certain kind of dogmatism.

Nobody comes to the scripture without some kind of hermeneutic. And either you have a biblically correct hermeneutic or you don't.

So Dan is just as much a slave to his own methods of interpretation as he wants to accuse me of being a slave to.

But we can't both be right. Someone here has got to be wrong. And frankly,

I think it's pretty clear which one it is. It's the one who's starting every video saying, hey, I'm a

Bible scholar. So listen to me. But it just goes to show that just because a guy has a

PhD, he can still be completely ignorant as to what the scripture says.

Or maybe, and I'm just saying this generally, maybe he does know what the Bible says, but he's choosing to twist it because that's exactly what

Satan does. Oh, he knows what it says, but he's still going to be hissing the way that he did with Eve in the

Garden of Eden saying to you, making you try to question it and you try to doubt it.

Did God really say? And he's working through Dan McClellan in these videos.

Thank you so much for listening to When We Understand the text. Hey, I wanted to plug for you here a video.

Yeah, this is a new John MacArthur book that is out. And I said I would play the video on my broadcast.

So here we go. Listen to this about the new John MacArthur book, The War on Children.

I think the thing that distresses me most is the war on children.

Last year, my 11 year old daughter was in elementary school and her elementary school transitioned her from female to male behind my back.

This culture is weaponized to destroy children. Who wants to be a drag queen when they grow up?

I think our culture wants to turn the whole world upside down.

And the way to do that is to go for the children. Hitler understood that. That's why he would say things like,

I don't care about those who are my detractors. I have your children in my schools.

In 30 years, you'll be gone. And this is the only community they will have ever known. A controversial children's book teaching graphic acts complete with illustrations, making the rounds in school libraries.

If you don't want to hear it in a school board meeting, why should children be able to check it out of the school system?

Every human being matters. And our culture fails to see that human beings are the crown of creation.

When the family returns to the scriptures, then there's hope. Rebecca put a teacher's creed into words when she said, there's no such thing as someone else's child.

Our nation's children are all our children. The war that rages is real, but it's not beyond the power of Christ.

Well, there you go. The new book from John MacArthur, The War on Children, available now.

It's what it says in the trailer, but it doesn't give a link. I'm sure you can go to grace to use website and find it.

I love some of the voices that were in that trailer, including Kirk Cameron, Thomas Schreiner.

Derek Thomas was in there. Joel Beakey. I wonder if they did multiple interviews and we'll turn that into a documentary of some kind, just like they did essential church.

Was that last year or the year before? I can't remember when essential church came out. I guess it was last year.

Anyway, it would be great to see another documentary come out of grace to you. But you can find that book available in their bookstore.

I know it came out several months ago. We did a poll recently, or at least on the what account on X, there was a poll.

And the question was, what is the most influential fast food joint in the reformed world currently?

Now, as I understand it, this question was asked as kind of a joke because there were a couple of accounts out there that were asking who is the most influential reform teacher right now.

And it was kind of silly because it really was just appealing to their base, to their niche.

You ask that question in some other capacity, and you would have to put a whole different list of people on there.

So in mockery of that question, there were several poll questions that were going out asking, what's the most popular this in the reformed world?

And what's the most popular that? So the question asked by what was, what is the most influential fast food joint?

Here are your options. In -N -Out Burger, Chick -fil -A, Taco Bell, or Freddy's.

There were 583 total votes, and it came out that Chick -fil -A was the clear winner.

You probably knew that, right? 73 % in second place was

In -N -Out Burger with 20%. So between those two, you've got 93 % of the vote, and the rest is split between Taco Bell and Freddy's, which were throwaway options.

No matter what else got put in that poll, it was going to be a throwaway choice because this was always going to be down to Chick -fil -A versus In -N -Out.

The two Christian -owned fast food companies, and Chick -fil -A still the clear winner, even among the reformed brethren.

Well, thank you for listening to the broadcast this week. Don't forget to tell your friends about our ministry.

You can go online to www .utt .com, find our videos. The video that I played in the middle is not even out yet, the one on Sola Scriptura.

I'm doing videos on all five of the Solas and releasing them this month.

Sometime today or maybe Saturday, the Sola Scriptura video will come out, and I'm hoping this weekend

I'll also finish Sola Gratia because that's the series I'm preaching through in church. You'll hear the sermon on Sola Scriptura.

God willing, it'll be uploaded this coming Sunday. Once again, the website, www .utt .com.

You can send us an email, send us a voicemail. We would love to hear from you. Let me conclude here with prayer as we finish out.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the kindness you show us in Christ our Savior, and we ask,

Lord, that you would continue to sanctify us, that you would make us more holy, that you draw us closer to you and convict our hearts of sin, that we would not go after the of the forbidden woman, the different temptations that the world throws at us appealing to our flesh, but we would have our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

Give us wisdom when it comes to the entertainment choices that we make. May our churches be filled with godly men and women in obedience to the scriptures, and we are able to rightly handle the word of truth, guiding all of our ways, our steps according to what you have said in your word.

Lead us in paths of righteousness for your namesake. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. This is

When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, gospel -teaching,

Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.