WWUTT 1705 Q&A Cessationist Doc, Responsible Spending, Rick Warren Boasting

What does it mean to be a cessationist? How can we help our church steward the money that we give to the church wisely? And what about that speech Rick Warren gave at the Southern Baptist Convention, talking about these things and others when we understand the text?

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary that the word of Christ may dwell in us richly, with all wisdom. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

It's been a little while since you've been on.

It has.

Welcome back to the show.

Thanks. It's good to be back.

Now something has happened in just the last couple of weeks, but we haven't done a podcast together.

That's right.

Since this launched for us to be able to talk about it.

Right.

So there is a documentary that's coming out that's called Cessationist, and it's Les Lanphier, one of the guys that has put it together, one of the guys that's directing it. He did the documentary Calvinist, and also the guys that put together the documentary Man on Fire, which was about Martin Lloyd Jones.

Oh, yeah.

Uh-huh.

So they're combining forces, and they're doing a documentary called Cessationist, talking about how the apostolic gifts that affirmed apostolic ministry, those who were appointed by Christ to the position of apostle, those supernatural gifts ceased in the first century and are not being practiced today.

Right.

So talking about like what are we seeing in Charismaticism, what are we seeing in Pentecostalism, what is that? Is it biblical, and how does it not look like the things that the apostles did to affirm that their ministry was truly from Christ?

Right.

So lots of great guys interviewed for this documentary. Phil Johnson's in there.

Lots of great guys.

Conrad and Bailey. That was not meant to be a self-serving comment.

I know. I just piggybacked on that. Because who else is in there?

Yes, I'm in there too.

Okay.

Keep going with your list.

They interviewed me. Justin Peters.

I couldn't resist.

Yeah.

Anyway, so lots of great names on it. You can check out the Kickstarter that they've put together. So they're raising money for the documentary. Cessationist on Kickstarter, that's really what you're looking for.

David Lovey and Les Lanphier, who are the two guys on it that are putting it together. They need to raise $100 ,000 in a 30-day period.

Oh, wow.

To have the documentary fully funded.

Wow.

Now, we're halfway there.

Are we?

Really?

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Well, the date, the time. Oh, the date. Yeah, we're halfway to the end of the 30 days. I was going to say.

Yes.

Okay, go ahead.

Which finishes up on July 3rd, if I remember that right.

Okay.

And about 65 of the money has been raised already.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

So we're more than halfway there.

Yeah, that's exciting. Even more exciting than the halfway.

Exactly. So if you want to help out with this, I know money is tight right now.

Yeah, it's going to other things.

Yes.

You've got to pay for gas. You've got groceries. You've got to buy.

Yeah.

We know because we need baby formula.

Yeah.

And that's been really hard to come by.

Yeah.

And where you can find it, it's expensive.

Right.

But thankfully, the Lord has blessed us.

Yes.

With what we need.

Right.

We've been provided for.

Yes.

So all that to say, we know that you've got other things you could be spending your money.

On.

Mm-hmm.

But if you can support this documentary, something that will last for years and years.

Mm-hmm.

With all the work that they put in on this teaching that will come from this particular film, then check it out on Kickstarter. You're looking for cessationistkickstarter .com, which is the fundraising platform that they're using.

Mm-hmm.

And pledge what you can.

Yeah.

There's some neat giveaways that they have on there. If you pledge this amount, you'll get a DVD and a t-shirt and all this other kind of thing. How cool. You'll get your name in the credits.

Nice.

If you really want to throw in like a thousand bucks or something like that, you can get executive producer credit.

Wow.

At the beginning of the documentary. Ooh.

That is actually very generous.

I didn't give that much. I made a contribution, but it wasn't that. That is a sit down and I really have to talk to my wife donation.

And we haven't talked about that. So, yeah.

So, it wasn't that much. But anyway, you can check that out.

That's pretty cool.

Donate to it as you are able and help to fund this documentary. And I think the target date is this time next year. So, 2023.

Awesome.

I'll be done with it and we'll be seeing the cessationist.

Lord willing.

Yes.

Amen to that. Well, thank you to the men who are putting this together.

Yes.

And thank you to all who support the making of this particular documentary. All right. On with the emails.

Sure.

So, on Friday, we take emails from the listeners. And you can send these emails to WhenWeUnderstandTheText at gmail .com. This first one's from Jessica. As a matter of fact, the first few, I think, are...

Oh, the first two are Jessica's. They're two different Jessica's.

Okay.

Noted.

Yes.

But these are two Jessica emails.

Okay.

So, the first Jessica says, I just listened to your Friday episode and the question about what books you'll do next for your Old Testament studies on Thursday. I think this was this past Q &A that I just did.

You weren't on.

Nope.

Yep. Nope. Yep.

Anyway. Just messaging to say, please, please, please continue right through into the prophets.

Awesome.

When I finish Song of Solomon, am I going to go back to Genesis or am I going to go on to the prophets and do Isaiah? That was really the conundrum I was in. So, I'm asking for your opinion. What would you say that I go on to?

Should I go back and do the Pentateuch, which I haven't done on the podcast yet, the Torah, or should I go on to just keep moving and go right into the major prophets? Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel.

Jessica says, please do Isaiah. She says, I'd also be interested in hearing it exposited from your more amillennial view. I'm recently starting to take an amillennial view, but what's holding me up is some of the passages in the prophets.

I'm stuck in the dispensational thinking as that's how I was raised and it's hard to have those presuppositions not influence the reading to understand another view. So, doing the prophets would be greatly appreciated here, but whatever you choose, it will be great.

Thank you for all your hard work and teaching.

That's sweet.

I appreciate that, Jessica. Thank you. Now, the next Jessica.

Okay.

I was listening to your program and you were discussing people trying to say God, the Holy Spirit is female or sexually ambiguous. Okay, I think this was also last week. So, what pronouns can we use when we talk about the Holy Spirit?

Can we define the Holy Spirit as a woman, which a lot of progressive pastors are attempting to do right now?

Right.

Liberal theologians calling the Holy Spirit a woman. Well, I mean, there's liberals out there calling God a woman, but the Holy Spirit seems to be the one that they say is the most ambiguous, so we can be flexible with that one.

Jessica goes on to say, I studied Greek as well as Latin and taught Latin and Greek before staying home with my kids. One thing that heretical teachers need to be told is that in language, there are two classifications for gender, natural gender and grammatical gender.

Grammatical gender is assigned to things like trees. Arbor, aboris in Latin is feminine. It does not apply to sex. Trees do not have sexual gender. Bridge, pons or pontis in Latin is masculine. Bridges do not have sexual gender.

Natural gender applies to people and animals. Mater, mother, is feminine because she is a sexually feminine human. Vaca, cow, from whence we derive vaccine in English, is a female creature, unlike taurus, bull, which would be a male, of course.

She goes on to say, when we consider God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, the Bible definitely refers to them in masculine pronouns. Pneuma is not a sexually defined creature. So what I was reading last week with regard to the Holy Spirit is that word Pneuma in the New Testament is said to be a feminine word, the Greek word for spirit, so therefore we can refer to the Holy Spirit in a feminine way, since Pneuma is a feminine word.

Anyway, but she says it's not a sexually defined creature. Pneuma is a signed grammatical gender, not natural gender. It is not gender free, it's neuter. Neutral is not a category of gender in Greek. And neuter definitely is not a non-gender.

It is its own category and it is applied only grammatically both in Greek and Latin. As a nerd, I felt like my nerdry might be helpful. Blessings to you.

That's awesome.

I sure appreciate it, Jessica. Thank you so much. You added more scholarship to that than I was able to give last week as somebody who understands Greek and Latin.

Yes, very cool.

Now you've been doing Latin with the kids.

A little bit, yeah.

And did all that make sense to you then?

Most of it, yeah.

Okay, great.

Yeah, there was a little bit that went over my head, but yeah, most of that did.

Gotcha, all right. Next question, this one comes from Savannah. Did I ever give the email address out?

Yes.

Okay, I couldn't remember.

But just in case you missed it.

Yeah, send an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and we'll read it on the Friday edition of the Q &A. Hello, Gabe and Becky. I really enjoyed and learned from the 2 Corinthians passages about giving.

I was wondering if you could talk about if there are any ways a church might steward the congregation's giving in a dishonorable way. Anywhere from funding a conference at church that is more of an entertaining show to spending $200 ,000 on an unnecessary paint job.

These are things I have thought about before and I'm wanting to inform my conscience about. Thank you so much. All right, so let's go back to the giving passages that we read in 2 Corinthians. You're giving me a funny look.

What's your look?

A paint job?

So what she's asking about is how do you encourage your church to spend money wisely?

Oh, okay.

Not paying $200 ,000 on a paint job that you don't need to spend that much money on nor does the church really need that paint job. Or spending money, the other example she gave, was a conference that really turns into more of an entertaining show.

Oh, okay.

So it's not really for the purpose of teaching, for training people, it's just to be entertained. Why are we spending money on this?

Okay.

You get it now?

Yeah, but I was just lost.

Okay.

I don't need a paint job that much. But anyway, it's fine.

So is she talking about like in a sermon or, I mean, I would assume that would be for the business meetings, no?

This would probably be, yeah. It would be like conversations you would have with people. It would be in a committee meeting or in the church business meeting.

Okay.

How are you stewarding people toward using the church's money wisely?

Okay, okay, okay.

Because my first assumption was that she was talking about in a sermon and then I was really lost, so I had to sort out my own thoughts.

She's going to be preaching a sermon on this.

No, no, no.

So the first thing we need to do is tell Savannah, hey, women can't be preachers.

Stop.

I mean, you can gather information for your husband who's a preacher, right?

Yeah.

Thanks for helping me with my sermon research. Appreciate that. So what I was going to do to start off here, let's go back to those passages that we were reading. We were in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 about giving, and then we'll kind of go from there to talking about how can we handle the money in the church responsibly?

Sure.

So in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9,. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though being rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, through his poverty, might become rich. And then in chapter 9, beginning in verse 6,.

Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows with blessing will also reap with blessing. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

So through those passages where we were reading in that, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, we also talked about giving, and giving to the church. When we talk about giving, we're talking about money. Not those old bikes that you don't really ride in your garage anymore, so I'm going to give them to the church, and maybe they can sell them to somebody and then use the money for something.

That's not what we're talking about. If you can do that, great. But we're talking about actually taking a portion of your income and giving it to the church. There's not a set amount in the Bible. So just straight out of the passages we read here in 2 Corinthians 9, there's nothing here that says give 10 of your income to the church.

But rather, each one must do as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion. Not going, all right, I'll give it.

Right.

Or, oh yeah, I forgot.

Yeah, exactly.

Here, take it all.

And then, yeah, it's an afterthought instead of being the thing that deliberately in your mind you know we need to give to the church.

Right.

And you're not doing it under compulsion. Nobody's making you do it.

That's what I was going for there.

Okay, right. Like the church is not telling you, hey, you have to give this much or you're going to be under church discipline. That would be very legalistic. The New Testament does not implement the system of the tithe.

So you are giving as you desire to give, cheerfully, for God loves a cheerful giver. But now when it comes to that money that we have given to the church, so now we've talked that out. You have an opportunity to worship God through your giving.

Do that cheerfully. Now you've given your money to the church. How's the church supposed to spend it? That's what business meetings are for.

Right.

I know those are boring. People don't like to talk about them. In fact, they'll even change the name of business meeting. We're not going to call it a business meeting. Nobody wants to come to a business meeting.

So let's call it a membership meeting or a members meeting, which is fine. That's great. If you want to say all of the members are coming to this and we're going to talk about the business of the church.

Sure.

That's fine. Whatever you got to name it to get people there. But it should be a desire for you to want to attend those meetings. Because this is something the whole church is doing together.

Yeah.

Even if you're in an elder-led congregation where the elders are kind of overseeing all of that and taking care of that, you still have the business meeting in which these things are talked about in view of the congregation.

So everybody is aware of everything that's being done. And if there's something an elder is doing that he shouldn't be doing, that's the opportunity to be able to raise hands and ask questions. Why are you doing it this way?

Why did the elders choose to spend this much money and not this much? Why did we change this percentage from here, move that money over here? Why did we reduce this percentage? So on and so forth.

Right.

This is business that the whole church needs to be in together. Because we are, as a body, stewarding the things that God has given to us and stewarding them well. You need to be good stewards of the building that you have.

Right.

What sorts of repairs need to be made so that the building will last longer and the church deciding on those things together.

And debt.

Exactly, right.

Paying off debt.

Paying off debt. That really needs to be like a first order of business. Get out of debt as quickly as you can so that you can use that money to go toward the ministry. Things that the church needs to be doing.

Right.

Be careful not to get out of debt and then as soon as you're out of debt, like, let's get some more.

Yeah, right.

Then you jump into the next big project that's just going to plunge you back into debt again.

It's easy to do.

Right.

When I was at my previous church, I was grateful that we were able to get out of debt within the first two years that I was there. Knocked off all the church's debt that had been left behind by some irresponsible decisions that were made by the previous pastor.

And then within a few short years after that, we started to have to think about a wall that needed to be replaced, an outside exterior wall on the church that needed to be fixed. The roof needed to be fixed.

And again.

And again. And there was a roof on another building that needed to be fixed.

Yep.

And all of those things we were actually able to do debt-free because we didn't have any other debt.

Right.

And the money that we were able to save up for those kinds of projects enabled us to be able to do that and do so in a way that we were using that money in honor of the Lord, in a responsible way. Taking care of those things that God has given to us.

If you're going to own a building, it costs money to run it.

Yep.

You've got to pay bills and utilities. You've got to pay for maintenance on the building. You've got to pay for people to clean the building.

And if it's older, it probably leaks a lot. So you have higher utilities and stuff like that.

Right.

Make sure to update what you need to update. That costs money too.

Yes. Right.

It's always good to read some good financial planning books. For yourself. If you're thinking about how to personally budget in your own home and you pick up stuff by Ron Blue or How to Manage Your Money or Crown Financial Ministries or any of those ministries like that have written those books to kind of help you.

Larry Burkett. Pick up some old Larry Burkett books.

There you go.

They're still applicable even though the numbers might be might need some adjustment. You've had some inflation since then.

Well, I think any book right now unless it was written today and published today it would be out of date.

It's dated now because of the cost of everything. But those guys with good biblical principles are going to be telling you things like don't spend what you don't have.

Right.

Don't take out a whole bunch.

Of credit cards.

And then accumulate a bunch of debt. You need to spend within your means.

Right.

Everything's going to be super practical advice. In fact, you're going to get through one of those books and you're going to go, well, this was simple. I should have known this.

Right.

Exactly.

Then apply it.

Exactly.

Yes.

So now take those principles that were written for you for a personal budget and now apply that to your church.

Right.

So as a church we need to handle these things in a right way.

But then with the church you also have to consider the staff. So there's also not just the basics of what you take care of but there's also the staff that needs paid too.

Yeah, exactly.

So.

And you have everything budgeted. You got line items things like that. You're able to look through that. Now, more to the point of Savannah's question.

Yes.

How do you prevent the church from going into like a lot of this frivolous spending? $200 ,000 on a paint job. Putting together this conference that just becomes entertainment.

Yeah.

Again, this needs this is the importance of business meetings.

Right.

So that you're able to talk these things out. And I hope that you have a church where the congregation is able to express or ask questions about these things.

Okay, I have a question.

Okay. Now your question.

So, I know in previous churches because I've been keeping the babies so I haven't been to a business meeting here very many times.

Yes.

But.

We got here and had a baby.

Yes. So anyway, my question is do they normally in church meetings, business meetings have new business and old business and then you know like that kind of sequence because you can't make a decision on new.

You have to have the information on the new business. And then the next meeting you've already had to you've already thought about it and talked it over with people that you needed to and then you made your decision for the vote.

Yes.

So is that normally how it goes or is every church different?

In a Baptist church probably.

Okay.

Yeah, you have new business and old business. It just depends on how organized you are.

Okay.

How organized you want to be.

Because that would be that would be the time to ask questions about it. And to go around and ask people, you know, or educate them on do we really need this and let's look at other options or that kind of thing.

And when something is presented to the congregation which probably comes from the finance committee.

Usually.

Something like that. If you're in a church that operates with committees.

Yes.

Just kind of creating that scenario. Whoever it is that's taking care of the finances. Maybe you have a treasurer. And so just the treasurer is the one that's presenting that. But they present new business.

We want to allocate this money for this. Congregation votes on it or however that goes. And then as that's being considered before the next business meeting. You have the opportunity between meetings to talk to the treasurer to talk with the finance committee to ask questions about that or to express disagreement with it.

Right.

I don't think this is a good idea and here's why. Maybe you can help me understand why the church is doing this. Things of that nature. Now as Savannah had given this illustration of like a $200 ,000 paint job.

Now immediately we would see something like that and we would go,.

Oh, 200.

Yeah, that's too much. Why are we paying that much.

On a paint job?

But what kind of paint job are we talking about?

Right.

I mean, is there really no other way to get a paint job but by that?

Right.

Because I mean, sometimes it includes removing asbestos and things like that. So maybe it does cost that much.

Yeah.

If there's something that needs removed, something needs replaced, something that absolutely has to be professionally done. You can get the whole church together and we'll paint the parking lot ourselves.

Right.

But is it going to look any good?

Right.

That's true. Get your OCD people out there.

Yeah, that's right.

You got those lines over there with our own Frank's morning coffee hadn't kicked in yet. Look at that. Oh, goodness.

But on the other hand, the concert, how did she word that? She worded it something about.

A conference that's more entertaining rather than educational.

Conference or concert?

Yeah, she said. Conference.

Conference.

OK.

Well, that that would be research on who's speaking, you know, like who's who's presenting, who's singing, who's doing all that stuff.

Right.

That that makes a big difference on their reputation.

Yeah.

But so you can you can go through and do. I mean, everything is going to be researched, though, and presenting it. But what it what it was her question exactly. I guess I'm kind of lost on how to answer.

Anywhere from funding a conference at church that is more of an entertaining show to spending two hundred thousand dollars on an unnecessary paint job. Those are the two examples she gave in that one sentence.

Two examples. But what was her question? Like, was it how to how to talk to people?

Right.

How do you do?

Do you talk?

What are some ways that you encourage the church to steward the congregations money in an honorable way?

Talk to the people in charge first. And then if they're still convinced it's a good idea, then go. I don't know. I'd get a group of people on, you know, to go together and talk with them about this is really concerning.

If you don't have a business meeting.

If you don't.

If you have a business meeting, then that is the group.

Right.

The group is together and we're talking those kinds of things out.

That's true.