WWUTT 1760 Q&A The President’s Speech, the Episcopal Church’s Lampstand, Matt Chandler’s Discipline

Biden’s Speech and the Call to Courage

How should a Christian respond to Joe Biden's speech last night? Is the Episcopal Church a godly church? And is the Village Church in Dallas handling Matt Chandler's discipline in a biblical way? The answers to these questions when we Understand the Text.

This is When we Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of God that we may comprehend with all the saints how wide, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .ttt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me today. I know two weeks in a row. I know you're disappointed. I am too. But I think just like last week, it was a scheduling conflict.

Didn't I say we didn't plan that out well and that's why she wasn't able to be on last week? Same sort of thing kind of happened this time. So yesterday was Zeke's first birthday. Do you remember our youngest, Ezekiel, who was born a year ago, September 1st?

He's been on the program with us a few times. We would sit in here to record and we would have to like get done as quickly as we can because at any point he's going to wake up and you're going to hear his little cries and sounds on the program.

We've had him on a few times. So if you listen long enough, then you've heard Ezekiel before. Yeah, he turned a year old yesterday. So we got him a smash cake, let him devour it. It was adorable. Yeah, we got lots of pictures and video, but I can't show it to you because, you know, it's a podcast.

And I bought him his first dump truck because every boy needs a dump truck. Also bought him his first dinosaur set because every every boy needs a good set of dinosaurs. And there were some other gifts for him too.

So we were all birth date out and it just got too late. And here I am recording this episode of the Q &A by myself. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and you can submit those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

You know, I was on my way over to the church, coming back to the church, to my office to record this episode that I was just getting caught up on Joe Biden's speech last night. President Biden did a speech in Philadelphia, I believe is where he delivered it from.

I saw the pictures. I wasn't I would not have even cared what it was that he said. Just catch it on the news the next day. But I pulled up social media and I saw the pictures of him standing in front of, you know, that that red background that just looked really it looks satanic.

I'm just going to say it. That's that's what it looked like. And he is an antichrist, along with Kamala Harris. These two who are pro LGBTQ, both of them have officiated homosexual marriages, marriages in quotes.

Of course, it's not really a marriage. They have they're both pro abortion, probably the most pro abortion regime that there has ever been in the history of the United States. Every Democrat that gets elected to the White House is more extreme in their abortion position than the previous, more extreme on their on the free love movement, the sexual revolution as well.

These guys are just more wicked than the next. So it's appropriate to call them an antichrist. And boy, they really picked the backdrop for it last night, decorating him in red. The lighting that was on him even made it look like he had a little Hitler mustache underneath his nose.

I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. That's really what it looked like. They did not choose that aesthetic. Well, or maybe they did. Maybe that was all intentional. I don't know. Anyway, so I just happened to pick up parts of that speech.

I didn't listen to the whole thing, but I was catching the snippets that people were posting on social media. And man, I got to tell you, that was one of the most divisive speeches, though I haven't listened to the whole thing.

What I have listened to was one of the most divisive things I have ever heard from a president of the United States, said one news outlet, Biden repeatedly demonized millions of Americans for their political views, calling them extremists who present a threat to the U .S. while simultaneously claiming that he wanted to unite the country.

You could not have more cognitive dissonance than Biden presented in that speech. And then the red backdrop and looking so authoritarian. Even the New York Times and the Huffington Post were criticizing the visual aesthetic that the Biden team decided to go with for that particular speech.

You know, back in in August of 2020, Joe Biden tweeted the following. Here's my promise to you. If I'm elected president, I will always choose to unite rather than divide. I'll take responsibility instead of blaming others.

That tweet did not age well. And even from the evangelicals for Biden, you know, that group of professing Christians who claim to be supporting Joe Biden since he was running on a platform of unity and they didn't like the mean tweets that Trump made.

So they were supporting Biden. They all they all tried to tell us that Biden was going to be a unifier. He's done nothing of the sort and never has. He's never had that reputation, has never done anything like that.

But people were duped for a season. They let themselves be fooled. And this is where we are with with the line being drawn in the sand and Biden declaring basically half the country the enemy. Who knows what the results of this are going to be?

But for sure, we need to be courageous about where we stand. This is not a time to shrink back and be nuanced, where we need to speak boldly and clearly we should do so. Our freedoms are being taken away under this authoritarian regime that is being forced upon us while we still have this freedom to exercise our religion and to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We need to do that because nothing is going to save souls. But the gospel doesn't matter what political direction the United States goes in. No one's going to be saved unless they hear the gospel and repent and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we also need to obey what Scripture tells us with regards to how we respond to our political leaders. Notice first Timothy two, verse one, Paul says, first of all, then I exhort that petitions and prayers, requests and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life and all godliness and indignity.

This is good and it is acceptable in the sight of God, our savior, who desires all men to be saved, whether they're presidents or paupers, and to come to the full knowledge of the truth. I added the presidents and paupers part in case you weren't aware.

But anyway, so we have that instruction that we need to pray for our leaders. We even need to pray for Biden and Kamala Harris. And I do pray that they would repent and come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ for the day of judgment after all of the lives they have ruined and the death they have wrought.

That day of judgment will not go well for them. And if they will not repent, may the Lord tear them down. As we read in Daniel two, beginning in verse 20, let the name of God be blessed forever and ever for wisdom and might belong to him.

And he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and establishes kings. He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding. He reveals the deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him.

To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise for you have given me wisdom and might. Even now you have made known to me what we sought from you, for you have made known to us the king's matter.

Heavenly Father, I pray for our leaders in this country, and I pray that they would have the fear of God, that they would turn from their wickedness to Christ, recognizing that judgment will fall upon them quickly if they do not.

This is such a crooked and wicked culture that we live in. The sexual immorality that is so incredibly rampant. This administration that wants to devour children, the public school system that is doing that very thing.

The entertainment that is being put in front of us that wants to reprogram people and disassemble the family and indulge all kinds of lurid obsessions with the flesh. God, may we not be enticed by these things.

May we not desire these things. We turn our eyes from wicked things and fix them upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We hold out the word of life in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation, as it says in Philippians chapter 2, so that the wicked may know that forgiveness is found only in Christ, that they would be cleansed of their sins and be transferred from this kingdom of darkness, which is coming to destruction, to the kingdom of light, which will dwell forever with God.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus. May the wicked fall. May your righteousness triumph. We pray in his name. Amen. All right, let's get to some questions here. This first one is an email that comes from Jason, who says, good afternoon.

I posted a screenshot of your post about Episcopalians affirming gender affirming care. Here's a sad response from my Episcopalian friend. Previously, she took my description of her being lukewarm. That's out of Revelation 3, 15 to 16, and now proudly wears that label.

P .S., thank you for your videos, sermons, and podcasts. They are truly enjoyable. Well, I thank you so much for that, Jason. Okay, so first of all, what was it that was said on Twitter? The WhatGuy account, so you can find that one on Twitter, W-W-U-T-T-Guy, okay?

Here's what was shared on August the 19th. There's a quote from an article, the Episcopal Church recently backed Episcopalians of any age seeking gender affirming care, unquote. And then this comment, the Episcopalian Church had their lampstand removed long ago.

They are a synagogue of Satan. Flee, for those who share in their sexual immorality, Jesus will destroy. And then there's a reference to Revelation 2, 20 to 23, where Jesus gave a warning to the church in Thyatira to repent of the works of Jezebel, who indulges in sexual immorality and all who follow after her ways.

If you do not repent of her sexual immorality, Jesus says, I will come and remove your lampstand. So the comment was made in that tweet on the WhatGuy account that the Episcopalian Church has already had their lampstand removed because they have been affirming of these things.

So Jason said that he took a screenshot of that and he shared it on Facebook. And then there was a conversation that he had with a woman named Carly. And here's what Carly said. Well, I'm Episcopalian, and I'm pretty sure we aren't a synagogue of Satan.

Lot of good works are done through our church. Also, I stand by our church being supportive of all its members regardless. Sad how Christians spend so much time criticizing. Jason said, works don't lead to salvation.

And then quotes Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace, you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works. So that no one may boast. Jason goes on to say, additionally, performing gender affirming care is tantamount to mutilation of a human, something a nurse should never do.

By criticizing, I can assume that you are wrongly interpreting Matthew 7, 1. Please renounce the sin of destroying lives and bodies and repent. Carly goes on to say, Jason, sorry that I 100 respectfully disagree with you.

You can quote Bible verses all day, and it doesn't change my beliefs. So that's very telling, because what is Romans 10, 17 say? Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. If she's going to say, you can quote Bible verses to me, and it won't change my beliefs.

She is closing her ears to hearing the truth. She goes on to say, but I'm just saying it gets really old to constantly have Christians bashing other Christians. Just let it go and worry about yourself and your own salvation.

And Jason responded, you got it. Matthew 10, 14. What does Matthew 10, 14 say? And whoever does not receive you nor heed your words as you leave that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Jason, I think you had some very biblical responses and were very loving toward Carly.

You wanted her to repent. You called her to repentance. But she has closed her ears from listening to the truth. Brother, she is worse than lukewarm. She is nowhere near Jesus Christ, not a follower of his at all.

She is indeed part of the synagogue of Satan and is following after the course of this world to her own destruction. If she does not repent, I pray that the Holy Spirit changes her heart because I would not wish hell upon anybody.

I would desire that they would turn from their sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And so I encourage you to pray for Carly in that way as well. And I'm sure you have. Thank you for sharing that exchange.

The Episcopal Church, Lukewarmness, and the Synagogue of Satan

Let's go to the next question here. This comes from Kathy. So this is in response to the stuff that's going on with Matt Chandler. I don't know if you've heard about what's what's happened with Chandler recently.

This was just at his church this past Sunday, if I recall. Anyway, we'll cover all of that here. But Kathy said, I'd like to hear your perspective on how well the biblical model of church discipline was followed in this case.

Thank you for your question, Kathy. Now, I'm going to play Chandler's comments. I'm not going to speculate on anything beyond what he says. I know there's a lot of question marks and people have thought, you know, maybe there's more going on than meets the ear.

I'm not going to speculate on that. We're only going to evaluate this from the perspective, according to Kathy's question. Was discipline, church discipline handled in a biblical way? So first of all, here's Chandler's comments.

And then I'm going to play his elders comments that followed this, because then he gives he lays out kind of like, here's the process of everything we've gone through. And here's what our expectation is going forward.

Now, Chandler gets kind of choked up in this. And there's a long, awkward pause. I'm just going to skip over that, but I'll break in here and make some comments as we go. So here's Matt Chandler as he addressed the village church this past Sunday.

Hey, guys, I know it just feels like, oh, my gosh, what's coming? So so let me I'm I'm the lead pastor of this church. I plan on being the lead pastor of this church for the next 20 years. All right, let me stop right there.

Already three, I have three criticisms just on these first few words in the way that this starts out. And this all plays into the whole understanding is church discipline being followed in the right way here.

Number one, why is he getting to address the congregation? If the elders have found him guilty of something for which he needs to take a leave of absence, why does he get to be the one to stand before the congregation and say that rather than the elders informing the congregation?

So that's the first problem. Like if he's disqualified to have to step away for a while, he should not be in what would essentially be the pulpit position addressing the congregation and even leading them in prayer, which he's going to do here in a moment.

So that's the first problem. Second thing is I bleeped out something that Chandler said there, and it's it's just not appropriate for any Christian to say, let alone a pastor. The man is just not careful with his words.

In fact, there's another statement that he's got coming up here in this address that I have to bleep out because I don't want it on this program. This is supposed to be a family program. I would not say it, and I don't think a pastor should be exhibiting that.

And it demonstrates Chandler's carelessness with his words, which is really led into this whole situation that he's had this DM conversation with a woman who is not his wife, and they've had course joking with one another.

Chandler can get inappropriate in some of the things that he says. And some of you know, I used to listen to Chandler quite a bit. I haven't since he went woke ever since, like MLK 50, which was 2018.

I haven't listened to Chandler anymore since then, but I used to listen to him quite a bit. Now, funny thing is, even though I listen to Chandler, I would not listen to him around my kids because he has a tendency to yell, and some of his comments aren't exactly things that I want my kids repeating.

I wouldn't necessarily put his speech on the level of like Mark Driscoll, but there's still some ways that he can be pretty inappropriate with his comments, and he does that even here. And the third problem now, the third problem with this address is the way that he starts.

He begins by saying, I'm going to be the pastor here for the next 20 years. So he's being asked to step down for something, apparently behavior that's bad enough that he has to step away, and yet he's confident enough to claim that I'm going to be the pastor here for the next 20 years.

The way that opens, it's just not shepherding the congregation to prepare their hearts for what's coming. It's almost like he's saying, hey, guys, I'm being removed, but it's not that big a deal. I'm still going to be your pastor.

I just don't think it was the most tactful way to step into that. Now, these three things, these three things that I've critiqued here at the very beginning, with the exception of why is he allowed to address the congregation at all?

The other two things are really wisdom critiques. I don't think that Chandler is exercising wisdom in the other two things. But the first one is poor wisdom on the part of the elders. Why is Chandler allowed to address this congregation?

Let's continue.

Several months ago, a woman approached me outside here in the foyer. She had some concerns for how I was DMing on Instagram with a friend of hers. I didn't think I had done anything wrong in that. My wife knew that.

Her husband knew that. And yet there were a couple of things that she said that were disorienting to me. And so I immediately came in the room. I found Chairman of the Elder Boards, Jason Swords, found Josh Patterson, other lead pastor, and said, this is what this person just told me.

And then I went home. Lauren wasn't with me that night. I told Lauren, this is what was said to me tonight.

Now, do you hear any problem with that so far? I don't think so. Right. In fact, I've done this very thing. I've had somebody make an accusation of me, and I brought that accusation to my elders and just let them know, hey, I just want you guys to be informed that this was said of me and laid it before them, and they test me according to it.

And they say, no, we don't see that you're guilty of that. And it's not just somebody saying something in person. It's even emails I'll get sometimes because somebody will either watch a video or hear a podcast or see a comment on social media, and they'll send an email and say, hey, you are behaving in such a way that is unbecoming of a pastor.

And so even on some of those occasions, I've taken an email to an elder and said, hey, here's the email I got. I just want you to know that I received it. And here's the accusation that's being made because even I have to be subject to my elders.

A pastor is not over the elders. He's one of the elders. The teaching pastor may be like a first among equals. But where Peter says in first Peter five, five to be subject to the elders, even a pastor needs to be subject to his own elders.

Now, with regard to the process here, this woman that approached Chandler in the lobby and said, I've seen a DM conversation that you've had with a friend of mine, and I don't think it's very appropriate.

It sounds to me like the way that woman confronted the situation fits the biblical model that we have in Matthew 18, 15. Now, if your brother sins, go and show him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you have won your brother. So that was Chandler listening to this woman and took the matter to the elders. Here's the accusation. The elders examined him on it now going on in that process of church discipline, verse 16.

But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. In First Timothy chapter five, it says not to bring a charge against an elder, except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

So even with regards to elders, it needs to follow the same pattern, the same standard of discipline that anyone else in the church needs to follow. Verse 17, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as the Gentile or the tax collector. In other words, you would treat him as an unbeliever. This is somebody that needs to hear the gospel and repent and come to faith in Jesus Christ.

This is not someone who is a member of the body. So there's the process of church discipline that we have, according to Matthew 18 and even throwing in, you know, some First Timothy five and first Peter five as well.

Now, the women here are unnamed. The woman that confronted Chandler and the woman that Chandler was deeming with. And in fact, if memory serves, I don't think we even know if either one of them attend the village church.

Now, the woman that confronted him in the lobby, she was obviously there that day. But was she a member of the village church? Is the woman that Chandler was deeming? Is she just a mutual friend of some kind?

Or is she a member of the village church? I would think those things need to be said. Even without the women's identity, I still think doesn't it need to be said that that these women were members and so they were cooperative in this process and everything.

But were they members of the village church? Now, like I said, there's a lot of questions here that we don't have answered, and I'm not going to speculate on anything beyond what we hear. But just as we're examining, was church discipline followed correctly?

That's just some of the questions that I have. So far, it sounds like we're kind of following the pattern the right way. But listen to where we go next.

From there, the elders began to look into because that's what they're supposed to do, because we cannot be a church where anyone is above the scriptures and above the high heavenly call into Christ Jesus.

And so they looked into the conversation between me and this other woman, and they had some concerns. And those concerns were not that our messaging was romantic or sexual. It was that our conversations were unguarded and unwise.

And because I don't ever want there to be secrets between us. The concerns were really about frequency and familiarity. We believe in brother-sister relationships here. And yet there was a frequency that moved past that.

And there was a familiarity that played itself out in coarse and foolish joking, some befitting of someone in my position as a lead pastor. And as an elder, I'm held to a higher standard and fell short of that higher standard.

I apologize. There's a step in here that Chandler doesn't mention. It's the elder that follows up these comments. He mentions what the next step was. The church lawyered up, but I'm going to wait to address that when we get to the elders comments here.

Now, Chandler is I mean, he's laying out. Here's everything that happened. Here is what the elders determined, which, again, I think needs to come from the elders, not Chandler. I don't understand why he's the one addressing the congregation.

Now, the elders standing right behind him. It's not like he's on the stage having control of everything, but it's still unusual in a proper process of discipline toward a pastor, especially if he has to be removed and he's not going to be preaching for a while.

Then why does he get to be the one to stand in front of the congregation and inform him of these things, inform them of all of this rather than the elders doing that? This really needs to come from the elders.

So we're hearing here about a frequency and a familiarity that Chandler had with a woman who was not his wife. And it had it led to some coarse joking, which probably was inappropriate for a person that is in his position.

But still, this is starting to sound like an HR problem, like it's sounding less like Chandler has done something that is disqualifying and more like, you know, something that you would hear at your job where a guy made an inappropriate comment to another woman.

And so now discipline, he needs to, the human resources need to come in and he needs to be removed from his job and take a six week course on, you know, whatever. This is what this sounded like. It doesn't sound like the proper process of disciplining an elder who's actually done something unqualifying.

And in fact, when the elder, when the other elder comes up and addresses these things, he's going to say that Chandler has not done anything disqualifying. So we can agree that it's not appropriate for Chandler to be having these DM conversations with a woman who is not his wife and to be joking in a manner that it sounds like jokes that are not befitting of a pastor.

We can agree that that's a problem. But Chandler is not confessing a sin here. He's not saying I've sinned and I've repented before God. He's not going to say that anywhere in this confession. And so, again, there's just a lot of things here that don't really fit what the model of disciplining an elder really should look like before a congregation.

Continuing on.

So the elders have decided, and I think they're right, that my inability to see what I was in probably has some revealing some unhealth in me. And I don't know if that's tied to the pace I run or the difficulty of the last six, seven years, but I agree with them.

And so in their grace to me and my family, they decided, and again, I think they're right, to put me on a leave of absence, starting immediately from preaching and teaching at the village church. Now, if I'm on, I'm just really embarrassed.

Feel stupid. Thank you. Feel dumb. Feel like I'm embarrassing my wife and kids. Putting a ton of pressure on our staff. I feel like I've fallen short for you. And you might even be hearing you might even be a Christian.

You might be hearing me saying this, like, and that's where he makes the other inappropriate comment that I'm going to I'm going to cut out there. So there were some longer pauses in there, too, as he kind of gets choked up and you hear some voices in the background.

You probably would not be able to catch it on the podcast, especially as you're driving. But I clipped that, too, since I removed the silent parts. But there were people that were shouting things like, we love you, Matt.

You're our pastor. You're human. And again, that kind of response just does not fit with this disciplinary process. I mean, this is a time when the congregation really needs to be self-reflective. They need to mourn over this, not give him attaboys, like examining their own selves and looking for the sins that they need to repent of, even though Chandler's not even repenting of sin here.

Again, that's the other weird part about all of this. But as it says in First Timothy five, if you have an elder that persists in sin, rebuke him in the sight of all so that everybody may stand in fear so that everyone recognizes if this can happen to a pastor, it can happen to me.

I'm certainly not going to escape from the sins that I've committed either so that people become self-reflective. They turn from their sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and that the whole congregation would follow along with this.

That's the process as it pertains to disciplining an elder in the church. Now, again, even though he's not confessing a sin, he does refer to what's happening as discipline.

I think that's in the next part here. So let's continue. But the word of God holds me to a certain standard and I need to live into that. And I fell short. And I'm apologizing to my family, to you, to all involved in this situation.

And some things I love. I love that our elders engaged at the level they did. You know how easy this would have been to make it nothing and just let me not address whatever this is.

Now, I agree that this is not nothing. It's inappropriate behavior. It's unbecoming of a pastor. Whether or not it deserves that he be removed from pastor, I don't know. That's a judgment that's left to his elders.

Truly. But notice that at the end of this, Chandler says, whatever this is, he calls it whatever this is. He doesn't even know what it is. Why is he being asked to step down from the position of pastor preaching and teaching over whatever this is if he doesn't know what it is?

How does he confess and say, I'm just embarrassed by all of this if he doesn't know what he's supposed to be embarrassed about? What's he really confessing here?

Super grateful that the elders have loved us and walked with us the way that they have. Super grateful for you. I'm super hopeful for what's to come in the future. But I need to breathe. And that's both discipline, both discipline and development.

And so in time, forgive me. I love you. Eager for the other side of this, whatever God has for us. And so let me pray for us. And then Josh will step in and lead us in the service.

He makes it sound like that all of this happened because I just need a break. I need I need to breathe. There's not actually a behavioral problem that he needs to be corrected for. He just needs a break.

And that's what the elders are giving him again. Even though he uses he makes the statement, forgive me. That doesn't mean that he's confessing something or that he's repenting of some kind of sin. He never calls it sin.

Now, I'm going to skip the prayer. Let's get to the comments from the elder that followed up Chandler's address to the congregation. I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but here's the elder now describing to the congregation the process that was followed in order to confront Chandler in these problems.

The concerns were about Matt's use of social media, of one-on-one communication with a woman who was not his wife. As Matt said, he immediately brought those concerns to Jason Swartz, who's the chairman of our elder board.

And to me, immediately that same night, went home and shared it with Lauren. You need to know this, that Matt has wholeheartedly been submissive to the elders as overseers. That's significant. That's important for you to know.

He's never denied or resisted. There's been times of confusion, a time when we needed to press into clarity. And so what we did in this is we commissioned an outside independent review of his messages.

This was conducted by an independent law firm. Matt provided full access to his cell phone, emails, and all technological platforms. He fully cooperated.

Okay, there we go. That's the part that I was looking for. So the way that church discipline is handled cannot look like the way the world would respond to like an HR problem in a secular job. And that's what it looks like the village church is doing.

Chandler came to the elders. He confessed something. They asked him some questions, and then they lawyered up. And you heard him say it. They went and hired an outside third-party law firm. They didn't go to like a lawyer in the congregation and just ask some legal advice.

They use the village church's dollars to hire an outside third-party firm to come in and do an investigation. And this is being displayed before the entire world, by the way. That's one of the reasons why we're critiquing this.

We're not being spies and going into some church and finding something that we can make a podcast out of. This was before everybody. It was all over the media. It was reported in Newsweek. It was reported in Fox News.

And I'm sure there were many other secular sites that were reporting on this as well. This was a nationwide story. It was even trending on Twitter. So this isn't something that we're being overly critical of digging up dirt on someone.

This was a nationwide story. And everybody knows, because it was said before the world, that the village church lawyered up. Chandler confessed something. The elders asked some questions. And then they hired lawyers, like a worldly business would do, a secular, your secular workplace would do.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, does any one of you, when he has a case against another, dare to be tried before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?

If the world is judged by you, are you not worthy to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint those who are of no account in the church as your judges?

I say this to your shame. Is it really this way that there is not one wise man among you who will be able to pass judgment between his brothers? That question right there in 1 Corinthians 6, 5, that's really an indictment against the elders of the village church.