WWUTT 2455 Q&A Qualifications for Teachers, Potential vs Particular Atonement, Remembering Dr. James Dobson

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What sort of qualifications does a teacher need to meet even if that teacher is not a pastor?

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Was Christ's atonement a potential atonement or a definite atonement? And we remember the impact of Dr.

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James Dobson when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ that we may press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and a faith toward God.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wtt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. And greetings, everyone. Starting off with Psalm 96. Sing to Yahweh a new song.

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Sing to Yahweh all the earth. Sing to Yahweh. Bless his name.

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Proclaim good news of his salvation from day to day. Recount his glory among the nations, his wondrous deeds among all the peoples.

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For great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised. He is more fearsome than all gods.

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For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Yahweh made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him.

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Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. You know what a unique gift

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God has given to us to sing. And in fact, the church is instructed to sing in Colossians chapter three,

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Ephesians chapter five, that we would be singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in our hearts to God.

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And we would do that together as a body of believers singing praise to our God who has done wondrous things for us.

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He's given his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. Whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

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That is the message of the gospel, which should be our joy every single day that we wake up, our reason for singing.

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There are many songs we might sing that don't explicitly give praise to God, but if we have any cause for singing, let it be that.

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The good news of the gospel of Christ who died for us, rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of God, where he is interceding on our behalf.

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And he is coming back again to judge the living and the dead. This is the news that we proclaim.

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This is the word that we are committed to on this broadcast, in this ministry, when we understand the text.

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And we thank you for listening in. As you can probably tell, I'm flying solo this week. Becky is not with me, but she sends you her love.

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And from both of us and the family, I want to express to you a heartfelt thank you for the gifts that you have been sending.

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We said a few weeks ago that our youngest son, Ezekiel, who's three now, he's going to turn four in less than two weeks, but he was born with a condition.

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It's a sensitive thing. I'd rather not talk about it on the podcast. If you email and ask about it,

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I'll share something about it, but probably better not to talk about it in this way. Anyway, to correct the problem that he was born with, he's going to need a surgery.

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And it's one of those surgeries he's going to have to be put under, which always makes me a little hesitant as a dad.

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I wish there was another way. And so we actually sought a couple of different medical professionals to see if there was another way that the problem that he was born with could be corrected.

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But after several opinions, we've come to realize it's going to require a surgery.

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So the insurance that we use will not be covering the surgery. We actually just found that out this past week.

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Since he was born with it, it's a pre -existing condition. And we were not with this insurance company when he was born.

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That is another story in and of itself. So we don't think that we're going to have to get stuck with the entire bill to cover the entire surgery.

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There are some other things that I'm checking out. We will have to cover part of it, but not the whole thing. Surgeries are still expensive though, even when you're only covering half of it.

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So if you can give and you have given, we've received some wonderful gifts and donations from people over the last couple of weeks.

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Some way more than we would have thought that we would have received. And some have just been small gifts, but that's fine.

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We are thankful for whatever you can give. Any little bit that we get.

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Somebody listening thought to share something with us. And that always means something.

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Always means a lot. Sometimes we'll get a little note through PayPal that will say, hey, this is for your family to buy a pizza.

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You bought dinner for us. We so appreciate that. Everything always matters to us.

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We know that people are listening and they support the ministry and they love it. It keeps us going, knowing that we've got people out there that we are serving.

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And so we thank you so much for the generosity that you have shown to us. I don't want to continue milking this every week and make it sound like that.

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I'm always asking for donations, but I do want to keep you in the loop, keep you updated on how this is going so that when the surgery does happen,

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I'm able to let you know, hey, it was a successful surgery. The problem has been corrected. You share with us.

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So we want to be able to share with you as your prayers would definitely be greatly appreciated.

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This being the Friday edition of the program, we take questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com

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or send us a voicemail by going to www .utt .com. Click on that voicemail button and you can record it through your phone or through your laptop.

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I guess I need to mention like how you can give to us as well in case you still want to, but you can go to the website also www .utt

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.com. Click on the give tab and there are there's mention on there of what you can do to give to us.

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I do ask that if you're going to write a check, which is fine, and you can send it to the church in a way and you can make a tax deductible donation that way.

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Since the church is nonprofit, just make sure you put in the memo section that this is for the Hughes family and it will get to us.

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You can send it via PayPal Venmo. You can send it through the mail. Just don't put www .utt

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.com on the check. Don't put when we understand the text because we can't cash that. I don't have an account set up with that in it.

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It has to be to Gabe and Becky Hughes. And like I said, this is for a surgery is for a medical procedure.

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So you're giving it to the family. It's not really advancing the ministry of when we understand the text in any way.

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But again, we love that you listen and that you share this ministry with others. And thank you, as always, for your prayers.

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I did get a voicemail here from Rick. So let me play this voicemail and respond.

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Here we go. Hey, Pastor Gabe and Becky. This is Rick with Andrea.

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And I don't know if you remember us from East Texas, but I heard you say in a previous podcast a couple of days ago how there was no one man who influenced your learning of Calvinism other than John MacArthur and his

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Strange Fire Ministries. And I just wanted to tell you that you have influenced me more than you know.

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I even have a small platform and I even modeled it after your YouTube channel.

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And as far as doing two minute hits and whatnot, but I just want to tell you, thank you.

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And we are immeasurably blessed to be a part of the body of Christ and to lock arms with you, serving

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Christ. We love you, brother. And we love you, Becky. God bless you. Thank you so much, Rick.

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I do remember you, of course. We've been out to lunch a couple of times. I remember talking with you and Andrea before the two of you got married.

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I understand you've had a baby since then. They moved up to the Pacific Northwest. We moved out to Arizona. They moved up to the

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Pacific Northwest, had a baby. I hope everybody's healthy and doing well. And I thank you for reaching out.

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I did catch a couple of your videos on YouTube and you're doing a great job with that. And I hope that the

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Lord blesses that ministry. With regards to John MacArthur saying that no one influenced me in Calvinism more than John MacArthur.

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I think what I said, and it's possible that I said Calvinism and I misspoke.

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What I meant, though, was that no one had influenced me in cessationism more than John MacArthur did.

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And I would say Justin Peters probably had more of an effect in that sense, but it was

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Justin's seminar that he did through the Strange Fire Conference, which was put on by John MacArthur and Grace Community Church, the

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Grace Ministry and everything like that. So it was kind of in that season when Strange Fire happened and everything that followed that, catching

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Justin Peters teaching online, those kinds of things helped me think through and understand the cessationist versus continuous controversy debate.

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And really my mind was changed when I sat with a friend of mine who was also a big John MacArthur guy, and he just walked me through the scriptures.

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And we went through Acts and we went through First Corinthians, which are the two biggest places where you read about the different spiritual gifts, particularly the gift of speaking in tongues, because that was what we were talking about primarily.

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And just walking through the scriptures and seeing what the Bible says is what changed my mind about that.

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And it began and was launched out of what John MacArthur did with the Strange Fire ministry. So, yes, that did have a huge impact on me.

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Now, with regards to Calvinism, MacArthur really didn't influence me that much with respect to my growing in Reformed Theology.

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Like, I've even considered MacArthur to be on the Calvinist side of things, but not so much on the Reformed Theology. Reformed Theology is a larger body of teaching.

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There's more to it than just having a certain understanding of soteriology, which is the study of salvation.

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So Calvinism would fit in that category that we call soteriology. And Calvinism is a word that summarizes those five doctrines that we also call the doctrines of grace, summarized in the acrostic tulip, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints.

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So that's what you would quantify as being Calvinism, whereas Reformed Theology is a little bit broader than that.

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Like I said, though, I don't know that MacArthur really influenced me that much in it, except growing my understanding of what

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Scripture says regarding these particular things. I came into Calvinism itself just reading my

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Bible and did not realize what Calvinism was or that I was in agreement with it until somebody explained to me what it was.

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And as they were explaining it to me, I was saying, yeah, well, I agree with all that.

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Okay, well, then you're a Calvinist, was the way that he followed that up. So all of that,

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I came into that reading the word, and it really started with an understanding of predestination. And then from there, growing in other doctrines, like realizing the total depravity of man, our total inability to even choose

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God on our own, if not for the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts first, and seeing those doctrines according to what

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Scripture said and growing in understanding of those things. And then coming to find that John MacArthur was a

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Calvinist and taught on those things. I had heard John MacArthur going back to my childhood, the

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Christian radio stations that my dad planted and worked at did not ever air

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Grace to You. That was never one of the programs on any of my dad's stations. But I would still catch

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John MacArthur messages because there might be another radio program that my dad would have on and they would feature a message from John MacArthur or something like that.

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Same with R .C. Sproul. So I knew of MacArthur and Sproul. We had his books in our house.

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I don't know that I ever read any of them, but they I did not come into hearing their teaching a lot more until after about 2010.

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So that's when I really got into MacArthur and R .C. Sproul. Though I had heard them in some capacity before that, my mom really loved

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R .C. Sproul, going back to when she was a little girl, had been listening to Sproul for years, but she was not a

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Calvinist, still is not a Calvinist to this day. Anyway, I did say, I think it was last week,

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I was working on an article where I was going to talk about how I came into Calvinism just reading my

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Bible. And it was only later that I realized I was already in agreement with all of these doctrines because I read them in scripture.

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I just didn't know that they had been summarized in this acrostic and given names. I had heard the names.

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I didn't really agree with the names. I didn't know the doctrine. I just knew the names and I didn't agree with the names.

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But as I'm reading scripture and seeing what the names of those doctrines really summarize or kind of the scriptures that are summarized, each one of those headings coming to accept that I was already in agreement with all of that.

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So I was a Calvinist before I knew what Calvinism was. But yeah, MacArthur was an influence in that a little bit later on.

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By the way, John MacArthur's got a book coming out this fall that's on the five doctrines of Calvinism.

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It's a posthumous book. So, of course, he passed away last month.

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This was a book that he was working on. He announced when he was still alive and it's going to be the last book of his that will be published.

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They're finishing the editing and everything like that, getting it printed, and it will be released this coming fall.

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I'm very much looking forward to this book, but it will be the last book in print under John MacArthur's name.

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As you're looking through the library of all of the books that he's published over the years, this one will sit last on that shelf.

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I am very grateful to his ministry, though he may not have been a huge influence on my Calvinism necessarily.

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He did influence me in a lot of other ways, and we've talked about that in previous episodes. By the way,

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Dr. James Dobson passed away. I think this was just yesterday. And if there's anybody who had an influence on my childhood, it was definitely

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Dr. James Dobson. As far as teachers on the radio are concerned, nobody had more of an effect on me and my spiritual growth than my mom and dad.

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But with all the different teachers that my dad aired on the stations that he started,

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Dr. James Dobson was somebody we listened to all the time. I mean, he was on twice a day on the stations that my dad put on the air.

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He believed in Focus on the Family so much that he would air it twice in the morning and in the evening.

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And then, of course, there was Adventures in Odyssey that came out of the Focus on the Family ministry, and I listened to every single episode of Adventures in Odyssey all the way up until probably 1999.

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So I think the program started in like 84. So that 15 -year span from 84 to 99,

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I had listened to every single Adventures in Odyssey episode. I had them all on cassette tape. Sometimes I would even go to sleep to them.

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When the radio station had dubbed them on the air and they were done with them, I would grab the cassette tape and I would take it home, and I had a huge collection of Adventures in Odyssey tapes.

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What happened to all those tapes? Well, they got burned up in a fire when my parents' house burned down a few years after that.

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But Scott, our good friend up in the Pacific Northwest who listens to When We Understand the Text, he sent a big

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CD collection of Adventures in Odyssey. So I have that collection again from the very beginning of Adventures in Odyssey episodes.

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I've played some episodes for the kids and we love listening to them. And I thank you so much for that gift, Scott. That meant a lot to me as well.

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But this was a program that I grew up listening to, Dr. James Dobson's teaching. I was friends for a little while with Dr.

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Dobson's son, Ryan. We toured a little bit, as a matter of fact, in the summer of 2004. And this was shortly after Ryan had come out with his book,

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Be Intolerant Because Some Things Are Just Stupid, which is a great title in and of itself. So we had a summer that we toured together.

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Ryan did the speaking, sold his books, of course. And then me and my band, we did the music.

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There was one show that we did. This was actually in Hays, Kansas. And there was somebody in Hays that found out we were coming who didn't appreciate

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Ryan or Dr. James Dobson at all. He found out that Ryan Dobson was James Dobson's son.

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He read this book called Be Intolerant Because Some Things Are Just Stupid. He hated the title of that book.

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So he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that nobody came to this show. And of all of the concerts that we did, that was the lowest attended.

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And I think it was something like a hundred, maybe right around a hundred people. And that was the lowest attendance that we had.

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But it was because somebody in Hays started spreading this word. I don't know what he said, but we found out about it the night of that show.

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There were people that were coming and showing up and were saying, you know, there's this guy that's been spreading all this stuff around town about you guys.

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And it's really turned a lot of people off and they're not coming because of that. And we laughed.

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We thought it was hilarious. I mean, it was sad in a certain sense because you got somebody out there slandering us and potentially keeping someone from hearing the gospel that we were going to proclaim that I was singing about in the songs and that Ryan was sharing in his message as well.

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But nonetheless, you know, we were going to grin and count it all joy because we were counted worthy to suffer persecution because of the name.

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Right. Jesus said, when people speak all kinds of evil against you falsely, you are blessed for so they did the same to the prophets who were before you.

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So it was a neat experience to be with Ryan and be out on the road together like that.

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I never did meet James Dobson face to face. So I knew Ryan and he and I did some things together a couple of times, that tour.

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And then there was another thing that we did together, but I never did meet Dr. Dobson. Nonetheless, he had a huge impact on my life.

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I still have the book Living on the Edge, which I think was a book he wrote for teenagers.

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If memory serves, I still have my copy of that book. The one the very one that was given to me when

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I was a teenager and the church that I was attending at the time and went through that book. You know, some of you know my story and Becky's, you know, that that Becky from a previous relationship has a little girl.

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Our oldest daughter, Annie, is not my biological daughter. I adopted her.

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That's Becky's daughter from her previous marriage. And her husband had cheated on her, became a deadbeat, ran off, had nothing to do with Annie whatsoever.

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And so when I met Becky and we got married, I never met the ex -husband, but I made a deal with him through a lawyer.

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And I said, you sign full custody over to me of Annie and you don't have to pay a dime of child support because he owed thousands of dollars in child support he had never paid.

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And he gladly signed it. And he's never been in our lives ever since. And and this girl is my daughter in her senior year now, as a matter of fact.

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Yeah, already talking about going to college and all this. We were just talking about that this past week. Anyway, when

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Becky and I first were dating, Annie was only about two.

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She was pretty close to two years old. But the way that I handled Annie and the way that I either played with her or would even discipline her and tell her no and be consistent with that,

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Becky was very impressed by that. And she was wondering how I learned to do that. And I would also tell

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Becky, you know, when you do this with Annie, you need to you need to do it this way. Like I would give her instructions on how to raise her own daughter.

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And Becky said to me, how did you learn this? How did you know to do this when you've never had kids?

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And I said, well, there's a few different places that I've learned these things. I'm the oldest of six and my youngest sibling is 13 years younger than me.

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So I did have some experience with, you know, being a good big brother to my younger siblings growing up.

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Also, what I saw modeled by my parents, my mom and dad and the way they raised their kids that also had a huge impact on me.

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But then I also shared with Becky focus on the family with Dr. James Dobson. And I've listened to it for years and years growing up, even though I did not have a wife and kids of my own.

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I was receiving that training on how to be a good husband and be a good father. I was hearing that for years before I even became a husband and a father.

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And it's like it was just ingrained in my head. It had been hammered into my head from as early as I could listen to it.

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And now here I was becoming a husband and a dad all at the same time and putting those things that I had learned about for years into practice.

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And it really did feel like it came naturally to me right away. There's always been things that as a dad,

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I'm learning as we go. I'm still learning as we go. Mistakes that I've made along the way.

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Sure, all of that has happened with me as well. But this was the kind of impact that focus on the family had on me.

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And I remember when I went on tour with Ryan, my dad had said to Ryan that I was a focus on the family baby and said, this this guy right here is a product of your dad's teaching for all those years.

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So you want to see somebody who has been listening to this for years and years, what they turn out like.

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It's this guy. It's this guy right here. That was before I was married or anything like that. But anyway, it was it was such

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I have such fond memories of all of that. There are people that since Dr.

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James Dobson has died, these people have come out and have really dragged him through the mud. And of course, they have because Dr.

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Dobson stood on family values. He stood on a patriarchal model for the family.

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He advocated spanking. We spank our kids. I was spanked growing up.

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I spanked my children. And there are people that talk about how well behaved my kids are.

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So spanking doesn't make your children into little hooligans and and rebellious, although that certainly happened with some kids if they weren't disciplined in the right way.

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But that has that that's been like a triggering subject for a lot of people talking about spanking.

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So they hate that about Dr. Dobson and, of course, traditional marriage. It's between a man and a woman. He he fought strongly against gay marriage for years, even before 2015 rolled around and Obergefell happened and all of that.

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So I I listened to Dobson for a long time after he left focus on the family. It was right around the time that I was getting out of radio.

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Those those things kind of happened pretty close to the same time. Dr. Dobson was out.

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And then I think within the next year, I got out of radio. But then Dr. Dobson went on to do family talk.

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And I'm pretty sure the radio station that I worked for was already carrying family talk by the time I left.

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So though he was out at it, focus on the family. And he was he was kicked out of the ministry that he started.

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He founded it. But then he began family talk. And that became another program on the air and did that with Ryan.

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Incidentally, Ryan Dobson did that program with him. I listened to it a few times. I would catch the podcast episodes.

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I wouldn't necessarily listen to it on the radio. And it was good. It was still a good program, at least what I heard.

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But I didn't continue listening to those things. And and eventually it just it just kind of went away.

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But but I didn't continue to listen to those things. I actually haven't listened to Dobson in years, frankly, and focus on the family even longer than that.

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I caught a focus on the family episode one time. I was still living in Kansas then. And I heard

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Donald Miller on there. They had Donald Miller on focus on the family. This was the blue light jazz guy.

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He's a heretic. He's not even a Christian. I was like, what are they doing with Donald Miller on here? And I just felt like focus on the family had fallen such a long way.

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There was the thing with Jim Daley, the president of focus on the family. After the

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Noah movie came out, Jim Daley was promoting the movie and he had he was even on all their promotional material telling

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Christians, it's great that movies like this are being made because, you know, it just increases conversations about the

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Bible and we can talk about these things. And I wrote into focus on the family after all of that and said, this this is absurd.

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Your president should not be endorsing this film. It's a blasphemous movie. It twists the scriptures.

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It's Gnostic. And the creator of the movie, both the writer and the director are atheists.

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And so what what in the world is Jim Daley doing promoting such a film, which is which was made not loving the biblical narrative at all, but rather to twist the biblical narrative.

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But I got some sort of generic response from his office that was just like, you know, we appreciate your letter, but Jim thinks that this is good for the national conversation about the

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Bible and things like that. So it was disappointing seeing the direction that focus on the family when I will say, though, and this is a criticism of Dr.

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Dobson, but near the end of his time at focus. And I know I kind of have a general idea of why he got removed from the ministry he started.

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Why did he get removed? He got really, really political there toward the end of his time.

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He'd always been political, which is fine. He and Chuck Colson did some great things to alert people to stuff that was going on in our government and the importance of voting and voting our values and things like that.

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That was James Dobson, Chuck Colson that were often at the tip of the spear when it came to encouraging

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Christians to be active in public life, whatever's going on in your community, what's happening on the national level, getting out and voting and things like that.

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They were always very active with all of that. But because of Dr. Dobson's insistence that either the

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Republican or conservative candidate had to win in any election that this candidate had to win, then he was willing to partner with some people that Christians really should not be partnering with.

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I remember that on Focus on the Family, he had Ann Coulter on as a special guest.

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And it was like, why does he have Ann Coulter? Though she was a very prominent conservative voice at that particular time, she could be foul -mouthed.

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She did not sound to me like a Christian at all. And it astonished me that James Dobson had

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Ann Coulter on Focus on the Family. But then, and I will never forget this one, this was the worst guest that James Dobson ever brought on Focus on the

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Family. And it was Ann Rice who was the author of the

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Interview with a Vampire Chronicles. If you don't know what those are, don't worry about it, don't look it up.

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But Ann Rice wrote, I want to say it was a trilogy of books that were about Jesus growing up.

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And it was a first -person perspective of Jesus. And she even read an excerpt on the air of what

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Jesus experienced in the temptation in the wilderness when Satan was tempting him to eat bread and things like that.

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She read it on the air and Dr. Dobson had her read it on the air. And that was, Ann Rice was not a believer.

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She was a mystic and into occultic things, obviously with her biggest run of novels being about vampires.

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But there she was on Focus on the Family, this blasphemous woman that was reading this blasphemous work and really was interpreting things about Jesus that was contrary to what the

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Bible says. I could not believe that James Dobson did it. So when he got removed from Focus on the

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Family, I really wasn't all that surprised because it did seem to me, even beyond the political stuff, having somebody like Ann Rice on the air, it just felt like, is the guy losing his grip?

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Is he losing his footing somehow? And so I understood his removal.

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I didn't wholeheartedly agree with it on the one hand, and yet I understood it on the other.

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But he still continued to be a prominent voice in the culture even after that, obviously with the program

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Family Talk. And I know that he did good work, even though he had some pretty serious weak points in there, aligning with some people that he should not have been aligning with.

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He gave praise to Paula White Cain for becoming the—I can't remember what her position is—the faith position that she has in the

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White House. Dr. Dobson praised that, that she was in that particular spot. So he had some bad theology in some places.

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He was a Nazarene, so obviously I'm going to disagree with him on certain things there, having differences of denominations.

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But nonetheless, I still believe the man loved the Lord, did a lot of great work for the kingdom, sacrificed a lot, went through a lot, and I would never be able to say enough great things about him.

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And I've been going on and on about this for a while now, even sharing my own personal thoughts and memories.

30:21

But all that to say that I am grateful to God for the ministry of Dr. James Dobson made a huge impact on my life.

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I know that he, along with John MacArthur, who passed away a month ago, he has entered into glory and has heard

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God say, well done, good and faithful servant. And now they are enjoying their time with the

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Savior, celebrating God, who gave his son to die for us so that whoever believes in him, as Dr.

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Dobson did, as Dr. MacArthur did, whoever believes in Jesus, our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life.

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I'm grateful for these teachers that God put in my life and have led me in such great ways.

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And I can't, I can't wait until we're all together in heaven rejoicing in God around the throne.

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And Rick, once again, I thank you for your message and for the kind words that you've shared with me about the kind of influence this ministry has had on you.

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We're going to keep on going forward, brother, keeping on with the word and you do the same. And I pray that God blesses the stuff that you're doing on YouTube also.

31:28

All right, let's get to some other questions here. Some that have come via email. This one is from Brian.

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Dear Pastor Gabe and Becky, I will pass on your hello to her. I praise

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God for you, your family and your ministry. Words can't describe what a blessing you have been to me, my family and local church.

31:49

Thank you so much, Brian. Your steadfastness to God's word and his glory have been a huge encouragement.

31:55

My question deals with qualifications and or restrictions for teaching adults in church.

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I understand what scripture says in first and second Timothy, as well as in Titus, about the qualifications for elders.

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What I'm really asking is can a young man who meets all those qualifications teach if he has not been recognized by the congregation as an elder?

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I look forward to your response and I am grateful to God for you. And again,

32:26

I appreciate that, Brian. So what sort of qualifications does a teacher need to meet even if he's not an elder?

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So he's not vying for an eldership position, a pastor position in a church, may not even be trying to become a deacon.

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What sort of qualifications does that teacher need to meet? And I would say it needs to be the same qualifications that an elder has to meet.

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So those things that are talked about there in first Timothy three, in second Timothy chapter two, first Peter chapter five, that chapter is more directly at elders.

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The first few, what is it, six or seven verses. So maybe not that one so much, but even

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Titus chapter one verses five through nine, where we find these instructions that are given the qualifications that are given for an overseer or a pastor in the church.

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Yeah. Somebody who is teaching even a Sunday school class should be expected to meet those qualifications as well.

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Because as I've said about these qualifications in the past, even though we are testing and examining elders, according to these qualifications, there are still qualifications that anybody should want to aspire to.

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So even a Christian, even a Christian woman who is not going to be a pastor, at least she shouldn't be.

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There are things there that are listed in those qualifications that any Christian should look at and say, that's the kind of Christian that I want to be.

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So definitely an elder should meet those qualifications. But all of us, as we are growing in the spirit, as we're growing in the word should mature to a place where we're exhibiting those qualities.

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Also, let's, let's look at them here. So let me go to Titus Titus chapter one, verse five.

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This is why I left you in Crete, Paul talking to Titus so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

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And here's the qualifications for an elder. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

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Okay. If you have a man in your church who wants to teach a Sunday school class, or even a women, if she's teaching a women's

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Bible study or something like that, if you identify in that man, that he can't keep his house in order, wife is rebellious.

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Kids have a terrible reputation at school or whatever else, or even in the church, then it would be a good idea to not let that guy be a teacher, no matter how gifted he might be in it, no matter how passionate he might be about it.

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But his first ministry, just like a pastor's his first ministry is to be his own family.

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And if he's not taking care of his own family, you can't expect him to have a responsibility taking care of a

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Sunday school class. Now, somebody teaching a Sunday school class doesn't have to be married. And there are arguments regarding whether or not an elder has to be married.

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But if he is married, then these, these are the sorts of things that you should be able to observe in his own home.

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Sunday school teachers, in my experience with the churches that I've been a pastor of, people who teach a

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Sunday school class like to open their doors of their home up to people and, and welcome people in their home and have cookouts and, and times sitting around in the living room and doing a

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Bible study or something like that. And so what will you see in that person's home when they're being hospitable and opening up their home to others?

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They need to be able to meet these kinds of qualifications. If they've got rebellious children, probably not a good idea to put that guy as a teacher in a

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Sunday school class. So Paul goes on in verse seven to say for an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach.

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He must be above blame. This is a person who has a good reputation, doesn't have a reputation for doing bad things or losing his temper or not being kind to others.

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He is above reproach, above blame. He must not be arrogant or quick -tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain.

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I mean, those kinds of things should be common qualities that we would see in any Christian, right?

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Verse eight, he must be hospitable, a lover of good, self -controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

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He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

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You got somebody in your Sunday school class, if it's open discussion sort of a thing, and they start saying something that's contrary to what the

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Bible says, or maybe even contesting with the teacher, how can that guy handle his class?

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Will he be able to answer those things and do so in a patient and guiding way that is not only helpful for the person that is saying those things in the class, but it's going to be helpful for the entire class.

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Can he gain control over his class and be able to direct things in the right way with that kind of gift of teaching that a teacher must have?

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He must have a gift of teaching even if he's teaching a Sunday school class. So that's just to provide an example.

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And as Brian mentioned, there's other scriptures that talk about this, but we're just looking at Titus one here.

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Again, as I've said before, regarding an elder, a pastor, an overseer in the church, this is a man who is a mature

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Christian. When we test such a candidate, according to the qualifications that we have in scripture, we're looking for a person who's mature, who has grown up in these things, who knows how to disciple and shepherd others in these things.

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And so you're looking for that also in a Sunday school teacher. Now that person may not be as far along as mature, as matured, as grown as somebody who would be seeking an elder position.

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But just like Brian asked here, let me come back to the question again. What I'm really asking is, can a young man who meets all of those qualifications teach if he has not been recognized by the congregation as an elder?

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Absolutely. So we do have Sunday school teachers in our church that are not elders, even women that are

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Sunday school teachers. They're teaching our kids or we have women that lead the women's Bible study or something like that.

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So there are women that even will fill in those positions, but we're very careful about who the person is that's going to be filling in that class.

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Now it's a requirement for all of our elders to teach. And every church that I've been a part of, if an elder was holding an elder position, he had to be teaching a class.

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Now there can be seasons where, hey, I need a semester off. Let me take half a year or something like that.

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And we've definitely permitted that. But if the elder is called to teach and he has that gift of teaching, then he should be teaching.

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And all of us elders at my church, even though we're a small church, all of us elders teach.

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That's what an elder is called to do. And that's how we shepherd and exercise that gift.

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If you believe that you have that gift of teaching, I would say that you need to submit to your elders first and foremost, but even the guidance or the counsel that you would receive from any other brothers in the

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Lord. I've had, I've had this experience in the past where somebody has come to me and said, I want to teach a

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Sunday school class. And I've asked them, do you have any teaching experience? No, apart from teaching kids or something like that,

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I've never taught an adult class. And so I'll say to them, you know, come up with a lesson plan.

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Let's talk these things through and I'll talk it through with the individual. And then I might have them substitute in on another class and I'll sit in on that class and listen to them teach.

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And if I think that they've got it and they're good to teach an entire class, then we'll give them a

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Sunday school class and see if anybody joins it, because that's also going to be a mark of whether or not a person can be a leader in a class.

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Is anybody going to follow you? If you think that you have a gift of leadership and you are put in a position where people should be following you and they aren't, then maybe you don't have the gift of leadership that you thought that you had.

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So it's good for you to receive counsel from others, even though you're not recognized by the congregation as an elder, can you still be a teacher?

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Absolutely. So in one of the churches where I was a pastor, we would have a list of all the qualified teachers.

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This was a much bigger church, but everybody was qualified who had been through the teacher training, who had been listened to.

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And I was over that department. So usually it would be me that would do all of that work, but I would listen to this teacher.

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I would guide this teacher. We would sit down and have conversations. They would come up with lesson plans, so on and so forth.

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And once meeting all of the qualifications that any of our teachers needed to meet, then it came before the congregation and a list of those qualified teachers was given.

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The congregation would look through that list, ask any questions that needed to be asked. It would be approved.

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And then everybody that was on that list could now be a teacher. They could be a substitute teacher.

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And usually that was the way that it started out. So before handing them a Sunday school class, they would be a substitute that any of the teachers would call upon whenever they were going to be away.

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And substitutes had to be used on a fairly regular basis with the number of classes that we had. So they got plenty of experience that way.

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If somebody wanted to teach, we didn't have any open adult classes right now, then maybe we would give them a spot teaching the kids.

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There were always needs for teachers with children. That's some good experience.

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It's good to get that experience. Even if you don't think that your gift or your forte is teaching children, that takes a certain kind of finesse as well.

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But also great to get that kind of experience and to show the leadership in your church that you're willing to do anything.

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I want to grow as a teacher. What can you have me do? So again, go to your elders, talk with them about that, have conversations with your pastor and or anybody else who might be a mentor to you in your church and see where you fit and might be able to fill in or get some experience teaching.

42:45

And Godspeed to you, Brian. I hope that you get more opportunities to be able to do that. This next question comes from Ben.

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He says, hi, Pastor Gabe. I've been a longtime listener of the podcast. I appreciate how you present things in a way that even

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I can understand. Well, praise God for that. You truly have a gift and I'm grateful that you use it for good.

43:05

Thank you so much for everything that you and Becky do for the kingdom. God bless you,

43:11

Ben. Thank you. My question might seem a bit odd, but I promise it's not as weird as it sounds.

43:18

Recently, I started listening to Wretched Radio after hearing you mention it several times over the years.

43:24

I have to say it's great. I've become a big fan because Todd is another person who explains things simply enough for my thick skull to grasp.

43:34

There's someone on the show named Jimmy. I think he's the producer. He doesn't speak often, but when he does, it's really solid and easy to understand.

43:45

I guess you can see the pattern. I'm not a seminary student or a scholar, so I tend to gravitate toward guys who speak plain

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English. I love Todd, of course, but I wish we heard more from Jimmy.

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I did some googling, but couldn't find much about him. I did a sub. I did find a sub stack that he writes, and it's also really good.

44:05

My question is, do you know much more about this guy or his background? I considered emailing Wretched, but then realized how that question might come across, so I decided to ask you instead.

44:15

Thanks for your time and for everything that you do. Ben, I do happen to know Jimmy. I have met him on a couple of occasions.

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As a matter of fact, he and I are going to be speaking together at the White Harvest Conference that's coming up September 6th and 7th in Marble Hill, Georgia.

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He's one of the speakers, as well as Justin Peters, Jim Osman, Charlie Parrish, who's the pastor there at that church.

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Scott Klusendorf is going to be there. I've never met Scott in person. He and I have actually worked together, and I've never met

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Scott in person, so this will be my first opportunity to meet Scott at the

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White Harvest Conference. This, again, is September 6th and 7th, and you can find out more information if you're in the

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Atlanta area. It's a little bit north of there. Go to whiteharvestmin .com,

45:07

and all the information about joining the conference is right there. Like I said, Jimmy is one of the speakers. He attends that church where the

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White Harvest Conference is going to be held. Ben, I wanted to surprise you on this episode of the podcast by just calling

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Jimmy. I'd just call him up and just stick him on the air. Hey, Jimmy, I got this email, and this guy wanted to know about you and who you are, but I'm recording this really late at night, and there's a three -hour difference between me and Jimmy, so he probably would not appreciate me calling him at this hour.

45:39

I will get him on the line. One of these Q &As on Friday, I'll get Jimmy on, and I'll ask him for you and see if Jimmy will share a little bit more about himself.

45:50

I agree with you. Jimmy is a very talented guy. He also does those news briefings on Wretched, as well as being a producer and helping out with the

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Fortis Institute stuff that they do and things like that. So thankful for Jimmy's work, and he is perfectly content to play second banana to Todd Friel.

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Todd is quite a personality and tends to suck up a lot of air in the room, in case you haven't noticed.

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So Jimmy may not have a lot of opportunity to speak when Todd is talking. I love

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Todd, and I still listen to Wretched regularly. I catch it about once a week. It's not every single day, but four or five times a month or something like that.

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I always love Witness Wednesdays, especially when Todd is going out and is sharing the gospel with others, because that helps me.

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It helps me to know what kinds of questions people are going to ask and what kind of answers that I can give when

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I go out and do my evangelism. By the way, that's what the conference is going to be about. The White Harvest Ministries Conference is about evangelizing.

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Commissioned is the name of it, and our theme verse is Matthew 28, 19. Go and baptize in the name of the

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Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, making disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo,

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I am with you always to the very end of the age. I jumped into verse 20. But anyway, that's the theme for this particular conference, and once again, if you are in the

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Atlanta area and can make it, we would love to see you. So Ben, I'll give

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Jimmy a call, and we'll see if we can get him on for a future Q &A.

47:23

All right, last thing here, as we were talking about Dr. Dobson a moment ago and Dr.

47:28

John MacArthur, I forgot that I had this video pulled up. It was something that somebody had sent me earlier this week.

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It's Dr. MacArthur answering the question, for whom did Jesus die? I meant to play this right when we were talking about Dobson and MacArthur, but here we go.

47:44

I'll get it in here at the very end. So the question, this is at a Q &A that took place at Grace Community Church, and a woman asked the question, for whom did

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Jesus die? And Dr. MacArthur answers it. So here we go, and I'll kind of break in here and respond with some things also.

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My question is, did Jesus die for the sins of the world or only for those who are predestined?

48:10

Good question, Carrie. Let me ask you a question. Did He die for everyone or no one?

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Everyone. Okay. The Bible says He's the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but the sins of the whole world.

48:31

So the only Savior the world has is Christ. That's the second question is this, was

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His death an actual atonement or a potential one?

48:45

Actual. Yeah. Okay. So if it was an actual atonement, then it actually provided atonement for someone, not no one.

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So let me unpack that for you, okay? If you believe that Jesus provided an atonement for every human being who ever lived, then everyone goes to heaven, right?

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If He actually died for everyone in the world, everyone goes to heaven, because that's an actual atonement.

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But since we know that's not true, because there is a hell, and many are headed to hell, we know that He didn't actually die for everyone.

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So you could conclude, oh, He didn't actually die for anyone. He potentially died for everyone.

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In other words, He had sort of a potential atonement that the sinner activates by faith.

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That diminishes the atonement. Now, before going on, there's something else.

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I don't think He mentions this, but something else related to that, that I remember thinking about when this question was asked of me a number of years ago, is that if it's a potential atonement, if Jesus died just to offer an atonement, then the possibility would have to exist that no one gets saved at all.

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Like God could just offer this, Jesus could just die, and that atonement just sit there and no one accept it.

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That's the possibility. That possibility does exist in a potential atonement.

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So Jesus doesn't actually die for anyone. He dies to make an atonement that is just out there and actuated or becomes effective only when a person believes and puts their faith in Jesus.

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Now, there is somebody that this atonement can apply to, but it did not apply to anybody when

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Jesus died. And when I was younger, and I was thinking through these things regarding the atonement, this was what put me in a direction of understanding what we might call particular redemption, that Jesus died for a particular people.

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He redeemed for himself a people, as said in Titus 2 .14.

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Jesus didn't die to redeem a potential people. It says in Scripture, he died to redeem a particular people.

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Particular atonement is what the Bible teaches regarding the application of the atonement of Christ with his death on the cross.

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It was for his elect, those whom God had chosen from before the foundation of the world. These are those for whom

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Christ died. Now, the common rebuttal to that is somebody says, well, then there's a bunch of people who have no chance of being able to go to heaven.

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Okay, but you don't know who they are. You don't have any idea whom God has chosen and whom he has rejected from before the foundation of the world.

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And it's totally within his right to do that. He can save whom he wants to save and choose not to save whom he won't save.

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This is exactly what's in Romans 9. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion, and I will have mercy on whom

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I have mercy. And who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? None of us can stand there and say, well, that's not fair.

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It is gracious that God saves anyone at all. But he has a particular people whom

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Christ redeemed and all those who believe in Jesus. How do you know you're elect?

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If you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by faith you are saved, that's how you know that you are elect.

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So anyway, let's go on with this here as he continues with his answer to this lady. Now you're telling me that if Jesus only did a potential atonement that is activated by faith, then it would be fair to say that he did the same thing for the people in hell he did for the people in heaven, but the people in heaven were smart enough to take advantage of it.

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See, that's a great point. So did Jesus die for the people in hell? Did Jesus die for Judas?

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Judas was the son of destruction. Jesus knew that he being the son of perdition was born to betray the son of God and perish in judgment.

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That was what Judas was made for. It was prophesied hundreds of years before Judas even was born and was going to do this thing that he would betray

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Christ. And if Judas had not, we wouldn't be saved. So all of this was even foreordained by God.

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Jesus doesn't die for Judas. He doesn't die for people who won't be saved and waste his blood on those who won't accept it, on whom his blood does not cover.

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He died for those on whom his blood would remain. This makes the atonement something less than real.

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But if the Scripture says, He bore our sins in His own body on the cross, then it is an actual atonement.

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If it is an actual atonement, it was an actual atonement only for those who believe, and those who believe are the elect, okay?

54:32

You don't want to turn the atonement into a potential atonement, because now you've diminished it.

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You've made it not an atonement at all, but only some potential atonement that somehow is activated by a person's faith.

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The atonement is never described that way. He became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

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We were there when He died. We died with Him, right? Romans 6. We rose with Him.

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It was a real atonement. We were really there. He was really bearing the sins of His people, and His people would be all who believed, and those who believe are those who were given life and regeneration by the

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Holy Spirit because they were chosen before the foundation of the world. So it's a real atonement.

55:28

Thank you. So great answer, as always, from Dr. MacArthur. Ephesians 1, verse 3,

55:36

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love, by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which

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He graciously bestowed on us in the Beloved. My friends, there's no reason for us to get angry and up at arms at the doctrine of predestination, and it's always astonishing to me how angry these kinds of conversations will make people.

56:21

The reason why it makes them angry is because they're still thinking with their flesh. They're still thinking with the mind of a man and not with the mind of God.

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And that's why Peter reacted the way that he did when Jesus said he was going to go to the cross and be crucified. Peter's saying, no, by no means,

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Lord, I will never let this happen to you. Got aggressive and upset at the prospect that his

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Lord was going to go and die. Now, he may have had good intentions in his heart. I don't want my

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Lord to go and suffer, and I'm trying to protect him and prevent him from going and suffering.

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But if Peter had his way, we would not be saved. And so Jesus responds to Peter, get behind me,

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Satan, for you are a hindrance to me. You are not thinking with the mind of God, but with the mind of a man.

57:12

And those who are still immature think this way about the atonement.

57:18

They think this way about predestination. They don't like the idea that God has chosen, because then that means there's like this whole segment of people that have no chance at all.

57:28

Again, that's not up to you, and we don't even know that. We won't even see the full picture of that until we get to glory one day.

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But we can rejoice in this doctrine in knowing that God has predestined.

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He has a plan. He will fulfill it. He will not fail to save any person that he had chosen to be saved from before the foundation of the world.

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Everyone he has chosen will be saved. Praise God. They're not potentially saved.

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They will be saved by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. I am so glad that Jesus loves me, that he put his affections on me before I was even born, because he probably would not have put his affections on me afterward.

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I am a sinful wretch deserving of the judgment of God, and yet he has shown grace to me and saved me by his love and mercy that were shown to me through Jesus Christ, who died for me on the cross for me.

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One of the verses that MacArthur had quoted there, 2 Corinthians 5 21, for our sake, he became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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And all of that is by his grace. Well, I thank you again for listening to the program.

58:55

And as always, for telling somebody else about it as well. Don't forget, if you have a question, you can send it via email to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

59:04

When we understand the text at gmail .com or go to www .utt

59:10

.com click on that voicemail tab and you can record a voicemail to us through your phone or through your computer.

59:19

Again, on behalf of Becky and me and the rest of the family, God bless you and thank you so much for the love that you have shown to us.

59:27

And I'll be back on the program again next week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we're in the gospel of Luke, I'm jumping into chapter 18 next week,

59:34

I suppose. And then Old Testament study on Thursday, God willing another q &a on Friday, God bless.