Harbor Freight Doug Wilson & Great Value Steven Furtick talking' Nuance

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Calvary.

Your Calvinist podcast is filmed before a live studio audience.

And welcome back to your Calvinist podcast.

My name is actually the Harbor freight, Doug Wilson today, and I'm glad to have you on the, your Calvinist

podcast.

Yes, guys.

It's Keith Bosky.

Your Harbor freight, Doug Wilson.

And, uh, we're going to be talking today to my friend and fellow pastor

and the great value, Steven Furtick.

Yes, that's right.

We have Sean DeMars with us and we're going to be bringing him in, in just a moment, but before we do that, I just want to

remind you of a few important things as we begin the show.

First, this is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church.

If you're in the Jacksonville area, come visit us at Sovereign Grace Family Church.

You can find us at sgfcjacks .org.

Also remember we're a, we are a member of the truth and love network.

If you're looking for other great podcasts, you can find them at the truth and love network.

Just throw that into Google and you'll pull up the website there.

Uh, we are also continuing to encourage people who enjoy a great cigar to go to 1689 cigars.

And if you use the coupon code superior theology, they will give you a discount.

Finally, if you want to get in touch with me, go to keithfosky .com.

You can email me directly from the website and that will allow us to interact.

And if you have ideas for the show, people you'd like for me to interview, or if you'd like to be interviewed on the show, if you have a book or

something you'd like for us to talk about, send it to me and I would love to talk to you about that.

Again, if you're enjoying the show, hit a thumbs up.

And if you don't like this show, make sure you hit that thumbs down button twice.

All right, guys, we're going to bring in our guest today.

He is a very famous man.

He is a pastor, podcaster, featured in American gospel.

He's been a part of the larger conversation in Christian circles now for several years.

I've heard that he raps and my friend Kobe Muncy actually asked if he has another rap album coming.

So that's one of the questions we're going to ask.

But anyhow, this is my friend and fellow pastor, Sean DeMar.

Sean, thank you for being a part of the show today.

Actually, great value, Steven Furtick.

How you doing?

Oh, you're muted.

I let me, I'm sorry I unmuted you.

There you go.

No, it's good, brother.

Hey, listen, glad to be here.

I flew all the way in from North Carolina where I have, is it, or is it South Carolina

where I pastor a mega church with seven campuses, 9 ,000 members.

I have the biggest house in Charlotte.

I think that's South Carolina, right?

Yeah.

Anyways, this is why I'm like, I don't remember.

I'm a Florida boy, so I don't know.

Yeah, there you go.

Now, brother, thanks for having me on the podcast.

Yeah, man.

Uh, and I, and I did, I wore my, I wore my, uh, my, my Doug Wilson sweater vest for this

occasion.

This is my Doug Wilson outfit.

Uh, I've done a sweater vest dialogue with James White where I dressed as, as Doug Wilson, and this is kind of our

thing.

But this is what, this is what caused me to, to originally reach out to you.

Cause I I've been following you on Facebook for years.

I've, I've, I've wanted to have you on the show, but, but what really got my attention was when someone posted this picture

and they said, um, why is Steven Furtick interviewing Keith Foskey and Bill Burr?

And I just thought this was great because that's obviously you interviewing Doug Wilson

and, uh, uh, Rigney was Joe Rigney is his name.

And, uh, I think he looks more like Jackie Lee Hay or Jackie Earl Haley than he does, uh, than he does Bill

Burr.

But, but we'll, we'll, we'll leave it at that.

That's like when your grandpa makes an obscure reference that like, I have no idea who that is.

Who Jackie Earl Haley.

Uh -huh.

Yeah.

Did you ever see, uh, uh, Warshak from the movie?

Oh goodness.

Uh, it's the superhero movie, but it's the really crazy one with the,.

Uh, oh goodness.

I can't the Watchmen.

Do you ever see Watchmen?

Are you a superhero guy?

No.

Oh man.

I'm the nerd today.

I, I'm obviously the nerd.

You look at my studio.

You can tell I'm a, I'm a movie nerd.

Um, but no Jackie Earl Haley played a guy and he looks like Joe Rigney.

So people in the, people in the comments, tell me if I'm wrong.

I think I'm right.

Let me tell me, tell me if I'm the weird one.

Everyone else definitely has heard of that person.

Okay.

So I know that I know who you are.

And I remember I first saw you, I think I first saw you on American gospel, the movie, uh, you, you were

interviewed and you were part of the documentary and you've done a lot of stuff since then.

But, um, the, uh, some of my audience might, may not know who you are.

So would you just for a few minutes, kind of tell us about yourself, um, you know, tell us who you are, or as one

Twitter person said, who is Sean DeMars?

And another person said, who do you think you are?

So, so that's, that's a great question too.

So I, uh, I'm a pastor of sixth Avenue community church in Decatur, Alabama.

I grew up outside of the church, uh, to a family of drug addicts and alcoholics.

Um, uh, I was abused pretty horrifically most of my childhood.

And I think the Lord really used that to soften my heart, to prepare me for the gospel.

I spent most of my teenage years and gangs and drugs and guns and violence and all of that

stuff.

I was a crystal meth dealer and a pimp when I got saved based in 20 years in prison.

That was when I was 18.

Uh, soon thereafter, I got involved in the prosperity gospel because I didn't know any better.

And I kind of became the prosperity gospel poster boy.

And then, uh, yeah, the Lord used a John Piper video to lead me out of that.

I was in the military for five years.

I was a combat medic, one tour of duty in Missoula, Iraq, came home, uh, went to the

mission field.

I was a missionary with my wife, uh, and our two daughters in Peru for four years in the upper

Amazon river basin, trying to reach the Wudarina people group, came home, uh, tried to be a Presbyterian

for a year.

The Lord was kind, didn't allow that to happen.

Then I did the Capitol Hill Baptist church internship, and then I came back to Decatur, Alabama to do a church

revitalization, which by God's grace worked.

And, uh, yeah, and that's it, man.

Well, that's awesome.

I wasn't aware of your missions work.

I guess I probably have heard about it and just didn't, didn't register with me because I'm, I'm, I'm always so

grateful for the men and women who God is, uh, who gifts to go and to do those things.

And, and especially reaching the unreached peoples.

We support a missionary named, uh, Scott Phillips who goes to Indonesia and, and I try to mention him as

much as I can because I like to encourage support for him.

And, uh, but, but knowing that, I mean, maybe I'll have you back one day just to talk about things that you learned on the

mission field, because, uh, I'm sure that helped form who you are as a pastor.

So that's great.

That's, that's, that's, that's wonderful work.

Now, um, I do have some, uh, things I want to talk about in regard to your

online ministry.

Uh, but before I do that, can you tell us, cause I know you've got a, you've got a hand in a lot of different things.

Uh, you, you're, you're pastoring your church.

Also, I want to hear about your church's recovery.

Cause I know you guys went through a difficult situation back at the, at the beginning of the year with a fire,

but I also want to hear about your online ministry.

I know you have room for nuance and, and some other shows that you do.

So, uh, tell us first, how's the church doing and, uh, what happened with the fire and how you guys are

recovering from that?

Yeah.

So I woke up on new year's day at like 4am to a phone call from a firefighter buddy

of mine saying that our church, uh, had burned.

So I went down there, uh, as I was walking up, he handed me the, the, my preaching Bible, which

survived with just sort of exterior burns.

Uh, and you know, went in and saw that, yeah, the, the building had gone up in flames, a wall heater

that we didn't even know existed, shorted out or something like that.

And the building caught on fire and yeah, by God's grace, our church is doing great.

When I, when we started the church revitalization, the church didn't really have the gospel, but they had a building.

Now we have the gospel, but we don't have a building, which is infinitely to be preferred.

Uh, so we're meeting in a local church of first Baptist church here in Decatur, Alabama, very kindly let us use their chapel, which

is exceedingly nice.

I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's amazing.

I tell our people not to get used to it.

We're going to build back uglier, you know, Puritans at heart.

And so, yeah, so we're meeting there.

Uh, we're trying to figure out insurance stuff.

It's, it's kind of tricky, but, uh, yeah, everything's going well.

Yeah.

I tell you what, uh, first of all, build back uglier is a funny phrase that that would make a good, good bumper

sticker for your church as you guys are rebuilding and we're going to build back uglier.

That's, that's funny.

Yeah.

Um, and you're right insurance.

And this is, this is probably a boring topic for anybody else.

But for me, like, like, you know, nobody, nobody else cares, but like,

you know, like in our, our state, we have to deal with hurricanes just about every year.

I mean, thankfully where we are in Jacksonville, it's not so bad because it's North Florida.

Southern Florida gets hit all the time and they don't even offer wind insurance for, for, for

churches anymore because of, because of all of the, the hurricane stuff.

And so, yeah, I mean, I, I just, the, the, the difficulty, the difficult things people don't think about as being pastors,

like having to think about building insurance, having to think about what you're dealing with right now, that's something that,

that a lot of people don't even realize is part of the job, you know?

So tell me about your podcast.

I know you have a room for nuance and you have another show, right?

You have a couple of things.

Defending Confirm.

Defending Confirm is an apologetics podcast that I started with Russell Berger.

He, uh, another guy from the American gospel.

He worked for CrossFit as a high level executive.

He got fired because he wouldn't support an LGBTQ event, uh, and

supported a gym owner who didn't want to participate in an LGBTQ event.

Uh, and so he got fired.

So, uh, that happened while he was an elder at our local church.

And, uh, we were teaching an apologetic Sunday school class and the people said, wow, you kind of have a good dynamic together,

which we kind of already knew that we, we actually met doing evangelism outside of an abortion clinic.

So Russell's a little bit more of a bulldog.

I'm a little bit more pastoral and you can, you know, we kind of balance each other out.

And so, yeah, we just set up a camera and started talking about stuff.

And the Lord really seemed to bless it.

Not with a wide reach, but sort of a narrowly deep impact.

We did our series on critical theory, uh, not to sound too much like a hipster, but before it was cool, you know,

uh, and especially during 2020, 2021, a lot of elder boards sort of use that series

to figure out where they were on the woke stuff.

Uh, so yeah, we were attacking wokeness, uh, and critical theory stuff a while

ago, which is funny because these days people call me woke.

Yeah.

It's an interesting experience.

And then we did some stuff on church planting movements, which is not a good thing.

It sounds like it would be, it's actually a really horrendous missiology.

Uh, it's a view of church planting that, uh, is really unbiblical, but it has sort of taken

over Southeast Asia, particularly, uh, in the IMB circles.

And so that, that, that was also, I think, pretty useful.

Um, so yeah, so that's, uh, that's, uh, defending confirm.

And then we have room for nuance, which is my podcast where I try to bring on subject matter experts and

not rush them.

So like, I remember I got invited onto a show to talk about critical race theory and they said, okay, we have 20 minutes.

And I was like, this is really complicated stuff, you know?

Uh, so I said, okay, what we need to do is stop going shorter and shorter and shorter.

Uh, we need to do it like Rogan does.

And what Lex Friedman does give people time.

If they spent like their whole lives or the last 20 years studying this thing, we need to, yeah, give them

ample room to talk about stuff because it's complicated.

Stuff is complicated.

You need to nuance your arguments.

Uh, and I'm still using that word, regardless of what Joe said, you could tell him I said that, uh,

for the sake of clarity.

Yes.

But nuance is how we get to clarity.

Uh, we add shades of meaning, not, not to obscure the truth, but to, to, to get more clear on the truth.

Anyways, as I told Joe and Doug, uh, these days, it feels like defending confirm is our conservative podcast in

a room for nuances, our podcast for liberals.

Uh, now that's a joke, but, uh, some people in the comment section after that, the interview didn't take it as a joke, but I hope you do.

No, I was actually going to mention that.

I thought that was funny because like you said, you got the one where you got the bulldog with you, you know, the guy who's the kind of the stronger

voice and you're there and you guys are, you're being pastoral with him.

But then you have the other podcast where you're letting people come on and talk about their positions, talk about where, where they are.

And, um, have you ever heard the term, the Dunning Kruger effect?

Yeah.

Okay.

For people who don't know what that is, that's the idea that when someone first learns about something, they have this massive, uh,

feeling of, of, of confidence, but then as they learn more about it, their confidence drops because they realize how

little they know.

And then as they begin to grow in their knowledge, they become more confident.

But, but what happens is the guy at the beginning, who's super confident, that's the 20 minute guy.

When you're talking about the, the, what, what made me think of that was when you said somebody wants you to come on.

Like if somebody I've had people say, come on and describe, can you, can you explain Calvinism in 20 minutes?

No, I can't.

I can tell you the basics of the five points of Calvinism, but it's not going to convince anyone.

It's not going to provide anyone with enough understanding to really come to a conclusion about it.

It's not helpful.

I did.

I mean, I I've done series on each of the points and obviously I'm a Calvinist.

That's the title of my show, but you can't do this in, in, in five minutes or 10 minutes or even

20 minutes.

And so I think you're right.

The long form opportunity to give people the opportunity to speak into the subject that they

have studied for 20 years is much better than to hear the, the 10 minute opining of a guy who's

been studying this for 20 minutes.

Yeah.

And so people think that these podcasts have to be short because people won't listen to them if they're longer.

And that's just not true.

It's another case of like evangelicals being a little bit behind the curve on kind of what's happening in the broader culture,

like long form podcasts are the fastest growing medium in the world.

There's a reason why Rogan got a couple hundred million dollars from Spotify to do a show.

So yeah, I found that people love it.

I actually don't love it when it goes too long, but some people out there, you know, can lock in for

three or four hours.

Yeah.

I think, I think there's a balance.

Uh, you know, I, I have a hard time because most of my, most of my viewers, most of my

audiences on YouTube, because I started doing comedy stuff and that's what really got people to begin watching our show.

And so my audio podcast isn't as, as well listened to as, as the, as the YouTube is,

is watched.

And that's cool for me, but a lot of people will message me and say, Hey man, I don't, I can't watch YouTube for an hour

cause my phone won't let me do it.

Like my phone clicks off and I'm not paying $15 a month for, for YouTube premium to be.

So, so that's where I've had to point people.

Okay.

Well, if you, if you like the long form stuff, go listen to it.

Cause what's the use of looking at my face for an hour or looking at, you know, our faces.

That's so interesting.

Our audio is like 10 to one to our YouTube.

Yeah, it's the opposite.

It's the opposite for me.

My, my, but, but, but, but it became, but again, 90 of my content

is, is, is video.

Based.

It's either it's, it's funny.

It's um, you know, I have a show called church soup, which is a new show.

It's sort of like SNL and some of the jokes don't work if you're not looking.

Cause I tried, I tried posting church soup to audio and it didn't work because, yeah, because you gotta, you know, when I

make a joke about Joe Biden or something and there's a picture of him, it just fits better.

It doesn't really work.

And again, I hope we're not boring.

The audience is like, we're like shop talk here, you know, podcasting shop talk.

But this is, um, I love to talk to guys who kind of, we do the same thing cause we, we, we can learn

from each other.

I had a great talk with, uh, Matt Whitman last week of 10 minute Bible hour.

And dude, we stayed on for, for an extra half hour after the show and just talked about, yeah, what we do.

And I was, I was grateful, grateful for that.

He's, he's a great dude.

All right.

So I want to, um, I want to talk to you.

I have a few questions here.

Oh, first of all, before I even get to this Bible dinger said, did you get their.

Shirt?

That was one of the questions.

They, I texted those guys this morning said I was interviewing you.

And that's a great question.

I actually say, Hey Amber.

Sorry.

My wife is Amber.

Amber.

No, I'm just kidding.

Where is my super suit?

I actually still don't know if I have, if I've got it.

Don't know if you got it.

Okay.

All right.

Well they, I texted him.

I said, Hey, I'm going to have Sean on this morning.

What should I ask him?

And that was the first question they said, ask if he got our shirt.

Hey, did I get a shirt from Bible diggers?

Is it the one that says, um, bros before foes?

Oh yeah, I guess so.

I got the shirt.

I was out of town.

Well, thank you Amber for being on the show.

Just audio, but we appreciate it.

Again.

Well, let me say this to the guys at Bible dingers.

If they do watch this, I didn't get a shirt and text me if you want my size.

All right.

Yeah.

Well, I'm, I'm an extra small.

That's that's, that's the, yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

So, um, you, you have gotten some negative, uh, feedback from

Rosario and from, uh, Joe Rigney regarding the name nuance.

Um, and so you, you, you just said earlier, you know, I'm defending it, I'm sticking with it.

Um, Isaac Stanley on, on, on, uh, social media.

He said, how many more blows to the kneecaps is he going to take before he changes the podcast name?

And so that was a question I wanted to start with is, is, has this, has this

negative response to the name given you any thoughts or are you going to stick with what you're, what you're doing?

Yeah, no, I'm doubling down.

No one down.

Okay.

Especially because it's, there's this weird thing sometimes amongst conservatives of whom I am the foremost,

where you're, you're a little manic.

On the one hand, you don't, you're like, you don't want to give up a word.

Like evangelical, right.

Whereas like some left -leaning squishy Christians are like, ah, you know, that, that word has

become corrupted.

We need to abandon it.

And all the conservatives are like, no, this is a good word.

And I'm like, yeah, I agree.

Uh, or they want to bring back the word patriarchy, which I actually don't think is super smart for, for a couple of different

reasons, but, uh, the word nuance is, is a word that does not belong to the left.

I disagree with Rosaria.

It's not a postmodern neologism.

The word nuance predates postmodernism.

And, uh, and I don't want to give that word up to liberals.

It's not their word.

They can come and try to take over a word and make it their own.

And, but like, no, this is a word that belongs to anyone who is trying to pursue truth.

And I just don't know of another word that really captures the essence of what I'm trying to do as well as nuance.

Rigney says we need to use the word clarity, but nuance and clarity are not synonymous.

Clarity is the end goal.

Nuance is the mean by which means by which we get there.

And brother, you're a pastor.

You, you probably experienced this before where you're sitting down and you're talking with someone

and you're trying to lead them with God's word.

And they think they've understood it.

And they were, they'll say something to you and you'll say, oh, that's not quite right.

Let's nuance that a little bit, a shade of meaning to help everyone get to the truth.

Right.

Um, my guests on the show, I want to do like a super cut one day of all of our guests

who use the word nuance as they're talking to me, trying to explain their position and these aren't liberals.

They're conservatives.

You know, they'll say, oh no, let me nuance that a little bit.

So no, the word doesn't belong to the left.

I can't think of a better word.

And I think practically this is what we do all the time.

That's what Joe does.

It's what I think one of my favorite comments was how Joe, somebody said Joe Rigney gave an

incredibly nuanced answer.

Uh, to the question, why should we not use the word nuance?

You know?

So I think we're doing it anyway, so I'm going to keep it.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

And, and you, you mentioned as being a pastor that, you know, when you sit down with someone, I'll tell you that

one of the hard things that I've, I've experienced and let me clarify something real quick.

You're, you're in the reform camp as far as your soteriology, you're, you're, are you, are you a reformed Baptist?

Is that how you define yourself?

Even though our Scott Clark wouldn't allow you to do that.

Are you?

Not a 1689 or, but reformed Baptist.

Yeah. Yeah.

Me too.

Uh, we, we hold to the first London, not the second London.

Uh, there's a whole story behind that.

Uh, so in that, um, one of the things I found and I, and I'm thinking of a person specifically in

our church that sometimes has a problem with using language that sounds very fatalistic when he's

trying to describe his reformed view of, of, of salvation.

And I have to, I have to draw him back.

I have to reach out and say, brother, that, that, what you, what you're saying sounds like it is

fatalistic.

What you're saying, the words you're using are not the words that scripture uses.

It's not even the words that the reformers used.

It's you're using words that are, are I think hurtful in the sense that

they're going to cause people to misunderstand what we're saying.

And I, and I, and so in that sense, we could say we're talking about nuance,.

Right?

We, you're not nuancing that correctly.

Whether we're talking about the Trinity, the hypostatic union, complementarianism,

reformed soteriology, there's always a lot of parsing out, not quite this and

not quite that.

And, you know, you gotta be really careful.

Yeah.

It's just how you do theology, even if you're not a pastor.

Yeah.

I mean, consider the Athanasian creed, you know, I mean, and, and I would never say the

Athanasian creed is, is just an example of nuance, but doesn't it say, you know, he's this and not this and this and

not this, and this is the, you know, we're, we're saying he's completely this and yet still this and

all of these, you know, the way that it's describing and what's that based on 300 years of trying to

figure it out, you know, 400 years of trying to figure out when we describe Christ's nature as being,

you know, vera homo vera deus, even that phrase, what, you know, what does it mean to be truly God and

truly man?

Um, that's a difficult thing to, to describe.

You know, recently I had a conversation with a Muslim who visited our church and he visited because

he had, he was invited by a member to come sit in and he sat and he did not worship.

He just sat there and then afterwards wanted to talk to me and he, he, his big hangup

with, with like most Muslims was on the doctrine of the Trinity.

And as I was trying to describe, as I was trying to open up the word of God to him and show him what it says,

he, he did not like that having to explain these things in a nuanced way.

He wanted, he, well, I just think God is completely one and, and, and, and I think you've, you've overcomplicated it.

I was like, yeah, but, but, but God is not, not as God is not complicated, but yet at the same time, God is

greater than we can understand.

And so we have to describe these things in, in that way.

So with that being said, when we talk about the subject of doctrine,

one of the things that I've done on the show several times, and I've had different people on, we talk about doctrine in regard

to, I use concentric circles, other people go differently, but we would say the center circle.

For us, we say definitional, denominational, and then

doubtful.

And so by that, we mean the things that make someone a Christian are in the center circle.

Those are definitional to, to the faith.

And then the second tier would be things that, that divide denominations, things like baptism and, and, and who, who is to

be baptized.

Yet we would still say those people are Christians.

And then the third tier would be things that we would say are doubtful.

Even within a, even within a church, there can be differences on things like eschatology and things like that.

Who, you know, those ideas.

So do you find, no, I know.

And that's that, that I'm just fixing to go there because I'm leading into a question.

And the question is this, one, do you find that helpful?

And do you use something like that when you're teaching your people?

These are the, these are the things that are essential.

These are the things that are non -essential.

And where is the nuance for people who have difficulties with these things?

Yeah.

So that what you're describing is theological triage.

I think that's the phrase that was, uh, the term that was coined by Al Mohler.

It was helpfully picked up on by Gavin Ortlin, who wrote a fantastic book on how to do it called finding the right hills

to die on.

And, uh, it is just so good.

So if any of your viewers or listeners want to know more about how to do theological triage for the sake of

getting more gospel under our feet, that's the, that's the great resource there.

Yeah.

I mean, we're again, so the thing about nuances, we're doing this all the time.

So when you're in a church and you're trying to help a member who's really struggling with something, he doesn't think a doctrine is as important as you

think it is, or he should think it is, or maybe he, um, has put too much

emphasis on a particular doctrine and you're trying to help them see that it's actually not a first order issue.

It's a second order issue.

You're having to do all kinds of nuanced stuff.

That doesn't mean you're not using the Bible or you're not being clear.

You're not being direct.

You know, you walk to first Corinthians 15, you try to show them, you know, here are the matters of first importance.

And then you go to, uh, Romans 14 and you go to first Corinthians and you show them matters of the conscience.

And you try to help them think through that.

And it's just a very nuanced conversation.

Like, okay, one person holds one day is more holy than another.

This person does not, one of them is right.

There's actually a correct theological position, right?

Uh, when, when Paul is talking about meat offered to idols, he's clear, there is no such thing as a demon.

Okay.

So one person has the theological, the idols are fake.

This person is actually theologically correct, but he can be correct in a way that's actually incorrect.

And so it's an incredibly nuanced conversation and you're having to help them, uh, see that.

What's even more fascinating is cultural pressure points on our theological triage.

So, uh, theonomy in my opinion is becoming a second order issue.

I think, I think in a different context, it would be a third order issue.

Like if I go to a house church in China, there's not going to be a theonomy controversy that

I feel like is bumping up against the gospel.

In our context, it feels like it very much is.

So even there is like this, it's not even like a, like a chart, like the concentric circle thing is great.

And by the way, I love the alliteration.

I don't know if you learned how to do that in seminary, but bravo.

But, uh, in reality, it's, it's less like a, like a, a chart that goes like this or even

circles.

It's more like this 3D, 4D thing where you're moving chess pieces in, in

different dimensions to try to figure it out, that's a very long rambly answer.

I don't even know if I remember your original question, but boom, there you go.

No, I think, I think that helps.

And stepping back and saying, it's not as simple as just the three circles.

And this is, this is what I've told people.

I've say the three circles are a way for us to simply identify that there are things that make Christians,

genuine Christians, and there are things that don't make Christians, genuine Christians.

And that's really the heart of it.

And then there are things that would separate churches, but wouldn't necessarily separate believers.

And, um, I do want to, I do want to clarify, you said there's no such thing as demons.

I don't think you meant to say that.

Oh, sorry.

No such thing as idols.

Thank you.

When you said there's no, I was like, somebody's going to hear that.

Somebody's going to, somebody's going to use that against you.

So I know, I know you believe in, yeah.

Sean DeMars doesn't believe in demons.

That's right.

That's right.

Okay.

So, uh, and that's another thing people do.

People will take 10 seconds of something that we say, uh, either out of context or something we incorrectly say or

whatever, and, uh, and make us into an enemy for no reason.

Well, that's why I never, I never jump on the bandwagon when somebody posts a clip of some person

in evangelicalism who says something like me, whether it's from a pulpit or an interview, if you spend as

much time talking about whatever in front of people, you're going to mess up, it's going to be, you're going to have

a weird Freudian slip or, or something, you know, you're, or you're going to be having an off day

or whatever, you know, and yeah, uh, I try to give them as much grace as I hope people would give

me.

Yeah.

And, and, and this, this would, um, you know, just last week and I, and I, and I'm not, I'm not going to ask

you to opine on the subject matter, but just last week, the issue with John MacArthur, where it was

the quote that came out where he said, there's, you know, there's no such thing as PTSD.

There's no such thing as, as, um, OCD and those things.

And, you know, I was tempted to, you know, respond.

And I had some friends that, you know, we were talking about maybe doing something on the podcast about it.

But I decided, I ultimately decided not to do it.

I said, one, it's been responded to, to the hill.

Everybody felt the need to respond.

And, and I, and at this point, it's just going to be white noise.

If I say anything to, to add on, but ultimately I do think that was a place where, uh,

where, where, where John was trying to be, and I call him John, like we're friends, Dr. MacArthur, as I was

like, where Dr. MacArthur was trying to be pithy.

And, and, and did he say some things that I disagree with?

Yes.

Did he say some things that I think maybe were, were incorrect, but at the same time, he's, he's, um, he's in

that context where people are only listening to 10 seconds of what he said and much of what he said,

I would agree with.

I think overmedication is a problem.

I think overdiagnosis is a problem.

Self -diagnosis, all these things can be a problem.

It's the issue of the five seconds of things that he said that were probably problematic and were problematic for

a lot of people.

That's the issue.

And so, um, that's the hard part about being in front of people.

Yeah.

That's the hard part about being, uh, everything you say is dissected.

And, um, uh, it's like Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt last week, he said, it takes a special psychosis to do what we

do, you know, to, to get out and just talk and let people sort of die, you know, take everything you say

apart and, um, and that's what we're, we're dealing with.

So with that, uh, thought continuing to move through, uh, these questions that I have here specifically

regarding the question of nuance and being a pastor, um, what is the most

difficult?

Well, let me make sure I get this question exactly how, how I want to ask it.

What is the most difficult time where as a pastor,

someone trying to over nuance something has created an issue in it with you and,

and, and maybe within your church.

And I have an idea.

Maybe if, maybe if I give you a nudge might help, cause I'm not sure I'm questioning it, why, right where, where somebody might come in

and say something like on the LGBT issue and someone might say, well, you know, we, we, we have to

meet these people where they are.

We have to, you know, we have to love them and their sin.

So therefore we have to nuance this to the point where we can no longer really address it as sin.

That's kind of the thought I'm thinking.

And I don't think you can over nuance something.

I think you can obfuscate, uh, again, nuances, adding shade of meaning

to help us arrive at the truth.

So, uh, again, this, this is, this comes back to like a lexical thing.

You know, what, are we going to let that word take on sort of a broader range of meaning?

I want to fight to, to restrict that and keep the meaning very narrow.

But yeah, like what you're talking about is a real thing.

And it is, you know, it could be LGBT stuff today.

It could be oneness, Pentecostalism tomorrow.

You know, uh, the, the, the, the case studies could be

endless, but yeah, when somebody comes in and they, they weaponize questions, they play the

devil's advocate, uh, you know, I tell people.

I've had members where I've had to sit them down and say like, listen, the devil has enough advocates of his own.

He does not need you in this situation.

That is not helpful.

There's a way that you can ask a question that is honoring to God.

That is humble.

That is in the pursuit of truth.

And there's a way that you can ask questions and make assertions and try to add shades of meaning.

Uh, that's moving us in the opposite direction.

And as a, as a pastor, you kind of have a pretty good sense of that.

You know, your antennas are finely tuned and, and, uh, yeah, then it

just depends on the context.

You know, is it one -on -one?

Are we in a small group setting?

If it's a small group, I'd have to cut that person off for the sake of the group to protect them from,

from anything that could go wrong.

Uh, if it's one -on -one, you might indulge them, but that takes a lot of wisdom too.

There, there are two Proverbs back to back.

One says, uh, uh, do not answer a fool according to his folly.

The other says, do answer a fool according to his folly.

And that's not a contradiction.

That's just us needing to apply wisdom to figure out the situation.

Is this someone that I should respond to and indulge in?

Uh, or is this a question I should indulge?

Or is this someone who's sitting by Satan to suck up all of my time and

energy?

Uh, so yeah, it's, it's tricky.

It's tricky.

I love the phrase weaponized questions.

I've never, I don't know that I've heard that before, but I know exactly what you mean by it.

People who, well, I was just asking a question.

No, you were creating conflict.

You were sowing division.

Some questions are, you know, are, are intended to do just that.

Um, I remember very early on in my ministry, uh, being in Sunday school and there were just, there were a

few people who it seemed like were, were very at odds with a lot of what I was teaching.

And, and they always came in with, with questions that didn't have anything to do with what I was teaching.

It was more just to get off track.

And I actually had people come to me after class.

I remember this and said, I can't, I can't enjoy the class.

They're not letting you teach.

So our Wednesday night inductive Bible study, we have verses on the whiteboard.

We have someone who teaches it, who leads and asks a bunch of questions.

And sometimes we'll get people who will do that.

And like, I tell our team, like you have to cut them off.

This has to be edifying for the group.

This is not just a one -on -one conversation with you and the teacher and a vacuum seal too, you know?

And they might get, that's fine.

I'd rather risk hurting one person's feeling, feelings who's monopolizing the conversation versus Rob

edification from the other 50 people in the room.

No, that's wise.

And that's very pastoral that, that, that, you know, considering, um, this, this, cause you see

what the person is doing.

It's, it's, it's not, and it may be somewhat innocent.

They may not realize they're doing it, but they're doing it all the same.

Whether, whether they're, whether they're being intentionally divisive or just, you know, perhaps ignorantly,

uh, or, or innocently either way, it's creating the same, the same problem.

Um, and so when we, when we address the subject of, and I do want to move on to some other listener questions.

I just, I really liked this, this conversation.

I, you use the word obfuscation.

All right.

And, um, I, if you could define for us the difference between how you understand

nuance and I'm, I'm so I can't even say it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, again, nuance is just trying to add meaning for the sake of clarity, get shades of meaning, you know?

Okay.

God is sovereign, but man is responsible.

In order to parse that out, there's a lot of, uh, shading that needs to be

done.

It's kind of like, like my haircut, right?

To flow from here to there, you can't just draw like a hack, a hack of a line, you

know, you need to shade it in.

That's what a good fade is.

That's what you're doing with nuance.

You're trying to go from like this thing, God's total sovereignty to man's complete responsibility, which

seems like they should meet in such a way that it's just a really harsh line.

But nuance allows you to smooth that out.

So the two truths blend seemingly together.

Obfuscation is where you muddy the waters.

You know, you just go in there and you try to make things as, I mean, if you read basically anybody's PhD

dissertation, there's a lot, lot of obfuscation.

If you read most liberal Christian theology, it's obfuscation, and that can come grammatically.

Uh, it can come with the vocabulary you choose to use.

Uh, Thomas Sowell actually talks a lot about this.

His writing is a, is a phenomenal example of someone who is smart enough that

he can take a subject matter and make it simple, simple to the reader, right?

That's the sign of true genius.

You can take something that's complicated enough for, you know, a PhD program, and you can give it to someone, you can give it to

an eight year old or a 10 year old, which is kind of what Thomas Sowell does with economics.

Uh, but he, he, he is in marked contrast to a lot of his opponents whenever he's discussing an

issue who are always making things muddy and less clear.

And, uh, whenever I sense that in someone, when it feels like they're trying to muddy the waters, not only is there just a

dialogue issue, but now there's a trust issue, you know?

Yeah.

Uh, cause like I can have a conversation with you if I feel like we're both trying to move in the same

direction.

Uh, here, here's a pretty classic example of this.

Uh, Piper one time was asked, you know, how do you deal with CS Lewis and his wonky views on

inerrancy and his, his flirtation with universalism and all this stuff.

Uh, you give him a pass, but like, you're so hard on Rob Bell.

And Piper said, uh, I feel like Lewis is failing towards the truth.

Whereas with Rob Bell, I feel like he is trying to lead people into error.

And he's doing it by muddying the waters.

Lewis is failing, but he's trying to get people closer to the truth.

He's trying to clarify things.

Whereas Rob Bell takes that, which is exceedingly clear in scripture and tries to muddy those waters.

So that that's, that's where the trust issue comes in.

Yeah.

So you're most, uh, well, recently you're the, the, the, the, the two interviews you did

that were most, um, at least clipped and people talked about them was the lig interview.

And, uh, and I've known like for years, you know, I, I had an opportunity years ago to go to a, um,

uh, w when Ligonier used to have a pastor's conference, it was only a hundred guys and you could go and it was very

special.

You got to really spend time with RC and Ligon Duncan and, and Steven, uh, or Steve, uh,

uh, Steve Lawson, those guys.

And so, um, really enjoyed that.

Had an opportunity to, you know, just really be close and ask questions.

And, and I was very, very grateful for that in a formative time in my ministry.

Um, but some of what league said really seemed like shots across

the bowel at certain people and it was taken and such, and was responded to as such.

And then you did the, the response was you going and talking to, uh, Doug and Joe

Rigney, so out of that, out of those two, what do you think was the most

valuable thing that has come out of those two conversations?

And if you could just say that both of them nuanced or both of them lack of nuance, whatever it was, something simple.

What do you think?

Because I would say in the last month, I've seen more of those clips than anything else, people

posting them, talking about them, things like that.

What do you think was the most valuable thing to come out of that?

You know, man, I'm not sure.

I think, I think, uh, the temptation is to ascribe value to something

in the immediacy, whereas, uh, that often proves,

uh, proves to be unwise, you know, like, oh, this happened.

And I think this is fruit.

I think true lasting fruit is usually easier to discern kind of five years, 10 years

down the road.

So yeah, I don't know.

I'm going to withhold judgment on that and, and say, circle back with me in five years, if the Lord tarries.

That's a carefully nuanced answer. I appreciate it.

Staying on brand, baby.

Yeah.

Um, well, I do want to ask you this, cause I don't know your position on it.

And I'm not trying to nail you down.

I'm just curious.

Um, probably the thing that, that, that with, with the lig interview that I, that I was, that most caught my attention

was when he addressed the issue of abolitionism and how he said, and I'm,

I'm paraphrasing here, but it almost seemed like he was saying it was like a Johnny come lately kind of situation.

You know, the, the pro -life movement's been doing this for four decades that, you know, the, the, the abolition movement is relatively new and a lot of

people took great offense to that.

So, um, did you, in that moment, did you feel like, okay,

this is going to be, this is going to be the thing that's going to get people's attention?

Or did it not even register?

Cause I, cause it's been, didn't even register.

Didn't register.

No, I did not expect any of that to happen.

Uh, yeah, I even had interestingly someone who's a friend of Ligon who thought that I should not

have shared that video who thought he was, that was him, not at his

most nuanced, you know, you're supposed to be nuanced and you're supposed to be room for nuance.

And that wasn't him at his best.

You shouldn't have shared that.

I was like, well, I mean, I'm not, I can't control how nuanced people are.

I just invite them on and, you know, they have the opportunity.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

Uh, and again, like stuff, sometimes we say things that we don't mean, or we're not as careful in interviews as we could be yada, yada, yada,

whatever.

Uh, I wasn't even thinking about it.

Actually, we did the interview at cross conference and Liggs assistant told us he only has 45

minutes.

Like he has to be out the door.

So I was just like, in my mind, like, okay, next question, what else do I have to ask Lig Duncan while he's here?

Thankfully, I was able to set up a second interview with him where I got to talk to him about all the stuff that I think really matters, that people should

not write him off for like the regulative principle, he literally wrote the book on the regular principle.

Uh, and if you're a Presbyterian, his covenant theology stuff is the best there is

at being wrong there.

That's the, that's the best.

Yeah.

But anyways, I was just thinking about all the questions I needed to ask him and I didn't have time for it.

Yeah.

So hindsight is 2020.

No, that's, that's, that's fair.

Um, and I do want to get to some of our listener questions cause there's, there's so many good ones, but these are just questions I

have, you know, seeing you do what you do, listening to them.

And I know that was the thing that stuck out to me.

So I'll ask two quick questions and we'll move to listener questions and we'll, and those will go kind of quick.

Um, what do you feel like you, you learned about Ligon that you didn't know and about

Doug that you didn't know going in, uh, you, some, something, something you took away that you were like, okay, that I

didn't realize he was going to say that.

Uh, I don't know that I learned anything about Lig, maybe his middle name.

You know, what was his middle name?

I, I, I maybe I don't even remember, but it's on me.

So if I need it, I can go back and check.

I must've forgot too.

Yeah.

You know, I think Lig is truly, it's not an act.

It's not an act.

He's not a politician.

He is truly one of the kindest.

And I don't mean that in like a sissy way.

I mean that like, you know, the fruit of the spirit way, you know, he is truly one of the kindest, gentlest,

uh, most faithful brothers, uh, I have ever met.

And, uh, he truly is a friend.

And I think that people writing him off over some uncareful comments in an interview over

something that's just so politically charged right now is, is silly.

So, uh, to not answer your question and say what I want to say, no, I'm, I'm yeah.

Yeah.

It's like, listen, every, every person that we respect is going to disappoint us.

John Piper had Rick Warren at his pastor's conference.

Terrible mistake.

You know, you know, he, John Piper has cussed from the pulpit.

You know, we, we all make mistakes.

John MacArthur said something stupid about PTSD and, and, and OCD.

And, you know, just, there's nobody who hasn't made a mistake.

The guy who discipled me, Mark Dever, has admitted that he probably shouldn't have given out divided by faith as

broadly as he did.

So, um, anyways, his ministry is still incredibly fruitful, useful, valuable, do not

write him off.

And then as far as Doug Wilson goes, uh, you know, I think what was really fascinating was actually being

in Moscow.

It took me 16 hours.

It was like a series of misfortunate events to get to Moscow.

Uh, and I show up in the middle of nowhere, Idaho in this small city of 25 ,000

people, and you see a microcosm of the culture war.

There's a university with about 20 ,000 people, staff, students, all that stuff.

And then there's like, everyone else in town is somehow related to Doug Wilson, you know, in their church.

And it literally, you, when you walk down their sort of main street, uh, which is like,

they call it downtown, which is kind of sad, it's like six blocks, but it's like, there are pride

flags hanging from some of these shops.

And then the other shops are like, they belong to Canon press or new St. Andrews.

So it's not like they're on the internet seeing the culture war out there and responding to it.

It's right there in their small town in the middle of nowhere, Idaho.

I thought that was fascinating.

That's yeah.

And that's, that's a cool observation.

And it's great that you actually get to go do that.

I mean, you're not, you're not on live stream with, with, with Doug.

I mean, you were in the same room with him and yeah.

I chose that very intentionally because I knew.

So for example, like this show is great.

Like it's easy for you and I to chat and, and we're not talking about, we're not getting deep in

the weeds, although we can, but, um, you know, I got dad jokes ready to go that I hope we get to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I decided early on with Room for Nuance, I'm not going to do, I'm not going to do.

This.

I want to be in the same room with someone.

I want to hopefully spend time with them a little bit.

So we get to know each other because I want the conversation to be, to be as useful as possible.

And I think when you're trying to have, so like I had a guy on yesterday, Andrew Spencer, to talk about,

uh, creation care, environmentalism, he's a conservative who's advocating for that.

It's a really complicated subject.

I want to be able to look in the whites of your eyes when we have that conversation.

And, and, and so same thing with Doug Wilson and Joe Rigney, like that conversation,

whether you think it was terrible or edifying would have been very different if we had done it via

remote, you know, being in the same room really.

Helps.

And then I got to talk to Doug afterwards, which I thought was also really interesting.

Yeah, that's awesome.

And I, and I a hundred percent agree with you.

I think, I think this is a difficult medium to really have a conversation.

We do our best because it's all we can do.

But, um, but yeah, this is, this is the post COVID war world because zoom introduced us to this

opportunity and now other, you know, stream yard and everything.

Else.

All right, let's get to some of these, uh, social media questions.

And, uh, because there are several of them, uh, we'll, we'll keep it pithy.

Just answer, you know, as, as you obviously take as long as you want.

I have nowhere to go, but I don't want to, I don't want to monopolize your time.

Keep it pithy or take as long as I want.

Well, let me say it this way.

I'm here to hang with Keith.

I got all day.

Okay. Okay.

I just have so many, I guess, is the thing is that they're there because everybody, everybody wanted a piece of Sean.

And so, uh, so, uh, first question up for the, from, from our buddies at the Bible dingers, cause

I asked them what question they would ask and they would say, ask him to tell everyone his hot take on holidays.

So what is it about you and holidays?

What is it?

What do you, are you a, are you a non -Christian, non -Christmas, non -Easter.

Guy, are you by hot take?

They mean, uh, observe the regulative principle and believe what the Puritans believe that,.

Ooh, it's hot, you know?

Yeah.

I think that there's a liturgical calendar in the old Testament.

Uh, God's people who were coming under the Mosaic law were given holy days to

observe in the holy land, uh, as the nation of Israel, I think in the new covenant, you see all of those

holy days, that whole liturgical calendar fulfilled by Christ.

Even the Sabbath, if you are in Christ, you were in your Sabbath rest.

We now observe the Lord's day.

Um, and so I think that is our liturgical calendar from Sunday to Sunday.

I think the problem comes whenever you try to create holy days out of thin air, which the

Bible does not prescribe.

There's, there's no prescription for Christmas or Easter in the Bible.

Every Sunday is resurrection Sunday.

The problem with that is manifold.

I don't know if you want me to get into that, but anytime God's people go to worship God in a way that he has not

prescribed, problems arise.

Okay.

Can I ask a follow -up question?

Uh, just because, cause this is an interesting thing.

I did a show back on Christmas about celebrating Christmas.

I may take a different view, but I, but we don't do it in our church.

We don't have a worship service.

That's Christmas.

We don't have worship.

Now we do talk about resurrection typically on resurrection Sunday, but I preach verse by verse.

So whatever text I'm in is going to be what I'm in.

Yeah.

Well, well, yeah.

So, um, with that being said, do you think that, um, celebrating a

holiday, but not as a worship time is still not something that we should do as Christians.

And I'm just curious.

Yeah.

So going back to Romans 14, one person observes one day as holy and another person does not.

I think this is a matter of Christian conscience.

Okay.

So that doesn't mean there's not a theologically right answer.

And it also doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to convince people of the theologically right answer, but we should do so in such a way that

recognizes that if brothers disagree with us, even if it's a sin, uh, that like they just have to give an answer to

the Lord and this is not a first order.

So I think where I would want to draw a hard line is for churches binding the consciences of their

members by requiring them to participate in their liturgical calendar.

Cause if I'm a member of your church, I, you know, like I'm committed to you.

So whatever you do on a Sunday morning is something that if I'm committed to you, I need to participate in.

So I think churches need to be extra vigilant and careful not to unnecessarily bind people's consciences

over homeschool, over holy days, over X, Y, or Z.

I don't think a church should have a Christmas tree.

I don't think Christmas trees are pagan.

Uh, and even if they used to be, they're not today.

Nobody looks at a Christmas tree and thinks about worshiping the God of whatever.

Okay.

But people do disagree.

People's consciences will be bound over a Christmas tree or not up on the stage when you're worshiping on a Sunday morning.

So I think churches should avoid that.

I think that where the freedom comes is for individual Christians and individual families to work through that as they see

fit, not rendering a judgment on other Christians with whom they disagree.

I think that's a great answer.

And honestly, I mean, we haven't had a Christmas tree for years and we don't have one in the church anywhere.

Not even, it's not on the chancel.

It's not anywhere.

We just don't, we just don't do it.

And there are a few people, Oh, well, why don't we do Christmas trees?

Well, we just, we're not doing that here.

You can do it at your house.

It's fine.

You know, you have a Christmas tree in every bedroom, whatever.

We don't care.

That's that's right.

And that's a whole other issue.

The American flag thing is a, is a whole other conversation.

Well, that was, that was, that's great.

And maybe, uh, maybe what I could do is I can, uh, I can, uh, encourage you to come back on with me in December and we'll talk about

Christmas.

That'd be great.

Just to have a entire episode on, on that, that, that topic.

All right.

Uh, Manuel Monadero, I think I'm saying his name incorrectly.

And I apologize, Manuel.

Uh, he said, if you weren't a Baptist, what denomination would you be?

I think that's a great question.

Yeah.

I think I'd probably be in the PCA.

Okay.

That's fair. That's fair.

Yeah.

I mean, they've just, they're holding fast.

I mean, I think their polity, I think Presbyterian polity will always lead to the death of their denomination,

a hierarchical superstructure of interlocking court systems.

If the germ gets in at the bottom, it's always going to make its way up to the top.

Having said that, Presbyterians have a long track record of maintaining faithfulness.

Even if they lose the denomination, they have to go start a new one.

The faithful Presbyterians are going to do that.

So like, if I was in a, if I moved to a town and there was only one Reformed church in that town, if I had to

choose between going to a squishy Baptist church or a Reformed PC, like, yeah, it's just,

yeah, redundant, or going to a PCA church, I would go to the PCA church.

Yeah.

I've actually, that's funny because a while back, I said on my program, I said, I had a little different view.

I said, if I had a choice between a Baptist church and a Presbyterian church, I would choose the Baptist, even if it wasn't Reformed.

But what I meant was it would have to be solid in every other way.

It would, you know, I, cause I do believe there is solid.

When I say squishy, I'm talking about pragmatic and all that other stuff.

And that's, and that's what people thought I meant.

And I had to come back and clarify.

I said, no, if it's, if it's, if it's not holding fast to God's word and those things, obviously we can differ on Calvinism.

But I, I just, you know, that I'm like you, if it was a squishy, you know,

church, that's, that's not holding fast to God's word and those things.

And sure.

I'm going to go to the PCA church.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

All right.

Um, Poppy Carlton asked, uh, could your level of jujitsu beat my level of karate?

So I think this is a great conversation.

Uh, what level are you in jujitsu?

I'm a brown belt.

Then you can definitely beat my karate.

If it was anything over blue, I was going to say you probably got me.

So, yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

I was gonna say I did it.

I did it.

I did jujitsu for a while and I did go to do a competition and I got wiped, I did two fights, I lost

both.

And the second one, I was so demoralized because the first guy beat me so badly.

I was like, not even the second fight.

I was, I shouldn't have lost, but I still did because I'd lost my confidence.

But, um, I do love, I do love jujitsu, but I've been a karate.

Student and teacher for 30 years.

I started karate in 1994.

I have a fifth degree black belt in the show to con.

So, uh, real karate, not McDojo karate.

Yeah.

I mean, I do work with a lot of kids, so, um, I, you know, we, we still, we teach them the

real techniques and everything, but what we call bunkai, which is understanding the kata movements.

I have to water down some things for kids.

Um, you know, you don't teach kids to punch people in the throat and kick people in the groin, you know, unless it's for self -defense.

So, so there are, there are, there are nuances to that, but I do,

I do have a problem with McDojo's for sure.

And guys who just give away rank, which is a huge problem.

It's like, it's like diploma mills in the, in the Christian world where people have, you know, multiple doctorates who've never been to seminary

and guys who have multiple black belts, who've never really been in a fight.

I say, if you've never had a black belt, if you never had a black eye, you don't deserve a black belt.

So that's right.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right.

So, uh, but one day, Hey, somebody did say this.

They said, James Kern said we should, you and I should have a pay -per -view fight to raise money for missions.

So if you ever want to come to Jacksonville, I have the mats and you could just wear me out for, for, for 30 seconds and then we'll,

uh, that's about probably as long as it would take you to, to tap me and I'd be down.

That'd be fun.

Uh, it's Kofi.

Kofi asked, uh, I don't know if you know, Kofi, uh, uh, he's, he's a pastor.

He's a great guy.

He asked him who can bench more.

The answer is you.

I know, absolutely.

The answer is you, but what do you bench?

You know, man, I haven't benched for a while.

I used to be a power lifter.

I think my best was like three 95.

So not, not that, not that great.

I didn't use gear or anything.

Well, the fact that you're in triple digits means you beat me.

No, I can, I can bench triple digits, but not much.

I've, I've, uh, that's just not, not my strong suit.

So yeah, that's okay.

All right.

Why are you a Mexican food snob?

These are great questions, by the way.

What does that even mean?

And yeah, so I, when it comes to Mexican food, I will, I will either eat like

trash, like Taco Bell.

I know what I'm getting.

I'm going to have diarrhea later, right?

I'm the rest of my night is going to be bad, but I'm choosing to have Taco Bell or like

authentic Mexican food.

I grew up in Southern California, like really good Mexican food.

And by the way, here in Alabama, we have all these amazing taquerias because all these,

uh, migrants come up and they open these little TND does.

And they open up taco shops in the back and we have amazing Mexican food.

I'll eat that, but I will not eat middle of the road.

White people, Mexican food.

I mean, I, I will, I will, if I have to, if we're going out to lunch and there's no other

option I visited.

Do you know who Lim Lane is?

He's a pastor down there by you.

Lim is one of the guys who asked the question.

Hold on.

Wait, who is, wait, Lim is the one who asked the Mexican food question.

You go, I was teaching and he's in Lake Butler, Florida, and they have like two restaurants.

They have like Jack's and this terrible Mexican restaurant, you know?

And, uh, and so I ate it there, you know, but I don't want to, I don't want to eat white people, Mexican

food if I don't have to.

Okay.

So if I didn't realize you were that close, uh, cause Lim is only an hour for me

and Lim and I used to go to the same pastors meeting, we would do this meeting every couple of months and get together.

So I've known him for a while.

Uh, that that's cool, man.

If you're ever that close again, you got to come see me.

Uh, and the thing where I can do something with both of you guys, you know?

That'd be fun.

We'll do our, we'll do our fight for sure.

Uh, we get the mats out.

Cause I teach at our church.

Our karate class is actually in our church.

It's a, it's, it's, um, it's a, uh, once a week karate club thing that we do.

Russell, sorry, Russell Berger is also a brown belt in jujitsu.

He was a four time army Ranger, uh, four time deployed army Ranger.

He's a legit killing machine.

And we used to have, uh, jujitsu mats in our, in our upstairs space at the church.

So our studio was one half of the room and the other half of the room was where we would go try to kill each other during lunchtime.

And I'm not kidding when I tell you that Russell has put me to sleep in our church building.

Nice.

Yeah, nice.

I've come downstairs sweaty.

It's kind of out of it.

Are you okay?

Yes.

I just need time to wake back up from the rear naked choke.

All right.

So I've got some serious, more serious ones.

And again, uh, uh, you know, spend as much time as you want on each one, but real quick, one last funny one.

Uh, Jake corn, you know, Jake corn from, from Facebook.

He wants to know why you keep making fun of him on your show.

And I have no idea what he's talking about.

So maybe you do.

Yeah.

Jake corn is, uh, one of those guys who has a good sense of humor.

Doesn't take himself too seriously.

And, uh, sarcasm and mocking is like my love language.

Okay.

So if I, if I start making fun of you, that feels like we have, we have a connection, so I've never actually met Jake

and maybe in person, uh, we would hate each other, but as far as online, we'd like to make fun of each other.

Well, he, I, I, I am personal friends with him.

He's he's he and I, in fact, we just had lunch about a month ago.

And, um, cause he lives a couple hours North in Savannah.

Jake's a great guy.

And, and we've been friends.

He's been on the show many times.

So, uh, so if you come, if you come to see us, we'll have to get Jake, uh, to come see you as well.

And you make fun of him to his face.

I think he would be, I think he would be more than happy for that.

Nice.

Um, all right.

A little bit more serious questions here.

Um, you'd change the name of your church.

Uh, somebody is asking about that.

Why you changed the name and did you leave the church of God?

Um, yeah.

Ooh, somebody, somebody is keeping up.

So Susan, Susan White asked that question.

Okay.

I don't know her.

Um, yeah.

So the church revitalization, it was a church of God church, which if you don't know much about them, no creed, but the Bible

female pastors, uh, no church membership and it's a, it's a, it's kind of a

crazy story.

I tell the story a little bit in rebel to your will, but it's kind of a crazy story of how I got connected to this church and if

any other church that had to any of those beliefs asked me to be their pastor in a million years, I would say no, but

God has a sense of humor.

Providentially.

Uh, this actually worked and, uh, not under my preaching, but they stopped being

egalitarian and became complimentarian and, uh, then they adopted church member anyways, all this stuff.

I told them when they interviewed me, I think the church of God is unhealthy.

I think it's dangerous.

If I come to be your pastor, I'm going to lead you out of the church of God.

And, uh, they said, okay, but I don't think they believed me because I got there and I

started doing all the stuff I said I was going to do and they.

Were like, what the heck?

And I was like, Oh, okay.

Cause I told you I was going to do this, but now you're, you're surprised that I'm doing this.

So anyways, it took us about four years to get the church to a place of health.

Uh, amongst the members, uh, so that we could actually leave the denomination.

And, uh, and we did.

And so we changed the name of the church, but we actually changed the name of the church first because it was sixth avenue church of God.

And it was really hard to invite people to church when that's in your name.

You know?

So, uh, I actually don't like that name either.

I have another name for a church, which I can't share with you because then people will steal it.

It's literally the perfect name for a church.

It's not, it's, is it elevation part two?

Part two.

Yeah.

It's grace community.

I just thought, yeah.

Uh, so anyways, but we, uh, the part of the stipulations were that you could only put commute if you

changed, if you took church of God out, you could only replace it with community.

And so for me, that seemed like it was a pretty good trade -off.

So we changed it from sixth avenue church of God to sixth avenue community church.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, um, Scott packet asked this question.

He said, I wonder if it has cost him friendships to go to Moscow and do the followup interview with,

with Doug Wilson and Joe Rigney.

Um, you, you've already talked a little bit about your experience or he asked about your experience, but have you, did you get negative feedback

from going out there?

You don't have to name names or anything, but did anybody tell you that was a bad idea or you shouldn't have done that?

Or you were wrong?

Yeah.

You know, I think the whole Moscow embargo thing is halfway true.

I think it's, I think it's halfway true.

The truth of them, I think where, where, where, where I think it's wrong is that there, there's not really like

a cabal, you know, like a shadowy syndicate of evangelicals pulling levers in a back room,

trying to keep Douglas.

Wilson from being platformed.

That doesn't mean that people aren't trying to keep Douglas Wilson from being platformed.

The question is why some people would ascribe it to more nefarious purposes.

You know, he's a truth teller and they don't like that, you know, and they're against the prophet.

I take the view that he's kind of just spent 20 years saying some pretty wild.

Stuff.

That doesn't mean I disagree with him on everything.

I actually find him incredibly helpful in some areas.

But he also, you know, whether he's talking about the history of chattel slavery in America or, you know,

talking about, I don't know, I don't want to get into all of it, but you know, Douglas Wilson's public ministry as well as I

do.

And he gets right up to the line on a lot of things.

And that is difficult for some people to stomach.

Every leader has things that they've said or done that is, you know,

a little wonky.

But with Douglas Wilson, there's kind of like five or 10 of those things.

So is the embargo real?

Well, kind of, but maybe not for the reasons that people think.

Back to me, I have had some friends express some very serious and

strong concerns about my decision to do the interview, but none of it was

like, actually, one of them was a little hysterical,

but none of them have been like, you're not my friend anymore, or you're cut off, or we're not going to partner with you

in any way because you have partnered with Douglas Wilson on that episode.

That's a long answer.

I hope it's edifying.

No, no, it's helpful.

You know, I'm not connected to Moscow in

any official sense, but I've done a lot of jokes and use their name.

And Doug knows I've did a debate with him, well, a mini debate with him on the subject of post -millennialism.

And I use his name all the time with his permission.

I asked him personally, does it bother you that I call myself Harbor Freight Doug.

Wilson?

And I actually take pictures of the people and sign, you know, the little joke.

You know, it's a funny thing.

So I don't have as a negative opinion.

I see, like you said, the areas I agree in, the areas I disagree, but I do receive emails periodically from

people who say, you shouldn't be even mentioning Doug.

Wilson.

You shouldn't even be saying his name.

You shouldn't, you know, this is not funny.

This guy is this and that and the other.

And so I kind of get where you're coming from, you know.

I'll just say like, I'm thinking about young guys in my church.

OK, do I want the young men in my church to have a Moscow

flavored ministry, the Moscow mood ministry?

I don't.

I don't want that.

I think as careful as Doug is with his view of sarcasm and the serrated edge and all

of that, the obvious fruit from people both in person and on the Internet who try to

do what Doug Wilson does is pretty bad fruit.

I don't want my people to be post -millennial.

I don't want them to be theonomous.

I'd be happy for them to homeschool, but I wouldn't want them to hold the homeschooling position.

We homeschool.

I would be happy for them to do that, but not to hold their position in quite the same way that Doug does.

None of that, in my mind, means that he's a heretic.

I think maybe the most emphatic and severe pushback that I've gotten from the episode hasn't actually been

in relation to the Moscow mood stuff at all.

It's actually been from PCA people who are like swearing up and down that because of his federal

vision, he is a heretic.

I mean, I had one PCA buddy, I won't tell you his name here, but I mean, I can show you the text message.

It's a wall of text where he's trying to show me, demonstrate the fact that Doug is a heretic.

And listen, if you really think that Doug is a heretic, then you're right to push back.

I just disagree with your assessment at all.

Yeah, no, I think that's fair.

And yeah, like you said, people are coming to different conclusions based on things that they know that maybe I don't know or

things that they've heard.

But what I've seen and heard is there are things I agree with, things I disagree with.

And that's pretty common about everybody that's a teacher,

especially a teacher at his level where he's got people that are following him and people that defend him when they shouldn't and people

that, you know, that happens too.

Tim Archer asked this question.

This might be a simple one.

What's your favorite Bible translation?

That's a great question for a pastor.

You know, I think I used to would have said the ESV, but I actually think the NIV

2000 and not the one where they started getting wonky on the gender stuff.

I think that I think the ESV can be clunky sometimes in their attempt

to go for a literal translation.

It's not as clunky as the NASB, but it can be clunky sometimes.

And this is this is also like what do you mean for like sermon prep?

Well, sermon prep, the NASB is helpful, not as helpful as actually knowing Greek.

What would I prefer the members of my church to use?

You know, so the message is not a Bible translation.

It's like a paraphrase commentary.

The NLT is a little too dynamic equivalent for me.

Although D .A.

Carson argued and still argues for the legitimacy of that.

So that gives me a little bit of pause.

But I think if you're in the CSB, early NIV, ESV world, that's a pretty tight shot group that

I'm happy with.

Cool. Sounds good.

Yeah, we I preach from the ESV because that's what's in the pews.

And I figure if somebody comes in who doesn't have a Bible, they're going to they're going to grab the one that's in front of them.

Yeah.

And so I just I want to I want it to sound the same.

I you know, our elders all have different Bibles.

My one has a new American standard.

One has a new King James.

So I we're not winning that battle as far as bringing us all together.

But at least the new person who doesn't know what they're reading or maybe it's the first time they've held a Bible in years. They're going to sound the

same.

It's going to sound the same as what's coming from the pulpit.

Yeah.

Do you believe this is from a person called Cleansed Leper.

He said, do you believe the gospel coalition has lost its relevance?

And if not, who do you believe their target audience is now?

And that's a good question.

I think it's a complicated question, so allow me to nuance my answer.

The reality perception matters, perception matters over the last five to

seven years.

I know that there is a massive swath of reformed evangelicalism that no

longer pays attention to the gospel coalition.

It's just a fact they just don't.

Many of them, they would have.

They would have read the articles that would have been on the blogs.

They would have used them as resources.

If a TGC video came up in their feed on their YouTube timeline or whatever, they would have probably clicked

on it and watched.

And now they don't.

So in some sense, you have to say that it has lost some relevance.

Having said that, I know for a fact that it's not like I'm like I'm not a board member

or anything like that.

I'm friends with Colin Hansen, but we don't like talk every day.

But I know that TGC is growing.

It's still growing.

It's not like they're they're dying or anything like that.

So it seems like the relevance for them has probably shifted.

We could speculate on to where it shifted or as to why it has shifted.

But yeah, its relevance has certainly shifted.

I'm going to ask you two more questions, one serious and one will end on a funny note.

That way it'll be a nice, positive, fun question.

But this this one's a little more serious.

This is from a friend.

It's at Truthseeker3222 on Twitter.

But I know him personally.

We actually have lunch together.

And he asked this question.

He says that in your interview with Doug Wilson, you said you don't agree with

theonomy.

Would you and this is the way he says it.

I'm going to I'm going to reword his question because he says, can you ask him to define theonomy in detail and how he thinks a theonomist

would apply theonomy?

In addition, ask him a thorough scriptural answer as to why he should not expect the death penalty for adultery.

OK, that's a lot.

So how about I ask this?

When you say you disagree with theonomy, what do you mean by that?

What parts of theonomy do you think are are are inapplicable for the church?

Or do you think theonomy in general is just not a helpful term?

Sort of like Liggs said, he just thinks theonomy was it was something that he had to deal with years ago.

And now it's reared its ugly head again.

What are your thoughts?

Ma 'am, so let me just first of all say Russell Berger and I on Defend and Confirm podcast just finished a

series on theonomy where we walk through all of our critiques.

So if you want to hear like a significant, thorough, biblical,

historical critique of theonomy, we do that there.

This is probably not the venue for that.

So I think I think what's difficult is when you use the word theonomy, you immediately have to ask, well, which

version of theonomy are you are you talking about?

I think general equity theonomy is a little silly.

It's it's kind of it's like it's kind of defined like God's law.

We just want to apply God's law.

Well, we want to do so principally.

Well, I think all Christians want to do that.

Particularly, I think the heart of the issue with theonomy is the question of covenants.

Where do you view yourself under which covenant and how does that flow out?

So with a Baptist hermeneutic, I see a significant discontinuity between the covenants,

not not not dispensational.

But I think it really does come down to the question of what do

you see secular society as?

Do you see do you see society, the civil magistrates under any kind of covenant with God that is

binding in relation to the Mosaic law?

And the answer to that is no.

I think secular societies are under the Noahic covenant that was given at Genesis nine, which is then

elaborated on in Romans 13, which gives the government the ability to use the sword to punish evil and

reward good.

And then they're going to say, well, by what standard do you define evil and good?

And that leads to a whole nother conversation.

But that's, I think, maybe the shortest answer I can give you in on this platform.

No, that's great.

And and I do.

I'm glad that you mentioned your your video.

If you'll send me the link, I'll put it in the show notes because I think people would be interested in and I know I'm going to go listen to it

because this is this is a subject that we've dealt with.

And I love R. Scott Clark when I had him on the show.

He said, I always salute general equity when he walks by.

So so when you said general equity is a little silly, I thought that was

kind of funny in the same spirit as as he said.

All right.

Well, I know there's there's more questions, but some of them are a little harder.

We take longer and some of them just we've kind of covered in other areas.

So this is the last one.

And I think for me, very important.

You've now met the real Doug Wilson and you've met the Harbor Freight Doug Wilson.

So the question that is being asked by Travis Van Meter, who's a friend of mine, is who is more impressive, the

real Doug Wilson or the Harbor Freight Doug Wilson?

Definitely the real Doug Wilson.

You know, yeah.

By a mile, you know, you know, it's interesting, Doug,

I had dinner with he and his wife, Nancy.

He is everything that you would expect him to be.

He is intelligent.

He's affable.

Dare I say it, he is nuanced.

I asked him a thousand questions over our dinner.

I wanted it to be a learning opportunity, though I disagree with him on some pretty significant secondary matters of doctrine.

I still figured like, yeah, I have a lot to learn from this brother.

And and yeah, he is everything that you would expect him to be.

And so I was really encouraged by our time together.

Having said that, wow, can I just say the Harbor Freight Doug Wilson, you are the best

knockoff version of Doug Wilson.

That there could be, you know, you are the diet mountain lightning of Doug Wilson.

Well, I appreciate that and I appreciate how silly that even the question is.

This whole thing started with a picture with me and another guy.

And he looked like he looked like Jeff Durbin and I looked like a little bit like like Doug Wilson.

So we said we were the best.

So I think Jeff Durbin reminds me of like Chris Angel.

Yes, yes.

Yeah, he does.

He's a karate guy, too, right?

If you took a karate guy and told me that he was really into magic for like a decade and

then he moved to the to the, you know, the southwest part of the United States.

That would be Jeff Durbin.

Yeah, like I can imagine him preaching in his sunglasses on a Sunday morning.

Oh, well, yeah, no, no.

Well, do you know Greg Moore, Deadman Walking podcast?

Well, he and I were he and I got a picture and I put Harbor Freight, Jeff Durbin and Doug Wilson because he looks like

Jeff and I look like Doug.

And that's that's how it all took off and became fun.

So, yeah, well, Shawn, man, I appreciate you taking time today just to get to know you better and for the

audience to get to know you better.

I'm going to point them towards the shows.

If they haven't seen the show with Lig, I encourage them to go see that.

If they haven't seen the show with Doug and Joe, I encourage that.

And obviously this show on Theonomy, I think, would be very beneficial for people.

So so I'll take those links and do that.

Is there anything else you want to share with people?

Any projects you have going on or anything you want to remind people as we're getting ready to close?

Well, I wanted to tell you a story real quick, if that's OK.

Do you have time?

Sure.

No, I'm I'm good.

Yeah.

Have I ever told you the story about my friend with the big pumpkin head?

No, no.

Would you like to hear it?

I would love it.

Oh, is this a dad joke?

OK, go ahead.

No, it's not.

Oh, it's not.

I have a dad joke.

But this is just a story of my friend who has a big pumpkin head.

OK, this is how he got it.

I mean, literally a pumpkin head.

So he found a genie in a lamp one day.

You know what I'm talking about?

A genie?

I know what a genie is.

So he loves the lamp.

The genie comes out, he gets three wishes.

Wish number one, he obviously asks for all the money in the world.

And he gets it.

Genie grants his wish.

Now he's rich, richer than Elon Musk and everyone else combined.

But what's the one thing money can't buy?

Love.

Right.

So wish number two, he wishes for the most beautiful woman in the world.

And genie grants his wish.

And he has the most beautiful woman in the world.

So now he has all the money in the world and he has the most beautiful woman in the world.

What else could he possibly want?

I mean, money can buy everything and what money can't buy he has.

He has one wish left.

And this is where I think he kind of drops the ball.

He wishes for a big pumpkin head.

Isn't that weird?

Yes, it is very weird.

Is that the.

Is that it?

Is that the story?

That's the story.

I mean, he had one wish left.

He could have wished for anything and he wished for a big pumpkin head.

Why did he wish for a big pumpkin head?

I don't know.

OK, the fact that you're is that your child who just yelled a big pumpkin?

He loves to try to steal my thunder.

And she was like three seconds too late.

OK, that was probably a little disappointing.

Let me try this one.

I was in Germany.

I was in Germany doing like a Reformation tour and I went to go visit the graveside of Beethoven.

You know who I'm talking about?

Sure.

Not the dog from the 90s movies.

No, I can't wait.

Right. Yes.

So I went and I met his gravesite.

I'm thinking, wow, this is powerful.

And I hear Beethoven's ninth playing.

You know what I'm talking about?

His symphony.

I'm yes, I can't remember in my head, but I know it's something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I'm looking around and I'm thinking, wow, this is so moving, but I can't there's nobody playing the instruments.

There's no speakers.

So now I'm a little confused, but I had to leave.

So I came back the next day to try to figure it out.

When I show up the next day, I hear Beethoven's eighth.

And now I think I'm being pranked or something, you know, like Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out of the bushes and tell me I'm being punked.

There's no videos.

There's no speakers.

There's no nothing.

So, I mean, I had to go, but I couldn't sleep that night.

It was keeping me awake.

Where is this music coming from?

I pushed back my flight, my flight home, so I could go back and investigate.

The third day I show up on the third day, I hear Beethoven's seventh.

Playing.

And that's when it hit me.

This guy's decomposing.

You know what I'm saying?

Oh, no, no, no. I get it. I get it.

That was great.

Because it was nine, eight.

No, no, I D.

OK, he's decomposing.

That's great.

Wonderful, wonderful, Sean.

Well, I appreciate you being on.

I appreciate you sharing about your ministry and all the things that you have going on and your wonderful dad jokes.

Oh, yeah.

So thank you for for that.

And appreciate you being on.

Hey, I think humor is an unlisted fruit of the spirit, brother.

Thank you for your ministry.

Thank you for helping Christians be happy and smile and laugh more.

Can I pray for your ministry before we go?

Would love for that.

Yes, please.

Lord, thank you for my brother, Keith.

Thank you for building him in such a way that he

finds joy in bringing other Christians joy.

We pray that you would bless his ministry, Lord.

Help him to not get bogged down in any controversies, but to just walk the faithful path.

Help him to be a faithful father, husband, pastor, and bless this podcast

to the glory of your name, we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Sean.

I super appreciate it very much.

Yep.

And I want to thank all of you for being a part of your Calvinist podcast today.

Keep in mind, again, that if you want to get a hold of me, you can do so through Keith Foskey dot com.

Thank you for listening to the show.

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

May God bless you.