Karen Swallow Prior - Some Advice For the Weary

So, I was sitting here early afternoon on Thursday, sipping on a black cherry-flavored truly hard seltzer. Not joking, I'm actually doing that. I am a sensitive guy, after all, and thinking about just a few different things and life in general, and guys, life is good, man.

Life is so good. It really is. Life is fantastic. And life is funny because, like, in some ways it's very complicated and there's all kinds of things going on, and you feel like you're juggling all kinds of things, but also it's very simple.

Like, our goals in life ought to be very simple, and so it's complicated, yet it's simple at the same time, and honestly, I think, you know, some of you guys are new to my channel. You found me because of this Beth Moore controversy, and that's, I'm glad to see you.

I'm glad you're here. Thanks for subscribing, by the way, and commenting and all that stuff and sharing my content. Much appreciated. It definitely is. But in some ways, it's kind of like, I don't want to false advertise here.

I mean, there were some serious moments in some of those videos, that's for sure. People were talking about how I'm speaking truth, dropping bombs, fire, this and that, and you know, I happen to think it was some pretty good stuff there, definitely.

Definitely good stuff, and some of my content is quite serious, and some of my content can be a bit shocking, but a lot of the time, I have a great time. I have a lot of good time talking about very serious things.

I've been known to joke around about things, but at the same time, my message is very serious. But life is good, man, and I'm enjoying it. I hope you guys understand that. You might see some of the stuff I come against online, and some of the videos I put out, and some of the very serious errors and dangerous things that I speak against, and you might think that I'm just full of despair, but I promise you, I am not, and I hope you're not.

I really do. I hope you're not full of despair either, because at the end of the day, the Lord is on his throne, God is good, Christ is the king, Christ died for the sins of his people. Like, just stop for a second.

Can you believe that? That's something, isn't it? That's something. Hold on, let me just take a sip of this hard seltzer here. Black cherry. It's good. That's really good. Christ died for our sins. That's something, man.

It really is. That is something. I saw this one from... Now, let me just say, before I continue, if you are very angry about this, and you're very frustrated about this, listen, I am not trying to make light of your frustration or your anger, but there's two ways to look at things often.

There might be more than two ways, but this is Tom Maskell here with a couple of emojis. This is funny to me, because, you know, I could be wrong, but Tom Maskell doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who's, you know, gonna use emojis, and then he does, and it's really funny.

I like it, and he's got the eyes looking around, the sad face, and then the mind-blown emoji, because... Because Karen Sala-Pryor is joining the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary faculty. And, listen, I get it.

This is disheartening if you're a Southern Baptist, or maybe your kid goes there, or you used to go there, or you're a supporter, or whatever, because, you know, this woman is part of the progressive movement in Christianity, and she likes to play this double victim.

Like, she's found a way to be like a double victim. It's really quite ingenious. So she's got her conservative bonafide sort of. Like, so she signed the Nashville Statement on Sexuality, and then on the other hand, she endorses revoice.

So she's like progressive and conservative, and so she likes to say, well, I get heat from both sides. She's found a really good way to play both sides of this table. But I just, I mean, it's just, it couldn't be more perfect.

This is just so funny. You couldn't write this script any better, that Karen Swallow Pryor is joining us at SEBTS. It's just perfect. And it's a terrible mistake for the seminary, of course. And I could see being upset about this and all this kind of stuff, but let's, a suggestion, a suggestion, you know, no despair.

Because at the end of the day, this kind of stuff, when the progressives are on the move and people that are in error are getting promoted and pushed forward, you know that this is all, this is all the devil's got.

All he can do is undermine the authority of scripture a little bit. He can't, he's not that powerful. I mean, in comparison to God and to Christ and his kingdom, he's destined to lose. He's trying to play this long game of like, you know, discrediting things and undermining things slowly.

And sometimes he does it in bigger ways, but he can't really do much against God's church. He can't do anything actually, in fact, against God's church. And here's the thing, like you'll never be able to control what Southeastern Seminary does at the end of the day.

Like today, like don't despair about this because this wasn't your decision, right? It wasn't your decision to do this. This was Danny Akin and his boys and his social justice, you know, movement that doesn't really exist.

Although I guess it does now because now they have a statement. Anyway, this wasn't your decision. So, so, so let's not worry about the despair because at the end of the day, life is complicated, but it's also very simple.

It's complicated, but it's also very simple. Here's Ecclesiastes 12. I love the book of Ecclesiastes. It is so amazing. The book of Ecclesiastes, he says, here's what he says here. Listen to this. This is the end of his book.

He says, Besides being wise, the preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many Proverbs with great care. The preacher sought to find words of delight and uprightly he wrote words of truth.

The words of the wise are like goes and like nails fixed firmly are the collected sayings. They are given by one shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books, there is no end and much study is the weariness of the flesh.

So life is complicated. He's saying that you could write books forever and not write enough books to talk about how complicated life is. But then look at this. Listen, how we listen to this juxtaposition here.

This is awesome. Life is complicated. But then he says this, the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Fear God and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man. So on the one hand, life is very complicated and you could write a million Proverbs. You could write a thousand books. I could do a hundred YouTube videos and I could just keep going forever until the day I croak.

But the end of the day, that's what's complicated in that way. And there's lots of issues I could talk about. But on the other hand, it's very simple. My duty is just to follow God and keep his commandments.

Fear God. Respect him. Take him seriously. And keep his commandments. That's your duty. It's simple. It's simple. And so with a thing like this, like, you know, with Karen Swallow Pryor, like, listen, it's quite simple what you do about this.

Because you didn't make this call. You don't have authority to fire her. But you do have authority over what you do with your money. You do have authority about what you do with your money. So I would suggest if this is a problem and you realize that Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is compromised, and it certainly seems to be, don't go there.

Don't buy their services. Don't send them money. Don't fund them. Like, just stop doing that. You fear God. Forget about what Danny Akin's doing. I mean, we could still talk about it. Yeah, and it's fun to talk about.

I like talking about this stuff, you know. I like talking about this stuff. But you fear God. You keep his commandments. If you want to impact. See, this is the thing. I feel like a lot of people are asking, like, let's make a big splash.

How do we take back the convention? It's like, that's a hard thing. And I don't think you should necessarily not try. But keep in mind that that's hard. That's really hard and complicated. And you could write books, and we could strategize, and we could talk all day in our comm boxes of how to take back the convention.

But at the end of the day, what you definitely can control, what you definitely can do is you obey God. That's what's so encouraging about, like, I don't even really know the details about why that big church left the Southern Baptist Convention.

And it doesn't really even matter to me. Because if they left for what reasons they thought were legitimate, see, that's how you obey Christ. You don't have to convince every church to leave the Southern Baptist Convention.

You fear God. You follow his commandments. If you think they're compromised when it comes to women preaching and teaching in the church, stop sending them your money. Stop taking their money. That's blood money.

You don't want that. You don't want that kind of money. And I'm not saying, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just saying, like, if you believe that it's compromised, and you believe that there's sin issues here, then don't take that money.

You see, that's part of the reason why I don't fear saying things online. Because, look, I've come to terms with the chance that someone could find my videos and disagree with my opinion so much that they could make it so that I could never get employment again.

But I wouldn't want employment on the stipulation that I had to keep my mouth shut on what the truth is. That's not the kind of money I want. So I'm trying to set up my life in such a way that I'm not dependent on that kind of stuff.

That's my hope. And at the end of the day, my life's in God's hands. If God's for us, who can be against us? Don't fear that kind of stuff, man. And don't despair. Because we've got—remember, stop for a second.

Christ died for our sins, man. He died for our sins. He knew what we were like. He knew what the deepest, darkest sins of our heart were and are. And He died for us anyway. That is amazing. That's amazing.

And so you fear God and keep His commandments and forget about all that other stuff. You know, oftentimes I'll call my brother on the phone and I'll say, Hey, watch this video. Yeah, I think it's a little borderline.

What do you think? And he'll always stop me and say, Adam, do you believe everything you said in this video? And I'll say yes. And he goes, then just post it. What do you need my approval for? And often he'll watch it anyway.

He'll humor me and he'll watch it and he'll say, yeah, it was great. But if you believe this stuff, you fear God. You keep His commandments. You know what I mean? You don't have to change everything. You don't have to take back the convention.

You don't have to do that because that takes two to tango. It takes people that are willing to be corrected and someone willing to correct. And the reality is that some people just aren't willing to be corrected.

There's nothing you can do about that. You can't force them. You can't change them. But you follow God. You follow God. And all of you out there that think that I'm in despair and I'm angry about it. I'm not.

I'm having a great time. I really am. I mean, there are difficult aspects of my life. But as far as I'm concerned, I've never been happier. I've never been happier. I've never had more joy. Because I think I'm doing what God wants me to do at this moment in time.

And there's nothing more joyful than being able to say that I think I'm doing what God wants me to do. I really do. And that's awesome. So anyway, I hope this is helpful. And this might be my last video this week.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it is or not. I have a pretty busy day tomorrow. So I'm not sure if this will be the last video. But if it is and you're new, welcome to the channel. Please like, comment, and subscribe.

Consider also supporting me on Patreon. This is something that I do not do for a living. But obviously, I would love to dedicate more time to this. More time to research. More time to edit. More time to put out better quality stuff.

But consider supporting me on Patreon. Please, if there's anything I can do for you, I am all ears. All the time. Even for criticism. If you have a criticism of me and you think I'm wrong about something, I'm always happy to hear that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful. God bless.