The American Churchman: Virtue and Leadership

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:23

Welcome to the American Churchmen Podcast, where we encourage men to take responsibility in their lives, love the

00:30

Lord, love their families, love their community and their church. I'm your host, John Harris, and my co -host as always,

00:36

Matthew Pearson. How you doing, Matthew? I'm doing good, John. I'm doing good. I'm excited to be here as always.

00:42

How are you doing? Yeah, busy, good. I've got a few deadlines I'm trying to meet for writing this week, so I might not do as many podcasts.

00:51

And we're a little late on the podcast, and part of that is some good news. I know last week, for those watching the

00:56

American Churchmen, I did an interview, and it was a good interview. It was with Pastor Jerry Dorris. We talked about anons and online etiquette, but my computer was spazzing out on me, and I had to finish out the podcast on my phone.

01:10

But the good news is I replay, I don't know what you'd call it. I restored,

01:16

I guess, my computer. I did it twice. It was such a nightmare, but now it seems to be working fine, so we'll have a smooth podcast today.

01:24

There you go. Maybe my Wi -Fi won't be bad this time, too. Oh, right, yeah. Between my computer and your

01:30

Wi -Fi, we were having it rough a little bit, but. Yeah, but it's been good so far. Yeah, yeah, you're actually more clear than I've seen you in a while, so.

01:38

There we go, there we go. But anyway, yeah, things are good. I don't know if you did anything special for Memorial Day.

01:47

I went to a festival. They have a little festival, a spring fest here, and for the first time in my life,

01:56

I got a veteran's discount, even though I'm not a veteran. I put on my grandpa's World War II hat to honor him on Memorial Day, and I had multiple people stop and thank me for my service, and I'm like, it was

02:10

Army Air Corps, actually. I think, hold on, I have the hat, hold on. Does this look to you like a military cat, like a normal?

02:20

It doesn't to me, but people thought me wearing this meant. It looks just like a hat.

02:25

It doesn't look like you're impersonating someone you served, to me at least. Yeah, it doesn't look like official military, but it just said

02:31

U .S. Army Air Corps, which obviously the Air Force is the branch now. Air Corps goes back, I think it switched in the early 50s.

02:39

By the Korean War, it was the Air Force. But anyway, my grandpa was part of the

02:44

Army Air Corps, and so I was explaining to people, no, I'm not a veteran.

02:49

My grandpa was, I'm honoring him. So yeah, E .M. Smith says it's stolen valor, that's right.

02:57

So I got some popcorn. There was some cinnamon toast popcorn flavor, and I got a bag for myself, and my wife wanted a cheddar popcorn at this little thing, this booth.

03:10

And it was like 10 bucks, and so I give the money to the lady, and she won't take it. She's like, no, you're a veteran.

03:16

And I'm like, no, I'm not actually. And then, as I say, my grandpa served in World War II, and she goes, so did my grandpa.

03:23

It's still free. So that was my weekend. For some reason, that made my weekend, getting free popcorn,

03:30

I don't know why. But thanks, grandpa, from the grave, still helping me get free stuff.

03:37

Did you do anything special for Memorial Day? No, sadly, not really. It was just, oh, now work isn't putting me on today.

03:47

So I just worked another one of my jobs for a few hours. So I was putting up yard signs for a company, and I was like, okay, well, hopefully a cop doesn't cite me or whatever, because I need permission from this person or whatever.

04:01

But I did that for a little bit, and then just hung out. My fiance also worked that day, so it wasn't too special.

04:08

But my roommate and his, so I have a fun living situation, live with a buddy of mine, his wife, and their one -year -old daughter.

04:15

And so my roommate, his wife's brother, came over and cooked jambalaya. And my roommate, he blessed the food, and he thanked

04:23

God for the memory of those who have served for us. And so that was kind of like a, oh, yeah, it is Memorial Day, and I should be honoring those who have done that.

04:32

And yeah, my grandfather was also a World War II veteran, Navy, so yeah.

04:38

Wow, you're probably one of the only Zoomers to have a grandpa who fought in World War II.

04:43

That's exceedingly rare. It's because my mom didn't have me till she was 42. So it's like my, yeah.

04:49

You know, it's wild to think about, given I'm only, you know, I'll be 24 in two days, and I somehow have a grandfather who fought in World War II, so.

04:57

Do you remember him? I do, yeah. He passed away when I was, I wanna say I was 12 years old.

05:04

Okay, yeah, that's special. My grandpa lived pretty long, so he died last year at 101.

05:11

So that was like, for me, you know, 10, 20 years beyond what most grandpas lived to, and that was a special thing,

05:20

I guess, because I got to, I don't know, it was weird. Like, I remember it was like 2016 or 17,

05:26

I was having a conversation with him, and he starts mentioning this slave that he knew. And I was like, what do you mean slave?

05:33

And it was an actual, it was someone who lived down the road from him in Mississippi who was, had been a slave, and he knew a

05:40

Confederate soldier who had actually fought in the war when he was a kid. And I'm doing the math, and I'm like, that actually works.

05:47

That's weird. But anyway, that's really cool to have those links to the past.

05:54

Someone's already correcting you, saying it's Jambalaya, not Jimbalaya. Oh, that's, that's skippy, all right.

06:02

He needs to get off my case. Yeah, I'm not from, I hesitate to say, is it

06:08

Louisiana or Louisiana? I'm not from there, so. I don't know, I don't know how to say it right. I don't really care, but you know, maybe

06:14

I'll fix it so as, you know, be culturally sensitive to any Louisianians out there. I probably said that wrong too, so.

06:21

Cajuns, yeah. I won't tell you what my relatives in Mississippi call them. They have a different word for Cajuns, but anyway.

06:29

Well, we're going to start with an attribute of God, like we usually do. And this is not, this is the only fake attribute of God, I think, on the list, right?

06:36

It's not actually an attribute, it's an extension of. Yeah, well, I mean, I think there was some on the list that we could also say for others, but you know, we kind of think of these as like, you know, relational attributes,

06:48

I guess you could say. But yeah, so today what we're going to be discussing is the wrath of God.

06:54

So I guess we'll just get started now, but yeah. All right, so as I said, today we'll be discussing the wrath of God.

07:01

And as I always do, I'll start with two verses, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament. The scriptures have a lot to say about, not only about God, but also about his wrath.

07:12

So, but we're only focusing on two verses to talk about this today. So our first verse is

07:17

Ezekiel 25, 17, where the text reads, And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes.

07:25

And they shall know that I am the Lord when I shall lay my vengeance upon them. And then

07:31

Romans chapter one, verse 18, the apostle Paul writes, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

07:45

So John, as you joked earlier about how wrath is a fake attribute of God, when we speak about the wrath of God, what we mean is the wrath of God can be characterized not necessarily as an attribute of God, but rather almost as a function of God's righteousness, whereby he exercises retributive justice against the wicked.

08:06

So while we can say that when we speak of wrath, oftentimes what we think of is sort of like an emotion of anger, you know, and this could be like, you know, there could be wrath, which is sinful.

08:17

That's oftentimes how we speak of like the vice of wrath is in a specifically sinful manner, but then there's also just anger or fury when you're stirred towards anger by something unrighteous that's happened.

08:29

And when it's directed by your faculties and in a way that is, you know, well -mannered and ordered and is not, you know, it's not out of control, that is a just anger.

08:40

So when we speak about wrath, oftentimes we have this sense of emotion, but God himself, he is without passions.

08:47

And thus we can't say that he literally burns with anger, rather when we speak about God, you know, burning with anger, feeling a sense of wrath, the scriptures characterize him as such for the sake of our human minds, being able to understand both the severity of sin and the manner by which

09:05

God exercises his judgment. So this wrath of God is manifested, and we'll talk about this a bit more at the end because there's a lot of debate about, you know, not just like, there's lots of debates surrounding the atonement in general, but when talking about penal substitutionary atonement, we have a lot of discussion and debate about the nature of how is it that Christ bore the wrath of God?

09:28

Is there like a severance within the Godhead whereby Christ is separated from the father or something like that?

09:34

So we're not gonna talk about that just yet, but this wrath is, you know, part of the preaching of the gospel because in the death of Christ, wrath was manifested wherein

09:44

Christ voluntarily underwent the punishment of sin in our place and becoming a curse for us as the apostle

09:50

Paul speaks about in Galatians 3 .13, where he quotes the law talking about, "'Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree.'"

09:56

And this wrath is also manifested in the damnation of those who do not have faith in Christ.

10:03

So speaking a bit more about what this wrath is, as I said, this wrath is essentially, it can be characterized as an extension, an extension or function of God's righteousness in the form of retributive justice.

10:18

Therefore, it can be characterized to be metaphorical or if we wanna use like a more fancy word, an anthropopathism.

10:25

That's another way we could say it. I think I've actually used that word in a past attribute. I don't remember, but so when we speak about God having, what was that?

10:32

I don't even know if I could say it, anthropopathism. Anthropopathism, you have to do the papathism. Yeah, and it is a real word.

10:39

You can look it up. It's kind of like an anthropomorphism, but it's talking about feelings of emotion and objects which ordinarily can't exercise emotion, such as like -

10:50

So pathos, is that? Oh, I see, okay. It sort of relates, yeah, yeah. But yeah, so God having wrath, this is a metaphorical, this is a metaphorical understanding of an extension of God's righteousness in the form of retributive justice.

11:07

God, and the reason we say that is because God did not learn by experience to be wrathful or full of anger.

11:13

It's not like God was like this in a certain state of being. He created man, man did something bad, and then

11:20

God's like, oh, something finally went against my will. I feel this burning in me.

11:26

I'm upset. And he kind of learns how to be wrathful and grows in it. No, that's not the case, but rather the

11:32

God who is without passions, he characterizes himself in such a way, as I said earlier, to accommodate human understanding, to show the severity of sin and the manner in which he executes judgment.

11:45

So this wrath, when we talk about wrath, this can be distinguished into three general kinds. And these distinctions,

11:51

I've borrowed these from Richard Moeller's, not his dictionary of Greek and Latin theological terms.

11:56

I'm lifting my computer up. It's actually balanced on the book, but on his, in volume three of his book,

12:02

Post -Reformation Dogmatics. But essentially it can be characterized in these three ways.

12:07

It can be characterized as general wrath, temporal wrath, and everlasting wrath. God's general wrath is that which all of humanity is subjected to by virtue of the fall.

12:18

It's why we are characterized as children of wrath. And essentially it's God's judgment that we would be born into sin, that we'd be cut off from the garden of Eden, and that we would be without his favor, without a supernatural grace.

12:33

That would be his general wrath. His temporal wrath is that wrath, which is manifested against both the godly and the ungodly in this life via earthly punishments for sin.

12:45

And even in this one, even in temporal wrath, we would still distinguish between God's exercise of wrath against the godly and the ungodly.

12:53

In exercising wrath against the ungodly in this life, God does so as a loving father towards his beloved children.

13:00

He does this with love and discipline, sort of trying to direct them onto a better path. So in the same way that a father who is angry with his son and bears punishment to him, he may not be sinning in his anger.

13:12

Rather, this is just an exercise of giving a child a punishment to make them better, and it's done out of love for the child because he sees that this is what they need.

13:22

Versus the sort of punishment in this earthly life for the ungodly, this sort of temporal anger, he meets out as Lord or Prince rather than as loving father, whereby he treats these people as enemies by enacting revenge or giving punishment for sin.

13:40

And then finally, the last one is God's everlasting wrath. And this is characterized in his punishment for unbelievers in eternity, where he for all eternity subjects those who hate him to eternal torment.

13:53

So now a bit more on the crucifixion and how Christ atones for sins.

13:58

In atoning for sins, Christ bore the wrath of God in the set of sinners, being a propitiation for sins.

14:06

And this is somewhat pivotal in understanding of the gospel, seeing what we deserved was placed on Christ so that we may not go through it and that we in exchange receive the righteousness of Christ.

14:18

But even in saying this, we do have to be careful speaking in this way. This does not mean that God, remember, as we said before,

14:24

God is without passions. This does not mean that God was burning with literal anger against Christ so as to cause a division or schism within the

14:33

Godhead, because God is perfectly unified. All the persons share in essence, they all share the same will.

14:41

Rather, it is that God brought about the penalty of sin on Christ so that he may be a substitute for sin.

14:50

And I could go on a bit more about this, but I figured instead, there's this book from Stephen Charnock who actually has a great book on the attributes of God.

14:58

But in Stephen Charnock's book on the atonement, he has an incredible section on this. And it's a bit of a lengthy read, but I figured that it would actually give us a lot of, it would help us to understand what we mean in talking about the wrath of God when speaking of the atonement.

15:12

And he writes, and he essentially saying why it is that we can say that Christ underwent wrath and what we mean by that.

15:19

So he writes, this crucified redeemer only was able to affect this work.

15:25

He was an infinite person consisting of a divine and human nature. The union of the one gave value to the suffering of the other.

15:33

The word of God was passed and is threatening. His justice would demand its right of his veracity.

15:38

A sacrifice there must be to repay the honor of God by bearing the penalty of the law, which could not be done by the strength and holiness of any creature.

15:48

All the creative force in the earth and the strongest force of angelic nature were too feeble for so great a task.

15:55

Justice must have satisfaction. The sinner could not give it without suffering eternal punishment.

16:01

Jesus then puts himself into our place to free us from the arrest of justice and bear those strokes, which by virtue of the law, wrath had prepared for us.

16:11

The dignity of his person puts a value upon his punishment and renders it acceptable for us.

16:17

It being a death superior in virtue to the death of worlds. It was a death which justice required.

16:24

And at the sight of it, justice was so calm that the sharp revenging sword drops out of its hand. God had smelt in it so sweet a savor that he hath fully pleased him.

16:33

He can now pardon the sins of believers with the glory of his righteousness as well as of his grace. He can legally justify a repenting sinner.

16:40

God hath been served in the passion of the redeemer. His justice and holiness were glorified and the law accomplished.

16:47

The honor of God is preserved. And the author of the law righted the justice of God sweetened.

16:53

By this propitiation for sin, God has rendered propitious to guilty man and stretched out his arms of love instead of branching his sword of vengeance."

17:02

And that's the end of the quote. And the most important thing to note there is not that Christ suffered what we would call like eternal torment, because how is

17:11

God to be able to suffer for all of eternity? But rather it is that by virtue of the very person of God being eternal

17:20

God, yet also man, he is able to undergo this. As Tronach said, the dignity of his person, the dignity of his person puts a value upon his punishment.

17:30

And that's why Christ's sacrifice is acceptable for us. That's why we can say that Christ underwent the wrath of God in our stead that we may bear take of the righteousness of him.

17:39

And that, all that to say is the wrath of God in a nutshell. That was great. I do have a question,

17:45

Conceptual Clarity asked it though. Where in the Bible does it say that God is without emotions? I think you said passions, but I know that's a classical theology concept, but even

17:58

Augustine, I think talks about this, but how do you biblically frame that when God speaks of things like,

18:07

I mean, Jesus, I mean, you could say, I guess this was the hypostatic union, Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. So maybe I should use a different, but God, even in the old

18:15

Testament metaphors, like he wants to gather in his children and he cares for the sparrows.

18:23

And I mean, it seems like there's emotional language, right? Yeah, certainly. So when we talk about God being without passions and we like make this claim, this is sort of those things where it's like saying, where does the

18:34

Bible say the word Trinity? You know, or where does the Bible say, Jesus says, I am God, worship me.

18:40

It's not something which is explicitly stated, but rather it's when you read the whole scope of scripture, you sort of piece it together and you do this through reason basically illuminated by the

18:50

Holy Ghost. I was typing on my computer cause I was trying to actually pull up the Westminster Confession of Faith, where it sort of, it speaks of the character of God and it actually has a lot of the scripture references cause

19:04

I thought that that may be helpful. But what the Westminster Confession cites is Acts 14, 11 and 15, where the text says, when the people saw what

19:12

Paul had done, they lifted up their voices saying in the speech of Laconia, the gods are come down to us in likeness of men and saying, sirs, why do you do these things?

19:22

This is the apostles speaking. We also are men of like passions with you and preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities unto the living

19:31

God, which made heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are therein. So in characterizing the deity to the people of Laconia, they explicitly distinguish the divinity by saying, no, we are men of like passions with you.

19:48

So that's like, I guess you could say a more explicit Bible verse, but essentially what it comes down to is the character of God, that God is not moved in the same way that we are.

19:57

And when the scriptures speak of this, this is analogical language. And part of the reason why it's important to say that God is not moved with emotions and things like this is partly because of the fact that God is a promise -making

20:11

God. Now, anybody can make promises, but it's very easy to break those promises or not be loyal to those promises because you feel as if you've been wrong.

20:22

You feel these things and emotions are very swaying. Yet when we know that God is without passions, we can truly say that no matter what,

20:30

God's not going to like have these feelings which push him in one way or the other. Rather, God is going to stick to his promises.

20:38

So when we speak about God being without passions, we say this because it is of the character of God that he is eternal.

20:45

He transcends these human emotions, which oftentimes move us in absurd manners. And again, when the scriptures speak about God as having passions or things like this, it's doing so in an analogical way.

20:57

In the same way that we would say that God has wings or God carries us in his womb or things like that.

21:05

So we recognize all the time that scripture speaks of a very not so literal language about God.

21:11

And so we sort of take that hermeneutical approach and apply it to God in consistency with his character throughout scripture.

21:18

And that sort of is how we get there. That's the word cell long version of my answer there. Well, just so people know,

21:25

I just looked this up and it's interesting to me. I didn't actually realize this, but the

21:30

Westminster Confession says, there is but one only living and true

21:35

God who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible without parts, body parts or passions.

21:42

That's actually where I just went to, to pull that Acts verse. Cause I knew that the Westminster, I couldn't remember the verse off the top of my head, but I remember that Westminster had said that God was without passions.

21:55

And then also this is the 39 articles. There is, this is article one of the 39 articles.

22:03

There is but one living and true God, everlasting without body parts or passions. So this is something

22:10

I actually, I'm gonna just admit, I have not thought through this really. And so this is actually kind of new to me.

22:16

I don't know, maybe I've heard it. I mean, I'm assuming that would have been, maybe in a seminary class I was asleep if they talked about it, but yeah, it strikes me as maybe my evangelical brain is so used to God expressing love.

22:33

And I think a lot of the songs, especially that we imbibe are somewhat even effeminate, especially newer praise and worship songs.

22:41

And I don't listen to that on the radio or anything, but it's hard to not be in evangelical institutions and not hear those things.

22:48

And so it definitely reinforces that idea that God is very emotionally kind of,

22:57

I don't know, invested in his creation, which when you hear he doesn't have passions or something, it just hits you weird, so.

23:04

Yeah, yeah. Anyway. And that, yeah, when we say that God's without passions, that doesn't mean that he's not like actually invested.

23:11

If anything, the fact that he is without passions, like it's hard for us to conceptualize. Yeah, he's more invested, right. He has a stronger devotion and investment in us, which transcends the mere passions of human emotion.

23:24

But if you wanna sort of like get like a general understanding on that sort of thing, James E. D 'Alazal has a very great, very brief book.

23:32

It's only 176 pages put out by Reformation Heritage Books called, All That Is In God, Evangelical Theology and the

23:38

Challenge of Classical Theism. And that was pretty helpful for me. Or if you wanna go through something which is a bit more of a slog, you can just,

23:46

I guess, read Aquinas, but he can be a bit much sometimes. So, oh, yeah,

23:51

I know. Oh, go ahead, you go ahead. No, I was just gonna say, I just looked it up and apparently there is a book about divine impassibility which

23:58

D 'Alazal actually contributed to. So if you wanna get that too, I guess. It's amazing.

24:04

It is amazing the depth of theology that comes from this book we have, the

24:09

Bible and how many things can be written about it. And anyway, well, we're gonna move on.

24:15

I think that's, I'm gonna have to chew on that a little bit myself. The first thing that came to mind was,

24:21

I'll just say this in closing, I guess, is when Romans 1 uses the word pathos,

24:27

I think it's pathos to talk about basically the disordered passions that lead you into greater depths of depravity.

24:39

And this is presented as something that does kind of, it leads you in a direction, right?

24:47

And I think that's what we're talking about here is God's not led in a direction by passions whereas it's very human to break even vows that you make and so forth.

24:58

It's because you feel a certain way. Anyway, let's move on. Let's talk about the subject here which is not to get into juicy details which

25:10

I think some people probably want and it attracts them to a video like this.

25:15

And admittedly, I put the figures, I don't know if you saw it Matthew, but I put the photos of four recent evangelical leaders who had some,

25:24

I would consider moral failings. Although Brian Chappell's is the least of these, but Brian Chappell's is still quite notable which we'll get to in a second.

25:36

And there's podcasts that will just devote time to getting into all the details. And I don't wanna do that, but I do want to just briefly kind of summarize what's happened here in the last few months.

25:48

And then talk about an article that I have for TruthScript where I tried to address this with Josh Bice, but since then there's been some more.

25:57

Before we get to that though, I just realized this Matthew, I totally neglected this and I should say it. So first of all,

26:04

TruthScript, if you like this podcast, please contribute to TruthScript. It's a 501c3, go to truthscript .com

26:11

and I'll just say that we're having a meeting soon and we're gonna be discussing some big plans.

26:17

And yeah, having the resources to do it is very important. So the other thing is there is one link in the info section for this video and it is a link to Matthew Pearson's wedding registry.

26:29

So I'll let Matthew talk about that, but I gave him permission. I said, yeah, sure. If there's people in the audience who know Matthew, they've listened and they wanna contribute to that, that's totally fine.

26:38

Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, this is definitely the most griftery thing that I'm doing is using a internet clout for that.

26:45

But no, it's just, it was a little bit of a, my fiance and I are working on our registry and stuff like that.

26:51

And we have like a fund that people can contribute. And there were a few people that DM me asking like, hey, can

26:57

I have like access to that or whatever? I'd love to help you out. But the thing is, is that with the wedding registry thing, it kind of links to all the details about the wedding.

27:07

And it's like, I love all of you, but we are gonna come to complete capacity. And I don't know if there's any weirdos out there that might show up and try and cause a disruption.

27:15

So just for safety, but because I know some people were asking, we did make a Gibson go for some of the funds for that.

27:22

A lot of it will go into just like the honeymoon fund. And then like anything else after that will just be in like the savings, like for wedding stuff and things like that.

27:31

So anything would of course be appreciated if you feel so inclined. But I figured

27:37

I'd just put that out there. A part of me does feel like, oh, I feel like a grifter right now. But then the other part of me is like, people are generous, people have asked, and if you don't want to, you don't have to.

27:47

And so, you know what, I said, we'll just do it. And a lot of y 'all have been very helpful already. And just seeing the smile on my fiance's face when

27:56

I let her know, oh, this person has donated X amount. And just like, it's a great blessing and I'm more than thankful to God for it.

28:04

So just figured I'd plug it one more time. Yeah. You had a young preacher who's just starting out.

28:09

It's not exactly the most high paying position there. So I know for a wedding, obviously the gifts that come in, that was how my wife and I started out was wedding gifts.

28:21

And some of that went to honeymoon, but then some of it went right into savings and what we were trying to start and all of that.

28:29

And so, all right, well, let's talk about the subject at hand. So just to review real quick.

28:35

So people know about the Steve Lawson situation. I don't think I have to say anything about that. Obviously he was kind of at the top of the evangelical reformed world and he had a relationship with a girl that is his granddaughter's age and it turned physical, but it was a longer, it was like a five -year relationship that was emotional for most of that time.

28:54

And so he was disqualified and it was handled in a very poor way. I've cataloged that on Conversations That Matter.

29:01

But then right after, I shouldn't say right after, but within the last two weeks, we've had Josh Bice, the president of G3 Ministries, found out that he had a number of Anon accounts.

29:13

I think he had two or three and then he had multiple email addresses he was using to disparage, to try to ask challenging questions and embarrass and drag up dirt on people that some of whom were people he worked with, even in his own ministry, in order to jostle for position.

29:35

And obviously the motivation behind that is pride and wanting to not,

29:40

I mean, he even tried to knock down Bodie Bauckham and John MacArthur to knock these guys down so that you and your ministry, your organization, is the one left standing that people trust.

29:50

And there might be a financial incentive there, but there's certainly also a pride of thinking that you are more worthy of support and even using these underhanded tactics.

30:03

And he was doing this for at least years while preaching sermons on the holiness of God, right?

30:08

And this is kind of unsettling for people. Then we had K -Dub.

30:15

Well, actually, we'll do Brian Chappell first. Brian Chappell. So Brian Chappell, this one's a lot more minor,

30:21

I would say, compared to those, but it's still, I think, merits mentioning. I talked about this on Conversations That Matter, my other podcast, but Brian Chappell, on a

30:29

Gospel Coalition podcast, had held up this note with an enemies list, essentially is what it was, but he was a list of people that he said were, basically, they didn't have good character, their lives were a wreck and that kind of thing.

30:44

And he kept this on his desk to, I guess, remind him. It's kind of a weird thing to keep on your desk, a little notepad.

30:50

But then when people were able to just zoom into the video and see who was on the list, which were people like Peter Lightheart and Carl Truman and others, this is what he did.

31:04

TGC issued a statement and Brian Chappell said, with deep regret for harm done to others, I'm issuing a public apology for not taking proper care to protect the reputation of others.

31:14

In an unplanned moment, in a recent video podcast posted by TGC, I held up a small piece of paper that I believe was not readable, but included the names of individuals.

31:23

TGC personnel who prepared the video also thought that nothing was legible on the paper. However, there are now those who have taken a screenshot of the video and enlarge it to identify some names and I sincerely apologize.

31:34

So I'll just note my issue with this is, if those are truly people that have the character qualities, negative ones that Brian Chappell's talking about, he really doesn't have anything to apologize for.

31:47

He should probably just stand behind it. But if it was wrong, then he slandered people, really.

31:54

So he should apologize for slandering if he's gonna apologize, but this is a non -apology. This is just, I'm sorry

31:59

I got caught. I'm sorry that people saw the names and it kind of drives me nuts that, and they removed the podcast, of course.

32:09

I mean, does it make any difference now? I mean, someone's got a screenshot of it, but they think that's gonna somehow make it better to remove the podcast.

32:17

First, they blurred it, then they removed it. So the whole thing is trying to evade this being found out.

32:23

And it just shows a weak character in my mind. And then the last one being K -Dub, who is probably lesser known.

32:32

Oh, that's not it. Where is it? Here it is. He was a podcaster.

32:38

I actually was on his podcast and I think he might have been on mine once. It was a long time ago, but I know he invited me to be on his.

32:46

And that was so long ago. This was before debates about Christian nationalism.

32:52

Since that time, he decided he didn't really care for me. And so it was, there was a parting of ways,

32:59

I suppose. But he went to Heritage Grace Community Church in Frisco, Texas, and the church issued a statement.

33:10

This was on May 22nd. And they say that in the past few months, the elders were made aware that Chris has been actively engaged in an online adulterous relationship with another woman.

33:22

While there has not been any physical contact, his wife has provided undeniable evidence from his online Discord chats and phone calls that confirmed his relationship.

33:30

Chris was confronted and asked by both elders and his wife to confirm the activity, which he did. He was called to repentance and to end his online relationship immediately.

33:39

He confessed to sin, committed to end the relationship, and provided evidence that he had blocked the incoming phone numbers from this woman in an act of repentance.

33:47

The elders and another brother at the church were proactively keeping Chris accountable to his confession and repentance.

33:53

However, in a short time, he was contacted again by this woman, and soon after, the online chats and phone calls resumed.

33:59

He refuses to repent. He left his family. He's pursuing a divorce. He's in place under church discipline.

34:06

I mean, it's just a mess. And it's, I think, even more shocking because he,

34:13

I think, within the last, what, year and a half, adopted a child with his wife and was proud of that fact.

34:22

It was the pinned tweet and the pinned, I think, post on Facebook that he had up there.

34:28

I know, Matthew, you said you listened to him a little bit back in high school. So he had some good things, but yeah, and Clayton just reminded us that he was actually bashing

34:41

Steve Lawson for what Lawson did. So in fact, his last video was posted, I think, a week ago.

34:48

So Monday before last, and he's still going after false teachers and this kind of thing. And you're just sitting there like, and this was happening in the background.

34:56

Now, two things I wanna emphasize before we get into the virtue issue and kind of what do you do about this and all of that.

35:05

The first thing is, in both the case of K -Dub, Chris Williams is his name, and in the case of Lawson, oh, actually, and in the case of Vice, I had multiple people coming to me afterward.

35:21

I guess I have a big enough platform for that. So people private messaged me because they knew I was talking about it. And were like, hey,

35:27

I knew this guy for years before he was famous, I was good friends, we were close.

35:33

And yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all. And I'm like, what, really? Because, I mean,

35:39

I could see certain tendencies with some of these guys. And I've tried to explain that.

35:46

Maybe we can get into that. Maybe what I saw from the outside, but these are personal friends.

35:52

So the other day someone said, oh yeah, like this isn't the first time with K -Dub. I'm like, really? He goes, oh yeah, yeah, no, this has been kind of a problem.

35:59

And the letter kind of alludes to that. And yeah, not really that surprised.

36:05

And someone who was close to Josh Vice was like, oh, I think he went to seminary with them, but knew him forever ago.

36:12

Worked with them and was like, oh yeah, I've been praying for his salvation for years. I knew he wasn't saved in his position.

36:18

And I'm like, what? Okay. So I guess the comfort in that is that, look, you can fake it in front of a camera, right?

36:30

You can fake it on a conference circuit. But when people actually do know you on a human scale, there is a real you that has a greater chance of coming out.

36:43

So I think some people are worried like, what about my pastor? And it's like, well, if you know your pastor, right, on a very personal level, if you see him at church and you see him in social events and you know who his kids are, the chances of this are going to be less,

37:00

I think, than someone that is known on the conference stage. The other thing is some elders are doing their job because both in the case of Vice and K -Dub, the elders actually made formal statements that pulled no punches.

37:17

And they took responsibility and followed Matthew 18.

37:23

And I find that encouraging as well, that you may think like, oh, this is like, there's so many hypocrites out there, this is terrible.

37:31

But also focus on the fact that there's these two governing boards, these elder boards, that weren't hypocrites.

37:39

And so they're actually holding, and this probably is done at a lot of personal expense and embarrassment, can you imagine?

37:48

Praise Mills Baptist Church, this is our pastor, and the elder board's gonna say, okay, I know our reputation is kind of in the can now, but we're not gonna help him cover this up.

37:58

We're gonna hold his feet to the fire and do the right thing. So I'm encouraged by that.

38:05

And I wrote a piece, this is before I knew about K -Dub, but I wrote a piece on May 15th called

38:10

Returning to Integrity Lessons from G3, which we can talk about. But I wanna give Matthew a chance and then anyone else who has comments, a chance to weigh in on any of these things with thoughts that you might have.

38:22

Yeah, so I have quite a few thoughts on this. And I was just sort of writing them down as you're speaking.

38:29

And one of them is this idea of like the gospel when it sort of becomes business or livelihood.

38:36

Like you were saying, John, it's very easy to put on a face for the camera because you may follow someone online, things like that.

38:44

Like people may follow my Twitter or follow your YouTube and your Twitter and things like that. But they don't like truly know us, they don't truly know you.

38:52

And it's very easy to just like, even when you're caught in the midst of sin, you're like, oh, well, this is my livelihood right now speaking about theology or the gospel in front of a camera.

39:02

And so it's very... And pastors are most definitely susceptible to this because that is part of the livelihood in pastoral ministry.

39:11

And so there's a sense in which you always have to, if you're engaging in something like what John, like what you and I are doing, with you having this ministry that you sort of run, if you wanna call it a ministry,

39:22

I don't know how you view it, but with this thing that you run and then me sort of pursuing my seminary education for the purpose of becoming a pastor one day, we always have to remember that like,

39:34

God will hold us accountable. People, they don't know you like that, but again, you can get to know your pastor, but just like, cause what

39:42

I noticed is that even in the midst of all this, he was still making YouTube videos and things like that. And it's just good to always keep your heart in check while doing this.

39:53

And not only that, something I've also thought of is that this idea of make sure you have accountability and people who know, like James and his epistle, he talks about how you ought to confess your sins to one another, keep people in the loop.

40:10

Like that's something that I've always tried to do is if there's like particular vices or whatever that are in my life,

40:17

I will oftentimes like, I'm not gonna just hide them from other people. I don't wanna do that.

40:22

I want to be able to talk with my close group of friends and like speak with them about that.

40:28

That doesn't mean that you have to like go out there very publicly and just tell people, hey everyone, I struggle a lot with the sin of wrath, or you don't need to just like confess to everybody that, but like have people in your life that are holding you accountable because that's what the church is there for.

40:43

The church is a community, is the body of Christ, which is there for your aid to aid you in your journey to eternal life.

40:51

You know, they're there for your sanctification. And it's so important to have people in your life who are there.

40:59

So if you have something you're like, oh, I hope this doesn't ever get exposed. If you have people in your life and they're with you, walking through you with those things, that's much better than just having secret sins because secret sins will be found out.

41:11

And that's also the importance of prayer, being devoted, not making sure that your heart is hardened to sin during, you know, certain seasons of life.

41:19

You sometimes can grow so accustomed to particular sins that you suddenly lose a conviction, yet there's still sins.

41:27

And it is oftentimes through the means of another person sort of bringing it up to you and be like, hey, this is bad.

41:32

That opens the door for the Holy Spirit's convictions to actually rattle you once again. And so that's very important is to be deep in prayer and ask

41:41

God, Lord, if there are sins that I'm not familiar with, illuminate them to me. Oftentimes, you know, when

41:46

I'm like praying, I'll usually ask God, if there are sins in my life that I'm not familiar with, please expose them to my conscience so that I may repent of them and turn away from this and more towards you.

41:58

And that's part of the journey of holiness. Another thing to take from this is this idea of not trusting in men.

42:08

You know, I think it's in one of the Psalms where it says, put not your trust in princes, trust in the Lord, because like we're talking about with God being without passions,

42:16

God being immutable, you know, He does not change what He decreed, He will fulfill.

42:22

We can always look to these people who have fallen, but then remember God, that God will never do this.

42:28

The person of Christ who became man, who remains a man, who is interceding on your behalf before the throne of the

42:34

Father, He will never change. He will never fail you. And that's just so important to remember is to not use the, obviously these things are discouraging, especially if you're a fan of some of these people, it's hard.

42:46

But God, at the end of the day, He will never fail you. There's not gonna be a scandal with God. God is not gonna slip up.

42:53

And so that can remind you that the sinfulness of man ought to point you towards the righteousness and perfection of God.

42:59

And then something else which came to my mind, and this is my last point that I wanna talk about, is like what you were saying,

43:05

John, about church discipline. It is good that these happen because oftentimes, you know, church discipline doesn't just have to be something which is final, which always leads to excommunication, but rather the use of the keys and the use of punishment in the church.

43:22

Sorry, I've looked that way because it started raining. But the use of punishment is oftentimes, it's for your good.

43:29

It's done out of love. This sort of goes back to what I was talking about in distinguishing the types of wrath that God exercises in a temporal sense against believers.

43:38

It's anger, which is directed towards love. You know, anger is not the antithesis of love, rather it's to guide you.

43:47

Like discipline is not always just final. It's not just to say, now you're done, you're good, you're cooked, goodbye.

43:54

And so we have to remember that the use of the keys within the church is for the sake of love, is to guide you back towards the truth that you may pursue righteousness, that you may be further, you know, growing in grace and love for God, love for neighbor and all these things.

44:09

And they're just, they're so important. And so at the end of the day, what we always have to do is when you hear about scandals like this, especially if it's from somebody who you would deem an enemy in some sense or the other.

44:19

So say, for example, you're like, heavy Christian nationalists, you see K -Dub is speaking out against Christian nationalism, yadda, yadda, yadda.

44:25

Sure, there can be like a bit of like, you know, a sense in which, okay, you know, this person was my enemy, yadda, yadda, yadda.

44:31

But also at the same time, you ought to be driven towards prayer as well, that prayer for repentance, prayer that, you know, they would be received back into communion with the church.

44:42

All these things, because anything which happens to the body of Christ, which is scandalous, is going to affect our witness.

44:49

And our witness does matter. Even if you think, oh, well, you know, cringy, you know, big Eva people misuse the word witness and gospel and this, yadda, yadda, yadda.

44:57

That doesn't matter that some people reuse it. Those things are still real. And, you know, part of the way that Christ said that we would evangelize the world in his high priestly prayer is that we would be one.

45:07

And oneness is something that the church struggles greatly with. I mean, we have plentitudes of denominations and things like that, with lots of infighting all the time, even within those denominations.

45:17

And, you know, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, they're not off the hook with this either. There's plenty of infighting in those communions as well.

45:24

And that does not demonstrate the unity to which Christ called us towards. There is obviously a place for division.

45:30

This is where excommunication or church discipline comes in. It's to distinguish the other person from the flock so that they may be driven towards repentance.

45:38

But we always ought to be praying for these people that they would be brought back. And in doing this, we ought to pray for ourselves that God would keep us on the straight and narrow path because in our flesh, with the world always at us, with Satan constantly driving at us, you know, anything can happen.

45:55

And so you ought to remain steadfast, be vigilant in prayer. John Owen actually gives the example of the life of mortification of sin.

46:01

One of the examples that he gives is like, it's as if there's an intruder that's always in your house and you have to be aware when there's an intruder in your house, what are you doing?

46:10

You're grabbing the Glock, you're getting ready or the shotgun or whatever you have. I'm just, you know, I'm a lowly,

46:16

I'm just a lowly guy. So I just have, you know, two Glocks, I guess that might help me, but there

46:21

I am gun boxing myself. But, you know, you always ought to be vigilant against sin in your life, against the influence of Satan, because anything could happen.

46:32

But by God's grace, if something does happen, you can always draw near to repentance because the

46:38

Lord is merciful and he is patient and he has long suffering. And so that's sort of the end of my rant there.

46:44

But those are some of the thoughts that I had in light of what you said, John. That's really, really good. I was thinking about the fact that these are all somehow connected to technology too.

46:56

K -Dub met a woman online. Josh Bice had anon accounts on X with Steve Lawson.

47:03

This was a relationship that started, as I understand it, in person, but then it was over a distance because this person was in California.

47:11

He was in Texas. So you had to have a cell phone, right? With chapels a little different, but it was still, you know, on a podcast.

47:23

And I mean, maybe that's more of a Mr. Magoo moment, not knowing that people can actually see what you're putting in front of the camera.

47:29

Webcams have improved, but at least in the other three examples, these were moral failures that were in some way facilitated through the internet.

47:39

And someone in chat did ask if I can find it, whether or not, here it is,

47:46

Clayton Kennedy, elders should have access to pastor's devices. And I don't,

47:53

I mean, I'm not totally against that. I think that's too intrusive in a way. I don't,

47:59

I don't know, I don't know that's necessary. Like if you have to have access to your pastor's devices to keep him kind of accountable, then you probably hired a guy that you don't trust.

48:08

That's what I would say about that. But the question is, because of technology, because of these little screens,

48:17

I was gonna grab my phone, but I don't know where it is actually. You have it, you know, two inch by three inch, however big your screen is, probably, you know, two by two.

48:29

It's, yeah, there you go. It's so small, no one can see what's going on there. And you can hide things.

48:35

You can do all kinds of things on that device that the world doesn't have to know about.

48:41

But the thing is your sin does find you out eventually. It manifests itself in character qualities.

48:48

Sin is connected to sin, sin leads to sin. So what you think is secret and starts in secret does eventually come out somehow.

48:58

And it might take years, it might hurt a lot of people along the way. If you're a good actor and you're an ambitious person, you may be able to fake an image, especially if it's just, you know, three hours in front of a camera every day or something that's pretty easy.

49:12

But in the day -to -day grind, knowing people actually on the ground who see you in various situations, it's a lot harder.

49:18

And so what I've suggested in my article is that we do need mechanisms for vetting people at lower stages.

49:27

And maybe that was the case in some of these situations, but I don't think it was the case necessarily in all of them.

49:35

For example, K -Dub, I don't know whether he was an elder or not, I don't think he was, but all he had to do, and this goes for me too, by the way, in a sense, like all

49:46

I had to do was turn on a camera and start talking. And when I started doing that in 2019, no one knew who

49:52

I was. I wasn't attempting to actually have a platform online,

49:57

I just wanted people to know about the seminary I went to and why it was compromised. And then one thing led to another.

50:04

And over time, over six years of doing this, people have kind of gotten to know me and people have met me in in -person gatherings at conferences and things like that.

50:14

But the point remains, do you really know me? Do most of the people who listen really know me, right?

50:23

I think with K -Dub, that was such an easy thing to get a clip of a famous pastor, criticize it, and it goes viral.

50:32

Like people wanna know the juicy details about that person. You don't really need virtue for that job, if that's a job, right?

50:39

You might need a little bit of common sense, maybe discernment. Discernment's more of a spiritual gift, but not a lot's required, is my point.

50:48

With Lawson, all he had to do was stand on stage for a limited amount of time, write some books.

50:57

But after everything happened, we find out he wasn't really that involved with a local church.

51:03

There was questions about whether he was even a member at the church that he supposedly preached at. And he was just preaching there, he wasn't doing other pastoral stuff.

51:11

I mean, that's so dangerous. Like the whole job of a pastor is you are a shepherd, you have sheep under you.

51:19

That means that you have to fight wolves and the sheep might bite you. And what are you gonna do when that happens?

51:25

And what happens when there's a lost sheep? Are you gonna go after that sheep? And I mean, there's all these scenarios that don't involve pulpit ministry that you have to be ready for.

51:36

And sometimes those are the more important things almost, or at least the more personal things. I mean, how many of you remember a sermon versus how many of you remember when your pastor got personal with you about a sin in your life, or was proud of you for something, and or showed up at your graduation?

51:52

Or, you know, those are the things that tend to make a bigger difference in the life of a sheep when their pastor shows that kind of intense interest.

52:02

And I think of the character qualities outlined in scripture, they're all virtue. It's all based upon how do the people in your life that know you, how do they think about you?

52:12

And then what's the assessment of how you're managing the things that you're already managing? So if you can't manage your household, how can you be expected to manage the household of God?

52:21

Right? If your neighbors and the people you work with don't see you as someone with character, that means you're faking it.

52:28

So don't hire that person. If you're lingering long with alcohol, that's a danger.

52:36

It's not even a sin to drink alcohol, but it's like, it's a virtuous person is aware of their own limitations and temptations.

52:47

And so someone who is prideful and doesn't see those things as dangerous, be aware of that person, right?

52:56

So it's not just, I think the refute those who contradict tends to be a big thing, and being able to teach is a big thing.

53:03

Being able to teach is like the big thing in the expository preaching kind of circuit. But that's one item on the list is what

53:11

I, husband of one wife, do you have a lingering eye? Are you, and I'm not saying here, like, here's the thing, like people can take this too far where one sin is enough to disqualify you.

53:26

I'm not saying that you've never had a lustful thought. I'm not saying that you've, I don't know, never had a moment of anger or something like that.

53:35

I'm saying, and I think what scripture is saying is what actually characterizes you in your life?

53:40

Are you a mature godly person? Are these the marks that you have? You're someone who has self -control, manifests the fruit of the spirit, is responsible.

53:53

And so anyway, that's kind of my solution to this is we should not give undue support.

54:03

We should be careful about who we give our support to. And we should give it primarily first. This comes in, this is the order of Mars, right?

54:09

To the people in our own lives that we know have been tested. And from then, from there, we can fan out into other areas and even podcasts.

54:18

There's nothing wrong with that. But if this devastates you, that might be an indication that, hey, maybe this is becoming a little too much of a thing in your life, right?

54:29

Even like this podcast too. Like if you're too much American churchman, like if it really devastates you too much, not that neither of us are, you know, having scandals or anything like that.

54:40

And I don't think that'll happen, but I mean, you should be, your pastor, your local

54:47

Bible study leaders, your people in your life should be your first primary people that you're supporting and looking to and platforming and all of that, in my opinion.

55:00

And if we can create healthy communities at the local level, especially in local small churches,

55:05

I do think that somewhat takes care of this problem because a guy doesn't get that far.

55:11

Like he's not able to climb to the top of the ministries or even influential evangelical outlets in the technological sphere, like podcasts or blogging, because he would have had to go through the gates of local church accountability first before getting to these areas, right?

55:33

So that's kind of my thought is we do need to prize the local first and prize virtue. And if we can do those two things,

55:40

I do think that that helps this issue. And I'll just say in closing that, obviously there are things that fall through the crack because you read through the

55:48

New Testament and you find out false teachers come into the church. That's just something we should expect, right? There's gonna be people without character, which often the company's false teaching that come in.

55:59

But there is kind of a warped, I think, sense in which evangelicals in the

56:05

West look at, use their technology and look at these big ministries and it's all managerialism.

56:10

And we gotta get back to some really solid things, that's virtue and tangible life together first.

56:20

And so that was what the article was about. And it looks like we have a lot of people actually in the chat right now.

56:27

So I'll take some questions or comments. And maybe while I'm looking, if Matthew's got anything to add, you can go for it.

56:38

Preaching has got to be the easiest part of being a pastor, says Stormy Squad. I don't know.

56:44

I don't know. I know you're just starting out, Matthew, but preaching can be pretty hard.

56:52

Yeah, for the record, of course, I'm not a pastor. I'm just a seminary student, but I have preached before.

56:58

There's like a local church in my Presbytery back home that will sometimes have me for a few weeks at a time.

57:05

And it can be tough, but I would actually agree that preaching is probably the easiest, like I'm not a pastor, but I would probably agree that preaching is the easiest part because all you gotta do is, you pay careful devotion to the scripture, but it's not the most difficult thing to put a sermon together.

57:22

What I would suspect would be the most difficult part of being a pastor is not just being on a pulpit, because anyone can kind of just do that.

57:30

You just learn how to be a good speaker, learn how to exposit the scriptures well, not only through the grace of the

57:36

Holy Spirit, but just through actually studying the text. But yeah, actually living a godly

57:42

Christian life, which is above reproach, and then also counseling people through very difficult situations.

57:49

That is sort of what I see myself as like trying to prepare myself for. So, cause

57:55

I remember back in 2021, my sister passed away and I was sort of like my very devastated family.

58:04

They all came to me about stuff a lot of the times, and that was difficult. There were a lot of difficult questions to answer, just saying sometimes that, like I can't explain why this happened fully.

58:15

This is in the Lord's will. And so I would suspect that those are gonna be the more difficult parts of being a pastor, more so than preaching.

58:23

Yeah, preaching in the spirit is I think harder in a sense.

58:29

Well, it's easier in one sense, I suppose. But like you said, having a godly life, right?

58:35

That's sanctification. That's always the struggle. That's what Paul was beating himself into submission, right?

58:42

That there's a fight to that. I think giving a speech is easy for some people.

58:51

Is it preaching, right? I guess that's another topic for another discussion. When does it actually become preaching?

58:58

Like for example, when Steve Lawson fell, people were saying, well, what do I do with all these books?

59:05

And I gained so much from him. And you have to navigate that. Like, was it all for naught?

59:10

Like he said true things. I think God used things he said that were true, but it seems like at least some of that material was simply him giving speeches.

59:23

He was living in sin. So I can't say that the spirit was necessarily involved in his preparation or let's say the state of his heart when he was preparing these things and so forth.

59:37

But in the transmission, it definitely had an effect on some people. I don't know, this is,

59:43

I probably shouldn't have waded into that, but that's I think something to think about in regards to preaching.

59:49

Like preaching in such a way that God approves of and uses, that is, I think that's different than just giving a speech.

59:56

But the other Paul says that under sacralism, we would never have a Steve Lawson situation.

01:00:02

So yes, if - Yeah. Very insightful,

01:00:07

Paul. Very insightful, Paul, yes. You know, I was a big James White fan for years. I listened to every episode.

01:00:13

So I actually knew what sacralism was. I think it was Steven Wolf was like, I think James White made that up.

01:00:20

And I was like, you know, it's funny. I think that's the only place I've ever heard the term is from James White.

01:00:26

So I looked it up and it was like one guy in the 1980s and then James White were the only references I could find to sacralism.

01:00:32

But for those who don't know, yeah. I know, sorry, you go. I was just gonna say, for those who don't know, it's this idea, you know, basically the medieval order, the pre -modern order, that's sacralist because you have,

01:00:45

I don't even know if it's supposed to be ecclesiastical, but there's some kind of wedding of ecclesiastical and magisterial power.

01:00:52

That's, I think, the idea. Anyway. I heard of sacralism because, you know, I read Calvin on the civil magistrate.

01:00:59

But he doesn't use the term sacralism. I know, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But yeah,

01:01:05

I think that would be a sacralism, right? So yeah, the magistrate's gonna punish the

01:01:10

Steve Lawsons, I guess. Yeah, I don't know about that, but let's see.

01:01:17

I think the early church response to Donatism can speak into Steve Lawson's situation.

01:01:22

Oh, that's interesting. That's a good point, yeah. Yeah, like what do we do?

01:01:29

Was it Tertullian who was a Donatist? Tertullian predated the

01:01:37

Donatists, but essentially what they would argue is that all the sacraments that were administered under a priest who had apostatized were invalid by virtue of their prophecy.

01:01:49

And so people who received communion never truly received the body and blood of Christ. People that were baptized were never engrafted into the church and received the spirit.

01:01:58

People who were married were not truly married, that sort of teaching. I got Montanist and Donatist mixed up in my head.

01:02:06

So Tertullian - Happens. There's a lot of heresies and things like that in the early church, so it's -

01:02:11

I even took a course on early church heresies and I still got it mixed up. But yeah, that's because they rhyme.

01:02:17

And yes, Tertullian, I still cite Tertullian even though he became a Montanist at the end of his life. But yeah, so do we accept

01:02:25

Steve Lawson back in? Was it a true ministry in that - You could say that he was speaking truth.

01:02:31

I would still say so, that any book which you've benefited from, like God did use that in your life and he could have used

01:02:37

Steven Lawson to speak that. And I can't remember off the top of my head, but I believe Steve Lawson has repented.

01:02:42

I think he made a statement on his Twitter, but again, I don't have much to say on that stuff because I don't know his heart and I don't know all the fine details of his situation.

01:02:52

So I just kind of like, I guess I just hold my tongue on that point. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of, these all become very complicated very quickly too.

01:03:03

And yeah, Augustine's response to Donatism was that the faith of the person administering the sacrament didn't factor into the efficaciousness of the sacrament itself, right?

01:03:13

Yeah, if you're baptized, Steve Lawson baptized you, it's a true baptism. So whether he was talking to some underage girl or not,

01:03:22

I shouldn't say she was, I don't think she was underage actually. It's just his granddaughter's age, we'll put it that way.

01:03:29

Wow, I just heard that. Did you have a thunderstorm going on? It's thundering right now. Hopefully my internet don't go out, but.

01:03:35

All right, all right. Well, we got to end the podcast anyway because my daughter's going to bed and I got to go put her, tuck her in.

01:03:41

But yeah, appreciate everyone. Don't forget to go to the info section and check out