WWUTT 465 Q&A Movie Kids Assure Emergence?

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How should we consider films that blaspheme God with Christ -like imagery?

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How should we talk to families who are thinking about leaving their church? And what do we need to know about the emergent church?

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These things and more when we Understand the Text. You're listening to When We Understand the

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Text, committed to sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And don't forget our website, www .tt .com. Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. It is Friday. When we take questions from listeners and respond to them on the broadcast, you can submit your questions by email, whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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I have a few questions in front of me here, and I don't know that I've exactly figured out which ones I'm going to do.

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So we'll see how far we get. Maybe I can get through all of them. This first question piggybacks off of a topic we talked about last week, and I think this question even goes back to an email

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I got about Wonder Woman. So Jacob says, Hey, Pastor Gabe, you pointed out how the movie version of Superman has become a

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Hollywoodized Christlike character. This happens quite a lot in Spider -Man 2.

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After Spider -Man saved a train full of people, he died and was being carried over everyone's head cruciform, which is he was laid out in the shape of a cross, basically.

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The people gave him back his mask, and he was raised from the dead, so to speak. Other movies that implore blatant

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Jesus comparisons include Robocop, The Matrix, Alien 3, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Harry Potter, to name a few.

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By the way, any movies that you hear mentioned on this broadcast are not an endorsement of that film or a recommendation that you should watch it.

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All right, just to make that clear. Anyway, Jacob goes on. My question has to do with the verse you referenced, 1

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Timothy 4, 7, which says have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.

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Rather, train yourself for godliness. What does that mean when applied to these films? Does that mean we should not watch them if they contain what could probably be summed up as blasphemous misrepresentations of Christ?

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Well, the point that I was making wasn't that we shouldn't see those films because you wouldn't even know the comparisons were in the movie unless you'd seen the movie first.

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Even though in this Internet age, it's pretty easy to find out what's in a film before you go see it. But nonetheless, the point that I was making is that we should not do with the gospel the same thing that Hollywood does with Jesus Christ, comparing him to Superman or Neo in The Matrix or any of these other things because it reduces the power of the gospel into some kind of pop culture reference.

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It's as though we're saying the gospel is not powerful enough to convince anybody, so I need to shoehorn it into this pop culture thing, whether that's a movie or a

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TV show or songs or some sort of pop culture fad, kind of like the thing a couple of weeks ago with the fidget spinner comparing it to the

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Trinity. See, that's irreverent and silly. That's taking the divine mystery of the

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Trinity, one God and three persons, and trying to explain it with a fidget spinner. That's absolutely ridiculous.

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So these are the things that become irreverent and silly. So when we see that in a film, don't get snookered by that and then go, hey, you need to go see this movie because it'll give you a good idea about Jesus when you see what they do with Superman.

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No, that's ridiculous. If you want to share Christ with somebody, then you share with them the word of God.

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You share with them the things that Jesus actually said. You show them the Christ of the Bible.

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You don't try to show them a Hollywoodized version of that. So those are the things that become irreverent and silly, and we need to simply stick with the truth.

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Romans 10 .17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So thank you for your question,

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Jacob. This next one comes from Neil. He says, Pastor Gabe, we're a small church that struggles from time to time to motivate volunteers in the children's ministry, children's church area.

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We have been told by a large family that has been members of our church for about two years that they're considering changing churches because the kids are not getting what they need.

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One thing was brought up that we haven't done anything in a few months outside of VBS. How biblically should

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I respond? Well, I did send Neil an email, and I'm going to kind of expound on it a little bit here.

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The first thing that you should do is just simply be personable, be kind, and be direct.

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Don't beat around the bush about it, but directly go to the family and say, hey, I've been hearing that you guys are considering going somewhere else because we don't have enough children's programs.

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Can we sit down and talk with you about that? And hopefully they'll be convinced about the love that this church has for that family and just because they don't have an active children's program right now does not mean that they are inattentive to the spiritual needs of the whole family, according to all ages.

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Kids need to be discipled a certain way, and adults need to be discipled another way. So by personal conversation, by simply being friendly about it and trying to talk about it, start with that first before you do anything else.

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But if they're still not convinced, I mean, sometimes a church will have a program, something that's geared toward kids or something like that.

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The volunteers aren't there, so the tent needs to be taken down and put on the shelf, and it'll come back out again when the volunteers are there to be able to carry the program.

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You can't expect to exhaust everybody in the church just to maintain a certain program.

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Churches are not built on programs. It's built on the gospel of Jesus Christ. So if all of that's been said and done, you've had conversations with the family and nothing seems to change, then just peacefully let them go.

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They have carnal reasons for being at that church and carnal reasons for wanting to leave and attend another church.

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And consider some of the excuses that we tend to hear whenever things like this happen. You'll say, well, why do you want to leave and go to another church?

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And they'll say, well, we love everybody here. We've got friends here. We consider you guys family.

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The doctrine is sound. We love the preaching. But, and then there will be something else, whatever comes after the but is more important than sound teaching from the word of God and loving the brotherhood of believers.

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It's more important to that family than sound teaching and brotherly love. If their kids are not being fed in your church, that's really the fault of the parents, not the fault of the church.

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Church is not for adults. It's for everyone. It's multi -generational. Kids to parents, to grandparents, to great -grandparents.

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The time that is allotted for worship should not include kids' church and youth church and grown -up church.

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It's the place for the whole church. And when we go to Titus chapter 2, verses 1 through 8, you see the guidelines for mentorship in the church.

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The older men mentoring the younger men, the older women mentoring the younger women. And that would be the case with discipling our children as well.

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We equip parents for discipling their kids. A church does not need to have a program that is geared toward children in order to be a properly functioning church.

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You find that nowhere in the scriptures. I feel like our church struggles the most.

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I'm talking specifically of my church, First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City. I think that we struggle the most when we're trying to get volunteers and stick them in children's ministry areas.

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Supposedly, this is supposed to help adults grow by listening to the sermon without the distraction of their children during church.

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But what about the adults who are volunteering? How are they getting fed? Somebody has to give up something for somebody else to be able to enjoy the message.

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So what we're actually doing as a church, and this is happening this summer because of the number of families that we have that are moving out,

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Fort Riley moving them to other parts of the U .S., and then we have other families that are moving in.

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And while those families are still trying to find a church and get settled in, we have a need for volunteers in some of these areas.

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So what we are doing as a church this coming Sunday, we're doing away with our nursery care entirely during the church service.

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We still have Sunday school classes from 930 to 1015.

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That is for all ages, kids up through adults. But when it comes to church, there's nothing going on in our east wing and everybody is gathered in the sanctuary for service.

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Infants to seniors. We we have a room just off the sanctuary where someone can go if they need to step out with a crying child or something like that.

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And we've also encouraged our congregation to be mindful of one another. Some of our military moms whose husbands are deployed, they've got their hands full with their kids.

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So somebody, a friend step up and say, hey, I'll take your baby while while you can sit and listen to the sermon, if you like.

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It's just one of the loving ways that we can serve one another so that everybody can be fed with the preaching of the gospel.

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So there is something for everybody. And we do have classes for all ages. But the church will exhaust itself trying to come up with methods and programs to accommodate everyone.

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If someone doesn't like it and there's absolutely no biblical reason for them to be put off the way that they are, but they're going to leave you anyway, then just let them go.

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Don't put up a fight. Don't be belittling. It's on them. It's it's on them to think in themselves that there is something more important going on than sound teaching and and brotherly affection within the body of Christ.

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And they're going to have to answer for that. And maybe you could even say that. You could say you don't really have a biblical reason for leaving and you're going to have to stand before the

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Lord and answer for that on Judgment Day, which doesn't mean they're going to hell. Don't misunderstand me there. But nonetheless, their their lack of maturity concerning this issue is why they would want to leave that church for another church in order to find a program that they think they need.

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Always good to hear from you, Neil. And thanks again for emailing. Next question here comes from Laura.

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She says, Dear Pastor Gabe, I recently started attending a church. Everything was going great until I approached the pastor about doubts

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I've been having about the Bible and my salvation. I agreed to talk to him and a couple from the church.

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The couple told me that since I was having doubts and have never confessed Jesus Christ as Lord, as in Romans 10, 9, that there was no way

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I was saved. I told them that I want to obey God. And they said something like, that's just the

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Holy Spirit leading you to be saved. They told me that I could confess at home. But when I said that I wanted to confess at home, they said something along the lines of the devil wants you to put it off.

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I felt uncomfortable during this whole talk because I never thought that salvation worked this way.

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But I confessed and repeated the prayer they guided me in. Afterwards, they cried and rejoiced that I was saved.

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I don't believe salvation works this way. So a few weeks later, I talked to them to see if the confession was works based.

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And they said it's all about belief and quoted Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. By grace, you are saved through faith. I was baptized this month.

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And before my baptism, the male from the couple said that Lisa was saved a few weeks ago, referring to the confession.

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I believe that I was saved before this confession. Ever since this confession,

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I have been unsure about whether I should continue going to this church. The couple wants to disciple me.

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But I'm weary of that because I'm not sure their doctrine is sound. Blessings, Laura.

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Well, Laura, let me tell you that A .W. Tozer was walking by a street preacher one time.

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And that's how he heard the gospel. He heard a street preacher saying, repent or be damned.

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And so he went home and he went up to his attic, if I remember the story properly, and he got down on his hands and knees and he prayed to the

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Lord. He asked forgiveness for his sins and gave his life to Christ. And so that was really the beginning of his conversion.

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That wasn't the moment of his conversion, but that was how his walk of faith began, by hearing a street preacher, by going home and praying to the

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Lord. And so your walk of faith may begin that way. Now, exactly at what point were you saved is hard to say.

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And we're not going to know exactly. There are some people out there who know the moment that they got saved.

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I was dead in my sins and my transgressions. And right at that moment when God revealed himself to me and I was just broken down and I saw my sin and his holiness,

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I knew that I was saved. Great. Amen. Praise the Lord. If you know the day that this conversion happened for you,

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I don't. I don't know exactly what day it was for me that I knew that I was a sinner and only

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Christ could save me. I know that I have been in pursuit of God and his word and holiness and understanding the scriptures and teaching the gospel.

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I've been in pursuit of these things as long as I can remember. I remember praying to my light when

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I was four years old because I didn't know where else to look and saying, God, I give you my life. Whatever you're going to do with me, do it.

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And I was only four, but I can still remember praying that prayer. I wasn't saved then when

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I prayed that prayer. One of the elders at my church, Chris Solano, he said whenever he's been asked, when were you saved, he says, oh, on a cross at Calvary 2 ,000 years ago.

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That's when I was saved. And that's really the truth. You've been predestined for salvation. It was actualized at the cross of Christ by his spilled blood atoning for your sins.

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And then by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit that has been poured into your heart, you were given ears to understand and eyes to see when the gospel was spoken to you and you turned from sin and worshiped

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God. And I pray, Laura, that that has been the case for you as well. When exactly that happened, none of us can necessarily say for sure.

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But we praise God that it has happened. And may we continue to walk in the way of his righteousness and do what is pleasing to the

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Lord day by day. Now, whether or not this couple that has led you to this understanding is mature enough to be able to grow you in your sanctification, that's hard for me to say.

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At least based on the information that you gave me, I wouldn't be able to say for sure. That's going to be up to you.

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And I would say that you evaluate that according to the scriptures. Read through.

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You know, oftentimes whenever I tell somebody who is struggling with assurance of salvation, I tell them to read through 1

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John. And I mentioned that when we went through our study of 1 John since March, March to May, going through 1

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John. But I'm not going to give you that same recommendation. If you've been with me this whole time that I've been preaching through 1, 2, and 3

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John, I would tell you to read Romans. Because you've mentioned Romans 10, 9. You also mentioned

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Ephesians 2. But read through Romans. Sixteen chapters, a little bit longer read. But start in Romans 1 and read to the end.

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And see what the Lord will show to you as you read through the doctrines of justification that Paul lays out there in his letter to the

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Roman church. And as you grow in your understanding of that particular letter and some of the theology that is opened up there, maybe the

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Lord will show to you whether or not it's a good idea for you to continue to be discipled by this couple or even continuing to attend that church.

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Now, I also want to encourage you with similar advice that I gave to Neal a moment ago when I said concerning that immature couple who wants to leave his church because they don't see good discipleship programs for their kids.

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You need to just sit down with the couple and be frank. Tell them what you think they're doing wrong and give the scriptures as to why you think that they're discipling you in the wrong way.

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Have a conversation about it. And maybe they will be repentant. Maybe they'll be convicted by what you share.

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Maybe what you have to share will disciple them. And they will have a clearer understanding of salvation according to the scriptures and the three of you can grow together that way.

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Maybe that would be some helpful advice to you as well. I would still encourage you to test yourself to see that you are in the faith, that you don't think you're saved just because this couple has led you in this prayer.

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But, Laura, you're truly convicted of your sin. And you know that Christ is Lord. And it is only through Him that we can be saved from our sins, rescued from judgment and the wrath of God, and have eternal life in His forever kingdom.

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So examine yourself to see that you are in the faith, that you don't just think of yourself as a Christian because this couple has said you are, or that you've gone up to the baptismal and been dunked.

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But because in your heart you know, I was a filthy, wretched sinner that was destined for hell.

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And in Christ I have been turned from a walk of sinfulness to the righteousness of Christ.

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And it is by grace through faith in Christ alone that I have been saved.

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And thank you again for your question. I think I can get to one more question here. This one comes from Becky in Oregon.

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She says, Pastor Gabe, the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends, Quakers, the

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Friends Church, which is the Quakers, all right, has been dealing with differing understanding of Scripture on the subject of human sexuality and same -sex marriage, as have many denominations.

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After at least 10 years of discussion and discerning, it has come to the place of a split in the

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Yearly Meeting. Newburgh Friends in Newburgh, Oregon, was the founding church in this entire

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Yearly Meeting and is going through perhaps the most painful process as the congregation is about evenly divided.

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The half of the congregation who wish to affirm same -sex marriage and leave the existing Yearly Meeting are labeling themselves the

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Newburgh Emerging Friends Church and do not seem to be following clear Scripture on homosexuality.

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Your blogs about popular Christian music were very interesting, and I wondered if you could talk about your understanding of the

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Emerging Church movement and theology. My husband and I will not be joining the

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Emerging Church. Well, Becky, the Emergent Church, also called the Emerging Church, has risen in a postmodern culture as a religious movement that interprets the

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Bible through a very ambiguous lens. Your truth is not the same as my truth, which is typical postmodern language, and they apply that worldview to Scripture.

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The Emergent Church places a greater emphasis on dialogue than on any actual biblical teaching.

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For example, Donald Miller's ministry, if you could call it a ministry, is actually more of his business to sell books and get speaking gigs.

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But anyway, his ministry is called Storyline Blog, and that's the name of his website.

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Everyone has their own story, and he wants to hear your story. The emphasis here, of course, is on the self and has absolutely nothing to do with God.

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It's all man -centered doctrine. Perhaps the biggest name among the Emergent Church teachers is

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Rob Bell, also Brian McLaren, Shane Claiborne, Tony Campolo, Doug Padgett, Peter Enns, a pastor close to where I live just a couple hours down the road,

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Brian Zond, John Pavlovitz, also a part of that movement. He's a famous blogger, and that's mostly what he's known for, the very arrogantly titled

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Things That Need To Be Said blog. I've listened to a sermon of his, and he repeated a lot of the same stuff that Donald Miller has said, that Jesus was all about learning people's stories, and that's why he sat down and broke bread with them.

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And if you really want to share the gospel with someone, you need to let them talk and hear their story. A lot of today's popular

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Christian music is influenced by the Emergent Church movement. I'm sorry to say the David Crowder band is from that Emergent Church crowd.

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Michael Gunger would be another in the music camp of the Emergent Church, and Gunger will make the most openly unabashed statements regarding what

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Emergent Church goers believe. For example, Gunger has said no reasonable person takes the entire

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Bible completely literally. He made that statement earlier this year on Twitter when he said that God needing to be appeased with blood is a horrific doctrine.

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Penal substitutionary atonement. These guys usually reject major central theological issues like substitutionary atonement, why

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Jesus died, they believe it's because he disrupted the system, they won't tell anyone to repent of anything except perhaps fundamentalism, and by the way, anyone whom they consider to be a

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Bible thumper or overly redemptive is a fundamentalist. So I'm not in any way associated with independent fundamentalism, but they would accuse me of being a fundamentalist because I believe in a literal interpretation of the

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Scriptures. A literal reading of the Scriptures is the antithesis of the Emergent Church movement.

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Teachers like Rachel Held Evans and Matthew Paul Turner, they exist on a platform of being anti -fundamentalist.

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It's what they're all about. The Emergent Church is opposed to talking about the wrath of God against sinners or the doctrine of hell.

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They're typically universalists. Even if they won't say it, it's almost a foregone conclusion that the

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Emergent Church believes everyone is going to heaven. Love wins is the mantra, which of course was the title of Rob Bell's bestselling book.

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They're very embracing of homosexual rights causes, as you have experienced.

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It's a bunch of liberals just pretending to be Christians, using the

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Christianese, trying to borrow from some of the language. I don't even think you could call them evangelical because I don't think they're really trying to evangelize anybody, except trying to get you to not be a fundamentalist.

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And I'll say they're usually pretty giving and generous and kind -hearted for the most part,

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I guess. At least they are according to their rhetoric. I've not ever witnessed that firsthand.

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I usually get the very venomous side of the Emergent Church crowd. The movement is by its nature self -centered.

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It is entirely man -centered doctrine. It is not God -glorifying.

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And that's really the Emergent Church movement in a nutshell. They're all about being relevant to the culture, not realizing that when we embrace the teachings of Christ, we're going to be standing in stark contrast to the culture.

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Jesus said the following in Luke 9, starting in verse 23, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

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For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

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For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

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For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the

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Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

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So may we embrace the truthfulness and the authority of the

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Scriptures no matter what is changing about the world around us. The doctrines of man are always going to be shifting doctrines because men change their minds.

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As we go with feelings, our beliefs are going to change with the feelings of the culture.

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We'll be tossed to and fro by all the shifting winds of doctrine. But if our belief is founded upon the unmoving, unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ, then although we will be battered by the culture, we will not move.

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And on the day of Christ's return, we will be standing with him in glory. You'll hear from the emergent church side of things about being on the right side of history.

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I tell you, be on the right side of God. That's where we should be. And so I hope that was helpful for you in some way,

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Becky. I want to pray for you as we close out here. God, I pray that you would give Becky and her husband the right words to say to speak into the situation that they're going through regarding their church in Oregon.

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And I pray that what they will say will be founded upon the gospel.

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It will be the truth and the words of Scripture, and it will speak into the minds of those that are looking at the situation going on around them and realizing there's something wrong with this.

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This isn't biblical. And it will cause them to come back to the truth of the Scriptures and ground their faith there, rather than being tossed to and fro by all the shifting winds of doctrine.

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So I pray that the gospel would shine in the midst of this situation, and those that are being torn in two different directions will see the truth from the lie, and they will follow the way, the truth, and the life,

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Jesus Christ. No one comes to the Father but by Him. And I pray that for all of us, that we would be solid on the truth of God's word.

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We need to be reminded of these things daily because the world is toxic. And some of these worldly ideas will even try to weasel their way into theology.

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But if we are guided by the principles that are given to us in Scriptures, if God's word is the lamp to our feet and the light unto our path, then what have we to fear of any man?

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The Lord is our light and our salvation. Thank you for the

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Holy Spirit that you have given to us to see and read the Scriptures and hear them and understand them.

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And I pray that we would grow in the knowledge of this all the more. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. This is

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When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

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But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, gospel -teaching,

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Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.