Dead Men Walking Podcast with Tom Ascol: Egalitarianism, Complementarianism, & biblical pastors

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00:11

Oh, hey, Jason, how are you doing, man? What's going on, man? Oh, welcome to another episode of Dead Men Walking. Love that riff.

00:18

Yeah. You know, we've been out of the studio for a couple months now. I know. We've been running our Fight Laugh Feast with, geez,

00:25

Doug Wilson and Dr. Ben Merkel, Dr. Joe Booth. So many. So you guys have been listening to some of the stuff that we covered in South Dakota, but we're going to break it up because we have a very special guest on today.

00:38

He's a pastor. He's the president of Founders Ministry. And I just looked at some houses about 15 miles south of where his church is in Florida.

00:45

I just might move down there. You should move. Yes, for sure. And who knows? It's Pastor Tom Askell.

00:52

Tom, how are you, sir? Doing great. So where are you looking at houses? Maybe I can help you out.

00:58

Well, it was a little city about 10 miles north of, what is it down there?

01:04

Cape Coral. And my wife and I, we're ocean and lake people. We're in Michigan here, so we spend a lot of time at Lake Michigan, Lake Superior.

01:12

But man, that ocean and that sun is appealing. Oh, yeah. And you've got a coast that's great.

01:18

And Florida's going, I don't know, I wouldn't say crazy, but man, Santa's.

01:23

I think it's great down there. Yeah, I think it's awesome. Yeah, man. Yeah, this is what the

01:29

United States used to be. Yeah, exactly. Amen. Absolutely. So why don't you give us just a maybe one or two minute bio of who you are,

01:37

Pastor? Let the listeners know, and then we're going to jump into some newsy news. Yeah, well, I've been a pastor here in Cape Coral, Florida at Grace Baptist Church for 35 years.

01:47

I'm a native Texan, and my wife and I have been married 41 years, and we have six children, four of whom are married, 14 grandchildren, one on the way.

01:57

I'm the president of Founders Ministries, was involved in starting that ministry back in 1982.

02:03

And just recently, we launched the Institute of Public Theology, which will begin classes this fall.

02:10

So I'm the founding president of that institution, as well as one of the founding faculty members, along with Bodie Baucom, Tom Meadows, and my associate here,

02:20

Jared Longshore. Awesome. And we are going to get into a subject that can be touchy for some believers, but we wanted to have you on because I had seen a couple videos that you had put out, or maybe someone else had put out, but basically videos of you talking about this subject of females and pastoral roles, what the

02:39

Bible says about it. And you were so articulate on that subject matter that we did want to have you on and talk about that.

02:45

First, we are going to do our newsy news segment. That's just where we'd throw out a couple news stories. Pastor Tom, feel free to jump in and comment.

02:51

We might even throw it over to you. But, Jason, do you want to do something? Let's go. News, the news, the newsy, newsy news, the news, the news, the newsy, newsy, news, news.

03:04

We got some news! Nothing like having someone on like Pastor Tom and then he has to sit through that intro.

03:12

I know, right? We just like to bring you down a few notches, you know? Can I comment on the intro?

03:17

Yeah, you could if you want. He said, can I comment on it? You need to change that. Yeah, right?

03:23

Oh, man, that's great. So what's our first story? Yeah, yeah. So we're going to stay a little serious today on the subject matter.

03:30

But U .S. church membership falls below majority for first time.

03:35

There was a Gallup poll. This is from March 29th, actually. So it's a little bit a ways back.

03:41

But some of the highlights. In 2020, 47 % of the U .S. adults belong to a church, synagogue or mosque.

03:49

Down more than 20 points from turn of the century. The change primarily due to rise in Americans with no religious preference.

03:59

Do you think COVID had anything to do with that, too, maybe? I don't know. I think it's been a downward trend anyway.

04:04

It has been, yeah. And possibly with that. But, I mean, this is comparing to 1999, 98 through 2000.

04:14

So, yeah. I would say COVID exposed it. Yeah, definitely.

04:21

We've been living with a lot of superficial Christianity. And that's probably true of these other religions as well for a long time.

04:30

And this just exposed us. I've seen two polls, two studies that indicate that anywhere from 25 to 30 % of the people who are active in churches in January of 2020 have no intention of going back.

04:46

Wow. And COVID didn't create it. COVID exposed it. Yeah. So I think

04:51

I know the reason. But what do you think the reason is for the steep decline over the last 20 years of church membership,

04:57

Pastor? Well, I think there's several things. One is I believe we've got a lot of unregenerate people that are in our churches.

05:05

And so depending on how you measure or what metrics you use for membership, there are a lot of people that probably have been members of churches that just don't know the

05:15

Lord. And then so often in the broader evangelical world we live in in the

05:21

United States and North America is superficial. The Christianity is superficial.

05:27

So it's really not biblical Christianity. And then we just had this massive rise of paganism.

05:33

Yeah. We've gone from secularism into paganism today. So all kind of mysticism and John Lennon, you know, imagine that kind of stuff.

05:42

That's just taken the world by storm. And the kind of Christianity that we had been imbibing for the last 75 years or so hasn't been biblically muscular enough to withstand that onslaught.

05:55

So we've just kind of been overrun. Yeah. Well said. Well said. Yeah. A self -centered gospel is no gospel at all.

06:00

And I feel like many churches are very self -centered instead of Christ -centered, which does not leave you in a good place in times of even something like COVID, I would say.

06:09

Definitely. Yeah. Do you have something, Jason? No, no. I mean, I'm right there with you guys. I mean, the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth preaching that, you know, is out there right now.

06:21

Yeah. Absolutely. So. Okay. Let's move on to the second story. I pulled this from CNN because we love garbage headlines.

06:27

And that's what CNN gives us because they always give us something slanted because they're supposedly pure journalism. But let's see. Southern Baptist Convention can dodge a schism, but not its own history.

06:36

Ooh. Where's our, where's our dun -dun -dun? All right. Where is it? Yeah. Where is that at? We got a job for it, but we're not going to do it. I'm just going to read the first paragraph or two because I can't stomach the rest.

06:46

The Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville this week nearly elected a less hardline leader in Ed Litton.

06:52

But don't be fooled. This meeting largely confirmed that the victory of what the SBC calls the conservative resurgence of the 1980s endures.

06:59

So CNN's kind of playing both sides. They're saying, well, we think they got a more moderate leader, but they're also, the conservatism is enduring.

07:07

We weren't there. I'm not part of the SBC. We follow it closely, obviously, as the largest denomination, Protestant denomination in the

07:14

United States. I know Pastor Tom was there. Do you have any comments? And I've been following Rod Martin, who's been on the podcast before.

07:21

Oh, man. Yeah, Rod is great. And I was like, you know, I'm not even going to go to the news. I'll just check Rod Martin's Facebook page.

07:28

Because he's so passionate giving us the updates and the inside look to it. Thank you, Rod. Shout out to Rod.

07:34

Come back on anytime. But so, Pastor, what was your thoughts on that being down at the convention last weekend?

07:41

Yeah, well, I mean, I think that CNN headline and what you read perfectly illustrates the folly of so many who are trying to lead the

07:51

SBC right now. In thinking that you can appease the world. If we heard it once, we heard it 10 times during the convention.

07:58

The world is watching. The world is watching. You know, we've got to be nice. Don't say these divisive things.

08:04

The world is watching. And it's like we've forgotten there's a God in heaven, and he is watching, too.

08:09

And so CNN, you know, we want to come across nice to CNN. There's just no way.

08:15

There's no way, because they're operating off of a completely different understanding of the world.

08:21

They deny the God who created the world. They are opposed to God and anything

08:26

God says. I've watched a couple of these little talking heads off CNN over the last few days regarding the

08:33

SBC, and it's hilarious to me. Some of them are trying to actually do theology. Wow. And, you know,

08:38

I'm quoting, in this quote, these Bible verses, and I just want to respond to them. Hey, look, guys, I will not try to do fake journalism if you will try not to do theology.

08:49

I'm disappointed. Disappointed that some of our SBC leaders are buying into that, and they're just being played by that.

08:56

They think they can placate the world. There's absolutely no way. And the only way forward is for us to say this is what the

09:02

Lord Jesus says, and we are going to stand with him. And we love you enough to tell you the truth, even though you're going to hate us for it.

09:10

It's so funny because 20 minutes before we started this episode, I was texting with my father back and forth, and he's reading some

09:18

Tozer, and I sent him one of my favorite quotes, to be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.

09:25

And it's so true. You can't appease both. The culture of the gospel cannot bow to the culture of the secular culture.

09:33

And we talk about that all the time. And there's nothing that we can do as the church.

09:39

There's always going to be something else that the world wants us, you know, that we have to, you know, not just the coffee and the smoke machines and making it like a concert, but also, maybe not the coffee.

09:52

Let's, let's, let's stay away from the coffee. Leave that there. But yeah, yeah. But, but yeah,

09:58

I mean, it's like, what's, what's next? What do we have to put in the church next to get people in the doors?

10:03

You know, and it's like, that's, that's not the gospel. Yeah. I mean, I mean, no one. I'm sorry.

10:08

Go ahead, Tom. Well, yeah, I think it's Joe Scarborough. I'm not sure. It's morning, Joe, whoever that is on CNN.

10:15

He was a part of what he's panel kind of leading it the last couple of days. And he talked about going to Sunday school.

10:22

He said he is a Southern Baptist and he used to go to training and all this stuff. And that Southern Baptist had just become so mean, so narrow, so fundamentalistic.

10:30

And they believe that you have to oppose abortion and all these other things. He said, well, they need to get back to being like Jesus.

10:37

You know, they, I mean, everybody's mad at him. They're offending everybody because they're not like Jesus. Let's be like Jesus. You know, they're not

10:43

Christ -like. I wanted to say, you know, Jesus was pretty Christ -like and they crucified him.

10:48

Yeah. So it's just, this mentality drives me nuts. I understand it.

10:54

I'm not, not appalled by it from the world. What appalls me is when those of us who profess to know

11:01

Jesus get manipulated by it. That's what displeases me. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely.

11:06

All right. Is that all we got on news? Yeah, that's the news. Short news segment for you guys today, but let's dive right into it because we don't want to take up too much of Pastor Tom's time.

11:13

But yeah. So the subject we wanted to talk about, like we said at the top of the show, it can be a touchy one for some people.

11:19

I know I have been accused of being heartless and chauvinistic and sexist and heck thorough and racist too.

11:27

Why not? I mean, everyone's a racist nowadays. Obviously I'm being facetious, but we just wanted to talk to you,

11:33

Pastor, about what does scripture say about female pastors? Maybe define what a pastor is.

11:38

We did an episode on Ezekiel 34 and really dove into what a shepherd should be, the requirements for eldership and shepherds and pastors.

11:46

But first of all, I would just like to preface this with saying we need to define our terms because we throw pastor around for everything.

11:51

If you're an evangelical church, you have a children's pastor, a youth pastor, a worship pastor. You have the main, you know, things like that.

11:58

So when we're talking about this subject, what are we meaning when we say pastor? Well, the word pastor normally appears in the verb form in the

12:09

New Testament, I think in the noun form only once, maybe twice. And Ephesians 4, 10, 11 would be one of the noun forms.

12:16

And I can't recall it off the top of my head if there's another. But it is equivalent with the word for elder and the word for bishop or overseer.

12:26

So you see this in 1 Timothy 5, verses 1 through 5, where Peter uses all three terms interchangeably.

12:33

You see it in Acts 20, along about verses 26 to 28, where Paul admonishes the elders of Ephesus to oversee, to act as bishops of the church and shepherd the flock of God, to pastor the flock of God.

12:46

So an elder is a bishop, is the pastor. Now, I don't know what your ecclesiological background is, but there are some who see bishops in a different category, like they're super pastors or they're kind of above the normal elders.

13:02

I don't think that's tenable biblically, obviously. I'm a Baptist in pre -church tradition, so we've seen those things pretty clearly and staked our claim there.

13:11

So when you're talking about a pastor, you're talking about somebody who needs to measure up to the biblical qualifications that are laid out for us in Scripture in Paul's admonitions to Timothy and Titus, as well as just what he says about himself and those, like in Acts 20, where he admonishes the very elders of Ephesus that he himself probably appointed during his three years in that city.

13:37

So what are the biblical qualifications of pastoralship or eldership in the

13:43

Bible? Well, there's several of them. I mean, you find them in the 1

13:48

Timothy 3 and Titus 1 passages, so you can just look at those and see what

13:54

Paul says. I mean, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober -minded, self -controlled, respectful, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, manages his own household well with all dignity, keeps his children in submission, must not be a recent convert, he must be well thought of by outsiders so he would not fall into disgrace or escape the snare of the devil.

14:22

Titus 1 says that he must be so sound in doctrine that he's able to refute those who oppose sound doctrine.

14:29

He must be able to stop the mouths of those that are disrupting households by false teaching.

14:35

So a pastor's got to be all of these moral qualifications. He's got to have some skill in teaching.

14:42

I don't think that necessarily means he needs to be a skillful preacher behind a pulpit, but he does need to be a person who, when folks are around him, they learn.

14:50

So he's got to be able to teach at some capacity, some level. But he's got to understand theology.

14:56

He's got to be able to recognize the truth of God's Word in a way that he can apply it to life today so that people don't just get led astray by false teachers.

15:08

I mean, we're shepherds. That analogy, that's one of the main portraits that we have of pastors, of elders in churches in the

15:14

New Testament, is that they are to guard and watch and feed the flock of God. You can't do that if you don't know the

15:22

Word of God and you don't see how the Word of God connects to itself and then relates to all of life.

15:28

And in every culture, it's transcultural. So there are things about pastoral ministry that never, ever change over time or place because they are given to us in Scripture that goes beyond any specific human culture.

15:46

They are to be utilized in every culture, every circumstance in order to shape people to help the gospel be understood and applied in the lives of those who believe it.

15:57

So it's a massive job. Nobody's capable of it. Paul said, who's sufficient for these things? And he speaks for everyone who is in that office that the

16:07

Scripture lays out as elder, overseer, pastor. Yeah, certain

16:12

Scriptures that pop into my brain, 1 Timothy 2 .12, of course, and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man but to be in silence.

16:25

And then Titus 2 .4 and 5, that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands that the

16:38

Word of God may not be blasphemed. And whenever I hear these verses spoken and the pushback is always, oh, so women are supposed to submit.

16:51

I'm like, yeah, Ephesians 5. And it's like it turns into that chauvinistic, like, oh, well, man lords over the woman.

17:02

And there's all these different stipulations that people want to throw in on our human level or whatever.

17:10

But could you just speak on some of that pushback that we hear from, you know, because,

17:17

I mean, we're supposed to love our wives like Christ loves the church. Lay down our lives. I think we have the greater calling, actually.

17:24

Yeah, we have a greater calling, you know? So, I mean, this is huge, and maybe that's moving away from the women in the pastoral role.

17:32

But, you know, I don't know, Tom. What is our defense of that? Yeah, well, it's more fundamental than the issue that is being debated.

17:42

It goes back to Genesis 1 .1. This is God's world, and he gets to set the rules.

17:49

And he has set the rules. And people don't like his rules. I mean, that's just the basic reality of today is we live in this egalitarian age where everybody gets a trophy and nobody's supposed to be better than anybody else.

18:02

We're supposed to be tearing down all hierarchies, and anyone that's advanced above others is an oppressor.

18:09

I mean, this is the worldview of the day that has come in like a flood. And even within the church, we have seen this happen.

18:16

And so people get offended by the verses like the one you read in 1 Timothy 2 .12. You know,

18:21

Paul says, I do not permit a woman to exercise authority over man or to teach.

18:26

Well, the way that that verse has been mangled in many church circles today, it winds up saying,

18:34

I do permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over man. And that was just for that time is what they'll tell you.

18:41

Yeah, that's right. It was for that time. Well, he appeals to creation in the very next verse, you know, because he was the one who was deceived.

18:48

So you go back to creation. What do you find in Genesis 1 and 2? Well, God created Adam first.

18:54

God gave Adam the responsibility initially in the garden. I mean, he wasn't there when

18:59

Adam started exercising the cultural mandate. And you look at the things that Adam was responsible to do.

19:04

Well, he was naming all of the animals. What is that? Well, that's an exercise of authority. When God creates from Adam Eve and gives her to Adam, what does he do?

19:14

He calls her Eve. He names her. I mean, he's the one who does. And even after the fall in Genesis 3, he calls her

19:21

Eve. He gives her her name, the mother of all living. So this is an issue of authority.

19:28

Authority is not bad. Authority can be abused. But all of life is under the ultimate authority of Jesus Christ.

19:35

And what we're facing today in these specific issues, like women pastors or whatever else women want to do or other people think they ought to be allowed to do, is really a rebellion against Genesis 1.

19:47

This is God's world. And what we've got to do as Christians is come to terms with what the

19:53

Bible says, refuse to compromise it, be as careful and clear as we can be, as loving as we can be, and not flinch in saying just what you said.

20:02

Are you meaning to tell me that women need to be submissive? A wife needs to be submissive to her husband? Right. Yeah, absolutely.

20:08

That's what I'm telling you. That's the way God runs the world. Yeah. Now, I'm so glad you brought that up, too, because some of the objections you will get from egalitarians or people who hold the view that anyone can become a pastor or teach, and we'll get into that in a minute, is that it's just one or two or three verses, right?

20:26

That's their first objection. You brought it and just showed us that, no, it's from Genesis 1 throughout the whole created order of what

20:33

God has redeemed. Two, people would say, oh, it's cultural. It was just for then. Can you speak to that objection a little bit?

20:42

Why it couldn't have been just culture for that specific church or in that specific letter?

20:48

Yeah. Well, if you go back to 1 Timothy 2 .12, and that's what they love to do, and I've read all the books about—well, not all, but I've read more than I care to read at this stage in my life, so I've done it—to try to understand the arguments from the other side.

21:01

I did a debate back in 2019 with Dwight McKissick on this very issue, on this very thesis, and so I did a lot of preparation for that, and that's where I read the contrary arguments more than I had prior to that time.

21:13

But after Paul makes this assertion, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, he says, four, in verse 13,

21:23

Adam was swarmed first, then Eve. So Paul is grounding his argument in Ephesus, in creation.

21:32

It's not because Aphrodite's temple is here, and you know how those priestesses with Aphrodite are.

21:39

They create havoc in homes, and I just don't want that to happen, and we've seen a lot of them convert, and they're coming into church.

21:44

I mean, that's just hogwash. That's hogwash. He could have said that. He didn't come near saying that.

21:50

He roots it in Genesis 1 and 2. And so those who want to claim it's just cultural for that day, they've got to do gymnastics around these verses and Paul's argumentation, and if you can do that, well, then anything's fair game.

22:07

You can make the Bible into any kind of rubber nose to fit whatever face you want. And then the third objection you would usually get is, hey, what about Priscilla and Aquila?

22:15

Yeah, Priscilla, Aquila, Deborah. You know, what about these women in leadership roles? And maybe we have to define the difference between leadership, teaching, and pastoral duties or preaching.

22:25

I mean, is there a definition, definitions there that we need to define, or are those examples not good examples for that side's argument?

22:32

No, I welcome all the examples. I mean, I don't think there's any verse that's off limits. We should never, never be embarrassed by anything the

22:39

Bible says, but we should give the Bible the same benefit of the doubt, especially the specific authors in the

22:45

Bible when we're talking about one place they've written something that might create some tension with another place where they've written.

22:51

We ought to give them the same benefit of the doubt that we would want others to give us. You know, give me the at least benefit of thinking that I'm not completely inconsistent.

22:59

You know, I'm not saying one thing over here and something completely opposite and inconsistent with it over there that we do believe in the law of non -contradiction and that that was operating in the biblical times as well.

23:10

So I'm not afraid of those verses, Aquila and Priscilla. Yeah, man, praise God for the wonderful things that they did in helping

23:17

Apollos and their service in the church in Rome as well and their assistance with Paul. Phoebe in carrying the letter from Paul to Rome.

23:25

I mean, no doubt Paul trusted her. You read Romans 16, you look at the names of all those people that he commends, and many, many of them,

23:33

I think most, but at least many of them are women. So we're not oppressing women.

23:38

We're not saying, oh, women don't have any place in the church. Absolutely not. I mean, I've never been a part of a church that could have functioned the way it was supposed to function if the women, godly women, weren't doing their jobs.

23:51

And the church I've been in now 35 years as the lead pastor, we've got some of the godliest women

23:57

I've ever known. And man, I mean, they work harder than a whole lot of men in the church work, harder than I do at times.

24:04

And I praise God for them, but they're not pastors. They don't want to be pastors because they understand what God's called them to be, and they're delighted with fulfilling the responsibilities

24:14

God's given them to carry out. That's the problem. So here's what I see at the heart of this is that you cannot measure the value of a woman by a man, nor can you measure the value of a man by a woman.

24:30

In our egalitarian age, that's exactly what's going on. And it's like Annie Oakley, you know, anything you can do,

24:36

I can do better. And if you don't allow that possibility, then you're being chauvinistic.

24:41

Well, it's just not true. We have to look at it and say, uh -uh, not in God's world.

24:47

That's the world we're living in. Yeah, that's something Greg and I were talking about before the show.

24:53

We were just talking about just the discipleship within the church now, and just pastors that don't want to preach on these hard subjects, you know.

25:01

And also just the fatherlessness of this generation, like there's more women that are having to step up because men in certain situations aren't there or aren't stepping up, and they're afraid.

25:15

And so the woman is trying to take on the man's role, and we're running into a little bit of that as well.

25:22

Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I would lay all this squarely on the shoulders of men, and then more squarely yet on the shoulders of pastors.

25:31

We are the ones to feed the flock. We are the ones to preach and teach. We are the ones who set forth sound doctrine and to train other men who can themselves turn around and train those who follow after them.

25:43

And the reality is that Christians in the West, in our generation, have been far better discipled by the world than they have by the

25:52

Word of God. And churches have taken second, third, or fourth place to the world in their discipleship efforts.

25:59

I mean, Disney disciples our people far better than churches. And we just need to hold up to that and recognize that we've got to do a better job going forward than we have thus far.

26:11

I mean, we've lost a lot of ground, and we try to make it up or try not to be pushed any further by hoping that if we were just nice enough that the world will quit pushing us further.

26:22

And that is not going to work. Yeah. Yeah, and to Jason's point too, I had read a poll, geez, probably eight or nine years ago now, and it showed a direct correlation of first, second, and third wave feminism on the rise over the last 50 years.

26:36

And egalitarianism in churches, almost mirroring that. Once again, demonstrating to me that the culture of the gospel is bowing to the culture of the secular culture, which just, like I said earlier, absolutely drives me nuts.

26:53

We bow to Christ. But very quickly, to wrap this kind of section up here too, maybe we should get into a little bit of complementarianism and then the objection that you get from the other side that says, hey, so you don't value women.

27:06

You don't think that they're equal to men. You think they're less than. And I would ask you, how would you define complementarianism?

27:15

And is there an unequal value or is it unequal just in role? What's your thoughts on that?

27:21

Yeah, no, it's not an equal in value at all. I mean, God made them male and female in his image.

27:28

He made them. So Genesis 1, Genesis 2 makes that crystal clear that the woman is no less an image bearer of God than is the man.

27:39

And this is my point I was trying to make earlier. The value of a woman, you can't determine her value by measuring her against a man, just like you wouldn't do that for a man against a woman.

27:49

God created us different. This is the way he designed it to be, maleness and femaleness.

27:55

And we complement each other. That's what, you know, not say nice things about each other, but we work together.

28:02

Do that too if you're married, though. Do that too if you're married. It's a good policy. But we work together so that we complete that which

28:12

God intends to be recognized and put on display in his created order by his image bearers.

28:18

That's no disparagement of single men or women. God does call some men, some women to be single, and some will be single for life, and some will be married and then be single.

28:29

And those are realities, and they're no less valuable. They're no less capable of serving the

28:34

Lord. They're no less image bearers in those situations. But in the marriage relationship, God designed marriage for a specific purpose.

28:42

When you look at Ephesians 5, it's far more than companionship. Marriage does bring companionship.

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It's far more than procreation, though marriage is the way for the earth to be populated and dominion to be exercised throughout

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God's created world. Marriage is primarily, according to Ephesians 5, to be a living parable of the relationship of Christ and the church.

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And so marriage is all about the gospel. God designed marriage to put the gospel on display, and when husbands and wives are living the way

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God's called us to live in marriage, then we are acting out the gospel. What that means is that the wife gets to display, she gets to fulfill the role of the one who gets rescued, the church, the people of God who have been set free.

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The man gets to fulfill the role of the one who gets slaughtered in order to rescue the bride.

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And so that's what we're called to do in sacrificing our lives, in loving our wives the way Christ has loved his bride, the church.

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Man, if we could recapture that vision of marriage, it would go a long way to helping men to step up to the plate and own the responsibility with all of our weakness, all of our shortcomings, and saying, dear

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God, help me. Give me grace, give me strength to fulfill this calling that you have laid upon me, because it is way beyond me.

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But so many men have advocated that responsibility, and we are bearing the bad fruit of it in our day.

30:09

So talk very quickly about teaching versus preaching. Biblically speaking, do you see a difference between women teaching and women preaching?

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Is teaching within a role that is biblical? Is it women just teaching women? Can women teach men?

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Biblically, where do you see that difference between teaching and preaching or pastoral leadership?

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Yeah, well, certainly women not only can, they must teach women. That Titus 2 passage you referred to earlier goes on to say, the older women are to teach the younger women.

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And so there's a responsibility that is born there. Certainly women can teach, and some women have wonderful gifts of teaching.

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They write books, they write hymns, and none of those things are shameful. I'm not embarrassed by any of those things.

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But that does not mean then that God would call them to serve in the role of elder, bishop, pastor in a church where he is given very specific qualifications and inherent in at least some of those qualifications, husband and one wife, and then being able to teach men, as the negative side of 1st

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Timothy 2, you have to be a man. You can't be a woman and fulfill that. Now, women can teach, women can do wonderful things, and I don't have any problem with that.

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I don't think we should. I think sometimes in reaction to the egalitarian spirit, we come across as if all women can do is just kind of come and sit and be quiet and maybe change diapers.

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I mean, that's not at all. Changing diapers is a glorious calling. However, we should never denigrate it.

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Baking cookies is a glorious thing. We should never denigrate it. But we should not suggest that women who are not going to ever be pastors in the church because they own their responsibility are somehow playing second fiddle or that they are less valuable.

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Not at all. Luther's doctrine of vocation is another thing we need to recover, that whatever

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God has called us to be is a noble, honorable calling before God, whether that's a cobbler, whether that's a baker, a butcher, or a pastor.

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We all are called by God. We have different gifts, different places in his world to live and roles to fulfill, but we don't look down on one another simply because our roles and responsibilities are different.

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And I would just comment very quickly too. I think also the reason we see a rise in this is because we've actually lowered the standard of the qualifications for pastoral leadership and eldership and then elevated the celebrity of it too.

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I mean, if you really look at the qualifications and the ramifications of being a pastor, Pastor Tom, I tell you this as a pastor,

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I don't think I could ever do that. When I seriously consider what the qualifications are and the ramifications of what you will be held accountable for on the day of judgment, it is a holy calling.

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And we've lowered that down to such that it's, hey, I go to some non -accredited course for 12 months,

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I get a certificate, I'm going to start my ministry and throw, like we said earlier, kind of joking, throw in some fog machines, some band music and start my ministry, and now you're this kind of mini -celebrity within your own right.

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And it's like, well, first of all, it's nothing like that. And yeah, if that's what you're chasing, then that's why maybe women do look at that and go, hey,

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I want that too. I want all those benefits without any of the other hard things, qualifications that come along with it.

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But very quickly as we wrap this up, and then Jason, I promise I'll let you talk. I did want to ask this.

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We have a listener out there right now, and he's listening or she's listening, I'll say it's he or she. And they go, you know,

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I've been reading through the word, what Pastor Tom is saying is dead on. I've been feeling that as well, it's a creative order.

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But I'm in a church that ordains women or has a women preacher. Is that a primary issue or a secondary issue for a church that you're attending?

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Let's say you disagree with female pastors or they're egalitarian, and you're beginning to understand that you're complementarian.

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Is that a secondary issue? Is that something we can go look at? Secondary, we're still believers. Obviously we're not saying you're not a believer or not a

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Christian, but is it an issue big enough to go, maybe I should be seeking elsewhere to attend church?

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Yeah, well, I think that when it comes to ecclesiological fellowship, secondary issues are important.

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You can't dismiss them. I can look across the aisle. A lot of people call them Christians. I've never started church with them because we have differences.

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It's not going to go well. So a lot of it would depend on context. I mean, if I were a man who couldn't read, and I'm in a place where there is no other church in the nation or in 100 miles, and there's a woman there who is literate and who's able to read and teach the

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Bible, well, I will receive the word of God from her. I would do that. But that's different than what most contexts that we are familiar with here in our own nation or in the

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West. And it is an issue that's not born out of any kind of necessity or exception.

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It is an issue that is being pushed to become the rule and the norm. And so those are completely different.

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So I would, you know, the context would be significant for me, but I would not lower this as insignificant simply because it's a secondary issue.

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I know it's secondary, but it has tremendous implications beyond the church, but certainly within the church.

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And so where there were alternatives, I would pursue alternatives. And I think you said, that was so good, you said the necessity of it is really kind of the determining factor.

35:47

Is it a necessity? Yeah. Jason, you got anything as we wrap up here? I mean, let's get away from the wishy -washy gospel and let's get into the word and read what it actually says.

35:57

Amen. That's why we love Pastor Tom. Should I not say that? We can say that.

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You know, every time we do, we lose a few listeners. I know, right? That's okay. You know, we want the ones that are hungry for the word.

36:08

Hey, didn't Christ go from 5 ,000 to just 12? Yeah, there you go. Oh, Pastor Tom, as we wrap up here, can you just throw out any websites, social media, anything you got going on right now where listeners could find your content or, you know, listen to you?

36:24

Yeah, well, you can go to founders .org, founders .org, and that will launch you into everything we're doing.

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We do a podcast weekly, The Sword and the Trowel. Jared Longshore and I do that, and we invite you to come and check that out as well.

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And then this Institute of Public Theology that we're launching in August, Tom Nettles will be teaching a course on the pillar and ground of the truth or buttress of the truth,

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Church History I. I'll be teaching a course on pastoral theology in the public square. Those are our first two courses.

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We've got August 28th, our convocation, initial convocation. We've got Everett Piper coming in to speak for that here in Cape Coral.

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So you can go to the instituteofpublictheology .org and find out more information about us there.

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But I would welcome folks checking us out and any encouragement you can provide for us, we take that too.

37:13

Man, I might be moving to Florida. Come on. You know, we are in the talks with Governor DeSantis right now.

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So we'll see. I had to pull some connections down there. Do you know him, Tom? Let's call him up.

37:29

I don't. Let us know. Get him on your show. Give him my number, okay? I tried to talk to him.

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I couldn't get into him. And then also, are you going to be at G3 this year? No, I am not.

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Founders will be there, but I've got a previous commitment. Okay. Yeah, we're headed down there to Atlanta.

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We were hoping to see you in person, but Founders will be there and that'll be awesome. Pastor Tom, thank you so much.

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I just want to say as we wrap up here, I know you have touched both of our lives through sound preaching of the word.

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We appreciate you. We appreciate you taking this time to speak with us. And anytime you want to come back on the podcast, talk about whatever it is that you want to talk about, we are good to have you because we love you, brother.

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Appreciate it. All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening. Jason, you got anything before we head out? Later, dudes. All right.

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As always, God bless. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

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at Dead Men Walking Podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips or email us at deadmenwalkingpodcast at gmail .com.