Keep sharing good news without ads.
#NoDespair2020
All right, well, I hope you had a good Lord's Day yesterday. I had a great weekend and Lord's Day with my family, all that kind of stuff.
Before we begin, let me just say right at the top here that you might notice a difference in this video than my previous videos, the past month or so.
And that is because there are no chickens in here. That's right. You will be missing the ambient chirping in the background.
They spent the last two nights in their coop all alone and they've done really well. They seem a little bit cold, a little bit shell -shocked.
I've heard that chickens don't really like change very much, but I'm sure they'll get used to it and get over it. They seem to be enjoying themselves outside and all that kind of stuff.
The kids love them. Kids love picking them up, putting them back down, all that kind of stuff. It's been quite an experience.
I'm gonna kind of miss them a little bit, but to be honest, the chirping was getting annoying. They were getting a little too big for the brooder and started to smell a little bit.
So I'm glad that they're out. In any case, I wanted to get to this article by the Gospel Coalition senior editor,
Brett McCracken. Brett McCracken is a senior editor. He's an author and he's an elder.
And so this is another mover and shaker in Big Eva. I'm not gonna go into this article point by point.
It would be way too long. And plus there's some good, there's some bad. I don't really, it's not the point of this video.
I wanna just mention a few things that I think are interesting about this article. Right off the top, I wanted to say this, this picture.
You can always tell Big Eva propaganda and like the direction they want you to go based on their pictures.
And what we have here is, it says, church don't let coronavirus divide you, which is a good exhortation.
We do not want coronavirus to divide our local assemblies. That is very, very true.
But what we have here is two very angry white men, two very angry white men yelling.
They don't have their masks on because of course, everyone evil doesn't wanna wear a mask. Yelling at these poor, well, they kinda look white too, but that's actually just cause this is a black and white photo.
Really, these are people of color. I think these two over here look like they're Asian in particular.
It's hard to really tell because they got the masks on, the approved N95 masks that don't do anything.
They've got the masks on and then they've got this, this one looks to me like a Latina. She could be a
Boricua sister. This could be Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez, I don't know. But you could tell like the way her hair is, a little more
Latina and all that. So we've got a couple of white men yelling at some
Asians and a Latina. And as you notice, there's a couple of women over on this side. So there's two women over here wearing the masks, doing the right thing, doing the needful.
And then we've got an Asian man in between here and then two white men yelling at them, very angry looking.
This is, listen, we've been told for a long time now, representation matters. Gospel coalition, representation matters.
And here we've got a skinhead and a typical white guy. They probably left their MAGA hats at home, but you can certainly bet that they are
MAGA supporters, no question about it, yelling at these poor people of color and females.
That is unacceptable, white men. Anyway, let's talk about this because this is basically making the argument that the church should be counter -cultural.
That's a buzzword, right? That's a Big Eva favorite, counter -cultural. And it's given you advice for how to be counter -cultural in this very difficult situation.
Coronavirus is out there, some churches. Let me just read the first paragraph to you and then we'll jump into the meat of it.
He's saying this, he says, for church leaders and elder boards everywhere, the last few months have presented a near constant array of complex challenges related to shepherding a church during the coronavirus pandemic.
The latest complex challenges, perhaps the trickiest yet, how to prudently resume in -person, in -person, in -person, in -person gatherings.
That was a slip of the tongue. But praise God that not all churches have to deal with this because a lot of churches never stopped meeting.
My brother's church, I'm so proud of my brother's pastor. My brother's a pastor as well, but they're teaching elder, the one who's kind of like the leader, you could say.
They're elder -led, but all this kind of stuff. He has not wavered. Well, that's not true. There's been some wavering, but they've met throughout this entire thing.
Praise God for those churches. Those men need your support, your encouragement, your attaboys, all that kind of stuff, because there's a lot of churches that are not in this predicament.
They don't have to figure out how to resume in -person gatherings because they never neglected the assembly.
Praise God for those people. I pray for you guys all the time, and I pray that you just maintain your conviction in this area.
Praise God. But many churches have stopped meeting, stopped assembling for local worship.
And so they do have to consider how to resume in -person gatherings. And I think that there's some good in this article.
There's definitely some good here. There's some wisdom here. But overall, there's some problems with this article, and I want to just point them out.
They're typical Big Eva problems. That's why I'm pointing them out. So counter -cultural, this is what it says we should be.
We should be a counter -cultural model for the whole world. That's what Brett McCracken thinks the church is, a counter -cultural model for the rest of the world to follow.
And that's true. Sounds like Brett McCracken's read Deuteronomy, where it said that the nations will see how
God's people act, the law of God, and they'll say, wow, they have such a close
God to them. He's so near to them, and look at this law. It is so righteous. That's what the
Bible says about the people of Israel, and I think that that's a good thing to consider. Now, I want to read this.
This is under the heading counter -cultural sacrifice. I'm going to read this entire section, and I want to make a few notes here.
Listen, ready, here we go. Brett McCracken. Let's get cracking. At a time when self -idolatry is being exposed in ugly ways, the church has an opportunity to model love that places the interests of others above the self.
For example, someone might find it personally difficult, even maddening, to have to wear a mask during church and stay six feet away from everyone at all times.
You might think these precautions are a needless overreaction, but here's the thing. Even if it turns out you're right, can you not sacrifice your ideal for a season out of love for others who believe that precautions are necessary?
Even if you personally think it is silly or even cowardly for someone to stay home, even after the church is open again on Sundays, can you not heed
Paul's wisdom in Romans 14? Let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother.
Or, 1 Corinthians, be careful, however, that your freedom does not become a stumbling block for the weak.
Likewise, those who think the lockdown should continue should not pass judgment on those who question the wisdom of government's ongoing restrictions.
Churches should strive to honor people on both sides of the spectrum. Yes, it will be costly for churches to keep offering online services for those who don't feel comfortable attending physical gatherings.
Yes, it will be a sacrifice for church members who are sick of masks, social distancing, and Zoom to continue to use those for the sake of others.
But little is more Christian than a posture of sacrifice. We should embrace it with gladness.
Couple things about this that I just find very weird. This is labeled counter -cultural sacrifice.
So the argument here is that if you don't think you need to wear masks, just wear it, for goodness sake.
It helps others. Otherwise, it's a stumbling block. Just wear the mask. And that's labeled counter -cultural.
And I just have to wonder, like, what in the world are you smoking?
There's nothing counter -cultural about that. What are you talking about? Every sports figure, every celebrity, every movie star, every politician, every commercial.
My goodness, I'm so sick of the commercials talking about how heroic it is to stay home, to not engage in commerce, to just listen to the instructions, how heroic it is.
Every one everywhere. I'm trying to think of how to put this.
But this is totally with culture. Culture is saying this is what you do.
If you don't think you need a mask, wear it anyway because it saves lives. And by the way, you love your neighbor, right?
There's nothing counter -cultural about this. This is bizarre. The sacrifice that he's describing here, there could be nothing on May 18th, 2020, more cultural, more with the current of culture than this.
And he's calling this counter -cultural. Like, what planet are you on, man?
This is a weird take, man. This is a weird take. There's nothing counter -cultural about this. And let me just say this as well.
While we're here, this whole thing like, well, you know, don't put a stumbling block in front of your brother, so wear the mask.
Like, okay, I understand the point you're making. I understand the logic behind it.
But I wanna know where this logic has to stop, right?
Because like, I could easily see a biggie of a think piece that says, look, even if you don't think vaccines are necessary, don't put a stumbling block in front of your brothers.
Get the shot, man. Stick it in your arm. You love your neighbor, right? And like, obviously most of us would be like, yeah, but it probably doesn't extend to shots, injecting yourself with chemicals or whatever it is that you inject yourself with.
But I wanna know why. How could someone not make the exact same argument that you've just made here,
Brett McCracken, and apply it to sticking your arm with a vaccine, right? Like, I just, that's what
I'm trying to understand. Like, we all talk about the weaker brother and that's definitely something we ought to consider.
But the weaker brother is not like carte blanche to just get everyone to do what you want them to do. That's not how this works, right?
And if you notice, the sacrifice here is all on one side. The sacrifice here is all on one side.
It's like, look, wear the mask, man. Look, Zoom church until people are comfortable, man. Like, this is not, he kind of like tips his hat at like, yeah, we shouldn't pass judgment on people who don't agree with the government restrictions.
But it's basically like, as long as they go along with the government restrictions too. So like, basically the sacrifice here is all on one side and there's nothing counter -cultural about it.
It's one -sided sacrifice that is completely with culture. Like, what, how can
Brett McCracken get away with calling this counter -cultural sacrifice? I don't know, but this is the most with culture idea that I could possibly imagine at this moment in time.
There's nothing counter -cultural about this. By the way, if the church wants to, and by the way, let's move on and we'll get to what
I wanted to say in just a minute. Here he says, this is labeled on their counter -cultural humility.
Have you noticed how remarkably confident so many of us are in our views right now? Unfounded certainty on the part of the lay people, leaders, modelers, and experts alike is a contagion at least as viral as the
COVID itself. So not that bad then.
We can all use a bit more humility and the church should lead the way. As much as ever before, Christians should follow the advice of James to be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
Listening well may slow down the process of deliberation and planning, but it's worth it. Whatever opinions church leaders themselves have on the matter of reopening, they should take time to humbly hear the voices of others, perhaps convening forums of various stakeholders within the church, as well as other church and government leaders in their area.
Church members should likewise model Christ -like humility in how they react to the plans outlined by leaders, even if they don't agree with every single aspect of it.
No one of us should assume we've arrived at a definitive answer on how to do this well.
Let's model humility by acknowledging that everything is not obvious and we are all just trying to do the best we can in this build the plane in midair moment.
This is true. A lot of people are trying to build the plane in midair. And there's an air of truth here as well.
Like we should be humble. We know we're not experts, right? That's the kind of thing. We're not experts on COVID.
We're not experts on models and things like that. That's very, very true. But there's an air of truth here, but it's actually asking the wrong questions.
This is actually not the question that this advice of like putting stake groups of stakeholders, forums of stakeholders in their church.
And that's how you make your decisions. No, that's not how we make our decisions. When we're talking about the worship of God, my goodness, this is not how we make the decisions.
The first thing we need to do is what does the scripture say? That's what we need to determine.
What does the scripture say about this topic? And my goodness, if your elder is not an expert on what the scripture says on topics like these, that's a big problem.
That's a big problem. Not saying that you know everything, but you should know where to go. You should know how to apply the law of God to situations like this.
This is your job, man. This is your job. And so no, you don't convene committees and forums of stakeholders in the church.
This is not how we do anything in church life. We don't decide how to worship God by committee.
No, we decide by the scriptures, man. We should have a Bible study. We need to be opening up our Bibles and saying, what does
God say to do about the assembly when there's contagion? What does God say to do about the sick versus the healthy?
What does God say to do about obeying the government and their lanes and our lanes and stuff like that?
What does God say? You don't form committees to decide whether or not we do Zoom church or whether or not we sing or whether or not we greet the brothers with a holy kiss.
Like you don't decide. That's not, you don't, I think I've made my point, but this is super interesting.
Counter -cultural humility. There's nothing counter -cultural about this either.
He's saying, go to the experts, weigh it all out. He's definitely not saying go to the scripture.
That would be counter -cultural. That would be counter -cultural if he said, look, I know you've got your models and I know you've got your science and I know you've got your executive orders.
You know what I mean? But we've got this word that tells us what to do in these situations, that tells us how to worship our
Lord and our master. That would be counter -cultural. This is faux counter -cultural.
This is what the world is doing. The pagans are doing this. The pagans are doing this sacrifice stuff where you wear the mask even if you don't want to.
You stick your arm with the vaccine even if you don't want to. That's what the world is doing. But Brett McCracken's trying to pass this off as counter -cultural.
This is not humility. It's not humble to say God hasn't spoken or God is unclear when
God is clear. That's not humble. That's actually super arrogant. It's not humble to say, well, we gotta consider the models and the scientists just as much as we consider what
God says about quarantining the sick and worship of services and singing unto him and stuff like that, like laying hands on the sick.
My goodness, laying hands on the sick. God tells you what to do here. It's not humble to say, but that model though, that's not humble.
That's actually the height of arrogance. It seems humble, but it's arrogant. And it's humble in the eyes of the world to say, well, you gotta consider the scripture in the same way you consider scientists.
And we gotta give scientists their credit. And we gotta view how we, we gotta put through the lens of science how we worship
God and what Hebrews means when it says don't forsake the assembly. Like we gotta consider science though too.
Like that sounds humble to the world, but number one, it's not counter -cultural. And number two, it's not humble.
It's arrogant. It's arrogant. Let's move on. Counter -cultural patience.
Let's, I'm willing to bet that this one's probably not counter -cultural either, but let's find out.
Patience is one of the rarest virtues in today's insta -everything world. And yet patience has rarely been more needed as many of us are antsy to break free of stay -at -home isolation and get back to normalcy as soon as possible.
To be sure, it is good and right to be eager to gather again as churches. We should take Hebrews 10 very seriously when it says we ought not to neglect meeting together.
Yeah, but what about those models though, Brett? And the scientists? And what about, what about, what about the executive orders?
Yeah, you know, it's all, we gotta weigh it out. You know, Hebrews 10, executive order, I don't know. We should feel like the ache.
We should feel the ache of what is lost when we only meet virtually, and every Christian should long for the day when church on Zoom gives way to church in a room.
That was clever, Brett. That day will come. But we should be careful not to rush it. We should be careful not to go faster than governments allow or faster than those in our community can understand.
Faster than those in our community can understand. What a statement. Or faster than those in our community can understand.
We should be patient with a timeline that might be slower than we'd prefer. Patient with a reopening process that will doubtlessly be clunky.
Patient with leaders filling the pressure of this complex situation. And patient with one another as we figure out the new normal.
Those who are not comfortable with physical gatherings should be patient with those who are and vice versa.
As hard as it will be to practice patience, remember that in the scheme of eternity this season, whether it's months long or years, will be but a blip.
This is something right here. There's nothing counter -cultural about this patient. Every commercial is telling you, look, this is the new normal.
This is the new normal. Life can't go back to normal before we have a vaccine. It doesn't matter if it takes months, weeks, days, years even,
Brett McCracken is saying. This could be years. And you should just have patience, counter -cultural patience, which is identical to the pagan patience, apparently.
And we should be patient, of course. But again, there's nothing counter -cultural about what Brett is suggesting here. This is decidedly progressive.
Decidedly pro -daddy government control of everything positions here.
I'm at a loss for words here because I'm just so mind boggled that he thinks this is counter -cultural. This is totally with the current.
There's nothing against the current here. This is, he's not saying, look, he's saying, yeah, he tips his hat to Hebrews 10 here.
Tips his hat to Hebrews 10, but then he says, yeah, but we got the governments. They have to allow us to meet in order for us to consider and follow
Hebrews 10. They have to allow us to meet. Also, we gotta make sure everyone's comfortable with it in the community.
No, we don't wanna lead and say, look, you shouldn't be too scared to worship God the way he's commanded.
That's actually probably a sin to repent of. You should probably repent of being so scared that you won't worship
God, especially considering the nature of this virus, which kills less than 0 .05
% of people who have it. Especially if you're young, when the likelihood of dying and all that is so supremely low, you might as well not come to church because you're afraid to get hit by a car.
Like if you're deathly afraid in those circumstances to come worship God the way
Hebrews 10 commands, then that's probably a spiritual problem we ought to address as a session.
No, none of that. That would be actual leadership. That would actually be counterculture. No, instead, we gotta have this faux countercultural patience which is the exact kind of patience that Bill Gates is insisting that you have, that Fauci is insisting that you have, that all manner of politicians and celebrities and leaders are telling you to have.
Somehow it's countercultural though. Sure thing, Brett. Sure thing. Countercultural nuance.
We live in an un -nuanced age. The economic model of the media built on clicks and views works against nuance.
Advertisers know nuance doesn't sell. Politicians know it too. We shouldn't be surprised how rare it is for someone to hold humble, complicated, both -and views in today's hyper -partisan, media -catechized world.
It'd be nice if he showed us an example of what he's talking about here. He goes on, but if churches are going to emerge from this crisis with unity and fellowship intact, we must embrace the countercultural path of nuance.
It's a path that avoids all -caps hysteria of every extreme sort, recognizing that truth is rarely as simple and shrill as Twitter would have us think.
It's the path that prizes both courage and prudence and avoids both Pollyanna -ish and doomsday responses.
It means we can be skeptical of some aspects of a lockdown without resorting to outrageous conspiracy theories.
Hey, Joe. How's it going, agent? You know, Joe Carter, he might be a CIA agent. No evidence of that though.
That's a conspiracy theory. We can honor governing authorities while engaging them in civil pushback when necessary.
Countercultural nuance avoids thinking the worst of people and concedes that the other side of the debate is sometimes right, just as we are sometimes wrong.
Nuance often results when humility and patience combine. There are some things
Christians should not be nuanced about, of course, but one of those is our rugged commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ and all that scripture commands.
Of course, you have to weigh it against what the leaders and the science and the models say. Right, Brett?
Because that's countercultural humility. What Paul urges the Ephesian church, therefore, should be equally urgent for us today.
Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
This is the best one of the four. Countercultural nuance. I'm a very nuanced guy. And I think a lot of people don't think
I am. I actually, Matt Williams likes to make fun of me for being too nuanced. And I am very nuanced a lot of the time because if you notice, like my content on this whole debacle has been, look, the government does not have the authority to cancel church, even in a pandemic.
It doesn't. Like God gives the authority of the keys of the kingdom to the church itself. The government has no claim over that.
However, based on every individual content, it might be prudent to shut it down or something like that.
It might be. And I know the arguments against what I just said there, that there's no way to shut it down according to scripture.
And they make, they're strong. They're strong arguments. They have a point. When people say, no, no, we cannot neglect the assembly.
We cannot close down the church for a pandemic. We must be open in times like this. When people are considering mortality, we need to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We need to be open to lay the hands on the sick and all that stuff. That is a good point. I'm not there, but it's a good point.
So I've been nuanced this whole time. And I said, some churches might close down. Others might not. The government has no authority over this, but some might decide to and some might not to.
My church has decided to shut down, have Zoom church. I think it's, I'm glad that we have Zoom, but I almost wish
Zoom would just shut down so we just meet. You know what I mean? We just meet. But I support my pastors.
I support my pastors in the decision in that. And I'm waiting it out and I'm being patient and all this kind of stuff.
But if you notice here, what Brett McCracken is trying to pass off as counter -cultural. He's trying to say like, this is the way of the church, how we lead.
This is how we show the pagans what to do in this difficult situation. Basically all of them are just repackaged versions of what the pagans are telling you to do.
No, like when we're deciding what to do and how to go forward and all this stuff and the gospel humility and the patience and all that stuff.
No, like what would be counter -cultural is say, look, God has spoken. We quarantine the sick.
We don't quarantine the healthy. God has spoken. The church has the keys of the kingdom, not the government, not the government.
God has spoken. Like that would be counter -culture. If you notice every time he gives you
Bible verses here, he tempers it with, well, we gotta consider what the factions in the church say and we gotta establish committees and we gotta consider the models and the leaders and the government.
Like, no, that's not how we do this. There's no negotiation here. If God has spoken, then that's that.
Call me a fundamentalist, I guess. I don't know, but this is the problem with Big Eva. There's a lot of talk about counter -cultural positions, but there's really not a whole lot of oomph behind it.
Like you're not gonna see someone just say, no, no, no, God has spoken here and that's that.
You're not gonna get a whole lot of that from Big Eva. Instead, what you're gonna get is propaganda that has white guys being so angry and mean and a bunch of POCs over here getting yelled at and stuff like that.
They're the good guys and they're the bad guys and we just, this is the progressive narrative. I've said this before and I'll say it again.
Every Big Eva think piece on loving your neighbor and stuff like this, it's just basically repackaged narrative from the pagans.
That's a problem, that's a real problem. And the reality is that a lot of people are hip to this game now and I'm glad,
I'm so glad. Look, the next few weeks are gonna be weird. The next few weeks are gonna be weird because we're gonna have churches reopening and things are gonna happen.
There's gonna be a lot of problems, stuff like that. We're gonna have some videos released that are gonna show you the underbelly of what
Big Eva's like and it's gonna be weird. Things are gonna get strange. And I think that the attacks are gonna come more intensely from people like Agent Joe Carter and that kind of thing.
But the thing is, Big Eva, what you should know is that there's a lot more of us than there are of you.
We're hip to your game, we're ready for it. So, all that to say, it's not a threat, but you can come at us with the normal accusations.
Oh, you're a racist, oh, you're a scofflaw, oh, you're a white supremacist. Most of us don't care about that anymore and the reality is the more you do that, the more you play into our hands.
You see, we're exposing your tactics for what they are. You can't get away with repackaging pagan talking points anymore.
Sprinkling a few Bible verses and calling it countercultural. You can't get away with that anymore. It's just that simple.
Anyway, I hope you find this video helpful. Lots of good content to come this week. God bless.
Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday. That's not what we do with a YouTube channel. What am I talking about?