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Jon talks about how he approaches evaluating Christian figures/ministries.
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Conversations That Matter podcast, I'm your host John Harris, and it is a wonderful day if it rains. If it rains. I'm looking outside, and it's been cloudy, actually the sun just kind of peeked through, but I've been thinking, maybe it'll rain today, because we've had a bad drought.
We've had, I don't know when the last time we had rain was. We had a little drizzle on Monday, but before that, I don't think, it hasn't been much. Grass is brown. The Mohawk River, which is near where I live, has a 25 mile long algae bloom that's caused by the runoff from fertilizer, and so it's high nitrogen content that creates this toxic bloom that actually can kill dogs.
The farmers, I live in apple country, they're not doing too well, and I know we're not the only place in the country that's having this issue. It's kind of strange, because I saw yesterday that Sand Dunes National Park, it looks like the ocean.
They've got water everywhere, and Dinosaur State, Dinosaur Track State Park in Texas, has such a bad drought that previous tracks that no one had seen, because they were underwater, of dinosaurs, you can now see, and they look fresh, which is interesting, since they're supposed to be, what, how many millions of years old, and yet, they look like they just were formed, so the rescuing devices employed to save Darwinian theory, I mean, it almost seems miraculous, doesn't it, that you could have that?
Erosion didn't do anything in that time, even it being underwater. So anyway, there's drought, and we should pray for that, if we're in an area that has drought, even if we're not, just pray for some rain, and I wanted to, let's see, we're gonna talk about something important today.
I wanted to just let you all know, though, that I realize that there's a few things I've teased that I haven't come out with yet. One of them is a deeper dive into Tim Keller's teachings that are not related to social justice, but are problems, unorthodox, and are heterodox.
We're gonna talk about that. I still am planning on doing that, so just so everyone knows, I haven't forgotten, this particular podcast that you're listening to right now was supposed to be released in March, I think March.
I did a lot of the notes for this in March, I did a lot of the thinking through these issues in March, and there's three reasons that I want to release this podcast. This podcast is on evaluating Christian leaders, and I want to just give some guidelines for how to do that.
This isn't exhaustive, but it is practical and important. I think, number one, it's gonna help us think through evaluating as biblically and consistently as possible. When you're approaching a ministry or a Christian leader, John, how do you do it?
How do you shine the light of scripture and reason and really, well, just show the errors, but you're not a jerk about it. What is it? Sometimes I might fail my own standard. I think I certainly do at times.
There's no doubt, but there is a standard, and that's the point. I want to give that to you, and what I at least attempt to try to meet when I do exercise discernment on ministries and leaders. Number two, I want to provide insight into how I approach, personally, this analysis on the podcast.
This is what you're hearing. Let's get back into the factory. Let's see how the sausage is made, so you know how I'm approaching this. That way, you can hold me accountable, too. Then number three, understanding the difference between cancel culture and discernment.
I don't know if we'll spend as much time on this, but I just want to note that I think things are confusing now. Some people are painting with broad brushes, because I've seen the comments that, John, you're just a discernment ministry, which I didn't even really know what that was when I started talking about some of the social justice issues.
That's what I've heard people say, but they use it sometimes, some of these people at least, kind of broadly, and they color with one shade, it seems, that everything's a discernment ministry, quote unquote, if it's even the least bit critical against evangelical elites.
That's just not true. There are, and I'm meaning this in the pejorative sense, right? I don't know why discernment ministry gets a bad rap, to be honest. The words themselves don't seem like they should, but there's a sense in which people who say that are trying to convey that it's yellow journalism, it's inaccurate, the whole point of it is to just rip people down in dishonest ways, I think that's what people are trying to evoke.
The fact is, there are people who do that. I think as cancel culture has gained dominance, and it's nothing new, but it's just more popular now, there's a big difference between that and then what someone like myself on this podcast is attempting to do.
I think the motives are different, I think the results are different, I think with cancel culture you have people who are, they're trying to, they're doing a few things, but one is, their goal is to get someone, whether it's someone who's dead, historically a hero, who's probably more accomplished than they are, usually, which makes them feel good, generally, I think.
I think that tends to be the case, lesser men tend to like to rip down greater men, but anyway, the point is to get that person so smeared, so tarnished, so trashed that no one will touch them with a 10 foot pole, that they are, and if they're alive, that they can't gain employment, they can't gain a following, they can't, they are canceled, that's what cancel culture is, there's no hope of redemption, right?
There's no hope of understanding differently, there's no hope of contextualizing, it's all just, there's no sense of proportion, it's just, on the scale of one to 10, it's number 10 bad, and anyone associated with it, here's the second element, is also bad, so second, third degree separation is totally in bounds, and so if you're someone who once said something nice or associated in any way, shared a stage, perhaps, with someone who now is deemed to be a horrible person, then you are also marred with that, that same, that analysis applies to you, you're endorsing, it's seen as an endorsement, so there's no sense of proportion, there's no level of trying to rightly judge something, it's all smear tactics, and so that does exist, but that is different than, I think, someone who is truly trying to point out, for the good of the church, false teachers, and especially, and those with characters that are, would be consistent with false teachers, I think there's a big difference between those two things, and that's hopefully what will come out as we, over the course of this podcast, so, and I'm gonna use, we're gonna just, for fun, I haven't, like, prepared slides on this, but for fun, I think we'll just do a few evangelical leaders, and bring them through this grid, and maybe I'll share with you some personal things, I already thought to myself, you know, I'm going to, at least one of these evangelical leaders is going to be John MacArthur, and just because I'm someone who respects John MacArthur an awful lot, I probably share more in common with his theology than I do most, at least very big names in evangelicalism, and I've gained a lot from him, so how would I bring someone like John MacArthur through this grid?
And I mean, this applies to myself, this applies to anyone who's teaching in the public sphere in Christianity, so part of, I think, my thinking in this initially, when I put these notes together, was I had done a video on the, a situation that had taken place, like, 20 years ago at MacArthur's church, and I was very skeptical of some of the, at least the more extreme claims that were being made about John MacArthur knowingly supporting child abuse, that was the insinuation, some people even said as much, and so I went meticulously through a timeline, and through details, just to show that we don't, we're not justified in concluding this, and I remember at the time, I had, I, there were the people, and this is probably, I mean, a lot of people, most people, I think, just appreciated me trying to shine the light of truth as much as I could on the situation, but there was definitely a strong minority of people who thought I was like a MacArthurite, that I was part of, like, a cult with John MacArthur as a leader, and then there was an even smaller minority, but I still saw their comments of people who viewed MacArthur, they probably were in something approaching that, they thought that my critiques, because I made a few critiques, I said, well, look, you know, this is why I don't really care for megachurches, they're so big, how can you do church discipline in a megachurch, you know, when you don't know the person you're disciplining them, that seems awkward, that seems just, the accountability doesn't seem to be working as well when you have that scale, and then I said that, I forget, I said something else that was kind of critical, and then there was people jumping down my throat that I was questioning John MacArthur, so I was like, well, I'm, I love John MacArthur, but I recognize he's a man, and he's a man that's done a lot of good, I believe, but he's also a man, and just like I'm a someone who is in your heavenly body yet, and devoid of sin, so I want to, I guess I'm taking a time machine back a few months as I review these notes, and as I go through at least putting John MacArthur's ministry, in a sense, through this grid, just as an example, but we'll do a few names in evangelicalism, and none of this, I should just say at the outset, none of this is intended to be it's not intended to destroy a ministry, a legitimate ministry, it's not intended, and I shouldn't really have to say any of this, because I think it's obvious, but just for people who might get nervous, I have amazing respect for people who have taken hard stands, and MacArthur certainly is one of them, against the spirit of the age, and I've said that many, multiple times on this show, so nothing I say, because I will say a few things where I differ, that does not mean that I'm better, far be it from me, man, if I was in charge of the things John MacArthur's in charge of, I would probably run them into the ground at this point in my life, I mean, there's much more wisdom, I'm sure, that he has, but it doesn't mean, again, that he's without fault, or without sin, or without, that he's not capable of those things, at least, right, so I just need to preface it with just saying, if you hear me say anything, I don't even know exactly what I'll say yet, but I know I'll probably say some things that I'll say, point out some differences that I have, where I would disagree with maybe something in one of MacArthur's ministries, that is not meant to communicate that I think I'm better, or I think you should burn the ministry down, because I'm not in that cancel culture group, and there are, there's not one person, I think, that has, does it perfectly, no one, except Jesus Christ, right, even the apostles ministries had their warts at times, and that's why there's forgiveness, and there's repentance, and so, anyway, I need to say that off the top, just in case, I wanted to make that qualification, now, before we jump into the whole podcast, and I give you lots of Bible verses, and we try to apply them, I want to just let you know about an option for Christians, especially homeschoolers, especially, who are thinking about college.
Now, college is expensive, there is no doubt about it, college is also difficult, because it's hard to know which one actually is going to provide you with the truth, and I get these questions all the time, I just had one yesterday, John, can you recommend a college for me, please?
Well, I don't know to what extent some colleges are compromised with social justice teaching, or not compromised, just because they haven't come out clean on it, and there's some colleges, Grove City is a good example of this, that have been giving mixed signals for so long, it's probably better not to trust it, even though there might be some great professors there, and so, John, what college can you recommend?
Well, I've told people before, there are some colleges that have taken more public stands, or at least seminaries, I've mentioned that Southern Evangelical Seminary has taken a hard stand against social justice, not that that's the only issue out there, but it's certainly a big one today, I've mentioned that Appalachian Bible College, while I don't believe they've taken a personal stand, or a public stand against it, I do happen to know that in the faculty, there is a concerted effort to hedge against social justice, and so I've mentioned things like this to you on the podcast, but I wanted to add to this, I wanted to let you know about an option for homeschoolers, especially, I think, called Bradford Christian College, and this is not your brick and mortar institution, this isn't something that you go to and you get socialization, or you find your husband or wife, a lot of people, they want to go to college for those purposes, this is something that I think would have been a great tool for me back when I was probably 16 or 17, and I wasn't quite the age maybe to go to a brick and mortar school, to go away to school, but I was academically there, and something like Bradford Christian College would have been great, because it's an online school, they're against social justice, I know the people who run this institution, and they have what's, in my opinion, the best of both worlds, it's not strictly online academics where you have no relationship with your professor, neither is it your brick and mortar classroom, but it's a mentorship, so you actually meet with a mentor on a weekly, bi-weekly basis, or a regular basis, and you're going to be learning as you're actually talking to a real flesh person who's coaching you, and to me, that really is how education, classically, education was that way, you had a teacher, even through the medieval period, it was that way, even through the early parts of the enlightenment, it was that way, you find your teacher, and you go, and you try to be like your teacher, this is the Jewish way of learning too, but we've progressed, or regressed, to such a point that everything is just academic rote memorization and repetition, which plays a part, but it's not fully what an education should be, and Bradford Christian College, they believe in this biblical approach to education, which they believe includes mentorship, and what they're trying to do is give you the kind of education that some of the founding fathers would have gotten in their era, they want to assert the sovereignty of God, acknowledge his hand in history, restore biblical government, they want to restore reasoning, and they want to, they hold to rigorous Westminster standards, they offer four-year degrees, and through their affiliation with Lagos University, they have accreditation, and the two degrees, they offer a bachelor's of arts in Christian education, bachelor's of arts in theological studies, so check them out, you can go to bradfordchristiancollege .com, or you can go to contact at bradfordchristiancollege .com to email them and ask questions, and so I wanted to let you know about that, and here's what their website looks like, I should have had this pulled up while I was saying that, it's Bradford Christian College, so make sure that that's the website you go to if you're watching, bradfordchristiancollege .com.
Now, let us talk about the issue at hand, which is evaluation, discernment, exercising discernment, how do you know when you've done it right, what kinds of principles do you use, what grid do you put things through, what questions do you ask, these are the kinds of things that we want to talk about, so I'm going to just show you the slideshow as we go through this, and then we will start applying it, so I want to take John MacArthur as one of the primary examples, because it's no secret that people know that I appreciate John MacArthur's preaching, and I have some of his commentaries, it doesn't mean I agree with everything John MacArthur's ever said, but I definitely have a respect for him, and so I wouldn't put him in the category of the social justice teachers that I've gone after, and so let's, I want to start here, and then we're going to go through the biblical principles, then we'll kind of circle back, why do people generally like John MacArthur?
Here's a question, why do people generally like John MacArthur? He's got a popular ministry, why? And after all, think about this, he's not necessarily the most sensational preacher, is he? I can show you a lot of preachers who have more energy on the stage, and they're jumping around, and they're doing all kinds of things, and that's not John MacArthur.
John MacArthur is also an older man, and in our day and age, when youth is so prized, how come this older man is looked to as such a role model? I think that's a good thing, but it's out of step with our current cultural moment, I guess.
He's also constantly attacked, I mean, he's been attacked for decades and decades, for all kinds of different things, he's called every name under the sun, he's just constantly attacked, so why would you like someone who's just constantly attacked?
Yet, here's some of the things that I think attract people to John MacArthur, this is just, these are my ideas here, so this could be subjective, this is what I think. His personality is masculine at a time in which there is a leadership vacuum in evangelicalism, that's true.
He is uncompromising and direct, he's not wishy-washy, he's not gonna give you, say, one thing to one audience, one thing to another audience, he is a straight talker, and people want that. They want that solid rootedness, that stability, his character is stable, he's honest, he's sacrificial, I mean, he's willing to bleed for the truth if need be, he is willing to go to war with the government if need be, and he leaves the results to God.
His theology is solid, it doesn't mean that there aren't secondary issues that I might disagree with or others might disagree with, but his theology, core of his theology, when I talk about that, I'm talking about his orthodoxy, it is solid, and he's accompanied by faithful preaching and many accessible resources, so you have so many things, so many resources that you can go online, Grace2U app, and you can find these things, and it's just so practical and available.
So I think these are the reasons people like John MacArthur, I don't think that any of that's a secret, right? Now there are two extremes on people who view John MacArthur, now you could apply this to many other teachers, but I think John MacArthur is a good example of this, and we don't want to be in either extreme, that's why I'm bringing this up, we don't want to be in either of these extremes, because these two extremes, I think, are dangerous.
Here's the first extreme, okay, MacArthurites. MacArthurites see MacArthur's teaching, and by the way, I did not coin that term, I did not coin that term, that is a term that's been around, and I'm just using it for this podcast, but MacArthur's teachings on primary and secondary issues are equally important, okay?
MacArthur's teachings on primary and secondary issues are equally important. MacArthurite wouldn't see a difference, really, if John MacArthur said it, it's true, and it's equally important. They see minor disagreements with MacArthur as threatening, so if you disagree with, you know, one thing, if you say, let's say, John MacArthur says the Nephilim, right, these giants were formed when the sons of God, which he takes to be demons, impregnated the daughters of men.
Now, I don't necessarily agree with that, and I know a number of other godly theologians who do not agree with that. They would take it as, it's not a demonic line, that's Seth's line, they'd say things reproduce after their kind, and just because Job, in the book of Job, there's two or three places where the same word for sons of God is translated as angels, doesn't necessarily, you can't import that necessarily into the Genesis narrative.
Now, there are counter arguments for that that MacArthur would give, but if someone disagrees about that issue, that's not a primary issue. I don't even know if that's a secondary issue, to be honest with you, that is tertiary, but a MacArthurite would see that disagreement probably as a problem, that if you disagree with John MacArthur here, you're not being biblical or something.
MacArthurites don't tend to admit when MacArthur has changed positions or made a mistake, and MacArthur has changed positions. He may not even notice it. Sometimes we don't, but with the COVID stuff, I still remember, I saw an interview with him and Phil Johnson, and MacArthur was saying that we have to shut down, and he was using Romans 13, and then it was a few months later, he's saying Romans 13 doesn't mean that you have to obey the government when it comes to church-related matters.
There was definitely an inconsistency when you put those two clips together, and there's a few other, I'm trying to think, MacArthur's view of civil government has certainly changed. I mean, he's talked about how it really shouldn't matter who's in the White House.
He's even said, and I quote, well, I shouldn't say, and I quote, this is very close to a quote that I heard him say once, and I'm pretty sure this is the quote, where he said the church should not be involved in politics.
He said things like this, and he said when I was there in 2012 that if he went to, the only thing he expects from the government is that they keep him from getting shot on his way to church, very against the religious right, against Jerry Falwell and what he was trying to do, and yet he supported Trump, and he thought that it was more Christian to vote for Trump.
He also, especially more lately in the last few years, I think has transitioned to being more vocal about opposition to the Democratic Party. He's called them out. He's gotten involved politically in ways that I think years ago he would have probably critiqued if someone else had done it.
And circumstances change, and that might be part of it, and we do change with circumstances to some extent. And so MacArthur, in my mind, in my thinking, he's changed positions on some of these things.
I'm pretty sure I've listened to stuff he said in the 70s about limited atonement, and I've seen what he's written now in his newer theology, and they don't jive. So he's changed positions on some things.
Guess what he hasn't changed on? Orthodox theology. Orthodox Bible theology. He's consistent. But a MacArthurite, someone who really looks to MacArthur for everything, views MacArthur as like a final authority, they would never admit that MacArthur's changed positions, because he can't, because to admit that would mean to admit that he's human, that he doesn't have these non-communicable attributes that God possesses, which is really what they're doing.
They're putting him on this pedestal and giving him semi-divine traits when they start going down this path of MacArthur can say no wrong, do no wrong. MacArthurites also tend to confuse loyalty to MacArthur, affiliated institutions, with loyalty to MacArthur himself, and loyalty to the gospel.
So in other words, if you're critical of Master's University, or you're critical of something that Grace Community Church did, then that must reflect necessarily on MacArthur. That's all, almost like MacArthur is intimately involved in every decision of these large organizations, which is obviously impossible, unless he had divine qualities.
And then, of course, MacArthur's teaching is affiliated with the gospel, that he is... to reject him is like to reject the gospel, or to reject truth. And so they just can't see that someone could be critical of something Grace Community Church does, or someone at the church does, or a professor at Master's Seminary does, and still like John MacArthur.
MacArthurites tend to... they take it very personally. And so, in short, MacArthurites have a blinding, obsessive, and idolizing tendency. They have a blinding, obsessive, and idolizing tendency when it comes to John MacArthur.
Okay? And this isn't unique to John MacArthur. This is Tim Keller. This is any big name, any... even small names can become this. I could become this, and I hope I never do. And please don't ever treat me like this, just because John said it, it must be true.
No. Do your own research. I'm going to help, but, you know, don't think that just because I said something, I'm the final authority or something. I'm not the final authority. You can have respect, and you can think, well, John generally does his homework.
I've listened to him. I know he's tried to be consistent. I think he's careful. You can say all that, but don't think that because I said it, that means it's true, just because I've said it. That being the only qualification.
So, this isn't unique to John MacArthur, but it's inevitable with any ministry or large ministry like this. You're going to have people who think that way, and sometimes it's for what would seem like good reasons.
Like, I got saved under his preaching, and therefore, I just trust him, right? There's things like that, and we can understand to some extent. And I'll give you a story real quick here about when I was...
Actually, you know what? I'll save this story. I was going to tell you a story about an experience I had at Master's Seminary, but I'll save it till the end. And I got into it with a MacArthurite. Like, I really got into it with them.
So, here's another group of people, though. Here's the people with MacArthur Derangement Syndrome. That's what I... And I did coin this term. Of course, people apply this to, like, Trump Derangement Syndrome, other things.
I'm just putting MacArthur's name in there. MacArthur Derangement Syndrome, MDS. They see MacArthur's teaching on primary and secondary issues as equally important. So, they agree with the MacArthurites.
They just come to a different conclusion. So, if MacArthur gets something wrong on a secondary issue, they question the whole ministry. You know, the whole thing must be burned down. It's all bad. So, they also don't have a sense of proportion on this.
Number two, they see minor agreements with MacArthur as threatening. Okay. So, whereas the MacArthurites see minor disagreements with MacArthur as threatening, people with MacArthur Derangement Syndrome see minor agreements.
So, if you agree with MacArthur on anything, then that's a problem because everything MacArthur said is bad. You know, MacArthur can't be... There's no sense of proportion here, either. It's like, if MacArthur said it, it's questionable.
We should question anyone who would quote MacArthur, any association with MacArthur. It's all bad. And then they tend, people with MacArthur Derangement Syndrome, they tend to only see when MacArthur has changed positions or made a mistake.
So, they don't see the consistency of years in ministry over a period of decades. They can only see the places where MacArthur has stumbled or fallen in minor ways, and they use that to then color the rest of his ministry, which is totally unfair.
But people with MacArthur Derangement Syndrome, that's what they do. And they also tend to confuse loyalty to the two institutions MacArthur founded with loyalty to MacArthur and loyalty to the gospel.
So, they're the flip side of MacArthurites. They have no sense of proportion, either. They just... Everything's the opposite conclusion. So, if you have any loyalty to a professor or, I don't know, an institution MacArthur founded, or you say anything good, that's just like saying that MacArthur is...
You're equally extending that analysis to MacArthur himself. You must endorse MacArthur if you endorse any of those. Right? And for them, loyalty to the gospel would be you have to reject MacArthur. You have to reject all these institutions.
And so, if you don't fully reject, then you are also cut from the same cloth as being this heretic or false teacher or problematic person that John MacArthur is. All right. So, the long and short of it is people with MacArthur Derangement Syndrome have a blind obsession with destroying MacArthur.
They have a blind obsession with destroying MacArthur, mostly because of what he represents. So, MacArthurites, a blinding, obsessive, and idolizing tendency. MacArthur Derangement Syndrome, a blind obsession with destroying MacArthur.
And these are two extremes that I've seen. I've seen them in the comments on my videos. And the question that I have is, how should we evaluate? All right. How should we evaluate? This isn't exhaustive, but here's my principles, and then we're going to go through some scripture and why I think this.
Number one, know your own limitations. So, when you're evaluating something, know your own limitations. Ignorance is okay without information. If you don't know, you don't know. And don't try to fill in the gaps with knowledge that you don't have.
Consider the office is another thing. Know your limitations. Consider the office someone is holding. What's their position? What's their role? Are they really in charge of things? There's so many examples of this I could give, but think of something like the Freedom Center at Liberty University.
That just came to mind. Okay. Does the director of the Freedom Center at Liberty University endorse everything that Liberty University ever put out? Well, no, because they have their role and the university has their role.
Does that make sense? John MacArthur. Does John MacArthur, does he have all knowledge of everything that's ever happened at his institutions? Probably not. He's the head. He's kind of, and now he's older, and so he's probably has a lot of people doing, taking on other responsibilities.
I think he's chancellor now of the seminary. He probably makes some important decisions, but he's probably not intimately familiar with the inner workings. And so, something happens downstream from him he's not aware of.
Is he to be held liable for that? So, consider the office. Know your own limitations. Ignorance is okay without information. Consider the office. Number two, be open to legitimate charges. Be open to legitimate charges.
So, no one is above the law. Just because someone holds a high position does not mean that they aren't, they should not be abiding by the law, by God's law. Also, evaluate whether or not there's a pattern of behavior.
If someone says this well-thought-of pastor has had a moral failure, well, no one is above the law. If there's evidence, no one's above the law. The rule of law must apply here, but if there's a pattern of behavior and there's no evidence, or if it's so weak that it's just it's flimsy evidence, then you need to put into your evaluation the pattern of behavior.
If that person has for decades been faithful to their wife and now they're being accused of having an affair, but there really isn't evidence, you need to take into account the behavior that they've exhibited over the course of a lifetime.
So, is it in character for them? That's a legitimate question. Also, confirm two or three witnesses. You need lines of evidence to confirm things, whether they're true or not. Reject illegitimate charges.
Number three, reject illegitimate charges. Test witnesses. Identify slanderers. So, just because someone says something doesn't necessarily mean it's true. I think apply evaluation, apply logic and reason, and test witnesses that come forward.
Get their full story. See if it adds up. See if there's other stories, if the testimony conflicts. And if they're slanderers, if someone is a confirmed slanderer, especially if they have a pattern of it, then don't take their opinion seriously when they start testifying that someone's in sin and they have a habit of doing this kind of thing.
So, reject illegitimate charges. So, be open to legitimate charges, but reject illegitimate charges. Number four, have a sense of proportion. So, character issues, false teaching, all the issues that someone could be accused of, have a sense of proportion.
What's actually important and what's not? And I'll give you some examples later on about this. I'm reminded of a joke Paige Patterson told that really got him in trouble a few years ago. And it was a joke that he had told like two decades before that was caught on video.
And I remember thinking, and he apologized for it, but I remember thinking, well, you know, maybe not in best taste, but I, when I watched it, I remember just thinking, transporting myself into the world that Paige Patterson was likely in and the audience he was likely talking to.
And I thought, well, you know, it's, you know, you kind of apologize, move on. It's a little off color, but it's not like a, it's not false teaching. He's not corrupting the gospel here. And people were acting as if it was on that level.
And so have a sense of proportion. How important really is it? We all, if we're going to speak, if I have a podcast, I'm going to say some dumb things sometimes. Okay. Hopefully not too dumb, but I might say some things that are off.
I might misspeak. In fact, last week I misspoke on something. I mentioned someone's name and I attributed the wrong name to something that I was talking about. I corrected it, but we all have those, those oops, those mistakes, and we have to be able to triage, to evaluate whether or not those are as important as some primary theological issues.
And then number five, consider possibilities. Consider ulterior motives. If someone's motives are being questioned, consider what the possibility is. Are there other motives that could account for the behavior that's being exhibited?
Or does it have to be necessarily this bad motivation? Okay. Try to get an accurate reading. It doesn't mean you charitably read. I don't believe in that, in the sense that we just bend over backwards to try to attribute some good motivation to a Christian leader when the options really don't seem to point that direction.
The evidence doesn't point that direction. I would say give an accurate reading, but at least consider if there are other readings. And I'm thinking of, there's actually right now, there's a situation that I don't want, I'm not gonna get the details on it, but it basically it's that certain teachers, it's multiple teachers, that their motives are, they're subverting evangelicalism, even though they are repenting of things they previously taught that were wrong, even though they're undoing damage that they once did, even though what they're saying is consistent with biblical teaching, there's got to be this ulterior motive that they're really subverting, because in the past they might have done or said something that wasn't wise.
Well, that's ridiculous. No. It's okay to believe what your eyes are seeing, and when you're seeing that someone is in line with the truth, repentant about false teaching, it's fine to take them for their word.
And so anyway, consider the possibilities. There may be a possibility that makes more sense that it isn't the worst thing in the world, that their motives are horrible. So let's go through each of these individually.
Number one, know your limitations. Know your own limitations. Ignorance is okay without information. I put the verse here, and I'll make the slideshow available to all the patrons out there. The link will be in the info section.
But 1 Kings 3 has a whole section where King Solomon is the wisest man, and he judges between two women who accuse each other, but they are saying a child dies. I'm trying to give you a brief account of this so our podcast isn't long, but one of their child is dead, and then they start accusing the other one or saying that she's trying to take my baby.
You know, the baby that's left is mine. And so they're both claiming ownership over a child, and how are you going to adjudicate that? Now today, you could do a DNA test. Not back then. So Solomon knew his own limitations.
He didn't arbitrarily just say, well, it's yours. He actually very shrewdly created a test, and the test was, let's divide the baby up. And so the rightful mother would rather have her child raised by someone else than to have her child killed.
And the mother who wasn't the rightful mother or the woman who wasn't the rightful mother did not care about that as much, and so that was how he figured it out. But he only figured it out because he knew his limitations.
He knew that there was knowledge that he didn't have, and he needed to create this test to figure the problem out. And so we should know our limitations when we're approaching something that's especially a difficult situation like that.
If we don't know, if we're in ignorance, we shouldn't claim to know. Consider the office. So pastors' characters should be tested before receiving an office. There's qualifications in scripture for the character of an elder, right?
So that should be already in place. Sometimes that process gets shortchanged. It doesn't actually happen, and that's wrong. That needs to happen somewhere along the line. But this does not apply to some parachurch ministry leaders, unfortunately, today.
And well, fortunately, too, also to some extent. There's certainly a place. Obviously, this podcast, right? I am not an elder at my church currently, and I think I will be one day. But right now, I'm busy with a lot of other things, and it's something that I think is worth pursuing.
But right this second, that's not where I'm at. And so I don't have the same standard, let's say, has not been applied to me by the people who know me intimately at my church as a standard that the pastor would have to abide by.
So I think considering the office is going to make you consider whether there is a vetting process that's taken place and what that vetting process may look like. Those are things to consider. And this is part of knowing your own limitations, that if you are limited in not knowing someone, what do you know about them?
What kinds of things have they gone through to prove themselves, to test their character, that kind of thing? If it's a situation, like I said before, that they don't have purview over, or they have ignorance on, or they weren't there for, how accountable are they?
These are questions that must be asked. And so know your limitations. Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses, 1 Timothy 5 .19. Paul said to the high priest, he says, after he called him a whitewashed wall, he said, I was not aware, brethren, that he was a high priest, for it is written, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people, Acts 23 .5.
Be careful, be careful about jumping to conclusions. Know your limitations. Number two, openness, have an openness to legitimate charges. Well, why should you be open to legitimate charges? Well, no one is above the law.
There's a lot of Bible verses we could have put more. Leviticus 19 .15, you shall do no injustice in judgment, you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly.
Galatians 2, but when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. So that was an apostle, that was, it's impossible to even confront an apostle when there's false teaching.
Second Samuel 12, Nathan then said to David, you are the man. Thus says the Lord of God, it is I who anointed you king over Israel, it is I who deliver you from the hand of Saul. Ultimately, we're all accountable to God, and that's why no one is above the law.
Nathan could go to David, the king, and hold him accountable. Acts 17, the Bereans tested Paul to see if what he said as an apostle was so. They were able to compare it to the truth that they already had, and there wasn't anything wrong with it.
Paul commended them. Matthew 7, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. So while we need to know our limitations, we also need to know that there are subversives out there.
There are people coming in, in sheep's clothing, they look on the outside like they're legitimate, and you gotta do some digging. And what does it say? You'll know them by their fruits. So what kind of fruit are they producing?
So have an openness to legitimate charges. No one is above the law. Is there a pattern of behavior? Check to see if there's a pattern of behavior. Luke 16 10, he who is faithful in very little is faithful in much.
First Peter 3, keep a good conscience so that in the thing which you are slandered, those who disparage your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. So the Old Testament requires two or three witnesses as a standard for proof, and as you live in a community and people know you, you're going to form a reputation, and it's going to be based on a number of circumstances.
And so that becomes your reputation in the community, and that reputation needs to be factored in. Why does this person have a reputation? Sometimes people get an undeserved reputation. No one really knows them.
They just like the way that they make them feel. They only see a side of them that just isn't accurate, and so you have to evaluate that. The people that know this person closely, what's their family life like?
I know a situation where there's a pastor, and I was a little closer to the situation, but there was a pastor who looked from the pulpit like he had it all together, and his family was a mess. And one of the reasons I think that he didn't have a lot of contact with most of the people in the church, they just didn't know him.
All they knew was what they saw on a Sunday morning, or a Bible study maybe, and when you're there, especially if you're there alone, and your family's not there, you're able to pull it off, to give a face.
That's why it's important to have a house, manage a household right. People need to see how you manage your household, which means they need to have some knowledge of your household in order to evaluate that.
Number three, reject illegitimate charges. In other words, test witnesses. Deuteronomy 19, if a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord, before the priests, and the judges who will be in the office in those days.
The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is false witness, and he has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had intended to do to his brother. So test witnesses.
Just because someone says something doesn't mean it's true. Identify slanderers. You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people. Leviticus 19, Proverbs 20, he who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, therefore do not associate with a gossip.
Proverbs 22, drive out the scoffer and contention will go out, even strife and dishonor will cease. And then Titus 3 says, reject a divisive person after a first and second warning. And so here's the bottom line.
If someone enjoys and is characterized by causing unnecessary conflicts or promoting lies, reject them. You need to hear me say this very clearly. If someone, and this applies to those who claim to be sometimes doing what I try to do on this podcast and others, like people like A .D. Robles are trying to do, they want to be part of that.
They think that they're doing that, but if they enjoy causing and are characterized by causing unnecessary conflicts, right, it doesn't mean that they can't have a cheerful disposition. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm saying if they just really get a buzz when they thrive on conflict, they want conflict, they live around conflict and chaos, and they want to cause more of it. And so they separate friends. They say things to one person and one thing to another person.
I know several, even in the conservative groups, that you would think conservative evangelicals against social justice, man, this is more than it should be. It really is. And I've learned to some extent, you know, I think I've been naive to some extent, and I've probably done things wrong at times.
I've said things to people that I realized later I shouldn't have said that, you know. And my motive wasn't to necessarily rip someone down, but maybe, just maybe, it felt a little good, you know. It felt like, you know, hey, I'm better.
We're better than that person. Well, if you're characterized by that, you're a scoffer, you're a slanderer, you're a gossip, any of these things, and you want to cause conflicts and you promote lies to do it, man, reject that person.
I'm telling you, reject that person who does these things and is characterized by them and brings strife between brothers unnecessarily. So, reject illegitimate charges and then apply a sense of proportion.
Apply a sense of proportion. So, was there repentance? And I spelled there wrong. Ha! Well, I'll correct that in the slideshow. There's there, there, and there. And I, classic mistake. I don't know if it was autocorrect.
Well, was there repentance? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times Matthew 18, forgive your brother or your sister. If there's repentance, don't hold them accountable for sins that they've repented for.
There might be legal accountability there, but there's not, you don't now color them with that same shade. On character issues, Ephesians 5 talks about don't participate in unfruitful deeds of darkness and instead expose them.
Now, how does this happen? Because it's disgraceful to talk about the things which are done by them in secret. All things become visible when they're exposed to the light. For everything that becomes visible is light.
So, I think Ephesians 5 is mainly talking about setting a good example. You expose the evil deeds of darkness by shining your light, by living in a godly way. But the comparison is going to Paul's teachers or people with character issues aren't going to want to be around you for that reason.
But Philippians 1 says this, some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from ambience strife, but some also from goodwill. The latter do it out of love. Knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel, the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than from pure motives, thinking that they are causing me distress in my imprisonment.
What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice. Those are just some verses that came to mind when I was thinking of character issues. So, there are people with character issues that you can basically say, you know what, I'm not going to get into the weeds on this.
They might have a bad motive, they might have a bad reason for preaching the gospel, but guess what? They're preaching the gospel. There are other character issues, though, evil deeds of darkness that need to be exposed, unfruitful deeds of darkness, and oftentimes character issues accompany false teaching.
There's a requirement in Scripture, like I said, in Titus, you can go look it up for elders and deacons and what they are required to be in order to hold those offices, and so character is important, and if someone falls short, they shouldn't be in those offices.
So, if you're especially looking at a pastor, that becomes very important, and so I'm grateful that some pastors, you know, they do step down when it becomes obvious that there's an issue. I know, like, you know, even recently, and I don't know the full details on everything, but when you have someone who's addicted to medication, who's misusing medication, and the Scripture says to not be addicted to wine, and I'm talking about J .D. Hall in this context, and he's not a pastor.
He doesn't hold that office. He's stepped down. He's not part of that, so that's the right thing to do, but if someone refuses to do that, then, and they don't meet the qualifications, then the standard has to be applied.
All right, on doctrinal issues, in my opinion, doctrinal issues are more, they're, I mean, character issues are important. Doctrinal issues, though, I mean, we're talking about your eternal soul here, okay, and 2 Timothy 4 says, I solemnly exhort you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge of the living and the dead, by appearing, by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, correct, rebuke, and exhort with great patience and instruction, with great patience and instruction, correct, rebuke, exhort, resist the proud, you've graced the humble.
I'm thinking about other verses are coming to my mind now, you know, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, admonish the unruly. I think I got that backwards, but there's, whether it's character or doctrinal issues, there are, is a place for confrontation.
On doctrinal issues, though, just know that you're dealing with something that has eternal significance, if it's a primary doctrinal issue, and that is very, very, very important. Balancing, idolizing men with respecting them.
So, apply a sense of proportion by balancing, idolizing men with respecting them. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, for when one says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Paulos, are you not mere men? Just remember, John MacArthur's a mere man, Bodhi Bacchum's a mere man, okay, love these brothers, they're mere men.
Same thing with whoever your favorite teacher is, they're mere men. And that's actually a comforting thing. And people who are humble, don't get upset when you say things like that, because they'll say it, they'll say, yeah, I'm a man, I'm a man.
Yeah, it doesn't mean I don't have respect, I haven't worked hard, and people don't, you know, see that God's done a work in me, but I'm still a man, and it's still the Lord Jesus Christ who has made me, whatever good is in me, He has put there.
And then ask yourself, was it a huge deal? Was it a huge deal what just happened, or what people are trying to cancel someone over, or getting mad and up in arms about? I think of Mark 2, where the Pharisees, they do this kind of thing a lot.
They condemn Jesus, right? And they say, basically, like, you're picking heads of grain on the Sabbath, and this isn't lawful. And Jesus says, have you never read what David did when he was in the need, and he and his companions became hungry, how he went to Abiathar, the high priest, and ate consecrated bread, and it's not lawful, except for the priest, and yet he did it, and Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, so the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
And so, this is, the Pharisees, classic, where they would, they would try, they wouldn't understand the point of a law. They couldn't think in those terms, or if they did, they didn't want to, and they would sift at gnats and swallow camels.
The weightier matters of the law did not matter to them. And so, that's another thing you got to consider. Are we really going to condemn a guy for, and I'll use the example again, Paige Patterson, for telling a joke that was a bit off color years ago that he apologized for.
And, you know, and I don't want to get into the details of the joke, because it's irrelevant for this. Would I have told that joke? No, but it's, really? We're going to go after that? Well, it was clearly a tactic to take something from 20 years previous, from a man who grew up, who's older, who grew up, you know, in the 1950s, and 60s, and he's still operating a little bit on the social standards that existed at that point.
And in the South, presumably, as well, which this, I've explained this before on the podcast, but you're going to see a difference. It's starting to erase, but between the North and South, generally, there has been a difference where Southern culture was able to hold on longer to chivalry and manners.
And there was more of a separation between sexuality and just being complimentary. Someone could, as an older man, they could, it was possible at least, or accepted in the society, to have what we would consider today to be flirtation.
They could compliment, they could say certain things, even commenting on a woman's looks at times, and it was not considered sexual. Now everything's sexual. And so Paige Patterson is coming from that time period, and he makes a comment about, I think, see, I said I wasn't going to get into details, now I am.
I think the comment he made was something about how good-looking a girl was, or something, to some young boys, and how they were looking at a really good-looking girl. And it was, whatever he had said, I can't remember the details, was just, was so many people today were offended in the Me Too generation.
Well, he's not from that generation. And so it's, you know, was it a huge deal? No, it really wasn't, but it was used to. And that's what I'm talking about, that kind of thing. So here's the grid, in my opinion.
Here's the grid. And so what can we do now? I'm going to start talking about, we're going to talk about maybe a few teachers here, and I don't know exactly where this is all going to go, but I think it should be fun, and hopefully helpful.
So let's do this. Let's talk a little bit about John MacArthur first. And we'll go through this grid. We'll use this grid as our template. So how should we evaluate John MacArthur and his ministry? All right, we have limited knowledge.
We don't know everything that's gone through MacArthur's head. We don't know everything that's happened in his office. We don't know everything that's been said at Grace Community Church or the Master's Seminary.
How do we, in our limited information, and everyone's limited, by the way, how do we evaluate someone like John MacArthur? Well, first we've got to know our limitations. And I just told you a few of them.
We don't know what we don't know. So ignorance is okay without information. Now, if someone comes out and says, this is how MacArthur is. MacArthur is, he's covering for abuse. MacArthur is, he's really just racist.
MacArthur is, I'm trying to think of all the accusations, he's, denies the work of the Holy Spirit, you know, et cetera. When someone comes out, we can evaluate the claim, but we don't know what we don't know.
So if someone's giving us information that we cannot verify with someone, let's say, whose reputation we ourselves don't really know anything about, which I think is often the case with these, some of the critiques against MacArthur, especially someone, let's say it's someone who has a track record of saying half truths or just misleading things about MacArthur, then you're not obligated to believe it.
It doesn't mean, that doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't true. It just means you don't have an obligation to believe it. And that must be said. Doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't true, but you don't have necessarily the warrant or the responsibility to believe them just because they're saying it.
If they don't have evidence that they can't back it up. So that's part of knowing your limitations. Consider the office. John MacArthur doesn't know everything that happens at his school or his schools, plural, or his church or, grace to you, he doesn't, he's not in all those offices all the time.
He's not omniscient. And so I wouldn't hold him accountable for every little thing that happens. He probably doesn't know most of the things that actually happen in the industry that is surrounding him.
I'll give you, I'll be a little bit autobiographical with this as well. I did go to the master's seminary for one semester and I attended Grace Community Church for about a year. I lived in California for a little bit.
If you added it up, it was probably about a year. And so I, I've gotten to see my, my uncle's actually a member there now. My, my parents actually met there. My dad was a leader in the college career group there.
So, I mean, we have an association to some extent with Grace Community Church and, and, you know, I've been to Shepherd's Conference many times and I have a lot of respect for John MacArthur. I've used a lot of his material.
You could say this is part of even my childhood was listening to some John MacArthur stuff. And I could see though when I went that the master's seminary is not a perfect place. Surprise, surprise, right?
It's not a perfect place. Let me give you some of the negative things. And this isn't meant to, every seminary, every institutional place has these things. It's unavoidable that you're going to have some things.
Some of them could even be serious, but it's not, it's not something that you can always hedge against. We as individuals, I myself, I'm going to have my own weaknesses. And the way I run my house, I'm going to have weaknesses.
And that's why it's good that godly men can point them out at times. But I found the master's seminary to be, they wanted to be biblical. They, they, you know what you were going to be taught. I appreciated that.
They don't have, they, they try to really hedge against, at least when I was there, higher criticism, modernist or post-modernist ideas. They want to equip men for ministry. And I think that is the heart behind the master's seminary primarily.
And there's some great people that have come out of there. But I would say this, and this is one of the reasons that I, there was a couple reasons I didn't end up continuing. One of them is at the time in California, I really couldn't find a good job, but, but there was other things too.
I found that there was a culture there of rigidity to some extent. It was very hard to explore ideas that were not in lockstep with the seminary. And for me at the time, that was eschatology. I really wanted to look into some other views of eschatology.
And I was told in orientation that, you know, basically nothing against you if you have a different eschatology, but we'll recommend another school for you here at great, at master's seminary, we're dispensational premillennialists.
That's what we believe. And questioning that at least, you know, you could, you could explore to some extent, but you, it was, it was hard to know where the lines were, where the boundaries were. And so I just didn't feel that academic freedom to explore.
And I was confused about it. And that was one of the reasons I went from the frying pan into the fryer, right? I, I eventually transferred into Southeastern thinking like, oh, I can explore that stuff here.
And it was like so broad that I'm like, oh, wow, the Marxism is coming in. Okay. You know? So I, I got to grow up a little when, you know, cause I was kind of critical at the time and, you know, and I still think, you know, it's kind of rigid, but now I'm like, well, there is an opposite end that is harmful.
And of course, Southeastern is very rigid on social justice matters, many of them. So it's, they have their own rigidities in their own areas, but anyway I didn't like the church politics and any big institution is going to have them, but it definitely is at Grace Community Church.
There's no doubt about it. It's a big institution. There's going to be church politics involved. And sometimes those can get nasty. I remember once, and I told you, I'd tell the story. I had an argument with what I would consider to be a MacArthurite.
And I, I remember I was, I was, the argument was whether the scripture was the final authority or John MacArthur was the final authority. I kid you not. I was with this fellow seminary student and the seminary student said to me, and I kid you not, quote, well, everything John MacArthur says about the Bible is true, unquote.
And I almost lost it because I said, if MacArthur was with us right now, MacArthur would be correcting you. He doesn't believe that about himself by any stretch. And this is, this has to be rejected. This is how cults form.
And fortunately MacArthur doesn't believe that, but if he did believe it about himself, you'd have guys like this following everything that he says. And, and so there are people like that. They do exist.
I used to be skeptical about that. Then I saw with my own two eyes, there are some people, it's a minority, but there are people who believe that. You know, and I remember when I, when the video, video I put, put out there, like back in March, when I was extending the benefit of the doubt to MacArthur on some, some things like, you know, church size.
And it, maybe it wasn't good for John MacArthur to do church discipline, to exercise that when he doesn't know the person he's disciplining intimately. I kind of was critical, but I was trying to also say, look, I don't know exactly what the inner workings of this were.
This is just how it, you know, I have limitations. There were people jumping down my throat for that. And so I'm just telling you, I've seen it even in the comments. There are some people like that out there.
And so, you know, there are things that, that I disagree with John MacArthur on. So I am open to, that's the second point here. I know my limitations. I'm not in the room. I don't see everything MacArthur's doing, but I also am open to legitimate charges.
I remember when I was a student there, and I don't know if anyone has done it on this issue since then, but MacArthur had preached a whole sermon. In fact, I think he said it in a number of sermons. He talked about how the religion of the antichrist was Islam.
He was sure about it. And I just thought this isn't in scripture though. I can't just, and his, his reasoning was that look at the parallels between Islamic eschatology and biblical eschatology. They're just inverted.
Islamic eschatology has, you know, their antichrist is our Christ, et cetera. And I just thought this isn't biblical. And so in front of the whole student body, they, MacArthur spoke at chapel and they took questions.
And I remember I got up and I asked, I said, where are you finding this in scripture? I don't see it there. Basically. So where, where is this in the Bible? I understand you're seeing parallels, but where is this in the Bible?
And of course he didn't really have an answer to it at the time. He just kind of went over those parallels again. And it may be that he's right. That is the religion of the antichrist. I haven't heard him say anything about like that since then.
Maybe that's still his position, but I was able to look at that and say, okay, I'm open to a legitimate charge here. I'm open to a legitimate charge. No one is above the law. And is there a pattern of behavior with MacArthur saying this stuff?
I don't think there is. I don't think MacArthur just does that kind of thing. And everyone heard it. Two or three witnesses. Everyone heard it. It was in a public sermon. So I think it's fair game. Yeah.
I'm going to challenge that. And I did. And I challenged it to him directly and he was gracious enough. And it was a very gracious conversation, but it wasn't a primary theological issue. This was a secondary thing, guys.
And I really hope that some of you can understand that. I'll go through Keller or someone else that's actually has some false teaching. This isn't like that. This is just, hey, that doesn't seem like a biblical approach.
Let's not bring in an authority that's not scripture to then interpret scripture on this particular matter. It's not clear. We don't have revelation outside of scripture on some of these issues. So anyways, I am open to legitimate charges.
And so if I ran the seminary or Grace Community Church, I'd do much worse than John MacArthur, guaranteed. And I did. And I need to say, I did have, I did make some lifelong friends when I was at Master Seminary.
My conflict resolution class was great. It really has helped me through things since that time. I appreciate Phil Johnson. I appreciate John MacArthur. To me, actually, Phil Johnson, I want to say this.
He has a great sense of priority and helps direct good questions. And I think he helps focus MacArthur in my mind when he does these panels or Q &A sessions and he asks MacArthur relevant questions. I would call him a bulldog for the truth.
His wheelhouse, though, is Grace to You. It's not the seminary. It's not the Master's University. It's not Grace Community Church. It's Grace to You. And I don't conflate those things. And so if something happens at the Master Seminary that I don't agree with, and they're saying that you have to be premill dispensational and that you can't question or whatever.
If someone, if I heard things like that, which I kind of did, I'm not saying that that's Phil Johnson's department, right? So I'm able to go back to our point one here. I'm able to know my limitations.
I'm able to know my limitations. And I'm able to, in that, consider the office. And the office that Phil Johnson has isn't that. So I'm just picking things, as thoughts come into my mind about it, I'm trying to find them on the grid here.
So other things. Let's see. What else can we talk about here? Reject illegitimate charges. Let's go to the next one. Reject illegitimate charges. Okay. So test witnesses, identify slanderers, reject illegitimate charges.
There's been a lot of charges against John MacArthur. A lot. Oh my goodness. When I was even there, for the limited time I was there, I remember protesters coming on the campus of Grace Community Church, accusing John MacArthur of being soft on pro-life, if you can believe that.
He's not really pro-life. I got into a whole conversation with one of them and I'm like, what are you doing here? Like, he is pro-life. He said he's pro-life. He's against abortion. It was like, he's not doing enough.
And obviously this was a, this was an illegitimate charge. And that's what I did. I tried to go out and test the witnesses. And then I identified these guys are slanderers. They're just, that's what they are.
They're not, because he's not doing it exactly the way that they think it should be done. It wasn't a biblical test that they were invoking. It was some kind of high pharisaical test they had developed.
I remember, um, one time I was there and there was a guy on campus who had a big swastika and the police were there. And he was saying that MacArthur's position is that you should submit to Adolf Hitler.
Okay. And so I looked into it. I looked into MacArthur's view on politics and I could understand how he got there. Because MacArthur, you know, said things like he thought the American revolution was wrong.
We should submit to government, et cetera. However, MacArthur has never come out and said that we should submit to Hitler or that it was right to submit to the Nazis. At least from my knowledge, I was not able to find that.
And it's very possible that MacArthur, a more accurate thing to say is MacArthur's logic, at least the logic he once had, could lead someone to believe that it would be fine to submit to the Nazis and whatever that meant.
What you can't do though, say John MacArthur just believes you should submit to Nazis, which is what they were trying to do. And so I was able to test these folks and realize these are illegitimate charges.
Okay. So have a sense of proportion, have a sense of proportion. That's the next one. Um, you know, nothing here so far has been like false teaching. Nothing has been, uh, you know, issues of, uh, even the, some of the character stuff that I've talked about, I've demonstrated, I think that we don't have the warrant to say MacArthur knowingly supports any of these deviant behaviors or anything like that.
Um, have a sense of proportion, character issues, false teaching. Um, some things that I would say I am frustrated about, or I disagree with concerning Grace Community Church. I'm frustrated over the, or John MacArthur's ministries, et cetera.
I'm frustrated over the church, not issuing statements on some of the things they've been attacked over. I kind of wish that the church would do some of that. I understand they, they, you know, they may have reasons I'm not aware of them.
So I know my limitations, but it frustrates me. Is that a primary issue? No, it's not. It's not a primary issue. Um, I am frustrated sometimes that, you know, by things I've already mentioned, like some of the internal politics that can happen and, and things like that.
Um, some accusations though against John MacArthur are just so beyond the pale that someone needs to say something. And if they won't, I will. It's because it's bigger than MacArthur. It's not about defending John MacArthur.
It's about defending the truth. And some of the recent attacks against John MacArthur have been against his character, that there's serious charges here. Um, that, you know, it's not mistakes that he's made.
It's not secondary issues. It's not that MacArthur had an oops. It's that MacArthur is intrinsically a supporter of abuse. MacArthur intrinsically is a racist. MacArthur intrinsically, um, is, promotes heresy of some kind.
And some of these charges, and I've looked into the ones that people have sent me, I just don't find evidence for. It's just, and, and sometimes it's things that I'm like, well, MacArthur, even if MacArthur was involved in some tangential way or some related way to a situation, he didn't see the full picture and wasn't endorsing a sinful behavior.
And so a little bit of nuance, just a little bit of discernment and discretion, I think, takes away, at least all the accusations that I've had the time to read, takes, takes the sting away that would say MacArthur is like a knowing supporter of something evil.
So, um, so that's where I, I think having a sense of proportion comes in. And I've never found any false teaching with John MacArthur. I found things that, you know, hey, have taken three more steps. You could see someone going in that direction, maybe, but I've never, John MacArthur is, he's an orthodox theologian.
Uh, and then consider possibilities. Now, and this one doesn't really, I don't even know how to apply this one to the situation. Um, I, I think, I think the bottom line is John MacArthur has some accountability.
To what extent, I don't know, but I've sat in on, on elders meetings there. So I have some bit of a knowledge of Grace Community Church, and there is accountability. There, there is possibility for disagreements there, and people saying, hey, hey, you know, John, I don't know if you're right about this.
That can happen. Um, I don't think taking down a pastor should be enjoyable. I think it should be sad if you're going to do it. And I think MacArthur is more concerned with defending the truth than himself, ultimately.
Someone who has that kind of character, it should not be enjoyable to take them down. In that same, with that same spirit, I want to use this grid that you're all looking at right now, and I want to talk about some other teachers.
So that's John MacArthur. I'm going to put a cap on it, I guess. That's John MacArthur. Are there things that frustrate me? Are there things that I've seen? Probably because of my proximity, because I've been a little closer in some things.
Sure, sure there are things associated with those ministries that I've seen. Guess what? They're humans. And guess what? There's MacArthurites who drive me nuts. Yes, I've seen that. But I'm not willing to go where some of the harsh critics have gone lately, where they really want to just cancel MacArthur.
And I've talked about it on this show, and that's why I've been defensive. I'm defensive of the truth. It's not even necessarily about being defensive of MacArthur. I'm not out to just defend MacArthur.
I'm about to defend the truth. And when you rip down someone for, you know, what was one of the hits on him was he's this horrible Christian nationalist. And I'm like, let's show you all the quotes of John MacArthur being critical of the religious right.
And I just put the montage out there. You know, I knew that was incorrect. I knew that was an attempt at slandering. I knew that was wrong. So let's talk about people that I've criticized, though, that I've had critical thoughts for.
And who should we pick? Let's do Tim Keller. And I'll just be brief with it off the top of my head. All right. Number one. How should we evaluate Tim Keller? Know your limitations. My limitations are I'm not as in close proximity to Tim Keller as I have been with John MacArthur.
So I have more limitations with Tim Keller. A lot more ignorance about what goes on at his church. I've never been there. I know people who have. A lot more ignorance about what you know, how he governs his family or how he's perceived by others who know him intimately.
I do consider his office. I do think that, you know, Tim Keller has an empire. And Tim Keller is, you know, formed or founded the Gospel Coalition with D .A. Carson. He's I mean, he's got his own church planning network.
I believe he's got he's got some the city to city network. There's so many things he's got his hands in, though. I don't even know all of them. And I wouldn't hold him accountable for every single thing that's and I don't think I have on this podcast at all.
I don't read the Gospel Coalition and say, well, look at that article, how bad it was written by Jonathan Lehman. Well, Tim Keller's terrible. You know, I don't do that. I might say that. Well, Tim Keller's philosophy, you can see that this is consistent with that.
But I won't say Tim Keller is directly responsible for something that he's not. So, OK, so know your limitations. Be open to legitimate charges. And so I am with Tim Keller. And I think there are some legitimate charges.
So Tim Keller does have a pattern of behavior. I put out a video and actually I've written on this about Tim Keller's political leftism since he was in college through the present. And I've talked about how he's always been a leftist.
He's a registered Democrat today even, but he's always been a leftist. And even his entry into Christianity was listening to this sermon by now I'm trying to remember the guy's name. It's on the tip of my tongue.
Tom Skinner at Urbana, I believe 70. And it was all it was it was heretical. It was mixing law and grace. And it was that we have an incomplete gospel of it's just personal salvation because we have to we have to go and do this anti-racist work.
It was critical race theory before critical race theory. And Keller says, basically, I listened to that sermon over and over, and that's what formed me. That's what is so attractive to me, to Christianity.
It was formative in my early Christian life. And then I've talked about how Harvey Kahn and how I think it was Elwood Ellis and some of these figures had a profound impact on Tim Keller. His hermeneutic, which ends up being postmodern.
His approach to contextualization, which ends up being postmodern. His belief, his view of sin and what sin is and how even white privilege is part of this, that you can be guilty of a sin that you're just passively you could literally be born a white baby and you're guilty of some kind of systemic abuse of some kind that you need to do something about.
You have a privilege accruing to you. And even when you become a Christian, you could, you know, go to the blood of Jesus that you still have this issue. Keller, in addition to some of his social justice teachings and postmodern teachings, he has a less than orthodox view of hell.
And this is stuff we're going to be covering in future episodes of sort of divine judgment. He's less than orthodox view of sin. He has, in fact, I don't have the book in front of me. There's like seven or six or seven things that he believes that are not in line with orthodox theology.
And a few of them are at least, I would put Keller in the false teaching category. So these are things I've looked into and I'm open to legitimate charges. And guess what? I have all the quotations. I've been able to read them in context in his sermons.
I've been able to listen. I've been able to see. And it's after a lot of work that I say, yes, I can say unequivocally, I do believe Keller has promoted false teaching, is promoting false teaching, is characterized by that because there's a pattern there.
And this is confirmed by more than two or three witnesses. This is confirmed by anyone who's ever heard his publicly available teachings. So that's, it's on that basis that I make these statements. It's not on some secret thing that Tim Keller did or something he thought that he probably, it's not like some of the weak things I've heard leveled sometimes even against John MacArthur, where, you know, he must've been thinking this when he did that.
Well, I'm not doing that with Keller. I'm saying this is what he said. Now with Keller, reject illegitimate charges. And guess what? I have seen some illegitimate charges leveled against Tim Keller. Sometimes simplistic charges against Tim Keller that he's I'll give you one of them.
One of the charges that has been leveled against Tim Keller, I've heard this a number of times, is that he is basically a stooge for the World Economic Forum. And is it possible that Tim Keller is, it is, I will admit to you that is possible, but guess what?
I don't have evidence of it. I don't have the evidence for it. All I've had is people telling me, well, look, he, he was, you know, he, he showed up at the World Economic Forum office or something. He's, you know, there, or he was at a meeting supposedly.
These are the kinds of things that I get, but it doesn't mean that he's controlled by them. It doesn't mean he's necessarily implementing their full agenda. It doesn't, I don't know. It's possible. And I would say, and I think it's fair to say, especially as a historian, we like to say things like this.
It is fair to say in the globalist world in which we live, that Tim Keller is making a contribution to pushing the needle towards globalism. I think you can probably say that. His whole model for urban contextualization is that.
It definitely pushes that needle, but that doesn't mean that he's a stooge for WEF, okay? Or that he's all on board with a great reset. So, um, have a sense of proportion, character issues and false teaching.
I've never gone after Tim Keller for character issues. Never said he's lied, never. And I think there are people who probably think that about Tim Keller. He's just a horrible character and his motives are all nefarious.
And, uh, I think he, he is, I think his motives are bad in the sense that I think he is, he probably, he probably thinks he's promoting something true, but I think he is promoting false things. And I think that at least there's been enough out there for me to conclude that he thinks the good he's doing is going to be that it somehow attracts people to Christianity, that it's going to be attractional by soft peddling things, like even his, uh, his, uh, living outs church audit that Tim Keller helped roll out.
I mean, it's, it's trying to make things more comfortable for homosexuals who come to your church and that's in his motive. And he'd probably say that's a good motive. And that's, so there's a sort of a seeker sensitive thing going on there, even though he'd reject the nineties model of seeker sensitivity, he's got this winsomeness thing.
And I don't think that's a good motive, but I don't think that that is a, that that proves that he's lying or nefarious or that he's, uh, he he's knowingly necessarily pushing all this evil and he can see it for himself.
I don't, I don't have any evidence that that's true. Um, now sometimes you could say a guy as smart as him, how could he not know? I get it, but I'm not going to go where I don't have, uh, evidence to, to go.
So, uh, have a sense of proportion. Um, it's false teaching and that's in my mind, that's the worst. And then, uh, consider the possibilities. Are there, could there be good motives? And I kind of went through that.
Could there be good motives for what Tim Keller's doing? And, uh, I suppose, but as good as they are, it's still false teaching at the end of the day. So that's Tim Keller. And we can do this, we can do this all day with a number of teachers.
Let, let me, let, let me just say this actually. Yeah, we'll just, we'll kind of wrap it up because it's been, we've been going really long. If there's a teacher I don't know about, and I know one thing, I know one thing about them, they promoted a false teaching.
That's enough for me to say warning. Hopefully they repent of it. That's enough for me to say warning though. Um, if I had no, had no knowledge of a false teacher and someone tells me that they promoted a false teaching, but I haven't looked into it, I don't see it.
And it's someone that I don't necessarily even know or trust. I don't just jump on the bandwagon and say, well, yeah, they're a false teacher too. And I feel good because I'm not that. And they are, I don't do that.
I don't think we should do that either. I don't think it's a Christian thing to do. And, uh, so that's hopefully helpful for all of you in evaluating, um, uh, good and bad teachers. This is how I approach it on this podcast.
This is why I think some of you listen to this podcast, because you know, you're going to get chapter and verse. When I start evaluating, I don't want to just put stuff out there and hope it'll stick.
And, uh, so there you go. Uh, God bless. Uh, I want to say in closing, uh, someone who is not a false teacher, someone who is, uh, truly in my mind, uh, a hero, uh, for our time. And that's Russell Fuller.
Um, he is going to be at the men's retreat October 28th through the 30th in the Adirondacks, uh, in New York, Speculator, New York. Please consider coming and it's old school. It's old school. You pay through sending a check.
The address is right there. Uh, you can go to the link in the info section on this video, but it's going to be a great time. And, uh, right now, um, we probably have, uh, it there's confirmed 44 people, but I think it's going to be more.
I think we already, it's probably over 50, at least by now. So you're going to want to make sure you can confirm before the beginning of October, at least I would say sooner, the better. And, um, it's just going to be an awesome time.
And, uh, there's people coming from the Midwest, from the South, from flying into Albany, flying into New York. And, um, I'm busy helping connect people who need rides. Uh, you can email me by the way, if, uh, please don't, don't use this for, for stuff.
I, I may not reply to you if, if it's unrelated stuff, but if you really need, uh, to find a ride and you've had trouble, feel free to email me, uh, Jonathan Harris, 1989 at gmail .com. That's an email you address.
You should be able to get to me. And, uh, and I've already connected a number of people. And so, um, make sure you remember to send your check-in to grace Bible church, and then, and then come on up and just enjoy it.
And some of you might want to come, if you're coming from a distance, you may just want to take a vacation out of it. You may want to maybe spend another day or another two days, uh, if you can doing on the way, or maybe in the Adirondacks doing something on your own and then have fun at Men's Retreat.
I mean, some people, you know, are going to be coming with groups, uh, from other places. And so this is a great opportunity to be with someone who truly is, I think, a spiritual hero of our day and age, uh, bold, uh, just, just a great guy.
So come on out. We're going to be talking about the Prophet Jeremiah. Looking forward to seeing you there. God bless.