April 17, 2026 Show with Phil Sessa on “The Conference on Gender Roles, Spiritual Gifts, & God & Government”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on the 17th day of April, 2026.

And I'm absolutely thrilled to have a returning guest today to talk about a very special and important event. His name is Phil Sessa. He's director of Soul Fishing Ministries, host of the Stop and Think About It podcast, and elder at Grace Baptist Church of Woodhaven, New York.

And today, he's going to be addressing the upcoming annual contending conference in Woodhaven, New York, on gender roles, spiritual gifts, and God and country—and God and government, I'm sorry. And welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Phil Sessa.

Hey, thanks for having me back, Brother Chris. It's always great being on with you, and we get to bump into each other from time to time, and you're definitely a blessing to me, myself personally, and to the wider Christian audience and wider Christian church.

Amen.

Well, tell us something about Soul Fishing Ministries.

Soul Fishing Ministries and Its Mission

So Soul Fishing Ministries is a para-church ministry that comes underneath our local church, which is Grace Baptist Church. And Soul Fishing Ministries is really a training ministry and a service to the local church.

So we are a gospel-centered ministry to equip the saints to be followers of Christ and fishers of men. So when believers want to be trained in certain aspects of ministry, we want to come alongside the local church and help with those areas.

So we have an acronym, which is FISHING. The F is for—the FISHING is for equipping in evangelism. The I is for interceding to instruct people in biblical prayer. The S is for shepherding. So we want to equip and edify biblical families because there's a lot of confusion, it seems, with what a biblical family is to be and how a biblical family is to function.

Our H is for heralding, to train expository evangelist preachers. Our I for interpreting, to help people grasp God's Word exegetically through hermeneutics. The N is for nurturing, to equip the saints in discipleship.

And the G is for grappling, contending, and defending the faith with expository apologetics. So that is sort of in a nutshell what we do. And if a local church has us come in with one of those aspects of our ministry, we want to help the local church.

So for instance, if we did some evangelism training, then we may take that local church and some of the people that attend and go out to the community on that same day and help that church with their evangelism.

And that may take different forms. A city church, it's easier to go set up a corner, and maybe a suburban church, we might have to go in front of a Walmart or in front of a gas station or something and sort of set up shop in a different format.

Praise God. Well, if anybody wants to explore the website of Soul Fishing Ministries and find out more about this wonderful ministry, go to soulfishingministries .org, soulfishingministries .org. And tell us a little bit more about Grace Baptist Church of Woodhaven, New York.

Grace Baptist Church of Woodhaven, New York

I have known your fellow elder and pastor, Peter Nicotra, going back to the days before he even planted that church. He was an elder at the North Shore Baptist Church when I first met him, and where my friend Ed Moore is pastor.

And actually, I guess it was probably in the early 90s when I met Peter, because I was working for WMC Radio at the time. So tell us more about the theological positions held by this church and so on.

Yes, so Grace Baptist Church, we are a Reformed Baptist Church, and so some people may think that all Calvinistic churches are Reformed. That's not necessarily the case. So a Reformed church like ours, we follow a confession of faith, and that would be the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

And that's what somebody like Charles Spurgeon would have ascribed to. And I know many of us know that name. Whereas maybe a Presbyterian Reformed church would ascribe to the Westminster. And there are other confessions of faith, and they're basically, they have the same formats, and there's just some nuances in some of their confessions.

So like they were saying, like, paedo-baptism and baptistic-baptism between Presbyterians and Baptists. So we ascribe to that. We use the catechisms with the Q &A format, like the Keech's Catechism as well, and the creeds.

So the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed. And so holding on to those historic things, to me, is such a great blessing because I feel like I'm kind of holding hands in that respect with like a Charles Spurgeon.

Not that I'm worthy to hold hands with him, but I mean, he's our brother, if you will. And we ascribe to the five solas of the Reformation as well. And our church is one that does exegetical preaching.

So verse by verse, through a book in the Bible, Pastor Peter, my co-elder or his co-elder, we're co-elders together, he's preaching through the Gospel of Luke. So he'll probably finish maybe by 2030 or something of that nature.

And I've been preaching through 1 John, and I started about two years ago, and I probably should finish 2027 in about the middle of 2027, verse by verse. But I love it. I enjoy it.

Praise God. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Grace Baptist Church of Woodhaven, New York, especially if you live in that area and would like to visit, or if you're traveling through that area on a trip, perhaps you have family, friends, and loved ones who live in the Woodhaven, New York area, go to gbcny .org.

Can it get simpler than that? Gbcny .org. And please extend to Peter and his lovely wife, Claudia Nicotra, my warm greetings in Christ.

Amen. I can do that.

Oh, you know what?

I should mention one other thing. One of the things that I really love about the church is that we're very evangelistic. So...

I thought you said you were Reformed. I'm only kidding. But that is the myth, the slander that many people will immediately have come to their minds, is those people don't believe in evangelism. And they think that because we believe God is in sovereign control over everything, that for some reason we're supposed to disobey his commands to us to evangelize, and that we don't believe that God uses means to bring about his sovereign purposes.

Right, right.

Phil Sessa's Journey from Assemblies of God to Reformed Baptist Faith

As a matter of fact, I met Peter Nicotra outside of Yankee Stadium when Joe Olsteen was on the inside, and at that time I had been going to an Assembly of God church, and I...

I remember that.

Yeah.

So I was still, I had soul fishing ministries, and my heart was just leaning and reading all kinds of Reformed things. And so I went that day. And for anybody who knows Al Yerkes, who works with Todd Friel with Reggie.

Oh yeah, I know Al very well.

So Al Yerkes, actually, I could credit him with being the bridge because I heard he was doing an outreach there, and I called the phone number and a woman named Trish Ramos was out in Texas with her husband, Emilio.

She put me in contact with Al. He had said he never did an outreach before. I said, we train people and we go out. And so we were like 30 people strong. And I met Pastor Peter out there that day. And sort of just like you said, Chris, when I spoke with him and I asked him what church he's from and what does he do?

And he said, he's a pastor, Grace Baptist Church. I said, you're a pastor and you're out here evangelizing? Because most of the pastors I knew, they didn't really go out and evangelize. At least not in that format, I should say.

And so I didn't realize I was stepping out of one church and stepping into that church, sort of, that was a catalyst of a day for me. And then when I was finally ready to just leave the Assembly of God church, and even the assistant pastor, though, was Calvinistic at the AG church.

So that was interesting.

And that does happen because God is sovereign.

And so we, I spoke to a guy who was going to North Shore who I had discipled when we were both in the Assemblies of God. And when we bounced back and forth between North Shore and Grace Baptist, this guy said, you need to go to Grace Baptist because you and Peter Nicotero are cut from the same cloth.

So I called him up, we spoke for about an hour and a half, we started attending back and forth between the two churches. And God made it as well clear that we were supposed to be at Grace Baptist and serve alongside with Pastor Peter.

And I would say that that line, cut from the same cloth, is very true because we have very similar philosophies of ministry, which for me was very important.

Amen.

And by the way, one of my dearest friends who is now in heaven with the Lord, Al Stein, he was an Assemblies of God Bishop. And he was pastor of the Neighborhood Assembly of God in Belmore, Long Island.

And as Bishop was the overseer of all of the Long Island congregations of the Assemblies of God, and he, a number of years before he was sadly killed in an automobile accident and ushered into the immediate presence of Christ, he had become a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

And he was able to remain in leadership with the Assembly of God, even though he was a Calvinist, and even appointed to a bishop because apparently they have a form that you have to fill out as a pastor every year affirming their doctrinal positions.

And when a question was asked in the form, do you believe in eternal security? Al wrote in there, I believe in evidential security, meaning that if you are truly born again and secure in your salvation, it will produce evidence.

Because many five-point Arminian churches like the Assembly of God have a misconception about what it means to be eternally secure. And that is largely in part because of evangelical churches that believe in eternal security and also believe in cheap grace and believe that you could live like Satan unrepentantly for the entirety of your life, and you should not fear going to hell if you've gone up for an altar call or something.

And those churches like the Assembly of God rightly oppose that, but they wrongly think anyone who believes you can't lose your salvation must be in that camp. So for some reason, the Assemblies of God authorities were satisfied with that answer from Al, so much so that they promoted him to a bishop.

Wow.

And he's not the only one. I've met others, and I met other—do you know Jim Capo? He was the pastor of the Massachusetts Church of God, and he retired from the pastoral ministry and is living in Florida now.

But he was a five-point Calvinist and a Church of God pastor from the Cleveland, Tennessee Church of God denomination that's Pentecostal as well.

Wow. Yeah.

No, but I do remember filling out that form where you have to check the box.

Right.

And I mean, it was what, in 2011, I decided not to continue to renew my credentials because I just couldn't in good conscience affirm those things, those Pentecostal distinctives. And I came to the conclusion that I just sort of believed those things, so to speak, but I never studied them.

You know, you just kind of go along with your denominational trait, you know, almost like identity politics. You know, you're sort of being like loyal to your team no matter what they do. And so I started to study things like falling down.

And I looked up every place in the Bible where people fell down and what was the, you know, the context and the background and all of that. And I came to the conclusion that all of this falling down that happens is not what we see in the Scriptures.

And so I just kept doing that with the various Pentecostal distinctives and came away and said, I don't hold these things. I hold these other doctrines that you can't lose your salvation, that Christ's sacrifice on the cross, it was definite or particular to a certain group of people and not applied to others.

And so I just could not in good conscience stay in the assemblies anymore. And that's when I had to just fully, with two feet, just jump ship. And I did try to lead gracefully, though. And eventually, I just told the assistant pastor, this is going to be our last Sunday.

I did try to meet with the senior pastor for quite some time. And although we were close, once my theology started getting stronger, Calvinistic theology on theology, it sort of changed the relationship.

And so then eventually we just left. But I didn't want to burn any bridges or anything. There was no reason to do that. But then about six months after we left, then that pastor called me up and we sat down and we spoke together.

And he said, I should have done this six months ago. And I said, I agree. So anyway, I think even when you have strong theological disagreement, you should try to lead gracefully, even making your positions known and without trying to burn the bridge and bad mouth or what have you.

There's no call for that. Because as I'm sure you know, Anthony Uvino.

Oh, he's a very close friend.

Yeah, the godly Goomba, right? I love him to death.

Well, he's a Goomba anyway. I'm only kidding.

So one of the things that he has taught me is that, remember, if we say we believe in the doctrines of grace, they need to be shared with grace. And so I don't know if that was original in him, but I'm going to give him the credit for it.

Knowing Anthony, probably not. I'm only kidding.

So, you know, he says, you know, if you have an Arminian, you know, don't let them out grace you by just coming in with, you know, the hammer. And that's not graceful. So, I mean, you could share the doctrines of grace.

You could dig your heels in strong, say, I firmly believe this. You know, I shall not be moved. I think it's biblical. But, you know, I don't hate you if you oppose that and you hold the opposite view.

Because if God has saved you, then you're eternally secure as well, even if you don't hope for it.

Amen.

By the way, since you were bringing up losing salvation, I want to announce to my listeners or remind them that on Thursday and Friday, June 25th and 26th, right here on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio, I'm having another debate between Nazarene pastor Jared K. Henry and Reformed Baptist pastor Jeremiah Nortier on the theme, Can Truly Born Again Believers Lose Their Salvation?

And, obviously, the Nazarene pastor is affirming that and the Reformed Baptist pastor is opposing that. And that, once again, will be Thursday and Friday, June 25th and 26th, right here on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio.

So make sure you mark that on your calendar. Should be another exciting debate. This will be the third between Jared K. Henry and Jeremiah Nortier on my show. So looking forward to that. Well, you have an event of your own that we are here to discuss.

And this is an annual event, is it not? The Contending Conference?

The Annual Contending Conference

Yes, it has become an annual event. We tried it sort of as a pilot a few years ago, and we decided, oh, this really went well. And so we try to re-up on it the following year. And so this is year number three.

So it's been building some traction for the glory of the Lord.

And why these specific topics? And I'll repeat them here. This year you chose to discuss gender roles. Nothing unusual about that going on in our world. Why would you pick that? And spiritual gifts. I'm sorry?

Everybody's always on the same page about those things.

And spiritual gifts and God and government. And so let's start with gender roles. Obviously, every single day, numerous times a day, if you're watching television, if you're looking at a computer screen, if you're listening to a radio, you are definitely going to be confronted with a lot of satanic insanity regarding gender roles.

But what specific area are you approaching this subject? Is it within the context of ecclesiology, or where are you driving your points on this issue?

Gender Roles in the Church and Home

Yes, so we're driving home predominantly gender roles in the church and in the home. We would certainly mention gender roles as it relates to other atmospheres, but we know that God gave three areas or institutions, the church, the family, and the government.

And out of those three, the two discipleship arms are the family and the church. And so I can understand to a point how the world can be confused on it. Where I don't understand is how is the Christian family and the local church confused on this same issue, because we have a book that we call the scriptures, and it lays out the truth for us clear as day.

And we see that this is something that seems to be like mud on the windshield for some people and some churches, and they can't see where they're driving, and they're not driving correctly. Therefore, they're veering all over the place.

And so we want people to walk away having a clear understanding about gender roles in the family and in the church, because God's given us order in the world. And so if we can just do things by any order that we choose, I mean, that's like King Saul who just decided, well, you know what?

I'm going to go offer sacrifices like the priests, and Samuel wasn't okay with that, and God wasn't okay with that, because that wasn't his role to offer sacrifices. That was the role of the priest. And so we can't just do things the way that we so choose.

Uzzah touched the ark. He wasn't supposed to lay one finger on the ark, and God killed him. And so I understand that many people want to be pragmatic, which means basically the ends justify the means.

So, I mean, if I threw a gospel tract on the floor and somebody picked it up and got saved, does that mean I'm always just throwing them on the floor because that happened? Well, I mean, we don't live by pragmatics.

We live by the gospel truth. And then we keep in step practically with biblical theology concerning the church and the family and every other doctrine that the Bible addresses. So I just see so many people, so many churches that are so confused, and it is a hot-button topic, gender roles, and Christians ought not to be confused about these things.

And so we want to help clarify that confusion and also in the same respect to equip the saints to better be able to communicate and articulate the biblical worldview on these things so that they can now engage with others who do hold an unbiblical worldview on such things and be able to do it with gentleness and respect but with biblical truth.

And as far as the gender roles issue goes, it's a highly controversial subject, divides even true brethren. There are men of God who believe theologically nearly identically to you and I, who have different understandings in some areas of gender roles.

I was very surprised after he went home to glory with Christ that one of the most renowned and brilliant Reformed theologians who I first encountered at the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology back in the 80s or 90s, Roger Nicole, he actually believed in the ordination of women.

I couldn't believe it. That's far more rare amongst confessionally conservative Reformed churches and denominations, but there are even among us differences. Even today, a very highly respected and regarded church, once pastored by one of my modern-day heroes, John MacArthur, they believe in a female diaconate as permissible.

And I believe the late James Montgomery Boyce had female deacons, even though the PCA, of which he was a part, have not approved that because I think he was grandfathered in from the PCUSA to the PCA.

They didn't require he remove the female deacons. But how do you recognize the fact that biblically faithful men disagree with this and yet be as firm as you believe the Scriptures require you to be?

Yeah, that's a great question. And so I think sometimes when we think about error and heresies, I think we need to put them sort of in different camps so there can be a thin line between the two. So heresy is more so somebody denies the resurrection of Christ.

Somebody denies the sinlessness of Jesus. That's downright heresy. But then you have these areas is a church then heretical for having female elders and deacons. I think that they're being unbiblical.

I think that they're being disobedient to the Lord. I think they're an error. But I don't know if we would say, well, they're not saying Jesus didn't rise from the dead. They're not saying that the Bible is not inspired.

And so I would just say, you know, brother, sister, I can't in good conscience attend your church because you might have a female preaching there that day. And so I love you to death. But I mean, I couldn't go and be a part of your ministry in any way because I think what you're doing is unbiblical.

And I'm not going to sit under a female preacher. I'm not going to be in a church with a female deacon or what have you. So I think that the lines are drawn clear. And I mean, I would challenge them to rethink some of those things.

And I would talk with them and have a discussion with them and ask them, how do you reconcile these things? They hear that thing. Maybe, maybe in some respect, maybe some haven't thought through it. Maybe some haven't wrestled through it in the same way that I didn't wrestle through tongues and wrestle through falling down, slaying the spirit.

I didn't wrestle through those things. And so my theological positions have changed over time. But I had to have a wrestling match with the scriptures. And so I'm hearing from both sides. I'm even hearing preachers over here, preachers over there, who's affirming and who's not.

But ultimately, I had to go to the scriptures, wrestle with the scriptures. What do I believe in scriptures teaches? And what I'm looking at, you know, the areas for deacons, it's almost identical to elders and overseers.

There's really not much difference there, except the elders have to be able to teach. But the character qualities are all the same. So I don't see a distinction in that area whatsoever. So I don't know how they make that leap.

Yeah, and to be fair, since no one from Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, California is here, like my very dear friend, Phil Johnson, who at one time was the most interviewed guest on Iron Trip and Zion Radio ever.

I don't know if he still holds that title, but he may. They may not view it as an office when a female is being identified as a deacon and has a role of servanthood. I'm not sure if it's a specifically recognized office in that case.

I know for a fact that they don't believe that women have any authority at all over men. I know that.

Right.

So I believe that they may define the unique role of women as deacons differently than the men deacons who are office bearers.

Right.

Yeah, because we have elders, deacons, and then by the state we have trustees who handle the finances, but really only the elders and the deacons are ultimately the biblical offices. And we have tons of women that help that are the diakonos in the definition of being a servant in that respect, but they don't carry such a title.

Some people function in ways then they don't have titles, but if they don't have the title of a deacon, they don't have the office of a deacon. And all of God's people should have a heart to serve in whatever capacity and whatever gifting God has given them.

They should have a heart to serve. I know that when I sat down with Pastor Peter and he asked me to be one of the elders of the church, first he said, you know, you already have a shepherding heart. And so somebody is already shepherding people.

They're already helping people and they're already sort of doing the kind of ministry that connects with the title, if you will. So obviously giving somebody the title doesn't necessarily then give them the gifting to carry that out.

The gifting is already there. The heart to serve is already there. The title just recognizes that, if you will. And I don't know if it was Muhammad Ali who said something like champions are not made in the ring.

They're recognized there. And I think that sort of that holds true with how we view ministry. The title may recognize, and sometimes obviously people get that wrong. Somebody is made an elder and that's really not their role.

But it may have seemed so for a time.

And just out of curiosity, in addition to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, do you also utilize as an official creed or confession the life and writings of Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali?

Because he said he's the greatest and we know the Bible says Jesus is the greatest.

That's right.

We have to go to our first commercial break, and if anybody wants to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and country of residence.

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Welcome back. Also, folks, I want to have you mark your calendars for a couple of upcoming very important interviews. This Monday, the 20th of April, I'm having a returning guest, Kurt M. Smith, who is not only a Reformed Baptist pastor, he's also an author, and since he wrote a wonderful biography on the 18th-century evangelist George Whitefield, he made the ideal guest to give a review of the new movie A Great Awakening, which tells the story of George Whitefield through the eyes of Benjamin Franklin.