WWUTT 510 Q&A The Nashville Statement?

The Meaning of Naaman’s Request for Earth

This week a document was released entitled, The Nashville Statement, addressing matters of marriage and human sexuality, affirming what the Bible has to say on those issues. Why is this important and why should the church be behind it?

We'll talk about that when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying the Word of God that we may know the mind of God. Find all our videos on our website at www .utt .com. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

And my co-host, Becky Hughes, who has not listened to any of the podcast this week. Don't tell them. You've been a little busy, babe. It's been very busy. Because you got started with the kids with school again.

Yes.

Doing homeschool. And then we hopped into going to the group co-op. Yeah, on Tuesday.

Yeah, the campus. Everything is back into full swing and Becky's schedule is packed, but I'm so glad you're still joining me for this on, well, I want to say Thursday night, but Friday, our Friday edition.

Yes, our Friday edition. When we take questions from the listeners and you can submit questions by email, when we understand the text at gmail .com. So Becky had an appointment with our daughter Annie on Thursday night and also was not even able to make Bible study.

So sometimes questions get asked at Bible study related to the lesson that we just did the day before in the Old Testament. Most of the time they're from me. That's true. So we went through the story of Naaman being cured of his leprosy in 2 Kings chapter 5.

And this question came up when after Naaman was cured, he tried to give his money to Elisha and Elisha wouldn't take it. Because this was a gift of mercy from God and you cannot buy anything from the Lord.

You know, like it says in Romans 11, who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid. There is nothing that you can give to God and earn the favor of God. This was mercy and grace of God upon Naaman.

And because he had faith and went to the Jordan River and was cleansed, then he was purified of his leprosy. Oh, that's awesome. So he goes back to Elisha, tries to give him the money. Elisha won't take it.

And so Naaman asks this request. He says, if not, if you're not going to take the money, then please let there be given to your servant two mule loads of earth. For from now on, your servant will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any God, but to the Lord.

So why is it that Naaman asked for earth to go back with him to Syria? I have no idea. Well, there's kind of a two part answer to this. Number one is that Naaman, though he now believed that the God of Israel was the true God, still kind of had a pagan mindset of how a God was supposed to be worshiped.

So the false gods were often very territorial. It had, you know, a God applied to a particular thing that you were praying to be blessed in. So the way that we, our minds tend to think of like the Greek gods and the Roman gods when we think about a multitude or a plethora of polytheistic worship.

Right. So if somebody in ancient Greece wanted their crops to be blessed, they would pray to Zeus because he was the God of the sky. If somebody wanted to find a spouse and have a good marriage, they would worship Hera, the goddess of marriage.

If somebody wanted to have a successful voyage or sea venture, they would worship Poseidon, the God of the sea. Or if a storm came upon them while they were in a vessel, that's who they would start praying to.

Right. So like we read in the book of Jonah, how Jonah, the boat that Jonah got on to flee from God, that big storm came upon them. And then all the pagans on the boat, they start praying to their false gods, where they're praying to their God of the sea.

Right. To be spared from this storm. And it wasn't any of our gods. Must be yours. So that's it. Yeah, right. They went to Jonah and said, it's not ours. So why don't you start praying to your God? So if somebody was going to go against an enemy in war in ancient Greece, they would pray to Ares, who was the God of war.

So this was kind of the mindset that Naaman had. If he was going to worship God, he needed to worship him territorially. So I need to bring earth from Israel back with me to Syria because this is where I'm going to worship the Lord.

Oh, because he was the God of Israel. Right. God of Israel.

Gotcha. So Naaman had not yet understood that God is God over all. He was still seeing him as only the God of Israel. So that's part one. Part two is that he may have really wanted to worship God the right way.

And God had decided how he was going to be worshipped and where he was going to be worshipped. And he was to be worshipped at the temple in Jerusalem. Now, that's not where this took place. This took place in Samaria, which was in Israel.

But yet Naaman wanted to honor the Lord the right way. So maybe when it came to worshipping God properly, I need to do so on the soil of Israel. So he was taking the earth of Israel back with him to Syria so that in his villa or whatever great property he had where he lived, he would spread the earth of Israel there.

And that's where he would build his altar to the Lord. So anyway. That's neat. That's the explanation to that. But you see a change of heart in Naaman. Previously a man who worshipped false gods, and now he worshipped the true God of Israel.

That's awesome. So anyway, that's our answer to our question from yesterday's lesson in 2 Kings. I think I typically start Friday that way, don't we?

We go back to... Yeah, we usually do, yeah.

We go back to the Old Testament study from the day before.

Because it's usually a question that popped up at Bible study.

Why the Nashville Statement Was Released

So I received several emails this week, and I got a few Twitter messages as well, asking if I would respond to or explain the Nashville statement. So this came out on Tuesday. It kind of came up out of the blue.

It was a partnership. I was going to say a cooperative ship. It was a partnership between CBMW, which is the Coalition for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and also the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, to come up with a manifesto responding to human sexuality in our current cultural climate.

So making a statement about how the church should consider these things, given the way that our culture is right now. Now, this was basically an update of the Danvers statement, which was... It was written in Danvers, Massachusetts back in 1987, so 30 years ago.

So now this is updating something that had been written 30 years before, but this one being done in Nashville, Tennessee. And it was on, I think it was Friday of last week, yeah, Friday, August 25th, when the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission jointly hosted a gathering of Christian leaders in Nashville.

There were over 150 Christian leaders that decided upon the statements that were going to be in the Nashville statement. And it's a series of we affirm and we deny. So we affirm what the Bible says, and we deny that the Bible...

Doesn't include? Well, we deny that human sexuality is this. So as the culture is trying to say, well, here's what human sexuality really is, expressing your feelings, it's whatever, do whatever you want.

That's kind of what inspires the we denies. So there's affirmations and denials. And if you go through all the articles on the Nashville statement, that's what it is that you'll see. So you can find this by going to cbmw .org slash Nashville hyphen statement.

Or if you just go to cbmw .org, there will be a link that you can click on that will take you to the Nashville statement, read the preamble. So you understand the reason and the purpose for the articles that follow, and then go through the articles.

And then you can also click on signers, and you'll see a list of the signers that were a part of this meeting and helping to arrange this statement or this manifesto regarding human sexuality. And let me clarify that a manifesto is a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer.

So these are some very influential evangelical leaders, pastors, teachers, and otherwise from different denominational backgrounds that are coming to an agreement on what the Bible has to say about human sexuality and speaking into our culture.

But this is primarily for the church.

And to get 150 people to agree on something that has to come. I mean... Praise the Lord. Yes. They have to be using the same source and interpreting it. You know what I mean?

Right. Agreeing what the Bible has to say. But some of the signers of this include Denny Burke, who I love Denny, and have relied upon him greatly in terms of just understanding my own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.

I've even asked him questions about SBC stuff. So every time I have sent Denny an email, he's a professor at Boyce College, he has responded to every email I've sent him. I know the guy has to be busy, and yet he still responded to all of my questions.

And he's the president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. John Piper, Dr. James Dobson, formerly of Focus on the Family, now the president of Family Talk. Russell Moore, who's the president of the ERLC, J .I. Packer, Rosaria Butterfield, and Nancy DeMoss-Wolgamoth, some examples of women who are on that list.

Wayne Grudem, Tony Perkins, who's the president of the Family Research Council, D .A. Carson, R .C. Sproul, Sam Albury, who's editor at the Gospel Coalition, John MacArthur was one of the signers of this as well, and Dr. Albert Moeller.

And in fact, I'm going to go ahead and play a clip from him here from the briefing on Wednesday. I think this was Wednesday's edition of the briefing where he is explaining the Nashville statement and I think that he does a better job of it than I will.

In a time of confusion, one of the greatest gifts that can be given to and by Christ's church is clarity. And clarity requires at times that matters of truth, matters of truth in particular times of trial, should be put into words in order to bear the testimony of that clarity.

A manifesto was released yesterday. It's known as the Nashville Statement. It's a coalition for biblical sexuality. A group of evangelical leaders had gathered in Nashville for a meeting to determine how this statement should be released.

And it was released yesterday morning by the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. I, I should say at the beginning, was a speaker at the event and a signatory to this statement. And there are many others, as we shall see, who signed it as well.

The big issue is this. What took place as released on August the 29th, 2017, was a statement by Christians who believe that it is our responsibility to speak clearly to issues of gender and sex and sexuality and biblical morality in a time when these issues are commonly confused.

By late yesterday, the Nashville Statement was one of the most oft-discussed issues in social media and it had gained a great deal of media attention as well. More on that attention in just a moment.

Back to the statement for now. The statement begins with a preamble that states, Evangelical Christians at the dawn of the 21st century find themselves living in a period of historic transition. As Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, it has embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being.

Now, as the statement makes clear, there is a particular subversion of a biblical understanding of humanity, what it means to be human at the level of denying the gift of what it means to be a man and a woman, and for that to be a part of God's intention in creation for each one of us as revealed even in our anatomy.

It's a biological fact. In discussions as the statement was being framed, one of the points I really wanted to make is that our understanding of human dignity as grounded in creation has to acknowledge that in the very same verse in which we are told that God had created human beings in his image, thus distinctive creatures, the only creatures made in God's image, it also states unequivocally that God has made those human beings in his image as male and female.

Thus, one of the things we need to make very clear as Christians is that a subversion of what it means to be male and female is actually a subversion of human dignity, of any adequate understanding of human dignity that can undergird what makes human beings distinct from other creatures, and furthermore, what undergirds the understanding that every single human being is made in God's image.

So what he says there at the end of his explanation, I think, is what makes the Nashville statement so important, that to treat a human being, to treat a man as anything other than a man would be undignified.

It would be to not treat him with the proper dignity. Even if he thinks, I should be a woman. And then you say to him, well, do what it is that your heart feels like doing. And then treating him as a woman is really not treating him with human dignity, because it's to treat him as something other than what God designed him to be.

So that's one of the reasons for the Nashville statement. But basically, the purpose of the Nashville statement is this, and that is to define marriage and human sexuality the way that the Bible defines it.

The way that Jesus defined it. And any time that we have had in the history of the church, creeds or confessions, those creeds or confessions are only affirming what the Bible already says. It's not coming up with anything new.

It's the church coming to an agreement on the Bible says this. And this helps us to understand what the Bible teaches better when we come to an agreement on a statement or a manifesto like this, like the Nashville statement.

So when we go to Matthew 19 and we see Jesus' definition of marriage, here is what we have. Matthew 19, starting in verse four, he answered to the Pharisees, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let man not separate. And in those three verses, Matthew 19, verses four, five, and six, Jesus defines male and female and what a marriage is.

And so the Nashville statement affirms what it is the Bible clarifies on what it means to be a man or a woman, what human sexuality is defined as, and also what a marriage is supposed to be as God has defined it.

And I think it's also important that they come together like that. In times like this, it makes you feel like you're not the only one. You can... There's solidarity. Yeah. And this society, it's really easy to be like, oh, I must be the only one, so I've got to give in.

And, you know, I mean, the Bible says this, but everybody else is saying this, and it's not everybody else.

Right. So it's encouragement and strength from the church itself. And unity. Right. And solidarity, like you said. And I think with these leaders gathering together like this and making such a statement sets an example for the church.

Exactly.

So, right. Exactly right. I think it's very important that they did that.

Why the Nashville Statement Matters for the Church

Now, I've heard some criticisms about the Nashville Statement, and I'm talking about criticisms from the church. Of course, we've heard criticisms from the world in the secular media. That's a given. But criticisms from people even in the church, I have not yet heard a good one.

And I've read quite a few. Yeah. Criticisms about the Nashville Statement. Good as in what? I don't think it was a strong argument that you're making regarding the Nashville Statement or why are we doing this?

Why did we need this? Quite honestly, the response that we received on Tuesday and Wednesday affirms why we needed that. Oh, definitely. And so, I signed it. I'm not one of the signers, like you don't, if you go to the list.

The originals. But anybody can sign it if you want to. It doesn't change anything if you do or don't. But I think that it just, like Becky said, it kind of offers that solidarity, that companionship together in standing against the direction and tide of the culture in terms of how the world will define human sexuality.

And if we can't stand together on those things, the church is going to be in big trouble. We'll be easily divided when the church, or I'm sorry, when the world comes against the church. Now, I will say this.

I will say that probably the best criticism that I've seen, again, coming from the church, is that there aren't any proof texts to the article. So oftentimes when you have an article, you'll have kind of a series in italics down at the bottom or something like that.

It will tell you all the different verses that pertain to the declaration that is being made in that specific article. Oh, that's neat. Which we have in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. So every one of the articles in the BFM will have a series of verse references that you can go to to check, you know, how the Southern Baptist Convention came to that faith statement in that particular article.

That's the one thing that I wish the Nashville Statement had that it doesn't include. I would say that's really the only legitimate criticism that anybody can make against the Nashville Statement. But otherwise, I mean, even when you have things like the Nicene Creed or the Westminster Confession of Faith or any of these things, they don't have proof texts with them.

Now, you can find versions of WCF that has proof text, but the WCF itself doesn't or like the London Baptist Confession or any of these things. So maybe somebody later on will take the Nashville Statement and add the text to them.

That would probably help a person understand that article a little bit better from a biblical perspective or from according to the pages of scripture. We'll put it that way because it's all from a biblical perspective.

This is true.

Everything that is in those articles. Or the what do you call that? Where you cite where you find that. The sources. Sources.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. What's that word? Our vocabulary is failing us here. So those those kinds of things. And I'm sure somebody is going to come along and do that. Where you cite the text. Cite. Yeah.

Cite, reference, cross reference. I don't know. That's going to bug me. Somebody's going to send us emails. We're going to get like 20 different words. Somebody's going to go through the thesaurus and find it for us.

Your cross references. I think that's a pretty good word to use. But anyway. I think that one was yours. Of course you think that's good. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Anytime. That's what I'm here for. So somebody is going to take the Nashville Statement and add those verse references.

It will happen. But I've read the whole thing. There's nothing in there that I disagreed with. It's and in my mind, I'm making the biblical connection to those things. Right. Like Article 10, for example, which I talked about the other day.

I think that was the only article that I read on Wednesday. In the article, it says we deny that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.

So it is not OK that we as Christians or churches just agree to disagree on this matter. It really is a fundamental issue because we have it said. And I read earlier this week out of First Corinthians, Chapter six.

Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality and then the other sins that proceed from that. These will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Right. So it is not OK to simply agree to disagree on this. These these are issues that have to do with whether or not a person's soul is going to go to heaven or hell. So we have to be together on this.

And we have to preach the Bible according to what God has said. What he has said is living in righteousness. And again, what we read earlier this week out of First Thessalonians, Chapter four, verse three.

This is the will of God, your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality. Yeah. If a person is indulging in sexual immorality, they are not being sanctified. If they're not being sanctified, they were never justified.

Right. If they are not justified, then they stand before God condemned. And that's why these issues are so important. It is it is loving human souls. That's the reason for the Nashville statement, loving people.

It's it's not at all to thump our chest or say we're better than you or say, hey, here's our good old boys club. If you agree with us, come join it. That's not not the matter of this statement at all.

It is it is the care and concern for human beings and treating them with real human dignity, the way that God designed us in his image, that we would treat one another as image bearers of God. So anyway, now I've I've rabbit trail and I've come off the art.

So Article 10 in what it says goes goes directly with what we read in Romans 132, the very end of the of the chapter. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.

So the person who gives approval is just as guilty as the person who does the sin. And so that's see, that might be a verse Romans 132 that you would include in with Article 10 when you're doing your cross referencing to see, OK, where do they get that from scripture?

I see it now. Right. So somebody is going to come along and take those articles and add the cross references. That'll come. Yeah. But in no way does anything that's mentioned in there in the Nashville statement go against what it is that we read in scripture.

I'm glad it was put together. Me too. And especially by it makes things very clear. Right. And that which is the point.

And that's what Dr. Moller said. This is to offer clarity. Right. In the midst of a very, very muddy culture.

Yes, including in the churches, especially in the churches.

Yeah. Boy, that's which is heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to see one church after the next. Get rid of what God has said a man is and a woman is what the roles of men are supposed to be, what the roles of women are supposed to be, what a marriage is supposed to look like.

These things are disappearing from mainstream churches in the United States.

Yeah. But amazingly, it's it's sticking around in the stores. You have the girls section and the boys section. Well, I think that ends.

I think I think that Becky just did shopping today, so she's she was in the in our girls section buying for girls and then going to go get clothes for Siege and you go to the boys section. But I think that that really testifies to the seared conscience of our culture.

It's like they say one thing with their mouths. But when it comes to practice, they know that's not reality, right? It's it's not. And it doesn't make any sense. So there are other other examples, other ways that I could I could go into this.

But we're actually at. Oh, yeah. We're actually at time now. Oh, hi. So we didn't we didn't get to multiple questions here today, but we kind of did. Yeah, we did, too.

OK, OK. Well, I mean, like, yeah, the Old Testament study. Right. And then and then we got to this one.

OK, we're good. But we got several emails about about the Nashville statement thing. And and then I also got some stuff on Twitter about that as well. Right. It was a big topic. And a lot of a lot of hate messages on Twitter this week.

Yeah, that was something else.

But that's OK. That's yeah, I'm looking for my friends.

Yeah, I know. I wanted to go back on to Twitter and just respond to friends. But I had to weed through all of the hate messages that I received. So Sid, the science kid pops into my head. I'm looking for my friends.

I'm looking for you. And we are looking for an email from you. We'd like to hear from you. So email when we understand the text at Gmail dot com. Thank you so much for following us on Twitter as well.

I'm back to Pastor underscore Gabe. I noticed on Twitter. Becky, you can find Twitter dot com slash Becky Hughes, right? B .E .K .I. Right. Hughes. Becky is spelled not in the not in the traditional way.

B .E .K .I. So follow us on Twitter. Go to our Facebook page, which is Facebook dot com slash what videos? W .W .U .T .T videos. I've got another one I'll get done probably Friday has to do with numerology.

That's going to be the next what video? God bless you guys. Thank you so much for praying for us, supporting the ministry and letting others know about our videos, the podcast. We also have transcripts to the videos at the website as well.

So let's close with prayer and we'll be done. Our Lord God, we thank you for the salvation that we have been given through Jesus Christ. And I pray that you keep us steadfast in the faith, pursuing righteousness, growing in sanctification.

So every day we're desiring holiness. We want to be made more like you and every trial, every occasion, every circumstance, every ridicule or even every encouragement or every hardship, any of these things.

May they shape us more and more like Christ so that on the day of glory, we might be presented before you wholly and blameless in his righteousness. And Lord, I pray that that for others who are struggling in their faith, that the convincing arguments, the seemingly convincing arguments of this world will not lead them astray, but they run all the more to the church, the true church of Jesus Christ and hold fast to the body and long for the word of God, that they may be filled up with good things in Christ Jesus.

I thank you for the men and women that stood shoulder to shoulder, side by side to put together what became the Nashville statement. And I pray that we would grow in unity as a church behind statements like this, which are thoroughly biblical and grounded upon the word of truth, which is the Bible.

This is our guide, our authority in all matters of faith and practice. So may we submit to it daily and desire to please you with all that we do. Forgive us our sins and lead us in paths of righteousness for your namesake.

In Jesus name, amen.

Right? Right. That's what it says. I know, but that just sounds weird. Find all our videos, all your videos, all our videos on our website at www .utd .gov. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. What's up, y 'all?

Should I start talking like that? This is when we understand the text.

It's country bunking day on when we understand the text.

Studying the word of God that we may know the mind of God. This is when we understand the text, studying the word of God that we may know the mind of God. Find all our videos on our website at www .utd .com.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Oh, hey, is that me? Am I supposed to come in? Yeah, that was you. Because that was pretty good. Yeah, too bad, huh? You weren't paying attention. Beep-boop, beep-boop, beep-boop, beep-boop, beep-boop, beep-boop, beep.

Thank you. Thank you for the sound effects, which I have specifically muted my phone to avoid.

I was just being Aria for a moment. Yeah, right. Okay, bye.