May 11, 2017 Show with James M. Renihan on “The Institute for Reformed Baptist Studies & IRBS Seminary”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 11th day of May 2017 and I'm delighted to have back on the program today,

Dr. James M. Renahan, who is Dean and Professor of Historical Theology at the

Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies and we are going to be hearing an update from him on the progress that IRBS is making and to hear more about what they are doing and what they have planned for the future and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

Jim Renahan. Hi Chris, glad to be with you today. And in studio with me is my co -host, the

Reverend Buzz Taylor. And hello once again. And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr.

Jim Renahan, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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And once again, that email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Before we even get into the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, this may seem like a silly question to you because you know

I'm a Reformed Baptist, but we do have listeners that seem to be joining the

Iron Sharpens Iron audience for the first time every week. I get emails from unfamiliar individuals from all over the world.

So I'd like to ask you, what is a Reformed Baptist? I know people, some people might be scratching their heads. We have

Presbyterians who reject the idea that that is even a possibility, that that's an oxymoronic title or name,

Reformed Baptist. And you even have some Fundamentalist Baptists or Baptists of other kinds that would agree with the

Presbyterians on that. They would say there's no such thing as a Reformed Baptist. And then you have others that are just clueless when they hear that term.

I can still remember a radio host who was interviewing James White, a dear friend of mine from Alpha Omega Ministries, many years ago.

He was a friend of mine who was hosting his own five -minute program on family radio.

This is back in the 90s. And he had not been familiar with the term

Reformed Baptist. And he asked Dr. White, you say you were a Reformed Baptist.

What are you now? He was using the term as if he was reforming from being a

Baptist. But anyway, if you could let us, our listeners know, what is a Reformed Baptist?

Sure. You know, when people ask me that question, the simple answer that I give is

I ask them back, do you know who Charles Spurgeon was? Of course, almost always they say yes.

And my answer is, well, when Charles Spurgeon built the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London in the 1850s, in the cornerstone of the building, he had a copy of the

Second London Confession of Faith from late in the 17th century enclosed in that cornerstone as a statement that the building is built on the theology that comes from those

Baptists who lived from 1640 on into 1700.

Reformed Baptists, and so Spurgeon was, using the term anachronistically, a

Reformed Baptist. Perhaps a more detailed response to the question is just to say that it's our goal as Reformed Baptists to recover the heritage of the large stream of Baptists that come out of the 17th century during the

Puritan era, who were then called Particular Baptists because they believed in particular election and particular redemption as over against the

General Baptists who believed in general atonement and general election. We believe that that these

Particular Baptists had it right, that they understood what the Word of God teaches, and so we are committed to their

Confession of Faith. The title Reformed Baptist probably originates right there in Carlisle in the early 1960s at Grace Baptist Church.

There was a close relationship between Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia and the leadership of Grace Baptist in Carlisle, and somewhere in that relationship, whether it was some of the guys from Philadelphia or actually some of the leadership in Carlisle, I'm not positive, but they are the ones who first used the term

Reformed Baptist. So in a modern context to say, we're committed to the

Reformed faith at large, but we tweak it a little bit when it comes to those who ought to be baptized and confess their faith in the waters of baptism.

And if you were to take a look at our Confession of Faith, it's commonly known as the 1689

Confession. If you looked at it and compared it to the Westminster Confession from 1647, the

Presbyterian document, you would see that there's a direct family relationship between the two.

The vast majority of the material in the 1689 Confession is exactly the same as what's in the

Westminster Confession, and they did that on purpose to say, we agree with these

Presbyterians. We're on the same page, but we do have our areas of difference, and the primary area of difference is baptism.

And the Reverend Buzz Taylor has a question. Well, just to kind of put myself in perspective here for history here, just like with Presbyterians, you've got everything from the liberals that don't believe in the inspiration of the scriptures anymore, all the way down to like my church,

Reformed Presbyterian Church, you have Baptist churches that are Reformed, you have Baptist churches that are far away from being

Reformed in their theology. If the Baptists started out, and I have the 1689

Confession, I really do like it, but how are there so many splinters off of that?

Where did all the others go wrong, if I can put it that way? I don't know if you understand my question. Total depravity. But I mean, like,

I'm actually, this isn't very well known, but I am ordained Baptist, but I was ordained by an independent

Baptist board in Western New York years ago. A free will believing

Baptist church. So yes, so, you know, and for the longest time, I had never heard of a

Reformed Baptist, even when I was a Baptist. So how did we get from 1689 to what we have today?

Yeah, well, that's a long story and a good question. But the short answer is, in the 19th century, both in England and in the

United States, the Baptists moved away from their older confessionalism.

If you look at the 18th century, like, for example, near you, the Philadelphia Association is sort of the mother association of Baptists in America, and the

Philadelphia Confession reprinted the 1689 Confession in 1742.

In fact, a little bit trivia, it was Benjamin Franklin who was the printer. But they reprinted it, and it became the standard confession of Baptists in the 18th century.

It was reprinted in Charleston, called the Charleston Confession. It was reprinted in Warren, Rhode Island, called the

Warren Confession. It was the standard. But when you come to the 19th century, here in the

U .S., and also in England, the Baptists are starting to move away from a commitment to confessions of faith, and they're developing a broader perspective on themselves and their relationships with others, so that by the time you get to the end of Spurgeon's life, for example, you had what was called the downgrade controversy.

Spurgeon, as part of the Baptist Union, was hoping that somehow he could convince them to adopt some form of doctrinal statement, and they were unwilling to do so, and he was unceremoniously drummed out of the

Baptist Union as a result. That's a real simplification of the controversy. But it illustrates the point.

The same thing, a similar thing happened in America. By the time you get to the beginning of the 20th century, fundamentalism has taken over.

The mentality that we have to hold on to the fundamentals of the faith with all of the strength that we have, and the reduction of a full -orbed theological system in Christianity to a couple of fundamental points, really made the confessions to be forgotten among the majority of Baptists in America.

It really wasn't until the 1950s, right there in Carlisle, that things began to change.

And then now there's a great move back towards the confession, though, right? Very strong, yes.

It's very encouraging to see what's happening. And although there has always been, from recorded history, a divide amongst

Baptists between those that would be Reformed or particular Baptists, and those who would be

Arminian, although most Baptists I have ever met or ever read, even from the past, who are not

Calvinist, do not call themselves Arminian, but you can't escape the fact that most are four -point

Arminian that are outside of the Reformed camp. But even though there was that divide, was there not a time when the

Calvinists actually dominated Baptist life, and today it's a reverse?

Today we are a minority? Oh yeah, very clearly. In colonial New England and all up and down the

East Coast, the dominant strain of Baptists was the Calvinists, and that's really true in England as well.

You know, the General Baptists, as they're called, the Arminians, began first, a totally separate beginning from the particular

Baptists, but they were influenced very early in their development by some really heretical doctrines.

And by the time you get to the year about 1700, many of the General Baptists in England had already become

Unitarian, and it wasn't until the Evangelical Revival in the middle of the 18th century that you begin to have a recovery of conservative theology among the

General Baptists, and they actually, it's called the New Connection of General Baptists. It's a couple of groups that come together out of the

Evangelical Revival without really any ties to the older group of General Baptists.

So at that point, certainly, the Calvinists on both sides of the Atlantic are the vast majority.

Yes, and even, it may shock a lot of our listeners, but even denominations today, like the large,

I think it's the largest Protestant denomination in the world, the Southern Baptist Convention, even they began as an exclusively

Calvinistic denomination, whereas today they are a minority, and in varying degrees, they are either merely tolerated or absolutely hated and despised by some others within that denomination, who would like nothing more than to see them disappear from the

Southern Baptist Convention. Yeah, I'm not sure that that's exactly right, Chris.

You know, the Southern Baptist Convention was formed in 1845, and it would have included a variety of churches, though the dominant strain would have been

Calvinistic. Now, if you mean Baptist churches in the South 100 years before, and in that century prior to 1845, then you're right.

The beginnings of Baptist presence in the South are overwhelmingly

Calvinistic. There was a strain of Free Will Baptists, but it was very small compared to the larger

Calvinistic presence. I was just going, according to the very reason that the

Founders Ministries call themselves the Founders, because they are seeking to restore the teachings and doctrines of the

Founders of the Southern Baptist Convention to the denomination, and the Founders are all

Calvinist today. Yes, yeah. So you would grant that there were

Arminians as a part of the original group of Southern Baptist Convention leaders, but they were in the minority?

No, no, not leaders, but churches. You have to remember that there were already state associations in the various Southern states, and those state associations may have included some non -Calvinistic churches, and by that I don't mean thoroughly convinced

Arminian churches, but churches that scrupled over certain aspects of Calvinistic doctrine. Yes, but the leaders you're saying were exclusively

Calvinistic? The founding leaders. Let's say predominantly. I can't think of all of the names and theology of all of the leaders, but certainly predominantly.

Were not the regular Baptists at one time predominantly Calvinist? Oh, certainly, yes.

In fact, that was just sort of the American name for particular Baptist was regular Baptist. Yeah, and it's interesting that I have met a number of them, and although I have met some thoroughgoing

Calvinists among them, I've also met some vehemently anti -Calvinist pastors in the regular Baptist group. Yeah, yeah.

You know, the general association of regular Baptist churches, GRBC, took the name, but they didn't necessarily have the theology.

Regular Baptist really applies back into the 18th century, and it's a title that generally was given to the older, more established churches in the cities and towns on the east coast.

And it's interesting when I have read documents from centuries past by non -Baptists, by Arminian Christians, and leaders in various fellowships and denominations that were not

Calvinist, they write as though they assume that Baptists are all

Calvinists. Yeah, that when they are saying something in opposition to Calvinism, they will typically write, at least very often as I have read, they will, if they're referring to a

Baptist, they will automatically seemingly assume that the person is a Calvinist. Yeah, that's true.

Well, tell us about IRBS, the Institute for Reform Baptist Studies, and tell us about its roots, how it came about, and of course then we will get an update from you about our

IRBS Theological Seminary. Great, yes. In 1997, when the

Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America was formed, we received a very generous invitation from Dr.

Robert Godfrey, president of Westminster Seminary California, to put together some kind of proposal for cooperation with Westminster Seminary in order to train men for the ministry.

So this was his idea? Yes, it arose, it was an invitation that came to us from the seminary here.

And Dr. Robert Godfrey, is he in the United Reformed Church of North America? Yes, he is.

That's a Pato Baptist congregation, or denomination, I should say. Yes, it is, yes.

But he saw that there were a couple of reasons to do this. One of them is there were always some

Baptists who were members of the student body, and he knew that it would help them to have somebody on campus who could give them some direction.

He also had friendship with some pastors,

Reformed Baptist pastors here in Southern California, and he knew from them that some kind of formal ministerial training would be of benefit to our churches.

And so he offered to us the opportunity to put together a proposal.

A committee was formed, the committee wrote up the proposal, presented it to the faculty and the trustees here at Westminster, they approved it, it was sent to the churches of the association, they approved it, and that proposal was what became the

Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies. I moved out here with my family from Massachusetts.

I had been church planting and was a pastor up there, and we moved out in 1998 and began the program.

We are just completing our 19th year with Westminster Seminary. It's been a great relationship every day for 19 years.

I cannot express how thankful I am to God, but also to the administration and faculty at Westminster for making this relationship as good as it has been.

Yeah, it's refreshing to hear this, especially when you constantly hear from those outside of Reformed camp that we are sectarian, bigoted, and isolationist, and really do not seek any cooperation or involvement outside of our own little pocket or little sect.

It's good to see that men who can disagree very strongly on areas that involve church polity and baptism, very important issues in the body of Christ, but there is still great love and affection and cooperation there.

Yeah, I was talking this morning to Reverend Joel Kim, who's the president elect of Westminster Seminary here, and we were talking about how marvelous these 19 years have been, and how the

Lord has enabled us to give a demonstration that men who have some very strong differences of opinion on some key issues can work together in real harmony to the glory of God for all of that time.

And we really love each other, we have a deep respect for each other, a mutual appreciation.

Reverend Kim has been here as professor of New Testament for, oh, I don't know, 12, 14 years, something like that, so he has a long history observing and participating in our relationship between IRBS and Westminster Seminary.

He was talking to me about how much he's appreciated our students and the abilities of our students.

There are several of them that he all, every time I see him, he's asking me, how is so -and -so, can you give me an update on so -and -so?

That's just a little story that gives evidence of how wonderful this relationship has been for all of these years.

There's also a lesson to those who are living up to the negative stereotypes within the

Reformed camp, both on the Pato Baptist and Reformed Baptist side, who do have those sectarian and even sometimes, dare

I say, cultic attitudes of isolation and disdain for those outside of their exact way of thinking.

Yeah, yeah, we want to maintain this, and we're thankful to God for what he has done and hope that it will continue for the foreseeable future, of course.

And that's probably another one of the uniqueness, unique character traits of Reformed Baptists, as opposed to those outside of Reformed theology, those in the

Baptist camp outside of Reformed theology, is that Reformed Baptists have historically sought to find unity and camaraderie with Protestantism and Protestants in general, and especially our

Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed brethren. Yeah, let's be honest, we have been tremendously helped by the writings of all of these men, going all the way back to the

Reformation. We all, when we preach and we want to work carefully through a text of scripture, we all take down John Calvin's writings.

We look at our Puritan sets that the Banner of Truth has reprinted for us, or Soli Deo Gloria, and we rejoice in what we read in them.

We have profited from Charles Hodge and B .B. Warfield and Your Heart is Vos, and all of these men, and we thank

God for them, and we're not ashamed to say that they have taught us that they've been instruments of the Lord to help us better understand what the scriptures are all about.

Yes, and we very often will joyfully celebrate things such as the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation, whereas many of our Baptist friends outside of Calvinism, outside of the

Reformed faith, will disdain sometimes, even go to that level of opposition to the

Protestant Reformers and anything Protestant. Yeah, it's sad that that happens, but you're right, sometimes it does happen.

But on the other hand, aren't those sometimes some of your strongest anti -Catholic people? This is

Reverend Buzz Taylor, our co -host. You're talking about those non... Yes.

Yeah, well, yes, I think what you're getting at, and isn't it odd, Dr. Renahan, that you have fundamentalists, fundamentalist

Baptists who are vehemently anti -Catholic and will be filled with hateful rhetoric at times, even beyond that which is necessary, and yet they are more on the side of Erasmus than they are on the side of Luther in the debate on the bondage of the will, and in many ways are more, unconsciously more on the side of Catholicism soteriologically.

It's a strange conundrum, brother. We have, let's see, we have all the way from Slovenia, we have

Joe, who says, Dear Brother Chris, thanks for having such quality guests like Dr. Renahan.

I consider myself a Reformed Baptist. My view of the Lord's Supper is firmly with Zwingli's memorial remembrance, as opposed to Calvin's emphasis on Christ's spiritual presence with the elements as a means of grace.

Is my view within the scope of Reformed Baptist why or why not? Is my view the majority or minority view among Reformed Baptists?

Thank you so much for sharpening our focus on Reformed Baptist distinctives. And to be perfectly honest,

Dr. Renahan, most of my life as a Reformed Baptist, I have leaned towards the

Zwinglian idea of a memorial remembrance, but have, in more recent years, begun to investigate more deeply

Calvin's understanding and the understanding of some of the other Reformers. But if you could respond to Joe from Slovenia's question.

Sure, at least briefly. You know, Scholarship Today is questioning whether Zwingli was a

Zwinglian. Yeah, I have heard that. I have heard that. In terms of, you know, how the memorialist view is typically defined.

Let me suggest two resources to Joe that he might find useful and can probe this in more in -depth.

The first is chapter 30 of the 1689 Confession, which deals with the question of the

Lord's Supper. And it does reflect more of the view of Calvin, a real presence view, than the memorialist view that has been probably the dominant view in Evangelicalism today.

But more in -depth than that would be Richard Barcellas' book, The Lord's Supper as a Means of Grace.

And I think that Joe, if he's able to obtain a copy of that, which he can purchase from www .rbap

.net, www .rbap .net. If he were to obtain that book, it would really help him think through this issue and see what the historical position of the

Baptist was, what the Confession says, and then it deals with the Scriptures as well. Yeah, in fact,

I hope to have Richard Barcellas on the program to discuss that book. But as far as his question is concerned, could a church, for instance, be in Arpga if they were to have a purely memorial view of the

Lord's Supper? That, I don't see why not. The question would be, how did they understand chapter 30 of the

Confession? You know, that issue has never come up before, so I'm sort of shooting from the hip here.

Right. And, you know, so I don't think it would be a problem, but I don't know. And for those of you who don't know what

Arpga is, that's the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America, of which

Dr. Renahan is a part, and I'm assuming that a lot of those involved with IRBS are involved in Arpga as well, am

I correct? Yes, all of our trustees are from Arpga churches.

And before I get into more details about the seminary, not all

Reformed Baptists, even within Arpga, are in lockstep as far as being cookie -cutter congregations, are they?

I mean, I've seen and experienced some variety within the

Reformed Baptist churches in various parts of the country. Even here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the church may not be exactly like a lot of other

Reformed Baptist churches. For instance, there are Reformed Baptist churches that refuse to have any kind of cross on the wall, whereas here in Carlisle we do.

Some Reformed Baptist churches are very opposed to choirs and things like that.

They fear that may be slipping into the realm of vain worship and so on, and since there were no choirs in the

New Testament, the more strict adherence to the regulative principle might not want that, or might even oppose that being a presence.

So there are differences, aren't there, amongst them? Yes, yes. What we have in common, of course, are our commitment to Christ, our commitment to the

Scriptures, and our commitment to the confession of faith, which we believe very clearly articulates the doctrine that is contained in the

Scriptures. But matters that are outside of what is defined for us in the confession of faith, there's a lot of differences among churches, and we don't want, we don't promote a kind of, everybody has to look exactly the same view.

All right, we'll be learning more about IRBS and the seminary when we return from this station break.

And by the way, thank you very much Joe in Slovenia for your question, and continue listening to Iron Sharpens Iron, and spreading the word in Slovenia and beyond.

But we're going to be right back after these messages with Dr. Jim Renahan, God willing, so don't go away.

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We hope that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio blesses you for many years to come. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is

Dr. James M. Renahan, Dean and Professor of Historical Theology at the

Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies. And we are getting updates on IRBS and the seminary.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Dr. Renahan, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the U .S .A. And you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal or private matter.

And we have from the Trinity Grace Church of Greater Manchester in the

United Kingdom, we have Pastor Oliver Almond Smith.

And I hope I'm pronouncing Almond correctly. He says, Hi, Jim. Being from the

United Kingdom where Reformed and confessional training for a man is hard to find, can you help us?

Will there be an international aspect to the new seminary? How can we work with you to facilitate this?

Also, could you let me know how I can listen to the program? Okay. This is irontrepansironradio .com

is obviously where you can get the archive of the program later on. With kind regards from this side of the water,

Pastor Oliver Almond Smith. So is it going to have an international aspect to it?

Well, let's talk about the seminary first, because we haven't really explained to folks what's happening yet.

Sure. Two weeks ago yesterday, the churches of the

Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America at their General Assembly in Georgia overwhelmingly approved the proposal to advance our program here at Escondido into a full standalone seminary to be located in the

Dallas -Fort Worth area of Texas, beginning classes in September of 2018, maybe

August or September of 2018. So we are right now in the beginning.

We've been working on this for a long time, but that vote changed our direction because now with the permission and authority of the

General Assembly, we can go full speed ahead developing our plans and moving towards a seminary.

So our goal is to open classes in 2018, and by the year 2021, have our first graduating class of men who we hope churches will call into the gospel ministry for the service of the

Lord Jesus. It's not... Well, let me say, it will be primarily focused on the

Master of Divinity degree, which is the standard seminary degree that's offered really around the world in preparation for men to serve in the pastoral ministry.

So that's where we're at. It's very exciting. I've been thrilled at this.

At the same time, I'm sad that we have to leave Westminster Seminary. As I said,

I was talking with the President -elect and also with Dr. Godfrey this morning. Today was his final chapel service as a preacher during his presidency, and I congratulated him afterwards, and I thanked him for the warm friendship and the welcome that they've given to us.

So I have a certain amount of sadness that we will be leaving here, although we'll be leaving here with really good relationship to Westminster Seminary.

But at the same time, I'm very excited about what is ahead and the possibility of training men, building our own school, having our own faculty, developing this program, and seeing our graduates go out, plant churches, go to the foreign mission field, and strengthen the cause of Christ here in the

United States. So that's the plan. Now, the question from Pastor Almond Smith in Greater Manchester, England was, can we help them?

Well, I hope that we'll be able to do so. It may be that opportunity will arise for us to offer classes in an extension location, perhaps in England.

We hope that maybe some of the young men from Britain will be able to come and study with us in Texas, but it is important for us to have a really strong relationship with the

Reformed Baptist Churches of Britain, and that's our long -term goal. Well, thank you,

Pastor Almond Smith, and we hope that you continue listening to Iron Trip and Zion Radio and spreading the word about the program throughout the

UK. And so a lot of changes are being made there.

Do you have a new website and so on? Yes, actually, irbsseminary .org,

I -R -B -S -S -E -M -I -N -A -R -Y .org.

There's two S's in the middle. And since we're only two weeks after the vote, we haven't done a lot of updating yet on that site, so it doesn't have the full curriculum.

It hasn't begun to identify professors, but it gives the basic outlines of what we're doing, and it has a contact page.

Someone can sign up there on the contact page for the updates that come out as things move ahead, and they're moving very quickly.

We just announced today, sent out an announcement, that the trustees have appointed

Steve Martin to serve as the Dean of Students for our new school. Probably some of your listeners know

Steve Martin. He has been a pastor for 30 or 40 years. He has spent much of his pastoral ministry mentoring students and even training them for the gospel ministry.

And everyone who knows Steve says he's the perfect man for a position of Dean of Students.

His responsibilities will be to lead internship and apprenticeship programs, to work with the students on a weekly basis in terms of devotion and piety.

You know, a seminary is an academic institution.

But at the same time, it's really important for it not to replace the church at all, but still to teach its classes about scripture in an environment that promotes holiness, that's not simply dealing with matters of grammar and vocabulary and propositions, but doing so with a sense of devotion to the

Lord. And Steve will be a great aid to us in making that an emphasis throughout our curriculum.

So we're really excited about that. We have some other men that we are in the process of working with.

And as the next year goes past, we'll be able to announce more and more men that we're able to bring on board to help us with that.

Well, I hope you also get Pastor Tim Conway on your faculty, so this way you can advertise that Steve Martin and Tim Conway have joined the faculty of the

Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies. Oh, yeah. But please tell

Steve Martin that I eagerly would love to have him as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I've been wanting to have him on the program for years, and things just slipped through the cracks.

In the past, there were conflicts with schedules and calendars and so on, but now that this update especially has been made,

I would love to have him on the program. Yeah, we're really excited about having Steve with us.

He's the perfect man for this position. We're really thankful. In fact, not long ago, one of my sponsors,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Patty Jennings, one of the owners, had been urging me to get

Steve Martin on the program, and I remember there was an attempt made, but for some reason it fell through the cracks.

But this is a reminder for me to try to set that up. Yeah, he did a blog, maybe he still does, for Cumberland Valley in which he talks about books.

People write in and ask questions, and he answers the questions and helps people to decide which books to buy.

That's another area of his expertise is his familiarity with Christian literature. Yeah, that's probably why

Patty wanted me to get him on there. Get him on here, I should say. We have

Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker from Shepard's Fellowship in Greensboro, North Carolina, and he says,

Thank you, Dr. Renahan, for including a Sovereign Grace Baptist Association guys in the Reform Baptist group.

What do you understand to be the most meaningful difference between the 1644 -46 and the 1689

London Baptist Confession? Okay.

You know, the men in the 17th century stated that theologically there were no differences between the two confessions.

The same churches were involved in the issuing of both confessions. Some of the very same men were alive from 1644 -46 until 1677 when the

Second London Confession were issued, and they quite explicitly state that there's no differences theologically between them.

Are there differences, though? Yes, the differences are in terms of format and structure.

The first confession, the 1644 and its revision in 1646, and then there was another minor revision in 1651, this confession was based on a document from 1596 called the

True Confession, or sometimes the Separatist Confession. It came out of the Netherlands, one of the

British churches in exile that met in the minister who had to go to the

Netherlands because of persecution. And so it's structured according to the order of that earlier

Separatist Confession, where the Second London had the benefit of being written after the publication of the

Westminster Confession, and so its structure is much more akin to that of the

Westminster Confession rather than the Separatist Confession of 1596.

And I would say that the 1596 confession may have been the best available confession for the

Baptist in 1644. One of the interesting things that B .R.

White points out about the First London is that it removes all of the hard, razor -sharp language of the

Separatist Confession. The Separatists, because they had been hounded out of the Church of England, tended to use really acrimonious language towards the

Church of England, not just towards Rome, but towards the Church of England, because they were probably,

I don't know if this is a fair word, but let's say bitter against their persecutors. Well, when the

Baptists took over that 1596 confession, they removed all of that language, and it's a much better, much kinder, much more...

There's a greater attempt at reaching out to the pedo -Baptists than there is in the 1596

Separatist Confession. That same spirit carries over into the Second London. Both of them have that desire to say to the pedo -Baptists around them, we're like you, we agree with you, we want you to read this and recognize that we are

Orthodox Christians, we're not unorthodox. So they have that similarity, they have the same theology, but the form, the structure, those are the areas in which they differ.

We have Mike from Fillmore, Indiana. Is there a website listing

Reformed Baptist Churches that are looking for pastors? I do not know of one.

Yeah, I don't know of one either. The only thing that I know of is that even after his entering into eternity with Christ, Johnny Fareese's website is still available, fareese .com,

F -A -R -E -S -E .com, which has a Reformed Baptist Church directory.

I don't know how updated or complete it is, but he could at least, or Michael, you could at least go to that and contact the churches on that list, and hopefully you'll be able to find out something that way.

Yeah, I don't know of anything that lists churches looking for pastors. We have Richard in Palmdale, California.

Can you tell us about the Master of Divinity program? Do you have any idea who will be on the faculty, and what are the internships and apprenticeships?

Oh, okay. Well, the Master of Divinity degree is the standard preparation, and it emphasizes careful study in the original languages of Scripture, because we believe it's very important for ministers to be directly conversant with the

Word of God as it came from the pens of the authors of Scripture, whether Old Testament Hebrew or New Testament Greek.

It focuses on acquiring the necessary skills in studying the

Word of God, in exegesis, in understanding how the languages function, and how theology is to be drawn out of the texts of Scripture.

It focuses on church history. Church history is the study of people and events.

Historical theology is the study of doctrine and its development in the church. And both of those are important.

Church history gives us sort of the outline of what happened. Who are the people? When did it happen?

Why did it happen? Where did it happen? But church history is only an introduction that leads to historical theology, and helps us to see how certain doctrines came to be defined in the history of the church.

For example, the doctrine of the Trinity, or the deity and true humanity of our

Lord Jesus. Those things need to be studied and need to be understood by students.

There's also a component of pastoral theology that focuses the attention of students on sort of the nuts and bolts of the ministry, trying to hone their gifts of preaching and of pastoral interaction with the people of God that they will serve.

Some courses in counseling that will give them some understanding of how the Scriptures can be applied to various difficulties, problems, sins, questions that the people of God may have, evangelism and missions, how should we lead the church forward in these things.

So it really, it's a minimum of three years. Some men find it necessary to do it in four.

But it's a very comprehensive program that is intended to give students a preparation and the tools that they will need for a lifelong ministry.

You know, the typical young man who comes to us might be 30 when he graduates. In all things being equal, he could have 40 years of pastoral ministry in front of him.

And he needs that careful and thorough preparation in the same way that if you went to a heart surgeon, you want a man who's well -trained and well -prepared to be able to work on your heart and all of the physical parts of your body that are associated with your heart.

We believe that it's just as necessary for pastors who are doing heart surgery in the lives of individuals to know the whole system of Christian theology, to know the

Old Testament, to know the New Testament, to know the languages, to know how doctrine has developed in the church, and to be able to bring all of those things in a form that will be helpful to God's people, to those same people.

In fact, perhaps you could continue answering Richard's question after the break. If anybody else would like to join us as well, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back. Tired of bop store

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that's banneroftruth .org, click on Events, and then click on U .S. Ministers' Conference.

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Also featured is a dear friend of mine, Pastor Mac Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, and Pastor Jesse Barrington, who we've recently had on this program, and Pastor Nate Pickowitz, who is going to be my guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in the upcoming weeks.

So if you would like to attend this event, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. Last but not least, the G3 Conference is going to be held

January 18th through the 20th in 2018, and I'm delighted to announce that I will once again have an exhibitor's booth there at the

G3 Conference, compliments of Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church there in the

Atlanta, Georgia area. The conference is being held in Atlanta, again, at the

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They have, in 2018, they will have, God willing, Paul Washer, Stephen Lawson, Votie Baucom, H .P.

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January in Atlanta, Georgia at the 2017 G3 Conference, and I look forward to meeting many more of you that I have never met before.

Please look for me at the Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitors booth at the 2018

G3 Conference. For more details on registering, go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com. I also need to remind you that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is in urgent need of sponsors, benefactors, and advertisers.

If you can find it within your heart and budget to donate to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

click on support, and you will be given an address where you can mail checks of any amount made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

As always, I never want anyone siphoning money out of the regular giving that you are accustomed to to your local congregation where you are a member, and I also do not want to siphon money away from families that are struggling to get by.

I don't want to take food off your tables. So if you are blessed above and beyond your ability to provide, as always, for your church and your family,

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And I thank all of you from the depths of my heart who have already donated to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, some of you who have donated multiple times.

I cannot express to you in the English language how grateful I am to you and for you, and I look forward to being able to air this program,

God willing, for many years to come, and I hope that you are continually blessed by the guests and topics that we air on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

We're back now to our discussion with Dr. Jim Renahan on the

Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies Seminary, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and I don't know if you had completed your answer to Rich in Palmdale, California, but he was asking not only about the

Master of Divinity program, but he was asking about the faculty and internships and apprenticeships.

Yes. Yeah, you know, we are in conversation with several men to come and teach with us, and some of them, you know, we're not ready yet to name them publicly for various reasons.

Oh, you can name my name. We have about 20 names on our list, but I'll tell you some of the men that we've been in contact with that I expect will be teaching for us.

Fred Malone, Dr. Fred Malone. Oh yeah. Very well -known PhD from Southwestern Seminary in New Testament.

We hope that Fred will be leading our Pastoral Theology program, putting that into development, and I think that that will happen.

Richard Barcelos, who has done some really fantastic work on New Testament interpretation, hermeneutics in Scripture, New Testament courses, he'll be teaching for us.

Stephan Lindblad, who is almost at the end of his PhD at Calvin Seminary.

We expect that Stephan will be teaching some of our theology classes for us. Your old friend,

James White, we've had conversations with, and we want James to come and be a visiting professor for us.

Oh, great. Hopefully, I'll be teaching some classes. We want to have

Dr. Sam Waldron come and be a visiting professor and teach some classes for us.

Great. Steve Martin will be our dean. We'll also have some responsibilities in teaching.

We're going to develop a first -year course, an Introduction to Theology course, and we'll be team teaching it, and Steve will be part of that team.

Tom Hicks, who's PhD from Southern Seminary and is now the pastor at First Baptist Clinton, Louisiana, we hope to have him on board as a visiting professor.

That's just eight or nine of the names out of the 20 that we hope to have with us.

We also have been in conversation with a couple of well -known men who teach at some of the

Presbyterian seminaries around the U .S., and we're hopeful that they will be able to come and participate with us.

They've given us very positive signs to say they'd be happy to, if it can fit into their schedule, to come and teach courses as a visiting professor.

I can't talk about their names yet, but they're names that everyone would recognize, and they'd say, wow, that would be great if so -and -so could come and teach for you.

We're really trying to put together a first -rate faculty of men who are qualified academically, but also who have demonstrated by their lives and by their scholarship, their commitment to the

Lord Jesus and to the Church. You want to follow up on that, or do you want me to go ahead with the internship question?

Oh, yeah, you could go ahead with that. I will get to RJ and White Plains in a little bit, but go ahead.

Okay, yeah, one of the things that I really love about the program here at Westminster is their internship program.

They require all students to have 700 hours of supervised internships in churches, and we've found over the years that the best way for students to do that is with summer internships.

Of course, during the school year, all of the men have a somewhat limited internship relationship with the local church that they attend here in Southern California, but there's only so much that they can do on a weekly basis, where during the summers, they can go to a church and spend six or eight or even 10 weeks learning directly from the pastors of those churches 40 or 50 hours a week.

We've sent men overseas. We just had someone this past summer go to Singapore for an internship.

We've had men in New Zealand, in Africa, in Ireland. It really is a benefit.

So what we want to do, and what Steve Martin will be doing as dean, is developing these internship relationships with churches, establishing them, laying out the groundwork, setting up the guidelines, helping churches to figure out what it is they ought to do when students come with them.

And then apprenticeships are similar but slightly different. Over the last, oh,

I don't know, maybe up to 10 years, as men have graduated from IRBS and Westminster Seminary, many of them have been offered a one -year relationship with a church where they go, they live in that church, and they actually have an extended period of time in which they can learn from the elders of that church about pastoral ministry.

And we think that that's a, I think that that's a great idea. And so we want to try to encourage that all the more and develop relationships with churches who would be able to take in a man for one year or more.

We actually have one of our graduates is just completing the first year of a three -year formal internship in a church here in the

United States. We'd love to see that develop because one of our convictions is that while a man is young, it is really good for him to lay down a solid foundation so that he can have a ministry that will be bearing fruit for three or four decades into the future.

So that the more that he can do in terms of studies and the more that he can do in terms of direct preparation in churches, the more beneficial that will be for his long -term ministry.

So we're working very hard to lay down the basis for those internships and apprenticeships, and we hope that they will be useful to the men and also to the churches.

In fact, what that's been really interesting to me is when churches have had young men, they write to me afterwards and they say, we didn't know what to expect going into this, but it has been a real blessing to our church.

We loved so -and -so, and we'd love to have another intern if you can send him to us. So that's the goal.

It's not just to have a really thoroughgoing academic education, but also to provide them with some real -life hands -on experience under the supervision of wise and experienced pastors in a variety of churches.

Great. Well, thank you, Rich, and keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron, and keep spreading the word about the program in Palmdale, California and beyond.

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who asks, will there be any restrictions upon what students you accept to the seminary?

Can a Presbyterian, for instance, become a student there, or perhaps a

New Covenant theologian Baptist? Well, there will be some restrictions.

We'll want a clear testimony of faith in Christ, and with some exceptions, a man will need to have a bachelor's degree before he comes in.

Older students, 35 and over, in graduate schools are sometimes allowed admission under certain conditions.

But generally speaking, students need to have a bachelor's degree. But I don't anticipate any kind of theological restrictions to students.

So if a Presbyterian wanted to come in, if somebody who believed in New Covenant theology wanted to come in, and they met all of the other standard requirements,

I don't see any obstacle to that. They would have to understand that they're going to be taught confessional

Reformed Baptist doctrine. And I would hope that they would come in, not with a pugilistic attitude, but with an attitude of recognizing that they need to learn, and they need to be humble in their relationship to their professors.

But I can't see why we wouldn't welcome someone from a slightly different perspective into our midst.

And even, you know, I anticipate, perhaps locally, what's interesting that happens here in Southern California is that some men come to Westminster just because it's the nearest, the closest seminary nearby, and they don't have any sense even of what it means to be a

Reformed Christian. And that could well happen to us being in the Dallas -Fort

Worth area. I know that there's already a couple of well -established and very large schools, but it could happen that somebody decides that they want to come and study with us.

Like I say, if they meet the standard criteria that they would need to meet in any other school,

I suspect they'd be very welcome. Now, I know that you, as the vast majority, if not all

Reformed Baptists, are a complementarian in your understanding of gender roles.

Would there be any circumstances where a woman be able to study there?

There may be women who have no interest at all in becoming elders or pastors or anything that they believe or a complementarian would believe violates the scriptural roles for genders, but they may just want to learn.

They may just want to be more effective on teaching the younger women in the church.

They may just want to know the Lord and the scriptures more deeply. Is there any avenue where women can enter into the student body there?

Yeah, well, remember that we're only two weeks after the vote, and so a lot of the specific answers to questions like that,

I can't make any promises at this point, but I'll give you a couple of things as to what could possibly happen.

Certainly, I expect that the Master of Divinity degree will be restricted to men only. It's a ministerial preparation degree, and just like here at Westminster Seminary, it's for men only.

I don't anticipate that we would admit women to that degree. However, here at Westminster, they have what

I think is a really useful program, and that is that the wives of the students are permitted to attend classes free.

They don't get credit for the classes, but they're allowed to sit in with their husbands and benefit from the classes, and I think it would be to our benefit to do that as well.

That gives the wife of the potential pastor a much better theological understanding of what's happening in her church, what her husband is preaching, so I think

I can imagine that that would happen. Likewise, and we haven't even walked down this road yet, but it's on the table for discussion.

I think it would be beneficial to us to have a secondary degree, some kind of Master of Arts degree, and it would serve a variety of purposes.

It would not be too challenging to add to the program, and I can imagine that that would be a degree program that women could enter into and graduate with a

Master of Arts degree. It may be that we would want to do that in an area where we have particular proficiency, where our professors have demonstrated a certain level of knowledge that perhaps is unique to who we are and what we're about, or it could be a more general degree,

Master of Arts in Theological Studies or Master of Arts in Biblical Studies or something like that, but I anticipate that we probably will try to at least look at and hopefully develop a secondary degree, and women could be admitted to that.

Hey, well, by the way, thank you RJ in White Plains, New York. Keep listening to Iron Sherpa and Zion and spreading the word up there in White Plains, New York, and beyond.

We have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says, I know that they are in the minority today, but there have been

Baptists throughout the centuries who theologically opposed the very existence of seminaries and Sunday schools for that matter, because they're not explicitly taught in the

Bible. What is your biblical answer to men such as this, albeit them being a minority?

Yeah, I think that that's a simplistic reading of the Bible. I've recently written a brief article that will be in the next

ARBCA update that addresses this question to some degree. Oh, wow. My answer would follow two lines.

The first is, in 2 Timothy 1 and 2, Paul very clearly tells

Timothy that he has a responsibility to prepare men, and that text is about preparing men for gospel ministry.

Train men who will be able to train others also. That's about preparing men to serve

Christ in churches. So I would want to, you know, if we had a long time,

I could preach in my whole sermon that handled it. People can find it on Sermon Audio.

It's called the Long Crimson Line. Oh, wow. They could listen to my sermon on 2

Timothy there. The other way that I would answer this is to ask the question, are you sure that the idea of schools like a seminary is not taught in the

Bible? And I would answer, actually, it is. In the Old Testament, you have what were called the schools of the prophets.

Now, literally, translated from Hebrew, it's sons of prophets. But it's generally recognized that these were some kind of formative institution where older men would work with younger men who were gathered together for the purpose of instruction, serving as prophets.

And of course, the gift of prophet was not simply telling the future, as the

Spirit of God reveals that, but it is proclaiming to Israel the truth of the kingdom of God.

Now, that seems to have developed, or at least it was repeated, in the first century in Jerusalem.

And the Apostle Paul was a graduate of the best theological seminary that existed in Jerusalem, which is the

School of Gamaliel. In Acts chapter 2, when Paul is in the midst of a riot, this riot has erupted in the temple, and the

Romans come in, and they try to rescue him, and he asks if he can speak. And he stands up on a flight of stairs, he waves his hand, there's a great hush, and he speaks to the people.

He's trying to connect with them, and he presents to them his credentials. His purpose is that he not be killed at the moment, that the riot not get out of hand, and he not be killed.

And he wants to open the door for preaching Christ to them. One of the first things that he says is, you know that I was trained up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel.

You know, we ought to ask the question, why was Paul such a great expositor of the

Old Testament? And on the one hand, we need to say it's by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who led him to understand the

Old Testament. But on the other hand, the Lord used those years of instruction at the feet of Gamaliel to put the contents of the

Old Testament into his mind, that after his conversion he was able to see Christ there. So I would argue that there is an example and a precedent in the

Word of God that demonstrates to us the importance and the need of training young men, putting those two things together.

Reverend Buzz Taylor has a comment or question. Would you see the same thing in the New Testament in the school of Tyrannus?

Well, I think the school of Tyrannus was just that Paul used that facility in the book of Acts, yeah.

But you know what led me down this road to thinking this way? It's actually the Westminster Standards. It may be in the form of Presbyterian government, it may be in the directory for public worship, but in one of them they have a paragraph which speaks about the importance of schools, and they cite the school of Gamaliel under which

Paul studied. And then I went to read many of the older commentators on Gamaliel.

The two times he appears in the New Testament he's presented positively, the earlier one in the book of Acts when he tells the rest of the high council not to oppose the work of God, and then in Acts 22 when

Paul speaks positively of him. But I went to all the old commentaries and I began to think through how

Gamaliel is presented to us and how the schools of the prophets are presented to us.

Gustav Ohler in his Theology of the Old Testament is exceptionally helpful there. Putting all of this together, it gave me a really good appreciation for the idea of a formal training institution, both

Old and New Testament. Before we go to the break I'm going to read you a question and then perhaps you can mull it over during the last break that we're having here, and then you can answer it when we return.

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania says, Do you agree with the Presbyterians who insist that their ministers have a seminary degree before they are ordained into the pastorate?

It seems to me that they are insisting on something that the Bible does not require, and we'll have you answer that when we return from our final break.

If anybody else would like to join us on the air, now is your time to do it before we run out of time. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages with Dr.

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Iron Sharpens today. Welcome back, this is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 25 minutes to go is

Dr. James M. Renahan, Dean and Professor of Historical Theology at the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, and we are discussing updates on the new seminary that has blossomed out of that.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and if you intend to ask a question of Dr.

Renahan, I would do so right now because we are running out of time. Before the break, as you may remember,

Dr. Renahan, Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, wanted to know if you agreed with the

Presbyterian understanding that only men who have a seminary education are qualified for the office of pastor in the church, or at least a teaching elder or ruling elder, and of course,

I'm not saying that all Presbyterian denominations agree on that, but the ones that I am familiar with do have that restriction, and what is your opinion on that?

Yeah, Arnie, I would say no, I don't agree with it. I think it goes beyond what the scriptures themselves require from us, but at the same time,

I would suggest that their principle does point to the fact that they recognize that training and preparation for the ministry is very important.

I think in the 20th century and into the 21st century, there has been so much emphasis on getting out and serving

God that sometimes we've neglected the fact that serving God requires a certain kind of individual, an individual who really knows what the

Bible is all about, and whose life and gifts are appropriate to the task that is before him.

And for that reason, I think that seminary, especially for young men, is a helpful preparation for the gospel ministry, but no,

I would not agree with that demand and that requirement. Likewise, because we're

Baptists, it is up to the individual church to set for itself what its standards of ordination will be, not for anyone to impose those upon a church.

Thank you, Arnie, and please keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and spreading the word in Perry County, Pennsylvania and beyond.

Well, I know that you've probably already touched on this to some extent, but what do the scriptures teach us about Christ's gifts to the church?

Yeah, well, in Ephesians chapter 4 especially, Paul tells us that when

Christ ascended to heaven, he gave gifts to the church, and those gifts are apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers.

And their task is to prepare, to bring the saints together in unity, to teach them the truth so that they understand what the truth and live by the truth.

You know, I've spent a lot of my time in pastoral ministry, and I am a pastor, one of the pastors of our church here in Southern California.

I've tried to help people to understand that the decisions that they make in life need to be first considered in light of what they believe.

Before you ask the question, what should I do? You ought to ask and answer the question, what do I believe? And the pastors that Christ gives to the church are the gifts that help people to understand what they believe so that then they will know what to do.

It really is important for us to think about the lordship of Christ, that he now reigns at the right hand of the

Father, that he exercises his lordship as one who directly gives gifts to the churches.

And our task is to receive those gifts, to honor those gifts, and those, the men who are called and recognized as the ones who are the gifts of Christ need to be prepared to serve first and foremost with him in their minds, with their eyes upon heaven, knowing that their task is to be his servants, to bring his word to God's people.

So it's a really important doctrine. Now B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania says, with the exception of your seminary and a tiny handful of other faithful seminaries, isn't entering seminary actually quite a dangerous thing since the majority of them seem to have caved in to modern humanism?

Well I'm glad that she made the exception there. I do think that many schools have sadly fallen away from the truth that they once professed, and to attend any of those schools is in fact dangerous.

You know, one of the ways I liken it to is when you sit down to eat, you want to eat wholesome food.

And if you don't eat wholesome food, either you will become ill, or perhaps you'll be poisoned, and the end result of that may be very, very bad.

And when you expose yourself to false doctrine, it's like eating bad food. Either it will make you ill and you'll lose the contents of your spiritual stomach, or ultimately it will lead you down a path of destruction, or the people that you minister to will be led down that path.

So that's right. But I am very thankful that B .B. made the exception of some schools.

And that's another reason why it's important to do this. There is a need today to stand up for the truth as it has been understood by Christians for two centuries, and to prepare the next generation to serve

God's people. Well, thank you, B .B., and continue to listen to Iron Sharpens Iron and spread the word about the program in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and beyond.

And how can churches cultivate men for the gospel ministry?

Oh, yeah, that's a good question. I would say that parents need to think about this for their children, their sons.

They need to show respect and love for their pastor and teach their sons that the office that the pastor holds is one of real respect and appreciation.

And I think it's good for parents to speak to their sons at some point in their life and simply ask them the question, do you have any sense in your life that perhaps

God is calling you into his service and gospel ministry? And if their sons say no, then they ought to say, great, thank you.

What would you like to do? How can we find a way to help you to do what is the desire of your heart?

But some of those young men will say, yes, you know, I've never said it before, but I have wondered if the

Lord might be calling me into ministry. And then parents put their young men in touch with their pastors.

Their pastors seek to cultivate those young men, help them, and prepare them. Another thing that I really believe churches ought to do on a regular basis is as part of their public prayers on the

Lord's Day, as they're praying for the extension of the gospel for the missionaries that the church supports or the church planting efforts that the church is involved with or the broader cause of Christ beyond their own assembly,

I think a priority ought to be made, it doesn't have to be a long part of the prayer, but a priority to say,

Lord, would you raise up from our midst some men who can go, we can send out to serve you in other places.

You know, I read an interesting article, boy

I'm trying to dig it up right now, it was by a Presbyterian minister, either he was in Pennsylvania or somewhere in the south, maybe

Virginia, and he made an interesting comment, he said, every church has to take from another church a man to be its pastor.

Under normal circumstances, of course, in some cases a man comes up within his own church and he becomes its pastor, but under normal circumstances, every church takes from somewhere else a man.

He says, therefore, every church ought to be willing to give up a man, because it takes a man from somewhere else.

And I thought, that's a great argument, actually. What we receive, we ought to be willing to give to others.

So I think churches ought to be aware of this need, they need to look outward, they need to pray that the

Lord might raise up some of their young men, the parents and even the pastors need to spend time with those young men, and for any that show godliness in their lives, that maybe begin to show a certain ability to speak publicly, maybe the first step of that is watching how they pray publicly in prayer meetings, do they have some sense of being able to put words together that are edifying to God's people, identify those guys and help them along, encourage them and strengthen them, because it is in the best interest of the church, if the glory of God is not enough of a motive, the best interest of the church is to ensure that there is another generation of leaders for the church.

Now, what is a call to the ministry? I've been hosting this program since 2006, with the exception of a several year hiatus

I went on, but I have been in contact with a number of people throughout the years who are women who believe either they or a woman they know has a call to the ministry, and I say, well,

I don't believe that she could have a call to the ministry because it's something that the New Testament prohibits, and they will point to very subjective, ethereal kind of things, like, well, she believes she has the call, she has the anointing, and all that kind of thing.

How do you turn it into a concrete, objective thing, rather than things involving subjective opinions?

Yeah, that's also a good question. Traditionally, when theologians have talked about the call to the ministry, they've distinguished it into two parts, the internal call and the external call, and the internal call is something like what you just described.

In 1 Timothy 3 .1, Paul says, if any man desires the office of the ministry, or of a bishop, he desires a good thing.

It's interesting, he uses two different Greek words there, even though our English translations tend to make them the same.

The second one is actually the word that's more commonly used in the New Testament for lust.

Generally, it has a bad connotation, but here it's a good connotation. He desires, he lusts after, if I can put it that way, literally, a good thing.

And good, of course, is defined as God would define good. So there is this desire, this inward desire, on the part of an individual to be a servant of the

Lord. But it is subjective, and it may come in persons who, for one reason or another, are not qualified to pursue what they perceive subjectively to be a call.

It may be that they're a woman, it may be that they really don't have the gifts that are necessary, and when they stand up and talk to people, they will bore them to death.

Spurgeon has some hilarious stuff in his lectures to my students about the dangers of boring preachers.

So you do have that subjective element that the New Testament speaks of, but you also have the outward call, the external call, which is the evaluation of the

Church. That's much more objective. And it is in the external call that we have these restrictions.

Look, the guy doesn't know how to speak publicly, or he's in a home situation that is compromised.

He may want to be a pastor, that may be his desire, but he doesn't meet the qualifications as they are laid out in 1

Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Or this person may be a woman who also cannot meet those qualifications.

So though he or she may have this strong internal desire, that's only half of the issue, and it's probably a wrong half of the issue, because the external, the objective aspect, is missing.

And if the two aren't present together, then there is no call to the ministry. Don't you think sometimes we men make a huge mistake when we start giving unbiblical reasons as to why women are prohibited from the ministry, like it is not in their genetics and all these kind of things that sometimes people say?

Because you could have a woman who technically is more skilled at all of the gifts required of a pastor and preacher and teacher.

She could be more equipped with those traits and skills than her own pastor, but that does not make her qualified for the ministry nonetheless.

Yeah, it's the Word of God that tells us that the ministerial office is limited to men. That's all we need to be concerned with.

Right. And can you suggest any resources for young men considering the ministry? Well, Spurgeon's lectures to my students is very helpful.

It's very readable. They were lectures that he gave on Friday afternoons at the end of the week, and he often came in knowing that he needed to be a little bit upbeat, sometimes humorous for his students.

So those are very enjoyable to read. Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones' book,

Preaching and Preachers, is a helpful book. You caught me off guard.

Other things are not coming to mind right now. I know that there are many of them. Oh, last year, the

Banner of Truth published a book on, what is the name of it?

I can't remember right now, by Alan Harmon, H -A -R -M -A -N. It's outstanding.

It probably should be the first thing that any young man would read. If you go to the Banner of Truth website and search for Alan Harmon, you'll find it immediately.

That's really a great book. I wish I could remember the title of it right now. Somebody who's listening is saying, brother, this is the title, but I apologize.

I can't remember it at the moment. Well, let's see. I have

Alan Harmon right here on the Banner of Truth website. Let's see what they have here.

Well, I'll let you know if I come up with a specific book. Right now, it's just giving me articles and so on.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of a book that has become somewhat of a classic, spanning denominational lines on the book by Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership?

Oh, well, I'm sorry you asked me about that. Alan Harmon's book is called

Preparation for Ministry. I used my internet availability here to find it.

Preparation for Ministry by Alan Harmon. I really don't like Alexander Strauch's book.

He comes from a Brethren background. The good things that are contained in the book are good things that anybody with a

Bible and a good mind will be able to come up with. There's nothing insightful there.

The bad thing about the book is that he completely denies the importance of a call to the ministry.

He advocates a position that says any man in the church could be an elder in the church, and I think that that's really dangerous because he never deals with Ephesians chapter 4 in the book, and he doesn't wrestle with the fact that Christ gives some men to be gifts to the church and not all of them.

But that's the Brethren approach to what the ministry is, and so I do not recommend Alexander Strauch's book,

Biblical Eldership. Now, what is the role of the church in a man's education?

Obviously, the primary preaching and teaching that goes on in a worship service, a pastor has to be careful not to go above and beyond the ability of the general gathered worship of men and women and children, where he is teaching beyond their grasp, going over their heads, as it were.

But at the same time, shouldn't there be a more in -depth teaching available in the church and so on?

Oh, absolutely, yes. Yes, absolutely. And you know, the Second London Confession actually recognizes that in chapter 26, paragraph 11, and it speaks about the role that others who are not pastors in the church ought to have with the approval of the church.

But I agree, not all of the teaching ministry is restricted to pastors.

And I'd really like you to now summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we leave this program today.

Okay, well, thanks. Yeah, you know, we want to build this seminary for the sake of the gospel, and so I want to remind people that trusting in the

Lord Jesus Christ, receiving the gift of eternal life, and the forgiveness of sins by faith in Him is the most important thing.

That's what we're all about. But I hope that they will, those who are interested, will visit our website irbsseminary .org.

They will look at our Facebook page. Look up, if you're on Facebook, look up the

Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies. We make many of our announcements there. And also on Twitter, if they use

Twitter, it would be at irbs under slash 1689, and they can follow us on Twitter.

They'll be able to get all of our information from those three sources, irbsseminary .org,

Facebook page at Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, and then the Twitter page at irbs under slash 1689.

And if they have, or if they have students, if they have young men who need preparation,

I hope that they will consider us. They can contact us through that irbsseminary .org

webpage. We'll be glad to communicate with them and help them. One of the things that we are trying to do is reduce the cost as low as possible for the sake of, we don't want students to have debt when they graduate, and so we will be offering a very attractive price and an outstanding faculty and education and preparation for gospel ministry to young men.

So we hope people will consider us as they think about sending their men off to get training for the gospel ministry.

Yes, and I'm assuming that you would love to hear from benevolent philanthropists out there.

Absolutely. I mean, tell our listeners exactly what your needs are, and obviously you can have a general need for finances, but anything else, or including finances, just let our listeners know exactly what they're to do.

Okay. Well, yes, it is an enormous project, and what we're trying to do in reducing the cost to students is transfer the debt load to donors.

We, like I said, we don't want students to graduate with a heavy debt load. We don't want them to take out loans, and so we're reducing the cost as much as we possibly can.

Well, at the same time, we want to pay our faculty and staff a livable wage. We want our men to be able to support their families, and so that means we have to meet the budget, and we have to find the money somewhere, and largely that's going to come from generous

Christians who understand that it is to their own benefit and the souls of their children and their grandchildren to support a ministry like this.

One of the questions that I ask when I visit people in churches is, who will pastor your grandchildren?

And that connects with people, because they say, I never thought of that before, but I need to do something.

I help my grandchildren buy a car, or I help to pay for their college education.

What can I do for their souls? Well, what you can do for their souls is help us to train faithful men who will be able to be their pastors in the next generation.

Also, a very simple thing that doesn't cost anything for everybody is to use smile .amazon

.com. If you go to that website, you can't do it on your phone, you have to do it on a computer.

Go to smile .amazon .com, register your support for the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, and Amazon will donate a portion of the money that you spend to our organization.

They do it anyways. They have a foundation that takes a certain amount of their profit and gives it to nonprofits.

If you designate it, we will be the ones who receive it. And it doesn't cost you any money, because it doesn't add anything to what you would pay with Amazon.

Well, I want to thank you so much, Dr. Jim Renahan, for being our guest again on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio. I look forward to your return to the program, and I want to remind everybody that the website where Dr.

Renahan can be contacted at is irbsseminary .org. I hope that I meet many of you, some for the first time and some perhaps old friends, next week at the

Faithful Shepherd Pastors Retreat, May 15th through the 17th in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey.

If you'd like to register for that or find out more information, go to alliancenet .org. Alliancenet .org,

click on Events, and then click on the Faithful Shepherd Retreat. I want to thank you again,

Dr. Renahan, for being my guest. I want to thank the Rev. Buzz Taylor for being my co -host. I want to thank all of you who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions today.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater