Open Air Theology -Conference Update/Q&A

What are you doing? What are you doing? He never let us a guard that way.

You use a wooden match. Preserves the flavor, you see.

But the worst curse would come upon the one who seduced him. Whose head would be crushed by the seed of the woman.

And the punishment was too severe. What's wrong with you people?

Are you ready to get back to work? With pleasure. So, Senor Kramer, what is this about?

I choose to believe the Bible because it's a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.

They report to us supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim that their writings are divine rather than human in origin.

Don't any of you have the guts to pay for blood? But because of his own purpose and grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

I don't know why you're clapping. I'm talking about you. I didn't come here to get amens.

I didn't come here to be applauded. I'm talking about you. Welcome to Open Air Theology.

I am one of the hosts on here, Brayden Patterson. It's a great blessing to be here with these two brothers. I'm going to turn the mic over to Tom first to introduce himself and then we'll introduce our guests that we have here.

But first of all, how great was that intro? That was fantastic. That was so cool.

All right, Tom, go ahead. You kick us off on introductions. Hey, everybody.

Well, starting off as the gray goat, my name is Tom Shepherd. I'm a member of Grace Bible Church of Burning which is about 20 miles north of San Antonio.

And we go out on the weekends. We share the gospel on the streets in Fredericksburg, Kerrville, Bernie, San Antonio.

And people join us from different churches and stuff like that. Great to be here with you guys on the

Lord's Day. Do I pass it down to you? Let's go, Jared.

Let's go to our guests. We have a guest with us today. Jared, introduce yourself, bro.

That guy with the best looking beard out of the three of us right now. The best beard ever. My name is

Jared Randolph. I'm the pastor of May Israel Baptist Church in Middle Tennessee. About 50 minutes east of Nashville.

So pretty close to there. We're just a Reformed Baptist Church just trying to be faithful to the

Lord's great commission to carry that out and to make disciples and to baptize and teach them all that he has commanded.

And just thankful to be on the show tonight. Guys, thank you for inviting me. I'm honored to be here with you brothers and discuss theology and just mess around.

It's good to be here. That's somewhat of a new church plan, is it not?

In this year, right? We're coming up on a year. Getting pretty close to a year.

We're just grateful for the Lord's faithfulness to us and looking forward to this next year.

Are you 1689? Yes. Wonderful. Hey, fits right in.

Black sheep. What time is your church services on the

Lord's day? What time do you get up? Sunday school at 10. And then our main worship service starts at 11.

Typically, I'll preach three Sundays of the month. And then my elder, brother

David Godsey, he fills in one week. He's a big help and thankful for my brother in that regard.

You just have one co -elder with yourself then? If somebody was to watch this that lives in Tennessee, what would you say is the reason why they should travel to come see your church and worship

God with you? That's a great question. I could probably give you multiple answers to that.

I would say we are again committed to carrying out the

Great Commission, and I think that's one of the main things that we should be focused upon. Now, obviously, that gets into the doctrine eventually, more so in the specifics.

But I would say we love to get out, and we need to do more of this, but get out and evangelize and tell people about the gospel and bring

God's sheep in. And so we're all called to do that, and we're committed to it.

And I think that also we're about just loving people. And I think too often times we can get wrapped up in doctrine so much to where we lose sight of that.

So we need to have a biblical balance of love, but also being committed to doctrine.

And if we have that, then I think the Lord will bless us in the work that we're doing. That's what

I would say to people. We love people, and we want them to know God and to know Him deeper.

Good. Praise the Lord. Jared, it's a blessing to have you on tonight. Is he one of yours? Is he a attender of your church?

I'm sorry, what was that? Michael Chandler Keaton. Is he a member of your church? Yes, Michael.

I see that now. Michael, he's a faithful brother. He's been... I could spend all night talking about our relationship, but the

Lord brought us together years ago in the strangest ways.

He's been there every step of the way. He's one of the most knowledgeable laymen that I've ever known.

He's not trying to make his head get big, but he's definitely been faithful to be there at church and just serve.

If you ever need to ask a question theologically or historically, he's the guy to go to.

That's awesome. Well, I'll introduce myself real fast.

I am Brayden Patterson. I'm the pastor of Grace Bible Church in Moorpark, California. That is located in the

Ventura County area that's around Southern California. So if you live in that area, it'd be a great blessing to see you on the

Lord's Day at 10 .30 is when we meet together corporately to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. We also do a

Sunday school at 9 in the morning, followed by prayer at 9 .45.

We pray until the church service really goes. We also do a second

Bible study night service on Thursdays at 7 p .m. It'd be a great blessing to see you at any of those times.

If you live in the area or you know anybody that's in that area, seriously, please invite them. Tell them about the gospel, of course, and then tell them that there's a local body here in Moorpark that wants to love on them and to help them worship our triune

God together. We typically run this show on the

Lord's Days on the evening time, and we recap how our Lord's Days were, Jared. Let's let

Jared go first and then Tom, you can go on second. How was your

Lord's Day today? How was it in Tennessee worshipping God together? It was fantastic.

In Sunday school, we're going through Hebrews. It's actually right here. I have it. It's by Reformed Expository Bible Study.

I don't know if you guys have heard of that or not. I think it's John Nielsen and Richard Phillips, but it's a 13 -lesson study going through the whole book.

We've been going through that. Typically, Brother David teaches through that. I had to step in today, but it's been fantastic.

It's really thought -provoking. Your mind is really engaged with the text.

Also, the practical side of it, too, is there. It's been a great study. Then we got into the main service, and it went very well.

Just very God -centered, theologically rich hymns and songs and praise to God.

Then we got into the sermon. I've been going through the Gospel of John. We're actually in John 6 right now.

It's been really good food for our souls.

Actually, today, I was talking about the part that was where Christ says,

He must feed on my flesh and drink my blood. Just talking about that, just how rich that really is to us as believers.

We had a great day. It was a good day to be with our fellow believers and worship together.

Looking forward to more of it. That's good. Ours is good.

Right now, during this time of season, really, the elders at our church take this time as people are traveling and going to be with family and stuff like that.

It really is the only time they actually have a chance to take a break as well. Michael Beck has been going through the

Book of Romans sporadically, or actually consistently and sequentially for several years now.

He's almost finished with it. We're basically in Romans 16 now.

We're right at the end. He took a break today for Christmas and Frank Gutting preached in Psalm 13 today encouraging believers who might be suffering with depression that we shouldn't be cast down.

That David, hey, Michelle, that David looked to the

Lord and he said, I'm trusting in the Lord. You're going to protect me from my enemies and all this.

It was really good. We sing sovereign grace music or grace hymns at our church.

There was no equipping classes, but normally we have equipping classes where we have a variety. We have for new members, every new member has to go through the doctrines of grace once they complete the doctrines of grace, which is actually taught through the

Fundamentals of Faith 3, John MacArthur's booklet. Basically going through the doctrines of grace.

Then we have another class, which is a biblical counseling class by Frank and then

Michael. Also we're in systematic theology 3, I believe, right now going through the different doctrines right now.

The Doctrine of Salvation, The Order of Salvation, Limited Atonement, all the way through it.

It was really good today. We're going to be back on almost full schedule next week where we have equipping on Wednesday, morning, evening, and regular service as well.

It was really good. Awesome. Well, my Lord's Day, it's been a busy day today.

It's been a busy, great day today nonetheless. Michelle, it's good to see you. Also, we have 25 people watching live right now.

If you haven't already subscribed to this YouTube channel, please do. Open Air Theology.

Please subscribe to it, share it with your friends. It's a place where Tom and myself and then we have guests on here where we herald the good news of Christ.

It's a blessing to see you guys every week when we do this. Please subscribe, like, and share. My Lord's Day was busy.

It was great. I had Sunday school this morning at nine. I taught part three on a series of a gentleman, a deacon at our church, at Grace Bible Church here in Moore Park, has been doing a lengthy

Sunday school series on world religions. He's been diving deep into different religions.

In California, that's something that's new to me is that it is surrounded by false religions everywhere you go, more so than in Idaho.

In Idaho, you really just run into LDS for the most part. You'll run into LDS. You might run into some Catholics here or there.

I mean, I can count on one hand how many times I ran into Jehovah Witnesses in Idaho. It's nothing but LDS that you're always up against.

However, here in Idaho, there's a ton of other religions. California, excuse me.

I said Idaho again. That's a new thing, but it was a blessing today because in that world religion series,

I was able to do part three on Mormonism where we were just looking at the life of Joseph Smith, the life of Brigham Young, and then looking at the modern claims of doctrine from the

LDS religion. Today, what was really reinforced is that if I gave you...

If you had never seen $100 bills in your life, and I gave you a real $100 bill and a piece of Monopoly money for $100, if you'd never been exposed to either one of those things before, you wouldn't know which one is the real $100 bill, right?

As believers, we need to study the gospel, the real truth, and that should be the principle that we study first and foremost, and that's what helps us identify that which is false.

You and I would want to take the real $100 bill over the Monopoly money any day because we value what's behind that true currency right there.

Just talking today about the studying of Mormonism and these world religions, it's built upon the premise that we first initially understand thoroughly the gospel, and we can take that information out and thoroughly search any cult out there.

After that, I got to listen to a great sermon by Errol Hale, the pastor here at Grace Bible Church, who is now retired as of today.

Today was his retiring 40 years since planting this church.

It was a blessing. He preached on just God's faithfulness, and then later in the evening, my family and I just got home from a retirement party.

I don't know what you would call it. It was just a get -together and a celebration of the church being around for 40 years while also celebrating the retirement of a man that has been used mildly by God.

That was a great blessing to be a part of that. Next Sunday, I'll be picking up James 1 -1.

This Thursday, I'll be picking up a series in 1689. We're going to be going through a series through the

Confession on Thursday nights, and then James 1, well, the Book of James on Sundays.

It'll be a blessing. It's interesting that you brought up in the world religions.

We talked about the fake $100 bill versus the real $100 bill. The object of our salvation matters, doesn't it?

It does. Getting Jesus right has to matter.

He has to be God in order to qualify to die on the cross for our sins. Good stuff.

I'm really happy with that. The other announcement that we came on, and I want you to do it because it is a sad...

You want Jared to do it? Jared can do it. Jared, this is your turn.

Your time to shine. That's on you guys. All right.

The Open Air Theology Conference that was going to be in Tullahoma, Tullahoma, however you want to say it,

Tennessee, has been canceled. Sadly, we were going to have some great speakers there.

We are sad that we aren't going to be able to see some faces there to enjoy the fellowship with everybody.

This was really something. It was really disappointing that we had to cancel it, but we did.

It did end in not the best way, but we are still friends and faithful of the speakers that were going to be invited and love them.

It's just sad. We're sorry to say there's going to be no conference. It was a culmination of several different things that we're not going to have time to get into today by any means, but low ticket sales, there was a lot of things that came about in these last little bits, so it just made it so we had to cancel it, unfortunately.

That being said, though, be seriously on the lookout because undoubtedly Open Air Theology will have another conference, and most likely it's going to be in Moorpark, California at Grace Bible Church one day, and who knows what it'll be on.

There is going to be a conference in Tyler, Texas that I get to speak at.

As a matter of fact, Brandon Scalf is going to be there. He's going to be there. Open Air Theology is not putting it on, but I'm privileged to be able to speak there.

It's kind of a weird topic. I've been assigned, as a matter of fact, Mark Goodson is putting it on. He put it on the last one in August, and this is the

Order of Salvation. My topic is this, get this, because you're not going to find it anywhere in the Order of Salvation.

Normally, you think of election, predestination, justification of faith, so on and so forth.

My topic is evangelism in the Order of Salvation. That's great.

Any ideas? Because I don't know yet how I'm going to do it.

It's going to be interesting how it goes for us. I'm excited. Yes. At least we have one conference out there in this.

Look forward to the next Open Air Theology conference in Moorpark, California. Most likely, it'll be in the year 2026.

You already got this evangelist guy. Come on. How beautiful are the feet of those that bring good news?

Come on. Where do you put that? You can definitely put it in the general call.

Hold on. Let's go ahead and put that. What happened?

Isn't Jeff the pastor of the platform? No. Jeffrey Rice has left Open Air Theology. He is no longer a part of Open Air Theology.

Open Air Theology has always been amongst the three hosts of it.

He stepped away from partaking in Open Air Theology. Good question, though. Yes.

The outward call versus the inward call. That would be a good place to go with that, Tom. Definitely. Yes. Absolutely.

Yes. Yes. Today, we updated on canceling the conference, unfortunately.

We'll do that one there. The picture that I put up with our three ugly mugs.

Jared, I hope you're okay with me saying that. I'm used to it. Tom owns a mirror.

He knows what I'm getting at with this. Ugly mugs. I'm not that mean.

Okay. Fair enough. Maybe he came up with the name. No, actually,

Open Air Theology. I was the one that came up with the name a couple years ago.

Good question. We'll probably have to address some more of that in future time. I appreciate you,

Random Bass Player. Keep on watching. Please subscribe. Get the word out about us. It would be a blessing to continue to have you come and partake in watching these live and whatnot.

Another thing that was according to that thumbnail was a year -end review. We're at the end of 2025, or 2024, coming on to the year of 2025.

What is it that Open Air Theology has been doing in this year of 2024? Jared, what have you been doing in this year of 2024?

Let's make it short and quick because also, the next part of this show that we're going to be doing is doing a

Q &A where we already have some preloaded AI -generated questions, which

I think are going to be great to go over. Also, if you are an audience member today, please put some questions in the comments if you'd like us to try to be able to go through some stuff with one another.

Jared, what have you been doing in 2024? What would you say is the year -end review for you if it was a short 30 -second plug -in for yourself?

That's kind of hard. I would say first of all that the

Lord's been good to our church and being able to basically plant the church.

We've actually had help from another church in Hartsville.

They really helped get us going with advice and also in different other ways as well to get us going.

We're blessed there. Basically, just trying to get the church started and going is always a hard process.

I've been trying to really work hard in the ministry in that area, but also with my job,

I'm in pest control, so I have to balance the church, job, and also family.

I would say, I guess here lately, what I've really tried to focus on is my family more than really anything because I really felt like I was putting so much focus and time into the ministry.

Actually, school as well because I've been attending Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. I'm actually taking a pause on that right now, and part of that is just realizing, man,

I need to really focus more on my family. That's one thing that I would advise and just tell other pastors and preachers is to take a step back, examine where you're at, and really focus on your family because if you're outstanding in the ministry and all the other areas but you neglect your family, then you're failing as a man, as a man of God.

That's what I would say, just in review, if I could have done better, I would have definitely focused more on my family and just investing in them.

Hopefully, this next year, Lord willing, I'll be able to continue doing what I am doing right now. That's awesome.

Those are some good points there. On that note, this last year, my partner, most of all in evangelism, and of course we do evangelism through the local church, but my partner who goes out with me every weekend is my wife.

She supports me, whether she's handing out tracts or Brayden has come out and visited with me.

We went out to one of the games, usually, typically locally. We live in the hill country, so it's spread out.

When we go to Bernie, that's literally five minutes away from our church and stuff like that. Then there's a town of Fredericksburg, and we go out there, but it's a touristy town, so we actually still meet a lot of the people from Bernie in Fredericksburg, but it's a good 40 minutes away, but people are touring and stuff like that.

She's been so faithful with me. There's times when evangelism can be discouraging, especially when you go out on the streets and you're proclaiming the gospel to people.

They aren't listening to you, but God always brings fruit at the right time to encourage you and to encourage your heart.

Then we also know that even if none is our ministry name, and it's based off the book by Ryan Dittmer, we know that God is glorified in the proclamation of the gospel.

Whether people come or not come, God's Word is not going to turn up void. I'm so grateful for my wife to come out with me, and she encourages me.

We're going to do more of that. We're going to continue to go out. We're going to be going on. It'll be year five in 2025.

Please pray for us when we go out. Your wife is such a blessing,

Tom. Such a blessing. Such a blessing. She is.

Year -end review for myself. As far as Open Air Theology goes, we had a great conference in February.

I've been trying to get on as often as we possibly can once a week. It's been a real blessing.

There's been a lot of really good fruit that I think we've seen through Open Air Theology. It's a blessing to be a part of this show and to have a lot of laughs, a lot of real theologically rich tears shed and study.

Just to be a part of this is great. I'm thankful to all the audience that's able to watch.

For myself and our family, obviously, I think the biggest thing is we're in California now.

We're doing full -time ministry now here in California at Grace Bible Church here in Moore Park. No longer a firefighter.

That's freaking nuts to even think about. I would have never guessed that at the beginning of January 2024. We're just so thankful for God's providence.

Really excited to preach him crucified and just to lift our mighty God's name upon high here in this area.

Man, talking to you guys about evangelism, we went out this last week doing caroling on Sunday.

There's been over and over and over again. It's been really cool because one of the biggest changes is in Idaho where we were living was in a town of 900 people.

I've knocked on everybody's doors at least three times and that was all done in a week. Let's be honest.

Now, being in California in a town of about 37 ,000 plus people, I can go just to the coffee shop and I get to talk to a whole bunch of people about Christ.

Just this week, I could ask, man, there's been genuine great conversations about the gospel that have been taking place here and even this last week.

Since we've moved here, it has been taking place. We're ecstatic about that. I'm super excited just to talk about Christ, pray with people, tell them to look to Jesus and invite them to church in the process.

That's my quick short. Real quick though, I did notice that you did some studying on the beach this past weekend.

I did. I look good, too. However, you were dressed in a sweater.

I look good. Boots. I bring style to California, okay? We're going to have to work on that.

I did say on the post, thank you very much for being fully clothed and not wearing a speedo.

I got some photos to send to you. Oh, no. Please, no.

We've done our year -end review. Great weather. It is fantastic here.

I'm riding a motorcycle. Listen, guys, I'm riding my motorcycle around in December.

There's ice and snow where I used to be at. I had to winterize my bike every year. I can ride my bike year -round.

I'm pretty ecstatic about that. We're going to do our Q &A right now. Wait a minute.

I've got to introduce Aaron. I've got to introduce Aaron Dufresne because he's my bro out there.

I saw him out there at Sharon's conference last year. Now you are actually, what, 15 minutes? He's my bro. Okay. How many times have you talked to Aaron this week?

All I'm saying is I don't want to see any pictures of either one of you in speedos together. Don't do it.

Please don't post that on Facebook. Oh, my gosh.

Heaven's blessing. Look at this guy. I wish I could post his mug. That would not be good.

Let's do some AI -generated questions. If the audience, if you guys have any questions on here, please send them in.

We want to discuss whatever questions you might have on here on the show. Hold on. Let me get to the page here.

These are AI -generated questions. We asked AI to give us some questions for the podcast show.

Hold on a second. This all pretty much has to do with faithfulness and ministry.

Now, if you guys have questions, you guys ask them too. Chime in. We're probably all going to have different questions.

I want to say we'll go backwards. Jared has some favorite ones. This is question number 17.

It was this. What are the marks of an unfaithful ministry, and how can a church recognize and avoid such leadership?

Faithfulness and ministry, Michelle. We're talking about faithfulness and ministry. The first question AI came up with us is this.

What are the marks of an unfaithful ministry, and how can a church recognize this and avoid the leadership?

Who wants to go first on that? I can tackle that first, I guess. I would say one mark would be the unwillingness to be held accountable.

You see this a lot in some churches who just have a single pastor. That single pastor model.

I think you can go that route. It's just the downfall to it is you don't have your other co -elders around you to help hold you responsible.

You can just go out and do your own thing, lead the people the way you want to, and you're not just held to that standard that you should be held to.

I would say just avoiding that, not wanting to submit yourself to the other elders around you.

It's not that one elder has more power than the other. It's just that as elders, as pastors, we have to be willing to have our brother beside us to hold us accountable.

I have found the more that I do that, yeah, it can be uncomfortable at times, but it's for my good.

It's to sanctify me and to make me a better preacher or pastor. That's one big one.

I would say also not being willing to listen to your people is a big one.

The congregation itself? Yes, the congregation. It's not that we're trying to please people in the sense of we're always listening to them to get advice on how we should preach or how we should cover this text or whatever.

I think it comes down to sometimes our people, we have to listen to our sheep sometimes because they might be saying, hey, we're seeing this, we're hearing this, but we need help here in this area.

Can you help us? We have to be willing to listen to our people in those areas so we can help them because if we just totally shut them out, are we truly being the shepherds that we're called to be?

It's interesting on that. Braden and I were talking, matter of fact, yesterday about him being the under -shepherd of a new church.

I can't remember who had said it and I remember Braden had said that he quotes this quote all the time.

He said, but the shepherd should smell like the sheep and that there should be interaction.

You should be like you're in the sheep pen with the sheep, fellowshipping with them, getting to know them, understanding their struggles, let them understand your struggles, things like that too.

I also like that you said about holding each other accountable as elders, having godly men around you, but I would also say that that means not always finding yes men around yourself.

I see that so much. Especially building a small church where you will see a pastor pick and choose.

When you look at deacons in the scripture in Romans chapter 6, it doesn't say that the elders went out and picked deacons and then went to the congregation for affirmation.

It said choose faithful men among you and bring them before the eldership and then let the elders choose it.

It wasn't that the elders were choosing the deacons, it was the people were choosing faithful men that they fought and they presented it to the elders.

I think that's important too. I think that guards against any leadership trying to build people around them that are just going to be yes men and agree with everything they say.

That's true. I totally agree. I think something that Jared said there with hearing the sheep, as an undershepherd, as one that is called to pastoral ministry, you should be smelling like sheep, you should have the appearance of a shepherd, and I'm sorry, but we are not as undershepherds, we are not omniscient like our mighty shepherd is.

So you and I, we don't have the privilege of knowing where sheep are immediately.

We can't search the hearts of those that we are shepherding like our mighty shepherd

Jesus Christ can and does all the time in the New Testament. So part of being a shepherd is being able to hear the baa's, the baa down the ravine and knowing where they're at and knowing how to shepherd them up to the fold.

And so I think that is truly an importance. Shepherding is more than just preaching.

Shepherding includes preaching. Don't think I'm saying that preaching is not a key aspect of shepherding.

But there is so many more facets to shepherding than just preaching.

And one of those things, I agree with you Jared, is being able to hear where your sheep are, being able to recognize things, being able to hold them accountable to things, being able to guide them back to Christ, the shepherd that knows all things.

I think those are vital, important marks of pastoral ministry per se.

Good stuff. So real quick, Michelle, before we go on to another one, you said you have a question, not sure if it's related.

Ask away. That's what we're here for. Yeah. We have no idea.

This is almost like AI asking. But I would say that there's several marks of an unhealthy church, unhealthy pastoral ministry.

There's several marks. I think somebody so David here said that a pastor straying away from scripture.

Yeah, that's a huge mark. If a shepherd isn't resting his head and planting his shepherd staff upon God's word, what is he doing?

He's going to the world for those things. That's dangerous ground for any shepherd. I think that's important.

I think a pastor that's seeking his own glory, seeking a platform himself, seeking for others to hear him rather than to echo the words of Christ, I think that that is danger ground right there.

I think a pastor that has his eyes set on money and greed, that's a mark right there.

If a pastor has his eyes set on the honeys, on the ladies, that's not good right there.

There's several marks of an unhealthy pastoral ministry as well as an unhealthy, but bad marks for a church as well.

By the way, David is my fellow elder. Oh, okay. That's fantastic.

Okay, well, David, I got one for you guys. Here's the next question. Oh, wait, wait, wait.

Let's see here. Michelle. Okay. She always asks good questions, so this is probably going to stump us all.

Here we go. I just wanted to ask about what Scripture means by the weaker brother.

I think I'm confused with unsaved brothers. I think

I'm confusing. So the weaker, so we're talking about conscience issues there where there may be gray areas in the

Scriptures where it's talking about if a brother, let's say a brother is used to not.

It was a sin for him. You look at the Judaizers, the Jews back in the day, they wouldn't eat certain things.

There were people who were free in Christ who knew that they could go ahead and eat bacon, but for the sake of the weaker brother who was brought up in that, brought up not eating pork, you wouldn't want to bind their conscience.

Eat pork in front of that person so they're weaker in the sense of not understanding the freedom that they have in Christ.

That would be my answer. Yeah, we would say that they're still saved.

Yeah. Not unsaved people, but like you said, I think perfectly.

When it comes to their conscience, they're weaker. They haven't come to that point or progressed to the point of being able to understand hey, it's okay that we do this.

In those cases, we have to be sensitive to our weaker brothers or sisters and help them progress in their understanding of the

Scripture. In their mind, it's sin. But how would you counsel that,

Braden? Would you leave him there? It wouldn't be wise to let a weaker brother remain weak for a long period, right?

Where I'm going with this is this issue in the first century church is not one that maybe is as prevalent as what we would see today.

I think what we would see is more obscure examples of this. In the first century, it's talking specifically about sacrifices and these meals that they're eating.

But today, we don't see that in that exact same example. Let me try to give you an example of this.

You have Braden Patterson, a new, let's say years ago, he's a new convert to Christianity.

He doesn't know that there's nothing in God's Word that says you can't drink coffee. Because I was raised

LDS, and I was thinking, I can't drink coffee. Coffee's bad. It's an addictive drug that will keep you out of heaven.

That's what my view was for when I was LDS. It was against the words of wisdom. Maybe right when

I was first saved, in the first month there, it probably would have been inappropriate for any Christian to be coming around me and drinking coffee and saying, you need to drink this, you need to drink this.

Even though my mind's like, I don't think I should. I can't get there quite yet.

However, to let me then develop a theology saying that no

Christian should drink coffee would also not be wise to. That's what I think is going on in that text.

You shouldn't let a weaker brother remain weak, but you should acknowledge where a brother is in Christ and not stumble him in that process, not force him to do something that he's not ready yet to do.

That's where it's hard, contextually, because you and I don't go to the market anymore, really, and buy meat that was sacrificed to idols.

We don't run into that like they were in the first century. That's a very obscure case.

It's found in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8. That's what's going on with what the weaker brother is in that text.

Just to say something real quick, that's the hard work of the preacher, though, is to understand its initial application and then bring that over to today's world and apply it to our here's.

That's the hard work of preaching, I think, is being able to do that. We need to do a better job,

I think, of being able to do that. Let me ask you this. As he's not a pastor, and you guys are pastors of churches, would that counsel that you were suggesting,

Braden, not leaving that weaker brother to develop his theology, should that come from anybody in the church or should that come from an elder in the church?

Yeah. In one sense, I would argue that it ... I guess maybe it depends on what it is.

We're all to be discipling one another. In one sense, if a member sees something and hears something in somebody's house, maybe you can inform that.

Typically, it's best to let elders or inform elders of this and maybe they can navigate those conversations.

Really, discipleship is, I think, a huge key. Yeah, this is why discipleship is important.

I think it falls down on discipleship, which I think falls underneath the broader context of the local church, which is being overseen by elders and pastors.

It really depends on the level of something. If somebody is ...

The coffee example, for example, if there was a Christian brother that wasn't a pastor, I think he could slowly walk me to that.

But maybe let's say alcohol. Maybe I'm saying alcohol is of the devil.

It's not right. I'm building a theology off of that. Maybe let your elder handle that, maybe a little bit more sensitive, severe position.

I don't know. What would you say, Jared, to that? Yeah, something similar to that. I would say there are some issues that the pastor probably should handle, but I think if we're doing our job and we're being a model for our people, they should be able to take care of a lot of those issues themselves, especially with the man and his family.

The man, being the leader of his family, should be able to counsel and disciple his family in that way and help with any questions they have.

But there are going to be some things that come up where he has to even go to the pastor or the elder and say,

I've tried my best to help my family with this situation. What would you say? That's a good point.

I think that when you, because you have a variety of sheep in different stages of their walk, and it really is a matter of how you're handling the

Scriptures. Are you handling the Scriptures accurately? And then not only that, I think that there's ways sometimes that we can be truthful in the wrong way.

If I'm going out and doing evangelism and some unbeliever just lost their unbelieving mother,

I mean, I can say a truthful statement, you're going to go to hell just like her. Yeah, it's true, but that's really not the way to do it.

So there's a way to be right the wrong way. And so sometimes

I think that something should be left up to the pastors and the elders. That's well said.

All right, let's see. Ready for another question? Yeah, excellent question, Michelle.

Thank you. If you have more like that, I love that. That was a great question at the weekend, brother. Very good. If there's any more questions you guys have, just throw them out.

Otherwise, we're going to AI. You know what that means. Okay, AI, the next question, number 13, it says, should ministers aim for faithfulness even at the expense of unity within the church?

Why or why not? Let me read it again. Should ministers aim for faithfulness even at the expense of unity within the church?

Why or why not? So I would say if I wish

I could ask, re -clarify the question to AI. That's what I was thinking. Ministers are aiming for faithfulness.

So if faithfulness is a synonym for truth, unity must be rooted in truth.

I would think. So AI, you're stupid. AI, yeah, you're stupid.

However, if the question's getting at... So let me give you another example. If the question's getting at is faithfulness, which one do you go for, faithfulness or unity?

And it's on a topic that's tertiary or quaternary in its nature, something that's not essential,

I'm probably going to lean on unity rather than trying to force my obscure theological position.

So let's just say, this isn't the case, but think about how many young, restless and reformed guys are having the beard right now going on.

Jared, you see what I'm saying? Let's just say Jared says, I really think men should wear or have beards.

I probably wouldn't... And let's say you're just convicted that that's how you demonstrate your manhood.

It's so quaternary. You're like, yeah, this is how men are men. That's probably not something to hold on faithfulness over unity of a church.

But hey, Spurgeon, though, said beards are good. Dang it!

Here's a good example. As a matter of fact, I even heard Doug Wilson talking about this one.

Doug Wilson was talking about... He believes that it is right and biblical to only serve wine in communion.

But at the same time... It was Doug Wilson a long time ago. Oh, Doug Wilson. Okay, sorry. Am I not making sense?

Let me talk more clear. On the elements, he thought it was right and biblical to only serve wine as a sacrament.

But he thought it would have been dangerous to introduce that to the church because there were people in the church.

Even though he felt that it was right and biblical to do so, he chose not to just bring it with a hammer and break up the unity of the church.

Yeah. There comes, honestly, discernment in each particular situation.

Every situation is not the same. Depending on the church you're at.

You might be at a church that you've been called to pastor and they're all...

Most of them are not reformed. You probably can't just come in and start preaching Calvinism on day one and expect a good outcome there.

There comes wisdom with that. I think you can...

I mean, I could come in and I could preach it. I could preach the text and let the text speak and not use maybe these trigger words that so many people are used to like Calvinism or whatever it is that makes people upset.

But just preach the word of God and be faithful to God in that and let him, by his spirit, take the word and do his work.

But again, though, it goes back to knowing those tertiary issues that we shouldn't be just so dogmatic about.

Too many times we are and that's what results in too many splits and arguments and things of that nature.

I think that we need to be dogmatic on the things that really, really matter and that are really clear in Scripture, the gospel, those kinds of issues.

But then, when it comes to beards and things like that, we need to show more discernment.

Yeah. My wife says, Spurgeon said, peace if possible, truth at all costs.

I believe that was Luther. Luther, yeah. So, yeah, I'm I'm going to say it was

Spurgeon because she's smarter than you. I know it. She's definitely smarter. Sorry, run the cue on going.

So, on Calvinism, because we were at a church, we were at a church that actually was very light on it.

And, you know, when, I don't know that I would, I mean, yes, you need to use it.

You wouldn't want to go in with a hammer, but at the same time, when you do come across the Scriptures, for example, we went through the gospel of John and you're going to hit it.

I mean, you're just going to hit the doctrines of grace. But when those things come up,

I think you need to go hard. I think you do. And I think and the reason why I think that is because the doctrines of grace just magnify who

God is. And if we have a low view of God, we're in, you know, so, but yeah, that's just my two cents.

But I see what both of you guys are saying, but I think you both are right on that.

So, like, for example, at the last church I was at, it was it was a church that was probably divided in its sense of covenant theology or dispensationalism and those views on that.

And so part of the strategy of shepherding people is trying to show people truth, so covenant theology, aka 1689 federalism, let's just be up front right there, 1689

Baptist stuff, right? And so part of that is to let the text convict people and showing people, like, you don't have to come out and say covenant theology and throw dispensationalism right under the bus.

That might come in due time. But I do think that you go hard when the text shows it, but you don't have to come out and just straight up say dispensationalism was created in the 1800s by John Nelson Darby, popularized by Spofield Bible, and you see what

I'm saying? And so, honestly, this coming Sunday I'm going to be in James chapter 1 verse 1, and it's nice now being at a

Reformed Baptist church that's had this position for many, many years now as a Reformed Baptist church.

In that text, James doesn't appeal to – and I'll try to be quick in this without giving you a whole sermon –

James doesn't appeal to his relationship with Jesus being his brother. He says, I am, as James, a servant of God and of the

Lord Jesus Christ. So he doesn't appeal to a family relationship. But then he writes, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings.

And so some modern commentaries would say that that's speaking of ethnic Jews. It's not speaking to the church.

It's speaking of ethnic Jews because he says twelve tribes of the dispersion. I don't believe he's talking to ethnic

Jews. I think he's building off of the theology of true Israel that we've seen in other books that would have been the common view in the church in that time.

And he even calls them my brothers later on. And then in chapter 2, verse 2 he says, the assembly.

And so this is talking, I think, the church, true Israel of God. And the dispersion –

What's that? What year was James written? Wasn't that one of the first books? It was. So 45 -48

B .C. or A .C. not B .C. A .D. And so the point in that, though, is James wouldn't appeal to a ethnic relationship after just showing his ultimate relationship in Christ.

And then not only this, but the twelve tribes of the dispersion took place in 600

B .C. There was no twelve tribes for James to be writing this book to at the time of him writing in 45 -48

B .C. And so what James is doing is he's pointing to a previous event speaking about the persecution that the church is currently in and how the gospel is going out into the world.

And so that principle is there. I'm probably not going to just straight up say dispensationalism is redundant and redunculous on Sunday, right?

It's going to be demonstrating this is what James is trying to get at with this. And it's something that is present in the other gospel accounts.

And there's a continuity between all people that have had faith in God throughout all the years of creation.

And that is the people of God, the called out ones, the Israel of God. And that's just a principle

James is building off of. Good, good stuff. Okay, question number nine. Any more?

You want to go on that one? I like this question here. Is it more difficult to remain faithful in ministry in times of comfort or persecution?

Is it more difficult to remain faithful in ministry in times of comfort or persecution?

And why? I'll say for myself, probably in times of comfort.

And I say that because that's what we experience most of the time here in America anyways.

We don't really know persecution, right? I mean, compared to some. I mean, we do, whenever we go out and we evangelize and spread the gospel, we do receive some there.

But not, even still, even then, not like some have in other countries and across the world.

So I would say the church in America, we don't really know persecution. Most of the time we experience a lot of comfort.

And that comfort can come at a cost because we get very apathetic and we get in our safe zones and we're comfortable over there.

We think, well, this is church when really, if we go back to the Bible and we go back to other places in church history, we see that church is much more than just coming inside these four walls and singing a few songs and hearing the

Word of God preached. It is getting out and going and doing the work of the ministry out there.

And that's when it becomes hard. And so I would say too many times for myself personally, when

I get just in times of comfort, that can be a great...

Well, actually, I'll back up and I'll say this. The Lord can use that in to wake me up from my stupor of being complacent in ministry to then again use me for His glory.

So I would just say for me it's comfort and that I would in a sense like to be challenged more.

So let me do this for you, Brayden. I'm going to change the question. I'm going to change the question because I'm smarter than AI at this point.

Instead of using persecution, let's change it to affliction. Affliction.

So the question is this. Is it more difficult to remain faithful in ministry in times of comfort or affliction?

Yeah. Well, that's an affliction. You know, it's hard to say in one sense.

I think that a pastor's true colors will be shown in affliction. I think a lot of times. And what

I mean by that is, again, I think, Jared, you're answering off of your experience. I'm going to have to answer off my experience in this sense too, right?

If somebody is slandering or gossiping or creating disunity in a church,

I'm saying that that is affliction. Anything I answer off of that, I'm saying that that qualifies as affliction in my mind right now.

I think it's very easy for a pastor to feel like departing from truth to create unity, going back on that question that we had earlier, is the way the easy means out.

And it often is, right? It's easy just to change, flip -flop every which way and be a politician and have everybody like you behind the pulpit.

It's another thing to actually stand for Christ, which then will create affliction, right?

The slander, gossip, disunity sometimes because you're standing on truth at that point. And so, you know,

I I do think comfort creates a pastor without a spine.

And you can then have a lot of hidden things that are going on, but I do think affliction is what then ends up exposing a pastor and their true motives all along.

I don't know if that... Does that answer the question? I don't know if it does. I think that's really good, so I'll answer this one too on my experience, not as a pastor, but just through my

Christian walk and you guys would probably relate somewhat, maybe if you guys have.

I guess it really depends on how much affliction you've had in your life, but I can tell you this, and I think

Jared spoke to it, but you did too. I think there's a saying that says that when you get sweet, when you get squeezed, what's going to come out?

If you squeeze an orange, you're going to get orange juice. So I remember one time we said this to a little kid, what happens when you get squeezed?

Do you get spirit juice? What happens when you squeeze a little kid is what you're trying to say.

Yeah, what happens when the Holy Spirit squeezes you, you should get spirit juice.

My point is this, is that I noticed in my times of affliction, whether it was brought on by my own sin or just suffering, or like you had said, gossip and slander, that it put me on my knees, realized that I wouldn't be depending on my own strength and my own and my own self, but it caused me to look to Christ and to be dependent on Him.

I noticed that when I was afflicted, whether it was brought on again by myself or I didn't deserve it, and what

I mean by that, it was brought on by somebody else and I was innocent in that matter, it still caused me to pray more.

I remember going to bed, praying, just put me on my knees praying to God and then waking up still praying the same prayer.

My prayer life was just amazing because of the affliction and the pressure and the stress that I was being squeezed out.

It was total dependency on God. That was special. It really was special.

I do want to just say, Tom, I think that's great. I think you can experience growth or sanctification in both either comfort or affliction, but I think it tends to be that in comfort you might grow in sanctification, in education, in theological understanding of God and Scripture because you're able to pursue those things, but in affliction you grow in the application of God's Word towards your life.

That's good stuff. I think. I don't know if you guys would agree with that. I know anytime that I've seen a family or myself or anybody around me go through something, man, that's the kind of Christian I want to be around, is somebody that's actually been through it.

One that actually has a testimony that actually has grown in Christ in the thick of things.

I think that's where the rubber meets the road. I would say affliction is definitely a means of grace that God uses in our lives.

We need that. Even though our flesh is totally opposed to anything like that, the

Lord knows exactly what we need in the moment. If we're going through a time of comfort, like you said,

Brian, it can be good. It can definitely be good. We should want peace, but there are times that we need that affliction in our lives to wake us up and to make us realize

I need God right now. I need him right now. Absolutely, yeah. There was a quote and I posted it on Facebook not too long ago.

I posted it 15 years ago and it came up on my memories on Facebook. It was by Charles Spurgeon.

I think I've read it once on the show before, but I'll read it again. It says this. It says, and this is Charles Spurgeon, I like to be with God's people with the poorer class of the more struggling and afflicted sort.

I like to be with God's people who wrestle hard with sins and doubts and fears. If I get spoken to by my superior brethren,

I find I have very little pleasant fellowship with them, for I know nothing about their wonderful experience of freedom from conflict and complete deliverance from every evil tendency.

I have never lived a day, but I have had to sorrow over my imperfections.

Charles Spurgeon, so good stuff. I love that. You know, I would just say on that note though, Tom, and something

Michelle just said too. You know, James chapter 1, verse 2,

I just know this just because I've been studying it. It says, count it all joy my brothers. That goes back into what

I was getting at in verse 1, but count it all joy my brothers. When you meet various trials, or when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith continues to go back to that covenant theology people have got.

I'm just saying that. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Listen, this verse is something that you should be preaching to yourself when you are in comfort because when you're in affliction it is hard to count it as all joy, but you must you must, you must, you must because truly

I think I know you brothers would agree with me on this. Some of the most sanctifying moments in my life, the most cherished moments of how

God has helped me know Him better has been through the challenges and afflictions and trials that I've gone through, and I'm sure that you guys have gone through too.

And those are the key things in our lives that even though in the moment if we had stopped it, put pause on our timeline, pause you and I would say, man,

I hate this, I don't want to be going through it, I think this is terrible. Years later you would say,

God I wouldn't have had it any other way. This is your own me, and I'm thankful to you for it.

And so Michelle, whatever is going on, keep on searching the scripture, have hope and know that God is sovereign and that He has purpose and whatever you're going through and that He's conforming you to the image of Christ and whatever it is.

Yeah. So question number one, says, what does it mean to be faithful in ministry when the results of your labor seems to be minimal or invisible?

Wait, read that one again. Sorry, which number was that? What does it mean to be faithful in ministry when the results of your labor seems to be minimal or invisible?

In other words, you're faithful, you're going out, you're doing the ministry of the work, but you're not seeing fruit.

You're not seeing fruit of your evangelism. You're not seeing people grow. Listen, I can speak from this as a pastor and I think it fits into every form of ministry, doesn't matter which one you're in.

You must take your encouragement and reward from God who is faithful, not from man.

And let me clarify what I mean by that. What I'm getting at is if you are in ministry seeking a reward or you want to receive seeing a fruit from your labor or you are wanting to hear admonitions for your work, men will disappoint you through and through.

You might see fruit for one day and the next day that same person is stabbing you in the back. If you get encouragement from other believers or reported believers, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Rejoice in the Lord in a profession of faith, but something I've seen personally is that you must seek your encouragement from the

Lord. That's where the key source of all your encouragement should be coming from in ministry. The motto that Tom has already said, even if none, we're obedient to God, not so that we can see fruit.

We're obedient to God because we're obedient to Him to glorify Him and to seek encouragement from Him instead of other men.

The fruit is the glorifying of God. The fruit is your obedience. That's the fruit of God's work in you, not your working for God.

I would say I second that, but I would say also why do we do what we do?

That's a question that we have to ask ourselves because oftentimes we can get wrapped up in the numbers.

This church has this many baptisms this year or whatever it is.

If we're too concerned about the numbers and we're not concerned about just being faithful to God and what

He's called us to do, we're going to go down a bad road. Our heads will get really big and we'll think that we're something, but we're really not.

We'll fall really quick. I think that we just need to get our priorities right and understand who our

God is, what He's called us to do and just be faithful in that. That is the measure of success.

We cannot measure our success based upon the positive responses that we get.

If that was the case, we would all be depressed. Not only that, when you look at Jesus' ministry and you would say that He's a failure if that's the case.

As a matter of fact, that's question number 20 by AI. What is the ultimate measure of faithfulness in ministry?

Endurance? Purity? Fruit? Or something else entirely? The ultimate measure.

The ultimate measure of faithfulness. Is it endurance? Purity? Fruit? Or something else?

The ultimate measure. Again, ministry is multifaceted.

It is preaching for the pastor. It's the proclamation or the exposition of God's Word.

That's one of the biggest things. If we're not being faithful to the Word, we're failing.

Right. We have to be clear expositors. We see that standard set forth in Scripture, but I would say that the ultimate measure of our faithfulness, which is according to God's Word, is the

God who is faithful to me yet while I'm sinning against Him when I lack in faith.

And so, we all fail in our faithfulness to God. We fall far short of the faithfulness of God that He has demonstrated to us in His Son Jesus Christ and saving us while we are yet His enemies.

And so, you know, I think reminding ourselves of that and trying to emulate that faithfulness.

Listen, going back to that previous question of taking encouragement from God, even when a shepherd is biting or when a shepherd is receiving bites from the sheep on his hands from feeding them, we are still called to feed and tend the sheep of God.

And so, we still do that even when they're biting, because why? We've been at God's hand far many more times than what any sheep could ever bite at our hands.

And so, we're faithful because He's faithful. Yeah, you know, I was just thinking, just David actually said, to hear

Christ, well done, you know, good and faithful servant. And I was thinking of the parable of the talents.

You know, when God has given each one of us a measure of faith, He's given us each one of us a measure of gifts, whether it's, you know, whether it's a speaking gift or a serving gift or whatever, whatever

God has given us, it's, you know, what are we doing as a steward of what

God has given us to advance the kingdom of God? But it's like you said,

Braden, He knows our weaknesses too. But at the same time, that's not saying anything against you at all.

I agree with you. He does know our weaknesses, and God is always faithful, which is your point. But in that, with the little that He's given you, how much are you investing your time in the kingdom of God?

How much are you investing your speaking gift in the furthering of the kingdom?

What are we doing to advance the kingdom of God? That's the mark of faithfulness, is investing in the kingdom of God.

Amen. Amen. It's been an hour and 10 minutes.

Does anybody have any questions? Oh, here. What is

God teaching me in this... Oh, question. Can we say, what is God teaching me in this circumstance?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's actually one thing that Job... I mean, not in that exact words, but I think that's what

Job is really wrestling with, because Job... Man, a lot of people give

Job a hard time. Job just lost his fricking seven sons and three daughters and lost all his property. Stop giving

Job a hard time. God says He's a righteous and faithful servant. If you're trying to read

Job without acknowledging how God speaks about Job, stop it. God says

Job is a faithful servant at both the beginning and the end of the book. Stop trying to give Job a hard time.

Job is wrestling with what is the purpose of God's sovereignty in the loss of his children.

Ultimately, God answers him by saying, my ways are higher than your ways. Job does get answered by God at the end of the book, and that's to continue to rest your head on God's sovereignty.

I think it's totally fine to ask, what is God teaching me in this circumstance? If nothing else,

He's teaching you to trust in His sovereignty, and you might not ever see that answer, but God is working it.

Yeah, I would say that I think that we should always ask that question in every season that we're in, because He wants to teach us something.

That's it. That should always be on our mind, too, don't you think, Jared? In every circumstance that we're in, even every hour, every minute of the day, we should be saying, we should be in the

Spirit asking God, okay, Lord, where do you want me to go?

How do you want me to respond? How can I live my life every minute of the day according to you?

That should be our goal. Amen. That's it. Any final words,

Brayden? Well, let's let Jared, let's let the guests have the very final words. Jared, what you got?

Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to, again, thank you guys for having me on the show. It's been fantastic to catch up with you guys, to hear from you, and love you brothers very much, and so thank you for the opportunity.

I would just encourage people, if I can say this, encourage people to subscribe and get on the show more and comment and just ask questions, because I think you got

Brayden, Tom, you guys do a great job and will continue to be faithful in what God's called you to do, so I just would say to the audience, come on and take a listen and keep on listening and support the show.

But praying for you brothers at your church, in your ministry,

Tom, what you're doing there, sharing the gospel, keep on doing that, and if there's anything that we can do at Emmaus, just let us know.

Again, we're located in the middle Tennessee area, Smithfield, Tennessee, and so if anyone wants to, if you guys are around, or if anyone on the show is around, we welcome you to come and join us worship at Emmaus Road Baptist Church.

Amen. Want me to go next? It's up to you, which one, who do you want?

I'll go next and you can close us out. So I'm going to say the same thing I do here, well first, a little bit different.

Jared, very glad that you came on. It is wonderful catching up with you and nice to hear about your church and stay faithful in preaching

God's word, take care of your baby and your wife.

Do you have two kids or one? You guys probably don't know this, so I have a total of four kids.

Me and my wife, we have two together, so we met ten plus years ago and we've had two.

We just had my son three months ago. So he's been a huge blessing to our family, but now

I have four. I had two back in high school, back in my really depraved days to say the least.

But they're all blessings to us and the Lord has used them in my life to sanctify me and bring me closer to himself and great blessings.

But yeah, I have four. That's awesome. Praise God. So yeah, and then your wife,

I always make fun of her because she's about three foot two. She will get you for that, man.

I know. She's going to stab your kneecaps, Tom. She's awesome.

I'm going to say this. You guys go out this next year and look for somebody.

All you've got to do is walk out your door and there's somebody there that needs to hear the gospel.

Point them to their condition. Point them to Christ in his active obedience and going to the cross, paying the penalty for our sin, being risen on the third day, seated at the right hand of the

Father forever interceding for all those who place their trust in him. Go tell them about Christ today.

Make it a point to tell one person about Christ this week. Amen. Well, what else can

I say after that? That was great. Tom, I agree with you, brother. Anybody out there that's praying for the opportunity to share the gospel, you can keep on praying for that, but stop not telling your neighbor about it.

You have opportunities that are ample and you're just making an excuse to not do it. Let's be honest.

Heed the words of Tom and go and tell people about Jesus Christ. Jared, brother, I love you, too.

We'll have to have you back on here. Tom, I love you, but that's because Jesus tells me

I have to love you. I don't like you. I only love Jared. I love you. I appreciate it.

Thank you, guys. God bless you, guys. God bless you guys as well.

If you live in Moore Park or in the Ventura County area, you've got to come check out Grace Bible Church in Moore Park. I do have to just drop that in there again.

Anyway, tonight was a blessing. Thank you all for watching and tuning in. Looking forward to seeing you guys again next week.