Should Grape Juice Be Served in a Sippy Cup for Communion?

The Bible Bashed Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Warning, the following message may be offensive to some audiences. These audiences may include, but are not limited to, professing Christians who never read their

00:05

Bible, sissies, sodomites, men with man buns, those who approve of men with man buns, man bun enablers, white knights for men with man buns, homemakers who have finished

00:10

Netflix but don't know how to meal plan, and people who refer to their pets as fur babies. Viewer discretion is advised. People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio.

00:19

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject

00:31

Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

00:38

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our heads.

00:49

They will hear His words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.

00:58

God wrapped Himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, saying there is a group of people who will hear

01:17

His words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come,

01:27

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:33

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by Gabriel Rensch, co -host of CrossPolitik, as we answer the age -old question, should grape juice be served in a sippy cup during communion?

01:47

So like I said, we've got Gabriel here joining us from CrossPolitik, and so before we really dive into this question, and sort of the spirited discussion,

01:58

I would say, that's been going on online for a few weeks now around communion, and should you use wine, should you use grape juice?

02:06

Gabriel, why don't you take just a second and tell us a little bit more about you for those who are listening who maybe haven't seen a lot of your stuff before.

02:15

Yeah, certainly. Thanks for having me on, guys. Appreciate it. I'm going to start here, because I grew up in Texas, so I'm a

02:23

Southern boy at heart. Love the humid nights and the lightning bugs. But now

02:29

I moved up to Oregon in 97. My dad was a pipe fitter, fab worker at Texas Instruments in Texas, and then went to college in California, and then ended up in Idaho.

02:41

So now I live in Northern Idaho. I basically am the business guy behind CrossPolitik, which is our

02:48

TV show and podcast. We're on DirecTV and Xfinity also, and then I run our conference, if anybody knows or ever been to our conferences.

02:56

So I run the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference. Fight, Laugh, Feast is our tagline. We came up with that tagline because we believe

03:03

Christians need to fight together, feast together, and laugh together, and that's been something that I don't think the church has done very well over this last 40 years.

03:12

I was born in 1979, so I kind of categorize everything on my experience in the church these last 40 years.

03:18

And so we have a conference called the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, and this year it's in Fort Worth, Barbecue, Promised Land, and it's on Prodigal America, prodigalamerica .com,

03:30

where does America need to repent is kind of the theme of the topic. So I'm really excited about what

03:36

God's doing there. And then I'm an entrepreneur. I run a podcast hosting business, which if you guys aren't hosting on my platform, your podcast is probably going to be canceled.

03:49

I run a podcast hosting business and I run a public relations agency on top of everything that I do.

03:57

And I coach my girls' basketball team at school.

04:03

That's probably my funnest thing I do. You know, I was about to say too, because you're just ragging on me for liking football and not liking basketball before we started the episode, and then

04:12

I thought you weren't even going to bring up basketball. So one of the reasons why we wanted to have you on was because of your recent infamous tweet.

04:22

And really, I mean, it kind of reminded me of the Do Baptists Cause Transgenderism kind of discussion.

04:30

And so there was a similar internet meltdown related to that. That was Farley that said that.

04:36

That wasn't you that said that, but then I'm sure that you fielded some of the heat related to that.

04:41

But it was a similar kind of thing. And I'm going to go and read the tweet that you said and then elaborate a little bit on the reaction there, which was a little bit interesting to me.

04:52

But you basically said, how many masculine men emphasize scare quotes, sit under pastors who serve them grape juice for communion, might as well serve them a baby bottle with a nipple and milk in it.

05:04

And yeah, I mean, so the internet, I mean, it basically collectively lost its mind on this one. And it's funny because, you know,

05:11

Harrison and I, we're both Baptist, and we actually serve grape juice for communion at our church.

05:17

And so with both of these things, it's with the do Baptist cause transgenderism. And we're not going to really talk about that, but we can talk about that if you want.

05:26

Yep. But I mean, well, both of them, what was funny to me is that I didn't take offense to either one of them.

05:32

I just, I mean, I, I, I understood where you guys were coming from considering that you're post -millennial and all that with the do

05:38

Baptist cause transgenderism kind of conversation. And I disagreed with it, but then I could understand the logic.

05:44

I can understand how you get there. And then with this one, I can also understand the logic and how you get there, even though I'm not fully persuaded that that's right.

05:52

But then in both cases, I didn't really take offense to it. So part of, part of how we wanted to start was,

05:58

I wanted to get your take on like, why do you think that so many people were so predisposed to, you know, light their beards on fire and, you know, burn down the internet because of this one?

06:10

Yeah. A couple of things there. I do want to point out that we're equal opportunists.

06:18

Like I can't tell you how many times we've gone after Presbyterians and our own people on our, on our show. So when, when we're, when we say

06:26

Baptists are responsible for transgender, I've said on, on our show, Presbyterians who wear robes in the pulpit or in the pulpit are responsible for the gay revoice movement.

06:38

So, you know, so I don't want to act like we're just like, we only wanted to go after Baptists and they're, what we think are their sins connected to some of their theology.

06:49

Now this tweet was after part of the context of the tweet too, was, you know,

06:55

Kevin DeYoung just kind of came after us and the Moscow mood. Did you guys read

07:01

Kevin DeYoung's article? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he kind of coined the term Moscow mood, which has turned into its own thing, which has been pretty funny too.

07:11

But my tweet was actually more in context of that. So Kevin DeYoung came after Moscow for largely kind of our serrated edge theology is what we call it.

07:21

Kind of using the punchier, kickier verses and scripture and, and employing it on our culture.

07:32

That's what kind of one of the things Moscow is known for is kind of like what's been coined as a serrated edge.

07:38

You know, so taking Ezekiel, taking Paul, taking Elijah, taking Jesus and kind of taking some of their harder rebuking edgy rebukes.

07:47

And we've kind of embodied that here in Moscow and used it on our culture, the church and so forth.

07:53

So Kevin DeYoung kind of came after us for our serrated edge and called it, and a couple of things in context there and call it kind of coined the term

08:03

Moscow mood to describe what we're doing. And there's a certain mood to Moscow and, but it got me, the fight, the fight, the fighting part.

08:16

That's, that's, that's a good way to, yeah, that's great. And, and so it kind of got me thinking. And part of like the problem with Kevin DeYoung kind of,

08:23

I've gone to Kevin DeYoung, he has a regional conference up here in Spokane, Washington, five, six years ago,

08:29

I went to, I met him there, I talked to him, you know, so I've sat under Kevin DeYoung's teaching. I've read his book. It was a whole, the whole unholiness or whatever.

08:39

And so I've liked Kevin DeYoung's writings and theology, but he came after us for this particular issue.

08:49

And, but has refused himself to, he's still on the gospel coalition's author list.

08:57

He's still, he's on the council at the gospel coalition. He's, the

09:03

PCA has dealt with revoice for, you know, five years or something, six years worth of cross politics was one that blew the lid off the, off the revoice thing.

09:14

Not Kevin. Now Kevin has to his, to his credit, he has written some good things on revoice. So I'm not, but like he's kind of refused to kind of hold his own ranks accountable.

09:25

Yeah. He doesn't like, I haven't seen any, you know, strident articles about all of Brett McCracken's movie reviews with all the language and the swear words and everything else that are in there.

09:40

So that was, so that got me thinking though about Kevin DeYoung. And so I was actually, my comments were more directed at Presbyterians than probably anybody.

09:49

And then, so I, I said, Kevin, my original tweet, and then the second tweet was the effeminate tweet.

09:56

My original tweet was this whole Kevin DeYoung thing got me thinking that those pastors and ministries who do not like the serrated edge theology, which is literally about what 5 % of Moscow actually writes about, speaks about, blogs about, podcasts about,

10:12

I mean, it's not, but that's really what we're known for. It's hilarious. Like you, you go through Canada Press's book and there's one book on serrated edge theology out of their, you know, 500 books of family and other stuff.

10:27

But Kevin, so, but I said in the tweet, I was like, you know, those who reject the serrated edge theology are the same people who serve wine and communion or serve grape juice and communion, meaning they're just, they're just weak sauce ministries.

10:43

They're just, they're all foam and no beer kind of, kind of people. And so then

10:49

I followed up with, and, and then those congregants, those men in the congregation who sit under pastors, who give them grape juice are being effeminate.

11:01

And so that's, that's the context. And so, and then I wrote a blog post. I don't know if you guys caught the blog post on it.

11:08

And I started, when I started writing through the blog posts, I started thinking further about this.

11:14

The real trifecta of effeminacy in a church is the church that rejects biblical theology around the serrated edge, a church that serves grape juice instead of wine, and a church that willingly mandated government protocols in their own pews.

11:31

And I did my research and that was actually Kevin's church. He mandated government

11:38

COVID protocols in his church, masking, social distancing, and all this stuff. And you can go to his website and it's on their website talking about it.

11:45

I kept screenshots of it in case they ever take it down. But that's, he's just submitting.

11:51

So I guess part of this conversation will define effeminacy. Define what's the definition of biblical definition of feminine, man or effeminate.

12:00

And basically a good definition of someone, a man who's being effeminate is basically taking good and godly women characteristics and embodying them in a way he shouldn't.

12:16

And so the man who's, you know, a man who's wearing women's clothes,

12:22

Deuteronomy 22 five, he's being effeminate. A man who is, when he knows better to obey

12:31

God rather than man, he's being effeminate. And then you got a soft man in first Corinthians chapter six, nine, and the word for soft, there's malicoy.

12:44

It's literally the basically playing the submission role in a homosexual relationship.

12:51

Soft, malicoy. And the word soft applies a lot way beyond just the homosexual relationship.

13:00

It goes into the world of man being soft. And so go ahead.

13:05

It sounds like you want to ask the question, Tim. Yeah. Well, I think one of the reasons why I wasn't so predisposed to take offense to it, even though what you're saying directly applies to what we're doing in our ministry as a church.

13:16

I mean, I think part of the reason why I'm not so predisposed to take offense to it is because I, I agree with the basic premise, like meaning,

13:24

I agree that the major failing of the church is essentially at the topic of effeminacy in general.

13:32

So I mean, it's just overwhelmingly obvious. Like we're just, we're a society right now that's being ruled by women essentially, and this shows up in every single area imaginable.

13:41

So then like that is I think the central failing. I mean, and that's, that's something I see just related to counseling situations, church situations, everything else.

13:52

I mean, almost every single situation you can imagine, you have a very passive male and you have a lady who basically is, you know, you better give her what she wants or else she's going to be, you know, if mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

14:04

And that's, I mean, that's basically the situation that, and that's, I mean, that's obviously the problem that's present in the garden.

14:10

So when I'm looking at that and I see this, like the basic, you know, the church in America, if you're going to talk about it in that kind of language, that is overwhelmingly the problem that we see.

14:20

You have a bunch of, like you have a bunch of men who are basically spineless and cowards.

14:27

And I mean, in COVID, I mean, COVID and all that, everything that you're mentioning about COVID, there's just a great example of just how feckless and cowardly the standard

14:36

American man actually is in our nation today. So all those things are true. And we've been like, all of our impulses are basically geared that way.

14:45

So then if you mention that as it relates to communion, I might say,

14:51

Hey, well, I don't, I don't know if that applies in the way that you're trying to apply it, but I'm willing to consider it, you know?

15:00

So, so first I'm willing to consider it. I'm willing to hear you out. I'm not just predisposed to say, okay, well, that's crazy.

15:07

But then too, like, I, I'm not like, I don't, I don't quite understand the response that says like, like if you challenge men's masculinity,

15:17

I'm not predisposed. I'm not trained in such a way to like roll over and just get all bent out of shape about it.

15:24

Right. Like, I mean, I think part of the function of men is to call other men to be more manly than they are to be better embodiments of their gender.

15:33

So, I mean, if there's, if there's something you're seeing that maybe I haven't seen yet, I'm at least willing to hear it out.

15:39

And yeah. Let me, let me give you a couple of qualifications that you can't put in a tweet.

15:47

So there's a couple of qualifications there. One is we've been doing this practice for about 200 years.

15:53

So I, I think there's a lot of churches who are doing it who aren't being effeminate. I think there's a lot of churches who are doing it because that's been the tradition of the church for the last 200 years.

16:03

So there can be other reasons for putting grape juice in communion.

16:09

And we just need to, I think the church just need to grow in knowledge there. There's a challenge to be like, okay, we need to know why we're doing this and why we've been doing it.

16:17

The other thing related to that issue is like my church,

16:23

King's Cross, Pastor Toby's my pastor, Pastor Doug planted our church here in town.

16:29

I still call Doug my pastor. I mean, I went to help the church, but, you know, but served as a deacon at Doug's church.

16:37

But my church, we have wine in the communion trays and then we have grape juice in the back that those who kind of have religious scruples and center consciences can, can go in the back, grab the cup and come and sit down and drink with everybody, the grape juice.

16:51

But again, we're doing that because whoever comes to these convictions should go slow at their church.

16:58

You should, you know, that I said in my article, anybody who's coming under the conviction of like,

17:04

Hey, yeah, we need to serve wine and community. Cause that's what God commanded in the scriptures. That's what Jesus drank out of cup. That's what he said.

17:09

Do this in remembrance of me. We need to serve wine and wine and communion. If you're new to these convictions, go as slow with your congregation as God went as slow with you.

17:22

Be as patient with your congregation as God is patient with you on this issue. Which means, you know, that probably is going to take five years to bring your congregation along.

17:30

You know, don't just pop wine and communion, you know, teach them robust biblical theology and teach them walking through, do some sermons on communion and fellowship.

17:39

So, so I think the caveat and some of the qualifications that don't make it a tweet, I understand hits brothers like you guys, where it's like, okay, that's not us.

17:47

But he didn't explain himself. I want to hear him explain himself. So I appreciate, you know, part of that explanation is explain myself.

17:53

The, the fallout of this, I think kind of, um, so I'm trying to get at, like what you were saying, the broader, uh, feminine issues in the church.

18:05

The reason why we have women in the pulpit is because men were being bad women in the pulpit.

18:11

Men were trying to do relational sermons and then, Oh, let's just put a real woman in there.

18:17

Can't that can't do that sermon. And so the effeminacy in the church has just been so well adopted because the male pastors had embodied it for a long time.

18:27

And then it's no wonder a woman can slip right into the pulpit and no one notices the difference in the preaching. And so there really is,

18:33

I'd say the center of effeminacy and coward, cowardiceness is a big issue in the church and COVID showed us that.

18:41

Uh, and so I think, you know, when you throw a rock into a, into a pack of barking dogs and the one that got hit

18:49

Yelps, the one that Yelps is the one that got hit. And so I think that's part of why the tweet went so viral is because I think it, it made a lot of dogs

18:58

Yelp. Um, and I think when you're, when you're, when

19:06

I believe what Jesus taught, dude, this remembers to me is very clear that he had, he served one in communion.

19:12

Um, and, and so, but that's one of the, one of the other challenges to me was, well, it wasn't clear that Jesus did that.

19:20

And so I think because I was stating something dogmatically that they were saying was not very clear.

19:27

That was, so the two problems, the two feedback I had was it was that one I'm stating dogmatically something that wasn't very clear.

19:32

And, and then you're drawing effeminate conclusions from that and you shouldn't do that. You're being divisive at the church.

19:39

And so that's why I think the tweet went viral and then you get the feminists actually adding to the flame and, and you get the perfect recipe for the tweet.

19:48

Yeah. You definitely get like a one, once a few, this is what I've noticed being online and you know, getting interaction with people is once you get a few people who just totally light their hair on fire about something, it's like they're all leaning in together, you know, to light everyone else's hair on fire as well.

20:07

And they, you know, it's like, it's like sharks smelling blood in the water or something.

20:12

Sometimes that's what it feels like where it's like all these people are coming in and it's like, I've never seen you before in my entire life.

20:18

Where did you even come from? But you know, and in terms of like,

20:26

Hey, your tweet, you know, you were saying, Hey, I'm maybe part of why some people were just getting so bent out of shape about it is because I was,

20:33

I was speaking so dogmatically about something that, you know, is, is at least in, you know, at least in the minds of some is, is not very clear in scripture.

20:44

So us being the people, you know, you met, you mentioned the analogy of like, Hey, when you throw the rock into the pack of barking dogs, you'll hit the one or the one you hit.

20:53

The one that yells. Yeah. Yeah. It's the one that yells. I guess Tim and I were probably like, we're not the dog that got hit by the rock, but then we're the dog that's right next to the dog that got hit by the rock.

21:05

And we're wondering, Oh man, why'd that dog get hit by the rock? We better, we better figure out why.

21:11

So, so give us, you know, your argument for why, you know, what, what is it in scripture that convinced you that,

21:20

Hey, this isn't just some obscure, Hey, we'll just throw our hands up. We'll never really know the answer.

21:27

There is actually an answer here. So, so give us that, you know, what convinced you in scripture that this, that serving wine and communion is the faithful way to go.

21:38

Yeah. So I think there's kind of an exegetical answer to this. And then there's a historical answer to this.

21:45

The exegetical answer is kind of, and it basically falls under kind of, it's twofold when

21:50

Jesus commanded us to do this remembrance of him. So we all believe that the Lord's supper is a commandment. Do this remembrance and we should do it and, and we should do it in church.

22:00

It's a sacrament that we do in the church. It's not a sacrament we do at home by ourselves. There might be some disagreement there, but it's a, it's a commandment.

22:10

Okay. So it's a commandment he gave to the disciples. He gave to the church that the church should continue on. And Paul reiterates that first.

22:17

So when Jesus says, do this remembrance of him. Well, do the next question is do what?

22:23

Do peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Dr. Pepper do, you know, do, do what? So, well,

22:29

Jesus showed us, he showed us what he's doing. He took the bread and he took the wine. Now the, the argument for wine when

22:39

Jesus said, this is the fruit of my vine. And this is the fruit of my, not my vine.

22:45

This is the fruit of the vine. It's Friday. So I'm, I'm, I'm a little slow at this point, but this is the fruit of the vine.

22:51

The word fruit there. The Greek word for fruit is actually product. It's like, you know, what's the, what's the fruit.

22:57

What's the product of the vine. Well, the product of the vine was, was wine. That was the only thing that no grape juice had been invented then.

23:05

So it was the only thing that was in Jesus. You're telling me Welch's wasn't around yet. Yeah. Yeah.

23:10

We'll get there. That's where we're going. So, I would push back on you a little bit on that because this is something

23:16

I looked up as well. And, you know, as you, I mean, so the verse you're talking about is Matthew 26, 29.

23:22

He says, I'll tell you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day. And when I drank it new with you and my father's kingdom,

23:31

So I, one of the things I did was I looked up because I was curious about this as well, but I was looking at Moynas and Oinos is the primary

23:39

Greek word for wine essentially. But then they also did, they had, they had a category for unfermented wine.

23:47

So just, I mean, reading out of the bidet here, you have Oinos is a beverage made from fermented. Juice of the grapevine, the word for must or unfermented grape juice is trucks essentially.

23:58

So they had a word for that. It's it doesn't actually show up in the Bible anywhere. And so that may make your case stronger.

24:05

The fact that the word trucks doesn't show up in the Bible anywhere, but then there is like a Greek word for that at the time.

24:11

And it was a concept and both of them were essentially described as the fruit of the vine. But then your, your argument is more though just because overwhelmingly wine is the word that's showing up, then it's the natural assumption is that's what they're going to be drinking.

24:28

Is that fair? I mean, yeah, well, I'd say, and then, and then he jumped to Corinthians chapter 11 where Paul rebukes the

24:34

Corinthians for getting drunk at the Lord's table. And his solution wasn't to come up with some non -alcoholic beverage.

24:40

His solution was to pretend of getting drunk and do it rightly. So we. Relate to the historical argument.

24:46

The historical argument you're making is they, I mean, if they're, if there's a possibility they're getting drunk at the

24:51

Lord's supper, then that means they're probably using the Oinos and not the trucks. Right. Yeah, correct.

24:57

And also, I mean, it's just, and then you have the, the biblical culture of just wine and the

25:03

Passover meal. So the Passover meal had wine and, and then a new Testament the Lord's supper is the new

25:10

Passover. And so you have this, you know, deep embedded connection with Israel and wine for centuries.

25:23

And, and, and so it wasn't, it wasn't like an odd thing for Israel to, you know, to receive from Jesus the

25:31

Lord's supper. And then not be something other than wine, you know,

25:37

I know that's kind of a weaker argument, but, but let me add this real quick. Where that's, but that's also why

25:45

I think the symbolism, I didn't talk about this in my blog post. It was just, there was so many things I could have brought in there, but the symbolism of wine is, is very powerful.

25:54

You know, it symbolizes the blood of Christ, you know, death, death, their own, the bleeding of Christ on the cross.

26:03

Wine. I think one of the reasons why wine is symbolically so important in the Lord's supper is because there's a kick in that gospel.

26:11

Grape juice is just blah. There's, there's, there's no symbolically, there's just no kick there.

26:16

I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about that because like, I know a lot of the, a lot of the arguments that I hear related to wine.

26:26

So, I mean, just full disclosure, I went to John MacArthur school. So I went to the master's college and then I went to SBTS after, after that, but then

26:34

I repented, but, but no with, so a lot of the arguments

26:40

I'm used to hearing related to this topic are centered around the idea that, okay, like why, why did they drink wine?

26:49

Why was wine such a big part of the culture in general? Well, a lot of it's just related to the fact that when you have bad water, you need something to preserve it.

26:57

And so then, you know, the, the arguments that are related at this point, at this point is the arguments

27:02

I hear are one, you know, why do they drink wine? Well, because they dirty water kills people.

27:07

So this, fermenting the grape juice, like letting it sit, it's going to preserve it, remove the impurities out of it.

27:15

And then, you know, the, the secondary argument is that yes, they had a category for strong drink, but then also you have like wine, like wine is being used.

27:25

And it's not like near the alcoholic content that we have here today in general. So then the idea is that the alcohol itself is just kind of like an afterthought.

27:34

And then maybe that's why you have these vague descriptions in the Lord supper, like in that, you know, he's saying,

27:42

I'm not going to drink the fruit of the vine again. Maybe that's ambiguous as to what it is. It could be something that looks like blood.

27:49

So like the issue is both grape juice wine, they both look like blood, like in terms of visually, they look like they're symbolizing what we're talking about, but then why is the alcohol so central, right?

28:00

So what, what about the fermented part make is necessary? And you explained some of that related to the kick part, and that's probably why you're going, you're leaning into the masculinity direction, but then

28:11

I guess the main question I'd have, and then we can kind of transition into some other thoughts, but my main question is why is the, what makes, what about the symbolism of the alcohol is important to this being what it's meant to be in your mind?

28:24

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't just, I'm not, I'm, I guess I wouldn't, first and foremost, make this some, some symbolism connected to masculinity.

28:34

I want the symbolism to be connected to the gospel. So the gospel has a kick. The gospel is, it's powerful.

28:41

The gospel is dangerous. And I think that's one of the reasons why the symbolism of wine is so helpful and powerful in this context.

28:50

Grape juice has no kick. Grape juice is not dangerous. Grape juice is just, just a bland cold drink.

29:00

That's good to drink. I don't, I don't mind, but there's, there's, there's just no connection to what

29:06

Jesus was teaching us in the Lord's supper versus there's no connection in terms of the symbolism of what grape juice is beyond the blood.

29:17

I can, I can see, you know, I can see, I can understand the connection there. You can still draw the blood connection, the blood of Christ to grape juice, just like you could wine.

29:25

But the gospel is what's powerful like wine. Even when you make wine, you got to crush the grapes.

29:34

You got to work them. You got to, you know, put pressure on them.

29:40

You got to break them. And that's what happened to Christ on the cross. And, and then that, that wine is better.

29:47

And the new resurrection, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, you crush the grapes. The grapes are good by themselves. You pop a grape in your mouth.

29:53

That's great. But then you crush them. And then on the resurrected side of that vine is this bold, beautiful Merlot.

30:01

And the same way that I think kind of typifies or symbolizes Jesus dying and rising again.

30:08

And in the resurrection, you know, we're on the sunny side of the cross. It's beautiful and better. And so, but you also, there's also a very practical problem in this is that grape juice, grapes, once you crush them, they just start fermenting.

30:24

You just, you sit them on the ground and they fall off the vine and they just sit there and they break.

30:29

They're just going to start fermenting. And it wasn't until Thomas, Pastor Thomas Welch in the late 1860s found a process to basically pasteurize the grapes so they wouldn't ferment.

30:44

But what you need there is a refrigeration. There was no refrigeration in, you know, historic

30:53

Israel time. So no matter what you did, you would get wine, unless you, unless you went immediately from the wine, the grape juice being pressed into the cup, into the sermon or into the, you know,

31:06

Passover into, you know, whatever, which was not happening, which is not the case. So I think there's a, there's a practical issue of just the inability to create grape juice before refrigeration.

31:17

Do you know of any passages in the New Testament that are drawing any symbolism from the, well, a couple of questions.

31:27

One, like, do you know of any passages which are drawing any symbolism beyond just the blood symbolism related to the

31:33

Lord's supper? And then two, I mean, so practically speaking, like how do you, you know, we're

31:41

Baptists, we're in the, we live in the South. This is a tradition that we've had. I don't even know how that works practically.

31:46

So, I mean, you guys, I'm sure that you, from what I've heard, I mean, you guys give, you know, communion to your babies too, correct?

31:54

Yeah. Yeah. So you wouldn't be giving them, you would be giving them grape juice, right? You wouldn't be giving them wine or would you?

32:01

I give them wine. I gave, I gave my, my baby's wine, but let me, let me explain that. Cause that can sound really weird and foreign.

32:09

I'm asking about it. Cause I don't know. I don't even know if it's legal. So I'm asking like, what are, what are the legal entailments of this?

32:15

Like you, you, you walk us through what this looks like as, cause we're Baptist aliens on another planet here.

32:21

Yeah. That's the, we're kind of aliens. We're both aliens. So legally it's a religious sacrament and you're allowed to do it legally.

32:31

But even if it was illegal, I can't tell me what I can get my kids and what, what, what, you know, but legally it's a sacraments, religious experience, religious service.

32:42

So the kids are allowed to do it. Now our view is, so we feed our kids communion and I think there's where Baptist would get us would get us.

32:51

So Presbyterians, which I am one, we believe that the covenant sign of the new

33:00

Testament covenant sign of, of being in covenant with God is baptism. Just like the old covenant sign was circumcision.

33:08

Now the new covenant sign is baptism and you know, Colossians chapter two versus I think it's 10 and 11 you were, you were buried in a, in a circumcision.

33:21

You were, you, you died. Let me, let me just, I don't want to butcher this. I'm at the, it's at the end of my week and I will butcher this in a way that probably won't be helpful to everyone.

33:38

Colossians chapter two versus yeah, 10, 10 and 11 and you are completing him, which is the head of all principality and power in whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, wherein you also are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who has raised him from the dead.

34:07

So basically Paul is comparing, Hey, the old Testament sign of circumcision represented this and the new sign of baptism represents this in Christ.

34:19

And so I take, I think that's just a clear example. Not so much of what I'm going to talk about here about the covenant here in a minute, but it's just a clear example that Paul is saying,

34:28

Hey, this is the old Testament circumcision. It points to Christ and this is the new Testament baptism. It points to Christ.

34:34

Okay. Now in terms of covenant, we believe that baptism replaced the old covenant sign of circumcision.

34:44

And so that's why that's a good explanation. If you have any of your friends ever asked, this is why Presbyterians do it is because we believe baptisms, the new

34:51

Testament sign, the new covenant signs. And so that's why we'll baptize our babies. They're born.

34:57

We baptize our babies just like in the old Testament, they would, they would circumcise their male on the eighth day. Yeah. I mean, a lot of Baptists, I can understand that basically like they, they misunderstand and think that you're basically saying that, you know, they're saved.

35:11

Right. Which is not, you're not saying at all, but all right. So you would give your babies, you would give them wine and, but then you do, well, you do allow connection real quick.

35:25

And so if we, I'm not, I'm not arguing with that. I wasn't arguing with that as if it's like a, I understand that.

35:32

No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm trying to answer the question about the baby wine thing. Okay. Okay. So are, so basically my point by just describing the baptism thing is, so if we believe our children are in covenant with God, we don't know if they're saved or not, but we believe they're in covenant with God because mom and dad are in covenant with God and we're, we're a

35:51

Christian family. Did we believe that? Well, why, why wouldn't our kids get to participate in the covenant mill?

36:00

And so I think you guys would do this just a little differently. You guys would say your kids need to become, come into a saving faith.

36:08

And then they need to confess publicly that Jesus is Lord. And then they get baptized and then immediately they come, they get to come to the

36:14

Lord's supper. Right. Yeah. And that all makes perfect. Yeah. That all makes perfect sense based on what you believe about the covenant and what we believe about the covenant.

36:20

And so we believe that the new covenant is, you know, for regenerate people. And that's a distinction between the old and you don't.

36:26

So, I mean, that all makes sense to me. Actually, I think that you guys are a lot more consistent Presbyterians than those who wouldn't practice paedo communion.

36:34

Like it doesn't even make any sense to me at all. Whenever I have this conversation with my Baptist buddies, they're like,

36:40

Oh yeah, you guys are way more consistent than the halfway Presbyterians is what we call them. Yeah. I mean, they're more

36:45

Baptist than they are. So, I mean, it never made, that doesn't make any sense to me at all.

36:50

So I actually understand where you're coming from with that. So, but then you would, you would go with, with your children, you would go ahead and give them wine at that point, because it's a convictional issue for you that now like related to that, now

37:03

I did have a question about that. So you believe it, like, you believe it's a convictional issue for you, but then you also allow for grape juice at your church.

37:14

And so then you're making some sort of accommodation for the wicker brother, so to speak, but then how do you reconcile that in your mind because the rhetoric you're using is pretty strong.

37:23

And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not even resentful of your strong rhetoric.

37:28

I think it's funny, you know, and I understand where you're coming from. So I understand where you're coming from. I'm not like a hostile on that one.

37:36

I just, I, I get what you're communicating. I may not necessarily connect it in that kind of way, but I understand what you're saying, but then how do you justify making an allowance if you, because it seems like you don't even believe it's the same thing.

37:52

Does it? Right. Is that true? I don't believe, I don't believe it's what

37:57

Jesus commanded. I don't have a problem with arguing that both wine and grape juice come from the vine.

38:03

But the way you argue it though. Yeah. But the way you argue it though, you're arguing that it's, it's about as like grape juice to wine.

38:10

It's about as different as like grape juice to grape soda or something like that.

38:16

So then is that, is that an overstatement? What I would say,

38:23

I would just say, well, I want to do what Jesus did. Yeah.

38:29

Grape juice. I want to do what Jesus did and Lord's supper. If he gave us an example and he said, do this in remembrance of him, then we should do what he did.

38:37

So I wouldn't, I wouldn't even want to, I don't even care about the distinction between wine and grape juice. I just want to do what

38:44

Jesus did in the Lord's supper. He did wine. And so that's what we should do.

38:50

So if I think there is a distinction there, I think there's an obvious distinction between wine and grape juice.

38:55

Everyone in our society recognizes it. That's why you got to be 21 to buy it. Yeah. But you wouldn't, you wouldn't as an accommodation though, serve like tomato juice to someone or like a

39:05

Mountain Dew. You wouldn't serve Mountain Dew to someone for communion because they had a conscience issue.

39:12

So why, why are you making it with grape juice? That's what I'm wondering about. Yeah. All right. That's a great question.

39:18

And it made me think of one other, you know, Mars and Venus point here.

39:26

When our babies are born, we baptize them, but we don't serve them communion until they can start eating.

39:32

There's, you know, you don't, we don't take up. Put it in the baby bottle. Tear drop. Yeah. We don't put it in the baby bottle. In a sippy cup.

39:38

You'll put it in their sippy cup though. You'll put it in their sippy cup. Right. That's right. No, we don't do that. And so when they become capable is when they get to sit at the tables, this is just kind of natural growing in life.

39:49

They don't get to sit at our table or they're sitting in the high chair or whatever, they don't get solid food.

39:54

So they themselves are able to eat solid food. So there's just a, you know, so usually it's about one year old. I think when we started giving our kids communion and everything took, that's just a,

40:03

I'm trying to clear up even more weirdness that might. Fair enough. Fair enough. Good call. Yeah.

40:09

Yeah. So here's the problem. And part of this discussion is those who are arguing for grape juice and communion are the church for 1800 years never served anything but wine and communion.

40:33

And then, so what happened in the beginning of the 19th century? Prohibition. Yeah. Prohibition. First, first is the temperance movement and then prohibition came later.

40:41

Yeah. So the, the, the first wave feminism kicked the dust up with the temperance movement.

40:48

And then the church were early adopters like we are in all these funny things. And then the pastors started pushing abstinent bowels into the pews.

40:59

And so you had this, this weird binding of conscience from pastors that came from the influence of first wave feminism.

41:08

And a lot of these, some of these women were even pastor's wives. And so there was no debate in the church historically about do we serve wine or grape juice?

41:18

One, there was no great such thing as grape juice. You can find a debate. I think it was Martin Luther who, you know, debated, was debating, you know, can you do, is it white wine?

41:28

Should you do white wine or red wine? And, and, you know, the debate was not over unfermented.

41:34

It was always, it was always over fermented what drink, what kind of thing. And so in the early 19th century, you had the first wave feminist temperance movement come in.

41:43

And then in 1860s, pastor Thomas Welch created grape juice and he created grape juice because he saw a market in the church.

41:55

And so that's where grape juice was. The grape juice came out of feminist temperance movement. Pastor Welch figured out how to capitalize on the brand and make money from it and make money off it.

42:09

And then the temperance movement is what got prohibition going in 1919 or finally got illegal federally in 1919.

42:18

And so our theology of grape juice is only 200 years old and was influenced by first wave feminist movement.

42:29

And so in one sense, how effeminate is that? Is that we've, we've constructed a whole narrative on a whole theology on grape juice based off first wave feminism.

42:41

And then now what we've done is, okay, the church lady's got us in a corner over here. So what we're going to do is we're going to back, we're going to now that we're here, we're going to figure out how to create theology around it to be able to make it sound biblical.

42:54

And that never happened for 18 years and 1800 years in the church until first wave feminism. So I think honestly, and so this goes into your, your, your pushback on, okay, well,

43:05

Christchurch and King's cross put grape juice in the, in the back of the church. Why did they do that?

43:11

Are they being hypocrites or whatever? And this goes back to my comments about go slow with your people.

43:17

If you come in any, any theological conviction that you, any biblical conviction that you come into as a pastor or as an elder, you know, go slow with your people as God, as slow as God went with you.

43:32

And so we've had 200 years of this modern theology on grape juice.

43:39

And so our church is trying to go slow with those are still need to come along. And, and,

43:48

Mountain Dealer would be a bridge too far. Yeah. Because R .C. Sproul said he was,

43:54

I said this in my article, he was asked about the PB, PB and jelly scenario

44:00

I gave earlier. And he said, why can't we just, one of the students said, why can't we just serve

44:05

Dr. Pepper and peanut butter and jelly? And, and R .C. Sproul, like kind of gotten, gotten raged by the question and he said, basically said, because what

44:17

God has set apart to symbolize his death and resurrection is

44:23

Holy. And, and if we want to toy with the symbolism of his

44:29

Holiness, you know, and he, he characterized that question. He's like, I took it as this guy was like being almost, you know, asking a prideful question.

44:37

Like, no, you need to submit to the Holiness of God and what he is consecrated as Holy. And, and, and so that's why

44:44

I would absolutely reject the peanut butter and jelly stuff because Jesus consecrated. And he said, do this in remembrance of me.

44:52

And God, Jesus called that Holy, Jesus said, by Holy, I need to set apart. Jesus called it

44:58

Holy. Jesus said to set apart bread and wine for us to participate in the Lord's supper and to do in remembrance of him.

45:03

And I, you know, one of the, in talking about this, Hey, we've had 200 years of, of, you know, sort of modern theology where we've been pushing grape juice as the, as essentially the, for a lot of people, the new norm, at least here in the

45:19

South, you know, all the churches I've ever been to, they only serve grape juice. There's not even an option to drink wine and you don't typically have people coming in finding and finding out that they only serve grape juice and then pitching like a huge fit about it.

45:35

Right? So they're, they're going to come in. They'll drink the grape juice and they don't even think anything of it.

45:41

Really. I wonder, and I want to hear your opinion on this. Let's say you were to have the opposite scenario happen.

45:48

You have a church that only serves wine, right? Someone comes in and realizes,

45:54

Hey, there's no option for grape juice. Do you think the same reaction happens where the person doesn't just pitch a fit and, you know, try to change everything and, you know, tell the pastors how wrong they are for not even giving the option to drink grape juice?

46:09

Do you think the same sort of response is given when the, when the roles are flipped there?

46:14

Or do you think, do you think it would be like, Hey, typically when people find out that they can't drink grape juice, they get disproportionately upset about it.

46:27

So yeah, that's, that's a good question. There's a couple answers to this. I'll probably forget them all by the time

46:34

I'm done with a couple of them. But one is that, that view.

46:40

So I think we're kind of dealing with broad evangelicalism needs to go slow on this issue, including

46:46

Christchurch and Kings Cross. Because we're in this, we're trying to undo, I think, 200 years of theology that was crafted out of man -made man -made sensibilities, man -made, you know, not biblical theology, basically.

47:09

And if I was, if it wasn't Friday, I would have said that sentence way better. And so we're trying to undo 200 years.

47:17

So, so we need to go slow and be helpful. But also I think related to this issue, there was alcoholics in 1500s.

47:24

There was alcoholics in the 1200s. There was alcoholics in Jesus' time. There were, you know, there, there's drunks in the 1750s.

47:32

And no, at no point, I can't find any debate in church history, but I'm not a church historian at all.

47:41

But, but from what I know, there was no debate on, well, how, how do we handle the drunks in our congregation when they get their cup of wine?

47:50

Right. Yeah. And that was something else I was going to ask you about, because there were a lot, you know, there were, I saw a lot of people responding essentially saying, you know, how dare you not even consider the alcoholics that might be in your congregation.

48:03

And it's because, so that, that question's coming from, we've been so affected by modern psychology and the terminology alcoholism.

48:14

Alcoholism is a disease. No, it's not. Biblically it's a sin. And so we've categorized people who have a sin problem into a disease problem.

48:24

And that disease means it's kind of something that's outside of them affecting them. It's not something that they, you know, so we've modernized this, this, the sin of drunkenness into alcoholism and the word alcoholism now means, well,

48:36

I'm not fully in control of this. I'm a victim of this disease. It's just who

48:41

I am. Right. Yeah. I don't know if you know this, Gabe. Yeah. Most of our, a lot of our videos are about psychology and biblical counseling essentially.

48:50

And so we do have a video on that topic too. It's called, is, I think it's something along the lines of, is it loving to call alcoholics worthless drunks or something like that?

49:01

But, but yeah, we're making essentially that point that you're making that psychology is basically redefined sin as sickness.

49:08

So we're totally on board with that project for sure. That's right. Yeah. So I think that that's where that question's kind of coming from.

49:17

And that would bring me to the third point that I told you, I was probably going to forget. What was, what was your original question? See if it'll, it'll jump.

49:23

I was asking about, you know, if you have, if you have a church that serves only wine, no grape juice, would they get the same response?

49:31

Yeah. And I think, no, they wouldn't, but I, they would, that person would portray probably the victim to get them to try to put grape juice in communion or something like that.

49:42

But what I would, what I would want to do. So I believe eventually probably in, I don't know, 50 years or whatever you want to call it, that our church will probably have exclusive wine probably where that's where we're heading.

49:56

Been heading there for a long time for about 20 years, our project. So this whole wine, grape juice and wine project for us started,

50:03

I think in like 1999, that's how slow we've been. And so I think eventually we'll, we'll not have any grape juice in the trays and it'll just not any grape juice in the building.

50:14

It'll just be one. And so I would, for that church, I would just say, you know, I would, in the same way, let's say,

50:22

I actually, I might be poking some eyeballs here, but in the same way, a church, let's say, uses modern worship and starts to sing the

50:30

Psalms and probably what they do for a while, they kind of have some Psalms and some modern worship, and they do that for a while.

50:37

And eventually they kind of go to, you know, Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And they try to get away from kind of the modern view of worship.

50:44

And eventually they get away from the band up front, which is what I would encourage all churches to do. And then someone new to the congregation comes in and says,

50:52

Hey, where's the band? I would feel more welcome there if you had a band there. I would just say to that church,

50:57

I was like, no, just keep maturing and the way you're going. And if this, this family or guy that comes to your church wants the band to say, go down the road, you know, that's, that's a better fit for you right now.

51:08

So I would encourage churches, churches have to mature. Bodies, church bodies have to mature. And, and I would want to constantly kind of reconstruct our worship service to, you know,

51:21

Match the sensibilities of the most immature person imaginable basically. Yeah.

51:26

Right. And so you have this weird tug of war between, okay, we just, we just started singing songs and now we're doing both.

51:32

And, and then now we're kind of getting rid of the worship band and we're growing in the Lord and we're maturing and we're kind of figuring out,

51:38

Hey, that the concert thing probably isn't the most honoring and most honoring way to worship

51:44

God. And plus the song congregation doesn't really sing because of worship band so loud, whatever. So I would encourage maturity there and not to go back into maybe some immature ways that where God had you.

51:58

And so we want to encourage maturity. And so I wouldn't go back to, let's say at that time, and those things that you were doing that were immature were fine.

52:08

God was happy with it. My kid drawing, drawing colors all over the paper. I'm happy there. Eventually I want my kid to draw within the lines.

52:16

Right. And, and I don't want my kid to go back drawing outside the lines again and being all crazy.

52:21

And that, that's how it encouraged the church. It's like, just, just grow, go slow with your congregation, go slow and be patient.

52:27

But keep maturing and don't go backwards. Well, sure. So Gabe, yeah.

52:33

I mean, I know that we appreciate having you on here and I want to see if we can close this off in a certain way, but I know that I'm not,

52:39

I'm not totally persuaded that the point of communion, like being given wine is necessarily an indication of masculinity in the way that you're, you're saying it.

52:51

And that was the intention that God had. But I, like I said, I mean, I'm not even predisposed to be offended by that.

52:56

And I can actually understand where you're coming from a little bit. And I actually thought it was kind of funny because I mean, in general, you know, as if you're just thinking about it in terms of, yeah, when you're an adult, you drink alcohol.

53:06

And when you're a baby, you drink grape juice. Like I understand that argument. Now I can't make that out of scripture.

53:13

I don't know how to make that out of scripture, but I understand that as like a natural revelation kind of argument, if someone wants to make it that way.

53:21

And I don't particularly resent it, but then, you know, as, as you said it, I understood what your point was. I I'm able to generalize.

53:27

I'm able to understand general statements and the fact that you can only make a tweet that says so much content.

53:33

And there's a lot of clarifications that you could have, but you know, if you were if you're expected to make a tweet that anticipates every possible objection that any reasonable or unreasonable person could ever imagine, then you probably should never tweet again.

53:50

But so there's that, but you know, after this whole debacle, what would you say anything any different?

53:59

And then, you know, what were some of the, if you got any pushback that you thought was good or was it largely unhelpful or how would you may have said some of that in your blog, but maybe you could end us out here with just just a summary of your thought process on it.

54:16

Now that the internet got mad at you. Yeah. I mean, I, the pushback, most of the pushback,

54:22

I find helpful because it makes me sharpen my iron and it makes me do better.

54:28

And it makes me have to, I mean, I never would have written a blog post about this issue if I didn't get pushback from my friends.

54:36

And so it made me think through, you know, I had to, I had to come up with 1500 words that were, that had to think through.

54:42

I mean, I already had some ideas on why I said it, obviously I didn't just pull it out of my, you know, out of thin air.

54:48

So, but when I went to write the blog post, I started kind of making more connections with this issue where the church is in general effeminate.

54:57

And I think grape juice is a sign of that. At the same time, I don't think every church who's, who's doing it is being effeminate because I think,

55:04

I think that the tradition of the theology that was kind of just made up out of thin air out of the temperance movement is been driving a culture that I think has been unhealthy.

55:14

And we need to, we need to at least answer that objection and have a good answer for it.

55:21

And so I think the being able to, what helped me kind of even think bigger about the issue, you know, noticing the effeminacy in it, even in my own

55:35

Presbyterian circles with Kevin DeYoung and stuff where it's like, okay, this guy has a problem with the word wimp and wimpy.

55:43

Literally. It's what he said. And one of his words he listed in his blog post about what word we've used in a probably to address the evangelical church.

55:52

I don't even know the context of that word, but he had a problem with us saying wimp and wimpy. And so I'm like, well,

55:57

I mean, you're acting soft, you you're acting wimpy, you're acting effeminate.

56:03

And then I find out his church has mandated COVID protocols pretty thoroughly in his church.

56:10

And they have shepherdesses. Did you know about that? They have shepherdess? I didn't even know that. They have a shepherdess position in their church too.

56:18

That's crazy. So it all lines up. Like you look at how they didn't push back on government tyranny.

56:24

They didn't show any backbone there. You look back on how soft they are about, you know, certain words that offend them.

56:33

While the Gospel Coalition blogs about movies full of, you know, hundreds and hundreds of cuss words.

56:38

And then he comes after us about the serrated edge. And then you find out he's got grape juice in his church and it's like, oh, that don't make sense.

56:46

It's like the, it's like the pronouns in the bio, right? A hundred percent. And I, and I am a man,

56:53

I am a he, him, you know, but if I state that it's putting off certain signals and symbols of, of where we're weak and where we're wimpy.

57:04

And so, you know, it turns like you guys, I, I don't think you guys are being effeminate. I think you guys have bought into some new theology that was, that was kind of, that you kind of backed into because of something that was crafted in 1860s from a, from a temperance pastor, whose wife was massively involved in the whole movement.

57:26

We don't, we don't even have a theology of grape juice here, you know, so it's more just an inherited thing.

57:32

You inherit the grape juice and you don't really, and then you have to ask, well, I mean, is it, um, is the wine like an essential feature of it at this point?

57:41

And is it worth, uh, is it, is it, um, is the wine what makes it, it, you know, is that in, is that the thing that makes it authentic, you know, in the same way and, and, and justify it.

57:53

But then at that point, you, we definitely didn't start out with a, like a fully formed theology of grape juice.

58:00

And I mean, I think all the alcoholic arguments are just ridiculous anyways, and based on man -centered, you know, psychology and all that.

58:07

So for sure. That's right. That's right. And I would say that's, I a hundred percent agree with you on the alcohol arguments is based off man centeredness.

58:14

And that's what the temperance movement did to the grape juice in modern theology is it was woman centered, um, uh, changes in the church that pastors eventually implemented.

58:26

And, and, and that's what, so those, I would say those pastors were being effeminate. They were not standing up to the busy bodies in the church about the issue.

58:35

And now we have to, uh, and now we have this man centered tradition on grape juice and communion that never in the history of the church was there until the temperance movement.

58:44

And that's why Kevin DeYoung, you know, um, you know, has, you know,

58:50

I didn't even know about the shepherdess thing. It makes me want to rethink all his theology and what he's doing, but he, whatever culture he's inculcating there, they're going to immaturity, right?

59:02

That's, that's going backwards. That's going away from scriptures. And so that's why I can, you know, um, again,

59:08

I don't know much about your church, but I can, I'm making some assumptions there, but that's, that's why it's like conversations like these is like, you guys are wanting to go towards maturity.

59:15

Um, uh, you know, you guys want to become more biblical in your theology, whether it growing the Lord. And, and I said in my article too, you know, it's like, you want a biblically literate congregation.

59:26

That biblically literate congregation is a blessing to you guys and not a threat. Um, you know, if everybody in your church was reading the whole

59:34

Bible every year, what a blessing. And then one of those congregants come up to you guys and like, man,

59:39

I've been reading my Bible. I've read my Bible five times in five years. I think it's saying this, what do you guys think?

59:46

You guys are going to be far more excited about talking with that congregant because you know, he's been in the word.

59:52

And even though maybe it's challenging you on something, whatever, but he's been in the word and you guys like, I respect what he, you know, him because he's been reading the

59:59

Bible every year and I know it and he's going to the Lord and I want to, I want to hear what he has to say. It changes the whole thing.

01:00:04

Even if you guys never come to, let's say agreement on this, this guy's conviction or whatever, like, like the love for Jesus is there, the love for his word.

01:00:12

You have a biblically literate congregation. That's where we're all wanting to head. And that's, that's why I think this conversation is helpful because like I said in the article too,

01:00:20

I was like if you come under these convictions that you believe wine should be served in communion and I could use all sorts of adjectives to describe this, but don't be a fathead and go down to the

01:00:36

Anglican church that's going gay so you can get wine in your communion. Stay at your

01:00:41

Presbyterian church, stay at your Baptist church that is actually understanding the times and growing in the knowledge of the fear of the

01:00:47

Lord. And maybe, and maybe they just haven't come on to this conviction, you know? So, so a lot of people took my article, like it was just like, is

01:00:56

Gabe's way or the highway and I had multiple caveats in there. Don't do this. Don't do this.

01:01:01

There's a big yellow flag paragraph here, you know, and everything. And so people were just saying,

01:01:06

Oh, Gabe's being divisive. Gabe's wanting to split the church on this and all that stuff. And I gave all these caveats and they never read any of them,

01:01:11

I guess. But the point is, is like, stay, you know, commune at a church that's growing in the

01:01:18

Lord. And if you come under the conviction that that wine should be served in communion, which

01:01:23

I think, I think we should, then you work slow and steady and it's, regardless of whatever happens, it's been a great conversation.

01:01:31

I think this conversation has been very good for the church. This is my third interview this week on this issue. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the conversation has been really good.

01:01:39

Well, you know, you know, personally for me, I do, I do think it is a little bit eyeopening. You know,

01:01:44

I think, I think regardless of, of wherever your stance is on this issue, it, it is something to think about the fact that, you know, grape juice hasn't really been a been around that long, relatively speaking, but then there are a lot of people when you get, when you talk about this subject who do seem to treat drinking wine, almost as if it is morally wrong to do, you know, which, which

01:02:10

I, you know, I don't think you should, I don't think you should always base all of your beliefs off of the way other people interact with them.

01:02:18

But I do think that is at least something helpful to notate. Right. And to keep, to keep in the back of your mind.

01:02:24

So, but Gabe, we appreciate the time. We appreciate you coming on the show. And before we go we actually wanted to ask you, where can people find more of what you're doing to, you know, hear more, hear more that you've got to say, or, you know, the things that you've got planned coming up, what have you got for us?

01:02:44

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can go to crosspolitic .com cross politic. That's Jesus over politics, cross the price cross politic .com.

01:02:52

You can go to fight, laugh, peace .com and that'll pretty much get you to everything that we're going to join our email list, download our app.

01:02:58

Our app is fight left East app. There's all sorts of content in there. We don't just cross politics. It's not the only show on the app.

01:03:04

We have all sorts of shows on our app. We kind of have this little fight left piece network that we've been building since 2018.

01:03:12

So, and then of course you can find me on social media, Twitter, Twitter, if you haven't already found me on Twitter, the water boy, right?

01:03:19

Where did that, where does that come from? The water boy, by the way, I feel like it should be, I feel like it should be the wine boy now.

01:03:28

I should totally change my title. That's great, man. Thank you for that.

01:03:33

I'm going to use that on the opening of the show sometime. You're welcome. Hey, I want credit though. I want credit.

01:03:44

Yeah, not, not Garrison. Don't say Garrison. Yeah. So my nickname water boy, it's, it's a good question, but not really exciting.

01:03:54

What happened was when we started our show in 2016 with pastor Toby and Chuck Knox and me, I would intro the show.

01:04:01

I'd open the show. Hey, this is, you know, cross politics with pastor Toby, Chuck Knox and I am Gabe. And so we're like, that just doesn't rhyme or flow.

01:04:10

It doesn't flow. We didn't care about rhyming. That doesn't flow. And, um, uh, uh, and so we came up with basically

01:04:17

I'd serve as a deacon in my church and, you know, deacon or deacon off the table server.

01:04:23

And so somehow water boy ended up being the final nickname that, you know,

01:04:29

I think I final, I came up with it. I don't know. And I wasn't even that excited about it. I was like, but I'll just try it. And so I started calling myself water boy and everyone, it just, it just stuck.

01:04:41

All right. Well, thanks again, Gabe, for coming on the show, for giving us your time. And, um, you know, thanks to our audience as well for supporting us weekend and week out on social media, interacting with the polls, um, uh, supporting us through Patreon, which you can do, uh, down in our description, we've got links to all our social media where you can follow us there.

01:05:02

We've got links to Patreon where you can support us financially, uh, if you want to. And until the next episode, we'll see you.

01:05:10

This has been another episode of Bible bashed. We hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion.

01:05:16

We thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to Bible bashed and share our podcasts with your friends and on social media.

01:05:24

Please reach out to us with your questions, pushback, and potential topics for us to discuss and future episodes at Bible bashed podcast at gmail .com

01:05:34

and consider supporting us through Patreon. Now go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.