Real Christianity #138： Overcoming the Fear of Man with Tom Ascol and Dale Partridge
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Summary
In this episode, Dr. Tom Askell of Founders Ministries shares his advice on how to overcome the fear of man and live boldly in a society that is becoming increasingly hostile toward biblical Christianity. Dr. Askell is the author of several books and has served as the Pastor of Grace Baptist Church since 1986. His ministry at FoundersMinistries has become a robust hub of trusted theological content, podcasts, articles, and videos.
Transcript
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Welcome to a special edition of Real Christianity.
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I'm your host, Dale Partridge, and over the past several months, I've had the privilege
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of interviewing 12 of the top theologians of our time.
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We discuss everything from apologetics and church history to the biblical family and
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The objective of this series was to strengthen the theology of listeners and give them the
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tools they need to boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. So listen up, focus in, and prepare
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your mind for volume one of The Theologian Series. In this episode of The Theologian Series, I
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interviewed Dr. Tom Askell of Founders Ministries on how to overcome the fear of man. Tom is the
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author of several books and has served as the pastor of Grace Baptist Church since 1986. His
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ministry at founders.org has become a robust hub of trusted theological content, podcasts,
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articles, and videos. And in this interview, Dr. Askell and I are going to be discussing an issue
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that confronts all Christians, the fear of man. Today, more than ever, Christians are compromising
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with the culture and watering down the truth for fear of being hated, politically persecuted,
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or even canceled. In this episode, Tom offers Christians practical advice for remaining bold
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and a society that is becoming increasingly more hostile toward biblical Christianity.
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So guys, grab your Bible and sharpen your pencil,
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because it's time to tune in to another powerful episode of the Theologian Series.
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Well, thank you very much. I'm delighted to be with you, Dale.
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Hey, excited to have a discussion about boldness, proclamation of the gospel, things that are
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happening in the culture today. There are so much, there's so many changes that are going on just in
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the last year. And I've always said that the church is always better on the defense in terms
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of the purity. And we always get lazy and spiritually, you know, spiritually fat when
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we're on the offense for especially decades at a time. I'm excited to have your perspective on
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this, Tom, and we'll talk at the end here to give you some more information about Tom's ministries
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and the things that he's been doing. Many of you, I'm sure, have already heard of Tom and his work
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at founders.org, but we're going to dive right in. So, Tom, the Western church is entering into
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an era of increased hostility towards Christians and biblical values. We're seeing it everywhere.
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What's your outlook for the next five years for the church?
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Do you expect to see, again, greater aggression?
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We've been blessed so long in so many ways that we've kind of taken it for granted,
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and we've lost perspective that what we've experienced over 200-plus years here in the
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United States is really an anomaly in terms of church history. So we have been incredibly
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favored by God. And what we've begun to experience over the last several years is just a little bit
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of a taste of what many of our brothers and sisters around the world throughout history
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have lived with, some of them for all of their lifetimes. So yeah, I don't think things are
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going to get any better in terms of it being opportunity for Christians to live without
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conflict in our culture, and particularly with our government. I think our government has revealed
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itself to be increasingly hostile to Christian churches, and we've seen it in what's happened in
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this 2020 with California, Nevada, Washington State, where there have been all these policies
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about a church in California that's now facing a,
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on how we can do what we're called to do well don't you know you can meet online and don't you
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know you can be with god anywhere and these types of things and it's just they're they're trying to
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to they're overreaching is what they're doing and i think we're going to see increased governmental
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overreach where proper governmental authorities because god's the one who ordains governments
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and governmental authorities get out of their lane by trying to restrict freedoms that they
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have no business restricting, and especially in the United States. I mean, we're a constitutional
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republic, and the very First Amendment guarantees our right to practice religion. So this is not
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something the Constitution gives to us. It's something the Constitution recognizes that is
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inalienable. It is given to us by God. So I think churches are going to face increasing
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challenges about, are we going to meet? And are we going to meet according to the way the
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government says we must meet? Not singing, wearing masks, or only limiting the amount of time we have
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together. And then beyond that, just not just Christians, but are we going to be forced to
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have vaccinations? Or are we going to be required to have proof of vaccinations in order to access
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certain goods and services or travel? All this, I think, is on the precipice, including even the
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tax-exempt status that has been recognized as appropriate for churches, religious organizations
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for the last many decades of our nation's history. So I just think Christians need to gear up
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get ready. We have probably relied too much on the blessings that we have had that come from
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our freedoms, rather than focusing on those freedoms and trying to contend for them,
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protect them, and defend them. Yeah, we're seeing basically the
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fruitfulness or lack thereof of comfortable Christianity or costless Christianity.
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And we are seeing it in a variety of ways. I think this just, again, a lack of clarity of
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doctrine, a lack of, um, of boldness, uh, fear of man that is incredibly strong in the church
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right now. Uh, you know, I, I believe I could get this wrong, but Vladimir Lenin said the goal of
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socialism is communism. And I think about this, as we look at this as from a government perspective,
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um, I just watched not too long ago, um, uh, the founder of voice of the martyrs,
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documentary called Tortured for Christ, which is only 60 years ago, that we're talking about
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the communist Romania era. And it's quite amazing how the default government of humanity throughout
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the ages always comes back to a form of communism. And while we might not specifically be dealing
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with that now, it does seem like those values are on the precipice or on the horizon.
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And I guess what I should ask you, in light of this, in light of the governmental side,
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in light of the political side, in light of the moral side where you have gender and sexuality
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at the forefront fighting and pushing the boundaries harder and harder, church and religious
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freedom. You made the statement, Tom, about we need to get prepared. What does that look like?
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How should we be preparing ourselves as Christians in these coming months to years
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for the time that is coming in the next generation? Yeah, well, I don't want to speak
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in platitudes or sound trite, but it is fundamentally important to get serious about
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Christ, to really get serious about the faith. Don't take for granted what it means to repent
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and believe and to live in repentance and faith. So many of the challenges that we do not navigate
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well as Christians today can be traced back to our failure to really understand what it means
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to live in repentance and faith. We have a gospel. We have a Savior who shed his blood for us. We do
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not live in condemnation. Because of that, he died for every last one of our sins. Therefore,
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we really can repent. We really can look honestly at our failures, at our shortcomings, and confess
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them to God and know that we have a Savior from them. And we can trust him. We can take God at
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his word. He gave up his son for us. And if God did not withhold his son from us, then he will
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not withhold any good thing from us. And we ought to believe that, take the promises seriously,
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to find a good, godly church with courageous leaders
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I mean, that is one of the most practical safeguards
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that I know for Christianity anywhere at any time.
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It's the prescription that God himself has ordained
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So the church is vitally important, but again, we've seen the idea of the church get watered down, and then in practice, many things going on in the name of church that really extend far beyond what the Bible tells us the church is and is to be and is to do.
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So find a good, healthy church and build your life around that church.
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I've also begun to encourage our people and others as well to think about and look for work opportunities that you can take advantage of without compromising your devotion to Jesus.
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And we're having in our church, and I know we're not unique.
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I've talked to other pastors where some of our folks are having to turn down opportunities.
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They're not advancing in their companies because to get to the next level requires them to buy into ideologies or at least to sit quietly by why things like transgenderism are being promoted, and they're just refusing to do that.
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So they're having to rethink their careers, and man, we're encouraging folks to start businesses, look for ways that you can engage in the mandate that we all have as Christians anyway to subdue the earth.
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and to exercise dominion over it and build companies, build opportunities for work
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out of your devotion to Christ. And don't just roll over when you see your workplace being
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infiltrated with these wrong ways of thinking that are trying to demand from you that which
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belongs only to Jesus. And then another thing I would say is especially important for us to train
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our children. Dale, you and I were talking earlier about your catechizing your daughter.
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Well, praise God for that. We need to be catechizing our children to think biblically
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about the world and their place in this world. We need to teach them from their earliest days
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what it means to live for Jesus and to understand the cost of taking up the cross and following
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Christ. Of course, we can't save our children. God's spirit must do that regenerating work,
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And so I like, I forget who it was that made this analogy
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that when we teach our children sound doctrine,
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when we catechize them, it's like we're laying wood on the altar.
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But when the fire come, let's do what we can to make sure
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So train your children, prepare them for the world
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that is coming upon them, and they're going to need
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You talked about the idea with children and doctrine.
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There are so many perversions and distortions of the gospel
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that I don't think are able to sustain the persecuted, suffering Christian
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And the prosperity gospel that just stands in stark contrast
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to the reality of church history and would not sustain someone
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in a moment of imprisonment or a moment of martyrdom or a moment of immense social pressure.
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How do we as Christians really work on getting our doctrine straight again?
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And how do we, you know, what you don't know is you, or you don't know what you don't know.
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And so what are some resources maybe that we can go and say, we need to get an orthodox view of the
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gospel, because when we understand the gospel in its true biblical form, it is so good that
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it allows us to not have conditional joy. It allows us to have unconditional joy in any circumstance
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and will sustain us through whatever suffering. I think about Paul singing hymns on the bottom of
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the prison floor with his back lashed open. How can you have that joy in a moment like that? And
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how can we as believers find that joy through sound doctrine? Yeah, well, that's a great
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question. And I'm a big advocate of historic Orthodox confessions of faith and the Orthodox
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creeds. And so I encourage Christians and Christian churches to get familiar with those
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ancient documents that have served the church well. So in the more orthodox, older stream,
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the Athanasian Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Creed of Chalcedon, just familiarize yourself with them.
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And we recite the Apostles' Creed right now in our church services. We do that just to remind
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our people, this is what all Christians everywhere have always believed. And then a confession of
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faith find a good confession our church uses the second london baptist confession of faith
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that was published in 1689 the westminster confession of faith the presbyterian document
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is a stood the test of time as well the savoy declaration for the congregationalists and there
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are other good confessions of faith and and then again catechisms man i mean i wish i had been
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had grown up being catechized i catechized my kids and that's that's helped me as much as anything i
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spent a lot of time in formal theological education, but there's nothing that has been
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more significant to me than catechizing my own children so that you get a mental framework
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of a systematic understanding of key Bible teachings. So the shorter catechism is a wonderful
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instrument to use. I mean, the children's catechism that introduces that shorter catechism.
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And at Founders, we produced a series of booklets for that based on the Children's Catechism,
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the Baptist version of the Shorter Catechism, and then a Baptist version of the Heidelberg
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Catechism, which is my favorite catechism because it just is so personal and Christological.
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So I would encourage all Christians to become familiar with and learn good catechisms and
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I think you'll be well served if you give yourself to that exercise.
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Amen. Yeah. I was telling you, Tom, before we got on our call, I've been doing this with my
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daughter and I'll tell you what, there has been some crystallizing of doctrines in that little
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book that has helped me frame up my doctrine. And it's just these simple answers is what does it.
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You go, oh yeah, that's what that's about. And it is. It's a wonderful tool that I recommend
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many people to do as well. I want to talk about, you know, I think a lot of believers in this
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generation are concerned with removing fear more than they are concerned with being obedient to
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God's command of proclamation through the Great Commission. And I want to know, how do we
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proclaim Christ, the gospel, in the face of fear? And how do we do it boldly? Where do we get rid
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of the fear of man in the midst of that? Because again, I always say, and it's not my quote, but
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the Great Commission is in the Great Suggestion. And so how do we get out there and do this, Tom,
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without letting fear take over our hearts? Yeah, well, it comes, again, back to scripture. We need
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to think biblically about life and death the fact that we live is because god and when we die it
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will be because of god he's sovereign over the beginning and the continuation and will be
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sovereign over the end of life i think it was george whitfield that said that a man is immortal
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until it is his appointed time to die so we just know that to be true and the more we know god the
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more we take him at his word, the greater confidence we have in him, then the greater
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will be our ability to trust him as the one who has ordained every one of our days before any of
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them came to pass. You know, I was thinking about this a few weeks ago and was struck by Hebrews
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chapter two, where the author says, you know, since therefore the children share in flesh and
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blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death, he might destroy the
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one who has the power of death, that is the devil. And he's talking about Jesus there. It says,
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so Jesus became flesh and blood to destroy the power of death, the one who has the power of
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death, that is the devil. And then it goes on to say, to deliver all those who through fear of
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death were subject to lifelong slavery. The fear of death is slavery. And if you live with a fear
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of death, you're going to live with lifelong slavery. And one of the very purposes for which
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Jesus died on the cross is to destroy the one who has the power of death and to deliver us from
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this fear. Later on in that same passage, it says that Jesus suffered when he was tempted so that
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he could be able to help those who are being tempted. Well, tempted to what? Tempted to fear
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death tempted to live in slavery out of this fear of death and man that happens and there's just
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something liberating that comes by uh getting over the the fact that you're going to die so much in
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our culture is designed to keep us from thinking about old age and the inevitability of death the
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way of all flesh the scripture says and you know god gives experiences i've had a couple of
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experiences that have taken me to the brink of death, one just since last year. And I have to
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say that the effects of that, I wouldn't want to choose it. I wouldn't say that I want to do it
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again. But having gone through it, the effects of it, to think, okay, I'm going to die, and that's
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okay. It's okay. Well, it sets you free to really live now. And the Apostle Paul says this, and very
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often when I'm reading scriptures, you know, the Psalms, I say, God, show me what you showed David.
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I see what he says here. I want to be able to say that honestly. Well, Philippians 121 is one of
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those places with Paul where, you know, he says, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain. Well,
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I want to see that. I want to believe that. I want to be able to say that so that with Paul,
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I'm not terrified by death. I mean, it is an enemy. Paul says it's the last enemy. So I'm
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not going to whitewash it, whitewash it, pretend like it's not serious. It's not frightening. It
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is serious. But I don't want to be afraid of that frightening thing. One of the things that helps
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the thing more than anything else that helps me overcome the fear of man is the fear of God.
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And boy, what a great study that is. I'd encourage everybody to do a study on the fear of God
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from Scripture. I've got a friend who recently did that, and I think he told me he wound up with
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over 30 pages of notes just from his own diving through Scripture. Well, there's over 150 references
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in the Bible to the fear of the Lord, either by express statement or description. And Psalm 111,
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verse 10 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and all those who practice
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it have a good understanding. Well, I want to understand my life. I want to understand this
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world and i can't do that if i'm not fearing god so study the fear of god it will set you free
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from fearing the face of any person and if we're right about god if we get that straight
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then you know what can man do to me you know the lord is my strength and he's my shield
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another thing we need to do that regularly is remember our mission and we we don't we have a
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very clear mission. Jesus told us to go make disciples. I mean, it doesn't get much plainer
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than that. And so we can do a thousand things, but if we're not doing the one thing that he
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specifically commissioned us to do before he ascended into heaven, then we need to re-examine
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those thousand things because they might be crowding out time and energy that should be
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given to the one thing. And we're never free to shirk our mission. How can we call Jesus Lord
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and not do the things that he commands us to do,
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which specifically he commands us to make disciples.
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Another thing is we need to learn to love our persecutors.
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I was having a conversation just this morning about this
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with a dear brother who's having to have a hard conversation,
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and he doesn't want to have it with the people that he's going to have to talk to
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And Stephen prayed for the people, stoning him as he heard Jesus pray.
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And he tells us the word to love even our enemies.
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His faithful disciples throughout history have done it.
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And we need to pray and not be satisfied until we see his spirit working in us.
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a genuine love for those who, given the opportunity, might take our very lives.
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We realize that they are being duped in ways that it weren't for God's grace.
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I mean, I think about what, you know, I just spent, I don't know how many hundreds of hours
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studying church history through seminary, but you get to see this ongoing trend of martyrdom
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of these people that scream out their last words.
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pray that the king's eyes may be opened, right?
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And, you know, there's just this heart for that.
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Church history, I can say, is such a critical discipline
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from those in the past who have overcome fear through the grace of God, the power of the Spirit
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in the moments of such turmoil. I think it was George Swinock who said, the time is short,
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the task is large, and the work is important. And I have that in our studio just hanging on the wall
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just to remember that, hey, we don't got a lot of time. The task is huge and the work,
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it's critical. Amen. So, Tom, how do we pick and choose the issues that we stand for?
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We got a culture that's infatuated with identity politics, tribalism, and things get very...
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The tip of the spear is getting pretty sharp on where you find unity. And even denominations are
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getting more starkly different. Wokeness is entering into the church. You have the issues
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with sexuality that are going on. How do we discern what's worth drawing a line and standing
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firm in a certain area? Yeah, well, we need to settle at the outset that we're going to stand
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firm on the Word of God no matter what. And then I think an equal commitment is to try to live at
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peace with all men as much as far as it is possible and dependent upon you you know so
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try to be a man of peace but not at the expense of the word of god so the word is our guide the
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word is god's revealed truth for us we're not going to compromise on that we're going to be
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shaped by that our minds are going to be renewed by that and then we can't discount providence
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There's so many things that are going on today that if you just wanted to spend all your time fighting,
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you could do that as a Christian, and you could find legitimate objects of your opposition
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because they're inside the church, they're outside the church.
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But I do believe that providence is a significance determiner of what battle to fight.
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I've had brothers say to me, you know, things I've been engaged in pretty strongly and polemically, they just say it's not my battle.
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You know, some of them are in different countries and different settings and contexts that it's not what they have to take up at this time.
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But what all of us must be prepared to do is to stand firm in the evil day when the fight comes to us.
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It's a brief psalm, and the psalmist at the end, he's lamenting the fact that he's faced opposition and there's persecution.
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There are people that do evil to him, and he says, I am a man of peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
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And so you can have peace if you just don't speak, but God's people are not free not to speak what God has said
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or to remain silent in the face of our Lord and Savior being denigrated by word or deed.
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And then I think a principle I've tried to operate on is that wherever and whenever the truth is being attacked,
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I have some obligation to speak given opportunity.
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You know, there'd be some things beyond my influence and beyond my ability, but I have a responsibility and I want to own that responsibility.
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The more important the truth under attack, the quicker ought to be my response.
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And so if somebody's making light of or dismissing areas that are disputed areas of Christian teaching, you see this sometimes happen with eschatology.
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Well, eschatology is important, and I'm not going to say it's unimportant
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just simply because good men disagree about it.
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But I'm going to not be as quick to come after those areas of disagreement
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So when someone says, you know, well, Jesus Christ really isn't God.
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Well, I'm going to be quicker, stronger to address that
00:28:38.340
because now you're touching upon something that if you get wrong
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It was by Al Mohler who wrote about theological triage
00:29:07.420
in the face of your Lord being diminished in any way.
00:29:12.720
I, there's a story just as we were talking about the worm brands and the, uh, tortured
00:29:17.680
for Christ documentary, his wife, Sabina wrote a book, uh, called the pastor's wife.
00:29:23.920
And she talks about a section in there that the communists were, were cursing Christ on
00:29:30.660
And there was a crowd of them standing around and she looked at her husband, Richard, and
00:29:37.540
And he says, if I say something, you won't have a husband.
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And she responds to him, I don't need a coward as a husband. Speak up. And you think about those
00:29:48.400
moments and you go, okay. We are not far from those moments in a conversation with just about
00:29:57.360
anyone today. Right. You're exactly right. And it's become far too common for those who know
00:30:07.480
better to be silent and to look the other way because it is going to bring all kinds of
00:30:14.400
difficulty if you speak, if you stand, but consequences belong to God. And if we can get
00:30:21.080
that straight, you know, our, our responsibility is to do our duty, to live well, to die. God will
00:30:27.820
take care of consequences. And if we can get that clear and remember that, then whether we live or
00:30:33.580
die, it doesn't really matter as long as God gets the glory that is rightly his.
00:30:38.200
Amen. Yeah. Just resting in the reality of just, you just be faithful. Let the results go to God.
00:30:43.880
I want to talk just as we get ready to close here, we have a couple more questions, but
00:30:47.340
we talked a little bit about church history. When you look through the history of the church, Tom,
00:30:56.220
Who do you look to as mentors, pastoral figures, teachers, men that you've thought, wow, if
00:31:08.100
I could just have a little bit of that, what they had, who are those figures in your life
00:31:14.580
and which books maybe could we consider picking up or are must reads of biographies of great
00:31:23.960
yeah well those are those are great questions and I do I've benefited so much from those who've gone
00:31:32.480
before and I'm thankful for teachers that have introduced me to our heritage as Christians
00:31:38.600
I remember learning about Athanasius long ago you know who was a fourth century bishop of
00:31:45.900
Alexandria. And just his life was just tumultuous. I think he was exiled five times. And I think it
00:31:54.880
was like 40, 45 years that he served as bishop and 17 of those years, he was in exile. And so
00:32:01.040
it was, you know, Athanasius against the world. That was the motto that attended his life because
00:32:06.140
the world, it seemed like he was the only one standing for solid Christology at times when he
00:32:12.180
was being exiled so learning from him and being willing to stand firm like he did has been a great
00:32:19.660
encouragement to me and then certainly Martin Luther you know who can't love and doesn't love
00:32:25.580
Luther to see what he did when to take the stands he took meant he was bringing down on his head
00:32:33.000
not just excommunication but a ban politically that put a price on his head but he did so
00:32:41.780
because as he popularly said, you know, my conscience is captured to the word of God.
00:32:49.040
There's the Roland Bainton's little popular biography of Luther is really good.
00:32:54.680
And I encourage everybody to read it because it is so accessible.
00:32:58.640
But then you can read Luther himself and his bondage of the will,
00:33:03.280
which is a debate, a literary debate over the issue of the freedom of the will,
00:33:10.040
predestination and the sovereignty of god with erasmus that is a i think that's the most important
00:33:18.000
book in the 16th century quite honestly and in that you get the flavor of luther's dogmatism
00:33:25.580
and determination not to back up luther did some things that we can learn from that you don't we
00:33:31.140
don't want to emulate because we see how he got untethered at points but i i look at that and i
00:33:36.780
think, well, a lesser man than Luther couldn't have done what he did, and it took great courage
00:33:41.080
for him to stand. I mean, the martyrs, some of which you've already mentioned,
00:33:45.000
the Fox's Book of Martyrs has been a great encouragement to me through the years, too,
00:33:50.520
to hear about these people who, to us today, are largely forgotten, who went to the stake or died
00:33:57.020
by having their heads taken off their shoulders, or died in prison because of their commitment to
00:34:02.520
Christ and just realizing that we have a noble heritage of men and women who refuse to bow the
00:34:09.400
knee to anyone but the Lord Jesus. There's a man I met years ago. You mentioned Richard Wurmbrand.
00:34:17.040
He was an associate of Wurmbrand. His name is Joseph Son. And I don't know if he's still alive
00:34:22.780
or not. He's elderly, if he's still alive. But he also was a Romanian pastor, a Baptist pastor,
00:34:28.380
was imprisoned, arrested multiple times. His ministry went throughout Romania under Ceșescu
00:34:35.020
at great cost. And so there were cassette tapes of his sermons in those days,
00:34:40.280
and they spread throughout the whole nation. He tells the story of one time being accosted.
00:34:48.160
There's a price on his head, and so the secret police accost him on the street and pull a gun
00:34:53.220
on him and they say, you know, you're Joseph San. So, you know, we could shoot you on the street
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and there's a reward on your head. And he said, well, that's true. He said, you could
1.00
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shoot me. He said, killing me is your greatest weapon. He says, but as you know, said my sermons
1.00
00:35:10.740
have spread all throughout Romania and dying is my greatest weapon. Because if I die, the people
00:35:17.860
who have my tapes and who will know of my ministry will see that I really do believe what I have
00:35:22.820
taught and it will multiply the effectiveness of my ministry so he said your greatest weapon is
00:35:29.600
killing me my greatest weapon is dying if you use your weapon you will force me to use mine
00:35:34.720
wow and he said the guy just kind of freaked out and put his gun away and left but he he had he
00:35:42.200
overcame a fear of dying he was willing to die and he wrote a book i think it was his dissertation
00:35:52.380
I forget the exact name of it, but it got published.
00:35:54.480
And in that book, there's some wonderful insights into the mentality
00:36:00.440
that we need to have as Christians and those who have gone before us
00:36:06.420
who have shed their blood for the cause of Christ, for his gospel,
00:36:11.000
that they've paved the way for us that we're to walk in.
00:36:14.380
But, you know, it's not just people in history.
00:36:20.000
Christians right now who are worthy of knowing and emulating.
00:36:24.480
I mean, John MacArthur, people have criticized him so much in 2020
00:36:30.040
because of his stand and leading his church to reopen and stay open.
00:36:37.720
You might not agree with all the way he did it and all the things he said,
00:36:42.380
but can we at least as Christians applaud his courage
00:36:45.780
in standing in the face of opposition from the government
00:36:54.780
And Rob McCoy is another pastor out in California
00:36:58.900
who went to trial and they brought him to trial
00:37:03.140
because they told him they're going to fine him.
00:37:05.820
I think they were fining him like $500 a service,
00:37:08.200
$1,500 a week if they didn't shut their church.
00:37:16.780
He said, Your Honor, I know you don't want to be here.
00:37:22.120
He said, But we're under a greater authority to Jesus Christ,
00:37:28.600
You know, our brothers and sisters in China, I think of Wang Yi,
00:37:31.680
the Chinese pastor who in late 2019 was arrested
00:37:40.400
He anticipated it, so he wrote a series of articles
00:37:43.160
for his church. You know, that when I'm arrested, this is how you are to live. You're not to
00:37:47.520
compromise. And he's been sentenced to nine years. I guess he's, you know, in the midst of that nine
00:37:52.980
year sentence. I've been privileged to sit down and share meals with men in China who, one of them,
00:38:01.080
25 years in prison, another 17 years in prison. I got to meet Samuel Lamb for over 20 years,
00:38:07.700
was persecuted, beaten in prison as a martyr because he suffered for the sake of Christ.
00:38:14.980
And every time I've come away from those meetings, those conversations, those meals,
00:38:21.100
I just thought, man, I'm not worthy to even tie the shoes of these men who've loved Jesus at
00:38:27.120
great cost. And yet I've been so challenged and encouraged because every one of those men
00:38:32.880
have spoken with joy. They're not bitter. They're not complaining. They're full of joy
00:38:39.180
at what Christ has done for them and that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name.
00:38:45.440
So, boy, learn what you can about those who have blood mixed with their convictions.
00:38:51.580
Yeah, and this is the time to do it. We, again, have been so blessed for so long
00:39:06.160
to have that study, have that look at scripture.
00:39:10.400
I think about, you know, you said earlier, the creeds.
00:39:13.380
I mean, the people didn't have Bibles to carry around,
00:39:16.420
especially not, they didn't have them on their phones.
00:39:54.640
But Founders Ministries began literally in a prayer meeting in 1982.
00:39:59.560
A group of seven men got together outside Dallas in a hotel room.
00:40:02.740
We spent the day in prayer, reading scriptures, singing together,
00:40:07.300
and thinking of what we could do to try to be useful in the kingdom of God
00:40:13.020
to encourage people to take God's word seriously.
00:40:15.760
And out of that prayer meeting began what we called the Founders Conference,
00:40:19.200
and from that conference began what we now call Founders Ministries.
00:40:22.280
So we're committed to the recovery of the gospel, the reformation of local churches.
00:40:26.080
We want to see the gospel receive its pride of place in the life of every Christian, in the life of every church.
00:40:33.100
And we want to see churches ordered according to scripture.
00:40:38.340
So we try to resource and help pastors and church leaders and other serious-minded Christians to understand what's involved in that.
00:40:49.500
What is the Christian teaching surrounding the gospel?
00:40:53.380
What does the Bible say about any number of subjects?
00:41:00.280
We have an annual conference each year in January in Southwest Florida.
00:41:09.980
We have a quarterly journal that comes out, the Founders Journal,
00:41:15.420
We have a podcast, the Sword in the Trial podcast, that my associate pastor and I, Jared Longshore, hosts.
00:41:23.340
We deal with all kinds of cultural theological issues every week.
00:41:27.540
We've put out, by what standard, as a documentary to address some of the things going on in our culture and our churches in the last few years,
00:41:38.580
particularly pertaining to the critical social justice movement.
00:41:41.840
We're in the midst now of producing a series of small documentaries called Wield the Sword.
00:41:49.220
And so we've got a few of those already available.
00:42:01.720
We've got others on aesthetics and metaphysics and vocation that are coming out.
00:42:08.240
We've got a series of 15 of these small documentaries that we're producing
00:42:12.420
and trying to get out on Amazon Prime in a timely fashion.
00:42:16.920
A new effort that we've just announced and are undertaking is called
00:42:22.080
the Institute of Public Theology, which is going to be a course of training
00:42:26.840
for pastors and pastoral candidates and for others who are interested
00:42:30.600
in learning theology the biblical languages the biblical exegesis philosophy and apologetics
00:42:39.680
polemics all with a view to taking a stand in the public square so we realize that the kind of
00:42:48.180
privatized pietism that has been so popular for so long in american christianity
00:42:54.460
is simply not going to serve the church at all in the days which we are in
00:43:03.520
So we started this Institute of Public Theology to try to think through
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Christian life and ministry with a view to the increasingly hostile world
00:43:14.000
which we live in, particularly in the United States.
00:43:17.280
But we think that it will be useful in countries around the world
00:43:23.340
And then finally, let me just say that Jared Longshore and I have recently published a book called Strong and Courageous, How to Stand Firm in the Midst of America's New Religion, looking at the paganism that has arisen in our nation and what does Christian faithfulness look like in the face of that new religion.
00:43:44.440
So you can access all of this at founders.org, and we have tons of resources for free.
00:43:50.720
We publish articles every week, several times a week, usually five or 10 articles will go up
00:43:56.420
on our website each week that you can access for free and see what other ministries are available
00:44:02.760
that might be useful to you. Amen. And I'll tell you guys, just a few resources that have been
00:44:06.780
helpful to me is the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith in Modern English. So it's a very short
00:44:14.220
book. I mean, what, 50 pages maybe? And it's a great resource if you've never read a statement
00:44:20.700
of faith, like a comprehensive statement of faith, like the Westminster Confession or the 1689.
00:44:25.500
It's a really great way in modern English to read it, check it out, understand, wow, that's what
00:44:31.200
Orthodox Christianity is, and it's backed up with scripture and a good understanding of those creeds
00:44:38.680
and confessions. It's a great tool. Another thing I talked about earlier was I take my children
00:44:44.700
through their Truth and Grace series. It's a three-book series for little kids, 10-year-olds,
00:44:52.680
and then up to 12 to 14-year-old kids, and they get a little bit more complex. The number three
00:44:59.020
book is, yeah, it's harder to memorize all those answers on that catechism, but they're great thin
00:45:05.660
little books and a great resource. Again, I'm on their website right now as we're talking. It's
00:45:10.840
just at founders.org. And so, yeah, big proponent of what you guys are doing over there, Tom. Thank
00:45:15.340
you for being faithful in the ministry there. And Tom, thanks for joining us today.
00:45:22.320
Well, it's been my privilege to be with you, Dale. I'm grateful for what you're doing and
00:45:26.160
look forward to meeting you personally one day. Amen. Well, guys, thank you for listening to
00:45:29.720
the Theologians series. And we're going to have several more of these incredible interviews with
00:45:35.360
other theologians coming up in the following months. Thank you for listening to this special
00:45:41.640
edition of Real Christianity. This podcast is a 100% listener-supported audio ministry
00:45:47.020
of relearn.org. Visit relearn.org for a library of theological resources, articles, podcasts,
00:45:53.300
and videos to strengthen your biblical literacy and support your study of God's word.
00:45:58.260
For those interested in supporting our ministry, you can make a tax-deductible donation at
00:46:04.640
Again, my name is Dale Partridge, and we're excited to have you back next week for another