Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1401 ｜ 'Death of the Pastor’s Wife'： Everyone’s Getting This Wrong About JP Miller

00:00:00.000 It's inaccurate to say that John Paul Miller's doctrine and actions reflected complementarianism,

00:00:04.860 that men and women are of equal worth and of equal dignity, but we have different roles.

00:00:10.520 We are spiritually made for different roles and different responsibilities. So the problem with

00:00:17.340 John Paul Miller at Solid Rock was abuse of power, deviation from scripture, rejection of biblical

00:00:24.040 truth, not the hierarchy that is actually outlined in scripture.

00:00:30.000 hey y'all welcome to relatable happy monday hope everyone is having a great start to your week

00:00:45.240 i gotta tell you god's eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch

00:00:49.280 no surprises he's never taken it back he's never looking down and wondering what the heck is going

00:00:54.800 on how am i going to solve this how am i going to clean up this mess whether it's your personal life

00:00:59.060 whether it's politics, whether it's what's going on in the world, what's going on in your church

00:01:03.960 and your friend group, with your family, whatever it is, God is not surprised by any of it. He is

00:01:08.740 seeking and saving the lost. He is advancing his kingdom. Job 42 too reminds us that nothing is

00:01:15.320 too hard for him and nothing can thwart his will. So we have encouragement from that today and

00:01:21.580 every day. Well, you might notice that I am wearing a t-shirt, which I don't typically do

00:01:26.500 unrelatable. I like to dress up just a little bit for you, but today I'm wearing my share the

00:01:31.020 arrows t-shirt because we are now, if you can hear me, uh, less than two weeks away, officially

00:01:38.720 from our Christian women's conference in Dallas, Texas, October 10th. Y'all, we are so excited.

00:01:45.580 We're getting down to the wire. We are putting the final touches on everything to serve you the

00:01:50.040 best that we possibly can. Shane and Shane will be leading worship with an incredible worship set.

00:01:56.220 I'm so excited. We've got Rosaria Butterfield. She will be first. She'll be bringing the heat.

00:02:00.880 You know, she will. We've got Kosti Hinn, Alisa Childers, and Natasha Crane. And then we've got

00:02:05.880 Audrey Broglie and Grace Hannah Castleberry talking about biblical womanhood and wifehood together.

00:02:10.960 And then we've got our girl, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas, talking

00:02:16.600 about faith, family, how she prioritizes those things while running such a conservative and

00:02:21.080 pro-life state. It's going to be such an edifying day, a clarifying day. As I've said, let me just

00:02:28.000 repeat this. If you're looking for a fluffy self-help conference, there are so many conferences

00:02:32.740 like that out there. Some of them even call themselves Christian conferences, but it's not

00:02:37.140 this one. You should not waste your money at Share the Arrows expecting to get a bunch of talks about

00:02:42.460 like self-help, self-love. You're just, you're not going to get that here. But if you want to become

00:02:48.200 a smarter apologist, a better theologian, a more joyful wife and mom, a more faithful,

00:02:55.040 biblically truth telling friend, citizen, community member, church member. If you want that,

00:03:01.360 then you should definitely come to share the arrows. You can come by yourself. You can come

00:03:04.820 with friends and come with your small group, or maybe you're like, I don't know anyone who wants

00:03:08.500 to come to this conference with me. You are not going to be alone that day. You are going to find

00:03:12.260 friends. You're going to have someone to go to lunch with. You're going to have someone to hold

00:03:15.440 your baby. You're going to have someone to worship alongside who will stop and pray for you. That's

00:03:19.640 just who this audience is. And that is especially true at share the arrows because share the arrows.

00:03:24.600 We have the cream of the crop of the relatable audience in attendance. I'm so excited.

00:03:29.820 Share the arrows is brought to you by our friends at range leather. We love range leather. And we're

00:03:35.480 so thankful that they're partnering with us to bring you this incredible conference. So go ahead

00:03:40.160 game time decision right now. Related bros. If you are listening, your wife wants to go to share

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00:03:57.160 20. And also the merch is really cute. We just added more merch to our merch lineup that you

00:04:03.180 can only get there. We don't sell it online. So make sure that you come, even if it's just for

00:04:08.000 the merch, share the arrows.com. All right. That concludes the fun on this episode because we've

00:04:14.700 got to talk about something really serious that a lot of you guys have been asking me to discuss.

00:04:19.220 And we've been working on this episode for a while because it's so important for every episode for

00:04:24.700 us to get things factually correct, theologically correct and everything. I mean, we put so much

00:04:30.000 work and effort into that every single episode, but this one, especially we're talking about so

00:04:35.040 many sensitive topics, so many topics that have to do with different facets of the church.

00:04:40.300 and it's not just about true crime. It is also about the theological implications of this true

00:04:47.320 crime story. And I just wanted to make sure that we got every detail of our argument correct.

00:04:53.060 And it has to do with this new Netflix docu-series, Death of the Pastor's Wife. Death of the

00:04:59.200 Pastor's Wife. This is insanely popular. Millions and millions of people are watching it, talking 0.87

00:05:04.280 about it online. It's the tragic story and death of 30-year-old Micah Miller. It has been circulating

00:05:10.760 in the news from the New York Times to famous TikTokers giving their commentary on this. And

00:05:16.340 you might wonder, well, why is that? There's so many true crime stories out there, so many Netflix

00:05:20.800 documentaries that have to do with terrible tragedies. Why is this taking up so much airspace?

00:05:27.840 And that is because of the conversation and the debate surrounding gender dynamics within

00:05:34.460 the evangelical church.

00:05:36.620 Now, if this story or the name Micah Miller strikes you as familiar and you haven't even

00:05:42.340 heard of this documentary, that's because we talked about this in depth long before

00:05:46.540 it became a documentary.

00:05:47.720 A couple of years ago, we went through the timeline and we went through some of the questions

00:05:51.660 that we have, but we didn't really get a chance to explore the theological implications of

00:05:56.460 it or the debate surrounding it, because that wasn't something that was happening. So if you

00:06:00.940 want a full timeline and detail of everything that went down and what was reported at the time,

00:06:05.400 um, then I would go back and listen to that episode. We'll put a link in the description

00:06:10.620 so you can go back today. We'll give you an overview of what happened in the documentary

00:06:14.680 itself, but we're really going to dive into, okay, is there something wrong with how we view

00:06:21.380 men and women in marriage and submission and all of these things that lead to these kinds

00:06:26.760 of tragedies. So let's back up a little bit. I'll give you a summary. This series on Netflix,

00:06:33.260 the death of the pastor's wife traces the relationship of John Paul Miller, who is the

00:06:38.740 former pastor of a church called solid rock church and his wife, Micah, from the time they met when

00:06:45.100 He was 28 years old and married, and she was just 13 years old through years of alleged

00:06:51.500 grooming, adultery, and abusive marriage marked by sexual deviance, coercive control, up to

00:06:58.340 the day that she apparently committed suicide.

00:07:02.640 So today we're looking at why some critics are pinning Micah's abuse on traditional Christian

00:07:08.240 teaching about men and women.

00:07:09.440 And we'll respond to that and also point out and demonstrate that it is unbiblical teaching.

00:07:15.820 It's actually unbiblical behavior, unbiblical doctrine on gender roles and the brokenness

00:07:22.320 of the human state sin that actually leads to these kinds of tragedies.

00:07:29.860 So let's back up a couple, a couple of years to that day.

00:07:34.700 April 27th, 2024, Micah Miller was found dead at Lumber State Park from a gunshot wound to the

00:07:42.240 head. Just two days before that, she had filed for legal separation from John Paul Miller.

00:07:48.260 Infamously, the day after Micah's death, John Paul waited until the very end of his sermon.

00:07:54.200 So he gave a sermon the day after his wife died at his church and kind of in an offhand,

00:08:01.000 nonchalant way at the very end announced this breaking news to the congregation for the first

00:08:07.600 time that his wife had died. It's not one. Um, I got a call late last night. My wife has passed

00:08:13.240 away and yeah, it was, it was self-induced and it was, uh, up in North Carolina and, um, we're

00:08:19.880 gonna have a funeral for her next Sunday here at 3 PM. And so, um, it's all I can, yeah, I'm just

00:08:26.220 kind of going on um adrenaline right now so y'all pray for me and my kids and everybody and uh she

00:08:33.240 was she wasn't y'all knew that she wasn't well mentally and that uh she needed her medicine

00:08:37.460 that was hard to get to her okay so it was that clip from my memory i think that was the first

00:08:45.680 one that i had seen a couple of years ago that kind of triggered people asking a lot of questions

00:08:52.360 about this person. Hang on. Like, this is such a strange way to announce such a tragic event

00:08:59.040 about your wife. What really is going on here? Now, one could say it's because Micah and John

00:09:07.520 Paul had been living apart for several months at the time of her death. And even so, even if you

00:09:13.520 had been living apart for several months to kind of what we call in journalism or what they call

00:09:18.800 journalism, burying the lead, that's when you take the main point of a story and you put it

00:09:24.060 like at the very end so that people don't actually read it. To bury the lead in his sermon that his

00:09:29.700 wife had just committed suicide is strange behavior, no matter what. Now, John Paul obviously

00:09:37.640 denies having any involvement in her death. He says that he was in Charleston, South Carolina

00:09:43.700 at a soccer game the day that she died.

00:09:46.600 After Micah's death, John Paul was released from his duties at Solid Rock by his spiritual

00:09:51.660 advisor, Charles Randall.

00:09:53.380 The church closed months later, but John Paul is still preaching.

00:09:58.340 He founded a new church in 2024, so the same year that his wife committed suicide, and

00:10:04.060 about now 20 people attend, it seems, each Sunday.

00:10:09.560 Now it's important to note that neither the documentary nor any kind of official person

00:10:17.380 involved in this is accusing John Paul of actually pulling the trigger to kill Micah.

00:10:23.240 I think in the beginning, there were some questions about that.

00:10:26.280 Okay.

00:10:26.740 Did she really kill herself or was he involved?

00:10:30.040 This is more of a questioning and interrogation about the events and the behavior and the

00:10:37.360 treatment that led her to this, that led her to apparently make that choice. I think that the

00:10:46.180 question is, did she feel like there's no other way out, that she felt trapped, that she felt

00:10:53.360 because she allegedly was abused by him, that this was her only escape, her only relief from

00:11:01.040 suffering. So we'll get into what the Netflix series shows from her friends, from the people

00:11:07.020 that knew John Paul from the people at their church. And just a second, let me pause, tell

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00:12:31.480 Allie. So here's what the director, Michael Gasparro of this Netflix series explains. He

00:12:43.240 says, John Paul didn't physically murder Micah, but through the series, you understand how much

00:12:48.120 he may have pushed her to that brink. Before we even talk about what some of her friends and

00:12:56.940 families, people surrounding this situation allege, we can back up a little bit. None of

00:13:02.720 these things by themselves prove that he had any involvement. None of these things as a part of

00:13:08.700 his history prove that he even abused her. However, in light of this tragedy, I do think it is worth

00:13:15.060 looking at the context in light of some of the text messages that have been revealed about Micah

00:13:21.660 from John Paul to Micah from John Paul, some of the alleged very serious abusive behavior

00:13:29.220 when it comes to his marriage and his relationship. Since she was a teenager with Micah, I do think

00:13:36.500 it's worth noting all of this context of who he is. In 1998, John Paul was involved in a bitter

00:13:43.480 custody fight over his first child. He had the first child out of wedlock before his first

00:13:49.660 marriage. That's just context. That's not trying to say that makes him an abuser later on.

00:13:54.940 Filings also show John Paul admitted to disrupting his son's daycare, was accused of ignoring the

00:14:00.520 visitation schedule. 1999, he was charged with assault and battery after driving his truck into

00:14:06.920 a woman and dragging her a hundred yards down the road. Seems relevant. It just feels relevant. 1.00

00:14:13.220 John Paul's marriage to his first wife, Allison, ended when his adultery with Micah was discovered.

00:14:19.080 He had been texting Micah when she was three years into marriage with her first husband,

00:14:23.040 so they were both married. And then in divorce documents, Allison, again, that's John Paul's

00:14:28.720 first wife when he started having an affair with Micah, alleged that John Paul had confessed to

00:14:36.120 her and other church staff that he had sexual encounters with underage girls he met at the 0.75

00:14:41.080 church and, and quote, addiction to prostitutes. Now remember John Paul and Micah first met and

00:14:49.460 began a friendship when he was 28 and she was just 13. Like, let me just say there is zero good

00:14:56.820 reason for an adult man to be friends with a teenager. Okay. To be friends in particular with

00:15:04.100 a teenage girl, it might be one thing. If an adult man has a mentorship, a fatherly relationship

00:15:10.380 with a young man and trying to help him through different seasons of life, disciple him. But

00:15:16.620 there is no good reason, mentorship or not, for an adult man to be friends with a teenage girl

00:15:24.000 ever, ever, ever. So that's a big red flag. According to reporting from the Christian Post,

00:15:30.320 John Paul has had his own mental health struggles. In a now-deleted Facebook video,

00:15:35.080 he is seen in a state, some described as a drug induced psychosis. And so the guy has had a

00:15:41.480 turbulent past in a variety of ways. So here are some of the allegations of what John Paul did to

00:15:48.760 Micah. This is according to her family and friends. So they say that he had been grooming Micah since

00:15:54.460 before she was 18. He had multiple affairs during their relationship, a woman named Megan, even

00:16:02.020 during his engagement to Micah, a church member named Susie Skinner during his marriage to Micah,

00:16:08.780 John Paul married Susie one year after Micah's death. There's also a lot of strangeness with

00:16:15.420 that story with Susie Skinner. He had been in a long-term relationship with Susie and Susie's

00:16:23.460 husband died by drowning apparently during that affair after he had found out about the affair.

00:16:31.660 So there's just a lot of sketchy things, not only infidelity and violence and mental health

00:16:39.080 struggles, but also death. Like we have two people who have been involved somewhere in

00:16:46.060 John Paul's love triangles who have died, apparently by suicide. It's just strange.

00:16:54.260 He pressured Micah, apparently, allegedly, with questions about whether she felt

00:16:58.940 sexual temptation toward a woman and accused her of an affair with a female friend. And apparently

00:17:05.780 there was no basis for this whatsoever. You do find this, remember in that episode that we did

00:17:12.120 about George Davey, the self-professed prophet, who is the like mentor of Catherine Crick,

00:17:19.180 the allegations against him. And in some of the recordings and spiritual deliverance,

00:17:24.280 Um, he pressured a woman into trying to like get her to confess that she had sexual feelings

00:17:31.960 toward another woman.

00:17:33.400 And the only pattern and connection I'm trying to draw here is that it seems like these spiritual 0.98

00:17:38.960 sexual abusers allegedly use women to play out their own sexual fantasies. 0.81

00:17:47.600 And that seems to be what happened here as well. 0.97

00:17:51.540 Um, after this allegation, so after he said, I think that you are homosexual and you have this

00:17:58.480 homosexual relationship, Micah felt unsafe probably because it was an insane accusation

00:18:03.760 and left home to stay with her sister, Sierra in a text exchange between John Paul, Micah and

00:18:10.080 Micah's sister. John Paul said, and these text messages have been revealed that he was coming

00:18:15.260 to pick up Micah. And when Micah's sister said that he's not allowed to come to their house,

00:18:20.480 He said, that's fine. You can call the cops. I'm armed and ready. And at one point, um, Micah says

00:18:28.300 like, that's going to be trespassing. If you try to come get me. And he just says, ha ha ha ha ha.

00:18:33.340 So seems very, very disturbed. I think that's extremely nefarious. Just the text messages that

00:18:40.700 he was sending. Um, he apparently paid homeless people off the street to try to get them to commit

00:18:48.380 sexual acts with Micah. Now that's not just a random accusation. John Paul admitted this in an

00:18:56.500 apology letter. According to Micah Miller's lawyer, he pressured Micah to take testosterone to keep

00:19:03.220 up with his sex drive. Apparently he, um, allegedly had her forcibly hospitalized for psychiatric

00:19:11.740 reasons, took her phone, car, laptop while she was detained. He commented on Micah's alleged

00:19:19.020 mental illness from the pulpit, which you can see in several clips from the docuseries, not just

00:19:24.660 that last one that we played. Micah's sister, though, says that Micah had no history of mental

00:19:32.620 illness before she married John Paul, which was part of the reason why her family expressed so

00:19:38.340 much concern about this relationship from the beginning. Now, according to Nancy Grace,

00:19:43.920 according to a 911 call made by Micah, the abuse sometimes turned physical. She accused him of

00:19:49.460 putting his hands around her throat, slapping drinks out of her hand, pushing her down in

00:19:53.980 front of thousands of people at Disney world. It is also worth noting that, uh, John Paul Miller

00:20:01.540 faces federal charges. This is according to the DOJ of cyber stalking Micah and lying to

00:20:07.860 investigators. Allegations in this indictment include posting a nude photo of her online

00:20:12.860 without her consent, having tracking devices placed on her vehicle, contacting her more than

00:20:18.760 50 times in one day, interfering with her finances and daily activities and damaging her tires.

00:20:24.380 These are all from the time when she and John Paul were separated. John Paul allegedly lied

00:20:29.940 to federal investigators by denying he damaged the tires. Okay. So the guy is in trouble with

00:20:37.140 the law for some of the things that he did to Micah. These are not just family and friends,

00:20:42.680 rumors, and gossip. His pretrial hearing was scheduled for October 6th, but he has filed

00:20:48.960 to delay for the seventh time this year, pushing his new pretrial date to January,

00:20:54.040 2027. I didn't know that you could just do that indefinitely. If the case goes to trial,

00:20:58.920 and he's convicted on both counts, he faces up to seven years in prison and a $250,000

00:21:03.920 fine. There's so many more details to this case and their relationship. So again, if you want to

00:21:09.940 know all of those details, you can watch episode 1005 from a couple years ago. But let's get into

00:21:18.100 this bigger question. Is this the dynamic of their relationship at whatever level he may have been

00:21:25.560 involved in what led to her death, the alleged abuse, the coercion, the cyber stalking,

00:21:36.120 whatever it is, is their alleged relationship dynamic, a sign of a bigger church problem

00:21:44.660 when it comes to how women are treated, how marriage is talked about, how men in power are

00:21:50.120 able to get away with certain things just because they're the head of a church. A lot of people are

00:21:56.860 talking about that. This documentary has pulled in over 41 million views in the four weeks since

00:22:03.220 it was released. And some people have made this argument that Micah Miller's death is actually

00:22:10.520 due to the biblical teaching on men's and women's roles, framing Christian so-called fundamentalist

00:22:17.720 teaching as inherently dangerous to women. Here's an example of that. In an opinion article for the

00:22:23.740 New York Times titled Death of the Pastor's Wife and the Horror of Spiritual Abuse, writer Jessica

00:22:29.280 Gross wrote this. She says, in his church, Micah, in John Paul Miller's church, Micah was taught to

00:22:35.620 submit to both her pastor and to her husband. He says, obey those who have authority over you for

00:22:42.180 no authority can exist without God's permission. John Paul preaches to his flock along with citing

00:22:47.500 in Ephesians 5.33 about wives respecting their husbands. She goes on to write, Micah's relatives

00:22:53.780 and friends said they felt John Paul used the Bible to control Micah. She was very submissive

00:22:58.320 and she felt that this was how she could honor God. One of her friends, Bruna Pabin, explained,

00:23:04.480 when Micah finally did get the strength to leave, many in the church sided with John Paul. According

00:23:09.400 to her brother, her social circle went down to essentially nothing. And then Jessica goes on to

00:23:18.820 argue this. While John Paul Miller's abuse was extreme and unusual in its cruelty, many churches

00:23:24.080 and religious influencers preach that women should submit to their husbands sexually and otherwise.

00:23:30.440 She cites an author, Sarah Stankorb, who wrote the book Damned If She Does, Why Women Quit Church 1.00

00:23:35.800 and what it means for the future of religion. She calls the teaching of wives submitting to

00:23:40.480 their husbands, a pipeline or abuse. And the solution to all of this, Jessica Gross says,

00:23:47.520 is that people in her life should have told her that you should never subordinate yourself

00:23:53.000 to a man. Now we have other influencers, those who have deconstructed saying, Hey, this is a

00:24:01.040 problem in SBC churches. This is a problem in Baptist churches. This is a problem in all of

00:24:06.940 these Bible-based churches. When you are told to submit to your husband, this is the kind of thing 1.00

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00:25:22.500 Monty Mader is a deconstructionist influencer, and she makes this case that this is endemic.

00:25:27.980 and a lot of conservative churches thought too.

00:25:30.900 I've already seen some conservative talking heads

00:25:32.480 be like, it's not all churches.

00:25:33.700 This is an attack on the faith.

00:25:34.660 This is not an attack.

00:25:35.520 This is a revelation of the hierarchies

00:25:37.340 and the systems of abuse that the church builds

00:25:39.320 and continues to build. 0.92

00:25:40.640 Because if you grew up in the SBC

00:25:42.300 or any kind of Christian fundamentalism or literalism,

00:25:44.940 this was your church.

00:25:45.840 This was what they taught women. 0.99

00:25:47.280 You have absolute submission to your husband. 1.00

00:25:49.500 Women did not only not have autonomy, 1.00

00:25:51.320 but autonomy was taught as dangerous 0.95

00:25:53.120 through the doctrine of Eve.

00:25:54.580 When you're a young girl,

00:25:55.460 and they also don't believe in consent at all,

00:25:56.880 because when you're a young girl,

00:25:57.980 your body's not yours. It belongs to some man you've never met. So you can't consent yes to

00:26:01.980 anything sexual when you're young, that would be a sin. And then when a man owns you, when you're

00:26:05.820 married, you now can't say no because he owns your body. I'm sure that that kind of thing is

00:26:13.640 taught somewhere, but I was raised in the like early 2000 so-called purity culture of Baptist

00:26:21.320 evangelical world. And I was never taught anything like that. Yes, you are taught that you should

00:26:26.820 preserve your body and you should save sexual acts for marriage. That was preached on a lot.

00:26:32.260 And I'm not saying that every single book that was read was the very best. Like I can think of

00:26:39.600 some books that didn't have some great comparisons in it to like what happens to your worth when you

00:26:45.300 decide to engage sexually before marriage. I've talked about all of that before, but the prevailing

00:26:50.180 message of purity growing up is one that I think has saved a lot of people from heartbreak and a

00:26:56.880 lot of people from falling into sin. That does hurt your heart. That does hurt your body. I

00:27:01.840 never once learned that you don't have autonomy, that you don't have agency, that you don't have

00:27:07.820 the ability to consent, that you better just do this for this future man. And then you won't be

00:27:14.440 able to say no to him ever. Never, never, never. I went to church two to three times a week,

00:27:19.160 my entire life. I went to a Christian school who also talked about things like purity and

00:27:24.280 sexual activity, saving up for marriage. I went to the Christian church camps. Never, ever,

00:27:28.780 ever did I hear this message that justified or excused or minimized abuse in any way.

00:27:35.760 In fact, by the time I got to college, there were a lot of teachers that were mostly emphasizing to

00:27:42.220 men. Like that was a whole thing of the early 2000s, like the young restless reformed,

00:27:47.600 like the tough love was directed toward men, maybe too much. I think women got like a

00:27:53.440 soft message of like, you're beautiful and you're perfect. And like, this is the most

00:27:58.060 important thing that we can tell you is that you're just precious. And I'm not saying that

00:28:02.600 those things that saying that you're precious in the eyes of God is wrong or anything like that, 0.99

00:28:07.500 but men got this really harsh message of like, you're a loser, get off the couch. Everything 0.99

00:28:14.160 is your fault. And some of that tough love was probably really good and really helpful,

00:28:18.920 but I'm just saying like this picture that's being painted generally of conservative churches,

00:28:25.980 theologically true churches, like biblically based churches, churches who believe in

00:28:30.720 complementarianism. We'll get into the details of what that means in a second, but people who

00:28:35.540 preach literally through Ephesians five, that wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord,

00:28:41.440 husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. I have

00:28:46.040 attended those churches my entire life. Never once have I heard anything close to, close to

00:28:54.220 the justification or the belittlement of abuse. Again, not saying that never happens. I'm just

00:29:00.540 saying I'm as inundated in this world as you can possibly be. I've never heard it. I've never heard

00:29:07.060 it. So I'm just saying it's not as pervasive and characteristic as some influencers online

00:29:12.600 want you to believe. Zach Lambert, a professed pastor, I think says what most people outside

00:29:19.240 of white American evangelicalism don't understand about death of the pastor's wife is this. While

00:29:23.000 Micah Miller's situation is tragic, it's not unique. Millions of women in church pews all

00:29:28.300 over this country are being taught that God requires them to be completely subservient

00:29:31.560 to their husbands, no matter what high control religion mixed with patriarchy is a death sentence 0.62

00:29:36.400 for many women. I do think that there is like this secular, uh, like Christian and named only

00:29:42.640 secular, like manosphere that's trying to like fit its way into Christianity. That is just very

00:29:49.920 like degrading for women. Again, I think that is rare in the Christian church. I don't think 0.99

00:29:56.500 that's characteristic of most evangelicalism at all. And I've never heard be completely subservient

00:30:03.880 to your husband, no matter what. Yes. Submit to your husband insofar as you are submitting to

00:30:10.600 the Lord insofar as he is not requiring you to sin. And also that is never just a justification

00:30:17.860 or an excuse for a husband to mistreat or to belittle his wife, because the follow-up to

00:30:26.580 wives submit to your husbands is husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave

00:30:30.200 himself up for her. Wow. So the kind of sacrificial death to self-love that is required for wives

00:30:37.320 from husbands is written out right there. That completely excludes the possibility of the

00:30:43.960 justification of abuse. Now we know, as I've said, that abuse absolutely happens in evangelical 0.75

00:30:51.940 churches. We covered Texas megachurch pastor, Robert Morris, Mike Bickle, former leader of

00:30:58.760 IHOP or International House of Prayer in Kansas City. There have been several other accusations

00:31:06.040 of sexual impropriety, not even just abuse when it comes to people like Carl Lentz or Steve Lawson,

00:31:12.920 which by the way, we've got to talk about Steve Lawson very soon, who has a new book out.

00:31:18.800 And so a lot of people, they look at these leaders and they look at the churches that

00:31:23.740 they come from. And they say, okay, well, they typically have traditional views when it comes

00:31:29.040 to gender and marriage. So that must be the cause. Denny Burke, president of the council on biblical 0.96

00:31:35.180 manhood and womanhood responds to that kind of line of reasoning. He says, this is the real

00:31:41.880 problem is that John Paul Miller is a wolf and his church was too weak to remove him. So it's 0.59

00:31:49.260 actually the lack of biblical courage, not biblical fidelity that is causing this. So

00:31:55.760 Denny says this, the film depicts a pastor who is a case study of the wolves that Jesus and

00:32:01.520 apostles warned us about. It exposes a shepherd who twists the Bible and uses it to manipulate

00:32:07.760 people into servicing his own lust. It's absolutely disgusting. The evidence of his 0.98

00:32:12.860 lechery was either covered up or ignored for years before the final calamity. He should have 0.70

00:32:18.600 been removed from his position over a decade before his wife's death. Like it should also

00:32:24.520 be noted. It should also be noted. And we, we didn't have time to get into every single detail,

00:32:29.620 but I think it's important to bring up the fact that John Paul Miller was not like some of those

00:32:37.480 conservatives that we listed before. He actually didn't have the same ideology that I have.

00:32:42.900 He was more progressive when it came to women's roles in the church than me, because he allowed

00:32:49.140 women to preach. He believed that women could be pastors. Okay. Much like a lot of these

00:32:54.140 progressive deconstructionists believed he actually had a more egalitarian belief of women's

00:33:00.400 role in the church than I do, than a lot of conservatives do. But that seems to be left

00:33:05.520 out of the analysis, the abuse and scandals that progressives point to in the church do happen,

00:33:11.580 but not for the reason they say, not because the Bible is wrong, not because the Bible is

00:33:17.060 a justification for abuse and not because of complementarianism. Okay. So what is

00:33:25.300 complementarianism? You probably know, but a lot of you don't. And if you don't, that's okay.

00:33:31.480 It's not something that's probably preached on explicitly a lot from the pulpit, but

00:33:36.580 complementarianism is opposed to something called egalitarianism. And this really matters in our

00:33:43.200 understanding of what God means for marriage and the genders. But let me go ahead and pause. Let

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00:34:03.820 surrounding their conception, no matter who they are, where they come from, socioeconomic status,

00:34:09.160 it doesn't matter. All of them are equally made in God's image. That's why we pro-lifers fight

00:34:14.520 for the lives and the rights of those babies. And that's why we do everything we can to provide

00:34:18.940 them with as much care as possible, even after they are born. And part of that is making sure

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00:35:25.380 so this is defined by the council on biblical manhood and womanhood complementarianism is a

00:35:33.340 teaching rooted in the created order not the fall the created order that men and women are equal in

00:35:40.280 dignity and value but have distinct roles in the family and in church genesis 127 so god created

00:35:47.920 man in his own image and the image of god he created him male and female he created them

00:35:53.280 If you've ever heard me give a speech, and sometimes I say this line on the show, I say,

00:35:59.120 it's like God knew we were going to be confused. And he was like, you know what? You don't even

00:36:03.180 have to read 30 verses before I tell you what's up. Before I tell you the truth about all this,

00:36:07.780 I'm going to define all these culture war questions that you have, the definition of

00:36:11.440 gender, the definition of marriage, the definition of the value of human life. We are made in God's

00:36:17.460 image. That's our value. We are made male and female. We are married as male and female. Boom,

00:36:23.280 right there. First chapter of the first book of the Bible. If you can't affirm that, it's not

00:36:27.440 because you don't want to be controversial. It's because you don't want to be biblical. It is so

00:36:31.140 incredibly fundamental. That's why when people start denying Genesis 1, 27, they end up denying

00:36:38.240 John 14, 6, 2, because this is so fundamental, not just to society, but to Christianity. As we

00:36:44.740 see in Revelation, this is a reflection of the marriage between Christ and the church. So the

00:36:49.740 Bible starts with this, this setup, this dichotomy, and also ends with an eternal spiritual form of

00:36:56.040 it. Genesis 2, 18. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make

00:37:02.400 him a helper fit for him. Okay. So this is pre-fall. This is not after the fall and, oh,

00:37:08.500 things got distorted and it was supposed to be egalitarian and they were supposed to do the

00:37:12.520 exact same things with the exact same roles. And then sin mocked it all up. No, a helper is there

00:37:18.460 fit for him in Genesis two before sin entered the world. Now the fall did corrupt the relationship

00:37:26.300 between men and women, but it did not introduce the differences between men and women. Genesis

00:37:31.860 three 16 to the woman. He said, I will surely multiply your pain and child bearing. I think 0.99

00:37:38.200 about evil a lot these days as I'm getting ready to give birth again. In pain, you shall bring

00:37:42.940 forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. So wives are 0.91

00:37:50.340 to submit to their husbands, but the pattern of redemption in Christ that we see in the New

00:37:55.100 Testament is that men and women are equal in terms of the blessings of salvation while maintaining

00:38:00.680 their different roles in the home and in the church, each fulfilling roles with equal dignity

00:38:05.280 and value. Galatians 3, 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There

00:38:11.280 is no male or female and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So when it comes to our

00:38:18.060 salvation, when it comes to our place of importance, if you will, value within the church,

00:38:25.680 that is not differentiated by our gender or socioeconomic status or our ethnicity because

00:38:32.440 we are made righteous. We have been purchased by the blood of Christ, all of us, which is a very

00:38:37.880 radical message today. It was a radical message back then when it was introduced, when people

00:38:42.760 were judged based on what they brought to the table intellectually, and also their gender,

00:38:48.960 their age, their socioeconomic status, the class that they were born into, whether they were slave

00:38:54.800 or free. And so this radically equalizing when it comes to worth and standing before God message of

00:39:01.540 the gospel was just revolutionary. And clearly it still is Colossians 3, 18 through 19 wives

00:39:07.580 submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with

00:39:15.300 them. Okay. So right there, Paul says, and he does it again in Ephesians five, submit to your

00:39:21.780 husband's wives, because if you're both driving the ship and you're going two different directions, 0.86

00:39:26.300 you're not going to go anywhere. Things are going to be very chaotic. It's going to be difficult in

00:39:30.460 your home. If you've got two leaders who have two very different ideas of where you should go

00:39:34.700 and there's, there's no real captain. There's no real leader. God is a God of order. He's not a

00:39:41.240 God of chaos and confusion. And because he likes systems that are conducive to human flourishing,

00:39:46.020 he says, this is how I've set it up. And then husbands love your wives and do not be harsh

00:39:51.980 with them. First Corinthians 11, seven through nine, and then 11 through 12 for a man ought not

00:39:56.740 to cover his head since he is the image and the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.

00:40:00.460 for man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman,

00:40:06.100 but woman for man. Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor man of

00:40:12.440 woman for as woman was made for man. So man is now born of woman and all things are from God.

00:40:20.480 And so to me, like, gosh, we could spend hours and hours and I could spend hours and hours

00:40:24.780 learning about that passage, but we could spend hours and hours talking about that passage that

00:40:29.820 he's talking about, okay, yes, you're distinct. You've got different roles at the same time,

00:40:35.300 your worth, your salvation all comes from the Lord. And so just as he teaches about, Hey,

00:40:41.140 masters, you need to treat your slaves. Well, different, different time and slaves. You need

00:40:46.560 to obey your masters. And he also says, children, you should obey your parents and fathers. Don't

00:40:51.960 provoke your children to anger. Like at the end of all of these commands, Colossians and Ephesians,

00:40:57.980 He says, because God is the God of all of you, because this speaks to an eternal hierarchy,

00:41:04.400 this importance of us all submitting to God as all having the same innate worth before God

00:41:11.420 and us all being equally dead in our sin and equally made alive in Christ by grace through

00:41:17.820 faith. The opposite of complementarianism is something called egalitarianism. The view that

00:41:23.780 men and women are interchangeable in every role in the home and church with no gender-based

00:41:28.640 distinctions and leadership or authority, just totally interchangeable. So critics who already

00:41:34.760 see complementarianism as harmful are quick to misrepresent what it actually is. And so let's

00:41:40.200 look at some of the progressive claims just quickly. So here's what complementarianism

00:41:46.060 is not, because you'll hear that complementarianism and like harsh patriarchy where

00:41:51.560 women, and I'm not even calling like patriarchy this like as a principle, but they will call it 0.99

00:41:57.380 like, oh, this is harsh patriarchy where women are belittled, where they don't have a say, 1.00

00:42:03.400 where they don't have value at all, that it's all the same. They'll just conflate all of this. 0.86

00:42:07.960 But complementarianism is not unchecked authority for husbands to abuse and oppress women.

00:42:14.200 Christian authority is delegated from Christ, who is the only one with absolute authority.

00:42:18.740 In scripture, when human authority figures are in sin, we see believers standing up to them. So 0.74

00:42:23.720 when the religious leaders told the apostles not to preach the gospel, they did not submit,

00:42:28.780 Acts 5, 29. But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men. That reminds me

00:42:36.300 of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego too, not bowing before the idol and getting thrown into the fiery

00:42:42.160 furnace in the Old Testament. The Bible also does not teach that a woman's body belongs to her

00:42:47.600 future husband. It's not what the Bible teaches. Every Christian ultimately belongs to Christ.

00:42:53.160 First Corinthians 6, 19 through 20 does say, or do you not know that your body's a temple of the

00:42:58.820 Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own for you were bought with a

00:43:04.060 price. So glorify God in your body. Men, you are not your own women. You are not your own.

00:43:10.440 And you'll remember the passage that we read earlier about that. There is a, um, there's a

00:43:17.300 mutuality here between men and women. Paul says this, um, in first Corinthians seven, three through

00:43:24.180 five, that there's a mutual belonging within marriage between the husband and wife. First

00:43:28.580 Corinthians seven, three through five, the husband should give to his wife, her conjugal rights. 0.95

00:43:32.900 And likewise, the wife to her husband for the wife does not have authority over her own body. 0.78

00:43:39.420 All of the deconstructionists would stop right there, but the husband does, but, but he goes

00:43:45.520 on to say, likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the

00:43:50.720 wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that

00:43:57.280 you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not

00:44:02.820 tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Now, I also, I just want to point out that

00:44:09.620 last part there, that he is not removing the autonomy and the agency and the responsibility

00:44:16.160 from men and women who choose to lust after someone else's spouse or choose to have an

00:44:23.700 affair. He still says because of your lack of self-control that Satan can tempt you, but it is

00:44:30.380 your lack of self-control that would lead you into those situations. And so I just want to say that

00:44:36.000 there, that this is not removing the responsibility to avoid sin, um, from the husband or wife,

00:44:42.700 even if for whatever reason, there was a period of time where a husband and wife couldn't have

00:44:49.880 sex, say like the husband or the wife is going through serious cancer treatments or that can't

00:44:54.520 happen. This is not a justification for any kind of infidelity. The fruit of the spirit is still

00:45:01.100 self-control. Now, all of these things about complementarianism, is that what John Paul

00:45:07.460 preached? Like, is that what he actually believed? I've already pointed out that he was more

00:45:11.480 egalitarian than I am in believing that women can exercise authority over men, despite what

00:45:18.040 1 Timothy says about that. 1 Timothy says, 1 Timothy 2, 11 through 12 says, let a woman learn

00:45:24.160 quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a 1.00

00:45:28.500 man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. Well, we already know that he allowed women to preach 1.00

00:45:34.400 in his church, at least one woman to preach in his church. And so he didn't even believe that

00:45:39.000 doctrine from first Timothy, but what else did he actually preach that that is, um, in alignment

00:45:46.960 with complementarianism? Is that really the ideology that he espoused that motivated him to

00:45:53.180 treat his wife the way that he apparently did. Let me pause before we get to that. Let me tell

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00:47:15.800 All right. So this would be an example to progressives, deconstructionists of John Paul

00:47:25.280 espousing complementarianism or so-called fundamentalist doctrine. So three ladies, 0.66

00:47:32.200 wives, if you don't meet your husband's sexual needs, Satan will put 20 different options before 1.00

00:47:38.600 his eyes before the day's over with. There's incredible danger in unmet needs. A fantastic

00:47:45.460 marriage is simply this. My needs are being met. Today, denying sex in your marriage,

00:47:52.480 sexual immorality, is the same thing as rape, sex trafficking, homosexuality. 0.94

00:48:00.220 Okay, so is the problem there his fidelity to scripture? 0.76

00:48:04.740 Here's what Matthew 5, 29, in the words of Jesus says this, if your right eye causes you to sin,

00:48:11.800 tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your

00:48:17.040 whole body be thrown into hell. Jesus also argues that lusting after a woman is the same as having

00:48:27.020 an affair. It's the same as committing adultery. That's when people say, oh, Jesus was just

00:48:33.460 bucking the religious systems and the law keepers of the time. No, no, no. He was showing them that

00:48:38.880 following the law is more than following it to the letter. It's more than just your superficial

00:48:44.920 behavior. It goes down to your heart. He was showing you that righteousness and actually

00:48:51.460 being in alignment with what God's word commands you to do is really hard. It is much harder than

00:48:58.580 just saying, well, I'm pure because I've never had an affair. I'm, I'm doing my job because I've

00:49:05.160 never actually gone through with my thoughts or whatever it is. Jesus is saying, well, it doesn't

00:49:09.940 matter if you hate your brother in your heart. That's the same thing as committing murder.

00:49:13.100 If your right eye causes you to sin and sin in this case is looking at someone lustfully,

00:49:19.200 then you need to throw it away. That's how important it is for you to resist temptation.

00:49:24.560 Okay. Yes. And those other passages that we've already read, the mutual submission sexually

00:49:30.000 of husbands and wives to each other is important. But remember at the end of that passage,

00:49:35.160 Paul emphasizes the importance of self-control that Satan might tempt you, not because your

00:49:41.660 wife denied you sex, but because of your lack of self-control. First Corinthians 6, 18, flee from

00:49:48.400 sexual immorality, run from it. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the

00:49:54.260 sexually immoral person sins against his own body. This is also my rebuttal when people say

00:50:00.740 things like, oh, this kind of sin, whether it's homosexuality or sexual immorality of any kind,

00:50:06.340 you know, we shouldn't treat it differently than any other sin. Like, why do we emphasize it so 0.76

00:50:10.120 much? Why does God emphasize it so much? It's not true. Yes, all sin separates us from God and the

00:50:16.980 wages of all sin is death. That's true, but not all sins are the same. They don't all have the

00:50:21.480 same effect. The sexually immoral person sins against his own body. That's why, why sexual sin

00:50:28.900 is so important. So the emphasis there on, if you don't do everything that your husband wants you to

00:50:35.960 do sexually, he's going to go out and he's going to, he's going to lust. That is not how the Bible

00:50:42.560 talks about what sex looks like, should look like within marriage. Scripture does call women to 0.97

00:50:50.720 submit to their husbands. This is the second point here as to the Lord, but what seems to be

00:50:56.100 left out of this kind of snippet or the deconstructionist saying, see this, this is

00:51:03.040 what happens when you follow the Bible too closely is the second part, as we've said multiple times

00:51:08.640 already, but I think it's worth reemphasizing Ephesians 5, 25 through 28 husbands or husbands

00:51:16.240 love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might

00:51:21.020 sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words that he might present the

00:51:25.680 church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be

00:51:29.940 holy and without blemish. That sounds like a really big thing, right? Like a huge responsibility.

00:51:36.240 Like you are responsible for, like your leadership is responsible for your wife's

00:51:42.640 sanctification or it plays a huge role in leading her sanctification so that she may be presented

00:51:47.900 before the Lord without spot or splendor. Now we know Jesus's blood covers us and gives us

00:51:53.300 his righteousness. And that's what makes our slate clean. But it looks here like there is a

00:51:58.280 sanctifying spiritual, eternal impact that the husband has on the, on the, on the splendor,

00:52:06.880 the spiritual splendor, um, of his wife. And that is a really big deal. Wives are not told that we

00:52:14.700 have that same obligation, same responsibility, same mantle that we are carrying for our husbands.

00:52:19.820 Our husbands are carrying that for us. That's a huge responsibility in the same way. God through

00:52:26.960 Paul says husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves

00:52:33.040 himself. It's funny, the people who talk about self-love over and over again, and that's all we

00:52:38.020 need. Well, we read about it right here. What does it look like to truly love yourself? Well,

00:52:44.400 you love sacrificially someone else. You love sacrificially your wife, just as you would want

00:52:49.920 to be treated. That is how you should treat your wife. Wow. He spends a lot of ink telling how

00:52:57.720 husbands should sacrificially love and care for and help sanctify their wife. Even if John Paul

00:53:05.600 did preach Ephesians 5 at some point, and it just wasn't in the Netflix series, his life didn't

00:53:12.320 actually reflect that. It wasn't because he held too closely to scripture that he did the things

00:53:18.120 that he did. It's because he totally deviated away from it. So it's inaccurate to say that

00:53:23.380 John Paul Miller's doctrine and actions reflected complementarianism.

00:53:27.300 Complementarianism is what I just read to you, that men and women are of equal worth

00:53:32.340 and of equal dignity and can be saved in the same way by grace through faith in Christ.

00:53:38.240 But we have different roles.

00:53:39.840 We are innately made for different roles.

00:53:42.800 We are spiritually made for different roles and different responsibilities.

00:53:48.700 So the problem with John Paul Miller at Solid Rock was abuse of power, was deviation from

00:53:56.000 scripture, rejection of biblical truth, not the hierarchy that is actually outlined in

00:54:02.020 scripture.

00:54:03.020 Progressives love to blame hierarchies and evangelicalism for the abuse that Micah Miller

00:54:07.800 suffered, but Solid Rock Church did not actually follow the biblical model for authority that

00:54:12.640 was established throughout the New Testament.

00:54:14.320 it. Wayne Grudem explains in systematic theology, the power of the church is its God-given authority

00:54:20.280 to carry on spiritual warfare, proclaim the gospel and exercise church discipline. Now we know that

00:54:28.220 John Paul was not given the proper church discipline throughout his life. Yes, he was asked

00:54:34.700 to sit down after Micah, um, had died after she had apparently killed herself, but there had been

00:54:43.140 affairs before that. There had been allegations of abuse. There had been allegations of infidelity.

00:54:47.400 There had been all kinds of scandals with Susie, the woman that he had apparently had an affair

00:54:54.400 with. There were accusations of grooming of Micah when she was a teenager. There should have been

00:54:59.780 church discipline long, long before Micah Miller was committed suicide. The question is, how has

00:55:08.240 Christ called his church to exercise that authority, what limits scripture places on it

00:55:13.080 and how that compares to what was practiced at John Paul Miller's church. So his church and JP

00:55:21.160 himself didn't follow Titus one through five. When talking about elders or leaders in the church,

00:55:27.440 he says this, that you have to be above reproach. The husband of one wife, his children are believers

00:55:34.300 is not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination for an overseer as God's steward

00:55:39.320 must be above reproach, above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard

00:55:46.640 or violent or greedy for gain. Hmm. This reminds me of someone that we're talking about, but a 0.90

00:55:51.560 hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, disciplined. Wow. Another really,

00:55:58.360 really high calling. It's crazy that so many women are vying for these roles. Like this is 1.00

00:56:04.420 a really, really, um, stringent qualification process that men have to go through for being

00:56:12.180 overseers of the church. Remember the John Paul's first wife, Alison said in an affidavit that when

00:56:17.960 John Paul admitted to the affair with Micah, he also admitted to soliciting prostitutes

00:56:23.300 being sexually inappropriate with several female underage church members. And John Paul's church 0.52

00:56:31.380 actually recognized that he had a sin problem and he needed to step away from the pulpit.

00:56:36.020 But according to the church bylaws, no one within the church had the authority to make him do that.

00:56:40.520 According to Allison's affidavit, a council was formed and voted for John Paul to step down and

00:56:45.340 get sexual addiction counseling. But instead of stepping down, John Paul held a meeting informing

00:56:49.920 the council that according to the church's bylaws, he had a hundred percent decision-making

00:56:54.420 authority. All right. So that's not the structure that is needed. That's not the structure that's

00:57:01.020 outlined by scripture. The apparent overseer of the church who they called an overseer was a man

00:57:07.700 that we mentioned earlier named Charles Randall pastors. Another church is not a member of solid

00:57:13.340 rock um he had released john paul this is the email that he sent with that announcement

00:57:20.060 he said i charles randall by the authority vested in me as overseer hereby released pastor john paul

00:57:26.800 miller from all ministerial functions for a time of healing counsel and guidance pursuant to our

00:57:33.520 government instrument but the church had not been made aware that randall was a part of its

00:57:38.000 leadership structure. And so someone said a random email we got from CR. So again, it wasn't until

00:57:46.300 later, they didn't follow structure. They didn't follow accountability. They didn't follow the

00:57:51.020 Bible's guidance for what you're supposed to do for a church member when they're unrepentant in

00:57:55.280 sin. Eventually, you're supposed to kick them out, hand them over to Satan in the hopes that

00:58:01.720 they will repent. The hope is always restoration and repentance, but they didn't follow any of

00:58:07.620 that. And then again, after Micah Miller committed suicide, then he stepped down, but then he started

00:58:13.200 another church the same exact year. The truth is if we are going to talk about so-called

00:58:20.600 fundamentalist, and that is a church that actually believes in the fundamentals, that's not how

00:58:26.600 liberals take the word fundamental, but that's really what it is. You're like, you believe in

00:58:30.780 the fundamentals of scripture. You take scripture literally. This church was not that. They weren't

00:58:36.660 following the elder model, the leadership model, the church discipline model, the repentance

00:58:44.040 restoration model, the accountability model, even the gender model that is outlined in scripture.

00:58:51.140 So what should it look like? Because you might be in a church that also doesn't have this structure,

00:58:56.160 that also doesn't have a lot of accountability, and you need to know what the Bible, not what I

00:59:01.260 say, but what does the Bible actually say about how these structures should look? And I would

00:59:07.500 even go back. I would listen to the episode that I just did with John Cooper from Skillet and how

00:59:13.400 he found himself in a church that he once loved, um, asking the question, like, hang on a second.

00:59:20.480 What is, what do we preach? What do we believe? Why does it seem like y'all are manipulating us

00:59:25.800 in the name of our pastor being an apostle or a prophet. And is there anyone keeping this guy

00:59:32.380 accountable? And he's been brave enough to tell the truth on that. So go back and watch that

00:59:36.260 or listen to that. But before we get into what scripture says, the most important thing

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01:01:20.440 Okay. So here's what the new Testament says about elders in a church and how they should behave.

01:01:27.680 First Peter five, one through three is that I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder

01:01:33.860 and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker of the glory that is to be

01:01:39.000 revealed shepherd, the flock of God that is among you exercise oversight, not under compulsion,

01:01:45.400 but willingly as God would have you not for shameful gain, but eagerly not domineering

01:01:50.720 over those in your charge, but being examples of the flock. There's been a lot of conversation

01:01:55.460 about this lately. Like what is the role of a pastor? Is it to shepherd the flock or is it to

01:02:01.440 just rule? Is it to understand the needs of your congregation and try to meet those in a biblical

01:02:08.080 way, not in a, like a compromising way and a conceding way and just doing everything that

01:02:13.480 your congregation wants you to do, but in a loving, compassionate way, in a way that a shepherd

01:02:19.180 would love its flock. Um, there's been some debate about like what the role of the pastor is, but it

01:02:24.640 does seem here that the leadership in the church is not supposed to domineer over those in your

01:02:29.320 charge, but you are to be examples in gentleness and love and biblical fidelity. The church has

01:02:34.940 the right to hold its leaders accountable. First Timothy five, do not admit a charge against an

01:02:40.760 elder, except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. There's Old Testament precedent for

01:02:45.080 that. As for those who persistence and rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest 0.52

01:02:49.420 may stand in fear in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge

01:02:53.580 you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. So again, we see that

01:02:59.940 reflection of the Old Testament where God's heart is that you should not give partiality to the

01:03:06.220 accused or the accuser, that the truth really matters. The process of justice and accusation

01:03:11.120 really matters both for the accuser and for those who are accused. Churches that disregard this,

01:03:20.040 that disregard church teaching on authority, they are the ones that are vulnerable to false teaching

01:03:25.940 and are vulnerable to the wolves that come into the flock to exploit them, to abuse them,

01:03:33.060 to manipulate them spiritually. And this happens in all kinds of churches. This happens in Catholic

01:03:40.720 churches. This happens in Protestant churches. This happens in churches who call themselves

01:03:45.380 liberal. This happens in churches that call themselves conservative. The problem in all of

01:03:51.440 these different kinds of churches is a departure from what the Bible actually says. It is not that

01:03:57.140 they are following the Bible too closely. And again, I just think of the Pharisees. The problem

01:04:02.740 with the Pharisees, the reason why they were exploiting the poor, the reason why they were 0.56

01:04:08.260 able to put themselves as lords over just the regular person, um, is not because they cared

01:04:17.340 about the law too much. It's not because they were so religious. It's because they weren't really

01:04:23.240 following the law. They weren't following it. They weren't obeying God down to their heart.

01:04:28.300 it always comes down to heart level obedience. Old Testament and new, that is what God is looking

01:04:35.480 for. That is what protects us from predation or for those in charge, becoming a predator yourself.

01:04:43.680 It's not less Bible, it's more Bible. God speaks to all of this. He cares about abuse. He sees it.

01:04:50.660 he cares about justice. He cares about truth. He cares for, for those who are bringing forth

01:04:56.980 accusations that are founded in truth. And I believe he wants that transparency and he also

01:05:04.180 wants that accountability. And he wants us to stick to the truth and the structure that is

01:05:10.040 outlined in scripture. Um, if your church only preaches a one-sided teaching on marriage,

01:05:18.140 only the needs of men, or only the demands and the needs of women, that's a red flag.

01:05:24.620 Churches should be faithful to the whole counsel of scripture, not just what's convenient. The

01:05:30.240 biblical model does not give husbands permission to dominate their wives. It certainly doesn't

01:05:34.900 give permission for wives to dominate their husbands. It doesn't say that husbands and 1.00

01:05:39.400 wives are interchangeable. It also doesn't say that husbands are to truly, I mean this in the

01:05:46.060 true sense, like oppress and repress their wives, but to lead their wives lovingly, sacrificially,

01:05:52.240 also strongly and courageously. And that wives are supposed to submit to the Lord first and

01:05:58.200 foremost. And that also as a reflection of that, submit to our husbands as to the Lord and be his

01:06:04.200 helpers. That doesn't mean being dominated, but that does mean being led. And what a privilege

01:06:10.220 that is as a woman, yes and amen, that I don't have to be the one in charge. So lesson of the

01:06:17.900 day, it all comes down to a departure from God's truth, not from sticking to it too closely.

01:06:26.480 All right. That's all we got time for today. We will be back here on Wednesday.

01:06:40.220 You

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 28, 2026

Ep 1401 ｜ 'Death of the Pastor’s Wife'： Everyone’s Getting This Wrong About JP Miller

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