Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 28, 2026


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

Topics
Christiane Amanpour's conference share the arrows conference EveryLife diapers preborn
Hosted by
Allie Beth Stuckey
Mentioned
John Miller Susie Skinner Jessica Gross Allison Charles, Rhonda Steve Lawson Dennis Prager Grace Hannah Castleberry Sarah Huckabee Sanders Rosaria Butterfield Michael Gasparro Katie Couric Elisa Childers Audrey Broglie Sarah Stankorb Natasha Crane Robert Morris George Davey Zach Lambert Wayne Grudem and 11 more
REPLAY ｜ Donor-Conceived, Lesbian-Raised & Born Again ｜ Guest： Ross Johnston Ep 1402 ｜ Taylor Swift's Fans Are Turning On Her： I Have a Theory Why ｜ Bri Schrader

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 6 minutes

Words per minute

168.1

Word count

11,213

Sentence count

685

Harmful content

Misogyny

18

sentences flagged

Toxicity

13

sentences flagged

Hate speech

22

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 It's inaccurate to say that John Paul Miller's doctrine and actions reflected complementarianism,
00:00:04 that men and women are of equal worth and of equal dignity, but we have different roles.
00:00:10 We are spiritually made for different roles and different responsibilities. So the problem with
00:00:17 John Paul Miller at Solid Rock was abuse of power, deviation from scripture, rejection of biblical
00:00:24 truth, not the hierarchy that is actually outlined in scripture.
00:00:30 hey y'all welcome to relatable happy monday hope everyone is having a great start to your week
00:00:45 i gotta tell you god's eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch
00:00:49 no surprises he's never taken it back he's never looking down and wondering what the heck is going
00:00:54 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 whether it's politics, whether it's what's going on in the world, what's going on in your church
00:01:03 and your friend group, with your family, whatever it is, God is not surprised by any of it. He is
00:01:08 seeking and saving the lost. He is advancing his kingdom. Job 42 too reminds us that nothing is
00:01:15 too hard for him and nothing can thwart his will. So we have encouragement from that today and
00:01:21 every day. Well, you might notice that I am wearing a t-shirt, which I don't typically do
00:01:26 unrelatable. I like to dress up just a little bit for you, but today I'm wearing my share the
00:01:31 arrows t-shirt because we are now, if you can hear me, uh, less than two weeks away, officially
00:01:38 from our Christian women's conference in Dallas, Texas, October 10th. Y'all, we are so excited.
00:01:45 We're getting down to the wire. We are putting the final touches on everything to serve you the
00:01:50 best that we possibly can. Shane and Shane will be leading worship with an incredible worship set.
00:01:56 I'm so excited. We've got Rosaria Butterfield. She will be first. She'll be bringing the heat.
00:02:00 You know, she will. We've got Kosti Hinn, Alisa Childers, and Natasha Crane. And then we've got
00:02:05 Audrey Broglie and Grace Hannah Castleberry talking about biblical womanhood and wifehood together.
00:02:10 And then we've got our girl, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas, talking
00:02:16 about faith, family, how she prioritizes those things while running such a conservative and
00:02:21 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 repeat this. If you're looking for a fluffy self-help conference, there are so many conferences
00:02:32 like that out there. Some of them even call themselves Christian conferences, but it's not
00:02:37 this one. You should not waste your money at Share the Arrows expecting to get a bunch of talks about
00:02:42 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 a smarter apologist, a better theologian, a more joyful wife and mom, a more faithful,
00:02:55 biblically truth telling friend, citizen, community member, church member. If you want that,
00:03:01 then you should definitely come to share the arrows. You can come by yourself. You can come
00:03:04 with friends and come with your small group, or maybe you're like, I don't know anyone who wants
00:03:08 to come to this conference with me. You are not going to be alone that day. You are going to find
00:03:12 friends. You're going to have someone to go to lunch with. You're going to have someone to hold
00:03:15 your baby. You're going to have someone to worship alongside who will stop and pray for you. That's
00:03:19 just who this audience is. And that is especially true at share the arrows because share the arrows.
00:03:24 We have the cream of the crop of the relatable audience in attendance. I'm so excited.
00:03:29 Share the arrows is brought to you by our friends at range leather. We love range leather. And we're
00:03:35 so thankful that they're partnering with us to bring you this incredible conference. So go ahead
00:03:40 game time decision right now. Related bros. If you are listening, your wife wants to go to share
00:03:45 the arrows. So make it happen for surprise her. She'll be so excited. Share the arrows.com. Go
00:03:50 ahead and use my code Allie 20. You'll get 20% off your ticket. Share the arrows.com code Allie
00:03:57 20. And also the merch is really cute. We just added more merch to our merch lineup that you
00:04:03 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 the merch, share the arrows.com. All right. That concludes the fun on this episode because we've
00:04:14 got to talk about something really serious that a lot of you guys have been asking me to discuss.
00:04:19 And we've been working on this episode for a while because it's so important for every episode for
00:04:24 us to get things factually correct, theologically correct and everything. I mean, we put so much
00:04:30 work and effort into that every single episode, but this one, especially we're talking about so
00:04:35 many sensitive topics, so many topics that have to do with different facets of the church.
00:04:40 and it's not just about true crime. It is also about the theological implications of this true
00:04:47 crime story. And I just wanted to make sure that we got every detail of our argument correct.
00:04:53 And it has to do with this new Netflix docu-series, Death of the Pastor's Wife. Death of the
00:04:59 Pastor's Wife. This is insanely popular. Millions and millions of people are watching it, talking 0.87
00:05:04 about it online. It's the tragic story and death of 30-year-old Micah Miller. It has been circulating
00:05:10 in the news from the New York Times to famous TikTokers giving their commentary on this. And
00:05:16 you might wonder, well, why is that? There's so many true crime stories out there, so many Netflix
00:05:20 documentaries that have to do with terrible tragedies. Why is this taking up so much airspace?
00:05:27 And that is because of the conversation and the debate surrounding gender dynamics within
00:05:34 the evangelical church.
00:05:36 Now, if this story or the name Micah Miller strikes you as familiar and you haven't even
00:05:42 heard of this documentary, that's because we talked about this in depth long before
00:05:46 it became a documentary.
00:05:47 A couple of years ago, we went through the timeline and we went through some of the questions
00:05:51 that we have, but we didn't really get a chance to explore the theological implications of
00:05:56 it or the debate surrounding it, because that wasn't something that was happening. So if you
00:06:00 want a full timeline and detail of everything that went down and what was reported at the time,
00:06:05 um, then I would go back and listen to that episode. We'll put a link in the description
00:06:10 so you can go back today. We'll give you an overview of what happened in the documentary
00:06:14 itself, but we're really going to dive into, okay, is there something wrong with how we view
00:06:21 men and women in marriage and submission and all of these things that lead to these kinds
00:06:26 of tragedies. So let's back up a little bit. I'll give you a summary. This series on Netflix,
00:06:33 the death of the pastor's wife traces the relationship of John Paul Miller, who is the
00:06:38 former pastor of a church called solid rock church and his wife, Micah, from the time they met when
00:06:45 He was 28 years old and married, and she was just 13 years old through years of alleged
00:06:51 grooming, adultery, and abusive marriage marked by sexual deviance, coercive control, up to
00:06:58 the day that she apparently committed suicide.
00:07:02 So today we're looking at why some critics are pinning Micah's abuse on traditional Christian
00:07:08 teaching about men and women.
00:07:09 And we'll respond to that and also point out and demonstrate that it is unbiblical teaching.
00:07:15 It's actually unbiblical behavior, unbiblical doctrine on gender roles and the brokenness
00:07:22 of the human state sin that actually leads to these kinds of tragedies.
00:07:29 So let's back up a couple, a couple of years to that day.
00:07:34 April 27th, 2024, Micah Miller was found dead at Lumber State Park from a gunshot wound to the
00:07:42 head. Just two days before that, she had filed for legal separation from John Paul Miller.
00:07:48 Infamously, the day after Micah's death, John Paul waited until the very end of his sermon.
00:07:54 So he gave a sermon the day after his wife died at his church and kind of in an offhand,
00:08:01 nonchalant way at the very end announced this breaking news to the congregation for the first
00:08:07 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 away and yeah, it was, it was self-induced and it was, uh, up in North Carolina and, um, we're
00:08:19 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 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 was she wasn't y'all knew that she wasn't well mentally and that uh she needed her medicine
00:08:37 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 one that i had seen a couple of years ago that kind of triggered people asking a lot of questions
00:08:52 about this person. Hang on. Like, this is such a strange way to announce such a tragic event
00:08:59 about your wife. What really is going on here? Now, one could say it's because Micah and John
00:09:07 Paul had been living apart for several months at the time of her death. And even so, even if you
00:09:13 had been living apart for several months to kind of what we call in journalism or what they call
00:09:18 journalism, burying the lead, that's when you take the main point of a story and you put it
00:09:24 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 wife had just committed suicide is strange behavior, no matter what. Now, John Paul obviously
00:09:37 denies having any involvement in her death. He says that he was in Charleston, South Carolina
00:09:43 at a soccer game the day that she died.
00:09:46 After Micah's death, John Paul was released from his duties at Solid Rock by his spiritual
00:09:51 advisor, Charles Randall.
00:09:53 The church closed months later, but John Paul is still preaching.
00:09:58 He founded a new church in 2024, so the same year that his wife committed suicide, and
00:10:04 about now 20 people attend, it seems, each Sunday.
00:10:09 Now it's important to note that neither the documentary nor any kind of official person
00:10:17 involved in this is accusing John Paul of actually pulling the trigger to kill Micah.
00:10:23 I think in the beginning, there were some questions about that.
00:10:26 Okay.
00:10:26 Did she really kill herself or was he involved?
00:10:30 This is more of a questioning and interrogation about the events and the behavior and the
00:10:37 treatment that led her to this, that led her to apparently make that choice. I think that the
00:10:46 question is, did she feel like there's no other way out, that she felt trapped, that she felt
00:10:53 because she allegedly was abused by him, that this was her only escape, her only relief from
00:11:01 suffering. So we'll get into what the Netflix series shows from her friends, from the people
00:11:07 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 Allie. So here's what the director, Michael Gasparro of this Netflix series explains. He
00:12:43 says, John Paul didn't physically murder Micah, but through the series, you understand how much
00:12:48 he may have pushed her to that brink. Before we even talk about what some of her friends and
00:12:56 families, people surrounding this situation allege, we can back up a little bit. None of
00:13:02 these things by themselves prove that he had any involvement. None of these things as a part of
00:13:08 his history prove that he even abused her. However, in light of this tragedy, I do think it is worth
00:13:15 looking at the context in light of some of the text messages that have been revealed about Micah
00:13:21 from John Paul to Micah from John Paul, some of the alleged very serious abusive behavior
00:13:29 when it comes to his marriage and his relationship. Since she was a teenager with Micah, I do think
00:13:36 it's worth noting all of this context of who he is. In 1998, John Paul was involved in a bitter
00:13:43 custody fight over his first child. He had the first child out of wedlock before his first
00:13:49 marriage. That's just context. That's not trying to say that makes him an abuser later on.
00:13:54 Filings also show John Paul admitted to disrupting his son's daycare, was accused of ignoring the
00:14:00 visitation schedule. 1999, he was charged with assault and battery after driving his truck into
00:14:06 a woman and dragging her a hundred yards down the road. Seems relevant. It just feels relevant. 1.00
00:14:13 John Paul's marriage to his first wife, Allison, ended when his adultery with Micah was discovered.
00:14:19 He had been texting Micah when she was three years into marriage with her first husband,
00:14:23 so they were both married. And then in divorce documents, Allison, again, that's John Paul's
00:14:28 first wife when he started having an affair with Micah, alleged that John Paul had confessed to
00:14:36 her and other church staff that he had sexual encounters with underage girls he met at the 0.75
00:14:41 church and, and quote, addiction to prostitutes. Now remember John Paul and Micah first met and
00:14:49 began a friendship when he was 28 and she was just 13. Like, let me just say there is zero good
00:14:56 reason for an adult man to be friends with a teenager. Okay. To be friends in particular with
00:15:04 a teenage girl, it might be one thing. If an adult man has a mentorship, a fatherly relationship
00:15:10 with a young man and trying to help him through different seasons of life, disciple him. But
00:15:16 there is no good reason, mentorship or not, for an adult man to be friends with a teenage girl
00:15:24 ever, ever, ever. So that's a big red flag. According to reporting from the Christian Post,
00:15:30 John Paul has had his own mental health struggles. In a now-deleted Facebook video,
00:15:35 he is seen in a state, some described as a drug induced psychosis. And so the guy has had a
00:15:41 turbulent past in a variety of ways. So here are some of the allegations of what John Paul did to
00:15:48 Micah. This is according to her family and friends. So they say that he had been grooming Micah since
00:15:54 before she was 18. He had multiple affairs during their relationship, a woman named Megan, even
00:16:02 during his engagement to Micah, a church member named Susie Skinner during his marriage to Micah,
00:16:08 John Paul married Susie one year after Micah's death. There's also a lot of strangeness with
00:16:15 that story with Susie Skinner. He had been in a long-term relationship with Susie and Susie's
00:16:23 husband died by drowning apparently during that affair after he had found out about the affair.
00:16:31 So there's just a lot of sketchy things, not only infidelity and violence and mental health
00:16:39 struggles, but also death. Like we have two people who have been involved somewhere in
00:16:46 John Paul's love triangles who have died, apparently by suicide. It's just strange.
00:16:54 He pressured Micah, apparently, allegedly, with questions about whether she felt
00:16:58 sexual temptation toward a woman and accused her of an affair with a female friend. And apparently
00:17:05 there was no basis for this whatsoever. You do find this, remember in that episode that we did
00:17:12 about George Davey, the self-professed prophet, who is the like mentor of Catherine Crick,
00:17:19 the allegations against him. And in some of the recordings and spiritual deliverance,
00:17:24 Um, he pressured a woman into trying to like get her to confess that she had sexual feelings
00:17:31 toward another woman.
00:17:33 And the only pattern and connection I'm trying to draw here is that it seems like these spiritual 0.98
00:17:38 sexual abusers allegedly use women to play out their own sexual fantasies. 0.81
00:17:47 And that seems to be what happened here as well. 0.97
00:17:51 Um, after this allegation, so after he said, I think that you are homosexual and you have this
00:17:58 homosexual relationship, Micah felt unsafe probably because it was an insane accusation
00:18:03 and left home to stay with her sister, Sierra in a text exchange between John Paul, Micah and
00:18:10 Micah's sister. John Paul said, and these text messages have been revealed that he was coming
00:18:15 to pick up Micah. And when Micah's sister said that he's not allowed to come to their house,
00:18:20 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 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 So seems very, very disturbed. I think that's extremely nefarious. Just the text messages that
00:18:40 he was sending. Um, he apparently paid homeless people off the street to try to get them to commit
00:18:48 sexual acts with Micah. Now that's not just a random accusation. John Paul admitted this in an
00:18:56 apology letter. According to Micah Miller's lawyer, he pressured Micah to take testosterone to keep
00:19:03 up with his sex drive. Apparently he, um, allegedly had her forcibly hospitalized for psychiatric
00:19:11 reasons, took her phone, car, laptop while she was detained. He commented on Micah's alleged
00:19:19 mental illness from the pulpit, which you can see in several clips from the docuseries, not just
00:19:24 that last one that we played. Micah's sister, though, says that Micah had no history of mental
00:19:32 illness before she married John Paul, which was part of the reason why her family expressed so
00:19:38 much concern about this relationship from the beginning. Now, according to Nancy Grace,
00:19:43 according to a 911 call made by Micah, the abuse sometimes turned physical. She accused him of
00:19:49 putting his hands around her throat, slapping drinks out of her hand, pushing her down in
00:19:53 front of thousands of people at Disney world. It is also worth noting that, uh, John Paul Miller
00:20:01 faces federal charges. This is according to the DOJ of cyber stalking Micah and lying to
00:20:07 investigators. Allegations in this indictment include posting a nude photo of her online
00:20:12 without her consent, having tracking devices placed on her vehicle, contacting her more than
00:20:18 50 times in one day, interfering with her finances and daily activities and damaging her tires.
00:20:24 These are all from the time when she and John Paul were separated. John Paul allegedly lied
00:20:29 to federal investigators by denying he damaged the tires. Okay. So the guy is in trouble with
00:20:37 the law for some of the things that he did to Micah. These are not just family and friends,
00:20:42 rumors, and gossip. His pretrial hearing was scheduled for October 6th, but he has filed
00:20:48 to delay for the seventh time this year, pushing his new pretrial date to January,
00:20:54 2027. I didn't know that you could just do that indefinitely. If the case goes to trial,
00:20:58 and he's convicted on both counts, he faces up to seven years in prison and a $250,000
00:21:03 fine. There's so many more details to this case and their relationship. So again, if you want to
00:21:09 know all of those details, you can watch episode 1005 from a couple years ago. But let's get into
00:21:18 this bigger question. Is this the dynamic of their relationship at whatever level he may have been
00:21:25 involved in what led to her death, the alleged abuse, the coercion, the cyber stalking,
00:21:36 whatever it is, is their alleged relationship dynamic, a sign of a bigger church problem
00:21:44 when it comes to how women are treated, how marriage is talked about, how men in power are
00:21:50 able to get away with certain things just because they're the head of a church. A lot of people are
00:21:56 talking about that. This documentary has pulled in over 41 million views in the four weeks since
00:22:03 it was released. And some people have made this argument that Micah Miller's death is actually
00:22:10 due to the biblical teaching on men's and women's roles, framing Christian so-called fundamentalist
00:22:17 teaching as inherently dangerous to women. Here's an example of that. In an opinion article for the
00:22:23 New York Times titled Death of the Pastor's Wife and the Horror of Spiritual Abuse, writer Jessica
00:22:29 Gross wrote this. She says, in his church, Micah, in John Paul Miller's church, Micah was taught to
00:22:35 submit to both her pastor and to her husband. He says, obey those who have authority over you for
00:22:42 no authority can exist without God's permission. John Paul preaches to his flock along with citing
00:22:47 in Ephesians 5.33 about wives respecting their husbands. She goes on to write, Micah's relatives
00:22:53 and friends said they felt John Paul used the Bible to control Micah. She was very submissive
00:22:58 and she felt that this was how she could honor God. One of her friends, Bruna Pabin, explained,
00:23:04 when Micah finally did get the strength to leave, many in the church sided with John Paul. According
00:23:09 to her brother, her social circle went down to essentially nothing. And then Jessica goes on to
00:23:18 argue this. While John Paul Miller's abuse was extreme and unusual in its cruelty, many churches
00:23:24 and religious influencers preach that women should submit to their husbands sexually and otherwise.
00:23:30 She cites an author, Sarah Stankorb, who wrote the book Damned If She Does, Why Women Quit Church 1.00
00:23:35 and what it means for the future of religion. She calls the teaching of wives submitting to
00:23:40 their husbands, a pipeline or abuse. And the solution to all of this, Jessica Gross says,
00:23:47 is that people in her life should have told her that you should never subordinate yourself
00:23:53 to a man. Now we have other influencers, those who have deconstructed saying, Hey, this is a
00:24:01 problem in SBC churches. This is a problem in Baptist churches. This is a problem in all of
00:24:06 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 Monty Mader is a deconstructionist influencer, and she makes this case that this is endemic.
00:25:27 and a lot of conservative churches thought too.
00:25:30 I've already seen some conservative talking heads
00:25:32 be like, it's not all churches.
00:25:33 This is an attack on the faith.
00:25:34 This is not an attack.
00:25:35 This is a revelation of the hierarchies
00:25:37 and the systems of abuse that the church builds
00:25:39 and continues to build. 0.92
00:25:40 Because if you grew up in the SBC
00:25:42 or any kind of Christian fundamentalism or literalism,
00:25:44 this was your church.
00:25:45 This was what they taught women. 0.99
00:25:47 You have absolute submission to your husband. 1.00
00:25:49 Women did not only not have autonomy, 1.00
00:25:51 but autonomy was taught as dangerous 0.95
00:25:53 through the doctrine of Eve.
00:25:54 When you're a young girl,
00:25:55 and they also don't believe in consent at all,
00:25:56 because when you're a young girl,
00:25:57 your body's not yours. It belongs to some man you've never met. So you can't consent yes to
00:26:01 anything sexual when you're young, that would be a sin. And then when a man owns you, when you're
00:26:05 married, you now can't say no because he owns your body. I'm sure that that kind of thing is
00:26:13 taught somewhere, but I was raised in the like early 2000 so-called purity culture of Baptist
00:26:21 evangelical world. And I was never taught anything like that. Yes, you are taught that you should
00:26:26 preserve your body and you should save sexual acts for marriage. That was preached on a lot.
00:26:32 And I'm not saying that every single book that was read was the very best. Like I can think of
00:26:39 some books that didn't have some great comparisons in it to like what happens to your worth when you
00:26:45 decide to engage sexually before marriage. I've talked about all of that before, but the prevailing
00:26:50 message of purity growing up is one that I think has saved a lot of people from heartbreak and a
00:26:56 lot of people from falling into sin. That does hurt your heart. That does hurt your body. I
00:27:01 never once learned that you don't have autonomy, that you don't have agency, that you don't have
00:27:07 the ability to consent, that you better just do this for this future man. And then you won't be
00:27:14 able to say no to him ever. Never, never, never. I went to church two to three times a week,
00:27:19 my entire life. I went to a Christian school who also talked about things like purity and
00:27:24 sexual activity, saving up for marriage. I went to the Christian church camps. Never, ever,
00:27:28 ever did I hear this message that justified or excused or minimized abuse in any way.
00:27:35 In fact, by the time I got to college, there were a lot of teachers that were mostly emphasizing to
00:27:42 men. Like that was a whole thing of the early 2000s, like the young restless reformed,
00:27:47 like the tough love was directed toward men, maybe too much. I think women got like a
00:27:53 soft message of like, you're beautiful and you're perfect. And like, this is the most
00:27:58 important thing that we can tell you is that you're just precious. And I'm not saying that
00:28:02 those things that saying that you're precious in the eyes of God is wrong or anything like that, 0.99
00:28:07 but men got this really harsh message of like, you're a loser, get off the couch. Everything 0.99
00:28:14 is your fault. And some of that tough love was probably really good and really helpful,
00:28:18 but I'm just saying like this picture that's being painted generally of conservative churches,
00:28:25 theologically true churches, like biblically based churches, churches who believe in
00:28:30 complementarianism. We'll get into the details of what that means in a second, but people who
00:28:35 preach literally through Ephesians five, that wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord,
00:28:41 husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. I have
00:28:46 attended those churches my entire life. Never once have I heard anything close to, close to
00:28:54 the justification or the belittlement of abuse. Again, not saying that never happens. I'm just
00:29:00 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 it. So I'm just saying it's not as pervasive and characteristic as some influencers online
00:29:12 want you to believe. Zach Lambert, a professed pastor, I think says what most people outside
00:29:19 of white American evangelicalism don't understand about death of the pastor's wife is this. While
00:29:23 Micah Miller's situation is tragic, it's not unique. Millions of women in church pews all
00:29:28 over this country are being taught that God requires them to be completely subservient
00:29:31 to their husbands, no matter what high control religion mixed with patriarchy is a death sentence 0.62
00:29:36 for many women. I do think that there is like this secular, uh, like Christian and named only
00:29:42 secular, like manosphere that's trying to like fit its way into Christianity. That is just very
00:29:49 like degrading for women. Again, I think that is rare in the Christian church. I don't think 0.99
00:29:56 that's characteristic of most evangelicalism at all. And I've never heard be completely subservient
00:30:03 to your husband, no matter what. Yes. Submit to your husband insofar as you are submitting to
00:30:10 the Lord insofar as he is not requiring you to sin. And also that is never just a justification
00:30:17 or an excuse for a husband to mistreat or to belittle his wife, because the follow-up to
00:30:26 wives submit to your husbands is husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave
00:30:30 himself up for her. Wow. So the kind of sacrificial death to self-love that is required for wives
00:30:37 from husbands is written out right there. That completely excludes the possibility of the
00:30:43 justification of abuse. Now we know, as I've said, that abuse absolutely happens in evangelical 0.75
00:30:51 churches. We covered Texas megachurch pastor, Robert Morris, Mike Bickle, former leader of
00:30:58 IHOP or International House of Prayer in Kansas City. There have been several other accusations
00:31:06 of sexual impropriety, not even just abuse when it comes to people like Carl Lentz or Steve Lawson,
00:31:12 which by the way, we've got to talk about Steve Lawson very soon, who has a new book out.
00:31:18 And so a lot of people, they look at these leaders and they look at the churches that
00:31:23 they come from. And they say, okay, well, they typically have traditional views when it comes
00:31:29 to gender and marriage. So that must be the cause. Denny Burke, president of the council on biblical 0.96
00:31:35 manhood and womanhood responds to that kind of line of reasoning. He says, this is the real
00:31:41 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 actually the lack of biblical courage, not biblical fidelity that is causing this. So
00:31:55 Denny says this, the film depicts a pastor who is a case study of the wolves that Jesus and
00:32:01 apostles warned us about. It exposes a shepherd who twists the Bible and uses it to manipulate
00:32:07 people into servicing his own lust. It's absolutely disgusting. The evidence of his 0.98
00:32:12 lechery was either covered up or ignored for years before the final calamity. He should have 0.70
00:32:18 been removed from his position over a decade before his wife's death. Like it should also
00:32:24 be noted. It should also be noted. And we, we didn't have time to get into every single detail,
00:32:29 but I think it's important to bring up the fact that John Paul Miller was not like some of those
00:32:37 conservatives that we listed before. He actually didn't have the same ideology that I have.
00:32:42 He was more progressive when it came to women's roles in the church than me, because he allowed
00:32:49 women to preach. He believed that women could be pastors. Okay. Much like a lot of these
00:32:54 progressive deconstructionists believed he actually had a more egalitarian belief of women's
00:33:00 role in the church than I do, than a lot of conservatives do. But that seems to be left
00:33:05 out of the analysis, the abuse and scandals that progressives point to in the church do happen,
00:33:11 but not for the reason they say, not because the Bible is wrong, not because the Bible is
00:33:17 a justification for abuse and not because of complementarianism. Okay. So what is
00:33:25 complementarianism? You probably know, but a lot of you don't. And if you don't, that's okay.
00:33:31 It's not something that's probably preached on explicitly a lot from the pulpit, but
00:33:36 complementarianism is opposed to something called egalitarianism. And this really matters in our
00:33:43 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 surrounding their conception, no matter who they are, where they come from, socioeconomic status,
00:34:09 it doesn't matter. All of them are equally made in God's image. That's why we pro-lifers fight
00:34:14 for the lives and the rights of those babies. And that's why we do everything we can to provide
00:34:18 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 so this is defined by the council on biblical manhood and womanhood complementarianism is a
00:35:33 teaching rooted in the created order not the fall the created order that men and women are equal in
00:35:40 dignity and value but have distinct roles in the family and in church genesis 127 so god created
00:35:47 man in his own image and the image of god he created him male and female he created them
00:35:53 If you've ever heard me give a speech, and sometimes I say this line on the show, I say,
00:35:59 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 have to read 30 verses before I tell you what's up. Before I tell you the truth about all this,
00:36:07 I'm going to define all these culture war questions that you have, the definition of
00:36:11 gender, the definition of marriage, the definition of the value of human life. We are made in God's
00:36:17 image. That's our value. We are made male and female. We are married as male and female. Boom,
00:36:23 right there. First chapter of the first book of the Bible. If you can't affirm that, it's not
00:36:27 because you don't want to be controversial. It's because you don't want to be biblical. It is so
00:36:31 incredibly fundamental. That's why when people start denying Genesis 1, 27, they end up denying
00:36:38 John 14, 6, 2, because this is so fundamental, not just to society, but to Christianity. As we
00:36:44 see in Revelation, this is a reflection of the marriage between Christ and the church. So the
00:36:49 Bible starts with this, this setup, this dichotomy, and also ends with an eternal spiritual form of
00:36:56 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 him a helper fit for him. Okay. So this is pre-fall. This is not after the fall and, oh,
00:37:08 things got distorted and it was supposed to be egalitarian and they were supposed to do the
00:37:12 exact same things with the exact same roles. And then sin mocked it all up. No, a helper is there
00:37:18 fit for him in Genesis two before sin entered the world. Now the fall did corrupt the relationship
00:37:26 between men and women, but it did not introduce the differences between men and women. Genesis
00:37:31 three 16 to the woman. He said, I will surely multiply your pain and child bearing. I think 0.99
00:37:38 about evil a lot these days as I'm getting ready to give birth again. In pain, you shall bring
00:37:42 forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. So wives are 0.91
00:37:50 to submit to their husbands, but the pattern of redemption in Christ that we see in the New
00:37:55 Testament is that men and women are equal in terms of the blessings of salvation while maintaining
00:38:00 their different roles in the home and in the church, each fulfilling roles with equal dignity
00:38:05 and value. Galatians 3, 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There
00:38:11 is no male or female and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So when it comes to our
00:38:18 salvation, when it comes to our place of importance, if you will, value within the church,
00:38:25 that is not differentiated by our gender or socioeconomic status or our ethnicity because
00:38:32 we are made righteous. We have been purchased by the blood of Christ, all of us, which is a very
00:38:37 radical message today. It was a radical message back then when it was introduced, when people
00:38:42 were judged based on what they brought to the table intellectually, and also their gender,
00:38:48 their age, their socioeconomic status, the class that they were born into, whether they were slave
00:38:54 or free. And so this radically equalizing when it comes to worth and standing before God message of
00:39:01 the gospel was just revolutionary. And clearly it still is Colossians 3, 18 through 19 wives
00:39:07 submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with
00:39:15 them. Okay. So right there, Paul says, and he does it again in Ephesians five, submit to your
00:39:21 husband's wives, because if you're both driving the ship and you're going two different directions, 0.86
00:39:26 you're not going to go anywhere. Things are going to be very chaotic. It's going to be difficult in
00:39:30 your home. If you've got two leaders who have two very different ideas of where you should go
00:39:34 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 God of chaos and confusion. And because he likes systems that are conducive to human flourishing,
00:39:46 he says, this is how I've set it up. And then husbands love your wives and do not be harsh
00:39:51 with them. First Corinthians 11, seven through nine, and then 11 through 12 for a man ought not
00:39:56 to cover his head since he is the image and the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.
00:40:00 for man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman,
00:40:06 but woman for man. Nevertheless, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man, nor man of
00:40:12 woman for as woman was made for man. So man is now born of woman and all things are from God.
00:40:20 And so to me, like, gosh, we could spend hours and hours and I could spend hours and hours
00:40:24 learning about that passage, but we could spend hours and hours talking about that passage that
00:40:29 he's talking about, okay, yes, you're distinct. You've got different roles at the same time,
00:40:35 your worth, your salvation all comes from the Lord. And so just as he teaches about, Hey,
00:40:41 masters, you need to treat your slaves. Well, different, different time and slaves. You need
00:40:46 to obey your masters. And he also says, children, you should obey your parents and fathers. Don't
00:40:51 provoke your children to anger. Like at the end of all of these commands, Colossians and Ephesians,
00:40:57 He says, because God is the God of all of you, because this speaks to an eternal hierarchy,
00:41:04 this importance of us all submitting to God as all having the same innate worth before God
00:41:11 and us all being equally dead in our sin and equally made alive in Christ by grace through
00:41:17 faith. The opposite of complementarianism is something called egalitarianism. The view that
00:41:23 men and women are interchangeable in every role in the home and church with no gender-based
00:41:28 distinctions and leadership or authority, just totally interchangeable. So critics who already
00:41:34 see complementarianism as harmful are quick to misrepresent what it actually is. And so let's
00:41:40 look at some of the progressive claims just quickly. So here's what complementarianism
00:41:46 is not, because you'll hear that complementarianism and like harsh patriarchy where
00:41:51 women, and I'm not even calling like patriarchy this like as a principle, but they will call it 0.99
00:41:57 like, oh, this is harsh patriarchy where women are belittled, where they don't have a say, 1.00
00:42:03 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 But complementarianism is not unchecked authority for husbands to abuse and oppress women.
00:42:14 Christian authority is delegated from Christ, who is the only one with absolute authority.
00:42:18 In scripture, when human authority figures are in sin, we see believers standing up to them. So 0.74
00:42:23 when the religious leaders told the apostles not to preach the gospel, they did not submit,
00:42:28 Acts 5, 29. But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men. That reminds me
00:42:36 of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego too, not bowing before the idol and getting thrown into the fiery
00:42:42 furnace in the Old Testament. The Bible also does not teach that a woman's body belongs to her
00:42:47 future husband. It's not what the Bible teaches. Every Christian ultimately belongs to Christ.
00:42:53 First Corinthians 6, 19 through 20 does say, or do you not know that your body's a temple of the
00:42:58 Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own for you were bought with a
00:43:04 price. So glorify God in your body. Men, you are not your own women. You are not your own.
00:43:10 And you'll remember the passage that we read earlier about that. There is a, um, there's a
00:43:17 mutuality here between men and women. Paul says this, um, in first Corinthians seven, three through
00:43:24 five, that there's a mutual belonging within marriage between the husband and wife. First
00:43:28 Corinthians seven, three through five, the husband should give to his wife, her conjugal rights. 0.95
00:43:32 And likewise, the wife to her husband for the wife does not have authority over her own body. 0.78
00:43:39 All of the deconstructionists would stop right there, but the husband does, but, but he goes
00:43:45 on to say, likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the
00:43:50 wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that
00:43:57 you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not
00:44:02 tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Now, I also, I just want to point out that
00:44:09 last part there, that he is not removing the autonomy and the agency and the responsibility
00:44:16 from men and women who choose to lust after someone else's spouse or choose to have an
00:44:23 affair. He still says because of your lack of self-control that Satan can tempt you, but it is
00:44:30 your lack of self-control that would lead you into those situations. And so I just want to say that
00:44:36 there, that this is not removing the responsibility to avoid sin, um, from the husband or wife,
00:44:42 even if for whatever reason, there was a period of time where a husband and wife couldn't have
00:44:49 sex, say like the husband or the wife is going through serious cancer treatments or that can't
00:44:54 happen. This is not a justification for any kind of infidelity. The fruit of the spirit is still
00:45:01 self-control. Now, all of these things about complementarianism, is that what John Paul
00:45:07 preached? Like, is that what he actually believed? I've already pointed out that he was more
00:45:11 egalitarian than I am in believing that women can exercise authority over men, despite what
00:45:18 1 Timothy says about that. 1 Timothy says, 1 Timothy 2, 11 through 12 says, let a woman learn
00:45:24 quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a 1.00
00:45:28 man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. Well, we already know that he allowed women to preach 1.00
00:45:34 in his church, at least one woman to preach in his church. And so he didn't even believe that
00:45:39 doctrine from first Timothy, but what else did he actually preach that that is, um, in alignment
00:45:46 with complementarianism? Is that really the ideology that he espoused that motivated him to
00:45:53 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 All right. So this would be an example to progressives, deconstructionists of John Paul
00:47:25 espousing complementarianism or so-called fundamentalist doctrine. So three ladies, 0.66
00:47:32 wives, if you don't meet your husband's sexual needs, Satan will put 20 different options before 1.00
00:47:38 his eyes before the day's over with. There's incredible danger in unmet needs. A fantastic
00:47:45 marriage is simply this. My needs are being met. Today, denying sex in your marriage,
00:47:52 sexual immorality, is the same thing as rape, sex trafficking, homosexuality. 0.94
00:48:00 Okay, so is the problem there his fidelity to scripture? 0.76
00:48:04 Here's what Matthew 5, 29, in the words of Jesus says this, if your right eye causes you to sin,
00:48:11 tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your
00:48:17 whole body be thrown into hell. Jesus also argues that lusting after a woman is the same as having
00:48:27 an affair. It's the same as committing adultery. That's when people say, oh, Jesus was just
00:48:33 bucking the religious systems and the law keepers of the time. No, no, no. He was showing them that
00:48:38 following the law is more than following it to the letter. It's more than just your superficial
00:48:44 behavior. It goes down to your heart. He was showing you that righteousness and actually
00:48:51 being in alignment with what God's word commands you to do is really hard. It is much harder than
00:48:58 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 never actually gone through with my thoughts or whatever it is. Jesus is saying, well, it doesn't
00:49:09 matter if you hate your brother in your heart. That's the same thing as committing murder.
00:49:13 If your right eye causes you to sin and sin in this case is looking at someone lustfully,
00:49:19 then you need to throw it away. That's how important it is for you to resist temptation.
00:49:24 Okay. Yes. And those other passages that we've already read, the mutual submission sexually
00:49:30 of husbands and wives to each other is important. But remember at the end of that passage,
00:49:35 Paul emphasizes the importance of self-control that Satan might tempt you, not because your
00:49:41 wife denied you sex, but because of your lack of self-control. First Corinthians 6, 18, flee from
00:49:48 sexual immorality, run from it. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the
00:49:54 sexually immoral person sins against his own body. This is also my rebuttal when people say
00:50:00 things like, oh, this kind of sin, whether it's homosexuality or sexual immorality of any kind,
00:50:06 you know, we shouldn't treat it differently than any other sin. Like, why do we emphasize it so 0.76
00:50:10 much? Why does God emphasize it so much? It's not true. Yes, all sin separates us from God and the
00:50:16 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 same effect. The sexually immoral person sins against his own body. That's why, why sexual sin
00:50:28 is so important. So the emphasis there on, if you don't do everything that your husband wants you to
00:50:35 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 talks about what sex looks like, should look like within marriage. Scripture does call women to 0.97
00:50:50 submit to their husbands. This is the second point here as to the Lord, but what seems to be
00:50:56 left out of this kind of snippet or the deconstructionist saying, see this, this is
00:51:03 what happens when you follow the Bible too closely is the second part, as we've said multiple times
00:51:08 already, but I think it's worth reemphasizing Ephesians 5, 25 through 28 husbands or husbands
00:51:16 love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might
00:51:21 sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words that he might present the
00:51:25 church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be
00:51:29 holy and without blemish. That sounds like a really big thing, right? Like a huge responsibility.
00:51:36 Like you are responsible for, like your leadership is responsible for your wife's
00:51:42 sanctification or it plays a huge role in leading her sanctification so that she may be presented
00:51:47 before the Lord without spot or splendor. Now we know Jesus's blood covers us and gives us
00:51:53 his righteousness. And that's what makes our slate clean. But it looks here like there is a
00:51:58 sanctifying spiritual, eternal impact that the husband has on the, on the, on the splendor,
00:52:06 the spiritual splendor, um, of his wife. And that is a really big deal. Wives are not told that we
00:52:14 have that same obligation, same responsibility, same mantle that we are carrying for our husbands.
00:52:19 Our husbands are carrying that for us. That's a huge responsibility in the same way. God through
00:52:26 Paul says husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves
00:52:33 himself. It's funny, the people who talk about self-love over and over again, and that's all we
00:52:38 need. Well, we read about it right here. What does it look like to truly love yourself? Well,
00:52:44 you love sacrificially someone else. You love sacrificially your wife, just as you would want
00:52:49 to be treated. That is how you should treat your wife. Wow. He spends a lot of ink telling how
00:52:57 husbands should sacrificially love and care for and help sanctify their wife. Even if John Paul
00:53:05 did preach Ephesians 5 at some point, and it just wasn't in the Netflix series, his life didn't
00:53:12 actually reflect that. It wasn't because he held too closely to scripture that he did the things
00:53:18 that he did. It's because he totally deviated away from it. So it's inaccurate to say that
00:53:23 John Paul Miller's doctrine and actions reflected complementarianism.
00:53:27 Complementarianism is what I just read to you, that men and women are of equal worth
00:53:32 and of equal dignity and can be saved in the same way by grace through faith in Christ.
00:53:38 But we have different roles.
00:53:39 We are innately made for different roles.
00:53:42 We are spiritually made for different roles and different responsibilities.
00:53:48 So the problem with John Paul Miller at Solid Rock was abuse of power, was deviation from
00:53:56 scripture, rejection of biblical truth, not the hierarchy that is actually outlined in
00:54:02 scripture.
00:54:03 Progressives love to blame hierarchies and evangelicalism for the abuse that Micah Miller
00:54:07 suffered, but Solid Rock Church did not actually follow the biblical model for authority that
00:54:12 was established throughout the New Testament.
00:54:14 it. Wayne Grudem explains in systematic theology, the power of the church is its God-given authority
00:54:20 to carry on spiritual warfare, proclaim the gospel and exercise church discipline. Now we know that
00:54:28 John Paul was not given the proper church discipline throughout his life. Yes, he was asked
00:54:34 to sit down after Micah, um, had died after she had apparently killed herself, but there had been
00:54:43 affairs before that. There had been allegations of abuse. There had been allegations of infidelity.
00:54:47 There had been all kinds of scandals with Susie, the woman that he had apparently had an affair
00:54:54 with. There were accusations of grooming of Micah when she was a teenager. There should have been
00:54:59 church discipline long, long before Micah Miller was committed suicide. The question is, how has
00:55:08 Christ called his church to exercise that authority, what limits scripture places on it
00:55:13 and how that compares to what was practiced at John Paul Miller's church. So his church and JP
00:55:21 himself didn't follow Titus one through five. When talking about elders or leaders in the church,
00:55:27 he says this, that you have to be above reproach. The husband of one wife, his children are believers
00:55:34 is not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination for an overseer as God's steward
00:55:39 must be above reproach, above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard
00:55:46 or violent or greedy for gain. Hmm. This reminds me of someone that we're talking about, but a 0.90
00:55:51 hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, disciplined. Wow. Another really,
00:55:58 really high calling. It's crazy that so many women are vying for these roles. Like this is 1.00
00:56:04 a really, really, um, stringent qualification process that men have to go through for being
00:56:12 overseers of the church. Remember the John Paul's first wife, Alison said in an affidavit that when
00:56:17 John Paul admitted to the affair with Micah, he also admitted to soliciting prostitutes
00:56:23 being sexually inappropriate with several female underage church members. And John Paul's church 0.52
00:56:31 actually recognized that he had a sin problem and he needed to step away from the pulpit.
00:56:36 But according to the church bylaws, no one within the church had the authority to make him do that.
00:56:40 According to Allison's affidavit, a council was formed and voted for John Paul to step down and
00:56:45 get sexual addiction counseling. But instead of stepping down, John Paul held a meeting informing
00:56:49 the council that according to the church's bylaws, he had a hundred percent decision-making
00:56:54 authority. All right. So that's not the structure that is needed. That's not the structure that's
00:57:01 outlined by scripture. The apparent overseer of the church who they called an overseer was a man
00:57:07 that we mentioned earlier named Charles Randall pastors. Another church is not a member of solid
00:57:13 rock um he had released john paul this is the email that he sent with that announcement
00:57:20 he said i charles randall by the authority vested in me as overseer hereby released pastor john paul
00:57:26 miller from all ministerial functions for a time of healing counsel and guidance pursuant to our
00:57:33 government instrument but the church had not been made aware that randall was a part of its
00:57:38 leadership structure. And so someone said a random email we got from CR. So again, it wasn't until
00:57:46 later, they didn't follow structure. They didn't follow accountability. They didn't follow the
00:57:51 Bible's guidance for what you're supposed to do for a church member when they're unrepentant in
00:57:55 sin. Eventually, you're supposed to kick them out, hand them over to Satan in the hopes that
00:58:01 they will repent. The hope is always restoration and repentance, but they didn't follow any of
00:58:07 that. And then again, after Micah Miller committed suicide, then he stepped down, but then he started
00:58:13 another church the same exact year. The truth is if we are going to talk about so-called
00:58:20 fundamentalist, and that is a church that actually believes in the fundamentals, that's not how
00:58:26 liberals take the word fundamental, but that's really what it is. You're like, you believe in
00:58:30 the fundamentals of scripture. You take scripture literally. This church was not that. They weren't
00:58:36 following the elder model, the leadership model, the church discipline model, the repentance
00:58:44 restoration model, the accountability model, even the gender model that is outlined in scripture.
00:58:51 So what should it look like? Because you might be in a church that also doesn't have this structure,
00:58:56 that also doesn't have a lot of accountability, and you need to know what the Bible, not what I
00:59:01 say, but what does the Bible actually say about how these structures should look? And I would
00:59:07 even go back. I would listen to the episode that I just did with John Cooper from Skillet and how
00:59:13 he found himself in a church that he once loved, um, asking the question, like, hang on a second.
00:59:20 What is, what do we preach? What do we believe? Why does it seem like y'all are manipulating us
00:59:25 in the name of our pastor being an apostle or a prophet. And is there anyone keeping this guy
00:59:32 accountable? And he's been brave enough to tell the truth on that. So go back and watch that
00:59:36 or listen to that. But before we get into what scripture says, the most important thing
00:59:40 about eldership and about leadership in the church, let me pause and tell you about our
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01:01:20 Okay. So here's what the new Testament says about elders in a church and how they should behave.
01:01:27 First Peter five, one through three is that I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder
01:01:33 and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker of the glory that is to be
01:01:39 revealed shepherd, the flock of God that is among you exercise oversight, not under compulsion,
01:01:45 but willingly as God would have you not for shameful gain, but eagerly not domineering
01:01:50 over those in your charge, but being examples of the flock. There's been a lot of conversation
01:01:55 about this lately. Like what is the role of a pastor? Is it to shepherd the flock or is it to
01:02:01 just rule? Is it to understand the needs of your congregation and try to meet those in a biblical
01:02:08 way, not in a, like a compromising way and a conceding way and just doing everything that
01:02:13 your congregation wants you to do, but in a loving, compassionate way, in a way that a shepherd
01:02:19 would love its flock. Um, there's been some debate about like what the role of the pastor is, but it
01:02:24 does seem here that the leadership in the church is not supposed to domineer over those in your
01:02:29 charge, but you are to be examples in gentleness and love and biblical fidelity. The church has
01:02:34 the right to hold its leaders accountable. First Timothy five, do not admit a charge against an
01:02:40 elder, except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. There's Old Testament precedent for
01:02:45 that. As for those who persistence and rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest 0.52
01:02:49 may stand in fear in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge
01:02:53 you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. So again, we see that
01:02:59 reflection of the Old Testament where God's heart is that you should not give partiality to the
01:03:06 accused or the accuser, that the truth really matters. The process of justice and accusation
01:03:11 really matters both for the accuser and for those who are accused. Churches that disregard this,
01:03:20 that disregard church teaching on authority, they are the ones that are vulnerable to false teaching
01:03:25 and are vulnerable to the wolves that come into the flock to exploit them, to abuse them,
01:03:33 to manipulate them spiritually. And this happens in all kinds of churches. This happens in Catholic
01:03:40 churches. This happens in Protestant churches. This happens in churches who call themselves
01:03:45 liberal. This happens in churches that call themselves conservative. The problem in all of
01:03:51 these different kinds of churches is a departure from what the Bible actually says. It is not that
01:03:57 they are following the Bible too closely. And again, I just think of the Pharisees. The problem
01:04:02 with the Pharisees, the reason why they were exploiting the poor, the reason why they were 0.56
01:04:08 able to put themselves as lords over just the regular person, um, is not because they cared
01:04:17 about the law too much. It's not because they were so religious. It's because they weren't really
01:04:23 following the law. They weren't following it. They weren't obeying God down to their heart.
01:04:28 it always comes down to heart level obedience. Old Testament and new, that is what God is looking
01:04:35 for. That is what protects us from predation or for those in charge, becoming a predator yourself.
01:04:43 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 he cares about justice. He cares about truth. He cares for, for those who are bringing forth
01:04:56 accusations that are founded in truth. And I believe he wants that transparency and he also
01:05:04 wants that accountability. And he wants us to stick to the truth and the structure that is
01:05:10 outlined in scripture. Um, if your church only preaches a one-sided teaching on marriage,
01:05:18 only the needs of men, or only the demands and the needs of women, that's a red flag.
01:05:24 Churches should be faithful to the whole counsel of scripture, not just what's convenient. The
01:05:30 biblical model does not give husbands permission to dominate their wives. It certainly doesn't
01:05:34 give permission for wives to dominate their husbands. It doesn't say that husbands and 1.00
01:05:39 wives are interchangeable. It also doesn't say that husbands are to truly, I mean this in the
01:05:46 true sense, like oppress and repress their wives, but to lead their wives lovingly, sacrificially,
01:05:52 also strongly and courageously. And that wives are supposed to submit to the Lord first and
01:05:58 foremost. And that also as a reflection of that, submit to our husbands as to the Lord and be his
01:06:04 helpers. That doesn't mean being dominated, but that does mean being led. And what a privilege
01:06:10 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 day, it all comes down to a departure from God's truth, not from sticking to it too closely.
01:06:26 All right. That's all we got time for today. We will be back here on Wednesday.
01:06:40 You