Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 28, 2023


Ep 830 ｜ Southern Baptist Debate： Female Pastors？ ｜ Guest： Pastor Tom Ascol


Episode Stats

Length

45 minutes

Words per Minute

168.11917

Word Count

7,652

Sentence Count

504

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

27


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The Southern Baptist Convention held its annual meeting last month, and at the top of the agenda
00:00:05.960 was the debate over egalitarianism versus complementarianism, or the role of women in
00:00:12.820 the church. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church tried to make the case that the Bible does allow
00:00:18.680 and even calls women to pastor, while others like Dr. Al Mohler rebutted his arguments and argued
00:00:24.680 that women are not to fill that position according to the Bible. Breaking this all down today is
00:00:32.200 Pastor Tom Askell, pastor of a Baptist church in Florida, who was always very in the know when it
00:00:37.660 comes to what's going on in the SBC and can offer us a biblical analysis of this heated debate and
00:00:44.020 tell us why it really matters. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:00:49.480 Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use code ALI at checkout. That's GoodRanchers.com, code ALI.
00:01:04.500 Pastor, thanks so much for joining us again. It's been a little bit since you've been on the show,
00:01:09.520 so for those who may not know, can you just remind everyone who you are and what you do?
00:01:13.540 Yeah, I'm Tom Askell. I pastor Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida. I'm the president
00:01:20.680 of Founders Ministries and the Institute of Public Theology, and more important than that,
00:01:25.360 I'm the husband of Donna for 43 years, and I am the grandfather of 18 grandkids.
00:01:33.420 Eighteen.
00:01:33.920 Yeah, two of them born on the same day just a couple of weeks ago, and so they're all right
00:01:39.620 here with us in the church and in this area, so we're praising God for this season of life.
00:01:45.000 Oh my goodness, what a blessing to have all 18 grandchildren close by. That's amazing.
00:01:50.520 Okay, I'm having you on to talk specifically about the latest SBC disagreement, drama, discussion.
00:01:59.340 I think it has turned into some drama, which is unfortunate, but basically the disagreement
00:02:04.440 is about complementarianism versus egalitarianism. Rick Warren's Saddleback Church out in California
00:02:12.760 losing its membership status in the SBC for having women pastors, correct?
00:02:19.480 That's correct. Yeah, he and other churches also are in that category, but there were five churches
00:02:27.760 over the course of the last year that the SBC executive committee that serves kind of as the
00:02:33.760 convention at interim between our annual meetings voted to remove, and four of those were for having
00:02:40.540 women pastors. One was for having a man that was guilty of sexual immorality as a pastor, and Rick
00:02:48.300 and the pastor, a woman pastor from the Fern Creek Church in Louisville said they were going to petition
00:02:55.600 along with the church that had employed this man who had confessed to sexual abuse. So the three of
00:03:03.200 them made their case at the convention in New Orleans in June of this year, and the convention voted to
00:03:11.160 sustain the decision of the executive committee in all three cases, and overwhelmingly so. And Rick Warren
00:03:18.420 spoke for Saddleback, though he's no longer the pastor there. He spoke for that church that he established
00:03:23.920 and served so long. And the votes were like 88 to 12 percent for Rick and 90 to 10 for the other two. It was not even close.
00:03:34.020 And so that's a good sign needed to happen. No one is taking joy in it, but the reality is, you know, how can
00:03:42.640 two walk together unless they're agreed? And Southern Baptist has been quite clear on our understanding that the role of
00:03:50.760 pastor in a local church is limited to qualified men. And that's being challenged more and more, and there are
00:03:58.200 people trying to move us away from that and, you know, make all kind of accusations against us because
00:04:03.000 of it. But by God's grace, we at least stood firm on that issue at this convention.
00:04:09.200 Yes, there's been a lot of back and forth over the years, certainly. We had you on when the debate was more
00:04:15.640 about critical theory, critical race theory. How do we approach this issue of so-called racial
00:04:22.400 reconciliation according to scripture? And so now we're having this debate, which in a way, I mean,
00:04:29.320 it comes on and off the scene, it seems like, over the past several decades. Tell me why this issue
00:04:37.080 puts a church like Saddleback in a place where they're no longer in friendly cooperation with
00:04:44.680 the SBC. And Rick Warren would say, look, we believe in the Baptist faith and message. We
00:04:50.040 agree with it. 99.9% of it is what I think he said. I think he said 99.9% of it. And there are other
00:05:00.660 churches that, okay, there might be some Baptist churches that disagree on predestination or disagree
00:05:06.020 on some of these issues, Calvinism versus Arminianism, whatever it is, and yet they are still
00:05:12.340 able to stay in friendly cooperation. So why is it this issue that would separate a church from the SBC?
00:05:20.040 Well, this is a polarizing issue in our day, as you well know. And I want to make the point to,
00:05:27.760 yeah, it was critical theory a few years ago. And so today it's this issue of women pastors, which
00:05:32.660 really, the subsoil of that is the radical feminist movement. And as you well know, Ali, you talk about
00:05:39.760 it all the time. And this is a totalizing worldview. These are not isolated, compartmentalized issues.
00:05:45.660 They grow out of a way of thinking about the world that is contrary to the Word of God.
00:05:52.620 And Southern Baptists have historically, from our inception to the present,
00:05:56.640 without any claims of perfection and many mistakes made along the way, we have been a people of the
00:06:02.580 book, of the Bible. We've been unashamed to say, this is what the Word of God says. And we want to
00:06:07.980 follow it. And where we've made mistakes, by God's grace, we've been granted repentance to turn away
00:06:12.920 from that and make things right. And there's just no doubt about what the Bible says regarding the
00:06:19.580 role of the elder bishop overseer, which is bishop pastor in the church. I mean, those words are used
00:06:29.180 of the one office and function for leadership in the church, and it is limited to qualified men.
00:06:36.560 First Timothy 2.12 is so crystal clear on this. Paul says, I do not allow a woman to teach or
00:06:44.600 exercise authority over men. And what's happening is we now have people say, well, what that verse
00:06:50.700 really means is, I do allow women to teach and exercise authority over men. And Paul's talking
00:06:56.560 about the context of local church leadership there in First Timothy 2, and what takes place specifically
00:07:02.420 in gathered worship times. So the bottom line is, are we going to stand on what the Bible says,
00:07:10.360 or are we not? Are we going to do that on issues of partiality and ethnicity? Are we going to do that
00:07:17.080 on issues related to men and women? Are we going to do that on issues related to sexuality? Are we going
00:07:24.120 to do that on issues related to politics and church and state and religious freedom? All of these issues,
00:07:31.420 any one of which can become and have become flashpoints at different times and will in the
00:07:36.240 future, they all have to be brought back to what does the Word of God say? And Rick Warren,
00:07:44.600 for all of whatever good he's accomplished over the course of his life, and he has accomplished some
00:07:49.400 good, for him to say, we agree in 99.99999%, it sounds like a wonderful argument, but in reality,
00:07:58.960 it's specious. It's superficial. Because were that argument to have been made in the fourth
00:08:03.880 century, Arius could say, look, we agree on everything but one letter, and we're just saying
00:08:09.760 that Jesus has a similar substance with the Father, and you want to make us say it's the same.
00:08:15.280 It's just one letter in the Greek alphabet. Why should we split over that? So truth matters,
00:08:21.860 and God has revealed truth in his Word, and we need to not be ashamed of anything that he has said
00:08:27.760 in his Word.
00:08:40.360 I mean, it's kind of like the Catholic and Protestant debate. I mean, technically,
00:08:45.220 there are a lot of differences, obviously, between Catholicism and Protestantism,
00:08:49.480 but you could say it comes down to this word alone, too. Well, that's just one word. Is it faith alone,
00:08:55.520 or is it faith plus something else? And that alone makes a heck of a lot of difference. In fact,
00:09:01.360 I mean, it made a huge difference several centuries ago to Martin Luther and others. And so I agree
00:09:07.080 with you, just because it's one word doesn't mean that it's not a huge and consequential distinction.
00:09:14.600 So if we were to, as charitably as possible, try to present the case that Rick Warren is putting
00:09:22.800 forth, he issued an apology to women. My apology to Christian women, and I won't read the whole thing,
00:09:30.200 is a very long tweet, but saying, basically, I've kind of put women to the side, I guess,
00:09:34.920 in ministry, not allowing them to ascend to this position of pastor. And I misunderstood the text.
00:09:39.860 And after careful acts of Jesus, I finally realized that, no, women absolutely can be pastors. That's
00:09:45.500 what God meant for them. The text that you're reading doesn't mean what it, I don't know what
00:09:50.320 it actually says. I guess that's his argument. But how would you describe what the egalitarian
00:09:57.300 argument is for the idea that women actually can be pastors if we were to try to do so
00:10:03.580 in the most charitable way possible?
00:10:07.340 Right. And there are several. And so they don't all agree with each other. And I have friends who
00:10:14.040 think that it's okay for women to be pastors, and yet they want to guard against kind of the
00:10:19.820 feminist underpinnings that have been used to bolster that argument. So I want to be sensitive to them.
00:10:26.160 I debated Dwight McKissick a couple of years ago on this whole issue. And his arguments are different
00:10:31.740 than Rick's arguments, though I think Dwight's taking some of Rick's right now. But as I understand
00:10:36.580 it, Rick's arguments boil down to this, that the word pastor designates a gift that God gives to
00:10:45.420 the church. And it is true that the only time the noun form of pastor is used in the Bible is in
00:10:52.420 Ephesians chapter four, where Paul is saying that he gave some to be pastors, teachers, some to be
00:10:58.560 apostles, some prophets. And so, yes, it is a gift. And what Rick says, okay, well, that gift can be
00:11:04.760 given, according to 1 Corinthians 12, to whomever the Spirit of the Lord wants to give it. He can give
00:11:09.560 it to men or women. And if God gives the gift of pastor to a woman, who are we to say, no, you don't
00:11:15.340 have that gift. You can't have that gift. We're putting ourselves in the place of the Holy Spirit.
00:11:19.480 Well, again, it sounds like a convincing argument. But one of the basic principles of reading the Bible
00:11:25.320 and understanding it is letting the Scripture interpret itself. And so there's that word in
00:11:31.980 the noun form in Ephesians four, but that word is used in the verbal form many times. And we see it
00:11:37.700 in places like Acts chapter 20 and 1 Timothy chapter five, where it is used interchangeably with the other
00:11:44.520 two words that are always limited to the role of qualified men in the church as bishops or as elders.
00:11:53.980 And so bishop, elder, and shepherds or pastors, it's that same word. It's found interchangeably in
00:12:00.840 Acts 20 and in 1 Peter chapter five. So if the work of pastoring is limited to the bishops and elders,
00:12:11.580 which have specific qualifications set forth for them in 1 Timothy three and in Titus chapter one,
00:12:19.700 and those qualifications necessarily limited to the husband of one woman, a one woman man.
00:12:27.600 And if we see the Lord Jesus choosing 12 men to be his apostles, and we don't have any indication of
00:12:37.400 that role of serving the church in that office ever being made available or using any kind of
00:12:46.480 egalitarian terms for men and women, why in the world would we overturn clear teachings like we
00:12:52.260 have in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2, 12 that I cited earlier, where it tells us there are
00:13:00.060 differences between men and women. That's creational. It's ontological. And those differences
00:13:06.660 are recognized in every, should be recognized in every area of the world, but they are specifically
00:13:12.760 recognized in the church. Doesn't mean that women don't have vital, essential roles to play in the
00:13:18.640 church. They do. They must be good theologians. They should be learners. And that's one of the things
00:13:24.300 that was radical about Jesus and Paul is they said, yeah, your woman must learn. Typically, we don't
00:13:30.920 take that to heart. They must learn. Well, that's important for them to carry out their roles in the
00:13:38.080 church as God might assign them. But those roles are not to be elder, overseer, or pastor. And so
00:13:47.500 Rick would just say, no, no, no, I've seen that. Now, another argument he makes is that for 53 years,
00:13:52.300 he misinterpreted the scriptures and he went back and realized he had misunderstood. He just never seen
00:13:58.000 it before that the first women are the first people who discovered the risen Christ were women. And they
00:14:03.000 went and told the apostles. So he says they were the first preachers of the resurrection. And he said,
00:14:07.720 he never understood the great commission that was given to go make disciples of all nations given
00:14:13.040 to men and women. Again, I want to be charitable, too. But I would hope that if I stood before people
00:14:20.720 and said, you know what, I've misunderstood some of the clearest, most basic texts in the Bible for 53
00:14:24.980 years, I should probably sit down for a while and be instructed rather than come out.
00:14:30.480 Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
00:14:33.800 Yes. And, you know, it is it is a beautiful thing that Jesus appeared to two women and that they
00:14:38.820 turned around and that they told the good news to these men. That is a beautiful thing. And we can
00:14:44.120 look at that and we can look at varying points in Jesus's ministry and say, wow, the way that he paid
00:14:49.560 special attention to these women in need, the way that he attended to them, the way that he focused on
00:14:55.020 them, the way that he loved them is really sweet and is really special. And I can, as a woman, look at
00:15:00.960 that and say, wow, I'm just so thankful that that was included in scripture. I'm so thankful that that
00:15:06.600 is the kind of God, the kind of savior, the kind of shepherd that he is. But there is a difference
00:15:13.960 between loving women, seeing the equal worth and value of women, even equipping women with certain
00:15:20.080 talents and certain gifts and certain responsibilities that do include sharing the
00:15:25.420 gospel. That is not the same thing as calling women to be pastors. That's something that I seem to see
00:15:31.900 a lot. And again, you know, trying to be as accurate as possible, representing the other side's argument,
00:15:37.760 but it is just a conflation between sharing the gospel and the role of pastor. Because as you
00:15:45.340 mentioned Ephesians 4, he's given the church pastors, evangelists, and teachers. And so the
00:15:51.080 pastor is more than just an evangelist. There may be, you know, God can equip women to share the gospel.
00:15:57.160 We are part of the Great Commission. We are called to use our words to share the gospel. That's not the
00:16:02.660 same as a pastor. A pastor is not just an evangelist, right? Right. No, that's exactly right. It's well
00:16:10.200 put. And this idea that unless a woman is allowed to do or called to do everything that a man could
00:16:20.060 be called to do in any sphere of life, but especially in the church, then somehow you're
00:16:24.880 being oppressive to women. Well, that has more in common, I think, with Annie Oakley, you know,
00:16:30.400 anything you can do, I can do better than it does with the way the Bible actually describes the world
00:16:36.120 that God created and how His image bearers, male and female, are to live in His world. And again,
00:16:43.720 I think it's basic. I think it comes down to, are we going to be trusting God who made the world,
00:16:51.600 who put us in the world, who gave His Son for us to redeem us out of the sin that we have committed
00:16:57.480 against Him, and who has given us the church and tells us that the church is His household,
00:17:03.620 and it's His house, His rules. And we need to be willing to accept that and recognize this is not
00:17:09.940 oppressive or repressive. This is good. This is what is best for us. God's not holding anything back
00:17:17.260 from women, and He's not elevating men in some type of class of superiority over women. He is saying,
00:17:24.680 no, there's a difference, and here's how those differences are to be utilized in His household for
00:17:31.140 His purposes. If we could get that, I think confidence in Christ would go up, joy would go
00:17:38.500 up, because we'd realize God's called us, uniquely equipped us differently to serve in various capacities.
00:17:45.220 I mean, I don't feel oppressed because I can't bear children. God didn't call men to bear children.
00:17:53.440 And again, you see the ideology at play today with the nonsense that's going on in our culture,
00:17:59.000 saying, oh, no, no, no. You know, a man can have a child, and now there's even surgeries being
00:18:04.520 proposed for putting wombs in men. It's ludicrous, and it's rebellion against our Maker. And if we could
00:18:13.240 come to terms with God, it's good. He's done this, and it's good. And when we embrace it, we find life,
00:18:20.300 we find joy, we find contentment. There's no repression. There's no oppression of us. This is God's
00:18:27.940 good way for His creation.
00:18:42.180 Could you help us understand a little bit the passage that you referenced earlier, which I do
00:18:46.820 think for anyone, even the greatest theologian, it's a complex, a little bit of a complex passage
00:18:53.180 to know exactly what is meant here. Some of it's obvious, and then some of it's just like, huh, okay,
00:18:57.300 what exactly is meant by that. And so if you could, if you could help us out a little bit. So the
00:19:01.660 first Timothy 2.12, I do not permit a woman to teach her to exercise authority over a man, rather
00:19:06.640 she is to remain quiet. And he is talking about here, the ordering of things, the ordering of the
00:19:13.560 church. And then in the next chapter, he goes into the roles for the overseers, which you've already
00:19:18.540 mentioned. But then he gives the reasoning. He says, for Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam
00:19:24.520 was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through
00:19:29.960 childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. So after the word
00:19:36.860 for, in verse 13, like what are, what are we looking at here for the reasoning? It obviously is rooted in
00:19:42.180 creation. So it's not rooted in cultural norms. It's not rooted in things that would change. It's rooted
00:19:46.780 in something that is fixed. And so that part, I understand. Can you help me kind of parse out the
00:19:52.540 rest of it? What does it, what does it mean that it's because Eve was deceived, not first Adam,
00:19:58.820 childbearing, that stuff? Yeah. And some would say this is constitutional and it might be because
00:20:05.100 there's definitely constitutional differences between men and women. Peter says the same thing
00:20:10.520 over in first Peter chapter two, I think, chapter three, where he describes the woman as the weaker
00:20:17.100 vessel. Well, does that mean that she's lesser and insignificant? No, there's just some constitutional
00:20:22.920 realities that God has woven into the created world. There are maternal instincts. There are paternal
00:20:30.120 instincts. And Paul uses that in his writings to the Thessalonians. And as some egalitarians like to
00:20:37.460 highlight as well, you know, God is described in feminine categories sometimes, like a nursing
00:20:43.180 mother. Well, yes, of course, because these are characteristics constitutionally that God has woven
00:20:50.740 into creation, his image bears male and female. So there are differences constitutionally by created
00:20:58.080 design between men and women. Does that mean that Eve was more susceptible to Satan? Perhaps,
00:21:06.160 perhaps. I mean, God gave Adam to be her protector, to be the one who would represent her before God in
00:21:15.620 fulfilling everything that God called him and them to do. And when Eve was seduced by the serpent,
00:21:24.720 Adam failed miserably. So there's no doubt that Adam is less culpable than Eve. That's not what Paul
00:21:30.640 means. In fact, you know, had Adam fulfilled his covenantal responsibility in the failure of his
00:21:38.440 wife, the sin of his wife, he shouldn't have hidden from God. He should have run to God. And when God said,
00:21:44.100 what are you doing? What's happened? He should have said, my wife sinned, kill me. My wife rebelled,
00:21:52.040 kill me, take me. But instead, you know, he failed miserably. And that's the beauty of what we see in
00:21:58.760 Christ, the second Adam, the last Adam, he comes and he says, no, kill me. And we are redeemed because
00:22:05.780 of that. But so with that, I think there might be some real constitutional realities there.
00:22:12.180 It doesn't mean that every woman is more susceptible to being misled, seduced into evil than every man,
00:22:23.880 not at all. But constitutionally, men are designed by God to preserve and protect, to care for, to watch
00:22:32.620 out for the upper women, but for the rest of creation as well. So I think that's there. Then the point that
00:22:41.380 you made that I don't think we can underscore enough is that his argument is not rooted on cultural
00:22:48.320 conditions. That's what Dwight McKissick and others tried to argue against me is that, no, this is,
00:22:54.000 you know, something was going on in Ephesus and there was a particular woman there and all. No,
00:22:58.060 no, no, no. Paul says, I'm going all the way back to creation and the constitutional differences
00:23:08.000 between men and women have to be considered. And just the historical reality that this is the way
00:23:14.540 that it went down. The woman was the one who was deceived. Adam's not less culpable for that,
00:23:22.160 but these are just historical realities and facts. Yes. Yes. And I just, for, I hear a lot for the
00:23:31.560 women who, like me, they like to communicate. They like to talk. They like to teach. And sometimes I
00:23:38.700 think those things being good at something or being able to do something is conflated with being called
00:23:45.860 to do something and, and also misunderstanding what the role of the pastor is. The role of the
00:23:51.500 pastor is not just talking. And I think actually we would have a lot higher qualifications for our
00:23:57.680 pastors if we understood that it's more than just being a good or dynamic communicator. There are a lot
00:24:03.360 of women out there who are great communicators who God has given special wisdom to understand the
00:24:08.480 word in a lot of ways. They are, you know, they're very eloquent. They're, they're good at what they
00:24:13.800 do. That does not mean one, that you would be a good pastor just because I can speak well, doesn't
00:24:19.460 mean that I would be a good pastor and like, thank the Lord for that. I'm glad I'm not called to that.
00:24:24.380 But also, even if you did have some capabilities, because women can be given, you know,
00:24:29.960 a personality or leadership capabilities or good communication, even if that is true,
00:24:35.200 just because you are capable of doing something doesn't mean you're called to do something. We
00:24:40.600 are all, whether you're good at dance, whether you're good at art, whether you're good at running,
00:24:45.220 whatever it is, we have, we all have to fit our capabilities into Christ honoring contexts.
00:24:51.180 We're all called to submit in that way. And so I think that's a little bit hard for women who are
00:24:56.160 truly talented. And I don't think anyone's trying to take that away from women. You're talented,
00:25:00.180 you're smart, you're capable, all of these things. But some roles, some responsibilities are not for
00:25:06.300 women in the same way that some roles and responsibilities are not for men. And as you
00:25:10.320 said, that goes back to God's goodness, not his repression, but his goodness, because he understands
00:25:14.980 what's good for us better than we do. And that goes back to the garden for sure.
00:25:19.140 Amen. Amen. One of the best theologians I know I'm married to. My wife is a real good thinker.
00:25:27.820 She is one of the best practical theologians that I've ever come across. I raised with my wife's
00:25:33.520 help. She raised, I helped her five daughters as well as a son. And they are all, every one of them,
00:25:40.000 very capable theologically. They are good thinkers. I would not hesitate to ask any of them
00:25:45.180 to proofread of something I've written, to push back on something, to give me some ideas
00:25:50.160 that maybe I hadn't thought of, you know, to check me out. And I have done that. I'm sure I've done it
00:25:55.780 with every one of them. But they're gifted. And they use those gifts. The ones that are mothers
00:26:02.460 use those gifts in raising their children. They all have used those gifts in a variety of ways
00:26:08.460 in the context of church and in the context of just other relationships and in the community,
00:26:14.500 in the world. And they've done it without any sense of, oh, no, unless I can be a pastor
00:26:20.660 or unless I can be a frontline military leader or something else like that, that I'm being
00:26:27.660 repressed. They're content with the way God has made them and made the world in which he has placed
00:26:34.840 them. And I think that's the disconnectedness is at the bottom of a lot of what we're seeing today
00:26:40.940 with the kind of unfortunate fighting against this idea of, you know, qualified men who God
00:26:48.580 wants to lead his church. And if we start with the understanding and the trusting God's goodness,
00:26:53.220 that really changes everything. That changes how we look at commands, that I can look at something
00:26:57.480 like Ephesians 5 and say, oh, submission to my husband is actually for my protection and for my
00:27:03.440 good. I'm so glad that I'm not the one to have to have the sacrificial leadership that my husband
00:27:10.460 is called to. Wow, that's a really high calling. So with submitting to your husband as to the Lord,
00:27:14.600 that's a high calling too. But it's a different responsibility. And I'm so thankful. Wow,
00:27:20.060 God is so good that he has protected me in that way. What a privilege it is to be the one that gets
00:27:25.080 to submit to that loving leadership, whether it's in my church or in my home. So if you start with the
00:27:31.880 knowledge that God is love, if we start with the knowledge that his law is sweeter than honey,
00:27:36.120 if we start with the trust that he's good, but if you start from a place of skepticism,
00:27:40.460 or start from a place of, well, maybe I'm more compassionate than God, maybe I'm better and
00:27:46.780 wiser than he is, then of course, everything is going to start looking, well, maybe that's cruel.
00:27:52.140 Maybe that's not for my good. Maybe that's taking something away from me. We all have the tendency
00:27:58.520 to do that. We've probably all done that at some part in our life. But it all starts with
00:28:03.960 the foundation. It all starts with the lens through which you are interpreting scripture
00:28:09.140 through God's goodness, or as a bully who's taking things away from you that you want.
00:28:14.480 Amen. And yes, well put. And it goes back to what I said earlier, this is a totalizing
00:28:19.640 approach to life. And I think that that's why all of these things we're seeing in our society today,
00:28:25.080 as it's encroaching into the church, it's all connected. The LGBTQ nonsense we're seeing is
00:28:31.960 connected to abortion, is connected to the radical feminism. It's all connected. And as Christians,
00:28:39.460 we have been given the scriptures that show us the way things really are. And the way things really
00:28:46.660 are begins in Genesis 1.1. God created the world. He created the heavens and the earth. This is his world.
00:28:55.080 And if we can get that and say, okay, we're here for him. This is his show. So we need to plug in
00:29:01.600 where he has put us and be content with that because it's for our good, as you said. Man,
00:29:07.260 so many problems would be solved if we could just get back to that fundamental understanding.
00:29:11.700 Yes, and amen.
00:29:25.080 Okay, I just want to talk briefly about something that happened on Twitter, and then was reported on
00:29:32.440 in the news a few weeks ago, Ted Cruz, Republican senator from Texas, whom I'm sure in a lot of
00:29:41.220 ways you and I align with and really appreciate. He joined President Biden, this is according to Fox
00:29:47.500 News, in condemning a new law enacted in Uganda, criminalizing homosexual action, specifically
00:29:51.780 allowing the death penalty for aggravated homosexuality, which is defined in law as sexual
00:29:56.780 relationships with minors and other categories of vulnerable people. So he tweeted, this Uganda law
00:30:04.160 is horrific and wrong. Any law criminalizing homosexuality or putting the death penalty for
00:30:09.740 quote unquote, aggravated homosexuality is grotesque and an abomination. All civilized
00:30:14.360 nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse. Hashtag LGBTQ. And then you
00:30:21.980 cited Leviticus 2013. If man lies with a male is with woman. Both of them have committed an
00:30:27.200 abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Tell it to God. Ted, was this law God gave to his
00:30:32.380 old covenant people horrific and wrong? And sorry, but I got to read the back and forth. I won't read
00:30:37.180 his whole thing, but I thought it was interesting that he like tried to come back at you theologically.
00:30:43.060 He said, your biblical analysis is an error. Jesus told us to render to Caesar, the things that are
00:30:48.060 Caesar's into the, to God, the things that are God's. We are talking about the laws of man, not the Old
00:30:52.400 Testament laws of God. Leviticus also tells us for anyone who curses his father or his mother shall
00:30:57.740 surely be put to death. So should we execute every child who's disrespectful to parents? So, okay, just
00:31:03.360 give us. And then there was the whole thing about how you had the interview and then it was selectively
00:31:08.760 edited. Thankfully they took that down. So there was a lot that went back and forth.
00:31:13.060 But tell us, tell us your thinking and your response and then your thoughts about Ted Cruz's
00:31:17.180 response to you.
00:31:19.060 Yeah, well, let me just say, I don't go looking for these things. I saw, I follow Ted Cruz. I love
00:31:27.180 Ted Cruz. I've appreciated him. I voted for him in the primaries, 2016. And I've appreciated
00:31:33.460 much about him. I understand he's a Christian, never don't know him personally, but I think he's
00:31:37.700 a member of a Baptist church in Houston. So when I saw that, I was disappointed. And I wish I had not
00:31:45.920 said, you know, tell it to God, Ted. I wish I'd said, tell it to God, Senator Cruz, because he
00:31:50.760 deserves to be respected. And I should have done that. And I'm sorry for that. But I stand by what
00:31:56.260 I said when he went beyond the Ugandan law, which could be debated for specifics and said, any law
00:32:02.840 that criminalizes homosexuality is grotesque. It's horrific. It's wrong. Well, now then he has
00:32:10.380 just attacked God. And as a follower of Christ, I can't let that happen. So that's when I just cited
00:32:18.820 a text from the Leviticus that you read that God told Moses to have for his old covenant people.
00:32:27.040 Now, that season of life during Israel's history was for a purpose. And those laws were for Israel
00:32:34.640 for that purpose. But it cannot be a grotesque, horrific, wrong law if God gave it. That was my
00:32:42.500 whole point is that here's he's misfired here. He wasn't thinking. So I wasn't trying to
00:32:48.120 argue even the legitimacy or value of Ugandan law. I was trying to be principled in saying
00:32:54.840 you have overstepped here. Yeah. So and that can be difficult. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.
00:33:01.680 Well, I mean, when he responded, I don't think he got that, you know, and he tried to get it
00:33:07.680 patched up a little bit. Well, you know, we're talking about man's laws, not God's laws. Well,
00:33:12.200 okay, but you did any law that's universal, including what God said. So it is the relationship
00:33:18.660 of law and gospel, Old Testament, New Testament. Those are not real simple issues, but they are
00:33:24.080 important issues. And they're not impossible to understand. And God's people have understood them
00:33:30.100 and recognized them and preached out of that understanding for centuries. And we need to do
00:33:35.260 that again in our days. I think it's a commentary of just how far we've drifted from some of those
00:33:40.440 important distinctions that must be made in order to maintain a right approach to God's law and God's
00:33:48.580 gospel. Right. You were not saying that we need to enact all Levitical law here in the United States.
00:33:56.300 That's not what your argument was. I haven't heard any Christian argue that, that all the laws of the
00:34:02.520 Old Testament need to be applied in the United States today, including this law. But this is kind of
00:34:09.220 like the argument that I have with people who are anti-death penalty. And they claim, which is wrong
00:34:15.820 in itself, but they claim that that was the Old Covenant. This is the New Covenant. This is the
00:34:20.920 New Testament. Jesus abolished the death penalty, which is wrong. We've gone through that before.
00:34:25.820 But okay, even if you were to say that, even if you were just to say that the death penalty in the
00:34:30.240 United States today, according to our system, it's just our system isn't consistent enough. It's not fair
00:34:37.040 enough. And therefore we shouldn't have the death penalty. That's one argument. But to say that the
00:34:42.040 death penalty per se is evil is to then say that God is evil, that he's unjust, that he's lacking
00:34:49.280 compassion. And so I'm for the arguments of, hey, our judicial system is so messed up that we shouldn't
00:34:54.620 be put any put anyone to death. Okay. I understand your logic behind that, even if I don't agree with
00:35:00.040 it. But to say that the death penalty is always wrong, no matter what, then you're saying that God is
00:35:05.500 always wrong. So that's kind of how I understood your argument. You are not saying that we should
00:35:09.980 enact those laws here in the United States today, or saying even that the Uganda law was righteous.
00:35:16.060 One of the problems with the Uganda law is that I think it does show a partiality
00:35:19.740 when it comes to how they actually punish all different kinds of crimes and different kinds of
00:35:26.340 rape and different kinds of sexual assault that is not God honoring. So that wasn't your point either
00:35:32.240 to say, yes, this Uganda law is perfect. It was simply to respond specifically to what Ted Cruz
00:35:38.980 said, which he said, all laws criminalizing homosexuality are evil. Okay. Well, that's to
00:35:43.780 say that God is evil or he, you think he was evil in his law giving to Israel. It's the same God.
00:35:50.640 God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So that's a theological, that's a theological problem.
00:35:55.060 That's how I understood your tweet, but that is hard. I mean, Twitter is just, Twitter's hard,
00:35:59.300 but I understood where you were coming from. Well, I appreciate it. And you, you chimed in and
00:36:06.000 I appreciated that too, because, uh, the majority of the response on Twitter was, as you probably saw,
00:36:11.360 it was very, very negative. Some of the very, very vile, but even from Christians, conservative
00:36:15.540 Christians, self-described, they just don't understand. They didn't understand the argument,
00:36:19.980 the point I was making, but even giving that, uh, they were still of this mindset. That's the Old
00:36:24.540 Testament. We're not under the Old Testament. We're under the New Testament. We don't have anything to do
00:36:27.820 with law. You're a legalist. And, uh, it, it just shows how far removed we are from good, basic,
00:36:36.100 essential understanding of law and gospel, because the God who gave us the gospel also gave us the law
00:36:42.420 and he loves his law as much as he loves his gospel. The law is not the gospel. The law doesn't
00:36:48.340 get us right with God. It never could. It never has. It never will. The gospel alone by God's grace is
00:36:54.780 what saves a person. It's only what he's done for us in Jesus Christ. When we receive Christ
00:36:59.000 through faith, that grace is what makes us right with God. But being made right with God, what do
00:37:04.740 we do? We want to honor him. We want to be like Christ. What was Christ like? Well, he magnified
00:37:10.220 the law and made it honorable. He came to do his father's will. And so as Christians, we look to what
00:37:16.100 God reveals his will to be. We say, we want to be like that. We want to do that. Now in the Old Testament,
00:37:21.340 he gave these laws or ceremonial laws, there were civil laws, and there was moral law. The ceremonial
00:37:26.920 laws are done away with because we're not Jewish people worshiping in Jewish customs. The civil law
00:37:32.720 is done away with because we're not a nation state as Christians today. We transcend geopolitical
00:37:39.500 boundaries. But the moral law obtains those 10 commandments that summarize the moral law for
00:37:44.420 Israel. They still are good rules for us today because they are embedded in nature. They are
00:37:51.060 embedded in God. They are not arbitrary. They come out of a reflection of who he really is. And so, yes,
00:37:58.260 we should seek to live moral lives. And we can learn from the civil codes of the Old Testament because
00:38:03.700 many of those codes reflect specific righteousness. And we ought to say, okay, there's something to be
00:38:09.700 learned from that. What can we do over here in our civil geopolitical state to reflect righteousness
00:38:16.500 in our laws? Because somebody's laws, some system of righteousness and morality is going to govern.
00:38:24.060 It's not a question of whether we should have a religious impulse or background or foundation. It's a
00:38:30.120 question of which one are we going to have. And in our day and age, you just have to look back a few
00:38:34.960 weeks and see what President Biden did with putting up the LGBTQ flag at the White House on par with the
00:38:41.920 United States flag. And he's telling us what religion that he's advocating for to rule our nation.
00:38:47.880 Yes, nothing is neutral. And I've talked about this with my atheist friends too,
00:39:06.080 about, okay, well, what worldview should our laws be based on, if not Christianity, then what? Because
00:39:13.680 this idea of neutrality, that the secular worldview is just based on facts. It's not based on any
00:39:19.860 beliefs. Of course, that is illogical. It's impossible, actually. It's wrong. And so, as you
00:39:26.620 said, every law is going to speak to a particular worldview. The only question is ever which one,
00:39:31.940 whether you're choosing curriculum, whether you're choosing local laws, whether you're choosing
00:39:35.320 national laws, it's all going to be based on a particular worldview. The question is which one.
00:39:40.840 But I want to summarize what you just said, because I loved that summary and that concise
00:39:45.360 understanding of the difference in the Old Testament laws and why they apply today or why
00:39:52.260 some apply today and why some don't. So, ceremonial laws, civil laws, and moral laws,
00:39:56.480 you said. Ceremonial laws today, we are not the Jewish people. We are not ancient Israel. We don't
00:40:02.720 have to abide by those laws. Those laws were for their protection, also for their separateness,
00:40:07.440 their sacredness. And Jesus has become our cleansing. He has become our sacredness. He has
00:40:12.960 become our righteousness. He has made us clean. So, Jesus became that for us. The civil law,
00:40:19.000 as you said, we are not a nation state as far as we see. We're not called to create a similar
00:40:23.680 nation state to Israel. We transcend geopolitical boundaries is what you said. So, those don't apply
00:40:30.180 to us. As you said, we can learn from them, but we don't have to enact them on a certain people
00:40:35.680 group. But then the moral law still stands. And the reason for that is we see them reiterated
00:40:40.420 throughout the New Testament. And God doesn't abolish or Jesus doesn't abolish them. He doubles
00:40:45.280 down on them. He says, you have heard it said that you must not murder. But I'm telling you
00:40:51.180 that if you hate someone in your heart, that's akin to murder. So, it's not that Jesus says,
00:40:56.360 oh, you've heard it said that you shall not murder, but now it's fine. He says, no,
00:41:01.180 I'm telling you that it's always actually been about the heart. And so, that was a really clear
00:41:06.520 explanation. And I think it can get overly complicated, but that was really helpful.
00:41:11.780 And also, I think sheds light on what was meant by your response to Ted Cruz's tweet. So,
00:41:18.080 I hope people gain clarity from that. Is there anything else, anything else that you want to
00:41:23.220 share in regards to anything that we've talked about or directing people to Founders Ministries and
00:41:29.320 everything that you guys are doing there? Yeah, well, thank you, Allie. I mean,
00:41:33.280 we address these kind of things all the time at Founders. So, you can go at founders.org
00:41:37.780 and get more information there. It's why we started two years ago the Institute of Public Theology,
00:41:43.220 where we are now offering bachelor's and master's level education. You can find that at
00:41:48.380 instituteofpublictheology.org because we're concerned to recover this way of thinking,
00:41:54.700 these basic truths that 200 years ago, our forefathers would have not been debating too
00:42:01.620 significantly because even Lutherans, Calvinists, Baptists, there was just a commonality of
00:42:08.940 understanding at the foundation. But now that's gone, and they need to be recovered. Because we're
00:42:14.020 in a world, especially here in America, but in the West, we're in a world where we are seeing
00:42:18.360 these pagan religions that are just running roughshod over every area of life, education,
00:42:26.380 in entertainment, in politics, in medicine. There's just no area where it's being left untouched. And
00:42:33.200 that is increasingly becoming the case with the church, with the evangelical world. And those of us
00:42:39.220 who know Christ, those of us who are following Him, must be willing to stand. And we've got to stand
00:42:44.860 firmly on His Word. We must understand that Word. So we've got to give ourselves to it. Where we've
00:42:50.200 been wrong, we need to repent. And that shouldn't be a high bar because the Scripture has been given
00:42:55.820 to us to reprove and correct, to train in righteousness and to instruct us. So two of the
00:43:02.020 four things that Paul says the Scripture is given for, for its utility, are corrective in nature. And so if
00:43:06.780 you're being corrected by Scripture, praise God, that's its purpose. And repent and then stand firm
00:43:12.560 on what it does say. And be prepared for the onslaught that will come, because it will come.
00:43:17.840 And we're living in a world that's increasingly hostile to the ways of Christ. And Christians
00:43:23.700 are being increasingly marginalized. But this is no time for fear. It's no time to retreat. It's time
00:43:29.520 to stand firm. So I appreciate all you're doing in on that in the front where God's placed you. And
00:43:35.380 we're trying to do the same thing at Founders and IOPT as well.
00:43:39.100 Well, thank you so much. And thank you for that ending message and for everything you guys are
00:43:44.540 doing. I mean, I direct people all the time to the church search function that Founders has on
00:43:50.300 their website. And I've gotten so many messages and stories from people saying, you know, I'd been out
00:43:55.260 of church for 30 years. I was scared to go to church. I had no idea how to find a Bible-believing
00:43:59.760 church. Or the church that I was going to was, you know, getting progressive. And I've just,
00:44:05.160 it's just so easy to remember. I'll put the link in the description of this episode if people are
00:44:09.980 interested. But that alone, I mean, there's a lot that Founders offers that I really recommend
00:44:15.240 people check out. But that alone has been a game changer. Because when people get plugged into a
00:44:20.620 local church, and you find that community, and you have that shepherding, and you have the opportunity
00:44:25.800 to understand what God's Word says, and also just be bolstered by the strength and the courage of
00:44:30.940 others, that makes all the difference in the world. So thank God for the local body. And also
00:44:36.520 thank God for the SBC standing strong in this issue, which, as you articulated well, is an extremely
00:44:44.200 important issue, is a trusting God issue. So thank you so much, Pastor. I really appreciate you taking
00:44:50.220 the time to come on. Well, thanks, Allie. I'm always glad to be on with you.
00:45:00.940 Thank you.