Ep 830 ｜ Southern Baptist Debate： Female Pastors？ ｜ Guest： Pastor Tom Ascol
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
168.11917
Summary
Pastor Tom Askell of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida joins the show to talk about the controversy surrounding women in the Southern Baptist Convention and the role of women as pastors in the church. Pastor Askell explains why women should not be allowed to serve as pastors, and why the SBC should allow them to do so.
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.
00:01:33.920
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
00:08:40.360
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
00:10:07.340
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.
00:14:33.800
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
00:18:42.180
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.
00:29:25.080
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
00:31:19.060
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.