The NXR Podcast - July 28, 2022


QUESTIONS - Are There Sins That Indefinitely Disqualify From Eldership？

Topics
pornography disqualification
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Nate Jesus Christ Matthew Joel
DAILY TRUTH - Noah And The Gospel DAILY TRUTH - The God Of Order

Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

182.9

Word count

1,529

Sentence count

116

Harmful content

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

18

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we discuss the hierarchy of sin and how it relates to the hierarchy in heaven and hell. We also discuss the difference between sin at the level of the heart and sin in the realm of the mind.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.
00:00:03 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,
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00:00:21 If a Christian man commits a sin in the past that would disqualify him from eldership, 0.78
00:00:27 example being looking at porn, but he has since repented. Is he forever disqualified? More 0.54
00:00:33 generally in the past, they did not meet the qualifications, but now they do. Are they forever
00:00:38 disqualified? That's a good question, Nate. No, I don't think that you're forever disqualified.
00:00:44 I think there are some things that can happen that, yeah, where a guy should never serve as
00:00:50 an elder. I really do think that there are some things like that. I don't think that pornography
00:00:54 is one of them. Not all sin is equal. I think part of that question comes from, and you may
00:01:02 not mean it like that, but a lot of people, so maybe not you, Nate, but a lot of people think
00:01:07 in terms of all sin is equal. It's not. There's a hierarchy in heaven, right? There are 24 elders
00:01:15 on 24 thrones. There are angels and there are chief angels, archangels. There are cherubim and
00:01:21 seraphim and the four living creatures covered with eyes with six wings that surround the throne.
00:01:24 There's a hierarchy. It's not egalitarianism. There's a hierarchy in heaven. There's a hierarchy
00:01:29 in hell. Jesus says this to one will be given a light beating, but to another will be given a
00:01:35 severe beating. Talking about hell. He says, woe to you, these, these Israelite cities for if the
00:01:40 miracles that I performed in you have been performed in places like Sodom, then they would
00:01:45 have repented. And then he says specifically, it will be more bearable for Sodom in judgment
00:01:50 on the day of judgment than for you.
00:01:53 So there's a hierarchy in hell,
00:01:55 and there's a hierarchy in heaven,
00:01:56 and there's certainly a hierarchy here on earth,
00:01:58 and there is a hierarchy of sin, harmardiology.
00:02:02 There is a hierarchical harmardiology
00:02:05 that not all sin is equal.
00:02:07 All sin is equal.
00:02:08 There's a truth, a truth,
00:02:09 a sense of truth in that statement.
00:02:11 All sin is equal in the sense that all sin,
00:02:13 apart from the saving grace that is found
00:02:15 through faith in Jesus Christ alone,
00:02:18 all sin is equal in its ability to send you to eternal hell.
00:02:24 Apart from that, though, not all sin is equal.
00:02:26 And we know not all sin is equal because God gives us a list of commands, multiple commands,
00:02:30 but God also gives us penalties for breaking those commands, and not all the penalties
00:02:35 are equal.
00:02:37 That right there proves the point that in the sight of God, not just the sight of Joel
00:02:43 weapon. Who cares about that? But the sight of God, not all sin is equally immoral. If it were,
00:02:49 then all sin would receive an equal penalty. Now, okay, take that and, you know, the counter is
00:02:54 going to be, well, what about the Sermon on the Mount? Matthew chapter five, six and seven, you
00:02:57 know, Jesus, but I tell you, right? You have heard it is said, but I tell you, if you look at a woman 1.00
00:03:01 with lust in your heart, you've already committed adultery. Yeah. And in the realm of the sin at the
00:03:06 level of the heart that, yeah, that is a serious sin. Jesus also says in terms of speech, right?
00:03:11 You have heard it said that if you say raka, you are in danger of being kicked out of the 0.56
00:03:15 Sanhedrin. 0.99
00:03:16 But I tell you, if you say you fool in your heart, you say you fool to your brother, then 1.00
00:03:21 you are in danger of hell's fire. 0.99
00:03:24 That's at the level of sin with our speech.
00:03:26 And Jesus is raising the bar.
00:03:30 But listen, Jesus is not instituting egalitarianism in the realm of sin.
00:03:35 All he's doing is he's just raising the bar. 0.97
00:03:38 So he's not saying that you fool is equal to raka. 0.98
00:03:43 And he's not saying that lust in the heart is equal to adultery in action. 0.99
00:03:49 He's saying that you've committed adultery in your heart and it's bad.
00:03:54 And what would Jesus say if you committed adultery in your heart and with your body?
00:03:59 I think Jesus would say it's worse.
00:04:01 And we know that Jesus has that principle of some sins being worse than others, of a
00:04:06 hierarchy of sin, because it's Jesus himself who talks about, to one will be given a lighter
00:04:12 beating, because his sin was lesser.
00:04:14 To another will be given a more severe beating, because his sin was greater.
00:04:18 Or this city will receive more judgment.
00:04:20 This city will receive less judgment.
00:04:22 All these different things.
00:04:23 So that concept, that principle comes from Jesus.
00:04:26 And so, therefore, I believe that there may be some sins that disqualify a man indefinitely.
00:04:35 But I don't believe that looking at pornography is one of those sins, especially if the individual,
00:04:43 because I'm assuming that we're talking about, you said Christian.
00:04:45 So I'm assuming we're talking about a Christian man who looked at pornography before being 0.55
00:04:51 in the position of eldership. 0.64
00:04:53 so we're not talking about a pastor who is assuming most pastors are married but a pastor
00:05:00 who is married has a wife and for years and years is behind her back and behind the congregation's
00:05:06 back is looking at pornography so there's just there's a lot of factors um if a guy commits
00:05:11 adultery then he's certainly disqualified and uh and he he may never he may be the kind of guy who
00:05:18 just never needs to come back, right? If this is a married man in the pastorate who cheats on his
00:05:25 wife, has sex with another woman, and likely, you know, when that happens statistically, it usually 0.99
00:05:32 is another woman in the church. And so there's the relational components and all this mistrust, 0.55
00:05:37 and rightfully so, a lack of trust, and it's just something he can never get back, right?
00:05:41 So love and forgiveness is different than trust and qualifications. A man, if he repents,
00:05:47 should be forgiven and he should be loved, but that doesn't mean that he should be trusted. 0.60
00:05:54 That doesn't mean that he should be qualified to lead and to shepherd others. So all that being
00:06:00 said, no, I don't think that a man is forever disqualified, a Christian man who looks at 0.86
00:06:05 pornography forever disqualified. That said, it's hard because there are degrees. There's a spectrum, 0.60
00:06:12 right? So was it pornography or did he actually engage with another woman? Also, I would say in
00:06:17 terms of not all sin being equal, homosexuality. A man who sleeps with another man, that is worse 1.00
00:06:23 than a man who sleeps with another woman who's not his wife. So that should be taken much more 0.90
00:06:28 seriously. And then in the realm of pornography, there's a spectrum even with that. Do you look at
00:06:32 porn one time, two times, 200 times? And how ongoing was the sin? Also, how long did he remain
00:06:39 quiet? How long was the sin hidden? You know, was it like, yeah, for four years, he looked at
00:06:44 pornography and didn't tell anybody ever. No confession. Right. Well, that's, that's more
00:06:50 severe. So there's all those different things to be. So the best I can do in answering your
00:06:55 question is I'll say, yeah, I do think there are instances where a man is disqualified from the
00:07:00 ministry and should never come back. But I don't think that that's just a clear, explicit principle
00:07:07 in scripture that's universally applied. I think it just takes wisdom case by case. And in terms
00:07:14 of, well, is pornography one of those cases? I would say in most cases, no. I don't think
00:07:19 pornography indefinitely disqualifies a man. But if a Christian repents of looking at pornography, 0.99
00:07:24 a Christian man say, I've been looking at pornography. He repents of that. He shouldn't 0.91
00:07:28 be installed as an elder in the next six months. That's for sure. So it should be a while. And
00:07:34 again, in the realm of pornography, I think you have to get some details. How long? How many times?
00:07:42 Was there any confession?
00:07:44 How secret and hidden has this sin been?
00:07:47 All those things.
00:07:48 And also bringing into that marriage, right?
00:07:51 I think there is a difference.
00:07:52 Not saying it's not sin.
00:07:53 Of course it's sin. 1.00
00:07:54 But there is a difference in a single Christian man looking at pornography than a married 0.95
00:07:59 Christian man looking at pornography. 0.99
00:08:02 It's not the same. 1.00
00:08:03 Not all sin is equal.
00:08:04 Thanks so much for listening.
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