The NXR Podcast - January 07, 2023


QUESTIONS - Questions About Independent Fundamental Baptists, Leighton Flowers, & Justin Peters

Topics
Sola Scriptura prosperity gospel
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Leighton Flowers Stephen Furtick Gold Austin Peterson Chris Tomlinson Joel Webin John MacArthur Layton Flowers Jesus Christ Joyce Meyer Calvinism Calvin Luther Sola Scriptura Jeff Durbin Lauren Daigle Lorne Daigle R.C. Sproul Doug Wilson Jamie White Benny Hinn and 2 more
BONUS EPISODE - AVATAR： The Way Of Water ｜ A Pastor’s Review In Less Than 3 Minutes DAILY TRUTH - What Does The Bible Say About Caring for the Poor？

Episode Stats


Length

23 minutes

Words per minute

164.6

Word count

3,871

Sentence count

252

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, Pastor Joel Webin and I discuss what we like and don't like about Independent fundamental Baptist and why we think it's a good fit for our denomination. We also talk about why we don't think Independent fundamental Baptists should be allowed to have their own denomination.

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 All right, listen, guys, I get it.
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00:00:40 question from guian the baptist i am ifb okay so independent fundamental baptist here we go
00:00:50 but i greatly appreciate your ministry all right well didn't see that coming out of curiosity can
00:00:55 you name one thing you like about, that I like, wow, that's tough. Okay. One thing that you like
00:01:03 about independent fundamental Baptist. Also, what is the biggest problem? That one's easier
00:01:09 with independent fundamental Baptist. In your opinion, God bless you, Pastor Joel Webin. You
00:01:13 know what, again, I like you. Thanks. That was very charitable and very kind. So independent
00:01:20 fundamental Baptists. One thing that... Let me start with what I don't like. For one, I do believe 0.97
00:01:31 that independent... So I should set the record straight. Independent... Okay, here's the one
00:01:35 thing I like. So I'll start with that. One thing I like is that they preach the gospel of Jesus
00:01:39 Christ. And they preach that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone,
00:01:44 according to the scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. So an independent fundamental Baptist
00:01:49 would be able to affirm and would, they may not even be aware, you know, many of them because
00:01:54 they get some of the stuff I don't like. They kind of poo-poo all over church history and creeds and
00:02:00 confessions and anything like that. You know, independent fundamental Baptist is your quintessential
00:02:04 no creed but Christ, right? And then you ask the, you know, the obvious follow-up question, 0.93
00:02:09 who is Christ? Well, Christ is the only begotten son of God who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
00:02:15 and born of the Virgin Mary.
00:02:16 He has two natures.
00:02:17 He's fully God and fully man.
00:02:19 You know, he suffered under Pontius Pilate.
00:02:21 You just wrote a creed, dude, right? 0.79
00:02:23 So, you know, so it's silly, you know,
00:02:26 like just give me the Bible, right?
00:02:28 It's like, okay, but so that we don't have to quote
00:02:31 all 1,500 pages of the Bible every single time
00:02:33 we tell someone what we believe.
00:02:35 Could we summarize any of this?
00:02:37 You know, could we say that, you know,
00:02:39 the Bible holds to this doctrine and this doctrine?
00:02:42 And for the record, independent fundamental Baptists
00:02:44 are not against doctrines. But they're not big fans of historic doctrines. I don't think that
00:02:51 they give the proper credence to church history. For the record, you know, sola scriptura, right?
00:02:57 Scripture alone. So in the five solos, sola scriptura, I'm reformed, confessionally reformed,
00:03:03 historically reformed. And so I would affirm, of course, sola scriptura. But what do we mean by
00:03:09 sola scriptura? We don't mean, let me start with that, we don't mean that scripture is the only
00:03:14 authority because scripture itself tells us there are other authorities. So when we say
00:03:20 sola scriptura, scripture alone, we're not saying scripture is the only authority. We're saying that
00:03:25 scripture is the highest authority and the only infallible authority. All other authorities err,
00:03:32 meaning they're fallible. They make mistakes. And so scripture is the only infallible authority
00:03:37 and it is of course the highest authority but there are inferior authorities that are still
00:03:45 authority subservient authorities to scripture that err because scripture alone does not err
00:03:50 scripture alone is infallible but these other lesser authorities are still important we believe
00:03:55 in the authority of fathers we believe in the authority of the civil magistrate we believe in
00:03:58 the authority of pastors and independent fundamental baptists certainly believe in
00:04:03 ecclesiastical authority today. They just don't believe in yesterday's ecclesiastical authority.
00:04:08 So they believe in the authority of their local pastor, Jim, you know, who's been alive for a
00:04:13 robust 46 years, you know, and has been preaching for 12. But they don't recognize, you know,
00:04:19 much authority when it comes to St. Augustine, right? Or Calvin or, you know, whatever, Zwingli
00:04:25 or Luther, you know, go down the line. So things that I don't like about, you know, what I do like
00:04:31 is that they absolutely affirm the gospel of Jesus Christ.
00:04:34 And they preach it.
00:04:35 And I think they preach it faithfully.
00:04:36 And I think a ton of people have been saved
00:04:37 in the independent fundamental Baptist world.
00:04:41 And so I thank God for that.
00:04:42 But the problem is I think that they detach themselves too much
00:04:45 from the larger witness of church history
00:04:47 that God has placed us in.
00:04:49 God doesn't place us in a vacuum.
00:04:52 One of the things that I've learned over the years is this.
00:04:55 You read the book of Acts, right?
00:04:56 And a lot of people, let's get back to the book of Acts.
00:04:58 You know, Charismatics want to get back to the book of Acts
00:05:01 because they want all the spiritual gifts. And independent fundamental Baptists, you know,
00:05:07 want to get back to the book of Acts because they want, you know, the pure, you know,
00:05:12 biblical doctrine that hasn't been perverted by, you know, saints throughout the ages and those
00:05:17 kinds of things and ecumenical councils and creeds and synods and, you know, and so people want to
00:05:22 get back to the book of Acts for different reasons. I don't want to get back to the book of Acts.
00:05:26 I don't. I don't believe that we as Christians today in 2022 are the lesser sons of former
00:05:35 sires. I don't believe that that is God's overarching redemptive plan throughout history.
00:05:42 I don't believe that we nailed it in the first century and it's all been downhill from there.
00:05:50 I believe that the church is growing and not just numerically, but in its strength. 0.81
00:05:55 As God in his providence and sovereignty raises up heretics, he uses that for the church to 0.85
00:06:02 sharpen its doctrine. For the first 500 years of church history, the church sharpened its doctrine 0.93
00:06:07 on the hypostatic union, theology proper, really the first thousand years, if we're going to pan
00:06:14 out and talk about theology proper at a larger level, not just the hypostatic union and the two
00:06:20 natures of Christ, but understanding the Trinity, Trinitarian doctrine and processions of the
00:06:27 Spirit from the Father and the Son and these kinds of things. This has been nailed out because of
00:06:32 heresy that caused the church to go back to the scripture and sharpen its doctrine of God. For
00:06:38 a thousand years, we nailed out theology proper. The next thousand years, I think what we've really
00:06:44 been nailing out, the Reformation being a big piece of this 500 years ago, but what we really
00:06:49 nailed out was the doctrine of justification, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone,
00:06:55 according to the scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. So you've got first thousand years,
00:07:00 theology proper, doctrine of God. Then you've got the next thousand years, salvation, gospel,
00:07:05 with the emphasis on justification, justification by faith alone. And I think that as the church
00:07:14 continues to grow both numerically, but also in its theological rigor and strength, its resilience.
00:07:22 I'm hoping that in the next thousand years, that one of the things that we'll nail out is
00:07:26 a theological, political theology, a civil theology, theology applied, particularly to
00:07:35 the civil realm, which some of this has been done already for us. Protestant resistance theory,
00:07:41 the Black Road Regiment, John Knox. Calvin's done some work on this. Luther did some bad work on
00:07:47 this. I'm grateful for Luther and his work with the gospel. He got the ball rolling, but everyone
00:07:52 is a product of their time. Nobody's doing theology in a vacuum. That's what I'm getting at.
00:07:56 We've all been placed by God in a particular time, amongst a particular people, in a particular
00:08:00 place. We don't do theology in a vacuum. And I don't think it's a benefit to the church
00:08:06 to reinvent the wheel and to start from scratch with the work of theology in each generation.
00:08:13 The way that we progress is by standing on the shoulders of giants and going beyond them,
00:08:17 not because we're bigger and better and smarter and holier, but because they pave the way for us
00:08:23 so that we can simply stand on their shoulders and go further. I think that that is a benefit.
00:08:29 I think when we discount what has already been done and we have to do it all ourselves from
00:08:36 scratch, start at the beginning, I think we waste our lives. I really do. And so independent
00:08:41 fundamental Baptists, I think, have a poor view of church history, a lack of appreciation.
00:08:47 Sola Scriptura means that scripture is the only infallible authority, so church history is not
00:08:51 infallible, and it's the highest authority, which means church history is subservient to the
00:08:55 authority of scripture. But that doesn't mean church history being a lesser authority and
00:09:01 a fallible authority doesn't mean that it has no authority, and it doesn't mean that it's not
00:09:06 immensely helpful, because it is immensely helpful. So their view of creeds, councils, synods,
00:09:13 church history, that's a problem. And then, of course, their view of Calvinism. Independent
00:09:18 fundamental Baptists hate Calvinism, and many of them, not all of them, but many of them would say
00:09:23 that Calvinism is another gospel, and a false gospel, a heresy. So they would actually say
00:09:28 that R.C. Sproul is a heretic. John MacArthur is a heretic. Joel Webin is a heretic. So I'm not a
00:09:35 big fan of that. Independent fundamental Baptists, right, are, which is why the question surprised me
00:09:41 because of the charitable tone in the question. Independent fundamental Baptists are typically
00:09:47 known as the least charitable people on the planet. They're the only people that have the truth. 1.00
00:09:53 Everybody else is a heretic. And that kind of gets in the last thing that I don't like about
00:09:58 them. So what do I like? The gospel. They get the gospel right. But last thing that I don't like
00:10:04 about them is view of church history, view of reformed theology, Calvinism. And then lastly,
00:10:11 I would say pettiness is maybe the way to say it. And what I mean by that is that your typical
00:10:21 independent fundamental Baptist is going to start a YouTube channel or just be a pastor
00:10:28 in his church of 50 people, but whether it's from the pulpit on the Lord's Day or whether
00:10:33 it's from a microphone on a podcast or whatever it is, in whatever public platform he has,
00:10:39 he's going to spend his blood, sweat, and tears railing, just railing on Lauren Daigle
00:10:48 and why she's not a Christian or Chris Tomlin and why him partnering with Joyce Meyer means
00:10:57 that we no longer can do any Chris Tomlin songs.
00:10:59 I don't do Chris Tomlin songs, never have, 0.94
00:11:01 because they suck, right? 0.72
00:11:03 Not because he partnered with Joyce Meyer. 0.99
00:11:04 That is a problem.
00:11:06 Don't get me wrong.
00:11:08 But I don't do Chris Tomlin songs
00:11:10 because, well, see point A.
00:11:12 I appreciate church history.
00:11:14 So I do Psalms, the Bible,
00:11:18 and then we also do tried and true
00:11:21 hundreds of years old hymns with good theology.
00:11:27 Um, we don't really do new songs because most new songs stink.
00:11:31 I'm not, you know, convictionally against new songs because, because you can write a
00:11:35 modern hymn that's good and use it.
00:11:38 Um, but anyways, all that being said, um, we live in a world that's mandating a poison
00:11:46 to be injected in your kids to go to school.
00:11:49 That's right on the cusp of that.
00:11:51 where we can't trust the integrity of our elections, where Arizona is counting ballots
00:12:00 for a week and the person who's running as a Democrat for governor is overseeing the election
00:12:07 process, right? Where we're going to have energy crises globally, globally, where we have people
00:12:18 who are putting forth propaganda for Ukraine as though it's not the money bag of the West,
00:12:24 but this incredibly noble and virtuous country with virtuous leaders and that are trying to
00:12:33 basically get us into a third world war, a nuclear war with China and the threats that it poses and
00:12:45 all these different sanctions and the way it affects trade, with communism, with Marxism, 0.52
00:12:50 with critical race theory, with tyranny and locking down churches because of COVID.
00:13:03 And you think the biggest issue is Lorne Daigle. I just think that's dumb. I think you're dumb. 0.99
00:13:10 and i think you're making other christians dumb i i don't think you're helping i don't now now 1.00
00:13:16 hear me i've talked about those things right so justin peters discernment minister right that 0.94
00:13:22 would kind of be the category of what he does in his ministry um he is first and foremost by his
00:13:26 own admission an expositional preacher of god's word and an evangelist he's not a local pastor
00:13:32 but an evangelist and that's a legitimate biblical category he travels to churches and he
00:13:36 expositionally preaches God's word. But he spends a lot of time also as a discernment minister
00:13:42 dealing with false teachers, primarily in the prosperity gospel group.
00:13:50 And I think that that's permissible. I think that we do need guys like that. And I've had
00:13:55 Justin Peters on my show and I've done episodes like that. And they're the most popular episodes,
00:14:00 bar none, right? If I want to get a ton of views, today's episode will not get a ton of views. It
00:14:04 won't. It'll get 1.5,000 views. I can call it right now. 1.5,000 views. Praise God for 1,500
00:14:09 people who are listening to the truth of God's word. I'm not frowning on that, but I'm just
00:14:15 saying if I wanted to get 100,000 views, then I can get Justin Peters on the show and we can talk
00:14:21 about Benny Hinn. That's just the way it goes. You guys know that's the way it goes. But my point
00:14:27 is I think talking about the questions that you guys are asking, which is why I appreciate these
00:14:32 Mondays? Because you ask good questions. You do. The question that we just did about the state
00:14:37 and marriage and codifying Obergefell into law with the Disrespect Marriage Act,
00:14:46 I think that's a more important question. I do. Now, don't get me wrong. The prosperity gospel
00:14:52 is a false gospel and it leads millions of people to hell. So it matters. It absolutely matters. 1.00
00:14:57 So praise God for Justin Peters, seriously.
00:15:00 But I think when an entire denomination, that won't call itself a denomination, but is,
00:15:06 when an entire group, that's one of the primary focuses of all of them.
00:15:12 See, the difference is with us within the Reformed world, yeah, we've got a couple Justin Peters.
00:15:16 And we love our Justin Peters.
00:15:18 We thank God for them.
00:15:20 And they specialize in a particular area.
00:15:23 Because it matters because like I said already, the prosperity gospel is a false gospel and
00:15:28 it sends millions of people to hell.
00:15:30 But that's not what everybody, every reformed pastor is doing, right?
00:15:34 We've got our Justin Peters, but then we also have our Jeff Durbins and our John MacArthur's
00:15:39 and our Doug Wilson's and our Joel Webbins.
00:15:42 And you know what I mean?
00:15:43 And so it's not like everybody in perfect sync with one another are just doing episode after
00:15:50 episode after episode on Stephen Furtick. Yeah, I think Stephen Furtick's a heretic.
00:15:57 Stephen Furtick is not helpful. He is harmful, actually, and people need to be aware.
00:16:03 But people also really need to be aware of what's going on in other areas, not just
00:16:10 in false churches. People don't only need to be aware. It can't be less, but certainly more
00:16:17 awareness. They can't only be aware of the problems of megachurches that are not actually
00:16:25 true churches. People also need to be aware of the civil realm. And I think the reform guys are
00:16:33 doing a good job talking about theology applied to the civil realm. Politics. Now, not all the
00:16:40 reform guys, because we also have a wing of the reformed church. They're brothers. They're just
00:16:45 wrong, but they're pietists. They're radical two kingdom guys and basically don't think that 0.96
00:16:50 Christians should be involved in the political sphere whatsoever. So we've got our faults as 0.87
00:16:56 well. But anyways, to answer your question, what's one thing I like about the independent
00:17:00 fundamental Baptists that get the gospel right? Now, you might be saying, well, how did they get
00:17:05 the gospel right if they're not Calvinist? Well, okay, that's a doozy, but here's the short version.
00:17:11 um charles spurgeon once said that calvinism is the gospel calvinism is the gospel and i don't
00:17:20 often disagree with spurgeon but i will in this case i don't believe that calvinism is the gospel
00:17:24 i believe that calvinism is the faithful accurate most helpful most true biblical theological
00:17:33 framework for presenting the gospel but i do believe that you can present a true gospel
00:17:40 that is sufficient to save, if the spirit gives faith and regenerates the heart along with the
00:17:47 preaching of that gospel, you can preach a sufficient gospel and a true gospel that saves
00:17:53 without being a Calvinist. You can do that as a provisionist, Leighton Flowers, right? I disagree
00:17:59 with Leighton on a lot of things, but Leighton Flowers, I do believe, preaches a true gospel.
00:18:06 Now, there are some moments in some of his videos and stuff, and I'm like,
00:18:09 ah, you know, that's getting really Pelagian, far more for my taste. It sounds more Pelagian 0.78
00:18:16 than it sounds provisionist, you know, and he would say, Joel, you're ignorant, and maybe he's 1.00
00:18:20 right. I'll say this, though, about Leighton, right? And this might get me in trouble because 0.96
00:18:27 I'm friends with, you know, James White and Jeff Durbin, guys who don't like Leighton.
00:18:33 But when my son was in the hospital for three days, struggling to breathe,
00:18:37 Layton Flowers texted me and said that his family in their family worship time prayed for my son's
00:18:42 healing. I don't know what to do with that except for say, thank you, Layton. So anyways, I do
00:18:50 believe that Layton Flowers is a brother. I think he's a wrong brother at times and more often than
00:18:58 I would like. I think he's an unhelpful brother, but I do think he's a brother in Christ. So my
00:19:03 point is, I would disagree with Spurgeon. I don't think Calvinism is the gospel. I think Calvinism
00:19:07 is vital. I think it's vital. But I think it's the correct framework for holding the gospel.
00:19:14 On the backdrop of the depravity of man, and I would say total depravity means total inability.
00:19:20 That's where me and Leighton would disagree. But the total depravity and inability of man,
00:19:25 not only will he not come, it's not that he just won't come to Christ, but he cannot. He cannot.
00:19:31 A man can't even see the kingdom of heaven, much less enter it unless he first be born again. 0.86
00:19:36 Regeneration precedes faith. 0.94
00:19:39 Regeneration precedes faith, right?
00:19:40 That's the crux of, you know, reformed theology.
00:19:43 And so that's something that Leighton and I would disagree on.
00:19:45 So I think my point is Calvinism, reformed theology, I think is paramount for presenting
00:19:50 the gospel.
00:19:51 It's the correct theological framework for holding this precious diamond of the gospel.
00:19:57 but I'm not willing to go so far as to say Calvinism is the gospel itself
00:20:04 because essentially I the logical implication of that statement is that if anyone is not a
00:20:10 Calvinist they don't have the gospel and Calvinism is important it's incredibly important I would say
00:20:18 out of secondary issues theological triage in the secondary rung because people you know people
00:20:24 aren't aware. They think primary, secondary, tertiary. What you need to know is that in each
00:20:29 of these categories, tertiary and primary and secondary especially, there are multiple shelves
00:20:35 within them. So I would say in the secondary category, Calvinism versus Arminianism is higher
00:20:42 than Credo versus Paedo-Baptism. But Credo versus Paedo-Baptism is not tertiary, and it's not
00:20:48 primary, it's secondary. And Calvinism versus Arminianism is not primary, it also is secondary.
00:20:55 And yet even within the second, both being in the second category, secondary category,
00:21:00 there are different rungs. Think of it as like a ladder. There's the top of the ladder,
00:21:04 the middle of the ladder, the bottom of the ladder, but multiple rungs in each of these
00:21:07 three sections. And so I think there are some secondary matters that are more important than
00:21:12 other, still secondary, but lesser secondary matters, if that makes sense. Calvinism, I think,
00:21:19 is the top rung, Reformed theology, the top rung, but of the secondary theological category,
00:21:26 if that makes sense. I won't put it in the primary. I won't because, you know, love me or
00:21:34 hate me for saying that. I just, I understand the logical implications and biblical implications of
00:21:40 doing that. And, uh, I don't think that it's true to say Calvinism is the gospel and therefore
00:21:47 primary. And therefore anybody who's not a Calvinist is going to hell. So all that being
00:21:52 said, um, my point is simply that, uh, are we still talking about independent fundamental
00:21:59 Baptist supposed to be Nathan? My point is there's a lot to talk about. And I think
00:22:06 independent fundamental Baptists are pigeonholed and truncated and narrow. And 0.91
00:22:14 sadly, I don't think they're going to help us fight. You know what? I'll get into over this.
00:22:21 I think independent fundamental Baptists are like the dwarves in Tolkien's Middle Earth. 0.97
00:22:27 They do some good work down in the mines, but the dwarves are for the dwarves. 0.99
00:22:36 They, you know, it's just like out here, like we're fighting Sauron, you know, the battle for 0.75
00:22:43 Middle Earth. Everything, you know, is threatened to implode and fall apart and be utterly and
00:22:48 completely destroyed. And, you know, we still got our problems too, but, you know, men are teaming
00:22:52 up with elves and, you know, and elves are teaming up with men and we've got, you know, this going on
00:22:56 and that going on. And we can't get the dwarves to come out of the mountain. And they're not bad
00:23:02 guys. They're not bad guys. They're just not always helpful guys. They've got their head in
00:23:08 the dark, in the mountain, mining for that false teacher, Stephen Furtick Gold. Thanks so much for
00:23:15 listening. But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five-star
00:23:21 review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this
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