The NXR Podcast - January 07, 2023


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


Episode Stats


Length

23 minutes

Words per minute

164.59966

Word count

3,871

Sentence count

230

Harmful content

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

18

sentences flagged


Summary

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

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 .
00:00:00.000 All right, listen, guys, I get it.
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00:00:40.020 question from guian the baptist i am ifb okay so independent fundamental baptist here we go
00:00:50.520 but i greatly appreciate your ministry all right well didn't see that coming out of curiosity can
00:00:55.880 you name one thing you like about, that I like, wow, that's tough. Okay. One thing that you like
00:01:03.880 about independent fundamental Baptist. Also, what is the biggest problem? That one's easier
00:01:09.160 with independent fundamental Baptist. In your opinion, God bless you, Pastor Joel Webin. You
00:01:13.700 know what, again, I like you. Thanks. That was very charitable and very kind. So independent
00:01:20.680 fundamental Baptists. One thing that... Let me start with what I don't like. For one, I do believe 0.97
00:01:31.200 that independent... So I should set the record straight. Independent... Okay, here's the one
00:01:35.940 thing I like. So I'll start with that. One thing I like is that they preach the gospel of Jesus
00:01:39.460 Christ. And they preach that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone,
00:01:44.000 according to the scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. So an independent fundamental Baptist
00:01:49.900 would be able to affirm and would, they may not even be aware, you know, many of them because
00:01:54.720 they get some of the stuff I don't like. They kind of poo-poo all over church history and creeds and
00:02:00.600 confessions and anything like that. You know, independent fundamental Baptist is your quintessential
00:02:04.700 no creed but Christ, right? And then you ask the, you know, the obvious follow-up question, 0.93
00:02:09.140 who is Christ? Well, Christ is the only begotten son of God who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
00:02:15.180 and born of the Virgin Mary.
00:02:16.460 He has two natures.
00:02:17.600 He's fully God and fully man.
00:02:19.840 You know, he suffered under Pontius Pilate.
00:02:21.920 You just wrote a creed, dude, right? 0.79
00:02:23.800 So, you know, so it's silly, you know,
00:02:26.540 like just give me the Bible, right?
00:02:28.380 It's like, okay, but so that we don't have to quote
00:02:31.180 all 1,500 pages of the Bible every single time
00:02:33.660 we tell someone what we believe.
00:02:35.560 Could we summarize any of this?
00:02:37.860 You know, could we say that, you know,
00:02:39.720 the Bible holds to this doctrine and this doctrine?
00:02:42.580 And for the record, independent fundamental Baptists
00:02:44.960 are not against doctrines. But they're not big fans of historic doctrines. I don't think that
00:02:51.440 they give the proper credence to church history. For the record, you know, sola scriptura, right?
00:02:57.340 Scripture alone. So in the five solos, sola scriptura, I'm reformed, confessionally reformed,
00:03:03.260 historically reformed. And so I would affirm, of course, sola scriptura. But what do we mean by
00:03:09.340 sola scriptura? We don't mean, let me start with that, we don't mean that scripture is the only
00:03:14.700 authority because scripture itself tells us there are other authorities. So when we say
00:03:20.760 sola scriptura, scripture alone, we're not saying scripture is the only authority. We're saying that
00:03:25.380 scripture is the highest authority and the only infallible authority. All other authorities err,
00:03:32.380 meaning they're fallible. They make mistakes. And so scripture is the only infallible authority
00:03:37.900 and it is of course the highest authority but there are inferior authorities that are still
00:03:45.240 authority subservient authorities to scripture that err because scripture alone does not err
00:03:50.520 scripture alone is infallible but these other lesser authorities are still important we believe
00:03:55.020 in the authority of fathers we believe in the authority of the civil magistrate we believe in
00:03:58.680 the authority of pastors and independent fundamental baptists certainly believe in
00:04:03.640 ecclesiastical authority today. They just don't believe in yesterday's ecclesiastical authority.
00:04:08.660 So they believe in the authority of their local pastor, Jim, you know, who's been alive for a
00:04:13.100 robust 46 years, you know, and has been preaching for 12. But they don't recognize, you know,
00:04:19.500 much authority when it comes to St. Augustine, right? Or Calvin or, you know, whatever, Zwingli
00:04:25.720 or Luther, you know, go down the line. So things that I don't like about, you know, what I do like
00:04:31.220 is that they absolutely affirm the gospel of Jesus Christ.
00:04:34.360 And they preach it.
00:04:35.260 And I think they preach it faithfully.
00:04:36.420 And I think a ton of people have been saved
00:04:37.900 in the independent fundamental Baptist world.
00:04:41.140 And so I thank God for that.
00:04:42.520 But the problem is I think that they detach themselves too much
00:04:45.620 from the larger witness of church history
00:04:47.940 that God has placed us in.
00:04:49.420 God doesn't place us in a vacuum.
00:04:52.280 One of the things that I've learned over the years is this.
00:04:55.700 You read the book of Acts, right?
00:04:56.980 And a lot of people, let's get back to the book of Acts.
00:04:58.940 You know, Charismatics want to get back to the book of Acts
00:05:01.020 because they want all the spiritual gifts. And independent fundamental Baptists, you know,
00:05:07.060 want to get back to the book of Acts because they want, you know, the pure, you know,
00:05:12.240 biblical doctrine that hasn't been perverted by, you know, saints throughout the ages and those
00:05:17.600 kinds of things and ecumenical councils and creeds and synods and, you know, and so people want to
00:05:22.880 get back to the book of Acts for different reasons. I don't want to get back to the book of Acts.
00:05:26.620 I don't. I don't believe that we as Christians today in 2022 are the lesser sons of former
00:05:35.420 sires. I don't believe that that is God's overarching redemptive plan throughout history.
00:05:42.360 I don't believe that we nailed it in the first century and it's all been downhill from there.
00:05:50.380 I believe that the church is growing and not just numerically, but in its strength. 0.81
00:05:55.380 As God in his providence and sovereignty raises up heretics, he uses that for the church to 0.85
00:06:02.160 sharpen its doctrine. For the first 500 years of church history, the church sharpened its doctrine 0.93
00:06:07.660 on the hypostatic union, theology proper, really the first thousand years, if we're going to pan
00:06:14.120 out and talk about theology proper at a larger level, not just the hypostatic union and the two
00:06:20.020 natures of Christ, but understanding the Trinity, Trinitarian doctrine and processions of the
00:06:27.400 Spirit from the Father and the Son and these kinds of things. This has been nailed out because of
00:06:32.580 heresy that caused the church to go back to the scripture and sharpen its doctrine of God. For
00:06:38.740 a thousand years, we nailed out theology proper. The next thousand years, I think what we've really
00:06:44.340 been nailing out, the Reformation being a big piece of this 500 years ago, but what we really
00:06:49.700 nailed out was the doctrine of justification, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone,
00:06:55.540 according to the scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. So you've got first thousand years,
00:07:00.000 theology proper, doctrine of God. Then you've got the next thousand years, salvation, gospel,
00:07:05.640 with the emphasis on justification, justification by faith alone. And I think that as the church
00:07:14.620 continues to grow both numerically, but also in its theological rigor and strength, its resilience.
00:07:22.600 I'm hoping that in the next thousand years, that one of the things that we'll nail out is
00:07:26.440 a theological, political theology, a civil theology, theology applied, particularly to
00:07:35.980 the civil realm, which some of this has been done already for us. Protestant resistance theory,
00:07:41.260 the Black Road Regiment, John Knox. Calvin's done some work on this. Luther did some bad work on
00:07:47.020 this. I'm grateful for Luther and his work with the gospel. He got the ball rolling, but everyone
00:07:52.100 is a product of their time. Nobody's doing theology in a vacuum. That's what I'm getting at.
00:07:56.260 We've all been placed by God in a particular time, amongst a particular people, in a particular
00:08:00.800 place. We don't do theology in a vacuum. And I don't think it's a benefit to the church
00:08:06.840 to reinvent the wheel and to start from scratch with the work of theology in each generation.
00:08:13.740 The way that we progress is by standing on the shoulders of giants and going beyond them,
00:08:17.660 not because we're bigger and better and smarter and holier, but because they pave the way for us
00:08:23.320 so that we can simply stand on their shoulders and go further. I think that that is a benefit.
00:08:29.040 I think when we discount what has already been done and we have to do it all ourselves from
00:08:36.180 scratch, start at the beginning, I think we waste our lives. I really do. And so independent
00:08:41.400 fundamental Baptists, I think, have a poor view of church history, a lack of appreciation.
00:08:47.560 Sola Scriptura means that scripture is the only infallible authority, so church history is not
00:08:51.200 infallible, and it's the highest authority, which means church history is subservient to the
00:08:55.900 authority of scripture. But that doesn't mean church history being a lesser authority and
00:09:01.620 a fallible authority doesn't mean that it has no authority, and it doesn't mean that it's not
00:09:06.180 immensely helpful, because it is immensely helpful. So their view of creeds, councils, synods,
00:09:13.280 church history, that's a problem. And then, of course, their view of Calvinism. Independent
00:09:18.880 fundamental Baptists hate Calvinism, and many of them, not all of them, but many of them would say
00:09:23.460 that Calvinism is another gospel, and a false gospel, a heresy. So they would actually say
00:09:28.740 that R.C. Sproul is a heretic. John MacArthur is a heretic. Joel Webin is a heretic. So I'm not a
00:09:35.500 big fan of that. Independent fundamental Baptists, right, are, which is why the question surprised me
00:09:41.080 because of the charitable tone in the question. Independent fundamental Baptists are typically
00:09:47.540 known as the least charitable people on the planet. They're the only people that have the truth. 1.00
00:09:53.520 Everybody else is a heretic. And that kind of gets in the last thing that I don't like about
00:09:58.380 them. So what do I like? The gospel. They get the gospel right. But last thing that I don't like
00:10:04.100 about them is view of church history, view of reformed theology, Calvinism. And then lastly,
00:10:11.000 I would say pettiness is maybe the way to say it. And what I mean by that is that your typical
00:10:21.180 independent fundamental Baptist is going to start a YouTube channel or just be a pastor
00:10:28.180 in his church of 50 people, but whether it's from the pulpit on the Lord's Day or whether
00:10:33.260 it's from a microphone on a podcast or whatever it is, in whatever public platform he has,
00:10:39.280 he's going to spend his blood, sweat, and tears railing, just railing on Lauren Daigle
00:10:48.540 and why she's not a Christian or Chris Tomlin and why him partnering with Joyce Meyer means
00:10:57.100 that we no longer can do any Chris Tomlin songs.
00:10:59.740 I don't do Chris Tomlin songs, never have, 0.94
00:11:01.740 because they suck, right? 0.72
00:11:03.340 Not because he partnered with Joyce Meyer. 0.99
00:11:04.900 That is a problem.
00:11:06.020 Don't get me wrong.
00:11:08.260 But I don't do Chris Tomlin songs
00:11:10.320 because, well, see point A.
00:11:12.560 I appreciate church history.
00:11:14.580 So I do Psalms, the Bible,
00:11:18.120 and then we also do tried and true
00:11:21.600 hundreds of years old hymns with good theology.
00:11:27.100 Um, we don't really do new songs because most new songs stink.
00:11:31.240 I'm not, you know, convictionally against new songs because, because you can write a
00:11:35.980 modern hymn that's good and use it.
00:11:38.720 Um, but anyways, all that being said, um, we live in a world that's mandating a poison
00:11:46.920 to be injected in your kids to go to school.
00:11:49.860 That's right on the cusp of that.
00:11:51.540 where we can't trust the integrity of our elections, where Arizona is counting ballots
00:12:00.540 for a week and the person who's running as a Democrat for governor is overseeing the election
00:12:07.820 process, right? Where we're going to have energy crises globally, globally, where we have people
00:12:18.600 who are putting forth propaganda for Ukraine as though it's not the money bag of the West,
00:12:24.960 but this incredibly noble and virtuous country with virtuous leaders and that are trying to
00:12:33.860 basically get us into a third world war, a nuclear war with China and the threats that it poses and
00:12:45.940 all these different sanctions and the way it affects trade, with communism, with Marxism, 0.52
00:12:50.980 with critical race theory, with tyranny and locking down churches because of COVID.
00:13:03.120 And you think the biggest issue is Lorne Daigle. I just think that's dumb. I think you're dumb. 0.99
00:13:10.180 and i think you're making other christians dumb i i don't think you're helping i don't now now 1.00
00:13:16.800 hear me i've talked about those things right so justin peters discernment minister right that 0.94
00:13:22.120 would kind of be the category of what he does in his ministry um he is first and foremost by his
00:13:26.980 own admission an expositional preacher of god's word and an evangelist he's not a local pastor
00:13:32.360 but an evangelist and that's a legitimate biblical category he travels to churches and he
00:13:36.640 expositionally preaches God's word. But he spends a lot of time also as a discernment minister
00:13:42.160 dealing with false teachers, primarily in the prosperity gospel group.
00:13:50.400 And I think that that's permissible. I think that we do need guys like that. And I've had
00:13:55.860 Justin Peters on my show and I've done episodes like that. And they're the most popular episodes,
00:14:00.200 bar none, right? If I want to get a ton of views, today's episode will not get a ton of views. It
00:14:04.280 won't. It'll get 1.5,000 views. I can call it right now. 1.5,000 views. Praise God for 1,500
00:14:09.520 people who are listening to the truth of God's word. I'm not frowning on that, but I'm just
00:14:15.160 saying if I wanted to get 100,000 views, then I can get Justin Peters on the show and we can talk
00:14:21.300 about Benny Hinn. That's just the way it goes. You guys know that's the way it goes. But my point
00:14:27.900 is I think talking about the questions that you guys are asking, which is why I appreciate these
00:14:32.720 Mondays? Because you ask good questions. You do. The question that we just did about the state
00:14:37.980 and marriage and codifying Obergefell into law with the Disrespect Marriage Act,
00:14:46.240 I think that's a more important question. I do. Now, don't get me wrong. The prosperity gospel
00:14:52.120 is a false gospel and it leads millions of people to hell. So it matters. It absolutely matters. 1.00
00:14:57.380 So praise God for Justin Peters, seriously.
00:15:00.740 But I think when an entire denomination, that won't call itself a denomination, but is,
00:15:06.460 when an entire group, that's one of the primary focuses of all of them.
00:15:12.020 See, the difference is with us within the Reformed world, yeah, we've got a couple Justin Peters.
00:15:16.980 And we love our Justin Peters.
00:15:18.720 We thank God for them.
00:15:20.020 And they specialize in a particular area.
00:15:23.180 Because it matters because like I said already, the prosperity gospel is a false gospel and
00:15:28.040 it sends millions of people to hell.
00:15:30.700 But that's not what everybody, every reformed pastor is doing, right?
00:15:34.720 We've got our Justin Peters, but then we also have our Jeff Durbins and our John MacArthur's
00:15:39.840 and our Doug Wilson's and our Joel Webbins.
00:15:42.360 And you know what I mean?
00:15:43.560 And so it's not like everybody in perfect sync with one another are just doing episode after
00:15:50.900 episode after episode on Stephen Furtick. Yeah, I think Stephen Furtick's a heretic.
00:15:57.740 Stephen Furtick is not helpful. He is harmful, actually, and people need to be aware.
00:16:03.120 But people also really need to be aware of what's going on in other areas, not just
00:16:10.140 in false churches. People don't only need to be aware. It can't be less, but certainly more
00:16:17.620 awareness. They can't only be aware of the problems of megachurches that are not actually
00:16:25.220 true churches. People also need to be aware of the civil realm. And I think the reform guys are
00:16:33.500 doing a good job talking about theology applied to the civil realm. Politics. Now, not all the
00:16:40.960 reform guys, because we also have a wing of the reformed church. They're brothers. They're just
00:16:45.660 wrong, but they're pietists. They're radical two kingdom guys and basically don't think that 0.96
00:16:50.080 Christians should be involved in the political sphere whatsoever. So we've got our faults as 0.87
00:16:56.000 well. But anyways, to answer your question, what's one thing I like about the independent
00:17:00.200 fundamental Baptists that get the gospel right? Now, you might be saying, well, how did they get
00:17:05.620 the gospel right if they're not Calvinist? Well, okay, that's a doozy, but here's the short version.
00:17:11.440 um charles spurgeon once said that calvinism is the gospel calvinism is the gospel and i don't
00:17:20.180 often disagree with spurgeon but i will in this case i don't believe that calvinism is the gospel
00:17:24.960 i believe that calvinism is the faithful accurate most helpful most true biblical theological
00:17:33.800 framework for presenting the gospel but i do believe that you can present a true gospel
00:17:40.440 that is sufficient to save, if the spirit gives faith and regenerates the heart along with the
00:17:47.040 preaching of that gospel, you can preach a sufficient gospel and a true gospel that saves
00:17:53.080 without being a Calvinist. You can do that as a provisionist, Leighton Flowers, right? I disagree
00:17:59.540 with Leighton on a lot of things, but Leighton Flowers, I do believe, preaches a true gospel.
00:18:06.080 Now, there are some moments in some of his videos and stuff, and I'm like,
00:18:09.500 ah, you know, that's getting really Pelagian, far more for my taste. It sounds more Pelagian 0.78
00:18:16.040 than it sounds provisionist, you know, and he would say, Joel, you're ignorant, and maybe he's 1.00
00:18:20.700 right. I'll say this, though, about Leighton, right? And this might get me in trouble because 0.96
00:18:27.700 I'm friends with, you know, James White and Jeff Durbin, guys who don't like Leighton.
00:18:33.600 But when my son was in the hospital for three days, struggling to breathe,
00:18:37.220 Layton Flowers texted me and said that his family in their family worship time prayed for my son's
00:18:42.340 healing. I don't know what to do with that except for say, thank you, Layton. So anyways, I do
00:18:50.920 believe that Layton Flowers is a brother. I think he's a wrong brother at times and more often than
00:18:58.100 I would like. I think he's an unhelpful brother, but I do think he's a brother in Christ. So my
00:19:03.000 point is, I would disagree with Spurgeon. I don't think Calvinism is the gospel. I think Calvinism
00:19:07.300 is vital. I think it's vital. But I think it's the correct framework for holding the gospel.
00:19:14.600 On the backdrop of the depravity of man, and I would say total depravity means total inability.
00:19:20.660 That's where me and Leighton would disagree. But the total depravity and inability of man,
00:19:25.740 not only will he not come, it's not that he just won't come to Christ, but he cannot. He cannot.
00:19:31.200 A man can't even see the kingdom of heaven, much less enter it unless he first be born again. 0.86
00:19:36.640 Regeneration precedes faith. 0.94
00:19:39.640 Regeneration precedes faith, right?
00:19:40.900 That's the crux of, you know, reformed theology.
00:19:43.280 And so that's something that Leighton and I would disagree on.
00:19:45.100 So I think my point is Calvinism, reformed theology, I think is paramount for presenting
00:19:50.900 the gospel.
00:19:51.800 It's the correct theological framework for holding this precious diamond of the gospel.
00:19:57.220 but I'm not willing to go so far as to say Calvinism is the gospel itself
00:20:04.120 because essentially I the logical implication of that statement is that if anyone is not a
00:20:10.880 Calvinist they don't have the gospel and Calvinism is important it's incredibly important I would say
00:20:18.700 out of secondary issues theological triage in the secondary rung because people you know people
00:20:24.840 aren't aware. They think primary, secondary, tertiary. What you need to know is that in each
00:20:29.100 of these categories, tertiary and primary and secondary especially, there are multiple shelves
00:20:35.720 within them. So I would say in the secondary category, Calvinism versus Arminianism is higher
00:20:42.380 than Credo versus Paedo-Baptism. But Credo versus Paedo-Baptism is not tertiary, and it's not
00:20:48.820 primary, it's secondary. And Calvinism versus Arminianism is not primary, it also is secondary.
00:20:55.480 And yet even within the second, both being in the second category, secondary category,
00:21:00.240 there are different rungs. Think of it as like a ladder. There's the top of the ladder,
00:21:04.620 the middle of the ladder, the bottom of the ladder, but multiple rungs in each of these
00:21:07.920 three sections. And so I think there are some secondary matters that are more important than
00:21:12.520 other, still secondary, but lesser secondary matters, if that makes sense. Calvinism, I think,
00:21:19.380 is the top rung, Reformed theology, the top rung, but of the secondary theological category,
00:21:26.560 if that makes sense. I won't put it in the primary. I won't because, you know, love me or
00:21:34.320 hate me for saying that. I just, I understand the logical implications and biblical implications of
00:21:40.180 doing that. And, uh, I don't think that it's true to say Calvinism is the gospel and therefore
00:21:47.160 primary. And therefore anybody who's not a Calvinist is going to hell. So all that being
00:21:52.260 said, um, my point is simply that, uh, are we still talking about independent fundamental
00:21:59.600 Baptist supposed to be Nathan? My point is there's a lot to talk about. And I think
00:22:06.520 independent fundamental Baptists are pigeonholed and truncated and narrow. And 0.91
00:22:14.240 sadly, I don't think they're going to help us fight. You know what? I'll get into over this.
00:22:21.760 I think independent fundamental Baptists are like the dwarves in Tolkien's Middle Earth. 0.97
00:22:27.880 They do some good work down in the mines, but the dwarves are for the dwarves. 0.99
00:22:36.520 They, you know, it's just like out here, like we're fighting Sauron, you know, the battle for 0.75
00:22:43.620 Middle Earth. Everything, you know, is threatened to implode and fall apart and be utterly and
00:22:48.160 completely destroyed. And, you know, we still got our problems too, but, you know, men are teaming
00:22:52.320 up with elves and, you know, and elves are teaming up with men and we've got, you know, this going on
00:22:56.080 and that going on. And we can't get the dwarves to come out of the mountain. And they're not bad
00:23:02.940 guys. They're not bad guys. They're just not always helpful guys. They've got their head in
00:23:08.240 the dark, in the mountain, mining for that false teacher, Stephen Furtick Gold. Thanks so much for
00:23:15.220 listening. But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five-star
00:23:21.020 review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this
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