The NXR Podcast - March 18, 2022


QUESTIONS - What Are Common Signs Your Pastor Lacks The Courage to Defy Tyrants？

Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Martin Luther Rachel Maddow Goliath David Revoice Aidy Voss
THEOLOGY APPLIED - Interracial Marriage, Black Hebrew Israelites, & Dispensationalism ｜ with Kris Williams BONUS - Social Justice vs. Biblical Justice

Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

183.1

Word count

1,322

Sentence count

64

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, we discuss what it means to be a Christian leader who lacks courage, and why it's important to have a leader who has the courage to stand up for truth and stand up against tyrants. What are common signs that your pastor or elders lack courage to lead and equip their flock, stand for truth, and love God and defy tyrants? A follow-up question: when should you consider leaving the church and finding another one?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
00:00:03.440 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,
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00:00:09.760 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do
00:00:12.880 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.
00:00:17.540 Thanks.
00:00:21.600 And what are common signs that your pastors or elders lack courage to lead
00:00:26.560 and equip their flock, stand for truth, and love God, and defy tyrants?
00:00:32.300 A follow-up question would be, if they lack courage,
00:00:34.220 when should you consider leaving the church and finding another one?
00:00:38.580 I think what Aidy talked about was probably the closest to the spirit of that question.
00:00:44.960 Yeah, no, I think, so this is a tough question
00:00:49.320 because I don't want to cause any trouble at your churches, right?
00:00:52.640 But the thing is, like, when your pastor's policies or opinions on controversial everyday issues are identical to MSNBC, except they sprinkle a little Jesus on top, that's a big sign.
00:01:05.760 You know what I mean?
00:01:06.380 That's a huge sign.
00:01:08.020 And when they don't show a willingness or even an ability to take a little time to think it through, you know, like, they just jump on it, that's a big sign.
00:01:18.520 And I think that you shouldn't just, at that point, you don't just leave, right?
00:01:22.220 And I think most of the people in this audience know that, right?
00:01:24.380 Have the conversation with the pastor, try to talk to him.
00:01:28.380 And I think that those conversations, sometimes they go really poorly.
00:01:33.080 Sometimes they go really well.
00:01:34.780 But I think it's in those conversations when you realize his willingness to sort of stand up to some of this stuff.
00:01:41.640 It's in the kind of back and forth, the questions, hearing them out, where you find that kind of thing.
00:01:46.780 But my thing is, like, so many guys sound like me.
00:01:51.540 It could be, what's that woman with the short hair on MSNBC?
00:01:55.520 Rachel Maddow. 1.00
00:01:56.300 Maddow.
00:01:56.760 Like, they sound like Maddow, and they kind of look like her, too.
00:02:00.720 I should have said that.
00:02:04.140 Except they're, you know, they have Bible verses for it.
00:02:07.260 So it's just weird.
00:02:08.200 It's weird.
00:02:09.280 So I would add to that, kind of like the quote that I think I shared in my talk,
00:02:13.060 but the Martin Luther quote, right?
00:02:14.900 Did I say that in my talk?
00:02:16.780 the Martin Luther quote? Oh, it was to you guys. Yeah. So the Martin Luther quote that I really
00:02:20.960 like, and we talked about it in our recording yesterday, but it says, and I'm going to do my
00:02:25.600 best to paraphrase. I don't have it memorized, but it says, wherever the battle rages, the fiercest
00:02:31.260 there, the loyalty of the soldier is tried. If he is faithful in every battlefield across the
00:02:38.680 gambit, but he flinches, he fails at that one point that is currently being contested.
00:02:45.680 He is not professing Christ.
00:02:48.520 And so what I would say is, and I'll be frank.
00:02:53.320 It's like what AD said.
00:02:54.840 He's like going to a Baptist church as a Presbyterian.
00:02:57.340 And the reason why is like some of the Presbyterian guys,
00:03:00.220 some of the PCA, you know, Revoice and stuff like that,
00:03:03.260 not all PCA churches, but then there's like OPC.
00:03:06.460 I love the OPC.
00:03:07.480 I really do.
00:03:09.180 And, you know, the Vantillion, the Voss,
00:03:11.380 rich treasure troves of doctrine.
00:03:14.820 But for me, as a Reformed Baptist, 35 years old, it's like I've got like two cylinders,
00:03:20.740 but I'm firing on both of them constantly, right?
00:03:23.540 And there's other guys who have got like a V12, but all they do is rev it up in the driveway
00:03:28.080 and they never go anywhere.
00:03:30.800 And so my thing is, if you're Vantillian, right, and you're presuppositional, and you're OPC,
00:03:37.000 and you've got a podcast, and you've got lectures, and you've got dissertations,
00:03:40.340 but you have a mass service and no singing, you failed.
00:03:47.400 So my point is, how do you test courage with a pastor?
00:03:50.200 It's not just, don't just look at comprehensive theology.
00:03:53.560 He affirms the Trinity, he's a Calvinist, he checks all these theological boxes.
00:03:57.380 See which doctrine is currently under fire.
00:04:00.800 Does he flinch at the point that is currently contested?
00:04:04.720 That's currently contested. 0.99
00:04:06.380 If he flinches there, he's a coward.
00:04:09.160 And so what I would say is that true courage is willing to fight Goliath before David kills him.
00:04:18.220 So when the armies of Israel run after the Philistines after David is holding Goliath's head in the air, that's not courage.
00:04:26.980 And so I think there's a lot of guys who it's a thin veneer.
00:04:30.680 It's a fake courage, a pseudo courage, counterfeit courage.
00:04:33.520 that what they do is they go around to giants that have already been slain in a circle and
00:04:38.880 they're kicking them and spitting on them reviling them you know so so right like so toxic masculinity
00:04:43.980 like are there actually men who abuse women and abuse children yes yes is that though is that 0.96
00:04:52.740 the giant of this hour is is our problem abusive masculinity or is our problem jezebel
00:05:01.040 in feminism, right? So, so what you have is, but there was a time when that was pervasive.
00:05:07.240 Yeah. And you're 50 years too late, right? So if you're Amazon prime, you say, uh, elevating black
00:05:11.960 voices, that would have been great 50 years ago. That would have been courageous. It's not courageous
00:05:17.220 now. It's not courageous now. And, and so that, that's what I would say is courage is not just
00:05:22.500 fighting against actual sin and actual problems, but it's fighting over, over the giant that's
00:05:28.680 still at large, the one on the wanted poster who hasn't been brought, brought in yet that that's
00:05:34.300 courage. And, and, but like AD said, um, don't just get up and leave, challenge your pastor to
00:05:39.820 be courageous and see how he responds. But if he responds poorly, um, then I think you can leave
00:05:44.920 respective respectfully, but do him a loving service. Tell him why the Lord might use it.
00:05:50.700 You know, I had to face this with my wife, uh, at a church. So, um, I'll just very briefly say
00:05:57.660 there's a number of questions that I had to ask myself. This is the main one. And this is what I
00:06:03.060 tell people who are in this predicament, especially, and it's tailored for guys, but if you're a mother
00:06:08.000 and, and, you know, the situation, uh, you know, it pertains to you, you know, it may, but so if a
00:06:14.020 guy comes to me, it's like, I don't know about this church. I usually ask him, okay, well, like, what
00:06:17.700 if you died tomorrow and your wife and your kids are still going to this church? And so, and if
00:06:23.480 you're a single mom or something, you know, what if your kids are there? These shepherds are
00:06:26.860 responsible for the spiritual development of your children, of your wife. Would you be comfortable
00:06:32.300 with that? Would you entrust the pastors there to do that? And if the answer is no, if you can't
00:06:37.800 trust them, then I think you have your answer. Like you shouldn't be going there because that's
00:06:41.880 their whole purpose is to watch over your souls and the souls of your family. So if you have to
00:06:46.780 like everything they say, you have to have a conversation about or correct what the pastor
00:06:51.840 just said to your children, then you're at the wrong church. It's pretty simple in my mind.
00:06:56.000 thanks so much for listening but real quick before you go do us a small favor take a moment and leave
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