The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW - A Simple Primer For Family Worship with David Reece

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host, Pastor Joel

00:00:03.480 Webbin with Right Response Ministries, and in this episode, we are continuing a multiple-part

00:00:07.960 series with Mr. David Reese. He is the CEO of Armored Republic. He's also the senior pastor

00:00:14.160 of Puritan Reformed Church. The two of us have struck up a friendship, and we're doing a multiple-part

00:00:20.740 series on the goodness of God's law. We're talking about theonomy, general equity theonomy. We're

00:00:25.680 also talking about sphere sovereignty, talking about the household, talking about the church,

00:00:30.300 and talking about the civil magistrates. And in this particular episode, this is part three. So

00:00:35.240 you have to go back if you want to check out some of the other episodes. This is part three,

00:00:38.380 and we're going to be talking about in this episode, hospitality and leading not only your

00:00:44.000 own family, but other families as you welcome them in hospitality, leading them in family worship,

00:00:50.460 catechizing the children, gearing and orienting the hearts of the family and other families as

00:00:55.660 well around the throne of god in our homes using our homes as outposts for the kingdom of god and

00:01:01.820 for worship tune in now applying god's word to every aspect of life this is theology applied

00:01:15.660 all right welcome back to another episode of theology applied i am your host pastor joel

00:01:19.260 webin with right response ministries and i'm welcoming back to the show this is our third

00:01:23.660 episode now, Mr. David Reese. Thanks for joining us. Brother, thanks for having me on. I appreciate

00:01:29.000 it. I'm excited to be able to talk about hospitality and Christian power and the

00:01:33.780 division of labor in the church and some of the neat related themes today. So thanks for having

00:01:38.160 me on to discuss these things. Absolutely. So for those of you who are tuning in, you haven't seen

00:01:42.220 the first two episodes, we're basically doing a series over the course of this year. The goal is

00:01:46.260 to have eight episodes or so throughout the year, every five, six weeks. I'm having David come back

00:01:51.660 on to talk about, well, a lot of things, but part of it is Christians exercising power. 0.99

00:01:57.280 The post-war consensus, you could call it that, you could call it boomer con theology, 0.87

00:02:01.380 you could call it a whole bunch of things, hangover from the enlightenment or the fruition 0.55

00:02:05.400 of the enlightenment. But Christians, I think particularly Protestants and evangelicals,

00:02:10.080 even more specifically today, seem to view power as though it's icky. Oh, that's icky power. 0.92

00:02:16.620 Whereas the Bible doesn't teach that you can use power for wicked and evil purposes

00:02:21.120 but the righteous should take up that crown in the gutter and wear it on their head proudly and

00:02:27.320 wield the sword for the glory of King Jesus in righteous manner. So power is not icky. Power is

00:02:31.900 not inherently wrong or necessarily right, but it can be wielded in righteous ways. It must be

00:02:37.940 wielded in righteous ways. And to do otherwise, to simply forsake power in a kind of a voluntary

00:02:45.540 way of shooting yourself in the foot is actually, it's like the servant that buried the talent in

00:02:52.020 the sand. It's actually, and that servant is not called by the master a fearful servant.

00:02:58.260 He's called a wicked servant. And so we're called to exercise power for King Jesus.

00:03:02.680 There's a lot of things that we're talking about, but that's one of the big ones is in the household,

00:03:05.900 in the sphere of the state, in the church, in all these different ways, how are we as Christians to

00:03:10.960 be involved in all these things, exercising power in righteous ways for the expansion of Christ's

00:03:17.200 kingdom. And so if you want to check out some of the previous episodes, go back and do that.

00:03:22.080 But this is episode three in a multiple part series. And today, David, go ahead and take it

00:03:28.040 away. And one thing you touched on briefly, there's this idea of the wicked and lazy servant.

00:03:33.780 You talked about how he's not called fearful, but isn't it interesting how fear is actually sin if

00:03:39.100 we're fearing the wrong things, right? They were called to fear the Lord and we're called to not

00:03:42.940 fear the world or to fear the enemies of the Lord, but trust that he is with us, right? So this,

00:03:47.740 you see over and over this theme of, you know, don't be afraid or do be courageous. And then

00:03:52.000 this promise of God being with us and the association with this idea of sort of, we're

00:03:56.840 supposed to conquer whatever the thing is that he's sending us to deal with, right? So that,

00:04:00.680 that idea that, that, that, that fear itself is wicked. Like you pointed out,

00:04:05.180 um, I think is a really, uh, really important thing for people to grab hold of. So thanks for

00:04:09.400 laying it out. Yeah. That parable just want one extra thing to add. All right. So this is Charles

00:04:13.240 Spurgeon. So take it with a grain of salt. I love Spurgeon, but he's, um, he'll take two words of a

00:04:18.080 text, you know, and like sometimes if you're, I'm all for expositional preaching, but it's sometimes

00:04:23.480 if you're tech, my text today is two words, the Lord, what does it mean to be Lord? And what does

00:04:28.500 it mean the Lord? And what it like, and you know, and so anyway, so Spurgeon, you know, he has a

00:04:33.700 great, great, great stuff. But I think- I would listen to that sermon from Spurgeon.

00:04:39.320 Yeah, from Spurgeon, exactly. But somebody else, you might be in trouble. So every now and then,

00:04:43.280 I'm like, okay, Charles, I don't know how you got there. But most of the time, I think he's right

00:04:47.200 on. And on that particular parable, one of the things he talks about, he says that it's the

00:04:50.840 wicked servant rather than the fearful servant, because the master calls him on his bluff. The

00:04:57.120 master knows that he's lying. He says, the guy says, I knew you to be a hard master, reaping

00:05:03.300 where you did not sow and you know and the master's not agreeing with him he's not saying oh well you

00:05:07.640 know like if you knew me to be that which i actually am i objectively am that type of mess

00:05:12.320 he never consents to it he's not saying i am that type where has god ever reaped that he hasn't

00:05:17.380 sowed every everything that he owns the cattle on a thousand hills so he's he's sown everywhere

00:05:21.980 there is no harvest where the lord has not sown and the lord hasn't caused the growth and so he's

00:05:26.660 not consenting uh to the the narrative of this wicked servant and saying oh i am a cruel master

00:05:32.180 What he's saying in his response, when the servant says, well, I was afraid, you know, because I knew you to be cruel and I knew you to be this and that he's saying, well, if you, all right, let's just, I'll concede the argument for a moment. Let's just, let's just say that you actually did think that if you thought that this is how a servant, a truly fearful servant who misjudged my character as being cruel and stingy, this is how he would have behaved.

00:05:55.420 he would have at bare minimum invested my wealth with the bankers so that he could give at least

00:06:01.520 a partial return. But what you did, this wasn't fear of losing the investment because there were

00:06:08.920 safe investments that could have been made where it wouldn't have been lost and you would have got

00:06:12.440 at least a small return. No, you buried it in the sand to spite me. You didn't want to give me

00:06:19.100 anything. It's not that you're the fearful servant. You are the wicked servant. You weren't afraid of

00:06:24.780 me. You hate me and I hate you. So depart, you know, like that's, and you can see that, like, 1.00

00:06:31.340 I mean, there are genuine reasons for Christians today to be afraid. We live in a world that's

00:06:35.920 riddled with sin and we have wicked leaders. And, um, but you can, if you, if you're crafty,

00:06:41.380 if you're, you know, as innocent as doves and as shrewd as serpents, uh, you can look at a

00:06:46.100 person's behavior and the way that they live in the world. And you can tell, um, is this person

00:06:50.360 actually, is this actually fear? Because the fearful person will still do something. They'll

00:06:54.960 hedge their bets, right? They'll take the safer course of action, but they still take some action.

00:07:00.160 But the person who's, there's a difference between someone who's risk averse to where they won't

00:07:07.240 take a certain level of risk that could produce more for the master out of fear, but they're still

00:07:12.840 trying to do something. That's a very different person than the person who won't invest anything

00:07:18.040 of the gifts and the talents and the treasures that the master has given him, that's not a

00:07:21.940 fearful person. That's a person who doesn't want to give a dime in return to the master's investment

00:07:26.760 because they actually hate the master. That's not fearfulness. That's just pure wickedness.

00:07:32.400 Right. Not seeking to glorify God as we ought, right? That's the suppressing of that truth and

00:07:36.400 unrighteousness. And so you have this, and that's the root sin, right? The root sin of man is this

00:07:42.760 failure to seek, failure to know, failure to understand, failure to then do righteousness

00:07:47.480 coming out of that. And so we are conceived in unbelief and do not glorify God as we ought.

00:07:55.480 We go, you know, we take our ball home. We put the talents in the ground, right? And I think

00:08:00.840 that is a great illustration of that. So thanks for drawing that out. I think, by the way, as we

00:08:05.000 talk about hospitality and jump into it, what we just had here, you know, the Puritans would call

00:08:10.740 this like a holy conference, right? Where you and I are sitting here talking together about,

00:08:15.360 we're conferring about the word of God. And I think people miss out on how much enjoyment they

00:08:20.800 can have in the word of God and drawing out applications as they're sitting around the

00:08:24.600 table with their friends, sharing a beer, sharing a cigar, having a feast, whatever that, that

00:08:29.640 there's this, that, that, that kind of conversation, but this just happened, right? You just said

00:08:33.700 something. I was like, Oh, let me, let me point out this thing. And you were like, well, let me

00:08:36.800 build on that and and so that that holy conference is what hospitality should be largely filled with

00:08:43.260 and besides that trying to plan to go do stuff together right so i want to start off with

00:08:47.680 hospitality relates to a christian power in in two ways right first it comes from the power of doing

00:08:56.640 work right so paul says don't steal or he relates it to the to the eighth commandment stop you know

00:09:02.240 don't steal any longer, but instead do honest labor with your hands that you might have something to

00:09:08.220 share. And so you have to first work to generate resources so that you can have hospitality.

00:09:15.680 And then this idea of having extra stuff makes it so you can be generous, which is giving things

00:09:20.860 you've got away for other people to be blessed by. And that brings blessing on you by the

00:09:24.700 providence of God. Or hospitality is when you sort of bring people into your blessings and you share

00:09:29.780 in them, right? So you're, you're, you're, so as opposed generosity might be giving somebody a

00:09:33.780 meal, hospitality is sharing the meal with them, right? And so, and then there's this idea of in

00:09:39.140 the context of hospitality, what you want to do is you want to be fellowshipping, right? In

00:09:43.660 fellowshipping, you know, Christians use the word fellowship and apply it to anything and everything 0.68

00:09:47.460 so that they can justify doing anything and everything. But, but the, but the reality is 0.68

00:09:51.280 that fellowship is work towards a common goal, right? So, so this idea that fellowship, we have

00:09:56.280 the shared goal of the glory of God, and we want to do work, productive activity that helps to

00:10:00.760 manifest the glory of God more. And so hospitality should largely be itself, you know, conferring

00:10:07.460 about holy things, or it is this, and so that could be the exchange of things back and forth.

00:10:13.240 It can be this idea of planning to do work together where you're building things out.

00:10:17.000 It can also be a context to get to know people so you can learn about them so that you can

00:10:20.840 do work together right but it's also um this sort of this place where you can have this valuable

00:10:26.940 opportunity to catechize people and so they say this bringing of ministry bringing of the truth

00:10:31.900 to people helping develop people along so i want to i want to i want to get to there but that i

00:10:36.300 wanted to get that out there in the beginning because we just had this kind of accidental

00:10:39.640 representation of it so people can grab hold of that conversation and view that as this is the

00:10:44.040 kind of stuff that you want to see happening in the context of hospitality amen okay go ahead

00:10:50.060 Okay, so as we get into this idea of hospitality, one of the big things that I think we touched on a little bit last time was this idea of the woman is the queen of the home.

00:11:01.400 And one of the ways that her rule is manifest in the home is by her being able to set up this sort of way of displaying beauty in terms of the management of the home and being able to do things like bring out the glory on display that, you know, having well-prepared food, having a beautiful arrangement, having the children be able to participate in the hospitality.

00:11:24.020 You know, my kids, for example, if you look at Solomon with the Queen of Sheba, she talks about how not only is his wisdom great, but also like his cupbearers and the food and the setting of the table and the way that the servants are dressed and all that kind of stuff like makes her go, wow, this is beautifully run and well organized.

00:11:41.420 So running the home well, a mother that's doing well, that cares about her kids being well taken care of, well dressed, being taught to have good manners, a father involved in helping to help them to understand how to deal with guests honorably, the idea of them participating in the hospitality.

00:11:58.300 I have a couple of my sons are designated to be cup bearers where their goal is to make sure that everybody has a cup of liquid that they want to be drinking.

00:12:06.900 right right and so um and at the same time so there's sort of this division of different elements

00:12:12.180 of the work amongst the kids and there's typically like the head cup bearer and then there's the

00:12:17.220 assistant cup bearers we have enough kids i mean so you know you can start to have assistant roles

00:12:20.760 when you have lots of kids right so that idea of of that gets to display it that the work of the

00:12:26.620 queen also of the king of the home but it's it's this place where you start to get to display that

00:12:32.920 So it gives a motive to encourage beauty in the home as the wife is participating in that.

00:12:40.440 The other thing is the place where the hospitality happens becomes a center of power.

00:12:47.140 Where there's hospitality, there's building of relationships, you have the capacity to influence people.

00:12:52.860 And it doesn't happen just the first time you have somebody over, the second time you have somebody over.

00:12:56.580 It's like once it's become, you know, the third time, fourth time, fifth time, sixth time,

00:13:01.100 When somebody has come to your house so many times they can't even remember, when people don't expect to be invited because they're from out of town and they come to your church and you invite them over to have lunch at your house between the services or whatever, that kind of thing where there's sort of this extension of hospitality that's either unexpected because if people are going, well, we don't really know each other or what are you going to get out of this?

00:13:24.660 I'm just going to disappear.

00:13:25.700 I'm going to be going back to my home.

00:13:27.580 What kind of reward are you going to get?

00:13:29.020 Or it becomes regular, sort of a costly, sacrificial pouring into other people.

00:13:35.720 And those create bonds of relationship that are lasting.

00:13:40.300 And that hospitality to strangers from other churches can start to build relationship with those other churches in such a way that there's a friendship between those congregations that can develop out of that.

00:13:50.900 And that brings honor to the Lord and helps to encourage unity in the faith.

00:13:55.800 and that's just sort of that's just the the natural reciprocity that people have in terms

00:14:01.860 of the desire and the idea of course amongst pagans and so when you have hospitality even

00:14:06.400 unbelievers if you welcome them into your home the way in which they're willing to listen to 0.96

00:14:10.600 you is very different from just the random conversation on the side as opposed to why

00:14:14.720 don't you come over let's have a meal let's have a beer and let's let's talk and get to know each

00:14:18.820 other right there's there's a power in relationship that comes with hospitality and I don't know if

00:14:24.600 if you know if you have anything there to to add on or any examples that you've seen i'm sure you

00:14:29.200 as a pastor you've seen many but no i i agree well as a pastor i you know i kept thinking like

00:14:34.180 so part of it is the the person i think immediately feels indebted to you um and and you can you know

00:14:40.240 you can be manipulative um with that and and i don't think that you should uh but there is

00:14:45.700 something to be said i mean jesus you know talks about like when you throw a really good feast

00:14:49.400 uh, don't, don't invite all the, you know, the people who are of the chief seats, you know,

00:14:54.560 the people of, um, notoriety, but rather, you know, the poor, the lame, the beggar, um, invite

00:15:00.780 them and your reward will be in heaven. Um, you know, inviting those who can't return the favor

00:15:05.840 that like what you were saying that, that, you know, um, your reward will be in heaven when you

00:15:09.960 invite, you know, people of notoriety, then there's usually this tit for tat understanding,

00:15:14.180 you know, quid pro quo, um, that I'm doing this for you and you're going to do something in return

00:15:18.680 for me. And if the person is of a higher status, then there's usually an expectation that I'm doing

00:15:24.240 this much for you and you're going to do this much for me. You're going to actually multiply

00:15:29.440 the favor. So in reality, I'm doing no favor at all. I'm going to get more out of this than

00:15:36.560 return. And because there's this sense of having someone in your home, sharing with them a meal,

00:15:41.100 sharing with them a feast, a good meal and drink and these kinds of things,

00:15:44.700 there is a sense in which it does indebt the person. And so that can be, again,

00:15:51.480 used in a negative sense of manipulating the person or trying to tit for tat and just gain

00:15:56.160 earthly favors. But that also can be used in a kingdom sense of opening up the person

00:16:02.960 to hear the gospel message, where the person is far less likely to be rude or condescending or

00:16:10.680 tune you out if uh if they're sitting at your table eating um from your bounty and and then you

00:16:17.720 you know politely say can can i share with you a little bit of my faith you know they're just you

00:16:22.800 know because of that sense of indebtedness i i well i guess i owe you at least your you know

00:16:29.040 your do your five minute gospel pitch you know because i'm sitting here eating your food so

00:16:33.960 absolutely the danger of centralized power is often represented by the word king

00:16:39.720 As Americans, we hate the word king.

00:16:43.300 Civilian ownership of body armor is about helping people to have increased power to resist tyrants and criminals.

00:16:51.860 And so Armored Republic is about helping you to preserve your God-given rights to the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ

00:16:58.280 because he is the king of kings, and he governs kings, and he will judge them.

00:17:02.600 This is Armored Republic, and in a republic, there is no king but Christ.

00:17:09.940 We are free craftsmen, and we are honored to be your armor spread of choice.

00:17:15.320 i i think i think that that that idea right if you if you try to use hospitality in order to get

00:17:34.800 worldly gain out of people that's sort of that manipulation right and and a pastor can do that

00:17:39.120 by thinking about people as like a tithe farm right where you're like how do i get people in

00:17:42.640 how do I get them to do the thing? And I'm thinking about how to, how to simply build

00:17:45.860 out the budget or whatever. Right. But if instead you're thinking, how can I do this person good,

00:17:50.820 right? How can I, how can I bless them? How can I seek their good and the glory of God?

00:17:54.440 And, um, and so you're, you know, you're not making the person, the end in themselves. I'm

00:17:59.100 not saying worship the person, right? You're worshiping God, but you're going, I want you

00:18:02.840 to be a knower of God. And so in desiring to see them to grow in the knowledge of God,

00:18:07.520 you're using the political capital you're building to to put it in for that opportunity to be able to

00:18:14.220 to express truth to them right and if they if the lord uses that to make them wise or to cause them

00:18:19.820 to grow in wisdom that will make them love you more um and if they are uh you know pardoned if

00:18:25.580 they reject it then they will hate you for it um and you'll use up all that you know that that

00:18:30.360 political capital that you've built up and and what will happen is the lord will then pay you

00:18:34.940 back multiples, right? So, so there is a, if we have the right attitude, yes, it's a great investment

00:18:40.780 that we expect blessing for it in this life normally and in the next life. Absolutely.

00:18:46.680 Right. Done in faith for the glory of God. So, so that, that idea that hospitality creates

00:18:53.540 power, both in terms of the ways it helps with relationships, but also in the way that it brings

00:18:58.280 blessing from God. And one of the interesting scriptures that we have on that is this idea that

00:19:02.820 if you're hospitable, sometimes you could even, for example, give hospitality to angels unaware.

00:19:08.700 And that would be purely an example of doing something that brings about a result of a

00:19:15.980 blessing from God and has no sort of political or social capital being generated with human

00:19:23.160 beings that you're going to deal with and just kind of getting a worldly wise man type of

00:19:27.800 advancement. So we want to appeal to that idea of the blessing that comes from God. And also there

00:19:34.360 is, of course, this sort of the way that things are designed so that there is this desire for

00:19:38.640 reciprocity. But we don't want to go into it with the attitude of manipulating people for our own

00:19:43.200 worldly advantage. So our goal when we go in, if we're trying to work hard to have resources that

00:19:50.660 we can use, we can increase power for the glory of God, and we can do that by pulling people in

00:19:58.360 and kind of building relationship. And the more you do that hospitality well,

00:20:02.760 right, the more that it has an impact, especially early on, right? When people know you less,

00:20:09.020 you're trying to avoid stumbling blocks more, and you're trying to do things to help to,

00:20:14.500 it's not so much you're trying to put on a show to give a fake version of things,

00:20:17.600 but you're trying to be more careful to avoid causing unnecessary offense and so doing things

00:20:23.640 with extra effort when you're first dealing with people is one of the reasons people avoid

00:20:27.360 hospitality and they kind of think oh it's always going to be this exhausting it's always going to

00:20:31.040 be this hard it's like no at a certain point you kind of stop cleaning up the house for a friend

00:20:35.880 when they come over and and your goal is to actually build the kind of relationship where

00:20:40.500 you don't have to clean up the house for the person to come over and that allows people to

00:20:45.300 see into your life more. That's one of the reasons why an elder has to be hospitable is because if

00:20:49.160 he's not hospitable, people aren't going to come over often enough for him to be used to having

00:20:52.680 people over and often enough for them to actually see what life is like regularly in that house.

00:21:00.000 So when we think about this idea of hospitality, if with hospitality, we're trying to build a

00:21:06.040 relationship and look for opportunities to do work together, one of the things is people often

00:21:11.700 kind of feel like there's no place for people to teach except for elders. And they feel like

00:21:16.700 there's no place for women to teach. And obviously the public worship should have teaching by elders 0.98

00:21:23.300 as opposed to by other men. That is the design of God for order to have the wisest, most skilled

00:21:29.260 out there teaching to maximize the usefulness for people. But how would you know that a man

00:21:34.660 is fit to be an elder and apt to teach and therefore fit to be an elder apart from him

00:21:40.820 teaching somewhere. And that teaching is principally going to occur in private settings.

00:21:46.340 And that teaching is going to be automatically on display in terms of if people are present in

00:21:52.100 your home when you do family worship. And one of the things I want to really encourage people to do

00:21:56.500 is to have people over for dinner, have people over for hospitality, and ask them and invite

00:22:02.220 them to stay for family worship. And sometimes in a church community, for example, like in my church,

00:22:08.060 is totally expected.

00:22:09.240 If somebody comes over to your house,

00:22:10.440 everybody expects that they're going to stay.

00:22:12.560 You know, if they come for dinner,

00:22:13.540 they're staying for family worship.

00:22:16.160 And so that's sort of like just the expectation

00:22:18.500 that's going to occur there.

00:22:20.320 And at the same time,

00:22:22.920 when you're dealing with people who are not used to that,

00:22:25.840 you know, you can have them over for dinner.

00:22:27.740 And one of the ways that you can,

00:22:30.160 that kind of reciprocity piece goes in there

00:22:32.240 is you then can tell them about,

00:22:34.000 okay, so normally in the evening we do this.

00:22:36.540 And so we'd love for you to stick around

00:22:37.640 and we can chat a little bit afterwards and maybe have dessert afterwards or whatever.

00:22:41.000 But you make family worship a part of the evening, a part of the hospitality.

00:22:44.600 So, I mean, we literally, when I throw a party, like we have a party that we do oftentimes early-ish January,

00:22:52.000 and we'll do what we call a Puritan party.

00:22:54.320 It's just kind of the joke, you know, name that we have because it's our church, Puritan Reformed Church.

00:22:58.740 And we just kind of have people over, and we just kind of have a party with people hanging out,

00:23:03.540 and we talk about stuff and you're kind of encouraging friendship between other people

00:23:07.740 from other churches and encourage all everybody from the church to be there. And, um, you know,

00:23:11.600 we have a meal and all that kind of stuff, but in the middle of the party, you know, you have,

00:23:14.820 we have family worship and, and then it kind of goes back to people going back to talking with

00:23:19.860 each other and all that. But that's, that's the sort of stuff is trying to make it. So it's just

00:23:23.380 like, you know, make family worship normal. Right. So I don't know if we can make that

00:23:27.320 an acronym, make family worship normal again. How would that, I don't even know.

00:23:30.860 We need some vowels. We need some words that start with a vowel. But you said something that

00:23:35.420 I've been reliably informed. I mean, it shocked me. You said a Puritan party. I've been reliably

00:23:40.200 informed that Puritans don't have parties. We don't. I just lied to you. And I need to 1.00

00:23:45.980 repent of that. Puritans don't party. Never. Not unless they want to be under church discipline. 1.00

00:23:52.860 So just to be clear, so I don't get kicked out. We, yeah. So the idea that we can get together,

00:23:59.860 enjoy food have uh have you know good drinks have you know beer have whatever and and just

00:24:05.580 sort of this idea of getting together and the the enjoyment of each other's company and fellowship

00:24:10.920 and talking through stuff we would encourage that that there are regular feasts what's the

00:24:16.440 difference between a feast and a party right uh the difference between a feast and a party is that

00:24:19.860 a feast you get more food so so our goal is to make sure that there's enough food for it to be

00:24:24.460 called a feast that way we can't be accused of having parties there you go there you go so it's

00:24:28.260 better than a party. That's right. One question that I had is you were just sharing about

00:24:32.920 hospitality and the whole household's involvement and, you know, utilizing the children. And of

00:24:37.260 course the wife is going to be heavily involved. But then you, you know, you briefly mentioned

00:24:41.440 elders and I was thinking about that. You know, elders are called to be, you know, biblically

00:24:45.800 qualified men. It's an office in the church. It's not open to women. And so it's, it's going to be

00:24:50.280 uniquely masculine office, but you know, one of those requirements and qualifications for an

00:24:55.940 elder is that he must be hospitable. And a lot of times I think within Christian circles, we think

00:25:01.680 of, you know, hospitality as being primarily exercised by our wives, that it's a uniquely

00:25:08.940 feminine action, a feminine service. And I think it is. I think there's a lot of truth to that.

00:25:14.700 So I'm not saying that that's wrong. But the Bible certainly, you know, it doesn't only speak

00:25:19.360 about hospitality in terms of a woman's role. In fact, an elder who must be a man also must be

00:25:27.120 hospitable. And so I was wondering, you know, the thought just occurred to me. And so I don't want

00:25:31.180 to put you on the spot, but I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit. See if you have any

00:25:34.760 thoughts about this. I don't know if you could even use this phrase, if this would be helpful,

00:25:39.840 but feminine hospitality versus masculine hospitality. Is there such a thing? And what

00:25:47.060 would that distinction be? What would that look like? Masculine hospitality versus feminine

00:25:52.800 hospitality? Yeah, I think that's good. I think the idea that the man, the goal of the queen of 1.00

00:26:00.420 the home is going to be to make sure to be a glory to the king of the home. And so she's going to

00:26:06.740 seek to put things out there in such a way as to bring honor to him, to bring credibility to him,

00:26:13.180 and to help him to look like he is the master of the home.

00:26:16.220 And that should be the reality,

00:26:17.620 but she should also be concerned to make sure

00:26:18.960 that the reality and the appearance line up.

00:26:21.360 And so if her goal is to honor the husband

00:26:24.720 by making it so that his sort of treasures are on display

00:26:28.440 in a way that's good to bring credibility to him,

00:26:31.600 she's trying to help him to be able to speak.

00:26:34.140 And so that's why hospitality and catechesis

00:26:37.180 are kind of lined up.

00:26:38.740 The idea of being able to teach people

00:26:41.200 and give people the rudimentary basics of the faith, right,

00:26:44.200 that every man should be able to put on display his ability to teach,

00:26:47.760 not only in sort of a family worship setting, but while you're at the table,

00:26:51.580 can you draw the conversation to a useful place?

00:26:54.780 Can you have holy conference?

00:26:56.060 Can you engage on talking about how can we work together for the honor of God?

00:26:59.300 You know, how can I get to know you and understand you and your giftings?

00:27:02.060 And how can I bless you?

00:27:03.400 And how can I help to draw out and encourage you to be able to do more?

00:27:06.940 And so there's sort of this prophetic teaching, this priestly relationship building, and this kingly let's get stuff done that is sort of the masculine element there.

00:27:16.980 And the woman is beautifying that and helping to show that he's the master of the home.

00:27:22.920 So I think that the woman is then also seeking to not cut off her husband or be the one who's dominating that conversation, but she's seeking to bring him on her.

00:27:32.880 And then she's seeking to figure out how to also develop out and build opportunity for the husband in terms of how can she go spend time usefully with the men or with the women and with the children and allow him to be able to focus on some of the men.

00:27:49.140 So there's sort of this classic idea of, you know, you have dinner together, there's conversation that's useful together or whatever.

00:27:55.180 But maybe there's a time where the men kind of break out and the women break out. 0.65

00:27:59.040 And then the wife is seeking to have the children with them generally to help to make it so that the men can talk about things at a level that goes beyond the household. 0.60

00:28:08.880 And to make it so there's a space where men can talk to each other as men.

00:28:12.460 And so and then helping to make sure that that's dealt with well so that like you guys have the drinks, you have everything set up.

00:28:18.240 And so there's sort of like setting them up to do that.

00:28:21.580 And so I think that idea, and then, you know, if you're coming back together, helping to

00:28:26.700 make it so there's a graceful merging back in and looking for the direction that the

00:28:30.880 husband wants to take things.

00:28:32.400 And I think a part of this is, you know, families, I think that are well run kind of naturally

00:28:35.700 do this, but you go, okay, we've got people coming over and, you know, the wife is looking

00:28:40.120 to the husband for, do you have any goals?

00:28:42.280 Do you have anything you want to make sure we do?

00:28:44.040 The wife might remind of pertinent facts. 1.00

00:28:45.980 Like, remember, they have this thing going on. 0.99

00:28:47.880 This happened to them.

00:28:50.100 We've been praying for them.

00:28:51.280 So there's sort of like, what are their needs?

00:28:53.380 What are we going to help them with?

00:28:54.500 What are we going to bless them with?

00:28:55.340 Do we have any goals?

00:28:56.440 And the goal might just be we want to get to know them.

00:28:58.560 But you're kind of getting on the same page as you engage in that hospitality together

00:29:04.160 and the husband and wife or team.

00:29:05.560 And you incorporate the children into those goals as they get older, and you help them

00:29:09.400 to see this is what it's like to plan with your wife or with your husband to seek to

00:29:13.800 have useful hospitality.

00:29:14.980 Right.

00:29:15.380 that's really good yeah my wife i'm just thinking about her the whole time you're talking like you're

00:29:19.740 listing multiple things and i was saying check check check by the grace of god like she does

00:29:23.940 all those things really well incorporating our daughters you know we have three daughters and

00:29:27.840 then our our baby is a boy so we have a our youngest as our son uh but the three daughters

00:29:33.220 are young five four and three years old um no no no six four and three years old uh our oldest

00:29:39.920 just turned six recently but they are very much incorporated and included and invited into you

00:29:47.200 know on saturdays we do you know sabbath meal we'll invite a family from the church over and my

00:29:51.280 my wife will will do that uh in in involving our daughters and and decorating you know the table

00:29:57.760 and setting everything up and preparing the meal um but then also during you know right before people

00:30:03.040 come over she'll you know always give me a helpful reminder if there's anything that she's aware of

00:30:07.360 that I probably should be aware of too,

00:30:09.600 but I very likely forgot, you know,

00:30:11.840 she'll remind me, like,

00:30:13.040 remember they're going through this as a family

00:30:14.920 or they have a loved one that just passed away

00:30:17.100 or he right now is, you know, he's looking for a job.

00:30:21.200 He's in between work, you know,

00:30:22.560 and so make sure to ask him about that.

00:30:24.500 And so, you know, reminders

00:30:26.400 and then during the actual conversation

00:30:28.500 when they're there and they're sitting at our table,

00:30:31.100 even from the seating arrangement, 0.96

00:30:33.280 my wife is always very intentional. 1.00

00:30:34.920 Um, like she would never sit at the end of the table with the other wife, um, and have 1.00

00:30:41.100 the children, um, in the middle of the table. 0.93

00:30:43.880 And she, she always, it sounds bad, but it's, I think it's good and it glorifies God, but

00:30:49.040 she'll always kind of, um, make sure that the children are on one of the ends of the

00:30:53.240 table. 0.95

00:30:53.460 She'll put me on another end of the table next to the husband. 1.00

00:30:56.120 And, uh, and then she'll kind of function as a barrier in between me and the children 1.00

00:30:59.840 because the daughters, my daughters are their daddy girls.

00:31:03.140 And they'll be asking daddy lots of questions and for lots of things throughout the meal.

00:31:08.520 And it'll be very difficult for me to have a genuine, you know, you know, conversation of depth with this man.

00:31:16.080 And so my wife kind of, she plays a go-between a little bit between me and the children.

00:31:20.660 If there's something, you know, that the children really do need my attention for, then that's brought to my attention.

00:31:25.680 But otherwise she's the whole time she's engaging the wife and she's certainly exercising hospitality to her and to her children.

00:31:32.620 but she understands that the nature of the relationship is distinct and so she's I want

00:31:39.600 a friendship with this woman and I want to have conversation with her but but the nature of our

00:31:44.360 relationship involves the children the children are included in that so we're talking and we're

00:31:49.520 engaging our kids she's a mom I'm a mom this is what it is to be a mother and this is what friendship

00:31:55.000 with another mother looks like as we're caring for our children whereas dad is going to be talking

00:32:00.700 in a much more intentional light with the husband over there, guiding him and leading him and making

00:32:06.920 decisions for their whole household that will bless, trickle down and bless every member of

00:32:12.020 the family. And so anyways, I was just thinking about those kinds of, all the way down to the

00:32:16.320 seating arrangement. My wife is very conscious about every element and setting up. And it's not 0.75

00:32:22.420 just preferring me, she is honoring me, but it's also loving and blessing that family that's going

00:32:29.180 to come. She knows that that family will be better off if the husband gets to spend time with Joel

00:32:35.080 than if Joel is watching the kids and distracted and so engaged with the children that the wife

00:32:43.100 gets to talk to my wife and they get to have a powwow and have a really great time, but the

00:32:47.200 husband doesn't really get to open up with me and I don't really get to share any insight with him.

00:32:51.700 She knows that overall that will be a net loss. The wife may have a great time. She may have a 0.90

00:32:56.840 great two and a half hours and go home thinking, I really like Joel's wife and we're besties and

00:33:02.540 we had so much fun, but their household will be better served if I get to spend more intentional

00:33:08.700 time with the husband and guiding and leading him as the head of his home for directions that

00:33:13.620 will bless the whole family. If you love the Psalms, you're going to want to hear this. We all

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00:35:42.400 your free 30-minute consultation today. Right. And so that idea, the division of labor

00:35:48.060 in hospitality, where there's a goal to maximally keep free the husband to care for the guests

00:35:54.820 without neglecting the children. So there's sort of going to be like a, okay, so can the wife take 0.66

00:36:00.760 care of that? And as your children get older, it's like, can they help to take care of those 0.84

00:36:04.120 so that your queen is able to do more as well? Because then, because if you're able to engage

00:36:08.780 with the husband, she's able to engage with the wife, that's even more ministering into their

00:36:13.260 lives, right? Or sometimes you might have a couple's conversation that can occur and the

00:36:17.540 older children are able to help to take care of things in such a way that you're able to engage

00:36:21.280 with the couple. And so I think that those kind of things where you're thinking about the division

00:36:28.000 of labor, you're thinking about how can you kind of free up the highest authority resource

00:36:33.800 to maximally give that, that engagement, um, I think is, is a way of thinking about the other 0.98

00:36:40.260 thing about feminine, uh, roles in this would also be encouraging women, you know, as a father, 0.99

00:36:45.160 I'd really encourage, you know, my, my daughter, I only have one daughter of five sons, but my,

00:36:50.700 my daughter and my wife, I've really encouraged them to think about the Socratic method because,

00:36:56.380 um, you can really help men to think as a woman better if you are asking good questions.

00:37:02.500 and um and i think that idea that you know my daughter knows theology amazingly well right but

00:37:09.760 she but she is you know and she can talk and she goes you know i'm comfortable talking for long

00:37:15.000 spurts you know when i'm talking with the women or whatever but but how do i do this with the men

00:37:18.880 and it's like well as you're trying to build you know godly relationships godly friendships

00:37:23.380 as you know there's there's men trying to give them an opportunity to have some sort of

00:37:26.560 engagement in kind of public spaces like you know in church afterwards or whatever where there's an

00:37:30.480 ability for people to consider the prospects of whether to build a closer friendship or not,

00:37:34.680 that kind of thing. How do you do that? And I think the encouraging of question asking,

00:37:39.200 that's good in general for encouraging women to help them to be able to evaluate suitors

00:37:44.120 and to be able to also encourage suitors to be able to speak more. And at the same time, 1.00

00:37:50.720 your wife, if there's sort of a discussion that's going on and she notices maybe there's a way in

00:37:56.300 which the other man is not accepting truth that you're saying she could ask a question and

00:38:02.480 generally it's going to be more aggressive if she asks it of him but she might ask it of you

00:38:07.200 right and she can kind of it's kind of like setting up the volleyball right you can spike

00:38:11.360 right and so uh but it could also kind of be if the guy's evading the main point that you're

00:38:16.960 talking to she might say well what do you blah blah blah and and she he might give an answer

00:38:22.940 that makes it easier for you to respond to that.

00:38:25.660 And so in either way,

00:38:27.760 it's a little bit more dangerous to do that second one.

00:38:30.480 It's a lot easier to just say,

00:38:31.940 husband, what do you think of such and such?

00:38:34.720 But there's sort of a way

00:38:35.980 in which you can become very familiar with each other

00:38:37.860 and work in such a way

00:38:38.660 that you can effectively be helpful conversational partners.

00:38:42.020 And so asking those questions

00:38:43.660 to help to advance the agenda of the husband 0.99

00:38:46.440 is one of the ways that the wife can also be

00:38:48.140 a significant, thoughtful participant in there.

00:38:51.220 And then also, there is just place for the man and the woman both to speak truth, right?

00:38:56.080 We have Priscilla and Aquila as an example speaking to Apollos.

00:38:59.980 And I think that the ability to do communication about truth, you know, and just engaging in theology, engaging on the true things of God.

00:39:07.360 And in particular, when the women divide off and what this Titus 2 activity where the woman is is teaching other women and helping to develop them, encouraging them, teaching them how to love their husbands, how to love their children and helping to soberize them is kind of the language that actually exists.

00:39:26.140 there that the older women should soberize um the the younger women um and so that that kind of

00:39:32.980 activity set i think is how women should think about their roles distinctively and the men really

00:39:38.300 need to think about how do i build an alliance with another home how do i think about how to

00:39:42.620 engage here how do we accomplish good work um and so just uh let me pause there's anything else you

00:39:48.020 want to deal with no that's jumping into cat no that's great i was just thinking of a personal

00:39:51.820 example i remember going to uh the wilson's house in moscow idaho for a sabbath dinner my wife and

00:39:57.820 i got to go visit and um but i remember at the time i was um you know sharing with doug you know

00:40:05.260 my thoughts about whether or not i should leave california and um and we had talked about it some

00:40:11.340 and this and that but there were certain elements of the conversation that we we that we hadn't

00:40:15.740 talked about and one element was you know what about the church that i would be leaving behind

00:40:20.700 And Rachel Jankovic, Doug's daughter, youngest daughter, she was sitting there at the table with my wife and other people at the table as well.

00:40:33.020 It wasn't just us.

00:40:33.900 There were multiple families.

00:40:36.180 The Wilsons, four of the Wilson households, and then us and another family.

00:40:44.860 But instead of Rachel, it seemed as though she probably had some thoughts.

00:40:49.860 she's a bright gal you know um she probably had some some opinions but instead of making a statement 0.64

00:40:54.720 she asked her dad you know and like so she posted as a question to you know to doug and said um

00:41:01.140 dad what do you think about you know um the the church that he would be leaving behind and what's

00:41:07.540 the obligation there and you know because because doug had been you know making a fairly strong case

00:41:12.060 of you know it wasn't a pros and cons list it was uh yeah you should leave california yeah well what

00:41:17.260 are the cons he was like you should leave california that was about i mean that was about it

00:41:21.920 you know um and you know and so you know rachel didn't um she didn't give her two cents um you

00:41:28.460 know and say well yeah you know like adding cons to her father's list that he you know had chosen

00:41:33.860 to neglect but instead she posed it as a question to her father saying you know what do you think

00:41:38.520 about this and then and i was glad she asked i didn't i didn't ask and i was glad that she did

00:41:43.960 because Doug had some really great things to say

00:41:45.880 in regards to that.

00:41:46.980 So I think that's really helpful.

00:41:48.580 There's so many ways.

00:41:50.960 I mean, I think of Nabel, his wife.

00:41:55.100 What's the name of Nabel's wife?

00:41:56.440 I can't remember.

00:41:57.160 Abigail.

00:41:57.860 Abigail, that's right.

00:41:59.180 I mean, she's a wise woman 0.92

00:42:01.100 and she has a deadbeat husband, 0.87

00:42:02.880 but she's a wise woman.

00:42:05.720 And there's so many ways

00:42:06.760 that a woman can exercise godly, 1.00

00:42:09.220 righteous, feminine virtues

00:42:10.680 that she's not uh she's not being uh domineering she's not being brash she's not uh hijacking the

00:42:17.400 conversation or lording over uh the men in the room but um and yet at the same time if she's

00:42:23.380 crafting i don't mean that in a deceitful way but if she's exercising righteous craftiness which is

00:42:29.580 a thing um she could actually be systematically i mean guiding the whole night the whole conversation

00:42:38.440 the whole meal i mean every element and yet do it in a way that is feminine that is submissive

00:42:45.280 that is uh that is beautiful and pleasing to the lord and yet uh wise and ensuring um that

00:42:52.760 that not just is there bounty on the table but there's bounty in the conversation that the whole

00:42:58.200 thing is fruitful so absolutely and i think that's why you know men you know your wife your queen is

00:43:05.340 your principal counselor of war right like you need to be she needs to be your friend not your

00:43:11.720 marriage is first and foremost a friendship it's not it's not that it's friendship and nothing else

00:43:16.340 is friendship no that's not the case it's a special type of friendship that includes sexual

00:43:20.400 intimacy and a sharing of children and sharing of an estate that's in common so it's a closer

00:43:24.800 friendship than other friendships but it's a friendship and and the friendship is you have

00:43:29.760 a shared understanding of the good and you're committed to seeking each other's good and so

00:43:34.320 you're working together right friendship is about working together but i stole a line from you by

00:43:38.560 the way the other day i was talking to some of the men at my church we were doing we were doing a kind

00:43:42.600 of thing and you talked about how we know men get together they don't have any work to do the

00:43:45.760 friendship gets gay real quick i'm just like i just stole that i didn't even cite you i was just 0.64

00:43:49.800 like i'm just i'm just gonna i'm just gonna say this and i'm not even gonna tell anybody i tell 0.58

00:43:53.280 you yep go for it no it's free it's free for grabs yeah but i mean like it's so true and it's just

00:43:59.540 being unproductive right and that's the main root there is the friendship the friendship is

00:44:04.240 unproductive and and so yeah face to face you don't even do that with your wife i mean that

00:44:09.640 that's the point that i was making is with your own wife um the face to face is not the exhaustive

00:44:17.800 mode of relationship it's part of it but but if that if a man even with a woman that he's married

00:44:23.860 to is solely exclusively face-to-face then that's that's just that's weird it's erotic it's overly

00:44:31.080 erotic it's it's a cheap you know form of love that like um but to do that with another man

00:44:37.280 right gay i think is the right word right right i don't have any male friendships um that that 0.75

00:44:45.740 there's not at least some element of mission shared mission right right so absolutely so

00:44:52.480 There's got to be good work being pursued.

00:44:54.840 There's got to be good mission together. 0.95

00:44:56.600 And so that idea that even in marriage, eroticism is an ornament to marriage.

00:45:04.660 It's not all marriage is.

00:45:07.020 It's not the sexual is entirely there.

00:45:09.280 There's this an ornament.

00:45:10.920 So the friendship, you men are called to work.

00:45:14.520 Your wife is a helper, right?

00:45:16.380 Helper in what? 0.93

00:45:17.300 Helper in dominion, helper in work, right?

00:45:19.420 So the friendship is a friendship sharing and work together, sharing the fruits together.

00:45:26.000 And then there's this idea that in that you need to have your wife as your counselor.

00:45:31.600 You talk to her.

00:45:32.660 You make the call.

00:45:33.400 You call the shots, right?

00:45:34.380 You're the decider. 0.60

00:45:36.180 Bushism right there. 0.57

00:45:37.500 And then from there, the idea that you hear her counsel and she's going to help to draw things out.

00:45:43.020 And when she understands, right, even if she disagrees about something, if it's not sin and she just, you know,

00:45:47.580 she salutes and goes, okay, well, let's carry out the mission together. She can then intelligently

00:45:52.220 help to carry out the objective. And one of the things that, you know, in the last decade that

00:45:56.020 my wife has really done a lot, um, that's, that's helped me is so often she just quickly like

00:46:01.620 tells me her counsel, tells me where she disagrees. I just say, well, I think I want to do this

00:46:06.520 anyways. And she goes, all right. And she salutes and she goes, okay, I'm going to help to do this.

00:46:09.360 And we move on fast. And so my wife doing that, um, I had a hard time figuring out in the early 1.00

00:46:15.480 part of the marriage. How do I get my wife's counsel and at the same time make it so it's

00:46:20.800 not just an argument between equal, right? And so I didn't want to give that up. And so I kind

00:46:25.980 of struggled through in the beginning to figure out how do I do that? And it made a lot of strain

00:46:29.380 for her where she was trying to figure out, you know, how can I be invested in arguing with you

00:46:34.460 and also be submissive? And, and she actually came with that kind of that insight of like,

00:46:39.060 well, I just want to, you know, kind of tell you. And then after like, you know, a time or whatever,

00:46:43.900 You just kind of give me a signal of we're done.

00:46:45.560 And I'm like, yes.

00:46:46.560 And I couldn't believe I hadn't figured it out.

00:46:49.000 And I was so grateful for her realizing that.

00:46:51.680 But I'm also grateful that I didn't give up on seeking her counsel.

00:46:55.460 Right.

00:46:56.100 So building that.

00:46:57.100 Both would have been a tragedy.

00:46:58.760 Yeah, you're right. 0.94

00:46:59.920 Trumpkin, you know, I think, you know, from Prince Caspian.

00:47:03.500 It's like, well, you didn't even believe in Aslan, you know?

00:47:05.680 And like now, you know, you thought all this was just a bunch of hoopla.

00:47:09.400 And he's like, uh-huh.

00:47:10.540 And I still hold to those convictions.

00:47:11.980 i still think you know at this current moment it's hoopla but you've had my advice and now it's time

00:47:17.540 for orders i know the difference between giving advice and taking orders and this is an order

00:47:22.520 from a king i believe in you you're standing right in front of me and i believe in your position and

00:47:27.080 your authority and your office and you've issued a command so i gave my advice i still stand by my

00:47:33.360 advice but you gave your order and i know what it is to take an order so yes sir so that ability

00:47:41.400 That ability to salute and carry out the orders, I think, is a really powerful part for the husband and wife being able to cooperate that way.

00:47:48.160 And so I would just really encourage husbands to talk about that explicitly, that, you know, say to your wife, I need you to be my queen.

00:47:55.420 I need to be able to talk to you.

00:47:56.500 I need to be able to pull you into the conversation.

00:47:58.340 I need your counsel.

00:47:59.420 But I need, at the end of the day, when I make a decision, I need you to salute and help me carry it out.

00:48:03.100 If it's sin, I need you to tell me that.

00:48:04.740 You know, we can bring in the elders or whatever if there's something where you think I'm ordering you to do sin.

00:48:08.440 Okay, fine.

00:48:09.120 We'll go through biblical process and all that.

00:48:10.960 Most of the time, that's not going to be the problem.

00:48:12.380 It's just going to be a methodological choice.

00:48:14.260 And so I need you to, you know, prioritization, methodology, when there's not a sin issue,

00:48:18.940 like that's the whole point of the husband's authority is to control the prioritization

00:48:22.200 and to control the methods used to accomplish lawful ends.

00:48:25.540 And so I think wives understanding that helps them to kind of get it.

00:48:29.660 And I think the queen, the idea of being a queen of the home helps to understand it's

00:48:33.040 like, I have authority, I have a position, but you're the king, right?

00:48:35.820 And so that thing I think is helpful for the wife to understand kind of that role.

00:48:40.340 So I want to jump into the catechesis portion here, this idea that when you have hospitality, one of the neat things is, so pastors are always, you know, you give a sermon and you talk and you're like, you know, I've taught them these things and that thing and that thing and all the things.

00:48:53.620 Oh, I've covered all this stuff.

00:48:54.640 All the things have been taught from the pulpit and everybody's got it.

00:48:57.040 And it's going to be great.

00:48:57.800 And you talk to people and they don't get the stuff that you've been teaching.

00:49:00.100 You're like, this is, I am the worst.

00:49:01.680 This is the worst.

00:49:02.540 I am the worst.

00:49:03.660 I don't know what I'm doing.

00:49:04.860 I'm considering male modeling.

00:49:06.520 And you're looking for these career changes.

00:49:08.920 and so and so then you go you can have a conversation with somebody for like 30 minutes or an hour

00:49:13.900 and all of a sudden you're like they learned all the things i was trying to get them to get like

00:49:18.420 how did that one conversation manage to get all that through and it's because it draws it together

00:49:23.000 it helps their attention to be focused in hospitality and conversation holy conference

00:49:27.860 like this makes it so that you have you're able to get your mind engaged in a different way and

00:49:33.380 there's this kind of one-on-one attention where it's like oh i think you're missing that right

00:49:37.140 there. And so there's this powerful way where they can kind of draw everything together.

00:49:41.920 And so, but the pastor can't be the only person doing hospitality and, you know, all the elders

00:49:46.240 should be doing hospitality and they're all pastors. They're all responsible for teaching

00:49:49.360 and all that. But there's a tendency to kind of have the guy. And even if it's not just the guy,

00:49:55.320 even if you've got elders, the tendency to make it so the equality of the elders isn't,

00:49:59.540 even if that's done, there's just too much to do. And so everybody who is starting to mature

00:50:05.760 needs to take up the battle and needs to be able to encourage this spiritual warfare to occur

00:50:13.320 in these minor engagements, the private context of the home, where you can lay down the basics,

00:50:19.840 the foundational doctrines of the faith. And so I think things like, you know, the Shorter Catechism

00:50:24.300 would be a thing where if you study that, that's going to lay out the basics for you.

00:50:28.800 Questions 1 through 38 is going to give you the really key basics there. I mean, you basically

00:50:32.540 got the solos tulip trinity incarnation and basics of covenant theology and if you go through that

00:50:38.860 you're gonna and you can lay people lay that out and you can give them the solos tulip the trinity

00:50:42.880 incarnation the basics of covenant theology you're giving people the basics of the reformed faith

00:50:47.280 the reformed gospel right and that's the true gospel and so if you can have those conversations

00:50:51.940 to help people to be mature in those little things to be established in those little things

00:50:56.580 that is so helpful to make the preaching so much more useful for them and help those men to be

00:51:01.380 able to lead their families well and so emphasizing those basics i really want to encourage people to

00:51:06.420 emphasize those basics and then the idea of going you know helping people to think about the law of

00:51:11.440 god and the ten commandments of the summary of the law which is the middle part of the shorter

00:51:15.240 catechism you get to the end you have like word sacrament prayer and you're just like you need

00:51:19.400 are you engaged in family worship are you engaged in private worship are you guys praying you

00:51:24.800 understand how to pray um and then like the importance of church life and conflict resolution

00:51:30.320 is sort of what's captured there in that idea of the sacraments.

00:51:34.780 And so if you just, that little outline right there, that's the shorter catechism.

00:51:38.480 And so if you're familiar with those things and you can talk about them,

00:51:42.640 you can help to lay down the foundation of doctrine in people's lives

00:51:46.940 in powerful ways in hospitality.

00:51:49.000 And it divides labor up so that the pastors aren't overwhelmed,

00:51:51.360 and it dramatically increases the fruitfulness of their preaching.

00:51:55.140 And if you can get, if you can help to encourage men to be the pastors of their homes, to do family

00:52:01.040 worship and to lead in that way, to wash their wives in the word, it makes a powerful fighting

00:52:05.480 unit. And pastors can say this all the time and we should. And oftentimes men will follow our

00:52:10.260 example and follow the lead and they will listen to the teaching. But sometimes people walk away

00:52:14.760 and they're like, yeah, sure. You're a pastor. You get paid to do this. And then when they talk

00:52:21.040 to an ordinary guy and they're like you're an engineer or you're like an accountant or like

00:52:25.580 you work at a factory and you make stuff like and you're like i do family worship they're like

00:52:29.840 you can do that and and so the power of hospitality where you say it you encourage it

00:52:39.780 you give the example that the reforming power of that i've had people come to our church and say

00:52:45.000 you know we came to your house you guys did family worship and i was like wow that's amazing

00:52:48.100 and it's really cool and whatever.

00:52:49.580 But then I went to this, you know, to Deacon Schaefer's house,

00:52:53.000 and they did family worship.

00:52:53.880 And then I went to, you know, this other family's house,

00:52:56.100 and they did family worship.

00:52:57.260 And everywhere we got invited, you know,

00:52:59.660 they did family worship as a part of that.

00:53:01.160 And it's like that I've had people say that to me,

00:53:04.980 and the way that that, like, opens their eyes,

00:53:06.700 that if you could have a community where that kind of thing is encouraged

00:53:08.880 and it's associated with part of the hospitality.

00:53:11.440 So hospitality itself is rare.

00:53:14.220 Hospitality with family worship is, like, rare, rare.

00:53:17.540 We're talking like steak tartare rare.

00:53:19.680 This is the kind of thing we're talking about.

00:53:21.880 So if you can have that happen, if you can have that happen in a church,

00:53:25.180 there's this powerful discipling work that gets done there by that example

00:53:29.940 and by that, and it helps to develop people.

00:53:33.420 And also at the same time, it displays those who are fit for public office

00:53:36.800 because they're hospitable and it shows their ability to teach.

00:53:39.460 And it involves the women and makes them engaged.

00:53:41.840 And so therefore the women don't feel the need to go try to steal the reins

00:53:44.820 of power and seek to become pastoresses because of the fact that they're going, I have a ministry.

00:53:49.120 My ministry is in the home and I can teach people there and I can engage with women there.

00:53:52.540 I can encourage children in our homeschooling or in the Christian raising of our children.

00:53:57.200 So just giving an outlet for godly teaching to occur at all the appropriate levels.

00:54:01.840 Right. That's really good. One practical question that I had, as you're gauging,

00:54:06.700 so let's say you are a pastor like you are and like I am. So if there's a pastor listening to

00:54:11.260 this and he's trying to exercise hospitality as an elder as he's commanded to do so and having

00:54:16.240 families from the church in his home um it's his home so there's kind of like two elements one he

00:54:24.720 has the office of pastor uh in regards to the church and there's a deference there even though

00:54:30.600 it's not the lord's day there's still this sense in which you know he's the pastor and this is a

00:54:34.120 family in the church and they're going over to their pastor's house not just anyone's house but

00:54:38.100 their pastor's house and that does mean something and i think that's good and right

00:54:41.400 but then also um even from a household standpoint they're in his home so he's the man of that home

00:54:47.420 you know so there's both the pastor element and the head of this this home you know there's two

00:54:52.420 households but in one home belonging to to him um and so it seems as though you know practically

00:54:59.380 speaking the full impetus is on him to lead that evening um that we're we're having a meal we're

00:55:05.560 now doing family. So I think he certainly should initiate what we'd like to, you know, we do family

00:55:10.320 worship in our home and we'd like to invite you to be a part of that. We do this in the evenings

00:55:14.000 after our meal, uh, after dinner, and we usually do something like this. And so for him to lead

00:55:18.600 in all those ways, I think is totally fine. Uh, but if he's simultaneously, he's trying to set

00:55:23.160 an example, right? So first Peter five, not domineering over those in your, your charge,

00:55:27.020 but setting an example for the believers. If he's seeking to set an example, um, but he's also

00:55:33.000 trying to test. He's, he's trying to discern and witness that other man in his potential

00:55:43.320 apt to teach. It's his home. He's pastor and he needs to set an example, but could he give

00:55:51.580 portions of the liturgy, the family worship away to that other man, even though it's in his home

00:55:58.680 and to see, hey, would you perhaps lead this portion of our family worship?

00:56:05.660 What do you think about that?

00:56:07.580 Yeah, I think that that is totally appropriate.

00:56:09.720 And I think that it would be important, generally speaking,

00:56:14.180 for the man to be able to give some precepts out of the Word of God to his own family.

00:56:21.920 I think one of the ways I will do that is I will kind of pick a text,

00:56:26.520 read it, talk about it a bit.

00:56:27.980 And I, before asking, I believe Holy Conference is distinctively a part of family worship.

00:56:33.280 So you discuss the Word of God as a part of it.

00:56:36.360 And I really, I would typically start by asking if the other man has anything he wants to add or, you know, any comments or objections or anything he thinks would be good to point out into the text.

00:56:47.560 When I'm at other people's houses, a lot of times as a pastor, people will ask me to lead the worship in that home.

00:56:53.840 What do you say?

00:56:54.420 there and i think it's totally appropriate and i express a willingness to do so but i also encourage

00:56:59.820 the men to do it yeah and i and i will also that's what i do i i'm like it's your house

00:57:05.480 it's your house i'm happy to pray or something but why don't you why don't you lead and i think

00:57:10.560 they're sometimes intimidated like well what if we don't do it exactly the same way that you do

00:57:14.100 and i always say well that's okay you don't have to do the exact way that we do but so yeah i think

00:57:21.420 this idea of encouraging the men to to lead um especially early on i'm really quick to just kind

00:57:28.200 of go sure i'm happy to do that and to help them to do it and um and to then try to try to pass

00:57:35.960 off pieces that would be easy to help to habituate them if they're not used to family worship so i'd

00:57:40.040 be like would you mind uh you know starting prayer would you mind reading the text you know

00:57:45.920 so that way they're accustomed to that and then they're participating obviously in the singing

00:57:49.320 portion right so if you just if you're literally just praying reading a text and there's discussion

00:57:53.540 about the text and and then there's singing of a psalm the blessing and then i also um would try

00:57:59.280 to encourage if i heard if i thought there was some difficulty with them for example and them

00:58:03.440 not necessarily feeling they could bless their home or whatever um i would i would encourage

00:58:07.500 them to bless their own home um and so this i would sort of be there as training wheels to some

00:58:12.820 extent um and try to do that i have a couple people who say the price of admission is that

00:58:17.420 I lead the family worship. And so I, so I go, that's fine. I'll take the, I'll take the meal

00:58:23.180 and I'm happy to spend time with you guys. And I know they're doing family worship anyways without

00:58:26.560 me, but, but so, you know, you just try to be flexible with those things. Those are some of

00:58:30.200 the principles I try to apply to help in a pastoral way with getting men to be encouraged to

00:58:33.820 leave their own homes. Great. Any other thoughts on, we've talked about hospitality. We've talked

00:58:38.420 about catechesis. Uh, any other thoughts on, on this topic for today? Um, I think we've covered

00:58:44.260 the main things and i think i just want to reiterate that little list of this idea that

00:58:49.120 that you know the shorter catechism does a fantastic job of laying out the basics the

00:58:54.080 rudiments of the faith and i think it's really important that we feel like we are i want to

00:59:00.180 really encourage believers to feel like they're competent to lay out the basic doctrines of the

00:59:04.520 faith and i think that list uh hopefully is a useful thing for people to kind of think about

00:59:09.760 what are those key things i think the five solas um tulip the doctrine of the trinity the

00:59:16.400 incarnation and then the very basics of covenant theology is the covenant of works with adam as a

00:59:21.740 federal head and then the covenant of grace with christ as a federal head to realize that those

00:59:26.260 things if you can talk about you can really talk about the gospel in a way it's really helpful to

00:59:30.600 get people to get a sense of the the what the gospel is according to the scriptures and being

00:59:35.820 able to talk about those different pieces you don't have to go through all of it in one sitting

00:59:38.900 or whatever but those are little you know nuggets that you can go like this is enough to talk about

00:59:43.380 for a dinner to pick in one of those things and and if you're if you're thinking if you're kind

00:59:49.280 of trying to track in your head how do you help people along that kind of having a sense of like

00:59:54.220 i remember pretty well just like kind of where people are theologically and and i kind of think

00:59:59.380 about how can i help to pull them along and i think that that's one of the ways of being priestly

01:00:04.300 is to know the person, to know where they are, and how to help to lift them up.

01:00:11.180 And so I think thinking about those doctrines as sort of things that you're trying to help

01:00:14.740 check people on, to push people along, and the basics of the law, the idea of the basics of

01:00:20.680 conflict resolution and the sacraments, the use of the Word of God with the types of different

01:00:25.460 places for worship, and then prayer. And so those things, you can do so much to build a person up.

01:00:33.360 And so many believers have sufficient knowledge to teach those things.

01:00:39.660 And so to talk about those things in the home, to look for opportunity for those.

01:00:44.460 And when people are early on in their walk with the Lord, they're going to feel insecure about those things.

01:00:50.500 They're actually not going to have a real clear sense of those things.

01:00:53.060 And when they're more mature, those are really great springboards.

01:00:55.900 And so they're also easy test.

01:00:57.620 You can pick any of those things as a test case and go, what do you think about this?

01:01:01.680 And if they're mature in the faith, they're going to grab hold of it and go, yes, let's talk theology.

01:01:06.720 And they're going to grab it and you're going to have a great conversation.

01:01:09.780 And if they're immature in the faith, they might go, they're either believers and will want to learn more.

01:01:14.600 And they'll go, tell me about that.

01:01:16.780 Or they're going to go, eh, I don't want to talk about this.

01:01:19.360 If they don't want to talk about it, that gives you a sense of sort of there's a real problem there.

01:01:24.460 And you could bring that, for example, to pastoral attention.

01:01:28.160 Right. That's really helpful.

01:01:29.060 So one more practical thing I wanted to add for the listeners, when it comes to choosing a catechism, I understand that there are more modern catechisms that have been written, but one thing that helps so much when you have a church community, when we started doing catechesis and leading family worship with our oldest, we started, and we should have started before we had any children at all.

01:01:52.320 My wife and I, I mean, we would pray together and there was some semblance of, you know, of shared moments of piety, you know, private practices of piety that weren't just individual, but shared in our marriage.

01:02:03.820 But we really got structured and serious when our firstborn child came along, which for the record, I think is too late.

01:02:10.960 But, you know, by God's grace, better late than never.

01:02:13.700 So we started a little bit before our firstborn turned one year old.

01:02:18.700 um and at first you know it was a little bit more creative on the catechism portion um you know not

01:02:26.020 not creative like heresy creative uh but but what i want to add here at the end just a practical

01:02:31.540 note is i don't think creativity is your friend and the reason why is um because because now that

01:02:38.580 our children are reaching school age you know so um and and there's and the church you know here in

01:02:43.960 Texas has grown and there's a hundred children in our church. You know, we're about 200 people

01:02:48.320 and half of them are kids. Um, and, and so now that there's, you know, uh, children in the church

01:02:54.160 and then, and then our daughter goes, you know, with some of those children to school. Um, it's

01:02:58.940 not helpful when every household has their own catechism. It's just, it's not helpful. You know,

01:03:04.260 so all that being said, um, I understand that there are some modern catechisms and there's,

01:03:08.600 there's some variation and, you know, and that's, you know, some of them may actually be really

01:03:13.480 good. But if you're Presbyterian, the Westminster is the best. It just objectively is the best.

01:03:19.540 So just settle with it. Don't try to reinvent the wheel and you should go with that. And if

01:03:24.160 you're more on the 1689 side of the aisle, then I would strongly recommend Keech's Catechism.

01:03:31.560 I think it's the best that there is to offer on that side of the aisle. So depending where you're

01:03:36.180 at on that issue of baptism, if you are a reformed Christian, I think Westminster or Keech's New City

01:03:43.280 catechism is I don't think it's particularly helpful I think it's soft on a few things but

01:03:49.100 beyond just that where I think it's softer where it should be more robust if you do new city

01:03:54.400 catechism somebody else is going to do this other catechism and somebody else is going to do this

01:03:58.120 other and and then when you're actually having these holy conference moments in people's homes

01:04:03.020 and hospitality you you don't want to just have that family you want that family to participate

01:04:07.920 and for their children to participate you don't want them to come share a meal and then say okay

01:04:12.480 now sit back and spectate and watch my family worship. No, it's, you want to invite them to

01:04:18.240 worship with your family. And that involves the husband, the wife and the children. And if their

01:04:22.960 children actually are being catechized by their father, but in a whole other catechism. And so

01:04:29.360 then you're asking questions and it's just, I mean, it is so helpful when a whole congregation

01:04:36.140 is on the same page with, you know, and your best bet, I mean, just the laws of average. I mean,

01:04:42.100 it is your best bet theologically just objectively but also just in terms of laws of average you know

01:04:46.800 like standing the best chance of uh you're doing a catechism in the highest likelihood that this

01:04:51.940 other family is going to do in the same one well then see point a that your best your best bet

01:04:56.700 theologically and also just with the likelihood of of somebody else doing the same catechism is

01:05:01.880 westminster um if you're presbyterian and uh kitch's catechism if if you're if you're 1689

01:05:07.720 so i just i thought that's worth adding in there because we're talking about catechism and stuff

01:05:11.740 but just practically what catechism, there's a lot of options,

01:05:15.680 but I think those are the best.

01:05:17.320 Feel free to disagree, but do you have any thoughts on that?

01:05:20.100 No, and I think that I agree with you,

01:05:24.480 and I think that the idea of a covenanted uniformity

01:05:27.240 where there's an agreement on the church has adopted a standard of doctrine,

01:05:31.560 and so it would be weird if your church has adopted a standard of doctrine

01:05:36.220 and you're going to say, this is what we're going to teach,

01:05:37.660 this is what we're committed to, and we think this is the doctrine that's biblical,

01:05:39.900 but then not use those standards um but to say you know what we think that our uh the confessional

01:05:46.580 commitment of our church is it's not good and not sufficient and we're gonna pick something else

01:05:51.360 right you go well why don't you go to a church that holds that confession and exactly right

01:05:56.940 exactly or you know on the other side you know for the pastors to say we think this is best but

01:06:01.100 feel free uh to do something less than best you know like you know like to you know feel free to

01:06:06.500 do something that's uh that's you know moderately good you know like that is just if if you really

01:06:12.540 believe that's the best then again you're not necessarily commanding this but but you are you

01:06:18.000 know i mean that you you can command um that the father should be leading their children in family

01:06:22.900 worship um i'm i'm of the persuasion that you cannot command you must use these catechism

01:06:28.240 questions you you can command you must be teaching them catechizing them and it must be sound true

01:06:32.640 doctrine. You can command that as a pastor with the other men in the church. You can't necessarily

01:06:38.680 command it. It must be, you know, this catechism, these questions. But I think you can strongly

01:06:46.080 suggest and say, listen, like I, you pick this church. I'm assuming that's because you think

01:06:53.580 that we're teaching sound doctrine. This is the doctrine that this church teaches to choose

01:06:59.420 anything else is not different. It's inferior. It's not just, oh, well, we just do something

01:07:05.860 different. No, you do something worse in your family worship. You don't do something different,

01:07:09.840 you do something worse. Absolutely. And then you're going to say, look, this is the doctrine

01:07:14.740 we're going to be using as we think about things like admission to the Lord's table. This is the

01:07:18.160 doctrine we're going to be using for looking at people who become participants in public office

01:07:24.260 who were nominees so it's like you know train your sons to know the doctrine for the church

01:07:29.180 that they're being raised in help them to be fit you know in their year for for office right as

01:07:34.920 opposed to something else and if your if your church is teaching inferior doctrine like find

01:07:39.400 a church that's teaching better doctrine and and so so yeah absolutely and i i also think this fits

01:07:44.300 into the the overall theme this is a very important point so i'm really glad you brought it up right

01:07:47.680 here at the end which is the division of labor between the households and the and the church and

01:07:51.840 the public offices of the church is not assisted if you're not working on the same plan right if

01:07:57.040 you're if you're if you're trying to teach people according to a different system of doctrine than

01:08:03.320 which is being taught out of the scriptures and has been being taught in your church then you're

01:08:08.680 not going to be helping and so if you want to be able to catechize you know the catechism of the

01:08:14.260 church if it's if it's biblical you know great teach it and use it to then help to develop people

01:08:21.700 and get them fit for being able to do more in the church.

01:08:25.080 And so that idea, I kind of, it blows my mind.

01:08:29.460 I didn't even think about the reality that you would have disagreement

01:08:32.960 inside of the same church about which catechism to use.

01:08:36.200 But no, that's exactly right.

01:08:37.160 You're exactly right.

01:08:37.940 And that's a very practical point.

01:08:39.520 So thank you for bringing that up.

01:08:40.680 Yeah, you're welcome.

01:08:41.420 Any final thoughts?

01:08:43.120 No, I'm really thankful for you having me on here.

01:08:45.100 And I'm excited that we had to talk about these things.

01:08:47.680 And I hope that the way that there's a connection to catechesis and to hospitality to Christian power, how that concentrates power, builds up the skill set of the family, helps to empower other families to decentralize power.

01:09:03.100 And hospitality also being done by the members of the church helps is one of the ways you decentralize power away from the pastorate.

01:09:09.600 because if the pastor is the only one being hospitable that and if the pastor is malicious

01:09:14.580 or anything like that the way that they can be a gossip factory and kind of control the social

01:09:18.800 things you can have weird social engineering that's going on and and what you if you have

01:09:22.640 hospitality there's sort of this decentralized network of of connections that helps to make it

01:09:27.680 so that the homes all have a certain element of the power there and my point is not to make life

01:09:32.280 difficult for pastors but my point is to make life difficult for bad pastors and i want good

01:09:36.840 pastors to be supported by strong communities that are able to interact and deal with each

01:09:41.120 other's needs to minister to each other i can't believe this i forgot to say this hospitality is

01:09:45.620 how you do the recon work of finding the needs to minister right that's how you know you can help

01:09:50.000 each other and it's the context for it so hospitality is reconnaissance for how to bless

01:09:54.260 and so i can't believe i forgot to mention that but that's those are those are some of those key

01:09:58.340 things and that's how that increases the power and decentralization which ultimately increases

01:10:02.720 the power in total of the Christian church and makes Christianity a more powerful force in the

01:10:07.000 land. Amen. Thanks for coming on the show.

The NXR Podcast - April 08, 2024

THE INTERVIEW - A Simple Primer For Family Worship with David Reece

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