In this episode, Pastor Joel Webbin sits down with author Zachary Garris to discuss his new book, Honor Thy Fathers. They discuss the importance of the 5th commandment in light of the challenges faced by our generation and the mistakes our predecessors have made, and the need to honor our immediate fathers.
00:07:26.180there's usually some kind of quip of honor your elders or you're not keeping the fifth commandment
00:07:32.000or it's like listen um i we want to be as respectful as possible but you're not honoring
00:07:39.600your fathers you you would excommunicate john calvin you would excommunicate john knox you
00:07:45.600would ex all these guys gouge all these guys you you have to edit their books you can't even
00:07:51.440publish them without censoring them because it says superiors. Like, you dishonor your fathers
00:07:56.840every day. Your generation is marked. It is marked in American history as dishonoring fathers.1.00
00:08:04.700And I don't know. I don't think it's fair to say to a younger generation that wants to,
00:08:10.960we're not wanting to progress forward. We're wanting to actually go back and to get to
00:08:15.180biblical masculinity, biblical femininity, biblical views on all these theological subjects
00:08:21.700And it's the older generation that's telling us that we're rebelling when in reality, if you look at a chain in each individual link, our generation is actually matching up with all these prior links except for one.
00:08:36.920That's the rebellious generation, in my opinion.
00:11:43.760And so there's going to sometimes be conflicts and views there.
00:11:47.680And so in our manners and how we speak with older Christians with whom we disagree, we should be respectful, but they shouldn't talk down to us because we disagree or we think that actually the older guys got it right, the old dead guys.0.98
00:12:03.480I mean, that's a lot of times the way I think it is.0.99
00:12:08.900It's a debate between the young whippersnappers who are not making up novel doctrines.
00:12:13.920we're simply like we just we went back and and we read we did the reading that that's all that's
00:12:20.600all it is so it's the young whippersnappers who read you know william gouge instead of
00:12:25.720john piper you know what i mean on on on domestical duties you know like biblical manhood and biblical
00:12:32.800womanhood and then we're just repeating those arguments old arguments that were common that
00:12:38.260is what people believe is what the church believed for centuries and centuries and centuries
00:12:42.720and then we're being chastised, but being chastised from a standpoint of I'm older
00:12:48.900and wiser and more experienced. And the irony is what I'm trying to communicate is the irony is
00:12:54.260the younger guys are actually the ones who are holding to the older position.
00:12:59.920And so we're saying, well, no, no, your view is the novel view. Your view is the misnomer.
00:13:06.940I understand that I'm half your age. I get that. But the views that I'm espousing are not on the
00:13:15.400basis of my own personal credibility and life experience. That's not the foundation for my
00:13:21.180view. The foundation for my view is the Word of God as articulated and interpreted throughout the
00:13:28.240witness of church history for centuries instead of just since 1988 with the origin of complementarianism.
00:13:36.940right i is that fair yeah yeah i i think so and uh they shouldn't look down on us
00:13:45.100uh who who want to go further back i think that's that's not a a bad thing i mean i i think part of
00:13:52.060this is there's the assumption that there's been progress right progress in ideology progress in
00:13:57.460the united states culturally politically uh theologically and i would challenge that in
00:14:05.880most ways. I think there's been a lot of regress. And so, you know, theology doesn't really change
00:14:14.160much. I mean, sometimes there's like new insights, but for the most part, we should be, I think,
00:14:18.840fairly traditional and continuing what was passed down from our spiritual fathers. And so when there
00:14:25.780are new things or deviations, most of the time those are wrong, and it's good to criticize those.
00:14:32.200It just happens to be that many of the guys who made up some of those deviations are still alive and leaders in the church and whatnot.
00:14:41.060And so like even with my book here, I don't want to disrespectfully engage them, but I do want to engage them and I want to tell them I think they're wrong.
00:14:49.400And here's why. And I give my reasons. And I would I mean, the best thing I think would be they say, yeah, those are really good points.
00:14:55.120And let me think about it. And and they can change their views. And honestly, I think it's kind of arrogant to go against the entire reform tradition.
00:15:05.160I mean, that's that's kind of thing with this book is it's showing it wasn't just one guy.
00:15:09.480I mean, I'm not just going to like John Calvin or something. I'm going to the entirety of the tradition and showing that actually they all were, you know, very patriarchal, held to a very strong view of male rule.
00:15:22.820um you know this idea of a tie-breaking vote in marriage none of them fought like that that's
00:15:28.920that's totally modern and and and unbiblical i would say it doesn't use that kind of
00:15:34.400qualification in the scripture so yeah i think um i mean i mean some of this is you know there's
00:15:40.700ties even with politics in the sense that if we include culture and the like i mean you get into
00:15:47.900kind of this older conservatism and so this this ties in with some of these even historical debates
00:15:53.380and whatnot and there's there's kind of like a a lot of neoconservatism politically but also in
00:16:00.760the church where i think a lot of people have just shifted left on a lot of issues and so then they
00:16:06.920hear something that's like more right wing and like it's more it's more on the right it's like
00:16:13.740a paleo conservative take or something and they they freak out it's like they've never heard it
00:16:19.120before and maybe they haven't but uh that's that's not because people didn't used to hold a lot of
00:16:24.520these views before it's just i don't know between the media and the education system i don't know
00:16:32.540they have this like very narrow window of what's acceptable and i think i think that's what's going
00:16:37.720on right now for a whole host of things and i mean i'm doing it somewhat on the theological front
00:16:41.800is trying to take us back to the older Reformed theologians
00:16:46.380and not just do theology in the 20th century.
00:21:18.200That is concerning if he said something like that.
00:21:20.740But let me just say, I think, so you have like the narrow complementarian strand,
00:21:26.740but then you have the broader complementarians who would,
00:21:29.480they would say, no, a woman can't preach.
00:21:32.220And, you know, I mean, in general, they would say that the worship service should be led by men.
00:21:40.400But that's the thing is some of this starts to break down, you know, where some complementarians even think women can read scripture or in public worship or lead certain prayers in public worship.
00:21:52.400And, yeah, the worst of them think that, you know, women could even preach.
00:21:55.820um and then and then you get outside the worship service and then there's the question of women
00:22:00.620teaching in sunday school uh to like mixed groups with men and and you know some of these narrow
00:22:05.820complementarians especially would say that they can so you've got that but then um you also have
00:22:12.940kind of the softening of male headship where you know this is this whole tie-breaking vote
00:22:18.440where scripture just speaks of um the husband is the head of his wife and and you know ephesians
00:22:24.7405 even says the wife should submit to her husband in everything you know it says in everything not
00:22:28.780in not in an occasional tie-breaking vote it's it's the idea that the man is to actually lead
00:22:34.420like they use that language but he's actually a leader and that means he leads in everything by
00:22:40.980example and decision making his wife is you know his counselor he consults her on things but he's
00:22:48.980still the leader. He doesn't let her lead most of the time, and then he only leads if there's
00:22:54.720a disagreement. I mean, that's not what the scripture says. It's not what the Reformed
00:22:59.160tradition ever said about male headship and marriage. So you've got that, and then most
00:23:04.580complementarians probably wouldn't go to the issue of civil leadership, where they might allow
00:23:13.460women to, or more likely it's probably they just don't say anything about women in political
00:23:20.180office, where you go read, obviously Knox had the strongest statements against this,
00:23:24.040but even Calvin said, yeah, that shouldn't be normative. It's not ordinary for women to1.00
00:23:27.760hold political office. That should mostly be men. And so, you know, that's pretty much the,1.00
00:23:33.980I would say probably the most standard view would be Calvin's, but complementarians probably
00:23:39.540aren't going to say much about that and obviously we have it now where we have a woman running for
00:23:44.340uh president of the united states and so so that that has just that issues kind of exploded where1.00
00:23:51.960they you know we don't just have occasional women running for office they like push for
00:23:55.800half candidate the candidates being women and then it goes beyond that where it's i don't know
00:24:02.180the men are just getting drowned out in a lot of these things so um but but there's other issues
00:24:07.460where you know complementarianism many of them were not all but many of them were getting into
00:24:13.140the whole ess thing um eternal subordination of the son right rather than just saying that the son
00:24:19.320you know post-incarnation submits to the will of the father because they were they were saying
00:24:24.900well it's in eternity because they're trying to say look uh you know in the trinity you have
00:24:31.000equality between the persons but still submission and they're wanting to say look so the husband
00:24:36.620and wife are equal, but the wife submits to the husband. And the thing is, the scriptures,0.67
00:24:42.780well, one, I don't think they teach eternal subordination to the son, but two, they don't,
00:24:47.240you know, compare husband and wife to father and son in the Trinity. That's just not a comparison
00:24:53.900the scripture makes. So, and in one sense, I mean, so we have to qualify these things. I mean,
00:25:01.120in one sense, a man and a woman are equal, right? They're made in God's image. They're equal worth
00:25:05.640and value, but in another sense, they're unequal. And that's, that's even like the, you know,
00:25:09.820tied with, um, male headship is, is the husband actually, uh, husband and wife don't have equal
00:25:16.080authority in the marriage relationship. They don't, they're unequal. I, we, for some reason,
00:25:20.700a lot of these guys just are uncomfortable saying that, um, even though that's the obvious
00:25:24.700implication of, of submission. So, uh, anyway, uh, I'm trying to think if there's some other
00:25:31.600issues, but I think that kind of shows like, even if somebody holds a broader complementarian
00:25:35.300position and some people would maybe call me that you know say that's my view but um and there's
00:25:40.980going to be overlap there are going to be some of these things where uh you know the patriarchal or
00:25:45.580just traditional reform position is going to just be more robust more consistent and uh and certainly
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00:28:01.820right yep agreed um yeah it seems like uh part what another distinction with complementarianism
00:28:09.180between that and uh biblical patriarchy or whatever you want to call it gendered piety or the
00:28:14.380like the reform tradition contains a lot more than just its views of men and women so like
00:28:19.580even if you call it that then it's like the reform tradition on patriarchy you know like
00:28:25.340That's what I would want to, so I don't know, however you slice it, but I think just one more distinction between complementarianism and patriarchy is the emphasis, the Bible's emphasis in the patriarchal view on nature, and that's part of what keeps God and his character from being capricious and arbitrary, and so I think a lot of the complementarian ethos is the woman, whether it be in the house or in the church,
00:28:55.340or society at large um the woman is you know basically looking to the man and saying anything
00:29:00.580you can do i can do better i can do anything better than you but i won't um you know so like
00:29:06.480i you know i remember a pretty well-known woman who uh is considered to be conservative
00:29:13.160i i don't think so but you know people consider her to be conservative the bar for being conservative
00:29:18.600is pretty low these days you know you can you know you can do uh swimsuit modeling you know0.89
00:29:24.020and stuff like that. And, you know, conservatives are a joke. So anyways, you know that. But she
00:29:29.500said that, you know, that she could preach better than most men, but she won't. And she won't
00:29:37.360because, you know, she recognizes that the Bible does not permit that, her preaching to mixed0.97
00:29:43.360groups, men being present on the Lord's Day. And I appreciate, you know, her holding the line in
00:29:48.440that sense. But I remember hearing that and thinking, well, that's, I think that's the root
00:29:53.540the problem. I know what she meant. She meant that women are capable of theological competence.
00:30:05.560If that's the statement, then I agree. I think women are capable of theological competence. I0.97
00:30:10.700think women can learn. In fact, I mean, that's one of the things that we see in 1 Timothy chapter
00:30:14.8602. Not only is it permissible, but you could even argue that there's an insistent with apostolic
00:30:19.940command a woman must learn. And then he begins to outline in what manner and what heart posture
00:30:25.380she should learn, learn with submissiveness and quietness, but she should learn. And the chief
00:30:30.260context for learning, I would argue is not sending all of our daughters to seminary, but
00:30:33.920the chief context for learning that was in the mind of the apostle Paul, you know, as he's writing
00:30:38.320this is the church. You know, on the Lord's day, women are learning right there with their husbands
00:30:43.060sitting on the pew next to them from those who are biblically qualified to preach and teach who
00:30:46.720are men. But the point is, women should learn, and women can be competent, but I don't think0.99
00:30:53.820it's merely that a woman is not allowed to preach. I honestly believe, because of what I know about
00:30:59.640the Scripture on this matter, and because of what I know about the character and nature of God,
00:31:04.760it's not that fish can fly just as good as birds, but God has designated and determined that fish
00:31:10.740should swim, just because. And birds can swim just as good as fish, but God has determined
00:31:15.780and designated that birds should fly. No, the role of creatures, it extends from their design
00:31:26.040and their nature. And so I would say that there's something about preaching that is not mere
00:31:31.760theological competence or mere oration and the ability to articulate and compel. But there's
00:31:39.000something in the very nature of preaching. I think it's a misunderstanding of the nature of men and
00:31:43.400women and a misunderstanding of the nature of preaching. I think there's something in nature,
00:31:47.740not just role, but role stems from nature, and there's something in the design of preaching
00:31:52.940and the design of men and women where it's not just that a woman can preach, and as it was said
00:31:58.740by this particular woman, can preach better than most men, but won't because I'm conservative.
00:32:03.520No, the reason you are not permitted in Scripture to preach is not merely because you're not allowed0.83
00:32:09.760to but because you are unable to you can't preach it's not just that sally shouldn't preach
00:32:16.400sally can't preach she can't um because the preaching of the nature of preaching and the
00:32:22.660nature of sally are incompatible um and i think i can argue that i'm curious what you would say
00:32:29.300so i this is a good point you raise about nature and it's actually the one i forgot
00:32:35.820to raise as far as problems with complementarianism. So I do think this is one of the big
00:32:42.580problems with complementarianism, is they detached the command, which would be, or prohibition,
00:32:49.420women being pastor or preaching, they detached that from God's design and the nature of man and
00:32:56.440woman. And so I do think this is essential, is you have to understand those things go together.0.66
00:33:01.580the very nature of the thing or person and the telos, right? The goal, the end for which it's
00:33:11.280made. And so God's commands are not arbitrary. And the reason he places restrictions on women
00:33:19.600that he doesn't on men is because of his design for men to lead. And so this gets into like
00:33:27.140natural law. And I realize people like to argue about that when it comes to like the political
00:33:30.660realm and everything. But when we're talking about male and female relationships, duties,
00:33:39.700gender roles, as some people like to say, we have to understand that God designed men to lead,
00:33:46.860and he formed man this way. So even when we get into the very biology of man, testosterone,
00:33:53.300all of these things that make a man different from a woman, that has ties with God's commands0.79
00:34:02.320for leadership. So both to be the head of the household, right? The very constituency of a man0.95
00:34:08.160is different from a woman, personality to some extent, right? And how they think and function.1.00
00:34:13.940And this stuff goes down deep. And so when Paul says, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise1.00
00:34:22.020authority over man, that's 1 Timothy 2.12, he's not just making that up. Oh, God told me this,0.99
00:34:29.040so I'm going to repeat this command. No, he knows that this flows from and is tied from
00:34:34.380the different constituencies of man and woman. And in fact, what did we see? What's his reasoning
00:34:39.760in 1 Timothy 2? He actually goes to creation. He's actually making a sort of natural law argument.
00:34:44.440because he says he says um for um um ad was formed first and and so he's going to the very
00:34:54.020fact that he he was created first there's something about creational priority uh i think
00:34:59.240it's tied with headship and though and then we could even go elsewhere like first corinthians
00:35:02.96011 he says that a man was not made for a woman but the woman for man she's the helper to her
00:35:09.140husband doesn't mean she's lesser uh worth or value of course we always have to tell egalitarians
00:35:16.560that's not what we're saying um but um but it does mean as far as her work and uh god's design
00:35:24.820for woman she is there to help her husband she's a life-giving being so it's you know she's a mother
00:35:30.400i mean that's so important right it's speaking of hierarchy my my kids are not of less innate
00:35:36.180value. If we're talking about the innate dignity and value of a human being made in the image of
00:35:40.820God, I have four kids and a fifth on the way. They are not of less value than I am, but God has a
00:35:46.180created order and a hierarchy. They are not my equals or my peers in terms of authority. We're
00:35:52.320talking about authority. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I mean, obviously with children, right, they
00:35:57.720grow and mature, but that, you know, with a woman, that's not, that's not the case. She's an adult0.99
00:36:02.800woman she'll never become a man and regardless what people say uh and and uh she she can't hold0.99
00:36:09.800that authority she's she's not designed to do so um i mean there's exceptional cases where like a1.00
00:36:16.460widow right is the head of her household but that's that's not that's not ideal obviously0.75
00:36:21.260um so even then according to paul if she's younger he would say the ideal is for her to find a new
00:36:30.100head and to remarry her first timothy 5 5 5 5 14 yeah and yeah and that so even there we have that
00:36:38.200passage we have uh titus 2 and paul is is directing women's work towards the home i mean it's kind of
00:36:44.380another issue but he he's directing women towards work in the home and child rearing and he's
00:36:50.080directing men towards well leadership in the home but also their work is outside the home so this
00:36:54.900even ties in with like the leadership and church thing is men's man's work is directed outside the
00:37:01.160home uh whether it's leadership in the church or civil leadership or business or whatever they're
00:37:06.960they're doing um so so i mean i think that's kind of an underlying principle there but yeah so real
00:37:13.460quick getting back to what you were saying i was just going to get you back on track but you were
00:37:16.360saying you know paul appeals to the it's a natural law argument at some level it's also special
00:37:21.760revelation got it got to throw that in there but he gets to you know the order of creation but he
00:37:26.320also he's kind of a two-pronged argument he he references the order of creation but also the
00:37:30.640order of the fall so in creation man is formed first and man is formed from the dust of the
00:37:35.680ground but it's the woman who's formed second and she's formed from man and for man so that's
00:37:40.800the order of creation and its purposes but then he makes a second argument in terms of
00:37:45.120the order of the fall so adam is formed first but eve falls first
00:37:50.280yeah and so well what what did most of the complementarians do with this
00:37:56.440is they've come up with this view that they say well it's just role reversal um but i'm not really
00:38:03.220sure entirely what they mean i mean i've read their stuff on this it doesn't really explain
00:38:07.720paul's uh reasoning i think uh it makes a lot more sense which is what i think most older writers
00:38:14.560held is he's saying there's something about eve and her deception she was the one deceived adam
00:38:20.240was not deceived adam sinned willingly and um which is not to absolve him of guilt if anything
00:38:27.120it only you know indicts him further right it's not like saying this is a good thing about adam
00:38:33.680it's just when compared to the man uh the woman and her i guess we could say uh just constituency
00:38:41.840the way she's designed and i actually i like this explanation is that woman is made to follow right
00:38:47.280so eve was made to follow and the problem is she didn't follow adam and she didn't follow god she
00:38:53.200followed the serpent right so that that was tied with her deception she was deceived i mean that
00:38:59.280was her own word she says the serpent deceived me in genesis 3 and i ate so paul's just picking that
00:39:05.440up adam doesn't say you know eve deceived me that's not what adam says he you know now he does
00:39:11.440Adam has plenty of sin. And again, if anything, he's more responsible, not less. But notice,
00:39:19.600it's not deception. So it's not, you say, well, the serpent deceived me. And then Adam says,
00:39:24.080well, the woman deceived me. No, it's the woman you gave me. She then gave me the fruit and I
00:39:30.780ate of it. And if anything, the implication there, and I ate of it is I knew exactly what I was doing
00:39:36.200and i sinned with my eyes wide open but i did it you know there's a lot of different commentaries
00:39:41.920from older writers on this but you know some of them not all but some of them even say that you
00:39:45.880know adam did it because um his his main sin in that moment was idolatry and loving his wife more
00:39:53.660than god um he he knew exactly what happened when he saw that his wife had eaten of the fruit and
00:39:59.140would surely die as god had threatened and promised um he said i'd rather die with her
00:40:04.840than live with god and and ate of the fruit with her whereas what he should have done is he should
00:40:09.340have run to god and said god um oh help us what what do we do my wife has eaten of this fruit
00:40:16.440and then he could have even been you know like the second adam um by saying i i offer myself
00:40:22.700his tribute take me instead of her would you please you know like and you know but so he but
00:51:06.460Yeah, I mean, so, like, Westminster Theological Seminary.
00:51:09.880I mean, East Philadelphia, they had a woman that was teaching their Hebrew courses for a while.
00:51:16.720I mean, this is kind of, unfortunately, fairly common.0.98
00:51:19.300RTS has brought some women in as adjuncts and whatnot.
00:51:24.260You know, this is one great thing about Greenville Theological Seminary, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, is they actually require their professors to have five years of pastoral experience.
00:51:33.680So that right off the bat is going to limit that to those positions to men.
00:51:38.560And I think that's great. That's that's what seminaries should be doing.
00:51:41.700But they're kind of unique in that regard.
00:51:44.480So and I think it makes it harder. It certainly makes it harder to find professors.
00:51:48.200But we just we need to raise the bar in the church today.1.00
00:51:51.360We just have way too low standards overall, and we're caving to feminism way too much, and our institutions have been doing that.
00:52:00.040And so I think if we can say one good thing is happening with the younger generations, I do think there is more – I think the younger men are overall more conservative.
00:52:11.540yep we can get the reasons for for why but like i i don't know i mean even my writings i'm hoping
00:52:17.740and it seems that way that there's a good influence out there that most guys don't want
00:52:22.300to call themselves complementarians anymore they want to say they're they hold patriarchy or or
00:52:27.800traditional reform position um you know so there are some good traditional reform position on
00:52:34.040patriarchy yeah or yeah that's right i i think i say uh every time you see the traditional reform
00:52:40.840position i'm like yeah that you can say that but reform position on what like calvin's institutes
00:52:47.540on on what like the regular principle of worship on like on baptism yeah yeah yeah i mean i want
00:52:54.140to cover the the entirety of the reform tradition but i would say reform reform tradition on male
00:52:58.980rule i do say i think i use that kind of language so male so i'm not i'm not opposed to the term
00:53:02.960patriarchy i just i recognize like obviously it has some baggage some people you know they they
00:53:08.100use that against us all the time yeah they do but at a certain point at some point you just got to
00:53:14.720roll with it you know what i mean it's like yeah that's hey i don't have a problem i don't know i
00:53:18.860mean after careful consideration after careful consideration i've decided to become worse
00:53:23.740you know you just you just hear it every day like you're misogynistic you're this you're that and
01:00:20.860And so I think God has designed men to lead, and tied with that is he's designed them to provide, and they would be like providing in the home, but providing in the church the word, like teaching, but also protecting.
01:00:36.900And so when you get into the church, you have this discipline aspect that is essential, right?
01:00:41.120rebuking one another uh i mean we should all be doing that exhorting one another in christ
01:00:46.220um but then then you know you have formal discipline in the church for uh sinful behavior
01:00:54.740and uh and false teaching and and the church has to carry those things out the church has
01:00:59.980to exercise discipline right and when it doesn't those things fester and they become a problem
01:01:06.380And then the church declines into theological liberalism or libertinism and debauchery, and those things happen, right?
01:01:15.760And so you have to have men, and particularly godly men, leading the church at the local level, and if you have beyond that, right, at the presbytery and general assembly level.
01:01:27.640And you could kind of make the same point with politics.
01:01:31.520I mean, not to get into this too much, but things have definitely changed where, like, earlier America, voting was limited not just to men, but kind of men who had established themselves.
01:01:42.260They had land and the like, and they had an interest in the commonwealth.