In this episode, Pastor Joel Webbin is joined by David Rees, CEO of Armored Republic, and a local pastor. They discuss the need for a theological maximalism and unity in the church, and how to achieve it.
00:04:03.620So now we have a joint, you know, North Star.
00:04:06.680We have a target that we're ultimately getting to.
00:04:08.780It's a few light years away, but we're going to we're going to be moving there.
00:04:12.320And so then you have sort of this, OK, the law of God is the means by which we're supposed to get moving towards that that target.
00:04:19.960And so in addition to that, we kind of go, OK, so that's what we're supposed to do.
00:04:24.940But matters of preference, you're supposed to be able to do all sorts of things.
00:04:27.680And we just think about the individual. And so we forget that individuals are supposed to be cooperating inside of the other covenant institutions.
00:04:36.720And so we've spent time talking about the household and how the household functions well.
00:04:40.820And so if individuals are in covenant with God, we're supposed to glorify God, then we go, okay, how do we interact with other people?
00:04:47.000And the principal places are the household, the church, and the state.
00:04:50.520So with the household, you're looking for extreme unity, right?
00:04:54.220Because you think about this, if you're a man, you're looking to lead somebody and have her be your helpmate for the rest of your life.
00:05:00.480and she's going to have to be able to deal with you in all sorts of details and be able to submit
00:05:05.060to you in enormous detail. And so a wife is looking for, you know, you're looking for a0.60
00:05:10.760godly man, but you're choosing a boss, right? And so this idea that you've got to pick a man that
00:05:16.060you think has good character, that has good doctrine, and that you feel like you're able
00:05:20.140to resolve conflicts in a way that is ultimately going to go appealing back to the Word of God,
00:05:25.400and you've got the church to protect you in terms of there being, you know, abuses or whatever,
00:05:30.300But the state, I mean, you know, a man can be unfaithful or a woman could be unfaithful and then just leave with half the stuff.
00:05:37.660And so the church is sort of the only public protector we've got there right now.
00:05:42.520But so choosing well in marriage and raising your children, you have all sorts of room for ordering your children to fulfill preferences.
00:05:50.980Right. So there's a way the household sort of becomes a place where you're training unity and you're training obedience and you're training operational unity and where you have more minute detail.
00:06:00.300And then you can pay people to do work inside of the household.
00:06:03.760And if they want to keep taking the money, then they've got to keep obeying in detail, right?
00:06:07.900So that's sort of – unity is easier to obtain there.
00:06:11.080What we find is when we move to the church, when we move to the state, we start to have a lot more fracturing, and it's difficult.
00:06:17.040And people tend to either kind of try to make the church like the household or the state like the household, or they try to make the household like one of those higher institutions, and then you don't have efficient management.
00:06:27.120So we need to recognize there's a different form of government, generally speaking, in the lower governments than in the higher governments.
00:06:37.240In the household, you've got essentially a monarchy where the patriarch is ruling the home.
00:06:41.980But then you get to the church, and you've got a monarchy in the form of Christ as the king of the church.
00:06:46.760But there's supposed to be a plurality of elders.
00:06:49.380There's supposed to be this ability to deal with the removal of officers and all that kind of stuff.
00:06:53.700Right. So you've got you've got this this issue of there's sort of a more of a power struggle that could occur and there's less centralized power.
00:07:00.860Right. And with the state, you know, even though you can have a you could have a monarchy that is a valid government that God himself appointed generally a Republican form of government.
00:07:14.060and those things are, are, uh, have different tendencies, but you, you're going to have a
00:07:20.520hard time, even with the absolute monarchy, there's a difficulty of knowing what's actually
00:07:24.580going on. The tendency of absolute monarchs is to start delegating out everything to a bunch of
00:07:28.460different bureaucrats and they don't even know what's going on. It's kind of like in the book
00:07:30.940of Esther where Haman has ordered the genocide of the Jews and, you know, Darius, uh, Hashuerus,
00:07:37.600the emperor Darius, he doesn't even really know who's been executed, who's been ordered to be
00:07:41.760executed, and he finds out his wife is one of those people, and then he finds out that there's
00:07:45.660this general order of genocide, and he goes, oh, oh, this is a problem. Like, that's the level of
00:07:50.940disconnect that even in absolute monarchy you can have from having to manage a large realm.
00:07:56.780So I think that what we're talking about principally today is unity in the church and
00:08:01.300unity in the state and getting rallying points for that. And so I want to suggest that the
00:08:07.300rallying point in the church, in short form, is covenanting around some sort of unity that's
00:08:13.540defined, and the same is in the state. And those don't have to be the exact same covenant.
00:08:18.400I think ideally they would be, but I think that the reality is that in a church you have to have
00:08:23.420more unity than you have to in the state, and eventually the goal would be to see this idea
00:08:29.440of a covenanted uniformity, where you have unity in doctrine, but you then capture that in a form,
00:08:35.560an external form, and that external form is called a confession. And then you also have an
00:08:40.340external form that's the form of government of the church and the form of worship that's going
00:08:44.700to be dealt with. And in the state, you have similarly a constitution for the state. And so
00:08:50.260these are the things that are getting worked out. And so in the interim, the question is,
00:08:53.940what are the intermediate steps to advance towards those goals? So I'd be curious if you have
00:08:59.760disagreements with those perspectives on the goals and the rallying points.
00:09:03.200No, so far, I agree. I think, you know, one thing that's important in the church and with the state in both of those realms is just triage, you know, so in the church, you know, a theological triage of saying, you know, what must one believe, what should one believe and what may one believe, you know, you must believe this in order to be, you know, a member of this church.
00:09:30.260You should believe this, although it may be an arena where we leave room for some degree of disagreement.
00:09:39.820But, you know, but we still have a position that we think is right.
00:11:17.520So, but I want to suggest that covenants are binding across generations.
00:11:21.940And so if that's the case, if covenants are binding across generations, then we, whether
00:11:29.640we find it convenient or not, may have to think about covenants that have been reached
00:11:35.140before or decisions of the church that might have been reached before.
00:11:38.940So and we also have to ask ourselves, is there a cumulative work that's been done or is this sort of this chaos hodgepodge where everybody has to, like, study everything that's ever happened from the first century forward and kind of piece it all together?
00:11:55.900So to cut to the chase on that, I mean, what I want to communicate is essentially I would suggest that the Reformation reached a new high watermark.
00:12:03.640There's a rallying point that's defined there.
00:12:05.760And so whether you're – if you're Baptist, you're basically going to say the London Baptist Confession is the high watermark.
00:12:11.200If you're Congregationalist, you're going to say the Savoy Declaration.
00:12:13.640And if you're Presbyterian, you're going to say the Westminster Confession.
00:12:16.420And if you look at those documents, they agree about basically everything except for baptism and church government.
00:12:24.120And so the idea that it's not possible to get to significant doctrinal unity is something that I just say that's not the case.
00:12:31.380I mean the Holy Spirit simply does it.
00:12:35.140So right preaching of the word, careful guarding of those things.
00:12:38.460And so I want to suggest that on an institutional level, we need to rally to, as churches, a confessional standard.
00:12:47.180And then as we disagree, so like in your case being Baptist, my case being Presbyterian, our job becomes arguing with each other about those disagreements to where we can come to unity.
00:12:58.680So one of us is wrong, and so either children need to be baptized or they don't.
00:13:03.800And so I can deal with you as a brother and as a friend and say, hey, let's talk about other stuff.
00:13:23.960Let's work through the points of disagreement on those.
00:13:26.260So you go back to the scriptures itself.
00:13:28.500So this, I think, a commitment to seeking unity, not just seeking to shut up, right, but seeking to actually come to agreement.
00:13:39.560And that happens while arguing with each other.
00:13:42.340And I think a lot of the times, you know, the problem is that we are impatient with each other.
00:13:46.720And we say, if I've talked to this person about this doctrine once or twice, you know, I'm just not going to talk to them about it anymore or I'm going to not be their friend anymore or whatever.
00:13:54.160And so you go, this stuff that is not the gospel proper, if we're not in some sort of a church covenant together, then we can still be pushing to try to come to resolution on those things.
00:14:07.860So I think the confessional standard is what we have to use to say that.
00:14:13.020And so a lot of people are going to say that Westminster Confession or the London Baptist Confession is too long.
00:14:17.320And so I think they're going to criticize that as too detailed.
00:14:19.960So what do you think about those as the points to rally around?
00:14:23.240I think that's good. One, I think there's a misunderstanding of unity. So I think that's
00:14:31.020part of the hang up is the Bible actually speaks to at least two different types of unity. Because
00:14:37.060when we think unity, I think that we've been indoctrinated with a light, fluffy, watered down
00:14:45.580Christianity that anytime it discusses unity, it's only talking about one kind of unity,
00:14:52.420which is a biblical unity, but even that has been perverted. And so the type of unity in 99.9%
00:14:59.780of sermons that discuss unity, the type of unity in view is what I would call a unity of love,
00:15:07.460or you could put it another way. You could say a unity of common care. So this would be the type
00:15:13.200of unity that insists in scripture that we should bear with the weak, that we should exercise charity
00:15:21.720towards one another in the midst of disagreement. And that is biblical. There is a biblical precedent
00:15:28.460for that type of unity. The problem is not that that type of unity is wrong. The problem is that
00:15:34.400there's more than one type of unity. Ephesians 4 is probably one of the premier chapters that
00:15:39.620speaks about not a unity of love or common care, but rather a unity of the faith or unity of the
00:15:46.800knowledge of the faith, which is a unity of common, not care, but common conviction.
00:15:52.340Ephesians 4, what's being asserted there is that one, Christ is the head of the church,
00:15:56.860and as a good head, he gives gifts to the church in the form of leaders. Leaders are not a burden,
00:16:04.000but good leaders is the ideal, and they should be viewed as a blessing, a gift to the church.
00:16:08.920Christ gives different kinds of leaders, and I would say not just different kinds of leaders
00:16:13.260for different roles and tasks, but also different stages of this church building project. So he gives
00:16:18.820Ephesians 2.20, cross-referencing that from Ephesians 4, he gives apostles and prophets
00:16:24.140for leg one. If we're thinking of a construction team, it's not just that the same men
00:16:30.480are working from the project from start to finish, but there are different teams of men
00:16:36.440who are particularly skilled in different forms of labor and one team of men, namely those who
00:16:43.740lay a foundation, they come first. And then when the foundation is firmly laid, then we don't need
00:16:51.120to do that part of the house building project over again. And we don't need those men. We still
00:16:58.860need their foundation. We need their work that's already been done, but we don't need those men.
00:17:03.460So we, we still have the foundation, which is, I would say that it's the apostles and prophets in scripture rated. So we still have the apostles and prophets. We still have their work, but we don't still have modern day apostles and prophets working, but we still have the work of the apostles and prophets. And it's a work that was good. It's a sufficient work. It's a perfect work inspired by the Holy Spirit with Christ himself as the capstone. And so it's a work that we don't need to do over.
00:17:31.220And now you have evangelists and shepherds teachers coming in.
00:17:35.820And I think that's who is working now.
00:22:13.080You can't turn it into something different that you would have if it were a finished product.
00:22:16.540But you have none of the value of a finished product.
00:22:19.200And so the finished product is valuable because you can sell it.
00:22:22.480The raw material is valuable because it's able to be turned into all sorts of stuff.
00:22:26.920And the stuff that's work in progress has all of the negatives of both and none of the positives of either.
00:22:34.080And so it's when you have disagreements, it's sort of work in progress.0.72
00:22:39.240And I think the goal has to be between Christians to seek to limit the work in progress.0.60
00:22:45.240We don't try to bring up everything under the sun that we can think of that we might disagree about.
00:22:49.040But instead, your goal is to find unity, have a common care, and to then seek to resolve disagreements by seeking to be careful and self-control.
00:23:00.580And I think some people who like to debate, I think a lot of people who are really gifted in a prophetic way just like to debate.
00:23:07.860And they go and they want to debate with people whether they're mature or not.
00:23:11.080and because those people haven't matured into a place of being careful about what disputes they're
00:23:17.360opening up, they sort of end up making strife all over the place. And we could joke about this
00:23:22.240as the cage stage, which is basically people who care about doctrine coming to realize some
00:23:26.720important doctrine and then realizing they want to debate about that. And then they learn about
00:23:30.140other neat things that matter in the Bible and debate about those. So I think one of the really
00:23:34.780important things for pursuing unity is recognizing what you talked about as the unity of care
00:23:39.580and the unity of love, but then using those things to help to resolve disputes.
00:23:45.480So the question becomes, what order do you pick disputes to have?
00:23:50.200Because I could just walk around finding people and being like,
00:24:03.240Real quick, just out of curiosity, are you a head covering guy?
00:24:06.840Yeah, we do head covering at our church.
00:24:08.540And so people bring it up early because they see women covering their heads and they go, so do I have to, we have to like cover our heads together?
00:26:21.100versus like the stuff that gets published today,
00:26:23.520You know, it's just, you know, you go, I'm going to keep reading Gill and Poole.
00:26:28.340So I think this idea of the pursuit of the goal of greater unity of the doctrine, one
00:26:34.000of the things that happens, I think, in Ephesians in the text is it talks about the idea of
00:26:38.740the bond of peace and this idea of bearing with one another in love and endeavoring to
00:26:48.600keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
00:26:51.520And I think the bond of peace, whenever you see the word bond in Scripture, you should be thinking about covenant.
00:26:57.360This idea that you form a bond that's established by oaths or by vows.
00:27:04.620And so the bond of peace is the covenant of peace or the covenant of grace.0.57
00:27:09.060But it's also a bond that establishes peace between Jew and Gentile and all that, where there's this in the new administration of the covenant of grace, we're sharing together in this covenant administration.
00:27:20.840And so this idea that the context of covenant, and so I think the other thing you mentioned
00:27:26.420is this idea of how do you make it so it's not impossible for people to join.
00:27:29.440And I think that you have to recognize the biblical idea that there are levels of maturity.
00:27:35.740And so the Apostle John talks about children, young men, and fathers.
00:27:41.260And so what I think is important is that you have sort of a minimal set of doctrine that's
00:27:47.280that's necessary to teach people in sort of membership classes are typically how this gets
00:27:52.280done in churches. But you have some sort of a church government. And I think the idea of a
00:27:56.300shorter catechism, like the whole purpose of differentiating between a larger catechism and
00:28:01.860shorter catechism in the Presbyterian tradition is to say the shorter catechism is the milk
00:28:06.400that's necessary to help somebody to come to the table so they can commune. And then a larger
00:28:11.760catechism is how you mature somebody and it's meat and i think this i this realization that
00:28:18.060there's a there are stages in the process of development of the christian life and we're so
00:28:22.940individualistic in america that we like to pretend like everybody's journey is totally unique
00:28:27.700and it's just like no actually my experiences are overwhelmingly going to be have points of
00:28:35.320reference that are similar in the experiences of of believers throughout history and that are
00:28:39.840referenced obviously in the scriptures and the scriptures give us a a you know complete set of
00:28:45.140all the stuff we need to address all the experiences that we have in the christian life
00:28:48.100right but so so this idea that there's there's sort of there's stages so the the the child
00:28:53.320the young man and the father um and i think that what we need to recognize is what's really
00:28:58.520necessary for for the child is going to be essentially you're going to have a commitment
00:29:04.160to the doctrine of the scripture and its authority you're going to have a a some sort of a shorter
00:29:08.780catechism or something like that for introductory teaching for people and then you're gonna you're
00:29:14.200gonna have in that introductory category you're gonna necessarily have you know the solos tulip
00:29:19.200trinity incarnation and a basic federal headship of of adam and christ you don't have to have a
00:29:25.940really elaborate covenant theology whatever but you need to understand that you're sinful in adam
00:29:29.940and you're you're you're you're righteous in christ right and so those those things are going
00:29:34.720to give you here's the stuff we got to give to people and so often people treat like tulip like
00:29:40.260it's some like grand thing that you need to deal with when you're a father or whatever it's just
00:29:44.740like that's that's milk that guards the solas um and and so then you you also need to have a
00:29:51.160commitment to the basic law order that the ten commandments summarizes and and some sort of a
00:29:57.240commitment about based upon that local church you're going to have to deal with how the sacraments
00:30:00.880that are administered. You're going to have to deal with some sort of submission to church
00:30:04.380authority. And then you're going to have to deal with prayer because it's essential to the
00:30:10.320Christian life. So that's actually the content of the Shorter Catechism. And so, you know,
00:30:16.220those things, I don't think you look at the Shorter Catechism, I've had a lot of really
00:30:19.400solid Reformed Baptist friends that basically are like, yeah, I agree with the Shorter Catechism
00:30:22.900in elaborate detail, except when we get to the baptism part, right? And so it's just,
00:30:26.620And, you know, you can just grab that slightly.
00:30:29.200If there's not a better Baptist catechism that can be used, you can grab that, you know, replace the baptism part, and you've basically got something.
00:30:35.220So I think that those, that idea, if there's a rejection of what's there in the shorter catechism, there's a fundamental rejection of the basics of the faith.
00:30:46.360This is not elite theological, you know, higher education for theologians.
00:30:55.200We've just, the bar has fallen so far that I remember Voddie Bauckham saying, you know, years ago that anytime you find a young man who is zealous for the Lord and, you know, possesses some, you know, some theological, you know, inclination, like, hey, he's got some potential, you know, in the theological realm, seems like he's got a sharp mind and he's zealous for theology and he knows a few things.
00:31:20.740many people in the church just instinctively begin to push him towards the pastorate and say,
00:31:27.400well, you should consider going to seminary. I think you're called to be a pastor. And part
00:31:30.700of the reason we do that is really to protect ourselves, our own apathy towards doctrine
00:31:37.340and these kinds of things. So what we want to do is, because he's got to be called to
00:31:41.800pastoral ministry, because if he's not, that's how we assuage our guilty consciences. Because
00:31:46.240if he's not, well, then maybe he's just, um, maybe this is actually normative. Maybe he's just, uh,
00:31:52.500your average, you know, young Christian man. Um, and so then, you know, then, then what do I say0.99
00:31:58.040about myself? You know, but if I can say like, oh, well, he's, you know, he's a Christian 2.0.
00:32:03.840He's, he's one of those rare special guys. Then I can, then I can maintain the illusion that,
00:32:09.140um, that I'm, you know, I'm not bad. I'm just the average Christian and he's above average
00:32:14.280when the reality is, no, the bar has slipped and fallen so much that the guys right now that we
00:32:20.480send to seminary to be pastors, you know, again, going back to, you know, earlier times in the
00:32:26.6801700s and 1800s, these just would have been, you know, many of them would have just been your
00:32:31.980average Christians. Yeah. And I think one of the things, you know, you pointed out in a lecture1.00
00:32:38.500that I was able to enjoy hearing you give, you had said that, you know, all over the place,
00:32:43.560We're essentially in a place where we keep promoting people to their point of incompetence.
00:32:47.980And I think a part of that is any gifting at all that might relate to some office, the tendency to push people up.
00:32:53.920And I think what you just brought up, that idea of trying to assuage your own guilt, is a part of why.
00:32:59.640And so you have been an advocate in your book.
00:33:03.000You advocate this idea that gathering around a particular location so you can work together, the need to concentrate because we've diffused too much.
00:33:11.280was we've dissipated our energy as a church and therefore made it so we're incapable of
00:33:16.060accomplishing anything. So we're, we're too spread out. We're led by people who are in positions that
00:33:21.720are just above their point of competency. And so that's obviously a recipe for success. And so
00:33:27.640that's why we're winning all over the place. Just, we're all tired of winning, right? This is,
00:33:31.620this is, this is what we're going through. It's winning exhaustion. So that's, it's obviously
00:33:35.900destructive of all those ends so i mean if we think about the process of maturing and we think
00:33:42.180we need to pull people in and mature them and have well-ordered sort of teams and i think there's
00:33:48.180also this idea that the young man is differentiated in john in first john he says the young men fight
00:33:54.500and so the the fighting of the young men is is an indicator you're trying to you raise children
00:34:02.080until they've got basically those things in place where they understand the basic doctrines,
00:34:07.540they understand the basic law order, they understand how to use the means of grace.
00:34:12.120And then they're kind of getting into the rhythm of Christian life with, you know,
00:34:15.540how does their worship go and stuff like that.
00:34:18.060And then they're also trying to get into, how do I get into Christian community, right?
00:34:21.240So once they're plugged into those things, most people, a lot of pastors look at that like,
00:34:27.200Like, this is like masterful, like this guy, this is done.
00:34:30.200Well, that's when they're able to now be useful fighting men.
00:34:34.800And so that idea that the fighting, then you have them go and do ministry, you have them do evangelism, you have them work through you, and you're starting to go through things like, let's talk about the confession.
00:34:44.860Let's talk about the larger catechism.
00:34:47.660Let's make it so you have some idea of how the books of the Bible fit together.
00:34:50.560You're starting to really get them the system.
00:34:52.420And they're going to get lumpy in different areas, and they're going to be really good at this and terrible at that.
00:34:57.660And your goal is to help to make a more mature, developed individual where their weak points are not disastrous anymore and their strong points are really able to be used powerfully.
00:46:35.760Reese Fund, Christian capital, boldly deployed.
00:46:40.620Brother, that was excellently described.
00:46:42.440I mean, like, the scenarios, I have scenarios flashing through my head from stuff I've seen throughout my life of exactly that.
00:46:48.320And I think, so, what we do in our diaconal training is we go, okay, there's doctrine portion, but part of the practical portion is conflict resolution, which requires you to know basic biblical counseling, and catechesis.
00:47:01.300And so you think, you know, that's all private ministry stuff, right?
00:47:03.920It's not a function of church government, but deacons, as they're doing that, as they're
00:47:08.060engaging people's lives, so often they're going to, people go, I need mercy ministry
00:48:23.380And I think that people, you know, you go read the Ephesians text that you mentioned before, Ephesians 4, you're going to find everybody operating according to their station makes it so that people are able to divide the labor efficiently and encourage people to be trained.
00:48:40.740So if immature believers are being trained by young men in the faith, by deacons and stuff in the faith, then that's able to be done.
00:48:48.940And the more complex problems are able to be dealt with by the fathers in the faith.
00:48:52.580And so you're able to have well-reasoned, well-done stuff as opposed to overloaded officers, overloaded elders.
00:49:01.180They're able to really do a great job of teaching through the points of disagreement that become more complex.
00:49:08.060And they can start to give you your handouts and organized information and all that kind of stuff.
00:49:12.780And so I think one of the examples of this has happened in the church just in our own time,
00:49:17.760Pastor Philip Kaiser has like amazing handouts for like every sermon he gives.
00:49:21.380Just these great handouts of the organization of the stuff.
00:49:25.660And I think that must testify to the fact that at their church, they're able to really well organize that to give this guy the time to actually put together these amazing documents for these sermons.
00:49:36.400And so that kind of stuff where the teaching is able to be done well, have it be, here's handouts, here's information, here's stuff you get to look at as a congregation.
00:49:44.520That's going to encourage unity in the faith.
00:49:46.800And so there's this proper division of labor.
00:49:50.640And so then the fathers being those who are really, really deeply knowledgeable, being
00:49:56.660those who are able to teach the more advanced elements, and they're able to carefully guard
00:50:03.260And so they're going to be able to pick, and we talked before about the idea of when you
00:50:07.200pick conflicts, you want to pick the more basic ones as opposed to the less basic ones.
00:50:11.960And so the Westminster Confession, the London Baptist Confession, you look at the order
00:50:15.380of the chapters, they're systematically ordered.
00:50:17.280The first one's on scripture, how do you know?
00:50:19.340And the last one's going to be about the Day of Judgment.
00:50:21.960And so you have this stuff that it kind of builds, chapter one, scripture, chapter two, the nature of God, chapter three, the decrees of God.
00:50:31.480So how does God do things in terms of creation and providence?
00:50:34.580And it just rolls out in this logically ordered way.
00:50:37.300When you have disagreements, your goal is to see, well, do we agree about the more basic things?
00:50:43.700And you avoid fighting about all the hot button issues.
00:50:46.260And your goal is to drive the discussion to the points that are more systematically foundational.
00:50:53.080And that way you can actually find where the real source of disagreement is, as opposed to fighting about a bunch of little hot button issues at the top.
00:51:00.960You're trying to go, OK, well, do we actually agree that the word of God is true?
00:51:04.360Do we agree that the word of God is systematic and non-contradictory?
00:53:04.320just for the listener, is not imposing man's systems on the God-breathed text. Instead,
00:53:10.700it's going to the text, reading it carefully, and then discerning out of the text, not reading
00:53:16.700systems into the text, eisegesis, imposing our systems, but it's looking at the text and saying,
00:53:21.820well, what do we know about the character and nature of God? Well, we know that he's a God of
00:53:25.360order. He's not a God of chaos. He's not a God of disorder. So I'm not imposing a system on the
00:53:31.320text. I am counting on the God of order that he has placed a system in the text, and I want to
00:53:36.840find it. So I'm not bringing a system to the text. I'm drawing out of the text a system. And then
00:53:41.700when we have systematic theology, it is constructed in not biblical order of Genesis to Revelation,
00:53:48.300but in logical order. And in that logical order, there's an order of priority. And so that sets
00:53:55.300the triage of, of, um, must believe, should believe, may believe, and then we're able to
00:54:01.380start there. And that helps us, I think, from some of the, the further fracture fracturing and, um,
00:54:07.720and dividing, uh, to be able to, you know, because part of the reason that we're dividing on some
00:54:12.800things is because, you know, part of it is, is being too petty and too particular, but part of
00:54:17.340it also is putting the cart before the horse. Uh, some, some of these divisions, uh, we're dividing
00:54:23.080now on social justice or the solution for social justice with so-and-so, which ironically, we
00:54:30.000should have been divided with so-and-so from the very beginning. I think, for instance, people in
00:54:37.100the last couple of years have felt shocked that James Lindsay is not on our team. And I'm like,
00:54:44.480guys, he's an atheist. He's not even in the realm of, like, we're shocked. So James Lindsay,
00:54:53.080And turns out he wants to guard all the benefits of a Christian nation that afford him the ability to just to go through life, to have, you know, to not be, you know, just it preserves his liberty and all these kinds of like all that comes from the Christian faith.0.52
00:55:13.440There is no liberty apart from the Christian worldview.0.66
00:55:15.360So it turns out he wanted to defend, you know, seemingly defend some basic, you know, but he was never defending the Christian faith.
00:55:24.680He was defending what the Christian faith produced for him, its blessings.0.74
00:55:29.040But then when it comes to actually the solution, he doesn't want a Christian nation.
00:55:35.780He just wants, you know, classical liberalism as a later fruit of the Christian worldview.
00:55:42.260um and but that's that's not my goal my goal is not to uh to bring us back to the you know the
00:55:48.400good old days of the 1980s my goal is no i want a distinctly uh christian nation and of course i'm
00:55:55.960not going to be able to count on someone like james lindsey um to be a co-belligerent towards
00:56:00.520that aim and so um so my point is you know some some of the fracturing that we're having now not
00:56:05.900all of it but some of the fracturing we're having now is we're we're actually we're just starting
00:56:11.560to realize that that we're divided on chapter for instance to put it into like confessional terms
00:56:16.240we're divided on chapter 27 well you know and it's like i'm losing allies i'm losing friends
00:56:21.720yeah but honestly you're you're divided on chapter 27 but if you've been a little bit more discerning
00:56:28.440you would have realized that you you were already divided on chapter two and three and four and
00:56:32.320of course uh of course this was not going to happen so i think assuming the center that's
00:56:37.460you know, I think there's a geographic application of this. I think there's an ideological
00:56:41.640and methodological application of this, certainly a theological application of this. But right now,
00:56:47.720in terms of what time is it, the sons of Issachar, what do we do today? They knew the times and they
00:56:52.620knew what Israel should do. So they weren't just commentators. Oh, I know the times. I know how
00:56:56.740bad it is. No, no, they also had a plan. They knew what Israel should do. And I think right now,
00:57:01.920what Israel, the church of Jesus Christ needs to do given the times is we need to realize that
00:57:07.440our high watermark, like you've so wonderfully said, is behind us, unfortunately. We've actually
00:57:13.380regressed because of sin, because of foolishness, because of compromise. So we need to go back,
00:57:18.700and also we need to assume the center. It is not a time for spreading out. That is the ultimate
00:57:26.320goal, to be fruitful and spread out over the whole earth and subdue it through the Great Commission0.98
00:57:30.980and the cultural mandate. But right now, I think we need to fall back. We've spread too thin. We0.97
00:57:37.060need to fall back from behind enemy lines. We need to consolidate. I think in the name of the
00:57:41.100game right now is consolidation geographically, theologically, and then go and find what's the
00:57:46.760lowest, you know, the, well, not the low, but what's actually the highest common denominator
00:57:52.720where we can agree. And how close is that towards the highest watermark we have thus far in 2000
00:57:59.860years of church history? Okay. So here's where we can agree now. Here's the Westminster Confession
00:58:04.440of faith. Okay. Let's consolidate here where we can agree. Let's spend the next 50 years seeing
00:58:09.660if we can get back to the high watermark that we had 500 years ago. And now let's push forward,
00:58:18.320you know, and now we can talk about maybe spreading out again. Those seem so clear to me,
00:58:23.600like just practical, basic strategy and tactics. But man, you'd be surprised. You know, that's
00:58:30.620basically, you know, some of, some of, you know, the, the content from my talk that I gave at the
00:58:34.520new Christendom conference. And, and I was encouraged. A lot of people loved it, but it
00:58:39.240was a love hate kind of a lecture that I gave the people who loved it, really loved it. And then
00:58:44.140there were a few people that really, really, I mean, you know, they're like, this was my least
00:58:48.880favorite talk because I told, I, cause I, I just, I just kind of straight up told people what to do.
00:58:55.560like we don't have time stop being cute this is what you need to do and that you know and i think
00:59:01.340that's kind of what we need right now we need a few people to say like okay that's enough that's
00:59:05.020silly it's always been silly stop it and this is what we need to do and i think the need you know
00:59:11.180essentially the things you point out to people is they need to move to a place where there's0.92
00:59:15.140already a solid church and really a solid christian borough where there's economic activity
00:59:20.660church activity there's hospitality there's there's people that are going to be helping
00:59:25.140to work together that are desirous of accomplishing the same goals and you need a good good amount of
00:59:30.100unity there that's hard to find in a lot of places so being willing to move there and if
00:59:33.980you can't move for some reason like you've got duties you've got stuff that ties you there
00:59:38.520whatever maybe you've already got some of the beginnings of it okay well focus the energy on
00:59:42.860making that work um if you can't make it work there then you've got to leave yeah so there's
00:59:49.580either there's either already a solid church there where this is happening or a solid church
00:59:53.620requires a little bit of pushing and effort to get to building that borough or you have the capacity
00:59:59.620to do it and a duty to stay or you need to leave and that's it and and so that's how simple that
01:00:05.440is and i think most people we over evaluate what we're able to do on our own in time frames and
01:00:11.680so we need to realize the need to divide labor to accumulate capital to to to to make it so we can
01:00:17.260build off of what other people have already started. And so I think a lot of people miss
01:00:21.240out on that. And so places where that's happening, where there's
01:00:25.200education, Christianity in the church, households that are in good order, money being
01:00:29.300made with businesses, all that stuff together, that's sort of the stuff
01:00:33.140that's necessary for a Christian borough. I've been
01:00:37.160calling it the Geneva strategy before I heard the idea of that. Just the idea that
01:00:40.920you flee to a place where you can consolidate, get control, and then you can project power
01:00:45.060out. And so you're going to look at what happened in Geneva. And so, but I think there's two things
01:00:50.360there that have to also be focused on, which is church unity through confessional covenanting,
01:00:56.700and then the civil order. And so you talked about, I think you might disagree here, and I'd be
01:01:01.860curious about whether it would be helpful for people to think about how the order around this
01:01:05.920is in the civil order, I would say we can have a highest common denominator without regard to
01:01:12.480really the history. And we just kind of go, can we agree on a basic political platform of
01:01:18.140seeing Christ acknowledged as the king of kings, his word acknowledged as the authoritative thing,
01:01:23.480biblical Christian liberty defended as defined by the Bible, and biblical justice administered
01:01:28.260as defined by the Bible as to be sort of four big political goals. And then how do you make
01:01:34.100that happen? Well, I think there's an ordinance of civil covenanting that we have to be willing
01:01:39.900to swear to pursue those things together, then we have to be willing to commit to certain actions
01:01:45.220around that. That's going to be things like having a shared arbitration system. It's going to be
01:01:50.420swearing to defend each other if they start to come after each other. You know, they come after
01:01:55.540you as a Baptist or me as a Presbyterian, the idea that we'd be willing to come and defend each other
01:01:59.040or provide sanction for each other. This idea that we would swear to argue with each other
01:02:04.640about the disagreements in order to seek to come to greater unity until we die.
01:02:09.560And that's where I think that context happens of having that debate to try to get back to
01:13:48.220I believe in covenanting between multiple local churches.
01:13:51.900And I think historically, a lot of Baptists and Congregationalists would have held the idea of a covenant between them, but the covenant wouldn't have been enforced by a court.
01:13:59.340You'd have had an association where you meet to discuss things, but it doesn't have the authority to do anything to remove people.
01:14:04.580They would have seen the value, but you're right.
01:14:06.100It would have been volitional, and it would have not been formally binding.
01:14:09.800So I'm saying there should be the church court as well that's shared, but there should also be an ecclesiastic or a civil covenant.
01:14:16.840So there should be an ecclesiastical covenant and a civil covenant.
01:14:19.180And I want to see the churches covenanting with each other, but I also want to see their
01:14:23.960boroughs, the towns, the zones, these little, we have a civil sphere.
01:14:29.060So for example, you know, in Phoenix, there's apologia, which, you know, I have a lot of
01:18:29.900and so that that stuff we need all of that and and we that's why we need we all have our our clay
01:18:36.720feet and we need the giftings of each other and so I think that the priestly are going to be the
01:18:42.600ones that really help to gather people together to work and then the prophetic are going to be
01:18:47.740able to really focus on arguing to try to come to greater unity and the king they're going to
01:18:51.840really make sure stuff gets done and everybody's got those giftings to various degrees so I mean
01:18:55.700nobody's like free from doing any of those things we all have to do all of them but some people are
01:18:59.380going to be better at others and lean in on some of those pieces. And so I just, um, I think my
01:19:04.600hope is that people see the value of working with each other. It's so easy to just not do it.
01:19:10.480It's about, you know, you can build your own fiefdom. You can do all this stuff. Like if
01:19:14.140you're not making the effort to connect, it's so easy to try to isolate and try to build your own
01:19:20.300thing and to, to be away from other people. Right. Yeah. Especially, you know, the, the PTSD
01:19:28.800can can click in you know especially if you've um if you feel like you've been hurt in the past
01:19:36.120you know then it's just i'll just i'm going to build a moat build up the walls and we'll just
01:19:42.040we'll do our own thing we'll insulate and um and we won't partner with anybody and that's part of
01:19:48.420the reason why i you know why i want to do things like host conferences and have as many guys there
01:19:53.980as I possibly can, because honestly, it works as an accountability measure. So, you know, like we've
01:20:02.020announced our conference, it's 10 months away. So one of the things now that all 15 guys, you being
01:20:07.800one of them, that we, you know, it's not, it's not written in a contract necessarily. And one day,
01:20:12.480you know, maybe it should be, but, but it just informally in the back of all 15 of these men's
01:20:18.480minds is like, I've got 10 months where I need to play nice. I can't, you know, like, because I'm
01:20:26.100going to see all these guys, we speak in a conference with them. So for at least for the
01:20:29.200next 10 months, I probably should be a little bit nicer to them on Twitter. I probably don't need to
01:20:32.920burn these bridges. I probably, you know, those things really help. And, you know, to, you know,
01:20:38.540I think together for the gospel and those kinds of things, you know, with the gospel centered
01:20:42.160movement and, you know, new Calvinism, massive problems for one, just new Calvinism. I don't
01:20:47.520want new Calvinism. I want old Calvinism, but, you know, to at least one particular area where
01:20:53.860it wasn't an utter train wreck, um, there, there was, um, uh, you know, good can truly be said
01:21:01.280about guys like, you know, Mark Dever and Ligon Duncan and CJ Mahaney with three different,
01:21:08.300you know, theological positions, um, saying, yeah, but we're, we're going to, you know,
01:21:13.820we love each other. We love each other. The problem is, you know, that 20 years went by
01:21:18.620and they still had three different theological positions and there was no, it didn't even seem
01:21:25.560like it was on the table as, as one of their goals was to, Hey, but also maybe, you know,
01:21:30.300what if we agreed? You know, so it didn't even seem like that was one of their aims,
01:21:33.480but I will say that like probably the greatest fruit out of that movement was these massive
01:21:40.340events where everyone said, we're at least united on this. And what we want to do, I think one of
01:21:47.280the things that we want to do with whatever you want to call it, with Christian nationalism,
01:21:51.300with theonomy, new Christendom, whatever, post-millennial hope. But one of the things
01:21:56.680that we want to achieve is a theological maximalism. I think we've had for too long
01:22:01.940a theological minimalism where you really did have some genuine relationships and it really did
01:22:06.960uh, have the ability to pack out a 20,000 person, um, event once a year. And there really is fruit
01:22:13.220from that. There, there really are some blessings. I don't want to unnecessarily disparage that
01:22:17.780movement because there's plenty of things that I can disparage that part. I don't want to
01:22:21.580disparage. And yet even that part is good as it was, uh, was still, um, it was a theological
01:22:28.820minimalism. It was, it was, you know, basically it was, it was just kind of one step above
01:22:34.520Billy Graham from back in the day, you know, Billy Graham is just like, well, you know,
01:22:38.680the great commission has to be, um, fulfilled. And, uh, the biggest thing that's standing in our
01:22:43.820way is, uh, that we've, uh, we've spread too thin, divided our forces, you know, so if we're
01:22:49.120going to fulfill the great, basically the logic was this, we want Jesus to come back. Uh, we need
01:22:53.800to fulfill the great commission for Jesus to come back. Uh, in order to fulfill the great commission,
01:22:57.700we need to be on the same team. And in order to be on the same team, uh, we need to lower the bar
01:23:02.960doctrine divides, you know, and that's where you got, you know what I mean? That's, and, and,
01:23:07.440and, and so, uh, you know, and then the new Calvinist, you know, gospel, you know,
01:23:12.860Calvinist resurgence movement of the last, you know, 30 years or so was basically that,
01:23:17.520uh, but with a little higher bar and hopefully by the grace of God, what we're doing would be,
01:23:23.240it would be the, the good parts, Billy Graham esque and new Calvinism ask, except, um, it would
01:23:31.040go from basically no theological commitments and then some theological commitments to a lot
01:23:36.340of theological commitments, a theological maximalism that is Calvinistic and not even
01:23:43.400new Calvinism, but old Calvinism tried and true and getting back to the historic watermark. And
01:23:49.040then hopefully our kids can take it further. Absolutely. And so you used early on in our
01:23:54.940conversation here, kind of three categories, the must believe, should believe, and the may believe.
01:24:01.040And I think that the way of defining those, the must believe is sort of the here's the stuff you need to positively show understanding of to come to the Lord's table.
01:24:11.340And that's sort of the that would be sort of the stuff you require for the child in the church.
01:24:16.580Right. So whatever your church membership covenant is, at the same time, you don't want those children in the faith openly denying what you're confessing in terms of your church confession.
01:24:27.900But the idea is that they're not going to have thought through a lot of it, right?
01:24:31.560And so the point is that once they become aware of points of disagreement, the should-believe
01:24:36.820stuff, you know, pastors come in and spend a lot of time trying to argue through and
01:24:40.420show them why they're in error and help to get them to the place where they're getting
01:24:51.280And then there's the may-believe stuff, which is stuff that hasn't been captured in a
01:24:54.540confessional standard yet that your church has adopted and that stuff is the stuff that we debate
01:25:00.040about in the hopes of having another advancement in the high watermark and so you know maybe that'd
01:25:05.360be the phoenix confession or maybe it's the dallas confession whatever and and so this this idea that
01:25:11.520at a certain point that we are seeking to go beyond right that we we rally around the should
01:25:17.340believe and we have a must believe bar that's sort of the membership and you're training the must
01:25:23.240believe into the should believe. And then there's the, you know, the may believe stuff. We're trying
01:25:27.700to argue about that after we've been able to come together and rally. And then we're trying to
01:25:34.060further define, but we give liberty on the may believe stuff, you know, in terms of some of the
01:25:40.220ways of, of, of, of which views of, of eschatology of, of, you know, cause you could have like a
01:25:46.640historic post-millennialism or you could have a, a partial preterist post-millennialism, which I
01:25:51.220hold to, you know, and that kind of thing. And you could even have like an optimistic
01:25:54.580amillennialism. Some of the types of, you know, some of the views are going to make it so that
01:26:00.080you're essentially saying, yeah, I want to be a part of this movement, but I also think we're
01:26:04.200going to lose. And, and I'm not sure where that line draws exactly, but my point would be this
01:26:09.440probably a broader range on the eschatology, which has not been captured in the confessional
01:26:14.160views than you would have on a lot of the other stuff that's lower down there. And so those are
01:26:19.680I hope those definitions for the must believe, should believe, may believe, I hope that's a
01:26:25.220helpful divider. I don't know if you disagree about how to break that down. Yeah, no, that's
01:26:28.640helpful. I agree. Well, let's go ahead and start landing the plane. Any final thoughts for this
01:26:34.040episode on unity and theological maximalism and civic covenanting and ecclesiastical covenanting?
01:26:40.880Any final words for us? I think that the main thing people need to walk away with is realizing
01:26:46.780if we want to see a civil unity where we've got a Christian state, what you need to do is you need
01:26:51.580to be encouraging discussion with people where there's a desire to gather around a civil covenant.
01:26:58.200We have to covenant to do these things first and to protect each other first before we're going to
01:27:02.140be able to accomplish it. Unless we have a duty in place with defined duties, we're not going to be
01:27:07.360able to accomplish the goal. So the commitment to do it and then the gathering around and fulfilling
01:27:14.120those commitments. In order to see that happen, we need to see churches concerned about ecclesiastical
01:27:20.060unity as well. And so we need to have a concern for that. We need to be praying for it. The unity
01:27:26.040of the church is something that powerfully encourages evangelism. The love of the church
01:27:32.440powerfully encourages evangelism. Christ promises that those things cause the world to repent and to
01:27:37.840be convicted. And so if we maintain the law of God carefully, and if we seek unity in terms of
01:27:43.000the forms that we have, those things allow us to have a common voice. And so the three to 10 million
01:27:49.740Calvinists in America should be seeking to unify in that way. And we would see a growth. And so0.58
01:27:56.860that idea of seeking to figure out what's the high watermark to gather around and debating those
01:28:02.300differences. So I really think Presbyterians and Baptists are the guys that are generally,
01:28:07.140most of the believers are presbyterian or baptist right and so there needs to be a focus on
01:28:13.060discussing those things in the context of a civil covenant where we're discussing coming to those
01:28:18.260things and and coming to agreement about these things to have a shared confession debating about
01:28:23.500baptism debating about church government are very important for us to eliminate the practical
01:28:28.180dividers that prevent us from having a shared church then in addition to that you need to the
01:28:33.580The most practical thing for you to do is for you to make sure your home is in good order, where you're leading well, you're leading your family and family worship, making sure they're having stable church attendance, keeping the Sabbath, building up an estate, making sure you and your wife are a good team, that you have resources, and making it so you've got stuff that you can pour into this.
01:28:52.540Because if you don't have resources, you can't do any of this work.
01:28:55.240And if you're a pastor and you're not bivocational, you're probably in a church that's larger in a lot of cases than it should be and relying upon that to feed the growth.
01:29:06.120The reality is that solid men can run their house, run their estate, and be public officers.
01:29:14.760And so the ability to do all of that stuff and build out a robust estate so you can leave an inheritance to your children and your children as children,
01:29:21.400That's necessary to make it so you've got the resources to do what you need.
01:29:24.520George Washington was able to march 1,000 men at his own expense to the relief of Boston
01:29:28.420when it was under siege by the British.
01:29:30.700One of my goals is to make sure I could march 1,000 men to Dallas
01:29:33.540to come to your guys' relief if there were need.
01:29:36.840And so that idea of trying to pull together that sort of utility,
01:29:40.360the capacity to actually do stuff, having resources to make things happen.
01:29:44.860And so if you want to do that, you have to govern yourself well.
01:29:47.980The only way to not be enslaved to sin is to have a deep knowledge of the truth.
01:29:51.000it makes it so that you're a father in the faith. If you have a knowledge of God that's deep,
01:29:54.820if you have a knowledge of God that's deep, then you govern yourself because it's the knowledge
01:29:59.160of the truth that sets men free from slavery to sin. And so I want to encourage men to seek
01:30:03.720the knowledge of God deeply and to make sure they're exercising discipline in all the areas
01:30:08.500of life, seeing their piety not just be an internal thing that's about a relationship
01:30:12.400between them and God, but it pushes out to the edges, their duty over their sphere.
01:30:16.580So I think that's the capacity to see unity occur. It is to know God deeply yourself, govern your home well and have resources, encourage your church to grow in depth and to encourage unity between other churches by discussing the differences and seeking to covenant together.
01:30:31.980and by seeing that occur in the civil sphere,
01:30:35.080having leaders and having Christian men
01:30:36.800throughout the country who are committed
01:30:39.660to seeing the acknowledgement of the reign of Christ
01:30:42.620over the state, having them covenant together
01:30:44.980and having these necessary components work in harmony.