The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Christians, Birth Control, and the Blessing of Children

00:00:00 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:00:11 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:17 I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webin. Today I am honored and privileged to have as a guest

00:00:21 Pastor Michael Roundtree with Wellspring Church in DFW, Bedford, right Michael?

00:00:28 is that the yeah pretty much north richmond hills i mean it's just north of fort worth basically

00:00:33 great so michael is a pastor at wellspring i used to be a member at wellspring church back

00:00:40 when i was in college michael was actually my mentor uh do you what what year was that was that

00:00:45 2007 man that was probably that was a long time are you gonna tell the story about the uh ex

00:00:51 excommunication? I was not excommunicated. I was not excommunicated. But yeah, so anyway,

00:00:59 so me and Michael- You're like for clarity. Yeah, we go way back, which is great. And we've been

00:01:05 friends for a long time. He's also a co-host on Remnant Radio. And so some of you might recognize

00:01:11 him from that ministry. And so today, the topic that we're going to be discussing is Christians

00:01:19 and birth control. And before we hop into the topic, I want to just give Michael a chance to

00:01:25 talk about his ministry and introduce himself a little bit more.

00:01:29 Sure. I've been the pastor of Wellspring Church for, I guess, since 2012. I've been actually

00:01:36 a pastor at the church since 2005. And so I've been here a long time at Wellspring. And we also,

00:01:46 you can see this background around me. He mentioned Remnant Radio. It's a theology

00:01:49 broadcast. YouTube's our biggest platform. We have pastors, theologians from all over the world

00:01:55 and try to help people bust out of their theological echo chambers and hear from

00:02:01 somebody different. We have Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, non-denominational, Charismatics,

00:02:06 everything. So anyway, so that's what we do. So there's the church, there's the podcast.

00:02:13 I'm working on a book right now.

00:02:15 I'm about two thirds of the way through on the book of Revelation.

00:02:19 And I'm going to try to demystify it a little bit and walk through chapter by chapter, but do it in a way that's inspirational and devotional.

00:02:26 So anyway, you can look for that coming down the road.

00:02:30 But anyway, so those are some things.

00:02:34 Cool.

00:02:35 Thanks, man.

00:02:35 Well, I'm glad that you're here.

00:02:37 Glad you're on the show. 0.94

00:02:38 And again, our topic is going to be Christians and birth control.

00:02:41 There's a lot of different views on this subject, and it certainly tends to be controversial, at least for some.

00:02:47 But I think it's something worthwhile, something worth talking about, and I believe the Scripture addresses it.

00:02:52 Both Michael and I, we don't only tip our hat to the inerrancy of Scripture, but we also believe in the sufficiency of Scripture.

00:02:59 When it comes to the perspicuity of Scripture or the clarity, perspicuity is just a very unclear word that means clarity.

00:03:06 And so a bit of irony there, but the perspicuity of scripture, we believe the scripture is clear.

00:03:11 That doesn't mean the scripture is equally clear on all subjects, on all topics, but we do believe that the scripture is clear.

00:03:17 And we do believe that it speaks to all of life and doctrine and that the scripture is not just authoritative, inerrant, but that it's also sufficient, meaning that it can be applied, that it has something to say for all of life.

00:03:31 So the kind of an illustration that's helpful is just, you know, a sword, you know, the scriptures likened to a double edged sword or sharper than any double edged sword.

00:03:38 And so we don't want to just tip our hats to the authority of scripture and say, there's a sword.

00:03:42 It's a great sword.

00:03:43 It's a double edged sword.

00:03:45 It's a sharp sword.

00:03:46 And you can see it on the mantle clearly displayed in the glass case.

00:03:49 Well, we want to go a step further and say, and we're going to wield the sword like founders, Tom Askel and Jared Longshore, those guys, you know, wield the sword.

00:03:57 We're going to pick it up and we're going to actually use it.

00:03:59 We don't just acknowledge that is a sword, but we want to be useful with the sword.

00:04:03 We believe it's not just sharp, but it's also sufficient.

00:04:06 So all that being said, we believe the Bible speaks to this issue.

00:04:09 That doesn't mean that the Bible speaks to this issue as clearly as it might speak to salvation or other issues.

00:04:16 However, we think the Bible has something to say.

00:04:19 And so I just kind of want to pick Michael's brain, and we're just going to dialogue and talk back and forth.

00:04:22 And I'm not even convinced that we'll agree on every finite detail and nuance.

00:04:27 In fact, I'm pretty certain we probably won't.

00:04:29 But I think in general, we both have the same idea because we both have the same Bible and the same Lord.

00:04:35 And we love him and we love each other.

00:04:37 So that being said, let's go ahead and just jump right in.

00:04:39 The first question that I have is, what is the cultural mandate found in Genesis 1, verse 28?

00:04:46 And is it equally as binding on New Testament Christians today, now that the world contains nearly 8 billion people, as it was on Adam and Eve in the very beginning?

00:04:56 So the cultural mandate, be fruitful and multiply. 0.87

00:04:59 We're talking about birth control. Well, the idea of being fruitful, multiplying, I think a lot of Christians would say, haven't we done that, Michael, Joel?

00:05:07 I feel like, you know, like there's a lot of things we've messed up as human beings, but can't we check that one off the list?

00:05:12 You know, I think we nailed it. So is the cultural mandate as relevant today as it was in the garden?

00:05:18 Yeah. Well, is it helpful to let all the pagans have the kids and we Christians, we can just try to convert the pagans?

00:05:25 Is that? So, yeah, let me just read the cultural mandate. Genesis 128, God blessed them. God said

00:05:34 to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. So it wasn't just about

00:05:41 filling the earth with sufficient population, but also subduing it, have dominion over the

00:05:48 fish of the sea and the birds of the air, the heavens and the living creatures and all that

00:05:51 moves. And so the point in man having dominion was to make the earth look like God rules over

00:06:00 it. And so I think one question I would ask is, yes, we have lots of people, but has this

00:06:07 mass multiplication of people caused the earth to look like God rules over it? I would say no.

00:06:14 Okay. So, and I think most of us would. So just as God rules over the heavens and the earth,

00:06:19 man was to rule over the earth. And then to kind of zoom forward New Testament, I do think there is

00:06:25 a connection between the Great Commission, therefore go and make this all authority on

00:06:31 heaven and earth. So you see the kingdom dimension, which carries with it a subduing and a filling and

00:06:38 subduing the earth. There's certainly connection. We see kingdom in seed form and the cultural 0.95

00:06:43 mandate in Genesis 1. We see it more fully in Jesus resurrected as cosmic Lord and King.

00:06:51 And then he commissions us. And what I would say is the Great Commission is not a replacement

00:06:59 of the cultural mandate. The Great Commission is in some ways like a renewal of, because Adam and

00:07:07 Eve were always called, and their offspring always called, Genesis 3, the seed of the

00:07:14 woman was always called, Israel was always called to be a light to the nations. Israel

00:07:19 wasn't chosen to just have a bunch of babies in their own little cloister over here in

00:07:23 Palestine. Israel was chosen to be a light to the nations. So in a sense, they were called

00:07:30 to make disciples. Now, did Jesus bring clarity as to what it looks like to make disciples?

00:07:36 Yes, he did.

00:07:39 Is there a new era of history that was launched in Jesus?

00:07:44 Yes, there was.

00:07:45 The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

00:07:49 There is greater light.

00:07:50 There is greater clarity.

00:07:51 There is greater revelation, et cetera, in Jesus.

00:07:55 But I would look at the Great Commission as almost like a renewal of the cultural mandate,

00:08:03 not a replacement of i'm not saying they're exactly the same thing but i like that yeah

00:08:11 yeah so the great commission doesn't replace the cultural mandate it's a renewal and i would i

00:08:16 would agree with that i would for me i would probably just maybe even use the language of

00:08:20 like it's it's a clarification i like what you said like just clear you know i think that both

00:08:25 of us would agree in terms of old testament saints in regards to soteriology how they were saved we

00:08:30 would say that all people in all times and all places before the cross after the cross have only

00:08:34 been saved in one way and that's through by grace through faith in in the messiah in christ and what

00:08:40 we have on this side of the cross is we have the privilege and it is a great privilege to be able

00:08:45 to look back with greater clarity at the person and work of jesus whereas old testament saints

00:08:51 before the cross were trusting in jesus but for adam and eve well you know all they really knew

00:08:57 of jesus is that he was the serpent crusher you know and and abraham he knew that he was the

00:09:02 promised seed you know and and so there's you know david knew that he was that he was a king

00:09:06 and the government would be upon his shoulders and that he would sit one day as on his throne

00:09:10 and rule the nations and righteousness and you know and so we have this further kind of progressive

00:09:15 clarifying revelation of the savior in terms of of salvation but that doesn't mean that there's

00:09:21 a new way now that people are saved it means they're all saved the same way and we're just

00:09:24 learning more about it and uh and i think in the same way taking dominion over the earth i think

00:09:29 there's there's a clarifying in the great commission and the great commission is a

00:09:33 clarifying in many ways a clarification of the cultural mandate i don't think it's meant to

00:09:37 replace it i i like the language that it's meant to renew it refresh it um but i think in some

00:09:43 ways it's kind of like with jesus in the sermon of the mount you've had you know you've heard it

00:09:47 has um you you have heard it has been said or it has been written um but i tell you you know and

00:09:53 Jesus isn't coming and replacing the law, but he's, he's clarifying.

00:09:57 But I tell you, if you even lessen your heart, you know, or I tell you, you know,

00:10:00 and, and so Jesus is, he's, he's further clarifying.

00:10:03 He's, he's further describing and detailing the tenets of the law and the Sermon on the Mount.

00:10:08 And I think Jesus likewise, kind of the same concept, same principle.

00:10:12 I think that he's giving us more clarity, more vision on the great or the cultural mandate.

00:10:17 I think in the garden with Adam and Eve, this mandate before sin had ever even entered the world, I think there were some assumptions baked into the equation.

00:10:27 This idea that Adam and Eve were going to produce godly offspring, you know.

00:10:32 But after the fall, after sin enters the world and then after Christ, it's like, hey, keep being fruitful and multiplying.

00:10:39 But let's bring in the discipleship piece with more clarity because it can't be assumed any longer.

00:10:45 I think there's some of that there.

00:10:46 Yeah, absolutely.

00:10:47 Well, you know, I'm just kind of thinking about right now, I'm thinking about Isaiah 56.

00:10:53 It's in a section that's speaking of the eschatological future of the people of God,

00:10:57 and it says to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath, actually, I want to back up a little bit, 0.90

00:11:03 Isaiah 56.3, let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, 0.78

00:11:08 the Lord will surely separate me from his people. Let not the eunuch say, behold, I am a dry tree.

00:11:15 So it's speaking about a time when foreigners are going to come into the kingdom of God. 0.98

00:11:19 This is the same passage that soon we'll be talking about.

00:11:22 My house will be a house of prayer for all nations.

00:11:24 So it's talking about the coming of Christ.

00:11:27 I'm actually just kind of thinking out loud here.

00:11:29 I don't have a drawn conclusion, so maybe you can help me out, Joel.

00:11:33 But I'm specifically interested in this eunuchs piece,

00:11:36 because Jesus in Matthew 19 will pick up on this,

00:11:40 and when he talks about there are people who are made eunuchs,

00:11:44 They're people who choose to be eunuchs for the people, you know, for the kingdom of God.

00:11:48 And it's a strange idea.

00:11:50 Yeah, right.

00:11:51 So it's a strange idea in the time of Jesus, because like being a eunuch was like pretty much not acceptable.

00:11:58 Right.

00:11:59 Like it was it was always bad.

00:12:01 In fact, Pharisees would like they would marry somebody in order to fulfill the cultural mandate and have children.

00:12:09 and then they would divorce their spouse so that they could be like,

00:12:13 okay, now I'm free and clear, I did my duty, right?

00:12:16 It was unacceptable to just not have kids, and yet Jesus didn't have kids.

00:12:22 And so I'm just, again, I'm kind of reflecting on this out loud

00:12:25 and just kind of processing.

00:12:26 I don't know if that sparks any thoughts for you, Joel,

00:12:28 but I think it speaks to something that was a shift in the commission to make disciples.

00:12:37 It's not as though prior to the Great Commission, they weren't supposed to make disciples of

00:12:44 all nations to shine their light to all nations.

00:12:46 They were.

00:12:48 But I think what I would say is the one dimension of clarity that it brought was that there

00:12:55 was a place for singleness in the kingdom of God, like lifelong celibacy in the kingdom

00:13:03 of God.

00:13:03 Because I can't think of an Old Testament text that speaks of celibacy in a positive light.

00:13:09 I mean, you have Daniel who's forced into that position, but the command was, you do

00:13:16 this.

00:13:17 And so if anything, it seems like the Great Commission does open it up that you can be

00:13:21 like Jesus and Paul, that you can choose to be that eunuch and to not bear children and

00:13:27 to do it for the kingdom of God.

00:13:29 But those are outside of marriage contexts, okay?

00:13:32 Exactly.

00:13:33 we don't have that's what i would say we don't have any example in the scripture

00:13:38 old or certainly not either testament that says it's okay to be married and capable of having

00:13:46 children and opt not to uh supposedly so that you can make lots of disciples

00:13:52 so uh what do you think of all that i'm with you i completely agree like there is a place for

00:13:57 lifelong singleness in scripture by choice, which I think that's what we're meant to assume in the

00:14:06 case of Paul and certainly in the case of Christ. But then sometimes it's not by choice. And I think

00:14:10 that singleness can be a form of suffering for some and perhaps even for many, especially if

00:14:18 it's not something that's chosen. I don't know. I don't think that that means that the person

00:14:22 actually has the gift of celibacy but i think that god's grace is sufficient and uh and that

00:14:27 they're capable of obeying uh all of christ's commands in the context of their singleness even

00:14:33 if it's not something they voluntarily chose but in whether it's chosen whether it's not

00:14:36 um i think that the new testament and christ himself and and especially paul first corinthians

00:14:42 chapter seven like he gives um he gives a certain level of esteem to those who are single uh there's

00:14:48 a commendation that's given. But I think the cultural mandate, we have to keep in mind,

00:14:54 it's not given to Adam alone. It's not given to Adam as a single man. It's not given to Eve as a

00:15:00 single woman. The cultural mandate is given to a married couple. So I agree wholeheartedly with

00:15:05 what you said, that it's not so much that God is giving the cultural mandate to each and every

00:15:10 individual person, many who might be single, but I think he is giving them to each and every

00:15:16 married couple um that those who are married yeah it doesn't seem like new testament or old

00:15:22 testament there's any um any alternative option of yeah opting out of out of procreation opting

00:15:29 out of childbearing there's one thing i wanted to comment on earlier when you were saying you know

00:15:33 you know fill the earth be fruitful multiply fill the earth and subdue it exercise dominion i just

00:15:38 wanted to say in terms of the earth as as creation physical creation the birds you know of the air

00:15:44 the fish of the sea, the cosmos. In that sense, it's important that we understand dominion,

00:15:49 I think, in the same way that, you know, that Adam was given dominion over his wife. Adam named all

00:15:53 the animals. He named Eve. He named his own wife. Husbands have a measure of, biblically, a measure

00:15:59 of dominion over their wife. We don't like that word because it sounds dominating. And that has

00:16:06 a negative kind of, I think we just impute into that an abusive connotation. But that's what

00:16:11 lordship is you know like sarah the women of old you know she called abraham her lord lowercase l

00:16:18 but but lord and so there's this headship this authority this lordship and dominion and and it's

00:16:23 meant to be in regards to a husband um relating with his wife it's just meant to be a dominion

00:16:28 that's modeled after christ uh it's a it's a sacrificial self-sacrificing loving dominion

00:16:34 it's not ripped of authority but it's also not cold and absence uh with an absence of love and

00:16:39 And so, too, I think the idea.

00:16:42 So when we say that Christians are called, we're called to be not just Christians, but people, the cultural mandate is given to all people to be fruitful, multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it.

00:16:50 We're not saying because people say, man, well, that's that's why we have a problem overpopulation.

00:16:55 Things that both of us would would strongly push back on.

00:16:59 But my point is that this dominion, it's it's the same dominion that a loving husband exercises with his wife, that Christ exercises with the church.

00:17:07 It's a dominion that cultivates the earth.

00:17:09 It doesn't consume the earth for self-interested, you know, like it takes the raw wilderness of the earth, cultivates it, and taps it for its greatest potential.

00:17:25 Absolutely.

00:17:26 Go ahead.

00:17:28 Yeah.

00:17:29 Well, I was going to say, so like humans are the only creatures that can turn grain into bread or grapes into wine.

00:17:39 because we're able to take the natural elements of the earth,

00:17:46 you called them the raw materials,

00:17:48 and turn them into something beautiful and good,

00:17:50 which is actually the picture we have of God in creation.

00:17:53 And so God doesn't create Adam ex nihilo.

00:17:57 He creates him out of dust, and he creates Eve out of a rib.

00:18:02 And the entire earth was not the Garden of Eden.

00:18:05 Just the Garden of Eden was the Garden of Eden.

00:18:06 That's right.

00:18:07 and they were to make the whole thing look like that. They were to make the whole thing look

00:18:11 cultivated. So Genesis 2 gives us a picture of what subduing the earth looks like. Part of it

00:18:18 is the cultivating of the garden, and so they're to take the raw materials of the earth and turn them

00:18:23 into wonderful things. Now, man, because our image was broken in the fall, what we end up

00:18:31 doing is just like they did in the Tower of Babel, they used their great technology, which at the

00:18:36 time was bricks, that incredible technology, bricks. But for them, it was. And they built a 0.76

00:18:43 tower in defiance of God. And ever since the fall, we've been using our technology. We've

00:18:48 been using our developments to harm people, to figure out how we can kill more of them 0.99

00:18:55 rather than building them up. But if more Christians are having kids and raising their 1.00

00:19:01 kids to love and fear the Lord, and making disciples of all nations, then gradually that 0.93

00:19:06 leaven spreads across the whole lump. Gradually, the kingdom of God fills the earth and becomes

00:19:15 a better place. Yep. It starts small, grows slowly, and becomes significant. One passage.

00:19:21 Whoa. Whoa. How do you remember that? Hey, I preached that. Yeah. I was like,

00:19:27 that sounds familiar. That was like five or six years ago. I still remember it. It was good.

00:19:30 pretty solid bro yeah the mustard seed a little bit of leaven there you go yeah so we yeah i like

00:19:36 what you're saying that you know that the garden of eden um the whole world was now and it's

00:19:41 difficult i think for us to wrap our minds around it because we know that thorns thistles entered

00:19:45 into the world as as a result of the curse because of sin so we know that work was not the curse

00:19:51 right we know that the fact that the ground would work against man was the curse the fact that work

00:19:55 would be vexing, that it would be frustrating, that it would be hard. Well, I would go for it

00:20:01 and say that it would be really hard. I think hard work was always God's intent. So I think

00:20:07 man was going to work, and I think he was going to work hard. There weren't going to be thorns and

00:20:11 thistles. The ground wasn't going to be working against him, but I think he'd probably crawl in

00:20:14 bed a little tired at the end of the day if sin had still never entered the world. And his primary

00:20:21 vocation that god gave to him his kind of marching commands were um to work and keep and and i think

00:20:26 work is to cultivate it's to maintain but i think there's also in that kind of baked into the

00:20:30 equation um an implication and a commandment to expand to advance uh that the garden was going to

00:20:36 grow uh that its borders were going to widen and expand and so that he's going to work and then to

00:20:41 keep um he's going to defend it's like advance and defend advance yeah and defend and um and and

00:20:49 And that's what we were going to do.

00:20:51 And we were going to, basically, Adam was going to, you could say that with the cultural mandate,

00:20:56 like he was going to be fruitful, multiply, so he was going to create people.

00:20:59 And that's a big part of the equation.

00:21:01 And I would argue the biggest is image bearers of the living God, reflecting, radiating the glory of God in his creation.

00:21:07 But they also were going to expand their home, the garden.

00:21:13 And I like to think that this theophany, I would consider it to be Christ, actually,

00:21:17 who walked with adam and eve in the cool of the day uh christ before he had obviously been

00:21:22 incarnate and taken on flesh but christ who is eternal and just like we would say the holy

00:21:26 spirit or if god the father would say he's you know a most pure spirit without body parts and

00:21:30 passions um you know we would say that christ um the second member of the trinity the son of god

00:21:36 was a most pure spirit without body parts and passions until in real time in human history he

00:21:40 took on uh flesh and so before that you know whether it's the burning bush or whether it's

00:21:45 the angel of the Lord and Joshua, or perhaps, you know, the angels and one of them, you know,

00:21:50 who approach Abraham or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego thrown into the flame. And there's a

00:21:55 fourth man whose face is shining like the sun. I would say that all those are theophanies and

00:22:00 it's actually Jesus. And so Jesus is, I believe, walking in spirit. And that's difficult for us

00:22:07 to understand but he's walking a theophany of christ a visible a visible um i don't know

00:22:15 appearance of christ but without human flesh walking with adam and eve in the garden and and

00:22:21 it's this idea of they're going to create more and more image bearers more and more worshipers of of

00:22:27 the triune god and they're going to expand the garden and and i like to think that that jesus

00:22:32 is just going to keep on every evening in the cool of the day walking with all of them and jesus

00:22:37 is going to be walking over the face of the earth as his image bearers are walking over the face of

00:22:42 the earth and and not just in wilderness or deserts but they were going to you know there

00:22:45 might have been some deserts even before sin entered the world but but the garden was going

00:22:50 to expand they were going to figure out irrigation and cultivation and all and it was just going to

00:22:54 be a worldwide garden filled with people, filled with vegetation and beauty and ingenuity and all

00:23:03 these things. And best of all, Jesus was going to fill the garden and be with them.

00:23:09 Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, in ancient Near Eastern thought, and specifically for our purposes,

00:23:16 Israelite thought, a garden was a place, in ancient Near Eastern thought, it was the place

00:23:22 where the gods met. But for Israel, it was the place where God was. It was essentially their

00:23:31 temple. And in a sense, the whole earth was, when you read the creation story, it's portrayed as

00:23:38 sort of like God's temple. The words that you used to tend and to keep, the Levite priests

00:23:47 were to tend and to keep the tabernacle. And so it's the temple of God. And whereas every other

00:23:54 nation filled their temple with images, with idols, Israel was expressly forbidden by that.

00:24:01 Why? Because we are His image. We are in a sense His idol. We don't like that word, but His image

00:24:08 on the earth. And so God created us in that way as true living, breathing idols, so to speak,

00:24:18 images of Him, unlike the nations that had these phony wooden things that they propped up in their

00:24:25 temple. And so my point is that as we propagate, as we multiply, we're filling the earth with more 0.81

00:24:34 of these image bearers to continue to tend and to keep the entire earth to make it look like him

00:24:40 so uh so yeah i think um you know joel when you first asked me about like this topic and you're

00:24:49 like what do you think about birth control and uh i think my response was i think christians should

00:24:55 have lots of kids and this is just i i just want to touch on like why this is um why this is so

00:25:02 important, because I feel like Christians are too affected by the culture. And the culture is like,

00:25:07 have one kid, maybe have two if you can afford it. Three, that's just a handful. Four, you're just

00:25:14 crazy. And I just think, did you come to that conclusion because you read the Bible? Or did 1.00

00:25:22 you come to that conclusion because that's the way it is in culture? I saw, this was a couple

00:25:27 years ago, I saw the cover of a magazine. It's actually Newsweek. And it said the title was

00:25:34 having it all, but not having kids. And it was the trend of young people, you know, wait till

00:25:40 you're 35 to get married, maybe 37, 39, the last possible year, like before you might be able to

00:25:46 have kids. Now, it's one thing if it just happens that way for you. Okay. That's one thing. It's

00:25:52 another thing if you're just like living the single life living it up doing your thing and

00:25:58 then you finally get married at the last minute and then you're like well okay and then you're

00:26:02 gonna have kids at like 42 one kid and i'm just like this isn't the way god designed it it's

00:26:08 it's really not god designed this um actually i think it's better to get married younger if you

00:26:15 can we don't all have that choice amen and and i i actually i feel saddened for females christian

00:26:22 females because a lot of dudes don't know how to man up. They don't know how to ask a woman on a

00:26:28 date. Dude, total side note. Okay, side note, but it's kind of related. My 13-year-old daughter, 1.00

00:26:34 I overheard her on the phone today, like just this single line. She said,

00:26:41 if a guy's not even willing to ask me out on a date, he's not worth going out with,

00:26:46 or he's not he's not worth having as a boyfriend i was like yay but um you know i think dudes

00:26:53 should just go ask girls out like my dad taught me that he's like dude pursue the girl man and

00:26:58 anyway i i just i think we've gotten backwards dudes part of your responsibility pursue the

00:27:07 woman like woo her and um and then get married younger blesses a man who has children in his

00:27:15 youth. Psalm 127. Youth is a key phrase. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.

00:27:22 Yeah, and Psalm 127 is a key one. We should focus on it. Like, if the Bible speaks this way of

00:27:29 children, then why don't we think this way? I get it. Charles Spurgeon said, before children are a 0.98

00:27:38 quiverful. They're often a handful. They are, but let me read Psalm 127. It says,

00:27:47 Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over

00:27:51 the city, the watchmen stand awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to

00:27:57 rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep. Behold, children are

00:28:04 a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are

00:28:08 the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be

00:28:13 put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. Now, this is a psalm of ascent,

00:28:19 and so it's Psalm 120 through, I want to say it's 135. And so, wow, rain's really coming down.

00:28:30 Anyway, so it's a handful of Psalms, and this specific one is by Solomon.

00:28:36 And it's interesting because it sounds like it's two different Psalms into one.

00:28:40 One's about the Lord building the house and protecting the city,

00:28:43 and then the other is like, have a bunch of kids.

00:28:45 But they're actually connected.

00:28:47 Because how does the Lord build your house, Joel?

00:28:50 By you having lots of kids.

00:28:52 And in fact, how does the Lord protect the city through the kids that you have?

00:28:58 And so the two themes of house and city,

00:29:02 the Lord is the one who builds the house,

00:29:03 the Lord is the one who protects the city,

00:29:05 arise again in the last few verses when it says that,

00:29:11 okay, you won't be put to shame by your enemies at the city gate.

00:29:18 So there's the city part.

00:29:20 And then the fruit of the womb, a reward, a heritage from the Lord.

00:29:25 You see both of these.

00:29:27 It's the house and the house and the city being built up, being protected.

00:29:32 And that part about arrows in the hands of a warrior, the idea there is that, you know, like if I'm standing here and I take an arrow and I shoot it, the arrow ends up over there.

00:29:45 That's the heritage.

00:29:47 That is the blessing that the next generation goes further than I could go.

00:29:53 And so these are, this is, and it's also, I think, fitting that Solomon wrote this,

00:29:59 because when you talk about building a house, David wanted to build a house for the Lord,

00:30:04 but the Lord said no. Solomon got to be the one who did it. And so it's actually a living

00:30:09 illustration of the next generation takes it further. Now Solomon got into his own messes

00:30:14 and all of that um but point uh point being that if overall point being if the lord considers this

00:30:23 a blessing why don't we yep i think that's a foreign question to ask yeah i completely agree

00:30:29 uh that's kind of my next question was you know it had to do with psalm 127 uh 335 so i'm glad

00:30:35 you brought it up and um just kind of with that you know i wrote this uh if children are a blessing

00:30:40 from the lord and a man is said to be especially blessed if his quiver is full if he has

00:30:44 implication being many children what reasons if any might be considered as legitimate for

00:30:50 intentionally mitigating the blessings of god and i think i think that's for me that's what it comes

00:30:55 down to is um i'm just not convinced that people in our culture today and i think it's seeped in

00:31:01 to the church as well i'm not convinced that people and sadly even some christians actually

00:31:07 see children as blessings because there's there's a lot of things that we do consider to be

00:31:13 blessings and i don't really see people clamoring to to put up buffers and boundaries and to like

00:31:21 don't want to don't want to be too blessed you've got blessings you're pouring in you know like you

00:31:27 know money is a blessing right that's the love of money that's the root of all evil but money is a

00:31:31 blessing and you don't see a whole lot of people gosh i just i really need to find some kind of

00:31:36 strategy to make less money i'm making too much money you know i got to slow down this this cash

00:31:40 flow that's you know i want to mitigate that that blessing you don't you don't really see people

00:31:44 having that kind of mindset when it comes to many other things that the bible um calls blessings

00:31:50 but we do often hear that kind of that those kind of conversations when it comes to children and i'm

00:31:56 not saying you know for me and what i'd like to get into this uh at the end but in terms of you

00:32:02 know the sin of onan um i you know i i i do believe that there can be um some measure of

00:32:10 ethical careful family planning um for the christian um but i but i think the whole purpose

00:32:17 in that is is is to be strategic and and so maybe you're pausing from but but it's to be strategic

00:32:24 so that you can have as many children as possible and and and provide for them and have not just a

00:32:29 bunch of crappy arrows for lack of a better term, but, but, you know,

00:32:33 it's equality matters too. We want to have good arrows, you know?

00:32:37 And so I think, you know, someone saying like, Hey, okay, you know,

00:32:41 we're going to wait a couple of years, you know,

00:32:44 before we have our next kid depending on the reasons, you know, like there may,

00:32:48 there may still be some idolatry and, you know,

00:32:50 comfort idolatry and selfishness and things like that,

00:32:52 but there could be some actually good reasons for, you know, but,

00:32:57 But, but, but that's, you know, because we want to have quality children.

00:33:02 We want to have as many children as possible.

00:33:04 We may need to pause now so that we can have three more later or whatever it might be.

00:33:08 But that's not the, that's just not the conversations that I hear from me.

00:33:11 I feel like what I often hear is like what you were saying earlier, let's have one, maybe

00:33:16 two, and that's all we're planning on having.

00:33:19 And I just, again, I just, I have a hard time believing that that individual actually sees

00:33:24 children as a blessing. Cause I can't think of really any other blessing where people would say,

00:33:29 okay, there's a blessing. God's God's willing to give it to me. I just, I just want one,

00:33:36 just one blessing. Just give me one. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, the way I look at it is I,

00:33:43 I look at it like, okay, you've, you've got the cultural mandate. You have all of these scriptures

00:33:49 that treat children as a blessing.

00:33:53 Do we have the reality that kids are hard?

00:33:54 So I have four kids.

00:33:56 Kids are really hard.

00:33:57 They're crazy hard.

00:33:59 There's nothing in the world harder than being a parent.

00:34:02 It's also hard to carry your cross,

00:34:05 which happens to be the religion that we abide by, right?

00:34:08 Like this is what God has called us to. 0.97

00:34:13 And it's actually not that hard to be a crappy parent.

00:34:15 Sorry, I shouldn't have maybe used that word. 0.86

00:34:18 I used it.

00:34:19 Okay. It's not that hard, right? But if you want to be a good parent, that is hard. And so I look at it like, you know, as a general rule, we should want to have lots of kids because God values kids. Therefore, I should value kids.

00:34:39 If I'm close to God, I will feel about things the way God feels about things.

00:34:44 And if I feel differently about things than God does, that's because I'm not close to God, or at least not in that area.

00:34:52 That's an area of growth.

00:34:53 And so that's the first thing.

00:34:56 Because I think we have to start there before we get into the nitty-gritty of birth control, which is why you kind of have this series of questions starting very big.

00:35:05 I think that's important because we establish the value first

00:35:09 because we might disagree on some of the finer points

00:35:13 as you said at the very beginning

00:35:14 but the big thing and if there was anything else

00:35:17 that I wanted people to walk away from

00:35:18 is kids should be valued

00:35:21 highly, highly, highly valued

00:35:24 and that if you are married

00:35:26 you're called to have them

00:35:28 if you're capable of having them

00:35:30 and if you're not

00:35:32 I would invite you to receive prayer for that

00:35:34 And lots of people in the Bible received prayer for that and got a miracle.

00:35:40 Yeah, but anyway, but that's actually part of the calling of marriage and a high and holy calling and how we make this earth look more like the kingdom of heaven, more like God reigns.

00:35:53 So that's the big picture.

00:35:56 Now, to get more narrow and answer your specific question, might there be any reason I could see?

00:36:01 like you mentioned one the strategic reason which you said uh it sounded like what you were talking

00:36:07 about was if you have a another kid like every single nine months you know it uh right it might

00:36:13 not be the highest quality of parenting that those uh kids are getting i could see where you're going

00:36:18 with that um you know we might also say the health of the mother um right you know like if uh i mean

00:36:25 I mean, like I know of a woman, she is Roman Catholic, and she has five kids, and she's

00:36:35 continued to have more, and the doctors have warned her against it. 1.00

00:36:39 Of course, Roman Catholics believe birth control is always wrong, except they actually believe 0.96

00:36:45 in the natural planning. 1.00

00:36:46 They're okay with that.

00:36:48 We can talk more about that later if you want. 1.00

00:36:50 But anyway, so she's planning to have more kids, but her uterus is so thin that they said it's 1.00

00:36:58 like a transparency. Like it's so thin, it could just rupture and kill. And so she sees it as this 1.00

00:37:04 is my martyrdom to give children life. But it would be a martyrdom, in my opinion, in my opinion.

00:37:10 Although I actually really respect her as a woman of faith that she's like, I want to do this for

00:37:15 God. I get it. And she does love Jesus. I've, you know, and, and she has a proper understanding

00:37:21 of the gospel. Um, anyway, but with that said, I, I look at it, I'm like, okay, martyr, but what

00:37:29 about your other five kids that you presently have and your husband, you know, um, health of

00:37:35 the mother, I think is a reasonable reason. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Um, uh,

00:37:45 I guess the other question is economic, because that's honestly the biggest one that people are thinking about, because once upon a time, having more kids meant more hands in the field.

00:38:02 Right, exactly.

00:38:03 Now it means more mouths to feed, and the way inflation is working right now, I don't know about your grocery bill, but mine's like $300 more than it was three years ago.

00:38:15 um and like with with just the way the world is like most families either do or feel like they

00:38:24 they need to have uh dual income like there's so many factors and um here's i think what i would

00:38:32 say um i i first of all i would just stick with the high level standard of kids are a blessing

00:38:41 And then I would go from there to God provides daily bread.

00:38:47 So I would aim to trust God to have lots of kids and trusting that he would provide.

00:38:55 And I believe he gives great jobs to people who have more kids because they need it,

00:39:00 people who are walking by faith.

00:39:03 Could there be a scenario where somebody chooses not to have more kids

00:39:08 because they just can't afford them?

00:39:11 Um, for the people of God, I think I have a little, a little trouble with that. I kind of

00:39:17 feel like, you know what, if it's the cultural mandate and God should supply, uh, the finances

00:39:22 for it, um, that would probably, I don't know. I, I, I would wrestle with it. It's not like

00:39:28 something I would excommunicate someone from my church over by any stretch, but it's something

00:39:33 that like, if I was just sharing my pastoral heart, my pastoral heart would be, you know what,

00:39:39 I would just really encourage you to trust the Lord with that.

00:39:42 Right. And they just may have to make some changes.

00:39:44 I think part of it is like a willingness to adjust your life, you know, to, to, you know, for the sake of your children, to lay your life down, to lay your preferences down.

00:39:54 And so there may, there just may be some changes.

00:39:56 It may be that you have to take a job that's not your favorite job, or it may be one that you have to move, you know?

00:40:05 Yeah.

00:40:05 Yeah. Or you may have to go somewhere else, live somewhere else. You know, there could be other

00:40:11 scenarios. Right. And for some people, though, truly it is. I mean, for some it's like this is

00:40:17 a real struggle. And for others, it's like, you know, I really like going on a thousand vacations

00:40:22 and I like, you know, my luxurious posh lifestyle and all of that, you know, which, you know,

00:40:28 and when you talk about mega wealthy people, like having nannies raise their kids and all of that, 0.66

00:40:33 I just, I think that's totally unbiblical. I think parents, you need to raise your kids

00:40:37 because you're entrusted to raise them up in the instruction of the Lord.

00:40:43 Yep. I agree. In terms of the overpopulation thing, if somebody, you know, I could just hear

00:40:48 somebody like pushing back and saying, again, you know, I feel like we already filled the earth.

00:40:51 We already subdued. I understand that like maybe we'd want more of the 8 billion people to be

00:40:55 Christians. One thing that I would say on that, I'd like to hear your thoughts, but one thing I

00:40:59 would say on that is just even, even for those who are unregenerate, even for those who are not

00:41:03 Christians, um, we still believe in the Imago Dei. We believe in common grace. Um, we believe that,

00:41:08 that even fallen people, unregenerate people, non-believers are still, um, image bearers of

00:41:13 the living God. And the way I see this kind of the doctrine of original sin is it's kind of like

00:41:19 in terms of the image of God and, and, and, and what way has it been marred and what way is it

00:41:23 still there's a vestige that still remains yeah um i i see it as like um original sin on in my heart

00:41:31 for the unbeliever the heart is is deceitful above all else it's it's corrupted the person

00:41:37 does not seek to honor god so i always say that like um you know they cannot do an unbeliever 0.99

00:41:42 cannot do anything in faith is what is what i would say they cannot do anything in faith and 0.96

00:41:46 i would define doing something in faith as doing it with a reliance on god's grace and a desire

00:41:50 for god's glory so an unbeliever could cure cancer um but they're going to do it a reliance

00:41:55 on their own strength or in their defense maybe you know i couldn't have done it without my team 0.99

00:41:59 you know it's always got to give credit to the team so they do it on a reliance on maybe not

00:42:03 their own strength but they do it on a reliance on the strength of humanity and they do it for

00:42:07 the glory of humanity um or one portion of humanity you know and and but what they're not

00:42:12 going to do is they're not going to do it with a reliance on god's grace and and a desire for

00:42:16 god's glory they're not going to do it in faith to the glory of god um they may do things to

00:42:20 the good of people to the love of of neighbor a non-christian can love their neighbor at some 0.66

00:42:26 level they'll never truly love their neighbor to the fullest extent loving their neighbor's soul

00:42:30 their neighbor's eternal good because that would would involve you know believing upon the lord

00:42:37 jesus christ and and and pleading and imploring their neighbor to to do the same and so they're

00:42:42 not going to do that but my point is there's a lot of good things building suspension bridges

00:42:45 curing cancer you know walking a sweet old lady across the street um going to war you know and

00:42:51 and i mean there's stories i mean heroic stories of people who are unregenerate there as far as we

00:42:56 know they were unbelievers and they laid down their lives you know they you know jumped in

00:43:02 front of a bullet to save a comrade in arms and i mean just incredible things and so my point is i

00:43:08 think on the outside at the risk of being overly simplistic on the outside image bearer because of

00:43:14 God's common grace and because of the Imago Dei, incredible, incredible things. They can be very

00:43:18 loving toward neighbor. On the inside, your heart is deceitful above all else. Out of it come wickedness

00:43:24 and malice. And so on the inside, there's not a desire to glorify God. So even when you do good

00:43:29 things, they're not done in faith, not with a reliance on God's grace or a desire for God's

00:43:33 glory. So my point is this. My point is, I think the world, here's the funny thing, and I think

00:43:38 Christians have bought into this to an extent. I think the world has the exact opposite message. 0.92

00:43:43 I think the world says on the inside, your heart is good.

00:43:47 You've got a good heart.

00:43:49 You've got a good heart, man.

00:43:50 You know, you've just got a good heart.

00:43:51 And on the inside, you know, you just need to find yourself.

00:43:53 Your biggest problem is the company that you keep.

00:43:55 You know, you just keep hanging out with those toxic people, you know.

00:43:57 And your biggest problem is you don't have enough self-esteem.

00:44:00 You don't have enough.

00:44:01 You don't believe in yourself enough.

00:44:03 And so on the inside, you're really, really great.

00:44:05 But on the outside, you can still make some mistakes.

00:44:08 And you'll especially make mistakes, you know, because it's really other people's fault.

00:44:12 and somebody else is to blame and you're a victim and all that kind of stuff.

00:44:15 So I think the world kind of says, like, on the outside, people are, you know, may be bad.

00:44:20 They may make mistakes.

00:44:21 They may do, you know, negative things.

00:44:23 And part of that being not caring for the environment and using up resources and all these things.

00:44:28 So on the outside, people aren't great.

00:44:30 But on the inside, they're awesome.

00:44:31 That's the pagan worldview, right?

00:44:33 On the outside, not great.

00:44:34 On the inside, heart of gold.

00:44:35 I think the Bible says the exact opposite.

00:44:37 It says, on the outside, image of God, capable of curing cancer and creating suspension bridges and finding new sources for fuel and finding new ways to plant more crops and feed not just 8 billion people, but potentially 80 billion people, you know.

00:44:51 And so on the outside, amazing.

00:44:53 On the inside, the heart is the problem. 0.98

00:44:56 And that's the Christian worldview of original sin in the Imago Dei. 0.83

00:45:00 And the pagan, anti-Christian worldview is on the outside, that's the problem. 0.69

00:45:03 On the inside, that's the heart of gold. 0.97

00:45:05 And my point is, as that relates to overpopulation, is I think the pagan would say, on the outside, people are leeches.

00:45:12 On the outside, people are, they're consumers. 0.99

00:45:15 They are leeches. 0.88

00:45:16 They consume. 0.74

00:45:17 But on the inside, they have really good hearts.

00:45:18 But we need fewer of them. 0.99

00:45:20 Because we can't, whereas the Christian would say, on the outside, you're made in the Imago Dei. 0.99

00:45:25 And people are not consumers, first and foremost.

00:45:29 Because you're made in the image of God, people are not consumers.

00:45:33 they are creators lowercase c creators not like you said earlier not x in the helo but we're able

00:45:38 to take the resources that god has provided us with and cultivate them um and and and create a

00:45:44 lowercase c create not out of nothing but with what god has provided and and do incredible things

00:45:49 and so as a christian i keep thinking you know over the last 48 years of of since roe versus

00:45:54 wade 60 million babies murdered in their mother's wombs um you know it's it's funny that christians

00:46:00 It's not funny. It's sad. But Christians who have bought into this overpopulation thing and this pagan anthropology view of man, I think that they would never say it out loud. 0.94

00:46:11 They would never verbalize it. But I think if we strapped them to a chair and gave them truth serum and asked them point blank and forced them to answer, I think they would have to say the fact that these children were aborted is murder. 0.91

00:46:22 It's wrong. It's heinous. But then that would all be followed with a quiet sigh of relief.

00:46:28 and i know that's a strong words but like in their heart of hearts but it is kind of nice

00:46:34 there's 60 million less people you know because look at the world and look at the toll and you

00:46:41 know look look at you know this and look at that and you know i mean covid that's that's that's

00:46:45 because of climate change i mean it's got to be you know and that wouldn't have happened if you

00:46:49 weren't driving your f-150 and you know and so and so my point is just to say that as a with the

00:46:54 Christian worldview and my anthropology, my view of man, I see people as creators. So I look at the

00:46:59 60 million children in the last half of a century that had been murdered. And I think which one of

00:47:03 them could have cured cancer, which one of them could have found some new source of energy,

00:47:08 which one of them could have found a new way of growing crops to feed, you know, a hundred times

00:47:13 more people, you know what I mean? Like people make way for, for people. So yeah, absolutely.

00:47:18 For sure. No, I think that's a great point. I mean, when we think about like overpopulate, like what are we afraid of might happen if we overpopulate the earth? If you overpopulate the earth, people might die.

00:47:33 hmm let's think about that for a minute what's better like even in your worst case scenario

00:47:39 is it is it better that somebody never lives than that they live and then die like all of us do

00:47:47 anyway i think i'd still be better to have people live and die right like like their worst case

00:47:53 scenario is actually not that bad um right i didn't plan to come on your episode and quote

00:47:59 gandhi um but he does have a really good quote he says there's enough for everybody's need but not

00:48:05 for everybody's greed and the reality is that there actually is enough resource in the world

00:48:12 for all people even if you multiply lots of people uh last i checked it was something like

00:48:17 three americans three own 50 percent of wealth in america you just think about that um you think

00:48:28 about think about this of the top 100 it's been a while since i looked this up it'll be give or

00:48:34 take given give or take but uh of the top 100 top gdps in the world if you include corporations

00:48:41 and not just nations on that list something like only 20 something 27 of them are actual nations

00:48:48 the rest are corporations these corporations have massive amounts of wealth they could totally do

00:48:55 lots of philanthropy um i'm not like anti-rich people or anything like that what i am saying is

00:49:02 if if people shared the morals of christ then the poor would be taken care of and the overpopulation

00:49:10 wouldn't be such an issue um or wouldn't even become an issue so i would say hey what if the

00:49:16 issue wasn't uh or what if the solution was not let's kill and prevent life what if the solution

00:49:23 was let's not be greedy punks right like let's actually give to the poor as a way of life now

00:49:33 can i convince um let's also i would add to that let's not be lazy punks and rely on the welfare

00:49:40 state and not work for sure both sides then we'd have a lot less poor people yes absolutely go

00:49:48 ahead that's that's the capitalist in me i had to had to say something there yeah you're starting

00:49:52 I'm a little socialist, so I just had to push back.

00:49:57 Hey, I told you, I'm not anti-rich people.

00:50:01 I've been listening to too much Thomas Sowell lately.

00:50:04 Yeah, I'm not anti-rich people.

00:50:05 I am pro-generosity because that's the value of God.

00:50:09 And when it's not legislated, it can actually be generosity.

00:50:13 I have a problem when the elites of the world who are mega wealthy billionaires and millionaires

00:50:20 are telling everybody else you guys need to stop having kids and here's a bunch of are you 486

00:50:28 pills and here's uh you know how you can more quickly get rid of your babies um because you

00:50:34 know what if if you're really that concerned with the problems caused by overpopulation why don't

00:50:39 you try generosity it's a wonderful thing so um so i would i would say that that when it's all said

00:50:47 and done, overpopulation is not the problem people make it out to be. I'm not saying it's not an

00:50:51 issue at all ever. What I'm saying is if people practice the values of the kingdom of heaven,

00:50:58 generosity, number one, and number two, I still think even if worst case scenario happened,

00:51:06 it's better to live and die than to never live at all. And so I think those are some good points.

00:51:10 And I would, from my perspective, I would say that I actually would say that it's not an issue

00:51:15 ever. And in part, from my point of view, I would say that, but I agree with a lot of the points

00:51:20 that you were making, but I would say, I don't think Christ will let it be an issue. So regardless

00:51:25 of your eschatology and whether you're pre-mill or, you know, all-mill or post-mill, I really

00:51:31 don't think if this is something that God's called us to, I have a hard time believing that God, who

00:51:35 is a father, a good father, giving commandments to his spiritual children, I have a hard time

00:51:40 believing that God would give commandments to his children and then maniacally be kind of like

00:51:44 waiting and and laughing under his breath you know knowing that if they obey the final result

00:51:51 will be their doom i just don't think god works that way yeah so i just not burdensome yeah

00:51:56 exactly so i think like whatever god has called us to do it's it it doesn't just what god has

00:52:02 commanded people to do when we obey it doesn't only lend towards his glory but it also lends

00:52:07 towards our good and so i have to believe that if it if it even were possible to overpopulate the

00:52:13 earth and i think logically i'd have to say well i guess it you know i guess like you know one

00:52:16 100 trillion people like it i mean physically the earth is a finite place but um but but i would say

00:52:22 even if it was possible i have to believe that christ would come back before then and or i should

00:52:28 say or people or dude elon musk we're called to the cosmos that's what i was about to say i was

00:52:35 gonna say elon musk gonna help us get to the moon and that's an image bear right there that is that

00:52:40 as an image bearer, working on every, I mean, he's got every piston of common grace firing.

00:52:45 Speaking of cultural mandate, though, Psalm 8, which was based upon the cultural mandate

00:52:55 and repeats it, which is also quoted in Hebrews 2 about Jesus. But anyway, one of the things

00:53:02 that it says is we will rule over the works of his hands, which in context, he has been

00:53:07 actually talking about the cosmos so that's fascinating uh i've wondered sometimes i've

00:53:13 wondered sometimes if in the new heavens and new earth if uh you know expanding out into the cosmos

00:53:20 might be part of that so and you know what i could totally see that perhaps before then

00:53:26 if overpopulation is really going to be that great of a problem right and it's like we get practice

00:53:31 you know on earth it's like you know you get practice like you start with a garden guard god

00:53:35 gets you off to the right start this is a garden you know and and here over here is a desert and

00:53:41 to make that look like this is going to be a lot of work you know and you're going to have to figure

00:53:44 that out and it's going to take you some time and i don't know maybe maybe it's just you know

00:53:48 10 000 years or so give or take of practice you know going from garden to desert and then and

00:53:54 then it's just you know a jump from earth to mars you know like now we're just like subduing that

00:54:00 that whole planet that happens to be a desert without water and with it,

00:54:05 you know, so, and I mean, it's fun, it's fun things to think about,

00:54:07 but I just, I just wanted to say that. And I, you know,

00:54:09 I guess we'll go quick on the end,

00:54:10 but I think it's really helpful that we spent time building a framework,

00:54:13 just saying first and foremost, children are blessings. They're also weapons,

00:54:16 you know, they're arrows. And that's one of the ways that we push back, you know,

00:54:20 our battles, not with flesh and blood, but,

00:54:23 but with principalities and one of the ways that we wage spiritual warfare is by,

00:54:28 by enlisting people in the lord's army and we do that through conversion we do that through

00:54:31 discipleship but um but but the great commission and and the cultural mandate as far as i can tell

00:54:37 the best disciples lord willing that i'll ever make are going to be my kids and um you know and

00:54:42 so i i'm discipling the nations but to disciple the nations you can't disciple the nations if

00:54:47 you can't disciple your house and uh and and those are some good disciples to make so you're doing

00:54:52 both it's not one at the expense of the other replacing the other and we're subduing and that's

00:54:56 and that's a loving dominion that harnesses the earth it doesn't destroy the earth or just consume

00:55:01 it lowercase c creators people because they're made in the image of god um we multiply we create

00:55:06 we don't just consume we're not just leeches and that's not just christians but even unbelievers

00:55:10 because that's a common grace imago day kind of thing so all that framework we want kids they're

00:55:15 blessing we need to be careful um when or even if we ever seek to mitigate the blessings of god what

00:55:22 other blessings do we do that with and um and then children are not just blessings but they're

00:55:27 also weapons they're warfare and i love like the end of psalm 127 verse 6 where it says you know

00:55:33 that he shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate i see that i know

00:55:38 doug wilson says this that's that's this man his little sons that were once toddlers little

00:55:42 twinkling toes running around the halls of his home but now they're all grown up and they're

00:55:47 fighting with alongside their father he's not put to shame when he goes against his opponents in the

00:55:53 city gates or when he's protecting that he has his sons his grown sons now those arrows that he was

00:55:59 sharpening and molding for for 20 years and now they're standing with him so there's there's like

00:56:04 yeah yeah and i look at beauty i look at that too is uh because it says he'll speak with his

00:56:10 enemies uh when he speaks to his enemies at the city gate that's right i i look at that as a

00:56:14 surrender, you know, like, like the man and his sons, like caused the man, caused the enemy to

00:56:21 want to surrender. So he has to come underneath them at the gate. Yeah. I like that. That's

00:56:25 awesome. That's really good. Cool. So anyway, so that, that's kind of our framework. I just wanted

00:56:29 to kind of like summarize and recap it, but just giving, firing off now, you know, for, for the

00:56:34 sake of time, trying to give, um, some of the specifics. Um, so I'll just get right at it. Uh,

00:56:40 What forms of birth control should be considered unethical? 1.00

00:56:44 They're just off limits for Christians. 1.00

00:56:47 Yeah. 1.00

00:56:47 For all people, but Christians should obey. 1.00

00:56:50 Yeah, obviously abortion. 0.97

00:56:52 Some people do view that as birth control.

00:56:55 Are you 486, which is the morning after pill?

00:56:59 That's clearly wrong.

00:57:02 And because we believe, you know, a fetus is not just a fetus.

00:57:07 it's a baby and made in the image of God. And so there are some, there's a couple that I think

00:57:16 need to be talked about, and I don't think most Christians do. When you talk about the pill, 0.97

00:57:22 and you talk about the IUD, do a little Google research. I encourage you guys to do a little

00:57:29 bit of Google research on this, and what you'll discover is that most people will say, everyone

00:57:38 maybe, okay, so it's actually, it's debated amongst Christians, like Protestant Christians,

00:57:44 whether those are okay, but in my opinion, the ones who debate it, who debate against

00:57:52 it just really haven't fully done their research. Because the IUD and the pill both can result in

00:58:01 abortions. Now, it might not be intentional. It might not be intentional. But again, I said,

00:58:06 do your research, Google it, does this ever abort? Now, the thing is, it aborts differently.

00:58:13 It aborts like before it's ever implanted in the uterus.

00:58:20 And so it aborts differently.

00:58:23 And so sometimes it kind of passes under the radar for Christians, I think. 0.97

00:58:27 And I think Christians will innocently get an IUD or they'll innocently take the pill. 0.90

00:58:33 Now, the pill has other issues, too, and it affects hormones. 0.98

00:58:35 And so, for instance, I'm thinking of a Christian couple in my church that they were on the pill and they were telling me about it afterward.

00:58:46 They were saying, we got on the pill and then we got off.

00:58:49 And the reason we got off is because they didn't know anything about the abortion side of things.

00:58:53 But they were talking about the effect that it had upon her.

00:58:59 She's getting pounding headaches and all of these different, like she was just having these emotional swings.

00:59:04 It does affect you hormonally. That's something to consider. Um, now, um, anyway, so I, I would

00:59:11 just say, Google it, do your research. I wouldn't feel comfortable getting, uh, either of those.

00:59:16 It sounded like that's where you stand too, Joel. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, no, I, great job,

00:59:21 but that's, that's what I would have said. And, and I do, you know, to flesh it out like a little

00:59:26 bit more, like I, um, you know, cause I remember, you know, at my previous church in San Diego,

00:59:31 I remember with my elders, you know, I don't know, maybe five years ago.

00:59:35 I don't know.

00:59:36 But we were working through this issue, and we disagreed in terms of whether or not we should actually put it in our membership covenant for formal membership in the church in terms of specifically the pill.

00:59:52 But we came to the same conclusions fairly quickly because you're right.

00:59:55 All it takes is a little bit of research.

00:59:57 And there were people, I noticed just pastorally as I dealt with congregants, there were occasionally times where people, part of the reason they had no clue wasn't just because they were ignorant, but part of the reason they didn't Google it, they didn't search it, because they actually did ask.

01:00:11 They asked their doctor, and their doctor assured them that it was not abortive because, come to find out, a lot of the scientific community has changed the definition of when human life begins in the womb.

01:00:24 So they've changed it from what we would hold and what we would say that Christendom has held for a very long time in terms of fertilization.

01:00:31 It's been changed to implantation.

01:00:34 And so a doctor with a straight face will sit there and say, no, it's not abortive.

01:00:37 No way.

01:00:38 Yeah, that's actually – if you look –

01:00:40 You know what I mean?

01:00:40 Go ahead.

01:00:41 Yeah, if you –

01:00:42 I'm just saying so you have to clarify with that.

01:00:44 That's exactly right.

01:00:45 And that's what's happening.

01:00:46 That's what's happening. 0.98

01:00:47 So good Christian couples are getting IUDs or they're taking the pill for that very reason. 0.62

01:00:53 And my doctor said it's not abortive.

01:00:56 OK, well, that's the key.

01:00:58 What's the word again?

01:00:59 It starts with an I.

01:01:01 Implantation versus fertilization.

01:01:03 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:01:03 So, yeah, so they don't if you look up the Hobby Lobby case where Hobby Lobby went all the way to the Supreme Court over Obamacare and all of this, like what Hobby Lobby was calling an abortion.

01:01:18 And The Atlantic wrote an article about this some time ago, I remember.

01:01:21 But anyway, what Hobby Lobby is calling an abortion is they're saying, hey, if it's fertilized and it kills that fertilized egg, that is an abortion.

01:01:34 And so there was a debate over that.

01:01:36 And so as Christians, we would say, yes, the fertilization of the egg, that is when life begins.

01:01:42 So as a pastor, I would recommend people don't get an IUD.

01:01:46 I would recommend people don't do the pill.

01:01:50 Um, there are other forms of birth control. There is, uh, there are condoms. Uh, there are, uh, of course, and there's natural family planning and they can, they're getting pretty sophisticated with that now. Um, abstinence. There's natural planning. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying you just, I'm saying abstinence in marriage. You're waiting for a second.

01:02:14 yeah yeah but even in marriage like you know paul talks about like you could for a season you could

01:02:21 abstain abstain he uses the word abstain for a season to devote yourselves to prayer yeah yeah

01:02:26 absolutely so uh so i think that's uh that those are reasonable i so i would just say um for the

01:02:34 everyday married couple probably my pastoral recommendation would be a condom i know there's

01:02:40 in some ways maybe not preferable but um it's also not preferable to kill babies and so that's

01:02:48 right um and so right that's why and you don't have to you know just we're not trying to be frank 0.98

01:02:53 or crude but just to be helpful and to be clear you the way that a woman's anatomy works you don't 1.00

01:02:58 have to wear a condom as a husband every time that uh you make love to your wife uh there's 0.90

01:03:04 only certain times where you know if you're in that time you're trying to wait um you need to

01:03:11 wear a condom when she's ovulating you know and so you might do a you might say well man you're

01:03:15 getting kind of risky go ahead go ahead right so you're suggesting maybe a combination of natural

01:03:20 family planning with condom during fertile days yeah is that kind of what yeah and then yeah well

01:03:27 i'm saying condom i'm saying even like get the family planning out of there just just condom

01:03:33 during fertile days and then have at it you know the rest of the time now i mean just you know that

01:03:38 that's i think between the husband and the wife and i think that some of these things are worth

01:03:43 bringing a pastor in i think that can be done appropriately where godly counsel can be given

01:03:48 and where you're not being crude and you're not being um inappropriate um but even even with that

01:03:54 i think you there's there needs to be a carefulness like what are your motives what are you

01:03:59 you know what are you trying to do is it just because we just really wanted to go on that

01:04:03 vacation or we just really, you know, there's, there's serious questions to ask, but real quick,

01:04:07 I just did want to comment on the, the hormonal birth control pill, uh, just so, cause some people

01:04:11 may not understand exactly how it works. And in a nutshell, from what I've been able to, you know,

01:04:15 doing my research as a pastor so that I could counsel people in the church, I, um, you know, 0.97

01:04:21 there's three main, um, measures of, of stopping pregnancy, um, or, you know, having a woman not

01:04:29 get pregnant two of them are preventative but but the last one is abortive and so one is the

01:04:33 thickening of the cervical fluid uh to where the the sperm just can't you know unlikely that they're

01:04:39 going to make it through that's kind of you know too thick they can't swim um the second is uh

01:04:43 stopping the ovulation process so that you know even the if the sperm make it through the thickened

01:04:48 cervical fluid um there's not an egg at the at the end of the journey for them to to um to fertilize

01:04:54 and then the third is a thinning and then this is the one that matters it's the thinning of the

01:04:58 uterine lining and um and and that's the one that would not be preventative but that that would be

01:05:05 abortive if we believe that life begins at fertilization and so um that that would mean

01:05:10 that if a if a sperm could make it to the egg and did fertilize the egg the egg would have nowhere

01:05:14 to go it would not have a hospitable um environment habitat for um and so it would it wouldn't be able

01:05:22 to attach to to the lining of the uterine wall and it would fall off and here's and here's one

01:05:25 of the tragic things and again i think a lot of christians just they don't know they're not

01:05:29 educating their doctors sure as heck aren't helping them because they have a worldview that's

01:05:34 antithetical to to the christian worldview not all doctors there could be a christian doctor but

01:05:38 many doctors and and so one of the the side effects long-lasting effects is christians get

01:05:43 off of the pill christian women get off of the pill and and and they want to get pregnant and

01:05:49 they want to have a baby or maybe they just come to the conviction we're not going to use the pill

01:05:51 anymore um but but what what is possible not in all cases but what is possible is that the cervical

01:05:58 fluid uh that you know one of the effects was it's thickening from the pill well that effect

01:06:03 can uh will drop off quickly when you go off the pill um ovulation that that you could go back to

01:06:09 an ovulation healthy ovulation cycle quickly when you go off the pill um but but there's been you

01:06:15 know research done that um the the uterine wall the lining um may may not thicken for for several

01:06:23 months even in some cases a year or two and so a husband and wife go off the pill and let's say

01:06:29 they're christians and and they don't know this and so now they're trying to get pregnant and

01:06:34 unbeknownst to them you know the the the sperm is getting through she's ovulating the egg is in

01:06:42 place it's being fertilized and they have no clue but it's her her uterine lining the egg has nowhere

01:06:48 to go dead dead and that could that could happen every month for months they could they could

01:06:54 inadvertently and i know this is strong language but i want people to feel the weight of it

01:06:57 so i want to be sympathetic to to the ignorance but they could inadvertently kill six children

01:07:04 now that's a real scenario and if we think in biblical terms of what a child you know

01:07:09 That is the, I think, the accurate language that a Christian couple could inadvertently, emphasis on that, inadvertently kill six of their own children.

01:07:22 And so it is, it's a really, it's a big deal. 0.96

01:07:25 It's a really big deal.

01:07:26 And I think it's so foreign to so many Christians are like, what?

01:07:29 You guys think that the birth control, like you guys are so conservative, you know, and it's like, no, I mean, it's a pretty easy argument to make.

01:07:39 Really?

01:07:40 Absolutely.

01:07:40 Were you going to say something?

01:07:42 Oh, well, there's a couple of more points to hit on.

01:07:46 I know we're trying to go fast here as we're trying to tie it up.

01:07:49 One is permanent birth control, such as a vasectomy or a woman getting the tubes tied.

01:07:57 Which would be preventative.

01:07:59 Yeah.

01:07:59 Not abortive.

01:07:59 Those would be preventative.

01:08:00 So I think where I would stand on that, I think there could be situations like a health of the mother, health of the father, I guess.

01:08:08 well, father, I don't know how much that's an issue, but health of the mother, uh, uh, particularly,

01:08:15 um, I could see an issue there. Um, I could also see, I don't know, I would be open to this, like,

01:08:22 um, someone's having a baby at 39 or 40 and it's kind of like getting up there in years and maybe

01:08:28 they have a C-section of doctors. Like, do you want us to tie the tubes now? I could see the,

01:08:32 the woman maybe saying yes, because like, do I want to have a baby at 41, 42? These are risky

01:08:37 pregnancies you know i could see those scenarios i could see that yeah and and so uh but i think

01:08:43 i would just say i just be real careful with it like the idea of like being 34 years old and

01:08:49 getting a vasectomy because you have your two kids uh i would be against that um but really

01:08:55 all of this just all of it comes back to motive you know i won't say all of it so some of it comes 0.76

01:09:01 back to, am I killing a baby or not? Once we get past that into maybe potentially permissible

01:09:09 territory, it's what is my motive? Is it to protect the health of the mother? Is it to go on

01:09:18 more Caribbean vacations? What's my real motive here? Is it because children are hard and I don't

01:09:24 want more children? So much comes back to motive. I think the other thing I would say,

01:09:29 Now, my view toward church history is that church history, okay, so the Bible is my authority,

01:09:39 sola scriptura, right? But I would say that church history provides a guardrail, right?

01:09:46 Like, so if somebody believed what the church has believed for 2,000 years, as their pastor,

01:09:51 I'm going to feel comfortable, like, oh, okay, good, you believe what the church has believed.

01:09:54 It's when we get outside of what the church has historically believed. Hey, I got a new

01:09:58 doctrine I just, you know, God revealed to me. Like, no. Right. So church history is important

01:10:05 in that regard, even if it is, you know, below scripture in authority. And what I would say on

01:10:12 that is that throughout church history, the church has actually been against birth control

01:10:16 and including the reformers, our beloved John Calvin. That's right. Yep. That's right. And,

01:10:24 you know name a reformer i i again it's been some time but i i've read just tons and tons of church

01:10:32 history on this i don't think i ever found anyone that was okay with it so like there actually is a

01:10:39 reason that the roman catholic church holds the position that they do yeah it it grew out of that

01:10:44 and so um i i have sympathy toward that position you know like the duggars you know 19 and counting

01:10:53 what is it 22 and counting i don't even know what it's at now i think the danger like somebody who

01:10:57 comes out of the quiver full movement is if they try to put that on everyone and say everybody

01:11:02 needs to have 22 kids or they're sinning right like that's a problem i think but um but if

01:11:09 somebody just decides to have a whole bunch of kids on their own i ain't got no problem with it

01:11:13 i think that's great yeah it's not and i it's i i would actually argue that in many ways

01:11:18 it it it seems to be the easier position to defend yeah i would agree i would agree it seems

01:11:27 to be the easy so i think like i think you have to be careful if you're you know if you're of the

01:11:34 the quiverful mentality which just for the record i think you and i would both say that we're of

01:11:38 the quiver like we believe psalm 127 right so like what are we going to say we're not like

01:11:44 Yeah, like we're inerrant us and we, you know, Sola Scriptura, but Psalm 127, you know, we just opt out of that.

01:11:50 Like, so I want to have a full quiver.

01:11:53 I think what we're quibbling over with the quiver, the quiver quibble is, you know, is, I don't know, what is a full quiver?

01:12:03 You know, like eight might, you know, that sounds like a pretty full quiver, you know, and then somebody else is 22 or nothing, you know, and like, you know.

01:12:10 And so now, now to be fair to the guys who would hold to like onanism being a sin, you know, and the quiverful mentality, I think what they would say is like, well, you don't have to determine a number.

01:12:21 I know they would say this.

01:12:22 They would say, you don't have to determine a number, Joel.

01:12:26 You let God determine the number.

01:12:28 And you just, you just love your wife.

01:12:32 I mean, that, and so I don't know, just.

01:12:36 That's defensible.

01:12:37 Yeah.

01:12:38 So, you know, what, what, you know, what, what's the counter?

01:12:40 yeah yeah no i think it's tough i i mean it's an easy position to defend so it is it is but okay

01:12:50 if i was to try to like maybe try our more moderating position so like okay giving is a

01:12:58 blessing right giving financially do you agree with that it's more blessed to give than receive

01:13:02 does that mean that in every single scenario that um if you want the most blessed life you

01:13:09 will literally give away every penny that you have because it's more blessed see okay so just

01:13:16 you know just for fun i'll i'll play that so that's a good one um so what i would say is yes

01:13:21 um i think every um every christian uh and not just every christian here's the irony i would say

01:13:27 every single human being by by necessity does give away every penny they have um through death

01:13:33 and the question is um the only reason that we wait to give our pennies now is so that we can

01:13:38 give more pennies later so i am going to give every penny i have and so are you whether you

01:13:42 like it or not to something or someone i would like to give them to my children and grandchildren

01:13:47 and to the church of christ so i want to give it to the church and but first of course my children

01:13:52 and children's children a wise man a good man leaves inheritance for his children's children

01:13:56 and the only reason like the prodigal son that that i don't want to give you know the reprobate

01:14:01 son. Um, his, his part portion of the inheritance, uh, today is because I want to give him more

01:14:08 later and I had like him to be a little older and a little bit more mature and able to steward it

01:14:12 better, but just, you know, I, so I would say, yeah, we do want to give every penny. And the

01:14:16 only reason we don't give them all today is because we want to be able to give more pennies

01:14:19 later. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Um, I, where I was going with it was if

01:14:30 it is always more blessed to give than to give than to receive then there's a feasible scenario

01:14:39 well yeah i don't know that's a that's a that's a pretty decent response joel i don't know what i

01:14:45 would say thank you it just came to me because again i've been i've been reading a decent amount

01:14:50 of thomas soul lately so economics has been been on the brain but i i know your general point i

01:14:56 know what you're making and just saying that like yeah like is it i think it's what i was saying

01:15:01 earlier in terms of just um is there something to be said for for timing is there something to

01:15:06 be said for okay like i'm waiting now because because even like economically you know it may

01:15:12 be that like all right like i'm not going to make this economic choice today because i want to make

01:15:18 this choice later on uh tomorrow and i think and and i'll have more if i'm willing to wait um and

01:15:25 And so I think it could be possible that, you know, a young couple where, you know, let's say the husband, you know, they want to be in ministry.

01:15:32 The husband's still in seminary.

01:15:33 The wife is having to work at that point.

01:15:36 And they're like, man, you know what? 0.91

01:15:37 Our first three, four years of marriage, we're going to wait.

01:15:42 And we're not going to be, you know, we're not going to use anything that would even risk the opportunity of being aborted by nature in terms of birth control.

01:15:50 But our intention is to, you know, God can do anything and we trust him, you know.

01:15:54 But our intention, as far as man making his plans, our plan is to wait for the next four years while, you know, our husband, you know, tries, my husband tries to finish seminary.

01:16:05 And, you know, like, I think that that, like, I would see that as a reason, you know, and I think a couple like that could, you know, they could get married, for instance, they could get married at 21, 22, start having kids at 25.

01:16:17 and maybe not dugger level 22 kids but they could have 10 kids you know if the lord wills like it's

01:16:25 within the you know what i mean so i i think that yeah and i would know i would look at that and say

01:16:29 i don't know if i really have yeah yeah i think for me just being a being a pastor of a church

01:16:36 i i try to teach the basic biblical principles and i'll give my best hunch on how that plays

01:16:46 out in the nitty gritty of life. But I do try to avoid controlling people in the nitty gritty of

01:16:52 life where it's not crystal clear in the scripture. I don't think the scripture is crystal clear that

01:16:58 everyone needs to have 22 kids or their son. I agree. I agree. I think that the wisdom of

01:17:06 Proverbs and planning and what that looks like, and even loving one's neighbor, health of the

01:17:13 kind of deal. I think there are certain mitigating scenarios that maybe common sense would speak

01:17:21 into that I think that we should allow for. But as a general rule, I would encourage people to

01:17:26 have lots of kids. The other thing I want to say, and maybe as a more final note, is I know some of

01:17:32 your viewing audience might be older, might be like, hey, I've already had my one kid. I've

01:17:37 already had my two kids. And I can't go back and have a whole bunch of kids. But I can see I had

01:17:43 a worldly lifestyle back then, or a worldly view. Maybe I even loved Jesus, but I was just,

01:17:50 you know, I kind of was looking at this from a world's perspective, but now I feel convicted by

01:17:55 it. Well, to you, I would say, go to Jesus, tell him you're sorry, and then the Great Commission

01:18:03 still applies to you. Go and make disciples of all nations. You can still do that. And that's

01:18:07 part of the beauty of the clarity that Jesus brought us when he became cosmic King and Lord

01:18:13 after the resurrection and ascension and all authority was given to him in heaven on earth

01:18:19 and he commissioned us to make disciples. It brought a clarity that, hey, this is an ongoing

01:18:24 thing. It's not just when your kids are toddling around. This is like your whole life. You are a

01:18:29 disciple maker. So go to Jesus, get your forgiveness if you were doing it for worldly reasons. I'm not

01:18:37 saying right right and actually on that note i need to say another thing and that is we as christians

01:18:43 don't need to go around judging everybody who has a small household some people can't have kids

01:18:48 some people could only have one some could only have two um some didn't find jesus until later

01:18:55 you know there's just so many scenarios um that's just not the kind of thing we need to go around

01:19:00 judging people for yep i agree i agree it's just again it goes back to that perspicuity of scripture

01:19:06 We believe the scripture speaks to all life and doctrine.

01:19:09 Having children is certainly something the scripture speaks to.

01:19:12 But the scripture doesn't speak to every single arena of life with the same measure of clarity.

01:19:19 And what we're talking about is, I mean, you're not even just talking about children.

01:19:24 The Bible speaks volumes to parenting and children, the blessing of children.

01:19:27 But we're talking about a specific sub-point under that topic of children, how many.

01:19:32 you know and and and um yeah it's just you know again i think like it's it's a it is you know the

01:19:42 argument of like how many let the lord decide um i get that i really do get that and uh and i

01:19:48 i think that that is a fine position to take and it may be the the more biblical position and it's

01:19:54 certainly as you said earlier seems to be the witness of church history and my favorite portion

01:19:59 of church history, the reformer. So not a bad stance to take. Um, but I do agree with you in

01:20:04 terms of, of, um, how, how we engage in that conversation with others. Um, because even though

01:20:11 I think that that may be the most defensible position to take and, and perhaps the most

01:20:15 biblically faithful position to take, I think it's still different than salvation by grace alone

01:20:20 through faith alone in Christ alone, right? Salvation by grace alone through, you know,

01:20:24 through faith alone in Christ alone is the best position to take. It's the only position to take, 0.91

01:20:29 um but it's also really clear it's really clear it's the crux of the whole scripture you know so

01:20:36 so when someone says well i you know i think we're saved by grace plus sacraments or we're

01:20:40 saved by through faith plus works you know and in christ plus saints you know and to the glory of

01:20:45 god plus the glory of the pope and his tradition and scripture like and we say like dude you met

01:20:50 you missed it and and i would have no problem obviously i just described catholicism but i

01:20:54 would have no problem talking to you know to well i think there are a lot of regenerate catholics

01:20:59 because i think there are a lot of bad catholics um but to good catholics you know because

01:21:04 if you're a good catholic then then i think you're in danger um because you're actually

01:21:08 prescribing to catholic doctrine i think lots of people come to christ despite catholic doctrine

01:21:12 but not because of it and so if you got a good catholic that's you know i would push back on

01:21:16 that good catholic and say dude the bible's clear and i and i and i would i would be pretty aggressive

01:21:20 Whereas I would not, you know, go to that couple in a church that has two kids and say, dude, clear as day.

01:21:27 You're in sin.

01:21:29 You know what I mean?

01:21:29 It's just not.

01:21:30 Yeah.

01:21:31 It's not the same.

01:21:32 And I think.

01:21:33 Yeah.

01:21:33 But it's important to have these.

01:21:34 It's important to have these conversations, though, because I think for you, for you and me, the biggest thing is worldview.

01:21:42 Worldview values.

01:21:43 Do I value what God values?

01:21:47 If I do and I'm married, I'm going to want to have a lot of kids. And if I don't feel that value in my heart, I should repent, turn to Jesus and ask him to make my heart feel about things the way he does.

01:22:00 Amen I think that's great

01:22:02 So let's go ahead and close

01:22:04 For all of our listeners who are tuning in

01:22:06 Viewers

01:22:07 You know the drill

01:22:09 What we do at the end of each of our episodes of Theology Applied

01:22:12 Is we ask our guests to stay on

01:22:14 For an additional 5-10 minutes

01:22:16 Me and Michael go way back

01:22:18 As you've probably told in this episode

01:22:20 We have some differences

01:22:21 Because I was a part of your church 15 years ago

01:22:24 And we've gone different directions

01:22:27 In some regard

01:22:27 But Michael still to this day

01:22:29 I have to say, Michael can quote scripture better than just about any, I think, better than anyone that I at least personally know.

01:22:36 He loves the Bible.

01:22:38 He remembers a time when, you know, when I used to love the Bible and the Holy Spirit.

01:22:42 Now I just love the Bible.

01:22:43 No, I'm just kidding.

01:22:44 That's what he would want to say and pick on me with a gift because I'm a cessationist now.

01:22:48 But Michael loves the Bible.

01:22:50 I love the Bible.

01:22:51 We both love the Holy Spirit.

01:22:52 We have a different view on the gifts.

01:22:53 But he loves the scripture.

01:22:56 He's a godly man.

01:22:56 And although we disagree on a few things, we go way back.

01:23:01 And because we go way back, we tend to have longer conversations.

01:23:04 So I know this episode is a little bit long and we typically go five, 10 minutes on the bonus edition.

01:23:10 But if you tune in, if you're one of our responders, one of our club members, you all the bonus materials available for you.

01:23:16 And I encourage you to do that if you haven't done it already.

01:23:18 And if you do it, I say it's five or 10 minutes, but who knows?

01:23:21 You might you might be in for a half hour.

01:23:23 So we'll see.

01:23:24 So anyways, here's our bonus question, just to whet your appetite, a little incentive here.

01:23:29 How would you defend, we've already been dancing around it and addressing it to some extent, but how would you defend the withdrawal method, right?

01:23:36 So absence of condom could be that, or withdrawal.

01:23:39 How would you defend that method and or the use of condoms in light of God killing Onan in Genesis chapter 38, verse 6 through 11?

01:23:49 So that's our bonus question.

01:23:51 Don't answer it.

01:23:52 we're going to come, come back on. So that's a bonus question. We're going to end the episode,

01:23:56 Michael, you get the last word to tell people how they can follow you, what, you know, what they

01:23:59 should know, how they can keep up. Okay, sure. Uh, well, uh, you can find me on my church website,

01:24:06 Wellspring, uh, actually website, who cares? Just go to my YouTube page. You can listen to my

01:24:11 sermons, my preaching, uh, there. So go into YouTube, Wellspring, just search Wellspring

01:24:16 Church DFW, that stands for Dallas-Fort Worth. Another way is that you can...actually, another

01:24:25 way you can engage with me would be through my YouTube channel called Remnant Radio or The

01:24:32 Remnant Radio, and you can see that's more of like an interview format, kind of like this, but

01:24:36 pastors and theologians from all over the world and all across denominations. So next week we

01:24:43 have, oh, you'll like this, Joel. We have Dr. Tom Schreiner coming on the show to talk

01:24:48 cessationism. My co-host and I are continuationists. But that's the kind of show that we are. We have

01:24:56 people come on that sometimes we vehemently disagree with and sometimes that we agree with

01:25:03 too. So anyway, so check out the Remnant Radio. Check out Wellspring Church DFW. I've been on a

01:25:10 writing leave for five weeks so you'll have to go back a little bit to hear any of my preaching but

01:25:14 anyway I'll be on for the next number of weeks before I get a break so anyway you can check it

01:25:21 out that way or you can follow I have like I have like 17 twitter followers because I don't tweet

01:25:26 enough but in tree 81 you can look me up there I'd like to have 18 followers nice well hopefully

01:25:34 we'll get you that 18th follower so all right thanks for coming on the show Michael appreciate

01:25:37 as a special thank you for your gift of any amount we'll be happy to send you a free digital

01:25:44 book from our store to access this offer visit right response ministries.com slash offer we

01:25:51 highly recommend pastor joel's book am i truly saved if you or someone you know has wrestled

01:25:56 with doubts about the love of god this would be a great resource as a reminder to get this offer

01:26:01 go to right response ministries.com slash offer and thank you for your generous support

01:26:07 Thank you.

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The NXR Podcast - April 28, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Christians, Birth Control, and the Blessing of Children

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