The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - How To Decide When To Leave The SBC

00:00:00 Hi, I'm Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to another

00:00:03 episode of Theology Applied. In this episode, I was privileged to have as a special guest,

00:00:09 Dr. Josh Bice. He is the president of G3 Ministries, and he's also a senior pastor

00:00:14 of his local church in the great state of Georgia. Now, Josh and I talked about his

00:00:20 recent decision, he and his elders and his whole congregation. They're a congregational

00:00:24 church and the congregation did vote on this matter, they decided to leave the Southern

00:00:30 Baptist Convention. Now he's talked about this on several occasions. And so you may have already

00:00:34 heard some episode or some podcast where Josh has been interviewed talking about this, but

00:00:39 I tried to make this one a little bit unique. So one of the things that we did was kind of

00:00:43 press the issue of this category of Christian liberty, this category of conscience, because

00:00:49 Josh has used that term multiple times. This was a matter of conscience. You know, some guys may

00:00:53 stay in, other guys may get out. So one of the things that I pressed him on in this interview,

00:00:58 and he did a great job and was very humble and willing to dialogue about it, was when is it no

00:01:03 longer a matter of conscience? At what point is it sin for someone to remain in a denomination

00:01:09 that is trending more and more towards unfaithfulness, as he and I would argue the SBC

00:01:16 is? So you're in for a real treat. Without further ado, let's go ahead and jump in.

00:01:21 Real quick, before we get started, I've got some exciting news to announce.

00:01:25 I've got A.D. Robles and John Harris from Conversations That Matter coming out for a

00:01:30 whole weekend in the month of March to join up on a Friday.

00:01:35 We're going to come in our studio right here, and all three of us are going to record a

00:01:39 multiple-part series on some of the subject matter that you guys have requested that the

00:01:45 three of us address through our YouTube comments.

00:01:48 Some of you have emailed.

00:01:49 We're taking that into consideration as well.

00:01:51 but we're definitely looking at the YouTube comments.

00:01:53 We've asked you guys,

00:01:54 hey, what are topics you want us to address?

00:01:57 And so the three of us are gonna record for several hours,

00:01:59 a multiple part series in our studio

00:02:02 right here in the great state of Texas in March.

00:02:05 And we're gonna be releasing that content

00:02:07 over the coming weeks.

00:02:08 Now, here's the other thing.

00:02:09 That's on the Friday that they're gonna be in town.

00:02:11 But on the Saturday, we're gonna hold a one-day conference.

00:02:15 Now, that's gonna be March 12th, Saturday, March 12th.

00:02:19 It's gonna be a one-day conference

00:02:21 where AD is gonna do a session

00:02:23 on practical, obedient defiance,

00:02:26 how to resist civil tyranny,

00:02:28 how to resist medical tyranny,

00:02:29 and how to do this in practical,

00:02:31 on-the-ground ways as households,

00:02:34 as head of households, husbands, fathers.

00:02:36 How do we resist as a family 1.00

00:02:38 against the cancel culture

00:02:40 and the tyranny and persecution 0.94

00:02:42 that's coming to America?

00:02:44 That's gonna be AD's session.

00:02:45 I'm gonna do a session 0.70

00:02:46 called Debunking the Boogeyman of Christian Nationalism. 0.99

00:02:51 I'm going to kind of reveal the fallacies of the gospel coalition

00:02:54 and all these kinds of things. 1.00

00:02:55 Oh, Christian nationalists, the greatest threat to America. 1.00

00:02:58 I'm going to show why that's not biblical 0.61

00:02:59 and how that's not actually happening.

00:03:01 And the irony that if anything, Russell Moore,

00:03:05 he's the type who is actually the Christian nationalists

00:03:08 in a negative sense.

00:03:08 And then John Harris is going to do a session

00:03:10 on social justice versus biblical justice.

00:03:13 Again, that's social justice and how it's completely opposed,

00:03:17 completely opposite to biblical justice.

00:03:21 And lastly, the three of us are gonna come up all together

00:03:23 and spend a whole hour doing Q&A.

00:03:26 We're gonna take live questions from the audience

00:03:28 and address those questions.

00:03:31 It's gonna be a great time.

00:03:32 You'll get to meet John Harris.

00:03:33 You'll get to meet A.D. Robles.

00:03:34 You'll get to meet myself.

00:03:35 So if you're anywhere in the area,

00:03:37 in Williamson County, or if you're in Austin, Texas,

00:03:40 or you're north of Williamson County,

00:03:42 or to the west or to the east,

00:03:43 and you wanna come out and join us

00:03:45 for that one-day conference, Saturday, March 12th.

00:03:49 Come on out.

00:03:49 It's free registration.

00:03:51 We're gonna have some refreshments free.

00:03:53 Everything's free.

00:03:54 So we're paying out of pocket as a ministry

00:03:56 to make this happen.

00:03:57 We're covering the cost to fly out John and AD

00:04:00 to put them up in a hotel

00:04:01 so you don't have to pay a dime to show up and attend this.

00:04:05 However, for anybody who wants to be generous

00:04:07 and help us offset these costs,

00:04:10 you can do so donating towards this conference

00:04:12 by simply going to rightresponseministries.com

00:04:16 slash donate.

00:04:17 Again, that's rightresponseministries.com slash donate.

00:04:21 Now to find the address, physical location

00:04:23 for the conference and exact times

00:04:25 for each of the sessions for that Saturday, March 12th,

00:04:28 again, go to our website, rightresponseministries.com,

00:04:32 click on the menu button at the top

00:04:34 and scroll down and you'll find conference.

00:04:36 Click on conference,

00:04:37 you'll find all the details that you need.

00:04:40 And one of the details there that we need

00:04:42 is although registration is free,

00:04:44 there's a form at the bottom that says RSVP.

00:04:47 We would really appreciate if you could let us know

00:04:50 whether or not you're coming

00:04:51 and how many people you plan on bringing with you, right?

00:04:55 If you've got 10 kids, God bless you for having 10 kids,

00:04:58 but we would like to know that you're bringing yourself,

00:05:00 your wife, and your 10 kids.

00:05:02 Please come, but please let us know

00:05:04 so that we can adequately prepare for this.

00:05:06 The last thing that I'll say is that that Sunday,

00:05:09 which would be March 13th,

00:05:11 For anybody who wants to join our church, Covenant Bible Church, John Harris will stay in town.

00:05:17 He's going to linger and he's going to preach that Sunday morning at our Lord's Day worship service.

00:05:21 That's 9.30 a.m. on Sunday, March 13th at my church that I pastor.

00:05:27 Again, that's Covenant Bible Church.

00:05:29 We're in Georgetown, Texas.

00:05:31 That's the Williamson County area.

00:05:32 So if you're in Williamson County or you're in North Austin or you're somewhere nearby and you don't have a church home, if you've got a church home, go there.

00:05:40 But if you don't have a church home, you're looking for a church that has courage, that

00:05:44 has biblical fidelity, and you want to hear John Harris preach a dynamite sermon from

00:05:49 the Word of God, then come and join us again Sunday, March 13th.

00:05:53 You can find details or directions to join our church that Sunday morning at covenantbible.org.

00:06:00 Our website for Covenant Bible Church is covenantbible.org.

00:06:05 Without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into our episode.

00:06:09 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.

00:06:12 This is Theology Applied.

00:06:19 All right, so here we are with another episode of Theology Applied.

00:06:22 And I have as a special guest, Dr. Josh Bice coming on the show.

00:06:27 He is the founder, I guess, founder and president of G3 Ministries.

00:06:31 Yeah, that's correct. It's good to be with you.

00:06:33 Great. And what's the name of your church that you're the pastor of?

00:06:36 Yeah, I serve as the pastor of Praise Mill Baptist Church on the west side of Atlanta.

00:06:40 Great. Well, thanks for coming on the show. And I just want to go ahead and dive in because

00:06:44 I only really have three questions for you and I sent them to you ahead of time,

00:06:48 but I think there's a lot that can be discussed with them. I know some of this you've already

00:06:52 discussed. I've seen some of the things that you've posted since the conference where you

00:06:56 let people know on the panel that you were on, you know, that your church has decided to leave

00:07:01 the SBC, your church predates the Southern Baptist Convention, and you've been a part of it

00:07:06 forever. Long before you were ever born, your church was a part of it, but you guys decided

00:07:11 to go ahead and cut ties. So I know you've already talked about this at some length,

00:07:15 but just to catch some of our listeners who maybe haven't heard this already,

00:07:18 what were you and your elders' primary reasons for cutting ties with the SBC?

00:07:23 Yeah, that's a great question. So the main reason was just in terms of a lack of confidence in

00:07:30 leadership, a loss of confidence in a couple of main areas, which I think really sums up the

00:07:37 existence and the purpose of the SBC as a whole. When you think about the Southern Baptist Convention,

00:07:44 it was founded for the purpose of both theological education and church planting and missions.

00:07:50 And when a church loses confidence in a denominational group like the SBC,

00:07:55 on those two big main pillars, you might say, well, then really at the end of the day,

00:08:03 it's just a logical decision. I mean, there's really no point in staying engaged.

00:08:08 But then there's another layer as well, as far as like a conscience layer. And then I think

00:08:14 a stewardship layer as well. So when we think of theological education, as far as the seminaries

00:08:21 and the Bible colleges, those organizations that make up what we might call the educational

00:08:28 arm of the SBC, if people that come to me or that I have a voice into their life and

00:08:35 ministry and they say, what school should I attend?

00:08:39 And if someone within my local church or even someone outside of my local church through

00:08:44 like G3 and the network, if I'm sending them consistently to other schools outside of the

00:08:51 SBC, then that certainly is a problem. And so then, you know, we have to ask ourselves the

00:08:57 honest question about, you know, our engagement, the money that we might be giving to further that

00:09:04 agenda. And then, of course, as it pertains to the church planting arm, if we would not

00:09:11 recommend if someone left our church and moved, say, to Houston, Texas, or to, say, somewhere in

00:09:17 Kansas, for instance. And they said, what church would you recommend? You know, if I'm not sending

00:09:24 them to one of the churches that we're planting, and that's a problem. And if those churches are

00:09:30 served by elders that we would not have as elders in our local church, by and large. And I know that

00:09:37 that might sound like a massive broad brush. Right. And to some degree it is. And so I'll

00:09:43 accept that but but for the most part we would not accept these elders into our local church as

00:09:49 elders right so when we think about that it's just it really doesn't make any sense for us to stay

00:09:54 engaged in the southern baptist convention but then you can take it up a notch when it comes to

00:09:59 say being a good steward of your time and your your influence or even your finances and so when

00:10:08 we have individuals like Ed Litton, who is elected as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention

00:10:14 to represent all of the SBC churches as a model, as far as what a pastor should represent. And then

00:10:22 of course, in preaching, as he preaches in chapel services at various seminaries within the SBC

00:10:29 network. Here's a man who's been engaged in a scandal. This is after he was elected. As far as

00:10:37 plagiarism is concerned and now it's been called sermon gate and he's yet to really admit it and

00:10:44 repent he's sort of tried to dodge these things but even prior to his election i mean he's he's

00:10:51 certainly not a complementarian whatever he might be and he's co-preaching with his wife and so

00:10:58 certainly we would reject his theological positions as it pertains to preaching philosophy and

00:11:06 methodology. And so these are massive problems. And then, of course, we have the historical

00:11:11 social justice problem that's been plaguing the SBC for some time that was brought to

00:11:16 really the spotlight, you might say, brought down on this issue back in 2018.

00:11:23 And so that's just been a continuous problem. And so when we adopted Resolution 9 in 2019

00:11:32 in Birmingham, that was in many ways a watershed moment for the SBC. And looking back, I can see

00:11:40 where the lights came on for a whole lot of people at that point. You've got to remember my

00:11:44 involvement. I was the year prior in 2018, I wrote an article that was titled the SBC at the

00:11:51 intersection of intersectionality. And there was a professor that, and this was written one week or

00:11:58 so before the annual meeting in June and one of the SBC professors tweeted it out or retweeted it

00:12:04 within a couple of hours Russell Moore had already contacted his provost had him rebuked and he had

00:12:12 to delete the tweet so he reached out to me in a private text message and told me what had happened

00:12:18 and yet he still believed that I was you know speaking the truth and that sort of thing so we

00:12:24 had some private conversations about that. What they were doing and what they were saying at that

00:12:29 point was that I was exaggerating and that others like me were exaggerating. And then, of course,

00:12:35 we would eventually meet in 2018 that summer in Dallas for the statement on social justice and

00:12:40 the gospel. And they would say, we're exaggerating. There is no social justice movement. We're simply

00:12:47 mistreating people. We're approaching this thing from the wrong angle. I mean, they had all sorts

00:12:54 of things to say about us and then the very next summer they brought before the convention a

00:13:02 resolution on critical race theory and intersectionality and we accepted it we adopted

00:13:08 it right so that's problematic and then they try to pass it as a block absolutely i mean there was

00:13:14 all sorts of you know political maneuvering that took place on the floor to get it to the vote

00:13:19 that's a whole different yeah that's a whole yeah but but when it came to this year or this this

00:13:27 past year you might say 2021 in nashville and all of the the attempts from the floor to go on record

00:13:36 publicly to repudiate these godless ideologies like critical race theory and intersectionality

00:13:42 at every given turn they they refused to do it and so that was just riding on the wall it was

00:13:49 confirmation i remember the group of men that were with me from my church we went to eat supper

00:13:55 after the convention concluded that day and we talked about we debriefed and and i said you know

00:14:01 i don't know that we're going to be able to stay engaged that's going to be a decision that that

00:14:06 myself and the elders and then eventually our church will have to come to a decision on this

00:14:12 but right but was that a congregational vote for your church or was that an elder vote

00:14:17 uh well it was both i mean the elders so our our church government is we're an elder-led church

00:14:24 with congregational authority so so are we the congregation gives us authority to lead

00:14:29 but on big big decisions we we have to have the congregation's approval and affirmation and so

00:14:36 through months of prayer and and talks we as elders decided that this was the right move and

00:14:42 then eventually it was brought to a church vote at the end of 2021 yeah yeah man that's a lot

00:14:49 i completely agree it's you know for me i i remember it just felt uncanny i remember watching

00:14:54 you know what went down with the sbc convention um not in 2019 but in 2020 and uh and i remember

00:15:02 just seeing how like the the comparison just seemed to be like so similar between what was

00:15:08 happening with our nation as a whole right like even the the little you know twitter battle you

00:15:14 know that happened during as the convention is going on in real time with mike stone you know

00:15:18 and like oh look he's not the good samaritan who would stop he's the busy you know priest who won't

00:15:23 get his clothes dirty you know and here's this woman crying and he doesn't care and uh and i

00:15:28 remember just thinking like okay i i feel like didn't we just didn't we just do this with like

00:15:33 there's there's one guy who is the embodiment he's he's uh empathy incarnate right and there's

00:15:39 this other guy who's mean and you know and he and he has conservative policies but he's mean it

00:15:44 doesn't care you know but this other guy he's you know he's empathetic and he wants to you know

00:15:49 unite the country again and then you look at the margin with you know with the vote and the sbc

00:15:55 and and then the margin in our nation with you know the national vote for and i was like i don't

00:16:00 know if there's any difference between the sbc and america you know and but i say that but then

00:16:07 you know what's happening in virginia you know and like with you know youngkin gets elected you

00:16:12 know and immediately keeping good on some of his promises you know with you know trying to get

00:16:16 critical race theory out of the schools and all those kinds of things and so i see what happens

00:16:20 in virginia you know and i'm thinking about what happened you know with resolution nine i'm like

00:16:25 well i guess you know there's not an exact comparison turns out the state of virginia

00:16:29 is more conservative than the SBC. So that's maybe a little harsh, but I was just looking at it and I

00:16:34 was like, we're supposed to be salt. We're supposed to be light. Like I should be able to look at a

00:16:38 mainline Bible believing denomination and say that is starkly different. There's a stark 0.88

00:16:44 distinction between the people of God and the nation as a whole. There's a difference between

00:16:50 the Christian and the pagan. And, but I was looking at the same issues and the same voting

00:16:55 margins for the most part i mean it was just uncanny it was like where's the saltiness where's

00:17:01 the light where's the distinction it just feels like the sbc like whatever happens in america

00:17:06 that's what we can expect and and at that point when the salt loses its saltiness you know somebody

00:17:11 said something about that one time what is it you know so yeah so yeah so i just started getting

00:17:16 frustrated with that any any more thoughts on that question before we move on no i think you're right

00:17:20 on point i think that the tragedy in it all is that much of the the typical you know political

00:17:27 national level politics you know that we see those tactics and strategies they were actually at play

00:17:35 it seemed like in in in the sbc you know election for president this year we could see that taking

00:17:42 place but you're also right in the sense that you know when we see things happening or being

00:17:47 played out, if you will, in the cultural sphere. It's oftentimes this idea with a big tent approach

00:17:54 to, you know, maintaining this massive size as an SBC network is that we feel like we have to

00:18:02 suddenly virtue signal to every group out there to let them know that we're really not mean.

00:18:08 We really don't hate them and that sort of thing. When really we can just preach the gospel and love

00:18:14 people and have healthy churches and and do missions and educate you know men for the pulpit

00:18:20 and so we don't really have to get into the whole virtue signaling game but unfortunately that's

00:18:26 really where we've where we've gone in this whole thing and so social justice and and the critical

00:18:32 race theory debate intersectionality has just really gained wings if you will and it's just

00:18:38 it's everywhere yeah you're absolutely right and when it comes to you know kindness i mean kindness

00:18:43 is a fruit of the spirit. Gentleness is a fruit of the spirit. But I think the problem is that

00:18:47 people, they truncate it. They make it too overly simplistic. You know, when Jesus is calling,

00:18:53 you know, religious rulers of his day, whitewashed tombs, right? You look nice on the outside, 0.92

00:18:57 but you're a rotting corpse and smell like death on the inside. That's who you truly are. 1.00

00:19:02 Or a brood of vipers, you know. Jesus, right? So, okay, that gives some of my, you know, doctrine, 0.96

00:19:09 you know theology proper doctrine of god but you know i so i would hold to divine simplicity in some

00:19:13 of those that god cannot be severed in parts and jesus the god man um i don't think there was ever

00:19:18 a moment that he is not perfectly embodying all the fruit of the spirit simultaneously in full

00:19:23 measure which means there was never a time that jesus is not being gentle that the fruit of the

00:19:27 spirit i wouldn't see them as a toolbox taking out a hammer for one task and putting it back

00:19:31 taking out a wrench for another i would see all the fruit of the spirit operating in full measure

00:19:35 all the time in the God-man, in Jesus Christ, which means when Jesus is fashioning a whip

00:19:40 and overturning tables in the temple and all those moments, Jesus is showing us perfect

00:19:45 gentleness. 0.98

00:19:45 And my fear is that Christians have so narrowly defined gentleness that it precludes the 0.99

00:19:51 Son of God, which means we've got a really big problem. 0.97

00:19:54 And I think one of the ways to understand Jesus as being gentle in those seemingly harsh

00:19:59 moments is just keeping in mind that there's always more than just one other party.

00:20:04 So what seems like harshness to this party over here is gentleness for the group over here that's being targeted and oppressed by them. 0.72

00:20:14 And so, you know, so like, you know, I preached against transgenderism and homosexuality January 16th. 0.66

00:20:21 I'm not sure that the date that this recording will come out, but January 16th, which for us was last Sunday. 0.96

00:20:26 And it's like, I am being gentle towards Christian parents and Christian pastors in Canada who are under the threat of legal penalty and jail time for offering the message of the gospel and hope because evangelism has effectively been banned in Canada and fast tracked by the conservative members of parliament with a unanimous, not one dissenting vote.

00:20:52 And so I'm not being harsh. I'm not being cruel. I would see that as I am being gentle. And so I think in the SBC, faithful guys in the past yourself, but then other guys like Mike Stone or guys like Tom Askell, the founders guys, I see those guys as absolutely the most gentle, some of the most gentle men I know.

00:21:11 And what a gentleman does when someone is being assaulted and under attack and preyed upon, actually P-R-E-Y-E-D, preyed upon to be exploited as simply the virtue signaling of some other party for the sake of power and their own agenda.

00:21:30 Gentleness to that individual who's being preyed upon may look like harshness towards the actual offender, the actual person attacking. 0.50

00:21:39 but i just thought that like as christians we knew that i thought that we we had that level

00:21:44 of discernment that level was to me that's like basic anybody who's a pastor should be able to

00:21:49 know that the first person who runs into your office saying that they were abused saying they

00:21:53 were mistreated is not necessarily the innocent party and in fact we have two or three right two

00:21:59 or three come we weigh it and and if it turns out that they're lying then they're not only are they

00:22:04 not the abused or the victim they're the victimizer they actually are bearing false witness and

00:22:09 oppressing someone else. And I just thought that was basic biblical justice, basic understanding

00:22:13 of, and it seems like that is becoming increasingly rare, not just in Christians, not just in the

00:22:20 nation, but among pastors today. Would you agree with that assessment? Wholeheartedly. I think,

00:22:26 you know, when Jesus approaches a woman at the well and he deals with her sin, he does that

00:22:33 because he's demonstrating what gentleness and love looks like.

00:22:36 But when we become a people who are afraid to speak the truth in love,

00:22:42 then it's really the most unloving position that we could take.

00:22:45 And that's what we're seeing with the SBC.

00:22:48 It's taking that leftward drift to where we're almost handcuffed in such a way

00:22:55 that we have to virtue signal about every oppressed group and individual.

00:23:00 And pretty soon it's going to it's going to eventually tank. And that's one of the reasons that we have decided to exit is because at this point, I'm not really confident.

00:23:10 I know I have, you know, brothers that are staying in the SBC and they want to fight and they want to try to reform and that sort of thing.

00:23:18 But I'm really not convinced that that the SBC is redeemable at this point.

00:23:23 I don't think that there's going to be, and I, you know, I really pray that I'm wrong, but I don't really see another conservative resurgence happening.

00:23:33 Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, so that gets us right into where I want to go with this, which is, you know, you you have said multiple times now I've seen you in a couple of different I saw you, I think, with Justin Peters and I saw the original panel from the conference where you were saying you made the announcement, at least to the larger public context that I was a part of to that you guys were, you know, cutting ties and pulling out of the SBC and all these contexts.

00:23:58 you know, you've, you've carefully, and I think you're right to do it. I don't think it's, you

00:24:01 know, I don't think you're just, you know, being mincing words or being overly careful because it

00:24:05 is a legitimate theological category. And you said, you know, this is it's, it's in the arena

00:24:11 of, of conscience, right? Christian liberty conscience. However, you and I both know that

00:24:17 we don't just get to throw something in the, in the area of conscience because

00:24:21 brothers disagree on it. Um, sometimes, uh, a brother is just wrong. It's like, well, you,

00:24:27 you think, you know, you're, you're conscious. So maybe your conscience is pricked. Um, that could

00:24:32 be because it's a matter of conscience. It also could be because your conscience is seared right

00:24:36 by, by blindness or sin or ignorance or whatever it may be. Um, and so at this point, I, I, I would

00:24:42 agree with what I've heard you say in other contexts, that this is a legitimate matter of

00:24:46 conscience, meaning just to be pain, painfully clear, like a brother, like Tom Askell, who I

00:24:51 know you appreciate. I appreciate a president with, with founders ministries. We've had them

00:24:55 on the show before a phenomenal man of God. I would not say by any stretch that Tom Askell

00:25:00 is in sin by, by keeping his church, you know, leading them to remain in the SBC at this time.

00:25:06 However, there is an objective point. Now it's hard to define, but this is kind of what I want

00:25:11 to pick your brain about. It's hard to define you and I are, neither of us are saying that the SBC

00:25:16 is there yet, but there does come a point where if the SBC crosses this line, blank, blank, and

00:25:22 blank, then you can no longer, it's no longer a matter of conscience. It is objectively compromise

00:25:29 to be in the SBC. So I worded the question like this. I'll just stick to my script and what I

00:25:36 wrote here. I said, you said multiple times that a church's decision of whether or not to leave the

00:25:40 SBC is a matter of conscience. So at what point is a local church required by scripture to leave

00:25:45 a denomination. It could be the SBC or for guys who aren't a part of that even broader, any

00:25:49 denomination. What would the SBC have to do in order to force the hand of biblically faithful 0.81

00:25:56 churches to leave it? Personally, I would argue that there are two sides of the equation. I think

00:26:01 on the one hand, the degree of compromise within the SBC must be carefully considered. On the other

00:26:07 hand, the degree of contribution from a local church must also be considered. In other words,

00:26:12 if a local church can participate in an organization such as the SBC with a minimal contribution of

00:26:19 time and talent, treasure, then that church may be capable of tolerating with a clear conscience

00:26:26 before the Lord a higher degree of the SBC's compromise. In short, remaining in the SBC for

00:26:32 the sake of reformation seems to be justifiable, but only if a local church is fighting more than

00:26:39 it is funding. What do you think about that? What are your thoughts? Yeah, I really like the way

00:26:45 that you phrased the last part of it, fighting more than funding for those who are staying in

00:26:50 for reform, like Tom Askell or Tom Buck or whoever it might be. And there are many pastors, by the

00:26:57 way. So I just want to be clear as I seek to try to unpack this question, this answer, is that when

00:27:04 I make the statements that I've made, and I certainly did this in the article that I wrote

00:27:09 as well, I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting that every person that's, you know,

00:27:16 employed by the SBC at any level, whether that's a state convention level or whether

00:27:21 it be at a seminary level or whatever, or even those who are staying in the SBC, I'm

00:27:29 not suggesting that they've all abandoned the faith or that they're all compromisers

00:27:34 because there are many, many godly men and women who are part of the SBC.

00:27:40 Unfortunately, there's an elite structure of leadership at the top,

00:27:45 where there's an awful lot of churches that make up the more than 40,000 churches that represent the SBC,

00:27:52 that never show up, not even one messenger from their church shows up at the annual meeting every year.

00:27:59 So there's only a small percentage.

00:28:01 When you think about more than 40,000 churches who can send upwards of 10 or more messengers from their church to represent their local church to vote during the business sessions, and yet we're doing really good if we can get 7,000 people at a convention.

00:28:20 And so when you think about how few people actually show up, or even know what's happening, politically speaking, that's a problem. So stewardship is extremely important. But there's a lot of really good churches that have not really come to see the issues, I think.

00:28:41 I earnestly believe that there are a lot of really godly churches and faithful churches, healthy churches and good pastors that are just disconnected from the SBC.

00:28:51 And they think that, well, we won the war on inerrancy.

00:28:54 And so they keep sending money, like 10 percent of their undesignated receipts every year from their church to fund the SBC, all the while not sending a messenger to the annual meeting.

00:29:05 So they don't know what's being talked about.

00:29:07 And so, you know, we're living in a time where we really need to reconsider our financial investments.

00:29:15 We need to think critically about what we're funding.

00:29:18 So I would say to the to the point of where's the line in the sand for absolute necessity of separation?

00:29:26 I would say it's the gospel. Whenever the gospel is perverted, then, you know, you don't really have to pray about it anymore.

00:29:34 You need to get out immediately. But then there's going to be all sorts of other issues like, OK, well, if it's not a perversion of the gospel yet, then how close to that line are we?

00:29:45 And that's, again, with critical race theory and the whole the whole talk of intersectionality and the way that things are being approached politically makes me extremely nervous.

00:29:57 And I don't see any, any way forward for us. So for us, it was a, it was a conscience issue and

00:30:04 it was a stewardship issue as you've made clear in the question. And so we really couldn't stay

00:30:10 in anymore because you see the SBC is a pay to play sort of system. So if you're going to be a

00:30:15 part of the SBC, you have to, you have to check the box on the Baptist faith and message 2000,

00:30:22 and you have to give money. And for us, we came to a place where we said, we don't want to give

00:30:27 one more dollar to the SBC. And so in order to stay in and, and fight and to, to seek reform,

00:30:36 we would have to continue to fund the SBC at some level. Now, many years ago, we backed way back on

00:30:42 giving to the SBC. So we were only giving to mission causes. Anyway, we, we had completely

00:30:48 dropped off cooperative CP gifts and all of that was just completely gone. So to cooperate

00:30:56 as a church was now not a possibility for us any longer. So with that said, it was at that point

00:31:06 where we said we really need to separate and we don't need to be a part of this anymore. We need

00:31:11 to go on and do gospel ministry elsewhere. And at some point, you know, I'll stop talking about

00:31:18 the SBC, except I'll point back and make comments occasionally, but it's not my job. I don't feel

00:31:23 like I have to, for the rest of my life, throw rocks at the SBC. I will pray for these brothers.

00:31:30 I will pray for these churches. I will pray for leaders to repent, but I'm not going to continue

00:31:36 to just get up every day and think I've got to go on some, you know, polemics search to try to

00:31:42 figure out a way to expose the SBC. I think the SBC has exposed itself, unfortunately.

00:31:48 unfortunately um practical question for a moment what is the minimum requirement so let's say

00:31:54 you know because i really think that that principle of you know um well i want to i want to

00:31:59 seek reformation right i want to reform that i mean this is tale as old as time whether it's you

00:32:04 know i'm going to stay in england you know with william laud and you know his high high church

00:32:09 and persecution of you know puritan pastors or well i'm going to go to the new world you know

00:32:14 For me, at the end of 2020, me and my family, we left California.

00:32:18 I was pastoring a church there, had been there for several years.

00:32:21 My wife's family and my family were both in Texas.

00:32:24 And so we were just, after 2020, we were done.

00:32:27 And so we wanted to leave.

00:32:30 Although there were multiple families that came with us.

00:32:33 We planted a new church here.

00:32:34 By God's grace, it's growing.

00:32:36 But obviously, multiple families stayed behind.

00:32:39 And so that question of everybody who stayed behind, none of them stayed behind because

00:32:43 they were like, we love Gavin Newsom and, you know, and we think that he's a brilliant and

00:32:49 wonderful, you know, politician. It was always, we're staying behind to fight. And that was,

00:32:53 that's what it always, so whether it's a denomination or whether it's, you know,

00:32:56 where you live, you know, this, the whole category of fleeing, right? Like Jesus gives a provision

00:33:04 for fleeing, like, and not just a provision, but in some cases, depending, you know, how you apply

00:33:09 this a command, right? If a town does not receive you, then shake the dust off your feet. And so

00:33:14 there is a Christian category for fleeing and that doesn't make you a quitter. It doesn't make you a

00:33:18 coward. And there also is a biblical category for fighting. And so there's fleeing and fighting and

00:33:26 it's tough to know what you should do. And I think that's why the safest thing in most of

00:33:32 these cases is to put it under the larger banner of a matter of conscience. But with California,

00:33:37 I remember thinking like, you know, a lot of Christians are like, well, we're staying to fight.

00:33:40 And my question is, you know, in real terms, what percentage of your income do you give to the church and what percentage goes to state taxes?

00:33:49 You know, what percentage of, you know, and you just look at it, all these things.

00:33:52 And that's not to say no Christian should live in California, that there's not any kind of exception clause.

00:33:56 I mean, the military, for goodness sake, I think it's right.

00:33:59 I'm not a pacifist.

00:34:00 So I think a man can serve in the military.

00:34:01 If you serve in the military, especially the Navy, you're going to be in California.

00:34:04 So California needs churches.

00:34:05 I think there are exception clauses, but I think sometimes we kid ourselves. We think we're doing

00:34:11 more fighting. Basically, we pump up our numbers, our stats in the fighting category. And I think

00:34:20 we're not willing to take a hard look at our stats in the funding category. I think this principle

00:34:25 applies to multiple things, but I think a lot of us, whether Amazon, man, I feel like, I'm like,

00:34:30 i think a package from amazon is on my doorstep every single day and i'm like i'm like maybe i

00:34:36 should try a little bit harder you know it's so easy it's just so darn easy to you know to use

00:34:41 amazon but it's like but i know they're giving money to blm they're doing this like should i be

00:34:46 using giving this much of my money to amazon so whether it's a domination denomination or

00:34:52 corporations that we you know that we patron patron or whether it's what state we live in or

00:34:56 all these different things, I think asking some serious questions about, am I really fighting?

00:35:01 How am I fighting? Can I, can I stand before God and give an answer, right? Give an account for

00:35:06 the ways that I'm fighting against wickedness in this state, in this organization, in this

00:35:10 denomination, whatever it might be. And then also looking at, and, and in, in my choice to stay and

00:35:17 fight, how hard am I really fighting? And then also having, and it hurts, but having that honest

00:35:23 looked at, but by staying to fight, how much am I, not wanting to, but how much am I forced to fund

00:35:30 simply by my decision to stay and fight? And I think that number, however, whatever metrics are

00:35:37 used to determine the funding amount, I think sometimes it can be surprising and painful to

00:35:44 realize, oh man, I thought I was fighting. I'm having serious conversations. I'm taking a stand

00:35:50 on certain issues. But, but, but really my fighting is actually, if I'm really honest,

00:35:56 it's doing this much, but my funding is just to this Leviathan, this Bohemian, you know,

00:36:02 just, just thousands of dollars, just, you know, going and going and going and going.

00:36:07 And so, so even though I'm fighting, if I could really, if I could give truth serum to the people

00:36:11 at the top, um, Hey, would you want me to leave or stay? They're like, Oh, Oh, you can stay and

00:36:15 fight. That's cute. Yeah. We see you on Facebook and the comments that you make and stuff, but we

00:36:20 also, we appreciate the thousands of dollars that your church gave last year. Exactly. Yeah. So it's

00:36:27 exactly. Yeah. And when I think of that, I also have to ask myself this honest question as it

00:36:33 pertains to stewardship, stewardship of time. Like, you know, it's one thing to fight, you know,

00:36:39 the fight of faith, right. And to go out into this dark world and to preach the gospel and to

00:36:45 push back against the, the, the, the darkness of this culture, the depravity that, you know,

00:36:50 that surrounds us, if you will. But it's another thing to get up every day and to have to fight

00:36:55 other Christians, other churches. And that's certainly not something that I think is a good 0.97

00:37:02 use of our time. So, you know, finding people to network with under this big, massive tent,

00:37:10 It's like going to a really large family reunion and trying to figure out what table you're going to be welcome to sit at for lunch and coming to a point where you don't really see that there's a good option anymore.

00:37:26 And so it's just it becomes far more difficult.

00:37:29 So when I'm thinking of fighting the fight of faith and I'm thinking of planting churches and doing the work of ministry, I want to figure out ways to spend my time and I have, you know, limited time every day.

00:37:43 You know, we're so limited. And so how am I going to spend those hours? Will I spend those hours trying to figure out ways to, you know, battle some, you know, polemics issue within the SBC? Or can I work to plant a church in a, you know, specific state where, you know, there's far more darkness than there is light through a network like G3, for instance?

00:38:08 right yeah no that's that's really good and i think that's kind of that's the catch-22 is if

00:38:14 you do it yourself right a local church i mean and at the end of the day the sbc doesn't plant

00:38:18 churches churches plant churches absolutely you know so the sbc can help to train and they can

00:38:22 help to fund and those kind of things but churches plant churches and if you're pastoring a small

00:38:27 church with limited amount of people limited amount of funds um then and the difficulty in

00:38:32 doing it alone doing it yourself is well the limit on resources the benefit that's the con the pro

00:38:38 is um you have pretty much you know a hundred percent influence and say in who the that church

00:38:46 planner is going to be who is you know who those elders are going to be what kind of church what

00:38:50 kind of theology what what you're actually planting so i think that's kind of that's the

00:38:54 decision you know is all right smaller it's like you know we don't have like as rod martin always

00:38:59 says, you know, like the widow's, you know, the widow's mites, you got all these widow's mites

00:39:03 and yeah, that is a massive benefit. And I really liked Rob Martin and we've had him on the show

00:39:06 too. Um, I love talking about just about like, Oh, when are we going to Mars? I like that kind

00:39:13 of stuff. Um, but, but you know, he's, he always talks about the widow's mites and you pull it

00:39:17 all together and there's so much and you can just, you can do so much and that's true, but the bigger

00:39:21 something gets, it's like the more resources it has. Um, but there's also, uh, the, the less

00:39:27 influence any one person has over it and it's just and it's hard it's just it's difficult to

00:39:32 keep a big old behemoth thing faithful and it is and focused you know and you know that idea of

00:39:39 cooperation is a really has been historically a really strong point of the sbc because you can

00:39:45 pull all of this money together but like you said you know when you have a small group of elites at

00:39:50 the top rung of the ladder they're making all the decisions on where they're planting churches how

00:39:54 they're planting churches. Yes, we vote on a few things, but at the end of the day, you just keep

00:40:00 shoveling the money in the front door and they're going to keep doing their thing. Like with, you

00:40:05 know, as far as a small independent church. Yeah, you're right. I mean, we actually need to partner

00:40:11 with other local churches. I think that that's a healthy thing. And that's why we are doing what

00:40:16 we're doing with the G3 church network. And then as we publish a project, like if we publish a

00:40:22 project from our local church churches plant churches so if we decide okay we're going to

00:40:27 enter into this church planting project and we publish that within the uh within the g3 church

00:40:32 network it doesn't mean that every single church within the network has to actually partner with us

00:40:39 for that project but five or six may that are close by that can maybe have some some uh some

00:40:47 influence in terms of proximity, could send elders from their church to help engage in the

00:40:53 oversight of the initial launch and partner with us on, you know, rotation of preaching

00:40:59 responsibilities and funding of rental of a facility and all sorts of things, right? So we're

00:41:06 not going to have to do this all alone because we might have, you know, out of a network of 100 or

00:41:12 200 churches right now we're about 100 churches we might have five or six churches that say yeah

00:41:18 count me in on this and we're going to do this so to cooperate with another church is the extremely

00:41:23 healthy benefit but the way that the sbc has gone with this massive machine it's almost as if you

00:41:32 know you don't really even know what's going on you're just giving them money and trusting they're

00:41:36 doing it properly right that's the difficulty yeah the lack of accountability that's what you

00:41:41 You know, it's, you know, again, the similarity is uncanny, but that's how people feel, you know, with the nation.

00:41:47 It's like, who's Dr. Fauci accountable to $420,000 a year salary, you know, the unelected, most powerful official in the world.

00:41:56 And so accountability is incredibly important.

00:41:59 So that gets into the whole G3 thing, G3 network thing.

00:42:02 So let me just go ahead and ask you about that.

00:42:05 So G3, it appears to be creating its own network of like-minded churches.

00:42:09 is, this is an honorable, much needed endeavor. My question is this, does G3 have, well, before I

00:42:16 get to the specific thing about, we'll get there. But first, what would be some distinctives,

00:42:21 theological distinctives? G3 network, if you're going to be in this network, you're going to be

00:42:25 a church in this network, you are blank. What do you like? Yeah. So number one, we're Baptist.

00:42:31 Number two, we hold to, with some degree of and measure of even qualifications, we hold to the 1689 Baptist Confession.

00:42:42 So with that said, what we would allow is say a church is led by a group of pastors and the pastors say we can actually link arms and actually affirm the 1689.

00:42:58 but our whole church can't yet, in fact, we don't have the 1689 as our official confession within

00:43:06 our own local church, then we would still allow that church to be a part of this network because

00:43:11 we believe that the pastors within this network and the churches can associate together so long

00:43:18 as the leadership is aligned properly. Furthermore, we think that a good confession

00:43:24 like the 1689, for instance, provides clear and valid transparency as to who we are, where we

00:43:32 stand. It's like a flag or a pole, if you will, a flagpole in the ground. It's waving a flag that

00:43:39 says this is who we are. And then we also recognize that there are some people, some churches, some

00:43:45 pastors that would say, well, we're not exactly on board with, say, the article on the Sabbath or

00:43:53 you know that the the pope is the antichrist we want to sort of adjust and qualify on some things

00:43:59 and so we allow for people in churches to qualify on some things but we just need to make sure that

00:44:04 we're not too far apart from one another that we would not be able to be like-minded and be in

00:44:10 good fellowship and partner together in projects so we do believe that you know holding to a

00:44:16 confessional statement like the 1689 is extremely important yeah that's good so baptist and

00:44:22 confessionally Baptist, um, which is reformed Baptist, you know, I, I have to tell people all

00:44:27 the time there's Calvinistic Baptist who I appreciate. Um, and then there are reformed

00:44:32 Baptist. And so I, you know, I, for years and years, you know, my listeners know this, but

00:44:36 for years and years, you know, I did theology like most guys do when they get into ministry,

00:44:41 I did it all the cart and, uh, it's just, it's exhausting, you know? And I felt like I was

00:44:47 getting near the end of the buffet line, you know, like at a Luby's or something. I had my tray,

00:44:50 you know, two or three plates and I had all these different things. And then I'm looking over and

00:44:54 I'm like, uh, there's this little chalkboard, you know, sandwich board sign that says the chef

00:44:59 special. And I realized I've already got like 97% of the things on my tray are part of the chef

00:45:04 special. So either this 3% where I'm differing with the chef's opinion, um, either I'm just

00:45:10 nailing it on the buffet line and I just know exactly what's right. And the chef is mistaken,

00:45:14 or maybe somebody else already did all this, all this work, you know, and, and maybe theology,

00:45:21 maybe there actually is a systematic and there is a common thread, you know, through the Bible.

00:45:25 And there is a way of understanding things cohesively, and it's not meant to be done

00:45:29 all the cart. Maybe, maybe I could have saved myself a lot of time and a lot of effort by just

00:45:34 taking somebody else's word for it. Not anybody else's, but somebody who's tested and tried and

00:45:39 true. And so for me, confessionalism was, um, it wasn't binding. It was freeing. It freed me up to

00:45:45 be able to have a sense of safety and security. Um, and, and to not, uh, not be embarrassed. I

00:45:53 mean, there were certain moments where it's like, I believe this over here. I believe this over here.

00:45:57 And then, you know, eventually in some kind of pastoral situation, uh, it gets pointed out to

00:46:03 me by some member of my church that these two things actually are contradicting. And I'm like,

00:46:07 oh, no, they are. You're right. And it's like this embarrassing moment. And so, yeah,

00:46:13 confessionalism, the 1689 was incredibly helpful for me personally and for our church.

00:46:19 Yeah, absolutely.

00:46:20 So with that, the 1689 is, you know, it's not a three-page pamphlet. It's about 100 pages in

00:46:28 book form, you know, 32 chapters, I believe, right? Is that correct?

00:46:32 Yeah.

00:46:32 I think it's 32. 32 chapters, covers the Sabbath, covers, you know, the doctrine of the Word,

00:46:37 doctrine of the trinity but but more than just your basic general statement of faith like the

00:46:41 baptist faith and message it's it's much more in depth than just that um but it doesn't cover

00:46:47 everything 1689 doesn't say anything about head coverings that 1689 doesn't say um anything about

00:46:53 well about kind of the second half of my question here um two kingdom theology is kind of what i

00:46:59 want to get into the 1689 it addresses a little bit like our you know our influence in the world

00:47:04 on the pagan culture and those kinds of things, but there's some wiggle room there. And so my

00:47:08 question is, does G3 have an official position on two kingdom theology? John MacArthur, to throw

00:47:15 him out there, John MacArthur, love him. I know you love him. He famously and rightly said that

00:47:20 Christ, not Caesar, is head of the church. Yes and amen. However, I personally would believe

00:47:25 and hold that Christians should go a little further by insisting that Christ, not Caesar, 0.68

00:47:30 Caesar is also head of the state. I would look at Romans 13. I would say that the state is God's 0.65

00:47:35 deacon, the civil magistrate. He works for God, that Christ is over even the state. Now that

00:47:40 doesn't mean Christ is head of the state in the same way he's head of the church. He's uniquely

00:47:43 head of the church in that he died for her. And he nourishes her, mediates the blessings of the

00:47:49 new covenant by his blood for her. But I do believe that in the authoritative sense, in a governing

00:47:55 since Christ is head of all things. Thinking of Colossians, thinking of, I believe it's Ephesians

00:47:59 1.22, that God has set him up as the head of all things to the benefit of the church. So the church

00:48:05 uniquely benefits by Christ's headship over all things, but he's not only head of the church.

00:48:11 Uniquely head of the church to benefit the church, but head of all things. So head of the church,

00:48:15 yes and amen, but also head of the state. So I heartily would affirm a separation of church and

00:48:20 state, but I believe it's high time for Christians to reject the unbiblical notion of a separation 0.84

00:48:26 of God and state. I think there's a difference between separation of church and state, good,

00:48:31 separation of God and state, no bueno would be my position. So I think that neutrality is a myth, 1.00

00:48:38 secularism I think is on its last leg. I think it's time to just go ahead and push

00:48:41 that idol over and be done with it and stop pretending. I think it's either Demos is God,

00:48:48 You know, the people are God, or God is God.

00:48:52 You know, it's either man's morality or it's God's morality, God's law.

00:48:56 And I know that, you know, it can be controversial, but I like the way that guys like Doug Wilson, he said, general equity theonomy, right?

00:49:05 So, you know, this idea of, and that is in the 1689 Confession, that, you know, as our use of three uses of the law of God.

00:49:13 Um, but then also, uh, when it comes to civil law, that, um, the moral law is, is eternal,

00:49:19 eternally binding, including the Sabbath. And so chapter 22 talks about the Sabbath,

00:49:23 but then with the civil law of God, um, that's, I mean, that's what the apostle Paul uses for me

00:49:28 and you to get paid by being pastors. You know, the ox, you know, don't muzzle him. And Oh, by the

00:49:33 way, uh, here's how you can apply that, um, to, to pastors and how the, the one who labors in the

00:49:39 gospel is worthy of the wages. And so when I look at the law of God and I think, man, it has civil

00:49:45 application and it's not a one-to-one ratio. It's not like America replaced Israel. We believe that

00:49:51 the church and replaced isn't always the best word to use, but we believe that Israel blossomed

00:49:56 into the church and all of ethnic Israel has been invited to join the church. And many have chosen

00:50:01 to harden their heart and reject, but they've been invited to join the church. But it was all

00:50:05 building up to the church. America is not the replacement for Israel. The church is. And so 0.83

00:50:09 it's not a one-to-one ratio of looking at the civil law with Israel and then saying America

00:50:14 should do that. But what I would say is that the civil law, it's a two-step process instead of one.

00:50:18 You track it back to the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, and find the general equity,

00:50:23 God's blueprint. And then you take that and apply it in a culture, place, and time. And I believe

00:50:28 that all nations should do that. And the church has a role, a prophetic role, to call the civil

00:50:33 magistrate to do that. And I don't know what theologically, how, what you would refer to that,

00:50:39 if that's Kuyperian or, but I, I think that's where I'm at. That's where a lot of our listeners

00:50:44 are at. And I'm curious, what is your position? How, how much involvement should the church have

00:50:50 in politics? I, you know, John MacArthur has been under fire recently. Ironically, people saying

00:50:55 that he's theocratic and theonomic. And I'm like watching those, you know, and I'm like laughing

00:51:00 Cause it's like 52 years of this guy, like he's, I think that I would like him to be

00:51:04 more of that.

00:51:05 I'm like, I wish that was true of John MacArthur, but it's certainly not.

00:51:08 So I'm curious, where is Dr. Josh Bice at?

00:51:11 And with the G3 network, would that be a distinctive, do you guys have a distinctive

00:51:15 position on that issue?

00:51:17 Or would that be one of the issues where it's like, that's beyond the 1689.

00:51:20 We want to, we want to draw the line here and, and leave room with that.

00:51:26 What do you think?

00:51:27 Yeah, it's a, it's a great question.

00:51:30 Well, as far as the network is concerned, we certainly are not going to draw a line in the sand on two kingdom theology.

00:51:37 We're not going to draw a line in the sand as far as a hard line in the sand on eschatology.

00:51:43 We would take every church on those issues on a church by church basis. 0.84

00:51:49 And we want to, you know, if we have someone that's just swinging swords and they're just post meal all day long, they're probably not going to fit in too well within the G3 church network.

00:52:02 However, we just want to be careful not to make that a line of division, because I don't see that, you know, when it comes to a network and, you know, voluntary engagement and involvement in certain projects and things of that nature.

00:52:19 It's not going to be something that we want to try to separate over.

00:52:23 We want to try to figure out a way to have a healthy church network that can do these things and do those things well.

00:52:29 As it pertains to sort of a two kingdom theology, I think a lot of people probably within the G3 church network would probably lean more that direction than they would to more of a, you know, a mono sort of approach on the structure.

00:52:49 And I think that the reason is because I think that you can avoid two ditches.

00:52:55 And I think there can be a little bit of an abbreviated aspect of even two kingdom theology and a two kingdom theology approach.

00:53:02 For instance, if I'm holding more to and I do tend to hold to more of a two kingdom approach, that's not to say that I don't or that I reject that Christ is the head of the state, too.

00:53:15 OK, because I recognize that.

00:53:17 I also recognize the fact that, as Luther said, that the devil is God's devil.

00:53:23 And so we have to sort of think about the way that it's structured.

00:53:28 So you think about the sphere of the family and the sphere of the church and the sphere of society.

00:53:35 And then you think about the kingdom aspect, naturally born into the civil kingdom, but I'm born again into God's kingdom.

00:53:44 now is christ ruling and reigning right now presently from the throne and i believe he

00:53:50 said that emphatically himself and i think that he is so that's to say that he is absolutely head

00:53:56 of the church and he is absolutely head of the state at the same time but i think we can run

00:54:04 into problems when we conflate the two so the ditch on one side would be an over-realized

00:54:10 eschatology. I want to avoid that ditch. But then I also want to avoid the ditch of some sort of

00:54:17 escapism approach where, you know, people would say, well, you know, the Christian has no right

00:54:23 to, to, you know, to speak into the political sphere or to, you know, to hold to one specific

00:54:30 political party or candidate and that type of thing. And I would just reject that. I think that

00:54:36 you can still hold to a two kingdom approach or even a modified two kingdom approach and still

00:54:42 be very vocal and engaged politically but just recognizing ultimately that that christ is is the

00:54:50 head of the church and and caesar is not and then you know you think about the pulpit you know you

00:54:56 think about the fact that we need to be looking at the the pulpit as this this launching pad of

00:55:03 truth. And while the state has been given by Christ the sword, we should never allow for

00:55:12 Caesar to have our pulpits. But unfortunately, we see that happening. And we see that happening

00:55:18 even in conservative groups that want to sort of have this political rally and all of this kind of

00:55:25 stuff. We want to avoid that. So within our own local church here, we're going to try to,

00:55:30 when we think about the separation of church and state, that's a loaded statement that's

00:55:35 been abused for so long. And I think the liberals have successfully silenced many a Christian and

00:55:42 many a church throughout history by that statement. And so I would simply say it like

00:55:48 this. I think that if you want to talk about separation of church and state, I would say

00:55:52 that type of ideology is to keep the state out of the church, but not to keep the church out

00:56:00 of the state right and so that's the way that i would articulate it so in terms of our approach

00:56:06 we're not going to kick people out because they don't hold to a a specific two kingdom approach

00:56:12 but we do want to make sure that we're close enough in proximity that we can associate together

00:56:17 and do missions and church planting together and have good fellowship right now that but i would

00:56:23 But also, but I would also urge, I would heavily urge my brothers to think earnestly about what it means to take a stand, to speak up, to speak into the political sphere.

00:56:38 I mean, you look at John the Baptist, for instance, John the Baptist was saying, that's wonderful.

00:56:42 We've got all these people that are coming out here. They want to be baptized. That's great.

00:56:46 But now hang on a second. When you go back, make sure you tell Herod that he should not have his brother's wife. 0.73

00:56:52 Amen. So he's speaking into the political sphere. That's right. And I think that we have to recognize that. Amen. Yeah. Amen. Christ, his Christ is king. Christ is king. He wasn't just, you know, he wasn't just, he was born a baby, but he grew up. You know, some Christians still think he's this baby Jesus, you know, but he's, he's, he's a full grown man. He's the God man and he's king and he was born a king.

00:57:20 And Herod, I feel like Herod in some ways understood and kind of got the birth of Jesus 0.58

00:57:28 better than some Christians in the sense that he was threatened. 0.77

00:57:33 He was like, I need to do something about this.

00:57:36 And we're so quick to say, well, Jesus, his kingdom isn't of this world, or he didn't

00:57:42 come to start a political revolution.

00:57:44 But the politicians of his day were afraid.

00:57:48 They felt threatened.

00:57:49 So we're certain that Jesus had no political ambition, but they weren't certain.

00:57:54 They felt threatened.

00:57:56 They were worried what's going to happen with this king, not just savior, not just meek and mild, but this king.

00:58:04 But what you said about separation of church and state, I completely agree.

00:58:08 I understand that clause would be that we shouldn't have a church-run state and we shouldn't have a state-run church.

00:58:13 But you're right.

00:58:14 I think we're kidding ourselves if we act like it's this equal two-way street.

00:58:19 The church rarely, and part of that's an indictment of the church,

00:58:23 but the church rarely is forcing the hand of the state.

00:58:27 But the state is all too happy to come in and tell the church what to do.

00:58:31 And I think part of the reason why the separation of church and state

00:58:34 needs to be an extra guard and extra vigilant in keeping the state out of the church 0.84

00:58:39 versus worrying about the church getting into the state

00:58:42 is because of the nature of the way God set up these two sovereign spheres.

00:58:45 to the church like you said so to the church has been given word and sacrament to the church has

00:58:50 been given um a sword to be fair um but but it's a spiritual sword it's it's a it's sharper than

00:58:55 any double-edged sword but it's a spiritual sword it's it's a persuasion um to the state has been

00:59:00 given coercion and there's a difference so we we we plead with men to repent of their sin and to

00:59:06 put faith in the lord jesus christ uh we preach that's what the church you know so it's pulpit

00:59:11 and sword. And so the pulpit, we're preachers. It's persuasion. And there is a command in that

00:59:19 sense, but it's a command that's not coerced. People's response to that command has to be

00:59:25 voluntary. It has to be something that they choose to do. God has to change their hearts and make

00:59:31 them willing to come. Whereas the state, to be fair to the state, God gave them the sword.

00:59:38 And so their ministry is a coercive ministry.

00:59:40 It's supposed to be.

00:59:42 But because that's the nature of the ministry and the purpose that God instituted the state,

00:59:47 because it is by nature coercive, it needs to be involved, in my opinion, in as few things as possible.

00:59:55 It needs to narrow its ministry, its purpose, its involvement to what God's word says the purpose of state is actually for.

01:00:06 because you know people have said it like this anything the state does it does at gunpoint

01:00:10 and it can't help itself you know to again not trying to pick on the state but it can't help

01:00:15 itself because it's like well you know that's not true you know the state will do that but yeah okay

01:00:20 but just follow the train eventually you'll get to a gun right if i don't pay my taxes eventually

01:00:25 eventually someone's going to show up at my door if i resist arrest uh then eventually you know

01:00:30 i'm going to find a gun pointed at me you know so one way everything the state says it says at

01:00:35 the threat of gunpoint that whereas the church doesn't and so when you have an institution

01:00:40 that by design is coercive and and everything it does is with the sword because god gave it a sword

01:00:47 it's you know then then that ministry has to be really careful what what it's involved that it's

01:00:54 only that it's sticking to the script and the church to be fair has to be careful too that

01:00:58 ministers can not with coercion but still even through persuasion can wrongfully bind overly

01:01:04 bind the consciences of men um that spiritual abuse is is a legitimate category but the state

01:01:10 seems to be doing that far more and so i'm i'm with you the church separation of church and state

01:01:14 it's it's regularly being said well christians shouldn't be involved in politics or um i i feel

01:01:20 like if if people were you know if john the baptist was here today and says you shall not

01:01:24 have her i feel like christians sadly would be the first ones to say well herod um that law that

01:01:30 you're referring to is a christian law that doesn't apply to herod and you and i would be like

01:01:34 no sir no that's the law of god it's binding on every man every woman every child all places all

01:01:41 times um that is the moral law of god and so um and that's that's the 1689 that's not that's not

01:01:47 a um parenthetical you know peripheral kind of thing that's a that's a basic confessional

01:01:52 belief any any final thoughts uh dr bice before i let you go no i mean i've i've enjoyed the

01:01:59 conversation i think that's uh i think you're on point i think that what we're seeing through

01:02:05 covet 19 through all the mandates through the overreach of the government we're seeing that

01:02:10 you know people who were resistant to the idea of you know any christian involvement in politics

01:02:17 that they've actually been forced their hand has been forced into this whole discussion because

01:02:23 you know it's not that they went looking for ways to engage themselves in politics but the church

01:02:29 actually came walking into the front door of their of their local church the state so it sort

01:02:34 came into the local yeah yeah the state yeah the state came into their local church and so

01:02:39 what happens at that point is that they they've been forced to rethink these positions and so

01:02:47 you know when caesar walks into the front door of your local church and says this is what you have to

01:02:52 do. Well, now, you know, you don't have time to, to sit down and parse out all the theological

01:02:57 aspects. You need to be thinking about this. So I think my final words would be, I just want to

01:03:03 urge my brothers and sisters to be thinking about what's happening in Canada, what's happening as

01:03:08 it pertains to the Equality Act that's going to be signed into law probably in the upcoming months.

01:03:16 You know, and we would pray that that's not the case, but we're just going to see more

01:03:21 and more oppression and pressure from the government upon the church.

01:03:27 We're all going to experience it, not only pastors, but all of us in the church will

01:03:31 at some level experience this.

01:03:34 And we need to be able to speak up to give a defense of our faith.

01:03:40 We need to be able to speak to the civil sphere.

01:03:44 We need to be able to speak to the political sphere and say, no, we're not going to obey this because our obligation is to obey God rather than man.

01:03:54 So we're going to have to be ready to stand when we're called upon.

01:03:58 And I think right now we're just seeing just sort of the tip of the iceberg, if you will, for what lies ahead.

01:04:05 As far as my eschatology is concerned, I don't I don't see things getting better before they get really bad before they get suddenly really good.

01:04:15 So I think that when we think about where we are presently, we need to be prepared to stand.

01:04:22 And, you know, the trials of the faith, the Lord being ruler over both of these fears that we've been discussing, he will allow us to experience these trials.

01:04:33 but the trying of our faith will, you know, produce this,

01:04:37 this patience and this patience ultimately leads us to hope.

01:04:42 And so we need to be able to, to persevere, to be steadfast,

01:04:46 immovable in the faith for the glory of God.

01:04:48 So I want to urge my brothers and sisters in Christ to be thinking critically

01:04:52 about what we've been talking about for the last few minutes.

01:04:55 Amen. Well, thank you, Josh, for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

01:04:59 My privilege. God bless you.

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01:05:03 we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.

01:05:06 To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.com slash offer.

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01:05:19 this would be a great resource.

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01:05:25 And thank you for your generous support.

01:05:33 Thank you.

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The NXR Podcast - February 08, 2022

THEOLOGY APPLIED - How To Decide When To Leave The SBC

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