00:06:12.880So but post welfare state, then you have fatherlessness soaring.
00:06:17.500And I think you can make an argument, Thomas Sowell and other people have certainly made this argument, that the black communities were being targeted for a lot of the welfare. And again, we've seen this play out. They're trying to court voters, all this sort of thing. But you see this thrust and this push for the state really to replace the father.
00:06:37.380Even today, you see it with stuff like Black Lives Matter in that, you know, obviously0.87
00:06:41.600affecting the black community, but Black Lives Matter, they're against nuclear families.0.82
00:06:46.000But originally, when all that stuff became prominent in 2020, the one thing that they
00:06:50.720were especially against was fatherhood.
00:06:53.640So they would talk about non-nuclear families.
00:06:56.760They really did not appreciate this idea of any sort of patriarchal father figure of the
00:09:40.560But I also think World War I in particular, when you unpack what was going on in that
00:09:45.480war. You really had Western Christendom foolishly going to war with each other. So before we have
00:09:52.100Mao and Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini and all the fascist communist dictators who take over the0.55
00:09:58.040world, before that, you have really cousins in England and Germany, Prussia, and then also0.82
00:10:04.260in Russia going to war with each other. And you've got Christendom slaughtering each other
00:10:08.820on the battlefield for fundamentally stupid reasons. This is why in this time period,1.00
00:10:13.740It's a cataclysmic shift because it's really the undoing of the West that comes out of World War I.0.61
00:10:19.880And I think that legitimately shook a lot of people's faith.0.84
00:10:24.680This is one of the reasons, it's usually one of the biggest critiques of post-millennialism that we find, right,
00:10:31.080is because of what happened in World War I and II, people say, you know, post-mill theology is dead.
00:10:37.760You know, the dream of Christendom really came crashing down.
00:10:40.080And so we would obviously disagree with that, but I think we do have to acknowledge the world in many ways came unglued during that time period.
00:10:50.020And so what we're living with today is really like, you know, kind of the aftermath of World War II, what was established since then.
00:10:57.120You can see a lot of it even in, you know, American politics and American dispensationalism with the eventual founding of the state of Israel.
00:11:04.260And then, you know, I grew up with this in Disby churches where it's like, you know, we're flying Israeli flags on our front porches and stuff like that.
00:11:13.800So I think that just shaped a lot of it.
00:11:16.120And I think, quite frankly, if you talk to a lot of the greatest generation, they didn't really have good bearings.
00:11:23.560You're like 50 to 60 years after the Civil War for a lot of those guys, which is kind of hard for us to fathom, right?
00:11:31.400That they also lived through that period.
00:11:33.420That was a very disruptive period. Calvinism was dying. This is one of the other arguments that I've made, is that patriarchy and Calvinism go together. And with the rise of Unitarianism in America in the 1800s, you really saw Calvinism and Puritanism waning. And those were the things that were holding society together, particularly the nuclear family.
00:11:56.080Right. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, just from my personal pastoral counseling, anytime there's an objection or a hesitancy or just a fear of wives submitting to husbands and patriarchy, I've always noticed that it goes hand in hand.1.00
00:12:14.760And it's usually the person who doesn't like Reformed theology.
00:12:19.320Believe it or not, not everybody in my church is a Calvinist.
00:12:22.760Most are, because I'm fairly outspoken in that regard.
00:12:26.480It's a systematic way of theologically thinking that's going to influence everything that I,
00:12:32.460every text that I cover, Reformed theology is there.
00:12:37.460But there are individuals who aren't persuaded by Calvinistic doctrine.
00:12:42.480And often that's the same individual who struggles with patriarchy.
00:12:47.220And I think of what, I believe it's Peter that he talks about,
00:12:51.700and you are her daughters, speaking of Sarah, who called her husband, Abraham, her lowercase l, lord, master, the head, her head.
00:13:00.940And he says, you're her daughters if you do likewise, if you follow in her example.
00:13:06.160But then he goes on and says, and do not fear anything that is frightening.
00:13:10.780And one of the things that I think gives us peace, whether we're a man or a woman, we all have someone, human authority placed by God in our lives that we have to submit to, to varying degrees, according to the word of God.
00:13:23.260And to know that there's a Lord of Lords, right?
00:13:26.840Abraham was, you know, when you think like, who are these Lords that Jesus is Lord of, right?
00:13:32.380Well, he's King of earthly Kings and he's King of earthly Lords.
00:13:35.440And one example of an earthly Lord is a husband.
00:13:37.380And to know, you know, as a wife, that there's a Lord over this Lord who loves me and who is sovereign over this lesser Lord, my husband, and guiding him, you know, that causes the fear associated with the commandment to submit to your husband to not be so daunting, you know, that you don't have to fear that which is frightening.
00:13:59.660But if you don't believe that God's sovereign, then yeah, it's like, well, I know my husband. I know his flaws. I know his weaknesses. And so at least in no other way, I see a correlation there. Is there another correlation that you're referring to, Calvinism and patriarchy?
00:14:17.380Yeah, no, I think that's right. And then I think too, like you'll watch like, uh, you know,
00:14:24.260Caddy Stanton and the other ladies who were pushing early wave feminism, which a lot of
00:14:27.740people mistakenly today are like, Oh, first wave was fine. No, it really wasn't. Um, you look at
00:14:33.200their theology and their background, those women were sincerely trying to replace male pastors,0.98
00:14:38.440um, slowly granted. Um, but yeah, so they come on the scene, they're pushing feminism1.00
00:15:11.260Like just look up in the Greek in Ephesians 5,
00:15:13.920What does submission actually mean? It means somebody's in charge and somebody isn't. It means hierarchy, a number of those things. But it's also interesting. I think the connection also would be that you ask what has caused fatherlessness? Feminism.
00:15:29.060I mean, feminism has been a cancer in the bones of the nuclear family, and it's something that I think today in the church especially, instead of addressing that and calling that out, what pastors have done is said, like, okay, let's do the Tim Keller.0.60
00:15:44.560Let's try to make a way for them to coexist, you know, which fundamentally has been like, you know, if you or I were to say, well, maybe I can just live with the cancer.
00:15:58.640Yeah, the third way, you know, Keller approach has been, that in itself has been a plague on modern evangelicalism for quite a while.
00:16:07.840So the rise of feminism, and I think we could probably root, you know, no fault divorce within the larger banner of feminism.
00:16:14.880And then, you know, you said that with feminism, there was this simultaneous thing happening of like, there's this, this aversion towards patriarchy, but also the, you know, the turning away from classically reformed doctrine and an aversion towards Calvinism.
00:16:31.180And do you feel like any of that had to do with, you know, I always think of Charles Finney and the, you know, the second Great Awakening that wasn't so great.
00:16:38.980I mean, his systematic theology, I've read bits and pieces of it.
00:16:42.200I can't read the whole thing because I, you know, my IQ would plummet and I would no longer be qualified to be, you know, a husband or a father or a pastor.
00:16:49.880So, you know, you can't read too much Finney and still be sane.
00:16:52.860But the little bit that I have been able to stomach, I mean, the guy was just a quack.1.00
00:16:57.420Like he was, he was, and he was a God hating, like not just, he wasn't just stupid.1.00
00:18:17.500And I think that that culture has so dominated.
00:18:21.600Well, the main thrust of Billy Graham was, well, if we're going to appeal to all of America through like a TV crusade type thing, then we have to gear our content so that it's ecumenical, which means, you know, we kind of have to water things down.
00:18:36.420We have to focus on, quote unquote, core doctrines.
00:18:39.360So Billy Graham is really, he's an early form of like gospel centered types of ideology where let's just focus on the main thing, everything else, let's kind of ditch it.
00:18:49.680And I think slowly that's just the watering down of Christendom and of Christianity in America. It makes it susceptible to things like feminism, right? To the point today where like even the conservative movement as a whole, even the part that would call itself, you know, mainline Christian.0.52
00:19:07.940And I mean, you know, we, we've kind of said this over and over again.0.95
00:19:12.040It's like, they're, they're kind of limp wristed and impotent because they, they don't want
00:19:37.280I think, you know, it's funny, but fundamentalism, and I know you agree with this because I've heard you talk about it, but, you know, a lot of different phrases that we could use, right?
00:19:45.400So the theological minimalism, you know, or the just whittling down to the lowest common denominator, you know, this idea of here are a few doctrines and we're going to defend, you know, these five or six doctrines because the, you know, the church is under attack.
00:20:02.120The Christian faith is under attack. And so we need all the fighting men we can get to link arms and preserve, you know, what is most precious. And it's, you know, what's most precious? Well, you, you know, you could, you could print it on, on a track, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's about, you know, 350 words. And that's what's most precious. And that's what we're going to defend.
00:20:22.720And, um, and so you, you let go of all these other things, but it's, um, it's, it's, uh,
00:21:10.420Because what we don't realize is that, you know, you fall back, but what just happened
00:21:15.720is now this whole wall is breached, and that whole portion of the city, of the kingdom,
00:21:20.880all of its resources, all of its weaponry, all of its strengths, all of its advantages,
00:21:27.160tactical advantages, are now in the hands of the enemy. And so I think in some ways it was just,
00:21:33.760whether it be apathy, theological and just spiritual apathy, or whether it be
00:21:38.460cowardice, but probably a little bit of both, but falling back too soon and surrendering some
00:21:44.780of these things and say, well, it's okay. We can, you know, we can write it off. Like, yeah,
00:21:48.820it's a compromise. Yeah. It's a surrender, but God will be pleased in the end because we've
00:21:52.280preserved what God cares about the most, you know, we're gospel centered. And then gospel
00:21:56.740centered just becomes a euphemism for really, um, gospel myoptic. It's only the gospel. Um,
00:22:03.020it's gospel. I, I, you know, I've stopped using the phrase to describe myself, which is a shame
00:22:07.820Because on its face, it's a good phrase.
00:22:12.140And in the technical sense, I am a gospel-centered Christian.
00:22:16.100But I no longer use it unless I have time to offer, you know, like a 15-minute disclaimer.
00:22:21.460Because gospel centrality has been steamrolled into gospel myopticism.
00:22:28.220And the best way I could illustrate it is it's basically become the young, reformed, and restless, you know, hip way of saying I'm a red-letter only Christian.
00:22:36.680that's you know and and here's the thing the red letter christian who's like just give me the words
00:22:41.580of jesus not the words of paul not the words you know like as a you know it's only the words of
00:22:47.120jesus that are actually from jesus you know and then this was all you know it's not inspired by
00:22:51.340the holy spirit but the funny thing is the red letter christian is actually in a better spot
00:22:55.240than than today's gospel-centered christian because at least the red letter christian with
00:22:59.560the words of jesus that includes both law and gospel because jesus actually gave commands
00:23:04.280Whereas like today, the gospel-centered Christian, it's not like, take the red letters from Jesus and then go ahead and divide that by about 10.
00:23:13.920You know, because I mean, Jesus, so much of what he said was about hell and about money and about greed.
00:23:19.000And these are the commandments of God, not one jot or tittle, you know, will pass away.
00:23:23.300Heaven and earth will pass away before this law.
00:23:25.080Like Jesus loved the law and he preached the law.
00:23:28.180So, I mean, even the Sermon on the Mount, you know, what's, you know, percentage of those three chapters in Matthew are only gospel, you know?
00:23:38.880And so gospel-centered has basically, if you wanted to, you know, define it in real clear terms, you're looking at probably maybe 1% of the Bible.
00:23:48.500So when someone says, I'm gospel-centered today, most of them, not all of them, because some of them still use the phrase and they mean it in the way that I do or the way that you do.
00:23:57.780But a lot of them, I would say more than half, if they say I'm a gospel-centered Christian,
00:24:04.200what they're essentially saying is I'm a Christian who believes about 1%, 1% to 2% of the Bible.
00:31:30.360So when we say fundamentalists, we're not talking about guys who just believe the Bible.
00:31:35.080We're talking about fundamentalism in the sense of guys who have truncated the Bible into four or five things.
00:31:41.340And so that theological minimalism, that lowest common denominator, you know, and the rusting, eroding away of a robust, you know, Christian theology, that was an issue.
00:31:55.260And then, you know, you're saying the greatest generation and, you know, feminism, and that's where feminism came in.
00:32:02.820All these things are different contributors.0.97
00:32:05.240No fault divorce was one of the things you mentioned.
00:32:07.080all the multiple multifaceted, you know, attack on fathers and fatherhood has been on decline.
00:32:15.060So all that being said, where are we at now? You know, one of the things that we were talking
00:32:19.000about before we started recording is just some of the statistics now, you know, in terms of like
00:32:24.180how much, how rampant divorce really is. And when it comes to divorce, you know, because what I
00:32:30.160continue to hear people, you know, do, you know, the classic, you know, Mother's Day sermon is,
00:32:34.680you know, thank God for mother's father's day sermon is, you know, do better men. You're,
00:32:38.840you're lousy. And, and so, um, still to this day, when you think of divorce and these kinds of0.99
00:32:43.540things, like most pastors and most Christians, they think, yeah, men are adulterous, you know,0.98
00:32:47.900and they, their porn habits and, you know, and, and yeah, men are sinners. Men need Christ. Men0.99
00:32:53.620need to man up and, uh, and to repent and to lead in repentance and all those things. But that's,0.70
00:32:58.860um, I just feel like we're not addressing the problem because we're just not willing to look
00:33:02.820at the cold, hard facts. We're not willing to live in reality. And the reality is that men
00:33:08.640are sinners, but women are sinners too. And some of the statistics are very unfavorable towards
00:33:14.820women. Can we look at some of those? Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think
00:33:18.600it's because it creates this environment where we just give women a pass on everything. So0.97
00:33:23.620I think there's sort of like a, you know, we talk about, I have talked about with Michael
00:33:27.900Foster, like vintage foolishness, right?
00:33:30.280Foolishness that matures generationally and gets worse over time.0.99
00:33:34.980I think this is certainly true on the women's sin because it hasn't been dealt with.0.99
00:33:40.940So yeah, I mean, these statistics go against everything that you find in the mainstream
00:33:45.380media, but you've got 70% of divorces in America are initiated by women, 70%.
00:33:53.240That is an astronomically high number.0.94
00:35:03.040And that's kind of what's interesting about it is like, okay, so you go to the Matt Chandler
00:35:06.400stuff, you know, Jesus wants the rose.
00:35:09.480He's just the stuff that we kind of laugh at, but yet it's still predominant in the
00:35:14.200churches where, you know, I know it's different at our church.
00:35:17.260I'm sure it is at yours as well, but you know, we're actually preaching to women and saying,
00:35:22.040hey, you have to deal with the sins that are particular to women, and here's what they are.0.94
00:35:28.520Here's the ways that you're prone to sin against your husband and nag him and on and on the list0.99
00:35:33.080goes. So we address that, but the culture at large doesn't. In fact, what we're told,0.79
00:35:39.800there was a good book by Christina Hoff Summers. It was called The War Against Boys.
00:35:44.100And it goes back to the mid-80s to present day. And it's basically talking about how the whole
00:35:49.040education system is like the world is slighted in favor of men and women are always getting the
00:35:55.520short end of the stick. But then she goes through and she unpacks that and she's like, it's the1.00
00:35:58.780opposite. The opposite is actually true that women are favored at every turn. And so here's a female0.59
00:36:04.680author saying that and saying, no, no, that literally like the entire school system is set1.00
00:36:09.840up so that women can succeed. And as a result, boys, men are suffering. So yeah, I think that
00:36:16.680So what's the long term of all of that? Well, I think that there's a lot of men who feel
00:36:23.400this sort of black-pilled feeling of like, what am I supposed to do about this? The system is
00:36:28.920rigged against me, right? We had the case of Jeff Younger in Texas. I don't know if you were
00:36:33.600following this, but his wife wants to make their son transgender. And Jeff was like, absolutely not.
00:36:39.980And it goes to court and the judge is like, no, not only is this going to happen,
00:36:44.320uh, Jeff, you're not allowed to talk about it. You know, this is like, so as men, it's easy
00:36:50.720to understand why a lot of us, a lot of men would feel totally just silenced and feel a pretty great
00:36:57.860sense of oppression. Right. And real quick, just to go back for a second, I completely agree. And
00:37:03.980we'll keep moving with that because there's a lot to unpack, but to play the devil's advocate for
00:37:08.500anybody who would counter, you know, with the earlier statistics that you just presented,
00:37:12.140you know, seven across the board, 70% of divorce is initiated by women. And then when it comes to
00:37:17.800college educated women who are in marriage that ends in divorce, it's over 90% of the wife who
00:37:24.380initiated that divorce, not the husband. One of the counters that I frequently have heard from
00:37:28.320people is they'll say, you know, because I'm aware of those statistics and people say, well, the
00:37:33.100reason why women initiate divorce more than men is because men are physically stronger. And so
00:37:38.620divorce, leaving, abandonment, physically retreating from the marriage is the only0.98
00:37:44.660course of action that a woman has at her disposal. Whereas the man doesn't feel as much of an urgency0.94
00:37:51.600or a need to get out of the home and get out of the marriage because he's physically superior to
00:37:56.580his wife. He's not physically threatened. And so, you know, the real reason why women are divorcing
00:38:01.900their husbands, you know, several times more than husbands are divorcing their wives is because
00:38:07.820there's domestic violence in the home, there's physical abuse, and that's always the guise.
00:38:13.560So we talked about this a little bit before we started recording. Can you read the statistics
00:38:17.600on that, Eric? Yeah. And Joel, you're absolutely right. There is domestic violence in the home.
00:38:23.260Unfortunately, for the people who make that argument, so this is from one study,
00:38:27.540it says that 70%, 70% of domestic violence in relationships is perpetrated by the women.
00:38:35.640yeah so again it's not like a you know and the men 49 split here and the men yeah that's the
00:38:43.580yeah that's the other thing they found is men are much less likely to go to the authorities
00:38:49.900or anybody else and say yeah my you know my wife my girlfriend whatever has been she's been beating
00:38:54.060me but 70 percent that's high yeah that's high so 70 so this is the same statistic as divorce0.89
00:39:02.740So 70% of women across the board, whether that's the average of college educated, non-college educated, across the board, 70% of women in America who are married, who get divorced, 70% of them initiated that divorce.0.53
00:39:16.580And then when it comes to domestic violence, if there's domestic violence in a home, in a marriage between husband and wife, again, it's 70% of the women who initiated that violence.
00:39:25.620And you and I have both, you know, you know, talked about this and not not with specificity, not sharing events, you know, particular events or certainly not sharing names.
00:39:35.740But both of us over the years in pastoral ministry have dealt with couples within the church and not just within, you know, J.D. Greer's church, you know, but within, you know, true gospel preaching churches like yours and mine.
00:39:49.080we've dealt with married couples where um where it's it's the wife who is physically assaulting
00:39:56.920her husband and i've i've had to deal with those cases and and it's really challenging um to be
00:40:03.040just just practically you know telling the husband you you must get out um you you must physically
00:40:07.940you have to run um and and when you run here's another thing like you can't push her because you
00:40:13.900people don't understand how much stronger men are than women. You cannot, you cannot push her
00:40:20.420even just to try, because I've dealt with cases where, where the, the husband has been cornered,
00:40:26.180physically cornered back into a bedroom in the home and she's blocking the door. Um, and then
00:40:32.640she's, you know, throwing things at him and beating and hitting him. And it's like, you've
00:40:37.400got to get out of there. Um, but you can't push her because I've dealt with those cases too,
00:40:41.500where I was just trying to leave and I pushed her and she flew and hit the wall. And dude,
00:40:47.020it's a nightmare having to pastor through those kinds of situations. I'll just say,
00:40:54.360I'll say it like this. In my pastoral experience, which granted, I'm not 70 years old. I haven't
00:41:01.420been doing it for 50 years, but 10 years, give or take, in my decade of pastoral experience,
00:41:07.720I've never actually counseled a married couple where the husband hit his wife.
00:41:16.520I have only counseled in all the domestic violence issues, which there have been a few.0.99
00:41:21.580It has always been the wife is physically hitting.0.99
00:41:25.080I'm talking about closed fist hitting her husband.0.97
00:41:28.600And the most that a husband has done is pushed her to try to get out of the way to run out
00:44:48.400And so when we speak of total depravity, distinguishing that for a moment from utter
00:44:51.960depravity, total depravity refers to sin at the level of the heart.
00:44:55.560It's speaking of the inward man, meaning that all his inclinations, all his motives and incentives and thoughts are geared towards self and ultimately in rebellion against God.
00:45:08.800Romans chapter 8 says the mind of the sinful man, it does not submit to God's law, nor can it.
00:45:15.040And so it's unwilling and unable apart from conversion.
00:45:18.800And so all people are totally depraved.
00:45:21.420So if we're speaking of man, our biblical anthropology, if we're speaking of man inwardly, at the inward level, the level of the heart, all men, and so that would include both men and women, are equally sinful internally.0.56
00:45:35.320at the level of the heart, apart from Christ, from conception, apart from conversion, both0.73
00:45:42.460men and women, old men, young men, black men, white men, women, men, all across the board,
00:45:49.560every single human being is equally, totally depraved, equally sinful at the internal level.0.76
00:45:54.200However, to apply an illustration to that, thinking about rearing children and parenting,
00:45:59.640Every child is equally totally depraved apart from Christ, but not every child is equally
00:46:06.560misbehaved in their outward actions, meaning that internal sin of total depravity does not
00:46:13.940necessarily outwardly manifest itself equally with each child. There are better behaved children
00:46:20.600and there are worse behaved children. And what makes the difference? This is what I'm getting
00:46:25.520to. What makes the difference is not nature, it's nurture. If we speak of this at the nature level
00:46:33.800internally, well, every child is conceived totally depraved. But not every child, that total depravity
00:46:40.780doesn't equally manifest itself through actions and deeds, behaviors, speech, words, attitude,
00:46:49.200all that that varies there's massive disparities from child to child and all of that the distinguishing
00:46:57.520factor for that is not nature total depravity but nurture parenting um is the child disciplined
00:47:04.020in the way that the bible says they should be disciplined are they loved in the way that the
00:47:08.360bible says they should be loved and so my question is going back to because i love the term that you
00:47:13.100coined the vintage what was it vintage sin or vintage what yeah vintage foolishness yeah
00:47:18.780Vintage foolishness. So just for an individual person, if their sin is left unchecked, if a child is raised in a home where the parents are absent, it's a hands-off, laissez-faire approach. There's no biblical discipline. There's no correction offered. They're allowed to do whatever they want. They're always watching TV. Every time they whine and complain, they get what they want. They're never corrected.
00:47:41.600just at an individual level, that child is going to be a monster. And not just at the heart level,
00:47:47.100because every person, again, apart from saving faith in Christ, apart from being given a new
00:47:52.080heart, we're all monsters at the level of the heart inwardly. But that monstrous heart is going
00:47:57.640to be on full display. Now, what happens if it's that vintage foolishness, if it's not just an0.84
00:48:05.920individual child, but that child is not just five years of neglect, of discipline and correction,
00:48:11.600But it's 50 years and now they're a grown older adult and not just one individual, but
00:48:40.080So I'm not saying we're not responsible.
00:48:41.200So my whole point is to say this, we're Calvinists, we understand the doctrine of total depravity, we understand the doctrine of concupiscence, we understand all these different things.
00:48:49.160We are not saying that women are inherently more sinful than men.
00:48:53.120What we are saying, though, is that in terms of outward manifestations of sinful behavior according to God's moral law, women have been, by and large, less checked by the church for generations, and that has an effect.
00:49:33.160And I've seen reformed pastors who kind of make statements where it's like, you know
00:49:38.040what, if there's sin, it's always the man's fault.
00:49:39.980And I think you have to be really careful because we do want to say ultimately the man needs to take responsibility for his household.
00:49:47.760But if you, for example, if you approach every counseling situation and you walk into it saying, I don't care what's going on in this house, it's ultimately his fault.
00:49:56.680Well, I mean, that's going to color the way you do the counseling.
00:50:00.040And I think what we actually need to be aware of is, look, women have been told that they're0.96
00:50:04.260more spiritual, they're more prone, like they have a nature that is not only the opposite
00:50:09.460of being more depraved, that they're more holy, right?
00:50:12.460They've been kind of the spoiled kid, I think, culturally speaking, for a long time.
00:50:18.940And so what's happened is they have that training.
00:50:22.020Now, I think what is really cool is that when you get a healthy environment, when you get
00:50:26.420preaching that is like Paul's. Like, think about Paul, where he goes through the list of sins,
00:50:31.700you know, Ephesians 5 and 6, there's commands, there's commands that are specific to the sex,
00:50:37.700meaning, you know, why do we have to tell fathers not to exasperate children? Well,
00:50:41.620because fathers are prone to do that. Why do you have to, you know, some people have said this,
00:50:45.720why is Paul only say there's a direction for women to be modest? Why isn't there a parallel
00:50:51.200passage for men to be modest. Well, because that is a particularly feminine direction of sinning,1.00
00:50:59.060right? Women love to be lusted after. So Paul is being smart. He's saying, look, these are the1.00
00:51:05.640areas where you're prone to sin. And it's the same way if I have three boys and I don't address them
00:51:10.340all 100% identically because I have to know the grain of each kid. And so I think in our address
00:51:17.660to the people. We have to be the same way. Now today, I think, yeah, you're just going to have
00:51:21.780to be realistic and say, you know, women have not been preached hard yet. And so we've got to some0.95
00:51:28.860extent, we've got to correct that problem. That doesn't mean that we're going to stop addressing
00:51:34.220men's sins or anything like that. We're still calling men to be leaders in their home and to
00:51:38.740take ultimate responsibility. Yes. But yeah, certainly to know the cultural milieu in which
00:51:43.640all that's happening. Yeah, that's really good. And I like what you said in terms of like, you
00:51:49.200know, Paul addressing one thing with women, and then, you know, it's almost like, you know,
00:51:53.500a father addressing one thing with one of his kids, you know, and, you know, correcting one
00:51:57.820of them. And then that kid responds by saying, well, you know, my brother, so why don't you
00:52:02.240talk to him, you know, and my sister? Well, it doesn't work that way. We're right. This isn't
00:52:09.380this egalitarian, steamrolled, androgynous, you know, kind of like, no, God has baked disparities
00:52:15.160into the world, hierarchy into the world, differences, diversity, and diversity of
00:52:21.360thought, diversity of giftings, and diversity of propensities, and vulnerabilities, and weaknesses,
00:52:28.460and that's been baked into the world that God made, and that's, you know, with each individual
00:52:34.560person, but also between gender. And so even like with the fruit of the spirit, I remember having
00:52:40.220several members of the church when I was pastoring in California, very angry at me because I was
00:52:48.680preaching on the fruit of the spirit. And I said that the fruit of the spirit are not genderless.
00:52:56.580And I said that, you know, the fruit of the spirit, the fruit of the spirit is the manifestation of
00:53:02.200the spirit. But the spirit, the third person of the Trinity, his characteristics, who he is,
00:53:11.120manifest differently through a man and through a woman. And so basically what I was arguing is I
00:53:17.280was trying to say, you know, when Jesus braids a whip out of cords in John chapter two and starts0.66
00:53:23.660beating people and throwing over the money changers tables, Jesus is modeling for us
00:53:29.680perfectly self-control and gentleness. Self-control. So first, the fruit of the spirit,
00:53:36.940it's not like a toolbox where I'm going to take out one fruit at a time. I'm going to take out a
00:53:41.420hammer for this portion of the project. Then I'm going to put it back. I'm going to grab a
00:53:44.420screwdriver. So right now I'm exercising love, but self-control is on the back burner. It's not
00:53:49.360really in play. That's not the way that... No, Jesus was full of the spirit. He fully embodied
00:53:56.260all of the Spirit, and therefore all the fruits of the Spirit, all the characteristics of the
00:54:01.960Spirit were present in the life of Jesus at all times. So that means there was never a moment
00:54:07.760where Jesus is not being loving. There's never a moment that he's not being self-controlled. There's
00:54:12.540never a moment he's not being gentle, which means I say all that back to bring it back to gender and
00:54:17.700the distinctions of the fruit of the Spirit in terms of their expressions in men and women.
00:54:21.340And what that means is that apparently a man can, this would be some extenuating circumstances.
00:54:31.680I'm not saying he can do it on a daily basis, but apparently it is possible for a man to
00:54:36.840make a whip and to start lashing it at people without breaching the fruit of the spirit
01:03:22.500you said do start obeying these commands we can't just start you know it's not just top down right
01:03:27.980it's not yet some of you may be called to be lawyers some of you are going to run for you
01:03:31.120know civil office and these kinds of things and that's good we need christians and politics yeah
01:03:34.480we need them in law we need all you know all of christ for all of life yes and amen a million
01:03:38.080times every square inch but for most of us you're saying it starts at home just obeying these
01:03:43.620commandments in your marriage with your children but then you you said something particular and i
01:03:47.980agree with you a hundred percent, but you said, um, none of that's really going to happen. If you
01:03:52.120don't belong to a church, who are your elders? Can you name them? Who are you submitted to?
01:03:56.700And here's the email that I get all the time. And I know you do too.
01:04:00.120Is, um, and, and so I, I, I want to hear from you cause I'm, I'm still kind of making up my
01:04:04.560mind. I'm not sure what to think. Cause on one hand, right. So I'm a Calvinist and I'm a post
01:04:08.120millennial at the same time, which is, uh, sometimes those two things conflict with one
01:04:11.380another, you know, I'm a suspicious, you know, I'm suspiciously hopeful, you know? And, um,
01:04:16.040And so I'm not really sure, you know, it's like the two, I've got the post mill angel on one shoulder and Calvin on the other, and I'm not sure who to listen to right now. But I get emails from guys saying, Joel, I agree with you a hundred percent. I cannot, as God is my witness, I've been driving a two hour radius, looking at churches for the last three years. I cannot find one church that would agree with what you and Eric have just said.
01:04:39.780if i went in there with my marriage and we were having problems immediately every single church1.00
01:04:44.260i visited it would it would all be my fault there would be no correction towards women0.96
01:04:48.180none of that is in the preaching none of that is in the ethos none of that's in the community
01:04:51.880my wife if i do go to church and i take my family to church i risk my wife being further reinforced
01:04:57.980in feminism and turned by that church against me uh and and i continue to hear people say that
01:05:05.060basically like the the pickings are so slim out there when it comes to godly churches especially
01:05:10.840on this issue um that a lot of guys uh it's not like even necessarily just given up there's plenty0.84
01:05:18.480of losers who've given up and just black build and they're just they're out right and so i'm not
01:05:22.620talking i'm in defense of the guys who haven't given up who are actually still striving to be0.97
01:05:27.760men but they're like i've got a better chance i'm and uh in leading my wife and protect i have to
01:05:33.200protect it not just from the godless culture i have to protect it from churches and uh and and
01:05:38.560you know i've got guys moving to our church i know you guys do you know we've got guys coming
01:05:41.820from uh multiple people coming from canada who are now members in our church you know and then
01:05:46.940and from other states you know from georgia and from um michigan and you know and all these
01:05:51.900different things and of course california and oregon and um and they're coming one because
01:05:57.340they want to get out of you know godless totalitarian places like canada and california
01:06:02.280Oregon, you know, but, but they're also coming, you know, cause they could, you know, they
01:06:07.260could, they don't, don't have to go to Georgetown, Texas, right.
01:06:09.920There are a few other, you know, more conservative red, red state options that they could choose
01:06:14.360from, but they're, they're going to Moscow.
01:08:18.340I think there are a lot of churches in America that are Christian, but not necessarily pushing the ball forward, not missionally aligned, not really forming much of a resistance. This isn't the time to be a part of that, I don't think.
01:08:34.260And I think that's why so many people are moving.
01:08:37.060And that's what a lot of this comes down to.
01:08:38.720I've been in those situations, too, where fundamentally I've said, look, we don't have that church.
01:08:45.380We're in a community where I can't drive three hours to even find one.
01:08:50.580Maybe it's not even in the same state as you.
01:08:53.720And I basically came to the point where it's like, look, I do not want to live in Utah.
01:09:00.360I do not like a state that is run by Mormons.1.00
01:09:02.680I don't like the desert. I don't like that price of housing. And you go to many of our areas where1.00
01:09:09.780there's good churches. Texas is probably a little different, but Moscow, Ogden, not cheap places to
01:09:15.500live. And I remember wrestling through this. And finally, I just said, look, here's the deal.
01:09:22.120You want to see your generations raised up in faithfulness to the Lord? Well, I can't just give
01:09:28.460into the status quo. And I think this is for men, especially, this is the part about what does it
01:09:33.140mean to be a hero? Well, first of all, not everyone is one. And so to act heroically and courageously
01:09:38.760and to be a man, you're going to have to do really hard things sometimes. And you're going to have to
01:09:42.760make sacrifices. And Joel, I guess the thing I don't get with a lot of men is they're like, well,
01:09:47.460yeah, but my business and my this and my that. And I'm like, okay, well, what are your kids'
01:09:51.320souls worth to you? Right. What about your wife? What's the difference? What's the difference
01:09:58.100between a wife who is in a community that she can flourish versus a community that she is
01:10:05.400continually crippled by anxiety and bitterness and not being fed by the word of God.
01:10:12.700Well, it's a big difference. And I mean, you look at the gospel commands. What did Jesus say? Like,
01:10:18.540it's almost cliche because we've heard it so many times, you know, come and follow me.
01:10:23.100And people are like, no, I got a house. I got to attend. No, I got my parents. I got the...
01:10:27.860And I'm not saying businesses and houses and parents are a very real consideration, but I feel like in this moment, the stakes are so high that for me in my house, it was like, yeah, we're burning the boats.
01:10:40.460Well, we may go down swinging, but we're going to give it our best effort.
01:10:44.720We're not going to sit on our hands and we're not going to watch our family just deteriorate spiritually and just say, well, hopefully against all my foolishness, God just makes it work out.
01:10:55.440yeah that's a great answer that's super helpful yeah i think uh i don't think there's any way
01:11:03.200around it i think that's the the honest answer the honest answer is um yeah you're probably
01:11:08.140gonna have to move and it's gonna be hard and it's gonna require sacrifice and at the end of
01:11:13.500the day like what you're measuring because because you and i like we're not pietists like we believe
01:11:18.440in business we believe in um and and all you know vocation and all those things matter they matter
01:11:25.500immensely um but what we're talking about right now is we're not talking about pietism we're
01:11:30.760talking about um we're talking about economics and markets and vocation and all these things
01:11:36.040that mattered and land oh maybe you own land in a certain place where like and it's been in your
01:11:41.080family you know what i mean like all we're talking about things that matter but and and we're not the
01:11:46.860the kind of guys theologically that would cast shade and say those things don't matter. We're
01:11:50.780not, um, poverty gospel, John Piper guys. So we're saying we see the weight and the worth of that,
01:11:57.460but we're weighing it currently right now against the weight of your kids souls, the weight of your
01:12:03.440marriage, your wife, whether she's going to stay with you or leave you because she's being
01:12:09.420lobotomized and, and indoctrinated by like that. So we're, we're pro own, own land, own gun,
01:12:16.580uh guns own uh multiple properties over time build wealth multiple different you know a man
01:12:22.820who casts his bread seven times in the water diversify getting all these things vocation
01:12:26.860work hard leave a legacy a dynasty don't be like the hobby lobby guy and give it to charity that's0.99
01:12:31.860stupid don't hate your children give it to them don't have a bumper sticker that says i'm spending0.99
01:12:35.640my children's inheritance that's wicked god hates that like so we are not the the overtly spiritual1.00
01:12:42.100pietistic you know um just give the global missions no like we're saying all that matters
01:12:47.120and and we would give all that up for for the soul we're talking about the soul and and not
01:12:53.680just our soul but the souls of our children and so if that's the situation you're in then yeah
01:12:57.800men do hard things they they start another business they scrape by for a while you know
01:13:03.880they they hustle they do you do whatever it takes and so i i really appreciate that you gave that
01:13:09.080answer because i think that's the real answer that's the honest answer there is no i keep trying
01:13:13.860to give people another answer but i'm just like that i think that's that's the answer some of
01:13:19.420these guys a lot of these guys are literally they're just going to have to move they're going
01:13:22.860to have to move yeah and a lot of them too joe i'm sure you're aware a lot of these situations
01:13:28.200i'll hear from the same guys over like three years and they just remain in the same condition
01:13:32.220And yeah, it is hard. For a lot of people, there's no easy answer. But again, yeah, that priority of spiritual health of your family has to be at the top of the list.
01:13:46.720Amen. Well, this has been super helpful. I won't keep you any longer, but I just want to say thanks for coming on the show.
01:13:51.280Tell our listeners one more time, you know, we kind of said it in the beginning, but one more time, what are some of the projects you're involved in, how they can be following you and how they can help support you and the Ogden Boys, your ministry?
01:14:00.880Yeah, absolutely. So I am the CEO of New Christendom Press. That is my full-time
01:14:06.900venture these days. And we've got a number of things under that banner, which include Bright
01:14:11.740Hearth podcast with Brian and Lexi Sauve. We've got the Hardman podcast. And then of course,
01:14:16.640the Kings Hall podcast. And people can definitely follow along, support us on Patreon on all those
01:14:22.360channels. And we're kind of everywhere with that. But yeah, if you go to kingshall.com or
01:14:27.740New Christendom Press or erickahn.com. You can find any one of us and kind of follow along.
01:14:33.800Great. All right, Eric, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it, man.
01:14:37.380Awesome. Thanks, Joel. I appreciate it, brother.
01:14:39.240Can I be frank with you for just a second right here at the end? Look, some of you guys,
01:14:43.740you're financially supporting this ministry, and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. I
01:14:49.140cannot thank you enough. However, some of you, you just can't afford it. In fact, some of you,
01:14:56.480you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest. I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy.
01:15:03.220Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds over the last three years0.91
01:15:11.360due to COVID. We have written checks that we simply cannot cash. It doesn't matter if people
01:15:18.280change the definition of a recession. We are living in a recession right now regardless.
01:15:24.520Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store
01:15:29.740You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should you
01:15:35.300But you could still help us tremendously
01:15:38.160I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so