00:07:53.060You know, Jesus himself is in rebellion to the gospel.
00:07:55.600So something can be a display or a picture of the gospel without being a gospel imperative in and of itself.
00:08:02.500And so now the imperative that we would say comes from scripture is that the church as an entity, collective, does have a moral obligation under God.
00:08:11.960It is a command that they care for orphans and widows.
00:08:15.920But I think that's part of the problem also is that when you take a universal command given to the body of Christ, but then it becomes particularly applied and imposed on individual Christian families.
00:08:29.660um there is a way to uh for you as an individual member of a local body of christ and then that
00:08:37.240local body of christ being a member of the larger universal body of christ um diligently and lovingly
00:08:44.200caring for orphans and widows without you personally as a household having ever adopted one
00:08:49.880and well yeah big time and i i think the other thing is james 127 that was one of the things
00:08:55.380that people were saying is oh you reject james 127 of course not um but i think even historically
00:09:00.820you can look at the church uh great men like george mueller they had orphanages in fact if
00:09:06.280you have troubled teens particularly when there's uh you know delinquency and sexual misconduct it
00:09:12.560might actually be more beneficial this gets to the wisdom part of it it might actually be more
00:09:17.420beneficial to put boys in an all boys orphanage and girls you know in texas i know is one big
00:09:23.280place where this happens they do have boys and girls homes and there's a reason that they do
00:09:27.080that and it would actually be unwise and detrimental to bring them into many homes it would disrupt
00:09:33.260birth order and this was the other thing that a lot of people missed you always hear the positive
00:09:39.400stories about adoption right but when when i'm counseling and i'm talking to people and they're
00:09:46.100like you know there's when you have teenage daughters and you have an adopted child who is
00:09:51.160the same age, there become sexual problems in the home, particularly if there was abuse
00:09:57.360in the adopted child's childhood and there's like severe sexual problems.
00:10:03.400So it's like these are issues that have to be thought through with wisdom.
00:10:08.180Even one of the things that got brought up was, well, the early church was adopting,
00:10:12.720quote unquote, babies who are being outcasts, thrown away by the Romans.
00:10:18.260I'd be curious to know if there was a $70,000 per child adoption fee in major agencies who
00:10:23.560are making a lot of money off of it in that day.
00:10:44.040And a lot of the people who are writing for these major outlets, whether it's, you know, the ERLC, First Things had some articles about it, adoption being a moral or secondary moral obligation.
00:10:56.500These people work for adoption agencies.
00:11:00.860So I'm sure many of them have good motives and good intention.
00:11:03.580But it's wise for us to know, like, they actually benefit from this message that I think what's happened is basically you have a message that is the gospel equals adoption, full stop.
00:11:20.160One of the things we've talked about here in our church is Westminster Confession, Chapter 20.
00:11:26.040we want to not bind the conscience with the commandments of men where scripture does not
00:11:32.560warrant either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence and the thing i find so interesting
00:11:38.980about adoption is you do not have a clear command that says thou thou shalt adopt thou must adopt
00:11:44.980it i think you can the same people though the same people told me you know weeks ago steven
00:11:52.700outro which was written for the gospel coalition and for desiring god when i say that it's wrong
00:11:58.620to be a dink and that married christians have an obligation to pursue children he said you are0.83
00:12:03.680binding the consciences of christians so why the double standard like you're all for adoption but
00:12:09.260not for natural children that's a great point yeah yeah and i would say there is a difference
00:12:14.740and i know you would say this as well like the cultural mandate is actually a moral imperative
00:12:20.140And that is a scriptural command to be fruitful and multiply.
00:12:25.060And, you know, so the one who takes a wife, if the Lord does give to a man a wife, he's found a good thing.
00:12:32.100And if they are able to conceive, I do believe that they have a moral obligation to have children.0.82
00:12:38.200Now, I'm not, I wouldn't go as far as some of the quiverful camp and saying that, you know, you must have as many children as you physically can without dying.
00:12:46.780Um, you know, I, but I do think that, uh, that you should have children, uh, that you should
00:12:52.820seek to multiply. Um, and that the man who has many is blessed the quiver being full. Uh, but
00:12:59.380I do think that there can be some wise family planning in there, uh, in ethical ways, uh,
00:13:04.220nothing that would be, uh, risk, uh, any abortive, um, you know, any abortive, uh, implications or
00:13:10.620anything like that. Um, but all that being said, uh, the point is that there actually is a command
00:13:15.760in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply. So the irony is the couple that is willfully choosing
00:13:24.100not to biologically conceive children because they've opted for adoption instead, I think
00:13:31.160actually is foregoing a clear command in favor of this imposed, created, manufactured command
00:13:41.100that's not actually in scripture. So the Bible says that we should care for orphans, but it
00:13:45.360doesn't tell us particularly how, but the Bible does tell us that we should have kids. And it's
00:13:51.080pretty clear how, the how of that. Finally, a coffee company that doesn't hate you and your
00:13:59.100beliefs. Today's sponsor, Squirrely Joe's Coffee is a thoroughly Christian company that ships
00:14:04.880seriously good coffee straight to your front door, owned and operated by Joe Morris and his family
00:18:12.700Yeah, we're not good at thinking in categories, the church today.
00:18:16.960But in addition to that, it's funny, we're not good at thinking in categories.
00:18:21.660And yet, instinctively, I think that there are a lot of Christians that do have a pretty clear sense of one particular category.
00:18:31.780and maybe it's subconscious and they couldn't even articulate this, but there's one category
00:18:35.740that they just instinctively are able to carve out from all of the categories and they've
00:18:40.820designated it to be despised. And that is the category of nature. What I've noticed over the
00:18:48.820last few months, you know, so now panning out, getting the 30,000 foot view, taking the heat
00:18:53.060off of just Eric Kahn, we'll throw it, you know, I'll take a little bit of it myself, you know,
00:18:58.080and other guys. But there is one common denominator. I don't know if you've noticed this,
00:19:02.300there's a thread, right? There is a thread. There is a common denominator in many of the things on
00:19:08.880social media that have been despised by the reform camp, not just last week, but over the past,
00:19:14.700this whole past year of 2023. And to me, the theme, the name of the game is nature, right? So
00:19:21.640So the kind of tweets that you can expect massive pushback on, you know, I preached a sermon just a few weeks ago, and it wasn't the whole point of the sermon, but there was a portion of the sermon I was talking about soft men.
00:19:37.600And then I was talking about, you know, biblical masculinity and wanting to be a hard man who is also a good man, a hard man with a soft heart, you know.
00:19:45.460And so I was talking about that and I was saying, you know, the part of the problem is this Gnostic disposition that completely severs and divorces the spiritual from the physical.0.90
00:19:55.340That what we've done is in defining, you know, biblical masculinity, at least in the past few decades, we've completely severed that from anything physical whatsoever.0.95
00:20:06.360Anything that, you know, that a lot of our ancestors would have just instinctively thought of being when they thought of masculinity.
00:20:14.060So it has nothing to do with working on cars, nothing to do with your ability to fix something when it's broken, nothing to do with physical strength, vitality, nothing to do with being formidable or the ability to hunt or owning weaponry for the purpose of self-defense and protecting others, nothing to do, you know, being a man is, you know, I don't know, it's something to do with this ethereal, spiritual sense of godliness, but it's nothing physical, nothing rooted in nature.
00:20:41.080and and so so whether we're talking about masculinity and i just mentioned and i and i
00:20:45.340was really actually ironically soft about it i'm talking about soft men and condemning them but i
00:20:49.520was soft about it and using my own ailments my own shortcomings and saying you know what like i've
00:20:54.340got a white collar job i'm a pastor right so i'm like preaching and you know for me a lot of my
00:20:59.420physical exertion you know my my greatest risk on a day-to-day basis is that my hand you know my
00:21:04.620wrist starts to cramp as i'm turning a page of a book you know like you know and so like i i was
00:21:09.460like dogging on myself. I was admitting like, and I said, you know, but I've got a son now
00:21:13.540and I'm thinking about maybe starting a very part-time business. It could be even five hours
00:21:18.540a week or something like that, but something that's, that's a painfully practical blue collar,
00:21:23.300you know, hands in the dirt, physical exertion type of work. If nothing else, not as a, an extra
00:21:28.980stream of revenue, cause I could come up with another idea, but here's the deal. I could come
00:21:33.060up with another idea of a stream of, of revenue if I wanted added revenue. But, but it would
00:21:38.040probably once again be something in that white collar vein it would be something uh that would
00:21:42.700um it would be something that would preclude my son he wouldn't be able his involvement uh wouldn't
00:21:49.060wouldn't be uh possible but i want something where like me and my boy like assembling trampolines
00:21:54.240you know like and having a little service or whatever or installing uh you know tv mounts
00:21:58.960you know or i i don't just little ideas that i've had whatever it is but it's something where like
00:22:03.340we have to lift something, pick something up, move something, maybe get outside, get a little
00:22:09.000bit of sun. And I was thinking for him, for his sake, and then in the sermon I was talking about
00:22:13.360just that there is a connection with people who are, it's good for the soul, for lack of a better
00:22:22.380way of saying it. I remember reading a study where it literally showed the statistics of
00:22:28.800people's voting patterns and show the comparison of how people vote in comparison with how far
00:22:36.580they live, in a literal sense, how far they live from the ground, from the dirt. And you think of
00:22:44.180it, it's like, okay, big cities, of course, they're progressive, of course, you know, this and that.
00:22:47.820But is there something like, I mean, is there a connection with living on the 23rd floor
00:22:52.220in Manhattan, New York, and literally not being able to touch grass, you know, maybe once a week,
00:22:58.620you know, when you go to Central Park, you've got no yard, you've got no dirt, you've got no
00:23:02.420trees, you've got no grass. You don't even know what nature is. Right. And you vote for baby
00:23:07.620killers. Like maybe that's not a coincidence. Maybe there's actually a real straight line there0.97
00:23:11.820between someone who is so far removed from nature that it actually degrades the soul.
00:23:18.720Maybe that's not God's design. Maybe there's something, maybe there's something off there.
00:23:22.700So anyways, my point is, you know, with your tweet, I didn't see it as despising adoption.
00:23:27.840I saw it as a clarion call to caring for our own.
00:23:33.540And so whether it's masculinity or patriarchy or, you know, like a few weeks ago, here's
00:23:38.720another example, the, you know, the working out thing, right?
00:23:41.620So that got like so much attention online, you know, like, and it's so silly seeing pastors
00:23:47.760come out and thinking that this is like, like they're dunking, like, you know, a pastor
00:23:51.800coming out and say, well, you know, like godliness is, has nothing to do with working out.
00:23:56.720And I, you know, I have a steady diet of pizza and Dr. Pepper and haven't lifted a weight in 40 years.
00:24:35.340And I was reading about it after your tweet.
00:24:37.460The church has historically cared for orphans, but primarily the line of defense in terms of triage was it was always it's always starting closest to home.
00:24:46.780So like, you know, First Timothy five, Paul's primarily talking about widows, but the principle applies with orphans as well.
00:24:53.100The first line of defense is not the church.
00:24:54.760It's the nuclear family, then the extended family.
00:24:57.960So do you have any of your kin, any of your family?
00:25:00.780The obligation falls on them first so that the church would not be burdened.
00:25:05.020The church is the final backstop, and the state wasn't even on their radar.
00:25:10.400But the church would be the final backstop, but it's working out.
00:25:52.060you need to do everything you can physically. If you're physically able to do it, I understand
00:25:58.300there's strain and all these things, but whatever you can to get those children off of ice and into
00:26:03.820your home. If they can't though, I would say that's a great example of the Christian duty.
00:26:08.960This is my sister or my brother who did this wicked thing in their foolishness or in their1.00
00:26:14.000selfishness. And for whatever reason, they're no longer able to, maybe their womb is now closed.
00:26:19.420they're unable to take these children so i i'm gonna seriously and prayerfully consider that
00:26:25.280you know but but that's if you look at church history adoption that's i mean even world war
00:26:31.200one and world war two it's yours the kids you know dad dies in war and they're going to aunt
00:26:35.580and uncle they're it's all but it's all family your own it's this natural your own family kind
00:26:41.480of mentality the idea of adopting um uh two two chinese girls from the other side of the world
00:26:48.220is a foreign concept. Again, not prohibited. And can it be good? Yes. And when it happens in a
00:26:55.280God-glorifying way, is it a picture of the gospel? Yes. But mandated by the gospel and a first line
00:27:01.160of defense and the thing that should be heralded as the sainthood of all Christian faith? No.
00:27:06.260And I agree with you. I think that's done a number on the church. And that's coming from a guy
00:27:10.200who was adopted and was not extended family with my adoptive parents. And if I wasn't adopted,
00:27:15.200my life would have been worse. And I'm incredibly grateful for it. But I know how to read and do1.00
00:27:21.320other things good, too. Well, yeah, it's interesting, too. I looked this up. So this
00:27:26.940is orphanages, bear in mind. But this is according to Catholic Relief Services, up to 90%. So 80 to
00:27:34.46090% of children living in orphanages across the world have at least one living parent.
00:27:39.500and then and you find the same thing in adoption where it's like there's living parents right
00:27:45.340there's other family it's also interesting because in the latino communities like if you
00:27:50.000get pregnant as a teenager the grandparents are going to raise that child right like they have
00:27:54.720an obligation the other thing that's interesting um you you were talking about physical strength
00:28:00.620i didn't even put two and two together until you're mentioning this but this week has been
00:28:04.060adoption everybody and their brother has been dunking on that post and you know um not really
00:28:10.140refuting it i think it's more like you know ad hominem you're a racist it's the question that i
00:28:15.220started this episode with it's not yeah it's not dealing with the argumentation of the substance
00:28:18.980it's just no why are you the way that you are what gives you the right yeah we by the way we
00:28:24.240hate you but but it is interesting because like last week literally last week uh i think it was
00:28:30.320like a sunday i posted a picture shooting a pistol and i said you know worship the lord keep your
00:28:36.800powder dry something like that and um what was interesting is all the responses for like days
00:28:43.680afterwards were like shame on these men who say that being a godly man is about shooting a gun
00:28:50.200and blah blah but i think one of the biggest issues going on is there is straw manning and
00:28:55.900there's just straight up lying happening so this was really apparent with the the the adoption post
00:29:02.520was you have people who are bearing false witness repeatedly without restraint and so i think part
00:29:10.780of this is that goes back to the like we hate you um why did cain kill abel because his offering
00:29:19.240was not righteous and his brothers was and he hated him he was righteous um and you know it's
00:29:25.040easy for any of us to be like, well, I'm clearly the righteous one here. And I don't mean it that
00:29:29.600way, but I just think that when you look around and you see a lot of straw manning and you see
00:29:34.840people not taking any of the actual arguments seriously, that it's like, well, I think more
00:29:41.120and more of these group of people are proving themselves unreliable and untrustworthy. And
00:29:46.240And, you know, I mean, again, nobody is saying nobody is saying, hey, you know, the way that you be become a man, you have to actually bench press 300 pounds.
00:29:58.320If you can't bench press 300, you're not a man.
00:30:00.140Like, this is what I mean by a straw man.