WEBVTT 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:39.440 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:40.480 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.480 --> 00:00:42.880 Mahler. And I'm Wo. 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:47.120 Today we're going to be talking about uh kind of a grab 00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:52.960 bag of doctrines that are in scripture that it at one point 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:58.000 the church held and then just sorta lost track of and today 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:02.640 has either actively repudiated them or just sort of forgotten about them 00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:05.840 or pretends they don't exist because they're that's kind of awkward that 00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:09.440 you know we have a a religion with some of this baggage. 00:01:09.440 --> 00:01:13.280 Um following on last week's episode we talked about, you know, obviously 00:01:13.440 --> 00:01:17.600 that as Christians we believe that the whole of scripture is suitable 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:22.400 for reproof and correction of error and for teaching. 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:26.160 So if there's something in the Bible that's not being taught, that's 00:01:26.160 --> 00:01:27.360 not okay. 00:01:27.440 --> 00:01:30.560 So at the outset I just wanna make clear that when Corey 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:33.600 and I are focusing on these things that you don't hear about 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:37.520 very much, it's not that we think that well the church doesn't 00:01:37.520 --> 00:01:38.720 look quite right. 00:01:38.720 --> 00:01:40.960 It should focus on all these things instead. 00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:41.760 That's not the point. 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:45.600 We're not saying stop talking about the gospel, stop talking about the 00:01:45.600 --> 00:01:50.800 cross, and start talking about these other arguably lesser doctrines. 00:01:50.800 --> 00:01:54.720 The point that we are making is that if our claims of 00:01:54.720 --> 00:02:00.720 truth are true, that that Christianity is sourced from God and is 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:05.600 eternal in its nature and unchanging, then if there are doctrines that 00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:09.760 are blinking in and out of existence, something's wrong wrong between our 00:02:09.760 --> 00:02:13.440 confession and the scripture that we claim to hold to. 00:02:13.760 --> 00:02:16.560 So today we're going to talk about a handful of not really 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:20.800 connected things, but they are connected in the sense that we have 00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:23.760 kind of just let them go by the wayside. 00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:26.080 The uh the first doctrine we're going to talk about is the 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:28.800 doctrine of shaking the dust off your feet. 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:32.240 As I mentioned a few weeks ago, um this is something that 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.520 Jesus directly commanded, and I'll quote that in a second. 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:38.880 And then it appears a couple times in Acts where it was 00:02:38.880 --> 00:02:41.360 followed exactly as Jesus said it. 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:43.200 And then it just kind of vanishes. 00:02:43.200 --> 00:02:45.920 I I can't remember ever hearing a pastor talk about it. 00:02:45.920 --> 00:02:48.000 So we're going to begin there because I think it's one of 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:51.600 the most conspicuous examples of something that's a That's a clearly given 00:02:51.600 --> 00:02:55.920 teaching that I Corey and I we we couldn't find examples of 00:02:55.920 --> 00:02:59.680 it being upheld at any point in church history. 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:03.280 And so that's at least worth worth asking why. 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:07.440 So when Jesus sent the twelve out, he said, In whatever town 00:03:07.440 --> 00:03:10.560 or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it, and 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:12.320 stay there until you depart. 00:03:12.320 --> 00:03:14.080 As you enter the house, greet it. 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:17.120 And if the house is house is worthy, let your peace come 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:20.560 upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:21.280 to you. 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:24.480 And if any one will not receive you or listen to your 00:03:24.480 --> 00:03:28.000 words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:28.720 house or town. 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:32.720 Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable on the 00:03:32.720 --> 00:03:36.240 day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:37.760 that town. 00:03:37.920 --> 00:03:40.960 This is a passage that's repeated in the in the synoptic gospels 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:43.040 and it's told in slightly different ways. 00:03:43.440 --> 00:03:46.720 that in totality makes it very clear that Jesus is saying: if 00:03:46.880 --> 00:03:49.840 someone, if you take the gospel to someone and they reject it, 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:51.040 you are to curse them. 00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:55.680 You are effectively to announce their damnation, to withdraw and to take 00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:56.960 it elsewhere. 00:03:56.960 --> 00:03:59.520 Now, to us today that sounds utterly shocking. 00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:02.000 Like that's that's the antithesis of the gospel. 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:04.480 Like I said, I've never heard a pastor talk about this at 00:04:04.480 --> 00:04:08.880 all. But Jesus said it, and then here's how the twelve responded 00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:10.960 in Acts thirteen. 00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:14.480 But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the 00:04:14.480 --> 00:04:19.200 leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, 00:04:19.200 --> 00:04:22.880 and drove them out of their district, but they shook off the 00:04:22.880 --> 00:04:26.880 dust from their feet against them, and went on to Iconium, and 00:04:26.880 --> 00:04:30.560 the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. 00:04:30.960 --> 00:04:34.960 That's interesting because they weren't sad that they had to curse the 00:04:34.960 --> 00:04:38.560 Jews in that town who rejected the the word of God. 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:39.840 They were rejoicing. 00:04:39.840 --> 00:04:43.040 They were rejoicing that they were persecuted for the sake of Christ, 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:46.560 and they went on because they had other souls to reach who 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:48.880 would not reject the word of God. 00:04:48.880 --> 00:04:54.160 So that was their response both to Jesus' command and to actually 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:56.720 implementing his command immediately after. 00:04:56.720 --> 00:05:01.120 This was this was not many years after the command was given. 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:06.240 And again in Acts eighteen, when Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:09.680 Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that Christ 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:11.760 was that Christ was Jesus. 00:05:11.760 --> 00:05:15.200 And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments 00:05:15.280 --> 00:05:19.040 and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads, I 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:20.000 am innocent. 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:22.800 From now on I will go to the Gentiles. 00:05:23.200 --> 00:05:24.960 Now that's even more explicit. 00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:28.160 He's saying I brought the gospel, I brought the word of God 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:30.160 to you, you refuse to listen. 00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:34.160 Now he didn't blaspheme, he didn't say damn you, as as is 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:38.320 recorded in uh Jude, when an angel was striving with the devil, 00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:40.080 he refused to say damn you. 00:05:40.080 --> 00:05:42.240 He said, May the Lord rebuke you. 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:44.560 And that's effectively what what Paul says here. 00:05:44.560 --> 00:05:46.400 He says, Your blood be on your own heads. 00:05:46.400 --> 00:05:48.640 I'm not guilty of the fact that you're going to hell for 00:05:48.640 --> 00:05:49.760 rejecting us. 00:05:49.760 --> 00:05:55.920 So that's twice an act where the disciples, the apostles, obeyed exactly 00:05:55.920 --> 00:05:57.760 what Jesus said to 00:05:59.200 --> 00:06:01.200 curse those who reject the gospel. 00:06:01.840 --> 00:06:05.840 And yet today the the very notion of that uh really sets 00:06:05.840 --> 00:06:06.800 our teeth on edge. 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:10.400 Like that's that's a it it it's pretty much unthinkable for a 00:06:10.400 --> 00:06:14.000 Christian to speak in this way, in the way that Jesus spoke 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:16.160 and the way that the apostles acted. 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:16.720 Well 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:21.360 now that I'm thinking about it, it it really ties into a 00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:27.440 misunderstanding, we'll be charitable, that we have in the modern church, most 00:06:27.440 --> 00:06:32.480 people believe that you just keep giving others an infinite number of 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:37.840 chances. You keep going back, regardless of treatment, response, all of it, 00:06:37.840 --> 00:06:40.560 you go back and you give another chance and another chance and 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:41.520 another chance. 00:06:41.520 --> 00:06:45.200 And that's just not how things play out in scripture, and the 00:06:45.200 --> 00:06:48.640 example that came to mind is probably an obvious one others will 00:06:48.640 --> 00:06:52.080 have thought of it as well by now, and that's Pharaoh. 00:06:52.640 --> 00:06:56.560 God did give Pharaoh chances to repent. 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:59.200 Pharaoh could have let the Israelites go. 00:06:59.200 --> 00:07:01.920 Pharaoh could have seen these mighty works. 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:04.240 This is God, this is the Lord God. 00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:06.240 Pharaoh didn't do that. 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:10.800 But God eventually hardens his heart and confirms him in his sin. 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:14.320 So it's not an infinite number of chances that you get at 00:07:14.320 --> 00:07:15.040 some point. 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:17.680 It's the hardening of the heart or the shaking off the dust 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:18.880 from your feet. 00:07:18.880 --> 00:07:22.400 And we've just totally abandoned that in the modern church. 00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:27.440 As you said, I've never heard a pastor except when he has 00:07:27.440 --> 00:07:30.800 read the passage say those words, and I've never heard anyone teach 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:32.400 about it. 00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:35.440 and there it is, multiple times in scripture. 00:07:35.440 --> 00:07:38.480 And as you mentioned, we even had trouble trying to find this 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:41.520 in the history of the church, not just the modern church. 00:07:41.520 --> 00:07:45.040 This is something that we just we run right over it when 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:46.160 we encounter it in scripture. 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:48.800 It's you know, some people stumble over the truth, but they pick 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:50.800 themselves up and carry on their way. 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:53.840 And that's just what we've done with this teaching. 00:07:54.080 --> 00:07:57.280 But we do find the exact opposite preach today. 00:07:57.280 --> 00:07:58.640 Uh absolutely. 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:05.360 In the LCMS uh Concordia colleges have been closing recently because they've 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:08.800 been failures, because there have been no no people wanting to attend 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:11.760 anymore. And two in particular were closed, I think, in the last 00:08:11.760 --> 00:08:12.400 five years. 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:16.080 Uh first Concordia Selma, which was a historically black college. 00:08:16.080 --> 00:08:19.520 It was one of the earliest ones founded by the LCMS to 00:08:19.520 --> 00:08:21.760 reach African Americans in the South. 00:08:21.760 --> 00:08:23.920 And also the Bronxville College. 00:08:25.840 --> 00:08:28.720 Those were closed because they were dismal failures. 00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:33.040 They were dismal failures because those communities to which we had sought 00:08:33.040 --> 00:08:37.600 to bring the Word of God and faithful teaching, roundly rejected it. 00:08:37.600 --> 00:08:39.200 They wanted no part in it. 00:08:39.200 --> 00:08:43.840 And yet for decades we poured good money after bad into those 00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:47.920 places because they were black, ignoring places where there were others who 00:08:47.920 --> 00:08:50.640 perhaps would have heard, but we never bothered to try. 00:08:50.640 --> 00:08:55.920 We continue to scatter good seed on rock rocky and dead soil. 00:08:55.920 --> 00:09:01.520 And when we finally close them, these two places, Selma and Bronxville, 00:09:01.520 --> 00:09:05.520 are rallying claw cries for the race baiters in our own synod 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:09.040 who say look how racist these Lutherans are that they would close 00:09:09.040 --> 00:09:11.120 the only two black colleges we have. 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:15.840 Well yes, we close them because those black people rejected God. 00:09:15.840 --> 00:09:17.920 Why didn't we do it sooner? 00:09:17.920 --> 00:09:21.600 Now, for anyone to hear that, like, that's just the most shocking, 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:24.880 hateful thing any man could possibly think, let alone say. 00:09:24.880 --> 00:09:27.680 And yet, how is it different with what Jesus said? 00:09:27.680 --> 00:09:32.000 When you look at his Jesus words, let me read them again. 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:36.000 If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:39.120 off the dust from your feet when when you leave that house 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:42.880 or town, Jesus wasn't talking about a year or five years or 00:09:42.880 --> 00:09:44.560 a decade or a century. 00:09:44.560 --> 00:09:48.720 Jesus said, leave by the sunrise, the next day. 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:51.920 You leave the place and you curse them behind you. 00:09:51.920 --> 00:09:56.560 Now, I am not advocating, we are not advocating that you go 00:09:56.560 --> 00:09:59.120 and you try to share the gospel with someone, and the first 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:02.400 time they reject you, you say, okay, go to hell. 00:10:02.400 --> 00:10:04.400 Not remotely what we're saying. 00:10:04.400 --> 00:10:08.240 I again, I don't know what to say, except that what we 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:12.400 are telling people today is literally the opposite of what Jesus said. 00:10:12.400 --> 00:10:15.200 And not only won't we say we said, we're going along with 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:18.560 it. So are we the church or not? 00:10:18.560 --> 00:10:23.120 How is this fundamental teaching, what one of these passages in red 00:10:23.280 --> 00:10:25.920 letters from Jesus, where did it go? 00:10:26.400 --> 00:10:30.480 why is this scene is so insignificant that we can not only 00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:35.120 delete it, but we can then contravene it in the advancement of 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:37.520 modern political goals. 00:10:37.520 --> 00:10:40.880 I I think that as a as Christians we need to face 00:10:40.880 --> 00:10:42.000 that. And again 00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:45.200 the reason I gave the preface at the at the beginning of 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:47.600 this episode is we're not saying that I want to be a 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:50.560 church where we immediately go to people and if they don't like 00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:54.160 what we say, you just turn tail and say, Well, screw those 00:10:54.160 --> 00:10:56.560 guys. Not the point at all. 00:10:56.560 --> 00:11:00.160 Obviously, there are people that need time to hear, but 00:11:01.040 --> 00:11:02.480 what do you do with this? 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:05.760 You have to do something as a Christian, other than ignore it 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:07.520 or contramand it. 00:11:07.520 --> 00:11:10.960 And yet today, those are the only two options we've been given. 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:14.320 Corey and I were talking about these things today because I think 00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:16.160 maybe there's a third option. 00:11:16.160 --> 00:11:20.560 Maybe we don't ignore scripture, maybe we don't contradict scripture scripture, maybe 00:11:20.560 --> 00:11:23.840 we listen to it, and if scripture says that we have actually 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:27.680 been conducting ourselves in sinful ways, even when we did it with 00:11:27.680 --> 00:11:30.720 a clean conscience, maybe we should take another look. 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:35.360 Maybe that rebuke and reproof and correction of error applies to us 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:39.840 too. Because if it doesn't, then it means that we're without sin. 00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:43.120 And scripture says something about people who believe that as well. 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:43.680 And 00:11:43.680 --> 00:11:47.440 we should also bear in mind we are actually causing harm to 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:49.520 some of these individuals. 00:11:49.520 --> 00:11:51.200 Because what does it say in Mark? 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:54.160 It further goes on to say that you're shaking off the dust 00:11:54.160 --> 00:11:57.200 as a testimony against them. 00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:02.160 If you go to someone repeatedly and he repeatedly rejects the word 00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:05.840 of God, that is worse for him than if he had heard 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:08.640 it once or never. 00:12:08.640 --> 00:12:12.400 Because that is now high handed impenitent sin. 00:12:12.400 --> 00:12:16.240 And so every time he hears the gospel and rejects it, that's 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:18.640 worse. He is making his eternity worse. 00:12:18.640 --> 00:12:22.800 You are facilitating his making his eternity worse. 00:12:22.800 --> 00:12:25.280 And so we have to bear in mind what exactly it is 00:12:25.280 --> 00:12:26.240 that we're doing. 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:31.600 We're not really serving God when we're going out and repeatedly confirming 00:12:31.600 --> 00:12:33.840 the impenitent in their sins. 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:36.480 We're not making anything better for anyone. 00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:40.160 We are making it worse specifically for the person we are pretending 00:12:40.160 --> 00:12:41.920 to attempt to reach. 00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:43.760 And we're doing it for two reasons 00:12:44.640 --> 00:12:48.240 that are the second topic we're going to talk about. 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:51.760 We want to give a winsome witness and we don't ever, ever, 00:12:51.760 --> 00:12:55.760 ever want to hate, because those are the new commandments of the 00:12:55.760 --> 00:13:02.240 church that that while there's scriptural warrant to some degree, the warrant 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:06.640 that is provided by those who advocate them isn't fundamentally scripture and 00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:09.600 in in fact in many ways it's contradictory to what the word 00:13:09.680 --> 00:13:12.080 says about hate and winsomeness. 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:12.480 Well 00:13:12.560 --> 00:13:16.960 in the case of winsomeness, I actually have my ESV concordance right 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:20.400 here, so I'll go ahead and try to find that for us. 00:13:21.680 --> 00:13:25.600 Oh the word whore certainly appears a lot in scripture. 00:13:26.800 --> 00:13:26.960 Well 00:13:27.040 --> 00:13:27.280 that's 00:13:27.280 --> 00:13:28.400 not very winsome. 00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:29.760 Almost two pages there actually. 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:35.520 Whore, whorings, whore, but that's a topic for another day, but here 00:13:35.520 --> 00:13:36.160 we have 00:13:37.120 --> 00:13:37.680 Wyn 00:13:39.280 --> 00:13:42.160 Wynns Wine Wink Winnow 00:13:43.760 --> 00:13:44.400 Winter 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:49.920 Weird. The Word winsome doesn't appear a single time in scripture, and 00:13:49.920 --> 00:13:51.760 yet I constantly hear it. 00:13:51.760 --> 00:13:55.040 Not so much from LCMS pastors, although every now and then I 00:13:55.040 --> 00:13:59.680 do. But this is an evangelical thing in many ways. 00:13:59.680 --> 00:14:02.320 But But the word literally doesn't appear. 00:14:02.320 --> 00:14:05.280 And for those who think I'm playing fun little word games with 00:14:05.280 --> 00:14:08.480 the ESV, I encourage you to go look at strongs for the 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:11.440 KJV. It's free, it's online. 00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:11.760 So 00:14:13.280 --> 00:14:14.480 this is just something that we've 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:18.640 well not we, but we as the church, as it were, have 00:14:18.640 --> 00:14:20.800 made up out of whole cloth. 00:14:20.800 --> 00:14:24.320 Because you have the verses that tell you to be persuasive, to 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:27.120 be ready and willing to give an answer But 00:14:28.160 --> 00:14:32.960 what Winsom has come to mean in the church today is be 00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:36.960 nice. It's just another way of saying don't be mean, don't tell 00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:41.600 people they're sinners, it's just antinomianism, and it's all it's not even 00:14:41.600 --> 00:14:44.720 gospel because they aren't really hearing the gospel if they never hear 00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:46.000 the law. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:50.000 But it's just be nice to people and then maybe at some 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:52.400 point slip in a little bit of Jesus. 00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:52.800 I'm 00:14:52.800 --> 00:14:57.600 just bringing up the uh verse in Titus, which is the least 00:14:57.680 --> 00:15:00.320 uh winsome thing you could say to somebody. 00:15:00.640 --> 00:15:03.520 There are a lot of good examples of not so winsome in 00:15:03.520 --> 00:15:05.920 the modern sense things in scripture. 00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:07.120 One 00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:10.160 of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said Cretans are always 00:15:10.160 --> 00:15:12.800 liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. 00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:14.560 This testimony is true. 00:15:14.560 --> 00:15:19.360 Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, 00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:23.200 not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and commands of people who turn 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:24.480 away from the truth. 00:15:24.480 --> 00:15:30.400 Now rebuking sharply is it's pretty much forbidden by by internet Christians, 00:15:30.400 --> 00:15:34.320 by e Christians, by people who proudly wave the flag of their 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:40.480 faith while proclaiming words that are directly contradictory to scripture and seeking 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:42.800 to buy consciences would they do so? 00:15:42.800 --> 00:15:48.080 Now, the case to be made for the the notion of winsomeness 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:52.160 is that you shouldn't behave in such a way that brings ill 00:15:52.160 --> 00:15:53.760 repute to the faith. 00:15:53.760 --> 00:15:57.200 And scripture says that repeatedly, and we agree with that. 00:15:57.200 --> 00:16:01.600 I we I I personally do not have a clean mouth in 00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:05.120 private. We keep this podcast clean so as not to give offense 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:08.240 and so as not to be shameful. 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:11.600 Now, that's not me pretending that that is not one of my 00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:16.480 sins. It's demonstrating to the world and to myself that I can 00:16:16.480 --> 00:16:20.320 be better than than I am, and that I sometimes even try 00:16:20.320 --> 00:16:21.360 to be. 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:25.520 And so the the notion of giving a winsome witness is not 00:16:25.520 --> 00:16:26.720 a bad thing per se. 00:16:27.040 --> 00:16:31.680 The problem is that it becomes a binding spell that just gets 00:16:31.680 --> 00:16:36.960 cast by these people into discourse whenever someone says something that upsets 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:40.480 them, suddenly the winsomeness command has been violated. 00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:45.440 Like well, if scripture says that some people should be sharply rebuked, 00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:49.280 maybe we need to discuss when the sharp rebuke is to come. 00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:54.080 And how many times the rebuke may be given gently before it 00:16:54.080 --> 00:16:55.440 must be given sharply. 00:16:55.440 --> 00:16:59.200 Again, these are questions that we would have faithful pastors discussing if 00:16:59.200 --> 00:17:02.080 they could even get into the fight to begin with. 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:07.680 But when the only discussions and accusations are coming from those who 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:13.120 seek to silence dissent, where the dissent is coming from scripture, we 00:17:13.120 --> 00:17:15.360 frankly have bigger problems in people's tone. 00:17:15.360 --> 00:17:17.760 And I think that's what a boils down to is that there 00:17:17.760 --> 00:17:20.320 are people who want to tone police and they want to call 00:17:20.320 --> 00:17:24.880 things hateful because as long as you're focused on the emotional content 00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:29.200 of the disagreement, you're distracted from the fact that the disagreement is 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:30.960 about what's in scripture. 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:34.480 And you and I, Corey, are always focused on scripture. 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:36.960 And we will vigorously defend scripture. 00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:41.760 And I generally try to be nice and to be polite and 00:17:41.760 --> 00:17:45.680 be to direct and to the point at the beginning with someone. 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:51.280 But if someone comes back to me with slander inappropriate and disgust, 00:17:51.280 --> 00:17:53.520 I'm not going to back down. 00:17:53.520 --> 00:17:57.520 And that makes them even angrier and more filled with rage because 00:17:57.520 --> 00:18:02.240 they're used to you their name calling silencing those who would question 00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:06.400 them. And when the name calling spells don't work, it just gets 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:07.680 nastier and nastier. 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:08.000 And 00:18:09.040 --> 00:18:14.320 it's unfortunate that the observer seeing, you know, particularly conduct online where 00:18:14.320 --> 00:18:18.480 you see people talking back and forth, if things, if the tone 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:23.280 turns ugly, an observer who has not paid attention from the beginning 00:18:23.600 --> 00:18:27.520 will just assume that it's a bad scene and it's it's shameful 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:29.200 and it never should have happened. 00:18:29.200 --> 00:18:32.720 And they won't bother to unwind where did the evil enter the 00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:36.000 discussion? Where did the slander enter the discussion? 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:39.600 Where did the dispute of scripture enter into the discussion? 00:18:39.600 --> 00:18:41.520 Because that is where the sin began. 00:18:41.520 --> 00:18:48.000 And if there's a sharp sharp rebuke that follows someone blaspheming God, 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:49.840 that's not sin. 00:18:49.840 --> 00:18:51.440 That's obedience to God. 00:18:51.440 --> 00:18:53.120 And that should be present. 00:18:53.120 --> 00:18:56.400 Now, the degree again to which you rebuke someone should be a 00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:00.480 function of of the situation and perhaps the context, but the rebuke 00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:01.360 needs to come. 00:19:01.360 --> 00:19:03.760 And just as as you mentioned a minute ago, in the case 00:19:03.760 --> 00:19:06.320 where we go back and we go back and we go back 00:19:06.320 --> 00:19:12.320 to people who roundly reject God entirely, that is to their condemnation. 00:19:12.320 --> 00:19:14.720 The same thing is true if you fail to rebuke someone in 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:15.840 those circumstances. 00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:17.680 That's exactly what's going wrong. 00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:21.200 Failing to rebuke is not Christian. 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:24.880 Now, the fact that scripture says rebuke is not licensed for someone 00:19:25.120 --> 00:19:31.040 to just be a jerk, but it's also not license for someone 00:19:31.040 --> 00:19:34.240 to be a coward and to say nothing when the faith is 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:36.800 on the line and when God's Word is on the line. 00:19:36.800 --> 00:19:40.160 And we need as Christians to find the balance between those two 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:43.040 things. I'm not I'm not saying balance in some sort of centrist 00:19:43.120 --> 00:19:43.840 way, but 00:19:44.800 --> 00:19:47.440 if you can fall off either side of the horse, let's stay 00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:50.400 on the horse, but the horse involves rebuking error. 00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:53.440 It sometimes involves speech that is not winsome. 00:19:53.440 --> 00:19:55.760 It sometimes involves polemics. 00:19:55.760 --> 00:19:59.280 And if that is obedience to God, then we're gonna obey. 00:19:59.280 --> 00:20:02.800 And if you wanna if you want to be involved in the 00:20:02.800 --> 00:20:07.680 discussions where there are sharp rebukes and and polemics involved and you 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:11.120 don't like the tone, get involved and use the tone that you 00:20:11.120 --> 00:20:15.280 want to see used because your absence allows those who do things 00:20:15.280 --> 00:20:18.640 in ways you don't like to define the terms of the discussion. 00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:22.000 And if if Corey and I are doing it wrong, then pastors 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:25.920 who agree with these things, who can say things better than us, 00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:28.880 need to get in front of these things and say them. 00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:30.800 We're crying out as stones. 00:20:30.800 --> 00:20:32.720 We're not crying out as pastors. 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:36.000 We are men who do not have a vocation to 00:20:37.520 --> 00:20:40.960 rebuke or correct error in the sense that a pastor does. 00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:44.560 And we're doing it precisely because it's not being done elsewhere. 00:20:44.560 --> 00:20:44.880 So 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:49.360 I'm happy to step back and to let those who are called 00:20:49.360 --> 00:20:50.800 to rebuke do so. 00:20:50.800 --> 00:20:52.960 But if they're not going to do it, it's going to happen. 00:20:52.960 --> 00:20:55.360 And I will do it with a clean conscience and with God 00:20:55.360 --> 00:20:58.560 as my judge because I answer to him, I don't answer to 00:20:58.560 --> 00:21:02.240 someone who is offended or upset by the tone of my voice 00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:04.000 when I said something. 00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:04.880 A 00:21:04.880 --> 00:21:08.000 lot of the problem stems from the fact that modern pastors and 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:14.880 just modern men in general, don't want to be confrontational or controversial. 00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:17.920 And when it comes to the church, when it comes to scripture, 00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:22.560 and also politics, but that's a discussion for another time, another place, 00:21:22.560 --> 00:21:27.280 if you If you are never controversial, if you are never confrontational, 00:21:27.280 --> 00:21:30.640 well, one, you have the friendship with the world issue, which we'll 00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:34.160 get into, if not in this episode, then another one in this 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:37.120 series, but you also have the issue of you are just slowly 00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:41.600 losing. You all you've done is seed the field, you've given up, 00:21:41.600 --> 00:21:46.080 and the world, sin, death, and the devil are going to flood 00:21:46.080 --> 00:21:48.320 in and take over that field. 00:21:48.320 --> 00:21:50.720 And that's what so many modern Christians have done. 00:21:50.720 --> 00:21:52.960 They've just totally abandoned the field. 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:55.520 They are entirely derelict in their duty. 00:21:55.520 --> 00:21:55.840 And 00:21:57.200 --> 00:22:00.640 it it brings to mind some of the things we've discussed when 00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:04.480 it comes to what could uncharitably be called a witch test. 00:22:04.480 --> 00:22:09.600 But if you make two offensive statements and one is outright blasphemous, 00:22:09.600 --> 00:22:16.240 and one is simply strongly against the moris of our current culture? 00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:19.840 Most people, and including most pastors, will react more strongly to the 00:22:19.840 --> 00:22:25.120 second. You can tell someone Jesus Christ is not the Son of 00:22:25.120 --> 00:22:26.560 God, he is the first the first 00:22:27.520 --> 00:22:30.720 of creation, he is the greatest creation. 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:32.240 And Christians will react to that. 00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:33.920 That's outright blasphemous. 00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:37.760 If you say that seriously, they will react less strongly to that 00:22:37.760 --> 00:22:42.240 than if you say something that is simply not politically correct. 00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:44.880 And that's a very real problem in the church. 00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:48.720 Winsomeness is not the standard of what is true or what is 00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:50.000 right. Truth is. 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:53.200 Something is true or it is false, and it's not a matter 00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:56.160 of whether or not it is said in a pleasant way. 00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:59.280 And quite frankly, I think men in general should learn to be 00:22:59.280 --> 00:23:03.120 a little more combative when it comes to these things, perhaps locate, 00:23:03.120 --> 00:23:06.480 acquire a spine, whatever it takes. 00:23:06.480 --> 00:23:09.840 But specifically in the case of pastors, one thing that comes to 00:23:09.840 --> 00:23:15.360 mind when we're talking about this would be Ezekiel, and I'm sure 00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:19.200 any pastors listening probably already know what paragraph I'm about to read 00:23:20.800 --> 00:23:23.440 And at the end of seven days the word of the Lord 00:23:23.440 --> 00:23:26.880 came to me, Son of Man, I have made you a watchman 00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:28.400 for the house of Israel. 00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:31.520 Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them 00:23:31.520 --> 00:23:32.720 warning from me. 00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:36.480 If I say to the wicked, you shall surely die, and you 00:23:36.480 --> 00:23:39.520 give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his 00:23:39.520 --> 00:23:42.320 wicked way, in order to save his life. 00:23:42.320 --> 00:23:46.240 That wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I 00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:48.480 will require at your hand. 00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:51.200 But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from 00:23:51.200 --> 00:23:54.880 his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his 00:23:54.880 --> 00:23:58.320 iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. 00:23:58.320 --> 00:24:03.120 Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, 00:24:03.120 --> 00:24:07.200 and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die, because 00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:10.160 you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and 00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:14.800 his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but 00:24:14.800 --> 00:24:17.840 his blood I will require at your hand. 00:24:17.840 --> 00:24:20.880 But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he 00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:24.640 does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and 00:24:24.640 --> 00:24:27.680 you will have delivered your soul. 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:33.120 Now of course this applies to Christian men generally, but this applies 00:24:33.120 --> 00:24:38.240 specifically to pastors, because pastors are the watchman, the shepherd, for the 00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:40.480 house of Israel, for the church. 00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:42.960 And so they are going to be held to this standard, and 00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:46.720 so when there are things in scripture that they simply ignore, gloss 00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:51.040 over, refuse to talk about, shove under the rug, One day they 00:24:51.040 --> 00:24:54.400 will answer to God at the stricter judgment for what they did 00:24:54.560 --> 00:24:56.000 and what they failed to 00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:56.640 do. 00:24:57.280 --> 00:25:01.440 And that passage from Ezekiel, which Paul certainly knew well, is exactly 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:03.920 what he was referencing in Acts eighteen when he said, Your blood 00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:06.320 be on your own heads, I am innocent. 00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:08.160 he knew what he was talking about. 00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:09.680 He was referring to that. 00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:14.160 He proclaimed the word of God faithfully, and those who rejected it 00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:15.600 are damned of their own accord. 00:25:15.840 --> 00:25:18.240 He did not fail in his duty in his office. 00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:21.680 He upheld it, and he upheld it by cursing them, and by 00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:24.480 turning his back on them, and by leaving, and by going to 00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:27.280 the Gentiles, who would ultimately hear him. 00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:33.600 The uh the winsomeness question is is tied really directly to 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:40.080 love and hate and how really the the winsomeness question is uh 00:25:40.080 --> 00:25:42.800 it's an emotional content question. 00:25:42.800 --> 00:25:46.480 It becomes not as you said, not about truth or falsity. 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:49.760 It becomes about did peop someone's feelings get hurt? 00:25:49.760 --> 00:25:53.600 Because if someone's feelings got hurt, if they felt excluded or if 00:25:53.600 --> 00:25:58.080 they felt like they weren't understood, something really bad has happened. 00:25:58.080 --> 00:26:01.520 There's never any question that well, did they lie? 00:26:01.520 --> 00:26:03.120 Did they deceive? 00:26:03.120 --> 00:26:06.480 Did they falsely speak about what God said? 00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:10.560 That should be the greater f concern for the Christian because 00:26:11.760 --> 00:26:17.040 yes, if you're harming someone emotionally in a way that causes them 00:26:17.040 --> 00:26:20.800 not to be able to hear the truth, you can certainly do 00:26:20.800 --> 00:26:21.360 that wrong. 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:25.600 But the flip side of that is that if hearing the truth 00:26:25.600 --> 00:26:28.800 harms them emotionally, they're evil people. 00:26:28.800 --> 00:26:31.360 And you need to break them with the law. 00:26:31.360 --> 00:26:33.120 And that's gonna hurt. 00:26:33.520 --> 00:26:38.400 when iron sharpens iron, there's sparks and there's heat. 00:26:38.400 --> 00:26:42.320 That's what should should happen when men discuss these things, so that 00:26:42.320 --> 00:26:46.320 the truth may be proven by that which survives the discussion. 00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:51.600 And emotion and feelings shouldn't have anything to do with it. 00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:52.480 And yet 00:26:53.520 --> 00:27:00.320 these these questions get cloaked under the misapprehension of what love means. 00:27:00.320 --> 00:27:03.600 And this is this is really probably an episode unto itself, but 00:27:03.600 --> 00:27:09.760 just briefly, the the notion of Christian love today has been co-opted 00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:10.960 by Satan. 00:27:11.440 --> 00:27:16.880 I've mentioned before the love is love slogan that basically encompasses all 00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:20.080 manner of sexual depravity under the sun. 00:27:20.080 --> 00:27:24.080 Thing things that are unthinkable and unrepeatable are 00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:27.120 called love. 00:27:27.120 --> 00:27:31.120 And it's hate if you don't uphold that sort of love. 00:27:31.120 --> 00:27:35.360 Well, is that from God? 00:27:35.360 --> 00:27:37.280 That's fundamentally the question. 00:27:37.280 --> 00:27:40.640 Because love is one of the properties of God. 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:42.640 It flows from him. 00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:44.560 God does not have love. 00:27:44.560 --> 00:27:45.680 God is love. 00:27:45.840 --> 00:27:47.600 It flows out of his nature. 00:27:47.600 --> 00:27:49.600 It is part of his nature. 00:27:49.600 --> 00:27:54.640 And the the thing that Christians don't want to understand or don't 00:27:54.640 --> 00:28:01.440 even notice in scripture is how frequently the polarity of the words 00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:04.960 that are being used makes clear what's going on. 00:28:05.360 --> 00:28:08.960 One example of this is in the Old Testament, there are various 00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:13.280 passages where God calls things abominations. 00:28:13.280 --> 00:28:15.600 And it's phrased in one of three ways. 00:28:16.320 --> 00:28:20.800 God will say that something is an abomination, period, or he will 00:28:20.800 --> 00:28:23.920 say it is an abomination unto him. 00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:27.120 Or the third option is he will say it shall be an 00:28:27.120 --> 00:28:28.560 abomination unto you. 00:28:28.560 --> 00:28:33.520 And in those cases he was referring specifically to the Israelites. 00:28:33.520 --> 00:28:36.480 Now the first two are synonymous. 00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:39.680 For God to say that's an abomination or say that's an abomination 00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:42.240 to me means exactly the same thing. 00:28:42.240 --> 00:28:46.800 For God to say that's an abomination to you means something completely 00:28:47.040 --> 00:28:51.920 different. And this is made clear in Acts when Peter had the 00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:56.000 vision, where God hold told him to kill and to eat unclean 00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:57.920 animals, and he was horrified. 00:28:57.920 --> 00:29:01.040 He said, Lord, I've never t eaten anything unclean, nothing has ever 00:29:01.040 --> 00:29:03.200 touched my lips that was unclean. 00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:06.240 And God said to him that everything that I have made is 00:29:06.240 --> 00:29:10.800 clean, which is consistent with what's said in Genesis chapters one and 00:29:10.800 --> 00:29:14.000 two, that God saw that it was very good. 00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:16.960 God created nothing unclean. 00:29:16.960 --> 00:29:22.240 So when people, particularly non-Christians, or people who think they're Christian but 00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:25.840 they don't really have the Holy Spirit when they're reading scripture, when 00:29:25.840 --> 00:29:29.840 they look at those passages in Exodus and in Leviticus and elsewhere 00:29:29.840 --> 00:29:35.360 and see God saying that shellfish are unclean or abominations or or 00:29:35.360 --> 00:29:39.520 two kinds of fabric woven together are an abomination. 00:29:39.520 --> 00:29:43.760 They ignore the to whom, because in each of those passages where 00:29:43.760 --> 00:29:48.080 God is saying this created thing is an abomination, God says very 00:29:48.080 --> 00:29:54.720 specifically every time, this shall be an abomination unto you, O Israel. 00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:56.320 Now what does that mean? 00:29:56.320 --> 00:30:00.080 Abomination it's tied to abhorrence. 00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:01.760 it's died to revulsion. 00:30:02.800 --> 00:30:07.840 The the response that you should have to an abomination should be 00:30:07.840 --> 00:30:10.320 as though you just smelled a cadaver. 00:30:10.320 --> 00:30:14.240 It should be something so putrid and vile and contrary to your 00:30:14.240 --> 00:30:18.000 essence, the you have to flee the room and try not to 00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:18.880 throw up. 00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:20.960 That's what an abomination is. 00:30:20.960 --> 00:30:24.240 Now that's the reason that Peter had that response when God said, 00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:25.280 hey, eat this stuff. 00:30:25.520 --> 00:30:26.320 He was horrified. 00:30:26.320 --> 00:30:27.040 He wanted to flee. 00:30:27.040 --> 00:30:28.960 He wanted, he's like, I don't, I would never do that. 00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:30.400 It's revolting. 00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:35.040 And God clarified that no, that was within the ceremonial law to 00:30:35.040 --> 00:30:37.440 preserve Israel as a people unto himself. 00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:41.360 But it did not change the nature of shellfish or polyester or 00:30:41.360 --> 00:30:44.800 any of the other things that are used as memes today to 00:30:44.800 --> 00:30:49.360 either illustrate that God is capricious or to illustrate that Christianity is 00:30:49.360 --> 00:30:50.800 just stupid. 00:30:50.800 --> 00:30:55.600 When God says something something is an abomination to him, it means 00:30:55.600 --> 00:31:00.320 exactly what I just said about putrescence in in a corpse. 00:31:00.320 --> 00:31:03.120 That is the reaction that we should all have to anything that 00:31:03.120 --> 00:31:04.720 is an abomination to God. 00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:08.720 And that includes things like sodomy, it includes things like usury, which 00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:10.640 we'll talk about here in a minute. 00:31:10.640 --> 00:31:15.520 Those things God says are an abomination unto him, that he is 00:31:15.520 --> 00:31:17.040 revolted by them. 00:31:17.040 --> 00:31:19.360 Now that's the flip side of love. 00:31:19.360 --> 00:31:22.400 That is hate. 00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:28.720 Godly hate is against that which is contrary to God's nature. 00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:34.080 And this is a very crucial distinction that that Christians don't really 00:31:34.080 --> 00:31:36.000 think about and don't understand. 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:39.040 When we hear terms like love and hate, we hear emotion. 00:31:39.040 --> 00:31:41.840 We hear someone talking about feelings. 00:31:41.840 --> 00:31:44.080 That's not what God is talking about. 00:31:44.080 --> 00:31:46.320 He's not talking about feelings. 00:31:46.320 --> 00:31:49.600 When he says I love something or I hate something, he is 00:31:49.600 --> 00:31:53.600 saying this thing is perfectly in accord with my nature and my 00:31:53.600 --> 00:31:56.160 desire, or he's saying the opposite. 00:31:56.160 --> 00:32:01.440 Now, when God so loved us, it was in spite of our 00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:04.640 fallen nature, but it was for that very reason that he gave 00:32:04.640 --> 00:32:09.200 us Christ's sacrifice on the cross, so that covered in Christ's blood, 00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:12.400 we were restored to the perfect nature that He loved in the 00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:13.360 first place. 00:32:13.360 --> 00:32:18.000 So it's not contradictory to say that God hates us according to 00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:22.320 our sin and yet loves us according to who he made us 00:32:22.320 --> 00:32:23.120 to be. 00:32:23.120 --> 00:32:27.280 And God does hate our sin and he hates us for sinning. 00:32:27.280 --> 00:32:32.240 And he also simultaneously loves us because we were created in his 00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:34.000 image before it fell. 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:36.880 And he loved us so much that he said That he sacrificed 00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:39.600 his only son on the cross to fix it. 00:32:39.760 --> 00:32:40.640 That is love. 00:32:40.640 --> 00:32:43.840 That is his love for us, and it is his love for 00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:48.560 creation. The hate is equally there. 00:32:48.560 --> 00:32:52.080 And when people, when Christians talk about hate, well, we don't really 00:32:52.080 --> 00:32:55.200 talk about it not in a scriptural way, but we should think 00:32:55.200 --> 00:32:58.880 of hate in terms of that which is contrary to God's nature, 00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:00.640 that which is abhorrent. 00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:04.640 So when there is a sodomite on Twitter who is embraced and 00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:08.880 not criticized or whatever, like anything that God finds a boring, anything 00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:11.440 that is sinful, and that's the thing, like there are things that 00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:14.560 are particularly egregious to God. 00:33:15.440 --> 00:33:18.320 I think perhaps the the fruit of the of the tree of 00:33:18.320 --> 00:33:21.680 knowledge of good and evil is the first example of this. 00:33:21.680 --> 00:33:25.600 God it didn't use this exact word, but he effectively said, that 00:33:25.840 --> 00:33:28.000 fruit shall be an abomination to you. 00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:28.880 It's not for you. 00:33:28.880 --> 00:33:29.920 You don't touch it. 00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:31.200 It's not yours. 00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:35.440 It wasn't that it was unclean, is that God had not given 00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:36.160 it to him. 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:37.920 Perhaps he hadn't given it to him yet. 00:33:37.920 --> 00:33:39.520 We don't know what it would have played out. 00:33:39.520 --> 00:33:42.560 Maybe that fruit would have given it to him after they'd been 00:33:42.560 --> 00:33:44.000 taught. We'll never know. 00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:46.400 Or maybe we'll know in in in heaven. 00:33:46.400 --> 00:33:49.600 We're not gonna know in this world, because Adam went the other 00:33:49.600 --> 00:33:54.960 way. He embraced the abomination that God had had outlined, and he 00:33:54.960 --> 00:33:58.400 became an abomination to God by doing it, and God had to 00:33:58.400 --> 00:34:01.440 kill him, and God had to kill every one of us, so 00:34:01.440 --> 00:34:02.640 that we would die 00:34:03.760 --> 00:34:05.440 so that we could be redeemed. 00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:08.720 Because and that's what that's what Genesis says when God cast them 00:34:08.720 --> 00:34:11.440 out of the garden, it was so that they would die both 00:34:11.440 --> 00:34:15.600 as punishment and to make their redemption possible. 00:34:15.600 --> 00:34:19.440 So the hatred of the evil and the And the love of 00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:20.880 the object of 00:34:22.080 --> 00:34:27.040 God's creation occur at the same time in the fallen world. 00:34:27.040 --> 00:34:30.720 And God's love is to redeem that which he hates according to 00:34:30.720 --> 00:34:34.800 his perfect nature, and to remove all of the hateful things, all 00:34:34.800 --> 00:34:38.720 of the abominations from the world, so that when the new heavens 00:34:38.720 --> 00:34:42.400 and the new earth are created, there will be only things which 00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:46.240 accord with God's perfect will, and there will be no more hate, 00:34:46.240 --> 00:34:50.400 because there will be nothing left that is contrary to God's nature. 00:34:50.400 --> 00:34:53.760 And that's the fundamental distinction between love and hate. 00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:55.040 It's not emotional. 00:34:55.040 --> 00:34:59.040 It's whether or not something is contrary to God's eternal will 00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:04.960 In the modern sense, in modern usage, the term love is very 00:35:04.960 --> 00:35:09.360 much akin is of a kind with the the issue of winsomeness 00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:15.040 we were just discussing, because love today, what modern men mean when 00:35:15.040 --> 00:35:17.840 they use it, is permissiveness. 00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:22.480 It means I let you do whatever makes you happy, makes you 00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:25.680 feel good, and you do the same in return. 00:35:25.680 --> 00:35:27.120 It's permissiveness. 00:35:27.120 --> 00:35:29.680 And of course, you're also supposed to approve of it because that 00:35:29.680 --> 00:35:33.280 approval additionally makes that person happy and feel good. 00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:36.960 And that's why it often comes up with the issue of sodomy. 00:35:36.960 --> 00:35:40.160 So Leviticus eighteen twenty two, you shall not lie with a man 00:35:40.160 --> 00:35:44.480 as with a woman, it is an abomination. 00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:49.200 And so you mentioned the revulsion that Christians should have to things 00:35:49.200 --> 00:35:56.000 that are an abomination, and normal men have an inherent revulsion to 00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:57.760 male homosexuality. 00:35:57.760 --> 00:36:00.240 And it is the kind of reaction that you have to, as 00:36:00.240 --> 00:36:04.320 you said, a corpse or rotting meat or rancid garbage, that is 00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:10.640 the actual visceral reaction that functioning men have to sodomy, to male 00:36:10.640 --> 00:36:12.240 homosexuality, and that is correct. 00:36:12.240 --> 00:36:15.520 That is how Christians should respond to these things. 00:36:15.520 --> 00:36:17.760 Because it is an abomination. 00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:21.440 In and of itself it is a wicked, evil thing. 00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:25.040 It is something that God detests that God hates, and so as 00:36:25.040 --> 00:36:27.840 Christians, we should hate it. 00:36:27.840 --> 00:36:30.800 Because we are supposed to hate the things that God hates and 00:36:30.800 --> 00:36:33.280 love the things that God loves. 00:36:33.280 --> 00:36:38.000 And that's just not what is meant by love or even hate 00:36:38.240 --> 00:36:38.880 these days. 00:36:38.880 --> 00:36:41.040 Again, love is permissiveness, and hate is just 00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:43.360 being mean. 00:36:43.360 --> 00:36:44.800 Because that's the cardinal sin. 00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:47.920 It's the the cardinal virtue is niceness and the cardinal sin is 00:36:47.920 --> 00:36:49.920 being mean, is meanness. 00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:53.520 That's how the modern world functions, and that's just that's nowhere in 00:36:53.520 --> 00:36:56.560 scripture. That's not It's utterly Christian. 00:36:56.560 --> 00:36:57.120 It's utterly 00:36:57.120 --> 00:36:58.080 feminized. 00:36:58.080 --> 00:36:58.240 Oh 00:36:58.320 --> 00:36:59.280 yes, it's absolute. 00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:02.160 That's why well that's why so many men leave the church, because 00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:04.640 if you have a pastor who stands up there and just tells 00:37:04.640 --> 00:37:07.600 you to be nice all day, what does that have to do 00:37:07.600 --> 00:37:10.480 with anything of any importance or value? 00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:14.880 If women want to be nice all day, fine, that's that's different. 00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:18.080 There are different things in the nature of men, the nature of 00:37:18.080 --> 00:37:20.480 women, masculinity, femininity, but 00:37:21.520 --> 00:37:26.240 If Christianity is just be nice, I I can get that anywhere 00:37:26.240 --> 00:37:29.360 else. Christianity's not a matter of being nice, it's a matter of 00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:32.720 the truth, it's a matter of we serve the one true God. 00:37:32.720 --> 00:37:34.720 That's what Christianity is. 00:37:34.720 --> 00:37:37.360 And again, we could we could talk about the 00:37:38.320 --> 00:37:42.480 little games that modern translations play with Dulos, because that is related 00:37:42.480 --> 00:37:45.760 to serving the one true God, but that's a discussion for another 00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:47.040 episode. 00:37:47.040 --> 00:37:47.440 Yep. 00:37:50.080 --> 00:37:53.760 the niceness thing and the fact that girls are much more focused 00:37:53.760 --> 00:37:57.040 on harmony is a function of their domain. 00:37:57.040 --> 00:37:59.840 You don't want strife in your in your home. 00:37:59.840 --> 00:38:01.280 You want everyone to get along. 00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:03.040 You want there to be accord. 00:38:03.040 --> 00:38:04.640 You want there to be agreement. 00:38:04.640 --> 00:38:06.560 You want peace and quiet. 00:38:06.560 --> 00:38:08.320 And that's a blessing when you have it. 00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:10.320 Scripture's clear about that. 00:38:10.320 --> 00:38:15.040 But to apply those same rules to when there is a dr 00:38:15.200 --> 00:38:21.440 a tranny drag demon story hour at your local library for children, 00:38:21.440 --> 00:38:23.600 the time for niceness is over. 00:38:23.600 --> 00:38:25.760 And it's not a domain for women to do anything. 00:38:26.320 --> 00:38:29.520 The women should stay home, and the men should go out and 00:38:29.520 --> 00:38:30.640 should get angry. 00:38:30.640 --> 00:38:35.360 They should be revolted, they should be filled with a righteous perfect 00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:40.400 hatred. Scripture uses the term perfect hatred in uh Psalm 1, I 00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:45.600 believe 139, where it specifically talks about God's enemies. 00:38:45.600 --> 00:38:49.760 An enemy friend enemy thing is another thing that we just get 00:38:49.760 --> 00:38:53.520 wrong. Like we're we're living in a post Mr. 00:38:53.520 --> 00:38:57.600 Rogers version of Christianity where Mr. 00:38:57.600 --> 00:39:01.360 Rogers went around and like his his catchphrase was won't you be 00:39:01.360 --> 00:39:02.480 my neighbor? 00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:10.160 As though neighbor were a sort of sanctified emotional feeling or bond. 00:39:10.160 --> 00:39:11.920 That's pure nonsense. 00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:16.080 Neighbor has to do with your physical location. 00:39:16.400 --> 00:39:21.440 the question in the Good Samaritan parable, who is my neighbor, what 00:39:21.440 --> 00:39:22.400 did God say? 00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:25.120 He said the guy who's right in front of you. 00:39:25.120 --> 00:39:27.600 It had nothing to do with the race of the man or 00:39:27.600 --> 00:39:29.120 the difference in their race. 00:39:29.120 --> 00:39:32.400 It was the fact that the man who was injured was directly 00:39:32.400 --> 00:39:33.280 in front of him. 00:39:33.280 --> 00:39:35.840 They were neighbors because they were adjacent. 00:39:35.840 --> 00:39:38.320 Those words are synonyms. 00:39:38.320 --> 00:39:40.000 And so when Mr. 00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:43.360 Rogers came along and said, well, anyone can be my neighbor if 00:39:43.360 --> 00:39:44.000 I like them. 00:39:44.800 --> 00:39:46.880 That's not what neighbor means. 00:39:46.880 --> 00:39:51.200 But that shifting of the Overton window like we talked about mass 00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:54.080 last week, well suddenly everyone in the world is your neighbor if 00:39:54.080 --> 00:39:57.520 you like them, if you're winsome, if you love them enough, then 00:39:57.520 --> 00:39:58.800 they're all your neighbors. 00:39:58.800 --> 00:40:01.120 And then the word means nothing. 00:40:01.120 --> 00:40:04.880 Because if the man six thousand miles away is my neighbor just 00:40:04.880 --> 00:40:08.240 as much as the man who lives three hundred yards away, where 00:40:08.240 --> 00:40:09.040 is my duty? 00:40:09.040 --> 00:40:14.080 If my duty is equally to both of them, I can't do 00:40:14.080 --> 00:40:17.040 the same things for the man six thousand miles away as the 00:40:17.040 --> 00:40:18.960 man three hundred yards away. 00:40:18.960 --> 00:40:21.520 But that's what that premise is telling me. 00:40:21.520 --> 00:40:23.760 And where am I going to spend my energy? 00:40:23.760 --> 00:40:26.080 I'm going to focus on the guy further away because you know 00:40:26.080 --> 00:40:29.200 what? I can write checks and I can tweet and I can 00:40:29.200 --> 00:40:33.440 do really lazy stuff to help quote unquote that guy who's six 00:40:33.440 --> 00:40:34.960 thousand miles away. 00:40:34.960 --> 00:40:39.120 Meanwhile, my neighbor has a broken leg and needs help around the 00:40:39.120 --> 00:40:41.680 house and I didn't even know 'cause I haven't got bothered to 00:40:41.680 --> 00:40:43.280 talk to him in three months. 00:40:43.280 --> 00:40:45.600 But since the guy in Africa is just as much as my 00:40:45.600 --> 00:40:48.720 neighbor as he is and I'm doing something for the other guy, 00:40:48.720 --> 00:40:50.400 you know, I I've done my job. 00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:52.320 I've taken care of my neighbor. 00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:54.960 No. That that's pure evil. 00:40:55.600 --> 00:40:59.440 that's a redefinition of a term that actually meant something, and when 00:40:59.440 --> 00:41:03.120 we let it cease to mean something, it opened the door for 00:41:03.120 --> 00:41:04.800 Satan. Uh C. 00:41:04.800 --> 00:41:08.160 S. Lewis is a terrible theologian and people who like him generally 00:41:08.160 --> 00:41:12.240 have awful theological views, but he was a decent fiction writer. 00:41:12.240 --> 00:41:12.560 And 00:41:13.520 --> 00:41:16.240 there's a there's a passage in the screw tape letters that's brilliant 00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:19.760 where the the demon who is charged with trying to steal this 00:41:19.760 --> 00:41:22.560 man's soul did precisely this. 00:41:22.560 --> 00:41:27.600 He tried to make the man's affinity greater for the man who 00:41:27.600 --> 00:41:30.800 was so far away that he could never actually do anything for 00:41:30.800 --> 00:41:33.040 him than for the man right in front of him. 00:41:33.040 --> 00:41:36.400 Because the demon knew that that was the way to separate his 00:41:36.400 --> 00:41:39.520 soul from God because God wants you to look after the person 00:41:39.520 --> 00:41:40.480 right in front of you. 00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:42.400 It doesn't matter if you like them. 00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:44.800 It doesn't matter if if you're different than them. 00:41:44.800 --> 00:41:49.440 If they're in front of you in that moment, they're your neighbor 00:41:49.600 --> 00:41:52.480 and you take care of them in that moment. 00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:56.720 Now, that also doesn't imply the neighbor is a permanent state of 00:41:56.720 --> 00:42:02.960 affairs. When the Samaritan found the man on the road, he took 00:42:02.960 --> 00:42:05.520 him to an innkeeper and gave him some money and said, take 00:42:05.520 --> 00:42:06.720 care of the guy, I gotta go. 00:42:06.800 --> 00:42:08.880 And I'll pay you more if you need more when I come 00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:11.280 back. And they ceased to be neighbors. 00:42:11.280 --> 00:42:14.240 He did his duty to him by taking care of his physical 00:42:14.240 --> 00:42:18.000 needs, his immediate needs, but he didn't say, hey, come live in 00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:18.640 my house. 00:42:18.640 --> 00:42:20.560 You're well, we'll be neighbors forever now. 00:42:20.560 --> 00:42:21.200 He's like, no. 00:42:21.760 --> 00:42:26.320 the adjacency, the physical proximity in that moment was God giving him 00:42:26.320 --> 00:42:29.840 a chance to obey God by tending to the one who is 00:42:29.840 --> 00:42:30.800 in need. 00:42:30.800 --> 00:42:33.920 Just as God tends to all of our needs, that is the 00:42:33.920 --> 00:42:37.920 lesson. The lesson is absolutely not that every man on earth is 00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:38.960 my neighbor. 00:42:39.040 --> 00:42:39.200 Well 00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:42.480 now we've gone and done it, we've attacked Mr Rogers and everyone 00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:43.760 loves him. 00:42:44.080 --> 00:42:46.240 But of course they love him because they don't know anything about 00:42:46.240 --> 00:42:48.320 Christianity. Yeah. 00:42:48.320 --> 00:42:51.120 So they think that he was a great Christian because he was 00:42:51.120 --> 00:42:52.080 nice. 00:42:52.480 --> 00:42:54.480 Yeah. He he's peak winsomeness. 00:42:54.640 --> 00:42:56.560 he's the poster child for winsomeness. 00:42:56.560 --> 00:42:57.120 He's what 00:42:58.240 --> 00:43:02.320 He's what everyone today thinks Christianity is supposed to look and sound 00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:05.120 like. And yes, he was meek and he was gentle and he 00:43:05.120 --> 00:43:06.960 was loving, loving to children. 00:43:06.960 --> 00:43:08.080 That's wonderful. 00:43:08.080 --> 00:43:09.440 That is good. 00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:12.560 But that is not the totality of the Christian life. 00:43:12.720 --> 00:43:17.680 If there's a drag queen story hour at your local library, you 00:43:17.680 --> 00:43:18.800 don't send Mr. 00:43:18.800 --> 00:43:22.960 Rogers. You send one someone who has all the qualities that frankly 00:43:23.040 --> 00:43:26.480 Mr. Rogers lacked because he was not a complete man. 00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:28.720 And maybe the man who can get pissed off and who can 00:43:28.720 --> 00:43:31.840 shout and get in someone's face is not also a complete man 00:43:31.920 --> 00:43:33.840 if he can also be gentle. 00:43:33.840 --> 00:43:38.800 But that doesn't make his qualities less sanctified, less Christian than the 00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:39.520 things that Mr. 00:43:39.520 --> 00:43:40.960 Rogers was missing. 00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:44.400 And again, these are the conversations that are that are missing from 00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:48.960 the Christian faith today, because as the Overton window was shifted and 00:43:48.960 --> 00:43:53.520 Christianity was subtly redefined to be about what's nice and what's loving 00:43:53.680 --> 00:43:58.240 in, as you said, utterly tolerant and permissive ways, where where Christianity 00:43:58.240 --> 00:44:01.440 means giving license to the world to do that which it's already 00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:04.480 doing and then kind of trying to explain, well, you know, maybe 00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:05.280 there's a better way. 00:44:05.280 --> 00:44:06.320 Like no. 00:44:06.320 --> 00:44:09.600 What you're doing in your bedroom makes me puke. 00:44:09.600 --> 00:44:11.040 It's vile. 00:44:11.040 --> 00:44:14.400 And y you had mentioned the the differences. 00:44:14.400 --> 00:44:19.360 When something is an abomination to God, that means it's contrary to 00:44:19.360 --> 00:44:23.440 nature. And there are numerous places in scripture where it is made 00:44:23.440 --> 00:44:25.520 clear that even pagans understand this. 00:44:25.520 --> 00:44:26.560 And that's absolutely the case. 00:44:26.560 --> 00:44:29.600 You don't need to be a Christian to be revolted by the 00:44:29.600 --> 00:44:32.400 behavior of two sodomites if you see it. 00:44:32.400 --> 00:44:34.320 That is a human reaction. 00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:36.080 And it's not a sinful reaction. 00:44:36.080 --> 00:44:37.680 That's the distinction. 00:44:37.680 --> 00:44:38.320 We have 00:44:39.200 --> 00:44:42.800 we have a human nature that is in accord with God's will, 00:44:42.800 --> 00:44:46.080 and we have a fallen nature that is the enemy of God's 00:44:46.080 --> 00:44:48.800 will. We have both of them simultaneously. 00:44:48.800 --> 00:44:53.200 Because while the image of God was damaged, it was not utterly 00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:58.480 removed. Our will is set against God's will by virtue of our 00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:04.240 sinful inheritance, but that doesn't make us utterly blind and deaf to 00:45:04.240 --> 00:45:07.520 God's will as it's manifest in creation. 00:45:07.520 --> 00:45:13.440 And so there are some things that are worse sins than others. 00:45:14.240 --> 00:45:17.600 the man who looks at a woman with lust in his heart 00:45:17.760 --> 00:45:18.640 has sinned. 00:45:18.640 --> 00:45:22.880 He has committed a damnable sin, but he because he desired that 00:45:22.880 --> 00:45:26.800 which was not his, because she's not his wife. 00:45:26.800 --> 00:45:27.120 So 00:45:28.080 --> 00:45:34.960 his sin is in accord with his nature as a man and 00:45:34.960 --> 00:45:41.040 it is contrary to his sanctified nature because it was misdirected. 00:45:41.040 --> 00:45:41.840 So the 00:45:42.720 --> 00:45:45.680 the element that was a sin was not that he desired a 00:45:45.680 --> 00:45:49.360 woman but he desired a woman who is not given to him. 00:45:49.360 --> 00:45:55.040 For a man to desire another man violates two different principles. 00:45:55.040 --> 00:45:58.800 One, he's desiring that which is not given to him, and two, 00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:02.720 he's desiring that which is fundamentally contrary to the nature of the 00:46:02.720 --> 00:46:06.000 universe, which is contrary to God's design. 00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:09.040 That is a far worse sin. 00:46:09.040 --> 00:46:12.720 And Christians need to understand that there are worse sins. 00:46:13.120 --> 00:46:17.520 Scripture is replete with examples where God says the greater sin is 00:46:17.520 --> 00:46:19.280 yours, the lesser sin is yours. 00:46:19.280 --> 00:46:22.000 That doesn't mean that all sins are not damning. 00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:25.680 The sin that damns us all is that Adam ate the wrong 00:46:25.680 --> 00:46:27.040 piece of fruit? 00:46:27.040 --> 00:46:30.880 It's the least significant sin probably in the history of all sins. 00:46:30.880 --> 00:46:33.680 It's hard to sin a sin that's less sinful than that, and 00:46:33.680 --> 00:46:34.880 yet it damns us all. 00:46:34.880 --> 00:46:36.400 We all die because of it. 00:46:36.400 --> 00:46:40.480 So saying that one sin is more sinful than another is not 00:46:40.480 --> 00:46:42.480 saying that, well, you know, maybe that's okay. 00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:44.720 You can do that and it's not a big deal. 00:46:44.720 --> 00:46:46.480 They're all a big deal. 00:46:46.480 --> 00:46:49.040 Some are worse deals than others. 00:46:49.040 --> 00:46:54.560 And if Christians cannot speak in that way, you cannot possibly reach 00:46:54.560 --> 00:46:58.080 the man who is behaving in a way that is destroying both 00:46:58.080 --> 00:47:02.080 his body and his soul, which is how how Romans begins, that 00:47:02.080 --> 00:47:04.960 they were given over to their their nature because it was so 00:47:04.960 --> 00:47:06.560 abhorrent. And 00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:11.040 it's okay for Christians to talk this way. 00:47:11.040 --> 00:47:15.920 It's necessary for Christians to talk this way appropriately at the right 00:47:15.920 --> 00:47:19.520 time and in the right place and with the right words, it 00:47:19.520 --> 00:47:22.240 is not okay for Christians to refuse to talk this way at 00:47:22.240 --> 00:47:24.480 all and to say, Oh, well you sin and I sin and 00:47:24.480 --> 00:47:26.720 we're all sinners, thank God for Jesus. 00:47:26.720 --> 00:47:28.240 No, absolutely not. 00:47:28.240 --> 00:47:31.760 Some sins are worse than others, and they're physically destructive to those 00:47:31.760 --> 00:47:32.800 who are doing them. 00:47:32.800 --> 00:47:35.040 The man who looks at a girl with lust in his heart 00:47:35.040 --> 00:47:37.520 has sinned, he's not destroyed anything. 00:47:37.520 --> 00:47:40.640 All if he marries that girl, he can look at her with 00:47:40.640 --> 00:47:44.080 lust for the rest of his life, and that is perfectly sanctified 00:47:44.080 --> 00:47:45.280 obedience to God. 00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:48.560 The man who looks in with lust in his heart at another 00:47:48.560 --> 00:47:53.360 man can only ever bring destruction and damnation by that act. 00:47:53.360 --> 00:47:55.520 There's no possible way to sanctify it. 00:47:55.520 --> 00:47:59.680 It can only be sanctified by its complete destruction of the desire 00:47:59.680 --> 00:48:02.880 and of the sinful impetus to do that. 00:48:02.880 --> 00:48:05.360 There's no way in which that can be sanctified. 00:48:05.360 --> 00:48:08.240 The lust of a man for a woman is sanctified when it 00:48:08.240 --> 00:48:10.000 is with the bounds of matrimony. 00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:12.400 And that's the fundamental difference. 00:48:12.400 --> 00:48:16.080 And to say that all sins are equal is to deny one 00:48:16.080 --> 00:48:18.320 of the central tenets of the faith. 00:48:18.320 --> 00:48:20.960 This goes back to what we were talking about in past episodes 00:48:21.120 --> 00:48:24.480 about the the Lutheran focus on justification. 00:48:24.480 --> 00:48:27.680 We get sanctification right and then we kill everything else in the 00:48:27.680 --> 00:48:29.040 Christian life with it. 00:48:29.040 --> 00:48:33.680 Yes, if you sin once, if you if you don't quote unquote 00:48:33.680 --> 00:48:36.400 sin at all but you were born with sin, you're still damned. 00:48:36.560 --> 00:48:38.640 That's not the proper way to look at, but some people think 00:48:38.640 --> 00:48:39.360 that way. 00:48:39.360 --> 00:48:42.320 Even if, even for if for the sake of argument, a man 00:48:42.320 --> 00:48:45.840 lived a perfect life, because he was born a man, he would 00:48:45.840 --> 00:48:49.280 still be damned because he inherited sin. 00:48:49.280 --> 00:48:53.920 And yet the sins that occur in the human life can be 00:48:54.000 --> 00:48:56.320 worse, some can be worse than others. 00:48:56.320 --> 00:48:59.360 And if we can't speak in that way, we can't warn those 00:48:59.360 --> 00:49:01.840 of their tremendous wickedness. 00:49:02.160 --> 00:49:05.520 it goes back to what Jesus said when he sent the twelve 00:49:05.520 --> 00:49:09.120 out. That passage said, Truly I say to you, it will be 00:49:09.120 --> 00:49:12.720 more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom 00:49:12.720 --> 00:49:15.520 and Gomorrah than for that town. 00:49:15.520 --> 00:49:18.880 Now, that's Jesus testifying to the fact that some some sins are 00:49:18.880 --> 00:49:19.840 worse than others. 00:49:19.840 --> 00:49:23.600 The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were worse than the sins of 00:49:23.600 --> 00:49:27.360 their neighbors, you can tell, because God didn't destroy their neighbors. 00:49:27.360 --> 00:49:30.560 Those cities were wiped off the map and not other cities. 00:49:30.560 --> 00:49:33.520 It was a worse sin and it was destroyed in that manner. 00:49:33.520 --> 00:49:36.720 And yet God says that these towns that reject his apostles are 00:49:36.720 --> 00:49:39.440 even more wicked than Sodom and Gomorrah, because they have heard the 00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:42.560 word and they have refused to s to believe, and that is 00:49:42.560 --> 00:49:45.200 a worse sin than an abomination. 00:49:45.200 --> 00:49:48.160 That is how Christians speak of these things. 00:49:48.640 --> 00:49:48.800 And 00:49:48.800 --> 00:49:52.080 that actually touches on one of two ways in which it should 00:49:52.080 --> 00:49:53.600 be incredibly obvious for Christians 00:49:54.560 --> 00:49:57.520 that certain sins are worse than others. 00:49:57.520 --> 00:50:00.960 If you reject the gospel, what are you violating? 00:50:00.960 --> 00:50:04.320 You're violating the first table. 00:50:04.320 --> 00:50:10.080 If you are sexually abusing your neighbor, you're violating the second table. 00:50:10.080 --> 00:50:12.720 The Ten Commandments are hierarchical. 00:50:12.720 --> 00:50:17.120 Violating the ones higher up the list is worse than violating the 00:50:17.120 --> 00:50:20.080 ones further down the list. 00:50:20.080 --> 00:50:24.640 So it is worse to have a false god than it is 00:50:24.640 --> 00:50:26.640 to steal from your neighbor. 00:50:26.640 --> 00:50:30.080 That should just be obvious to the Christian. 00:50:30.080 --> 00:50:32.320 And even to the pagan it should be obvious that it is 00:50:32.320 --> 00:50:37.440 worse to murder your neighbor than to steal his cow. 00:50:37.440 --> 00:50:38.800 So we know this. 00:50:38.800 --> 00:50:43.040 This is obvious to just human beings, it's obvious to everyone. 00:50:43.040 --> 00:50:46.960 But also in Scripture, there is the unforgivable sin. 00:50:46.960 --> 00:50:50.400 Well it's pretty obvious the sin that cannot be forgiven is worse 00:50:50.400 --> 00:50:52.800 than all of the ones that can be forgiven. 00:50:52.800 --> 00:50:55.840 So there is at least one sin that's worse than all the 00:50:55.840 --> 00:50:57.440 others. But again, there is a hierarchy. 00:50:57.680 --> 00:51:00.320 There are sins that are worse than other sins. 00:51:00.320 --> 00:51:04.240 And there are parts of hell that are worse than other parts 00:51:04.240 --> 00:51:05.520 of hell. 00:51:05.520 --> 00:51:10.800 Yes, one sin is sufficient to send you to hell for eternity, 00:51:10.800 --> 00:51:14.160 if you are not forgiven and in Christ. 00:51:14.160 --> 00:51:17.840 But again, there are worse parts of hell. 00:51:17.840 --> 00:51:20.880 You would much rather be in the least terrible part than the 00:51:20.880 --> 00:51:23.840 most terrible part, whatever that happens to be. 00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:28.320 And you mentioned the Imago Dei and the nature of man and 00:51:28.320 --> 00:51:30.000 what original sin does. 00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:33.120 And because that gets botched in a lot of traditions, I'll actually 00:51:33.120 --> 00:51:36.800 add to the show notes, the Book of Concord handles that at 00:51:36.960 --> 00:51:40.160 length, does a very good job of explaining what is the nature 00:51:40.160 --> 00:51:44.080 of man, what is the corruption of the nature of man post 00:51:44.080 --> 00:51:47.200 fall. And so I'll I'll link to that in the show notes. 00:51:47.200 --> 00:51:47.440 Uh 00:51:47.440 --> 00:51:50.080 so next we're gonna talk about uh usury. 00:51:50.080 --> 00:51:54.400 This is uh one of the commandments that was given in the 00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:58.960 Old Testament and then was upheld in in the New Testament church 00:51:59.120 --> 00:52:03.840 and was it's an example of one of the earlier 00:52:04.720 --> 00:52:08.480 doctrines that was practiced for a long time and then was abandoned. 00:52:08.480 --> 00:52:10.080 So we're trying to kind of go in order. 00:52:10.080 --> 00:52:13.600 So we began with shaking the dust off your feet. 00:52:13.600 --> 00:52:18.000 Jesus commanded it, the apostles obeyed it, and then we don't really 00:52:18.000 --> 00:52:21.360 couldn't find a record of anyone obeying it after that. 00:52:21.360 --> 00:52:21.680 Um 00:52:22.960 --> 00:52:29.920 Usery was something that basically in the Old Testament, usury when a 00:52:29.920 --> 00:52:36.480 Christian speaks of it historically, there is no distinction whatsoever between usury 00:52:36.640 --> 00:52:38.560 and charging interest. 00:52:38.560 --> 00:52:41.920 In other words, if I give you $100 00:52:42.960 --> 00:52:48.880 and I expect you to give me $100 back, that's a loan. 00:52:48.880 --> 00:52:53.040 If I expect you to give me $105 back, that's a loan 00:52:53.440 --> 00:52:55.760 and it's also usury. 00:52:55.760 --> 00:53:02.000 What God says to the Israelites is that that is prohibited to 00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:03.520 do among yourselves. 00:53:03.520 --> 00:53:06.560 Now he did make the exception that it was permissible for the 00:53:06.560 --> 00:53:12.880 Israelites, for the Hebrews, to charge interest to aliens, which 00:53:14.640 --> 00:53:18.800 I think actually illustrates the fact that it is an element of 00:53:18.800 --> 00:53:24.400 warfare. there are many things that the God permitted his people to 00:53:24.400 --> 00:53:29.360 do to aliens that were fundamentally destructive and hospital hostile. 00:53:29.360 --> 00:53:32.720 And usury is one of them, charging interest is one of them. 00:53:32.720 --> 00:53:37.920 No, it's interesting that God prohibited usury among the Hebrews because 00:53:39.200 --> 00:53:44.320 it was common well but well before their day, um, or contemporaneous 00:53:44.320 --> 00:53:47.280 to them, uh the the code of code of Hammurabi and other 00:53:47.600 --> 00:53:53.120 contemporaneous records demonstrate that the charging of interest was was common in 00:53:53.120 --> 00:53:57.040 the in the old in fifteen hundred BC it was it was 00:53:57.040 --> 00:54:00.640 typical. Um some of the very first records we have are financial 00:54:00.640 --> 00:54:03.840 records that were preserved and we can see the interest payments. 00:54:03.840 --> 00:54:08.720 So we actually have we have better documentation of the type of 00:54:08.720 --> 00:54:12.240 usury that was employed by pagan nations than in some cases we 00:54:12.240 --> 00:54:17.840 have about their religions because the usury required adequate record keeping. 00:54:17.840 --> 00:54:19.200 Uh which is we kind 00:54:19.200 --> 00:54:21.760 of do know their religion then. 00:54:22.000 --> 00:54:25.520 Yes. Yeah, I mean that's that that's really what it boils down 00:54:25.520 --> 00:54:26.880 to. It's and the the percentage 00:54:28.080 --> 00:54:29.760 are noteworthy. 00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:32.720 Yeah. Yeah, it it's interesting when you look back to you know 00:54:32.880 --> 00:54:34.720 fifteen hundred BC and so 00:54:35.840 --> 00:54:40.080 the interest rates that were typical were tip were usually like twelve 00:54:40.160 --> 00:54:44.160 to twenty percent, which is funny because that's literally the typical interest 00:54:44.160 --> 00:54:46.880 rate range for a credit card today. 00:54:46.880 --> 00:54:51.440 So in four thousand years of human history, we When interest is 00:54:51.440 --> 00:54:55.360 being charged, it's pretty much always been in the same range. 00:54:55.360 --> 00:54:58.880 Um and what God does is he condemns that out of hand 00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:01.840 and says that you it's an abomination, you're not to do that 00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:04.240 to your brother. 00:55:04.240 --> 00:55:08.880 When When some of the early philosophers in in the West tac 00:55:09.040 --> 00:55:16.640 tackled the subject, uh Aristotle and others, they actually objected on principle 00:55:16.960 --> 00:55:20.800 to the charging of interest on philosophical grounds. 00:55:20.800 --> 00:55:25.520 They took the approach that correctly that money is a medium of 00:55:25.520 --> 00:55:29.040 exchange. It's not inherently productive. 00:55:29.040 --> 00:55:30.160 It's only made productive 00:55:31.120 --> 00:55:33.840 by the work that someone does with it. 00:55:33.840 --> 00:55:37.840 And so their their premise was that if I give you a 00:55:37.840 --> 00:55:41.360 hundred dollars and I say I want a hundred and five dollars 00:55:41.360 --> 00:55:46.560 back, the money didn't r reproduce, the money is sterile. 00:55:46.560 --> 00:55:49.760 And if I'm asking for five dollars more than you gave me, 00:55:49.760 --> 00:55:51.760 I'm effectively stealing from you. 00:55:51.760 --> 00:55:55.520 That was the the philosophical approach that was taken. 00:55:55.920 --> 00:56:00.320 And it's one that was generally held in the early church from 00:56:00.480 --> 00:56:04.080 the Council of Nicaea up basically through Thomas Aquinas. 00:56:04.080 --> 00:56:08.480 That was more or less the view in most of the Christian 00:56:08.480 --> 00:56:13.840 church was that Christians should not charge interest to other Christians. 00:56:13.840 --> 00:56:18.000 It wasn't and it wasn't seen as is Judaizing. 00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:21.600 It wasn't seen as, well here's this one Old Testament law that 00:56:21.600 --> 00:56:23.280 we're just gonna keep round. 00:56:23.280 --> 00:56:27.760 Um it was that there was understood that there was a principle 00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:32.000 again the the principle of harm being done that it would be 00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:35.360 excluded, you you wouldn't do this harm to your brother, you can 00:56:35.360 --> 00:56:36.560 do it to an alien. 00:56:36.960 --> 00:56:37.120 Well 00:56:37.200 --> 00:56:40.400 it was seen as moral law, not ceremonial or civil law for 00:56:40.400 --> 00:56:45.280 Israel. And so it was retained into the the New Testament church. 00:56:45.840 --> 00:56:50.000 Yeah. And you'd mentioned in prep the the the Latter in Council, 00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:51.840 I believe called it a heresy. 00:56:52.160 --> 00:56:52.400 Yeah, 00:56:52.400 --> 00:56:55.920 I mean it it was called a heresy and those who practiced 00:56:55.920 --> 00:56:58.640 it were denied a Christian burial. 00:56:58.640 --> 00:57:00.560 Which in some cases would have meant you had to be buried 00:57:01.040 --> 00:57:03.920 outside the city like unclean garbage. 00:57:04.240 --> 00:57:08.240 This wasn't something that the the church this was not a an 00:57:08.240 --> 00:57:10.720 ancillary issue or something out on the fringe. 00:57:10.720 --> 00:57:13.760 This was just something that was at the heart of Christianity, and 00:57:13.760 --> 00:57:18.240 we all agreed this was a sinful, vile, evil practice, and we 00:57:18.240 --> 00:57:19.440 will not engage in it. 00:57:19.440 --> 00:57:22.160 Now, of course, that changes when we get to the Middle Ages, 00:57:22.160 --> 00:57:25.840 as we'll get into in a minute, but that was the consensus 00:57:25.840 --> 00:57:29.440 of the church for well over a thousand years. 00:57:29.440 --> 00:57:30.560 Yeah. 00:57:30.720 --> 00:57:33.840 Before you get into the history, I just want to briefly mention 00:57:33.840 --> 00:57:36.320 a passage from Luke six where 00:57:37.200 --> 00:57:40.080 Jesus is is preaching. 00:57:40.080 --> 00:57:43.600 He says, If you love those who love you, what benefit is 00:57:43.600 --> 00:57:44.400 that to you? 00:57:44.400 --> 00:57:46.720 For even sinners love those who love them? 00:57:46.720 --> 00:57:49.280 And if you do good to those who do good to you, 00:57:49.280 --> 00:57:50.880 what benefit is that to you? 00:57:50.880 --> 00:57:52.640 For even sinners do the same. 00:57:52.640 --> 00:57:56.640 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, 00:57:56.640 --> 00:57:58.560 what credit is that for you? 00:57:58.560 --> 00:58:03.840 Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. 00:58:03.840 --> 00:58:08.240 Belove your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return, 00:58:08.240 --> 00:58:10.960 and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of 00:58:10.960 --> 00:58:14.160 the most high, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the 00:58:14.160 --> 00:58:18.000 evil, be merciful even as your father is merciful. 00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:23.280 So So while that doesn't directly discuss usury, the charging of interest, 00:58:23.280 --> 00:58:28.000 it is worth noting that when Jesus said even sinners do this, 00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:32.240 he was talking about lending, simply to receive back that which you 00:58:32.240 --> 00:58:32.800 had been given. 00:58:33.760 --> 00:58:34.400 Now 00:58:35.360 --> 00:58:39.680 again back to the s philosophical point about the sterility of money, 00:58:39.680 --> 00:58:42.640 if you ask to borrow my chainsaw because you have you need 00:58:42.640 --> 00:58:45.760 to do a bunch of clearing on your on your property and 00:58:45.760 --> 00:58:49.840 you don't return your chain my chainsaw for a year. 00:58:49.840 --> 00:58:54.640 When the year elapses and you return the chainsaw, it would be 00:58:54.640 --> 00:58:58.000 insane for me to demand that you give me two chainsaws. 00:58:58.000 --> 00:59:00.720 You'd stare at me like like I had two heads. 00:59:00.720 --> 00:59:03.600 And yet if I give you a hundred dollars and you come 00:59:03.600 --> 00:59:07.920 back a year later, it's today in our minds it's seen as 00:59:07.920 --> 00:59:11.920 perfectly reasonable that I would ask for more than I lent. 00:59:11.920 --> 00:59:16.240 And Jesus is commanding the Christian: not only should we not ask 00:59:16.240 --> 00:59:20.400 for more than we're lent, but we should forgive our debts as 00:59:20.720 --> 00:59:23.680 we wish God to forgive our debts. 00:59:23.680 --> 00:59:26.880 That if you have someone who to whom you've given something, expect 00:59:26.880 --> 00:59:28.000 nothing in return. 00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:31.120 And therefore, if he gives you something in return, you had been 00:59:31.120 --> 00:59:34.400 blessed, and he has been blessed by doing something good to you. 00:59:34.400 --> 00:59:37.200 But if he doesn't give you anything back, if he keeps the 00:59:37.200 --> 00:59:41.280 money that you lent to him, wipe the slate clean. 00:59:41.280 --> 00:59:46.560 That is the the essence of the Christian teaching on finance, which 00:59:46.560 --> 00:59:50.240 goes a million miles away from whether or not you should charge 00:59:50.240 --> 00:59:52.880 interest. And it goes directly to the fact that if you give 00:59:52.880 --> 00:59:55.760 someone something, don't expect a back period. 00:59:55.760 --> 00:59:58.560 And this is in the s this is in the Lord's Prayer. 00:59:58.560 --> 01:00:02.720 And I I kind of regret that we replaced give forgive us 01:00:02.720 --> 01:00:06.320 our debts as we forgive our debtors with forgive us our trespasses, 01:00:06.320 --> 01:00:07.760 because they mean the same thing. 01:00:07.760 --> 01:00:14.480 They're different connotations slightly, but fundamentally, sin is debt. 01:00:14.480 --> 01:00:16.080 When Christ paid the price 01:00:16.960 --> 01:00:19.440 for our cross, you know, listen to that language. 01:00:19.440 --> 01:00:22.560 It's the language we use every time we speak about this. 01:00:22.560 --> 01:00:26.400 Christ paid the price for our sin on the cross. 01:00:26.720 --> 01:00:30.560 He didn't pay an infinite price for infinite sins. 01:00:30.560 --> 01:00:34.480 He spayed he paid the specific price for the specific sins the 01:00:34.480 --> 01:00:39.440 specific sinners committed in time, both before and after and even during 01:00:39.440 --> 01:00:40.960 his crucifixion. 01:00:40.960 --> 01:00:45.520 So So this is why the the Eastern Orthodox rejection of penal 01:00:45.520 --> 01:00:50.640 substitutionary atonement is so fundamentally evil, because they fundamentally deny that there 01:00:50.640 --> 01:00:53.440 is a price to be paid, and therefore they deny that Christ 01:00:53.440 --> 01:00:54.000 paid it. 01:00:54.000 --> 01:00:58.240 Because if there was no price, then there they're they're EOs that 01:00:58.240 --> 01:01:00.960 actually say that Jesus died on the cross because it made the 01:01:00.960 --> 01:01:02.240 story more dramatic. 01:01:02.240 --> 01:01:04.720 That there was no there was no pay price to be paid 01:01:04.720 --> 01:01:07.760 there, because God isn't a God with a ledger. 01:01:07.760 --> 01:01:12.400 Well, scripture is abundantly clear that there is a ledger, both of 01:01:12.400 --> 01:01:15.920 our names and of the sins that we've committed against God, and 01:01:15.920 --> 01:01:18.400 they're each accounted for individually. 01:01:18.400 --> 01:01:21.360 Now again, as we say in every episode we get into these 01:01:21.360 --> 01:01:26.880 dangerous areas, that's not to suggest the works righteousness is in play. 01:01:26.880 --> 01:01:30.640 No Christian will ever believe that he can make up for even 01:01:30.640 --> 01:01:33.680 one of his sins, just as Adam couldn't make up for eating 01:01:33.680 --> 01:01:37.760 the wrong piece of fruit, and yet the ledger that includes the 01:01:37.760 --> 01:01:41.520 sins, all of them were checked off on the cross simultaneously and 01:01:41.520 --> 01:01:42.560 for all time. 01:01:42.560 --> 01:01:46.400 God paid Christ paid the eternal price in three hours on the 01:01:46.400 --> 01:01:48.320 cross because he's God. 01:01:48.320 --> 01:01:54.480 He can absorb an infinity in a finite time because he is 01:01:54.960 --> 01:01:57.840 above and beyond all human comprehension. 01:01:58.240 --> 01:02:02.560 Nevertheless, the price, the specific price, just like there's a price tag 01:02:02.560 --> 01:02:05.520 on a piece of fruit, the price was paid. 01:02:05.920 --> 01:02:06.160 We 01:02:06.160 --> 01:02:10.480 may as well take the opportunity to cover how the the ledger 01:02:10.480 --> 01:02:15.040 works in this case because some people will undoubtedly listen and be 01:02:15.040 --> 01:02:17.440 in churches that do not teach this clearly. 01:02:17.440 --> 01:02:23.760 And so how this works is God's ledger tracks all of your 01:02:23.760 --> 01:02:26.640 sin and all of your works. 01:02:26.800 --> 01:02:32.160 For the Christian, the sins are not counted against you, because Christ 01:02:32.320 --> 01:02:37.280 paid the full price of sin for every one on the cross, 01:02:37.280 --> 01:02:41.840 and so your sins are blotted out, your works remain, your works 01:02:41.840 --> 01:02:45.200 are counted as good because you are in Christ. 01:02:45.200 --> 01:02:49.600 Therefore you do get credit for your good works, but again, the 01:02:49.600 --> 01:02:50.800 sins are blotted out. 01:02:51.280 --> 01:02:55.440 Now in the case of the unbeliever, it is the inverse. 01:02:55.440 --> 01:02:59.120 Your sins remain because you are not in Christ, and you have 01:02:59.120 --> 01:03:03.680 chosen to pay the price for those sins in eternity because the 01:03:03.680 --> 01:03:08.320 debt of sin is infinite, hell is infinite, you will be there 01:03:08.320 --> 01:03:13.680 forever, paying back the price, the debt of those sins, and your 01:03:13.680 --> 01:03:16.560 works count for nothing. 01:03:16.560 --> 01:03:21.920 Because the status of the person who does the works matters. 01:03:21.920 --> 01:03:24.720 Sinners cannot have good works. 01:03:24.720 --> 01:03:28.480 If you are a sinner, not in Christ, and you go out 01:03:28.480 --> 01:03:30.640 and feed the homeless. 01:03:30.640 --> 01:03:32.240 That's a good work. 01:03:32.240 --> 01:03:36.000 You don't get credit, because of your status as a sinner not 01:03:36.000 --> 01:03:37.840 in Christ, not forgiven. 01:03:37.840 --> 01:03:41.360 And so it is only Christians whose good works are counted. 01:03:41.360 --> 01:03:46.000 And so that's how this actually works in reality. 01:03:46.000 --> 01:03:49.280 And you mentioned the I have to plug German because of course, 01:03:49.280 --> 01:03:52.400 but you mentioned the fact that we use forgive us our trespasses 01:03:52.400 --> 01:03:55.200 as we forgive those who trespass against us. 01:03:55.200 --> 01:04:01.360 I like that in German it's Schuld, and Schuld is both trespass, 01:04:01.360 --> 01:04:04.080 guilt, debt, obligation. 01:04:04.080 --> 01:04:06.560 It's all of it in one term, and so you you don't 01:04:06.560 --> 01:04:09.440 have to choose between the two, as we've sort of had to 01:04:09.440 --> 01:04:10.640 do in English. 01:04:10.640 --> 01:04:14.640 My father was taught it forgive us our debts as we forgive 01:04:14.640 --> 01:04:19.760 our debtors, but obviously most Lutherans use trespass and trespassers. 01:04:20.080 --> 01:04:20.240 But 01:04:20.480 --> 01:04:22.800 again, that's a good illustration of the fact that it's the same 01:04:22.800 --> 01:04:24.560 thing. It is absolutely 01:04:24.640 --> 01:04:27.200 yes. It's the same it's the same conception. 01:04:27.200 --> 01:04:33.200 It's just in modern parlance, we've pared down the senses of trespass 01:04:33.360 --> 01:04:34.160 and trespasser. 01:04:34.960 --> 01:04:37.600 And so we we don't think of the fullness of what the 01:04:37.600 --> 01:04:38.640 term means. 01:04:38.640 --> 01:04:42.400 It was chosen because it does actually mean the fullness of the 01:04:42.400 --> 01:04:43.920 concept in scripture. 01:04:43.920 --> 01:04:47.200 It's just to modern ears we don't typically hear all of that. 01:04:47.200 --> 01:04:48.400 We should. 01:04:48.400 --> 01:04:52.240 Pastors and teachers need to teach people so that they know that. 01:04:52.240 --> 01:04:55.920 And if you read scripture it's incredibly obvious, the legal language is 01:04:55.920 --> 01:04:59.440 everywhere. It's spoken of God as judge, and it's his courtroom, and 01:04:59.440 --> 01:05:02.720 there's a ledger, and there's a record, and there's evidence, and this 01:05:02.720 --> 01:05:05.600 is a legal issue. 01:05:05.600 --> 01:05:09.760 And yes, as mentioned, the EO hate that. 01:05:09.760 --> 01:05:12.800 They say the West is too legalistic and too rationalistic. 01:05:12.800 --> 01:05:15.200 And no, we're just quoting scripture. 01:05:15.200 --> 01:05:16.880 God is your judge. 01:05:16.880 --> 01:05:18.720 Judges have a courtroom. 01:05:18.720 --> 01:05:23.360 Courts have prosecutors and defenders and you hear evidence, and there are 01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:26.240 convictions. That's how this works. 01:05:26.320 --> 01:05:26.480 And 01:05:26.480 --> 01:05:27.440 there are penalties. 01:05:27.440 --> 01:05:31.760 There are specific penalties that are tailored to the crime. 01:05:31.760 --> 01:05:36.800 Which in this case is infinite, because the person harmed is God, 01:05:36.800 --> 01:05:37.920 and so infinite. 01:05:37.920 --> 01:05:41.440 We'll get into that another time, that's philosophical. 01:05:41.440 --> 01:05:45.920 So even up to the time of Thomas Aquinas it was just 01:05:45.920 --> 01:05:49.280 settled a settled matter in the church that you did not charge 01:05:49.520 --> 01:05:54.400 interest, at least when it came to Christians and others within your 01:05:54.400 --> 01:05:58.240 own nation, even to non Christians in your own nation. 01:05:58.240 --> 01:06:01.760 Members of other nations, there was still some debate on that because 01:06:01.760 --> 01:06:05.120 obviously in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy, you're permitted to charge foreigners 01:06:05.200 --> 01:06:07.840 interest, Deuteronomy 23. 01:06:07.840 --> 01:06:11.120 But one of the examples given by Thomas Aquinas, one of the 01:06:11.120 --> 01:06:13.440 reasons he argued against it was saying it would be like charging 01:06:13.440 --> 01:06:16.800 twice. It would be like charging a man for a bottle of 01:06:16.800 --> 01:06:21.280 wine and then charging him again when he wants to drink. 01:06:21.280 --> 01:06:25.920 But where things started to go off the rails, and I know 01:06:25.920 --> 01:06:30.480 somewhere there's probably a papist listening who's going to be excredibly gleeful 01:06:30.480 --> 01:06:34.400 and clap, but don't do it too quickly because it comes back 01:06:34.400 --> 01:06:38.560 around. It goes off the rails a little bit before the Reformation 01:06:38.720 --> 01:06:43.280 actually, but Luther whiffs this one a bit, but Calvin is really 01:06:43.280 --> 01:06:47.840 the one who opens the door to the modern practice of usury. 01:06:47.840 --> 01:06:52.640 It seems like what Luther was doing was trying to take a 01:06:52.640 --> 01:06:56.720 conservative, but not a hardline stance, which is notable and odd for 01:06:56.720 --> 01:07:02.560 Luther, but a conservative stance with regard to the charging of interest. 01:07:02.560 --> 01:07:06.400 Because in his day, you had the beginnings of a market economy 01:07:06.400 --> 01:07:10.800 starting up, you had the expansion of the economy, you had more 01:07:10.800 --> 01:07:14.400 trade, and so merchants were charging interest. 01:07:14.400 --> 01:07:17.920 They were setting terms on their contracts and things like this. 01:07:17.920 --> 01:07:21.840 Calvin sort of took the position that merchants could set the terms 01:07:21.840 --> 01:07:25.360 on their contracts, and so there was some level of interest they 01:07:25.360 --> 01:07:27.120 could charge. 01:07:27.120 --> 01:07:31.680 Luther was trying to, again, take a conservative position with regard to 01:07:31.680 --> 01:07:34.240 debates the scholastics had been having. 01:07:34.240 --> 01:07:37.200 They settled on this five percent figure I don't actually remember or 01:07:37.200 --> 01:07:40.000 I couldn't find why, but there was a lot of wrangling over 01:07:40.000 --> 01:07:45.040 five percent interest was the number they decided on. 01:07:45.040 --> 01:07:48.800 And so he was taking a conservative position with regard to that 01:07:48.880 --> 01:07:52.960 and trying to limit how much interest was charged, he still had 01:07:52.960 --> 01:07:57.840 comments that were very much against any charging of interest, basically calling 01:07:57.840 --> 01:07:59.040 it all usury. 01:07:59.040 --> 01:08:01.280 But this is where we start to see less of the hard 01:08:01.760 --> 01:08:06.080 line stance against all interest of all kinds. 01:08:06.080 --> 01:08:11.600 And from there it's rapidly downhill, once the philosophers and the economists 01:08:11.600 --> 01:08:13.680 get a hold of it and the church starts listening to them 01:08:13.920 --> 01:08:16.320 them instead of to the word of God. 01:08:17.120 --> 01:08:18.880 I think it's important to note that 01:08:19.760 --> 01:08:25.840 that during in the in m the medieval period there were periods 01:08:25.840 --> 01:08:26.800 of time where 01:08:28.400 --> 01:08:30.240 Interest was permissible. 01:08:30.240 --> 01:08:35.280 Again, never among Christians, but this is when the Jews became inextricably 01:08:35.280 --> 01:08:39.280 linked to banking because the prohibition was on Christians not charging interest. 01:08:39.280 --> 01:08:42.240 Jews were permitted to charge interest because, well, if they're going to 01:08:42.240 --> 01:08:46.080 hell anyway, why you know let them do their thing because people 01:08:46.080 --> 01:08:49.040 wanted money lent to them. 01:08:49.040 --> 01:08:52.480 And there may be someone who will lend money to you at 01:08:52.480 --> 01:08:55.760 interest who would not lend it to you, particularly as a Christian, 01:08:55.760 --> 01:08:56.720 where you're obligated to 01:08:57.760 --> 01:09:00.880 Jesus to not expect to be paid back. 01:09:00.880 --> 01:09:05.440 And so what happened in the the medieval period was that 01:09:06.720 --> 01:09:10.720 kings and other potentates wanted to fight their wars and they wanted 01:09:10.720 --> 01:09:13.280 to build their palaces and they needed to finance it. 01:09:13.280 --> 01:09:18.080 And so it became increasingly normal off on the periphery, not necessarily 01:09:18.240 --> 01:09:23.600 Christians lending, but Christians relieve receiving that which was lent from the 01:09:23.600 --> 01:09:26.320 Jewish bankers to facilitate war. 01:09:26.320 --> 01:09:30.480 And so I think it's notable that the the first cracks that 01:09:30.480 --> 01:09:34.640 appeared in Christendom giving up the moral stance 01:09:35.520 --> 01:09:43.040 were fundamentally around dealing with unbelievers permissively and fighting and waging 01:09:43.040 --> 01:09:45.920 wars and doing other things that should not have been done. 01:09:45.920 --> 01:09:47.760 You wouldn't have done it with your own money, but if you 01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:51.360 can borrow somebody else's at interest, suddenly it becomes a thing that's 01:09:51.360 --> 01:09:55.680 permissible. I think that while that doesn't that directly speak to the 01:09:55.840 --> 01:10:00.080 the moral tenor tenor of usury or interest itself. 01:10:00.160 --> 01:10:05.360 It's some interesting color to to consider because it only those things 01:10:05.360 --> 01:10:07.200 are always connected. 01:10:07.600 --> 01:10:07.840 Yeah, 01:10:07.840 --> 01:10:09.840 that is absolutely worth mentioning. 01:10:09.840 --> 01:10:13.520 And we could also point out that the prohibition on usury 01:10:14.400 --> 01:10:20.720 is not unique to Christianity, but it is unique to Christianity and 01:10:20.720 --> 01:10:27.120 cults that have sprung up as cancerous cis from Christianity, so Islam 01:10:27.120 --> 01:10:29.200 prohibits usury. 01:10:29.440 --> 01:10:34.400 But of course, the Jews were permitted to charge usury because they 01:10:34.400 --> 01:10:40.160 were looking at Deuteronomy 23 and saying, these Christian foreigners were allowed 01:10:40.160 --> 01:10:43.760 to charge them, which isn't of course an admission, they're worshiping a 01:10:43.760 --> 01:10:48.000 different god, and it's an argument for not having non Christians in 01:10:48.000 --> 01:10:50.640 your country because these things happen. 01:10:50.640 --> 01:10:53.600 We won't of course let the noblemen off the hook, the kings 01:10:53.760 --> 01:10:56.480 who use this scheme to get around the Word of God, because 01:10:56.480 --> 01:10:57.680 that's all they were doing. 01:10:57.680 --> 01:11:02.560 The Word of God doesn't say Don't sin unless you hire another 01:11:02.560 --> 01:11:04.160 man to sin for you. 01:11:04.320 --> 01:11:05.520 That's also a sin. 01:11:05.520 --> 01:11:07.200 In fact, that's a collection of sins. 01:11:07.200 --> 01:11:09.040 It's not better, don't do that. 01:11:09.040 --> 01:11:11.280 And so they should not have done what they did. 01:11:11.280 --> 01:11:16.160 But at any rate, we get into the modern times, and something 01:11:16.160 --> 01:11:21.760 it's worth noting, Chemnitz, the second Martin, as he has been called, 01:11:21.760 --> 01:11:26.720 has a treatise on usury, condemning it, of course. 01:11:26.720 --> 01:11:29.040 The problem is you do not get to read it unless you 01:11:29.040 --> 01:11:33.920 know Latin or German, because the volumes of chemnitz that have been 01:11:33.920 --> 01:11:38.160 translated, it's not a cheap collection, but Concordia Publishing House has this, 01:11:38.160 --> 01:11:40.560 it does not include the treatise on Usury. 01:11:40.800 --> 01:11:43.120 It also doesn't include the Treatise on Revenge and a few other 01:11:43.120 --> 01:11:48.240 things. Noteworthy and strange that these things have been omitted. 01:11:48.240 --> 01:11:50.480 And I don't think they're even tran I don't think there are 01:11:50.560 --> 01:11:51.440 plans to translate them. 01:11:51.440 --> 01:11:53.520 It's not just they were omitted, I don't think there's a plan 01:11:53.520 --> 01:11:54.640 to add. 01:11:54.640 --> 01:11:56.960 Additional volumes at present. 01:11:58.000 --> 01:11:58.240 And 01:11:58.240 --> 01:12:00.640 you had mentioned that they even omitted it from the index. 01:12:00.640 --> 01:12:02.000 So if if you only knew English. 01:12:02.000 --> 01:12:03.200 Yeah, the term's not even there. 01:12:03.520 --> 01:12:06.560 Yeah. You would never have any idea that Chemnus ever wrote anything 01:12:06.560 --> 01:12:11.520 about usury, which is fascinating because CPH is the captive arm of 01:12:11.520 --> 01:12:13.920 the LCMS for publishing. 01:12:13.920 --> 01:12:18.400 The LCMS also has another captive arm, the LCEF, the Lutheran Church 01:12:18.400 --> 01:12:19.520 Extension Fund. 01:12:19.520 --> 01:12:20.800 Guess what they do? 01:12:20.800 --> 01:12:22.880 They're a bank, effectively. 01:12:22.880 --> 01:12:26.080 Not they're not chartered as a bank, but they're a lender. 01:12:26.080 --> 01:12:29.440 They lend to churches at interest. 01:12:29.440 --> 01:12:35.440 Now, it's low interest loans relatively in theory, but we have we 01:12:35.440 --> 01:12:41.040 have come so far from what the was his the historic practice 01:12:41.040 --> 01:12:46.800 of believers to now we have a church which is refusing to 01:12:46.800 --> 01:12:51.200 acknowledge the the discussion ever took place by omitting it from the 01:12:51.200 --> 01:12:54.640 Chemnist volume and actively 01:12:56.160 --> 01:13:00.800 engaging in what in the old testament was unequivocally user. 01:13:01.680 --> 01:13:06.640 To charge interest to a Christian is usury, period. 01:13:06.640 --> 01:13:09.040 The only argument then that could be made is well, yeah, but 01:13:09.040 --> 01:13:10.400 it's permissible. 01:13:10.400 --> 01:13:13.840 And yet we don't even have the argument, because again, is the 01:13:13.840 --> 01:13:17.440 theme of this episode, it's not even a question. 01:13:17.440 --> 01:13:20.560 It was in the Bible and then it just sort of fell 01:13:20.560 --> 01:13:22.960 away and now it didn't fall away from the church. 01:13:22.960 --> 01:13:26.400 It took fifteen hundred years or so for the church to really 01:13:26.400 --> 01:13:30.960 get rolling and modernizing and saying, well, I guess maybe that's not 01:13:30.960 --> 01:13:31.760 a sin anymore. 01:13:31.760 --> 01:13:33.040 Maybe it was never a sin. 01:13:33.040 --> 01:13:34.720 Do we really know if it's a sin? 01:13:34.720 --> 01:13:36.160 Did God really say? 01:13:36.160 --> 01:13:38.640 And so they spilled a lot of ink on that question. 01:13:38.640 --> 01:13:41.520 And finally we're to the point today where not only does no 01:13:41.520 --> 01:13:45.200 one ask the question, but the church is charging the church itself 01:13:45.200 --> 01:13:49.440 interest on loans for things like building churches. 01:13:49.440 --> 01:13:51.840 Which I only laugh because absolutely 01:13:51.920 --> 01:13:54.720 ridiculous. I I I wicked 01:13:55.360 --> 01:13:55.520 if 01:13:55.760 --> 01:13:59.680 if it had never happened, I don't think I could possibly script 01:13:59.680 --> 01:14:03.200 a fiction as evil as what we're doing today. 01:14:03.200 --> 01:14:06.160 By the by the plain words of scripture. 01:14:06.160 --> 01:14:06.480 So 01:14:07.360 --> 01:14:10.480 again the the the point of this episode is where did this 01:14:10.480 --> 01:14:11.520 stuff go? 01:14:11.520 --> 01:14:13.920 Now in this case as as I mentioned we're kinda going in 01:14:13.920 --> 01:14:15.200 chronological order. 01:14:15.520 --> 01:14:18.080 we kind of lost usury a while ago and you know Luther 01:14:18.800 --> 01:14:20.560 did Luther Luther ate it. 01:14:20.720 --> 01:14:21.920 he didn't really get it right. 01:14:22.240 --> 01:14:27.600 Luther Luther whiffed it, however, it is worth pointing out the Lutheran 01:14:27.600 --> 01:14:31.280 church didn't actually go with Luther on this one because of course 01:14:31.280 --> 01:14:32.880 it's not in our confession. 01:14:32.880 --> 01:14:35.200 We are not bound to believe this. 01:14:35.200 --> 01:14:39.520 Up until the early 1900s, at least in the US, the Lutheran 01:14:39.520 --> 01:14:41.680 Church stood against usury. 01:14:41.680 --> 01:14:45.200 We have writing from Pieper and Volter condemning it. 01:14:45.200 --> 01:14:46.960 So we got this one right. 01:14:46.960 --> 01:14:49.840 It was only in I don't know if it was the forties, 01:14:49.840 --> 01:14:52.880 the fifties or the sixties, but it was in the last within 01:14:52.880 --> 01:14:57.040 the last no eighty years or so that this started to slip 01:14:57.040 --> 01:14:59.280 away in the Lutheran church. 01:14:59.840 --> 01:15:03.280 Which makes sense because we found the the footnote from uh the 01:15:03.280 --> 01:15:07.520 Sononical convention in I think No, it was eighteen ninety three where 01:15:07.520 --> 01:15:12.080 they were still arguing over whether life insurance would be permissible. 01:15:12.080 --> 01:15:16.240 Yeah. whether insurance of any kind, property insurance, whether that was immoral 01:15:16.320 --> 01:15:18.640 because it wasn't trust in God. 01:15:18.640 --> 01:15:22.640 So it's not a stretch to think that our Lutheran fathers in 01:15:22.640 --> 01:15:26.960 the LCMS would be pretty surprised to learn that there's a lending 01:15:26.960 --> 01:15:30.640 arm charging churches at interest to build churches. 01:15:30.640 --> 01:15:34.960 Um and yet that's how quickly morality changes. 01:15:34.960 --> 01:15:35.760 I mean 01:15:36.720 --> 01:15:40.320 getting back to a recurring theme, God doesn't change. 01:15:40.320 --> 01:15:42.000 Morality doesn't change. 01:15:42.000 --> 01:15:43.040 Doesn't change. 01:15:43.040 --> 01:15:48.800 Doctrine is changing, not because doctrine is being developed, but because scripture 01:15:48.800 --> 01:15:50.400 is being abandoned. 01:15:50.400 --> 01:15:55.360 When the whole council of God needs white out, when there are 01:15:55.440 --> 01:15:58.880 things that we're ashamed of, that is when we really 01:15:59.760 --> 01:16:02.800 have to seriously question whether we're even the church anymore. 01:16:02.800 --> 01:16:04.880 Not even not in the big sea way, even in a little 01:16:05.040 --> 01:16:09.280 sea. Are we are we a Christian church if we are adopting 01:16:09.280 --> 01:16:11.520 these these beliefs? 01:16:11.520 --> 01:16:11.840 Um 01:16:13.040 --> 01:16:15.440 the next one I want to get on to is a much 01:16:15.440 --> 01:16:16.400 more recent one. 01:16:16.400 --> 01:16:22.560 And it also follows on the heels of developments from warfare. 01:16:22.560 --> 01:16:22.880 So 01:16:24.560 --> 01:16:30.160 while it wasn't necessarily seen as a strictly moral code in all 01:16:30.160 --> 01:16:33.440 cases, it was generally just the norm. 01:16:33.600 --> 01:16:37.360 Like it was it was it was such an essential element of 01:16:37.600 --> 01:16:42.240 a Christian nation that it was almost unthinkable that a girl would 01:16:42.240 --> 01:16:43.840 work outside of the home. 01:16:43.840 --> 01:16:47.680 She would be productive within the home because as God created her, 01:16:47.680 --> 01:16:49.200 she is a helpmate. 01:16:49.200 --> 01:16:53.520 Helping your husband is going to naturally be productive and not only 01:16:53.520 --> 01:16:55.120 a case of child child rearing. 01:16:55.120 --> 01:16:57.360 There are things that are done around the house that are that 01:16:57.360 --> 01:17:01.600 are productive for the sake of what the man is doing. 01:17:01.600 --> 01:17:04.560 Particularly because jobs used to be also in the home. 01:17:04.560 --> 01:17:07.360 Like the man the the idea of a man going off to 01:17:07.360 --> 01:17:11.440 a factory thirty miles away is is a very modern thing. 01:17:11.440 --> 01:17:15.120 The man's work and the woman's work were usually yards apart. 01:17:15.120 --> 01:17:19.680 So her being a helpmeet and her doing work that was productive 01:17:20.320 --> 01:17:23.440 was always in support of what the man did. 01:17:23.440 --> 01:17:27.040 And then we came to World War II, where we sent so 01:17:27.040 --> 01:17:30.160 many men overseas and we had so many men working in factories 01:17:30.320 --> 01:17:31.840 there were sh there were shortages. 01:17:31.920 --> 01:17:33.600 And so what happened? 01:17:33.600 --> 01:17:40.480 We quickly normalized, not coincidentally, girls leaving their homes, young girls, older 01:17:40.480 --> 01:17:45.600 women, going into the factories, either to make bombs or to do 01:17:45.600 --> 01:17:48.480 math for calculating artillery tables. 01:17:48.480 --> 01:17:52.640 But by the hundreds of thousands and by the millions, women left 01:17:52.640 --> 01:17:58.400 their homes and they began doing jobs that had been limited to 01:17:59.120 --> 01:18:01.360 men prior to World War II. 01:18:01.360 --> 01:18:06.240 And then when World War II ended, the status quo ante wasn't 01:18:06.160 --> 01:18:09.280 restored. There were a lot of women like, you know what, I'm 01:18:09.280 --> 01:18:09.920 making more money. 01:18:10.160 --> 01:18:13.200 if if my husband can come home, or if I can marry 01:18:13.200 --> 01:18:16.320 a man who's gonna earn and I can earn too, wow, look 01:18:16.560 --> 01:18:20.160 look how quickly we can get ahead with all this cash flow. 01:18:20.160 --> 01:18:24.720 And so it became normalized again through warfare that girls would just 01:18:24.720 --> 01:18:26.480 work outside the home. 01:18:26.480 --> 01:18:29.520 And so there was a a tweet uh a couple days ago 01:18:29.680 --> 01:18:34.240 from uh another LCMS pastor who's uh familiar to both you and 01:18:34.240 --> 01:18:40.880 I for unspecified reasons, Dan uh Ross, who's a he's a pastor 01:18:40.880 --> 01:18:45.120 in the absolute whitest part of Oklahoma, yet somehow he's a very 01:18:45.120 --> 01:18:47.520 vehement anti-racist crusader. 01:18:47.520 --> 01:18:48.080 It's funny. 01:18:48.080 --> 01:18:51.280 The part of Oklahoma he lives and works in is so white 01:18:51.440 --> 01:18:54.720 that even in Oklahoma it's a joke how white the place is. 01:18:54.720 --> 01:18:58.240 So I love the idea of him pointing at other people and 01:18:58.240 --> 01:19:03.600 saying, You're racist when by every measure of racism, simply living in 01:19:03.600 --> 01:19:05.920 such a place is itself racism. 01:19:05.920 --> 01:19:09.840 So he's a known quantity, but he uh he decided to Dan 01:19:09.840 --> 01:19:14.160 decided to step into the ring yesterday with this bold claim or 01:19:14.320 --> 01:19:17.680 two days ago he w he tweeted wives can work full time 01:19:17.760 --> 01:19:19.280 jobs outside the home. 01:19:19.280 --> 01:19:23.280 They can be the main breadwinners, and husbands can be stay at 01:19:23.360 --> 01:19:24.400 home dads. 01:19:24.400 --> 01:19:26.560 This doesn't violate scripture. 01:19:26.560 --> 01:19:29.040 Now, this isn't just a guy tweeting, this is a pasture. 01:19:29.600 --> 01:19:30.880 He's rostered. 01:19:30.880 --> 01:19:31.840 He's credentialed. 01:19:31.840 --> 01:19:34.720 I believe he has an actual M Div instead of one of 01:19:34.720 --> 01:19:36.880 the the fake degrees like some of the other guys. 01:19:36.880 --> 01:19:39.840 So to his credit, he probably actually knows Greek and Hebrew. 01:19:39.840 --> 01:19:43.520 But it doesn't stop him from saying the opposite of what Scripture 01:19:43.520 --> 01:19:47.920 says. Let's see what happens in Titus with regard to women outside 01:19:47.920 --> 01:19:50.000 the home. 01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:54.000 Titus responds They profess to know God, but they deny him by 01:19:54.000 --> 01:19:58.960 their works, they are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. 01:19:58.960 --> 01:20:02.640 But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 01:20:02.640 --> 01:20:07.280 Older men are to be sober minded, dignified, self controlled, sound in 01:20:07.280 --> 01:20:10.240 faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 01:20:10.240 --> 01:20:14.960 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or 01:20:14.960 --> 01:20:17.120 slave too much wine. 01:20:17.120 --> 01:20:20.880 They, meaning the older women, are to teach what is good and 01:20:20.880 --> 01:20:25.120 so train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to 01:20:25.120 --> 01:20:29.920 be self controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their 01:20:29.920 --> 01:20:34.240 own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled, likewise 01:20:34.240 --> 01:20:37.200 urge the younger men to be self controlled. 01:20:37.200 --> 01:20:41.840 I had someone dispute with me yesterday on on Twitter whether the 01:20:42.080 --> 01:20:45.280 passage the the part of that that said women are to work 01:20:45.280 --> 01:20:48.480 from home, whether it applied only to older women, which was the 01:20:48.480 --> 01:20:49.760 claim those made. 01:20:49.760 --> 01:20:52.400 If you when go read it yourself, this is the end of 01:20:52.400 --> 01:20:56.000 Titus one and the beginning of Titus II, there are clearly two 01:20:56.000 --> 01:20:59.920 sections. There's a section that says older men are to be sober 01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:03.120 minded and it parallels with what older w older women are to 01:21:03.120 --> 01:21:04.480 be effectively the same. 01:21:04.480 --> 01:21:08.880 And then it specifically tells older women to teach younger women a 01:21:08.880 --> 01:21:10.160 series of things. 01:21:10.160 --> 01:21:13.760 Everything that's listed after that point is what the older women are 01:21:13.760 --> 01:21:15.200 to teach the younger woman. 01:21:15.200 --> 01:21:18.000 And that includes working at home. 01:21:18.000 --> 01:21:20.800 And the reason I included the last par the last sentence is 01:21:20.880 --> 01:21:25.120 it says likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 01:21:25.120 --> 01:21:30.320 Likewise urge shows that the likewise urge of the older women to 01:21:30.320 --> 01:21:33.440 the younger women encapsulates every single word of that. 01:21:33.440 --> 01:21:36.320 So Titus is explicit. 01:21:36.320 --> 01:21:38.400 It is explicit. 01:21:38.400 --> 01:21:42.800 They are to teach and train the young women to work at 01:21:42.800 --> 01:21:44.960 home. That's not a paraphrase. 01:21:44.960 --> 01:21:47.920 I just alighting the section so you can see of that one 01:21:47.920 --> 01:21:51.120 element. Younger women are to work from home. 01:21:51.280 --> 01:21:55.600 And the reason that the word of God may not be reviled. 01:21:55.600 --> 01:22:00.240 So when a pastor says that doesn't violate scripture, what is he 01:22:00.240 --> 01:22:02.960 doing? He is reviling scripture. 01:22:03.280 --> 01:22:07.680 he's literally doing that which is damned. 01:22:07.680 --> 01:22:13.200 So when Dan says that doesn't violate scripture, he's he's he's plainly 01:22:13.200 --> 01:22:15.680 lying about what scripture says. 01:22:15.680 --> 01:22:17.840 And the reason he's lying is that he's ashamed. 01:22:18.240 --> 01:22:20.400 He's ashamed of scripture. 01:22:20.400 --> 01:22:22.320 It's not it's not cool anymore. 01:22:22.320 --> 01:22:24.640 There's some stuff in there that's pretty cringe. 01:22:25.040 --> 01:22:26.560 it's stuff that, you know 01:22:27.600 --> 01:22:30.080 I was talking to a friend yesterday, we were talking about the 01:22:30.160 --> 01:22:33.520 the doctrine of closed communion. 01:22:33.520 --> 01:22:36.880 And he described the the approach that a lot of pastors have 01:22:36.880 --> 01:22:41.760 when explaining closed communion to a visitor, where they basically act like 01:22:41.920 --> 01:22:47.280 an embarrassed assistant manager in a store apologizing for for store policies 01:22:47.280 --> 01:22:48.720 that he's not really responsible for. 01:22:48.800 --> 01:22:51.840 He's like, you know, these guys are just kinda hard about this 01:22:51.840 --> 01:22:54.480 stuff and you and I both know it's silly, but we gotta 01:22:54.480 --> 01:22:56.000 follow the rules. 01:22:56.000 --> 01:23:00.000 That's how a lot of these guys are with all of Scripture. 01:23:00.000 --> 01:23:03.840 And so Dan is lying about Titus and he's lying about the 01:23:04.320 --> 01:23:07.040 rest of Scripture because he finds it embarrassing. 01:23:07.040 --> 01:23:09.920 And in that thread, he went on to accuse another man that 01:23:09.920 --> 01:23:13.760 I've uh gotten to know on Twitter, um, who was refuting him. 01:23:13.760 --> 01:23:17.360 I the the guy was saying giving a number of reasons. 01:23:17.360 --> 01:23:22.640 And Dan's responses were that that's misogyny, that's sexism, you're a chauvinist, 01:23:22.640 --> 01:23:25.520 you're importing this stuff and you're calling this stuff Christianity. 01:23:25.520 --> 01:23:30.240 Those were his rebukes to a man who was pointing to Scripture. 01:23:30.240 --> 01:23:34.640 Now listen to what Jesus says in Luke nine. 01:23:34.640 --> 01:23:37.280 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole 01:23:37.280 --> 01:23:39.920 world and loses or forfeits himself? 01:23:39.920 --> 01:23:44.240 For whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him will 01:23:44.240 --> 01:23:47.840 the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory 01:23:48.000 --> 01:23:51.360 and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 01:23:51.360 --> 01:23:54.480 Now what Jesus says in Luke 9 is that Dan Ross is 01:23:54.480 --> 01:23:59.440 damned. If he doesn't repent of his shame for what God says, 01:23:59.440 --> 01:24:01.520 he will go to hell. 01:24:01.520 --> 01:24:04.160 And I I looked up what the the word shame there just 01:24:04.160 --> 01:24:06.720 to make sure that you know it wasn't a mistranslation or something 01:24:06.720 --> 01:24:08.400 that that couldn't be defended. 01:24:08.400 --> 01:24:10.560 And it gets even better when you when you look at the 01:24:10.560 --> 01:24:14.320 Greek word that's used there and a couple other times, it's related 01:24:14.800 --> 01:24:17.360 to disgrace or dishonor. 01:24:17.360 --> 01:24:19.600 And that's exactly what's going on here. 01:24:19.600 --> 01:24:23.520 Jesus is saying if these men are disgraced by what I have 01:24:23.520 --> 01:24:27.440 said in Scripture, I will be disgraced of them. 01:24:27.440 --> 01:24:31.680 Now As Christians, we don't like to hear that the law applies 01:24:31.680 --> 01:24:32.080 to us. 01:24:32.400 --> 01:24:35.760 when scripture says you did something wrong, we always want to think, 01:24:35.760 --> 01:24:37.440 well, that must be the other guy. 01:24:37.440 --> 01:24:38.080 And so 01:24:38.960 --> 01:24:42.000 I thought for a while about this passage in in Luke 9 01:24:42.320 --> 01:24:42.640 because 01:24:43.760 --> 01:24:47.680 the way that it's phrased, it's easy for Christians to think, well, 01:24:47.680 --> 01:24:49.520 that doesn't apply to me. 01:24:49.520 --> 01:24:53.840 But if you consider who could be ashamed of Jesus' words? 01:24:53.840 --> 01:24:56.640 What does it mean to be ashamed of anything? 01:24:56.640 --> 01:25:01.840 To be ashamed of something implies some sort of proprietary interest, it 01:25:01.840 --> 01:25:05.280 div it implies a degree of possession. 01:25:05.280 --> 01:25:05.760 So So 01:25:06.800 --> 01:25:12.720 there are three non-overlapping categories of human beings in the world. 01:25:12.720 --> 01:25:15.840 There are pagans who have never heard a lick of the word 01:25:15.920 --> 01:25:16.480 of God. 01:25:16.480 --> 01:25:18.880 They have only natural level revelation. 01:25:18.880 --> 01:25:21.600 They have no idea what God has ever said. 01:25:21.600 --> 01:25:25.200 This can't apply to them because how can they be disgraced by 01:25:25.200 --> 01:25:27.280 words that they've never heard? 01:25:27.440 --> 01:25:31.440 The second category people are pagans who have heard the word, the 01:25:31.440 --> 01:25:33.840 word to some degree, and they just don't believe it. 01:25:34.320 --> 01:25:35.680 they never have faith. 01:25:35.680 --> 01:25:38.400 So, you know, maybe they've read some of Scripture, they've heard it, 01:25:38.400 --> 01:25:41.200 or they've argued about it on the internet. 01:25:41.200 --> 01:25:42.720 But it was never theirs. 01:25:42.720 --> 01:25:46.080 Are they being ashamed of Scripture and of Jesus' words? 01:25:46.080 --> 01:25:49.360 No, because it has no nexus to their lives. 01:25:49.360 --> 01:25:52.720 They're mocking and deriding something alien to them. 01:25:52.720 --> 01:25:56.640 But Jesus isn't talking about the unbeliever who's heard the word because 01:25:56.640 --> 01:25:59.680 they couldn't possibly be ashamed or disgraced by it. 01:25:59.680 --> 01:26:01.280 It's not theirs. 01:26:01.280 --> 01:26:05.760 Jesus is speaking to people who claim to be Christians, who claim 01:26:05.760 --> 01:26:09.200 the word of God, who say, Yeah, this is mine, this scripture, 01:26:09.200 --> 01:26:12.880 the the the Bible, the Word of God belongs to me, because 01:26:12.880 --> 01:26:14.160 I'm a Christian. 01:26:14.160 --> 01:26:17.840 And Jesus says something that we leave out of our creeds and 01:26:17.840 --> 01:26:22.560 we lead out leave out of our confessions, except by inference, which 01:26:22.560 --> 01:26:26.880 is this passage, that if you say that you're mine, but you 01:26:26.880 --> 01:26:30.160 are disgraced by what I say, I'm not going to recognize you 01:26:30.160 --> 01:26:31.280 on judgment day. 01:26:31.280 --> 01:26:35.040 You say Lord, Lord, did we not do X, Y, and Z? 01:26:35.040 --> 01:26:37.280 And Jesus will say, I never knew you. 01:26:37.280 --> 01:26:39.280 And he's talking about Dan Ross. 01:26:39.280 --> 01:26:42.960 And he's talking about all these other pastors who when these questions 01:26:42.960 --> 01:26:46.560 come up online, they don't say, Well, let's see what scripture says. 01:26:46.560 --> 01:26:48.880 They lie and they say scripture says nothing. 01:26:48.880 --> 01:26:52.320 There's Dan Dan let me read that again. 01:26:52.320 --> 01:26:55.680 Dan says wives can work full time jobs outside the home, they 01:26:55.680 --> 01:26:59.040 can be breadwinners, and husbands can be stay-at-home dads. 01:26:59.040 --> 01:27:00.720 This doesn't violate scripture. 01:27:00.720 --> 01:27:04.640 That can not be possibly more contradictory to Titus II. 01:27:04.640 --> 01:27:07.920 Dan Ross is a damned liar if he doesn't repent. 01:27:07.920 --> 01:27:10.880 And I don't say this to pick on him, I say this 01:27:10.880 --> 01:27:13.600 is an example of the sort of thing that is occurring within 01:27:14.160 --> 01:27:16.560 the church without pushback. 01:27:16.560 --> 01:27:18.000 There's not a single pastor. 01:27:18.000 --> 01:27:21.680 When I when I called attention to this, what was said, there 01:27:21.680 --> 01:27:24.640 will never be a pastor who will speak out publicly. 01:27:24.640 --> 01:27:28.720 Because as we mentioned previously, the LCMS has banned pastors from criticizing 01:27:28.720 --> 01:27:30.720 other pastors and our bylaws. 01:27:30.720 --> 01:27:32.800 You can get kicked out for doing that. 01:27:32.800 --> 01:27:36.240 Apparently you can't get kicked out for denying scripture because these guys 01:27:36.240 --> 01:27:37.440 do this all the time. 01:27:37.440 --> 01:27:41.680 But if you criticize another man and you cause a stink and 01:27:41.680 --> 01:27:46.160 you get hurt feelings by saying what God says, then you're actually 01:27:46.160 --> 01:27:46.960 in jeopardy. 01:27:46.960 --> 01:27:50.800 And for a pastor, that means potentially losing his income and losing 01:27:50.800 --> 01:27:54.400 his parsonage and his children not being able to eat. 01:27:54.400 --> 01:27:57.040 So I understand the motivation. 01:27:57.040 --> 01:28:01.280 I I'm not excusing it, but I'm saying I understand why a 01:28:01.280 --> 01:28:04.480 man would want to just pretend this didn't happen, just keep on 01:28:04.480 --> 01:28:07.680 walking. Because I'm not his neighbor. 01:28:07.680 --> 01:28:10.160 You know, y it's you cross by the other side of the 01:28:10.160 --> 01:28:12.800 road and pretend like the none of the slander and stuff other 01:28:12.800 --> 01:28:13.760 ever happens. 01:28:13.760 --> 01:28:16.400 But it is happening and it's a denial of scripture. 01:28:16.400 --> 01:28:19.760 And it's a denial of scripture by men who are ordained 01:28:20.720 --> 01:28:23.840 and are told to the world this is a man who speaks 01:28:23.840 --> 01:28:25.040 for Jesus. 01:28:25.040 --> 01:28:28.640 Dan gets up every Sunday and sh says or should say, or 01:28:28.640 --> 01:28:32.240 at least implies, by his conduct in the church service, that he 01:28:32.240 --> 01:28:35.440 stands in the stead and by the command of our Lord and 01:28:35.440 --> 01:28:37.040 Savior Jesus Christ. 01:28:37.040 --> 01:28:41.040 And for a man to make that claim and say the scripture 01:28:41.040 --> 01:28:45.040 says girls can work outside the home is plainly false. 01:28:45.040 --> 01:28:50.400 Now again, I'm not saying that the question of to what degree 01:28:50.400 --> 01:28:52.800 a girl may have income is 01:28:53.920 --> 01:28:56.160 we're not talking about equations. 01:28:56.160 --> 01:29:00.080 We're not talking with with usury, with all these things, we're not 01:29:00.080 --> 01:29:02.800 talking about a set of rules and math. 01:29:02.800 --> 01:29:06.800 We're focusing on the fact that the church used to do one 01:29:06.800 --> 01:29:09.440 thing and people used to believe one thing and then we stopped 01:29:09.440 --> 01:29:10.160 believing it. 01:29:10.160 --> 01:29:13.440 And then we went a step further and we say that this 01:29:13.760 --> 01:29:18.080 the word of God doesn't say what it says it says. 01:29:18.080 --> 01:29:20.160 Are we still Christians? 01:29:20.160 --> 01:29:23.120 Is it a Christian church that will do that, that will engage 01:29:23.120 --> 01:29:23.680 in that? 01:29:23.680 --> 01:29:26.960 And when a man comes along and raises these questions as we 01:29:26.960 --> 01:29:31.120 are, rather than shouting him down and saying the worst things imaginable 01:29:31.120 --> 01:29:34.800 about him, is it worth having the conversation? 01:29:34.800 --> 01:29:38.480 Is that is it worth the question, does scripture actually say anything 01:29:38.800 --> 01:29:43.120 about how women should conduct themselves and pastors should conduct themselves and 01:29:43.120 --> 01:29:44.640 men should conduct themselves? 01:29:44.640 --> 01:29:49.200 If Scripture is not silent, is it an acceptable part of Christian 01:29:49.200 --> 01:29:52.640 discourse for us to have these conversations. 01:29:52.640 --> 01:29:55.120 I say yes, Corey, you say yes. 01:29:55.120 --> 01:29:58.480 We're doing this because it is not happening to the degree that 01:29:58.480 --> 01:29:59.760 it should be. 01:29:59.760 --> 01:30:00.080 And 01:30:01.680 --> 01:30:06.880 the fact that there is silence everywhere else is a clear indication 01:30:06.880 --> 01:30:11.040 to me that we are becoming, if not in fact already, an 01:30:11.040 --> 01:30:14.880 apostate church, even while we have the creeds and we have the 01:30:14.880 --> 01:30:18.480 confessions. Because as I said at the beginning, these these things, they're 01:30:18.480 --> 01:30:22.000 not necessarily seminal doctrines, but they're in there. 01:30:22.000 --> 01:30:24.880 And the fact that they weren't talked about a lot in the 01:30:24.880 --> 01:30:28.640 past is because they were so obviously a fundamental part of the 01:30:28.640 --> 01:30:31.840 Christian faith that it was just part and parcel. 01:30:31.840 --> 01:30:34.880 If you're a Christian nation, you didn't have usury, you didn't have 01:30:34.880 --> 01:30:36.480 women working out the side the home. 01:30:36.480 --> 01:30:40.000 You didn't need a bunch of doctrinal treatises because it just didn't 01:30:39.920 --> 01:30:43.120 happen. It was only once people started saying did God really say 01:30:43.920 --> 01:30:47.680 that the discourse began and the the arguments and the discussions. 01:30:47.680 --> 01:30:52.000 And now today the discussions are forbidden because the not that the 01:30:52.000 --> 01:30:55.200 question has been settled, but that the question has been nullified. 01:30:55.440 --> 01:31:00.800 The question is no longer a permissible question because it upsets people. 01:31:00.800 --> 01:31:02.480 It gets feelings hurt. 01:31:02.480 --> 01:31:06.480 It's not winsome to say, well, maybe Dan, you're if your wife 01:31:06.480 --> 01:31:08.480 works at the home, I don't I don't know if she does, 01:31:08.480 --> 01:31:10.640 she probably does, but I they almost all do. 01:31:10.640 --> 01:31:13.280 Like there are a lot of good pastors whose wives work outside 01:31:13.280 --> 01:31:14.880 the home. 01:31:14.880 --> 01:31:17.120 Am I saying that they're all sinning? 01:31:17.120 --> 01:31:19.360 Yes. Am I angry at them? 01:31:19.360 --> 01:31:20.560 No. It's concerned. 01:31:21.040 --> 01:31:23.920 It's the it's concern at the fact that we as a church, 01:31:24.160 --> 01:31:30.000 we as Christians are living lives with clean consciences when our consciences 01:31:30.000 --> 01:31:31.360 shouldn't be clean. 01:31:31.360 --> 01:31:34.560 If God said something and we just ignore it and we pretend 01:31:35.040 --> 01:31:38.240 it's not there, or we attack it and say we're ashamed and 01:31:38.240 --> 01:31:42.480 disgraced by it, are we Christian? 01:31:42.720 --> 01:31:45.680 I I it's a it's a question that you and I, Corey, 01:31:45.680 --> 01:31:48.080 struggle in private conversation all the time. 01:31:48.080 --> 01:31:51.200 Like, what do you do with a man who will continuously conduct 01:31:51.200 --> 01:31:55.040 him this way, himself this way, in the face of scripture? 01:31:55.040 --> 01:31:55.360 And 01:31:56.240 --> 01:31:59.280 increasingly, when these guys say that we don't have the same the 01:31:59.280 --> 01:32:01.760 same God, I believe 'em. 01:32:01.760 --> 01:32:03.680 I will say yeah. 01:32:03.680 --> 01:32:05.040 I I I have to agree. 01:32:05.040 --> 01:32:08.800 I if if I say what scripture says clearly and what scri 01:32:08.960 --> 01:32:12.400 what the church has always or almost always done and these guys 01:32:12.400 --> 01:32:14.080 say something different. 01:32:14.080 --> 01:32:15.520 What is my guidepost? 01:32:15.520 --> 01:32:18.240 What are we as Christians to do with that? 01:32:18.880 --> 01:32:21.680 They want you to believe the pastor because you got a collar. 01:32:21.680 --> 01:32:23.680 I want to believe God because I don't want to go to 01:32:23.680 --> 01:32:26.480 hell and I want to be a creature who obeys the creator, 01:32:26.400 --> 01:32:30.720 who has given me everything, including pastors to teach these things. 01:32:30.720 --> 01:32:33.840 It's not that I'm trying to do an end run about God's 01:32:33.840 --> 01:32:36.000 created around God's created order. 01:32:36.000 --> 01:32:39.760 It's that his created order is being usurped by wolves who lie 01:32:40.400 --> 01:32:43.440 about God and that is a crisis. 01:32:43.440 --> 01:32:47.600 It's a crisis that needs to be dealt with, and that's why 01:32:47.600 --> 01:32:49.840 we're talking. 01:32:49.840 --> 01:32:52.080 Well, and we've been incredibly clear. 01:32:52.080 --> 01:32:53.840 Neither one of us is a pastor. 01:32:53.840 --> 01:32:58.480 However, we are teachers. 01:32:58.480 --> 01:33:02.480 No, we don't have degrees, but Christianity is not a matter of 01:33:02.480 --> 01:33:04.320 which degrees you have acquired. 01:33:04.320 --> 01:33:08.080 Yes, we do agree with seminary education and formal education, although we 01:33:08.080 --> 01:33:11.440 are both educated, of course, but we do agree with these things 01:33:11.520 --> 01:33:14.880 as part of proper order, but it is not absolutely required, and 01:33:14.880 --> 01:33:17.280 when no one else is standing up and saying the things that 01:33:17.280 --> 01:33:21.120 need to be said, it falls to all men in the church 01:33:21.120 --> 01:33:21.760 to do so. 01:33:21.760 --> 01:33:24.640 So if we weren't doing it, those of you who are listening, 01:33:24.640 --> 01:33:27.840 it would be incumbent on you to do it instead. 01:33:27.840 --> 01:33:32.320 And so a tree is known by its fruit. 01:33:32.320 --> 01:33:36.480 What is the fruit of these pastors, of these men to abuse 01:33:36.480 --> 01:33:37.600 the term? 01:33:37.600 --> 01:33:39.200 Well, we know. 01:33:39.200 --> 01:33:43.120 Young men are leaving the churches in droves, and they are not 01:33:43.120 --> 01:33:44.880 coming back. 01:33:44.880 --> 01:33:46.400 Because the church has been turned into 01:33:47.280 --> 01:33:50.400 something other than the church. 01:33:50.400 --> 01:33:54.160 It has become some sort of social club where you go and 01:33:54.160 --> 01:33:58.160 hear that Jesus loves you, sing a little bit, and go home. 01:33:58.160 --> 01:34:01.120 Maybe the sacrament is in there at some point. 01:34:01.120 --> 01:34:04.400 Hopefully, at least with Lutheran churches it still is, although some still 01:34:04.400 --> 01:34:09.280 don't practice it weekly, but that's another discussion for another day. 01:34:09.280 --> 01:34:11.120 And so you drive young men away. 01:34:11.120 --> 01:34:15.120 Well, if you're driving young men away, young men are supposed to 01:34:15.120 --> 01:34:19.040 be the heads of future households, or if they're already married, the 01:34:19.040 --> 01:34:20.640 head of that household. 01:34:20.640 --> 01:34:24.800 And so if you drive them away, you are either not going 01:34:24.800 --> 01:34:28.480 to wind up having Christian households formed, or you're going to wind 01:34:28.480 --> 01:34:32.400 up with a church full of women who don't get married or 01:34:32.400 --> 01:34:34.160 get married to unbelievers. 01:34:34.160 --> 01:34:38.880 And so obviously what these men what they're doing, it's obviously wicked, 01:34:38.880 --> 01:34:42.240 because the options are the tree is known by its fruit, well 01:34:42.320 --> 01:34:45.360 we know this is a poisonous tree because it has poisonous fruit, 01:34:45.360 --> 01:34:48.880 or God lied when he said his word doesn't return to him 01:34:48.880 --> 01:34:53.120 void. God lied when we have all these blessings, when we when 01:34:53.120 --> 01:34:55.520 David says, I believe that I will look on the good of 01:34:55.520 --> 01:34:58.880 the Lord in the land of the living. 01:34:58.880 --> 01:35:02.640 The church is anything but blessed today, and that is incredibly obvious 01:35:02.720 --> 01:35:04.400 if you look at what is happening. 01:35:04.400 --> 01:35:10.160 And so there is something dangerously wrong in the modern church. 01:35:10.160 --> 01:35:14.480 And as mentioned, these doctrines, many of them, look like minor things, 01:35:14.480 --> 01:35:19.200 and they are in fact minor compared to the major doctrines. 01:35:19.200 --> 01:35:23.360 Yes it is worse to get justification wrong than to get usury 01:35:23.520 --> 01:35:28.720 wrong. But Satan is crafty, and Satan knows if he comes out 01:35:28.720 --> 01:35:32.880 with a full frontal assault on justification, okay fine, Rome will fall 01:35:32.880 --> 01:35:35.840 for it, but the rest of us won't. 01:35:35.840 --> 01:35:39.200 So he won't do that, because you don't attack your enemy full 01:35:39.200 --> 01:35:41.840 on. You attack his flank, you attack him where he's weak, you 01:35:41.840 --> 01:35:43.440 sneak in behind. 01:35:43.440 --> 01:35:46.160 That's how you win in a battle, and that is exactly what 01:35:46.160 --> 01:35:47.280 Satan is doing. 01:35:47.280 --> 01:35:49.920 And so he'll find a minor doctrine. 01:35:49.920 --> 01:35:54.160 Or he'll find a minor doctrine plus an opportunity because of the 01:35:54.160 --> 01:35:56.480 current state of the world, so for instance, when we mentioned the 01:35:56.480 --> 01:36:00.400 world wars, well, we need women to work because we don't have 01:36:00.400 --> 01:36:02.400 a large enough workforce. 01:36:02.400 --> 01:36:05.120 Well now we've set the precedent, so now women can just work 01:36:05.120 --> 01:36:05.920 outside the home. 01:36:06.240 --> 01:36:09.440 And of course we could talk about the actual economic fallout of 01:36:09.440 --> 01:36:12.640 that, and no, you don't actually get twice the income, you get 01:36:12.640 --> 01:36:14.400 significantly less income. 01:36:14.400 --> 01:36:18.560 Because that's how economics works, but different discussion perhaps for a different 01:36:18.560 --> 01:36:24.720 podcast. And so Satan attacks these seemingly minor doctrines. 01:36:24.720 --> 01:36:26.320 And that's his toehold. 01:36:26.320 --> 01:36:28.000 And that's all he needs. 01:36:28.000 --> 01:36:32.640 Because once you seed that, you've actually seeded a major doctrine already, 01:36:32.640 --> 01:36:36.400 because you have ceded that you truly believe Scripture is the Word 01:36:36.400 --> 01:36:37.280 of God. 01:36:37.280 --> 01:36:41.040 Because if you think that you are free to ignore anything in 01:36:41.040 --> 01:36:43.840 Scripture, then you do not believe it is the Word of God. 01:36:43.840 --> 01:36:47.920 You have rejected the author of Scripture by rejecting the nature of 01:36:47.920 --> 01:36:51.520 Scripture. And that is where we are today, and that is the 01:36:51.520 --> 01:36:54.800 reason we bring up these minor issues and why we'll continue to 01:36:54.800 --> 01:36:59.760 do podcasts of episodes of this type to address these seemingly minor 01:36:59.760 --> 01:37:06.640 issues. Because you cannot abandon a square inch of territory to Satan. 01:37:06.640 --> 01:37:08.320 Because that's all he needs 01:37:10.960 --> 01:37:15.040 And so to wrap up, I wanna mention just briefly, won't go 01:37:15.040 --> 01:37:18.960 into too much detail on it, head cover coverings for girls in 01:37:18.960 --> 01:37:19.760 church. 01:37:21.440 --> 01:37:23.280 It's obviously a minor point. 01:37:23.680 --> 01:37:26.160 It's uh it's a question that 01:37:27.440 --> 01:37:31.120 really was forgotten like in in my lifetime. 01:37:31.120 --> 01:37:35.440 I haven't heard it discussed elsewhere uh until fairly recently when when 01:37:35.600 --> 01:37:39.760 as we alluded to in some a couple recent episodes, that there's 01:37:39.680 --> 01:37:44.400 an increasing number of Zoomers and millennials, both young men and 01:37:45.280 --> 01:37:50.320 young women and married couples who are beginning to head cover. 01:37:50.320 --> 01:37:53.360 The wives are covering their heads in church. 01:37:53.360 --> 01:37:56.800 And it's making people uncomfortable. 01:37:56.800 --> 01:38:01.920 It's making people uncomfortable because it looks anachronistic and it raises a 01:38:01.920 --> 01:38:06.880 question that no one wants to ask, let alone answer. 01:38:06.880 --> 01:38:08.880 So I was actually shocked by this. 01:38:08.880 --> 01:38:11.360 I didn't I didn't know until I was doing the research for 01:38:11.360 --> 01:38:12.720 this part of the episode 01:38:13.680 --> 01:38:16.880 where head covering was lost in the Christian church. 01:38:16.880 --> 01:38:20.000 I knew it was fairly recent, you know, kind of from photographs 01:38:20.000 --> 01:38:22.240 and stuff, but I had no idea. 01:38:22.240 --> 01:38:26.240 So in the spirit of the genealogy of ideas, let me give 01:38:26.240 --> 01:38:29.680 you the a brief genealogy here. 01:38:29.680 --> 01:38:35.520 Betty Frieden was born Betty Naomi Goldstein on February 4th, 1921, in 01:38:35.520 --> 01:38:41.040 Puria, Illinois, to Harry and Miriam Horowitz Goldstein, whose Jewish families for 01:38:41.120 --> 01:38:43.200 were from Russia in Australia and Hungary. 01:38:43.200 --> 01:38:48.720 In nineteen sixty-six Frieden Goldstein was instrumental in the founding and success 01:38:48.720 --> 01:38:51.920 of the National Organization of Women, or Now. 01:38:51.920 --> 01:38:56.960 In nineteen sixty-eight, Now became the first national organization to endorse the 01:38:56.960 --> 01:38:59.840 legalization of abortion. 01:38:59.840 --> 01:39:02.080 Now, you've probably heard some of that. 01:39:02.080 --> 01:39:04.000 Maybe you didn't know she was Jewish or you don't care. 01:39:04.000 --> 01:39:05.360 You don't think that means anything. 01:39:05.360 --> 01:39:07.200 It's not relevant to this discussion. 01:39:07.200 --> 01:39:09.600 It will be for for a future episode. 01:39:09.600 --> 01:39:15.360 But listen to what else Betty Frieden Goldstein did in nineteen sixty 01:39:15.360 --> 01:39:19.360 eight with the National Organization for Women. 01:39:19.360 --> 01:39:22.240 Resolution on head coverings. 01:39:22.240 --> 01:39:26.960 Whereas the wearing of a head covering by women at religious religious 01:39:26.960 --> 01:39:31.360 services is a custom in many churches, and whereas it is a 01:39:31.360 --> 01:39:33.120 symbol of subjection. 01:39:33.120 --> 01:39:39.440 Subjection within these churches now recommends that all chapters undertake an effort 01:39:39.440 --> 01:39:44.080 to have all women participate in a national unveiling by sending their 01:39:44.080 --> 01:39:46.880 head coverings to the task force chairman immediately. 01:39:47.120 --> 01:39:50.960 At the spring meeting the task force on women in religion, these 01:39:50.960 --> 01:39:55.520 will these veils will then be publicly burned to protest the second 01:39:55.520 --> 01:39:58.720 class citizen of women in all the churches. 01:39:58.720 --> 01:40:00.400 Now holy cow. 01:40:00.400 --> 01:40:01.920 Nineteen sixty eight. 01:40:01.920 --> 01:40:03.760 That's living memory. 01:40:03.760 --> 01:40:08.320 That means that the boomers in our congreg congregations, who might be 01:40:08.320 --> 01:40:11.600 startled and and act like they've never seen a veil before, when 01:40:11.600 --> 01:40:14.560 they were kids, they were veiling. 01:40:14.560 --> 01:40:16.720 They had to be because everyone was doing it. 01:40:16.720 --> 01:40:20.240 And even now recognized that it was the custom in many churches. 01:40:20.240 --> 01:40:21.440 It was normal. 01:40:21.440 --> 01:40:24.400 And as one of the most conservative bodies in the in the 01:40:24.400 --> 01:40:29.040 country, it was certainly normal abundant among confessional Lutherans. 01:40:29.040 --> 01:40:30.960 So what happened? 01:40:30.960 --> 01:40:35.040 The Jewish lady and certain in charge of creating the national organization 01:40:35.040 --> 01:40:39.600 for women who was personally responsible for setting off the firestorm that 01:40:39.600 --> 01:40:45.760 caused abortion to be legalized, the mass murder of children, simultaneously in 01:40:45.760 --> 01:40:50.880 the same year, incinerated veils in our churches. 01:40:50.880 --> 01:40:56.560 Now Now, the reason that I mention this is that today when 01:40:56.560 --> 01:41:00.320 the discussion of veiling, which is just it's we're just at the 01:41:00.320 --> 01:41:05.120 cusp of this discussion actually being had in our churches, any pastor 01:41:05.200 --> 01:41:08.320 you talk to, when you say, hey, there's you, I'm not going 01:41:08.320 --> 01:41:10.560 to read the whole thing as we're getting long on time, go 01:41:10.560 --> 01:41:12.640 read first first Corinthians 11. 01:41:12.640 --> 01:41:18.080 There's an extensive passage there where God discusses the nature of men 01:41:18.080 --> 01:41:21.600 and women and the headship of a man over a woman as 01:41:21.680 --> 01:41:26.400 of Christ over the church and the symbol of submission and piety 01:41:26.400 --> 01:41:30.400 that the veil represents and how it is commanded for girls to 01:41:30.400 --> 01:41:31.520 cover their heads in church. 01:41:31.520 --> 01:41:35.200 That's in scripture, plainly, unequivocally. 01:41:35.200 --> 01:41:39.520 Now, when you talk to a pastor or most Lutherans who are 01:41:39.520 --> 01:41:43.120 trying to be pious and you say, hey, this thing in scripture 01:41:43.120 --> 01:41:48.480 says that we should be doing this practice, the immediate, almost guaranteed 01:41:48.480 --> 01:41:51.440 response is gonna be to say, Well, let's go look back at 01:41:51.440 --> 01:41:54.160 sixty AD and see what the cultural context was. 01:41:54.160 --> 01:41:57.760 Let's go see what environment Paul was talking in. 01:41:57.760 --> 01:42:01.360 Now, there are times when that's the right question. 01:42:01.360 --> 01:42:03.600 Is it the right question for veiling? 01:42:03.600 --> 01:42:05.840 No. It is utterly duplicitous. 01:42:05.840 --> 01:42:08.400 The right question for veiling is when did it go away? 01:42:08.400 --> 01:42:11.600 And the answer is it went away fift fifty years ago. 01:42:11.600 --> 01:42:14.000 It went away after nineteen sixty eight because that was just the 01:42:14.000 --> 01:42:16.960 kickoff. That was the very first time that there been an open, 01:42:16.960 --> 01:42:21.440 overt attack on girls veiling their heads in church. 01:42:21.440 --> 01:42:26.640 Specifically to liberate them from the subjugation by men. 01:42:26.640 --> 01:42:27.600 That was the entire point. 01:42:27.840 --> 01:42:29.920 That's the key point right there is Yeah. 01:42:29.920 --> 01:42:35.040 The adversary knew exactly what he was doing and we'll precisely 01:42:35.680 --> 01:42:37.760 and so it happened after that. 01:42:38.240 --> 01:42:40.640 It was in the 70s that this stuff went away. 01:42:40.640 --> 01:42:44.400 And here, just fifty years later, suddenly we have to go all 01:42:44.400 --> 01:42:47.040 the way back to the first century church to try to understand 01:42:47.040 --> 01:42:47.920 it. No. 01:42:47.920 --> 01:42:50.400 Well, I'll put the link in the show notes so you can 01:42:50.400 --> 01:42:51.520 read for yourself. 01:42:51.520 --> 01:42:55.600 There's an there's a very good Wikipedia article on Christian head covering. 01:42:55.600 --> 01:42:56.480 That's the title of it. 01:42:56.480 --> 01:42:58.480 You can find yourself where you can follow the link. 01:42:58.480 --> 01:43:02.320 It goes into detail or on where it was practiced, and it 01:43:02.320 --> 01:43:02.960 was universal. 01:43:03.360 --> 01:43:05.200 Not it not literally universal. 01:43:05.200 --> 01:43:06.560 It was virtually universal. 01:43:06.560 --> 01:43:10.400 It was found almost everywhere for two thousand years and before that 01:43:10.480 --> 01:43:12.720 because the Jews covered their heads too. 01:43:12.720 --> 01:43:18.560 So it is effectively the it's functionally the universal practice of believers 01:43:18.800 --> 01:43:24.560 that girls are veiled in church until Betty Goldstein Frieden came along 01:43:24.560 --> 01:43:29.360 in 1968 and changed church doctrine to the point today, then not 01:43:29.360 --> 01:43:32.800 only will pastors agree with it and say, well, that's misogynistic, that's 01:43:32.800 --> 01:43:35.200 chauvinistic, that's sexist. 01:43:35.200 --> 01:43:42.400 They're parroting a Jewish woman who sacrificed children to Satan, to her 01:43:42.400 --> 01:43:47.600 God. They're parroting one of the most ego evil organizations ever to 01:43:47.600 --> 01:43:50.080 exist in the history of the world. 01:43:50.080 --> 01:43:53.600 And they're doing it in the name of second wave feminism because 01:43:53.600 --> 01:43:55.360 that's a good thing. 01:43:55.920 --> 01:43:57.200 that's winsome. 01:43:57.200 --> 01:43:58.480 That's loving. 01:43:58.880 --> 01:44:02.880 how can you love women if you want them to cover their 01:44:02.880 --> 01:44:04.560 heads? How is that not hateful? 01:44:04.560 --> 01:44:06.720 How is that not subjection? 01:44:06.720 --> 01:44:11.200 So go read first Corinthians eleven, go read the Wikipedia article, and 01:44:11.200 --> 01:44:16.000 then think about the fact that church doctrine and practice changed because 01:44:16.000 --> 01:44:19.440 of what a pagan organization did in the 70s. 01:44:19.600 --> 01:44:21.040 Just think about that on your own. 01:44:21.040 --> 01:44:22.480 I'm not even gonna draw a conclusion for you. 01:44:22.960 --> 01:44:27.040 When I talk about genealogy of ideas, that's exactly what I mean. 01:44:27.040 --> 01:44:28.640 Where did this come from? 01:44:28.640 --> 01:44:30.480 Don't tell me it came from scripture. 01:44:30.480 --> 01:44:35.360 Don't try to find a proof text to sanctify the modern practice. 01:44:35.360 --> 01:44:39.760 Tell me why it went away after thousands of years of universal 01:44:40.080 --> 01:44:41.680 continuous application. 01:44:41.680 --> 01:44:42.960 Why did it disappear? 01:44:42.960 --> 01:44:46.320 There's only one answer, and it has a name. 01:44:47.120 --> 01:44:50.400 If pastors or others want to go back and look at the 01:44:50.400 --> 01:44:54.960 cultural context, I am perfectly content to do that with them. 01:44:54.960 --> 01:44:58.400 Because as soon as they're done with whatever their little spiel is, 01:44:58.400 --> 01:45:01.520 I'm just going to point out, well, actually, what it says in 01:45:01.520 --> 01:45:06.800 scripture here is that women have the covering because they are supposed 01:45:06.800 --> 01:45:08.640 to have a symbol of authority. 01:45:08.640 --> 01:45:09.520 So the symbol of authority 01:45:10.560 --> 01:45:12.000 is required. 01:45:12.000 --> 01:45:13.840 That is what scripture says. 01:45:13.840 --> 01:45:17.120 The example given is the head covering, so if you're offering an 01:45:17.120 --> 01:45:19.760 alternative to the head covering that is a symbol of authority for 01:45:19.760 --> 01:45:21.760 women to have on them in church and you want them to 01:45:21.760 --> 01:45:24.800 have that, by all means, please stand in front of the congregation 01:45:24.800 --> 01:45:25.840 and announce that. 01:45:25.840 --> 01:45:27.760 I will support you. 01:45:27.760 --> 01:45:30.320 But the history of the church is the head covering, and the 01:45:30.320 --> 01:45:33.120 head covering is good for order, and there is no reason to 01:45:33.120 --> 01:45:36.400 abandon traditions that are good. 01:45:36.400 --> 01:45:36.800 And not 01:45:36.800 --> 01:45:37.840 merely tradition, but 01:45:38.720 --> 01:45:41.040 it's not merely a tradition, it's a commandment from God. 01:45:41.040 --> 01:45:42.080 I'm I'm glad you mentioned it. 01:45:42.480 --> 01:45:44.960 The symbol of authority is a commandment from God, yes. 01:45:44.960 --> 01:45:47.680 Yep. I'm gonna read just that one verse. 01:45:47.680 --> 01:45:50.000 It's right from the middle of 1 Corinthians 11. 01:45:50.000 --> 01:45:52.240 Read the whole thing, but this is just period cherry picking one 01:45:52.240 --> 01:45:54.880 verse because I want to highlight one of the arguments that actually 01:45:54.880 --> 01:45:57.840 illustrates our point perfectly. 01:45:57.840 --> 01:46:00.640 That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority 01:46:00.640 --> 01:46:03.520 on her head because of the angels. 01:46:03.520 --> 01:46:09.600 Now, the insidious false Christian will read that whole thing and highlight 01:46:09.840 --> 01:46:12.560 because of the angels and say, well, what does that mean? 01:46:12.560 --> 01:46:16.480 I'll tell you truthfully, I've read a bunch of different answers and 01:46:16.640 --> 01:46:19.040 ex speculation and explanation. 01:46:19.040 --> 01:46:21.280 I don't know what because of the angels means. 01:46:21.280 --> 01:46:22.560 And I don't care. 01:46:22.560 --> 01:46:24.560 That's the entire point. 01:46:24.560 --> 01:46:27.440 The reason that we did the episode last week talking about the 01:46:27.440 --> 01:46:30.160 perspicuity of scripture and why it is so 01:46:31.120 --> 01:46:33.440 You believe it and then you try to understand it. 01:46:33.440 --> 01:46:35.840 And if you don't understand it, you still believe it. 01:46:35.840 --> 01:46:38.960 So when God says that is why a wimble woman ought to 01:46:38.960 --> 01:46:42.160 have a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her 01:46:42.160 --> 01:46:45.600 head. And I I'm I didn't look, but I would guess that 01:46:45.600 --> 01:46:49.200 wife is probably the feminine, probably means wife, girl. 01:46:49.200 --> 01:46:52.320 It's uh it's it probably encompasses all of them. 01:46:52.320 --> 01:46:55.680 She's to have a symbol on her head, and the clause because 01:46:55.680 --> 01:46:58.560 of the angels, if I don't know what that means, if you 01:46:58.560 --> 01:47:00.880 don't know what that means, that's not a get out of jail 01:47:00.880 --> 01:47:01.600 free card. 01:47:01.600 --> 01:47:04.800 You can't say well that could mean anything, so this doesn't apply. 01:47:04.800 --> 01:47:10.080 Because it's not like he said because of the Roman laws or 01:47:10.080 --> 01:47:12.080 because of the Egyptians. 01:47:12.480 --> 01:47:15.360 when Paul wrote that, he wasn't talking about something material. 01:47:15.360 --> 01:47:17.920 He was talking about something immortal. 01:47:18.160 --> 01:47:20.640 When he says because of the angels, if we don't have an 01:47:20.640 --> 01:47:25.840 explanation, all we have to know is that the because of was 01:47:26.000 --> 01:47:27.520 intended to be explanatory. 01:47:27.520 --> 01:47:30.320 Even if it's not explanatory, it's not the justification. 01:47:30.320 --> 01:47:32.320 The justification is that God said it. 01:47:32.480 --> 01:47:37.280 And when he specifically says because of the angels, and he's referring 01:47:37.280 --> 01:47:40.080 to something eternal, all you have to know, even if you have 01:47:40.080 --> 01:47:42.960 no idea what that means, is that the angels haven't changed. 01:47:42.960 --> 01:47:45.680 So whatever Paul was talking about hasn't changed. 01:47:45.680 --> 01:47:49.120 It applied then, it applies now, it applies in heaven, it applies 01:47:49.120 --> 01:47:53.120 everywhere. Because girls do not stop having a head, that is their 01:47:53.120 --> 01:47:54.800 husband or their father. 01:47:54.800 --> 01:47:56.800 It is always going to be there. 01:47:56.800 --> 01:47:59.920 My father will always be my father, even in heaven. 01:47:59.920 --> 01:48:01.360 That doesn't change. 01:48:01.360 --> 01:48:03.360 Headship doesn't change. 01:48:03.360 --> 01:48:06.160 God is a god of hierarchy and order. 01:48:06.160 --> 01:48:08.160 And it's not a free for all in heaven. 01:48:08.160 --> 01:48:09.920 It's not going to be a free for all in the new 01:48:09.920 --> 01:48:12.400 earth. There will still be ranks. 01:48:12.320 --> 01:48:16.800 and when this alludes to the the passage about there being neither 01:48:16.800 --> 01:48:21.440 marriage nor giving in marriage, I think that that's clearly about procreation 01:48:21.600 --> 01:48:26.000 and not specifically about the relationship because the fourth commandment demonstrates that 01:48:26.000 --> 01:48:28.400 those relationships are preserved. 01:48:28.640 --> 01:48:29.680 they're eternal. 01:48:29.680 --> 01:48:31.120 You have a father and a mother. 01:48:31.120 --> 01:48:34.880 Well if if you say that no neither marriage nor giving in 01:48:34.880 --> 01:48:38.080 marriage means that she's not but she's my mom, but he's my 01:48:38.080 --> 01:48:40.000 dad, but they have no relation. 01:48:40.000 --> 01:48:42.480 No, I I I can't accept that. 01:48:42.480 --> 01:48:46.240 These are eternal matters and they're eternal commands because again, it's the 01:48:46.240 --> 01:48:51.360 eternal will of God that these things be practiced and passed down. 01:48:51.680 --> 01:48:55.920 as tradition because they're necessary. 01:48:56.320 --> 01:48:59.920 The word there in First Corinthians is in fact gune, it is 01:49:00.080 --> 01:49:04.160 wife or woman. 01:49:04.160 --> 01:49:07.440 And so as we close out this episode, I want to go 01:49:07.440 --> 01:49:11.840 over a few quick housekeeping matters and then a sort of summary 01:49:11.840 --> 01:49:12.160 of 01:49:13.120 --> 01:49:17.680 not just the episode, but also generally what we are doing with 01:49:17.680 --> 01:49:19.600 this podcast. 01:49:19.600 --> 01:49:23.280 And so you may have noticed this is a slightly different episode 01:49:23.280 --> 01:49:25.440 type. It was a sort of grab bag. 01:49:25.440 --> 01:49:31.040 We are going over various questions, issues in Christianity. 01:49:31.040 --> 01:49:35.120 In this particular episode, we were going over things that are in 01:49:35.120 --> 01:49:39.120 Scripture, but the church has largely abandoned. 01:49:39.120 --> 01:49:44.160 In the future, this episode type, we may also be answering questions 01:49:44.160 --> 01:49:46.480 or concerns from listeners. 01:49:46.480 --> 01:49:49.680 And so toward that end, we now have a feedback form. 01:49:49.680 --> 01:49:54.320 You can go to the website stone-choir.com slash feedback. 01:49:54.320 --> 01:49:58.240 I just set up that form, very simple form right now, maybe 01:49:58.240 --> 01:50:02.240 a little more complicated in the future, but feel free to send 01:50:02.240 --> 01:50:06.880 us questions, concerns, hate mail if you're so inclined, whatever you feel 01:50:06.880 --> 01:50:07.920 like sending 01:50:09.280 --> 01:50:11.760 so that's pretty much the the housekeeping. 01:50:11.760 --> 01:50:14.640 I may make a separate feed for these episodes for those who 01:50:14.640 --> 01:50:18.160 want to have them segregated out from the regular ones. 01:50:18.160 --> 01:50:19.360 So if you have 01:50:20.640 --> 01:50:24.000 concerns or questions you want to quickly look at an episode, you 01:50:24.000 --> 01:50:29.440 can sort of differentiate the types of episodes that we have. 01:50:29.440 --> 01:50:33.520 And the housekeeping done as a sort of summary 01:50:34.480 --> 01:50:41.120 of what we're doing here, ultimately we are defending the truth. 01:50:41.120 --> 01:50:45.440 And we are defending the truth in this particular episode by defending 01:50:45.440 --> 01:50:51.280 things that are in scripture, that are often very clear in Scripture, 01:50:51.280 --> 01:50:55.440 and that modern Christians have abandoned, or in some cases not so 01:50:55.440 --> 01:50:59.200 modern, when it comes to shaking the dust off your sandals. 01:51:01.040 --> 01:51:06.640 And we defend these things because Satan today is attacking the first 01:51:06.640 --> 01:51:12.320 article. During the Reformation and in the century or two leading up 01:51:12.320 --> 01:51:16.080 to the Reformation, Satan was attacking the second article. 01:51:16.080 --> 01:51:18.480 Satan was attacking justification. 01:51:18.480 --> 01:51:22.560 He was attacking the heart of the faith. 01:51:22.560 --> 01:51:22.880 But 01:51:24.160 --> 01:51:29.600 if we lose the first article, we lose the faith no less 01:51:29.600 --> 01:51:34.320 certainly than if we had lost the second article during the Middle 01:51:34.480 --> 01:51:41.200 Ages. Because when you fight over truth, what is truth? 01:51:41.200 --> 01:51:43.120 Well, God is truth. 01:51:43.120 --> 01:51:47.680 And so if you abandon the truth, ultimately what you are actually 01:51:47.680 --> 01:51:50.240 abandoning is God. 01:51:50.240 --> 01:51:50.960 Because to deny 01:51:51.840 --> 01:51:57.040 any truth is to deny all truth. 01:51:57.040 --> 01:52:03.600 That is why we are fighting for these seemingly minor issues. 01:52:03.600 --> 01:52:07.120 Because when it comes down to it, fighting over whether or not 01:52:07.120 --> 01:52:11.760 a woman wears a veil in church is a relatively minor issue 01:52:12.080 --> 01:52:14.560 in and of itself. 01:52:14.560 --> 01:52:18.160 But it is not a minor issue because of what it represents 01:52:18.640 --> 01:52:22.960 if you get it wrong, and ignoring it incidentally is getting it 01:52:22.960 --> 01:52:28.320 wrong. Because the veil is a marker of headship, and so if 01:52:28.320 --> 01:52:31.280 you get the veil wrong, you get headship wrong. 01:52:31.840 --> 01:52:35.200 The veil and headship are both truths. 01:52:35.200 --> 01:52:38.000 If you get those wrong, you get truth wrong. 01:52:38.000 --> 01:52:41.280 If you get that wrong, you lose God. 01:52:41.280 --> 01:52:45.680 There are no small doctrinal errors, and that is why they are 01:52:46.480 --> 01:52:48.320 all worth the fight. 01:52:48.320 --> 01:52:53.840 Every hill, when it comes to Scripture, is worth dying on. 01:52:53.840 --> 01:52:55.680 So where Scripture is silent 01:52:56.800 --> 01:52:57.120 we 01:52:58.400 --> 01:53:00.720 do not necessarily have to speak. 01:53:00.720 --> 01:53:04.240 We can speak, it is a matter of wisdom, where scripture is 01:53:04.240 --> 01:53:08.160 silent, where scripture is not silent. 01:53:08.160 --> 01:53:12.800 We are not permitted to be silent. 01:53:12.800 --> 01:53:18.800 Those who decline to defend the truth sin in so doing, and 01:53:18.800 --> 01:53:21.280 they risk losing God. 01:53:22.560 --> 01:53:24.560 Fight Fight the good fight.