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0:48
This is Undaunted Life Man's Podcast.
0:51
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:53
Let's get into it.
0:54
All right, guys.
0:55
Welcome back to the forging table.
0:56
The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
0:59
forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:02
So at the forging table, you'll see a group of regular guides forging spiritual resilience
1:06
by digging into God's word and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with
1:10
us.
1:11
So before we get into first Timothy 3, we need to do some introductions because we got
1:15
a new because that's Matt.
1:17
That's Derek.
1:18
You guys know them.
1:19
But now we got Zach Todd.
1:20
So Zach, this is your first time.
1:21
And so how we introduce people that are at the forging table for the first time.
1:24
We got about two minutes answered three questions.
1:26
When and how did you come to faith in Christ?
1:29
How do you like to study the Bible and how does your brain work?
1:32
So and if you forget any of those, we can remind you but start, you know, when and how
1:36
did you come to faith in Christ?
1:37
How do you like study the Bible?
1:38
How does your brain work?
1:41
Thanks for having me.
1:42
I appreciate that.
1:43
Yeah, my name's Zach.
1:44
I came to Christ as the result of a long journey.
1:48
I've heard you talk about this many times.
1:49
I grew up in a Christian culture here in Oklahoma, lived all over the country in various places,
1:55
so I was very familiar with it, but definitely was sort of on the run from what I felt like
2:00
was going to be a lot of responsibility if I ever actually accepted it.
2:04
And that took me a long time.
2:05
It took me about 33 years to finally come to the conclusion that I needed to yield and
2:11
authentically give my life to Christ.
2:13
And that came with a whole bunch of lifestyle changes and other things with that and also
2:17
just an unbelievable journey in the last couple of years.
2:21
So that happened in our church here recently.
2:24
And ever since then, it's just been an incredible experience.
2:27
Anything else on that subject?
2:28
No.
2:29
Good.
2:30
So how do you like to study the Bible and then kind of how does your brain work?
2:31
Yeah, so I'm definitely a reader all the time.
2:34
So I typically kind of methodically go through something every morning or throughout the
2:41
day I've got certain chapters and things that I'll be working through always some sort of
2:45
a chapter, a new or Old Testament and generally probably some kind of a proper verb or a Psalm
2:49
as I can kind of work through that and trying to compare the two.
2:52
I've gone through the note taking process and all that stuff.
2:55
But honestly, I think my objective is to kind of be like, like Phil on Duck Dynasty, you
2:58
mentioned some things where you're just absorbing it.
3:00
So it's in there.
3:01
Yeah.
3:02
And I find that I can recall that and that's what's most helpful for me.
3:05
And so you're, are you more of a respond quickly once you get a thought in your head?
3:10
Do you like to chew on it?
3:11
Because that's, that's part of the thing.
3:12
The people that I asked to be a part of this, everyone kind of has a different thing that
3:15
they bring to the gumbo because I'm like, quickly, chew as fast as possible.
3:18
Whereas other people kind of chew like, are you more of a marinator or do you like to
3:21
just kind of get, get it out of your head as quickly as possible?
3:24
Definitely a marinator.
3:25
I want to process.
3:26
I want to try to understand it from multiple angles and also try to understand it within
3:30
context.
3:31
So when I get exposed to something, it's going to take me a second to kind of process through
3:35
it.
3:36
Okay.
3:37
Well, we'll try to make sure your processing is fast enough to where it creates good content.
3:40
Because if you're processing the entire time and then you wait until the break to say all
3:42
the cool stuff, like, you'll be fired.
3:44
So like that's, we're going to get to as quickly as possible.
3:46
But all right, guys, let's get into first Timothy three.
3:48
So obviously we've been spending a lot of time on, on this letter.
3:53
And this is where the rubber really starts to meet the road in terms of like church, in
3:56
terms of like how church is to be done.
3:58
In the first section of first Timothy three is talking about quality qualifications for
4:03
overseers.
4:04
And so overseers is not really a word that we use in the churches, at least that I've
4:07
been in, but you know, when you look at any commentaries are like, okay, by that they
4:11
mean pastors.
4:12
They mean elders.
4:13
Like that means a lot of different things.
4:15
But I do actually just want to read the first seven verses here because I think it'll kind
4:18
of set us up as we, as we move forward.
4:20
So this is qualifications for overseers and I'm reading from the ESV.
4:24
The saying is trustworthy.
4:25
If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.
4:29
Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober minded, self
4:33
controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle,
4:38
not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
4:40
He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.
4:44
For someone does not know how to manage his own household.
4:47
How will he care for God's church?
4:48
He must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit involved in the condemnation
4:54
of the devil.
4:55
Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into grace into the
5:00
snare of the devil or into disgrace, rather into the snare of the devil.
5:04
So the thing that jumps out at me from the very beginning guys is something that, you
5:07
know, in our current cultural moment, right, regardless of when you guys are listening
5:10
to this, it's going to be relevant is the gender language we see.
5:14
He husband, he, his, his, he, that that's all throughout this section.
5:21
And yet we find so many churches in our modern day, trying to rewrite this section.
5:26
And then we'll get into the next section with with tikens here in a second because I want
5:29
to get y'all's feedback on that.
5:30
But I guess I'm just, I'm confused why so many churches are trying to, I guess, rehash
5:37
this part of the Bible as if like, oh, Paul didn't really mean that.
5:40
That was more of like a language key that he was using at the time.
5:43
Like he's using, you know, this masculine language, but not to describe the male form.
5:48
He's trying to do it.
5:49
Like, for whatever reason, that's what happened, you know, jumped out to me whenever I was
5:52
reading this first section here.
5:53
Yeah.
5:54
I would agree with that.
5:55
I think sometimes it seems like churches just take this letter out of the Bible, did
6:01
they just skip over it and they don't even look at it?
6:03
It's too weird.
6:04
It's too awkward.
6:05
Well, it's like, there's, I mean, you go through this for the first seven verses and
6:08
I can just see in my head, you know, dozens of pastors that I think, man, you probably
6:14
shouldn't be a pastor.
6:15
Like, there's a probably a lot of them out there that just like they don't, they don't
6:20
fall into the parameters that all clearly sets.
6:22
And the thing that stands out to me the most is he opens this paragraph like in the, in
6:28
the first chapter, the first part of his letter, he uses the same type of language where he
6:33
says the saying is trustworthy.
6:35
Like, this is, this is for full acceptance.
6:36
Like, he is throwing the gauntlet down.
6:38
Like, this is something that should be aspired to and like, he's not missing words there.
6:45
He like, he throws that in there on purpose and it's, it is interesting that churches throw
6:50
that out.
6:51
Well, it is.
6:52
I agree.
6:53
And so, um, Matt, to your point, I think it actually goes back to your story deck.
6:57
So my kids and I were having a conversation this morning about people who maybe don't
7:02
fully grasp the gospel or as you're saying, they don't fully grasp the section of this
7:08
letter because if you look at the letter, then you're forced to make a decision and then
7:13
you're forced to take action on that decision.
7:17
And so Zach, it goes back to your story of like, Hey, I was kind of rejecting or just
7:21
pretending that Christianity didn't exist.
7:24
So therefore I didn't have to change my lifestyle.
7:26
Absolutely.
7:27
I mean, when I read this, I don't go to the church.
7:30
I go to myself.
7:31
It's extremely convicting.
7:32
If you think about what this says, you can't hide from it.
7:36
You know, this says that you've got to lead your family, right?
7:38
That your kids have got to be, you know, in line and respecting and all that sort of thing,
7:43
which implies that you've got to be home being an actual man according to the biblical
7:46
description of manhood.
7:48
So so here's the weird thing about the leading the family part that I find odd.
7:52
I know a lot of men and Derek, you and I have talked about this because we've, we've had
7:56
a lot of professional conversations, you know, in the 20 years we've known each other, but
8:00
there are a lot of men that are so impressive in the business space.
8:04
Like they're absolute monsters.
8:05
They just kill it.
8:06
Like you want them to be your CEO during a downturn.
8:09
Like you want that person, but their marriage is in shambles or nonexistent.
8:14
Their kids are absolutely ratchet.
8:16
Like, and you see, you see a lot of that with pastors, like people that have pastor in their
8:20
title and we'll get certainly more into that here in a second, but that just seems very
8:24
odd to me because I'm attracted to competence.
8:27
And so when someone is competent in whatever area of life, I'm like, I'm attracted to that,
8:30
but then you see leaders in the church that are just like, man, but your kids are awful.
8:35
Like in your, telling me how to raise my kids, like I don't, I don't really get it.
8:38
Okay.
8:39
So, um, I work in, um, vocationally inside a family ministry and we run into this often,
8:46
especially with pastors, um, with ministry leaders or with other people.
8:50
So Jesus tells us the story of a, the good shepherd who leaves how many, the 99 to go
8:56
after the one, right?
8:57
Well, a pastor who is pastoring a flock oftentimes does the exact opposite.
9:02
The needs of the 99 or his congregation are so great or so, so immense that he can't,
9:07
I mean, it almost feels sinful to turn his attention away from his congregation.
9:13
And so he faces the 99 and leaves the one, but the one that he leaves is his own family,
9:18
right?
9:19
And so it's that constant draw.
9:21
And so he leaves his family and his families and shambles like you're saying, Kyle, that's
9:25
saying, okay, can I pivot just a little bit?
9:27
Yeah, let's go.
9:28
Okay.
9:29
All right.
9:30
So what struck me, um, I did a lot of diving into this first section, first seven versus
9:34
a first Timothy three.
9:36
First thing that hit me was verse one.
9:38
If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.
9:45
That hit me because it is okay, even within the church to desire or to aspire to leadership
9:53
in the church.
9:54
It shouldn't be like this horrible, you know what, I'm a great leader at work at the office.
9:59
I'm a great leader outside the church, but at church, I'm just, you know, I just don't
10:03
want to do anything.
10:04
It'll be completely passive or it feels wrong to, hey, this church is horrible, but I feel
10:09
like my leadership skills could help make it better.
10:11
What do you guys think about that?
10:13
So like on the aspirational side, it's almost like people are very skeptical of people that
10:18
are aspirational, right?
10:19
People that want to do well, like it's, it's that like high school mindset of like, oh,
10:23
you studied for the test.
10:24
What a loser.
10:25
Like it's like, wait, you wanted to do well on this test.
10:28
And again, when you look back on those people in high school, like the people that studied
10:30
for the test and got good grades where they're at in life and then the people that like made
10:34
fun of the people for studying and in trying really hard.
10:37
And I guess for other people, it's like when things come naturally to them, they don't
10:40
have to work hard.
10:41
And that's the other thing as well.
10:42
Like that that struck me as well, Derek, because it's like, that is a good thing.
10:46
It is a noble task to want to aspire to that.
10:49
But for a lot of alpha people, they walk into church and they like turn that alpha part
10:53
off because they're alpha everywhere else in their life.
10:55
And then they walk into church and be like, okay, this is where, you know, beta succeed,
10:59
I guess to a degree.
11:00
So Matt, hop in, you're giggling because you hop in the same way.
11:03
No, I think that's a good point.
11:05
And I think to Derek's point about aspiring to be that, I think even pastors who are well
11:10
known will take that.
11:13
And not even that it's intentional or malicious, but there's this, there's this underpinning
11:19
in society where it's like, you can't really want that, like that's not something you should
11:23
want.
11:24
And so you hear stories of pastors and I'm convinced that most of them are not real of
11:29
it.
11:30
I didn't want this.
11:31
I didn't want this role.
11:33
It was thrust upon me.
11:34
It's like, dude, you're not George Washington.
11:36
And now here I, it's like, I don't believe that because like every pastor says it.
11:42
And I mean, there's dozens in Oklahoma that I can think of.
11:44
It's like, we're so afraid to say, yeah, I want to, I want to lead in the church.
11:50
And maybe that's being a pastor.
11:52
Maybe that's not.
11:53
But aspiring to lead in the church is, I think something that Paul is calling us to do because
12:02
it's, we should be seeking after those noble things.
12:05
So we should be aspiring to lead in the church.
12:08
And to Zach's point, like this is very convicting, I'm not a, I'm not a pastor in a church.
12:15
I am a pastor in my family.
12:17
And like this, this is, this is for seven verses are just convicting to me as a husband
12:22
and a father because I've got a, I've got a spire to lead in a biblical way there at
12:29
home.
12:30
Yeah.
12:31
And I'd add one thing to that, which is, you know, like Joby Martin, for instance, and
12:36
a lot of good pastors that you'd respect, at least that I do talk a lot about their primary
12:40
role being prayer for the church, studying the word, bringing the word in the right way
12:44
to the congregation. And that means that they need leadership because churches are organizations
12:49
of people and there's all sorts of things happening and, and all of you are created in
12:53
God's image with gifts that you're not supposed to neglect.
12:57
So we should be bringing that to the establishment and seeing it.
13:01
And to that last thing on that to me is, um, I think you're right, Zach, because somebody,
13:06
well, right now, I think the, the pressure on a modern day pastor is to be a real estate
13:13
expert. When it comes to building their church, they have to be a phenomenal divider of God's
13:18
word between truth. They have to, in another one, be in a phenomenal leader of a multi-level
13:23
organization, right? Be this outgoing super leader and then fill this other role and this
13:29
other role. So I think it's okay if I'm looking at this saying, um, able to teach. Okay. So
13:37
if you're looking at a pastor and he's able to teach, right, he doesn't have to be, that
13:42
have to be, don't put that on him to be a real estate expert and understand construction
13:46
and real estate investment and tax law and all this other stuff for his church. Hey,
13:50
if there are other qualified leaders who can step into that role and lead successfully
13:54
and well inside a church, that's great. So let me actually ask, and I don't know that
13:59
I actually believe this, but I'm just kind of playing devil's advocate a little bit here.
14:02
So let's say, you know, you've got these, these standards here of what, what a pastor
14:06
should do and maybe you're, you're talking about a lead pastor or something like that.
14:09
When you hire out all the other things you're bad at, like that makes sense in a modern
14:14
business sense, right?
14:15
So when you go to get your MBA or when you go to all these other places, you read Harvard
14:18
business review and it's like, Hey, you know, I hired out my weaknesses and I just focus
14:22
on my strengths and I really talk about all the time. Part of me is like, okay, but if
14:27
you hired me to come and do like speaking and teaching or something like that for a little
14:31
bit, because that's like my gifting, like I'm not going to have to give an account one
14:35
day for how your flock was shepherded through you are. And so, so for me, I kind of feel
14:40
like it's a little bit of a catch 22 because as a business person that's read, you know,
14:44
Jim Collins is good to great and all these other different things. It's like, yeah,
14:46
yeah, that makes perfect sense. Like, hire these things out. But it's like, what about
14:49
your own personal development as a pastor? Because there are the things you were gifted
14:53
with that God gave you on purpose so that you could do the job that he laid out for you.
14:57
But then it's like, do we just ignore all those other parts? Do we just create this org
15:01
chart structure where everyone's kind of like got their own specific thing? Like, I guess
15:05
I don't know where I would really fall on that because I guess I do. I would lean more
15:08
towards the org chart thing, where it's just like, I suck at this. Like, this is a complete
15:12
waste of my time to do this part of this job. But to a degree, that's their responsibility.
15:17
Does that make sense? Like, I think that makes sense. And I think I'd put a little twist
15:21
on that because I think if you're just hiring out the things that you're not good at, how
15:26
I think you're you're mocking God in a sense that he can't show how powerful and merciful
15:33
and graceful he is and to work through your weaknesses to show that it's not about you.
15:38
It's not about a person. Is God coming forth from your church? And I think if you just
15:44
hire everything out, it's like, well, we got this. We don't need God. We got it. Because
15:50
I'm going to let Kyle do this because he's really good. And I think that's a dangerous
15:55
place to be.
15:56
To me, I think it goes back to a hard issue because if a pastor's heart is to pastor a
16:01
church and lead them closer to Christ, I feel like that's one thing. But if a pastor's heart
16:06
is to grow a multilevel gigantic organization, that's a different thing because then it's
16:13
not you're not growing a church for the church sake. If growth comes as a result of good solid
16:19
teaching and a good solid man who's in a leadership position and there are needs of the organization
16:25
that would take him mission drift away from leading and teaching the organization, I'm
16:30
okay with an org chart.
16:31
Well, see, that's where I feel like most people on the outside. And again, I've kind of adjusted
16:34
my opinions on this. You know, big church doesn't mean bad church, big church doesn't
16:38
mean unhealthy church, those types of things. And I remember, you know, Zach, you brought
16:41
up Joby Martin earlier, like I think it was the first time he was on my show, you know,
16:45
when people would come up to him after service or something like that and ask him for help
16:48
because Derek, to your point, like, you know, everybody is dumping the worst part of their
16:53
life onto their pastor, right? And so the pastor's having to deal with this person cheating
16:58
on their spouse or this person losing their job or this person, you know, dealing with,
17:01
you know, mourning a child that passed away. Like, it's the worst of possible, right?
17:05
That's why I pass or burnout such a legitimate thing. But you know, I remember Joby saying
17:09
like he would ask these people, Hey, do you want me or do you want help? And so he was
17:13
just talking about like, if you want me in a meeting with you and your wife, like going
17:17
through that, like counseling is not my gift. It's not, it's not in my wheelhouse. Like,
17:21
I can get you help, but you have to tell me, do you want me or do you want help? But when
17:24
you see the figurehead up there, you know, with the mic attached to their face, you think
17:28
like, Oh, that's where help comes from. And so I am sympathetic to the argument of like,
17:32
Hey, in order for us to run faster or in order for us to be better overall, like we need
17:37
people in those areas to do those things. Because I just, I go back to this. And then,
17:41
you know, whoever wants to hop in, you know, this part, you know, where it's talking about
17:45
not being quarrelsome and self controlled and those different things. It's like, okay,
17:49
there are some people that are naturally not quarrelsome. And there are some people that
17:52
were born to fight. And so it's like, you know, the not quarrelsome person needs to,
17:56
you know, turn it up a bit. And the person that always wants to fight needs to turn it
17:59
down typically a lot. Right. And so it's like, that is not your excuse to be like, well,
18:04
I'm quarrelsome by nature. So I guess I'm disqualified. It's like, no, you just got
18:08
the blueprint for the crap you need to work on. Right. So I mean, that's, that's kind
18:11
of where I go into it's like, again, that's where I say I'm sympathetic to kind of the
18:14
or chart approach, because it's like, you want the best people to be doing the best things
18:19
in the best way. Because for the health of the flock overall, like, I think that that's
18:25
better personally. I mean, I'm open to critique of my position, but like it, that just seems
18:29
to make more sense to me, even though I'm the one that brought up the opposite position
18:32
to begin with.
18:33
Kind of like what Derek was saying, it's like, it's a hard issue by what standard? By what
18:36
standard are we governing this thing? Like, is it, is it for growth? So okay, cool, we're
18:42
going to bring in a hot social media marketer guy that can that is really great at SEO that's
18:46
going to put our stuff out there. And we're going to get a lot of bucks in the seats.
18:50
Or is it because like John MacArthur is a good example when he started at Grace Community
18:56
Church in California. And if I just butchered that name, I apologize. I think that's the
18:59
name of his church. That is not my church. So I don't go there. So when he started, he
19:04
said, I'm going to come in, I'm going to teach line by line. And they were like, no, that
19:07
will never work. People are going to leave. And he's like, no, I mean, that's how that's
19:10
what I'm supposed to do. And he did in the church grew. And so it like my point is it's
19:15
it's by what standard are we doing things? And he said, I don't care if people leave.
19:19
I'm going to teach the way the Bible calls me to teach. Right. Well, so to that and literally
19:24
last night I watched the video and I can't remember the guy's name. I don't have the
19:26
video with me, but this was a pastor basically talking about expository line by line preaching.
19:32
And he said, if you build your sermon content off of your life, okay, so you create these
19:37
sermons where you're the center point. Hey, I was on a plane and I had this conversation
19:41
with somebody. Hey, my kid soccer practice this happened, those types of things. And
19:45
the church is dependent upon your life experiences. And it's not dependent upon the scripture.
19:51
And the guy was making the points like, look, your life is not the gospel. The gospel is
19:55
the gospel. And so that doesn't mean, excuse me, that doesn't mean that you can, you know,
20:00
completely dismiss everything that happens in your life. Because obviously if you if you
20:03
experience something and that would help somebody else understand a segment of the gospel or
20:06
a segment of the good news, like sure, you know, go ahead and throw that in there. But
20:09
it's like, that's not the point. You're not the point. And I think whenever pastors make
20:13
themselves the point, they are teaching their flock to do the same thing. Like they're saying
20:17
like, Hey, when you read the Bible, you should think of you the whole time, like, and then
20:22
you have to have somebody smack you across face and say, Hey, you know, reminder of the
20:25
Bible is not about you.
20:26
Well, then it becomes a blueprint. And I'm gonna tell you a story. I'm gonna leave out
20:28
names, but I went to a leadership conference a few years ago in this pastor. He was telling
20:33
the story was about his family. I was like, that's a pretty good, this isn't a church
20:36
service is a cool story. And then somebody shared this pastor talking on stage, maybe
20:43
six months later, completely different pastor, telling the exact same story, just changed
20:48
the names for his kids. And then like recently, a couple weeks ago, a pastor that I actually
20:54
know was speaking at a congregation somewhere in the southeast. And he told the exact same
21:00
story. And I'm thinking, whoa, what is happening here? Like, we have not, we have not talked
21:08
at all about the Bible. And we've done this 30 minute story about ourselves. So to your
21:13
point, like that, that, that though kind of goes to, I know this isn't what this letter
21:17
is about, but like, Paul talks about that again, like, people want to hear what they
21:21
want to hear, obviously I'm paraphrasing, but like people, people like that stuff. And so
21:26
that becomes the blueprint. And that's a weird, weird thing to experience.
21:30
Yeah, it's just a weird place to be. And then as pastors again, you know, creating content
21:36
is hard. And if you're a pastor, you have to do that on a weekly basis. And you know,
21:41
you're going to be up there for, you know, 30 to 60 minutes, talking about a particular
21:45
subject and you have to come off smart, you have to come off as beneficial. And you know,
21:50
that really is a kind of a tough thing. One thing that I did want to ask Zach specifically
21:54
because this kind of goes back to the fact that you've been a Christian for such a short
21:57
period of time, the line where it's basically talking about, he must not be a recent convert,
22:02
or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.
22:07
Like, are you offended when you hear something like that? Because like, you know, excuse
22:11
me guys, but you're, you know, you're a smart guy, like you're a well respected guy, like
22:16
those types of things. And so it's like, almost like, Hey, well, why can't I have that job?
22:21
Like I've been just curious, like, as a new Christian, like how you feel about that?
22:24
It scares me. Think about think about some of the people that you know in your life, whether
22:30
they're public figures or personal figures that come out with these claims, and you just
22:35
sit back and watch and you know, everybody is. So when I think about what happened to
22:39
me, it's you know, you're still going to go through a lot of periods of questioning things.
22:44
No question about that, you know, you I live in a world that's very practical and there's
22:49
a lot of scientific stuff happening and all that sort of thing. So you're going to be
22:51
constantly confronted by stuff that's going to pressure your position. And I recognize
22:56
that. So when I read that, what I think is absolutely, and I think I'm just starting
23:00
on that journey and I know it's going to be a while before I would ever feel like I was
23:05
in a position to lead like that. So it's humbling, honestly.
23:10
So I guess I'm curious for the guys here that have been Christians for a long time, like
23:15
how do you feel about that section? To a degree like do you think that's obviously don't counteract
23:21
Paul, but what do you think as long as that lines up with Paul? You can counteract Paul,
23:27
but you're wrong. I would agree with that. I mean, okay, so by what standard? I think
23:35
brings a lot of things into view. Like, if you believe that the Bible is the inherent
23:40
word of God and that the black letters are just as important as the red letters because
23:45
it's all God breathed, then you would you would look at this and go, okay, it's there because
23:50
God wants it there. And he doesn't want inexperienced people just going off the handle because they're
23:57
doing something on a whim. Like you look at a guy like Mark Driscoll, very, very smart,
24:04
intelligent, fiery, passionate guy, really good at teaching the word. He got into trouble
24:10
because he jumped in feet first, had no accountability, had no Paul figure in his life speaking into
24:16
him, you know, pushing back on some of the stuff he was doing. He like, and I think that
24:21
got him into some trouble. And I think you can probably find a bunch of examples there.
24:24
I think that I mean, experience matters. And being a pastor is like you said, like you
24:32
will, you will be held accountable for that in eternity before God. So well, I'll add this.
24:37
Okay. So when I read this, he must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up
24:41
with conceit first, Zach, I appreciate your perspective of that is no, I'm not going to
24:48
actually be offended by that. I'm going to be encouraged by that in the sense that, you
24:54
know, there's more I need to learn or a longer journey until until I feel personally responsible
25:00
or mature enough to lead others inside a church. So I appreciate that perspective. I think from
25:06
a somebody who's probably in a longer believer, I think it is like, you know, I go back to
25:15
you because I'm probably a kid in my maturity level. I think about somebody who went to like
25:19
a church camp, right? And so you got a 17 year old who recently gave their life to Christ.
25:23
And then at 18, they're going, I'm ready to lead a church. No, bra, you got a lot to learn.
25:28
You know what I mean? And the other piece is that they don't fall into condemnation of
25:32
the devil because we who have been believers for a long time, I believe nobody's good enough.
25:38
Truth is I deserve to go to hell. Like I deserve it. And so, but I also understand the grace
25:43
of Jesus Christ. And so a young believer or a new believer feels like, okay, oftentimes
25:49
not I'm not putting that on every new believer, but oftentimes it is, Hey, I'm I'm converting
25:54
I'm following Jesus Christ. But then guess what? Maybe the backslide a little bit. And
25:59
then suddenly they do feel that condemnation. And they, well, then it's a quick backslide
26:05
at that point. If they're not mature in their faith, because it is, well, if I've sinned
26:08
in this one area, I'm on I'm on wrong for and I've fallen down to the bottom. What's the
26:12
point of even climbing again? And so if you put somebody like that in a leadership position
26:17
in an elder position and oversee your position, Oh man, it could it could quickly steer the
26:22
direction of the church or have another impact. I'll I'll say this, I'm going to skip to verse
26:27
seven. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders. You know, it's interesting.
26:32
So I took that outsiders looked it up. That specifically means non-Christians, not just
26:38
people outside of this specific church, but it means non-Christians. What do you think?
26:45
What do you think that is? I would say it's because we're called to be a witness. Like,
26:50
I mean, the story of the Bible is God telling his chosen people to be like, I'm giving you
26:54
these laws so you can be a witness to the world. And if the if there's any impropriety
26:59
or things that you're doing that are outside of my law, like the world sees that and they
27:06
and like that is a stumbling block for them. And then that is also a while you're just
27:11
a hypocrite, like that's not a good witness. And so I think we're called to be witnesses
27:16
to the outside world. The the most crucial piece of that being the pastor, like if the
27:22
pastor can't even look good or seem to be doing good to the outside world, like, that's
27:30
what what chance do we have?
27:31
I think, Matt, there's a key distinction with that distinction is, you know, when you hear
27:35
about these people where it's like, you know, my Jesus, people like my Jesus, they like,
27:40
you know, my Christ or my gospel, it's like, okay, that's dangerous because your job is
27:44
not to make the gospel seem as attractive as possible. It is your job to describe it
27:48
as accurately as possible. And so with that in mind, you know, if you're going to be well
27:53
thought of by outsiders, it can't be because of how much like an outsider you are. And
27:58
so it's like, there are people that believe the gospel to their bones and they don't
28:02
waver on any parts of the gospel. They don't waver on any part of the Bible, even when
28:06
it's icky, in terms of modern culture, they stick to it. But then there's still something
28:10
very attractive about them. There's something that's very, I mean, there was a concept that
28:15
I never really understood that when people would say like, Hey, just live a good life
28:20
and then people will come to you and ask you, Hey, why are you so happy all the time and
28:23
why are your kids so well behaved and blah, blah. And then you can say, well, I've got
28:26
this secret. It's called Christianity. And then like, you know, it's like this thing
28:30
that you pitch to somebody. And it's like, you know, it's like, dude, this isn't a power
28:34
wall. You're like, Hey, how'd you get your brick to look so good on your house? Like
28:37
in your waiting for someone to ask you like even just, you know, that's like passive sales,
28:41
you know, passive salesmen are poor salesmen, essentially. And so I think that's the
28:45
interesting thing as well, Derek, like to even bring up that point is like, non-Christians
28:49
need to be attracted to you, but then still almost want to reject your gospel. But they
28:54
don't want to reject you. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. I think they can disagree
28:58
with you. But I think the consistency that you're talking about is like, I'm going to
29:01
consistently preach the word, but like I'm not going to change. So well, I'll say it this
29:05
way. It's kind of like Steph Curry. Okay. I don't want to like Steph Curry. I don't want
29:11
to like him. I think he's a little conceited. I can't stand the way puts a towel over his
29:15
head and juice on his mouth, beast and all that stuff, right? Like it drives me crazy.
29:17
I want to if I if he was here and I was a lot bigger, I'd punch him in the face. But truth
29:22
is dad, he's kind of a good guy. You know what I mean? Like from the outside, you look
29:29
at it and you're like, okay, he's the husband of one wife. I don't see him being absolutely
29:33
ridiculous in his lifestyle. He's not endorsing these crazy things. His kids seem to like him
29:37
exactly. You know what I mean? So it's like, dad, come it. I guess I have to. I can I can
29:43
not want to, but I kind of do. So it is, hey, I'm going to reject your Christianity. I'm
29:49
going to reject your worldview and perspective, but dad, come in. I still kind of like you
29:53
like you reluctantly like that person. It's like, you know, it was even to to that end
29:59
is like you can hate the Golden State Warriors. You can hate Steph Curry, but then like games
30:04
got to recognize game. At some point, it's like, if you have a best shooter of all time
30:09
list and Steph Curry's not at the top of that, you're a hater. Exactly. You can't take your
30:13
favorite player and put them at the top of that list. You just have to recognize and
30:16
so that's almost to a certain degree here. Like you just have to recognize that somebody
30:20
is a good person. Right. Like, hey, I don't like the fact that you think a homosexual
30:23
shouldn't be able to, you know, have sex with each other. I don't like the fact that you
30:27
think that, you know, this lifestyle that they're leading is, is, you know, sinful or something
30:30
like that. But it's like, man, I got to respect you because you seem to be crushing it at
30:35
home like you're in good shape. Like your wife genuinely seems to love and respect you.
30:38
Your kids seem to genuinely love and respect you. And I think that's a, that's a really
30:42
good thing.
30:43
One thing to add on that, because I agree with that 100%. I was thinking about C.S. Lewis
30:47
said that if you, if you encountered somebody who genuinely exhibited these skillsets, right?
30:53
Not skillsets, but maybe trades, self-control, gentleness, you know, all of those types
30:57
of things. He said, you would, you would be attracted to that person in such a different
31:03
way from everybody else that you almost can't deny it. And I think everybody has a really
31:09
good BS litmus test when they're walking around and seeing, I remember somebody that
31:13
we all know said all these before he became a Christian. They always seem so happy. And
31:18
from his perspective, it just seemed like a thin veil and it was false. But then as he
31:23
started to dig in and get to know these people, he recognized and certain individuals just
31:27
by their behavior, how real it really was. And then you're just drawn in.
31:32
Was this person you? No. Look, is that your way of sneaking that in? No. No, but I think
31:39
to this whole point here and to the very beginning of this discussion, if you're really doing
31:43
this, people are going to be attracted to it because when they go back home and they
31:47
see that things aren't working right, they're going to remember it.
31:50
I think that that's a good thing to keep in mind when we're looking for leaders of the
31:53
church, which this might be a good time to get into versus eight through 13. We're talking
31:57
about qualifications for Deacon. So I'm not going to read it here. If somebody wants to
32:01
read it, feel free. But the thing that we look at here is there seems to be some disagreement
32:07
over the gender that deacons can be, okay, like our deaconess is an actual thing. And
32:13
so as I'm reading this section, I read four different commentaries when it was talking
32:18
about when they write it down. Sorry. So when it was talking about their wives, where it's
32:28
like, okay, they're referring to wives or wives could just be women in general. The
32:33
difference is is when you get into verse 12, let deacons each be the husband of one wife.
32:40
And so in verse 11, it says their wives. And then people are like, Oh, well, that means
32:43
we can have deaconesses and we can have women leaders in the church that are leaders by
32:47
name, not just leaders by action. But then the very next verse, you know, there's there's
32:52
no confusing the word that's used here, even in the Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew, that this
32:57
is husband of one wife. And so I think that even came up, Ryan on a previous episode was
33:02
talking about deaconesses. And so I guess the thing I do want to talk about is like,
33:06
if you have a church that has female deacons, are they abiding by this? Like letter law,
33:11
I'm basically asking that because all the commentaries I read said that this was talking
33:15
about wives and basically saying wives and women and that women could be deacons. But
33:19
then nobody was talking about that when it got to verse 12 when it specifically mentioned
33:23
husbands. And so I'm not asking from a legalistic standpoint. I'm just like, okay, when y'all
33:27
were reading through this and when y'all were going through your commentaries, like, what
33:30
did you see there? Because like, for me, it's like, I don't want to default to, yeah, women
33:33
can't have any leadership roles in the church whatsoever. But I mean, verses one through
33:37
seven are very explicit in terms of the gender. And this one seems to be a little bit confused.
33:44
Nobody wants to go into that first. Nobody wants to be canceled. I know I think I think
33:48
we've talked about it just in the last 30 minutes. Like, if you believe the Bible is
33:54
true, sometimes it's hard to read and sometimes it's hard to go. Okay. That's what God said.
34:01
That's a really hard pill to swallow. And I think just looking looking through this,
34:07
there's other examples within the New Testament of how the church is laid out. Um, but yeah,
34:12
I think I John Calvin, obviously, this is a commentary that I have. He agrees with with
34:19
your assessment is that that's pretty clear. And to me, that's also pretty clear. That's
34:24
what I wrote down to Matt is I wrote hard decisions. Like sometimes the Bible puts puts
34:30
you in a place to where you're faced with difficult decisions. And if somebody does not
34:36
openly submit themselves to God's word, then they could be offended. They could rise up.
34:42
They could like, Hey, truth is, I say this, right? Truth is let deacons each be the husband
34:51
of one wife. That's not really my decision to make. It appears as though that decision
34:57
is made already. And so therefore I just have to live out an existing decision. Um, what
35:04
gets really tricky, Kyle, not to derail the, the men or women is husband of one wife. Is
35:11
that one wife at a time? Is that one wife ever? Is that divorced and remarried? Is that what
35:18
does that mean?
35:19
So I actually did read several commentaries on that specific part. That was basically talking
35:23
about, Hey, I'm a one woman man. So sexually, I'm a one woman man. This again, just the ones
35:30
that I read, which by the way, I read the moody commentary, the John MacArthur commentary,
35:34
Reformation, study Bible, ESV study Bible. And then I've got, you know, stuff that I look
35:38
at online. And all of them said, this is not disqualifying for somebody who's divorced
35:43
for biblical cause and remarried. This is not disqualifying for a widower, who's now, you
35:49
know, remarried or something like that. It's also not disqualifying for people that were
35:53
called a singleness. Because again, Paul and Timothy, both single, right? And so that's
35:58
what I read is that the husband of one wife is talking specifically, now that is still
36:03
gendered language, but that is talking specifically about somebody that is sexually involved with
36:08
one woman that they're not, you know, basically spreading their seat around the community.
36:12
Interesting. So I read, I read, I didn't read those commentaries. I read Matthew Henry.
36:17
And in his right, he's got three points. It is number one, it could be agreed. The language
36:24
is one woman man is the way it kind of interprets into today's language. But it is number one,
36:30
one wife now. So not polygamy, not multiple wives, not all that, right? Okay, number two,
36:37
one wife only ever. Meaning that would disqualify divorced and remarried if it was not for biblical
36:45
context, that it gets a little sticky when it gets to widows and widowers. I read another
36:52
commentary where one guy said, okay, if that's the case, if it disqualifies a somebody who
36:58
is divorced and remarried, that's the only absolute thing when it comes to qualification
37:04
for overseers and qualifications for deacons. That that's the only absolute because you
37:08
could at some point in your life be quarrel. So now you're not. But if you've been married
37:13
and divorced, you're out of the you're out of the ranks. But then he went on in his commentary
37:18
say, but however, if somebody's been divorced and remarried several times, maybe that should
37:22
and it's like, well, where do you draw that line? You know what I mean? Like, hey, you're
37:26
trying to interpret one piece. And then where who's the who's the interpreter of the rule?
37:30
Okay. So one wife only now one wife only ever or show devotion, pure and sexuality with
37:36
one woman not running around town. So how how you interpret that? I don't know.
37:41
I mean, I think I think you let the Bible interpret the Bible and what Kyle was talking
37:45
about, like biblical reasons for getting divorced. Like, if you're looking at that and you're
37:50
not and it's not just someone who's flippantly getting divorced because now there's a, you
37:56
know, a law that says, well, whatever, whatever, whatever you deem appropriate for the reason
38:01
for divorce, you can use like if it's not in here, you can't do it. And I would argue
38:05
if somebody's somebody's been divorced three times, there's a pretty good chance that it's
38:11
that they're not all on biblical grounds. What about two times? I don't know. I'm just
38:16
saying it could be. Yeah. Where's that line? But where I think I think good to go back
38:21
to what I was saying, like you, I think you have to take those examples and look at them
38:25
and say, where did they come from? Like, why did they happen? Let's go back to the word.
38:29
What does the word say about marriage and force? And then we can make our decision and
38:34
it might not be what we want to hear. But here's something I did find interesting about
38:40
that. Or at least in my, in my mind, this was an interesting correlation is qualification
38:46
for overseer qualification for Deacon. Talk about the husband of one wife, a one woman
38:51
man, which is showing devotion, right? Because what is the church to Christ? It's the bride.
38:59
It's the bride of Christ. And so here it is. It could be interpreted of a husband who shows
39:07
devotion to his wife as Christ showed devotion to his bride, the church. Yeah. Maybe, maybe
39:15
as the newer person from this perspective, it's a little bit different for me. But when
39:19
I think about, for instance, like a Billy Graham speaking to people all over the world,
39:23
he used the Bible in its literal sense in many cases, what is evident based on the context
39:28
of everything else that you can read. I mean, Paul's pretty clear from a biblical perspective
39:32
of what this probably means in other places and here. So I know there's a lot of time
39:38
spent on picking through these specific points, but I guess from my perspective, it seems
39:41
to be pretty clear. If you're aligned with a biblical marriage in a situation, that should
39:46
be pretty evident. So I guess, you know, this is something that's interesting to hear from
39:51
my perspective, digging into the details, because it seems like it'd be pretty clear
39:55
from one as we get a little bit later in this letter, Zach, like there are there are times
40:00
where it's like, okay, are we digging into all these words? Almost too much? And so we'll
40:04
certainly get there. But one thing that comes to mind again, I'm interested because of because
40:09
of your perspective. But I heard, I don't remember if it was a commentary about this
40:12
or something in general, but it's like, modern Christians are actually completely okay with
40:17
polygamy. And I was like, I was like, wait a minute, here we go. But he's like, but we
40:23
just do polygamy one at a time in modernity, because so many Christians are divorced and
40:28
remarried. And I was just like, Oh, no, I think he's right. Because like, how many pastors
40:36
are completely okay? Because again, if a gay couple were to come into the church and say
40:41
we would like to get married here, and we would like you to perform our wedding, that's
40:44
when they're going to stand on principle. But then when you have people that are, you
40:47
know, on their second or third marriage, and the marriages didn't devolve or dissolve
40:51
because of biblical causes, those pastors are just well, to heterosexual marriage. So
40:56
I guess we'll go ahead and have them, you know, have the woman wear a white dress, even
40:59
though that doesn't make any sense anymore. And then like, let's let's just like pretend
41:03
like this is an okay thing. That's always been a very uncomfortable thing for me, because
41:07
Christians are always like, it's really hard for me to celebrate people's second marriages.
41:11
Like, I love my friends. And I love Matt, go ahead. Like, but that's in that kind of weird,
41:15
like 100% like we have to remember these are institutions run by fallen human beings that
41:23
we want to pick what sounds good to us. And we want to cast off what might be offensive
41:28
or hurtful. So like, I've never been in a gay relationship. I can easily stand on that
41:32
footing, but if I've been divorced three times, I'm probably going to look the other way when
41:37
my associate pastor is going through his fourth divorce, and I'm just going to be like, okay,
41:43
no big deal. And I think Kirk Cameron said it the best a few years ago. He said like,
41:48
when when homosexuality came up, homosexuality came up, like, how does the church deal with
41:53
that in the public sector? And he had a very like piercing words for the church. Like,
42:00
I think we should stand on the Bible, but we should also look inside our own house. And
42:05
we want to tell we want to preach about homosexuality, but then we're also going into the church
42:09
handing out divorces like candy, right? Like we don't even we don't think twice about it.
42:14
It's like the churches bought no fault divorce. Like this is great. Yeah. It's it's hard for
42:19
me. Like you talked about how did you originally come to faith and all that sort of thing. For
42:22
me, what it was is I stopped reading things about the Bible, like C.S. Lewis, et cetera.
42:29
And I remember distinctly I took a trip with my wife. We were pregnant with our first child.
42:33
And we did one of these little, you know, go away for a couple days, kind of thing. And
42:36
we drove through the board of keys. And I had the New Testament with me and I was reading
42:40
through it for the first time. I thought, wow, this is extremely convicting and not what
42:45
I expected. It's very clear and it just hits you. Yeah. So, you know, I think from my perspective,
42:50
these people that have these opinions, are they really engaging directly and absorbing
42:54
the information for themselves?
42:56
And I also think from an outsider's perspective, again, you know, going back earlier, as Derek
43:01
pointed out in verse seven, when you're talking about outsiders, a lot of people, and this
43:05
is maybe an indictment on the way we do church and modernity. If your church feels just like
43:10
culture, if everybody in the church acts just like everybody else in culture, then why do
43:16
we need you? Like I can just go do culture, right? I can go do all the stuff I'm used to.
43:21
I don't need to show up in your building at a specific time on Sunday and do a specific
43:25
thing for a specific allotted amount of time. Like, like I don't need to do that. And it's
43:29
the churches that are that are growing today are the ones that are like the expository
43:33
reaching the verse by verse. Those are the churches that are exploding because it's like,
43:37
okay, like you're playing a secular song to lead off your worship set. Like the band that
43:42
wrote that song that's better at it and they're better musicians than you. I just heard them
43:46
play that on Apple music. I don't need to hear you sing it and sprinkle in a couple of like
43:50
theological words over the top of it. It's just like what, what is attractive about what's
43:56
happening here when y'all are just as divorced is all the, all of my friends, y'all are just
44:01
as messed up. You just pretend for an hour every Sunday that you're not. That make sense?
44:06
I have a lot to harsh. No, I do too. I do too. I'll say it this way. I'll sum up that kind
44:12
of in my mind is God called the, God called the Israelites to stand against the culture
44:21
of their time. He gave them clear delineation. He gave them mosaic law, which was completely
44:27
radical when you look at the context of the other laws and rules of kingdoms or cultures
44:33
of that time. He clearly created delineated lines. Do this. Don't do that, right? It's
44:39
not that different. When we look at Paul's letter to Timothy here and he says, be this,
44:45
look for this, look for this. Obviously, he's calling out specific things in a culture that
44:50
we're different than culture. And I think the New Testament calls us to also stand against
44:56
or be clearly different than culture, stand, do these things, stand these ways so that
45:03
we can stand against the cultural norms that we're called to change and we can influence
45:06
and change culture. But of course, the draw is always towards culture. And so when Christians
45:11
begin to participate in cultural values, they're called to stand against, we lose all influence.
45:17
And you lose credibility, credibility, influence, all of it. And that comes from, I heard that
45:21
from Ray Vander, Vander Lane, I think, on that the world may know, I'm telling you, it's
45:27
awesome. Well, look, I remember going back to however many years ago when Ireland approved
45:32
abortion, legalized abortion. And a lot of people were looking at the Catholics in that
45:38
country, like, Hey, what's your problem? It's like, well, they base, they basically lost
45:42
their credibility by, you know, basically raping kids and then moving the rapists around the
45:46
country and around the world. And it's like, so whenever they came out and said, yeah,
45:51
this is a moral that the public was like, is it, is it, was it immoral when you're watching
45:56
out a boy's mouth after you mouth raped him and pretended it was holy water? Was it, was
46:01
it, you know, immoral whenever you raped a kid with a crucifix? Like, you know, all
46:05
things that we have on file that actually happened by Catholic priests, right? And so
46:09
it's like, when you lose your moral standing and you're also trying to live downstream
46:14
of culture, it's like, that's a witch's brew of absolute and complete nonsense. Like, you're
46:18
not going to have any legs to stand on. But Matt, you were saying you had a lot of thoughts
46:21
on this.
46:22
Well, I think, I think just going back to the Bible and how people get to like, they skip
46:26
over this. Well, I think pastors don't talk about this. Pastors don't teach through first
46:31
Timothy. Not all of them. I'm just saying like the modern seeker sensitive type of church,
46:36
like they tend to skip over this stuff. And I think that speaks to a larger problem. Like
46:40
you look at the Reformation, one of the problems of the Reformation was like, common people
46:43
didn't have the Bible. They couldn't read it in their own language. They had the, they
46:47
had the basically the Latin Vulgate and there's a few other translations, but basically they
46:50
were relying on priests, bishops, the pope to tell them what God said. And I think if
46:57
you fast forward to now, we have supercomputers in our pocket, but we have convinced ourselves
47:06
that these celebrity pastors have the calling from God. They have the expertise and they
47:14
know it. So I don't have to open my Bible because they're going to tell me what it says.
47:19
And then they're skipping whole sections of the Bible that we don't get. And so then
47:25
when you come across first Timothy and it says, husband of one wife, you're like, wait,
47:30
what? What could that possibly mean? Could be what it says. And so then, but to Zach's
47:35
point, what he said earlier about like, I read the Bible and it was like, that's, I think
47:39
every believer goes through that word. Right. You can listen to C.S. Lewis, you can listen
47:43
to Calvin and you can like, you can listen to really good people talk about the Bible,
47:48
but if you're not getting into the actual word, reading it for yourself, looking at good,
47:54
solid translations, like seeing it, like you're missing. You're missing a whole, the meat
48:01
of what God is telling us. Well, that goes into, okay, verse 13 here,
48:06
first Timothy three, right? When he's still talking about qualifications for deacons and
48:10
he says, for those who serve well as deacons, gain a good standing for themselves and also
48:15
a great confidence in the face, faith for themselves is exactly what you're talking about, Matt,
48:19
right? Like, I think there is a conviction and a desire for us to have a good standing in the
48:25
faith for ourselves, not reading things about the Bible, reading the Bible, not under, like,
48:33
not having a concept of God's word. No, reading God's word and hearing what he says. And I think
48:38
that's a great point. I mean, that's convicting to me and it's convicting to me as a father in the
48:43
house to make sure that, hey, my household is not their foundation of relationship with Jesus.
48:49
It's based upon God's word, first and foremost, primarily. And then let's go build upon that.
48:54
You know, as a side note to the, to the culture comment, just thinking, you know,
48:59
kind of detaching for a second, it seems like every generation has had some sort of a challenge.
49:04
You know, early on, it was just this whole new thing that you had to embrace and it was
49:09
extremely counter cultural. But what about the recent generations, even here in this country,
49:13
where, you know, you were surrounded by Christian culture, but how many people were not necessarily
49:20
false converts, but just didn't really believe, but it's easy to get by. And now you hear about
49:24
all these statistics saying that Christianity is on the decline and all this sort of thing. But
49:28
what people are saying now is that it's actually on the incline, but it's for people that are
49:33
actually having to put themselves out there. It's real genuine Christianity is actually increasing,
49:38
but we're seeing some decrease in what might be a false convert.
49:40
When then you also, when you see those same statistics about the incliner decline of Christianity
49:46
around the world, obviously the West has seen us, you know, taking a nose dive. And then you see
49:49
sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, like these are places where it's exploding. And these are
49:55
places where in a lot of times it's dangerous to be a Christian to where if you don't believe it,
49:59
you're going to get checked, right? And so in America, we'll get checked and then we just crumble,
50:05
right? Do you actually believe that? And then we give this mealy mouth like, well, you know,
50:09
I want to be known for what I'm for and what I'm against. And I just, you know, I don't really
50:13
want to talk about that. And you know, I'm just about love, man, you know, I'm about love.
50:17
And then you ask like an African, like they're like, no, no, that's dumb. That's stupid. Like,
50:22
we're not going to do that. Why? Bible says, and I believe, like, I believe God's word. I believe
50:28
that's true. And also, I'm scared of God a little bit. And you know, I'm, I don't, I'm not scared of
50:33
culture nearly as much as I'm scared about God. Oh my gosh, I think that's such a great point.
50:36
But it's like, it's because they're, they're reading the word that they would get killed for
50:41
reading. And they don't have it in this big study Bible, they just, they may have like,
50:47
the New Testament, or they may have, you know, something that they've got to conceal and, but
50:53
they're reading it. And when Zach's talking about a Christian culture, I think sometimes that's a
50:58
safety net. Like, I live in Oklahoma, so I'm a Christian. And I thought that as a kid, I grew
51:03
up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we went to church every Sunday. I thought, I'm, I'm a Christian. I'm going
51:08
to heaven because I'm a Christian. Yeah. And there was no thought of, why am I really going to heaven?
51:13
Like, I'm a good, I'm a good kid. And, but I didn't read the Bible. I just, I just fell back on that
51:19
cultural safety net of, I live in this culture. So I must be a deduced that I must be a Christian.
51:27
And then I also had a moment where I was like, man, this, this is really,
51:32
this is really clear on a lot of stuff. Like, this Bible is pretty cool. Like, some of it is
51:37
really hard to read. But if you're not reading your Bible, you're all, if somebody pushes back on
51:43
you and you have a belief because some somebody said it was what the Bible said. And somebody
51:48
pushes back on that. If you don't have this solid ground of the Bible and biblical knowledge to
51:53
stand on, yeah, you're going to, you're going to fall flat on your face or straight backwards.
51:57
Right. And what that's called philosophically is an appeal to authority, right? And so if you're
52:02
constantly appealing to authority, well, that always works really well until the authority is
52:05
disproven. We've seen that a lot since 2020, all the things that were conspiracy theories in 2020
52:10
have been confirmed in the last couple of years. But all these people were appealing to authority
52:14
the entire time. And so that's, that's why I got so frustrated last year when Matt Walsh went on
52:20
the Joe Rogan experience. And you know, they're talking about they're sparring about marriage and
52:23
all those different things. And Matt Walsh just refused to talk about the biblical definition of
52:28
marriage. And his argument, which I understand, I think I've used before in other contexts as well,
52:32
Joe Rogan doesn't think the Bible is real. It doesn't think it's the word of God. And so
52:36
if I base my arguments in the Bible, then the entire argument falls apart and pragmatically,
52:40
I understand that. But it's like you're appealing to societal authority in the right ordering of
52:45
society. Where do we get the authority to call that right? Like, where do we get that? You have to
52:52
ground your morality, your authority, your worldview in something. And if you're grounding it in the
52:57
opinions of someone, well, what if that someone was Ravi Zacharias, right? And then after he,
53:03
he died, he was found out to be a tremendously, you know, deviant sexual being. Whoopsie,
53:08
your appeal to authority goes out the window. I remember years ago when I was working with this
53:13
organization doing men's ministry stuff. And their entire ministry was based off the works of John
53:18
Eldridge, someone that I happened to love and respect, and is a great mentor to me. But I always
53:23
said to them, what if John Eldridge chops his wife's head off and rolls it down the hallway,
53:27
and then starts setting, you know, houses in the neighborhood on fire? Whoopsie, your entire
53:31
ministry goes in the tank because all you do is hit play on John Eldridge videos. And you let
53:36
John Eldridge pray for and you let John Eldridge create all your content. It's like,
53:40
your appeal to like, I tell you all the time, I can't be your authority either. Don't appeal to
53:45
untaunted life of man's podcast. Don't appeal to me. Like, I will let you down. If I haven't yet,
53:49
it's coming. But like, we're so comfortable with appealing to authority when we've got the authority
53:55
right here in front of us. Yeah. Does that make sense? Absolutely does. And I think, I think,
54:00
to take that a step further, we don't have people in the church who are acting like the
54:05
Barreons and taking everything that a pastor says and saying, is this really what it says in here?
54:11
Is this what scripture says? Or is this what my pastor is saying? And that's what we get. We
54:17
get we get to where we're at because of things like that. Well, okay. So let's go back here. First
54:22
Timothy three, 10, and let them those are deacons, right? Qualifications for deacon. Let them also
54:27
be tested first. And I don't believe that that is testing as for, hey, how well do they hand out
54:34
and pass out the basket? Hey, let's make sure. Let's see. How do they hand out community? Do they do
54:38
it? Do they not? You know what I mean? Like, how do they do when checking in kids? Do they do a good
54:42
job or not? Like, that is to your point, Kyle and Matt is test their faith. What authority are they
54:50
appealing to? How well can they stand on their own two feet on their own faith in the way that
54:54
they are? And that's a conviction to me. And hopefully it's a conviction to to all of us and
54:59
anybody listening in, Hey, let's test ourselves. Like, let's continually grow and develop and test
55:06
ourselves. And I think that is relevant. So how, how, how can you test somebody?
55:12
I believe it's conversations. I think it is circular tables. Well, this is a rectangle, but
55:19
it is sitting at a table like this and having a conversation over God's word. Hey, what do you
55:24
think about this? What is your opinion? What's your like, how have you lived that out? Zach,
55:28
what's your story with that? Like, grow and push and it's iron sharpening iron. I think it is
55:33
developing each other. It is. It sort of implies that you've got to have an actual relationship.
55:38
Very true with somebody. Over time. And it's going to come out. And so I think that's the way the
55:44
church is built. You're supposed to be living with people and knowing them in a real way.
55:47
I think in a lot of cases, yes, but I think like you look at a worship pastor, like a lot of churches
55:51
hire secular musicians to come play worship music because they're really good at playing a guitar.
55:56
And I think some discernment can come in there. Like, I don't think that I have to have a personal
56:01
relationship with my worship pastor to see him, see him out. And he's drunk or he's posting pictures
56:10
of him at a strip club. This isn't an actual example. This sounds pretty extreme. This is how
56:15
you were talking about. No, I'm not good at music. So like, if he's posting pictures of him at a
56:22
strip club, like I could discern like, okay, this guy doesn't seem like he fits qualifications to
56:30
be serving in church. And so I think I think it's both. But then I think we could probably talk for
56:37
hours on what like the church doing those types of things. But right. But there's also scenario
56:41
based vetting. So Zach, going back to your point. So as I encourage people to do all the time,
56:45
like there's two options for, you know, educating your kids, bedded private Christian school or home
56:50
school. Okay. And I've talked about that a lot. So I'm not gonna belabor it here. But when I talk
56:54
about vetted private Christian. Okay, so just because a school has a cross in their lobby,
56:59
does not mean that they're gonna act on Christian values, because they may have a cross in the lobby
57:03
in a LGBTQ flag in the classroom. Okay, that's gonna be a problem. But when you get into one of
57:07
these schools, how do you vet a school? Hey, you go up to the administrator, the principal or teacher
57:12
and you say, Hey, a child comes up to you and says that they're transgender, they would like to be
57:16
referred to by pronouns that do not align with reality truth or their biological sex. And they
57:21
want you to call them by a different name and to make sure that nobody in the class makes fun of
57:25
them when they start dressing like the opposite sex. What do you do? You shut up and you let them
57:29
answer. And if it's anything short of, you know, we would make sure we cared for that child,
57:35
but we would also uphold truth and, you know, basically tell them like God made you the way
57:40
that you are, you can't fight against that. That's something, you know, a kid is openly gay or
57:47
lesbian or something in your school. How do you handle that? Also, how do they handle sheepdog violence?
57:51
By that I mean, bigger kid is beating up a little kid, no teachers around. Another kid hops in to
57:57
protect the sheep is the wolf and the sheep. Do they both get the same suspension? Like you're
58:02
gonna get ideas of how a an entity thinks about justice, how they think about care, how they define
58:08
what love is, because some Christian schools would say it would be loving to play into the
58:12
delusion of the child that thinks are the opposite gender. As you have seen in other schools around
58:17
the country where they are putting litter boxes in the bathrooms at schools because they have kids
58:21
that identify as a queer identity of furry. And so as opposed to using the bathroom, the toilet,
58:27
the urinal, they are using the litter box. And so that's how you vet somebody. Same thing with
58:31
deacons is you put them in scenarios like almost like a job interview like, Hey, this happens.
58:36
How would you respond? Now, they can give you the right answer and then act it out wrongly.
58:41
But just by how the by virtue of them giving you an answer, it's almost like they're going on record.
58:46
Well, sure. And I think that also speaks to not like not being a new convert.
58:50
Like because Ecclesiastes says, there's nothing new under the sun. And so the problem that I'm
58:57
bringing to my pastor, he's probably seen it multiple times in his life. So like, I'm not
59:03
bringing anything new, probably, but if it's if it's a new convert, it's almost a guarantee.
59:10
You want him to be mature. Yes. You want him to have seen the things, right?
59:13
You want him to be able to go? Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. Actually,
59:16
you know, in my experience, we have done this or we would do this. So that's a good point.
59:21
And guys, I mean, there's so much more there. We didn't even get to versus
59:23
14 through 16. There's great stuff there. But guys, we're going to have to leave it there.
59:27
But come back next Sunday where we'll dig into first Timothy four, make sure that you read
59:31
that so you're prepared for next week. But before we let you go, we are going to do a
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