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Tell Me More is a weekly podcast hosted by Katy Reed Hodges and Luke Stehr, where they unpack the Sunday sermon with Dr. Dennis Wiles. This podcast is designed on the premise that Dr. Wiles always has more to say than can fit in a 35 minute sermon - so we have fun discussing it here each week. We hope that in listening you are educated, encouraged and more connected to the pastor and his teaching!
Welcome to another episode of Tell Me More. I'm Luke Starr. Today, doctor Wiles and I are joined by the one and only Sarah Persley having a conversation about Ephesians chapter five. We hope it is spiritually enriching for you. Alright.
Speaker 1:Well, if you are watching, you can see that this is not Katie Reed Hodges sitting next to me, but it is Sarah personally. Sarah, it's your first time on the podcast. You did the welcome on Sunday. I know. I'm Now
Speaker 2:you're in podcast.
Speaker 1:You're in
Speaker 2:the podcast studio. Preaching next Sunday is what
Speaker 1:I heard. Oh, wow. Wow. I actually I would love to hear that. But we're so glad to have you.
Speaker 1:Sarah, you were one of our cross cultural workers.
Speaker 3:That's right. Where? In the country of Slovenia.
Speaker 1:I did know that. I want to be clear that I did know where you were. But, for seven years, you and your husband Ryan were in Slovenia. Can you Not everyone may be familiar with the work that you guys were doing there. So what what was life like for you in Slovenia for those seven years?
Speaker 2:You know the first thing she had to do was convince me that it was a real country.
Speaker 3:Yes, he always was like Genovia?
Speaker 2:I had never heard of Slovenia when she said she wanted to go there and I went by there and told her, said you know Sarah, you have to
Speaker 1:actually go to a real country. Did you really say Genovia? Yeah. Said, isn't it I didn't take you for a Princess Diaries I did.
Speaker 2:I've seen Princess Diaries. I said, I think Slovenia was in Princess Diaries. And she looked at me and she said, that would be Genovia. I said, well, whatever. Turns out It's a real place.
Speaker 2:Actually a real country.
Speaker 1:It is a very real place.
Speaker 2:And I've actually been there.
Speaker 3:You have. You're actually one of our first guests from First Baptist, was pretty awesome. Yeah. So we spent seven, or actually eight years in Slovenia, which was really awesome. We went as a couple.
Speaker 3:And then over time, we had three kids, which was a unique experience for me,
Speaker 2:But,
Speaker 3:yeah, we were able to partner with some IB missionaries that were working there. I got was actually an intern with them for one semester during college, and we just really connected, and it just God led us there. And we helped do a lot of youth, and children's ministry was kind of our focus within a church plant and just really doing discipleship, bible studies, just helping them to grow in their walk with the Lord and, independence as a church. And when that time was for us to release ourselves from leadership at that church plant and church it had become a church, we moved on and God called us back here.
Speaker 1:And we are so glad to have you. Sarah works with Ashley and I in our engagement ministries. If you have seen the global kids handouts, Sarah makes those Yeah. From scratch. And they're incredible.
Speaker 1:They good. They
Speaker 2:are so good.
Speaker 1:So what is your favorite Slovene word?
Speaker 3:My favorite Slovene word. Well, we always make fun of this word, because it's
Speaker 1:I knew there would be one.
Speaker 3:I'm
Speaker 1:not even gonna try.
Speaker 3:What it means, patience. And it takes a lot of patience to actually say that word and learn how to say it correctly because it's so long and has very few vowels. So
Speaker 1:And we just learned that I don't have a lot of patience. Yeah. They just don't even use word in Slovene. Who needs them?
Speaker 3:Yeah. There's a lot. Smurt means death. Vert garden and all of those, they don't have any vows in them at all.
Speaker 1:Did you know there's actually a linguistic theory and this is a big aside that in countries, cultures with colder climates, they actually tend to have shorter to no vowels because you will they spend less time with their mouths open whereas in cultures and languages that develop in warm climates, they have longer vowels because they'll open their mouths more. So colder climate languages in their development have less open mouths for vowels. That's a
Speaker 2:Slovenia would qualify.
Speaker 3:Yes. Would qualify as cold.
Speaker 1:Yes. It would. It's beautiful though.
Speaker 3:Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yes. Oh my goodness. It is like a postcard everywhere you look. And Valigne. Yes.
Speaker 2:That's where I'm at. You didn't ask me my favorite Slovene word.
Speaker 1:What's your favorite Slovene word, doctor Wiles? Perfecto. What does that mean? Think I can It's
Speaker 2:the only word I know in Slovene, actually.
Speaker 3:It means perfect.
Speaker 1:So, nailed it. Well, we are so glad to have you with us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:So, you came home from Slovenia, not just a couple but a family of five. Mhmm. You have amazing kids. They're so fun to watch. We're so glad to see them plugging into our church.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So we're glad you're here.
Speaker 2:And you came back to First Only Tea. You know this podcast is actually sponsored by First Baptist Only Tea.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Is. I love that. And as we think about our upcoming calendar, mid week has a different rhythm so the children's and preschool programming has stopped. Mhmm. I think we've got one more week of perspectives.
Speaker 1:They're doing a potluck, grief share and divorce care are continuing on and the break, our youth, seventh through twelfth grade is also continuing. And we're gearing up for Mother's Day on Sunday. Yes. Huge day. Huge day.
Speaker 1:Big day.
Speaker 2:Lot of parents, lot of parental dedication Sunday. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Are we recognizing someone?
Speaker 2:We are honoring doctor Charles Wade and Rosemary Wade fiftieth anniversary of their call to First Baptist Holy Catholic. Amazing. Mother's Day nineteen seventy six. Where were we on Mother's Day nineteen seventy six? Do you remember?
Speaker 1:You know, my mom was not a mom Okay. On Mother's Day nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2:Wow. Okay. Wow. Addison, I'm not even asking
Speaker 1:you. Just in case you think we're, you know, young spring chickens over here, I think I'm clinically a middle aged person.
Speaker 2:You know, we went to a wedding Saturday. Lauren Neptune got married, and it was a real sweet wedding. So we went over to the reception in Fort Worth. The wedding was here at church, so they had this sometimes at a wedding reception, they'll have those anniversary dances, you know, where and they do them differently at different ones. Like one of the the last one we did, they had they just had every married couple go out on the dance floor and then, you know, would kinda peel you off.
Speaker 2:Just, you know, those of you who've married less than a year, you know, leave. You know, you get down to where those married thirty, forty years are the only ones left on the on the floor. Well, this time they did it differently. They did it kinda the opposite. They asked younger, newly married folks, you know, married two years or less or whatever, to go start the dance.
Speaker 2:They eventually worked up, to those of us who've been married a little bit longer than that, Doctor. Wade and Rosemary were there, they won. They were the last couple to come to the floor because they're 60. I forgot what
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:So we were dancing next to Katie and Ryan Hodges, and I was at their wedding, I just said, How long have y'all been married? And they said, Seven years. I said, we have arguments older than that. I said, so we we we've been married a long time. But, anyway, so, yeah, 1976, doctor Wade was, pastor at First Baptist Enid, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2:And, when they asked him about coming here, doctor East had been our pastor, prior to that. And doctor East retired on his twenty fifth anniversary. So the very Sunday that marked twenty five years for him, he retired. And I mean, it was it was like a month that later because they've already worked to bring Charles and Rosemary. And, and Charles wanted to come on, Mother's Day.
Speaker 2:He's he wanted his first Sunday to be a time to dedicate young families and babies. And so I think it's fitting that fifty years later, we've got, like, 12 or 13 families that are gonna be sitting before the church between the two services. So kind of a little bookend for doctor Wade and Rosemary. So we're excited for them. Their kid all their kids are coming except one.
Speaker 2:Their daughter lives at Oregon. She's not able to come. But, I think everybody else is gonna be here. So a little reception for them in between services. It'll be a sweet day.
Speaker 2:It'll be a great day. And we still make them work. They're still doing ministry here for us. And Doctor Wade's our pastor I don't think you could
Speaker 1:stop them No. To be fair.
Speaker 2:They're very much, in pastoral ministry together. Just do a lot for our church. We're we're blessed. So, yeah. And then after that, senior Sunday,
Speaker 1:I think.
Speaker 2:Is that right? School seniors.
Speaker 1:High school seniors are the next week.
Speaker 2:And then
Speaker 1:And then we set a week off and then it's camp.
Speaker 2:Then we're going to camp. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1:It's coming fast. We're gonna move into summer mode before you know it.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. It's awesome. It is.
Speaker 1:So but you you did preach yesterday.
Speaker 2:You know, I did. Both services. I did.
Speaker 1:So and you talked about Ephesians chapter five Mhmm. The Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:What a fun topic. You just hit all the Baptist high points yesterday Mhmm. Which I think if you're in either service, you you recognize that these are things that you discuss that are not always easy conversations for Baptists. Right. And so I'm gonna lob some questions out.
Speaker 1:Sarah, feel free to interject as you will. I did give these questions to them before I started.
Speaker 2:To be fair.
Speaker 1:To be fair. And so, one of the things you did talk about and obviously attitudes on alcohol varied throughout Christian history. Teetotalism I think really becomes common. That's total kind of abstinence from alcohol. Really doesn't hit until maybe the eighteen hundreds for certain Christian groups.
Speaker 1:Baptists would be a group that have historically been more teetotaling, abstaining from alcohol. And so one
Speaker 2:of the
Speaker 1:things you talked about and I think this is a helpful just discernment issue generally not just about alcohol Right. But general discernment is you talked about how you and Cindy have made a commitment not to drink for certain reasons and you use the word you used as it was a it's an extra biblical limit that you've put on your lives. So how do you discern for yourself or maybe your family where you impose extra biblical limits on yourself. Mhmm. So you know, the bible says don't be drunk.
Speaker 1:The bible never says don't drink alcohol. Mhmm. It says don't don't get drunk. There are in a lot of variations on that. Right.
Speaker 1:So how how do you generally on any issue discern an extra biblical limit for yourself?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's a great question. I I think, there's in some ways, probably the quick answer is it depends on the actual issue itself. Yeah. But to go beyond the Bible, which is kind of what I said Sunday morning, I think it's, it's the kind of thing that you as an individual Christian have to decide, you know, where where do you think the scripture gives you a specific command? And then where do you decide just based on the principles that you believe apply to you personally how to make them applicable in your everyday life?
Speaker 2:So this is a great case in point. I think we would all agree, anybody that just reads the New Testament would would agree that the scripture specifically, I would say condemns, that's a hard word, but addresses drunkenness and views it as a wasteful kind of activity, which is basically what Ephesians five says. And the reason it was easy to bring that up on Sunday morning is because in the very, sentence, you know, as I said Sunday morning, you've that Me Allah format in Ephesians five. The may in Greek is not in the Allah's but. So don't do this, but do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah. He's not saying may the Muslim deity Allah bless you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Right. No. It's not Allah.
Speaker 2:It's Allah, the Greek word for but. So don't do this, but do this. So you've got this very robust explanation of the spirit of God in in the lives of of God's people. Be filled with the spirit and then all the participles explaining how that looks. But right prior to that, you get this command, don't get drunk or don't be drunk with wine.
Speaker 2:So kinda opened the door for that conversation. And so for us, the first thing we so I would say Cindy and I together obviously embraced the view, we're not going to be drunk. You know, that's a specific biblical command. But as we have, over the years, I guess I would say, even when we were young, young married, we have folks in our families both that have that have struggled with being able to control their intake of alcohol. And so there's some addictive tendencies that we see in our families.
Speaker 2:And so we just decided, you know, rather than, opening that door for us in in any way, we just said, you know, it's not necessarily you you could make other arguments about the whole alcohol conversation because sometimes people say, well, this is one of the ways that you reinforce your witness or it calls you to kind of stand apart a little bit from the community that you're in. And I think some of that's true, but I would be a little careful about that because there are some incredibly dynamic and useful followers of Jesus who drink socially or practice moderation in drinking. So I don't know that that argument holds as much weight for us. It's been more of a personal thing, that, at least for me and Cindy personally, because us seeing what the damage and destruction that alcohol and drugs both have caused in our families, we just decided to mark it out as an option. But when I came here to be the pastor of this church, I've pastored six churches.
Speaker 2:Think about that. I think that's right. To my knowledge, the early churches, the early ministry that Cindy and I were part of, there any kind of conversation about alcohol. However, there's an old church covenant that predates you guys because we're just laughing about 1976. This church predates all of
Speaker 1:us considerably. When
Speaker 2:I was growing up as a kid, and even when I first started pastoring, it wasn't uncommon for Baptist churches, particularly the more conservative churches, have a church covenant printed and hanging on the wall of the church somewhere, maybe in a fellowship hall or at the I'm pretty sure our church in Mertens had it on the wall of the sanctuary, if I remember correctly. And in the church covenant, it's statement of the commitment that everyone in the community makes. And one of the statements in it says that you will refrain from using alcohol or any intoxicating beverage. You refrain from using it. And so that kind of opposition, if you will, to the use of alcohol is kind of ingrained a little bit in my own heritage as well, and in our heritage as Baptists.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sociologically, it's very common for Baptists in the South, not so much Baptists in the North.
Speaker 2:Yes. In the South, primarily. I would I would agree with that. Southern Baptists, historically have kind of adopted that view, that covenant. It's pretty it was pretty common covenant back in the day.
Speaker 2:I don't know that I see it much anymore. I haven't heard anybody reference it in a long time. And, but anyway, so that was something that churches, when you join the church, you agree to live by the covenant of the church, which is a little different than a confession of faith like like we embrace here. And so it really wasn't something that ever came much came up much in conversation. But the church I pastored in Alabama and then the church I pastored here, it was a conversation or has been a conversation.
Speaker 2:When I arrived here, our church back in 1991 had one of those pivotal moments, I guess you'd say, in the history of our church, And there were several questions on the table that the church felt like they needed to address. And Doctor. Wade was the pastor back then. And so they basically had town hall meetings around these questions, and they just brought them before the church as a an opportunity for the church to actually express itself in terms of its understanding of how it was gonna live out the Christian life. And so, for example, one of the questions that was addressed was, are we going to, have women serve as deacons?
Speaker 2:Another question was, what do we believe about, individuals who've been divorced? Can they then, after that divorce, and, you know, a period of time, can they be somewhat quote unquote restored to a level to where they could actually serve as deacons? And then another question was, well, what what requirements are we gonna place on our deacons? Because the conversation really revolved a lot about our deacons and who could be deacons and what do we ask from them. And so another question on the table was, should we ask our deacons to refrain from using alcohol?
Speaker 2:And so so this is 1991 and the church voted as a congregation on all three of those topics, those questions, and answered all of them affirmatively. In other words, can women be deacons? Yes. Can divorced person be a deacon? Yes.
Speaker 2:Are we can can we as a church say to our deacons, we're gonna ask you to take one more step in expressing your faith, if you will, as a Christian publicly, and privately, and do that as a somewhat of a, statement of, I don't know if sacrifice is the right word, but that's the word that's been used by others in their conversations to me about it, because obviously I wasn't here back then. And the church said, yes, we're gonna ask our deacons to take one more step than we might normally ask anybody else in the church to take. And ministers to It wasn't voted on for ministers, that was added later by the personnel committee. But anyway, and so, when I came here, the church just shared with me the leaders of the church, some of the history and the heritage of First Baptist Arlington. And that was one of the things that they gave me, those, I guess you'd call them minutes from that particular historic meeting.
Speaker 2:It wasn't just one meeting. Was kind of a series. It was a season of conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You don't solve all that in one hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. It was a long journey for them and a very healthy, but once again, to me, normal for First Baptist Arlington, just taking time to consider it and all that. So the church agreed those were going to be the things that we're going to decide as a congregation about deacons. So that's why I pointed that out Sunday morning, that there's not a specific prohibition against drinking in the scripture, but churches sometimes make decisions about the behavior of their leaders based upon their convictions.
Speaker 1:And I think that gets us to my second question, which is how does a community discern when it's going to have extra biblical limits
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Or convictions Right. On an issue. Mhmm. And we're talking about a decision made and I hate to say this because this is my age that I'm talking about, nearly forty years ago. Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so we have a considerable amount of people now active in our church who were not here for that choice. All of us. Yeah. None of us were here for
Speaker 2:forty years ago. None of us were here when that vote was made.
Speaker 1:And so how does a how does a community discern extra biblical limitations?
Speaker 2:Right. I do think it depends on the congregation itself. It depends on how they want to be governed, how they want to be led, and that particular issue is one that has raised its head more than once. It has since I've been here. In all frankness, I've been asked to readdress it.
Speaker 2:Is that what you call it? Or just address it. I don't know if readdress or address. It would probably be address the decision that was made
Speaker 1:back then.
Speaker 2:There we go. So I've not been asked, at least if I have, I don't remember it. I don't know that anybody has asked me to address the question about divorced individuals or women. I don't know, you know, I'm coming up on twenty five years, I don't ever remember having one conversation about that. But, I would say all along, I'm not sure how many times, but all along, I've had, different individuals in our church say, okay, do you think we would ever address this, you know, this question or this decision that the church made back in the early nineties about alcohol and deacons?
Speaker 2:And and of course, eventually connecting it to ministers as well. And and I would just in all fairness, I haven't been willing to do it in the past because it seems like every time that it's come up, it's come up at a season where there was just so there were so many other things happening. It didn't feel like it was a pressing issue for us, if that makes sense. And, and I'm not opposed to addressing it at some point, if that's something that the church feels led to do. But I think churches sometimes, when they look at the scripture and they try to determine how are we going to live this out in our I don't mean the community of the church.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about the role community.
Speaker 2:What are the things that we would like to say define us or cause others to understand better who we are and is a reflection of our commitment to Christ and the standard we believe God has for us, how we're supposed to live. I think that's the journey that you're on when you're trying to make a decision about something that's beyond the bible. You know, that you're you're trying to make a decision about your expectations and it normally is about your leadership typically more than it is necessarily about the entire body, at least that's been my experience. Now, the old church covenant was for everybody.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense? In other words, you know, it was something on the wall of the church that basically said this is this is how we identify as people. And I think we became known for that, to be honest with that church covenant. I don't know that anybody out in the culture would have recognized the church covenant, but they would have recognized the results of the church covenant. Because, you know, the old joke about Baptists that we don't we don't dance, we don't drink, we don't chew, we don't date the girls who do.
Speaker 2:So historically, we've kinda had people have had that view about dancing, alcohol, and tobacco are issues that for whatever reason, Baptists have been known in the past at least for having some view on. So for example, I can remember, that that those kind of conversations have come up even at Baptist institutions, not just churches. So if you go to a Baptist college, can you dance? Can you drink? Can you smoke?
Speaker 1:I could not.
Speaker 2:Those three things, for whatever reason, have been connected to us, and they really are beyond the scripture. You you can't point to anything in the scripture that would tell you you can't smoke.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Tobacco did not exist in the ancient Near East.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Wasn't a I mean, you can argue about your health. I mean, you have to approach it from a different perspective. And that's what I'd say about discerning those things. You usually have to have other threads that you add into the fabric for then you to decide how prominent can those threads be.
Speaker 1:Well, and this is I think where it's helpful to pull Sarah in because in my experience in Europe, I mean I think the only people who are more staunch staunchly against alcohol than old school southern Baptists are old school Eastern European Baptists. That's my experience at least. And so I kinda wanna pick your brain but I interned at a church in Copenhagen, Denmark. Baptists there drink. But the church building hosted a Romanian Baptist congregation and one day some people I was interning with the English congregation.
Speaker 1:So four churches in one building. Mhmm. One day, the Danish Baptist Church left some Carlsberg beer in the church fridge. The Romanian Baptist Church came in to prepare for their coffee and tea hour. After worship, opened the fridge and see the beer and they actually ended up leaving the building sharing just over that issue.
Speaker 1:And so there are Baptists around the world who just And have wildly different feelings about so some of that, I don't know if you have and I'm really putting you on the spot.
Speaker 3:No. I think in Slovenian culture, drinking is very common, with your meals, at home. I mean, they make alcohol from things in their garden. So it actually was not an issue Okay. I'm as well.
Speaker 3:For for our church. We even for a time, the communion was actually wine because we didn't have which is just completely different than here. We didn't have individual cups, so we had one cup. And it was also kind of hygienic in that, like, we drank it and we weren't sharing germs because of the alcohol in So that was a that was not an issue. There were other things that from our culture, we wouldn't feel like were an issue, but for them, they had more of a hard time accepting.
Speaker 3:And so Mhmm. As missionaries, we had to be careful in our witness and how Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:The things that we did, how that affected the believers that we were working with.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think that's, you know, if we put on kind of our mission missions hat and think about context and culture, a lot of the attitudes around alcohol particular particularly for Southern Baptist emerge in a in a point of history where alcoholism was just rampant.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so kind of the original theological bent was how how do you as a faithful church of Jesus approach alcohol in a society where alcoholism is Mhmm. Everywhere and it's pervasive and it's problematic and you've got, I mean, tied up in that was, you know, spousal abuse from husbands and it was just this entangled And messy social so it's this recognition that these are decisions that are made in response to a cultural climate.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And we've got a this I've it's it's it's how do we walk the gospel out faithfully in a culture and that's how you discern these communal limits.
Speaker 2:The same thing is true in Africa. I mean, where we work primarily in West Africa. I would just say that the, the Baptist leaders, if you wanna restrict it to Baptists, that we work with, they're, they're all teetotalers. And and it would be very, for them, at least the ones that we work most closely with, it wouldn't even be a consideration for them, you know? So you you would not serve wine in a in a Lord's Supper setting and communion.
Speaker 2:That would just never happen for many of them. And even even some of the African partners that we have that are beyond the Baptist family in West Africa, the same would be true. It's just and for them, it is an expression of their faith, and it's one of the ways they believe they're able to witness more effectively to their community because they just refrain from it. And they can talk about it that way and connect it to their faith. It's more of an expression of their witness, not necessarily prohibitive from the Bible in terms of prescriptive behavior.
Speaker 2:It's a little more of a kind of a a furtherance of of embracing certain principles from the scripture. And what I would say is that to me a lot of that too is spiritual discernment. I mean, in the same text, the same sentence where Paul says don't get drunk, it says be filled with the spirit. Mhmm. So to me, that's what contextualizes the entire conversation that we're supposed to be spirit filled people.
Speaker 2:And so based upon the leadership of of the word of God, the authority of the word of God, the apostolic witness, if you will, and the leadership of the spirit of God, hopefully somehow you arrive at these decisions and you do that with grace. Now, what can happen is you can you can harden over time your heart, and and that can happen to any of us. And that's where it leads to the kind of behavior that Jesus himself condemned in the New Testament is that hardened behavior that is that's more that goes beyond being, principle. It becomes more prohibitive, and then it leads to, judgmentalism, you know, and what we would call fair say behavior to where, you know, you just get these hard and fast rules. And the problem with that is is that, it's hard to know when and where to draw those lines because, you know, Vance Havner used to say, he's an old evangelist that y'all have never heard of, but he used to say, your theology can be as straight as a gun barrel and just as empty.
Speaker 2:In other words, you you you can believe all the right things and still be a terrible person. You know, you can you can have the right theology and have such a harsh spirit in the application of that theology that it, it it almost eradicates its effectiveness. It's kinda like there's an I think Dostoyevsky, how do say his name? Wrote a short story, if
Speaker 1:I remember
Speaker 2:correctly, about a dad and a family where this son was needing money for school. I remember the whole story, anyway, so the dad comes home and the son needs the money and the mom they're nervous because dad is always so hard about money. He just got such an attitude about it. And so when the when the mom and the son make the presentation to the dad, the dad just blows up and says, all you want is my money and, you know, and it just goes on and on and on. It it just berates the son and just totally diminishes him.
Speaker 2:And the son feels terrible. The wife is angry and frustrated. Comes evening time, everybody go to bed. Well then the dad starts reflecting. He decides to because what he says to the son is, here, take my wallet.
Speaker 2:Just take everything. You have it all if that's what you've got. Well, the son wasn't asking for the wallet. The son wasn't asking for everything. The son was just asking for what typically was provided for in that setting, but regardless.
Speaker 2:Well, the next morning when they get up, it's time for breakfast. Well, the money's sitting at the son's plate. And so he gets it, but the point of the story was the gift was ruined in the giving of it, if that makes sense. I mean, he did get the gift, but by that point, it's almost like it didn't matter anymore. Well, you can, to me, if you're not careful, you can do the very same thing with pick anything trying to figure out how to discern something that you might think is maybe even biblical or beyond it, if you're not careful in the way you choose to judge others in their behavior, you can almost invalidate what you actually believe.
Speaker 2:And so the very thing that you're trying to protect, which is your witness, you can destroy it in the way you apply
Speaker 1:it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know? And that's where, to me, that's where you have to be really careful, and because that judgmental spirit, that's what the Jews felt from their leaders all the time. You know, they were just constantly being judged all the time. And the the superiority in rank of those in leadership, they just lorded it over the the Jewish people. And you can go back and look, I think, I think in the origin of it, I believe it was well intentioned.
Speaker 2:If you think about the Jews in the exile and they've lost the temple and you don't want to lose your faith, you want to make sure you understand the teachings of Moses. Well, I can imagine, you know, if I were a rabbi back then, I might be saying, Luke, think about this This before you do is our faith. This is our heritage. What are you doing? I I think it was well intentioned, but it grew from there to Luke, you're out of fellowship.
Speaker 2:No. You can't do that anymore. You can't come back to synagogue anymore. I don't want to see you anymore until you change. Well, and and and you don't don't think you even know the law.
Speaker 2:You obviously don't believe in the law. Well, in other words, it got so hard and Jesus looks at that and says, It's not that you're wrong theologically sometimes. He rarely argued The outside
Speaker 1:of the cup is clean.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It was just the way it was done. You could do the very same thing here. This topic with any topic, in my opinion. That's why we have to live in community with each other and be gracious to each other and listen to each other and see where God is leading us now.
Speaker 2:You know? Where was God leading us? Here's what I said about First Arlington. You're I don't it's hard to say the word never. I can't imagine First Baptist Arlington ever being led in such a way that it would be in violation of the scripture.
Speaker 2:It's just not I think if you tried to do that here again
Speaker 1:It would be surprising.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You would fail miserably if you tried to lead a revolt against the authority of the scripture and the lordship of Christ here. You just the the church is too mature biblically, theologically. I just don't think you could do that. But I do think there are times when the church, gives consideration to things that we have considered to be right in a certain era that might need to be readdressed, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:And so that's a different conversation to me. Yeah. So I don't if that answers all
Speaker 1:of that. No, think that's a great tack. Yeah. And I wanna switch gears because this sermon was not about alcohol.
Speaker 2:No no. But it was a piece
Speaker 1:of it. Yeah. One of the things that came to mind as I was listening to you preach and Sarah I'm talking too much and I need to make sure you get to talk too, is Acts two when the spirit originally comes. Mhmm. And so part of me wonders do you see an interplay between Ephesians five where Paul really puts drunkenness and the Holy Spirit together because in Acts two the accusation is they're filled with the Holy Spirit and they look drunk.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So do you think I mean, there some of that going on in Ephesians two? What does that mean for us and our life in the spirit? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's it is interesting, isn't it, that that was the accusation? I think I think the connection I make, Acts two makes Ephesians five possible.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. You know, so I believe, as as you know, I believe Acts two is an unrepeatable event. I think Pentecost was a one time Yeah. Experience. The spirit of God's given to the church.
Speaker 2:And they do speak in languages in which they weren't trained, and everybody hears them speaking. They're Jews from all over the world, and they're hearing the message of the gospel in their own languages. And so, that's the miracle. But, but I don't believe that's normative for us when it comes to being filled with the spirit. That's why I wanted to be careful Sunday morning to point out that I do believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:And I think it's easy to confuse baptism and filling. To me, baptism is a one time event when you become a Christian. You know, John said the one after me will baptize you. He'll be baptizing you in the spirit with fire. And so but being filled with the spirit, to me, that's the relational side of all this with God.
Speaker 2:And daily emptying yourself of your will and always trying to follow your own ingenuity and your wisdom and seeking the spirit's guidance and asking God for wisdom. Because I just think that life for us as Christians is too demanding and there's too much at stake. It's too complex to think we can do it in our own power. We need the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I do think that we What you just said about Baptist having a tradition on alcohol, we also have the same tradition about the Holy Spirit. Historically, we have been more cerebral. Some people might look at us and go, Baptist? Really? But what I mean by that is we've been more objective.
Speaker 2:If you put the Christian family on a continuum and some lean toward the subject subjective side of Christianity and some
Speaker 1:That'd be the experiential.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the objective. We lean on the objective side. We're
Speaker 1:a highly intellectual denomination We're of
Speaker 2:confessional. We're gonna study our confession of faith. We're gonna study the bible. We're gonna talk about what we believe. We're gonna get our theology straight, particularly about salvation.
Speaker 2:That's what we're most known for. Well, you know, we we are going to make sure that you understand what it means to be saved in the whole doctrine of justification and then certainly evangelism. That's who we are. But the more subjective experiential side has historically made us a little bit nervous, you know? And so, our Pentecostal brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Wanted to ask you about this because at Ascent, we rub shoulders.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:We did. Charismatics and Pentecostals
Speaker 2:I watched and them. Praying in tongues and And I think it's
Speaker 1:I know it's stretched me. Yeah. Me too. I I think I've seen it stretching you For
Speaker 2:sure. You know, because I I lean toward that intellectual side and I'm I'm honest enough to say that. But as a but the older I've gotten in my faith, I guess in my journey, I've become much more open to just the the sense of the leading of the spirit. You know, when when I was younger, even when I first started pastoring, I can remember someone mentioned to me one day they wanted to start raising their hands in worship, and I just told them no. You know, it was a it was a moment in time where you just described all the the prevailing alcoholism that took place at a certain period in our culture.
Speaker 2:Well, there was this prevailing wind blowing toward charismatic movements. And I just told this person, I said
Speaker 1:Which is the prevailing wind now globally
Speaker 2:for I just said no. I said, if you're gonna raise your hand, sit in the very back of the congregation and you do it very subtly, or I'm not gonna let you do it. Well, now I freely raise my hands all the time. Never even think about it. It's always spirit led to me.
Speaker 2:When I come to worship, I ask God one of the things that I have to deal with as a pastor is I have to get released from the, just the practical side of of a worship service because you feel responsible when you're a leader. You wanna make sure everything works, things flow smoothly, everybody's where they're supposed to be. You know, you have all those things in your mind. And for whatever reason, the Lord has been able to help me release that so that I can come to worship. And I usually tell the Lord, I just I just wanna worship you today.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what how that's going to go. Don't know how it's going to look, but I want the freedom to do it. And, and so I don't even think about it anymore.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:You know? I just worship. So if that means I'm raising my hands, I do. If I wanna kneel, I will. If I if I wanna turn around and look at the congregation and watch them worship, I will.
Speaker 2:I mean, and I'm I've I've gotten past worrying about, is this working? Is that working? But a lot of that's because I'm surrounded by incredibly competent people. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1:We do our best.
Speaker 2:Right? I mean, there's there's all of y'all. You know what I mean? So I'm not worried about if a guest is coming in this morning, are they being taken care of? You know?
Speaker 2:I'm not worried about, are my children gonna learn about Jesus today? I'll learn a little bit more about missions today because of Sarah, because of some of the things that you do. I'm not worried about is the hymn going to be led effectively. You know what I mean? God has put me in a place where I'm surrounded by I'm usually trying to somehow get up to all of y'all standards.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm trying to figure out if I can find my way in here somewhere. And I love that God's given me that gift at this point in my life that I can just worship. So I just don't even think about it anymore. So and and I think our people
Speaker 1:are that way now. Well, I I I wanna build on something you said in your sermon. You talked about how the filling of the spirit in you is a one time thing. So and mathematically, God is infinite.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Of course.
Speaker 1:He's You add more to infinity. It's just infinity. Yeah.
Speaker 2:He We get all of him we ever get are getting
Speaker 1:But you as a person can grow in your openness.
Speaker 2:Yes. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So you're never gonna get more of the spirit Right. But you can grow more open That's right. To the spirit. And you're yielding. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that's a discipline thing, Luke. That's how I see it. Because I think you can not do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You You can just not do it. But wow. I think about I I guess I guess when I look at the Lord, to me, I feel like one of his favorite words is more. I I feel like he wants to give us more, but in order to give us more, we've got to
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, I mean, that's Ephesians. May you be filled may you be filled to the full measure of Christ. Right. And so, I mean, that's that's the same text you preached.
Speaker 2:You you gotta yield to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Do you want the full measure?
Speaker 2:And I think sometimes think, Sarah, about you and Ryan when y'all went to Slovenia. You think about when you put yourself and y'all knew you were going there to live. You were just going to visit. Mhmm. So so we've made a decision.
Speaker 2:Well, when you get to that point of dependency, which is where y'all were, and you don't really know the language, and you don't really know the culture, Mhmm. And you're a long way from home, you know, and all of a sudden reality settles in, this is actually your life Mhmm. I think I think that lends itself, I would hope, to be more open to the spirit of God. Mhmm. I mean, was that your experience?
Speaker 2:I I I feel like I saw y'all grow so much in your faith, in your maturity, and your dependency. Yeah.
Speaker 3:For sure. I think, being on the mission field does that. I mean, like you said, you're kind of on an island. You're not surrounded by the support systems, the church body in the same way that you were. And so sometimes when the Lord puts you in those situations, you you have to.
Speaker 3:You have no other choice but to depend on him and his spirit and allow yourself to be open and then see, okay. What are these disciplines that I need to continue on? Like, it's not just, hey. I'm doing my quiet time because that's something my youth pastor told me in seventh grade, but this is something that actually is necessary to live. And so I think that's a really cool aspect of missions in general, going on the mission field whether it's short or long.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Putting yourself in experiences to, need the Lord and then open yourself up to it. And he shows up every time and provides.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. I
Speaker 2:I would say amen to that. And I think now here, to me, I love this era of church life because I do feel like there's just so much more freedom in it. I realize that, you know, what I've lived through numerous seasons in the life of the church in America. And there was a time, though, when there was a pretty serious battle with Pentecostalism or the charismatic movement, and there was a lot of theological conversation, a lot of fear. That's just kinda what came with it.
Speaker 2:We've basically been delivered from that. We have a deep appreciation for each other, I think, across that spectrum. We now live in a political environment where the polarization is so real and so harsh, and I do hate that. But I would say I love this era of the church life, though, because there is so much freedom in it. You know?
Speaker 2:And you can you can go into a Baptist church like First Baptist Arlington and and you have the freedom to worship. You just you just do. And and it's as long as it's biblical, that's that's what's gonna happen here, and I love that. I love I love what I see growing here, and, and that's why I'm I'm I'm hopeful about the future, you know, about where I believe God's leading us. And so and I I think the spirit of God is at work right now across the life of Church of the Big C, and and I think that God is raising up a whole another generation in front of us.
Speaker 2:When you see these kind of quote unquote spontaneous renewal efforts happening on college campuses in various places. It's happening all over the world, not just in The US. It is. God's just working right now, and there's a hunger in people. And I think they're seeing the lack of answer in other places, and there's an openness.
Speaker 2:And man, I believe the spirit of God moves so powerfully in this. So that's what I'm praying for. I'm glad I've lived long enough to watch some of it, and I just wanna live in it.
Speaker 1:Yep. That's beautiful. Yep. Well, I think that's as good a place as any for us to wrap up.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 1:So thanks for listening everyone and we'll be back next week.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening to the Tell Me More podcast today. You can subscribe to this podcast on your app of choice, or you can visit us at fbca.org to find out more information about the podcast and our church. Thanks for listening. Have a good day.