WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.880 Music. 00:00:08.876 --> 00:00:14.566 I'm Pastor Luke. I am Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast where we have 00:00:14.700 --> 00:00:23.566 uncut, honest conversations about faith, life, and ministry. If you're tuning in, 00:00:23.566 --> 00:00:27.825 you're listening to this and you're a fairly faithful listener, 00:00:28.321 --> 00:00:40.426 you know, we appreciate and love your guys' encouragement when we meet meet people who, you know, listen and stuff and you let us know what it is that you value 00:00:40.426 --> 00:00:46.106 from these conversations and, you know, what questions resonate with you or send in your 00:00:46.106 --> 00:00:48.386 questions to the text line. 00:00:48.513 --> 00:00:49.386 Appreciate that. 00:00:49.602 --> 00:00:55.030 Um, yeah, I had someone at Crown Street the other day, really tell, tell me that they, 00:00:55.570 --> 00:00:58.397 appreciated the podcast. I didn't even know they listened. 00:00:59.270 --> 00:01:04.246 Yeah. So, um, yeah, I know there's, I know there's a number of you. One of the... 00:01:04.627 --> 00:01:10.786 I think that's one of the... Maybe it's a unique perspective shift for us, is we're used to some pretty immediate 00:01:10.786 --> 00:01:15.866 feedback when we preach, because we get to see who's in the room when we're giving any 00:01:15.866 --> 00:01:21.686 particular sermon, and generally, you get to see how a room is responding to what you're saying. 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:29.506 Us, we've got each other, but like, you know, we're sitting in an empty room, you know, 00:01:29.506 --> 00:01:34.546 these. And so we don't, we have no idea if anybody thinks anything, any of the jokes we say are funny 00:01:34.546 --> 00:01:42.706 or not. Um, at least one person this week doesn't. So I had told you guys last week that we were at 00:01:42.706 --> 00:01:49.836 39 subscribers, not on 900. Yeah. And that's on YouTube, right? YouTube. Yeah. Not 3,900, 00:01:50.448 --> 00:01:52.951 not 39,000, 39. 00:01:55.546 --> 00:02:03.746 And I was like, can we just get one more subscriber on YouTube so that we can hit the illustrious 40 mark? 00:02:03.746 --> 00:02:11.186 I checked this morning, and we have 38 now. So we are very popular. 00:02:13.986 --> 00:02:19.787 All 38 of you, on YouTube at least, we see you. Thank you for seeing us. 00:02:20.026 --> 00:02:26.097 Thank you. And if you're out there in podcast audio land, we appreciate you too. Very much so, yes. 00:02:26.426 --> 00:02:33.344 So yeah, today I thought we were talking upstairs and we were like, what are we gonna talk about? 00:02:33.426 --> 00:02:35.091 And I was reminded of a question. 00:02:35.964 --> 00:02:44.454 That was kind of sparked in my mind a couple weeks ago. So I was, you know, trying to, you know, 00:02:44.454 --> 00:02:50.682 if you were to look at my social media stuff, I wonder how hard it would be to peg me down 00:02:50.794 --> 00:02:54.697 because sometimes I will follow someone on social media, 00:02:54.814 --> 00:03:01.234 not because I particularly like what they have to say or agree, but because I think that their opinion 00:03:01.234 --> 00:03:02.814 or the thing that they're talking about 00:03:02.814 --> 00:03:08.894 something I want to be paying attention to. I want to hear what people in a different sphere 00:03:08.894 --> 00:03:15.294 are talking about or saying, what they're thinking, get their perspective. And sometimes that's really 00:03:15.294 --> 00:03:20.494 interesting. Sometimes it just makes me want to throw my phone across the room. But I follow 00:03:20.494 --> 00:03:28.069 an account that is kind of like a Christian deconstruction account. Like, it's someone who 00:03:28.231 --> 00:03:34.094 I think they still have an element of faith, but they've gone particularly, they've abandoned 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:36.294 some, I don't know. 00:03:36.294 --> 00:03:40.994 I don't know exactly what they personally believe, but it seems like they've moved from 00:03:40.994 --> 00:03:46.596 a conservative Christian place to a different place, and they're often encouraging people in that journey. 00:03:46.794 --> 00:03:51.614 And they made a post, and they asked this question of, what are some of the things that 00:03:51.614 --> 00:03:56.694 you've learned about the Bible since you started your deconstruction journey? 00:03:56.694 --> 00:04:03.494 Answer down in the comments. And I was like, ooh, I'm interested to hear what people are saying. 00:04:03.494 --> 00:04:08.228 Like, what are the big revelations that people are having about the Bible that's like part of. 00:04:08.454 --> 00:04:15.014 Their deconstruction journey? And I went, I looked down at the comments, and I gotta tell you, 00:04:15.014 --> 00:04:24.694 Cameron, I was, for the most part, pretty unimpressed. Like, I don't wanna say that in 00:04:24.694 --> 00:04:31.346 a degrading way. But I was just like, oh, these are things I agree with. 00:04:31.418 --> 00:04:34.614 Right. I had seen a similar post like that. It might even be the same page. 00:04:35.460 --> 00:04:40.814 And I was like, I was reading through some of the answers and I was like... 00:04:40.132 --> 00:04:44.003 I'm actually kind of encouraged right that's the position that you're now holding. Yeah, 00:04:44.942 --> 00:04:48.142 That's how I would preach that text. That's how I understand that word, 00:04:49.125 --> 00:04:53.662 And it left me with a interesting question that I kind of want to pose to you 00:04:53.822 --> 00:04:58.142 Maybe we can go and I pulled that post up. Maybe we can look at that for some examples at some point, 00:04:58.713 --> 00:05:00.702 But it led me to a place of thinking, 00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:04.382 It is there has there been a shift? 00:05:05.761 --> 00:05:13.122 Are we part of a shift? By no means am I suggesting that we are like the thought leaders in any sort of movement 00:05:13.122 --> 00:05:20.561 or something like that, but is there a shift that's happening in preaching? 00:05:21.322 --> 00:05:26.530 Are we part of like a different way of preaching than maybe past generations? 00:05:27.342 --> 00:05:35.342 I was like, thinking about kind of Tim Mackey and the Bible Project. You come to Conduit, 00:05:35.342 --> 00:05:40.782 you've probably heard Cameron and I recommend the Bible Project as a deeper resource for study. 00:05:41.422 --> 00:05:45.822 At some point we use some of their video resources and stuff, and we both enjoy their 00:05:45.822 --> 00:05:54.862 podcast and materials, and they have a very literature way of reading the Bible. They like 00:05:54.862 --> 00:06:00.142 to read the Bible as literature, as part of their hermeneutic, along with some other things. 00:06:00.142 --> 00:06:07.102 You have some other key hermeneutics, including Christocentric. But do you feel like that is a 00:06:07.102 --> 00:06:14.142 shift that we're a part of? Is that kind of a difference from maybe preaching in the past? 00:06:15.061 --> 00:06:21.742 Or do you feel like maybe these people are just kind of reacting to just poor preaching? 00:06:21.742 --> 00:06:27.322 Like, what's your kind of thought on the whole state of that? 00:06:27.422 --> 00:06:34.862 Are we doing anything, are you and I different than, like, because I was like so surprised 00:06:34.862 --> 00:06:39.702 that this was not something that, some of these conclusions, I was like, what do you 00:06:39.702 --> 00:06:40.924 mean you didn't think that? 00:06:41.162 --> 00:06:43.702 You had a different conclusion than that? 00:06:43.940 --> 00:06:47.316 Like, yeah, I'm curious about your thoughts. 00:06:47.902 --> 00:06:57.302 So I would say that we are different, and I say that with some hesitancy because, like 00:06:57.302 --> 00:07:06.342 you mentioned, I don't consider myself to be on the cutting edge of any type of methodologies 00:07:06.342 --> 00:07:08.750 in pastoral ministry or preaching. 00:07:09.982 --> 00:07:21.342 But I do think that there is a difference between pastors who are willing to deal with 00:07:21.342 --> 00:07:34.922 the context of the scripture honestly in the midst of their preaching and to let the unanswered 00:07:34.922 --> 00:07:37.477 questions or the nuances of scripture. 00:07:39.376 --> 00:07:43.866 Like be aired out. I think there's a difference between people who are willing to do that, 00:07:43.866 --> 00:07:54.026 which I generally think that we are willing to do, and those who take a very literal, 00:07:54.026 --> 00:08:13.270 face value, non-nuanced, almost surfacy approach to Scripture, and preach it as if it is the, 00:08:13.846 --> 00:08:23.266 only and primary understanding of that Scripture or of that piece of theology throughout history, throughout time. 00:08:23.266 --> 00:08:28.266 I think that may be even more significant is that, 00:08:31.472 --> 00:08:38.773 although I think that there are certain aspects of theology that are pretty well, not pretty well, 00:08:41.466 --> 00:08:49.936 fully established as this is Christian theology. This is Christian belief, Christian thought and doctrine. 00:08:53.706 --> 00:09:05.186 But there is also a large chunk of biblical theology that is not as clear as we want to always make it. 00:09:05.915 --> 00:09:14.106 Not to always make it, right? And I don't think that there are droves of preachers, 00:09:16.986 --> 00:09:27.286 who are willing to say, this really isn't too clear. So let me give you the perspectives. 00:09:28.178 --> 00:09:33.750 And through even the process of discernment, right? Right? 00:09:33.966 --> 00:09:37.837 Because a lot of, I mean, honestly, I think just a lot of pastors, 00:09:38.486 --> 00:09:44.726 they want to pound the pulpit and say, this is God's word. This is what it says. 00:09:46.006 --> 00:09:53.105 And they're not willing to, and this is what it means. And this is the only way to interpret it or apply it. 00:09:54.590 --> 00:09:55.400 Yep. and. 00:09:59.325 --> 00:10:08.775 It's just not all that clear. Even like I'm maybe a little bit, because it's fresh in my mind, 00:10:11.100 --> 00:10:13.975 we're just finishing up this series on eternity. Yes, yeah. 00:10:14.899 --> 00:10:19.895 Part of the, and I mentioned this in preaching, that part of the difficulty in preaching on, 00:10:21.075 --> 00:10:27.175 things of an eternal nature or even like the second coming of Christ and the end times and 00:10:27.175 --> 00:10:34.884 and new heaven and new earth and all of these things is that there's a lot that we don't know. 00:10:38.143 --> 00:10:41.240 Yeah. And there's been a lot of movies made about it, seeming like we do know. 00:10:42.015 --> 00:10:47.893 Right, so like for instance, there's a lot of confusion about Satan, 00:10:49.255 --> 00:10:54.050 the Antichrist, the beast, the dragon, and the woman. 00:10:54.266 --> 00:10:56.675 And the woman. Oh yeah, the harlot. 00:10:57.555 --> 00:11:05.951 All existing in Revelation, right? Who, what are they exactly? Who are they? 00:11:09.095 --> 00:11:18.879 How, like what? And then if you've ever read the, if you've ever read Revelation, 00:11:19.077 --> 00:11:20.283 you'll see that there are some, 00:11:21.714 --> 00:11:25.144 very interestingly described creatures, 00:11:26.467 --> 00:11:30.356 multiple heads and eyes and wings. 00:11:35.695 --> 00:11:43.176 And were- People with swords, people eating things. With brass feet, with clay feet, you know, with- 00:11:47.135 --> 00:11:52.151 Trumpets, seals, lamps. Monsters coming out of oceans and seas, like so. 00:11:52.575 --> 00:11:59.263 And then you'll, for instance, and this is not a knock on the man, okay? 00:11:59.615 --> 00:12:07.572 But you'll see that like, for instance, David Jeremiah, kind of a popular preacher and, you know. 00:12:08.095 --> 00:12:09.135 Largely faithful. 00:12:09.930 --> 00:12:15.055 Yep. has like a 50 sermon series on Revelation. 00:12:19.335 --> 00:12:29.285 Where he connects the imagery of Revelation to certain very specific historical moments, 00:12:29.375 --> 00:12:32.553 historical persons, historical nations, 00:12:33.375 --> 00:12:43.050 so as to proclaim that this is, look, people, this is really clear what this is and. 00:12:45.165 --> 00:12:49.055 Or if you read the left behind series when it was really popular. 00:12:49.055 --> 00:12:54.615 Right, that the rapture was, that's the only way to understand the rapture. 00:12:54.615 --> 00:12:57.543 The rapture is actually a pretty good example of all this. 00:12:57.815 --> 00:13:09.095 That it's just assumed that there will be a mass disappearance of Christians. 00:13:11.380 --> 00:13:15.495 Where if you read about the doctrine of the rapture, I don't know how familiar you are 00:13:15.495 --> 00:13:19.644 with the historical doctrine of the rapture, just how long it's been in existence. 00:13:19.895 --> 00:13:26.450 I mean, the modern understanding of the rapture is pretty new. Very new. 00:13:27.775 --> 00:13:33.129 Yeah. Very, very, very new. So meaning, when we say new, we mean like, 00:13:34.335 --> 00:13:40.736 Martin Luther, John Wesley, John Kelvin, the reformers, would have been like the what? 00:13:41.255 --> 00:13:41.510 Yeah. 00:13:42.135 --> 00:13:50.333 The rapture? Right. appearing, what are you talking about? And the apostles certainly would have been like, heh. 00:13:51.350 --> 00:13:54.195 Um, you know, so. 00:13:56.031 --> 00:14:01.689 Anyway, it feels like I'm saying a lot without saying anything. 00:14:01.689 --> 00:14:08.409 Well you're giving an example of a thing that is sometimes, we have many popular preachers, 00:14:08.409 --> 00:14:16.817 many popular books and or movies that take particularly end times, revelation, prophecy, 00:14:16.969 --> 00:14:25.369 apocalyptic literature, and then one to one parallel it to our current contextual reality 00:14:25.369 --> 00:14:31.581 and say, see, this is it, this is so obvious, the Blackhawk helicopters or the locusts, 00:14:31.809 --> 00:14:34.729 or whatever. 00:14:34.957 --> 00:14:43.716 And the thing is, is, well, that is not as easy to draw those parallels as you might think. 00:14:44.058 --> 00:14:54.078 Yeah, or a forest fire is God bringing judgment to melt the elements, like it says in 2 Peter. 00:14:55.563 --> 00:15:05.808 So to come back to the original question is that I feel like a lot of it is a willingness, 00:15:06.129 --> 00:15:12.729 we are different in the way that I think we hold a willingness to be honest about what 00:15:12.729 --> 00:15:18.889 is clear and what is not, what is primary and what is secondary. 00:15:18.889 --> 00:15:29.649 And whereas I don't think that that's the case with all pastors and they preach just 00:15:29.649 --> 00:15:36.209 a rabid authority, not even of the word, but a rabid authority of their interpretation 00:15:36.209 --> 00:15:41.209 an application of the word, creating in a lot of people, 00:15:41.689 --> 00:15:45.202 a theological straw man that does not stand up, 00:15:46.689 --> 00:15:51.611 that does not stand up under. 00:15:53.115 --> 00:16:06.605 Really does not stand up under deconstruction at all. Yeah, so well I What you're talking about is brought like a passion little passion point up that since we're uncut 00:16:06.605 --> 00:16:08.605 I'm gonna talk about, 00:16:09.697 --> 00:16:11.725 When I started dating my now wife, 00:16:13.045 --> 00:16:17.718 Right around when the Ukrainian war started happening Russia invaded and all of that 00:16:17.885 --> 00:16:23.565 My wife is Ukrainian. And so there's some personal connection to people who are in Ukraine and all of 00:16:23.565 --> 00:16:33.965 that. And I remember being shared a video of a well-known pastor with a pretty big platform, 00:16:33.965 --> 00:16:41.005 and he made this very slick video. He's kind of like, someone's on a camera, kind of giving him 00:16:41.005 --> 00:16:46.345 a handheld kind of thing. And he's talking and he starts off talking about this, the Ukrainian, 00:16:46.696 --> 00:16:53.165 the conflict in Ukraine. And then, you know, I'm kind of like curious as to where that where is he 00:16:53.165 --> 00:16:57.805 going to go with this? Like, is he going to talk about humanitarian efforts, like the fact that 00:16:57.805 --> 00:17:03.165 the world's broken? Like, what is he going to offer any condolences or sympathy for people who 00:17:03.165 --> 00:17:08.806 are experiencing suffering in the middle of all of this? And he very quickly just begins to take. 00:17:09.328 --> 00:17:15.245 Like, I believe it was a revelations passage and say, this is this, this is this Russia's this 00:17:15.377 --> 00:17:22.480 da da da, and he made the comparison, and then he just took what was a lot of people's very real, 00:17:22.588 --> 00:17:29.485 current, ongoing suffering, and used it as a preaching point to prove his interpretation of 00:17:29.485 --> 00:17:34.765 Revelation, and that you should tune in on Sunday and listen to his whole new sermon series that he 00:17:34.765 --> 00:17:41.965 was coming up with, because he felt that it's a coming, the end's a coming, this conflict proves 00:17:42.384 --> 00:17:50.925 it. And you talk about people using the Bible, creating these straw men, making things seem 00:17:50.925 --> 00:17:55.085 clear when they very much aren't clear. 00:17:58.183 --> 00:18:04.542 That can be really tone-deaf, you know Because I think you could kind of tell that, 00:18:05.493 --> 00:18:15.682 whoever had written that script whether that was him or someone else like Wasn't writing with the idea that someone that like Ukrainians would be hearing this, 00:18:17.754 --> 00:18:26.622 Right he was writing it for people who don't have any skin in the game Don't feel any hurt or pain or concern about people who are experiencing any suffering 00:18:26.622 --> 00:18:32.062 It was written for people who were very detached and are kind of like, 00:18:32.062 --> 00:18:33.622 oh, it's a thing that's happening over there. 00:18:33.622 --> 00:18:40.863 And we get to just play with that and plug that into our end times clock that we're constantly adjusting. 00:18:41.062 --> 00:18:46.402 And it kind of lost all pastoral relevance, at least in my hearing. 00:18:48.022 --> 00:18:57.982 So when you talk about people kind of using, doing that, that's kind of, that's what strikes me. Yeah. Is that. 00:18:58.831 --> 00:19:09.902 So yeah, there's definitely this temptation, like you said, to pound the pulpit with surety 00:19:09.902 --> 00:19:18.213 over particular interpretations, understandings, when the Bible simply doesn't support that 00:19:18.321 --> 00:19:23.062 underneath good hermeneutical study and interpretation. 00:19:23.062 --> 00:19:24.218 At least not of everything. 00:19:24.462 --> 00:19:31.782 No. There are things that, like I said, we are well established. 00:19:32.882 --> 00:19:37.505 And I think we've talked about it before here. We can talk about it again, 00:19:37.622 --> 00:19:40.053 is the creeds are a good example. 00:19:40.382 --> 00:19:45.262 Some of the main creeds are a good example of the theology that's been kind of well established 00:19:45.262 --> 00:19:48.822 as immovable in terms of it's, 00:19:50.182 --> 00:19:53.262 in terms of it's like, okay, but you wanna pound the pulpit, 00:19:53.262 --> 00:19:55.798 you can pound it about the divinity of Jesus. 00:19:56.338 --> 00:19:59.786 You can pound it about the triune nature of God. Or the nature of the gospel. 00:20:00.002 --> 00:20:03.902 Or the nature of the gospel, right? Or the existence of the church, 00:20:03.902 --> 00:20:07.382 or the ministry of the Holy Spirit, or whatever. 00:20:07.951 --> 00:20:12.029 But yeah, pounding the pulpit about. 00:20:14.142 --> 00:20:18.870 That the current Ukrainian war, there's a direct correlation to the Book of Revelation. 00:20:20.142 --> 00:20:23.273 Hey, there may be. Right. Right. 00:20:23.702 --> 00:20:31.168 But it has not been made clear to us in scripture that that's the case, so it's conjecture at best. 00:20:31.422 --> 00:20:34.642 So, the end, is the end coming? 00:20:35.336 --> 00:20:40.683 Yeah. The end has been coming and drawing closer and closer since the day that Jesus ascended back into heaven. 00:20:40.902 --> 00:20:45.422 It's, we're closer now than we ever have been. 00:20:48.623 --> 00:20:53.593 It's kind of on the pulpit, I guess, about the right things. And I think, 00:20:55.193 --> 00:20:59.913 again, going back to the original question or the original conversation, I think that's, 00:21:00.956 --> 00:21:07.033 for me, what feels like a primary issue for people in a deconstructive mode, especially around the 00:21:07.033 --> 00:21:12.191 Bible, is that they've been taught that certain things are non-negotiable Christian theology 00:21:12.272 --> 00:21:16.793 through and through. You can't get away from it. This is just how it is. This is what you must 00:21:16.899 --> 00:21:26.953 believe where the... about everything, 100% comprehensive, and it's just not... I don't 00:21:26.953 --> 00:21:31.433 believe that it's that clear. I don't believe that it's that dogmatic even, so... 00:21:33.778 --> 00:21:41.593 Do you think that is because... do you think that we are in the space that we are because 00:21:41.646 --> 00:21:47.444 we are currently a non-denominational church. Do you think that would be different if we were, 00:21:48.153 --> 00:21:51.913 more associated with a more strict line of theology through a denomination? 00:21:52.170 --> 00:21:54.793 Paul I don't think so, no, because I haven't really, 00:21:56.833 --> 00:22:02.473 I don't, at least personally speaking, I haven't really moved too much in my perspective on that 00:22:02.473 --> 00:22:07.313 that since coming from a denominational structure 00:22:07.645 --> 00:22:12.313 that had a written, you know, like theology. 00:22:13.713 --> 00:22:19.273 I haven't changed much in that position at all since coming out of denominationalism 00:22:19.273 --> 00:22:20.815 into non-denominationalism. 00:22:25.233 --> 00:22:30.953 There probably is things that I've changed on, but I think it's more been a change methodologically 00:22:30.953 --> 00:22:33.076 than it has been theologically, so. 00:22:35.913 --> 00:22:42.259 No, I don't think that we're like that because of our non-denominational, 00:22:42.553 --> 00:22:49.397 or we would be different if we were in a denomination. I think we would be different if, if you or I were more. 00:22:51.468 --> 00:23:01.703 Maybe, I don't know, but maybe I won't speak for you. I guess I find myself in a place where, 00:23:01.802 --> 00:23:07.478 like, I'm not able to very easily pick up one systematic theology book and say, 00:23:07.478 --> 00:23:14.758 oh, this is my theology. We don't, I don't have a systematic, I have systematic theology. I'm not 00:23:14.758 --> 00:23:20.358 saying I don't have systematic theology, but I don't have a singular structure of systematic 00:23:20.358 --> 00:23:26.758 theology that fits neatly. I can't say that... When I was looking for a job. 00:23:28.518 --> 00:23:33.158 There was a church I was talking with, and I think they got maybe a little bit frustrated 00:23:33.158 --> 00:23:37.558 because maybe I was being a little obtuse or obstinate, but they wanted to find out... 00:23:37.558 --> 00:23:43.258 Dodgy. Dodgy. I think they wanted to find out if I was a Calvinist or an Arminian, and I... 00:23:44.230 --> 00:23:50.631 Said yes. Yeah, he said, they gave me a passage and they're like, what do you think this is talking about? 00:23:51.238 --> 00:23:58.858 And it had the word predestination in it. And I essentially, I read the context of the passage and didn't talk about predestination 00:23:58.858 --> 00:24:00.965 because I didn't think that was what the passage was talking about. 00:24:01.838 --> 00:24:05.518 And then they replied back and they're like, could you just tell us if you think you're 00:24:05.518 --> 00:24:12.598 a Calvinist or not? Because they were... I was like, well, you asked me what the passage meant, I told you what the passage meant. 00:24:12.894 --> 00:24:17.838 Right. So I might've been a little cheeky. Pulled the curtain back on that one. 00:24:17.838 --> 00:24:21.118 Yeah, I might've been a little cheeky, but I don't fit, you know, 00:24:21.118 --> 00:24:25.998 if you were to try and get me to commit to Calvinism or Arminianism, 00:24:25.998 --> 00:24:28.233 I don't know anymore at this point, 00:24:28.358 --> 00:24:33.358 because I've largely left those categories behind, 00:24:34.798 --> 00:24:36.993 because they weren't helpful. 00:24:38.838 --> 00:24:47.398 And- Well, even like, modern-day Calvinism is not very John Calvin-ish. No, right? Like that whole young, restless, 00:24:47.398 --> 00:24:52.998 flannel, and reformed that, like, I was a big part of my faith journey at one point, like, 00:24:53.737 --> 00:25:00.118 barely reformed. Like, reformed in certain ways and very much not reformed in several other ways. 00:25:00.118 --> 00:25:05.718 Reformed, if you're listening or watching, reformed as in kind of a branch of theological 00:25:05.863 --> 00:25:13.638 persuasion. Right. Yeah. Kind of reformed referring to like Lutheranism, John Calvinism, 00:25:13.638 --> 00:25:19.398 Zwinglism, like the Protestant Reformation, some of the theological convictions that came out of 00:25:19.398 --> 00:25:25.318 that. And there's, you know, parts of that I identify with and parts that I don't. And, you 00:25:25.318 --> 00:25:32.725 know, so yeah. Do you think that's similar for yourself? I think so. Yeah. I think that it's been, 00:25:32.918 --> 00:25:36.696 and it's just made more sense for me. 00:25:38.064 --> 00:25:46.314 Throughout the course of my study of Scripture to pull certain aspects of systematic or biblical 00:25:46.314 --> 00:25:55.914 theology that resonate with me or feel right for me or that I see as like, okay, I see that in 00:25:55.914 --> 00:26:04.314 Scripture. And then there are others that I'm like, well, okay, so just you take one theologian, 00:26:04.314 --> 00:26:13.034 for instance, and they have this to say in the area of soteriology or salvation. And I'm like, 00:26:13.034 --> 00:26:18.954 okay, yeah, I can really vibe with that. But then you take that same author and you read their 00:26:18.954 --> 00:26:28.714 eschatology or the theology of the end times, and I'm like, yeah, I don't see that. I'm not sure I 00:26:28.714 --> 00:26:30.313 I can get on board with that. 00:26:30.874 --> 00:26:45.994 So it has been a little bit of like a a la carte theology. Informed by many perspectives, but not adopting any one theological perspective as 100% my 00:26:45.994 --> 00:26:57.074 own all the time, even if it was like all John Wesley or, you know, there's certain 00:26:57.074 --> 00:27:04.117 like, systematics that I like more than others, right? Like, I think kind of the, probably the 00:27:04.434 --> 00:27:10.034 systematic theology that every pastor has on their shelf is, you know which one I'm gonna say, 00:27:10.034 --> 00:27:17.485 right? Is Wayne Grudem's systematic theology. Like, if you want a big, thick book to get some. 00:27:18.844 --> 00:27:25.314 Fairly quick theological referencing done in, I don't know that you could do better than that. 00:27:25.524 --> 00:27:31.774 Right. Yeah, I don't know that because it's it does broadly cover and it is broadly evangelical, 00:27:32.528 --> 00:27:40.243 right but if I were to say like a a systematic theology that I'm going to be, 00:27:41.512 --> 00:27:48.642 probably agree with more of it, I would probably pick Stanley Grenz's, 00:27:49.272 --> 00:27:56.672 G-R-E-N-Z, Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, as a systematic that I felt 00:27:56.933 --> 00:28:01.920 or think was a little bit more, felt more right to me. 00:28:02.162 --> 00:28:02.722 Yeah. Yeah. 00:28:03.225 --> 00:28:08.562 Yeah. Sits more in line with your, not just intellectual, but you told me about that. 00:28:08.562 --> 00:28:11.661 That feels like a pretty applied systematic. Yes. Yes. 00:28:12.201 --> 00:28:15.964 Right. Which is like the danger of systematic theology is... 00:28:17.282 --> 00:28:21.802 Because in case you're curious when what we're saying, when we say systematic theology instead 00:28:22.229 --> 00:28:33.347 of just theology, systematic theology as a study in itself is typically a... 00:28:34.222 --> 00:28:43.462 It's usually a combination of Bible, history, and philosophy, right? 00:28:43.462 --> 00:28:47.822 Those seem to be at least the three of the main primary sources. 00:28:47.822 --> 00:28:54.462 And so when you're putting together a conclusion of something in... 00:28:54.462 --> 00:29:00.662 Like you're trying to say, what's our theology around baptism? 00:29:00.662 --> 00:29:07.997 Well, you're going to look at what the Bible says, look at what churches said historically, 00:29:09.042 --> 00:29:14.514 you know, and all of that. And so it's kind of... 00:29:15.322 --> 00:29:19.952 But sometimes that can kind of lead into kind of a complex way where you start... 00:29:21.362 --> 00:29:28.282 You can get a little heady. You can get a little theoretical inside of systematic theology, because you're talking 00:29:28.282 --> 00:29:35.742 about like philosophy and you're maybe making some leaps to answer questions that maybe, 00:29:36.742 --> 00:29:39.802 the Bible wasn't trying to answer. 00:29:39.802 --> 00:29:40.333 Yeah. 00:29:40.802 --> 00:29:47.940 Yeah. I think that the benefit of systematics is that it creates good referencing, you know? 00:29:49.302 --> 00:29:55.622 So if I were to tell you to, okay, just open your Bible and go to the section that talks all about salvation. 00:29:55.853 --> 00:30:03.460 There's not a section that talks about salvation, because the Bible isn't written in order to be a reference book. 00:30:04.333 --> 00:30:09.342 It's narrative in form, it has, or there are parts of it that are narrative in form, or 00:30:09.342 --> 00:30:18.202 there are letters, or long excurses that are not, they were never meant to be, it was never 00:30:18.202 --> 00:30:24.982 meant to be an instruction booklet or a reference booklet for Christian things. 00:30:24.982 --> 00:30:30.107 So what systematics does is it works really hard to... 00:30:31.457 --> 00:30:39.302 Compile all the information that the Bible has, biblical theology, all of the Bible has 00:30:39.302 --> 00:30:46.050 on a particular theological topic and put it in one chapter so you can read it, right? 00:30:46.862 --> 00:30:55.902 And I think it's really strong in its ability to help us weed through and use as reference, so. 00:30:55.902 --> 00:31:01.858 I wanted to pull up a couple of the comments from that post that kind of like people's, 00:31:02.822 --> 00:31:07.342 you know, thing about the Bible that they're kind of learning and they're deconstructing 00:31:07.342 --> 00:31:12.147 and just kind of like, talk maybe offhand about a couple of these. 00:31:12.382 --> 00:31:16.513 This one was an interesting one, let's see. 00:31:16.782 --> 00:31:22.162 That the word for man in Genesis was actually more like human creature, not a word ever 00:31:22.162 --> 00:31:28.945 used for man in Scripture, and when God took the rib to make the man a companion, it was 00:31:29.162 --> 00:31:32.202 actually the word for side, like the whole side. 00:31:32.202 --> 00:31:40.202 Man and woman were the Hebrew ish and isha, and two sides of one thing, not man first 00:31:40.202 --> 00:31:42.842 and woman second as a diminutive. 00:31:43.970 --> 00:31:44.285 Yep. Yeah. 00:31:46.104 --> 00:31:51.766 I don't know anything about the Hebrew, but yeah, if you understand the passage correctly, 00:31:52.972 --> 00:31:56.802 they're co-heirs of creation and image of God. 00:31:56.802 --> 00:31:58.802 Co-image bearers, right. Co-image bearers. 00:31:58.802 --> 00:32:02.842 So what would you think would be the thing that she's deconstructing? 00:32:02.842 --> 00:32:06.206 Probably some pretty hardcore complementarianism. 00:32:07.562 --> 00:32:11.682 Or authoritarianism. Or authoritarianism, complementarianism, masquerade... 00:32:11.682 --> 00:32:15.091 Or authoritarianism masquerading as complementarianism. 00:32:15.532 --> 00:32:18.890 Like this idea of like, oh, well, the woman... 00:32:19.642 --> 00:32:23.859 She came second and she came out of man, so she's obviously not as good as man. 00:32:24.362 --> 00:32:27.406 Well, she ate the apple first, so that makes her worse. 00:32:29.722 --> 00:32:35.580 And so like, yeah, not diminutive. No, not at all. It's never... 00:32:36.242 --> 00:32:48.322 Anyone who's been, who can do or is willing to do the – that's not even really hard work to do. That's pretty basic in Hebrew language and in the, 00:32:49.272 --> 00:32:55.042 type of poetry that the creation account is, that it wasn't necessarily a diminutive. 00:32:57.602 --> 00:33:04.225 Creation of a lesser being than the man who was meant to serve the man, right? But someone 00:33:04.639 --> 00:33:10.230 to be alongside, a co-image bearer. So… So, well there was an interesting…. 00:33:11.445 --> 00:33:17.370 I actually do remember hearing this at some point in my Bible education—not my adult 00:33:17.370 --> 00:33:23.256 Bible education, but as a kid, either in a sermon or Sunday school class or something. 00:33:23.570 --> 00:33:29.330 There's the story of Deborah, the judge in the Old Testament. 00:33:29.477 --> 00:33:34.650 And one of the things that is—I think somebody probably came up with this explanation, said 00:33:34.650 --> 00:33:38.326 it in a sermon, and it has just been so repeated. 00:33:38.839 --> 00:33:43.810 But I've heard the explanation that, like, well, Deborah, this woman, became a judge 00:33:43.810 --> 00:33:52.130 of Israel because there were no godly men around to be a judge, and so God had to use a woman. 00:33:52.766 --> 00:33:57.090 And I've heard that, I know I've heard that in a sermon or something, it was something 00:33:57.090 --> 00:33:59.330 that was taught to me as a kid. 00:33:59.697 --> 00:34:05.378 And you go back and you look at the passage, there is absolutely nothing there that says 00:34:05.594 --> 00:34:07.331 anything close to that. 00:34:08.006 --> 00:34:14.690 Right. say anything about like Deborah being the last string person that God chose or something 00:34:14.690 --> 00:34:19.870 like that, or that there had to be some sort of special circumstances for God to use a 00:34:19.870 --> 00:34:24.850 woman as a judge, like it's not there, that's not in the passage. 00:34:24.850 --> 00:34:25.894 No, not at all. 00:34:26.170 --> 00:34:29.370 That's someone reading a conflict into the passage that's simply not there. 00:34:29.370 --> 00:34:31.719 That's simply not there, yep. 00:34:32.330 --> 00:34:39.730 This one's an interesting one, that Proverbs never describes our Western cultural practices 00:34:39.784 --> 00:34:40.991 of spanking children. 00:34:41.250 --> 00:34:44.529 There's no biblical spanking because it is never mentioned or described. 00:34:47.805 --> 00:34:49.138 I'd agree with that. 00:34:52.189 --> 00:35:05.850 So, what's the, what is someone deconstructing there? deconstructing probably spare the rod and spoil the child. You must spank your kids in order to. 00:35:07.791 --> 00:35:14.010 Teach them a lesson because if you don't, they're not gonna fully understand the gravity of what 00:35:14.010 --> 00:35:23.850 they've done. And so a scripture is used to justify the act of spanking. And this is not, 00:35:23.850 --> 00:35:28.610 This is not a personal interpretation on spanking or not spanking. 00:35:28.610 --> 00:35:31.665 It's just the, okay, is it in the Bible? 00:35:33.231 --> 00:35:43.081 Um, well, no, not really, you know, um, I've heard the same thing said about, um, Proverbs 00:35:43.081 --> 00:35:55.561 31 and, uh, and to, to what, to what level is it describing the, um, the contemporary 00:35:55.561 --> 00:36:00.841 context or the goal for... 00:36:00.841 --> 00:36:03.001 For women? For who a woman should be. 00:36:04.601 --> 00:36:10.121 Well, in the proverb, like, spare the rod, spoil the child, is also poetic language. 00:36:11.058 --> 00:36:17.161 Like, it's meant to convey, like, there is absolutely room to hold that verse and say, 00:36:17.963 --> 00:36:23.401 oh, spare the rod is a metaphor for sparing all discipline. 00:36:23.401 --> 00:36:24.121 All discipline. 00:36:25.777 --> 00:36:31.521 Yep. It does not necessitate a corporeal physical punishment. 00:36:31.521 --> 00:36:33.690 An actual, using an actual rod. 00:36:34.545 --> 00:36:45.361 Right. Mm-hmm. You see, like we started out by saying, these things seem so simple and basic. 00:36:45.361 --> 00:36:46.361 To you and I, they do. 00:36:46.361 --> 00:36:50.821 To you and I. But I just don't think they are across the board, I think. 00:36:51.681 --> 00:37:02.776 Yeah. Pastors want to pound the pulpit with authority. See what they want to do is that they want to preach with authority. 00:37:04.388 --> 00:37:11.878 Rather than, rather than preaching the authority of the word. 00:37:11.878 --> 00:37:17.378 They want to be the source of authority that's bringing the word, rather than allowing the 00:37:17.378 --> 00:37:18.467 word to speak for itself. 00:37:18.938 --> 00:37:22.778 Or they have a particular conviction that they want to make, not secondary primary, 00:37:22.778 --> 00:37:23.932 they want to make it primary. 00:37:25.498 --> 00:37:29.278 Or they don't believe that there are primary and secondary convictions, which I think is 00:37:29.278 --> 00:37:37.993 really is pretty prevalent. That all the things that they believe is the only way to believe it, 00:37:38.254 --> 00:37:46.318 and there's no secondary opinion on how to believe a particular thing. 00:37:47.446 --> 00:37:52.558 Yeah. Well, I find it so sad because I don't, like, I find it sad that people are, 00:37:52.558 --> 00:38:02.698 Or what seems to be just like good reading of scripture is like a, like that shouldn't 00:38:02.698 --> 00:38:10.131 be a reason, hopefully, to like abandon your faith altogether, right? 00:38:10.658 --> 00:38:15.353 Just because someone misused scripture when they were teaching it to you at some point 00:38:15.418 --> 00:38:21.898 and they, you know, potentially caused harm because of how they were teaching scripture 00:38:21.898 --> 00:38:28.352 to other people or to you and what they were trying to get you to believe about yourself or your situation. 00:38:29.441 --> 00:38:39.538 Like, you know, that's really sad. But it's even more sad that like in discovering good biblical interpretation, you might be 00:38:39.538 --> 00:38:47.418 tempted to also just leave the Bible behind because you found that, oh, these things that 00:38:47.418 --> 00:38:50.785 were being taught to me as absolute are not absolute. 00:38:51.058 --> 00:38:56.538 Well, I think what it does is it just calls into question whether or not you can trust 00:38:56.538 --> 00:38:58.123 to what the person in front of you is saying. 00:38:59.608 --> 00:39:02.098 So we are guilty by association of title. 00:39:04.208 --> 00:39:10.498 Even though we may believe that we are taking, take a very honest approach towards scripture, 00:39:11.464 --> 00:39:17.138 because we are pastor and that person was pastor, we are guilty of the same things, 00:39:18.125 --> 00:39:21.538 you know, and they may find out somewhere down the line that we were just trying to push our 00:39:21.538 --> 00:39:23.698 own particular agenda as well. So. 00:39:23.878 --> 00:39:31.378 Yeah, yeah, and that's a, I feel like that's a really uphill battle that all faithful pastors 00:39:31.378 --> 00:39:35.095 have to fight in this current time. 00:39:35.298 --> 00:39:42.342 Well quite honestly, I don't feel particularly convicted to fight the battle head on. 00:39:42.778 --> 00:39:53.432 I feel like if I just need to continue to preach the word as faithfully and as honestly 00:39:53.685 --> 00:40:03.338 as I receive it from the Lord, and that the Holy Spirit will do the work of sowing it 00:40:03.338 --> 00:40:12.218 into the hearts of those whom it needs to be sown into, and like those it doesn't get 00:40:12.218 --> 00:40:14.750 its own into, it doesn't, it's not really. 00:40:15.978 --> 00:40:23.518 The faithful proclamation of the word is my responsibility and that's where kind of it starts and it ends. 00:40:24.472 --> 00:40:34.858 Yeah, yep, kind of the trusting the fruit to God, doing the work, being assured that the faithfulness 00:40:34.858 --> 00:40:38.795 of showing up and doing all of that is, you know, 00:40:40.019 --> 00:40:41.378 is what God's calling us to. 00:40:41.604 --> 00:40:52.550 Someone here, one of their comments was just that the Bible isn't fully literal. 00:40:53.864 --> 00:41:01.555 True. True. It's like people, like sometimes people come and they'll ask the question of, well, 00:41:02.525 --> 00:41:10.355 do you preach or do you understand the Bible literally? And I like to be snarky and say, 00:41:11.068 --> 00:41:12.995 I preach it literarily. 00:41:15.254 --> 00:41:22.775 Yeah. Um, you know, like, cause the, what's like, there's a, there's a psalm that everybody 00:41:22.775 --> 00:41:23.975 always likes to talk about. 00:41:24.706 --> 00:41:31.485 It's the, I think there's a psalm in the Bible that says the sun rises or something like that. 00:41:32.079 --> 00:41:37.175 And we know that scientifically the sun doesn't rise, the earth rotates. Right. 00:41:39.083 --> 00:41:51.255 Well, it's a psalm. So it's a poem. Do we need to then, like, if we believe the Bible literally, do we need to say, well, 00:41:51.255 --> 00:42:01.455 science is wrong and the sun does rise, and it's a geocentric world or universe, and disregard 00:42:01.455 --> 00:42:08.889 science because we're gonna take the Bible literally, and not say that there's room for 00:42:09.060 --> 00:42:14.455 Bible to be a literary piece that it's speaking in poetic language with the knowledge of the time 00:42:14.455 --> 00:42:19.818 and like all of that. Yeah. Or something like Luke, when you get to heaven, are you gonna, 00:42:20.115 --> 00:42:22.935 are you gonna enjoy having a conversation with the prodigal son? 00:42:26.822 --> 00:42:31.015 No. No. Why not? Because he didn't exist. Because he didn't exist, right? 00:42:31.015 --> 00:42:42.635 Jesus taught in parables, made up stories to display or to communicate a spiritual reality. 00:42:43.143 --> 00:42:46.591 The Good Samaritan, a parable, right? 00:42:47.671 --> 00:42:49.855 The Prodigal Son, a parable. 00:42:50.975 --> 00:42:53.495 Was the lesson real? Absolutely. 00:42:55.008 --> 00:43:00.538 Was there an actual son that left? I'm sure somebody did, but Jesus wasn't referencing 00:43:00.538 --> 00:43:09.338 a specific person that he knows. So is the Bible literal? Well, if that's a literal question, 00:43:09.338 --> 00:43:16.618 then it's literally not literal. If you want to ask the question, do you take the Bible seriously? 00:43:18.144 --> 00:43:25.130 Yeah, yeah, right within its literal context right when the Bible decides to be literal, 00:43:25.607 --> 00:43:29.604 I take it literally exactly when it's that's a good way to put it when it's meant to be 00:43:29.757 --> 00:43:36.365 metaphorical or symbolic symbolic right looking back about dragons and harlots and beasts 00:43:36.458 --> 00:43:43.778 and exactly yes yeah I don't know that I don't think we should expect a physical beast to 00:43:43.778 --> 00:43:44.701 to come out of the ocean. 00:43:45.198 --> 00:43:46.393 I mean, maybe. Maybe we will. 00:43:47.257 --> 00:43:52.155 Maybe. But that's part of the point, is that when we don't know, 00:43:53.338 --> 00:43:55.476 we don't pretend like we do. Yeah. 00:43:56.658 --> 00:43:59.898 Right, because I can't pretend to know that nuclear subs are the beast 00:44:00.023 --> 00:44:02.714 that was coming out of the water in Revelation. Like. 00:44:04.137 --> 00:44:10.492 Right, and we allow, we allow our theology to be in... 00:44:12.869 --> 00:44:19.152 To be held by faithful mystery in the areas that we don't know. 00:44:19.279 --> 00:44:21.772 Like I don't know about the end times. 00:44:22.199 --> 00:44:28.308 I know what I know because of what Jesus said in the rest of the scripture was clear on. 00:44:30.479 --> 00:44:33.639 But I don't know what I don't know, and so what I don't know, I just been like, 00:44:33.639 --> 00:44:37.013 well, I'm pretty sure God's gotta figure it out. 00:44:39.199 --> 00:44:43.479 I trust that when Jesus returns, I'm gonna be caught up in the air with him 00:44:43.479 --> 00:44:45.007 after the dead in Christ rise first. 00:44:45.919 --> 00:44:52.679 Second Thessalonians, right? And pretty sure that when I'm with Jesus in the air. 00:44:57.879 --> 00:45:02.639 I'm gonna be just fine. Yeah. That's all I gotta know. Yep. Not gonna miss it. 00:45:02.912 --> 00:45:04.319 Not gonna miss it, nope. 00:45:05.118 --> 00:45:08.728 Well, yeah, I think that was an interesting discussion. 00:45:10.639 --> 00:45:18.559 Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think if you're listening and you, I don't know, if you've got, you can always send us 00:45:18.559 --> 00:45:21.376 Bible questions. Yeah, that'd be great. 00:45:21.574 --> 00:45:29.532 That's honestly, actually, probably our area of expertise. So we'd love to talk about stuff like that. 00:45:31.144 --> 00:45:35.799 Yeah. So if you've got like passages or maybe there's passages that maybe you thought meant one 00:45:35.799 --> 00:45:40.299 thing and as time's gone on, you've kind of like, oh, maybe that doesn't mean what I thought, 00:45:40.839 --> 00:45:46.039 it meant, you know, send us those questions. Let us know what you thought about some of 00:45:46.039 --> 00:45:50.102 the stuff we were saying today, or if there's anything that you'd be interested in hearing 00:45:50.165 --> 00:45:59.639 more about. Yeah. Like and subscribe. Send us messages, send us messages 716-201-0507. 00:45:59.639 --> 00:46:08.827 That's our text line. Yep. And we'll answer any questions that you have. Yeah. As much as we're able to. 00:46:09.199 --> 00:46:13.999 Yes, as much as we're able to, that's for sure. Thanks for listening and watching. Yep. 00:46:15.921 --> 00:46:20.079 Let's get to 40 subscribers, people. Come on, if I come back next week and there's 37, 00:46:20.079 --> 00:46:23.759 I might quit. All right, we'll see you all next time.