Do the Churches of Christ Have "Popes?"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome in to Think Deeper podcast. Jack Wilkie here, presented by Focus Press. I always forget to throw that in there. Joined by Joe Wilkie and Will Harrop as always. But this time we've got Dr. Brad Harrop with us this week. A lot has been going on in the churches of Christ the last week or two. Brad had a post that a lot of people responded to. I had a post or two that a lot of people responded to. There's controversy brewing and I don't know, this is one of those. If you've seen it, you've seen it. If you haven't, sorry, we're gonna catch you up on it a little bit. But we want to talk about broader problems in the churches of Christ. Not just this one thing that happened, but why these things keep happening. And so we brought Brad on to talk about it. Brad, thanks for joining us. And I don't know, why don't you give a little bit of your perspective of where things where, why this keeps happening, I guess. Well, I need to give a little bit more background for those who don't know. There's another controversy like we got into a couple years ago, another preacher who has been canceled and blacklisted and all those things. And so when that kind of thing happens, why does this keep happening? [00:01:15] Speaker A: Hey, it's great to be back with you guys. I've seen this for 20 plus years play out over and over again. And the short answer is we've got bullies and a pope system in the Church of Christ that while people would not admit that openly, the reality is we've got kind of a hierarchy that is dictating what they believe is acceptable to, you know, what, what doctrines they think they hold to, what beliefs they hold to. And if you don't toe their line, then man, you're out, you're blackballed. You don't get invited to lectureships. We're going to send secret packets to people to cut your funding. I had it happen to me, quite literally had had some elders call me and say, hey, do you know about this packet that's being mailed around? This was 12, 15 years ago. And thankfully some of them had the courage to send me this packet that was being sent around, read through it, realized, hey, there's at least two just outright lies that the person who prepared it was sitting around. But because this person was considered one of the, the popes of the church, we got canceled by many, many different congregations by some personal supporters. It happens over and over again. Nobody stands up to them. They keep running the show. [00:02:50] Speaker C: I think there are. Yeah, obviously, I'm sure there's dozens of stories that could be shared that are. That are very similar to that. To me as we just kind of get this episode started. There's two fundamental issues that are at stake here that are kind of at play amidst all. It's not just this controversy. You know, there's. There's dozens. There's a ton that take place. There was one, I think, last year, a guy was presenting the gospel at a Baptist church or something like that, and it was the same thing. And so, again, this is not. I don't want the listeners to think this is just, you know, the. The Focus Press kind of pet issues here that we're talking about. No, this happens to a lot of different people. There's two issues at play here, and I'm sure one of them I'm not going to speak much to. I'm sure dad and Jack could speak better. [00:03:34] Speaker A: More of. [00:03:35] Speaker C: And that is just a bit of a power struggle. Bit of a. Who can kind of be, you know, among. Who can sit at the big boys table, essentially? Who can kind of be the keynote speaker at every lectureship? Who can be on all the board of directors? Who can be the top dog? Again, that's. That's not really for me to talk about. I do think that is one of the issues at play, though, for sure. The other one. And then, Joe, obviously, we'll bring you in as well for any thoughts that you have. The other issue is simply, what are we allowed to disagree on? What are we allowed to disagree on? And we've had episodes about this in the past. And so this isn't going to be a full rehashing of that. But again, where I see this as just kind of a fundamental issue is with the recent controversy that took place with the brother that preached the lesson on this, the message that he was preaching, I mean, just to be fully transparent, it was about alcohol, and he taught it from Romans 14. I was arguing with somebody online that equated it with compromising on the essentiality of baptism. Like, okay, well, if that's gonna be our. That's gonna be our framework, then there's just literally nothing we can do. If you're going to equ. The way that we attain our salvation, the way that we come into contact with the blood of Christ and the essential nature of that with a pretty clearly personal Liberty in Romans 14. I know they don't view it that way, but, man, then what are we? What are we supposed to do, like, how do we move forward? So to me, those are the two fundamental issues at stake here when it comes to kind of this, this overall question of how do we handle these brotherhood controversies? Number one again, is the. Is the power play. And number two is, once again, just the how do we learn how to disagree with each other? So, Joe, I'm curious, kind of what thoughts you have. [00:05:21] Speaker D: Yeah, you know, I just want to ask these guys, because the main issue that Jack, you got was popes. You know, why do you call them popes? That's just. You had people that were posting essentially the same thing, but they just wouldn't use the word popes. And they were kind of browbeating you for using that term, Brad. You used it here. It's people that are gatekeepers. It's people that pass down the information, and people will go along with the information no matter what. We've heard stories of certain men, certain of these men helping churches choose their preacher for them so that they know they're getting a sound guy. I'm sorry, is that not a pope like system where it's like, you got to come to me. I'm not over your church, but I'll gladly step in as somebody that you know, is a defender of the truth. And the question I would love to ask all of these gentlemen, is there anything in scripture you fear you may be wrong on, that you worry you're maybe not right on? Is there anything that they doubt that? It's like, you know, I've studied this. I, I just kind of. [00:06:12] Speaker C: Because maybe you're just. You're just not sure. Yeah. [00:06:15] Speaker D: Well, to the rest of us, we're all struggling with certain things. [00:06:19] Speaker A: No, they. The answer is no, they don't. They have deemed themselves the truth instead of the Bible being the truth. John, chapter 17, verse 17. They are truth. And so whatever they say is the truth. And, and here's. Guys, I know y' all have seen it, you've heard it. We'll just use, for instance, dancing or gambling for a moment. Instead of members actually researching and knowing what the Bible says about things like dancing or gambling, they know what brother so and so says, or they know what position this organization or this school of preaching has on that. And instead of researching it themselves, they rehash the exact same arguments that brother so and so using, never studying it for themselves. So they don't really know what the Bible actually says about dancing and gambling. They know what brother so and so says. [00:07:17] Speaker B: Man, it's funny, I just dealt with that in real time, talking to somebody. And just kind of the longer I talked to the guy, you could see his programming running out. Like we were reaching the end of his script. And it's like his responses started changing. Like you actually had to see his brain start engaging. But the first 10 messages in the thread were just, well, this, this, this, you know, like. And you see what they do when they train these guys. It is rote memorization about all these things. It's when they say this, you say this, when they say it is a script. And when you have a script, you're not using your brain. And that is dangerous stuff. That people are literally, they go to be trained how to be a preacher and they're not taught how to study the Bible, they're taught to memorize a script. And so then if somebody gets off of the script, it's like, hey, hey, hey, hey, he's cheating. He's not. You know, he's clearly wrong here. He's a devil worshipping, healthy, false teacher, right? He's devil worshipping, truth hating, false teacher, [00:08:12] Speaker C: enemy of the cross. [00:08:13] Speaker B: You can't. [00:08:14] Speaker D: That's right. [00:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah, he's been called right. And a lot of people have, unfortunately. And it works. Guys get fired from their preaching jobs. Guys get uninvited from things. As we talked about guys. And I want to just briefly on that, nobody's entitled to a lectureship seat or a gospel meeting schedule or any of those kinds of things. But when there are guys who have earned that, there are guys that are sought after speakers and they have that taken away from them. Number one, you lose a lot. You meet a lot of friends that way. You meet a lot of cool people and you lose friends, you lose those relationships. Also. There's a lot of guys that, that is their supplemental income. You're taking that away from them. You're taking food off of their table because he disagreed with you and you went and did a gossip campaign on him. This is sick stuff. And okay, let's talk about another angle of this. I'm gonna drive it this way. They do these things, they put the letters out, they grandstand about, oh, we're gonna bring down the false teacher. And these things happen. We. Brad makes a post, I make a post. Now we're the bad guys in the church all week long, everyone posting. Oh, how divisive things have gotten. No, no, no, I'm sorry. Opposing division is not divisive. [00:09:22] Speaker D: That. [00:09:23] Speaker B: I want to talk about that a little bit. That part drove me crazy. [00:09:26] Speaker D: Well, this, this is right in Our wheelhouse. There's a serious crisis of masculinity in the church. We cannot stomach conflict to save our lives. I'm sorry. There's a lot of pansies out there. That the moment that you bring these things, that you bring conflict into the situation, it's like, I can't believe. [00:09:40] Speaker C: I can't believe we're taking all of this public on social media. [00:09:43] Speaker D: Boy, God is disappointed at the church, brethren. And it's like, do you realize that we can probably. If all of us sat around and talked about and we're not going to mention names, I bet you we could easily in the next five minutes come up with at least 20 people we know that have been taken off lectureships, that have lost their jobs, kicked out on the street and had two weeks to go find another job, people that have again been smeared. We had Facebook ads taken out against us. We had letters written about us, calling us devil worshiping, false teachers. Like this thing. We've lost jobs due to the alcohol podcast due to some of these things. Like, this is real world consequences. And the moment that you two brought it to light, being courageous as it is, because this all happens in back rooms and then nobody comes out and goes, yeah, it's canceled by these guys because everybody's afraid of them. You guys have the chutzpah to get out there and go do it. And everybody wants to jump on you of like, well, that's bringing division into the church. It's like, where have you been when. When your good brothers and sisters in Christ are losing livelihoods, losing jobs, losing so many things, losing reputations that have been built over decades. They're losing this at the drop of a hat with tons of people losing funding from their organizations and things like that. And now you want to draw the line the moment I post on Facebook about it. Are you kidding me? Like, this upsets me more than anything that, again, this is why we have a crisis of masculinity. We cannot accept any division in the church, any conflict. And it's like, guys, have you ever read Galatians 2 where Paul gets up and publicly opposes Peter to his face for the harm that he was doing to his gentile brethren? That is this situation. And people can't stomach it. And I'm sorry. It drives me nuts. Drives me nuts. [00:11:16] Speaker A: Well, and that's. You're. You're absolutely right. And, you know, here I am, I'm. I'm on a podcast with all these enemies of the cross. In all seriousness, you guys know, because I, I've sent you copies, emails, whatever. I've lost probably at least half a dozen, if not a dozen speaking engagements, all because one of these yahoos reached out, contacted somebody that had already scheduled me and said, oh, did you know this about Brad? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all sudden, boom, It's. It's not there anymore. I think Jack would. Would back me up on this. One of the frustrating issues is, as you're kind of pointing out, Joe, we get all these private messages, private text, all this communication behind the scenes saying, yeah, that was done to me. Or, man, I see it all the time, or, amen, brother. And all these. All these people who are saying, yes, we see it, we see it, we see it, but they're so scared to actually go out in public and admit it. [00:12:23] Speaker B: Because I want that. What the alternative of not exposing this and bringing it out into the light, to kind of keep this. This fake piece that everyone wants to hang on to. What that means is every year or two, we're gonna feed a brother to the wolves. We're gonna watch him suffer reputational death, maybe lose his job, maybe lose a bunch of family and friendship relationships of people cutting him off because, oh, I can't believe so and so. And well, these people won't invite me to their thing if I am seen in a picture with that guy. And so we'll. We'll throw a guy through that every couple of years rather than publicly say, hey, we gotta stop this, and. And that we are like the bad guys for saying we've gotta stop this, but it's way more acceptable. You're a lot nicer if you go. Yeah, I'm willing to live with somebody losing their reputation every couple years, as long as it's not me. That's disgusting. [00:13:09] Speaker C: That's what I was gonna say is for all those who would kind of have this position, Jack, that you bring up about. Oh, man, I can't believe you guys are being so divisive. Why is this stuff. Why are we hashing this out on social media? This is not. Let's just go evangelize, basically. So you're. Basically, your solution is to not have a solution. So what that tells us is either A, you don't see a problem here, which I think is what you're speaking to, Jack, either A, like, you just don't see a problem with every couple. Every couple times a year, somebody kind of getting drugged through the mud, canceled, blacklisted, all those things. So either A, you don't see the problem, or B, you do see the problem. And you're like, I'd rather just not deal with it. Both of those are. That's a lose, lose scenario, to Joe's point, from a masculinity perspective, if at any situation, I mean, take a, if you're the spiritual leader of your home and there's a serious problem in your home, if your problem is that you don't see the problem, or B, you do see the problem and you'd rather just not do anything about it. Both of those are bad options. And so that's kind of what I see here going on is instead of doing what needs to be done, which is say, hey, let's. Let's figure out a solution for this. And the solution is not to just stay quiet about it and, you know, hope that we can just keep the peace. [00:14:21] Speaker A: No. [00:14:21] Speaker C: What happened to this brother again a couple weeks ago now was not right. And it needed to be called out. And the fact that it was called out by multiple people, Jack. Dad. Other people did as well. The fact that it was called out does not make it divisive. But I want to. I want to spin it into another direction here. I don't know who wants to go next. I'm very curious Yalls thoughts on this when it comes to these. You know, again, it's not just this issue. There's other issues that this takes place. My question would be for. From y', all, and I get, dad, maybe you want to go first here. Why is it always a do or die scenario? If that makes sense, like why. Why. Why feel the need to come out and grandstand and have it? Because the position often is. Jack, you pointed this out. I know. I'm going to call you a false teacher. I'm going to call you an enemy of the cross. But in our conversation, I'm still going to call you brother. Well, how does that work? Like, that's that those two things do not equate to. To say, hey, brother, you know, I disagree with you on this also. You're a false teacher. So I guess that's my. I guess that's more. So my question is, how do. How do people get to that conclusion? And why is that such an error of a conclusion to come to of you're a false teacher. I'm gonna oppose you, get you canceled. But also, you're still my brother. [00:15:36] Speaker A: A lot of it has to do with the fact that they're doing this in the virtual world or they're doing this by mailing packets where it's a whole lot easier. It's a whole lot easier than, you know, they're shooting from behind the bushes. But when you actually sit down with these people or you pick up the phone and call them or, you know, you meet them for coffee, suddenly their whole tenor, everything changes. I. I went through several phone calls with somebody who had, quote, unquote, written everybody up and basically was, you know, I started the conversation saying, hey, we should have called first. A lot of this could have really, really been dealt with privately. We could have probably reached an agreement. And the whole time, the guy's treating me very kindly, referring to me as brother. He's saying all these things, but out in public, man, we are like the. The. The toxic bad. And, well, part of it goes to. As much as we hate to say it, it's fundraising. These guys are profiting by saying, hey, we are the ones that have the truth. Hey, we are the. The ones that are following the old paths. Stick with us. Look, we're not afraid to call these bad guys out. And so they're. I hate to say it this way. [00:17:02] Speaker C: That's a really good point. It's like the Democratic Party political campaigning. Yeah. [00:17:06] Speaker A: They are literally sending out emails asking for funds because they're supporting the old paths and they're. They're willing to. To fight this good fight. And sadly, a lot of people are sending them money. [00:17:18] Speaker B: Yeah, the. I wrote an article on this a year or two ago called the Cowardly Disfellowship of the Brotherhood Police, and that every time one of these things happens, man, the. The posse rides into town and starts blasting, and everybody's a false teacher and everybody's going to hell. And then, like you say, we get back to, oh, hey, brother, like, I'm sorry, there are people that I. You know, there's a church down the road that's about to put women ministers in. I'm not calling them brothers. Like, they are on a trajectory that is so far afield where it's like, no, man, we're not. We're not on the same team anymore. They're pro gay. They're all these things. And it's like, no, I don't consider you. I would not even look at you in the same, like, as part of the churches of Christ because of all that they've done gone astray on. And yet people who disagree with me on one of these other issues. Yeah, you're still a brother, you know, And I think you're wrong. And you're still a brother. They don't have levels. They don't have A concept of, as Will said earlier, that they're equating this. Being wrong about this is the same as being wrong about baptism. Like, there is no secondary issue. There is no gospel issue versus applicational issue, anything, whatever terms you want to use on it. And so. But then in practice, they do treat it that way because I think they would be like, well, if somebody comes and says you don't have to be baptized anymore, are they going to call them a member of the church? No, no, they're not. And so they, in practice they have levels of doctrinal priority, but when they're grandstanding, they don't. [00:18:45] Speaker C: Everything is a gospel, which represents the. Once again, the. I get to put on this kind of front that I'm the only one standing for truth. I'm the one that's closest to the Bible. But the really difficult thing to do is to actually carry that out. Church discipline, all those things. So I'd rather not mess with that. I mean, it just, it carries on [00:19:02] Speaker A: the facade and you totally have even overlooked one little aspect of this whole debacle and that is notice how they'll call out certain people, but there's certain segments that they won't cross the lines with. If brother so and so who is tightly associated with this school of preaching where, you know, I like to go speak on their lectureship or he's a speaker at PDP or blah, blah, blah. [00:19:30] Speaker C: That's literally politics. That's literally what it is. [00:19:32] Speaker A: Yeah. When they will call out small fish or individuals or whatever, but they're not going after some of the bigger folks who are tied directly to these institutions, to these organizations. Total politics, 100%. [00:19:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Caleb Robertson's been doing a really good job of pointing that out of, hey, here's these other guys who teach on this. And yet you don't mind showing up with them. You don't. You're not calling them devil loving, false teacher, you know, any of those things that just reveals the game. I mean, the ridiculousness of it. [00:20:05] Speaker D: Here's the real question. Have they ever heard of the sin of slander? That's, you know, when we think about. Well, they can tell you everything. What the Bible says about New Heavens, New Earth, or about alcohol or even MDR or any of those things that are very debated, very discussed, lots of discussion and Bible study going into these things. And they are more than willing to draw lines of fellowship to some degree. Kind of. To your point, kind of. Not really. They're more than willing to throw these people under the bus where does slander come into any of this? Now they can look up, but they can stand up and say, well, again, this is a Galatians 2 principle. We're calling out the false brethren. We're calling out false teachers so they can pat themselves on the back. But Brad, as you said in that packet, at least two to three different lies we've had lies said about us. They're just pushing, promoting their lifestyle. Alcohol. Like, I don't drink alcohol in the least. And we always tell people, do not drink alcohol. We've gone on record saying that drugs, alcohol, none of those things. We're squeaky clean. We're all homeschool kids. Like, we don't do those things. And yet this goes out there. And instead of the slander being called out and people going, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't do that. You're slandering a brother in Christ. And that's very divisive and that's very wrong. They don't get called out for that. We get called out for ours because people either believe the slander or people are too afraid to say it. Like, why is slander not a sin to these people? [00:21:22] Speaker B: Just baptized now what? In a world full of conflicting voices about what it means to follow Jesus, Danny Davis hands new believers and seasoned Christians needing a fresh start. A clear, scripture saturated roadmap. I'm a what's Next walks you step by step from the waters of baptism into a lifetime of joyful obedience, answering the questions every new Christian asks. How do I grow closer to God every single day? What does God actually expect of me in worship, in daily life? Why does the Church of Christ worship the way it does? And why does it matter? How do I stand firm when temptation, doubt or hardship hits? Written with the warmth of a spiritual leader and the conviction of a seasoned preacher, this book is both a tender welcome to the family of God and an unapologetic call to wholehearted devotion. Includes practical appendices with key memory verses, study methods, common questions answered straight from scripture, and guidance for finding a faithful congregation. Whether you were baptized yesterday or decades ago, I am a Christian. What's Next will rekindle your first love and anchor you firmly in New Testament Christianity. Your new life has just begun. This book is a sermon on how to live it. Available on Amazon.com and cobb publishing.com [00:22:35] Speaker A: I've got one even better for you, Joe. So when all that mess was going down, I had somebody contact me saying, hey, are you aware that this certain person who is very, very affiliated with We'll Just say some of the broadcasting, Church of Christ stuff, that. That he's sending emails out about you and about your position and telling people that you support social drinking, which. Anybody listening to this, you know, I don't support social drinking. [00:23:07] Speaker C: You weren't even on the podcast to be sorry. [00:23:10] Speaker D: Right. [00:23:10] Speaker A: In my house, et cetera, et cetera. And so when I reached out privately to this brother and said, hey, I understand you're saying this. [00:23:18] Speaker D: His. [00:23:19] Speaker A: His response was, well, I had. There were people who were associating me with Focus Press. And so I had to make a distinction. And when I came back and said, buddy, they weren't reaching out to you. You sent these emails unsolicited to them. My goodness, Nothing. No response. [00:23:40] Speaker C: Shocker. [00:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:42] Speaker B: That's the other thing about this is we're very frustrated about this. We have taken up the. The. I guess we've met the call where they're dividing publicly and we're coming out and calling it out. It's about the heart behind it. Yes, I'm mad. Yes, I'm frustrated. Yes. You know, we've been hurt by things, and we hate seeing other people get hurt by things. We hate brothers being thrown to the wolves. We're standing up against it. You see the heart of these people, it is to devour and tear and all those things. And again, my greatest frustration is with the people in the middle who go, I see no difference between these things. These are equally bad. The guy who is taking shots at his brother and the guy who is saying, stop shooting at him. Boy, they're both being divisive. Like, you guys got to get used to. You've got to get to the point where you can stand up to this. But the heart behind it, this is about a love of the brethren. This is about a desire for unity. I mean, all of the New Testament scriptures that talk about unity, of being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, diligent means you got to work at it. And I'm sorry, I'm going to shoot you down the first time you disagree with me because you haven't. You know, I can use Jude and says that we have to contend for the faith, and the faith means whatever I believe. And so we've got to contend for my belief set, you know, my set of opinions. That's not what that means. Okay. And I don't know, I think there's all these justifications to just say I'm doing the right thing when I take shots at my brother. No, no. Like the ones I mentioned a minute ago that are really going off the reservation doctrinally, it breaks my heart. And yes, they need to be confronted and told, hey, this, what are you doing over here? But on the other hand, it's not, it is not this kind of, oh, boy, I got a chance to take one down and as Brad said, burnish my credentials as the defender of the faith here. And you can just see the difference in posture. [00:25:29] Speaker C: Well, what's so alarming, too, is because this is coming from so many, call it authorities, authority voices in the church leaders, high level ministers, you know, whatever it is, think about what it trains. The kind of, I hate to say average member, but just, you know, like somebody who's not in those authority positions. The way that it trains them to think. It trains them to think in this. I mean, why do we think the Church of Christ has such a grace problem? Because we basically told ourselves if we miss anything, we are, we are in. We're in deep trouble if there's anything we're wrong about, if we put the wrong name on the sign, you know, anything like that. Not that we obviously goes without saying there are things we cannot be wrong about, but to the point that was brought up earlier about, are there gray areas in Scripture, obviously, are there areas that we maybe just are not going to be able to come fully down on? Absolutely. This posture that you're talking about, Jack, this heart behind it is. It is trained your average member, it is trained just the church going, maybe even a deacon or whatever it is to think this way also. And so then the way that that manifests itself is in inter congregational conflict is in. I mean, you know, this is a very small scale as far as a camp goes, but my wife was uninvited from a camp two days before she was supposed to be there and already spent money to, you know, because she was going to be a part of leadership there. Because of what I said on a podcast, like. And so obviously it is training people to think in this way of, like, if you're wrong on anything, you're out. And that's just. Again, we wonder why the Church of Christ has such a grace reputation or a poor understanding of grace reputation. It's not that. Again, it's not to excuse completely compromising on doctrine. Well, let's put women in the pulpit and say that there's grace for that. Of course not. But because, you know, on these, some of these minor issues, we're just. The Church of Christ typically does not allow for grace on those things that's the heart problem that Jack's talking about there. [00:27:20] Speaker D: They love the end of Matthew 7, you know, which is, do we not do all these great things in your name depart from me, you who practice lawlessness? Which is not really about their understanding of doctrine, it's about workspace. But either way, they kind of misunderstand. They miss the beginning of Matthew 7, which is, take the plank out of your own eye. The measure by which you judge, you will be judged. That's a very serious thing that it's like you have to be thinking about. To your point, Jack, the love of the brethren, you got to be thinking about men. Am I right in my understanding of Scripture? And the problem is these are the people. It's black and white. Just black and white. Everything in Bible is black and white. Like, if you studied Scripture for any length of time, you realize there are. It's God's word for a reason. It is so deep, it is so complex. There are so many things that. I'm not saying that we're, you know, squishy on doctrine or any of those things. I'm saying you start to understand these are really difficult things to get right. Really difficult concepts to try to wrestle with. Some of these, I think are more easy than not. But either way, they're willing to say everything's black and white. And if you are on the black side, you're out. And if you're on the white side, you're good. When there are just elements where we can agree to disagree. You may see it as black and white, I may see it as more gray. A new heavens, new earth. I'm not married to a specific idea, but if I happen to even inch toward a specific idea, which I think I'm more on the side of, that's the perfect example. It's a black and white issue. Like, why is that so black and white and white. [00:28:42] Speaker C: That's the perfect example. Sorry, I was just gonna say on the new heavens, new earth thing, all of us know a guy who basically was canceled because he came out and said, you know, I think I side with this. That isn't es. Escalado. What's the word? Eschatology. I know, it's eschatology. Yeah, Eschatological. There you go. That's an eschatological position. It does not. It doesn't have any bearing in our worship practices, really, in our day to day life, anything like that. And that's the hill that we're going to die on and say, this person's a false teacher. Because they even believe that. I mean, just say it out loud. Like, why is that? To me, that one's the perfect example of like, okay, if you believe that and I don't, can we still sit around the same table and fellowship? Obviously the answer to that should be yes. That's what we're trying to get across here. [00:29:27] Speaker A: You talk about, can I give a Joe Hot take? [00:29:30] Speaker B: Go for it. [00:29:31] Speaker D: Go for it. [00:29:32] Speaker A: All right. So. So. And I realized that, man, I'm way crossing the line on this one. But the folks that are doing this are so filled with false humility. They come across. And you'll hear them, their wives, their supporters. Oh, brother. So, and so he. He's the most humble man, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But here, here's what really I've witnessed over the last 15, 20 years. These guys who are saying, hey, I hold the truth about all these things. I'm. I'm the. Your source. They're not actually out there studying the Bible with people. They're not actually converting people. What they're doing is grandstanding and basically elevating themselves onto a pedestal. And it's tragic because you don't see these people really converting folks. You don't see these people in the trenches. What you see these people doing is talking about, oh, how humble he is, brother. So he's so humble. [00:30:35] Speaker B: And. [00:30:36] Speaker A: But lo and behold, when. When something comes up that brother so and so has got to speak out against. He is willing to. To speak up and be courageous. And now what he's willing to do is grandstand to make his name big. And he wants to be ultimate bearer of truth. Even though I know this is going to surprise you, we're not called to know what PTP or Freed Hardiman or MSOP or Bear Valley or Focus Press says about anything. We're called to know what Jesus Christ says about everything. And until some of these guys start pointing people back to Christ, we're gonna, we're gonna have this mess over and over. It's. It's not about them. It's not about me. It's about Jesus Christ. [00:31:17] Speaker B: Well, you're getting at fruits here. And that's one of the other things that I kind of wanted to expose here. I got messages from multiple people, and I'm kind of afraid to say this because I don't want them witch hunting the people. It was. It was multiple people. It was more than 1, more than 2 of people telling me, hey, I agree with you on this. Don't say that I agree with you because I'm afraid my family members that go to that preaching school will not talk to me anymore or I've already been cut off by family members who go to that preaching. This is the fruits of the kind of thing we're talking about. So when people get mad at us for talking about this, like, no, I want everybody to know that if your child, if somebody you know, that you love says, I'm thinking about going to this preaching school, please throw your body in front of them to stop them, or you might lose the relationship if they find out you're a devil loving false teacher for disagreeing with them. That's what's at stake here. That's the fruits of this kind of thing. And so will you. Brought up something a minute ago I also wanted to get into about the reputation of the church for not having grace. One of the things that's been lobbed at me, lobbed at Brad, lobbed at a few people who have waded in to this controversy is you guys are making the church look bad by talking about this publicly on social media. I disagree, but I want to see what you guys think about this. Is this something that. Yes, there's been a lot of back and forth. There's been, you know, I'm calling people new popes, they're calling people devil loving, false teachers and things like that. And so people will say, well, this is, this division makes the church look bad before the watching world, before the public or whatever else. I still say we got to have these things happen publicly. But what do you guys say to that charge that we're hurting the church's reputation? [00:32:56] Speaker D: I mean, my, my answer to that would be, you know what really hurts the church's reputation? When people are getting blacklisted, when people are losing jobs, when people are getting kicked out of camps, kicked off of lectureships, kicked off or wherever. And we know of people, I know of people that have either gone incredibly liberal or that have left the faith completely because of some of these things. Like, yeah, my heart is for them. And so calling some of these practices out and maybe stopping a brother from walking away from God because of this, I don't have a problem with. Does it make the church look bad? The church doesn't look good right now in general because of all of the bickering back and forth. So this idea of like, we're making the church look bad, it's like, no, we've already done that for ourselves because of all of the infighting and the back and forth and the calling people out and calling True good brothers, devil loving, you know, false teachers. Like, that's what makes the church look bad. So to call those things out publicly, that's pulling the curtain back, exposing all of the darkness. And people are going, don't expose the darkness. Like, first John one says, walk in the light as he is in the light. And I happen to believe that goes along with the church too. We're exposing the deeds of darkness, the things that are behind. Does it look bad? Yeah, the same way that Paul writing to Corinth going, what are you doing? Well, if that letter gets out or [00:34:07] Speaker C: if people making the New Testament church [00:34:08] Speaker D: look bad, you're making Corinth look bad. Like, they need to be called out for the ways that they are messing up. And in my opinion, this is a very public thing where you're gonna have people that want to take their kids to Texas school of preaching. No, no, they need to know what you're getting into before that ends up taking place. Like, they have to know what's actually there. And when we keep it behind screens, well, don't you go to them in person? Like, that does no good. We've done these things. We've had private conversations with these men. It goes nowhere. And meanwhile, kids are getting sent there, and they're getting their family members cut off from them type of thing, or their families getting them cut off. So, yeah, I think it's imperative, actually, that these things get out so people know who to avoid. [00:34:48] Speaker A: And they. They are producing acolytes that are parroting their same exact arguments and their same exact mentality. You know, when the directors of schools are preaching, the. The main instructors at those schools, when they hold to certain positions and they demand their students hold to those positions, and those students graduate. And now you've got all these little acolytes going to small churches thinking that, man, anybody that doesn't believe what I believe, they're wrong. They should be disfellowshipped. I should mark them. And that's where we are today. Literally. I mean, you got. Got young men, 20s and 30s, who are leaving preaching school thinking it's their job to squash, to be the. [00:35:33] Speaker C: Yeah, the police dogs, basically. [00:35:35] Speaker B: Yeah, the ladder is. Start collecting scalps of bigger, older preachers. [00:35:40] Speaker C: Just. Just real. That's a great point. Just real fast on your question, Jack. I think Joe had a great answer. I think my answer would be, why is that the lens through which we see, you know, kind of handling things well, what would the world think? Well, what would the outsiders think? I think the lens through which we need to see it is what would God want? Like what. What does God want here? Does God want us to, you know, brush everything under the rug? And you think about it from the perspective of a house. We've got all kind of foundational issues. Our family's coming apart, we're fighting all the time. But hey, let's just put all that. Let's just put all that under the rug and invite some people over so that they think we've got a great, happy family with a, you know, warm, welcoming home, even though we really don't. Obviously not. Like, again, I think the lens through which we need to see things is what would God want? And to Joe's point, what God would want is for us to actually start handling these things in a scriptural manner. For us to start. Yeah, bringing these things up and exposing these people. And it's not a. Again, it's not an event session. It's not a. Well, you know, we just have a bone to pick. We really see families and people and again, just the church in general being hurt by this behavior. And so that's, that's where it needs to be called out. So that's just. Sorry to go back to it, but my answer to your question, Jack, of I don't. Whether it's hurting the church's kind of reputation from an outsider's perspective or not, what would God want us to do? And I think that's the answer that we need to take a look at. I think the reason people might have that perspective of should this really be hashed on social media, I could maybe see that for some smaller issues, like, okay, is this really a big enough deal? Something like this? Your post, Jack. Obviously, dad, your. Your thoughts on. On social media? Yeah, pretty big deal. So I don't, I don't think that that, you know, sinks to the level of not worth our time to discuss. That would be my answer to your question. Question, Jack. [00:37:28] Speaker A: What's ironic in the whole thing is these guys have positioned themselves that when they throw out something, it's not considered divisive. It's considered, we are the truth bearers. And so, you know, they get a free, free get out of jail card. Nobody ever says, wait a second. Hey, Terence and Don, why did you guys put out this really nasty, this guy's a false teacher thing against Todd. No, instead they've positioned themselves to be where the truth bears. We're going to basically assign who is good and who is bad. And then if anybody like us comes along and says, hey, Guys, what you're doing really is bullying. And you've kind of set yourself up to be the popes. All of a sudden. Now we got to be quiet. We. We got to be unity. You know, it's. It's all about, we shouldn't put our dirty laundry out there on the Internet. And help me understand, why is it these guys who've assigned themselves to be pope, why do they suddenly get a free pass when it comes to air and dirty laundry or being bullies and everybody else is the folks who are divisive? [00:38:46] Speaker B: That was the funniest thing to me is they. They put out that public blast on the guy. I publicly criticize what they did. And a lot of people publicly criticized me, saying, you shouldn't be publicly critical, like, I'm sorry. So number one gets a pass, number three gets a pass. But number two in the chain is the problem here. But that's exactly it, is that we're exposing a problem that exists. I. As I've said this probably on the podcast. I don't know. I've said it before. I have a no indoor elephants policy. If there's an elephant in the room, we get it out of there. And the elephant has been in the room forever. And, you know, when this happened to us, if we ride in and, like, start blasting, everyone says, oh, you're just defending yourselves. So after that happened, I said, the next time, every single time one of these campaigns goes out against somebody, I'm gonna be their loudest defender. That was like a vow I made to myself is like, I'm not letting somebody else go through what we got put through without somebody saying something about it. We're exposing an issue that exists. The issue exists whether I say it out loud or not. We all know it exists whether we say it out loud or not. But we have to say it out loud, because if you don't, as Joe said earlier, we're not doing anything about it. We're just going to let it keep happening. And as I said, we're going to feed another guy to the wolves every year to appease and keep this peace. No, this peace stinks. It's not peace. And so we've got to fix that. But in your post, Brad, you focused on institutions, and I think there's a lot of value to that framing of the discussion, because it pulls us back to 1 Corinthians, one of I'm of so, and so I'm of the. The other person. And you mentioned what we need to do is focus on Scripture, which is absolutely true. Some people seem like they were confused about the claim here or nobody says they would follow an institution over Jesus. How do you think that plays out practically? [00:40:33] Speaker A: I think when you got people that have bumper stickers that say I heart ptp, and when you got people who are quoting certain keynote speakers more than they're quoting Jesus, there's your fruit right there. I mean, our. The brotherhood knows so and so's position on gambling, on drinking, on dancing better than they know. What the Bible says tells me all I need to know right there. [00:41:06] Speaker D: Yeah, the institution piece is interesting because you do see, like, Acts 15, the church almost functions kind of as an institution of sorts. I don't know if that can be brought into some degree, but I think the. The blind following of certain institutions has been a struggle. But again, that what they would say is, no, no, no, we. We're not having to follow GBN or whatever it may be that we're not having to follow that. We're. We are just standing on Scripture. We're standing on God's word. And that's kind of the COVID for everything, is like, well, I can tell you what Don has to say about xyz, but we know that he's a solid biblical brother, so they don't really need to know. That's all they need to know is he's a solid biblical brother. So if they can bring anybody else into that, maybe they're not so solid. Well, now they, you know, like, look, anything we say on the podcast. Let's just get this right out. Anything we say on our podcast, please double check us. We're not. We are not the. The only ones that can speak to these things. Like, we're not the popes. We're not telling you what to believe. We're saying here's. We're trying to get everybody to think deeper. Go study these things for yourself. And we fully realize we're trying to stand on God's word to the best of our ability. We're flawed. So I want to put that out there before people accuse us of the same things. But there's just something about the institutions. It's like, I think people like being grouped. It's the same as the Enneagram. It's the same as the mbti. Like, people take these things. It was all those Buzzfeed quizzes of, like, well, what do. What are you, a Hufflepuffer? Gryffindor? People want to be involved in groups, and I think you're seeing group think as they get involved in the groups of a GBN or a PTP or whatever it may be. And that's where they find they can check their brains at the door, because I'm with the sound brethren. [00:42:41] Speaker B: Hey, guys, I wanted to tell you about A Closer Walk with Thee, Volume 1. It's a devotional book written by Joe and me. It is 90 days worth of devotionals that each day gives you a Bible reading, a prayer, a meditation, and a discussion question, something that you can do quickly. It's something you can share with others, something that will give you three months worth of devotionals to get your year off on the right foot. It's currently available on Amazon, coming soon to the Focus Press store. So go check out A Closer Walk with the Volume one today. Just briefly, I want to say on this, one of my proudest things about this podcast is when people say, I listen to you guys all the time. I don't agree with everything you say, but you make me think that's how it should be. You should not be listening to us because you agree with everything we say. [00:43:25] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's exactly right. A couple quick thoughts on what you said there, Joe. Acts 15, you know, the Jerusalem Council. I know, I'm the one that kind of put that on the outline. Like, how does that play in. I think the major difference there is kind of who was heading up the Jerusalem Council. Like, who were. Who was kind of the head decision makers? Well, I don't know. The people that walked with Jesus. So, you know, that's a little bit different than the scenario that we have today. So I think that's a pretty big, I don't know, just pretty big difference there. But the second thing, Joe, that you brought up there about, because you're right, the answer to anybody who might retort to Dad's post about the institutions is, well, no, the institutions that they say they stand on scripture. So they're not trying to get people to align with them, trying to get them to align with Scripture. Here's the problem. What do you do when two different institutions who both say, I'm standing on scripture are in conflict? Then what do you do? Because that's the thing that you kept coming up in these debates or kind of disagreements is, well, I stand on scripture. Well, so do I. So now what do we do? [00:44:22] Speaker A: Right? [00:44:23] Speaker C: Like if two organizations or two individuals or whatever it is, neither one of them is coming to the table saying, well, you know, on this issue, I actually don't stand with scripture. No, nobody's doing that. They're both saying that they stand on Scripture. So now what do we do at that point? That's when you have to take a look and see what, you know, which. Which viewpoint, not which institution, which viewpoint more closely aligns with Scripture. And that, to your point, Joe, and to your point, dad, that's for every individual to kind of come to that conclusion for themselves to do their own study to see which group is doing a little bit more of the proof texting and kind of, you know, cutting the puzzle pieces to fit their perspective versus which group is. Seems to be coming to the understanding of the text as closely as possible. We've had to do that with. With issues before. I mean, Joe, you and your family. My family as well. We've studied head coverings before. Like, there's not widespread agreement on that. You know, there are two different groups of people. One that says you should wear head coverings, one that says you shouldn't. Neither one of them is saying, well, I'm not really with scripture on this one. No, they both are saying that they stand on Scripture. There's disagreement. So what do you do? You. That's where you have to do the looking in for yourselves. And so again, that's where I think to go back to the first point I made when we started the episode of a fundamental issue with this discussion is everybody that disagrees collectively is going to say they stand on Scripture. So now what do you do? That is once again where I think the fruits come in. Who might be misusing the text? And are there things that maybe we have said, maybe we've misused the text before? I'm sure there are. That's where the gray area comes in. Hopefully the grace comes in. We have every right and other people have every right to point that out. But we have to actually start with that perspective of two people can both say they stand on scripture and both not agree. So then what's. [00:46:09] Speaker D: What. [00:46:10] Speaker C: What is our. What is our recourse here? And that's what seems to just be, I don't know, not understood by so many people. [00:46:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to get back to what Joe was saying just a minute ago. You look back in, in Church of Christ history, this, organizations, the institutions, some of the names have changed, but the political and allegiance idea has not changed. Gospel Advocate, the millennial harbinger, the. I mean, you. You can Firm foundation contending for the faith. All of these publications had certain people that followed them because they knew their position on certain things. Exact same thing happens with preaching schools. You know, we. We could sit here, we're not going to. But we can sit here and talk about what this preaching school believes on XYZ and what this preaching school believes on xyz. And because of that, people are going to associate themselves with it and basically they're going to rank them and say, well, you know, this one's better, this one's more conservative, whatever. We've got to stop doing that. We got to stop saying, because the Gospel advocate said so, because Bear Valley said so, because MSOP said so, because, oh, you know how horrible Sunset is. Well, then there's Pepper dying and forget all of that mess and get into the book and actually study the topics for yourself. Don't follow the men. Don't follow the directors of the school. Don't follow preachers. [00:47:45] Speaker C: The one thing I'll say, just briefly, of course, no disagreement there. I do think there's something to be said for this brother or this individual has shown that they can study the Scriptures and that they are handling the text well. Like, I do think there's. I don't think everybody's on an equal playing field in the sense of, like, you know, there should be. You shouldn't have any equity built up essentially. Like, I disagree. I do think certain people, I would hope we've built up some equity with folks with the way that we approach [00:48:11] Speaker A: issues, but we don't get it right all the time. [00:48:14] Speaker D: Correct. Yeah. [00:48:15] Speaker C: And you have to have that. You have to have that perspective. Yes. [00:48:18] Speaker A: They're topics that when somebody brings up to me, I know. Haven't studied that as much as a lot of people have. And yeah, I'm happy to share with you what I've. I've come up with in my, my study and my research. But at that point, we're kind of going out on a limb that may or may not support weight. And just because you like what I do with creation and evolution doesn't mean necessarily you want to listen. [00:48:43] Speaker C: And the difference too is in how you present it. Do you present it in a manner of, hey, this is what I've studied. This is the conclusion I've come to. But again, as you said, kind of present it in a more humble, I'm not entirely sure way, or do you present it in a. I don't care what anybody says, this is exactly what it is. And if you disagree, you're a false teacher. Like, okay, well, then in that instance, there's just a fundamental difference in the way that you present it that also should come into play. So I do agree with that. [00:49:07] Speaker B: And ultimately, the thing that kind of hurts your heart about all this is like, hey, we're on the same team, you know, and, well, you know, Joe and I are coaching our kids soccer and you got five year olds running around and you have to say sometimes, hey, same, same team. Don't take the ball from each other. If we had a kid on our team that was going up and kicking the other kids in the kneecap, we wouldn't be saying, same team. We'd be saying, hey, knock it off. You don't do that to anybody. And that's kind of what we're dealing with here. And so we're gonna run out of time here. I want to talk about something I think is very interesting. As part of this. A few people raised the point of autonomy. All of our churches are autonomous. We need to just kind of mind our own business. And I think there's a lot of value in that. On the other hand, I don't think we're ever going to be in a place where there's pure autonomy, where there's no influence leaked from one congregation to another, where there's people, not people looking to kind of central figures or whatever the case may be. There's that old quip about the Churches of Christ doesn't have bishops or priests or whatever. It has editors, right? It was always the magazines. Now it's, whether it's the YouTube channels or whatever publication it is, are kind of the people that set the doctrine, as Brad's saying, the institutions, the preaching school, teachers, whatever it may be. I think there's a degree of inevitability to that. But on the other hand, I think autonomy is a good bulwark against it. I think you and your church have to answer for yourselves, okay? And how you treat others, how you fellowship with others, those things are left to you. But again, on the other hand, you're not. I don't think any church is ever going to be 100% isolated from this kind of thing. So how can we use autonomy for good here in keeping unity, even if there is kind of overlap in what we're hearing and teaching and the discussions going on? [00:50:50] Speaker D: Well, it's difficult because, you know, you think about. Let not many of you. James 3:1 Let not many of you become teachers, knowing you'll incur stricter judgment. What we're doing on Think Deeper is to some degree that we bear responsibility, I think, for the things that we say and for what people end up believing. But at the end of the day, they're going to have to answer to God for themselves. To your point, Jack, I think the elders, the husbands of the wives, the fathers of the children, the elders of their. Their flock will be answering for what those people believe and really how they practice their beliefs. The practice is kind of the point where we start to see autonomy really come into play. You can gather ideas from everywhere. And to your point, I think that is. That's inevitable. That's always going to happen is people are going to be. No matter who you're following, you're going to gather ideas. There are people. Listen to John MacArthur or listen to John Piper or whatever. You really got to be careful with the Calvinists and with people like that. But there are people that can take ideas. Practically speaking, though, how does that idea flow into your life? How are you living out the word of God? That, to me, is where autonomy really comes in. Where we start crossing lines is when you have this school of preaching who's reaching five states away to cancel a brother. Like, I think if you have a problem with him, either you can go to him or you can go to the elders and say, hey, we think this guy's in sin. And the elders of that congregation can talk about, hey, where do we stand on these things? And then they can be over Todd's soul, or they can be over our soul, the elders of our congregations, or whatever it may be. So I think from a practical standpoint, autonomy should be guarding against these things, because the ways that this should be taken is not to trash a guy. To all the members of the church, it should be, hey, I think this guy's in sin. Let's go to his elders, let's go to the men of his congregation and figure these things out. And they can locally handle it. The problem is you have guys that are on speaking circuits, right? That's why these guys are being called out. So their ideas are kind of going everywhere. And so you have a conflict between kind of the orthodoxy, orthopraxy, the ideas getting out, and the autonomy and where that leaves us versus the practice and the autonomy, where that leaves us. And that's the conundrum here that I struggle with. It's like ideas, again, are naturally going to flow to more people getting on a lectureship. You're going to be speaking to tons of Christians all over the nation. How much can we. Or should we. Like, how does the local church handle that in an autonomous way? The elders of the people that are believing it have to deal with those things. So you go to PTP and you hear this, they come back Are their practices wrong? They're going to be people that believe all sorts of crazy stuff. I think that probably are going to make it into heaven because they're following God to the best of their ability. It's not showing up in the way that they live their lives. And practically speaking, it's just they happen to have a false belief on XYZ that is tougher to legislate. But the moment that they go to ptp, they hear it, they come home and they're starting to blackball Christians in their own church. That's where the elders can step in. So sorry, I know that's convoluted, but this is a tough one. [00:53:31] Speaker C: I don't. It is a tough one. I don't know if this is a precursor to the issue or if this is more of a kind of symptom of the issue and that it just being elder, you know, kind of weak elderships. But if I were to ask somebody who has more, I don't maybe not use the word power, who has more authority in the churches of Christ, really big name preachers and heads of ministries or elders at your congregation, Everybody with a brain is going to say, well, you know, in theory it's the elders, but in reality it's. It's the big name guys, right? It's, it's the, it's the higher ups at those organizations, they have more authority. That to me is the problem, Jack, and where the autonomy comes in, I agree with Joe in the sense of like, okay, you think somebody, you think somebody is spiritually in danger, which is the equivalent of somebody who, you know, if I think somebody's a false teacher, then I think that they're spiritually in danger. Their eternity is in question. Who should I go to in that instance? The eldership that they're. Because what. Who is responsible for the soul, for your soul, for your family soul. It should be your elders. And when I say responsible again, you're going to give account for yourself. As Joe said, you're going to count for, you know, as a man and for your family, but shepherding your soul, shepherding the flock, it's the elders. How often do congregations, elders get brought into this? Hardly ever. And again, I don't know if the reason for that is because we do have a lot of weak elderships, a lot of guys aren't qualified or if once again, like, I don't know if it's just chicken or the egg thing in this instance, but that to me is the struggle, Jack, with the autonomy point is in an ideal world, ideally a conflict like this comes up. There's somebody that we believe is, you know, wrong on something or, and again, not just wrong on something, is spiritually in jeopardy. Because those are two different things. You can absolutely be wrong about something and not be spiritually in jeopardy. But if you think he is spiritually in jeopardy or she, that next call should be to the elders of the congregation that they attend. Say, hey, I have this concern. I'm happy to meet with this person. I wanted to share it with you. Not, I don't know, not, I'm the authority here. This person's in jeopardy and this is going to be my recourse for it. So I do think ideally, Jack, the autonomy, that's where the autonomy comes in. In the lectureship circuit, social media, like we just have access to so many more people, so many more congregations, so many more, you know, individuals. It's just made more difficult in that way. So I guess those are my, my thoughts on that question. [00:55:46] Speaker A: Let me, let me give you guys a different take to think about. So I have had the pleasure of worshiping in a couple of cases, somewhat long term, several weeks, months, whatever, with both domestically and internationally, with congregations that do not know the big names, they do not know the preaching schools, they don't know the colleges. And it's one of the most refreshing things in the world to be with those people because they're not tied to all the political junk and they just get together, study the Bible and they love Jesus. And you know, to me, we, we. I really, really want to encourage congregations out there to try to move back towards that, get away from the political mess. The what brother so and so says get your church family together, study his word and love Jesus. Because to me that's, that's how we're going to fix this thing. Especially with the whole. That's why Jesus wanted us to be autonomous, so that I don't have to worry about what's going on in Memphis, Tennessee or Denver, Colorado or wherever I got my church family and we can absolutely worship God. We can spread the good news and do good things. [00:57:14] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a real beauty in that. That's something I've been thinking about over the last week or two to drop a Coldplay lyric on you. Am I part of the cure or part of the disease? You know, like, are we actually helping? Is this parachurch ministry thing a good or a bad? But then I think about like the non institutional churches said it's bad. And so let's go away from It. And yet they're pretty much. There's a lot of influence exercised by Florida College and Truth Magazine even. They couldn't escape it even by going, yeah, like, kind of eschewing the parachurch ministry organization setup. They still end up with it, right? You end up with, as Joe was saying, voices rising above the rest and people looking to certain places for their cue. And I don't know, I guess to me that says there is an inevitability to it. And I think that kind of gets us back to the start of this whole thing that puts a responsibility on anybody who's going to put themselves forward. There's a responsibility on us. There's a responsibility on the preaching schools, on the YouTube channels, on the. I've said this before, but when we started Think Deeper podcasts, it's like, all right, well, my mom and, you know, our wives are gonna listen. And that's about it. Well, then our wives got busy with their kids. I won't even listen. So, yeah, I was like, so every [00:58:27] Speaker C: episode, shout out Rachel. [00:58:30] Speaker B: But it was like, yeah, nobody's really listening. And then we started getting questions and comments, and it's like, oh, people are listening. I gotta take this seriously. I've got to make sure what I'm saying is right and that we're doing this in the right way and in the right spirit. There's a heavy responsibility if you're going to be one of those voices. And this kind of behavior that we're talking about on this is not it. To go back to that point of, like, outside. I guess I didn't really answer my own question on that. What do outsiders think of the church when they see this? They see guys going, if you disagree with me on one thing, you're out of the church. Why would they want to be a part of that? I think what they're seeing in the last couple weeks is, hey, the churches of Christ, actually, that's. We're not a monolith. You actually can come in and be part of this. And there are going to be guys that tell those guys to get off your back. And that's why we do this, is to show the outsider, the church does care about grace, about unity, about not beating each other over the head. And even if that includes standing up to somebody who's being a pope, being a bully, being all these things. And so, I don't know, I'm going to let you guys kind of have your final thoughts. That's where I'm going to leave mine. How do you guys Want to wrap with your final thoughts on this one? We'll let Brad have the last word. [00:59:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, Jack, I think you wrapped it up really well. I would just. I would encourage, as we kind of said, the start of the episode, if you're somebody who's not really aware of all this kind of blissfully ignorant, that's great. Like, more. More power to you on that. I would encourage you not to, you know, try to get sucked in necessarily. I think from. Again, my final thoughts is just going to come down to. Once again, we just got to decide what is it that we're allowed to agree and disagree on? And that's where Jack's talk about creed and things like that is kind of a bad word there. The reason why we have these conflicts is because there just is disagreement. To go back to the new heavens, new Earth thing, if my conclusion on that is different than Joe's, can we still be in fellowship? My answer is yes. Other people's answer is no. Well, then what do we do? And so that's something that this tighter circle that you draw, that's where Matthew 7 comes in, in my opinion. It's not that you should just have, you know, no circle whatsoever. And, hey, anything goes as long as we both believe in God and love Jesus. None of the four of us are saying that. And, you know, if that's what you took away from this, again, that's just. That's not the way we view things, however. And so, yes, there is a circle. There are boards, there are things, lines that you can't cross scripturally. And when you can make a pretty confident case. Jack just did an excellent job defending the essentiality of baptism in a debate that reached a lot of people. That's. That's one of those lines. There are other lines that, again, if you're going to draw that circle tighter, you just got to be very careful in the sense when it comes to, are you wrong about something? Because if you are, where does that leave you on Judgment Day? That's again, because that. That is the. The posture with which smaller issues like we've been discussing is held against us and other people. What are we allowed to disagree on? I think we have to decide that. And by we, again, that's where the autonomy comes in. Elders, not heads of ministries and things like that. So, yeah, that's kind of where I'll leave it. Joe, how about you? [01:01:34] Speaker D: Yeah, the only thing I'd speak to is just the practical purpose of, like, we realize the vast majority of the people listening to us are not going to be lectureship speakers. They're not going to be kind of the upper echelon, so to speak, the Pope's quote unquote. We realize that for the average person listening to us, treat one another well, treat your church members well. Don't go sharing these posts. Don't go canceling people, you know, trying to, trying to get people kicked out of their church. Private messaging people telling them, you know, mean things. Try to think highly of the brethren. Try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Try to assume that, that, you know, these brethren. It's the same thing. I try to assume. I don't preach people out into hell or into, you know, into heaven, man, I'd love for some of the Calvinists to be in heaven. Do I think that's the case based off of their belief? [01:02:19] Speaker B: No. [01:02:19] Speaker D: But on the other hand, man, I'd love to give them benefit. I wish I could, right? And I want to give them benefit of the doubt and say they loved Jesus, they just missed some things. I don't speak to those things. Again, my understanding of scriptures is that that's not the case. But I'm not gleefully telling them, well, yeah, they're going to hell, man. We've got to be, we've got to give people the benefit of the doubt and realize there's a lot of really good hearted Christians, church Christ Christians that are, you know, New Testament, that love God and maybe they don't have everything right. Maybe you disagree, but if you're the average listener, be kind to one another. Be kind to your members, you know, the members of your congregation. Be kind to the lectureship speakers and realize they're flawed men. They're not going to get everything right, but they love Jesus and they're trying to get things right. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Don't go along with a lot of these, you know, with the big posts that go big, go viral of calling people out, man, try to avoid those things. Yes, I realized that Jack and Brad had the viral posts that called people out. But I'm specifically speaking to those that are trying to cancel members of the church. We've got to do a better job of loving one another in those ways. And for the bullies that come in and are trying to tell you to, you know, cancel so and so and get, don't give into it. Don't give into it. So those, those are my final thoughts. Brad, [01:03:31] Speaker A: perfect segue. Let me, let me start just by saying I love these three guys that are on this podcast, I've known them, at least one of them, all his life and the others for 20 plus years. And one of the things that I love about these guys, we're not afraid to say hard things to each other, call each other out. Hey, I think you may have missed it here. Hey, you probably want to take that post down. Hey. And they do it with me as well. And I love that because it keeps us humble. It keeps us focused on what is our true goal, what, you know, what are we trying to do here. And so let me, let me first just give you guys some props and say, hey, I really do appreciate and love your hearts. I love what you're doing. I would actually wrap by saying, be prepared for some blowback. There's some big egos out there, and those big egos do not like the thought of anybody basically threatening their hierarchy, their, their position and what you guys are doing. What we're doing today, we're flipping some tables, and they don't like that. The, the last thing that I would say to the general listener out there, if you find yourself defending a man or an institution, an organization stronger than you're defending Jesus, let me encourage you, please check yourself and just get back into the Word. And yes, a lot of the, A lot of stuff that all these groups are doing is good. A lot of the material they're producing is great material. I appreciate some of these men dearly. But get back to the Word and get back to Jesus Christ. Defend him. Don't defend these institutions. [01:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great way to wrap. So we want to thank Brad for coming on. Yeah, I'm really interested to hear the feedback we get on this one. You know, it's love of the brotherhood. That's what it is. We're on the same team. We all want to lead people to Christ. We want the church to be stronger. That's the aim of all of these things. And we need to stop aiming our guns at each other. And telling people to stop aiming guns at the Brethren is not as offensive as aiming guns at the. The Brethren. I'm just going to leave it at that. So we want to thank everyone for tuning in. Again, thanks to Brad for coming on. If you want to join us in the deep end for your comments and the exclusive Deep end Listener Q and A episode, join us at focuspress.org/focus.org/ and if there's nothing else, we'll talk to you guys on the next one. Foreign. Hey, guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do. The best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org/donate. Thanks again for listening.