[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome back into the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Your co host will here I'm joined by Jack Wilke and Joe Wilkie. We are excited to bring you guys another episode this week. If you did not get a chance to go watch and listen to Jack's debate against Jeremiah Nortier on the essentiality of baptism, we're gonna promote it one more time even though we're a week removed now.
Yeah, Jack did a great job in that debate. The entire debate is on our Focus Press YouTube page. It was broadcasted via radio, but they have the video as well. And so that's on our YouTube page. Our last, last week's episode actually for Think Deeper was us just kind of recapping that debate.
Bit of a victory lap, I suppose. It's kind of what we, what we did last week. But I would encourage you to go listen to that thought it was. I thought Jack did a great job defending the essentiality of baptism, which obviously we believe to be tremendously important. But we are moving on to a different direction today. For today's episode, I'll share what we're talking about and then, Joe, if you want to take it from there with any introductory thoughts that you have. We are covering a topic that's important and a topic that has been, I would say, prompted by an online viral story. You'll get some of these stories, tweets, posts or whatever it is throughout the year that just tend to go viral and dominate everybody's timeline, dominate everybody's algorithm. This one was specific to X and so I'm not sure how much of it has transferred over to Facebook, the Facebook world. But on X man, it is all over the place. You've even got the Daily Wire that's commenting on it. You've got guys like Nick Fuentes who are commenting on it. We're talking about a tweet and I'm going to summarize it and then I think we're going to screen share here maybe for us to read verbatim. But it's a guy named Trevor Sheets who I believe is a some involved in the ministry, some somehow evangelical community made a tweet about how his or post made a post about how his wife was a former.
He used the word promiscuous woman, I think from other tweets that he's put out there, context clues. She was a cam girl. She was engaged in a lot of Internet content. That is obviously not right. Porn star essentially. And his post was about how he and his wife are now happily married.
She's a faithful servant of God. She was cleansed. She was redeemed.
[00:02:35] Speaker C: All that is great.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: But what it turned into was a bit of a victory lap almost from him about how he has married this promiscuous, formerly promiscuous woman and how great that is. He made a comment in the post about how she's more pure than most virgins. And man, it created a firestorm online. So many people reacting to it, either positively or negatively. It was a lot of negative.
A lot of negative reaction to it, basically stemming from the idea that we shouldn't look down on people who marry formerly promiscuous females, of course, or men. But the context of the post was formerly promiscuous females. That was the reaction a lot of people had. So that, hey, this is great, you know, think about Rahab. This is something that, you know, we shouldn't discourage people from marrying people with a past, a sexual past. And a lot of people disagreed with that. And so, yeah, it just sparked a firestorm. I don't know. Who wants to go again? I think I said I was gonna hand it to Joe here for introductory thoughts. But a lot of agreement, a lot of disagreement, and I think it brings up some interesting topics for us as Christians about primarily raising kids. Like, what do we need to teach our kids about finding someone who is a virgin or finding someone who might have a sexual past? Like, what are the.
Yeah. What are the consequences of that? Because obviously it goes without saying that Jesus forgives and the blood of Christ cleanses all sins. And, you know, I was. I think we're going to read the post, but I agreed with about half of the post, and then the second half, I think it went off the rails. But, Joe, what thoughts do you have as we kind of open this episode up with this viral story?
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah, Jack, I want you to share the screen. I'll have you. Have you read it. The.
The main thing is I can't believe how big this went. And after we read the post, I want to discuss why I think that is and just kind of kick that around with you guys, why this is such a big deal. But for the listeners that don't know Jack, if you want to go ahead and I got a couple things open.
[00:04:27] Speaker C: Yeah. So this is where it started. It was Tom Buck on March 20, a pretty big, I think, Baptist pastor tweeted, if someone argues that a former promiscuous woman has damaged goods and questions whether a Christian young man should marry her, remember Rahab, she was a Canaanite prostitute. But became a mother in the lineage of Jesus. God redeemed her, cleansed her, and Salmon married her. And so you've got that one and then he kind of qualifies it a little bit.
But you see there was 3300 likes, 500 reposts, and 718. So this one went pretty big.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: 7 million views too.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: Yeah. So a lot of people were talking about this. This was bigger. So Trevor Sheets, the second guy came in and now I have to share that tab separately because I can't just click across for some strange reason.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: This was the one that exploded.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:18] Speaker C: And this one. Let's see what's this is up to 35 million views, so five times as many. He starts by quoting the buck tweet about Rahab to give their own personal testimony. And so I'm just gonna read it so we have all the data out there.
He says, my wife was formerly promiscuous. I was a virgin. She was then radically born again, committed to church, evangelized constantly puritan books in her bedroom, prayer journals, grief over past sexual sin, etc. We got to know each other well for over a year, dated for four months, engaged for two and a half, and didn't sin sexually with one another. Our first kiss with each other was at the altar on our wedding day. Reaction Pick attached. We've been married for over five years now, and she's been the most wonderful and godly wife, mother to our three children and homemaker. You could imagine she's more pure than most virgins, as biblical purity has less to I think he means less to do with past sins, though they certainly matter, and more to do with one's current posture of the heart and daily decisions to honor the Lord.
We're far too quick to forget the story of the woman labeled as a known sinner, likely a prostitute in Luke 7:36 50, who was washing Jesus feet with her tears while kissing them too.
The Pharisees were shocked that Jesus let a public sinner do this. Jesus responded with a parable about debts being forgiven and ended with this powerful her many sins have been forgiven. That's why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little loves little.
Everyone seems to highlight the benefits of virginity, and it certainly is a blessing, but we forget to highlight the benefits of being forgiven much as well. My wife knows the depths of Jesus forgiveness more than most people, enabling her to more easily live out a life of passionate love for her savior. A woman or man's past sexual sin matters, but what matters far more when it comes to deciding who to marry is if the person is truly born again, if their repentance is real, if they truly have a heart of Christ, a heart for Christ, if they truly follow Jesus and obey his commands. And then he quotes 1 Corinthians 1:27,31, about God choosing the foolish of this world to shame the wise, and Second Corinthians 5:17 about, if you're in Christ, you're a new creation. The old has passed away and the new has come. So that's a little bit of a long reading, but there's a lot going on there. I wanted to cover, you know, get through all of it because, wow, he. He said a lot there.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: This one is difficult for me because it kind of hits close to home in terms of the work that I do, working with people that have engaged in all sorts of sins, obviously of the sexual variety, and yet finding Christ and the beauty of the gospel. And so there is a beautiful element that we want to start off with to say, yes, the Gospel is incredible and is why we believe it is. It does change sinners to saints. And there's a beauty to this.
But I'm conflicted in the fact that there's also some seriously glaring red red flags, in my opinion, in this, you know, in his thing, that. Which we're going to parse out for the rest of the episode. But, fellas, I want to throw to you. Why do you think this has gone so viral now that everybody's seen it?
What is it about this particular post that has 35 million views, 10,000 likes or 10,000 reposts? I think, like, this has gone viral.
Why?
It's just a common story of a guy who has a wife of a past that has, you know. But this has divided the Internet, as you said, Will. I mean, Nick Fuentes has covered her. Wait, he's pretty out there. And then Michael Knowles has covered. From the Daily Wire. Matt Walsh has covered it. I've seen multiple evangelical people, like bigwigs in the evangelical world cover it. People in the world. I think there was, if I remember right, I think Andrew Tate or somebody commented on it. So you're talking like this has hit a lot of people in different ways, I would say. Why do you think that is?
[00:08:38] Speaker B: My answer would be a couple things.
I'm curious what y' all would have to say. One, I think it was the posture of it that really set certain people against it, if that makes sense. The posture of it was very much kind of braggadocious, at least is the way that it read to me, it was less of a, hey guys, I just want to really, I just want to share this story about how amazing the grace of God is and how far the gospel can reach. I mean there was a little bit of that in there, but, but man, it did seem to be a bit, it felt to me like a bit of a, let me put me and my story and my wife's story up on a pedestal here. So I think that, and you can say that's reading into it. You can, you know, whatever. I do think that's the connotation of the post. And so I think that's part of it is what set so many people against it. But then also not just the posture.
I think it brought up a very interesting kind of dichotomy of how do we grapple with Christ forgiving all sins. And again, the gospel of grace, being able to reach even the worst of sinners and yet dealing with the real life consequences of that. That post did not mention anything about the day to day, week to week consequences of him marrying a woman who was essentially a former cam girl. Basically no mention of that. And so that's what I think is so fascinating. At least I don't want to speak for everybody, but for me is like, you know, again, I agree with a lot of that post of yes, it's amazing that she was born again that the gospel extends that far, but how do we grapple with the day to day and you know, again, the consequences which we're going to get into that stuff matters. And so that's what, that's my answer of why I think it registered so much with people is again, he didn't mention any of that in the post. But that's immediately where people's mind went, was, whoa, okay, well what man, how does he deal with that mentally? How do their kids, you know, how are they going to deal with that? And so that that's kind of my answer. I'm curious what y' all have to say as well.
[00:10:40] Speaker C: Yeah, the other angle of it is it, it confirmed what a lot of people have been saying for a long time, that Christianity today, its message toward young men is really terrible. And that there's kind of that trope that hey, women don't sin and if women sin, it's the man's fault. And so that kind of comes out in this of basically, well, she gets a free pass. And you think, and you know, people were making analogies like, alright, let's say the husband got into sports gambling and brings $250,000 in debt. Are you going to tell the young girls, hey, Jesus forgave him for that, and you need to go, you know, be willing to sign up and marry, like, and you can say, oh, that's not exactly the same and all that, but it's like, there. There is a principle there that carries
[00:11:19] Speaker A: over,
[00:11:21] Speaker B: by the way, for that example, like, from a consequence standpoint, I feel like is a little bit less harmful than her story, but. Sorry. That's right. Yeah.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: So that. And again, what are you telling young men, hey, you. A lot of times it's, hey, go to church to find a good girl. And now you show up to church and like, well, we don't have those. We've got, you know, these girls that have kind of gone and partied and had their fun and now decided to settle down, and you should be the guy that basically. And, like, does it glorify this choice? And.
And are they basically telling their kids, yeah, it worked for Mommy. Go party. Go sell your wild oats, do all that, and then you can come back to Jesus. And I know they would say, that's not what we're saying. We're not gonna teach our kids that. But that's what people are seeing. And that's. That's, you know, a woman can kind of follow that plan. Well, I'm not ready to settle down and get married, so I can kind of be irresponsible until I'm in my 30s or whatever, and I'm not getting as many swipes on the old dating app kind of thing. And then I can go to church and they'll tell the nice guys there to marry me. And, like, it's a really bad setup for everybody involved, I think.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Joe, I want to. I want to hear your thoughts.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: No, you're good. You're.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: I think the question.
And this is what I really want to get at with this episode of should we encourage our young boy, our men, our sons, to marry women like that, even if they've been born again and they're faithful Christians now? Should we encourage that or discourage that? That, I think, is the ultimate, most interesting question, because somebody that would just say, oh, born again, faithful Christian, that
[00:12:52] Speaker A: slate is wiped clean.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Yeah, the sins are. The consequences are not. And so should we. A lot of people would say, hey, you should encourage your young men to marry someone like that. A lot of people would say, you should discourage that. I think that's. That's the divide on this issue. But, Joe, I want to hear your thoughts. On why you think it blew up
[00:13:07] Speaker A: so much, the kid part was why I think it blew up is like what do you tell your kids?
Not just them, like what do you tell your kids? Is this something to your point, is this something that we should seek for our kids? And I think everybody would say, well no, it's more about the gospel. It's more about just, you know, her ability to be redeemed and once again fully understand it. But they have to understand that when a post goes viral like this, I'm sure I didn't expect it to go this big. But when a post goes viral like this, what are the messages that are being sent to our young people? Which to your guys point, I struggle with this because if this were reversed I think we'd be having a much different discussion. If you had a virgin woman who was sleeping and they'd say, well this happens all the time. First off, I don't know that it does. And statistics are bearing out specifically with Gen Z. That's not at all the case. I literally got an email this morning with statistics on young people and the demoralization of young men and they had statistics on dating from a man's point of view, these young 18 to 29 year old males and they had a statistic on here from family studies on percentages. I enjoy playing the field by dating lots of people.
10% said strongly agree, 20% said someone agrees with 30%. The rest of the percentage here, 70% somewhat disagree or 44% strongly disagree. Playing the field by dating lots of people. So that's where men are right now. So when we position this as like this is a male problem when actually seeing it flip, we're seeing females that are going on being promiscuous, females that are on only fans and doing all sorts of crazy things and then they are changed by Christ and they come into this, it's like oh well that's just as good. Like I'm sorry to say, but it is not.
And if we would tell the young guys the same way, well just go sleep with everything and then well hey, you know, sins have been forgiven. Like they have been forgiven but there are some serious, serious consequences. And so as we kind of move the discussion on, that's what I want to get into is we keep mentioning consequences. What exactly are we referring to when we discuss past consequences? There are the obvious ones such as STDs that certainly can come in. They don't speak to that in the post. I don't know what the situation is. There but yes, you do have to worry specifically for the average guy that you know or woman that is sleeping around with a lot. STDs are a thing.
How many partners she has. In the post, there was a video going around with her where she's like, I just, I don't even know how many guys it's been. I can't count how many guys it's been. And these guys treated me terribly. My husband treats me amazingly. But it's like, yeah, but when you can't count, you've lost count how many guys he is to some degree. And you can disagree, people can disagree with this. He is going to feel like he's competing with the other guys. Because what is going on in a roller.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: That's just human nature, right?
[00:15:41] Speaker A: It's human nature.
And I've worked with this plenty where people have a really tough time getting past sexual experiences out of their mind when they're having sex with their spouse. That's a very real thing that takes place very consistently with people that are in now. Can they work through it? Yes, they can. I'm not saying everybody that's ever slept with anybody is in the same boat. On the other hand, is that a real problem? Absolutely. So consequentially, man. I mean, I think there are other ones you guys can get into, but that's what stands out to me.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: First, it's interesting. Somebody brought up Hosea in the Bible and it's like, yeah, that was an extreme case for a reason that, you know, he was told, go marry an unfaithful woman, go marry a harlot. And the unfaithfulness that she had, it was basically to make a point of like, this is how bad Israel is, is as bad as being married to a harlot.
And so kind of. And, well, this woman's redeemed. She's not that anymore. And like, I get that. And that's, that's. That part of it is wonderful. And so that was kind of the. Where they started shooting back on this is. Well, everyone's made an idol out of this stuff. And you guys are looking down on somebody who's redeemed by Christ and all that. It's like, I think everybody would say, amen, this is great that she, you know, has repented of that and is not doing that anymore and has found religion and has settled down all of those things. But when you come in and lecture on, well, she's more pure than. More of a virgin than you, like, no, she's not. And so again, their Kids because apparently people have been finding her stuff is still online and responding with this, which a is awful that people are doing that. It's non Christian people kind of throwing that back in their face. But it's like these are the consequences that, you know, you can go out in public and people can go find your, your spouse online. That's not good. And, and that your kids might have to deal with that, you know, and they go to school or things growing up like that's. These things hurt your relationship. They, they, you know, can damage trust down the road. All those things.
How often are you gonna be. How do you live in the same area where it's like, hey you, anywhere you go, you might be around two or three guys that you know. And, and we're all speaking about this from the female because of this example.
This is one of those, like either side can bring tons of baggage into a relationship.
But yeah, I mean like the, to pretend like all of that got washed away in the same sense. Like if she had aids, is she still.
But she comes to Christ. All right, so her sins are still washed away, but those consequences don't go away. And so it's weird how some of these things, it's like that doesn't really matter.
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[00:19:08] Speaker B: Let's paint it in a different light for a second. I think you guys covered the consequences really well.
We all have daughters. Let's say, you know, there is somebody that she's interested in. Born again faithful Christian man finds out that for six years he was a homosexual man, that he engaged in homosexual behavior for five plus years.
Are we within bounds along with our daughter to say, you know what, you're faithful Christian now. I'm not going to consider you as a marriage partner. I think the answer is clearly yes because of the real life consequences. Even though that young man, even though that man was cleansed by the blood of Christ and you know, First Corinthians 6, Paul says such were some of you. You were washed, you were sanctified. Absolutely amen to all that, as Jack just said. But again, paint it in that light for a second. I don't think anybody would have a problem again, with telling your daughter, you know what? Don't marry the former homosexual man, even if he's, even if he's a faithful Christian. And I think we have to be okay with seeing things through that lens because it does affect kids. Jack, you brought up the fact that, you know, the Internet, unfortunately stuff stays there forever. And so this, this content is now being kind of thrown back in this couple's face again, unjustly and pretty cruelly. What if their three kids stumble across that content here in about 10 years?
What's that gonna do? You know? And so all that to say it's. I don't think it's right to berate the girl or again, if it was reversed, the guy or whatever it is, the formerly promiscuous person.
But when you. And that was my. One of my main problems with the post is when you get on there, put yourself and your family or your story kind of up on a pedestal and kind of, in a way, the short version of this is basically like, look how spiritual we are.
You know, look, look how you look how spiritual of a married couple that we are.
[00:20:58] Speaker C: Prodigal lecturing, right?
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Then you're going to be subject to some of these people that go, hold on a second. And so, yeah, I mean, again, just painting it in a different light for some people hopefully helps illuminate why you can't ignore consequences.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: I'd love to know what his parents thought. And I don't know if they're alive. I don't, I don't know the situation at all. I'd love to know if his parents took him aside. Hey, these are what you can experience. Because going back to the homosexual. I've worked with guys like that. Do I think that they can have happy Christian marriages? No doubt. No doubt they've come out of it. On the other hand, do I think that there are, you know, is that the, the.
I would much rather somebody be Marrying my daughter be marrying a virgin who, you know, is.
Does not have a sexual past. And so to your point, Will, I think we'd say that. Do I think that they are deserving of a strong Christian marriage? Yes, absolutely. And they're going to be people that, that feel that they can handle it. But this is where the parents can come in, is I'd love to know what his parents had to say. Like, hey, are you aware that she might show up at the supermarket, you know, go to Kroger and run into guys that she slept with? Are you aware that people, your kids might find this stuff online? Like, did they kind of prep him for the life to come that, you know, he might be living?
Right. And maybe they did. Who knows? But to me, I mean, the consequences can be very severe in these situations. And that doesn't mean that she's not worthy of love. That doesn't mean she's not worthy of having a good Christian marriage. And it means maybe don't post this online and position yourself as this, you know, hey, let me tell my story real fast. Like, everybody's so quick to tell their story online. Like, maybe it's time to step back and say, you know what? We're very happily married. Great, keep that with your close friends and family. We don't need to bring that, especially when it's still on the Internet.
[00:22:38] Speaker C: Well, we need to turn it this way.
Like, so can these people get married? Yes, they can.
That's where the problem in this is. Is a guy like Tom Buck lecturing the young men in his church to say, I don't want to be the one I like. I'm not going to be the one that signs up to deal with those consequences. You know what? Sometimes it might be, a man with a history and a woman with a history are better suited. You know, they're going to have a lot to work through, but they're also both going to have to forgive you because this, I mean, you see, there's almost like a. In this guy's post, there's a, look how great I am for being the guy that took her on. And she's better than you guys and that whole thing. Lost your point? Yeah. You know, and so they have to look, they're very much pridefully like, again, the Prodigal Son or in, like, Narnia, if, you know, people have read the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, or seen that movie, Edmund didn't come back in and start telling people, actually, I love Aslan more than you because I've seen what it's like on the other side. Like, no, no, that's not. That's not how anybody needs to approach this. And so the question of, can these people get married? Yeah, they can
[00:23:42] Speaker B: for sure.
[00:23:42] Speaker C: And I don't want to make that this. That we're saying, oh, you're just completely useless for the rest of your life. It's not that. It's. If there are consequences, that's not somebody's fault for saying, not for me.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Not for me. Right. I wanted to highlight one other problem. I felt like one other issue with the post itself.
He said, everyone seems to highlight the benefits of virginity and it certainly is a blessing, but we forget to highlight the benefits of being forgiven much as well.
[00:24:11] Speaker C: I love the butt there. Yeah, virginity is a blessing. But like, hang on.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: He says, my wife knows the depths of Jesus forg more than most people, enabling her to more easily live out a life of passionate love for her savior. Two things I wanted to bring up again, just to kind of illustrate an issue I think that this post has. The first one is when he calls virginity a blessing. Virginity is not just a blessing, it's a command. Like, that is God's expectation is that we will enter into marriage sexually pure. And so. Oh, yeah, no, it's a blessing. Yeah, it's more than a blessing. It's something that God commanded. So maybe, maybe point that out as well.
But then when he talks about the fact that his wife knows the depths of Jesus forgiveness more than most people, I get the concept of, you know, he has been forgiven much, will love much, and all those things.
What you really don't want to do is incentivize people. And Matt Walsh had a tweet on this. I was going to ask about this later on when we get to kind of like, basically, should you tell your kids about your past sexual sin or any kind of sin?
What you don't want to do is incentivize people in their younger years to sow their wild oats, to live for themselves, to engage in all this behavior sexually. And then later on, you can come to Christ because, man, you'll have been forgiven so much more. And you can, you know, your. Your love for God will be that much deeper.
That is a way that you can read. That paragraph that I just read is basically like, again, my wife loves God more. Is there it is right there. Yeah, yeah.
[00:25:40] Speaker C: I want to just like highlight it because as I said that. But, oh, the blessings of virginity. But. And really, if you break it down, he's saying, this is actually better. It's better that you go and have a history.
Yeah. That actually, my wife. It's better that she had done this than she had kept herself pure. And, I mean, you just can. You can look at the old law to see how God feels about this. That's like, absolutely not.
And it's not like this. You pat yourself on the back for, you know, wow, I didn't go sleep around. Like, yeah, you're not supposed to. That's. This is not like a. You get gold stars for doing that. But on the other hand, looking down, just thinking, you get gold stars for going and having this promiscuous history because it brought you closer to Christ. Like, there's been a lot of talk about the boring testimony, and I think that's a great thing. And people saying, I want my kids to have a boring testimony. Not.
Man, I was saved out of drug addiction. Man, I was saved out of this addict. Man, I was saved out of a huge sexual past. I was saved out of all of this stuff. You know what? I grew up going to church. I love Jesus. I kept loving Jesus. I was baptized one day. I keep going to church. I keep loving Jesus. I found another Christian. I have Christian kids. I love Jesus. Like, that's brilliant.
That is success. Like, this idea that we have to. And I'm so glad that there are people who have those testimonies.
Their greatest desire should be that their kids don't have the same testimony. And with this guy. And so Will, you mentioned the Matt Walsh post. I'll pull that one up while we're kind of looking at some of these. But go ahead.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: I'm gonna read a second. His second part, so.
[00:27:11] Speaker C: No, no.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Matt Waltz.
[00:27:12] Speaker C: Oh, Matt's. Yeah, that's the second one. Yeah.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. Because I think this is so such an important point.
I'll just read it real fast. The truth is that your story of past misdeeds is only really a good teaching tool and cautionary tale, and therefore edifying if your life is right now currently in shambles. But inevitably, that's not the case for most of these testimonies. Most of the time, it's someone who's very happy, living a wonderful and contented life, often financially stable, if not wealthy, telling us how sinful they used to be. I'm glad things worked out for you. I truly am. But I sinned a lot. Now I'm happy. And not suffering any significant consequences for my evil behavior just isn't a very useful moral lesson for Most people, especially children.
That doesn't mean you should feel bad about being happy now. It just means that the world and your kids don't need to know about your prior indiscretions. Keep it to yourself, give glory to God for rewarding someone so unworthy and move on.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: Boy. I was curious your thoughts on this, Joe, because I feel like this kind of flies in the face of a lot of the stuff that you talk about.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: So his idea of keeping past indiscretions I think is. And he has it in his first post. He says it details a little bit more. I disagree with. I think it's okay for parents to share their past indiscretions with their kids. I actually think it's important because I think the idea of, well, mom and dad basically are never wrong. I don't think that's helpful. It is the way you, you talk about your past sins and you talk
[00:28:28] Speaker C: about the consequences of it. Or do you just be like, yeah, we got a blank chat, you know,
[00:28:32] Speaker B: free pass worked out great for me.
[00:28:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: My dad had a rough past growing up, did not grow up in the church. He had a rough past. We heard about those things. Do I know every story that my dad. No. My dad also didn't glorify those stories. He didn't look at his, oh, those were the glory days. Those were the good old days. Like, no, this is horrible, don't do it because I've been this and this and this and this was really bad and this is why it didn't work out. And so by the time, like we don't drink, we don't. I've never had any sort of drug in my life other than maybe during back surgery, you know, taking some pain meds. Other than that, we've had nothing to do with that. Yes, we have our past sexual sins, we're very open on that with pornography and such, but we weren't sleeping around, playing the field, things like that.
Because we lived with somebody who in his past had done some of those things and let me know at an early age this does not work out. These are the consequences. This is how it affected my life. I think there's a power in that. So I disagree with Matt Walsh on that point. I do agree though that the way this is kind of the way this has gone viral, very much tells our kids this is a viable option because look at all of these.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Just because it left out the day to day consequences.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: It was all good, all upside, no downside.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: And this is not the first only fans model we have seen or whatever camera, whatever it is that has come to Christ. And they're all great stories and I'm glad that they get out of that life. No doubt. They're also millionaires coming out of that life, and they're public influencers and they're making tons and tons of money. So for the average kid, we have to think about what that looks like when we let our kids on social media. And seeing this is like, man, it worked out for them. They came to Christ. Later, they're millionaires living in their mansion shooting TikTok videos.
[00:30:04] Speaker C: Well, also, it's oddly a path to being a Christian influencer, right? Like, oh, go do this. And then, hey, the minute you come back, we're gonna put you in the pulpit. Like, what? I mean, that. That's so the pornography thing. Let's talk about that. As far as consequences go, that the.
To do it as they're doing it would be like, yeah, you know, I had this problem, but Jesus forgave me. And so it no problem whatsoever. And no, you got to look at it as, yeah, this. Here's the problems that cause when you get into marriage, here's the problems that cause like, things that you are dealing with that you have to overcome with your spouse down the road and things like that.
That's how you handle this. That you don't just be like, yep, scot free Jesus, you know, you say, man, thank the Lord, he's forgiven me for that sin and he's brought me out of that sin, but here's why you don't go into it. And so to his point about, like, keeping your kids out of it, I kind of agree with you, Joe. You don't tell your kids. You didn't, you know, like, hide the things you've done from them, but you tell them, here are all the ways this deeply hurt us, things we had to work through and things like that. And you know what? That guy doesn't need to tweet all of this, but he didn't need to tweet all the other stuff either. And so when we're talking about sin and the consequences of sin and the power of testimony and all that the testimony needs to always come back to, this was really bad. And I'm. Not only was I saved from it, I'm still being saved from it. And I regret it. Every last bit of it. Where he's coming out of it again, that, yeah, virginity is great, but like, no, no, no, no. That's like she.
Both of them should be saying, I really wish we had both been virgins at our wedding. We're not.
By the power grace of God, it's working out, we're doing well. But you know, like that, that should be the goal and they're going the opposite direction.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: The post was self focused, not God focused. The point I was going to make, Joe, because vulnerability is a bit of a, kind of a cultural buzzword, especially in the therapy world. I feel like to me, because I ultimately do agree with you, I get where Matt Walsh is going with that of like, listen man, you do not want your kids saying, well, it worked out great for you, so I guess I'll just do the same thing and then I'll come, you know, I'll sew my wild oats and come around later.
I think if you're in your vulnerability, you come out looking better than if you hadn't been vulnerable then it wasn't true vulnerability.
And so that's to Jack's point about,
[00:32:23] Speaker C: that's a good litmus test.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Yeah. If you're going to share those things, make sure you share all the horrible nights, like as far as like the horrible mental nights, all the rough talks with your spouse. The, the yeah, just every, every awful consequence if you're going to choose to share those things. Because once again, if you come out looking better, that's when I think the kids or whoever is going to go, well, that doesn't seem too bad. I guess I'll give that a try. Versus oh, wow, that's, that's what it actually was like. That's what you went through. And that was again to illustrate the issue with the post.
It was vulnerable but they kind of came out looking better. So it's like, what's that true vulnerability then? And so that would be my kind of, my way to look at it is, yeah, for your kids, especially, if you're going to share those things, which I do think is a healthy thing to do, you don't want to come across as like, yep, did everything right my entire life. You have to make sure and share just exactly what specifically you're wanting to, you know, shield your kids from. It's not just the actions, it's the consequences from the actions.
[00:33:24] Speaker C: And I want to twist it this way. We've looked a lot at her.
The.
There's this framing that basically makes him a more mature Christian than most young men that he's willing to do this. So is, you know, young, 18, 20 year old man or woman that they're going, hey, you know what? I'm not Going to hold somebody's past against them, does that make them a more mature Christian? Is that a sign of they've got a better forgiveness reflex? Because that's kind of how this is being cast as the one going into this, you know, we're talking about the consequences she brings and all that and kind of glorifying her past and all that. But kind of his posture here of, yep, I was willing to forgive in the original post by Tom Buck, basically saying, well, you young guys would be above marrying Rahab. And it's kind of like, yeah, I really wouldn't have wanted to marry Rahab. And does that make me a bad Christian? And that's kind of the implication here is that if a young man or woman says, I would prefer somebody without a long, you know, laundry list of partners. Yeah, that you're kind of not as mature as a Christian. So what are you guys thoughts on that part of the equation here?
[00:34:25] Speaker A: I don't find that to be the case. In terms of the maturity, I understand the.
I understand how people might come to it from that, you know, from that level of saying, well, you're willing to forgive more. You're willing to, you know, you're willing to understand the consequences. There's a certain maturity in understanding the consequences. Assuming that he did understand the consequences of it. There's a certain maturity in that that maybe other young guys aren't. I think that is we're doing other guys that are trying to get their head on straight and trying to think about the future. We're doing them a grave disservice. And once again, why so many young men are leaving the church, I think is because of things like this. Because it's like, oh, well, you're not as mature as the guy who's willing to do that.
I do think standards matter. And, yeah, I'm going to be raising my boys to hopefully find a godly Christian virgin young woman. They're going to be virgins. That's the goal. And so to cast aside the goal, because actually the more mature thing is don't even worry about it. Like, virginity matters. And when we don't understand the reasons for virginity, that's one of the reasons why we're here, why we have this discussion. It's like, well, yeah, virginity is a blessing. But to your guys's point, if you don't know why virginity is important and if you don't understand the purity mindset and people go, oh, purity culture, you know, that's all bad. Like, it's not all bad. We've had podcasts on that. But I think that's where young, you start to lose young men is when we act like the more mature position is basically virginity doesn't matter, purity doesn't matter all that much. So I don't know, maybe I'm misreading it, but that's, that's my initial thoughts.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: A couple, a couple thoughts I have is one, I do think it's important to, to point out that this particular story with this particular partner, but woman is a very extreme example. I think I saw a story about like Lily Phillips, the only fan star that allegedly slept with hundreds of guys, that she got baptized. That's an extreme example. Right. I don't think it's fair to equate that, that maybe with somebody, man or woman, who, you know, you hate to put a number on it, but you know, one or two, one or two people before they found Christ. Right. I just feel like that's very, very different, you know, long term girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever, sexual history with them. And then again, I just think we need to point that out. The second thing I'll say though is why I don't think it's necessarily the more mature thing is because one thing you have to consider is legacy.
We make this point all the time. Multigenerational faithfulness. You're not just marrying for your own happiness and for your, your own the next 40 years, hopefully we would encourage all young men, young women to marry with future generations in mind. And so that's where the maturity perspective to me comes in. Is, is this woman going to be the right woman for me? Not just to get me and myself or and my spouse to heaven, but not just to get my kids to heaven, but to set up a legacy to where my grandkids are going to be on a path to heaven, to where my great grandkids are going to be on a path to heaven. And so to me that's the ultimate example of maturity, is when you are looking at marriage, it is less through the lens of my own happiness. Maybe not. Again, this needs to be a filter. But like not even just me getting to heaven or my spouse getting to heaven, my kids, my grandkids, the family legacy that we're going to create.
To me, that's the mark of maturity for young men or young women when choosing someone to marry. And so, yeah, again, to Joe's point, I see why people would get to that conclusion. And I think, yeah, forgiveness and viewing them as a brother and sister in Christ. If you can't do that, then yeah, that's an immature Christian position. I don't think that's what most people are doing though.
[00:37:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I want to speak again to. There might be somebody listening like, or somebody might say, boy, this is really discouraging to a single Christian who has a past. And the whole point here is not you're beyond marriage, that you're beyond forgiveness, any of those things. But you do have to recognize the, that there are consequences that you might.
This just happens to everybody that there, you, you, you have a million choices before you in life as a kid and the more choices you make, it's opportunity cost. You cost yourself opportunities when you go one way or another. And it's one of those like, there are like financial levels I'm not going to reach because of the career choice I made. I can't go back and you know, at 18 years old, pick a different career choice because I went this way. Like that's just how it is. Right? And so you live with that. And so with this like the idea that you get to walk into church and demand like, all right, I've had this past, but I need somebody who has kept themselves pure and is all these things. And they. And again, the preacher up front or the Tom Buck types telling that young person, yeah, you need to go, just look, overlook all of these things. No, the consequences might be that there are young guys that go, no, I'm sorry. Or if you've got, if you've had kids out of wedlock or whatever, that might limit your pool. And that's not a sin by anybody saying, no, I'm sorry, I don't want to take that on. It's okay that your pool is limited because here's the other thing is. And Walsh made this point other made the point about the prodigal son. He didn't come in and be like, alright, dad, I'm home. Get that fatted calf ready. You don't make demands when you're repentant and you come home. You're just thankful to be back in the fold and that the Father has taken you back and that he'll bless you redeems. There are so many stories I've known of, you know, and Joe again knows of way more of people with a past and a history that God has redeemed their story. God has given them a life. God has given them a family. And so I don't want this to be like, boy, you missed your opportunity. It's all over. On the other hand, going to the other extreme to basically be like, hey, when you get saved, it's a reset button back to when you're 15 years old. It's not, it's not you. You do have to bear some of the consequences of that.
And this is the hard part about all these discussions. This is a discussion within a discussion.
These are. This is reality. But reality sounds mean, and so the people who say it sound mean, and so they get dismissed. And the Tom Bucks, well, that's the nice guy. No, no, no, he's shielding you from reality. He's shielding young guys and girls from reality, saying, you know what? Whatever decisions you make, you get a get out of jail free card down the road. And that's not reality, and that's not love is by giving people a distorted view of reality. And that's my frustration with this whole thing with both of these sets of like, this is not how it goes. It's not consequence free, as we talked about. They're basically painting it as, hey, there's, there's no cost, all benefit to this.
No, that's. That's the wrong story to paint here.
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[00:41:57] Speaker A: That's so true. I don't know.
Like you said, you feel like a jerk in saying this. You feel mean in pointing this out.
[00:42:04] Speaker C: Now we're not beating on anybody and
[00:42:07] Speaker A: exactly, we're not saying anything. And I'm so glad that she is assuming New Testament. I don't know, I. No idea. But these Are these are real life
[00:42:15] Speaker B: questions we're going to have to face. Like again with our kids, with if, if I find somebody that again, that's
[00:42:21] Speaker A: the point of things. We want to think deeper about these things. We want to, we want to bring reality to the discussion and recognize we are living in a fallen world. We're living in a world that is just not ideal. And this is a big part of it is, yes, I've worked with tons and tons and tons of people in the past that end up having great marriages and good for them. And I try to help them get there as much as I can, as big a part as I can play. And that's a beautiful thing.
Reality just hits and there are certain consequences and there are certain things. And a big part of getting out of any addiction or a big part of coming out of any past is the acceptance of all of the consequences as they, as they, you know, may hit throughout life. And you have to, you know, I've worked with people that I think are wrongly accused of certain sexual crimes they didn't do and are on the registry for the rest of their life.
Did they do bad things? Sure. Do I think they're deserving of what they had. No, doesn't matter. You got to accept the responsibility and the consequences of what you did and your decisions and where, how they put you there. And you know what I mean? Like that's, that's the reality that we live in. And so from this situation, as you think about the kids. Yeah. That, that doesn't make you more mature because you're willing to put up with a different reality, you're willing to accept a different reality. It means good for you, that you're willing to understand the consequences that might come with it that might, you know, again, be a long lasting thing in your marriage versus the other kid who's saying, man, I'm not ready to take on that and I don't think I have to. And I think the virginity is a really good thing. And that's something that I'm going for because I'm trying to build something here. I'm trying to get to a place where I want to know we're aligned. And I don't want to have to compete with the other guys in her head. That's not wrong. That doesn't make him immature. That doesn't make it anything other than he's based in reality. And they get punished for that. Young guys, I think are getting to some degree punished for being based in reality and looking at it going what's going on? The reason people like Nick Fuentes are a big deal is because they speak the harsh truths. The guy's an idiot. There's a lot of things he says that obviously we disagree with, and he waffles on a lot of other things.
[00:44:12] Speaker C: But he'll say this when a pastor is up there saying the ridiculous thing,
[00:44:16] Speaker A: because he will speak to the harsh realities of what's going on in a young man's life, and young men are flocking to it because, like, hey, he's speaking to it. He looks at demographics and he looks at things, and he's going, hey, this is messed up. And everybody else is going, yeah, it is. But we can't say those things. We're not allowed to say those things because it's mean, it's racist, it's homophobic. It's xyz, man. I don't know. And again, I'm not. That's not.
[00:44:38] Speaker C: Well, Joe, I want to. I want to. From a therapist perspective, I want to ask you this.
There's a big difference to me between the person who's, like, put their stuff online and, like, they're. They're just out there for everybody to see, and the. The man or woman that has, you know, dozen body count plus or whatever, versus the person that in high school or college, one or two or three or four. Yeah.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: So the.
[00:44:57] Speaker C: Between that. But to. You say you're premarital counseling, and you tell them, hey, this is gonna be a problem, that they had a serious person in the past that, you know, that they. And maybe one of them has not, and the other one does have a little bit of experience, and that. That's gonna be an imbalance.
No, it's not the same thing as maybe what we've been talking about, like this hugely promiscuous past, but it's bringing something to the table. And so this is another thing with consequences people are gonna have to wrestle with. So, like I said, one or two minutes on what do you tell those people? Like, what are the pitfalls going to be? And what are good things you can do to handle that when it arises?
[00:45:30] Speaker A: Well, I want to know first off, if there's been. Yes, full repentance of what's taken place in the past. I want to know that person who's. Who slept around or the person who has that relationship in the past. I want to know how they view it. And I'm actually looking for the. Oh, I'm done with it.
That, to me, shows. And this sounds bad, but that, to Me shows it's a little rash if they are willing to have a full discussion and answer all of the questions that the other person has. That's what I'm looking for.
Can the person who has done this answer the questions fully, openly, honestly?
[00:45:59] Speaker C: You're not looking for like a token, oh, yeah, that's behind me kind of thing, right?
[00:46:03] Speaker A: Not. Not in the least. I'm looking for somebody to understand the consequences of what they've done and to understand that this actually could come up in marriage. And I think it's a fair thing to ask the person who is going to marry them to be able to say, okay, what questions do you have of this? And for the other person have to do it. It's a full disclosure is really what it is, which we work with a lot in marriages. But even before I think there needs to be a full disclosure, they need to be willing to sit there and answer all the questions without getting squirrely about it. And then I would have a discussion of where this can potentially come in and how to avoid some of those things. For instance, having the thoughts come up in sex when you're having sex, having certain things that you desire that you know your body a lot more because of what's taken place in the past. That can be very intimidating to a guy that has. Or a woman who just doesn't know they're virgins. They have no idea what this looks like.
And so sometimes there's a discrepancy between. I'm actually working with this right now. There's a discrepancy between somebody who has, you know, didn't know very much going into marriage and somebody or knows a lot going into marriage. Somebody who knows very little and being able to explore what that discrepancy looks like and how to create a really healthy sexuality. And then the other thing is, I would say define what healthy sex is. Can they define what that looks like and can they say why the last wasn't healthy sexuality and what they might look to change? That's where most people go wrong, is they don't. They can tell you what was bad, but they can't tell you what's good. And so they will forever spend their entire sexuality running from the bad, which means sometimes sexual anorexia comes in. That's a very real thing. They just shut down the sexual response altogether because sex is tied to something negative. I experienced this early on in the marriage with my past and poorness. Like everything sexual had been negative in my life. So, you know, you. And with the Things we did before marriage. There's a guilt response connected to sex. It took time to kind of work through those things. And so being able to discuss the consequences in that way, I think is important. Being able to answer all the questions that the. The spouse that is maybe kept themselves clean or pure, I think that's an important response to this. And just being able to understand going into the marriage what healthy sexuality looks like would be another key. So just off top of my head, I mean, those are the things that I. Yeah.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Not to put you on the spot, but I appreciate you kind of giving a little bit of. Look at that.
[00:48:10] Speaker B: That's why it's great having a therapist on the podcast.
[00:48:12] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:48:13] Speaker B: Give those takes like that. I guess my. I don't know how close we're getting on our time here, but I think one of the closing thoughts I guess, that I would share in regards to this story is once again, it's. It's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing. Honestly. It's a. It's a power of God. It's an example of the power of God and the power of God's grace that you can have somebody like this who they. They went down this path and they still reached a.
The destination that they reached.
The problem is the message should have been, I don't want anybody else to go down this path. I still got to the destination. I took an awful path to get there. Don't let anybody. I don't want are my kids. I don't want anybody else to take this same path. Yeah.
[00:48:54] Speaker C: Not that I'm better off that I did.
[00:48:55] Speaker B: That was not the message of the post.
And again, I think to bring it all full circle, I think that's what registered or triggered, I should say so many people is like you should. And I think that's our main take is you should be pointing out how awful and how reprehensible that path was, even though you might have gotten to the same destination that I did. And again, it's not wrong to tell people or to tell young people, hey, you know, even if somebody's at the same destination, it's okay to not desire somebody who went down that path. That's the problem. That's really kind of the main takeaway that I have is if you're going to choose to go down that path. And, you know, it's amazing that you reach the same destination, don't try to convince other people my path was great or it's not. It really wasn't that bad. Or we're on the same path. Like, no, you took a different route. And you need to try to detract other people from taking that same path. Is kind of my closing thoughts on that.
[00:49:49] Speaker C: There's one other angle we didn't really cover. I'm just going to briefly hit.
Women sin and women need to bear the consequences of their sin. And there's a lot of evangelicalism that has been built around denying that. And I think tonight Tom Buck's post kind of got to that you would not tell women to go, you know, get with the guy that's been around the whole time or the guy with the gambling dad or the guy with the porn addiction or anything like that. Like the. The difference in language on these things. And there's a great Aaron Wren post about this a while back about this kind of thing. And it starts with, like this quote here from a guy named Justin Buzzard. Wrote a book on marriage from a Christian perspective. Your wife isn't the problem. You're the problem. I'm the problem. Men are the problem. If you want to change a marriage, change the man if you want to change your marriage. Like that kind of language. And then this one on the promiscuity question, another guy, Matt Schmucker. This was edited by John Piper. Pretty big name there. And Justin Taylor. We do not want a brother standing at the altar on his wedding day looking at his beautiful bride, only to imagine behind her the boys and men who took advantage of her and robbed her of the trust and confidence that she now needs for her husband. We do not want a sister standing at the altar on her wedding day looking at her handsome groom, only to imagine behind him a string of relationships with girls and women he failed to honor. And knowing that images in his head from pornography use and past flings may stick with him for a long time. You see what happened there?
That isn't.
That's insanity to me. That, yeah, she was taken advantage of when she has a sexual past. He went and committed these things and took advantage of other. Like, we've got to get over this. We've got to say, hey, when women sin, it's bad. When men sin, it's bad. When women sin, they bear the consequences. When men sin, they bear the consequences.
It's the same as the Father's Day sermon versus Mother's Day sermon trope. It's the same as the. When we read Ephesians 5, we tell the men it means to love their wives. And then we read the submit verses and we say that when that means that men need to love their wives. Like, we won't teach women anything. We are scared to death of women. And this post kind of shows that of, like, everybody's afraid. Well, not everybody. But what drives that post is basically like, yeah, women shouldn't be held to consequence or, like, accountable for any of this stuff. It's fine. And by the way, she's better than the rest of, like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: And what's so interesting is, while the church very much talks about it from that standpoint of men are kind of the sexual animals, men are the ones that are very sexual, want sex with their wives all the time. His needs, her needs. You read all these books, the world, as I pointed out earlier, the Aaron Rand thing just from this morning that he sent out, and that study that's coming out, family studies, that's flipping, where guys actually don't want to date. Sex is way down, you know, for. For young men. I understand that men can be highly sexual. Obviously, we're starting to see a flip in culture. Women are the highly sexual ones. Women are initiating 70% of the divorces, and a lot of women are the ones that are cheating. And so women pornography use is way on the rise. This idea that women aren't sexual and any sexual experience they have is basically, it was forced on them by a guy is just flat wrong. We live in a culture that has been highly sexualized among women, and that's not fair to position the guy all the way. Now, does that happen from time to time? No doubt, no doubt. For the guy being the, you know, the perpetrator here, does that happen for sure?
[00:52:50] Speaker C: Well, the point is, if somebody does something wrong, no matter what gender that's wrong. You know, it's the same kind of thing.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: This is not bashing women. This is not bashing men. This is saying, you bear the sin if you're the one that committed the sin. And we have to start looking at a woman who goes out and sleeps with a bunch of men.
It's not, wow, those men took advantage of her. It's like she sought this. There are women sex addicts, too. There are women that struggle in this too. We've got to be willing to say some of these more difficult things. And I think the church, once again, we think about it, and everybody, anybody listening may, you know, they may get upset at the fact that, yeah, we do think a lot about young men. Godly young men is a podcast we run, because look at the way that this is being said to the Men, young men in the culture. We're losing men by the boatloads here.
Well, they're starting to kind of make their way back, but they're going toward orthodoxy, they're going toward Catholicism, they're going towards structured religions that seem to have a path forward for them. We're not going to keep them if this is the path forward for them is basically just, hey, put up with it and, you know, we'll. We'll see, we'll use you when we can type of thing and just go from there because it's really about the women here. We've got to start thinking about how these things play on the minds of our young people.
[00:53:59] Speaker C: Yep. All right, let's get to a brief. Think fast about the Duggar family is in the news again, very unfortunately, another Duggar son arrested for sexual.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:11] Speaker C: Crimes. And this time with his wife, who apparently was aiding and abetting and involved.
This is another man. It is a disastrous thing. And so we actually had somebody request to talk about it and it was kind of interesting, the angle. They basically said, well, they teach a lot of what you guys teach. And so this is why, like, you know, this is the problem with these things.
I know. That's a real convenient story. You know, it's one of those, like, I'm sorry, every time a public school teacher of the. Many, many, many times a public school teacher sleeps with a student, like, you guys don't let us use that as a get out of public schools thing. So, yeah. On the other hand, this does show that, hey, this, this way of homeschooling and big families is not a path to a perfect life. You know, like that there's.
There can be abuse, there can be bad things that happen in this world.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: So my came out. No, go for it.
[00:55:00] Speaker B: Go ahead, Joe. You want me to go? Okay, so, yeah, I'll give my take and actually off air, I'll talk to you guys about maybe doing an episode on this because I think it might be very, very interesting. My overall take on this because, yeah, the Duggars, man, talk about a family that just absolutely. Just train wrecks. I mean, you know, from.
I know not all the kids are, but, you know, the Josh Duggar story, some of the worst stuff I've ever read in my entire life. And then of course, now to have one of the. Another son, basically, you know, similar Pat, it's just. It's terrible.
Here is my overall take.
I think there is such a thing as a family that is too big that, you know, having too many Kids, the full quiver movement. That's what I think might make for an interesting episode.
You know, there's the different views on, you know, reproductive measures and you know, family planning. Essentially you. What you clearly see with the Duggars is a family where no matter what image that Jim Bob, the dad, you know, put forth on the TV show or whatever it is, he did not and his wife did not disciple their children the way that they, the way that they should have.
And it's one of those things that like well, how could you when you have 19 children or you know, however many, you know, like it. The. The time is a zero sum game. And that's what to me is most interesting about the question of how many kids should you have which again I just think is a very interesting discussion is because you're just going. Your time spent influencing and discipling your children, specifically your sons. If you're the dad, you just have less of it to go around. And so what I see when I look at the Duggars is the TV show and the publicity thing aside, parents, a dad who didn't really disciple his sons at all. A dad who was more concerned with again maybe making the money or making them a household name, whatever it is, or protecting the purity culture reputation of the Duggars, the homeschool reputation or whatever versus I want to disciple my kids faithfulness.
That'd be hard for me to do If I had 20 kids. And so again that that might be a discussion for another day. But that was kind of the first take that I had was man, just another example of why that's too many children to have.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: Joe, I didn't, didn't expect that take. That's. I think I would agree with that take. But yeah, I was thinking you're going to go in a different direction. There are a lot of different directions to go with this. That man. It's just such a sad story. This goes to. Yes men can sin. Obviously we're not saying otherwise, but this is a. I think it was Jill on a podcast or in one of her books mentioned that when they'd go to their grandparents house the grandma would basically have to lock them in the room away from the grandfather because they basically knew he's a known pedo.
[00:57:40] Speaker B: So they're about Jim Bob's parents.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: Yes, Jim Bob's dad. Now I don't want to speak where I'm not fully sure on that, but that's my understanding is that is the case so people can fact check that.
The point is these things Are generational. And abuse comes down the line in a horrible, horrible way where the. I think it's. What is the statistic. It's in the 90%, I think, of those that molest and those that abuse had it done to them.
Absolutely horrible. The thing to do is to bring it into the light as much as you possibly can to get them therapy immediately and to say, you know, if, if you can and really to just figure out what exactly is going on and help kids work through what has taken place and what's been done to them. Kids take abuse and they think I must have wanted it or they, they, you know, go and explore and do it to somebody else. I think this is what took place with Josh. And when you have 19 kids to your point, well, you need to rely on the oldest kids to help with the youngest kids. That means there's gonna be a lot of alone time with the oldest kids. You better hope that nothing like this has taken place.
And so you end up doing things to your siblings. This happens more often than we'd care to admit when these things take place, especially with abuse among siblings and such. And so what Happened is at 12, this all came out and the Duggars basically buried it. Well, they sent it to a camp and then it came back and it was fine. Like you didn't do due diligence as a parent to understand what is going on, what happened, what, what are the consequences going forward and course correct and get him out of this. And instead this abuse has continued to the fourth generation. At this point, I don't know if Jim Bob was. But it maybe skipped a generation.
But now down to the grandkids or great grand. Whatever that is, great grandkids of this initial abuser guy. And maybe he was abused as well, statistically speaking, probably. So it just, man, if, if abuse has taken place. That's my take on this is if abuse has taken place, get yourself some help, get your kids some help immediately.
Reach out for us. I will be glad to point you in the right direction from. For the right therapist, a Christian therapist who uses the right approach, a trauma based approach and such. But man, I mean, this devastates families. This is another devastating story.
[00:59:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:59:44] Speaker A: Sad. Jack, what do you think?
[00:59:46] Speaker C: Yeah, man. I remember, you know, my, my mom, obviously a homeschool family kind of person. When that show first came on, I was like, oh, this is so cool. And I remember watching, like, this is weird. This is. It's a freak show kind of thing.
They were basically trading on that, like, oh, you Know, look at, yeah. And like, oh, what a nice happy family. It's like, man, something is off here. And you can just tell and that to me. And as you say, the grandpa did it and it was just cover ups all the way down. When Josh did it, as you say, they covered up, covered up, covered up. Because there's a reputation to keep and there's all that. And it's like, I'm sorry, I don't care what has to burn down for what cost there is for the right thing to be done. Just do the right thing. If a guy, I mean, you see this how many times? Well, somebody could lose their ministry, somebody could lose their job, somebody could lose their family. Somebody could. Like again, as we just talked about this whole episode, consequences, right? There are consequences for actions. And if those consequences aren't brought to bear, it's incentivized to keep going. And so when these things happen, if dad or grandpa has to go to jail, dad or grandpa has to go to jail, or if we're not going to go see grandpa again, so be it. Like this is, you have to cut this off. And it's just sick to see that not happen. The other thing is, I kind of mentioned in the opener there when that Shiny Happy People documentary came out, they did what they always do. This is they did the same thing with the the Mars Hill podcast series.
Oh, here's this abuse and this terrible thing that happened and this other terrible thing that happened, this other terrible thing. And, and they also use this umbrella illustration of the headship of the family. And that just shows. And so we've given people go see all of these things all go together, this fundamentalism and so we're just gonna throw out the whole thing. It's like that there are plenty of people who hold to the umbrella view of headship that don't have this going on in their family or their church. Yeah, but a lot of dumb people get hoodwinked by that and go, oh, so anybody who teaches that must be doing something to children. Like, no, no, no, no, no.
[01:01:35] Speaker A: Correlation does not equal causation.
[01:01:37] Speaker C: Well, it's the same thing. Somebody went and saw one of these Hollywood movies in the last year or so and they're like, it was about the Nazis. And it just, I couldn't believe how many parallels I was noticing to today. Like, that's why they made the movie genius. They're telling you that today we've got Nazis in office. Like, good for you. You picked up on the subtext. I mean, like the same Thing with these. And so when it's like, oh, homeschool families, or people with more than three kids or people who go to fundamentalist churches or whatever else, like. Or people who believe that the dad is the head of the household, like, that's what happens.
[01:02:09] Speaker B: Documentary. Yeah.
[01:02:10] Speaker C: Right. Like that. They're telling you that through the subtext of this is like, they have an ax to grind against this agenda. They found really horrible people that gave them the opportunity to do that. Don't let them do that to you. Like, come on, now. And so anyway, yeah, it's. It's a great point.
So, yeah, I mean, do we agree with them on, like, homeschooling? Yeah. You know, I've. I didn't intend to have six kids by now, but the twins keep popping out. So I have six kids now.
[01:02:39] Speaker A: Six go 90. Right?
[01:02:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I've. Man, I don't. I don't think we knew 13 at a time, thankfully. So. Yeah, but I mean, so I have a bigger family and, yeah, I'm gonna teach. I'm teaching currently a lot and writing on male headship of the family. Does that mean I condone all of this stuff? No. Does this mean that I'm. I think they were normal people? No, not at all. And so, like, don't go for that. But, yeah, when I went back to. I want to just finish on that point I made a bit ago.
The consequences have to be brought to bear when you see this. We talked about this in church. Abuse. Oh, well, we'll just quietly let him go and he'll go be a youth minister elsewhere. No, no, no. Burn this guy's life to the ground or he will not stop.
You know, the consequences of not exposing sin when it needs to be exposed are just devastating. And that's what should have happened long ago here. And I'm just hoping all the way down that every single one of these gets caught and it gets rooted out. So, anyway, very, very sad story to end on, but lots to take from it. And the this, again is the Think Fast. The whole episode was on the very viral, controversial tweets about marrying someone with a checkered sexual past. So if you're catching the Think Fast, look out for that episode on Monday.
In any case, we're always here Mondays with Think Deeper, the Think Fast when we get to them on Thursday nights. And the deep end on Focus plus, our listener exclusive Q and A question every Thursday night or Friday. So check that
[email protected] plus and we'll talk to you guys on the next one.
Hey guys, Jack Wilke here.
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