Does Your Kid HAVE To Marry A Christian?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign podcast presented by Focus Press. Your host Joe Wilkie, joined as always by co hosts Will Hiram and Jack Wilke. And today we are discussing something that has popped up on if you were on Facebook. I think it has since been hid for maybe various reasons, but there for a time. Your dad, will Brad Harrop, Dr. Brad Harab had a pretty stirring post that got a lot of people pretty upset. And to be honest with you, I don't really see the, I don't see the purpose. I don't know why it was controversial, but it was controversial and there was a lot of different thoughts and takes and back and forth and some personal attacks and it was pretty heated and we thought you know what, this might make for a great episode. We have covered similar things to this. We have talked about this before but this was so heated and stirred up so much controversy that we thought this may be good for us to wade into and just share a few thoughts. I think we got a few takes and a few things that that might be new and just to add to the discussion and and some things to ponder on as we consider this idea of parental responsibility as it pertains to their kids, especially who their kids marry, their kids staying faithful, questions that arise surrounding that. And so fellas, any opening thoughts? Will, I want to ultimately open it up to you. I want you to read your dad's post. But any thoughts? Before we get to that, I would. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Just say briefly the gist of the question is what level, if any of culpability, accountability, responsibility, whatever ability word you want to use, do parents have for their adult children, faithful or unfaithful? I don't know what you guys think about this. I think this might be one of the most important questions that the church is is facing today. I think this is one of the most important and one of the most fundamental questions that we need to be on the right side of the right side of the answer for. And as the post revealed and dad's post was only up for, it was up for less than a day. I want to say it was up for less than 12 hours, maybe even less than 10 hours before it was hidden and 114 comments and just a lot of thoughts, a lot of negative as far as negative towards the post thoughts. And so I'm just curious if you guys have any thoughts before I read the post about kind of like why I think this is one of the most important questions is because if, if we come down on the side of parents hold a significant level of culpability and accountability for their children's spiritual faithfulness. I feel like undoubtedly the church will be in a much better spot as opposed to the position of they really, you know, you really can't expect too much. I mean, they're, you know, they're their own. They make their own decisions and they have their own free will. And we'll deal with all of those things later on. But I got fired, pretty fired up about this, and I pretty rarely get fired up about anything on social media. But I think it's because it, to me, it did hit a. It struck a chord with me that this is just such an important concept, an important question that I feel like we just have to be on the right side of. And pretty clearly we're not in the church, at least we're not in agreement on. And there are a lot of people. There were a lot of people that were, but most were not most people. Again, fell on the side of ads. You can't really blame parents for what kids do later on in life. So, yeah, those would be my opening comments. I think this is one of the most important questions that we can answer for the church today, for the church to have any positive direction moving forward. Any thoughts on that before? Because I do want to read the post and then we'll kind of get into it. [00:03:36] Speaker C: Yeah, go ahead and read it. [00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So dad said, help me understand something. Why would a father give his daughter's hand in marriage to a guy who does not know or practice God's law? This is the guy who will be training up your legacy. And yet he doesn't even know his purpose on this planet and doesn't know God's will. This is the guy who is supposed to wash your daughter with the word and help her get to heaven. Why in the world would you think that he is a good choice to yoke your daughter to? He shouldn't even be a candidate. Wake up, dads. I don't care how many degrees he has earned, how big his bank account is, how good an athlete he is, or how big a social media following he has. If he doesn't understand the basics of the Bible, then he shouldn't even be a prospect. Why did you let him hang around long enough for there to even be an interest? He adds kind of a parenthetical at the end. And for those wanting to argue that sometimes you just can't prevent who a girl goes after, let me add, if that's the case, then you did a poor job of raising and training your daughter. If she doesn't honor you and values worldly things over Jesus. So I'm going to turn it over to Jack here for any introductory thoughts he has. We can't get into the outline. So again, not to make this episode just about the Facebook post. I rarely comment on. In fact, almost never comment anything on Facebook I made a comment on this post was basically, and this was probably after about 40 comments of other people. And basically, like I, to be honest, like I said, I think I said, I'm sorry, I don't understand what's so controversial about this. Everything in there to me is very straightforward in the sense of, hey dads, don't let your daughters even consider people who don't know the Bible, who don't respect God's law. I would think that isn't super controversial. And obviously we'll get into kind of where people came in to disagree. But that was the post again. Up for about 10 hours, then deleted or hidden, I think. Jack, let's bring you in. What kind of initial thoughts do you have for this episode? [00:05:24] Speaker C: There's so many ways to go with this, but this is one of those that just shows how drowned we are in the modern culture that we're so far off. I remember my mom having this discussion with somebody about, you know, he didn't love the guy his daughter was dating and she said, well, you don't have to give her in marriage. I mean this was a Christian at the time is like, you know, First Corinthians 7 talks about the father doesn't have to give his daughter and you are the one who gives her in marriage. And it's so funny. I mean Brad was drawing on that, that we do that, but like nobody, actually, not nobody, but a lot of people don't even take it seriously. Who gives this woman in marriage like that? We do that because we actually used to mean it like he is giving her in marriage. Now it's ah, go find a guy, bring him back, I'll rub, you know, rubber stamp it and go ahead and do what you want. But anyway, so my mom brought this verse up and said, you don't have to give her in marriage. Like you don't have to sign off on this. And he laughed like, yeah, you know, like, well, that old fashioned kind of thing. Like old fashioned or not, A, it's biblical. B, are we really better off without it? And you know, you could say, well, a girl can run off and do her own. Yeah, she can. That's not great. And that, that's a whole other level. We'll get to on this. But the idea of a father giving his daughter in marriage, I, I think that's kind of the first place you have to start with a post. Why something like this would be controversial is we don't actually think that's a real thing. [00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's exactly it. Wait, First Corinthians 7, you read through and it's got some language that it's like, what now? You know, what, what are you talking about? We're going to get into some of the scriptures a little bit later. But when you look at some of that reading from today's cultural standards, we go, that's insane. It's scripture. But somehow we gloss over this. There's multiple scriptures that somehow we just gloss over as we're looking at this. And it's interesting, it's intriguing to me. One of the angles that I think is most intriguing is how quickly we can run to something being cultural when we don't really want to do it. When we think about fathers being in charge of their daughters and making sure that their daughters are marrying somebody who is biblically based, who is a Christian, who will get her to heaven and will lead their kids to heaven and, and all these things, which. It shouldn't be controversial, at least all of a sudden it's like, well, that's, that's kind of a cultural thing. And, and you know, nowadays, matter of fact, there are people on the post. Exactly. There are people on the post going, actually, I would rather marry a non Christian who has really good morals than somebody who's a Christian, you know, and, and like what? Well, it kind of worked out for me type of thing. Like, just because it worked out for you and just because maybe they came around or whatever it may be, I don't think that's what ought to be. But we are willing to cast kind of the cultural discussion. We throw it to the side when we want and we throw it into the discussion when we want it to fit our needs. Like, this is a biblical thing that fathers are to be over their daughters and to help them choose and give them in marriage. We just blow that off because we want to. [00:08:14] Speaker B: Well, and to make a broader point or to I guess broaden that point specifically out, it is a biblical thing for you as Christian parents to guide the spiritual faithfulness of your children as well. And that's what we have the post, really, the less of the post and more the comments revealed to me is that, and I kind of already knew, based on some other discussions, that we've had before, but people seem to be, seem to not have the ability to take what is pretty clearly a biblical principle and apply it across the board. Because of the maybe handful of exceptions that they know, maybe it was them personally who married a non Christian and it just worked out splendid. Or maybe they've got a close friend or maybe their child did marry a non Christian and there was somebody on there was like, you know, I didn't marry a Christian and but he's a good person. And no, he doesn't go to church with me right now, but maybe one day he will. And like. Okay, so just because there are, you know, exceptions, things that worked out really well, does that mean that the principle or. And you know, I would even take this further than principle. I think 2 Corinthians 6:14 does exist here. But my point is like the Bible teaches these things and just because you might know somebody or you personally might have married somebody who was not a Christian and then they got converted and it worked out great, that doesn't invalidate the legitimacy of somebody saying, hey, dads, make sure that you are raising your daughters to marry faithful Christians and vice versa. But you know, Joe, you spoke to the father being responsible for the daughter's marriage there. And so, yeah, just as we once again kind of get into it, we have to have the ability to say just because there might be and a quote unquote exception, there are still normative principles that the Bible teaches and you being responsible for your child's faithfulness and Christians need to marry Christians is one of those principles. [00:10:08] Speaker C: Yeah, there's a lot of sides of that. So do we want to do the, you know, kind of my own, like the, the people saying, well, it worked for me. Like let's, let's focus in on that first. I guess we'll go there. That is very frustrating to me. There's the broad brush is necessary for a reason. You have to have general principles. There are exceptions to every general principle. Yes, but the exceptions need to be the exceptions. The general principles need to be the general. And what happens is people get so self obsessed they will not allow general principles to exist. Well, it worked for me. Usually doesn't. It's not a good idea. You shouldn't want your kids to do the same thing. I, I'm thank the Lord literally that it worked for you, but a lot of people, it didn't. Okay. And so to say. Well, therefore nobody can say it's a bad idea. You know what, I watched some of these like crazy stunts. Evel Knievel jumping over canyons, jumping over buses and all that. He lived. I still don't think it was a really good, you know, smart thing for him to do. And so similarly, with this, like, people cannot tolerate. And they can't tolerate the generalizations. There's that thing about, you know, anytime you say, well, men are taller than women, somebody will rush in, well, I knew a woman who was 6ft tall. Okay, how does that help the discussion? What are men taller than women? Does that invalidate the claim that men are taller than women on average? Not at all. Like, it's a general principle. There are exceptions to the general principle. And so the same thing for this. This happens so many times in biblical discussions of, well, here's an exception. Therefore, you can't say that general truth. Then we can't say anything. [00:11:50] Speaker A: I'm sorry. [00:11:50] Speaker C: We can't say anything. And we've got to be able to say something. [00:11:54] Speaker B: You see it. You know, men need to lead. Men need to lead their wives and their families. Well, I knew a guy who was abusive to his wife. And so, you know, you got to be really careful with that. Yeah, it's the exact same thing. That doesn't invalidate. Joe, looks like you had a thought. [00:12:04] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I was just thinking about that. Your point about Eva Kaniva. I was. I don't know why my mind went to this, but, like, you know, well, I ate Tide Pods. It tasted good. I didn't die. Like, it's probably good for us to say, don't eat Tide pods. Well, it worked out for me. Like, it's a bad thing. Okay. It's not supposed to happen. You go all the way back. You know, this is what drives me nuts, is we don't take the Old Testament. Speaking of cultural things, as I mentioned the last point, I was just saying. But you go back to the Old Testament, this is like a very serious thing of don't intermarry. And because, well, it worked out for me, it's perfectly fine. Like, yes. And Rahab was a harlot. And I suppose it worked out. Don't be a harlot. You know, Ruth. And that entire situation, like, these things aren't normative. The fact that God used it to his glory is fantastic because he's God. And praise God that these things do take place. That should not be the thing that everybody is going after or trying to pursue just because. Well, it worked out for me. And this is the struggle in this. And I'm going to be mean here. Studies have proven there's an intelligence element that goes along with hypotheticals. And it also goes along with, with this entire principle of being able to accept normative principles and general truths and just saying is what it is. The less intelligent person is always the one. And I know people are going to be like, wow, are you claiming everybody on there's less intelligent? No, I'm not. But this is just science, okay? The person that's coming in that cannot see there is a general principle at play here. We have to take the general principle. That's a high minded concept. Like, yes, some principles are truth. The person that comes in that wants to just poke at it, and what about this? And what about that? And I had this happen and I had that happen is like, that's not the wise statement here. The wise statement is, do you want the average church member, the average girl at the church to go marry a non Christian? Do you or do you not? Well, I think that they probably should. Whoa, there you go. Probably should. Right? [00:13:56] Speaker B: We're in agreement here. [00:13:57] Speaker A: We're in agreement. You pointing to it worked out for you. If everybody did it the way you did it, which a lot of people do, the majority would not work out for them. So it is not a high minded approach to look at the few exceptions, to try to devalue and to cast aside what is like a hard and fast rule, in my opinion, which is don't do it. It was very serious in the Old Testament. It still is very serious. The fact that it worked out for you is great. That doesn't mean everybody should be doing it. [00:14:26] Speaker C: Just briefly, Will, before you get into your point, you bring up the Old Testament, Jacob and Esau is one of the prime examples. And Rebecca says, basically, it's ruining my life that Esau married these Canaanite women. This is a really big problem. And they turn to Jacob and say, do not do that. Go back, find, you know, one of our people and marry them. You know, marry a woman from among them. Imagine Esau running in and be like, you can't tell him that. You can't tell him to do that because you know, I did it. And therefore nobody's allowed to say anything about, like that's what we're dealing with here. [00:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah, you've got Jay. I was going to bring up Jacob and you saw, you've got, you know, all throughout, you know, the conquering of Canaan, it was made very clear, don't make covenant with these people. Don't allow your children to intermarry with the, with the pagans. And so that's a great point to bring up what I was thinking just before we move on to Joe, you've got a great point on here about kind of responsibility and how we have an aversion to that. I want to get to what was so frustrating about this for me was so the one of the last episodes that we actually did, kind of in reaction to a Facebook post from dad, yet over 300 comments was something very similar. It was the idea that essentially young men and young women should pursue marriage and children instead of pursuing a life, a life of singleness, a life of Instagram travel, lifestyle and whatnot. And you would have just thought that that was the end of the world for a lot of people. But a lot of the same arguments were made about this person. So you're saying single people are in the wrong or sinning or I was single and it worked out great for me. And what's frustrating about this one is this one to me is even more clear of a very obvious biblical truth than that whole discussion from two years ago. I still think that one, again, kind of we held our own on that one, and that one holds its own water. But are we serious once again, just to bring it back around, are we seriously having an argument as to whether or not it's a good idea for Christian men or women to marry other Christians? Like, I felt like I was in the twilight Zone reading some of these comments, but like the fact that we can't make a Facebook post or take it away from Facebook for just a second, get up in the pulpit and say men and, or, you know, fathers and mothers, make sure you raise your children to marry a Christian. The fact that we can't get up there and say that just speaks volumes about where we are in the church today. That just to kind of put a bow on this point, everybody jumps to the hypothetical or to, or to the, to the exception to the well, I did this and I did that. And who are you to say we've got to be able to say these things? I forget the episode that I, I think, oh, it's on the prom episode that I made the point. Like, we've got to be able to say these things from the pulpit. We got to be able to say these things on a Facebook post without 65% of the comments being, well, you know, it's worked out really well for me. Like, we got to be able to say from the pulpit, wherever it is, this is what God wants us to do. And once again, I just would have thought Christians marrying Christians would not have been that controversial. But Joe, get us into your. Your very good point. You were kind of making off air about just how much, and kind of a tangent of this, just how much we in society, but especially where I related to is we in the church run away and kind of have an aversion to just any kind of responsibility and ownership. [00:17:42] Speaker A: When your dad talks about that on his post like that, it's the responsibility of the fathers. Yeah, they bristle. We don't want that responsibility. Basically, they're adults. We'll get into some of that. But I think this really is a downstream issue to what's taking place upstream, which is we're not teaching kids responsibility and specifically men. We're not teaching young men to take responsibility for their homes and that you will stand in the judgment for your family that you are responsible. We talked about this a lot on the podcast. To me, there's such a key piece here that's missing. You are responsible. And authority flows to those who take responsibility. And the dad, because you got to think about this, the dad who is willing to take a step back and go, not my responsibility, who my daughter chooses. What does that communicate to the rest of the family, including his wife. Not really responsible for you. You get to do your own thing. I'll try to make some suggestions. Kind of wish you'd do something different. Do you know what a woman is craving the most? Safety and security. If her dad can't provide that from, from a female's perspective, her dad can't provide it. She will go find it somewhere else. Even if the guy is a bad guy. That's why the, the bad boy always is appealing to the woman for a guy that or for a woman that doesn't feel safe and secure and her own from her own father, she will go find it from somebody who will kick tail and take names. You know, like, maybe he's not a good guy, but he will provide that safe for. Think about the wife who's seeing her husband fail to take responsibility for the kids. He's going to fail to take responsibility in a number of other ways. You lose respect in that way. You lose your home. And so to me, it starts as young kids. We're not training young kids to take that responsibility for themselves to step up. We're in a participation trophy society where, hey, everything goes and you don't really have to take responsibility. We live in a welfare society where you don't have to take responsibility for yourself. You can just get it from somebody else. And Everybody demonizes the 1%. Like this is a subsection of that, which is, it's not my fault, it's somebody else's fault. Somebody did something to me and they have their own responsibility. And why is it my responsibility? It's like, you sound like Adam in the garden. This woman that you gave me, this daughter that you gave me, she went against what I told her to do. Adam, were you there? Were you not? And God's going to say the same thing to the fathers. We have to stop being allergic to responsibility and recognizing it. Start recognizing it as the blessing that it is in my opinion. [00:19:57] Speaker C: This in 3rd John 4 John says, I have no greater joy than my children Walk in truth. Like, the other side of the responsibility thing is like, this should be your number one priority is man, my kids are in church, my grandkids are in church, my in laws. I passed my kids off. I gave my daughters in marriage to guys that are leading them to the Lord. Like, yeah, that's, that should be your source of joy. And when you don't do that. And then that was her choice. Like, well then you didn't teach her well. But you also didn't help with the process, which again is a very biblical concept. And yeah, with all of these, it is passing the buck. It's, it's the individualism. We don't need to go down that road again. But that's the other cultural side of this is, well, everybody gets to do whatever they want and nobody's responsible for anybody else. And nobody, I mean like parents are totally immune and exempted from anything their kids ever do. It doesn't bring shame on the family name, any of that stuff. That doesn't exist anymore. Every person is an individual unit and nobody else is connected to them. I think that's gonna go away. I think that's starting to go away. I think it will in subsequent generations because that's just so ahistorical. Hey folks, I wanted to tell you about our new Christian book combo. It's two books available at FocusPress.org, the first first is Sunday School Catch Up. It's 150 Bible basics for those that maybe didn't grow up in the church or feel like they're lacking in the fundamentals of the Bible. And then starting line by Dr. Brad Harrop and of course by Will on that one as well on the basics of the Christian life, of what it means to be a Christian, to be part of the church, why the church does what it does, some doctrinal basics and things like that. And so with those two books, we've got them at a discount on our site when you buy them together. A great starter pack for anyone who wants to know more about the Christian faith. So check that out [email protected]. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Well, as we kind of get into some of the, the arguments that people use, we kind of already, you know, gotten into the first one, which is the idea that, well, you know, they're grown adults, right? They can choose for themselves. You know, what essentially what are you going to do? What are you supposed to do when they're in their 20s and they choose to go live? I mean, that's their free will, right? And so that's where that, that is going to be the response. Most of the time you see this in the eldership discussion. Are elders qualified if they have a 27 year old kid that is not faithful, if they kept him faithful up to 18 that we talked about before and to me a parallel with it. Like you don't see this in any other area of life. The best example that I can come up with because it's the closest one to me is what I do for work is I'm the operations director for our local Chick Fil a here where I live. And along with that comes basically the ownership of certain metrics and certain numbers, certain results that we, that we have to get. Well, how do I get those? I get those through what everybody else does, what the team members do, what our shift leaders do, what 130 employees that we have. If I were to go to, you know, say a corporate meeting, right, and somebody brings me my results and I were to say, well, I really don't know what you want me to do. I mean, although they're, they're grown people. I mean they're, they all have their own free will. They can do whatever they want while they're here at work. I'm not really sure what you expect of me. They can choose for themselves. Like I would get looked at like, I'm sorry, excuse me. Your entire job is to make sure that you are shaping their behavior. You are shaping the culture of the organization. You are shaping, shaping the environment, the, the operations, the, the way in which these, in many cases high schoolers, but we have a fair share of adults as well. Your job is to make sure that they are shaped in such a way that they will do what they are supposed to do. I can't go to the, the corporate meeting or meet with whoever and say, I mean, here's my results and I know they're really bad, but I don't know what you want me to do. These people all have their own free will. They get to do, they can do whatever they want. What do you expect out of me? And yet that's the exact attitude that so many parents have with the children that are in their house for 18 years, 10 hours a day. If they go to public school, it's for, you know, 18 hours a day. You are with them, you're responsible for 18 years of their life. And your response is just to throw up your hands and say, I don't know what you want from me. They have their own free will. As if you as a Christian parent, just ignoring the fact that it is your job to shape their free will. It is your job to mold their free will. It is your job to create an environment, create a culture for them to where they will pursue God. And if they choose not to pursue God when they hit 25 years old or 22 years old, if they choose not to, for us to absolve you of any, you as a parent of any responsibility and again to throw up your hands and say I should, I shouldn't have any culpability for this. What kind of common sense is that? Like, I'm sorry, like I'm not trying to insult anybody, but how unintelligent do you have to be to say, I was responsible for my kids for 18 years, they chose to walk away from God at age 24, but I shouldn't be held responsible for it. It's just mind boggling me. Again, that would not work in my line of work, that would not work in most people's line of work to say, well, who are we to control other people's behavior? That's part of your job as a, in fact, that is your job as a parent. And so I kind of went on my own rant there, guys, but with that kind of response or argument of they're grown adults, they choose for themselves. You're not responsible for their actions when they're 27 years old. What would you add to kind of your rebuttal? Obviously, I think that's about as baseless of an excuse and pretty weak minded of an excuse as somebody can give. And yet that's the prevailing thought. What thoughts you guys have on that? [00:25:49] Speaker A: Well, it's the Jackson individualism point, which is we act like it's in a vacuum. Well, they make their own choices. I made my own choices. You know, their kids are probably gonna make their own choices. Like, no, but you didn't you didn't. I'm a big believer in therapy. I'm a big believer in nurture over nature. Yeah, nature is important. Nurture is really important. Really, really important because that is what determines attachment. That's what determines all sorts of stuff. And the thought that these things just happen in a vacuum without you is a pretty, as Jack said, a historical view. I think most people realize they are an amalgamation of everything that's kind of come before them. And so that is what allows you as a dad to take that responsibility and to say, yeah, I do. I am responsible for this person and shaping their will and shaping their thoughts and shaping their behaviors. And kind of as God is with the potter and we are with our kids, we're kind of the potter and we shape them in certain ways. We have a responsibility to do that. That's also the beauty of being a father, is we get the glory of seeing them grow up. It's very much Proverbs 31 with the mother, right? She gets to like the kids, raise her up and bless her, call her blessed and such. And it's just a beautiful picture of a woman and a man who have put everything into their kids. They've taken responsibility for their kids behavior and if and when their kids grow up to do, you know, to stay in the faith or whatever that may be, they get the blessings from that, they get the glory from that. They get, you know, some really, really good things. It starts to take responsibility on the front end. And so when we push that off. Well, I think you're spot on with the idea of like your job is to shape their will so that they freely choose to do the right thing. The same way that, you know, my job is to, in a roundabout way almost and maybe there's a demonstration but like to teach them math and then they can. Or to teach them English and they can use it, think for themselves, but they know the boundaries, they know what to use it for. And we kind of shape them to use it in an appropriate way. So, Jared, I hate to bring in when we've taken a lot of points, but is there anything you'd add before we get to the second one? You can go ahead and gets. [00:27:42] Speaker C: There's two ways to frame this and it's the. Or, I mean two sides of this is you're either focused on rights or duties like that. Every discussion in our culture comes down to rights or duties. The, the right way to look at this is duty is what do you owe. This was a discussion I actually saw on Matt Walsh's profile he was talking about, you know, women were saying, well, we don't owe it to anybody to have children. He's like, actually you do. You owe it to all of human history before like that. Women carry on the. Like you, you have, you owe people something. And it's the same with this of, well, you know, what are we gonna do? They, they're their own people, you know, and they don't. I'm not responsible for them. They're not responsible to do anything. There's no responsibility on anybody. Everybody has the right to do whatever they want here. A, they don't. B, you don't actually believe that because if you raised your kid to be a bank robber, if you like if you trained your kid to lie to people, like, if you brought them home, like, hey, you can get more money out of people if you lie to them and they went out and did that, that would make you a bad parent. It is on you to not do that. And so we see you have the duty to train your kid to do that and your kid has a duty not to go do that. But at somewhere along the way we drop that and say, okay, there's some basic duties that you have, but after that it's all rights. Whatever you want to do. Outside of that, keep going. Train your kid not to be a bank robber, not to be a liar, not to hit people, not to do all those things. Train them to do some good things too. It's a very libertarian mindset of like, don't harm anybody. That's half the equation. Bring in good. Bring in actually good deeds that you're supposed to do, like marrying a Christian, like raising faithful kids, like serving the church, like, you know, all of those other things they're supposed to do, being who God made you to be. Focus on duty across the board, not just rights. And that's where this all gets messed up. [00:29:32] Speaker B: This is where. And again, just perusing through the comments and the response, and I know we're kind of singling out this one post and kind of this one moment in time again, take any sermon class article ever written on this. Like, this is the type of pushback it gets. And what I couldn't. What just kind of kept going through my mind. And I apologize if, if somebody's listening to this and you were one of these people, what comes to my mind is just how far the Christian husband and father has fallen instead of Joe. It's to your responsibility point. I, I've referenced it probably two or three times now. I read Extreme ownership, this earlier this year business type book. But the idea is you take ownership of the things that you are responsible for and Christian fathers are just not able to do that. It's just for generally speaking, again, a lot of them do. In the context of this post and response is like, it's pretty clear there's a lot of Christian fathers that just are not able to take ownership and responsibility for their home. And you see we've. This has been kind of a something that my dad specifically has Talked about for 15 years now or so that Christian dads really are the ones who. And not just dad, of course a lot of people talked about it. Are the ones who are mainly going to be responsible for what direction the family goes, what direction the wife goes, the children go. Ephesians 6, you know, addresses fathers, and you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath. Bring them up the nurture of the Lord. He doesn't say parents, he doesn't say mothers, he says fathers. Why? Because fathers are going to have the most sway and the most influence over what direction the children go and the amount of Christian fathers and husbands that once again, instead of saying, you know, raising the hand and saying, you know what, he's exactly right. We have no business allowing our daughters to marry non Christians or to raise our sons to just live however they want to. We have no, no business, you know, just kind of letting kids do whatever they want. There wasn't a lot of that on the post. There was a lot more of, well, again, who are you to say they're grown adults can choose for themselves to get to the next one just because we could go off on this one forever, one that was thrown our way and one that was thrown around on the post multiple times was, what about Eve in the garden? Well, Eve disobeyed. God gave Eve free will. Is it God's fault? Does God hold the culpability and responsibility that Eve disobeyed? And they were trying to make the parallel between again, a husband or a father and a daughter choosing to go a different route and God creating Eve and choosing, yeah, make that one make sense. But that was one that was thrown out by several people. What about Eve? Was it God's fault that Eve sinned? Joe, it looks like I will start with you. What would you respond to that? [00:32:21] Speaker A: When a daughter is under her husband's headship, who God gave the leave and cleave principle, you are now not under your father, you were under your husband. God gave her. And the idea of God being the father in that scenario, the purpose was for her to submit to Adam. And yes, Adam was held responsible. [00:32:39] Speaker B: I want to say it was Adam's fault. [00:32:40] Speaker A: It was Adam's fault. And so we can look at it and go, well, we're talking about the fathers here. Yeah, God gave them that. But when a woman is married, she's now under the headship of her husband. Now, if Eve was single and ready to mingle with Adam, the one guy on earth, I suppose, then maybe we have a different argument here. That's not what's taking place. So to me, this is a pretty weak one. Just because she was intended to be under the headship of Adam, who's very much held responsible. And what you see, I think, going forward is fathers being held responsible in a lot of different ways. I don't think it's just the husbands. It's the fathers being held responsible for what their daughters do. But, Jack, I'm curious if there's anything, or either one of you, but if there's anything you'd add specifically to the Eve one. Because to me that seems. Unless I'm missing something, that's pretty easily understandable. [00:33:25] Speaker C: Yeah, man, I don't want to be rude. It's just not a very well thought out point. [00:33:30] Speaker A: Well, what are your thoughts? So here's another one. They're grown adults, or rather, sorry. Looking at the outline. God doesn't need perfect setups to do powerful things. God doesn't need perfect setups to do powerful things. Thoughts on that one? [00:33:43] Speaker C: God makes good come from all kinds of bad situations. You brought up Ruth earlier. Like, her husband died, her father in law died, her brother in law died. [00:33:53] Speaker A: That's not good. [00:33:54] Speaker C: You know, God can work in all things together for good, for those who love him according to his purpose. Romans 8:28, for sure. Absolutely. [00:34:01] Speaker A: Judah. Tamar Rahab. I mean, there's a lot of things. [00:34:03] Speaker C: That, I mean, not good. Full. Just as honest as we can be. My mom married my dad, you know, when he was not a Christian. She had grown up a preacher's daughter. She will tell you she knew better. She will tell you. And she, she and dad told us multiple times growing up, don't, don't do that. Like, yes, it worked out, and thank the Lord it did. I'm very glad my dad came around. Strong Christian. He taught Bible class tonight. He's been an elder. I mean, like the dream scenario. But they were both insistent. Don't you do that. Because you can't count on that happening. And we knew people that it didn't Go that well. It didn't turn out that well, or the dad didn't ever come around. And that could have been us. Like, you know, again, thank the Lord and, you know, very glad my dad had the heart to seek it out and find it, but not. That doesn't always happen. And then where would we as kids be? Where would she be? Where? Who knows? And so credit to them for being honest that they look at that and go, yes, it worked for us. No, again, back to that idea of normative principles. That's not a normative principle and don't live by it. Whereas all these other people go, well, it worked for me. Therefore, you can't say otherwise. You know that God makes good things come out of. Don't do something wrong and say, hey, God, fix this for me. [00:35:15] Speaker B: That's exactly right. I mean, you could have a set of parents that met at a college frat party. Does that mean that they. And it worked out great and they had. And they had wonderful kids. Does that mean they need to teach their kids, hey, go find your spouse at a college frat party? Of course not. Like, it's the most ridiculous thing on earth. The irony in this, this one specifically, Joe or Jack, to echo you as well. The irony in the post is my dad also was not a Christian when my mom, who was a Christian, married him. Multiple people, I'm not sure how they knew that, pointed that out in the post. My wife, even in conversations with dad, pointed that out. And my dad's response was, yeah, and Melinda, his wife, my mom. His point was, yeah, and Melinda's dad made a very poor decision in allowing us to get married before I became a Christian, even though it worked out great. Even though he has been preaching and teaching for 25 years. Focus Press has been around since 2005. I'm on. I'm on the planet, along with my three siblings. And we're all faithful, like great things. And not to pat ourselves back or anything like that. Great things have come out of this. Dad still was able to say it was still a really bad idea for my grandfather, my mom's dad, to allow that union to take place. And so once again, this gets back to the first thing we talked about, about kind of the inability to get past the exception. God doesn't need perfect subs, do powerful things. Yeah. But God does have the setup in mind that he would like us to. That he would like us to have. You could have a adopted child of a homosexual couple that turns out to be a Christian. Does that mean that that the. That we should be okay with. With homosexual couples adopting kids? No, of course not. You're exactly right, Jack. Of course God can do amazing things with. With whatever happens or whatever bad circumstances. That doesn't mean we shouldn't tell people, hey, this is the way that God designs it. [00:37:03] Speaker C: Pursue this, because it's literally called survivorship bias. It is a major error to make in research that. Well, it worked out. So you're not looking at all the times it didn't. Right. [00:37:14] Speaker A: And if we're banking on this, then why did God give us the Bible? Why did God give us anything? I'll make it work out. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about getting anything right. Don't worry about raising your kids. All the things, do whatever you want. I'll make it work out. It's all good. There's no principles, there's no commands. There's no nothing. Because at the end of the day, it'll all work out in the end the way that we're supposed to. That's not at all what God says. There are things that, yes, you're supposed to do, and he can redeem us and he can pull us back from the depths, which is incredible. He's a good father. He is awesome in every way. Man. Don't. The survivorship bias is such a great point, but there's the other one that goes right along with this, which is. But you could save their soul. [00:37:50] Speaker C: Evangelistic. [00:37:52] Speaker A: Yes. This could be an evangelistic effort, which I'm sure the same people that trot that out with the public school thing of be a light under the schools, and you could go convert somebody. And in all fairness, both of our parents on the podcast, you know that that came from that with an evangelistic effort. And both of our dads being baptized coming from not being Christians when they got married. So does it work out? Yes. From the evangelistic point of view, though, if somebody looked at it and said, they're a really good person, they do have a heart for God, but they're not Christians. What are your thoughts on that? [00:38:24] Speaker C: I still know the other thing that makes it hard is that when the relationship begins and it's getting serious, but it, you know, if she holds out and says, I'm not going to marry you unless you're a Christian, it's very hard to see how genuine it is. And, I mean, not that he's going to go, okay, I'm going to go get in, you know, dunked in the water, and we'll call it good so she'll marry me even at that. It's just that was the catalyst. That was a major factor in him becoming a Christian. Not strictly him seeking Christ out on his own. And so that's, you know, that can be a problem. And it makes her the spiritual leader of the family. [00:38:56] Speaker A: So I was going to say it starts off on the wrong foot where she's the one holding the line and he's the one that has to. But I'm not saying the guy, every guy that gets to be a Christian or every guy that gets married has to be a Christian for 20 years. I'm not saying that. On the other hand, yes, the coming to Christ just because of her does start it off on. She's the spiritual head and he will always be learning underneath her. That's a point to be made do. I think that's the binding thing here, not necessarily the most important point. That is still very much something to consider that I don't want my daughter to marry somebody, that she's going to have to train him in the faith for the first, who knows how long. I'm not a huge fan of that either. I want him to be able to lead her appropriately and lead the kids where she doesn't have to be the. She doesn't have to be his conscience and she doesn't have to really teach him in the spiritual ways because that's not really her role. [00:39:43] Speaker B: So I want to go back to. We talked about command example, necessary inference months ago now on the podcast and the usefulness of it. Kind of some of the problems with it. One of the points that we made, I believe it might have been Jack that made the point that we need to have a certain amount of weight towards commands, less weight towards examples, and even less toward necessary inference. Right. To me, what is missing all this, especially with this point, especially of, well, you could save their soul evangelistic opportunity. Correct me if I'm wrong, guys. The Bible is pretty clear about marrying non Christians and that like I'm willing to make the claim that it is a command that we're not supposed to marry a non Christian for two reasons. 1, 1 Corinthians 7:39. A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives, but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord. You make an argument that's just talking about widows. Okay, so there's a. There's a standard for widows that's not the same standard for non widows. Like, give me a break there only in the Lord. But as I referenced earlier, 2nd Corinthians 6:14 talks about not being unequally yoked with unbelievers. What do we think Paul was referring to there? As I think we covered this in the Gallium podcast episode? Like, do we think he was referring to business transactions or friendships? Or, like, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Seems to be a pretty clear teaching, call it a command teaching, whatever, that we should not be yoking ourselves together with unbelievers. And so that, to me, is the pretty easy rebuttal to this one. Well, you could save their soul. Yeah, you could. And there's a lot of examples in that. That doesn't negate the Bible's teaching that we shouldn't be marrying non Christians. I think that's pretty clear. And I would be interested to hear what somebody's rebuttal to that would be. Any thoughts? I definitely want to hit the last two on this list, but any thoughts you guys have on kind of that idea? [00:41:30] Speaker C: I mean, just the context of the chapter is talking about marriage, abandonment in marriage, things like that. And so that's just a natural part of it of like, yeah, make a good choice. And then everything we said about the Old Testament, it was a big deal to marry outside the faith. And like, that just stopped. [00:41:46] Speaker B: It was prohibited. [00:41:48] Speaker C: Yeah. And like that. Oh, well, now, yeah, just marry whoever, you know, it'll all work out. I just. Yeah, you can't make a biblical case for it, like, changing or God stopping caring about it. [00:41:59] Speaker A: Well, and before we give the other ones, does this not speak to a broader point of us not really taking marriage seriously? In a culture where we have 50% divorce rates, is it shocking that maybe we aren't super serious about who the person marries? This is the biggest decision, one of the biggest decisions of their life, being a Christian and who they marry. And we say that, but it's almost like a platitude that we just kind of throw out there. That's one of the biggest decisions. Like, if we believe that, wouldn't we be having a little more preparation? Wouldn't we be really pushing for them in a specific area to marry somebody in a specific way? Like, I think if we viewed it as the biggest decision of their life, we might take it a little more seriously. We might think about man for the next 250 years. The generations are going to be affected by who they marry. This is one of the biggest things ever. And we're willing to just kind of like, willy Nilly. Well, hey, they like the person kind of fell in love. Wow, it's a cute story type of thing. Like you have generations on your shoulders previously and generations to come weighing on your shoulders, and you're willing to cast that aside. This is why getting these things right is so important. And parents almost treat it flippantly and almost willy nilly in a way, which is just mind blowing to me. [00:43:09] Speaker B: The gravity, I think you're onto something there, Joe. Like the gravity of your child marrying someone who is not a Christian. It's almost like it doesn't register to these, these older Christian parents who once again were kind of coming out of the woodwork saying, well, first of all, you know, kind of what's the big deal? And secondly, you know, we can't really control it. You do realize your grandchildren and your grandchildren's children, your family name and your family legacy is going to be severely impacted by the person your child marries. Like they're basically going to dictate your family's future and the spiritual health of your grandchildren. It's like that's not even on their radar. It's reminiscent of the. I think Jack brings it up a lot about the, the parents or the people who say, well, I'm not going to leave my kids any inheritance. I'm going to spend it all kind of very short term here, focused. That's what this reminds me of. It's like they're. These Christian parents are not registering that the spiritual health once again of their grandchildren is on the line here. It is on the line with who your children marry. And to your point, Joe, it's the, the average Christian dad's involvement is maybe he meets the guy six months in or meets the girl his son is dating six months in and then, you know, has the hey, can I marry your daughter? Talk nine months in or a year in, sees him a couple times. That's about the extent of it. Right. There's not a whole lot of involved. That's the average dad in the church. That's the, that's kind of on average the way that they deal with this. And yeah, it's like the gravity of it is not understood by somebody. I think that's a really good point. Let's get to Ezekiel 18, verse 20, which was brought up by a lot of people. I don't know who wants to go first here. I've got it pulled up. It's very difficult to pull one verse. I would encourage you, if you're listening and are able to read the entire chapter I think it kind of actually provides a bit of the answer here, but I'll read Ezekiel 18, 19 and 20. Yet you say, why should the Son not bear the guilt of the father? Because the Son has done what is law, lawful and right, and has kept all my statutes and observed them. He shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The Son shall not bear the guilt of the Father, nor the Father bear the guilt of the Son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. This was brought up a lot in, once again, kind of the common section in response to, to this article. Jack, I'll hand it to you if you want to start. What would be kind of your, your answer to this one is kind of the rebuttal. [00:45:30] Speaker C: I mean, yeah, they're, they're responsible for themselves, certainly. I mean, nobody's saying that. I mean, because how would the judgment even work? Would we all, like, everybody goes back to Adam, like, he's responsible for everything. Everybody. Like, obviously there's that, but that doesn't mean you don't still have a say in the kind of person your kid turns out to be. That if that were the other conclusion to draw from this of like, well, everybody stands on their own, there wouldn't be any Bible commands about parenting. There wouldn't be any principles about parenting. There wouldn't be any of those things. Because it's like, well, that's on them, you know, that's just their responsibility. You know, whether they're going to be a Christian or not. The guilt is not shared and all that. Like, your guilt is not for what your kid did, it's for what you did in contributing to get them there. Like, that's. And as I said, like, your kid turns out to be a total scoundrel. If you taught them to do that, you'd be guilty for it. Well, I didn't teach them, you know, to do this good thing and they didn't do it. Then you're responsible for that, too. Like, if you're responsible for teaching your kid to be a liar, I don't need to make that point again. I just don't know why we go one side of the equation and not the other. Hey, folks, once again, I want to tell you about a book from our friends over at Cobb Publishing. After the water dries, you've been baptized, your sins washed away. And now you may wonder what next. In the brand new book, after the Water Dries, Joshua Houston shows you how to get a jump start to your Christian growth. This little book is designed to help you in your new walk with Jesus. It will help you understand what happened when you were baptized. It will help you keep from becoming a spiritual zombie. It will help you wear the right spiritual clothing, walk the right path, and have the confidence in your salvation. If you've ever wanted something to give to new converts to help them, this is the book for you. If you felt like you're in a rut as a Christian after the water dries will give you great encouragement to remember what you received from Jesus and spur you to get back to living for him. Get [email protected]. [00:47:29] Speaker A: I don't think this is the linchpin passage for, well, they're, you know, they're their own person. So you are completely absolved. That's not what that's talking about. That's talking more about, like, yes, the generations. And we all know that the generational curses do exist, that the sin will visit the children, you know, upon themselves. But this is kind of a going against, in my opinion, the Calvinistic approach of original sin. Like, no, everybody will bear their own sin in their own ways. On the other hand, once again, these things don't happen in a vacuum. That's what this whole thing points back to. My decisions are not made in a vacuum. My decisions are a part of something much bigger than me and a lot of what my parents kind of plied me with. If your parents give you. It's as simple as this. If your parents teach you algebra, algebra 2, trigonometry, calculus, everything else, they have set you up to go work at NASA way better than the person who taught their kid geometry and didn't really get around algebra, pre algebra, called it a day. And you look at it and you go, makes his own choices, man. I mean, he could have gone to work for NASA maybe. Like, no, one was severely hindered and one was severely, you know, one was majorly set up for that role and another one was not. They weren't prepped. It is not the same. And we can't treat them as though they are the same. So does that person have a, you know. Well, they could have learned that on their own, sure. But what you did as a parent does reflect, you know, positively or negatively as an adult. We get that across the board, just not spiritually. [00:48:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you guys summed it up very well. There's a difference in the guilt of the actual sin versus the guilt of essentially you setting the. Setting the scene for them to engage in that sin. The example that comes to mind is if you're just super lax with your kids in their dating practices, let them go out, do whatever, come home whenever they want to, and your child commits fornication, premarital sex. Are you going to be held accountable before God for the sin of premarital sex or fornication? Of course not. Your child is the one who did that. Are you going to be held accountable for. And Jack said it well, like providing the atmosphere for them to engage in that sin. I think the answer is unequivocally yes. And so I don't think this passage is a slam dunk that people think it is. Like, oh well, everybody's accountable for their own actions. Like, yeah, of course they are. And so your child choosing to live a sinful lifestyle, you're not going to be held accountable for the sins that they commit. You're going to be held accountable for the way that you raise them to pursue those that sinful lifestyle. And so the last thing that I want to get to as far as the arguments that people make because we saw a lot of this in the comments, is essentially you can't say that because somebody marries a non Christian or grows up to be unfaithful because of that. You cannot. Like that's not a reason to say that the parents failed or that the parents did a poor job. I actually just got into a discussion about this with my wife of like, is it fair to say parents failed if a child walks away, Is it fair to say that a child that parents did a poor job if a child or multiple children walk away? This is probably one of my strongest takes just about life in general. And I'm might take a minute to get there. But hear me out for just a second. I think you should be able to take a look at two sets of parents of toddlers and say one is doing a good job, the other is not doing a good job. There's kind of the mindset in mom culture of like, moms are just doing their best, you know, everybody's different, whatever works for you is great. Okay, well if one mom sticks their kid in front of a screen for eight hours a day and feeds them Cheetos and chicken nuggets all day long and the other one does not do that. Are we allowed to say one of them is doing a better job than the other? I think the answer is absolutely yes. Are we allowed to say the mom who sticks their kid in their 2 year old in front of a screen for 8 hours a day? Is doing a poor job as a mother. Society right now says you can't say that. It's, it's ironically, you know, not to get into the American eagle scandal here, but like, it's the exact same thing of like when, when, when all these ad campaigns were having very overweight people on, you know, kind of be the forefront of their endorsement deals. And it's like we weren't allowed to say that doesn't look good, that is not attractive, that is not healthy. Now we're kind of coming back around to being able to say those things, thankfully. But the, the why I'm using this metaphor of again, the mom who I think we need to be able to say is doing a poor job, or the dad who comes home and sits in the recliner for five hours a night versus the dad who goes out back and plays ball with his kids. We should be able to say that dad is doing a good job who's playing ball with his kids. The dad who comes home and watches five hours of television at night is doing a poor job. We need to be able to do the exact same thing with parenting in the church. Multiple people in the comments are like, so you're saying, you know, you shouldn't be able to say that that parent did a poor job or failed. And my answer, my I guess take here would be yes, we should be able to say that if you're a Christian parent. And I know this sounds harsh again, there might be people listening that just absolutely hate my guts after me giving my take here. But if you, if a Christian parent has a child or multiple children that walked away from the faith, is it acceptable to say, well, they did a poor job parenting that child? I think the answer is yes. It doesn't mean that they've lost their salvation as parents. It doesn't mean that they're, that we need to shame them or be jerks to or anything like that. But we need to be able to call something. What it is is kind of my overall take and just to kind of give the blanket. Everybody's doing the best they can, you know, Everybody, everybody, you know, whatever works for you. I just think is where we get to a point in a society where we have a 350 pound person on the COVID of Nike and everybody's supposed to say, yes, that looks good. That's what I want to be. We can't say it's just not true. What thoughts you guys have on kind of this last one. [00:53:33] Speaker C: Yeah, not all things are equal. That's a really important Point. The other thing, I would reverse engineer this. What is success as a parent if it's not having faithful kids who marry faithful Christians who have faithful grandkids, like, that's success number one. I've seen this happen. You know, I've been part of a church where this was the case. Getting a scholarship, getting an athletic scholarship especially, you know, getting a high paying job, the, the prestige things, people look at that as success and go, wow, you know, and that reflects on the parents like, wow, you did a good job. Faithfulness in the church, it just shows. All of these things are why we have an over 50%, well over 50% dropout rate. I was just talking to a guy tonight, you know, we were talking about, yeah. All the young people at his church he grew up with, they're not there anymore. They moved away. When they come back, they don't go to church with their parents. And like, yeah, those things happen and that's a failure. And that word hurts. But like if again, like what we look at, success is the problem. We do not view spiritual success as part of it. You know what your kid, like I said, got that sports scholarship, man. Wow, you did it. The whole family feels this sense of accomplishment. Your kid ends up a doctor, your kid ends up a millionaire. Any of those things, everyone would say, yeah, boy, you know, that successful job, we don't view it the same way for this, for being a Christian and staying faithful and generational faithfulness that nobody considers that success. That's why, I mean, you see this stuff, the last thing I'll say about this of like what China is training their kids to be versus what the US is training their kids to be. And China, it's like rigorous discipline and high educational standards and all that. And in the US every kid wants to be a tick tock star. Like that's, that's what the kids aspire to. And over there it's I, you know, I, I even there's a video of like little kids at graduating, like some middle school or whatever in Pakistan and they're interviewing, what are you going to do? I'm going to be in the army for Pakistan and fight for the glory of Pakistan and things like that. That's their ambition in life. Our kids ambition in life is to make a lot of money or be on TikTok or YouTube famous or you know, things like that or whatever the case may be. Success in the Christian family is not viewed as spiritual faithfulness. And that's, that's the, the heart of the whole entire issue man, that's such a good point. [00:55:56] Speaker A: That's such a good summation. All I was going to say is, you know, I can hear people and here rattling around of, well, you know, my kid experienced bullying or my kid experienced abuse or we had a tough church situation, whatever it is. And so they always look to the outside. What if it wasn't the parent? What if the kid had sexual abuse or what if the kid had some major trauma? What if the kid had something that didn't have to do with the parents, you know, had some major issue with, with again, bullies at school, whatever it is. And to that I would say in this situation, I think good parenting looks like having an open relationship enough with your kid for them to come tell you these things for them to find solace in you. When your kid is struggling in the faith and questioning whether God is real at 16 years old, you're the first person he comes to and he goes, hey, I'm really struggling with this. And you're there for him and you pray with him and you say, we're going to get through this together. That's what good parenting looks like. That is so foreign as a concept to the average church going parent. That's so foreign. You know, a teenager just don't want to tell you anything these days. It's like, yeah, because you raised them that way and because you allowed them to be around other knucklehead teenagers that do the same exact thing, raise them differently. And maybe you will be their confidant, maybe you will be the person they turn to with sexual issues and with questions about whether God is real. And maybe if you're not freaking out, but you actually open those lines of dialogue and you have these conversations and you meet them where they're at and you help them through their bullying and you help them through the relationship issues they're having. And whatever it may be, that's what good parenting looks like. So when we get there and we go, did you fail as a parent? Well, hey, I did the best I could. No, objectively, you didn't. Because if you did the best you could, what you're telling me is God did not gift you with the ability to get your kids to heaven. That's what that is. God did not gift you with the ability to help your kids enough to put them on the right path. If you did the best you could, then God basically gave you a faulty set of instructions. You didn't do the best you could and you did not raise them up. And the other thing I Hear from everybody is, you guys are young. How could you possibly say it? And this one grinds my gears more than anything else. Because what this typically means is you're rooting for my kids to fail. Well, just wait. Wait for your kids type of thing. It gets a lot harder. Like, yeah, and I'm actively making decisions different than you did. I just am, you know, and, and that doesn't make me better than, maybe worse. [00:58:04] Speaker C: Well, all three of us will own up to if this happens. If my daughter runs away with a. That I did something wrong. [00:58:11] Speaker A: Right. [00:58:12] Speaker C: Yes, she's responsible for herself. But we're going to sit here right now and say that's going to reflect on me in some way. [00:58:18] Speaker B: And we may not know what. [00:58:19] Speaker C: We're all making a pledge. We don't know what happens. God forbid that happens to any of our kids, but we're going to tell you. And the best thing we could do in that instance is go. I think it was this. I think this is where it went wrong. I think I could have been a little more hands on with this part of their life. [00:58:33] Speaker B: I don't think there's anything I could have done differently. [00:58:36] Speaker A: I did the best I could. [00:58:37] Speaker C: Don't give me grief. And so as we're kind of coming up against our end here, shame is a really big, important topic. Like, I think, you know, Joe deals with the shame thing a lot in therapy. I think we've just totally made it to where the word only means negative thing. [00:58:55] Speaker A: It's. [00:58:55] Speaker C: It's to be avoided at all costs. Shame is good at a certain level. You know, the, There's a Seinfeld meme that goes around of, you know, a guy sitting on the subway without a shirt saying, I'm not ashamed of my body. And Jerry tells him, well, that's the problem. You should be. Don't want to feel shame. Other people have secondhand shame for those people. And also, like, they were so dis. Uncomfortable with, with anybody experiencing shame that we rush in to cover that shame. It's like there's a time and a place for shame to go. I didn't do a real good job there, like owning a problem, saying, I could have done better, saying, maybe this was where it went wrong. Things like that. That's what shame is supposed to produce. Not everybody rushing in to say, hey, don't, don't ever say they did anything wrong. Will's point about the toddler mom, you know, yeah, he watches 8 Hours of Cocomelon and eats Cheetos and that's it. Like, but don't you shame her. Like, man, she should feel shame, as she, she should. And she should also feel love, she should feel encouragement, she should feel all those things. And, and the parents, I'm sure we got people listening who have been down this road, who maybe are going through this right now. Like, it's a really hard thing and we don't want to come across like, callous or insensitive. This, this is awful. But as we're trying to avoid this in future generations, it's really important that we own up to something can be done about this. [01:00:20] Speaker A: That's where it all begins, is it's kind of a 12 step thing of admitting you have a problem. We have to admit maybe I did do something wrong. And that serves to really help the future generations. For you to be able to say that there may be people at your church that are scared to death about losing their kids and maybe you have the word to say, you know what? We did this, and I really wish this were different. And you can own up to the shame that you felt over this taking place because it is, it is a horrible, horrible thing. And again, to echo you, Jack, we're not trying to be unfeeling. We're not trying to be insensitive to any of this because we recognize, and I know that we can come across as bombastic and come across as unfeeling in some of this. And we're not trying to be as much as, yeah, there are frustrations to the people that hide behind the exceptions and hide behind the, well, it worked for me and the things like that. At the end of the day, this is a terrible, terrible thing. And what would help this a little bit is if the people owned it. And instead of being ashamed and just turning around and trying to tell you that they did everything right, say, this is what happened. And here's what I would avoid with your kids. Please don't make the same mistake. Please don't do this. Make sure you're paying attention to that. If I could go back and change one thing, I might change this. That might change the course of somebody's life. If you can just own it instead of being so ashamed, you hide your face and pretend it didn't exist, pretend it didn't happen, own it and go help the next person if this has happened to you and say, please don't make this mistake and let them help you in praying for your kid and doing everything they can to try to win that soul back. But in our shame, we isolate and in Our shame, we put up defensive walls. And I'm telling you, things only get worse when we're isolated, when we're depressed, when we're keeping everybody out and keeping everybody at a distance because of that. That's where shame can really turn into a problem, is we don't own it and just say, yes, I did something that I, you know, I wish I had done differently and then we can move on. [01:02:06] Speaker B: This is why, just to bring it back full circle, my closing comments will be. This is why I said at the start of the episode. Whether or not parents are going to choose to take responsibility for the spiritual faithfulness of their adult children is one of the most important questions that we are going to have to answer as a church. And the reason is because for all the reasons you guys are saying, if we can get, if we can get on and this is why we're so passionate about it, I'll echo it for the third time. We're not trying to be harsh, unkind, unfeeling or anything like that. I'll speak for myself. I'm just passionate about it because I can see the good it can do for the church if we can get on the side of we are responsible for the adult faithfulness of our kids. Because then that will lead to the conversations and to the discussions of, I've got two unfaithful kids and I think this is probably why. I think this is what I could have done differently. I see what you're doing now with your 11 year old daughter. I did the same thing and I'm afraid that's why, or one of the reasons why she is now unfaithful. I really want to help you until we can get everybody on that side, those conversations will not take place until we can get everybody away from the, hey, everybody just gotta do what's best for them. You can't really say somebody's doing a bad job. We're going to continue to have Kim Young people leaving, young people leaving the faith is one of the biggest passion points that I have on this podcast, on any podcast, that or just for the church in general is just young people leaving the faith. To me, this is an enormous call. It symptom of the issue is that we are not able. Parents are not able to take responsibility. And if we aren't, if Christian parents are not responsible for their kids, Jack's got a great list of things on here. Then why do we teach it? Why do we teach parenting then why do we have parenting classes? You know, if it's Just kind of, hey, everybody, do the best they can. Luck of the draw. Why is it a requirement for elders? Why is that, why is that even in there? Why was generational faithfulness for the Israelites such a enormous focus throughout the Old Testament? All these, these reasons kind of once again add up to just this idea that we have got to take responsibility instead of passing the buck, blaming this, blaming that, blaming free will, blaming. Well, you know, they got in with the wrong crowd, you know, whatever it is. And so, yeah, I would just say for the seriousness of this topic, I want to implore everybody to just consider where we could be as a church if we, if we adopted this mentality, if we adopted the extreme ownership of God made me a parent, God made me a father, God made me a mother. God gave me these kids. It's my job to return them back to him. He didn't give them to me so that I could get them the best scholarship possible, turn them into a pro baseball player or make sure they get into law school or make sure that they, you know, end up with three vacation homes. That's not why he gave me my kids. He gave me my kids so I could return them back to him and continue the legacy of Christian faithfulness throughout the generations. And so, yeah, those are my closing thoughts. I'm very interested to hear the, or to read the, the comments and see what people think with the seriousness of this. I don't think we have a think fast for the, for the end of this episode feel a little bit trivial. There's also not just. There's not really a ton going on in the news right now for us to cover. So guys, any closing comments before we wrap the episode? [01:05:24] Speaker C: One last thing. The Q and A episode is in the works. We've got room for three, four more questions, so be sure to get them in. Whether commenting on YouTube, the Facebook page, or most people are choosing to just email privately either to the Facebook page, the messenger, or jackocuspress.org so keep an eye out for the Q and A coming up soon and get your questions in if you have them. But that's gonna be all for this week. Thanks everybody for listening and we'll talk to you guys on the next one. 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 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.