Pharisees in the Church?

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome into the Think Deeper podcast, presented by Focus Press. I'm your host, Joe Wilkie, joined, as always, by Jack Wilke, not as always by will here. He is not here with us. And so Will is on a much needed vacation and much deserved vacation for his five year anniversary that took place back in March. He got a chance and surprised his wife with a trip that they are now on. And so we're happy for Will. Congrats on the five years. And, yeah, he'll, he'll be back next week. We'll miss him on the podcast. But, yeah, we're going to take this with just me and Jack today. And before we jump in, we just wanted to mention, we mentioned this on previous podcasts earlier in this year, but we wanted to come back around to it that we are open and available for speaking schedules for summer series, things like that, just to let everybody know kind of what we offer. Jack does a great seminar on church reset and on just modern. I mean, he had one on losing kids. I don't know that you booked too many on that, but it is a. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Fantastic one kind of transition that toward the modern family. So. [00:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah, but he's got a lot of good information on a lot of stuff. If you read his writing, then, you know, and he can kind of formulate anything around those things. Of course, for me, mine is much less used, I would say, which is one on pornography and one on sex as well, and kind of God's plan for that. And so those are out there. And of course, Will is, has his speaking and specifically on some things with the youth and with the family and regarding those issues. And so we just want to make mention of that, that if you are looking to book anything, especially as you're looking toward fall time or winter time, the schedule has opened up a little bit. And so we wanted to throw that out there now as far as it goes for the episode, if we're ready. Jack, anything else you want to say before we jump right in today? We are discussing pharisaism. And this is not necessarily a part two, but it is kind of on the back end of what we discussed last week, which was this brain free Christianity, kind of the good, better, best approach. Because when you swing the pendulum from the brain free Christianity, I think you can get into heart free Christianity, you can get into pharisaism. And that's very much what we wanted to get into today, just with some things that we've seen going around in the culture, going around in the church. We see this on Facebook. We see fighting. And we see a lot of things where I think Phariseeism is very much alive today. And so we wanted to touch on that subject. Jack, this is something you're very familiar with. Just, I think we all are from on this podcast and kind of, you know, some of the things that have taken place, but something that you get, especially in your writing, Doctor Brad gets a lot. But first things first, what is a Pharisee? I think sometimes this can be used incorrectly. Like, how would you. Because sometimes it's used as, you know, it's a religious pejorative. Right? Like, it's a bad word. You call somebody a Pharisee, and it's like a four letter word type of thing. What exactly does it mean? [00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And I did write on this a while back. And so this is kind of a extension of the article I did. I felt like there's a lot more to say on it because that is a term that gets thrown around sometimes a little bit too haphazardly to, well, anybody. I don't like anybody to my right, especially anybody, you know, who binds more than me, is more conservative than me. They're a Pharisee. And. And so it's one of those that when you use an accusation over and over and over, it really starts losing meaning. It's like, well, hang on a second. It does have meaning. There is such a thing as a pharisee. When I say that, we also need to add the caveat that when you call somebody a Pharisee, it's very easy to become a Pharisee, because one of the hallmarks of the Pharisees, you know, Luke 18, Jesus gives the Pharisee and the tax collector praying, I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like this man. You have to be really careful to say, I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like this guy who, you know, is too legalistic about such and such. Like, congratulations. Now you're a Pharisee. You've bound your interpretation of certain things to, like, give you the upper hand and look down on this person and holier than thou and the kind of stuff that the Pharisees were doing to Jesus. So you have to be careful with that. Having said all that, I come back around to the point that there is such a thing as a Pharisee. And so one of the hard parts about it is when we say it, as you said, it's a pejorative. It is the most negative thing. It's one of the worst religious things you can call somebody as you're a Pharisee in the first century. It really wasn't as bad of a thing as, as we've made it out to be. They were kind of, in a sense, they weren't like the good guys, the good guys that they were right, because obviously, we see they were very wrong on some stuff. But they were the ones of everybody trying to get back to reading the law, trying to be. They were the people of the book, as a term we use, of the first century. You, you go to the end of the Old Testament, where they've come back from captivity. The wall has been rebuilt, the temple has been rebuilt, and it's so depressing and discouraging that the final prophets are, you know, messages from God again, saying, what are you doing? You're worried more about your house than my temple. You're bringing me lame sacrifices, as he says in Malachi. You're. And they're just back to doing the same things again, like they're. They're treating God cheap. And all of the pRoblems. Well, of course, the intertestamental period, tHere's all kinds of pRoblems. The Greek rulers and Antiochus and all that coming in and defiling the temple and the compromise from the religious leaders and the secular nations, and those kinds of things start to happen, which leads to the sadducees are in power when Jesus comes around. And so without getting too deep into that whole story and kind of hashing out all the details, the Pharisees were the people who had. They had the heart of the people. They might not have had the positions of power. The high priests were not Pharisees, but they were the teachers of the people. They were the ones that people listened to because they actually opened up the book and had things to say about it. And the rabbis and all the writings and all that, they were serious about getting it right. We just obviously, as we can see, went way too far with it. [00:05:52] Speaker A: It seems like they were kind of the restoration Alexander Campbell types, a little bit of like, as we talk about. Let's just get back to the word that things have gone off the rails. Things have gone crazy. Let's go back to the Bible. Let's try to reestablish what is it that God said in his law. How are we going to accomplish it? And so to that point, we can use it as a negative and we'll get to that and kind of how it is. But you're right, intertestamentally speaking, you know, when they began, I think they had the right heart, whereas the sadducees correct me if I'm wrong, the sadducees were very much the liberal ones. They did not believe in the resurrection. Like, they were very loose in terms of how they interpreted the law. So the Pharisees were the swinging of the pendulum back to let's get serious about the law. Let's get serious about the word of God, what all of this means. And so again, in that way, it seems like they functioned as the restoration kind of functioned of just getting back to God and his word. [00:06:42] Speaker B: So sadducees were the hyper literalist. You know, you can't bind that of. Look, I've got these, these verses in the law and we'll go by that. Anything else? Uh uh. And so, like, they didn't believe in angels, they didn't believe in, again, resurrection, things like that of, well, it's not in the Torah. And so, you know, you can't make me believe anything. And, and so you've got that side of it. And I think you have that side of things today. And that's some of what we talked about last week. Well, you can't bind that. If you don't give me book, chapter, verse, I don't have to listen to anything. The Pharisees, on the other hand, are what we do have to avoid when we get past the. You can't bind. That kind of thing is binding. Everything is making new laws because, well, you know what? God didn't give us full clarity on this. So we've got to piece together the stuff we need so that we can say, oh, it's just plain as day and, and run with it. And so the sadducees had the minimalist approach. The Pharisees had the maximalist approach. And because the Pharisees had the Bible open, you know, the old law open, because they were more biblically grounded people, they were closer, they were, you know, a little bit more on the right track. [00:07:49] Speaker A: So, so here's a question for you then. If they are the conservatives, right, right. I mean, that's what we'd consider them. They're on the right track, they're more conservative. They're more like getting back to the word. If they're the conservative sect here, why are they clashing with Jesus when he comes, you know, when, when he comes down and he's meeting with them and we see all of the clashes with the Pharisees. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. Right. He says that over, over and over again, where the main issue, and this is where you get a lot in the culture of like, well, Jesus hated the religious, and that's why it's a relationship and not a religion. And all of these things that we get from mainly the Pharisees and the clash. So if they're the conservative ones, why was Jesus clashing with them? [00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny. I mean, Jesus, until the crucifixion, had very little to do with the Sadducees. I mean, they're, they're around a little bit, but it's, you know, the scribes and Pharisees. Scribes and Pharisees that, you know, those, the, the, that group of people. And it's almost as if the Sadducees were so far off, they didn't even find it worth debating. And you kind of see this today where with progressive christianity, I mean, where they get the women preachers up there and the ones that will have the rainbow flag outside their church or, you know, whatever the things that they're bringing in. And it's kind of like, yeah, we're not going to debate much because we're not even in the same realm. Like, we're not even in the same. On the same page whatsoever. Whereas this fight for the soul of conservatism very much rages on today. And that's what Jesus was involved in, was, look, if we're going to be biblically accurate, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. And I think he got at it perfectly a few times where they brought up, I desire compassion and not sacrifice. You know that you're kind of missing the point with all the crossing. Your t's dotting your eyes that like, yeah, but you're missing the spirit of it. They had the head in the right place, the heart in the wrong place, as he said in Matthew 23 23, where he said, woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for you, tithe, mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. But these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. It's that last phrase that's the key. He's not saying it because what the progressives would say is, yeah, guys, that stuff doesn't matter. You getting all caught up in doctrine. And he said, no, that's great that you did that, but you forgot what it was supposed to do, which is draw you closer to God. So you'd be more like him, that you would be people of justice, mercy and faithfulness, but like, you're saying, well, it's not religion, it's relationship. Those people would say, yeah, you don't need to do that. And he didn't say that at all. He said, do that and the other thing. And so Jesus is splitting that balance between the two in. In the best way possible, in the way that we have to learn to split the balance right. [00:10:24] Speaker A: You know, you're hitting on the key point there. And really what kind of kicks this podcast off and why we're choosing to do it is we did have that comment of, well, maybe the last episode should have been called heart free Christianity, but in reality, I think this is the heart free Christianity of we're trying to just get it right, get it right, get it right. But at some point along the way, the Pharisees went from being people of the word to they forgot why they were doing it. And you see this in Isaiah. You see, like, God's issues with the people so often, which is, yes, technically, you're doing it right. But I don't want your festivals and your feast days and everything that you're doing. I don't want your offerings. [00:10:58] Speaker B: Like, yeah, you're making sacrifices, but everything that's going on here is not in the right spirit. [00:11:03] Speaker A: Right. And so that's really what this is all about, is a heart free Christianity. The head may be right, and like you said, that's where a lot of people go wrong, is they challenge the head. It's like, no, no, their head was in the right place of. For the most part. I mean, I think they took it too far on the Sabbath, and we see some of the things that Jesus challenges them on. They're listening to all of the rabbi added things to the word of God. And so I think they were very much trying to just get it right in that way and kept adding and adding and adding. Well, if a little is good, then a lot is a little. You know, a lot must be better. It's like. But you're missing the heart of the law, which is to love your brethren. Right. Like, whatever it may be. But as we transition, and you start looking kind of at, like, the result of phariseeism, specifically as it pertains to us, what you start to see, I think, is, to your point, the self righteous Pharisee, you start becoming self righteous. You start. And you see this in Matthew six, you referenced Matthew 23, where the self righteousness is off the charts. Because if it's all about just getting it right, and if it's all about head and kind of doing the checklist then, yeah, of course you'd become self righteous, because you start thinking, I'm the reason I'm close to God. It's not by the will of God, and it's not by his grace that I'm even able to approach him. And we see the rest of the way the New Testament is written, which is very much that, like its a matter of gods grace and the grace of Christ, that he has created this bridge between us and God. It wasnt that way. Its like, ill be as good a person as I can. Ill work my tail off to try to get everything right. And thats why im closer to God than the next guy, right, than the guy over here whos just not working that hard. Now its backwards. Because why do we work hard for God? Does it make us closer to God? In a roundabout way, yes, it does. But were not doing it so as to raise ourselves up as though we get it. Were doing it because weve already been made righteous. Right. We see this, but the self righteous of the Pharisees comes in so strongly, because in reality, how could it not when you have kind of a workspace salvation? And what that also does is it leaves the average guy unsure and broken down. I'm not that special. I'm not. And we see this with preachers. Oh, I'm not the preacher. I could never be that like. But you can be called holiness. Maybe he knows the word of God more, but we create this imbalance of like the upper elite that they're there. And we do see some elites in the church in a way, you know, elders, quote, unquote, like elites, elders and the deacons and the preacher, where of course, they're going to know the word of God more. They've been given power to step in. But in Pharisaism, it very much leaves the guy. It leaves everybody unsure. Have I done enough? Have I, have I reached that plateau of whatever it may be? And clearly the Pharisees were making everybody around them go, man, I could never be them. I'm just not good enough. And so they never really developed a relationship with God that they should have. [00:13:38] Speaker B: All right, there's that criticism, you know, that conservative churches of Christ, that there's, there's a total lack of grace. And a lot of times there is. Because if your whole thing is, I'm going to heaven because I got 100 on my, my doctrinal, you know, test at the end of the semester. And you think, well, man, what if I get a 99? You know, do I not go to heaven? And there's a lot of people operating like that, which, man, I've tried, but what if I forgot something? What if I missed something? I've had people say that, what if I missed something? What if you did? I mean, like, that's the grace. And is your heart in the right place? You see people in the Bible who were wrong about certain things that are given grace because of the heart being pointed in the right direction, that God cares about these things now. He wants you to get it right once, you know, better, do better kind of thing. But this, the average people, I mean, that's what hyper, you know, that's what legalism, that's what grace free preaching can do. Is it either makes you really proud of yourself. Like, look at me. Wow. Look how, you know, the rich young ruler, all these things I've kept from my youth, Jesus, like, yeah, I don't care where's your heart? You know? But there's that pride that they carry around, or there is that beaten downness of, well, man, I could never be the rich young ruler. He's done everything. And I've, you know, I did this one thing. And people with, with really soft consciences that you have to, like, appreciate, think, man, I'm imperfect every single day. How am I ever going to be good enough? And so, and again, like, not only do you have to be good enough, you have to be doctrinally 100% perfect. Can't disagree on anything, you know, it's just a terrifying way to operate. And you see in Matthew six where Jesus is talking about their prayer, their almsgiving, their fasting, and like, man, look at me. I. Look how righteous I am and how broadcasting. And of course, in the social media era, we can, we can really do this, too of him. Here's my time with God. Here's my, my stuff that I did for Jesus. Here's my charitable giving. Here's my, like, we went knocked doors today. Yeah. Like, look at all the things I'm doing for him. And it's good to do the things. It's not good to do the things for yourself. And so the people wouldn't. I mean, that's Jesus's whole point, is you get your reward in full. Your reward is not closeness to God, which is the point of it. Your reward is, look at me. Pat myself on the back. And so those are results of phariseeism. The other thing is, when you take the law, it's. I mean, we're teaching through Leviticus. We've got our series going up on focus plus the understudied series, it's, it can be dry. Yeah, we know. It's also pretty straightforward. I mean, it's pretty simple. Do about what to do and what not to do. And when, you know, like with the Sabbath regulations, I think we've talked about before where they're at the point now where it's like, have you seen these devices? It's kind of going around on, online of like there, there are jewish companies that have come up with Sabbath hacking. So they, the rabbis have added that when you're not allowed to do work on the Sabbath, that means you can't turn a light on on the Sabbath because you have made the electricity work. Okay? So they will tape the little knob in their refrigerator on Friday night. So when they open the fridge on Saturday, the light doesn't come on. Or they've got these lamps that stay on, but you can twist the shade over it so it gets dark at night. And then the next morning you can twist it and the light comes, you know, shows out. I didn't technically turn the light on and, you know, like, things like that. Or you can get your gentile neighbor to come over and open your can of coke for you. I mean, it's just like, this is how far down the line it gets. And these regular, or you, you can't, you can use an elevator if somebody else presses the button. Like, this is how far down the line the legalist has to go. Well, guess what that does to the average person. I can't read 8000 pages of rabbinical rulings on this stuff. And so please just tell me. Just tell me what I got to do. Well, you see that attitude? That's where we get the brain free thing from last week. Just give me the list. And then you start seeing the list is so ridiculously long, you become totally dependent on these people. [00:17:37] Speaker A: Such a good point. Such a good point. You look at the middle ages where it's the priest, he's got one Bible, and he tells the people what to do, and you genuinely feel bad for those people. Until Gutenberg, the printing press, right, like that, comes around and people are finally able to have the Bible for themselves. And even then, the religious elite were kind of pushing it down. They didn't want the average person to be able to read it because you can understand these things for yourself and you can have a relationship with God apart from somebody who's higher up than you, telling you what to do. But that's naturally what it's going to lead to is, okay, take the holiest guy, which usually is the preacher. Right. And then back then it was the Pharisees. [00:18:11] Speaker B: Just tell the guy that can just discern the ridiculously long list. [00:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly it. And I could not imagine being jewish today, like in those ways. And then again, you have kind of the lesser, you know, they're not as crazy about it, you know, some of those. And so it's like, well, which is it? Or am I supposed to be follow all the rabbinical laws? Do I go back to it? That's why that religion is dead in general is you've lost everything in, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why. [00:18:41] Speaker B: But, well, you see the same though, with, with christian kids. And we're going to get to more of the modern application here in a bit. But the christian kids who grow up under this, some of them go, nothing matters. I give up on Christianity entirely. And then some of them double down and get even farther. I get even more harsh and more regulating and all of these things. And so, I mean, your incentive results in like a rock solid thing that can be passed on. [00:19:05] Speaker A: When you get a pat on the back, it incentivizes you to create a longer list. You get more pets on the back. So you are going to bind where the Bible does not bind because that's what gets you, you know, your award is in full. It's more exclusionary. And so you move up the holiness ladder by adding and adding and adding and adding and, oh, I don't even do that. You know, I don't even watch this and I don't even say that and I don't even. Well, good for you. Why are you doing it? It's not to grow closer to God. In the end, it's not about God at all. It is exactly to your point. It's about everybody looking at you going, wow. So you are very incentivized to add more and you're very incentivized to put other people down because that makes you look better. Which brings us, I think, to how it applies to the church today. So obviously there's a wrong side. There's, there's the progressive take, which is that, you know, phariseeism is pretty much anybody making doctrinal in a doctrinal argument at all. Well, you're just being a Pharisee, right? You're just anybody to the right of you. They're a Pharisee and they can't say that and they can't bind that. And I want to do what I want to do. And you're just a Pharisee for trying to hold me down. That's not good. [00:20:10] Speaker B: And we see this with, well, there was a book that came out a few years ago saying, well, the churches of Christ are shrinking. And, you know, the only way forward, the only way to figure this out is if we just stop arguing about things like women's roles and instruments and stuff like that. Like. Right. That is really, really dumb, just from a pragmatic standpoint of, like. Yeah, I mean, things that we have had as hallmarks of what we do for over 100 years. Yeah, let's just abandon that because it'll bring more people in. Well, it never does, number one. Number two. Yeah. And so, no, it's not pharisaical to say, well, the Bible does speak pretty clearly about such and such. [00:20:47] Speaker A: And to what end? You bring more people in. To what end? You're not calling them to anything holier. You're calling them unto church. For what reason? Like, you've abandoned doctrine. But this is the just love people he gets us campaign. We've railed on and on about this, so, you know, we can keep this part short. But I do think that's where progressivism very much goes wrong, is they look at the Pharisees and they look at. They just swing the pendulum back. And finding balance is really, really difficult. That's what we're trying to do here today is there is a balance to be struck. But when you're seeing more of the legalist side of the church, and there absolutely is a legalist side of the church, the temptation is, as you come out of it, or whatever it may be, as you're critiquing it, to swing back to the other side like nothing matters. Doctrine barely matters at all. And it really is just about loving people. Well, to what end? Define love. Why are we loving them? Who's loving? You know, like, and do they love God? And what does it mean to love God? And so all these questions are coming up with just the simple phrase of just love people. And they're meaning, get rid of doctrine and let people do what they want. That's not love. That's. That's. Well, you know, why is homosexuality wrong? Just let them love people. Because it's not loving to let somebody indulge in a lifestyle that will send them to hell and cause them to get aids and die at 40. That's not love. That. That's. There's no love in that other than it's acceptance of it. That doesn't make it love. So clearly the progressive side of it. And again, we've droned on and on about this, another podcast and such. Clearly, that's not good, but we do see that part of the church today. But they're off. And what ends up happening is they take the church of Christ, the name on the door, and they go, well, basically, we've abandoned everything else, so let's abandon the church, Christ on the door. We'll just become the, you know, the whatever church. Or, you know, they completely changed the name. And so the church crisis, sometimes the first thing, sometimes the last thing to come off the door, but eventually they end up kind of going away from it because they want to be more inclusive and such. So that's clearly an issue. But what we're discussing today is more to the right and some of the. The issues that we're seeing specifically in a church from the pharisaical end of that spectrum and of this pendulum. Jack, in what ways are we seeing this applied to the church today? [00:22:52] Speaker B: Yeah, this goes back to the thing I said at the start of, like, it's used as a pejorative. It's used ridiculously, you know, broadly. But there is such a thing as a Pharisee. And again, I will make that same statement. You have to be very careful calling somebody a pharisee so you don't become a pharisee. So it's like, man, I'm not like them. But on the other hand, if you couldn't diagnose it ever, because the moment you diagnosed that, you became one like Jesus, is wrong. Yeah, right. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And so when we're talking about pharisees, it is legalism. It is about binding traditions. It is about going too far. One of the hallmarks of it is dividing over the smallest matters. And you see this over and over in Matthew and Mark and Jesus. Hey, your disciples were picking grains on the Sabbath, and they were working on the Sabbath. And Jesus rightly points out, that's not in the law. That's your tradition. That's your interpretation of the law. And. But, man, they, they had. They were just writing them off as a false teacher. You know, you hear that term, you know, and tearing them down because, well, look at that. Or they didn't wash their hands. When you start looking at the regulations that they had, and it was like, well, if you do such and such, you need to wash your hands. If you go to the market, you got to come back and you got to take a shower. And if you do this you got it. Just the same thing we're talking about earlier, like all of the additions and Jesus, like, no, that's what the law says is this. We didn't violate that. What we did is fine by the law. It's just your thing that we're wrong by. And so it is dividing over the smallest matters. Now the question is, what are the smallest matters? Because again, those on the progressive side would look at us and go, you're not going to let a woman get and preach, well, you're just dividing over the smallest matters. I would say, and this is the hard part, is we don't have a creed or a confession. And so it comes down to defining what the smallest matters are can be subjective, but on the other hand, if it directly, explicitly says something, okay, we can divide over that. You know, if it's, I mean, where people are trying to do this whole, well, christians can disagree about homosexuality. No, we can't. There's not any ambiguity about this whatsoever. There are things about which there is ambiguity, and we're going to get to that here in just a minute of like how we don't allow there to be ambiguous things, but there are ambiguous things, but some of them just aren't. You know, baptism now saves you. Yeah, I'm willing to make that a pretty big sticking point because it says baptism now saves you over and over and over. Yeah. When it says that repeatedly, that's not being pharisaical to say, you know what? We're going to have to hold the line on baptism when you get 21 down. You know, things down the line, and we've talked about this before, where you make every single issue a first level issue, that worshiping, you know, having a sermon about baby Jesus in the middle of December is just as offensive as saying baptism doesn't save you. Hold on. Like, we can't divide or like we need to figure out what things put somebody in christian fellowship and what things take somebody out of christian fellowship. And if it is disagreeing about the smallest thing, that's pretty dangerous. You know, that that's going to remove somebody. [00:25:52] Speaker A: We have hundreds and hundreds of churches, seemingly in Tennessee. How many of those divided over the smallest things? How many of those were from this exact thing of like this matters more than anything. And they held the line. A church divided. They moved three blocks down the street and started another church. Christ. They haven't talked to each other in 50 years. That happens a lot. And it's from all of the secondary, tertiary down the list, the 20th down the list, issue that they decided they were going to take exception with. And now unity apparently means nothing. Interestingly. What does John, what does Jesus pray for in John 17 then to be unified? He talks, he uses his last time with his disciples on earth before he's, of course, after there's, there's resurrection, he spends more time with them. But before his death, some last things he's talking about is the importance of being unified. Yes. The importance of I'm the vine, you're the branches, you're bare fruit. Right. If you're not, you're going to be cut off from me. He doesn't go light on doctrine in the least, but he also is talking about being unified surrounding these things. And so when we're willing to break unity over nothing, when we're willing to let another brother be devoured because, well, he got one thing wrong, or he's, you know, there's this matter that really doesn't matter all that much, but in the end, you know, it's, it's okay, we'll use another one. This gets more on the hot end of things. But we've talked about it before, new heavens, new earth, what we do on, on that end of things, there are people losing jobs and there are people trying to send other people to hell for this. What ends up happening? Well, you clearly have a misunderstanding of God. Okay. You don't understand the other side of the perspective. Like, you don't at all grasp the new heavens, new earth perspective. But you're willing to take this as to what a person thinks after they do want to be with God. They do have a heart for God, they love God. And you're willing to throw them under the bus and send them to hell for this matter. I don't understand how that's not phariseeism of taking something that does it matter where we go after. Yeah, but they don't know any more than I know, right? I mean, we're both looking at the scriptures, trying to understand what is it that the scriptures say. But they're willing to say, well, you don't understand it at all and they're going to send somebody to help for it. So these are real life matters, real life things that are taking place where we're taking some of the smaller aspects of things and we're amplifying it. But once again, why would you do it? You're incentivized to do it because the more people you can send to hell, the, the holier you look among this crowd of like, wow. Yeah, you're really standing for truth, brother? Why is it standing for truth to judge everybody and send them to hell for matters that are not baptism, are not women's roles, things that are clearly, clearly laid out in scripture. [00:28:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And that somebody might be listening to this and saying, well, what about you guys last week? You know, because part of this is one of the other signs of phariseeism is adding rules that are beyond the clear, but based on heavy interpretation is, well, you got this verse, you got this verse. I mean, you got, people go, well, if you turn, if you flipped a habakkuk over here and if you flipped Isaiah over here and if you flipped a deuteronomy over here and then Matthew over here and we put these things together that none of them say exactly what I'm claiming they say, but you could kind of understand how they might be leading to that kind of thing. And it's like, and then they'll, they'll just do all that and then they'll close the Bible, see, just plain as day. Like, come on, come on. And so adding rules, basically, it's no different than the Pharisee thing. Well, Rabbi, so and so said this and so and so said this. And you, you start peeling this back of like, how many questions are you begging here of assumptions that you've made that, well, this means this. And, you know, I saw a guy the other day, well, you know, it says that, you know, Christians, I should have written the verse down off the top of my head. It's, you know, of like, well, there's the second John one. Anyone who does not agree with us hath not God kind of thing. Like that doesn't mean they agree with every last thing you've ever said or somebody saying, well, in Ephesians four, it says we have one hope. And so if we disagree on what's going to happen when Jesus returns, like then, then we, then somebody doesn't have the one hope. Like, that's not what you just said that you didn't prove, you didn't show the math. You just said that and just, and now you're preaching somebody into hell because this verse means exactly what I think it means, and I'm not going to tell you why. It just does. And now you're going to hell. So you've got that, that overdoing and adding rules based on the heavy interpretation. And somebody would come back to us and go, well, what about you guys with homeschooling? What about you guys with boycotting Disney or whatever else? The difference is the condemnation you know, we just had this on our deep end last week that when people say you're judgmental. Yeah, I am. Everybody's judgmental. What people mean when they say judgmental is condemning. Those are not the same things. I am not condemning. When I see a Christian say, actually, public school is the best choice for your kids, I go, man, I think that is a bad decision. I think that's dangerous. I'm going to tell you all these reasons why, and I think we should say that from our pulpits. And I'm going to write it and I'm going to say all that. Does that mean you're not a Christian? You're going to hell? Of course not. We're talking about, as Will said last week, good, better, best is not the same as one strike and you're out. And so when you come to these guys and it is one strike and you're out about the, the topic, you know, I'm not supposed to say what topic it was that we got in trouble last week or last year. It was exactly this kind of thing. It was, okay, well, here's all of these verses. I'm going to ignore the verses that make the point that, that go against me. I'm going to assume that all of these verses mean exactly what I want them to mean without proving it, without explaining what it does. See, it just says it, therefore it's over. And here's 27 different verses that all kind of hint at it, none of them directly saying it. Therefore it's plain as day. And how dare you think anything different. And so we're real big on, a lot of the churches of Christ and the conservative tradition are very big on topical preaching. And so let's talk about that for just a minute and how that fuels this. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah, when you say, when you bounce and you reference this, let's start. [00:31:36] Speaker B: There is a time and a place for topical preaching. [00:31:38] Speaker A: There is. [00:31:39] Speaker B: It's going to happen, but it like the steady dose all the time kind of thing. And let's talk about what it is if somebody doesn't know. [00:31:45] Speaker A: Okay, so there's expository preaching. There's topical preaching. Um, you know, expository staying in the text. You're, I think that it's kind of like exposing what the text says where you are exegetically breaking down. I'm going to stay in first Timothy three and preach from this passage. I'm not going to bounce all over the Bible with, with topical. You have. Okay, we're going to preach on love or we're going to preach on condemnation. We're going to preach on whatever it is. [00:32:08] Speaker B: I'm going to give you the truth about dot, dot, dot. [00:32:11] Speaker A: Right? And one of the issues with it is we do what we call proof texting, which is, let me go to 60 different verses to your point of what you were saying. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. [00:32:20] Speaker B: I'll just open up the concordance, do a word search for heaven or whatever. And. Okay, now I've got my topical sermon because I've got every verse in the Bible that says something about it, not realizing that sometimes in the same way that James and Paul use the word works differently. If you just cherry pick back and forth, that's where people go, oh, wow. They contradict each other because they don't do the hard work. [00:32:42] Speaker A: So, yeah, you took 60 verses, 55 of which were ripped out of context, and you made a sermon out of it. And so you bounce back and forth, people, whoa. That's what it. That's not what that's talking about. That's not the purpose for this. That's not why you'd say it. Like, it's easy to bounce back and forth and rip versus out of context. It's the same reason why we avoid ephesians two, eight, nine. You know you've been saved by grace, right? Well, let me, let me tell you this. And then we bounce to all these different scriptures as to why you're not saved by grace. Like, let the text speak for itself. What is he trying to get across? In ephesians two, you know, the, the entire passage, but specifically in eight and nine, you would only know that through the context. But when you have topical preaching, you bounce all over the place and you have a lot of people that go, text says what it says. Wow. Like, but it doesn't. And so we have a weak understanding of the word of God because 55 of those verses. But the worst thing is they get up and because they can quote those verses. This guy must be holy. He must know what he's talking about. He didn't even open his Bible. Wow. Because he quote all his verses. Good for him for memorizing them. Shame on him for not actually understanding the context of those verses and just ripping them out for topical preaching and then sending people to hell for the 30 verses you ripped out of context. That's why this is a problem, what. [00:33:51] Speaker B: We said about the Pharisees, that people were so dependent on them. This is like, well, I can't just hear the law and go, oh, I shouldn't commit adultery with my neighbor's. Wife, it was, well, here's this, this, this, you know, like 37 regulations on top of every single command. And they go, I don't know. Please just tell me, Rabbi, tell me, what am I supposed to do about this? Tell me. And they were dependent on them. And people do that with these preachers where there's 80 verses in a sermon and go, man, I could never know the Bible as well as he does. Like, well, you got a concordance, so you're about in the same place. Okay? Like if you're going to jump to a verse, you need to do the context of every single verse that you do. Well, a topical does not always give time for that. And so, well, it just says what it says. Like, okay, but there is interpretation that has to happen. There is application that has to happen. And, and the problem is they're doing interpretation and application without actually doing it. And so with something like, you know, you brought up new heavens toward, there's a lot of these divisive things. I, you know, I kind of joked about it. There's the alcohol thing like that. You can, I mean, and again, there's room for disagreement on this, but when you say there's room for disagreement, somebody's going to pull out their 30 verses that none of them say that it's actually directly a sin. They just, you know, there's warnings and there's cautions and things that we all agree with. We say we don't drink. We don't do any of those things. We don't, we're not in favor of this. We're not telling you to go out and drink. We know it's a sin to get drunk. It does say that explicitly, but it also talks about wine and the Wine offerinG. And we can get into what kind of wine, the Greek words, and you can dig all the way down. And that's the other thing is, well, if you look at this Greek word and you look at this Hebrew word and if you look at this and this dictionary says this and this dictionary says that, how could you not see it? [00:35:23] Speaker A: The second error is passive and that. [00:35:25] Speaker B: Means no, they do this, you know, things like that, the declining the verbs and all that stuff. And then you come back around to see this is just so painfully clear. How could anybody disagree with it? Like, what do you mean? What does clear mean to you in this context? And so what progressives do is they make the Clear blurry. They go, you know, it says, you know, I do not for, I forbid a woman to teach a man or have authority over him in one Timothy two. And they go, well, does it actually say, which is exactly what I'm saying. Did God really say that? Well, if you look in EpHesuS, they had some things going on that maybe it was just for a time. It says what it says, okay. Like there's no interpretation to. That's what it says with this other stuff where it's, well, this verse kind of means this. And you've got maybe contradictory verses. You brought up new heaven, new earth. There's ones that say there's going to be a new heaven, new earth, and he's going to restore all things. And then there's verses that say it's going to be burned up. And so you're looking at this like, how do I square all this? It's really hard. It's really hard. And so where the progressives make the clear blurry, the Pharisees make the blurry clear. [00:36:31] Speaker A: That's a fantastic point. Is that, Nate, is that you original to you? [00:36:35] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:36:36] Speaker A: That's a fantastic point. You know, I think that's a. That's very well said. Because once again, going back to your point, it's about condemnation. We're all trying to make the blurry clear. We're all trying to better understand the word of God, but to what end? And, you know, and how far are you willing to push this? Like, if you take a blurry thing and you're willing to send half the church to hell because of it, somewhere along the way, people forgot that Matthew seven, verse two, is actually a verse. You will be judged by the measure with which you judge. That should scare pharisees to death. That should cause them to go, you know what? Before I'm ready to just send everybody to hell because they got this one small thing wrong, or whatever it is, or even if I think it's a huge thing, instead of understanding their side of it and coming to them going, how do you get to the new heavens, new earth? Like, because it looks to me like you guys don't actually think that you're, you know, that there's actually a heaven or you're not going to be with God, you go, whoa, whoa. That's not at all the case. It's just how we, if you ask questions of it before you just cut somebody off and cause them to lose their job and kick them off of lectureships and everything else because you believe in this, or you actually are friends with a guy who does believe this, which we're all, we're also seeing if you were willing to do that before you just condemned the guy to hell, maybe we'd be a little bit closer and maybe you wouldn't stand in condemnation yourself for Matthew seven, verse two. What's interesting, though, well, I want to. [00:37:52] Speaker B: Make a point off of that. One of the things Jesus criticized the Pharisees was you're straining gnats and swallowing camels. You're just getting into the minute. These kind of things dividing over the smallest things and missing the big things where he said, you don't have mercy and justice and sacrifice and faithfulness with your sacrifice and all those things. We've had people, and I mean multiple, it just happened again this week of, okay, we can disagree on the alcohol thing. I don't want to go down that road. I have no interest in talking about that, the debate itself at all. I want to talk about the ever again, the actions around. Yeah, like we said, we said it's out there, okay, and whatever, but the conversation surrounding it, we were called drunkards. And I just had a guy do it again about a month ago. Oh, well, you just get buzzed and fire off these articles. I've never had a sip in my life. Why on earth are you more concerned about my take about this than yourself being a lying slanderer? You know, we. I just found out this week I got fired for my job. For that podcast, for fired for my job. [00:38:51] Speaker A: You've never been fired in your life. [00:38:52] Speaker B: I don't know what I got fired from, but that rumor is out there that we're fired. So people are spreading rumors, lying, gossiping. Like this is the Pharisee spirit of. I don't care about the truth. I don't care about God. I don't love my fellow man. As John said, if you hate your fellow, if you hate your brother, you can't say you love God. I, you know, the, the, you know, somebody said that they're trying to justify their sinful lifestyle. I would love to know what my sinful lifestyle is that I'm trying to justify. [00:39:17] Speaker A: Right. [00:39:17] Speaker B: Again, that is far more egregious in the text than being wrong about something. Okay? And so we. Phariseeism, one of the biggest problems was it's totally pointed in the wrong direction. It is pointed toward passing a doctrinal test, not the doctrine. Doesn't matter. But that is the pinnacle of phariseeism, is passing the doctrinal test rather than being right with God. [00:39:41] Speaker A: Define it. Yeah, you have to define the doctrine in this situation. They're defining everything as a doctrine, you know, as first importance doctrines as we've talked about. And until you capitulate and until you bow the knee to what they want you to, they will ruin your life over it. And they will, to your point, slander you. Where is, where is the heart? For I don't want to be somebody who slanders. This is the God. I thank you like that. I'm not like this man. Where is the heart for your fellow man? Because the love of the brethren is a lot clearer in scripture than what they're trying to accuse us of. But they've forgotten that along the way. And once again they judge with such a minute and such a fine, detailed measure. You better hope you have every last thing right. And that's even worse when you go, well, I do have it all right. [00:40:26] Speaker B: Like two sides are the pride or the person who is just every day going, man, what if I miss something? What if I miss something? What if I, what if I got one of these? [00:40:35] Speaker A: And that's what this brings about. [00:40:36] Speaker B: Right. Well, so let's get off the alcohol one, because enough, you know, has been spilled. [00:40:41] Speaker A: But it is a perfect encapsulate. [00:40:43] Speaker B: It is. But there, there are other issues where this comes up, and I've seen this. In fact, I heard a story of a guy that essentially got run out of a church because he didn't say it in the right order when he baptized somebody. Or, or he said it like a couple minutes before, but not right as he dipped the person in the water. The Father, son, Holy Spirit, I now baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It was like when they were, you know, took the guy's confession or whatever and said, we're going to baptize you in the name of the Father, son, Holy Spirit. Well, he didn't say it right when he dipped him in the water. And so we're not really sure if that baptism is valid. Where do you come to something like that? Tradition. [00:41:16] Speaker A: Right. [00:41:17] Speaker B: You, you know, like, I'm not saying that's a bad practice. I'm saying that's probably a good thing to do. Does it invalidate a baptism if you don't show me book, chapter, verse one? Show me, like, where, where do you come to that? And again, like you've just made your tradition a sin. Life and death, heaven and hell issue. It's ridiculous. [00:41:37] Speaker A: If you don't offer an invitation. Well, Peter offered an invitation. No, he didn't. They said, what must we be, what must we do to be saved? [00:41:44] Speaker B: And it was a Sunday morning worship service. It was not assembling of the saints together in corporate worship. It was out in public. It was street preaching, essentially. [00:41:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So they look at it and go, well, you didn't offer an invitation, you didn't give the five sets of salvation or you didn't offer one at all. That's wrong. You're in sin. Where do you come to something like that? Where do you get it? Here's another 1 December 8. Guy gets up and sings joy to the world. Fantastic song, right? Um. Boy, we're pushing it. We're getting real close to Christmas. I mean, what do we do about that? Uh, or the preacher gets up and preaches a baby Jesus sermon on Christmas or a resurrection sermon on Easter. Wow. There's brothers and sin. Where do you get that? Where are you finding this in scripture that you are feeling so strongly about this, you're willing to condemn the man to hell, which is the most serious thing you can do, and you believe that strongly on this minute matter, you think that this is not a tertiary issue, this isn't down the list. This is a matter of first importance. Along the same lines as belief in Jesus, repenting of your sins and being baptized. You really think it's on that level? Yeah. And again, they're incentivized to do so because they feel holier by getting it right. [00:42:53] Speaker B: Well, and that's. You go to the Romans 14 thing, you know, that is a Pharisees. Or, you know, because that, that's exactly. It is. To take it back into Jesus's time, it would be man. I of the personal conviction that picking grains of wheat and eating them on the Sabbath violates Sabbath law. Good for you. That, you know, you've got a strong, don't do it. You got a conscience that is trying to be right with God. Don't do it. Running in and telling Jesus, hey, you and your disciples, you know what's going on here. Uh uh. You don't get to do that. Well, in the same sense in the modern church. Yeah. Romans 14. Amen, brother. Matters of opinion. The only thing is there's no matters of opinion. That is the pharisaical thing is you. I mean, you might have a strong take on one of these things that we have brought up, but if you can't say, you know what, this is my interpretation of it. This is my conviction of it. And so that, that is between me and God, which is exactly what Romans 14 says. No, everybody has to agree with me or else they're going to hell, congrats. You're a Pharisee. I mean, like, that. That is what the term really has come to mean, is somebody who turns their own tradition. I mean, that's what Jesus told them. You've made the traditions of man equal to the commands of God. And so, again, with all of these things, it goes back to what we said last week. The more good, better, best preaching we can do on the gray areas, the better. You don't have to turn your conviction, your principles, your interpretation of the scripture into a law to get up and preach it. And so, again, if every belief that you have turned into a law, you know, because that's the two ways of it, of there's personal conviction or there's law, but then there's no, like, I can say my personal conviction. Well, I might think homeschooling is best, but I wouldn't dare say that in church because I can't bind it. No, you should say it in church. You should say that I think this is the best way that. That we should follow God. And if somebody has a counterpoint, like we said last week, if you've got a. A different reason why something else is a better way to follow God, let's do that. Because we're trying to iron, sharpen iron here. Phariseeism is not that. Pharisaism is. Turn your heart off, turn your brain off. Here's the list. Just be a robot and do these things. And the list gets longer and longer and longer. To your point about man, the law, whoever has the longest list is the holiest one of us. That's not the point of the Bible at all. It is not textbook. It's not a legal code. And you see, these people we brought up topical preaching. They use it like a legal code, you know? Well, such and such. Matthew 24. Like, yeah. [00:45:16] Speaker A: Using brother deuteronomy census, like. [00:45:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:45:18] Speaker A: You don't have to use it after everything. [00:45:20] Speaker B: Right? Bible verses are great, but they don't. You know, they say, oh, it's establishing authority. Your interpretation is not authoritative. Okay. I mean, like, that. That is one of the biggest issues of Phariseeism is there's no interpretation. No, it's heavy interpretation. You have to acknowledge that. [00:45:38] Speaker A: I. You look at, again, Ephesians two eight nine. Let's use that as an example. There are people that interpret that different than us. Yes, we can look at scripture. There are people that interpret that different than us. Do I think they're right? Of course not. I mean, I think we're right on that. But to go in and go. There's only one interpretation. There are multiple. We need to understand where the other ones are coming from. Because there are certain things that I do think maybe we're not as right on. I'm not going to get into any specific things, but things that I think we probably could use seeing it from maybe a different perspective, because there are interpretations to specific verses that do matter and make a difference. Matthew Seven, really, the more I was thinking about it kind of going through in my mind, the verses as it goes down like that is kind of the key passage to all of this, because it starts with, if youre trigger happy and sending everybody to hell, consider the first few verses like judge not unless you be judged right, the measure with which youll judge. If youre sending everybody to hell, that's not a great place to be as you continue down through. It's the golden rule. Are you treating others as you want to be treated? Then you'll know them by their fruits. You know, some of the most unhappy, bitter, mean people that I've ever met, pharisaical christians. You'll know them by their fruit. And then we get to the end, and we always use this for denominations. Well, that he's speaking to denominations with the Baptist and everybody and saying, did we not do all these great things in your name? Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. And we love to pat ourselves on the back for that while, while sending all the denominations to hell. I'm not disagreeing in the fact that I think the denominations are on the wrong course, right. They're not in a good place. The point is, he's really speaking to pharisaism. And this right on the back of you'll know them by their fruits, right, the wolves and things like that. And his point is, you think you're going to get to heaven by all these great things that you did. You never knew him. You never had a relationship with him. You didn't care about getting the relationship right. You were more cared about. I did this, this, this, that's pharisaism. I got everything right, God, I did the list. I'm the rich young ruler. I've kept all these things. Why don't you let me in? You didn't know me, okay? You didn't care to know me. You didn't care about the heart. You didn't care about who I am and my holiness and my mercy and, you know, loving your fellow brethren. And you go to first John four, and how can you say that you love God when you hate your brother. Phariseeism comes in. They hate everybody, but everybody who dis, everybody who agrees perfectly with them. Well, we don't hate you. If you're sending me to hell, you hate me if you've never had one conversation with me, but you'll lie and slander my name and tell me that we're false teachers and spread a letter all over facebook telling us how we're wrong and we're all going to hell and nobody, you hate me. Well, square that one with one John four right, of loving your brother. So you look at all these verses and you look specifically in Matthew seven and you realize pharisaism is a disease in the church that has to be eradicated. And the reason why is unity matters and love matters. Yes, doctrine matters, but it's really working on doctrine together again to the point of John 13 through 17. While Jesus is really getting all of this stuff, unity matters. So does bearing positive fruit. So does staying connected to God and making sure our doctrine is accurate. We can have all of those things at once. Pharisaism kind of sells this myth that basically we can't have unity at the same time of having strong doctrines because clearly we have to cut everybody else out. We can't have unity within the church if we can establish what doctrines matter. And if everything is a matter of first importance. It's kind of the, if everybody's super, nobody is right from, from the incredibles. If every matter is a doctrine of first importance, then no matter, you know, like, no wonder. Why people swing to the other side is I can never ever get this right. We have family that has walked away from God and they're now atheists because they literally said, I will never be able to get this right. I'm never going to be good enough for God. Well, guess where she grew up? Deep south, hearing gospel, gospel, hard gospel preaching, you know, hellfire and brimstone. And her takeaway was, I'll never get it right. That's a travesty. The fact that we have eliminated grace in pursuit of trying to be holier. You miss the relationship and the point of the gospel. When you try to remove the work of Christ in our lives, you try to remove the sanctification process just to go, I'm better than you, man. We're killing ourselves here. [00:49:29] Speaker B: Well, and that's, there's this false dichotomy of you can be, you know, pharisaical, conservative legalist, or you can be progressive. That, and that was, I mentioned, I wrote an article, it was titled something like phariseeism versus a new kind of church of Christ conservatism. This is how you get biblically conservative. And that's exactly what Jesus was doing, especially with the sermon on the mount, is, I'm not coming to be progressive. I'm not coming to wipe away. He said, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill. I'm not destroying what you've been told. I'm telling you what you were supposed to get out of it. That there is a way to be biblically conservative and faithful to the text without being a legalist. And that's where he goes into. It's about the heart. It's about, you know, not just not committing adultery, but not even looking, not desiring to commit adultery, not just. Not, you know, killing your brother, but not hating your brother. And, you know, aligning your heart with God's heart is kind of the point. And so what we're getting at, and I think good, better, best, is the answer to that of let's be. I mean, let's. Let's nail down the essentials and not budge on the essentials. And then let's go to. Here's how we're going to interpret the rest. Here's what we're going to push for the rest. Here's what we encourage, as we think is the right way to do the rest. That's biblically, again, very biblically conservative. Not live and let live. Let's just. Nobody say anything because you can't bind it. But. But, like, let's get down to what it really means. And so to finish up here, um, let's talk about how not to be a pharisee. Um, I think, you know, I mentioned just there, the sermon on the mount, the beatitudes that start off with, you know, the poor in spirit and that humility before God, that desperation for God, that you have nothing without God to. [00:51:08] Speaker A: Be poor, hungry, thirsting for righteousness. [00:51:10] Speaker B: Right. Hunger and thirst for righteousness and merciful. All of the beatitudes in there, when you go to Matthew 23 and the woes on the Pharisees, you can pretty clearly map them as a reversal of that, that they are not poor in spirit, they are prideful, they are elevating themselves above other people. They love the seats of honor and things like that. And so as you go through that, they are doing the opposite of that. So if you want to not be pharisaical, you do start with the beatitudes. Can I have the poverty of spirit, the humility before God, to be broken down before him and not elevate myself over other people. Not do the Matthew six thing. Let everybody see what a great christian I am. But just start with man. I'm just as in need of God as everybody else. And gentle or meekness. Some of this gets abused and used the wrong way. Meekness means never disagreeing with somebody. Meekness means never taking a stand. That's not what it means at all. It means, as you always hear power under control, that you are strong and you can use it when you need to, but you're not off the hook. You know, you're not just letting yourself go. And as I said, hungering and thirsting for righteousness when you just want the list. And tell me, what do I got to do? You're not hungry and thirsting for righteousness. You're hungry and thirsting to get it right. And even in that it's pride, it's look at me. And so I would say with the beatitudes is a great place to start. And what would you have to not have? That attitude. [00:52:30] Speaker A: Yeah, look at your sin. Take a. Take a look in the mirror and look at your own sin before you run to the sins of others and before you're ready to pat yourself on the back for calling out, calling out sin and sending everybody to help, take a long look in the mirror and try to determine in what way is Christ's power perfected. In my weakness, recognize there are weaknesses and there are issues. There are things that. That ultimately can be brought to the glory of God. And before you're ready to again, write people off and send them to hell. In what ways have you written yourself off? A lot of this, in my opinion, I think, is there's fear and there's shame in a lot, because I've seen this and I've worked with people that are in this camp where maybe they've come from it or they've come out of it and they struggle with massive porn addictions or whatever it is, there's so much shame surrounding I can never come clean. I could never tell anybody. When you start repenting and when you start confessing of your own sins, guess what that does? It humbles you, and it causes you to not look at everybody else as the adversary that needs to go to hell. It causes you to go, man, I got a lot going on on myself. I'm going to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling. That doesn't mean we can't say anything to anybody else, but it means we start with a posture of humility going, wretched man that I am. Right? We start with the, you know, the humility of the guy that, as the Pharisee goes, you know, thank you, God, that I'm not like him. He goes, God, please forgive me. I'm a sinner. Right? That's the heart that is willing to recognize we're all sinners in our own ways. I need God's grace and forgiveness, and so does this person. It doesn't mean we were raised sin. So does this person. And how would I want to be treated? So you start with the golden rule, and you start with your own sin. And when you do that, in my opinion, I think it humbles you enough to look around at your fellow brothers and before you put past judgment on them and put motives on them, and they're going to hell and everything else, man, I. I don't think they're getting it right. And I really feel like I need to say something. God has forgiven me a great debt. I need to go see if I can, you know, what's going on with them. They need to be forgiven this great debt that they. That they owe. If that's really how you feel. But you'd approach things differently if you started with your own sin. That would. That's what I'd say. [00:54:28] Speaker B: Well, in humility and Bible interpretation, too. It's a big book. It's a difficult book. Again, that thing of man. Everything's just plain as day. No, it's not. Where it just says that. Where we have a direct command like that, where we have just plain as day, one verse, and there's no verse that, like, undermines it. Okay, let's go with that. Where there's a verse and you go, well, it's just plain as day. And somebody comes and says, well, there's another verse over here that seems to say the opposite. Don't go well. But my verdict, we don't do scripture wars. We don't fight scripture with scripture. And so humility is saying, you know what? It's going to take a little while to come to some of these interpretations that, you know, as proverbs says, it's the. The glory of kings, is to search things out, is to build discernment, is to really dig deep on. On certain matters, things that God is kind of partially hidden or, you know, not revealed, or, you know, to say, I know exactly what's going to happen when Jesus returns. No, you don't. None of us do. Like, you have the humility in an. In biblical interpretation to, you know, say, I can have an idea of certain things, and I think this is right, and I'm going to say that I think it's right, but, boy, you're going to go to hell if you disagree. Don't do that. Our lack of clarity on what our essentials is, you know, because there's that the old saying, you know, in. In essentials, unity and. And differences charity, you know, or a non essentials charity and all things, you know, just kind of, like, figure out what we have to agree on, then kind of agree to disagree on other things, and through all these things, love each other. It's like, okay, cool, what do we have to agree on? What are the basics? And a lack of that means people can just make whatever they want an essential, you know, as we've said. And so that makes this really challenging. You got to figure out what. What really, really is an essential. Um, and, uh, historically, churches have written that down. I'm told we're not allowed to do that, but everyone's operating as if certain things are essential or not essential. And so apparently writing it down is the sin. And so just keeping it all in our heads and then, you know, violating. [00:56:26] Speaker A: What we believe page. [00:56:27] Speaker B: Right, right. Not. Yeah, like, not. That's okay, putting it on your website, but, um. No, that's a whole other spin off discussion. But it really is frustrating in this that every single person gets to determine what their doctrinal essentials are and write somebody off into hell. You need to have essentials. I absolutely agree with that. But you also need a grace and charity and a thinking. As first corinthians 13 talks about love for one another is believing all things and believing good about each other is kind of the interpretation of that, of try and really love your brethren through this. Yeah, there's a time to disagree and draw a line, but it's not the first time somebody disagrees with you on a twist. 28th rate issue. And so, yeah, I mean, there's a million directions this could go. I think we're going to wrap right there. It's a challenging thing. Again, even in condemning a pharisee, you could become a Pharisee. So you got to be really careful about this whole thing. But it's something that we need to get right. Something we need to realize is a reality that does happen, and we have to look at ourselves and say, do I interpret the bible this way? Well, that's part of the problem with Pharisees. They don't think they do any interpretation. So do I apply the bible this way, you know, and just bring the humility to the table. That's what we're all trying to do. We will be back on next Monday. Will will be back with us. We've got a pretty good lineup here for the next few months, episodes we're excited about, so look forward to that. We'll see the deep thinkers on focus, plus in the deep end. Get your comments in and we'll talk to you guys then.