Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome in to the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. I'm one of your co hosts, Joe Wilkie, joined, as always, by Jack Wilke and Will Harab. And Jack, actually, it looks like you took our last episode to Heart. Jack has his suit coat on and is looking pretty slick, pretty fancy out outclassing both of us. And so he definitely was listening to the last episode, so good for him.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: To run after church. Okay, overdressed. I'm just putting you guys to shame, really, is all it is.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Go figure. Yeah. And Will has been smoking six packs a day. No, just kidding. Will's voice is starting to leap. And so, poor guy is getting sick. We had another member of the congregation dealing with the same thing, so that's kind of been coming around. And so he's got quite a low voice.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: So.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Sorry, Will.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: I promise I did not take up smoking for all those.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: No, we are not a pro smoking podcast, so. Absolutely not. But we're going to roll right into this one. And Jack, this is an outline you put together. This is something that's been coming for a long time. We talked about a lot. I think it was a few months ago, even maybe a couple of months ago, that we were saying, hey, we need to roll this episode out. It kind of got table pushed to the back burner for a second because this is something that seems to be ever relevant.
Pretty much every week. It seems like you see something on Facebook, something on social media, something in the church that speaks to this specific issue. And once again, we talked about recording one of these, and we've mentioned this in certain podcasts, multiple podcasts, I should say. But we've never really done a full episode on Romans 14. And so with that, Jack, I'm going to pass it over to you. You're the one that did the outline that's kind of been driving this train. And I think you were the one that mentioned it a few months ago when we started talking about doing this. But get us into this Romans 14 discussion.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we'll probably be doing some reading from it selectively through the episode, but It'd be good to catch up with it. If you're listening to just read through the chapter, it is the chapter on matters of opinion. It's the chapter in the Bible in which Paul is kind of going over with the Romans. Hey, what you can and can't force, and when you disagree on something where there's room for disagreement, it's incredibly important because so much of the rest of the New Testament, you've got a pretty clear teaching on that we need to follow, but there are going to be a lot of things, especially as time goes on, more things that the Bible doesn't directly address, that we've got to figure out what to do about it. And so it's great that we have this chapter. On the other hand, it's a chapter that really gets.
It can be misused. It can go off the rails very quickly. We have the question of, how do you know when something's a matter of opinion? How do you know when to relegate things to this and when not to.
And so it's also something that applies in a ton of different discussions. We talked about dressing for church last week. Well, you had people say, well, it's a Romans 14 thing, so we can't really say anything about it. Or it's all kinds of different issues, many of which we have touched on are Romans 14 issues. On the other hand, opinions are there, but that doesn't mean that all opinions are equal at all times. Wisdom comes into it, principles come into it. There's logistics that we have to get into that make this very difficult. It's not cut and dry, and I think that's one of the blessings, and I want to lead with this. We're going to talk about this in a little bit. But this is a blessing of the New Testament that we did not have 613 or whatever, however many enumerated laws. There's not as much, and there's a lot of it that's use your brain, use your heart, pray, use wisdom, give each other a little grace on these things where you come to a different conclusion. That's what this chapter is giving us. And so that's why we want to talk about it, is because this is one of those that the principles we lay out here, you can map onto dozens of other episodes we've done, episodes we will, Lord Willing, do in the future. And so it's important to get this right.
[00:03:53] Speaker C: I'm going to try to work through this. I probably won't be talking much, but one of the things that I did want to say as we introduce this episode is, I'd be curious to ask those who are listening, do you think that for every single issue pertaining to God's word, every single biblical issue, do you think you have the 100% correct opinion on it? I would wager most people, hopefully, would have the humility to say, yeah, I think I've got it mostly right, but I don't have the arrogance, the pride to say, yeah, I've got every single issue correct, literally on every single thing. And I think that's an important principle to keep in mind here because we are going to be talking about some things that I have no doubt that maybe among our listeners there's disagreement. We know there's disagreement in the church on some of these specific things that Romans 14 mentions, some of the things that we're going to talk about specifically. And I think that there is a mindset, a perspective out there from some people that, well, you have to agree with me on every single thing, otherwise we can't be in fellowship or I can't really view you as a brother. And I just think that's a very precarious position to put yourself in, to assume that you have every single. And again, we're not talking primary stuff here. We're talking of the secondary and tertiary issues. The position that you have everything right and everybody else needs to side with you on every single little thing is a dangerous one. And so I just wanted to bring that up as we start this episode that I'm sure I don't have everything exactly correct. And Jack, hopefully you agree. You probably don't have every single thing correct and Joe, the same. It's not that we need to go around thinking, well, we can't know anything for sure. It's simply having the humility to say, I believe what I believe about the Bible, and I might be wrong about maybe one or two things here and there. Does that make sense?
[00:05:36] Speaker B: This is the difficulty of all of these doctrinal issues. And why Romans 14 is so important is it reminds you not everything is a first level doctrine. There are things we can't disagree on. And that's okay, that we need to acknowledge that. But to your point, the people who make it that we can't disagree on anything, that the smallest matter of interpretation is grounds of disfellowship. That's really dangerous and it's really unhealthy for the Church, for the individual.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: I think you get into the Matthew Seven with judgment and you will be measured by the measure with which you judge others.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: So you have a lot of people that want to send people to hell for the smallest matters of interpretation and of opinion. That's a scary place to be for that reason, is because if you're willing to send your brother into hell, to cast him into hell based off of an opinion that you hold, how do you think God's going to judge you? That's a very scary thing. And so we want to make sure that basically, we want to understand first things first, I guess the matters, most matters of importance, which I would say baptism, salvation, obviously, worship, practice, things like that. We want to get those things right, no doubt. When we're talking Romans 14, though, we're talking things like which we're going to get into this discussion. Christmas. How do we celebrate Christmas?
I think by the time this drops, we're two weeks away from Christmas, man. We're getting real close to the time of year where you have a lot of churches that are struggling with that.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: Specific hot button issue.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yes. Do we celebrate it? Do we not celebrate it within the church, that is, and then you have in each other's homes. Do you celebrate it in your home? Do you not? Do you have your little nativity scene up in your front yard, whatever it is, or do you not? Is that a matter of interpretation or opinion?
We talked off air going to R rated movies. I mean, there's things like that that. Okay, I can't point to book, chapter, verse necessarily the way I can for something like baptism, of course, or faith in Christ, the Trinity, things like key things. We can't necessarily point to book, chapter, verse on these things, but they are important to the Christian faith. And this is where unity, I think, stays shallow in a church that's never willing to dive into these discussions because, well, hey, it's not that important. It is worth diving into these discussions. It's just we have to make sure that we are taking care of one another, that we're not beating people over the head one way or the other on this. But I think the easiest thing to do is to back away and not discuss it at all. And that's why I think you have a lot of churches of Christ that have weak fellowship is they're not really willing to take on any Romans 14 issues. So we agree on all the biggest matters of importance, baptism and such. But the way we live our lives is wildly different, drastically different throughout the week. It's like, well, hey, it's Romans 14 type of thing, right? We can't really bind that. And so how close are we going to be if we are living two separate lives? This guy goes, sees R rated movies, this guy engages in who knows what. He's not really shown up to Sunday night worship. That's another one, right? Like, you can't really bind that. He's not putting God first in a lot of ways. He's not praying that much during the week. And then another guy who's ultra into it, well, we're brothers in Christ. And this is matters of interpretation, like how close, how unified are we going to be when you have people seemingly running in opposite directions when it comes to the faith? So that's why I think this discussion is so important and why we're bringing it up is it's so much more than just, okay, we got baptism, right? We got instruments, know, things like that. That's fantastic. What about these secondary tertiary issues, as you mentioned, Will? And so I guess the question that I'd start with, theRe's a couple of different places we could take it, but I do, Jack, I want you to at least illuminate what weaker, stronger brother is, because there's a lot of issue surrounding this where nobody wants to be the weaker brother. Right. Nobody wants to say, well, excuse me, please don't call me weak. That type of thing. It's not a pejorative, it's not a negative term, the way that a lot of people think. But get into what weak strong means.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, that's directly from the text in Romans 14. And so if anyone takes it as an insult, Paul was not insulting the reader. He wasn't insulting members of the congregation who had these opinions. It was somebody who has a narrower set of interpretation on things they're allowed to do. Narrower than what God has said. They kind of draw the fence a little tighter than what God has even allowed for. The stronger brother is one who leaves the fence where it is. And so one of the important things is there's no category for somebody who makes the fence too big. If you make the fence too big and you're allowing things God doesn't allow, you're in the wrong. On the other hand, there is an acceptable range in which you can undercut it, but you can't overshoot it. Right.
There's what God prescribed, what he did allow. There's what he did not allow. And everything within what he did allow, where you differ on that, is going to be a matter of opinion. And so the weaker is going to be somebody who tightens that up. And so it's talking about celebrating of days and observing different days of eating meats and vegetables, things like that, that they had interpretive issues over. And so there was a right and a wrong answer, and then within that right and wrong answer, there was how far are you willing to go with it? And so the weaker brother, and there's so many issues today that the weaker brother doesn't want anything left to opinion. And so you never end up having any weaker brother because the weaker brother just thinks he's always right. He thinks he's drawn the fence exactly where it's supposed to be and the other guy is going beyond the fence. They don't realize that. They won't acknowledge that, hey, I've gone too far. I've drawn this thing a little bit tighter than it needs to be. And if somebody else wants to go farther than I'm comfortable with, they're not in sin. I'm just not comfortable with it. On the other hand, those that would consider themselves stronger have a danger in making everything an opinion. Well, we can disagree on this. I'm fine out here. And they're 30ft beyond the fence. Well, no, you're not. That's one of the very powerful tactics of progressivism, is to say, well, we can both be right on this. There's not really a hard fence there. No, there's a hard fence somewhere. Okay, these are matters of opinion, but there at some point has to be a line drawn. There has to be a fence somewhere where principle comes in, where God has legislated. And so the opinion has to be set by the hard lines and facts.
[00:11:43] Speaker C: I think that's a great way to summarize that. I did want, and my voice is probably not the one that needs to do it. I wanted to read the first eight verses of Romans 14 here to kind of, again, hopefully our listeners have already read it or maybe have their Bible out and can follow along, but just to give very biblical parameters to exactly what Jack just said. Because in those first eight verses we get two crystal clear examples of what Paul is talking about here. The things that there were going to be disputes over and the things that he clearly labels as kind of a stronger brother, weaker brother thing that at the end of the day was not a sin issue. So I don't know if one of you guys with a bit clear of a voice wants to read those first eight verses, but I think it would, again, kind of help illuminate what Jack just said as far as when to bind stronger, weaker brother, that kind of thing.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Sure, I got it. Now. Accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another to his own master? He stands or falls, and he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person regards one day above another. Another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it for the Lord. And he who eats does so for the Lord. For he gives thanks to God. And he who eats not for the Lord, he does not eat and gives thanks to God. For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lords.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: You're going to follow up on that, Joe? I mean, I'll jump mean, it just sets the parameters pretty well. But there's two rules here. For the weaker brother, you don't judge the stronger brother for doing things that you're not comfortable with. It's okay that you're not comfortable with it. It's not okay if you make everybody stay inside the lines that you're comfortable with. For the stronger brother, you can't look at the weaker brother as dumb or just missing the point if they say, look, I'm not comfortable with that respect, that respect that their conscience is wanting to be right with God, and they really believe that they're not allowed to do this thing that you think it's okay to do and that you do have room on. Okay. Don't look down on them for having a conscience that restricts them. That's okay. And then, on the other hand, don't restrict them to where your conscience is. Don't bring everybody to the level that you're comfortable with and then call them a heretic or a sinner or whatever if they go beyond that.
Fair enough. Two pretty straight line rules we have here.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Here's the issue that you run into.
How do you know? So you talk about the parameters, right? Like this fence. And the stronger brother has, there is that temptation. Everything's opinion. Let's just make this fence as big as possible. I can basically do whatever I want because it's all opinion, and I feel right with God. And I do think you have in the progressive movement, kind of the most. The Blues Brothers, like me and God have an understanding, right?
I think there is that in progressivism of like, hey, I'm good with God. I know I'm good with God. I have this personal relationship with him. Therefore I can get away with anything that I want.
That's a very scary thing. I would say it's also scary on the other end, as you talked about, Jack, how do we know how to draw the fence, basically. And I think this gets into a hermeneutic discussion, which can be really difficult. That opens the door wide to, is it command example, necessary inferences, kind of the typical hermeneutic we take. I think it's difficult to know exactly where the line is on things, but this gets us into, and I don't even know if we're quite ready for this discussion. I guess how we know where we are in this is part of this discussion. But the lines drawn has so much to do with proverbs, in my opinion. It has so much to do with wisdom. Maybe we can't. It's kind of like, what's the purpose of the fence in the first place? I guess the purpose of the fence is to draw us closer to God, to make sure that we are pleasing to God on all aspects. I just taught on Colossians one today, walking in a manner worthy of the Lord.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: He talks about to be holy, blameless beyond reproach. He's going to say in 121, I think that's the purpose of the fence, is I want to establish a fence that's going to cause me to be pleasing to God. I feel like the stronger brother who wants to just ever expand the fence and get it as wide as possible. His whole point is to live life unencumbered and to live quote unquote free. But I don't know that it's really to bring glory to God and everything that he does, to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And this is where the wisdom comes in, is I can't necessarily find book, chapter, verse for some of these things, but the wisdom of the moment, reading the proverbs and such, you can't find that. But yes, that's how I'm going to walk, in a manner worthy of the Lord. Does that make sense? So I feel like as you're talking about the fence discussion, there has to be a discussion surrounding wisdom where I can't necessarily point to the command or to the example or whatever it is to determine that on what the outside basis is. It's going to be a wisdom thing. On the flip side, though, to the weaker brother, I would also say there's a level of wisdom there. They're timid. They don't want to come out of anything other than maybe like a ten square foot box because they're afraid of maybe upsetting God. And I understand maybe they have the right mindset there as well. But I also think they're lacking wisdom in some ways. So I do think proverbs heavily factors in the wisdom side of it heavily factors into this discussion, if that makes sense.
[00:17:17] Speaker C: This is where the common sense portion, I guess, needs to come in. And we still really haven't gotten into any kind of specifics because what everybody's going to want to know is, okay, well, how do you know if something's a Romans 14 issue?
Because there are people who very passionately believe, let's go ahead and get practical here.
Any kind of religious celebration of Christmas is wrong, that it is a sin. Well, in their minds, that's certainly not a Romans 14 issue. That's a sin issue.
There are others who would say, maybe they don't even have an opinion one way or another on it, but they're certainly not going to call something a sin or not, or could call that a sin. And so they would say that it is a Romans 14 issue. And that's, I think, really where the heart of this episode is going to go is we have to kind of draw some lines on what is a Romans 14 issue and what is not. And in addition to that, Joe, you just spoke on this. Just because something might be a Romans 14 issue doesn't mean that all discussion needs to be shut down on it. That, oh, well, I guess we can't talk about it because it's a Romans 14 issue.
We've had that position brought up before with things like modesty and education choices that we can get into a little bit later. But while the Bible may not legislate book, chapter, verse, command on, there are certain principles that we need to discuss, certain wisdom principles that need to be brought up. So, Jack, I don't know where you want to go next as far as, I mean, we kind of covered the weaker stronger. Maybe talk about how to know when you are the weaker or the stronger brother on an issue, because something that's been brought up before, I think by all three of us on a different episode, Joe, you might be the weaker brother on one issue and a stronger brother and the stronger brother on a different issue. There are different issues to where it's not a label of, well, Jack's just the weaker brother in every single issue. Jack might be the weaker brother on XYZ issue and he might be the stronger brother on other issue. To me, the point of Romans 14 is we have to figure out not necessarily who to select is the correct one, like, for all these issues. Well, Jack is the weaker brother is correct on this issue and Joe is not, or vice versa. The goal of Romans 14 is how are you going to live together as brothers and sisters? How are you going to have fellowship with each other knowing that you're going to have differing opinions? As Jack said, you can't do that. For every single issue. There are issues if you're going to disagree on them.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:39] Speaker C: You can't be in fellowship. You can't be called a brother or sister in Christ. The point of Romans 14 is, okay, for all those issues that are not those things, how are you going to live together and be in fellowship, not how are you going to convince the other one to join your side, how are you going to each be fully convinced in your own mind? Does that make sense?
[00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah. This is the hard part about this is there's a very pervasive attitude, especially in the churches of Christ of, I don't interpret the Bible, I just read it. No, everybody interprets it. Things that don't require much interpretation.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. Okay. There's not any interpretation there. That just is what it is. On the other hand, some things have multiple, multiple layers of interpretation where you've got to bring in a text from over here and a text from over here and how did Paul mean it and how did Matthew mean it and how did John mean it? And bring these things together and you see these things. It's so funny. You'll see somebody do an hour long YouTube video going down all those rabbit trails and they look like the guy from the meme where he's got the conspiracy board behind him. The strings, this connects to this. This connects to this. They get to the end, they go, just couldn't be any more simple.
Hang on now.
What cannot get any more simple is baptism now saves you. And people want to make that blurry and muddy. It's not. Okay, so there's not interpretation on something like that. There's not interpretation on a lot of these things. On others. Again, this drives me crazy. People like to just drop one verse like that's the answer. It's not, though, because somebody else has a counterverse that is just as strong and we've got to synthesize and bring all these things together. And so, number one, we have to acknowledge that interpretation happens. And the more unclear it is, the more interpretation has to be done.
That's really it. The more dots have to be connected to get to a conclusion, the more it ventures into the realm of a matter of opinion. And so you have to realize there's going to be things like that.
One of the other things we have on this outline. We need to get to the term that somebody coined, the tyranny of the weaker brother. That is a real problem, especially in the Church where the weaker brother, who is very convinced about where they are, they're convinced to go further as a sin. Everybody has to come to their level. Everybody has to do it the way they would do it. There's no point at which they allow people to go beyond themselves. They judge, they condemn the word. False doctrine gets thrown around like crazy.
Just anything's false doctrine if I'm not okay with it. No, false doctrine is a very specific thing. It's a very heavy label to throw around. And so, no, we can't just label everything. We don't like false doctrine. And there's got to be something where we look at and go, there's room for disagreement on this. As Will said earlier, if there's nothing in the Bible that you look at and go, well, I could see somebody come into a different conclusion, genuinely. And even though I would disagree with them, I think they'd be okay with God. If you don't allow for that, cut Romans 14 out of your Bible, it shouldn't exist. And so you've got that tyranny of the weaker brother thing where they always want it their way. But to Joe's point about the place of wisdom, this is the real issue underlying this whole thing, and it's what's driving this episode. It's an interpretation, an approach to the Bible that basically looks at it as a law, as a legal textbook, and says, look, if there's not a command, if there's not a very clear thing like that in there, we just can't say anything about it.
Yes, we can. That is just unbelievable. And as Will was saying, it's used to shut down discussion. We're not legalists like that. And that's the beauty of the New Testament. God didn't enumerate all those laws. He gave us room to use our brains and put principles together. And people run in and go, well, you can't bind that.
No, but you can recommend, you can point out, you can build cases, I guess would be the way to put.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: It to this point.
I always hear people say God gave us free will because if he wanted to create robots who just did everything a certain way, he could have done that. But no, he chose to create people who wanted to follow him. I think that same line of reasoning falls right in with exactly what Jack's saying. If God wanted us to basically have the answer for every single way that we live, our lives. Number one, he could have provided that, but number two, why did he not? Because what kind of free will would we have? It would basically be like, well, okay, you know what I mean? So there are principles there that God does want us to choose.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:24:02] Speaker C: To follow him and to draw closer to him. But the reason he didn't give us an answer for every single little issue is because it essentially would be just creating a bunch of robots who. All right, we've got the answer sheet. We got the cheat code.
Let's just do exactly what this says for every single issue. He didn't do it that way, and I think he didn't do it that way on purpose.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: I think it's also, like, a way that we are glorified above the old law that we are the kingdom of priests now and all that. That in the old law, they were limited. It was basically your children. You've got to be handed what children have to be had, where when you're a teenager, you're growing into adulthood and all that, you get the keys, you get to do a little bit more. That's what we have. And to throw that away and want to go back to being children, well, you don't have a verse, so we just can't bind that. I want to give a practical example before we get you back in here, Joe, we talked a lot about the Disney thing, and, man, Romans 14, Bible doesn't say, thou shalt boycot, Disney. Kind of weird. They forgot to put that one in there, I guess, like that 2000 years ago. He forgot to add that to the list. And our whole point is, there's a lot of principles you can put together of maybe don't walk into a park in which a trans man dressed up as Princess Snow White wants to come up and give your kid a hug. Yeah, I don't have a problem saying, you don't need to be doing that. Oh, you can't bind that. You're going to Disfellowship. Stop.
Turn your brain on, and engage in a conversation of wisdom. Good, better, best. Is this something we ought to be doing? Not, is there a command that says, you got to boycot Disney? That's the shutting down Discussion thing we're talking about. It doesn't shut down discussion. It gives the framework for discussion. Okay, I can't bind this. I don't have a law I can point to, but I can advocate strongly to say this is the right thing to do.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: As Will already mentioned, that's the same thing with schooling. We are strong, strong homeschool advocates. And we've got a million and one reasons as to why I think you should homeschool your kids, or private school or Christian school, whatever it is, getting them out of the public school. Well, you can't bind that. And again, it shuts down discussion. No, it is not shutting down the discussion. There still is a discussion to be had. And just because you come ill prepared, you come to a gunfight with a knife. Sorry, that's not my fault. Like you came ill prepared without any evidence other than you can't bind that. Yes, but what's best practice? And once again, getting back to your fence point, Jack, it's the relationship that builds the fence. And to your point, Will, God wants the relationship. He's always wanted the heart back to Adam and Eve. He's always wanted the heart. Even within giving the law of the Old Testament. The whole point was, and Jesus makes this very clear with a sermon on the Mount, right? He's showing the heart behind the.
You're not lusting or you're not committing adultery, but you're still lusting, you're not murdering, but you're still angry with your brother and calling him all sorts of names like there's the heart behind it, and God's always wanted that. And so that's what frames are like. Every person has offense, so to speak. Every single Christian has a fence as to what they allow, what they don't allow. That is built on the relationship with God. And if you can point to scripture, you feel very assured in your understanding reasoning of scripture. And you say, this is what's going to bring me closer to God. That's what we're talking about. Sometimes that's going to be a more restricted conscience, be weaker. Sometimes that's going to be a little more open. But inherent in that is, I have a strong desire to have a relationship with God. And I am trying to back this up in Scripture to the best of my ability. I'm not coming out with some wild thing. Know, Beth Moore told me to do it. No, this is grounded in Scripture. And somebody may come and go, hey, what about this scripture? Have you considered this? Have you considered that that's how we have these discussions is have you considered this point, the wisdom of this certain thing? And I would look at it and I would go, what's going to bring you closer to God?
Giving hundreds or thousands of dollars to Disney, putting your kids in front of a trans agenda, basically radicalizing your kids from a young age, same with the public school or not? Can we have a discussion on what's wise and what's drawing us into a closer relationship, specifically our kids, into a closer relationship with God. That's the discussion that ought to be had.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: Well, we've railed on this before. This is why so many Christian families are kind of being hung out to dry on these issues. It's because our pulpits are not teaching these things that you quote unquote, can't bind. Again, that's a generalization. But for the most part, in our pulpits, preachers are teaching and preaching things that are only book, chapter, verse, commands. We should be teaching those things. Don't mishear me. But this attitude of, well, let's just leave out everything that might have some disagreement on or might be some interpretive differences on Christian parents and Christian families need and want to know how to handle these things. And they're not getting preached from the pulpit. They're not getting taught on. And so I do think that's part of the breakdown of the Christian home, is Christian parents are kind of left without answers on how to handle these things, and so they just go with the flow. I guess I'll just do what everybody else is doing. If it doesn't really matter if it really is a Romans 14 issue where I send my kids to school or how I allow My kids to dress or whatever it is, lo and behold, we've got families that are disintegrating spiritually before our very eyes.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: Something my wife, it drives her insane is like Facebook parenting groups or mom blogs or whatever, that there will be something that is just like Stone cold scientific fact. There's a better thing to do for your kids, a way of raising them. Discipline. I mean, just things that, like whatever topic it is. But there's a few of these things, and somebody will put that out there and they get attacked like crazy. No. However anybody wants to.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: Whatever works for you.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: That's what's best. You can't talk about which one's better, but it's true. It's facts. And I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings that you're choosing to do otherwise or same thing people. Well, not everybody can. Okay, well, I'm sorry. That doesn't change the fact that if they could, it would be better if they did. And you just run into that to.
[00:29:39] Speaker C: Give an example of what you're talking about with the parenting thing, like parents who let their kids just stare at a screen all day or eat whatever kind of junk food they want. I'm assuming that's what you're talking about.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And they say that, oh, you're parent shaming. If you tell that mom that she shouldn't put an iPad in front of her kid 8 hours a day.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: I guess I am.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Which one loves the kid here? The person who's just going to coddle the mom and help her feel better about herself and tell her, you're doing a great job.
We got to stop doing that. We have to say, some things are better than others, some choices are better than others, and there's a room for opinion. There's gray area. There's not a hard line. But this is a point I made to you guys when we were kind of putting the outline together. There was a supreme Court case about obscenity, pornography, something like that in the. They were having a hard time defining at what point is the line crossed. What is too far. Is this. Is that. Is this obscene? Is that obscene? And one of the justices, I think it was Justice Potter Stewart was his name, said, look, I can't tell you what it is. I just know it when I see it. And on the one hand, for a Supreme Court justice, that's incredibly unscientific, like, incredibly undefined. And that's a little tough to work.
[00:30:49] Speaker C: Very subjective.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: On the other hand, you kind of get.
There's. There's things that are clearly not. There are things that blur the gray area. Some of it probably crosses, some of it probably doesn't. And then there's stuff that there's just blatantly like, there's no discussion. There's no question on that. And what I think we do in the church is we blend all of these things together and make them all the same. It's like, no, some things, even though we don't have a hard, fast line, some things are just over the line. They just are. And we have to be able to say that even though there's a large gray area that is Romans 14, that some of the people might actually be on the wrong side of and some of the people might be on the right side of. And it's kind of hard to say. Okay, but the absolutely specific things. And so you guys just did a gym episode on entertainment choices. There's a lot of gray area in that. The Bible doesn't say a lot about movies. Okay, once again, this is where we were given brains to extrapolate principles and use them. And so some people might think Christians should not watch movies at all. I kind of trended that direction myself for a little while, but I don't know. I'm not quite there anymore. Movies with language, movies with this, that, or the other thing. And so there's a lot of, well, you just can't say. And it's up to everyone to determine what they're okay with to a degree. I think there are certain movies, the Wolf of Wall street, that is packed with nudity, drugs, sex.
[00:32:11] Speaker C: One of the worst movies ever put out.
[00:32:12] Speaker B: Was it like 500 F words or something?
[00:32:16] Speaker C: Under plus in like a two hour movie?
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
And not that we've seen it. This is just reading the plugged in or whoever, kids in mind, whoever did it, you can't come in. And Romans 14 doesn't tell us what's wronG. You can say that's wrong. So that's my point about the whole.
[00:32:33] Speaker C: Gray and stuff like that.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: I know it when I see it. Okay. They're Game of Thrones.
Somebody said, you want to watch Lord of the Rings. We watch Game of Thrones, Watch Lord of the Rings, and every ten minutes stop and watch some porn. That's kind of the same idea as they were going for this medieval feel with a lot of sex in it. No, don't watch that. I'm okay saying it's wrong for a Christian to watch it. Well, where's your Bible verse? I have a brain. I've got principles in the Bible that tell me what things I shouldn't be looking at. I know at which point, across the line again. Now, there's a lot of things that I wouldn't watch that somebody else does, where it's like, we got to give a little bit of room here. There's things I might watch that somebody else might not. But there are certain things where it's like we can say, this is wrong.
[00:33:12] Speaker A: That's always the sorry go for Will.
[00:33:15] Speaker C: No, you go ahead. I'm going to move on to something else.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: You go ahead. That's just always the toughest part, is it goes back to, I think, Jack, you were making the point of the legalism. We really want that checkbox. We really want to just be told, what can I do?
[00:33:27] Speaker B: The rich young ruler give me the list. And Jesus says, where's your heart? And that was the problem.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: That's exactly it. Well, this is the issue with this is, I'm sure there are listeners to this podcast going, okay, guys, tell us what entertainment choices maybe what that is. We can't. And I'm not going to necessarily judge you, but at what point does that become a judgment? I do think it is the eye test. Now, here's the issue. There are some Christians that I think their conscience has been seared to the point that they would watch Wolf of Wall street and go, what's the problem with that?
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Now?
[00:33:57] Speaker A: How did they get to the seared conscience point? And can we still consider them brothers, sisters in Christ?
[00:34:01] Speaker C: By going over the line a little bit here? And they.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: And so this is the point is they probably took what was their conScience, and they stretched it a little bit, way more than it should have. It's like a rubber band. They stretched it, and then they stretched a little bit more. And they stretched a little bit more. And it gets to the point where it has no form, it has no shape of what it was before. And I think that's a very dangerous part of this discussion, is to make sure if we are going to take the side of Liberty once again, what is the point of the Liberty? It is okay for entertainment. You're not necessarily being drawn closer to God and watching some Disney movie. I shouldn't say Disney. I'm trying to think of.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Some filthy movie.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: I'm sorry, some benign movie. I'm not necessarily being drawn closer to God because I'm watching Star Wars.
But at the same time, it's not taking me further from God right now. Wolf of Wall Street. I feel like that very much is taking me further from God. There's a large spectrum in between, and this is for each person to know. What I will say is be very careful pushing the conscience. Well, it's not Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah, but it's not Star wars either. It's somewhere in the middle. Transformers might be one of those with, you know, just very immodest.
Should I be watching it? If you have that in the back of your mind going, okay, this isn't what I used to watch. My parents would have never let me watch. Yeah, it's. It's kind of an adult. Know. I probably shouldn't be, but, hey, I'm an adult. We're all, okay. I'm not lusting whatever it is. Okay, now we're starting that process of searing the conscience over to the point where you can get to the other side. And to me, that is wrong. Where you begin the searing the conscience side, where you're starting to take that out once again. It's so subjective. I don't know what's going to sear somebody's.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: I wanted to say this. I know Will's got a point to move on, so hang on to your thought for just a second here. Yeah, you're good about the subjective thing. We're dealing on principles and not commands. That's what you have to realize. That's when we said that Romans 14 starts the discussion is the recognition that it's principles and not commands. What frustrates me about the people that use it to shut down the discussion is they won't allow the principles to be discussed. Because the other thing is we can give a principle of, like, you should not watch something that is going to draw you further from God. That's a good biblical principle. Right.
The application of that.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: What draws me further from God, what is coming between me and God is going to vary person to person. And so because it varies, that's what the people that are shutting it down say. Because of that, we just shouldn't talk about these principles and act like there's a specific way to handle this. No, we should. We should acknowledge that, hey, we're not all going to agree exactly on how this comes down, but we should get the principles out there and all. Amen the principles. Because I think the problem that you have is there are people that don't amen the principles. The people that want to skirt the principles that are using the shutting down of the Romans 14. I'm not saying everybody who shuts the Romans 14 discussion down does, but the people. Or use the Romans 14 to shut the discussion down. I'm not saying they all do, but I think some of them do. I think the people that do shut that down are opening a door for other people to ignore the principles of the Bible.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: It's actually a really good point.
[00:36:58] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's a great point.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: What do you mean, actually? That's backhanded. I was shocked.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: Yeah. No.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: Blind squirrel.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Wow. Exactly. Hadn't thought of it from that angle before. That's what I'm saying. We discussed a lot of this stuff off air, and that's something you did not discuss. And I thought, hey, that's pretty good.
[00:37:15] Speaker C: So we've gotten very practical in the last few minutes, and I was talking to the guys before. I think that's always very helpful for listeners. If you just kind of talk esoterically and kind of intangibly, it's hard to grasp. So I'm going to go back to Romans 14 and I'm going to read 14 through 17 and kind of give some practical examples of how I think this applies. And, guys, if I'm off, you can correct me and maybe give your take on it. Romans 14, starting in verse 14. I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself. But to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Yet if your brother is greedy because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died. Therefore, do not let your good be spoken of his evil. For the kingdom of God is not eating and talking about righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. So here in Romans 14, Paul is talking about disagreements over clean and unclean foods. Obviously this is a Jew Gentile thing where the Jews would have still Jewish Christians, I should say, would have held certain foods as unclean, whereas Gentile Christians didn't have those restrictions before. So they're not going to have them now. To me, the application of that, put it into modern day terms, because you always get the question of what does the weaker brother need to do? What does the stronger brother need to do? The command there is very clear that the stronger brother should not destroy or cause the weaker brother to stumble based on his freedom, based on his liberty. So in a modern day application of that for me would be if they were having fellowship meals back then, the stronger brother, Gentile Christian, is not going to bring his unclean food to the fellowship meal, right? He can eat that food at his home. And the Gentile brother, or the Jewish brother, the weaker brother, is not going to have anything to say about that. But while they're together, maybe you don't make them stumble. Now let's draw in the religious holiday debate. Guys, I'm curious what your take is. Let me tell you, the way that I would read this is you have the weaker brother who maybe says, hey, we should not be celebrating Christmas religiously. As a church. You have the stronger brother who says, it doesn't really matter to me. I'm going to choose not to.
The way that I would apply it is in order to not make the weaker brother stumble, in order to not destroy, for the sake, know, a holiday discussion, the one for whom Christ died, maybe as a congregation, you don't celebrate it, know, and so that's kind of the stronger brother kind of giving in there. But on the flip side, when it comes to people's own homes and kind of outside the congregation, the weaker brother needs to allow the stronger to basically celebrate however they want. Does that make sense to me? That's where this practicality comes in of, yeah, I don't want to make somebody stumble because I'm okay with celebrating Christmas and the other person is not. However, if they drive by my house and I've got Christmas lights up or a nativity scene set up, and they want to apply their conscience onto me and my own home. That's where I think the weaker brother is crossing the line. Do you see what I'm saying there? And so I'm curious what y'all's thoughts are on that. That's kind of a very, not really. Paul's talking about food there and clean and unclean foods. For us, it's Christmas time. This is a pretty pertinent topic. How do you think it applies? Very practically speaking today, I think this.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Is where you have to be really careful of the tyranny, the weaker brother thing, because under that logic, every 50 50 coin flip decision the church has, they will run the show. And so it would also be very enticing for somebody.
There's an incentive there to always be the weaker brother because then you win every time. And you see this. Okay, people don't want to talk about this anymore, but it's so useful and I think it's pretty handy to keep it nearby because there were so many lessons from it. COVID, weaker Brother was the one that said everyone needs, in a lot of churches, face masks, but some beyond that. Look, I don't want to sit next to you if you don't have the shot, okay? And so if you say, well, you know what, for the weaker brother's sake, at least everybody wear a mask, well, if everybody else is okay with it and one guy's not, it's like, man, you can wear yours. You can't force everybody else to comply. And so on the Christmas issue, to bring it back around to that, I was at a congregation one time, and before we get to all this, I know there are people who listen who are like, this is not a matter of opinion. This is not up for that.
Consider you might be the person who is drawing a line tighter than it is because there's, again, Paul literally mentioned.
[00:41:38] Speaker C: Holidays in verse five, too, observance of days.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: And it's one of those that, it's a matter of interpretation because you got to string a bunch of principles together and not a commandment. You can say, well, we don't have a commandment to celebrate the Lord's birth. You're right, we don't. We also didn't have a commandment to celebrate Thanksgiving. And most churches I know had a Wednesday night Thanksgiving service. And so was there a sin there was that across the line. Anyway, that debate is out there, but I'm just saying we're taking it as a matter of opinion. I was at a congregation where there were about six men in leadership. I didn't care either way. I said, whatever you guys want to do, Christmas sermon, I won't. I will, whatever you say. Five out of six were very pro Christmas sermon. Wanted a birth of Jesus Sermon. The 6th one did not. We did it and he lived with it. He didn't like it. He kind know muttered about it here and there, but he didn't think it was like condemning our whole church. That was not his preference. Well, I kind of think it's not like it's a vote. But on the other hand, if it's so overwhelmingly that everybody's okay with it, but one guy, he doesn't get to drive the church.
[00:42:42] Speaker C: I totally agree with that. And I completely understand when you bring up the Mass and the vaccines thing, that is completely, in my opinion, an abuse of tyranny. The weaker brother, when it's like, yeah, everybody here has to get a vaccine to wear a mask, otherwise I'm going to be made to stumble. I think that's ridiculous. However, how then do you apply verse 23 of Romans 14, he who doubts is condemned if he eats? To me, to use the Christmas analogy, if you have somebody who truly believes that their conscious is being violated, that they believe it would be wrong for them to celebrate Christmas as a congregation, or however, how does that play into it? Because think there is a difference there of like, I don't know if somebody truly believes, no, I'm going to be in sin if I listen to a Christmas Day sermon. Now the key is I don't think people actually believe that. I think it's more of a, they kind of want to have the moral high ground thing that we've discussed before. However, verse 23 does seem to imply that if you believe that something is, if your conscience tells you something is wrong and you choose to do it anyway, you are in sin. Whereas the stronger brother has more liberty and doesn't affect his conscience and so therefore he's not in sin. I know we brought that up before. Is that your conscience kind of does have a say so on this. So Jack or Joe, either one. How does that apply to what you're talking about there?
[00:43:58] Speaker B: Jack? Yeah, I was going to pass that to Joe because it's a hard question, but I guess I'll take it back.
[00:44:03] Speaker C: Either one of you.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: Either one of you.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Well, here's another thing that before I get to the point, I want to add to this. The people that use Romans 14 to shut discussion down. This is why it's so harmful that they do that because you have to do something. Well, Romans 14, about Christmas. Okay, but what's the church going to do? And if you default to Romans 14 means the weaker brother never has to go along with other people or whatever. On the other hand, you say if they do it, they're condemned. I know some people who would just go to another congregation exclusively on Christmas and Easter to dodge those sermons. I don't know that that's great, because they're at the point where they are subverting their elders, saying, I'm submitting to you, except for not in this one, but their conscience. It's a tough thing to handle.
I really don't know. And full steel, man. I really think there are people that would be deeply uncomfortable to the point of thinking they might be doing something wrong. And to that person. Yeah, I can't tell them you have to do that.
You're putting a tough spot there. On the other hand, I don't think it would be healthy to tell them. You get to dictate what everybody in this congregation does. Like, hey, you're part of this family and there's going to be things that we do that you are dead set against every now and then. If it was everything, it was a lot of things, it was more than a few things, they probably wouldn't be there. But this is, finding unity with each other is kind of living through things that you don't like sometimes that you're not in favor of.
[00:45:31] Speaker A: I think this is to that point, this is where elders or leadership needs to study with them. They need to make their points known and say, hey, I'm not okay with this. Let's study this together. And if and when it comes out that this is an opinion, a matter of opinion, if you can point to why you absolutely believe this is a. And some people will never come off of that. This isn't a matter of opinion, and here's why. If they can be convinced, they don't even have to be convinced of the other person's opinion, right? They can still hold firm to, hey, I believe Christmas is wrong, but I do believe that's an opinion of mine. In that sense. I do think that they can go along for that one Sunday when everybody else that I agree, they realize it's an opinion. If they can be swayed, that's after a deep discussion with the men of the congregation, whatever it may be. A deep study. If the men of the congregation see that this person's really not coming off of it, they have been studying, in my opinion, I would say it's better to not. However, if that continues to happen, that is where, again, we're dangerously close to hitting that tyranny of the weaker brother. Where you go, brother, you'Ve fallen on the weaker end, and we've gone your way the last three times. I'm sorry, but clearly something's going on. And here's, I guess, a question for you guys. Is the goal, it doesn't seem like it in Romans 14, but should the goal be taking a weaker brother and making him a stronger brother, or is that a bad goal in general? And I know Will, as you talked about, sometimes weaker, stronger. He'll be weaker in one thing, stronger than the other. But should the idea be getting them to have a better conscience or a stronger conscience, or should we just let them stay in that? Because Paul seems to indicate he is right. His strong conscience is correct. He's going to say verse 14.
[00:47:11] Speaker B: Yeah, verse 14.
[00:47:12] Speaker A: And in 15, verse one, he seems to show, yes, the strength or the strong conscience is better. So should the person with the weak conscience, let's say about Christmas, should they be trying to get to the point where their conscience is stronger about it? And I think that has to start with whether the question is yes or no. That has to start with them recognizing it is an opinion and not something that can be bound.
[00:47:33] Speaker B: That's the hardest thing in the world, is for the weaker brother to realize this is just my opinion. They have the hardest spot in this whole thing, is allowing something that you're just not comfortable with and saying it's not wrong. I really am not comfortable with it. I really would not do it. But the other person's not in the wrong. That's really hard to do.
I think it would be fair to say it's good to hope that they come around to the mature position. It's not okay to expect it, like, all right, come around, give them time. And if they don't, then they didn't.
Some people just won't.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: I was just going to say, yeah, I don't read from Romans 14 Paul saying, hey, let's try to get everybody to the stronger brother position. Joe, I get why you asked the question, because it seems as though the stronger brother position is correct.
From what I see in Romans 14, Paul is simply trying to set the framework for this is how you operate under these disagreements, and this is how you come together.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: This is how you create unity.
[00:48:32] Speaker C: Create unity. You have your different consciences. Not different conscious, but different margins for error, different margins for your conscience, what I'm trying to say, and you live with it and you be unified with it, and you can still fellowship, and you have a clear line on what is a primary doctrinal issue. And for those issues that are not, that are matters of opinion, the stronger doesn't make the weaker brother stumble, and the weaker doesn't bind his conscience on the stronger.
Joe, you mentioned how that's pretty idealistic of you, Paul. Kind of, kind of tough to do, and we do see that today that is very tough, because it seems as though the weaker does kind of always want to basically not budge on anything. And so it's the stronger brother who's continually having to give in and give in and give in.
So yeah, that's what makes it tough. But to your question specifically, Joe, I don't see that, but at least from Romans 14 that we should be trying to move everybody to the stronger position. It's just more. So this is how you live with each other and this is how you have unity.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: So this is what goes back to your point, Will, or the question that you asked, if the weaker brother drives by the stronger brother's house wants to disfellowship. I do think that's wrong.
[00:49:37] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: It is within the stronger brother's position, right. To be able to do that in his own way, with his own conscience, specifically when it comes to Christmas, in my opinion, as far as it goes with the church, I would say, yeah, I think if the person is not swayed through a Bible study, and they're very convinced, look, Paul says I'll give up the eating of meat if that's the case. We're not looking to make a brother stumble. So I do think where I would have a problem is when two, three, four times comes around the same guy, know, basically calling the shots for the church because he's always the weaker brother, there needs to be a much more serious discussion about it. If every single time you go to do a Bible study with the guy, it always comes back around to, no, this is absolutely the way it is. We want to make sure, and I guess that's my point, is taking the weaker to the stronger, he needs to become stronger. In the fact that stronger means I'm able to see a little more as opinion, the weaker brother is the person that is legalistic, wanting to get everything absolutely right. We can see why that's the case. But I do believe over the course of Christianity, over the course of your Christian life, you should go from less legalism to more relationship. And I'm not pitting those things completely against one another, but the checklist mentality to, I just really want to please God and there are things that may not be wrong, quote unquote, all things are. What does he say?
[00:50:53] Speaker B: Profitable. Lawful, but not profitable.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I kept trying to do it backwards. All things are lawful. Not all things are profitable. That's a relationship that we're talking about. And so I think that should be the progression of every Christian is going from, hey, well, none of this is lawful. No, all things are lawful. But what's profitable to me in my relationship with God, that's where we start.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: And with others. Stronger brother.
[00:51:14] Speaker A: And with others. Exactly. So on an individual basis within your home, man, I think there's a lot that you can do in your own parameters, as long as it's drawing you closer to God walking in a worthy manner when it comes to the church. Yeah, I would say we want to yield to the weaker brother where possible, but I would study and study and study and study to try to see where they're at. So it's not just, hey, I saw the Scripture one time, and now I get to determine the course of the church because I read Scripture and became convinced in 15 minutes. No, we need a lot of study that's gone into this to determine before we let that decide the course of the church, is what I'd say. But Jack, you had mentioned just a think we got some time just on the elders. What can elders specifically bind? This is something you've been into a lot. You've been writing on it, thinking about it, reading on it.
How much should we expect elders to bind? We've kind of beat the Christmas one to death, but there could be a lot of other things. I mean, we talk about the color of, the color of the carpet, the COVID over the Lord's, ever these things split churches and some.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: The church clothes thing.
[00:52:17] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:52:18] Speaker B: Sure, some people think it's the most abhorrent thing in the world for an eldership to say, look, we expect you guys to dress up, not like you have to buy clothes you can't afford. But there's going to be a standard set here and we're going to encourage that, or even modesty. Some people think it's the worst thing in the world when some woman is pulled aside to say, you need to put some more clothes on.
Romans 14, elders don't. And I've even seen discussions about like, well, what authority do elders have? Well, they can enforce the command or they can bind the commandments that the Bible gives. Beyond that, not much. And so like a Wednesday night or like Wednesday night study, let's just say that 07:00 on Wednesday night, any able bodied person, we expect you to be there. They can't bind that. There's not a command that says that. Well, then what are they doing there? Why are they there? If God did not delegate them any authority to make specific decisions about what they think is best for the health of the congregation, can they take that too far? Yeah. Every authority hierarchy that God set up in mankind, whether government, whether parents, whether husbands, whether church elders can go too far, can overstep their bounds. And that's a real issue that happens. Absolutely. Amen. On the other hand, they got to have some authority to be able to tell the people of their congregation, hey, this is a problem. I think it would have been fine for them to say, look, don't be watching Game of Thrones. I mean, that's a real popular thing. I saw a lot of Christians post on Facebook. I don't think it would be wrong for elders to say, don't do that. It's not wrong for elders is to say if you are able bodied, you're not an older person, can't drive at night, whatever, and you're not otherwise occupied in a really serious way. We expect you to be there on Wednesday night at seven. And if you're not, we're going to be following up on why you're not. Well, they don't have that authority in Scripture, Romans 14. It's a matter of opinion whether Wednesday night, that's what they're there for, is to come up with how in this congregation we're going to do it is the specific practices. Yeah, best practices.
And if they don't have that authority, if all they can do is enforce the commands that anybody can read in their Bible or encourage, they wouldn't even let them enforce them, but encourage the commands that anyone has in their Bible. Why are they there? And so it is for things like this, for modesty, for Wednesday night services, for what the church is going to recommend on holidays. Somebody's got to decide, are we going to have a Christmas sermon or not? Well, you've got to have that in there. You've got to submit to that authority to make that decision. And that also means sometimes thinking they missed that decision, they might have got it wrong. But if not them, then who?
[00:54:58] Speaker A: Let me also jump on a soapbox real fast because this is something that, as you were talking and as Will was talking earlier.
[00:55:03] Speaker B: No, we haven't had one of these in a while.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
The idea of the weaker brother, he's got such problems. He thinks it's a sin. Boy, he's up in arms about something, and yet all he wants to do is gossip about it and potentially either leave the church or just fume behind the scenes. He really thinks the other people are sinning. Okay, let's take Halloween, for instance. Now, I think Halloween is wrong, but I think it's a matter of opinion. Personally, where I am today, I don't celebrate it. I think you guys are less dogmatic about it than I am. Truly a weaker brother, stronger brother thing. I would be the weaker brother in this situation. I think you guys are stronger. If I really thought it was wrong, I better have the guts to go to you. If I thought you guys were in jeopardy, to go to you and to make it right, and I'm going to say it. I don't think I'll get in trouble for mentioning it was our podcast. The alcohol podcast showed just how brutally off we get this in the church. We had letters written about us. We had private messages. Not asking, hey, I think this is where we're at. Or things like that. Flaming us. You guys are in sin. You're going to hell. All of these things, never really checking on the state of our souls, never wanting to engage in a good faith discussion. I shouldn't say never. We had a few that did want to engage in good faith, but the alcohol podcast showed me we have a lot of the brethren who, look, they want to have that conscience where, no, we're not going to do it at all. Okay, that's perfectly fine. But then the way they went about it, they want to judge us for it without ever checking on our soul, without ever doing a Matthew 18, without ever coming to us, going, guys, I really think you're in sin. Instead, they'd rather write a letter about us and try to get us kicked out of the church and call us heretics. At what point does the weaker brother ever get to do that? I'm not seeing that in Romans 14, where you get to secretly stand behind the scenes, write letters about your brethren and say you're going to hell for it. If you have a weaker conscience and you really do think the stronger brother is in sin, go to him. Matthew 18 still applies. You need to go and try to make this right and try to save this man's soul from hell. If you really think it's that serious, it's to your point. Will, people don't take it that seriously. They want to act like it's not a matter of opinion, but when it comes to actually caring for the other person's soul, they act like it's a matter of opinion. So is it. Is it a matter of opinion, or is it truly a law that you're trying to follow? Because if it's a law, then the other person is in jeopardy. Go make it right with them. And if it's not a law, recognize it's an opinion, and we can fall on different areas. That burns me to death that, oh, well, this is not a matter of opinion. And then it's like, okay, then why aren't you coming to me trying to save my soul from eternal damnation? Which is what you seem to think I'm currently headed toward. Come on, that's super frustrating to me.
Just a soapbox.
[00:57:37] Speaker B: I agree and disagree. Where there's a relationship prior, I think there should be the, like, hey, brother, what's going on here? I think you're really in the wrong. Some of the other ones. Hey, this is a public teaching that's going out there, and we're going to publicly oppose it. Okay, that's fine. I think we do that. And so I'm okay with that to a degree. On the other hand, this is the hard part. Something like that. That was the whole point of our episode was, this is a Romans 14 issue, which we got that idea from reading Romans 14, verse 21, which makes it a Romans 14 issue, people. That was the thing I just replied with every time is like, if you don't think it's a matter of opinion, why did Paul call it one? Okay, I'm just siding with him here, so we're not going down that road again. But it's there to them. It's not that. And that's the really hard part. As I said earlier, that is the challenge to somebody who's the weaker brother, is to recognize when you are being the binder, being the one who's going too far with it.
Promoting a principle, saying, I think this is the best application of this principle that is not binding. Having discussions saying this, I think is what we need to be doing in this day and age. I think this is the proper application of these scriptural principles. That's not binding. Binding is something like exactly what you're talking about. One other thing I wanted to add on that, give everybody some homework, think through doctrinal issues, things the church does, things of personal morality, whatever, that there's not maybe a clear command where you might be the weaker brother. Joe just did that with one where the Halloween thing. He's very uncomfortable with it, but he's not disfellowshipping me and Will or writing us up or anything like that and said, look, I'm the weaker brother on that. We all have things on which we're the weaker brother. It's okay to be the weaker brother until you overextend your authority on it. And so think through that. Are there things that I'm not comfortable with but that I allow and don't write people out of the church for disagreeing with me on? If there's nothing like that that comes to mind for you, that's probably not good to Will's point earlier of you're probably not right about everything exactly down the line. And so you've got to have things like that. If everything is that way, there's a problem. If there's nothing that's that way, there's a problem.
[00:59:41] Speaker A: It's a good point.
[00:59:42] Speaker C: I don't have much to add.
[00:59:43] Speaker A: I would actually disagree with you a little bit on the public side of things. I know what you said. You disagree with me on it. I don't have a problem with them publicly opposing our teaching. I have a problem with them publicly calling us heretics that we're going to hell without.
[00:59:54] Speaker B: Yeah, there was a degree to which it got.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: There's a big difference in that. And I'm not trying to make a big point of it, but I'm just saying if you're going to condemn somebody, go to them first. If you're going to oppose our teaching, that's perfectly fine. Hey, they taught this. I disagree. Hey, again, we do that. I have no problem with that. If you're going to condemn somebody, at least have, and you can get a hold of them on Facebook, maybe reach out to them first. That's my point on the weaker brother thing. But I do think that is great homework because I'll be interested and this is going to go to the deep end. I want to know if there's anything specifically that you guys, any specific situations, circumstances, biblical teachings or teachings, things that you very much hold to be that case that maybe you think, maybe there's opinion on it. Whatever it is, we want to know. But I love that homework of where do you fall on this and what things do you struggle with or maybe don't struggle with that speak to matters of opinion or not.
[01:00:49] Speaker B: One more thing. This is where the tyranny of the weaker brother thing becomes really bad. And we were talking right before we got on air about one strike fellowship that the church has. I disagree with you on one thing. You're done. We've talked about before, people who love the podcast until the one episode, we say something they disagree with and then they hate us.
That stuff's got to stop because it keeps people from opening up and saying, well, I could see being wrong about this, that or the other thing. There's no room for doubts. There's no room for gray area. There's no room to have discussions because somebody might write me out of the church.
[01:01:18] Speaker C: Romans 14.
[01:01:19] Speaker B: There's no room for Romans 14. It's awful. And so that's why this is such a big deal. I mean, on the one hand, you've got people cutting everybody down, on the other you've got everybody just shutting down discussion saying, we've got to keep Bible teaching to this incredibly narrow road of. Narrow road. That's the wrong word to use. Narrow road is good. Like an incredibly narrow strip of things that we're allowed to talk about.
That's why we have to get this right. So, Will, you've been trying to close, so I'll let it go so we can do.
[01:01:46] Speaker C: No, no, I was just going to say I have nothing else to add and my voice is hurting, so I was going to let one of you guys close.
[01:01:50] Speaker B: All right, I'll take it over. Then again, focus. Plus, leave the comments for the deep end. Should be an interesting one. Everyone else, Facebook, of course. We've got our page out there. Keep an eye on that. Or our YouTube.
I've been really busy trying to finish a book and so I have not done a great job of checking up on comments, but I'm going to try and respond. We do love hearing from you guys. It's important stuff and we're glad that people are engaging with it, thinking about it, have your own opinions on it. And so, yeah, let us hear what you have.
If there's nothing else, we will talk to you guys next week. Oh, no, Joe has two fingers up. You have two more things.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: No, not two more things. Two weeks until Christmas. Get your orders in. We did not do any at the beginning. We didn't even talk about it. We didn't do any ad reads, nothing like that. Two weeks until Christmas, please. Gift cards.
[01:02:38] Speaker B: It might be too late to ship, but we have focuspress store gift cards and focus plus gift cards.
[01:02:43] Speaker A: Focus plus gift cards. That's good stuff. So, yeah, make sure to check that out. We'll wrap with that.
[01:02:47] Speaker B: All right. Good call. Thanks. We'll talk to you next week.
