Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome back into the Think Deeper podcast, presented by Focus Press. Will Hiram here, joined by Joe and Jack Wilke.
If you were listening, last week, you know, we covered a pretty heavy topic, the Lindsay Clancy case that has been just absolutely dominating the new cycle. So many different thoughts and takes that have been shared kind of on both sides. And so we addressed it last week and shared kind of what we think Christians need to know from that. Obviously not a fun topic to cover. Very dark, very, very heavy. And so we very much wanted to switch gears and go in a different direction this week with our episode. And so we're talking. I'm going to hand it to Jack in just a second to kind of expound on this, because this is something that we were talking beforehand. He has brought to the table for an episode four or five times before, and we've kind of consistently shut him down. Not quite shut him down, but like, okay, any other ideas type of thing? And, you know, this week we decided, you know what, it's finally time. Let's go ahead and cover it. We're talking about, how do you love the brotherhood?
How do you love the church? The brotherhood is the phrase that's used in First Peter 2. Again, I'm gonna let Jack preview it as this is a lot of. This was kind of his brainchild here. But I think this is something that we, a lot of Christians can really resonate with, the idea of loving the people in their church family in the church building, the people they worship with, the people in the pews with them. We've talked about interpersonal relationships when it comes to you and your church family before. That's obviously incredibly important. But what about the brotherhood as a whole?
Again, the church in general having a love for them? There's. There's a lot of different questions to explore. It's inevitable when we bring this topic up that we have to kind of COVID What about conflict? Like, how do you. Obviously, there's going to be conflict. How do you handle that? There's obviously plenty of New Testament examples about that. And so several different angles to hit with this week's episode. But, Jack, I will hand it to you as this was once again something that, you know, you kind of brought to the table first. And so what introductory thoughts do you have?
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you guys for finally indulging me and finally humoring you. Yeah, Let us get to this episode. And it's something that I think about because of the Internet, because of the nature of the work we do, because of social media.
You meet the brother More of the brotherhood than people used to in some ways. And so the connection is there that the church shrinks a little bit and the frustration can set in, the disagreements, it can be a little louder, can be a little more common, things like that.
There's the mistreatment. I mean, we did the whole episode on the popes and the brother that they were just dragging through the mud. And it's like, oh, hang on a second, this isn't cool. But I still have to love those people. I've got to love people on both sides of that. I've got to love people I disagree with because they're the brotherhood. They're part of this.
And so we'll talk a little bit later about the social media side of it. This is not necessarily a new thing either. I mean, you can go back and read the periodicals, the magazines, the journals that were written by big names in the restoration movement all the way up, feuding, disagreeing with each other, taking shots at each other. That was the thing we did, the, the non institutional episode. And there was that.
The history of like the disagreement and the, the hurt that's there on both sides and things like that. Like, so this is not really a new thing. And yet the love, the brotherhood command is, Is part of it. And so it's in first Peter, chapter two, verse 17.
And interestingly, as I was studying on this, Peter is the only one who uses this word as such. I said first Peter 2, verse. Yeah, 17 says, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.
And so it is this idea of all the Christians. Paul in Galatians calls it the household of faith. But to Peter, he says the brotherhood.
There's a duty there, but it's not always easy.
It can be kind of challenging.
[00:04:07] Speaker C: We see in First Peter five down. I was just looking it up to build on that, the other place where this is used.
But resist, infirm in your faith, knowing that the exact same experiences or suffering of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. So we're talking worldwide, we're talking to your point, Will not just those that are, you know, shake the hands with, have them in your home, you know, your preacher, your elders, your fellow church members. We are talking broader and that does complicated a lot more. I think back then there was kind of this concept of like, maybe we can work together. They're supporting Paul. We see this in First Corinthians as he goes to take up the, you know, the collection for the saints and the Macedonians. There's The Philippians are putting toward money. And so they're all kind of working to, to help the saints in Jerusalem. And so this, this warmth can be created. Like, man, we're working together with that church in Corinth or that church in Macedonia, and there's a warmth there. And they're sharing letters and greet. So. And so that's the extent of it. That's the extent of it. And so there's a level of loving people, theoretically, from afar.
It is, you know, obviously we want to love the people that are closest to us. Social media does change the game, as we said. You know, we want to get into that because that is a huge part of the discussion. It does change the game of understanding the connections. It makes it a little more.
A little more real. I mean, you get on, you see the mutual friends and it's like, I didn't. They know so and so. Wow, we're pretty connected. And so you're. It's the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever, you know, where you're like two handshakes away from everybody in the church. Christ is what it seems like.
And we want to love the brethren. We want to know what that looks like. This is one of the more. I will just be fully transparent. This is one of the more challenging episodes, I think, from a practical perspective and specifically for, you know, when you've been through some stuff, when you've, when you have. I'm sure I haven't always been thousand percent perfect in the way I, you know, conduct myself. When we certainly have had people that I don't think have been 1000% perfect in the way they've conducted themselves toward us. That creates the challenge and that friction between us as to how do we love those people. So these are again the introductory thoughts, the preliminary thoughts of like, it's still a command. We still have to do it. What does that look like practically when we do disagree on some things, when we have called each other out, whatever it may be.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Just to shed a little more light on the biblical text there, Joe, you read first Peter 5, 9, right, where you just read from?
From my search engine that I'm having. That's the only other place that this Greek word is used in the New Testament is. What I'm seeing is in first Peter 2, 17 and then in first Peter chapter 5, verse 9. I find that interesting.
That's kind of the kind of. Peter's the sole user of that. And as you spoke to Joe, as we kind of get into this first question, this first I Guess not topic, but section that we have about how do you love someone or love a group of people, maybe a subset, whatever it is, and yet disagree with or dislike just about everything they stand for. It is no secret. This podcast has been going on for five years now. I think we're in our fifth year. Is that right? Or in our sixth year, let's see. In our fifth year, I believe about to wrap up our fifth year, there have been a number of things that we have brought to the table that has created or stirred up a lot of disagreement.
And I hope people know that that's never, never the intention. Like, it's not like we're sitting here making a list of, all right, guys, what's really gonna, you know, tick people off today? It's not rage, bait, anything like that. We are just trying to talk about everything. And when you try, when you inevitably, when you talk about everything, you're going to hit things that are just emotionally charged people disagree with. And so again with that, there are a lot of things in the church that, man, you're just going to come to different, different pages on. And it's not just interpretations of biblical texts. Like, we can disagree about Revelation, for instance. You know, a lot of people, there's disagreement on that. Or you can disagree about, you know, for some people, this is a big deal, like new heavens, new Earth, stuff like that. What I'm really talking about, and I think, Jack, you're the one who put this question on there, and what you're getting at is like, we're not just talking about differences in biblical interpretation. We're talking about, man, fundamental differences in the way you raise your kids, fundamental differences in the way your marriage is structured. Not husband, wife, but like, husband roles, wife roles, public school, homeschool, just so many different things that, you know, can come to, can. You know, we've hit before they can come to the surface. And the struggle, and I'll kind of echo Joe here and what the struggle is, this is like, man, that's really difficult in that, yes, we are on the same team. Yes, we are. You know, we both hope. I would hope we both hope to see each other in heaven. And I'm not talking about one person, but just kind of the general populace that would disagree with a lot of the things that we say.
How do you show that love? So that's a really tough question that I will now hand to Jack, since he's the one that put the question on the outline here.
But it's not. This is not unique to Us, like, there are a lot of different, you know, groups, once again, subsets, whatever in the Church of Christ that disagree with each other on a lot. That there's strong. Again, you've even got the word dislike on here. Like they dislikes what, what the other group stands for. How do we navigate those things?
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I think discussing the lay of the land would be helpful. Just so this isn't abstract, but like, people who are listening to us, they like us or what we do on this podcast, most of the people. We've got some people listening who don't like us. Not always, but there's an example that's the kind of thing of like. But a lot of them would call us brothers, but they're like, man, those brothers are wrong about everything.
In the same way, we've got people who, we see their stuff and it's like, no, no, no, no, no. And you've got the kind of right left paradigm people more conservative than you people, more progressive than you people.
Again, all of those topics you introduced will. But the people who embody them. I mean, when we talk about love, the brotherhood, you're talking about loving, you know, Don Blackwell and Aaron Gallagher over at GBN and Loving, Wes McAdams, Loving. We've got the people we're more friendly with, like Marco Arroyo has been on, Jake Hisaw, people like that.
[00:10:05] Speaker C: That's easier.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Where there's not that much disagreement there.
But then some of those other guys we mentioned, there's some pretty strong disagreement. Obviously, the Texas School of Preaching has had their problems with us. Terence Brownlow, Dindy. This is a very broad spectrum that is within the Church of Christ and you can get into the universities. Like, there's, there's the Freed people and the Lipscomb people and the Harding people and the OC people and the, the preaching schools, the Bear Valley people, the Sunset people, the Memphis people. Like, that's a lot of disagreement. That's a lot of looking at each other and going, man, they're wrong about that. And I want people to not do what they're saying and hold to this other teaching.
And yet love, the brotherhood is still there. That can be difficult. Like, where you're almost dedicating your career to saying, I'm trying to teach people not to do what that guy's telling them to do. But I love the guy. We're on the same team. We're like, that's the difficulty in this. And so I think you can love some because we're talking about people within fellowship, right? Like, it's easier to do the love your enemy thing. And I had this scripture on the outline about Matthew 5 where Jesus says, love your enemy, but those are enemies, not people you plan to spend eternity next to, not people that you are in fellowship with on some level. And so that doesn't really. I mean, like, obviously love them still applies, but love your enemy doesn't apply.
This is hard. Like, you. You were supposed to love each other. But that doesn't mean we can't dislike what the other guy teaches and really be trying to oppose it publicly.
[00:11:40] Speaker C: I think that that first Peter 2 passage is key here to go back to that where we're drawing from, because it's sandwiched. Love, the brotherhood is sandwiched between two really important things. In verse 17, honor all people. So, you know, you look that one up and this is not to get too heady about these things. But the first thing is to set a price on. To estimate, to value, right? To show high regard for honor, revere. So you are valuing all people. You're seeing that they all have inherent value.
On the back end is fear God. You're getting that relationship with God, right? And recognizing God is somebody to, yes, revere, to fear, to be in terror of, but also to respect like he is God. And so you get your relationship with God, right?
When you're honoring all people, you're esteeming them and you're valuing all people or seeing the value that they have because they are creations of God.
Sandwiched in the middle of that is love, the brotherhood. And I think this is where the big concepts have to come in, is the concepts of grace. I heard a great lesson one time where the brother was saying, I don't. Maybe not a brother. I don't remember. It was a lesson from somebody, and he was saying, you have to walk in. And this goes for, like, marriage or anything. I'm the biggest sinner in the room.
I'm the biggest sinner in the room. And the purpose of that. And I just. There. I can quibble over that to some degree. But the purpose, by and large, humility. Humble yourself. Humility, correct. To humble yourself. And to say, hey, I have been saved from a great deal.
So these people. And so we start on that playing field to say that Christ is seeing all of this and he is looking to forgive. You know, looking to extend the forgiveness to everybody. I can take care of myself. I don't know what everybody else is doing. I can't dictate those things, but I will value them. I will fear God and He tells me to love other people and God has created them, you know, and loves them more than I love them. And so how do I mimic that? And I think the fact that that's the kind of sandwiched in between those two things, in my opinion is important.
It follows or this train of thought of valuing what God values, you know what I mean? And I think that when we consider the brotherhood, we're valuing the church, we're valuing the Terrence Brownlow Dindies, we're valuing the. Even if we don't always value the work that they do and every take that they have, we're valuing them as human beings and, and as people who have been saved from, you know, from their sins, the same way that I've been saved from my sins. And there's a value placed on that. So I don't know what your guys thoughts are, but that's what comes to mind with this honoring all people type stuff.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Well, I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, but sometimes somebody would reduce that to, well, yeah, I want to see him in heaven. Like, well, yeah, you want to see everybody in heaven. I mean, we want to see.
Right. And so, you know, it goes beyond that to like, no, this is the brotherhood. This is family. And like, I fully believe the Bible teaches we are to have a greater love for our fellow Christians than anybody out in the world. Like, it starts internally, you know, once again, Galatians 6 of do good to all men, but especially the household of faith. Like, start here, put them first, John 13, you know, like all of those things. And so it is above just, I hope they're saved. I hope everybody's saved. But like, I need to have more of an affection for these people, despite the disagreements.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: What's tricky about it too. And Joe, looks like you got a thought if you want to. Sorry, I was just going to go for the rebuttal there.
[00:14:57] Speaker C: Yeah, it's more than that. It's more, it's. It's valuing them as human beings, valuing the, you know, them as Christians and recognizing, once again, I don't have to agree with everything to value, yes, their place in heaven. But also everybody serves a role in the church. I don't know what role specifically I serve and what role they serve, but everybody serves a role because we're all valued by God. And so from an Ephesians 4 perspective, like we're.
We all have a part to play a role to fill, a part of the body to embody and the Value that's placed on us. I don't get to determine that that is given by God. That's more what I'm talking about. It's not just a heaven based thing. But I know what you're saying. We want to get a little more practical than just that.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: But we'll just to go back to the text one more time.
It's interesting to me that just that verse 17 as there's kind of four imperatives there. Four things that are given.
Two of them, the new King James has the word honor. Honor everyone at the beginning and then honor the emperor at the end.
Those are obviously going to be more zoomed out, right? Those are going to be, you know, even people who are outside the church. I mean, submitting to the kind of authorities and the government is really the kind of the context here. But sandwiched in between those two things are two like the brotherhood and God. It goes far beyond just honoring. There's a more unique command that is given. And for God, obviously it's fear. You don't just honor God, you fear God. I think that's a, an important distinction there. But then, yeah, it's honor everyone, but then love the brotherhood.
And that's where the, the trickiness can come in here. So I just wanted to point that out of like, you know, God and the brotherhood, there is a step above honor that we are to bestow on them. Again, God is due obviously love as well. But fear, there's a fear element there. We honor the, the emperor, the king. We honor everybody, you know, honor all. But we love the brotherhood.
Where this gets tricky and just to relate it to what you guys were talking about, about, do we want to see them in heaven? Of course we want to see everybody in heaven.
What do you do when you can confidently say, I think maybe this group of people is going to.
We're going to see them in heaven. And we really try on this podcast. And I would say not to speak for y', all, but even in our outside of the podcast lives, to not play judge on who we think is going to end up in heaven or not. But what about when people pretty clearly like don't think they're gonna see us in heaven? Like then, then how do you, how do you kind of square that circle of like, man, we think we're on the same team.
You don't think we're on the same team? And so I think that presents some challenges. One of the things that, that I'm really striving to work on both just within our you know, daily fellowship with our congregation within, but even within stuff like this. And it's kind of the second thing Jack's got on here, giving people the benefit of the doubt. And that can be really hard, giving people the benefit of the doubt in the sense of, like, man, it can be really easy to take somebody's worst moment or worst take or worst belief or whatever it is and kind of, I don't know, like, see them through that lens and that lens only, as opposed to, you know, man, we really disagree about that. Maybe, maybe there's more to it that I don't understand. Maybe. And not. Not to discount it, especially if it's that, because this is. Again, I'm not trying to bring up a billion different angles here. There are some ideas and takes that need to be called out. As Jack spoke to the episode we did earlier in the year about kind of the popes and the Church of Christ, there was a lot of behavior going on that needed to be called out. And I think that's where loving the brotherhood does not mean that we just kind of sit idly by and let that stuff happen. I think loving the brotherhood is calling those things out. But my point is, when it comes to, again, people we disagree with or the church at large, there's an element of giving people the benefit of the doubt and not seeing them through their worst belief or their worst moment or whatever it is that it's one of those. I would want people to give me the same. You know, we've had stuff on our podcast before, both of us, where people hear it, and it's immediately, man, they jump to the worst case scenario, worst conclusion, all these guys, this and that. It's like, man, I really wish you to listen to the last four years and let us build up some equity with you and, you know, give us a little bit of benefit out. Like, we're good guys, you know, we've got very happy marriages, got, you know, we're family guys, we're fun, you know, all those things. Not that people need to know all that, but it's like, that's what I would want people to extend to me. And so that's one of the things, mentally, I'm trying to do a whole lot better job of is, you know, operate from that premise, I guess. And I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on that. Jack, again, you're kind of the one that put that one down.
I obviously think that's really important in this context.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it gets very easy to, like, have a Label over people's heads with the belief. Oh, that's the, the word only holy spirit guy. Oh, that's the guy who believes such and such about the afterlife. That's the guy who believes or you know, one that I, I've had. What's that?
[00:19:49] Speaker C: Egalitarian. Sorry.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know that, that one there, I, I'd have a little bit.
There's. Because there's the beliefs, there's like, okay, I have to disagree with you and like publicly and make it known that I disagree. And then the ones where it's like, well, he thinks that I'd oak whatever, you know, like.
But one that I've had repeated run ins over the years is the Anabaptist David Lipscombite kind of view of anti politics, the political differences. Jesus Kingdom is not of this world, therefore we should just sit back and let it fall to pieces. And it's like, well, and I'm caricaturing them. I'm not very nice. I get frustrated with their take on those things. But they're brothers.
Some of them have had lunch with these people and that stuff just doesn't matter in that moment. But it's very easy to think of them as, oh, he's the guy who thinks that and he's wrong about that. And I disagree with him on that. And like that's that you've typecast the person is the, again, as we said, the worst belief, the worst act. The thing they said that you disagreed with the most.
And it gets even harder when somebody like almost disagrees with you on everything. Like the whole thing. We had the episode a few years ago of like, how to know a church has been captured.
There are some captured churches, we would argue churches that just see the world through critical theory, Marxism rather than through a biblical framework. And I think that's really bad. But then again, these. We're still talking about brothers. We're still talking about people who we think are just turned the wrong way. And so it's.
I don't know. How do you keep from seeing someone through their worst belief? Like, you do have to come back to it is a human being. As Joe was talking about earlier. There's that value, but also what Will was asking people to extend to us. You know what? Probably a pretty good dude. If I had lunch with him. Probably a pretty good dude. You know, his wife and kids love him, his church family loves him. There is that side of it as well. And I'm going to bring in one of the verses I wrote down, the Philippians One where Paul says some preach from selfish ambition, strife, all those things.
But I can rejoice that Christ is preached.
That's the bottom line that comes out of it is if people are being brought to Christ by what this person is doing. Paul clearly had issues with what these guys were doing, but came back to or with their motives, their approach or whatever. But Christ is preached. So that's the important thing at the bottom line of it. And I think that is something that is important to remind ourselves in these discussions.
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[00:23:03] Speaker C: I also think to come back to the social media thing, that does play a huge role because your point is very valid about going to lunch sitting across the table from these people. It's really hard to hate people. And you'll see this in general, like if you have a friend where you have a falling out, you don't talk for a little while, the monster grows in your mind, right? And you end up like, man, this person's really. And then you get in front of them, you go, we do this with our spouses from time to time too. You know, you're, you're sniping back and forth on text all day. Maybe it's your work, whatever it may be. And it's like, and you get home, it's like, man, you hear the tone of voice, you see him, you're around them, you're in their presence and things just kind of mellow to some degree. And I think that would change a lot of the love of the brotherhood in this situation is being able to actually have a conversation to break bread across the table and to say, hey, differences or not, I'm fine working on the differences and hashing those out. If they're Interested, but also just being near somebody and bringing them into the human realm. It's easy to vilify somebody rather than humanize somebody. And when we're talking about loving the brotherhood, I think we have to humanize them and see they're flawed. I'm flawed. The difficulty is how far.
This is one of the reasons I think I've avoided this episode. I'll be quite honest, I don't know how far to go with that.
Where does this break?
Where. Okay, we disagree on too much. We, you know, you continue to tell me I'm going to hell and therefore, I don't know. We have what I brought up a second ago. Yeah, correct. That genuinely think that there is. Is there a breaking point? And I'm not saying obviously it's a command to love the brotherhood. Is the loving the brotherhood intended to be on the personal level for every last person in the church, or are there people that you can disagree with or dislike more base off of certain things and still be brothers? My, you know, Paul and Mark come to mind. John Mark and having a split with Barnabas over Mark. And, you know, Paul clearly doesn't seem to be Mark's biggest fan. And yet they're still brothers. Barnabas splits from him. That's where Silas comes in.
So all four of them are Brother Paul, Silas, Barnabas, John Mark, they're all brethren.
Nobody's outside the church. On the other hand, there's a very real struggle in that moment. Is there a moment where it's pushed too far or where that does break?
[00:25:19] Speaker B: I'll give my two cents on that. I mean, the John Mark thing in the Paul and Barnabas disagreement over John Mark I think is instructive in a lot of ways.
The first thing that I'll say is from my interpretation of it, it seems like the solution was we're both going to go serve God or serve Christ and spread the gospel, but we can't do it together. It's just going to work because of this disagreement.
And again, we. We don't get insight into really like who was right and who was wrong, which I think is interesting. We don't see, like, from best we can tell, it seems like Paul was really bothered because John Mark had left them on a prior journey, kind of abandoned them type of thing. And he's like, you know what? We're not doing that again.
Again, you don't want to read too much into like the fanfiction side of things, but like, there's implications that Barnabas was related to John Mark and so probably had a little bit of a more forgiving tilt towards him.
And then obviously, I think what's most interesting about it is that later on it seems Paul has re embraced John Mark. I think it's second Timothy where he positively commends John Mark. And with that being one of Paul's last letters, you can reasonably assume that it happened after the split. So the. That's the one. One thing I would challenge. You know, not challenge you, Joe, but like it seems like they worked it out. It seems. Seemed like there was a understanding of like we are on the same team. Maybe we still need to do it from afar because we just don't click whatever it is. And that's what I was going to get at.
Which doesn't completely answer your question. Because man, when you disagree on not just A and B but A through G, like you, you disagree on just about it. Like how do you coexist? But I think there is an element of like man, we just see this particular issue differently. We don't click whatever it is.
You go minister over here, I'll go minister over here. That type.
[00:27:10] Speaker C: And maybe, maybe here's the question.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: Go ahead.
[00:27:12] Speaker C: Sorry, sorry. Maybe here's the question, how deep does the love go?
Because we can all say we're brethren in Christ. It's my point earlier, right. Value. I can understand their value. I can understand I've been saved, they've been saved.
But by and large this sounds really mean. That's shallow to a certain degree. And the fact that yeah, we can brethren, but right. Like we want to increase that level with this. Which is why they were sharing, you know, having meals with one another, having all things in common, devoting themselves past teaching all those things. And that what that was creating was a depth of relationship and a depth of the church.
That's my struggle in this is how. How much depth are we expected to have with somebody that we do disagree on when we are every single time we try to create a level of depth, we end up doing this. Do you just call it quits and not kick them out of church? It's not our role to do so. But you just call it quits and say, look, we're just gonna have to agree to disagree. You're a brother in Christ and we just end it there, or do we continue to lean in to try to fix it, to try to love them in a more specific way other than just the mental ascent of we're both on our way to heaven. Good for you. You know, Philippians one, even if I disagree with you. Christ is proclaimed and. And go from there. It seems shallow to me, but I'm struggling on the depth in that situation.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: I don't think.
I don't think we have to. I think there is a degree of it's okay to go. You go minister over there, I'll go minister over here. And while maintaining the love, not like, get away from me, but just one of those, like, man, this ain't working out. And I think that's what Paul and Barnabas came to is like, we can't force this.
I want to do it this way. You want to do it this way.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: The text says that the contention became so sharp.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Right?
Right. Yeah, There's. You can tell, like, this didn't go over well, you know, and it's kind of funny, like, to Will's point about the fan fiction, to me, it perfectly fits the. The personalities we see of both of them. Barnabas, the encourager, he's like, oh, man, let's give another chance. And Paul, like, hey, if you're not about it, no put up or shut up kind of thing, you know, like, that's. That fits both of them, you know, and so there is a degree which you can look at it be like, maybe this was going to happen anyway. And now you've got, you know, Barnabas going to do work with John, Mark, that's kind of divide and conquer. Now you've got them going in different ways. Paul takes on Silas, another guy brought into the work, and God blessed it. God worked through both of them. And as we see, you know, Paul connects with Mark later, and so it's. He's able to bury that hatchet. But it doesn't say he reconnected with Barnabas. That's okay.
And so with things like this, I think we have to be okay with the, you know, what Christ has preached. You do your work over there, I'm going to do my work over here.
The part, but to Joe's point, when
[00:29:55] Speaker B: the work seems to be in conflict.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say. The part that makes it harder is I'm going to teach this.
You're going to teach the opposite. And I think part of it is the church autonomy thing. I can't tell. So and so, hey, you're not allowed to preach that at your church. And he can't tell us. We can't say these things and things like that.
I think there's another degree where it's like, all right, well, let's just see the fruits. Let's See what plays out. Like, essentially, I want the ideologies of the things that we teach and speak on this podcast, and I write about that we preach about when we get the chance. I want those to win. I want those to be what the church holds, because I believe it's what the Bible teaches. I believe we are taking back a church that has been captured by a culture that is astray from God. And I think I see in some pulpits, as. I mean, we had the episode title, when your church is captured, that's a pretty strong charge to say for what has happened to these churches.
And so, yeah, I don't.
The feminism in their pulpits, the secularism, the therapeutic nature that has downplayed sin. I see these things and it's like, no, man, that's awful.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Problematic. Yeah.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: On the other hand, what can I even do about it?
Can I extend a personal disfellowship? No.
Can I call and try and get the guy fired?
You can, but, like, that's. Don't do that.
Or you can just say, I think he's wrong, you know, and. And, well, then. Okay, register that and then move on. Doing your work, I think, is all you can do.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Step down.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Just kidding. Yeah. No, yeah, that's a.
This is where the John Mark Paul analogy seems to fall apart a little bit, because, again, we don't know fully what the disagreement specifically was about.
Didn't seem to be over doctrine. It did not seem to be over, you know, something that was like, we there. It didn't seem to result in Barnabas and John Mark teaching something different than what Paul and Silas were teaching is where. Is where the struggle.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: Because the other.
The other big clash is Paul and Peter in Galatians. Right. And that is. He says, Peter stands condemns, like, stands condemned. I posed him to his face in front of all, calling out the sin of dividing the church. And so that is a totally different matter than, let's bring this guy. Let's not bring this guy.
[00:32:15] Speaker C: Right. Philippians 1 speaks to this a little bit, which is they're preaching him in selfishness, clearly, for selfish gain. And I think there's, you know, that may be the closest of what we're talking about of, like, we disagree with, and it's not a one for one, but, like, it's a little bit stronger than, hey, we just had a bit of a disagreement. Like, no, they're actively preaching Christ for selfish gain, but to some degree, Christ is being proclaimed. Christ is being, you know, pushed. And Jack, you're right. In the fact that I think the fruits will dictate whether something sticks around or not. And so the concept of, if we are wrong, this won't stick around very long, in my opinion. And if they're wrong, vice versa, you know, it's not going to stick around. Like, we'll see what ends up coming through. I don't think we're wrong. And, well, that's kind of a no duh statement, as they say. Like, and I would imagine they'd say the same exact thing. I don't think we're wrong, otherwise we wouldn't believe it. And so, yeah, we think that this is the right way to go about things.
I think we have to be able. The autonomy point is really key.
I have to let you.
Sometimes it's the old adage, I'll let you be wrong, but there is that level to it of, okay, if this is an active danger, we're talking a Galatians 2 situation that needs to be called out, which is why the popes and the Church. I think that is a Galatians 2 moment. That is a, hey, you stand condemned. You cannot do this. And people go, whoa, do you think you're the Apostle Paul? No, I think I'm a brother in Christ who's concerned about the. The nature of another brother who's. Who's trying to drag another brother through the mud. So you are standing for the brotherhood, to your point earlier, Will. So I think that falls into Galatians, too. A lot of these other things is like, can we allow people to be wrong and vice versa for them thinking the same about us, can they allow us to be wrong without us taking pot shots? That's where the love really goes south.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: So, again, five years of this podcast, we've put forth our ideas into the, you know, into the atmosphere, the ethos. That's what I was looking for. And, you know, people can take them or leave them. That's fine. I mean, we've said before, like, we just started this because we enjoy talking. It's, like, cool. We'll put it out there. And we appreciate people who listen.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Isn't it?
[00:34:19] Speaker B: How much?
[00:34:19] Speaker A: I'm sorry, it's ether.
[00:34:22] Speaker C: Okay. Ether.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Sorry, I. I can't help myself. Go ahead.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: This guy.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Go ahead.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: My goodness, my goodness.
Really struggling to love this brotherhood right now.
My question was, I just don't want
[00:34:35] Speaker A: us to sound stupid, that's all.
[00:34:37] Speaker C: Appreciate that. We do that every week.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: I'll never get over the penultimate one from the Bible draft episode.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: I'm still shook by that one.
[00:34:43] Speaker C: I tell you what.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I think about it all the time now. Like, I go to use it in everyday, everyday sentences.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: See what I've helped you with? You know, like, you didn't even know.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: That's right, that's right.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: I totally derailed that point. I'm sorry. Pick it up.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Okay.
I was tagging onto Joe's thought of, like, we put our ideas out. How much should we be trying to change people's mind?
How. How much should we be trying to. And that's where they're like, well, I'll just let you be wrong, you know, or we'll, we'll agree, disagree thing that implies, okay, you're gonna kind of, I don't know, like mellow out a little bit on this stuff. And obviously I don't, I don't think we should. Like, Jack, you're gonna keep posting and writing articles. We're gonna keep podcasting Joe, we're gonna keep releasing gym episodes. Like, we're gonna keep putting those ideas out there. But I think a lot about. So we've been referencing Philippians one a lot. Philippians lot to say on this at the start where, you know, Paul says, if there's any, if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love is verse one. Any participation in the spirit, any affection, sympathy, complete my joy. By what being of the same mind.
We could go round and round about what all that means. And I don't think that means that you've got to be of the same mind about whether or not there's going to be a new heaven, a new earth. I don't think that's what that means.
But how far does that extend? Being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full of. In full accord. And he says it again, of one mind. And then he goes on to the very well known section about not looking out for the interest of others, doing nothing from your own self interest, essentially that Christ had the same mind also.
Beautiful rich passage there. But I wanted to highlight that first section.
Paul says, complete my joy by being of the same mind. Does that mean, and let's get real about the stuff that we talk about. Does that mean that we have to change people's mind about, I don't know, masculinity and femininity roles or whatever it is? Or does it mean that, hey, so and so's marriage might always run different than we believe, the way the Bible prescribes. Maybe the wife runs the show, you know, whatever it is, parents that, you know Kind of relax on raising their kids and let the government schools raise them. Whatever it is, we strongly disagree with that.
Does that mean we're not of the same mind or is that not what Paul is talking about? I mean, these are the practical questions that I'm kind of struggling with as we're working through these things. As like my gut says at some point we just gotta, you know, again, like that they're gonna have that belief and we're gonna have our belief and we go on from there. What are yalls thoughts on that and how that breaks down?
[00:37:05] Speaker A: It's easy to just say, Ah, Romans 14. And some people do that with some of those issues. You just brought up Romans 14. So we shouldn't even talk about it. You just do your thing, I'll do mine and there's really no difference or whatever.
[00:37:14] Speaker C: And it's.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: And I think, obviously I think we should talk about it. That's what makes it challenging.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: And I don't think they are Romans 14 things where it's a matter of opinion. I think it's matters of wisdom. And you.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Discernment.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, discernment. And we bring up all the time, Hebrews 5 and 6 where he's talking about milk and meat and training your discernment, knowing right and wrong, things like that.
There are some choices that are more wise than others. There are. And like obviously to Joe's point, we think the things that we're teaching are the more wise ways of doing it. And people always go, well, you can't bind that. Didn't say we could. I said it's the better way to do it. Good, better, best. I mean these are, think deeper meat and potatoes kind of stuff we talk about all the time.
And so when we get on and we say, yeah, man, that guy is teaching a pretty feminist view of marriage. Or those people, their view of kids and child rearing is not aligned with the Bible. It's more aligned with modernity. And that's a problem.
That's not saying he's going to hell. That's not saying we're binding our view on him. That's not saying all these other things. That is saying, hey, I think test the fruits of this. But I think the wise path is this way and your life will be better. Or the political stuff, like it's a long term thing. And I'm like, you are destroying.
You're making it so much harder on your kids and grandkids when you do it this way. And I think it's really awful that people are not thinking about the downstream consequences of their bury the head in the sand approach.
Does that mean they're not Christians? No, but I like.
It's very much. I view it's my job in part to try and rouse them from that slumber, but also if I can't get them to show other people. Okay, but there's an alternative. You don't, you know, you heard what that guy had to say. Now let's say what this guy, you know, or here's what I have to say about that. And I think the Bible teaches or whatever, I still love that guy. Like, it's still okay with that guy because you come back to the foundational things that make you call him a brother. That when you go back to that term in 1 Peter 2:17, the brotherhood.
What gives us brotherhood, faith in Jesus Christ. Our sins washed away in Jesus Christ. As Joe was saying, those value things that we have, that is a very thick thing to have in common.
But it's a foundation. You still have to build on the foundation. And I think Paul talks about that in First Corinthians, about what kind of foundation are you building?
And so we're circling this all the way back to what I had said a bit ago about competing ideas of, like, he puts forth his, we're going to put forth ours. I look at that as Paul's thing about building. Like some people are building. It's kind of the Three Little Pigs thing with brick and with. With mortar, and some people are building with wood and some people are building with straw. I look at him like, man, he's building with straw. And I don't think it's good. But in that same passage, Paul says, the guy's still saved.
He's just not going to have anything to show for the work there.
[00:40:09] Speaker C: His works get burned up. Yeah.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: You know, and I'm saying.
I'm not. Just briefly, I'm not saying, well, we're clearly building with brick. And they're. Well, I mean, I got the. The visual for you right there. But I'm just saying, like, that that's what we're aiming for is to be the ones building with brick. And so we're gonna see it and go, well, those people are wrong, so that must be the straw. Well, they're looking at us going, they're building on straw. They're stuck in the past. They're, you know, like all those things.
Everyone's trying to build something they think is durable and will bear the fruit. Sorry, Joe, go ahead.
[00:40:40] Speaker C: No, you're good.
There's so many questions to go along with this, because the key question kind of arises, like, let's say, how do you know you're right? Like, how does the average guy know that they are right? Because when you do get the.
We get it from both sides. We get the liberals thinking that we are way too conservative and staunch and stuck in the past. We get the ultra conservatives saying we are way too liberal. We allow way too much stuff.
In my opinion, that kind of tells me we're probably where I need to be, which is down the middle, you know, trying to. To navigate and steer the ship in a way that is brick. Right. That we're building in a positive way.
But I do worry about that of like the. The how do you know whether you're right? You can't just take it from everybody else. You're trying to find it based on truth. You're trying to find it based on the Bible. Well, so are they.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Did you write an article on this? If anyone wants to go check that out?
[00:41:25] Speaker C: Did you.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Which side is biblical? So just a brief, shameless plug there.
[00:41:29] Speaker C: So there you go. So I'll check that one out.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: News to Joe.
[00:41:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I was gonna say I'll be one of those. I usually read almost all your articles.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: So there you go.
[00:41:35] Speaker C: I don't know how I missed that one, but either way.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: And.
[00:41:38] Speaker C: And so that is. So maybe you can speak to this since you just the guy that wrote the article on it. But that's the difficulty when they're claiming they're standing on scripture. Once again, my works are standing. Your works aren't, you know, and that's what they say. And so if you take it based off of who's mad at you, man, you'll be waffling all over the place. And I think this is why so much church trauma, quote, unquote, why so many people leave the church, is that they do base it on other people. When they catch wind that somebody is upset with them, whatever, it just torpedoes their faith. Well, we're not advocating that, obviously, but that is a difficult thing. If everybody's against you, that may be time to step back and just in humility go, hey, what's going on here? On the other hand, if everybody's against you, but everybody is coming from a, let's say, a feminist perspective or a critical theory perspective or whatever else you may have a lot of people against you. Doesn't make you wrong. So to me, Jack, since you wrote the article, I suppose you can speak to that. How would you help the average guy who, and I know this, taken it a little bit out of the realm here. But in terms of love in the brotherhood, I think you have to be strong enough in your own faith to end up loving other people in their faith. And a lot of people aren't strong enough on their own because they're kind of wondering, are they right? And if they do catch any flak, I think it buckles them to some degree. And yeah, it hurts. We've been there. It does hurt.
How does somebody determine that
[00:42:56] Speaker A: in depth, but easy to understand, that's how. War in heaven. War on earth. What the book of Revelation meant to the original readers and what it means for us today has been described. An Amazon reviewer said it was the best commentary on Revelation he had read in 50 years. Bradley Cobb spent literally thousands of hours researching and putting together this material, showing how first century Christians, the ones the book was written to, would have understood the book, how it matches with the rest of the Bible, and how it was something that was about to happen when John wrote it. Thoroughly biblical in his approach, including the dating of the book and supported with first century history, this 550 page book does not gloss over any details and includes points of application throughout each of the book's 48 studies. Great for personal study or for a year long Bible class. Available on Amazon.com in hardcover, paperback or Kindle.
Yeah, I mean that's what we're all trying to figure out. So my points to give everyone the brief rundown was which view best synthesizes the scriptures? I used this in my baptism debate with Jeremiah Nortier, that we can look at it and go, you know, Ephesians 2, 8, 10, Romans 10, 9, 10, Acts 2, 38, 1st Peter 3, 21, all the above. And he has to look at it and go, well, this one trumps this one. And he's pitting scriptures against each other. You want to look at a view and go, well, which one uses all of the available scriptures and which one is cutting, throwing away puzzle pieces was the illustration I used. And so on. Something like feminism and marriage or the husband's supposed to submit to the wife too? Well, it doesn't say that in scriptures. And so you look at everything that it says about men and women, who's teaching all of those verses and who is going, well, I know it says she has to submit to him, but so there's one example of that. Then another one was which one is the novel belief? Which one is the thing that people haven't believed for very long? The newly Introduced one, I think that's a pretty important one to look at is just things pop up and things pop up, like the servant leadership thing that sound ancient, sound like they go back to the beginning.
They really don't. They're pretty new.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: Gentle parenting.
[00:44:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:57] Speaker A: Gentlemen as well. Yeah, yeah. Things like that. It's a pretty new idea. No matter what terminology it uses, it's very new. And then third, what are the fruits of it? Where you can see the fruits that are born of it? That's huge. Yeah, I mean, that's. The Bible points us to that all the time. And on each of those things, gentle parenting, feminism, things like that, it becomes very clear when you apply those standards. And so you do that. And so to bring it back around, I look at some of these ideas that articles I read, podcast, you know, videos that are out there. I'm like, what are you guys doing? This is awful. This is harming people. It's bad. It fails all of these tests. You're not using all the scriptures. The fruits of it have already proven to be terrible.
I think there's one we haven't said yet. You pray for those people. You pray that they'll come to the light. You pray their teaching will not resonate with people and gain a foothold. But you also don't want it to be selfish ambition of, like, no, I need the audience. I need them coming to me, like, because that's what it looks like to a lot of people. And so it's very complicated.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: Well, sorry, Joe, you might have a thought to add to that. I wanted to get us into, as we're kind of getting somewhat close to time here, a really big element of this that we've kind of alluded to a couple times, and that is social media.
I think social media. Social media makes this a lot more difficult to do because it's not just that.
I mean, social media, there's benefit, right? There's blessing in that. You can't connect with Christians from states away, right around the nation. Obviously, we just. Polishing the pulpit just happened. That's obviously something that is very widely recognized as something that is a positive thing, because Christians can come together, people they haven't seen in a long time, and it's a big family reunion, essentially, right? Social media, you could look at it and say that that has helped us with loving the brotherhood, because, again, you're able to connect with people a lot more.
The reason that I think it has actually harmed us in this effort to love the brotherhood is because of what you guys Brought up earlier, it is a lot easier to attack somebody or view them in a negative light from behind a screen, from, you know, it's a simple thing as like man, listening to a podcast is a whole lot different than reading the transcript of a podcast. If you're reading the transcript, it can come across a whole lot different than if you actually listened to the tone, listen to the way in which it was said. Right.
Very similarly, obviously. And there's the classic age old example of sending an email that did not come across the right way because of the, you know, capitalization or whatever it is versus you say it to them in person. The exact same thing. My point is the exact same thing can happen and often does happen over social media becomes very easy for people to turn into villains, people to turn into to targets, people, you know, that's that group or whatever it is.
And that's because it's. Social media is a world where we put our ideas out there a lot and some more than others. I'm not somebody who does very often, Joe. I know you don't either, Jack. You do a lot. There's a lot of other people that do a lot put their views out there and can kind of argue and go back and forth with people and so my take. And then I'll hand it to you, Joe, I'm curious as kind of the other, not necessarily antisocial media, but very inactive social media users sometimes.
How do.
Do you agree with that? That I do think it has harmed our efforts to love the brotherhood? Because I don't know, there's just so much. You can see the worst in people. So much more over social media, I think would be my take.
[00:48:22] Speaker C: I agree, I agree. I think it's easier to.
It's just easier to love people when you. This sounds really mean when you.
There's depth of love here. It's easier to love people from afar and to love the brotherhood, the collective group of a brotherhood when you don't necessarily know where everybody stands on every last single issue because it allows you to align on the things that you are close with, the things that do bind you together and draw you close to one another. The moment that you open that can of worms and start spewing everything is the moment that you start testing that level of fellowship and start testing the love for the brethren. So it can be done, but you just have tests, massive tests that are thrown out there every single day now for true love, like a depth of love. Of course you're going to want to share these thoughts and that's kind of what social media is for, is, can we agree on some of these things? The problem is we're finding over and over, no, we can't. And so it's throwing tests every single day saying, what about this? What about this? What about this? What about this?
Where it's helpful? And so to seal me on the other side, Jack, this is where you'd come from, I think, is that you are throwing out there into the marketplace of ideas.
You're throwing out there things that can uplift the Brethren. They can build each other up. They can cause people to think a little different about the decisions they make. And if we talk somebody out of sending their kids to government schools, they decide to homeschool the kids and we happen to have. I'm not saying it's happened, but if that happened to be the case, great, then it's all been worth it, in my opinion. I think that's fantastic. Things along those lines, the ideas do change people's minds. So to that degree, social media can be helpful.
But every single time you post a thought, you are throwing it out there and potentially testing the bounds of Christian love, Christian. Christian care. And you're bringing it to a different depth. And the question is, can we accept that depth?
Are we. Are we willing to go to that depth and love one another even at our worst, quote unquote, even at the most disagree, disagreeable point, will we still love one another? I don't have to think about that nine times out of ten, but I jump on social media and I have to think about that nine times out of ten. Right. It inverts.
So I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kind of my thoughts on that. But, Jack, you are the social media user.
What are your thoughts on that?
[00:50:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I very much hate that my career path has brought me to where I have to be on there as much as I do and just putting things out for discussion, reaching out to people. I mean, I say that. I also.
I've met so many great people. I've got people messaging me every day about things we put on the podcast, things I write, things that like and discussing the ideas. And I think that's really great.
And other times, I've had very cordial debates with people that we're talking about, and it helps me love the brethren a little better, where it's like, all right, we don't see eye to eye. That's a cool guy. Then you've got people who just come in like just taking shots at you. It's like, I'm sorry, we've never met, like, what, what's going on? Like, take it easy, you know, like it's, it's not necessary. But on the other hand, I kind of do the same things like, oh, that's that guy, the guy who says this, that or the other thing. And as I said earlier, you know, knowing them by their worst take, that's not fair to them, you know, like, go to their profile for a minute, click around. They, they got a family, they got a life there. A lot of times what you're going to find is, especially among ministers, this guy's preaching at a church, they baptized somebody last month, things like that.
All right, you know what, that's pretty cool. That's I, you know, happy to see that. You go to the Philippians. One thing once again, you know, the Christ is being preached and so the, but social media, again, it's, it, it's done a lot of good. But there are these things that it introduces where it is your people become their ideas and that's it, that's all you know them by is their ideas. And so we've got people who really, really like us until we have an episode where we say that a thing. We cross an idea that they don't like.
Alright, they're done. That's it. You know, we were the idea guys and they liked all of our ideas. Now they don't like that idea. So they're done, they're out. Like, man, you wouldn't do that with somebody in your church building. You wouldn't do that with somebody in your family, in your neighborhood or whatever. Like, oh, that guy believes such and such. Well, I'm never talking to him again. But you do online. And so it definitely makes the love, the brotherhood challenge a lot harder.
[00:52:45] Speaker C: Well, let me ask you this because we've kind of danced around this.
How do we love people from afar? Because I know that sounds like that's what we've been trying to flesh out. But genuinely brass tacks. We've mentioned a couple praying for them, obviously, benefit of the doubt. We mentioned, I think giving them the benefit of the doubt and not putting them. Jack, to your point, you just said not putting them in a box that they can't get out of or a box that they wouldn't put themselves in. You know, I think those are some general principles as to if you are telling somebody, here's how you love the brethren, specifically somebody you disagree with and don't get along with yes, it's broader than we hope to see them in heaven. Yes, we're praying for them. We try to give them, give them the benefit of the doubt. Another piece might be we're not taking potshots. We are controlling our tongue and we're controlling how we engage with them in a God honoring way.
I think that's legitimate. What else might we do to show our love for the brethren, especially from afar? Is there anything else that comes to your guys mind?
[00:53:46] Speaker B: That's a really good list. I mean, I think I'll go back to what I talked about earlier is kind of the benefit of the doubt thing. The other thing we've got to have a little bit thicker of a skin when it comes to disagreements. And that's not really answering your question, Joe, but I think that is kind of a practical.
As I'm thinking of just kind of like action items, so to speak is just be a little bit less sensitive when there is disagreement.
Kind of maybe a silly example. There's.
I listened to, you know, a couple guys, I like to listen to sports podcasts at times and I listen to a couple guys who are fairly liberal in their politics and I don't care because I'm listening to them for their sports takes. Right. And there's an element of, you know, being able to not have that in that insecure. Man, they disagree with me about this. I'm done, I'm out of here, you know, to take my ball and go home thing.
And we've gotta. This is where you've got to be able to differentiate between, you know, the people that, you know, are going to put out ideas. Like, man, I really think we should be okay with homosexual people and stuff like that. That's just obviously anti biblical versus I disagree on some of these smaller things.
Joe, I really like your list, you know, not taking potshots, making sure that we are praying for them, making sure that we are, you know, doing everything that we can. Once again, the insecurity thing, I'll bring up. Not giving people the benefit of the doubt being less volatile, I guess would be another thing that I would add of yes. Putting our ideas out there and not saying, you know, back down on things, but maybe being a little bit less volatile on a few things is the other thing that comes to mind. But Jack, I'm curious if you've got any thoughts to add to that?
[00:55:27] Speaker A: The volatile thing, that's a tough one because you just get into the back and forth with people and it's very difficult and you think about what James says about the tongue. And man, it doesn't matter what other discipline you have, the tongue is a hard one to keep in check.
The keyboard is even harder than the tongue.
But you also go back to First John. Or if you. You can't say you love God if you're not loving the brother that you're talking to. And those things are very convicting. So when it comes to love, the brotherhood, you can come back to just at the end of all of those.
This is brother in Christ, I have to love them. I'm commanded. Because that's the other thing about this First Peter text is it's a command.
And it's as much of a command as Jesus saying love one another in John 13.
And so remembering that I have to do this whether I want to or not, whether they're driving me crazy or not, I have to love them in some way doesn't mean, as we've established through this whole thing, that I can't disagree with them, that I can't push people to go the opposite direction that they're going any of those things to tell them to their face, hey, you're wrong about that and I'm going to push back. That's all fine. But there's got to be the love underneath it that just is the foundation for the whole thing, is a reminder to fall back on. But one thing before we finish I wanted to talk about was this is part of the social media thing. It's also. But this is the one that kind of predates social media.
We silo people in groups, we do it to ourselves, but we also do it to other people.
And I mentioned this earlier of like the different names or the different schools, the preaching schools is one way we silo ourselves. And if we're not careful, it becomes the. I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Christ, I'm of Bear Valley. That guy is of Sunset. I'm of the conservative churches of Christ. That guys are the progressive churches of Christ. That guy is, you know, whatever term you want to slap on somebody, there's a degree to which that's useful. I know some people are like, don't ever use labels. Well, it's how we talk, man. Like, it's. That guy is a, you know, that guy's a indweller versus that guy's a word only guy that categorizes what they believe about something. But on the other hand, if we're not careful, and Brad, your dad will had a really good post about this a few months ago, about the institutions, the schools, the just, you know, the lectureships or whatever.
A lot of people like identifying themselves by those because it's a pretty good template for like, oh, this guy goes to that lectureship. He probably believes this set of things, 90 to 95%. This guy went to that school. He probably teaches X, Y or Z.
And so there's like a loyalty there that overcomes this love of the brotherhood.
[00:58:12] Speaker C: Sometimes I think this is why people really struggle with us personally. This is not to pump our tires at all. This is to say we're actively thinking through things, think deeper. I don't think we change our positions all that much. But I also, I don't think we come across with the cookie cutter position.
And so why that matters is because I think it is we again, send to pump our own tires or anything. But we genuinely try to think through some of these things and it is difficult to put it in the box, like, oh, yep, I know your type. Like, you don't. Because we may come across as way
[00:58:46] Speaker B: too conservative for some people and too liberal for other people.
[00:58:49] Speaker C: Correct. And so it's kind of like this is the danger of putting people in boxes. And I'm very aware, I think they're probably people that are GBN people and folks press people, or AP people and folks press people.
And I would encourage people. Yet groups to a certain degree can be okay. I would encourage people not to do that. I would encourage it to look like, you know, POLJ Express does some fantastic stuff. I think we do some fantastic stuff. You know, IGBN I think, does some fantastic stuff. So the people that maybe we disagree with, I would tell people going back to the fruits discussion, man, look at the stuff that they're putting out. Support those things. Support the brotherhood. Put your money in places that, man, if they're doing something great, if AP comes out in the new book and it's fantastic, everybody go buy the book, like. And I don't think there's anybody actively going, oh, I don't support those people. But on the other hand, I know what happens with us. I know it happens with. With. So I'm sure it happens with them to some degree.
Support people, support the brethren. Look to. To uplift and encourage. Even if it's somebody that you historically disagree with, encourage them. Send them a nice note, you know, tell them, man, that was a really good article. I know we don't always get along, but that was great, whatever it may be, you know, or the. This podcast you guys put Out. And I'm not talking to us. I'm talking to other people or whatever, or even if it's with us.
I think the key is when we label people, it's very easy to put them in boxes, and that box is what keeps them there. And when somebody steps outside the box, Jack, to your point earlier, we step outside the box sometimes of what people have us in, and they go, whoa, well, be careful on putting people in boxes. Just take them off of their merit. Take them off of.
You know, and then assume the best. Give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're probably good guys. Maybe they got this one wrong.
Maybe they are. You know, I'm sure they're coming from a good place, even if they disagree with these things. And I think that's just such a key piece to this. I go back, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I go back to really trying to give the brethren the benefit of the doubt. And it goes to the point of fear God. Fear God. It comes after that, like we are commanded, Jack, as you said, to do these things. I fear God. Therefore, I'm going to treat his family well. I'm going to treat the bride of Christ as well as possible. And the people that maybe that tick me off, I'm still gonna love him regardless of what that looks like. So sorry. I know we're circle circling back around
[01:00:58] Speaker A: at the same time. I'll pass it to Will here for closing thoughts here in a second. But you got something there that we haven't really discussed. And I just want to briefly hit this. We've been talking about it from the content creator angle. Most of the time, us and the other guys doing that. Most of the people aren't that. Most of the people are the ones listening, consuming that. And it's very easy to make fellow Christians, like TV personalities, like, you're never gonna meet Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, and so you have an opinion. I don't like that guy as an actor. I like. You can do that with, like, people of the church, you know, like, I don't like that guy's podcast. I don't like that guy's articles. Oh, I think that guy's really good. Okay. But they're all brethren. They're all people that you're called to love. Love the brotherhood. And so I think that's. I'm glad you kind of brought that angle up as well, but just want to throw that in. I know we've got to kind of wrap here in our last few Minutes.
[01:01:44] Speaker B: I would just say there's.
There's so many challenging angles to this entire discussion. And I appreciate Jack for having the persistence to continue to push us to have this episode or to record this episode.
It's challenging because of, first of all, the world we live in, the social media angle that we just hit at, but also just because there are. There is so much disagreement out there. And I think everybody listening has to kind of grapple with how much disagreement are we. Kind of. The question that Joe brought up is like, at what point is it too much? Essentially, how deep can we go?
But I think at the very least that we'll. I'll go back to where we kind of started the episode, and that was in First Peter Chapter two. This is a command. This is something that is not exactly optional. This is not something that, you know, Peter's just suggesting. No, it's, again, honor all people.
Love the brotherhood. The difference there, fear God and honor the emperor, honor the king.
These are commands. And so if that's something that as clearly the three of us, this is one of the. This is definitely, probably, I'd say a top 10 episode of ones where we did not have a firm, solid answer, like, this is what you do. This is how you do it. It's because it is a challenge. Generally, we try to stay away from episodes like that, but curious to hear everybody's thoughts. Curious to hear, you know, if we get comments from those on Focus plus or comments on Facebook, YouTube.
Again, not necessarily suggestions, but like, yeah, what would you add? What would you kind of contribute to this episode? So those are my only. My only closing thoughts. Guys. I don't know who wants to take us home, but.
Challenging. Challenging for sure.
[01:03:19] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll wrap right there.
Interested to hear everyone's thoughts. Leave the comments on YouTube, Facebook, wherever you find us. Or of course, focus+focuspress.org/supporters can join us in there every week for the Deep end episode where we answer your questions and comments.
This is, again, it's a challenge. It's. It's very, like, niche. It's very.
But it. I was gonna say it. It's kind of a for us thing. It's not every. Everyone who listens to this is kind of part of this, the same thing, like, in one way or another. And so, yeah, love the brotherhood. It's a good challenge for all of us. A good reminder. And working out the details of that is, as Will said, it's not 100% straightforward, but it's something to think about and try to live by. So thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you guys on the next one.
Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress.org donate thanks again for listening.
