The Bible, Polygamy and Misogyny

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome in to the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. I'm your co host Joe Wilkie, joined as always by Jack Wilkie and Will Harab. We took a brief hiatus in between to discuss Epstein, to discuss the news, how we should handle those, those. The various things that seem to just keep rolling. The news keeps coming. We handled that last week. If you haven't checked out the episode, go check it out. But this is the continuation of the episode we started two weeks ago. So this is a part two of Bible controversies and man, this is a doozy. Fellas, we've been studying hard for this and looking it over and nobody said that every passage in the Bible is easy to understand. Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Some people make that claim. It's just not. Some of these things are very difficult to get into. Some controversial things that skeptics and atheists and agnostics and other religions use against us. We want to dive right in. We want to handle those things and get into things like polygamy and we got into genocide. We got into slavery last time. There are some other things we very much want to jump into on this episode. But fellas, before we begin, any introductory thoughts or comments? [00:01:12] Speaker B: It's just really important to not be embarrassed by the Bible when that happens. People get steered pretty easily into compromise, into changing their thoughts. In fact, one of these that we're going to cover very much gets used for all kinds of doctrinal compromise. And so don't be embarrassed by the Bible, stand behind what it says. It'll be okay. As we point out on the first one, the people critiquing us have no objective moral standard to stand on. So you don't really have to listen to them. Just take your time with the Bible and figure out what it has to say. [00:01:43] Speaker C: That's a great point. It's basically what I was going to say. I mean, you think about as we discussed in the first episode two weeks ago, it's so easy for us to take our fully developed society with our moral laws and stuff and try to cut, copy and paste it 2,000 years ago. And that's just not the way it works. And so people don't like that answer. That's a very nuanced answer. But I do think, especially with some of the stuff we're going to talk about today, you have to take that into account. The other thing is you think about all the other, like having to kind of get around and explain some of the differences, morally speaking, that we see now versus 3,000 years ago. That's not a uniquely Christianity thing. Right. There's. There's plenty of other religions where it's like, I'm sorry, Muhammad did what? You know, stuff like that. And obviously we would. We would argue that Christianity rises above all the other ones. But Jack basically said what I was going to say, which is, you don't. You don't have to get squeamish about it. Is it difficult? [00:02:35] Speaker A: Yes. [00:02:35] Speaker C: Like, is you gonna have to scratch your head and go, man, I really maybe don't have the solid, most solid answer. [00:02:40] Speaker B: Sure. [00:02:41] Speaker C: But that's what we're gonna explore with this episode. And this is one thing. I said it two weeks ago. I do wish that more outlets covered stuff like this, because people want to know. I mean, is it the absolute most pressing and most important thing? No, but, I mean, I think it is. And I say that as we're 200 and, what, 10 episodes in, and we have not covered it yet, other than maybe on a few Q and A episodes and stuff like that. But people want to know, and so it's important to cover. That's, I guess, all my introductory thoughts. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a. Some of this is fun to kind of get into. Some of this is just difficult to get into. Keep an open mind on some of these. And once again, Jack, I think you said this in the last one. Like, even if you critique our answers. Okay, what's your answer? You know, you got to engage with it. We can't just go, oh, well, we don't need answers. Like, people I remember. [00:03:26] Speaker C: Oh, that's not right. Like, what's the alternative then? Yeah, exactly. [00:03:29] Speaker A: I remember growing up, and even as a young Christian young man, I grew up in the church, Some of these were really difficult back then. Still maintains its difficulty. You know, it still stays tough to understand. And so with that in mind, again, go along with us. Study along with us. Have your Bibles open. You know, we love the comments. Make sure to get them on the deep end, YouTube, wherever the comments are, messages, whatever. We'll be curious to get your thoughts. But, fellas, let's jump into the first one. As I said, first episode, we discussed genocide, discuss slavery. Where we wanted to pick up on this one to begin is polygamy with. I mean, everybody knows the background. You can look at Abraham, you can look at David, you can look at these great men of faith with multiple wives, and we look at that as like, that'd be an abomination. You know, it's. It's a TLC show with Sister Wives. And everybody goes, what a freak show. You know, that's not supposed to happen. That's not that. That's off, you know. And then we kind of make fun of the Mormons or whatever for the polygamy. And so it becomes either a joke or it becomes a disgusting. Like how could you possibly. Now we're getting more into polyamory, which again is from a freak show perspective. Like those that are into polyamory we look at and correctly so justifiably so we get very like we want to distance ourselves from those people. So then why do we see Abraham and David and Isaac and Jacob and so many others engage or. I don't know that Isaac did Isaac and Rebecca. I don't think he did Jacob though. And a lot of other guys in the Old Testament. Most of the other guys in the Old Testament engage with polygamy. What are your guys thoughts? [00:05:02] Speaker C: Yeah, so I think it's important. So we've got obviously principles and points we want to bring out that are, you know, New Testament related. Talk about, you know, elder qualifications, all those things. I think it's important. And as we got on the start of our outline, to start with, kind of wrestling with some of these tougher points. Joe, you already spoke to one of them that some of the most righteous men in the entire Bible had multiple wives. I did a little. So there's 15 men mentioned in the hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, 15 specific men. Four of those had confirmed either multiple wives or concubines. Abraham obviously with Hagar, obviously Jacob had multiple wives. Gideon as well, Judges chapter eight. And then of course David, all mentioned in the hall of faith, all had multiple wives. That's four. And then two are questionable. Samson, I don't believe it was ever confirmed, had multiple wives at one time. But obviously we know his history with multiple women. Various with the women. And then, you know, depending on what you think about Moses and Numbers 12, verse 1. Was that talking about Zipporah or not? Either way, people have posed that as a question. And so there you go. [00:06:13] Speaker A: There's. [00:06:13] Speaker C: There's four confirmed and six total either confirmed or questionable in the hall of faith that had multiple wives. And so I think it's important in this discussion we got to acknowledge that like there's not really any easy way to kind of skirt around, say, well, you know, him hall, like, no, that's some of the most righteous men in the entire Bible. Get an interesting question later about were they living in sin? What does that. How does that impact their salvation? All Those things that we kind of can look at and ask those questions. But yeah, it's important to start there. I mean, I was just thinking as I was researching, like, okay, what was the hall of Faith? What names were mentioned? What is that, 33%, two out of five, 40% or at least questionable to some extent. So that's got to wrestle with that, Jack. [00:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very similar to slavery where you look back like it's just there. And it's not just there, it's regulated. It's something that God took into account. And so that you do have to handle that. And part of this is not just a scriptural curiosity of the atheist cross examining the scriptures. Apparently this is like a growing movement. I did a scriptural focus, one of those little 5 minute explainer q and A videos and somebody had asked, why does the Bible allow polygamy? I did a little thing on it which will cover some of those points here. I got a bunch of comments from people who disagreeing and linking to their channels where they make all these points about how it is modern culture that has leashed men and kept them from having the multiple wives that God intended them to have. And it's one of those like, do you guys actually, like, do you guys actually get women that go for this? Like, this is very strange. And right about the time I was having that other guys out in the denominational world with which with much bigger following started posting about where all these polygamy guys coming from, they had the same thing, guys in their mentions, guys in their comments giving them the business about, hey, this is what God wanted us to do and men are supposed to have multiple wives and children with all of them and all that. Like this is a thing that's out there and so this is important. It's almost like two different people you're having to refute here. There's the atheist side just trying to catch the Bible in a gotcha. And then there's the other people, like, no, not only does the Bible endorse it, it's actually a good thing. And that's something we should be doing. And it's very strange, that is very [00:08:30] Speaker C: strange to try to make that argument to add to this kind of the righteous men point. And then Joe, I got a kind of question I'll ask you on this. Another point that we have to make is that the old law does not prohibit polygamous marriages. In fact, so I got Deuteronomy 21 written down. I'm going to read this quickly 15 through 17 in the middle of the law, if a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the unloved, and if the firstborn son is of her who is loved, then it shall be on the day he bequeaths his possessions to his sons that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved wife, the true firstborn. That's through 16 and 17. But point being, no condemnation there. Joe, my question to you there is like, how should we look at that? Should we look at that as condoning it? Some might indicate that. Some might indicate. Well, it says if a man does have it, so it's more so just kind of like, okay, if this happens, this is the regulations to Jack's point, kind of. We talked about that with slavery two weeks ago. I think one thing is clear is that doesn't condemn it. It doesn't say if a man has two wives, that that's wrong and you need to divorce one of them, essentially pick between them. It basically gives regulations for it. And so some would look at that as a condoning of it. I'm curious your thoughts on that. I'm sure there's other places, but that's the most notorious. [00:09:52] Speaker A: I got a lot of thoughts on this, but I'll save half of them for a different discussion on MDR and such, because I think it's an interesting precedent that's set that I don't think is universal, but there's some interesting things here in terms of this. Assumes they're already doing it. We know they're already doing it by the time the law comes around. What are the. What's the recourse here? Because if we go, well, it's condemned. Should God have condemned it going forward? He's God. I'm not going to say what he should or should not have done. You know, he's God. He didn't condemn it going forward. On the other hand, we do know that from the very beginning it was not intended to be this way. And that goes to Matthew 19 and, you know, all the way back to Genesis 2. And so, yeah, one man and one woman was the way that it was intended to be. On the other hand, we know that that wasn't what it was. And so God is a realist, seemingly, you know, that's he creates reality, but of course he's a realist. And so he realizes that's the case. And what's he supposed to do, okay, well, they can get divorced and then what happens to those women? Because by his own laws, they can't just go get remarried. You know, if they're not. They're not virgins at that point. They're not like they. They would be cast aside and ostracized and probably killed, you know, and not even if they weren't killed by other people, they'd be ostracized and potentially starved to death. So there's a protective element to being under a man who can provide for you back in that day. So when we think about it from the law point of view, once again, they're already doing these things. They've picked up on this, I'm sure, from, you know, just culture and all the way back to Abraham. That's just what people did. And that was a way to protect women at the time. And God's answer, if it was to divorce, would be violating his own law, since that's wrong. And even if he said, okay, put them aside, okay, and where do they go? Well, they go back to their fathers. That is not a cut and dried answer. Some of these women are old at this point. We may have 70 year olds that are, you know, the wives of a second wife or something. So there's no clean cut answer to, hey, just stop that. Like, it doesn't work that way. We're already well into this is there. [00:11:53] Speaker C: And this is what I love about. Think deeper. We can just throw stuff out. We're just kind of talking about it. Hopefully don't get in hot water for this. Genesis 4 is where we see the first polygamists 19 talking about Lamech taking multiple wives. We already know as far as marriage regulations or marriage guidelines. We already know back in the first few chapters of Genesis that those were all out of whack. Why you got people marrying sisters. You got people marrying, you know, but. But was going on in the first few chapters of Genesis that was very different than now. They're having to populate the earth. And so I'm not necessarily saying that's the reason why they were allowed or why it was kind of allowed. And again, Lamech is not exactly. I mean, he's. He killed a guy, so he's not exactly a paragon of virtue here. But I guess what I'm saying is the way that we look at marriage now versus the way that marriage took place in the first few chapters of Genesis, to your point, Joe, that is where it originated. What was already going on by the time you get to deuteronomy that people just kind of already been done. Did that start all the way back in early chapter Genesis as a. Almost not out of necessity, but to populate the earth, essentially. Again, we don't marry sisters, we don't marry cousins. They were doing all kinds of stuff like that in the early chapters Genesis. And it was, it was, you know, fine. And eventually God said, all right, no more of that. So I don't know if that kind of plays into it. Jack, maybe curious your thoughts as well on kind of that populating the earth concept as well as, you know, again, the practice that we see regulated in Deuteronomy started all the way back in those first few chapters of Genesis. [00:13:29] Speaker B: It's also what marriage was. I mean, we kind of have the courtship of two best friends kind of concept of it and romance and all that. It wasn't that romantic. I mean, you see that some. And it's. Well, I mean, you think about the Song of Solomon is that example of romance in the Bible. And we're talking about Solomon. Right. I mean, this is a guy that did a lot of transactional marriage. [00:13:49] Speaker C: That's also a stark contrast from other ancient literature as well. [00:13:51] Speaker B: Right. Transactional marriage is just what it was. And you also had a time where there was, you know, fighting or life expectancy. Men, you know, women out living men, whatever it may be, and trying to have more kids because a lot of your kids didn't die. And so you're gonna have more women than men. And so if they're gonna get married, sometimes you gotta have them marry two to two or three to one man. And it's just. It's much like the slavery thing. We're talking about a whole different world. And as you say, like it was relatives, even Abraham and Sarah, all those years after creation, it's still relatives. And so a lot has changed and a lot of societies developed out of this quicker than others. I was looking into this that some in the first century were still taking multiple wives. Herod, obviously. I think one of the Herods that was said had like eight wives or something. And so like it still happened, but you don't see a lot of that. By New Testament times, some of the cultures around them weren't doing that anymore. And so this is one of those similar to slavery, some people just kind of developed out of it over time. But Christianity has changed it and now we do have this paradigm where marriage is more Song of Solomon esque. It's not arranged marriages, it's not transactional marriages. It's not treaty marriages, any of those kinds of things. It's. You find somebody you really love and want to be with. And as Christ loves the church and those kind of examples that we have. But it wasn't always that way. And to judge it from this point of view, similar to the slavery thing, is like, you're assuming so many things that have been given to you and then looking back on people who didn't have that given to them, and then you're judging them for not having it. That's very strange. [00:15:32] Speaker A: You look at Jacob, the example of Jacob with he loved Rachel, Leah is kind of a transactional marriage. It wasn't like, well, I'm not doing that. It's like, hey, she needs to be married, basically. Right? Yeah. So you look at how Laban looks at it like, you know, hey, this is. We don't want her to get married before her older sister gets married. Therefore, I'm going to give you the older sister, which is transactional. But there is a loving relationship. Jacob loved Rachel more like. So that that Song of Solomon esque was there for Jacob along with the transactional. He has both. And we see that at the, you know, and then he's got. The concubines are the one that I don't fully understand because it brings in a discussion of sexual. As to the transactional nature. [00:16:12] Speaker C: What happened with Abraham. [00:16:13] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right. You know, but we'll see concubines throughout. I mean, even Solomon with his 300 concubines or whatever, like the guys that it seemed like. But it's. I don't know. We look at it as. Sex is so sacred and we. I don't think that's wrong to look at it that way. On the other hand, they are looking at it through the lens of childbearing the same way they're looking at marriage through the lens of. Yes, a transaction. You're going to take care of me, right? You know, safety protection. It's a safety protection thing. It's a really dark. Back then, a very tough world. We're talking because we, you know, your dad's bred hair. He talks about the dinosaurs. And that's living among. Think about that from a woman's point of view. You got wild beasts and animals, you've got marauders, you've got potential dinosaurs around. Like, this is not a. It's not a safe world. We're not living in a world where it's like, oh, just hop on a plane and go somewhere. The suburbs. Yeah, Correct. So, yeah, they're very Vulnerable. They're the most vulnerable people in society. And polygamy, I think, as at a young time or at the early stages of the earth, would have been one of the only ways to keep multiple women, especially if it gets off, to keep them safe, to have them underneath a guy who's going to provide for them, who's going to protect them, who's going to. To give them shelter and give them food and things like that. I'm not saying it's great. I'm saying I do think it phases when we see this. It phases out in history, but I think it phased out the more modern we got and the safer, quote, unquote, the world got. [00:17:35] Speaker C: Well, what this reminds me of. So Matthew 19, which we got to do an MDR episode at some point. It's been on the ledger for, oh, I don't know, about two years. [00:17:46] Speaker A: Yeah, about 210 episodes. [00:17:47] Speaker C: Right, right, exactly. But I mean, there's obviously there's so much more context to this discussion and potential other explanations. But what also was very much allowed in the old law that as far as marriage goes, that essentially is no longer looked upon in that way, divorce. Jesus said, you know, from the beginning, Moses allowed the certificate of divorce to be written, but from the beginning it was not so. And again, there's plenty of other arguments to be made that that is, you know, maybe referring to betrothal and things like that, that is more suited for an MDR discussion. But regardless, the point of marriage and kind of the purposes for it, the reasons for it, the things that were regulated, allowed, being different now is just true. And this is something that's so difficult for us specifically in the Church of Christ, I think to grasp is that sometimes understanding and you know, it's not the exact same for every single person, the rules, the regulations, the things like, well, the way we understand it right now, that's exactly the way it was 5,000 years ago. Well, that's what makes these polygamy discussions really difficult then. Or the slavery discussion sessions from two weeks ago or from, from two weeks ago with our episode. If you're just gonna try to make a one for one, you can't make a one for one comparison with some of these things. And that's. We again, we want to blanket apply everything that we know, you know, copy paste answer, textbook answer to this, that and the other thing, and apply it 3,000 years ago. It's just so difficult to do. And so that's why I think makes this question. But again, marrying siblings, divorce just the very Factors surrounding marriage wildly different than it is now. So I think we have to start there by acknowledging those things. And Joe, what you're bringing up about the kind of it being advantageous for women to be married or multiple women to be married to one man, that's a difficult point to hear, but it's true. Like, that's exactly. That's just kind of the reality of what it was back then. [00:19:49] Speaker B: It's also interesting. You have in Leviticus 18:18, the regulation is added, you cannot marry sisters. Well, that had already happened in the Bible. And so this idea that, well, if it happened once and the Bible is okay with it entirely, no, God came in and regulated a little bit more to say, yeah, you're going to end up with a rivalry, which is exactly what had happened between Rachel and Leah. Like, it was bad. So God told him not to do that. And so you see the development of it. And as I said, by the first century, the Greeks, Romans, they didn't do it. But we have a lot in early church, we're also saying, like, yeah, some of those guys still practice this. Some of those Jewish people are some of the people of their day. I think Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and some others were just like, yeah, no, that's awful. We're not doing that. Like, this was not known to Christianity, not known to the first century church at all. And so you don't even have a command saying, thou shalt not do it. It was just the point of recognizing, yeah, that was allowed back then, but that was never the intention. And now that we're outside of that world, we're not going to do it anymore. And I think that's a really healthy thing. Hermeneutically to see the Bible didn't have to say thou shalt not marry another woman to go, hmm, this principle says the two should be one flesh. And you've got all of these things in here. Maybe we should just go with the plain reading of that. And I'm sure you had some guy in the first century when you can't bind that. It doesn't say anywhere that I can't like. But I think there's. So that's a bit of a tangent for me there. But to say we can use our brains to say, yeah, this was never the ideal. This was never something it was right. God allowed people, as you guys are saying, but it was never something he was saying, yeah, I'm good with it. This will work great. Because this gets to the other side. It didn't ever work great. Not Once ever. [00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a disaster. [00:21:31] Speaker C: I mean, Joe, Joe's point about the design for the marriage relationship being monogamy all the way back in Genesis 2. And then that's what Jesus calls on in Matthew 19. And Jack, you're. You put a lot of stuff down about kind of when it died out and you know, when you really started to see it kind of fizzle out. I do think it's significant, as you consider again, maybe the, the Bros on YouTube there try to argue for polygamy. Like there's not, there's not a single instance of polygamy in the New Testament. You've got Matthew 19, the words of Jesus. As far as, like, for Christians, obviously you had Herod or people like that that you mentioned, Jack. But like, you don't see anybody that's mentioned by name having multiple wives. You see again, words of Jesus in Matthew 19. And so that's significant. And then of course, elder qualifications as well is something that very clearly indicates, even though this might have been allowed thousands and thousands of years ago, moving forward, one husband, one wife husband. And in fact, you would argue. I would argue that because Paul put that in there, maybe there were still some people that might have been a little bit confused on that, like if that was something that. Because of course, we apply it to the divorce thing. But back then that's very likely that. Oh, okay. One wife is the absolute requirement in First Timothy three. And so, yeah, New Testament wise, it's pretty clear that that's not anywhere within God's design. And yes, it's okay to wrestle with the fact that that might have been different thousands of years before. [00:22:57] Speaker B: Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. I wanted to tell you about our seminars at Focus Press. Each of us involved in the work have a series of lessons that we have prepared to encourage churches to help you understand the word better, how to navigate this culture. We cover a wide range of topics, from things like evolution and apologetics to cultural issues to the family to the godly young men kind of content that Joe and will do to church reset, which is of course my passion, to schedule one of us. Whether Dr. Brad Harab will harab Joe Wilke or me, Jack Wilke, reach out to [email protected] if you'd like to talk to me or if you'd like to talk to one of the others, I'll pass your information along to them. We'd love to come and encourage your church and put on one of our Focus Press seminars. [00:23:42] Speaker A: Well, in the New Testament and In Christ we have the opportunity to pursue the perfect right, to pursue the ideal. I don't think that was something that, you know, back then. The law was to point to the fact that you can't pursue like you can't hit the ideal. And in Christ we have the freedom to pursue him with everything we've got. And so we're less looking at the law as a binding thing as much as what brings me closest to God. And so it goes back to your point, Jack. Like, I think we can clearly make the case this is going back to the beginning. And what Jesus draws on is what brings us closer to him. But you also to circle back around to that point. It also never does go well. Like that has to be said is if this was the, the standard of what everybody was supposed to do, why do we not see any positive examples of this? Like, there's clearly with, with Sarah and Hagar, like there's clearly an issue there as she goes out. Ishmael sent out into the wilderness with, with his mom, with Leia and Rachel, clear. Issues there with David and his wives, clear. You know what I mean? Like, and the kids, the offsprings of those we just covered in our 365 DeVos AD Nigel. Right. And. And him trying to usurp Solomon and obviously Absalom and the horrible thing that was. And so David with his wives, that was a disaster too. So if somebody could point to me one positive example where we don't see jealousy arise, we don't see rivalry. We don't see rivalry. We don't see any of those things. Point me to it, because I don't see it. Every place we see it is a disaster. And so that tells us maybe it's not great, you know, maybe this was not the way it was supposed to be. Oh, wait, yeah, the Bible already tells us that. So from a polygamy standpoint, especially with it dying out, there's a reason that it did the same thing as slavery. There's a reason that it did. We have hit a point in history where contextually, back then, due to safety, due to a lot of other things, due to the way they viewed marriage, we now have in Christ the opportunity to pursue the ideal. And we put those things away not because God absolutely prohibited it, but because that's not what was intended, that's not what he wants in our life. And for the Christians that look for that, I think that. And the people that try to do, it's like we're not under the law in that way. And so when we try to put a law of, like, well, did God say it's not. It's like, what brings me closest to God and what was his intended purpose and what was the ideal? There's a lot of things in our life that goes into this, like, does God want me to work a job that, you know, I don't know, a job that seems like it's going to clearly pull me away, I'm working with a bunch of heathens and things like that versus a job that I think I'm going to be, you know, it's going to help me draw closer to him. Well, the Bible is not legislating on that. It's not wrong to hang out with. You know, even 1 Corinthians 5 would be in the world, not of the world type of thing. Right. Like, we're going to be around those people. Yeah. But what draws me closest to him? So it changes the paradigm of I'm not looking for what not to do. I'm looking for what is going to help me, and I will make my decisions all. All across the spectrum in life. Based off of that, polygamy is another one. What's going to draw me closest to God? What is the ideal that he's getting us back to? It's not multiple wives. So, fellas, any other thoughts? [00:26:32] Speaker B: I want to throw in the argument they're going to make? And so they'll say, it's not polygamy, it's polygyny, it's man with multiple wives. Because it doesn't go the other direction. They don't believe women can have multiple husbands, which. Okay, technicalities, whatever. But they will say in Jeremiah 3, God says that he had two wives. He had Israel and Judah. And so if polygamy is so wrong, why did God take two wives? To that, I'm going to say a couple things. First, he married one, and they split themselves into two. So it's not like he had a marriage contract with two different women. Number two, he calls them sisters. Well, in Leviticus 18, as we already said what he said, you can't marry sisters. And so therefore, God would be violating his own law. If this was anything more than a metaphor. It's a stinking metaphor. I mean, come on. No, I mean, I almost want to ask these guys, like, do you have women fallen for this? Do you think this is gonna work? But they spin it as we live in this matriarchal, feminist society where women run everything. And that's, you know, that's the reason that we've Made this illegal. And if we're ever going to get out of this long house with feminist run society, which, hey, we'll talk about that. We believe feminism has overrun society, all things like that. But their answer to that is yeah, and until men get to marry multiple women, we're not going to have this problem solved. I'm going to disagree with you there. I don't think we got to go to that one to get to that point. So yeah, the Jeremiah 3 thing does not work the way they think it does. Anything else before we move on. [00:28:00] Speaker A: Well, this actually does transition us into the next one though, because. [00:28:03] Speaker C: Hold up, are you, Are you going to treatment of women? [00:28:05] Speaker A: Mm. Okay. [00:28:07] Speaker C: So I wanted to ask this question. [00:28:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:28:10] Speaker C: That is difficult. So as it relates specifically to polygamy and. Sorry to cut you off there, Joe. [00:28:16] Speaker A: Go for it. [00:28:17] Speaker C: You think about what most members in the church right now will say, that if I divorce my wife for an unscriptural reason, then go marry somebody else. I am living in sin. [00:28:28] Speaker A: Right? [00:28:28] Speaker C: I'm living in sin. They would argue that that's an unscriptural marriage, need a divorce, whatever. But living in sin, what do we do with guys like David? He didn't just have two wives, he had like six. [00:28:39] Speaker A: Right. [00:28:39] Speaker C: Or however many people like Jacob, are they going to be in heaven? Were they living in sin? Because in our kind of, again, the way that we look at the New Testament and Christianity, if you're living in sin that is unrepentant of sin, therefore that is sin that is not covered by the sacrifice of Christ. And so, yeah, going to keep us out of heaven. Essentially. Again, Jesus being the delineator there is very different. But in the Old Testament it's tough to argue. David was not living in sin with multiple wives. And yet he's called a man after God's own heart. He's in the hall of faith. Again, same thing with Jacob. What do we do with that? Were these guys living in sin, quote unquote, in again, in our terms, because they had multiple wives at once or not? I'm very curious. Kind of. Again, that's a very, very tough question to answer. But I think that's really the heart of why so many people might struggle with this is like in our brain. It's like, oh yeah, they're clearly living in sin. Wait, so they're gonna be in heaven right alongside me and my one wife for 60 years? Like difficult. What are yalls thoughts on that? [00:29:41] Speaker A: My initial thought would be the ideal versus sin, I think is a different discussion the idea was, hey, husband, one wife, you know, it is. They shall become one flesh. That was the ideal. At some point, it does get skewed. Yes. The hardness of their heart with the divorcing. I also think we'll see people in heaven that. That was the case, you know, in Matthew 19, when Jesus is talking about that. I think we'll see people in heaven that did divorce their wives and put them away for the burnt toast and things like that. And they probably did end up in heaven. I'm going to assume. I don't know. That's for God to decide. But I think there's the ideal and then there's the. Okay, this is clearly, clearly wrong. The same way we talked about slavery last week. There was the ideal, which is, of course, you know, that shouldn't be the case, but it was the way of the world at the time. And did they do it right in the. In the context of what was given or in the confines, I should say, of the law for these specific things? Did they live according to that? Because that then would be their quote, unquote, righteousness. That's them trying to keep the law, and the law doesn't prohibit it. Therefore, the law is the one that allows us to know what sin is. And Paul talks about this, right, in Romans 7. How do we know what sin is apart from the law? Okay, well, it's not prohibited in the law. Therefore, can we say it's a sin now? We might look at it differently and say it's a sin based off of where we've gotten to in life and going back to the ideal. All the way back in Genesis 2, we would build and extrapolate off of things like that. But for the law and what they had, David, he kept it, you know, so that's for that. [00:31:14] Speaker C: I would agree. I mean, the evidence for that, as to why I don't think it's fair to say that he was living in sin that whole time is because what happened when he did actually commit something and was living in sin, he got visited by Nathan the prophet. They said, you gotta call this up immediately. Yeah, that wasn't. That was not the case for marrying multiple wives. In fact, the Psalms and stuff where he's repenting, he's not repenting from that. He's, you know, crying out to God. It's for. It's for the Bathsheba incident, of course, Psalm 51 and other places. And so my answer to my own question, Jack, I'm sure you got some thoughts, would be, I do think it might be as tough as it is to hear this and curious to hear what everybody else thinks might be a mischaracterization to say they were living in sin. And again, I think the evidence for that for David is the time that he was. It was for something else. And he was immediately called on the map for it, essentially, and was not for having multiple wives. [00:31:58] Speaker A: Jack. [00:31:59] Speaker B: I remember the first time I came across this, I was reading a John Piper thing, and he said, yeah. And then, you know, when whatever the guy's name, Nabal, died, David took Abigail into his sinful harem of wives. Like that it was a sin to take her as a wife. Like, I had never heard someone say that that was a sin. That's interesting. And so from that, you're extrapolating that David should have known from the principles established in Genesis, like, yeah, yeah, you could say that, but it wasn't commanded. But now we are in a know better, do better kind of world. I will say Deuteronomy 17, where it's regulating. Kings says they shall not multiply wives. I think David kind of started tipping that a little bit with the number that he took. And then, of course, Solomon went nuts with it. And you can. Yeah, you can see the. The problem. And so David kind of opened the door, but that's just not the same. And as you say, there's not the command and so to hold their feet to the fire. To me, it's very much like the slave thing of you're looking back and judging people. Living in a world we don't live in, living under a law, we don't live under things like that. That to say that that is what was a sin for them, I think is going a bit too far. Was it something they should have been doing? No, I don't think so. But to call it a sin, yeah, that's. Would it be a sin today? Yeah, back then, that's a little different. [00:33:17] Speaker A: So again, why would it be. So let me. Let me throw out again, we're shooting hypotheticals around here. This is a tough one because we are getting into MDR territory. But let's say a guy comes in with multiple wives now, doesn't know any better, he's going off the law type of thing. Old Testament, going off the law, he comes in with multiple wives. [00:33:36] Speaker B: Well, I mean, missionaries, certain places in the world where they still have this. [00:33:39] Speaker A: Correct. There you go. So, you know, you're over in Ethiopia or whatever, and they happen to have. I don't know what the laws are over there. Somewhere Papua New Guinea, I don't know. Yeah, let's say they get baptized. What is the recourse there? Because we would look at it and say as well, wife, he might look at and go, the Bible never fully condemns us. We would say, no better, do better. James 4:17. We pull out all the stops on that side. He didn't think it was a sin. So do we enlighten him? Like, can we make a strong case? And I know, sorry, this is a tough question, but we're shooting around here. Can we make a case that it is not a. Like, it would be a sin for me because I do know better. So does it become a sin for him? And would it be wrong? God hates divorce. Is it wrong for him in that situation to then do it with the. The cultural context where he is? It's not wrong where he is. It's not, you know, we can't look at the Old Testament as being able to condemn it. And I know this is kind of a wild thing, because the first. Of course, the first reaction is like, well, yeah, he's got to put away. Okay, well, we go back to the same problem back then, which is God had every opportunity to tell them to do it. In those cultures where that's the case, a lot of times it's very unsafe for the women in that situation. So I know this is a hypothetical, and hopefully this is not anywhere around the world, but it might be. What are your guys's thoughts? Just utilizing the principles we've established, and I'm glad I'm asking. [00:34:52] Speaker C: I think it's. Yeah, seriously, I think it's really difficult to answer that one without kind of giving a take on MDR personally and kind of the. Is divorce ever permissible? What do you do if somebody is in an unlawful marriage? Because I think, you know, one would argue. Yeah, I mean, I. That's really tough to get around, I think, because then it's like, okay, which one do you divorce? Well, on the Married second. Or, you know what? [00:35:21] Speaker A: It's gotta be the first. [00:35:22] Speaker C: I don't even know how that culture. Right, exactly. Like, which one do you love the most? Like, so I'm not giving an answer. I think. I think let's. Because let's say that person wanted to. It was allowed in their culture, but they want to come assimilate into American culture. Well, I don't think. I don't think you can just sit by and say, all right, no, come, come sit by me on the pew type of thing. Like, you gotta. Yeah, something's gotta happen. I just don't know what that, what that is or what that looks like. [00:35:47] Speaker B: Yeah, you ask, like, what, what is the scriptural precedent you're saying? And you're going back to. Well, you're only supposed to have one all the way back to the beginning. But then you have to bring in the divorce scriptures. You have to bring in, you know, David or all those things. Like, hey, those guys came from a culture where that was okay, but now they're. And so, like the cultural development part of this, as to when it applied, like, when did it become a sin? Well, as I said, the guys in the first 200 years of Christianity were all writing like it was an abomination. So by that point, the church was treating it as a sin, right? Well, we are. But on the other hand, some of these cultures we're talking about really aren't right. Like they might still be living in that world. And so how would they have dealt with a guy they baptized out of that world? And so that might be enlightening. If there's anything on what the early church did with, with people getting baptized out of it, I don't think they would have made a change. On the other hand, if a guy came over to be an American citizen with two wives, it'd be like, you can't do that. [00:36:45] Speaker C: That's what, that's what I'm getting. If you're trying to assimilate and come attend our church, basically. [00:36:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:49] Speaker A: What I think you may be able to say is, okay, you can protect her, you can keep her in the house. No sexual relations with her. Yeah, I can understand you not wanting to send her away into a difficult world where it's going to be way worse for her. You have a duty to protect her. You made a covenant. Her, on the other hand, you know the willy nilly sexual acts of polygamists? I don't think so. So I think you could draw the line there and use that more. But again, you're somewhere along the way. And that's kind of the reason why I asked. The question is, Jack, you hit the exact point. Somewhere along the way, it seemed to become a sin. I don't know the exact point. We know that culture. We know there's a lot of things that are at play there, but it's tough to say an exact time. [00:37:36] Speaker C: Well, this whole thing is evidence to what happens when you kind of mess with God's original design. Right. I mean, you. All these hypothetical. Like. Okay, well, let's say they. All right, one is Going to be the true wife and the other is just going to be like the roommate, essentially. Well, how's that going to work in the house, you know, or like broken homes? What about kids and all those things? It's like, man, this is why, you know, just going. Going about it the way that God designed it, you know, at first is the key here. [00:38:02] Speaker B: So. [00:38:03] Speaker A: Well, before we get to the second one, tough question. Let's just zoom out here for a second. This is why it's so difficult. If you have thoughts on it, let us know. But like, yes, the. The. Easy. Oh, yeah, that's wrong. Okay, let's move on. Like, whoa, whoa, hold on. There's a lot to these. [00:38:15] Speaker C: Wrestle with it, right? [00:38:16] Speaker A: You got to wrestle with some of this. That brings us to the second one, though, which is the treatment of women, because these two do go hand in hand. We look at the treatment of women back in the day. There are some pretty tough Bible passages, if we're being honest, on the treatment of women. Exodus 21:7 11 outlines a man selling his daughter as a slave and how to go about that and how the man that buys her, whether it gives it to her son, to his son, gives her to his son. Sorry. Or even if that's not the case, the redemption type thing, you know, how do you redeem her? So you read through it. And I was reading through Exodus 21 very recently in our daily Bible reading. It was like, it's a record scratcher. What. What did he just say if he sells his daughter as a slave? I mean, there are multiple things I'd say, multiple passages that we might look at today and go, whoa. And I know a lot of people do look at it today and go, whoa. Treatment of women seem pretty skewed in the Old Testament. It seems like they're nothing more than just chattel, basically. You know, they're. They are. Yeah, almost to the slave class type of thing. And so once again, I'm. I'm leading all the tough discussions. I guess I can go first on this one. Yeah, sounds good to me since I keep throwing it to you guys first. But. And to lay out the case, just as we have on our outline, like, no, there were no female tribe heads, there's no apostles, no female apostles, no female elders, nothing like that. The role of women. Getting. The role of women is very. Getting it right is very clearly important. That's why we discuss it a lot on this podcast. It's really. I mean, the hierarchy and the roles are a huge part of establishing everything from Genesis 1 and on, basically. But back then again, you have with the second wives and such almost viewed more as the women, almost viewed more as property back then. You also have Mark 7:24, which is calling a woman a dog. So you say, okay, what, how does this look? You know, if Jesus is saying that and if the Old Testament saying that, then are women second class citizens? Do they not have as much value? Well, we know from Galatians to the end of Galatians 3, 20 and 29 that there's neither male nor female. And what that means is we are all equal value in Christ. There are roles, certainly, there are differences, certainly the same way there are with Jews and Greeks. But we're all one in Christ, and so the value is the same. But the Old Testament does provide some challenges. I would initially draw on that. I'm going to throw it to you guys. I would initially draw on, once again, a very tough world. And the laws as it laid out were actually to protect women way more than what they had back then. I mean, it was a horrible, horrible world. And when we read the Bible, we go, that's terrible. And it's like compared to what is around them, this is Shangri La. Compared to what's taking place in the Assyrian culture, in the Philistine culture, in the, you know, Babylonian culture, whatever it may be, like the Hittites, you had some seriously bad people back then doing really, really bad stuff. So the Bible was attempting, and the law was attempting to put some brakes on some of those things. So that'd be the first thing I'd say. But fellas, what are your thoughts? How do, how are we to navigate things talking about women being slaves or women being, you know, things like that? Well, let me, let me bring up [00:41:24] Speaker C: a point on that, Joe. How much of this too is a result of The Bible is one of the most comprehensive ancient texts of all time. So any like kind of, you know, firsthand history of the times back then is seen through the lens of the Bible. Well, if that's the case, then it's then difficult for people to kind of grasp, oh well, the Bible has all these regulations and kind of dignification, so to speak, of women, because they're not seeing the, the overall greater context through other pieces of literature, whatever. It's like, oh, women were treated horribly back then. And the Bible is essentially taking it a step up because even in the New Testament, so we talk about Song of Solomon. Of course, Joe, I know you bring up all the time that that's one of the Only places where the, as far as ancient literature goes, where the woman's sexuality and kind of attracted attractiveness to her husband is really shown in detail. But then also if he, I think about Ephesians 5, you know, specifically commanding husbands in the way that they need to treat their wives, you know, loving their wives and you know, first Peter 3 as well. Again, I guess what I'm getting at there is because the, the Bible is such a just comprehensive example of what things were like in the ancient times, Old Testament and New Testament, and there's not as much fully spread, fully known ancient texts that a lot of people have read. Their first thought is, oh well, the Bible. Oh well the Bible, you know, maybe mentions female slaves or oh, they had multiple wives in the Bible. It's like, yeah, but that was a massive step up to your point, Joe, from a lot of other stuff going on. So I don't know if that plays into it. But yeah, I mean, the Bible, again, Song of Solomon, you think about Ephesians 5 and the other places in the New Testament where it's like, yeah, no, there's a cherishing nature to husbands and wives and a protection, a taking care of widows. Right in first Timothy five and things like that where, you know, it is not a. They're treated as property or anything like that. And so, yeah, I don't know. Jack, what are your thoughts on kind of this, this whole angle of the Bible being the only lens through which people see the ancient world. [00:43:30] Speaker B: On the dark world of Ceres, Nevik never questioned what he believed because he didn't believe anything. But when a mysterious girl from Mars tells him about something called God, everything changes. Now as Nevec searches for answers, he's not just battling doubt, he's fighting to survive. Accepting the truth might cost him everything. Quickening series by Kevin McCutch is a gripping sci fi thriller that explores the existence of God and the plan of salvation. Perfect for teens and young adults and anyone who likes a good story and wants to learn how to teach others. Grab your copy of Quickening series that's spelled C E R E S on Amazon today. Yeah, that's a really valuable point to add to this. And again, like the you're judging based on a Christian morality base that you only got from the Bible and all those things. [00:44:16] Speaker C: Right? [00:44:17] Speaker B: The other part is the idea of the patriarchy. The father is the head of the home, the husband is the head of the wife. That extended to daughters in a way we don't really understand. And we've got this Kind of trope of all right, the girl comes home from college and alright, mom and dad, this is so. And so we're engaged. We're gonna get married next month. Yeah, well, just whatever like that she picked and then the dad goes down the aisle with her at the wedding. And you know, who gives this one away? Well, her mother and I do. Like you don't know. You didn't. Like, she did this whole thing herself. Well, you're not giving her away and I'm not advocating for arranged marriage, but there was this duty of the father to protect his daughter and to hand her off to a man that was gonna provide for her, protect her, take care of her, all of these different things. And so it's under that, that kind of culture that you have this idea of him selling her as a slave. And it's kind of the concubinage thing because it's very clear. It's either the guy buying her is buying her as a wife or concubine or for his son in Exodus 21 there, and he's given things he has to do. And like, if you don't treat her right and do this, this, that and the other thing, she gets to walk free. She like, there are things you cannot do and things you have to do and things like that. And so it's for a father, if he's selling this, you know, his daughter, it's not, it's not the kind of slavery we're thinking of. It's kind of like, all right, I've got a guy that's going to take care of you, that's going to be a husband to you. And so therefore I've arranged this kind of thing. Yeah, we don't do things like that. And I have no intention of returning to anything like that. But on the other hand, there was a dignity there that people don't see. It wasn't just like, well, you're on your own. In fact, honestly, looking, if we zoom out how undignified our process is now with how much divorce there is, with how many unhappy men and women there are and things like that, that history's gonna judge us. [00:46:07] Speaker C: Sex work and all that. [00:46:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, only fans and things like that. Like, yeah. Are we better off where dads are letting their daughters do that? I don't think so. And so this is one of those, again, the protectiveness of a father over his daughter in that sense that we have totally. We give lip service to. Like I said, we have him walk her down the aisle. We don't Actually practice that. That was a good thing back then. Even if we, Even if it looks a little different, even if, if we don't like the level of authority he had over her. [00:46:38] Speaker A: I agree, it's a valuable point. It just, that's a tough one with the atheists. You know, not that we're trying to please them or anything like that. It's just, it's a tough sell with them because like, oh, great, you go back to the point that you made, you made a couple times, which is perfect. By what standard of, by what standard of morality? What are you judging me off of? Like. Well, it just human dignity. Where do you get the idea of human dignity? And why does. Why is a human worthy of dignity in the least? Christianity has done more for the treatment of women than any other than all other religions combined. When you look at, in a Christian culture, women thrive way more than in any other culture in the world. What does that tell you? It tells you that Christian values are inherently good for women. Like it is. It is a better thing for them rather than going, look at what they do in China, look at what they do in these godless countries or what they do over in India or things like that where you have other gods, you know, little G gods that, that rule the day or people where they rule themselves. A lot of atheism over in China and things like that, or the ancestors. It doesn't go well for women, it doesn't go well for children, because the weakest of society, it's the survival of the fittest. Not in Christianity. In Christianity, breaks are put on it. In Christianity, there are things that are inherently wrapped up in, hey, take care of people like that. Look at somebody like Ruth. Ruth would be cast out and thrown to the wolves basically, back in the day. And yet we have Boaz coming in and redeeming her. We have the city taking care of her. And Boaz, according to the law, don't glean everything. Leave the corners, right? Leave some things for the poor to be able to pick up on. That was them thinking about the least of society, the most vulnerable people of society. And that's written into the law for him to do that. So when we talk about, well, you know, God just basically hates women type of thing, like God set up so many little things along the way to protect people like Ruth and the most vulnerable among us that, I mean, it goes above every other law of the day and every other thing just till [00:48:31] Speaker C: this day, just to put a bow on it, atheists have absolutely no standing in this Conversation whatsoever. Like the, the amount of self awareness that they don't have to try to again, call God racist or like, or misogynist. Like, I'm so sorry, why is racism wrong if there's no God? Like you tell me, explain survival the fittest. Like that's not. And so it's just the least self aware thing in the world for me to have an atheist who's going to try to exclaim moral, you know, moral superiority, essentially. Who are you to say? And then the other thing is think about somebody that's not an atheist. Other religions, once again, you know how Muslims treat women. Let's take a look at that for just a second. [00:49:05] Speaker B: And the atheist wants us to tolerate Islam. [00:49:07] Speaker C: Exactly, exactly. And so it's just, this is one of those things, Jack, you said at the start, you cannot allow people who have no right to be in the conversation to bully you out of the conversation, to bully you into apologizing. Well, you know, yeah, you know, there's some pretty harsh stuff in the Bible. It's like all these points that we're getting at is the morality that we have today. The reason we can look at, you know, slavery as something, hey, thank goodness we don't have it today. The reason we can look at some of these things is because of the morality and the values that Christianity puts forth for an atheist, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim or whatever to come and say otherwise, man, again, where, where on earth are you getting your moral authority from? Let's take a look at your history. And so that's just something that we have to keep in context of these [00:49:51] Speaker A: conversations and before we judge or before we, sorry, jump to the apology and trying to make excuses for the Bible or whatever. Oh, you know, before we do any of that, do a little research. When you look at something like Deuteronomy 22. We are just researching this, talking about this before the podcast of what it seems like is, is almost a condoned rape of like, well, basically all he's got to do is marry her, do a little research. [00:50:12] Speaker C: You'll see that on sites people correct that. Like, oh yeah, God condones. [00:50:16] Speaker A: It doesn't. It does not. Right before it, you know, it says this is wrong, the guy's going to be put to death. And so it's protecting women yet again. And if there's one, a situation where he seizes her, different word, different Hebrew word, seizes her and they are discovered, meaning there's a consensual element. She's not crying out, this is consensual thing. They're going to throw that out there. They're going to try to twist you. And so many Christians are so quick to run to the apology, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You know, no, we don't live under the law anymore. Like, take a deep breath and go, who am I discussing? Who am I talking to here? They have no right. And second off, let me do a little research on this before I have to start apologizing and getting on my knees and begging for forgiveness for what the Bible says. Like, absolutely not. We stand up as Christians and we say, hey, harsh world back then, but here's what's actually taking place. Here's the Hebrew word for this, whatever it may be. You can find these things on Google. So the Christians that are very reactionary to the world, you've got to take a deep breath and go, okay, God is always for the treatment of women. All the way back, the two shall become one flesh in a system. Because I was reading this. Sorry, Jack, I know you got that. I was reading this of, like, in a system where mom and dad are everything, and if you dishonor your parents, you get stoned. God set it up in the system for a man to leave his father and mother and be one flesh with his wife to leave and cleave. That puts so much dignity on his wife, you know what I mean? And so much value placed on his wife that he's willing and ready to leave his parents, which is a huge deal back then, to be joined to his wife because of how much he loved her. Like, that is from the very beginning. God, there's so much prestige around Eve [00:51:46] Speaker C: as well, around Eve's creation. Like, it was not good for man to be alone to create out a man's rib. It was, you know, something beautiful for him to, of course, you know, have children with all these things. And it's like, that's again, to your point. From the very beginning, women are held up and dignified and put in a given position where. Given value where they weren't in so many other cultures. [00:52:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you can go to the woman at the well, you can go to the adulterous woman. You can go to the women that help serve Jesus. You can go to Mary. I mean, there's. There's a million examples of that. But there are those within Christianity who will say, it's kind of funny. I give the atheist credit. At least. They look at it and they're like, yeah, the Bible doesn't give men and women Equal roles. But you've got people within Christianity who look at. [00:52:28] Speaker C: Trying to argue. [00:52:28] Speaker A: They do. [00:52:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it does, huh? Yeah. And I was debating this with a guy one time, arguing on the comments or something like that, and he said that, you know, the intention was for female elders, female preachers, female. All these other things. I said, you know, because the Bible was countercultural. The Bible was really pushing against. I said, okay, so why didn't. Why wasn't there one female apostle? Well, the culture just wasn't ready for that yet. Like, okay, yeah, all right, sure, okay. It was countercultural, but not that countercultural. Jesus was breaking norms, but he wasn't gonna break that norm. The truth is there is a separation of men and women, and there are those. This goes back to our first point, that are embarrassed by the Bible. They're embarrassed by the fact that there was no. [00:53:08] Speaker C: And it's because of our feminized culture, too. [00:53:10] Speaker B: Exactly. Apologizing to women and trying to figure out how to get them in the pulpit. And that's where you get the whole. Well, Junia was an apostle and Phoebe was a deacon. And, you know, Priscilla was probably saying, like, okay, yeah. And so with those kinds of things, though, they're always trying to find a way to make the Bible egalitarian. The Bible values women. The Bible does not put women down. It is not egalitarian. Equal roles doesn't mean equal value. And so equal value doesn't insist that there have to be equal roles. As I always make the point, everyone had equal value in Israel, only some of them got to be priests. That's okay. God operates that way. Only Moses got to do certain things. Like, that's. Oh, that's unfair. Don't care. The people who said that was unfair got swallowed up by the ground. So don't be that guy. But with. With women's roles in the church. Yeah. There is a separate. With women's roles in marriage in all kinds of things. God has set a hierarchy that doesn't take away the value of women, but it does separate the. What we're all put here for. [00:54:14] Speaker C: I was just gonna say, like, the whole it's not fair thing. [00:54:18] Speaker B: Okay. [00:54:18] Speaker C: So whenever you get to be the God of the universe and create everything, maybe then you can set in place what's fair until then. Like, again with the fair thing, especially for somebody who claimed to be a Christian. You know what's not fair or what wasn't fair is Jesus Christ dying for our sins. That certainly wasn't fair. And yet that's what happened. And So I get really frustrated with the. Again, people apply to egalitarianism or whatever it is of like. Well, that's not really fair to your point, Jack. I do not care what you think is fair. I care what God thinks is fair. And the way God set it up is the way that we have to run with it. [00:54:46] Speaker A: I was just gonna make a point, you know, as you're talking. Who's the true misogynist? Women aren't as good as men until they can do everything that a man does, which means a man. A man's value is found in everything a man does. And a woman has no value till she does what a man does. It's like. Yeah, so you're the misogynist, because you're the point. [00:55:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:02] Speaker A: You're the one saying that man's value or what a man does is the only thing of value and that this has. You know, it's ridiculous. But anyway, that's a great point. [00:55:10] Speaker B: I'll just wrap with this. I heard a guy the other day say that, well, some people teach that men are the preachers in the church because they're. Just. Because they're men. No, it's because the Bible says so. It's like. And why does the Bible say so? Because they're men. Because it goes back to creation order. And this is our problem. Where we get this wrong is we won't go back to Genesis and what a man was created for, what a woman was created for, the roles that they were given, all those things and verses like, a woman is saved through childbearing. Or First Corinthians 11 about the glory of God is the man, the glory of man is the woman. Like all of those things. No, no. Well, it just says here that you're not allowed to preach. I would say that's unfair. If it's just like, well, you're exactly the same. But this one gets to. And this doesn't. When you figure out why there's a man and why there's a woman, this stuff all falls into place. And I think there's a lot of complementarians who are scared of this stuff. And that leads to the charge that we're unfair to women. So it's kind of ironic how that comes back around because they won't take a strong stand on it. So that's my final thoughts on this part. [00:56:11] Speaker A: Yeah. When you say that, you know, the Peter hits at it first. Peter 3, talking about the woman being the weaker vessel. The Bible inherently understood this from the beginning because it's Bible Right. You know, God understood this. They are the weaker vessel. So much of this is about protection. So much of this is about trying to get it right. Fully recognizing when we come from a culture of like, oh, we're all the same, anything you can do, I can do better. You don't come from a position of weakness. You're coming from the position of strength rather than realizing. No, there are inherent weaknesses and weaknesses in terms of. Yeah, men have weaknesses too. I'm just saying they are the weaker vessel. They are worthy of protection, they're worthy of honor. You know, that's, that's the beauty of the way Peter talks about it. But that means we got to get our roles right. And it means women have to be able to be feminine and actually show like, I don't have to be the leader all the time. I don't have to do what the man does, therefore I need protection. And the Bible speaks to that. We just warp it in our minds. [00:57:01] Speaker C: My final thoughts, guys, as we're kind of wrapping up here is would just kind of be a plea to the listener. First of all, appreciate you listening and kind of going with us on this journey of a, you know, over the last, not the most, previous one, but two episodes worth of some really tough discussions, some really hard questions. I think it's the, as I've said, I think it's the responsible thing to do to address the questions. Even if we can come down and say, you know What, I'm not 100% sure. Here's my best educated guess, here's kind of what I think and just toss stuff around. That's been our whole goal with this episode. I would encourage if you got thoughts, if you've got comments, specifically those of you who are subscribed to Focus plus, let us know and we'll respond to those comments and questions in our Deep End segment. And yeah, this is, I guess my closing thoughts would be something we've said time and again on this episode. Don't be scared of the tough questions in the Bible. Don't, don't kind of think, well, I don't really like the way that answer is going to get me, so let's just not cover it, talk about it. It's important and hope at least, at the very least, we've inspired some thought provoking content for you. And if you have questions, thoughts, let us know. But that's all I've got. [00:58:06] Speaker B: All right, cool. Well, we'll wrap there and we'll talk to you guys on the next one. Hey, guys. Jack Wilke here. 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