[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. Joe Wilkie here, joined as always by Jack Wilkie and Will Hareb. And today we have something that comes to us from the Twitterverse or the X world, I suppose, at this point. And I know that a lot of our listeners aren't necessarily big X users. But on the other hand, this I think made its way over to Facebook in certain posts and was just a big deal. We're excited to talk about it. I think it, you know, we read it and Will brought it to our attention. It's like this sounds exactly like a Think Deeper episode. We thought that's pretty good. And so we decided to make it into an episode where it hits a lot of the talking points we've had before, but we want to take a few different angles. So, fellas, it's good to be back on the podcast.
Shout out to Marco.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: Shout out to Marco. That's right.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Yep. Did a fantastic job last week and so good to be back with Will. We were out on vacation. I'm still out of town, but able to meet these guys. Woke up early to accommodate my schedule. So I appreciate it.
[00:01:03] Speaker C: But fellow Marco continues his streak of only being on the podcast when I am not in town. So just keeping that.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Honestly, I've never seen you guys on the same stream together. We sure it's not the same guy
[00:01:15] Speaker B: who knows Will grows a mean mustache.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: But no shout out to Marco for, for covering. Very much appreciate it. I'm sure Jack, any good excuse you can get to talk to him for a bit. I'm sure you did not mind at all. But it is good for that. It is good to be back. So yeah, I'm going to go ahead and just kind of dive into the episode topic here. So we're talking about Christian liberty, kind of basically how are we supposed to act?
This is something that we've talked about before in the realm of a lot of times in the church of Christ, we can make everything.
Well, just whatever I got to do to get to heaven. Just, just, you know what, what's the salvation issue?
What are the. The quote unquote black and white sin categories?
And you know, if it doesn't fall into that, then it doesn't matter. There was a post that was going around once again X but then also made its way over to Facebook originally. The guy that tweeted it, his name is John Elder and he just put out a post that says the strongest Christians I know. And then he gives a list, he says basically the strongest Christians he knows it looks like Jackson put on the screen, watch Disney movies, aren't involved in politics, wear bikinis, drink alcohol, shop at Target, celebrate Halloween says true freedom is found in Christ. Those who add to the law are exhausting to be around.
Obviously that tweet garnered a lot of attention, a lot of engagement on X. I know Jack, you commented on I think all of us were together whenever you first saw it and we kind of talked about it for a little bit.
I'm not sure if if it's engagement farming as you call it. As you as one would call it but he is this John Elder individual has added some things across some recent posts as well.
The he basically copied this tweet and put another one but he added so in addition to what you see on the screen he added recognize Santa Claus. So the strongest, most faithful Christians he knows he adds recognize Santa Claus is a new one. Wearing yoga pants, wearing dresses above the knees and wearing high heels to church. So just kind of expounding on his, on his modesty thing and then finally he has one should have cue jack up but things that don't get you to heaven. And so kind of the opposite of what he's shared so far.
And then his list of things that allegedly according to him don't get you to heaven is boycotting Nike and Target, boycotting Disney. And there it is on the screen if you're watching refusing to celebrate Halloween or recognize Santa Claus, never wearing a bikini or dress that shows your knees, allowing your kids to collect Pokemon cards. So it's an interesting one. Putting your kids in public schools, being involved in politics, never drinking alcohol, wearing makeup, memorizing Bible verses and tithing. And then he says what does give you to heaven or get you to heaven? And there's one thing listed repenting and trusting in Jesus alone for your salvation.
There is a lot of ground to cover. There's a lot of stuff to digest, a lot of takes to be had. But just to kind of again if you're an audio listener just once again gives these, these posts, these tweets based on here are the things that allegedly you know, the strongest most faithful Christians do. And it's a lot of things that the three of us have spoken very strongly against and not just us others wearing two piece bathing suits. You know it's, it's Halloween season. Some of us are not as opposed as others but Halloween obviously is. Joe, you've come out very strongly saying that that's not something that's good homeschooling, drinking alcohol like, these are things we've spoken out against. And here he is saying, strongest Christians he knows still does all these things. Boycotting or watching Disney movies with Disney World, all those things. So, Jack, you haven't really talked yet. I'm going to hand it to you to kind of give any introductory thoughts that you have on kind of this.
Again, we all know who this guy is. I'm sure he tweeted it to try to get people to react to it, kind of like we're doing now.
We want to use this as a platform for just this broader discussion, because I do think some Christians can struggle with this principle.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely. We're not doing an hour on John Elder's tweets. We're highlighting these because they are a mindset we run into a lot. And longtime listeners will know basically when that first list came out, like, we have an episode on every one of these. In fact, I think that was my tweet. My tweet response to it was basically like, think deeper. Podcasts exist to debunk stupid tweets like this. Like, we've covered. I don't think boycotting.
[00:05:35] Speaker C: I think that might be the one thing.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: I think it came up. Like, we've mentioned it with the Disney. The boycotting thing or whatever, because we talk about Starbucks Target, like, the worst offenders kind of thing.
And so we talk about all of these because we run into Christians. And, man, I think the first one I remember was we did a boycott Disney, YouTube, think fast kind of thing
[00:05:57] Speaker C: that we did not all agree on, by the way, if you remember.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: No, we didn't. But it was three or four months into the podcast that. So it was early 2022. We did it. And one of the comments we got somebody pushing back really hard is basically like, you should not be talking about this. What a waste of time. This doesn't affect whether we go to heaven or not. And so why don't we just preach the gospel, that kind of thing. And obviously we disagree because the. As Will said, we were not. It would be one thing if we're like, yep, you have to boycott Disney. And if your kid is seen in mouse ears, you're going, he's going to hell. Like that. If. If we were saying that, okay, what we're saying is, well, let's talk about this. Should we or shouldn't we? What? Because Christians want to know these things. Like, hey, this is a company that's pushing some really bad stuff, but they've historically been a family company. Like, families. This is A part of American life. So what do we do about this?
[00:06:48] Speaker C: And let's talk about it.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Why not talk about it? And then you got guys like this and our commenters shutting it down.
[00:06:53] Speaker C: Can I just add on the Disney thing, too, by the way, Just coincidentally, after a lot of Christians and maybe others stood up and said, yeah, no thanks, we don't want this. This agenda that you're shoving down our throat, guess who's backed off of some of their. Not all of it. You know, it's still Disney. Guess who's backed off of some of it. Disney. And so, yeah, it does matter. Sorry.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Family commercials and things.
[00:07:15] Speaker C: Yeah, well.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: And I mean, they bring back the old CEO. And the first thing, he's like, guys, we gotta. We got to tone it down a bit. Like, yeah, like, we've really pushed all of our spending customer base away.
And even if he doesn't believe it, it's like, well, we can't just keep doing this. And so there's the effect there. But again, the discussion of, what should Christians. How do Christians navigate the world? And we get people rushing in. Like, don't talk about it. It's just Jesus. And that's kind of this guy's point in his.
And yet so often we get, thank you for talking about this, because I can't get anybody else to talk about it. I don't know what to do about it, or I'm not sure I would like to hear some thoughts on this. And everybody else thinks it's not worth talking about. It is worth talking about. And so a guy like this, it just runs down. He's like, it doesn't matter. Just follow Jesus. Well, these things are the practicals of how we follow Jesus. That's why we talk about them.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's the key, is these are really important things. First off, he's absolutely engagement farming. That's basically three straight posts of the same thing. He's trying to. You know, he struck gold on the first one and just keeps going back, kind of like bands do with going back to the same sound of the first album. Like, once you got it, why not just play it over and over and over? Like, okay, it ain't broke.
[00:08:20] Speaker C: Don't fix it.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Yeah, right. But on the other hand, it's a perfect encapsulation of, like, these are the things that matter. And we go, oh, well, they don't actually matter. Jesus matters. Like, yes, but Jesus being lord over every part of our lives is exactly what we preach on the podcast every single week. And this Tweet proves it. This tweet is exactly what, what we speak about and why we talk about these things is like in a Christian world, when we talk about Christian nationalism and a Christian based world. Jack, you had a great post on this recently. Like, when we think about the world as it stands and what a Christian world would look like, these things wouldn't exist. And his point is, yeah, they would. It'd be perfectly fine. But I'm telling you, they wouldn't. What's interesting to me is you read back through his tweets.
The guy seems very based. He's got a lot of great tweets. He's got one on, you know, we need to reject all immodesty, the Sydney Sweeney sports ad, some things along those lines we need to push back NFL cheerleaders.
And yet he's got some of the best Christians he knows wear bikinis and the yoga pants and the things along those lines, like, I don't think he understands the slippery slope. I don't think he understands what shining the light as a Christian looks like, which is that, yes, these things do matter and these things do make a difference in terms of shining light to the culture. So I think he's missing that.
[00:09:33] Speaker C: Well, I want to point out too, because once again, you know, I'd never heard the name John Elder before this tweet. Most of our listeners probably haven't, don't care where this is a problem in the church today with just your average churchgoer.
It's interesting to me that this position that he's holding and that I think a lot of Christians hold is just the, it's the most ideal position in the world. Right? It's the, it's the best position in the world. Like I can claim to be a Christian and a strong and faithful Christian and still do all this stuff. Man, what a deal, you know, like what a great deal that is, that I get to wear whatever I want to the beach, drink whatever I want, have to, you know, think about what I'm celebrating. I don't have to think about again what I'm wearing. Some of this other stuff that he talks about, who wouldn't sign up for that? And so that I wanted to capture the, the fact that like a lot of Christians look at something like that and probably really want to agree. Why?
Because, you know, that's some.
We want to kind of have liberty in those things. And I just want to point out too, like, we're not up here on our high horse and everything. Like, I'm not completely anti Halloween. I probably have a target charge on my credit card within the last year, I would imagine. Like, so we're not up here trying to argue that. As Jack kind of said a second ago, anybody who does any of these things is eternally condemned. What we're talking about or what we're talking about though, and what I wanted to point out is like this is kind of, it's risk free Christianity, essentially. It's cost free Christianity. I can be a Christian and still do all this stuff. So what's the downside? Well, with tweets like this, and if this is your perspective, there really is no downside. You're not ostracized. You still look like the world, you still dress like the world, you still get all the comforts of the world. What's the downside? There's really not any other than you got to be somewhere at nine o'clock on Sunday morning.
Again, a lot of that bleeds into, you know, the church and it's not just out there on X.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Well, really for Christian, just briefly, Christian peer pressure should be a good thing where we're pushing each other more toward holiness. And when somebody runs in is like, nope, don't let anybody pressure you toward doing anything better.
Then you just end up with like this bare minimum thing.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: I've been reading through First Corinthians and twice Paul makes the point in the book, all things are lawful, not all things are profitable. And that's what goes through my mind when I read this tweet is, well, Christian liberty would say that I have it like, hey, just because it's lawful does not make it profitable. And I think that's a big discussion to be had. Is, yeah, we're not condemning anybody from these things.
Is it profitable? Is this the best we can do? And when you throw a tweet like this out there, it seems Will to your point. Oh, how loving. Yeah, he understands the gospel. He understands that there are people that are going to struggle. Like, yeah, I've done some of these things, no doubt. You know, I've watched a Disney movie. I'm sure in the past I boycott Disney pretty hard. But either way, like, we're not saying that to go back to that point.
Is it profitable? Is this the, the good, better, best that we talk about is the best that we can do. When tweets come out like this and they go viral and everybody gets behind it and seemingly. And he was also getting his fair share of detractors too, but when people get behind this, they are taking the I'm more loving than you approach because they're looking at it on the first part of the First Corinthians verse of all things are lawful. I'm not saying they're not. I'm not saying you're going to hell for those things. Are they profitable? Which is the discussion that this podcast really is based in. And this is the difference between getting kind of the spirit and the letter type of thing, like that's what this podcast exists for, is to delve into the. Is it profitable? Now, we're not talking about the can you bind that? That's the lawful part. Well, yeah, there's a bazillion. And one thing, you can't bind any of these things. And that's not the point.
Is it a profitable.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: I think you can. I think we'll get into it some. I think some of you can.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Some of these you can. That's true. The bikinis. Yeah, we'll get into it, I suppose, and go down the list. There are some things that you can, by and large, a lot of these you can't. But the broader discussion of is it profitable for us, and that's the point that Paul is making, maybe lawful for him, but he's choosing not to do these things. And for Paul to go, well, some of the best Corinthian Christians I know do these things.
That's not what he's saying. He's saying, hey, don't do these things. Not because you can't, but because you shouldn't.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: I want to highlight the gospel side of this discussion. I'm pulling the tweet up again, where he ends, true freedom is found in Christ.
The question that that raises is, what do you mean freedom? Like freedom. Freedom to do what right? Yeah. And freedom. I can do whatever I want. That's not the freedom you get in Christ. But that's essentially what he's saying is a libertine freedom, a nothing matters, do whatever you want, do what feels good, that kind of thing. If that's your view of what Christ gave you, you don't understand Christ at all. So freedom to do what?
Freedom to grow, freedom to pursue Christ, Freedom to walk with God without one wrong step and you get struck dead, but that you can grow in your holiness. And so this freedom that we have is not.
And to the verses you're bringing up, Joe, Paul's point is this is not freedom to just get away with stuff.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: Well, it's freedom from sin. I understand that he doesn't view some of these things as sin. And not all of them are sins. Again, just to clarify. But the true freedom is found in Christ. A lot of that, too, is, you know, you talk about. Think about Romans 6 talking about slaves to sin. You are freed from that. You're no longer enshackled by the punishment for sin, the results of sin, the negative consequences of sin. Like that's that phrase or that sentence that he has. Their true freedom is found in Christ. I feel like it's kind of ignoring that. It's not to your point, Jack. It's not saying true freedom, man. We just get to do whatever now. Awesome. I. No rules, no guidelines. Just get to do whatever. No. Freedom found in Christ is everything that you're talking about, Jack. But also, once again, like in the New Testament, that's referring to a lot of times, you are no longer enslaved by sin. Again, the eternal consequences of it, the negative consequence of it. You're not shackled by that anymore because of Christ.
That is painfully missing from that. From that particular screenshot there.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: I also think this is a straw man. As you look at this, those who add to the law are exhausting to be around.
I don't know, a ton of people that were condemning people for watching Disney movies.
That's adding to the law is if you watch Disney movies, you're going to hell, or you can't watch Disney movies to go to heaven. That would be adding to the law. I hardly saw anybody do that. Most of the people that are boycotting Disney are going, hey, we don't want to give our money to this. And I don't think you should either. I don't think you should give your money to somebody who's actively working against Christian values, Christian principles. Where did heaven or hell come into that discussion at all? It didn't. And so to me, it's a straw man to say those are. They're adding to the law.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: You don't.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: You are not adequately speaking to the other side. Because none of us are saying that. We're not attempting to add to the law. We're attempting to say, can we do better as Christians, and can we avoid people who actively seek to destroy what we stand for? Well, yeah, we can, and we should. And the same thing goes with Target and Starbucks and things along those lines. So, yeah, I don't appreciate the straw man acting like there's a ton of us trying to make this a heaven hell issue. That's not true.
[00:16:28] Speaker C: Jack, pull up the. The things that don't get you to heaven tweet. If you Can. And again, using this as a platform to discuss this attitude in the church, think about everything that he put on that list of things that allegedly don't get you to heaven with. The one item that does is repenting and trusting Jesus alone. He's got holidays that you celebrate, clothes that you wear, what you allow your kids to be interested and involved in the education of your children the eight to ten hours a day that they are being educated.
Your involvement in the political realm. He's got the way you present yourself, the vices that you like.
He's got memorizing by verses. You're giving his implication.
If he was on this podcast, he'd say, well, I'm not saying that. The implication from that tweet is that none of those things matter. That's the implication. None of those things. Memorizing Bible verses doesn't matter. How much you give, couldn't care less. You know, again, what you choose to dress yourself or your children in does not matter. How you choose to educate your kids doesn't matter. That's the implication regardless of anybody who wants to say, well, he didn't exactly say that. That's the implication when he says, you know, the only thing that really need to worry about to get you to heaven is the bottom line on the post there.
That is what is so dangerous. Because there are a lot of preachers in the church to jack your point, who whenever, you know, a topic like this comes up, that is their response is, why are we talking about this? Doesn't really matter.
Okay. You know, you could argue that may maybe one or two of these things you could, you could argue does not matter. Certainly not all of these. Certainly not, you know, so many different realms of life that he captures in this one post. And again, that's the, that's the attitude we see from a lot of pulpits. And that's why, just to go back to something I've talked about before, we had a lot of Christian young people who don't know what a Christian worldview is supposed to look like. A Christian worldview knows, you know, kind of like has a, has an opinion on each of these things. A Christian worldview does not look at this, this list and go, yeah, none of that really matters. No Christian worldview, one that, you know, fully, you know, is enveloped by what the Bible says, has an opinion on all of those things and doesn't have the, well, it doesn't matter mentality.
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I want to talk about like the church level application of this here in a minute of okay, so how to. How do churches navigate something that is they can't bind necessarily, but still want to have a take on this. And so we'll get to that. But that is the.
It drives me crazy that you can't bind that phrase. And so it's the idea of is it a heaven or hell issue. No. Then we just, we're not allowed to talk about it. It's not of interest. It could be divisive. And so you can't express a preference, we can't debate it. We can't bring thoughts to the table and bring discernment. And this is the Christian life.
This is what leads to the Pharisaism you see in the church.
Because the Pharisees on the one hand were super big on binding their traditions and things like that, but they also kind of were lax in other areas. Jesus hits them for that. Right. Of the things that they are just, I mean, just getting out the microscope to make sure they're getting every grain of their tithe. Right. And they don't get the bigger things. They're not actually engaging their hearts in this whole process.
I think that's some of this, like, can you bind that? Can you go one step over, like, I've got to give this and that's it. That's all I'm going to do.
That's where you get this kind of thing. And so some of my favorite verses, I talk about them a lot because they are so pertinent to this discussion.
Ephesians 5, 9, 10. For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
If it is just a checklist of do this, don't do that, you don't have to try to learn what's pleasing to the Lord. You have it already, it's a bunch of boxes to check. And that's pleasing to the Lord. Trying to learn is using your brain.
Same idea in Hebrews, chapter 5, verse 11. And following where he's talking about the milk and the meat, he says, who by the mature, by their practice, and by diligence, by working at it, have had their senses trained to know right and wrong.
Your discernment, again, if it's just a checklist, you don't have to train to learn right and wrong. You just get the checklist and that's it. You've got to engage your heart, your brain, you got to think about these things. And then of course, Hebrews 11:6, that you believe God rewards those who diligently seek him. The attitude in this kind of tweet is the opposite. Like, you don't have to seek him. You already got it. You're converted. You don't have to think about what kind of Christian you want to be, what that would require of you. Don't worry about any of that. It's good. It's all covered.
The joy of being a Christian is that every day in your life, you can get a little better, you can get a little closer to Christ. And there's the have to's, there's the ought to's, and then there's the get tos, there's the things that you go, you know what, again, to bring that verse up, it might be lawful for me to go ahead and do this, but it would actually bring me closer to God if I don't.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: So I won't.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: And I could, but I don't want to.
[00:22:19] Speaker C: You know what? This tweet, to make an analogy on this tweet. And then, Joe, you can go. And maybe we can go to a different direction here.
What it kind of makes me think of is a similar post that would say things that don't mean, you know, you have a strong marriage. Buying your wife flowers, spending quality time together, going on trips together, complimenting each other, things that do mean you have a strong marriage. You said you're, you know, you, you made vows to God, to each other. Like, yeah, technically that me. That means we have a marriage. But, you know, this other stuff, like, certainly doesn't hurt. Certainly does. You know, it, it adds to it. And so that's the.
Again, the overly technical view of it, once again, like, yeah, technically, the. The, you know, what makes a strong marriage is one where there's, you know, we set our vows and, you know, we committed to God. Okay, I got that. But what else helps? And that's, you know, the practicality of it. As you spoke to earlier, Jack, I
[00:23:13] Speaker B: recently preached in Texas, shout out to Brown street for having us out again.
And I preached on striving for greatness. Of course, the gym podcast, logo or slogan. And one of the points that I made that I think is really relevant here.
We have too much of a focus on heaven. And that sounds terrible to say, I just think we have too much of a focus on heaven. I think we make everything about the finish line and we don't think at all about the race that we're running right now and how well we're running it and what we're doing along the race, how many stumbles we have. Things along those lines. Are we, you know, are we growing in a way that is bringing us closer to God, or are we just trying to get all of God's stuff? And I think when you see things like this, it's like, well, let me tell you what's going to get you to heaven. The way this works for a young person is, okay, will this affect my salvation in. If I were to die at 80? Well, that means I got another 50 years, you know, around 48 years. If I die at 80, that's really difficult for me to think about. Oh, well, does that really matter right now if I don't have to worry about it until I die?
It shortens everything, or rather lengthens everything, I should say. But it basically makes the here and now about, is this going to affect me in 48 years?
Well, I don't know. And so we don't make anything a big deal because it's all about heaven. All about heaven. And we say, no. Well, it's about what's going to get you to heaven. Well, I already repented and trusted in Jesus, therefore I'm good. So I did it at baptism. I die, Lord willing. And they go, well, you could die at any point. It's like, yeah, but most people aren't dying at young ages, so statistically that's probably not going to happen. Could happen. No doubt. You know, God. God could take me at any point, but either way, I'm trying not to live in fear of dying at every moment of the day. And so I'm baptized, and then I'm just focusing on heaven and there's a huge chasm in between of like, but what do I do with my life? And one of the points I made is, like, if you don't like, if you don't want, desire, desperately desire relationship with God right now and what's pleasing to God right now, why would you enjoy heaven? Because that's all heaven is, is a relationship with God walking with him in the garden, as we see at the end of Revelation 22, year 2122.
That's what we're practicing and training for here, is to learn to love the relationship with God. And when I read this, things that don't get you to heaven, it's like, yeah, that is a technical idea of spiritualizing. And, okay, great. That's not going to get me to heaven or keep me out of heaven per se. Is it pleasing to God? And why would I want heaven if I'm not looking to please God here? Because that's really what heaven is all about. It's not just about all the nice stuff that we get. So to me, the church has to be able to dial that back to some degree and go, yes, heaven is the focus. But a key focus here on earth is really living to the glory of God and having a looking Christlike living to the glory of God and having a great relationship with our Savior. I think those are kind of the key principles we have to live by rather than, am I going to heaven?
Heaven is almost a byproduct of those who are living for God down here, rather than kind of the other way around.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: To continue Will's marriage analogy, it really is the letting yourself go thing.
Well, I don't have to.
[00:26:19] Speaker C: I've already got her.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I've got the marriage certificate, and I got the ring right here that says we're married. So things that don't get you married or don't keep you married, I guess looking presentable, wearing clean clothes, combing your hair, taking a shower, cleaning up around your place in the house, things like that.
No, but it sure makes it better. Like, if you want it to be good. But that's kind of this relationship with God. I don't have to do any of that. Like, what kind of attitude is that? I mean, think about that in the workplace, in the home, if you've been on a sports team or whatever, the guy that just comes along goes, I don't have to, okay, well, we're not going very far then. We're not accomplishing very much. If you're just looking at a bare minimum, don't have to think about it, don't have to apply my brain, don't have to try. It's just, and this is part of the overcorrection from some of the denominational folks on the workspace thing. No, that's not what's going to get you to heaven. It's not about you and your works. Like, okay, but what is sanctification if not growing more like Christ? And that requires effort, that requires engagement and thinking and I don't know, it very much drives me crazy how easy it is to slip into. I don't have to do nothing.
[00:27:30] Speaker C: Well, there's two sides to this. I want to ask you as a question on the back end. The first side of things is I think for most people, if they have something that they view that they, they can do but they don't have to, what are most people gonna choose to do? Not do it, not worry about it. It's the extra credit assignment at school. It's the, hey, this doesn't count towards your grade. It's just extra.
Most people aren't doing that, right? There are some, there are, you know, some overachievers, there are some typically successful, just higher minded people who will do those things for the majority of people. If, if an option is laid on the table like, you can do this, it would benefit you, but you don't have to.
A lot of people are going to choose not to. So there's just kind of that human nature side, the other side of that. And Joe, I, I'm. I guess I kind of want to ask you this from a, I don't know, I guess therapy doesn't really come into this, but kind of like a human psychology aspect of this.
All of us have, maybe I shouldn't say all of us, a lot of people have had jobs like this where it always, it seems like there's always something more that you could be doing. Always that can be exhausting, right? That can be really challenging to realize. Like, man, there's always, I'm never at a spot where I'm like, okay, I'm good for the day or I'm good for the week. No, there's always something you could work 24 hours a day on XYZ job. And I'm trying to think of some off top of my head, but there's jobs like that, right, where there's always more you can be doing, always ways you can be improving that I do think for Christians can be a challenge. It can be exhausting as you realize me like, man, there's always something more. I could always be reading my Bible right now. I could always be serving somebody like. And so some Christians will, you know, use that to kind of browbeat themselves and you know, feel guilty about going on vacation or feel guilty about watching a movie or something. Obviously that's not the majority.
But I do want to, I did just want to present that as kind of the other side of the coin to you know, kind of what we're talking about, which is, you know, when we're talking about yes, seeking God and good, better, best and being more like Christ, there probably is always going to be more that we could be doing, right, going to be more that we could be growing. So how do we guard against that particular level of maybe not burnout but like unattainability, I guess, of just never, never getting to where we want to go.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: It can certainly lead to burnout. And in extreme cases you have people that go, well, I'm never going to be good enough. It's never going to be enough. And therefore. And I'm related to somebody that walked away from God because that was the sentiment. I'll never be enough for God. It'll never be good enough.
That is a, that's a common problem. Jack actually probably could speak to this quite a bit from, you know, your book you are saved of just learning that it's okay to rest in grace and to recognize that I don't have to be growing every single day. I get to be growing. That's that shifting and changing and reframing in our mind from the have to to get to.
That's a difficult transition to make. But it really comes based off of your understanding of the gospel because in my understanding is I have to in order to get there. Well then yeah, that easily becomes a works based salvation.
Things will improve when I, you know, or I have to be improving all the time. Otherwise basically I'm not going to be worthy of love. God's going to kick me out of heaven. Well then now it's based off of your works. When we have grace and realize I've been saved already, I've already been made righteous and righteous people do righteous things. I don't have to do these things to be made righteous. I've already been given that. And righteous people do righteous things. And so when we're working from. I talk about this all the time. The surplus verse, the deficit. When we work from a deficit, I have to do more all the time. When we're working from a surplus, I've already got it, man. I get to know God more. I get to do these things. And not everything of the Christian life is not easy all the time. It's not like, oh, wow, I get to say no to the things that I really want to do in this moment. It's understanding what is pleasing to God and over time saying, and this is the sanctification process. I desire to please God more than I desire this vice or more than I desire this thing. And I think this is going to take me further from God. And can I bind that?
[00:31:34] Speaker C: Maybe not.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: But I would rather choose God because I'm fulfilled in my relationship with him than choose this one thing that could potentially ruin that relationship or take me further from him. And so it shifts the entire focus to man. I get to do these things. And when you do that, sometimes you're going to grow, sometimes you're not. And when you're not growing, you go, well, why not? Maybe I've gotten off the gospel, Maybe I've gotten off of. Maybe I'm starting to feel like his yoke is not easy, his burden is not light.
And we're feeling really weighed down by all of the bazillion things we should do as Christians. We gotta be able to reframe that and go, no, these are all the things I get to do to please God and for the relationship.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: That's why I wrote a book on assurance was, man, we push pretty hard to grow. And you guys, your strive for greatness slogan, things like that.
But I need people to have that foundation under them. Okay, you are saved. You're in the clear on that. You don't have to keep worrying about that. I'm not saying you got to do this to be saved. I'm saying, now that you're saved, what can we do to build on top of it? And that continues. I brought up Hebrews 5, 11 and following earlier about maturity in Christ, that's where he comes back in Chapter six says, leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity. Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, faith toward God, instructions about baptisms and laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. He's like, get the basics out of the way. Get that foundation under you and then go build on it. And a tweet like this basically says, all you need is the foundation. You don't need to build anything on it. You got a foundation like, well, that's great, but you're supposed to build something with the foundation. It doesn't matter after that. Yes, it does.
That's what you have the opportunity to do. And this minimalist Christianity, it's just not going to get the job done. So I want to get to the specifics of some of his tweets here and go kind of line by line. So let's talk about. I guess we'll do it at the close of how churches can handle this stuff, because what should a church say about boycotting Disney or Target or whatever or Halloween and things like that? It's easy for us to talk about on a podcast, but what should a preacher do? What should an eldership do? I mean, there's some interesting discussion there.
I guess I'll pull it back up. And do we want to just go down the list? Do you guys want to pick out some favorites? Yeah, there's one of these we might skip over. Let's see. So this is the original one. They got the most views. Right.
Let me zoom in a little bit. Strong, strongest Christians I know watch Disney movies. Let's start there. We've done the Disney boycott thing, the case against it.
Okay. One other thing about the framing. The strongest Christians I know. The. The strongest Christians all do all of these things like that. It's almost the implication that you have to do these things to be a strong Christian, that you. Sorry, Will. You're. You're muted there.
[00:34:20] Speaker C: Sorry, I was just gonna say.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: That you. You want to do these things because it makes you strong.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: That these are good. Like the man. Once you've achieved maturity in Christ, then you can go out to the beach in your underwear, you know, because you realize now you don't have anything holding you back. Like. Okay, that's true.
So, yeah, let's. So watching Disney movies is that we've done the boycott thing.
[00:34:41] Speaker C: The least consequential one.
Obviously, my kids have. Have watched a Disney movie. We don't try not to do movies a lot, but, you know, once every three weeks we'll turn on a movie and yeah, you know, they're not gonna be. There's. There's not a lot of options. And so, you know, I'm assuming. Yeah, the. The per. The. The point behind this one is the. Is the boycott thing. I think this is the least consequential one. I think there are any. There are hundreds of companies you could choose to boycott for any reason. Obviously, we've come out and put our, you know, flag in the ground pretty strongly on Disney several years ago for the anti.
Anti God. Really. It's anti family, but anti God agenda. That they were shoving down everybody's throat. And so, you know, I, I think it's, it's still perfectly reasonable and also I would say admirable for people that say, you know, still not going to give my money there.
They've dialed some of their stuff back. I get that. Again, like, we don't pay for Disney plus or anything like that.
I do not plan to be taking any trips to Disney World anytime soon, give them any of my money. But, you know, if we are able to put in a movie that's from 1997, that was a Disney movie. Yeah. Obviously that's not very consequential. Joe, you're the Disney guy too, so I'm curious if you have anything to add.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: And let's roll Target in with this since it's just the general boycott and discussion. He had that on here as well.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: Yes, I've shopped to Target, you know, at times in the last year. I try to make. If I can avoid it. I do. If it is a matter of. And this is the, this is why we don't bind it. There are times where like Target is the only thing around and man, I need, I need an item. Okay, well, I'll run on Target. I'm not so opposed to that same thing. Disney, I've been pretty, pretty bad on, you know, pretty, pretty hard on in terms of like, no, we're down here in Orlando. Yeah, we're down here in Orlando. We're not going to Disney World or any of those things. We did go to Disney Springs. I suppose they get a little bit of money from that. You know, we met some friends, they want to go to Disney Springs. We shopped at some stores. Not Disney Store, but, you know, some other stores. I'm sure Disney gets a portion of that. You know, ESPN+Disney gets a portion of that. Disney owns them things along those lines. So no, I don't think you're like in sin for doing that. We're not saying none of our money goes to Disney. Disney gets money from all sorts of places. We were watching Monsters Inc. The night like it is. You're not in sin for that. I don't think you're in sin for shopping at Target. It is one of those, though, like consistently giving money. If that was my go to spot, that's where I would push back a little bit and say, okay, giving all your money. You'd rather do that than go to others. I know all the boycott. We're not going to go down that well. Walmart, you know, they do bad Things, too. It's like they weren't putting tuck swimsuits for little girls in the front, you know, for. Or for boys that think they're girls at the very front of the store. They weren't doing an entire LGBTQ section the way that Target was.
No, we don't need to support that now. Target's also dialed some of those things back, took those shelves, things along those lines. Boycotts work for that reason.
[00:37:31] Speaker C: Probably because of the boycotts.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: Correct. They shame people into. Okay, we can't do those things. So by and large, I'd say don't give them much of your money. If some of it happens to go there, I don't. Again, it's not a sin. I just think, yeah, if that's the main one that I'm shopping at, maybe I need to take a step back.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Hey, I want to zoom out just a bit. Does freedom in Christ mean you don't need to think about where you spend your money?
That's pretty weird to me. Like, that's. And so you go to the meat sacrifice to idols discussion and where Paul basically says, hey, if you find out it was sacrificed to an idol, back off. Like, don't, don't. Because for other people, for the stumbling block, it may be all of the things that are kind of surrounding that. That, hey, if you don't know otherwise and you just spend the money and it's meat and you eat it, okay, there's just. You don't have to go, like, investigate it, but if, you know, don't do it. And I think that is relevant to whether it's Disney, Starbucks, Target, any of the big offenders or whatever, that. Man, this. Well, so certain coffee companies you shop at, and not. Not even Starbucks, but, like, beans roasters and stuff, they'll say, a portion of this goes to lgbt, you know, charities or whatever. Like, I'm not buying that. Like, it. As a Christian, I need to think, do I want my money going to that? And it's freedom in Christ. Well, I don't have to care about that stuff. No, I think I should. I think it's important to think about what I am supporting. What is. Because it's not just my family. If I get a Disney plus subscription and all that, it's the whole thing. And if every Christian had kept doing that and Disney goes, okay, cool. There's. Nobody has a problem with this. And they don't dial that back. That means everybody else just gets that indoctrination. And I can say, well, my family's not gonna watch Turning red. But we'll watch, you know, Toy Story 5 or whatever. Well, then it's one of these, like, what are you, you are supporting businesses with the money that you have. And people get this when they're like, well, shop local so you can support your local people. Right. Your dollars impact people.
But there's something about when a company reaches a certain size, like, oh, it just doesn't matter. It kind of does. And so as Christians, I think it's good to think about. And again, it doesn't. You don't need to like pull up the social causes website of every store you go into. That's not what I'm saying.
If you know, and if a company is as out front as say, Target was, right.
[00:39:45] Speaker C: How braggadocious are they about it?
[00:39:47] Speaker A: Yes. Like they are shoving it in your face. Well, I mean, what did the Starbucks guy say? Like, if you're anti abortion, don't stop at our shore, don't shop here. Like, deal. You know, like that's, I think the freedom in Christ thing is to say, I've got freedom to not do, you know, to run that way.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Well, and you're actually making the perfect point of, you know, Paul says don't ask where it comes from. That's the point of like, I need to go research every social God. No, you don't. Don't ask if they make it evident and you happen to know which is these guys. I mean, this is big news. You know, the Target and the Starbucks and the Disney specifically were all big news. You're not getting around those news news items. I didn't have to look very far to see those things.
That is exactly the point he's making. First Corinthians 9. I want to say exactly the point of like, look, if you know it's sacrifice to idols, avoid it. Otherwise don't go asking about it. Was this sacrifice idols. So Jack, that, that is your point? Well, what am I on every actor's website?
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Daddy, who's RuPaul, which is like the world's biggest drag queen because an Old Navy ad, they're selling clothes with the dude, like, well, we're not ever buying Old Navy clothes again. Like, I don't need to answer that for my 8 year old, but that's something they shoved on me. And so, yeah, I didn't even have to ask. So. So yeah, the watch Disney movie, shop at Target again.
Make your own decision. But do think about how you spend your money.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Aren't involved in politics. I'm a big fan of this and we don't need to spend a lot of time on this because we have plenty of time.
[00:41:09] Speaker C: Take it away.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Jack's also got a book on this.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, the strongest Christians he knows aren't involved in politics.
Why? Like it's. Why is that? Why does that make you stronger to not be invested in? You don't. You got to be the guy posting about your favorite candidate every single day. But at least keeping up with the news, whether you vote, whether you're, you're, you know, informed people have different levels of engagement of it. But the idea that maturity would lead you to back off, that that's the gnostic thing, that we just don't have to care about what goes on around here.
You do and there are good outcomes. Did you see the thing the other day about young people identifying as LGBT has fallen off of a cliff in recent years?
Yeah. It's like things like this have.
It is a big impact based on the cultural sway, the influences, things like that. And on the other hand, there was a stat about since the turnover in presidency, Muslim immigration to America has fallen off of a cliff. They were bringing in 20,000 Muslims a month in the last administration.
That hurts your fellow Christian. And to say, well, I'm a strong Christian, I don't have to care about Muslims being in my country or the Hindus putting up a 90 foot monkey God statue in Houston, that, that just doesn't bother me. Like you are so short sighted, you don't care about anybody else.
These things impact your fellow citizens.
The losing. Yeah, your own kids are going to have to fight against this stuff and maybe have their Christianity limited. I mean, you see, you know, in England, things like that of what you're allowed to say about other religions, this matters.
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 Wilkie 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.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: And this goes to man, get us on a big talking point here.
It's the loser theology you talked about that. It's the loser Christianity of, you know, it's actually better we, Jesus says we're going to be persecuted. Like this is why we have to understand what they were dealing with in the first century, I don't think was the same as what we were intended to deal with for the thousands of years after Jesus.
And I know that sounds bad, that sounds controversial. To say that the Bible doesn't, you know, is not relevant, that's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying, did Jesus intend for Christianity to always be the underdog in every single place going forward from then on out? And the moment we gain the power, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're supposed to be persecuted. We're supposed to have things go wrong. My kids are supposed to have to be facing lions. Like, it was a great thing to get out of that. That was hard fought for us Christians to not be persecuted. And now we're, like you said, we're having monkey God statues going up in Houston. How long Christianity becomes outlawed because these people are demonic and these are demon religions that will absolutely attack Christianity. So if we think that we can put up this monkey God and first off, not face God's wrath, and second off, think that this isn't leading toward persecution of Christians the same way they're doing in Canada, the same way they are in other Muslim countries, we got another thing coming. But when you have a ton of Christians that don't get involved in politics, they go, actually, it's better for us to be persecuted. What are we thinking? Because I'll tell you what I don't want. I don't want my son ripped apart by lions. I don't want my son put in front of a firing squad and ask, hey, do you believe in Christianity? And if he says yes, boom, I don't want that. And yet when I say that and when we say, hey, one of the ways we get out of that is by being involved in politics and pushing for a Christian nation. What are you, Christian nationalists? You just trying to convert everybody by the sword? It's like, no, that's what they're going to do if we don't do something. So, man, spare me the loser theology here of we're supposed to be persecuted for end of all times.
This was hard fought for 2,000 years for Christians to get to this point where we have freedom of speech, where we have a Christian nation that has done more good for the world than any other country in the history of the world. And we shrink back from that and go, well, it's actually better when we're persecuted. And the church actually grows under persecution as though the church in North Korea and Iran are just booming right now. Give me a break. It's time to get over this thinking and to get back to reality and realize my kids are going to be persecuted because we got a bunch of Christians that go, it's actually better to be persecuted, living in a world where they don't face any of that.
My goodness, I don't know what. We lost our minds.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: Yeah, well, for time's sake, why don't you.
Sorry, yeah, no, I can't add much to that. It is ridiculous. Why don't you get us into wearing your underwear in public? I was going to say that's not what he said. I'm sorry. He said wearing bikinis.
[00:46:16] Speaker C: So.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:17] Speaker C: Yeah. Wow. Basically, I think this is the most objectionable. I said the watching Disney movie is probably the least consequential. I think this is the most consequential one on the list because where does it stop? I mean, this is a modesty point I made before is that everybody has a line. If he would have said, wear nothing to the beach. Okay, that, well, that one obviously can't make the list. Okay, well, you know, wearing clothing that covers approximately 12% of your body, if not less. Oh, but that one's, that one's fine. So that, that's clearly his line.
This one, I. This one. I do think churches, and we've had episodes on this before, need to do a lot better job of honestly binding in some ways. Like I, I think you can make a strong argument based on Isaiah 47, based on Genesis 2, with, you know, God, or I guess Genesis 3 with the, the tunics that God designs, that clothing for humans was designed to cover at minimum, you know, from, you know, chest to knees, essentially what was meant to be covered. And so, yeah, it, it includes guys taking their shirts off at the beach. It includes all those things, but certainly involves two piece bathing suits that is the equivalent to underwear.
Churches that don't have any guidance on this, you know, I think it's time for churches to have guidance on it. I think dress codes at minimum, for worship of what, you know, the length of skirts.
But I think, I think Christians need to be being taught, you know, what you wear matters. You know, young, young Girls going out in, you know, crop tops that basically their entire stomach is showing. Guys that go to the gym with, you know, the giant wife beater shirts basically with the gaping holes to show their entire chest. Like, man, this. To, to say that that does not matter is I think the, the, the most, once again, most objectionable thing on this list. Because I think the Bible does speak on it. And I think the idea that God doesn't really care what you wear or don't wear, you know, regardless of where you're going, if you're at the gym, at the beach, at a school dance, whatever is pretty is. Is preposterous. Preposterous.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: My favorite thing on this is the guy that rushes in and goes, actually modesty in the Bible is about drawing attention to yourself.
[00:48:23] Speaker C: Like it's a heart issue.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: Well, not, not just that, but like drawing attention to yourself.
Wearing your underwear in public doesn't draw attention to yourself. Like that doesn't qualify, you know, and like Will's saying, the, the guys with the lifting shirts and all that, like that's not about showing off your body. I like so I.
That much skin that I can see that much of your skin and you're not drawing it. Like that's under the purview of that whole discussion. I mean, come on, this is insanity. But the more we go through this list, the more it sounds like a teenager to me. The teenager, you know, that when they hit 17, 18 years old, like actually I can go to parties and I can, you know, because I'm an adult now. I can cuss, I can do all this stuff. I can stay up all night long and drink Mountain Dew and all that because I'm an adult now. And it's like, no, you missed the point, man. The point was that you can care for yourself, that you can be self disciplined, you can control yourself. Not.
Wow, you've got like an 8 year old's version of freedom here of like, well, I get to drive wherever I want, do whatever I want at all times. That's not what maturity is. And this whole thing is mature. If you're a strong Christian, you can, you know, go drink and wear your bikini and watch whatever movies you want and all that. Like the Galatians talks about. The law was a tutor to bring us to Christ.
The law was so extensive and laid out so many commandments because we were children.
Now we're supposed to be mature in Christ that we can again use our discernment, use our willingness, trying to be pleasing to the Lord as we Looked at earlier. That's maturity. Not this teenage thing of I can say cuss words now because mom and dad aren't around. That's the problem with this. I can wear whatever I want to the beach because I'm washed.
[00:50:10] Speaker C: Whatever I want.
[00:50:10] Speaker A: Yeah, that's just the wrong framing.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: Well, as you said, it's about, you know, learning to take care of yourself, ultimately. Why? Because adults turn back and take care of others, right? They think about that. And that's what comes to mind with this, is how many brothers are stumbling. I would love for these girls that are adamant about wearing bikinis, and I can do whatever I want. I would love for them to come sit in a session as they watch a guy cry because he cannot seem to get out of porn addiction. And he was doing really well. And I got a guy like right now that, you know, really struggles going to the gym, trying to better his life, trying to go to the gym. And, man, it takes his thoughts into a really bad spot. And he tries to, you know, keep his head down the entire time, but he's fighting for his life to get out of porn addiction.
People come in wearing whatever they want. And this includes guys, too. Guys can, you know, for. For those that struggle with homosexual tendencies, sometimes that's the case, you know, for women. They can. Sometimes they're becoming more visual these days. That can lead to her. So this is not just picking on women. This is both sides.
Think about the implications of what you do to somebody else. Same thing with drinking alcohol. It's. It's. It's your witness. It's what you do to somebody else. It is becoming a stumbling block to another brother in Christ, sister in Christ, who's trying to live their very best life. And they have to deal with their own life of sin as they're trying to climb their way out, crawl their way out of their own addictions, their vices, whatever it may be. And they get set back because a mature Christian, one of the strongest Christians that we know, decided that they're going to wear nothing to the gym, they're going to wear nothing to the beach, and then some other good Christian comes along trying to protect himself, and he's inundated with this from another fellow Christian. It's already bad enough from the world. So you have a duty in your maturity to think about caring for other people, too, not just for yourself. And that's one of the issues with this, is that's Jack. I think it's a great point. It's very adolescent in thinking it's very teenager esque. Part of becoming an adult is learning I have responsibilities to those around me. And that is a poor way to show it.
[00:51:57] Speaker C: Well, in the modesty one too, just briefly think about the other ones that are on the list.
If I, Joe, if I learn that you go to Disney World, does that make me sin in any way? No. If I learn that, you know, Joe, if you learned that, you know, my five year old dressed as spider man and went trick or treating, does that. Because I noticed we didn't cover Halloween yet, does that make you sin in any way? No.
What about if somebody, you know, if somebody goes out and dresses immodestly, that is a direct cause for somebody to sin. There, there is obviously a, a strong side of this argument. It needs to, you know, talk about lust. And that's where everybody always goes, oh, it's on the man for looking like that. That is a part of the, of the, of the discussion as well. But it's basically the only one on the list, you know, that you can look at somebody who does that and it elicits or it triggers a sin action by somebody else. Again, the, the Disney does not. The, you could argue the alcohol does not necessarily even, you know, the influence thing obviously matters.
This one does. And so to me that is once again why it's probably the most objectionable on the list is you are swinging the door wide open for lust and telling people, hey, don't walk through it. You are leaving the, the, the money, you're leaving the vault at the bank wide open. Bills just sitting out there, no security, no locked doors and telling people, don't steal, it's there, but don't steal. Like it's just ridiculous. And so that one I think once again most objectionable on the list. I don't know if there were others we wanted to get to, but like that one is in a different category in my opinion.
[00:53:28] Speaker A: Yeah, let's, let's do the Halloween because this was another one that's been going around Facebook a little bit.
This meme somebody made Jesus knows the difference between devil worshiping and your two year old dressed as a pumpkin. And so kind of, again, it doesn't matter. And that was on the guy's list a couple times of the strongest Christians celebrate Halloween and things like that.
We've done Halloween a few times that I think it's the spectrum. Will's fine with it, I'm kind of neutral, but okay with it. Joe is very much against it. And so even on here we, we allow disagreement with Each other, the whole binding thing or whatever, but still extends fellowship to us. That's right. Somehow to Will's 5 year old dressed as Spider Man.
But this framing of it, the sarcasm, Jesus knows the difference between devil worshiping and your two year old dressed as a pumpkin.
Okay. But it's also like there that there's a little more consideration there for your fellow Christian that Joe didn't come to this and goes, oh yeah, Will's kid is worshiping, you know, Satan by dressing up as Spider Man. That's not the claim of this. And I don't know, I think there's a discussion to be had about like charitable looking charitably at the, the arguments your fellow Christians make on something like this. But also the strongest Christians I know celebrate Halloween.
There's Christian liberty on these kinds of things. It doesn't make you stronger or weaker to indulge in them, to partake in them. And I don't know, I don't have a lot of thoughts on this one. I just think it's one of those that it's like, again, we should talk about it. Again, we should hear out the person who has a problem with it.
[00:55:03] Speaker B: Right. Because my goal is not to sway you guys or Will to tell you that you're sinning or any of those things, is to choose what's best for my family, but also to make points of letting people know, kind of planting the flag out there. Yeah. There are those of us that strongly disagree with a, you know, a, I don't know, an entire holiday kind of drenched in darkness in a lot of ways. No, that doesn't mean everything's dark. Doesn't mean that Jackson getting in a Spider man costume is super dark. It just means there's, there's overarching things.
And I think it's okay for me to say that, Will, I think it's perfectly fine for you to go, well, this is where I stand. And it lets people make that determination for themselves. And that's this the entire point. Think deeper. That's the entire point of our podcast is just think a little deeper about it and think about where you're coming to. And I may sway people with the argument of, hey, I think Halloween is something to avoid. The same way that boycotting might be, you know, the other things to avoid of. I just know generally what that looks like. Yeah, you know, Amazon or not Amazon, Target probably supports a lot of good things too, but the things that they support or that are not good. So we can use different arguments to get there.
And kind of the same with Halloween is there's plenty of good things, but there's a lot that's not good.
If somebody decides to look at that a little deeper, great. That's the goal. And if somebody goes, oh, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, I agree with Will. Okay, that's perfectly fine. We'll still be in fellowship. But to your point, Jack, it still is good to discuss these things, just to put it out there. But Will, what are your thoughts?
[00:56:25] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't have much to add. Again, like, this is one of those that I very much respect the people like, like yourself, who have thought about it enough and dug deeper, dug deeply into it enough to where, you know, you've decided, like my family, we're not going to do it.
But also, you are the best I've seen at not making it a part of your identity either. Like, oh, we're the anti Halloween people. Like, there's, there's a lot of. And you know, people do it with Christmas as well. I think Christmas, sometimes this can be even more of like an identity thing for certain people when they're anti, you know, celebrating Jesus's birth at all or anti cynical or whatever it is. And so that would be the only thing I would add to the discussion is, man, if you and your family decide we're not going to do this great like that again, I, I respect that and I, I think that's admirable until you start to turn it into not just your identity but, you know, kind of the brow beating on the other end. And you know, to Jack's point, I think this post, I don't have a huge problem with the sarcasm. I think we talked about how the sarcasm can sometimes, you know, depict what is like, what should be kind of obvious. But I think if, you know, if you're the guy that's okay with Halloween and you're brow beating people who aren't okay with it, like, okay, that there's no place for that. But, you know, obviously the alternative as well, whether it be Christmas, Halloween, because he brought up the guy that we're talking about, brought up Santa Claus, another tweet. So that would be all that I would add is, you know, because this one, again, not to go back to what I just said, is different than the modesty. You're not directly causing somebody else to sin, in my opinion, by, you know, dressing your two year old as a pumpkin and going out and getting candy as opposed to, you know, you're dressing in a Two piece bathing suit, going out to swim. So that would be the only thing I would add to it.
[00:58:01] Speaker A: Right. So let's wrap by talking about churches and how they can address things like this.
That it's one thing for us to talk about it on a podcast, but from the pulpit, from a Bible class, having a discussion on something like this. And I fully believe, as has been said a few times, ain't nothing wrong with saying from the pulpit, hey, it's a sin to wear a bikini. It's a sin to go out there unclothed. Do not do that. Some of these other ones, okay, Halloween things like that, you know, I think, or boycotting, you know, Disney Target or whatever else.
[00:58:33] Speaker C: But can I add real fast?
[00:58:35] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
[00:58:36] Speaker C: I would be okay. As somebody who's okay with Halloween, I would not object at all to a sermon where somebody explored all the dark sides of Halloween and maybe why Christians should not be involved in it. I would not have a problem with that either. Obviously you get up there and say, hey, man, you're, you know, you're probably hellbound for it. I might have a problem with it. But like that, some of this other stuff, even the Disney thing, I, you know, that might not be a great sermon, might not be a great spot for, but the Halloween thing, I could see somebody getting up there using that time on from the pulpit and saying, here's why, here's why. It's a, you know, bad idea, unhealthy, whatever it is. A lot of people would get offended at that. That's because a lot of people are too sensitive, in my opinion. I wouldn't care. I think that would be a useful thing.
Sorry to cut you off, dad. Like to your point, I think there's room for those types of discussions even from the pulpit.
[00:59:21] Speaker A: And I think an eldership can determine, hey, what's our church stance on Halloween? And most churches like have a trunk or treat or whatever. So their stance is, yeah, it's cool. We're going to participate in.
Might be, we don't care either way. Some of them might be like, yeah, we're not doing that here. Well, that's up to the elders to determine and then they can communicate it to the people. I think most churches are going to be kind of just not really strong one way or the other. So have that discussion like Will's saying, have somebody present the case, if somebody wants to make the case against it, the case for it, and then just say, and we're going to come out of this tolerating each other. We're going to come out of this Romans 14ing each other. And I think that would be very healthy in that it would teach Christians the opposite of what this guy's teaching with his tweet of like, don't even use your brain on this. You don't have to worry about it. Hey, use your brain. Here's some thoughts, considerations on how to make a decision for yourself. And it's up to you and your household. And with so many of these things, I think that would be a really healthy thing. The, the guys
[email protected], it's a kind of a discipleship ministry. They've got a YouTube channel. They've been doing these dialogues on things people disagree about. And I love this. I wanted to do this a while back, but it's one of those people would get really, really mad. I don't think our corner of the church has as much room for something like that. But like, you present your side, you present your side. And they did one on Christian nationalism. They did one the other day on house churches and basically, hey, this guy. Make the case. And it's not really kind of a debate, but kind of. And then they just wrap it up like, all right, we're cool with each other, let's move on. And that's it. And I think within a church you could make room for things like that.
[01:00:57] Speaker B: One of the things I was going to say, church wise, you have to do a very good job on the front end before you get into the nitty gritty here.
Grace, right? Get Jack's book, buy it in droves. You know, let make sure everybody reads, you are saved. They got to understand grace and that you're already saved.
They gotta understand a good, better, best theology of man is this, what's best, right? We're striving for greatness. We're striving for more because we can, because we get to. If your church is, is, is really grounded in that and has a good foundation in. We know we're saved. We know where we stand with God. And yes, we're trying to please him. Great. That opens the door to being able to have these discussions from the pulpit, have these discussions in Bible class, have one on one discussions amongst the elders and the people there. Because it's like, man, we're striving for.
We're striving to be the very best we can be for God. If that's in place, great. If you're coming from a hellfire brimstone and you have people stepping in and out of heaven every single time that they sin or whatever, and they have no concept of grace.
Wrong discussions to be having. Bringing in Halloween, bringing in Disney boycotts. Your church is not ready for those things because they're too busy trying to worry about, am I going to heaven or am I not? That's not where this discussion needs to be had. It needs to be had in, hey, let's be holy together. We already have been made righteous. Let's figure out what sanctification looks like. So to me, it's like, is your church going back to my point on heaven, thinking about justification, glorification and not thinking about sanctification? Is your church still stuck on justification? Have I been justified? You're not going to get to this until justification is shored up. And then with the glorification, if you're too focused on that and on the end of all things and you're too focused on heaven, then you're going to miss the sanctification. You got to dial that back too. So when you're thinking about those discussions, I think all of that has to be place. It's an entire framework that will build upon one another.
[01:02:39] Speaker C: Well, the only other thing that I would say is I think a lot of elderships don't think that they have much say in what people do in their individual lives.
At least they don't act like it. Again, what they wear, what they watch, what holidays they celebrate.
And again, it's not that, you know, it's not a dictatorship. At the same time, I think expectations can be laid from an eldership about we expect, you know, this level of clothing. We expect, you know, these types of, you know, these X number of shows or whatever it is, movies to be avoided. We expect these things. And so I think if you're an eldership or your creation, just if they don't have that expectation, it's basically like, man, we can. Man, we're happy if we see two Sundays out of the month type of thing. Well, then obviously they're not going to have much to say about what you wear to the beach. So that's a challenge, you know, But I think the elders who get that, hey, we are shepherds over the souls of our flock realize that a lot of this stuff impacts people's souls and so it matters.
[01:03:36] Speaker A: Yeah, these are, these are the ways you create a culture as a church is by talking about stuff. And we're obviously big advocates of that, of a church having a distinct culture and again, striving to learn what is pleasing to the Lord and You do not do that by saying, ah, do whatever you want. You're free in Christ. And so it was Will's idea to run with this tweet and do an episode on it. Thanks to the guy for the unfortunate, terrible tweet, but gave us a good outline to go on and a lot to discuss here. So. So we'd be interested to hear your thoughts, whether about any particular line that we discussed here or just the general idea of freedom in Christ, liberty and working towards maturity. So thank you guys for tuning in as always. You can join us over on Focus plus for the deep end for further discussion. Get your questions and comments in and we'll respond over there with our weekly episode and a lot of other things going up on Focus plus as well, getting through the Nehemiah study. And so if you're interested in Deeper Bible study, we've got a lot of content on there for that as well.
So that's all I got for this week. Thank you everybody for tuning in and we'll talk to you guys on the next one.
Hey guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want 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.
