Resources:
Our episode on law/gospel
Our episode on "When the Faithful Falter"
Our episode on Assurance
Our series on Covenant Theology
Giveaway: ESB Bible from Post Tenebras Lux Bible Rebinding
https://youtu.be/qDuftHJrgOU
Semper Reformanda Transcripts
Jon Moffitt: This is family time so we'll just open this up. We received a lot of feedback from a lot of people who thought maybe we weren't as clear as we should be.
Justin Perdue: There was a lot of overwhelmingly positive feedback too, but then yet there were some people that thought we could have been stronger in some of our language. Maybe we weren't as clear as we could have been and we wanted to seek to rectify that today. Hopefully we did.
Let me just start by saying some of this: Jon and I were talking about a number of things before we recorded. He and I are of one mind as to what we want to talk about here on SR today.
Even for us, we did not record that podcast for the sake of any one or two or three individuals. We're not trying to assuage any particular person. If we're getting feedback from people that say this was less than clear, we want to make sure that we come in and try to clear up any confusion that does exist. We hope we've done that. We do not assume that we're going to get it right every time we get behind the microphones because we're fallible guys and we might not say trends the ways that we should or want to say them. We thank you for being gracious with us. Give us feedback and give it to us in gracious and kind ways. We really appreciate that and we will aim to respond in kind.
I don't know how you want to kick this conversation off. I know what I want to do today is talk with our SR family and think about what it's like to encounter this kind of theology when you've never really heard it before and you are having categories explode left and right, and you're coming from a context that was very different. Maybe it was a fundamentalist context. Maybe it was a lordship salvation context. Maybe it was just a general evangelical, broad evangelical context. Fill in the blank. Maybe you came from a super abusive, heavy-handed church background.
But it's really easy for us when we encounter this kind of theology for the first time and we look back on what we used to experience. We have a lot of strong feelings about that. We, as human beings, are pendulum swingers. The pendulum doesn't stop in the middle; it starts over here and starts to swing, it ends up way over here, and it doesn't stop here. We tend to fall off the other side of the horse quite a bit. We can also be very emotional in the ways that we respond to theology because of the experiences that we've had. A lot of times, our thoughts are filled with emotion and vitriol and even bitterness towards what we experienced in the past.
What we want to do today is just talk to the person who might be experiencing that very reality, where you're angry, you're frustrated, you're bitter about what you used to experience in the church. You've been burned, you've been wounded, you've been hurt, and you are not quite sure what's the best way for you to interact and write and speak and whatnot about what you used to encounter now that you've learned some other things.
I'll just start off by saying this: Jon and I are pastors. We deal with this in our own congregations on the regular, as people are exposed to this, and they come to Grace Reformed Church or Covenant Baptist Church, and realize they've never experienced this before. They start to learn things and categories are blown up. They start to react against what they used to be taught. They react against what they used to experience. Sometimes those reactions are, I'll just say, too strong. They are laced with emotion and bitterness and anger that's actually not going to be helpful for you in the long term and are not going to be helpful for the people listening to you over the long term.
Jon Moffitt: I can remember my transition from fundamentalism. I grew up in a King James only fundamentalist Baptist background. I slowly started making transitions. The men and women who helped me transition learned how to communicate their differences and concerns with me in a loving and gentle and meek tone. Those who came in and basically smashed everybody that I respected and I loved, even men that had hurt me, and I still love them and respect them, it would be hard for me to listen to them because I would just see anger and hatred. I see that they are mad, and I'm not going to talk to a crazy, mad person because there's nothing good that comes out of that. And what was sad is that I eventually became that crazy, mad person.
Once I discovered the freedom and the joy of things like Calvinism, I wanted the whole world to know this amazing, powerful God. I would theologically just beat people over the head because they were wrong. You feel a lot of self-justification in these moments because you're right—and you know you're right because you have Scripture on your side.
Justin Perdue: And you're loving people because you're giving them the truth.
Jon Moffitt: Right. You would hear illustrations like if someone's in a burning house and they don't know that it's burning, is it really loving to just coerce them out or to pull them out? But that's not how it works. It's a wrong analogy. There's so much put on you as an individual, assuming that you have the capacity and power to change the hearts and minds of people, and you don't.
Justin Perdue: I have another comment that I want to make that's related to sustainability in the faith, in the Christian life. Maybe just a brief interjection, a little public service announcement here. You and I talked about this before we recorded, Jon, and I think it's appropriate for us to say to this group of people. Again, we will fail in things. We always want to be clear, and where we're not clear we want to clear things up. We've already said that. But one of our aims with our recording and the content that we produce is to be charitable, gracious, humble, and kind in the way that we speak.
First of all, intellectually, we don't want to commit logical fallacies. We don't want to build a straw man and caricature others and those kinds of things because that doesn't do anything good for our position long-term. But we want to strike this gracious, humble, and gentle tone because we think that it's going to actually give the ministry credibility over the long haul. We're not going to alienate people. We're not going to anger people with the tone and the demeanor with which we communicate. And so we are going to err on the side of humility and gentleness for that reason. We do not want Theocast to be one of these ministries that sparkles and fades. There's a lot of shine and a lot of traction on the front end because you get a couple of shock jocks behind the microphone. That does not help anyone.
I've kind of said this before, and this will lead into my sustainability analogies. You all know what we mean here by you can't just live on sugary snacks and candy. Your blood sugar spikes really quickly and you feel great and it's satisfying, but then you crash. That's what shock jock theology does. It works really well in the near term. You can gather a following, you can get people really rallied around this kind of persona and the fact that we are all reacting against what we used to experience that was bad, but that will not carry the day for long. It's not wise, it's not biblical, and it's not godly. That's not what we aim to do here.
Jon Moffitt: You do see in the New Testament where Paul and the New Testament writers will make reference to dangerous theology and to individuals. But I would say the majority of their epistles are designed to build up the saints and then give instructions upon the correct theology. You will have Paul addressing individuals. Galatians is a great example; he said some pretty harsh things in there. He asked who bewitched them, he called them fools. There's a place for strong language, but when you're dealing with people who are making a theological transition and they hold it dearly... I can tell you how I led my wife. It was an epic failure. I've heard from people who've reached out and said, "How do I care for my spouse who's in opposition to me?" For whatever theological position they find themselves in. And I can say how not to do it. I came in with a sledgehammer and just absolutely tried to prove to her that she was standing on shaky ground, and that if I just punched it right here, her whole entire world would fall apart. She just could not hear me with a sledgehammer in my hand. What I had to learn to do was build a sound, theological platform next to her and let her see how much safer and sound and more accurate this is. She starts looking at the sinking sand she's in and she looked at the platform I'm standing on, and she was like, "I'm going to come over."
Justin Perdue: That's a solid theological platform. Obviously there's more than this, but it is at the heart of the sufficiency of Jesus. That's what we're trying to pull people on to even here at Theocast. Any deconstruction we do, pointing at the nature of the sinking sand or the fact that that boat is going down, is simply in order to pull people over to what's better that's built up on Christ.
Let me say this, too. This is meant to be pastoral towards members of CBC who are listening, but certainly for those of you out there who are SR members. I would like you to hear this as well. I've already used the sugary snacks illustration, about how it just doesn't sustain you for long. You kind of sparkle and fade, and you soar and you crash and all that. I think there also is a tendency amongst all of us theologically to try to survive based upon what I would call a reactionary mindset. We're always reacting to something. There's always some new thing that we're getting excited about. We go from one thing to the next thing.
Let me use a sports analogy. People know I love sports. Let's talk about football—my favorite sport. You hear a lot of teams, in the college level in particular, you'll hear coaches and players talk like this. They talk about how they're disrespected, they'll talk about how they want to play with a chip on their shoulder and they want to prove everybody wrong. This is a great motivator—they're going to go out there and prove the world wrong. They're going to play with an edge because everybody's hating on them. That, I would say, will only work in the short term as far as a motivator for performance. It will not sustain over the long term. You have to have better fuel than that if you're going to build a successful program over decades, because you can't constantly be saying, "Everybody's doubting us. Everybody's hating on us. We're going to go out and play with a chip on our shoulder." Because eventually, I would assume you want to be good enough that people know you're good. How are you going to make it over the long term?
I would say the same is true in theology. I notice a pattern amongst many that even find their way into confessional Reformed theology. They find their way into confessional Reformed theology, because they've been exposed to it and they agree with it, and it's so much better than what they used to know. They have all of this fuel because of their animosity and their dislike of where they came from. It fuels them for a season. Then it's like, "Okay, there's gotta be some new fuel because I was fueled by animosity towards fundamentalism or lordship salvation. But now I'm four or five years in and I'm running out of gas. I need something else. Maybe it's biblical manhood and womanhood. Maybe it's therapeutic notions of other things going on in the church and how we do counseling." Or whatever it is. You latch onto this new thing that then becomes gasoline, your fuel for the next two years, three years, five years. But you end up doing what we critique evangelicals for doing all the time, which is moving from one obsession to the next. Whereas what we are trying to do here is that long-term sustainable fuel. We're going low-glycemic index snacks here. We're trying to feed people with stuff that's consistent, that's built on Christ week after week after week on this podcast. I know that's how Jon and I approach pastoral ministry. We're not going to be talking about this sparkly, sweet stuff and shiny things. We're going to try to preach Christ because that's what's going to carry the day.
Jon Moffitt: I think Theocast, and I can say with confidence, both of us, what we say here is very much what we would say in the room with any one of our congregants. And often, I do this podcast based upon what our congregants need.
Justin Perdue: Because we see our congregants are like other people.
Jon Moffitt: Our job as shepherds is to protect anything that would cause people that we love and care for to go stray. This is Ephesians 4: the responsibility of the teachers and elders and preachers is to equip the saints for the work of ministry so they're not tossed about by every wind of doctrine. That means you have to build them up towards something—not necessarily away from something. I'm always just keeping problems away from them. I'm not teaching them how to deal with the problems. So it is true that at times we need to ward things off that will cause someone to trust in something other than Jesus Christ, but Christ must be the strongest pole. If you're always pointing out what they shouldn't do, you are going to exhaust people. Because all they can see are the things they're not supposed to do. Whereas Hebrews says to set those things aside to do something, which is looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Justin Perdue: It's been said many times, Jon: what's the best way to teach people to recognize a counterfeit? It's to show them the real thing over and over and over again. That's true with respect to identifying fake currency. You keep showing people what the real thing looks like, and they can identify the counterfeit. And obviously, it's not that you don't ever show them the counterfeit. It's not that you don't ever point out errors. But the main diet is always, "Here is Christ and here is the gospel."
Jon Moffitt: Even with your own children, as they're growing up and they're eating, you can't go around just saying what you can't eat. You need to tell them what they can eat and then give them varieties and show them the benefits of it. But if you wake up in the morning and you're told, "You can't have donuts, you can't have candy bars, you can't have sugar," you wonder, "Well, what can I have?"
I would describe Rob Bell and Gungor in this way. They were both brilliant in pointing out what you can't do or what was wrong or what was off, but they got so far down in the weeds that they actually lost sight of Jesus. They literally have lost their minds.
Justin Perdue: They have abandoned faith altogether.
Jon Moffitt: That's right. They deconstructed so much. The way I would describe it is they pulled every board off of a boat that was sinking and said, "See, this thing is sinking." And then they sank. They should have found their way over to Christ.
My other thing, Justin, as you were talking... I know this is going to sound hard for some people to hear, but I'm speaking about myself. I'm speaking from experience.
Justin Perdue: Same. A lot of the things that I said were characteristic of me and I still fight against them.
Jon Moffitt: Right. A lot of the anger we have towards theological men and positions—they did hurt us; they abused us. I myself have felt theological abuse from a lot of people—some people even you would know. I have experiences that are personal. If you're not careful, instead of moving on with the great commission that has been given to us and focusing on our local churches and the ministry of the gospel going forward, we try and get revenge. We try and hurt people the way in which they have hurt us. And I will tell you that if you listen to Scripture, revenge belongs to the Lord. How many movies have been made where people seek revenge and at the end, they're empty? They now have regret because they did things they know they shouldn't have done, but they justified them because of how evil that person they are seeking revenge against is, and they feel they need to stop them.
Justin Perdue: Revenge is also a very short term motivator.
Jon Moffitt: So the watchdog ministries—"I have rescued so-and-so" view—have habits and mentalities where they say, "Oh, I just really want to protect these people and I want to rescue them out of..." You could say Pentecostalism or whatever it is. When you get them to sit down, it's not why they're doing it. They love to prove other people are wrong and that just gives them a spike in their self-righteousness. It isn't going to last long term because you're not kind, you're not patient, you're not gentle, you're not long-suffering, and you're definitely not showing love.
Justin Perdue: Nobody's going to want to listen to you for long if you do it that way.
So those were some very behind-the-curtain, unfiltered thoughts from John and from myself. Those things that we just said, there may be some biblically informed stuff there. We think there's some wisdom in it. But you do with them what you will. May the Lord give us all grace that we would love one another and be kind, charitable, humble, and help one another as we all seek to trust Christ and live life in this fallen world, as we make our way to be with the Lord forever.
Jon, it was good for me to get back behind the mic with you and to have this conversation today. I'm really thankful for it. I hope many listening feel the same way.
We love you guys. We appreciate your partnership with Theocast. We don't take it for granted that anybody would ever want to partner with this ministry. Continue to pray for us as you think of us. Get on the SR app and interact with each other. Jon and I will aim to get in there as much as we can and maybe a live chat is coming soon on the day that this episode releases.
Jon Moffitt: Thanks for being patient with us on trying to get these groups up. It is a little harder than we thought so we're recruiting help to get these up. So thanks for that.
Justin Perdue: We appreciate you guys. Grace and peace to you.
