Ask the Pastors Season 8 Episode 4: “What is theological triage? + how important is credobaptism?”
00:03):
Welcome to Ask the Pastors, a segment of the West Hills podcast, where you have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. My name is Brian. I'm your host, one of the pastors and joined by Pastor Thad. Howdy folks. And our lead pastor, Will. That's me. And today will be a multi-part series on- Super excited.thing called Theological Triage.
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Super excited.
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What is that guys?
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Well, it's about to be our most listened to episode series of all time.
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It's perfect. Your favorite series of all
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Time. It's already my favorite, just the idea of it. The main goal here is to make sure we make it out of this with three pastors still on staff. So we'll see how we do. Do you want to define theological triage for us to set it up?
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Yeah. So theological triage and thinking about it, triage is something we do regularly and actually most aspects of our life, whether it's your email inbox after the weekend, you're going to triage what's most important for me to deal with, what can I deal with later? The idea of an emergency room that someone can come in. And even if you have someone who has a broken finger or is experiencing a heart attack or is experiencing potential bleeding out, even if the person with the broken finger was in first, they're not going to get treated first because there's more serious issues to deal with.
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Tell me, this is top of my mind right now, because I told you, Polly and I just started watching the show.
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I mentioned that The Pit.
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It's all triage.
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It's ER.
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It's like the ER reboot for this generation or whatever. With the same guy. The same guy from ER.
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Oh, this show called ER. Got it.
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Yeah. There was a show called ER before you were born. Got it. That was like the number one show on TV. And now the pit won tons of ... Anyway, it's about an emergency room-
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Situation.
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You're just following the staff of the emergency room at the Pittsburgh, whatever medical hospital. And everything's triaged. Everything is who gets to cut the line. Like you said, heart attacks versus paper cuts and what rises to what level of relative importance. Facebook, Rebit, speaking of reboots?
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Oh no, I was just sending the camera.
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Are we good?
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Yep.
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So how are we going to do this? Tell them about your list that you found or
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Were sent? Yeah. So this list is from a church called Delray Baptist Church. Pastor's name is Garrett Kell. They run a pastoral internship program and he posted this exercise on X where they walk through a whole list of topics and questions and ideas. And the pastoral interns have to rank them about how important it is. They have a list of six categories starting with, we can pastor at the same church, we can be church members of the same church, we can disagree. And it goes on down to, I don't believe you're a Christian.
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Yeah. They have six tiers that
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We're going to- To many.
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We're going to collapse to three. Three tiers. By the way, were these four ... He gives you the scores. Were these actual interns? Okay. Yeah, yeah.
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No. No. Some of
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These I'm thinking, how are these people even in the same pastoral
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Internship? So I messaged him and said, "Hey, could I get a copy of this? " And he's like, "Oh yeah, sure. Love to give it to you. " And showing me how it works is how they
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Did it. Okay. So we're going to collapse their six tiers down to just three to simplify. Tier one, highest priority in the ER, this is hard to stoped or- Life or death situation. Life or death situation. So for us spiritually, that is life or death situation. This is a heaven or hell issue. If we disagree on this, one of us is probably not going to heaven.
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It is an essential for the gospel.
-
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Essential of the faith. Level one, tier one. Level two, we can disagree on this and both still be Christians, but we probably, this issue topic is probably important enough that our disagreement on it means we should probably be at different churches, just worship at different churches. Now, in this, in Garrett Hells, Delray, they differentiate two subcategories of that, one of which is a higher level priority that says, "And your church that you're going to go to is probably not a healthy church." Versus we can be at different churches, maybe even both still be gospel centered and healthy churches, but just this is a really important issue that Christians worshiping at the same church should probably be in unity around, right?
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Yeah. So if I was first tier essential, second tier urgent, it's going to have some effects on church health. Often this is where you get denomination divides and they're on this second tier kind of category.
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Important. This is important enough that ... Yeah. And then tier three would be, we can disagree with this and worship together, be members together, maybe even serve as pastors together at the same church. Now again, on this one, they have six categories. And so they further differentiate that to, yeah, we can be at the same church and be different versus-
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We might not be able to pastor it.
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We might not be able to pass. And so that could be something that again, we nuance and think a little bit about on certain issues and like, okay, but where are there issues that are ... Yeah, they're important enough that at least your leaders of the church, your elder council, need to be in agreement, even if every single member isn't. So we can talk about that maybe some, depending on the issue. So is that clear enough? Do we need to do any more-
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They have 155, but-
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They have 155 issues. What 60? Topical theological issues. And we're going to ... Yeah. We went through and kind of highlighted, here's the ones that we find interesting that might ... And we'll see how many we get through, how many part episode this is. Where should we put ... We have now 33 minutes left on this episode. I'd like to put an over under of nine. We're
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Starting to
(06:46):
Be gambling. Sports betting's going to come up later as a topic. How about podcast betting? I'm going to say nine. I think we can get through nine topics today. Now remember, we are not necessarily-
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Fully despending or whatever.
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We are not even necessarily going to say what our position on any of these particular issues are. Maybe we will, maybe we won't, maybe it'll be important, maybe it'll be obvious where we stand on it. The issue is not what our position on the topic is. The issue is how important is our position to us on the topic and the agreement between us.
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We might have to do some definitions to make
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Sure. Well, I think we know that
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We are all operating in the
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Same way. And real quick on this, plug for submissions to the podcast. If any of these topics we talk about are ones ... We've done a lot of these podcasts on why we don't do pedo baptism or why we take the Lord's upper every week or go down the list, whether or not Christians should attend same-sex marriages. We've done standalone podcast answers on a lot of these that we're going to talk about. So that's not what we're doing here. What we're doing here is how important is that to our faith. But if there are ones that we haven't addressed that as we go through and you're like, "Ooh, I'd actually like to hear more about your position on that, " submit that as a podcast question for us and we'd love to go deeper on any of those that we haven't already. If we already have, we'll just link it in the show notes or if there are questions- Ones
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We don't do.
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If there are questions of the 60, whatever that we don't do that you're like, "Oh, but I want to know about how important this one is. " We can do a follow-up triage episode after all of this with ones that you add into the mix as well. So that's just a plug for more podcast episode submissions from our folks who might listen to this.
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Absolutely.
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Should we dive in?
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Brian
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Is answering first.
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Yeah, let's do it.
(08:55):
Number one, baptism must be done by full immersion. And so it's right, it's not our view. This is somebody's view of this topic worth heaven or hell
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Leaving a
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Church,
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Staying
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In church.
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You're free to share.
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Is that right?
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Yep. You're free to share your view on it quickly if you want, but we mainly want to know, can you be at the same church, be in the same faith with this person? How important is baptism by full immersion for a Christian? For a Christian. I'm
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Like 70% there understanding the format of this, so I'd appreciate actually if y'all went
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First
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For this first
(09:36):
One. I'll go first then. I believe that baptism should be done in most cases by full immersion. I think there are exceptions to that that have even caused us to rethink some of our own really, really staunch stance on that as a church in our constitution. We have people with disabilities who might be unsafe to baptize that way, et cetera. So the must language, the baptism must be done by full immersion. I don't even know that I would agree with that the must there. I would say should. But is this something that I think that Christians have to agree on to be a Christian, be at the same church? I think to me, clearly not a first tier issue. So the question is, is a second or third tier.
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For me, this is a third tier issue where I would be able in good conscience to worship alongside someone who ... And frankly, we have ... I mean, we can get practical on some of this too, where we have folks who don't believe that not only baptism must be done, but even we have some who at West Hills that don't believe baptism necessarily ought to be done by full immersion. And that doesn't ... My disagreement with them on that isn't a stumbling block kind of thing for me, where I am actively looking to shepherd them out of our church. So that's where I stand on that one, third tier.
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I'm a ... On this specific question, baptism must be done by full immersion. I am second tier adjacent because I also hold to baptism is best practiced and expressed by full immersion, but I would add there are instances where there would be an allowance, as well as I think someone could disagree with baptism and worship at the same church. I don't think those people can be members at the same church, which is different, but I think they could worship the
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Same thing. That is a different ... Yeah.
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Yeah. Different question. You're right. So how it's phrased, third tier, but it's again, you kind of pull on a thread a little bit. There's some things there that need more, and they have these questions phrased, a specific way to overdraw more conversations. For reasons. Yeah.
(12:32):
Sure. Yeah. The way that it's phrased, exactly. Three, practically, could you be a member at West Hills and be sprinkled? No, from my understanding. So I would say practically tier two though for me.
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So to give, again, like a devil's advocate example, we have a couple that here at our church who are members who came to faith later in life in a Presbyterian church
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And
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Were therefore they don't have tanks. So they got sprinkled as adults, so not baptized by full immersion. So in a case like that, then I think if you are going to say that yes, that again, must is a
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Strong word. I mean, part of what I think you could read into the word must is a definitional kind of word of like, this is what baptism is. In other words, if it wasn't by full immersion, it wasn't a baptism. So then you have to decide whether to say to that couple, sorry, whatever you got at that Presbyterian church, it wasn't a baptism because it was only a couple drops of water and not lots of drops of water. So that would be part of my kind of pushback of ... And again, so much of this is not even hypothetical. It's real life situations of a couple at our church. Yeah. Would you push back to them and say, no, sorry, this is a second, you all both said second tier issue. It's a second tier issue. I don't think
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You said- I said third tier. Second year
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Adjacent. Okay. Okay. You started
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With secretarys. Because I think the norm should be immersion, but there are situations where there's an allowance. Irregular. Yeah. Such an example of an irregular that's even of immersion, someone gets baptized at a camp. I would argue that's, depending on circumstances, irregular- Not all the way immersed, you're saying? At the camp? Even all the way immersed. I would say that's irregular in my definition of-
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We could probably have 10 different spinoffs of the baptism question alone.
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But based on the question, it's third tier, but very close second tier adjacent in the practicality.
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What about my first baptism I ever did at West Hills where the drain wasn't working properly and so half the water was gone and I only got him his back half wet, not the front half. So only half immersion, not real baptism?
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No, it is. But I at least know a pastor friend who he didn't get someone all the way down in the tank and picked him up and threw him back down to make sure-
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And turned him over and went head first out of the way. Oh my gosh. That's what I should have done. Yeah, that's what you should
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Have done. Okay. But do we have members here that are sprinkled? Yeah. I just would love to know.
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I didn't know that. Just to be clear on that, they were professing Christians and sprinkled because there was not a tank, not that they were sprinkled as infants. So even there, there's a definitional difference. That's a good segue. Helpful to
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Know. Thank you. Our second question.
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Infant baptism is acceptable as long as he/she is a believer now.
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You want to go first this time now that you- Not the
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Rules. It's acceptable as long as ... So this is saying you can be baptized as a child and that'll count if you're a believer now.
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Acceptable. Count, however you want to find that. Define acceptability. Yeah. Again, that's a valid question. Acceptable for what? Acceptable for salvation, for obedience to Jesus, acceptable. For church membership. Acceptable for what?
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Like in alignment with scripture? Is that how we want to read it?
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I would tend to understand it that way, wouldn't you? Acceptable from a church perspective, it's good. We don't need to do more with you.
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Yeah. That is the best practice based off reading of scripture is how we're reading that.
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No, I wouldn't say best practice. Acceptable.
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It's acceptable.
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Yeah. Okay. Not ideal, but acceptable.
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That it's acceptable to be ... Okay.
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Not an issue we need to address. Don't have to rebaptize you. Don't have to
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Whatever. I'd say believers baptism is still important. Is it worth leaving ... That's a good question. I guess that's why it's on here, because it's a good question.
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We are going to actually make you go first on one of these.
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Yeah. I'm going to go second tier on this one. I think it would be, again, acceptable. I think even church history proves that that question is in line with why there are divisions and definitions. So I would go tier two on this one. I think this is a little even more direct than because we reshape the first question some.
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Yeah. Well-
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If I could clarify one more thing, I would also add membership. Again, acceptable reading. I think how you line up on this, it's going to affect whether or not you're at one church or another.
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Yeah. To me, the way I answer would depend on the understanding of acceptable.
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It's an important
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Word. Yeah. Because is it acceptable to- To whom? Jesus. I mean, that should be the most important question. Is it acceptable to Jesus? And I get into this a lot with folks who come to West Hills from Pedo Baptist backgrounds or whatever, and many of whom have since studied the scriptures and come to the conclusion that actually know credo baptism as a believer on their profession of faith is the better way, and they're now raising their kids that way, didn't baptize them as babies, whatever, but they still, for whatever reason, they're hung up on, "Yeah, but my parents did it for me. And would it be repudiating that baptism if I did it?
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"
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But then some of whom, I can think of a couple cases at our church in particular where they are convictionally Peto Baptist still in their own thinking and say not just that they think that their baptism was quote unquote acceptable, but they actually think that that is the way that it's best practiced. Okay. So I say all that to say, when I hear the word acceptable here, as a pastor, let's say interviewing someone who was baptized as a baby and I'm helping them think through that, I believe that credo baptism is the way that baptism should be practiced. I believe that it's clear enough to me that when that Peto Baptist gets to heaven and two Corinthians 5:10 gives an account for every deed done in the body, good or evil, and stands before the judgment seat of Christ to do that. And we go through the Rolodex of all your whole life, I believe that that will be one thing that Jesus was like, "Hey, why didn't you ever get baptized the way that you were supposed to get baptized?" I believe that now, certainly acceptable for salvation, no, I mean, I think we all hopefully agree that-
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And because it's not a first tier.
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Yeah. At all. Yeah. And because we're saved by grace through faith, not by works, not by the work of baptism, not by any work. And so I don't think it needs to be acceptable in that regard. Will it be acceptable? Will their, I believe, misunderstanding of scripture be acceptable to Jesus that they could say, "Well, but look, most Christians throughout church history did baptism this way. Why didn't you make it more clear if you really, really wanted it to be by immersion on a profession of faith?" Will that be an acceptable enough answer to Jesus on that day or whatever?
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So that to me is the real biggest question is, is it acceptable to Jesus? Because who cares whether it's acceptable to me or not? And yet I am the lead pastor of our church and one of the elders of our church, and we do as elders and leaders of the church have to make those kinds of decisions too about acceptability and yeah, frankly, from a membership standpoint, who is acceptable to receive into membership, let's say. So for me, when I think about that question and infant baptism being acceptable to me and my conscience, to, I guess, us as a church and in terms of fellowshipping with this person, again, I would put this ... I'd like to have a more clear kind of ... But this is one where I go back, I'm more in your camp of where you were with the first one, where I'm like, it's for me somewhere kind of second tier, between second and third tier, where I certainly would understand someone who believes strongly that infant baptism is not only acceptable, but the right best way to baptize.
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And certainly for instance, when that person, like I can think of a few couples younger at our church that in some of those cases haven't really started having kids yet, when they have kids and they want to have them babies baptized, it's like, okay, well, this is going to be a real thing for you if that's where you're at. So I for sure would be the first one to say like, "Hey, we want you to be in a church where you can feel accepted based on your views."
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We want to help you be consistent with what it is that you truly believe.
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And that view is just not our view here. And so now that said, am I personally at peace? Am I, like I said with the first one with immersion, am I okay fellowshiping with, communing with, inviting to our table, the Lord's table, his table, every Sunday at West Hills, the convictional Peto Baptist at our church, I am. I'm fine with that. And I've heard like Mark Dever who's
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As hard line about this as anybody, and his friendship with Ligon Duncan and Pedo Baptist, Credo Baptist. And when I go preach at Mark's church and he comes and preaches, because they do that, they're best friends. Do I take communion at their church and things like that? So that for me is a non-issue at all because communion is about, that's first tier. When you're with us, it's not about you have to be a member, you have to agree with every line of our 30 page constitution. We want to know, are you a follower of Jesus? The first tier issues, are you saved? So to me, it's not that, but membership, infant baptism being acceptable from the standpoint of membership at the church, that's where, again, I probably am more open than a lot of Baptists, a lot of credo Baptists would insofar as it's, because it's not a first tier issue.
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And again, for me, here's what I will say. I think that because Jesus said, "You need to be baptized." I think being baptized is a second tier issue at least.
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I think if somebody said, "Yeah, we just don't believe in practicing baptism," I would say, "Well, you can still be saved because we're saved by grace to faith, not by works. Baptism is something you do. It's a work. It's a symbol." So that person could still be a Christian, but that's not a good way of doing. That would be a second tier, you have a different understanding of the scriptures if you think that ... And there are Christians, there are people that claim to be Christians, I would say probably just really misguided Christians who don't believe baptism should be practiced. Their interpretation of scripture, that was a first century thing and it's weird, but it's not what 99% of churches do, but some people do that. So I would say, okay, that's the second tier. If you're going to get been out of shape every time a baptism happens at West Hills, you shouldn't be here.
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You shouldn't be here at that point because we are actively praying for more baptisms at our church. We get excited about baptisms. We don't need your negative energy here on baptism day, so go find a different church. But for someone who, for me- It's about
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There'd be alignment, yeah.
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For someone who has a different understanding of what, again, of how baptism is best practiced, so long as we still have the same understanding that it's not saving, that it is a symbol, and that what's most important is the faith behind it, whether a Pedo Baptist thinks that faith is something to come that they're praying for and they're whatever, versus for us, something that's been expressed. To me, that would be a third tier issue where for me personally, I'd say I am okay with that person, but I think there would have to be a ... Go ahead.
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Well, I want to add one thing to this. I think it's helpful as we're talking about tiers, particularly second tier things. And I think it's Mark Dever who says this, that we should be ... When there's doctrinal divide or definitions, we should build the fences but keep them low, meaning he and Lake Duncan who disagree on baptism can be friendly and in cooperation with each other. Members of the same church? No. So even in your acknowledgement of that, that's not to say we are unfriendly or uncharitable or unkind, it is though a difference of understanding of scripture conviction where I draw the line to make it more second tier in thinking about yours is it then if it's for a membership piece, it then creates the potential because Because we've already named that there's a difference of interpretation of tiered in some sense, whether named or unnamed, between, well, I was sprinkled or I was immersed.
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And how does that play out leading towards even leadership where then you have potentially half a elder council who says, "Well, we think it's infant baptism." And then half says, "Well, no." And I think it could cause significant confusion and disunity,
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Which is why I think most of church history puts baptism Lord supper ordinances together in that tier two.
(30:45):
Yeah, I think you're right. And I definitely see the potential with that. I mean, how many ... Yeah, you start letting folks in and you say, "Hey, we get that you believe this. We just need you to believe this. " But how many of those people become voting members before all of a sudden the vote is different or the constitution gets changed or the belief statement gets changed on that. So I get that. I get that. So yeah, I can definitely see the counterpoint to that.
(31:13):
Yeah. I'd say tier two with this one as well and agreement with that. Big enough to where consider me personally, I'd consider going to a church where there is alignment with this understanding of baptism is big enough where I would consider that being something I would consider for a tier two. Again, not heaven or hell, but important. So I'd say tier two.
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Let's keep going.
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Next one. We're going to get the four today.
(31:50):
No, we're going to do this.
(31:51):
The guest was nine. I think we're done. Ready? Next one, same-sex marriage is allowable as long as both are Christians.
(31:59):
What a weird question. So
(32:02):
Brian, you've got to answer this. This is your opportunity. This is a no-brainer, tier one, right? We break fellowship over this questioning faith. Am I understanding these tears wrong? We're going to write them on the whiteboard. No, no, no. Honestly, I thought this was our views of it, so I'm just ...
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Your view is the relative importance of the topic. So how-
(32:28):
To me, that would point to they're not believing the gospel. Maybe I'm misunderstanding this.
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You are correct. What a weird how it's phrased question.
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It is weird for multiple reasons. The idea assumption that both of these same sex wanting to be married to each other, people are Christians is weird. The word allowable, again, allowable by who? The government, the church, God. I mean, there's just a lot of more that we should probably have to define to be able to ... But I mean, frankly, I would say that right out of the gate, before you even get to allowable or Christians, the first three words alone, it's a contradiction of terms. There is no such thing as same-sex marriage. There's no such thing. God defines what marriage is, and it's between a man and a woman. So the government can pass amendments and do whatever it wants Bergefelt, but there's no such thing as same-sex marriage in God's eyes. There's just same-sex attracted people acting on that wayward sinful desire and being out of alignment with God's will for their life.
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I'm trying to say it's really important, is what I'm trying to communicate that might not mean. Yes.
(34:04):
No, no, no. No, no,
(34:05):
No. You are. No,
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I see what you mean. Yeah.
(34:07):
To me, even all of that said, another Christian who says, "I am pro- gay marriage." Whether or not they're both Christians, that's a weird ... But I am pro- gay marriage. What would I say to that Christian? I would say you're wrong. And I would say we shouldn't be at the same church. Do I think that that person who believes in same-sex marriage, that God smiles on that? Can they be a Christian? I think there-
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I
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See. It touches ... Again,
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There's- You pull a thread. It
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Unravels. Yeah. There's pretty clear tier one implications, like you said, of this. But I do believe, and again, I'm just more maybe hopeful. I don't know. We're all hopeful. But in terms of who can make the cut to heaven, I mean, everybody that I was friends with at Vanderbilt Divinity School is same sex.
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Affirming.
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Half of them are gay. And the other half think that God loves gay marriage. So
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I disagree with them now, but is their view on that going to keep them out of heaven? Now, their view on that won't keep them out of heaven, but this is where we say, why do they have that view? Well, because they have other views about the inspiration of scripture and other things. But their view just on that issue alone, same-sex marriage, I don't personally say that that's a first tier issue that ... I believe that there will be people in heaven that were really, really wrong in earth on a pretty important issue, but that were affirming, LGBTQ affirming, Christians, legitimately believers, followers of Jesus, born again, and just really got that one wrong. I believe that that will be the case. So I would say second tier for me
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On
(36:22):
This. Yeah, that makes sense.
(36:23):
That's going to be an unpopular opinion. So people are going to
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Say first tier. Second tier, and again, as you described, and Brian, even as you expressed, it touches that there's a thread that if you follow that thread and if you pull it ... I don't even know- Because that's what I was getting at. I don't know if it's in here, but regardless, second tier, I think they can be a Christian. If we were to go by their original six years, number two. I think your church is super healthy. I think there's lots of other problems and implications. I would question, are you a Christian? There are things, but I think one could be a Christian and live a very unhealthy, immature Christian life. Yeah.
(37:09):
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. We got time for at least one more. Probably two. These next two are real quick.
(37:16):
Oh, it is allowable for Christians to attend a same sex marriage.
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Third tier.
(37:22):
Third tier. Great.
(37:26):
I was about to ask because I didn't follow up. Yeah. Whether or not we should.
(37:30):
Well, not that. Could we pastor together and have a different-
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Because I was going to say, I guarantee there are people in my life creep, I would almost bet that fall on different sides of that. That there are some that say, "My best friend from college just came out as gay and is having a wedding and should I go? " And one says yes, the other says no. That's a matter of conscious.
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Is that the Ellister Bay controversy? It's a matter of
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... Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's a matter of conscience. So to me, clearly third tier we're not breaking fellowship at the same church over it.
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But there are churches that do.
(38:02):
Should we pastor? Yeah, there are. Should we pastor? Should pack. Can pastors? So you're saying if you have a conviction about this that you believe ... Let's say one of us had a friend or a family member that was getting married and I really felt like in my conscience I should go to the wedding and you really felt like in your conscience, a Christian should not be attending a same sex quote unquote wedding. Can we still be pastors on that? I would say yes. Again, this is where I try and collapse those two things. I think in essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and all things charity, that was, to me, would be where charity would come in. And what would you say?
(39:01):
I think so. I don't think it would be my encouragement. I think we could. I think we'd have lots of conversations. And I asked that question because in some ways, is it an example to the rest of the congregation positively or negatively and how one responds to that? That's all. It's a thought experiment. Yeah.
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Yeah. Next
(39:24):
Question.
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What's the example that it sets for sure?
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Yeah. Well, what's the precedent?
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Christians are justified by grace alone through faith alone. First
(39:32):
Tier.
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My understanding of the tears is coming into clarity. Yeah, definitely. This is salvation. They're all the tier. This is salvation. The last one, yeah, tier two. I would come around to you guys. I think I was
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Misunderstanding. I think this is salvation.
(39:45):
This is salvation.
(39:46):
Heaven or hell issue. For sure. I might talk long enough. If I talk long enough, I might somewhere in between.
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Can I talk long enough for you?
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Because here's the thing. Do you think tear was who? Because you can think that your works are somehow contributing a little bit to your salvation and yet they not be contributing and yet you're still saved in spite of your bad theology on it.
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I am a tier one. That's an interesting point. I will say, I think there are perhaps some who are misunderstanding of grace through faith, who rely on works and just have a misunderstanding about how their justification and sanctification works that I could, but I mean, it is a gospel. It is that, whether you fully understand and can express that.
(40:45):
Yeah. Yeah. It's a very dangerous position to be in theologically to think that you contribute by your works to your own salvation. I mean, it's hard for me to overstate how dangerous that is theologically and how completely counter to the gospel
(41:14):
There. It
(41:14):
Is. I mean, we just went through Galatians in the fall. How can you read Galatians? I mean, that's what Paul's saying about the Judaizers and their circumcision. And just everything that he says there is like, "You'd be better off." Yeah. I don't know. I
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Agree. This is a gospel issue.
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Yeah.
(41:37):
Again, I'm trying to think of ... I think I know Catholics who have a misunderstanding-
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Who've been misled.
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And misled that could be Christians
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And
(41:52):
Just have not had that fully fleshed out. I think
(41:54):
You're right. Yeah. I think you're right. That someone could just
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Be
(42:00):
Immature in their faith and just-
(42:02):
And think it's their works, but it's not. Yeah.
(42:05):
They know they need Jesus deep down and they rely on Jesus, but also there's still some of that striving. So yeah.
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I think we can do three more of these.
(42:15):
Three more podcasts or three
(42:16):
More topics? No, three more topics. I
(42:18):
Thought you had leave it four. You just
(42:19):
Have to. 405. I'm loving this. This is my new favorite. I was going to say, we got
(42:22):
To go.
(42:22):
No, it'll be fine. All
(42:24):
Right. I'll drive. At the speed limit. That's good.
(42:26):
Let's do at least.
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The Lord's supper must be taken weekly.
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Three.
(42:31):
Third
(42:32):
Tier.
(42:32):
Yeah. Although there are people who put this at a second tier. And I think that's-
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Acceptable.
(42:38):
Unhelpful.
(42:39):
I think it's unhelpful.
(42:42):
Yeah. And
(42:43):
Those people bother
(42:43):
Me. I've been in churches where it's once a year, once a quarter, every year.
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I'm just going to go ahead and say the people for whom at second tier bother me. And there are people who aren't listening to this but should be at our church who if we stop doing communion weekly, they would leave the church. And the uncharitable part of me wants to say-
(43:07):
Good riddance.
(43:07):
Let's do it just to ...
(43:09):
But I love those people, but I don't want that. We do do it. We do on Church in the Park or Easter. Easter
(43:17):
Church in the Park. We don't do it. And every year those people come up to me, notice we didn't do communion this Sunday. Should I be ... No. Just go
(43:25):
Take a nap. It's third tier. Again, do I think there's a helpfulness to doing it weekly? Sure.
(43:30):
Oh sure. I mean, definitely. We do weekly. For a reason, but must be taken weekly. I would love to. Well, I guess the Catholics, I mean, it's the center of their thing. So yeah, I mean, they would say that's heaven or help, but they're so screwed up. Anyway, we got time for one more.
(43:51):
Two more. Christian should only consider private or homeschool for their children. Third tier.
(43:58):
Yeah. We did an episode on- Full episode. School.
(44:01):
We did. Yeah. Next one.
(44:03):
How about can we pastor if your kids are at public school and I judge you for that? Should we be pastors together?
(44:08):
Listen, your school wouldn't let my kids know. Oh, it's personal.
(44:14):
I'm just kidding. I don't judge you at all. Sometimes I'm like, "And should we be at the public school?" No, we should not.
(44:20):
Again, as we did, I think that would be a good podcast for people to listen to how to think, because there are good reasons and
(44:29):
Bad reasons for schooling.
(44:30):
Yeah, for sure.
(44:32):
Yep. And there's arguments for each one of
(44:33):
Them,
(44:34):
Pro and con. Next one. One more.
(44:37):
Mature Christians will speak in tongues.
(44:43):
Some of these questions have to be ... Because part of the way that they did their tier thing was because they're six tiers. And the sixth tier is, I agree. I agree with that statement. And so I guess if I flatten it and just say your church's view on speaking tongues and how pro- speaking in tongues you are, I guess, is what we're talking about. Anyway, all that to say, mature Christians will speak in tongues. What do you say, Brian? We'll make him go first on this.
(45:19):
Again, this is how important the church staying at the ... I'm
(45:24):
Gone
(45:24):
Again.
(45:26):
How important is this, Brian? We're
(45:27):
Going to have to record in the morning for you, not the afternoon. The brain is gone. That struggle's real. Yeah. How important is it that Christians quote at the same church? Agree on Christians speaking in tongues. Because I mean, on their thing, we would say we disagree with this. I would say we at West Hills disagree with the idea that mature Christians will necessarily speak in tongues. Our reading of scripture would be that there's nothing in scripture that would indicate that every believer must speak in tongues. We have people at our church that believe that that is a gift of the spirit that is no longer given since the first century, since the first generation of Christians, that it was only given for the establishing of the church and all these other people in churches that claim to be speaking in tongues for the last 1950 years since then are all just faking it or some sort of sociological, psychological thing going on.
(46:49):
But anyway, tear, to be quick, that would be a probably somewhere between second and third tier. I hate to keep doing that because it would be better to give a clear answer, I think. Like I said, we have Christians at West Hills who speak in tongues, and then we have Christians at West Hills who think those people are faking it or crazy or something. Heretics, maybe. I am okay with those two congregants, both being at West Hills. But again, I have a much higher tolerance. I have a much higher tolerance for
(47:50):
Division, if you want to call it, or just difference of opinion than a lot of people do. And I can see where kind of going back to our baptism thing, where that could be cause for real struggle if, for instance, like to your point, both those people ended up on the same elder council.
(48:07):
And
(48:07):
Now you've got one elder at the church who speaks in tongues in his spare time and the other who thinks that that guy's a crock pot. So that's where I can see it raising to the level of second tier potentially. However, which of those people, just at the membership level of the church, am I going to actively steer them toward another church and say, "Hey, because you don't believe that God still gives the gifts of speaking in tongues, you should be at a different church." I don't know that I'd say that to that person versus, "Hey, you speak in tongues." Now, in practice, if that person starts speaking in tongues in the worship service, there's going to be other conversations about one Corinthians 14 and you got to have someone to interpret and then it becomes a whole thing and now it's part of our worship and goes, so okay, that's new.
(49:06):
So I'll stop talking. What do y'all think?
(49:10):
I would put, again, don't love how the question is phrased. As far as the continuationism, cessationism, I would love to say it should just be more a tier three issue. But again, as you described, you pull a thread and it can have different implications.
(49:33):
This one's, I would say more probably practical implications, even more so than
(49:38):
Theological. Practice.
(49:40):
Some of the others are more theological.
(49:47):
I think our church is better right now with members who, again, have different viewpoints on speaking in tongues now. I think our church is better for that. I could come to a place where I could potentially see some unhelpfulness in this and the practical and some of that, but I would love to see more charity in any of these kind of conversations with those two.
(50:16):
And this is a good stopping point. That's why I always try and lean on things like this toward third tier, because I think the more ... And this is part of why we joined EFCA, is that they call themselves center set, where it's like rather than fences on the periphery, we want to center on the gospel, and then things that get outside of that second, third, whatever tier, just become less important. And we give a lot more freedom for shaping your own opinion on that.
(50:47):
Yeah. And with that, we want to have strong convictions on what is most important and be a little bit more open-handed. And even, I mean, I'm reading one of their books, Significance of Silence, of some of these things that there is more room for conversation, debate, and charitability. And like I said, hey, it's okay to have fences. Let's keep them low though and be friendly. Now, there's some fences that need to be significantly higher.
(51:19):
Yeah. But I think you're right. In general, on a lot of these things, certainly homeschool, those kinds of things where the more we can have diversity of opinion and be okay with that and model Christian love and peace and harmony and charitability and giving the benefit of the doubt and knowing how to disagree well and all those things, the more it actually gives us an opportunity to bear witness to the power of the gospel. I've said this so many times in sermons, is the gospel that unites us really stronger than the other
(52:03):
Differences of opinion that would otherwise divide us because it's not ... And that's that. I mean, Jesus said, "They'll know you belong to me by your love for one another." That is our strongest apologetic, our strongest evangelism to the watching world because it's not at all compelling or no one has to rethink anything. No unbeliever has to rethink anything when they see John MacArthur's church where everyone believes the same exact thing about every single third tier issue because there's no room, like everything's first tier with John MacArthur or was, God rest his soul. There's no nuance, you can't disagree. So in a church like that where everyone votes Republican and everyone is cessationist and everyone believes this about women in ministry and whatever
(52:56):
Else.
(52:58):
And every single one of these, they would go down the list and say first year, first year, first year, that's not any kind of witness to the world because you've just separated yourself out. We all believe the same. And we're just as tribal as anybody else. We're just as tribal as the lib group on Facebook that all gain together and go protest ice together. We all believe the exact same thing in our little tribe as opposed to, whoa, these people, they really have some differences and yet look at how big Jesus is for him that he unites them.
(53:30):
That's good. And that's it for this week's episode of Ask the Pastors. Remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar of West Hills or by submitting them online through our website at www.westhillstl.org. If you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button, subscribe, share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening and Lord willing, we'll catch you right back here next week for part two. Let's do it. See you there.