Ask the Pastors S8 E7: “Theological Triage pt.4: Abortion, Sabbath, Calvinism, Creeds, & more!”
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Welcome to Ask the Pastors, a segment of the West Hills podcast. We have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. My name is Brian, your host, one of the pastors joined by Pastor Thad. Hey everyone and our lead pastor, Will.
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What's up?
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Is this part four?
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Part four.
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Part four. Tier four.
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We don't have a fourth year. We have alluded to that. Okay, so we should start by introducing the topic and then quickly redefining real quick, just in case.
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Theological triage. Who's got it?
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Which is?
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Theological triage. I'm
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Going to see if you do it slightly different in all four different times.
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I'll give my example of an NER. No. Theological triage is the skill of being able to look at different doctrines and application of scripture and placing them in levels of importance. We have been using three tiers. Tier one is essential that if you reject something in tier one, you are not a Christian. There's something about the gospel that you are not believing and therefore not a believer. Tier two are matters of importance, oftentimes helping determine if you'll be in one church or another. I'm not saying that someone's not a believer, but they're perhaps may not be able to worship at the same church, depending on how heavily they rely on tier two. Again, important, but not essential for the gospel. And then tier three are areas where it's okay for Christians to not have agreement on and be able to worship at the same church and they shouldn't cause any sort of division at all.
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And so those are the three categories that we've been working on, working through a list that we got from another church and just thinking through how do we categorize some of these different questions.
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Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. Let's jump in. I'm setting the goal from the start. We're going to get through 15 of these in 45 minutes or less. Three minutes a piece. Saying a timer.
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Is there a timer happening or we
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Just go? Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.
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Awesome.
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We're starting.
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First one is abortions are allowable if needed to save the mother.
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Third tier. I think that Christians in the same church can and will stay at the same church having a differing conscience on whether or not abortion is allowable in the case of imminent risk to the life of the mother. I think that if any kind of abortion on demand or anything like that, we're not talking about abortion is birth control. We're not talking about even just like, I don't make enough money or what. We're talking about death is going to happen here. I mean, to the best of our medical knowledge, death is going to happen. We're talking about mitigating. It's one death or two deaths. I think that Christians are going to differ in conscience on the ethics of what is right in that scenario and that's just the difficulty of living in a broken world.
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Yeah. Agreed. Tier three. I said you could attend the same church. I think this one and the next one start to get at big things though. This one and medical support being removed. They start to be big things, but I think that people can still attend the same church if they have different convictions.
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Thoughts?
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Tier three. I'll say what I've said on some of the others, but there's a dangerous thread that can be pulled without proper instruction
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And
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Teaching because of the specific situation ascribed. Now, completely different about teachings on abortion. I think that's going to lead into other things, but for this specific one, tier three.
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Right.
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Next one. Medical life support should never be removed until after death.
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After natural death? I don't know if that makes-
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Thank you.
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I missed the word there. I'm just looking at. Okay.
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Natural death.
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You going first
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This time? Yeah, I can. Yeah. I said tier three, kind of maybe teetering there. It starts to kind of speak into your, I don't know, your authority over your own life. If you're talking about removing life support, but I'd say tier three.
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I was going to say, just to clarify quickly, I don't know, for myself, I'm probably the only one stupid enough that needs it, but what we're envisioning here is a scenario which is not at all hypothetical. I had this very conversation with one of our dear members who passed away two years ago now, who was on some kind of life support and was really ... Or at least knew that that was in front of him with hospice coming, and trying to decide will I be unfaithful to the Lord and his love for life? If I don't give the powers that be every possible authority and chance to resuscitate me, save my life, keep me on the machines, whatever. Is that essentially suicide if I'm saying I don't want to be hooked up to a bunch of machines and tubes? And anyway, I had not really done a deep dive on that.
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My dad's a ex- physician, and so talked to others in the church and reading a bunch of articles and people are split. And so anyway, yeah, to me, it's a clear tier three. It's a conscience issue. I could tell you where I ended up landing on that and counseling him on that. Because it's tier three, I'll tell you this, is that I essentially told him, "I think, brother, it's a conscience issue and I'm not going to try and bind your conscience on it and tell you thus say it the Lord." Because I think that well-meaning believers can really read God's word and come to different conclusions on that. And so whatever he puts on your heart ... I mean, he asked me follow up and I told him this is where I would land on, I think, if I was in your shoes. But anyway, so yeah.
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Yep. Tier three, same comments as the last one with, it's got a thread. It takes a lot of intentional teaching on it. And so yeah, tier three.
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Yeah. Pulling, you think about ... That's heavy. I mean, pulling the plug,
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Not
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To be
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Just
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In a coma. I mean, and you're the one there making the decision, are we killing her to pull the plug here or how do we think through that? So this is hard, hard stuff, but room for disagreement.
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Working on the Lord's day is sin.
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I'm a tier three. I will say, I know I'll say brothers specifically that disagree with this and think it's a tier two, but I think it's a clear tier three.
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Same, tier three. We might be getting boring and repetitive. Maybe it'd be more interesting. I'll just give a quick plug here toward the beginning. Any of these that you're like, "Ooh, I do wonder your position on whether or not the Sabbath is still binding for Christians or I do wonder your position on euthanasia or I don't know, but on the removing medical life support and making that decision seemingly." We'd be happy to do follow-up podcasts, spinoffs specifically on any of these issues, maybe more interesting than the triage, but to stick to the triage, yeah, that's clearly a tier three or the Sabbath. Three,
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It feels like people that have disagreements with that can definitely stay at the same church.
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Should be able to.
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Should
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Be
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Able to.
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Ideally.
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Yeah.
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Is that everybody? Okay. Yeah. The doctrines of grace are necessary as beliefs to be a Christian.
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Oh, I'm supposed to
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Go first? You are. I mean, I have my own
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Answer to
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This.
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Yeah. This one to me- What
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Are the doctrines of grace for people that are wondering?
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So the doctrines of grace is another way of referring, probably the Calvinist way of referring to what's considered to be sort of the core doctrines of Calvinism, John Calvin, the sort of father of reform theology, if you're not familiar, the Tulip acronym, Total Depravity, Man's Total Depravity, Unlimited ... What is it? Unconditional. Now I've got unconditional. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. I don't know. Will's
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Obviously
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Going to
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Your
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Thirds. I've not gotten enough sleep lately. Limited atonement.
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Limited
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Atonement, thank you. Experience
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Of the saints.
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Yeah. Okay. So the tulip. And I think that the Calvinist way of describing those kind of core tenets of Calvinism that, again, reminds us that it's really all about grace and how God's grace operates in the lives of believers and unbelievers or doesn't in the lives of believers. And so yeah, basically, yeah, Calvinism, how reform theology. I'm going to say tier two for a couple reasons. First of all, because I'm really convinced, I was just telling Thad before we started read the chord of the podcast on a separate issue that I probably need more of a second tier in my life that I, for me, I'm so like major on the majors, minor on the minors. I'm so major. It's like if it's not the gospel, it just might as well be the color of the carpet and the sanctuary, the proverbial stupid issues to fight over.
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But I need more of a category in my life probably for like, "No, this is really important." And so I will say, again, I will say it and I will also admit that we've got card carrying Armenians at our church who don't buy the doctrines of grace, who don't believe certainly ... The first one to go is always limited atonement, that Jesus didn't die for everybody. He just died for the elect. And then that's a whole nother election, the unconditional election. You can't even resist this grace. I mean, anyway, they all kind of fit together.
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And we've got, I could name you a half dozen of them that I just know. Oh, here we come. Ephesians one, Romans ... Which one in Romans is the big seven? Nine. Nine. Yeah. Where it's like they're ... I mean, it's just biblical though, so I guess it's their time to get bent out of shape by God's word here. But yeah, I will say you're going to ... It is core enough and it is important enough and so related to, again, the gospel. It's kind of the understanding, the theological underpinnings and understandings of how the gospel gets worked out and worked into the life of the believer, the heart of the believer and all that, that if you really think that you were the one that made the decisive choice to choose God and not him electing you, that's just going to have pretty big implications for how we see and understand other things that you should probably be in a church where you're not going to be been out of shape about me preaching what I believe very strongly is God's word on this.
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And yet, again, I say that, and maybe I'm just too whatever competitive or vain or whatever to help shepherd people out of our ... Nobody wants to say, "You need to get out of here." Go find an argument. Go find an Armenian church. But anyway, that's, I'm going to say tear two.
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You?
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I think it's for sure it'd be ideal to have alignment because I feel like these are things, doctrines of grace that'll come up in sermons pretty often as we're reading God's word. And if you don't have alignment with that, I think that'll be a pretty strong rub for you. But I said it's close to a salvation issue, but your comment and the reminder of like, I think there's for sure Christians that are not Calvinists. So I don't think it can necessarily be a tier one.
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I think they just have a really wrong idea of how God's grace got applied and worked out in their life, and that's okay. There's people that are going to be wrong about any number of things that will all be in heaven together. I
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Think it could be best to be at a church that you have alignment with. Yeah. So tier two.
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Everyone's a product of the doctrines of grace, whether they want it or not. Every Christian is, but I put tier two. I just think it's going to have too much of an effect that as one grows in their understanding, deeper understanding of the gospel of scripture, of salvation, they're going to come to a specific conviction on Calvinism or our Minionism that's going to affect where they go to church.
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Yeah,
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Definitely. Look at us. Now we got some diversity. It's not all tier three.
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Next, it's all of us, right? Great. It isn't necessary to hold the view of the virgin birth of Jesus to be a Christian.
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Can we just simplify this to belief in the virgin birth? Like to simplify the ... The belief in Jesus' virgin birth, what tier? What tier?
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Yeah. I said close to one. I would say maybe tier two. The Bible's very clear about it. It could point to not knowing or trusting what the scriptures say. Are there still Christians though that maybe don't know about the virgin birth? Maybe they believe in Jesus for salvation. And I was just reading on that. I was like, yeah, I think there's probably people that maybe don't know about the virgin birth yet and they will read it as they're reading God's word who could be saved. So I'd say tier two. I mean, it's still important and very biblical.
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Is there- Is
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There a reason to leave a church though? I guess is more the question with how we're framing this, right?
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No, just the importance. Okay. Just importance. Is there, in addition to your trust and confidence in the reliability of scripture, that is there, because you got to go next. Is there a thread to be traced here, not only with that, your view of scripture, but with your view of God, and a case to be made that denying the virgin birth, ipso facto, now all of a sudden Jesus was not truly God of God, or he somehow had to send nature. And is there more theology loaded into this that wouldn't make it-
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Yeah, I would put this in a tier one category, too many implications that stream from it. I can appreciate the hypothetical situation, but if someone were to say, "I put my faith in trust in Jesus," and then reading the scriptures, reject the virgin birth, I think they are rejecting Jesus as revealed by God to us that I think to reject it ... One of the questions coming up is going to be the historic creeds. I think it goes against all Orthodox Christian doctrine to reject the virgin birth.
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Yeah.
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This is where hypotheticals, you can come up with all sorts of things, but I think at ... I place it in the level that if you deny it, it has too many implications with Christ sinlessness. Is he actually from God? Does he have a sin nature? What are the other outflowing effects of that?
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Sure.
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And if I was going to play out the hypothetical, like the best case scenario possible of someone who would fit in this category where somebody would say, "Oh yeah, yeah, I still believe Jesus was God, fully defined." Yeah, yeah. I still believe he was sinless, no sin nature. Everything else, I just purely, on a textual level, believe that Matthew misread, misunderstood Isaiah 7:14 and was reading the Septuagint that says Parthenos or whatever about the virgin, but in the Hebrew it was just young woman and so he imputed this theology. If I wanted to go down that ... And that person, let's say charitably, still was clinging to all the Orthodox other truths about Jesus being fully God and fully man, and they had some sort of different understanding of how that happened other than the virgin birth. Yeah, maybe God supernaturally ... I don't know what their understanding then would be of how that worked out, but in that scenario for me, I can imagine a scenario where ... Can I imagine that there's going to be anyone in heaven who, while they were here on earth, either to your point, Brian, didn't know about it.
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I mean, the thief on the cross, he's always the cop out, but some remote unreached people or whatever, and someone who only knew enough of like, "Oh my gosh, here's what ... God's holy, you're sinful. There's this guy named Jesus, he came and he lived and he died and he rose and the barest bones of the gospel and like, oh, by the way, I forgot. He was born of a virgin." And somehow, like you said, they didn't know ... Here's what I'm saying. I think probably there will be some non-virgin birthers in heaven. Could be wrong. Could be wrong. And maybe that's-
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I think there's a difference between a rejection of the virgin birth and a understanding of it.
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That's true.
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What you're describing, I believe that-
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Yeah, I'm describing two different people. Two different things. One who doesn't even know, and then one who they've done so much of the homework of the liberal people that they're like, "Yeah, I don't know. Maybe Matthew just misread that. " I don't know if that's really important. Virgin birth. Who cares?
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I would put the rejection of the virgin birth in the tier one. Knowing and rejecting it, is what you're saying? Yeah, knowing, rejecting, saying that's not what the scriptures are, but I don't believe that person's actually a Christian versus a ... I think children in our kids' ministry are believers, and maybe they know the story of Mary being a virgin, but they probably don't have any true understanding of what that- What does that even mean? ... actually mean and that and can be a Christian.
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I'm going to go in between one and two, if that's possible. I'm going to go-
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You're going tier two with a strong thread to tier one that
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You can go. Yeah, because I think it's more problematic than the doctrines of grace one, tier two. But to me, it's not as like the salvation by grace through faith. I think we've only had one on our list, four podcasts that's been tier one so far, but anyway. All right.
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That we've all agreed is tier one.
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That's correct. Sorry, I should say. That for me was first year.
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All right. Next one. Churches do not need to subscribe to the Christian creeds, apostles, nicene, and chausadan. I've never said that word before.
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Calcinon.
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Great.
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What do you think? You're up, right?
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I'm going to go ...
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What do we mean by subscribe?
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That's a good question. Yep.
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Does
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That mean no
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Alignment?
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Does that mean we
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Don't say it
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Every week? Formally subscribe. I don't know. Here's what I think will make for the most interesting discussion.
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Can you reject the Christ?
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Right. Yeah. Would not affirm, would not affirm the doctrines that are contained therein. So now we have to look it up. Well, look. Okay. Can I get us started? One of them has got Jesus descended to hell and that's a very-
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Facts.
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... controversial. Did he? Did he descend to hell? We did a podcast on that. Did he actually descend to hell? And that's a very disputed biblically like a one ... Was that the Niccean? Which one is that? Descended into hell. I didn't grow up on the creeds. Apostles, I think. One of y'all's got apostles. There you go. Our kids are learning. They're all about it. That's right. They are. Because I asked Holly, I was like, "Is Jesus descending into hell for our kids?" She
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Said, "Yeah, is.
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" Okay. Well-
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Awesome, the
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Catholic
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Church, I'll tell you. A lot of problematic things now.
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So for me, just on that alone, I would say it's to me got to be tier three. But I mean, a lot of the rest that's in there is tier one kind of stuff. I mean, Trinitarian God and died and rose on the third day for the forgiveness of sins or whatever it is. I didn't learn that. Depends on what you're
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Not subscribing to.
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Yeah. I'm putting this in a tier two. Again, I understand subscription to affirmation of, I don't hold to that a church has to quote a creed, but I think as if I was to look at churches and statement of faiths and they said, "Here's our generic EFCA statement of faith and we also ascribe to these creeds." I think that is going to be a determining factor for people. One, again, this is a big controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention about whether they should add it to the Baptist faith and message and people got- Hot and bobbed. Upset. Hot and bothered about it. So for that, again, just depending on how you define subscribe, I'm a tier two, tier three. It's going to play more a factor for me personally if I'm going to go to a church, but I don't think someone who says, "I've never heard the apostles creed, that sounds very Catholic.
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I've never even heard of Nicine Creed. I've never heard of Calcian." I think they're important. I think it could affect where someone goes to church and I think that's okay.
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I agree. Sorry, just real quick to wrap up mine, I probably put it in a tier three on a technicality of the descendant into health thing, but I do think that the bulk of what is contained therein in all three of those particular creeds, and there's more that I think anyway, but the bulk of it was originally intended to be tier one. I mean, if you look at the history of the fourth century and Nica and Calsadan and-
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Constantinople and all
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This. And all that, I mean, it was, "Hey, we're trying to figure out who's in and who's out here and who's the heritage." Who were burning at the stake and who's setting the course of the theology of the church. Very high stakes,
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Brian.
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It was high stakes. And so it was originally tier one stuff. Now, again, now what we're talking about is probably less so even like the Southern Baptist thing, less so the doctrines contain their in themselves and more just again, well, with something like Baptist, there's this kind of cultural no creed but the Bible sort of thing is like, the Bible is my creed. Why do I need ... It doesn't need your clarity. Thanks a lot athonacious and whatever. Thanks, but no thanks. We can read the Bible for ourselves. And a lot of that is ignorance of like, yeah, but those guys gave you the Bible. There wasn't a Bible until those guys said, "Yeah, these are the books that are in, the others we're throwing out. " So anyway, there's a lot of historical stuff that goes into that, but just to say that the doctrines are important enough that I probably ... I mean, most of those doctrines are first here and then the creeds themselves, whether or not ... I mean, we sometimes recite the- Very rarely.
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... the creed together on a Sunday morning. I suppose some people could really get real bent out of shape about that, but again, I think if there's something in this creed that you've got an issue with, you should probably not be at this church because ... Yeah.
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And again, some of that's just, again, we don't ... There can be a temptation for some people in the evangelical world to elevate creeds so much that it seems to supersede even scripture itself where the creeds, confessions and catechisms are meant to act more as guardrails as you're reading scripture to give you lines to not cross. So that's, again, tier two for me.
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Yeah. Three, but if you're at a church and you really want creeds, I would like to think that could stay in three, but if it's of enough of a rub, you should probably go to a different church, but I'm basically agreeing with everything you guys said of a lot of the things that are touched on in these creeds are tier one nation.
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I mean, I will say when you're ... The creed is written for someone to make a statement of faith, "We believe X, Y, Z." So if you disagree with this, you shouldn't be standing up and saying, "I believe it. " That in and of itself to me makes it at least tier two. We're going to list on a screen, "Hey, it's time to all stand up and say what we believe together, and if you can't in good conscience say that I believe that, then again, you shouldn't be lying in church, like go to another church."
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Yeah. If you're a Christian, if you're a non-Christian, if non-believer, stay there. Could
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Be first here. Yeah,
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It could be. Stay there and be shaped by that. And But no, I totally agree. That's good. Thanks. Next one. I think we're doing Will. Is that right?
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Bring it on.
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Women can be pastors in the church.
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Second tier.
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Second tier. Tier two. Women's can be deacons in the church.
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Wait, you didn't answer that.
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He said two.
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Oh, you did?
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Yeah. Sorry.
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All right, you're up first. We're popping them out now.
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I said tier three.
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Tier two. I will say this. We did a question in the first one along the same lines about women being silent in teaching. Again, some of it's depending on how you define deacons. I think largely people who are hard or soft complementarians. If they're hard complementarians, they're going to have to be at a different church. If they're soft complimentarians, which I don't think those are necessarily helpful terms, depending on how hard you draw a line are going to reject it. And so they're going to go to a different church. Would I love to see more of this being a tier three? Yes. But I think by nature, it's also a tier two.
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I'm going to agree with you. Not only because I just confess that I need to have more of a second tier mindset about certain things, but also because I do agree. And I think that it's going to be problematic for people in either direction if they have a different personal conviction. I mean, we have female deacons at our church. And I mean, I do believe that we have a couple people at our church that don't think we should. And I can appreciate the fact that they are at our church and that that's not so big of a conscience issue for them. I just think that on a practical level, that's going to- It's
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Going to wear on you. And it's going to have implications. There's going to be probably ... How can there not be some, I don't know, not maybe bitterness or resentment, but just kind of like questioning. And I think about our deaconess of hospitality that runs our welcome team. And even if you're not serving on it, it's like you're going to see her every Sunday, the first thing you walk in and she's there greeting you and she's got this title in this office and you're thinking, you think she shouldn't? You think biblically we are off bases and giving her that title and that office.
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And on the flip side, certainly if you're at a church that puts that ceiling, so to speak, on what women are able and to use their giftedness in the church and say, no, it's truly all men top down all the way in terms of leading the church. There's no room for women's voice in any way, shape, form of the leadership of the church. And if I really disagreed with that, that's just over time. The lack of reflection of that is going to be an issue. So yeah, I say tier three. Sorry, two. Tier two as well.
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Christian wives should never be working outside the home. Tier three. Three. Three.
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One. Traumatic pause.
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All
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Right. Done. Next. Telling you, we're going to get through. We're fine through.
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Elders, children must be believers. These are two that I don't have fully formed thoughts on.
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Is it me now? Three.
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Is this reason to leave a church if you don't have alignment or are we just, like you said, just importance at this point? Tiers of importance or
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Staying
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At the same church?
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Both.
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Both.
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Yeah. If it's first tier, we cannot disagree on this and both be Christians.
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Gotcha.
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We're going to have a fifth episode next week and you're going to have to ... We're going to make you-
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Answer all the questions. Without asking questions.
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No, no. Okay.
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So where do you ... We'll put this to tier three.
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I said tier three.
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I would love for it to be a tier three. I think there could be people that feel strongly about this enough to have it be, I don't know, a conscience conviction that they might need to leave at the church.
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It's another one of those where if you're looking at someone or voting on some or whatever as an elder and you don't believe they're even qualified because in your mind, their kids aren't believers. I can see that. Yeah.
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Tier three. Yep. Tier three. And in some of that is scripture doesn't mandate. Your children must be believers, managers of one's household. It would be a very different conversation if the specific was given of an elder's child claims to be a Christian and is engaging in egregious sin. So I'm a tier three. I will say I do know of churches that would not put forward an elder unless their children were Christians.
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Yeah. And just if you're like, wait, what? That is coming from Titus one, where in the so- called qualifications of elders, Paul to Titus says, "Appoint elders in every town as I direct you. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers or my footnote in the ESV says or are faithful and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination." And then he goes on from there. And so that's that one verse, Titus one: six, and whether or not the word is the pistila verb of faith, so children of faith or faithful, does that mean faithful to Christ? It's made faithful to their dad, his debate. And so again- I put my cards
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On the table where my
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Interpretation falls. And then there's all other debate about, okay, so you and I, I mean, we got three year old kids. Is yours Blair four? Anyway- She's three. Not a Christian. We got three year old- Very liarly, not a Christian. I mean, my son love him to death the least. I mean, he is the farthest thing from it. So would that disqualify us from elders? Now, again, if somebody, to your point, Brian, in tier two, if somebody really had issues with the idea of Thad and I being qualified to be elders because we've just got young kids, then that's going to be a regular issue. Again, every week they ... And now it's not just a deacon when first thing you see in the hospitality, whatever, it's the person you're hearing from on stage who's your lead elder, lead pastor, is you don't think ought to be there because ... But to me, that's just such a stupid interpretation for that reason.
(37:59):
I think about the
(38:00):
Young children.
(38:01):
Yeah, but some people really believe that. That makes a lot
(38:03):
Of
(38:03):
Sense.
(38:03):
And they would hold elder to also an age
(38:07):
As well. That would be part of their understanding of the term elder is that's why they're elders because presumably you're not ... But then again, hey, look at Abram. It's pretty old when he had kids. I don't know. I don't know. So ...
(38:25):
Again, I can think of churches that are like that, but I think that should be a tier. We don't
(38:30):
Want to be that kind of church.
(38:33):
Yeah, definitely. Next, elders can be previously divorced. This one feels like a really similar ... Yeah.
(38:41):
Similar interpretation of that same- Husband of one wife. Same verse I just read. What does it mean to be the husband of one wife or a man of one woman in Greek?
(38:54):
Yeah. I think it's going to fall more tier two than it is tier three. I think it's going to cause more likely someone to leave a church over that than over the pastor's three year old not being a Christian. Just in people's interpretation and conviction of that. I don't ascribe to that. I think an elder could be divorced. Again, you're not going into a lot of details or hypotheticals. There's a long conversation that happens with that.
(39:31):
We could have a follow-up podcast on this and why we interpret it the way we do.
(39:36):
I think practically it's going to fall more tier two that someone's going to get hot and bothered and frustrated and irritated and ... I
(39:45):
Think you're right that they could, and they would more likely do that with this than the kids, unbelieving kids. However, if I'm going to answer it and argue it on where ... How important should it be to them? It should be a three. Then I'm going to say tier three. I'm going to say you ought to be able to have your own personal different conviction. And even if it leads you to vote no on that elder, that's okay for that reason. But then if the rest of the church interprets the way we interpret it, and he's not talking about literally one wife ever, but you're a one woman kind of man and you're faithful to the wife you have right now. And in particular, certainly if you got married when you were 18 and young and stupid and weren't even a Christian and then you came to Christ and then later and God's really gifted you for eldership and that one thing is going to ... So to me, you ought to be able to do your homework in the Greek, study it, come to a different conclusion, and then still, you know what though at the end of the day, again, you just can't have ... Everything can't be tier two or you're not going to find a church.
(41:03):
You are not going to find a church that agrees with you on all these things. And so that's why we're doing the podcast. That's why you've got to get better at understanding, okay, this is worth leaving a church over. And to me, I would say this one is not. I would like to think that if I was at a church and even if I had a different conviction, I might vote no on the elder, but then you know what? I'm going to trust that-
(41:28):
The question is, can you submit then
(41:30):
To- Yes, can you? And that is one where I would have to say, you know what, I'm going to have to- The others voted in.
(41:36):
I'm
(41:36):
Going to have to trust that the other believers at this church, the other members that voted on ... Because polity is a whole nother ... That's a tier two. Have we talked about polity? There's so many ... I don't even know if it's in here, but your view on how the church should be structured, elders versus congregational. Is it top down? Is it everybody gets a voice? And so that to me is tier two. But because I'm congregational and everybody ... And then I'm going to trust all these other people have the Holy Spirit too. I don't have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit. And if they really believe this man is an elder and qualified and an elder, then I'm going to submit to them and I'm going to be open enough and humble enough to think, you know what? Maybe I don't have a monopoly on the truth.
(42:23):
Maybe I am misreading this text or maybe I'm reading it right. And we ... Yeah. Anyway, but it's still not the end of the world.
(42:35):
I think it comes down to that question that you asked of, or would you be able to submit to that elder if they were voted anything if you voted against? I could see there being a significant amount of discord in your heart with that submission. Ideally, I think tier three, but practically likely tier two.
(42:54):
Oh, we got to do four more in five minutes. We can do this. We can
(42:57):
Do
(42:58):
Five more in five minutes.
(42:59):
Let's do it.
(43:00):
Church discipline is not a necessary element of church governance.
(43:05):
Tier two.
(43:06):
Tier two.
(43:07):
Two.
(43:09):
Yeah. It's too important. I
(43:10):
Think denying the necessity of it is going to change where you go to church.
(43:17):
Need
(43:18):
To be able to honor submit. They ought to. Yeah. It's important enough. Yeah. Good.
(43:23):
Next, Christians should never get a divorce.
(43:35):
Without qualification on that. I mean, Jesus himself put a dad gum qualification on it in Matthew 19: nine and Matthew 5:32. I mean, he says, "Hey, look, even I got a so- called exception clause for that. " So I mean, should never get it ... I think that would, at that point, if you're that absolute about it, I kind of feel like that would have to be a tier two and you're going to have to go find a church that just doesn't even read the Bible, I guess. And see, Jesus is exceptional. I can't imagine someone when it's that blatant biblically that there's at least one, and most people would say two with one Corinthians seven kind of exceptions to the rule. I mean, that's the rule, but there's exceptions to the rule. So I don't know.
(44:25):
Yeah.
(44:25):
Well, I don't even know what to do with this question because it's not biblical.
(44:29):
And for the audience listening, we took these questions and they had six different categories thinking about we could pastor at the same church, you could go to a different church and be an unhealthy church and stuff like that. So that's where this question feels odd to put in a triage question, but I think the way it's phrased is going to be a tier two and so many other questions and need to be asked before anything else. So tier two. Yeah.
(45:00):
Good.
(45:01):
Christians can identify as gay as long as they don't practice homosexuality.
(45:06):
Tier three.
(45:10):
Yeah. Yeah. I like to think that there's enough room for somebody to stay at the same church if they have different views on this. Three.
(45:22):
I think theologically, three, practically, two. You're talking about biblical anthropology, identity, sanctification, and that I think there's going to be some disagreement on how to engage with someone like that. So I'm a tier three, but with a ... I'm touching tier two.
(45:57):
I skipped over Christians can wear bikinis. There's about 200 on this list and we're only doing about 78 of them. Do you want
(46:05):
To answer that one for us?
(46:06):
I really do. No, I'm just kidding. I am a little curious. Christians can wear bikinis. Yeah, it's tier three. Yeah. It's got Christian shade, vegan only, good night, tier three. Are these actual littering as a sin? I mean, are these things actually I've never- Littering is a
(46:26):
Sin?
(46:26):
I've never heard some of these debated ever in a church. Anyway. All righ two minutes. True. Three more to go. Littering
(46:32):
Is a sentence.
(46:33):
I believe it is.
(46:35):
Around 1:16. A church must have a widow in orphan care ministry.
(46:45):
That makes me think it's a formalized, kind of like we have a women's ministry with a deacon and a newsletter and a whatever. I mean, if we're talking about that, then I'd say tier three, clearly. I mean, some of this is just like, how big is your church? How many people do you have? But if we're talking about a church must be active in caring for widows and orphans, I would say tier one. I'm going all the way to the top for that. And I'll just read the book of James. If your church says, "We believe the gospel and you don't care for widows and orphans, your religion is
(47:32):
Worthless." Yeah. The way the question's phrased, must have seems to align with, for me, number two, this person feels really strongly about it and should likely find a church that has alignment with that. All Christians should absolutely be caring for widows and orphans though. Yeah, the formal versus the just fruit of a believer's life I think is a good distinction there too.
(48:02):
Yeah. If it's ministry to them versus a ministry.
(48:05):
Is there a newsletter?
(48:06):
Churches must care for widows and orphans. Period.
(48:10):
Facts. Yeah. Good. All right.
(48:15):
Did you give
(48:16):
It two? Two more.
(48:17):
Did you say one? Just say one.
(48:19):
One
(48:19):
And three,
(48:20):
Depending on like-
(48:22):
The same thing I said? Yeah, same thing.
(48:25):
Churches should always take in refugees.
(48:28):
Tier three. That's so dependent on the situation. Yes. Yep.
(48:33):
Yep. Christians who give less than 10% are in sin.
(48:40):
Tier three. Although if the pastor feels really biblically convinced that tithing is the best rule of thumb and is going to make you feel guilty about not doing it, that could become a tier two practically where it's like if you're going to be binding others' consciences about this and why do you keep saying tithing, tithing? That's Old Testament. Get over it, Pastor.That could become tier two.
(49:14):
Yeah. Tier three. Agreed. Your next question is the polity question.
(49:20):
That's the one you
(49:21):
Wanted. Can we do it?
(49:21):
No, we should-
(49:23):
More time on
(49:24):
It
(49:24):
Next
(49:24):
Week? Yeah, more time. That's a good place to stop. What
(49:26):
Are we going to do next week?
(49:28):
We're going to finish out this.
(49:29):
Spring break. I'm going to do spring break. Week off. No, Brian and I are going
(49:33):
To do it together.
(49:34):
Are you in town? You're not going to be here either. Oh, you are?
(49:36):
Yeah. I leave at the end of the week. At
(49:37):
The end. Okay. Okay.
(49:39):
I'm going to come up with my own questions.
(49:42):
Ooh. Well, only if I can come up with my own the following week when you're on spring
(49:46):
Break. Questions for me and I'll come up with questions for you.
(49:50):
So like one ... No, okay. I'll save it. Sounds fun. Do
(49:54):
You want to actually record next week if we can?
(49:55):
Why not? That'd be fun.
(49:58):
We'll see. TBD. We'll join you at some point for more theological triage.
(50:02):
We got how many more? One, two, three, 4,000. A lot. No, but yeah, we can get done next time. It's going to be a five-parter, five-parter.
(50:11):
That's it for this week's episode. You can submit your questions online or at the info bar. If you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button, subscribe, share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll catch you maybe next week.