Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 157 | Dale Partridge

Episode Date: August 30, 2019

Dale Partridge, author and host of the podcast "Real Christianity," joins me to discuss what it means to be a true Christian in this time.

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. I hope everyone has had a wonderful week today. I am going to interview Dale Partridge. He hosts a podcast called Real Christianity with his wife. They talk about biblical marriage and raising a biblical family. We are going to talk about his new book and the things that he feels like the modern church and young people are confronting within Christianity and what we can actually do better. A lot of you guys, listen to his podcast because I've gotten quite a few messages from you saying you've got to interview this person and I have researched a little bit about who he is and read a little bit of his book ahead of time and he seems like a really awesome wonderful influence and so I'm excited to get to talk to him also it is Labor Day weekend which I kind of forgot about ever since I had a child it's like I've lost track of the days and the week and the week and holidays and things like that. I pretty much don't know what's going on except for the things I have to do, like record this podcast. But it is Labor Day weekend, which means that there is

no school slash maybe no work for some of you on Monday. So we are going to have a different kind of episode on Monday than you typically have. It's still going to be theology Monday. But I'm going to play you an episode that I've recorded before. Maybe you haven't heard it. I highly encourage you to listen to it. And if you have heard it before, maybe it'll be a good reminder for you. So now we are going to get into the interview with my new friend, Dale Partridge. Dale, thanks so much for joining me. Yeah, excited to be here. Yes, let me tell you, I have had a lot of requests from people who listen to this podcast, say you have to interview Dale Partridge. They talk all about marriage from a biblical perspective. And as you know, that's very

rare in this day and age, at least a sound biblical perspective. So I'm very, very excited that you're here. And I'm really excited about your new book, Real Christianity. I'm very curious about it. I read some of it. And first, I just kind of want you to give your pitch or your premise of what the book is so everyone knows. Yeah, I mean, I think that we're at a time in church where in America that we kind of don't know what we believe. I feel like many Christians have kind of bought into something they don't even know what they signed up for. And I think it's important that we get to a point we go, hey, what is real biblical Christianity? Because the Christianity that we have today, it's been, you know, kind of extra biblical, it's been added on. We've had, we've learned a lot about

Christianity that has nothing to do with scripture. And so I wrote this book just on this idea of the subtitle is how to be bold for Christ in a culture of darkness. And the truth is that you can't be bold for Christ if you don't know the scriptures, if you don't know what Christianity truly is. So I wanted to give an overview a quick reminder of what biblical Christianity truly looks like. Because again, so many people raise their hand in the middle of an altar call and accepted something that they didn't even fully graphs quite yet. They don't even know the expectations that are set for them. And I think it's becoming an issue in the church. So we wrote this book, It's short.

It's only an hour and 20-minute read. I'm just the kind of guy that likes to be, again, quick and straight to the point. And so it's a very short book. I would say, really, Ali, it's confronting the unspoken space that many people have found themselves. It's this kind of barrenness of half-hearted, lethargic, lukewarm, or what I call Bibleist Christianity. And so we really just want to talk directly about that and really give them a vision of what the scriptures say. Christians should look like, what they should behave like, what they should believe, and ultimately, you know, what we should be representing in this world. Yeah, you mentioned altar call, and that's

something that you actually talk about in the book. You kind of compare the Western Church's altar call to Jesus' so-called altar call, and I think that's really interesting. If you could explain that just a little bit. Yeah, it's so funny. So what is an altar? I mean, I think this is a really important question. When you read the Old Testament, an altar is a place that you go to die. And I think that we've kind of sprinkled a little bit of fairy dust on this concept in the church today. An altar call is you're coming up here to die in your flesh and be born again, right? None of us are born right and we all need to be born again. And this idea that we need to die before we can live. And so, you know, I think many Christians just have come to the altar and

never died. And I think this is a really important point to grasp onto. And we, you know, we've turned to I guess coming to Christ is this. Raise your hand with everybody's heads bowed and eyes closed. You can accept Jesus into your heart. And it's this kind of pledge experience that you're committing to. And again, I don't think people understand what they're saying yes to. And we've turned into an evangelistically rich church where we're focused so much on conversion and not on discipleship that we're willing to sign people up for Christianity

without really explaining what they're signing up for. And I'm going to give you an example. Jesus does an altar call, and I think it's such a, like a stark contrast from what we do in the church today. And it's in Luke 14, 25 through 30. It's a couple verses, so bear with us as we go through this. But it says, now great multitudes went with him. So this isn't a small group of people, right? This is a lot of people.

And it says, and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, his only, life also. Now when the scriptures say hates, it means love less, right? So that's the concept that we should be talking about. He's not going to tell you to go hate your parents. He's saying, no, go love them less than me. It says that if you don't do these things, you cannot be my disciple. And it says, whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. So a couple things I want to say before we move on. One is what is a cross? Okay, a cross is an instrument to kill your flesh. That's what it does. And we're supposed to pick it up daily. And so the idea of going, hey, come here and die is what's really being said. Pick up that cross. Die to your flesh. Be born

of the spirit. Walk contrary to the desires of your flesh. That's what he's saying here. And it says that if you don't do this, you cannot be his disciple. It goes on, it says, for which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the costs, whether he has enough to finish it? Lest, after, he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin mocking him and saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Okay, Ali, this is mind-boggling, okay? He's saying, hey, don't come follow me if you don't understand what you're about to say yes to. Count the cost. This is, I'm asking you for your life. I'm asking you for, for complete prioritization

of my ways and my, my desires for you. And that and nothing less. And this is on day one. You know, we often think that this is like a mature message. No, this is day one. So this is a huge difference. You are absolutely right. There was a conversation that I had with another guest a couple months ago that

we talked about the difference between the gospel that was preached in the book of Acts and the gospel that Jesus was preaching, which you just explained in the gospel that the so-called gospel that people are hearing today. It's a call to come and die. And it caused the people that were preaching the gospel to actually be, execute it. I mean, that's how scandalous and how offensive this gospel was, which you just articulated so perfectly. And now so often we hear today, not the cost that Jesus explained, but that actually we are getting a cheerleader, that we are getting someone to come alongside us

and say, hey, you're good exactly the way you are. Please don't change anything about yourself. As long as you feel good about yourself, that's what I'm here for. That's kind of the quote that people ascribe to Jesus. And I think the question is, what kind of, what Bible are you reading? What Jesus are you seeing? And I think the answer is that a lot of unfortunately preachers, pastors, shepherds, whatever you want to call them in the modern church, that is the message that they're presenting, that God just wants you to stay exactly the way that you are.

And as long as you believe that, like you said, raise your hand, walk down the aisle, then you're all good. but I would say that they're severely, they're missing out. They're missing out on the abundant life that Jesus gives. And so speaking of the modern church, what would you say, maybe you've already answered this and what you just said, but what would you say is the biggest threat to the modern church? Yeah, so this is a good question.

I'm going to add one last thing to the last question before I move to that one. Just real quick, I looked up a quote of my phone while you were talking right there. And it's a quote from Leonard Ravenhill, and it says, if Jesus preached to the message, ministers preach today, he would have never been crucified. And again, this is the contrast that we need to recognize. You know, that whole point is that, you know, Jesus isn't interested in winning people under false expectations with blurred lines or lack of clarity.

He's very clear. And again, this blends into the church, which I think leads into your next question. Yeah, what's the biggest threat to the modern church today? And, man, there's so many conversations and angles that we can go to. I think that the threats are the same threats that they've always been. I'm going to open up with a William Booth quote. So William Booth was the guy that founded the Salvation Army. And he's got an old beard, you know,

it's just long bearded in a black and white photo from 1899, this quote. And he says, the chief danger that confronts the coming century, right? The century that we were born in, right? The coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell. Okay, this is 120 years ago that he said this, right?

And it's the same thing that he was worried about it then and we're worried about it now. I think that biblical illiteracy is probably the biggest threat to the church right now. Heresy and false teaching can really enter into the church when you don't know your Bible. And I'm going to say something is that you can't know your Bible by simply allowing somebody else. to tell you what's in it. Okay, we need to read our Bibles on our own. And I think that, again, that biblical literacy, the second thing, Ali, I think that's a really big threat to the church right now

is a quote that I say often. It's what you win people with is what you win people to. And the church today is winning people with bookstores and coffee shops. It's winning people with daycare and really great music. It's winning people with positive messages, and skateboard camps. What it's not winning people to is the core centralized biblical gospel,

the Bible, and the people of God. Those are the only things that were to be winning people with. And again, when we won people with all these other things, that's what we've won them too. And I think we have a church that we just go, I don't know where you're at. You look across the aisles

and you see someone sitting there and you go, I don't know if you're mature, if you're really a Christian, if you understood what you said yes to, where are you on this journey? There's not a commonality of fellowship today. And I think it's divisive in some of its nature. And it's causing lots of problems that we're seeing everywhere in the modern church. So hopefully that kind of gives a wrap-around answer on that topic. Yeah, I think that part of it, the last part of what you just explained is offering people something other than Jesus or other than the fellowship of believers because

we think that that is what it takes to make church attractive or that is what it takes to make even the cross of Christ attractive. If I were a young person, or I am a young person, but if I were a young person that these people were trying to attract these kinds of churches, I would be offended. I'd be offended by the notion that they seem to be communicating that the truth is not enough. The truth is not enough to attract these people. The cross of Christ is not enough to attract these people. Young people, they need all of the extra stuff that you just listed. They need us to be cool.

They need us to play secular music. They need us to kind of shroud the church in something new and edgy and modern and maybe just a little bit unholy so they know that we're relatable. That's, I am offended by that message that people believe that young people don't just need truth, that they don't just need the gospel, that somehow 2,000 years later we've evolved to a place where the gospel all of a sudden just isn't good enough. The cross of Christ just isn't appealing enough for us. And I think that that's, I think that's a grave mistake.

And I think that leads to exactly what you said, the biblical literacy, that pastors assume that we don't really, that theology isn't that important, that young people don't really want to know that stuff. They just need a relevant, kind of catchy, cool, relatable sermon. And that's going to, that's going to satisfy us, don't you think? No, this is so true. I mean, on our podcast, we just released an episode titled Why All Christians Should Delight in Doctrine and Theology. Yeah. And it's this idea is that we have this belief that there's theologians and then

there's lay people. And I go, no, what kind of person can do something for 10, 20, 30 years and not become a master at it or at least deeply know and understand it? And so we have this, this weird thing that's going on in the church that you can see. stay the same for long periods of time. We're not deepening. We're not walking and understanding. You know, the Bible says that he who glories glory in this, let him that he understands and knows me.

That's in Jeremiah. And this idea that we should be yearning to know him more. And by the time we're 10 years into our faith, we shouldn't be babies in the faith. We should have a strong, solid, sound, doctrinal biblical theology of who Jesus is and what he calls us. do. Right. You talk about in the book, being bold for Christ and what you call a culture of darkness. What do you mean by that? Yeah, so the culture, you know, we can see, obviously,

I feel like it's magnifying in terms of its hostility. Obviously, we're not dealing with any of the things that are going on in Iran and Afghanistan or parts of Africa, but we are dealing, I think, one of the biggest things to think is that there's no persecution in America. People say that, oh, there's no persecution in America. Well, the persecution's different here in America. The fear of man is absolutely prevalent here in America. One thing I think about in terms of being bold for Christ in a culture of darkness, I think about First Peter. It's chapter 3, verse 15.

It's the apologetics verse, and I want to talk about it for a second. It says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for the reason, for the hope that is in you, and do it with meekness and in fear. And so, you know, one thing I want to point out, the first couple chapters of first couple of 1-Peter are talking about living holy, being a peculiar people, unique, different, like you think differently, you walk differently, you dress differently, you behave differently, you talk differently, you work differently, everything.

And because of that, people are going to ask you, they're going to be curious about the hope that is in you, and you need to be prepared to give an answer, a response, an apology, a defense of why you live that way. And so what I'm saying is that witnessing in many situations is relational and it's reactive. It's a reactive work. It's a result of curiosity due to the sanctification of the holiness that's in your life. And so I would say one thing is if people don't have questions for you often, you need to ask yourself why. If the culture at large has no more questions for the church at large, we have to seriously start asking ourselves why.

and this is a really important conversation. You can't be bold about what you do not know. Right. Well, if you are. Some people are bold about what they do not know, but the Bible describes those people as fools. Yes. So maybe it's not the best route for believers, to your point.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Christians, if you're a Christian, you're listening to this podcast, second Timothy gives you a command. It says, be diligent to show yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Okay, we are workers in the kingdom, and we need to be diligent to know the word so that we can

rightly divide right from wrong, to rightly divide the truth from flaw. And this is so critical. And so I think it all begins, again, with a love for scripture and a desire to know who he is. So from that, witnessing can be the result. Definitely. I think that that's encouraging for a lot of people who feel they look at the world around us. They look at culture, politics, whatever it is, and they just kind of feel like the world in our country is going to hell in a handbasket, that Christianity is being demonized, left and right, and they are worried about the world in which we're bringing up our kids. And I think that what you just said is encouraging, and really probably your entire book is dedicated to this, that really the Christian's role, no matter what's going on in the world, no matter what our circumstance is, does not change.

It is to be light and darkness. It's to witness. It's to share the gospel. It's to be ambassador's aroma for Christ. And even if the world around us is scary, is darkness, it's always been that way. Our responsibility as stewards of God's word does not change. And I think keeping our minds focused on that, on our eternal purpose, kind of helps alleviate the anxiety that I know I sometimes feel looking.

at the world around us and feeling like everything is getting worse. Totally get that. Yeah, it is, it is a discouraging place to be in the flesh. And we need to keep an eternal perspective so that those fears, so that those worries can lose grip on our emotions and, you know, where there is no vision that people perish. And we need to keep a vision of God's kingdom because, yeah, this is a difficult place to be. And we need to be. And we need, to surround ourselves with not only the people of God, but the Word of God to keep us on the straight path. So what would you tell someone who maybe feels like they're in a place where they are stagnant in their faith? They just kind of don't know where to turn. They want to maybe be, quote,

on fire for Christ, but they're just not sure how. And maybe they feel like they can't muster up the strength to do that. Yeah, I think this is a really important question because it, what it leads to is, I think, a common misconception in the church. People want to work themselves into a on-fire relationship with God, as if they're the ones that are the authors of the fiery relationship with God. And so I want to clarify something. For me, personally, it's not about, I'm so disciplined that I'm going to read the word, and all of a sudden I'm going to be on fire for God because I've disciplined myself.

21 days equal to habit. I've now read the word 21 days in a row. Now I'm a biblical Christian. It's not about discipline. It's not about you implanting the desire in your own heart. This is a really important point. What you need to do is lay down, literally, lay down on your face on the floor.

And you need to go before the Lord and go, God, show me who you are. And, Father, give me a desire for you. implant a hunger for you. I want to want to desire you. I want to want to pray. But I need you to open up and awaken that desire in my heart for me. And that's a critical step of going,

it's not about you working hard. It's about allowing Christ to work in you. And you've got to ask him to come in and fill you with the Holy Spirit, give you that opportunity to fall deeper in understanding of. him. And so for me, over the years as I've become more and more connected to Christ, I feel like I'm working less and less and it's actually something in me that's kind of increasing, progressing on its own. And it's from the Holy Spirit's work in me. It's not my work of disciplining myself to read scripture. Now, I am going to say, you know, there is some

truth in the fact that by doing we understand. And so it's important to also discipline yourself to go read the word because your flesh is never going to want to read scripture. Your flesh is never going to want to go pray. You know, Galatian says that there's a war happening between your flesh and your spirit. So just don't expect that you're going to be all gung-ho about, let's go and read the Bible this morning. That's always going to be a difficult thing, but the desire that the Lord can put in you can overcome that. I think that it's perfectly encapsulated in the verse. I think it's Philippians too. I know it's Philippians, but I'm trying to think of what chapter that to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, if you just read that

phrase alone, I think a lot of people can see that is legalistic or earning our faith or cultivating our faith in and of ourselves. But then you see the next phrase that says, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So work out your salvation with fear and trembling. How do you do that? Well, it's God who works in you. So even the work that we're doing, the discipline that we're enacting, the praying that we're doing, the desire that we have to do those things, all of that comes from God. And I think that you pointed that out clearly and really importantly that we can't even want to want to do those things. Like I can't even want to want to be disciplined to read the word. I can't even do that. I need Christ to even initiate that desire in me.

And I think that that's really an important fundamental understanding when you become a Christian of just how totally and completely unable and depraved we are and how perfect and holy and powerful Christ is. I think a lot of people think that that's self-deprecating, but actually it gives complete confidence and assurance. Okay, so how can we, unless you have something else to add to that, which you totally can, but I also want to hear how we can spread the word and the message of your book in which you talk about all this awesome stuff. Yeah. I mean, so a couple of things, you know, we have a podcast called Real Christianity, and that's kind of a place where, you know, we have bigger discussions around this idea of what does it really mean to be a Christian.

And so that's one place that I think is a central hub for, I guess, continuing on the journey of what does it mean to be a real Christian? In terms of buying the book, this is the first book. I've published several books with traditional publishers. This is the first time I've actually self-published a book. And I wanted to own this book. I didn't want to give up the manuscript to anybody. And so this is the first time we're going through this. But if you want to check out the book, you can always go to relearnchurch.org forward slash rc for real Christianity. And that's our global church planting ministry. My wife and I, we have been called to plant biblical house churches. And so just regular Protestant house churches, but we go and plant these house churches

and we train people how to plant house churches. And so that's our ministry is relearnchurch.org. forward slash RC. And you can pick up the book there, learn a little bit more about the book. We're going to have some other free resources there for people. It will also be available on Amazon and other places as soon as it launches here in the next couple weeks. And what's the date for release again? The date of the release is going to be October 5th. And so it'll be out that time. The pre-order will be available as well. So you can get that early. It would be a huge support for our ministry. Another thing is that I'm on Instagram.

That's probably my main jam. I'm creating stories and putting truth bombs on my social media stories. And so that's something that we talk about. As you said earlier when you opened up, my wife and I talk a lot about marriage. We think that, man, you can't have a healthy church without healthy marriages and families. So that's a big part of our ministry. And hopefully you can be edified if you find our platforms over there.

Yeah. Well, I think that what you guys do is so important, all of it. even just the simple act of reflecting a godly marriage and godly rearing of kids, that's something that we talk about on this podcast, how unfortunately there is, I would say, a culture of darkness surrounding the family in our world to where it's seen as raising kids, is seen as a burden, even marriage is seen as more restraining than freeing. And so just seeing a couple live and talk about, communicate godly principles within marriage and church planning and raising kids is so important.

So thank you so much for what you do. And is there anything, any final words that you would like to leave us with? I'll leave you with one thing. It's really important as Christians that we remember what normal Christianity is. What you just explained to Allie about just loving children and having a biblically ordered home is normal Christianity. Now, what's common isn't necessarily what's normal. And just because it's common in the church doesn't mean it's normal. And so the Bible is the only place that will remind us what is normal.

And so constantly take time in your lives, people, to remind yourself of what's normal for the Christian. And the only way you can do that is reading the scriptures. Absolutely. Amen. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join me. I'm very excited about your book, Real Christianity, that you have self-published. I hope that everyone checks that out when it is up on Amazon and checks out your podcast, Real Christianity, that you and your wife host.

Thank you again, and hopefully we will stay connected. Awesome. Thanks, Allie. Take care. Bye. I hope that you guys enjoyed that interview. That was awesome. I love talking to people that are just on fire for the subject or passionate about it,

are learned in theology, and are living. in a way that we can all emulate and be encouraged by. And I also think that it's a really good way to end the week because I know a lot of times we talk about the things that are going wrong in the world and wrong in the country on our podcast. But I also hope that this podcast is an encouragement to you. I also hope that it gives us hope as Christians and helps us remember to have an eternal perspective and to fix our eyes on the things that are above and to hold captive

our thoughts to Christ. and that's what I certainly got out of talking to him is just a lot of encouragement that even though it seems like things are spiraling downward that Christian's responsibility stays the same and that there are so many people not just him not just a lot of you who listen to this podcast and not just the so-called famous Christians that we listen to or watch but there are a lot of normal average Christians that are being obedient to Christ that are living out their biblical responsibilities and there is good being done in the world because of them and the gospel is being spread because of them and we know that God is sovereign and therefore

he is using all of us in the exact way that he purposed or that he planned to use us before he even laid the foundations of the world that he's not freaking out about our situations but he's using very normal people like you and me asking us to come and die and to take up our cross and to share his gospel. And so that's what we're called to do. I am edified by all of you out there who send me your emails and send me your messages of stories of you standing up for your faith and having an impact on your college campuses. I'm just, I'm really excited about what God is doing. As scary as sometimes this world is and how down and anxious I can get about, you know, our political world and it just seems like sometimes things are upside down. God's can

kingdom is not. God's kingdom is being pushed forth exactly the way that he wants us to and all of us who are in Christ are a part of that and that's an incredible privilege and incredible honor. So I hope, again, that this was a good way to end your week. I don't know how your week went. I don't know what troubles you might be looking ahead to or what is in front of you as far as your future goes. But I hope that this is a place that you can come to and remember that God is in control and that he is using all of us. Thank you so much for listening. As always, you can email me, Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com. I truly love reading your emails. You can message me on Instagram. I try to get to as many as many of those as possible. I don't always. And just so you know,

if you message me, I do not necessarily see it. Sometimes I'm afraid that people think that I'm just ignoring you, but there's like a whole column or section. I don't know how to explain it that I don't necessarily see. They come up as message requests and not actual messages that I see. So sometimes I look through those and I respond to people and sometimes I just don't. So just know that I'm never purposely ignoring you and I appreciate all of you who do reach out to me. All of you who leave reviews on Apple podcasts or wherever you leave them, know that I read those all of the time and I really appreciate them as well. When you share this podcast, I appreciate that. If, of course, you like it. And when you give me constructive criticism or feedback. I appreciate that. Could not do this without you guys.

Love you so much. I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and a restful labor day. And we will be back here next week. I will see you then.