Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 830 | Southern Baptist Debate: Female Pastors? | Guest: Pastor Tom Ascol

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Today we're joined by Pastor Tom Ascol of Grace Baptist Church to discuss the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting held a few weeks ago, where the big topic was whether Rick Warren's Saddleback Church would remain in the SBC after its new stance on female pastors. Pastor Tom breaks down what happened and the major arguments, as well as why Rick Warren's argument doesn't hold up against biblical standards. We discuss how God does in fact equip women to share the gospel and learn theology, but a pastor is not just a evangelist, nor just a theologian. We also discuss the failure of men to take responsibility and how detrimental that is to the church and to our roles as men and women. Then we take a look at a Twitter interaction between Senator Ted Cruz and Pastor Ascol regarding Uganda's anti-homosexuality act. Finally, we look at the civil code of the Old Testament versus our New Covenant direction, and explain why nothing is neutral and our manmade laws do need to be based on some worldview – the question is which one. Find a church: https://church.founders.org/ --- Timecodes: (01:20) Intro (02:20) Saddleback Church & SBC (11:20) Rick Warren's apology to women (22:22) Breaking down bible verses (34:40) Ted Cruz's tweet about anti-LGBTQ Uganda law (41:15) Old Testament law --- Today's Sponsors: A'Del — go to adelnaturalcosmetics.com and enter promo code "ALLIE" for 25% off your first order! Carly Jean Los Angeles — use promo code 'ALLIEB' to save 25% off your first order at CarlyJeanLosAngeles.com! Epic Will — be intentional about your family, your values and your wishes. Go to EpicWill.com/ALLIE and you’ll save 10% on your complete will package. My Patriot Supply — prepare yourself for anything with long-term emergency food storage. Get your new, lower-price 4-Week Emergency Food Kit at PrepareWithAllie.com. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 626 | Can Southern Baptists Be Saved? | Guest: Pastor Tom Ascol https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-626-can-southern-baptists-be-saved-guest-pastor-tom-ascol/id1359249098?i=1000565692341 Ep 128 | Tom Ascol https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-128-tom-ascol/id1359249098?i=1000442276814 Ep 765 | Can Women Be Pastors? SBC vs. Saddleback | Q&A https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-765-can-women-be-pastors-sbc-vs-saddleback-q-a/id1359249098?i=1000603031549 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. The Southern Baptist Convention held its annual meeting last month. And at the top of the agenda was the debate over egalitarianism versus complementarianism or the role of women in the church. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church tried to make the case that the Bible does allow. and even calls women to pastor, while others, like Dr. Al Mueller, rebutted his arguments and argued that women are not to fill that position according to the Bible. Breaking this all down today is Pastor Tom Askell, pastor of the Baptist Church in Florida,

who was always very in the know when it comes to what's going on in the SBC and can offer us a biblical analysis of this heated debate and tell us why it really matters. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use Code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com, code Alley. Pastor, thanks so much for joining us again. It's been a little bit since you've been on the show.

So for those who may not know, can you just remind everyone who you are and what you do? I'm Tom Askell. I pastor Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida. I'm the president of founders' ministries and the Institute of Public Theology. And more important than that, I'm the husband of Donna for 43 years, and I am the grandfather of 18 grandkids.

18. Yeah, two of them born on the same day just a couple of weeks ago. And so they're all right here with us in the church in this area. So we're praising God for this season of life. Oh, my goodness. What a blessing to have all 18 grandchildren close by. That's amazing. Okay, I'm having you on to talk specifically about.

the latest SBC disagreement, drama, discussion. I think it has turned into some drama, which is unfortunate, but basically the disagreement is about complementarianism versus egalitarianism,

Rick Warren's Saddleback Church out in California, losing its membership status in the SBC for having women pastors, correct? That's correct. Yeah, he and other churches also are in that category, but there were five churches over the course of the last year

that the SBC Executive Committee that serves kind of as the convention at interim between our annual meetings voted to remove. And four of those were for having women pastors, women's for having a man that was guilty of sexual immorality as a pastor. And Rick and the pastor, a woman pastor, from the Fern Creek Church. in Louisville said they were going to petition along with the church that had employed this man who had confessed to sexual abuse. So the three of them made their case at the convention in New Orleans in June of this year. And the convention voted to sustain the decision of the executive committee in all three cases, and overwhelmingly so.

And Rick Warren spoke for Saddleback, though he's no longer the pastor there. He spoke for that church that he established and served so long. And the votes were like 88 to 12% for Rick and 90 to 10 for the other two. It was not even close. And so that's a good sign needed to happen. No one is taking joy in it. But the reality is, you know, how can two walk together unless they're agreed? And Southern Baptist has been quite clear on our understanding that the role of pastor,

a local church is limited to qualified men. And that's being challenged more and more. And there are people trying to move us away from that and make all kind of accusations against us because of it. But by God's grace, we at least stood firm on that issue at this convention. Yes. There's been a lot of back and forth over the years. Certainly, we had you on when the debate was more about critical theory, critical race theory. How do we approach this issue of so-called. racial reconciliation according to scripture. And so now we're having this debate, which in a way, I mean, it's, it comes on and off the scene, it seems like, over the past several decades.

Tell me why this issue puts a church like Saddleback in a place where they're no longer in friendly cooperation with the SBC. And Rick Warren would say, look, we believe in the Baptist faith and message. we agree with it. 99.9% of it is what I think he said. I think he said 9999% of it. And there are other churches that, okay, there might be some Baptist churches that disagree on predestination or disagree on some of these issues, Calvinism versus Armenianism, whatever it is. And yet they are still able to stay in friendly cooperation. So why is it this issue that would separate a church from the SBC? Well, this is a polarizing issue in our day, as you well know. And I want to make the point to, yeah, it was critical theory a few years ago. And so today it's this issue of women pastors, which really, yeah, the subsoil of that is the radical feminist movement. And as you well know, Allie, you talk about it all the time. And this is a totalizing worldview. These are not isolated, compartmentalized issues. They grow out of a way of thinking about the world. but is contrary to the Word of God.

And Southern Baptists have historically, from our inception to the present, without any claims of perfection and many mistakes made along the way. We have been a people of the book, of the Bible. We've been unashamed to say, this is what the Word of God says, and we want to follow it, where we've made mistakes by God's grace, we've been granted repentance to turn away from that and make things right. And there's just no doubt about what the Bible says regarding the, role of the elder bishop overseer, which is bishop, pastor in the church.

I mean, those words are used of the one office and function for leadership in the church, and it is limited to qualified men. 1. Timothy 2.12 is so crystal clear on this. Paul says, I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over men. And what's happening is we now have people. People say, well, what that verse really means is, I do allow women to teach and exercise authority over men. And Paul's talking about the context of local church leadership there in 1st Timothy 2 and what takes place specifically in gathered worship times. So the bottom line is, are we going to stand on what the Bible says or are we not?

Are we going to do that on issues of partiality and ethnicity? Are we going to do that on issues related to men and women? Are we going to do that on issues related to sexuality? Are we going to do that on issues related to politics and church and state and religious freedom? All of these issues, any one of which can become and have become flashpoints at different times and will in the future, they all have to be brought back to what does the Word of God say? And Rick Warren, for all of whatever good he's accomplished over the course of his life and he has accomplished some good, for him to say, we agree in 99.999% it sounds like a wonderful argument, but in reality, it's specious, it's superficial.

Because where that argument to have been made in the 4th century, Arias could say, look, we agree on everything but one letter. and we're just saying that Jesus has a similar substance with the Father, and you want to make us say it's the same. It's just one letter in the Greek alphabet. Why should we split over that? So truth matters, and God has revealed truth in this Word, and we need to not be ashamed of anything that he has said in his word. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true.

about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen

wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. I mean, it's kind of like the Catholic and Protestant debate. I mean, technically, there are a lot of differences, obviously, between Catholicism and Protestantism. But you could say it comes down to this word alone, too. Well, that's, you know, that's just one word. Is it faith alone or is it faith plus something else?

And that alone makes a heck of a lot of difference. In fact, I mean, it made a huge difference several centuries ago to Martin Luther and others. And so I agree with you, just because it's one word, doesn't. mean that it's not a huge and consequential distinction. So if we were to as charitably as possible, tried to present the case that Rick Warren is putting forth. He issued an apology to women. My apology to Christian women, and I won't read the whole thing as a very long tweet, but saying basically I've kind of put women to the side, I guess, in ministry, not allowing them to ascend to this position of pastor. And I misunderstood the test.

and after careful acts of Jesus, I finally realized that, no, women absolutely can be pastors. That's what, you know, God met for them. The text that you're reading doesn't mean what it, I don't know, what it actually says. I guess that's his argument. But like, how would you describe what the egalitarian argument is for the idea that women actually can be pastors if we were to try to do so in the most charitable way possible? Right. And there are several, and so they don't all agree with each other.

And I have friends who think that it's okay for women to be pastors, and yet they want to guard against kind of the feminist underpinnings that have been used to bolster that argument. So I want to be sensitive to them. I debated Dwight McKiswick a couple of years ago on this whole issue, and his arguments are different than Rick's arguments, though I think Dwight's taking some of Rick's right now. But as I understand it, Rick's arguments boil down to this that the word pastor designates a gift that God gives to the church. And it is true that the only time the noun form of pastor is used in the Bible as in Ephesians chapter 4 where Paul is saying that he gave some to be pastors, teachers, some to be apostles, some prophets. And so, yes, it is a gift. and what Rick says, okay, well, that gift can be given, according to 1st Corinthians 12, to whomever the Spirit of the Lord wants to give it.

He can give it to men or women. And if God gives the gift a pastor to a woman, who are we to say, no, you don't have that gift, you can't have that gift. We're putting ourselves in place to the Holy Spirit. Well, again, it sounds like a convincing argument, but one of the basic principles of reading the Bible and understanding it is letting the scripture interpret itself. And so there's that word in the noun form in Ephesians 4. But that word is used in the verbal form many times.

And we see it in places like Acts chapter 20 in 1st Timothy chapter 5, where it is used interchangeably with the other two words that are always limited to the role of qualified men in a church as bishops or as elders. And so bishop, elder, and shepherds or pastors. It's that same word. it's found interchangeably in Acts 20 and in 1st Peter chapter 5. So if the work of pastoring is limited to the bishops and elders, which have specific qualifications set forth for them in 1st Timothy 3 and in Titus chapter 1, and those qualifications necessarily limited to the husband of one woman, a one woman man.

and if we see the Lord Jesus choosing 12 men to be his apostles, and we don't have any indication of that role of serving the church in that office ever being made available or using any kind of egalitarian terms for men and women, why in the world would we overturn clear teachings like we have in 1st Corinthians 14 and 1st Timothy 2, 12, that I cited earlier, where it tells us there are differences between men and women. That's creational. It's ontological. And those differences are recognized in every, should be recognized in every area of the world, but they are specifically recognized in the church. It doesn't mean that women don't have vital, essential roles to play in the church. They do. They must be good theologians.

They should be learners. And that's one of the things that was radical about Jesus and Paul. is they said, yeah, your woman must learn. Typically, we don't take that to heart. They must learn. Well, that's important for them to carry out their roles in the church, as God might assign them. But those roles are not to be elder, overseer, or pastor. And so Rick would just say, no, no, no, I've seen that. Now, another argument he makes is that for 53 years, he misinterpreted the scriptures,

and he went back and realized he had misunderstood. He just never seen it before that the first women or the first people who discovered the risen Christ were women. And they went and told the apostles. So he says they were the first preachers of the resurrection. And he said he never understood the Great Commission that was given to go make disciples of all nations given to men and women. Again, I want to be charitable too. But I would hope that if I stood before people and said, you know what, I misunderstood some of the clearest, most basic texts in the Bible for 53 years, I should probably sit down for a while and be instructed

rather than come out. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yes. And, you know, it is, it is a beautiful thing that Jesus appeared to two women, that they turned around and that they told the good news to these men. That is a beautiful thing.

And we can look at that and we can look at varying points in Jesus' ministry and say, well, the way that he paid special attention to these women in need, the way that he attended to them, the way that he focused on them, the way that he loved them is really sweet and is really special. And I can as a woman look at that and say, wow, I'm just so thankful that that was included in scripture. I'm so thankful that that is the kind of God, the kind of savior, the kind of shepherd that he is. But there is a difference between loving women, seeing the equal worth and value of women, even equipping women with certain talents and certain gifts and certain responsibilities that do include sharing the gospel. That is not the same thing as calling women to be

pastors. That's something that I seem to see a lot. And again, you know, trying to be as accurate as possible representing the other side's argument, but it is just a conflation between sharing the gospel and the role of pastor. Because as you mentioned Ephesians 4, he's given the church pastors, evangelists, and teachers. And so the pastor is more than just an evangelist. There may be, you know, God can't equip women to share the gospel. We are part of the Greek Commission. We are called to use our words to share the gospel. That's not the same as a pastor. A pastor is not just an evangelist, right? Right. No, that's exactly right. It's well, well put. And this idea that unless a woman is allowed to do or are called to do everything that a man could be called to do in any sphere of life, but especially in the church, then somehow you're being oppressive to women.

Well, that has more in common, I think, with Annie Oakley, you know, anything you can do, I can do better than it does with the way the Bible actually describes the world that God created and how his image bears, male and female, are to live. live in his world. And again, I think it's basic. I think it comes down to, are we going to be trusting God who made the world, who put us in the world, who gave his son for us to redeem us out of the sin that we have committed against him and who has given us the church and tells us that the church is his household and it's his house, his rules. And we need to be willing to accept that and recognize this is not oppressive or repressive. This is good. This is what is best for us.

God's not holding anything back from women, and he's not elevating men in some type of class of superiority over women. He is saying, no, there's a difference, and here's how those differences are to be utilized in his household for his purposes. If we could get that, I think confidence in Christ would go up, Joy would go up because we'd realize God's called us uniquely equipped us differently to serve in various capacities. I mean, I don't feel oppressed because I can't bear children. God did call men to bear children.

And again, you see the ideology at play today with the nonsense that's going on in our culture saying, oh, no, no, no, a man can have a child. And now there's even surgeries being proposed for putting wounds in men. it's ludicrous and it's rebellion against our maker. And if we could come to terms with God is good. He's done this and it's good. And when we embrace it, we find life. We find joy.

We find contentment. There's no repression. There's no oppression of us. This is God's good way for his creation. Could you help us understand a little bit the passage that you referenced earlier, which I do think for, for. anyone, even the greatest theologian, it's a complex, a little bit of a complex passage to know exactly what is meant here. Some of it's obvious and then some of it's just like, huh, okay,

what exactly is meant by that? And so if you could, if you could help us out a little bit. So the first Timothy 212, I do not permit a woman to teach her to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. And he is talking about here the ordering of things, the ordering of the church. And then in the next chapter, he goes into the roles for the overseers, which you've already mentioned, but then he gives the reasoning. He says, for Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness

with self-control. So after the word four in verse 13, like what are we looking at here for the reasoning? It obviously is rooted in creation. So it's not rooted in cultural norms. It's not rooted in things that would change. just rooted in something that is fixed. And so that part I understand, can you help me kind of parse out the rest of it? What does it mean that it's because Eve was deceived, not First Adam, childbearing, that stuff?

Yeah, and some would say this is constitutional, and it might be, because there's definitely constitutional differences between men and women. Peter says the same thing over in First Peter chapter two, I think, chapter three, where he describes the woman. as the weaker vessel. Well, does that mean that she's lesser and insignificant? No, there's just some constitutional realities that God is woven into the created world. There are maternal instincts. There are paternal instincts, and Paul uses that in his writings to the Thessalonians, and as some egalitarians like to highlight as well, you know, God is described in feminine categories sometimes, like a nursing mother.

Well, yes, of course, because these are characteristics constitutionally that God is woven into creation, his image bears, male and female. So there are differences constitutionally by created design between men and women. Does that mean that E was more susceptible to Satan? Perhaps. Perhaps. I mean, God gave Adam to be her protector, to be the one who, would represent her before God in fulfilling everything that God called him and them to do. And when Eve

was seduced by the serpent, Adam failed miserably. So there's no doubt that Adam is less culpable than Eve. That's not what Paul means. In fact, had Adam fulfilled his covenantal responsibility in the failure of his wife, the sin of his wife, he shouldn't have hidden from God. He should have run to God. And when God said, what are you doing? What's happened? He should have said, my wife sinned, kill me. My wife rebelled, kill me, take me. But instead, you know, he failed miserably. And that's the beauty of what we see in Christ, the second Adam, the last Adam. He comes and he says, no, kill me. And we are redeemed because of that. But so with that, I think there might be some real constitutional realities there.

It doesn't mean that every woman is more susceptible to being misled, mis-sduced into evil than every man, not at all. But constitutionally, men are designed by God to preserve and protect, to care for, to watch out for the women, but for the rest of creation as well. So I think that's there. Then the point that you made that I don't think we can underscore enough is that his argument is not rooted on cultural conditions. That's what Dwight McKiswick and others tried to argue against me, is that, no, this is, you know, something was going on in Ephesus and there was a particular woman there. No, no, no, no.

Paul says, I'm going all the way back to creation. and the constitutional differences between men and women have to be considered and just the historical reality that this is the way that it went down. The woman was the one who was deceived. Adams, not less culpable for that, but these are just historical realities and facts. Yes, yes. And I just, I hear a lot for the women who, like me, they like to communicate, they like to talk, they like to teach. And sometimes I think

those things being good at something or being able to do something is conflated with being called to do something. And also misunderstanding what the role of the pastor is. The role of the pastor is not just talking. And I think actually we would have a lot higher qualifications for our pastors if we understood that it's more than just being a good or dynamic communicator. There are a lot of women out there who are great communicators, who God has given special wisdom to understand the word in a lot of ways. They're very eloquent. They're good at what they do.

That does not mean, one, that you would be a good pastor. Just because I can speak well, doesn't mean that I would be a good pastor. And, like, think the Lord for that. I'm glad I'm not called to that. But also, even if you did have some capabilities, because women can be given, you know, a personality or leadership capabilities or good communication, even if that is true.

Just because you are capable of doing something doesn't mean you're called to do something. We are all, whether you're good at dance, whether you're good at art, whether you're good at running, whatever it is, we all have to fit our capabilities into Christ honoring contexts. We're all called to submit in that way. And so I think that's a little bit hard for women who are truly talented. And I don't think anyone's trying to take that away from women. You're talented, you're smart, you're capable, all of these things.

But some roles, some responsibilities are not for women in the same way that some roles and responsibilities are not for men. And as you said, that goes back to God's goodness, not his repression, but his goodness, because he understands what's good for us better than we do. And that goes back to the garden, for sure. Amen. Amen. One of the best theologians I know I'm married to. My wife is a real good thinker. She is one of the best practical theologians that I've ever come across.

I raised with my wife's help. She raised. I helped her. Five daughters as well as a son. And they are all, every one of them, very capable, theologically. They are good thinkers. I would not hesitate to ask any of them to prove free of something I've written,

to push back on something, to give me some ideas that maybe I hadn't thought of, you know, to check me out. And I have done that. I'm sure I've done it with every one of them. But they're gifted. And they use those gifts. The ones that are mothers use those gifts in raising their children. They all have used those gifts in a variety of ways in the context of church and in the

context of just other relationships and in the community, in the world. And they've done it without any sense of, oh, no, unless I can be a pastor or unless I can be a front line military leader or something else like that, that I'm being repressed. They're content with the way God has made them and made the world in which he has placed them. And I think that's the discontentness is at the bottom of a lot of what we're seeing today with the kind of unfortunate fighting against this idea of qualified men of who God wants to lead his church.

And if we start with the understanding and the trusting God's goodness, that really changes everything, that changes how we look at commands, that I can look at something like Ephesians 5 and say, oh, submission to my husband is actually for my protection and for my good. I'm so glad that I'm not the one to have to have the sacrificial leadership that my husband is called to. Wow, that's a really high calling. So is submitting to your husband as to the Lord. That's a high calling too.

But it's a different responsibility. and I'm so thankful. Wow, God is so good that he has protected me in that way. What a privilege it is to be the one that gets to submit to that loving leadership, whether it's in my church or in my home. So if you start with the knowledge that God is love, if we start with the knowledge that his law is sweeter than honey, if we start with the trust that he's good, but if you start from a place of skepticism, if you or start from a place of, well, maybe I'm more compassionate than God. Maybe I'm better and wiser than he is, then of course, everything is going to start looking, well, maybe that's cruel.

Maybe that's not for my good. Maybe that is, you know, maybe that's taking something away from me. We all have the tendency to do that. We've probably all done that at some part in our life. But it all starts with the foundation. It all starts with the lens through which you are interpreting scripture through God's goodness or as a bully who's taking things away from you that you want. Amen.

And yes, well put. It goes back to what I said earlier. This is a totalizing approach to life. And I think that that's why all of these things we're seeing in our society today, as it's encroaching into the church, it's all connected. The LGBTQ nonsense we're seeing is connected to abortion, is connected to the radical feminism. It's all connected. And as Christians, we have been given the scriptures that show us the way things really are. And the way things really are begins in Genesis 1-1.

God created the world. He created the heavens and the earth. This is his world. And if we can get that and say, okay, we're here for him. This is his show. So we need to plug in where he has put us and be content with that because it's for our good, as you said. Man, so many problems will be solved if we could just get back to that fundamental understanding. Yes.

And amen. Okay. I just want to talk briefly about something that happened on Twitter and then was reported on. In the news, a few weeks ago, Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, whom I'm sure in a lot of ways you and I align with and really appreciate. He joined President Biden. This is according to Fox News and condemning a new law enacted in Uganda, criminalizing homosexual action, specifically allowing the death penalty for aggravated homosexuality, which is defined. in the law sexual relationships with minors and other categories of vulnerable people.

So he tweeted this Uganda law is horrific and wrong. Any law criminalized in homosexuality are put in the death penalty for a quote-unquote, aggravated homosexuality is grotesque and an abomination. All civilized nations should join together and condemning this human rights abuse. Hashtag LGBTQ. And then you cited Leviticus 2013. if the man lies with a male is with woman, both of them have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to death, tell it to God.

Ted, was this law God gave to his old covenant people horrific and wrong? And sorry, but I got to read the back and forth. I won't read his whole thing, but I thought it was interesting that he, like, tried to come back at you theologically. He said, your biblical analysis is an error. Jesus told us to render to Caesar, the things that are Caesar's into God, the things that are gods. We are talking about the laws of man, not the Old Testament laws of God.

Leviticus also tells us for anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. So should we execute every child who's disrespectful to parents. So, okay, just give us. And then there was the whole thing about how you had the interview and then it was selectively edited. Thankfully, they took that down. So there was a lot that went back and forth with this. But tell us your thinking and your response and then your thoughts about Ted Cruz's response to you. Yeah, well, let me just say, I don't go looking for these things.

I saw, I follow Ted Cruz. I love Ted Cruz. I've appreciated him. I voted for him in the primaries, 2016, and I've appreciated much about him. I understand he's a Christian, never, don't know him personally, but I think he's a member of a Baptist church in Houston. So when I saw that, I was disappointed. And I wish I had not said, you know, tell it to God, Ted.

I wish I'd said tell it to God, Senator Cruz, because he deserves to be respected. And I should have done that. and I'm sorry for that. But I stand by what I said. When he went beyond the Ugandan law, which could be debated for specifics, and said any law that criminalizes homosexuality is grotesque, it's horrific, it's wrong. Well, now then, he has just attacked God. And as a follower of Christ, I can't let that happen. So that's when I just cited a text from the Leviticus that you read that God, that God,

told Moses to have for his old covenant people. Now, that season of life that during Israel's history was for a purpose and those laws were for Israel for that purpose, but it cannot be a grotesque, horrific, wrong law if God gave it. That was my whole point, is that here's, he's misfired here. He wasn't thinking. So I wasn't trying to argue even the legitimacy or value of Ugandan law. I was trying to he principled in saying, you have overstepped here. Yeah. So. And that can be difficult.

Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I mean, when he responded, I don't think he got that, you know, and he tried to get it patch it up a little bit. Well, you know, we're talking about man's laws, not God's laws. Well, okay, but you did any law. That's universal, including what God said. So it is the relationship of law and gospel, Old Testament, New Testament, those are not a real

simple issues, but they are important issues, and they're not impossible to understand. And God's people have understood them and recognized them and preached out of that understanding for centuries. And we need to do that again in our days. I think it's a commentary of just how far we've drifted from some of those important distinctions that must be made in order to maintain a right approach to God's law and God's gospel. Right. You were not saying that we need to enact all Levitical law here in the United States. That's not what your argument was. I haven't heard any Christian argue that, that all the laws of the Old Testament

need to be applied in the United States today, including this law. But this is kind of like the argument that I have with people who are anti-death penalty, and they claim, which is wrong in itself, but they claim that that was the old covenant. This is the new covenant. This is the New Testament. Jesus abolished the death penalty, which is wrong. We've gone through that before. But, okay, even if you were to say that, even if you were just to say that the death penalty

in the United States today, according to our system, it's just our system isn't consistent enough. It's not fair enough. And therefore, we shouldn't have the death penalty. That's one argument. But to say that the death penalty per se is evil is to then say that God is evil, that he's unjust, that he's lacking compassion. And so I'm for the argument.

arguments of, hey, our judicial system is so messed up that we shouldn't be put anyone to death. Okay, I understand your logic behind that, even if I don't agree with it. But to say that the death penalty is always wrong, no matter what, then you're saying that God is always wrong. So that's kind of how I understood your argument. You are not saying that we should enact those laws here in the United States today or saying even that the Uganda law was righteous. One of the problems with the Uganda law is that I think it does show a partiality when

it comes to how they actually punish all different kinds of crimes and different kinds of rape and different kinds of sexual assault that is not God honoring. So that wasn't your point either to say, yes, this Uganda law is perfect. It was simply to respond specifically to what Ted Cruz said, which he said, all laws criminalizing homosexuality are evil. Okay, well, that's to say that God is evil or he you think he was evil in his law giving to Israel. It's the same God. God is the same yesterday today and forever. So that's a theological. That's a theological problem. That's how I understood your tweet. But that is hard. I mean, Twitter's just Twitter's hard. But I understood where you were coming from. Well, I appreciate it. And you chimed in. And I appreciated that too, because

the majority of the response on Twitter was, as you probably saw. It was very, very negative. Some of it's very, very vile. But even from Christian. conservative Christian self-described. They just don't understand. They didn't understand the argument, the point I was making. But even giving that, they were still of this mind. So that's the Old Testament. We're not under the Old Testament.

We're under the New Testament. We don't have anything to do with law. You're a legalist. And it just shows how far removed we are from good, basic, essential understanding of law and gospel. Because the God who gave us the gospel also gave us the law. and he loves his law as much as he loves his gospel. The law is not the gospel. The law doesn't get us right with God.

It never could. It never has. It never will. The gospel alone, by God's grace, is what saves a person. It's only what he's done for us in Jesus Christ. When we receive Christ through faith, that grace is what makes us right with God. But being made right with God, what do we do? We want to honor him.

We want to be like Christ. What was Christ like? Well, he magnified the law and made it honorable. He came to do his father's will. And so as Christians, we look to what God reveals his will to be. We say, we want to be like that. We want to do that. Now, in the Old Testament, he gave these laws.

There are ceremonial laws. There were civil laws, and there was moral law. The ceremonial laws are done away with because we're not Jewish people worshipping in Jewish customs. The civil law is done away with because we're not a nation state as Christians today. We transcend geopolitical boundaries. But the moral law obtains, those 10 commandments that summarize the moral law for Israel, they still are good rules for us today because they are embedded in nature. They are embedded in God. They are not arbitrary.

They come out of a reflection of who he really is. And so, yes, we should seek to live moral lives. And we can learn from the civil codes of the Old Testament because many of those codes reflect specific righteousness. And we ought to say, okay, there's something to be learned. from that? What can we do over here in our civil geopolitical state to reflect righteousness and our laws? Because somebody's laws, some system of righteousness and morality is going to govern. It's not a question of whether we should have a religious impulse or background or foundation. It's a question of which one are we going to have. And in our day and age, you just have to look back a

few weeks and see what President Biden did with putting up the LGBTQ flag at the White House on par with the United States flag. And he's telling us what religion that he's advocating for to rule our nation. Yes, nothing is neutral. And I've talked about this with my atheist friends too about, okay, well, what worldview should our laws be based on? If not Christianity, then what? Because this idea of neutrality that the second worldview is just based on facts. It's not based on any beliefs. Of course, that is illogical. It's impossible, actually. It's wrong. And so, as you said, every law is going to speak to a particular worldview. The only question is ever which one, whether you're choosing curriculum, whether you're

choosing local laws, whether you're choosing national laws. It's all going to be based on a particular worldview, the question is which one. But I want to summarize what you just said, because I loved that summary and that concise understanding of the difference in the Old Testament laws and why they apply today or why some apply today and why some don't. So ceremonial laws, civil laws and moral laws you said. Ceremonial laws today, we are not the Jewish people. We are not ancient Israel. We don't have to abide by those laws. Those laws were for their protection, also for their separateness, their sacredness. And Jesus has become our cleansing. He has become our sacredness. He has become our righteousness, he has made us clean. So Jesus became that for us. The civil law, as you said,

we are not a nation state. As far as we see, we're not called to create a similar nation state to Israel. We transcend geopolitical boundaries, is what you said. So those don't apply to us. As you said, we can learn from them, but we don't have to enact them on a certain people group. But then the moral law still stands. And the reason for that is we see them reiterated throughout the New Testament. and God doesn't abolish them, he doubles down on them. He says, you have heard it said that you must not murder, but I'm telling you that you, if you hate someone in your heart, that's akin to murder. So it's not that Jesus says, oh, you've heard it's sad that you shall not murder, but it's

fine. He says, no, I'm telling you that it's always actually been about the heart. And so that was a really clear explanation, and I think it can get overly complicated, but that was really hard. helpful. And also, I think, sheds light on what was meant by your response to Ted Cruz's tweet. So I hope people gain clarity from that. Is there anything else? Anything else that you want to share in regards to anything that we've talked about or directing people to Founders Ministries and everything that you guys are doing there? Yeah, well, thank you, Allie. I mean, we address these kind of things

all the time at Founders. So you can go at Founders.org and get more information there. It's why we started two years ago, the Institute of Public Theology, where we are now offering bachelor's and master's level education. You can find that at Institute of Public Theology.org, because we're concerned to recover this way of thinking, these basic truths that 200 years ago, our forefathers would have not been debating too significantly because even Lutherans, Calvinists, the Baptist, there was just a commonality of understanding at the foundation, but now that's gone, and they need to be recovered, because we're in a world, especially here in America, but in the West, we're in a world where we are seeing these pagan religions that are just

running roughshod over every area of life, education, in entertainment, in politics, and medicine, there's just no area where it's being left untouched. And that is increasingly becoming the case with the church, with the evangelical world. And those of us who know Christ, those of us who are following him, must be willing to stand. And we've got to stand firmly on his word. We must understand that word. So we've got to give ourselves to it. Where we've been wrong, we need to repent.

And that shouldn't be a high bar because the scripture has been given to us to reprove and correct, to train in righteousness, and to instruct us. So two of the four things that Paul says the scripture is given for, for its utility, are corrective in nature. And so if you're being corrected by scripture, praise God. That's its purpose. And repent and then stand firm on what it does say.

And be prepared for the onslaught that will come because it will come. And we're living in a world that's increasingly hostile to the ways of Christ. And Christians are being increasingly marginalized. But this is no time for fear. And it's no time to retreat. It's time to stand firm. So I appreciate all you're doing on that in the front where God's place. to you and we're trying to do the same thing at founders and iopt as well well thank you so much and

thank you for that ending message and for everything you guys are doing i mean i direct people all the time to the church search function that founders has on their website and i've gotten so many messages and stories from people saying you know i'd been out of church for 30 years i was scared to go to church i had no idea how to find a bible believing church or the church that i was going to was you know getting progressive and and I've just it's just so easy to remember I'll put the link in the description of this episode if people are interested but that alone I mean there's a lot that founders offers that I really recommend people check out but that alone has been a game changer because when people get plugged into a local church and you find that community and you have that shepherding and you

have the opportunity to understand what God's word says and also just be bolstered by the strength and the courage of others that makes all the the difference in the world. So thank God for the local body and also thank God for the SBC standing strong in this issue, which as you articulated well is an extremely important issue, is a trusting God issue. So thank you so much, Pastor. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Well, thanks, Allie. I'm always glad to be on with you. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral.

spiritual and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.