Theology in the Raw - 683: #683 - Short term mission trips, violence in the OT, and much more

Episode Date: July 30, 2018

On episode #683 of Theology in the Raw Preston answers questions submitted by Pateron supports. Questions covered on the show included: 1) How effective are short-term mission trips? 2) Did God command violence in the Old Testament? 3) Do people who don’t hear the Gospel go to hell? 4) Should Pastors officiate a gay wedding?

How effective are short-term mission trips? Did God really command violence in the Old Testament? Do people who don't hear the gospel go to hell? And should pastors officiate a gay wedding? I'm Preston Sprinkle. You're listening to Theology in the Law. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in Iran. We got a whole slew of really good, diverse questions sitting here on my desktop in front of me waiting to be answered. Thank you so much for sending in your questions. And if you do have a question you want me to address, you can email me via or via my

assistant, chris at pressandsprinkle.com. That is C-H-R-I-S at pressandsprinkle.com. Got a bunch of speaking engagements lined up. So if you are in or going to or around John Brown University, I'm going to be there on September 13th, speaking in chapel and doing some stuff with the students. I think pretty much all day long. I'll be in Los Angeles in the Valley on September 25th. That's northern Los Angeles. It's actually the northern tip of Los Angeles County in the Valley at Rocky Peak Church. That's September 25th doing a one day leaders forum. September 27th, San Diego doing one-day leaders forum. September 27th, San Diego, doing another one-day leaders forum.

October 1st through the 3rd, I'll be at the Foursquare North Pacific Conference. And that will be in, I believe that's Eugene, Oregon. Eugene, Oregon, I believe. The details are on my website, presenceprinkle.com. Check out my schedule. October 9th through the 10th, be in Dyer, Indiana at the Gospel Alliance Conference and October 11th doing a one-day leaders forum again in Dyer, Indiana. If you don't know where that's at, well, if you're in Dyer,

you know where you are, but Dyer, Indiana is pretty close to Chicago. It's about an hour away from Chicago. So if you're in the Chicagoland area, it wouldn't be too much to skip down to one of those events. October 17th, Kent, Washington doing a half-day leaders forum. November 6th, Houston, Texas doing a one-day leaders forum. November 12th, Denver, Colorado, another one-day leaders forum. January 25th, getting into 2019 now, January 25th to the 27th at the Breakforth One Conference, February 5th in Portland. I don't know why I'm going into 2019. I don't know if I'll be a Christian by then. So if I'm still a Christian, I got speaking stuff lined up through early spring in 2019. Check out my website, Prestonspergel.com and go to the speaking schedule and see if there is a, an event coming to you.

Okay. Let's jump into some of these questions. Preston, hope you are well. I wanted to your, to get your thoughts on mission trips, by the way, I love this question. I'm so glad that this question came up. This, this question is actually unearthing some, uh, deep seated passions and questions and concerns that I have that I haven't actually talked about in a long time. I don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast, at least in the last couple of years. So it has to do with short-term mission trips. I am seeing a lot of mission trips happening both within my church and outside of it. And I know there's been a recent trend in the past years that questions the effectiveness and biblical roots of short-term missions. Things that come up are, and then he

lists six different concerns with short-term mission trips. Number one, how effective can you be in just a few weeks? Number two, the trauma inflicted upon children who get told every few weeks, I am coming back for you and never come back. Not to mention the never ending amount of iPhones in their faces. Kids aren't zoo animals. Number three, how many times can a single wall be painted? Number four, it takes away energy and time from directors who provide care and energy to the populations they are serving. Number five, inflicting American principles into foreign populations.

Number five, number six, promoting dependency on the Western American savior complex. My question is, how can mission trips be more beneficial to the people being served? And is there a biblical basis for them? What have you seen that both contradicts and confirms all that is being said above? Okay. So I explored the effectiveness of short-term missions several years ago. I was on staff at Cornerstone Church where Francis Chan used to pastor. And I was commissioned to do a bunch of research and write a document, kind of a philosophy of short-term mission trips. And so I spent several weeks doing a ton of research on this and my assumptions, many assumptions were confirmed, some were challenged,

and my view on short-term missions was really crystallized during that time. Gosh, when was that? That was back in maybe 2010, 2010, I think it was when I did all that research. And I wrote a very long philosophy of short term mission trips. I think we actually didn't like the term short term mission trips because we're always on mission. on vacation in Hawaii or living in Boise or, you know, in Africa for a couple of weeks on a supported trip to paint a wall or whatever. I mean, we're always on mission. So I think we renamed them. I think it was like cross-cultural temporary trips or something like that. We wanted the cross-cultural flavor in there. Anyway, I wrote that paper. Then I wrote a series of blogs a few years later that unpacks kind of my, the gist of what I was arguing in that paper. And then I, I think I rewrote another series of blogs

on my personal website, PrestonSpringle.com. You can find this, those blogs on PrestonSprinkle.com. The title is if you Google a better way to do short term missions, and then Google in an ad, Preston Sprinkle or something like that should take you right to it. I just a few seconds ago, tweeted the entire four part series. So if you go to my Twitter feed, now this is, you know, I'm recording this probably a week before you're going to listen to it. But if you go to my Twitter feed, now this is, you know, I'm recording this probably a week before you're going to listen to it. But if you go to my Twitter feed and just scroll down, that's at Press and Sprinkle. You should find some tweet that I recently did in the last week or so that lists all those blogs. But if you just Google a better way to do short term missions, Press and Sprinkle, it should take you there.

So I'm going to leave it up to you to read all my thoughts there. And it's a lot of, like, if I can say, researched thoughts, you'll see a lot of references to different books I've read, articles I've read a lot by sociologists, Christian and non, who have done work in Christian short-term mission trips and the effect that those trips have on the indigenous populations. effect that those trips have on the indigenous populations. I am very critical of short-term mission trips. Critical, not in the sense that I think they're lame and shouldn't be done. Obviously, if you know anything about my life, I just went on a short-term mission trip to Nepal. went on a short-term mission trip to Nepal. I'm critical in the sense that I, while I do think that done rightly, they can have a positive effect. I am critical in the sense that I'm critically reflective. I want to ask really, really hard questions. The same questions you

are asking, especially the first one, how effective are these trips? Short-term mission trips are very expensive. Short-term mission trips typically involve massive cross-cultural hurdles that are hard to overcome in a couple of weeks. Not just language hurdles, but I mean, just tons of different cultural differences that often prevent people from doing effective ministry in a couple of weeks. Um, yeah, so I've got lots of thoughts on this. I, I, I don't want to unpack them all on, uh, on the, on the podcast because

I've written them all out in the blog and I think it's much, maybe I'll probably be much clearer. I'm much clearer on this in writing. I've already written out, had time to really reflect on my thoughts in the blog. So please go read those. Just a couple of thoughts though. For instance, I'm particularly critical of trips that have preconceived ideas of what ministry should and shouldn't be done. For instance, whenever I go on a short-term mission trip, my number one question is, well, is this trip effective for the ongoing ministry of the indigenous, the local Christian leaders? I will not go on a trip unless the leader, the indigenous leader says, please come. We need help doing this or that. And even then I want to just make sure

that this is truly going to be effective for their ministry. I will not come in and say, hey, I got a team of people that want to build a house. Can you find us a house to build? I will not endorse a team that has some preconceived ideas of what they're going to do. We want to do a conference. We want to do evangelism. We want to do this or that without submitting that to the leadership of the indigenous leaders in that country. I'm skeptical. Now this is going to be offensive to some, but this is theology in the raw. So it's just part of the deal. I am skeptical. I'm not completely against.

I'm just, I'm, I'm particularly skeptical and critical of short-term trips that focus on building projects in poor countries. Like coming in and doing the physical work. Sorry, I'm adjusting my microphone here. It keeps falling. So if there's some weird staggy sound, that's what's going on. I'm skeptical and nervous about coming in and painting walls or building buildings or redoing this or redoing that. Think about it from an economic perspective. Put yourself in the shoes of a poor carpenter or framer or builder, construction worker or bricklayer or whatever in a poor country. You are trying to find work.

There's not a lot of work to go around. You're trying to feed your family. You're struggling. You maybe have a very old rusty handsaw. And all of a sudden, a bunch of, you know, wealthy Americans get off a plane with power tools, tons of money. And, you know, they come in and they, you know, throw up a building in a couple of weeks or fix this or fix that or paint this and lay this brick or whatever. And you're looking on now because of your culture, you're going to smile and say, thank you so much. And, and you're not going to be, you know, typically, um, majority world countries have a much better view of hospitality. So you're not going to do something or say something to offend the,

you know, your visitors, your guests. But deep down, you're thinking, why are these people coming in and taking my work? Now that's not, that's not what the short-term trip is trying to do. They're not thinking that. They're not thinking like, I'm going to go on a short-term mission trip and take the work of, you know, majority world people who are struggling carpenters in a poor country. That's not what they're thinking.

But that's kind of the point. We need to think. We can't just come in and think that if because we have good intentions and we're doing work that needs to be done, that there's no local ramifications or repercussions of that work. And this is where if you read my blogs, there has been quite a few sociological studies on the negative effect that short-term mission trips can, not always, can and often do, have on the local economy of poorer countries. We come in with our expensive tools, come in and effectively, not intentionally, but effectively take the work of local workers. And yet they're smiling and saying, thank you so much.

And we think largely out of cultural hospitality and they're not going to say anything. So we think, oh, they're so happy. They're so thankful we came. You know, we showed them how to build buildings and I kind of know how to build a building. I'm just I'm very skeptical of that. So here's, so, um, number one, I always will ask, am I being invited, truly invited by the local people to do a work that will help the long-term effect of their ministry? Number two, am I doing anything that will hinder the ongoing work of the local people in this, in the country that I'm visiting? Is there anything I'm doing? Like we asked that question and ask it a thousand times. Is there anything I'm doing that will actually hinder the

ongoing work? So if you come in and, you know, with your iPhones and white faces and, and everybody gets all excited in the country. Here comes some people from America and, and you put on a massive, you know, I don't know. The first thing that came to my mind was like some drama skit for evangelism or whatever. You put on a fantastic show. You got your PowerPoint slides. You, you've got videos. You have, you know, you're giving away candy. And even some people may be giving money to the locals. And they'd be so excited you're there. Then you pack up and leave. What effect, what possible negative effect does that have on the local indigenous leader who doesn't have all that stuff? And there's been, again, studies, and this has been shown and documented quite extensively that oftentimes it has a negative effect. People don't want to listen. All of a sudden people don't want to listen to the, you know, the, the local leader who doesn't have the drama show, the PowerPoint presentation. He's not giving away tons of money or candy or

whatever it could have not does, but could, your short-term trip could have a negative, unintended negative effect on the ongoing effectiveness of the local leaders who are there for the long haul. So these are just some, these are just some questions that we need to ask. And I know there's some of you who may be even offended that I'm saying the things that I have said. Everything I've said has been well documented by people who study these things. And all I'm saying is we need to ask very hard questions. And if you're not willing to do that, then I don't think you should go on a short-term mission trip. If you're not willing to ask hard questions, like, is this trip truly effective for

the ongoing ministry of the local people, then what are you doing? We have to ask that question. So why did I go to Nepal? So good question. Thank you for asking that. And I'm glad that this question was triggered by, you know, seeing me go to Nepal on a mission trip. First of all, my trips to Nepal are kind of short trip, but they are part of an ongoing relational relationship. They're part of an ongoing relationship. So when I go to Nepal, I hesitate even calling it short term mission trip. Like we're going to do missions for two weeks. Like what we're doing is we're going to visit our friends who are local pastors

and leaders to maintain and revisit and help flourish this ongoing relationship that we have with local leaders. Touch Nepal, the ministry that I'm a part of and the ministry that I went under, the whole focus is supporting indigenous leaders, supporting indigenous leaders. And we have asked those indigenous leaders, we said, look, this costs a lot of money for us to come. We can, what if we just give you that money? This is the question I always have, like, you know, it costs three to $4,000 for, you know, an American to go on a short-term mission trip, you know, and, you know, half the time people get sick or they do things that could interrupt the local, you know, ministry there. And there's language barriers and this and that. And with all the, with all the possible negative ramifications, is it better just to give the three or $4,000

per person, the 20 grand it costs for a team of eight to go to Mexico or whatever? Is it more effective for the kingdom of God just to give that money to the local leaders who know the language, who can drink the water, who, you know, can use that money and make it go much, much farther than we can? Is it better for us just to give the money it would take to go on the short-term mission trip to the local leaders? We've asked that question and they said, look, we love the support that you do give us. But even more than that, we love seeing your faces. Your relational presence means so much to our ongoing ministry.

Yes, we want to see you. We want to see you a couple of times a year. We need to see your faces. We want to be in relationship with you. So, but we have asked the question. If they said, you know what? Yeah, we would honestly rather your short-term mission money would be more effective for ongoing ministry. Yes. Could you please give that to us rather than coming over? Then we would probably do that. We also, lastly, I said I wasn't going to say a lot, but here we are. Lastly, we have to be extra sensitive to the negative effect that American money and support can have on local ministries.

If you have not read the book, When Helping Hurts, I would honestly, this is gonna be kind of extreme. This is be kind of raw what I'm about to say. I don't know if people should go on a short term mission trip unless they've read that book, quite honestly. That's a little legalistic. Okay, so I'm not going to, you know, say that that's like, like I would I would take a bullet for that or etch that in stone. But that it is so eye opening when helping hurts by Brian Fickert and somebody, somebody, it's a duly authored book by two, I believe, Christian economists. It is, it's one of our top five most life changing books. It's so incredible. Yes. Giving money, just giving money to people can actually hurt them significantly. Did you know that?

Did you know that you can actually wreck ministries, whole countries and churches and Christian leaders by simply haphazardly or unthoughtfully giving people money? I'm very, very aware of the ongoing negative effect that Western dollars can have on majority world countries. We've seen this, especially in Africa, um, by, uh, well, just for, from tons of governmental aid, but then also Christian aid, um, can and has had a negative effect. And we are very sensitive to that when we consider finance, the financial support that we give to, um, the local ministries in Nepal. Luckily, one of the pastors that we submit to and come under and partner with there in Nepal is very aware of when helping hurts. And he's the one that says, look, this local pastor is getting paid, you know, $70 a month. He lives on $70 a

month. And we're like, okay, if we increase that by $20 a month, what effect, he lives on $70 a month. Um, and we're like, okay, can we, if we increase that by $20 a month, what effect is that going to have on him? He's going to say, well, he's probably going to use that $20 a month to put more gas or petrol in his motorcycle to go preach the gospel to more villages. And like, okay, that's a good thing. What if we double his income? What if we go from $70 a month to $140 a month? Because that's the American mindset, right? Like we're like $70 a month. He's living on $70 a month. Let's give him $1,000 a month.

Let's give him $2,000 a month. Let's buy. No, no, that's great intentions, good heart. That will rack him. That will be so bad and terrible for his ministry. And the local leaders in Nepal are very aware of this. So they would say, no, no, don't double his income because then he's not going to be putting more petrol on his motorbike to go preach to more villages. He's going to be probably a little more tempted by what for him is a, you know,

doubling his income for us. It's like, it's only 140 bucks. Well, that's, that's still doubling his income. Well, what happened to you? If you, you know, went from making $80,000 a year to $160,000 a year overnight through no work of your own. Just somebody says, I'm going to double your income. You don't have to do anything more. Like it's just, I'm just blessing you that that's going to be incredibly tempting and it could potentially wreck us. So lots and lots and lots of hard questions. We are asking those hard questions. I am asking those hard questions whenever I go on a quote unquote short-term mission trip, go check out my blog series. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

You can drop comments in the blogs there. Again, it's a better way to do short-term mission missions, a four-part series on my website, PrestonSpringle.com. Next question. This has to do with violence in the Old Testament. And I recently had Brian Zahn on the podcast and we got into this a little bit. I was really, I was really bummed that we didn't have more time to dig into some of these questions that kind of came up at the end of the podcast. I love Brian. I just, I've so appreciated his heart, his pastoral heart. I just, so much admiration for Brian. We do have a few theological disagreements and I was hoping to get into those a bit more, but I think we were kind of caught up in just talking about pastoral

ministry and his journey and everything that we didn't have too much time for that. And I had Bruxy Cavey on a few months ago and I, I love Bruxy Cavey. I mean, I don't know. I don't want to rate them. I almost said I love Bruxy more than Brian, but now you're both equal in my eyes. You both rock and you're rad. And I love your hearts for ministry and scholarship and thoughtfulness. And, but, but, um, Brux, I think Bruxy, um, but I know Brian and I know also Greg Boyd. We all have similar views on nonviolence from a new Testament perspective, but I believe all three, at least Boyd and Zahn would say that God didn't command violence in the old Testament. And this questioner said, is it kind of caught in between? Because I don't, I believe God did command violence in the Old Testament. Uh, I, yeah, I mean, clearly the Old Testament says he did

Deuteronomy 20, 16, 17, and many other passages. Uh, the question is, does, do those Old Testament passages reflect God's actual command or an Israelite understanding, or shall I say, misunderstanding of God's intention? And so this deals with our view of scripture, inspiration, and how to understand Old Testament commands. You know, are they actually from God or are they simply projected upon an Old Testament view of God by Israelite authors? I have not. Let me just a big caveat. I have not read Greg Boyd's massive work on this. His recent work. What is it? Oh, gosh. The crucifixion. I forget. Crucifixion of the Son of God. No, that's not it.

Anyway, he's got a two, I believe, a two volume work or maybe just a massive one volume work on the question of violence in the Bible. And I have not read it. Just, it's a massive book and I just haven't had time to get to it. So I'm not, I don't want to say this is what Boyd says when I haven't actually read him on this topic. I know, I know the basic gist of his view. So the same with Zahn. And again, the basic gist is that God, uh, that God is revealed, the person and character of God is revealed through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is nonviolent. And so God cannot be non, cannot be violent because God is Jesus and Jesus perfectly reveals who God is and so on and so forth. So whatever is going on in the Old Testament, that cannot be of God. Perhaps it's an Israelite misunderstanding or of who God is, or Israel is projecting upon God

certain ancient Nereus views of who God is. Either way, when we have commands in the Old Testament scripture of God commanding violence, that is not actually God commanding violence because Jesus isn't violent and Jesus represents God and so on and so on and so forth. You get it. And I would take the view of divine accommodation or, you know, that God does things in the old Testament that don't reveal his perfect will. They are simply God meeting Israel where they are at, improving upon the culture. So, for instance, when you have seemingly misogynistic statements in the Old Testament, you know, statements that are very negative towards women or just bizarre kind of, you know, statements about, for instance, if a man rapes a woman, you know, he has to pay a fine

and then marry her. And we're like, what the heck is that? Like, seriously? Like, how is that good? Well, if you look at those seemingly misogynistic statements and sometimes quite vulgar and, you know, ethical things that we would just significantly disagree with and think they're appalling. If you look at those statements within the context of the broader ancient Near Eastern world, then you see that this is actually God improving upon the Israelite cultural presuppositions and improving on those are actually humanizing them and taking them one step toward the ultimate

revelation of Christ's ethic revealed most supremely in the Sermon on the Mount and I mean, in his life and work as well. And there's been several, um, there's been several books written on this. Uh, there's one really great one by David Lamb, an old Testament scholar called prostitutes and polygamists. And it deals with the so-called hard statements in the Old Testament about sex, marriage, sexuality, women, and so forth. There's also an incredible book by Paul Copan called Is God a Moral Monster? That deals with all of the sort of things in the Old Testament that cause people to say God's a moral monster. of the sort of things in the Old Testament that cause people to say God's a moral monster. So I take that view that I do think that there is discontinuity in terms of how God is revealed in the thing God's things God commands in the Old Testament. There's discontinuity between

that and the New Testament. And I would say that this is not, and I talk about this in my book Fight, this is not far-fetched. This is not some fringe view. Like if you read most, as far as I can tell, most standard works on biblical theology or books that deal with Old Testament ethics by people like, I mean, I think one of the best Old Testament scholars, Chris Wright. Chris Wright wrote a book on Old Testament ethics for the people of God, and he argues this and others, excuse me, like Tremper Longman and Gordon Wenham and many other Old Testament scholars who would be, Daniel Block would be another one who, Old Testament scholars who are, let's just say, broadly evangelical. I'm not talking about, you know, liberal, higher critical scholars, but people who do work in biblical

theology. This is not, I mean, it's, it just seems very, I'm going to say very clear that there are at least some discontinuities between what God commands in the old Testament and what God commands in the new. The old Testament law does not give us God's perfect revelation of ethical norms for all people of all time. They are very situational. They are very, um, if I can say ethnocentric centered on a certain ethnic group, namely Israel living in a theocratic nation under a covenant that the book of Hebrews, I just was reading Hebrews this morning, that Hebrews says is incomplete, is imperfect, which is why we needed a new covenant. So I do see just my broader hermeneutical approach is there are discontinuities between the Old and New Testament.

And I don't believe that this contradicts the very clear New Testament teaching that Jesus is the most perfect and final revelation of who God is. So I just, if you, I just, if you say that the, I would say commands in the Old Testament where God does command violence or the various passages where God acts violently, like through the flood or through the conquest, I just, I think that creates way more problems, not just with inerrancy or inspiration, but just with the coherency of the biblical narrative. I mean, I, it just, it starts to just unravel and it's like, you start creating so many problems like that you have to more problems that you have to, that you have to solve. For instance,

I just barely got into this with Brian in the podcast. I would love to explore this more, podcast. I would love to explore this more, but the entire book of Judges is framed with the, from the perspective that Israel failed to carry out the conquest and drive out all the people from the land. Like the entire book of Judges is built on that. And there's many other passages in the Old Testament that critiques Israel for failing to carry out the conquest. So if God never commanded the conquest, never commanded them to drive out people from the land, then why are they critiqued all over the place in the Old Testament? So now if you say God never commanded that now, OK, now you have all these other problems in the Old Testament about God saying you didn't do what I told you to do. God saying, you didn't do what I told you to do. So anyway, yeah. So I'm still very committed to the position that I articulated in my book, Fight. And I do believe Greg Boyd,

Brian Zahn, and perhaps Bruxy. I've not read Bruxy on this. I do think that while I agree with their final conclusion about nonviolence as the way of Jesus and Jesus's followers, I don't agree with how they read the Old Testament. Next question. This is a quick one. This person is pushing back on something I said on a podcast on April 23rd, 2018. He says an answer. He, yeah, he says an answer to a question about miracles.

I said that there were only two periods in the Old Testament where God did miracles. With all due respect, that position has been successfully refuted many times in the last 30 years or so. Jeremiah 32, 20 outright refutes that position. Jeremiah 32, 20 says, God says, you have shown, or no, Jeremiah says, um, God says you have shown or no, uh, Jeremiah says you have shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. And to this day, and Jeremiah is writing from the time of exile to this day in Israel and among all mankind, you have made a name for yourself as at this day. So the whole idea of signs and wonders during the Exodus and conquest and in the phrase and to this day in Israel and among, among all mankind. I don't think that verse, well, I got it.

Let me just give a quick caveat here. I, if I said that there were only two, specifically two periods in the old Testament where God did the miracles. and I want to, I want to go back on that. I, if I said that, I'm not saying I didn't say it. I didn't go back and listen to the podcast because I hate listening to myself talk. I don't know how you guys do this. This is crazy. Every now and then I try to listen to my own podcast just to see like, does it sound okay?

And I'm like, I can't stand the sound of my own voice. My wife says the same thing. Just kidding. Just kidding. She actually likes my voice, puts it to sleep every night. If I said there were only, there were two, only two time periods in the Old Testament where God did miracles. I don't want to, I don't want to say that. What I do want to say is that there are periods, not just two, but periods of time when God does miracles. And I guess my main point is there are periods of time when God doesn't do miracles. And I always give the example of the post-exilic time period. You have a couple hundred years where God is clearly working behind the

scenes. He's not dipping his finger in the pond of human history, causing ripples that we call signs and wonders. He is simply working through human transaction, human leaders without them even knowing it. He is moving the heart of Cyrus. He is working through political decrees like we see throughout, for instance, the book of Ezra. In the book of Esther, God's not even named, right? And I think that's a theological point for making, it's actually making several theological points. One of which is it's a subtle indicator that God is working behind the scenes. People aren't even naming, people aren't even using the name of God and yet God is still at work. Clearly the time of the Exodus was a time of many miracles happening. Clearly the time of Elijah and especially Elisha, who did a ton of miracles was a time when there was lots of

miracles happening. There are other time periods, call it 50 years, call it a hundred years, call it a couple hundred years where you don't see, um, the same level or intensity of miracles. I just thinking out loud here, since I mentioned judges a minute ago, it would seem that the book of judges is not shot through with miracles in the same way that, you know, parts, you know, Exodus one through 10 is all that. And then of course you have the new Testament, you have the apostolic era and the first century. By the way, I'm not a cessationist. So I'm not using, this is kind of a cessationist argument to say, therefore there's no miracles for today or whatever. That's not what I'm saying at all. My only point is, you know, not every time period in God's redemptive work in history looks like Exodus 5 through 10 or

the book of John or the book of Acts. I mean, there are certainly sections in God's movement in history where there is a lot of miracles. There's times in God's movement in history where there are some miracles. There are time in God's movement in history where there are some miracles. There are time in God's movement in history where there are no miracles. Maybe, and we might be, and sorry, I'm jumping all around. These are also perhaps geographically specific. Maybe there's certain areas in the world where God is likely to do more miracles than others. I don't want to, I'm just kind of throwing that out there as a possibility. So all that to say, perhaps, I'm not even saying it definitively,

I'm saying perhaps we are living in a time of a very short, let's just say 200 year period in America where God has chosen to do not too many miracles or no miracles. I'm not, again, I'm not saying that's true, I'm not saying that's true. I'm just saying that's a possibility given the way God has worked throughout biblical revelation, throughout biblical salvation history or whatever. So all that to say, I don't need, I don't need a sort of Exodus five through 10 tons and tons of miracles to believe God is at work. I don't need, you know, the apostolic sort of era where there's tons of miracles happening to know that God is at work. Perhaps we're living in a time like the post-exilic time period when there is no miracles happening.

Perhaps we're living in a time like, you know, first kings, the first half of first kings. We do see some miracles, but it's not like it's happening as much or with the same intensity as the apostolic time period. That, that was my only point. So again, if I said there are two only two time periods in the old Testament where God does miracles, um, I don't want to, um, I don't want to plant my stake there. Uh, Jeremiah 32, 20. I don't think this verse even refutes anything I'm saying. It says you have shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt and to this day in Israel and among all mankind and have made a name for yourself as at this time. Again, I don't think this verse demands that you have the same level of intensity of miracles and every single year of every single generation of every single time period. It just says that God is,

I would say just on a very general level at work with signs and wonders from the Exodus to exile. So there's a thousand year time period, but clearly again, according to biblical revelation, we do see levels of intensity of miracles throughout that time, time period. Next question.

I had a friend at work the other day asking me about what happens to those who never hear the gospel. Now I mumbled through something, basically just giving the answer. I was always told, I was always told that those who never hear the gospel don't have a free pass into heaven because quote, there is no innocent man in Africa. I've heard, did you get that from David Platt? I've heard David Platt live, heard him live say that, that there is no innocent person in Africa, which is a popular way to combat the question. Most people come at the question, assuming everybody is going to heaven, which from my upbringing, I always believed everyone was dead in sin and hell bent and God chooses to save some. For some reason, this time around the, when it, with the question, I felt like it stumped me more than it has in the past. If you have read Josh Butler's book, The Skeletons in God's Closet, the way he comes at heaven and hell is very different

than I was raised. And I think it's a good in a ton of ways, but I still don't know how I can confidently answer the question. Okay. So, um, I'm very familiar with Josh Ryan Butler's book, The Skeletons in God's Closet. I want to give a shout out to that book. If you've not read that and you're have questions about the problem of evil, about heaven and hell, about genocide in the book of Joshua, it is an outstanding book, such a good book. And he's a, one of my favorite Christian writers, thinkers, Josh, if you're listening, your book rocked and it still rocks. So, um, and so it just, if I can briefly summarize Butler's view of hell on that book, I mean, I'm reaching back a few years, but he still takes a traditional view of hell, eternal conscious torment. The biggest difference, well, there's several nuances he gives that view. The big one that stands out to me is that hell is sort of chosen by people that go

there, kind of the C.S. Lewis locked on the inside, if you will, that it is God giving people over to their own choices. And he does seem to remove sort of divine agency in divine punishment in hell. If I remember correctly, Josh, if that's inaccurate, then please correct me. I'm pretty sure you want to separate sort of the horrors of hell from divine agency, but rather it's people choosing the destruction for themselves. I got some pushback to that, but that's not really the main gist of your question yet. So this question, I'm, there's a few questions. Let's just say problems in Christianity that torment me quite frequently.

And I'm okay. I'm okay embracing a religion called Christianity. I'm okay embracing the inspired word of God, the scriptures, and yet still have questions that torment me. That's to me, there's almost like a, that just makes the religion, the Christian religion more raw, more real. If it was so smoothed out and perfect and had a right answer for everything, perfectly revealed to us with no sort of hiccups or, you know, caveats or tensions or mysteries. And that kind of religion is suspicious to me. So the fact that there are tensions and unknown things and things that cause me to stay up at night, that authenticates to my mind, there's maybe just at night, that authenticates to my mind.

This is maybe just my perspective. It authenticates the realness of that religion. So I'm very okay with having these kinds of questions that are truly challenging and yet still embrace Christianity as what I believe is the most compelling and true of all the religious options. Romans 1 is really tough for me. Romans 1, 19 through, let's just say 23 or, well, Romans 1, 18 to 32. But even that's incomplete. You got to read Romans 1, 18 through Romans 3, 26 or 28.

Because it's one long integrated argument by Paul. But specifically Romans 1, 19 to 23, and I don't have it in front of me, but basically says that God, that people reject not the gospel, but God's revelation of himself in creation. It's a very universalizing statement that all people are under the wrath of God, under God's judgment, not because they said no to a four spiritual laws tract. It was handed to them by some short-term missionary. See what I did there. But that they reject whatever knowledge of God is embedded in creation and therefore God hands them over to their rejection. This would seem to

include the jungle man who has never heard the gospel. Scripturally, that one's really tough for me. It's tough for me in the sense that it seems to say people are under judgment, not for rejecting the gospel, but for rejecting God's revelation in creation. And again, the tenor of that passage seems to be universalizing because it's connected to chapter three. It's also universalizing the whole, the whole folk, the whole thread woven throughout Romans one to three is a universalizing thread.

What I mean by that is it's trying to include everybody under the wrath of God, the wayward Gentile in chapter one, the, the moral person in the first half of chapter 2, the Jew in chapter the last part of chapter 2, and then Romans 3 1 to whatever, 9, 11, 10, says therefore everybody is under God's judgment. And therefore everybody is in need of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. That's Romans 3 21 and 26. So the way that whole masterful and beautiful gospel presentation is laid out

and how Romans 1 is woven into that would seem to demand that the jungle man who never hears the gospel is under God's condemnation. I don't, so I'm just speaking exegetically. I'm not speaking emotionally or even pastorally. What I mean is I'm still very much troubled, haunted by the possibility, the likelihood, the possibility. Let's just say possibility that somebody who doesn't hear the gospel, somebody who lives a good life, somebody who does the best with the knowledge they have, was raised in an animistic culture. And that's all they know is animism. raised in an animistic culture and that's all they know is animism. And here I am born into a Christian home and taking to church three days a week growing up and have the gospel all around me. And, and then I ended up saying, yeah, I believe in Jesus. Well, yeah, he's all around me. It'd

be very hard not for me to believe in Jesus, given my cultural context that I was born into. So what do we do with the jungle kid who was born into an animistic culture or born into, I don't know, let's say middle of Saudi Arabia, born into a Muslim culture. And they actually do the best with the knowledge they have. They live a good life. According to the religious knowledge that they have or animistic knowledge they have or whatever,

that person's going to go to hell. That torments me. It does. And I don't know, I'm okay intellectually living with the tension. And I want to humanly be very honest with the fact, and it is a fact that it still does torment me. I could read Romans one and say, exegetically, I get it. I see it. And there's other passages that would seem to confirm that Acts what 14, 15 to 17, it would seem to confirm, you know, God's general revelation to all mankind. And yet I can pastorally and just logically and emotionally and experientially, um, be and see, see, see some tension there as I think just what does this look like on the ground?

I'm okay with the tension. It hurts me. It haunts me. And I would, but I'm okay wrestling with that. But if we say that the person who was raised in an animistic culture, that's all they've known, but they've done a, they're a good person. They've done the best with the light they've been given. If we say that person should be saved,

how is that not salvation by morality, salvation by works? How is it not? Cause you just said, well, because he's a good person, because he's done good with the light that he's been given, therefore he should be rescued from damnation. How is that not a gospel by good works? And how do you reconcile that with the pervasive, pretty much uniform statements in the new Testament that says the salvation is not by works, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Maybe the jungle man, the person who, or jungle woman, or jungle non-binary person, however you want to frame it. Maybe that person is dealing with a different set of rules because there's no opportunity to accept Jesus.

Therefore, faith in Jesus isn't an option for them. there's no opportunity to accept Jesus. Therefore faith in Jesus isn't an option for them. Therefore he or she or whatever, they have a different set of criteria that as long as they live a good life, whatever, then they're saved. That's just,

that's that make theologically, that makes me a little nervous. Like personally, it makes kind of sense. But if you dig deep theologically, it's like, gosh, is it? So are there two different kind of gospels?

And if it is on good works, then, then where do you draw the line? How many good works? Are we going back to the scales where you have to add up the number of good works? And as long as the scales are tipped, you know, as long as 51% of your life is good and the 49% is bad and you haven't killed anybody, but you didn't care for the poor. And maybe you, you know, looked at too much porn, but then you gave to the poor, you know, what does that look like? So I don't think that that's a necessarily easier route to go. Here's my answer to your question. It's a roundabout way of saying, I always come back to this Genesis 18, will not the judge of all the earth do what is right? will not the judge of all the earth do what is right will not the judge of all the earth do what is right clearly god is good the god of the scriptures that i believe in and most of you

believe in is good clearly he's just will do what is right he's not going to do something unjust something that is wrong it may seem unjust to us by our standard but by his perfect state he's the creator he gets to come up with the standard and And we, if you believe in the God of scripture, you also believe that he will do what is right, that he is good. He's not going to contradict himself. He's not going to do something that is unjust according to his standard. That's where my confidence lies, not in unraveling the mystery or solving these tensions. I'm okay living in the tension. I'm okay. I'm okay with the fact that it keeps me up at night. It's part of being human, part of being a religious human. If your religion doesn't keep you up at night, then you probably have an oversimplified religion that is not worth its salt.

religion that is not worth its salt. So will not the judge of all the earth do what is right? That's where I, that's the answer I give. I don't try to solve that, um, question. That, that is my solution. I think it's a decent one. Next question. I've been friends with a gay couple for over a decade. They have been in a monogamous relationship for 12 years. They recently got engaged and took me to dinner asking me to officiate their wedding. That actually doesn't, that statement doesn't make sense. Monogamous by definition, I mean, it means marriage. Monogamous means you're married to one person, but you said that they're not been married. They've been engaged for 12 years. Are they living together? Are they having sex? I don't know. I mean, I hate to ask that, but anyway, you say they said it and they want you to officiate their wedding. So I'm assuming you're

a pastor. They said it was because of how well I have loved them and they know I am a woman full of faith. They attended church here in Dallas that affirms their lifestyle, but I do not. I am grappling with the most gracious response I can give them that both honors them and loves them without compromising my convictions. I was even contemplating attending the wedding. And then this happened with love wisdom on this. If you have a moment, I do have a moment and this is a great question. Um, and I, yes, man, I, I speaking of tensions, this is fantastic. This is great. This is the stuff that makes life worth living. These tensions between conviction and truth and,

and love and relationships. This is, this is what I thrive on this. I mean, you should too. I know sometimes these kinds of things get us down. My, I do, where do I start? When it comes to attending a wedding, I think that's a gray area. I, I'm, people want to attend a gay wedding, go for it. If they don't want to attend, I'm going to push back on that a little bit. I just want to ask some questions why they wouldn't attend and, and, and the possible ramifications of that. Um, and I, yeah, I would push back on those who want to attend. I just think we need to think critically through this, but at the end of the day, I think people could attend or not attend and they need to be, um, secure in their conscience

on that decision. Participating in a wedding, bridesmaid, groomsmen, whatever, that gets a little more tricky. Now you're a little more involved in the wedding. I would still say that's in the area of, it's still more of a gray area. As far as officiating a same-sex wedding, or let me just, let's forget the same-sex wedding. As far as officiating a wedding, you do not endorse or believe in, think is right. A couple that's been divorced five times, they end up, or, you know, a person who's been divorced five times gets remarried. Would you officiate that wedding? A believer and an unbeliever, would you officiate that wedding? I'm just talking about officiate. Let's just make it categorically broader.

Would you, as a pastor, officiate a wedding that you believe is, however you want to word it, unbiblical, unchristian, not right? My response as a licensed minister, I've got a mail order license. You can actually do that. You can become a pastor in like 10 minutes. I did it just to see if it worked and it worked. I got a, I got a, I'm a licensed minister. I, um, I couldn't do that. I couldn't, I, I, my policy is I don't officiate any weddings that I can't put my stamp of

approval on precisely because unlike simply attending a wedding, when you officiate, I do believe you're standing in the gap between heaven and earth, between God and man and woman, and putting your stamp of approval, you are mediating God's blessing to that relationship. That's how I understand. And you can maybe disagree with that. That's fine. I don't have an airtight argument for that. But I believe that when a pastor, a minister, a priest, whatever, bishop officiates a wedding, they are standing in the gap between heaven and earth. So I couldn't do that with a same-sex wedding. Therefore, I could

not officiate that. You may have different convictions. Your question is really, how do you respond to it? So if it were me, my response would have to be a no, but how do you go about that? Well, you have a massive running start here. This seems, and again, I would need to sit down with you over coffee for a couple hours and really unpack this relationship. But the fact that you've been in relationship with this person for over a decade, they come, they go to a church that's affirming and they didn't even go to their pastor. They came to you because you're a woman full of faith. you're a woman full of faith. I just, I think, I think given how much this couple truly knows that you love them and are full of faith. If you said, look, and I'm assuming they know your views on same-sex marriage. I would think that if you're that close to them, hopefully they would know what you believe. I think if you came to him and said, look, I love you guys. And I, I would, in this situation, I would even say, I would love to attend. Um, I, I, uh,

you know, respect you. I love you. Want to maintain, I will never want to break off relationship with, with you. Um, but given my religious convictions, I, I, I can't do this. This would be like a rabbi serving shrimp on Sabbath at synagogue. Part of your religious convictions and duties as a minister of the faith, is this is something that goes against your religion.

So it seems like you can communicate that while maintaining the very clear fact that you love them and they love you. I mean, and practically, I think you've been in relationship with them long enough. I think it's the practical ways to go about this. I think you can probably figure out. I would take them out to dinner, buy a nice bottle of wine, pay for it, pay for the dinner and say, I just got to let you know that one, I love you. Two, I love you.

Three, I love you. Four, I want to come to your wedding. Five, I've got to, you know, and I don't know how far you want to go on, you know, in this, but you know, I bought you a gift or whatever, but as far as standing in the gap between heaven and earth, you probably don't need to talk like that. But, um, as a licensed minister, I just, I just can't, can't do this. Can you ask them, can you, can you understand that? I know you don't agree, whatever. And I just hope this doesn't offend you, but I do have religious convictions that as a minister, I have to abide by. Last question. There are two films coming to theaters that focus on the damage done by

Christians through the method of reparative therapy on LGBT teens. Both films based upon their trailers appear to be a scathing review of the church and Christians. How should the church respond if these films draw a lot of attention and accusations? And then you attached the two links to the trailers. One is called Boy Erased. The other is The Miseducation of Cameron Post. This is super tough, man. Well, the first film too is Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman. Dude, I love Russell Crowe. Gl gladiator one of my favorite movies oh man this is so hard i um it's it's hard because i don't embrace or endorse reparative therapy okay most christians i know don't um most christ Christians I know that don't embrace same-sex marriage would also say keeps trying to pin reparative therapy on anybody who believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, which is an odd correlation. You know, I mean,

I believe with the global monotheistic religions for the past 2000 years or, you know, 1500 years, whatever. I am a monotheist and I believe with my majority world monotheistic brothers and sisters that marriage is by definition, a union between two sexually different people. Oh, so you believe in reparative therapy? What? So you hate gay people, huh? just that's that that that leap is just is crazy but that that is that is this is very typical especially since the broader culture has gained a lot of ground banning outlawing reparative therapy and i do think they want to draw a close, a very close correlation between reparative therapy and any Christian that, or Muslim or Orthodox Jew that believes that marriage is between two sexually

different people. They're trying to draw a correlation there. And so they want to label anybody who has a traditional view of marriage as a reparative therapist. That's my fear, man. I think that's, I mean, not fear. It's like, well, whatever. It's not what I believe. So go ahead, you know, but, but I do think that this is, especially that first film, Boy Erased, I think it will cause a lot of problems with the church, for the church. I think it will cause us to think through things very, very thoroughly. I think we do need to think through our views on reparative therapy. Because even that bill, AB whatever in California that was trying to ban reparative therapy, make it illegal for not just teens or, but for anybody, like it's illegal to sell any book or services that have to do with reparative therapy. But even there in that bill, there was a statement about, um, not just changing one's orientation, but changing one's behavior.

There's a short statement in that bill, I haven't looked at it in a while, maybe it was been adjusted, that talked about if anybody says that same-sex sexual behavior is wrong and needs to stop or whatever, that that would be illegal under the banner of reparative therapy is illegal. That's crazy. So that

this is my concern is that people are trumpety in the anti-reparative therapy thing. And it's very subtly trying to include any Christian who believes in a traditional view of marriage. And that all sex outside of that kind of marriage is wrong. Trying to slap the reparative therapy label on any Christian who holds that view. That's my concern. So yes, I do think Christians should be very aware of these films and the social ramifications they're going to have.

And this is one of the reasons why I have publicly with my ministry at the center and just in my life and whatever, distanced myself from reparative therapy. I think from a free speech and just from a freedom of religion and just living in a democratic free society, I don't think it should be wrong. I think making reparative therapy illegal is, I think that's a breach on people's freedom. If someone wants to choose under their own moral will to go seek reparative therapy and they're aware of all the possible dangers of that, then it's a free country. They should be free to do that from a political perspective. I think it's subtly fascist to say that, you know, this should be deemed illegal. There's lots of stuff in

society that can cause lots of damage and harm that still in a free society, people are free to choose. Um, I mean, yeah. Why is pornography, uh, legal? Is it legal? It's legal, right? Yeah, of course it's legal. Um, well, why, why there's smoking and, and, uh, you know, food and high saturated fat or whatever. There's lots of things that can cause us great damage physically, mentally, psychologically, spiritually, that people are free to engage in. It's a free country. So yeah, I think from a political perspective, I think it's, I don't agree with banning reparative therapy at the same time. I do not endorse it. And just the fact, so some people, just the fact that I said that politically it should not

be made illegal, people will interpret that to say I support it. I almost guarantee this, even what I said in the podcast, it'll get leaked online. Someone will say Preston Sprinkles supports preparatory therapy. Those of you who listened to the whole five minute little speech that I gave will know that that's untrue. But that's how crazy our society has gotten. If you give any kind of nuanced response to something, people just misinterpret that to try to tarnish what you're actually saying. We are out of time.

I am over my time limit. Thank you so much for listening to Theology in the Raw. Join us next time on the show.