Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1005: #1005 - Transwomen in Sports, Parenting Adult Children, Head Pastors vs. Plurality of Elders, and More: Q & A podcast with Preston Sprinkle

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

My patreon supporters sent in a ton of questions for me to address on the podcast. I responded to ½ of them here and the other ½ I’ll address in a private, Patreon-only Q & A podcast.  If you’d like to support Theology in the Raw and become a member of the community, please visit: patreon.com/theologyintheraw.com.  –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/theology –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hello friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have in front of me a very long list of questions that my Patreon supporters have sent in, and I'm going to answer about just about half of them on this public podcast, and the other half I will answer in a Patreon-only podcast, which is what I do once a month. So if you're a Patreon listener and your question is not answered on this podcast, go ahead and check your Patreon account and hopefully the Patreon-only podcast will be up in your inbox somewhere. Okay, let's dive in. These are a wide range of questions that came in. And I feel like I say this every time I do a Q&A podcast, but I'm going to say it one more time that these are incredibly hard questions. And I will be

honest with the sort of level of confidence I have at answering these questions. The first one is a really personal one, which I love these. I love relational kind of questions that you guys often ask. So I'm going to save the name on this one. I'm going to not say the name out loud just for the sake of anonymity. But you say, my 22-year-old son is going to become Catholic and I am disappointed. What should be my mindset and how should I deal with this? He was raised in an evangelical home. This is a great question. Let me begin by saying I don't, or I guess I should say I no longer think that Catholics aren't saved. Early on in my Christian journey, I grew up in an environment where I would have said that. Catholics, because of their doctrine, they cannot be Christians. I no longer believe that.

And I would say I've got several people I know that are either Catholic or Orthodox, you know, Greek or Eastern Orthodox who are, from what I can tell, sold out believers in Jesus. Obviously, I'm not Catholic. So there's reasons why I don't, there's reasons why I'm not Catholic. There's disagreements I have with Catholic teaching, but I don't think those disagreements are significant enough to say, like, I don't think they're genuine followers of Jesus at all. I've had Catholics on the show

talk about Jesus and yeah, maybe you didn't know they're Catholic. I don't even know. I'm trying to think of, yeah, a recent one actually that just came out. Yeah. I think she did say she was Catholic, but I mean, you almost wouldn't even tell, you know, unless we're talking about like our view of the Pope or priesthood or something like that. Um,

you wouldn't really even tell that they're not just a standard kind of evangelical believer. So, so that's where I'm coming from. So I, I mean, you say you're disappointed and I don't want to say, don't be disappointed.

Like your, your, your reaction is your reaction. Okay. Um, I can't control how you're reacting. Here's what I would say is if you do feel disappointed in this decision, don't publicize your disappointment. I mean, anytime a parent like expresses disappointment in their kids,

it's typically not a good way to like bring them back or, you know, change their viewpoint. So whatever disappointment you might be feeling, I would say definitely keep that to yourself. Don't express that to your kid. For what it's worth, I mean, a lot of younger people are leaving traditional forms of evangelicalism to more liturgical forms of Christianity. And so the situation you're in is not abnormal at all. Like this is almost more normal than not.

And if you really step back and look, I mean, aren't there things in traditional evangelicalism that we would say, oh gosh, like, yeah, I don't really love this or don't, you know, or love that. So, I mean, it's not like this person is necessarily, your son is necessarily leaving like a form of church that's super awesome and totally ironed out to a way lesser form of church that's super awesome and totally ironed out to a way

lesser form of church. Like, um, there, you know, we can, and I'm not, I don't want to get into, you know, debating which, which expression is more true to the Bible, whatever. I just think that both Catholicism and evangelicalism would, would have, you know, um, some resonance with, with biblical new Testament Christianity, and also some departures from what the Bible envisions the church should be and look like. One of the best things you can do, here's my, I guess, the most important piece of advice I would give is I would say I would work really hard at showing genuine curiosity about your son's journey and about Catholicism. Get to a place where you can genuinely want to learn more about why they're becoming Catholic. Learn about the Catholic faith.

In my experience, a lot of the sort of criticisms I had about the Catholic church were found to be kind of inaccurate because I was basing those criticisms on people who are critics of Catholicism rather than actually asking Catholics to articulate their beliefs to me. When I do that, I often, and I don't do this a lot, but in the few conversations I've had with Catholic friends and I said, oh, well, tell me what you believe about this or that. And when they explain it from the position of being Catholic, oftentimes my assumptions about Catholicism were unfounded. They were founded on misunderstandings, misinterpretations, or maybe cherry picking certain things from the Catholic church that a critic didn't like, you know? And again, let me reiterate that there are reasons why I'm, you know, even after talking to my Catholic friends, I'm like, um, and again, I, let me reiterate that like, there are reasons why

I'm, you know, I, even after talking to my Catholic friends, I'm like, yeah, I'm still not, I'm not there. I would have disagreements with that. Um, but yeah, I would, I would absolutely with your son show genuine interest, genuine curiosity in his, both his journey and in trying to understand what the Catholic church actually teaches. Um, cause if you come in with a bunch of assumptions about, if you just assume like your son's on the wrong journey, I think he's going to sniff that out. Uh, but if you come saying, you know what? Wow. Like I, I haven't really looked into Catholicism firsthand. I would love, uh, to learn from you in your journey. I mean, I think if you had that kind of posture, you're going to maintain a much more vibrant

relationship with your son. Um, and even let's just say at the that kind of posture, you're going to maintain a much more vibrant relationship with your son. And even let's just say at the end of the day, you still have serious disagreements with the Catholic Church. That's okay. But that relationship with your son is going to be hopefully a better foundation upon which you can articulate those disagreements. But if you don't have a genuine curiosity in your son's journey, then I think that in most cases, that's really going to hinder the relationship. Okay, Shannon, since you're going into this phase of life, what advice do you give parents of young adult children? How does your relationship change and what do you think is the best way to maintain a relationship when they walk away from their faith? Okay. So these are kind of two different questions, like a new phase of life with adult children, but then also a phase of life, which might include them walking away from their faith. I will, to be clear, I'm barely

entering this stage. So I don't, my thoughts are not coming from a place of like tons of experience. So my kids are, you know, 13 through 19. So my 19 year old just moved out recently and is now launching into adulthood. But she is, has a very vibrant faith walk. So I don't have an experience. I don't have the experience of having an adult child or a child moving into adulthood and leaving their faith. So I'm right in the trenches of this question. I think somebody put it like this, and this might be so well-known, might be from a famous book that I didn't read or whatever.

So if it's just old news, then whatever. I still find it to be helpful. But when your kids are becoming adults, you are moving from a position as a parent, moving from a position of authority to influence. So like my oldest daughter, who's now moved out, like I'm not in authority over her. She's going to be making her decisions. We've dropped her out of the nest to use a bird analogy, I guess. And like, she's going to have to learn to fly and I'm not going to go down and rescue her every time she, you know, doesn't spread her wings. This analogy is falling apart anyway.

You know what I'm saying? So like now I consider myself now not in authority over her, but being hopefully an influential voice in her life. But I less and less do I volunteer my advice, my parental wisdom. Like I really want to create space so that she can come to me for, for advice. And what's interesting is, and I think this is true, probably most relationships, your kids tend to come to you more often, not less often when, when you're letting them make their own decisions. You know what I mean? Um, like I think especially like that 16 to 20 year

old stage, I think kids generally are just really wanting to explore independence. So like my kids who are, you know, my other two daughters, 15 and 17, like I'm slowly, it's almost like, it's not like overnight I go from authority to influence. Like I'm slowly trying to give them more and more independence. And that's a tough balance. Like, well, I don't know where to draw that line, but like letting them make some more decisions on their own. Um, not always just trying to micromanage all their things they're doing while still maintaining parental

authority. They're still under my care, under my roof. So my other two daughters, so three of my four kids are all driving because the age to drive in Idaho is like nine or something. I mean, not really, but it's like, there's, I think it's 14 and a half. They can get their permit and 15, their license. It's insane. But it's my kids like driving around town, you know, at first, like when they first get their license, we have really, really strict boundaries. Like you can only go to the no, no, no further than this street. You know, it's kind of like a square couple of miles or something like that. And then we, you know, slowly extend those boundaries and even things like curfew, you know,

gets extended, you know, the older they get. So there's still some parental authority, but giving them more and more independence so that they can, so that they can learn to navigate that independence while still being under our authority. I always say that's the biggest,

like I just, yeah, probably the biggest thing, like as the kids are moving that 16 to 20 year old moving into adulthood, like just navigating that tension of, you know, starting to let go of your authority, be more of an influence and giving them healthy chunks of independence, if that makes sense. As far as walking away from the faith, I mean, I, again, I don't have any firsthand experience with that with my kids yet. I mean, who knows what the future holds, but even there, like kind of going back to the previous question, I wouldn't, I would work really hard at not being disappointing your kid, not being like,

like if they, like, you can't force feed beliefs, like they're going to believe what they're going to believe. You can't force them to be a Christian and trying to force them to be a Christian, trying to, you know, you say your son leaves the faith and then he comes back home and you like make him go to church or whatever. Like I'm not saying I'm not totally like, I don't know. There's, I got different thoughts on that, but just not trying to force your Christianity upon your kid or anybody. Like there's a better chance of them returning to the faith. I think if you mean, if you focus on maintaining a really strong relationship with your kid, loving them, respecting them so that they do feel honored and honored and respected. I don't know how else to put it. I'm trying to search for another way of saying it, but I think that that would have a better chance at them respecting your views even more.

And I mean, no false hope promise at all, but like if they do return to the faith, I think they will look back and say, you know what? You always loved me and respected me. And that, that was a big deal. But yeah, I mean, it's tough. I mean, as a parent, I mean, one of the greatest desires in life is that all our kids would be walking with the Lord their whole life. And I can only imagine how difficult it is for those of us, probably many of us out there listening, who have not had that true of their kids. Next question, Daniel, why is Malakoi named in 1 Corinthians 6.9, but not 1 Timothy 1.10? Does Malakoi's absence in 1 Timothy 1.10 undermine the idea that Malakoi and Arsinoquate are to be understood in close connection to one another in 1 Corinthians 6.9? So for those of you who don't know Greek, malakoi is a Greek word and arsenakote is a Greek word. And these

two Greek words occur in 1 Corinthians 6.9, but not 1 Timothy 1.10. So these words describe some kind of same-sex sexual relationship. Malakoi, this one's pretty, I mean, everything's debated, but Malakoi refers to effeminate men and not just guys who can't throw a football. I'm talking like men who were, um, identifying as, and in the first century were like living in a more social role that women would live in. There were males who were acting like women. So the word malakoi simply means soft, but it came to be applied to men who were soft in this quote unquote sexual sense, like according to Roman sort of masculinity, effeminate men would be seen as soft, as more womanly. And malakoi can refer to specifically to men who play the passive

role in male same-sex sexual activity. In the Roman world, you had a really strong perspective that you had active and passive roles in sexual activity. Men are supposed to play the active role. Women are supposed to play a passive role. So if a man was playing the passive role, he was viewed as a woman. So Malakoi is referred to in 1 Corinthians 6.9. And arsenakote is a much more disputed term. It's the only time it occurs in all of Greek literature here in 1 Corinthians 6.9. And then it occurs later on in other later Christian literature. And arsenakote means something like somebody who sleeps with males. And so a lot of scholars say, and I think it's probably correct, that arsenakotes refers to the active partner in the

male same-sex relationship, while malakoi refers to the passive partner. And yeah, I think that's a good reading of this text, especially since malakoi is much more clearer, I think, than arsenakote. But arsenakote is a compound word from two Greek words, arsen and kote, which, you know, I said earlier, a few seconds ago, that arsenakote doesn't occur in any Greek literature prior to this. But the two words that make up the compound word do occur in Greek literature, namely the Septuagint or Greek translation of Leviticus 2013. They occur side by side, arsen and koite, to refer to a man who is sleeping with another man. So these two words occur side by side, or almost side by side, they're separated by ute in the Greek,

in 1 Corinthians 6.9, but in 1 Timothy 1.10, only the word arsenakote is used. So all that, that's all background to your question um does the absence of malakoi in first timothy 110 undermine the idea that malakoi and arsenakwite should be understood in closer connection to one another in first corinthians 6 9 i i don't think so because i mean just i mean i don't want to state the obvious but they are in close connection in first corinthians 6 9 and but they they don have to, like the word Malakoi is a standalone word. The word arsenakotes is a standalone word. So the fact that arsenakotes occurs in 1 Timothy 1.10

just means that, doesn't mean much of anything. It just means that that's Paul's referring to people, men who sleep with the men in that passage. Whereas for whatever reason, he is singling out the Malakoi in 1 Corinthians 6.9 and the arsenakotes,quites, the active and passive partners. I mean, I don't know, maybe Corinth had, this actually wouldn't be unusual. I mean, maybe Corinth had like a lot more Malakoi in that city. And maybe there were some converts in the

church at Corinth that were Malakoi. In fact, you know, Paul says in the next verse, such were some of you. So why does he choose to identify Malak here in first Corinthians, but not Timothy? Maybe just because that's, they were more prevalent in that city would be, I mean, it's an assumption, but I think it's a good assumption for any of Paul's kind of addresses to his letters that when he addresses something, he knows that that's some kind of issue at that location, that church that he's wrestling with. Next question, Michael. Hi, Preston.

Our church is in the process of hiring a new head pastor after being with that one for two years. I come from a church background that didn't have pastors and have always been curious about the practice, especially its biblical precedent. So what is the biblical foundation for having a senior pastor? Or is it just simply tradition where we get the idea of a senior head CEO like pastor? Just so you know, I'm currently in the process of digging into this. In fact, as most of you know, I'm in a deep dive study on the question of women in church leadership. One of the first things I'm going to tackle, in fact, as you're listening to this, I am probably currently sitting somewhere

with a book open on first century ecclesiology, because I just got a bunch of material that I'm going to work through, because I really want to work through this question. Because we can't talk about the question of women and leadership if we don't understand what we even mean by leadership in a biblical first century sense. I do think that we sometimes come at the question of women in leadership from a modern, and if you're American, American ecclesiology. Like we think of our current church structure and titles and offices and whatever. And then we go back to the text with that kind of church structure in mind. But I think I really want to get away from that. really want to get away from that. Whether our current church structure, structures, leadership structure is based on the Bible, we need to obviously go back and understand what the Bible

meant in its first century context. So, it's all that to say, your question about, is it biblical to have a senior pastor? I'm going to answer this very hesitantly because I really want to get my ducks in a row, my Greek words in a row before I speak confidently about this question. Anyway, I do think the, so like right now, based on the little knowledge I have, I do think that a plurality of leaders who are called elders and or overseers, the term elder and overseer is clearly used interchangeably in Titus chapter one. And we have elder and overseer used in Timothy. If you just had Timothy, first Timothy, you could get the impression that elder and overseer are different, either offices or even some people

say, well, elder just means older Christian. And in that culture, the older person was the more mature person was qualified to be a leader because they are mature because they're elders. But Timothy does put overseer, does seem to view overseer as more of a, I don't know, like the term office necessarily, but some kind of like, like they lay hands on overseers, they commission overseers. They do, it does seem to be some kind of like, again, for lack of better terms, office in the church.

But in Titus 1, again, elder and overseer are used interchangeably, clearly. I don't think that's disputed, I don't think. Well, I'll find out in a few weeks. So yeah, that does seem to be the primary form of leadership in the church. You have a plurality of elders slash overseers. You also have other offices like deacon in 1 Timothy 2 or 3. And there's debates about what kind of authority deacons had. You know, the only place to my knowledge that the term pastor occurs as a noun, like a pastor is in Ephesians 4.11,

a noun describing some kind of like church office. There's several passages where pastoring as a verb is something that elders do. You shepherd a flock among you. That's what pastor means. So the verbal sense of pastoring seems to be the primary way in which the word is used. It's something that leaders should do. But even the office of by pastor, again, apart from that one passage in Ephesians, and even then, I'm not even sure that it's talking about like an office necessarily. And even then it doesn't say senior pastor, one pastor over each congregation. I think people could go to like the letters of Timothy and Titus and say,

well, Timothy and Titus were acting as some sort of like single authoritative person over these congregations that Paul's instructing them to shepherd. I think that might be, again, I'll find it. Maybe there's an argument that I'm not aware of. I think that might be the biggest argument for some kind of senior head single leader. And Timothy and Titus are appointing elders. So you could get the impression that they have more authority over the elders. But yeah, they're not called pastors. I mean, Timothy and Titus aren't called pastors. So we're not sure exactly their, or at least I'm not sure exactly their role in those churches.

Are they more of like an apostolic kind of church planter where they're appointing leaders to exercise authority of the church, but they themselves are not viewed as the ongoing authority over those congregations? I don't know. I don't know the specific role that Timothy and Titus have, but yeah, I mean, I'll just, you know, I'm going to dig into this deeper, but my, I think I'm going to find some several levels of incongruence between the New Testament portrait of church leadership and versus what we have today in the American evangelical church. That's my assumption. Maybe not. Maybe, maybe we're just killing it and nailing it. And our contemporary American church just reflects so much of the New Testament vision

of leadership. That is, I guess, a possibility. Next question, Jordan. I'm currently a youth pastor who's finishing up a secular degree and was going to move on to seminary after this, but I started questioning what type of degree I should get. You have argued, and I agree with the argument,

that pastors should be educated in theology and know the original languages and more. But with the many mental health issues happening among our teens, would it be more beneficial to get a biblical counseling degree or a secular degree in counseling over a theology degree? I was literally just talking about this the other day with a friend of mine. Yeah, I have been talking more about how youth pastors should be like experts in mental health. I think I might've said that. If I have said that, I don't think they need to be experts in mental health. That's a hard ask.

I think it would be great if they, youth pastors were experts in mental health. Like if there's opportunity for the church to help the youth leaders become experts or at least develop some level of knowledge in mental health, I think that would be a huge asset to their leadership as they lead our next generation, the next, you know, Gen Z. Does that mean the only effective youth pastor is somebody with like a PhD in psychology? Well, no, no. I don't think any, would anybody dispute that that would be super, super, super helpful? Let's just say that that's not under dispute, that it would be helpful. So then it's like, okay, well, if it'd be really helpful, then why don't we do it? Well, they don't have time. They don't have the money.

It's hard to hire a youth pastor and pay, you know, we only pay him, you know, 25 grand a year. So obviously if a guy has a master's degree in counseling or something, they're not going to want to get paid 25 grand a year. All right, well, let's pay him more. Let's pay him 50. Let's pay him 75. Well, we can't afford that. Well, and maybe not, but let's look at the budget and let's see if this is a huge priority. Budgets will reflect what we prioritize. So having said all that, your specific question is, should you pursue a counseling degree over a theology degree? I'm going to say, I'm still going to say no, man. Your job as a youth pastor is to shepherd the youth that God has entrusted you with, to come alongside parents in their discipleship journey with our kids.

Okay. And I do think that a theology degree is the primary thing you should pursue. Again, assuming you have the option to pursue a degree here. So, I mean, I think it would be hugely beneficial to have two degrees, a theology degree. And then if you got, let's say, an MA in theology or biblical studies or ministry or whatever, then if you had the opportunity to do another degree, I think that second degree would be hugely beneficial to have that in counseling or psychology. But no, I think the primary degree, if you have one choice, would be a degree in theology. Next question. Okay, this is gonna

be a complex one. Charlene, do you have an opinion on transgender women in sports? I play co-ed soccer where girls' points count count as two and we played a team with a transgender woman on the team and she scored and it counted as two. I had conflicting emotions. Do you have any opinions about this? Yes, I do have opinions about this. I've got opinions about pretty much everything, but I love the fact that this sparked a good dialogue between Charlene and Seda in Patreon. Whenever I post something, it kind of big discussions break out and people comment on each other's posts and everything.

And Seda, who is transgender, you know, Seda from the podcast, she's been on a couple of times. She's also a Patreon supporter. Thank you, Seda. Love it that you're part of the Patreon community. And so Seda jumps in and says, you know, as a transgender Christian, I do have opinions on this, but I would like to wait to hear Preston's view. But then they kept going back and forth. And Charlene was like, actually, I really would really love to hear a view.

And Seda was a little doesn't want to, like, give her opinion on Patreon without me sharing my opinion first. And Seda, you and everybody, you all have complete freedom to share your thoughts on Patreon. That's not, you know, your thoughts are your thoughts and and i might agree might disagree might be a probably gonna be a blend of both in in most cases um but yeah you're you're not speaking for me and i don't think anybody would mistake that so yeah absolutely share your opinion so she did say to share some great thoughts here um and i want to read her response and then i will give my own thoughts so say to says friend of mine has a daughter who will almost certainly get a generous athletic scholarship for a college team sport. When asked how she felt if her team were defeated due to the performance of a trans player on the opposite team, she responded, I've got no problem with it.

Where else is she going to play? Interesting. Comes from a female athlete. I can attest from personal experience that testosterone produces, this is Seda, physical advantages of size, muscle mass, stamina, bone structure, lung capacity, et cetera. I can also attest from personal experience that cross-sex hormone therapy largely mitigates these advantages, especially regarding muscle mass and stamina. What I can't attest to is the extent to which the testosterone advantage is mitigated, especially as this probably varies to an unknown extent among individuals. Therefore, I believe

that a trans girl or woman will have an unquantifiable advantage in competing against biological girls or women. It's clear, however, that she won't be able to compete effectively or safely against boys slash men. While I appreciate my friend's daughter's generosity, I hope that my fellow trans people have the generosity, compassion, humility, and sense of fair play to refrain from engaging in high stakes competition where scholarships, championships, title four, and a significant financial reward are on the line, at least until and unless our advantage can be quantified and handicapped. I also hope that my fellow Christians

with the same generosity, compassion, and humility would welcome trans girls slash women and celebrate their success in competitions such as intramural and municipal recreation leagues where the rewards are limited to things such as bragging rights plaques and token financial awards as my friend's daughter says where else can they play so that's an interesting position coming from a trans woman yeah so she i mean she holds the view that that even through cross-sex hormone therapy the advantage that biological males have is still not completely leveled so that it's

sort of on the same, they'd be on the same par as a biological female. Yeah. My knee. Okay. So most of, I think most people, their knee jerk reaction, right, is absolutely not. Trans women are biological males. Biological males have a physical advantage over females. And so there's no way they should be competing in female only sports. That would be my knee jerk reaction. But I always, even if something just seems like so clear, right? I do want to at least ask the question, okay, let's get our facts straight. What are the questions we need to be asking?

Let's get our facts straight. What are the questions we need to be asking? What do the studies say? Do biological males who have been through cross-sex hormone therapy, does that totally mitigate their advantage? sports is that once their testosterone is reduced to the level of females and their hormone levels are roughly equal, no longer do they have a physical advantage. The counter argument to that is that simply going through male puberty as a male gives you physical advantage even if your testosterone is later reduced. Like that is – that's kind of where the heart of the debate lies. Does going through puberty as a male give you physical advantage even if your testosterone is reduced to the level of a female? There's been two major review studies, like studies that survey all the studies kind of thing, look at this question one is from the british journal of sports medicine the other is from the journal sports medicine i'll put these in the show notes um hopefully i can remember well let me so the sports medicine article is called transgender women in the female category of sport perspectives on testosterone suppression and performance advantage and the

other one let me just pull this up is titled how does hormone transition and trans trans transgender women change body composition muscle strength and hemoglobin systematic review with a focus on the implications for sports sport participation this one's dated to, I think, 2020, the other one. I don't know. You can check it out. Both of these review studies, both of these review studies do conclude that even if the testosterone level is reduced post-puberty, a biological male still does have an advantage in strength, muscle mass, lung capacity, all the things that say to acknowledge.

So here's a quote from the second study, transgender women in the female category of sport. Longitudinal studies examining the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in trans women consistently show very modest changes where the loss of lean body mass, muscle area, and strength typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months of treatment. Thus, the muscular advantage enjoyed by trans women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed. And then you have, I got some links to some other people that kind of interact with those two articles, but I'll save you those. So,

some other people that kind of interact with those two articles, but I'll, I'll save you those. So yes, I do think that the knee jerk reaction in this case is based on the evidence that we've seen from review studies. Um, so yeah, I, I do think that, um, and not even like, so even, even wording it as, cause trans, trans is an identity because, cause you could work frame it as, well, then that's just, you know, you're banning trans people from sport. I would rather word it in terms of biology. Like, should biological males who have reduced their testosterone compete with biological females? Rather than making it about the identity marker. Because there's cases where, because as an identity,

transgender can refer to people who transition, who don't transition, people who take cross-sex hormones, people who don't, whatever. Like there's cases of, what was that? Is it Leah Thomas, who was a swimmer from a few months ago,

is a biological male, identifies as female, is taking cross-sex hormones and uh her testosterone was reduced right so um she competed one by a lot at least in one of the um the swim meets that she was competing in i think she lost in another one like the shorter the 100 i don't know i'm you you check it out do your fact checking so leah thomas um trans woman biological female identifies as a man or sorry biological male identifies as a female competed with other females and won at least one competition that she was in raised lots of debate but in that say in the same competition i believe it's the same competition you had that other trans man so

a female who identifies as a man, but she competed with females. So here's a transgender athlete that also competed with the others of her biological sex. So it's not like, you know, and nobody raises concern about that, no matter how conservative they were. It's not like the fact that somebody identifies as transgender is the reason why people are saying trans athletes, you know, shouldn't compete. It's not about people who identify as trans. It's about biological males who compete in, um, female only sport. So yeah, I think, I think just I, in our wording, especially with something so sensitive, so volatile, I just would like to be extra, extra precise on what exactly is it that we're even talking about. So that we're talking about biological males who have reduced their testosterone to the level of a female, roughly.

Do they still have a physical advantage? And again, based on the data, yes, I do think they have an unfair advantage in most sports. I mean, some people brought up like, well, there's other kinds of sports where females might even have an advantage over males. I can't think of any, maybe horse racing or something. I don't know. So even then we had to be specific with what sport are we referring to, but all, okay. So at the end of the day, yes, I do think that biological males should not compete with females in sports. So I agree with Seda, my trans friend. Next question. Matthew, I am becoming skeptical of biblical studies as a discipline distinct from theology. Okay. Your main question is you're interested in engaging

with the work of some OT scholars who have the life and teaching of Jesus in front of mind and interpret things in light of the gospel, the Trinity, and what Jesus has to say about the Sabbath, purity laws, capital punishment, retaliatory violence. Is there anyone you would recommend? Dude, there's a lot of really fantastic Old Testament scholars I would recommend who have a sort of Christocentric approach to the Old Testament. And there are debates, even from solid Trinitarian Christians, right, on whether we should take the Old Testament on its own. Like, should we read the Old Testament in light of the new or read the new in light of the old? Or should it be some kind of dialectic approach? So just be, I'm not sure exactly. I think I'd fall more in the more dialectic. I think it can kind of be a both and to some extent.

But yeah, there's lots of awesome Old Testament scholars who have a rich Christian theology that comes with them. Let's put it like that as they go and interpret the Old Testament. So here are just a few names that I off the top of my head. I mean, Sandy Richter's fantastic. One of my favorite Old Testament scholars, Gordon Wenham. Gordon Wenham is, he wrote one of the best commentaries on Genesis in the Word Biblical Commentary series. I'm not sure if he's still alive. Gosh, I don't know. He's listening. He's like, dude, I'm like 55. I don't know how old Gordon Wenham is, but he's a fantastic scholar. Probably my, well, I already said Sandy's among my favorites. Another favorite of mine is Christopher Wright. And in terms of looking at the Old Testament through the lens of Christ,

he's written on this pretty extensively. He's written books on like Old Testament ethics for the people of God today. Like he does a lot of kind of spanning both testaments, you know, but he's a, I mean, he's a true blue Old Testament scholar, fantastic writer, very, very clear. It's interesting because his last name is Wright. You know, I think is he related to N.T. Wright? Well, no relation to my knowledge, but he's very much kind of like the Old Testament version of N.T. Wright, like very colorful writer, very beautiful writer, rich scholar, knows theology as well as biblical studies.

Some people like Walter Brueggemann. I've only read a little bit of Brueggemann. I haven't, yeah, he's very theological. So he definitely may be somebody you want to check out. The little bit I read from him, I didn't jive with it as much as some of my friends do. But I have people that just absolutely love Brueggemann. John Golden Gay is another one.

He's written a lot of gospel-centered, rich Old Testament theology stuff. He's got a big series. I think like a three-book series on kind of an Old Testament theology. I've got, in fact, I'm looking at my, oh, there it is right there. If you're watching this video, okay, right above my left ear, right there, right there. See that book? That's the Golden Gaze, one volume of the three volume set, that kind of beige book with the dark lines. Anyway, those are some that would get you started. Katie, what is your understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in our lives? In particular, what do you think is the primary difference between the pre-Pentecost follower

of God and the post-Pentecost follower of God? I already believe that the Spirit of God directs us internally more than he did with people in the Old Testament or in the time between the Testaments when there was no prophecy? Can you recommend good reading on the subject? Yeah. So in general, the work of the Spirit in the Old Testament is a bit more, a bit more mysterious. The Spirit was around in the Old Testament, but it seemed to have a different function. He would, oftentimes the Spirit would come upon somebody for a period of time to empower them for a certain task. Like the spirit of God comes upon Samson and it rips apart a lion, you know, or it comes upon Saul and Saul prophesies, doesn't he? Like he starts prophesying and, you know, is Saul among the prophets too, they say.

But it seems to be very temporary and very kind of external that the spirit's like indwelling somebody, if we can make that distinction. And it's only individuals here and there. Whereas in the New Testament, you do have the Spirit coming upon all believers and indwelling all believers in a way that was unique to the New Testament. And the probably most significant passage for this comes in the Old Testament in Ezekiel 36, where God says, 36, 26, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. And I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances. So that one

verse, Ezekiel 36, 27 is actually worked out in the next chapter in Ezekiel 37. In fact, speaking of Old Testament scholarship, the only, is it my only? The only peer reviewed scholarly Old Testament article I've ever had published was on this passage in Ezekiel. It was published in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. I was stoked when I got that thing accepted. It's not easy to get articles accepted in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, at least it wasn't for me. I've got several, but all of them except for this one were in the New Testament. This one was in the Old Testament. And it was on kind of the role that, well, I'll save you all the boring stuff. But I looked at this passage in light of Ezekiel 37 and did some work

on how it relates back to some stuff in Ezekiel 18. Anyway, fun stuff. But yeah, this one phrase, I will put my spirit within you. This becomes kind of the, and this is a promise. This is looking forward to the time of the new covenant. And so from Ezekiel's perspective, he doesn't know what's, you know, he's just kind of looking forward. He doesn't know if it's next year, the year after, and a hundred years and a thousand years. Like he just said, at some point in the future, God is going to do something different. That's clear in this passage. This is a new work God's going to

do. He's going to put his spirit within you. And then what's really important is that this passage in Ezekiel becomes pretty foundational and influential to so many New Testament passages about the Holy Spirit. We see it throughout John's gospel. I want to say chapter five or six, there's allusions to Ezekiel 36. Paul frequently, Romans 2, Romans 8. Yeah, 2 Corinthians 3 is these significant passages on the Holy Spirit. Paul is clearly going back to Ezekiel 36 and using the language there. And then, of course, at Pentecost, yeah, the Spirit is poured out on all believers. So, yeah. So, I think in the New Testament, the Spirit indwells all believers to empower them, according to Ezekiel 36, to obey God. So it gives believers some kind of moral empowerment. And also we know from other passages like 1 Corinthians 12,

that the Spirit and Ephesians 4, the Spirit is responsible for distributing gifts to various believers, various gifts to all believers. How about that? Getting worked up here. All right. Next question, uh, Joshua, you say some really kind words about me and the Theology and the Raw Ministry. Thank you so much for, for that. It's really, I, I always take these encouraging words to heart. You have a long question here. Let me summarize it. You're questioning whether we should always, in ministry context, well, you say in your college setting, constantly separating men and women, okay? And these separated venues seem to match the stereotypes of what men and what women are interested in talking about or doing.

And your question really is, is there a biblical warrant for separating men from women in ministry context, in Bible studies, in youth group, in summer camp, or whatever? say some common reasons I've heard for why we segregate from ministry. Bible study fellowship seems to be, you know, that if we participate in more mixed settings, this risks developing an inappropriate kind of intimacy in these settings and distracting from the purpose of why we're there. Maybe, or maybe it's, it'll make people too uncomfortable to share certain things. But you say none of these reasons feel very compelling to me. Is there any kind of biblical precedent for why we do this? I don't, it's interesting. Like the one main passage that addresses kind of male and female behavior in the church, 1 Corinthians 11, but clearly they're in a mixed setting. In fact, every, as far as I know, every time the body of Christ is described, they're in a mixed setting. Like, I don't know of any,

I don't know of any incidences in the New Testament where we see Christians sort of dividing in terms of men over here, women over there. You got Titus 2 that says, you know, older women teach young women, but it doesn't say make sure you do this where no men are present or whatever. Like it doesn't imply that this is completely segregated. Yeah, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't, I can't think of anything,

any kind of biblical precedent for dividing people in terms of men and women in Bible studies and so on. That doesn't necessarily mean it's like anti-biblical. It just doesn't mean it's biblical. It might be all biblical or like, you know, just because just, you know, the Bible doesn't talk about electric guitars and church services either. It doesn't mean we shouldn't use electric guitars. So, but I, yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the arguments given for this.

I mean, even, you know, if we get men and women together in college group, they might develop inappropriate kinds of intimacy. I don't know. Does that resonate with you guys? I mean, the rest of our lives are lived out in mixed settings. Like when you go to work, go to school or whatever, like it's like, you would think the church would be the safest place to guard against inappropriate levels of intimacy being developed. Is that, was that more likely to happen at church or less likely to happen at church? And yeah, so that's just part of life. Like that's a risk that we face every day because we're constantly in mixed settings. So that argument doesn't seem good to me.

And what about the opposite? What about the chance of developing healthy kinds of godly intimacy with people of other sex? If there's an ungodly form of intimacy that you can develop, there's there's an ungodly form of intimacy that you can develop, there's got to be a godly form of intimacy that you can develop. And if we keep segregating people, then we're not fostering opportunities for them to develop godly intimacy with each other. Won't share things in mixed settings. This might be true to some extent i think in my generation it was true i think back of myself if if i was struggling with something like some sexual whatever would i share that in mixed settings i'm trying it's hard to transport myself back that far i i could see in some in

some cases where it might be good to separate for certain conversations. Maybe. Again, maybe. But I've talked to my kids about this and they roll their eyes. Like, our generation doesn't care about that. I'll share stuff in front of guys. I don't care. And guys share stuff.

And it's just not – it doesn't seem that Gen Z or younger people in general are that scared to talk about stuff. in general are that scared to talk about stuff. And again, again, I can think of some really specific concrete things that maybe girls are wrestling with or guys wrestling with, and maybe they would only want to share in a male only or female only setting. So I'm not saying there's never a case where I just, here's what I say when people say, should we segregate? I say, I would at least want to develop a really clear rationale for why and not just segregate because that's the way we've always done it. Because I think in most cases, and I've heard youth pastors admit this to me, they're like, you know what?

We segregate all the time, but honestly, we never thought about it. It's just what we've always done. So I said, well, you should think about it. Like have good concrete reasons for why you're segregating in this setting and this setting, maybe not that setting or not that setting. I would argue for, I think probably more, not less, more mixed settings. So I think, yeah, men and women benefit from each other when they're in mixed settings. Okay. Next question. Jeffrey, in Genesis 3, God curses the woman for her part in eating the fruit. It says, you know, in Genesis 3, 16, your pain is going to be increased in childbearing.

And your husband shall be your desire and he shall rule over you. You say, is there a reason that it would be wrong to read that he shall rule over you as part of the curse? That God never intended men shall rule over you as part of the curse that God never intended Ben to rule over women. That just like we work to keep thorns from growing in our garden and wear deodorant so we don't sweat, we should also work against this part of the curse and make it a little more like heaven. You say, I can't be the first person to wonder about this, but I don't know that I've heard it explained. Yeah, every book I've read on the question of women in leadership, women in church ministries,

whatever. Yeah, this is a big debate, this passage. So yeah, so the complementarian reading of this passage says that the he shall rule over you doesn't refer to any kind of godly rule. It just refers to a negative domineering kind of rule. So yes, the ruling is part of the curse, but it's a bad form of rule that men will tend to dominate women rather than ruling over them in a godly, humble way or whatever. And the commentarian would go back to Genesis 2 before the curse where Adam, and there's debates about this, there's debates about everything, but where he names Eve and

you shall be called woman for you were taken from man in Genesis 2, 23. And then he kind of names her again in chapter three, but in chapter two, people say the naming of Eve is a way of exercising authority when somebody is naming something else or somebody else that is a sign of authority over. Okay, that's kind of rule, not just dominating sinful rule, but any kind of rule is part of the curse according to Genesis 3.16. So yeah. So your suggestion here would be how most, if not all egalitarians that I'm aware of read this passage, at least the ones that I've read. And I'm undecided because I need to study it out to see where I land on all that stuff. So there I am. Next question, Katrina, any book recommendations on church history? I've only

read maybe a couple books on church history, so I can't give you maybe good recommendations. I read one of the famous ones by Justo Gonzalez. It's a two-part church, at least when I read 20 years ago, when I wrote through it in seminary, it was a two-volume set. And it's kind of like one of, if not the standard kind of church histories, which is really good. I really enjoyed it. I've heard great things about Bruce Shelley's book, Church History in Plain Language. And that might be, I would at least check that out. I can't recommend it because I haven't read it, but people I really respect say they really liked it.

Maybe some of you read it and hated it. Sorry, I'm just throwing it out there. At least check it out, maybe, and see if you like it. But those are the two that I'm aware of, at least. Next question. Oh, Katrina, again. Also, since your kids are older and you're always talking about sex-related issues, I guess I kind of am. When and how should parents talk to their kids, specifically boys, about sexuality?

You have four boys. The oldest is six. You got four boys, six and under. People say it's best to talk to them sooner than later, but I have no idea how and when to be, to talk about that. Or what do I even say? My parents never talked to me, but I just grew up sort of knowing or feeling like sex is bad and only for marriage. See, that's the problem. Ah, that me too. That's I, we grew up in an era where you just, your first thought of your first knowledge of sex

is it's bad. Don't do it. And then you kind of, well, it's the second get married, then it's good. And then people have all kinds of like triggers on just, it's just been pounded into us. It was just bad, bad, bad, bad. Now it's good. Go for it. You know?

Yeah. It's just, it's, that's, we need to, I think, begin by talking, uh, positively about what sex is, what it's for, what's the creator's design. And then in that context, talk about some of the guardrails, boundaries that the creator has placed on sexual expression for our good and for the flourishing of creation. So, yeah, I would agree. Talk about it sooner than later. say well how do i do that well obviously it should be well maybe i don't say obvious but it should be age appropriate you know there's certain i mean there's certain like really specific descriptions of sex or sexual activity that not every five-year-old needs you know to know about i would start with and i always hesitate

giving advice in this area because even though this, you would think that I just talk about sex a little bit. Like actually we, my wife and I have like, you know, look back and we made tons of mistakes and many conversations that we didn't have that should have had, or maybe we did have and or shouldn't have had, you know, like, yeah, we are in no way experts in, in So my very humble advice is, yes, start sooner than later, age-appropriate ways. And if you say, well, how do I do that? I think start with the body. Don't be afraid to name specific body parts. Talk about the penis, talk about the vagina, talk about the scrotum or whatever term, you know, like I, if the terms are overly clinical, it can sound a little bit like

goofy and almost like, oh, don't be embarrassed about, not the you, but like talk about the body in such a positive way that our kids don't end up developing shame around the body because when something is unnamed, kids, all of us pick up on the fact that, oh, it must be something so shameful that we can't even mention it out loud. Kind of like the Voldemort of biology, you know? So yeah, name body parts, help them to see their bodies in positive ways so that they're not ashamed of their bodies. So I would, you can start there extremely young. So I would start there and then from that foundation, you know, build on top of that with, you know, conversations around sex and, and, and marriage and children and, um, and singleness and,

and so on and so forth. Next question, Josh, uh, I'm interested in your take on Bible translations, like the message and the passion translation. It seems like they take a lot of artistic liberty in the translations. I believe there is value in them, but I feel like they get too far off the actual wording to be considered an inspired translation. They seem to be increasing the popularity, especially in teachings. And I am wondering if they should be used in this way. The passion translation in particular seems to add a bunch of words where there weren't in previous translations. Can these be used to help grow closer to God or should we be a bit skeptical?

I know much, well, not, I know more about the messages I do about the passion translation. So, you know, the message, as far as I'm aware, I mean, Eugene Peterson translated it. Eugene Peterson is a very legit Old Testament scholar. I think he has a degree or two degrees in Old Testament. His Hebrew was extremely good. I think his Greek was pretty good too. But I even said just two seconds ago, like the message translation. It really is, as far as I know,

like it's a paraphrase. It's not intended to be a translation. It's not saying like, this is what the original text means in English. It's like, kind of like if Paul were alive today, how would he convey this? How could we paraphrase what he said back then in a way that he might say it today? I think that's kind of what, what Eugene's approach was. So, um, the passion on the other hand, again, I know very little about the passion translation. So we'll take what I'm saying, like with a grain of salt. Okay. I did a little bit of research just in, in response to your question. So I, you know, I kind of like looked into it a little bit. I, again, from what it seems, it seems like the passion translation is saying it's a translation,

but it also is, yes, it adds a lot of stuff that's just not in the original. That's it. There's no equivalent in the original. I mean, let me just give you two examples and Galatians two. And this guy, I, um, I read Andrew Wilson's evaluation of the passion translation and I thought his Andrew Wilson is kind of the passion translation. And I thought his, Andrew Wilson is kind of like a brother from another mother. Like I, being him lined up on like almost everything, always. He's super smart, dude. Very pastoral. He's awesome.

And Andrew is charismatic. He's a Bible scholar who runs in charismatic circles. And from what I seems like the passion translation is popular in charismatic circles. So this is kind of like his, he's not critiquing it from afar. He's critiquing it from, from a near. So yeah. So I think he gives a really thoughtful evaluation and he's, he's very critical of it. So he points out that for instance, I mean, Galatians 2 19, which, uh, says at the which says at the end there, that I might live for God. Henotheozeso, I believe. And this has been translated by the Passion, so that I might live for God in heaven's freedom. Heaven's freedom?

What the heck does that mean? In heaven or freedom, those three words are not anywhere in the Greek text. Like he's trying to draw out what living for God means. I don't even know what that means. In heaven's freedom. What does that mean? To me, that's kind of confusing. And why add something that's not in the original that doesn't really add clarity?

Because sometimes there's like a Greek phrase or a Hebrew phrase where it's like, well, let's open this up a little bit. Let's kind of like help the English reader kind of, you know, capture some nuances to this original Greek word. But there's nothing in zoso, whatever, that means in heaven's freedom. Okay. And then he has another example, Galatians 6.1, where the phrase is in any transgression, and that's just what the Greek says, in any transgression, and the passion says, overtaken with a fall and has fallen from the place of victory. What does that mean? Fallen from the place of victory.

I don't, again, I don't even know what that means, but that's, and has fallen from the place of victory. None of that is anywhere in the Greek. And he gives a lot more examples. So if this is pretty characteristic of this translation, then I would say that's either be really clear that we're adding lots of stuff. But even then, even if you said you're adding, if it's not accurately reflecting the original in some way, then it's not really a translation. And I agree. Translations can be more loose and more rigid, more literal, more phrase by phrase rather than word by word. There's different translation theories.

And I think there's a place for different translation theories. But this doesn't seem to befit any kind of translation theory to my understanding. I do get nervous. So again, you know, Eugene Peterson rendering the Bible in a really like paraphrase kind of way. I wouldn't say I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of the message, you know, but I'm like, I can, you know, as long as you understand what you're getting yourself into, then it can be helpful. But if you are intending a strict translation, as far as I know, the passion is by one person. Every other translation that I'm, or all the translations I respect have a team of translators. Like that's, I mean, it's just, it's to accurately translate the entire Bible from the original language, that is a,

I would be skeptical, really skeptical about somebody doing that because every book, every author, it takes a lot of, lot, a lot of work and expertise in certain areas to translate. Translate Paul versus translate Luke. And there's people who are experts in the book of Hebrews. And so you get a Hebrews scholar to do the translation of Hebrews and you do a gospel scholar to do the translation of the gospels. Even John is a very different kind of book and Revelation is its own kind of thing. And you have Paul's letters and then you have that sort of Deuteropoline letters that have their own kind of flavor. So there's each chunk in scripture demands a really serious level of expertise that makes it almost kind of makes it makes it challenging to kind of wander all throughout different parts of scripture and

thinking that you can have the same kind of expertise and translating so one guy doing the whole translation if that's true again as far as i can tell from the website it is one guy one main guy or you know the lead translator i don't, does he have a team of other people translating? Um, that, that would make me nervous if it's, if it's simply one person and not a team. So, uh, that's, uh, I don't want to go any farther than that because I, again, I've got very limited knowledge on especially the passion, but based on the little I looked into, I'm like, yeah, this, I would have, um, i bet i i think if i looked into it further i'd probably have more and more and more uh questions there was some stuff about the aramaic i again i look into this for yourself but they seem to give a lot of uh credence to like aramaic translations

of the new testament like the syriac pashita i think is what it's called but that aramaic translations of the New Testament, like the Syriac Peshitta, I think is what it's called. But that Aramaic, that's based on the, like the New Testament was clearly written in Koine Greek. Did Jesus speak in Aramaic? Maybe that's what most scholars assume. Although some would say he spoke in Hebrew. That's a pretty live scholarly debate, whether we should take, you know,

the text was clearly written in Greek. So whatever Jesus spoke, God inspired the Greek text. So trying to go back to the original words of Jesus, well, this would have meant this in Aramaic, and I'm not even sure the passion is trying to do that. I still think as a comment, as a translation of the text, I don't think we should try to look behind the original Greek to some possible Aramaic thing lying behind it. Not for translation, maybe for understanding some history of the historical Jesus or something, but,

and then based on the later, like what's the Peshitta, like third, fourth, fifth century or something like that. Like, yeah, that can play a role in translation,

but I wouldn't want to give a lot of credence to that. Again, the Peshitta is based on the original Greek. So yeah. Anyway, but I would, as I, if I dug into this question a little deeper, I would want to look into what exactly are they trying to claim here with the original Aramaic? Okay. Last question from Davis. What do the unclean words in Ephesians 4.29 include, is Paul talking about curse words here? Does God really care about what specific words we use or is he talking about the motive behind the words? I don't think Ephesians 4.29 is talking about curse words like the F word or S word or whatever.

Let's just go to Ephesians 4.29. So Ephesians, Ephesians, Gentiles eat pork chops. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. 4.29. Okay. No foul language is to come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need so that it gives grace to those who hear. Yeah, I don't foul language. I mean, the Greek word sapros, I think it is, um, sapros, it refers to like rotten, like foul. When I hear foul language, I just think of like the F-bomb or something. That's not

really what is going on here. Sapros is used in Matthew 7 to refer to rotten fruit. It refers in Matthew 12 to rotten fish. And here it has to, I mean, it's the rest of the verse, you know, don't use here foul, rotten language, but only that which is good for building up somebody in need so that it gives grace to those who hear. The whole context is really suggesting language that tears somebody else down. I don't think simply using the F word necessarily is going to tear somebody down, you know. Obviously, there's context where it could, you know, you effing idiot, you know, but it's more of the effing idiot. That is the problem. They're not the effing idiot. If that makes sense, is this getting a little too raw? Yeah. So I think the main point of Ephesians is, is tearing people down. So yeah, I think there's a lot more problem in what you read on Twitter or

Facebook comments or whatever from so-called Christians and where violations of Ephesians 429 are more than plentiful when you go on Christian social media sites. I think that would be the main concern from Paul, not simply telling a joke with your friends that includes the F word or something like that. I'm not endorsing that. I'm just saying I don't think that's what Ephesians 4.29 is referring to. All right, friends. Thanks so much for your questions, at least those questions sent in from my Patreon supporters. And if you'd like to support the show through Patreon, you can go to patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Bra.

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