Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep942: Marriage, masculinity, platforming, weed, alcohol, pride flags, & other questions

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

I received a ton of questions from my Patreon supporters, many of which I answered through Patreon, but some of which I address out loud in this podcast. Questions addressed on this episode: How do you know if you’re called to marriage? What does the Bible say about masculinity and femininity? How will I handle my growing platform? Is it wrong to smoke weed? Drink alcohol? Should Christians have a problem with a public school teacher displaying a pride flag? Why do so many smart Spirit-filled Christians disagree on interpretations of Scripture? What’s the meaning of kephale (“head”) in 1 Cor 11:3 and Eph 5:23? And many other questions.  Articles cited:  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/theologyintheraw/2014/10/is-feeling-called-a-biblical-concept/ https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/article/priscilla-papers-academic-journal/meta-study-debate-over-meaning-head-kephale https://www.prestonsprinkle.com/blog/2016/9/30/should-christians-drink-alcohol Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. 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.

picture me sitting on my couch in the living room and you come busting through the door and say hey preston sorry to invade your living room but i got a question for you what do you think about dot dot Okay, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. We're going to go a little OG on this episode. We're going to do a Q&A podcast, as the title suggests. So in the past, this podcast was primarily a Q&A podcast as the title suggests. So in the past, this podcast was primarily a Q&A podcast, like several years ago, like I would get people who would email in tons of random questions and I would do my best to respond to them. That got a bit overwhelming. And so now I basically have offloaded my Q&A podcast to my Patreon platform. So once a month I record two

Q and a podcasts where my Patreon supporters, uh, send in their questions and I respond to them and post them on the Patreon platform. So most of the, so I still do Q and a podcasts like every month, they do two like hour long each episodes. Um, but this time when I chummed my supporters for their questions, they bombarded me with a fistful of questions. I literally, I'm staring at a, how long is this document? A 12 page document where I, where they asked, where I cut and paste to their questions, put them in this document. So I just got done, um, responding to their questions and that podcast is posted on Patreon, but there's a lot left over here. A lot that I just, I, for the sake of time, I didn't get to. So I'm like, Hey,

I will address some of your questions in a public podcast. And so that's what I'm going to do now. I'm going to warn you ahead of time. These questions are tough. Like, I mean, some of these are i could literally i mean write a phd dissertation um responding to each to some of these questions like like literally some of these questions have been addressed in a phd dissertation because they are very very complicated and i i mean i spent a while kind of uh uh, fishing around, reading some articles, looking stuff up, trying to organize my thoughts. So I don't sound stupider than I normally do, but these are still kind of me like stream of consciousness. So, um, picture, picture me

sitting in my living room chair. Um, actually I don't have a chair in the living room. I have a couch picture of me sitting on my couch and living room and you come busting through the door and say, Hey Preston, sorry to invade your living room, but I got a question for you. What do you think about dot, dot, dot? And I'm like, well, all right, here's some kind of thoughts that I have about that. So that's, what's going on here. These are not, um, I, I encourage everybody to fact check me anything I'm saying here. Um, these are me thinking out loud through some of these really, really good questions. Let's jump in, uh, and, and look at some of these. I'm not going to say the name of the people who asked

the questions cause they may not want, you know, knowing that they are a podcast supporter. Anyway, how can a straight person know if they're called to marriage or singleness? I would add here, I mean, straight, bisexual, gay, asexual, like I think however I'm going to answer this should apply to anybody really, regardless of sexual orientation. But this question does specify a straight person. This person goes on to say, I know God calls us to live in whatever life circumstance we find ourselves in, but what should a straight single person's attitude be toward actively looking or not looking for a spouse? I think too many people look for the wrong reasons. Amen and amen.

Like they just really want to find love or to have approval or to fight loneliness. But I have a good friend, good godly friend who really wants to be a dad and raises kids in the Lord. And I think that's a good reason to get married. What are some other good godly reasons to get married and how can a straight Christian know and live out a call to singleness as well? So, this is a big, big question with lots of complexity here. I would, let me just say, this isn't the main point of your question, but you know, the phrase called, called to marriage, even called to singleness. I think that that can be misunderstood. Um, I wrote a blog a long time ago. When did I write this thing? 2014. And the title of this blog is, is feeling called a biblical concept? And I answer,

no. I think the idea of, oh, I feel called to this. I feel called to that. I feel called to work at Starbucks or I feel called to eat McDonald's tonight, or I feel called to this, that. I think, I don't know. I think there's some modern Western individual Christian subculture that has been interjected, injected, injected into that concept of feeling called. Do you know that if you do a word study on the word called, which is the main Greek word is kaleo, in the Bible, it almost always refers to like a literal, like, hey, come here. And so-and-so called the person to come here. Like you summoned somebody, come here. And so-and-so called the person to come here. Like you summoned somebody to come here. When it's used theologically, it almost always refers to God's

call unto salvation. So, when we talk about our calling, it's God who called us to follow Jesus. God who called us to follow Jesus. And so, even in passages like 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 7 is probably the main passage where people get the idea of, I'm called to singleness, called to marriage. Even there, if you look closely, Paul most often talks about like, what is your status when God called you? Like at the time of your calling. So like 1 Corinthians 7, 18, Paul says, was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised and let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. How would you do that? Anyway, reverse circumcision. I mean, here, he's not talking about somebody being called to circumcision. It's like when you were called to salvation, where you circumcised, where you're not circumcised in that context, Paul has this, you know, encouragement to remain as you are

remain in the sort of vocation you're in at the time of your calling. So anyway, I, I, um, of your calling. So anyway, I, I, um, I would almost reframe this question. Like, um, how can a, how, what's the best way that a straight person, or again, whatever your sexual orientation, what's the best person for a Christian to pursue marriage or, um, if they desire marriage, what are some questions they should ask? You know? So I, cause I think if you say, oh, I'm called to marriage, we automatically think, oh, they feel, or there should be some, like, they feel like they want to get married or they, they, um, they heard a voice from God to go get married. And, you know, I don't want to deny that necessarily. I just don't think that that's the best way to understand this concept of getting married or

remaining single. So, if you as a Christian want to honor God by getting married, if that's something you desire to do, then you have to ask the question, like, what is marriage for? Like, why did God create marriage? And here's where it gets, I think, I think here's where we have to separate kind of our modern vision for what marriage is versus a more theological understanding of what marriage is for. Like we, when we think about marriage, I do think we bring a lot of our modern Western individualized culture, individualistic cultural understanding of marriage into our conception of marriage. So like when two people, you know, two young Christians, you know, come up to me and say, Hey, you know, like my boyfriend and girlfriend and I, we're, we're, we're getting married and they're all excited and they're in love and everything. And if I were to ask, awesome, why? Like,

what would they say? Well, we, we love each other. And well, I mean, I love my neighbor, but it doesn't mean I'm going to marry them. Um, uh, well, no, yeah, but we, we, we want to commit to each other. Well, that's, that's great. That's, that's really admirable. Um, but we want to commit to each other. Well, that's great. That's really admirable. But is marriage simply a commitment between two humans? Is that really the essence of what marriage is? Or is there something deeper theologically going on here? I actually don't respond that way. That would be really messed up, but maybe I should. We do need to ask a question, what is marriage for? And here, you know, there's different views on this. If you look at, I mean, as I read the text of scripture and I interact with church history and different theologians who have wrestled with this question, what is, why did

God create this thing called marriage? Like what's the, what's it for? What's the purpose of it? One thing I do think procreation is wrapped up in why God created marriage. Now, obviously there's things that could prevent procreation from actually happening, like infertility or when people get old, they stop procreating. So I'm not saying that any legitimate marriage will result in procreation, but marriage as an institution does seem to have procreation as some like built into its organizational pattern, if you will. Or as I think the Catholics say, you know, part of marriage is that it's oriented towards procreation or open to procreation. So I actually like, you know, you cited your friend who said, you know,

he really wants to be a dad. He desires to be a dad and raise his kids in the Lord. I think some people might say, well, that's not a reason to get married. Actually, I would say it is. I think that's actually a very noble thing that would fit within why God created marriage. It's also part of why I think, you know, sex difference is part of what marriage is because there is a sort of design ordered toward procreation that's built into the very thing we call marriage or what the Bible calls this one flesh union. I think unity between difference is also built into the organizational pattern of marriage so that when two people come together as one flesh, they are two sexually different people coming together when flesh. Obviously, if you're affirming of same-sex marriage, you don't agree

with that. That is a major point of difference. But I think in Genesis 1 and 2, as marriage is first articulated, it is sort of woven into the very fabric of the creation account where we see lots of differences broadcasted throughout creation, evening and morning and day and night and heaven and earth and land and sea and all these differences. And at the climax of that Genesis beautiful portrait in Genesis one, we have the creation of humanity as male and female. And then in Genesis two, the male and female come together in a one flesh union. And that forms kind of the paradigm for what marriage is, unity between difference. So that you should expect, so practically, I think you should expect marriage to involve differences, which could very easily, this side of Jesus' return, lead to conflict,

lead to differences of opinion and personality. Now, I don't think that's the, you know, I do think that when we talk about unity and difference, it's talking about sex difference, but that oftentimes does bring other kinds of differences to the table. Unity within difference. I also, I mean, according to Ephesians 5 and other passages, you know, marriage is an embodied symbol of Christ's love for the church, which is why marriage is intended to be for life. Why faithfulness in the midst of adversity

is a significant part of marriage. Why mutuality, mutuality, We see this in 1 Corinthians 7, this kind of self-giving of each other toward another person. If you don't have a biblical understanding of agape love, if your understanding of love is very modern and Western, then I would say you would probably need to revisit that before you enter into marriage because marriage does involve a mutual self-giving agape love, not just the modern understanding of love is kind of a falling in love feeling that we chemically get for about 18 months when we really are into somebody else. Okay. What about romance? I mean, I, okay. So you had the song of songs where romance is, is celebrated in the song of songs. Um, romance, you know, um, emotional feelings we get when we admire somebody's, especially in the song of songs,

somebody else's physical body. So I don't, I think that that is there. I think Song of Songs says, this is not wrong. We can celebrate this. But I don't, I wouldn't want to reduce marriage to simply the outworking of romance, that two people feel romantically attracted to each other. And therefore like that, that good, boom, it's mutual, it's romantic. We have these feelings that are just, you know, soaring through the roof. Okay. That's enough to get married. I do think we need to ask some more fundamental questions about what marriage is for, uh, practically. Okay. I mean, so I'm, I know I'm like geeking out on theology and stuff. Okay. Okay. Well, I'll get all that. What about just practical? Like what should I look for? I'm like, well, I think theology is pretty practical, but okay. Uh, you know, practically I don't have,

I'm sure there's a verse here somewhere I could find, but, um, I would practically put a lot of stock in friendship within marriage. Do I enjoy being around this person? Um, because again, the chemical, the chemicals that run through our brain that we call falling in love, that's not wrong, but that's not going to sustain your marriage because you're going to wake up one day and those chemicals aren't going to be there. They're not going to be there. Do you enjoy being around this person? If you if you were never allowed to, or could physically, for whatever reason, have sex with this person, would you still very much enjoy being around them? Okay. So let's, let's, let's not, um, reduce a healthy marriage to sexual attraction. I think

friendship, not that that's wrong, but I think friendship is more lasting and would make for a more enjoyable marriage. And of course, I think we have to ask the question, am I able to serve God better, more effectively, use my gifts more, et cetera, by being married rather than single? And that might depend on the person to get married to. Now, Paul kind of answers that question, doesn't he? I mean, in first Corinthians seven, he says, you won't, you know, it's better to be single because if you're married, then your attentions are, your attention's divided and you're distracted and you can't do as much kingdom work. So, um, yeah. So, I mean, I, I think that that is a, um, if you really want to devote yourself to,

uh, a really flourishing life in wrapping yourself up in kingdom work and you don't desire to, um, uh, create a family and have kids, if that's not even on the table, I don't, you know, if you say like, I want to be married, but I don't want to have a family. I would, I would challenge that. I would, I would challenge that. Um, I wouldn't say it's necessarily wrong, but again, it does seem that procreation is, is again, wrapped up into God's original vision for what marriage is for. Um, but if you're like, no, I don't want kids, then, then I would say consider, I mean, seriously consider singleness, um, consider singleness because you can, according to Paul, do a lot more kingdom work that way. But I would still ask, you know, if getting married would so distract you away from serving God and contributing to kingdom work through whatever avenue God is placing in your heart, then I would question whether you should get married.

All right. Next question. What do you think of younger couples who want to get married in a church without a marriage license due to issues like student loan debt? I used to, I forgot how marriage affects student loan debt. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I used to know this because I had a lot of student debt in the past and I forget how my marriage status affected that. So I'm not sure exactly what you're asking here, but I don't have any theological problem. If somebody gets married in the church and doesn't get married by the state. Is that, does that look like God created marriage in the state? Both states recognize marriage as a thing, but I'm not married because the state says I'm married. I'm married because God says I'm married on a theological level. So yeah, I think somebody can legitimately get married without following

whatever regulations that whatever Babylon you're living in, whatever country you're living in says, this is what, how marriage should be worked out. It's like, well, I mean, as long as you're following what God says about marriage, and I think that's the primary thing. So I'm not, I'm not encouraging people to not get married in the church and by the state, like, you know, checking off both, both boxes. But I think if one did, for whatever reason, did prioritize getting married in the church and didn't pursue that with the state, I don't think that's necessarily wrong. As long as they're still held to the same standard by the community. So what I wouldn't want is somebody to say, oh, we're just going to get married and by, you know, in the church and

the community is going to be there. And then a year later, people were like, hey, what happened to that? And like, oh yeah, we just kind of called it off. Well, no, you're, you're, you're, you're spiritually bound in marriage. So that's just as significant as if the state had recognized or didn't recognize that marriage. Next question, what biblical texts reveal God's unique call for men? In other words, call for men, in parentheses, masculinity. And you say, maybe I missed it in your last podcast, but I heard you talk about this when I talked about my view on manhood and womanhood, that we basically adopt a lot of our ideas of what this means from our culture, from society and so on. So yeah, what does it

mean to be a biblical man, biblical woman? Well, the category of man and woman are biological categories. Like you are a man and you are a woman if you are a female or a male, and I'm not going to get into questions about intersex or whatever. That's not what your question is asking about. So I don't think you have to be stereotypically masculine to be a man. I don't think you have to be stereotypically feminine to be a female. Now, I do want to acknowledge, I do want to acknowledge biological realities. Because sometimes when people push back on gender stereotypes and say the scripture, the Bible doesn't mandate gender stereotypes, which I agree with, sometimes to get there, people ignore biological realities. I think we can do both.

I think we could acknowledge that there are biological differences between males and females that do affect behavior on a general level. I'm going to try to be really precise with my language here because this is really important. So, so please pay attention to like my exact words and don't read in or around what I'm saying here. I do. So I think it's simply acknowledging a scientific, I would say fact, a biological reality that if a mammal has a much higher levels of this chemical called testosterone than other mammals who don't have those same levels, then that will typically on a general level manifests itself in certain behaviors and

interests and likes and dislikes. I'm not denying that society doesn't also contribute to those behaviors and likes and dislikes, but I don't think we can reduce those behavioral, I can say it one more time, generalities to simply societal conditioning. Carol Hoeven from Harvard, from Harvard, I think she's at Harvard, has a great book out called tea. And I forgot the subtitle. It's just called tea. Um, and has a subtitle, but it's all about testosterone and Carol Hoeven has been, uh, uh, uh, she's been researching testosterone for many, many years. It's great. It's a great book. And she's been on lots of interviews on, uh, she was on Joe Rogan a while back and, and several other podcasts. And so she's becoming more well-known.

In fact, I heard her on Joe Rogan and was so impressed with how she, how fair she was and, and just why she was a knowledgeable. She was a testosterone that I picked up her book and read it. It was great. So males and females will exhibit general behavioral patterns that overlap and also differ. So if most males act in stereotypical masculine ways, that is because of a combination of biology and environment. Excuse me. And same thing with females who do not have high levels of testosterone. I think men have 20 to 30 times the levels of testosterone as women.

And there's complicated factors even there too with cell receptors and whether they're receiving the testosterone and levels fluctuate throughout the day and so on. But generally speaking, males will have quite a bit more testosterone as women. And we've seen even in studies of monkeys and other animals that, um, we see general differences playing out in non humans as well. Um, now, so we can acknowledge biological reality. So, so when most men do act in stereotypical masculine ways, rough and tumble play in kids, maybe they're more interested in, I mean, I'm going to get into all the stereotypes here.

Boys will be more interested in like mechanical things and girls might be more interested, generally speaking in more relational play and so on and so forth. These do exist on a general level, on a general level, kind of like height. Like if we said our men taller than women, it's like, well, what do you, yes and no. I mean, yes, if you took the average height of men in the US, it's what, five, nine and an average height of women, It's five, four. Um, but some men are five, four and some women are five, nine or taller. So not every single individual man is taller than every single individual woman. Um, these, but on a general level, yeah, men are

generally speaking taller than women. And so same thing with certain behavioral patterns and interests. Okay. I'm getting, I don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole, but let's, let's come up for air. So I think the Bible would acknowledge those general patterns, but here's the thing. It doesn't, it doesn't make, they are not absolutes in the Bible or in society. Most women might cry more than most men, but some don't, and that's fine. In fact, in the Bible, women or guys are crying all over the place. Jesus cries, King David cries, and many men cry. It's our society, I think, that takes some of these stereotypes, makes them absolute, and then marginalizes people who don't fit the general pattern. And that, okay, expect

that from society, but we do it in the church and that's where it really gets sad. The Bible will recognize general patterns of male and female behavior, but it doesn't morally mandate men to act in masculine ways and women to act in feminine ways. And this is where it gets a little, well, somewhat controversial and a little tricky. Are there any commands in the Bible given only to men and not to women? And are there only there's hardly any. There's hardly any. In fact, let's just look at 1 Timothy 2 really quick. I'm sorry, not 1 Timothy 2, but Titus 2. Okay. So, here's one passage where we have instruction, one of the few in the Bible, instructions given specifically to men and then specifically to women. So, let's just look at the women passage in Titus 2, 3.

In the same way, older women are to be reverent in their behavior. Sweet. So guys don't have to be reverent in our behavior. Not slanderers. Does that mean guys can slander or are guys also not to be slanderers? Not to be addicted to too much wine. So all the guys can be addicted to wine, right? But women can't. Is that what Paul's saying? No, he's given commands to women here, but he's not saying women

or men don't need to do this. Only women do. Um, and they are to teach what is good. So they may encourage the young women. And then he gives, I think 10 commands here, older women are to teach younger women to do what number one, love their husbands. If they're married, I would assume. Does that mean husbands don't need to love their spouses? To love their children. Guess what? Fathers got to do the same thing. To be self-controlled. Men got to do that too. To be pure. Okay. To be, okay, here's, here's one homemakers or busy at home. If there is a command here that might only apply to women and not men, some might point out to this one. I would at least encourage you though, to do a little bit of research on first century households and work and what, and the word that's being used here. I forget what the Greek word is.

I think it's busy at home. Um, and the context of title. I don't, I think we gotta be careful reading in kind of a post-industrial era home situation, kind of like leave it to beaver, you know, whatever into this passage. So I'm just gonna put a question mark around this one. Uh, women are to older women teach the young women to be kind. Okay. That's another universal command, uh teach the young women to be kind. Okay. That's another universal

command. Submissive to their husbands. Okay. This is one where if you hold to a complementarian view of households, you would say, no, only women are to submit to husbands and husbands aren't to submit to women. Let's just assume that reading. Okay. So here, here, here might be one, according to a complementarian reading where women are commanded to do something that men are not commanded to do. Although Ephesians 5.21 says, submit to one another in love, right? And so some people say, well, are men off the hook with that? Are husbands off the hook with that? Is submitting to one another in love, is a man's wife not a one another? So at least that's something we need to wrestle with. Okay.

Uh, submissive to their husband so that God's message will not be slandered. Um, and then it goes on to, you know, encourage young men to do a lot of the same stuff. So even the most conservative reading of this passage would say two of the 10 of these commands that older women are to give to younger women, only two of the 10 of these commands that older women are to give to younger women, only two of the 10 are really exclusively towards women and not towards men. Of course, if you hold to a complimentary reading of scripture, then you're also going to say only men are commanded, some men are commanded to be, you know, leaders in the church. Okay. Let's just assume that, that, um, that's still not a universal command. Like all men are to be leaders in the church. Okay. Let's just assume that that's still not a universal command.

Like all men are to be leaders and all women are not to be leaders outside the church. That does seem to be specifically for the church. Some people say, yeah, but what about first Corinthians 16 that says where Paul commands people to act like men? You know, you remember that passage, 1 Corinthians 16, is it verse nine, I think? Here, I do think Paul is drawing on certain cultural assumptions about masculinity. In fact, the commentators that I read on this say, you know, Paul's probably thinking of masculine virtues that were popular in the Roman world, like courage and strength. Okay. So he is drawing on cultural assumptions about masculinity,

but he's commanding the whole church. I mean, he's telling literally half the church, which are women, if at least to be masculine, to act like men, you know, to be courageous and be strong. Um, so even here, this, this command is not given only to men. So let's bring it home. I think we can, number one, acknowledge biological realities that produce general differences between males and females. I think we can absolutely acknowledge that. Number two, we need to also acknowledge that they are not absolutes, that people who don't fit the general pattern should not be marginalized or made to feel like they are less of a man

or less of a woman. Number three, this is a big one. I don't want to morally mandate gender stereotypes. Men are not commanded to be masculine. Women are not commanded to be feminine. If you are a female and you're less than feminine, like you don't like to wear pink or, you know, um, uh, I'm not, I'm not going to go there. I was going to give a bunch of stereotypes and just, I just feel weird saying it. So, um, yeah, like

we, we cannot make men and women feel like they're dishonoring God if they're not, if they're not, if they don't fit within the general pattern, the general pattern of how most or many men and women naturally behave. Okay, let's move on to the next one. This is a great question. Now that you have a platform, how have you, how will you protect yourself from becoming consumed with promoting your platform? I think you discussed this stuff with Tim Gomas. This, I love this question. And I, I've thought about this since I read it four days ago. Um, and I keep kind of jotting down some thoughts here. So let me give you, I don't know, let me respond to this in sort of a,

in no particular order. Um, I would, I mean, now that I have a platform, I, do I, I, what is it? I don't know how, how, what does it mean to have a platform versus not having a platform? I mean, in the broad scheme of things, whatever quote unquote platform I have, I just, let's be real. It's, it's pretty tiny compared to like of the rest of the world, I guess, or even the rest of the Christianity. I mean, uh, the pot, you know, this podcast is, has grown in popularity. It's great. Um, my books, the books I've written over 10 books and I mean, they, they don't, they haven't sold a lot. Like I think by the book that has sold the most might, might have maybe 25,000 copies. So maybe 30,000, let's just be optimistic here. Maybe 30,000. That's kind of nothing. Um, and I know a lot

of you like, you know, you know, love your books and read your books have been helpful. I get a lot of encouraging remarks and that's, that's awesome. Um, and so maybe a lot of you have read my books, but in the broad scheme of things, that's like pretty, I mean, yeah, I, none of my books have ever made it like the, in the top thousand, um, in, in the Amazon rankings. Um, I mean, they barely make it below like the 10,000 mark. Okay. So I don't know if you know about the Amazon ranking, you can see what level a book is at. If you scroll down on the book, on the book page on Amazon, you can see of all the books that I have, the 4 million books on Amazon,

where is a certain book ranked? Um, I think I had one that maybe made it. So this isn't counting Erasing Hell. Okay, Erasing Hell was at, when it first came out, I think three. Not 300, but like three. Like one, two, three. Like Bible, five love languages, and then Erasing Hell at one point. But guess what? I think that had something to do with Francis Chan being on the cover of it.

So the books that I and of it. So, um, the books that I, and only I have written, um, yeah, it's not like I'm like a well-known author. Um, I don't even have like a Wikipedia page or even a blue check mark on my Twitter account. I applied for one a few years ago and they denied me cause I didn't have enough credentials or whatever. So, which is great actually. Cause I have come to find out that most people make fun of people with blue check marks anyway. So I don't know, like I, in my little tiny world, I guess I have a platform, but I'm constantly reminded that it's like, yeah, it's still kind of a little tiny world. Um, I, okay. But let's just talk about whatever platform I have. You know, I, you guys mostly know me, guys and girls, through my podcasts and maybe my writing, Like you, you get the good stuff. You get the, the me in my basement,

waxing eloquent on theology and Iran, all this stuff, but you miss everything else. You miss the arguments that I have with my wife and managing my teenage kids and, um, figuring out how to pay the bills and vegging to Netflix at night because I'm brain dead and wake up in the morning and not wanting to read my Bible or pray and figuring out how to be a Christian and a father and a husband and a good citizen and a neighbor and church member. It's just most of my daily routine is figuring out how to survive. Marinating in my platform occupies very little space in my day. And I'm saying that in a positive, I think that's probably healthy. I'm also, I'm not only an introvert, despite what you may think, people think, well, I listen to you all the time. You're always talking. Well, yeah, that's because you listen to the one hour a week. I do my podcast for two hours a week. I do

my podcast, but I'm not only an, not only an introvert, but I'm becoming more introverted. I mean, part of, I I'm very thankful for whatever influence I've had on the church, on the world, on the kingdom, but I really am like, I love getting the responses I get from some of y'all, some of y'all. Um, it, it, it, it makes my day. It really does. Um, but whatever platform I have, it also kind of stresses me out. Like I, if it were up to me, I would love in my flesh, I would love to have just a small group of friends that I don't see very often. We spent a little bit of time together. And then the rest of my time, I'm buried in a book by a warm fire with my dog at my feet. I could spend a lot of time there. Um, so if God took away my platform, I, I honestly, well, it's hard.

Like I, again, I don't want to make it sound like I'm not thankful for the influence I have, any positive influence I've had. But I don't, if I never go on stage again to give a talk, I would not be disappointed. I don't need to be on stage. I don't need to be the guy. I don't need to, if I come into a room with people, I can, I don't need people to run up and ask me tons of great, you know, cool questions or whatever. Like I don't need, I, I, I don't need, I don't need a platform. And I, but again, I think that's probably healthy. If I, if, if I was wired, like I love the stage, you know, some people like they love the microphone, you know who you are, like you, you, you like, you want the

stage. I mean, you're on the stage, you like the stage. Um, I do think that if that's how you're wired, that, that would be hard. Like that would be tempting because you're, then you're tempted to protect the stage, to protect yourself, to, to, to build a bigger stage and expand the platform and everything. And I, I don't naturally have a desire to want to do that. Also, my wife is pretty BA. Like she keeps me super real. If I'm working too much, she will let me know. If my platform ever got to my head,

she'd be the first one to give it to me straight. So that's a good thing. That's a really good check. And honestly, because my platform is largely online and because I don't really try to live my life online, I don't, it, I don't, I don't know. Like my life is pretty vanilla. Like I don't, um, uh, I think it would be hard if, if, if like, instead of this, instead of the podcast, like, so there's, I think it would be hard if, if, if like, instead of this, instead of the podcast, like,

so there's, you know, yeah, that's my check. 10 to 20,000 listeners per podcast. Even saying that just absolutely like stresses me out. Like if I was on stage looking at all of you, like every week that, that would be, that would be, that'd be a challenge. I mean, I think I'd probably curl up in a ball of anxiety, but I'd also want to do something else. I mean, it's almost better that I'm just staring into my screen right now, like talking into a microphone, wondering if anybody's out there. Um, so because I don't live my life because a lot of my ministry is kind of online out there somewhere. And because I don't live

my life online, like it's, um, my, my routine here in Boise, Idaho is filled with a lot of boredom, busyness, and loneliness. You know, it's not like I've got, I'm walking around and embodied humans are constantly patting me on the back. Like that's just not a thing in my routine here. Um, all that, having said all that, and I gotta move on here, but, um, anybody can fail. We are all one decision away from being a murderer, an adulterer, a fornicator, a prisoner, um, or one decision away from being on the streets, being without a home, without a family, um, without our health, um, anything can happen. And whenever, whenever we look at a celebrity Christian, somebody with a platform falling

and failing, our immediate response must be, God, I beg you for the grace to sustain me so that this doesn't happen to me. The second you have, we have a flare up of pride that looks down our noses at that person saying, oh, I knew it. Oh, what a jerk. He should have had more accountability or I, you know, he's so prideful or he abuses power or whatever. That cannot be our first response. We have to look at ourselves and say, this can happen to anybody. So that is something I try to remind myself of perhaps not even enough. So I'll leave you with

that. Let's move on to the next question. What's my, what are my thoughts on weed? You go on to say you've never smoked it, but, uh, is it biblical to smoke weed or is it, how come we can drink, but not smoke weed? And then you even say that some of your friends say, well, weed is not okay because you can drink alcohol in moderation, not get drunk. But with weed, you're basically either not high or you are high. If you smoke weed. Do I have any thoughts on this? I, um, yeah, I, that's my, well, I don't have a lot of seasoned thoughts on it. Um, I have taken it for granted that, uh, I, I have, uh, back in my pre Christ days. Okay. By pre conversion life, uh, did, uh, smoke pot, uh, not a ton, but some, and every time I smoked pot, I got very high. And, um,

I would say it was different than being drunk, but similar. Um, I don't, wasn't really in control. I, um, or one time I drove high and I should not have been driving high. That was so stupid. And I was 19 and an idiot, actually 18, 18 or 19. It's actually shortly before I make Jesus. Um, so that, that's been kind of my default. Like, well, you can drink in moderation, but Bible says don't get drunk. And that category would apply to smoking weed because when you smoke weed, you get high. I can't verify that. In fact, I've talked to friends since then to say, no, you can smoke weed and not get

high like that. Like that's, you know, maybe you had some, maybe you had some really good bud dude. I don't know, but that doesn't always happen to everybody that smokes weed. So, um, this is an issue I kind of really wanted to look into. Um, there is a book out there, Christians and Cannabis, I think it's called, is it Miles, Todd Miles, Miles Todd. I'm so sorry if you're listening. I don't have it in front of me and I'm not recalling your name. I think the author is a professor at Western Seminary in Oregon. I'm pretty sure it's Christians and Cannabis. I'm excited to read that book.

So I hope he would have a better answer to this. It is something I've wanted to look into, perhaps even write a short book on it. Like what does the Bible actually say about weed? I think that'd be interesting. Um, but if he's already written it or somebody's already written it, then I don't need to, but, um, yeah, uh, I, yeah, just want to confess a lot of ignorance with, yeah, with my response here. Like I, I, I don't, I need to go back and do more research on it. Uh, next question. Um, many gatekeepers are warning of wolves in our midst, but what do we do when those wolves reflect a good shepherd more than these gatekeepers shepherds who are warning us about them? Oh, I want to mention your name,

but I vowed not to, not to, I don't think you would care actually, but anyway, thank you for this question. Super good. In the Bible, wolves are largely known for their lack of character. Typically they're after money, power, sex, and greed, or they're greedy and after money, power, and sex. They're not just preaching wrong doctrine. I mean, look at when the New Testament talks about wolves and sheep's clothes in it. It usually talks about their character. And if you look at like false prophets in Jude, second Peter, they're not just teaching wrong doctrine. They have fundamental character flaws. wrong doctrine, they have fundamental character flaws. So, and even when the Bible does say they're teaching wrong doctrine, false teaching,

these are like fundamental differences with Orthodox Christianity. And there's a little bit of horse and cart here where, you know, how do we determine what's orthodox and so on? But I, you know, if somebody is teaching like, I don't know, old earth creationism or young, whatever, whatever, whatever is not your view. Like, I, I don't know if that's enough to say, wow, there are wolf and sheep's clothing. They teach a mid-tribulation rapture or whatever. I think they're teaching things that go fundamentally against the gospel. And I know that leaves a bit of subjectivity for us to determine what are the fundamental tenets of the gospel. But if somebody's simply teaching something that goes against individual churches, doctrinal statement, it's not really an attack on broad

Christianity, broadly speaking, then that's, I don't think that would fit the category of being a wolf in sheep's clothing. So, um, yeah. Uh, you also say, could I share about my background story with those of us who are somewhat familiar with, or sorry, will you please share your background and story with those of us who are somewhat new and curious? I am particularly interested in how you broke out of the MacArthur strongholds as someone who is currently trying to break free myself. This is a great question. And this could take the rest of the podcast.

Let me give a very, very short version. Um, got saved at 19, fell in love with studying the Bible, found a shoe box full of cassette tapes with several preachers, uh, several sermons in my mom's closet, devoured those cassette tapes. Uh, they were, um, on those cassette tapes were sermons by Charles Stanley, um, uh, D James Kennedy, Charles Stanley. No, did I say Charles Stanley? Charles Stanley. Oh, who's the other guy I'm thinking of?

Not Chuck Missler. Actually, Chuck Missler was on there too. I don't know why I laughed, but... Wow, I'm blanking on his name. Super famous, like, you know, the 1980s all-star crowd. The guy who was in Texas and then Southern California. Anyway, and John MacArthur was among those. And of all those, I loved hearing John MacArthur preach because he went so in depth with the Bible. Like he just went deep into the text of scripture. I

was in love with the Bible. And so I loved those sermons. And so long story short, went to master's college, studied the Bible. And, and when I couldn't get enough there graduated, I want to keep studying. They said, well, you could go to seminary. And I was like, well, I'm not dead yet. They said, no, not cemetery seminary. Okay. Oh, I don't know what that is. What is that? Like, well, it's down the street, like that's seminary. And they pointed their finger to master's seminary. I didn't, I didn't even really know other seminaries existed. I just thought there was one in the world. So I went to that one and it was really at master's seminary, which John MacArthur is, or was,

I don't know, the president of where I would say halfway through it's, well, I went there because I loved the Bible and I so valued the original languages. I wanted to go where the text leads. And it was probably halfway through my seminary when I started to realize that I wasn't coming to all the same conclusions by following the very interpretive methods I was learning. And I was like, and I found, I found that for some people, not everybody in that environment, but for some people that was kind of frowned upon. Like coming to different theological conclusions or even having maybe even a different tone. Or sometimes even going to a different church.

I remember, this was, man, I remember one time a fellow student asked, he found out that I didn't go to MacArthur's church. Like if you go to the seminary, you don't have to go to the church. At least when I was there, you didn't have to. So I was at an evangelical free church, a smaller church. I was involved in the youth group there, helping out with the youth and a fellow student found out that I didn't go to MacArthur's church. I remember he looked at me so odd. Like, why would you not go to MacArthur's church? Like I, man, I, and they started going off on why he does go there. Like, no, when I go to church, like I sit in the front row and I watch how MacArthur walks up on stage and I study his mannerisms and I, and I, and I, I can't, I don't understand why somebody would not take advantage of that. Like why? He didn't quite say, why aren't you here? But he kind of did, you know? Um, so I don't know. Like I was like, ah, that doesn't make sense to

me. Like, why would you go? And it seems like you're kind of idolizing a certain person. And I don't know if that's healthy. Like it seems almost healthier to be at a, maybe a smaller church that, you know, doesn't have as many, you know, gifted teachers or whatever at this big church that MacArthur is pastoring. And so I, long story short, like I, every seminary has pros and cons. There were, I look back and there were some amazing things I learned. Um, the emphasis on the authority of scripture, the original languages, um, prayer. I took a class where we were, we were required to pray an hour a day as part of the class. Now, some people can say that's legalistic. You know, you can't force prayer. And I get that. And I had that same pushback myself, but I don't know, there was something beautiful and good about going through

the discipline of just spending a long time every single day in prayer. Like I, that was, I think there was some good in that. There were certain teachers I still think back and just have learned so much from them. Other teachers that I didn't find as particularly helpful. So pros and cons. The one con that I think was especially toxic, and I'll just be honest with you, was especially toxic. And I'll just be honest with you. Was this mindset that everybody else doesn't quite get it. Everybody else is on a slippery slope. I remember hearing about, you know, Wayne Grudem, while he dedicated his systematic theology to John Wimber and John Wimber believes that the sign gifts are for today and he's a charismatic. So we're suspicious about Wayne Grudem. And I don't know if you know, Wayne Grudem, but he's one of the most conservative people on earth. John Piper was kind of weird.

We're kind of suspicious about him because he doesn't believe in a pre-tribulational rapture and he's kind of charismatic and Al Mohler. Well, I don't know. He might be honest. No, I guess we'll keep him, but he's not fully dispensational, but I guess, I guess, guess we'll keep him, but he's not fully dispensational, but I guess, I guess, yeah, I don't know how he arrived at that position, but yeah, I guess he might be okay. You know, just everybody was suspicious. D.A. Carson, you know, like, wow, gosh, yeah, he's, he believes that the gospel writers didn't write independently and that Mark was the first gospel and Matthew and Luke had Mark before them when they wrote their gospels. And that's, that's just, that's a, that's going to destroy inerrancy. I mean, there was so,

it was just such a, our shoelaces were tied so tight, um, theologically speaking. Okay. That's fine. Whatever. But when you start looking upon everybody else with skepticism, like, Oh, you really don't get it. Or I'm one of my professors said, I literally like, um, there are no other seminaries. Like this is the only credible seminary, you know, that, that, that, that is a kind of toxicity that kind of spoils a whole glass of water. Like just a drop of cyanide in the glass of water might be actually, I don't know. I'm not a chemist. I don't know if that would kill you or wouldn't do much. I don't know. Um, that, that, that was, it took me a while to detox from that. I remember after master seminary going to, um, so let me, let me say it again. So again, there, there was a lot of good

things, some amazing professors that I still would call friends and mentors to this day. And I would say they're good, godly people, even if we might disagree on some doctrinal things. But it was that air that was sometimes very explicit. Other times it was just kind of in the air of this suspicion of everybody else who's not part of this environment. That took me a while to detox from. I remember going to Aberdeen University, Secondary University in Scotland, studying, doing my PhD in New Testament with about 25 other students. Probably 24 were like American evangelicals, okay? from about 20 different denominations and backgrounds. And it was so good for me to see so many good, godly

Christians from a vast array of different traditions who had so much in common. I remember one of the students, I mean, I think I was at that time, I was, I was still very strongly complementarian in my theology. And for those of you who don't know, I'm just basically on, I just, I am on the fence on that question. I need to do a lot more research on that, but I was strongly complementarian. I remember meeting, I think I was the only one there actually. I was, after a while, I was like, didn't want to admit it, but I remember meeting, I think I was the only one there actually. I was after a while, I was like, didn't want to admit it. But, um, I remember meeting and I was told, you know, if you're, you're egalitarian, you're kind of, you kind of are sacrificing biblical authority. You don't really believe in the Bible as strongly as us complementarians. It was kind of the vibe

I was getting, man. I remember meeting a fellow student who would walk around campus, just listening to the Bible on cassette, like an hour a day, the most kindest, gentle, sold out, like biblical authority kind of guy would just saturate himself in the text of scripture. And his wife was a pastor. I remember like circuits being blown at the time. Like, wait a minute. I thought you weren't supposed to care about the Bible. My roommate went to Fuller Seminary, which we thought was flaming liberal. And he, he did,

he was studying theology. I was studying like the Bible, like biblical studies, not that the two are at odds necessarily, but I remember him saying, dude, you need to keep us accountable. We need more expository preaching. We need you biblical studies guys to preach the text, to help us to preach the Bible word for word, line for line, verse by verse. And I'm like, wait, you guys believe in expository preaching? I thought we had the quarter market on that. He's like, what do you mean? Like, that's what, that's, that's what we do. Like, that's what we want to do. So anyway, long story short, I realized that not everybody outside of that environment is on a slippery slope. Um, and I started to realize like, you know what, following the very exegetical methods I was taught,

I'm coming to some, some different theological conclusions. Um, it's how I arrived at my view on nonviolence. It's how I arrived at, well, I mean, many things, my view on hell and other doctrinal points, why I would believe in more of an old earth theology or whatever, not that I'm an expert in that, or why my eschatology is not pre-tribulational rapture anymore and so on and so forth. So it's because of my desire to go where the text leads that I arrived at maybe certain different theological conclusions than what I grew up with in college and seminary. And when I began to rub shoulders with people from different theological traditions and seeing that they love Jesus, that they're sold out for the gospel, that they are a believing authority of scripture. That's when I'm like, man, I, yeah, I just feel like I'm, I'm in a different camp right now. So that's my short version. Goodness

gracious. That was way too long. Let's get to the next question. I hope you, my question is not offensive, although this is theology in a raw, you can't offend me with the question. Questions aren't by nature, aren't offensive. So you can ask me whatever you want. You're curious about my position on Christians and alcohol. Um, uh, yeah, while at times in our history, oh, so you say, you know, you were raised Nazarene. So, which is a very much a non-drinking kind of tradition. Um, uh, while at times in our history has been treated legalistically, I see some wisdom in this approach. For example, at our church, we have a relationship with the recovery program. And one of the reasons I do not drink is because I want to be an encouragement to them in their

sobriety. But I don't think it's a sin to drink alcohol. Yeah. First of all, that's very noble of you. I think that's awesome that if you're in an environment, um, where abstaining from alcohol or, or whatever, um, abstaining from meat, if people, well, that might not be the best analogy, but, um, yeah, I think that that's very noble. We should always ask, you know, what is best for the community around me. I wrote a blog, Should Christians Drink Alcohol, where I give an overview of what the Bible says and some practical thoughts. So I won't, I will commend that article to you if you just Google, Should Christians Drink Alcohol, Press and Sprinkle. Not that that's a sentence, but if you do that, it'll take you to the article. You can get my thoughts. So yeah, the Bible does not forbid drinking alcohol.

Some people say, well, it had lower alcohol content. And I think that might be true for some of the wine, but that doesn't really, I think they just drink more of it though. Like when Paul says, you know, some people say, well, there's such little alcohol, you couldn't get drunk anyway. Well, that doesn't make sense. Why would Paul say, do not get drunk with wine then? Obviously people were getting drunk with wine. He doesn't say don't get drunk with grape juice or like, you know, something with such low alcohol content that it couldn't even get drunk. Like drinking alcohol was not forbidden in scripture. And yet the temptation to get drunk or to abuse it in some way was very live and real.

That's why the Bible gives frequent warnings about abusing alcohol. The Bible also talks about something called shakar, uh, translated strong drink in some translations or beer. It's probably better translated beer because as far as I understand from the research that I did, it's fermented barley, which would be more beer, right? And scholars have shown that shakar typically had an ABV and alcohol, a percentage of, I don't know how they figure this out. So fact, fact check me on this. Um, but from what I studied and, uh, alcohol percentage

of about six to 12%. So we're talking about, you know, maybe like a strong IPA, uh, maybe a Belgium triple or a quad, um, you know, um, yeah, maybe a strong Imperial stout. Wow. We're going to get a drink after this. Um, and so yeah, yeah. Like, like with the consistent theme in scripture, drink in moderation, that's always there. Um, but you do have, I mean, you have come sometimes even a command to drink. And have you read Deuteronomy 14 recently? Deuteronomy 14, 26 commands the Israelites to use some of their tithe money to go buy some beers and celebrate before the Lord.

I've never heard this verse read when we're passing the plates in church. Hey guys, hey, real quick. Why don't you keep some of that money that you're about the plates in church. Hey guys, Hey, real quick. Um, why don't you keep some of that money that you're about to put in the plate and let, let, let's all pitch in, go get a keg and we're going to come back here and celebrate, you know, in an hour. Um, uh, there were also commanded to offer up two liters of beer to God, uh, six days a week, and even more on the Sabbath, according to numbersbers 28, 7 to 10. Absence of beer and absence of wine was viewed as the outcome of God's judgment on the nation in a few passages.

Wine is considered a blessing according to many passages, Deuteronomy 7, 13, 11, 14. And as we look to the future, oftentimes God's eschatological blessing is symbolized by wine flowing from the mountaintops in Amos 9, 14 and Joel 3, 18. And vats brimming with fresh wine, Joel 2, 19 to 24 are a sign of eschatological blessing, which is why Jesus made 150 gallons of wine out of water in his first miracle at Cana in John chapter two. So, so a few things, number one, don't get drunk. Number two, there's other dangers with alcohol. Wine is a brawler, Proverbs says, right? Like it can lead to outbursts of anger and kind of a change in your, I mean, I mean, that's kind of, I mean, drunkenness, I don't think drunkenness, it's primarily just the state of being drunk, but where that often leads to. Don't be drunk with wine for it is debauchery or dissipation, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, which leads to, right?

Read the rest of Ephesians 5, 19 to 21. The results of being filled with the spirit are kind of the main thing there. And there are results of being drunk with wine. That is kind of the main problem. I'm not saying it's okay to just get drunk, pass out, fall asleep or whatever. I'm saying that the main point is kind of where it leads to. I also think there's times to give up alcohol. We had the Nazarite vow and other times in scripture where for the sake of the mission, giving up alcohol might be good. And I think that's what you are doing with, you know, if you're around a bunch of people who are in recovery, then walking around with a beer in your hand might not be the best expression of the gospel.

You know, some people say, what about our testimony? If you drink in public, you're going to ruin your testimony. I honestly, I don't, I've never understood this line of reasoning. I think the opposite can be true. Many non-believers think they equate Christianity with not drinking, not swearing, not doing this, not doing that. And when they see Christians reinforce that belief, I think it can really skew the gospel. I'm not talking about you who asked the question, who's giving this up at church because you're around people who are in recovery. I'm talking about people who won't have, for instance, a beer in public, because if a non-believer, if the waitress, you know, sees us praying before a meal and then ordering a beer, she's going to be like, oh, I thought there were Christians. I mean, I think sometimes deconstruct, not sometimes, I flat out think that deconstructing a false understanding of the gospel can happen

when non-believers realize that the gospel isn't about not drinking, that the Bible actually commends drinking in moderation and sometimes even commands it in the old Testament. Um, so yeah, I, um, yeah, I, I, I, I don't think that argument really holds away. The only place I think may, you know, may, well, I don't know. I'm going to move on. I'm going to move on. I've already spent too much time here. Um, so those, those are my, those are my thoughts. Um, okay. Uh, oh, oh, almost said your name. This person is asking about Brothers Karamazov and what I thought about the Grand Inquisitor story and what Dostoevsky is trying to say through Ivan's beautiful story. So I think I might've answered that in the last podcast. So the longest podcast in the

theology and raw history was brothers Karamazov, uh, last week. So, um, if you're, yeah, so I, I have a lot of thoughts, but I think I gave probably enough in that podcast. So I'm going to point you back there, but you do go on to ask if Brothers K was made into a movie today, who would I cast for the brothers and the father? I had some fun with this one. I originally said, I think Brad Pitt should be Dimitri, but I think Brad Pitt's too old because Dimitri's he's in his late twenties. I don't know.

So that, that wouldn't really work. I think, um, the younger Brad Pitt would definitely work. but if we're talking today, how about Timothy Chalamet? I think he would be a great Dimitri who would be Fyodor K the dad. Again, I originally said Nick Nolte. I think he would fit that role perfectly, but again, he's too, I think he's too old we don't know do we know how old the dad is fiador karamazov um maybe in his 50s um i mean he's kind of he's going after uh grushenka who's how old is she early 20s or something so i so i nick nolte's probably too old i i think the slightly younger nick nolte would be perfect for that. But somebody now, I don't know. What do you think about Leonardo DiCaprio?

I know he's maybe too cute and too pretty, but he's starting to play. Well, he's starting to not look too cute or pretty, right? And he's starting to play like in the movie Don't Look Up. He's starting to play older, less cute and less pretty people pretty well. So I love him as an actor. I think he's a brilliant actor. I think he's incredibly good. Um, so I think he could probably, I think he can, he could get into character. I think he can, he could get into character. Well, um, Aliosha, how about, um, I originally thought Nick Robinson, How about, I originally thought Nick Robinson, the dude in Love, Simon, but he's a little too

cool. And then I thought, what about Tom Holland? I mean, he's cool too, I guess, but still has kind of the innocent, he could play kind of the innocent character well, I think. Ivan, Ivan's got to be James Franco, but James Franco is again, probably too old, maybe a younger James Franco. He would be perfect. Otherwise, maybe Liam Hemsworth, maybe, I don't know. Anyway, let's get back to theology. My local public school was fighting over whether or not to allow a teacher to display a pride flag. This is rural Indiana and very conservative. And Christians from the area are all speaking up against the display. I wonder how to Christianly respond to this situation.

Okay, I think this is a free country. Let people do what they want. I think this is a free country. Let people do what they want. So I don't have a problem with a teacher displaying a pride flag. I would have a problem with somebody forcing everybody to display a pride flag. But if somebody wants to display the pride flag, that's great. Fine. Whatever. Somebody else wants to display a star of David because they're Jewish or I want to display a cross because I'm a Christian. What I mean, I think people should be allowed to display what they want.

It's when they force others to acknowledge that, to agree with it, to bow down to it, to display it as well. I think that's when we are no longer in a free society. So yeah, I don't, it's what they do with it and how they maybe teach that to others that might be an issue. And again, just because they have a pride flag doesn't, like you can, again,

hold to a very traditional view of marriage and maybe they are displaying a pride flag because their kid just came out and they're very proud of the kid. And maybe they're not even, they'll say they're not even a Christian and they don't have any problem with that. They love their kid. Great. Whatever, you know, let's let people be who they want to be. That's not a problem in a public school. I would also, I don't know, take it even further. Like the church already has a hugely homophobic reputation. If the church is upset that let's just say somebody who's a secular teacher at a secular school is displaying a pride flag and the church gets all up in arms, does that help with our homophobic reputation or does it simply further

it? So yeah, I think Christians who hold to a traditional view of marriage can absolutely defend the freedom of a fellow teacher and probably create more opportunities for a robust counter-cultural gospel witness than if they protested it. Two questions. I got to go faster here. This person asks, how did you learn to ask such engaging and probing questions? Is there a place to learn how to do that? I don't know. I've never thought about myself like that. I do get that response from people quite often, which I'm really encouraged about. I don't think about it. I am curious.

I'm curious about other people. Even though I am an introvert, I am genuinely curious about other people. And so my questions, I don't script my questions ahead of time. Well, every now and then I did with, um, Kristen Dume because I did read her book and I did have some specific questions I wanted to ask her that way. I actually did write down some questions there, but 95% of the time I don't, I don't plan my questions ahead of time for, um, for, um, for my guests. They just, it's just in

the moment. Sometimes my guests want to know, like, so where are we going? And what am I talking? Sometimes I want to over-prepare what I'm like, dude, just, we're just having a conversation and I'm going to happen to hit record. So, um, yeah, I don't know. My wife's a great, great question asker. So maybe being around her for a while has rubbed off on me. Another question, same questioner, different question. Would it be beneficial to take a youth pastor position and work for a senior pastor who I fundamentally disagree with? I have been offered a fantastic position with great pay and benefits, but the pastor is a strong Christian nationalist and I highly disagree with his politics. I'm not asking you to tell me what to do. I'd just like to hear your opinion. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for that last part. I'm not going

to tell you what to do. I can't tell you what to do. I don't, uh, I mean, I barely know you just through Patreon and I don't know your pastor. I don't know your situation, so I can't tell you what to do, but I will share my opinion. My opinion is this. It's only a, it's just an opinion. is this. It's only a, it's just an opinion. I wouldn't take that job. If there's minor disagreements, awesome. Um, if the pastor holds these views very loosely, like, yeah, this is kind of where I'm at. This isn't that big of a deal. That's a different thing. I don't know if I've met a pastor who has strong, as you put it, who's a strong Christian nationalist, who's holding that view with an open hand. So I know people who have been in your exact position and it was torturous. It was draining.

I'm thinking of a friend in particular. It was draining. It was not fun. They were sleeping too much because they were just exhausted and anxiety. It was not fun and they didn't feel like they were using their gifts. It was stifling. It didn't end well. So my opinion, it's just my opinion. My opinion is I wouldn't touch that job with a 10-foot pole. Next question. If you were asked to speak five times at a marriage conference, what would you try to cover in those five sessions? Okay. So if I'm speaking to people who are already married,

which I'm assuming marriage conference, that's what it is, then here are some thoughts. Because if it was like just a conference on marriage, I would probably spend a few sessions talking about why marriage isn't essential for human flourishing and doesn't cure loneliness and on and on again. I would, yeah, I would probably approach it differently. But if I'm speaking to people who are already married, here's a few things. Number one, I would paint a picture of what the Bible says about marriage. Kind of like, kind of like what I said earlier, what is marriage for? as about marriage, kind of like what I said earlier, what is marriage for? Why are we married? Because I think even people who are already married could absolutely use a good dose of what is this thing for, even if they haven't really paid attention to that in their marriage thus far. I would probably talk about romance and set romance in a proper context that this is a modern

Western emphasis. It's not wrong. It's not wrong, but it's not the essential foundation for what makes for a flourishing marriage. I don't think now we, we are individuals who live in the West and we are sort of enamored with this thing of romance and it's kind of seeped down deep in our bones. So, you know, I, I, I think, um, we might need to pay attention to cultivating romance more than people who are in a different culture or society where romance isn't, um, really much of a thing in, in their view of marriage. Okay. So I get that we are, we are inculturated beings. We can't deny that. But I, but I would want to talk about things like romance and even sex and put those things in a, in a proper context. I would also, number three, I would address purity culture stuff. I would look out to my audience and say, Hey,

purity culture stuff, I would look out to my audience and say, Hey, 20 to 30 of you, 20 to 30% of you have been sexually abused. Let's talk about that. I would say many of you have probably absorbed a, a, a, a kind of a warped, potentially harmful view of sex from stuff. Maybe you heard in your Christian upbringing. Let's talk about that. Um, let's talk about, well, so,

so that last, the podcast I did with Sheila and Rebecca on, um, the great sex rescue, that podcast has kind of blowed up that episode. Um, and I got so many good responses, some critical responses, but mostly a lot of people that said, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for talking about that. Um,

it's something that I've been thinking through for a while. And so if you don't know what I'm talking about here, go back and listen to that episode. And I would, I would basically address a lot of the stuff that they're addressing there. Because I think there's a lot of unresolved problems in Christian marriages because there is some stuff that they glean from certain Christian subcultures that has warped their view of what marriage and sex is for. I would talk about the necessity of friendship and community. That married people need friends and community outside of their married partner. Um, that makes for a healthy marriage. It's, it's not an unhealthy marriage that needs to go look for other forms of community. It is an healthy marriage that is so healthy that they don't depend on their spouse for all of their relational and, um,

friendship needs. Uh, my fifth talk, I'd probably just do a conversation, a Q and a with my wife on stage, um, where somebody interviewing us doesn't give us the questions ahead of time. That'd be awesome and freak at the same time. But I think I, yeah, I think just me standing up on stage, giving talks on marriage would kind of nullify some of the points I would even make. I think I would absolutely want my wife there, um, or at least bring out a married couple to talk about this in a very honest way. Um, okay. Um, okay. Next question.

Wait, next question has to do with, uh, you know, the Bible's inerrant, perfect, clear, easy to understand is some people say that, but why does everybody, why do some smart people disagree on virtually every verse? Like for Timothy two 15, when it says a woman or women are saved through childbearing. You look up this verse in five different study Bibles and get five different interpretations. The internet will give us many more opinions. Some people say the Holy spirit helps us to interpret God's word correctly. I'm summarizing this question. It's a long question, but how come so many different people, the Holy Spirit come up with very different interpretations. Okay. So I think the whole, you know, the Spirit's enough to give us the proper interpretation.

I think that's a misreading of 1 Corinthians 2. I don't think that's what Paul's saying there. You know, we do have the Spirit if you're a Christian and the Spirit does, I don't know, play a role in understanding the gospel, understanding God's wisdom, but the Spirit also speaks to fallen human ears that misinterpret what the Spirit's saying. Spirit's not wrong, but our interpretation of the Spirit's impressions or voice in our life can definitely be subject to error, okay? There are many different readings and interpretations of scripture. Uh, you know, some verses have more than others. I mean, you, you handpick probably the most disputed verse, at least top five,

most difficult verses in the Bible. First Timothy 2 15. Um, other verses, you know, Christians may agree, but they, they, they wouldn't be as just insanely difficult to interpret as others. So there are many readings of scripture, many interpretations, but some are better than others. And I think we just have to admit that. Not every interpretation, just because somebody came up with an interpretation is equally valid as others. And I know we're dealing with a lot of subjectivity there. How do you know? And which one's better than this one? I tend to look to interpreters, commentators, scholars that I trust. Okay, who's that? Who do you trust?

Without giving any names, I mean, I look to scholars and interpreters who, you know, they do have the tools. They do know the original language as well. I'm not going to listen to somebody who doesn't know Greek. Tell me about what this Greek word means, you know? That's just not, I'm just not going to do that. People who had, who've spent many hours, you know, studying the scriptures, studying the background. I look for people who've spent many hours, you know, studying the scriptures, studying the background. I look for people who don't strawman other views. They correctly understand, evaluate, rearticulate, and graciously refute other views if they can show me why the evidence for that particular view is off, is wrong, is insufficient, and why evidence for

this view that they're promoting is actually superior. And they do so in a gracious, non-angry way. They do so in a very cool, even-handed way. And they're accurately representing the other view. If they're strawmanning the other view, that makes me suspicious. It makes me think, so you actually have to paint this other view in worse light to make your view more convincing. If I sense somebody is doing that and look, we're not, nobody's immune to that and nobody does that perfectly. So some of you might think, well, you do that. And then, you know what? Maybe I do. I try not to, I hope I don't, but we're all on an imperfect journey. But yeah, if I keep seeing somebody strawmanning another view, that makes me suspicious. I tend to respect people that have

changed their mind on certain things. People who have never changed their mind. They wrote a book when they were 19 and they're 59 and they still believe every word of that book. I'm like, really? You haven't, you knew everything at 19? That's either amazing or suspicious. I don't know. People who aren't overly certain, when they're not so 100% certain about 100% of their beliefs 100% of the time and everybody else who disagrees has zero credibility,

these real extreme black and white kind of postures that some people have. That makes me more, that makes me more suspicious. I'm like, I think you're compensating. Uh, people who have followed interpretations that have gone against their tribe or that have cost them socially, that kind of interpreter to me tends to elevate in my mind, their credibility. Okay. Now another question asks me about the meaning of kephale, which is translated head in first Corinthians 11, three and Ephesians 5, 23. Does it mean leader ruler or does it mean source or somewhere in between you're asked? Okay. So the word head is translated head. Like men are head, the head over a woman

or husbands are head over their wives. Okay. So I can't answer this because, well, I want you, if you, I might put this in the show notes here. If you go to, if you Google a meta study of the debate over the meaning of head, Kefale, in Paul's writings, a meta, okay, that's the name of the article by Alan F. Johnson. It dates back to 2006. He published it in the Center for Biblical Equality, their website, which is an egalitarian website. The article is very fair. And the reason why I want you to go back and just scan this is because he gives a brief survey. When I say brief, it's like a 20 page survey of all of the scholarly contributions

to this debate. And I want you to go, I want you to scan this article and I want you to be absolutely overwhelmed at the scholarly contribution to this debate. He starts in 1954 by an article that was written on the meaning of Kefale goes through Morna Hooker in 1963, Robin Scroggs, 1972, Fred Lehman, 1980, and on and on and on and on and on it goes. And Wayne Grudem pops up and then there's responses to Wayne Grudem. And then there's Grudem's counter argument to other arguments. You have, gosh, Grudem. And then there's Grudem's counter argument to other, um, arguments you have, gosh, Grudem pops up a lot here. Uh, Judith Gundry-Volff with her revolutionary work on revolutionary, her, her, um, really provocative and I think well-researched work on Kefale

in first Corinthians 11. I mean, on, I'm just scanning right now. Anthony Thistleton's incredible commentary in 1 Corinthians, Wayne Grudem responds again. So all that to say, I don't even want to say anything because there's been so much scholarly attention to this word that anything shy of a four hour podcast after me doing 50 hours of research would be, would shortchange the complexity of this topic. Okay. So there I am with Kefale. Sorry, I don't have a better answer. What are we to make of the argument by some progressive scholars who argue that the authentic undisputed Paul is more of an egalitarian with regard to women compared to the disputed Paul of the pastoral letters, Ephesians and Colossians, who sounds more complementarian. Um, and you give it, you give more examples here, like in, you know, the undisputed Paul of first Corinthians seven teaches mutuality and equality.

Whereas the disputed Paul of Ephesians and Colossians teaches some degree of hierarchy. And for those of you who don't know, in mainstream New Testament scholarship, you have the disputed letters and undisputed letters of Paul. So Paul wrote, according to tradition, 13 letters, and seven of those are undisputed. of Paul. So Paul wrote, according to tradition, 13 letters and seven of those are undisputed. Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, 1st Thessalonians. Is that it? Is that seven? And the rest are disputed. In fact, in mainstream scholarship, a lot of scholars would just, I almost said believe. I don't know if they believe it. They would assume that Paul didn't write 1st or 2nd Thessalonians.

And no, wait, wait, wait. No, I think 2nd Thessalonians. I forget if that's disputed or not. 1st Timothy, people say, no, he didn't write 1st Timothy. 2nd Timothy, Titus, the pastorals. They say, no, Paul didn't write that. Ephesians, Colossians. I've never been impressed with those, the arguments for saying Paul didn't

write all those letters. The only one to my mind that has some credibility is 1 Timothy, largely because at the end of the book, he talks about the heresy, things that are falsely called knowledge or whatever. He seems to indicate that, well, he seems to refer to some kind of full-blown Gnostic movement with the name Gnosis. And we know from history that Gnosticism, there was like incipient forms of Gnosticism in the first century. It really wasn't a full-blown thing until the second century, as far as we can tell. And so, 1 Timothy 6 could, it seems to make more sense in light of more of a

second century context than a first century context. But we're going on kind of a, I don't know, it's like one word, one verse. And there's, there's more to it than that in terms of arguing against Pauline authorship. But honestly, the arguments, I just think that they're, they're pretty bunk man. And even now I would say most, I don't know, like N.T. Wright, I think takes 10 authentic Pauline letters. Like he takes Ephesians and Colossians as Pauline. Um, so I, I don't know. I, yeah, I, I think I don't, I don't, personally, I'm not very impressed with people that kind of assume Paul did write these and not

these letters. And, and once you pull the rug out from under that, then the whole idea that this later, you know, fake Paul is more complimentary, but the real Paul, the first century is egalitarian. I don't, I don't find a lot of credibility there. Plus, I mean, first Corinthians 11 has kind of a blend of like patriarchal Paul and egalitarian Paul in that one chapter together, you know, and again, Judith Gundry, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf with an F, um, has done some good work on why Paul seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth there in first Corinthians 11. So yeah, I don't, I don't, I wouldn't make too much of that personally. And again, maybe, maybe there's more to it than, than what I've seen, but yeah, not too impressive that so far.

That is our last question. And we, is it, is that it? Oh my gosh. Wow. That only took like five hours. So thank you to my Patreon supporters for submitting such scintillating questions. I really loved interacting with these questions, but I know that I'm just barely scratching the surface

on almost all of them. So thank you for your questions. If you do want to become a Patreon supporter, you know where to go, patreon.com forward slash TheOliginRaw. And you too can ask questions that I will address either on the Patreon platform or every now and then I might address publicly like I have for this podcast. So we will see you next time on

Theology in a Row. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm