Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep988: Abortion, Roe v. Wade, Raising Girls, Gay Identity, and the LXX: Q & A with Preston

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

It’s that time again, folks! My Patreon supporters sent in a plethora of scintillating questions this month. I addressed many of them in my Patreon-only Q & A podcast, but there were still a few questions I wanted to address on the podcast podcast, which I do so here. –––––– 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/titr or use code TITR at faithfulcounseling.com –––––– 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. This is a Q&A podcast. So every month, my Patreon supporters send a bunch of questions. I answer half of them through a Patreon-only podcast, and the other half I answer on a public podcast, which is this one right in front of me. If you would like to support the show and become a Patreon supporter, that would be awesome. You can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. If you don't want to support the show, that's awesome too. This is a free podcast and I very much appreciate the support from my Patreon supporters, but I totally recognize that most people are not in a financial

place where they can support the show. So let's jump in to these questions. There were several questions around the Roe v. Wade overturning and my thoughts on that. I did release a special episode recently with Dr. Scott Ray, who's kind of a – he's an ethicist that specializes in medical ethics. He's been doing this for many – well, I almost said many decades, like he's like 120 years old, but he's been doing it for a few decades. And so you can get some of our thoughts from that episode. So I will share some additional thoughts here in response to the several questions that my supporters sent in. So I want to read through some of these questions because it kind of sparked a kind of back and forth dialogue

on the Patreon, in the chat room, in the Patreon community, website, whatever it's called. So the first one comes from Brandon who says, here's a non-confrontational question. What are your raw, unedited, first reactions to Roe v. Wade being overturned? How should Christians respond? Then Ernesto jumps in with another question related to this. Is there a legitimate biblical claim for life starting at conception?

Does knitting together in your mother's womb speak to this more generally or speak to this or more generally to Yahweh's ability to create life? In my opinion, the Old Testament perspective would say life is a nephesh, which necessarily has Yahweh's animating ruach. That's nephesh is typically translated soul, sometimes life. And ruach is spirit, the Hebrew word for spirit. So Yahweh's animating ruach, which may then rule out conception and move closer to actual birth, is all this rhetoric another weird power played by Christian nationalism, like the sacred right to murder someone who infringes in your personal property, or is there something more to it? Then Seda jumps in as a follow-up to both Ernesto and Brandon's question. And Seda points out that Exodus 21 verses 22 to say that an unborn life is not a human because this passage says when men get into a fight and

hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely, but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fine. As the husband demands, if there is an injury, then you must give life for life, eye for an eye, seems to treat the life of the fetus as not a full human status. I'll come back to that passage in a second. And then Ernesto jumps back in and says, you know, this is what I'm getting at, Seda. There's a lot of interesting data points when you realize that most of the evangelical fire behind abortion was politically motivated in the 60s and 70s when white evangelicals lost the battle of segregation and needed political bargaining chips to continue the progress of the religious right. More and more, I'm wondering how much of

this conversation is rooted in poorly quoted proof texts rather than a biblically-based theology of what is human life. So lots going on here, both theology, Bible, politics, biology, as we're talking about whether or not an unborn fetus is a life or is a human. So, I mean, so many different angles I could take here. Let me give some quick thoughts on my initial reaction of Roe v. Wade being overturned. So I – and if you've listened to the podcast for any number of weeks, you know how I'm just utterly disenchanted with partisan politics. with partisan politics. And so, you know, when I look online and I read stuff and I look at the reaction, I just, yeah, I'm just not really interested in the politicalization of it all.

Or maybe I should say the partizanation, is that even a word, of the Roe v. Wade decision being overturned. I do think, and I am genuine in my word choice there, I think that it was a good day for the unborn. This is the phrase that Scott Ray used, and I think I'm in agreement with that. And when I say a good day for the unborn, if it does end up reducing the number of abortions, then I think that's a good day. Like I think that would be a good thing that happened. I'm not 100% confident it will. And Scott said he thinks it will, but we just don't know for sure.

It's going to be hard to measure. know for sure. It's going to be hard to measure. But if the number of abortions end up being reduced and if that's due to Roe v. Wade being no return, then that would be a great thing. But I'm not celebrating a quote unquote win for the Republican Party. I'm not part of the Republican Party. They are not, they're a Babylonian political entity that I recognize from a distance. It is what it is, but like, I don't think of like my team won if by team we mean like American conservatives. I don't think the other team lost those who are, those who are part of the Democratic Party or people who are not conservative, people who are pro-choice, whatever. The sort of tribalism that is going just in this dogfight with each other online, I'm looking at that from a distance. I'm not part of that battle. My team didn't want it.

I think it was a good day for the unborn, but I don't look at it in terms of a team winning. I don't know enough about the politics of it all or even the sociopolitical complexity of something like abortion laws. Is this you know, is this going to lead to more back alley abortions? You know, some people say that. Other people say that things like, how do you pronounce this? Ectopic pregnancy? I'm not, I don't, ectopic? I apologize if I'm mispronouncing that. E-C-T-O-P-I-C, where I believe the fetus, the fertilized egg, doesn't connect in the uterus. It lands in a fallopian tube or something like that. So it's impossible for the unborn to survive. Like, they will die. They can't survive there, I think. Again, I'm going on just a little bit that I read.

And the life of the mother is severely at risk as well. Like, it's super dangerous if you don't terminate the life of that unborn fetus in the fallopian tube or in a place where it's not going to survive. And so some people are like, well, these pregnancies, you know, women aren't going to get, aren't going to be able to have an abortion in this case, even though the life of the kid is basically not going to survive. And so women are going to suffer from this. But I did a little research on this. And as far as I read, every single, the laws in every single state, even ones where abortion is now illegal, make an't know who's telling the truth because it's so – people are so eager to win and shame the other side. So, like, you know, I read some articles by those on the left telling stories of women who aren't getting adequate health care because the doctor's scared that he's going to do something illegal. And then I read something on the right saying this is nothing but fear-mongering from the left. This is not true. It's written into the law that, um, in these cases, abortion is, is legal. There's no reason why a doctor should hesitate, um, terminating, uh, the, the pregnancy

in these cases, which happens, I, I, one to 2% of pregnancies are ectopic, ectopic, ectopic, is that what you say. Pregnancies. So, yeah. So, this is where the politicalization about just kind of all this back and forth stuff. I'm like, I don't know really who to trust, who to believe. It does seem, from my vantage point, please fact check me, correct me if I'm wrong. It does seem that the conservatives that I read on this are factually true. I think that there is these exceptions built into all the laws across the country, even Texas. I did read a quote from a law in Texas saying explicitly that in these cases, abortion is allowed.

So, yeah, I'll let you figure out the politicalization of it all. Yeah, I'll let you figure out the politicalization of it all. Yeah, those are my thoughts on that, on the question really isn't whether life begins at conception. That seems to be pretty well established. In fact, There was a survey done, this is back in 2018, by Stephen Andrew Jacobs from Northwestern School of Law at University of Chicago. biologists from over a thousand different academic institutions, 1,058 academic institutions, asking them the question of when does human life begin? And 95% of all biologists affirm what he says, the biological view that human life begins at fertilization. That's 5,212 of the biologists out of 5,502 biologists all agreed with that. And this is, you know, again, I'll keep referencing Scott's, my conversation with Scott Ray. That's where Scott said that this point is not debated, really. I mean, okay, debated by maybe 5% of biologists, but that human life begins at conception,

that's not the debate. The debate is when does personhood begin? And so I have several quotes from pro-choice scholars. Do you care about this? Oh, where are they? Hans Kung, famous Catholic scholar. A fertilized ovum evidently is human life, but not a person. Joseph Fletcher, he's a famous author of that book, Situation Ethics. What is critical is personal status, not merely human status, says Joseph Fletcher,

Peter Singer, famous ethicist. The life of a human organism begins at conception, but the life of a person being with some level of self-awareness does not begin so early. So that's really, in terms of the ethics of the life, that's really where the debate is. And without getting into all of it, I do think that, yeah, I would say, as I've wrestled with this, not nearly as much as other people, but the little I've wrestled with this, it just seems extremely arbitrary to make that distinction that it's, that it's life, but not a, um, not a person on what, how do you determine personhood and on what, and, and is your definition, uh, used consistently? Um, and, and Scott and I got into that a little bit. And I, I think his think his thoughts there, as far as I can tell, are very correct.

There's no real consistent way to say this is a human life that isn't a person. That seems like an arbitrary distinction that really, I mean, you kind of have to make that since we now know that it's not really up for debate, that life begins at conception. So to avoid murder, right? Avoid killing, justifying killing an innocent human, you have to make the distinction between life and personhood. Otherwise, there's no ethical ground to stand on, really. So biblically, I do think some of the passages, this is to your point, Ernesto, I do think some of the passages used against abortion, I think they might be maybe overinterpreted a little bit. I chose you, Jeremiah, when you're still in the womb. it a little bit. You know, I chose you, Jeremiah, when you're still in the womb. In sin, my mother conceived me, Psalm 51.5, or the famous one that, you know, you knit my inward parts, Psalm 139.

Or here's one that's actually, I think, maybe a little stronger is in Luke 1, 41 to 44, the same Greek word for baby, breathos, I believe, is applied to the child still in the womb and the same words used to describe Jesus after he was born. So, same word for child, whether it's unborn or whether it's born. All of these though, I don't think they're arguing for, for something. It's kind of, it's just kind of assumed. And this is, you know,

if you look at the, you know, the ancient world, even the Assyrians who had no problem skinning people alive, you know, uh, civilians skinning civilians alive because they wanted to, they, the Assyrians are famous for psychological warfare. When they went in to destroy a city, they didn't just

kill people. They didn't just take the city or kill the soldiers. They just slaughtered people and impaled them on sticks and cut off, you know, heads and piled, left piles of skulls around the city just to show the next city, hey, you might want to give up. Otherwise, you might be skinned alive. So even the Assyrians were very anti-abortion. They had strict laws that if a woman aborted her child, she would be impaled and maybe left unburied, I think, which is a huge shameful thing to not be buried after you die. So yeah, it was just kind of pretty widespread in the ancient world

that this is a human life and a person. I don't know. They wouldn't even have categories to make that distinction, I don't think, life and personhood. So yeah, this is a human and you're not allowed to kill it. And it seems like that the old Testament and I mean the Bible as a whole would, that assumption is kind of baked in so that yeah,

when you have passages like Psalm 139, you knit me in my mother's womb. I do think that that's not going out of its way to make a point. This is a life because everybody believed it was life. But it is – I think that assumption is built into the language here. It is how I would word it. The early church did explicitly address abortion in many, many places and was unanimous. As far as I know, it was unanimous from Tertullian all the way through to, I mean, 20th century, that this is a life and that abortion is immoral.

We see it in the Didache, Letter of Barnabas, Apocalypse of Peter, Athena Gores. Tertullian is one of the earliest ones. I'm just scrolling down my notes here. Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Apostolic Constitutions. I mean, over and over and over, they – and it is abortion. It's not simply the exposure of children because that wasn't uncommon. That was common in the ancient world too where a child would be born and then they would leave it exposed. And sometimes with the hopes that somebody else would take the child and raise it. Abortion was incredibly risky back then, as you can imagine, but it still was a thing. So both the early church

was adamantly against both the exposure of children and terminating life while in the womb now so so yeah i um in in yeah to me i i and i said this in my conversation with scott and i'll say it again like i i do think this is a a rather clear case of of justice and so when people are extremely for justice and yet they kind of downplay abortion or maybe they're for abortion, to me, that's just not impressive know, for, for various reasons where some people say it's, we're, it's a woman's right to take the life of this innocent, uh, human. Um, to me, that just seems like the epitome of injustice. Now, let me get the other side of the coin. I think that Christians should equally, equally be concerned with the environments that lead someone to abortion. Poverty would be one, although I think that can be overplayed a bit. bit. Um, plenty of countries that are way, way, way poorer than almost every poor person in America, um, are able to raise their, their kids. I mean, um, and what is, I mean, poverty is, is, is all, it is kind of relative to, I mean, um, I'm trying to, I don't want to downplay it, but like, again, if it is a human

life, then that's not really a great argument. Well, this child would be raised in an extremely poor environment. Therefore, let's take the life of the child. Like you have to assume that it's not a human or maybe a life, but not a person. You have to assume that to even make the poverty argument work. However, the fact is, I'm not saying it's justified because of poverty, but the fact is poverty can be an environment that does end up leading people to abortion. And that environmental factor needs to be addressed. environment that the shame and lack of grace given to a, especially like a teenager or something that had sex outside of marriage, got pregnant, that the environment is so, would be so hostile toward that person that would, that environment would nurture and lead somebody to go get an abortion

because they would rather do that than face the shame of the religious community. I read somewhere, I wish I had the stat in front of me. It was something like 25 to 30% of women who get an abortion get it in secret and they are part of a conservative, I think it was specifically a Baptist environment. Don't quote me on that, but it was a conservative Christian environment where close to 30% of women who got an abortion are part of that kind of environment. So to me, that's like, in that same environment is like protesting, probably one of the loudest protesting abortions, and little do they realize that the environment that they are creating and cultivating is contributing to

the decision that women are making to get an abortion? So, yeah, to me, it's not an either or. We should be deeply concerned about environmental factors that lead somebody to this decision and also protest abortion on moral grounds as well. So, um, do I have any more thoughts on this? Um, well, so those are my raw unedited thinking out loud thoughts. That's what my, uh, that's what Brandon wanted me to give. Um, this is an area that I am not an expert in. I've dabbled, I've done some research enough to feel fairly confident in my views. I'm much less confident in the sociopolitical stuff that surrounds abortion in America. So if I'm totally missing something there, please let me know.

I guess I don't. Yeah. My Patreon supporters can let me know. I guess I don't, yeah, my Patreon supporters can let me know. They have access to raising questions and pushing back and stuff, which I love. They do that quite frequently and I love that about them. Ernesto, when you said, is all this rhetoric another weird power play by Christian nationalism? Yeah, I think it is. And that's where I want to, Yeah, I think it is. And that's where I want to, um, here's, here's one area where it just so happens that the thing that, yes, it has become a, another rhetorical piece in a weird power play by Christian nationalists. And it's also something that I do end up agreeing with, right? That abortion is, is wrong. Um, so just because it's used by Christian nationalists

doesn't in and of itself mean that the thing that is being used is wrong, namely being against abortion. But yeah, that's where I try to separate my views on the whole thing from how it's being used in the political arena. Okay, next question. Let me move a few things around here. Sorry, that was a long response.

Next question from Mick. Got any hot tips for raising girls? I got one about to turn a year old and would love to hear some of the wisdom you and Chris have picked up on along the way. And then Eden jumps in and says, you would also love some tips in this area. My daughter's about to turn two. Well, you guys are starting early, first of all. I mean, yeah, I got three girls, one boy, and absolutely love all my kids. For us in particular, raising girls has been really different than raising boys especially when we talk to friends of ours who have maybe all boys or mostly boys and we talk about just parenting challenges and stuff and it does seem like we are living on two different planets sometimes on on the kinds of things that that we work through um um i don't know I mean we just

my wife and I we feel like in fact we just talked about this last night like just feel like we're just kind of shooting from the hip half the time

you know parenting is is both one of the greatest joys in life and also can be incredibly challenging

I think our the fact that our girls are two years apart has been well yeah it's been both a blessing. They're all super close, really good friends. Yeah, that's been a blessing. It's also been a challenge too. They're two years apart.

They're really close. When people are really close, sometimes one second they're laughing and you know whatever in the next minute they're fighting and like sometimes i'll go to the bathroom and like i feel like i walked in to a different universe all of a sudden like 30 seconds later because it's like whoa which when i left we were talking about this and everything was great and now i you know there's a fight broke out or something like what happened in 30 seconds? Like I don't know if that's unique to girls. Yeah, but there's going to be overlap between how boys and girls are naturally wired. There's, you know, some families with three boys close together, maybe their situation would reflect ours.

In our anecdotal experience, it has been different. As a dad, there is something to that father-daughter relationship that, in our experience, has been very, very important. in our experience has been very, very important. Um, and in as much as I have spent a lot of quality time with my girls that that has been hands down, the greatest thing I could do as a dad, I think, um, yeah, just having good, ongoing, meaningful, one-on-one conversations where you're, where I'm trying to model maybe, yeah, what it is to be, be a godly man. I feel like I'm, in as much as I have done that well with them, which is every now and then that that's gone a long, long way when they feel close to me. That, yeah, that just, yeah, I can't put a higher price tag on that or high enough price tag on spending high quality time with my girls and being a good

listener. And there's a lot of just like jerks out there, guys. I mean, there just are. Maybe, okay, Mariano Goldo experience, like they've seen a lot of bad versions of what it means to be a man. of what it means to be a man. And yeah, to try to give them a better example is huge. They naturally, I mean, maybe in our situation, like my wife is extremely relational and investing in our kids like crazy. So that relationship is just there. But the mother-daughter relationship as they get older, there, there's

certain unique tensions there that, that I don't experience with, with my daughters. And maybe it'll be the same as my son gets older with, with him and his mother and him and me, maybe, maybe we'll butt heads in ways that he doesn't with his mom. I don't know. He, you know, he's still, um, well he's 13. So, um, we'll see. Um, yeah, I don't know what else to, I don't, we didn't plan, we didn't have a game plan. We just, yeah, we just took it day by day. I would say, oh, here's another piece of advice for any kind of parenting. So you, Mick and Eden, I mean, your kids or your girls are super young so you have you can actually do this and i hate almost saying what i'm about to say because some people

they they've already made this decision um but i would say um hold off like don't allow social media especially with girls until they're we said 18 no social media until you're 18 um they did get a phone i i think at 13 that that's a little young i mean i had to do it over again i probably would have done flip phone until they're 15 or 16 um and then maybe a smartphone but it was just cheaper actually to put another smartphone on the plan and they can have our old phones as we upgrade or whatever. So, but even, even though it was cheaper, man, uh, yeah, keep them off social media to me. That's my one black and white piece of parenting advice. Of course, if you're a Christian, you're going to be trying to disciple your kids. Of course, you're going to try to teach them the Bible, teach them how to pray, be a good Christian toward them, show them Jesus, model Jesus. I take that as a given

that of course we should be doing that as parents. But in terms of stuff, sometimes we don't think about. Nine times out of 10, early access to social media will have a series of negative effects on their mental and spiritual health. Hands down, that's not anecdotal. That's the studies show that. I don't know, nine out of 10. might even say ten out of ten but um yeah i would say no social media till they're 18 make that just a firm rule from the very beginning so that they're not asking about it they just know it ahead of time like just kind of like like you can't they can't drive a car till they're well in most states 16 right so it's like they don't ask as a 13 year old oh come on come on let me come on i want to drive the car like they don't ask as a 13-year-old, oh, come on, come on, let me,

come on, I want to drive the car. They don't ask that. It's just like, well, no, it's just not, it's not an option. So I would have that kind of environment, especially as I get older and their friends start getting social media accounts. It's just not worth it.

And that was something we did with our kids. No social media until they're 18. And the great thing is I have one kid who's now over 18 and she got Instagram and she's not on it a lot. She's like a few times a week maybe until Glantz said it. It's not a big part of her world because she lived 18 years without it. And so it's not – yeah.

And maybe other kids, once they turn 18, they get it and they'll become addicted right away. I don't know. But by the time they're 18, they're have to navigate you know those those decisions on their own but until then i'm going to save them a lot of uh pain and heartache and anxiety and depression and suicide ideation by keeping them off social media um if you if your kids are already there some of you listening you're like we failed they're They're on social media and it's not produced good results. You can't really take it away.

I don't think. I mean, maybe you could. It'd be really hard to take it away. That could backfire, which is why I say just don't allow it in the first place. Matthew, you say you received a hardcover Lexham English LXX Septuagint

for my birthday last year. You're finding it super interesting for comparative reading to see how the ancient translators chose to render certain words. I've heard some people say this is helpful for us to discern faithful modern translation, but I was a bit shocked to find some major text differences that have pretty significant theological implications. Like in Genesis 4, there's no mention of sin crouching at your door. Rather, Genesis 4, 7 says,

have you not sinned if you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly? Calm down. His recourse will be to you and you will rule him. This is the inverse of what God says to Eve in the previous chapter in the LXX, the Septuagint, what are your thoughts on this type of thing, especially in relation to the use of the Septuagint in the New Testament in books like Hebrews? Well, yeah, most quotes in the most Old Testament quotes in the New Testament, did I say that right? Most Old Testament quotes in the New Testament are from the Septuagint, not the Hebrew text. So here's the thing. Our manuscript evidence for the Old Testament and the New, but let's just focus on the Old Testament.

Our manuscript evidence is complicated. All of our, as far as I know, all of our standard English translations of the Old Testament are based on a Hebrew manuscript that dates back a thousand years. It's about from around 80, a thousand. That's not that old. That's a thousand more than a,

that's 1500 years after the last book in the old Testament was written. Um, uh, yeah. So, so now that it's like, gosh, well, how do we even know if that's even comes close to the old actual old Testament where this manuscript is 1500 years after the old Testament was written? That's, that's as early as we get. Well, it's not actually as early as we get because we do have the Dead Sea Scrolls, which we discovered lots, not the entire Old Testament, but lots of chunks of the Old Testament translated to Hebrew. And some people say the Dead Sea Scrolls showed that our current Old Testament Hebrew manuscript from a thousand years ago, they're exactly the same. And so it shows that this manuscript we've been using all along was very accurate. Other people say that, no, the Old Testament chunks we have among the Dead Sea Scrolls is very different from the Hebrew manuscript we have from a thousand years ago. The truth from what I've seen is somewhere in between.

It did verify a lot of our thousand year old manuscript, but there were some differences too. It did, it did show different readings in several places. I don't have any examples in front of me. So even the Septuagint, there is no – like in the first century, there were different Greek manuscripts, but there was no standardized Septuagint, like one main Greek manuscript of the Old Testament until – oh, don't quote me on it. I want to say second or third century AD, maybe, when there became kind of one standardized Greek text. There is a story of the translating of the Septuagint back in the letter of Aristias. I want to say that dates back about 100 BC where they tell a story of the 70 Hebrew translators

who went down and translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. And they all came out with independent translations and they all looked exactly the same, showing God's providential hand in the translation. I mean, there's probably a core of truth to that story, but just a core. Yeah. We have, in the first century, there wasn't like one subterranean. Nobody walked around with a subterranean under their arm. There were lots of different Greek manuscripts, translations of the Old Testament, and they were different from each other. How different? Well, it depends on which ones you're talking about. So yeah,

the textual transmission is very complex. And the standardized Septuagint that you have, Matthew, and that we now refer to today as the Septuagint, it has a lot of differences. In fact, if I remember correctly, I think the Septuagint version of Jeremiah is like a fifth shorter, a fifth, a 20%. Either shorter or longer. Is it longer? It differs from our standard Hebrew Old Testament by 20%. I'm pretty sure the Septuagint is shorter. And chapters are in different orders. And I mean, you just Google around, you know, Septuagint of Jeremiah, and you can see what I'm talking about. Very, very different. And yeah, there's a lot of differences in many Old Testament books between the Septuagint that we now have

today and the Hebrew, the standard Hebrew manuscript that we also have today that dates back a thousand years. So yeah, super messy. I don't think looking at how the, what we now call the Septuagint, how it renders the Hebrew, that that gives us a good, that, I don't know if that should be a great model for how we do translation today. It does show how ancient Greek speakers were understanding the ancient Hebrew. And sometimes their understanding is not as good as it should have been. There were some misreadings of Hebrew words. Sometimes they really, the Septuagint translation helps us understand maybe an ambiguous Hebrew word. But sometimes it's like, no, we actually know what this word means through cognate literature and other things.

And this Septuagint translator in this case really didn't know what he was talking about. So yeah, it's messy. I could keep going on, but the more I go on, I'm just going to keep revealing just that element that ancient text transmission is a very, very complicated field.

Danny says, in light of conversations I've had with the SBC and elements of the Greek Orthodox Church, what are your thoughts theologically on church government? It doesn't seem to me that the church was big enough in the New Testament to require the structures and layers we encounter these days, such as bylaws and church constitutions, denominational meetings, member votes, structurally aligning with the human governments all around the world, and so on and so on. Is there a biblical basis for church polity? Do you think it helps or hinders the church more broadly? Yeah, I'm resonating with where you're going with this question. Yeah, I mean, in the first century, most churches were anywhere from, I think, 20 people to I think the largest in the first century might have been like 100 people.

Some churches like Corinth seemed to be much more democratically run, didn't have a real strong top-down kind of leadership structure, whereas the pastoral epistles seem to reflect more of a leadership structure where we have, you know, in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3, you have the criteria for overseers. As far as I know, the only time pastor is used in a noun sense, like a pastor is in Ephesians 4. Most of the time, the word pastor is a verb. It's what

overseers should be doing. They pastor people. But overseer and elder are the only two terms that have kind of a, the two main terms that have some kind of like formal leadership, like office. The word office, I don't think. I have to go back and see. Well, it depends on what Greek word is translated office, even if we have the word office in English translations. But yeah, that does seem to be kind of more of a formal position. Elder could just be old, mature person, like the elders in the village, you know. But you do see a correlation between elder and overseer. I think it's in Titus 1 where you see elder and overseer used interchangeably.

see elder and overseer used interchangeably. So elder does seem to be more of a formal kind of position who is also most likely an older, mature Christian. But overseer is the main term used. But yeah. And then, oh, you also have deacon and there's questions about what kind of function a deacon had. Is it just a general term for someone who serves? That's what deacon means. Diakonia, I believe, like a servant, one who serves. Or was it a formal office of diaconate? There's debates about that. But yeah, beyond that, we don't have a lot of kind of formal structure in the New Testament. And again, other books like 1 and 2 Corinthians kind of seems to suggest that the church was much more democratically run, you know, where it wasn't a kind of formal leadership that was established,

which might be why there was maybe a little more chaos in Corinth. But yeah, what we have today, all these policies and structures and bylaws and all this stuff, I don't think it's right or wrong. It could be wrong depending on how those structures play out, if it's a very top-down, overly authoritative structure of leadership, I think that would go against some of the values of the New Testament. But simply to have leaders, simply to have policies, I don't think, I think that can think of is in the first century, there does seem to be evidence that, and actually I went back and looked at a book that talks about this, but there does seem to be some evidence that churches originally kind of patterned themselves after the synagogue. But then when they got kicked out of the synagogue and went to more Gentile areas, then they modeled themselves after what is referred to as Roman voluntary associations. So in the Roman world, you had various professional associations or religious associations that allowed a certain group of people, or even burial associations,

household associations, where they were legally recognized communities, groups of people that were recognized as a legal entity. And there's some evidence that the early church went under this kind of legal umbrella of being a religious association. Now, the only reason why, and this comes from James Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era, Exploring the Background of Early Christianity. Great, great book on, well, just that, the Greco-Roman context of the early church. And he's got a whole section, chapter four, on influences on Christian organization and tried to show kind of what did the early church look like to the greater Roman world, you know? And yeah, so he connects them to these various legally recognized associations.

He makes a parallel to like how the Masons would be recognized today as kind of some kind of like legal organization. Let's see. One way to do it. Do I want to read something? I'm not going to read any quotes here. The reason why I bring this up is this shows that the early church was sensitive to some of the sociopolitical structures of the day. Well, like today, church is being recognized as a religious nonprofit, some sort of religious, some sort of legal entity.

And if, you know, America says, okay, to be a recognized nonprofit, you need these bylaws, you need to have these meetings, you need to have some kind of structure, you need to have, you know, an accountant or whatever. I think the early church did something kind of like that to be legally recognized, to kind of fly under the radar, to not disrupt the social fabric too much. They were already doing that enough with their countercultural values in terms of their religious organization and gathering. They kind of just abided by what Rome said is legit. So yeah, so I don't think it's wrong to have things like policy and government and bylaws and stuff as a nonprofit. But yeah, I think as long as our governmental structures don't start cultivating values that go against the fundamental design of what it means to be the family of God. And I know that's kind of vague, but I think it needs to be vague because it kind of needs to be a case-by-case basis. case-by-case basis. One church that has the same governmental structure as another church might be incredibly healthy with humble servant leaders, where the church is using its spiritual gifts,

where it doesn't have an unhealthy top-down kind of leadership structure, whereas another church with the same exact governmental structure and bylaws might be utterly unhealthy because not so much because of the structure, but because of maybe the people that are in certain positions of power. Those are my thoughts. Next question, Angel. You ask a really good question about the terms gay, same-sex attraction, and our identity in Christ. And I'll try to summarize here. It's in response to Greg Johnson's book, Still Time to Care, which is a great book. And you say you love the book, but there was one chapter that you had some issues with where where he, again, I'm summarizing, where Greg traced the roots of the term same-sex attraction or SSA is rooted in a sort of ex-gay conversion therapy narrative where people who went to

ex-gay ministries were told to call themselves same-sex attracted, same-sex attracted, not gay. And so even the term SSA has baggage, or even by, you know, people saying your identity's in Christ, your identity's in Christ, which is obviously true for any Christian. Even that language kind of has a little bit darker of a history, according to Greg Johnson, than some people realize. And you kind of push back on that a little bit darker of a history, according to Greg Johnson, than some people realize. And you kind of push back on that a little bit. You say, you consider yourself SSA, same-sex attracted, and your identity is in Christ. You say, funny enough, I got this from Mark Driscoll when I was, when I went to Mars Hill. But the mind, deity and Christ, he said for you,

this actually helped you accept your experience and kept you from feeling like you had to convert, convert to whatever the world or the church tells me I should be. The debate on gay versus not calling yourself gay is interesting. The debate on talking about identity in Christ and how it relates to someone in the LGBT space is far more interesting to me because I feel like one detrimentally has an effect on the other conversation. Okay. So, you know, what's interesting, I've heard a lot of people say that same-sex attraction, that phrase is really just a Christian term. It's really Christianese. And Greg says, you know, it has roots in the ex-gay kind of narrative. I actually see a decent amount of

secular literature. I do come across the phrase same-sex attraction somewhat frequently. The idea that this is only a phrase used in Christianity, that's not true. Was it the phrase of choice in X-Gay Ministries? Yeah, I think Greg Johnson is right there. But I do think that the phrase itself can be used outside of those spaces as well. Or in, like I see it a lot in secular psychological literature, which would be extremely opposed to anything ex-gay, obviously. But it's not an unknown phrase outside of the church. So to your point, Angel, I do. I do think that, um, people can use that phrase in different ways. I, like you say, you prefer that phrase and it's, it doesn't mean that you're like, you have no problem with it. Um, and you prefer that to the term gay. Uh, yeah, I, I, I don't, I'm just a big fan of

not policing people's language across the board at all. Um,, what y'all want to get into? I am nervous about some of the ontological assumptions that could be baked into any kind of that could be baked into any kind of identity language, especially identity language surrounding sexuality and or gender. The ontological weight, ontological just means the nature of being, the ontological weight sometimes invested in certain terms. Now, this is, again, a case-by-case basis where somebody could say, I am gay, and they might assume that that is a more significant part of their human nature than maybe it should be. Or somebody could say, I am straight. And I'd say the exact same thing. Somebody could say, I am married. And I would say the exact same thing. Or I am single. Or I am divorced. Any kind of I am statement has the

potential of investing too much in a certain identity term. So I know some, you know, people who say I am gay, and they just mean, I'm attracted to the same sex, not the opposite sex. Okay, great. It's, it's part of my life. It's not the all encompassing part of my life. It's not my ultimate identity, and whatever. So so that they might say I am gay in that sense. And other people might say I am gay and might invest it with much more ontological weight. So I don't think that the term itself, gay or SSA or whatever, has to convey something more fundamental about one's human nature than it should, but I think it can. So when I hear critics, you know, Christians who are opposed to people using the term gay, and they bring up kind of the, everything I just said about the ontology, about categorizing people

in terms of you're gay, you're not gay, you're straight, you're gay, you're bisexual, whatever, that that ontological dividing up of humanity is not helpful. I resonate with that concern. dividing up of humanity is not helpful. I resonate with that concern. My only caveat would be not everybody uses the terms in the same way. So just to kind of rule out terminology absolutely, I think is unhelpful. But I think it's a good conversation to have. So anyway, Angel, I don't know. Anyway, Angel, I don't know. We've talked a lot offline about this, and I do resonate. Yeah, I resonate with a lot of what you say, Angel. And this is your path. So who am I to tell you how to think through this?

But when I read you think through this, I do, I resonate with how you're wrestling with this. So, and that goes for a lot of our kind of offline non-public chats that we've had. So that was my last question. So thank you again to my Patreon supporters for always, always challenging me in so many ways. Thank you for your support and thanks for these wonderful questions. So we'll see you next time on Theology in the Rock.