NXR Podcast - BONUS - Matt Chandler And The Danger Of Unbiblical Forms Of Church Discipline
Aired: 2022-09-02
Duration: 01:52:43


=== Big News for Right Response (15:08) ===

[00:00:00]  Big news, really big news.
[00:00:03]  Our next Right Response Conference is in the works.
[00:00:06]  We've got a number of things already lined up and organized.
[00:00:10]  This is what we've got so far.
[00:00:11]  The whole conference, three days long on post millennialism and theonomy.
[00:00:17]  And the speakers Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course, yours truly, Pastor Joel Webbin.
[00:00:25]  We've got a great lineup, we've got great topics.
[00:00:29]  If you want to find out dates, And location and registration and anything else, go and visit our website, rightresponseconference.com.
[00:00:39]  Rightresponseconference.com.
[00:00:41]  All right.
[00:00:42]  First things first, before we get to old Matt Chandler, let's deal with the real star of the show.
[00:00:48]  This is Franklin.
[00:00:49]  He's hungry, so I'm going to give him right to mama, but this is Franklin Joel Webbin.
[00:00:54]  Say hi, Franklin Joel Webbin.
[00:00:56]  There's a little bit of family resemblance, and he's not very happy.
[00:01:01]  Okay.
[00:01:01]  I love you.
[00:01:02]  I love you, Baba.
[00:01:03]  Bye bye.
[00:01:04]  Bye bye.
[00:01:05]  All right, we'll go ahead and dive in.
[00:01:07]  Welcome, guys.
[00:01:08]  So, this Monday, as you know, is Labor Day.
[00:01:11]  So, we're going to take Monday off.
[00:01:12]  And we took this last Monday off because I was dealing with that little guy, which was great.
[00:01:16]  He was born on Sunday.
[00:01:19]  I don't know.
[00:01:20]  It's just, it's like God cares about the Lord's day and the preaching of his word or something because I was able to go to church that morning and preach, I thought, one of my best sermons, although my opinion, I'm sure, is biased.
[00:01:31]  But I was able to preach God's word faithfully in our series.
[00:01:34]  Through the book of Hebrews, and then we went home.
[00:01:36]  We were able to feed our girls.
[00:01:37]  We have three girls, Olive, and Ruth, and Eleanor, and put them down for a nap.
[00:01:43]  And then within about half an hour, my wife, Megan, was like, It's go time.
[00:01:48]  And so we called the grandparents.
[00:01:49]  They came over, rushed to the house to watch the girls while they were sleeping.
[00:01:53]  So that was a smooth transition.
[00:01:54]  They were all laid down.
[00:01:56]  They knew that we might go at any moment, taking their nap.
[00:01:58]  Grandma and grandpa came over.
[00:02:00]  We hopped in the car.
[00:02:01]  We went to the hospital.
[00:02:04]  It was great.
[00:02:04]  It was successful.
[00:02:05]  You just saw the proof, the fruit of that success.
[00:02:09]  So we've got Franklin.
[00:02:10]  He was born, I think, at 9 19 p.m.
[00:02:15]  We got to the hospital probably about 3 30.
[00:02:18]  So it wasn't too long, a little less than six hours from checking in to holding Franklin.
[00:02:26]  And Megan has been recovering fantastically.
[00:02:29]  She always does.
[00:02:30]  I don't even like talking about her pregnancies or her deliveries.
[00:02:34]  I will not talk about her deliveries with other women watching the show because I would be.
[00:02:39]  Tempting you to sin, particularly in the sin of envy.
[00:02:43]  I'll just say God has been so gracious to my wife.
[00:02:46]  I have no doubt that it's still not a cakewalk, it's not a picnic, but from what we hear from other women, God has been exceedingly gracious towards my wife, Megan, with her pregnancies and her deliveries.
[00:02:59]  And so now the goal is just getting him to eat.
[00:03:02]  One of the things that we struggle with with our webbing babies is they tend to lose about 10%.
[00:03:08]  Every baby loses, you know, from their Birth weight, you know, to a few days later, but 10% is starting to get to the concerning zone.
[00:03:16]  And all of our kids have gotten about to 10% weight loss.
[00:03:21]  And so it's trying to get them to eat.
[00:03:24]  But so far, it looks like he did hit that 10%, I think like 10, 10.5% from his birth weight, which was eight pounds, five ounces.
[00:03:32]  He got all the way down to, I believe, seven pounds, seven and a half ounces.
[00:03:39]  So from eight, five to seven.
[00:03:42]  Seven and a half, so almost a full pound.
[00:03:45]  And so that's, you know, not great, but since then he has been eating.
[00:03:49]  We've got a scale at home, and I think we just weighed him a few hours ago, and our scale said 7 11.
[00:03:56]  So, from 7 7 to 7 11, that's the right direction.
[00:04:00]  So, keep us in your prayers, but know that everything in the Webbin household is good.
[00:04:04]  If it wasn't, I wouldn't be here because I love you, but I love my family more, and God requires me to love them more.
[00:04:12]  But luckily, things are going well.
[00:04:14]  The girls, we just put them down for bed.
[00:04:16]  Franklin is about to do some late night dinner with Mama, and things are going well.
[00:04:22]  I even cleaned up the whole house today, and I even weeded our garden.
[00:04:26]  So, I'm using the time to try to Keep things in order to make things good for the kids and especially good for mom.
[00:04:32]  So, thank you for praying.
[00:04:34]  Keep praying.
[00:04:35]  Really, the only prayer is just that Franklin would gain weight.
[00:04:37]  And the other prayer for Right Response Ministries, not so much the Webb and Household, but our ministry, is that Franklin, part of the reason I brought him in here was to show him to you guys, but also to give him a taste of his bedroom.
[00:04:49]  Because a lot of people don't know this, but this is Franklin's bedroom.
[00:04:53]  This is a room in my house, and it was great having the studio in our home.
[00:04:57]  It was, you know, economic and affordable and all those kinds of things.
[00:05:02]  But the thing is that my wife and I, we keep producing arrows in our quiver.
[00:05:07]  We keep having babies because we love babies.
[00:05:11]  We love God's word.
[00:05:12]  We want to have several children because children are not a burden, they're a blessing.
[00:05:17]  But the problem is we only have so much space in our house.
[00:05:19]  So pray for Franklin to put on weight.
[00:05:21]  That's a Webbin prayer.
[00:05:23]  But Right Response Ministries prayer would be pray that the Lord would continue to provide.
[00:05:27]  He's been gracious through your generosity.
[00:05:30]  The Lord has been faithful, but pray that the Lord would.
[00:05:33]  Continue to bring in donations and funds so that we can get the studio out of our house.
[00:05:39]  We want to get it out of the web in house, but we also want to actually revamp and have a more professional studio.
[00:05:46]  Right now, I would say it's semi professional.
[00:05:48]  We've got some good cameras and okay lighting, but we want to get more professional lighting.
[00:05:53]  We could up our game with the lighting.
[00:05:55]  We think we could just gear the room and more sound padding, things like that, to get better quality sound for you guys in these videos, better lighting.
[00:06:04]  And then the biggest thing is just.
[00:06:06]  Practical again, just getting the studio out of the house so I have another bedroom to put all the kids that the Lord keeps giving me, which is again a blessing.
[00:06:14]  So that's it.
[00:06:15]  A little update for Right Response Ministries and especially the Webb and family.
[00:06:19]  Um, all that being said, that's not why you're here.
[00:06:21]  Well, some of you that might have been why some of you in the comments you're like, We're not here for Matt Chandler, we're here to see Franklin.
[00:06:25]  So I didn't want to disappoint.
[00:06:27]  So, uh, you guys are my favorite people.
[00:06:29]  The ones who are like, We're not here for Matt Chandler, we're here for Franklin.
[00:06:32]  Uh, but for those of you who are here for Matt Chandler and hearing some thoughts on that, uh, we'll go ahead and hop to it.
[00:06:38]  Let me pray.
[00:06:39]  I don't always do this.
[00:06:41]  I know that sounds bad.
[00:06:42]  I pray as a pastor in my prayer life and with my family and all those kinds of things, probably close to a couple hours a day spent in prayer, either with my kids and catechizing and all these different things.
[00:06:55]  In the morning, we do family worship.
[00:06:57]  In the evening, we do family worship, praying for my wife.
[00:07:00]  And then my pastoral prayers, I pray by name for each member at Covenant Bible Church, where I pastor in Central Texas.
[00:07:08]  Public prayer.
[00:07:09]  We have lots of prayers in our Lord's Day liturgy, and I pray before the sermon, and there's multiple pastoral prayers throughout the service on Sunday, but I don't always pray when I'm podcasting.
[00:07:20]  But I want to be exceedingly wise.
[00:07:23]  I want to be courageous, but I also want to be very wise and careful.
[00:07:28]  Wise and careful in this podcast.
[00:07:31]  So join me as I pray, just asking the Lord to guide me and to help me to be faithful and careful and wise today.
[00:07:38]  All right, here we go.
[00:07:40]  Father, we come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.
[00:07:44]  We thank you for his sacrifice.
[00:07:46]  We thank you that he has reconciled us to you by grace alone, through faith alone, in him alone.
[00:07:53]  Lord, we pray for Matt Chandler and the village church, the elders there, the deacons, the members, and we pray also for Acts 29 Network, which I used to be a part of as a pastor.
[00:08:06]  Lord, I don't want to see that network fail, and I don't want to see the village church fail.
[00:08:12]  I don't want to see Matt Chandler fail.
[00:08:15]  I don't want to see discord or shame or difficulty with his marriage or with his children and his family and his church, any of those things.
[00:08:25]  So, Lord, we pray.
[00:08:26]  For your grace, we pray for your provision, your protection.
[00:08:31]  Lord, we pray that whatever's going on, there are certain things that we are privy to that have been publicly shared, which is what we'll discuss today.
[00:08:39]  But you know the whole truth.
[00:08:42]  You know the whole story.
[00:08:43]  You know all the things that have not been publicly shared.
[00:08:46]  And Lord, we just pray that you would work in the midst of a difficult situation, that you would bring clarity.
[00:08:53]  And Lord, I pray for the elders at the Vineyard Church, or the Vineyard, at the Village Church, especially.
[00:08:59]  Lord, I pray.
[00:09:01]  That you would help them to be courageous, help them to be honorable, but also, Lord, help them to be humble and to not give in to any sin of envy or mutiny or division.
[00:09:17]  We don't know if any of that's going on in their hearts, but I know that that is quite possible.
[00:09:22]  That elder teams can be radically divided, and that some of the things we see from the public stage are actually just the fruit of private quarrels.
[00:09:34]  And disagreements and division among elder teams.
[00:09:37]  And so, Lord, if there is any of that going on, Lord, I pray that the guys who are true to your word would win.
[00:09:46]  And whatever elders on that team who are involved in that church, who have gone woke, who are drifting away from the sufficiency of scripture, who are kowtowing to the spirit of the age, I pray that they would lose.
[00:10:04]  If there are any elders like that, that they would lose the battle and that they would be shamefully dismissed.
[00:10:11]  And that the village church would get back to some of its earlier days.
[00:10:18]  And Lord, I pray that they would reform in their convictions and biblical fidelity to be even better than they ever were.
[00:10:24]  And that they would get out of that woke nonsense that they've kind of delved into the last few years.
[00:10:31]  So, Lord, we pray for repentance, not just with this situation, but all the other situations that may be in the background.
[00:10:38]  Those situations that we know are in the background, like drifting from the sufficiency of scripture with critical race theory and those kinds of things.
[00:10:47]  Let this be an opportunity for Acts 29 and for the village and for Matt Chandler to repent of those sins.
[00:10:54]  And we pray this in Jesus' name.
[00:10:56]  Amen.
[00:10:57]  All right.
[00:10:58]  I've jotted down the briefest of notes, but let me refresh my memory.
[00:11:03]  Okay.
[00:11:03]  So the way I see it, I think there are about four options here, and I'm sure there are more, but I want to talk about four possible options.
[00:11:11]  And again, I don't want to spend a bunch of time speculating.
[00:11:14]  Whenever I do speculate, because I'm sure I will speculate a bit, but I will do my best to be clear that it is speculation.
[00:11:21]  Because I don't want to make any definitive statements about things that we don't know for certain.
[00:11:28]  Because that's gossip, or, well, no, that's not gossip.
[00:11:32]  Technically, if I make a definitive statement about something that we don't know and it turns out not to be true, that would be slander.
[00:11:40]  That would be slander.
[00:11:40]  If the definitive statement I'm making, About something we don't know that turns out not to be true is negative and destructive, that seeks to tarnish their reputation.
[00:11:51]  That would be slander by definition.
[00:11:53]  If I say something positive, not negative, but something positive, but again, making a definitive positive statement about something we don't know and it turns out not to be true, that would be flattery, which is also a sin.
[00:12:05]  So I don't want to flatter.
[00:12:07]  I don't want to slander.
[00:12:08]  In terms of gossip, gossip is talking about things, even if you do know they're true, not trying to destroy an image and also not trying to puff up somebody.
[00:12:18]  So it's neither slander nor flattery, but gossip is having a conversation about someone behind their back.
[00:12:26]  Privately, with no desire for it to be constructive or helpful for anyone, but simply to hurt someone in their absence.
[00:12:38]  That someone who should be privy to that information is not privy to the information.
[00:12:43]  They're not there.
[00:12:44]  They're not there to defend themselves, they're not there to share their side of the story.
[00:12:50]  That would be gossip.
[00:12:51]  Now, that said, you might say, well, Matt Chandler's not sitting in the room with you.
[00:12:55]  And I'm sure some of you probably will say, Something like that, something as stupid as that.
[00:12:59]  And yes, that is a stupid thing to say.
[00:13:02]  Look, what we're talking about is public information.
[00:13:05]  And that's why I'm going to be careful about speculation.
[00:13:08]  And like I said, this is the disclaimer right out of the gate.
[00:13:11]  Anything that I am going to speculate, I will clearly label that as speculation.
[00:13:16]  I'm not going to make a definitive accusation or a definitive statement about something that we don't know.
[00:13:23]  So that means what we're talking about, we are allowed to talk about.
[00:13:27]  You know why?
[00:13:28]  Because they chose to live stream it.
[00:13:30]  The village church, their elders, somebody in charge decided that this should be public.
[00:13:37]  You might say, well, this should just be talked about with the elders.
[00:13:40]  Well, then why do they tell it to the church?
[00:13:41]  Oh, okay.
[00:13:42]  Oh, well, then this is just an in house conversation with the village church.
[00:13:46]  Okay.
[00:13:46]  Then why did they live stream it?
[00:13:48]  Look, they publicly put this information out there.
[00:13:51]  The information that they publicly put out there that they presented that's the information that I'm going to discuss.
[00:13:57]  And I'm going to talk about possibilities of what might be going on, being clear.
[00:14:01]  To label speculation as speculation, but then talking about some things that we really do know for certain.
[00:14:07]  And even with what we know for certain, the things that are definitive, the things that the village church chose to publicly present, meaning it's fair game for us to commentate on for the good of the church at large, the invisible, universal, global church.
[00:14:22]  This is a public affair.
[00:14:23]  There are tons of Christians watching.
[00:14:26]  There are people right now who their faith is going back and forth, right?
[00:14:31]  There are immature people in the faith.
[00:14:32]  It shouldn't be, they should be rooted in Christ.
[00:14:35]  Not in Chandler, not in the village, not in Acts 29, but there are immature believers that are being tossed to and fro right now.
[00:14:42]  Their faith is wavering, it's hanging in the balance.
[00:14:46]  And so, for the good of the global church, the universal church, I'm going to publicly address something that is free game for me to publicly address because the village church chose to put it out not just to their elders, not just to their deacons, not just to their members, not just to everyone who happened to attend that Sunday, but to the whole world.

=== Vulnerable Friendships in Christ (04:28) ===

[00:15:08]  The whole world.
[00:15:09]  This wasn't leaked, is my point.
[00:15:12]  This wasn't leaked.
[00:15:13]  This wasn't that somebody went to the village that day and busted out their cell phone and recorded something that was supposed to be a private, members only conversation and then put it up on the World Wide Web.
[00:15:23]  That's not what happened.
[00:15:25]  That's not what happened.
[00:15:26]  So, this is free game, what we're talking about.
[00:15:29]  And it matters.
[00:15:30]  It's worth talking about because people are wrestling with it.
[00:15:34]  People need to understand is it okay to have a relationship with a woman that's not romantic?
[00:15:40]  And not sexual, but too friendly.
[00:15:43]  And what would be too friendly?
[00:15:44]  These are conversations that we need to have.
[00:15:47]  These are things that Amy Bird has been talking about, and she's wrong.
[00:15:51]  She's wrong.
[00:15:52]  She is self contradicting.
[00:15:55]  She's the type of person, and for those of you who don't know, Amy Bird is a raging feminist with the OPC, which is shocking, but somehow she just keeps being allowed to do what she does.
[00:16:05]  But Amy Bird has basically said that, well, we believe in brother sister relationships, which is the same language that was used by Matt Chandler and the village and the elders there, and the thing that they publicly chose to put out.
[00:16:19]  To the whole world.
[00:16:19]  We believe in brother and sister relationships in Christ.
[00:16:22]  We believe that a man and a woman who are not married to each other can have some form of friendship, right?
[00:16:30]  But then Amy Bird, in the very next breath, she'll say that, but then the very next breath, she'll talk about the whole Me Too movement and she sides with the Me Too crazy people, saying, Yeah, something to the essence of, Yeah, believe all women.
[00:16:46]  These people, these women claim to be victimized and I believe them.
[00:16:49]  So, wait a second.
[00:16:50]  You're saying that men should stick their neck out because of a brother, the virtue of brother sisterly relationships in Christ.
[00:16:59]  That men should stick out their neck, do something that makes them vulnerable, take a risk in befriending a woman in Christ who is a sister in Christ who they're not married to, knowing that that woman, especially in our heated believe all women culture that we live in today, may get offended by that man, right?
[00:17:18]  She might, maybe he never makes it romantic or sexual.
[00:17:21]  What if she ends up liking him?
[00:17:23]  And then he does the right thing.
[00:17:25]  Let's say he's a married man like Chandler, and he turns her down.
[00:17:28]  But then she gets heated and says, I'm going to ruin you and say that you were too chummy with me and too friendly with me.
[00:17:35]  And yeah, I wasn't romantic or sexual.
[00:17:36]  I don't have text on you that would be binding in that way to prove it.
[00:17:40]  But I could say that you were inappropriate and that you were too friendly, and I'm going to ruin you and ruin your reputation and this and that.
[00:17:47]  That's the culture that we live in.
[00:17:48]  So Amy Bird saying, Yeah, brother and sister relationship in Christ.
[00:17:52]  We got to do that.
[00:17:54]  The Mike Pence rule is a bad rule.
[00:17:57]  That's men treating women like they're all vipers.
[00:18:00]  Like women are just walking biohazards.
[00:18:06]  They're just a living, breathing risk.
[00:18:10]  And that no man can ever be with a woman because Lord knows that every woman is going to want to be with him.
[00:18:17]  That's just this narcissistic view of men that views women as temptresses and views themselves as being so desirable that no woman could.
[00:18:27]  Could hold herself back from him, and that's why we're in the problem that we're in.
[00:18:32]  So, Amy Bird is 100% with that narrative.
[00:18:35]  But then, on the other flip side, in the very same breath, she's saying, Oh, and also, every woman who claims to be victimized by a man, I believe.
[00:18:45]  Do you see how that's contradicting?
[00:18:46]  Think about that for a second.
[00:18:47]  Men should stick their necks out and be friends with women because to do anything other than a man being friends with a woman who he's not married to, to not be willing to do that is to be a prude like Mike Pence.
[00:19:01]  Or Billy Graham, the Billy Graham rule.
[00:19:03]  And it's to subtly indict and accuse women of being temptresses and narcissistically view yourself as irresistible.
[00:19:11]  And yet, so men should be friends because it's rude not to be.
[00:19:15]  Men should be friends with any woman who pursues friendship.
[00:19:19]  They should be willing to do that.
[00:19:21]  And we should believe all women when they say something about that man.
[00:19:27]  Because anytime a woman claims to be abused, 100% of the time, she's telling the truth and the man actually is an abuser.
[00:19:34]  Do you see how those two things contradict one another?
[00:19:36]  That's Amy Bird.

=== Why Men Must Stick Their Necks Out (05:35) ===

[00:19:37]  So, these are some of the reasons why we're talking about it because it has larger application for the body of Christ.
[00:19:43]  It has a universal and invisible church relevancy.
[00:19:48]  So, it's not just getting together and gossiping about Matt Chandler.
[00:19:51]  So, anybody's like, well, this isn't your business.
[00:19:53]  They made it our business.
[00:19:56]  Every time I do a podcast, people do.
[00:20:00]  You know how many times people take one of my videos and they chop it up and they play part of the video and then they commentate on it?
[00:20:08]  You know, and say, well, this is why he's wrong about that, and this is why he's wrong about that, and this is why he's wrong about that.
[00:20:12]  People do that all the time.
[00:20:14]  And you know how often I complain about it on my show, on my podcast?
[00:20:19]  Never.
[00:20:20]  You're complaining about it right now?
[00:20:21]  No, I'm not.
[00:20:24]  No, they're allowed to do that because I'm producing and recording a public video, public content.
[00:20:32]  This isn't stolen from me.
[00:20:35]  I am giving my consent to record this and to put this on the internet.
[00:20:39]  So, if someone wants to critique it and I don't like what they have to say, I could do a response if I'd like to.
[00:20:45]  Or I usually don't.
[00:20:47]  What I can do instead is go play with my baby boy because I don't really care.
[00:20:53]  I don't lose sleep over it, I'm not worried about it.
[00:20:56]  I mean, all those members of my church are like, Joel, do you know how many people hate you on the internet?
[00:21:00]  And I just laugh.
[00:21:02]  It doesn't matter.
[00:21:03]  You know why?
[00:21:04]  I care about people.
[00:21:05]  I do this whole internet thing because they are real people with real souls who really need Jesus.
[00:21:11]  You guys listening, those of you who support our ministry, you're real people.
[00:21:14]  I'm grateful for you.
[00:21:16]  But for those of you who support, it means something.
[00:21:18]  Those of you who don't and who hate this ministry, it doesn't mean something.
[00:21:23]  It doesn't.
[00:21:25]  Because at the end of the day, I'm going to stand or fall based on the standard of universal popular opinion of people on YouTube.
[00:21:35]  No.
[00:21:36]  I'm going to stand or fall based off of God's judgment, His universal and transcendent standard, His absolute morals.
[00:21:45]  And law.
[00:21:46]  I'm doing what I'm doing because I believe it's right.
[00:21:48]  Right Response Ministries has a board.
[00:21:50]  I could be fired.
[00:21:51]  I have accountability.
[00:21:53]  I have people who they're the ones who I am trusting to say, hey, am I off?
[00:21:59]  Was I too harsh?
[00:22:01]  Was that not sound doctrine?
[00:22:03]  Was it what?
[00:22:05]  And there's no, no, brother.
[00:22:07]  You're not perfect.
[00:22:08]  You're not perfect, but you're faithful.
[00:22:11]  By God's grace, not because of you, but by God's grace and God's grace alone, you're faithful.
[00:22:16]  So, go keep going, keep going.
[00:22:18]  So, guess what?
[00:22:18]  I'm doing I'm going to keep going.
[00:22:19]  And when somebody talks about something, I don't care.
[00:22:22]  It's not gossip, it's not.
[00:22:24]  They're allowed to do that.
[00:22:25]  I made it public.
[00:22:27]  You're allowed to critique public things.
[00:22:29]  So, I'm going to give my commentary today, and it's not gossip.
[00:22:32]  And that's not a double standard.
[00:22:34]  Well, he wouldn't like it if people were talking about him.
[00:22:36]  That's why I just talked and said all the things that I just said over the last four and a half minutes.
[00:22:40]  No, I don't care.
[00:22:41]  I don't care.
[00:22:42]  So, for anybody who thinks that these kinds of things are gossip, feel free to just leave right now.
[00:22:46]  I don't know why you're watching, except so that you can know what I'm going to say, even though you disagree with it, so you can tell somebody about it and gossip.
[00:22:53]  Oh, gotcha.
[00:22:55]  Okay.
[00:22:55]  So, hypocrites, sign out.
[00:22:58]  Everybody else who understands and has the spiritual maturity understands that this is a public thing and that it actually affects the universal and invisible church globally.
[00:23:08]  That people are, that maybe they shouldn't.
[00:23:10]  Well, they definitely shouldn't, but there are people with weak faith who are struggling with what to, and then also seeing like the Amy Bird stuff.
[00:23:17]  The wider parameters of what is the nature of the relationship between a man and a woman are platonic relationships between a Christian man and a Christian woman who are not married to each other.
[00:23:27]  Are those even possible?
[00:23:28]  Anyone who sees the relevancy and importance of those kinds of conversations, you're in the right place.
[00:23:35]  That's what we're going to talk about.
[00:23:36]  All right, so there's all the disclaimers.
[00:23:39]  There's four situations, potential situations.
[00:23:42]  Now, some of this will be speculation, and I'll do my best to label those things.
[00:23:46]  But in terms of what's going on at the village church, what in the world is actually going on with Matt Chandler?
[00:23:52]  Because I think that's kind of, we got to start there.
[00:23:56]  That's the problem.
[00:23:58]  That's what people are wrestling with right now.
[00:23:59]  They're like, okay, so wait a second.
[00:24:02]  It was specified by Chandler and reiterated that he's not disqualified from ministry.
[00:24:10]  And that these direct messages on Instagram with this woman, according to Chandler, and it wasn't corrected by the guy who got up and followed him, his wife knew about it.
[00:24:22]  Her husband knew about it.
[00:24:25]  And they were not sexual and they were not romantic.
[00:24:29]  And that's the elder's assessment.
[00:24:32]  And that's the assessment of a third party.
[00:24:34]  That's another thing that we should talk about because I think that's dumb.
[00:24:38]  That is not biblical.
[00:24:39]  This third party.
[00:24:42]  Outside of the church's governance, outside of the ecclesiastical authority of the elders and the members of that church, this extra party that I didn't even know if the organization is Christian or not.
[00:24:53]  I know that when it came to the SBC trying to measure all the accounts of all the women who said that they were physically abused, sexually abused in the SBC, I know that the SBC chose to put on payroll an organization that is not Christian and that actually is.

=== The Problem with Third-Party Assessments (03:07) ===

[00:25:13]  LGBT affirming.
[00:25:15]  So you're going to get the guys who agree with Sodom and Gomorrah to come and tell the SBC, the people who are supposed to be the church, the people of God, what is moral and what is immoral.
[00:25:28]  Let me say that again.
[00:25:30]  The SBC thought it would be a good idea to get Sodom and Gomorrah to weigh in on morality and specifically cases of sexual abuse with the people of God.
[00:25:42]  That's the opposite.
[00:25:43]  Of 1 Corinthians 6.
[00:25:44]  1 Corinthians 6, we always take it out of context and we say, 1 Corinthians 6 says that we shouldn't ever sue somebody, that Christians should just let things go, right?
[00:25:52]  Because it says, why not rather be wronged?
[00:25:54]  Well, that's true.
[00:25:55]  There is something about allowing yourself to be wrong, not always trying to be proven right.
[00:26:01]  That's one lesson from 1 Corinthians 6.
[00:26:03]  But the other lesson from 1 Corinthians 6 is not that believers can never actually have any real grievances, and not that believers with grievances always have to sacrifice and allow themselves to be wronged, that they can't have any avenue to pursue justice.
[00:26:17]  No.
[00:26:18]  Believers can have a valid grievance and they can pursue valid avenues of justice with their grievances, even when their grievance is with another brother or sister in Christ.
[00:26:31]  What Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 is not allowed is for two believers in the church to go and seek justice, a just ruling from the wisdom of the peanut gallery, a.k.a. pagans.
[00:26:46]  He says, What?
[00:26:48]  You bring these things before pagans.
[00:26:50]  Pagans?
[00:26:51]  Do you not know that we, the church, are going to judge angels?
[00:26:56]  We're going to be judging angels one day.
[00:26:58]  And yet you're telling me there's no one wise among you?
[00:27:02]  Not one person in the church could weigh in with godly wisdom, not worldly wisdom, that is first of all demonic, but godly wisdom that is from above.
[00:27:14]  Not one person in the church, born again by grace through faith in Christ, has wisdom, which James chapter 1 says if anyone lacks wisdom, it's an easy solution.
[00:27:23]  Ask God who gives without finding reproach.
[00:27:26]  So, there's not one person who's asked God for wisdom among the people of God in the church who can weigh in and help reconcile this situation, help you gain justice for your alleged grievance.
[00:27:39]  You have to go to pagans.
[00:27:40]  So, the big correction by Paul is not just that Christians can't have grievances.
[00:27:44]  It's not just that Christians have to let everything go.
[00:27:46]  It's not just that Christians can't ever pursue practical means of justice in this life.
[00:27:51]  It's that Christians should not have to get the two cents from the pagan peanut gallery.
[00:28:00]  That's the lesson.
[00:28:01]  Wish the SBC knew that lesson.
[00:28:04]  Apparently, no one of influence in the SBC has read 1 Corinthians 6.
[00:28:10]  Now, the Village Church, I don't know this organization.
[00:28:12]  So I'm not going to say it's pagan.
[00:28:14]  I don't know if it's LGBT affirming, like what the SBC did with their organization that they brought in to weigh in on these cases.

=== Church Polity and Biblical Governance (15:03) ===

[00:28:21]  But my point is that is extra biblical, especially, so I'm going to start there, especially for a Baptist church.
[00:28:29]  And for the record, the village is a part of not just Acts 29, but the SBC, the Southern Baptist Convention.
[00:28:35]  Do you know one of the things that makes you a Baptist church?
[00:28:38]  Baptism, Joel, baptism.
[00:28:41]  That's true, but it's not just baptism.
[00:28:43]  All right, so think about this.
[00:28:45]  Baptists have a particular view of baptism, it's in the name Baptists.
[00:28:50]  They are Credo Baptists, they hold to a believer's baptism, that baptism should follow, not proceed, but follow a credible profession of faith.
[00:28:57]  So baptism is in the name of Baptist.
[00:29:02]  But there's a bunch of guys that I know that because they're infant, they hold to infant baptism, pedo baptism, baptism of the children of believers without a credible profession of faith.
[00:29:12]  They're like, hey, I'm Presbyterian.
[00:29:14]  Well, here's the deal Baptist, right?
[00:29:18]  Baptism is in the name for Baptist, but Presbytery is in the name for Presbyterians.
[00:29:24]  So if you're baptizing babies, but you don't belong to a Presbytery, you are not Presbyterian.
[00:29:32]  See, the two main issues, both in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith and the Westminster, the two big areas that they differ, because they're like 96% the same, the two big areas that they differ, one is baptism.
[00:29:45]  Everybody knows that infant baptism versus believer's baptism, pedo, credo.
[00:29:51]  But there's another thing.
[00:29:53]  The second thing is church polity.
[00:29:55]  That word polity simply means governance.
[00:29:57]  Who's in charge?
[00:29:59]  And you might say, well, God's in charge.
[00:30:01]  Jesus is the head of his church.
[00:30:02]  Great.
[00:30:02]  That's a great spiritual answer, and it is.
[00:30:05]  It is technically, biblically true.
[00:30:07]  But the question is, who has human authority?
[00:30:11]  Who does Jesus lead through?
[00:30:13]  Jesus is head of his church.
[00:30:15]  Absolutely.
[00:30:16]  The Bible is the final arbiter of all truth, it is the final authority.
[00:30:21]  But the question is, who gets to say what the Bible says?
[00:30:26]  What do you do?
[00:30:26]  You say the Bible is the final authority.
[00:30:28]  What do you do when you have two people who both say the Bible is the final authority but don't agree on what the Bible says?
[00:30:34]  Then you need to understand, you need to have polity.
[00:30:37]  Church polity, a certain structure, governance to be able to decide when disagreements arise, and they will, to be able to decide who gets the final interpretive authority on the Bible.
[00:30:49]  Who gets the interpretive authority?
[00:30:51]  That's the question.
[00:30:52]  Now, that's one of the things that I think is a strength, a massive strength, in being not just a Calvinistic Baptist, as Chandler is, or MacArthur.
[00:31:01]  Now, they're very different, but they're both, neither is confessionally reformed.
[00:31:05]  They're Calvinistic Baptists.
[00:31:07]  There is a great strength in being confessionally.
[00:31:10]  Because the first authority, in terms of who gets to interpret the Bible, the Bible's the highest authority, the Bible's the only infallible authority.
[00:31:19]  That's the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.
[00:31:20]  But in terms of who gets interpretive authority, who gets to say what the Bible says?
[00:31:26]  What does it actually mean?
[00:31:27]  What's the correct interpretation?
[00:31:29]  The confession.
[00:31:31]  Okay, if it's beyond the confession, it's outside of those parameters, then you go further, right?
[00:31:37]  Presbyterians, the lead pastor, the teaching pastor, teaching elder, pastor of a Presbyterian church is not a member of his local church, which I don't like.
[00:31:47]  I think pastors should be members in their own church that they pastor.
[00:31:50]  But in the Presbyterian, that's one of the things that I disagree with.
[00:31:53]  Just like my disagreement with baptism, I actually have stronger disagreements with Presbyterian polity.
[00:32:00]  One of the things is that their teaching elders are members of their presbytery, not their local church.
[00:32:07]  I don't like that.
[00:32:08]  Now, their presbytery is outside of the local church and would oversee a region of multiple local churches.
[00:32:15]  And then it goes higher and higher and higher, and then you have your general assembly.
[00:32:19]  You have, like, the PCA gets together and it's over all of these Presbyterian churches in America.
[00:32:26]  But the point is polity.
[00:32:28]  There are tiers.
[00:32:30]  There is hierarchy.
[00:32:31]  There is governance for deciding who interprets the Bible.
[00:32:36]  When we both disagree on what the Bible is saying, its interpretation, who wins out?
[00:32:43]  How do we resolve those matters?
[00:32:44]  How do we solve those matters?
[00:32:46]  So, first and foremost, as a Baptist, the Presbyterian, I might understand.
[00:32:53]  The Anglican, I might understand.
[00:32:55]  There are a few major forms of church polity.
[00:32:57]  One is an Episcopal form of church polity.
[00:33:01]  Catholics, Roman Catholics adhere to this.
[00:33:04]  Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, they agree with this.
[00:33:10]  But also, of course, Episcopalians.
[00:33:12]  And that's your hierarchy where it goes all the way up.
[00:33:16]  And the way that you can tell who has more authority is by the size of their hat.
[00:33:19]  The bigger the hat, and I'm literally, literally, an actual hat, right?
[00:33:23]  The Pope has the biggest hat.
[00:33:25]  Whoever has the biggest hat, that's the guy who's in charge.
[00:33:27]  But it's a hierarchy going up, okay?
[00:33:31]  There's Presbyterian polity, they have presbyteries.
[00:33:34]  Right, so it's not just one man at the top, and to be fair, um, Episcopalians would be different than Roman, you know, the Pope is that's unique to Roman Catholicism, but Greek Orthodoxy is basically the same, except they have a plurality of popes instead of a singular Pope.
[00:33:50]  But the same thing, an Episcopal polity, right, where you go from priests to bishops to you know, to cardinals and all the way up, okay.
[00:34:00]  Um, there's the Baptist polity, okay, I'll get to that last because that deals with Chandler.
[00:34:05]  But there's Presbyterian polity, and I've already kind of described that, where you have, they get that a lot of that's from Acts chapter 15.
[00:34:11]  The reason why I disagree is because Acts chapter 15 has apostles.
[00:34:14]  Apostles are sitting on this council in Jerusalem.
[00:34:17]  So there's a council in Jerusalem that appears to oversee not just the local church in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem church, but other churches.
[00:34:24]  It has authority to send, like, Paul and Barnabas to go and check out what's going on, you know, in other places.
[00:34:30]  And so Presbyterians would use that to say there's a council that oversees, right?
[00:34:35]  It's not one guy, it's not an Episcopal hierarchy, but there is a council.
[00:34:39]  That is outside of just one local church that oversees multiple churches in a region.
[00:34:45]  Okay, so that's your Presbyterian polity.
[00:34:47]  Here's the deal Baptist polity, the name of the game.
[00:34:51]  This is the hill, Baptists will die on two hills.
[00:34:54]  This is what makes you a Baptist.
[00:34:55]  Literally, this is it.
[00:34:56]  You baptize believers and then autonomy of the local church.
[00:35:02]  You baptize believers only and autonomy of the local church.
[00:35:09]  Meaning, when it comes to Baptists, yeah, sure, you could belong to a denomination, but technically, in theological terms, it's an affiliation, it's a fellowship, but it's an association.
[00:35:21]  But the SBC is not actually, in technical terms, a denomination.
[00:35:24]  It's called that, it's called the largest Protestant denomination, you know, all these different things.
[00:35:29]  But any true Baptist will tell you, no, no, no, it's not a denomination.
[00:35:33]  Meaning, the SBC, what they can do is they can remove your status as an SBC church.
[00:35:39]  But what they can't do is the SBC cannot come into your local church and make any.
[00:35:42]  Any authoritative decisions.
[00:35:46]  Why?
[00:35:47]  Because that's what it means to be a Baptist.
[00:35:49]  Baptists believe in two things baptism for believers and autonomy of the local church.
[00:35:54]  Now, I'm a particular Baptist, and that's, I don't just mean I'm particular about things, which I am, but that's the actual term, a particular reformed Baptist, meaning I'm confessional.
[00:36:05]  I hold to the 1689, so I don't have just two things, I've got a bunch of things.
[00:36:09]  But a bunch of those things I share with my Presbyterian brothers.
[00:36:11]  The two things that set me aside, that make me different and unique from them, again, are the same two things.
[00:36:16]  Autonomy of the local church and baptism of believers, a believer's baptism.
[00:36:20]  Okay, so autonomy of the local church.
[00:36:22]  What do we mean there?
[00:36:24]  There is no ecclesiastical, no formal official authority.
[00:36:27]  You can have somebody council, you can have this, you can have that, but there is no formal official authority from outside of the local church.
[00:36:33]  Now, we can object at this point and say, well, wait a second.
[00:36:37]  You know, the elders bring in this third party, they're not bringing them in to make a binding decision.
[00:36:41]  The elders are making the decision at the village church, but they just want to bring someone else in to observe.
[00:36:47]  To observe.
[00:36:49]  And I think that's where, right there, I start to get a little bit wary.
[00:36:53]  Okay.
[00:36:54]  So, in their defense, I'm sure that that's the case.
[00:36:56]  I'm sure that's the case.
[00:36:58]  They're not saying, hey, this organization, we're going to give them full ecclesiastical authority to make the decision of whether or not to fire Chandler or whether or not to send him on a paid sabbatical and keep him or blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:37:08]  They're not going to get to make the decision.
[00:37:10]  I'm sure that that's the position of the elders at the village church.
[00:37:16]  But then, why are you bringing them in?
[00:37:17]  I just, 1 Corinthians 6, I would just say, as Paul said, I, Is there no one wise among you?
[00:37:25]  Do you not know that we will be judging angels?
[00:37:28]  Like, you couldn't.
[00:37:30]  The village church is a big church, right?
[00:37:32]  And if this is as serious as it seems like they're making it, I mean, it seems like they're making it serious to do it in front of everybody.
[00:37:39]  Chandler is immediately on an indefinite sabbatical, relieved from his role as preaching pastor at the village, and he immediately following suit was relieved of his role.
[00:37:52]  As president of Acts 29, I mean, they're making it seem really serious.
[00:37:54]  So, if something this serious, I'm sure there's lots of problems going on in the village church.
[00:37:58]  There's plenty of work to be done as an elder.
[00:38:00]  I'm sure they have their hands full, full plates for an elder at the village church.
[00:38:05]  But this seems like top priority.
[00:38:10]  And with a plurality of elders, many of them, dozens of elders, nobody had the time to read the messages and nobody was wise among you.
[00:38:19]  Nobody can make this call.
[00:38:20]  No pastor.
[00:38:22]  Right?
[00:38:23]  We got to go to the peanut gallery always.
[00:38:25]  And so then you have to start to ask the question why?
[00:38:28]  What does the peanut gallery have to offer?
[00:38:31]  Well, I think there's one thing, right?
[00:38:33]  And here's some speculation.
[00:38:34]  I told you I'd name it when I was going to do it.
[00:38:36]  All right.
[00:38:36]  So I'm about to do it.
[00:38:37]  Here's some speculation.
[00:38:38]  Here's one thing that the peanut gallery has to offer PR.
[00:38:46]  And what I mean by that is that the elders at the village church, As woke as Chandler has been the last few years, that I don't appreciate.
[00:38:56]  That's why I left Acts 29.
[00:38:59]  Some of the things that he's done, his Baptist stuff with dreams and visions of pirate ships and sharks.
[00:39:06]  I don't know if you guys remember that.
[00:39:08]  You can look it up.
[00:39:09]  Pretty easy to find.
[00:39:10]  But there's some wacky, mystical prophecy stuff that I don't like.
[00:39:16]  And then, even more than that, the woke stuff that I really don't like.
[00:39:21]  But as wacky as those things are, I'm sure the village church has got to be a regenerate elder or two.
[00:39:31]  Even with the church being bad, and I don't think it always was bad, but I think it's gotten kind of bad.
[00:39:36]  But even with the church being bad, I bet you they still have some faithful elders.
[00:39:42]  I say regenerate, I'm being facetious.
[00:39:44]  More than that, regenerate and faithful with some wisdom.
[00:39:49]  Why can't they weigh in?
[00:39:51]  Why can't they just decide in house what to do?
[00:39:54]  Why are you getting someone else?
[00:39:55]  I think this is why.
[00:39:56]  The reason why you get someone from the outside who very likely is not a Christian, that doesn't have your standard, God's standard for these kinds of things, why do you get them?
[00:40:04]  Because you get the non Christian group to weigh in because the non Christian group is going to be able to tell you what all the non Christians are going to think.
[00:40:14]  Why do you get the non Christian group to weigh in?
[00:40:16]  So that they can tell you what all the non Christians are going to think.
[00:40:21]  And these days, a lot of pastors and a lot of churches and a lot of denominations like the SBC really, really, really care what all the non Christians are going to think.
[00:40:30]  So they're not just trying to render a righteous judgment according to God's standard and His word to actually just decide what to do in the matter.
[00:40:38]  They're also deciding how to do it, how to publicly do it.
[00:40:44]  What's our PR stunt?
[00:40:47]  How do we publicly?
[00:40:48]  And I guarantee you, I guarantee you, from those assessments, that's where they got the idea to do it this way, to get ahead of it, to make it this public thing.
[00:40:58]  I'm very sure.
[00:41:00]  Okay, so the speculation is I think that that's probably part of the motive.
[00:41:05]  How do we get ahead of this so that we don't get ripped apart by the pagans?
[00:41:09]  We need a few pagans to coach us on how to appease the pagans.
[00:41:14]  Because we live in a pagan culture that hates churches.
[00:41:19]  And even though Matt Chandler has kind of, you know, kowtowed to some of the left with his woke rhetoric, with his support of Eric Mason, who wrote Woke Church and was on the international board for Acts 29 when I was a part of it, even though there's been some of these concessions from the village, from Chandler, we should know by now that you can't ever be leftist enough.
[00:41:50]  And so, yeah, the left still hates.
[00:41:53]  I'm talking about the political left, talking about godless people who want to trans kids, right?
[00:41:59]  And tell little white kids in school that they're inherently immoral and colonizers.
[00:42:03]  I'm talking about that group.
[00:42:06]  Yeah, that group doesn't like woke churches because woke churches, even woke churches, aren't woke enough.
[00:42:13]  Not enough.
[00:42:14]  At least, not the village.
[00:42:15]  Maybe some of them, if you've completely sold out with all orthodoxy, you're a universalist.
[00:42:20]  You've denied the bodily resurrection and the virgin birth and all these kinds of things, and you're gay affirming and blah, blah, blah.
[00:42:28]  But the village is not that, right?
[00:42:30]  The village has some problems.
[00:42:31]  I've already detailed those.
[00:42:34]  But the village is not that far by any stretch, by any stretch, which means, so praise God, they're not that far.
[00:42:41]  But what that means is that unbelievers are not going to like them no matter what they do.
[00:42:50]  So why care?
[00:42:51]  Why care?
[00:42:53]  Well, and I think part of the reason why is because they're trying to preemptively fend off any kind of attack that would come from the outside, and not from the outside from other ministries like mine or from other churches or denominations.
[00:43:07]  No, no, no.
[00:43:07]  I think they're trying to fend off from the news circuits, from media outlets, non Christian, unbelieving media outlets that would want to come in here and try to me too the whole situation and destroy the village, whatever's left of it.

=== Disqualifying Sins vs. Imperfection (14:40) ===

[00:43:24]  Right?
[00:43:24]  I mean, I'm sure they've taken a hit with all their woke antics over the past few years, and they're definitely going to be taking a hit right now with what's going on.
[00:43:33]  But if there's anything left, if there's anything left when this is all said and done of the village church, And Acts 29, and these kinds of things that Matt Chandler has been at the helm of, the locust will come.
[00:43:49]  The leftist news, legacy news media organizer, they will come and devour whatever's left.
[00:43:56]  They will destroy all of it.
[00:43:58]  No stone left on top of another stone, right?
[00:44:01]  Like the Jerusalem Temple in 80 70 style.
[00:44:04]  They will do that because it's a perfect Me Too moment.
[00:44:08]  It's a perfect believe all women kind of moment.
[00:44:11]  And as far as we know, this particular woman isn't even complaining.
[00:44:14]  It was her friend that confronted Chandler, right, at the church.
[00:44:19]  That's what they've told us publicly.
[00:44:21]  At the church, a friend of the woman that he was DMing on Instagram, she confronted and said, I don't like this.
[00:44:27]  This is inappropriate.
[00:44:28]  It's too chummy.
[00:44:30]  The way that you're joking, your jokes are inappropriate.
[00:44:33]  We don't know what those jokes were because we've been told, on the one hand, that they're not sexual or romantic.
[00:44:38]  So, they could be jokes about drinking.
[00:44:40]  They could be, you know, alcohol or something.
[00:44:42]  I don't know.
[00:44:42]  Something that's inappropriate, but it's not sexual and it's not romantic.
[00:44:45]  But the point is, it's not even that woman that Chandler's been messaging, it's her friend.
[00:44:51]  But the deal is, even that friend could make a lot of trouble, could make a lot of trouble by going to the unbelieving world and shining a light on here's a church.
[00:45:03]  And you might say, oh, well, they want to criticize the village because Chandler has been.
[00:45:09]  You know, he's been dancing to their tune.
[00:45:11]  He's, you know, he's been jumping through their hoops with all of his woke stuff.
[00:45:15]  No, it's not enough.
[00:45:16]  It's not enough for the pagans.
[00:45:20]  The village still believes that marriage is between one biological man and one biological woman.
[00:45:25]  That's bigotry to our culture today.
[00:45:29]  And so, yes, they would hop on any opportunity to destroy Matt Chandler and destroy the village church.
[00:45:34]  So, I think that's why the pagans were consulted, right?
[00:45:36]  So, that's that.
[00:45:38]  But 1 Corinthians 6, it doesn't matter.
[00:45:39]  It doesn't matter why.
[00:45:40]  It doesn't matter how hostile the unbelieving world might be in any given cultural moment.
[00:45:46]  God's word is true in all seasons.
[00:45:51]  In all seasons.
[00:45:52]  1 Corinthians 6 Is there not anyone wise among you?
[00:45:55]  Meaning, deal with it in house.
[00:45:57]  And especially if you're a Baptist and one of your go to dogma beliefs as a Baptist is autonomy of the local church.
[00:46:04]  We deal with things in house.
[00:46:06]  Then deal with it in house and don't go outside.
[00:46:10]  Okay.
[00:46:10]  So.
[00:46:12]  All right.
[00:46:13]  So, one possibility is that they went outside with all these things, and we want to consult the peanut gallery over here, and we're going to make this big public statement.
[00:46:22]  Because I think a lot of people are just, why are you making this such a big deal, so serious, if it's not serious?
[00:46:28]  Because you're basically saying this is really serious, but we want to let you know it's not serious.
[00:46:33]  That's why we're all confused.
[00:46:36]  But they did it publicly.
[00:46:37]  They wanted us all to know.
[00:46:38]  They made that decision.
[00:46:40]  If you're tuning in right now on the live stream, they made that decision.
[00:46:43]  We're going to make this public information.
[00:46:44]  For everyone to watch, we want everyone to see this.
[00:46:48]  This is not an in house conversation with just our elders or even just our church and its members.
[00:46:53]  We want to make this public for the whole wide world because it's serious.
[00:46:58]  We also want you to know that it's not serious, and that's why we're all confused.
[00:47:04]  This is very serious.
[00:47:05]  He is stepping down from ministry, effective immediately and indefinitely, with no return date.
[00:47:13]  And also, he is absolutely not disqualified.
[00:47:17]  And it absolutely was not a breach of 1 Timothy 1 and Titus, or 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 because it was not sexual or romantic.
[00:47:25]  It was not adultery.
[00:47:27]  He's still a one woman man, but also kind of not.
[00:47:31]  But he is.
[00:47:33]  He's not a one woman man as ideally as you would like, but he is not.
[00:47:38]  Not a one woman man to the point of disqualification, but effectively he needs to function as though he's disqualified immediately because it's so serious, but also he's not disqualified because it's not that serious.
[00:47:53]  It's confusing.
[00:47:54]  So why make it so serious if it's not that serious?
[00:47:57]  One possibility, because maybe it's more serious than they're saying.
[00:48:01]  So here's another speculation.
[00:48:03]  So maybe number one is maybe it's worse.
[00:48:06]  And let's pray that it's not.
[00:48:08]  Let's pray right now.
[00:48:09]  Father God, we pray that it's not worse.
[00:48:11]  Lord, I love Matt Chandler.
[00:48:13]  I've met him in person, gotten to speak to him.
[00:48:17]  I've been under his leadership in the past.
[00:48:19]  I'm bummed about the way that he's been going with Acts 29 and the village and the woke nonsense.
[00:48:23]  But Lord, we want good things for him good things for his church, good things for his wife, his marriage, his kids, his family.
[00:48:33]  And so, Lord, I pray that there is nothing worse than what's been said.
[00:48:42]  That when they said that this relationship with this woman.
[00:48:45]  Is not sexual or romantic.
[00:48:46]  I pray that that would be true and that it would not be worse and that there would not be other women that surface later.
[00:48:52]  So, Lord, we pray that it wouldn't be worse.
[00:48:54]  We ask for your mercy in that regard.
[00:48:56]  In Jesus' name, amen.
[00:48:58]  All right, so one potential, it could be worse.
[00:49:01]  Let's pray it's not.
[00:49:02]  Number two, here's the second potential, could be true.
[00:49:06]  True meaning the very, very confusing thing that we were told, that it's really serious, so that everyone needs to know and he has to be dismissed immediately and indefinitely.
[00:49:20]  But also, he's not disqualified because it's not that serious.
[00:49:22]  So, the very serious thing that's not serious could be true.
[00:49:27]  And I don't even, I just.
[00:49:30]  And so, then when you're wondering, well, then why did they make it?
[00:49:33]  If it's true that it wasn't romantic, if it's true that it wasn't sexual, if it's true that it's just this woman, there's no other women, and there's nothing else going on behind the scenes, and there's no other moral failure in his life, if all that is true, and it's true that it's not disqualifying by biblical standards of 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus 1, then why is he going on a paid sabbatical?
[00:49:54]  Immediately.
[00:49:56]  If all that's true, why are you acting?
[00:49:58]  If it's true that it's not serious enough to disqualify, why are you treating it so seriously?
[00:50:04]  And again, in that case, I think that there are a couple sub options, okay?
[00:50:11]  If it's really not romantic, it's really not sexual, it's really not disqualifying.
[00:50:15]  If it's really not disqualifying, then here are your options.
[00:50:21]  One, the Me Too thing.
[00:50:25]  And just trying to get ahead of it.
[00:50:27]  This friend of this woman was really upset and threatened Chandler and threatened the elders to shed some light on something to expose this and to use it to make things bad for them publicly, to go to some kind of source or this or that.
[00:50:43]  And they wanted to get ahead of it and they wanted to announce it first because somebody else was threatening to publicly announce it.
[00:50:51]  So they wanted to get out with the information first.
[00:50:54]  Right.
[00:50:55]  So that's one potential is if what they're saying is true, it's really not disqualifying, then why are you acting kind of like it is?
[00:51:03]  The way they're handling it is the way you would handle an elder who's actually disqualified.
[00:51:09]  That's my point.
[00:51:10]  The way that they're handling it is the way that you would handle an elder who actually is disqualified while saying that he's not disqualified and he's not fired, he's going on a paid sabbatical.
[00:51:22]  So, why are you doing it this way?
[00:51:26]  If he actually isn't disqualified, if what you're saying is true, I think because somebody was going to make this a nightmare for you.
[00:51:34]  That's one option.
[00:51:35]  And so you had to get ahead of it and you had to be serious enough about it to where if that person then dropped their story later, people would say, well, Chandler was always, he was already honest about this.
[00:51:48]  We heard it from him first.
[00:51:49]  He confessed.
[00:51:52]  And he even admitted that although it wasn't sexual or romantic, it was inappropriate.
[00:51:57]  And so.
[00:51:58]  And the elders of the village church did a good job.
[00:52:00]  And they told him he needed to take time because he wasn't healthy and he needs to get restored.
[00:52:05]  And they're going to be working with him and working with his family.
[00:52:07]  And the village church takes sin seriously.
[00:52:10]  And even though it wasn't sin to the point of being disqualified, any kind of sin they take seriously, especially among leaders.
[00:52:17]  See, I think that's one possibility.
[00:52:20]  So why do you treat it so seriously if it's not disqualifying?
[00:52:24]  Because you don't.
[00:52:24]  I'm telling you, that's not what you do.
[00:52:27]  That's not what you should do.
[00:52:28]  I've been a pastor for a while.
[00:52:30]  It's not a good move.
[00:52:31]  But you do do that, not because this is how sin should be treated.
[00:52:36]  A man's disqualified or is not.
[00:52:38]  See, that's the problem with this.
[00:52:39]  It's this third category, it's an unbiblical category.
[00:52:42]  So the biblical categories, there's two categories.
[00:52:45]  You're a pastor, someone brings something against you.
[00:52:48]  Maybe it wasn't wise, but it's not disqualifying.
[00:52:50]  You might offer a concession or apology and say, hey, I'll try to do better in the future, but this is not disqualifying from office and I'm going to continue.
[00:52:58]  And the elders back you up.
[00:53:00]  Say, yep, because we have objective metrics in the Word of God for the qualifications for an elder.
[00:53:06]  And this does not breach those.
[00:53:08]  These are not subjective qualifications for elders.
[00:53:11]  They are objective metrics from the Word of God.
[00:53:13]  You're either in or you're out.
[00:53:15]  You either crossed the line or you didn't.
[00:53:17]  If you didn't cross a line, but maybe you got close to the line, or there's, I don't know, the metric for elders is the standard is not perfection.
[00:53:26]  So elders still sin.
[00:53:27]  But the question is, is the sin disqualifying?
[00:53:30]  If it's not disqualifying, right?
[00:53:31]  There are two categories.
[00:53:32]  If it's not disqualifying, You just move on and you apologize privately if there was sin, not disqualifying sin, but still sin because elders still are imperfect, morally imperfect.
[00:53:45]  Then you apologize to the necessary party if there's something to apologize for.
[00:53:49]  You maybe add some increased accountability in that particular area with your fellow elders and you press on.
[00:53:56]  Maybe even take a couple weeks off, sure, but you don't make this big public announcement and take a sabbatical that's indefinite with no.
[00:54:05]  Return date and tell everybody you really, really, really messed up, but you didn't really, mess up.
[00:54:13]  So the two categories are it's not disqualifying, and so you move on, or it is disqualifying.
[00:54:21]  And I'll say it like this here's a simple rule of thumb if it is disqualifying, you don't get a paid vacation, you don't get money from the church to go on a sabbatical, you don't get to keep your job.
[00:54:36]  Is what I'm saying.
[00:54:37]  If an elder really is disqualified, he's fired.
[00:54:40]  He's removed from the office and he's fired from staff at the church.
[00:54:44]  That's what happens effective immediately.
[00:54:46]  Not vacation, see you guys later, I'll return sometime.
[00:54:49]  In the meantime, I'm going to keep getting paid immediately.
[00:54:51]  No, no, fired immediately.
[00:54:53]  Donald Trump style, you're fired, right?
[00:54:55]  So it's either disqualified and you're out, or qualified and you're in.
[00:55:01]  And somebody still has a grievance, and the person with the grievance, you tell them to take a hike because their grievance is illegitimate, or you make a concession because their grievance is legitimate, but it's not disqualifying.
[00:55:13]  You messed up, but it's not disqualifying because we have objective metrics of what's in, what's out, what's disqualifying, and what's not disqualifying.
[00:55:20]  And so maybe you add some accountability, maybe even take a couple weeks off.
[00:55:24]  From the pulpit, but you don't make this big worldwide public announcement with tears.
[00:55:29]  I mean, the guy was like something's going on.
[00:55:33]  He was, as he said, disoriented, distraught.
[00:55:39]  Disoriented, I think, is a euphemism.
[00:55:41]  He was disturbed.
[00:55:43]  He was disturbed.
[00:55:46]  So it's either disqualifying and you're out, not paid vacation, but fired, or it's not disqualifying and you're in.
[00:55:56]  And if you do take a two week break, nobody knows.
[00:55:58]  You don't announce it to the church.
[00:55:59]  I'm taking a two week break because on my Instagram I sent some.
[00:56:04]  No, no.
[00:56:05]  It's private.
[00:56:08]  You protect the pastor's dignity.
[00:56:10]  He sent.
[00:56:11]  But if it's not a disqualifying sin, the sins that you have to rebuke publicly, this is in scriptures.
[00:56:16]  1 Timothy 3 is your qualifications.
[00:56:18]  1 Timothy 5 talks about rebuking an elder before them all publicly so the rest may stand in fear.
[00:56:27]  But that's if someone persists in sin.
[00:56:30]  And the implication is, because it's on the heels of 1 Timothy 3 with the qualifications, if it's a disqualifying sin, a persistent disqualifying sin, then there's a public rebuke and some measure of explanation to the congregation, to the members of the church.
[00:56:49]  He's being rebuked for this.
[00:56:52]  And he is disqualified for this, committing this sin.
[00:56:57]  Which the Bible says is disqualifying for a man if he holds the office of elder.
[00:57:03]  So there's two categories.
[00:57:05]  You're not disqualified.
[00:57:08]  Take a week off from the pulpit, maybe.
[00:57:11]  If you messed up, maybe say, I'm sorry, if you need to say, I'm sorry, and ask a couple of the elders to check in on you more regularly.
[00:57:21]  Maybe delete your Instagram account.
[00:57:25]  But you do those things, and it's just like nobody's the wiser.
[00:57:29]  You don't share with the whole wide world, and you're not in tears, and you're not taking an indefinite leave of absence.
[00:57:41]  You don't do that if you're not disqualified.
[00:57:44]  So, you're either not disqualified, in which case you don't do what the village just did, what Chandler just did, if you're really not disqualified.
[00:57:52]  Or you are disqualified, but in which case you also don't do what the village just did.
[00:57:57]  You don't have a man who actually is disqualified and then pay him to take a vacation.
[00:58:03]  You fire him.

=== When Elders Are Not Disqualified (02:44) ===

[00:58:05]  Two categories.
[00:58:07]  That only, only two categories.
[00:58:11]  So, my first concern is the Peanut Gallery pagan group coming in.
[00:58:17]  That looks like help us with our PR because somebody's going to try to me too this.
[00:58:23]  Somebody outside of the church or inside of the church or whatever.
[00:58:26]  Help us get bulletproof so that we can survive this.
[00:58:30]  That's my first problem.
[00:58:32]  Going outside.
[00:58:32]  Is there not anyone wise among you?
[00:58:34]  You're going to judge angels one day.
[00:58:37]  The elders, the church, you can handle this.
[00:58:39]  And you're doing that as a Baptist.
[00:58:40]  And Baptists, we're in house.
[00:58:43]  We're autonomy of local church guys.
[00:58:45]  That's my first thing.
[00:58:46]  Go into the pagan peanut gallery.
[00:58:47]  Number two, the third category qualified, disqualified.
[00:58:52]  There's not dis, but also not disqualified, qualified, disqualified, disqualified.
[00:59:00]  No, that's just, that's not a thing.
[00:59:03]  That third category is not a thing.
[00:59:05]  You either disqualified, fired, qualified, a week off, and privacy, and some added accountability, but it's not this public.
[00:59:17]  No.
[00:59:19]  So, yeah, it makes me think that.
[00:59:24]  Things are worse and it is disqualifying.
[00:59:27]  It was sexual and it was romantic, or that's speculation.
[00:59:30]  I told you I'd say when it's speculation.
[00:59:33]  I actually don't think it's that.
[00:59:34]  I really don't.
[00:59:35]  Could be.
[00:59:35]  I hope it's not.
[00:59:36]  I've already prayed for you guys just joining on.
[00:59:38]  We've literally spent time in this podcast praying for Chandler about that.
[00:59:42]  I hope it's not that.
[00:59:43]  I pray it's not that.
[00:59:44]  That it's not actually worse.
[00:59:46]  That it really wasn't romantic and it really wasn't sexual and that it's really not disqualifying.
[00:59:51]  I pray that that's all true.
[00:59:54]  So then why make such a big deal?
[00:59:57]  I think just.
[00:59:59]  I think it's tipping the hat to the pagans.
[01:00:01]  I think it's PR, getting ahead of some situation.
[01:00:03]  I think it's, yeah, I think it's a PR stunt.
[01:00:07]  Or, here's the other option, and this is the last option, or the elders are divided.
[01:00:17]  And I don't have time to share my story, which I've given tiny bits and pieces over the last couple of years.
[01:00:25]  And one day I will do probably a full show on it.
[01:00:30]  So, I'm not going to go into my whole story today.
[01:00:33]  Someday I might.
[01:00:35]  But I'll just say this.
[01:00:37]  Over the last two years, you need to know this because some of you guys are pastors, and so you already know this, but a lot of you guys, you're listening to this, you're not pastors.
[01:00:46]  And you know what you felt over the last two years, right?

=== Blessings Amidst Political Tyranny (03:08) ===

[01:00:50]  It's COVID tyranny, civil tyranny, medical tyranny.
[01:00:55]  Churches shut down for months, foreseen.
[01:00:58]  Pastors require you cannot.
[01:01:00]  Come to Christ as the saints gather together on the Lord's day and to the Lord's table without a mask.
[01:01:08]  What does it take you to get to the Lord's table to worship with the saints?
[01:01:12]  Faith alone, plus a mask, plus a jab, plus it.
[01:01:17]  Anytime it's faith plus, you might want to sit a couple plays out.
[01:01:20]  That's a bad move.
[01:01:23]  You guys know that.
[01:01:23]  Churches did that.
[01:01:25]  And so, one of the things is massive division.
[01:01:29]  And if that wasn't enough, just a couple months later, summer of love, 2020.
[01:01:34]  Right, burning down half the country, looting, rioting, critical race theory, George Floyd.
[01:01:43]  Right, if he gets four like global um funerals with a zillion, quadrillion people in attendance, but your grandma uh she dies alone in a nursing home thanks to Cuomo and uh and she doesn't get a funeral, you do a little uh memorial at your house.
[01:02:02]  Um, yeah, yeah, it was the tyranny with COVID.
[01:02:08]  And the wokeness with CRT.
[01:02:11]  Those were the two big things.
[01:02:12]  All right.
[01:02:13]  Since then, though, it didn't stop.
[01:02:15]  Since then, what has happened most recently?
[01:02:18]  Well, most recently, Roe got overturned.
[01:02:21]  Praise God.
[01:02:21]  It was never about Roe, but still, praise God, Roe got overturned.
[01:02:25]  Objectively, less babies will be murdered.
[01:02:28]  Will there still be pills and potions?
[01:02:30]  Yes.
[01:02:31]  For the abolitionists, will you have to go?
[01:02:34]  Will we, because I would be joining you, have to go to Walmart and to the pharmacy section?
[01:02:39]  To preach God's word and the gospel there instead of Planned Parenthood because it's been shut down in some of the red states.
[01:02:46]  Yes, there's still a fight to be fought.
[01:02:49]  Roe, we should have functioned as though it was never a thing.
[01:02:51]  It was a Supreme Court opinion.
[01:02:53]  It was never law.
[01:02:54]  It's always going to be state by state.
[01:02:56]  Incrementalism is good insofar as it represents state by state, not splitting the penny a million ways.
[01:03:03]  The pro life industry just making money off of suckers that never actually wants to end abortion.
[01:03:07]  Okay, so that's what we should have been doing.
[01:03:10]  That's still the plan, state by state.
[01:03:12]  Let's abolish abortion.
[01:03:14]  That said, though, Roe being overturned was still a blessing.
[01:03:18]  Still a blessing.
[01:03:19]  Even if you're an abolitionist, it's a blessing.
[01:03:21]  You might be saying, well, it doesn't do anything.
[01:03:23]  No, it objectively does something.
[01:03:25]  And at minimum, this is one of the things that it does it rips back that thin little veil over the pro life industry that shows people, shows the public that they were never about life.
[01:03:37]  And that's a blessing.
[01:03:39]  That's a blessing.
[01:03:40]  It is a blessing when God reveals the hypocrites.
[01:03:45]  And that's what we've been seeing for the last two years.
[01:03:47]  We've been seeing in politics.
[01:03:50]  All the neocons, your Liz Cheney's, your Mitt Romney's, you're seeing it with the pro life industry.
[01:03:56]  Oh, you never actually wanted to abolish abortion.

=== God Revealing Hypocrites to the World (06:24) ===

[01:03:59]  Oh, I see.
[01:04:02]  But sadly, we've been seeing it in our churches with CRT, with the churches that closed down for five months, opened back up, but wouldn't do any singing, no singing allowed, had to wear a mask, different sections.
[01:04:19]  Those who have the vaccine can sit over here, and those who don't can sit over there.
[01:04:23]  Oh, and then here comes Omicron and they shut it.
[01:04:26]  Here's a rule of thumb.
[01:04:27]  If your church shut down twice, leave your church.
[01:04:33]  If it shut down again with Omicron, leave your church.
[01:04:38]  But Joel, they have great, nope, leave your church.
[01:04:40]  They have good doctrine.
[01:04:41]  Yeah, they don't apply.
[01:04:43]  They don't apply their doctrine.
[01:04:45]  It doesn't matter that they have good doctrine.
[01:04:47]  They're not progressives, but they're not woke, Joel.
[01:04:49]  Yeah, but they're tyrants.
[01:04:51]  They're tyrants.
[01:04:52]  So they're not woke.
[01:04:54]  But here's the deal.
[01:04:55]  You can be progressive, you can be a pietist.
[01:04:59]  Both churches need to be left.
[01:05:02]  My whole point is this in terms of division among elders, that is possible, this is speculation, but possible at the village church, especially with an elder team that large, and especially with the lay of the land over the last few years, the last two in particular.
[01:05:17]  My point is this everyone has felt the division.
[01:05:20]  How many of you have left a church, right?
[01:05:23]  Not just I'm a chronic church hopper and I go to, you know, I've been.
[01:05:26]  Going to different churches every three to six months for the last 20 years.
[01:05:29]  Okay, if that's you, you need to repent.
[01:05:30]  That's wrong.
[01:05:31]  That's wrong.
[01:05:33]  I'm talking about the people who I was a faithful member, Pastor Joel.
[01:05:36]  I'm not a church hopper.
[01:05:38]  I'm not overly critical of Christ's bride.
[01:05:40]  I love the church.
[01:05:41]  And I was a faithful member in my church that I thought was biblical with my pastor, who I thought had a spine for 18 years.
[01:05:51]  But then he was at BLM rallies, and our church was closed on Sunday.
[01:05:57]  So I left.
[01:05:59]  For you, who's listening, who has that story, good.
[01:06:05]  You did the right thing.
[01:06:06]  You definitely should have left.
[01:06:08]  And whatever means you have at your availability, you should be calling him out.
[01:06:12]  Even after leaving the church, you should be calling him to repentance, praying that God might bring him to shame.
[01:06:20]  Shame is there's a grace of shame.
[01:06:23]  There's a grace of shame.
[01:06:24]  Paul even says if anyone does not take account of what I write in these letters, No longer, it says, remove him from you that he might be ashamed, but regard him as a brother.
[01:06:39]  Meaning, there is a way to use the grace of shame to bring about people's repentance.
[01:06:45]  So, it's not inherently always 100% of the time wrong to shame people.
[01:06:49]  So, shame that pastor.
[01:06:50]  So, my point is, some of you guys, you left churches because crazy stuff were happening.
[01:06:56]  That's for the churchgoer, that's for the Christian, the member.
[01:06:59]  I'm going to give you the other side of the story as an elder, as a pastor, what pastors were experiencing the last two years.
[01:07:06]  These things went down COVID, BLM, and then the Roe thing, Roe being overturned.
[01:07:14]  That's what I was going to say.
[01:07:15]  Let me say this real quick Roe's overturned, and a lot of you guys, your pastor, He didn't say a word.
[01:07:22]  Roe was overturned, and your pastor, nothing.
[01:07:28]  That following Sunday, not a word.
[01:07:30]  Crickets, no.
[01:07:32]  Thank you, Lord, for your justice.
[01:07:35]  And if anyone in the church did thank the Lord and say, and we need to push for more, more justice, because this is nothing compared to God's justice and what we need, we need abortion abolished.
[01:07:47]  We need equal protection.
[01:07:49]  That means equal protection by having equal penalties, meaning that a mother who kills her baby in the womb should have equal penalties under the law for any other homicide, any other murder.
[01:08:02]  Some of you guys said that, and your pastor told you that you were being contentious.
[01:08:06]  Your pastor told you that you were being quarrelsome.
[01:08:08]  Your pastor told you that you were in sin.
[01:08:10]  So not only did he not publicly say a word when Roe was overturned, thanking God for that decision, but he actually, the only words that he did say were to you guys who were thanking God.
[01:08:21]  For his justice on abortion and saying that we need more of God's justice, the word that he said was not to the world, but to you telling you to be quiet.
[01:08:31]  That's your experience.
[01:08:34]  COVID tyranny, so civil tyranny, medical tyranny, woke CRT, intersectionality, and then spineless pastors who say nothing.
[01:08:44]  Guys who preached against abortion for years, right?
[01:08:46]  You thought you were in a conservative church, preached against it for years, then it actually happens.
[01:08:52]  There's more that needs to happen, but it actually happened, a good start.
[01:08:57]  And your pastor not only did he not thank the Lord or say anything publicly to celebrate that, but he told you to be quiet because you were celebrating that.
[01:09:06]  And you left.
[01:09:07]  Well, here's my deal this is what I'm saying.
[01:09:10]  Over the last two years, at the elder level, all these things that you've witnessed that you've been disappointed by from your pastors, from your churches, your organizations, not everybody agreed.
[01:09:23]  Let me say that again.
[01:09:25]  Lots of churches disappointed you.
[01:09:27]  Your church may have disappointed you, but here's something you should know.
[01:09:32]  That doesn't guarantee.
[01:09:35]  If your church took the wrong side on one of these issues, it was faithless instead of faithful.
[01:09:42]  Your church taking the wrong position doesn't mean that all of the elders, all the leaders of that church wanted to take the wrong position.
[01:09:52]  Churches.
[01:09:53]  At the elder level, behind the scenes, behind closed doors, where you, Christian, you, member, have not been privy to this information.
[01:10:02]  I'm not saying that you shouldn't have known.
[01:10:04]  I'm not even saying this is right, but I'm just saying this is the reality.
[01:10:09]  There have been more church splits over the last two years.
[01:10:13]  I'll say it that way.
[01:10:14]  There have been more church splits over the last two years than in the previous 10 or 20 years before that.

=== Reasons for Church Splits and Polarization (06:02) ===

[01:10:23]  Why am I in Texas now and not in California anymore?
[01:10:26]  Reason number one, I have children and I love them.
[01:10:30]  I don't like that.
[01:10:32]  I'm a listener in California right now, Joel.
[01:10:33]  I can't believe you said it.
[01:10:35]  I don't know what to tell you.
[01:10:39]  Steve Day said it recently.
[01:10:40]  He did a whole episode.
[01:10:41]  It was fantastic.
[01:10:44]  He gave the exact number of all five states that were pivotal in turning the election for Trump rather than Biden.
[01:10:54]  All five states that ended up going blue but were right on the edge, that their electoral votes combined in those five states would have swung the election to where Trump would be in office instead of Biden.
[01:11:05]  And the votes that these states went blue by, all five of them combined, it was like 100.
[01:11:14]  It was like 150,000 or something like that, or it might have been 500,000.
[01:11:18]  I can't remember the exact number, but it was less than a million.
[01:11:21]  And then his whole point in the episode was six million people in California voted for Trump.
[01:11:27]  Six million people, part of my French, pissed in the wind.
[01:11:34]  And if a fraction of them, like 10% or less of them, had lived in these five states and had gotten out of California and voted conservatively, 13 service members wouldn't have died in Afghanistan, very likely.
[01:11:55]  Like elections have consequences.
[01:11:59]  And where you live matters.
[01:12:01]  We are in a cold civil war.
[01:12:04]  It's heating up, but we're in a cold civil war.
[01:12:06]  And part of the polarization that's happening in our nation is political, it's cultural, but it's also geographical, and it needs to be.
[01:12:13]  That's a good thing.
[01:12:15]  We are polarizing geographically, and we need to be.
[01:12:19]  And you might say, well, I'm a missionary to California, or I, you know, like California needs churches, or I understand that.
[01:12:27]  But California is a little bit different than North Korea.
[01:12:29]  You know why we send missionaries to China?
[01:12:31]  Because a lot of people in China can't get out.
[01:12:33]  And you know what's happening actually?
[01:12:35]  As we've sent missionaries to all these places, but we haven't actually raised our own children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, China's now sending missionaries to us.
[01:12:46]  You know how many kids from the boomer generation, their kids grew up to be atheists and deny the faith, like Abraham Piper?
[01:12:56]  Because they were laid on the altar of global missions, on the altar of being a missionary.
[01:13:02]  We're being missionaries, you know, by living in this blue state or by doing this thing or by doing that thing or giving our money to this or doing it.
[01:13:09]  And so, yeah, we can't afford private schooling because we're trying to be generous and we're living in this place that taxes us, you know, out to wazoo, you know.
[01:13:16]  So, yeah, but we put our kids in public school.
[01:13:19]  But we're doing a five minute devotional time as a family at night and that'll counteract the 40 hours of public atheistic.
[01:13:27]  Indoctrination that they receive every week for the better part of 18 years.
[01:13:33]  And then 20 years later, you hear these parents crying.
[01:13:36]  Unconditional election.
[01:13:38]  The Lord just saves who He wants to save.
[01:13:41]  Had nothing to do with our parenting.
[01:13:42]  We raised our kid to know the Lord.
[01:13:43]  I don't know why they turned out to be an atheist.
[01:13:46]  Yeah, you do.
[01:13:49]  Yeah, you do.
[01:13:50]  You don't want to admit it.
[01:13:53]  But you know why.
[01:13:59]  So, yeah, the world is polarizing, and not just in terms of ideology, not just in terms of our opinions, our views, our virtues, not just politically or culturally, but geographically.
[01:14:09]  So, why did I leave California?
[01:14:11]  Because I have kids and I love them.
[01:14:12]  I want to raise them the right way, and I have more resources and more freedoms and more ability to do that in a state like Texas than I do in California.
[01:14:20]  Secondly, because I want to build, not just for my household, my kids, but I want to build.
[01:14:25]  And here's the deal I don't want to go and plant a garden in the Sahara Desert.
[01:14:31]  Like, sure, I could maybe do some fancy agriculture and irrigation and channel in some water and do this and do that, but I'd rather just go somewhere where there's good soil and water.
[01:14:44]  And why do triple aerial backflips to try to be fruitful in the desert if you could go somewhere else that's not a desert?
[01:14:56]  So I did that at the family level, the Webbin household with my wife and my kids.
[01:15:00]  I didn't want my wife to have to work outside of our home anymore.
[01:15:06]  My wife was having to work half time as an RN, as a nurse in California, because the church didn't pay me enough to live.
[01:15:14]  And in California, San Diego, where we were, was just god awfully expensive.
[01:15:20]  So I did it for my wife, I did it for my kids.
[01:15:23]  But also, it's not just our household.
[01:15:26]  I want to plant a church, and I don't want to just plant a church.
[01:15:30]  I want to start a school.
[01:15:32]  I want to be able to help my son start businesses one day.
[01:15:36]  I want to start a publishing company.
[01:15:38]  I want.
[01:15:39]  The men in my church to seriously consider running for local office, city council.
[01:15:45]  There's a lot of things we want to do, and I'd like to not do it in the Sahara Desert.
[01:15:49]  I'd like to be able to plant all these trees, not just Webb and household trees, but Covenant Bible Church trees, and publishing company trees, and right response trees, and this classical Christian school that we want to start trees, and local politics trees.
[01:16:02]  I want to be able to plant all these trees somewhere where there's not just sand, like an actual dirt with water and a reasonable amount of sunlight.
[01:16:14]  So there was that reason.
[01:16:16]  But the last reason, the last reason is because me and my elders vehemently disagreed.

=== Pastoral Disagreements Over Scripture Application (04:38) ===

[01:16:26]  We were not aligned.
[01:16:29]  And that's not a unique, special one in a million story.
[01:16:33]  I can tell you story after story after story after story after story.
[01:16:39]  Over the last two years, I cannot tell you how many pastors have reached out to me about.
[01:16:45]  About them and their fellow elders being divided.
[01:16:52]  Pastors did not agree on the COVID issue.
[01:16:55]  And I'm not talking about pastors, meaning John MacArthur and Tim Keller.
[01:16:58]  I'm talking about pastors in the same church.
[01:17:02]  They did not agree about COVID.
[01:17:05]  They did not agree about Black Lives Matter.
[01:17:09]  They did not agree over how political, I mean, just even the big 30,000 foot view things, how much politics should be in the pulpit.
[01:17:20]  I believe that the statement Jesus is Lord is the most politically profound statement ever made in all the universe.
[01:17:29]  I believe that politics should be in the pulpit because we believe in all of Christ for all of life.
[01:17:35]  I believe in the whole counsel of God for the whole of human society.
[01:17:39]  I am not going to preach that Jesus is content with a privatized lordship of your sweet little heart.
[01:17:48]  Jesus is Lord of Lords.
[01:17:50]  Jesus is King of Kings.
[01:17:53]  He rules the nations with an iron scepter, and every knee that will not bow will break because Christ is going to receive the nations one way or another as his inheritance.
[01:18:08]  And he is ruling and reigning now, not waiting to come back and rule one day, but ruling and reigning now.
[01:18:16]  And that is not an impotent, merely spiritual, ethereal thing.
[01:18:21]  Theoretical reign.
[01:18:22]  It is a tangible, earthly, physical, significant rule and reign in heaven and on earth.
[01:18:31]  All authority in heaven and on earth, which means when I preach, I preach not politics first and foremost, but I preach Bible.
[01:18:39]  I preach a text.
[01:18:41]  I say, This is the word of the Lord.
[01:18:43]  Thus saith the Lord.
[01:18:45]  Hosea chapter 5, 1 Timothy chapter 3.
[01:18:48]  This is God's word.
[01:18:50]  This is the meaning of faithful exegesis and interpretation of God's word.
[01:18:55]  And this.
[01:18:56]  Lastly, is the application of God's word.
[01:19:01]  Listen, if you are committed to expositional preaching, I have a text and here's the exegesis, and then you sit down, you did not preach.
[01:19:09]  That's not a sermon.
[01:19:10]  That is an audible commentary.
[01:19:13]  Everyone could have just stayed home.
[01:19:15]  That's an audible commentary.
[01:19:17]  It is not preaching.
[01:19:18]  It is not a sermon.
[01:19:19]  A sermon is three parts revelation, not I have a dream, not I have an idea, not I have a church growth strategy.
[01:19:26]  I have a revelation.
[01:19:27]  The revelation is a text.
[01:19:30]  Give me a text.
[01:19:31]  That's number one.
[01:19:32]  Number two, interpretation.
[01:19:34]  This is the text and this is what God means by it.
[01:19:36]  This is the faithful exegesis interpretation of the text.
[01:19:40]  But the third part, application.
[01:19:43]  If all you do is say, here's a text, here's its meaning, commentary.
[01:19:47]  Here's a text, here's its meaning, here's its relevancy, here's how it applies.
[01:19:52]  And not just 17 points to be a better parent.
[01:19:55]  It's not, we have treated the word of God as though its only application was the home and the church, our marriages.
[01:20:01]  Our parenting and our church growth seminars for the last 50 years.
[01:20:06]  And this is precisely where it's gotten us.
[01:20:10]  Stop that crap.
[01:20:12]  We cannot afford to be so dumb, so naive.
[01:20:18]  Innocent as doves, yes, but shrewd as vipers.
[01:20:23]  Innocence is not the same as naivety.
[01:20:26]  We have been naive.
[01:20:27]  No, the Bible applies to everything.
[01:20:30]  We don't just preach the same text every week.
[01:20:33]  We preach text by text by text, the whole Bible, expositional preaching, the whole counsel of God.
[01:20:39]  And we apply it not just to the same arenas in human society every week marriage, parenting, marriage, parenting, marriage, parenting.
[01:20:46]  No, we apply it to culture, politics, academics, media, arts, science, education, everything free markets, economics, vocation, everything.

=== Theological Divisions Among Faithful Elders (15:04) ===

[01:21:04]  The word of God is sufficient.
[01:21:05]  The scripture says, 2 Timothy chapter 3, it is sufficient.
[01:21:09]  It's God breathed, inerrant.
[01:21:12]  It's infallible.
[01:21:13]  And it's sufficient to make the man of God complete for every good work, not just the good work of parenting, every good work.
[01:21:20]  And it is infallible and breathed out by God.
[01:21:26]  It's sufficient for all of life and godliness.
[01:21:31]  Life is a big, broad, All encompassing word.
[01:21:35]  It's not just that scripture, some guys will say, Oh, I believe in the sufficiency of scripture.
[01:21:39]  Okay, but here's the next question for what?
[01:21:41]  Sufficient for what?
[01:21:42]  Sufficient to get you to heaven?
[01:21:44]  Sufficient to be saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone?
[01:21:47]  Sufficient for salvation?
[01:21:48]  No, no.
[01:21:50]  The Bible is most certainly sufficient for salvation and a whole lot more.
[01:21:54]  It's not merely sufficient for salvation.
[01:21:57]  The Bible is sufficient.
[01:21:59]  My Bible says, My Bible says what it's sufficient for.
[01:22:02]  The Bible says it's sufficient for life.
[01:22:04]  Not just salvation, life.
[01:22:07]  And not just eternal life, not just the life to come, not just the life then, the life here, the life now, life, all of it.
[01:22:15]  Every good work.
[01:22:18]  Good works in the home, good works in the church, and good works in the public square.
[01:22:21]  So, politics, yes.
[01:22:25]  But my point is, elders divided over this.
[01:22:28]  My elders divided over these things.
[01:22:32]  We divided over tyranny.
[01:22:35]  We didn't agree on tyranny.
[01:22:36]  I said that Gavin Newsom was a tyrant.
[01:22:40]  I had a couple elders say, California's doing a great job with COVID.
[01:22:44]  I couldn't believe that, but that's what was said.
[01:22:47]  That's a big disagreement.
[01:22:49]  That's a big disagreement.
[01:22:52]  I remember when the panel went down, the infamous panel.
[01:22:56]  John MacArthur, you got Jay Mack, Phil Johnson, you got Mark Dever, Ligan Duncan, and Al Moeller, Shepherd's Conference.
[01:23:04]  I was there in person with my elders at that conference.
[01:23:07]  I remember the sharp dispute between Phil Johnson and Albert Moeller.
[01:23:13]  Phil Johnson asking some pointed questions.
[01:23:16]  Sure, maybe you could have worded them better, but it was not inherently immoral.
[01:23:19]  The way that he said it, not what he asked, not even how he asked it.
[01:23:23]  It was not inherently immoral.
[01:23:25]  Everybody could say something better.
[01:23:27]  Oh, I wouldn't have said it like that.
[01:23:28]  Great.
[01:23:29]  Great.
[01:23:29]  Good for you.
[01:23:30]  Okay.
[01:23:31]  But it was not inherently immoral, the way that he worded these things.
[01:23:35]  And Al Moeller was irate.
[01:23:38]  He was incredibly defensive.
[01:23:40]  Why wouldn't you sign the statement on social justice in the gospel?
[01:23:44]  Well, I talk about this for 15 minutes every day, you know, with a briefing.
[01:23:51]  No, dude.
[01:23:52]  Now we know why you didn't sign it.
[01:23:55]  Tell me, well, I didn't like the way things were worded.
[01:23:57]  Okay, could you give me an example?
[01:23:59]  One example, Phil Johnson asked.
[01:24:01]  One example.
[01:24:01]  Tell me a thing that was worded a way that you didn't like it to be worded.
[01:24:06]  Well, I'm just not somebody who signs statements.
[01:24:10]  No, no, no.
[01:24:11]  It's not that you disagreed with the wording.
[01:24:14]  You didn't sign it because you've got guys at your seminary, Al, who would have lost their minds if you signed this.
[01:24:22]  That's why.
[01:24:24]  Because you may not be woke, although I think you might be, but you're definitely harboring.
[01:24:29]  Some woke guys.
[01:24:31]  And this has been documented.
[01:24:32]  John Harris has done a great job with this.
[01:24:34]  This is well documented.
[01:24:35]  This is not speculation.
[01:24:36]  This is fact.
[01:24:38]  But here's my point a bunch of churches there for that panel, whole elder teams, local churches with all their elders there.
[01:24:45]  Me there with my elders.
[01:24:47]  And me and my elders had a sharp dispute again over that.
[01:24:51]  Not just a sharp dispute over Gavin Newsom, whether or not he's a tyrant, but we had a sharp dispute over whether or not.
[01:25:00]  This whole woke thing going on with Al Moeller was legitimate.
[01:25:05]  I remember arguing and saying, No, Phil Johnson didn't do anything wrong.
[01:25:09]  And having the other, Phil Johnson is a bulldog.
[01:25:12]  Phil Johnson is a bully.
[01:25:13]  Phil Johnson is a jerk.
[01:25:16]  And then I'm listening to all the podcasts after that, right?
[01:25:18]  Because everybody was giving their two cents of that panel.
[01:25:21]  And all the guys who say Phil Johnson was in the wrong, all those guys are woke now.
[01:25:25]  Did you know that?
[01:25:28]  And the guys who are saying, No, Albert Moeller's being overly defensive.
[01:25:32]  This is weird.
[01:25:33]  Something's fishy.
[01:25:34]  All those guys are the guys who have stood the test of time and been faithful.
[01:25:39]  Phil Johnson was not in the wrong.
[01:25:41]  He wasn't.
[01:25:43]  But my point is, all the way back then with that pen, it's fracturing.
[01:25:48]  And the reason why I'm sharing this, it's not, oh, you know, the world's smallest violin, woe is me.
[01:25:52]  No, no, no.
[01:25:53]  I'm sharing my experience to say this is multiple years, this was even pre COVID.
[01:25:59]  For multiple years, what you have to realize, Christian, who is not a pastor, for those of you who are not pastors, What you have to realize is from like 2015, 16, for sure by 17, there have been massively polarized.
[01:26:13]  It's what Votie Bacham wrote.
[01:26:14]  If you haven't read his book, Fault Lines, you need to read it.
[01:26:17]  All these fault lines, right?
[01:26:18]  We knew the old fault lines.
[01:26:20]  We played for 50 years, we played this national game of musical chairs with churches where we're all picking which chair we're going to sit in.
[01:26:32]  Oh, I'm on this side of the aisle, you're on that side of the aisle.
[01:26:35]  And we're doing it over the old fault lines.
[01:26:37]  The old fault lines were things like are you Presbyterian or are you Baptist?
[01:26:41]  Do you baptize believers only or are you, you know, Pado Baptist?
[01:26:46]  Are you confessional or not?
[01:26:47]  Sabbatarian or not?
[01:26:48]  You know, that's a small fault line.
[01:26:50]  Nobody ever really cared too much about that.
[01:26:53]  Here's another big one, even bigger than the Baptist Presbyterian thing, but are you Calvinist or Arminian?
[01:26:59]  That was a big one.
[01:27:00]  Here's another one cessationist or continuationist.
[01:27:02]  Here's another one complementarian, which we realized that that dog won't hunt.
[01:27:07]  That doesn't hold water.
[01:27:07]  Complementarian wasn't enough.
[01:27:09]  What we need is biblical patriarchy, which is where I've been for the last few years.
[01:27:16]  I was complementarian.
[01:27:17]  I thought that was the right position.
[01:27:18]  I, you know, I, yeah, I'm complementarian.
[01:27:20]  Not realizing that the problem with complementarianism is it puts the roles of men and women as though they were arbitrarily assigned by God.
[01:27:27]  Like, men and women are really no different, but God just arbitrarily assigns a role of helpmate to women and assigns a role of protector and provider and leader and headship to men.
[01:27:39]  Like, God just assigned the role of flying to birds, but it has nothing to do with their hollow bone structure and feathers and wings, right?
[01:27:47]  And God just assigned the role of swimming to fish.
[01:27:50]  As though it had no relationship to the fact that they have scales and fins and gills.
[01:27:56]  That's complementarianism.
[01:27:58]  Complementarianism indicts God as an arbitrary role assigner.
[01:28:01]  It says God is arbitrary.
[01:28:04]  Biblical patriarchy says, no, we have different roles because we actually have different natures.
[01:28:08]  Men were born to lead, women aren't.
[01:28:11]  They're just not.
[01:28:12]  Women were born to nurture.
[01:28:13]  So, biblical patriarchy is the right thing.
[01:28:14]  But here's the deal back in the day, egalitarianism, complementarianism, egalitarianism, complement.
[01:28:19]  Do you have male elders only, or do you have some female elders?
[01:28:23]  Do you let a female preach?
[01:28:25]  Oh, you don't call her an elder, but she's preaching underneath the authority of the elders.
[01:28:28]  I remember that one.
[01:28:30]  That card still gets played, right?
[01:28:32]  But that was another dividing line.
[01:28:34]  This guy has women preaching.
[01:28:36]  All right.
[01:28:36]  He's on that side of the aisle.
[01:28:37]  I'm over here.
[01:28:38]  We're not on the same team, right?
[01:28:39]  We played this big game of musical chairs.
[01:28:41]  And it wasn't just we played the game once and sat down 50 years.
[01:28:44]  I'm saying for 50 years, continually throughout that time, we were playing.
[01:28:47]  And it's like we all finally felt like we got in our seats.
[01:28:51]  Okay.
[01:28:52]  I know now.
[01:28:52]  All right.
[01:28:53]  I'm Baptist.
[01:28:53]  You're a Presbyterian.
[01:28:54]  I. Reformed, Arminian, complementarian, egalitarian, cessationist, continuationist, confessional, you know, not confessional, whatever.
[01:29:03]  And everybody sat down.
[01:29:05]  And then, boom, all these fault lines, these new fault lines we didn't even know were there underneath the surface in the earth.
[01:29:16]  The tectonic plates started rumbling and shaking with these new.
[01:29:20]  We thought that we were ready for the earthquake.
[01:29:24]  Like we had already sat down, we put our seat belts on, we were good.
[01:29:27]  We knew, like, okay, if an earthquake goes off, you know, I'm going to be saying bye, Arminian brothers, and I'm good, but I'm going to be over here with my Calvinist brothers on this side.
[01:29:35]  We're all buckled in, and like, but then I lost half of my Calvinist brothers too, because there was another fault line in between us called CRT, and then another one with COVID tyranny, and then another one just philosophically and doctrinally, like, um, how do you read Romans 13?
[01:29:54]  Do we all, yes, sir, Caesar, yes, sir, Caesar, yes, sir, Caesar, or or actually, is there Protestant resistance theory?
[01:30:02]  Get rendered under Caesar.
[01:30:03]  What is Caesar's?
[01:30:04]  Sure.
[01:30:05]  And who decides what is Caesar's?
[01:30:08]  Does Caesar decide what is Caesar's?
[01:30:09]  What if Caesar says everything is Caesar's?
[01:30:10]  Because that's what Caesar tends to do.
[01:30:13]  Is there ever a point where we could say, no, no, no, God has specifically said this is not your Caesar?
[01:30:18]  No.
[01:30:19]  No Caesar, bad Caesar, down Caesar.
[01:30:22]  Can we do that?
[01:30:23]  Right?
[01:30:23]  All these became the new fault lines.
[01:30:25]  That's what Vody wrote about in his book.
[01:30:27]  And from like 2015, 16, 17, all the way up to Rome, that would be one of the last major of the new fault lines that went off.
[01:30:37]  It was CRT and intersectionality and all under the guise of Racial Reconciliation Conference, Racial Reconciliation Conference, you know.
[01:30:44]  A lament for social injustice, and it's the whole social justice kind of thing that was coming in, and then it's civil tyranny, and then it's medical tyranny, right?
[01:30:54]  And then it's Roe being overturned, and my pastor doesn't say a word not a word.
[01:30:58]  And I say a word on social media, and he sends me a text and tells me that I need to tone it down, right?
[01:31:03]  All these things start happening.
[01:31:04]  And what I'm saying is, you saw that if you're not a pastor, you saw that from the perspective of, well, that really sucks.
[01:31:11]  I'm really disappointed.
[01:31:12]  Now I have to find a new church, and I can't find a new church.
[01:31:14]  There's no all the churches.
[01:31:15]  Went woke.
[01:31:16]  All the churches are COVID tyrants.
[01:31:18]  All the churches compromised.
[01:31:19]  Yeah, that's tough.
[01:31:20]  That's tough.
[01:31:21]  And I've been counseling a lot of you guys on that issue.
[01:31:24]  But what I'm saying is behind closed doors, at the elder experience, what you didn't see is that every single one of these local churches was fighting an internal battle.
[01:31:37]  You just saw which team of the elders won.
[01:31:42]  And if the good team won and you were a faithful Christian, then you stayed because the church was faithful.
[01:31:47]  If the good team lost and the bad team won and they went woke or they compromised or they became tyrants and they shut down the church for seven months or whatever, and you were a faithful Christian, you left.
[01:31:56]  What you didn't see is that the elders were duking it out.
[01:32:01]  Not every elder.
[01:32:04]  The churches that stayed strong, not all those elders were good guys.
[01:32:09]  They stayed strong because the elders who were good guys won.
[01:32:15]  The good guys won.
[01:32:16]  And the bad guys lost.
[01:32:18]  And the churches that took the wrong side, they closed down forever, they were at BLM rallies, but they wouldn't open their church.
[01:32:24]  It's not because there were no faithful elders there.
[01:32:27]  It could be, but there are cases where there were faithful elders, but the faithful elders lost.
[01:32:32]  They lost.
[01:32:33]  The bad guys won.
[01:32:35]  And what I'm saying is there are always divisions and quarrels and disagreements with elders.
[01:32:42]  It is a very polarizing, just the nature of the work, leading a church in the scripture.
[01:32:52]  It's theology.
[01:32:54]  People have a lot of opinions about theology.
[01:32:55]  You know who really has a lot of opinions about theology?
[01:32:58]  Pastors.
[01:33:00]  Pastors have a whole lot of opinions about theology.
[01:33:03]  So, what do you do when you have a plurality of pastors with a plurality, each, of opinions about the scriptures?
[01:33:11]  Well, what you do is you have disagreements.
[01:33:15]  You have disagreements.
[01:33:16]  But what if you do if you live in a unique historical moment where.
[01:33:21]  Like some of these things are unprecedented, at least for our generation.
[01:33:26]  And nobody really knows where to stand or knows where to look to, right?
[01:33:30]  Like we all say, well, John MacArthur, he stood his ground.
[01:33:33]  Well, okay, but my church in California also, I was in California at the time, we started gathering again before John MacArthur.
[01:33:41]  And my point is not to brag and say we beat MacArthur.
[01:33:43]  My point is to say we couldn't look to MacArthur.
[01:33:45]  When we made the decision to gather, we were going against what MacArthur was currently saying at that time.
[01:33:50]  So we couldn't look to an older man and say, we'll follow the faithfulness of MacArthur.
[01:33:53]  MacArthur at that time was still writing.
[01:33:55]  He had just written an article talking about how the Ninth Circuit Court was the highest law in their land.
[01:34:01]  And even though they knew it was a perverse court and that it was a pagan court and that it had lots of unjust rulings about other things, they still ruled.
[01:34:09]  And Romans 13 means we submit to the highest ruler in the land.
[01:34:13]  And the Ninth Circuit Court is the highest ruler.
[01:34:17]  And so, even though we said we're going to meet on Sunday, we changed our minds, we canceled.
[01:34:22]  That was my example from John MacArthur that I had to go off of.
[01:34:26]  Now, two weeks later, he wrote Christ, not Caesar, the head of the church, which directly contradicted the article that he put out two weeks before.
[01:34:35]  And they did directly contradict.
[01:34:37]  John MacArthur did not hold his ground the whole time, he was wrong.
[01:34:41]  And then became right.
[01:34:43]  He was wrong and verbally said he was wrong.
[01:34:47]  Well, he didn't say he was wrong admitting, but he said wrong things verbally.
[01:34:51]  And then he changed his opinion.
[01:34:53]  But here's the deal my point is, pastors already are opinionated, pastors already disagree.
[01:34:59]  And then all of a sudden, you've got all these new fault lines, things that we had never dealt with before.
[01:35:03]  And we don't have other guys to look to because the other guys to look to, like, well, here's the problem we did have other guys to look to.
[01:35:10]  One of the reasons why me and my elders disagreed on COVID and our church reopening. Is because the elders who disagreed with me, I'm saying, let's reopen.
[01:35:18]  You know who they were citing as their proof text for why we shouldn't reopen?
[01:35:22]  MacArthur.
[01:35:26]  Because MacArthur was saying that churches shouldn't open, they should submit to the law of the land.
[01:35:32]  And I was saying, trying to say humbly, and I'm sure I didn't do it perfectly, but I was saying, I like MacArthur, but he's wrong.
[01:35:40]  And you know who agreed with me two weeks later about MacArthur being wrong?
[01:35:43]  MacArthur.
[01:35:49]  But my point is, it's been a divisive time.
[01:35:52]  And if you got all those things going on, it's like, well, Chandler's been getting woke.
[01:35:55]  Yeah, I agree.
[01:35:56]  It's a problem.
[01:35:57]  I left Acts 29 over it.
[01:35:59]  So it's serious.
[01:36:00]  I don't want to make light of that.
[01:36:01]  I left a network that I liked, that I had friends in, over that.
[01:36:05]  There's a few other things, but that was the big one.

=== Extra-Biblical Categories Causing Division (10:19) ===

[01:36:08]  Chandler's getting woke.
[01:36:08]  Okay, but here's the deal the village church is massive, there's a bunch of elders.
[01:36:14]  My point is, I bet you there's some guys who aren't on board with the wokeness.
[01:36:19]  Again, I said, I tell you when I'm speculating, this is speculation.
[01:36:23]  It's possible maybe Chandler's going unwoke.
[01:36:26]  Maybe Chandler has been having conversations with his elders saying, I don't think this was the right path.
[01:36:30]  Maybe we need to, and maybe some of the elders are saying, no, no, no, no, we're staying woke.
[01:36:36]  My point is this we don't know any of that.
[01:36:38]  I don't know.
[01:36:40]  Speculation.
[01:36:40]  I'm not making any definitive claims.
[01:36:42]  But I am saying this when you have extra biblical categories, you're either disqualified, aka you're fired, or you're not disqualified, aka.
[01:36:53]  Take a week off and then hop back to it, bro.
[01:37:02]  But you're not fired.
[01:37:03]  You're getting a paid vacation for an indefinite period of time.
[01:37:06]  Something really serious happened to the point where I'm in tears and this is unbefitting of the pastor, but it's not disqualifying.
[01:37:13]  That's an extra biblical category.
[01:37:15]  That's a third category.
[01:37:16]  You're either out or you're in, disqualified or qualified.
[01:37:19]  That's a third category.
[01:37:21]  And my point is with that third category, that makes me wonder.
[01:37:26]  What's going on?
[01:37:27]  Was someone threatening to expose these things and have their Me Too moment with some pagan news outlet and they wanted to get ahead of it?
[01:37:33]  And that's why they got the third party to come in, not just to investigate the DMs with Instagram, but to actually give them a PR plan for how to move forward?
[01:37:46]  And the last thing I added with all the fault lines is that the reason why I said all that is to say another piece of the puzzle is also you just got to keep in mind elders disagree.
[01:37:56]  And I know Chandler said, this is what the elders said, and I agree with them.
[01:38:01]  You know what?
[01:38:02]  I have said I agree with my elders before when I absolutely did not agree with them.
[01:38:11]  Well, why did you do that, Joel?
[01:38:14]  Isn't that lying?
[01:38:15]  Yeah, it was a sin.
[01:38:17]  I should not have said that.
[01:38:19]  Well, then why?
[01:38:20]  Why would you say you agree with your elders when you don't agree with them?
[01:38:26]  Because I was afraid of my elders.
[01:38:31]  Because my elders were.
[01:38:33]  Abusive and manipulative because I thought my elders were conducting a mutiny against me because I thought I was going to lose my job with a baby on the way.
[01:38:52]  My job that didn't pay me enough to begin with.
[01:38:55]  My job that there are reasons.
[01:38:57]  I'm not saying they're valid reasons, I'm not saying they're virtuous reasons, I'm not saying that they are biblical reasons.
[01:39:06]  Fear is sin.
[01:39:08]  Dishonesty is sin.
[01:39:11]  My point, though, is to say there are moments it gets heated at the elders' table sometimes.
[01:39:18]  You know, it gets heated.
[01:39:21]  You know that you've had disagreements with family members, with close friends, with fellow church members over these last two years about these new fault lines, these issues.
[01:39:28]  You know, it's polarizing.
[01:39:29]  You know, it's divisive.
[01:39:31]  And all I'm saying is this it's been divisive for elders on the same team, too.
[01:39:36]  And we have, I think, yet to see.
[01:39:39]  All the fallout that there's going to be.
[01:39:40]  And I'm not talking about the village.
[01:39:41]  I'm talking about across the whole landscape.
[01:39:45]  Mark my words, for years, I'm not saying a century, 100 years, but I think for the next five to 10 years, we're going to see church after church after church split, split, split, crumble, crumble, crumble.
[01:40:02]  And I think a big part of it will be because of embracing things that don't please the Lord and therefore are not sustainable, like woke ideology, but also.
[01:40:11]  A lot of these splits will be because half of the elders embraced it and half of them didn't.
[01:40:16]  And you never knew.
[01:40:17]  You never knew.
[01:40:19]  But not everybody was on board.
[01:40:21]  One church was doing something that looked really good, but there were some bad guys on board that might eventually win.
[01:40:27]  And you're like, what happened?
[01:40:29]  And another church that you think was really bad, right?
[01:40:32]  The lead pastor was woke.
[01:40:33]  He's preaching woke.
[01:40:34]  A majority of the elders are woke, but some other guys weren't.
[01:40:38]  And maybe eventually they grow and get the upper hand.
[01:40:42]  There's.
[01:40:45]  There's some stuff.
[01:40:47]  There's some stuff behind the scenes.
[01:40:48]  There's some stuff in that elder's room, at that elder's table.
[01:40:53]  We don't always agree.
[01:40:57]  And that doesn't mean that we're disqualified.
[01:40:59]  Some of us are.
[01:41:01]  But it does mean that we're sinners.
[01:41:04]  Elders are sinners.
[01:41:05]  The qualification for eldership is not sinlessness.
[01:41:08]  If the qualification for eldership is sinlessness, then Jesus is the only one who's qualified to be an elder.
[01:41:13]  But the Bible teaches that Jesus, although he is the chief shepherd, 1 Peter chapter 5, he has under shepherds who hold the office of elder to help manage.
[01:41:22]  We don't own the sheep, they're his sheep, but we help as under shepherds to manage his sheep.
[01:41:28]  And we do it as sheep ourselves.
[01:41:31]  As those, we are helping manage sinners as sinners ourselves for the only one who is truly sinless.
[01:41:40]  An elder must be above reproach.
[01:41:42]  He must be the man about one wife.
[01:41:44]  He must not be given too much wine.
[01:41:46]  An elder must be able to manage his household.
[01:41:48]  An elder has qualifications.
[01:41:50]  There are certain things that an elder May not do.
[01:41:52]  But that doesn't mean for him to be qualified, he doesn't commit these sins, that still doesn't mean that he's sinless.
[01:42:01]  And the last couple years has been, it's been hard to be a Christian.
[01:42:07]  And without sounding insensitive to those of you who are not pastors, it's been hard to be a Christian.
[01:42:13]  But I would argue it has been just as hard, if not harder, to be a pastor.
[01:42:20]  It's been really hard.
[01:42:21]  You guys have lost friends, so have we.
[01:42:24]  We've lost fellow elders, we've lost close friendships.
[01:42:28]  We've duked it out.
[01:42:29]  Sometimes the good guys win, sometimes they don't.
[01:42:32]  And sometimes the bad guys who lose look like the good guys because they lick their finger and put it in the air, and the wind starts to blow differently and starts to change.
[01:42:43]  And then they hop on the right rhetoric, and nobody's the wiser.
[01:42:46]  Nobody ever knows that they are actually arguing for the exact opposite position.
[01:42:51]  And they just take it to their grave.
[01:42:52]  You just don't know.
[01:42:56]  That happens.
[01:42:58]  And that may be happening at the village.
[01:43:02]  Someone's either trying to tank the village with some big, Public news story, Me Too hashtag moment, or there's something going on at the elders' table.
[01:43:16]  It has to be one of those things.
[01:43:20]  Because otherwise, if the elders are united and no one's trying to take down the village, I'll tell you one thing that I know, being an elder, being a pastor for several years now, one thing I know is you do not make a man go up behind the pulpit.
[01:43:37]  Who is emotionally unstable, in tears, distraught, disturbed, his own words, disoriented, and grovel and apologize with specificity, not just before the church, but publicly live streamed to the world for something that is not disqualifying.
[01:44:09]  Unless your elders have a coup or you're trying to make him grovel in order to appease the Me Too people who are already threatening to post something if you didn't get to it first.
[01:44:27]  Some speculation?
[01:44:29]  Yeah.
[01:44:30]  But there's something going on because this is an extra biblical category.
[01:44:35]  Disqualified, no paid sabbatical, fired.
[01:44:40]  Qualified, no paid sabbatical.
[01:44:41]  No indefinite sabbatical.
[01:44:44]  Take a week off.
[01:44:44]  We'll see you.
[01:44:45]  We'll see you in a couple weeks.
[01:44:48]  But the third category of not disqualified, not sexual, not romantic, also indefinite, immediate leave of absence.
[01:44:57]  I'm embarrassed.
[01:45:01]  I'm ashamed.
[01:45:03]  I'm disoriented.
[01:45:08]  Something's fishy.
[01:45:10]  Something's fishy.
[01:45:12]  I think division with the elders, or someone was threatening with some Me Too thing to expose the church, to expose something.
[01:45:21]  Maybe neither, maybe something else, but something.
[01:45:25]  Something.
[01:45:27]  And it matters.
[01:45:29]  It matters because they put it out for everybody to see.
[01:45:32]  It's fair game, it's public.
[01:45:34]  We're allowed to talk about these things.
[01:45:36]  And the reason why it matters in terms of fruitfulness, being constructive for you, listener, the reason why it matters in that regard is because you need to know.
[01:45:45]  Because some of you probably didn't know this until you're hearing me say it.
[01:45:48]  Some of you, it didn't sit right, but you didn't know how to word it.
[01:45:50]  Now you do.
[01:45:52]  You need to know this is not a biblical response to sin when found in a pastor.
[01:45:58]  This is not how a church should respond to their pastor being in sin.
[01:46:03]  The sin is either disqualifying or it's not.
[01:46:06]  If it's not disqualifying, that doesn't mean it doesn't matter.
[01:46:09]  That doesn't mean there's not something to do.
[01:46:11]  But the thing, the work to be done with a non disqualifying sin in a pastor is work that is done that saves his dignity.
[01:46:19]  It's work that is done privately.
[01:46:23]  It's not dragging him and his family and their reputation through the mud.

=== True Repentance vs. Public Relations (03:16) ===

[01:46:28]  It's not.
[01:46:30]  Defcon 5 level, immediate, indefinite.
[01:46:34]  I'm gone.
[01:46:35]  I'm disoriented.
[01:46:36]  I'm in tears.
[01:46:39]  That's not the way you handle stuff like this.
[01:46:42]  It's not.
[01:46:44]  So, my prayer is that it really wasn't sexual, that it really wasn't romantic, that they're being truthful about those things, that there are no other women, that Chandler really has been a one woman man.
[01:46:57]  That's my prayer at that level, that it's not a bona fide moral failure.
[01:47:03]  I pray that it's not that.
[01:47:06]  But it's something.
[01:47:08]  And if it's not that, if it's not just they're lying and it's actually a lot worse, if it's not that scenario, that it's actually just a lot worse and they're not being truthful, then the only other scenarios is some icky stuff going on with the elder team.
[01:47:22]  Or somebody threatening to make all these DMs public to shame Chandler, to shame the village, to try to take them down, and they had to get ahead of it.
[01:47:39]  And that's kind of the world we live in.
[01:47:41]  I still don't think that's the right approach.
[01:47:44]  I don't think that's the right approach.
[01:47:45]  I think that's PR and not necessarily repentance.
[01:47:49]  Could be, but it doesn't look good.
[01:47:53]  That's not the right approach.
[01:47:54]  But that is the world that we live in.
[01:47:56]  We are like sheep among wolves.
[01:47:57]  Jesus said that.
[01:47:58]  We live among ravenous wolves.
[01:47:59]  We live in a pagan culture that hates Christianity.
[01:48:04]  Do you know why our culture hates men?
[01:48:08]  Because strong masculine headship relates to Christianity.
[01:48:15]  Do you know why our culture hates white people?
[01:48:18]  Because the last 500 years, Christianity has mostly taken root in predominantly Western white civilizations.
[01:48:28]  That's changing now, praise God.
[01:48:30]  Christianity exploding in China and Brazil and all over the world.
[01:48:34]  But think about that.
[01:48:35]  It's not arbitrary.
[01:48:36]  Why the attack on masculinity?
[01:48:38]  Why the attack on Colonizing and Western society and culture and whiteness, and why the attack on the family, why the attack on children wanting to trans children, why the attack on babies in the womb with abortion is all of it is just the framework, it's all just the fruit and different tenets of Christianity.
[01:49:00]  Who's actually being attacked?
[01:49:02]  What is the common denominator across all of it?
[01:49:05]  What does our world truly hate?
[01:49:09]  Jesus.
[01:49:11]  Jesus.
[01:49:13]  And they'll do anything they can.
[01:49:16]  You can't make Jesus fall.
[01:49:17]  He's impeccable.
[01:49:18]  Jesus is sinless.
[01:49:19]  He's seated at the right hand of the Father.
[01:49:21]  The world had its chance.
[01:49:22]  They crucified him, but he's resurrected and ascended and reigning.
[01:49:27]  Can't do anything to Jesus.
[01:49:28]  But what you can do, if you can't take out Jesus, what you can do is you can smear and pervert and twist and defile those who represent Jesus.
[01:49:41]  And that's what Satan has always done, ever since the beginning.

=== Jesus Reigns Above All Hatred (02:59) ===

[01:49:44]  And that's what he's doing now.
[01:49:46]  And it seems as though he's ramping things up these last few years.
[01:49:50]  And I hope, by God's grace, that he doesn't win.
[01:49:52]  I hope that Chandler comes out above reproach, not sinless, but above reproach.
[01:50:00]  And I hope that the Lord uses this, not only that he's proven above reproach in this area, but in the areas that he has not been above reproach, namely being woke, that Chandler repents, that the Lord uses this to draw him near to God.
[01:50:16]  And my prayer is not that the village crumbles, but that the village thrives out of this.
[01:50:22]  And that anybody who may be threatening to do something that causes them to respond, and what I think is a Extra biblical way with this situation.
[01:50:30]  I hope that the Lord in His mercy crushes that person or those people.
[01:50:37]  That He would shut the mouth of lions who seek to devour.
[01:50:43]  I'm not a fan of Acts 29 anymore.
[01:50:45]  You guys know that.
[01:50:45]  I'm not a fan of Chandler.
[01:50:46]  I'm not a fan of the village, but I love them.
[01:50:49]  Not a fan, but I love them.
[01:50:51]  I want their best.
[01:50:53]  And if Chandler comes back and he's qualified, they told the truth.
[01:51:00]  And he repents of his wokeness and he wants to start preaching the gospel, the actual gospel again, then I'm for him.
[01:51:10]  I'll forgive Chandler in a heartbeat.
[01:51:12]  The Lord used him in my life immensely.
[01:51:15]  I like that guy.
[01:51:16]  I don't want him to fail.
[01:51:16]  I like that guy.
[01:51:17]  I am grateful to Matt Chandler.
[01:51:20]  I am.
[01:51:20]  I'm grateful to Mark Driscoll, too.
[01:51:23]  I am.
[01:51:24]  I know there were mistakes there.
[01:51:26]  But the Lord used those guys immensely, and none of us should be rooting for their destruction.
[01:51:32]  All right.
[01:51:33]  Thanks for tuning in.
[01:51:35]  For those of you who came in late, you got to go back and watch the recording, not because it's my best podcast, not because there's a whole lot of good information.
[01:51:42]  Lord knows I went super duper long.
[01:51:44]  You need to go back and watch the recording for the first two minutes so that you can see Franklin.
[01:51:49]  I brought him on the camera.
[01:51:50]  Franklin, little baby Joel Franklin.
[01:51:52]  He was born just a few days ago.
[01:51:53]  All right.
[01:51:54]  Thanks so much.
[01:51:55]  We'll skip next Monday because it's Labor Day, but we'll pick back up, Lord willing, the Monday after that.
[01:52:00]  So I'll see you guys live with our QA and about.
[01:52:04]  A week and a half.
[01:52:05]  Today was not really a QA.
[01:52:06]  It was just Joel's thoughts on Chandler.
[01:52:09]  I will read the comments.
[01:52:10]  I haven't got to look at them as we were going along, but I'll read the comments.
[01:52:13]  I know you guys will have points and you'll have questions.
[01:52:16]  And maybe I'll do a follow up where I really engage your questions next time.
[01:52:22]  So God bless, and we'll see you again in the near future.
[01:52:26]  Lord willing.
[01:52:27]  Thanks so much for listening.
[01:52:28]  But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
[01:52:36]  This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible.
[01:52:43]  Thanks so much.