John MacArthur's stance on alcohol abstinence is examined within 1 Peter 5, distinguishing between domineering coercion and persuasive preaching that does not constitute spiritual abuse. While elders must lead without force, secondary doctrinal positions like temperance allow congregants liberty to disagree without triggering church discipline. The segment concludes by promoting Right Response Ministries' upcoming 2023 conference featuring James White and Joe Boot, alongside new media initiatives, suggesting that true freedom of conscience requires balancing authoritative teaching with individual liberty in non-essential matters. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Persuasion Over Coercion00:04:14
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Jesus said, Man cannot live on bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
You're listening to Daily Truth.
In all these ways, an elder must be able to say to those in his church, Follow me as I follow Christ.
He must be able to set an example for the flock.
That's 1 Peter 5.
Not domineering over those in your charge.
Domineering meaning not pushing and prodding the sheep by coercion, as we said last week, but rather persuasion.
Now, there are many in the church today in America.
Not saying this church necessarily, but in the church today in America, who would interpret persuasion as coercion?
I don't like the way you're talking to me.
You made it feel as though if I was to take any other position than the one you espoused, I would be wrong.
Now we have to ask is that domineering?
Is that coercion?
Is that spiritual abuse?
Or is that just good preaching?
John MacArthur holds as a position.
That a Christian should not drink alcohol.
And he has preached on more than one occasion an entire sermon in his church devoted to binding every conscience in the room to not drinking a drop of alcohol.
I disagree.
R.C. Sproul, Lord knows that man disagreed.
Not saying that he abused alcohol, but it's a Presbyterian, Ligonier Cruises.
There was some whiskey on those cruises.
I'll just leave it at that.
So there's disagreement.
The question is Is MacArthur, as a pastor of his congregation, permitted by the Word of God to see something and have a conviction and seek through persuasive preaching to bind the conscience of every person in the room?
Yes.
Yes.
Is that spiritual abuse?
Well, you'd like to say it is, especially if you like alcohol, right?
You're going to have, if you're in that church and you like to drink, you're going to have a massive temptation.
To say, where's Christian liberty?
What's going on?
But he's allowed to do that.
And the congregation is allowed to disagree because it's secondary.
And MacArthur's church is not commanding in the sense that they're exercising church discipline over those who drink alcohol so long as they're not getting drunk.
Do you understand?
So you're allowed to have a powerful preaching, persuasion, hold a secondary or tertiary, I would argue that one's tertiary, doctrinal.
Position that may in the larger body of Christ be somewhat even obscure, seek to bind the consciences of every person in the room, making the most persuasive arguments that you can, and the congregation at the very same time ultimately disagree.
And you, as the pastor, say, I think you're wrong, I actually think this is wrong, and at the very same time, not exercise church discipline because it is an example where there is liberty.
So, all that being said, the point is that an elder must, through persuasion, not coercion, that's what the scripture means.
1 Peter chapter 5, not domineering.
That's what it means not to domineer.
I think we often interpret domineering through the lens of strong preaching.
If the voice is elevated as mine is now, we are sometimes too quick to throw that into the domineering category.
The Rise of Postmillennialism00:03:58
Do you understand?
So, not domineering simply means not coercion, right?
Not commanding something that really should be counsel.
But through these two authorities, the authority of command.
That which is explicit in scripture, and the authority of counsel, that which is more implicit and peripheral, even in the realm of the authority of counsel, you can still make powerfully persuasive arguments and hold a deep conviction.
A congregant is allowed to do that.
And certainly, so is an elder.
All right, all right, all right.
Stop twisting my arm.
I know you want to hear the inside scoop.
Here it is the glorious vision of right response ministries for the first half.
Of next year, 2023.
We have not one, not two, but three massive endeavors that we will accomplish by the grace of God.
The first you already know about it's our Theonomy and Post Millennialism Conference, May 5th, 6th, and 7th, with James White, Joe Boot, Gary DeMar, Dale Partridge, and yours truly, Pastor Joel Webbin.
This is selling out incredibly fast.
By the time this commercial airs, you may not even be able to get a ticket.
I really don't know.
So don't waste another moment.
Go to rightresponseconference.com.
Rightresponseconference.com to join us for the Theonomy and Post Millennialism Conference next year.
Now, this is where you come in.
We need your help.
Our next two endeavors are number one, a documentary style film, and number two, a brand new studio.
Both of these things are seeking to accomplish one primary goal, which is excellent, high quality, glorious Christian media.
We are tired of, as Christians, doing things poorly.
We've done our best with what we have, but by God's grace, we want to do even better.
This is not going to be just another video.
This is not going to be a sermon or an interview or a podcast, but we're going to make a documentary style film.
And we're going to be hiring Nathan Anderson, the director of On Earth as It Is in Heaven, a very, very successful post millennialism documentary that's on Amazon and YouTube, came out a couple years ago.
He's going to be flying in from Chile to help us direct this film.
And our documentary is going to be on postmillennialism and theonomy why it's biblically valid, why it's absolutely necessary, and why, by the grace of God, theonomy and postmillennialism are currently on the rise.
So, we're going to make this film, and we need your support.
And not just this film, but we're going to make all of our videos and podcasting and everything we do here at Right Response Ministries better.
We want to achieve the highest level of quality.
And Christian excellence that we possibly can.
That's where the new studio comes in.
This new film, our date that we're shooting for is that it would be complete and publicly available in May or June of 2023, next year.
The studio, our goal is that it would be completely done in its construction and the equipment and the setup and the stage and everything by January, February of 2023, next year.
We need your prayers, we need your encouragement.
And for those of you who are willing to do so, we need your generous support.
You can give towards these endeavors by going to rightresponseministries.com forward slash donate.