Joel and Nathan of Right Response Ministries tackle 2025 parenting, arguing against rigid formulas in favor of discerning each child's unique disposition to combat original sin. They defend spanking as a legal Texas tool distinct from abuse, distinguishing formal "spankings" for confession from informal "SWATS" for immediate correction, while condemning hormonal birth control and IUDs as potentially abortifacient violations of Genesis 38. The discussion extends to elder qualifications for divorced men, the dangers of modern softness in discipline, and strict limits on screen time for children under fifteen, ultimately warning that neglecting biblical authority fosters societal decline. [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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Why Reviews Matter for God's Glory00:02:02
Leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform.
I get it.
It's annoying.
Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.
When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm so that our podcast shows up on more people's news feeds.
You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries aren't.
We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.
King Solomon. Basically, once said that of the writing of parenting books there shall be no end.
From Shepherding a Child's Heart to all the gospel centered, centered gospel movement books of the 2010s, there are plenty of books out there on the theology or the principles of parenting.
But parenting is unique in that the Bible offers little practical instruction.
Yes, of course, the Bible instructs us on what we are to teach our children.
And yes, it lays out for us the tools of discipline.
But the Bible says surprisingly little to nothing of all the practicals that make up the day in and day out experience of actually being a parent.
This is also what books on principles of the goals of parenting typically fail in this area as well.
This is because the goal of parenting is not actually to follow a precise formula, be it from the Bible or the latest and greatest parenting books.
But rather, the goal is to learn wisdom.
The Bible doesn't make robots out of parents or children, for that matter, but rather, it provides for us the instructions and principles to shape our souls to love and adore the good, the true, and the beautiful.
And much of that learning and wisdom is practical in nature, not merely theoretical.
Learning Wisdom Over Parenting Formulas00:15:22
Now, this episode is brought to you by our premier sponsors, Armored Republic.
And Reese Fund, as well as our Patreon members and our generous donors.
You can join our Patreon by going to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries, or you can donate by going to right response ministries.com forward slash donate.
So today, let's dive into practical lessons on parenting, training, discipline, and everything in between.
All right, all right.
You saw his handsome face in the stinger, but he is not here.
Michael is engaged in, I would say, the reputable art would be an art of camping.
Oh.
In other words, pretending to be homeless.
Yeah.
When I pay my mortgage and lay down on my nice king bed, you know what I think to myself?
I should go outside.
I should go get eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Yeah, and sleep in a tent.
Yeah.
And part of, you know, like maybe we'd be singing a different tune if we lived, you know, in Wyoming or Montana or somewhere.
Sure.
We live in Texas.
If you did like an Airbnb with a cabin, With Wi Fi, air conditioning?
Sure.
I'll camp there.
And people are like, okay, you guys are soft.
And that's fair.
Guilty as charged.
But we're talking about Texas, guys.
Texas is not the place where you want to sleep outside.
There are bugs the size of horses.
I feel like I've witnessed fire ants physically pick up my young children and carry them away.
And I have to run after them and save their lives.
Texas is bug infested.
We're also a border state.
So there's an invasion, not just of bugs, but illegal immigrants.
You know, there's all sorts of things, and there is also, most importantly, unbearable heat and humility.
It makes you humble.
Humidity.
So, Michael is camping.
We don't know why, but it's the two of us today.
He didn't get the call.
He saw crisis.
Can't do it.
Because I can't do it.
We've done this too many times.
Can't do it again.
But we're going to talk about parenting, which it's actually kind of a bummer.
He's not here because he's raised, I would say, three wonderful children.
They're great friends to our family.
Joel, you have five children, correct?
Five.
I lose count sometimes, so just confirm it's five.
I myself have two children, so we're in the younger years for sure.
We don't have teenagers, although Michael does.
And so I don't think we would sit here and say, we've got parenting all figured out.
This is what you do.
Here's your little formula.
But there's things that we've talked about many times in this show that can be timely advice instead of timeless.
So, what we'll say today here, I don't think in 500 years, you know, someone will be really struggling with a problem child and will uncover in the vault this episode on practical parenting.
They'll be like, every single thing they said was so relevant and pertinent and practical.
Honestly, probably not.
And that's not the goal.
But for right now, for evangelical Christians in the year of our Lord 2025, in a time when it's tough for two parents, tough for the dad to keep the mom at home, in times like this, what are some practical things, some trends maybe, some reactions to ways that things have been done in the past that we can talk about, that we can hopefully offer some advice to?
Again, that's not necessarily timeless.
For all time, we've got lots of books the theology, the principles, the ideas, the foundations of parenting.
We've got that.
Read those books.
Those are good.
But ultimately, what we need to lay on top of that, to build on top of that foundation, Is the practical day in and day out wisdom.
Amen.
I want to lay out just a little bit of how we got here, especially if you, probably a lot of our listeners came from a bit of fundamentalist background.
So if you were American evangelical and your parents or your grandparents were fundamentalists, if you remember in the 70s and 80s, so this would be, well, in many ways, the children of the boomer generation getting into the 80s and the 90s, those were a time of a lot of rebellion.
So this, whether it was rock and roll, free love, drugs, Woodstock, anti war movement, The 80s and the 90s is, of course, coming on the heels of the Civil Rights Act, the Hartzeller Immigration Act.
There's a lot of upheaval and turmoil.
And this is kind of the soil that you would have, for example, Bill Gothard come out of.
And I remember Bill Gothard and his teaching and his books and all of that.
Who actually is not a parent?
Who wasn't a parent, which is funny.
It's really funny.
We're sitting here with seven more kids than he ever had.
But a lot of people came out of that and they said, look, parents, you're scared about losing your kids.
You're scared of losing them to this.
You're scared of them becoming.
Communists or socialists or hippies or whatever it is like that.
And what he offered, and I think what some other writers in the time, I think of Michael and Debbie Pearl, as they said, it's scary.
I get that.
But here's a formula that if you follow, you can do your best to kind of guarantee these outcomes.
I know it's scary.
I know all of this.
I'm not even a parent.
But if you follow, I mean, Bill Dothard, it was literally called Basic Life Principles, BLP.
And it was seven different principles, like the authority principle and things like that.
And his guarantee to parents was follow this, do this, and your kids will turn out okay.
The question on everyone's mind, how do I keep my kids? was what he came in and said, this is your solution.
Same thing with the pearls, I would say, in many ways.
Yeah, Michael and Debbie Pearl, real quick in the chat, it's a helpful question.
GK Chesterton, He said, Is rebellion inevitable with some children?
And I would answer that simply by saying, Yes, but not only with some children, but all children.
The Bible teaches that rebellion is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod will remove it far from them.
So every child is rebellious.
Not every child is going to manifest their rebellion in the same way.
So some children are externally more compliant, and other children, particularly boys, might be externally more.
That rebellion is seen on the exterior.
It's more manifest, it's more obvious.
But every child is rebellious.
The question is simply to what degree and in what areas and through what avenues, what methods.
But every child is rebellious by virtue of being a sinner.
In sin did my mother conceive me, in iniquity I was brought forth.
That's what David says in the Psalms.
And so, because of total depravity, because of the doctrine of original sin, we are all fallen in Adam.
And so, we are physically born in this life.
As sinners, and therefore we are rebellious.
Romans chapter 8 says that the mind of the sinful man is hostile towards the things of God.
He cannot, he will not submit to God's law, nor can he.
It's not just what he's unwilling to do, but he's unwilling because he is unable.
And so, apart from salvation that comes by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, from day one of your children, unless they're regenerate in the womb, like a John the Baptist kind of situation, which I would say is exceedingly rare, then what you should presuppose and assume.
Is that your child is hostile towards the things of God and rebellious towards the authority that God has put in place, which chiefly in those early years and stage of life would be parents.
And so, yes, your child, not just some children, but all children are rebellious.
And so that's something that you should not just consider as a possibility, but you should bank on it.
And then the question, of course, and the things that we'll be talking about today is okay, so then what shall we do?
How do we deal with that kind of rebellion?
Yep, absolutely.
So I give all that background to say I really think 2000s, 2010s, people now that are in their 20s and their 30s, if you grew up fundamentalist, you probably came out of that movement.
So there was a lot of emphasis on spanking and discipline and all of those different things.
But to the point being that we may now be in a time, I don't know, Joel, maybe you disagree with me on this, that if you grew up and you agree with all of that, that now the time is not necessarily to continue to put re emphasis on the foundation, which is the explicit commands of scripture.
As it relates to discipline, those are well and good, and those form the foundation of good parenting.
But there are many different things that are not just a spreadsheet of what type of spankings in what scenario do I give my child.
A great example of this would be say you have two siblings that fight again and again over toys.
Now, certainly the answer is well, they're hitting, they're punching, they're yelling, they're losing their temper, applying discipline.
But also, there might be something more underneath that.
You might have too many toys.
We'll get to this in the second segment, a little bit of consumerism.
But there's tons of different tools and ways of thinking about it where, if all you're limited to, if the only tool in your toolbox is physical discipline, corporal punishment, if that's your only tool, then that doesn't necessarily, in and of itself, take a lot of wisdom to apply to shape the soul.
That is certainly the foundation because the Bible lays it out.
He who spares the rod spoils his child.
But we then take that and you build on top of that to build the complete child, the godly child, training and instruction.
Some people will say, like, well, the Bible doesn't.
That's made up.
The Bible doesn't say he who spares a rod spoils the child.
You're right.
The Bible, what it exactly says is he who spares a rod hates his child.
So it's even worse.
Exactly.
And so that would be the first bit of emphasis is on that.
And then to the tools.
And then the big thing, and this is, I think, a form of encouragement.
Another big thing coming out of that movement was very dogmatic, blanket assertions, right?
So my parents used to hear back in the day, you know, like if your kid's five and they're not well trained, then you've lost the child.
And they're very much so our children that by five, they're well trained.
They're behaved.
They're not getting spankings.
They're doing well.
And then there's firstborn boys where that just isn't going to happen.
And if you think in your mind, like all children, this gets into blank slate and the things we talk about with genetics.
All children are a blank slate.
They come out of the womb and it's your instruction and your nurturing and your training that makes them how they are.
And they get to three and you look at your son and you're like, holy cow, he's terrible compared to my friends.
You compare him to other kids, you compare maybe girls to boys.
You could very easily, and I know moms who have had this, they look at their kid and they're like, I am disciplining so much.
I'm doing all of this.
And I look at this other parent and they say, they say a strong word and the kid breaks down in Christ.
You have to get out of that idea of this is what the kids should look like.
These are the benchmarks that fit every child.
And instead say, how is this child made?
How am I uniquely equipped to train, to guide, and to steer?
And honestly, it just straight up takes longer for some kids than others.
And that doesn't mean you're failing as a parent.
You could look and say, yeah, my kid is, he's taken a while to learn this compared to this other one.
And it's not necessarily, it could be, but it's not necessarily that I failed as a child.
It's the way God made them.
For boys, for example, ambition, energy, even aggression to a certain point, those aren't bad things.
It's not a bad thing to be a boy and have tons of energy.
And sometimes that energy overflows into knocking things down in the house, causing a ruckus, bowling over your siblings.
You're not disciplining him for being a boy.
And so taking each child, it's so important.
What is this?
How is this child made?
What is their inclination?
Where is the rebellion and where is their sin?
How does it manifest?
Where do they lose their temper?
How do I have to shape that?
And then understanding it could look completely different from another parent.
And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're failing.
Right.
Yeah.
Train up a child in the way he should go.
And when he is older, he will not depart from it.
Certainly, there's a general truth there that every child, there is a general path that is applicable to all children.
Yep.
So there is.
The way, train up a child in the way, the way that he should go.
All children are to be trained and oriented towards Christ, his law, his principles, the gospel, salvation, grace.
And so there are general universal principles that must be applied for every single child.
But I think there's also, it's not at the expense of that, it's not either or, I think it's both and.
There's also, I think, a faithful way of interpreting that verse to say, you know, train up a child in the way he should go, in referencing the fact that there is some degree of variance, that children are different, like what you just said, Wes.
For our children, you know, they're very young, but we have, you know, a seven year old, a five year old, a four year old, a two year old, and an infant.
And already with the four older ones, the baby, you know, is a baby, but.
The four older children already, like, it's blatantly obvious that they're not the same.
They're different.
One of our children, one of our girls, it's our second oldest, is, you know, we've known for years now.
She's only, you know, she's only five years old, but we've known since she was three.
For at least a couple of years now, we've known that she just has a higher propensity towards the things of the world, worldliness.
Like, she.
We have to be extra careful with her because she will, you know, if we go out in public and, you know, we're at a restaurant and girls are dressed in an immodest way, we'll find, you know, that it catches her gaze and her attention in a way that, you know, our oldest and then our third child are, you know, they don't really care.
You know, so like our oldest is a sinner as well, and she has, you know, her own propensities and inclinations.
But she's not as naturally worldly.
She's not as concerned with being cool or being the prettiest or being this or that.
Our oldest is also a girl.
Whereas she has her own struggles, struggles of approval.
Very much, she would be more tempted to be compliant, but not really out of a desire necessarily to please the Lord, but simply for the approval of mom and dad.
And so she's very approval driven, whereas our second is more worldly, like the lust of the eyes.
Like, I see something, it's shiny, it's pretty, all the other cool kids are doing it, and she's very tempted by that.
And so early on, identifying, and things also change.
Children develop, they grow, they're not static.
And so, being able to see, train up a child in the way that they should go, all children should go the way of Christ.
And so, there are some universal principles.
That applies across the board, but there's also particulars that are individual to each specific child.
And not all children are the same.
Children are different, they have different dispositions.
And so, as a parent, trying to use discernment and quickly, to the best of your ability, to identify what those particular inclinations are and then to be able to act accordingly.
There's no book written about anyone's children that's going to lay out a formula for identifying what makes them tick.
You have to be a good parent.
You'd almost say, student of human nature.
What motivates this child even at a younger age?
What interests them?
Same thing for boys.
How am I steering them?
Like, there's boys just straight up.
You could try to push them into sports and baseball and like, do this, do this.
They're just guys that are more geared towards engineering, art, music.
And the point being, God made them that way.
And us as parents were given them to then steward it with wisdom.
It's not a blank slate that then we plug them into a formula and we do it this way.
It'll all turn out.
X, Y, and Z, clones one, clone two, clone three, but managing and caring for them.
Just in a way, I think of Peter where he says, Husbands, do not be harsh with your wives.
And what he's literally saying there is the word is according to knowledge, live your wives in an understanding way.
So do not be harsh, but live with them in an understanding way.
Literally, the word there is according to knowledge.
So, Peter to wives, husbands living with your wives, husbands, live with your wives according to knowledge of God's word and a knowledge of how they are.
Women as the weaker vessel.
As the wife.
Exactly.
And so, what is it for your children too that makes them despondent?
Destroys them, crushes them the way maybe other kids don't.
And then understanding that is, of course, the key to caring for it well.
Yep.
All right, we'll go to our first commercial break and we'll be right back.
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Vigilance Against Consumerism and Guilt00:14:31
Reef Fund, Christian Capital, boldly deployed.
All right.
So, this is a little bit of a personal point of emphasis of mine.
We talked about it a little bit.
This would have been our usury episode where we talked about commercialism and everything like that.
But there's a really good book called Simplicity Parenting that's really helpful on this.
But the amount of toys, the amount of stuff, and the amount of consumerism that our children are exposed to.
Is incredibly high.
So, we talked about timely principles.
A timely principle that you, parent, in the year of our Lord 2025, you have to be aware of is that your children, if you're not vigilant, if you're not watchful, they're going to be bombarded day in and day out with the inclination to buy, the inclination to consume.
I'm going to read a couple of statistics here.
This is all from peer reviewed research.
This first one is incredible.
On average, preschool children see nearly 25,000.
Television commercials.
So, we're not talking kindergarten, first, second, third grade.
Preschool children, so leading up in the preschool time, on average, see 25,000 television commercials.
I'll tell you what, when I watch television, you know, I look at those ads and I think, this would be great for my two year old to see.
Not quite.
There's tons of research on the negative effects of screens for children, so parking in the front of the screens.
The more times preschool children spend with screens, the less time they spend engaged in creative play.
That's one study.
The foundation of learning, another study.
Constructive problem solving, And creativity.
Direct exposure to TV and overall household viewing are associated with increased early childhood aggression.
Screen time for children under three is linked to irregular sleep patterns and delayed language acquisition.
There's tons of different statistics on this.
Obviously, screen exposure goes up.
And this is even before all the terrible things that a kid could see when they're exposed to television.
This is aside from the movies, aside from the music, aside from all those things that would be negative in and of themselves.
Just this exposure in and of itself, just plopping a kid in front of the TV, just seeing them, especially a boy, taking a boy with energy and ambition and creative play.
Parking them in front of something that's highly stimulating, like, why is cocoa, melon?
Why is it so loud?
Why are there so many colors to keep your kid engaged, to keep them focused, so they look at it, watch it more.
Like all of these different things, be it uh, like.
There's milk, for example, strawberry milk, in the store.
It has your Disney cartoon characters on that.
Why?
Because it makes it taste better.
No, so your kids beg their parents to buy it at the store.
All of it geared towards consume consume, consume.
Now, the answer is, of course, not.
Zero toys, zero screen time.
You get your first phone when you're 18.
Although, to be fair, that's not the worst approach.
But you really have to think, especially today, how is consumerism?
How is stuff?
How are toys?
How is this impacting my child?
There's a lot of research, for example, on the more toys a child has, the more overwhelming it can be, and the more it stifles creative play.
Boredom is a great source of.
I need to figure out how to do something.
I need to figure out how to play pretend, to imagine, to learn to do.
When you fill up a toy room full of junk, and I know grandma and grandpa do it too, they bring stuff in.
When you do that, you rob children of boredom, you rob them of imagination.
You put a bunch of plastic in there, the one that's probably toxic and not good for them, put a bunch of plastic in there, and you just try to get them to be stimulated to death, overwhelmed to death.
Like I was citing in some of those statistics, it's borne out in other ones.
It's not good for children.
Now, it's not the end of the world if you have a lot of toys and your kids see some TV.
But by and large, on the whole, what is our family consuming?
Is it YouTube TV?
Is it secular music?
Is it junky plastic toys?
Or we have invested in spending time outside, Christian music, wholesome entertainment, good stories, especially for boys.
Like a lot of Disney, me and Nathan were talking about it, a lot of Disney movies, as good as they are, especially the old ones.
Which, even then, there's problems.
We're mostly focused on princesses, if we're honest.
What are my boys taking in?
Well, they're watching, you know, like a small amount of movies a week, and all of those movies are about princesses.
All the books we read are about this.
You have to be thinking on the whole what is my child taking in?
Yep, well said.
I agree.
We could briefly talk.
You know, I want to be somewhat careful because we live in a world that.
That hates Christianity and hates the Bible and hates children, unfortunately.
You know, if they can't, you know, kill the child in the womb by persuading the parent to get an abortion or convincing them that, you know, somehow that's a wonderful thing to do, then, you know, then they're going to try, you know, in biblical terms, according to the Bible's definitions, they're going to try to, you know, ensure that at least, you know, the child, it's regretful that the child was born, but because they, you know, but, you know, but now we can still at least ensure that, you know, that the child is not.
Loved by any meaningful biblical definition.
Like the Bible, you know, talks about discipline being loving.
Hebrews chapter 12, God disciplines us as his children, and he does so in love.
And then we already quoted earlier in the episode, you know, the one who spares the rod hates his child.
And so the absence of discipline is a form of hatred and neglect and apathy and, yeah, and so indifference towards the child.
So we could talk a little bit about spanking.
Let me just say, too.
It's something that we need to do carefully because, you know, we live in a world that.
Like I said, hates children and therefore hates what God has prescribed.
It is, if you're thinking about moving, it is legal in Texas.
So it's legal.
And even in Texas, too, some states have laws against this.
But one parent can't be mad that the other parent did so and use the law against them.
So Texas is fully said, obviously, abuse, of course not, or like damage or anything like that.
But spanking as a means of discipline is legal in Texas.
One parent can't tell the other parent, no, I don't want you to do it.
And, you know, making the case for Texas, Texas is great on homeschooling.
We're about to get school choice, which will provide.
Several thousands of dollars for private schools.
That'd be Christian school or homeschooling.
It's good on spanking.
So if you're a family and you live in, I mean, we've had families from Europe that have said, like, homeschooling is illegal.
These things are illegal.
We literally can't do them.
Move to the United States.
Same thing.
There are different states that straight up have laws against it or they're really strict on homeschooling, requiring standardized tests and paperwork and all of that.
So Texas is a very pro family state, which is awesome.
Praise the Lord.
We hope it stays that way.
But even then, on the topic of spanking, the Texas law does allow for parents to administer that and has no problems with it.
Right.
Yeah, name of the game, you know, my wife and I, you know, we always say that, you know, the name of the game with spanking is hurt, not harm.
You know, like you said a second ago, you know, bifurcating abuse from biblical discipline that, you know, one of the distinctives of abuse is damage.
You use the word damage, you know, or lasting harm.
The name of the game is hurt.
Like spankings are supposed to hurt.
If it doesn't even hurt, then there's no sense in doing it.
So it is supposed to hurt, but it's not supposed to harm.
That's why traditionally you spank a child's bottom because it's resilient and there's extra padding and all those kinds of things so that it's not going to do lasting harm or damage.
You're not trying to harm the child.
You are trying to give them a momentary, right?
So Hebrews 12 also tells us that no discipline is pleasant for the time, but in the moment where it's unpleasant, That moment is fleeting.
It's momentary.
And so, too, should parental discipline.
It should be something that hurts.
It's uncomfortable.
It's not pleasant in the time, but it should be something that quickly is fleeting.
Hopefully, the memory and the lesson is lasting, but the pain is not.
Can I wax eloquent, too, on the biological reasons that we would do that and why God instructs it?
So, the prefrontal cortex, you have the motor cortex, which is in the center of your brain.
The prefrontal cortex in the front is what controls inhibition.
So, the reason we like alcohol is because when we take alcohol, One of the byproducts of it suppresses the function of your pre mortar cortex.
You're more likely to dance or to talk to strangers and be friendly because the things you're normally inhibited from doing, I'm self conscious, I don't want to dance in front of people, that's then inhibited chemically.
It's a chemical reaction, it's not mysterious or spiritual.
It's a chemical reaction that causes you to be less inhibited.
And the things that you want to do, you carry out.
And ultimately, a lot of times, do things you regret.
But in the same way, you have two and three year old boys, for instance.
They are the most, statistically, they're the most violent by any age of child.
Now, obviously, their violence is not very powerful because they're little, but that's because of brain development.
Prefrontal cortex has not yet developed and learned behaviors that it needs to inhibit.
So, when you're spanking a child, say a child loses his temper, he throws things, he acts out, and you administer controlled pain that's short, not lasting, not abusive, not destructive.
When you administer that again and again over years, what you're literally doing is you're helping them form the connection that when I lose control of my emotions, when I lose control and hit, when I yell, when I stomp, when I do these things, it brings pain.
It hurts because if you don't get that skill, if you're never inhibited and you're never disciplined and you never experience what that looks like, you'll be an adult, you'll be 25, and you'll have no inhibition, and you won't be able to save money, you won't be able to keep a relationship, you won't be able to show up on time because you have not learned the skill of resisting the things you want to do and saying, No, I have to be in control of my emotions.
And it's a mercy, two, three, four years old, right, at that stage to administer something that in the moment is painful for them to learn.
I have to control my emotion because if I don't, it hurts.
And it'll hurt at adulthood if you don't learn that lesson in much more damaging ways.
Right.
Or you can learn it in 20 minutes.
Right.
That's the key that all of life is filled with consequences for bad decisions and bad behavior.
You never outgrow that.
The only thing that changes is what you just said.
The consequences become increasingly, exponentially more severe.
And so what you're doing is a mercy.
What you're doing is you're hoping to teach that young boy.
to teach him inhibition and self-control and good behavior and those kinds of things when the stakes are much lower rather than him learning those things later when the stakes are much higher.
And so, yes, he's experiencing pain and discipline for bad choices, for bad behavior, but the pain and discipline that he's experiencing as a young man, as a boy, that pain is low-stakes pain.
It's fleeting.
It's minimal.
The pain that he'll experience later in life, it won't be a spanking, but it'll be far more severe than that.
And so it is a mercy, it is a grace to children.
One thing that I was going to say just practically, because we opened the episode saying, you know, we wanted to be practical.
One thing that was really helpful for my wife and I was having like two categories of spankings.
And so we, you know, the language that we use is we say, you know, there's spankings.
And then there's SWATs, is what we say.
Spankings and SWATs.
And we place those in two different categories.
And what we mean by that is for the first couple of years when we were new parents, we were persuaded and we had been taught that basically every time you do discipline, it's a big event.
It requires a lot of intentionality and it's going to, at the practical level, it's just going to require a lot of time.
Um, you know and so like, from a lot of the gospel centered books.
So it's like yes, you know, like a lot of those guys you know, they would say, you know yeah, I mean, the Bible does talk about spanking and so we can't, you know, we can't say that's not a thing.
But you know, you need to be sure that you know it's not just a spanking.
It's like you're going back to the room, to a bedroom it's private uh, you're explaining to the child on the front end what it is that they did.
That was wrong um, and then, you know, you're preaching the gospel to them and reminding them.
You know um, you're telling them what was wrong.
You're getting, you know, some kind of admission of guilt.
Can you, Can you see that that was wrong?
And I need you to acknowledge that you did sin.
I need you to apologize.
Okay, now we're going to have a consequence.
Here comes the spanking.
Okay, and now we're going to do the second half of our lecture, you know, and we're going to, you know, and now we'll focus on grace.
You know, you are forgiven.
It's been made right.
I love you.
And ultimately, you know, Dad, he sins also, and we're only forgiven because of the grace of God, and none of us can do anything to earn it.
It's very evangelistic.
Every step is like an evangelistic opportunity.
Yeah, a call to Jesus.
Which I get the inclination, but continue.
And I think that's good.
I think that that's a right sentiment.
However, this is what my wife and I noticed.
What we realized is that if that's the prerequisite, the minimum expectation for spanking, what my wife and I noticed is that we would just be tempted because of our own sin, our own apathy.
And then, even just practically, as we had more kids, it was easier when we were new parents and we only had one child and then two.
Well, now we have five.
And if that's what it is, especially when I'm gone at work, so when I'm working and it's my wife with five young children, She realized that, like, you know, she would go the whole day.
Spanking as a Tool for Correction00:06:56
And the children would, you know, there would be occasions where they disobeyed and they misbehaved.
But she wouldn't spank them because spanking meant going privately with one child into a bedroom for at least 10 minutes to have a five minute talk on the front end, you know, spanking, then a five minute talk on the back end.
And you could say, well, it doesn't have to be 10 minutes.
Like, you could do all that in two minutes, you know, a minute on the front end.
But even two minutes, like, when you have.
A three month old who's like in that moment, it's like the kid just disobeyed, but the seven year old is asking you questions, the five year old is asking you questions, the four year old is crying.
He's about ready for the next banking.
Right.
The four year old is crying, just got hurt, and somehow playing, and then the two year old needs discipline, and then the baby is also screaming.
then you just can't.
You can't do it.
And so what we recognize is that, again, bifurcating spankings and swats, that if spankings, if that was it, if that was the only form of discipline, then what would happen is that there would be plenty of occasions that one or two or three or five of the children just wouldn't get discipline.
And some discipline, what we eventually realize is that some discipline is still better than no discipline.
And so it's great to have a high bar.
I still agree with the basic premise of all those things like explaining to the child that they actually sinned and what that sin was, and getting an acknowledgement from the child that they would admit, like, yeah, I did disobey.
I'm sorry, an apology from the child, spanking, and then reminding the child of the gospel of free grace and that the only hope there is.
But there are some kids so stubborn, they get spanked.
And I was actually like this.
So, encouragement to any mom that's like, this firstborn boy is trouble.
Well, I was that and I got spanked a lot.
I wouldn't be sorry.
So my mom would have to spank again and again.
It's like, do I literally have to spend every day, like go through this process?
Because they wanted exactly that.
Like they wanted to spank and then have reconciliation.
And just as me, not every kid is like this, but me as a kid, I was just like, not sorry, sometimes not even crying, defiant.
And I think by God's grace, I turned out okay.
But to your point, like, well, if mom wants to do that, but what if you have a strong-willed boy that's just in that moment, not going to have it?
Right.
Every day, do we have to like do the same song and dance and administer 20, 30, 40, 50 spankings?
Yeah, well, that's a more complicated question we can maybe address later.
But back to real quick the spanking versus SWATs is that's what we realized is that, like, okay, sometimes there's just a lot going on.
And we're at the dinner table, for instance, and all the children are talking to us.
There's five of them, and there's only two of us.
And, you know, one of the kids, you know, is sinning.
It's clear objective disobedience to something that we've commanded several times.
They know what they're doing.
They're throwing their food on the floor, you know, and they're not three months old.
They're three years old.
And we've established that rule.
They know it, and they're deliberately doing it otherwise.
But we, you know, we're just not able to go back privately in the room.
And so, Um, and so on those occasions, I do think that like having that extra tool in your tool belt of there are spankings, and that's more intentional, and there's a talk that's involved in that.
And there are other times where there's a SWAT, and it's kind of an on the go discipline, it's a quick on the go discipline where you can still say, Hey, I told you not to throw your food on the floor, you know, this you know that this is disobedience, and so you're going to get a SWAT, and there's just a little SWAT right there at the table.
And I, you know.
And the other children are present, but they know that it's done in love, and then you can explain it in front of all of them without having to leave the room and get up and interrupt dinner.
And I think that that is helpful.
And without that, it's been my experience, and I have heard from many, many, many other parents.
It's not just unique to me, but this seems to be a universal experience that if the bar is set too high for discipline, it has to be a spanking, it has to be private, it has to be isolated in a room.
It requires a talk on the front end, a talk on the back end, and this, that, and the other.
And it requires a very specific, the child must eventually, this gets into your thing, they have to respond by saying X, Y, and Z.
And if they don't respond by saying X, Y, and Z, then it must continue.
Then what will happen is if you have more than one kid, and we're supposed to be fruitful multiply, then you'll be privately with one kid in the bedroom for an hour, and your other four kids, you know, are.
Like next in line.
You know, like, and well, yeah, next in line, or even, you know, God forbid, worse.
Like there's some kind of accident, and one of the kids, you know, gets hit or cuts themselves with scissors.
Like, you can't do that as a parent.
You can't go back in a room with one child and leave four little children alone in the house for, you know, for 30 minutes or 20 minutes.
Like, and so, yeah, so that just can't be it.
That can't be it.
So we know that the Bible, this gets back to the, you know, the cold open.
We know that the Bible tells us, you know, what it is, the what, the curriculum, the big ideas, the principles and virtues that we're trying to instill in our children.
And we know that the Bible, in a general sense, provides the how.
We know that at least one, not that it's exhaustive, that it's exclusive, the only, but we know that it should be one of the tools in our arsenal is spanking, corporal punishment.
So we know virtue, Christian virtue, needs to be instilled in our child by teaching them.
And we know that when they fail, that one of the tools made available to us in Scripture that we're supposed to use is spanking.
We know that.
But the Bible does not, it is not so particular that it specifies.
And this is how many spankings, and this is what tool you have to use to spank.
You need to use a spoon, or you need to use your hand, or you need to use this, or you need to use that.
It doesn't say how many spankings, it doesn't say how hard the spanking should be, it doesn't say what the spanking should be with.
It doesn't specifically, the Bible doesn't actually specifically prescribe.
I think it's a good instinct.
There's a general wisdom there whenever you have the time to do it.
But the Bible doesn't say that you can never spank a child unless you are privately alone with that child in the room, unless you talk for at least five minutes on the front end and then talk five minutes on the back end.
No spanking can ever be administered without also a gospel presentation and an altar call for salvation.
You know, like the Bible doesn't actually say that.
And so the Bible actually does give us a fairly significant degree of liberty as we're able to exercise prudence and wisdom and figuring out what is best for that child and what is best for our family in that stage of life and with however many kids we have and what practically works.
Practical Advice on Discipline Tools Today00:02:44
Right.
Because otherwise, God would be essentially tempting you and saying, This is what you have to do for every moment of discipline.
And also, you follow my commands.
You had a number of children.
And now you're stuck between a rock and the hard place.
You feel like you have two commands.
Well, I've got to take care of them.
I've got to watch them.
I've got to make sure they don't get hurt.
And then also, I'm supposed to take this 10 minutes.
God doesn't put us between that rock and the hard place.
And it's wisdom that splits the difference between the two and says, well, actually, in this case and scenario, I'm not going to the back room.
I'll administer it here and now to your point.
So let's do this.
Nathan, have we done all our commercial breaks for today?
We have one more.
Let's go a little bit early here.
Let's go to our last commercial break.
And then because we're trying to be practical, we're trying to be as practical and helpful as possible.
We've gotten just the nature of this conversation parenting.
It's just so needed.
And so we've gotten every episode, we get maybe five questions, 10 questions.
And from the little bit that I've gleaned from the chat, we've probably gotten like 20 questions, maybe more.
So I think we should just get right to the questions and just try to give practical advice and counsel as best we can.
So let's go early to our final commercial break of the day.
Exclusively deal with questions.
We'll start with the super chats and then get to as many questions beyond that as we can.
And then, because we've already done one video today, we did one surrounding the Christ is King controversy that's resurged over the last couple of days.
Go and check out that video if you get a chance.
But we did that video already and we're doing this video.
So we'll do the commercial break and we'll just focus on questions and then we'll go ahead and call it a day since we're doing two videos today and it's a lot.
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All right.
Well, like we promised, we're going to go ahead and get to some chats.
Nate, which one do you want us to hit first?
Maybe scroll to the top.
All right.
This is a good one.
Oh, go ahead.
Let's do Magnus Connor's question quick.
Do you think preventing having kids is a sin?
Magnus Connor, do you think preventing having kids is a sin?
So, most of this comes from Onan in the Old Testament, Genesis, I believe it's chapter 38.
Tamar.
She was married to Judah, she was her father in law.
She was married to his oldest.
And we don't know exactly what he did, but.
It was displeasing.
The Lord supernaturally took his life from him.
And so then she was given a marriage to the second oldest boy, Judah's second oldest son.
And his name was Onan.
And Onan didn't want to fulfill his brotherly obligation and duty and furthering his now deceased older brother's biological line, his family line, by giving to Tamar, who's now his wife, a child in his brother's name, a son in his brother's name.
And so, when they would be intimate together, you know, the famous story goes that he would spill his seed on the ground in order to not impregnate her.
And it was wicked in the sight of God, is what the text says.
And so the Lord killed him too.
And so, you know, put him to death.
And we don't know exactly how he died, how the Lord did that.
But we know that the Lord was displeased and found it to be a sin and severe enough to be worthy of the Lord taking his life.
So that's kind of where this comes from the sin of Onanism is the idea.
And so there are some Christians that have gleaned from that that there should be no form of family planning whatsoever, that you have as many children as the Lord gives to you.
And in that family planning, not just no to birth control, no to barrier methods, no also to any type of timing, rhythm, natural family planning.
None of that, even as well.
Yes.
So there are some Christians who take that position that to inhibit procreation in any way is wrong.
So we certainly agree, and we've talked about it before, that birth control, in terms of the hormonal birth control pill, we have big problems with that because of the ethics and that it risks aborting a child.
That you actually have an egg that has been fertilized.
We believe that life begins at conception.
Conception is not implantation, but fertilization.
And the hormonal birth control pill does actually risk it can inhibit fertilization, but it also could fail where fertilization does occur.
But then the thinning of the uterine wall takes place in such a way that you now have a fertilized egg, human being conceived and made in the image of God that has no hospitable environment to go, and the woman's body.
Ultimately, aborts the child.
And so, you know, from the pill to, you know, what is it?
IUD?
Mitigating Blessings Through Family Planning00:13:29
Yep.
Like a copper IUD.
Yeah.
So, there are several things like that that we believe we could speak dogmatically to because of the issue of life and taking the life of a child.
But in terms of condoms, which are merely preventative and they're not an abortifacient, or whether it be timing of the month and those kinds of things, that's where the Bible speaks with less clarity.
And so, we would give some room for.
Conscience there, but what I've consistently taught is that the general idea is that the Bible teaches us that children are a blessing, a heritage from the Lord, and that the man whose quiver is full is exceedingly blessed.
So children are inherently a blessing, and the man who has a lot of children is particularly blessed by God.
And so we want to affirm the scripture.
We just have to recognize that we live in a culture today that hates children.
And that idolizes convenience and all these different things, money, materialism, and just simply does not have the view of children that God has and that we should have.
And so we need to be aware that what we might call family planning or I'm just being wise is entirely possible and very likely in many cases, especially with modern Westerns, even Christians, that what we're calling wisdom really may be.
It may be idolatry.
It may be our own comfort, our own convenience.
I think that that's highly likely.
We live in a society.
We don't have large families.
They're exceedingly rare.
And when I say large families, I don't mean five kids.
I have a family of seven.
We have five kids.
In our church, we are a medium-sized family.
So when I say large family, I'm talking eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 kids.
And we know plenty of families with that many kids.
And it's awesome.
It's a blessing.
And we have to believe it's a blessing because, one, we see it, we've witnessed that it really is objectively good and there's joy and there's warmth and all those things, but also because God's word objectively says it.
So, in terms of that, this is kind of where I've landed what you're talking about with family planning is you're talking about if children really are a heritage from the Lord, a blessing, then you're talking about the mitigation of blessing.
So, then when I pan out beyond children, I look at other blessings.
You know, material provision is a blessing from the Lord.
The Lord is the one who gives increase.
The Lord is the one ultimately, we work, but the Lord is the one who ultimately provides through our work.
So, money, material provision is a blessing that ultimately comes sovereignly from the Lord.
And so, the question would be do we seek to mitigate that blessing?
Like, do we get called in by a supervisor at work and he says, I'd like to give you a raise?
And he says, I'm going to give you an additional $10 an hour.
And you say, you know what?
Let's make it five because I just don't want too much blessing.
Well, kids add difficulty, and like you don't think a raise doesn't come with responsibility and difficulty.
That's right, it comes with money, blessing, it also comes with responsibility.
All of these blessings always come with a more resources.
All your greater responsibility, right?
It's a double sided coin with every additional resource that the Lord gives to us.
Um, there is both the privilege and also the duty, the responsibility.
So, more money means more responsibility will be held.
Those who are richer and have been given more.
Financially, will be held more accountable for that, for those resources and how they stewarded them for the glory of God.
If you have a higher, you know, more influence, so it doesn't just have to be monetary, but more influence, a higher station of life, you know, with your job or this or that.
Like, whenever we're given more by God, it is both a blessing, a greater blessing with more, more of anything, anything that the Bible says is good.
And not inherently evil, and money is not inherently evil.
It's the love of money, greed, that is the root of all kinds of evil.
But money, in and of itself, is not inherently bad, not at all.
And so it is a blessing.
And whenever we receive more of something that the Bible says is good, a blessing, then we are going to be held to a higher account, and there will be more obligation and responsibility for how we steward that.
So that's kind of how I've thought about it is there any other blessing in our life that we would be thinking, you know what?
I'd really like, you know, the blessing just keeps coming and it's just, you know, it's just too much.
And I'd really like to slow that down.
I'd really like to make sure I have less of this blessing.
And I'm asking that, you know, like it's a little tongue in cheek, but I'm asking that I'm not saying that that would be impossible.
Like I actually do think that there could be some scenarios where it's like you could make twice as much money, but it would take you away from the home just too much.
And so you actually, you sit there, you do the calculus and you actually decide, no, I'm going to actually mitigate that.
That financial blessing.
I'm going to say no to that financial blessing because it's going to take me away from some other things.
So, there are like some legitimate reasons to mitigate blessing.
But what I'm trying to say is that there are very few times that, even among mature, godly Christians, there are very few times that we will mitigate the blessing of financial prosperity.
And yet, it is almost universal.
It's so prevalent that we are mitigating children.
And so I think that that, to me, that signifies that we have almost universally as a culture adopted an unbiblical view of children and what children represent.
So could there be any cases?
Yeah, I think there are a number of cases.
One could be your wife's health, right?
So like if your doctor says, hey, you know what?
You almost died in childbirth on your last pregnancy, like your last delivery with your sixth child.
And if you try to have a child again, it might kill you.
Okay, well then, yeah, that needs to be taken seriously into consideration.
That's different.
Or if it's, look, we don't want to just have a quiver full of arrows, but we want arrows that are sharp and straight.
Because let's be honest, like Christians, you know, Christian parents from the 80s and 90s, like they had some arrows.
I mean, they were mitigating children, you know, most of the average of two kids.
But even the two arrows that they did have, most of those arrows were so bent instead of being straight.
That those arrows, all those Christians did was actually provide ammunition for the enemy.
All those kids grew up and went to some godless university, became atheists, and started, you know, and joined Antifa in 2020 and worked for BLM, you know.
So that doesn't do any good, you know.
Like Samuel had two sons, you know, the prophet Samuel had two sons, but they both, you know, they both took bribes.
And Israel, they go to Samuel when he's old and they're like, you know, you don't have a successor.
And you don't have a successor because your sons are deadbeats.
And so it didn't, it didn't, It didn't benefit Samuel to, like, you know what?
Instead of two, I should have had six.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, I'd be in better shape if I had six kids who took bribes.
No, so quality matters, is my point.
So the Bible does speak to quantity.
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full.
So that is biblical, that's explicit.
It's not just far fetched or stretching the text.
So children are inherently a blessing, heritage from the Lord, and many children are an even greater blessing.
That's quantity.
That's clear from Scripture.
But I think that we can assume quality.
And quality, you can say, well, a lot of that quality is up to us and how we raise them.
And that's absolutely true.
The Bible certainly affirms that.
But I think knowing, and this is what's hard.
And honestly, I don't trust Western modern Christians to make this calculus.
I think, like, whatever you think is probably a good idea, you should probably just add like two or three kids to it.
Like, seriously, because I don't trust us.
Like, we, for decades, we have done everything we can to make sure that we don't have a lot of kids.
Like, if any, it's so clearly idolatry, it's so clearly sinful.
And so, that's the calculus that we're working from.
But what I was going to say is, I do think that there is an allowance for Christian parents to consider their frame.
The Lord considers our frame that we're made from dust.
Like, considering your frame and knowing, like, okay, what amount of children can we have and steward properly?
And what pace can we go at?
Because there are added challenges when each of your kids.
You know, is, you know, the age difference between each of them is 18 months, is much more difficult when, you know, when the age difference is three years.
That makes a huge difference, right?
Having a three year old, a one and a half year old, and a newborn is much more challenging than having a six year old, a three year old, and a newborn.
Much more challenging.
And so the pace that you go at and the number of children, like, I think considering your frame, like, Is your wife a quadriplegic?
You know, like, okay, well, then, yeah, that should be considered.
How is her health?
Also, your emotional frame and your Christian.
Sarah Edwards, she had 13 kids, and right in the middle of it, just straight up broke down, like snapped at one point.
Right.
So, do you have the mental and emotional framework for that?
But all that, and hear me on this, all that has to be tempered with the reality.
It's an inescapable reality, and we just have to admit it.
We live in a time and a culture that hates kids.
So, as you're doing the calculus and say, well, we're just trying to be wise, or we're just considering, I'm considering my wife's frame, or we're just, you know, quality matters and it does no good.
You yourself, Joel, you said, you know, it would do no good to have six bad children.
You know, it'd be better to have three good children.
All those things are true.
All those things are true.
And also, we live in a culture and a time that hates children.
So, whatever you're calling wisdom, you just need to be like, like, Painfully, acutely aware that your flesh is probably factoring into that equation much more than you're willing to admit.
I probably don't have a position I'll defend yet.
I would probably go farther than you.
And I will say, church history up till about 1930 said that all forms of birth control besides family planning were wrong.
Both Catholics and Protestants up till about 100 years ago did fully say.
So that's a calculus I've taken in as I've prayed and worked through it.
Like nobody.
Before 100 years ago, would have affirmed that these have a place for the Christian.
Yeah, and that's a serious calculus.
When you're the anomaly that's standing outside of the witness of a millennia and a half or two millennia almost of church history and what the church has ascertained, you should be able to.
And a time period that built.
Christendom.
Things haven't been so great since 1930, when Catholics and Protestants stopped having as many kids.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's like, we think of like, well, what's the downfall, you know, to our society?
And, you know, and like, we think, you know, there's like, you know, there's the Jews.
No, I'm just kidding.
You know, but there's all these things that people, you know, that's the crisis king controversy.
It's like, that's what people are trying to do.
They're trying to account, and many times, you know, we're trying to blame, but like, but we're trying to account for like, where do we get off the rails?
How do things get so bad?
And the reality is, there's a ton, there's a ton of answers to that question.
You know, like, Media is part of that degenerate filth on the television, you know, that we're, you know, like, that we're submersed in, you know, from a very young age and all, you know, all these different things.
Churches, their doctrine being watered down, you know, government schooling, you know, that's godless and atheistic, you know, public schools, corrupt politicians, multiculturalism bringing in, you know, false religions and false gods without a cohesion of people who are united together.
There's all these different things that have contributed to the decline of morale, the decline of virtue among our nation.
But part of it is, it really does come down to from the get go, from the earliest years of life.
Like, one thing that we don't always point to is, well, how could people be so degenerate?
And how have things gotten so bad?
It's back to what you were talking about earlier with training.
Baptism, Regeneration, and Protestant Emphasis00:06:17
young child, especially young boys, with discipline from a young age so that they develop that healthy sense of inhibition and, you know, like they're able to, you know, exercise self-control.
Gentle parenting is kind of what I'm building up to.
You know, that's what it's called.
You know, whatever.
I didn't pick the label, but that's what it's known as.
But gentle parenting, which means there's no corporal punishment.
There's never, I just talk to the kid.
Basically, I just talk to the kid and try to get them to, you know, I'm basically like appealing to my two year old to try to get them to empathize with me.
Like, how do you think this makes me feel?
Mom's just having a really rough day.
Could you be more considerate?
You know, or I'm preaching the gospel to, but there's no spanking.
There's no spanking.
And it's like, you know, how did things get so bad?
Well, we're sitting on like 30 years of statistically, like 30 years of the vast majority of adults that we currently have in our nation have never been spanked a single time in their life.
Not once.
Like, would that affect the populace?
Would that have a negative effect on virtue and morale?
Yeah, I think so.
So, parenting is key.
How many kids you have, but also the quality of kids that you have and your willingness to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
All right, we got to move quick because we got some good super chats.
So, let's go.
Rubicon first $10 super chat.
Thank you.
Great profile picture.
That kind of looks like Caesar on a horse crossing Rubicon.
You think it's who?
I think so.
Oh, there you go.
Age of accountability.
Some Lutherans, LCMS, Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, do not believe in an age of accountability.
Thus, they must be baptized as an infant into the church.
As a Baptist, I do not believe that.
Correct.
So, as Baptists, we wouldn't agree with infant baptism.
We would say, so the Old Testament circumcision is given upon physical birth, but it precedes and anticipates the fullness, which is baptism upon spiritual birth.
So, circumcision, a physical act upon physical birth for boys.
Anticipating, foreshadowing, looking forward to spiritual rebirth, the spiritual sign of baptism into the invisible church upon not physical birth, but the spiritual new birth as signified by profession of faith.
Right.
Yeah.
And Lutherans are a little bit funny.
Not all.
There's different stripes and breeds, but I remember talking to one Lutheran minister once upon a time, and he was, you know, he was like, Well, I'm a Calvinist, Joel.
You know, like, uh, I believe in predestination and election and these kinds of things.
But he also believed in baptismal regeneration.
So it's not like, so to distinguish a little bit, like it is different than our Presbyterian brothers and sisters that are also Pado Baptist.
They apply infant baptism, but they don't believe that it's regenerative.
Whereas within Lutheranism, and I'm not sure, I mean, there's so many different things, it's just like Baptists, like, well, what kind of Baptist are you?
What kind of Presbyterian are you?
What kind of Lutheran are you?
From my understanding, many Lutherans do hold not just infant baptism, but baptismal regeneration, meaning that baptism in the literal and immediate sense actually saves.
So that child, upon being baptized, is regenerated and is a Christian.
And so that's something that you would find within Roman Catholicism.
It's something that you would find within Eastern Orthodoxy.
Which Catholicism is the cleansing of original sin?
Specifically.
So it's a.
Because they don't have as much focus on the regeneration.
That's true.
A good emphasis of Protestantism.
So for Roman Catholicism, cleansing original sin.
For Lutheranism, regeneration.
Is that what they say?
So what?
Venial, I think, is the unimportant ones.
There's mortal and venial sins.
Mortal sins are sins to fall from a state of grace.
So baptism puts you in a state of grace, which venial sins can't take you from, but mortal sins could.
That's right.
Yeah, no, you're right.
And in that sense, it's kind of funny that people say Baptists are the outliers when it comes to their doctrine of baptism.
But really, Presbyterians are actually, in many ways, the outliers.
And I love Presbyterians.
But they're the outliers in the sense that the Baptist believes that the Baptist is going to link baptism with regeneration.
So, God, like a believer's baptism, that God saves, regenerates, and we baptize them.
Catholics, baptism and regeneration, you know, or at least like there's something state of grace.
State of grace, like happens in, you know, Episcopalians, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans.
Every single Christian tradition links either a state of grace or regeneration or salvation, something like that with baptism, except for Presbyterians.
They're actually the outlier.
So they would say Baptists are the outlier because they're the ones who aren't practicing infant baptism.
But even though we're not doing it with infants, we are actually keeping in step with, in a loose sense, with Catholics and Eastern Orthodoxy and certainly with Episcopalians and Lutherans and Anglicans in the sense that we're saying, no, baptism is linked to salvation.
It directly correlates with regeneration.
This one, it's not a super chat, but it's a frequent supporter and I think a really important personal question.
So, BJJ wins again said, My firstborn son is an embryo adoption.
The wife gave birth, his wife gave birth.
So it's not adoption after birth, but adoption of the embryo, which his wife then gave birth to.
And then we had a natural child.
My wife is very worried about him, that is the firstborn son, the embryo adoption, not feeling as loved as our natural kid.
Any advice?
Embryo Adoption and Spiritual Components00:06:48
And he said, I imagine Joel has some insight.
Yeah, so people know that I was adopted, not as an embryo, but as a baby.
I, you know, Vodibakam had, I think, you know, one time I. Saw something that he said about adoption that I thought was helpful.
He was talking about, you know, he's adopted, I think, seven boys, right?
I think it's seven kids.
He has a couple girls, I think.
Well, yeah.
So he has two kids, a boy and a girl, that are biological.
And then they didn't have any more children.
And it wasn't until later in life, you know, that they went back and entered that stage of parenting again and adopted seven children that I believe are all boys, but maybe not.
But I think it's seven kids.
And so.
There might be a couple girls, but uh, people asked him a similar question.
They said, Do you love your biological kids more than your adopted kids?
And he said, No, but then he was honest, and I appreciate you know him giving this answer.
He said, No, I love my children equally.
He said, But what I will say is that um, the effort required to love my children equally is not the same.
So, my love for my adoptive uh, children.
Is equal to my love for my natural born children.
But I have to work harder in my love for, like, with my natural born children, I have nature working for me, which is a powerful thing.
He said, like, but it requires intent and grace and will.
I can't just rely on nature in the case of my adopted children.
So with my adoption children, it requires more of a supernatural and conscious, deliberate, Decision that I have to make again and again and again.
Not that he wouldn't love them at all, but he loves his adopted children.
But I'm having to make this conscious, deliberate choice again and again.
No, I've adopted these children.
They don't have my blood, but they bear my name.
They belong to me.
God adopted me.
He made that choice in his election and adoption of me.
He loves me, and I'm going to seek to love them as God loves me.
Does he love his adopted children less?
Well, in his own words, like only the Lord knows his heart, but in his own words, no.
He loves them deeply and profoundly just as he loves his biological children.
They are his children legally, by name.
They are his children, and he loves them just as much as his natural born children.
But I appreciate his honesty and being willing to admit that although he loves them just as much as his naturally born children, the effort required to love them that much is greater.
That it doesn't come naturally.
It came with required more intentionality.
So that's what I would say to BJ.
BJJ wins again, as I would say.
His wife is very worried about him, the adopted embryo child, not feeling as loved as the natural kid.
And so I would just say tell your wife not to worry.
Tend to worry more than husbands.
And so encourage your wife, wash her in the word, encourage her not to worry, to be anxious for nothing, but with prayer and supplication to make all of her requests known to God.
And the particular request that she should pray and ask the Lord to help her with is Lord, help my oldest son not to feel this way because help it not to be true.
Help me to love him the same way that I love our younger biological son and knowing that it may require more effort and more intentionality because I can't just bank on nature working for me, but I have to simply rest and rely upon that which is supernatural as a Christian in grace.
And so, yeah, so I'd encourage her not to worry, but whenever she is tempted to worry, instead to pray and to ask the Lord that that older child would not feel less love than the younger child precisely because it wouldn't be true.
Ask the Lord to increase her capacity for love and that she and you, as the husband and father, would be intentional in loving both of your children.
Yep, good answer.
Kevin Ice, a $10 super chat.
I'm going to put some names in here just to kind of keep it straight so the question kind of makes sense because he's asking about a friend situation and there's a couple people involved.
So Kevin Ice, thanks for the super chat.
He said, a friend, and let's call this Doug's family, a friend has a brother.
We'll call this Bob.
So Doug, his friend Doug, has a brother, Bob, who is a man who thinks he's a woman.
Just put it that way.
Bob's parents are allowing, Doug and Bob, Doug and Bob's parents are allowing Bob, the brother who thinks he's a woman, To live with them.
My friend, that would be Doug, is married with two kids.
So Doug, his friend, has two children.
Is it wrong to keep the kid away from kids away from his parents?
And I think he's saying the grandparents.
Because if they're with the grandparents, then.
If they're with Doug's parents, the grandparents, they're also.
Then Bob will be there too.
The man who thinks himself a woman.
And doesn't just think, but I think we're meant to assume from the question also is dressing like a woman.
Dressing, yeah.
No, they should not be around that individual.
No.
I can give a biological reason for it.
So, men, we have a number of receptors in our body.
They're androgen receptors, and they're tuned to testosterone.
So, there's some estrogen in a man's body, but he is tuned thoroughly, top to bottom, to receive, respond, and be hormonally balanced with testosterone.
Women, in the same way, it's inverted.
They have EHR1 and EHR2, estrogen hormone receptors, and they're tuned to estrogen.
When you introduce estrogen into a man's body, a body that is not tuned to take it into large amounts, so the hormone transition, You destroy him psychologically.
That is why these individuals are typically violent.
You've taken everything that's about a physiological balanced state in a man his energy, his mood, his emotions, his regulation, all of those different things.
You've taken them and the way they're supposed to be arranged, the delicate balance that exists in the brain and the body and the endocrine system.
You've taken it and you flooded it with something absolutely foreign.
And these people generally are violent.
So, just at that level, Taking that thing, and you see this when people call them the wrong names or whatever, they lash out.
It is not physically safe to be around.
Divorce, Remarriage, and Covenant Faithfulness00:15:19
And then I think someone else brought up the spiritual component.
It is also terrible to be around.
As an adult male who's perfectly safe, I've gone on work trips and seen individuals like this, and I am disturbed.
And if I was in, I've said this online before, if I was in a restaurant and someone like this came up to be our server, I would leave if I was with my kids.
I wouldn't be around it.
And so I get that it's grandparents.
But I also think, especially because Bob, in this case, being allowed to live with them, you say, We can't come over and we won't go over.
And we think that you should encourage Bob to stop living this lie.
Right.
And hold it as a prerequisite that if he chooses not to, then I'm sorry.
We love you.
You're our child.
But we cannot support you in this life.
So if you're not willing to change, then you have to move out.
And in the meantime, what you could do also with the grandparents is you said, we can't come there because Bob is there, but you can come and visit the grandkids without Bob here at our house.
So you could have some kind of honoring your parents in that sense.
And then the only thing that I was going to add to it is just more of a little bit more of the spiritual theological side.
But it's just like with anything else.
So, like, you know.
Families, extended family can always be challenging.
But let's say you have kids and then you have a brother, you have a sister, let's say a brother.
You have a brother and so it's your kid's uncle and you only see him once or twice a year.
And let's say that he's not a Christian, he's not a believer and he curses like a sailor.
Well, you can talk to him before the next Thanksgiving when you're all going to be together and the kids are going to be in his presence for three days straight or whatever it is.
And you can talk to him preemptively and say, Hey, look, our kids, we have young children, and we are respectively requesting that you would honor our kids and honor us by not cursing in front of our kids.
And you can say that, and hopefully, even as a non Christian, hopefully he would be respectful enough to oblige and say, Okay, that's fair, that checks out, I understand, I won't be dropping f bombs in front of your three year old.
It's like, Thanks.
And so then you can go to Thanksgiving.
And here's the deal.
On the inside, internally, he's still an unbeliever.
He hates God.
He's going to hell.
And he is someone who curses like a sailor.
And so he's still a sinner.
And for that matter, we're all sinners.
But he's particularly a sinner and in a state of sin.
But he's not actively sinning.
He's not actively sinning in front of your children.
So you have a sinner who is going to be, with you being present as well, who's going to be in the presence of your children.
But you're not permitting him, you're permitting a sinner to be present with your children, but you're not permitting someone to sin in the presence of your children.
And there is a difference, right?
So, like, we've talked about this even, you know, as elders and deacons with our church.
We even had, you know, some of the members of our church ask, like, what would our policy be?
Like, if somebody, you know, if someone, again, trying to avoid the word for the sake of the algorithm with social media and all that kind of stuff, but if a man who thinks he's a woman and dresses like a woman, if he shows up to church, If somebody like that shows up to church, what are we going to do?
Would we pull them aside?
And what we've told them and what we've decided is there's a difference in somebody who is gay.
If a gay man comes to church and assuming he's not there to be hostile, but he's like, I actually want to see what this is about.
I'm not a Christian.
I'm a gay man, but I'm going to show up and I'm going to sit and I'm going to listen to the sermon and I want to see what's going on.
Well, a gay man can show up to church as someone who is in a state of sin in that lifestyle, but he's not sinning at church.
In that moment.
In that moment, exactly.
Like he can show up alone and he's not, you know, in a public, visible, external way, sinning in front of everybody who's present.
But the person who thinks that they're the opposite sex and walks and talks and dresses as though they're of the opposite sex, That person is not just that they're in a lifestyle of sin, but they are sinning, actively sinning in the church service.
And so it applies across the board, even for Christians, for members of the church.
Like everybody who goes to our church, and any church for that matter, is a sinner, including me.
Everybody's a sinner.
So sinners get to go to church, but you don't get to sin at church, certainly not publicly and in a witnessable, visible fashion.
So, like we have people in our church who, like everybody's a sinner, but nobody, even if you're a Christian and you're heterosexual and you're a member in good standing, you don't get to go to church and shout the F bomb.
You know, in the middle of the sermon.
Nobody gets to do that.
And so, in the same way, you don't get to visibly publicly sin.
There's a difference in being a sinner versus sinning.
You don't get, nobody gets to visibly publicly sin at church in a way that's, in a way that would be, you know, distracting and jarring for everyone who's there.
And so, that's what makes the situation unique when it comes to.
Not just, you know, this person, this person, you know, occasionally steals or this person occasionally curses or this person even is, you know, is gay or this person, you know.
Like what's so unique about this particular sin is you're talking about with this particular sin, you're not just in a state of sin, but you are 24 7 actively sinning all the time.
Lying about who you are and who God made you to be.
That's right.
You are publicly, visibly.
For every single person who can see you, you are actively sinning.
You are portraying something that is perverse, something that is unnatural, something that is against the Word of God.
You are lying.
You are practicing deception.
You're being manipulative.
You're being confusing and deceiving.
And so I think that is a fair, I will leave it there.
But just a rule of thumb, pretty simple, pretty fair.
But a rule of thumb for parents is.
Nobody, whether it's your family member who's a Christian or a family member who's not a Christian, whether it's this or that, it doesn't matter.
As a parent, nobody, no person has the right, nobody is permitted the right to sin in front of your kids.
You, as a parent, are allowed to say, No, I'm not going to allow a bunch of people who are blackout drunk.
To come over to the house in front of our kids.
Or I'm not going to allow.
Either you won't be here or I won't be there.
You're leaving or I'm going.
Exactly.
And unfortunately, with this particular sin, that's what it's the equivalent of.
It's the equivalent not just of being in a state of sin, but it's the equivalent of actively, continually sinning.
And your kids will notice.
I've been in those environments, unfortunately.
And my three year old, I remember distinctly, like it's etched in my mind, my three year old daughter looking. you know, kind of tilting her head and confused and not understanding why is there, I know that that's a man, but he's wearing makeup and yeah, you don't subject your children to that.
That is, that's their problem.
That's their fault.
They made that choice and you are not being hateful or disrespectful.
Your obligation is not to a deluded person's fantasies and assuaging their conscience.
Your obligation is to your children.
And dads, this is why you need to be big and intimidating and carry that when that happens, you can stand up and kids go to the car.
And I'm going to do whatever needs to be done.
Say no.
Ask them to back off.
Ben Hofstetter.
A steady, generous, wonderful man.
Ben is just, he's the man.
Single handedly funding Right Response Ministries.
$100 super chat.
Thank you, Ben.
All right.
Ben said, stay strong, brothers.
Appreciate you all.
Appreciate you as well, Ben.
Question Can a divorced man be above reproach to obtaining eldership or pastoral leadership again?
Divorce, it sounds like in this case, was forced on him by unbelieving ex.
That's a tough one.
I've thought about that and spoken to it a little bit in the past.
So, you know, the qualification that it comes down to is husband of one wife.
And so, like, what does that mean?
Some people take it to mean that elders have to be married, you know, because if so, even if you're not divorced, but you have no wife, you're just a single man, that a single man can't be an elder because he doesn't have one wife, he has zero wives.
And then others take it to apply to, you know, a prohibition against polygamy, you know, that would, you know, would be relevant if you're, for instance, you're doing, you know, Church planting in an Islamic nation, and somebody has, or for that matter, back in the day in Utah with Mormons, somebody happens to have three wives or whatever.
And you would say, okay, well, you can come to Christ, you can be a Christian, you can even be a church member, but you can't be an elder.
I was about to say, probably in those cases too, the man would stay in those marriages and continue to provide for those women.
He just could never be an elder.
Exactly.
So what does Christ call me to?
I'm a man who's been married three times, I currently have three wives.
What does the Bible call me to?
Say to me, and the answer would be, and I know it offends our sensibilities, but as far as I can ascertain from the scripture, the answer would be okay, well, then you need to be a faithful husband to all three of your wives without showing favoritism and providing and protecting all three of them equally and fairly as the Lord would have you, willing to lay down your life for all three of them as Christ loves the church.
But this is a terrible picture of the gospel because Christ has one bride.
And also, your hands are full.
You've got three women to please.
Like the Bible talks about the man whose marriage is interested are divided.
Well, your interest is divided all the time.
Three sets of inroads.
Can you imagine?
Exactly.
So you don't get to be a pastor.
So one woman man, what does that mean?
Elder must be the man about one wife.
Some would say, well, he's got to be married.
You can't be single.
Some would say, well, he can't be in a polygamous marriage.
He has to have one wife.
And then others would say, not just having zero wives or simultaneously two or three wives.
But that he can't have had more than one wife, even not simultaneously, but over the course of his life by virtue of divorce and remarriage.
You know, so some take that approach.
And then others, what's probably the most common interpretation, at least in modern times, is that it's just the mark of a man, that he's a one woman man.
He's the type of person who, you know, who models fidelity and those kinds of things, which I get.
For myself personally, I, you know, like, you know, when, you know, early on, I got married when I was 29 years old.
And early on, you know, me and my college buddies, when we moved across from Texas, you know, to California because we wanted a church, you know, church plant, we weren't church planters, we were LARPing, it was all a joke.
But when we did that, I was not, you know, I didn't get married until later.
And I just, you know, looking at that, I would say, like, yeah, that was stupid.
That was foolish.
Could anybody do it?
Like, could somebody do it?
You're saying, could some single man be an equipped pastor?
I couldn't, but could someone do it?
Maybe.
I think the gift of celibacy is exceedingly rare.
I think it's abundantly rare, but there is a biblical category for it.
It does exist.
And so I think, so I'm hesitant.
My point is, I'm hesitant to make an ironclad rule that no single man, there can never be any circumstance ever in any place, in any time, where a single man could be an elder.
So I'm not sure.
In terms of the divorce, particularly to the question that was asked, I don't know.
It's tough because it's like, You've had one wife, you've divorced and remarried, and I'm assuming, you know, like your wife left you, so you go to like 1 Corinthians, I think it would be chapter 7.
You know, like if you're married to an unbeliever, you know, but they're willing to remain with you, then you should remain with them.
You know, but if they leave you, allowing them to go in order to strive to be at peace with all men, and so there's a difference in them leaving you abandonment.
I see those as the two biblical clauses for divorce adultery and abandonment.
Adultery and abandonment.
So if they've abandoned you, And you were patient, right?
You didn't just turn around the next day, you know, but like, but you've been patient and you've been waiting and, you know, calling them to repentance and you've pursued and all these kinds of things.
But it's been years and they legally divorced you.
I think in the state of Texas, it can be not only no fault divorce, but one party.
You can divorce the other without ever having their consent, they don't have to actually agree.
And so they've legally divorced you.
You tried, you did everything you can.
And so it was adultery and abandonment.
It was a biblical allowance for that divorce.
Are you free first?
Are you free to remarry?
I did a whole sermon on divorce and I gave my opinion on this, but short answer is yes.
Calvin held, actually, John Calvin held yes as his position as well.
So I would say yes, you are in those cases free to remarry.
If it was not a biblical divorce without biblical cause, then no, you're not free to remarry.
But in those cases, which it Where it was, then you can remarry.
So then the final question is and then can you be a pastor?
And I don't know.
You're now on your second wife.
You've had two wives.
You don't have two wives simultaneously.
So you have one wife.
And that first covenant has been sufficiently severed and ended by your spouse, not by you, but your spouse.
They cut off that covenant.
They ended the covenant.
And then you entered into a new covenant.
You don't have two open covenants simultaneously.
A new covenant, one wife.
I don't know.
I've heard guys argue both sides, and I'm not completely convinced one way or the other.
One Wife After Covenant Severance00:08:58
What do you think?
I mean, I do hold, I would say, that an elder has to be married.
Like you said, well, what about Apostle Paul?
Paul wasn't doing local church ministry.
He was an apostle.
He was an apostle, yeah.
So, and again, speaking from practical experience, it's tough to imagine.
I've never met a man that's single and has met all those qualifications across time.
You just look back and you're like, that was a great idea, five years.
Really good job.
As far as the divorced, Same as you, it's tough to tell.
Like, it does violate the one woman.
Like, at one point, the man was bound to multiple, and someone severed it.
And I think the situation would dictate too.
You know, like, are you getting someone from seminary?
You know, or I guess I should say, are there a number of candidates, and this is one of them?
Or are you on the mission field, and the best person in the village that's qualified in every other respect happens to be divorced for one reason or another?
So, wisdom, prudence would dictate.
Bible nor church history seems to clearly say one way or the other.
Yep.
Yep.
All right.
Next.
We've got Philip Schneider.
He's been super active in the chat.
10 pounds.
10 pounds.
He said, This is from Philip.
Thanks, Philip.
I want to know your opinions on children having electronic devices, especially below and during teenage years.
Thank you for being a role model to me and the rest of the chat.
Thanks, Philip.
I appreciate that.
There does come a point once your teens are driving that they probably do need a phone.
It doesn't have to be a smartphone.
Maps?
I printed maps out.
You think printers are reliable enough today to print out maps to go to my friend's house?
It's a tough one.
Yeah, kids do not need unfettered access to the internet.
That's like 14 and below, 15 and below.
Yeah, kids, kids for sure.
When you get into those later years, I do think there's something to be said for like the last couple of years saying, okay, like we're not going to officially have a curfew, we're not officially going to do it.
And you're basically allowing the child a greater degree of freedom while they still are within the confines of having the safety of mom and dad.
And so it's like, So that way, it's not just like their first time of unfettered freedom is also synced up with a stage of life where mom and dad are not there.
So you're actually allowing them to practice liberty and to practice responsibility.
You're taking the guardrails off before they're out from underneath your eye.
So while they're still there, when you can still run to their defense and their protection and their help, but removing the bumpers and allowing them to practice.
And so I think there can be an argument for that.
I've heard that applied to.
Curfew, you know, for like the last two years that a child's under your roof or whatever.
In terms of applied to smartphones, I, yeah, I don't know.
I, I don't know.
I, that's kind of how we started the episode.
It's like my oldest is seven.
Right.
Your oldest is what, two, three?
Three, three and a half.
And we, we prefaced the episode by saying like that's, you know, that's kind of like what we would need Michael for, you know, but he's out of town this week.
So I don't, I don't want to speak, you know, too much.
Michael did something cool.
He has a son and a daughter that are about that age and they actually share a phone.
And just in the kind of way that there'd be nothing that they could hide.
He's also not, you know, having to go through it.
So there's different things like that where you can say, hey, I've got twins or I've got two kids that are coming of age.
They work, they drive to friends' houses.
Like they just need to be able to take calls, see where they're at.
But you'll share a phone.
And that way there's a kind of accountability built in.
So it depends on the kid, it depends on the phone, like a gab phone that has phone messages and location, no internet browsing, no video.
That could be 12 or something like that.
Your kid goes to a Christian school to text mom and daddy, pick me up.
There isn't a blanket age.
There isn't a blanket requirement.
It's not like you can have it at 14 and a half and you have to have covenant eyes, which is a good idea.
That just, it really depends.
And so there's not a hard and fast answer, but the later, I would say, the better, generally speaking.
More cautious with boys than with girls.
And also paired probably with other liberties and being careful with all right, am I giving them a phone and curfew and they have their driver's license and they have money and a job?
Is this all happening in one month or is there a way to leading up to it kind of give that freedom?
Yep.
Yep.
All right.
Let's see if we can hit one more.
We had a number of super chats.
Apologies to anyone we weren't able to get to.
Let's get to a Jeff Halfley question.
Good old Jeff.
Jeff, thanks for the super chat.
$9.99.
I think another $2.99 went elsewhere.
Jeff asked Parents use the least amount of force in history today.
Are we moving towards a better form of highly restrained corporal punishment as the ideal?
Are we in sin for not using the old time methods?
Bottled up is that our Christian great grandparents would call us total wimps for not using belts on bare skin.
Were they wrong or are we?
Both are correct, I think.
As in, 100 years ago, your grandparents worked on a farm.
You were out there milking cows at 6 a.m. and moving hay bales, putting up fence stacks, and then you ran off or whatever, and grandpa, you know, did what he did and took you to the woodshed.
I don't, in that hypothetical scenario, there's totally scenarios where that would make sense.
And then today, not at all using those means because you don't work on a farm, your kids aren't hardy, and all of those also not wrong either.
So I think, in a sense, there's a time and place where our grandparents lived a harsher life, and so the means of disciplines they used look harsher to us now, but they were not necessarily wrong.
And yet, we too are not necessarily wrong.
We're being biblical.
We're doing it well.
As we said, you're applying something temporary instead of any type of permanent harm, abuse, or damage.
I think both could be wrong and also, or both could be right and both could be wrong.
Grandpa could have been too hard and then we could have been too soft even now.
Yeah, that's probably fair.
We're definitely too soft.
So, that one, I think for sure.
Like today, we just, we hate kids.
The Bible says, you know, like the one who doesn't discipline and spares a rod hates the child.
And so I think, you know, On the whole, in general, we are in a generation of parents that, according to biblical definitions, really do hate their children by sparing and neglecting.
Ultimately, it's neglect and a lack of love, discipline.
So I think, you know, I don't know.
I mean, I look at, you know, history and the things that I'm able to find from past generations, and overall, they were better than us on basically every single metric.
So overall, Whatever they were doing, I don't think it's as bad as what we're doing today.
So I think, but that doesn't mean what they were doing was perfect and had no room for improvement.
So I don't feel comfortable just saying, you know, like, yeah, like, whatever, you know, whatever they did was absolutely infallible and perfect and we have to do exactly that.
So that would not be my position.
But I would say that, in general, yeah, obviously you're always going to be able to find, you know, exceptions and isolated cases where it really was abuse or it really was this or it really was that.
But in general, the generation.
That disciplined their kids and used spanking, and some of them a little bit less, you know, orthodox means of spanking than others.
That generation, still on the whole, I think, produced in their children a greater degree of virtue and responsibility and duty and sacrifice and respect.
And not just due to the way they disciplined, but more broadly.
Their education and their teaching and instruction and Christian character.
But it produced.
Better people than I think what we're producing today.
So, yeah.
So, I think, you know, probably some problems on both sides.
But I think the bigger problem is the problem of no discipline at all.
And honestly, like, if that was our biggest problem, we'd probably be in better shape.
But today, like, that's not even our biggest problem, isn't just no discipline at all.
Like, we quickly are getting to the point where our biggest problem is no children at all.
Right.
We don't even have kids, much less, you know.
Neglect to discipline them.
So, all right, well, that's our episode.
I hope you guys enjoyed it.
I hope you found it helpful.
Michael will be back with us next week.
Tonight, there's no Friday special this week.
We're in between seasons.
We'll pick the Friday special up with the first Friday of April, season two, with Dr. Stephen Wolf and myself on Christian nationalism.
And in the meantime, the next thing that you'll see from us will be our live stream on Monday at 3 p.m. Central Time.