Saturday Question & Answer Session x David

And as I take my seat, can you each give us a one thumbnail sketch or a quick plug your own book, and I think a good book. You go first, David, last chance for sales for the local bookstore. What we what we what we recommend? Thanks Tim, Yeah. I love it. It's a children's book. Yeah, it's a children's book. You'd like it. Thank you. Cookies on the bottom shelf. It's so, this is a book that I wrote. You know, I think it was actually Luther who said that man is a mirror bended in on himself. We're the image of. God, but instead of reflecting our creator, we try to reflect ourselves back to ourselves. So I took that image and just turned it into a Chillldren's story about a murror tries to reflect itself because a dragon deceives it until the King rescues it and restores it. So it's really the Gospel in a small, parable form for your children in which they really understand what's going on in the gospel. So hopefully your children will benefit from it. I wrote it for my kids, so if it helps your kids, please please. Get it. All right, This is Christianity and Wokeness by Owen Strahan. The subtitle is how the social justice movement is Hijacking the Gospel and the Way to stop it. Owen is a dear friend and brother, and this is an excellent resource for comparing the tenants of the social justice movement with the tenants of the Gospel. And I'll just say a word about this. You'll notice that this is published by Salem, and that fault Lines was published by Salem. You're the major christ And publishers did not want to touch either of these books. And as far as I know, up until now, none of the major Christian publishers have published anti social social justice books. But some of them now are thinking about it, because, as you see, Owen's book was a national bestseller. My book was a national bestseller. Yeah, well, yeah they are. But it was just incredible to be a part of that team and to do that with him and with Salem in a time where people just weren't willing to take this on. But he does an excellent job of doing that and taking it on. It's very scholarly and really helpful, and he Owen writes incredibly well. Great, thankkey, Pasteur David. Before I ask you to pray for us. What what's the benefit of Q and A. Some people have said, ah, just bullet points. You're just hitting the headlines. You're not treating anything thoroughly. What do you think is a benefit? I know often we'll talk about, Hey, that Q and A with those speakers really have to mark on us. We go to conferences, we find them helpful. What's the dynamic here? I think when we're preaching, we're trying to put our arms around a lot of truth. We're thinking through it. As broadly as we can as preachers. We try to mine it out, but we just can't think of all the things you can possibly deal with, And so as the questions come in, it's very specific and practical things that you'd like to include in your sermon, but that would make it three hours long. So a Q and A is an excellent time for boring holes down deep in specific ways, whereas we were trying to cover a lot of ground at once. It's kind of like a family table though too. It's things are caught more than taught. You guys are going to instruct us. But even the Q and A has a shotgun approach to it. But what's the appetite? He says, ah, I need that book or Dave's answer on beauty. I never thought about that. I need to download ten sermons, I need to read three books, I need to talk about my pastor do a Bible set and that issue. I think it's also modeling. You know. That we're real people who think about these things, and these are not issues to be afraid of. There are answers to these questions, and I think for a lot of Christians it's really helpful to see other Christians field these kinds of questions and it helps us to say, yeah, there is a way to answer that. Yeah, there is a way to respond to that. You know, yeah, there is a way to respond sometimes when you don't have an answer to a question. But I think there's value in that as well too. Yeah, definitely, once again, were we stick in to the topic, so one or two disclaimers before I asked David to pray for us. Obviously a number of you weren't able to be here yesterday. Please get the downloads Antioch Bible Church YouTube channel or our church website in the next week or so. So the things. Related to LGBTQ yesterday, abortion, euthanasia, death penalty, we're not going to go back over that. Those are massive ethical issues. Thank you for asking. We do have the free abortion booklet as well at the Shepherds Seminary table and a number of other resources that were mentioned yesterday. So apologies if you couldn't be here, but we're going to leave out those questions for now. But thank you again. Great questions. Some of them overlapped, some we're just not able to get to. Some are just more off the topic. But just the last thing on LGBTQ though, is benefits Danvers, Nashville comments from U voting particular, just for further study those kind of summary statements that have come out, particularly Danvers or Nashville. What do we do with those? Yeah, I think it's helpful to to see those kinds of statements, number one, because these these are places where guys have really thought through the issues and they are really trying to in a pointed way, address all of the you know, pertinent topics there. I think you also kind of you know, I guess I'll go go ahead and go here. But sometimes those statements smoke people out. You know, draws lines, yeah, draws lines, not just circles. It smokes people out you know. Yeah. Yeah, by the way, thanks for not letting us down on the socks today. Yeah, Dave, and I kind of accent you, well, yeah, I got to keep the suck games. Yeah, white sox matter. Yeah, he's a pink on that note us, brother. Yeah, I think we need prayer at this point. Loving Father, your word promises that if any man lacks wisdom and he asks of you, you give liberally and without upbraiding. So we pray now for grace and wisdom to rightly apply scripture as best we can. Help us to think incisively, help us to think with discernment. We pray that what we give will. Be Scripture rightly thought through. So just give us grace and strength. As a body of believers who are striving together all to renew our minds. Help us to do this together now in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. A couple that are more preliminary, kind of fun and I think valuable. I appreciate the way that they've been asked. And then we'll dive mainly into racial crt woke related issues for the bulk of our time. We've got our Lord William be ready for anything, load shedding. But last time, the sound still worth just having vote's voice in it dark room. That was quite an effect. Maybe we can simulate that again before the day is over, but voting. Is it wrong to marry a non believer who doesn't get in the way of your belief? Two different people ask us, yes, I always like to give you an easy start. Why can it? Why should a Christian? Why can't a Christian not marry a non Christian even if they're very compliant? And because the Bible says not too. The Bible is unambiguous about that we're not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And you know, the the greater the the more significant the covenant, the greater the unity required. Right, It's a great way to put it. And so if I'm going to, you know, agree to go to the mall with somebody, there's a level of unity that's required there. But if I'm going to agree to enter into business relationship with somebody, there's a greater degree unity there. If I'm going to agree to be married to somebody, there is no greater degree of unity required than if I'm going to marry somebody. So with an unbeliever, we're not even agreed on what that covenant even means, right, So it's it's not even something to be considered. David the vote. He might want to chime in as well. Two believers compatibility. How much of a concern should that be? Well, the first kind of compatibility you're looking for is spiritual oneness. Scripture makes a big deal of like mindedness, being of one mind, being of the same mind. So if we start with that being the definition of compatibility, we're going a long way towards defining is this going to work out? Usually that compatibility is to find in some other extraneous way, you know, do we both like to play badminton? You know? Or are we you know? Are we both left handed? And that type of thing is a very superficial approach to compatibility. Start with that which unites you most, which is nature, worldview, loves affections. From there, it's a legitimate discussion are we similar? We can we get along? Can we be friends? Can we enjoy each other? So we start from the fundamentals and work out. If I can. Sometimes what you are talking about as well, though, is a sexual compatibility, which sometimes people bring in, and that's just completely unbiblical. We don't get to try before we buy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, But do you think some young people, particularly young men, are overthinking this waiting for the perfect clift? Absolutely? Yes. I think the overall, I'm a majority of young men are overthinking this, and I think part of this is from this sort of the romanticism that we've allowed to creep in. And you know, our our understanding of marriage, you know, has more to do with you know, sort of Disney princess movies than anything that we find in scriptural truth. And everybody's you know, waiting for the one one whe right, and it's just it's wreaking havoc on us both before and after marriage because you know that that that pagan idea that we get of this sort of you know, mystical you know, Cupid's going to hit me with zerrow and this person, out of all the people in the world, is going to be the absolute one, and then that's going to make everything good and perfect. Well, first of all, it keeps us from pulling the trigger because we never really feel secure enough that this is like the one. And then secondly, when we get married to that person, and then the difficulties inevitably come because two centers said I do. Immediately we must start thinking that, well, I must not have married the right one. And the answer to how you know it's the one is you got married. After you say I do. Amen. All right, I tried to dodge this in the Q and A yesterday. It's worth answering. I think we all hold the same view. And yeah, but vote last night because it keeps coming up until death do us part in the vows you mentioned? But what about those of us who do not hold to your permanent view of marriage as being inconsistent or hypocritical when we say those words are officiate a wedding with But then allow for you know, one of the two historic grounds adultery or desertion. Those are not two historic grounds. That's number one. But if that's not the position to what you hold, then don't hold to that position. I mean, I don't know what else to say. You might want to think about changing the vowels if if that's the position that you hold, and stop saying until death to his part, and say I'm committed to you until unless there's adultery in abandonment, but you know beyond that it that's not the view to what you hold, then I don't just say if it's not your view, then it's not your. View, right. Yeah, it's a big subject. Yeah, David, what do you think is most lacking in churches across South Africa? The gospel M. I loved what you said. Gospels coded isn't the same as gospel centered. Yeah. South Africa is a. Richly religious nation, and so we're embedded in all kinds of religion from all fronts. That tends to give us a self satisfaction that we are a church going people. But that church going people from the various streams that have fed South African Christianity hasn't been a particularly gospel centered Christianity. There hasn't been a robust proclamation of justification by faith calling sinners to conversion, calling them to live out the fruits of that faith. Today, when you talk about the Gospel like that, for many South Africans, that sounds like a sect, that sounds like a cult, that sounds like something extreme. Something's gone very wrong with. The religious culture of a place when when you teach first principles it's regarded as right extreme margins. Something's gone very wrong with that country. If it thinks it has Christianity, but it doesn't have a basic converting gospel at its center. So the gospel is central, and that's missing from many churches echoing out from that. What's missing is an expository pulpit church discipline, serious church membership, sober worship, and a robust discipleship of God's people, which sounds like I'm saying Christianity is missing. But while that probably sounds pretty pessimistic, I think it's a state and I'm not sure South Africa is the exception. On that. Common question, Vodie, why is the Zambian church so much stronger? You've been in both places. Obviously you live there, but you're not a stranger here observations. I know, Conrad and run On some of your teammates have said, the sleeping dragon still hasn't been woken in terms of our South African Yeah, Christian influence, Yeah, but I think a lot of it has to do I think a lot of it has to do with affluence. I think, you know, people look at people around the continent look at South Africa as like almost not even part of the continent, you know, because of how advanced to other Africa. You know, the place is We had a a lecturer come from here to lecture at Acu, and when he made the decision to accept the posting there, his family asked him why he wanted to go to Africa. You know, so it's I think. You know, people are afraid of persecution and what persecution will do to the Christianity, but affluence is much more dangerous to Christianity than persecution can ever be. The great question very local, David. I've been saved out of an NAR New app Stock Reformation Word of Faith church very recently. I have a negative view of the word faith. What is faith? I believe it means to trust more than the mystical force or power that they portrayed faith to be in the NAR Word of Faith churches. Faith, according to Hebrews eleven to one, is treating the future as present and treating the invisible as visible. What's behind that is not just something. Vague, but a person. So you're placing that trust in what he's promised to do, and you're placing your confidence in who he is based on how he's revealed himself. That makes faith not as great as what you can conjure up, but as great as he is. And your linked trust in Him. So faith is that deep, submissive, loyal trust in the revealed person of God. It's definitely not a mantra. It's not a formula, it's not magic, it's not a spell that you cast. It is a. Living gift of God embedded in your heart that leads you to exercise that kind of dependent, loyal trust in Christ. Amen, you both will enjoy this one. We'll start with a vote. Two different people ask this, what is other than his socks? What is a masculine man? And this I didn't This is didn't come from me. I promise what is a masculine man? And I've a couple of questions together, particularly how should he dress? We talk about manly all jokes aside. This person was saying cultural subjective factors. How do you actually say, well, that's a more masculine or more effeminate way of dressing? So what is a masculine man? And then yeah, in some ways those things are going to be a relative to where you are, right. I mean, there. Are different cultures that have different standards of dress, you know, for men and for women. But I think when we talk about masculinity in the truest sense, It has a lot more to do with how we carry ourselves, how we conduct ourselves, what we believe about ourselves in terms of who God says we are right, and what God says our duty and responsibilities are. I think it has a lot more to do with that. And I think those outward things, you know, sort of what we wear, what we put on, I think those things are a manifest station of who we believe ourselves to be, as created in the image of God, and and and as as men created in the image of God. So what comes on the outside of us then, is about that projection. That projection, if you will. It's about about what we what we want people to see. But again that's going to be different from place to place. I mean I've been in some parts of the world where I'm like, yeah, I ain't wearing that. You know, you've got a kilt, admit it. And that's a that's a great point because kilts are manly. You know, you can rock a kilt. Man, You've got to be a man of rock a kilt, you know. Yeah, leave me with that one, right, Yeah, yeah. How do you sit with the celt very carefully? Yeah? You know, clothing is one of those symbols in culture where meaning attaches to it through various ways. It's attached by association, what we associate with it. It's attached by convention, the way we use that clothing. But there's also a way that meaning attaches intrinsically. It's attached to the nature of things, the body shape, what it communicates, how it hugs, the human form, what it accentuates. So in all these matters, we're trying to do what Scripture tells us to do, which is test all things, hold fast to what is good. No, there isn't a Scripture verse if you're looking for a SmackDown answer. But most times God doesn't do that for us. Most times he expects us to develop powers of judgment, of discernment, that is, to extract things from our culture, hold them up, examine their meaning because they always do have meaning, and with that meaning we then apply Scripture to it. So scriptural principles for masculine clothing would be modesty, sobriety, that which communicates your own understanding of your masculinity, that which doesn't cross so many lines that the average person in your culture would mistake you for trying to be the opposite sex. So okay, that's not a list of colors and cuts, but I think there's enough information there for most serious Christians to find the answers they're looking for. Is he woun add to that? Vote? No? No, no, not at all. Still thinking about the. The kuilt right, So vody. How are we doing in the church today and in modesty? Addressing in modesty training, not that it doesn't apply to men, but training our daughters in Christian modesty? How can we do better? I think the biggest problem, and this is something that we talked about yesterday too, is that we don't think about esthetics at our core. All of us are legalists and moralists, and as legalists and moralists, we want a set of rules so that we can tick off some boxes and say I'm holy because I ticked off the box, right, And so you know, and you see this in different ways and in different cultures. It's a shortcut, right, yeah, And it is. It is absolutely a shortcut. And when we do that, what we end up doing is ignoring the heart of the matter. So I can be incredibly immodest and in my heart, incredibly immodest in my attitude, but tick off all of the boxes right, you know, absolutely, and you know we'ren a Burke and like it's not like there's no pornography and cultures where there are Burker's right, it doesn't stop that because that doesn't deal with the heart, right, And so you know that that I want to say on the one hand that you know, because we're legalists and moral moralists, we want list. And then because we're legalists and moralists who want lists, we tend to straight off into extremes number one and then number two, I think we tend to downplay truth, beauty and goodness. And it's just it's hugely problematic. You know. I think in many ways modesty is a lot more than what we make it and a lot less than what we make it. But it's all because we're we're looking for, you know, some some boxes that that we can we can tick off instead of dealing with the heart and instead of dealing with these whole ideas of truth, beauty and goodness. You know, like David said, about what we accentuate and you know what we don't, and you know what we again, it's a lot, it's a lot more about that. And so I think I don't think we have as much of a modesty problem as we do a lack of biblical esthetics problem. Yeah, I think. Beauty is in the eye of the beholde is one of those non biblical versus. Christians like to quote from Second Hesitations. Yep, yeah, is Akaya chapter five. You've got that as a tattoo on your back, don't you? Man ha ha. Whereas Paul, for example, tells us in Philippians One, I want your love to abound more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, not that appear excellent to you in the moment, or that you think is excellent, but your neighbor doesn't are excellent. That shows us there is a standard of excellence. There is a standard of beauty. And if you're saying, well, where is that standard, Well, that standard is in creation. That's what we need to discover. That's part of our mandate is know it, learn it, find it. Think on things that are true, good, beautiful, just upright lovely, wholesome. No, you're not going to get it in a list of four points. But that's what discernment means. It grows with use, as Hebrews five says, so the pursuit of beauty is something that every Christian should be on like we pursue truth and goodness. David's written a lot on this. Did your doctoral work on this? Right? Great body has been a clear voice on this as well. Two of you, two of the probably my first two go to sources on these subjects. I've learned a ton body. Two different questions that fit together and take it where you want. But one more principle and then one more personal to you. What is the need for Christian higher education? We know you're involved with Africa Christian University in Zambia. What's the role the need for Christian universities and higher education on the African continent? And then, to be very specific, someone said, how does a gifted preacher like you leave the pulpit for the academy. I'll take the second one. First, I haven't left the pulpit, so there's there's the second one. First, I'll never leave the pulpit, I hope, but die in one. Although that you almost did. Yeah, probably wouldn't be cool for the people who were there, but you know, for me it would be awesome beautifully No, no, yeah, so that that's that's the other thing. And and but compared to the average preacher and pastor, you're pouring a lot of energies into Christian education. Yeah, yeah, all the work of a Christian university. Yeah, definitely. And so here's the other thing though, when we look at for example, you know, uh second tivoty two and Paul's telling Timothy that you know what he's heard from him and the presence of faithful witnesses to entrust to faithful men who will be able to again pass it on to others. Also, that is part of our duty and responsibility. Right, My duty and responsibility is not just to preach as much as I can and die. My duty and responsibility is to multiply myself. And so I'm involving myself in that ministry of multiplication. And this season that manis to your multiplication has me putting the emphasis on a different salavel. Right, it's not that I'm not in the pulpit, and it's not that I'm not preaching, and it's not that when I was a pastor and church planter that I wasn't doing this training. We had a training institute that we established in our church that is now being mirrored right in what we're doing at ACU, especially in the School of Divinity. So it's not an either or in terms of you know, Christian higher education. Again, this goes back to that pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness in every area, aspect and avenue of life. This is our duty and responsibility as Christians, and we used to lead the way in this. In fact, the very concept of the university started with us, the very concept of the hospital start it with us, because of our pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness in every area, aspect and facet of life. The leading scientists in the world, the leading musicians in the world, the leading philosophers in the world, the leading political thinkers in the world. I mean, at one point all of this was coming from, you know, the richness of God's people in God's Church applying these truths to all of these pursuits in every area, aspect and avenue of life. So in essence, you know, we're just continuing that tradition, you know. And I think the world is it's worse off because Christians have sort of neglected this duty that we have. I think the world is worse off when we are not leading the way in the arts and the sciences, in the humanities. I think the world is worse off when we say no, no, no, pagan atheists, you guys go and we'll go over here and concentrate on these things while you go over there and deal with all of the truth, beauty and goodness issues. May it never be. It's all going to burn in the end anyway. And Jesus could come back today, why bother? Yeah, well, because we're to occupy until he comes, right, we bother because God bothers. Right. God didn't just put us on an empty globe as disembodied spirits. Think about that, because he could have you put us here in this world that he created full of truth, beauty and goodness. And he gave us a mandate. And we are continuing to carry out that mandate, right, and all of creation itself is yearning for the fulfillment of that mandate. And here's the thing. When Jesus returns, you know, it's not just going to be souls that are transformed. It's the whole created order that's going to be transformed. So God says creation matters. And because God says creation matters, and because there's going to be a restoration of the truth, beauty, and goodness of the garden at the end of the age. Then I ought to live like that in the here and the now as well. I mean anything else on that, Dave. Well, the whole Christian life is summed up in the two commandments. Love God and love your neighbor. But how can you love your neighbor if you don't understand what sort of being he is. You need to understand humanity to love your neighbor. And that means the study of what a man is, what humanity is, the arts, the sciences, the world we live in, technology, all of that is a study of human life, the human condition. Christians know the human condition better than anyone else on earth because we have the Creator's Manual to tell us. Now, with that worldview, when we examine all of life, we can come to the right conclusions every time, no matter what domain of knowledge we tackle. So when Christians withdraw from those domains of knowledge, we essentially leave them to unbiblical worldviews to dominate. We need to provide the Christian presence, as Jay Gresham Machen said, we need to be there in all of those areas by providing the Christian worldview. So if you want to love your neighbor, I don't know how else you can do it except love the life of the mind, love the study of what humanity is to do it well, and that's where higher education really comes in. Excellent. Both of you have written and spoken quite a bit on Christian education, homeschooling. Look up the resources online bodies book Family Driven Faith. Is that where you flash out? I mean in terms of the books you've written, the case for homeschooling David's blog Again, I mentioned before Churches without Chests dot net, Churches without Chests dot net. You just finished a series on seven. Christian education in seven books. The top seven books that you would say make a case built on scripture for Christian education, anything else before we move into the rest of our time. In terms of the racial issues Christian education encouragement, there's families considering it's homeschooling for me, doesn't really matter. I would just say to your parents, please don't think of education as something different to the discipleship of your children, because it's the same thing. That's what the youth group does Friday night Sunday. Yeah, Well, a guy with a volleyball can only do so much. I'm kidding, that's your youth group. No, I'm kidding having a sport. You should see education as the shaping of your child's heart and mind. That's not something you outsource to Sunday school teachers or to youth group leaders. That's something you take responsibility for as parents. Whether or not you have someone teach your children, you are the one who's responsible to govern that. Before God. We have to give an answer as parents to say my child's worldview was shaped by the following. Those were the influences I allowed in. That is education. It's the care and shaping of your child's mind. So just don't buy the secular lie that education is some kind of vocational training so they have an economic passport for the rest of their lives. Think of it as that which will shape your child's heart to embrace the God of Scripture for the rest of their lives. Now, if that doesn't motivate you to get some kind of Christian education, I don't know what will have to decide that you're not going to throw your children to a secular religion and then expect them to love the God of Scripture. Or as I like to say, you can't send your child to Caesar for their education and then be surprised when they come home as Romans. So the other thing I'll say is is Luke six forty right, A pupil is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he's fully trained, will be like his teacher. Education is discipleship, right, regardless of you know what we're doing in that education is discipleship. We have to see it his discipleship, and we have to be making a conscious decision that this is how I want and intend for my child to be discipled. Hey man, And if you don't have resources in your own church, speak to some of us, some wonderful homeschool cops. There's resources here, there's graduates from these schools there. If you aren't aware of a network, please shop. It is something we take very seriously and we would love to help all. Right, races even the word do we believe in different races? Just biblical summary voting how many humans? How many races? I think there's thirty nine, I'm not mistaken. Maybe maybe you know discover a fortieth by the end of it. No, So when we think about that from a biblical perspective, you can either argue for one race or two. Right, You can argue for one race if you're arguing for all of us being the race of atom, or you can argue for two races, the race of the first atom and the race of the last atom. But ultimately, in that sense, that's what we're talking about. And the reason that I make that distinction, and I think, David, you made this distinction earlier also between nations, Ethnos ethnics that we see in scripture is because of the Darwinian connotations surrounding race as we understand it. And there are a number of different schools of thought on this, but all of them share in common that the different races of people resulted from different avenues of evolution. Right, So that that idea or that concept of race as we understand it, that's where it comes from. So that's why I fight against, you know, just using that concept and try to fight to use the concept of ethnicity because it is a biblical word, a biblical term. It acknowledges that there are different groups of people who share different things in common. And that's a beautiful thing, you know, I mean, it really is mean. God is glorified in that kind of thing. He didn't make just one kind of plant, you know, And I mean there's a there's wonderful, glorious diversity and beauty, you know, in God's creation. And this is also true and you know the various ethnicities that we find. So I like to distinguish between those two. Number one, because of that truth of the biblical terminology, but secondly because of the roots and origins of our concept of race. Yeah, David B. E. Given the disadvantaged position of post apartheid blacks, any thoughts on a Christian view of black economic empowerment, I think there's three e's in it now, and the that ideology. By the way, there's someone else who works works, there's someone else who works for a B company, and should they have anything to do with that? You know, we were talking about this earlier. When you're coming straight out of genuine institutional racism like apartheid, where structures were built in a particular way, something can be said for demolishing some of those structures, taking down what was genuinely a form of disadvantage for people. Once you've removed that, then you need to let the market take its course. At that point, the healthiest thing for a culture is to allow the free market to prevail. There's all sorts of ways that the free market can allow for incentives, for things that allow entrepreneurial activity to proceed, for people to get a leg up if they want to. But generally, the idea of BEE in most of its articulations, is a form of trying to get equal outcomes, and trying to get equal outcomes is always putting your finger on the scale. It's always tampering with the economic machine, and always what happens is you think you're going to get one outcome, but you generally get many others as well. You do one thing and there's a noble motive behind it, and politicians always have noble motives. What's not often seen is the economic reality which takes place as a result of that. In almost every study that economists have done, people like Thomas Sowell in his book Basic Economics, goes into long lists of countries that have done some form of not BEE, but the equivalent. The amount of economic repression and poverty that results is truly sad to behold. So in essence, you. Can say something about redressing the past, but usually you can do that pretty quickly in terms of dismantling certain structures. Having done that, it's time to let the market take its course. While we're on acronyms EWC expropriation with our compensation? Should that matter to the church. Is there in a biblical worldview about the land reclaims or should. We just set this one out? If no comment. Thou shalt not steal. It's only possible for that command to make sense if private property is enshrined. Naturally, God must be saying it is possible for you to own property and have it. Otherwise the command you shall not see it doesn't make any sense. To expropriate without compensation is just stealing with governmental authority. And let me say this. You know, in the South African context, I wouldn't I wouldn't begin or pretend to understand the South African context. But in the American context, you know, whenever something like this comes up, then people want to continue to push back and go back further and further and further and say, well, well, what. About what about the natives? Right? What about the original owners of the land. But nobody can say for sure who those were. And you know, in the United States. This. Sorry, it's interesting because you know, people want to say that, you know, this Indian tribe or that Indian tribe on this land, but then you go back and you find out that they expropriated that land from another tribe that was there before them, right, and they took it by force. And then if you go back further, you find out that these people, you know, I mean, unless you find out who crossed that land bridge first, you know, you're you're you're going to have to start somewhere with what we do know about the ownership of any particular you know, a piece of land, and who can make that claim most legitimately, you know, right now. Right, Another aspect of the wocome movement from a different angle here Vodie and David Thoughts on rap hip hop. I know you guys have your favorite albums and so forth, but what should a Christian think about this? Every time I come here, y'all ask me about this. You know, I was like eight years ago. Every time every time I come, you know, yeah, and you know I've I've said this, you know for years now, is that you know, my issue with with this particular genre of music is that it's part of a culture, it's part of a broader culture, and that culture is very clear in its essence and presentation. It And let me just leave it at this. I think the. Greatest tests and I don't know who first brought this up, you know, but it's the windows up test. Right, If somebody saw you listening to whatever you're listening to, which a windows up, what would you be portraying? And I think that in many instances what we would be portraying is not something that we would want to communicate as Christians. Yeah, just on what vote you said about a culture, I think the best definition of a culture is it's the incarnation of a religion. It is the fleshing out of a belief system. So when you have have a genre of music that is a subculture, what you want to do is ask what is this culture's belief system? What is the fundamental world view here about God, about man, about the world. And you don't have to go far to figure that out. You can read the lyrics, or you can you can take the lyrics out and listen to the mood and absorb the mood and absorb the posture towards the world and decide all right, this is the fundamental outlook here. Now you can take Jesus words and put that on top of that, but you might just have cognitive dissonance. You might just have a complete contradiction between what's being communicated and now what you wish to communicate. Yeah and it Yeah anyway, all right, body, how do we engage with the brokenness of the culture around us? What does mean to seek the good of the city Jeremiah twenty. I know there have been voices like Tim Keller and others that have been very influential on that. The question continues. I don't want to misappropriate the profits like Jeremiah, but we have spheres of work, education, et cetera, public policy. How do we go about reforming unjust structures without losing or betraying the Gospel. By being Gospel centered and not just Gospel coded? Right? I like that. Again, we go back to this idea in case you were wondering. I really think it's important for us to have a biblical worldview and to pursue truth, beauty, and goodness in every sphere, avenue, and aspect of life. I don't know if I've said that, but I think it's incredibly important, and this question gets to that as well, right, because if we're doing that, then we are pursuing the good of the city, the good of the place where the Lord has us in every sphere, in every avenue, and in every aspect of life. I just tend to believe that the Bible says more about more than most people believe. Right, most people believe. You know, the Bible is a book that has a lot to say about you know this right here, you know, maybe you know it's getting married and us having church and us doing you know, but then all of that stuff out there that's just all, you know, just free reign for everybody else because the Bible just it doesn't really, no, no, no, no, I believe the Bible says more about more. Right. And so when we are pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness in every area and every avenue and every aspect of life, we will be salt and light and we will have an influence in all of these different kinds of spheres, and it will be a preserving influence, and we will be a blessing. People may hate us, but in the end they have to admit that they're better off because of us. And men you mentioned. I think we were chatting yesterday and Zambia. You often get asked are you importing Western culture? Are you? Body asked you here? Okay, somebody asked me that here. You know about being an American and being a missionary, and you know, sharing the Gospel. Do I ever feel like I am imposing an alien worldview onto Africans? And my answer was absolutely, because the Gospel is alien to every culture. If you're in Europe share in the Gospel, you're imposing an alien culture, right, because the Gospel doesn't belong to anyone's culture. The Gospel transcends culture, and everybody's culture is broken and everybody's culture needs fixing. The Gospel is the only culture that is not broken, the only culture that doesn't need fixing, and it's the only culture that can fix anything in any other culture. So yes, we are absolutely bringing a foreign, alien culture whenever it is. We're proclaiming the Gospel, and if we're not, then it's syncretism and you need to stop preaching that. So, Dave, that goal would be multicultural churches, right, No, we your favorite words. We never use the word multicultural in our church because multicultural is multi religion. So we use the term multi ethnic because we have many ethnicities in our church, but we're monocultural because it's the one culture that grows out of christ likeness. Christ Like culture a culture of loving what God loves and hating what God hates, loving what He loves in the way He loves it. All that comes out of fleshing that out is Christian culture. And when we have that in our church, we're fleshing that out and we're saying this is us. We don't get to say no, no, but this is my culture because I'm this color or this is my particular take on Christianity. No, this is our culture. And therefore Christian history is our history, and the people of Christianity in the past, that's our past. It's our heritage. But owners, well, that's a sin they needed to repent of, and it's wrong. There's no justification for it. But at the same time, I don't claim someone as one of my forebearers because he was unfallen, claiming it was one of my forebearers because he was genuinely regenerate. Best we can tell that he confessed the gospel that there were fruits of righteousness in his life alongside all the blinds and warts that were part of his day and his culture and his particular milieu. So I'm going to judge him as charitably as I should given the era he was in. I don't expect, for example, Augustine, I don't judge him with the same lens that I judge someone after Calvin. It's a different doctrinal era. I put on lenses based on the era. But having said that, I'm still going to call sin sin and recognize the Gospel where it's present. Or either of you. In a South African context, this person says, I agree with the message anti racism is antithetical of the Gospel. It's never ending repentance. And yet, as a black South African, how do I minister to my parents and grandparents? They suffered tremendously under apartheid regime. I've been labeled a coconut uncle tom, et cetera. Yet my desires for them to hear the truth and the advice, you know. At the at the end of fault Lines, I end with a story of my first trip to Africa, right which was it was a It was a very powerful experience for me. I didn't grow up with my father, but I knew my father. My father came to faith later in life and God reconciled us and I actually got to disciple my father. And my father died a few months before the first time I came to Africa, and he always wanted to, you know, to come to Africa. And it was a really it was a really powerful experience for me. And I remember at one point I was in Gondola up in the Copper Belt and somebody asked me if I had ever been to the Slave Tree, and I'm like no, So. They took me in this tree. There's a big, giant, several hundred year old tree, and it was a slave catchment area. Slaves would be, you know, brought there and then they would go from Adola all the way through the Angola and from Angola over to the Americas. And I never knew about that route. But in Louisiana, the largest maximum security prison in the world is a prison called Angola, and they called it Angola because that's the name of the plantation that used to be there, and this was the route that those people would have taken to go over there and be in Angola. And it was really the first time because again, as a black man growing up in America, I'm the descendant of slaves. My last name is balcham right, this nice wholesome German name, because my family was slaves. And again I just but that was the first time that I ever wrestled with the fact that we were slaves because our white folks didn't run into the interior of Africa and get us. Our fellow Africans enslaved us first and then sold us to the Europeans. And it was the first time that it ever dawned on me that I need to forgive the folks. And it was just a powerful experience, right, you know, just by God doesn't make mistakes. He didn't make a mistake when my people were carted off, you know from here. He didn't make a mistake when all these years later, as a result of me having the privilege of growing up in what many would consider the center of the universe, that I get to come back and be a blessing in the place where my folks were. You know, providence. And so I think what we need to do is recognize God's providence. Thank God for being able to have endured whatever it is that we have endured. Make sure there's accountability wherever and whenever we have an opportunity for that. But at the end of the day, what we have to do is we got to walk in forgiveness. I mean, we just have to, you know. And there's a couple of things you know about forgiveness that just you know, really, you know, hold hold on to me, and you know, one of them is holding on to unforgiveness. It's like you drinking poison hoping that they die. Right, I'm just I'm just not gonna I'm not gonna do that. God's been too good to me for me to do that. And that's what I want to encourage people to walk in. Right, My life is not, you know, incomplete if I don't make white people feel guilty about what their ancestors did to my ancestors. Right, like, whatever, you deal with that, But me and mine we're okay, you know, and we're going to walk in forgiveness. And here's the other thing. If we want to get into you know, what our ancestors did, and and and then hold on to culpability because of what our ancestors did, I'm as bad off or worse than anybody would payal skin Amen, somebody right, because because I got folks in my family in the not too distant past, uh you know who've who've done horrendous things. And so I think this is just an issue of understanding the power of the Gospel in our own lives, the forgiveness of the Gospel in our own lives, and in recognizing how hypocritical and godless it is for me to expect that God forgives me for my sin. But then I have the audacity to hold onto somebody else's sin as though the blood of Jesus can cleanse me, but it's not good enough for them. Amen, Thank you, David. There's an increasing push in SA to decolonize theology, abandoned Western principles of hermoneutics basically read the Interpreting Scripture for a more African theology hermoneutics for the African Church. What do we think about this? Is it related to CRT as well? Yeah, it usually is related to CRT. Two things. First of all, when they talk about African theology and African mindset, they're not talking about Africa as it is now is. They're not talking about white, Asian, black all mixed together in Africa developing an African identity. Now they're talking about an African identity minus everything they decide is not African, which usually simply ends up meaning black. But it's black in the two twenty two, which requires that they now come up with a kind of a repristinating finding some sort of ancient African form of Christianity that doesn't exist, but they get they're determined to find it because allegedly, of course, Western civilization is the pollution. It's the barnacle. That's actually where the problem lies. It's misunderstanding that Christianity grew up where it did, fed by multiple influences Rome, Greece, primarily Israel, and then developed in many nations of many ethnicities. One of the most insulting things to non white Christians is to say that Western civilization was white, when in fact it is the heritage and patrimony of any Christian more or less who comes from that part of the world, and to say this is a white thing is to me an incredibly bigoted statement. In fact, Western culture is the almagelm of many many influences, many nations, several content, and several languages that were influenced and saturated with Christianity for over one thousand years, and the resulting art, architecture, economics, music, thought represented at least a trinitarian view of the world, an understanding of the Omago day image of God in man, an understanding of depravity, and at least some understanding of the mediatorial nature of Jesus Christ. Now, if you want to take that and throw that in the burden and say, well, you know that was Western, were going to do something just completely original in pristine. My answer to that will be Okay, Well, we'll see you in a thousand years. You have cultures are not ready made labels that you stick on. They take centuries to grow. So when you discard that because you say well this is colonial, this is Western, firstly, you've misunderstood church history, you've misunderstood culture, and now you're rubbishing something that is something you could still build on. You could stand on its shoulders and say, on the basis of what we've received, this is what Christianity does now look like in our nation. So I think it's a it's a very sad kind of disposal of your birthright in a vain pursuit of a kind of an originalist Christianity that you're not going to get at except using some CRT techniques. No, I agree wholeheartedly and told you like this guy, yeah, absolutely, I mean this is staying here. I'm ostealing. We talked to we talked to our students about this all the time. You know, when the Gospel comes to Europe, the Gospel doesn't say Wow. When the Gospel comes to Europe, the Gospel says, and these people need help. They are barbarians. So when people talk about this, they ignore the historical reality that it's the Gospel that made the West what it is, not the West that made the Gospel what it is, And we get it just completely the wrong way around. The other thing is we just ignore this reality. Let's just get this out here, Okay. The freest, safest, least corrupt, most prosperous people in the world are people who benefit from Western civilization. The safest, most prized, most protected women and minorities in the world are the women and minorities that live under the blanket of Western civilization. It is absolutely revisionist and ridiculous to think that there's something else out there that is going to get us what we have received by way of the Gospel creating what we now know as Western civilization. And so we're being sold a bill of goods when we equate that with whiteness, first of all, because it's not right. And secondly, we're ignoring that incredible benefit and blessing that we've experienced. We're cutting off our nose despite our face and enough, already enough, just no, just say no, thank. You her last five minutes Vodi. How do we respond to the teachings preachings of current faithful preachers, reformed evangelical leaders that have become woke and the name mentioned here, it's quite sobering. He spoke at a Worldview conference many years ago, Paul Trip. You know, here, here's the thing. One of the things I got and pushed back, and I joked about it yesterday. One of the things I've gotten pushed back on from fault lines is the fact that I name a lot of these guys, I think over a dozen of them, right. I don't go after anybody, and that's not you don't do that, right, But I'm pointing this out. You take the gloves off, you know, I'm pointing this out in fault lines, right, And I think that's how we respond, you know, I think, you know, when we have relationships with people and we can get into this with people individually, that's great. But when people are doing things publicly right, public error, public correction. Okay, public error, public correction, and then people are like, yeah, but the naming names, it just doesn't seem very Christian. It doesn't seem then you haven't read your Bible. Right. Listen, Alexander the copper Smith, you know, the dude over there on Main Street. You know what I'm talking about, right, he did me much harm. That's what Paul says to Timothy, not just you know this gout, No Alexander. And in case you're wondering, Alexander the copper Smith, you know what I'm talking about, right, That's what Paul does. And that's not the only name that Paul names. He does this with frequency and regularity and with you know, no sense of irony. I mean, it just he just does. And so I think we need. To do that. I think we also need to pray for our brethren. You don't give up on them, don't throw them away, you know. But I mean, at the end of the day, we've just got to be we just got to be honest. You know, thank. You, David, given the gnostic nature of Marxism that undergirds this threat to our world CRT and so forth, do you see value in partnering with other faiths? There are classic liberals, for example, Others maybe conservative convictions, but they're not necessarily evangelical Christians like us that combat CRT. They are alarmed at wokeness. To what level can we partner with or cooperate with them? Well, collaboration always depends on what you're trying to do. If what you're trying to do is expose the ideas, then they can be limited cooperation in certain forums where you find good intellectuals. They might be atheists, they might be Muslim, they might be Hindu, but you share a forum where you're all combating the ideas using good reason, good sense, common sense, general knowledge. Sure, I mean Christians do this in some form almost all the time. The issue is could we partner with them under the banner of expanding the church, spreading the name of Christ, spreading some form of Christianity, doing discipleship or no, because at that point we are denying with one hand through our collaboration, what we'd be saying we're doing with the other. So it really depends on what we're trying to do at that time. And if it is very much a spreading of the Gospel discipling of the saints, then we need to labor with believers. We need to be equally yoked. If we're simply combating in the marketplace of ideas, I could see a limited place for it. You helped us and really spearheaded for our faculty. Shepherds and area vote helped as well. And partly we're following your example of the Dallas Statement social justice statement. So maybe from you, first of all, why was that statement necessary? And then Dave, why did we do a South African version? Yours is twenty eighteen. I think ours is twenty twenty. Yeah, you know, for us, we just saw these things coming, and we you know, we we we The first time, I think the first time I did any sort of writing or teaching on this was somewhere around two thousand and four, two and five, and so these things were coming. But in the late you know, twenty teams or whatever, they were really picking up steam. And not only were they picking up steam, but some of these people that you're talking about were beginning to sort of waffle a little bit. And so that's what you know, brought that meeting about in Dallas and then resulted in the Dallas Statement. It was just this recognition that, well, this thing's coming fast, kind of like you know, when the storm's come in. You know, you get all these predictions and prognostications and maybe it'll do this, and maybe it'll do that, and then all of a sudden, you see the storm surge and it's time to batten down the hatches and you know, get ready. And that's kind of where we felt like we were in twenty eighteen. You both are involved. With G three. Now do you see a role for gatherings like that? We'll come back to the Shepherd's statement, but yeah, you know, Gospel Coalition has become very broad. T for g is now over. Do you see a role for the kind of thing that G three is doing? What that might look like on this continent. I think the events of the last few years have created these fault lines, and so we've seen some new alignments, new alliances. Usually that's a good thing. I've told my church history class that church history is a timeline doctrinal combat, because what you're seeing is heresies, responses, heresies, reactions overreactions. And it's actually through the false teachings that the church purifies itself. It draws its boundaries. It says this and not this, we say it this way and not that way. And so the events of the last few years have really pushed the church to say, so, what do we believe about race, about governmental interference? About all of these kinds of matters, and the alliances that are forming, such as G three provide a kind of a coherent collection of doctrines. In one sense, it's sort of a type of identity to say, within this group, we hold to at least this much, and generally for Christians, that's valuable aside from the partnership, the collaboration, the encouragement. The fellowship makes you feel you're not going crazy half the time, to know there's other people like you just as crazy as you, almost almost So I'm thankful for min issues like G three beginning and expanding. What kind of impact do you see G three having stay side or abroad? What it stands for, What the benefit is? Yeah, you know, cooperations risky, these yeah, it is, It really is risky. And these things sort of come and go, and we're in a new era. You know, part of it because of the technology, and part of it because of you know, a bunch of other things. But we're in this new era where we see these different kinds of you know, associations, and I think associations are good, you know, generally speaking, you know, I think the problem comes when we when we make too much you know, of these associations, and then you have these people who you know, want to start disqualifying you because you're associated with this person and one time this person was associated with that person, and because this person was one time associated with that person, that means you're now or giving tacit approval to that. And I'm Michael first, first of all, who is that person? Like? I don't you know. So there's a bunch of that kind of stuff, you know, that that goes on as well. But I think in general it's a good thing. Cooperation is a good thing. We're not meant to do this alone. Shepherd Seminary Social Justice. Wealk statement that we produced the benefit for the average believer or South African church. The reason so what we tried to do there is list out about twenty articles in short paragraphs, trying to collect and condense the things you hear about, asking forgiveness from ancestors, restitution reparations, economic reparations, the concept of race, the concept of the kinds of reconciliation, the woke movements calling for the deconstruction, the repudiation of Western civilization. So we try to capture a lot of that, and of course tying it to scripture wherever possible. And the idea is for you to have a fairly readable statement, which we think it is in one or two pages that kind of encapsulates and condenses both the error and the correction, and therefore more or less in one place, you have a sense of what are the issues, how should I think about them biblically? What's the right response? That was our intention with that at. Least great You can find it on Shepherd's Africa. Do help me one of those students graduates dot org Okay, Shepherd's Africa. That'll get you there. Shepherd's Africa and Woke Statement. Vody will have the final word in a minute. We're looking forward to the sermon Dave final encouragement. Why does biblical world no matter? What's the point of this conference a partying word of encouragement. Again, if you want to love your neighbor, you need to know what kind of being he is. That means his so called race, his so called sexuality, or his orientation as they like to call it today, which I think is the wrong term, his culture. And so understanding scripture on all of these matters to do with anthropology is a massive way that you obey the second greatest commandment. It's the way that you yourself are sanctified and reach a greater place of human flourishing by understanding what the Bible teaches about man in all these areas. And quite frankly, it's the doctrine most under attack right now, the doctrine of man. And I think it was Luther who said, if we don't go to that point where the battle is hottest, we are, as it were, abdicating the entire battle. And right now the battle is about man. So as Christians, we need to be equipped. We need to know what we believe, what Scripture teaches, so that we can respond rightly. Amen,