Pastor Exposes DEMONIC Strategy to Replace YOU as a Parent | Live Free with Josh Howerton

There's a difference between information and impartation. You can get information anywhere you want. It takes the people of God to show you how to do it. More often than not, discipleship is caught, not taught. If anyone says that they are an apostle of the same way as Peter and Paul, I'd say, no, you are not. Well, hey, Live Free Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas, but the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we wanna invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for Church Online. Every weekend, we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our Church Online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, Church Online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing for you. And that's what we're doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now, enjoy the podcast. Let's get this big. Let us get this big. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode, another one of the Live Free Podcast here. My name is Carlos Arazo, and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham, coming to you from Lake Point Church in the beautiful city of Dallas, Texas. Woo-hoo! And today, we're gonna be talking about, we're gonna be asking the question. Carlos, what are we gonna talk about today? Hey, thanks for asking. I'll allow it. I wondered. Wow. I wondered if he would do it. All right, go ahead. Go ahead. We're gonna be asking, are there still apostles in the church today? Oh, my. Self-proclaimed, included. Deep dive in the book of 2 Timothy, and we're gonna be asking, how do I actually find a spiritual father and a spiritual mother? And we're gonna be reacting to a video that went super viral of Ross Douthat talking to a Yale professor, asking whether parents have a better idea of what's best for their children or not. You did a really good job pronouncing Douthat. Yes, you did. Good job, Carlos. I might have not practiced that name before. Before this recording. Bro, hey. That's a tough name to pronounce. All right, hey, before we go into this, can I read an email from a listener? Please. Please. Let me just tell you, you're not ready for this. I'm excited. I'm just gonna tell you, you're not ready for this. All right, so if you have ever wondered if the name of God has power, prepare yourself. Okay. All right, so dude, this guy's name, Robert Moore, shout out Robert, lives in Delray Beach fighting cancer. So Robert sends this email, I'm just telling you, buckle up, Robert sends this. So wait, you remember the episode we talked about Exodus 3, God revealing his name, Yahweh, and how some rabbis have interpreted the way that God reveals his name as like inhaling and exhaling? Duh. Yahweh, okay. All right, so dude, listen to this. I wanted to share something that I hoped you would share with the team because it helped me. I'm in Delray Beach with stage four esophageal cancer and seven days out from an esophageal, esophagectomy? I did my best. He said, ever think you're having a bad day? Read that research. I've thought I was gonna die several times and last night was the worst. I was having a massive afib attack and I only had a small portion of my breath left. I was dying with my heart cranking. In my panic state as he's dying, I realized you all had talked about the very breath we have in a Bible teaching, recently, that I had seen. And then he writes this, "Inhale, yeah, exhale, way." I began to do that. It is not over-dramatizing to say it saved my life to get breathing again. And then he ends the email saying, "I'll see you all in person by the end of the year." Whoa. Listen, Acts 17:25, "He himself gives to all mankind life and breath, "and everything." Bro, shout out, Robert. I think this podcast is over, guys. - I guess we can call that a wrap and we're done. - Thank you so much. Wow, that's amazing. - Live free, nation. - Man, praise God. - It is incredible. - Speaking of life, well, a couple of things. This episode is gonna be a great one. It's gonna be really interesting. We're gonna be asking Chad G. Posse a couple of questions on being an apostle. - Stump the old Chad G. Posse. It's gonna be fun. - It's gonna be fun. And also, if we have time, also, Pastor Josh, I wanna give you an opportunity to debrief your experience with Shawn Ryan. - Yeah, drop, episode finally dropped. - That's right, that's right. - You did great. - Thank you. - You did really great. - Thank you. - Agree, agree. And I think a lot of people online agree. - Thank you. - Shout out to Shawn Ryan. We did not mention this last episode, but we have to celebrate this because we are crazy for now. We just wrapped up at the movies the week before and we got some numbers. We had-- - How many, what did it end up at? - So, 147,000 people. - Attended in person over the last four weeks. - That's right. - With more than 4,000 people indicating a first time decision to follow Christ. - 4,200 plus people, that's right. - That's stupid. That is stupid. - Four weeks. - In four weeks. - That's right. - I've never seen, I'll be honest, I've never seen anything like that in my entire life. And let me just go ahead and get ahead of it. We just spent the last few, we're gonna get to this in a second. We spent the last few weeks reaching wide and now we're gonna go deep. And so we'll talk about this here in a second. This week, we start at Lake Point. Boom. - Yeah. - Fight the good fight. - We did already. You did a great job preaching. - That's right, we started this week. Fight the good fight. Four weeks, we're in deep dive. The book is 2 Timothy. It's gonna be awesome. And so if you were one of the 147,000 people who came and hung out, let's dive in and let's do a thing. Whoa, whoa, before we go anywhere, can I tell you something happened this week in the family? Okay, now I'm gonna tell you this. And I'm a little nervous to do this, but I kind of feel like somebody's gotta do it. A joy and then honestly, a bit of a problem, okay? So this week, this week, it was Saturday. We went to the 3:00 p.m. service. Now it's back to 4:00 p.m. service last week. We hid at the movies. And then I took my kids over to the Forest Frank concert. So this was in Dallas and Arlington. So this is me and the kids, two of them over at Forest Frank. This is pre-concert, okay? Now this was awesome, but dude, can I be honest? It was great. As a pastor, I honestly had a little bit of a problem. With Forest! And dude, I don't like to do this, but I just, I feel like you gotta do it. And here was my problem. My problem is, the problem with Forest is, that man is a problem for the kingdom of hell! Bro, listen, dude! Listen, I'd have a little drama there. That dude is a problem for hell. So listen, I wanna show this. This kid gets up, he's not a kid, he's a man of God. - Yeah, yeah. - He gets up, I want you to see this. I'm gonna talk over it. So Trini just start, so he gets up, this is how-- - Even with all of the lights and the music-- - Starts his concert like this. - Tonight is all about Jesus. We're gonna be tuning our hearts to him, we're gonna be lifting up his name and giving him glory. He deserves all the glory, all the praise, and even now, I just wanna invite his presence. So Jesus, you're so welcome here. - Praise welcomes the Holy Spirit. - That's awesome. - Thank you for being-- - You can take that down. All the kids are going nuts. So listen, dude, it was ridiculous. So we're at this concert. Forest Frank, number one, he starts the concert honoring parents, the first thing he does is shout out, who are the parents in the room who brought their kids, and he's cheering the parents. Number two, he's honoring his, like it's all family. Like it's the only concert I've ever seen, it's like wall to wall, kids that are seven, and then I'm two rows behind, grandparents with their grandkids, all stinking, worshiping Jesus, everybody's going nuts. He's honoring the grandparents, then the grandparents are honoring the kids, insane. He's treating children-- - Yeah. - As blessings. The dude's young dad, he's got whole songs about how awesome it is to be a dad, so he's doing this thing. You just saw it, guys giving glory to Christ, the entire stinking concert, kneeling in front of a cross on the stage, like glory up, glory up, glory up. Listen, it's not a, they call it a concert. It's not a concert. It's the whole thing is a worship service. - That's awesome. - And then, dude, I'll go another layer. At every stop of his quote unquote concert, he's bringing in some prominent local pastor. Now, you know, I got bumped by Phillip Anthony Mitchell. - I was gonna ask you. - So it's amazing, but which, that was a good decision. - He can preach. - So it's like he's doing this, so he's, and then thousands of people are getting saved. Listen, here's my big takeaway. A Forrest Frank concert is not a concert. It's a move of God packaged as a concert. That's what it is. So here's why I'm just saying this real quick. We try to, on Live Free, it's like thousands of like dudes that are young dads, that listen. Here's why I'm saying this, and we're gonna talk about the Bible. One of the most important things a dad can do or a parent can do is you steward your kids' heroes. And dude, this is why this was such a big deal. I got my son and my 11-year-old daughter sitting there, and they're looking up to this guy they think is the coolest guy in the world. What's he doing? Honoring parents, talking about how great kids are, glory up, hands up, tears down in worship, all the things, and that's who my kids are looking at and going, that guy's awesome. - Yeah. - And listen, here's a shout out, man. If you're a dad, mom, young parent, one of the best things you can do, you steward your kids' heroes because kids end up imitating whoever they idolize. So I'll just say something that's got a bit of edge to it. If you think that your 11-year-old or your 15-year-old can be listening to Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodriguez, or that Sabrina Carpenter Jezebel girl, think they're awesome, and you think they're gonna end up godly kids, bless your heart. You're too dumb to talk to. Bless your heart. Because your kids cannot idolize worldliness and end up at godliness. Steward your kids' heroes, Team Fortune. forrest frank come on man come on man let's go that's amazing team forrest frank that's amazing that's awesome hey uh whoa carlos what's up you saw a good movie lately uh speaking of heroes so i actually i watched the movie the odyssey by christopher nolan recently i'm dying to see it yeah a lot of people are saying that this is probably the best movie he's ever made so you know it's been received really well so here's what i want to ask you guys um is the movie the odyssey a christian movie the answer is pause like uh the answer is uh no it's not it's literally a pagan uh epic uh poem so uh it is not a christian movie it is an epic myth uh but here's what i will say a lot of people are noticing when you start paying attention to the story and to the movie it is inevitable to point out that there's a theme after theme after theme that ultimately points to something the bible says is actually true and will happen and at some point it just points to who it is so let me let me just give you a brief overview um spoiler alert i'm about to give you a couple spoilers and you cannot get mad at me because you got 3 000 years to read uh the book yeah so check this out so the odyssey basically uh talks about this king his name is odysseus and he is a king who is also a warrior who fights his epic battle and he's returning home uh in the movie you have uh odysseus's wife penelope she is a faithful loving wife who is expecting the return of the husband to come home the people of ithaca are expecting their king to return and uh restore the kingdom some people in ithaca they've forgotten about this king and so they rebel um he comes back and people do not recognize who he is one particular woman does recognize him only until she sees the scars and the wounds in the king's body eventually hold on eventually the king comes back he separates the faithful and the rebellious defeats his enemies he restores the kingdom and at the end of the movie uh spoiler alert uh he goes to his son and says you are the heir to my throne so that story right there the odyssey was actually to give you a little bit of context it was written 750 years before christ by homer and to put it in perspective biblically this is basically around the prophet isaiah so 750 years before christ uh that's the story for thousands of years this is a story that has resonated deeply in the hearts of people there's something about this story that when people have heard it they're like there's something true about this story uh and here's why because the bible says that god has put eternity in the hearts of men and every single human being in history has put eternity in the hearts of men and every single human being in history has put eternity in the hearts of men and every single human being in history no matter what your cultural background is ultimately longs for a savior a warrior and a king to return home so here's what the bible says jesus is the ultimate king and he is the ultimate warrior he the bible says in exodus god is a warrior the lord is his name jesus fights this epic war he goes to a cross he dies in our place uh he he defeats satan's sin in death he resurrects but that's a win by the way and two thousand years ago he says i am the king that is going to return i am the king that's going to be back and the church the bible says is like a bride who is eagerly and expected eagerly expecting the king to return the people of god are expecting the king to come and restore his kingdom uh the bible says that the kingdom is amongst us but a lot of people will not recognize him and when the king when king jesus ultimately comes back he will separate the faithful and the rebellious he will defeat his enemies he will restore his kingdom those who are sons and daughters are adopted in him the bible says that we are co-heirs with christ and so here's the point c.s lewis said this and he i think he said it well the odyssey is a great example of a quote unquote a myth that points to a true myth a true story which means that the odyssey whispers the name of the greatest story in history the gospel of jesus christ the ultimate king and the ultimate warrior come on man come on so good there you go every story whispers his name amen amen pastor josh i have a question for you i will allow it why did it make it to the sermon a lot man so let me just say let's uh let's wind it up and tee it off yeah um i'm really excited about this series first of all let me just shout out uh live free nation um if you are not attending lake point in person but maybe you listen online i want to encourage you um we just spent four weeks going wide we're gonna go deep for the next nine so we're gonna deep dive the book of second timothy part of the reason for that is i just walked into 2026 feeling like uh i get away pray usually spend a little time fasting you just gotta go lord what what are the outcomes you want for your church this year walking into 26 i just had this sentence i am a disciple so literally every sermon series this year just hangs off the i am a disciple thing so why are we doing second timothy all it is is this an older christian man disciple and a younger christian man that's all this book is so i would say this we'll have a link for you in uh show notes or the little deal we got a little i pushed everybody get this little crossway uh second timothy journals where you can bring that sucker every week or when you sit down and watch the show and you're like oh my god i'm gonna be watching a sermon take notes and then you're gonna have that for the rest of your life so let me do this real quick obviously what you got in the book of second timothy is it is interestingly not only is it written by the apostle paul to i'm gonna get to this in a second to his his favorite paul's favorite disciple he ever made i'll talk about that here in a second i'm gonna do nine fast facts about timothy it'll be fun it is also almost certainly the last letter paul ever writes so i will just point this out a few years ago went to rome you can actually see the room and i'm gonna show you the room and i'm gonna show you the room and i'm gonna show you in which this book was written if you go to rome it's about a block from uh the roman forum you're gonna find it's called mamertine prison really interesting i've mentioned it before uh most people walk past it have no idea it's even there i mean it's like you it's you don't notice it there's not even like a sign it's just uh it's just there like okay but mamertine prison you walk right in and uh it is virtually guaranteed that is the prison cell paul wrote second time and i'm gonna talk about this here in a second the tulianum was in a roman uh jail there would be one cell that was sunken down underneath the floor we'll get to this in a second uh that would have been because it was underground it would have been cooler than the above cells this is italy it's a little warmer all the things and that's where they would keep prisoners who were on death row so church history tells us the apostle it's a little mind-blowing the apostle paul was right there when he wrote second timothy now you may go well how do we know that he was there just a couple of fast facts um we are told in second timothy paul says that he was quote chained like a criminal keep that up there please trinity chained like a criminal um that is where prisoners were kept uh before a death row sentence paul obviously this is second roman imprisonment paul gets head chopped off right after this um this is the prison that is it's the only prison that's close to the proximity of paul's place of execution so you got it right there paul was a roman citizen this is where they kept roman citizens so everything points to that being the one now here's what's interesting from second timothy we'll get to this later in the series paul says two things that make you go dadgummit that's where he wrote it second timothy 413 paul says when you come talking to timothy bring the cloak that i left with carpus at troas and my scrolls especially the parchments now what's it's a little interesting people have always been like well dude it's italy it's warm why is paul asking for a cloak well that's how i think because he's in the sunken tulianum that's underground it's like being a cave where it keeps room temperature is roughly ground temperature so it's cool so number one it like you got that number two second timothy 289 paul says remember jesus christ risen from the dead the offspring of david as preached in my gospel for which i am suffering and then he was born with chains as a criminal and then i love this but the word of god is not bound i love it so much injected into my veins now dude here's what's nuts is to this day so you already know this is the jail paul's at right before he he experiences his death sentence now you know that's the cell he's in now there's only one spot so in a tulianum you see that little hole at the top the prisoner that was on a death sentence he was on a death sentence he was on a death sentence he was on a death sentence would have been lowered through that little hole that's the actual seat the apostle paul sat on when he wrote second timothy and then bro when it says bound with chains as a criminal if you look real close it's down and to the right of that little sign right there there's two holes bro it's right there two holes in the wall that's the exact two holes where they would have passed the chain and the apostle paul would have had both his wrists chained through those so when he writes bound with chains as a criminal the apostle paul is sitting right there writing that scripture right there wow so just like it kind of you know just it kind of drops on you like an atomic bomb and i will just say this i just want to point this out if somebody's in a spot where you're in a season of life where it's like man life is hard and things are painful when i look at that i just want to point this out to you you've never heard a single one of paul's you've read every one of his letters god will redeem your pain amen god will redeem your pain okay now uh let me say a couple quick things do i have time can i you have time come on you got it paul have you ever heard the theory that the apostle paul suffered from dwarfism i don't think i have actually okay i'm throwing this at you i didn't tell you i was gonna do this you know this is a thing oh okay let me throw this at you okay i'm gonna give you this i heard this was short that was a thing okay check it out i ran across this this week now i'm gonna throw this at you and when i'm done i want you you to say if you're in or out okay okay there's more to it than you would think yeah all right so check this out okay number one the average first century male in rome was between four five four and five six so you know i'm not short i'm just roman that's it i'm five eight by the way number two now check this out so uh paul's greek name this is not i'm not just doing a bit here like this actually will make you think paul's greek name paulos literally means little and back then they would frequently name people after something about them okay now let's go keep going number three because of that for a reason i'm gonna show you here in a second there are people who estimate paul would have been between maybe four six and four eight and maybe weighed a hundred pounds now let me talk about why this is this is actually kind of interesting okay so there's a second century text second century century equals the 100s okay now by the way i'm not saying i'm in on this i'm saying it's interesting and i want to see what you guys think okay the second century text is called the acts of paul and thecla and so there's a person who said they saw they were at a place where they saw paul uh visibly here's how they described him a small man with regard to height bald on the head shout out chadji policy and then it says curved in the legs that's how they described the apostle paul yeah curved in the legs now those there's a uh uh i got i saw this online uh there is a a researcher guy's name is isaac soon who he kind of pointed out he was like man that's kind of a description of somebody with dwarfism now but he takes a step further i'm out on this and i'm gonna tell you why i'm out on this but it's still interesting in acts nine paul is said to have escaped damascus anybody remember how he escapes damascus lowered in a basket lowered in a basket i'm gonna tell you why i'm out on this but it's still okay this same dude the isaac soon guy he did some study on first century roman baskets and his conclusion was that type of basket could only hold somebody that weighed under a hundred pounds so okay there you go now interesting then and then this dude just did a couple context clues now i'm out i'm just gonna i'm shoot you real straight i'm out on this i'm gonna tell you why i'm out on it it's interesting to me some people have gone well hey dude nobody has ever known what is paul's thorn in the flesh that he mentions it's uh second corinthians yeah yeah second corinthians what's the thorn in the flesh there's something about paul's flesh that bothered him asked lord take it away he didn't take it away what was that nobody knows first corinthians one paul specifically says god has chosen what is weak in the world to shame what is strong seemingly talking about himself okay so you start putting stuff together second corinthians 10 if you if you bible nerd out on second corinthians essentially all second corinthians is is these guys that were like super apostles they were like we're cooler than you and better than you and better looking what paul says about them is here's what's wrong with these guys here's what paul says he goes those guys are judging me by appearances there's apparently something about paul's appearance that made these guys go yeah like that you gotta be kidding me that dude's not gonna do anything and then the same chapter says quote in they're talking about paul it says quote in person he is unimpressive so dude so this is this is one guy's theory i'll just cards on the table i'm out and i'll tell you why i'm out here in a second but i used to put it all together and you start going you know second century description short in stature curved in legs lowered down to the basket maybe 100 pounds there's all these little things make it sound like it was short so let me ask you guys in or out on the theory paul may have suffered from dwarfism what do you think i think i'm out i've heard it before you have i have yeah i've never i've never heard it i was this many years old before i've heard it before i think i'm out but it's just uh i think it's uh it's plausible yeah it's just i'm not sure that that's the evidence is fully there yeah i've always heard he's short bald and ugly which might do paul you should just like me wear a hat man and it's so funny when people meet me in the in the in the lobby over here like everywhere i'm like oh dude i almost didn't even recognize you got your hat because i'm walking around like this so i'm like paul just needed a trucker hat man that's all that's hilarious no but i think i'm out as well i'm pretty just like if you put them all together it seems like a lot of circumstantial evidence that can kind of add up i just don't know it's got a bit of a candace over there why are you it's good all right why are you out here's why i'm out i'm out for two reasons one basically all the narratives about paul are written by luke who was a doctor and i'm kind of like i think he would have said something very detailed super detailed i think he would have said something good point the other one i did a little uh research on this today and i just asked i got to thinking because at first i was like maybe so i asked uh i asked grok expert and then i double checked its answer can you ever tell from a context clue how far the apostle paul walked in a single day because i was like dude you see where i'm going with this yeah okay i was you know i'll shoot you straight so realities so your best guess is we do know that paul apparently uh from troas to asos there was a time where either paul did or was going to or said he was going to and he was going to meet him like the next day they said they were going to sail and paul was like i'll just walk and that was the night he did the long preaching until like three or four days later and paul was like midnight uticus yeah falls and dies and does all that stuff and then you look it up it's 20 miles from troas to asos but if you measure the roman road route it would have been 30 miles so apparently paul was like hey man if i push it i think i can walk 30 miles in about a day and honestly dude i'm just if that was his physical condition it's hard for me to see it would have been a possibility so there you go i don't think so that's interesting yes no i'm out just for the record i don't think anyone could listen to this and come to this conclusion but just we're not making fun of anyone who has dwarfism of course i just just in case anyone could possibly we're not this is more just conjecture because we've been doing research like oh it's interesting thing to think about of course not man looks at outward appearance god looks at the heart exactly of course not okay let me fast fact things about timothy the whole sermon was about uh finding a spiritual father or a spiritual mother that is something that few people ever experience in their life big deal the people who do are never the same so let me just let me fast fact some things about timothy um so here's why we called the series fight the good fight the apostle paul i'm going to get to this last out of my nine facts the apostle paul takes a fatherless kid i love this so much he takes a fatherless kid and he goes hey buddy i'm i'm going to be your spiritual dad now um there are two things he says to timothy actually there's only one thing i'm aware of he says to timothy in both first timothy and second timothy and first timothy he tells him hey buddy i love you i love this he goes hey buddy fight the good fight fight the good fight and listen to every man and woman listening what the lord wants for you is for you to leverage your life don't be passive don't sit by don't just watch life happen he wants you to fight some fights but he wants you to make sure there's some good fights and paul looks at his son and he goes hey bud you got what you got what it takes fight the good fight and then dude i love it so much second timothy it's the last book paul writes before he dies and the last thing paul says he goes hey buddy do you know what i did i'm getting ready to die you know what i did i have fought the good fight wow and he's passively he's going hey bud just do what i did i walked with you so that you could do what i did so that's why we called the series fight the good fight we want men and women of god to rise up in the spirit of god and fight some good fights all right now let me fast fact some things about timothy he's honestly one of the most underrated characters of the new testament in my opinion so first of all number one paul meets timothy in lystra in acts 14 this is so hardcore i love this so much dude i this is i it's the glory of sermon prep yep i never noticed this stuff until this week you know all right so first missionary journey in acts 14 paul goes into lystra that's where he gets stoned now now listen actually i want to know what you think about this maybe you if you know what i'm talking about you'll know what i'm talking about he's judging paul c he's judging paul c okay so you're probably having a yeah you you know your bible you know what this is you know what this is bro by the way you should have heard chad g paul c he he told me the biggest burn he's like we're you know arguing a little bit and he's like bro you have no idea how many times i could have corrected you before well because his whole thing was i'm gonna ask you questions you can't answer and i was like i did not so i was like okay i might have to turn the tables every now and then i'm talking and i'll see his mouth twitch and i'm always like god crap i said something wrong i bet that's hilarious all right well let's keep going so all right so so that's where paul gets stoned and it says left for dead but the greek is ambiguous there are a lot of bible scholars that think that paul actually died and was resurrected so we don't want i don't want to dwell on this i'm just true false did did paul die and was resurrected or was he left for dead and i think he was left for dead left for dead do you have a theory i'm open no i just i'm open to he could have died me too i got i got no i could have i don't want to say he did i could have i just think he from what i understand the greek's ambiguous so either way either he's what do i know you know because you know i'm not sure what do you know i'm kidding there's like 10 jokes that ran through my head right there and all of them were inappropriate okay i used a filter there's we got bible verses for that so and janet keeps telling me use your filter more okay so uh he gets done left for dead now this is what i never noticed so timothy would have been in lystra the first missionary journey watched paul get stoned and either killed or left for dead and then on the second missionary journey timothy goes i want to follow that guy so i just want to say like dude's got some stones i probably should have used uh that's where you should have used my filter he's got some courage in him he's got stones on the brain because he was stoned that's all that's all that's what i was talking about thank you thank you for saving me yeah so what you got there so he signs up to join him uh a common theory is that timothy actually got saved on paul's first missionary journey and then on the second missionary journey which was like a decade later if i understand correctly then he decides to join him so that's first fast fact number one number fast fact number two about timothy timothy is apparently courageous but also cautious so you're going to notice all throughout first second timothy so he was that kind of guy who is honestly like me man i i you know i i can have a tendency to move toward uh conflict sometimes and i you know doesn't bother me if i need to to do that kind of thing but then there's also a thing in me where sometimes i'm like second guessing should i did i do that right uh timothy was apparently like that one of the most frequent things paul encourages timothy are things like this hey buddy you have not been given a spirit of fear but a spirit of power of love and of a right mind okay so he's constantly timothy apparently had this thing was like hey i'm young i'm gonna get to this in a second i'm young i think i got it but he had this thing and i'll just i'll just gently say this um this encouraged me the most free you guys may experience this sometimes one of the most frequent things people will tell me they'll grab me in the lobby and they'll be like hey pastor josh we're praying for you that you stay humble as always we're praying for you to stay humble and first of all thank you thank you but i will just gently say like janna knows this my biggest strength is that i'm not a Christian i'm not a Christian i'm not a Christian i'm not a Christian i'm not a Christian i'm not a Christian i'm not a Christian i'm not a Christian is not always humility it's confidence and you know very few people only the people who know me the best they text me hey man i'm praying that you stay confident i'm praying so it's just i love that timothy's spiritual dad was like hey buddy you stay courageous it's good you stay courageous all right fast fact number three timothy was the best disciple paul ever made and he said so so this is interesting paul in my opinion paul is the best disciple of jesus i that's my opinion i think paul's the best disciple of jesus in the new testament timothy was the best disciple of paul i say this from philippians 2 20 paul says about timothy i have no one else like him it's interesting so it seems like paul was like that's the best disciple i ever made okay we know that uh fast fact number four uh timothy had a jewish mom and a greek dad so we know i'm going to get to this more in a second timothy came from a broken home almost certainly a fatherless home definitely a spiritually fatherless home we know that from context clues people usually miss it i'll talk about it here in a second so man i do just want to say this and encourage you if you're a dude or a young woman that grew up in a broken home no dad know this one of the greatest disciples in the entire new testament came from a house like you yeah god can redeem it in the absence of the ideal grace abounds right so you see this right here um now i'll just say this real quick i think paul saw that in timothy jewish mom greek dad he was the best disciple of paul ever made and he said he was the best disciple of paul ever made and i think paul went that that would be super helpful it's kind of like if you're playing baseball if you got a guy that's a switch hitter he can go righty or lefty it kind of doesn't matter is a righty or lefty pitching he can kind of go either way uh you know that that kind of thing i think he was like hey dude this would be helpful because sometimes paul was preaching the gospel to greek gentiles and sometimes paul was preaching the gospel to jewish people and the angle at which he took the gospel was different and i honestly think he looked at timothy and he was like hey tim hey little timmy honestly you're gonna help me out bud thank you you're gonna help translate the gospel here all right now you got anything you're gonna say something no no let me keep going fast fact number one two three four five fast fact number five uh this is very intimate and it relates to the next thing oh sorry i just know where you're going yeah you know where i'm going paul paul personally circumcised timothy in acts chapter 16 i had a circumcision joke but it was really long and i would have had to cut off the end of it so let me just we may have to edit that out later we've had all decided at the end of the day we're not going to cut it it's okay oh okay we're going to keep it in okay let me get to the point get to the point all right all right that was what didn't make it into this one that's a joke you can i'm just gonna cut to the taste all right all right i'm like sweating now all right so the reason for this it's actually interesting come back to the center come back to the center the reason for this is that um okay the reason for this is so what's interesting is paul had another he had another traveling even if we cut it people are going to come back to the video what's interesting about this is biblically significant it really is paul had another traveling companion named titus who was also not circumcised and what's carlos hey hey man i'm with you just focus all right i'm back i'm back uh what's interesting is he didn't make titus get circumcised but he did have timothy be circumcised if i'm timothy i'm like what the crap bro you're gonna be good to me what which by the way in all seriousness it shows you how sold out to the mission timothy was in all seriousness it shows you how sold out to the mission timothy was the reason for this was because you gotta have a drink a drink of coffee by the way for people okay and not watching hey you know what i got some control let's go all right all right the reason for this was every time paul was preaching the gospel to jewish people circa even though in the new cup this is a whole covenantal theology thing for the bible nerds i'm gonna have 60 seconds of of bible nerd moment uh there's continuity and discontinuity between the old covenants and the new covenants both the old covenant and the new covenant have a covenant symbol in the old covenant the sign of the covenant with circumcision in the new covenant the sign of the covenant is baptism uh there's a whole book of the bible that we're going to preach through in 2027 uh called galatians where paul is explaining the discontinuity and continuity between the old covenant the new covenant and his whole thing is hey man circumcision is of no value anymore yeah okay so even though under the new covenant sort of era timothy didn't have to be circumcised theologically missionally yeah for the sake of evangelism it was like a hurdle for jewish people to receive the gospel from a guy like timothy because they were like you're disrespecting our scriptures so for the sake of that paul has him circumcised now we'll point this out it is you know it is like wow i never thought about that uh paul personally circumcised him yeah so there was a high level of intimacy in this relationship obviously appropriate but you know it's like these dudes they knew each other uh fast fact number six timothy is a young buck is a young dude first timothy 412 uh that's the passage let no one look down on you because you are young but set an example on all these things uh most bible scholars assume that timothy would have been in his late teens when paul first takes him uh on his journey so honestly man when you think timothy think like 18 20 years old that kind of thing i will just say this if you're younger this is the old jc ryle quote uh what does satan say to you when you're young you're too young to serve god it's too soon to serve god what does satan say to you when you're older it's too late to serve god so man if you're younger i would just say this it does not matter how old you are you do not have a jv holy spirit get a vision for your life that is massive ask yourself the question if i what would i attempt to do if i were a jv holy spirit i would attempt to attempt with my life if i knew it could not fail because god was with me and then attack that with a ferocity previously unknown to mankind so get a vision for your life okay so he's young we know that he's very young okay fast fact number whatever he uh timothy apparently had some medical problem i think i'm a number seven apparently had some medical problems we know in it's uh i think it's also second timothy paul tells him hey man uh drink just a little he says a little drink a little wine you got some stomach problems sorry baptist do whatever it is just a little wine stomach ailments you know do your thing yeah for the bat i think the greek says grape juice for the baptist that'll help the baptist so he does that we know he had some kind of medical problems had to do with his stomach fast fact number eight and then we're gonna land on number nine this is honestly uh this is what led to the biggest part of the sermon um there was a very uh a significant part of the first six verses of timothy second timothy are devoted to timothy's family he had a seemingly uh seemingly broken family so this is what it says uh i'm just gonna read it um it's awesome and it is a shadow that something not awesome was also a part of timothy's life so here's what it says paul says i am reminded of your sincere faith a faith that first dwelt in your grandmother lois and your mother unis by the way i love this what was behind one of the greatest disciples in the kingdom of god a praying grandma and a praying mama that's right i love it so much man so i will just say if you are a single mama so here's what here's what i'm driving at um what's interesting is the faith of timothy's grandma and mom are mentioned not a word about dad yeah we never hear word about dad what bible scholars assume is either uh like paul mentions in first corinthians seven that abandonment from an unbelieving spouse was was a biblically legitimate reason for divorce a lot of bible scholars assume that in first corinthians seven paul is commenting on a situation like the mom's name was Eunice, like Eunice may have experienced, where maybe, imagine, what if she got saved during Paul's first missionary journey? Then her unbelieving husband is like, hey, dude, I'm actually kind of not in on all of the disciple of Jesus stuff. And over time, he leaves because Timothy's dad is never mentioned here. So that leads me to fast fact last, number nine. In one of the most glorious turns of the entire New Testament, the Apostle Paul becomes what theologians have historically called Timothy's spiritual father. You study your New Testament, it's really interesting. There's tons of disciples of Paul. There's only three dudes that he refers to as sons. Timothy, Titus, and Onesimus. He refers to them as sons. In fact, I'm just gonna read it to you right here. In verse two, he addresses the letter to Timothy, my beloved child. And then for the rest of Timothy's life, Timothy just goes, you know what, man? I didn't have a dad that showed me how to follow Jesus. And so what he did, he did what Josiah did, is he went, you know what? I'm gonna find a spiritual father. I'm gonna make that man my spiritual father. I'm gonna get up real tight up to him. And then Paul becomes a spiritual father. Now, let me stop right there. You guys got anything you wanna add to Timothy's, 2 Timothy's stuff before we talk spiritual fatherhood real quick? I just wanna highlight, what you said, Pastor Josh, that's a good word. I think, you know, when I see like your story, for example, you are a third generation pastor. You have amazing dad, come from an amazing lineage. That's just not the norm today. I think it's a statistic. It's one out of four boys are growing up in a fatherless home today. No, no, it's higher than that. It's higher? Yeah, it's higher than that. It's called the fatherless generation. The, I looked it up recently for a men's conference I did. It's somewhere around 40% of children in America are no longer growing up with two married biological parents in the home. Wow. So most people are probably listening, especially younger men, are listening to this and they're asking, man, can God use me? Like, you know, when I see Pastor Josh, when I see these great men of God, can God use me? The answer is yes, he can. That's right, that's exactly right. Yes, he can. Like you are filled with the Holy Spirit. You are empowered to create a new legacy. Another thing that I think is really cool, and I love this. This is first and second Timothy is one of my favorite books, both of them. Again, it's this, Paul is constantly saying, hey, Timothy, do not be afraid. That's right. Don't let anybody, you mentioned this, don't let anybody look down on you because you're young. He's constantly saying, fanning the flag. Basically, he's trying to cheer him up. And you can tell there's a couple of fears. And yet the spiritual father sends his spiritual son to go to the most difficult churches, the most dysfunctional churches, Corinth, Thessalonica. These are huge tasks. And again, there's this idea that whatever God has called you to do, it will not happen because of your own strength or capacity. It'll happen. Actually, God's going to give you a task that's going to feel impossible to you on purpose so that when it happens, you will know it's not me, it's God through me. And so I think that's great. That's just a great reminder. That's right, man. So good. I don't know where you're going, so I'm going to be careful because I feel like I might accidentally step on some of the things you were going on. But man, because obviously, and you've already mentioned this, man, if you're a young person and you don't have that person in your home and you don't have that father figure, part of what we're asking you to do is to seek it out. That's exactly right. This is why we want you in church. That being said, also, I would say this, is that, man, speaking to some of the older men in our church or in the churches where you're listening from, is like, man, Paul actually sought Timothy out. He sought Timothy and wanted to take him under his wing. So we also need Pauls to go seek out Timothys who may not have that father figure in their home. That's exactly right, man. So, man, I would just encourage, you may obviously go where God is leading you, but I'd say like, man, this is why we need great, godly men in kids' ministry, student ministry, leading groups of young adults here at Lake Point, serving with Rooted and getting in Rooted groups and leading those. Because there's a lot of guys who are growing up without a spiritual father figure in their homes. And one of the beautiful things about the body of Christ is he can ask us to step into that and be that for them. So just an encouragement I wanted to give to some of the older men. I mean, you just nailed it, man. I mean, it's, so here's, yeah. We want to talk about that. You want to talk about, does that what we want to do? Yeah. Are you done with the nine facts? Yeah. Okay. So let's ask the question, how do you find a spiritual father or a spiritual mother? And after that, we're going to be asking, how do you become one? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, let me talk about this real quick. Let's riff on this. So first of all, I think I'll just say it like this. If your age starts, let's use Timothy and Paul as an example. If your age starts, if your age starts with a two, three, or a four, you need to go get one. If your age starts with a five, six, or a seven, you need to be one. There you go. So that's just, you know, I mean, every age and stage of life, you can do this thing. But just in general, just lay it down like that. If your age starts at two, three, or four, go get one. If your age starts at a five, six, or a seven, you need to be one. And now what's interesting, I'll just, if you're breaking it down, I'm going to show a picture of him here in a second. I was blessed to have my biological dad, also be a spiritual father. I also have had men throughout my life that in addition to my dad, were spiritual fathers alongside of my dad, if that makes sense. I'm going to show one of them here in a second. But if you kind of notice, if you watch Paul, there's really like, so actually let me talk about getting one first. So here's, if you're a younger guy, here's what you need to do. First of all, what you don't need to do is there's a difference between information and impartation. You can get information anywhere you want, anywhere you want, man. The precepts of God tell you what to do. So what you need, man, is here's what you do. And I say this all the time. What you don't do is you don't get addicted to TikTok influencers, IG influencers, YouTubers, and let them become the people who drive your life. Let me shoot you straight. Here's the reason for that. Because anybody can curate, you can create an image on those things. And by the way, you know nothing. You know nothing about their family. You don't know how happy their wife is. Are their children thriving? Do their kids love Jesus? How many generations deep do you see discipleship in their life? What does their friendship look like? They can hide all that stuff and just present on that thing. And what's, I will just say this, man, what some people do, especially like younger people, my generation down, is what they'll do is they'll kind of go like, oh man, that's not influencing me. It's just entertainment. It doesn't influence me. I'm like, well, wait a second. They're literally called influencers. For a reason. For a reason. So what Jesus said, Sermon on the Mount, is he said, hey man, if your eye is good, actually it wasn't Sermon on the Mount. He said, if your eye is good, then your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body's gonna be full of darkness. What he's saying is, if you wanna change your, if you wanna change the outcomes of your life, you gotta change the inputs into your life. The biggest input that will change your life is if you go find a spiritual father or a spiritual mother. So here's what I'd tell you to do. And then I wanna hear what you guys say. And then I wanna talk about being one. Here's what I tell guys to do at Lake Point all the time. So there's that verse that says, God has given you everything you need for life and godliness. Here's a dumb thing smart Christians believe. They think that verse is talking to an individual you. Hey, Paul, you have been given everything you need for life and godliness. No, no, no. That verse was not written to a person. It was written to a church. And we can't see this in English. In Greek, the you is plural. So you individually do not have everything you need for life and godliness. No, no. You as a church have everything you need for life and godliness. What you need, Paul, to grow up into the full measure and stature of Christ Jesus, you don't got at all. It's in other dudes in the church whose ages probably start with a number one or two digits higher than your age. They've been walking with Jesus for a couple more miles than you. And then what you need to do is book of Proverbs. What's the first thing we do about wisdom? You go get it. So if you're a youth, you go get it. If you're a younger guy, here's what you do, man. You walk in a church. I say this all the time. You walk in a church and you come 15 minutes early. It doesn't matter what church you're going to. You come 15, 20 minutes early. You stand in the back. And here's what you're watching for. You're watching for some guy whose age starts with a five, six, seven, or eight. He walks in with his wife on his arm. His wife looks happy. She's smiling. They usually get there early. They walk in arm and arm. They sit down and then you stay in the back. Stay in the back. Watch that guy. You're looking for something. You're looking for the guy who they walk in. They open their Bible. They're sitting there. They're worshiping. They got their hands in the air. They clearly love Jesus. Honestly, you're looking for him like he's got his arm around her. They're a little handsy during the service even though their age starts with five, six, seven, or eight. They can't keep their hands off each other. They love each other. And here's what you're watching for a guy whose wife is happy. They love Jesus. The wife is happy. Then you do your little homework and you find out, whoa, that guy has kids that love Jesus and love him. And then what you do is as soon as you find that couple, you walk in and you say, you walk up to them and you say something like this. You say, hi, my name is Josh. You seem good at marriage and we are bad at marriage. Can we take you out to lunch and ask you questions about how to be good at marriage? And then you just, you take notes on what they say and then you do it. But basically, you just seek them out and you're like, hey man, download it to me. Download it to me. That's great. But the difference between people who become great disciples and great men or great women is usually who had a spirit of love or a spiritual father or a spiritual mother and who did not. Anything else you guys would say on if you're the younger guy or younger girl on seeking it out? I feel like you did a great job at this. Yeah, you're amazing at this. He is amazing. Yes. So when we talk about discipleship, we usually think, and it is, there's a sense of which discipleship is where you learn something from somebody else and so you're receiving knowledge or information that eventually will result in transformation in your life. That is true. But when you look at, the discipleship you find in scripture, more so it's like, hey, let's do something together you watch me do it and let's move it in the same direction. And so what I would say very practically, similar to what you said, Pastor Josh, you find a local church, you find a group of people that are doing something that you think I can be a part of whatever they're doing. And then you go to those people and you say, how can I help? And I got time. I'm here. I'm not asking something from you. I'm trying to help you do whatever it is you're already doing. And then I'm not asking you to make room for me in your schedule. I'm asking you to include me side by side next to you in your schedule. And then you do that, you help, you're helpful. And then you just literally like learn around you. So by spending time with people that are older and godlier, what you do is, yes, there's a time for you to ask questions. And obviously that's important, but really, man, you just like open your eyes and then just observe. Oh, that's how they, you know, he talks to his wife. Oh, that's how he loves his children. I could do that too with my wife or I could, you know, and so, and then you just do it over and over again. So you join a mission, move in the same direction and ask, how can I help? That's it, dude. Good. Only the things I'd add is, man, let's say if they tried that and they have struggled, I'm like, then find a guy who knows the guy. It's like, I don't always like, even just thinking of like, if I need to fix something in my house, I may not know someone, but I know people who know the people. And so in the same way, I mean, you go into a church, man, this is a great thing. If you're not very well connected yet, or you just, whatever reason, man, go to your pastors and just say, here's what I'm looking for. Can you point me in the right direction? Then you're going to have to take some ownership and I'll get to that in a second. But I'd say like, yeah, just find the person who knows the person. I see you do this all the time when you're in the lobbies and people come up to you and sometimes they want prayer, but sometimes they're looking for advice or counsel and you'll give them some initial stuff. But all the time, I'll see you grab another staff person. And that's our job as staff. It's part of it is we're trying to connect them to the people that they can help them take their next steps. And by the way, this is not a random plug. Like we're trying to help you text serve to 20411. This is literally what we do. We just, we help you find where you can best serve alongside other mature, godly believers that can help you in your life. And that's funny because that was going to be another tip I gave in a minute is, man, if nothing else, if you're like, I'm having trouble finding people, start serving, put yourself in places where you're more likely to find those people. And eventually you're going to find them. But I will say, bro, that's huge. It's what you just said. Fish in the right pond. Yes. Like all the best disciples, they're serving in ministry. They're leading somewhere. Honestly, here's where they usually are. They're leading. They're leading a life group. They're leading a rooter group or they're, it's, it's, I'm talking about dudes, especially they're serving in kids and students. Yes. They're elite. I'll just say that one more time. They're leading a rooter group. They're serving in kids and students. And the reason for that is because the mark of a, of a parent, of a, of a parent, like biologically is they do what? They reproduce. That's right. So the mark of a spiritual parent is that they reproduce. So go find people in those environments who are doing that. Those are going to be the people that are generally more mature. I will say just as a final encouragement is that, man, that means that you're going to have to put yourself out there. Yes. And so now this isn't true. I know of every church, maybe the people who listen to us, but at a church like Lake Point, which I love our church, but if it's really of a big size, the easy default thing to do if you're not connected is just to slip in on a weekend. That's right. Attend, sit down, leave and not talk to anyone. So I will say this means you are going to have to put yourself out there. Believe that God is going to put you with the right people. Take a step and get connected. Well, hey guys, as you know, Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Christ, live free and change the world for God's glory. But here's the thing. Movement by definition, move. And so if you're not moving, then the question is, are you really being a part of the movement? In fact, somebody once said that too many churches are like football games, 22 people, on the field in desperate need of rest, being watched by thousands of people in the stands in desperate need of exercise. Hey, listen, we refuse to be a church like that. And so if you call Lake Point Church, your home church, and if you have not yet joined a serve team, I want to invite you to take your next step right now. Text the word serve to 20411 and we'll help you find your spot where you can serve in person or online on whichever serve team you are being called to serve. Hey, thank you for being obedient to God's calling. I'm going to ask you to take a moment to pray for the Lord. I want you to pray for the Lord. man, Timothy, I love you like a true son in the faith. The father says to the son, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Now, let me just wrap this up. So let me show you a physical example of this, okay? So this is, you're gonna see all these, three of these things, impartation, exhortation, affirmation. Now, heads up, I don't think either of you have seen this video. I'm gonna warn you right now, you ain't ready. I'm just gonna tell you right now, you ain't ready. So if you wanna see a visual representation of spiritual fatherhood in the biological realm, okay? So here's what you get ready to see. I caught this a few years ago and I saved it. It's an 11-year-old who's sitting in a stick shift truck with his dad in rural Utah. Dad's a military dad. And the dad is teaching his son how to drive a truck. And I want you to watch for impartation and exhortation. Exhortation and affirmation. Now, your eyes are gonna sweat. You ain't ready, okay? Watch this. All right, look at you. Keep the gas, keep the gas, keep the gas. Keep the gas. There we go. Now we're gonna speed it up a little. Just, nope, keep where you're at. Keep on the gas, keep on the gas, keep on the gas. All right, ready? Watch your kid's face. We're gonna go clutch, off the gas and push the clutch. Exhortation. Off the gas, push the clutch. Nice. And go up to third. Up, over, third. Now gas. Even transition. Ready? There, go, go, go, go. Yay! You got it, boy! Keep going. That's what I'm talking about right there. Keep going. I love you, kid. Love you, buddy. Keep going, keep going. So you got a car to your left. All right, they're going straight. Keep going. Keep giving it gas. Keep giving it gas. All right, now you just keep driving. You're driving in a circle. You're good, dude. All righty. Listen, if that don't make your eyes sweat, you don't got a pulse, but I just want you to see, I want you to see, you saw three things. Exhortation. Hey, buddy, now's the time to shift. Clutch now. Hey, you got this, bud. Just turn a little. Impartation. I'm in the seat right now. She's putting his hand on his son's shoulder. Hey, let me help you turn it a little bit, bud. It goes like this. Hey, shift like this. Impartation. And then affirmation. You got this, bud. You got this. You're doing such a good job. And what you're going to notice is there's a thing that God has put in the heart of every man. When fatherhood touches his soul, it's like tears start to leak out of his eyes and the sun just has it bubble out of him. I love you, Dad. And, dude, I'll tell you this. I watched that video and I'm reading Second Timothy. And one, I'm going that right there is what your heavenly father is like with you. Mm hmm. When you feel the love of the fatherhood of God, it's like love for the father just bubbles out of you. I love you, Dad, because you were touched by the fatherhood of God. But what's interesting is if you read Second Timothy, this is like such a visual illustration. You read Second Timothy and in verse four, Bible scholars, they like debate this about what was he talking about? Because Paul just says he says to Timothy, he's like, hey, buddy, it's like you're talking to a spiritual says, hey, buddy. And he says, as I remember your tears. And this is really interesting. People debate. I wonder what the tears were about. Here's my everybody's got a theory. I got a theory. I think when Paul talks later about the moment when he laid his hands on Timothy and spoke a blessing over him and he's like, you received this gift through the laying on of my hands. There was a moment in little Timothy's life where his spiritual father, when he didn't have a physical father, put his hands on his spiritual son's shoulders, looked in his eyes and he said. Hey, bud, you've got this thing in you. God did this in your life. I think Paul is a spiritual father is going in that moment. Something broke open in your soul, just like it did in that kid's eyes. Tears start to flow. Why? Because the heart of a spiritual father erupts in the life of a spiritual son. I think that's what you're seeing right there. So those are the three things. What's it look like if you're going, hey, dude, I want to create if you're just going, I want to be this for somebody. And I got some guys in my life where I'm like, I'm kind of trying to do. This thing you're looking for those three things. Exhortation. Do this, not that impartation. Follow me as I follow Christ. Let's get up life on life. Come sit around a fire pit with me. Hey, man, why don't you go like I do this a lot. Hey, man, I'm preaching over in, you know, preaching over in Virginia. Why don't you come with me? Hey, man, just come with me. Come watch how I do it. Impartation. Affirmation. Hey, man, God's got something on your life. That is spiritual fatherhood. That's that's a great word for spiritual fathers and also for biological fathers. Amen. Know how to handle yourself with your children. Amen. That's great. All right. That's all I got. So now here's what I want to do. Can we have a theological debate and Chad G. Palti solve it for us? Yeah. We're going to apostle shit. Oh, I was like, I didn't know. Speaking of laying on the hands. Now what this passage does. So I want to talk about this. Yeah. In the church today where this is a hard emotional gear shift. Let's Bible nerd out here for a second. We're going to Bible nerd out here for a second. So. There is a word that's thrown around in the modern American church frequently, and it's used in a lot of different ways. And honestly, man, I think normal Christians, uh, will sometimes get confused. Hey, what does that mean? Uh, it's a word that's in second Timothy one, one Paul describes himself as quote, Paul and apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise that is in Christ Jesus and apostle of Christ Jesus. Now, here's the question. Chai, G Paul, C are apostles still a thing today? A lot of people do not realize this is happening to them, but it is that word. A pop there's basically about four different views on what is an apostle. Are there still apostles today? Is that office still a thing? Uh, this is, uh, actually I'll just let you take it from here. I'll answer the questions for you. Yeah. A few things that I feel like. It's helpful to set up and then I will walk us through the four views and I've even got a table for you. I know you love the table, good table, and I think this would be a good thing to, by the way, to show people so they can follow it home when you can go download it. I think we'll have it in the guide. Right? That's right. Yep. Uh, first it's about what the term apostle means. It literally just means one who is sent up a stelo is the Greek word verb for to send. So think Jesus says, as the father has sent me now, I am sending, I am appo, Stella wing you and apostle is the. The one who is sent. So it simply means the one who is sent now often is probably the thing that most people think of is that refers to the 12, you know, Jesus is 12 disciples later. Judas is obviously takes his own life and is replaced by Matthias. We think of the apostle Paul. So 13. Yeah. Also 13. Some of them would say from Galatians one, you get James who seems to be referred to as an apostle as well. So some people would say 13. Some people would potentially say, I've never noticed that before because it says in Galatians, James, the brother of Jesus, because he didn't see any of the apostles except for James. That's why some people would say 14, you know, I never put that together. Okay. Yeah. So, but a lot of times people think of them, but also this word is used in other places in the new Testament where it's not referring to those people. So for example, Philippians two 25, I have thought it necessary to send you a path for Didis, my brother and fellow worker and soldier, your messenger. The word is apostle, your apostle and minister to my need. He was an apostle to them because he is being sent by Paul. He is one. He is one who is sent by Paul. 2 Corinthians 8:23, as for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker for your benefit. As for our brothers, they are messengers. That word really is apostles of the churches. Now they are not really thought of, oh, these are like people that are in the same par with Matthew and John and James. No, it just means these guys are being sent from the church where I'm coming from. They're coming to help. So what makes this tricky is this same word can be used in multiple ways. But that being said, they're really what the debate over. Yeah. When you say in multiple ways, you're talking about office and function. Yes, they can be used as an office or simply as a function. Oh, we're calling these people an apostle because I'm sending them to you. But when they read this, they wouldn't have thought, oh, they have the same authority as Peter. They wouldn't have thought that. It's simply, oh, Paul is sending them. He called them an apostle because he sent them. It was just a normal Greek word. Exactly. And that's where there is, I was once taught by a professor who talked about how you got to think, especially New Testament Greek, not just definitions, but usages. How is this word actually being used in this specific verse, in this specific content? That being said, the debate here is over, well, hey, are there apostles like Peter, like Paul, that have more of a truly authoritative since today? There's four views. Let me just say, I'll just go and this may have got a bit of an edge to it. I hope you go ahead and say where I was going to go. Yeah, you will sometimes, especially in more, I'll just kind of say it. And I love like, dude, my charismatic brothers and sisters, like, dude, like some of my favorite people I hang out with in some of the more like hard charismatic circles. Especially you get over in like oneness Pentecostal, you get into some of the NAR stuff that will, I don't know if you're going to go there, but there are people who will refer to themselves as, you know, Apostle Benny Hinn, or I don't know if he calls himself that, but does he, does he call himself that? Somebody look that up, I don't know if he does, but you'll get people who are like they, and it seems like they're using it as an office. Yes, as an office. I literally went and watched a clip of a guy who basically compared himself to the Apostle Benny Hinn. - Okay, that's important. We never wanna say something false about somebody. now other people may refer to him as that way but he doesn't refer to himself that way but i was watching a video of a guy the other day i forget his name but basically said i'm an apostle like the apostle paul bro and you're just and i'm just gonna go ahead and say we'll cut to the chase 99 999 times out of whatever the bet it is run run if you hear people say that run i'm a little curious why you're not saying 100 because i feel like maybe somewhere out there there's someone i don't know that maybe they just don't know any better i don't know no yeah i'd say probably i'm gonna say it 100 percent of the time run and run for the hills even if you can find a great tweet from them or something that sounds good there is something in there that is not good run for the hill so that's the question there's four main views of this actually we got a chart that i'll walk us through so we can keep this a little faster all right so there's four views i'll say the views and then i'll actually go through and really kind of get the positions and their arguments for them so you have what's called a closed office view and that's the idea that the office of apostle is done their authority now continues through the faithful reading and proclamation of the scriptures a second view is that it's a continuing office as you said a lot of times this is more in hyper charismatic circles not all charismatic circles that's right i was actually reading and prep for this the assemblies of god i think on their official website basically says we do not see this as an open office oh interesting we see this we'll get to this number three they see it as a continuing ministry ministry yes exactly five a pest god has given apostles prophets evangelists shepherds teachers okay so they see it as a continuing office they see it as a continuing function yes and maybe almost a spiritual gifting yeah but not an office missionary pioneers church planters people who can lead spiritual movements but explain the difference pastor josh like office and function so how is it a function but not an office yeah so office would have been like hey man there's only you know when new testament you have 13 unless you're counting james which by the way that's a i need to think about that really quick so there were 13 dudes those are the apostles yes they're right they're in they're in 14 they're in 15 that's an office that's right these these guys are the official of and then a function would be i'm sure you're going to get to this um how i will sometimes use it and we may see this differently but i'll kind of go hey man big a apostles is the office little a apostleship would be a spiritual gifting think of it like this oftentimes the word apostle and like in this culture was used as an official representative of someone so that if they say it it is if the person who sent them is saying it they have the same in a sense level of authority and they're not going to be able to say it's an official of authority as the sender and so that's the idea is that as the apostles the 13 or 14 that we're talking about as they were writing things when people received it it was after as if the lord jesus himself had told them to do it there was no wiggle room so it was an office you had to submit to them whereas we'll get to in a minute that's not the case today that's not the case today so closed office continuing office continuing ministry which is kind of the idea that man we don't have any official apostles but some people have an apostolic gift of going and just like the early apostles they would go as missionaries and they were spreading the word and they could start churches like the apostle paul kind of a thing then you have a fourth view that's mainly the roman catholic and eastern orthodox churches and that is apostolic succession and that's the idea there's no apostles but now their successors are bishops so bishops in a sense carry the same authority oh interesting i actually didn't know that in a sense in a sense and that's where that's where even so for example when we talk about how sometimes catholics and eastern orthodox would elevate tradition in addition to scripture is because they would say the bishops who basically are the ones who are creating that tradition have the same level of authority ongoing so in the uh new testament era what would be the marks that made someone oh those are the marks that's an apostle yes and i'm going back up if you go to the closed office one and again it's really helpful if you watch this on youtube or if you download it later in the guide there's two qualifications for an apostle according to those who see this as a closed office they're people who were eyewitnesses of the resurrection and they were commissioned by christ specifically to be apostles so those are two big things they saw jesus risen from the grave and they were specifically commissioned by christ to be an apostle so even though the apostle paul did not see him before he ascended to heaven he does see a vision of the resurrected lord on the way to damascus and there's multiple places as paul is writing later and talking later he says the lord christ appointed me he appeared and i saw him and he appointed me to be a god to be an apostle to the gentiles so those are the two big qualifications have you seen jesus and have you been specifically commissioned by jesus we'll go ahead and cut to the chase and tell people now that's why if anyone says that they are an apostle of the same weight as peter and paul i'd say no you are not so do you know the answer to this question like in hyper charismatic circles when somebody calls himself like apostle sarah you know or whatever is are do you know like are they claiming the same new testament qualifications like hey the apostles appeared to me some of them would say something like that oh i had a vision or something like that um oddly enough and this is by the way for clarity in case you've not seen other episodes we are not saying these people are christians we have said the opposite of that this is frankly if you read the early history of joseph smith and mormonism that is their thing oh we had visions and so in a sense we're carrying this forward we are prophets and apostles in the same kind of way again we do not actually believe that they're christians for clarity but that i will say because you're saying if somebody's like self basically self-proclaimed apostle right um i'm curious to hear what what you guys think um so ephesians chapter four verse 11 you mentioned that uh christ himself gave the apostles the prophets the evangelists the pastors and teachers so there's five different i guess functions or you know or roles um some from what i know some of these uh people here in some of those circles would say well we got pastors pastor josh we have uh evangelists people that you have a specific unique function um we have teachers there's like uh why not prophets or apostles and uh you know profit profit is a different conversation i would say and i think you're on this same path this is where you differentiate between office and function so what i would say is is the office is the new testament office of apostles still open no i do not think it was i i do not think it is it is in fact it is not and i want you to say declared yes here in a second i want you to say definitively why we know that office is closed but when ephesians 4 does the uh for bible nerds who are listening it is shorthand people say they'll talk about a pest apostles prophets evangelists shepherds teachers he translated at pastors and i think that's the niv or the yes yeah apostles prophets evangelists shepherds teachers i would say yeah all five of those are that those those functions and gift sets are all still in effect and what i would say here's how i'll define apostleship uh and people will do different things here what i would say here's the best way to say it um i think pastors shepherds churches apostles shepherd pastors so you you will do you'll see it like in every generation like you'll see guys who it's like they're a pastor but then they kind of there's these voices that got anoints where it's like i call it convening power i've heard it called where there's there's like a pastor that god raises up in his generation and honestly there's usually a grace and anointing on his life and it's like for some reason he's like a pastor whisperer and all the other pastors they start watching that dude and they're like i don't know what to do with him and they're like man i'm following that guy and and there's something on that guy usually it's a very bold courageous voice usually there's a lot of anointing and here's here in my opinion here's how you know that guy's got a grace or a gift of apostleship little a apostle i call it convening power pastors are hard to gather because they're busy and they're usually opinionated so it's hard to gather pastors they kind of like to do their own thing a lot whenever there's a guy who is like when he calls a whole bunch of pastors like well yep i'm gonna come do whatever that guy's doing yeah yeah that's usually the sign of an apostle the reason i little a gift of apostleship that's good the reason i say that is it honestly it reflects the new testament you get the jerusalem council uh acts 15 yeah yeah acts 15 jerusalem council one of the things you'll see in the apostles is bro when those apostles summon people they coming exactly and so it's like pastors tend to christians tend to look to pastors pastors tend to look towards people with a gift of apostles and then as paul is taking that letter to other places he gives them basically it literally says he basically is taking this letter from the apostles and the elders in jerusalem so it's like hey this is bearing their authority to your thing and then i'll be ready to kind of give you like the two verses or two main points i'd say why we know this office is closed um one i would tell people if they said oh but like we see this as an ongoing function ephesians 4 is so clear i'd say a couple things there number one nowhere else in the new testament is there a place where you can just say do you see any instructions given for making successor apostles? What you do see is we're going to be going through 2 Timothy, 1 Timothy and Titus. You get instructions for raising up deacons and elders and pastors. You get none for raising up other apostles, which the Apostle Paul is about to die. That's a good observation. Yeah, and the Apostle Paul is about to die. You'd think if he thinks that there should be his successor, you'd think that he would say that, and what the qualifications of an apostle would be. Sorry, Catholics. Yeah. Okay. So to what Josh said, I think some of the people that I know that are in some of these circles would say, we agree with that. That's why we call ourselves apostles. So not so much that they're on par with the Apostle Paul. And so you said that that's not what Paul said, but then they would point out to Ephesians chapter 4. So this is the other thing I would go, well, a couple of things. I'd say throughout church history, why did no one use that term until the last hundred years? Oh, is that true? Yeah. Oh, think about the early church. Again, they would say, hey, we have bishops. They are their successors, but they never called anybody. Even think the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin. None of them use that. Not until recently has anyone thought that we should use that term. So I always go back to, this is a good reason, Mike. One reason we need to know history is I tell people to be a good theologian or a good Bible scholar, you need to do theology historically. And if all of a sudden you're doing something that no one has ever done before. And if you're seeing something no one has ever seen before, it's probably because it's not there. And then with that, go back to Ephesians 2.20. It talks about how the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And in Ephesians 3, it also talks about how this mystery has been revealed to the apostles and the prophets. There, I would agree with you, it's talking about a designated group that is, you don't get the others. You're talking about the office. Exactly, the office. So there, you don't get the rest of those offices. In Ephesians 4, you do. And so I would say that, and it also talks about, think about it, Ephesians 2.20, it talks about how they have laid the foundation. You don't lay a foundation multiple times, you lay it once. That's the point in Ephesians 2.20. Which by the way, all the New Testament scriptures now, you get into Hebrews and some of these, but all the New Testament scriptures, one of the marks of anything that could be included in the canon was came from or from the Lord. Through an apostle or an amanuensis. Exactly, exactly. So this is why, to your point, how you lay a foundation once, this is why the New Testament refers to the New Testament revelation as, quote, once and for all delivered to the saints. By who? The apostles. The apostles, exactly. The apostles. So I'm just noting, what we're driving at for Bible Nerd listeners is the closing of the office. Yes. Once and for all. The other verse I was going to give, and to me, this is just so clear. People forget. In 1 Corinthians 15, it talks about the resurrection of Christ, and it says he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he also appeared to me. Last of all, he also appeared to me. Interesting. That's a good catch. Yeah. And so I would just tell people, like, to your point, like, if even if someone said, well, we don't think of them this way, then I'd say, hey, that's great, but it's probably not wise to then call them an apostle, because that's just going to lead to a lot of confusion. You may say they have an apostolic gift, but they are not an apostle. Those are two very different things. What would you say to Carlos's objection? That, hey, man, if you go to Ephesians 4, you have apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Why is it okay for people to call themselves teachers, evangelists, shepherds, and pastors, but not apostles? I would have a little bit more of a different nuanced view of yours, and specifically around Ephesians 4. To me, that's where if I go through all the book of Ephesians, and Ephesians is the book of Ephesians, Ephesians 2, it says apostles and prophets only, once for all. Ephesians 3, mystery of salvation is given to apostles and prophets. When you get to Ephesians 4, if you've read those two, and you already know who he's talking about, that's a once for all office. When he says that, it talks about when Christ ascended into heaven, he gave gifts to his church. It says apostles and prophets. If I've already read twice that those were just two groups, and I know who they are, when I read that, I'm not going to think, oh, there's new people as well. I'm going to think these are the people he's already referred to, and these other three offices, think about it. And evangelists, pastors, teachers, those are offices that we do get further information about in the rest of the New Testament. Interesting. Yeah. Can I push back? Push back. Do it! I mean, I'm just reading the verse here. So again, I'm just going to read it again. Verse 11, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers. So here's why we receive those, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature. To mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. I see your point. But then the question would be, it doesn't seem like that. It seems like it's an ongoing process that we are not there yet. Therefore, we have all these different roles. Yeah. So a few things there. What about that, Paul? I'm basically going to restate a lot of what I've already said, which is, again, if I'm reading Ephesians, and it talks about how the apostles and how the prophets have laid down the foundation of the church, I don't relay it twice. And guess what? I have of theirs that I get to keep in order to keep that foundation solid. The scriptures. So you would say, Paul, you wouldn't agree with anybody calling themselves a prophet or apostle. You're only okay with the evangelist, the shepherd, and the teacher. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Because the other thing is. As far as what they call themselves? And this is, yeah, I would. So you think the giftings exist. Yeah. But, hey, man, let's just not call ourselves that. If you told me, Paul, I had the gift of prophecy, man, that's amazing that God gave you that gift. Hey, Paul, I'm a prophet. Yeah, it's. Because the second you call yourself a prophet, in the Old Testament, people were prophets and true, legitimate prophets only spoke the oracles of God and words from God. Yeah. And that's all they spoke. So you're telling me that everything you're gonna tell me is 100% true all the time. Yeah, and they wouldn't say that. Yeah. But that's my point. Like, literally. The second you say that, it introduces confusion. Because if I'm in your church and you call yourself an apostle, like, to disobey the apostles in the New Testament is to disobey the Lord. Yeah. And so with that, I'd say, like, my thing is, again, I'd say, hey, why did the early church have the same book of Ephesians? I love the book of Ephesians, but none of them came to the same conclusion. That's the other thing I'd ask. Yeah, that's good. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me. This is fun. I love it when we do this. Let me do one last one. Hey, Paul. Oh, this is the Stump Paul moment? Oh, okay. I'm gonna give you one. Hey, Paul, what about Junia? Oh, are you going to Junia? Paul, what about Junia? Now, we can't let ourselves devolve into an entire women in ministry. Oh, my gosh. We need to give a whole podcast. That's bold. That's bold for you to bring up Junia right now. We need to have a whole podcast on that at some point. But, Paul, this is how I'm putting on my Stump Chat Sheet Paul tee, but, Paul. Yeah. The verse says. What's the specific verse? Can you look it up real quick? 16, I believe, verse 7. Yeah, greet Andronicus. Yeah, yeah, but what book and chapter? Sorry, yeah, Romans chapter 16. Yeah, Romans 16. Verse 7. But, Paul, it says, greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles. So, Paul, obviously, you have two more apostles, and one of them's a woman. Yes. Okay, so a few things here. One solution that some people give that I don't really think is that great, so I just tell people to stop using this, is they say, well, hey, Junia actually could be a masculine name. It could be a dude. Yeah, Junius. Junius. Yeah, I've seen that. Most scholars, including conservative scholars, no longer hold that. So, I'd say, to me, there's two very, very flaws. Why were you laughing at me? No, it's just interesting. Yeah. So, that's a thing that I've heard thrown around before. But, honestly, most. Most scholars don't hold that. So, two very plausible explanations here. One is, as I've said, apostle is not always only used. Yes, this is the important part. of people who were, like, the capital A apostles. I just earlier gave those references to people who talked about they were messengers. Also, past. And we didn't go through the rest of the table, and we don't need to. It's short on time, I think. But, after the time of the New Testament, the word apostle was sometimes used of missionaries. And so, it could be that this. I think of this as maybe potentially a married couple who are kind of like Priscilla and Aquila. They may have been more of a broadly based used word of apostles. Sent ones. Meaning, sent ones, or missionaries. Missionaries. There's another potential explanation, but I want you to chime in. What are you doing? I'm just trying to unlock and load it to, you know, shoot back. He's going to poke holes. Wait, no, because. Yeah, because. Okay, so, Paul, you just told me that you're against people using. And, by the way, I'm not defending. This is not me, like, advocating for people to call themselves apostles. No. Apostles at all. By the way, just to clarify. But, I'm curious, because you mentioned it. You said, wait, so you shouldn't call yourself apostles, because in the Bible, an apostle is somebody that's like the Apostle Paul. You just said that the Bible uses the same word to mean different things. You're just chomping at the bit over there. He's helping me hide me out. Let's go. Yeah, a couple things. So, you're okay with the Bible using the word to mean different things, but you're not okay for today? I keep going back to. If we want to refer it for the function. Not the office. I'm becoming a broken record on this, but again, I go back to, hey, if for two. He's like, let me just, once again, explain it to you like a. I just need to warn you, I'm going to be with Paul on this one. I just go back to this, is that, yeah, they had that, and they had this different sense for it. But, number one, we are not speaking ancient Greek, and we are only speaking English, and so we should be careful with the words we use. And number two, here's what I say, it's like, if for almost 19 or 2000 years, people did not use that title to breed confusion, why should we? I'll put it this way. Anyway, it's not on me to give you reasons why we shouldn't, it's on you to give me reasons why I should. Ooh, what about that, Carlos? Because, no, no, come on, I'll put it this way, I'll put it that way. It's a Bible word. Well, but again, why did everybody have the same Bible? History is not my highest authority, Bible is. Here's a good question people have to ask sometimes. If everyone has had the same Bible for 2,000 years, but came to a different conclusion for 2,000 years, it's on you to make an overwhelming case of why we should change and not me. Well, it's not everybody, because clearly you gave different views. So, some people disagree with you. All right. Okay. We're having a little fight there. Final comments, final comments. And then we're going to talk about this thing. You know, final comments for sure, yes. On the junior thing? Yes. Okay, yeah, yeah. And then I want to talk about this thing that went stupid viral that's actually the opposite of healthy fatherhood. This is fun, by the way. You said you were going to try to stump me, and I prepped for the wrong test. I thought you were coming for different stuff, and so this is fun for the family spot. Although I did think you were going to go to junior. So, one is potentially they could be, these are people that are known as people who were sent, potentially missionaries. A second one, and this is way more grammatical. And I would tell people, there's a good article written by a couple of guys by the name Bure and Wallace, B-U-R-E-R and Wallace, maybe you could put it in the show guide, where they go into it. So, there's different what's called caseinings or declensions in ancient Greek. You have genitive, you have dative, accusative, and nominative. I'm not going to go into all the things. We'll wrap it up. What they have shown is that sometimes this word famous or known by, it can mean that they are among that group, or it can mean known that they are famous because that group knows them. Yeah. And what they've shown, for example. There's a place where it talks about how Aphrodite is famous among mortals. It doesn't mean that she's a mortal. It means that the mortals. know her. And the specific use right here, the specific Greek that is used here is more in the case where it is that they are known by them, not that they are known among them. Does that make sense? It is. That's the simplest I could get in a short time. First of all, let me just say for listeners, on what I'm about to say, I'm like 99.99% sure all three of the guys at the table are on the same page. So let me just put a bow on this thing. The reason I bring up that passage, and someday, honestly, we will do a quick Women in Ministry pod, because that's a question people have. Yeah, comment below if you want it, and if that's helpful for people. Yeah, honestly, if you don't, then we won't. But if you're like, yeah, do that episode, then we will do it. But the reason what we're talking about right now, and then we're going to talk about this thing that went viral from the New York Times thing. The reason this is important is people use that verse on Andronicus and Junia to essentially jump to the conclusion that the New Testament is invalidating the concept of any gender distinctions in leadership in the local church. And I'm going to shoot you straight, man. It's going to take a pair of scissors to get the concept. gender distinctions in leadership of the church out of the Bible. It's going to take a pair of scissors. So we, I think all three of us have a very firm conviction around what's known as complementarian views of church leadership, that God has placed the primary burden of responsibility for the leadership of the, for the primary leadership of the local church on biblically qualified men, especially in the role of at least like a senior pastor and elders, at least. So, but the reason I point out that verse is people use the unclear ambiguous verse about Junia quote being famous among the apostles to jump to the conclusion that there you go. You get that invalidates all gender distinctions and the obvious response to that, which if we do a Bible nerd women in ministry podcast, we'll talk about this. The obvious response to that is, Hey man, we don't take one unclear verse and use it to uninterpret like a hundred clear ones. Exactly. We don't do that. Exactly. Yeah. That's a great comment. Are you finished being a heretic and skeptic? That's my job to ask questions. Let's finish with this, this, uh, because when I was studying for this, talking about spiritual fatherhood, this video went like stupid, insane, viral. And the reason I want to respond to this is it is, uh, it is, um, emblematic of thinking that is far more prevalent and far more influential. In our culture than people realize that it is. Okay. So let me set this up real quick. What you're about to see is honestly, it's becoming one of my favorite podcasts. Now he's, I think he's moving over to 60 minutes, but Ross Douthit who's been at the New York times for, he's like the only conservative at the New York times. It's like people call him lonely Ross over there. Uh, he had, he has a podcast called back. I can't remember what it's called. Actually. I've watched it quite a few times. He had a guy that's a Yale. So here's who you're about to see. This guy's a Yale law professor. So this, and he was at Harvard and Columbia university before this guy's name is Samuel Moyne. So just before we see this, what you're about to see, this is not like fringe thinking like, Oh, this is some way out there. This is like the person that's training the most prominent legal minds in our nation. And you're, so what you're about to see is they're having a conversation about voter representation in the American system. And the, the question comes up, well, what about aren't children in America? Uh, isn't that they need to be represented in the voting system somehow. Okay. Now I'm just going to, I'm just going to point this out real quick. What you're going to notice is a theme that is very, very prevalent. And the theme is this is, uh, is that primarily progressivism, but not only progressivism, uh, it is the demonic reverse image of Malachi four, six. So Malachi four, six says that what the spirit of God does, the Holy spirit is he turns the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children. What unholy spirits do is they turn the hearts of the fathers against the children and the hearts of the children against the fathers. Okay. Now I will just, this is a whole different podcast. I just point this out. If you watch like three of the mainstreams of progressivism, you will, you will see this because progressivism has three things in it that specifically disciple children to do the demonic reverse image of Malachi four, six. And I'll just do this real quick. You got critical theory that trains kids to see their parents as racist oppressors that they have to oppose in order to stand on the side of justice. You got queer theory that disciples kids to see their parents views on gender, marriage, and sexuality as bigoted and repressive. So they have to rebel against their parents to quote, be themselves. And then you have like hyper therapy culture that disciples children to see their family of origin, AKA their parents as the source of every problem that they ever have. So they have to go no contact or separate from their parents to be happy. So I'm just gonna point this out. What you have progressivism, it is, if, if you just watch, it is uniquely designed, honestly, man, in some ways, I do think it's, there are demonic elements to this, at least at the ideological level. It is designed to reverse disciple children, to turn the hearts of the children against the fathers in those three ways. Now there's a fourth way and you're about to see it right here. Okay. So all that setup said, this is Ross Douthit with Yale university law professor, Samuel Moyne. Here we go. I've gotten in some hot water for proposing. We consider overweighting the, the votes of younger people or assigning the youngest eligible voters proxy votes for the unrepresented children of our country. Um, so those are edgy. Why not? Why not assign them to those children's parents? Pause. Okay. So dude, stinking Ross bomb, bomb. Good question. So he insightfully notices what this guy's doing. He's saying, you know, what we ought to do is we ought to use the government to redistribute the authority of the children away from the leadership of the parents and distribute it broadly to the collective. So he's saying, you know, we ought to use the government to redistribute the authority of the children away from the leadership of the voting populace. Now, again, dude. So here's the idea. The reason I point this out. And some people, sometimes they think I just choose clips to rage bait people. That's not what I'm doing. I'm trying to show you ideas have consequences. If you say a, you must eventually say B. And what I want you to start to see, you're going to start to see this as we keep talking about this, what you're going to start to see is that thought is far more prevalent in our society than you have any idea. Okay. So again, let me restart. I'm going to restate it. He's proposing let's redistribute the voting authority of children away from the family unit and distributed among the voting populace. That's so communists call that statism. Like, that's actually a communist idea is called statism. By the way, let me connect some dots for you. When somebody like mom Donnie over in New York City says, Hey, let's we need to get rid of the quote, the frigidity of individualism and replace it with quote, the warmth of collectivism. That's what he's talking about. He's saying, Hey, man, let's let's get away from viewing people as individuals or as family units. And instead, we just need to view everybody as part of this, the collective state. Okay, I'll give you one more. So I don't know if you can pull it pull up that the old BLM vision statement. So again, there's these little tentacles, you know, ideas have consequences. So when BLM was a thing, like before everybody figured out it was more like a lesbian Ponzi scheme. So when BLM was a thing that people didn't notice this BLM, like actually in their vision statement, while everybody in America was like marching for it. This is from their website. This is what they stated. I went through this in a sermon one time. We got absolutely crushed for it one time for reading. I went through the BLM vision statement in 2021 early on. I'm just joking. I'm like, you just you just read it. Yeah, honestly. Yeah, I just I read it. And I read it. And then I went, here's what it says. And here's what the Bible says. They took it down after. Yeah. So I'm gonna say is once people figured out what they were saying, they scrubbed it from the website. And I've been told they like, deep dive scrubbed it from Google. So you can't find it anymore. So this is like we had to dig this up. So one of the things they said, let me read this to you. Now again, I'm trying to connect dots. This is what's being taught in Yale University law schools and a guy who came from Harvard and Columbia. Okay, now I'm gonna bring this all to a close. I'm gonna bring some points together. But again, these are like communist socialist ideas, we need to replace the individual and the family unit with quote, the warmth of collectivism and everything gets loaded up into the state. This is the BLM vision statement that everyone was like marching for even Christians were marching for this. We disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by so in other words, heterosexual moms and dads raising their own kids, we'd like to disrupt that by supporting each other as extended families and villages that you're going to hear a word that may sound familiar, collectively. What they're saying is the same thing. Mom Donnie is saying now, who got it from his dad who if I understand correctly, like it was an actually open stated communist. It's we need to replace the individual and the family unit with the collective of the state that collectively care for one another. Watch, especially our We need to replace the individual and the family unit with the collective of the state that collectively care for one another. Watch, especially our children. In other words, let's take away the authority of the parents and replace it with the authority of the parents and replace it with the of the state so you got all this so that's it okay now i will just gently point this out like dude that's like it's got a bit of an edge to it it's just a fact uh every every study that you will find ever right now is progressives don't have kids they don't got kids so you got this guy progressive guy from yale university columbia harvard teaching the next generation of jurisprudence in our nation and i will just kind of say this dude a lot of times it feels like progressives are people who avoid kids and abort kids telling people who have kids what's best for their kids so that's what you got okay now i love so doubt it let's go back to this doubt that goes why not their parents with a smirk on his face which was kind of awesome all right now watch what happens here why not assign them to those children's parents well because there's there's a divergence of interest between parents and children and i think it's likelier that young people not people uh who are raising families will have the best insight into the interests of children whereas you if you were awarded five i think that's daft i think it's absurd to imagine that a uh 24 year old recent college graduate has a better assessment of the interests of my own children than i do boss okay that's great let me just point this out he just said something he doesn't even realize is like actually theologically incisive so can i just point this out in every generation what you're going to see is romans chapter one it doesn't tell you what happened it tells you what always happens one of the things romans chapter one says happens to a nation that is under the judgment of god uh and under the passive wrath of god is watch this this is really really interesting if you're watching that yale university law professor and you are thinking what ross douthat is thinking and you're thinking that's daft or you're thinking about the other four letter words okay they don't you know let me just say what you are doing is you are correctly applying romans one this says what happens to nations under the passive wrath of god it says quote claiming to be wise they became fools in other words in a nation that's under the wrath of god and walking away from him it says that when they replace the truth of god uh for lies that that's what happens in secular society it says what you're going to get is people who think they're really wise that are actually doing foolishness you got a bunch of people that are educated beyond their level of intelligence they got more degrees than fahrenheit they got tons of wisdom they have they have tons of knowledge they have absolutely no wisdom when he says that's daft he's essentially doing romans one okay now watch what he says here this is great i say this with all due respect to 24 year old recent college graduates of whom i hope to be the parent of in nine years or so i think parents generally and confuse the interest of their family with the interests of their children and part of our goal i think as parents but also as a society is trying to make sure that children aren't the hostages of their parents done pause bro now again this is not just like let's just find a fringe radical voice and nut pick this is the guy that is one of the most prominent law professors at yale yeah that's that's training funeral future supreme court justices yeah that was at harvard and columbia university that's shaping the jurisprudence angle of our future nation can i read you something so carl marx whom we teach in our universities uh he wrote this book called the communist manifesto chapter two this is literally what he calls for quote the abolition of the family and this is a quote from his book quote do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents to this crime we plead guilty that's that's marxism in our 101 that's marxism 101 that's right bro there's a quote i'm trying to find right now well while you're doing that i just laughed because when i heard it that they have their interest of their family for their interest of their children who are their family yeah i was like i don't even know that this makes logical sense yes in my head um you need another minute did you get it no i can't find it yeah so again marxism now so here's what i'm driving at is dude um christians are not awesome at having an awareness of the ideological trends that are shaping the culture around them and our job according to scriptures is to quote we destroy arguments yes and every lofty opinion that sets itself up against the knowledge of god the knowledge of god is heterosexual mom and heterosexual dad married in a covenant raising their children and they are the authority over their children not the state okay so now here's i just want to point one last thing out that there's just like when you watch stuff and you use the bible not just as something you look into but something as a lens that you look through and interpret the world yeah i just want to point this out so in this is not always true this is generally stereotyping but sometimes that's actually kind of helpful it's just pattern recognition in general a lot of times what you get is progressivism is is a lot of like highly educated elites that sort of do the thing and then in general not always you get conservative it's like a bunch of blue collar dudes and you know let you know kind of swing hammers and and work with their hands got a lot a lot of that kind of stuff like lower sometimes it can feel like a little bit of class warfare not always we're generalizing that kind of thing what i would like to point out to you that's really interesting and you see it come to a head in a clip like that this is interesting have you ever noticed that virtually every ideological fad that runs its way throughout culture like a little virus and then burns out that people eventually realize well that was insane almost all of them so are things that like blue collar people let quote-unquote less educated people are usually they're they they never bought into they saw it immediate we're like well that's real dumb so just think about this like in our lifetimes uh uh you got the woke critical theory thing you got the trans ideology you got the hard queer theory thing you got the hard queer theory thing and now you got like the islama socialism thing that's going on all of those things your normal uneducated blue collar dude looks at it and he goes nah that's real stupid and he never bought into it okay now have you ever thought about this why is it that the quote-unquote less educated people are the ones who don't get hooked by like the the sort of ideological lies of the day so i interesting c.s lewis a lowercase p profit paul a lowercase p profit of his that's great he actually wrote about this in i reread that hideous strength a few years ago so dude here's c.s lewis's quote on why quote dumb blue collar people almost never fall for the same terrible ideas that the quote educated elite class often does okay c.s lewis in the 1930s predicting exactly what is happening in our generation because he was a man with a bible in his hands okay it's a character in that hideous strength that says this why you fool it's the educated readers who can be gold all our difficulty comes with the others when did you meet a workman that's like a old school english word for blue collar guy that swings a hammer when did you meet a workman that believes the papers he believes the papers he believes the papers he believes the papers he believes the papers he believes the papers he believes the papers he believes the propaganda and he skips the leading articles he buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in mayfair flats that guy is our problem it's a guy that's trying to deceive the populace he says that guy the workman the little blue collar dude that guy's our problem we have to find a way to recondition him but the educated public the people who read the highbrow weeklies don't need reconditioning they're all right already they'll believe anything or in the words of romans one claiming to become wise they will become fools there you go that's good man pastor josh would you pray for us father thank you thank you for the blessing of being able to open your word and uh not just look into it but look through it father uh more than anything else i pray for the the blessing of being able to open your word and more than anything else i pray for the blessing of being able to open your word and more than anything else i pray for the blessing of being able to open your word and more than anything else i pray for the blessing of being able to open your word and that didn't have dads that were around to point up to jesus father i thank you for the men and women who step forward and stand in gaps and become spiritual moms and spiritual dads to people who need them father i pray that even while i'm praying that there would be men and women with open bibles and hearts full of the spirit and people in their lives that right now you'd be speaking to them and they'd be going here am i send me and that they would step forward and become a generation of men and women who would be generation of spiritual moms and spiritual dads for people who didn't have them i pray for people who need them that they would find their way to a local church and sit in a pew receipt and they watch and that you would bring them those people and that they would have the wisdom and initiative to chase them and that they would be blessed in the doing father we love you we pray for an entire generation of timothy's to be raised up in the name of jesus and for his glory amen amen amen are they free brother Thank you.