Andy Stanley, Homosexuality, and A Pastoral Response

Music.

I'm Pastor Luke and I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast, where we have uncut and honest conversations about faith,

life and ministry.

This week, if you're joining us, this week's going to be a kind of part two, picking up

where we left off the conversation from last week.

Last week, we dove in and talked about a dialogue that was happening between Andy Stanley and Robert...

Albert Mueller. Andy Stanley hosted a... And others, too.

And others. Lots of other people have been talking about it.

And Andy Stanley, influential pastor, hosted a conference aimed at supporting and caring

for parents of LGBTQ kids, and some of his decisions were kind of tossed into the question

of like, is he crossing the line into becoming affirming in some of the decisions that he's

made?

And so we kind of talked about that from a pastoral perspective, tried to kind of read

both sides of the story well and with some charity and we kind of gave some of our thoughts there.

And so, and a lot of you watched, cause I think that's our biggest episode thus far, last I looked. Yep.

So yeah, is there anything we feel like we need to, before we kind of, at least in my mind,

I think I had that we were going to talk about kind of homosexuality in the church more generally.

Before we did that, was there anything in your mind about the conversation still sitting with,

Andy and that whole conversation, like, specifically?

Well, I mean, I don't know that it... Yeah, probably not specifically to that situation.

Yeah. It's kind of been.

You know, for at least social media accounts that I follow and stuff like that, there's not.

It's kind of died down, you know, thanks to what's going on in the world at this time.

You know, I don't know when you're watching this, but there's issues in Israel, between Israel and,

Palestinians and Gaza right now. And so, that's kind of, even in Christian circles,

overshadowed what was last week's news, apparently.

But there are, I think, still implications for, I mean, life and ministry that we can

talk about as it pertained here.

I don't remember totally where we left off, but I do still have a lot of questions about.

About how, because I think like,

on reflection about what we talked about last week, I think,

I think it's, I hope it was clear that we see points of both arguments. Yeah.

We see the point of Andy's desire to offer a conference like that.

Right. I see the point of Albert Mueller's comments, particularly around the type of speakers that

that are allowed to present at a conference like that.

And probably another like.

Aspect of his criticism to Andy really is that his, when asked point blank his position on essentially

like affirming homosexual practice or marriage or however you wanna phrase it,

that he believed, like he thought that Andy skirted the issue and that he didn't offer any clarity

and he said things without saying things.

Um, and which I think is, I don't know if it's totally fair, but, um,

yeah, I mean, like I would characterize Andy's answers to some of that stuff as like, he

kind of says things shorthand a little bit.

So by like what he said is like, what did he say? He said something around like the five new Testament passages that talk about homosexuality.

We believe, or something like that. He said something to that effect, which affirms conservative

Christian views on sexuality, but that is probably, like, the most roundabout way to

have said that. And so, you know, it is kind of a, like, are we, you know, are you being.

Obtuse intentionally, you know, like, you know, so.

Pete Yeah. And how clear does he need to be? Jared Yeah.

Pete Part of, I think, what one of the questions that I have is like, what is the

the big C church, the church in the world.

What is its role or responsibility in calling out what they believe to be

as false teaching or non-biblical teaching,

in individual churches?

It seems like most people who I've seen commenting commenting on this or like offering their opinions or videos and responses or whatever,

see it as their job to confront false teaching or an anti-biblical or a non-biblical stance here.

And my question is whether or not that is like, is that the role of a local church?

Should that be a responsibility of the local church to call out another local church?

Right. You know, I think I know where my... I am not predisposed to... I don't look particularly

favorably... I don't look favorably on... What do you call those? Watchdog ministries?

I think there's another word for those, like... I don't know.

I know what you're talking about. Yeah. They're like theological ombudsmen, right?

Right. Or they're just like internal affairs for the church that run around and find heresy.

Yeah. And I can think of a couple blogs, websites. Sometimes these websites or blogs are dedicated to,

particular churches. Sometimes they're dedicated to like the church at large. And they can...

And those individual theological watchdog ministry things can have their own slant. They don't have

to be conservative watchdogs. You can... No.

There are ones that are very much in a more liberal kind of leaning. And so I personally

don't love those. No, I don't either.

I'm like, I came to the conviction a long time ago that, like, if I'd never wanted to be involved

in a ministry that was primarily defined by what we are against. I just, that's, it's not the way

I'm built. I don't think it's a healthy way to be or to operate. And that's not to say that you

never, you know, I probably, my personality and bent is to just kind of avoid the whole conversation of what we're

against, sometimes. And sometimes that's really a good strength because.

I don't think we always need to be like, I think if we're very clear about what we're for and championing that and

showing the beauty and the truth of that, we don't always have to like engage in this kind of like,

anti-attack what we're against behavior. Yeah.

But there is a space for that, you know? Um, but more directly to your question, I guess, like where,

Isn't that the role of, and I say this as we're both pastors of a non-denominational

church, isn't that the role of the domination?

Right? Isn't that the role of, like, church hierarchy, you know, at least historically, right?

Each church has got people who are supposed to be overseers of the church and guarding

the, you know, like, doesn't that provide a space for that?

As you know.

Guarding like the, yeah, as like the, the bishop would be the one that is charged

with guarding the faith. Right.

I mean, do you think, do you agree with that? Or do you think that was just kind of like always in word,

but never in deed or?

Well, yeah, I mean, like from its most, I think from its most pure example and motive in scripture,

it is what it should be or.

So I mean, that's how Paul operates. It is how Paul operates, but Paul's relationship with his churches is a little unique.

Yeah, I don't think we should duplicate. I don't love the justification of, well,

Paul did it. I'm like, well, you're not Paul.

Right, you're not Paul, and you're not an apostle. You haven't seen the resurrected Jesus,

and you are, not all of us are church planters.

And so Paul was speaking from a place of pastoral authority over those churches and congregations,

and you would expect that the pastor would speak with authority over them.

I think maybe one of the examples that I would maybe reference that would support the idea,

that other churches can hold other churches accountable,

which is also a sticky idea because we're like.

It's the New Testament idea of church is pretty different than what we're experiencing in church

now. But like Paul going to Jerusalem to confront the apostles about the inclusion of the Gentiles,

or the necessity of the Gentiles to be circumcised or whatever in order to be partakers in the

gospel. And Paul says, I went there to confront them to their faces. But we weren't talking about

an established church at that point. We weren't talking about established pastors at that point.

No.

We weren't talking about... There was no ecclesiological structure at that point.

Yeah. And trying to find a direct correlation in the Bible to your modern ecclesiological structure is impossible. Right.

Titus is probably the closest I can think of, because the instruction Paul gives there is

set overseers in each town or each church.

And so he kind of like, you know, there is some sort of structure given there.

Right, and so like, I don't know, when I.

I'm trying to do like a quick survey in my head and I could be wrong here.

You know, someone could reference something that could show me that, oh yeah,

I guess you're right, is that like, I get the sense that the, especially the New Testament.

Asks communities of faith to guard themselves,

against false teaching.

You know, like false teaching is springing up. That needs to be opposed because there's only one gospel, right?

So that false teaching that's springing up from that group of people from among you,

so there's maybe like a faction of teachings springing up, that needs to be quashed.

And if it's not, they need to be kicked out because a little yeast makes its way through

the whole batch of dough type of thing. necessarily from,

Someone else on the outside Seeing what's going on internally? Mm-hmm and coming and saying hey you guys are not doing this, right? Yeah.

Now again The reason that maybe that wouldn't happen, maybe Paul would be fine with that idea. Yeah, but but,

We don't have an example in the scripture of whether or not that would be okay because we don't have an example in scripture whether

not that would be okay. And part of the reason that I asked the question is because I think,

there is a difference between, okay, let's say that Cameron Leinhart at Conduit Ministries in

Jamestown, New York held an unconditional conference. Would it get the response that

others... Would it get the same response? Well, no, because we're in Jamestown, New York.

Right, but... We're not... Yeah. So why is that, though? Because if everything else being the same

Is that like, okay, it's the responsibility of outside churches to come in and hold accountable,

churches or pastors who are teaching what they believe is to be non-biblical.

Would I expect that there would be other pastors in the city here that would have something to

say about it? Probably. Yeah, probably. But would I expect the type of response? I don't know. And

And so I think a little bit of this, a little bit of the issue here is who sponsored the

conference, what type of voice that they have and influence that they have, and the magnitude

of the message.

And so it, it does make me wonder sometimes what the role there then of the church is

because okay, if it was a small church, no one presumably would really care too much.

Right. And so is it, is it about overpowering a message or is it about calling a leader to repentance?

Like is it, is it ideologies fighting? Yeah, I just need to be louder now. Yeah. Andy Stanley's been really loud about this. I need to

to come over top of you louder about the truth?

Yeah.

Or is it like the...

You know, like, Andy, I'm worried about this. Here's where I think it's wrong.

Here's where I think you're in sin.

Here's where I think you're wandering from the Word of God.

And the Lord is calling you to repent of this. Well, you know, I had a, I wondered, right?

And from our vantage point, there's a whole bunch of things that we don't see, can't know, won't know.

And I wondered if there was at any point during this, there was any attempt by Moller or Andy

to exchange personal correspondence or conversation.

Does Moeller address that in his podcast? Doesn't he say, we have not talked other than these back and forths?

I think so. Yeah.

Or as you're saying, you wonder if there would have been, could something have been avoided?

Yeah. Okay. Well, or like, you know, because it's, man, I read so many things.

I listen to so many things.

I don't remember if Moeller mentioned, um, the, like, calling, like, Matthew...

Uh, 18, like calling someone to account or something, maybe he didn't, but like,

you know, the whole, like putting someone on public blast as being the first thing

that you do is different than having said, Hey man, like, you know, maybe we

We don't really have any relationship or anything like that, but I watch this kind of stuff,

and I see you from afar making this decision.

I think this is really troublesome.

Could we have a conversation? Could we maybe have a dialogue about this?

I want to present to you some of my concerns, not just because I'm concerned about necessarily

your implicate, like, what you're... I'm concerned about what you're doing for your church, but.

Then, you know, I think Moeller's justification for one of the reasons that he does take so

seriously what Andy's doing is Andy's influence for the church at large, which becomes a,

you know, a justification for why the conversation, I guess, is being had. But, so yeah, part

of me wonders is if, and again, like, I don't really know that

there's a way of knowing if they've had any personal correspondence, but I think that that would be, that at least to

me, communicates a different tone, different set of intentions than, because I'll be, because I'll be honest, like

Moller's first article, while I think he ended up raising good points, doesn't look great.

At first glance, because it's a preemptive, Like, read the website.

Pluck out and assume and make assumptions about what it's going to be without,

Having gone to the conference conference hadn't happened yet. There's a lot of assumption there and then,

there were several things in andy's response that kind of,

Told a bigger and more complex story than moeller's original kind of call-out really was telling

Um, and then molar kind of doubled down on the points that weren't necessarily resolved.

Yeah. Um, and kind of abandoned some of the other points that would have been like that

were a little bit less more minor now that the whole story was out.

And you know, so that tells a story that's not of like connection conversation,

like, um, you know, personal calling of account.

It's more of a public platforms going against one another and having an ideological bout of sorts.

I don't know, what do you think?

I think that's basically what I was trying to say is that, you know,

Albert Mueller wouldn't be responding to anything he thought was non-biblical from me.

No. I don't think he would see his role. Right.

As like, I need to correct Cameron for this unbiblical teaching.

I think it is pretty clear that it was because of who it was and whether he sees it as,

oh, well, because he has such a big audience, I need to protect his audience from him.

Or it's like a opportunistic, I'm gonna need to jump in on this because I know it's gonna be,

it's gonna get lots of traction.

I don't know, I don't wanna be too overly pessimistic about his motives there, and I don't know them,

but it seems to me that like.

It does seem to me that we, I think we sometimes overestimate our responsibility,

in the, like I just don't, for me to,

I mean this with the best of intentions, for me to care significantly, it would take a lot for me

to care significantly about what another pastor is doing in their ministry to the point of this

type of response. Like, it would have to be extraordinary for me. It would have to be

be unavoidable for me.

Because, like, I got, the amount of things,

I have to respond to for my own congregation is like longer than I can reasonably do

in any given amount of, given period of time.

And so now I'm going to like see it as my responsibility, as my calling, as my biblical responsibility now,

to walk around making sure other pastors are doing the thing, both theologically and methodologically

that I think they should.

And when I see them not doing it, then I'm gonna call them out because I'm afraid for their people.

I don't buy it. I don't buy that. I think it's opportunistic.

I think it's an overstep, maybe, especially like you said, when Mueller's piece,

his original piece came out pre the conference.

And maybe without any context as to why the conference was started,

which I think Andy did a great job of telling that story.

Essentially, hey, look, world, we have been in this space of ministering to families

of LGBTQ kids for over a decade.

And none of y'all cared then.

Right. None of y'all cared to get involved. None of y'all cared to serve.

None of y'all cared to like be in this space, But you care now?

Um, so while I don't necessarily agree with the way that Andy went about it in terms of like,

at least the advertised content and speakers, some of the methodology, some of the methodology

of the conference, like I don't think that I think that Mueller's response was a little

little opportunistic and I don't necessarily believe,

that it's the responsibility of every local church or every pastor to be holding other local churches

or other pastors accountable.

One, because I don't think that's how accountability works in the scripture.

We don't get to just hold somebody accountable because we wanna hold them accountable.

Right, well, and even to use the Matthew 18 example, which is always thrown out as like, well, Matthew 18,

you gotta go to them first and then you're gonna take your brother with you.

And Jesus is like, hey, if they sin against you, he's not talking about like, if there's any conflict,

anywhere in the world, the right thing to do is to go and hold that person accountable.

Like, no, it's like, you sin against me, I sin against you, okay, I'm gonna go to you and say,

you've sinned against me, this is what you've done, like, let's try to work together,

don't listen, okay, I'm going to bring a brother with me. You don't listen again,

oh, I'm going to bring it to the whole church.

Yeah.

It's not about like, Andy said something we don't like, let's go hold him accountable. Right, right.

You don't get to do, like, there's not really a biblical example of that. You don't stand on

super strong biblical ground, I don't think. I don't… Yeah, well not, I wouldn't, yeah, like, particularly not from a.

Proof texting place. You can't find the Scripture, verse, and passage that gives us the prescription,

that to go forth and act like this. But I'm curious then how you would define then the

conversation we've had the last two weeks, this conversation, last week's conversation.

Like, I've got reasons why I think we're talking about this, but I'm curious, you know,

You know, why then are we talking about this?

Well, I mean, I can tell you the reason I want to talk about it is because other people are talking about it.

Yeah. You know, I do have thoughts on it. And I do think that like, there is,

one of the reasons I want to talk about, not just this issue, but issues like it,

is because I do know that there are people,

that look to me, look to us, or some sort of way to unravel the ball of yarn,

that is things like this. And they don't necessarily know even how to begin the conversation.

And even outside of, like I said, even outside of the specific situation,

that we're talking about here, there are principles of ministry

that I think are almost universally applied to churches

or can be universally applied to churches,

like the difference between drawing lines and drawing circles,

the responsibility of one pastor or church to hold another pastor or church accountable.

I think last week we talked a little bit about the ministry and theology of preaching. Yeah, we did.

And who we bring on our stages who we allow to preach to our people and what it's like.

I wouldn't expect that we would be adding significant,

significant insight into this situation in particular, but I would expect that the principles of the topics

or the ideas that are rooted in this situation

are applicable to our context of ministry.

So that's what we're talking about.

Yeah, and I, that's essentially what I, you know, what I think about when we talk about these topics is that in a world that's shrunk because of digital media, people are now, you know, you know, everybody's aware of everything else, and everybody else, you know, like, the fact that, you know, the fact that anybody's aware of what some local churches are doing on a large

scale platform like that is, I think, unique to our age,

right?

You know, if you were to go to this generation.

Yeah. If you were to go decades back and, you know.

You were to, like, this would have happened, and it wouldn't have been, it would not have,

not everybody would have known about it as quickly or at all as they do now. And then

there's that question of like, well, our congregation is being exposed, people we know

are being exposed to this topic, and they're now having to find a way to sort through with it.

And, and so it's not that like, like, I don't think either you or I have any illusions that Andy or Moller are listening to our conversation.

And we're not trying to talk to them. We're trying to talk to those in our context and offer perhaps a way to, to detangle it a little bit and think through it in a critical lens.

And to be honest with Andy, I think that's what he was trying to do with the conference.

In fact, he states that.

Yeah. It wasn't for... It wasn't for everyone else. Right.

It was for the context that they were ministering in, the people that they had, and the, you know, 300 families or 300 people or whatever who were sitting in this ministry already.

Yep. So, um, so yeah, I mean, like, I don't know, maybe, you know, we could probably

beat, beat the horse to death here.

Um, but, or beat the horse that's already dead, you know, whatever.

We, we do not support the abuse of animals, just to be clear.

Be clear. But I guess then, you know, what then does this mean in.

One of the questions that I think you were beginning to pose, and I think is worth us

talking about, was that progression of sanctification of like, at what point, right, have you got

yourself cleaned up enough that you can be at church?

Part of the community.

Yeah. Yeah. I have written down here, it's progressive discipleship versus immediate sanctification.

Which one of those do we expect out of the people that attend our churches?

Do we expect that they will go through a long-term process of progressive discipleship?

I think I said last night in Bible study that you could take one step closer to Jesus every

single day for the rest of your life and still not be close enough to him.

We don't arrive at a place of being like, I don't necessarily agree with John Wesley

on that. Like I am fully sanctified in this life.

So the question there is, or therein, is if we know that there are people.

Within our congregation whom we are spiritually responsible for,

whom we are in a pastoral relationship with,

What level of sanctification, perfection of character and conduct, uniformity of belief,

uniformity of lifestyle, what do we actually require of them?

And what do we do with those who never move from the place?

Who just never move? And we know we have them in our churches.

We have people in our churches who are no more sanctified in their walk with Jesus than

they were when they started coming to church 40 years ago.

Yeah. And a lot of times we're comfortable with it because their starting point was at a nominal place. Right.

So, do we say to them, hey, look, man, you've got to experience transformation through life

Christ or we're gonna kick you out mm-hmm like.

That seems ridiculous to me. It just does, you know? And so, like, but the thing is that, like,

we get this sense of, like, well, there are sins that we will allow people to sit in.

Without really calling their non-sanctified behavior to account. We'll let people be

be prideful all the day, all day.

Yeah. You know, we'll let people be greedy, gossips all day. Yeah.

But heaven forbid, if a homosexual couple comes and attends your church.

Yeah. Heaven forbid it. Well, you gotta call that out immediately.

Yeah. You gotta hold them accountable.

You gotta show them the error of their ways and they have to repent of their sin.

Otherwise expel the immoral brother.

Yeah. I don't.

I have like two voices in my head. Well, I do as well. Yeah. but I.

But yeah, tell me what your voices are saying. Well, one voice is saying something that I see a lot, and that is that.

The Church, like Church I interact with, like my experience, is that we We are willing to extend so much grace to the non-believer, but the moment you become

a believer, that grace disappears.

Okay. Like I see us much more willing to say, like, I can find people who are much more will,

I think your average person will be much more forgiving of the person who does not profess

the name of Christ and their sanctification level, where their life is at.

And then once they become a Christian, it's zero to nothing.

Not zero to nothing, but zero to a hundred.

It's like, okay, well, God saved you.

Now you need to get it together. And we lose, excuse me, we lose any sense of, like, willingness to extend the gospel

to those who have accepted the gospel.

I was reading in 2 Timothy, and Paul's verbiage there is so strong, because he says, like,

if we deny Christ, like, he will also deny us.

So, if we renounce faith, we have renounced it.

But if we're faithless, He remains faithful to us.

Because he cannot deny himself. We have been saved. Even if we fall in, we are faithless,

we are not faithful to the call that we've been called to as Christians, Christ will not

be faithless to us. He will be faithful to us because he can do no other because it's in his

character. And so, that's a, like, those two phrases, right, side by side, are massive,

like, almost feel contradictory, right? Because one says, like, if we deny him,

and he will deny us, but if we're faithless, he will remain faithful. And I don't know,

But the way I understand that is to be is like, if you, as long as you profess Christ, as long as you,

do not ultimately deny Him, you know, we could talk about what that means,

but like, even, like, how do we take what Paul says there, we're faithless, He remains faithful to us.

So, like, I hear that, and I see, you know, that the grace that makes the gospel possible

Paul remains true for the believer.

It's Paul's argument in Romans, right? But Paul also, right, he switches his argument and says, should we continue to sin so that

sin may abound by no means, right?

And so I also have in my head this idea of cheap grace.

Right? That's Bonhoeffer, right? And this idea of just, like, of taking what Paul said about grace

and then not reading forward and saying, well, yeah, you're just free to sin, not free from sin.

And so I hear both of those voices in my head, and I've seen both in play, where we become so

rigid that we're unable to extend the same grace of the gospel to those who are already,

in faith in Christ, but then also I see a significant danger where we get to a place and we,

are just saying, like, well, you don't have to be holy because he's holy.

We ignore that passage. We ignore the fact that, like, no, Paul does seem to indicate we should strive to sin no

more because we're free from sin, right?

Or in 1 John, say these things to you, not so that you won't sin, but so that when you

do sin, you repentance and you will be cleansed from all unrighteousness.

That passage remains true too. So I see this huge dichotomy of like the extent of the gospel and grace to both believers

and unbelievers, and God's faithfulness to it.

And I also see the upward call of Christianity to become more like Christ.

And how dare we not do that?

Right. And I couldn't agree more.

I think the, like the, the hinging point though is where's the hinge?

Tell me, like, no, like what does the church do in response to those that will not be transformed?

What do we do? Do we allow them to remain in community? Do we tell them that they have to leave?

Do we do a, do we take the, do we take, do we take Jesus' teaching on the wheat and the weeds?

Right. Like, hey, the angels will sort it out at the end.

Right.

Or do we take Paul's teaching on, do not associate with them and treat them as an unbeliever?

I don't know. Cameron, you're supposed to know. I don't know.

I mean, I think that, like, you have the teaching of Jesus, okay, it's like, there's always these things

where you have, like, you have the teaching of Jesus, the things that he, like, flat out taught. Yeah.

Then you have the practice of Jesus, which is not always, there's not really,

There's not really a distinction there.

You're the teaching of Paul. Yeah. Well, you don't have a whole lot of Like the teaching of Paul ends up being the practice of Paul for us

Yeah, because he's giving instructions a lot of times and then we're gaining principles from that. Yeah, right,

so The question is do we want?

One is do we believe that there is a I mean I guess you could call it a contradiction. Not really but like,

Is there a difference between?

Paul's perspective on the manor and his experience in it, then Jesus' teaching on the manor

and his interaction with those who are like either followers or not followers of him. Yeah.

You know, he was, Jesus was not afraid to send people away either.

No. He said, you don't have any idea what it takes to follow me.

Right. No, and so. The rich young ruler who went away sad because he had much money. Right.

Yeah, or even disciples like, hey, foxes have holes, birds of air,

they've got a nest. I don't even have a place to lay down my head.

So if you're gonna follow me, it's gonna be like picking up an instrument of execution and coming.

And like many turned away. Right, you came to me. Who can accept this teaching?

Right, you came to me because you had your fill of bread and fish.

So Jesus turned people away Or at least made the cost of discipleship so much that they couldn't accept.

They couldn't follow.

And so maybe it becomes a communication of the cost of discipleship.

This is what it requires to follow Jesus. Will you follow him or not?

And then they self-select whether or not it's something that they will do or not do.

Still, it feels like, at least experientially for me, that it always, you know, that there

are some who will desire to be a part of community, but not live a life of repentance.

So they want to be around the people, but their hearts are stubborn, stubborn hearts. So what do we do?

Do we allow...

You know, like from Romans chapter 1, do we show contempt for the kindness, patience,

tolerance of God that leads them unto repentance?

By becoming judges? By becoming judgmental of them? Yeah.

Or do we say, well, it's our responsibility to hold them accountable?

You know, I wonder, so like, one of the passages, there's more passages to talk about, but one

of the key passages, I think, is that's in one of the Corinthians, right? Where Paul.

Tells them to cast the brother out. And that particular circumstance, he was sleeping with his,

mother... Mother or mother-in-law.

Mother-in-law potentially. He was doing something wonky. The way it's phrased in the text is with

his father's wife. And so it's, you know, I don't know, I've studied that passage enough to be able

to determine exactly what Paul was trying to... If he was trying to be obtuse, like trying to

obscure the scandalousness of what he was communicating or what, but there's a thing in which Paul indicates, he says,

the, like you were tolerating something that even the world does not tolerate. Do you think that that is a,

Interpretive sliding scale?

Like issue, but like, okay, what's the issue that this guy is like, because I'm not sure what you mean.

I guess what I mean is like, so that's the passage that's often quoted to talk about church discipline.

And you know, I did a little bit of listening, podcast listening, trying to find churches

that practice church discipline and found like, you know, I think I mentioned late last

episode like the one that like has a list of people who are not allowed to take communion,

and before communion they read out that list, naming each person and what sin they've done

and why they can't take communion, which, wow.

But you've got churches that are doing that, and this is one of the passages they were

talking about. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, I'm like, okay, well, like.

Does, you know, this is one of the few places where Paul says, like, cast them out, treat

them as an unbeliever, particularly there's that out language.

And I'm wondering, like, does the list of things that merit the casting out change?

Or is that list stagnant?

Well, if you take Paul at his word, he lists the things, you know.

So it's the, I mean, like the reference is 1 Corinthians 5.

And he goes through the, yeah, he uses this example of, you know, a man, you, it's actually

reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that does not even occur among the pagans.

A man has his father's wife. And you are proud.

Shouldn't you have been filled with grief and put out of your fellowship the man who

did this?" Okay? And he keeps going.

He says, I'm not physically present, but I've already passed judgment on the one who did

this just as if I were present.

Verse 4, 1 Corinthians 5, when you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with

you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so.

That the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

Then he talks a little bit about, you know, a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.

Get rid of that yeast that a new batch without yeast may exist for you, for Christ, our Passover

lamb has been sacrificed.

Seems to be an allusion to like, hey, how can we dishonor the sacrifice of Jesus as a Passover lamb?

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

Not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral or the greedy and the swindlers

or idolaters. In that case, you'd have to leave the world.

So don't worry about the world. I'm talking about the people within your fellowship, within the church.

But now I'm writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a

a brother, but is sexually immoral or greedy,

an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

Okay. God will judge those outside of the church, but you are to expel the wicked man from among you,

which is a reference to Deuteronomy.

So you could take it super literally. Yep. And say, well, Paul gives us a list of those sins that would be the disqualifying sins

from community.

Sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, slander, drunkenness, or swindling.

I like that word, swindling. Swindling.

And then we would have to talk about what it means to be a swindler.

Does that include MLMs?

Yeah, hopefully. Or do you think that that, do you think that there's, you know, you said either literally,

or like, you know, that that communicates a type of kind of a, maybe a category, but

not specifics.

Is that where you were going or you're just not even sure? Yeah, I'm not even sure.

I think like, I think there, you know, if you take it like just for at face value and say,

okay, this is what Paul did and what he instructed the Corinthians to do.

He instructed the Corinthians to do so, would he instruct Conduit to do it?

Um, is it a purely contextual to this situation type of, um, situation?

Is it a universal or is it a universal command or mandate of the church?

And whose responsibility is it to do that? to take that person and expel them. The collective body, the leader, the... I think

honestly, I mean, I think probably, I think one of Paul's major issues in this

situation is not that there is someone among them that is sexually immoral, but,

is that they are boasting about it. That they have, that they are even so debased

in their understanding of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ,

that they're boasting about something that is obviously obvious immorality.

Yeah.

Something that he talks to the Romans about the same thing.

He was like, you know, God has given you over to shameful lusts.

And you are actually proving and applauding

of those who do such things.

Yeah. And so, while I don't necessarily, I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say, well, Paul's

not actually worried about the sexually immoral person as much as he's worried about the boastful,

attitude of the Corinthians in the face of sin.

I don't know that I could go that far.

Right. But there does seem to be, like, a correlation in the passage of, like, it's not just that

sexually immoral. It's that he's sexually immoral and considers it to have zero effect on his

standing as a brother. Yeah, it's that he's sexually immoral and no one cares.

He doesn't care. And not only is he sexually immoral, he's more sexually immoral than even the world is. Pagans don't do this, Paul says.

Right.

So.

So, do you feel like that fits a different... and like, and I do think, you know, I can't

make a justification from that, directly from that passage, necessarily, but I do think

that there is a... we have to, I do think there's a cultural bridge that we have to

bridge, or gap that we have to bridge, when it comes to, we live in a world where sexual

Moral immorality is the norm for both heterosexual and homosexual people.

It is so normalized across the board in so many ways. It's normalized, it's rationalized, it's, yeah.

And when that is the default position for someone who comes into the church, you know,

does that context change the way that we have to apply this?

And, you know, and then this also gets into matters of like church membership versus church attendance

and who belongs to the flock.

Yeah, and like, yeah, I mean, Paul, yeah, here Paul includes kind of a rationale

for why they should be expelled. Right.

Which is a little yeast works its way through the whole batch of dough. Mm-hmm.

So does the church leader put others in the fellowship in danger by not pulling out the bad yeast?

Mm-hmm.

I think it's hard to argue anything, any other. Any other. Direction. Direction. Yeah.

But I don't know if there's really any buts about it. I just don't know.

I don't know how to do that. And if I'm being honest, I don't know if I'm prepared to do that.

Because at what point do I stop?

At what point does my own sin disqualify me from being in fellowship?

Is it like a heart and spirit of repentance? Is that what the issue with Paul here is?

Is that there's no heart and spirit of repentance. There's no recognition that this is immoral.

There's no recognition that there is sin here.

So are their hearts already fully darkened, fully hardened? They're here and they're like, it's not a...

Unrepentant in it. Yeah.

So, yeah, maybe that is, you know, hey, I'm, you know, this person is obviously living in sin.

It's patently obvious to everyone in the community. They're being, they're being, they're allowed to live in sin without any sense of like consequence,

up until the point where it appears as though there's an affirmation of the lifestyle that's being lived.

I could run this back into the conversation about the conference, like, right.

And the apparent affirmation by way of inclusion in community puts others in danger. Yeah.

Of saying, well, that's okay. Celebrate it. Applaud it.

I think the way you just formulated that, I think that really gets to the key of that passage.

That the public open and affirming nature of the unrepentant sin.

Yeah.

And I think when you formulate it that way, I think that creates some different boundaries. Sure.

Than just kind of like, you know, sin hunting.

Right.

Right. Yeah, I agree. That wasn't like, that's not a pre panned. No, the plan methodology in my head, but it, it just, it

feels like it's faithful to the passage, however uncomfortable that is. Without, without understanding it as like you

said, it's just, we're gonna go run around and sin hunt and get,

everyone out of the church. That's not, that's immoral, or impure in any way.

Yeah. Because we wouldn't have a church.

Right. It was like, no one is righteous, not even one.

So, right. Because we have people who, like Paul, do what they do not want to do.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if there's anything else that I have about this, I've got pages of notes here.

Yeah, I don't know if I have anything else here. Yeah. I mean, I think that as hard as it, you know, this is, it is not an uncomplicated pastoral

issue.

It's a complicated pastoral issue. I like nine double negatives.

It makes me sound smart.

It's a complicated pastoral issue. a complicated church issue, it's a complicated family issue, right? Like, it impacts families,

and like that percentage of families impacted by conversations like this will only increase,

and churches that it impacts will increase, and, you know, we do have to,

find a way to be faithful to the whole counsel of God, and that's hard work.

Well, we thank you for listening with us here on this topic the last two weeks.

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