speaker-0: Faith Baptist Church in Taylor's presents Week in the Word.

speaker-1: This

speaker-0: Well, welcome back to This Week in the Word at Faith Baptist and Taylors. Again, you can find us literally anywhere that you look for your podcast at looking up This Week in the Word at FBC Taylors. And ⁓ we're so thankful again to have Pastor Mark Herbster with us today.

speaker-1: It's great to be with you, Pastor. It's always a joy.

speaker-0: Yeah, our our goal of this podcast is to jump into what is happening relevant to the life of our church. And relevant to the life of our church of note right now has been our ongoing series through First Corinthians, of which we're only in chapter three at this point.

speaker-1: It's been outstanding so far, Pastor. It's an excellent series.

speaker-0: It's been fun to go through. It's been our Sunday morning study. And ⁓ it's interesting as we've been getting going that for chapter one and then chapter two and then chapter three and then chapter four, Paul continues to nail the same topic. He's on it. And ⁓ I I we're in chapter three. We just finished the first nine verses of chapter three. I feel like calling this coming Sundays, and here we go again. And then get to chapter four and call it and here we go again again. You know, because it's it's still so concreted. And the theme is the necessity of unity within Christ Church. So again, he he pleads for believers not to divide into parties. He rebukes them for their allegiance to personality. He calls them back to Christ, away from their immaturity. And again, from chapter one to chapter four, unity is the dominant concern of the Apostle Paul, which should be our dominant concern too.

speaker-1: Absolutely. And along with the idea of unity, of course, means then ⁓ begs the question then who do you not unify with? And and that's really what, you know, this raises the question of unity and separation, because un when you talk about unity, you obviously realize there are some people you can't unify with.

speaker-0: Well it's interesting because that's kind of the point of our podcast today. Yeah. There's this repeated emphasis of unity for all these chapters, and we're not done yet, because we still got through most of chapter three and all of chapter four. If we keep talking about this, some may wonder, are we suggesting it is the g that the gospel is the only thing that matters and everything else is not important? Are are we saying that the only issues worthy of concern are those directly related to the gospel? Are we saying that the e every other doctrine should be treated as little more than personal preference? Is that what we're saying?

speaker-1: Right. And the answer to that is no. No. That is not what we're saying. But we're we are saying what the scripture says, which is we should seek unity with those we can unify with. Right. But it doesn't mean, as I already just said, that we unify with everyone. And that these other that a lot of these other issues are not important. Right.

speaker-0: But it's interesting because we're going through First Corinthians, and that's what people are going to start thinking, and they're going to go, well, maybe that that is what we're all that's all that matters. We're we're only focused on this one particular issue and we're not concerned about anything else. In fact, we've had some responses to that end. Here, here's and we're just going to give you the public facing comments. Publicly at po post it, publicly available. We're not trying to call attention to anything other than what someone is welcoming themselves to call publicly to. Here's a public comment from our sermons from First Corinthians, and here's what this individual said. Caleb Phelps thinks that the whole council of God equals the gospel when obviously the two are not the same. I mean, that's so their assumption is you've been in First Corinthians for so long, I guess. That all you think is the whole counsel of God is the gospel. And that is what I'm I'm saying. That is not what Paul sought believed, and that's certainly not what we believe.

speaker-1: Exactly. Well, it brings us into a discussion about really the two extreme positions, w which is, first of all, that the things that are not the gospel are as important as the gospel. Right. ⁓ and then the other extreme is that since the gospel is priority, as you've even said, that these other things are so unimportant.

speaker-0: It is private.

speaker-1: That we s we just we just gotta love everybody around those other things and and not worry about those things. Those are the two extremes ⁓ on this issue. And really the gospel, the gospel is a priority. Sure is. The whole counsel of God, of course, is wrapped around the truth of Jesus saves. There is a Redeemer. This is the message of the Bible. So the whole council of God is connected to the gospel. So we have to stay away from these deep ditches on either side. One is saying that all of these lower level issues are as important as the gospel, which we don't believe. We're not believing that. But we also don't believe the other ditch, which is that since the gospel is so primary, that we just need to ignore the differences we have in these other lower level issues, there is a middle ground position. I say this a lot in a lot of our Discussions, a lot of theological truth. Stay away from extremes. Both of those are extremes. And to be to be clear, we don't believe either one of those extremes. We want to be in the middle of this. We we want to say, yes, the gospel is what is the primary unification for us as Christians. But that is not saying that these other issues don't matter and that we sometimes we do have to separate and disunify with with lower level issues as well.

speaker-0: Right. Saying the gospel is central is not the same thing as saying the gospel is the only thing that matters. They're not the same. Right. And and I know but we're bringing up this conversation, first of all, because when we're in first Corinthians, and ⁓ you know, warning to any preacher that chooses to go through this, if you're in chapter one, two, three, and four and you haven't yet gotten to the rest of the book and you just stopped right there, there may be you might be getting comments like this one on your YouTube page. Yes. E the the very structure of First Corinthians demonstrates that that's not Paul's point. Paul believed the gospel mattered, but he also believed other things that mattered.

speaker-1: I mean, how can you not see that in Corinthians? How can you just haven't gotten there quite yet? But we will are starting to assume something about you and about us that really is not true. You just haven't gotten to the fact that, you know, you get to all these passages about some of these debatable issues.

speaker-0: In Corinthians. And here's the issue, right? Paul's saying, I'm here's a divided church, evidently so. There are major issues. The first major issue, chapter 5, verse 1, there's a sexual sin in your church that the world isn't even going to name. Right. It's got to deal with that. But before I can deal with that, we need to make sure that you're foundationally around the gospel. Now, once that's been restored. Paul keeps writing and writing and writing. And what follows is striking. Beginning in chapter 5 and continuing through the end of the epistle, Paul addresses a host of issues that cannot simply be dismissed as quote-unquote gospel issues. Right. These are church issues, these are holiness issues, worship issues, authority issues, practical issues, ethical issues are all going to be addressed beginning in chapter 5 and taking you to the end of the book. In other words, they are part of the whole council of God. Right. So this notion, Caleb Phelps thinks that the whole council of God equals the gospel, that's not at all what we're preaching at Faith Baptist and Taylor.

speaker-1: No, and and and to be real clear, the gospel really is a means to the the greater end of the glory of God. Right. So really the glory of God is the ultimate priority. That's absolutely right. From the beginning of time, b well, before he even began, he created. It's all about God, it's all about his glory. Right. So even the gospel itself, which as you have pointed out, is not necessarily equal to the whole council of God. Right. But the gospel and the whole counsel of God are given to us so that we can be in God's glory. And I think Ephesians 1 is a classic text that shows us that the gospel is not all there is. The gospel is a means to the end. Because it says all of this lengthy section about the gospel, and it says it's to the praise of the glory of his grace. Multiple times it says that in Ephesians chapter 1. So we know that really the glory of God is the ultimate. Priority. And that the gospel is God's way of bringing unsaved heathen people into the glory of God because we have been out of his glory, we're out of his will when we're when we're fallen sinners, and we're all sinners. So the gospel is the primary way to get us back to, the only way to get us back to God's glory.

speaker-0: Well it's it's fascinating 'cause I'm sure you've we're in a college setting, we're in a college town now. You've heard this common slogan really modern evangelicalism likes to use Christ unites, doctrine divides. Yeah. And that's kinda their their calling card. ⁓

speaker-1: The problem is Christianity is doctrinal. It is doctrinal. So if you're gonna say doctrine divides, then y then what kind of Christian are you if you don't have doctrine? A doctrine is what makes us Christians. Right. So that that of course is not an accurate statement. Well doctrine doctrine can unite us.

speaker-0: Andy Stanley. Yeah. Pardon me for using him, but we're gonna go off his quote here. Here's what he said church unity is more important than theological correctness. Why?

speaker-1: Yeah, I mean we're absolutely opposed to these kinds of more ecumenical, evangelical type of statements. I mean that that's ridiculous. Yeah.

speaker-0: It it's it's it's y in his case, using First Corinthians, and that's what we're in, you can't preach First Corinthians with that position. Right. No You cannot preach through First Corinthians and hold to that position.

speaker-1: Right, because Paul's gonna bring up even the classic text on the gospel, First Corinthians fifteen. Right. The resurrection chapter. If you don't believe the resurrection, you're not in the faith. If you're not in the faith, then of course you're not united with us. That's a that's very doctrinal.

speaker-0: It's pretty doctrinal. Yeah. Th there there's a there there's a profound thing. Here's, you know, Rick Warren, pardon me for using him too. Right, right. We're never going to have unity in doctrine.

speaker-1: Interesting, it's a twenty twenty five 'cause you know, he's he's written a lot through the last twenty years or so, but this is a recent statement. Never going to have unity in doctrine. What? Why not?

speaker-0: Recent statement. Right. Maybe with those who have wrong doctrine.

speaker-1: Yeah. I mean I don't want to be I'm not unified with the Catholics. Right. I'm not unified with people who have s who believe sacramentalism and works based salvation, of course, but I am unified i on a number of levels with people who believe the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

speaker-0: We're we're bringing up this conversation again because I think maybe more in our circles. If I begin to preach well I know, not if I think this has happened, right? As I I'm about to demonstrate further. When I preach the gospel and let's not allow preferences to be over the gospel, the gospel is primary, people are gonna assume, well, you've just adopted the life the mindsets of Rick Warrens and the Andy Stanley's Right, right. So you say, Well well

speaker-1: Well, life's ridiculous.

speaker-0: For example, here's an email that was sent to info at FaithPB. And by the way, we love to get these emails from our listeners. Right. And ⁓ this helps us.

speaker-1: It does so even what we're doing here.

speaker-0: This email was sent to us and then later posted to our social channels. So the individual ⁓ doing this obviously had shared this with others and was okay with it being public. ⁓ here's what they said, and I got the full copy here. So it was think it was last Sunday sermon, this would have been in our first Corinthian study. Mm-hmm. In which you had a prayer something like, Forgive us for having any priority a other than the gospel. Right. They say, I I will get to my concerns I have. This is in the not on the screen here, but in the full ⁓ meat of the article. I believe this is theologically incorrect because we are to be for the whole council of God. Yeah. I don't think that is theologically incorrect. I can have a priority be the gospel while also recognizing other things are important. Yeah. Right. And you have a chart to that end, by the way.

speaker-1: Yeah, you can you can show them that chart because ⁓ I I have really thought about this a lot over the years as I've been training different guys in ministry and really dealing with pastors and lots of questions in all my years of s of ⁓ evangelism, lots of questions about these kinds of issues, like who do we unify with and who do we separate from? What are the priority level issues? What are the lower level issues that we can agree to disagree on? In even though we may we may still have some disunity where we may not fellowship in some cases, these are questions that that people have been talking about for a long time. And I've had a lot of thought about this. And this this ⁓ chart really or this picture that I designed ⁓ is really helpful because it shows us that there are there are different levels of importance on the things that we believe and the opinions we hold and and of course the preferences. And even ⁓ even d some doctrinal issues are lower level doctrinal issues that we can agree to disagree on. You see the peak Christian doctrines, of course, and and I would argue that this would be fitting into what would was commonly known as the fundamental doctrines, the fundamentals of the faith. Right. Things that we cannot have any wavering on and be considered a Christian. Right. The deity, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the inspiration of scripture. Grace alone, Christ alone. These kinds of things. And we could go on and on. There's there's a number of what I call mountain peak

speaker-0: If you deny these, you're not a Christian.

speaker-1: Yes. Right. So those are things that are absolutely clear. Separation issues we cannot unify with someone who doesn't believe those because those are issues of the faith. Those are issues of Christianity. That you're not a Christian if you don't believe the peak doctrines. Okay. Now there's other important doctrines, and notice I put that word important because just because they're lower level doesn't mean they're not important. Right. And there are important doctrines. We we we could discuss all day long some of these doctrines. Like like for example, we we're clear on this. We're a Baptist church. But what about baptism? Right. There are people who are believers who believe the peak doctrines, but we would we would strongly disagree with them on the doctrine of the practice of baptism. Right. Okay. Which we believe is very clear, okay, in the scripture. And we that's a whole That's why you're important.

speaker-0: It's yes. But we're not saying that if they disagree with us on this, they're not

speaker-1: That we're not they're not saved, they're not going to heaven. Or they're ⁓ this is the word I really hate hate. It's they're heretics. They're heretics. You know, they have a different view of doc ⁓ of baptism or something like that. There's other issues we could mention.

speaker-0: Right. But a good as a safe example 'cause we are faith Well, your shirt says people should know where we stand on that one. It's not for debate in this

speaker-1: Faith back. Right. Yeah. Okay. And so then you get to the the third layer, which are which are is what c what I call tertiary issues of faith and practice. And and there's like a lot of these. Okay. We've been doing a s significant series on the text issue and the translation issue. Right. We believe inspiration is is some may argue that that the text issue fits into the secondary doctrine. I would ⁓ probably put it somewhere in in between those.

speaker-0: Christian doctrine. It depends on who you're talking to, frankly.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And as strong as I even as strong as I am, and I've taught on the on the worship issue, the music issue, I I would put that in this category of tertiary issues of faith and practice. I I believe strongly in my position of worship, but it is nowhere near the level of importance as the secondary doctrines and the peak doctrines. Now worship alone, worshiping the right God in the right way is really important. Right. But well we can have good disagreement and be friends and even be unified with people that have differing perspectives on these tertiary issues, these ⁓ issues of faith and practice. Right. So to say that the gospel is primary is saying the gospel is at the peak, one of the peaks. Right. For sure one of the peaks, I already mentioned that the glory of God to me is the the highest peak. It's the Mount Everest.

speaker-0: And that would be where I'd say, because this is what that person's email was. You know, I I he's taking issue with praying. Forgive us for having any priority other than the gospel. Well, okay, if you're gonna say there there is to the glory of God, but if you're going to say that your aversion issue is priority over the gospel, I'm gonna say that is that's out of line. He actually gives examples. Let's try that prayer with some illustrations. Forgive us for wanting to preach and obey the whole council of God as priority over being compromised gospel preachers. Right. Well, no one's praying that way. That's not what I was praying. That's not the significance. That's what this chart clearly is seeking to articulate. That there is a gospel issue peak. And I would say this is a position that's been held commonly by those who we would declare to be faithful gospel preachers. Yes. For a long time. Here's what Spurgeon said in 1887. To pursue union at the expense of truth is treason to the Lord Jesus Christ. Right. And he goes further in his sermon on them from 1859 from Acts 20. He, speaking of a preacher, the minister's farewell. He's in this sermon in 1859, Spurgeon is talking about a preacher who did preach the whole council of God. And he said this is this should be his legacy. He had preached all the counsel of God. By which I think we are to understand that he had given to his people the entire gospel, he had not dwelt upon some one doctrine of it to the exclusion of the rest. Right.

speaker-1: Right. So there's a definite connection because the primary message of the Bible, which we're saying is the whole council of God, the Bible. Right. The primary message is the gospel. And in some ways, the gospel affects all of these tertiary issues. The gospel affects ⁓ the the way I worship, the gospel affects, you know, the the way I ⁓ perceive myself in the world, the way I act, the way I behave, all these things that good people maybe have differing opinions on. It's still connected to the gospel. Right. And I believe it is appropriate to say that the gospel is priority over those issues. Right. I I really believe that's appropriate. I think ⁓ that that we're making the case for that. But by saying that, we are not saying these other issues are unimportant and that we're just gonna kind of just accept them all and love everybody, which is what Rick Warren is saying, which is what Stanley's saying. That's that is a that's an extreme position. Let's just focus on this one thing, or let's all get together on this and let's just get rid of all these divisions, right? You know, or these ⁓ separations. Right. They do matter. Absolutely do matter. And they're very important issues that we sometimes have to draw away on a level that's different than a what I would call a like ecclesiastical separation level. We draw away like in a sphere of influence type decision.

speaker-0: These other things do

speaker-1: Like if a church across town is doing something that we would not promote in their practice on these lower level issues, then we obviously are not gonna take our youth group to their to saying we're not gonna go to their conference or whatever.

speaker-0: Well and and that's where And that's where it's important for us as a church to recognize something that I think if if people and this come contest, I'm glad there may be other listeners, but this is for Faith and Taylor's family. And a family conversation that's worth having until that point is for for a better part of a decade, our constitution was more or less not followed and ignored. It is helpful to have a constitution for that kind of thing. Because you can say, Well, why aren't you gonna do that? Because we've already settled on these issues, when we join this church family, this is this is how we do church life for us at our church. Right. And so we have intentionally sought to resurrect what is a good constitution in our church and say, here's what we believe, even the more recent series you mentioned earlier on translations, really, how did we begin and end the series? Here's what our constitution already says about it. And it was written in nineteen eight eighty two, frankly. Here we are in twenty twenty six. We're not changing. We we still believe what our constitution said all those years earlier. And it involves in the c translation issue, that's a wherever you want to put that on those peaks, it's not the primary one. So it's settled on us in a constitution.

speaker-1: Yeah, I was ⁓ just ⁓ around the subject, I was picking up this little booklet that's been a help to me called A Conservative Christian Declaration. Sure. And it's interesting Yeah, primarily Kevin Bowder along with several other guys, it came out of what is called religious affections ministries probably about ten, fifteen years ago. Sure. It's a short little read that gives some real clear teaching on what makes us a conservative believer, conservative Christian. And the first article is

speaker-0: Author is.

speaker-1: on the gospel. Wow. And he makes it very clear. And what's interesting is the second article is on the whole council of God. Right. And he actually talks about those two extremes in this in this short this short statement about those things. And his point is that the gospel you're if you don't unify around the gospel, then you cannot rightfully say you're a Christian. Right. And the gospel is not just that you know about his death, burial, and resurrection, it's that you absolutely are convinced That is the only way of salvation. You believe in the historic events, you believe in the the proof of those events, you believe in the implications of those events. And even quotes from 1 Corinthians chapter 15. ⁓ interesting. Yeah, w with in the in the article. But this is what he says. He says the gospel, this is in the second article on the whole council of God. He says the gospel forms the boundaries for our Christian fellowship. Outside of the gospel, no Christianity and no Christian fellowship can exist. Those who agree on the gospel, however, still will disagree about many other issues. This is exactly what we're talking about. Some of these issues are relatively trivial, and others have greater importance. About these issues, we we are affirming that there are two ditches on either sides. Maybe where I even thought about this idea in sharing some of what I read here. Disagreements on secondary matters is the one that disagreements ⁓ are are made a test of Christian unity. It's out of bounds to say that this is the test of Christian unity. In other words, they're outside the faith. If they don't d agree with me on these. And the other one is then what he calls gospel minimalism, where we say, Well, let's just preach the gospel and let's not worry about any of these other issues. So he he he is articulating what we're saying, and it just to confirm that this is n this is not. Unusual. It's not an unusual struggle to fight through in our minds about how do we state the reality that the scripture clearly shows us and still agree that there are things that define us that may not define other groups of Christians. No, it's not a new

speaker-0: And you said it's not a new issue. Here's D. Martin Lloyd Jones from a generation ago in his sermon or his book on Ephesians and Christian unity. The greatest tragedy in the world today is not a divided church, but the fact that the majority seem to place unity above truth. Yeah. Right. That is

speaker-1: It's almost like he is predicting what we're seeing, ⁓ some of these statements that you're quoting from some of these other guys, that unity is more important than doctrine.

speaker-0: But what are we unifying around? Yeah. And and I and that is where First Corinthians is of value because Paul is saying you're not unified. Well, what do you mean, Paul? You should be unified around this. You have the mind of Christ. You're over here about I'm of Paul and I'm of Apollos as an example. You're still immature in your faith as an example. I wish I could teach you more, but I can't right now. Speaking of the whole council of God. I wish I could give that to you. That's where you should be right now. I have to remind you of the gospel itself because you still haven't matured beyond that.

speaker-1: Yeah, and I think the challenge that we have is just our human nature, is that we I mean effec especially us as preachers, we believe very strongly, even on those lower level issues. We believe we're right, or we wouldn't teach it. But we have to humbly acknowledge that those lower level issues are not the main issue. Right. And while we can be firm and courageous on teaching and preaching what we believe on those lower level issues. We also have to be humble and gracious to say we could be wrong. Right. We don't think we're wrong, but we could be wrong.

speaker-0: To to help our listeners out, because you do this in a setting, I do this in a setting. So our regular schedule of preaching is Sunday morning, we're going through books of the Bible. Right now happens to be First Corinthians. Right. Sunday night for me, that's where I'm going to deal with theological conversations for growing disciples. So we're going to deal with that, you know, I'm gonna bring up that chart again here for a second. ⁓ your chart here. So yeah. So we're going to get to other important things. Yes. Especially on Sunday night in our church.

speaker-1: More of a topical, sometimes more of a topical, I mean expository in a sense, but topical in the sense that's going to these issues.

speaker-0: Right. And and even for us on Wednesday night, because of the format we've used, inductive style, we often will get to other important things and even have the courage at times to talk about tertiary issues of faith and practice. Right. You do the same thing with the college and young family and and the young families. Yeah.

speaker-1: Well let's just take an example of even this past week. You did an outstanding message. If anybody was there on Wednesday night, it was a great message on marriage. Right. From the book of Genesis.

speaker-0: Because we're going inductively through Genesis one.

speaker-1: Unequivocal, strong statements about marriage in the scripture that really a true Christian cannot deny. Okay, I I do believe that. But then you and I both know there are huge debate about some of the particulars, especially when it comes to the divorce issue. So am I am I gonna say my everybody has to agree at my divorce position or they're not even in the faith? You know, that that this is kind of a a little bit of a

speaker-0: Well but that's the kind of issue we're talking.

speaker-1: Yeah. But and some people do this. They take their their particular interpretation of something that they believe strongly, and they may even be they may be right. Right. But it's a debatable issue and they raise it to the same level of issues that are dogmatically stated in the scripture. Right. And again, we would have a strong position on on our divorce and remarriage, but good men can disagree on that issue. And this is a very issue you dealt with Wednesday night you didn't really talk talk about divorce and remarriage a lot in that message, but you talked about the the higher level issues of marriage. Right. But then there's there's a lot of ways that it goes into our lives where good people can disagree on that. And we can still get along, is my point. We can still be unified with those.

speaker-0: But my point is on our calendar, just so you people know as they're listening, we have more than one service a week. Yeah. And this is part of why. This allows us as a church family to have ongoing conversations. You're having ongoing conversations about these things in the college class. Right. And

speaker-1: In the family class, the college class, personal engagement with people, lots of counseling that I'm doing.

speaker-0: And sometimes those other settings lend themselves more easily to those kind of conversations.

speaker-1: Yeah, probably because of the nature of preaching. ⁓ it is meant to be ⁓ proclamation. It is meant to be courageous and bold and application is driven f driven with our you know, with our voice and with our personality. But those personal conversations and smaller group gatherings and and really even the growth group hours give us the chance to kinda on a a more personal level explain a little bit more in detail. Right. But

speaker-0: Also demonstrate we're not afraid of that. Because that's also there's a pendulum we're talking about this pendulum or ditch, right? Right. Sometimes people pull it one side and they go to the Andy Stanley, Rick Warren extreme. Yes. Which is to be rejected. Right. But there are others who see that and in the response to that they're like, we're just not gonna ever talk about it. Yeah. Well

speaker-1: Yes, exactly. Yeah, those are the two extreme ditches that we gotta stay out of. The pendulum swing is important. And and if anybody thinks that we're going one of to one of those, that is not what we believe. Clearly. That is not what who we are, what we've stood for, what our ministries have practiced, what this church has stood for. So it's really it's really kind of honestly, it's a little bit humorous that anybody would think that what by saying the gospel is priority, we're saying none of these other issues matter.

speaker-0: Right.

speaker-1: That's not if they come and see how we practice and see what we do and see see our our you know see our pastoral team, they would know that that's not the

speaker-0: I mean it's we could be humorous at times about this, huh? Okay, so that you've listened to Sunday morning and that's your conclusion from Caleb Phelps that the gospel he thinks using that one comment, the gospel is the whole council of God. Well you have not clearly been following along because I actually preach three sermons a week, not just one sermon a week. Right. So I'm actually covering a lot more than that. And ⁓ if your conclusion is that you just don't know who we are as a ministry, frankly. Now I wish you would and I'm thankful that you're willing to ask. In fact, again, we put this plug in last time. Do email us because it is helpful to hear and ⁓ we get

speaker-1: We're having this conversation because, you know, we wanted to obviously clarify any confusion that there was. Absolutely. Which I don't know why there's confusion, but there was. Yeah. Woe unto us if we preach not the gospel. I mean that that's what Paul said. It's the pri it is a priority.

speaker-0: It is priority. I think that was Paul's priority. Pretty positive.

speaker-1: But what we're not saying is that all these other things don't matter. Yeah. Those matter too.

speaker-0: I think Paul was a 'cause here's an email, and it's a good point. Here's a here's a here's a question that they're asking. If all here's another email. If only the gospel matters, which we're not saying that at all, why do we have sixty-six books in the Bible? Why are we to earnestly contend for the faith? Jude three, why doesn't it just say contend for the gospel? Jude answers that in the immediate context, but in essence it is because apostates come into the churches. Agreed. Should Paul apologized for preaching the whole council of God. Couldn't Paul have gotten along better if he only preached the gospel? Right. I mean I don't in in just this section, I'm not sure I have any disagreement with just that section. Right. In context of the email maybe.

speaker-1: To this writer, I want to just con just to make sure that everybody understands the gospel does mean the faith. Right. So when he says we're earnestly contending for the faith, what is the faith? There's an entire study that is we could do on that terminology in the New Testament. I would argue that scripturally the faith is the gospel includes doctrines that you must believe to be a Christian. So the peak. Yes. The peak.

speaker-0: You mean the peak of your

speaker-1: The peak doctrines are included in the faith, which is the gospel. I would say inspiration of scripture, deity of Christ, virgin birth, grace alone, through Christ alone, to you know, th those kinds of things are gos that's gossip those are gospel issues for the glory of God. Right. So I I don't know what he's I I don't know what the argument is here. ⁓ you when you're teaching and preaching the gospel, you obviously can't handle All the other issues that the scripture talks about that are connected to the gospel every time you preach the gospel. Right. But Paul himself, as I just quoted, said, Woe unto us if we do not preach the gospel. So if you're preaching all the lower level issues, but you're not making much of Christ, much of the cross, much of the gospel, you're missing the priority. That's the point we're making. The priority is the gospel, which leads us to making wise choices in all these other

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: Lower level is

speaker-0: To bring a lunchtime conversation that nobody listened to this was a part of. We just had lunch before we came into this. Right, right. But one of the conversations was, well, why are all the young people leaving and going to these other things? And one of the answers given from one of our pastoral staff members, Pastor Starr, to quote him who's not in the room right now, but he made a good point. Yeah. He he said, frankly, they're leaving because they're The the primary doctrinal issues weren't taught as primary and doctrinal, and the secondary issues were. Yes. And so the the the young people are going, well, I'll just go to a church that agrees with me about the primary issues. Right. And and to to be fair, at times they that may be true. But the but the secondary issues are still important. Yes. But what we've done is we've elevated them over and above the primary issues to the point where young people have never seen a chart like what you just articulated. Right. And so when you say, Well, actually I don't think I can go there for this reason, they go, Well, whoa, whoa, it's only about the gospel. We're saying no, there are more important things. Maybe we just haven't clarified them for you. And I think we haven't. Yeah.

speaker-1: I think that we need to be honest that historically within conservative churches that sometimes the lower level issues have somehow, whether intentionally or unintentionally, have been lifted up to of a very similar level to at least the secondary issues and sometimes to the peak issues in such a way that many young people have said if that's what they think is important, I'm out of here. Right. And I and that's why I think it's important that we're clarifying what we are saying and what we're not saying. We're just saying these things are important but they're not the most important. Right. The most important thing that we unify on is the Christian faith. It's like w this it is the gospel for the glory of God.

speaker-0: Well, and that was the other point that Starr was making to put him in fairness in his own words. He was just saying often they're going to these other churches because there is a sense in which they're actually the ones preaching verse by verse. Yes, yes. And going through these passages. Whereas often in our conservative fundamental Baptist circles, the steady diet of preaching is more topical. Yes. And you can do topical, I do topical, through an expository format where you're very clearly This is what the Bible says versus this is what I believe the Bible says. Right. And there is a difference.

speaker-1: And I do believe, Pastor, what you're doing is is if people are here in all the services day day after day, week after week, you're building an understanding of the whole council of God, which is wrapped around the glory of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what you're doing, but you can't get that if you're not coming to the services, if you're not like faithfully listening and you're and and you're not seeing that the scripture really is guiding us to this this these truths and the unity that we have around the scripture.

speaker-0: It's such a passion and ⁓ of of mine and I I want it to be more than it is. I I can say that's a passion, and I want to say at the same time, I'm gonna grow in this passion. Where I come to a church, I be a I lead a church, I'm part of a church that is passionate about being the a word-based ministry. Yes. Why on earth would I populate my calendar and allow myself to be busy doing anything less? But There are many such examples in churches like ours, including ours, where we're busy doing things that aren't really edifying, word based, focused. Yes. So we we've danced all around this question, by the way. We've never actually asked the question. It's been on the screen. Yeah. Is the gospel everything? Is the gospel everything?

speaker-1: Well, as I pointed out, I think what I would say is the gospel is everything that gets us to the glory of God. Right. And and it is the primary message of the Bible that God put in the Bible, all the way from the beginning to the end. Right. The gospel is what brings us back into the ultimate purpose, which is bringing glory to God. So the gospel isn't everything, it's not all about the gospel, but when it when we think of it in a in that theological framework that that God is making everything for his glory and he's bringing everything into his glory, then then it really is everything to meet our need. It it's what saves us, it's what redeems us, it's what brings us back to where we where he originally designed us to be.

speaker-0: Here's what Spurgeon said to preach the gospel is to state every doctrine contained in God's word and to give every truth its proper prominence. That proper prominence.

speaker-1: Which exactly. Which by the way, you're gonna get to the end of First Corinthians and throughout all of First Corinthians. I'm sure you're gonna talk about some of those lower level issues that that come up in Corinthians. And you what you're doing is you're systematically walking through what Paul did is he built the foundation for the lower level issues with the big issue. And the big issue is the gospel which brings us into God's glory.

speaker-0: And then he comes back to that. You've already alluded to it. Mm-hmm. So he says, Here's the foundation, chapter one, two, three, and four. He comes back to it again in chapter fifteen. Yeah. Hey, Ru, don't forget. Yeah. Here's the foundation that we need to deal with.

speaker-1: And you can't have unity if around it with anybody or around any ministry that doesn't believe First Corinthians fifteen. I mean y there's various views of the resurrection, but there's only one true. Right. And that would be a peak issue. The resurrection is a peak issue. Right.

speaker-0: No, you cannot. Well we hope that this has been a help to you. I love these conversations. This is one one of my favorite ones to have with you.

speaker-1: It is there's no doubt it's ⁓ these are difficult difficult issues to talk through. Like who do we unify with and who do we not unify with. Right. You know, th and and that it's important that we understand some of these levels. Right. And that's really it's a humbling thing because we have to admit when we're wrong, right. And we gotta admit that we can agree to disagree agreeably, as my dad used to always say, Right. On s on some issues, but then there's other issues that we can never unify with someone on.

speaker-0: By the way, keep the emails coming. In fact, I I hope that this particular episode encourages people to send more. You can go to info at fbctailors.org and ⁓ we love getting them. We did not put anybody's name on here, so you can you can get up there and even if we see your name on the email, we can assure you we won't put yours on this if that was what you're more comfortable with. It allows us to interact more lively with what's actually happening, what what are people thinking? And so if you'd like to, even related to the days. Episode, please go ahead.

speaker-1: We want to be understood. We don't want to be misunderstood.

speaker-0: And you can only clarify if people ask questions. Isn't that interesting how that works some ways? Exactly. So ⁓ please allow us to clarify if we are confusing and we sometimes confuse ourselves. So I I think I'm more confused about myself than you might be about me. So it's all good on that end. ⁓ but we are so thankful for that. So again, a a powerful conversation. I wanted to have this because I know we're kind of still in it with chapter one, two, three, and four. If you've if by the way, I don't want you to feel like

speaker-1: I'm sure.

speaker-0: ⁓ man, we're back in it again in chapter three and chapter four of First Corinthians. I can't wait till we get out of it. Actually, once you get into chapter five, you may wish we had gone back to chapter one, two, three, and four. There's a little heavier once you get to that one. But it is the whole council of God's words. That is the intention. We want to get all of it out there. So thank you again. Pastor Mark.

speaker-1: Thanks, Pastor Caleb. Thank you for joining us today. For more information about Faith Church, visit us.

speaker-0: Baptist at wbctech.org.

speaker-1: Tailors.org.