Transcription
While you were talking about people who pastors in particular might feel like they're they're trying to be honest but they're stuck because of realistic if you work for an organization you're going to have to regurgitate or tow the line, you know?
And one person earlier said I wonder how many current pastors have no idea that they are teaching relatively new views just like your guest initially didn't know. Um Yeah, a lot of pastors don't know that I think. Mhm.
Yeah, and that that's one thing that attracted me to your style of teaching Steve was you don't just espouse your own view on a particular passage or portion of scripture. You'll even explain how the other perspectives use that scripture or what they believe that scripture is saying and then you'll say your view and then you kind of just leave it up to the to the person to decide which of those two perspectives they think makes most sense in context per your explanation. That's something to me that I very much respect because I have a brain, Dennis has a brain, Sosthenes, yeah. And so it it's just intellectually honest to put out the perspectives and let the let the person decide on their own and let the Holy Spirit work in them and guide them and lead them and let them pray over it rather than try to say this is what the Bible teaches and then only show them one perspective.
That is a distinctive of my personal philosophy of teaching and that I I I gained it by my experience frankly with Calvary Chapel. Calvary Chapel Chapel Calvary Chapel only taught one view of things. But that's not I mean I'm not ragging on them because of most denominations only teach one view of things. But, >> Right.
Uh when I learned on my own that there were other views of some of these things. And Calvary Chapel had taught me one view very well, but not but not in the context of you know, there's Christians who don't see it this way. And there's Christians who have, you know, their way of interpreting things that make sense to them and and that possibly reasonable, but we just see it this way. That's how That's how I think we should teach on disputed matters.
Now, among Christians, the deity of Christ should not be a disputed matter. The lordship of Christ certainly is not. That he's the son of God, that we should follow him, that he died for our sins and rose again. Those are not disputed matters among Christians. But, almost everything else is. I mean, uh almost every other doctrine, there's someone who disputes it. And so, uh denominations have formed ever since the Reformation by some persons seeing a doctrine differently than the group they're in and starting their own movement uh to agree with them with their view. And but then somebody from their movement sees something differently starts a you know, another movement. So, it's like a domino effect so you have thousands of denominations. And uh in order to justify having separate denominations, you have to make the distinctives of your group very important. Right. >> You have to convince your people that those are very important. Right.
And one thing that Calvary Chapel has done, I don't know if Chuck did this himself so much at the beginning, but many Calvary Chapel pastors since since the days that Calvary became a a big denomination, they uh they talk as if, you know, if you don't believe their particular views of the end times, uh you your soul may be in danger. You never know, you know, uh and not all of them do. I I just want to say they don't all do it. I too many of them I hear do. They make it sound like if you don't believe their particular brand of eschatology, you you're really you're you're in trouble, probably.
Yeah, let let me ask you this cuz I I get that I get accused of that all the time online. Hey, you're not Christian because you either don't support Israel, don't believe in the preacher rapture, aren't for lack of better word, you're not dispensational. And I speak against it. Yeah. And they say that I'm not a Christian. But last I checked, I thought faith alone in Christ is the singular thing required for salvation, not faith alone in Christ plus this particular version of eschatology and belief in Israel. Right.
And it's a good thing, too. Good thing, too, because if if believing dispensationalism was necessary for salvation, then there weren't any people saved before 1830. Right. There all the martyrs, the apostles, the martyrs, the church fathers, they weren't saved cuz they didn't believe that stuff.
Now, I mean, what what we have to understand is that uh there are things that are essentials, and there are things that are absolutely not the essentials. Now, that doesn't mean that if something is not essential, there's no value in learning the right view. Uh almost like I said, you any doctrine that doesn't have distinctly to do with related to who Jesus is, um what he wants of us, what he wants us to do, our willingness to follow him as faithful disciples unto death. I mean, those are those are the things that were never questioned by any group of Christians. Uh but everything beyond that, whether it's your view of end times, whether it's your view of predestination, whether it's your view of uh the devil and demons, or your view of even the gifts of the spirit continuing into modern times, which I do believe in, but those are not those are not the essentials. I mean i- somebody I think that if somebody doesn't believe the gifts are for today, I think they're mistaken, but it's not going to their soul is not going to go to hell for believing that, you know. Right. Right.
After all, if God wants to break through with gifts, he can get he can get through to them when they're least expecting it. But um I just think that denominations make the particulars of these controversial subjects their particular view very very important. So, that people realize you better be part of our group. Sure. Because these other people over here, they don't teach this way. And you really it's not it's not one of those things you want to mess around with a different view on this subject. I think that's kind of how the view I got. And then when I learned there were other Christians who had other views I I was a little bit and I think you were telling me before we started recording here, a little you kind of that way, too. A little bit angry that, you know, they didn't teach me anything but one possibility. It's not honest. Right.
And when I started my school in Oregon back in 1983, I said I don't want any of my students 20 years from now saying, "Steve, why didn't you tell me there were other you know, why didn't you let me think for myself?" And in many cases, pastors don't let people think for themselves because they don't have any confidence that their congregation know how to think. I hate to say it that way, but I mean, if you ever ask a Calvary Chapel pastor, for example, "Would you how would you like to debate a and you name it, a millennialist or preterist or something like that. Uh I'm going to say nine times out of 10 or more frequently than that the pastor will say, "No, we don't believe in doing that. It's it just confuses the sheep." And uh I mean, that's what they say. They say we we just need to teach sound doctrine. We don't need to let, you know, confuse the sheep by letting them know there's other things that could, you know, that they should be thinking about. Um, which means the pastors are saying our sheep are really stupid. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We don't have any thinking people in the church. >> Well, Stephen, Yeah. they they they say that they take they take things literally. So, they they actually believe their people are dumb as sheep. >> [laughter] >> But don't >> [laughter] >> You're welcome. But it's more than just, you know, it's for just really quick and uh from a personal note, um, uh only being taught one side or one thing um is detrimental. I think for me personally, I went through a very dark season in my life and I think that a lot of that um I think a lot of uh I think it got worse because of how I thought and because what I believed and it was so um it wasn't according to the Bible. So, then when I needed truth the most, I didn't have it. Mhm.
Well, the attitude that, you know, our people should not be aware or made aware of what other groups think um doesn't contribute to the unity of the body of Christ, which Christ prayed for and which Christ commands us to maintain and Paul commands us to maintain because if we're not told that there are good Christians who think differently than we do, then we assume that Christians who think differently than we do are not good Christians. Uh, they they they don't believe the Bible. They, you know, they are liberals or they are cultists or they are just not serious Christians. And that's that simply isn't a safe position to take if you're trying to have be unified with other brothers and sisters. We aren't unified over our our views on peripheral things. We're unified over bigger things. Uh, so when Paul Paul rebuked the Corinthians, where he said, "Some of you are saying, 'I'm of Paul, or I'm of Apollos, or I'm of Cephas, or I'm of Christ.'" He said, "Was Paul crucified for you? And you know, were you baptized in the name of Paul?" He's saying, "Of course you weren't." "You were only baptized All of you, you're baptized in the name of Jesus, not of Paul or Peter or Cephas." And yeah, Peter and Paul and Cephas might have uh uh uh Peter, I should say uh Pe- Peter and Apollo- Paul and Paul and Cephas might have taught slightly different things in some points, I don't know, or different styles that attracted different people to them, but uh but but that didn't make them part of a different faith. They were still followers of Christ.
And when Paul said to the Romans in Romans 14 that some Christians uh wanted to keep one day uh special, and others wanted to keep all days alike, and that some of them thought they should eat only vegetables, and some thought they could eat everything. This was uh you know, these were differences of opinion that Christians held in the church of Rome. Mhm. And Paul said, "Well, let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind." In other words, he didn't He could have told them who was right. He [snorts] could have said, "Well, the guys on this three of them, you know." He just said, "Listen, why don't we learn how to just respect each other and love each other and give each other some liberty. Uh let them find their way." Uh you know, "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," he told the Corinthians. And so, if you don't have liberty to think for yourself and to pursue Christ according to your conscience, then maybe the spirit of the Lord is not in your movement. Because where the spirit of the Lord is, there is that liberty. We don't We don't have to control people by Mhm. making them think that if you think differently than the pastor does, uh you might be on the way to hell. That's what cults do. That's just >> Exactly. That is exactly the attitude of cults. Exactly. This is really good, Steve. Thank you for sharing that. >> Yeah, wouldn't you want, as a pastor, wouldn't you want your teaching or your perspectives to be analyzed, criticized, compared to other perspective? It's either going to help you grow and develop or it's going to further I don't know, strengthen your position because you can show how the other one's incorrect. But if you're unwilling to do that at all or to have your view uh criticized at all or put up to scrutiny at all, that just shows that you're fearful, more than likely. Exactly.
If you're secure that your views are correct or at least as correct as can be known uh then you'll be very happy to have them cross-examined because the truth will always have the best arguments. So, if your view is the best is true then it'll be shown to be stronger by its interaction with its opposition. Uh but you know, if it isn't true what you do well to find out before you keep teaching it, you know? In other words, I mean, it's it says in Proverbs chapter 18 and verse 17, "The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him." You know, and you know, everybody who's been converted into a church, they whatever their church teaches is the first one who pleaded his cause. And that sounds right. But when the neighbor comes to examine him, that means maybe maybe something can be tweaked or improved in their beliefs. Now, a pastor who is secure in Christ and just just wants nothing more than to teach the truth and takes very seriously what James said, "Those who teach will receive a stricter condemnation and therefore you should better not fudge in your teaching cuz God won't won't give you a pass on that." Pastor who thinks that way is going to say, "If I'm wrong, the first person to show me I'm wrong is doing me a huge favor before I teach what's wrong more." >> True. You know, however, if I'm right, uh then my views will hold up against all scrutiny. So, you know, I on my radio show, I always invite people to call up if they disagree and tell me why they do. Um because you know, if they're right, I'll learn something. If they're wrong, they'll learn something. And either right someone's going to learn something. Yeah, that's right.
Okay. Let's get That was a great intro. Yeah. [laughter] Um we have an hour and a half left, and with that, I think we should just dive straight in. Um so, one of the things that we talk about a lot on the show or have been talking a lot for the past 2 3 months, um is, especially cuz we have recently come out of dispensationalism, and now, at least for myself personally, I see clearly what I was a part of, and I see how that movement is being used today for war in Iran, geopolitically, for this um for this political aspiration or Israel's aspiration, for whatever everybody's using it for, it seems like evangelicalism and dispensationalism in particular seems to be serving a lot of different purposes right now. You know, you know, we we we are not supposed to support or make things happen that are not godly. And certainly many things that even the preservation of Israel. You know, there's a a Calvary Chapel pastor down here near where I live that he's very famous, and he has a very big church, and he's got a lot of YouTube videos, and he says, "If Israel loses this conflict with Hamas," he said, "then the Bible's not true." He and he says, "And we have no grounds for believing we're saved. So, crazy. It seems to me that he should, if he wanted to be even a little bit responsible, should say, "If Israel loses this conflict, then my interpretation of scripture is mistaken." No, but he said, "No, if if then the Bible's not true." So, a little like when Harold Camping said, "If Jesus doesn't come back on such and such a date in 2011 or whatever it was, then the Bible's not true." Well, Jesus didn't, but the Bible's still true. It's Harold Camping that wasn't true. And same thing with this this Calvinist. These people are so arrogant. They they don't even seem to realize that their opinion about Bible prophecy is just one opinion. Right. That That's That's the thing, Steve. They have drank the Kool-Aid. They believe that this perspective is, in fact, what the Bible says. They equate it with the actual words of God. It is not an interpretation. This is what God is saying. So, there there's no That's why I can see somebody like um who you're talking about, I know exactly you're talking about. I could see them saying that because to them, their opinion is God's word. You know? And I could see why they say somebody like you or now us who hold to amillennialism or uh an opinion other than dispensationalism, our salvation is in question cuz we we might be rejecting the word of God. So, then how could you be saved? Yeah, he he he doesn't seem to realize that every Christian on the planet was amillennial for, you know, 1,500 years. So, I guess they all went to hell, too. But, um you know, it's he he put out a reel recently, just I saw it the other day, where he says, "You know, we need to have unity with others in the body of Christ. We need not to divide over things." Like he said, "There are real Christians who believe in a post-trib rapture. There are There are who believe that." He said, "I'm not saying you can believe there's no millennium." He said, "That that's you know Uh that's that's the line. Exactly. [laughter] Jesus and millennial millennial reign. Exactly. Uh man, that's so so frustrating. >> [clears throat] >> He doesn't know how little he knows. I mean I mean there are there are some smarter dispensationalists than him. Uh he's not even one of the smarter pastors in his movement, but he's uh but he sure is a loudmouth. He sure talks a lot. People who are responding with hey, you're not saved cuz you're not dispensational. You don't believe in a pre-trib rapture. You don't believe Israel's chosen people of God. The guy he was talking about earlier, I hope it's okay I say, is Jack Hibbs? Okay, from Calvary Chapel. The guy that that says, "Hey, if you don't agree with us on these issues, uh it calls into question your salvation." Jack Hibbs, Calvary Chapel, Chino Hills. Um huge pastor. Huge. Hey, that is making a secondary issue a primary issue with which is in fact heresy. Mhm. It is actually adding to the gospel saying, "Hey, you need to believe this thing about the end times and about Israel, or else maybe you're not saved." Nowhere in the Bible does it say that. The only thing required for salvation is faith in Christ, right? And uh and then over time you produce fruits in keeping with repentance. That's it. It has nothing to do with your freaking eschatology. So, when I say, "Hey, these dudes I don't know, man. Their salvation's actually in question." Which is ironic cuz that's what they're saying about us, right? I'm saying that cuz you're adding to the gospel. You're saying that because I don't believe what you're saying is the word of God. But you believe what you're saying is the word of God. You know? So, it's it's it's from two different perspectives. I'm not just being catty and being like, "No, you don't No, you're not Christian." And they're like, "No, you're not Christian. No, you're not Christian. >> [laughter] >> That's not what I'm doing. The reason I can say that is because you're adding to the gospel. All right, I'm not adding to the gospel. You know what I'm saying? I don't believe you need to agree with me to be saved. But if you add to the gospel, your salvation might be in question. Kind of crazy. It's ironic. >> [music]