Sound Doctrine & Spiritual Leadership: Why Men Must Go Deeper in the Word

In this powerful episode, our men’s Bible study group dives deep into Sound Doctrine by Bobby Jamieson. We explore how doctrine isn’t just for scholars — it’s the lifeblood of a healthy Christian walk. From the nature of Scripture to how we preach, teach, and lead in our homes and churches, we discuss why a clear, whole-Bible view of God is essential — especially for men being called to spiritual leadership.

We also reflect on personal challenges, cultural distractions, and the spiritual warfare that tries to keep men from gathering and growing in truth. Whether you’re new to theology or hungry to grow deeper, this episode will challenge, equip, and encourage you.

👉 Next up: Biblical Theology — Link - https://amzn.to/4nNvAPu

🔗 Resources Mentioned:

• Purchase the book Sound Doctrine by Bobby Jamieson                                 Link- https://amzn.to/4p9oSVb
• Scriptures: Titus 1:9, 2 Timothy 4:3, 1 Timothy 1:10, Ephesians 4:4
• Group study reflections + practical application

📢 Share this with a man who needs biblical depth and community.

Transcript

Hey guys, welcome back to our fifth episode of our Bible study. In this episode, we go over the book Sound Doctrine. We all really enjoyed this book. Probably the biggest thing that we was able to pull out of it was it's the whole basis of the scripture, the doctrine of scripture, who God was, what he done, how we're supposed to live, how we're supposed to teach, how we're supposed to preach. It's not just like you go in a candy store and you pick out this one, you like it and you like that. It is not like that. It's the whole picture. You can't just go in and pick out a verse and preach and teach on it and pick out another one. I like it. Oh, I don't like this one. I'm going to put that one back because that one shouldn't pertain to me. No, it's the whole picture and that's really what I got out of this book. I hope you enjoy this episode. And our next one we'll be going over biblical theology. That'll be in the next episode that we publish. Both of these books are available in the show notes or in the, there'll be links down below. Just follow those. You can pick these up so that you can follow along with us. Hope you enjoy the episode and hope you have a blessed day. Thank you.

I feel like men are just hungry for stuff like this too.

Yeah, man,

They're looking for those conversations to happen because for some reason society kind of almost discourages
Men from getting together and building each other up. And so putting this out there will help them mold in other guys to participate in this or maybe even start their own group. Who knows? But this is what we need. And even me, I feel like Satan discourages stuff like this too because even yesterday and leading up to this, there was stuff popping up and I was like, man, I dunno if I can go. I dunno if I want to go. And even last night I was laying in bet and do after the gym yesterday, my shoulder was throbbing. I could not go to sleep last night. I was like, I'm going to go tomorrow. I don't care what happens. And it's just crazy. It's the same thing on Sunday mornings. How many times do you wake up and get ready to go to the church and it's like all hell breaks loose. The kids are screaming and the wife has just got something going on and you're butting heads. And so it's just kind of,

Yeah, we can not argue you. We can not. One that's never happened to y'all, right?

You kidding? Something about Sunday morning. So it, it's cool that this group is happening

Happen. Before we even get started, let me give you a little bit of a 30,000 foot view on what we're trying to accomplish here. This is our fifth, meaning probably our sixth month. So our fifth book, it's not something we're going to invite everybody to be honest. It's open to anybody. But really I think our heart and goal is that the way that this group formed is that men wanted to learn how to read, interpret, study, and teach the Bible. And so that's a spiritual hunger. So we need there, it seems like in the church there, many of us have talked about this in detail, but there's an absence of male leaders, qualified male leaders, male leaders that have roots that are deep, that are not going to be blown over by every trial or every one of doctrine that have a working knowledge of God and walked with God and love the spirit of God and can handle the word of God and can discern and articulate.
And so we wanted to start this group to take men on a journey before we even got to learning how to teach the Bible. That's where we're going to go that. But I thought a foundation of almost a year would be probably sufficient to look at some of the core principles to get us there so that we're grounded. And so I'm just going to tell you my heart, my heart for all of you is that you would be effective leaders within the church because inside all of you, I see characteristics that the church desperately needs, desperately needs in men. And so it's not like, Hey, let's invite this person to our study. It's like each one of you are very near and dear to my heart because I see amazing character in you and qualities in you that are powerful that the Lord will use. So that's kind of my goal. I'm just going to tell you right now is I love each one of you and I want to see you be effective leaders in the church, however that works out at our church or in life and in the home, obviously first and foremost.
But roots down deep, and we've all talked about this before, we're in a culture where long periods of time going to church, very shallow theology or thoughts about God and that's not the norm. And that's kind of what this book is kind of pulling out. That's not the norm. Here's the norm, here's what the norm should be. And you could add tradition on top of that and all that. But tradition or whatever else is not the foundation. Sound doctrines the foundation. And that will keep us all stable in various ways. So with that being said, you want to open us up in prayer?

Sure. Heavenly Father, we just gathered together these men, I just pray that you would speak to each and every one, that you would just open your word to us, that you would just help us to know you deeper to hunger after you. That this would be just feed our souls to go out and just to live boldly for you to proclaim your in the world, in our families, in our everyday lives, in our church. And that you would just empower us and strengthen us and bless this time and your name we pray.

Amen. Amen. So sound doctrine, when I first started reading the book, I was like right

Here. Fuck it.

I was struggling a little bit because I like to know. I thought the only thing it lacked in the beginning it was a little hard for me to track, was that I like to define things. I like to define terms so that I know what we're talking about. So in the beginning I was a little, little lacking with the definitions, but once it got going, once I got to chapter three,
Man, it was a home run for me on every chapter after that. Because these are things that we've talked about before. What stems from real worship? Where does that come from? Is it emotional experience or is it grounded in biblical doctrine, right? And these types of things that we've kind of breached the surface on before. And so this book, I thought, just let me set the framework for our conversation this morning. When we talk about sound doctrine, the word sound is ano, which means where we get our word hygiene from. So what it means is something that is pure, something that is not mixed, something that is free from error or it's reliable and it means to be made whole or well. So the word sound comes from that. So this doctrine we're talking about is healthy, it produces in an individual's life, right? Living it produces right thoughts.
So there's something really heavy about this and it's really, doctrine means a set of beliefs. So it's a set of beliefs and we all have a set of beliefs, especially in our Christian journey. We all pick up stuff I can't tell you, and I'll probably disclose at some point how many things I've picked up in the last 30 years that I look back on now and I go, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, did I really believe that or think that was true? Right? Because you grow and we all want to grow. And you realize when I look at doctrine or a set of beliefs as a whole, rather than a few isolated passages trying to make my theology things become much different in my stability and my knowledge of God in God's overall plan, which we're going to talk about is looking at the Bible as a single story that is unfolding through time rather than I live my life and it's cool. I like this on daily breads on a nugget here, a nugget there. You can't necessarily build a good theological framework from nuggets only. I mean nobody lives like that for food, right? You ate a granola bar for the last six months for breakfast and that's all you ate throughout the day. No, we want meat. We want want the deeper things of God. So sound doctrine is that which is pure unmixed, it is healthy and it's a set of beliefs that produces right living and thoughts and actions in our lives.
Actually when you look at this in scripture, Paul uses it nine different times in his pastoral epistles. Five times he uses to Titus, he says that witch is sound doctrine. So that's an interesting little truth there. And when I look at this, when I back up and I look at this subject, I look at some of the divisions in the church that I've seen or even been part of to my dismay, rivalries, weird beliefs and what that begin to tear a church apart, whether it's denominational traditions or somebody picks up some belief system somewhere and tries to implement it into the church. What I found is that people have to be aware that when you're building a theological framework that is sound doctrine, it's pulled from the whole of scripture and not isolated passages. You try to make, Hey, this is the norm. No, it's norm as the whole and let's see if that's right in pure how does it because you see things or you hear things and you go, that looks really funny to me.
I don't see a reference for that in scripture. Well, I found it over here in the book of Acts, it says that tongues of fire came down upon their heads. Well yeah brother, is that really what came down upon their head? Why are you thinking it's going to come down to your head? You've got manifestations and things going on in your life that are really weird. I don't see it being governed by the power and might and wisdom and knowledge of the Holy Spirit. How did we get to there? Oh, I found this passage I tried to implement it made a doctrine out of it in my life. This is the norm. No, it's not the norm.

They take that small little portion, pull it out of context, and then what you're saying is they form their doctrine around that
Instead of taking the whole Bible and then using that to form the doctrine. I haven't written book on, read a book on doctrine in a while. So it was really good to go back to see like, oh yeah, this is what our foundation is because the word doctrine scares a lot of people because it sounds complicated. It sounds like a lot of work. It sounds like, oh man, I'm going to have to use a lot of brainpower to understand everything that's going. But no, it's just an understanding of this is the story and if you can establish that as your foundation, you're going to be able to weather so many more storms because you can take things and look down the road and say, okay, this is what he said about this. This is the trial that we're going through. We've been going through James. If you can build your foundation on that, then your structure is going to be a lot stronger. So when you get on those tangents and things, it's, I

Dunno, they have to be anchored down in the bigger picture and they have to be anchored from scripture. Can I legitimately, is this sound, is this pure? Is this reliable? Is this good? What does it produce in my life? So those are kind of checks and balances that

Really, I really like the saying that a lot of people treat the Bible as a candy store. They go in this candy. I like this verse on that one. I'm not living by that one. I really like that saying.

So let me get into some passages to just kind of, obviously scripture's the most important thing to frame this a little bit more. So when Paul's writing the Titus in chapter one verse nine, he says, he talking about an overseer, a leader must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradicted contradict what sound doctrine
They profess to know God but deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any work. And he goes on, he says this in chapter two verse one, but you teach what is according to sound doctrine. There's a lot in that passage right there, but he's given the framework that look anything that contradicts sound doctrine. So the question is, what is that? And he tells you the problem that was happening in this church was that he tells Titus, listen, I am leaving you in Crete. Crete is an island. I think the home of Zeus mythology, pagan worship once again, we've seen this story unfold throughout biblical history is that you have practices that are like what? You're bringing those into the church. They're not grounded, they're mixed, they're not sound, they're mixed, they're impure. They've been brought in from culture or paganism or Zeus worship or whatever it may be.
And they're infiltrated in the church and they're producing really weird behaviors and divisions and rivalries and stuff like that. So he says, listen, I'm leaving. I'm leaving you here so you can set in order and the first thing I need you to do is appoint elders and keep the church healthy in sound doctrine, right? Keep it not mixed with all this other stuff that's there. So I thought that was a really good verse to talk about sound doctrine. One Timothy one 10, speaking of the law, he says, the law is for the sexually immoral, meaning that the 10 commandments, basically it's to reveal what sin is, right? It's to expose something so the remedy of the gospel can come in and begin to heal and cure and make you whole. He says the laws for the ungodly, the sexual immoral men who practice homosexuality and slavers, liars and whatever else is contrary to what sound doctrine. Sound doctrine.
Another good verse. It's always a saying, this that's not sound doctrine. You claim one thing, you live another, something has gone wrong somewhere. Something has been mixed into your mind or to your heart. It's not sound, it's not producing what it should. Two Timothy four, three for the time is coming will people will not endure sound teaching right there it is again, same word, but having itching ears. They will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. I love this quote. I'll begin to wind down my opening segment in a second. But this quote by RC Sproul, he said, countless times I have heard Christians say, why do I need to study doctrine or theology when all I need to know is Jesus? How many of us have heard that before? Right? Sounds good. Like all I need is Jesus. Great. My immediate reply is, who is Jesus?
As soon as we begin to answer that question, we are involved in doctrine and theology. No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. The issue for Christians is not whether we're going to be theologians, but whether we're going to be good theologians or bad theologians. I love that because when I was teaching at a private Christian school, they gave me carte blanche to create courses. Horses. One class that they told me on this occasion set the theme for the whole year, what do you want the theme to be? And all these kids, man. And it was so awesome. And so I prayed about it and thought I made shirts. I was all fired up. It said doctrine matters. And so I was like, yeah, this is going to be, man, you got seventh through 12th graders, we're going to get them dialed in with doctrine.
I was fired up, right? Made the shirts, passed them out right off the get go, a couple sets of parents, they're like doctrine, doctrine divides. And I was like, we don't need doctrine. That's what I was told. I mean these people have been in the church for a long time, don't need doctrine. We need Jesus. Here we go again. Well, when you're in teaching a kid, and this is what I've learned over the experience of my life, is teaching somebody about the providence of God, the sovereignty of God, the character of God, those are all doctrines. When you anchor your life down in that you are less likely to be blown in the winds of trials and suffering and personal hardship and losses than anything, than any experience I have ever had in my life, whether on the mountaintop or in the valley. It is doctrine that has held my life together because it's an understanding of who God is.
So when we think about sound doctrine, we automatically have to ask, well, what's bad doctrine? What does that look like? Oh, I mean we could probably, and I'm going to launch into opening this up for thoughts and reflections on the book, maybe questions or things that you wanted to bring up. I've got six pages of quotes and notes here. So we have no shortage of things to talk about, but I thought, well what are examples of bad doctrine like that we see today? How about prosperity gospel? Jesus wants everybody to be rich. That's interesting because he said that foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head. And you kind of go Really? Well, wait a minute. You see how this problem starts is I'm not rich. I love the Lord. Well, you need to pray harder. You see how this cycle goes? You're like, dang, I must really suck at this thing because I prayed for some more finances and hey, it came. What's the holdup? Oh, the holdup is that you've suffered from bad doctrine. That's the problem here, right? That's not a right or pure thought that comes from scripture modeled by Christ himself. I got no place to lay my head. My home is not on earth. I'm moving through this place.

You just got to send us with donations and then God will bless them,

Right? That's it. I like the saint candle, man. That's what I was missing. So what's your understanding of riches too? Well, yeah, but in prosperity gospel, it's financial.

Yes, 100%.

And God does bless people financially praise. It's the Lord. I want that in people's lives. But the rich and the poor all have experienced the common grace of God as well. What about universalism? We've seen this in the church too. Doesn't matter at the end. God's saving everybody.
You can find an isolated package passage to make a case out of that. But you go, if I take the whole of scripture and weigh that out, what happens to repentance? What happens to bypassing the cross? What happens to the blood of Christ? What happens to suffering through and beating my body into submission like Paul says on the earth so that I don't become disqualified? You go, the scales of this is outweighed. This is not a good doctrine because in the matter, in the end, you might as well live it up because in the end, God's saving everybody.

All I can think of with that is if that were true, why did Christ come?

That's a great question. But for the work maybe at the end, right? He's going to save everybody at the end, at the end. So everybody, he's not going to exclude. He's a all inclusive savior yogi, and in one sense, he is the opportunity to be saved. And by faith, grace alone is for everybody, but it's not applied to everybody and neither is the blood of Christ applied to everybody. But we see that in scripture. So a couple little things, salvation by works, denial of Christ's deity, denial of hell, denial of the triune nature of God, emotions over scripture. This one is a pet peeve for me so bad. I heard somebody recently say I, that your religion is getting in the way speaking of worship. Our worship should be coming out of the theological framework of who God is. And that was actually a chapter in here I thought was really good. I pulled out a lot of stuff because our awe, the majesty of God should be pulled out of that framework of who God is, that he's revealed himself as laid down in scripture. So that's one that like, Hey, if it feels good, it must be right. This isn't pragmatism. I could whoop myself up into a frenzy and a feeling at a hockey game or a football game. It lasts about what? Two hours and it's over. And that's kind of the same thing is we want our worship to come out of sound doctrine of who God is. So

You want to get on that, and it probably wasn't one thing that the chapter was kind of referring to, but I think is it seven maybe

The last one?

Yeah, the one about worship maybe second

To last.

Yeah, six. There's one line in there and that what you just said made me revisit it one line in there and says, God has no rival in heaven and he should have no rival in our hearts.
And I read that and it was right after Tony Botello went to San Francisco and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, I mean dude, I'm wearing a Tennessee shirt right now and it's like I can sit there and tell you more about the history of Tennessee sports athletics. I went there. I live and breathe it. I know more about Tennessee athletics than I do the history or the that's in the Bible. And it's like, okay, well what else does God have rivaled in my personal heart? What do I put as a rival up to God in my heart and I get more excited about a Tennessee game on a Saturday than I do about getting up and going to worship God on a Sunday morning or it's because it's not sexy to the world. Bingo. There's a rival to it to God in my heart there and there was other stuff that coming at movies or TV shows or my dang phone or trying to make my life more financially prosper or anything like that. And that one sentence as I'm sitting there reading it and I just stopped and I got to taking a kind of interim look at myself of what are things in my life that I put up to rival God in my day-to-day life instead of worshiping him as the top priority. So that was kind of my takeaway from that.

Amen. Well, on that note, let's just go around and give your thoughts on the book anything you wanted to pull out, topics of conversation. I've got loads of stuff, so I kind of wanted to set the framework biblically. This is something Paul told his young disciple over and over teach what is in accordance with sound doctrine and the church really needs men and women who can articulate and know what is sound, right? It protects everybody else. This is where rivals and divisions and all sorts of weird stuff creep into the church all the time. So

I'll go next.

Yeah, brother,

Because I think it's so great that the Holy Spirit used those words to penetrate your heart like that because that's almost the exact same thing that I got out of it. I'm sitting over here with just like goose spot where you're talking as I'm thinking that is almost exactly where I landed on this at the end was if sound doctrine is the lens by which I'm supposed to see everything, I'm like, why am I not making sure that I'm putting more of that in talking about that rival, what else am I putting in? What other things am I putting in over sound doctrine? I mean, if God is who he says he is, if he is who we say he is in our lives, he saved us. He's given us everything. He's given us life. He's given us joy, all the blessings that we experience. How come I'm making choices to put other things ahead of sound doctrine? And that right there was just penetrating me in big time. If I really truly have him where I should have him to be the leader of my home, to be the leader at work or whatever, wherever I am in life, I have to uphold that sound doctrine as just the utmost important thing. And it really challenged me. It hit me hard like
Man, okay, so if I take a look at the week, at the end of the week, I don't know what phones y'all have or whatever, kind of gives you that screen time report. It's like, oh, you get that and you're like, oh man, I spent whatever seven hours for the week. And I'm like, how does that compare to the time I spent with here or the time I spent in prayer? Oh, it is convicting and it's huge.

You really want to hit home with that, how much time you spent with your wife and kids, you know what I mean? Oh

Yeah.

Not something that should be, don't get me wrong, God should be a priority. The Bible should be a priority. But how much, when I look at that, that's a dagger in my heart is for one, how much time have I spent scripture here? How much time have I spent with my wife and kids?

Yeah, not just that too. How much time have you spent investing in the core ministering to them because that's what we do day in and day out. And as husbands and fathers and men in general, I can go about my day and I can spend time with my kids and everything, but was I really example Christ to them by my actions and by my words and by my thoughts. And I think that's what is scary about sound doctrine to a lot of people because the more you dive into it, the more it reveals sin in your life.
And that's scary because back in the day, I'll frame this as my Jesus high period when I was studying the word and reading book after book and just devouring and just on fire when I was 18, 17 to 19 because I was gearing up like, I'm going to get married, I'm going to do all this stuff. And God had just set me on fire for him and I'm so thankful for that time because going through the trials and things, I can look back at that time and say that he is living and he is there. But as I was going through that, I started to recognize like, oh man, it's not just what I say to people. It's my thoughts behind what I'm saying too or maybe what I don't say to them and what I'm thinking that is also sin or can start to rott out things in your life, your opinions on people and things and your motive and your motive. It's revealing. But on the flip side of that, you can go one of two ways you can at it and you can just feel overwhelmed by it or you can look at it and see, but grace. But God forgives that and gives me, we can repent, turn from that, and then he restores us and then we have, it encouraged me to keep going. It's like, wow, look at how awful I am as a human, but look how great God is.

When I'm listening to you guys, all of you speak on this, there is a portion of this book that keeps coming to mind and that is, I think when we draw, if I'm hearing you all correctly, when I'm drawing my theological framework, when it gets deeper and wider and bigger and more expansive, I begin to think differently and do life differently. That should be the result of all this, right? And he says in here, one thing I totally agree with that I think that we can be so lacking in the church today is that the big picture view of the Bible that when I look back and I see the graciousness of God throughout history, that does something to me when I get the more expansive view on did you see how gracious God was with the children of Israel who rebelled, who were adulterers and adulterer as a nation and how he won, he brought them back in by grace or to Nebuchadnezzar when he said, listen, I'm going to cut you down, but I'm going to leave a stump and we're going to grow back together as you trust in me. You look at these pictures of grace, it begins to form and shape a theological framework of doctrine in our minds greater and greater. I'm with you for years. This is, I'm coming up on 30 years in the Lord. So I went mad in studying as much as I could, did the Hebrew and Greek and that and went to seminary and just studied outside of that mainly too. But it was almost like, okay, let's do some fires and trials of life to make this thing real now.
And that's where the doctrine became real because I realized a lot of the things that I believed were wood, hands, stubble, and I'll admit when I was wrong, when I'm wrong, I had some things wrong and I divided on issues that I shouldn't have divided on because it wasn't part of the big picture. And he talks about that big picture view here and he says, we shouldn't open the Bible and say, what does this mean to me

First

And foremost?

Yeah.

The first question we should ask when we open the Bible rather is how does this fit into the bigger narrative of God's story? That was on page 37. He says, the big picture approach helps us to see how all the details fit in and sound doctrine exposes our biblical thoughts and attitudes that would otherwise go undetected. We all have wrong ideas about God that go and challenge for years or even decades. That was me. The big picture or whole council of God view can overthrow our cherished convictions that we might pick up from culture, making God into our own image. I was like that. That's really good. And so I think as we do this together is we're plowing down deep and putting the roots down deep. So all those were really good examples and thoughts about passages from the book and thoughts you had something else.

So right around that same area where he's kind of breaking down different points. One of the things that I liked that clicked in with me that I had never thought of is there's a lot of times where I'll read something and it's hard for me to digest a little bit, but if you have the bigger picture knowledge of what he's talking about of what sound doctrine is, he says, scripture doesn't contradict itself. So you can take a passage that maybe you can digest, maybe you do understand, take the lessons that you learned from that to be able to help you interpret the part that you have a little bit of difficulty with maybe. And I never even thought of that.

Great. Let's camp on this for a minute. This is a big deal taken out of chapter two, which was out of reading and teaching. Again, I've been in this place before four, hopefully I don't ever get in again. But when I just open the Bible and I insert myself in anywhere, the stories directly talking to me, that's going to create a lot of problems. My particular position is that all the Bible is for us, but not all of it is to us or about us. And that is very, very important. Where am I in this story? Do I open up and I like He talked about Leviticus, so as a jazz musician he talked about, he's like, man, you want to know the riffs, you want to know the instrument. You want to know how to make it sound good, right? Because he was a musician.
He gave that analogy. So is a good Bible reader and a good Bible teacher. You want to know the intricate details of it so that you can articulate and systematize in one sentence to somebody something deep, but something yet so simple. And that's mastering the art of hermeneutics, meaning the art and science of biblical interpretation and understanding the bigger picture. I believe in his whole on where am I and how does this apply to me? So he says, you open up the Leviticus, right? You're like purity laws. Heck, God's concerned with holiness, let's say that. So what a lot of people do is they go, okay, well man, I'm going to follow the Old Testament. Oh, okay, was that specifically for the Jewish people? Are you Jewish? No, I'm not Jewish, but I'm going to insert myself back under the law
Having to do what the law says, not understanding the whole picture of, in my particular position, I think it's pretty strong and pretty clear, is that the law is done away with in the body of Christ. You're not under the law. Paul says you're dead to the law. The law was for to the revelation of sin, the law was to keep the children of Israel to be a peculiar people like the rest of the world. It was to show the rest of the world how to walk with God. It was to show how to abstain from certain foods and practices and things like the pagan nations had. When we as believers in the body of Christ saved by the grace of God, go insert ourselves back underneath that. It creates a lot of confusion and a lot of problems. We really don't live like that. I've had numerous conversations with people that I love that are kind of do that. I'm going to take the Sabbath. I was like, cool. I think a day of rest is awesome. I don't care what day you pick, right? Well, we'll know we're going to do nothing. Just like the Old Testament said, you're going to do nothing. Did you start a fire today
But you really want to go down that road? How many steps did you take,

Period? Yeah.

Did you go out and spend any money? I mean, I can go down the list. Did you really do that? Or let's be real. Do you really want the penalties that come from breaking the law applied to you? Oh no, no, no. See that's where I'm saved by grace, right? So I've had these discussions with people and

Right there is that sound doctrine?

No, it's not. And here's my point. It didn't matter how much I gave them and tried to walk them through Galatians or any other scripture. What was told back to me was, well, if you know, that's not a good way to debate if things or articulate if things are truly sound or not. If you know what's that saying is my personal experience is telling me that is true. So personal experience now overruns sound doctrine. That's why we're in so many problems today. Our feelings are very deceiving. We don't use our feelings to affirm something be true or not. We use the whole council of God's word. Is this true all the way through? Is this a principle in scripture?
Right? That's how, I don't want to weigh that, but I like that point that you mentioned that Eric, that he talked about that seeing the scripture as a whole or where do I insert myself in this story? And the point to Leviticus that he made was this, is God still concerned about holiness? Yes. That's the spiritual truth that we pull out from an Old Testament passage. We go, it's not about what I wear or what I eat anymore or pork or any of these other things. I mean, look at Seven Day Adventists. They're like, you incorporate some of this law tradition to try to perfect yourself in some area where it's like that's not the gospel of the grace of God nor justification by faith alone. So we pick up these things, we try to insert them in and it gets really weird and that's what it's like. This is not sound. Something's off here.

Anyway, interrupt. I got ahead.

Yep.

Call me and I'll tell you how to turn off cameras. Devonte's on his way so he may be knocking at the door. He said he is about an hour out at seven o'clock. So City Reese I guess had been up on that. So there guys, thank y'all much

Up

Anybody.

What do you think causes people to pull those individual beliefs out?

Great question. A topical sermons throughout the church, continuously not going through a whole book or studying a whole book. I'm amazed now. I came from more of a church setting where expositional teaching line by line, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book. That's kind how the church realm I came up

With.

I came from, I think topical sermons can be very good. I mean Charles Spurgeon, it's a master at it, right? It's like he could just pull out a sentence and just go a verse and go off on it and you're like, what in the heck? That is amazing. Most

People blow my mind. They take the page and then they just peel it apart and you're like, oh

Yeah. But he had a whole working view of the whole council of God to pull that out from. I think that again, I think that isolated passages, I am amazed at how many people that I talked to that have been in the church for so long, and again here maybe more in the south, that may be more of a traditional thing. It's a good thing. I think people being in church for years is amazing thing and the spiritual history that we have here in Tennessee, I'm amazed by that. Like, whoa, the church has been there 180 years. I've never seen that. I'm used to pop up buildings and meeting in food marts and stuff from California and stuff like that. There's a rich history here. But with that being said, has the rich history given a wide and comprehensive and deep understanding of who God is? Tradition seems to override sometimes when I talk to people, the word of God itself, well, this is the way we've always done it. Cool. I think that there's a lot to be said there. Hey, that's neat, but is that the rule or the canon that we use on what is true or good or right? So I think that's one thing. Church models can be another. Also what kind of leadership structure you have, but I think a systematic teaching of the word. Are we encouraging people to go through a whole book?
Has somebody sat down and read through one of Paul's epistles or the book of Matthew in one setting? I'm going to take two and a half hours. I'm going to read that thing. I'm kind of amazed at how much people have not done that
With being in the fellowship of God for so long. And I would encourage them as I would encourage myself, don't get me wrong. I know when I'm weaning in this area like, Hey, I was just thinking I want to go back through Jeremiah. You just begin to blow it out and you're like, whoa. The whole comprehensive view of what was happening in that time period, the Syrian captivity and all these things that were happening and the weeping profit, you're like, well, this is rich and deep and now I get to know who Jeremiah is and the expansive view of that and how can I implement some of that in my culture. So I think an expositional teaching of the word is very important. So I think that's one thing. You guys have any thoughts on that? What do you think?

I think to kind of give you an answer to what you're wondering about right there is I think especially in the south, it is a culture that you wake up on Sundays, you go to church and he even talks about it in here of once the sermon's done, you don't really talk to your other fellow members about it. I mean, we'll come like, Hey, where are you going to eat? We just heard the word of God that was given to us. And then it is packed in, there's that box checked for the Sunday morning and then none of the other church members are talking about it. Nobody else is unpacking it to how you can apply that to your daily lives. And it's other than this right here, I don't know of a single time I've talked to people, our church even at church, about a sermon that Neil gave there.
And what you're talking about also is the rich history of the church that you're amazed with. I would argue that a church that has a long history that also opens up the human element to creep in and kind of take over and plug in their own doctrine there. And that's why they pull just little nuggets here and there instead of what you're talking about, of going line by line, passage by passage, book by book. And that's just kind of the culture here is that not all church members, not all of 'em, but most church members are just there for a Sunday morning checkbox. And that's really it. And that's the annoying part.

And I want to be fair, and I think that's great insight, thanks for sharing that I want to be fair is I think not everybody is obviously like that, right?
And so I want to be cautious in that. But it is interesting to say, see I moved from a different culture and he talks about culture in here a lot. We sound doctrine exposes our biblical our blind spots and corrects our imbalances. We picked up from culture or church tradition or other factors that we would normally neglect unless we are studying sound doctrine. It exposes that. It is interesting, Eric and I both, we moved from California, so in California, you guys may not know this, but you go to church in California, you go to church because you want to be there. You're in an atmosphere of atheism of all sorts of different religions
And the culture is not like here where it's like we have had a, and I love this, it's one of the reasons I moved here is we have a long tradition here. Everybody goes to, I have not met an atheist since I've been here in three years. I'd I love to talk about atheism, I love to do that. And I'm sure there are, but I'm just saying that you go in the supermarket, God bless you, there's a sense of an openness to God, which I love. It can also be the biggest hindrance I've seen also, right? Because there's an openness doesn't mean there's necessarily roots
And it doesn't necessarily mean that there's actual fruit. It can be the biggest snare and bondage that somebody could actually be in. I'm not saying that's the case here, but it's a case anywhere in any culture, let's be fair. But when you have tradition that is deep and you begin to believe in that tradition even over what the word now, people wouldn't say this, I believe in over the word of God, but I've seen it. You actually believe in tradition more than you do what scripture says as a whole, right? And I think that's where all of us need to check ourselves to say, and it's the point of this is what I believe anchored down in sound doctrine. Can I make a case for it as a casemaker for Christ? Can I logically put this together and say, I'm going to draw this out from here and this is good to stand on. It produces something that is loving, healthy, strong, pure, fruitful in my life. Yes, this is good. This is sound right?

It's so interesting because, so my background, I've lived here my whole life, but I didn't grow up in the traditional churches here. I actually started going to home church with my parents and then eventually we started going to non-denominational churches because of my parents' experiences with traditional churches and that mindset of this is how we do things, this is the tradition, but on the flip side in the home church, it becomes more legalistic and some of those weird beliefs about the Old Testament laws and things like that. I
Started to inject themselves into a lot of, not necessarily, I think my parents did a better job than the most at recognizing those things. I think some of those things still bled over a little bit and that's why we pulled away, didn't go to those anymore. And I could tell you some stories about some of those folks. I bet. Cool man. But to your point, once I started being exposed more to the traditional way of going to church and all this stuff, I was like, wow, I feel like I would have a harder time talking to and ministering to someone who's gone to church their entire life here a hundred percent than someone who has never actually I know because I've talked to people who've never stepped foot in church and had them not even intentionally be like, all right, here's what Jesus says about it. Just normal conversation. They could see that I just lived differently and it opened the door to the conversation and 30 minutes, 45 minutes later they're crying

Because

Of just, and it was purely the Holy Spirit. I get goosebumps every time I talk about it because there were the sentences and the verses that were coming out of my mouth didn't, I didn't even know. I didn't even, I was like, how do I remember that verse specifically in this situation? And I told him, I was like, listen, I don't know how I remembered that verse. It just came to me. I was like, right now the Holy Spirit is working and it was the coolest thing. But then you go, I imagine that conversation with someone who'd been in church their whole life, there's heard a dozen times would be completely different. And I almost feel like that's a stronghold that Satan has established in the traditions. A

Hundred percent

Yes.

Because when rivalries come, because this is what it produces, it produces rivalries. It's interesting, my pastor now and leaders within this community, we have met together, have met with some of these leaders in these leadership things that they will try to pull leaders together. And some of my conversation was, let's go around and get all these churches together. I'm thinking, I'm still thinking the way that I did things in California. I thought this is what you did. And I would go around and I'd be like, Hey, we're doing this. We want to pull all these pastors together and we want to show a strong sense in our community. I mean 3.5 million people in Orange County, California versus 8,000 in Kingston or something a little different. But you're pulling all these leaders together and you're getting all these men of God together. They're all for the gospel together. I'm like, this should be good. And they're like, yeah, there's so many divisions and fractions denominationally around here. I'm like, that can be repaired. Candid. Some of these are deep. It's like you think on one hand how stupid, how antigo unspiritual that is. I want to honor the man of God behind the pulpit. I don't care what church it is. If he loves the Lord and is teaching the word I want to help him, I want to honor him, I want to pray for him, I want to partner with him. We're here together. But when you get deep divides over particular issues of culture or denominationalism or even doctrines that are not based in sound doctrine,
Oh well, we believe in speaking in tongues, that's fine. Okay, great. Do we believe in the essentials together? That's what sound doctrine is, the death, burial, resurrection of Christ, the character of God, the triun nature of God, justification by faith alone. Some of these other peripheral things is like, hey, if you want to go, listen, whether you're faking it or not, I got a particular opinion on that. But listen, we can still partner together, brother for the gospel to see people saved.

Just don't bring your rattlesnake look a rattlesnake away later.

But a lot of that type of those types of things, where do we get that from? Even Pentecostalism, some of the things that we believe. Where do I anchor that down? What's good? What's outside the boundary? Where do we need to reel these things in at no matter what denomination it is to keep with sound doctrine. And that's the whole point of that.

We're anchored more in tradition

To that.
Well, yeah. And guys, I just want to be honest. When I moved here, and this is a battle I want to fight, and this is a battle I love to fight and this is a battle my pastor loves to fight. Our pastor loves to fight. This is a battle we must fight and I'm all in for it is to break through tradition with the power of the gospel and the full counsel of the word of God. You cannot fear men, number one. You just can't fear, man, I don't care. Listen, I was a man pleaser for so long in my life. I cared what people thought so deeply until I realized they were all a abandon you in a hot minute, brother, as they did the Lord and as they did the Apostle Paul and down the list, I cannot fear man, I need to be a God pleaser, number one.
But pressing into this culture that we're in in the south with the fullness of the word of God, you are in a battle because a lot of the times it goes against tradition. I could tell you countless in three years that I've been here, conversations I've had, that biblical ideas that I've introduced or talked about or mentioned seem foreign to people that have been in the church for a long time. And I want, and listen, that's okay. I want to develop that relationship. I want to bring you in as you bring me into your thoughts and let's weigh everything out. Let's talk about the gospel that we love together. That's something that is good, but people have to be willing, whether it's us or them or whoever, to get out of what we always believed. Can we stand on firm ground and sound doctrine with it? When I moved here from, I'll open this up. When I moved here from California, I remember my pastor telling me he was a senior pastor, amazing man of God, very healthy church. I came from the healthiest I've ever been to in my life. He told me I would rather minister amongst the atheists than the religious south. And I thought, well, that was a kind of a strong thing to say

A hundred percent.

And he was right because there's a religious stronghold. And I'm not saying we're the champions of breaking through that. I'm just saying like, man, it's the easy pickens around here. Is that challenging ideas and thoughts lovingly and kindly and graciously and talking and free debate of ideas from the Bible is we're making ground. I think we're gaining ground. And a lot of these things are strongholds. They keep people entrenched in their ideas and their thoughts. I can tell you the first one, Tennessee had a lot of people from California move here. You think people like that. You think people in the church would be like, praise the Lord, man, we've got more. Look at the bald dudes with tattoos and all these different, I mean all these, we got a Hawaiian couple that moved from Hawaii the same time we did, and he's neck tattoos and he was a pastor back then. Loves the Lord, right? We're all a little crazy. But you infiltrate a church with 150 new people from outside of the state, you really get to see what is the core of the church really like? What is it? I'm not talking about the pastor, I'm just saying the members. What do they really think? This is our church. I've been told this is our church.

That's embarrassing.

That's embarrassing for anybody to say that whether it's in the West or whether it's in the south or whether it's in wherever it is, Africa or whereabouts. No, this is not your church. You don't own anything here. Neither do I. We are members bought by the same blood. And that's one thing he talks about in here is that when you begin to understand the doctrines, let's just use one justification by faith alone that destroys religious tradition and ideas. Because you and me both were bought by the same grace, by the same blood, the same way. How could there be rivalries? How could there be pride, where could be arrogance when that comes up? Sound doctrine destroys that.

No, you're all over it. It's that traditional stronghold. As you're talking, I'm thinking of how my son actually challenged me the other day. You talk about the traditions and sometimes, and I'm all in on breaking down the traditions and I think about how many of 'em are I, am I participating in that? You don't even know. Don't even know me.

Yeah,

Me too. So out of the mouth of babes, right? My son asks me, how come I can't wear a hat to church? And I just had nothing to say to him. I had no words to say. And I'm like, don't think I have anything for you here. Right? I have nothing backing up the reason that I don't, but I don't. And I'm looking at him like, what? Just a pure question. You know what I mean? Just from his heart, 12, just why? And it got me thinking about why do I do or believe the things that I believe? Just that question from him challenged me pretty hard. How many more things are there? Yeah.

And I think that's a very important point as we train our kids. Go finish your thought.

No, no, no. But for me, the tradition, the thought of me wearing one in, I can't do it because it's been there for so many years, right? It's been ingrained for years and years of you just don't do it. How do I break that? Now think about how I just view that one idol. Now you're talking about coming over here from a different culture to here. Think about how that stronghold is embedded in the whole church across way more than a hat, right? The way that we just conduct the service on Sunday to what you wear, what you do, what you think, what it should look like. And now you try to change that. Because to me, just changing the one thing of can I wear a hat is so gripping in me like, no, I can't do it. How does the rest of the church feel when it comes to changing those traditions? The tradition has such a stronghold. That's my overall thought is huge stronghold. Do you care what? Can I take that? Whatever that is, and look through this and defend it. Or prove or prove it. How many traditions can you

And listen, moving over here, I had traditions also. Sure, everybody has traditions. It's just a matter of is it where do they land? Are they more important than the bigger picture? Sure. So let's, I want to mention a couple of things in discipling our kids and our wives and each other in this area, is it important for me to meet the culture where they're at? Absolutely. Unless it is opposed blatantly to the word of God. So I can go and I go, you know what, this church, they don't wear hats. It's offensive to some people. I'm in their culture. I'm going to honor that. And there are times when I go, I'm wearing a hat and I ain't taking it off. When I pray,

Oh boy,

Okay, right now we're going a little bit further. You can't do that, man. But again, I want to know, but why can't, right? For me, why do I do what I do? Sure. Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why do I take my hat off? Is God less honored or more honored? It crawl off. Can't pass through the fabric. No. Why don't I take my shirt off?

Take this outside.

Wait, I should take my shoes off when the national anthem plays. I should be barefoot. I be where do you draw the line? Sure. Listen, I'm in the church. That's their culture. People have picked that up. I want to honor that to a degree.

Sure.

But a lot of people I know where churches wear hat in church.

Oh yeah. You would get asked to leave.

Yeah. Well I wear it in church. Eric or isn't in church. I don't know if you wear it in church.

There's a lot. It's a growing movement. We it a couple times. I knew it would be a good topic. We're all coming Sunday with half today, all half Sunday taking him off. It's a perfect point because my son's seen both of you in him and I'm talking to you and he's like, why can't So the first Sunday he came with me, right? Didn't have one on, hasn't ever seen anybody in the church with one on. Right? Yeah. And then after he sees you guys next Sunday, he's rolling out the house with one on. I was like, what are you doing? You can't do, we don't wear one in the church. He's like, why not Caleb? Caleb did. Tristan did. I was like, I got nothing on that. And I was like, I don't know. But you're not wearing

Leave it for now. At least I think if it becomes a hindrance to

Worship the distraction. But

When my answer is a good topic, when my answer is I don't know why, but you're not. Yeah. That's not a good answer. Good. That's not burning.

That's a pause at least for now. Right? Pauses on this. And I think that's a good topic could have because you can take the traditions and compare them to scripture doctrine and be like, alright, where does it say it? Okay, does it say it in here? Alright, are we doing this just out of our own personal respect and reverence? If you feel like you're honoring God by whatever, then that might be a conversation to have. But you also want to compare that to the word to scripture and see why we're doing these things and make sure that our hearts are right and that it is honoring to God because it needs to be according to his word. But then again, you want to be sensitive to other people and leave those doors open instead of,

And listen, I agree to a certain extent if something I'm doing, I mean Paul mentions this is stumbling to my brother, then his reference was eating me. Am I legally allowed to do this and the body of Christ being bought by the blood being free? Yeah, absolutely. But if somebody so tripped up by their culture, that was the issue at the time because

I'm okay. Refrain

To meat to them was like, oh no, you don't eat meat. That comes from those markets over there. It's like, why dude? It's the same meat. The power of those gods or whatever when I put it on the Barbie has no effect to my stomach. It doesn't have power over me. I'm bought by the but of Christ. I'm free. But that person's conscience may not be free. So then what do I do? First I'd ask, is it sinful? Right? Is it sinful? Is it sinful to make my brother stumble? Yes it is. Then therefore I just get rid of the hat. Okay, number one, but two, we're not talking about an issue of if you're stumbling over somebody wearing a hat, you need to grow the heck up, number one, and get some roots and get in the word. It doesn't matter. Couldn't there be a conversation there? Can there be some movement in that? Sure. You don't want to just go, I'm wearing a hat and I don't care about you. That's where sinful.

That's exactly,

That's sinful because I'm not caring about your convictions, whether they be rooted or whether they be just unbiblical in nature. I want to respect you and honor you to keep unity in the church, which is a whole chapter he had in here. Where does my love come from? It comes from sound doctrine. Again, this is a good conversation. I wear hats to church and until somebody tells me not to, then I'm going to challenge. So do we have that in the church membership packet

Bylaws?

Is that in fourth Corinthians? What chapter is? Is that in the bylaws of the church? But oh no, there's nothing there. So it could be also that we're helping people move out of a denominational stronghold and they're helping us to keep some things that really matter to them, like there's a balance together to keep the unity of the faith. And he talks about sound doctrine is for

Love

In one of these chapters, and I thought it was really good. He says it's on that issue. The second John example, he talks about John loved this church and this love came from in truth. Truth is the basis of our love for one another. The church was commended for their love for one another because it was born out of truth, out of sound doctrine. What is true? I love that he mentions that the doctrine of God leads us to love God deeper,
To plumb the depths more deeply. The doctrine of man guides us to love our neighbor deeper. Remembering that every man has made in the image of God, the doctrine of redemption teaches husbands how to love their wives deeper as a model and picture of Christ's love for the church. And so he kind of went through that on the doctrines, how important they are of God or the providence of God. He teaches us that even God's enemies had the sun come up on them and the rain come down on them and that he was good to all. So why shouldn't I be good to all to some degree. So those things help us love one another more, especially in the church. Our love has to be born. Our love for one another must be born out of truth so that we can have true healthy love in the church that must be born out of truth. Anybody have anything on any of that stuff? Well, I think where hats was our big deal today. That's what

Well, I think it just getting to the heart of the issue, it is of the traditions. That's just one specific, because we talk about from a 10,000 foot elevation, but then when point at a specific issue, it kind of opens the door to all the other things. And I almost wonder if tradition is comfortable. And I feel like in a lot of churches, they don't want to be pushed out of their comfort zone because when you're pushed out of the comfort zone, it means you have to start addressing things within yourself. And when you have to start addressing things within yourself, that might mean things have to change. You might have to start, I don't want to change. I don't want to change. I want to stay the way that I am.

We've done it this way forever and I like it this way.

Cool. It brings me happiness.

Well, we've done it a different way forever. How do we work that? So what do we land on?

What about working out your own salvation with fear and

What about it?

Yeah,

Yeah. That's

Deeper than
Or beyond salvation itself. I do think that there's some of those things where, yeah, I might be convicted of it, but that's just what I have with my relationship to the Lord beyond tradition. But you may feel different, you may be in a different place in your walk with the Lord, you're 30 years in, I'm whatever, 15 years in and you've seen and matured in other ways and you've landed on this spot in your relationship with him and you may not feel that conviction in that certain area, but maybe I do right now and I think that that's okay that I'm in a better place than I was five years ago or 10 years ago. And just the fact that I've matured and come along and the Lord's convicted me in different ways now than he did five years ago or 10 years ago about certain things. So absolutely you have to work it out yourself.

You do it out for yourself. Okay, so if you read Romans 14 and 15, so Romans 15 is, man, this is a passage that I cannot get enough of and what he's talking about here, excuse me for the light, but he's talking about look, you and the church, this is exactly what we're talking about, you and the church that are the stronger ones. How do you deal with those that are weaker? This is incredible and this is really an answer. It's actually in 14. He says, receive one who is weak in the faith but not dispute about doubtful things. So the first thing is, listen, it's Thanksgiving, right? I mean Uncle Jerry is coming over and you're like, oh my gosh, okay, once year, bro, he's part of the family,
Right? He's coming, right? We just put on the smiley face. Let's all get along for one day out of the year. The body of Christ is much like that, especially when the church was born, is that you have people coming from all different backgrounds all over the place. You had non-meat eaters, pagan idol worshipers, you had ex Jews like that were under the law that have been free. You have Jews that are still under the law that love Christ coming in. I mean you had prostitutes and druggies and all this stuff right now you put them in a family and you go, all right, everybody get along. You're like, you've got deep convictions about things that were part of your history for a long time. And you're like, what are you doing eating that burger? Yeah, exactly. You know where that came from? You're like, yeah, it came from the market right over there.
It is good. And they're like, you can't eat that. Yes I can. No, no, no, no. You can only eat vegetables, vegetables. What are you doing worshiping on Wednesday? We worship on the Sabbath. Well actually not. I mean every day is good to worship the Lord. No, it isn't. Right. We got to do this day. And that's what the whole thing is about in Romans 15 is receiving one that is weaker and not getting disputing over doubtful things. And this is what he said to those who do not eat and let him who does not eat, judge him who eats for God has received him. That's the key in verse three, who are you to judge another servant to his own master? He stands or falls indeed, he will be made to stand for God is able to make him stand. One person esteems a day above another, the other esteems another day.
But each one listen to this needs to be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day. The Sabbath observes the day to the Lord who observes the other day to the Lord he observes that day. He who eats, he eats to the Lord. He who gives God thanks. He does not eat to the Lord and who does not eat and gives thanks for none of us lives to him ourselves. And no one dies to himself for if we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. And so he's like, what are you doing judging another man's servant? Let this man be fully convinced in his own mind, in his own conscience, how he's living before the Lord. You cannot impose, this is his whole thing in the body of Christ. You cannot impose your convictions that are doubtful and gray areas over somebody's life and go, you need to do that.
No, I don't. I've been bought by the blood of Christ and I am free. That's right. You can't impose something on me or I can't impose it on you to say, this is what you have to do. If I can't anchor it down and say, no, this is actually a command from the Lord. We all need to do this. We'll praise the Lord. I want to do it every day of the week. But you cannot impose gray areas or doubtful things on each other that we all are from these different backgrounds. And that's what's so beautiful about the body of Christ is that it's an organic panic family that is born out of all different tongues and tribes and people and traditions. Now you bring them in, you're like, let's sit down at the table together and let's do life. And listen, some people you're like, yeah, I wouldn't hang out with them outside the church, that's fine, but I'm going to love the heck out of them.
We just don't click right, that's fine. But I'm going to love you. I'm bound to love you. Why am I bound to love you? Because I know what the word of God says about all of us being born by justification of faith alone by the same grace. And he goes into that same, we were all born from one spirit, one Lord, one baptism in Ephesians, he says that one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith of one God and father of all, Ephesians four, four. Because when Paul, he mentions this in here, when the unity of the Corinthian church is imperiled, Paul drills down to theological foundations to bring them back into conformity with God's plan. Oh, I'm a Paul. Well, I'm a Pastor Neil. Well, I'm of Eric over there. Well, I'm of Caleb. He is like, hold on. Time out. Time out. Listen, one of us sows the other waters. It's God who causes the increase. What does Paul do when there are divisions within the body? He brings it back down and gives them an understanding of, listen, it is one faith. It is one body. It is one spirit. It is one baptism. It is one God and Father of all, let's bring this back to the unity that is born out of sound doctrine.
I love that part.

I think he talks about some of that in this book on unity as well. And I think some of it was hard for me to understand when he's thinking, what do you think of a homosexual should be in the few next to you? Should you be getting along with them? Or what's really big right now is Republican and Democrat. He brings that up too. Well, how can a Democrat be a Christian? That's a huge problem right now. And how do you accept it? How can you be unified with somebody who believes in abortion or open borders or any of these things that are unethical? How can that person sit in the pub next? How do you accept that? That's a very,

Yeah, the only way to rationalize that is that I was that person at one time.

What is it that it's the log in my own eye,

Right? It

Is. That's a difficult one to, when I read that about this, I'm like

House

Starting

And we're primed in our culture to be ready reactive on that stuff, right? We are confirmational bias.

The world is training us in that.

Yes they are. Social media is training us real well in that.

Yeah, they are.

Yeah. Listen to this quote, church unity is often fragile because it's built from the wrong stuff. Cultural customs and personal preferences is brittle. Put a little pressure on it and it will shatter. But unity around sound doctrine is strong and flexible. Like a sturdy wood frame house built on a good foundation.

That's exactly why we're here.

That's exactly why we're here, brother. Amen.

Well, I like that.

Okay, go ahead. I know you want to say something. John, you.

No. Are you doing good? I just was reading this and I was like, this is what we're doing. Yeah. This is what we started this for. This is what we're all seeking to do in this situation. And I was just like, man, it's awesome. And you were talking about hats and as I was listening, I was thinking whenever I started going to church, I was like, they didn't want us to wear jeans. I never wore jeans to church. Sunday bills. Not until I started going up here and I was like, I'm going to wear jeans or not wearing dress shoes. Same thing. And as I said, I'm usually in, I stay in children's church just to help out with my son wide open. But I wear tennis shoes because I'm up there running around trying to catch him or help him with other kids that just

Because free to do so.

Yes, right, exactly. And I'm like you said, there's nowhere that I found says I can't. And it's just the tradition. And it took me, it was hard for me to get over that for a long time. And I did it. I'd be in there running around, I'm like, man, my feet are killing me. And I would do, I have to. Yeah. And that's how I've

Seen because of the traditional roots ran deep.

But I feel like, I mean if you just look around right here, this is an example of what I think it should be because I guarantee you we all do things a little bit differently.

Sure we do.

But we all have the same rooted faith in God that is going to strengthen these relationships and will continue to strengthen them. Even though we can have conversations outside of here or even within here and be like, oh, you discipline your kids that way. Well I do it this way. Or you Halloween's coming up. Me personally, I'm going to celebrate Halloween. I also bring that up too. Yeah. So that's another conversation. How do you do communion? How do you do communion or Christmas even coming from my home church, that is a pagan tree, that's a pagan holiday. And I struggled with that because we did not celebrate Christmas until I was well into my teens. And then we started celebrating Christmas. You want to talk about throwing a 16, 17-year-old young man for a loop? I had a hard time with that. I didn't really get an explanation of why my parents had their reasons for doing it, and I fully believed they were doing what they believed was true. But then when we flipped, I was like, alright, wait a second. Why was it bad before? And now it's okay. But convictions change, beliefs change, things change. And that's the flexibility. You'd be flexible about it. And then there needs to be a conversation that happens with those individuals who think differently from you to try to
Bring like, alright, it's like I do it this way, you do it that way, but here's what the Bible says about it. And we are going to love each other through our differences,

Even though like you said, Eric, some sitting next to somebody who has a different thoughts on whether it's the government or anything like that, without going into much detail. But I can have conversations with them and we may not agree on it, but I still love them. Still. You'll hear them differently. I don't agree with some of the things, but as long as religiously as they agree with everything, then I'm still right there with them. And even if they didn't, I would still be talking to 'em and wanting to minister to 'em and tell 'em my thoughts on things and try to break through to 'em.

Yeah, I mean both of you guys brought up great points with that. And I love kind of the idea of us growing together in this is that he talks about this, that a good reader and teacher of God's word will be able to summarize and systematize thoughts like that. Like a skilled musician, right? Wow, that was deep. That was good. That kind of pulled this 4,000 year history into a few sentences and gave me a 10 minute answer on something that I've really been struggling with. That's what sound doctrine does. And hopefully we all continue to grow in a way that we can learn how to use the whole of scripture to form our thoughts and our ideas and our answers to things that like, yeah, well we used to believe that. Let me tell you why I think that's wrong and we've changed to this and be able to explain that, but have freedom in that. What's the, forgot who said it, but in the essentials, unity in the non-essentials liberty and in all things love. And so we have to remember that, and he talks about that in sound doctrine is for unity, is that I sound doctrine teaches me how to love my neighbor. Well
I need to remember that people, whether they be on one side of the aisle or not, that's not the main issue for me. We may disagree, but you are made in the image of God just as I am and I have to have a respect, an honor and a care for you. We may go toe to toe in love on ideas, worldviews, can these things be anchored? Let's take them out into a forum where we could kindly talk about them. It may even get heated for a minute, but at the end of the day, I want to be good to you as God has been good to me. So again, that's encompassing the whole of scripture because like wait. Yeah, they're made in the image of God like me. How did I become superior to them all of a sudden? Yeah. Because I picked up something that is foreign along the way and it's now produced in my behavior. You don't wear a hat.

I don't wear a hat,

But that's it.

But the Pharisees asked Jesus what the number one commandment was. It's what he said, right To love your neighbor, at least his reaction. That's what he said.

And number one, if you want to put your same mindset and the mindset of Jesus there of who do you love? Well, Jesus washed Judas feet as well, so you can't pick and choose. It's exactly what you said, the greatest for him. And it's to love everybody

And it's probably one of those difficult ones, at least it is for me. Yeah. It's a very, very difficult one for me. That's tough. But unity is huge and I like what he talks about in some of this sound doctrine for unity, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow CEUs or I follow Christ. I think you mentioned this before too, and I think in the world today is a very difficult thing because later on it says, let's not divide our churches into fractions around our favorite leaders and how much do we do that today? How much do you going to see that in fractions of the church? Even as far as Catholicism, they're following Mary and the Pope and all these other things. They put all this in front of Christ or Mormons and what was it, John split his name Joseph. Is that a Christian?

Heck, we got that going on in the contemporary church all over. We've got ugly. It's constantly a problem. That's why people leave. It is the idol worship of people, pastors or celebrities. Right.

We see it in our own church. I mean if Pastor Neil is not preaching, look at the pews.

Alright, you guys ready?

I know that from that. That's a sharp one, but no,

True. But dang, it's true.

I've seen it. I mean I'm there and I see it. If Dustin's preaching the pews are not as fool as they're with Neil and it is a problem.

Well, I think that goes back to, I think it's your point, having conversations with other people within the church about what's being said. Why do you have to have a particular person up there? Why can't you be in church and then discuss it either within the church or after the church or have conversations with each other. Yeah, those things aren't really happening and yeah, they are. It's the house to house groups man. The house to house groups. Yes. That's going to go back to state when you're saying that's how you hadn't had any conversations with people. That's what I love about house to house is because we are having those conversations.

It's small right now, but we're hoping to get bigger. It needs to be bigger. How many people are coming to church? You have 200 people,

400 almost now.

400 people and there is 40 people in house and house groups.

But those conversations may be so good because it works in two ways. One, you're paying more attention to what's being said and you're studying it a little bit more because you know you're going to be talking about it later.

Well, it's great too. Yeah. Because in the middle of the sermon you can't Whoa, whoa. Hey, can we go back on that?

Wait a minute. I had a question about can say that again later on in the week. You can go back in, you can discuss it and I mean that's what needs to happen and that's what needs to be encouraged because if we're not encouraging those conversations to happen, then that relationship isn't growing and it's like, I can't remember, I just had it saved here a second bill. But it talks about you don't develop an opinion on a relationship with your wife through two sentences or through two conversations. It's an ongoing conversation that Japanese. So we shouldn't do the same thing with God. So if we're only hearing a sermon once a week or two twice a week, if you go on Wednesdays and that's all you do then how is that relationship with God growing? It's not really relationship with the family or with the family. It's stagnant. I'll tell you some of the coolest conversations that I have is with my oldest daughter. Unfortunately, it's right before bedtime as opposed to talk. Oh yeah.
But we have these long draw. She is. It's just so cool. She's so sensitive to the spirit. My middle one supposedly I say I'm not so sure about that one. Her my oldest 100% because she asks some of the most endearing questions about herself and her own sin and I have to walk her through that because I don't want her identity to become all the mistakes that she makes. I want her identity to be in Christ and what he's done for her and that she can go forward and share that with her friends and be an example. And then I talked to her about that and it reveals things in me too. And it is just like this domino effect of this is what God does for us. I'm having this conversation with her and I'm wanting to walk through these things with her. That's what God is doing with us and is always available there to have those conversations. It's like why don't we foster that with other people? That's why this group, the house to house groups instead of, I'm just excited personally that the Lord is stirring things in the community and in the culture right now. Absolutely.

Yeah. Good job, dad. Good job. That's awesome. That's where it starts.

Well, and again, I think why we're all meeting as we grow together, those relationships, I mean those conversations become deeper.

Yes.

I mean, heck, I wish at 12 years old, somebody would've talked to me about God's sovereignty and providence. I didn't learn that until I was 30. You know what I mean? You just think about shaping and framing a person's life by what you're able to teach them from sound doctrine, a child's life about how we trust God in times of suffering or trials and what is God's past history with people that have suffered and gone through trials and how does he work and what should we be looking for and has God abandoned us? How many times do you that? Well, I tried that thing, that God thing. Well, what happened? My dad died. Yeah, everybody dies. I'm so sorry about that. I'm really, I am sorry about that. But that's part of life. That doesn't mean God failed. So again, we're picking up these ideas that don't come from sound doctrine and we're kind of allowing them to be part of the overall thinking without being challenged.
Then that hurts people and they go, I tried it or God has failed me. God's failed you. The one who gave his only son and held nothing back from Romans eight. He failed you. How did he fall fail you? I didn't get that job. That's God failing. So our theology needs to go down to the deeper level so we can walk through together in the valleys of the shadow of death and those hard times, the mountaintops and the valleys. And that's what that systematizing and jazz musician feel of each one of us becoming good Bible students is we're able to go, oh, okay, that riff. Okay, yeah, I know I'm better at playing that riff now. We practiced that from over here. I got it from the life of Jeremiah. I really looked at that in a hole. So maybe I'm going to operate this way and understand that I'm weeping over a nation and that's okay. That's what God has called him to do and God calls us to do is to pray for our nation. Whatever it may be is that I'm going to have a better way of looking at life and culture and family and losses and gains and everything else in life. So anyway, any thoughts?

I got a question for you on that right there. How do you effectively get that theology through to somebody that has experienced so much pain? And I'll give you the exact scenario. God loved my wife, man. She doesn't know how to be there for her friend. Last Sunday, one of our best friends down in Alabama, they're 16 month old, passed away. She was born with a heart condition and the doctors told her from birth that if she lived past three years old, she's on bar with Tom. But Caly was just telling me she went down there for the funeral and whenever the pastor is up there talking about God has a plan for everybody and everything, she looked over at her friend and she's just numb and so pale faced. And it's like she said that she could just tell she didn't care about what this guy was saying. She didn't want to digest anything. And she's like, I know obviously she said, I can't just throw the Bible at her right now because she's still in so much pain. But eventually how do you get that theology to somebody who's had an experience like that that can have an negative point of view

On God? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think number one, you're not going to shove a stake down their throat if they've never had it. You're not going to give it to 'em in 30 seconds or even 30 days. I think number one thing we always have to do is have and we should be the most compassionate people regarding human suffering and loss. We should understand from our worldview that human suffering and loss is going to happen to all
Right. And I should be the best one to. And unfortunately when we've all gone through moments of hardship, very hard things, whether it be a depression, I went through very difficult depression where I thought I was going to take my own life as a believer in 2017 through divorce and that type of thing. And just, it got me, I was like free falling from an elevator, whether somebody cut the cable. I had all the Bible verses down, I I've read all the theology books that I could, I've got all that, but nothing could stop this. It was just sinking man fast and I had no grip on anything. And I remember Christians were the worst, the worst. A lot of 'em were the worst. Some of 'em were the best. Some of 'em were the worst. You just ain't trusting God. No crap bro. Really, I don't know what to say.
I don't can't even speak or eat. And you're telling me like, Hey, drink these two Bible verses. You should be well by the morning. If not, you seem to trust the Lord more. I get all that bro. I should trust the Lord more. I'm not even thinking right. I can't drive my car. I am in that place. And I remember some people that necessarily weren't walking with the Lord, still made in his image, still have the attributes of being made in the image of God showing me incredible acceptance and compassion and care. And I'm like, what's going on here? What's going on here?

It's an action.

So that changed me

Forever. There's a time for mourning and then there's time for action.

Christians always want to say not always, but mostly they want to prove their point or give you something right away. I know the answer to that man. It's shush for a minute. If you could wrap your arms around somebody and weep with them and care for them, pay their electric bills, go bring them food action. Just demonstrate from a human level that you care about what they're going through, whatever it is, whatever it is, a gender struggle. Hello, right? I mean

Let's start. Suffer with the community,

Suffer with them. And a lot of the times you're going to end up being part of the solution to help walk them through the whole living.
And so I think the first thing is show an incredible amount of compassion from it and for suffering and people that hurt and don't pretend like the answers either. I don't know why some of these things happen. I don't want to be a fool and open my mouth to say that I do. I don't know, but I do know this. And where I can begin to go in these conversations is in the way that my mind works. I frame things through worldviews. Well, if you have an atheistic worldview, and this is an opportunity for evangelism in the gospel, is that if there's no reason to life, if it's nihilism, if nothing has any meaning, if we're just all accidents, it's just cosmic goo. There's no purpose to your life, then none of that even don't even wheat for the baby because there's no purpose to anything anyway. It's just chemicals in motion as atheists would say. Right? But nobody lives that way, let's be honest.
But the other framing of my worldview is this, that I believe in the providence of God, that God provides opportunity and uses hardship in order to accomplish his own will because he's sovereign over all things. So I'm going to use that framework and platform in my worldview to now move into a person's life to begin to help them see the bigger, yes, human suffering happens to all of us. And I'm so sorry that it happened to you. Number one, if people don't feel that you have compassion and love for them, don't try to tell them the truth all the time.
Care for their soul as Jesus cared for those who were hurting or the bleeding woman or whatever it may be. That aspect of it should be bursting forth from our lives. And then I would begin to help them see that God can use tragedies. I don't know in what way, but if we will begin to trust them and walk through that concept with them and God opens up doors and can use that. But I think the very basic level, we never forget what Jesus did with the woman at the well. He sat down with her and he said, give me a drink. He just talked to her at a natural level about something natural water. I mean it's not rocket science. He related to her at a very natural level, lemme drink of water. Then he created an opportunity to swing from water to living water.
He didn't always stay in just the realm of the natural. He used as an opportunity. Hey, what's your name? Tell me a little bit about yourself. It is pretty simple. Relate to people at a natural level. We want to give them the gospel. You and I had this conversation yesterday with an individual that we know, how long have you been relating that person in natural level building trust? Some people are hard man, and you want to just relate, Hey, what's your kid's names again? Your wife, how's she doing? And then you're going to use an opportunity to swing from the natural to the supernatural and say, oh, that water right there, you need to be drinking from the other water, the living water.

See

What he did there? Okay. Right. He created an opportunity to swing from the natural to the supernatural. And then Jesus even came up with and said, Hey, the five husbands you got. I know, I know that whole thing. There's actually six

Whatever.

Right? Conviction. Oh, bang. He knew. So after you swing from the natural to the supernatural, you go into the gospel, right? Hey, how's your relationship with God? Tell me about that. What do you believe? I begin to very gently walk these things. Tell me about your worldview. Is there anything that's good? Right? Where do you get your truth from? What is that to you? And so you begin to shape a conversation on worldviews and realize a lot of people just are standing in the middle of nowhere with no reality. They can't articulate anything, but they know they live a certain way. They locked their door at night and they care when injustices happen to other people. So their framework of how they really live is based out of a Christian world, let's be honest. Because we in injustices, injustices, we want them to be just want them to be remedied. Well, in that worldview, you don't have that in this worldview. You do have that because god's a god of justice and it's going to remedy things. So you see how you can swing into the gospel and then reveal. Jesus revealed the plan to her as like, Hey, there is a God who need to worship in and spirit and truth. And he gave her the plan. She went back and the whole community was like, right? The hooker that was out at the well at noontime avoiding everybody is change. We don't know what happened.
And that took, there's a good model there of just looking and seeing how did he interact with people rather than two Bible verses, okay, I'll be back next week. I know your baby just died, but I'll be back next week. We're going to talk about those. Oh yeah, that's such a wrong approach. Well,

It takes an appetite. The person's got to have an appetite. Amen. To ingest what you're going to give. And it takes time. It takes time. And you got to let them breathe. Let them digest that a little bit at a time. I've got something similar going on with a friend of ours and she's recently come to Christ. She, she's been starting to go up, go to church with us. She's sitting in the pew. I don't know if you've noticed her, but she's had some serious deep questions and things that are difficult even for me, I mean this is going to help for sure. Let's open this book. Let's figure out. She's got things like, well, I don't sin that. That's her question her why do I need this? I don't sin. My heart is pure and I give to everybody and what do I need this for? Those are difficult questions sometimes because I've known her for many years and she's spot on. She really is very little sin I know of no sin in her. She is extremely giving. She will take the shirt off her back, give it to you, she'll give you anything you want. She will cook for you. She'll clean your house for you. I mean, she is a wonderful woman. She really is. I'm sure some of these are really difficult, but I can only give her what she can digest at the time.
I can't give her, slap her at the Bible in the base. Hey, listen here, you just can't do it. It's got to be a little bit at a time and just kind of give her a little bit here, a little bit there. And then now she's getting more and more hungry. I mean, last week she says, I want to start a house group at my house. I'm going to do it. Okay, well slow down there off the brakes. Alright. Yeah, I mean that's great. That's good. Let's do this. We're going to go through it. So now her appetite is getting more and more. It's bigger and bigger. And he talks about this as far as the church that the pastors need to give just an abundance. He says the main course, the main meal Sunday is your main meal

With

Sound doctrine. If it's one verse, you better relish in it. Keep going with it. Maybe it needs to be half of a chapter, but it's according to appetite and what that person or your congregation can digest. I think it was very important because like he was saying, here's two verses and you, oh, whoa,

There is a shotgun approach that you can use and listen. Somebody like that, that's like I don't send you just be like, yeah, well that's what the law of God is for. You ever told a lie, what do we call somebody that lies? You begin to a liar. You ever stolen anything like cheated on your taxes a little bit?

Well, it could be in your heart. So you wanted to kick that dog because well, you

Need a reflection of something greater than yourself and objective moral law to reveal. And there are good people, but compared to what, right? That's where it's relativist. Yeah.

Where's the definition

Of good come from? But that was a great point. Did you have something? I know you had something things looking in there.

No, I just had the thought of John 1717, which he actually mentions in the book and it was Jesus praying and he says, sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. I just reflected on that thinking. When we have those hard questions like you presented, how do I help my wife, help her friend? We have the source of truth to go to. And I think you give a really good example of Christ met their physical needs first every time the one with the issue with blood. I mean just countless times of all the miracles and the things that he performed, he met their physical needs first. And I just look to the truth. We've got the example right here. I think that that's a good way to answer that question is building upon that relationship first. What can your wife do to help meet her physical needs first and build that relationship? That's what I was, I don't think it's great.

Another example is my wife. She's in a similar situation with one of her sisters who she was super close to growing up and then she's kind of drifted from her walk with the Lord and has just gone through. I've gone through a lot of different beliefs and things and I would just, in my opinion, she's pretty far from the Lord and wants to, but still loves everybody. And so our relationship kind of grew apart because we were very obvious in how we were living and what we believed. And she was kind of going the opposite direction. But we always kept that door open to that relationship. So whenever we'd go back to visit them, her family lives in Memphis, we'd go back to Memphis and visit and always show kindness and would always be willing to talk whenever she was around and would always be willing to help her out.
Whenever she had a bind or she needed some money to make her rent or something like that, she would never ask for it, but we would just send it. Fast forward years and now she's calling my wife talking to her about what's going on in her life and asking for prayer and asking my wife and my sister the long game, huh? Sister, the game, other sister to be praying but not her. My wife's family has, some of them have drifted from the Lord in my opinion and they have drifted from the Lord. And so to see her contacting my wife specifically because of, I believe her actions of showing her love and showing her grace and showing her the love of God and now has opened the doors to these conversations again to begin stirring in my sister-in-law to ask these questions. I think that's, that's the most effective way for a situation like that with someone who is going through something difficult like you were saying, meeting their physical needs, just being there for them. You don't have to say God loves you. Here's a verse, I'm done.
But if you're showing them love actively, here comes that Bible verse, Hey, I know you're going through a hard time, but God loves you. Well, they might say, well, how does he love me? My baby died. I've been here for you this whole time. I've been talking in a way you like, well, I've been here the whole time loving you. Col. Yeah, but being the word to somebody is so effective because I'm seeing it and it's so cool because now some of her brothers are asking her questions and stuff and I've been having to support her through all of that. It's really tough.

You said long game. That's a long game. And that is the reason that I'm here. When you started saying we're hoping if we want to set a foundation, we're talking about going through setting the foundation over the course of the year. I was like, that's worth investing in. That's something I'm going to be a part of. That's important. And I'm in it for the long game.

We are used to living in a flash. Yes, we are instantaneous stuff. Things are at our disposal in this culture all the time. And let's be honest, there has been no shortage of witness of the Christian community to the unbelieving world. They're immersed in it. It's not that they're not exposed to it. No, it's the majority of the time they're exposed to something that has been bad.
And so to your point, we're going to wrap it up here with some final thoughts. You're playing the long game of what Christian in this scenario, what Christian Love should look like and be demonstrated like that is pure. It comes out of sound doctrine. It doesn't come out of something that's foreign or unhealthy. It was actually the most healthy thing. Probably one of the most healthy things that you've ever been able to express to somebody that was hurting and it was the long game. And you think about those verses like from Romans two is that God is long suffering,
Willing to go the distance and that I'm a quick person. So I always love to be reminded of that, that man God is not in a hurry as Warren Weby wrote, but the long game, long suffering. Come on in seminar two, how many times are we so short in our expectations of people wanting them to believe what we believe or whatever it may be. We're just so short with that. But patience. God was so patient with me. God been so patient with you, so patient with us, so patient with the world. And so I should model that in my patience to others and it's very hard sometimes, but that is a good nugget that you shared. Very, very good. It's nine o'clock. Any final thoughts? We didn't even get the sound doctrines for worship, which we were going to camp on there for a while because that's a really

One dude. As I was reading out, I was, sorry, I think he's going to harp on this quite a bit.

For all you out there read that chapter

All in this too for all in Thises?

Yes,

For all in camp on that much either. Yeah. I have to have a part two. Just left part two it next. If two weeks from now, postscript was good. I mean that kind of summed it up. The sound doctrine is the lifeblood of the church. It shapes and guides the church's teaching. It nourishes holiness, it fosters love, it grounds and repairs unity. It calls forth worship and it forwards and motivates our witness to the gospel. Sums

A lot of it up. Puts a nice little bow on it. Yeah, guys.

Amen. Great stuff. I hope you enjoyed today. We will put the, since Ryan's not here, he had a game come up for his daughter, but biblical theology will be next. I know we've got in a month. It was around Thanksgiving, so we'll probably set it for maybe the first week of December, somewhere around there. We'll put it on the GroupMe, you guys. Just a thumbs up or if that works and let's hit it.

What was the name of the next book? You said

Biblical theology. I'll put it in the, yeah,

That's great.

Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for these. Amen. Ah, soul is filled in that cray that we leave this place and we continue on our journey to build a strong foundation. Holy Spirit, come and empower us for every good work. Help us to be humble, loving, and kind, and yet fierce when it comes to the truth. Help us to not to shrink back in any scenario, but to be good leaders, strong men who are girded by accountability from the word of God. And so, Lord bless these men in our time. Jesus name, amen. Thank you for listening to The Dead Show Podcast.

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