Behind The Pulpit

Charlie Kirk

• Millington Baptist Church • Season 4 • Episode 2

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This week’s Behind the Pulpit takes a sober look at the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Bob and Dave wrestle with how Christians should respond: rejecting political violence without qualification, guarding our words, and leaving space for grief and dialogue. They also discuss the impact of tech on kids, the need for civil discourse, and the hope of gospel witness in a divided culture.

Pastor Dave recaps Isaiah 1 and God’s call to “seek justice, correct oppression,” with a striking “shalom tower” illustration. The team shares ways to put faith into action, and invites listeners to memorize Isaiah 1:17 and read chapters 2–5 this week.

A weighty but hope-filled conversation pointing to the God who is just—and good.

Trunk or Treat
https://millingtonbaptist.org/trunk-or-treat-2025/
Truth Rising
https://millingtonbaptist.org/truth-rising/
Serve With City Relief
https://millingtonbaptist.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/121/responses/new
The Bridge
https://millingtonbaptist.org/the-bridge-sep-28-2025/
A Prayer for our Country
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3IuQSxIk4

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CHAPTERS:
0:00 Intro
3:30 In The News
35:47 Sermon Recap
45:21 Theology Sprint

Music
"Ventura"
Morgan Taylor
U76EPPNJDYZYU0Y7

Thumbnail Image
Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0 

Bob:

Well, hey there, folks. Welcome to Behind the Pulpit for September the 15th, 2025. We are halfway through the ninth month of the year. And I got to tell you, I think that the September weather is a little underrated in New Jersey. September may be one of the most beautiful months of the year. You still have a bit of the summer weather, and yet you are anticipating fall, which is the greatest season of the year. We can debate that if you'd like. And yesterday, I got to go down and preach at a church down at the beach, got about an hour on the beach and it was a lot of fun. Pastor Dave, what was going on up here at Millington yesterday?

Dave:

We're really opening with the weather right now. Okay, so I like it. It's more hot than I was expecting. I feel like summer's here again. I was looking for some sunscreen this past weekend.

Bob:

Interesting.

Dave:

It's a nice surprise, I guess. I feel like my lawn could use a little more summer. I'm not really ready for the frost and the leaves. I'm kind of digging a little extension here. Extension plant.

Bob:

Very interesting.

Dave:

But not as exciting as going to the beach in this weather.

Bob:

That sounds fun. But I heard a rumor that maybe Something's happening to you this upcoming weekend.

Dave:

I'm going to try to follow your shoes here. That's going to be big shoes to fill. So both of us get a chance to do a little preaching down in LBI.

Bob:

Do you want to explain what the connection is there so people don't just think we're kind of wandering around the beach preaching to the seagulls down there?

Dave:

A mutual friend, John Pagenkoff and Luke Frazier serve as pastors down at LBI. Island Bible Church. Yes, right by Bay Village. Kind of the middle of Long Beach Island, right? More on the south

Bob:

side, I guess. More on the southern side. They're right by Fantasy Island, Bay Village, right around there.

Dave:

Yeah, so good friends. We had connected with them at some pastor's conferences and just wanted to maybe share some resources. So this was a chance to meet some of their congregation and we're going into the life of David down there with them a little bit.

Bob:

Yeah, I introduced it. I did the old David and David Jonathan narrative, which, by the way, I think is going to be the backdrop for House of David season two coming up in about two weeks. Two weeks it's coming up. So that's exciting. All right. Wow. Finish your wow, Pastor Dave.

Dave:

Where do they start? So, like, Goliath fell, and that was where they ended, right? That's how season one ends. The Israelites were, like, coming behind David, attacking the Philistines,

Bob:

right? Yep. So the next scene in chapter 18, they begin with the women. about Saul and his thousands and David and his tens of thousands. That's what I anticipate seeing as the opening scene of chapter two. We'll see if Bob's right. Prediction. Prediction right there. I'm not a prophet or a son of a prophet. I think there will be intricacies between David and Michal and Saul's going to start hurling spears and David and Jonathan are going to come together and it's going to end on a cliffhanger where David leaves after he's on the run from Saul. That's how it's going to end. It's going to end.

Dave:

You guys should be consulting Bob Erbig on your screenplay here. He's got it all whiteboarded out and storyboarded out for you.

Bob:

It's coming up. Well, before we get into our new segment, we're going to take a pause here and have a word from our sponsors. This episode of Behind the Pulpit is brought to you by Trunk or Treat. Yes, that is the annual event that happens at Millington Baptist Church. There's lots of candy. There's lots of fun. Bring out your friends. That is occurring Saturday, October the 18th, 325 Tell them that you are a viewer of Behind the Pulpit, and you may indeed get a very special prize. We'll have to come up with one to give them. But that's happening on Saturday, I'm sorry, not September, October the 18th. There's a VIP access for children with special needs starting at 2.30, and then everybody else is coming. So mark it on your calendar. That's our sponsor for today. All right, so now it's time for the famous segment called In the News.

Unknown:

In the News

Bob:

Well, I'm not sure if you were paying attention this week, but a couple things happened. And I think we're going to focus mostly on the Charlie Kirk assassination. And Pastor Dave, I know you had about 10 points you wanted to go into here that hopefully you've put in chart form so we can remember. But this was, I think somebody was saying that this was the first real, like, assassination on a national level that people have taken notice of since JFK, right? I know Reagan was shot back in the 80s, but he didn't die. But JFK, obviously that was, he died and Charlie Kirk died. And what was different for this about me was the ability to capture these things in real time on social media, literally having somebody right in front of you taking a high def cell phone video as the bullet came and you literally could watch this person die. And that footage was trafficked on social media for a couple days. And it was just horrific. I was messed up after seeing that. It really impacted me viscerally. No matter what your thoughts were of Charlie Kirk, that is an awful, awful thing to happen. But I think we'll talk a little bit more about that as we get in this conversation. What do you think? Where were you? Well, I'll tell you where I was. I was up talking with Amy Huber and then Tim came in and said Charlie Kirk got shot. And I was like, oh. And I admit, when he first told me that, I thought, okay, well. But then you went in and you actually saw what happened and I said, this guy's not going to make it. I mean, this was... It was... I was sitting in my office getting the news.

Dave:

I was on a Zoom call, and I didn't have the ability to really focus on the news story, but I saw that it had happened. Unfortunately, it's one of those things that I accidentally saw without trying. This is the age we live in. I didn't want to witness firsthand someone being assassinated, but I was scrolling. Nowadays, you can just... like see everything so there's the video don't even have to push play it's just automatic like scrolling and there it goes and wow I really wish I had not seen that I mean you go to like an R rated movie you you might be very prepared for violence but even that's Hollywood and like that's not real blood and okay this was a real person and a lot of people just picked up their phone and saw someone get murdered in real time I think that's devastating I think we're living in a day and age where the tech technology can be affecting our brains in a way that I think is dehumanizing. We're not supposed to see that stuff. You're not supposed to be picking up your phone and seeing real people actually get murdered. That's really odd. So I think we should maybe talk about the technology piece for a second. This is what's available to all of us right now.

Bob:

What do you think about that? Well, and we were talking about this before. I know you have a about this. But to me, my wife and I have been having just conversations recently about our kids are still young. They're not of, you know, the age of when people typically give cell phones. But we've been talking about this idea of delaying giving technology to kids that aren't ready to handle it. And, you know, I'm 43 and this is still like shaking me. I can't even imagine getting that as a 12, 13 year old. And how does that shape you and process you? There's There's a movement, actually, and Johnny Graves, our youth director, sent this to me in Berners Township, our local school district, to delay giving of cell phones until eighth grade. I think they have like a slogan for it. I might even say it should be even longer. We're giving that some serious consideration to have this piece of technology given out to a teenager. And I grew up in the 90s when I was in high school. I didn't get a cell phone until I was in college and it certainly wasn't this type of cell phone it was just a regular flip phone I remember the day I got my first text message and it wasn't it was like one word I cannot imagine going through high school having the ability to search this and then also the constant barrage of social media and images and people can shaming you online I don't think that has been a positive thing and I think we're starting to people have been warning about this I think we're starting to see the full fruit of this and parents and kids really need to give some consideration as to whether they should be engaging at this at such a young age that's my that's my thought on it

Dave:

yeah so here's uh 10 things thing number one um can we all agree that political violence is always wrong period full stop yep i feel like not everyone wants to do that right now um you know you see kind of the standard um hey we don't agree with this but then sometimes in some people's social media feeds there's like a but

Bob:

I've seen a lot of those so political violence is never right but then there's a qualifier and in the qualifier you're basically giving a reason as to why it happened and subversively you're giving a reason as to why it was okay and

Dave:

I don't think that's right there used to be a time where there was a national tragedy I remember 9-11 like we all just kind of came together and hey we can all agree this was terrible this was wrong doesn't matter red blue Now a tragedy brings out partisanship. Doesn't matter if it was terrible, violent, awful. We're going to talk about how this affects our particular ideology. So everybody's got their frame. Everybody has their interpretation. And I think that's indicative of the fact that our society is deteriorating. Okay, number two. Celebrating political violence is deplorable. True or false?

Unknown:

True. True.

Dave:

I guess I was kind of hoping that you would agree with me there. I mean, that's particularly depraved. I might even say demonic. If you are one of those people who are smiling when you hear about your enemy falling, that's something that really should cause you to pause. I remember when Osama bin Laden was captured and killed. Was that 2012? And I was like, this is probably good that this person is no longer a threat, but I also was like, that's not something to like high five about either that's a really grievous thing this person is a human being and we don't like jump up and down when someone dies. So I've seen a lot of celebrations online. This is really disturbing, and I think that that's kind of a dangerous move in our society. Have you noticed

Bob:

the celebrations? I've noticed a lot of celebrations, as well as people disrupting vigils and shouting obscenities, causing altercations.

Dave:

Just walk into the vigil, start knocking over all the candles or flowers or whatever We're like, what are we doing here? That's bizarre. So celebrating, deplorable. Number three, smearing the recently assassinated is poor taste. Can we have a little time? Erica has lost her husband. There's children that don't have a father. I see a lot of people that are reducing Charlie Kirk down to like one soundbite or one quote or something that he said that's oftentimes taken out of context and they are talking about how he was a racist, talking about how he was a bigot, talking about how he was a, you know, the big thing is like Christian nationalist. And these are all like smear tactics that are happening when the guy just was shot and murdered. Like... Can we work on our timing? If you disagree with somebody, okay. I'd like to hear about that, but I don't know if I want to hear about that today or even this week.

Bob:

Well, is it maybe more of a problem if the first instinct is to do that rather than just to say, let's just sit and grieve at the loss of somebody that now we have fatherless kids, we have a widow. Yeah. Let's sit with that for some time before we start to dissect and critique.

Dave:

Right.

Unknown:

Yeah.

Dave:

Number four, this is going to be wildly unpopular, okay? We might get some disagreement here, but I think the political violence issue is asymmetrical. So I don't think that the right is completely innocent here. I do think that there's political violence on both sides, but I see a tendency on the extreme left to be engaging in this behavior in a way that's troubling, unless Let's just say frequent. So here's some examples. Targeted assassination plots on President Trump. Congressional baseball shooting. Plots against Justice Kavanaugh. Firebombing in Denver. Murder of Israeli embassy staffers. The big thing recently was the Luigi Mangione murder. The CEO. Healthcare. And the fact that he was killed and then that was also celebrated. This guy was lifted up as a hero. In fact, there's a bill in California that might be named after this guy, Mangione, because of what he did. So, riots, property destruction, you know, 2020, Black Lives Matter, billions of dollars of damages, the Portland Autonomous Zone, all the campus occupations, protests like Stop Cop City, all the Tesla attacks that recently happened during the last presidential election. Um... Nashville Christian School.

Bob:

Catholic School.

Dave:

A couple weeks ago, the Catholic School. Threats to Supreme Court justices. Assaults on MAGA supporters. Dehumanizing rhetoric for any conservatives. You're a Nazi. You're a bigot. You're a hater. I do think there's an asymmetrical nature to the political violence issue. Now, that's not to say that there's no problem in the conservative wing. There is. But a lot of times... are naming things that aren't The guy who did that, the David Pepe guy, was like a really complicated story. He was homeless. He was drug addicted. Some people called him a progressive. I feel like that's not a clear case. The one thing that did happen this summer with Melissa Hortman, the congressperson, was political violence. I think that that was on the conservative side, although there's different theories about what caused that to be tipped over the edge and there was certain legislation that was kind of questionable there. So January 6th, there were certainly some people there that were up to no good and I don't think that we were wanting to in any way endorse that kind of behavior. Although there were a lot of people there that were just kind of in the crowd that were just peacefully let in when they opened the doors and there was an unequal distribution of people and their nefarious behaviors there. So I'm just, this is very unpopular but I'm just going to say it. I think it's asymmetrical. Don't say either side is perfect, but I do think there's an asymmetrical nature to the political violence issue right

Bob:

now. There was a person I heard making the observation that in the wake of this... no riots. But if this had gone the other way... Prayer

Dave:

vigils, worship services.

Bob:

If this had gone the other way, is it possible there would have been cities burning to the ground?

Dave:

Yeah. Similarly, when the train attack happened a couple weeks ago in Charlotte, you know, you didn't see Charlotte burning to the ground, right? So there's a different reaction. So that's number four,

Bob:

asymmetrical. Before we move on from that, because I was looking to see what else you're covering, I think the other thing that needs to be spoken of is the irresponsible language. So calling somebody a Nazi, a fascist, a bigot, all these things.

Dave:

In fact, one of the bullets said, hey, fascist, catch.

Bob:

Yeah. Which apparently was an online gaming phrase. But if you label somebody like that, it almost legitimizes the killing of that person because because they're a threat. And if speech is violence, then doesn't that warrant physical violence in return? And the answer, I think, is no. So that's another piece to this that's a real big problem.

Dave:

Number five. When everything is categorized into critical theory categories, this incentivizes that kind of violence. And I have a good Natasha Crane quote here. I sent it to you, but I think you appreciated it. So she said this, quote, political violence doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's the tip of an ideological iceberg. Yes, it can sit on top of icebergs from the left and the right because people become radicalized for all kinds of reasons. But let's be really clear, the intense hatred fomented by the left's cultural Marxist ideology is a feature, not a bug. When you spend decades institutionalizing and perpetuating the belief that all of society is divided into oppressors and oppressed, and that those who are oppressed need to rise up in revolution against their evil oppressors, you are training people to hate. And so what she's saying there is it's a natural outworking of a certain Marxist worldview and ideology that political violence becomes a natural response to

Bob:

yeah yeah we've been talking obviously a lot about worldview and our colson fellows cohort and and this is i think what we're seeing right now two separate worldviews that are clashing against each other in a lot of ways and this is the this is the fruit of that

Dave:

number six uh if a church or a christian wants to mourn charlie kirk and not necessarily mourn every single other tragic death that does not necessarily mean they're making a political statement and it's not hypocritical so I've heard some people say hey did your church say anything you know this summer when the Hortman tragedy the assassination happened over there in Minnesota well I think it's okay to say you know a national figure like Charlie Kirk who has millions of followers and he's probably much more well known than the Minnesota he's more prominent and the impact All right. Number seven. Here's a statement that might get me in trouble. Woke Mormonism. So woke Mormonism can highlight some cultural conflicts. So in Utah, there is a clash between LGBT ideology and Mormon culture that creates some unique pressures. And children who are raised in a Mormon environment, it's a very strict, very strict environment. And so those children may find a leftist ideology to be extremely liberating and simultaneously they are then vulnerable to sort of extremist thinking so there's a pattern I just would encourage you to google woke Mormonism and see what you think about it because evidently I believe we would say that this person was raised in a certain environment and then went way far off I guess radicalized in the college years maybe on Reddit and as a reaction this was what came out of the out of the machine all right number eight um can't we just have a conversation so you were talking earlier about words i think one of the things that charlie kirk wanted to do was have a conversation like he was committed to let me go on like a college campus set up a tent put up a microphone ask me anything you want and he was like really encouraging opposing viewpoints to come to him and ask questions he was pretty good at like just having a dialogue and being respectful i never saw him being disrespectful i saw i mean go yeah going to get to the meat of the argument and say well what's your argument it never really got personal

Bob:

and go and look up some of the videos and see how he engages in it now I didn't follow him all the time but I've seen enough of the things that seems to say he was actually right I mean to do what he did takes a lot of courage I don't think I could do that just sit under a tent and take a question from everybody for hours on end

Dave:

no

Bob:

people that were hostile to you and be calm and engaging

Dave:

that's a skill and he's been doing that since he was 18 which was like what 13 years ago and that was the time when things on the college campuses really began to get more and more hostile towards conservative viewpoints and so he saw the culture is actually indoctrinating a certain segment of the population that's where I'm going to go I'm going to meet this particular need I'm going to argue for a particular set of values and I'm going to put myself right in the fray right in the war and I'm going to spend my time there and he loved college age kids and it showed I generally thought as I was like reviewing all the footage and I've been following him for many years he's like a happy guy like he's usually smiling he's usually laughing he's kind of jovial he's like super likable you know it's it's not like a like a Mark

Bob:

Driscoll I'm gonna punch you in the face not at all

Dave:

no so I thought like can't we just have a conversation he was committed to civil discourse in fact he said when we stop talking that's when we start fighting and so I think it's sad that there's a cultural shift shift here where if someone's talking and you he's bringing words you're bringing a bullet this is this is not good

Bob:

for society one other thing about that in regard in regards to the words and the age so the critiques that were brought out about well Charlie said this he did that I didn't look at all the different quotes as you mentioned a lot taken out likely taken out of context but he may have been doing those things to make a point or to be provocative we can argue about whether that was that was right but I did see an article from or a poster David Bonson, who's a Christian economist. His dad was a well-known apologist in reform circles. And he basically made the point to say that Charlie Kirk, remember, was only 31. Now, I'm 43, but I remember 10 years ago what I was like, and even before that. And he's making statements in his 20s. Sorry, Noah, Tim, you guys are both in your 20s. David Bonson said, he's 51 now, if I would have, to be judged at how I was at 25 is not fair. You know, A lot of the meaningful things that I've done and how I've grown into maturity have occurred in the last 15 to 20 years. And his compliment to Charlie Kirk was, even though there were some things he didn't like about how he approached stuff, he was growing and maturing and was changing as he got older, even to the fact that he was actually being more bold about his faith in recent years, being more outspoken about the gospel. I mean, I heard this guy give some of the best gospel articulations I've ever heard that we would be fully in agreement with.

Dave:

Okay, so this is my last point. There was a bold proclamation of the good news of Jesus on a very regular basis. He would sometimes just refer to his Christian faith, but other times there was very direct questions that are apologetics oriented. He was pretty good at arguing for the faith. I don't think I could have articulated some of those arguments as well as he did. And as far as I know, I don't think he had any formal training in that. He was just that kind of gifted person and was able to craft a persuasive argument for the truths of Christianity. And I think part of what we're mourning right now is this was a Christian witness who was really, really courageous in our society that was attacked. And so in that way, I think a lot of us who are Christians kind of felt this in a very deep way, like, wow, this feels like a what I believe and so there's all these videos going around now like I am Charlie Kirk I am Charlie Kirk I am Charlie Kirk and it's it's kind of spread beyond America I saw in other countries there's people that are up in arms about this killing it's really been beyond our walls you know one of the things I wanted to just mention is I was talking to someone who I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say this person's name because I don't have permission but they came here from Lebanon and And they are not conservative. This person is not conservative at all. They came here from Lebanon and they saw what happened a couple days ago and their response was, oh my goodness, this is what I fled from. This person was killed for being a Christian? I'm shocked that this is happening in the United States of America. So that's what a non-conservative immigrant had as a response or a reaction to this particular news. I thought, you know, that's pretty insightful that's troubling that

Bob:

yeah

Dave:

the kind of thing you would see like a like an honor killing in another culture is actually coming to the free country of the United States of America where we value things like religious liberty free speech

Tim:

if I could jump in here on similar grounds there's a guy I follow on social media and I don't know where in the Middle East he's from but he's in the Middle East and he's not conservative either I follow him because he puts out some funny content and he had a commentary because he was confused he's like He's like, there's a lot of people who are speaking out about the violence in Gaza against Palestine, but these are the same people who are praising this assassination. It is confusing. It makes no sense to me. And that was coming from someone who's close. I don't know where, again, I don't know where in the Middle East he's from, but he's close to the situation and is very pro-Palestinian. I thought that was interesting. It

Dave:

is inconsistent. The thing that the groups have in common is this whole oppressor-oppressed ideology. So in one way, Charlie Kirk was oppressing certain minority groups such as, let's say, the LGBTQ, LGBT community. And then in the Palestinian community, they're also an oppressed group. So that's the commonality that people are standing up for oppressed groups. But you're right to say, Tim, this is really inconsistent. If you go to Palestine, they're not very LGBT friendly either, right? And they're certainly having issues with violence. So there's sort of an inconsistency, but the consistency is the critical theory lens that they're looking through, right? So I just wanted to mention there is a wonderful video of Charlie Kirk's wife speaking from the other night. I don't know if you saw that, but it was touching and just great to see her love for her husband. And she mentioned a couple of different ways that you can just follow up and get involved. One of those things is Turning Point is the organization that he founded. a TPUSA faith arm. So if you want, go to TPUSAFaith.com. You can check it out. You can subscribe to their updates and see what's going on after Charlie Kirk because actually the movement seems to be continuing.

Bob:

Well, I actually thought I saw whether this, I didn't verify this, but people were posting that there was, I think, 32,000 requests for chapters. Like an explosion of chapter requests for this. So this could very much continue to be become a big thing yeah um along with your point uh you know when we went to the uh the colson center conference year and a half ago uh we had a lot of folks coming in who had left um eastern uh block communist countries that were here and were concerned about some of the things they were seeing in the u.s because it reminded them of what they were experiencing in those countries like the beginning rumblings of it and um we need to be very careful and actually uh This is a perfect time for a word from our second sponsor. That's Truth Rising. This documentary that we're going to be watching on Friday, September 19th is what this concept is about. That there is a lot of stuff going on. We're in a civilizational moment and we need Christians to stand up and have courage for the gospel but also for truth because we believe truth flows from the Lord. And so truth, we believe truth is rising. It's a I haven't watched it yet, but I've heard it's just a wonderfully put together thing. They invested millions of dollars in this. So come out, Ice Cream. We're going to watch it, and then we're going to talk about it, and then we're going to see how God moves as a result of that. Sponsored by the Colson Fellows. So if you want to know what you're studying, if you become a Colson Fellow, this documentary is going to give it to you in about 90 minutes. September 19th, 630. Be there. That's the word from our sponsors.

Dave:

Before we move on from that, one quick thing, and I'm sorry to do this, but What would be the advice you would give for two types of people out there? So let's say there's somebody who's watching who's more conservative in nature, and then let's say there's another person who's watching that's maybe a little bit more progressive in nature, like one who's left of center, one who's right of center, and I think a lot of people in our audience share different views. How would we encourage or nudge people on either side of the aisle to relate to this particular tragedy?

Bob:

Well, for For those that are more conservative, I posted over the weekend a quote from the Center for Biblical Unity and Krista Bontrager. They're going to be here in two weeks. So, by the way, you need to go register for the underground sessions because this is going to be– I imagine some of these topics will flow into the conversation. But in an interview that they were doing post this happening, this is a comment that Krista made. She said, as Christians, we have to be the bulwark against society. breakdown. Christians, it's okay to feel angry, it's okay to grieve, but in our anger we must not sin. We have to be the force that steadies the boat. And I think if you're a Christian, and I think if you're a conservative, that would be the exhortation that I would give to you. I mean, I think if you are also a conservative, it would behoove you to have conversations with people that think differently than you, like Charlie Kirk did, to understand them. One of the things I heard people talk about is that Charlie was curious. He was curious about why people thought the way that they did. And as a conservative, sometimes it's easy to get inside your bubble, to talk with people that think like you, and then even if you don't act on it, you can easily vilify people with your words. So remember, all people are made in the image of God, and we should be pursuing them with the love of Christ. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5 that the love of Christ compels us to be an ambassador. And I think that's what Charlie was, at least at some levels, seeking to do.

Dave:

Okay, so if you're on the other side of the aisle, I guess my encouragement to you would be, you may not agree with what this guy stood for and what he talked about a lot, but you can still condemn that particular act and make it clear that that's not acceptable and just end your sentence with a period and a full stop. Don't put the but or the however or the, hey, just so you know, I don't agree. Would you show up at somebody's funeral for your friend's family member and be like, like I'm really sorry for your your brother's loss just so you know I don't really agree with your brother I'm like what what what like

Bob:

just or some people saying well your brother said this so he deserved it yeah surely don't do that he said that it's worth it for a second so he does he caused this

Dave:

definitely not that so condemn it full stop also express empathy you may not have been hit by this loss like maybe some other people but other people have so you can express empathy towards how this is landing on people it landed on me pretty heavily and you know let's just continue to encourage free speech open debate open dialogue of ideas so those those are my encouragements for the more the progressive side my progressive friends out there good

Bob:

good I think that's good well if I think and I think it's a good segue into our sermon recap so really quick could I just throw in one more go ahead

Tim:

this morning we put out a video from our service yesterday. Our very own John Bonaventura put together a really cool call to worship and prayer in the wake of the assassination. I thought it was really special, so I captured it and we produced it out on our YouTube channel. There's a link to it that you probably just saw come across the screen or in the description. Feel free, if you missed that, to go take a look at that. Send it to somebody who may be struggling with what's going on because I think John did a really good job of articulating that we can be upset and confused by what's going on in the world around us but we can still look to God who's perfect and his will because he's good and an awesome God. So check that out. John did a really good job and I think the video came out well.

Bob:

Excellent. I'm going to go check it out. I didn't know you were doing that.

Tim:

It was a spur of the moment John texted me. It was organic. It was organic. John texted me. I was watching college football on Saturday. He texted me, we're adding another song. I'm doing a special call to worship. So I was like, huh, I think I'm going to record this and put it out. All right. So hope you guys enjoy that.

Bob:

Well, thanks, Tim. I encourage you to watch that. All right. Sermon. So we're in Isaiah talking about from ruin to redemption. You got into the topic of justice. You talked a little bit about some of the things we just walked through. And look at that Pastor Dave leaning in. Man, he's got those hands that are just enticing right there. They were about to push something down. All right. So tell us what your sermon was about. And what are some things that maybe you didn't get to fit into that sermon that are worthy of discussion? I heard you did some rejiggering from what I heard on Thursday.

Dave:

I did. The God who demands justice. And it is all about how Israel is... It's like a courtroom scene and God is bringing charges against his people. They have rebelled against him. They are not being faithful to him. As a result, they are experiencing pain and refinement. God is bringing their enemies to come against them. The land is suffering. They are getting beat up and God is saying, come back to me. Here's how you would come back to me. The measure of a person's faithfulness to me is whether or not you're going to treat the marginalized in society with compassion and generosity. That's how I'm going to measure whether or not you're being faithful to me. So that's called justice. So we talked about that. I know there's a lot of different issues that come up with the topic of justice, especially when we say social justice. And there's a lot of things we need to kind of caveat and define correctly to get that concept right. And we will continue to dig into that soon in coming weeks. But this particular chapter, chapter one, was about the issue of an unjust tendency amongst his people and God bringing about a refinement to his people because they had disobeyed him. And God will bring pain into the lives of his children in order that they might become who he really knows they can be and who he wants them to be. And ultimately, he will bring the victory as he redeems us and then brings about a perfectly just society because it matters to our God to set this world back right. That's the basic gist of chapter one.

Bob:

Wonderful. All right. So I heard you had a potential contender for prop of the year. Why don't you tell us a little bit about why you used

Dave:

that and what the concept was behind that? It's only September. There's time. But Tim went to, was it Home Depot or Lowe's? Jaeger Lumber. Jaeger Lumber. Not a sponsor. And how many pieces? Not a sponsor of the show. How many two by fours did that guy cut for you? It was eight, eight foot two by fours. Okay. So that's 64. Douglas fir. And I I just happen to have a small sample right here with me today. I see it, man. Goodness gracious. This is just like a mini tower. But there was a big tower in front of the stage, and this was supposed to represent shalom. Everything perfectly fitted together, interlocked, interlaced. When it's working right, it's shalom. When we act in an unjust way, this is the vandalism of shalom. And at one point in the sermon, I just knocked it all over because our world is such a mess as a result of the injustices all around us. And so this was the picture that I hope will stick with people. I did knock it over really close to the people sitting on the front row. I think that some of them might have been,

Bob:

you know, maybe doing a little flinching. Caught their attention,

Dave:

huh? Yeah. It was loud and noisy, and hopefully it gave the effect that I was hoping for there. So prop of the year, you tell me. I don't know. But, Tim, thanks for your help

Bob:

with this one. I was waiting for you to push it on the floor. Not going to happen? No. We're going to keep Shalom right there. All right. Alright, so you have three points, covered a lot of ground. You talked about the different events, so we talked about one today. What were some things that you, if you could have included them for the sake of time, what would you have included? What was the most meaningful thing to you about studying this passage? Give us a pearl of wisdom. If people took the time to watch this podcast, those of you that missed it, what are people that aren't taking the time to watch this podcast, what are they going to miss that they only got in the Sunday sermon yesterday?

Dave:

I think there's a special call in verses 16 to 17 that God has for his people back then, but for us today. And there's 10 imperative verbs there that God calls his people to obey. He calls us to wash ourselves and to seek justice and to take care of those that are less fortunate. And I think that's really the heartbeat of the passage. If I could have had more time, I would have given a zillion different applicational opportunities that you can put into practice like tomorrow. Even here at NBC. You know, Tim took a group out on Saturday with City Relief. How many guys went out with you, Tim? I had seven co-people come with me to City Relief.

Tim:

Here's some pictures.

Dave:

How was

Tim:

it,

Dave:

Tim?

Tim:

How was your experience? It was absolutely wonderful. We had a really good time. Yeah, first of many. So if you're interested about that, there's a link in the description to sign up to be on the interest team. So So do that.

Dave:

That's just one example. You could just go with City Relief the next time we go out. Feeding Hands, you could serve there every single Tuesday. First choice, you could sign up to be a counselor there or to serve in some other capacity.

Bob:

Market Street, you can go once a month.

Dave:

You can feed the guys at Market Street. That's an opportunity we do. Street Hope Alive, Young Lives. We have opportunities right here for you to, I think, be about God's work of caring for those that are less fortunate So if I had more time, I would have just given more bandwidth to the different ways in which you could get involved. Another thing that's part of this is just generous giving. So in order to make a difference, it takes finances, right? We're not in it for the money, but if there's no money, we're not in it. So in order to make a difference, we're going to have to have finances to be able to bless these organizations and be able to do the kind of work that we're doing. So that's another way you can tangibly be a part of that. Another thing I would have encouraged if I had more time was to learn. So I only really recommended one book, Tim Keller's book, Generous Justice. It's not a perfect book, but it's a good introduction to the basic subject. But there's a lot more that can be learned about this. Like, Bob, if you had to pick like just maybe two or three books that you've read that have been helpful on the subject of justice as it relates to a Christian worldview, just give me like your top three if you had to narrow them down. narrow it down. What books would be good?

Bob:

Oh, Justice and Worldview?

Dave:

Yeah.

Bob:

So, the one I would encourage you to look at is Why Biblical Justice is Not Social Justice by Scott David Allen. That's a good one. The other one that I think is really helpful is Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth by Thaddeus Williams. He does a really good job. Also, if you go to the Center for Biblical Unity, Krista and Montre I think I might have another book, but I can't think of it off the top of my head.

Dave:

So I would have went more into those things that we can learn about. But there's more time. And then don't forget, every week we're challenging So that's the memory verse. Please take time to memorize that. I think that's an important verse for you guys to memorize. And we put together a reading plan. So we're not going to cover every single chapter in the book of Isaiah. Next week, we're actually going to skip from chapter one all the way to chapter six. And so the encouragement is to read this week chapters two, three, four, and five. And what you're going to discover there in chapter two is God is going to promise to give a future hope and a future reign of peace and justice and a kingdom in his people. And you're going to see other things that happen in those chapters that we're not going to cover. There's a series of woes that start in those chapters. So Please keep up with us and read the in-between sections in the book of Isaiah as we go through this series. Because next week we're leapfrogging over to chapter six. And so those are some things I would mention just to kind of get the most out of our series. Also, we're going to be putting together a devotional each week. And so look for that on the pastor's table blog. We hope that that will be encouraging to you in your own spiritual life as well.

Bob:

Boom. Isaiah six. Here we come. Holy, holy, holy. Or the Hebrew. I remember very famously a video. Kadol. Kadosh. Kadosh. Kadosh. Yeah. Bringing it out, man. And then that's the whole sending me. Here I am, Lord. Send me. Yeah. I'm going to talk a little bit about going this week, Pastor Dave. All right. That sounds good. Get out there on the streets with Tim and everybody else.

Dave:

Perfect. All right. So that's Isaiah.

Bob:

Hope you're enjoying the series. Wonderful. All right. Well, the next sponsor of our podcast today is, is, I forgot what it is, Tim. Put it up. there. Ah, there we go. The bridge. That's right. How could I forget the bridge? The bridge is going to be Sunday, September the 28th, starting at 1215 and going until about 2 o'clock. We are going to feed you. Can I confirm that we're going to get fed? Are we going to get fed?

Dave:

Bob is very interested in the food part.

Bob:

I think usually we have refreshments here. It is lunchtime. They asked me to stay till

Tim:

2. Amy is on a cake streak right now. At

Bob:

least there will be cake. We'll eat cake. Anyway, if you are interested in Millington, you want to know more about about the church you want to know more about how you can get connected if you want to meet some of the leadership and the pastors and the staff this event is for you they are sponsoring this podcast and so we're giving them some air time for free so that you can come out on Sunday September 28th from 12 15 to 2 p.m. the bridge that's today's sponsor very good all right final segment here Tim I'm out of breath so let's sprint sprint to the finish

Tim:

line just as a reminder you guys do have five returns on the... I

Noah:

think we said one.

Tim:

We actually never talked about it, so today it's no longer an option today. Noah and I have yet to talk about the amount of Uno Reverse cards you guys are allowed to use.

Bob:

Oh, I'm sorry. I was so confused. I thought you were talking about the book thing.

Tim:

Oh, no, no, no. No books this week.

Noah:

Our Theology Sprint is inspired by a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about during the podcast and then also kind of the general public discussion regarding some of the right and left tension regarding gender and sexuality. So, here's the Theology Spring question. So, the question is, is it possible for someone to hold to all areas of biblical evangelical Christianity except for gender and sexuality and still be a born-again Christian? Not someone who practices those things, but someone who believes that it's okay for their friends and family to practice unbiblical gender, and sexuality practices.

Bob:

Are you saying is it okay for them to affirm those things?

Noah:

Yes.

Bob:

Yeah. Okay.

Noah:

Sorry. I'm not asking if it's a sin for them to be affirming those things, but can they still be saved while affirming those things?

Bob:

Yeah, I think... There is a debate, I will say, ranging from, you know, engaging in certain actions versus how do you handle things that are going on inside of you? In what sense are you culpable for sin? I tend to think that it is appropriate to be pushing against all of that, to be seeking to be holy and righteous in both thought, word, and deed. Now, can somebody be a born-again Christian and affirm those things? This is a similar question you asked a few months ago about affirming certain parts of the Bible. I do think that God saves you, and that does not always mean that immediately you understand all doctrines of the Christian faith in the depth that you need to. But as you grow in sanctification, I certainly think that you will come to love the things that God loves and want to follow His will and His way. And I do think Scripture's clear about gender, sexuality, and what we should have for him there. What would you add to that, Pastor Dave?

Dave:

Yeah, I mean, I guess... We're saved by grace alone through faith alone. And I think we do need to recognize that the gospel is simple. At the same time, I don't want someone to hear that answer and say, well, then I can just kind of hold on to this one little unbiblical thing. And I think you might want to consider that you're not submitting something to God and his word. And that's a posture of rebellion that you should consider in your own heart. Also, one of the things that's definitional to Christianity is that sin is a problem so if we can't recognize what types of sins are described in the Bible then how do we know which of those things are sins which aren't sins so if I'm not seeing myself as those things being sinful then I'm losing my sense of need for the gospel so you see how it kind of starts to break down And once you allow one thing, then how come you can't allow another thing? And how come this can be right? So I think we want to keep the core of the Christian worldview intact. It's holistic. And there are certain things that we're going to allow God to define morality because we're actually not good at figuring out what's right and wrong ourselves. Like we call what is bittersweet and sweet bitter. We're not capable of drawing the line. So we submit to God to draw the line and then we submit to him. Even though sometimes that's uncomfortable. And I think in our day and age, it's really popular to not call the issues of gender and sexuality sinful. Culturally, that's the moment that we live in. Can't we just think these things are okay? I think as a Christian, we need to just read the Bible without the current 21st century cultural lens and say, the scripture is not ambiguous about this. It's in zero places does it call these things a positive feature, right? So I would say it's... dangerous not to recognize those things as sinful. Yeah. Put it that way.

Bob:

Yeah.

Dave:

Fair?

Bob:

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going at it from the angle that I think you got the new Christian that doesn't get it, but eventually as you're submitting yourself more to God's will and God's word, the spirit will bring your mind, will continue to further transform your mind into understanding and under, and bring yourself under his, his submissive will. Yeah. Okay. Sound good for you, Noah? Very good. All right. Well, Now that we're out of breath, I think we can say that is the end of Behind the Pulpit for today. I will give you a quick benediction as we leave today. One of my favorite ones is from the Book of Jude. Is it okay if I give a benediction here, Pastor Dave? Bene means

Dave:

good,

Bob:

and diction means word right here. Would you like us to stand for the benediction? You can if you want. Stand and raise your eyes. Did you

Dave:

forget to share a book or something?

Bob:

Well, I thought we were going to. Tim didn't include the book warrant here. Save it. I will say, I'm

Tim:

starting to forget. I'm not going to not to reveal how the voting is going, but I'm starting to think Pastor Dave is paying for votes. So there's another week to vote. They're on to me. If there's another week to vote, go vote.

Bob:

Yeah, I think we need to. It's very difficult to understand who the audience is out there and who's getting in here. So anyway, clearly they don't like my recommendations. All right. So Jude 24. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy to the only God our Savior. Amen. We'll see you next week.