Ancient Roots Of Cancel Culture: Part 2 of 3

We trace the ancient roots of cancel culture through Acts 6 and Stephen’s story, showing how truth met organized opposition and how grace steadied a faithful witness. We challenge listeners to suffer for faithfulness, not foolishness, and to test their hearts with four simple questions.

• defining cancel culture as organized exclusion and punishment
• Stephen’s path from humble service to Spirit-empowered witness
• debate failing and the shift to false witnesses and crowd-stirring
• grace before power as the order of Christian influence
• fighting for truth with wisdom rather than rage
• enduring accusations with integrity and self-examination
• God’s favor seen in Stephen’s peace and presence
• four questions to assess our response to opposition

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Real Life Ministry, where we are dedicated to teaching and encouraging Christians to live free and live strong. Your host today is Ryan Rice, a Bible teacher, a pastor, entrepreneur, and a writer. Join us as we dive into various topics and how they relate to faith, values, and making a positive impact in America. Let's dive into it.

Setting The Stage: Cancel Culture Part Two

Patriotism, Scripture, And Cultural Tensions

Defining Cancel Culture And Modern Examples

Acts 6: Stephen Enters The Story

From Service To Signs: Stephen’s Ministry

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Okay, we're back for another episode. This is part two of the ancient roots of the cancel culture. Welcome if you're listening in for the first time to Real Life Ministry. Get ready to power up. You're gonna love it. This is good. Live free, live strong, baby. That's what we're telling you to do. Live free. Live free. Jesus says if you know the truth, the truth will help set help me out, set you free. Freedom, man. Freedom's worth fighting for. Faith, family, freedom. Those are great values. That's the values of northvalley.org. If you're checking us out online, I'm the pastor there. There's a bunch of great other pastors there. I'm the founding pastor, uh, Ryan Rice. Love Jesus, love America. So, no, I am not just a nationalist. I am a patriot, but my citizenship, first and foremost, is in the heaven. Okay. But what makes America great? What makes America great is that the truth founding this nation are from the fabric and the source material of the Bible. The Bible, baby. There's no other book like it. It's the best book in the world. Hitler couldn't burn enough of them. And some people, some people say, Yeah, you misunderstood Hitler. No, I'm sorry, bro. Do your homework. Hitler was evil. By the way, Hamas is the new Hitler. Okay. So stand with the Jewish people. You you if you already hate me saying that, you're not gonna like real life ministry. Okay. That does not mean of that does not mean you jump into every single thing that they do and approve of it. But I wrote a book called Thinking Biblical About the Geopolitical, and that's the problem with Christians today. They don't think with the Bible, they think they don't think from the good news, they think they see the news on the TV. And they take their cues from culture and they watch stupid documentaries that are not even historically accurate, funded by idiots, and you get brainwashed. Okay? So good rabbit trail to start off our podcast today. So Acts chapter six is where we're going. If you're a Christian, hopefully you like the Bible. And if I cut you, hopefully you'd bleed Bible, because the Bible says meditate on the word day and night, be careful to do everything that is written in it. Jesus said, Man cannot live off of bread and water alone, but every word that comes from the mouth of God. Charles hadn't Spurgeon said Christians should bleed bibbling Bibling. That's Bible and bloodline wrapped up together. So Acts chapter six, it's the story, it's the origin story of this cancel culture. And what do I mean by cancel culture? Again, this is part two, so you need to go back and listen to part two. Part one, and then you'll be queued up for part two. And if you're joining us, you can you can you can you just hang in there, you'll you'll like this, hopefully, if you want to live free and live strong. And here we go. So cancel culture is a social practice where a person or organization is publicly shamed and pressured to lose status, platform, or employment because of views or actions that are critical groups find offensive or unacceptable. It typically goes beyond simple disagreement or criticism to a coordinated effort to punish and exclude that person from public life or professional opportunities. Uh, would it so that that that is that? And last, if you were in listening into the last episode, I mentioned that in the book I wrote Think Biblical about the geopolitical. I actually got canceled because I was writing against the evils of Islam. And so they refused to do it. And so I'm testing them out again, that same group. And I've got a new book I'm pushing. Um, and uh it's done. It just needs to get edited, and it's called Solomon's Secrets, Love, Marriage, Sex, and Friendship. And hopefully, if they if they censor that thing, I'm going after them. Uh yeah, because I speak about, you know, homosexuality and all that other stuff, and God's designed for sex and all that. So I know you might be thinking, like, Solomon, wasn't he? A polygamist? Yes, he did that later in his life. God can draw straight lines with crooked sticks. He was a crooked stick at the end of his life, he was a straight stick at the beginning of his life. And the Song of Songs is not allegory, my Reformed Covenant Presbyterian friends. It is a historical narrative of poetic love story between Solomon in his younger years and his Shulamite, his first bride. And yes, he fell into idolatry, yes, he fell into polygamous relationships, but God called him to be the wisest and the wealthiest man that ever walked the earth in that day. He would be Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, times ten combined together. So there you have it. So where are we? We are talking about cancel culture and um Acts chapter six, it kind of unfolds the story of the beginning of it in for Christians. So Peter and John have already been arrested, and then all the apostles get locked up in a public prison outside of the Jerusalem temple where they have like some holding cells. And then Stephen, the church is growing radically, and Stephen's appointed to be like a waiter and server of tables, like he's serving the poor, and there's these needs that were growing. And then Stephen is this unbelievable man of faithfulness, and a great example. Listen, a great example of what it means to suffer for being faithful, not foolish. Like that's that is the vision. Tape that saying on your brain. Suffer for being faithful, not foolish. That is Christian persecution. Blessed are those who persecute you. Jesus said that. Tape it to your brain. Okay. Suffer for faithfulness, not foolishness. Say that with me. Suffer for faithfulness, not foolishness. There's honor and glory in that story. There's shame and dishonor in suffering for foolishness. And I've done both. I bet you have too. So we live in a crazy cultural moment where every day we hear phrases like cancel culture, disinformation, misinformation, character assassination, reputation destruction. So basically, if people don't like you, they cancel you and ultimately they'll kill you. If if you're too big of a platform, i.e. Charlie Kirk. Like, dude, it was civil debate. And what do they do? They say, catch this fascist and shoot 'em. So just saying. Why is that? Well, because people hate truth. And so that's why the church has such a powerful role, FYI, you know, and AI is taking all these jobs and all that. But the the church will never be replaced by AI because you need truth tellers. And you need pastors and people, and you need preachers and teachers. And we need Christians opening up their mouth, not just voting their values, but voicing their values. So cancel cultures all around, but you know, it's it's it's been going around a long time. Reputation destruction, character assassination. Um, but if instead of debating ideas, here's what happens: the people just try to eliminate the person. Instead of persuasion, they pressure. Instead of arguments, there's accusations. Instead of discussion, there's destruction. I mean, look what you see with all the BLM riots. Look what you saw with the George Floyd movement. The reaction is just unbelievable. Like organized chaos and rioting. It's like this is the culture we live in. And it surges, you know, like we're in that surge right now. And the great news is like a great deal of young people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ, and we need to ride that wave, baby. And it probably lasts, my estimate, is like three to five years. So here's the job of the pastor and the preacher and the Christian and the father and the mother. Get your young people fired up for Jesus. There's no time like the time now. Like God's on the move. Get on that wave, dude.

unknown 10:29

Man.

The Playbook: Debate, Then False Witnesses

Suffer For Faithfulness, Not Foolishness

Four Marks: Grace Before Power

Fighting For Truth With Wisdom

Enduring Accusations And God Who Sees

Undeniable Favor: Stephen’s Shining Face

SPEAKER_01 10:30

It's good to see. We're hiring younger staff. We can't let up off the gas, man. It's great to see. It's a little young revival going on. Love it. But we see this everywhere. People want to silence the truth. And there people are hungry for truth, too. Uh political leaders experience this where they get silenced. Public figures experience, religious leaders experience it. But something that you desperately need to understand: cancel culture didn't start with social media. Tape that to the brain, baby. Post that to the gram. Seriously. Cancel culture didn't start with social media. Tape that to the brain. Post that to the gram. Retweet that. Seriously. Cancel culture started in the beginning. In the beginning, in the storyline, Acts chapter six is what we see. It didn't start in modern politics. It didn't start in college campuses. The roots go back thousands of years. One of the clearest examples is Acts chapter six. A faithful man named Stephen. Guy who's just waiting tables serving the Lord. Six guys are picked. This guy's full of the Spirit. Good guy. Acts chapter six. If you've got a Bible, turn there. If not, just listen in. Acts chapter six says, now in these dies, these days the disciples were increasing in number. This church was just growing like crazy. And so they needed to pick some people out. So they picked seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, and appointed them to this duty to devote themselves to prayer. And they asked them to serve the poor and serve the needy so the apostles could be devoted to prayer and then the preaching. And so they did that. And so the the word of God, the result was verse seven, the word of God, Acts chapter six, the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. So the Jewish people are leaving Judaism and following this thing called the way, which is the origins of Christianity. And this guy named Stephen, verse eight, is all of a sudden seized, snatched, attacked. Verse eight says, and Stephen, full of the grace and power, the same guy, the same guy, the same guy that was just waiting tables. Somehow God shows up in his life miraculously. He's doing like works like the apostles. He's just a regular church dude. And he starts doing great wonders and signs among the people. Verse 9. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the freedmen, as it was called, and of the Cyren and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Sicilya and Asia rose up and disputed with Stephen, but they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit in which he was speaking. And so what'd they do? Then they secretly instigated men who said, We've heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. Pause for a moment. They are liars. And so what'd they do? Verse 12. And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him back before the cancel, the council. So this is like a supreme court. Like this man's life is on the line. Verse 13, and they set up false witnesses. Luke records that for us. He knows what happened. They set up false witnesses and said, This man never ceases to speak words against the holy place and the law, meaning the temple and the law. And the the temple was seen as the like the like the like like a vortex between God and mankind. It was like a portal. It was like this powerful place. And they're saying he's speaking against the temple because he was talking about, you know, he was telling people about how Jesus spoke about him being the temple. Jesus was the temple, and that anyway, so there was confusion. They twisted his words. And then and then the law, and they're talking about Moses. And so so those were the things that they were offended by, because he's speaking truth. Verse 14, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us. And in gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. So Stephen's like something happened physically. So let's let's let's unpack this. So so what's going on? Well, um a first thing we see is this, I'll just jump to it for the sake of time, is I want to mark out to you, I want to mark out to you four marks of faithfulness. And and before I get there, let me just clarify real quick, not all suffering is for for faithfulness. Sometimes not sometimes suffering uh happens because you just make bad decisions. So like someone mouths off to their boss and they lose their job. You know, uh, that's not persecution, that's self self-inflicted suffering. Someone ignores wise counsel and they keep dating the wrong person and they end up with a broken heart. That's suffering for foolishness. Like you keep doing the stupid stuff you shouldn't be doing, and you say you're suffering, and you just like you're you're trying to be a good Christian, but really you just made a bunch of stupid choices. So, like, if you're like a Christian man messing around with another girl, and then you know, like you blow up your family, and you say you're suffering as a believer because you're just going through so many hardships and adversities, but you're making dumb decisions, or if you drink too much and you lose your cool, there's natural consequences. So it could just be your stupidity, it could just be divine retribution, where that exists in the Bible as well, and God's economy and kingdom where He will punish you for being an idiot, like a good father will to any son or daughter. And so don't call just FYI, do not call all suffering suffering for righteousness' sake. Don't call all suffering that you're suffering for being faithful. You can be foolish and suffer. In fact, most of us learn through our painful mistakes. Take my life, for example. I came to faith in Christ because I was an idiot. So I literally did the sex, drugs, rock and roll thing, tried it out for a good while, and found out that life leads to destruction. Then I tried the moralist route. So I went immoral to moral, a moralist. I tried to make good grades, tried to be sober, tried to be successful, and that was empty. And so I both were foolishness. One was foolishness with being excessive and drunkenness and foolish and overindulgence, and the other was foolish and trying to find my self-worth from my personal achievements. Both were foolish, and I suffered, and rightfully so. But that's not suffering for the kind of suffering the Lord calls us to as believers. And in the book of Acts, Stephen suffers for the right reasons. So let's jump in. Four marks of suffering for faithfulness. Number one, we see that Stephen he is with this is that faithfulness requires being full of grace and power. Stephen is full of grace and he's full of power. Notice the word grace, that is God's grace. He's full of grace and power. Faithfulness requires that you be filled up with the grace of God in your life. And once you have the grace of God working in your life, listen, then you find power. You don't get power and then the grace of God. Actually, the Bible says that he works through the humble, he opposes the proud. The Bible tells us that when we're weak, then we're strong. Like get that. Oh, Christian, you need this. Young lady, you need you need the faith of Stephen. Be a uh be a be a uh Stephanie. I don't know. Young man, you need the faith of Stephen. You need to be full of God's grace and full of power. You want to be faithful in this world? Don't you want to hear that? Well done, my good and faithful servant. Listen, be full of God's grace and full of power. So this is the characteristics. This is the four marks of suffering for faithfulness. Number one, faithfulness has to require being full of God's grace and power. Notice Stephen's described that way, full of grace and full of power. Grace speaks of his character. Power speaks of the work God working through him. Grace comes before power. Character comes before influence. Stephen had been chosen in Acts chapter six simply to help serve widows. He distributed feud, he started a humble service, but God used his faithfulness in small things for something far greater. And if we're going to suffer, right, let that be for the right reasons, not because we're arrogant, not because we're harsh, but because we are faithful. Suffer, help me out. Suffer for faithfulness, not foolishness. You're you'll tape that to the brain, post that, tweet that. Post it, tweet it, and tape it to your brain, buddy. Number two, here we go. Faithfulness requires a fight for truth. Faithfulness requires a fight for truth. Stephen begins by debating these members. Literally, he is debating, dialoguing, and f and and fighting, in a sense, for truth. Members of several synagogues, at least three. Luke names like four though. So three or four. These were educated Jewish leaders. Many were part of the Jewish uh Despora, uh, which had their strong intellectual training, but something remarkable happens. In verse 10, the Bible says that they could not withstand the wisdom in the spirit by which he was speaking. So what's going on here? Well, Stephen wasn't just being persuasive. The Spirit of God was empowering his words. This fulfilled Jesus' promise in Luke 21. Jesus said that he would give his followers wisdom. That opponents could not refute. But here's what often happens when truth cannot be defeating, right? Be defeated. People stop debating and then they start trying to destroy. Right? If you don't like the message, here it is. If you don't like the message, then kill the messenger. Charlie Kirk. Martin Luther King Jr. The list goes on. Are you with me? Do you understand? You don't like the message. Take the messenger out. You can do it with character assassination. Just try to discredit the messenger. This is the attacks of the left. This is the attacks of the enemy. Silence the witness. Discredit the communicator. This is what happens in Christianity all the time. Just a full-on attack. Just completely destroy a pastor's life. It happened to me. It's happened to me multiple times. People have tried to they get mad at me and then they try to discredit me and my ministry. So what do you do? You follow the example of Stephen. That's what you do. You're gonna love this. Here we go. So it's like number three, here it is. Faithfulness will endure false accusations. So like you need to know that. Well, guess who sees you, my friend? I was reading the book of Genesis about Hagar and how brokenhearted she was because so much dysfunction was going on between her and Abraham and Sarah, and how dysfunctional it was. And the Bible says that God is the God who sees. And he met Hagar in the desert, and he sees her and he knows her pain. And the Lord sees you and the accusations that have been made against you, maybe as a believer, and maybe you're suffering for being faithful. Well, praise God you are. And you have the God who sees, and you will endure. And you will hear these words, Well done, my good and faithful servant. So when the enemy comes to throw mud, my friend, you have a high king in heaven who washes you and makes you clean. There's a lot of joy in that. I don't think I've ever teared up on a podcast and I just teared up in that. So I hope you needed to hear that. Because that's good news for you, my friend. That's really good news. So where are we at? Here's where we're at. Faithfulness will endure false accusations when the debates fail and the strategy changes. It's really interesting. In verse 11, it says that they secretly instigated witnesses. They secretly instigate witnesses. In other words, they coached people to lie. In other words, they stirred up the crowd. They brought Stephen before the cancel, the council. This is like the Supreme Court of the land. This is all the advisors and the legal people to put this guy to death. The accusations were serious. They claimed Stephen spoke against Moses, the law, the temple. These were pillars of Jewish identity. The temple and the law. This was a strategy used against Jesus, too, though. It's like nothing new. They brought false witnesses against Jesus. They distorted statements that he said. They manipulated the crowds. But here's what you need to know. When the truth cannot be feet be defeated, listen, here's the strategy of the enemy. It's often defamed. So if you can't win against the message, take out the messenger. And that's exactly what they do with Stephen, and it's exactly what they did with Jesus. But listen to me, Christian, soldier, sister, brother. If we suffer, let it not be because we're foolish, but let it be because we are faithful to the one who's called. Suffer for faithfulness, not foolishness. Somebody say amen. Number four, here we go. Faithfulness is marked by God's undeniable favor. So here's what's crazy cool about this. In verse 15, it says, and they're gazing at him, and all who sat in the council see this guy's face, and it's like on fire, baby. Like an angel from heaven. This is like fire face. But not in a bad way, in a good way. Like the glory of God, like this kind of glory glowing on his face, just like it glowed on Moses' face when he's up there bringing down the Ten Commandments to establish the law, which by the way, that law, Ten Commandments, serves as the foundation for every civilization in the world at some level or another. It's good stuff. So I tell you, my friends, I tell you, my friends, that you need to realize that there's favor when you're faithful. Picture this. Here's the moment. Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin, most powerful religious court in Israel. False witnesses are speaking, leaders are furious, the room is full attention. Yet Stephen's face shines with peace. Luke says it looked like the face of an angel. This echoes the story of Moses. When Moses, like I said, came down from Sinai after meeting with God, his face was shining with God's glory. What's ironic is that Stephen was being accused of dishonoring Moses, and yet his face reflects the glory of God, just like Moses did. It is a visible sign that God is with him. And I got good news for you, believer. God is with you. He will not forsake you. He will not abandon you. He is with you. He is Emmanuel. God with us. He is the counselor. He is the comforter. He's the great I am. He's the Alpha. He's the Omega. He's worthy of our worship. He sees you. Stand for Him. Speak up for Him. So here's four questions for you. Before you call it persecution. Before you say you're suffering for Christ, you should ask some honest questions. Number one, am I full of grace and full of Am I full of grace? Let's just say that. Am I full of grace? Or are you full of anger? Stephen was full of grace. He didn't go crazy on them. He just answered them. God gave him the words to respond, and he spoke. He spoke up. Christian, you need to speak up. Don't just vote your values, voice your values. So let me ask you a question again. Are you full of grace or are you full of anger? The world does not need a bunch of angry Christians. Okay. Like, don't get me wrong. You can be angry. There is righteous anger, but it seldomly works that way. You're like, Jesus flipped tables. I'm like, yeah, but you're not Jesus, bro. Like, if that was you, you would have gone into that temple. You wouldn't have flipped a couple tables. You'd be flipping them all off. You'd be giving them the bird. You'd be cussing them out. Like, you know, when you get angry, like it just slips out. That's why the Bible says to us, like, Eldom, uh, anger seldomly produces anything of righteousness. So don't make anger your default. Okay. Be full of God's grace, not anger. Number two, ask so I'm asking you, are you full of God's grace? Number two, are you standing for truth or are you just arguing to win? Are you standing for truth? Or are you just trying to win? Like, and where is your source of truth? That's why I wrote a book called Think Biblical about the geopolitical. You got all these ideas, you know, jump on the Candice Owens bandwagon and call everything conspiracy. Or you label dispensationalists heretics, like, and you discredit all sorts of stuff. I'm sorry. I just don't buy that. So where's your source of truth? Are you following political pundits or are you anchoring yourself in God's word? So, so are you standing for truth and are you thinking biblical about the things that are at stake? Or are you just trying to argue to win? So that's a question. That's number two. Number three, are the accusations actually false? Like the things that you're being accused of, is there truth in those? Because if they are true and you're you're being accused of a bunch of stupid things you did, then you should just you're not suffering for faithfulness, you're suffering because you've been foolish. And there's plenty of Christians that are foolish and make stupid decisions and they suffer as a consequence. Somebody say amen. And before you get too fired up, look in the mirror, brother. Look in the mirror, sister. How many times have you screwed up? We all suffer for that. Is there truth to these accusations that have been brought against you? If they are, own up. Repent. Turn to the Lord. God's a good God. He forgives the faithful and the faithless. The un let's just say the the unfaithful. That'd be more theologically accurate. Number four, here it is. Is God's presence evident in your response? Because it was God's presence was evident with Stephen. Due to peace. He's glowing with godliness. Because as believers, we're called to do one thing. Here it is. Ready? In this situation, you're to suffer for faithfulness, not foolishness. When we suffer for foolishness, that's called the natural consequence of self-inflicted suffering. But suffering for faithfulness is just part of the job of being a Christian. So good stuff. Okay. Well, that's all I'm going to do with you today. I've got more content, more material, and you know what? I'll probably just give you one more episode. We'll see. Till next time. Take care. Live free. Live strong.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Thank you for listening to Real Life Ministry. If you found any of what you heard today helpful, please share it with others who may benefit. And if you would like to support the content that we put out, please consider making a donation at RealLife Ministry.us. While you're there, check out some of our episodes. And together, let's continue to educate and encourage Christians to live free and live strong.