Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Pastor Wolfmull, I almost introduced myself as you, Pastor Packer. Wow.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Too much time with me.
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Pastor Packer. Here.
Oh boy. Pastor wolf Mueller. Here. St. Paul Jesus death Lutheran churches in Austin. Tess Austin, Texas, joined by Pastor Andrew Packer, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Collinsville, Illinois.
Pastor Packer, heard a rumor about you that your favorite day is Monday because you get to live at church all day.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: 6:30 to 9:30.
Working 5 to 9.
What a way. That's good.
What else would you be doing? That's what I want to know. What else would you be doing?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: That's true. I mean, how many hobbies outside this?
[00:00:46] Speaker A: So you got some questions?
[00:00:49] Speaker B: I've got some questions. It's early as. Hopefully we can answer these. I know we're not used to meeting this early.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: They're feeling a little bit loopy.
It's good.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: All right.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Getting it done.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Our Roman Catholic practices really Christian.
That's a question. So here's, here's the full question they asked their pastor, but they also wanted another perspective.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Good.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Okay. Apparently the reason Roman Catholicism is considered part of the body of Christ is that the church adheres to the creeds.
But do the practices actually reflect that professed belief?
We place Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses outside of the church, but to me, many of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church are equivalent to these things we reject in non Christian churches.
Just curious if you can give me a more concrete understanding of how we decide to call someone our brother in Christ.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Good question. There's a.
And this is not an easy question.
So on the one hand we. It is the Christendom is kind of the borders of Christendom are defined by the two great mysteries of the faith, the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the Incarnation. So if someone holds to an orthodox doctrine of the three Persons and one God, the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation of Jesus, the two natures in one person, that they're within Christendom. And if you have errors regarding that, that would put you out of Christendom into a cult or sect.
That's why we say that Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christian because they have false doctrine regarding the Trinity and the Incarnation of Christ.
So I suppose that's the big definition of the way we define again, Christianity versus a different religion.
But you do have some statements that would push on this a little bit. For example, in small cult articles, when Luther's defining the church, he says a six year old child knows what the church is holy Believers and sheep who hear the voice of their good shepherd. And then he takes on the claim of the Catholic Church that they are the Church. And he says, indeed they are not the Church.
Now that should probably be understood in the context of the Roman Catholic Church not only claiming to be part of the church, but claiming to be the Church.
And if you're not under the authority of the Pope, then you're not part of the una sancto. And they would say, when. So when Rome says outside of the Church, there's no salvation, what they mean is outside of the Church of Rome. Now that's been loosened a little bit. You can be orthodox or also like a pagan philosopher and be in the church, just as long as you're not Lutheran.
That was a little bit sassy, but seems like that's what the doctrine is.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: So,
[00:03:37] Speaker A: so, but we want to, it's in fact important for us to, to recognize the Catholic Church as part of Christendom, part of the Christian Church, because of our doctrine of the Pope being the Antichrist. This is ironic, but when Paul says that he, he, the man of lawlessness, exalts himself in the place of God, in the temple of God, we understand that temple of God to be the, the recognizable Christian church.
So part of our, part of our doctrine. This is not, you know, normally our doctrine that the Pope is the Antichrist is not considered like a generous ecumenical position, but it actually is. I mean, ironically, because we're saying that, hey, the Pope is presenting himself as a Christian man, a Christian teacher in a Christian church.
So, so that's a really interesting idea. Herman Sassa actually reflected on that quite a bit. So that's. That idea that the Pope is the Antichrist is part of our ecumenical position. Now people are saying, okay, so since I mentioned a Pope is Antichrist, that sounds really, really harsh to most people because I don't know, we have the picture of the Antichrist as some sort of tyrannical world ruler or something like that.
Remember that the Pope claims to have really final authority over all things temporal and eternal in the world.
And I remember when I was a baby pastor, I was teaching about our Lutheran confessions, say the Pope is the Antichrist. And people are like, ah, pastor seems too mean. And so I put together a document, we'll try to put it in this show notes here what the Pope says about himself. And so he read through the doctor through this thing where the Pope, you just have like Unum Sanctum and, and, and Vatican 2. And all the stuff that the Pope says about Himself. And the people were like, oh, boy, this guy's Antichrist.
So I take a look at those documents before you get too upset about it.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: I get asked, I was actually just asked this question yesterday, I'll just say by a relative.
And the question was, how can we consider them Christian when they do things like prayers to saints, right? And they started listing some of these practices that seem not very Christian.
And I said, well, there's a difference between saying, like, they're not Christians at all and saying, like, the thing they're doing is wrong and right. It's not biblical. And we would, as Lutherans say, that's not a Christian thing to do.
But that's different than just saying that they're not a Christian. Right? So I think part of it's helpful too, because if we, like her question really seems to be, I think it was a her. I could be wrong. Okay. But this question really seems to be directed at their practices, right? Like, how can we look at their practices and say they're Christian? But on the flip side, like, because they're claiming to. Because we do say they're Christian, we can call them to repentance and say, hey, that's actually not Christian. You shouldn't be doing that. Stop doing that. Whereas if they're not Christian, not part of a church, then just kind of do whatever you want, whatever. Like, we'd have. It'd be a different conversation. But since they're claiming to be part of the church and be Christian, then we can look at that and say, hey, you know, the Bible really doesn't say you should be doing that. In fact, it says the opposite. You should probably stop doing that. Here's why.
So I think just writing them off altogether. And I get it too, because especially for someone, like, who maybe is unfamiliar with what they actually teach and some of the practices, and they come across them and they're like, oh, this is really weird. Like, I didn't know any Christians did this.
I know their response would be somebody to the effect of this has been done for a long time, etc. Etc. Or whatever. But that doesn't, that doesn't work for us. So
[00:07:32] Speaker A: old errors are still errors.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Yes. Doesn't matter.
But we've been doing it wrong for a long time.
I mean, that happens in the Lutheran Church too. One of my arguments recently I've been trying to make to people is Lutheran should be the last person ever to say, but we've always done it that way. Because if you went to. And I've been, wait A minute, wait
[00:07:56] Speaker A: a minute, wait a minute. I want to push back because we've always done it that way.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I gave the example. If you went to a Roman Catholic church and said, hey, why are you doing this thing? And they responded, well, we've always done it that way. A Lutheran would be like, see, Roman Catholics don't. They're just doing it because they've always done it that way. Not because the Bible. But then you go to Roman Lutheran church and say, hey, why are you doing this thing? That doesn't seem like it aligns with the Bible so much.
Uh, maybe this is just a reflection of Midwestern culture and not really like, actually the Bible and the Lutheran answer is, but we've always done it that way, so we have to be really careful because we fall into that same trap.
So, you know, we shouldn't. Shouldn't be so quick to be like, oh, I can't believe that's their argument, because we do it a lot too.
So just my warning.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Well said.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Are you ready for the next question?
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: It's about some book you wrote. Um, which I did read, by the way. I did finally read it. So. But this is not my question, though, just to be clear. Um, I really enjoyed reading Finally Free. You mentioned slavery to pleasure, despair, and pride.
Could these be correlated to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life?
I can see where pleasure correlates to the lust of the flesh. I can see where the elder son correlates to the pride of life.
But when the prodigal son returns and despairs of the Father's love, could this be the lust of the eyes? The focusing our eyes on ourselves instead of Jesus?
[00:09:20] Speaker A: I think that's. I. You. I think you could. I think that's stretching it a little bit. I think when. When John talks about the.
Those two things, the pride. Sorry, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, it's probably.
It's. I. I've always taken that to be six commandment and seventh commandment, so. And it could all. It could all also be six commandments. Six commandments. But, you know, your body wants things and your eyes desire things, so that there's. He. He's piling up these different ways that that lust shows up. And I think it's really important. There's a couple of things. Just thinking about lust that's really important.
Number one, normally when we hear that, we. We think of six commandments.
The command, you shall not commit adultery. And that lust is always connected to sexual immorality. And I think it is a lot. But there's lust that lives in every commandment. So there's greed, which is like a seventh commandment, lust.
There's bitterness, which is like an eighth commandment, lust against my neighbor's name. There's rage, which is a fifth commandment, lust so that we can. We can want the wrong thing in regard to every commandment. Rebellion is the fourth commandment.
And really the ninth and tenth commandments. Covetousness. That's the sort of baseline of wanting the wrong stuff. It's good to especially remember that the Lord's law has something to say about what we want and that it condemns us for wanting the wrong thing.
So I really appreciate the work on trying to connect those things, but I don't think it quite lines up as nicely as. As the email suggests. But I appreciate you reading the book and thinking about it. Hopefully it continues to spur meditation on. On the Prodigal Son and the these other Bible texts.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: What do you think about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and pride of life, being connected to Eve and Adam and Eve in the garden.
Right. She saw, she desired.
Right.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: I wonder if you wanted to be like God.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah, Both of them, like falling into that trap. I wonder if that's somewhat behind that text too.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: I haven't given it much thoughts as we're going over. It just seemed like that might be connected in some way, so.
All right, well, that was a. That was an easy one for you.
Next one's on baptism and losing salvation.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Oh, sounds like a fun question.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Former ELCA here.
If baptism saves, then how can you lose your salvation? Or is it baptism plus something else saves?
[00:12:15] Speaker A: All right, so baptism does not save apart from Christ first of all, nor does it save apart from faith.
So it's not like when we say baptism saves that we're excluding faith. Baptism is the way that the Lord Jesus has instituted the delivery of his promise. One of the ways that Jesus has instituted the delivery of his promise so that in the gift of holy baptism, the Holy Spirit brings the word of God. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved in baptism. You've been buried with Christ in baptism. Now we're united to Christ.
Baptism saves. First Peter 3:21. This is the promise that comes with baptism, the washing of regeneration. And faith clings to that promise.
So it's not like baptism saves as an act in itself or as some sort of magical thing.
It's an objective reality. But the actual objective reality is this Bringing of the Word where the Holy Spirit is working.
So the reason why it's possible to lose your salvation is because it's possible to lose faith.
The promise is still there and still valid. Baptism is still valid. But it's by faith in that promise that we are justified, that we're declared righteous and holy.
And if all the world, the flesh or the devil, which are constantly assaulting our faith, if they win the victory and we stop believing that promise, then the promise is true. But it's not ours anymore. We're not holding onto it or claiming it.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: One of the examples I try to use when I teach on not just baptism, but just this idea of salvation as a gift is that if I, you know, gave you a gift of like a million dollars, like in a bag, and just dropped it in your hands.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Now you have. You have that gift now. You could throw it in the trash, you could light it on a fire. You do all kinds of things with it, right? Like, it doesn't. Doesn't mean the gift wasn't given just because you decided to take the gift and trash it or abuse it or get rid of it or whatever. Like, it's yours. And now you may choose to do what you want with it. And it may be the. The opposite of what I wanted you to do with that gift, right?
So just receiving a gift and being given a gift doesn't mean that you're going to keep that gift or you're not going to abuse it or misuse it or whatever.
And I've just found that helpful because people seem to get hung up on this kind of idea. Well, if salvation is a gift and it's all God's work, then respect people who want to believe. Once saved, always saved. Or something along those lines, like, well, I have it, so I can't ever, even though I don't believe it anymore, even though my life, I'm living in wicked, unrepentant sin. I prayed the sinner's prayer when I was like 10 years old. Therefore, I can't ever not be saved. Right. Once saved, always saved. Something like that. But again, if it's a gift, then you can reject that gift at any point. And that's not the same thing as God not being faithful. It just means you've chosen to reject his gift. Which is why we encourage people to be in church to keep receiving God's gifts so their faith will be strengthened, so they continue to hold on to those things and grow in faith and persevere in faith and stay in the faith, so they wouldn't abandon the faith.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Contrition and faith, those are the two parts of repentance. And that's where our assurance lies. That's where our salvation lies. And our assurance of salvation lies apart from either of those things. So apart from contrition we have pride.
Apart from faith we have despair.
That's where salvation is lost and the assurance of salvation is lost. So apart from faith that these things are, they don't belong to us.
I want to explore something for a couple of minutes with you, Pastor Packer, because on the once saved, always saved, or the capacity to lose your salvation or not lose your salvation, there was a classic divide between the Reformed and the Arminian kind of old free will theologians, right?
So the Calvinists argued once saved, always saved. It was the free will theologians who said, no, it's possible to lose your salvation. We have this weird irony now, and that is that our modern evangelicalism have adopted the free will theology of making a decision for Christ, but they've adopted the once saved, always saved from the Reformed. So, so it's a in. There's an inconsistency there, which is how I realized that like Baptist, Southern Baptists and major evangelical churches were not Armenian. You would think they are because they have so much decision talk, but they're actually a revivalized Calvinism. So it's that once saved, always saved is part of the like theological substructure. But the decision is, is laid on top of it because of the second Great Awakening and the revivalistic thing. But, but it is an inconsistency in evangelicalism that you got to get in, but once you're in, you can't get out. Like the Hotel California.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: I think the Calvinist would maybe phrase it a little bit differently. I think they'd say they don't believe in once saved, always saved. Like a real Calvinist or Presbyterian would say, we believe in perseverance of the saints. Which they would say is, is different because sometimes with the one saved, always saved, you get the idea that even if you're like the example I gave, like you're living an unrepentant life while I'm still saved. Whereas a Calvinist would say, well that's evidence that you weren't ever saved, right? Or if you don't come back to the faith, that's evidence that maybe you weren't ever saved, that you didn't persevere. So therefore you weren't one of the elect or whatever, or depending on who you talk to, how they're going to word it. So that might be a different, slightly different wording. But I think that's why they, and I think they emphasize it a lot now because of the.
Among so many groups saying once saved, always saved. And they're trying to distance themselves from, from that kind of shorthand language because it's not, they always say, doesn't reflect the fullness of their view and it's an abuse of what they're. They're saying they believe in. So I think it's helpful to distinguish too just for.
Just. Otherwise we can get a million comments saying I'm reformed and I don't believe once saved, always. I'm a Presbyterian and I don't believe once saved, always saved.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: There's these weird outlets because on the one hand you have this false comfort, like I'm a hellion and yet I made a decision for Christ or whatever, so I must be saved. On the other hand it's, well, the perseverance of the saints means you'll know it when you get there because it's all hidden. You know, I hope I'm a saint. I hope I'm part of the elect, you know. So you're going to get false assurance on the one hand, you're going to get like no assurance on the other, even though the perseverance of the saints, the reformed will tell you it's there for assurance.
We just have to say, look, there's no confidence in salvation apart from Christ. There's no doubting our salvation in Christ.
This is what repentance gives to us, this great phenomenal assurance that we're in his hands and who's going to snatch us out of those hands? We belong to Jesus. But if we're not in the hands, then, well, we're not in the hands.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: I gave an example this morning in Bible study in Romans 8 of my own struggle with this as a former Calvinist.
If you are struggling with whether or not you're actually Christian, right, And you look at your works and you're like, eh, like that's.
Can't rely on those. Those aren't great evidence. I see where all the areas I'm lacking and you're honest with yourself and then you're like, well I can look to Christ and you're like nope. Because if he only died for the elect, then if I'm not elect, which is what I was struggling with, like am I elect? Am I not? Then you can't find comfort there. What about your baptism? Well, it just put me in the outward Covenant, So I can't find any comfort there. So where do you get assurance then?
And I was struggling hard to find it. And I know someone in the comments is going to say I have that all wrong, but I think if you're really logically consistent with all that stuff, it pushes you quickly towards despair because there's nowhere to look for hope. Like, there's nowhere to look for assurance because I have to doubt. Like, if I'm struggling with doubt, then I can't be sure Jesus actually died for me.
And I can't be sure my baptism actually did anything for me. And I can't.
My works are, you know, if you're honest with yourself, I think everyone would look at them and say they're pretty lacking. So where do you turn then?
And that's. That's where. I mean, it wasn't just that. That was part of the thing that started pushing me into asking lots of questions and that and pushed me into Lutheranism, ultimately.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: It's a funny thing because I think. So the Lutheran doctrine is geared toward that assurance.
Most Lutherans don't even know that they have it.
Like, it's so baked in to everything about the Lutheran Church that most Lutherans don't even understand how you could doubt your salvation. So you know that have grown up in the church. And so it's. So it's one of the great wonders of people coming into the Lutheran Church. And like, you got. This is special. You know, you were raised with a theological silver spoon in your mouth and everyone else is out wandering around looking for a little taste of assurance like the rich man. Could you just send Lazarus here with a dip of assurance to cool my tongue? No, there's a gap. There's a theological gap between Wittenberg and Geneva. No one can cross over.
But we. So it's. This is a. I mean, it's such a precious thing that we have. And anyway, make it known.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: All right, the next one.
This is one that I see coming up a lot, and that basically is polygamy permissible for the Christian.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Where do you see that coming up a lot?
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Should the lcms. I'll explain in a minute. And should the LCMS Church permit it?
[00:22:40] Speaker A: We're talking about this every day up here in Good Shepherd.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Not a Good Shepherd. So there's been movements online recently. So I got put in this. Sometimes you get added to these Facebook groups and you don't even know why you're there. So I got added to this one.
I got added to this one Facebook group, and there. And There was a guy who consistently, this is the only thing he would post about.
So I started trying to interact with him because I was like, I don't know this group. And I. Polygamy. This is all I would post about, was polygamy, polygamy, polygamy. And I've started seeing it mostly again online. Most people aren't going to admit this, I think, in real life, just if they're a Christian. Like, hey, I really think God wants me to have multiple wives.
But it's a question that keeps coming
[00:23:22] Speaker A: up more and more and more. Little thing right there.
Oh, boy.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Well, my daughter stumbled upon a clip of us that was on, I don't know, Instagram or somewhere where it was President Harrison talking about drinking beer. And it had some heading about what discussions with your Lutheran friends are like or something like that. Anyway, so, yes, it's. It probably will happen.
So they give a whole lot of lists here of, of things in the Bible.
But the one they mentioned that, that. And I know you're familiar with all the ones in the Bible, but the one I'll mention though is the one Lutherans people bring up to Lutherans, Martin Luther infamously approved of the polygamous marriage of Philip of Hesse to a second wife.
And so can we really say that we, as Lutherans or even the Bible is against polygamy?
[00:24:20] Speaker A: So the answer is yes, we can say it for two reasons. Number one, when the Lord instituted marriage, he said the two shall become one.
And this is what Jesus re establishes in Matthew 19. The two become one. It's not three becoming one. And I, you know, the polygamists, I guess, would say, well, it's two becoming one, just different twos. Well, come on. Here's how the Lord instituted it with Adam and Eve. And the second thing in the Bible is, while the Bible never is going to say this is a.
It's never going to give approval or like explicit disapproval. Every time there is a polygamous situation, it's bad.
It never goes well.
So, I mean, I can't think of one example where there was a husband with multiple wives. And this was a. This was like a blessing for them. It was always a bit of a disaster.
So it also seems like, and I think this is important, that polygamy was often connected to the kings or the rulers or tribal heads, and in that case, marriage. In some ways you have this kind of political estate of marriage versus the family estate of marriage.
And so we don't see the normal guy in Israel having multiple wives.
It's the kings or whatever.
And so it's connected to their house and the harem and the children and all of this sort of stuff, which gets, of course, most famous with King Solomon, which is an absolute disaster. I mean, what a mess.
And it seems like all these blessings that the Lord had in line for Solomon, he's lost and who knows, but looks like it's maybe even his own salvation because of the being swept away by this polygamy.
I was reading this book called the Emperor about Charles V when I was listening to it on tape. Does that count as reading? If you're listening to the book?
[00:26:36] Speaker B: Yes, sure.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Okay. It's not on tape, actually. It's on my phone. How do I supposed to say book on Audiobook. That's what it is now, audiobook. And it's amazing how oftentimes he was engaged to all these different people. Like, he was engaged to Mary Tudor, engaged to all these. And they would put these engagements, and they were like.
These engagements were like just political contracts. And he's like, oh, I. I need some money, so I'm going to get engaged to the King of England's niece or whatever. It's ridiculous. And it. And it's. It really has nothing to do with, like, the actual estate of marriage connected to the home. It's a totally different thing. And it seems like that was what was going on with Philip of Hesse. He had this contracted political marriage which didn't result in children or any affection, if I'm remembering the details right. And Philip was like, he. He's like, I don't know what to do. I don't. I do not have the gift of being a monk.
I don't want to.
I don't want to sin against the sixth commandment and be sexually immoral like the kings would. I mean, just like Charles V, I don't know, had like, five illegitimate children by age 21 or whatever. And Philip of Hess is like, I'm not. I don't want to do that.
I want to try to live a chaste and decent life. I am politically married to this particular person. And it's. And there's no kind of affection there.
Let the listener understand. So what do I do? And so Luther says, well, it's okay if you want to get married, but you got to keep this quiet. And then, of course, it became a big scandal. It's like it. And this is. In some ways, I feel the same way. Whenever we're talking about, like, divorce and remarriage, it's like, hey, look, The. The scriptures say you can't get divorced. And. And if you do, if there's remarriage, it's adultery.
It's like. But it's. It's like, well, okay, so what are the options here? It's like, I can't.
I can't get married to my ex wife. That's that. The doors are closed there. I can't.
You know what?
I'm having a difficult time reigning in my sinful flesh. And you know, Paul, this. The directions from Paul. It's better to marry than to burn. So what are we going to do?
So in some ways, we have kind of serial polygamy. You're not married to two women at the same time, but it's. It's like you might be married twice, or a woman might be married to two men, not at the same time, but differently.
Because it's like the. It's like the best, worst option. You're trying to. We're trying to live chaste and decent lives with a flesh that has still echoing in it the words of God, be fruitful and multiply.
So anyway, I think so. These are the thoughts about it I remember. I'll tell one story and then I'll hear your things. I was in.
I was in Israel. I was 19 years old. I dropped out of college, and I was in this little town. Ibelin, I believe, is called, where Elias Shakur, who's a Coptic priest. I don't know all the details, but he was building the school there. And I was there for a week, and I was helping him build this school, getting ready for classes to start. And one of the construction guys, this Muslim guy, was kind of in charge of our team. And he walks in one day and we said, boy, you look exhausted. What's going on? And he says, oh, my wives, they're killing me. And we're like, what? What are you going. What do you mean? He says, well, I've. I've got these two wives.
I just. I didn't want to have more. I show. He married one gal, apparently. This is a story. Married a gal.
And she said, you got to marry my best friend.
So, like, her best friend, he goes and marries her. He's like, all right. And he says, all they do is go shopping all day.
And, like, they won't let me come home until I make so much money. And now they want me to marry this other friend of theirs. And so these gals are, like, driving this guy crazy, like a slave driver. He's working, like, four jobs to try to pay for their shopping habits or whatever. And I'm like, well, this is a different side of polygamy that I never thought I'd be able to witness in the world.
So anyway, this is all to say that there's a lot of ways to break the sixth commandment. And I think that we can say confidently from the scriptures that polygamy is one of them.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: The best thing I've read on this is CPH has a book called the Ethics of Sex.
And David Kind, Pastor David Kind has a marvelous chapter in there on this topic. In fact, I have it. I have the book and I've copied that chapter because I've sent it to people because again, I've seen it just coming up too much. But it's one of those things. You mentioned this, but I wanted to reiterate it. Just because something happened in the Old Testament does not mean that that thing has God's full approval or God's blessing upon it.
Right? Just because we see polygamy in the Old Testament doesn't mean God was like, hey, polygamy is totally cool.
This is my design for marriage. You know, like you said, there's so many. Every time you see this, there's. There's fighting. There's not only just fighting between the wives, but there's fighting between the children. I mean, just look at Rebecca and that. All of those things with the patriarchs, you just look on and on. All the kids are fighting, the infighting, the 12 tribes are fighting. Like everybody's fighting constantly.
So they, they lay it out and show this is what happens. If you do this, it's a mess. You're just going to have tons of fighting. And then you have it reiterated over and over again that marriage is between one man, one woman. Jesus reiterates it in the New Testament. Our confessions reiterate it.
It's everywhere for us Lutherans to see. So if you read the Old Testament, you're like, oh, they did in the Old Testament. It must be fine. Then you're just reading the Old Testament wrong.
I've seen this with number of issues, not just polygamy, but some other issues as well. Where we're reading back in the Old Testament saying, well, God didn't strike them dead for doing this thing, therefore it's permissible. And so it should be permissible now too. Which seems to be the line of argument in, in that question. We got, well, look at all these examples of polygamous unions and God, you know, God didn't do anything about it, seemingly. But he did. He. He told them, don't do this. And then they did it and they suffered the consequences in their marriages, in their lives. Like, that's, that's how God dealt with it. And then he reiterated it in the New Testament. And as you said, another thing people miss is that it wasn't everybody. It was. It's like the wealthy patriarchs who can afford to have multiple wives who are doing this, right? It's the kings.
Like, look at David. David's whole kingship is ruined because he starts to multiply wives.
And Deuteronomy says kings shouldn't multiply wives. What does David do? He multiplies wives. And that leads him to the whole Bathsheba affair and story. So Solomon, like you mentioned, multiplies wives way more than his dad.
But he did learn it from his dad. Right?
He just takes it to a whole nother level and it brings about his destruction and ruin. You mentioned Solomon.
We don't know how he ended up. I like to hope that Ecclesiastes was written at the end of Solomon's life. That's like, that's what I hang on to. Like, maybe Solomon wrote this at the end of his life and he figured it out and he repented. So that's my. That's my hope for him.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: What do you think is driving this question?
Like,
[00:34:06] Speaker B: I think it's the.
How many people can I make mad with this? I think it has to do with some of this far right extremist thinking on various topics.
And I think it's been pushed by some of the manosphere stuff where women are seen as, like, objects and property. And I think that's behind a lot of this, quite frankly. And now people are just looking for reasons to be able to do this. And so I think that's. I think part of that's from what I've seen online, that seems to be pushing a lot of this. People are getting pushed into weirder and weirder things through some of this online extremism, and it ends you up in some weird places.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: It is very strange to think that. I mean, I'm just guessing that the guys who are asking about it are not. They're like, should I get a second wife or third? They probably need to work on that first wife.
Like, let's just, let's just focus. That'll probably be enough for you.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: Yeah, get one wife and see how you do.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Not, not to diminish your great husbandry capacity or whatever. But let's just start with thinking about making yourself suitable for Being a husband and a father, that should, that should. That'll probably be enough for the to do list for, for one, for one life. And there is, I mean, look, we.
It is, it is something to say when, when like, polygamy is a more ordered option than what we normally see.
Like with this whole hookup culture and, and divorce culture and this kind of crazy sexual immorality that people are like, if, if they, if they actually made public or permanent what they were doing, they would be married. Everybody would be married to everybody. And so, like, when polygamy is like a better option than what's normally happened, it means that things are pretty bad. I mean, things are really bad. But we should not let that be like, oh, well, that's some sort of acceptable or an ideal or something that we ought to pursue.
The way that the Lord made it is there's Adam and there's Eve, and that's the Lord's design. The two become one flesh. And that is. And it's a picture then also of Christ in the church, because Christ has one bride, the church. Jesus is not in a polygamous relationship as well. And so this picture of Christ and his body, the church, is singular. And that's probably enough for us to give the right shape to our Christian understanding of marriage.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: All right, last question for this round.
Basically, can Lutherans pray for a hedge of protection?
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, there you go.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: I've recently heard a few Lutheran pastors praying for a hedge of protection around this room, around this house as a way of asking for the Lord to keep demons away from us. Where does this hedge terminology come from? Is it Lutheran or from a different tradition?
Why does hearing the line in a prayer feel like a red flag to my YouTube theologian mind?
I love that line right there.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: I do too.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: Am I, am I right to take caution when listening to a teacher who uses this terminology in prayer, or am I being too sensitive to something that doesn't matter too much?
[00:37:27] Speaker A: I don't know if there's a. There's got to be some phrase in the Bible that that comes from. Do you know?
[00:37:34] Speaker B: I don't know of a specific phrase in the Bible where that comes from.
I mean, there's. There are sort of evangelical protection, like
[00:37:47] Speaker A: sort of ticks that show up in prayer. And it's almost like a, it's like a non liturgical liturgy.
The just wanna.
That comes up over and over in prayer.
Just wanna like one word, Father. We just wanna. We just wanna.
It's like, no, you, you are not allowed to use the Word just in.
In prayer, the hedge seems to be that way. I thought job 1 10. I found it just searching here. Yeah. Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household and around all that he has on every side? That's the. That's what the devil says.
Oh, so the devil is frustrated that the Lord has put a hedge around, around Job's household.
So I guess that's where that comes from.
The Lord is your keeper. Psalm 110. You will surround me with songs of deliverance. We're encompassed by the Lord's mercy. Psalm 32.
He will hide me in his pavilion. Psalm 27. Those seem better to me. The Lord is your. His truth will be your shield and Buckler. Psalm 91.
So. But it looks like it's something that's just kind of crept into the vocabulary.
And here's the problem. Maybe, you know, there are things that, that become cliches or shibboleths, things that we say over and over again and they become part of the culture. And that's probably what it is.
It's that. That when someone is using this language of hedge, of protection, where like you, you. You have a different theological accent than I'm. What I'm used to hearing because I'm used to hearing that come from the big box evangelical guys. I'm not used to hearing it come from the Lutherans. And so it makes me nervous. And so it's probably not. The phrase itself is not bad, I would suppose, Lord, build. I mean, we could say we could just make it more things like build a wall to stop the demons or put your holy angels out there so that the evil foe may have no power over me.
Things like this won't.
We're saying the same thing, but it's not that sort of theological shorthand or cliche that.
And I, I think we, we all have to be careful for that because there's ways that you and I talk. Well, there's things that I say and I'll repeat myself and you know, tell the same stories or use the same phrases over and over and it becomes. Again, it becomes a cliche that could become dangerous.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the phrase itself is not in self evil like or bad. Right. I like. I mean, I've mentioned this before in a previous video like the pastor's daily prayer from the Lutheran hymnal Agenda for the pastor has asked God to be a wall of fire round about this congregation.
Right. Which is using.
It's the same idea. Right. It's asking for a hedge of protection. It's just using different language from different part of the Bible. So, I mean, it's a fine thing to pray for God to protect us, to watch over us. Like you said Luther's morning prayer, let your holy angel be with me. The evil foam may have no power over me. That's. We pray those kind of things because we believe God can protect us from evil. Right. Often. I often pray at nights, right.
For the God to watch, for God to watch over and protect my family and my, my house, which is praying for a hedge of protection. Now, I, I think if perhaps in some circles it can become almost like a name, it claim it thing, you know, like, I have to pray it this way and then God has to do this kind of thing for me versus, like, you're just pleading with God to, to protect you and putting it in his hands. So I think that can be a danger. But I don't think the phrase itself, although I think, like you said, because as Lutherans, we don't typically use that exact wording. That's probably why it's a little.
It makes our YouTube theologian minds, you know, have a red flag. The spidey senses are tingling when they hear that, and they, it feels uncomfortable because they're just not used to it.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: And, you know, this other thing happens too, like, especially if you're becoming Lutheran from a different tradition, and there's a phase that you enter into where you're just not sure.
It's like the brackish kind of water where like a river enters into the ocean and it's like half salt water, half pure water. You're like, is this thing from my old Baptist days or from my old Catholic days, or is this a new Lutheran thing? You're like, where did it come from? What's the source of the phrase, of the idea of the theological assertion? And, and you, and, and you're in that kind of unsure place. And so it's good to know that that's fine. It leads to this investigation where I'm like, hedge of protection. That seems charismatic or whatever. And, and so to dig in and to look into it and say, oh, no, it's fine. I like something about the dimensionality of it, but it, it's. It's like these practices, these evangelical practices of prayer, walking and claiming the city and all this kind of stuff, it's just. There's something about it that I like, but not enough that I would, that I think it's helpful. I think there's something dangerous there. Also, like the name it claimed and about, like, the.
It has to do with these kind of mountains that need to be captured and this sort of spiritual, institutional battlefield that is sort of laid out. Again, there's something I like about that and then something I think is particularly dangerous.
And I can't put my finger on it 100%, but so. So it's great to be investigating these things and thinking about it and digging into it and saying, all right, where's that coming from? What's the source? And is it biblical? That's our main question.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: I think a healthy way to do the prayer walk thing would be to walk your neighborhood and pray for your neighbors by name as you walk by their house.
Right. I mean, you're just, like, taking advantage of the fact that you're out walking and you see your neighbor, like, oh, yeah, I should. I should pray for them and then pray for them as you're. You're walking your neighborhood. I think that'd be a good use of that without it being like some kind of weird, I'm staking claim on this territory kind of thing.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: All right, that's it for this week.
[00:44:19] Speaker A: That's it. Hey, YouTube theologians, thank you for your discerning, thoughtful questions. Wolfmuller co counsel contact is where you can send.
Send all your questions, thoughts. I hope to see you all. Oh, coming up in June, Pastor Packer, I think, is still in protest, but I'll be at the Issues Etc. Conference.
University of Chicago University. Yeah, that's what it is. Concordia University, Chicago. Sorry. Let's go to the right spot. Concordia University in Chicago, June 12th and 13th. That'll be really cool. So hope to see you there. Thanks, Pastor Packer.
