Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube Theologians Theology Q and A podcast. I'm Pastor Brian Wolfmuther, St. Paul and Jesus, Deaf Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas, joined by Pastor Andrew Packer, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you that you might win the synodical election for president. Who knows?
[00:00:18] Speaker B: I've heard the same thing. I think it's gonna be close, actually. We're waiting right now. Maybe the white smoke will come up and it will be me.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Where? This is internal synodical politics. We're on round three of the elections for synodical president, and we're recording this Wednesday morning when the election should be arriving. And with, like, what we like California. How long does it take to count electronically cast ballots I've wondered the same thing.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Like, what's.
You think? You just get an email with the results, right? That's. That's my assumption. Apparently it doesn't work that way.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Well, we're killing great. Oh, yeah.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: About my presidency, though. This is important. What would be great about my presidency is that I would unite all the sides. They'd all be upset I won.
So that would coalesce everyone.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: That's perfect. The unity of rage. That sounds like the Missouri Synod. Anyways, I was on with Javier Perdomo last night. We were just doing a live Q and A kind of thing and he says some questions this. Are there Lutheran miracles? And I was like, I was wondering what a Lutheran miracle would be. And it's like when the Lord does something amazing and everyone gets upset about it.
Well, that's not that good.
Oh, well, yeah, yeah, I'm ready.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: I'm.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Oh, man. Primed and waiting. That's how we kill time waiting for synodical election returns is by answering theology questions. So let's do it.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: This is on Christian influencers. Oh, first it's like a two part question.
What do you think of Christian influencers? First question.
And then it's so hard to find Lutheran influencers. There aren't really any. So I feel like I'm left with people like Bryce Crawford, Savannah, Faith Stone, etcetera, Who I feel can be extreme when I listen. Any recommendations for the younger generation to follow on social media who have a different approach?
No.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Do we count?
Make sure to follow Pastor Packer on Instagram to get his vacation photos.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, good luck finding me on Instagram.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: I shut down all that I used to have all the Facebook and the Instagram and all the stuff. We shut it down just because it's such a huge energy. Life sucker. It's like, you can feel this like the dementors in Harry Potter. Like, you can feel your soul being, like, torn out of your face into the phone all the time.
I have always wondered about Lutherans in social media space, though. I mean, it's tricky.
I don't know if I have advice. I know it's good that we put the stuff out there. We're kind of raising the flag and then let the Holy Spirit draw people to himself. But it's also a weird thing to just consider if influencer is a valid vocation.
I was thinking about this because there might be a synodical resolution hanging around.
I just heard President Harrison mention it, that they want to put, like, people on the Internet to just do the work of trying to get our Lutheran confession out there into the.
Into the.
Into that space. And in some ways that, you know, that's kind of what you and I are doing by answering these questions, putting them out there on YouTube. And I think that we. They're going out on. What's the other thing that Casper puts them out on?
Not YouTube. How come I can't think of the name of the platform? What, that the kids always watch TikTok. TikTok. That's the one. The Tiktoks.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: That's right. You're not an influencer.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: We're trying to influence the Chinese spies that are listening there. They're all becoming Lutherans listening on tik.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Have they been going out on TikTok?
Is that confirmed?
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Unknown.
Apparently they're supposed to be. Casper has the login to the TikTok that Daniel started. I've never even looked at the TikTok, so I don't. I don't. So I. Who knows if we're over there? I think something went out on TikTok because we had a young lady show up to church a couple of weeks ago, and she says, wait, you're Pastor Wolfmuller? I said, yeah. She says, I decided to visit the Lutheran church because I saw a video of yours on TikTok and I didn't know you were here.
That's cool.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: So something about. On the Tiktoks, what do you think
[00:04:29] Speaker B: of Christian influencers in general?
That was the first question.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Well, I don't know. We should probably define the vocation of Influencer. And there's a. The danger of celebrity, right? Is that, like, people are famous for being famous, and we should probably.
That doesn't count. Like, when you have. That our vocations have to have reference to God and the neighbor, and so they can't just have reference to ourselves. That's part of the problem of sin.
So we want our vocations to have reference to God and his institutions, family, state, church, and to have reference to the neighbor to be able to serve them in this way. So we don't want to be famous for being famous. We do want to rejoice that the Lord does give people platform.
And then if you have a platform, the question is, how do I. How can I be a faithful steward of the platform that I have, really? Which is the gift of attention, that people give their attention to the things that I'm doing or saying or publishing? This is a gift from God, and we should try to steward it carefully by including the Lord's wisdom and the Lord's comfort there.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: It seems like the dangers with just the idea of being an influencer is.
The idea is you kind of have to be more and more outrageous, right? To make money. Like, you have to do something to stand out, to get likes, to get clicks to make money.
Or you have to be. Or oftentimes you create a problem so you can sell the solution. Right.
Like those people that go through the grocery store and point out everything on a label and say, all this stuff's gonna kill you. Buy my supplement for 99.99amonth, and then don't eat all this stuff, but eat the stuff I sell you. Right?
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Like, that's how they make money. It's how they get clicks. You got to stir stuff up. So even part of that, I don't know, like, if that's direction, you have to go, like, you have to constantly. If you got to stir stuff up to get a following and then you have to be selling, whether yourself or whatever it is. There's a lot of dangers with that. You have to say you have to be different somehow to get a following. Right.
And I just, I think there's just so many pitfalls with that that I'm not sure if any of that's helpful or beneficial to being a Christian. If that's what you have to think about it, right? I have to think about that when I see these couples who are like influencers and they're always doing all these videos together because you know that, like, when the camera's on, you're acting different than if camera's off. Right.
And if everything becomes a bit a stage thing in your life for online, including I've seen like the.
The birth of their babies or whatever it is.
Like, at what point is your entire relationship just kind of phony and then when you realize that, what happens? I don't know. Like, I just see these couples, and it just seems like it's just so fake. And you're like, do you ever have a real conversation? That's not like preparing for another video?
And apparently they're making good money because it seems like that's all they like. A lot of them, that's what they're doing. That's their job, I guess.
But I don't know. Doesn't seem like it's gonna. I don't see how that plays out well for most. Most people in the long run.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: I tried to start that with Carrie. I wanted her to go with me every Friday. We'd go have lunch at a different barbecue place and do a review video.
And she said, I love everything about that except the video.
So.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: So are you doing the other part?
[00:07:53] Speaker A: No, I should. I mean, it's just so we.
So I said, we could be. We could be barbecue influencers. Honey, this is my great. My great plan. Oh, man. Kibosh. She put the kibosh on it.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Put stop to it. All right, next question.
This one's really long, so I'm going to sum it up. It's essentially, they're struggling to reconcile Lutheran theology and Christian discipleship. So if I can paraphrase what they've got going on here, essentially, they. They feel like they love Lutheran theology, but at their Lutheran Church, there's less of things that they would consider, like. Like living out the faith, like perhaps embodying things like helping the poor.
That's. That's one of the ones they mention here.
So they see a tension between, okay, the theology is great, but then helping the poor, the marginalized, the socially undesirable, seem largely absent from our churches.
I realize there may be many reasons for this, but it still troubles me.
So they feel like, on the one hand, the theology is great. On the other hand, they see in these other churches where they don't like the theology as much or struggle with theology, that some of these things aren't being done, though, in the Lutheran Church. So they're like. They want to know what they should do or how they should think about this tension. Should there be this tension? Or maybe are Lutherans just failing at that, or is it a perceived tension? What do you think?
[00:09:29] Speaker A: So one of the dangers is, so praise the Lord, that the one who's asking this question feels this burden. In other words, they recognize the joy and the freedom of the gospel.
They recognize this impulse to bless and serve the neighbor. And then they look around and they don't see that desire to go out and bless and serve the neighbor like they're used to seeing in other churches.
It can be a problem because there can just be a lazy.
I mean, Christians can just be lazy. And sometimes Christians can use the comfort of the gospel as an excuse for their laziness.
Saved, therefore, that's it. But the Lord wants us to exercise in godliness, exercise in faith, by loving and serving the neighbor.
It could be that there's a lot of works that are happening that you don't recognize. So when I moved from being evangelical, where all the works are kind of on display because everybody needs to see them, because I'm proving my election by my good works. I'm looking for the comfort of the Gospel by these good works. So they're always on display.
There could be a difference that there's just. You're perceiving the difference between good works on display versus good works done in secret. Like Jesus commands, don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. It was one of the joys when I became a pastor that I got to see all of these pious people who were doing all of these works of service. But you couldn't see it unless you went and visited them and sat down and talked to them. And you almost had to coerce them into telling you what they're up to. And then they would finally admit that they're doing good works because they don't want the credit for them because they're trying to store up for themselves treasures in heaven. So there could be sort of pious secrets, works being done behind the closet. That's not recognized. That could be part of it. The other part, though, could be just that the Lord has put you in that particular place to encourage the brethren. Like St. Paul says, don't neglect the meeting together. Some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another even more as you see the day approaching so that you can be there to encourage these good works of service. And this is how it starts. Because we sometimes get overwhelmed. Like, we look at the whole problem and we're like, I can't fix the whole problem. So I'm sort of frozen and I'm not going to do anything.
But the Lord hasn't called you to fix the whole problem, but just to try to be faithful where he's put you. So to say, hey, how can I encourage the Lord's people gathered around this particular altar to have an eye towards the poor neighbor or to have an eye towards the hungry neighbor, or to have an eye towards the imprisoned neighbor, or the infirmed neighbor, or the weak and hurting neighbor, or the unbelieving neighbor. How can I help my congregation that the Lord has gathered here to have that? And that's a matter of prayer and patience and joy and to say, how can I enter into this? How can I be a good steward of this burden that the Lord has laid on me, that, hey, we as a Christian church need to be serving and helping the neighbor more. And I want to be a faithful steward of that burden.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: I think perhaps part of it, too. I'm not sure where they're from,
[00:12:51] Speaker A: if
[00:12:51] Speaker B: they're from the United States or not. I didn't see anything about exactly where they're from, but part of it is, oh, never mind, they're from Germany.
I'm not sure what exactly what's like in Germany as far as the demographics. But like here, if you look at graphs about religion, our house median household income in LC Mass. Is one of the highest out of denominations, which a lot of that means is because currently most of our members are kind of like in suburban churches. Right.
Which also means. And oftentimes they're kind of removed from some of those things just by proximity.
So that could be part of it too. I mean, not that that's a. That's not an excuse to not help people, but part of it could be like, if you're in an area where there's not a lot of that going around, like around you, that doesn't make it just difficulty with the lack of proximity. So that could be part of it too. I don't know what it's like, though, in Germany. So they said they're in. They're in Germany with a Selk church. So perhaps you have more insights on Germany and the Selk and where their churches are.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: As far as I do know this, that, like the church's work of charity becomes more and more difficult the more state involvement there is. And so there's a lot of state involvement in charity in the US it's even more in Germany, if I understand it right. And so there's a tension there at the systemic level. But it doesn't. That should not.
That should not dissuade the, the Lord's people from leaning into doing good works of service in every way that we can.
So we want to be helpful.
Poverty is an interesting problem. Remember that we have the promise from Jesus, you will always have the poor with you.
One of the dangers that when we're doing Charitable work. We have to remember that the problem with poverty is not a lack of money, just like the poverty with homelessness is not a lack of homes.
There's other deeper, systemic issues that are there. And it normally has to do with the breakdown of family relationships. I mean, that's at the root of it. And a lot of times those relationships are broken by addiction.
So if you give a person who's poor and homeless money and a house that strikes sometimes, sometimes that's the fix, but most of the time it's not the fix. They end up in the same situation because the underlying causes of the person getting into that situation is the same. And so when we're engaged with loving the neighbor, the church is pretty uniquely equipped to be able to care for people individually rather than to see them as a.
Like to see it as a systemic problem.
Same thing with hunger. The problem with hunger is not mostly, not a lack of food, Especially when we look at cultures that are in the midst of hunger issues.
In the middle of Africa, it's mostly bad government that's keeping people hungry.
So that we have to think through what does it look like to really love the people who are hurting in these situations. Situations.
So that's a big part of the issue too. So we want to do our best thinking. We want to really be thinking about how to be helping and serving people, knowing that these problems are persistent problems and that they'll be around until the Lord comes back.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: This one's in response to the quarrelsome wives in Proverbs that we talked about.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Oh, what did we say about that?
Did we get ourselves in trouble?
[00:16:28] Speaker B: We did get ourselves in some trouble, but not this. This person doesn't really. Isn't.
Isn't saying we're in trouble. They wanted to know about the opposite issue.
So you focused when you talked about that on God's ideal for both parties in marriage. I was wondering if you could say more about situations where this ideal is not met.
People seem to find it more straightforward to give advice to a godly wife that she should submit to her husband unless he is abusive or tells her to disobey God. But Scripture says very little about what a man should do if the wife rejects his leadership and nags or stonewalls until she gets her way, whether it's a major moral or financial decision.
Expressing the faith in the home, etc. Is a man's calling only to passively love his wife and pray for her heart to change.
Scripture never calls a man to be domineering, but for him to always give in on major issues seems like an essential abdication of his responsibility for the household.
The most that Proverbs gives young men is to tell them not to get into that kind of relationship in the first place.
How do you take a hard line without becoming controlling or threatening to end the relationship?
Is this only an issue for individual counseling or does scripture have anything general to say for a husband who feels steamrolled trying to do what's right for his home?
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Yeah, so we have the. We have the picture of how it ought to be in Ephesians 5, sort of beautifully laid out for us, right? Husbands, love your wives. How?
Not like a parent loves children or like a king rules his citizens, but love your wives like Christ loved the church. That's what that love is supposed to look like. And that's glorious and beautiful, a humble self giving, laying down your life love for your wife.
And then the wife is supposed to honor and submit to her husband. How not again, like children submit to parents or citizens, submit to the king, but to submit as the Christian submits to Christ, as the church, as the whole church submits to Christ.
So that's the picture of submission that the Scripture gives for the wives. And that's the sort of, well, I guess the ideal or the perfect picture of how it is with husband and wife, recognizing that because we're sinners, both husband and wife, that picture is often mangled.
Instead of being a picture of Christ in the church, it's more a picture of Christ cleansing the temple or Christ before the Sanhedrin. I mean, it gets pretty messy.
I think there's wisdom here, and I'll put the wisdom that I think I know, and that is that.
The husband's headship in the home is for the sake of the wife and the children.
And so.
So there are times where the husband will have to make a decision about how it will be with the family that will go against what his bride and his children want.
It must be decided for them. In other words, the motivation is not to preserve headship or authority, but the motivation there is to love your wife and your children. In other words, that's part of laying down your life for your family, is that you are also laying down your will and your desires, the things that you think would be best for you for the sake of what would be best for your bride and for the children.
There are times where the decision that the husbands make will be contrary to the wisdom of his wife, etc. Hopefully, and we pray that those are very rare, but that the motivating thing cannot be to maintain authority, but rather to continue to love and serve. And I think that's the key distinction. What's the motivator for this particular decision? If there's a disagreement between husband and wife, the husband is having at that point in his own mind, that which best serves the Lord's word and his family.
Does that make sense as a kind of clarifying distinction?
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I think that's helpful. What would you say?
Let's say that that's the way they're approaching it. We don't know much about this situation where question we were sent, but let's just say we were.
That's how the person's approaching it. They're desiring to love and serve their family in this way, and it feels like they're just getting pushed back from their wife at every turn. She doesn't want to.
She doesn't want to do any of these things.
Even though it looks like it's in accordance with God's word, it's what's the best thing for the family? It's the best thing for her, but she doesn't want to have any of it.
What does he do then?
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, sometimes you.
You know that doing the right thing will have certain consequences, and so you are just doing the right thing and being willing to suffer the consequences.
But if these things are intractable, you know, if there's a. If there's disagreements that are just really at the heart of every conversation between husband and wife, you're really going to want to have people to come along and help. If you can sit with friends, if you can sit with your pastor and sort of work through that. Because we don't want this life to be. The Lord wants husbands and wives to delight in each other, to really be a blessing to each other. And when we get to this point where something turns in the heart and it might be even imperceptible, but the language that the Bible uses is enemy.
And I've often been sitting with husbands and wives, and I'll have to tell them, hey, you have become each other's enemy. And one of the marks of being an enemy is that you don't trust that that person has your best in mind.
You become suspicious of everything.
And the result is that even if they do a good work for you, you're suspicious that it's an act of manipulation or coercion. Right.
So I remember one time as a husband and wife and a story, something like this, the Wife says, he never does anything nice for me. And he says, I brought you flowers the other day because. So she said that. And he's trying to respond by doing. And she said, yeah, that's because you knew you were in trouble.
And I said, okay, now just kind of pause here and look at the situation is that he actually did something nice, but you're not able to receive it as a gift.
And that's back and forth. It goes both ways.
And what that means is that you are not letting the other person love you.
You're not letting you've determined that they're an enemy. And what that means is that everything that's coming from them is against me, not for me.
And now how do you work your way out of that posture? Because it happens in the heart and you don't even realize it, like, oh, wow, I do think my spouse is my enemy. It takes a long time to work out of that to kind of to be able to open up, to be able to serve. But it can also often happen because there's so much pain that this sort of layer of hurt and callousness builds up on the heart to where I'm not going to let them do anything good because that means I'm also letting them do bad and I don't want to be hurt anymore. It's a long ways to work out of those woods. But if we start to get kind of crosswise with each other, that's the path into that danger. So we want to try to avoid that and we want to try to navigate out. And a lot of times we need help so that a wife or a husband can say to their trusted friend, hey, she said this. Do you think that I should let that make me happy? Or he did this. Do you think I should let that be an indication of his love? And so to have people say, yeah, yeah, that's good, so we can let each other, let the other love you and you can kind of work out of those deep dark woods. But again, this has to happen a lot of times with good friends and good counsel.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: It's also why it's important to have good friends, right? So that you get good godly advice and not advice just to ditch your spouse. Which is happens not too often when people go to their friends.
So yeah, having a good third party person to kind of look at the situation and help walk you through it. I've also found, and I'm not saying this is the answer because someone will mention that in the comments like this isn't gonna Solve everything. And I realized that. So hear me out first.
This is not the answer, but I've seen it help in numerous situations. I will often ask a husband and wife who are having these kind of like battles that the first question I almost always ask is, do you pray together?
And inevitably the answer is always no.
By the time they've gotten to this point, they're usually not praying together, almost inevitably. And so the first piece of advice I give them to try, even before doing anything else, is I want you, for the next week, two weeks, whatever, before we meet again, to pray together every night. I want you to pray with, for each other before you go to bed. And that includes too, like, if you need to confess anything, any sin you've done against your spouse, right?
Apologize, receive forgiveness, going both ways, husband to wife, wife to husband, etc. But you know, whether it's taking turns. The husband prays for the wife, prays for the family and each other one night and then the wife the next, where you both pray.
This is.
It's foundational. And I have found at times, again, not always the answer, but I have found at times that couples who start doing this don't need to come back to see me because like you said, what happened was they became enemies, right? They let bitterness build up. And now as you start to pray for the other person, that is going to change the way you see your spouse. If you're actually genuinely praying for them and with them, it's going to soften your heart towards them and vice versa.
Now, again, not always, but I've often seen that be a huge help. And it looks like you've got some great prayers for.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: Here's my order that I. Here's my specific order of prayer that I'll diagnose to all couples here. So you got Adam and Eve. So this is a simple order of prayer for couples.
So it starts with this question. So Adam asks Eve, what are you thankful for from today? Assuming it's at night, what are you worried about? Specifically, what are you worried about tomorrow? So those two questions, what are you thankful for today? One or two things, what are you worried about tomorrow? Eve. Notice this part here. Eve may ask Adam, in other words, this is on Adam to do this. And Eve can reciprocate, but we want the Adams to do this. And then Adam prays for Eve first. Oh, Lord, we thank you for. And here are the things, things that Eve is thankful for. And then please help with. And here are the anxieties and worries that simple prayer.
Lord, thank you for a peaceful, restful day. Please help us with all the logistics that we have for tomorrow, whatever it is.
And something so something right there happens. And then Eve may pray for Adam. She's not required, this is on Adam head of household, to do it. And then the Lord's prayer. And then if you want to, the evening prayer together like this. And then here's the blessing that comes at the end. O Lord, bless my precious wife and keep her. Make your face shine on her and be gracious to her. Lift up your countenance upon her and give her peace.
So it's the blessing turned into a prayer. And then Eve again, may, may give the same blessing for Adam. It's optional for Eve, but if Adam is leading the charge, then everything's going to.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: To be fine.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: And so there's a little blessing. It's just amended for the beginning of the day with Luther's morning prayer.
Super simple, super easy. But there's something wonderful that happens here. Number one, it's a specific. I mean, it lets Adam hear what's on Eve's mind.
And then it also takes all of this stuff to the Lord so that we know that he knows what we're thinking about, what we're grateful for and what we're worried about.
And this is really great. Now I'm looking at it, I'm like, man, I need to do that with Carrie more often because I'm telling everybody else to do it, so I need to do it myself. But if you need a little prayer to follow, you can just go to this Wolfmelo Co. There's all these prayers that I put over here. This is simple order of prayers for couples.
And to start that, I would commend this to all of the couples out there.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: There.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: If you don't, if this is a good place to start, and I wouldn't even necessarily see it as a place to move past.
Like this is pro. I mean, if you want to, like if you're praying compline together as a family or something like that, it's great.
But this little.
This little beginning with this conversation and check in and turning that conversation into a prayer, I think that's really phenomenal.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: Fantastic.
Are you ready for the next one?
Why does Jesus skip the first table of the law when talking to the rich young man? In Mark 10, Jesus seems to be listing the second table of the law only, though he lists six items, not seven, as would be the Lutheran numbering.
If that is indeed the case, why does he not list the first table?
Also? It Seems like do not defraud would then correspond to do not covet. Is there any analogy between those? Or is he restating do not bear false witness in two ways?
So there's an additional question, but the main question is, why does Jesus skip the first table of the law?
[00:30:46] Speaker A: I remember CFW Walther takes this up in his Law and Gospel book, that great long Gospel book, and his question is, why does Jesus give him only the law and not the gospel? And he's talking about the distinction between law and gospel.
I think Jesus is on the way. He's doing something here with this guy because he knows the big problem is his idolatrous trust in wealth. Right?
And so he's on the way to the first commandment, but he's going to get there kind of roundabout. So he lists the commandments, and the guy in his pride says, yeah, I've done all those. And he says, okay, that's great. Only one more thing left.
Go and sell everything you have and follow me. And that maybe seems like the seventh commandment. You shall not steal this command to be generous.
But it gets at his idolatry that he trusted in mammon. And Jesus will point this out that the whole problem was an idolatry question.
And. And he's really.
And he went away sorrowful, remember, because he had much wealth. And how hard is it for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? And then the disciples, who can be saved. Oh, man, what a. What a beautiful text. Hard text.
It's a beautiful text. So I think that the Lord was on the way to the first table. He was just getting there in a way that could hopefully expose the man to his own sinfulness. And I think there's some indication even from church history, that this guy came back around and became a follower of Jesus, that he was able to at last sell everything he had and follow him. I don't know why I know that somehow maybe it's just the kind of optimism of the early church that everyone who interacted with Jesus ended up becoming a Christian.
So I think the first commandment is actually the chief commandment that he's working on there, and Jesus is just getting to it.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it seems like the question, the first table of the law, and especially the first commandment there. What do you fear love and trust in above all things.
And so this guy's feeling pretty confident. Jesus says, okay, the thing you fear love and trust in above all things is your wealth.
So I want you. And you've made an idol out of it. That's what you worship. So I want you to get rid of it and then follow me.
And he hesitates and he can't do it. And he goes away sad because he had a lot of stuff which shows that Jesus knew what was wrong with the guy, right? Like, his issue was idolatry of his stuff.
Money and wealth.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: That's.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: That's what he was looking at, and that's what he worshiped, and that's what he wanted. That's what he wanted more of, not less of. So when Jesus says, get rid of it.
And then, of course, this sparked all kinds of debate throughout church history about whether everyone needs to get rid of all their stuff. But in particular with this guy, it was clearly his idol. It was the thing he couldn't let go of. Like, he's ready to follow Jesus and he's ready to do whatever it takes unless it's letting go of the one thing that, that he really is holding on to as the idol he set up in his own heart and mind. So, and this goes back, right? Luther in the Large Catechism talks about how money mammon has been one of the chief gods, chief idols that we set up in our hearts and minds since the fall.
It's been around forever. It's nothing new under the sun. And we see that all around us today, too.
How much? It's often.
I mean, this plays out in various ways, right? Like, how many churches have people who can afford to go on nice vacations and yet they're barely paying their past or anything, right? Or you look in the parking lot and there's lots of nice cars that aren't cheap.
And then they'll say at a voters meeting, but we can't afford to pay our pastor.
Right? I mean, there's, you know, on and on it could go. It's not. Not just shown in that way, but I think that's one way where you see it quite often is, oh, we don't want to pay him. We want to have all this stuff.
Well, do you desire to have the word of God preached among you or not?
Right? Or they'll be quick to cut the pastor's salary and benefits to save money at the church, but not look at their own budgeting to give more money to the church, those kind of things. So it's not a question that's gone away.
It's still among us.
And I'm sure we both know lots of pastors who have been through that. I have not been through that. I've not been in a church that I've had to go through that. But I know guys who have literally gone through those kind of conversations or had those things happen because people didn't want to let go of even a little bit, not even all of it, you know, but just a little bit to help the work of the gospel in that place.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: Have I ever, I wonder if I've put this out there, my cheerful 10 business. Have I ever, have I ever showed you that thing?
This is my stewardship, so I haven't done much. I need to do something with it. But like this I was thinking about how this sort of Dave Ramsey simple steps towards.
And I put together this sort of plan for generosity, which was. So when we think so, the Christian wants to joyfully give to support the work of the church. How do you do it? And so here's my four small suggested steps.
Let me make this bigger. So there it is. So number one, you start the habit. So you just start supporting the life of the church with anything like a quarter a week or $2 a month or whatever, any amount. And you start to give it regularly. Weekly is great, bi weekly, if that's when you get paid monthly, if that's whatever kind of your income and your out, go try to match it up and keep at it for three months, whatever.
The second step is to switch your giving into a percentage.
So to say if I'm giving a dollar a week and I make $100 a month, so now I'm at 4% or whatever of my income, just use take home income, that's fine, whatever.
4% of my take home income, I'm giving it yours and I keep it at that percentage. But now I'm working with a percentage and I want to start inching up that percentage to try to get to 10%, which is not a required thing in the New Testament, but it's a really good sort of thumbnail. And then to try to inch it up slowly. So whenever my economics status changes, if I get a raise at the end of the year or something like that, I say can I go from can I raise my giving to the church a half a percent or 1%?
So for example, if I'm at 3%, can I budget for 3.5% giving for this next year? Can I do that?
And so I'm working my way. The goal is 10, but I'm thinking, you know, in 20 years I want to get to 10% a year. I'm not in a big hurry because one of the things is that I want to be cheerful in giving, and I want to rejoice in the giving. And then when I hit 10%, I want to keep trying to grow that amount. But my advice is to put 10% towards the local church, and then anything over 10% is to special causes or whatever. So if there's something special going on at my local congregation, a building plan or something, I can support that, or I can support other missionaries, or I can support other things that I love. And the whole time, at every step, when I'm thinking about it, I want to have a check in.
Am I still joyful and cheerful?
Is there some obstacle to moving forward? Why can't I do a little bit more?
I think there's three responses. One is, I'd like to give more, but I don't have it. No problem.
That's fine.
Just stay where you are. It's great.
If the problem is, well, I don't trust how the church is using it, well, then give the increase to somewhere else and then make sure you talk to the church. Hey, I'm. I want to support the church more, but I'm not 100% sure that we're being good stewards. The people need to hear about that.
I just don't want to give more.
That's the third option, and that's the normal. That's where we have to check our heart and recognize that our generosity to serve the growth of the kingdom of God is always fighting against our sinful flesh.
And this is where repentance and forgiveness is going on.
That is where we're fighting against the flesh because we're naturally not generous, but greedy. And so we're trying to fight against that particular temptation.
And remember that giving is spiritual warfare. So this is my kind of outline of growth and generosity and how to go through it. What do you think about that, Pastor Packer?
[00:39:33] Speaker B: I think it's pretty helpful. I think. 2. Under your reach. 10% and beyond. That also goes into one of the other questions we were answering this week about helping the poor. Doing stuff like, once you get in the habit of being generous and like having those goals and then you realize you have more to give, that can really open up avenues for, as you say on there, supporting other ministries who maybe work with the poor, or maybe you find a neighbor who's in need and you're able to help and support them. Like it does open you up to more opportunities as you start thinking that way. Whereas you may. You may never think you have the money to do it if you're not being intentional, like someone intentional about your giving.
If it's always spur of the moment, you may just think, I don't have money for that. Whereas if you're got it budgeted out and have a plan for it, then you may find that you actually have more to give than you thought.
So that's one way to approach it too, is it's helping you be more generous.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: And I think these baby steps are good because it looks like wherever I'm starting, here's just the next one. So to make it regular, to make it a percentage, to then grow, to work on growing that percentage, to not be in a big hurry, to be cultivating joy in serving other people while you're doing it. This is all we're in it for the long run, so hopefully that's helpful.
[00:40:54] Speaker B: All right, are you ready for one on head coverings?
[00:40:57] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: So this is in response to something you've said previously on Head Coverings. So are head coverings a timeless command or a cultural trend?
I recently looked at how you explained the scripture passages about head coverings for women in the church, which I think we've done on a couple occasions, if I remember correctly.
On the one hand, it seems like it really shouldn't be a universal moral law, but at the same time, I can't understand how most of the arguments for that position are different. For example, for when people say the same thing about the pastoral office or male headship in the family, they also appeal to the historical situation and use the same method, don't they?
Besides, all this talk about angels seems very strange. I don't understand how it fits into the context if this is merely a cultural or temporary practice, thank you very much.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: So I do not think so. The basic idea so Paul talks about a woman who's prophesying or praying in church that she ought to have her head covered.
I think that this is not a cultural thing, nor do I think that it is a.
I think it is a universal law.
I think the thing that's unique is that there are women who are praying publicly and prophesying in church. In other words, I think the unique thing about the command that Paul's giving is that there were prophetesses in Corinth, and if we had prophetesses in Austin, or if we had prophetesses in Collinsville, then they should do their work of prophesying or publicly praying. I think it's speaking in tongues there.
They should do that with a head covering.
So the thing that changes is the calling of prophetesses. Now, if the Lord wants to start calling Prophetesses again, I suppose he can.
But it seems like our read of history is that there was an intense outpouring of direct spiritual charisma accompanying the work of the prophets of the apostles.
So in that early church, there was lots of people who were receiving the gift of tongues for the preaching of the Gospel in their context, and men and women who both had the gift of tongues, and men and women who had the gift of interpreting tongues, and men and women who had the gift of prophecy. So the Lord was calling them directly. And it seems like Paul, who is trying to help the Corinthians to be more spiritual by putting things in order, is saying, look, if the Lord directly calls a prophetess a young lady, or it could be an old lady, I suppose, a woman to prophesy. And so you have a prophetess that she is still under the authority of her husband and indicates that by wearing a head covering.
So the thing that's changed is not the culture.
The thing that's changed is not the instruction. The thing that's changed in our day is that the Lord is rarely calling prophetesses and he's rarely giving the gift of tongues and interpretation.
Since, especially the close of the apostolic age and the distribution of the Lord's word, those immediate gifts have slowed down. It was the former and latter reign coming together, as was prophesied by Joel and announced by Paul or by Peter on Pentecost.
So I think that's the specific use case that Paul's wrestling with. And if we had that specific use case, we would certainly follow it.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: Now, that's a really important distinction you make, because it sounds like she thought your argument was merely cultural. But what you're saying is the opposite. Like, this has nothing to do with the culture, has to do with offices that, that you don't see as being in play any longer. Like, there's not an office of that in the church right now. And if there was an office, you would say, yeah, this applies. It's not culturally bound.
It's Paul's pretty clear that this has to happen if these things are in place. But you're saying those things are not currently in place in the church, but the moment they are, then, yes, this would be binding on us.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: Right. And it's interesting that. So when. If God wants to call a woman to be a prophetess, like he did in the Old Testament, God called women to be judges. And in the New Testament, God called women to be prophetesses, we have the two sons of how come I can't think of the guy's name, those two prophetesses that are talking to Paul.
And we have prophetesses in Corinth. I mean, that's what Paul says if a woman prophesies, so there's prophetesses there. So how do you do that? And he says, now when you put a person into the office, you choose men. You're not authorized to choose women to place into the office of pastor. But if God puts a woman into the office of prophetess, that again is his priority to do that.
But that is not a usurpation of the order of the family.
And so the head coverings come. I mean, you can imagine like if you're a tent maker in Corinth and you and your wife have a tent making shop or whatever, and then all of a sudden the Holy Spirit comes upon her in such a way that she now has the gift of tongues.
So now that causes some problems in church, but it also causes some problems at home.
So Paul addresses in church one at a time, only with an interpreter. Let two or three people do it and sit down. The spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet.
In other words, just because you feel moved to say something doesn't mean that you have to.
Everything should be done decently and in order. That's the spiritual way.
And also if that's happening for women who are praying in tongues or who are prophesying that they need to have in church, they need to have a head covering so that it's an indication that when they go home, they're still subject to their husbands also at home, that the husband is still the head of the house, even if you're the husband of a prophetess.
I mean, that would be tempting to think, well, okay, I'm just normal Brian, and my wife is a prophetess, so she's head of house. And Paul says, no, that's actually not the case, that God's spiritual gifts do not disrupt that earthly order.
And the head covering becomes the instructions for Paul to indicate that. Because even if you're a woman prophetess or a woman who has the gift of the tongues or a woman who has the gift of interpretation of tongues, you do not then have authority then over the household or over your husband. That's a different. It's a different thing.
So again, I don't like the cultural argument that there was something cultural about the head coverings. That doesn't seem to make sense to me. Nor do I like the.
I just think it's very specific when Paul says, if a woman's praying or prophesying those two conditions are key to understanding what Paul's doing, because he's trying to put.
He's trying to answer this problem, which we have to answer, too.
The problem is that people think that if something is spiritual, it's chaotic, it's either order or spirit. And Paul's saying, no, we have the spirit of order.
So God is not a spirit of disorder, but a God of peace.
So there's order and peace according to the Spirit. And so Corinth had just been infected by this kind of the same thing that disorders the charismatic church today. And that idea is that if the Holy Spirit's present, everything is disorderly, and he's saying, no. If the Holy Spirit is present, then things are put in order.
And that's what we have to lean into to understand what Paul's arguing there.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's. It's really helpful. And I think there's at least two other videos, if people are curious on this.
I think you've discussed it at least two other times. So if you just search head coverings. But we wanted to clarify this. I thought it'd be helpful to clarify since someone just watched one and wanted more feedback on it.
[00:49:17] Speaker A: I thought it'd be good to dive into again, here's maybe something to think about. So this. Because we see the head coverings coming back in the church, there's something good about that.
Two things.
The two good things are, number one, people don't care what the world thinks. They're like, I'm willing to be different.
So head coverings are apparently not in style, but who cares? I'm not interested in style or whatever. I want to follow what the Bible says. So that's a very good impulse. The second is that young women want to be godly women.
And to say that, look, the Lord has given me a husband and he is head of the household, and I want to honor him in that way.
It seems like the head coverings are a way to indicate that. That I want to honor my husband and I want to be under his authority.
So those are good and godly impulses. I just think the head coverings. And if you want. And I mean, if you want to wear a head covering, you can, but don't. But.
So it's great. I mean, you could wear hats in church and whatever, this good pious custom, but it's a little bit different than what Paul's getting at there. He is trying to say, how can these unique spiritual gifts be exercised in an orderly way?
To not disrupt the.
Yeah. To not disrupt either the service of the home.
[00:50:39] Speaker B: All right, that's it for this week.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: All right, thanks for your questions, everybody. Wolfmiller co contact is the best way to get a hold of us and to keep the conversation rolling. So thanks for that. Thanks, Pastor Packer, for these questions. God's peace be with you.
