Why Do Christian Leaders Compromise?

Why Do Christian Leaders Compromise? Last week, we discussed how well-known evangelical pastor Rick Warren and the church that he leads Saddleback had, for the first time, ordained three women to be pastors.

Warren called it an historic night and prefaced his message by saying everything they do is based on scripture. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, who was a pastor in Ephesus at the time, I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. That's from 1 Timothy 2, verses 12 through 14. In the very next chapter, 1 Timothy 3, Paul spells out that the pastoral role is reserved for men. Now, I need to make a correction from last week, because I mentioned in the soundbite we played by Rick Warren that he never got to these key passages from 1 Timothy. But then I realized that I was only able to hear a three or four minute clip of this ordination service. And so I looked online for the video, including Saddleback's website, but couldn't find the video of this ordination service. So I have no idea whether he addressed 1 Timothy 2 and 3 in his message or how he reimagined or misinterpreted that.

But back to the issue at hand. Because we've already seen the consequences of churches ordaining women in the mainline denominations, and the inexorable march toward theological liberalism it guarantees, we titled last week's program, Why Rick Warren Ordaining Three Female Pastors Assures Evangelicalism's Doom. No doubt many other evangelical churches will now follow suit. This weekend, we'll finish laying the foundation for the differing roles God established for men and women in the church and the home. Then Pastor Travis Allen of Grace Church in Greeley, Colorado will join us to answer what roles women can serve in the church, and what leads to Christian leaders compromising on the clear, historic, and orthodox teaching of Scripture.

We're not going to have time to review what we covered last week. So if you missed it, be sure to go to our website, thechristianworldview.org. We're going to start where we left off last week and then get to the interview with Pastor Travis Allen. First Corinthians 14, now Paul is writing to the Corinthians, their church. And he says, when you assemble as a church, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation.

We won't get into tongues right now. Verse 34, here's what it says about women in the church. The women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves just as the law also says.

If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is improper for a woman to speak in church. Was it from you if the word of God first went forth, or has it come to you only? In other words, don't make this up. You didn't design the word of God. The word of God comes from God.

It's His word. He talks about a woman speaking in church. That means a woman preaching or teaching over men in church. There are roles for women to teach other women in church or teach children in church, but not men, not to exercise authority over men.

So what do we make of this? Well, first of all, women as pastors and teachers of men has nothing to do with the worth of a woman or the capability of a woman in comparison to men. And it's also not a male versus female issue, but it's rather as Moller said, it's a biblical interpretation or authority issue. I mean, there are some men out there that are in favor of women becoming pastors in churches, and there are some women, I'm sure some are listening today, who are agreeing with everything that's being read from Scripture. Some women are against it.

This is not a male versus female issue. It has everything to do with what God has clearly stated in His word. It's the same old issue from the very beginning of time when Satan tempted Eve in the garden. Has God really said?

That's really what's going on here. God has really said that men should be pastors and churches and leaders in the home. That's what God has really said.

And now people like Rick Warren and many others are challenging that. It really is the word of God versus the word of man. God established roles for each gender in the home and the church so that they would function in an orderly and God-honoring way. Now, no surprise that on the website gotquestions.org, which is a website that answers people's questions about Christianity and other religious topics, there have been something like over 500,000 questions asked on this website. And you know what the number one question is? The number one question of all the questions is, what does the Bible say about women pastors?

That's the number one question on gotquestions.org of all the hundreds of thousands of questions. It goes right back to Genesis 3, where God says to Eve, your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Right there from the very beginning, the consequence of their sin was that there would be a desire for a wife to rule over her husband.

And in return, the husband would often rule in a way that was over authoritarian. The conflict from the very beginning is the number one question on gotquestions.org. So in their answer to this question, they answer some of the common challenges to the issue of men only being pastors of churches and holding authority in the church and the home.

And the first one is just the why question. Why shouldn't women teach in the church? I mean, aren't men and women the same? Why shouldn't they teach?

Here's their answer. Why should women not teach or have authority over men? Because Adam was created first, then Eve, and Adam was not the one deceived.

It was the woman who was deceived. Verses 13 through 14. God created Adam first and then created Eve to be a helper for Adam. The order of creation has universal application in the family and in the church. So this isn't a cultural contextual issue of the day that women weren't educated at the time, and now they are. And so we live in a different time. And Paul was writing to Timothy at an age where it's very different from today. And now we're more sophisticated, we're advanced, we've evolved, and therefore, women can be pastors and teachers of men in churches. That is not at all what the interpretation, the proper grammatical historical interpretation of Scripture is in this passage. Paul takes it not back to the context of that day in Ephesus, but he goes right back to the very beginning of time that God created Adam first and then Eve.

And the second reason is that Eve was the one who was tempted and fell into transgression first. That is the basis that God gives for why men only should be leaders in the church and the home. The next objection they deal with is the one, well, there were females who were leaders in the Old Testament.

What about them? Wouldn't that apply to the church and women becoming pastors in the church? Aren't there exceptions? Yet another objection is in the relation to women who held positions of leadership in the Bible, specifically Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah in the Old Testament. It is true that these women were chosen by God for special service to Him and that they stand as models of faith, courage, and yes, leadership. However, the authority of women in the Old Testament is not relevant to the issue of pastors in the church. The New Testament epistles present a new paradigm for God's people, the church, the body of Christ. And that paradigm involves an authority structure unique to the church, not for the nation of Israel or any other Old Testament entity.

And that's exactly right. Old Testament Israel and their theocracy is a completely different entity than the church. It's sort of like what we sometimes like to do that, you know, the nation of Israel as compared to modern day America.

It's not the same at all. Now, there's some principles that are the same for obedience to God of a nation brings blessing and disobedience brings consequence, yes. But these women who led in the Old Testament that they mentioned, that is not relevant to how God specifically set up the authority structure of the church and the home. The article in GotQuestions.org goes on to say similar arguments are made using Priscilla and Phoebe in the New Testament. In Acts 18, Priscilla and Aquila, man and wife, are presented as faithful ministers for Christ. Priscilla's name is mentioned first, perhaps indicating that she was more prominent in ministry than her husband. Did Priscilla and her husband teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to Apollos? He was a strong believer at the time who became born.

Yes, in their home, they, quote, explained to him the way of God more adequately, unquote. Acts 18, 26. Does the Bible ever say that Priscilla pastored a church or taught publicly or became the spiritual leader of a congregation of Christians or saints?

No. As far as we know, Priscilla was not involved in ministry activity in contradiction to 1 Timothy 2, verses 11 through 14. In Romans 16, GotQuestions goes on to say, Phoebe is called a deacon or a servant in the church and is highly commended by Paul. But as with Priscilla, there is nothing in scripture to indicate that Phoebe was a pastor or a teacher of men in the church. Quote, able to teach is given as a qualification for elders, but not for deacons.

And we read that passage earlier. So then the common question becomes, well, what can women do in the church? Can they only be church secretaries or just do nothing in the church because it's got to be a patriarchal men's world?

Well, here's how GotQuestions answers that question. Many women excel in gifts of hospitality, mercy, teaching, evangelism, and helps. Much of the ministry of the local church depends on women. Women in the church are not restricted from public praying or prophesying. The Bible nowhere restricts women from exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Women, just as much as men, are called to minister to others to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit and to proclaim the gospel to the lost. So can women be pastors or preachers?

No. According to the Bible, women are not allowed to serve as pastors over men. That does not change the fact that God uses women in powerful and amazing ways to accomplish great things in the kingdom of God.

That is exactly right. Again, this isn't an issue of men are more important than women or men in the church are more important than women in the church. No, they have different roles, not established by us, but the church structure is established by God and it's recorded in His Word. So women can do many important roles in the church. They can teach. They can teach other women.

They can teach children. They can serve as deacons. Deacons different than an elder. There's lots of ways for women to use the spiritual gifts God has given them within the church, just not as a pastor having authority over men and not as teaching men. You see, once this Rubicon has been crossed of ordaining women as pastors and teachers over men in the church, it's the gateway to further compromise. Just as the church, the evangelical church, has now compromised on the issue of divorce and remarriage, they don't hold to the biblical, most of them don't, hold to the biblical standards for that, the grounds for divorce and remarriage, or to the modern notion of, let's say, a couple living together before marriage or sex outside of marriage.

They don't really kind of look the other way on that today. This has helped pave the way to get to this particular issue of women in pastoral leadership in the church. The other issue that's been long forgotten is the issue of church discipline as laid out in Matthew 18. That's another one that churches, evangelical churches, just avoid today to the detriment of the church. So there's this overemphasis on grace and a underemphasis or a compromise on truth, and that doesn't work out. Now all you have to do is look at churches who have integrated women into teaching roles in places of authority, pastoral authority, and just see what their doctrines become. The mainline Protestant denominations, all they're into, they have all kinds of female pastors, they're all into social justice, no gospel, homosexuality, transgenderism, whatever liberal, often politically liberal issue of, favored issue of the day. So it's a portent of more to come.

It's not that women do these things, it's that you compromise scripture on these things, and it just opens the floodgates for more of the same. The Christian Worldview with David Wheaton returns in just a moment. Courtney was 17 weeks pregnant when she and her husband Greg learned that their son, Shepherd, had a heart condition that would require multiple surgeries and were uncertain about his future. But Samaritan Ministries connected them with other Samaritan members who began to pray and share the financial needs of the pregnancy and the medical care Shepherd needed. I don't know how Samaritan could have answered any differently and done any better.

I don't know. And just to hear the confidence on the other end of the phone of this is not something that you need to be concerned about at all. You focus on the health of your family, the health of your baby, and we will walk with you every step of the way. Thankfully, through God's faithfulness and provision, Shepherd is surpassing all of the doctor's expectations. To read more about this family's journey and about how you can join a community of believers like them, visit SamaritanMinistries.org slash TCW. I struggled with my identity all the way through my life.

Lived eight years as Laura Jensen until I found the Lord Jesus Christ. The issues are unavoidable. They're on the news.

The White House in rainbow colors. They're in our legislation, the Texas bathroom bill in our schools, drag queen story. They're even reaching into our churches. We're not just talking about issues.

We're talking about people. The proceeding is from in his image, a 103 minute documentary film that biblically and compassionately addresses the issue of transgenderism. You can order the DVD for a donation of any amount to the Christian worldview. Call 1-888-646-2233 or write to box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331 or visit theChristianworldview.org. That's 1-888-646-2233 or theChristianworldview.org. Welcome back to the Christian worldview. Be sure to visit our website, theChristianworldview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print newsletter, order resources for adults and children and support the ministry.

Now back to today's program with host David Beaton. Now, in case you think we're just picking on pastor Rick Warren, I read a series of social media posts from pastor Tom Buck, who's the pastor of a first Baptist church of Lindale and also the director of the G3 expository workshops. And he listed out around Mother's Day, what was going on with not just Rick Warren's church, ordaining three female pastors, but what was going on all over the Southern Baptist Convention.

He writes, the Southern Baptist Convention is in a liberal drift evidenced by the proliferation of women pastors and preachers. He says the three largest SBC churches, Elevation Church, Fellowship Church, and Saddleback, where Rick Warren is, all have women pastors. Several SBC churches had women preaching yesterday on Mother's Day.

Here's some that I found. Beth Moore preached yesterday at Lake Point in Rockwall, Texas. It's an SBC church, and the pastor of Lake Point is a graduate of Southern Seminary. Second Baptist Houston had Anne Graham Lotz preach. Elevation Church, another well-known evangelical Southern Baptist church, had a woman preach yesterday. Fellowship Church regularly has Lisa Young preach.

She led Mother's Day services. Pastor Stacey Wood preached yesterday at Echo Church, and has regularly done that for years. Kay Warren, the wife of Rick Warren, preached yesterday at Saddleback. He goes on to say, this is Tom Buck, the SBC church named First Baptist Church in Newport News, Virginia, had four women preaching yesterday, and it is plainly stated on their website that they ordain women. Point Community Church in Somerset had a woman preaching this past Sunday. Eden Church that recently had lead pastors, husband and wife, preach a few Sundays ago.

So this is not just taking place at Rick Warren's church, Saddleback Church, but this is taking place in many Southern Baptist churches around the country, and also other denominations as well that were commonly associated with evangelicalism. And just one more note on Beth Moore. She's been a very popular Bible teacher. She was part of the Southern Baptist Convention, LifeWay. Bookstores owned by the SBC promoted her books.

She made millions off them. Now, she just recently left the Southern Baptist Convention. And she's someone who hates Donald Trump. She sides with the social justice movement. She preaches at churches over men. She's already backpedaled on homosexuality in one or more of her books. So you can just wait for more of the same from someone like Beth Moore, who has impacted so many evangelical women in this country and around the world. So let's get back to the title of the program, Why Rick Warren Ordaining Three Female Pastors Assures Evangelicalism's Doom.

You might say it's an overstatement, but it's really not. You think COVID is bad. A physical virus. Well, this is like a doctrinal virus that is infecting evangelical churches all over the country. Evangelicalism and America's doom, yes, doom, is cemented if evangelical churches continue compromising with the world. And that's exactly what this is. And the only so-called vaccine for this is for these pastors to repent and follow God as He has clearly written in His Word.

This is a larger issue than some of the big news of the day, the state reset or whatever else is going on in the world. You know, the Bible spends very little time detailing or chronicling the wickedness of unsaved rulers in their satanic-inspired schemes. We're to be aware of them, and we see some of it in Scripture. But the Bible spends all kinds of time in the New Testament focusing on false doctrines, false teachers within the church, because God knows that those false doctrines, these false teachers impact people's souls. They keep them from hearing the true gospel. And in turn, when the church is not salt and light, the consequences of that is that you have a society, a populace, who is irreverent toward God. They are not anchored to the truth of the Word of God, and then all chaos breaks loose in society. So all the crazy things going on in our society right now, it really goes back to the fact that the church, based and founded on the Word of God, has lost its influence to the culture around us, because the church is compromised on the Word of God. And why this spells doom for evangelicalism is that other evangelical churches are going to follow suit to Saddleback Church.

That's how it works. What the big churches do, the other churches, the mid-sized churches, the smaller churches, they watch what they do on social media, they watch their messages and their services on Facebook and YouTube and so forth, and they say, look, look what Rick Warren and Saddleback are doing. This is what's making them successful. This is why they have so many campuses and so many people.

What are their, quote, best practices? And that's how these things, again, like a virus, just move around the country in all these churches. And before long, this infection is everywhere. It's sure to follow. And then the evangelical movement will become liberal, just like the mainline denominations. Okay, so now we're going to transition from why ordaining female pastors assures evangelicalism's doom, to answer the question, why do Christian leaders compromise like this? And when we considered this question, Pastor Travis Allen as a guest came to mind. He is someone who stands for the truth of the Word of God in a very uncompromising way. And he has a very deep understanding of the church and how God designed it to be led and to operate.

Earlier in his life, Travis served our country as a Navy SEAL. And now he is the senior pastor of Grace Church in Greeley, Colorado. Travis, thank you for coming on the Christian worldview today, as we get into part two of this follow-up really to the news that Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church has just ordained three women to be pastors. And we've already discussed the biblical basis for men being pastors and teachers and the church leaders in the home. Is this issue, Travis of female pastors, is this a first priority category issue? We think we titled the program last week, you know, why this spells evangelicalism's doom.

Is that too apocalyptic? Is this as big an issue as maybe we're making it out to be? I think that we need to acknowledge your view of women in the ministry is not a gospel issue in the sense of, will you be saved by having the right view of women in ministry? Or will you be denied entrance into the kingdom because you have the wrong view of women in the ministry?

We obviously say no. We're not talking about the deity and humanity of Christ. We're not talking about justification by faith, the authority of Scripture. And yet, we are talking about, even though it can be maybe a second level or third level issue, what they practice on a second level issue will reveal really what they believe on a first level issue, like the authority of Scripture.

And what they practice on a second level issue shapes the way they think about a first level issue. And so, when you practice ordaining women into the pastorate, you've really crossed a line that is going to shape and affect and probably reveal what you believe about the authority of the Bible. Yes, the Bible may say, 1 Timothy 2.12, Paul says, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. The Bible may say that, but people who don't want to believe that and practice that will set that aside. And so, they demonstrate they really don't line up under the authority of Scripture.

And so, you've got a question. If they don't practice it, what do they really believe about it? Travis, why does ordaining female pastors—we've seen it in the mainline denominations—always seem to lead to compromise on other issues, like sexual issues, homosexuality, transgenderism. The mainline denominations are fully in favor of that, now integrating into churches. It ultimately leads away from a focus on the saving gospel of Christ, salvation issues, to more social justice. Why does it always seem to be that same progression?

It's connected to the question you just asked about first and second order issues. If you equivocate on obedience to what the Bible clearly says in one issue, where do you draw the line and start obeying in other issues? When you give ground and compromise, then the culture continues to pressure you toward a complete compromise and a complete abandonment and ultimately an apostasy from Scripture. So this has come out in a hermeneutical debate. It was in 1991, Piper and Grudem, general editors for Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. They were responding then to evangelical feminism in 2004. A response was published to that called Discovering Biblical Equality, and the subtitle was Complementarity Without Hierarchy.

So the editors and all the authors of the articles in that book, they're responding and pushing back against Piper and Grudem. They're still calling themselves complementarians, and yet they were not complementarians. They were going into the banner of complementarianism, just like Rick Warren said, we're not going to be pushed by the culture.

We're not going to follow tradition. We're totally biblical. We have a biblical basis for everything we do. That's what these authors are saying as well, and yet they're compromising on the issue of women in ministry. William Webb wrote a couple of articles in that volume introducing something called the Redemptive Movement Hermeneutic.

He's since published a book in 2009 called Slaves, Women and Homosexuals, exploring the hermeneutics of cultural analysis. Without getting into the weeds of that, he's describing that we need to see the Bible more as a dynamic movement kind of a text rather than static, and to read the Bible that way and to develop our ethics that way so that it's kind of on a sliding scale as the culture moves. That's exactly what you hear in the constitutional debates of the US Constitution.

Is it a static text that we are textualist and we read that text as the authors intended, or do we continue to let it develop and let it be dynamic and read it with a view to the changes in the culture? So that same thing happening in constitutional law and interpretation happens also first probably in Scripture as well. Since such a high-profile pastor and church has done this, do you expect this to spread throughout evangelicalism now? This kind of cultural tidal wave has been hitting the churches for decades. It got into the Protestant mainline denominations.

Even when Albert Mohler became president of Southern Seminary in 1993, it was part of a conservative resurgence to push back at exactly against these issues in the Southern Baptist Convention. Here we are, several decades later, it's the same issue hitting the Southern Baptist Convention in the entire culture. So yes, it's spreading. It's going to continue to spread.

It'll be just this persistent push toward compromise to call all people to line up underneath the radical liberal ideology that says any constraint on any individual is that really is what marks something as sinful, something that must be shunned and done away with. I just think that we as evangelicals shouldn't so quickly give up the term evangelical. I think we should become more emboldened at this time to say, when the church practices ordaining women to the pastorate, let's refuse to call them evangelicals any longer. Let's just say, well, you're now outside the camp.

Yeah, I do think this is going to continue to spread. Travis Allen with us today on the Christian Royal View, the senior pastor of Grace Church in Greeley, Colorado. I want to just give you a few scenarios that have been brought up with ordaining women to be pastors. Can a woman be a, quote, pastor of children's ministries or women's ministries? Or are there circumstances, Travis, where a woman can teach a man in church, like in a Sunday school class? We've had that question by a listener. Or maybe on a special day like Mother's Day, which a lot of these women preaching that occurred on Mother's Day, or with her husband, who's a pastor in the pulpit.

Talk about some of those scenarios that often get used that are exceptions to this, or used as exceptions. Yeah, in the case of a woman who's serving in children's ministries or women's ministries, let's just let them serve in those capacities. But don't assign the title pastor, because pastor has a very specific meaning biblically, and qualifications biblically, and laying on the hands of those who are ordained into that role in the church.

It's very specific. So when you assign the title pastor to a woman who's showing leadership in children's ministries or in women's ministries, that completely confuses the biblical meaning and the apostolic intention. So let's not confuse our people by calling that woman a pastor. She doesn't need a title, and she doesn't need recognition as a pastor in order to be a dearly beloved saint and servant in the church. There are some cases where people just aren't thinking biblically, they're just not thinking well, when they allow a woman to give in a dress on Mother's Day or something like that. It may arise from sentiment or good intention, but that's not biblically faithful.

The Bible doesn't allow that. If it's a public gathered assembly of the saints on the Lord's Day, that's preaching, that's proclaiming the word of God, and that ought to be reserved, as the Bible says, for a man. I don't permit a woman to teach or exercise authority of a man, whether it's on Mother's Day or whether it's in a Sunday school classroom in a gathered assembly of the saints.

There is private ministry of women. I've had women who have impacted me biblically, theologically, privately, but not in a public worship or assembled gathering in the church. The Christian Worldview with David Wheaton returns in just a moment. With a growing and aggressive segment of our society in full throated opposition to God and biblical Christianity, the question has become, how can Christians stand firm and raise their children to do the same? Ken Ham, the founder and president of Answers in Genesis, recently released a compelling book titled, Will They Stand?

Parenting Kids to Face the Giants. Ken's life and ministry is a model of standing firm on the authority of God's word and the gospel, and he shares personal experiences and biblical principles that have shaped him. For a limited time, we are offering Will They Stand? for a donation of any amount to the Christian Worldview. The book is 312 pages, hardcover, and retails for $19.99. To order, go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Be sure to take advantage of two free resources that will keep you informed and sharpen your worldview. The first is the Christian Worldview weekly email, which comes to your inbox each Friday. It contains a preview of the upcoming radio program, along with need-to-read articles and featured resources, special events, and audio of the previous program. The second is the Christian Worldview Annual Print Letter, which is delivered to your mailbox in November. It contains a year-end letter from host David Wheaton and a listing of our store items, including DVDs, books, children's materials, and more. You can sign up for the weekly email and annual print letter by visiting thechristianworldview.org or calling 1-888-646-2233.

Your email and mailing address will never be shared, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Call 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. Thanks for joining us on The Christian Worldview. Just a reminder that today's program and past programs are archived at our website, thechristianworldview.org.

Short takes are also available, and be sure to share with others. Now, back to today's program with host David Wheaton. Rick Warren talked about the process that they had been discussing with his elder board. They were in unanimous agreement to ordain female pastors of their church. Rick Warren, I don't know him personally at all, but for what he does and his level of influence and the number of satellite campuses, he manages a saddleback. This man is obviously very intelligent. I'm sure he's been well schooled in church history, and he certainly knows this issue. He's not new in ministry.

He's been around for a long time. Can you explain what the process was of someone like Rick Warren making this decision well into his ministry career, so to speak, to all of a sudden ordain female pastors? I mean, why compromise now? What goes into that? It's very difficult for me to understand that. Let me just say a couple things about Rick Warren and what you revealed on your last program. You played a clip of Rick Warren in front of his church, where they were going to enter into that ordination service. And then you also read from one of the women who was ordained who described her surprise in getting the call that she was going to be ordained. If we can take all that at face value, I just got to say it's completely appalling that a woman would be told that she's going to be announced as a total surprise that she's going to be announced to be one of the first three women to be ordained in Saddleback Church.

That's shocking. We've been going through with a couple of men here in our own church, an ordination process, and these men have known for a year or more, both of them, that they are being considered for ordination. They've been practicing ministry all along. We've been examining them. We've been talking to them. We've been getting to know them, their wives, their families. We are going through right now, ordination councils, six hours of examination on biblical understanding, biblical knowledge, systematic theology, church history, and practical theology.

Those are all categories of questions, intense questioning we have with these men in preparing them for an ordination service. So there's no surprise, no shock. This woman that you read the quotation from was totally, totally surprised.

She had no idea this was coming. It seems to indicate that this is riding a cultural wave. That's kind of been Rick Warren's M.O. all along. He's gone the seeker route, and it's just been a pattern of compromise after compromise that's led to what I think is an inevitable departure from orthopraxy, and I think is affecting now his orthodoxy.

It wouldn't be surprising to me, though saddening, but it wouldn't be surprising if he continues to drift leftward, and we see him compromising on even bigger issues. Now, I was thinking, Travis, about some of the dynamics that lead to compromise. There's the fear of man. There's just peer pressure from the culture, from other pastors. There's the fear of rejection by someone, by if we don't go with this, if we look outdated, we look patriarchal. There's the fear of persecution if we hold to a biblical line.

So there's that. There's a fear of man rather than having a fear of God. We fear what will be done to us.

We fear other men. That leads to compromise. Number two, what else can lead to compromise? A desire for a bigger ministry. Maybe someone thinks this is going to, by doing this, this is going to not make us look so narrow.

We're going to be more in the mainstream, and this is going to enlarge our ministry. Or just conversely, they'll compromise because there's a concern for the diminishing of their ministry if they don't, let's say, go along with the cultural wave on this particular issue, or another one like it. Thirdly, what else leads to people to compromise is, and you've seen this often, where there's an influence from maybe the leader who compromises, they have a personal friend, or maybe their wife, or their daughter, or their son, or someone in their life who is close to them, who seemingly has a bigger influence on them emotionally, experientially, than the Word of God does. Talk about those, one of those three or two of those three, and how those things need to be really forcefully pushed back on when we feel those things in our own lives.

You've covered the ground there really well. I think those are a very good way of breaking down what leads to compromise. If we were to wrap all that up, though, into one concept, it's to ask the question, whom do you fear? Whom do you regard more than anyone else? Whose word will you listen to? Whose approval do you seek? Do you fear God, or do you fear man?

I think in all those scenarios that you just listed as what leads to compromise, I think the fear of man, fear of God is the issue. You see in the church growth seeker movement throughout the 80s, 90s, into the 2000s, that was a fear of man movement. They sent out surveys, tell us what you want in a church, tell us what kind of sermons you want to hear, tell us what topics we should be covering. You set the agenda for us.

Why are they doing that? You know, again, your comment about desire for a bigger ministry. In today's world, with the sexual revolution and the way that all the 40 and unders are thinking about the world, thinking about sexual ethics and everything else, the message of Christianity, of what the Bible actually teaches, is so radically unpopular.

It's not just quaint anymore and outdated. Now it's dangerous. Now that is making people feel unsafe. And so if you're going to try to hold on to a big ministry and attract a lot of people, then you've got to fear man and you've got to follow, let the people do what they want.

Same thing comes into play in personal relationships. I think it's Deuteronomy 13, where it says if your spouse or your son or your daughter or any of your relations say to you, hey, let's follow a foreign God, your hand should be the first to stone them as you bring them before the community for examination for leading people into idolatry. If your spouse or your son or your daughter leads you into idolatry, your hand has to be the first to throw the stone.

That's shocking. But what that passage is revealing to Deuteronomy 13 is that God wants us to fear him above all others. A lack of the fear of God. And in a nation as David Wells has so clearly said for many years now, the weight of God falls too lightly on the church. God is there, but he's toothless. God is there, but he's powerless.

He's like a benign grandfather. And when that is the predominant view in so many churches, when that's the vision of God that they're being given in the pulpit through the preaching, well then nobody fears that God, nobody fears that false misrepresentation of God, really. And so of course, they're going to fear everyone else. They're going to fear the culture. They're going to fear reputation.

They're going to fear relation, loss of relationship and all the rest. Travis, let me add just one more that I didn't include in that list. And it comes from first John 2 as to why do professing Christian leaders compromise? And this was, John says, Children, it is the last hour. And just as you heard that Antichrist is coming, even now, many Antichrists have appeared.

From this we know that it is the last hour. Verse 19, they went out from us, but they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.

But they went out so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. That's from first John 2. Now, I want to be quick to say I'm not calling Rick Warren an Antichrist or some pastor who has taken an unbiblical stance on this issue, an Antichrist. But there is that in Scripture that this is not just the one reference. It's Paul's warning Timothy and Titus. You see it all throughout the New Testament.

There's a warning about false teachers coming in. How is that element a very real possibility of what takes place inside professing Christian leadership? The world is obviously going to continue to drift in an Antichrist direction. John said already many Antichrists have come. He's pointing ahead to the pinnacle of an Antichrist spirit that's going to indwell and inhabit by the indwelling of Satan, the actual Antichrist who is going to try to vie for leadership of the world. If we acknowledge that the spirit of Antichrist is there, that's in the world. That's permeated the entire world. All the sons of the devil and the children of darkness are under his influence continually.

They breathe in the spirit of the power of the air. It's understandable that the spirit of Antichrist is going to try to make inroads into the church all the time through false converts, through false professors. Even Paul said, Acts chapter 20, there will be even men who rise up within the eldership, fierce wolves not sparing the flock. That'll happen among men who have been ordained in the eldership that you've respected for a long time and something will come out later. So I think the church always has to be on its guard to be discerning and to discern the spirit of the age and how the spirit of Antichrist is entering into its ranks. I think that's one of the most difficult things for we as Christians to understand when we see a Christian leader who has been in ministry for a long time, who has said many orthodox things over their ministry career, who's written books, we've done their Bible studies and so forth, and then to realize that where they go off, to realize that even though they've taught some truthful things over the years, that they can actually be one of these false teachers leading people away from the truth of God's Word and the gospel.

I think that's very hard for our minds to process, but there it is in the Bible over and over and over again. So we really shouldn't start out by making assumptions because we read someone's book 10 years ago that that person's going to end well and that they truly possess genuine saving faith. Travis Allen with us today here on The Christian Real View.

Just the final question for you, Travis, is your exhortation for people listening today. We talked about Christian leaders compromising. To be fair, they obviously have a lot of pressure on them when you're in leadership, ahead of a church or an organization, there's a lot of pressure to compromise biblical convictions.

But that's the case for really all Christians. In our own lives, people who are unknown by the broader country or church. So what is your exhortation as we close today for a Christian listening to how they, that person can stand strong, stand firm on their biblical convictions and not compromise?

Great question. And I would just encourage everyone listening to get into a sound, sound local church where there are no lone wolf Christians just doing private Bible study and staying strong. They need to be a member of a vibrant, sound, faithful local church. And what I mean by that is that there is a deep, constant expository ministry of preaching, of preaching God's word. If that pulpit is weak, it's going to make a whole host of weak Christians that are going to be undiscerning and wide open for being picked off by the enemy. So when I say expository preaching, I'm not talking about preaching a chapter or two of the Bible and doing that consecutively over weeks and about half hour chunks, consistent expository ministry. You've got a pastor who is spending 15, 20, 25 hours a week going into the exegetical details of the text, what the, what the words mean, how the grammar is used, the syntactical structure of the text, the context, context, context, and he is mining out from that text what God has actually put there.

And he's bringing that out. He's, he's doing hard spadework in the text, and then he's doing equally difficult work to understand the implications of that text for his people, to help them to apply it and to understand how it, how it works in daily life, to understand something that's spoken in a culture, you know, 2000 years ago, to understand the print, to principalize that text, and then help us to understand how to practice it in our own time, in our own culture. He has to understand the tone and tenor of the text, and he's got to, he's got to preach exhortatively. He needs to exhort his congregation to obedience and speak prophetically to his people and to the world. In addition to that, in the church, there ought to be a deep pursuit of the knowledge of God and studying and in rejoicing and systematic theology and the doctrinal meaning of the scripture. So listen, a pastor, a leadership, a church together can only do that if that church believes deeply that the Bible is the divinely inspired, inerrant, authoritative, all-sufficient word of the triune God. There's a beautiful text in 2 Corinthians 3 and 4, but in 4.13, Paul says, since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, I believed and so I spoke. We also believe and so we speak. He says the reason for that is because verse 18, we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. The things that are seen are transient.

The things that are unseen are eternal. So if a church believes in the word of the eternal living God, then that church is going to fear the Lord and obey what God has revealed there. And so you're going to see not only what's communicated in the pulpit and in the conversation of the church that they honor God's word, you're going to see them want to obey it too. So they're going to practice what's preached, what's taught by following the truth toward more and more consistent living out of the truth, the practice of the truth in the church, in the home, and as they go out into the world, they want to obey God.

And why is that? Because they believe him, because they fear God, and they don't fear anyone else or anything else. That is what people need to look for as they look for a faithful church. That is just so well stated, Travis.

Thank you for closing with that. And I would just encourage listeners, if you want to hear what that sounds like, a church, a pastor who's digging deep, mining out the truth of God's word and helping his congregation understand it, go to Travis's church's website, gracegreeley.org. Listen to some of his sermons and you'll hear what that sounds like. And maybe you can encourage your own pastor to do more of that.

If he's not doing enough of that, you can encourage him to do more. Again, gracegreeley.org is the website. Travis, thank you for coming on the Christian Real View today. Thank you for being non-compromising in your own personal life, in your preaching ministry, the way you lead your church. And we just wish all of God's best and grace to you and your family in Grace Church in Greeley, Colorado. David, thank you so much. And thank you, likewise, for your example of non-compromise as you do the Christian Real View radio program.

It's such a blessing. As discouraging as it can be to see so much compromise within the evangelical church, whether it's on this issue of ordaining women to be pastors or the homosexual issue or the race or social justice, critical race theory issue, in the litany of others, it's encouraging to hear from pastors like Travis Allen, who are holding the line with scripture as their authority. May that be the same for all of us who profess to follow Christ. And if you're not a believer, you need to become a follower of Christ. And you can find out how to do that by going to our website, thechristianrealview.org, and just click on the link to What Must I Do to Be Saved. As always, you can hear this program and other past programs at our website, thechristianrealview.org.

Thank you for your encouragement and your support. Until next time, let's remember, Jesus Christ and His Word are the same yesterday and today and forever. So think biblically, live accordingly, and stand firm. The mission of The Christian Worldview is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We hope today's broadcast encouraged you toward that end. To hear a replay of today's program, or to sign up for our free weekly email, or to find out What Must I Do to Be Saved, go to our website, thechristianworldview.org, and call us toll-free at 1-888-646-2233. The Christian Worldview is a listener-supported ministry and furnished by the Overcomer Foundation, a non-profit organization. You can find out more, order resources, make a donation, become a monthly partner, and contact us by visiting thechristianworldview.org, calling toll-free at 1-888-646-2233, or writing to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to The Christian Worldview. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.