How Should the Church Respond to the Ravi Zacharias Scandal?

Recently, it's been confirmed that the late Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias sexually abused women over many years.

When prominent Christian leaders are shown to be leading a double life, how should the church respond? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. You can answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts, and you can email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, we have a good news story to share with you. When Bryson Gault turned 11 years old a few weeks ago, he didn't ask for video games or brand name athletic shoes. Instead, he spent his birthday money buying food for the homeless. Bryson took the $150 in checks he received for his birthday, went to a local Chick-fil-A restaurant, and bought 20 meals for the homeless in his town of Augusta, Georgia. Well, Chick-fil-A heard about Bryson's good deed, and they have invited him to their Atlanta headquarters to star in a commercial.

The spot will be airing sometime later this month. I love that, and I love Chick-fil-A. Yeah, me too, man.

Those dipping sauces are the best. Bryson, we commend you for your good deed. That is so beautiful. Well, let's get to our first question of the day. Adriel, we received this email from Andre. Andre says, I recently heard a pastor say that for anybody to speak against him would be speaking against the Father. Is speaking against a pastor really speaking against God? When I hear stories like this, or of pastors who are saying, you know, you can't speak out against me, otherwise you're, you know, you're touching the Lord's anointed, that kind of a thing, I get really uneasy. No, speaking out against a pastor is not necessarily speaking out against God. Now, if we're speaking out against the Word of God, if a pastor is faithfully teaching what the Scriptures teach, and we don't like that, we reject God's Word.

Well, that's a different story. But the focus needs to be off of the pastor, this individual, and onto the Word and what the Word of God says. And so we have to be careful because I think that Christian leaders, so-called Christian leaders, can be wolves, abusive. And there are situations where individuals will try to leverage their authority, their power, or their influence in order to control others. And one of the ways that they'll do that is by instilling fear in the sheep and saying, look, you can't question me at all. I mean, I think about how the Bereans in the Book of Acts are commended, because they search the Scriptures to see if what the disciples preached, what they proclaimed, if what they were saying was true, and I think that's how we need to act as well as Christians.

We need to be Berean. We need to search the Scriptures so that when our pastor or some other Christian leader says something, we can say, okay, is this in line with what the Bible teaches? And if anyone says, hey, you shouldn't do that because I'm the Lord's anointed, I would say run, run as fast as you can, because that's not what God has us doing as pastors and as Christians, not what we should be doing as pastors and Christian leaders.

And so, Andre, I would say, brother, no. Now, that doesn't mean that we are free to just be disrespectful or rude. I mean, we want to be respectful. We want to be charitable to our pastors and to the people in authority over us, whoever they might be. But we don't want to confuse them with the Lord himself, certainly not. No, we're servants as Christian ministers in the church, and we all together as the body of Christ ought to be submitted to the Word of God, not to a particular individual, but to the Word of God first and foremost. You know, Adriel, let me ask you as a pastor, how do you deal with negative feedback that you might receive about, let's say, something in one of your sermons or something the church has done? Yeah, and I think every pastor can sort of relate, right? I mean, and a lot of times it's not necessarily negative feedback. It might just be someone who comes up to you after the service and says, hey, I don't agree with how you handled that passage of Scripture.

I take a different interpretation, that kind of a thing. And personally, I actually enjoy having those conversations because it gives me another opportunity to dig into the Word of God with the people in my church, and I think that's okay. I think in humility, we ought to listen to the people who come to us with criticisms.

That doesn't mean that they're always going to be right on the money. Sometimes the criticism doesn't necessarily land, but we want to be humble. We don't want to be defensive, and I think that's something that can happen is, you know, somebody criticized you and immediately you get on the defensive. Well, before you do that, I think it's really helpful to stop and to pray and to say, Lord, are you trying to teach me something here?

Is there an area where maybe I have a blind spot where I can be helped by this individual? And I think if in humility, we're willing to invite honest feedback from the people around us, and they're not afraid that if they give us that honest feedback, we're going to come back at them in a way that would be rude or harsh or over the top, that kind of thing. And it creates a healthy environment. So we should be willing to listen to the criticisms, to the constructive criticism, even to the challenges of others with humility and say, Lord, teach me, help me to grow. But we also don't want to be so consumed with the criticism of others that we're not confident in ourselves and what God ultimately has said in His Word. And so there's a balance here. We want to be willing to listen with humility.

But at the end of the day, that doesn't mean that every time we get it, it's 100 percent true. And that's where we have to be discerning and humble and ask for God's help. Great counsel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. And let's go to a call that came in at 833, the Core. My name is Jason.

I'm calling from Visalia, California. I have a question concerning the Apostle Paul. There are many verses in the Bible that allude to the fact he continued to make blood sacrifice after the death of our Lord and Savior. I was hoping you could clarify that. If you need a specific example, Acts 21, verse 26 says that he's like preparing to clean himself and is going to give notice of when they're going to sacrifice. So if you could please answer that, that would be awesome.

Thank you. Acts 21, verse 26. Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of the purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them. This is a really good question, and it's sort of interesting because if anybody has made it absolutely clear throughout his letters that we as Christians don't need to participate in the Old Testament, Old Covenant rituals, it's the Apostle Paul. You think about the letters he wrote, in particular the letter to the Galatians, for example, but this is one of the things that came up over and over and over again in the New Testament church, because with the arrival of the New Covenant, you had the setting aside of the Old Covenant. It's been replaced, ultimately, even in the Old Testament.

The Old Covenant was—and I'm speaking here about the Mosaic Covenant—was never meant to endure forever. Now, just to make this point absolutely clear, if you go over to the book of 2 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians chapter 3, listen to what the Apostle Paul said there. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, beginning in verse 4. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.

For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now, if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end. Right there, Paul makes it very clear that the Old Covenant, this Mosaic Covenant, was at one point going to become obsolete in terms of the rituals and the sacrifices. Will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory, Paul said? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.

Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all. Now, I think that you understand, Jason, that the Old Covenant has been set aside, that now Paul, as he said there, is a minister of the new covenant, so the question is, why do you see the early disciples at times still participating in some of these Old Testament rituals, going to the synagogues and the temple to pray, those kinds of things? Well, we have to understand that the Old Covenant with this system was dying out, it was fading away. One of the things I would point to is in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 15, you have the Jerusalem council, and it becomes very clear there at that council that people don't need to receive circumcision in order to be a part of the church. That was one of the big controversies in the early church, do converts to Christianity need to be circumcised?

Essentially, do they need to become Jewish in order to join the church? And the disciples decided together in unison, no, that's not the case. Well then, what's so interesting is in the very next chapter, in Acts chapter 16, you know what Paul did? He had Timothy circumcised. Now, why would he do that if the Old Covenant has been set aside? Well, it had to do with his relation to the Jews at that time. It was part of the fact that Timothy was serving as a missionary to Hebrew people, and ultimately it was for their own conscience so that they might receive the word of God. It was sort of this idea of becoming all things to all people, as the Apostle Paul says elsewhere. So when the disciples participated in these rituals, in the life of the synagogue, if you will, the temple, it was always for the purpose of advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ. They weren't saying in those moments, hey, these Old Covenant rites, this system has religious legitimacy in the sense that it's still standing. No, Paul makes it very clear throughout the Scriptures that it was passing away, like that text that I just mentioned there in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. And so at times in the book of Acts, you see the disciples going to the temple at the hour of prayer and that kind of a thing, because what they're doing is they're engaging with the Hebrew people in order to advance the gospel among them.

So I think that there's a principle here, right? It's the principle that Paul mentions, the idea of becoming all things to all people, accommodating ourselves to them ultimately for the hope of advancing the truth of the gospel. Jason, thanks so much for your call. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

And just a reminder, starting on Monday the 18th, you'll be able to call in with your questions at 1.30 p.m. Central, 11.30 a.m. Pacific time. And can I just encourage you, if you listen to Core and you're blessed by the program, I'm really excited about the live interaction we're going to be able to have here beginning on the 18th, but I want to ask for your prayers. Would you pray that the Lord would continue to advance his gospel throughout the world through this program? Would you pray to God, I know I need the grace and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, so would you say a prayer for me as we're answering these questions live on the air? We really want to communicate the truth of God's word in a way that is clear and encouraging for everyone who listens. And so I really, really appreciate your prayers as we move forward in this direction. Also, let your Christian friends know that they can call in starting on the 18th with any questions they have and interact live with Adriel on the air. By the way, if you are a person who just started reading the Bible for the first time, the fact is some Bible reading plans can be really complex and daunting, but never fear, we have just the plan for you.

We do. We created a Bible reading plan that could, one, help someone new to the Bible cultivate a joy for reading the Bible, and two, help someone who may have lost that joy to find it again. I mean, it's so important, right? I don't know where you are in your own Christian life, whether or not Bible reading, daily Bible reading is something that you've worked into your own schedule, but it is so important for us to be in the Word. God speaks through the Scriptures, and the Core Christianity Bible reading plan is a free resource when you sign up for our weekly newsletter.

It'll take you about 10 minutes every day to complete, and it lasts for one year. Through it, you will be introduced to the big narrative and the grand themes of the Bible. This plan won't take you through the entire Bible in a year, but it will help you develop a sustainable habit of reading the Bible for one whole year.

After all, it's better to read a little every day than to read a lot only occasionally. So our prayer is that you will, as we get into this new year, be committed to growing in the Scriptures, and we want to help you with that. So head over to corechristianity.com to find our Bible reading plan.

Again, you can download that at our website anytime, corechristianity.com forward slash reading plan. Adriel, here's an email that came in from one of our listeners named Leah. She says, I just learned in Sunday school class about the illicit sexual conduct that Ravi Zacharias was involved in. It hit me in the gut pretty hard. We've been studying Romans 5 20 that talks about where sin abounds, grace abounds more.

Last night, this played over and over in my mind as I tried to sleep and think about Ravi. How can someone defend the gospel so well as he did and do the things that he did? Does he qualify as a false teacher now? What do I do with this information? I have so many questions and deep disheartening emotions.

Who can I trust now? I know we all fail and none of us are without sin. And I know grace abounds so that forgiveness covers all sin that also abounds.

But how does one keep on sinning at the same time they are defending the gospel? Yeah, Leah, this is absolutely devastating. And I know you're not the only one who has been really troubled when Christian leaders, people who are well known defenders of the faith, pastors, preachers, when they engage in this kind of behavior, it's so devastating because there are sheep who look up to them and whose faith is injured, if you will, by the actions of these Christian leaders. And so it's something that we have to address. And I'm grateful that you asked this question because this isn't the first time that this has happened, and it won't be the last time. And so we need to understand clearly how we as Christians should respond.

The first thing I'll say is this, Leah. We don't ever want to minimize the sinful actions of individuals. I've heard a few people say, oh, you know, well, Ravi was such a great guy, and so many godly men throughout the scriptures have failed and fallen, and yet the Lord still used them mightily as a way of sort of minimizing what took place. And I think that is an absolute tragedy.

It's wrong, frankly. There are victims here, victims of abuse. There are the immediate victims, these people who were abused, and more and more information is coming out now.

And they need to be cared for and sought after. Oftentimes when something like this happens, all of the attention goes on the individual, really the abuser, and not on the people who have been hurt, wounded, who really need the care and the focus of the church in this time. And so we don't want to minimize the sin, the abuse, and we don't want to lose sight of the victims. The other victim here is always the Church of Jesus Christ. Insofar as Christian leaders do this, and they bring great scandal to the bride of Christ and cause those outside of the church to look and to point the finger and to say, see, see, you guys are all hypocrites. It really brings us great shame. And so we can't minimize the sin.

And we have to help the wounded, the victims, those who are hurting. And one of the reasons why so many hurt in situations like this, Leah, is just like you said, how could this be? How could this person who seemed to have this robust faith, I mean, they were so intellectual when they defended the gospel there on college campuses, you know, you've seen those YouTube videos of Ravi Zacharias doing this.

How could he do this? And does that invalidate what he said? Does his life invalidate the message? People begin to question the message because of the messenger. The psalmist says in Psalm 118, it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in men.

And I think we see that over and over and over again. Pastors and ministry leaders are called to have integrity. They're called to be qualified. You think about the qualifications that Paul gives in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter one, and it's coming out more and more that this individual that Ravi Zacharias didn't meet those qualifications. And that's a tragedy. And were he still alive, that would need to be addressed through the courts of the church. But does that mean what he said, the way in which he defended the faith, the truths of the gospel are invalidated?

No, there was actually, Leah, this great controversy in the ancient church known as the Donatist controversy. There were these groups of people that had turned away from the faith, Christian leaders actually, during a time of great persecution. And what that did is it called into question for many, you know, whether or not their ministries were ever legitimate. And it was really a pressing question, especially for those who had been baptized by these Christian leaders, because, you know, people were asking this question, hey, the pastor who baptized me has since abandoned the faith. He's become an apostate. Was my baptism legitimate?

Was this person's ministry legitimate? Well, the sinful actions of individuals, even if they go on to deny the faith or be shown to have engaged in things that were totally heinous and out of line with the truth of the gospel, that doesn't make the gospel less true. It just shows that there was a huge disconnect between the message that they proclaimed and the lives that they lived. That's a horrible thing.

That's a tragic thing. That's something that we need to identify and repent of in our own lives where that's the case. But right now, our focus needs to be on those who are suffering and those who were victims of the abuse.

We need to care for them. The church needs to focus on them, extending love, care, whatever it is that's needed to help bring healing. That's, I think, where Christ calls us, and we need to double down on our focus on the fact that ultimately Jesus is our hope. When we put Christian leaders on a pedestal, when we fix our eyes on them, then things like this happen and our faith can become devastated because our faith was ultimately in the individual and not in the message. The faith needs to be in the Word of God, in the promise of the gospel.

Individuals will fail. That's not a justification. That doesn't make it okay. And as I said, Christian leaders are called to a higher standard, one of integrity, and we should hold them to that standard. But at the end of the day, the gospel stands because it's true, because it's the Word of God, because Jesus actually did die and rise again from the dead, and that's where our hope rests. And so, Leah, we can have, I think, peace even while we mourn. Even while we mourn the sin and the failure, the fall, the abuse that we see at the hands of some so-called Christian leaders, our hope is in Jesus. And so, in Christ, let us go and love those who have been hurt, and let's hold each other accountable.

God bless you, sister. You know, Adriel, I'm so glad we've addressed this controversy on the program, and we know it's tough for a lot of people who are followers of Ravi and all of his apologetics work. I think the other thing this brings up is the importance of accountability, and we have so many Christian leaders and sometimes pastors of big churches that are not really being held accountable for their actions. They're not really answering to anybody. Of course, they're answering to God, ultimately. But from a church perspective, from a Christian organization perspective, can you just comment on why that is so critical? Well, yeah, because when you don't have accountability, stuff like this happens.

And even with accountability, frankly, we need all the help we can get as fallen sinners. And it's a huge red flag when an individual, whether they're a Christian leader or not, you know, just a Christian in the church, but especially for Christian leaders, for ministry leaders, when they won't answer to anyone. That's a problem.

That's a huge problem. You think of even the disciples as they were establishing these churches throughout the New Testament times, they established churches with the plurality of elders. And I think that there's a reason for that, because they recognize that accountability was and is so important for us to have. I mean, think about the question that we had on the front end of this program, Bill, where some ministry leader was saying something like, if you question me, you question God.

Well, that's a lie. And any pastor who puts up that front, who acts like that, that should be a huge red flag for us. We should pursue, long for accountability, because we can say, you know, like the words of that great hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, we can say, Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart. Oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. We know that we are fickle, that we are weak, that we need the grace of God. And that it's only by the grace of God that we stand and that He gives us brothers and sisters to help us be accountable, to grow together in the light, to walk in the light together.

And so, Bill, you're absolutely right, the importance of accountability in situations like this. And so we pray for all of our listeners, for you, that you are in a good church where you have that kind of accountability, where there are people who care for you and watch over your soul, and where they too are being cared for and they are accountable. And ultimately, we're all accountable to the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who is the only one to never fail, to always be pure and holy. We look to Him, we hope in Him. And looking to Jesus, we walk arm in arm as the body of Christ in the light. These kinds of things aren't opportunities for us to grow arrogant or prideful. They're opportunities for us to remember our own frailty. God have mercy upon us and have mercy on those who have been hurt and heal us through the blood of your Son, Jesus Christ. If you liked us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this podcast. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.