How Should the Church Respond to the Josh Duggar Scandal?

How should the church protect its people from sexual predators? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we 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. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts, and you can email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com.

First up today, let's go to a voicemail that we received. Hello, we were talking with a couple from a Catholic background, and they had said that Eve was Adam's second wife, and it was stated in the Talmud. Can you explain this and why we don't recognize the Talmud as Christians? Thank you. Thank you for that question. I don't think that this is traditional Roman Catholic teaching.

I don't know where these friends are getting this idea from. And wild animals shall meet with hyenas. The wild goat shall cry to his fellow.

Indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place. So, yeah, I don't think that that says anything about Adam having another wife. Really, we just have to look at the text of Genesis chapter 2, and I just actually just preached on this last Sunday, so it's fresh on my mind. In Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, it says, I will make him a helper fit for him. And then it says, Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. And so Adam is alone there in the garden.

It's actually really, really interesting. The language that we see in verse 18 of something not being good should be contrasted with what you hear over and over again back in Genesis chapter 1, where God looked at what he made, and he saw, and it was good over and over again, this continual refrain. We're looking at God's good creation. And so by the time you get to chapter 2, verse 18, you're confronted with this tension in the text where man is alone and it's not good.

And so what does God do? He puts Adam into this deep sleep, and he takes from Adam side and he builds a wife, Eve. And Adam says, when he sees Eve, the man said, this at last, verse 23, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And so I think we can rule out this idea that there was another woman that was there with Adam prior to the creation of Eve.

And one of the things that's really being highlighted in this passage is the fact of the matter that loneliness is not a good thing. Where God called mankind to, prior to the fall, was something that Adam could not accomplish on his own. You think of the cultural mandate that was given to him to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth.

Adam couldn't accomplish that by himself. And so God gave him this helper, this equal, and together they served the Lord. And so this is the first marriage, the first relationship, human relationship in scripture. And it really is this beautiful picture of what God, I think, intends for man. Marriages to be, this loving relationship of equals, serving one another. Naked and unashamed, we read in verse 25 of Genesis chapter two. There was this closeness. And so a really wonderful picture, but that's where you want to go.

Genesis chapter two, if you have any questions about Eve, Adam, and the creation of the first couple. What about the hyenas? Have you got questions about the hyenas? Yeah. The zoo?

I can't answer those questions about hyenas, Bill. Maybe there's another passage in Isaiah that this individual was thinking about. We can have a discussion about that another time.

But yeah, there doesn't seem to be anything in the text of scripture that suggests to us that Adam had a wife prior to Eve. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to go back to verse 25 of Genesis chapter two, verse 26, 73.

Let's go to Elias in Hampstead, New York. Elias, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Thank you, Dr. Meyer.

Thank you, Pastor Sanchez. In the New Testament, Jesus says, love your enemies. In the Old Testament, God says he hates the wicked. Does God also love the wicked? Did God hate us before we were saved when we're still wicked? Or did he always love us? Hey, Elias, that's an excellent question.

And you're picking up on something. You go to the Psalms, for example, in the Old Testament. Psalm chapter five, verse four says, for you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you.

The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. Sometimes we talk about God loving the sinner and hating the sin.

I think that that's actually not a bad way of putting it. But then you also have passages like this where it seems to say that God hates evildoers. Well, then we compare that to what we read in other places, like John chapter 3 16, for God so loved the world.

And who is the world there? It's not people that were following the Lord. It's the world of sinners. It's people who rejected God and rejected the truth. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And so you have this sort of tension in the text of scripture.

And there was this medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas, I like the way he sort of parsed out this problem. He said, look, God loves and hates the sinner at the same time in one sense. Insofar as sinners have existence from God, he made us. And everything that God makes is good.

He made his creation good. We were just talking about that back in Genesis chapter one. Well, insofar as that's the case, God loves us. But insofar as we have sinned and have fallen away from existence, in that sense, sinners are the objects of God's judgment, the objects of God's wrath. And yet even with that, we have the continual reminder in scripture that God pursued us even while we were still his enemies, while we were despised and worthy of divine judgment. I think of a passage like Romans chapter 5, where the apostle Paul talks about God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It was the love of God for sinners that caused him to send his son into the world so that we might be redeemed, so that we might have a relationship with the true and the living God. And I think that this is really important because a lot of times we struggle with sin, we struggle with our past, remembering where we were prior to the Lord bringing us to himself, and we think, man, how could God ever love me?

I just don't feel worthy of his love. And the fact of the matter is, friends, none of us were ever worthy of the love of God, and yet he showered it upon us in his son, Jesus. He loves us, even though we've sinned, and the proof of that is Jesus his son. Thank you for that question, Elias, a really good question. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. By the way, if you've been helped by an answer that you heard on Core Christianity and you want to share a previous episode with a friend or family member, you can send them a video of our episodes from our YouTube channel, and be sure to click on the subscribe button while you're there so you can follow along for extra videos from Core Christianity. Let's go to Carolyn from Memphis, Tennessee.

Carolyn, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? I've been reading in Genesis about Noah and the ark and all the animals that went into the ark, and I noticed that it does not mention any of the water animals, and I wonder if there's a place or if you have information about that. I just was wondering, like, you know, dolphins and sharks and all of those animals. Yeah.

Hey, Carolyn. Well, yeah, there's no, it doesn't seem like there's any big pool on the ark that God commanded Noah to build. I think the assumption is that those animals remained in the waters, that they were not destroyed, and so it's all the land animals that are brought onto the ark and rescued, essentially, and this was really an act of God's providence and power. I mean, God is the one who's orchestrating all of this, and we read about, you know, Noah's flood in Genesis chapter 6 and chapter 7, and so that's what I'd say.

I think that essentially what most people believe, what most scholars, biblical scholars would say is, no, those sea animals, those sea creatures were not brought onto the ark. Thank you for your question. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and we would love to hear from you. If you want to call us live and talk to Pastor Adriel in the studio, here's the number. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. By the way, you can also leave us a voicemail anytime, 24 hours a day, on those phone numbers, and here's a voicemail we received from one of our listeners in Pennsylvania. Hello, Pastor.

I'm calling from Pennsylvania, and I was just wondering why a lot of people think that by doing good works they're saved, and I also want to know why a lot of people think that by being baptized in a church or, say, in the sinner's prayer, are saved. Can you answer that for me? I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because even though we talk about the fact that salvation is by grace through faith, there's nothing that we can do to save ourselves. It's a gift from God, the gift of salvation. Oftentimes we do slip back into this sort of mentality, living as if we have to earn our salvation before the Lord, and so we're sort of caught on the hamster wheel, trying to do these good works, feeling like, okay, if I do enough, I have God's favor, and when I fail, maybe I've fallen out of God's favor, maybe I've even lost my salvation. Even though we emphasize the grace of God over and over again, it's really easy for us to have this mindset, and I think part of the reason is because we live in a world where the idea is if you do good, you'll be rewarded, and if you don't do good, you're not going to be rewarded, and you don't get anything free of charge. Nothing is free, and so it's really hard, I think, for us to really lay hold of the free grace of God, especially when we realize that we don't deserve it, and so we find things to do, and sometimes it's as simple as saying a prayer.

You know, just give me the formula. What do I have to do in order to be saved? Okay, I've got to say these words. Okay, I'll pray that prayer, and maybe, you know, did it work?

Did it stick? Or, you know, maybe it's more than that. I've got to keep these rules, these commandments, these laws, and that's why we have to distinguish between the law and the gospel. The law is a good thing. We see it everywhere in the scriptures. It's what God calls us to do. Ultimately, it's summarized in this. Love God perfectly, and love your neighbor as yourself, but the fact of the matter is is no one is saved by doing that.

We can't do that. We've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. We need grace, and that's where the gospel comes in.

The gospel is for sinners, and even as those who have received grace, who have confessed our sins to the Lord and experienced his mercy, his love, as I said, we just sort of, our natural inclination is to believe in salvation by works, and so we really need to set that aside. In a couple of places in the Bible where I think you can go that will help clear this up for you are the book of Galatians. You know, Galatians was a New Testament letter that was written by the apostle Paul to a church, to a group of Christians who were really struggling with this very question, who were wanting to go back to the law and to these, you know, religious rituals in order to be right with God, in order to be justified, and Paul in the book of Galatians says, look, don't do that. Galatians chapter 3 verse 10, for all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith. And what is faith?

It's an empty hand. It's receiving that gift of salvation, laying hold of Jesus. We're not saved by what we do. We're saved by Christ Himself and He saves us by faith.

And again, that's hard for us to grasp because we're just wired to think that it's by works and so we humble ourselves before the Lord and we receive that gift of salvation. Thank you for your question. By the way, we have a core question on this topic. It's called why do you talk about the difference between law and gospel? You can find that by going to core christianity.com forward slash questions.

Just look for that question on law and the gospel. Well, if you are new to core Christianity, we have something really special we would love to send you. It's our free core kit.

Absolutely, Bill. The core kit offers listeners who are wondering what core Christianity is all about, a really helpful sort of compilation of some of our best resources, jam packed with items like our DVD, finding yourself in God's story answers to the top three questions we get asked on this broadcast, a printed copy of our most read article at core christianity.com, our Bible reading plan, and a bunch of other really helpful resources for you. So get a hold of this core kit.

As I said, it's a collection of all the best stuff that we have to offer. And to receive the core kit, all you have to do is go to core christianity.com forward slash kit and sign up. You can also call us for that resource or any one of our resources at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to a voicemail question that we received from one of our listeners named Karen. I want to know how do Christians lead co-workers and family members to Christ?

Thank you. Yeah, well what an excellent question. I know a family, it can be difficult because your family knows you better than anybody else. You think about what Jesus said in the Gospels, you know, a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown, his own household, and I think that that's true. You know, when Jesus went back to his hometown, to Nazareth, to share the Gospel, to preach the good news, we're told that not many people there believed in him. They had this sort of, this understanding of Jesus that wasn't entirely accurate. They viewed him as just the, you know, the hometown kid, the carpenter's son, you know, Mary's son, that kind of a thing.

And so they were caused to stumble when he began to proclaim the truth of the Gospel, the truth of forgiveness of sins. And I think sometimes when we're talking to family members, that can happen as well because, you know, it's like who do you think you are? I know. I know. I know all your dirt.

I'm your family member. How are you going to talk to me about forgiveness and grace and all of those things? And so I think we have to be sensitive to that. And we also have to recognize that ultimately it's the Spirit of God that leads people into the truth.

We can't force someone into the faith. What we do is we ought to live lives that are in line with what we believe, you know, so we don't want to contradict the truth of God's Word by how we live and how we treat one another. And then we share those truths with the people that we love, the truth of the Gospel. And it's there as we share the truth of the Gospel with the people that we love that the Spirit of God is at work opening the hearts of our family members, of our friends, opening their eyes. I think of, you know, what Luke recorded in Acts 16 about Lydia. This seems like a single mother. She was really doing well for herself.

She had this business selling purple fabrics. And as the disciples were preaching, the Holy Spirit, the Lord opened her heart to receive the things that were being said by the disciples. And so pray for your family. Pray that the Spirit of God would do that in your family members and share the truth of Jesus, of the Gospel with them. We just talked about the difference between law and Gospel.

So many people are confused about this. They think Christianity is about what you do and being a good person. Well, we get to share the good news. Christianity is actually better than that. It's not about what you do. It's not about you being a good person.

There are implications to the Gospel, but that's not the Gospel. The good news of the Christian faith is that none of us are good. We failed. We've fallen short of God's glory. We could be honest about that.

And you know what? God welcomes us into his family through faith in his Son. He washes away our sins, not on the basis of what you do, of works done in righteousness, but because of what he's done. That's good news. So you share that message with your family members, and you pray that the Spirit of God works in and through that message. Amen. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

Here's an email we received from one of our listeners. They say, with the recent news regarding the arrest of Josh Duggar, I do not understand how and why churches are able to have these kinds of predators in their midst. Why do these kinds of stories and scandals keep coming out?

Shouldn't churches be difficult places for these kinds of figures to hide instead of easy ones? Such an important question, and I mean, I saw this information that came out all over the news about Josh Duggar as well. For those who are not familiar, you know, the Duggars are this family, this Christian family that had a television, a reality TV show program about their lives.

It was a wholesome Christian television show, I guess you could say. The oldest son in this family, the Duggar family, came out that he had abused some of his family members and that he had cheated on his spouse and a number of other things. So there were all these problems that were beginning to surface.

Most recently, it just came out that he had essentially these horrible things on his computer, images, videos depicting the sexual assault of children, of young children, so absolutely horrifying. And the question is, how can this happen in Christian families, in Christian communities? How come it seems like predators are in our churches?

Shouldn't it be more difficult for them to be there than in other places? I mean, this is the Church of the Living God, and I think that there are a few reasons for this. One, churches tend to be communities of trust. We want to show charity to one another, goodwill to one another, and predators, they know that.

They take advantage of the trust and can manipulate. I mean, Jesus talked about wolves in the church, and that's precisely what we have here. One of the things that you see in situations like this with this entire conflict with the Duggar family is that oftentimes, I think we sort of assume that abusers are people that we can really easily spot.

It's the person off the street who just sort of looks funny and doesn't have any teeth and we know, you know, just kind of creeps people out. No, a lot of the research what it's showing is that typically in cases of abuse, even within the church, it's individuals who you never would have expected. It's people who are close to us, people who are even involved in positions of leadership in the church. And so if we don't have safety protocol as congregations, this kind of thing will happen and will continue to happen. It's really important for us as Christian leaders that we are talking about the reality of abuse in the world today and even in the church as well. I think the statistics are something like one in five girls are the victims of sexual abuse and something like one in 15 or 20 boys.

And probably the numbers are a lot higher than that because there's a lot of times where people don't report the abuse because of fear or because of shame. And so it's really important for us as church leaders to talk about this, to have transparency, and to build structures into our church that help to train people to be able to identify, especially our leaders and volunteers in places like Sunday school and nursery, to be able to identify the markers of abuse. And one really helpful resource on this is an organization called GRACE. GRACE stands for Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment and they have a website netgrace.org that I frequently recommend. GRACE helped our church to create a child safety policy to begin having a discussion about this and did some training for us just talking about the reality of abuse and how important it is for us as churches to take this seriously. And until we do, sadly, these kinds of things are going to continue to happen. And so we have to be wise as serpents, as Jesus said, and harmless as doves. And if you, I mean, I realize even when I talk about this at church, when talking about it here now on this broadcast, if you're listening and you've been the victim of abuse and you haven't spoken about it, you haven't been able to talk about it, getting the help that you need, professional help, the care that you need, I think is really, really important.

And check out that resource website that I mentioned netgrace.org. There's a lot of things there for abuse survivors, even just in terms of navigating some of the more difficult questions related to faith and abuse. And so really a tragic story with the Duggar family, but we have to, just a warning for us, but we really have to take this seriously. And in the past, the church hasn't always done that. You know, Adriel, I've been involved in children's ministry for several years, and one of the keys is really to train your people. And I'm sure your church safety program stresses that as well. Everybody needs to understand what the signs are and how to screen people and really what to watch for. And if you don't train your staff, they don't know and bad things can happen.

Yeah, you're absolutely right, Bill. That's one of the steps you have to take. There's training, there needs to be transparency. There has to be an open discussion about the fact that, hey, this is something we talk about, something we're aware of. We're screening people who are volunteers in our church, doing background checks, that kind of a thing. Those are things I think that help to keep abusers away because they want to be in places where those questions, those difficult questions aren't going to be asked. And the reason we do it is because we want to protect the church. This is the bride of Jesus who he loves, and so we guard her. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.