Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network.

Today's date is April 16th, 2024 for the podcasters and if you want you can give me a call 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you, give me a call. You can also, if you are interested, you can email me at info at karm.org.

info at karm.org and just put in the subject line, put in karm question or, I mean radio question or radio comment and we can get into it and answer them. We only have, we're down to 101 in there, that's good, so that's manageable. We have someone who kind of oversees it and helps others come to answer the questions and stuff like that. We have a lot of good stuff going on there, so we need help in my other emails, email accounts, which are like over a thousand emails. I have like a few emails, let's just say. All right, all right, I want to hear from you. Hey, I got a question. Did I talk, Charlie, did I talk about the debate I had on Friday or Thursday night?

I already did, didn't I? I did it on Friday, how bad it was, I'm trying to remember because I got so many things going on and that's right what I did. It was with a Muslim and it was really bad. He wasn't able to argue cogently and that's just not me saying it, but he really couldn't. And then last night I had a discussion in a chat room online on Reformed theology and then tried to have some more this morning. What my concern is that Christians not attack one another inside the Christian faith and cause division in the body of Christ. That's what I'm concerned about, so I was discussing that. And so, yeah, I did talk about it, thank you, I did talk about the debate.

Yeah, there's a lot going on. And also, I'm working on some articles on Islam and I've got them scheduled for like a week from now to be released on CARM because I've got these articles that I'm working on trying to get ahead by a week or two so that if something happens, I don't have to worry about articles being released and they're going to be released every other day. And so I worked on an article on Islam, finished it yesterday, but it's going to be released in about a week or so. And it's on the reliability of the Quran and I discovered something that a lot of people have known about but I didn't know about. It was on a manuscript found in Yemen in 1972 and it's a Quranic text and it's different than a regular Quran in several places, which casts doubt on the claim that it's without variation, it's perfect, and all this kind of stuff. So after that, I'm now working on another article and it's titled, Is the Quran Really from God?

And what I'm doing in that is talking about several things. The I am of the Old Testament is not mentioned in the Quran. The Quran contradicts the Bible. Allah is a deceiver in the Quran. I'm going to show that. Contradictions in the Quran, scientific mistakes in the Quran, historical mistakes in the Quran. These are just some of the things I'm working on on this one article that will have a lot of this just put together so people can go to one article and they can just grab that information.

I'll also transfer the basics of it to the cut and paste section on Islam for people to have quick and slick info. That's what I want to be able to do. All right, all right, let's get to Christopher from Raleigh, North Carolina. Christopher, welcome. Hey, Matt, thanks for taking my call.

Always love calling and talking with you, getting some wisdom. My question this time is about women in leadership and I don't agree with it to some degree. Let me explain what I mean. So what I'm wrestling with is I love the church that they, I don't even know if they sanctioned or had women become deacons. And in Timothy, I think it's 1 Timothy 2, talks about qualifications for elders and also for deacons. That church that I went to don't believe in women elders, but they believe in women deacons.

And I've had extensive conversations with one of the elders. He was like the Bible teacher guy. But when I asked him and when I asked him, I was like, well, hey, like, how is it that like the Bible says this about women, you know, like deacons and stuff, and then he pointed to Phoebe in the word for servant as deacon, which I kind of want to ask about that, too. But then I said, OK, well, I understand he gave me this whole thing like Deborah, he used Deborah and then Miriam and all that, like all the other egalitarians use those scriptures. But my thing, my question to him was like, OK, I understand that, but why did Paul write this?

Like, why? And he couldn't answer the question. Yeah, because his theology is incorrect. It's insufficient. He doesn't understand the main issues there.

That's why he couldn't do it. Yeah. And I and I listened to something I forget where it was. Maybe it was on, I don't know.

But no, it was a video. And in the video, the person was pointing out how like people will use like how Paul was like talking about women who are uneducated or Artemis or whoever the deity was in Ephesus. But it's like nowhere in the Bible mentioned that. And I thought about this, too, Matt, that if it goes off with education, that's that's a pretty strong argument because Peter and John were whipped and they were perceived as uneducated men. But they were, you know, like, oh, they had let's let's let's let's back up. Let's back up and talk about a few things that you've mentioned.

Could have gone to a lot of stuff. And when someone brings up Deborah in the Old Testament, just say to them, is that an elder in the New Testament? No.

So it doesn't apply in the New Testament, does it? Is she a deacon? No. She an elder? No.

This is an Old Testament covenant thing where Israel had blown it heavily and Deborah was raised up by God as a type of judgment upon them because the men weren't doing their job. Does that apply to the Christian church today as elders and deacons? The answer is no, it doesn't.

So it doesn't apply. Phoebe, that's Romans 16 one. Phoebe is called a servant. All right.

All right. Well, the word servant occurs twenty nine times in the New Testament. The word the Greek word diakonos. And so in John two five, Mary said to the servants, whatever he says, do it. Were they deacons of the church?

Well, no. How about second Corinthians three six? He has also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant. Are we deacons now of a new covenant?

No. So what he did, he committed a fallacy called illegitimate totality transfer. What that means is a single word has a range of meaning in different contexts.

And he took the context of one place and put it over towards another. Well, Phoebe was a deacon. So therefore you could be deacon. Well, it doesn't say that she was a deacon in the church. It says she was a servant of the church. And you can have different servants in different ways.

And so you can't say that she was in the context of that office. Furthermore, when you go to First Timothy three, particularly verse 15, he says, Paul says, in case I'm delayed, I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. So he's giving specific instructions on the house of God, the Christian church, and how to behave.

So in First Timothy three, he talked about the overseer, the episcopas, who is not to be, you know, addicted to wine and argumentative and all that kind of stuff, but he should know his stuff, etc. And he says, the overseer is to be a man of one woman, a husband of one wife. And so in First Timothy three, 12, it says deacons must be husbands of only one wife. So I would ask him, the deacon here is a church office, right? You say yes. The deacon here in a church office has to be a husband of only one wife.

How does a woman fulfill that? At this point, you'll be absolutely stuck. And what it then comes down to is believing God's word or believing what he wants to believe, and then make God's word fit it. That's what it comes down to.

Yeah. Yeah, I no longer go to that church. That was one of the reasons I left. But I go to this other church that has women deacons. And honestly, if I knew they had women deacons, I would not go to it. And I'm very struggling with it, because I do believe that I'm there, and I'm receiving some healing from that church, which is kind of like, it's hard. It's hard, because it's like, okay, they're not, I think they have been swept away by modern day church culture, which I think has some mixture with Jezebel, to be honest. I'm just going to say it plainly, I think that, I think that Satan wants to use women to, and he's been doing it since the garden, to dismantle what God's, you know, ways are. And I'm honestly, and I brought up the deacon thing to my wife, and she didn't say it, but I can just tell by her tone, she was kind of upset, and something welled up inside her, because her old church had a woman pastor. I was like, no, that's not biblical. Your job, your job as the man of the family, as the federal head, is to lead your wife biblically, kindly, patiently, and you just say to her, this is what the scriptures teach, and you have her read it, you read it with her, say, is this what it teaches? Yes. Ought we then follow it?

That's the question. What a lot of people want to do is say, no, I don't want to follow God's word. And if that's the case, and she won't admit to following the word of God, then you just politely say something to the effect of, well, this is what it says, and that's what we need to do.

We need to follow what it says. And just leave it at that. And let her think about it. Let the Holy Spirit work on her. And if it comes up again, again, go to the scriptures. And, you know, it takes a while, all right? And I remember my wife, she became Reformed in her theology, but I never pushed it on her.

Never. After many years of marriage, I asked her, maybe 15 or 20 years of marriage, I said, are you Reformed in your theology? She says, oh, yeah. I said, you are? Really, she says, yeah. I said, I didn't know that. Because, you know, it wasn't an issue, because I just set the example, and in Bible studies and radio, she learned. I mean, you know, I'm saying, hey, for me, I'm always right, but it's just that kind of a thing. Okay? So… I have one more question, if that's… Oh, sorry, sorry.

Go ahead. I just have one more question, and I'll be done, because I don't… All right, so, about the scripture where it talks about women be silent, and then Paul talks about, you know, in other places, about women can prophesy and pray and stuff. How do you… because I know it doesn't… the scriptures do not contradict… How do you… what's the question? How do you… Yeah, how do you decipher between those two? It's like Paul is saying… How do you harmonize it?

In one place, hey, yes, exactly. Yes, okay. All right. It says in 1 Timothy 2, 12, I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet, for Adam was first created. The word quiet there in the Greek is hasoukia, and it means to keep it down. You can be even more quiet. Sagao means absolute silence, not a peep, nothing.

So you can't become more sagao, but you can become more hasoukia. And it's just differentiations of the idea of silence. So we could say, there to remain quiet, it doesn't say silent without speech. So that's what's going on there. And so, I forget what the other part of the question was, there's the break. So hold on, man, okay, and we'll get back to your question after the break. All right, hold on. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. Welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Christopher. Are you still there, buddy?

I'm here. All right, so you asked about that, silence and prophecy. The context of a woman in the issue of not teaching, it has to do with authority in the church. It doesn't mean she can't utter prophetic words, words of knowledge or interpretation of words and things like that. So women can certainly be used in the church.

But the issue of the charismatic gift, which is for both male and female, for all of the church members, as God would give, is different from the pastoral epistles about the offices in the church which women are not to be in. Okay? Yeah, that totally makes sense. All right, Matt, well, I appreciate it. Okay. You're welcome, buddy. All right. God bless you. You too, God bless.

All right, well, that was Christopher from Raleigh, North Carolina. We have nobody waiting right now, and I know that the topic I bring up sometimes or is brought up about the issue of women past pastors and elders. You know, I'll continue to say it, and the reason I say it is because that's what the Bible says. The Bible says that the elders are to be the husband and one wife, and a woman cannot fill that role. And likewise, a deacon must be a husband and one wife.

A woman cannot fill that. So that's what Paul the Apostle is teaching. And he's the apostle, so we need to follow it. And instead of holding up your finger and saying, which way is the doctrinal wind blowing, which way is the woke culture going, and I'll bow the knee to what culture says, and that's why we want women as pastors and elders because I like them, and they feel good, and all of that kind of stuff. Instead of bowing to idolatrous positions and ideologies like that, I would suggest that people actually just read the Bible and believe what it says.

God communicated it to us. There's reasons for male headship in the churches, and we could discuss some of those if people have questions about them. But it largely has to do with federal headship and representation. It's not to say that women are inferior. It's just that they're not called to that position. Can they be helpful in the church? Of course. Can they assist deacons?

Of course. Can they be pastors? No. Can they be elders? No. Can they be deacons? No.

Why? Because the Bible says that the pastor, elder, deacons, that they are the ones who are to be men of one woman. And that's what it says. And you can argue with the Word of God. And then what a lot of people do is they say, well, Phoebe, well, look at Deborah. And what they try and do is set Scripture against Scripture without realizing it. So what they're doing is understanding what the Scripture says and then trying to find a different verse to fit what they want it to say.

And it's a mistake. And then when I ask them, can you harmonize both? I do this regularly when I have disagreements with people and stuff like this comes up.

I say, can you harmonize them? And they can't. And they can't. It's really interesting that they're not able to do it, and they refuse to do it. And I don't mean refuse as in they're recalcitrant. I mean refuse as in they just drop the topic and ignore it. And I ask it again, and they don't want to do it.

They refuse to deal with it. And I think it's because they see the problem in their position, but they don't care what the Scriptures teach. They care what they teach, and it must be over the Scriptures, which is commonly held for the idea of free will is another one that, for example, many people will have their own views above Scripture.

And it's really a problem. And so free will is one of them. Women pastors and elders is another. Let's see, what's the other ones? I want to think about this. I want to think about this.

If you've got some suggestions, give me a call. Because it might be worth writing an article on some of the problems generically with some of the theological perspectives that are rampant in the Christian church today. The exaltation of free will, the exaltation in violation of pastoral offices. Anyway, okay, let's get to Ryan from Pennsylvania. Ryan, welcome. You're on the air.

Hello, thank you for taking my call. I have a question about Romans chapter 10 verses 17 through 20. Okay. It comes by hearing and hearing the word of God, right? And how can they believe they haven't heard, et cetera, and it quotes the Old Testament.

Yep. Last Friday I told you this exact thing, that faith comes by sense perception, which is hearing. And you said it was heresy. And here you are going against the very teaching of this passage.

And you owe me an apology because you were wrong and you need to correct yourself. Let me ask you, does God grant that we have faith? Of course. And how is it gained by simply hearing? Is the hearing the cause of our faith? Well, are you going to abandon exegesis of this passage or not? If you're going to abandon exegesis of Jesus, you're going to make it say something that it doesn't say.

How do you know you haven't made it say something that it doesn't say? Okay, it says, so faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Okay, you're going to tell me that according to this passage, that hearing has no bearing on our faith?

No, I didn't say that. What about someone who can't hear? What about someone who can't hear?

Can they have faith then? They have sign language. They have other ways of communicating.

They have a sense of God's presence in the universe. There's all sorts of things. So reading, for example, signing is another example.

Or having letters put on your palm of your hand. So this is not the means. It's just a generic statement that the preaching and teaching of the word with that is faith. That you believe because of that. The word of Christ, right?

That God has to grant that we have. And you called it heresy. No, I don't. And you called it heresy. The context is that, I believe if I remember correctly, is you saying that it has a self-generative quality to it. That is not what I said at all. That is not what I said at all. I did not say it had a self-generating quality at all. I said that our knowledge of God begins with sense perception.

And this is exactly what it teaches here. No, it doesn't say that our knowledge of God begins with sense perception. So what do you think it means when it says faith comes from hearing? You said the knowledge of God and this says faith.

But faith is granted to us from God. Concomitant with the hearing. Normally speaking with the hearing of the word. So how do you harmonize them? Matt, you know very well, just as I do, that people use harmonization as an excuse to get away from what the scripture clearly teaches.

You do it all the time with John 1 29, with John 3 16 and 17, 1 John 2 2, and a variety of other passages. You use it to get away from what it clearly teaches and that is what you're trying to do right here. So now you're assigning ill motives to me.

I'm trying to do something. No, what I'm trying to do is harmonize God's word. Faith comes by hearing. We need to believe it. We need to preach that word. We need to teach that word of God to people. And with it, not because of preaching. My preaching doesn't generate faith in them.

I didn't say it does, and this doesn't say it does. Good. And so we know that God generates the faith in us, right? Right? That's what it is.

Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of God. We've got a break. I'm going to ask you what that means exactly, more specific. Come on. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show.

Let's get back on with Ryan. Are you still there? Yes, I am. Thank you for letting me hang out.

Sure. So I definitely affirm that faith comes by hearing the word of God. It is what we would call the normative means by which God calls his people in to believe of the gospel. It's the preaching, the teaching of that word of Christ. And when that occurs, God grants that we have faith. Philippians 1.29, and that faith is in Christ. John 6.29.

Because we can't come to Christ. What I asserted does not contradict that line at all. Okay, good. Then we agree. Well, then what I said by saying that our knowledge of God begins with sense perceptions is not heresy, because it's right here.

And we agree. No, it doesn't. Look, you just made a mistake. You said our knowledge of God begins with senses. Then you went to Romans 10.17.

That's not what it says there. It says faith comes by the preacher of the hearing of the word of God. It doesn't say knowledge begins with there. Well, last week, when we were talking about this, you brought up faith. And you said, how does faith come about from sense perceptions? And here it's telling you how faith comes about. That was the accusation. You threw it at me, Matt, and you were wrong. No, I'm correct.

No, you're not. You have to understand that knowledge of God is inherent within us. It's not done by senses. We can certainly add to the knowledge of God by our senses, the reading of the word, hearing of it, preaching, things like that.

That's not a problem. But that's not the beginning of it or the source of it. The source of it is God, who has written the law on our hearts. Well, if you haven't noticed, on our hearts, we are part physical beings. And if you haven't noticed, we have as physical beings, we have sense perceptions. And again, I challenge you, name one thing we know that does not begin with sense perceptions. I'm not an empiricist in the thorough sense of saying that everything we know comes from sense perceptions.

That part of empiricism has failed, and it failed abundantly. But I'm saying that we read the word, we hear the word, we hear the testimonies of fellow believers, on and on and on. This is where faith begins. Just like this says, faith comes from hearing. And it's abundantly clear. And I think that all of our knowledge begins with sense perceptions. I think it's abundantly clear. So when it says that the work of the law, in Romans 2.15, when it says the work of the law is written on the hearts, is that gained by senses?

Of course. So if it's written on their hearts, that means their soul, their spirit, did they gain that knowledge of the law by the senses, or did God make it part of them in their creation? Part of what we do as Christians is we do things like theologize. We do things like we put together our theologies in such a way to where we have a common understanding of an expression of our faith. For instance, we believe in the historical resurrection of Christ. We believe in the Trinity. We believe in atonement.

We believe in virgin birth. And by the way, all of these things have to do with sense perceptions. And so when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, that is sense perception.

Why we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That is sense perceptions. You know, it begins, all of those things begin with sense perceptions.

And our knowledge of those things begin with, huh? You are an empiricist, hardcore. No, I'm not an empiricist.

Yes, you are. Well, again, I say that's where it begins, but I'm not a thoroughgoing empiricist in saying that that's where, that all of the things we learn comes from the empirical. Because we conjecture from the empirical. We conclude from the empirical. We extrapolate from the empirical.

We use logic to extract from empirical. Yeah, it's the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are applicable to things that can be experienced. Okay, that's one of the views of it. That's from Britannica.com, from Philosophical Basics. It says this, the role of experience is emphasized, especially experience based on perceptual observations of other five senses in the formation of ideas.

And that's what I'm saying is that's where it begins. I'm not saying that everything we know is from that. That's why I'm not a thoroughgoing empiricist. It's also a view of existentialism, which I'm also an existentialist. Okay, so the problem with empiricism is that it presupposes your senses are accurate and it demonstrates, yes it does, you have to presuppose the accuracy of your senses in order to use it as a system by which you then gain knowledge. You presuppose, which means, hold on, which means that you have to use your rationalization to verify empiricism, which means you're leaving empiricism in order to verify empiricism, which means it's self-refuting. No, it's not. First of all, I never said that you do not have to assume that it's accurate.

I gave you the example of last week. I look out and I see water on a road. Somebody else goes and checks and says, no, that's a mirage. We can be deceived all the time by our senses. I don't have to assume that my senses are accurate because we are deceived by our senses all the time with optical illusions, with audio illusions.

There's things that we have no access to because of our limitations of our hearing. All of these things does not assume the accuracy of our senses at all. And that's why we try to verify things with other testing, like in science.

Rather than doing one test and drawing a conclusion from it, we do many tests to show whether or not there's been any bias involved in the testing. This is a part of the empirical idea. It does not assume that our senses are accurate.

I know all that stuff. But science is a philosophy. It's a philosophical approach. It's not based on empiricism. It's based on philosophy.

And then we can talk about that, too. So, look, God grants that we have faith, and he grants it to us because it's his work upon us, and the law is written on our hearts. This has not become written on our hearts by what we see. It's because of what we are made in the image of God. I think you need to work on your theology some more.

Well, here's what you need to do. Now, again, what I said last week, and what I'm saying today, is not heresy. And you know it because you just agreed with me. Faith comes from hearing, and how is it heretical?

No, no, no. I don't remember exactly what it was you said in the context of what you said without revealing it exactly. It's hard to respond to something that you're just condensing in a different context at a different time. But since you brought up Romans 10.17, faith comes by hearing. Of course it comes by hearing, but not only by hearing. But what does it mean when it comes by hearing? It means that God grants that you have faith. That is something that occurs. So when you are sensory aware, great. I don't have any problem with being sensory aware. And as Thomas in John 20.25-28, put your finger in my hand.

Put your hand in my side. Now believe. There was definitely a relationship between the evidence and perception and everything else. However, the law of God is written on our hearts. That's not gained by that initial work of God. It's not gained by our senses. Nor is regeneration gained by our senses. Regeneration is the work of God upon us. You are putting words in my mouth. I never said it was gained by the perception.

Just as coming to Christ is granted to us by God. And you kind of relate all those to the same kind of knowledge as you try and push everything under the empiricist rug. And it just doesn't fit because the rug becomes lumpy. You're going to trip over it.

It doesn't work. We need to get going. You are misrepresenting what I said, Matt. We're going to move along. Okay, I'm not misrepresenting.

So Mark from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air. Did I hit the button? I don't think I hit the button. I thought I did.

Let me try again. There we go. Okay.

Anyway, something very vanilla, I guess. I'm studying Revelation 10. I'm studying about this angel who comes down from heaven.

Okay. And what about it? I'm trying to figure out the identity of this angel. Is this just another angel or is this Jesus?

He sure has a lot of the qualities of Jesus. Well, it says in Revelation 10, verse 5, Then the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things in it, and the earth and the things in it, the sea and the things in it, and there will be delay no longer. So it seems to be that that angel is a created being because it's referencing God. And so I wouldn't say that it is the son who is represented as an angel because Jesus is the one who created everything, the pre-incarnate Christ, the Word, and that's in Colossians 1, 15 through 17.

Okay? Well, let me ask you this. In Hebrews, God swears by himself because there's no other name higher to swear by. It could not be just another instance. That's a different context. Over in Hebrews, he's talking about vows and word and speech and the authority. There's no one greater than God, so he swears by himself because there's nothing better.

That's a different context than an angel in a vision standing with one foot on the water, one foot on the land, who then swears by the one who is the Creator. That's different. Okay.

You want to hold on? We've got a break. Yeah, I agree. All right. Sorry about that.

We've got a break. We've got a lot of callers coming in, so I'm trying to move along. Hey, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. As soon as the producer reactivates the first caller there, or next caller, we'll get back on with him. We'll give it a few seconds here.

Maybe he's away from that. I think something happened. If not, I'll give it a little bit of time, and then we'll go to Alberto. Alberto, welcome, buddy. You're on the air, man.

Yes, Matt. Can you tell me what's the difference between reform and Calvinism and if you're either one of those? Also, I heard of reform.

They're kind of anti-Israel. Well, reformed has a couple of meanings. The reformation includes Lutheranism, Calvinism, Wesleyanism, and things like that, derivative out of what was begun in Germany. So in that broad sense, the word reformed can mean that. But it's also come to be known as more of a presbyterian kind of theological perspective that includes Calvinism. And so with it, there are some Calvinists, for example, who hold to infant baptism, not for salvation, but as a covenant sign. And I think it's the case that most reformed do, but not all Calvinists do in things like that.

So reformed, from what I understand, seems to be a broader, generalized, inclusive group that includes Calvinism, but not all Calvinists hold to all the reformed stuff. So that's what I understand. I don't know if I can give you much more than that. That's what I've been gathering. It's a tough one.

It's a good question. So are you either one of those Calvinists or reformed? Well, yeah, I'm definitely a five-point Calvinist.

I believe in the five points. But I also am reformed in that I believe in the Reformation. And I believe that all Protestants are reformed in that sense. But generally, reformed theology adheres to the five points, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints. But within that corpus of beliefs are other things as well.

And so that's generally what I understand it to be, the difference. Okay? So is it true that reformed are anti-Israel?

No, no. They don't believe that anti-Israel? No, I wouldn't say that if you're reformed, you're against Israel. That's like saying if you're Protestant, you're against Israel. No, I wouldn't say that.

There might be those within the reformed camp who are and those who aren't. Okay? Okay. Okay. Just a quick question. I know I asked you already.

I don't see the callers. Sure. But what was that question was?

It went through my mind just now. Is Vodibhaka and Paul Washer, what are they? They're reformed? Vodibhaka is reformed.

Paul Washer is reformed also, yes. Okay. All right. Yeah. All right. I don't know. Okay.

I don't want to know what you call the callers. All right. Okay. You're welcome, brother. God bless. Okay.

All right. Let's get to Ebeneezer from California. Ebeneezer, welcome. You are on the air. Hey, how are you, Matt? Can you hear me? Yes, I can.

Yes, I can. So what do you got, buddy? Yeah. I go to a church here in Anaheim.

Makes you live in Anaheim. Yeah. They have a woman, what do you call the DNF, do you think? Yeah. Yeah.

And so I first thought it was an elder. I talked to Pastor about it and he brought up what the last guy called, he talked about Phoebe. Yes. Then what he's doing is setting scripture against scripture. Yes, what he's doing. Okay.

What do you mean by that? Well, what I'll do with people sometimes, and I'll say, well, for example, a pastor is supposed to be the husband of one wife and a woman cannot be a pastor, cannot be an elder. Well, what do you do with Phoebe? She was in control of this.

What do you do with Deborah? Okay. And what's happening is they understand the concept and then what they do is they cite a reference in contradiction to the concept. And so what I try and do is represent the concept accurately.

For example, I was speaking last night to someone on the radio who was, not in the radio, but in a chat room, and this person was absolutely rabidly anti-reformed and rejected the five points and accused reformed people of teaching God as the author of evil and all this stuff. And I tricked her. And I said, well, I believe that God makes all things even for his own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil. And she says, no, I reject that. And what I had done was I quoted Proverbs 16, four. I just quoted it and said, I just quoted it to you and you rejected it. I don't, she goes, I don't like your interpretation of it. I didn't interpret it.

So I do this a lot with people. I'll just quote them something. They don't know it's scripture because they often don't know the scriptures in those contexts. And they, they try and disregard it or contradict it with something else instead of harmonizing it. So if they want to go to Phoebe in Romans 16, one, well then, okay. Cause the word Diakonos is there, but the word Diakonos occurs 22 times in the Greek and the new Testament and it's used in different contexts. And so, uh, in John two, five, Mary says to the servants, to the Diakonos, we do whatever Jesus says, or they members of a church because the word deacon is there.

Of course not. So what is happening in first Timothy three is specific pastoral epistles and designation of how we're to behave in the church. And it says, deacons must be husbands of only one wife. So I asked them in light of what it says here, what do you do with that? And then they go, well, over here, it says that I got that, but let's look what it says right here. What does it say right here? They don't want to look at what it says.

They want to contradict it with their own ideas and that's what's happening. Okay. Um, so, I mean, cause it's a reform church and uh, like what denomination one, but what denomination PC USA, uh, they, they, uh, but well, but is it, is it PC USA?

I'm not, I'm not, I'm done. Okay. Well, I'm curious what's the name of the church there in Anaheim?

Um, um, uh, on reform, uh, church. Okay. And Anaheim. Yeah.

I lived in Anaheim and went to park there and Fullerton and all that kind of stuff. Um, so and I'm CRC. What? Yeah, exactly. They should not be doing that. That's that's why I understand the CRC.

They wouldn't be, um, uh, okay. So here's the thing, um, the CRC Christian Reformed Church, uh, okay. So I was a assistant pastor to CRC church, uh, in, um, the Moreno Valley and, uh, Ontario.

Actually I lived in Ontario and that's where I was doing that up the 15 freeway there. So, um, I've heard that the CRC is kind of going south little by little, maybe this is just evidence of it. So what I would do if I were you is, uh, go to the pastor and just bring up first Timothy three, go through what it says. And it says the, uh, the, the Bishop, the episcopause, the Bishop is, uh, to be the husband of one wife. Does that disqualify a woman from being in that office?

He has got to say yes. You go to Titus chapter one, where it talks about an elder, can I, can I wait there? Sure.

I'm about to write it down real quick. So it says in first Timothy three, two, the overseer, and that's the word episcopause, which we get the word Bishop from is to be husband of one wife, first Timothy three verse two. Uh huh.

All right. And then you go to Titus and, uh, you start, uh, it says, uh, yeah, it's Titus one five for this reason. I left you in Crete that you should set an order, what remains and appoint elders in every city that I directed you. Namely, if any man is above reproach the husband of one wife. So I'd say, can an L ask him, can an elder be, uh, uh, uh, a woman and he's gonna have to say, well, no.

Why? Because a husband of one wife, then you go to first Timothy three, eight deacons likewise must be men of dignity, not double minded, et cetera. Uh, where does it say that, uh, yeah, in verse 12, sorry, uh, deacons must be husbands of only one wife. So why all of a sudden does, does he have a double standard? The bishops have to be husband of one wife.

The deke, the elders, husband of one wife, why the deacon when it has the same wording, why is it excluded? That's what I would ask. Yeah.

Um, yeah, good. You know, I brought it up to him before with regard to elders, but he's like, no, we don't, we don't, we don't have it. We don't allow one of his elders, he's, uh, uh, and, uh, you know, he, uh, when he, you know, uh, further explained it, he was like, uh, you know, Oh, they, they, uh, take on the needs of this person.

Um, yeah, he's going to go to Phoebe. He's going to go to other places and, uh, then, then what he'll do is he'll get first Timothy three 12 to say the opposite of what it says when he's done. Will the text then say the opposite? So when it says deacons must be husbands of one wife, now it doesn't mean that to be husbands of one wife.

They can be wives. So now it means the opposite. This is what bad exegesis is, and a lot of pastors do this, a lot of them, they read stuff into the scriptures, but it's not there. This is one example.

Okay. And it says in verse 10 of first Timothy three, it says these men, okay. And the Greek word is, which is masculine plural in the Greek. It's what the masculine plural ones, the word these in English is neutral. We don't have masculine or feminine.

These it's just, that's what it is. But in Greek, it's very different. So it says in the Greek, these men and the Omicron Iota ending is what's called the nominative plural masculine form of that verb. And it's very specific in the Greek.

He's saying the men, he's using the word, we don't even do this, it's like the actors, not the actresses, but the actors are the ones who are going to be moving this furniture over here in the theater, not the actresses. It's like that. It's very clear in the Greek.

Okay. They don't have too many words in English like that, but that's what's going on. So it says these men must first be tested, let them serve as deacons. It's their beyond reproach. Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips with temperate faithful in all things. Deacons must be the husbands of one wife, good managers of her children. So the deacons in between there is the word for woman and it's telling, it's contrasting the woman with the deacons.

So your pastor, whoever it is, made a mistake. And I'd be glad to call him on the phone and have a polite discussion with him, which I'm sure he would not agree to. And I'd be glad to come down there to Anaheim sometime, I've got friends down there still, and I'd be glad to go down there and do a conference and do a debate or do a discussion so they can get them to hold to the word of God. And by me saying that, they will absolutely refuse that because I'm not allowed to be so arrogant.

What's that? Because I've offered this challenge for 20 years of radio. No one's ever taken me up on it, that I'll have a debate in your church on women pastors and elders and all that include deacons as well.

No one's ever taken me up on it. Okay. Does the Bible teach women can be pastors and elders?

Does it teach women can be deacons? Okay. The answer is no. Okay. Hey, we got to go. There's the music buddy. We're out of time. Sorry, buddy. We got to go. God bless everybody. We'll talk to you tomorrow. We'll be right back with another program powered by the truth network.