Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Guys, I have a big announcement.
We know what we're gonna call the podcast.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: You know what we're gonna call the.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Podcast, which is, you know, in case you didn't know this, it might have been weeks since you listened to the first episode, but as you can tell by my clothes being exactly the same, if you're watching this, it's only been minutes. We're gonna call it Brian, you wanna, you wanna break the ice?
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Uncle Stewart's stuff.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Sorry. House of Whores. That's right.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: It's not that we're gonn swimming the Rhone.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Okay, you and I were talking about this. There's a cool reason behind this.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: So, so first, first, you are your. Our listeners may or may not be familiar with the expression swimming the Tiber.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Well, if they're in South Louisiana, there's a strong chance that they are familiar with it, but why don't you go ahead.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: So swimming the Tiber is what happens when Protestants become Roman Catholics.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: It's an expression. Yes, got it. Right.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: So the, the Tiber river is, is of course next to Rome and runs through Rome, I believe.
And so to swim the Tiber is to cross from Protestantism into Rome, Roman Catholicism. Correct.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Correct. And so when we say swimming the Rhone. R H O N E. The Rhone river runs through Geneva.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. Let's go.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: So to swim the Rhone is to cross over to Geneva into the, we'll say into the reform phase, Calvin and his successors and so on.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: And by swimming the Rhone. This is not an allusion to immersion baptism.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: No, but, but getting sprinkled in the Rhone just doesn't sound.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: It's not getting sprinkled by. No, yeah, we got it. We got to get more specific than that. And what we're really talking about too is like, so became Christians, became Calvinists, became a lot of other things after that, and then eventually we became baby baptizers.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Right. Because you, you probably.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Household baptism, you probably, like me, went.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Through your reformed Baptist phase, where you were. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: I was the guy who made fun of Presbyterians and they didn't even have collars on, you know, like he's wearing a collar. If you just listen to this. Like, they were. I was like, you baptized babies? God was like, just wait, son, you know, I have this. I have this saved for you. I have this saved for you.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: You baptized babies. You must be captive to that Roman tradition that you still haven't shaken off yet.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: I know. I knew so much whenever I was 22.
So much.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Well, I'M glad one of us did.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: So welcome to another episode of Swimming the Rhone.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: It's a nice transition.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Thank you.
Oh, man.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Sorry I keep ruining your.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: I had radio voice dialed up and everything.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah. Marlo, cut this out.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: So today we're talking about preacher culture. So I have a funny anecdote. Before we actually. See, I said that you knew. We knew when we were going. And I was like, I don't know how much I can contribute to this one, Brian. And you were like, oh, I think you'll think of something.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Didn't even listen. I think you'll be okay.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: So I have a funny anecdote. So preacher culture. I didn't even know this was a thing. And we talked about SBC world last time we were chatting through things. So. So my. I had a buddy of mine who was a preacher. He had, he had come From Independent Fundamental KJV, only 1611 Baptist, and he had landed SBC somehow. Okay.
Made that, made that transition.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Vintage grape juice.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: Exactly. And he, he came in and he went to one of the SBC conventions. You know, if you don't know about Southern Baptists, they have the annual convention every year. Travels all over the country. Like, bazillions of people show up. It's a huge deal, huge event. I am scared to think what it costs to put that thing on every year, probably a lot. So he travels to one of the conventions and he's waiting in line at some smoothie stand for. On their lunch break between meetings. And somebody walked up to him and they said it was a huge line. There's like 70 people in line waiting for smoothies. Because apparently, you know, health concerns, I don't know, huge line. Somebody walks up to him and said, why don't you get. And I can't remember who the name was, but it was some very well known Baptist preacher. Why don't you get my friend over there a smoothie? And it was a big deal, well known, high level Southern Baptist preacher. I can't remember what his name was.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Somebody.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: He was somebody. And my friend who's standing in line is like, who, who am I, who am I buying a smoothie for? Like, no, it's. It's the man himself in the corner. Get him a smoothie. It's like, okay, he gets him a smoothie, walks over, you know, he's like, here you go, I got you a smoothie. My buddy doesn't know who this guy is from Adam. He has no idea. And they look at him and they're like, why don't you keep the change?
Like they're tipping him or something. He's like, he's.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: It's all 33.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: It's all over his head. He doesn't have a clue what's going on there. He's like, okay, right. And then he leaves some strange. Adrian something maybe.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Adrian Rogers.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Oh, that sounds right.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Is that a big deal guy? Yeah, it was Adrian Rogers Radio Ministry. Why don't, why don't you get my friend Adrian Rogers a smoothie and my buddy who has no clue who it is and obviously I don't either, he says, okay, I guess I. But there was this culture inside of the SBC of like the hierarchical, well known famous pastors.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Is that what we're talking about today?
[00:05:51] Speaker B: We can talk about some. Yeah, some of that is, is real. And, and you know, I, I think, I think to, to some extent Presbyterians might be able to manage that a little better.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: It might just be because we're not good at starting like, you know, nationwide radio ministries. Unless you're R.C. sproul.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Like he's the only one that's pulled it off.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Exactly. RC Sproul managed to put it all.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Cross politic guys got close, but you know, then they started saying Baptists and transgenderism and then it was over.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Who is the guy in Florida? And now, now see, there's a.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: You and I are terrible at this.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: I know. We really are.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Was it Adrian Rogers?
[00:06:29] Speaker B: It wasn't Adrian Rogers. It was the guy. Oh, this is terrible. But you remember the, the Tulian, the Julian Davidian? Yeah, I know him, but not him, the guy before him.
Never mind.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Yuri Brito.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Never mind.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: No, no, I'm just naming Presbyterians in Florida. That's all I got. Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: We'll figure it out anyway. Yeah, I'll get it later. I thought, I thought it was Chuck Colson, but it's not Chuck Colson. Was he Presbyterian again?
I don't think so. Evangelism explosion. Who is that guy?
[00:07:02] Speaker A: I don't know. Anyway, I don't know.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Anyway, it's getting away from like, probably all the listeners are like shouting at their.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Please keep going.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Do you not know? Anyway, but here's what I mean by preacher culture. What I mean when I talk about preacher culture is so. In terms of the pastoral office and the work of preaching, it's going to look different.
And I'm speaking again somewhat experientially here in, in Baptist circles and Presbyterian circles, what is preaching For. And what are you trying to accomplish in preaching?
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: So I think there are.
Let's say within. Let's say within conservative evangelicalism. I think there are two answers to that question.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Okay. Yes.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: And I think one of them you tend to find more often in Presbyterian circles. One of them you tend to find more often in Baptist.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: I have thoughts on this.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: And I've been thinking about this for, ironically enough, the last couple of days. So I'm. I'm very excited. Okay, let's go.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: So here's the distinction I would make between the sort of the two options.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: I would say there is a concept of pastoral ministry that flows from the Word, from the scriptures.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: And there's a concept of pastoral ministry that flows from the calling, from the vocational calling.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Right. So here's how this kind of looks on the field.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: On the field.
If your understanding of what. And sorry, specifically, I'm speaking here of preaching.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: If your understanding of preaching flows out of the Word, then whatever the Word says is what you say. Okay.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: So. So your goal in preaching is to discern, to study, so that you might know what the Word says, what Paul is saying, what Jeremiah is saying, what Ezekiel is saying, so that you can then say that same thing and then apply it to the lives of your hearers.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Okay, I got it.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Okay. So that's through the lens of the Word.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Through the lens of the calling, okay. Is God has called me to preach to these people.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: So when I sit down with the Word, whatever I intuit to be the meaning of the text, whatever I believe to be the meaning, and. And the sort of. The sort of treasure that I find there is what these people need to hear.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Because I'm called to preach to these people.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: Okay. So it's more. One is more me centered. The other is more word centered.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: The other is more truth that comes from me as a person. The other is what the Bible teach. And so I understand. So the way that Isa Jesus versus exegesis.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: It is. It is isegesis. But I am trying to. I am trying to put the. The most charitable spin on it.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: And say. Okay, say that to. To the. To the isegesis option. The. Again, the one that flows from calling a person who subscribes to that concept of preaching is. Is trying to obey God as best they sort of know how.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: They're saying, God has called me to these people. He's called me. He's called me to these people.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: So then. Then my interpretation of These texts is what these people need most.
And you can, you can see the danger in there.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: And so, so the way that I. The first time that I noticed this was when a friend of mine was articulating to me that he was. He was in a Baptist church. And the preacher said something about the, the I am. He was preaching through the I am statements in John.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Okay, right, okay, okay, good.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: But he kept making the point that the big thing you should take away from the I am statements he was talking about before Abraham was I am is that Jesus understood his personality. And so you need to know who you are before you can engage in ministry to people. Oh, and this friend of mine said, he said I was sitting in the pew thinking really like, not a word about how he was claiming to be Yahweh. Right, right. And he said, no, not a word of that was in the sermon. It was all about sort of understanding how God has constructed you to be as a, as a person in terms of personality. And once you get a good firm grasp on that, you can say, I am this sort of person and then you can do effective ministry. And so that was. That was sort of the light bulb moment for me where as I had heard sort of isegesis like that before, that was unfamiliar to me just to hear about.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: I said, I. I think what that guy is doing is he sat down with his Bible that popped into his head while reading and he convinced himself that's what his people needed to hear, rather than saying what is, what is the objective thing here that John has put into this text for me to find.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: And. And dig up, as it were, and present to my people, because that's what they need to. Here is what God has said.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And I think I see the vast majority of reformed preachers, I think be them Baptist or Presbyterian or which either they opt for that type.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: I think that's. Yeah, I think that's right.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: They're exegeting exposition of the text.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: I see that the vast majority, the most, most of the folks who do the therapy style sermons exist in the non denom world, from what I could tell.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: That's fair.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. From what I can see, anyway.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: There's a few mainline guys.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: I want to be fair there. And there are lots and lots of Baptists. I think most of them happen to be Reformed Baptists.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: But there are lots and lots of Baptists who preach.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: See, this is my problem. I live in a very, very isolated bubble. Okay.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: It is a small room all my.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: Friends are either reformed Baptists or they're Presbyterians. These are all my bros here. I forget that there's others outside of this genre, like Andy Stanley, you know, like, I forget that he exists in the world, and yet here we are. Yeah, but no, you're right. Like, if we were going to talk the grand scheme, Baptist versus Reformed folk. Yeah, yeah, I know. I think you're onto something. I think that that would probably be an accurate statement if those are the categories.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Right. And there's a dear friend of mine who. He works at a funeral home, which means he is constantly in everybody else's church doing funerals and things like that. And so he's kind of always bringing reports back to me, as it were. You're never going to believe what I heard this time.
And so he's. And I suppose that. So that also kind of colors because. So I hear a lot about what's getting said at other places. And I mean, some of the worst theology you're ever going to hear unfortunately happens at a funeral. But we're not.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: I know about that. I do know about that. I've heard some crazy things because everybody. I think everybody's trying to assure themselves that the person who died is in heaven.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: That's their primary objective. And so they're willing to do whatever backflip they got to do. I remember one time there was a funeral that somebody said, well, this particular person who died prayed the sinner's prayer when they were six, so we know where they are. It was like, oh, no. Oh, no. And that was more of a traditional kind of Baptistic church at the time. So it was a. It was an interesting moment. But, yeah, I think, by and large, whenever I listen to Reformed guys, that was one of the things that I noticed early on. The Reformed preachers, they had a. I would say, like a passion for what the word said more so than other folks. Now, I. Look, I grew up in North Louisiana, and I went to a lot of different churches, and I heard the stereotypical pastor shtick.
A lot of different flavors.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: And I started to be able to develop an intuition for a manufactured zeal and for an actual zeal. Do you know what I mean? You can kind of smell it. If you're around it long enough, you can tell. All right. His cadence is picking up, which means he's either about to stand on the pulpit. Do people do that around any churches that you were at? No. There was the standing on the pulpit guys. There was the bang in the Pulpit guys.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Those I have seen.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: You've seen the bang in the pulpit guys. Yeah, yeah. There's the guys who, like. Yeah. So we've got all the things. But you could tell whenever that was starting to spin up to happen, you could feel the cadence shift. That. That would be what I would call more of a manufactured.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: I saw a lot of that.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: You saw that Liberty.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I knew guys at Liberty who could work a room.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: But I remember watching Paul Washer's sermon. You know the one I'm talking about? Everybody.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Everybody knows the one you're talking about right now.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: And I remember finding. This was, like, when YouTube first became a thing, I think.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Okay. And there was this preacher named Paul Washer, and he was preaching at YEC.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: The shocking youth message.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: I think I was, like, 20. Whenever this came out, whenever this landed on the Internet. So, like, 20 years ago.
And it's the famous moment of, why are you clapping?
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Why are you clapping?
[00:15:39] Speaker A: I'm talking to you.
I remember thinking, like, who is this. This guy?
[00:15:45] Speaker B: This is.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: But he had a zeal to him about what he was saying, a passion, a drive about what he was saying. And you could tell that it was genuine.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: He wasn't cooking anything. No.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Whatever one might say about Paul Washer, he's probably one of the most earnest.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Preachers you ever heard.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: He believed everything he was saying. He even said he was like, listen, I'm putting my whole career in jeopardy to say this stuff to you guys. And he was.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: And that was the thing.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: He was.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: You and I probably were both in, say, Southern Baptist culture at the time.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: And I'm hearing. When he said that, I was thinking, you are not exaggerating, sir.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: Like, you're not getting invited to any conferences.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: They're not bringing you back. You're done.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: And I remember thinking the same thing about John Piper sermons.
I found him around, you know, shortly after I discovered the why. Why are you clapping? Moment from Paul Washer. I found John Piper sermons, and he cared about what he was saying. He cared about what was true, and he had a zeal about it that was obviously not manufactured. He meant what the words that were coming out of his mouth, that was profound to me.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: And Piper. I mean, I don't know about you just in terms of preaching heroes, but, like, Piper made me want to preach.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: When I would hear Piper preach a sermon, like, I would be like, somebody put me behind a pulpit.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Yeah, let's go.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, let's go. Let's charge the hill.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: And that was. Yeah, to. To make, to make preaching look like, I mean, what you wanted to do with your life. Yeah, I think that was, that was his gift and. And certainly is.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah. John Piper had a profound effect on me early on in my journey into reformedness. Right. His biographies. He would do biography lectures. I thought those were amazing.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Yeah, those are always good.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: His. In his about Adoniram Judson is still ingrained on my memory. I think I referenced it every four or five sermons in church. It's an illustration because I just. It's there forever. It's going to be. It's going to be with me forever. Because it was just profound. But those reformed guy preachers, it was that they said what the Bible said. They were unapologetic about it in a time where that was not very present in the world around us, like in the Christian world. Everybody was leaning back over. The pendulum was swinging back towards therapy again.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: It was swinging back towards self help, self care. And I think now we're in a season when it's doing it again. You know, I think you're right.
And it's scooping some of our reformed brothers along with it. You know, we're trying to. Hey, wait, guys. Watch out, watch out.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: It's a different terminology now. Yeah, it smells different now.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: It smells like dei.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: It smells like DEI and woke stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: But it's catching them. Yeah, it's definitely catching them.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: And so the guys who are just faithfully saying what the Bible says, it still hits. It still lands with them. And it's interesting. It's very interesting. But no, those definitely. John Piper, Paul Washer, Tim Keller and his Christocentric approach was very profound for me.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: It's. It is probably impossible in the reformed world to underestimate or to overestimate. Excuse me. The impact of Keller and the Christocentric stuff.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Oh, no, absolutely. Say what you will about tgc. I love to make fun of them today. I love to make fun of the Gospel Coalition and how nuts they all are.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: They keep providing you with new material.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Easy bullets, you know, Easy bullets.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: I think I know what you're about.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: To say, but 12 years ago. Yes, they were killing it.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: Yes, you are absolutely right.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: The Gospel Coalition was killing the game 12 years ago. Together for the Gospel was killing the game 12 years ago. Southern Seminary. Killing the game. RTS, like all these guys were way out in front doing a phenomenal work. We owe them a debt.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Some changed.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: What happened, Ryan?
[00:19:35] Speaker B: I. I was Afraid you were gonna ask me.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: We can edit this out later.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, but Marley will edit this out.
Yeah. I mean, it's.
I. I don't know. I'll just say I. I would have to think more about that. More about, like, what's sort of what was. Was there a trigger or something? I. I think.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: I mean, I have a theory.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: I would say 2020 like, messed a lot of people up.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: There it is.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: I think it was. I think it was present in. In some form before that.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: But 2020 was. Had a shaking effect.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: Well, I think it put everything into a Microwave.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: What 2020 did.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: I think that everybody was starting to line. So, like, Matt chandler over Acts 29. Acts 29 starts fracturing. Matt Chandler's over at the village. The village just brought on Jen Wilkin. He makes his famous statement of I'm not scared of strong women. Like, he's ready to go.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that was weird.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Covid hits, right.
Puts the village and Acts 29 into a microwave. Now Acts 29 is like, hiring and platforming, in some instances, homosexual practicing people on their church staffs. Okay. And Matt Chandler makes the weird Anglo8 comment. That happened, you know, however many months ago that was. It put everything in. Just into a pressure cooker. It moved everything along a lot faster. The trajectories moved quicker, I think is what wound up happening.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: And so maybe that's exactly what swung people out the other way.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: No, you might be right. I mean, here I am. I said. I said I don't know the answer, and I'm speculating, but here we are. Yeah, but. But I would just say I think. I think you're onto something there. Yeah, I think. I think 2020 had a. Had a sort of clarifying effect for a lot of people. And. Yes, a clarifying effect. And I know this term gets overused, but. But a clarifying effect as to what time it is and helping people to understand, you know, kind of what part of the story they're living in.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: And. And. And then behaving and practicing faithfulness accordingly.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: But to get us back to, To. To preaching, I think what. The reason. A big part of. Of the reason why I'm Presbyterian today is because when I found my way over to being a Reformed Baptist, where I was at the time, there weren't. There weren't a lot of, like, strong reform Baptist churches to choose from.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: For the reasons we've already.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: We were an anomaly.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: Right? Exactly.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: For a long time.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, we were the. We were the the guys on. On the outside.
And so the only place to go for reform preaching was a Presbyterian church.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: And so, so myself and I. I couldn't help but notice a lot of other Liberty students started attending a PCA church plant in Lynchburg because they were Reformed. Exactly. And so we all started going there and we tolerated the infant baptism because we thought the preaching was. Was good.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: Yeah, because he preached the Bible.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Correct. That was, that was the other thing I was about to say that. That another big change coming over to the Reformed faith was what we call lectio continua, which is. Which is preaching consistently through a particular book of the Bible. So rather than doing like a. Like a sermon series on a topic which is. There's no sin in that.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: That's.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: That's a fine thing to do and I think a wise thing for a pastor to do if he perceives that his congregation needs focus on some particular issue.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: Amen. Yeah, absolutely. That's his responsibility.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Correct.
But as a sort of. As a sort of standard fare thing on. Thing that's on the menu all the time. Lectio continue a preaching, moving through a specific book. And then what happens then is that the text is, as it were, bending the preacher to its will. So the preacher says, I want to say these things. And then he looks at the text that has, that has. That he has arrived at for Sunday morning, and the text says, no, here's what you're going to preach about.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: And so it means that maybe difficult things that ordinarily you might avoid are going to come up in the text and you have to preach them.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Because you're. If you're going verse by verse and you skip one, everybody's gonna know.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Right.
Why do you preach Romans 9.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Yeah. For example. Right. Yeah.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: And so that's been. It's a. It's a sanctifying thing to, again, to start moving through a text. Because, I mean, you know, it's hard for me to think of a book of the Bible where I would preach through without some sense of when I get there. That's going to be a challenge. Not insurmountable, but it's going to be a challenge. There's no book of the Bible I can think of that I would pick because it's a smooth downhill slope from beginning to end.
So that was another sort of a different kind of experience. And again, even at that PCA church plant in Lynchburg, Virginia, Mike Sherritt was my pastor there. Mike would. He would do topical series every now and Then.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: You know, and that's. Again, that's fine to do.
It tends to be the case that in Presbyterian, Reformed Presbyterian circles that your. Your standard fare is that. Is that verse by verse through a book, though.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Yeah. For us. So we were the Reformed Baptist Church in South Louisiana, and all the Presbyterian churches that were nearby to us kept closing. And so we started being the. The Reformed Baptist Church that all the Presbyterians came to like. It was. It was the little bit the opposite there.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: It was a. It was an interesting dynamic for us to try. And that probably is one of the things that contributed to us eventually making the jump to swimming the Rhone there. I. To use the title. Yeah. To becoming pedobaptistic. Because it was just like, well, we're in the same church with these people, and, I mean, they're not crazy. Yeah. They all seem nice.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: And they listen well.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: And I remember.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Let's see if we can't figure this out.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: I will never forget one particular Sunday morning at that PCA church plant in Lynchburg, and they were doing an infant baptism that morning. And Mike began by saying. He said, we are about to. He said, all of you are about to witness God adding another member to this covenant family. And we don't do this out of some reverence for historical tradition. We do it because we believe God has commanded us to do it. Right. And I got mad.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: You were like, how dare you?
[00:26:23] Speaker B: I mean. Yeah. And I actually. I mean, God bless him. I met with Mike for lunch later that week, and I said, here's the thing, Mike. I would have been fine with you saying you did this from tradition. Yeah, we do this from tradition. I would have said, well, then you just carry on and do that. Right. Good for you. We're fine. We're cool. Yeah, but you didn't say that.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: You said you thought God had commanded you to do it. Right. And so I said, I'm gonna need you to explain that to me. And so he very kindly, very. Took me through. Kind of walked me through a basic, you know, 101, why do we baptize infants? And at the end of lunch, I thought, dang it.
Like, I still don't agree with you, but I don't know how to respond to you.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: But dadgum, you had an argument, right? Yeah.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Right. And that kind of caught me off guard. Right. And. And so. So. So to discover, like, oh, and. And I genuinely thought that the Presbyterians did this out of tradition.
That, you know, they had. They had a.
At the time, I thought, well, they've got a better respect for tradition than us Baptists do, and that's fine. Good for them. So they've carried this on and. And it never occurred to me to ask, like, oh, you have a biblical argument for that. This actually flows out of your biblical convictions. It doesn't sort of just flow along next to them.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Right. You're not a dummy.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Right. That was news. So, as they say, the rest is history.
That was dipping my toe in the water, so to speak.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So Calvinism definitely helped bring us to this point.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: Calvinistic preacher culture.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Definitely helped bring us to this point.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Fidelity to the word.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Amen. Expositional teaching definitely helped bring us to this.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: The word tells you what to teach, you don't tell you what to teach.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Amen. And we'll keep talking about this over the next couple of episodes.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Sounds good.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Guys, thank you again so much for joining us for Swimming the Rhone. I really like that title. I can't say it without a little smirk in my mouth. So I'm at the. Practice it a little bit. Thank you guys so much again for joining us and we'll see you next time.
