How to Find A Church Part 2

[00:00:00] Cody: Hi, thank you for tuning in to the Logic of God podcast. I'm Cody. 


[00:00:14] Gina: I'm Gina. 


[00:00:15] Cody: And I'm Ben. If you're returning, thank you for coming back and if you are a new guest, welcome. 


[00:00:30] Ben: Now there is the question, if you're going to a church and you start going there and you don't really know much about, The denomination's going into it, but you find that there is a doctrine that you don't appreciate, such as there are a lot of Baptists, I'd say a significant portion of Baptists, who teach that women should not be preaching. 


[00:00:46] If you find that you even vehemently disagree about specific doctrinal points, Should you still go to that church? 


[00:00:53] Gina: It depends on what you would consider a deal breaker, I think. One of the biggest arguments among Christians, and I think it's idiotic, is like different opinions on what scripture is saying about certain things. 


[00:01:07] And so you'll have certain churches that are like, we only read one kind, one version of the Bible. And you'll have churches that are like, we don't let women teach. And then you have churches that have women teaching and on the elder board. It's all about personal conviction. We can't really convince or, or tell you what to believe or what your opinion should be. 


[00:01:26] And if you're taking what we say at face value and not doing your own research and prayer, it's and taking time to figure out what your convictions really are about what your church should look like. It's just all about personal conviction and what truth you believe is in scripture, and that's what really divides the different denominations. 


[00:01:44] It's just a difference of opinion. On the interpretation of scripture. 


[00:01:48] Ben: I think there are certain points where we have significant disagreement for a reason. Yeah. And there are individual doctrines, and Cody and I have talked about this a lot off air, and Eugenia has been involved in those conversations too, to an extent, where there are important things to talk about. 


[00:02:04] There are important things for the church to have a united voice. There's a reason that when we started this podcast, we fixated on the five core assumptions and the vast majority of Christian churches. In fact, literally all of them by definition have to agree on those points. If you go to a church and they claim to be Christian, and there are individual sects, That claim to be Christian that aren't and we'll get to that in a little bit But let's say that you go to a Mormon Church or you go to a Jehovah's Witness Church at that point You're not actually attending a Christian Church and that is because there is a disagreement on one of those five core principles And so as long as you're going to a church that agrees With all of those five core principles, those five core assumptions of Christianity, you're going to find that you're edified more often than not. 


[00:02:51] Even when you come to the points where maybe the church is a Calvinist church, or maybe the church is very strict about not letting women teach in a pastoral position or a higher level of leadership. Even in those instances. And I do have my disagreements with a lot of churches who do that. You can still find things that you will be edified with. 


[00:03:10] And even in those churches, most times you'll find that women are actually still in some form of leadership, just not in a pastoral one. I've actually gone to a few different Baptist churches in my life. I think three, and I believe in all of them, it was taught that women should not be involved specifically at the highest levels of leadership, but you still found that every time there was an event, women were running it. 


[00:03:31] And every single time there was a children's ministry, because all churches need to have a children's ministry. The women were running it. So even in those individual churches, it's not as if women are treated as second class citizens or as if they don't exist. It's that there are people who believe the Bible is saying something specific and so they're trying to adhere to what the Bible is saying. 


[00:03:49] Now sometimes you will find people who are trying to just abuse power and find reasons from the Bible to do it. I don't think that's the majority of people, but I couldn't say that for certain. Maybe it is. I don't know. The point is that if you go to a church and you find that you are being edified, but there are some points that you're going to disagree on, guess what? 


[00:04:05] You should be disagreeing with us on a number of points too. I would hope that you would continue to listen to the podcast and have it edify you in some way. 


[00:04:11] Gina: Well, hold on. If we're giving up on something that offends us, that can also make us grow, which is a majority of life experiences, then we're just giving into being worldly, which is the antithesis of what Jesus has called us to. 


[00:04:26] You can't call yourself a Christian and then get your feelings hurt because you have a difference of opinion and run away. That's not the way that we're designed. Go ahead. Sorry. 


[00:04:35] Cody: If you're not in a position where your beliefs are challenged, then I would reconsider the position that you're in. If you don't have to think and reaffirm your beliefs as a Christian and the different dogmas, the man made beliefs that you come up with, then You're not in a very good position. 


[00:04:58] Yeah, if you're 


[00:04:58] Gina: comfortable. Every 


[00:04:59] Cody: time you go to scripture, you should try to leave your presuppositions out of the window. Even if they're reaffirmed while you're reading it and you pick out, Oh, this was a checkbox for Calvinism, okay. That's great, but that shouldn't be your intention, is to prove yourself right while you're in a church or looking for a church. 


[00:05:22] If you're not challenging your way of thinking, then you're not going to grow. 


[00:05:26] Gina: One of my favorite things to pray is that God will absolutely destroy my mental image of Him regularly. Because I want his truest form, and if I allow myself to be influenced by, like, the prosperity gospel or certain toxic Christian things that have been taught, or even what movies teach, we end up with this, like, cartoon in our head instead of what's reality. 


[00:05:52] And I think praying to have that broken down as often as you can is really important. And I've learned a lot more about God through the trials that he's given me because of that than I ever would have if I had just allowed myself to have cartoon Jesus in my head. 


[00:06:07] Ben: Yeah, so is there a healthy amount of disagreement, you would say, with the church that you're going to? 


[00:06:13] Like, is there a healthy level amount of disagreement? 


[00:06:15] Cody: It depends on how the disagreement presents itself. If it's causing you to, you know, cross your arms, and everything when you go to church is about proving them wrong, and you scour your Bible about, this is why I don't believe this, and this is why I don't believe this, then that's when it becomes a problem. 


[00:06:35] There's a, there's a lot of, you know, pastors and people that I listen to that don't have the same opinions of doctrine that I do, but I'm still immensely edified by what they're saying, because one, it challenges what the viewpoint I have, and not every single point that they're going to make is going to follow that doctrine or sprout from that doctrine that we disagree with. 


[00:07:00] Disagreement is healthy. If we all agreed on everything, then we would be gods ourselves. So 


[00:07:07] Gina: Some of the best conversations that we've had are over sermons we've disagreed with, and we haven't stopped going to that church. So, I think there's lessons even in the moments where we're uncomfortable or angry because of what we've seen or heard. 


[00:07:20] Ben: Yeah, I think the most powerful question that you can be asked when you're analyzing what you believe is why? Why is it that you believe what you do? Do you believe in Calvinism? If so, why? Okay, do you believe that we have free will? Okay, if so, why? Do you believe that women should be in leadership? If yes, then why? 


[00:07:38] If you say no, then why? The whole point is that you are going to learn a ton if you have to come up with the answer to these questions. And a lot of people want just the surface level Immediate response of saying the Bible says this or they have a canned scripture that they've been told means something But then you come up to somebody who also Has a measure of competence and then they come with a reply to that reply because they've heard of it Then you go I never actually thought about this more than the surface level And so you start diving deeper and deeper. 


[00:08:09] And it's what you were talking about before, Cody. Eventually you do have to check what you're feeling at the door. You do have to say, okay, I don't, I need to leave behind my own preconception. Or else you're just going to retreat into yourself. And you're not going to learn anything. And that by itself, just learning the ability to say, okay, I could be wrong, and I want to know if I am. 


[00:08:27] That's worth the price of admission on its own. That's worth being in a place where you feel uncomfortable and you're being challenged in the things that you believe. So I think that there is such a thing as a healthy amount of disagreement with your church, and I do agree there is a point where it is too much. 


[00:08:41] If you are legitimately sitting there every single Sunday, and you hate every word coming out of the pastor's mouth, then no, you shouldn't be there. 


[00:08:49] Gina: I think too, if you're able to identify the difference between the Holy Spirit or God telling you to leave a church versus your feelings, like your emotions are going to lead you astray. 


[00:09:02] And even if you're correct that you should leave, I think you need to be very prayerful, and you need to avoid offensive things to God, like gossip and stirring up chaos and drama in people in your church, and trying to create division. I think with or without your feelings, you do owe people a certain level of respect and dignity, and if you're using your emotions to justify bad behavior or sinful behavior, then you're not doing what God would want you to. 


[00:09:34] And you just have to make those decisions with a lot of prayer and a lot of patience and grace, because more than likely you're probably feeling angry because of one of the reasons we talked about earlier in this podcast. It's either somebody let you down in the church and you need to forgive them and talk to them, or there's something triggering you in your own life, whether it's conviction about your own sinful behavior or pride. 


[00:09:59] or maybe even like a trauma in your past that you don't have freedom from. And so if you're feeling triggered or angry or like you hate a church, I want you to stop and reconsider because there's probably a really good explanation why you're feeling like that. And you should probably face it and put it into the light rather than letting it fester and create a reason for you to distance yourself from church and then from God. 


[00:10:23] Cody: Definitely. And we, I'll highlight the South, we as an American culture, an American Christian, we tend to gravitate towards stuff that affirms our beliefs. If you're not being challenged in a church, then you're probably not at the right church, first off. But a picture that the. modern American Southern church like Jesus is this white republican gun toting Badass that they have this mental image of that and it conforms exactly to who they are and they don't have to change at all That's who jesus is and that's who I am 


[00:11:07] Gina: the cartoon character in my head. 


[00:11:09] Yeah 


[00:11:10] Cody: which is not correct. 


[00:11:12] Gina: No. And 


[00:11:13] Cody: if you're not challenging your view, or if you are comfortable, you're not doing it right. 


[00:11:19] Gina: So pray before you leave. And like, face why you want to leave. Don't burn a bridge on your way out. 


[00:11:25] Cody: And that's one thing I hate with seeing these giant scandals, where these pastors fall. 


[00:11:32] Yeah, they screw up and they screw up royally, but they screw up and half the church leaves. 


[00:11:38] Gina: Statistically speaking, if you look at the statistics of how many men abuse their wives and how many women are addicted to porn and whatever other sins you want to name, like that pastors have fallen for, like the church is still full of those people. 


[00:11:53] The people who are mad are just as guilty. What we fail to acknowledge is that these pastors are still people and they're not any more holy or special than we are. The only difference is that they pursued vocational ministry instead of secular. 


[00:12:06] Ben: They are also called to a higher standard. 


[00:12:09] Gina: Of course they are, but we, Cody and I know, like I've worked in ministry, we've been in ministry, he's been in ministry his whole life. 


[00:12:16] We've seen pastors come and go. We've seen pastors get called up by people, not by God, and they do it because they like pleasing people, and they're not actually called, and the people that We've seen lead churches. A lot of the time they don't have the gifts that you would expect a pastor to have. And that's what I'm referring to. 


[00:12:35] Of course they should be held to a higher standard and they should be doing things differently than your average person, but that's not been what I've seen. 


[00:12:43] Cody: Yeah, I think the average Christian fails the that Christian like we should be able to call them out and you know Reprimand them how the Bible tells us to 


[00:12:55] Gina: and I'm not condoning that behavior. 


[00:12:56] I'm not saying You know Commit a crime or do something wrong and stay in this position of power. No, absolutely not. I'm just saying don't use that as your excuse to quit 


[00:13:08] Ben: the trouble. I agree with you 100%. That should not be the reason that you fell in love with Christ in the first place. But I personally known people involved in the church who, when they were younger, like there would be, you know, youth pastors who would be involved with them and would be very helpful and very kind, and they would feel very close to these pastors and then. 


[00:13:27] There was one instance in particular. There was a pastor named Paul who, he cheated on his wife, and he completely destroyed his relationship and continued on in this relationship with the other woman. He didn't repent. He just went off and did his own thing. For adults, I do understand that's not an excuse, but for children where you're still learning the foundation, you don't have that firm foundation on which you build your life. 


[00:13:49] That actually is something I do understand. And it's one of the reasons why pastors are held to such a high standard to begin with. It's because there are people coming into this who don't have a foundation. They know next to nothing, or they're children, and they're innocent. And when you fall, you are damaging their innocence. 


[00:14:08] And the way that they view the world from that point onward is going to be colored by what you did. 


[00:14:13] Gina: Yeah, it's like abandonment. 


[00:14:15] Ben: Yeah, in so many ways. They did feel genuinely abandoned. And they had friends who were related to this guy who felt abandoned. And it's hard not to feel like somehow God is responsible, or God even isn't there. 


[00:14:28] Because God didn't stop that. And this guy claimed that purity was good, but he wasn't pure. So I agree, if your pastor falls away, and sadly there are a lot of people in leadership who don't finish well. There are more examples than I would like to list. And we could do entire serieses on people who finish very poorly. 


[00:14:49] Their failure should not cause you to fall away from the faith, but they are held to a higher degree of accountability for a very good reason. And if you plan on going into leadership, you do need to understand that is what comes with the territory. 


[00:15:05] Gina: And that's how people see you. Like it's easy. I've talked to so many pastors and they're like, Oh, that's no, they don't do that. 


[00:15:12] Let's be real and honest for a second, because you can't take a bite of food, take 10 steps in the church lobby, sit in a chair, quietly go to the bathroom, like anything you can't without having at least three people intercept you. And it doesn't matter if you just make the coffee. Or if you're a pastor, people put you on this pedestal and when you let them down, no matter how small, it's their biggest excuse for quitting. 


[00:15:39] And it's just, they look at you with stars in their eyes. And I don't know why I think it's cause maybe you're their last resort or something, but it's the level of responsibility is so high and you have to be. So transparent. I am not perfect. I am happy to share with you. I'm happy to counsel you. I'm happy to pray with you. 


[00:16:01] But please know, I am not perfect. I am not holier than you. And your access to God is the same as mine. If you don't lead with that, you're going to disappoint people every single time. And nobody leads with that. 


[00:16:15] Ben: Imagine for a second that you were going to go to another country, and it's a country you don't speak the language of at all. 


[00:16:21] And you happen to know someone, and they speak this language fluently along with yours, and they can be your translator. And as you are learning the language, they can help you along. During that time period where you don't know anything, they are absolutely indispensable. And I think in a lot of ways, that's the way people in the church view their pastors. 


[00:16:39] And that would be the healthiest way to view it. It's not that they have something that you can't get. Just like with the language, it's something you can learn. No matter how much you might be struggling in the moment, eventually you will get it. It just takes time. The difference there, though, is that if your translator turns out to be a bit of a jerk and isn't perfect, it doesn't ruin the lesson. 


[00:16:59] Like, you can still learn the language from them or learn 


[00:17:01] Gina: more from getting a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth and a tenth teacher than you would from having the same one your whole life. 


[00:17:09] Ben: But with pastors, it's different because we're not simply talking about a language. We're talking about eternity. 


[00:17:15] We're talking about eternal principles that will define your life. And it's tough because when those people are shepherding you towards those eternal principles and it turns out they don't follow them. You start to question. Okay, are these principles even real? If the person teaching me didn't care, why should I? 


[00:17:32] Now, no matter what, if what they taught you This is the thing that I talk about with Ravi Zacharias. Ravi was probably one of the best orators in terms of Christian apologetics that I've heard. He's definitely one of the best, at the very least. And he talked about the Bible all over the earth. And then he fell from grace really hard after he died, oddly enough. 


[00:17:53] They managed to keep a lot of stuff hidden until he died, and then it came out that he was doing a lot of very inappropriate and evil things. And that hit me very hard. I was already a Christian, and I didn't fall away from faith. I think everybody, it hit us very hard. I know Mike Winger, I saw an episode that he did, where he was throwing away his marriage council books that Ravi had written, because he was like, I can't in good conscience teach this stuff if the guy who wrote it wasn't following it. 


[00:18:16] Gina: Cody went through a several week, like, I don't know, almost like being frozen. 


[00:18:21] Cody: Not like frozen, I wouldn't I mean, it 


[00:18:23] Gina: was my perception. It was like, you didn't know what to do. 


[00:18:27] Cody: Yeah. It's like, how do you like, cause you know, here's the guy, you know, I listened to his sermons every day for probably three or four years. 


[00:18:34] So a lot of my foundation of what I learned biblically as an apologist 


[00:18:40] Gina: was 


[00:18:40] Cody: from this man. And then you find out that this guy is okay. So was he giving me good information? Was he giving me bad information? And that's where you have to. Any teacher you get up with, and we say it time and time again, test it with scripture. 


[00:18:57] Gina: Don't take anybody's word. 


[00:18:58] Cody: Come to your own conclusion about what's being said, not taking everybody's word for it. 


[00:19:04] Ben: And there may be some of you listening who think, okay, these guys, They're solid people. I can listen to Cody and Gina and Ben, and I can have them be the light that guides me to No. We're talking to one another, and we're talking to you, and we're having discussions about the Bible and about these eternal ideas. 


[00:19:22] We're not right about everything. We're not perfect people. And if you try to build your life around us, rather than what we're saying, eventually you're going to find something about us. 


[00:19:31] Gina: That's wildly disappointing. Yes, 


[00:19:33] Ben: you're going to be disappointed when you meet me and you find out I'm actually a 400 pound Samoan man and my voice doesn't match my body at all. 


[00:19:41] Which voice? Any number of them. 


[00:19:45] Gina: Cody and I don't eat organic. We don't recycle. 


[00:19:48] Ben: I'm not vegan. How could you? I know. There are tons of things that if you got to know us, as people you would probably be fine with, but as people who instruct in the Bible, if that's what you consider this to be, you'd probably be let down. 


[00:20:01] And I understand that. The appeal that I think we're trying to make here is that Christ is a person, and you get to know him. And we can help you with some things that you may struggle with. Individual aspects about who Christ is, and about the history of the church, and about the doctrines of the church. 


[00:20:17] But in the end, Christ is still a person. You can know him. So don't let our failures as people color your perception of Christ because he is his own person. We're not him 


[00:20:27] Gina: one thing that like you were talking earlier about being able to have this sense of where God is present or where God is not present Like one thing that I've been able to sense is like the Holy Spirit's presence and I've described that before is the pink sparkly cloud And there have been environments that I've been in where people have been so shut off to the possibility of the Spirit moving or God speaking to them that this like sparkly cloud can't come down. 


[00:21:00] And so it's not that he's not present, it's that we're working against him for some reason. And so when I think about like churches and disagreements or having problems within the church. Or division within the church. I think that you have to remember when you're going into these places, that it can be turned around. 


[00:21:22] And I think we should take a second to talk about church culture. Because that's one thing, I don't know that really every single church could even possibly be the same. And like, we go to a church that has a ton of campuses, and no two campuses are the same. So, when you think about church culture, we are also not only attending church, but we're stewards of the culture of our church. 


[00:21:46] And so, if you're having, like, trouble within that culture, I think that it's really important that you remember that it's It's up to you to defend that and to develop that. And if there's something that you want to see in your church that you're not seeing, it's really not fair to give up just because it's not there when you could have done the work to do it, or you could have brought it up. 


[00:22:09] They're not, church leadership is not there. 


[00:22:14] Cody: Something about being in a community of people, there's probably somebody that you're sitting next to that feels exactly the same way that you do. And if you're not going to step up and make that change, and they're not going to step up and make that change, how do you expect that to happen? 


[00:22:31] You have to be the change that you want. If the church you're going to is not hitting the mark somewhere It doesn't mean that you need to leave that church. Maybe you need to get in a serious discussion with leadership at that church to see where you can fill that void that you're feeling and fill that for other people in your life, like in the church. 


[00:22:54] So be the change that you want to see is something that I think is very important. 


[00:23:00] Gina: Any thoughts? 


[00:23:00] Cody: No, I agree. 


[00:23:01] Gina: Really? 


[00:23:02] Cody: Yeah. What? 


[00:23:04] Ben: There's no qualifiers. I agree. 


[00:23:06] Gina: You 


[00:23:06] Ben: made good points. Concur. So you concur? Why didn't I concur? 


[00:23:12] Gina: Do we need to talk about cults? 


[00:23:14] Cody: How could you put, cause I do think if you get in a church where they absolutely force you to believe a certain way, I think that's a very dangerous situation to be in. 


[00:23:24] Can you 


[00:23:24] Gina: name any red flags for that type of where you say you're a church, but you're not necessary. You're more like a cult. 


[00:23:32] Ben: One of the warning signs though, it's not a defining thing. One of the warning signs is when the pastor constantly calls you every single service to repeat something. And it's like a mantra, it's the same thing each time. 


[00:23:47] If it's a non biblical thing, or it borders on the non biblical, then absolutely you're in a cult. Like, you've just crossed the line into a kind of cultish space. And it's because they're trying to get you to externalize something and then internalize something that you normally wouldn't agree with, but because you're surrounded by a bunch of people all saying the same thing, you're more and more likely to believe it. 


[00:24:08] Cody: Yeah, and if, I don't know, if there's the core assumptions as a Christian, which I think you have to believe to call yourself Christian, but outside of that, if they're not going to let you into their little club or they are very hostile towards you, if you don't adhere to all of their specific traditions or beliefs, that would throw up a red flag for me too. 


[00:24:33] If there's no room for any kind of disagreement or questioning. Or if the questioning is met with because I said so type of mentality, I, I think that is a red flag. 


[00:24:43] Ben: It is tough because, I, I agree with you. I do also think that there are points where a church wants to be a place where there are like minded people. 


[00:24:54] And I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with the church going, Okay, these are our core principles, aside from the core principles of Christianity. We're a Calvinist church. We're predeterminist. We're, we're very into the security of the believer. We have all of these different doctrines. If you don't believe in these, then please don't come here. 


[00:25:12] Cody: Yeah. 


[00:25:13] Ben: I can understand that. I would disagree with it. But I do also think that there is value in unity. where a church can provide a united front in tackling these individual subjects. Again, I don't think it's the healthy way to go about it, but I would still consider them to be Christian. And I have known of some churches where it very much had that atmosphere, that culture. 


[00:25:34] And even if you disagreed, they would allow people who didn't necessarily agree, but they were going to like, Make sure you knew that you were the outlier there. 


[00:25:43] Cody: I don't disagree with that. I guess what more, more what I'm saying is more tradition based that is not biblically founded. If you go into a service and everybody has to wash their big toes. 


[00:25:56] Like you're shunned if you don't do that's a red flag and again, they lead that there that's their worship center And if that's what everybody wants to do there, you're gonna have to get over that but that's probably not the place for you 


[00:26:09] Ben: Mm hmm. I think a good example of this actually would be The Jehovah witness practice of not rising for the national anthem, not doing the pledge of allegiance, not celebrating birthdays and not celebrating holidays. 


[00:26:22] Like that's one of those things where they will be very angry with you if you try to do any of that. I believe the reason they don't. Is because they consider it a form of idolatry, but just no celebrations whatsoever. 


[00:26:32] Cody: I'm not familiar enough with JW to, to comment. 


[00:26:36] Ben: There's a, so I'm, I mentioned those two before. 


[00:26:39] Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses. There's a reason that we don't consider them to be Christians, even though a lot of people do lump them into Christianity because. Christ is a figure in both of those religions, but they do disagree with one of the five core principles. So I guess it's more than just that. 


[00:26:57] They do try to bring in a lot of people. Like there are a lot of Jehovah's witnesses that come to my 


[00:27:01] Gina: door. Yes, they, 


[00:27:02] Ben: they've come to my door frequently. They're very nice people, but you can tell with the veiled language that they use, they are leaving things out when they're talking to you. Like they talk to you about Christ as being something that You can have hope in, but what they don't tell you is that they don't actually believe that Jesus Christ is Christ. 


[00:27:19] Yeah. They don't believe that he, they don't believe he died on a cross. They believe he died on a pole. Uh, they believe he's the Archangel Michael. And they believe that he is coming back at the end of the world to judge everyone. But, the thing is, that's almost the same kind of distinction that the Muslims have with Christianity. 


[00:27:35] Aside from also just the Quran generally and a lot of weird things we've talked about. I don't think we need to go back into the whole breastfeeding, uh, Man 10 times to make him your surrogate son. But we just 


[00:27:43] Cody: did. I know, we don't 


[00:27:44] Ben: need to go back into it. I did because it's funny. But you find that there are a lot of people who will try to lay claim to Christianity in some way. 


[00:27:53] When you read the Quran, that's something that Muhammad tried to do. He said that the people of the book, meaning Jews and Christians, knew about him, and their book affirmed him. And you just go to the book and you read it, and you'll find that it's true. And Joseph Smith did much the same kind of thing, except his thing was that he had a hat, and he had a magic looking glass, and he could look into this hat and he could read the hieroglyphics. 


[00:28:15] The Egyptian hieroglyphics, and then he would interpret that, and through that you get the writings like, I believe the Pearl of Great Price is one of them. But it's, it, you see a lot of commonalities between these different offshoots of Christianity. And yes, Islam is actually an offshoot of Christianity. 


[00:28:30] And they are very similar in their approach, they're very similar in the results. Because the people who started them ended up with a lot of wives and a lot of money. Muhammad, a lot of wives, a lot of money. Joseph Smith, a lot of wives, a lot of money. I don't know about Jehovah's Witnesses, I don't know if that comes into play as much, but Yeah, the point is, is that they will try to convince you a lot of the time that they have the same measure of commonality with you as another denomination. 


[00:28:56] And when you start getting into it, you'll see very quickly that there are dramatic jumps in logic that they take. And there are specific things they will ask you to do, and they will not tolerate you disagreeing with them. And they will expect you to follow along, blindly. 


[00:29:13] Gina: What about churches that give their staff or certain people special titles like, Prophet and brother and things like that like the NAR movement. 


[00:29:24] Cody: So that's generally that's a like a sub Denomination of Pentecostal most the time the NAR movement is a belief in the fivefold ministry where there are still active apostles, prophets, like you read in the Old Testament and the New Testament, like the prophet Isaiah, and there's still active people speaking on behalf of God himself as God. 


[00:29:51] And they usually claim that title as they're speaking as God to the congregation, which is not a good position to be in. I don't know. I can't really speak to a lot of like the ins and outs of those beliefs. I know they believe that the word of God is still active, similar to Catholicism. Where the continuation of scripture is still prevalent today and that anything that these people with the title prophet say, you have to do basically no questions asked. 


[00:30:22] And even if they're wrong, they, they don't get removed of that title, but they're still a prophet and they can be wrong, but that's a whole nother. 


[00:30:31] Gina: But that would be a red flag, right? 


[00:30:34] Cody: Uh, to me, yes, anybody who is claiming to be an apostle or a prophet in today's modern age is a wolf in sheep's clothing. 


[00:30:43] Ben: Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I will say that there are people who have the gift of prophecy, like this is something that is outlined in the New Testament. There are probably some cessationists. And for those of you who don't know, cessationist means that the gifts of the Holy Spirit stopped at some point when the last of the apostles died. 


[00:30:59] So like Paul died off and Peter died off. At some point in their life. In the first and maybe early second century A. D., that's when all the gifts of the Spirit stopped. But it's pretty clear in the Bible that there are gifts of the Spirit. One of these gifts is prophecy, and the gift of prophecy is to be able to receive word from God and speak it. 


[00:31:16] And that word can be about the future, it can be about the present, it can be about the past. It could be about any number of things. The Bible makes it very clear that is something available to all of us. In the past, like in the Old Testament, there were individual people labeled as prophets and it was a very rare gift that occasionally God would select a person and there would seemly be no rhyme or reason to why an individual person would be selected. 


[00:31:39] And that person would be given revelations from God, more often than not they would be horribly persecuted, sometimes killed, sometimes thrown into a well. Bad things happened to them. These days, though. It's different. There's not a prophet per generation, essentially, that's giving the word of the Lord. 


[00:31:56] These days, the veil is torn. The separation between God and man no longer exists. And so there are people who have the gift of prophecy. That gift can also be yours. There may be a reason why you don't have it. There may be a reason why God isn't talking to you specifically or regularly. And we've talked about that a long time ago. 


[00:32:14] There are ways you can, you can parcel that out. There are ways you can try to approach God in fear and trembling and try to see what what stands between you and him But the point is that when there are people coming forward like this and claiming to be Prophets they're trying to set themselves up as people like Elijah 


[00:32:33] Gina: Yes, 


[00:32:33] Cody: and their message is never what? 


[00:32:36] If you look at all of the major and minor prophets in the Old Testament, 99 percent of the time it was a direct correction of what was happening at that point in time. That is not what You're saying 


[00:32:49] Gina: a lot of things. 


[00:32:50] Cody: It's all about, like, prosperity. And you have Jeremiah talking about the prosperity of the church or the Israel at that time being prosperous if they turn back to God, right? 


[00:33:03] That's not where this prosperity comes in. It's, you do this and this, you get baptized, you'll be prosperous. You'll, you donate more money, you'll be prosperous. And that is, that is not biblically how profit, the title of profit, 


[00:33:18] Ben: To be clear, there are people who are great spiritual leaders in every generation. 


[00:33:23] That isn't to say that there aren't great leaders, aren't people who seem to be able to hear God more clearly, or at the very least have a gift of leadership and can convey that in a way that people can understand. Those people definitely exist, and people with the gift of leadership, I would argue, are more rare than people who have the gift of prophecy. 


[00:33:41] There are people who can do that. Say it 


[00:33:42] again, Ben. 


[00:33:43] Amen, brother. Preach it. A bit of a side tangent, but there's been a big push in modern society to tell everybody that they can be leaders, that everybody's a leader, that you need to be a leader, that we want to a whole bunch of leaders. No, you don't need a whole bunch of leaders. 


[00:33:59] Leadership is rare because you don't need a lot of them. Real leaders sacrifice an enormous amount to lead people to where they need to be. Like, they sacrifice their time, their effort, their sanity, sometimes their families, almost always their well being. You don't want everybody to live that way. More often than not, what you need to focus on is being a good servant. 


[00:34:20] And that's not the message that people want to hear. They don't want to hear about being a servant. They want to know that they're in charge. I'm the master 


[00:34:26] Gina: of my destiny. I am 


[00:34:28] Ben: the master of my destiny. 


[00:34:29] Cody: It's so popular today is because it fits into this live your truth movement of just be a leader. Do your own thing. 


[00:34:37] People will follow you. You just got to lead. 


[00:34:40] Gina: But you're, we're seeing this in like the Christian faith. We have influencers that have decided that they are Christian now. And they now identify as pastors, like we have plenty of wonderfully beautiful, smart, intelligent people who are very gifted that can give a great one liner, but we don't have a lot of people that are going out, giving this shirt off their back to their neighbor. 


[00:35:05] Ben: And. When you look at real leaders, when you look at real prophets, going back to that, people with the gift of prophecy, most of the people with the gift of prophecy I've known are regular, everyday people. And every once in a while, they'll get something from the Lord, and they'll either mention it in passing, or it'll be something that's bothering them. 


[00:35:23] They can't get it out fast enough. It's like a normal person who has been given a This isn't even an analogy. It's a normal, average, everyday person who's been given a revelation by God. And it's not always earth shattering. Sometimes God just wants to tell you something. Like, it's always important when God tells you something, but it doesn't have to be something that's Mired in mysticism, but aside from that for the people who want to both be these mystical prophets and want to be leaders They don't understand the burden that being a true prophet and a true leader if you're going to combine those two things is Many people with a gift of prophecy just hear from the Lord and sometimes it's for their own personal edification Sometimes it's a message for their families Sometimes it's direction and where you and your family and the people you love should go next like the next step in your life You God is just giving you guidance because he loves you. 


[00:36:10] That's still prophecy. But for tying that with leadership, God is essentially telling you, your life, it's not yours now. It belongs to your flock. That's what a pastor is. A pastor is a shepherd. And a shepherd tends to his flock, and his flock is a bunch of dumb sheep. Sweet, 


[00:36:27] Gina: sweet and adorable and fluffy sheep. 


[00:36:30] Ben: Sweet, 


[00:36:30] Cody: adorable, 


[00:36:31] Ben: fluffy 


[00:36:31] Cody: sheep. But sheep are dumb. Why do you think we're 


[00:36:35] Gina: But we're still sweet and adorable. 


[00:36:37] Ben: But we're dumb. Leaders are cursed with the gift of sight. They see where things are going. Like my dad has been a leader. My grandfather was a leader. There are people who are tortured with sight and they are constantly seeing people go every direction except for where they should be going. 


[00:36:52] And. That is torture. 


[00:36:55] Gina: I asked Cody today, because today's YouVersion Bible app, verse of the day, was Matthew 5, 6. And I was like, filled with what exactly? Because I'm feeling filled with rage. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled with what specifically? Please tell me. 


[00:37:15] Cody: They'll be filled, but doesn't elaborate what. 


[00:37:18] Gina: Disappointment. Asking for a friend. It's a difficult burden to bear to have that kind of vision. And to not get that root of bitterness. That has been very challenging as I've matured as a Christian to see people making those choices and to feel a little bit angry on behalf of God and just knowing what's needed and what's not happening. 


[00:37:41] It's not fun to feel that way. 


[00:37:43] Cody: It gives you a little vision of how God feels with us because he knows what's best for us. 


[00:37:49] Gina: And so to go up on a platform and say, God wants to prosper you and he loves you so much and you make him so proud. It's like, Like, what exactly are we doing to make God proud right now? 


[00:38:00] Even those of us that are faithful Christians, I don't think that we really do it the way that he wants us to. Like myself included. I don't think that he's standing in heaven giving me a round of applause right now. 


[00:38:12] Ben: No, I think that he does applaud you at times. Like 


[00:38:14] Gina: sometimes maybe, but I don't think it's as often as I want it to be. 


[00:38:18] Ben: I, I think there's a reason that when you read Paul's letters, at times it comes off as very harsh, and at times it comes off as very loving. There are points, we were talking about Timothy earlier today, there are points where he's encouraging Timothy, and he's speaking very lovingly to him, and there are other times where he's speaking very harshly, and he's speaking very firmly. 


[00:38:36] I think that is in many ways a reflection of God too. There are points where we see him act firmly, and incredibly harshly. And there are times where we see him speak incredibly softly to people who definitely don't deserve it. Why he does that sometimes as far as others, well, that's God's business and not ours. 


[00:38:52] But I think that for all of us, there are times where he's cheering us on and he loves us no matter what. 


[00:38:56] Gina: Yeah. 


[00:38:57] Ben: But I do think that he definitely burns at times with frustration. Because there are things that we very clearly, it's like Paul said, the things I know I should do, I don't do. 


[00:39:07] Gina: Oh gosh, we read that like once a week. 


[00:39:10] Ben: It is, it is honestly one of my favorite scriptures, it really is. 


[00:39:14] Cody: Until you go read it in the KJV, and it's like, what? 


[00:39:18] Ben: I beest with the things that I knowest, I not be, not nigh. Okay. 


[00:39:24] Cody: Who's that? Did Hitler take part in the 


[00:39:28] Ben: KJV? Nein! Oh, they slipped some German in here. Of course they did. 


[00:39:34] It's 


[00:39:35] Gina: tongues. 


[00:39:35] Cody: Yeah, no, it's Martin Luther for you. 


[00:39:38] Gina: Good one. 


[00:39:40] Cody: Cued one. 


[00:39:41] Gina: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our podcast today. If you liked what you heard, please feel free to subscribe and share and leave a positive review. And if you would like to connect with us on social media, you can do so on Instagram and Facebook at the logic of God. 


[00:39:58] You can also send us an email at main dot the logic of God at gmail. com. Thanks again for listening. We hope you have a great day.