Did Public Controversy over the Nashville Statement Hurt the Cause?
00:00:00.000 | Well, we now get over 1,200 emails a month from listeners.
00:00:08.700 | Thank you for those emails and please keep them coming into us.
00:00:12.860 | And of course, we got a few emails related to the Nashville statement, which was a public
00:00:17.300 | document that you signed, Pastor John, and it was on human sexuality.
00:00:22.680 | But we actually only got 10 emails about that statement in total.
00:00:27.180 | Interesting.
00:00:28.180 | And most of those emails were sympathetic.
00:00:31.340 | By far, the most articulate pushback that we got came from a listener named Amy in this
00:00:36.860 | email.
00:00:37.860 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:38.860 | Thank you for this podcast.
00:00:40.460 | I'm sure you're aware of the criticism surrounding the Nashville statement released back in August,
00:00:46.180 | both from outside of the church, but also from within the evangelical world too.
00:00:50.740 | It created quite a stir.
00:00:52.100 | I know of faithful Orthodox Reformed church planters and pastors working in larger metropolitan
00:00:57.140 | contexts, who find this statement unhelpful, even as the document contains affirmations
00:01:02.460 | and denials that are completely true, biblical, and agreeable to them.
00:01:07.180 | It seems to be a matter of two related questions.
00:01:09.140 | Number one, is hot topic orthodoxy announced and affirmed in the wide open public realm
00:01:14.340 | appropriate in a casting pearls before swine kind of a way?
00:01:19.620 | And number two, is it helpful or harmful for outreach to draw public lines in the sand
00:01:24.540 | over ideology, which at worst is seen to be politically motivated by the world, or is
00:01:30.700 | at least something that adds a new wall of separation between the Christians in a local
00:01:35.060 | church from the liberal unbelieving neighbors they are trying to reach within a neighborhood,
00:01:40.540 | first through relationship building?
00:01:43.140 | I hope this makes sense.
00:01:44.340 | Do either questions concern you?"
00:01:47.620 | Maybe just a response to each of her two questions.
00:01:52.740 | And the second one, really, I hear two questions in the second, so maybe three things to respond
00:01:58.180 | to, even though there's so much more that could be said, and I'll just mention that
00:02:05.460 | at the end maybe.
00:02:06.900 | But she's asked her two questions, I'll try to be faithful to those two questions,
00:02:10.700 | rather than talking about things I would like to talk about as well.
00:02:13.660 | There's so many criticisms, so many things need to be said.
00:02:17.620 | Yes, the questions do concern me, because all questions that relate to serious dissensions
00:02:24.460 | among brothers and sisters concern me.
00:02:27.620 | So first, I don't think Jesus' statement in Matthew 7:6, "Do not give dogs what is
00:02:36.620 | holy, do not throw your pearls before pigs or swine, lest they trample them underfoot
00:02:45.540 | and turn to attack you."
00:02:47.100 | I don't think that verse was intended by Jesus to limit the public preaching of the
00:02:55.580 | whole counsel of God.
00:02:58.180 | So think with me about that for just a minute.
00:03:01.260 | What is the best pearl we have?
00:03:04.060 | The best pearl that we have is the preaching of the gospel of Christ crucified.
00:03:09.060 | Christ crucified for sinners, risen from the dead, received by faith for the forgiveness
00:03:14.480 | of sins, for the hope of eternal life and power to walk in holiness.
00:03:18.620 | It's the rock-solid core of gospel preaching.
00:03:24.420 | That's the sweetest pearl, the most beautiful pearl that we have to offer the world.
00:03:29.860 | And what the New Testament makes clear is that every time that precious pearl is preached,
00:03:35.540 | it will be both believed and reviled.
00:03:38.180 | It is the aroma, Paul says, from life to life, so believed, and death to death.
00:03:45.100 | People hate it, and they die because they hate it.
00:03:50.280 | It brings out sheep-like faith, and it brings out swine-like trampling.
00:03:56.440 | Both effects happen when Jesus preached the pearl and when Paul preached the pearl, and
00:04:04.640 | both effects happen when we preach the pearl.
00:04:08.400 | The pearl will always be found as precious by some and utterly offensive by others.
00:04:15.840 | So since that's always the case, and since Jesus and Paul acted that way in spite of
00:04:21.080 | the fact that that's the case, I don't think Jesus meant that we shouldn't put precious
00:04:27.320 | pearls before the public where they might be trampled, which they always will be.
00:04:33.880 | Some will pick them up and love them and die for them, and others will stomp on them.
00:04:39.080 | Here's what I think Jesus meant.
00:04:40.760 | I think an example of what he meant is found in Matthew 21, 27, where Jesus was asked,
00:04:47.920 | "By what authority do you do these things?"
00:04:50.680 | And Jesus didn't like their attitude.
00:04:53.540 | They were very devious, and so he asked them a question, "By whose authority was John
00:04:58.760 | the Baptist's baptism?" and so on.
00:05:01.160 | And they're so devious that they conspire together to lie and say they don't know,
00:05:06.120 | when in fact they do know.
00:05:07.400 | They know what they think, and they're just politicking with Jesus.
00:05:11.360 | And Jesus refuses to answer them in Matthew 21, 27.
00:05:16.680 | "I won't talk to you.
00:05:17.680 | I don't talk to that kind of people."
00:05:19.640 | He wouldn't give them the pearl.
00:05:21.040 | He wouldn't cast the pearl before these rascals because he saw that they had just revealed
00:05:28.380 | how devious their whole conversation was in dealing with him.
00:05:33.880 | That's all they meant to do was trample.
00:05:36.380 | They weren't eager to hear the truth at all.
00:05:39.600 | They're trying to trap him.
00:05:41.280 | So behind Amy's question, however, I think is the question, "Is the Christian vision
00:05:49.960 | of covenant-keeping marriage between a man and a woman and Christ-dependent chastity
00:05:57.420 | among homosexuals or heterosexuals, people who have same-sex attraction and people who
00:06:04.280 | don't, is that vision of covenant-keeping marriage between a man and a woman and Christ-dependent
00:06:10.160 | chastity outside marriage, is that a beautiful pearl that should be held up for the world
00:06:18.400 | to know and possibly by grace admire?"
00:06:23.220 | With the implication that distortions of the pearl and attacks on the pearl are inevitable,
00:06:30.320 | just like they have always been.
00:06:33.660 | And I think the Christian vision of creation as male and female and marriage as a covenant-keeping
00:06:40.860 | lifelong bond between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, and courageous Christ-exalting
00:06:47.660 | chastity outside marriage, or in marriage for that matter, are a beautiful pearl that
00:06:55.980 | should be set on a pedestal before the world, even knowing that today many in the world
00:07:03.900 | hate this pearl, mock this pearl, do everything they can to trample on and shatter this pearl.
00:07:12.020 | But that leads to the second question that Amy has, because they really are all linked
00:07:17.260 | together.
00:07:18.780 | Her language inclines me to think that she may not have the same view of this pearl that
00:07:26.980 | I do.
00:07:27.980 | I don't know.
00:07:29.420 | She wonders whether lines should be drawn in the sand over, quote, "ideology," which
00:07:41.180 | at worst is seen as politically motivated by the world.
00:07:45.980 | Now I'm not sure what she means by the word "ideology."
00:07:51.300 | It sounds like a category of thinking which is not part of important Christian pearls,
00:08:00.340 | Christian revelation that the world needs, and not part of a beautiful pearl.
00:08:07.400 | So I'm not sure what she would include in "ideology."
00:08:13.460 | The fact that the world will see public statements, public articles or blogs, public preaching,
00:08:22.260 | which all preaching is, the fact that the world will see all the statements, all the
00:08:28.540 | articles, all the preaching about human sexuality today as politically motivated, which it will,
00:08:37.020 | surely cannot be the criterion of the faithfulness of our preaching or our article writing or
00:08:44.060 | our public statements.
00:08:46.700 | Such accusations of being politically motivated will always be the case.
00:08:52.660 | There will always be people who twist what you say to have connotations and implications
00:08:58.800 | that you don't want them to have and you didn't intend.
00:09:02.940 | That's exactly the way people treated the preaching of Jesus.
00:09:07.340 | Remember when they said that he's going to tear down the temple?
00:09:12.460 | That's pretty political.
00:09:13.940 | Well, he didn't.
00:09:15.940 | They're twisting his words, right?
00:09:17.940 | They're not finding a legitimate complaint.
00:09:20.300 | In other words, he was accused of speaking with political motivation, and this conflict
00:09:26.740 | was not marginal.
00:09:29.820 | It was public, and it got him killed.
00:09:33.980 | It got him killed.
00:09:36.100 | And yet, he said the very controversial words he knew would get him in that kind of trouble.
00:09:43.860 | And it was the same with Paul's preaching, according to 2 Peter 3, where people are twisting,
00:09:49.540 | they're just twisting what Paul has to say.
00:09:53.620 | It will always be the case.
00:09:55.980 | If someone thinks that there's a way to preach and write and make statements and do anything
00:10:05.020 | else in public that presents the pearls of biblical truth without encountering in the
00:10:11.260 | social media and other ways a thousand angry critics, they're just naive.
00:10:18.420 | It cannot be done.
00:10:19.420 | Let me say this as strongly as I know how.
00:10:21.860 | The day is long gone in America where it is possible to be publicly faithful as a Christian
00:10:31.780 | to the truth of God and not be excoriated.
00:10:34.980 | I'm going to read again.
00:10:38.780 | The day is long gone in America where it is possible to be publicly faithful as a Christian
00:10:47.180 | to the truth of the Bible and not be excoriated.
00:10:50.620 | Jesus said, "You will be hated by all nations, and you can pick any part of the biblical
00:10:57.460 | truth you want, and it will be true."
00:11:00.940 | The second part of Amy's second question wonders whether the Nashville statement "adds a new
00:11:09.380 | wall of separation between the Christians in a local church and the liberal unbelieving
00:11:16.140 | neighbors that they are trying to reach."
00:11:19.020 | And my answer to that is, no, I don't think anything has been added—there's a key word—added
00:11:30.020 | to what separates Bible-believing people from non-Bible-believing people.
00:11:36.940 | Of course the Nashville statement makes explicit the difference between what the world regards
00:11:44.940 | as a pearl and what Bible-believers regard as a pearl—indeed, what most of the world
00:11:54.580 | has regarded as a pearl for the entire history of humankind.
00:11:59.620 | And I would just appeal—this is really a personal appeal, and take it for what it's
00:12:04.900 | worth, I hope folks who are resistant to the Nashville statement for various reasons will
00:12:11.380 | at least listen carefully.
00:12:13.380 | I would just appeal to those whose method of evangelism, or being missional as we say
00:12:20.020 | today, includes the effort to conceal offensive biblical things about the pearl of the Christian
00:12:29.820 | life, that those folks may not only be missing golden opportunities for biblical witness
00:12:43.260 | precisely because offensive things are out in the public, but they may also be abandoning
00:12:53.620 | the way Jesus and the apostles did their public ministry.
00:12:56.980 | Let me say a word about each of those concerns that I have.
00:13:00.300 | Might it not be God's design that at school, or in the office, or at the gym, when people
00:13:08.980 | are fuming about the Nashville statement or anything like it, you insightfully—this
00:13:18.420 | is God's design—it could be God's design that you insightfully and creatively and courageously
00:13:26.100 | and joyfully show them, start where they are in their fuming, and show them that these
00:13:34.220 | true statements, which Amy says are true, these true statements in fact are beautiful.
00:13:39.460 | This is a beautiful pearl.
00:13:42.680 | The real challenge is not to make Jesus look beautiful by hiding some of his cherished
00:13:49.380 | convictions.
00:13:50.380 | The real challenge is to trace all his views, including his most offensive ones, back to
00:13:57.260 | the beautiful root of his person and up to the beautiful flower of his glory and his
00:14:02.620 | purposes for all of mankind.
00:14:05.540 | That's the challenge we may be missing by huffing and puffing about how controversial
00:14:09.620 | things are.
00:14:11.300 | And we really must ask ourselves—this is a broader concern I have that seems to be
00:14:18.860 | between the lines here—we really must ask ourselves whether Jesus and the apostles did
00:14:24.840 | their missional evangelistic work in a way that beautiful but controversial teachings
00:14:33.080 | were concealed.
00:14:36.180 | Crowds were listening to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
00:14:40.620 | Crowds, crowds of people, hearing him, no doubt, for the first time, many of them.
00:14:48.060 | Not a select group, a little in-house group that can handle hard things.
00:14:51.860 | And he said that being angry is like murder and it'll send you to hell.
00:14:58.540 | And he said lust is like adultery and it'll send you to hell.
00:15:03.720 | Those are his words.
00:15:04.720 | Those are the strongest words in the Bible about hell.
00:15:09.480 | He said the gate is narrow that leads to life and few there be that find it.
00:15:14.840 | He said the tree that doesn't bear fruit is going to get cut down and thrown into the
00:15:19.280 | fire.
00:15:20.280 | And he was saying this to people who were, "Whoa, who is this?
00:15:25.300 | Who is this talking like that?"
00:15:29.900 | They're all incredibly offensive words spoken to the crowds.
00:15:36.460 | When people wanted to follow Jesus, he told them, "You sure?
00:15:43.060 | Can you build this tower?
00:15:44.380 | Can you defeat this army?
00:15:46.120 | Can you live without a home?"
00:15:47.680 | He told them to count the cost.
00:15:49.420 | He didn't try to make it.
00:15:51.580 | He didn't hide anything.
00:15:53.600 | He didn't try to conceal the cost.
00:15:56.720 | And when Paul preached to Felix, Felix said, "You're out of your mind!"
00:16:03.300 | And Paul didn't say, "Wow, I must have blown it.
00:16:06.240 | My evangelistic missional strategy has just made me useless."
00:16:11.960 | He said, "I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus.
00:16:16.360 | I am speaking the truth in rational words, and you know I am."
00:16:21.840 | Oh my, there is just so much more to say in regard to the Nashville Statement.
00:16:30.400 | Things that need to be said about Donald Trump and the moral compromise of evangelicals who
00:16:36.960 | minimized his unrepentant lechery, things that need to be said about a rampant divorce
00:16:43.680 | culture in and outside the church, things that need to be said about evangelical contrition
00:16:49.720 | for aiding and abetting the collapse of sexual immorality, and on and on.
00:16:55.640 | And I've already gone on way too long for a podcast like this, so what I just wanted
00:17:01.880 | to do is take Amy's two questions and try to be faithful to them.
00:17:06.080 | Maybe we can do more later.
00:17:07.360 | Amen.
00:17:08.360 | There are loads of ethical connections to the Nashville Statement and to popular sexual
00:17:13.720 | trends and beliefs within evangelicalism today, and much more needs to be said.
00:17:18.400 | Thank you, Pastor John, for at least saying this.
00:17:21.560 | And thank you for listening and making the podcast a part of your week.
00:17:24.760 | You can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our past episodes in our archive, and even
00:17:28.680 | reach us by email with a question of your own, even questions that relate to cultural
00:17:32.440 | hot topics and how the church best engages in those conversations in public, like this
00:17:37.720 | very good question today from Amy.
00:17:40.560 | You can do all that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:17:47.440 | Well Jesus is our ransom.
00:17:49.240 | Amen to that.
00:17:50.240 | Christ gave himself as a ransom for all, scripture says.
00:17:54.840 | But who did he ransom?
00:17:56.960 | Who got paid off by his shed blood?
00:18:00.240 | This question is super important and is far too often answered wrongly.
00:18:04.800 | It's going to be a good one.
00:18:06.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:18:07.400 | We'll see you then.
00:18:08.280 | Amen.
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