November 25, 2025 • 36 mins
Does the Bible condone the mistreatment of women? Why does evil exist? Is God's jealousy just? Should Christians support Israel?
In this episode, host Jon Delger, the Executive Pastor of the Peace Family of Churches, and Logan Bailey, the Family Pastor at Peace Church, dive into what the Bible has to say about some of our culture's biggest issues.
We challenge common objections and asking what these passages reveal about God’s character and justice. In the end, these difficult moments may highlight the Bible’s moral clarity more than they undermine it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast where we
answer questions about the Christian faith in plain
language. If you or someone you know has
questions, please submit them toPeace Church dot CC slash
questions. So last time we talked about
some critical topics, we talked about slavery in the Bible.
(00:29):
Does the Bible condone slavery? Last time we talked about
genocide. Does the Bible command a
genocide? Now we're going to talk about
what does the Bible say? Or does the Bible condone the
mistreatment of women? As much as the other two are
massive moral questions, I wouldsay this one actually is a very
personal sort of moral question.I mean, few things strike deeper
(00:49):
than talking then that question,does the Bible endorse
mistreatment of women? That's a that's a that's an
incredible, that's an incrediblequestion.
And then we're going to take some more questions from people
related to this rapid fire stylequestions.
All right, so let's talk about that.
That first one. I think today, maybe more than
(01:12):
generations in the past, we are very aware of abuse, harassment,
rape, terrible ways that women have been mistreated.
I think we're more aware of thatmaybe then past generations have
been. And we read in the Bible
passages like Judges 19 where a man offers up his concubine to a
(01:38):
mob to be gang raped through thenight in order to save himself.
Like a passage is like Genesis 19 where a lot offers up his
virgin daughters to a violent crowd in an effort to protect
his guests. Think of Judges 21, where the
tribe of Benjamin takes wives byabducting them while they're
(01:58):
dancing at a festival. And that's condoned by their
brothers in Israel. So these are some, these are
some, these are some. I won't describe them in full
detail, but I gave you the references so people can read
those stories, think about them,digest them.
I think, I think rightfully, these ought to raise questions
for us. What do we do with these
passages? How do we understand?
But we read them and try to understand them.
(02:20):
I think it's first. And we read them in the context
of the entire Bible, which actually gives us a moral.
The the great irony of the question even is the Bible
immoral is you can't even have there is no better moral
structure to have than the one the Bible gives.
And often times we are using borrowed morality from the Bible
(02:40):
to critique the Bible. And so that's like, the great
irony is like, well, the classicline of like, some cultures love
their neighbors and some cultures eat them.
This isn't just a matter of subjectivity.
This is like there's an objective moral truth and we
find it in the Bible because theGod of justice is revealing it
to us. And so that's the great irony of
it, is that often we're using a moral code that we got from the
(03:04):
Bible to critique the Bible. So maybe we don't fully
understand the Bible. So the first thing is let's try
to understand these things in context.
Most of the ones you brought up,and I say most just because I
can't remember them all I in my head, I'm trying to the one I'm
thinking of in context, the Bible was saying that it's evil
with the concubine, the end of judges, like the that was the,
(03:27):
the the like cherry on top of the entire book trying to say
people did what was right in their own eyes and they were
wicked and it like this moment, this crescendo of wickedness was
that example and it led to like a civil war within Israel.
And so the Bible is describing brokenness, wicked, evil, and
(03:55):
it's also prescribing things andanytime you.
Read the book of judges. You got to understand the
context of the book. The refrain in the book, just
like you said is in those days in Israel, there is no king.
Everyone did was write in their own eyes and the whole story of
the book of judges about how that did not work out well for
them. They weren't following God as
their king. And that's the whole problem.
So I think, I think you know, today when something bad happens
(04:17):
in the world, you get an enormous amount of tweets or
statements online from politicians and famous people
and saying I condemn the events of.
Today. Or some public outrage to make
sure that people know that they're virtuous.
Yeah, some virtue signaling is what we would call it.
And so I think, you know, in today's world where we have tons
of that, I think we sort of think it would be nice if the
(04:39):
Bible stopped and said and that was terrible.
But it doesn't. I think it in a lot of stories,
like stories and judges, it justassumes that we should
understand we, you know, if we're reading the Bible cover to
cover, we should, you know, withthe context of the 10
commandments and, and and other things, you know, we should just
be able to read that story and go, that's terrible.
That's not what. Got most of it is bad.
(05:00):
The Bible says the Lord made these things and it was good,
and then most after that was things humans did and most of
them are bad, right? Genesis 1 and two God made
everything good. Genesis 3 You know, we didn't
get very. Far we start doing things.
Yeah, yeah, We didn't get very far into the story.
Genesis 3 Human being, sin, it all becomes broken.
And so there's things the Bible describes and there's things
(05:21):
that the Bible prescribes. Prescribes, right?
And there's a difference betweenthose two things.
And just cause the Bible describes it doesn't mean it is
condoning it or condemning it. It's just saying this is what
happened. Yeah.
Let me add, I'll add to the problem a little bit further
because there's some there's also some Old Testament laws
that I think strike us as very unfair.
Maybe even someone call them sexist or misogynist.
(05:43):
Let me give you a few examples. So here's Leviticus 12.
When a woman gives birth, she's considered ritually unclean
longer if she gives birth to a girl than if she gives birth to
a boy. So why is that?
Is that unfair? Deuteronomy 21, when a female is
captured as a prisoner of war, she can then be taken as a wife.
(06:04):
You know, So what's going on there is that is that really,
you know, the best way to treat her is that Deuteronomy 22, a
man who rapes a virgin is required to pay her father and
then marry her, you know, so thewoman is forced to to marry the,
the rapist is that, you know, a healthy situation.
(06:24):
So I think each of those laws and we could give some other
examples, but they, they raise questions, right?
Is is the the way I've heard it probably most inflammatory put
is just is God sexist? No.
And before you even read any of those verses presuppositionally,
(06:44):
I know because I want to have a biblical worldview, God isn't
unjust. He's not in, he doesn't do, He
doesn't stand for injustice, he stands for justice.
And so to whatever degree sexismis unjust.
No, God is not sexist. He's not unjust.
Now some people might claim thatit is sexist of God to to have
(07:05):
gender roles or things like that, and that goes into a whole
host of topics. But it's not wrong of God when
he goes to Adam, who's accordingto the Bible, the head of the
household, right as the husband,even though Eve was the one that
was tempted first, treating Adamlike a man in that moment by
going to Adam first. It's not wrong of God to do
(07:28):
that. It's not wrong of God, for
example, it's not the fact that as men we will never give birth
isn't some in just act of the Lord.
It's he made us as men and he treats us like men.
He treats women like women. And of course, again, we have so
many things going on in the world today with opinions on
gender norms or transgenderism that this is crazy to think of.
(07:51):
But no, God is not sexist. And in the the reputation of,
well, without these gender normsthat the Bible like, yeah, God
treats men like men and women like women because the Bible
says he made us male and female.Yeah.
So you're saying even beyond some of these specific examples
that we're talking about in these passages, just there's
that. There's also the objection that
(08:14):
is it even fair that God treats the genders differently so
you're. Saying that's not sexist and if
if what you mean by sexism is something unjust, no, because
God's not unjust. Sure.
Right. Yeah.
I mean, Scripture is pretty clear that God created, you
know, male and female and that that is good, that they're
equally valuable before the Lord.
(08:34):
They're both human beings creating God's image, and yet
they're different. Men and women are not the same.
They're different. And that that's not a bad thing.
That's part of God's good design.
Yeah, definitely. So.
And I think about, so just just thinking about some of these
specific examples in the Bible, I want to, I want to just give a
few answers of my own. So, so if you're encountering
somebody, if you yourself have these questions, or if you're
(08:56):
encountering somebody who's asking these questions, there
are some great specific answers you can give.
One is what we said earlier thata lot of these passages are not
prescriptive. They don't tell us what to do.
They just describe something that happened.
And they're, you know, the stories in Judges or of, of lot.
And it's, you know, that's bad, that that was not the right
thing that they did. Those were, those were bad
things. The Bible wasn't holding those
(09:16):
out as good examples, but as examples of human sin and the
need for for ultimately for Jesus as our Savior.
But even some of the let me talkspecifically about the laws
'cause I think the law ones can be troubling because you know,
this, this is God's law. All right, So what's what's
going on here? So let me just dealing.
With prescriptive things. Yeah, yeah, those yeah, exactly.
Those are prescriptive things, not descriptive things.
(09:37):
So what's, what's God doing? And my, my summary of my answer
is this is that God's law doesn't offer permission, but
protection in the midst of a broken world.
So as we said in the last episode, talking about slavery,
God is, is speaking his law intoa world that's broken by sin.
You know, if we didn't want that, God could snap his fingers
and end it. But we saw an example of that,
you know, in the flood, what it looks like is destruction of of
(10:00):
all of us, right? Because we're all sinful and
broken. So instead of doing that, God
and his patience is working out a story of redemption.
And so his laws restrain sin in the midst of a broken world.
OK, so some examples. So thinking about, I thought
about the example of a law of a woman captured in war and, and
what you know, and some of the, the results of that.
(10:21):
So here's here's another law. This is Deuteronomy 21 verses 10
to 14. This says that she has to be
given a month to grieve, that she can't be treated as property
and that if the the husband, theone who marries her, no longer
wants her, he has to set her free.
She can't be sold into slavery. All right, So there's some
restrictions. OK.
So it seems harsh at first to think that, wow, a woman
captured in war can just be married off to, to, you know, to
(10:45):
an Israeli man. What's up with that is that, you
know, the best way to treat her.Well, actually, it's, you know,
it's a protection for her. You know, in the ancient world,
she doesn't have a ton of options, right?
She needs to become part of a new family.
She needs to have a husband to provide for her.
OK. And so Scripture sets out a way
for that to happen. And also it protects her against
being abused by him. All right, I think we
(11:06):
underestimate how absolutely brutal human existence has been
the majority of sure history like that is a being a widow.
The reason the New Testament says like care for widows,
because that was the worst social standing to be in period.
(11:29):
And so like a a woman that losesthe structure of a family either
needs the structure of a family or some sort of help.
And so the actual best thing is to get into the structure of a
family again. Yeah, in the midst of an, in the
midst of a situation that's not ideal, it provides some ways to
(11:50):
to help, to restrain further damage.
Yeah, a, a woman who has been raped was protected from
execution, which might sound like why in the world would that
happen? But actually, in many ancient
societies, that was the result. You're adulterous.
Yeah, that would be treated likethat.
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, in the midst of a of a
(12:11):
messed up ancient society situation, the Bible restricts
that damage, that abuse. The requirement to marry her was
not really a reward for the man,but was a way to ensure, like we
just said, that she wasn't left socially or economically ruined.
That's taking on responsibility of a family is right from a
man's perspective, and so it. Right.
Would she would she really want to be married to that guy?
(12:33):
No, but it would be much the OP the other the alternative would
be much worse for her is is the so again passage on that
Deuteronomy 22 versus 28 to 29? And that mixes too with ours.
We don't even know, like most marriages through human history
have been arranged in some form.And we live in a dating culture
type of world. And so it's really foreign to us
(12:55):
in that regard as well. Yeah, to even conceptualize any
of this, really. It's really difficult, right?
Last specific one, I want to give an answer to Leviticus 12
where it talks about the purification period for a woman
after she gives birth to a female child versus a male
child. So scholars researching and, and
giving answers to this question have said that it's not about,
(13:18):
you know, inferiority for a female child versus a male
child. But the most likely answer that
scholars have given is that it actually puts distance between a
female child and then returning to the temple, because remember,
that's what ritual cleanness does.
If if they're if you're rituallyunclean, you can't go on worship
in the temple. It puts distance between the
temple and the birth of baby girls, which would be a large
(13:38):
contrast. I won't go into detail, but with
sexual rituals performed in Canaanite temples.
So trying to separate young ladies from temple worship, you
know something a huge differencebetween biblical religion and at
the time Pagan Canaanite religion and how that.
Worked. I had a professor in undergrad
(13:59):
that dealing with the passage that I don't think you brought
up, but just menstrual cycle andhaving her period and being
considered unclean around that time as well.
And the critique of like, well, why would she be unclean?
It's like, well, we look at thatand think it, it equates 1 to
one for like sinfulness. And there's a sense in which
(14:20):
there's some correlation. But in that sense, it's not a
one for one because it, it's if you're clean, you have a
responsibility to go into the temple.
You're unclean, you don't go in the temple.
And so to have a break because of the the menstrual cycle
happenings, you're not given, you don't have that
(14:42):
responsibility and you're not lazy for not going in sort of
conversation. Yeah.
So. To, to to your point, and we're
not like being exhaustive, but we look at these prescriptions
and assume, oh, this must be negative towards the woman.
But we're just making the point of like, well, quite possibly
(15:04):
and most likely it was beneficial for them.
Yeah, not just restricting evil,but potentially setting up
structures for help. Right, right.
Exactly. And you look at the New
Testament and you think of all the ways that Jesus treated
women. Jesus is a part of the Godhead.
He's not a he is fully God. He is the God of the Old
(15:25):
Testament acting as well A Trinitarian theology here is, I
said a part of the Godhead. Is that correct?
I think it's member. Oh yeah, OK, It didn't phase me.
I don't think about it. But even when we go to the New
Testament, what we're dealing with is instances where people
might say, like, yeah, the Old Testament he treats women
(15:47):
poorly, but in the New Testament, God treats women
better. It's like he's, he's the God,
the same God of the Old Testament as the God of the New
Testament. And so when Jesus is treating
women, he's not being inconsistent.
He's being consistent with how he views women, made an image of
God, and he does uplift women pretty starkly in the New
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Testament in the ways that he treats them and in the ways that
the gospel narrative unfolds with the women being the first
to witness the resurrected Christ.
No one would make that story up because that wouldn't even pass
in courts. And So what you have in the New
Testament is potentially more readily like seeable, you know,
(16:29):
evidence of how God sees women uplifts women in the Bible.
But because we're, it sounds crazy, but 2000 years ago Greek
culture we can actually make better sense of than we can even
even more distant past. Sure, Israelite culture, but
they're both ancient cultures that are hard to understand.
(16:50):
But you get my point. Yeah.
Now, I think one of the things that people might be thinking
is, well, but guys, even if you're saying the right
interpretation of these passagesis a good thing, having these
passages been used for bad over generations, Yeah, Yeah, we're.
Yeah, we're ready to say absolutely.
Men and people at large have used these passages to mistreat
(17:13):
women, for sure. And that's wrong.
But the abuse of something doesn't negate the proper use of
it. There's something I've said many
times about the Bible and you know, you think about, for
example, a hammer. Just because somebody misuses a
hammer to hit somebody and hurt them doesn't mean there's no
proper use for a hammer, right? You know, every builder, every
(17:34):
Carpenter knows that there's a, there's a positive use for a
hammer. You know, it's, it's to pound
nails into wood. It can be misused, but that
doesn't mean it doesn't have a proper use.
And so have people abuse Scripture, misused it?
Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that
there's not a right and good useof it.
So what we're defending is not Christian behavior over the
generations. What we're defending is, is the
(17:56):
truth of the Bible that God's design is good.
Yeah, I, I think it's not a surprise that the Christian
Church has been, has had a lot of women attracted to it.
And, and, and the early church was a lot of you can see in the
book of Acts, there's a lot of women in the in the early
church, but especially from whatwe know in history, a lot of
(18:18):
women were attracted to it. That's why in first Peter three
Peter is dealing with questions of women who are Christians but
have unbelieving husbands. That was a common occurrence
because of how the Bible, because of the Christian world,
you lifted women up. So that's actually consistent.
It's not a surprise that that would happen.
And that still happens today. Yeah.
(18:39):
Before we get to rapid fire, I just want to ask you a question,
John. As the host of the show, we just
talked about a lot of heavy topics.
And so I'm sure we definitely weren't exhausted.
And so for the people listening that still have questions on the
topic, maybe we didn't cover things as clearly as we wish we
did or a question we didn't think of.
You you want them to ask. Those questions, I love having
more questions come in. Yeah, yeah.
(18:59):
Peace Church dot CC slash questions Yeah, we'd love to
hear them. Keep them coming.
Even if there's a topic that we've done multiple episodes on,
we like to hear those questions.Yeah.
I think even each of the topics that we just talked about, we
have at least touched down in other episodes previously.
But it's a great chance to get to revisit them and go deep
brown. Almost especially so because if
there's it's nice to know what topics most questions are are
(19:23):
that are coming in. So if you have it, someone else
probably has it too, so you should ask it.
Yes, definitely, definitely. As a pastor, I'd love to hear
people's questions. Totally.
All right. Rapid fire.
All right. Lots of questions.
We'll just kind of go in whatever direction these
questions take us. We'll go where the wind takes
us. All right, question number one,
(19:43):
we talked about genocide. We are currently in the midst of
a situation where some people are calling it a genocide, the
Israel, Hamas or Palestine conflict.
Yeah. Yeah, I, I think a lot of people
have a lot of thoughts. And so it was probably a common
(20:04):
question of listeners when we were talking about genocide.
I think that it's abundantly clear, and this might surprise
some people who but isn't there so much to say about it?
And it's like, yeah, there's complexities to it, but I think
it's abundantly clear that if Israel put their weapons down,
they would all die. If Hamas put their weapons down,
(20:25):
the war would be over. And the Palestinian people would
be free from the genocidal maniac government that rules
them. Hamas in their charter wants to
kill all of the Jews around the world.
And Israel, you talk about like a 2 state solution kind of
thing. They have Palestinians in Israel
that serving government even. So to me, yeah, there's there's,
(20:49):
there's a genocidal piece to it and it's that Hamas wants to
kill all the Jews like. Well, the slogan From the River
to the sea. Palestine will be free,
insinuates, implies genocide. Well, yeah, I mean, it's, it's
wiping out the people from the river to the sea.
I mean, that's, yeah. To, to add the I think necessary
(21:11):
nuance of war is, is wicked. I mean there there's there's
death happening to a scale that's unimaginable.
And I don't necessarily think weshould just trust everything
Hamas says. In fact, I there's some pretty
well vetted stories of Hamas taking aid and then selling the
aid to the Palestinian people. And so the aid workers are
(21:36):
actually really trying to not work with Hamas but deal
directly with Palestinian people.
But we're dealing with terrorists who dig tunnels on
their churches and hospitals anduse people's human Shields and
take aid and sell them back to their people like they're the
terrorists in this situation. I'm not defending the IDF and
(21:56):
the Israeli government because they're a secular society.
They're not like they're, they're more like American than
any other country in the Middle East.
But they're not the same as the nation of Israel in the Bible.
And they have wickedness too. And not defending everything
they do, but they don't explicitly want genocide.
Hamas does. Exactly.
(22:17):
I mean, I think we'd be quick tosay that there is, you know, but
again, no human being is perfect.
Neither of these nations or people groups is perfect, You
know, is, you know, standing in as, you know, the righteous
people of God. That's that's not the case.
They're, you know, they're both imperfect.
We're dealing with people and yet.
Politics. Just global politics.
Right. And yet it's from ever since
(22:39):
October 7, you know, it's been two years ago now, it's been
very clear who's on, you know, who is on the right side of this
thing. You know, Hamas is a terrorist
organization that committed a terrible attack on the people of
Israel. And then Israel has reacted to
defend themselves. Now, again, not trying to say
that they're perfect or anythinglike that, but that's, that's
(22:59):
the basic facts of the situation.
And even the slogan, like we've said from, you know, they want
to Hamas wants to kill people from the Jordan River to the
sea. That's the people of Israel.
And that's a that's a terrible goal.
There's a genocidal piece to it,and it's not that Israel's
committed a genocide. And, and I'll be quick to say
that we're pastors. We're not, you know, I'm not a
(23:22):
professional foreign policy guy or anything like that.
But we do have thoughts. And I think that's where we're
at from the the facts of the situation that we know.
Yeah. And pastorally, thinking
theologically, I don't think we're dealing with, to your
point, the nation of Israel fromthe Old Testament.
Well, that's worth talking aboutagain.
So we did a couple episodes two years ago in October when these
(23:44):
attacks happened, trying to explain some of the situation,
trying to talk about the awful terrorist attack that it was.
And then also talking about biblically, how do we understand
the nation of Israel? Because this is this is a this
is one of those topics where people get so confused.
And I understand that what you have to know, they'll try to
give this short answer. We have to know is that there's
(24:05):
two different big picture perspectives on the Bible.
One is called dispensationalism.The other one is called covenant
theology. Covenant theology is really the
the Reformed view of the Bible. Of course we would say the the
biblical view of the Bible. The the Reformation's goal was
to get back to early church thinking and correct biblical
interpretation. Yeah, yeah.
(24:26):
So in dispensationalism, may I didn't expect to go here with
this question, but here we are. So there's such a huge topic,
but feel free to ask more questions about this.
If we don't make it clear, whichI'm sure we won't entirely cover
it, but dispensationalism in in short views the different parts
of the Bible as as more cut up, less continuous than covenant
(24:47):
theology does. For example, a classic
dispensationalist would say that, you know, in, in parts of
the Bible, in the Old Testament,God was working with the people
of Israel and those were God's people.
One dispensationalist teacher, I, I heard them say, you know
exactly this, that they, they use this illustration that God
was on the phone with Israel. And then in the New Testament,
God put Israel on hold and he picked up the phone with the
(25:10):
church. But then in the future at the
rapture, God is going to put down the phone with the church
and pick back up the phone with Israel.
So saying that Israel and the church are two different peoples
of God that God deals with differently and has, you know,
and is working out basically twodifferent storylines with
whereas covenant theology, Reformed theology, we would say
(25:30):
there's one storyline, there's one people of God.
I know some people will not be excited to hear this and we can
do some more teaching on this. But to see that really anything
about Genesis 12 and God's call to Abraham, you know, a father
of many nations, a blessing too many nations, that God's plan
was always that his people wouldnot be 1 nation, but would be a
Church of many nations. And so really, the church is the
(25:53):
fulfillment of God's promises tohis people, to the people.
Of Israel and all that to say when we deal with this issue and
you know geopolitically we're we're not talking about
something that you might be surprised.
Why don't our pastors talk more about this or why why doesn't
that that's a good question talkmore about this conflict because
it has to do with Israel. It's like well the reason is
because it's it's not there's some discontinuity between the
(26:17):
Israel of the Old Testament and the nation state of Israel
today. There's discontinuity there.
So it's, it's an important topic.
There's evil happening, there's so much death.
We want the war should end as soon as possible.
Like that's what we want to havebe seen.
And so our comments on it have to do with a geopolitical
situation a lot less about like the Book of Revelation or the
(26:39):
End Times type of things. Yeah.
Like we're like both of us just articulated support for the
nation of Israel against Hamas. We didn't do that for a biblical
reason or for or because we think that Israel is special in
from a biblical theological perspective.
And we did it because we think that makes sense on the world
scene. Israel is not off limits of
(26:59):
critiques. Like it's, yeah, there, there
are evil things that a nation has done, just like there's evil
things America has done. Like it's, it's, it's good.
It's OK and good to say those things, to comment on those
things. But as far as like, what's the
moral dilemma of the war itself,It's, yeah, there's some,
there's a genocidal terrorist organization trying to kill all
(27:21):
the Jews. Maybe some people think that's
maybe too simplistic, but I think there's no way out of this
conflict without Hamas as an organization being dissolved,
right? Next question All right, this
one is a little off topic, but Isaw it and I loved it and I was
just like, we got to we got to try to answer this question
sooner than later. All right, so here it is says my
(27:43):
16 year old daughter had a question about the sermon she
heard today that totally stumpedme.
She said, doesn't the Bible say that jealousy is a sin?
So how is God being jealous not sinful?
Yes. Great question.
Yeah, Pastor Ryan, I think talked about it and I think
brought some clarity to it. But it comes to what I've always
said when I get this question isyou get jealous of a boyfriend
(28:06):
and that's wrong because he's not yours.
When someone takes something that's yours, then you have a
right to be jealous. We are the Lords.
He's going to get jealous over that which is his being taken,
you know, or, or being distracted by other things that
aren't him. Yeah, He created us.
Then if you're a Christian, he sent his son.
(28:26):
He gave, he paid the price of his son to save us.
So we belong to him in at least 2 senses, 2 major senses being
created, being redeemed by him. Yeah, He's got a right to to us.
And also like another key thing is to remember that we are
human. He is God.
And so while jealousy is wrong for us, it actually is right for
(28:52):
God. And I know, yeah, at first that
seems like contradictory to our to our senses.
But yeah, when you wrap your mind around what that we belong
to God, that God is, is right towant our, let's say he, he has a
right to our love and our loyalty, right?
Yeah, and it's similar to like anger.
(29:14):
Anger can be righteous because you have a right to be angry or
something. And you can not have a right to
be angry about something. There can be something you're
wrongfully angry about. You can have a right to be
jealous of something. It's hard for me to think of an
example of someone being rightfully jealous as a human
being, but certainly God is rightfully jealous when his
(29:34):
people go after other gods were made to worship him.
Yeah, Yeah. So if someone's taken your
stuff, then maybe we can have a conversation of, of jealousy.
But that's, that's the idea. It's like it's got stuff.
It's got's people. He's jealous. 4 And that's one
of the most beautiful truth of scripture, that God wants you.
So it's not, it's not a questionof evil.
(29:55):
Well, I mean, I think the the maybe the best human comparison
is to the jealousy of a husband or wife.
Yes, that's the best example I could think of in my mind, Yeah.
If your, if your spouse, you know, is looking towards another
person, then, you know, if, if I'm a husband and my wife is,
you know, looking at another man, I should, there's a
jealousy that I should feel because we're married.
(30:15):
There's a, you know, we're supposed to have love for each
other only. We're supposed to have eyes for
each other only. And so there's an, you know, we
can do sinful things with that, but there's an appropriateness
to this feeling. That rightful anger even and
then I mean the verse of be angry but don't sin like what
you do with those rightful feelings.
You need to make sure then you don't go into sin with them.
But yeah, God wants his people, and that's a beautiful truth of
(30:38):
Scripture. All right, here we go.
Last question that we have time for.
Here it is. Is the rapture real?
Is there evidence in the Bible of the rapture, and if so, where
do we? This is interesting because we
brought up the dispensational thing and reformed theology, and
this gets into other big theological terms that people
toss around like premillennialism, historic or
dispensational premillennialism,amillennialism, post
(30:59):
millennialism, those rapture, tribulation, a lot of big words,
Revelation, Antichrist, rapture.So what are we dealing with
here? This is how we carve out
professional standards for ourselves by having these big
words, right? Every profession tries to create
fancy words to justify themselves.
Well, these are the theology. Big fancy words to justify,
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's funny if you
(31:19):
have a bunch of Christians around a camp player long
enough, they will talk about eschatology and times, you know,
that's not so rapture is a, is a, is a biblical concept in in
similar to a sense like when someone's like, do you believe
in predestination? Well, the Bible uses the word,
so yes, you better have a concept of it.
Rapture, First Thessalonians 4, the Bible talks about believers
(31:41):
being caught up with the Lord and those who have fallen asleep
died. Believers that have died to be
with the Lord. They will be first, we will be
second. We caught up with them as Jesus
comes to bring redemption to thewhole earth.
I think that's that's one of thebest ways to think of it.
So, yes, but not in the way thatmost American minds think of the
(32:04):
word rapture, and maybe less so now I know that well, we're.
Yeah, for so long it was the book series left.
Behind and I know people that are like I've talked to some
younger people, like high schoolage that are like, what's that?
Yeah, right. And so some people are like,
what? That was so big.
Kirk Cameron thinks about that. Whether you know it or not, that
drastically helped influence American thinking of what the
(32:27):
end times. Even non believers might even be
thinking of that moment, that totally blink of an eye, right?
Yeah, you had people disappearing and their clothes
are left on the floor. Basically, you know airplanes
crash because the pilot is is quote UN quote Rapture
disappears. And then the tribulation comes.
And I do think that all of thesewords are biblical and there's
just different frameworks of thinking about them.
(32:48):
And so I mean, Jesus talks aboutlike it will come quickly, like
a thief in the night, this moment.
And so we it's good that we think of moments a day of the
Lord, right? It's good that we think in terms
of these biblical words. But we used to recognize there's
different frameworks of thinkingof them.
And the big four would be dispensational premillennialism,
historic premillennialism, post millennialism and
(33:11):
amillennialism. And so if you want to dig into
it more, those are the words to Google.
Yeah. Well, and the key, yeah, Yeah.
So we talked earlier about dispensationalism versus
covenant theology. This is another really important
area in which those two those two categories collide.
Our view of this. So for a dispensationalist, you
know, they are seeing the rapture as where Christians are
(33:32):
are brought out of the world forGod to go back to dealing with
Israel and to work out some somepurposes through the
tribulation. And they have different views
about how all that works. Where is in covenant theology.
We more view it as God has been,we've been in the last days
since Jesus left the earth. We've been in the midst of
seasons of tribulations since Jesus left the earth.
(33:56):
And we will until Jesus returns.And for us it's more again.
I'm taking a huge concept and shrinking it down into a couple
sentences. That's what I do that.
But that's what I. Do here, but for us basically we
would say more of the rapture isjust the end is when Jesus
returns so for. Dispensation us in that we'll be
involved in that. For a dispensationalist, it's a
series of a bunch of events taking place over a long period
(34:18):
of time and stuff. You'll.
Now and then God will come and do things and then leave and
then come back. Yeah, versus 1 climactic event
that you get caught up in the. Return of.
Jesus, as the king returns. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I, I, I like to point people towards the an evening of
eschatology. You know what I'm thinking of.
It's beautiful. It's it's like 3 hour long talk,
maybe 3 hours is pushing and maybe it was only two hours, but
(34:40):
between Doug Wilson, John Piper,Sam Storms and and one, one
other guy. But it's, it's this beautiful
like conversation between them about those BIG4 or I guess big
three. They, they do historic
premillennialism in that, but they, they discuss eschatology
because this isn't a matter of like orthodoxy.
What the matter of orthodoxy is Jesus will return, right?
That's what the that's rock solid, right?
(35:02):
The these models of, you know, what's that look like timeline,
those kind of things. There's, there's.
It's OK to disagree on those things, but.
The big joke that you'll often hear people say is that I'm not
a pre or post millennialist. I'm a pan millennialist.
I believe it'll all pan out in the end.
That's that's the joke. That's the heart.
I think we should have the heart.
Yeah, there's a there's a, you know, we can kind of scoff at it
(35:24):
as though it's not very precise and careful, but there's a level
at which it makes sense. Jesus said he's gonna come like
a thief in the night. So do we know what the whole end
is gonna look like? No, we don't.
We just are supposed to be ready.
Yeah. So we would say we're all
millennialists, you and I. Yeah.
But there's, it's OK to disagreeon on those things.
Yeah. More.
Detail for another. Episode.
I care about it, I'd love to talk more about it, but those
(35:45):
are the different views and the ideas behind it.
So question on Rapture. Yeah.
What was the exact question? Is it real?
Yes. Yeah, we'll be caught up.
It is real. Just what is it?
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Awesome.
Well, that's all the time we gotfor today.
Thank you, Pastor Logan. Thanks, everybody, for
listening. Feel free to keep sending the
questions. Have an awesome week.
Welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast where we
answer questions about the Christian faith in plain
language. If you or someone you know has
questions, please submit them toPeace Church dot CC slash
questions. So last time we talked about
some critical topics, we talked about slavery in the Bible.
(00:29):
Does the Bible condone slavery? Last time we talked about
genocide. Does the Bible command a
genocide? Now we're going to talk about
what does the Bible say? Or does the Bible condone the
mistreatment of women? As much as the other two are
massive moral questions, I wouldsay this one actually is a very
personal sort of moral question.I mean, few things strike deeper
(00:49):
than talking then that question,does the Bible endorse
mistreatment of women? That's a that's a that's an
incredible, that's an incrediblequestion.
And then we're going to take some more questions from people
related to this rapid fire stylequestions.
All right, so let's talk about that.
That first one. I think today, maybe more than
(01:12):
generations in the past, we are very aware of abuse, harassment,
rape, terrible ways that women have been mistreated.
I think we're more aware of thatmaybe then past generations have
been. And we read in the Bible
passages like Judges 19 where a man offers up his concubine to a
(01:38):
mob to be gang raped through thenight in order to save himself.
Like a passage is like Genesis 19 where a lot offers up his
virgin daughters to a violent crowd in an effort to protect
his guests. Think of Judges 21, where the
tribe of Benjamin takes wives byabducting them while they're
(01:58):
dancing at a festival. And that's condoned by their
brothers in Israel. So these are some, these are
some, these are some. I won't describe them in full
detail, but I gave you the references so people can read
those stories, think about them,digest them.
I think, I think rightfully, these ought to raise questions
for us. What do we do with these
passages? How do we understand?
But we read them and try to understand them.
(02:20):
I think it's first. And we read them in the context
of the entire Bible, which actually gives us a moral.
The the great irony of the question even is the Bible
immoral is you can't even have there is no better moral
structure to have than the one the Bible gives.
And often times we are using borrowed morality from the Bible
(02:40):
to critique the Bible. And so that's like, the great
irony is like, well, the classicline of like, some cultures love
their neighbors and some cultures eat them.
This isn't just a matter of subjectivity.
This is like there's an objective moral truth and we
find it in the Bible because theGod of justice is revealing it
to us. And so that's the great irony of
it, is that often we're using a moral code that we got from the
(03:04):
Bible to critique the Bible. So maybe we don't fully
understand the Bible. So the first thing is let's try
to understand these things in context.
Most of the ones you brought up,and I say most just because I
can't remember them all I in my head, I'm trying to the one I'm
thinking of in context, the Bible was saying that it's evil
with the concubine, the end of judges, like the that was the,
(03:27):
the the like cherry on top of the entire book trying to say
people did what was right in their own eyes and they were
wicked and it like this moment, this crescendo of wickedness was
that example and it led to like a civil war within Israel.
And so the Bible is describing brokenness, wicked, evil, and
(03:55):
it's also prescribing things andanytime you.
Read the book of judges. You got to understand the
context of the book. The refrain in the book, just
like you said is in those days in Israel, there is no king.
Everyone did was write in their own eyes and the whole story of
the book of judges about how that did not work out well for
them. They weren't following God as
their king. And that's the whole problem.
So I think, I think you know, today when something bad happens
(04:17):
in the world, you get an enormous amount of tweets or
statements online from politicians and famous people
and saying I condemn the events of.
Today. Or some public outrage to make
sure that people know that they're virtuous.
Yeah, some virtue signaling is what we would call it.
And so I think, you know, in today's world where we have tons
of that, I think we sort of think it would be nice if the
(04:39):
Bible stopped and said and that was terrible.
But it doesn't. I think it in a lot of stories,
like stories and judges, it justassumes that we should
understand we, you know, if we're reading the Bible cover to
cover, we should, you know, withthe context of the 10
commandments and, and and other things, you know, we should just
be able to read that story and go, that's terrible.
That's not what. Got most of it is bad.
(05:00):
The Bible says the Lord made these things and it was good,
and then most after that was things humans did and most of
them are bad, right? Genesis 1 and two God made
everything good. Genesis 3 You know, we didn't
get very. Far we start doing things.
Yeah, yeah, We didn't get very far into the story.
Genesis 3 Human being, sin, it all becomes broken.
And so there's things the Bible describes and there's things
(05:21):
that the Bible prescribes. Prescribes, right?
And there's a difference betweenthose two things.
And just cause the Bible describes it doesn't mean it is
condoning it or condemning it. It's just saying this is what
happened. Yeah.
Let me add, I'll add to the problem a little bit further
because there's some there's also some Old Testament laws
that I think strike us as very unfair.
Maybe even someone call them sexist or misogynist.
(05:43):
Let me give you a few examples. So here's Leviticus 12.
When a woman gives birth, she's considered ritually unclean
longer if she gives birth to a girl than if she gives birth to
a boy. So why is that?
Is that unfair? Deuteronomy 21, when a female is
captured as a prisoner of war, she can then be taken as a wife.
(06:04):
You know, So what's going on there is that is that really,
you know, the best way to treat her is that Deuteronomy 22, a
man who rapes a virgin is required to pay her father and
then marry her, you know, so thewoman is forced to to marry the,
the rapist is that, you know, a healthy situation.
(06:24):
So I think each of those laws and we could give some other
examples, but they, they raise questions, right?
Is is the the way I've heard it probably most inflammatory put
is just is God sexist? No.
And before you even read any of those verses presuppositionally,
(06:44):
I know because I want to have a biblical worldview, God isn't
unjust. He's not in, he doesn't do, He
doesn't stand for injustice, he stands for justice.
And so to whatever degree sexismis unjust.
No, God is not sexist. He's not unjust.
Now some people might claim thatit is sexist of God to to have
(07:05):
gender roles or things like that, and that goes into a whole
host of topics. But it's not wrong of God when
he goes to Adam, who's accordingto the Bible, the head of the
household, right as the husband,even though Eve was the one that
was tempted first, treating Adamlike a man in that moment by
going to Adam first. It's not wrong of God to do
(07:28):
that. It's not wrong of God, for
example, it's not the fact that as men we will never give birth
isn't some in just act of the Lord.
It's he made us as men and he treats us like men.
He treats women like women. And of course, again, we have so
many things going on in the world today with opinions on
gender norms or transgenderism that this is crazy to think of.
(07:51):
But no, God is not sexist. And in the the reputation of,
well, without these gender normsthat the Bible like, yeah, God
treats men like men and women like women because the Bible
says he made us male and female.Yeah.
So you're saying even beyond some of these specific examples
that we're talking about in these passages, just there's
that. There's also the objection that
(08:14):
is it even fair that God treats the genders differently so
you're. Saying that's not sexist and if
if what you mean by sexism is something unjust, no, because
God's not unjust. Sure.
Right. Yeah.
I mean, Scripture is pretty clear that God created, you
know, male and female and that that is good, that they're
equally valuable before the Lord.
(08:34):
They're both human beings creating God's image, and yet
they're different. Men and women are not the same.
They're different. And that that's not a bad thing.
That's part of God's good design.
Yeah, definitely. So.
And I think about, so just just thinking about some of these
specific examples in the Bible, I want to, I want to just give a
few answers of my own. So, so if you're encountering
somebody, if you yourself have these questions, or if you're
(08:56):
encountering somebody who's asking these questions, there
are some great specific answers you can give.
One is what we said earlier thata lot of these passages are not
prescriptive. They don't tell us what to do.
They just describe something that happened.
And they're, you know, the stories in Judges or of, of lot.
And it's, you know, that's bad, that that was not the right
thing that they did. Those were, those were bad
things. The Bible wasn't holding those
(09:16):
out as good examples, but as examples of human sin and the
need for for ultimately for Jesus as our Savior.
But even some of the let me talkspecifically about the laws
'cause I think the law ones can be troubling because you know,
this, this is God's law. All right, So what's what's
going on here? So let me just dealing.
With prescriptive things. Yeah, yeah, those yeah, exactly.
Those are prescriptive things, not descriptive things.
(09:37):
So what's, what's God doing? And my, my summary of my answer
is this is that God's law doesn't offer permission, but
protection in the midst of a broken world.
So as we said in the last episode, talking about slavery,
God is, is speaking his law intoa world that's broken by sin.
You know, if we didn't want that, God could snap his fingers
and end it. But we saw an example of that,
you know, in the flood, what it looks like is destruction of of
(10:00):
all of us, right? Because we're all sinful and
broken. So instead of doing that, God
and his patience is working out a story of redemption.
And so his laws restrain sin in the midst of a broken world.
OK, so some examples. So thinking about, I thought
about the example of a law of a woman captured in war and, and
what you know, and some of the, the results of that.
(10:21):
So here's here's another law. This is Deuteronomy 21 verses 10
to 14. This says that she has to be
given a month to grieve, that she can't be treated as property
and that if the the husband, theone who marries her, no longer
wants her, he has to set her free.
She can't be sold into slavery. All right, So there's some
restrictions. OK.
So it seems harsh at first to think that, wow, a woman
captured in war can just be married off to, to, you know, to
(10:45):
an Israeli man. What's up with that is that, you
know, the best way to treat her.Well, actually, it's, you know,
it's a protection for her. You know, in the ancient world,
she doesn't have a ton of options, right?
She needs to become part of a new family.
She needs to have a husband to provide for her.
OK. And so Scripture sets out a way
for that to happen. And also it protects her against
being abused by him. All right, I think we
(11:06):
underestimate how absolutely brutal human existence has been
the majority of sure history like that is a being a widow.
The reason the New Testament says like care for widows,
because that was the worst social standing to be in period.
(11:29):
And so like a a woman that losesthe structure of a family either
needs the structure of a family or some sort of help.
And so the actual best thing is to get into the structure of a
family again. Yeah, in the midst of an, in the
midst of a situation that's not ideal, it provides some ways to
(11:50):
to help, to restrain further damage.
Yeah, a, a woman who has been raped was protected from
execution, which might sound like why in the world would that
happen? But actually, in many ancient
societies, that was the result. You're adulterous.
Yeah, that would be treated likethat.
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, in the midst of a of a
(12:11):
messed up ancient society situation, the Bible restricts
that damage, that abuse. The requirement to marry her was
not really a reward for the man,but was a way to ensure, like we
just said, that she wasn't left socially or economically ruined.
That's taking on responsibility of a family is right from a
man's perspective, and so it. Right.
Would she would she really want to be married to that guy?
(12:33):
No, but it would be much the OP the other the alternative would
be much worse for her is is the so again passage on that
Deuteronomy 22 versus 28 to 29? And that mixes too with ours.
We don't even know, like most marriages through human history
have been arranged in some form.And we live in a dating culture
type of world. And so it's really foreign to us
(12:55):
in that regard as well. Yeah, to even conceptualize any
of this, really. It's really difficult, right?
Last specific one, I want to give an answer to Leviticus 12
where it talks about the purification period for a woman
after she gives birth to a female child versus a male
child. So scholars researching and, and
giving answers to this question have said that it's not about,
(13:18):
you know, inferiority for a female child versus a male
child. But the most likely answer that
scholars have given is that it actually puts distance between a
female child and then returning to the temple, because remember,
that's what ritual cleanness does.
If if they're if you're rituallyunclean, you can't go on worship
in the temple. It puts distance between the
temple and the birth of baby girls, which would be a large
(13:38):
contrast. I won't go into detail, but with
sexual rituals performed in Canaanite temples.
So trying to separate young ladies from temple worship, you
know something a huge differencebetween biblical religion and at
the time Pagan Canaanite religion and how that.
Worked. I had a professor in undergrad
(13:59):
that dealing with the passage that I don't think you brought
up, but just menstrual cycle andhaving her period and being
considered unclean around that time as well.
And the critique of like, well, why would she be unclean?
It's like, well, we look at thatand think it, it equates 1 to
one for like sinfulness. And there's a sense in which
(14:20):
there's some correlation. But in that sense, it's not a
one for one because it, it's if you're clean, you have a
responsibility to go into the temple.
You're unclean, you don't go in the temple.
And so to have a break because of the the menstrual cycle
happenings, you're not given, you don't have that
(14:42):
responsibility and you're not lazy for not going in sort of
conversation. Yeah.
So. To, to to your point, and we're
not like being exhaustive, but we look at these prescriptions
and assume, oh, this must be negative towards the woman.
But we're just making the point of like, well, quite possibly
(15:04):
and most likely it was beneficial for them.
Yeah, not just restricting evil,but potentially setting up
structures for help. Right, right.
Exactly. And you look at the New
Testament and you think of all the ways that Jesus treated
women. Jesus is a part of the Godhead.
He's not a he is fully God. He is the God of the Old
(15:25):
Testament acting as well A Trinitarian theology here is, I
said a part of the Godhead. Is that correct?
I think it's member. Oh yeah, OK, It didn't phase me.
I don't think about it. But even when we go to the New
Testament, what we're dealing with is instances where people
might say, like, yeah, the Old Testament he treats women
(15:47):
poorly, but in the New Testament, God treats women
better. It's like he's, he's the God,
the same God of the Old Testament as the God of the New
Testament. And so when Jesus is treating
women, he's not being inconsistent.
He's being consistent with how he views women, made an image of
God, and he does uplift women pretty starkly in the New
(16:07):
Testament in the ways that he treats them and in the ways that
the gospel narrative unfolds with the women being the first
to witness the resurrected Christ.
No one would make that story up because that wouldn't even pass
in courts. And So what you have in the New
Testament is potentially more readily like seeable, you know,
(16:29):
evidence of how God sees women uplifts women in the Bible.
But because we're, it sounds crazy, but 2000 years ago Greek
culture we can actually make better sense of than we can even
even more distant past. Sure, Israelite culture, but
they're both ancient cultures that are hard to understand.
(16:50):
But you get my point. Yeah.
Now, I think one of the things that people might be thinking
is, well, but guys, even if you're saying the right
interpretation of these passagesis a good thing, having these
passages been used for bad over generations, Yeah, Yeah, we're.
Yeah, we're ready to say absolutely.
Men and people at large have used these passages to mistreat
(17:13):
women, for sure. And that's wrong.
But the abuse of something doesn't negate the proper use of
it. There's something I've said many
times about the Bible and you know, you think about, for
example, a hammer. Just because somebody misuses a
hammer to hit somebody and hurt them doesn't mean there's no
proper use for a hammer, right? You know, every builder, every
(17:34):
Carpenter knows that there's a, there's a positive use for a
hammer. You know, it's, it's to pound
nails into wood. It can be misused, but that
doesn't mean it doesn't have a proper use.
And so have people abuse Scripture, misused it?
Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that
there's not a right and good useof it.
So what we're defending is not Christian behavior over the
generations. What we're defending is, is the
(17:56):
truth of the Bible that God's design is good.
Yeah, I, I think it's not a surprise that the Christian
Church has been, has had a lot of women attracted to it.
And, and, and the early church was a lot of you can see in the
book of Acts, there's a lot of women in the in the early
church, but especially from whatwe know in history, a lot of
(18:18):
women were attracted to it. That's why in first Peter three
Peter is dealing with questions of women who are Christians but
have unbelieving husbands. That was a common occurrence
because of how the Bible, because of the Christian world,
you lifted women up. So that's actually consistent.
It's not a surprise that that would happen.
And that still happens today. Yeah.
(18:39):
Before we get to rapid fire, I just want to ask you a question,
John. As the host of the show, we just
talked about a lot of heavy topics.
And so I'm sure we definitely weren't exhausted.
And so for the people listening that still have questions on the
topic, maybe we didn't cover things as clearly as we wish we
did or a question we didn't think of.
You you want them to ask. Those questions, I love having
more questions come in. Yeah, yeah.
(18:59):
Peace Church dot CC slash questions Yeah, we'd love to
hear them. Keep them coming.
Even if there's a topic that we've done multiple episodes on,
we like to hear those questions.Yeah.
I think even each of the topics that we just talked about, we
have at least touched down in other episodes previously.
But it's a great chance to get to revisit them and go deep
brown. Almost especially so because if
there's it's nice to know what topics most questions are are
(19:23):
that are coming in. So if you have it, someone else
probably has it too, so you should ask it.
Yes, definitely, definitely. As a pastor, I'd love to hear
people's questions. Totally.
All right. Rapid fire.
All right. Lots of questions.
We'll just kind of go in whatever direction these
questions take us. We'll go where the wind takes
us. All right, question number one,
(19:43):
we talked about genocide. We are currently in the midst of
a situation where some people are calling it a genocide, the
Israel, Hamas or Palestine conflict.
Yeah. Yeah, I, I think a lot of people
have a lot of thoughts. And so it was probably a common
(20:04):
question of listeners when we were talking about genocide.
I think that it's abundantly clear, and this might surprise
some people who but isn't there so much to say about it?
And it's like, yeah, there's complexities to it, but I think
it's abundantly clear that if Israel put their weapons down,
they would all die. If Hamas put their weapons down,
(20:25):
the war would be over. And the Palestinian people would
be free from the genocidal maniac government that rules
them. Hamas in their charter wants to
kill all of the Jews around the world.
And Israel, you talk about like a 2 state solution kind of
thing. They have Palestinians in Israel
that serving government even. So to me, yeah, there's there's,
(20:49):
there's a genocidal piece to it and it's that Hamas wants to
kill all the Jews like. Well, the slogan From the River
to the sea. Palestine will be free,
insinuates, implies genocide. Well, yeah, I mean, it's, it's
wiping out the people from the river to the sea.
I mean, that's, yeah. To, to add the I think necessary
(21:11):
nuance of war is, is wicked. I mean there there's there's
death happening to a scale that's unimaginable.
And I don't necessarily think weshould just trust everything
Hamas says. In fact, I there's some pretty
well vetted stories of Hamas taking aid and then selling the
aid to the Palestinian people. And so the aid workers are
(21:36):
actually really trying to not work with Hamas but deal
directly with Palestinian people.
But we're dealing with terrorists who dig tunnels on
their churches and hospitals anduse people's human Shields and
take aid and sell them back to their people like they're the
terrorists in this situation. I'm not defending the IDF and
(21:56):
the Israeli government because they're a secular society.
They're not like they're, they're more like American than
any other country in the Middle East.
But they're not the same as the nation of Israel in the Bible.
And they have wickedness too. And not defending everything
they do, but they don't explicitly want genocide.
Hamas does. Exactly.
(22:17):
I mean, I think we'd be quick tosay that there is, you know, but
again, no human being is perfect.
Neither of these nations or people groups is perfect, You
know, is, you know, standing in as, you know, the righteous
people of God. That's that's not the case.
They're, you know, they're both imperfect.
We're dealing with people and yet.
Politics. Just global politics.
Right. And yet it's from ever since
(22:39):
October 7, you know, it's been two years ago now, it's been
very clear who's on, you know, who is on the right side of this
thing. You know, Hamas is a terrorist
organization that committed a terrible attack on the people of
Israel. And then Israel has reacted to
defend themselves. Now, again, not trying to say
that they're perfect or anythinglike that, but that's, that's
(22:59):
the basic facts of the situation.
And even the slogan, like we've said from, you know, they want
to Hamas wants to kill people from the Jordan River to the
sea. That's the people of Israel.
And that's a that's a terrible goal.
There's a genocidal piece to it,and it's not that Israel's
committed a genocide. And, and I'll be quick to say
that we're pastors. We're not, you know, I'm not a
(23:22):
professional foreign policy guy or anything like that.
But we do have thoughts. And I think that's where we're
at from the the facts of the situation that we know.
Yeah. And pastorally, thinking
theologically, I don't think we're dealing with, to your
point, the nation of Israel fromthe Old Testament.
Well, that's worth talking aboutagain.
So we did a couple episodes two years ago in October when these
(23:44):
attacks happened, trying to explain some of the situation,
trying to talk about the awful terrorist attack that it was.
And then also talking about biblically, how do we understand
the nation of Israel? Because this is this is a this
is one of those topics where people get so confused.
And I understand that what you have to know, they'll try to
give this short answer. We have to know is that there's
(24:05):
two different big picture perspectives on the Bible.
One is called dispensationalism.The other one is called covenant
theology. Covenant theology is really the
the Reformed view of the Bible. Of course we would say the the
biblical view of the Bible. The the Reformation's goal was
to get back to early church thinking and correct biblical
interpretation. Yeah, yeah.
(24:26):
So in dispensationalism, may I didn't expect to go here with
this question, but here we are. So there's such a huge topic,
but feel free to ask more questions about this.
If we don't make it clear, whichI'm sure we won't entirely cover
it, but dispensationalism in in short views the different parts
of the Bible as as more cut up, less continuous than covenant
(24:47):
theology does. For example, a classic
dispensationalist would say that, you know, in, in parts of
the Bible, in the Old Testament,God was working with the people
of Israel and those were God's people.
One dispensationalist teacher, I, I heard them say, you know
exactly this, that they, they use this illustration that God
was on the phone with Israel. And then in the New Testament,
God put Israel on hold and he picked up the phone with the
(25:10):
church. But then in the future at the
rapture, God is going to put down the phone with the church
and pick back up the phone with Israel.
So saying that Israel and the church are two different peoples
of God that God deals with differently and has, you know,
and is working out basically twodifferent storylines with
whereas covenant theology, Reformed theology, we would say
(25:30):
there's one storyline, there's one people of God.
I know some people will not be excited to hear this and we can
do some more teaching on this. But to see that really anything
about Genesis 12 and God's call to Abraham, you know, a father
of many nations, a blessing too many nations, that God's plan
was always that his people wouldnot be 1 nation, but would be a
Church of many nations. And so really, the church is the
(25:53):
fulfillment of God's promises tohis people, to the people.
Of Israel and all that to say when we deal with this issue and
you know geopolitically we're we're not talking about
something that you might be surprised.
Why don't our pastors talk more about this or why why doesn't
that that's a good question talkmore about this conflict because
it has to do with Israel. It's like well the reason is
because it's it's not there's some discontinuity between the
(26:17):
Israel of the Old Testament and the nation state of Israel
today. There's discontinuity there.
So it's, it's an important topic.
There's evil happening, there's so much death.
We want the war should end as soon as possible.
Like that's what we want to havebe seen.
And so our comments on it have to do with a geopolitical
situation a lot less about like the Book of Revelation or the
(26:39):
End Times type of things. Yeah.
Like we're like both of us just articulated support for the
nation of Israel against Hamas. We didn't do that for a biblical
reason or for or because we think that Israel is special in
from a biblical theological perspective.
And we did it because we think that makes sense on the world
scene. Israel is not off limits of
(26:59):
critiques. Like it's, yeah, there, there
are evil things that a nation has done, just like there's evil
things America has done. Like it's, it's, it's good.
It's OK and good to say those things, to comment on those
things. But as far as like, what's the
moral dilemma of the war itself,It's, yeah, there's some,
there's a genocidal terrorist organization trying to kill all
(27:21):
the Jews. Maybe some people think that's
maybe too simplistic, but I think there's no way out of this
conflict without Hamas as an organization being dissolved,
right? Next question All right, this
one is a little off topic, but Isaw it and I loved it and I was
just like, we got to we got to try to answer this question
sooner than later. All right, so here it is says my
(27:43):
16 year old daughter had a question about the sermon she
heard today that totally stumpedme.
She said, doesn't the Bible say that jealousy is a sin?
So how is God being jealous not sinful?
Yes. Great question.
Yeah, Pastor Ryan, I think talked about it and I think
brought some clarity to it. But it comes to what I've always
said when I get this question isyou get jealous of a boyfriend
(28:06):
and that's wrong because he's not yours.
When someone takes something that's yours, then you have a
right to be jealous. We are the Lords.
He's going to get jealous over that which is his being taken,
you know, or, or being distracted by other things that
aren't him. Yeah, He created us.
Then if you're a Christian, he sent his son.
(28:26):
He gave, he paid the price of his son to save us.
So we belong to him in at least 2 senses, 2 major senses being
created, being redeemed by him. Yeah, He's got a right to to us.
And also like another key thing is to remember that we are
human. He is God.
And so while jealousy is wrong for us, it actually is right for
(28:52):
God. And I know, yeah, at first that
seems like contradictory to our to our senses.
But yeah, when you wrap your mind around what that we belong
to God, that God is, is right towant our, let's say he, he has a
right to our love and our loyalty, right?
Yeah, and it's similar to like anger.
(29:14):
Anger can be righteous because you have a right to be angry or
something. And you can not have a right to
be angry about something. There can be something you're
wrongfully angry about. You can have a right to be
jealous of something. It's hard for me to think of an
example of someone being rightfully jealous as a human
being, but certainly God is rightfully jealous when his
(29:34):
people go after other gods were made to worship him.
Yeah, Yeah. So if someone's taken your
stuff, then maybe we can have a conversation of, of jealousy.
But that's, that's the idea. It's like it's got stuff.
It's got's people. He's jealous. 4 And that's one
of the most beautiful truth of scripture, that God wants you.
So it's not, it's not a questionof evil.
(29:55):
Well, I mean, I think the the maybe the best human comparison
is to the jealousy of a husband or wife.
Yes, that's the best example I could think of in my mind, Yeah.
If your, if your spouse, you know, is looking towards another
person, then, you know, if, if I'm a husband and my wife is,
you know, looking at another man, I should, there's a
jealousy that I should feel because we're married.
(30:15):
There's a, you know, we're supposed to have love for each
other only. We're supposed to have eyes for
each other only. And so there's an, you know, we
can do sinful things with that, but there's an appropriateness
to this feeling. That rightful anger even and
then I mean the verse of be angry but don't sin like what
you do with those rightful feelings.
You need to make sure then you don't go into sin with them.
But yeah, God wants his people, and that's a beautiful truth of
(30:38):
Scripture. All right, here we go.
Last question that we have time for.
Here it is. Is the rapture real?
Is there evidence in the Bible of the rapture, and if so, where
do we? This is interesting because we
brought up the dispensational thing and reformed theology, and
this gets into other big theological terms that people
toss around like premillennialism, historic or
dispensational premillennialism,amillennialism, post
(30:59):
millennialism, those rapture, tribulation, a lot of big words,
Revelation, Antichrist, rapture.So what are we dealing with
here? This is how we carve out
professional standards for ourselves by having these big
words, right? Every profession tries to create
fancy words to justify themselves.
Well, these are the theology. Big fancy words to justify,
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's funny if you
(31:19):
have a bunch of Christians around a camp player long
enough, they will talk about eschatology and times, you know,
that's not so rapture is a, is a, is a biblical concept in in
similar to a sense like when someone's like, do you believe
in predestination? Well, the Bible uses the word,
so yes, you better have a concept of it.
Rapture, First Thessalonians 4, the Bible talks about believers
(31:41):
being caught up with the Lord and those who have fallen asleep
died. Believers that have died to be
with the Lord. They will be first, we will be
second. We caught up with them as Jesus
comes to bring redemption to thewhole earth.
I think that's that's one of thebest ways to think of it.
So, yes, but not in the way thatmost American minds think of the
(32:04):
word rapture, and maybe less so now I know that well, we're.
Yeah, for so long it was the book series left.
Behind and I know people that are like I've talked to some
younger people, like high schoolage that are like, what's that?
Yeah, right. And so some people are like,
what? That was so big.
Kirk Cameron thinks about that. Whether you know it or not, that
drastically helped influence American thinking of what the
(32:27):
end times. Even non believers might even be
thinking of that moment, that totally blink of an eye, right?
Yeah, you had people disappearing and their clothes
are left on the floor. Basically, you know airplanes
crash because the pilot is is quote UN quote Rapture
disappears. And then the tribulation comes.
And I do think that all of thesewords are biblical and there's
just different frameworks of thinking about them.
(32:48):
And so I mean, Jesus talks aboutlike it will come quickly, like
a thief in the night, this moment.
And so we it's good that we think of moments a day of the
Lord, right? It's good that we think in terms
of these biblical words. But we used to recognize there's
different frameworks of thinkingof them.
And the big four would be dispensational premillennialism,
historic premillennialism, post millennialism and
(33:11):
amillennialism. And so if you want to dig into
it more, those are the words to Google.
Yeah. Well, and the key, yeah, Yeah.
So we talked earlier about dispensationalism versus
covenant theology. This is another really important
area in which those two those two categories collide.
Our view of this. So for a dispensationalist, you
know, they are seeing the rapture as where Christians are
(33:32):
are brought out of the world forGod to go back to dealing with
Israel and to work out some somepurposes through the
tribulation. And they have different views
about how all that works. Where is in covenant theology.
We more view it as God has been,we've been in the last days
since Jesus left the earth. We've been in the midst of
seasons of tribulations since Jesus left the earth.
(33:56):
And we will until Jesus returns.And for us it's more again.
I'm taking a huge concept and shrinking it down into a couple
sentences. That's what I do that.
But that's what I. Do here, but for us basically we
would say more of the rapture isjust the end is when Jesus
returns so for. Dispensation us in that we'll be
involved in that. For a dispensationalist, it's a
series of a bunch of events taking place over a long period
(34:18):
of time and stuff. You'll.
Now and then God will come and do things and then leave and
then come back. Yeah, versus 1 climactic event
that you get caught up in the. Return of.
Jesus, as the king returns. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I, I, I like to point people towards the an evening of
eschatology. You know what I'm thinking of.
It's beautiful. It's it's like 3 hour long talk,
maybe 3 hours is pushing and maybe it was only two hours, but
(34:40):
between Doug Wilson, John Piper,Sam Storms and and one, one
other guy. But it's, it's this beautiful
like conversation between them about those BIG4 or I guess big
three. They, they do historic
premillennialism in that, but they, they discuss eschatology
because this isn't a matter of like orthodoxy.
What the matter of orthodoxy is Jesus will return, right?
That's what the that's rock solid, right?
(35:02):
The these models of, you know, what's that look like timeline,
those kind of things. There's, there's.
It's OK to disagree on those things, but.
The big joke that you'll often hear people say is that I'm not
a pre or post millennialist. I'm a pan millennialist.
I believe it'll all pan out in the end.
That's that's the joke. That's the heart.
I think we should have the heart.
Yeah, there's a there's a, you know, we can kind of scoff at it
(35:24):
as though it's not very precise and careful, but there's a level
at which it makes sense. Jesus said he's gonna come like
a thief in the night. So do we know what the whole end
is gonna look like? No, we don't.
We just are supposed to be ready.
Yeah. So we would say we're all
millennialists, you and I. Yeah.
But there's, it's OK to disagreeon on those things.
Yeah. More.
Detail for another. Episode.
I care about it, I'd love to talk more about it, but those
(35:45):
are the different views and the ideas behind it.
So question on Rapture. Yeah.
What was the exact question? Is it real?
Yes. Yeah, we'll be caught up.
It is real. Just what is it?
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Awesome.
Well, that's all the time we gotfor today.
Thank you, Pastor Logan. Thanks, everybody, for
listening. Feel free to keep sending the
questions. Have an awesome week.
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