In the church, we care for souls. But what is it that we are doing in that work? It is our conviction that we are helping one another die well–with dignity and hope. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but we are convinced it’s biblical. In this life, we are weak and frail. We experience suffering and pain. Yet, Christ is our hope. And he has secured for us a life that is beyond this one.

Semper Reformanda: The guys discuss a theology of the cross versus a theology of glory. And, we consider the point of our sanctification.

Resources:
Episode: Take Up Your Cross

Giveaway: “Recovering Eden” by Zack Eswine

FREE EBOOK: Theocast.org/primer

https://youtu.be/cl1BAv_PDHU

Podcast Transcript

Justin Perdue: Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we’re going to be talking about what we are trying to do in the church when we care for people’s souls. A lot of things are said about these things, but it’s our position here that really what we’re effectively doing is helping people die well—helping people die with dignity and with hope, and that hope being in the Lord Jesus Christ. A lot of the things that are said about sanctification, even growth in the Christian life, give us the wrong idea. So we want to try to define some terms and define things appropriately today, as well as think well about our weakness and our frailty in this life, and the hope that Christ has given us in the life that is to come ,and to think well together about the faithfulness of God in the midst of our suffering and pain. We hope that this conversation is encouraging for you.

And then over in the SR podcast today, we’re going to get into some theology of the cross and theology of glory conversations. We hope that you enjoy that conversation as well.

We’re going to be effectively talking today about the care of souls and what it is that we’re doing in caring for souls in the church. The title of the episode is Dying With Dignity, which really is borrowed from something that John said on a podcast a few months ago about what we’re doing in the church as we watch over and care for people, which is this: we are helping people die with dignity and hope, and effectively we’re helping people die well, trusting in the Lord Jesus, knowing that deliverance has been accepted for them and that our final deliverance is coming because of Christ. And so this is a conversation in some ways about suffering, in some ways about sanctification, and trying to talk about it in a way that’s honest that squares with our experience. Because a lot of times, at least this is my take and I know you agree, that the way that growth and sanctification and even healing—to use some of that therapeutic language—is talked about. I think it gives us the wrong idea of what it’s going to be like.

This conversation today is, we hope, a kind of a reset. And I personally think it’s encouraging. We do not mean in saying this, in anything we’re about to say, we do not mean to sound fatalistic as though life is gonna be terrible and Jesus is going to come back. That’s not what we’re saying. We’re trying to biblically take a balanced posture on what it is the Lord is doing in our lives and what we can expect this life to look like between now and when we die, or between now and when Christ returns.

Jon Moffitt: That’s right. When we use the word dignity, one of the things that came to mind when I first started to give this theology to our church—I was trying to describe to our church. What are we doing every week? What are we trying to accomplish? I always want to be careful not to tear the churches down, but a lot of what I was seeing presented by other churches has given such a bad taste in my mouth, because if that’s the end goal—which is big buildings, big programs, big livestream…

Justin Perdue: Everything bigger and better and higher.

Jon Moffitt: This is pro

The guys discuss parachurch ministries and how they have often contributed to the confusion about what characterizes a strong Christian. Then, we talk more about the necessity of ordinary faithfulness in loving the weak in the church.

Giveaway: “Spurgeon’s Sorrows” by Zack Eswine

FREE EBOOK: theocast.org/primer

Scripture references:
Romans 15:1-4
Galatians 6:1-2
1 Thessalonians 5:14
Ephesians 4:1-3
Hebrews 3:15
John 13:34

SUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/

https://youtu.be/_5iVIY3T8Lg

Semper Reformanda Transcripts

Jon Moffitt: Welcome to Semper Reformanda.

Justin Perdue: I’m going to launch us into this by giving a little anecdote from my past with respect to a buddy of mine. It would have been almost 15 years ago that I had this conversation with a friend and he was going here, there, and everywhere doing itinerant ministry with a youth organization. He was speaking regularly. His motivations, I trust, were good and all those things. I remember having a conversation with him where I encouraged him that he would be profited by doing a little bit less of that traveling and speaking stuff, and joining a local church where he can be anchored and rooted, where he can have depth of relationship, where he can encourage others and they can encourage him, and he can just be present. I thought it was going to be better for his  Christian life long-term. His response to me —and again, very sincere, and I assume his motivations are good—was basically, “I’m out doing all this really good ministry and I’m out doing all this good stuff. If I tether myself to a local church, all that’s really going to do is slow me down.” And I looked at him and said, “But brother, even if that’s true, even if you joining a local church slowed you down, as you put it, have you ever considered that in God’s plan and in God’s economy, maybe he has set it up in such a way that he would use you to help other people?” We’ve been so conditioned to think that being strong or being mature is all about our own personal strength, our own personal growth, our own personal fruitfulness—however in the world, we define that—rather than looking to the New Testament to see that really what defines success and maturity and strength are these things that are corporate. They have everything to do with how we’re loving our brothers and sisters, how we’re bearing burdens, and how we’re being gentle and compassionate and seeking to restore those who have fallen. You just can’t do that when you’re living life in isolation and you’re in the itinerant speaking circuit and you’re not in a church. How do you do these things?

Jon Moffitt: Even Paul was an itinerant speaker, in a way, and he himself was cared for and was underneath the leadership of elders, was sent out by them, and had multiple men around him that were caring for him and that he was caring for.

Ravi Zacharias is another great example of a man who, I think, for many, many years openly has not been a part of a church underneath the church leadership and cared for. There’s so much that has been said out there and I don’t want to get into that. The one thing I want to say is I think if he was a part of a good local church that was caring for him, that maybe some of these sins and struggles would have been exposed as Galatians 6:1 says, much earlier than this longevity. I know a lot of people questioned his salvation and all that kind of stuff, and that’s not what this is about, but a man who was doing the work of Christ in isolation is just not the design.

Justin Perdue: Yeah, it’s not the design. For people that give their lives to parachurch ministries that are not also in a local church, that’s not good for them. I agree with that completely. Also, what I think is  sadly, parachurch ministries have really served to do so often is just distract Christians from what really matters. Because peop

How would you describe a strong Christian? If you were to make a list of what characterizes a mature Christian, what would you put on that list? At Theocast, we are convinced that many would not answer these questions the way the apostles would have. As we look to the New Testament, what does it say about those who are strong in the church?

Semper Reformanda: The guys discuss parachurch ministries and how they have often contributed to the confusion about what characterizes a strong Christian. Then, we talk more about the necessity of ordinary faithfulness in loving the weak in the church.

Giveaway: “Spurgeon’s Sorrows” by Zack Eswine

FREE EBOOK: theocast.org/primer

Scripture references:
Romans 15:1-4
Galatians 6:1-2
1 Thessalonians 5:14
Ephesians 4:1-3
Hebrews 3:15
John 13:34

SUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/

https://youtu.be/zLoJL9uT9Ks

Podcast Transcript

Jon Moffitt: Hi, this is Jon. Let me ask you this one question: what is a strong Christian? Is it one who is disciplined? Is it one who has read a thousand books on Christianity? How would you describe a strong Christian according to the Bible? That’s what Justin and I are going to talk about today on Theocast. We might have a little bit of a twist to the question. We’re going to look at it from Romans 15. We hope you enjoy. Stay tuned.

What are the marks of a strong Christian? Often, things that can cripple us and drag us down are things like depression and the dark night of the soul. This conversation is birthed out of a conversation we had at a men’s Bible study and a sermon that I preached recently. We’ll put the sermon in the notes as well.

The conversation we want to have today are the marks of a strong Christian and those marks, if we were to do a survey, it would probably have been fun to do and see what people would have come up with. I’ll throw a couple out, Justin. I’ll let you throw a couple out. Ones that we’ve heard that normally, when we think of someone who is strong, this is someone who for 20 years has been faithfully on their knees for 30 minutes in the morning, an hour in the word, and really just hasn’t missed unless they’ve been sick. The mark of a dedicated, faithful, disciplined Christian—that right there is a strong Christian.

Justin Perdue: For me, whenever I’ve heard people talk about being a strong Christian, the first word that pops into my mind is discipline. It’s a person who is disciplined in their life—and that may be with respect to prayer, Bible reading, but it could be any number of things. It’s a regimented, ordered kind of life. I think a lot of times we think of Christians as being strong when they don’t struggle with particular kinds of sins—the more taboo, public, obvious kinds of sins—they don’t deal with those in the same way that others do, and so therefore they’re strong.

Jon Moffitt: One of the guys described it as there are no extremes—you don’t see an extreme high, you don’t see an extreme low, they’re just steady. Steady Eddie, the guy with the gray hair who just always is: he’s always there and he’s always faithful. That’s the strong Christian. Some of these things are true.

Justin Perdue: Some of these things are good. To be really clear, we’re not saying that discipline, steadiness, and not struggling with certain kinds of obvious sins are bad—all of those things are good.

I’ll just go ahead and say this, Jon, that if you were to take a survey of the top five things that should characterize a Christian, I am relatively confident that most of us would not answer that and would not fill that out the way the apostles would have. As we’re getting to the number one thing that should mark us, it’s pretty obvious in the New Testament and it’s not what we would put first.

Jon Moffitt: No, it is not.

We’re going to look at several passages, but we’

Biblicism might sound like a good thing…but it’s not. Biblicism is a methodology that tends to introduce confusion and mystery into the Scriptures where there isn’t any. It also tends to confuse doctrinal and theological categories such as law/gospel distinction and faith versus works. Jon and Justin consider these things and more in this episode.Semper Reformanda: The guys discuss how biblicism is related to theonomy and unhelpful views on the nation of Israel. And, as a bonus, we get into a little bit of eschatology.Resources:Episode: Is the whole Bible about Jesus? Episode: Is your theological system any good?Series: Covenant Theology seriesBook: “Living in God’s Two Kingdoms” by David VanDrunnenSUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/https://youtu.be/Dd-b7t1Ht8APodcast TranscriptJon Moffitt: Hi, this is Jon. Today on Theocast, we are going to be explaining what biblicism is. There’s a lot of theological confusion and categories and systems and theologies that have been birthed out of biblicism. We’re going to explain to you what it is, how to refrain from it, and how to spot it when you see it. Stay tuned.Today is a podcast we probably have been needing to do for a long time and we reference it often.Justin Perdue: We even promised to do a podcast on it multiple times.Jon Moffitt: I know. The real estate on the podcast is very small so we have to be choosy on what we pick.Biblicism is a word. I saw someone use it the other day, saying, “I’m a biblicist.” Someone should tell him not to say that.Justin Perdue: It’s not a badge of honor.Jon Moffitt: It’s a negative thing and we’re going to explain to you why. Someone may think, “Why would ‘Bible’ and ‘-ism’ be a bad thing?” Typically, “-ism” isn’t good. Not always the case; Calvinism isn’t necessarily bad—it has gotten a bad rap—which I just did an introduction to that on Ask Theocast. Check that out.But to stay focused: biblicism. Justin, give us a quick definition of what it is. Then we are going to work through about five or six examples of what happens when you don’t use Scripture properly, or you’re a biblicist, this is what it ends up producing.So what’s a good definition, a simple definition, of a biblicist for our listeners?Justin Perdue: Let me define it in a simple way, and even use pop level accessible language in talking about this. You already alluded to it once when you said a person would describe themself as a Bible person. Another way that you hear this commonly presented is people will say, “no creed but Christ”, or, “no confession but the Bible”. People will say that the only thing that we need to use is Scripture and any kind of framework outside of the Bible, or any tools outside of the Bible are not useful; it’s not faithful or it’s not responsible to use such things to understand the Scripture. And so you end up getting this kind of a situation where people will say that if the text does not say it explicitly, then we cannot preach it and we cannot teach it.Jon Moffitt: Or the reverse is true: “The text explicitly said it, therefore I’m going to preach it.”Justin Perdue: Sure. We’re going to give illustrations of this, like you said, in broad categories

The guys discuss how biblicism is related to theonomy and unhelpful views on the nation of Israel. And, as a bonus, we get into a little bit of eschatology.Resources:Episode: Is the whole Bible about Jesus? Episode: Is your theological system any good?Series: Covenant Theology seriesBook: “Living in God’s Two Kingdoms” by David VanDrunnenSUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/https://youtu.be/Iipysp_LfogSemper Reformanda TranscriptsJon Moffitt: Hi, this is Jon. Today on Theocast, we are going to be explaining what biblicism is. There’s a lot of theological confusion and categories and systems and theologies that have been birthed out of biblicism. We’re going to explain to you what it is, how to refrain from it, and how to spot it when you see it. Stay tuned.Today is a podcast we probably have been needing to do for a long time and we reference it often.Justin Perdue: We even promised to do a podcast on it multiple times.Jon Moffitt: I know. The real estate on the podcast is very small so we have to be choosy on what we pick.Biblicism is a word. I saw someone use it the other day, saying, “I’m a biblicist.” Someone should tell him not to say that.Justin Perdue: It’s not a badge of honor.Jon Moffitt: It’s a negative thing and we’re going to explain to you why. Someone may think, “Why would ‘Bible’ and ‘-ism’ be a bad thing?” Typically, “-ism” isn’t good. Not always the case; Calvinism isn’t necessarily bad—it has gotten a bad rap—which I just did an introduction to that on Ask Theocast. Check that out.But to stay focused: biblicism. Justin, give us a quick definition of what it is. Then we are going to work through about five or six examples of what happens when you don’t use Scripture properly, or you’re a biblicist, this is what it ends up producing.So what’s a good definition, a simple definition, of a biblicist for our listeners?Justin Perdue: Let me define it in a simple way, and even use pop level accessible language in talking about this. You already alluded to it once when you said a person would describe themself as a Bible person. Another way that you hear this commonly presented is people will say, “no creed but Christ”, or, “no confession but the Bible”. People will say that the only thing that we need to use is Scripture and any kind of framework outside of the Bible, or any tools outside of the Bible are not useful; it’s not faithful or it’s not responsible to use such things to understand the Scripture. And so you end up getting this kind of a situation where people will say that if the text does not say it explicitly, then we cannot preach it and we cannot teach it.Jon Moffitt: Or the reverse is true: “The text explicitly said it, therefore I’m going to preach it.”Justin Perdue: Sure. We’re going to give illustrations of this, like you said, in broad categories and the like.What ends up happening is you make the Bible sound very schizophrenic because you quote chapter and verse in isolation and you don’t interpret that verse within its broader context, even maybe within the book that it’s situated in, let alone within the epoch of redemptive history that it’s situated in, or let alone the entire Bible. And so you

Justin talks about the thing that has most impacted his preaching. Jon and Justin then discuss how important it is to see that every promise of Scripture finds its fulfillment in Jesus.

Resources:
Episode: Is Christ-Centered Preaching Dangerous?
“The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant & His Kingdom” by Samuel Renihan
“Preaching Christ in All of Scripture” by Edmond Clowney
“The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament” by Edmond Clowney

https://youtu.be/QIwtBtf9-EA

Semper Reformanda Transcripts

Justin Perdue: Welcome to Semper Reformanda. Here we are talking with our people, and we want to continue the conversation about whether or not the whole Bible is really about Jesus—and obviously our conviction and our position is that yes, it absolutely is all about Jesus.

We talked about typology, we talked about Biblicism and some other things in the regular episode. We’re just gonna keep this going. I know Jon gave us a couple of things that he wants to discuss in terms of the fallout of not reading the Bible the way that we are advocating.

But before we even go there, I said something in the 32nd intermission between the end of the regular podcast and the start of us recording this one that Jon wanted me to say to everybody. For me, from my perspective, there is nothing more important for preaching than this understanding of the Scriptures. I think that this understanding of the Bible is more transformative for a pastor’s preaching than almost anything else. I know there are some other big theological categories that could be put alongside this in the conversation, but this legitimately Christ-centered, redemptive-historical hermeneutic is so critical to gospel preaching from the entire Bible.

I’m a part of various groups of pastors in various ways, and I see a lot of email correspondence flying around—and these are seminary graduates, some of them have PhDs—and I’m not trying to throw anybody under the bus but these are educated guys that are aiming to do faithful gospel ministry in their local contexts. They are asking questions of other pastors like, “Hey, guys. I’m wanting to do a series through this book of the Bible, kind of do a fly over it. It’s an Old Testament book. Can somebody just help me figure out how to preach the gospel from this book? I want to do a gospel-centered fly over of this. Can anybody help me think about resources that I can look at?” Of course it’s always good to reach out for help, but it’s sad to me that so many guys come out of seminary and are in pulpits, they are highly educated and very bright people, but they’re legitimately asking questions like, “How do I preach Jesus from Genesis?” Or, “How do I preach Jesus from 1 Kings?”

Jon Moffitt: I think the reason they ask that too is because what they think we mean is, “So here’s the exodus and here’s the data of what happened. Now I need to preach an altar call Jesus of repent and believe.”

Justin Perdue: Or the plan of salvation or something.

Jon Moffitt: Right. And there are even weird connections. I’ve seen people try to preach Jesus from the Old Testament—I’ve never heard this, I made this up—but, “As the children trusted the Lord and walked across the water, we need to trust the Lord and walk across the aisle and give our lives and dedication to the Father.” That’s a bad illustration, but people will do that. They make connections.

Justin Perdue: Or they’ll say, “Even if you’re afraid, you need to trust God and His promises,” which is true but there are a lot of better ways to preach it, like if we’re talking about the exodus.

Jon Moffitt: Again, this has to do with when you go to preach a redemptive-historical understanding of Scripture. This is why I think 2 Corinthians 1:20 is so important, because as I mentioned in the podcast, all the

Is the whole Bible really about Jesus? Here at Theocast, we believe that it is. Jon and Justin consider the pattern of Jesus and the apostles with regard to how they understood the Bible. The guys consider typology and how it is useful in understanding the Scriptures–and biblicism and how it is not helpful.

Semper Reformanda: Justin talks about the thing that has most impacted his preaching. Jon and Justin then discuss how important it is to see that every promise of Scripture finds its fulfillment in Jesus.

Resources:
Episode: Is Christ-Centered Preaching Dangerous?
“The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant & His Kingdom” by Samuel Renihan
“Preaching Christ in All of Scripture” by Edmond Clowney
“The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament” by Edmond Clowney

FREE Ebook: theocast.org/primer

SUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/

https://youtu.be/KvOnPDF1P3M

Podcast Transcript

Justin Perdue: Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are going to answer the question, “Is the whole Bible really about Jesus?” We don’t like to bury the lead here at Theocast, and so our position is that yes, in fact, the whole Bible is about Christ and what he has accomplished on behalf of sinners in order to save us. We’re going to have this conversation from a couple of different perspectives. We’re going to talk about typology and how that works in the Bible. If you don’t even know what typology is, don’t worry, we’re going to define it and try to explain it for you.

We’re also going to talk about Biblicism and how it is unhelpful to understanding the Scriptures accurately. Again, if you don’t know what Biblicism is, stay tuned. We’re going to try to explain it to you and help you see how it relates to this conversation.

We really hope this is an encouraging and life-giving conversation for you, and that is a conversation that will open up the Scriptures and show you how from Genesis to Revelation, Jesus really is the point of it.

The title of the episode is Is the Whole Bible Really About Jesus? What we want to do today is answer that question. But we’re really just pulling the curtain back here and having a conversation about a couple of different things—and I’m going to try to explain briefly what we mean by these terms and then we’ll just kind of take-off and run with this.

We’re having a conversation today about typology and somewhat also about Biblicism. And so just briefly to define those terms for the listener: when we talk about typology, we are talking about the way that God reveals Himself, the way He reveals redemption—in particular, the way He reveals redemption through Christ in Scripture—where there are things that occur earlier on in biblical revelation, referred to as types, that are significant in and of themselves but they point to something that is greater, different, and ultimate. So those greater, different, ultimate fulfillments of the types are often referred to as antitypes. We’re going to talk about examples of some of that today. But if the Bible is read appropriately in a typological way, we are going to see types and shadows and pointers to Jesus all throughout the Old Testament before Christ even shows up on the scene in the New Testament.

If you think about, for example, the writer to the Hebrews and how he explains the fact that the sacrificial system, and so many of the other things that were revealed to Israel in the law, were ultimately about Christ. They were ultimately shadows and pointers to Jesus and the redemption that would be accomplished through him. That is a biblical example of typology. We’re going to talk about some other biblical examples of typology in this episode. So we’re having that conversation abou