Pastor Brian Martin: Hey everyone, and welcome to the Calvary Callback, a podcast where we take a deeper dive into the weekly sermon at Calvary Evangelical Free Church in Rochester, Minnesota. I’m your host, Brian Martin, and I’m here today with Kyle Bushre, who preached a sermon titled Spiritual Leading and Misleading. Looking at 1 John 4: 1-6. Kyle and Brian back again.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes, we are once again at the table.
Pastor Brian Martin: Once again at the table. We’ve been switching out the pieces. There’ll be a little bit more of that this summer.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I was gonna say summer is going to be like that I think for this podcast. It is going to be mix and match. Which is great, actually. Gives everybody opportunities and it’s fun.
Pastor Brian Martin: And get to hear lots of takes and opinions and different guys perspectives, which, you know, I know that a lot of people find a lot of comfort with a familiar voice, with a consistent voice, which obviously is more your role here at Calvary. And I think that’s, I think it’s good, you know. Because it is completely random, I could see why that would be sort of a disorientation.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yep. Yeah a true rotation.
Pastor Brian Martin: But I think it’s really good for all of us to be, to hear from other voices to be under each other’s teaching even, you know, um, to not always have it going one way. I just think that’s so important for all of us to, you know, uh, like I just think about different guys who are preaching right now, you know, have like served as volunteers under my leadership. And now I get to sit under their teaching and all of those rotations. I think it’s good for us from a humility standpoint.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. And I think it’s great for, uh, yeah, from a humility standpoint, but also from a, what is actually a church? Yes. We’re shepherds, you know, under shepherds, under Jesus, who was our, you know, he’s the lead pastor of our church. Jesus is. And we, we serve Christ as under-shepherds. But all of us are sheep as well.
Pastor Brian Martin: That’s right.
We’re all in need of growth and guidance. And I learned tons when I sit under your teaching and under John’s teaching and the rest of the guys on staff and our lay leaders, our lay preachers who are do a great job handling God’s Word and are willing to come together and study with us and, and grow in their teaching. I get insights when I, uh, for my life, when I hear other guys preach, uh, the Bible to me even in a series that I’m part of. So yeah, it’s, it’s a really great opportunity, I think for us as pastors, but also for the whole church to hear from different guys.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s and, you know, I think the other thing too, like it’s another way to maybe practice discernment in an interesting way. And obviously, we’re only putting guys up there that we trust.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Right.
Pastor Brian Martin: And I’m not saying that we need to be, you know, have our guard up when it’s a guest teacher. That’s not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is like, when we get really familiar with somebody, we hear a lot. Yeah. You know, yeah, we probably let our defenses down a little bit, you know, and so when we’re listening to different voices, whether that’s in person or even just a podcast or a YouTube video or whatever you’re doing, like to continue to remember, like, okay, we always this is part of what you talked about in the sermon actually. Like we always need to be filtering it through the word. Does it match with the gospel? You know, and I think that can be helpful. It’s similar to like reading different translations of scripture too. I think that can help us do the same thing. It might hit us in a different way.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s a fantastic point. Or, or reading different authors who address the same topic, uh, from Scripture. You know like if you want to hear, um, about how to handle suffering, I want to hear from different authors who are handling God’s Word well, but who have different experiences, different illustrations of having seen that in themselves or seen it in other people they know. That adds, uh, that adds a sort of a thickness to my understanding of that theological topic or whatever theological topic is being written. That’s why you know, I read more than just one theologian on a particular thing. I want to see how are they understanding and how do they explain this scripture? Because it would, it may help me with some areas where I have yet to fully understand what that passage is talking about.
Pastor Brian Martin: So yeah, the body working together.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Exactly.
Pastor Brian Martin: What it’s meant to do.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: What it’s supposed to be.
Pastor Brian Martin: What it’s meant to do. That’s good. Well, in the sermon this weekend, you brought the Unitarian Universalists into the chat.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I did, yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: So I feel like because of just sheer numbers, there’s maybe not a lot of people who have actually met like Unitarian Universalists. Right. I mean, just because it’s not a it’s not a large thing. And yet it’s fairly well known considering how small it is. So I don’t know how much you know about Unitarian Universalist movement. Some because you’ve had a friend there. So I think my question is like, not the historical, where does it come from, but where does it come from philosophically, do you think? I mean, I have some thoughts too, but like, why did we get that sort of branch of thinking?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, well, I, you know, that’s an interesting question. I would not be an expert. Could not tell you the history of the Unitarian Universalist Church. I couldn’t. I would, I would need to do some study of that myself.
Pastor Brian Martin: My Wikipedia search says it’s a little bit of a disputed history anyway. But yeah.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Wikipedia, the encyclopedia we all write together. Yeah, because we all know it. Yeah, I, uh, I would, uh, I would have to defer to experts on that. Uh, why do I think, but I think more the question, why is it attractive in our culture? I think it matches up very, very nicely with our culture. Like I said, like I said on Sunday. Uh, consequences… If things truly are universalist, okay, uh, that there are many, many paths to whomever and whatever you call God and they’re all equally valid, then what they’re, what we’re really saying is, if everything’s valid, nothing is valid. So it wouldn’t really matter what I think or say, uh, as long as, and this is the key, this is why it holds up, and this is why it’s so popular in our American culture, as long as I don’t pass judgment on whatever it is you say next or whatever, whatever you, whatever your thoughts are, as long as they don’t, we don’t you don’t try to conflict with my thoughts on things, but simply state your view as, and I don’t even like this phrase, but I’m going to say it, your truth and my truth, as long as you state it like that, well, then we can all get along together. And that that is just a cultural appeal. There’s some cultural appeal to that. And I think that’s what the reason why anybody would hold to a Unitarian Universalist, at least Universalist. I’m not sure how you know, I’m not really sure why Unitarian would be, um, so important and why historically why those two things would be tied together. Again, that’s beyond my full understanding of how those things came together. But the universalist side of things for absolute certain is a cultural value.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Yeah. I think there’s, you know probably some this is you know, I’m just speculating here, but just based on people, if that makes sense. But I feel like it’s probably somewhat a genuine desire to avoid constantly being told you’re wrong.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: You know, and or telling other people they’re wrong because that leads to contention and strife among people. And so, um, and maybe another way I would say it too, is I feel like where it appeals to culture is this thing that I feel like has grown since I was a kid, maybe I’m just more aware of it now, where people want kindness, but not necessarily goodness.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, interesting.
Pastor Brian Martin: Do you get what I’m saying though?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes I do.
Pastor Brian Martin: And, and there’s a part of me that sort of as a citizen, if I could use that term like that is sort of how we have to exist, right? Like in the sense of, um, you know, I want, I want there to be more churches in the world because God is real and Jesus died for our sins. Like I want there to be more churches. I want, I want there kind of only to be churches, but, but in order for us to have the church that we can have and the freedom of religion, I also need to be okay with there being a mosque.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right.
Pastor Brian Martin: You know what I’m saying? So like as a citizen, I see it that way. But as a citizen of heaven, obviously I’m for it and I’m against it simultaneously in a weird way. And I think it kind of matches up with our pluralistic citizenry, if that makes sense a little bit. And so it’s almost a, it’s almost like a religion without a religion. It’s almost a faith construct without a religion. Yeah. Is sort of what it is. And that’s why I think it’s appealing to some people.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know. I do think that there are a lot of people that are uncertain about their views and the idea of universality, uh, appeals to them because that would mean everybody’s right in some way.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: And everybody’s right in some way, then that means I’m right in some way.
Pastor Brian Martin: It feels mean to say they’re wrong.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: It does. Yeah. And unkind in some way. And so, uh, why don’t I just say what I think and you say what you think. And we just agree that both are valid in some sense and move, move along. And, you know, the problem, I think the reason why the movement is small is because the cognitive dissonance you have to have in your mind to know that two things are contradictory and yet hold both of them as valid and equally true in some sense, is just not something anybody… It eventually falls apart in your own mind. Yeah. Um, but people do, some people do like it. So I think that’s why it’s still around today.
Pastor Brian Martin: So you came back around to that idea a little bit later in the sermon too, when you mentioned the ever popular argument of there’s many paths to God. Yeah. Right. And I feel like that, I mean, I’ve, I’ve had that said to me directly more than once in real conversations with people I care about. So do a little coaching for us. If somebody comes to you and says, I just think there’s many paths to God and, you know, Buddhists have one and the Muslims have one and the Christians have one. But like, as long as you’re sincere then you’re fine. What comes next? How do you address that?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Okay. Yeah, you can address that from the differences in the differences in the worldviews of all those different religions you just talked about. And, but before we do that, I would simply say, um, you can be sincerely wrong. People are sincerely wrong all the time. They truly believe things to be true that are not true. You know, somebody’s sick and sincerely believes that they, the medicine is what is hurting them. Right? And so they do not take their medicine and it hurts them ultimately, right. That you can be sincerely wrong about things. So the level of sincerity that one has for whatever it is you believe is not the strength of the belief. The strength of the belief is the object in which you believe. You know, the sincere faith in something that is going to hold you up, that is true, that is strong, uh, is great. Weak faith in something that is true, while you might hold it tentatively, is still far superior to strong faith in something that’s very weak. And now I’m paraphrasing here, uh, other theologians, other thinkers, but that’s the case, right? So the idea of that sincere faith is somehow the only thing that matters is sort of, by definition ridiculous. But then somebody says, well, I think all the different religions have a part of God or have their own pathway to God. And I would simply, I would simply suggest to you that you don’t know the other worldviews well enough then, because they are contradictory. Jesus says, I’m the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the father except through me.
Pastor Brian Martin: An exclusivity claim.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. And then, but then the Muslims, uh, would say that God has no son. It’s written on the dome of the Rock sitting on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It’s facing the church of the Holy Sepulchre. It’s communicating the message- The God you believe in doesn’t believe, or isn’t isn’t true. That Jesus isn’t God incarnate. Um, he’s a prophet. That’s what they would hold to. He’s a prophet. Um, they would even have him as part of the salvation plan, which is very interesting. Uh, historically speaking for Islam. But the fact is they, you don’t hold to a faith in Christ alone for your salvation from that. So, so can, uh, you know, it’s a logical contradiction to say Jesus is both the Savior and not the Savior at the same time and in the same way. That’s a logical fallacy.
Pastor Brian Martin: They are opposed.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. You can’t have both. So if you’re saying both are true, I would simply say, logically speaking, it’s not possible that both are true. So what are we saying now? Are we just saying, uh, in the realm of religion, we can be illogical and somehow true at the same time. I would argue that’s nonsense. Yeah, but others would argue, yes, they would say, sure, why not? And I think ultimately people who would say that are ultimately saying none of this actually matters. I think that’s really the argument behind the argument. And I would say that it’s pretty much the only thing that matters. Because of the world that we live in, because of the the creation that God has made and because of the redemption that he’s brought to us in Christ.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. There’s a part of me that that blames gym class for this.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, my. Please do draw the equal sign between these two ideas because I don’t see it.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right. So in gym class growing up, right, in elementary school, you were graded on effort. Do you see what I’m saying? Right. That’s it. You’re graded on effort. Like it was like it was, you know, because like in the old school report cards, they could only put in certain things. And it was like one of the things was like, you know, A- tries hard, you know, or something, you know, basically like shows good effort, gets dressed for class, you know, whatever.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: So when it comes to God, we’re all trying to climb the rope to get to the top and none of us quite get there. But however high you got, that’s how high you got. And that… Yeah. Good job buddy.
Pastor Brian Martin: I think a lot of people genuinely believe as long as I try hard, that’s all that God cares about.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Interesting.
Pastor Brian Martin: Don’t you think?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. I mean, yes. Well, and I think the world views of the world back you up because they all have try hard in them.
Yes Oh, Islam is completely built on that.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s all…Yeah it’s built in. Um I mean all, everything’s achievement. Everything is sacrifice, uh, appeasing the right gods, that kind of thing. And so it’s all built in try hard. And even if you go to a secular worldview that says there is no God, then well, then how do we make a better world? We achieve it. We work hard to create whatever it is, right? It’s all our effort. And then you get to the gospel, and the gospel says, look, you didn’t do anything to save yourself. Jesus did all the work. He paid the price. He completely secured your freedom by his work, not your work, his work on the cross. And so it’s only by grace through faith in Jesus alone that you can be saved. And that is uh… so what do I bring? I bring faith. Faith is given to me as a gift. God has got to do the work in me. Yeah, no, I think you’re absolutely right. Gym class is it, man. I didn’t, I didn’t see it there before, but there it is.
Pastor Brian Martin: Gym class theology.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right.
Pastor Brian Martin: You know, I’m trying to figure out how to even connect this. But when I was in teacher school, because I, I actually was an education major for a while, I had a professor who argued that that was actually an affront to education. That he, in his opinion… Why do we in gym class allow effort to only be the thing that’s graded? It should be results. He’s like, so if the test is shooting free throws and you have to make eight out of ten to get an A, and you’re like, well, I’m not good at shooting free throws. Well, I’m not good at math. So if I’m not good at it, I have to get a tutor and I have to practice and I have to spend extra time. He’s like, why don’t we do that with gym class?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Man, that would be a rough gym class.
Pastor Brian Martin: Wouldn’t it be?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah boy oh boy.
Pastor Brian Martin: But you know, whatever. Okay.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. 50 push ups is an A, 40 is a B.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right, but it’s, but I get his point though, because if we expect results, not effort.. If what if in, in math class, I was only graded on effort and if I dressed for class, you know what I mean…
Pastor Brian Martin: Like that’s not what it’s, it’s based on results. And if you can’t get it, but, but then that’s where the metaphor that we were using breaks down it.
Pastor Brian Martin: It’s not, it’s not on my effort and my ability. It’s on the effort and ability of Jesus.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s the beauty of the gospel.
Pastor Brian Martin: The beauty of the gospel.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: He shot my free throws.
Pastor Brian Martin: That’s right.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: He made all of them too which is fantastic.
Pastor Brian Martin: Fantastic. Love it, Love it so much. Okay, so you made this offhanded remark, uh, which was both funny and instructive about, uh, God is loving is itself a doctrine.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes.
Pastor Brian Martin: Okay. So can you expand on that a little bit? Because, uh, that wasn’t really the point of what you’re saying, but I thought it was, I thought it was an interesting thing. So maybe expand on what makes a doctrine a doctrine.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right. And why is this idea of God is love, which I’ve seen so many YouTube videos where people just want to scream that at the, you know, the guy preaching on the corner or whatever. And they’re like, well, God’s loving what you’re doing isn’t loving because you’re here preaching about, you know, sin or whatever. And the guy’s like, well, actually that is loving, you know?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Anyway, so what’s a doctrine and why is God is love, you know, a doctrine?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. I, um, I don’t want to steal any thunder from next week. Uh, yeah. Because that will be the passage that they’re in. God, the, the famous God is love statement is coming up here this this coming Sunday. Uh, so, but I will say this. What is a doctrine? A doctrine is a teaching. That’s it. Doctrine is teaching. So any statement made as fact in any realm of life would be considered doctrine. Okay. But we don’t use it that way. The word we use, um, would the, the word, when we use the word doctrine, we’re referring usually to religious statements.
Pastor Brian Martin: Um, agreed upon. Uh, denominational or otherwise.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Yeah. So if we have a doc.. like for instance, we have a statement of faith for the evangelical free church. That’s our doctrinal statement. Right? And so you go through that and you say, these are the things that we believe that the Bible teaches. The Apostle’s Creed is a doctrinal statement, right? Any statement made about God would then be a doctrine. Okay, it’s a teaching. It’s a statement of truth that should have to be argued from an objective standard. Our objective standard is the Bible. So when we talk about our doctrine being biblical, what we are saying is we want our statements of truth about God to come from his authoritative word, not from our minds, our hearts, our opinions. And so what we want to do is conform our opinions to his teaching, to his doctrine. So yeah, when someone says doctrine doesn’t matter, they’re actually making a doctrinal statement. They ironically, right, when they say all that matters is God’s love. That is a very profound doctrinal statement, actually, because what they’re actually saying is I exclude every other statement about who God is, who his character is, what he has communicated. And I am now stating that God’s love is the only thing that matters. I don’t know that you could get a narrower statement than the only thing that matters is God’s love. Or
Pastor Kyle Bushre: The only thing that matters is fill in the blank on anything from scripture. Right. So, um, that’s why we have to avoid, you know, somebody says these things, um, they haven’t avoided doctrine. They’ve just decided which doctrines they find to be important. And, and have relegated all the others to, I don’t know, some, some level of unimportance. Um, I think what we should do is let, let the Bible itself tell us what’s important and what isn’t. Yeah. Um, and yeah, there is a, there is a, um, I guess tiers, hierarchy within the church, within orthodox belief, right belief, i don’t, Orthodox not capital o Orthodox but Orthodox small O Orthodox, right teaching, right belief, um, that there are, you know, some things that are top tier, right, that mess with the gospel, Jesus’ divinity, uh, and humanity, right, both, as we talked about on Sunday, right at the core. And that’s why the EFCA doctrinal statement, statement of Faith, uh, has a statement on Jesus’ two natures, right? You gotta hold both in order for the gospel to make sense. But then there’s second tier stuff, things that matter, things that do shape the church, but are second tier so that Christians can agree or disagree.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: The one that jumps to mind there would be mode of baptism or symbol of baptism between, say, a small b Baptist, more believers creedal baptistry church like ours and my Presbyterian friends. Uh, my my great PCA friends, they would, they would, uh, see the symbol differently, although we both agree that it’s a symbol of the covenant, it’s a second tier issue, right? Uh, we can agree to disagree on that and still be brothers in Christ. And then there’s third tier issues doctrinally, uh, that there’s wide views on in the church and should probably remain wide views so that we can walk together as a church. And in this category, you’d, uh, you know, how old is the age, is the earth? How exactly did God create, what, um, you know, when is Jesus coming back and how exactly what’s the, what’s the timeline on that? What’s the order of operations that are going to take place? Uh, how do I understand some of the symbolism there? Um, you know, these are, these are different things that we can, we can have a discussion on and still, at the end of the day, be brothers and sisters in Christ in the same church.
Pastor Brian Martin: Have you followed much the… The EFCA does, is it every five years, or every ten, they survey pastors in the denomination and ask them about some of these, some second tier, some third tier. Yeah, maybe maybe ask first tier questions too.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah first tier as well.
Pastor Brian Martin: Okay. Well, yeah. Yeah. And um, yeah, it was interesting. It’s just interesting to see and anybody listening can, you can just look this up. I mean, there’s, it’s..
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Its on their website.
Pastor Brian Martin: They put out a report. Um, And there were some that surprised me a little bit, but most of them I was like, yeah, okay, that makes sense, you know? Yeah.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Our, our denomination is, um, quite, uh, biblical in its, uh, views across the board. You wouldn’t really remain in the EFCA long, uh, if you were wide of certainly not wide of the, uh, statement of faith. Um, but then there’s, you know, some other second tier areas where there’s some, some diversity, but not a ton. Yeah, not a ton. Yeah. We’re, we’re a very, very, uh, biblical, gospel centered, uh, organization as a, as a group of churches. And that’s why it’s a joy to be a part of it.
Pastor Brian Martin: So, and I think pretty consistent to your point, like there’s, and part of it’s because we’re not as big as like the SBC or, you know, like, um, but there’s, there’s more homogeny, which is often used as a bad word. But in this sense, I think it’s a good thing. There’s more homogeny among the beliefs of the pastors in our denomination than, than a lot. Um, which I guess technically we’re not a denomination, are we?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: We’re an association of churches. Yes.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Um, so let’s just get practical. I feel like your whole sermon was practical in a really helpful way. Like, you know, it was, it was. I mean, and I think this text lent itself to that really well too, um, which is, which is great. But um, what’s a practical thing, like something practical that each listener could do to improve their discernment? Because ultimately that’s a lot what we were talking about on Sunday is, is how to be discerning. And I think you touched on some things. Um, but if my goal was I want to increase my discernment what would you tell me to do?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I would say if you’re reading a theological book or a book that’s claiming to, to be teaching the Bible, two things- one, have your Bible with you, look up the thing that it’s saying that is found in the passage where it’s saying it’s found and, uh, and look and see, look and see if, if, if it’s actually saying the thing that the, the guy in the book is saying, right.
Pastor Brian Martin: Especially if it sounds funny, you said that, you know, like, does that, that doesn’t sound right. You know, especially when that happens.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Especially when that happens. Yes. Uh, and, and the other thing I would say discerning wise is just note, is the Bible actually being quoted, used, applied? Or is it more like, hey, we’re Christians and we have an idea about this particular topic and we want to talk to you about it. And let’s and then it just lists off, you know, Christians do this and that and this and that, but there’s not a lot of Bible in there. There’s no, there’s not a lot of reference. They’re not pointing to a truth and saying, here’s how to apply this truth. Then you probably are, it’s possible, i’ll be careful with this, but it’s possible that what you’re actually hearing is somebody who is appealing to the Christian community, is probably a Christian themselves, i’m not questioning that, but is appealing to the Christian community with some ideas that he or she has and is sort of going to just use, ride the wave of evangelicalism into an audience.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right
Pastor Kyle Bushre: And that for me is, um, it’s not entirely disingenuous, but it’s not good leadership. It’s not, it’s not good theology. And so I would say if you got a book that supposedly is teaching the biblical view of something, but it’s bereft of the Bible, you can’t find, you can’t find reference in there, that’s a sure sign that maybe you’re not reading the, the best book. And then the other thing again would be and look it up if, if it is saying, here’s what the Bible says, look and see if that’s, if that in fact, is what the Bible says there. And, and that this is a proper application of it.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. I think too, there’s kind of a thing that I feel like, I feel like I’ve seen more often of late, and maybe that’s just because of things I’m engaging with, where there’s kind of a discernment issue on the other side of it, which is their basis is biblical, but then they get to application and they try to equate the application of this point beyond the scope of what Scripture actually instructs.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, yes.
Pastor Brian Martin: You know what I’m saying?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, yes.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: So it’s, um, you know how, you know, what does it mean, you know, just trying to think of one that could have a lot of applications, right. Like, what does it mean to be the head of a household?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh boy. That was one I was going to bring up. Yeah, yeah. That was what I was going to bring up. Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right and, and that’s, you know, the Bible has some clear things to say about that, but then it doesn’t say a lot more.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: And then, and some people then are taking the application of that and raising it to the level of it’s in Scripture. Well, no…
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes.
Pastor Brian Martin: ..The, the base truth is in Scripture. And that’s a harder one, I think, to parse out sometimes. Like I’ll admit, definitely I’ve been, I’ve been one to believe and probably teach things that I probably put it at the wrong level. It’s not that it’s untrue or unhelpful, but it’s not biblical in that sense. And I think that’s something to watch out for.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes, you have to be able to discern between when somebody is teaching what the Bible says, which they might do actually quite well, but then they move to and here’s how I’ve seen this work out, or here’s how I think this works best. It’s, there’s no problem with saying, here’s how I think this could play out well, or here’s how I’ve seen it work. There’s no problem with saying that. But understand that when you move to that, you’re moving away. You’re taking a step away from the Bible and it may work differently in your house. And that’s okay if it does, as long as we’re not violating what Scripture says. It may be okay. You know, um, I’ll give an example to that. Um, you know, I’ve heard people say things like sometimes like, um, well, you know, using the household example, head of household example. Uh, you know, guys, um, you should be the ones in charge of the money in your house. I wasn’t a part of, I was part of a small group one time back in, um, seminary and, uh, I was, my wife and I were part of a new church, a new church plant that was being promoted. And we went to a small group at this church plant for, I think it was a couple, I don’t know, a couple of weeks. Anyway, we weren’t there long, but we were there for a bit. And, uh, guys, guys and girls would break up into, uh, different groups during the small group.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: And we’d to pray together and to discuss things together. And one time we broke up and the, this guy in the group who was leading the group said to the rest of us, guys, hey, you know, if you are, um, if you are not in charge of at the time he said checkbook, I think. But that’s an antiquated way of paying for things. Yeah. Um, but he said, if you are not in charge of the money in your house, you’re not being biblical. And I and I thought to myself, okay, two things- one, what if she’s better at money? But but you know what? Maybe maybe that that wouldn’t matter because that maybe that doesn’t matter if it’s in the Bible. But here’s the bigger issue. Where is that in the Bible? Okay. I know what you’re saying. I know you’re you’re applying a kind of headship that, that you’ve seen work well in your home. But is that what the Bible demands and requires? I really struggle with that. And that’s, that’s where I started to see this was early in my walk with Christ, early in my time in seminary, and that’s where I started to see that we need to start making a distinction between what does the Bible say and what is the application of the Bible in any individual home?
Pastor Brian Martin: And both matter. Yeah, yeah, but they’re different.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: They are different.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. It reminds me of the right, the, the old free church saying in the, you know, 100 years ago plus they would, they would knock, you know, knock on their Bibles or knock on the pew and yell, where stands it written?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Where stands it written? That’s right.
Pastor Brian Martin: And i think maybe we should be doing that again.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes. And I do I and again, I just want to caution people from there’s wisdom, right. You you’ve seen it work in certain ways. You’ve seen the Bible applied in your life in ways that have been helpful to you. Share those things. There’s no problem with sharing them. But understand, make a distinction even in your own mind of what the Bible says and how you’ve applied it, and that it may not, the Bible does not require the same application for everyone, everywhere. And that actually is where a lot of this discernment needs to come in. That’s a, that’s a place for us to discern as a church.
Pastor Brian Martin: For sure. Well, and one of the, one of the practical commitments you mentioned on Sunday as well was know your Bible well. Yeah. You know, and that reminds me, I don’t think we’ve talked about this here. I don’t know if you and I have ever talked about it, but, um, it reminds me of, uh, so the branch of the US government that is tasked with forged like forgery money. Counterfeit counterfeit money is the Secret Service, right? And how they train them is they just study the real thing? Yeah, right. And I just found that to be such a helpful metaphor for this idea. So like, that’s the other thing I think that you emphasized well on Sunday, just from a practical standpoint, like just know your scriptures, like read them, just read, you know, I mean, when I started reading the Bible, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just started reading it. I read it cover to cover twice in a year for the first time that I started committing to actually reading. And I learned a lot just by doing that with no other help because I had the help of the Holy Spirit. Right? And anyway, so.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, you just gotta, you gotta get into it. And I realize that a lot of people, they feel very inadequate. You know, it’s interesting about this is I, in a town full of people who are really, really good at what they do. And I would say that that’s Rochester. Yeah. We’re in a town of experts.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: A lot of professionals. A lot of those professionals have been studying their one thing for their whole life and have gotten really, really good at it. And so when it comes to like being able to handle the Bible, they go, oh, I’ll leave that to the experts or, oh, um, I’m not an expert in that. So I’ll just, you know, I, you know, where do I start? I would say to you, we all are becoming Bible scholars. Church, that is what we’re all called to become. And wherever your starting place is, wherever you’re at right now, just start reading the Bible more. Start ingesting more of God’s Word, uh, wrestling within your mind. When you get to challenging places, ask somebody you trust within the church to help you understand it better. Uh, look up good sources, but wherever you’re at, that’s, that’s the truth. The truth is we are all theologians. Every single, every single person is a theologian because you have a theology, a, a, an understanding of who God is. And it has to be biblical theology. So we’re all biblical theologians. And so don’t set that aside thinking I’m going to leave that to the experts. We’re all called to become the experts because it’s that’s how we grow in our relationship with God through prayer and through reading of his Word, so that our minds and hearts are conformed to what he says.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right yeah. Yeah. It’s a that’s a good reminder for all of us. And, um, and yeah, discernment is really important. So is helpful words this weekend and helpful expansion today. So…
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Thank you sir.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Thanks for your time, Kyle, and thanks all of you for joining us on the Callback. We hope this time was an encouragement to you. And whether you’re a part of our Calvary family, or if you’re listening from somewhere else in the world, we invite you to join us in our mission to pursue passion for Christ and compassion for people. For Kyle Bushre, I’m Brian Martin. We’ll catch you next time on the Callback.