The Sword & The Trowel - TS&TT: What Should We Believe?

0:00Thank you for joining us for this conversation today on The Sword and the Trial. Today Pastor Tom and I talk with our good friend Joey Tomlinson who has recently come out with this new book from Founder's Press. Those things most surely believed. Reflections on the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. It's a wonderful conversation talking about the ways in which we can read the confession devotional and this is a wonderful tool to do that. I hope this is a helpful conversation for you. Take a listen. Welcome to The Sword and the Trial. The Sword and the Trial is a podcast of Founder's Ministries and Founders exists for the recovery of the gospel and the reformation of local churches. I'm Graham Gundin. I'm Tom Ashkull. Today's episode is brought to you by Yonder Child Media and Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center. Today Pastor Tom and I have our good friend Dr. the right reverend Joey Tomlinson to be on this podcast with us because we want to talk with Joey about a brand new book that has just come out from Founder's Press. Those things most surely believed reflections on the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. Joey, you are the pastor of

1:01Deer Park Fellowship there in Newport News, Virginia. You've got three boys and you've written quite a bit for Founders already as far as several titles for Founder's Press. So welcome back to the podcast. We're glad to have you here. Yeah, thank you guys for having me. Happy to be here. So Joey, tell us about this book that's just come out. Those things most surely believed among us. These are meditations, devotional expositions of the 1689 Confession. So how'd the book come about? Tell us about the process of writing it. Yeah, well, so the the genesis of the book was I had an idea for another book and I reached out to Carrie and Randy to talk about that and so we scheduled a meeting and and it essentially was yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds good but we we have another idea we'd like to pitch and so it was actually Carrie and Randy's idea and yeah and I

2:02said yes before I really considered how much work it would be to write the book. Yeah, so how long did it take you to actually put all this together? So I think I think about a year and a half of really both you know trying to think through how even to format the book I didn't want to write something similar you know Dr. Rinnehan had which founders published did an excellent job with his exposition on the second-learning confession of fate. So I certainly did not want to write one of those but so it you know it took probably 18 to 24 months to to get it to where it is now but my goal and the thing that I think distinguishes it from perhaps a work like Rinnehan's is I wanted to I wanted to write a devotional reader a devotional guide through the 32 chapters of the confession and help bridge the the distance a bit between us and our Baptist forefathers and so I want

3:08I wanted this to be accessible I wanted to assume no knowledge you know put it be able to put a resource in the hands of someone that has been familiar with the 1689 and would benefit but also someone who's really new to the reform tradition right asking very basic questions and it be really just kind of an introductory guide that equips them with a theological vocabulary helps them see the biblical underpinnings of the confession and does so in a in a way that Lord willing will lead there lead them into deeper communion with the Lord. Yeah I think you succeeded in that I mean this is very pastoral it's the kind of book you could put in the hands of any Christian who wants to grow in grace and they can use this as a devotional reading guide for them and just their daily devotions you can rewarn or two of the chapters a day and very easily and be guided not not just into what the confession says but into the summary statements of the confession that guide you into

4:11Scripture and so you're meditating on Scripture as it has been summarized in that 1689 confession and I need to say you know we're from the beginning Founder's Ministries has been ministry committed to the 1689 confession so for over 40 years that's who we are some people recently have accused us of mission drift which I think was just so funny more commentary on them than on us because we produce so many materials 1689 I wrote the forward to this book and when I wrote it I've said in there that we've produced almost a hundred thousand copies of the 1689 confession well now it's over a hundred thousand distributed yeah distributed over a hundred thousand open now over a hundred thousand copies of the 1689 and I'm just delighted to have that document in this format because again as you said it can be used to introduce people who have never heard about the 1689 to that confession are those who are familiar with it but really maybe intimidated

5:16by its careful theological language to us no this is truth revealed to us in Scripture that is for us to digest to benefit from and for our hearts to be shaped more and more into conformity to Jesus Christ so thank you for writing it thank you for the labor that went into it to make it available to people and we just we highly commend it we were talking a little bit before the before the episode and just reflecting on how the Lord has enabled Founders to really kind of stock the armory of 1689 literature whether it's the years ago coming out with the 1689 in modern English recently coming out with this great new ghostkin leather edition with the catechism and the creeds in it the Baptist standards with the first one of Baptist second-line of Baptist and all those different Baptist documents we've got gymscot orics commentary on the Baptist catechism as you mentioned dr. Renahann's exposition of the the confession and now you've added to all of that with this

6:23devotional meditation upon the confession i think is again so helpful and i think in for just about each chapter of the confession you've got two to four different reflections theological devotional reflections with the exception of god and the Holy Trinity chapter two you've got six reflections which i find as i have taught through the confession you know chapter a little more time just two yeah it just takes you get you get bogged down because there's so much there but Joey i've been reliably informed that precise theological language can in no way be devotional and it's really just kind of splitting hairs and we don't need to be concerned about that kind of stuff there's more important issues that Christians can be engaged in and have their relationship with Christ deep and so why did you go for the strict theological confession and try to make that into a devotion well i mean one of the reasons is it's seen when founders started mission drifting i needed a published something that helped keep you guys from going under so

7:26they appreciate your help yeah yeah um no i i mean we want to speak true things about the god that we claim to love and adore and worship and and so uh in in the confession i think we often and and this has been true of just my pastoral experience we tend to default into uh the the type of thinking in which we function as if we're the first Christians to have ever existed in all of chrysendom and we wrestle with um theological concepts about uh who god is and and who we are and other theological questions sometimes as if we're the first people to ever ask those questions and and as controversial as it may be to say this it's we're utilizing the scripture kind of in that isolated mentality that very individualistic mentality uh we can fall into some really wrong um just wrong thinking and uh and and and so a document like the second london uh confession of fate

8:32helps us helps give us the the vocabulary that we need which is thoroughly biblical vocabulary to say true things and these this has been worked out in a very public way time tested way and uh and so we where we would be worse off to not utilize um this to the the uh these sorts of things that that we have uh inherited from this rich christian tradition and so so i i don't think that utilizing um you know uh different theological words and and trying to think through what they mean and why they matter i don't think that's a barrier to intimacy with god i think that foster's greater intimacy with god yeah i think that when one relies wholly on the intellect and on understanding as they um seek fellowship with god when one relies wholly on those things that's when you begin to

9:33i think make a misstep right when everything becomes totally about the theological understanding and not about obedience or about affection or about trust um that's where i think the danger lies and certainly some can come to the confession and see it merely as intellectual stimulation um but if they do that that's a fault in themselves not a fault fault in the confession or the framers of the confession either the London Baptist or the Westminster Confession that it's based on um so what should happen is when we come to a deeper intellectual understanding that should then seep into the rest of our souls into our affections and into our volition and drive us to love god and worship god and be obedient to god in the way that he has commanded yeah one of the things in the introduction of the book um when i'm i'm kind of giving the the lay of the land to the reader on what to expect uh i quote at the end of the book Romans 11 verses 33 through 36 right Romans being a

10:36very theological book and the apostle Paul um uh really pushing us to think about who god is who we are apart from the lord and and then who we are in light of what god is accomplished for us in christ and and after contemplating just the lorries of the gospel and lofty doctrines like predestination the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 11 he says oh the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of god how unsurchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out for who is known the mind of the lord or who has become his counselor or who has first given to him and it shall be repaid to him for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever a man and so some of the you know intellectual exercises the things that stretch us if they remain purely academic then we're doing it wrong it should terminate in uh deeper worship and

11:38deeper devotion uh to the lord and and the you know passages like that are a good model for us i think on how to uh love the lord our god with all our heart so mind and strength i would encourage you to join us in sathilis lord a january 21st through 23rd 2027 as the national founders conference convenes to focus on law and gospel i can think of no subject that is more important nor more timely and needed an hour a day than what the scriptures have to teach us about the law of god and the gospel of god god loves his law as much as he loves his gospel and he's commanded us as his people to preach both his law and gospel but we must do it with understanding we must do it with compassion we must do it with conviction in an order to help us think about these things i've invited some of the most trustworthy preachers of law and gospel that i know to focus on this

12:38vitally important subject so i encourage you to mark it on your calendar do what you can to come to sunny sathilis florida january 21 through 23 2027 and join us for this conference there are few mercies greater than sacred spaces set apart for the soul's refreshment at lake yelbaptus conference center pastors find rest through sabbaticals youth and children grow through camps and churches gather for ministry events that strengthen the body of christ and a world full of noise lake yel creates space to connect with god with others and with the mission lake yelbaptus conference connect here learn more at lybcc.com that's lybcc.com you know the the relationship between our understanding and our affections and our will is a well an interesting type of relationship and there's a moral basis to faith if you're not committed to living the way god calls you to live you shouldn't really expect to understand the things that god has revealed uh jesus says this in john 717 if anyone wills to do uh my will he will

13:45know of the doctrine whether or not it's from god so if you will to do the father's will you will to do what god wants you to do that's your predisposition coming to the text then jesus says you'll know you you will be given knowledge you'll be guided into the truth and so those who just want an intellectual exercise just tickle my fancy intellectually so that i can speculate and sit around speculating all day they shouldn't expect to come to the truth you come to the truth with a humble predisposition to lord nevertheless at your word i will go you know whatever you say this is what i'm going to order my life by and when those things are in harmony like that then this distinction we tend to make between intellectual understanding and the affections of our inner life and the way that we live that we we can't keep them divided anymore yeah it's interesting there's the the the way in which the discussion on the transcendental is plays in this as well the truth in goodness and beauty um and i think especially reform babs is we really focus on the truth and that's great uh but

14:51there's also goodness and there's also beauty and the three though they're distinguished aren't really separate they're always together and where truth uh affects our intellectual part of our goodness affects uh the moral part of our soul and beauty affects the volitional part of our soul it gives us that that thing which we are to desire and so if we're really seeing and understanding that truth properly we're also going to see the goodness the moral goodness in that truth and then also what it demands of us our duty that it demands and then we're also going to delight in that truth in a doxological way in worshipping the one who is that truth who is beautiful and who is good as well and so works like this that you've written help us to not uh separate those things i think sometimes the temptation is to read through the confession and see it for truth and only for truth and not let it affect our moral souls and our volition as well but then when it's made explicit and someone like yourself takes time to to meditate on it and to think about the ways in which all

15:55these things are related then it helps us as we read through it just to allow to affect our hearts in our affections and our volitions and not just our intellects yeah yeah i i you know going back to the apostle Paul just writing to the church of Corinth and the difference between the natural man and the spiritual man okay i don't want to engage god's word the way that a natural man one who's been unconverted you know anybody can read and understand facts about the Bible and but to be able to read in such a way that you obey its contents and in your your affections are warmed that that's the way that we should engage it anything that we're reading as Christians and so as i wrote the book i and i desired this in my own life i want to read god's word i want to read works about god and about god's word in a way that leads to greater conformity to christ

17:01Jesus and in a way that stirs my affections warms my affections toward the Lord and so i certainly hope the reader of this book will find this as an aid in in that pursuit so why reflections and meditations on the 1689 why not just reflections and meditations on the Bible wouldn't that have been more profitable that's a good question will be well i have a section a reflection on the necessity of creeds and confessions in which i'm again trying to help the reader to understand that that we all come to the Bible with particular presuppositions we all have a creed we all believe things about god and about the Bible the difference is just and i think this this comes through in a word by true man that it's the difference between our own private kind of

18:03arbitrary interpretations of god's word or public time tested creeds and confessions that are accountable to those that would read and reflect on it and and so i wanted to take something like the confession which i think thoroughly summarizes biblical doctrine thoroughly summarizes infallible scripture and do what you're talking about gram i wanted to help really show those biblical underpinnings and so while we're examining different aspects of the confession i'm spending a lot of time in those reflections demonstrating that the confession itself is summarizing uh biblical truths that are either explicitly stated or necessarily contain in scripture and so one of the things that i appreciate about the book is your footnotes which it's not heavily footnotes

19:06so it's not you know on every page but you use an ample number of footnotes to to guide us back into or to show how others have also commented on these things and they're exogetical sources you use but you and not just babbous you did use babbous but also just the whole Protestant heritage as well uh is there any particular work or works that you found uh unusually helpful to you as you're trying to to put this book together for people who could be guided through the confession and descriptor in a devotional manner you you're calling any of the works that you cited as being ones that you return to again and again uh numerous works you know some that kind of come to my mind quickly i i mean i i've benefited tremendously from John Owen um men like Nima Cox i leaned a lot into spurgian not necessarily things he said about the confession itself but some

20:09some of his sermons yeah um and and going back through that i've i've been on a bit of a spurgian kick over the last few years reading a lot more uh of his sermons of his works and and i i never walk away from reading spurgian thinking i've wasted my time i always walk away um encouraged and convicted and and he he had a way with words that really could drive home biblical truth and so so i do lean into him perhaps more than um other writers um in the confession itself john gill uh is is uh is another one that that i leaned into calvin is very helpful and so i you know i i pulled from a wide variety of sources but those are you know those are the men that i thought about principally a richer muleer you know just a more recent scholar obviously very helpful as it relates to gram a little bit of what you were bringing up a moment ago just

21:11about some of the theological language that we're using and the value of it and so newller is a is a helpful voice those guys are on a dimmer switch some are more accessible than others i i did put in at the end of the book a recommended reading list and in that list i tried to be um uh again mindful of of putting some authors in there that i think are more accessible and so so that the you know the person that finishes this book isn't quickly intimidated one of the first puritan works i ever read was john o and and it wasn't like a uh a banner republication of john o and it was just uh you know there there's a ton of different publications of those guys and um after after reading uh his book justification by faith i am surprised that i read any more puritan works uh and so uh so i tried to recommend some resources

22:14that i think are a bit more accessible did you ever did you guys ever come across that uh letter that john o and's wife sent to him it wasn't his wife yet she was he had proposed marriage to her and she wrote back a letter with her response and no she basis she's you have to find out online it's hilarious she says uh yes i will marry you on the condition that you never speak Latin in my presence ever yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and that that was my experience of oh and you you would uh you know you would be in the middle of a sentence and all of a sudden he would start writing in Latin with no translation whatsoever uh that has always been a credal and confessional people beach carol the founder of south western seminary said a church of a little creed is a little church here at foundish ministries we're concerned to help churches and church leaders come to understand our doctrinal heritage our biblical foundation in every way that we can and so to that end we have published a book called the

23:20Baptist standards in it we have compiled different creeds from the ecumenical councils together with some wonderful Baptist confessions and catechisms all in one book this book is a treasure trove of helpful resources and Tom nettles is the one who's written the introduction to it and who introduces every one of the confessions and the creeds that it contains encourage you to get a copy of this and make it available to all of the members of your churches or anybody who wants to understand who Baptist really are where we have come from and what our heritage is you can get a copy of this at FoundersPress.org. Scripture teaches that the body of Christ works best when each member is doing what they're gifted to do. My calling is to shepherd to teach and have conversations that point people to Jesus but producing and distributing a podcast takes a completely different set of skills that's where a yonder child comes in they built and installed this studio that I'm in right now and they manage the whole operation remote producing keeping

24:23everything reliable editing and distributing the finished content across the channels that matter and what I appreciate the most is this whether it's a simple in-home micro studio for one host or a larger studio setup like we have here yonder child can build it and manage it end to end so your team isn't buried in tech and your content stays consistent they're using their gifts so I can focus online it's consistent polished content without the tech headaches and that's what it looks like when each part does its work if your organization could benefit from a partnership like this you can email us at podcastatfounders.org and we'll personally connect you with yonder child one of the unique things about the form of this book and how you put it together is at the beginning of every chapter you cite catechism question or two and at the close of every chapter so you might have more than one you know three four reflections on that chapter of the confession you close out with a prayer and this is written prayers can be very very helpful

25:25they they're more thoughtful typically than our contemporaneous prayers but let me just read the one from the end of chapter seven which is on the covenant on God's covenant it says our covenant keeping God we thank you for the eternal covenant the promise you made an eternity to save of people to yourself for your own glory we thank you that the covenant of grace is based on that eternal covenant we thank you for how the whole Bible tells us of this great salvation that is given to us by grace through faith in Christ Jesus it was promised in the old covenant and accomplished in the new covenant through the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and we as your people by virtue of our union with Christ give you all glory for this covenant of grace I mean those types of prayers and people learn to pray by hearing prayers or reading prayers being around people who pray and we all need help in thinking through how to pray better

26:25when I was a young pastor I remember getting a copy of Spurgeon's pulpit prayers and it just tremendously shaped me and helped me and I would read those regularly to think through leading my own congregation in praying and then the Valley of Vision which the banner truth is published just shows again thinking through doctrinal truth in a way that applies to my own soul the mom's station in life and you've captured that very same spirit in the closing prayers to each of chapters of the confession that you meditate on in this book have you recommended this approach or have you used this in your own family or your own congregation because I'm already thinking that yeah we're going to be recommending this to the families in our church as a wonderful tool for family worship have you done that as you were writing this or have you found that to be beneficial in talking through these things with other people?

27:27Yeah so even just in my own family worship you know we we try to make the we we close our family worship time we kind of go around the room depending on how much time we have and and we'll pray I try to model praying based off of what we just thought through read studied for my own family and we we do that to greater and lesser degrees in our corporate praying on Sunday morning and and so a lot of our we rotate through on our elder team who we do a pastoral prayer is I'm sure you guys do every regularly and and the we will usually ground that in scripture or we may ground that in one of the hills that we sing on a Sunday morning but we're thinking about it not just in terms of how that we're speaking to God but also is a discipleship tool trying to help

28:29teach our people how to pray these true things about God back to God and and so so yeah valley of vision is what you know about you know I know you guys are familiar with valley of vision that has been you know this collection of Puritan prayers is extremely devotional and it has been really helpful to me over the years that's been a book that I've gone back to regularly and especially when I feel dry in my own prayer life you know having a collection of of prayers to to help aid shape my praying I'm reading through right now Mac you Henry's a way to pray Ben or a truth has a great publication of that and in in in that work I mean that that is Bible saturated in in you know Henry's aim is to equip the reader on how to pray prayers that are acceptable to the Lord and

29:31and how to think through how scripture should shape your prayers and so so I love that sort of stuff and certainly had that in my mind as I worked through the different chapters and the confession if I could recommend any prayer for anyone to kind of follow the model of it starts our father who art in heaven but that's exactly I've heard about I've heard about that one yeah that's a good one but that's how that's exactly how Jesus teaches us to pray isn't it yeah and he models it so that we would imitate him in our prayers and so I think that it's it's really good like that you have here a Kelsey Drick of it just does the same thing in his books on family worship yeah now there's a prayer at the end of every single one of those chapters and it just models how to pray and sometimes they can be longer prayers sometimes they can be shorter prayers but if you like he say if you're feeling dry in your own prayer life you don't really know how to pray publicly or with your family those can be great models where you it's it's like the training wheels on the bicycle and eventually you can

30:31take those training wheels off but I think they can be especially really helpful for people who aren't they aren't used to that they're used to praying for them. Well and I think those can be those can be real prayers as well and so you know just just because you're reading a prayer it doesn't mean you can't read that prayer is unto the Lord and say amen to the prayer that you're reading and so if you know if anybody's listening in their apprehensive yeah as it relates to plagiarizing prayers you know I mean Jesus says to do exactly that in Luke 11 when he gives us the model prayer there that's not the sermon on the mountain Matthew 6 but he says when you pray say this yes not just like this it's say this and so it's right and proper that we should actually use the very words that he's given to us in prayer and that can be true in other prayers as well. Well it's like Lloyd Jones says that when I don't know how to pray or what to pray for I know that

31:33if I just say the Lord's Prayer as a prayer I have prayed well. Yeah amen amen. So Joey for you personally in your own journey with the 1689 confession what did that look like for you how did you become a confessionally reformed Baptist what was it about the confession that was first appealing to you and then how is that taken shape in your own church there at the Deer Park Fellowship. That's a good question. Over a period of many years and the the influence of other godly men in my life that took the time to help disciple me utilizing the confession and so so I don't know how many years ago it was when I really began to read through and and seek to understand the confession itself I mean I would guess it was 12 to 15 years ago somewhere around there and and to me I was a Calvinist before I knew a whole lot about the 1689 so I did once so once I

32:44came to the confession I didn't have those sorts of hangups I had already gone through my my cage stage by the time I began to work through the confession and and I did it in the safety of other pastors other trusted brothers that were patient with me and that really helped me to grow and understand of things like divine simplicity God is simple what is that is that an insult? Is that a God is complex he has to be complex and and so I you know had some brothers that really took their time with me one of them endorsed the book who's a good friend of of mine and and as it relates to to the church it's been a we we planted deer part about the the work is seven years in the making this November we will be five years constituted as a autonomous local church

33:51and we planted as a 1689 church and we voted unanimously to do that while not understanding all that that meant and and and so we you know we've been growing in our understanding of that and how to align our philosophy with our confession ever since planting and some of the some of these reflections come from me sending out a weekly email to our members because we've had a habit for up until recently right now we're going through the Baptist catechism in our morning service but for the last few years we've read a section from our confession of fate from the 1689 each Lord's day we're just going paragraph by paragraph and we would we would do that right before the sermon and make a few comments about it just to kind of keep our doctrine in front of our people but leading up to that each Sunday I would send out an email to our members and say here's what we're going

34:58to read here's the section of the confession we're going to read from this coming Sunday and I would write a little bit of commentary some reflections things for them to think about just to help prepare them for hearing me read from it and and so so you know we're you know week by week understanding what it means to be confessional and and the Lord's been gracious in that we've got you know people in our church as I'm sure it's similar to you guys that are Gung Ho 1689 guys we've got people who were coming to our church that are that literally come to our church just because we allow children in the service and we don't talk them away somewhere you know the hospitality of having young kids in service we've got some people that are fleeing the Methodist denomination that come you know so we've got people from all you know different backgrounds that are coming and they're at different and and not all of them are on board with every jot and

36:03title of the 1689 but they're coming in humble and eager to learn and grow and and and we try to provide some discipleship opportunities for that and so for me it was a a slow build over the course of many years with with patient brothers in my life that invested in me and by God's grace you know I hope the out you know the elders of our church that we're exhibiting that same sort of hospitality and patience toward people that are onboarding and in calling Dear Park home as we seek to utilize the 1689 to disciple the people in our congregation and help them to confess the whole Council of God's Word. I want to bring to your attention a new book that is coming up from Founders Press and that is from Nicaeah to now what's at stake in the Trinity debates of course the doctrine of the Trinity is a central doctrine of the Christian faith and it's been much discussed from the earliest centuries until now and there's been a lot of debate over how to

37:04properly understand God in his triune nature and so Founders has come out with this new book edited by Dr. Peter Sammons and there are different chapters addressing different issues concerning these debates regarding the Trinity especially that we have had recently within the evangelical church and so Dr. Peter Sammons, Josh Tinkham, Chris Cleelan, Richard Bracellis, Steve Meister and even myself we have different chapters addressing things like impassibility, eternal relations, up authority and submission, the Trinity and divine processions. This is a book that is for pastors and seminary students, professors and other church leaders as well yet it's accessible and those who come to it and read it can understand the different doctrines and the different arguments that are put forth in it. I am hopeful that it will be a very helpful book for the church particularly reform Baptist within our own confessional context so you can go to FoundersPress.org to check out this new book from NICIA to now with that stake in the Trinity debates and you can order a copy today. Last fall Founders relaunched the online Founders Study Center.

38:06This is a place where pastors and laymen alike can access wonderful courses on Bible education, church practice, theology, subjects like political theology, all very inexpensively. You can use these in small groups or for your own private devotional study. I encourage you to go to study.founders.org and check it out. Yeah that's an interesting story when you talk about your own church. I find that typically happens one of two ways either like in your case the church adopts the confession and then grows into it and then in a lot of other churches they will seek to grow into it and then adopt the confession. Typically in a church plant it's easier to do the first and a church that's been around a while. There's old traditions, old habits, old ways of thinking that you have to grow out of in order to actually officially informally adopt it. But I think even a lot of churches that have been around for a while there may be contingent of people or all the elders are on board and the

39:09hay let's adopt the confession and at that point they still don't know that they don't know what all that means and they still have to grow into what it means to be a confessional church. How in your congregation what a subscription look like for you guys? Is it that every member has to subscribe to everything before they come to membership or is that just for the officers? What does it look like for you guys? So we require full subscription of our officers and so we want to have a kind of a theological and philosophical cohesiveness with the leadership of our church and so but we don't require that of our members and so what we require for membership is our members to confess the apostle, the nice scene and the Athenation creed and so we make that is our here are the essentials of the faith that you have to confess and then of course you need

40:11to be baptized as a believer if you have it then baptized as a believer but we do have in our membership covenant a group in a agreement to not work against. We make sure that there's an understanding as it relates to the content of the confession and that you will strive in humility even in points of disagreements with an openness to learn and to grow and you know we want our members to understand this document kind of summarizes the theological tone and tenor of our pulpit ministry so don't be surprised don't be shocked here here it all is up front and but we don't require membership we don't require a person to subscribe to it in order to be a member at your part how do you guys do it it's pretty similar for us we require full subscription for our officers and for our members they have to subscribe to those essential

41:11doctrines within the confession and the new hamster and they're free to disagree with some of the secondary tertiary issues within the confession but again they're not free to teach contrary to it or try to persuade other people to believe contrary to it because that goes against our covenant of seeking to protect and promote the unity of the church and this is the doctrine of the church that the church itself not just the elders but the entire congregation we have said that this is what we believe the scriptures to teach and so to have members within the congregation teaching contrary to what the congregation believes the scriptures to teach is problematic and disrupts the unity of the church and also the church is called to be a pillar and butchers of the truth we believe that this really is the summary of the truth and therefore to have some of our members teaching and speaking contrary to what we believe the truth to be well that works at cross purposes with the purpose the function the duties of the church as well and I can imagine that what you've

42:14written here in those things most surely believed you know when you think about rhetoric or trying to persuade someone of truth there are certainly those ways in which you oftentimes it looks like targeting the intellect and seeking through argumentation to convince them of what is true but another very valid and good way to persuade somebody is just to show them the goodness or the beauty of the truth and I think that's what you're more focused on here is not it's not specifically for the point of persuasion I don't think but it can I think be very persuasive to those members who are in your church who have come and said I'm not really sure if I can totally get on board with the 1689 but I am open and I'm going to be humble and I'm going to learn those things those arguments that you might present to them that are more philosophical theological and aimed at the intellect may not be as persuasive to them as the things that are actually written in this book here these reflections these meditations yeah that's exactly right I mean another aspect of the book as well that I don't think we've talked about it and I don't think that this is a prerequisite for you know

43:20one has to see this in order to see the the beauty or the goodness of the confession but I do seek to apply the confession in such a way that that people can see its usefulness even in our current cultural context and so you know when the confession is talking about male and female I try to set that up and and and ex you know assert God as the creator he's the one that tells us who we are men cannot become women women cannot become you know so there's there's there's ways in which I seek to kind of apply the confession spread it out to its edges for the reader that wants to know well what is this what does this old document have what does I have to say about you know our current even cultural climate and I don't want to press that too far because I know there's elements of the confession that that uh you know there are the things that there's things

44:23that we're facing they didn't have in mind when they were drafting it but there's certain conclusions that we can come to through reading things about the beauty of God creating man man male and female and and him having the the him being the only one with authority to find who we are and so so I hope a reader can also pick up the book and see some of the the just the practicality of the confession in different ways that we can think about the doctrine of Christian liberty and in the different ways in which we regularly see people try to bind their conscience by the consciences of other Christians in ways that the scripture is not prescribed for them to and and to just meditate or reflect on that sweet line in the confession that says God alone is the Lord of the conscience like how freeing that is and how much clarity that can bring to us as we we navigate people that sometimes intentionally sometimes unintentionally seek to

45:30uh bond our consciences and in ways that they shouldn't mm-hmm yeah very good well thank you so much Joey for coming on the podcast with us today to discuss your book the book is those things most surely believed reflections on the 1689 undenbathed confession of faith you can find this at founderspress.org and uh for the for churches who order books there's a steep discount for them right they can get these books any books we sell for 50% off you have to contact this directly uh there's no form that you can fill out on the website but if you shoot us an email uh we'll be glad to help you get that church discount yeah absolutely so thank you listeners for joining us for this conversation today hope it's been helpful for you that has been you can like and subscribe on all the places you listen to your podcasts and also share with friends maybe your pastor if you think it'll be helpful for them and we will see you all next time