Category: Christian Persecution

7 Things That Make Us Weary In Well Doing (Article + Podcast)

Ryan A. French5 Comments

Paul encourages us in Galatians 6:9 to not be weary in well-doing; I know, I know, easier said than done. I’ve identified seven culprits that can cause us to be weary of doing good, even in good times. Next week, I will follow up with a list of 9 Signs That You Might Be Weary In Well Doing. Indeed, these lists could be much longer, but they are a good starting point. So, here are seven things that make us weary in well-doing.

1. Discouragement 

I think it’s interesting that Elijah found himself in his darkest moment of depression immediately after witnessing fire fall from heaven (1 Kings 19:4).

2. Murmuring 

Time and time again, Moses had to deal with a murmuring congregation that would not trust God’s plan. It took a toll on Moses (Numbers 14:27). Be careful about spending too much time with murmurers and complainers because, eventually, it will impact your spirit.

3. Giants (Obstacles)

The entire Israelite army was reduced to hiding in fear because of one Goliath (1 Samuel 17). Scary obstacles still paralyze people today and will keep us from living victoriously if we aren’t careful.

4. Hypocrites 

We all know them! And they wear us out if we get too focused on them. They often come and go as if they are genuine, and just the weight of knowing who and what they really are causes frustration in the sincere Christian’s life. Don’t allow hypocrites to distract you from the genuine.

5. Slow Moving Miracles

When Jesus healed the ten lepers, he told them to go and show themselves to the priest, but their miracle was not yet apparent (Luke 17:11-19). As they walked in obedience, it became clear that a miracle had occurred in their bodies. Sometimes, miracles are slow-moving, and we must walk in obedience for a season without real proof of God’s power. This can be discouraging, but if we keep walking, we will see the miracle come to pass.

6. Strange Miracles

Jesus was often unorthodox in his methodology. It must have seemed strange when he spit in the mud and rubbed it on a blind man’s face (John 9:6). I mean, who wants to walk around city walls for seven days straight? But God sometimes does things in ways that seem odd to us. How many people have missed what God has for them because they faltered at His instructions?

7. Reoccurring Enemies & Familiar Battles 

The Philistines alone are mentioned 217 times in the Bible. Even after David killed Goliath and routed the Philistines, he had to fight them many times after that. Enemies and battles that seem to resurface repeatedly will wear us down over time. That temptation that you keep beating down only to face it again will cause discouragement. But remember, if God delivered you then, He can deliver you now.

Related posts:

  1. 9 Signs You Might Be Weary In Well Doing
  2. Radically Apostolic! with Charles G. Robinette (Article + Podcast)
  3. Oneness Theology, Church History & Where the Church Is Right Now – Podcast Transcript with Dr. Talmadge French
  4. Takeaways from Church Planting (A Walk of Faith) – Podcast Episode 7
  5. It Filled the House – The Journey from Tabernacle to Temple to Earthen Vessels with Samuel Vaughn (Article + Podcast)
  6. Buried Alive (The Gospel According to the Bible) – Article + Podcast
  7. The Extraordinary Significance of the Royal Priesthood of Believers
  8. Prayer, Revival & Spiritual Warfare with Joe Campetella (Article + Podcast)

The Extraordinary Significance of the Royal Priesthood of Believers

Ryan A. French

The apostle Peter makes a somewhat shocking declaration about the Christian life in the second chapter of his first epistle. Well, actually, he makes several fascinating declarations, but for now, we’ll mainly focus on one. With all its implications, contemporary Christians largely ignore this doctrine. The current religious atmosphere of flagrant biblical illiteracy probably explains why most Christians have barely noticed Peter’s inspired proclamations. Yet, the practical applications of this doctrine touch every area of daily Christian life. That little tirade aside, if you’re reading this, you aren’t the average person. Just knowing that you clicked on an article titled The Extraordinary Significance of the Royal Priesthood of Believers, which is like an anti-click-bait title, tells me that. So, thank you for reading and for caring about the things of God.

A Few Pertinent Introductions

Before plunging in, remember that the book of 1 Peter is a treatise on holiness. The apostle called Christians to “sanctify Christ as Lord” in their hearts so that believers might live and act as Jesus desires during their short time here on earth (1 Peter 3:14-18). Peter lived alongside Jesus for nearly three years, and during that time, he witnessed the perfect standard of holiness that we should aspire to achieve. But understanding the apostle’s inspired epistles takes a little studying, primarily because of his mixing and matching of metaphorical certitudes. Let’s take a closer look at that for a moment.

The Mixing of Metaphorical Certitudes

If I were to say, “You’re fast like a ninja.” That would be a simile. I don’t know any ninjas, and you’re probably not a ninja. I’m just comparing your hypothetical nimble footedness to that of an actual ninja. Technically, an accurate metaphor declares one thing to be another. It might not be literally accurate, but it is accurately literal. For example, you might describe someone as being “tender-hearted.” Their heart, hopefully, isn’t tender, but in a sense, their metaphorical heart is undoubtedly tender. You might think I’m just playing a bunch of word games, but understanding how the inspired authors used metaphors is vital for a serious student of Scripture. The Old and New Testaments are brimming with the mixing of metaphorical certitudes.

So, when the apostle declared Jesus to be the head of the royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:5), He did not mean that Jesus was like a High Priest but instead that He was the High Priest. Although Jesus was not a Levite nor an officer in the sacrificial altars at Jerusalem, He is literally our final High Priest. From Christ’s resurrection until now, there has never been another legitimate High Priest besides Jesus. Of course, many powerful revelations are attached to Jesus because He was simultaneously the sacrifice and the High Priest (1 Peter 1:18-20). How could that be? Well, He sacrificed Himself as the only unblemished human sacrifice that ever was or could be. He was the sacrificer (High Priest) and the sacrificee (unspotted lamb). The Creator became created so He could save us.

A Lot of Mixing & Matching

We’re almost ready to reveal Peter’s shocking revelation about the Christian life with all its various nuances and truths. But first, I’d like to acknowledge the significant metaphorical mixing and matching that Peter weaves throughout 1 Peter 2:4-9. He refers to Jesus as the “head cornerstone,” to us as “living stones,” and together we comprise the spiritual house of God or temple (1 Peter 2:8). If you’re counting those mixed metaphors, Jesus is High Priest, sacrifice, and the head cornerstone of the Church. You, I, and every other true Christian who was and is and is to come are living stones built upon and around Christ. That’s five mixed metaphors right there.

The revelation that Christians are living, breathing temples of the Holy Ghost is not unfamiliar in Apostolic circles. Remember, Peter emphasized holiness. Therefore, the implications of conducting ourselves as sacred temples, living vessels, or walking containers of the Shekinah glory of God are staggering. Historically, Pentecostals have instinctively understood that if we are God’s temples, we must carefully guard against defiling our bodies inwardly and outwardly. How hurtful it must be to God when we use our bodies, sanctified for His holy presence, in sinful ways. When sin overtakes a Spirit-filled believer, it is no less devastating to God than when the Babylonians desecrated the temple in Jerusalem centuries ago. However, Peter further stirred the pot by saying believers are “a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5). Later, in 1 Peter 2:9, he called believers “a royal priesthood.” Therefore, Christians are metaphorically and absolutely a holy royal priesthood of believers.

A Royal Priesthood of Believers

By the way, that was the big shocking revelation! In a metaphorically literal sense, you and I are (assuming we’re saved) priests. If that doesn’t shock you, it’s probably because you don’t understand all the responsibilities of membership in a royal priesthood of believers. Peter was conveying the great privilege of our priestly duties while also suggesting the seriousness it entails. Jesus is the head cornerstone and the High Priest; we are temples and priests. Therefore, Jesus is below us as our foundation, and He is above us as our High Priest. He supports us from below, inspires us from above, and empowers us from within.

Similarities Between Old and New Testament Priests

It should go without saying that Peter was a Jew. Jesus, too, was a Jew. Their lives were immersed in the daily importance of the priesthood. One of the tremendous mental dilemmas facing modern Christianity is our slow divorce from our faith’s Jewish roots. Rather than conforming our understanding to the Jewish context of Scripture, we try to squeeze those Jewish contexts into our cultural comfort zones. Sometimes, this tendency causes only minor problems. But it often results in full-fledged gaping black holes of false doctrine. Or it leaves entire Scripture passages to be swept aside as irrelevant. Of course, there is an opposite error where people become obsessed with reverting to pre-Christ rituals and diluting the power of the cross. For example, and these topics can be explored deeply at another time, people who insist on keeping Old Testament dietary restrictions or demanding the Lord’s Day should be observed on Saturday rather than Sunday fall into that category. I’ve seen firsthand the devastating spiritual spirals resulting from those errors. However, I still maintain that our current Christian climate is in far more danger of completely divorcing itself from vitally important Jewish roots. Most people have almost no concept of what Peter meant when he called New Testament believers a “holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5) and a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). We’re going to unpack exactly what that means moving forward. To do so, we will examine several astonishing characteristics shared between the Old Testament and New Testament priesthood. You’ll see that it’s virtually impossible to understand our duties as New Testament priests without an understanding of the Old Testament priesthood. Even though many of these truths might seem strange to our contemporary sensibilities, every early Jewish and Gentile saint understood these inferences instantaneously.

Must Be Born into Priestly Privilege

In the Old Testament, the priesthood had no licensing process. It wasn’t an open position that could be filled by anyone interested. God instituted the priesthood, giving Moses strict instructions that only Aaron and his ancestry could obtain the priestly office (Numbers 3:10). Because Aaron was a Levite, only the Levite lineage could participate in the privileged roles of the priesthood. God was serious about this rule. He said, “Anyone daring to assume priestly duties or privileges who is not of the house of Aaron and called of God who even comes near the holy things must be put to death” (Numbers 3:10). Old Testament priests were born into service. They were birthed into ministry and privilege. Like it or not. Fair or not. That was God’s command.

Likewise, Christians must be born into priestly privileges. There’s no shortcut around that requirement. Members of the royal priesthood of believers, which comprises the Church of God, are born into service. Otherwise, God considers you a stranger, an outsider, unworthy of handling holy things. Fortunately, your physical DNA has nothing to do with the birthing process. There isn’t a single human besides Jesus whose bloodline is pure enough to enter the New Testament priesthood. The new era of priests operates on a spiritual level unavailable to the ancient ones. The royal priesthood of believers requires a bloodline untainted by the fallen blood of Adam. Therefore, it would be humanly impossible for anyone to be accepted into the new order of priestly privilege. Unless, somehow, they could be born again.

That’s precisely what Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3:1-31. Interestingly, Nicodemus didn’t specifically ask Jesus about salvation. Instead, he expressed a willingness to believe that Jesus was sent from God (John 3:2). Jesus responded to that openness with a more profound revelation for Nicodemus to consider. Jesus affirmed that He was the “son of man” or the Messiah (John 3:13), and as the Messiah, He alone held the key to inheriting eternal life. The first fifteen verses of John 3 can be viewed as a series of questions and answers. Let me paraphrase the first question: “Are you here to bring in the kingdom?” Jesus’ first answer is, “You will never see the kingdom without being born again.”

Nicodemus serves as a warning to us that religious training without spiritual insight is useless. Jesus wasted no time getting to the heart of the problem. He told the teacher he must be born again or from above (anothen), a word which appears again in John 3:7 and John 3:31.[i] Today, even thoroughly secular people are familiar with the phrase “born again.” Pop icons like Rihanna sing the term born again as a stand-in for the idea of starting over. Sadly, when secular culture adopts, or some might say, hijacks, sacred religious terms, they effectively cheapen their intended meanings. The actual words describe a garment torn from top to bottom. Discussing the kingdom is useless unless God changes our hearts from the inside out. All devout Jews connected the Messiah with the kingdom; Jesus drove to the heart of the matter immediately. But for Nicodemus, born again was an unfamiliar, paradigm-shifting term. To belong to the heavenly kingdom, one must be born into it just as one is born into this earthly kingdom.[ii]

How to Be Born Again

While the people, timing, surroundings, and circumstances of a baby’s birth might be unique, indubitably, the birth process is the same for everyone. Correspondingly (and Jesus drove this point home several times), there’s only one spiritual birth process. Anyone can claim to be born again, but that doesn’t mean they’ve genuinely undergone a supernatural rebirth. In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus described a category of believers who will not be saved even though they do incredible things in His name. They claim the family name but have not been born into it. And in a gut-wrenching crescendo, Jesus declared: I will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity (Matthew 7:23).

So, the overwhelming, all-consuming, life-altering, eternity-defining question every human should obsess over is, “How can I be born again.” Finding the answer to that question is the most impactful thing you and I, or anyone else, will ever do. That’s why my brain can’t compute why so many people invest such small amounts of thought, time, and energy into this question. I mean, you need to be sure. Really, sure. But oddly, some folks spend more time studying Pinterest boards than the Bible. Ok. Alright. I digress.

Jesus was prophetically cryptic and intentionally vague with Nicodemus about the “how” aspect of being born again. He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). In this statement, Jesus echoed the ancient prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel (Isaiah 44:3-4, Ezekiel 36:25-27), reinforced the recent prophecy of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:11), and pointed forward to Peter’s seminal sermon on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38). Keep in mind that Nicodemus was a religious leader, well versed in Scripture, and supposedly filled with spiritual insights. The text reads as if Jesus was mildly annoyed at Nicodemus’ lack of spiritual awareness. Because of that, Jesus spoke enigmatically to the doubting Pharisee. However, that doesn’t mean He wasn’t unmistakably clear to us, who benefit from hindsight.  

In John 3:8, Jesus said, “The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with every person who is born from the Spirit.” The Greek word pneuma means “wind” and “spirit” interchangeably. I’ve read countless weak interpretations of what Jesus meant by that. Unsatisfying explanations that ignore the context of the New Birth. Clearly, Jesus was speaking precisely of the outpouring of the Spirit, which would occur on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. Not only is this evidenced by the “sound of a mighty rushing wind” (Acts 2:2) but also by the fact that they were all “filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4).

I’ve written several times about how to be saved (here, here, and here). However, I’ve not addressed it meaningfully from the context of the New Birth. There’s a fair bit of bickering over how many “steps” are contained in the New Birth process or the plan of salvation. I usually describe the New Birth as a three-step process for illustration purposes mainly because that is in keeping with the Apostle Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:38: Repentance, water baptism in Jesus’ name, and the infilling of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. Furthermore, it coincides spiritually with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Repentance is the death, baptism is the burial, and the infilling of the Spirit is the resurrection.

While all that is true, sometimes people are troubled that Jesus only mentioned two steps in John 3: Water and Spirit baptism. Let me tackle that briefly. First, the discourse with Nicodemus was intended to be understood after a period of time. The promise was still coming, and Jesus often used types and shadows in His teachings. Secondly, considering the New Birth in terms of steps is optional as long as the requirements are completed. For example, when Jesus spoke of water and Spirit baptism, He lumped repentance and water baptism into one category (water baptism). Technically speaking, you can’t have one of those things without the other. Just as the process of a physical birth might be categorized academically in a few different ways (labor, delivery, recovery, etc.), as long as the requirements are fulfilled and a baby is born, all is well.

Must Be Ordained into the Priesthood

Another fascinating shared characteristic between the Old Testament and our new priesthood is the role of ordination. God set apart the ancient priests and consecrated them for sacred service (Exodus 19:6, Exodus 28:1). In John 15:16, Jesus said, “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go forth and bring forth fruit.” I suspect most folks are a little hazy when defining what it means to be ordained. We know that preachers can be “ordained.” But even at that, most aren’t sure exactly what that means. Most modern Bibles translate the word ordained as “appointed.” Which is almost just as confusing. What does it mean that God ordains us?

To gain understanding, we have to dig into the origins and framework of the word ordained. The word translated “ordained” in John 15:16 is the Greek word tithēmi. Depending on the context, it has a wide range of possible meanings and applications. In its broadest application, tithēmi means literally and figuratively to place in a passive or horizontal posture, and thus different from others.[iii] That’s how we get various uses of tithēmi: Set apart, consecrated, appointed, established, fixed, ordained, or placed. Therefore, these gradients of the word ordained begin connecting the Old Testament idea of priestly appointment with our new believer-priesthood paradigm. Ordination is God setting us apart to be a holy people and sanctifying us so that we can be used in His service. God is making us holy and calling us to walk in that holiness. That was the hallmark of the Old Testament priesthood. It is ours today as well (Exodus 19:6, Exodus 28:38, Exodus 30:28-30, Leviticus 11:45, Leviticus 20:7, Leviticus 20:26, Romans 12:1, Romans 15:16, 1 Corinthians 9:13, Ephesians 5:27, 1 Peter 1:15-16, 1 Peter 2:5-9, 2 Peter 3:11). There’s a significant symbolism in the idea that by being laid prostrate before God we gain God’s approval. But it’s deeper than the physical act of lying prostrate before God. Although that is good and right, our complete inward submission to God’s will and authority over us pleases the Lord.

There is one more layer to the idea of being ordained by God. An ordained individual is someone sent forth as an authorized representative accountable to the sender. Therefore, New Testament believers are appointed and sent forth by Christ on a specified mission and with His authority.[iv] Similarly, the ancient priesthood was an authorized representative of God and was held strictly accountable to God. It should be intensely humbling to realize we represent the work of God to the surrounding world. Apostolic believers are authorized representatives of Jesus in this present world. With that extraordinary privilege comes the breathtaking reality that we are accountable to God and are specifically ordained to bring forth lasting fruit (John 15:16).

Must Be Anointed for the Priesthood

Old Testament priests were externally anointed for service with blood and oil (Leviticus 8:12-30). New Testament priest-believers are internally anointed with the blood of Jesus and the oil of the Holy Ghost (1 John 2:27). While the anointing was upon ancient priests, it dwells within the new priesthood. While ordination provides authorization, anointing provides empowerment that accompanies that God-given authority. To use an imperfect analogy, ordination is the badge, and anointing is the gun. To give authority without the power to use it would be silly and cruel. That’s why God has enabled and equipped His priests with Apostolic authority to operate in the realm of the Spirit. The oil of anointing covers our frailties, strengthens our weaknesses, enhances our abilities, and breaks yokes (Luke 4:18). Operating without anointing is like going to war without weapons, flying without wings, or singing without sound. It’s dangerous and ridiculous.

Must Be Cleansed for the Priesthood

There’s a reason the priestly anointing ceremony required oil and blood. As mentioned, the oil represented God’s empowering presence, but the blood represented the ceremonial cleansing of the priest’s sins. A bullock was sacrificed, its blood placed upon the altar’s horns and poured into the bottom of the altar for reconciliation between the priests and God (Leviticus 8:14-15). This should serve as a reminder that the closer a person gets to the presence of God, the more they are required to be cleansed of offending impurities. God did the cleansing. However, the priest was then required to walk worthy of that cleansing.

Contrary to most pop theology today, the New Testament requires the same cleansing and commitment from believer-priests. The blood of Jesus doesn’t give anyone a license to sin. You might say, “Well, grace covers my sin.” But consider what the Scripture says, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men” (Titus 2:11). So, in that sense, we are saved by grace because it was the grace of God that made salvation possible in the first place. But the passage doesn’t end there. It describes the role of grace in a believer’s life: Grace teaches us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world (Titus 2:12). Now it becomes apparent that the role of grace is that of a teacher or an instructor. It leads and guides us into righteousness and proper conduct before our savior. Titus 2:13 continues, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our savior Jesus Christ.” We should maintain a posture of anticipation as we wait for Jesus to return for His Church. Finally, Titus 2:14 brings all these thoughts together: Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Do you see? God does the initial cleansing, the preliminary purification, pulling us out of this world and making us a peculiar priesthood, and we then must walk in that glorious privilege.

Must be Appropriately Clothed for the Priesthood

God’s ancient priests were given a very distinctive dress code (Exodus 28:1-43). They were carefully clothed for service. God commanded Moses to make “holy garments” for the priests (Exodus 28:2). Their unique clothing set them apart, made them easily distinguishable from non-priests, and had practical applications. It also kept them appropriately modest, contained typological spiritual meanings, and served as a physical reminder to the priesthood of the sacredness of their duties. God called those garments “glorious” and “beautiful” (Exodus 28:2). Unquestionably, the symbolic aspects of the priestly garments are no longer necessary now that Christ has fulfilled prophesy. However, a timeless moral part of their attire remains in effect today: Modesty.

Modesty matters to God, and therefore, it should matter to us. We see God’s emphasis on modesty due to sin way back in Edan (Genesis 3:21). Modesty permeates the Old Testament, deeply embedded itself into Israelite culture, and was inculcated into the priesthood. Contrary to popular opinion, the moral principles of modesty didn’t die out in the New Testament. Peter understood that perfectly when he, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, referred to believers as a “priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5-9). The nuances and implications of priestly modesty weren’t lost on the apostle. Consider this command to the priesthood in Exodus 28:42: And thou shalt make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness; from the loins even unto the thighs they shall reach. For the priest, however, it was essential that his “nakedness” not be exposed, particularly when ministering before the people. Carelessness about how priests presented themselves to God would be tantamount to blasphemy.[v] For this reason, God insisted that priestly garments include “breeches” made of linen and covering the thighs for reasons of modesty.[vi]

God Defines Nakedness

To understand this better, let’s consider the biblical meaning of the word “nakedness.” In modern contexts, naked means to be completely undressed, totally exposed, and without any covering. Unlike contemporary English usage, nakedness in the Bible can refer to a range of undress from total nudity to being inadequately clothed (Job 22:6, Ezekiel 18:7, Matthew 25:36, 2 Corinthians 11:27). Even the more literal uses of the Hebrew and Greek terms for nakedness are loaded with figurative and symbolic meanings and allusions.[vii] The biblical images evoked by the word naked are many and varied. They include, among other things, original innocence, defenselessness and vulnerability, exposure and helplessness, humiliation and shame, guilt and judgment, and sexual impropriety and exploitation. Each of these nuances needs to be carefully identified in each scriptural context, although there may be some degrees of overlap.[viii]

So, for thousands of years, the Jews and most civilized Christian cultures, until recent decades, defined nudity as anything above the knee. Why? Mainly because that’s precisely how God explained it in Exodus 28:42. This modesty commandment was so vital that God threatened death as punishment if it were to be ignored (Exodus 28:43). Three more words from Exodus 28:42 need expounding on to understand God’s definition of modesty. First is the word “breeches,” from which the English word “britches” is derived. They were garments extending from the waist to or just below the knee or ankle, covering each leg separately. In many ways, they resembled modern trousers or pants.[ix] The word breeches itself contains a root word that means to “hide” or “cover-up.” [x] Second is the word “loins,” which would have already been covered by the priestly robe and tunic. It’s the Hebrew word moṯnayim, meaning waist or lower back.[xi] It refers to the area where you would comfortably wear a belt. And finally, the word “thighs” is crucial in this context. This is the specific area God commands to be covered or hidden from public view. It’s the Hebrew word yarekh, which refers to the portion of the leg from the knee to the hip.[xii]

The text makes the Hebraic assumption that the reader already realizes the necessity of keeping the hips covered for the sake of modesty. Therefore, the relevant lesson for the priesthood and us is that God considers showing anything above the knee to be nakedness and unholy. Furthermore, it should be noted that this standard of modesty was already understood and practiced in Israelite culture. God was dealing with exigent circumstances where nakedness might unintentionally or accidentally be displayed while performing a task, which adds even more gravitas to this standard of modesty because if God cares that much about accidental immodesty, imagine how He must feel about intentional immodesty. Of course, Exodus 28:42 isn’t the only place God defines the exposed thigh as shameful nakedness. God compared Babylon’s downfall to a woman’s shame in having her nakedness exposed when she bares her leg and uncovers her thigh (Isaiah 47:1–3).[xiii] The bottom line is that God gets to define what nakedness (or nudity) is and what it is not. Culture, especially sinful culture, has no authority to determine what is or isn’t modest for called-out believers.

The Morality and Righteousness of Modesty

Tucked away among the Songs of Ascent is Psalm 132:9: Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy. The priests who served in the presence of the Lord were His instruments for dispensing righteousness. Righteousness here signifies more than a relationship with God or some abstract figurative illusion of inward purity. It’s synonymous with salvation (2 Chronicles 6:41). The blessedness of God’s presence was represented by the priests “clothed” in their priestly garments, which resulted in great joy for the saints.[xiv] The outward garments of the priests were a visual representation of God’s moral character, royalty, and righteousness.[xv] To summarize, Old Testament priests were clothed for service in modesty and righteousness, with dignity and distinction, purpose and precision, and they were never to approach their sacred lifestyles casually. We, too, have a responsibility to represent righteousness in our clothing. Modesty is a moral imperative for the believer-priests.

Carnal Garments

Let’s approach this subject from another angle. Look at Jude 1:23: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. First, notice that we are to “hate even the garment spotted (or stained) by the flesh.” That’s interesting, and we certainly need to know what that means. Jude 1 deals with false teachers and doctrines that “crept in unawares” (Jude 1:4). These ungodly men turned the grace of God into “lasciviousness” (Jude 1:4). Somehow, they made the grace of God sensual or lustful.[xvi] Jude 1:7 mentions the hedonistic sexual sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the next verse, Jude called these false teachers filthy dreamers who defile their bodies with debauchery and wicked imaginations (Jude 1:8). Two more times, Jude mentioned their ungodly lusts and sensuality (Jude 1:18-19). He gave various ways to deal with these backslidden evil teachers (Jude 1:20-23). While closing, he gave the admonition to “hate even the garment (of these teachers) spotted by the flesh (or carnality).” Loath as I am to quote John Calvin, he defines “garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 1:23) as “anything that in any way savors of sin or temptation.” [xvii] The flesh-stained garments in Jude 1:23 are both literal and figurative. Carnal, immodest, flesh-displaying garments are defiling, and Christians should hate those garments.

Fascinatingly, much of the language in Jude 1:23 is direct quotations from Zechariah 3:2-4.[xviii] In that instance, a High Priest was snatched from the fire, and an angel of the Lord exchanged his filthy clothes for a change of clean clothes.[xix] Once again, the imagery evoked in both passages is figurative and literal. When people are saved, they will change how they dress, not because of legalism but because motives, agendas, and behaviors change when the heart and mind are purified. When God changes us, it is a comprehensive inward and outward transformation. It’s worth noting, although I’ve yet to find a commentary that makes the correlation, the imagery of outer clothing being changed by God in Jude 1:23 and Zechariah 3:2-4 also connects hermeneutically back to Genesis 3:21, where God clothed Adam and Eve.

Defiled Garments

In the middle of admonishing the church in Sardis, Jesus mentioned a remnant of believers that had not “defiled their garments” (Revelation 3:4). He said, “And they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy” (Revelation 3:4). The city of Sardis was famous for its textile industry yet most of the church had defiled garments.[xx] This is significant in John’s vision. In the Roman world, persons were identified by their clothing. Only the emperor and the patrician class could wear togas with purple. The equestrian class could wear red, and so on. A person’s clothing manifested the person’s nature to the world, and in many ways, it still does. John seems to play upon this feature of his world. A Christian’s “garment” was the outward witness of their faithful discipleship.[xxi] In the pagan religions, it was forbidden to approach the gods in garments that were soiled or stained. Soiling seems to be a symbol for mingling with pagan life.[xxii] The few people in Sardis who had not soiled their clothes were those who had resisted the temptation to accommodate their lives to the heathen customs of their neighbors, which most certainly included the way they dressed.[xxiii] Of course, inwardly, that remnant of believers in Sardis remained undefiled, but the obvious reference to clothing isn’t purely symbolic. Godly people wear clothing that differentiates them from surrounding worldly, carnal, defiled, pagan cultures.

Keep Your Clothes On

It’s overly simplistic, but I like how the Easy-to-Read-Version (ERV) renders Revelation 16:15:

Listen! Like a thief, I will come at a time you don’t expect. Great blessings belong to those who stay awake and keep their clothes with them. They will not have to go without clothes and be ashamed for people to see them.

The King James says, “Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame” (Revelation 16:15). Obviously, the primary notion here is that we are to always be ready for the Lord’s return. However, the subtext is that godly people must make modesty a priority.

Fundamentally, there are at least four essential elements of proper clothing for today’s priesthood of believers. One is modesty, as discussed above (1 Timothy 2:9). However, the remaining three are previously unmentioned concepts that deserve far more attention. Still, for now, they will receive only brief honorable mentions. The second essential element of godly clothing is the clear distinction of genders (Deuteronomy 22:5, Genesis 1:27). Men should dress like men and women like women. Thirdly, believers should avoid displays of vanity or pride in their adornment (1 Peter 3:3-5, 2 Kings 9:30). And fourthly, holiness demands a humility that rejects the wearing of gold and silver ornamentation, jewelry, piercings, and tattoos (1 Peter 33-5, Proverbs 7:10, Proverbs 33, 1 Timothy 2:9, Leviticus 19:28). These moral principles carry over from the Old Testament, find affirmation in the New Testament, and solidify the standard of holy attire for the new priesthood.

Priesthood is Held to Strict Standards of Obedience

Ancient priests were held to rigorous standards of obedience to God and the man of God (Moses, Joshua, etc.). They lived under the threat of death if they disobeyed the law intentionally or unintentionally (Leviticus 10:7). Of course, this was also true for people outside the priesthood. As the prophet Samuel rhetorically asked King Saul, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: Your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to His voice” (1 Samuel 15:22)? Without waiting for an answer, Samuel said, “Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22). New Testament priests are called to that same strict standard of obedience. Jesus affirmed this by saying, “If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine” (John 8:31). All the spiritual sacrifices in the world will never be an acceptable substitute for simple obedience to God’s Word.

Messengers Calling the Lost to Repentance

Yet another shared characteristic of Old Testament and New Testament believer-priests is their mandate to be righteous messengers calling the lost to repentance. Malachi 2:5-7, New Living Translation, describes the ancient priesthood’s mandate:

The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life and peace, and that is what I gave them. This required reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name. They passed on to the people the truth of the instructions they received from me. They did not lie or cheat; they walked with me, living good and righteous lives, and they turned many from lives of sin. The words of a priest’s lips should preserve the knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

When you read that alongside the Great Commission, the similarities become striking: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you… (Matthew 28:19-20). I think many Christians have a default tendency to assume the Great Commission is mainly for pastors, missionaries, or evangelists. While it is undoubtedly for them, it is for all believers. Every member of the new priesthood of believers is mandated to be a messenger of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We’re called to minister to faltering believers while keeping ourselves free from sin (Galatians 6:1). Teaching, sharing, and studying the Word of God with believers and unbelievers should be an intricate part of our identity and daily lives. Helping new disciples learn, understand, and obey the commands of Jesus is our great privilege and responsibility. Absconding from this obligation is a betrayal of God’s sacred trust.

Access to God Through the Offering of Sacrifices

The ancient Israelite priests are best remembered for their sacrificial duties. Every day, they sacrificed animals that could not take away sins (Hebrews 11:1). It was a repetitive, exhausting, bloody job. Thankfully, Jesus was the final sacrificial offering for sin (Hebrews 10:10). Therefore, we no longer must bring animal sacrifices to God. However, that doesn’t mean God doesn’t require spiritual sacrifices from His new royal priesthood of believers. This brings us back full circle to our original text, where Peter referred to us as a “holy priesthood” that should “offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

Spiritual sacrifices are acts of worship necessary for those who live in the Spirit—these spiritual sacrifices, as opposed to ritualistic sacrifices of old, transpose worship to a higher key. Whereas the Jewish sacrificial system required the worshiper to offer an animal or produce at the temple, life in the Spirit requires the worshiper to offer themselves. For those who bring something to an altar, the act of worship ends when the offering is consumed; for those who present themselves, the sacrificial act is just the beginning. The Christian is a “living sacrifice,” meaning worship is transferred out of the temple and into the streets. In short, the degree of personal responsibility is heightened for the one who walks in the Spirit instead of according to the law.[xxiv] Therefore, contrary to hyper-grace teachings, New Testament believers, in a certain sense, have more significant holiness requirements than the ancient priesthood.

The Body as a Spiritual Sacrifice

Romans 12:1 makes this distinctive command, “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” The words “present” and “sacrifice” the Apostle Paul used here are purposefully reminiscent of Old Testament language. Before a priest in Israel could minister on behalf of others, he was obliged to present himself in a consecrated condition, and the sacrifices he offered were to be without blemish (Malachi 1:8-13).[xxv] The sacrificial language of Romans 12:1 also reinforces an earlier contrast made in Romans 6:13 between those who serve God and those who serve sin. The appeal to “offer your bodies” reminds the reader of the earlier injunction in Romans 6:13: “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin… but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life.” The heightened responsibility of the Christian not only involves a life of worship that extends beyond particular times and places of sacrifice but also entails a personal commitment to determine how such a life is to be lived. In contrast to Judaism, where the law prescribes righteous conduct, Christianity requires a greater degree of personal discernment.[xxvi]

God doesn’t compel and coerce a believer into presenting his body. He doesn’t corral him and bridle him like a horse and force him to obey. He implores him. He wants an unbridled sacrifice.[xxvii] Presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice represents a complete lifestyle change, involving both a negative and a positive aspect. Paul commanded, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world” (Romans 12:2). Living according to the lifestyle of “the present evil Age” (Galatians 1:4, Ephesians 1:21) must now be put aside. Then Paul commanded, “But be transformed (literally, keep on being transformed) by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). The Greek verb translated “transformed” (μεταμορφοῦσθε) is seen in the English word “metamorphosis,” a total change from inside out (2 Corinthians 3:18). The key to this change is the “mind” (νοός), the control center of one’s attitudes, thoughts, feelings, and actions (Ephesians 4:22-23). As one’s mind keeps being made new by the spiritual input of God’s Word, prayer, preaching, and Christian fellowship, one’s lifestyle keeps transforming.[xxviii]

Alexander Maclaren astutely observed that Romans 12:1-2 provides “an all-inclusive directory for the outward life.” [xxix] The ancient sacrifices gave a sweet-smelling odor, which, by a strong metaphor, was declared fragrant in God’s nostrils. In like manner, the Christian sacrifice is “acceptable unto God” (Romans 12:1). The keyword for the life of a Christian is sacrifice. That includes two things—self-surrender and surrender to God. Just like a priest needed to be consecrated before he could offer sacrifices, we, too, must be inwardly consecrated before offering outward sacrifices to God. The Apostle Paul didn’t make the mistake of substituting external for internal surrender, but he presupposes that the latter has preceded. He described the sequence more understandably in Romans 6:13: Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. So, first of all, we must be priests by our inward consecration, and then, since a priest must have something to offer, we must bring the outward life and lay it upon His altar.[xxx]

Christian obedience means imitating God in holiness (1 Peter 1:15).[xxxi] Our holiness is made possible through Christ, who made us holy through His blood (Hebrews 13:12). The Holy Spirit sanctified us by separating us from evil and dedicating us to God when He gave us new life and placed us into the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:11). But that is only one aspect of our sanctification. Paul prayed that God would sanctify us “through and through” or “completely” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). There’s also a continuing aspect of sanctification in which we must cooperate. We must, as we’ve been discussing, present ourselves to God (Romans 12:1-2), and by the Spirit, pursue that holiness (dedication, consecration in right relationships to God and man) because, without holiness, no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). This is a holiness like the Lord’s, which the Holy Spirit helps us to achieve (1 Peter 1:15, 16).[xxxii] By the Spirit, we must keep putting to death the old life’s impulses and winning victories as we live for Jesus (Romans 8:1-14, Galatians 2:20, Philippians 2:12-13).

Recently, I read a quote from my friend, Reverend Coley Reese, “Learn to be a living sacrifice rather than an occasional offering.” [xxxiii] Doing that takes more than good intentions. It requires a complete lifestyle makeover. It’s often been quipped, “The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar.” [xxxiv] That’s why holiness is a daily endeavor, a constant struggle, and incredibly vital. In his influential work What the Bible Says about the Holy Spirit, Stanley M. Horton makes this remarkable statement:

The whole work of sanctification is the work of the Spirit, which receives by far the greatest attention in the New Testament. It takes precedence over witnessing, evangelism, giving, and every other form of Christian service. God wants us to be something, not just to do something. For only as we become like Jesus can what we do be effective and bring glory to Him.[xxxv]

As I’ve read and pondered dozens of books and commentaries on the command to “present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable unto God,” I’ve been struck by a collective inclination to gloss over the obvious meanings in the text (Romans 12:1). For example, it goes without saying that presenting one’s body to God includes the whole person, inward and outward. The body consists of the thoughts, intellect, soul, desires, etc. However, while presenting the body includes those somewhat intangible things, it does not exclude the outer elements of the body itself. The commentary by John Phillips, which I often find helpful, is typical of the omission I’m referring to. He mentions how when believers present their bodies as living sacrifices, they are changed morally, mentally, and motivationally.[xxxvi] Yet not once does Phillips mention a practical way the outward man is presented as holy to God. Sadly, Phillips is not unique in his handling of external sanctification.

Considering everything we’ve already examined concerning the priesthood of believers, hopefully, it’s becoming more evident that internal sanctification will produce outward fruits. We aren’t to be conformed to this world like playdough in the hands of a demonic creature (Romans 12:2). We are forbidden to allow ourselves to be fashioned (or patterned) by the fads, opinions, fashions, philosophies, and spiritual darkness of this world. A Spirit-filled believer’s life will not be molded from without but from within. That inward pressure from the Holy Spirit will change our outward fashions, expressions, conversations, operations, actions, inactions, and more. There will be a comprehensive external transformation in the life of a believer-priest. In other words, a consecrated holy lifestyle involves how a believer dresses, what they do and don’t ingest into the body, how they speak, what they watch and listen to, and where they do and don’t go. To suggest otherwise is a gross misrepresentation or misinterpretation of Scripture.

The Sacrifice of Praise

Hebrews 13:15 tells us to “continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God.” The writer goes on to identify the sacrifice of praise as the verbal praise of God’s name.[xxxvii] Hebrews 13:16 continues this theme of sacrifice, reminding us not to neglect giving, doing good, and sharing with others, for with “such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Included in this topic of sacrifice is the command to “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you” (Hebrews 13:17). The reference here is to religious teachers and not civil rulers.[xxxviii] So, Hebrews 13:15-17 lists three generalized areas of spiritual sacrifice for believer-priests: The uttered exaltation of Jesus’ name, the good work of giving, and obedience to spiritual authority. And while the three areas of spiritual sacrifice mentioned in this passage aren’t intended to be comprehensive, they are expounded on throughout the totality of Scripture.

The Selfless Sacrifice of Love

Ephesians 5:1 encourages us to work to be like Christ. Then we are told one of the ways to imitate Christ in Ephesians 5:2: Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. We should imitate His sacrifice of love in our lives. The Apostle Paul pivoted from the self-sacrifice of Christ to the very opposite, the self-indulgence of the sinner (Ephesians 5:3–4), from agape love to its perversion, lust; he mentioned three manifestations of self-indulgence and love’s perversion. “Sexual immorality” and “impurity” comprehensively cover every kind of heterosexual (premarital and extramarital) and homosexual sin possible, all of which defile the conscience and destroy love. “Greed” describes the heart’s inner desire for one that is not rightfully theirs. It can also refer to sin in the sexual realm, such as coveting another man’s wife or someone else’s body for selfish gratification (Exodus 20:17, 1 Thessalonians 4:6). These three sins are not even to be mentioned or talked about among “God’s holy people,” so completely are they to be banished from the Christian community.[xxxix] The Bible is clear: Sexual immorality is contradictory to the selfless love of Christ-like people. Therefore, love encompasses more than what we do but also what we don’t do.

The Sacrifice of Evangelism

Evangelizing the lost is a spiritual sacrifice. The apostle Paul referred to his ministry to unbelieving Gentiles as a “priestly ministry” and “offering” (Romans 15:15-16). I believe that every action we take on behalf of evangelizing the lost is a pleasing sacrifice to the Lord. Everything, no matter how seemingly small, matters, whether it be giving for the sake of evangelism, inviting a stranger to church, teaching an impromptu Bible study, giving your testimony, tarrying with sinners in an altar service, or any number of other practical ways we participate in the sacrificial work of evangelism. For believer-priests, evangelism is a lifestyle and not just a liability.

The Sacrifice of Prayer

Acts 10:1 tells the story of a Roman army officer named Cornelius, a devout God-fearing man. He gave generously to the poor and prayed to God regularly. Acts 10:3-4, New International Version, details how an angel appeared to Cornelius, saying, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.” In Revelation 8:3-4 an angel of the Lord is said to be “standing at the altar, holding a golden censor, that he might add incense to the prayers of the saints.” Using language reminiscent of Old Testament ceremonial, priestly duties, the New International Version says, “And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand” (Revelation 8:4). That fascinating terminology likens the prayers of believers to incense or memorial offerings that waft like a sweet-smelling aroma to the Lord. What beautiful timeless imagery of prayer that evokes in our minds. This helps us to remember that prayer is not only effective but also sacrificial.

The Perversion of the Priesthood & Invention of the Trinity

Time and attention spans don’t allow for a detailed dive into the historical perversion of the priesthood. However, it would be neglectful to cover the topic of believer-priests without addressing the elephant in the room – the Roman Catholic Church and its spinoffs. Arguably, one of the most tragic things that ever happened to Christianity was the supposed conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine (306 A.D. – 337 A.D.). While we can be thankful the avid physical persecution of Christians ended under Constantine, the politically motivated doctrinal perversions he ushered in still plague us today. Christianity became the Roman Empire’s official religion during Constantine’s reign and continued with Theodosius (379 A.D. – 395 A.D.). As imperial largesse transformed Christianity in Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, the view of the priesthood drew on Roman ideas of civic and pagan priesthoods and the pompous ceremonial aspects of the imperial court.[xl] Among the many foul doctrines concocted in the bowels of the ancient Roman Catholic Church, which remains firmly ensconced, is its insistence that an earthly priesthood of men is required to act as a mediator between God and humanity.

How could something so outrageous become so dominant? Simply put, the pressure of big government corrupted the official theologies of the Church through the usual suspects of compromise, power plays, intimidation, murder, and political marginalization. Once that powerful engine gained momentum, it just kept expanding until it reached a bloody culmination with the Crusades, governmental coups, serfdom, and religious persecution. Satan turned the so-called “Church” into the murderous regime it had endured in the Catacombs and Coliseums of Rome in the first two and a half centuries after Christ. A reformation was necessary and inevitable. But, the Protestant Reformation didn’t occur until the 16th century.[xli] The Protestant Reformation admirably emphasized and rallied around the biblical teachings of the “priesthood of believers.” Yet, while Lutherans would disagree, reforming all the perverted doctrines, traditions, and influences of the Catholic Church and its ilk took roughly another three centuries. It wasn’t until the emergence of Pentecostalism at the beginning of the 20th century that an authentic reformation began to take shape.

Another of many notable perversions that sprang like a poisonous tree from the soil of Roman Christianity is the doctrine of the Trinity. The dogma developed slowly over 200 years and continued to be refined in how it was explained for hundreds of years. Its development began with an attempt to understand the nature of God in terms of Greek philosophical concepts while rooted in Roman political soil.[xlii] As the lightening rod Presbyterian minister Robert Elliott Speer wrote at the turn of the 19th century: It is an unquestionable historical fact that the doctrine of the Trinity is a false doctrine foisted into the Church during the third and fourth centuries, which finally triumphed by the aid of persecuting emperors.[xliii] A tragic truism is that the same power brokers who conceived and mainstreamed Trinitarianism would have burned most modern Trinitarians at the stake for various perceived heresies. It’s sad to hear and read Trinitarians naively quote theologians (they reverentially refer to them as church fathers) who lived centuries after Christ as if they were just as inspired and inerrant as the Apostles and prophets. Trinitarians cannot legitimately be considered Apostolic, for the Apostles knew not of the nonsensical Trinitarian distinction of persons. Furthermore, the Apostles baptized exclusively in the name of Jesus and not with titles (Acts 2:38, Acts 4:12, Matthew 28:19).

Incredibly Amazing Priestly Privilege

People often ask what distinguishes Apostolic Pentecostals from other flavors of Christianity. And, of course, there’s no short answer to that question. However, an excellent explanation to begin with is the reality that the Apostolic Church is the result of continued Church Reformation. We genuinely believe in sola scriptura (Scripture alone). We’re unmoved by post-biblical historical doctrines or their bygone champions. Apostolics emphatically and passionately believe that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught explicitly or implicitly in the Bible. It’s been a hard fight, but the Apostolic Church miraculously reemerged from the ash heap of Church history while effectively, although often imperfectly, struggling to return to the Apostolic doctrines of the first Church founded by Jesus. Furthermore, Apostolic Pentecostals fully embrace their priestly privileges while acknowledging Christ as their final High Priest. With its Levitical priests and continual and inadequate offerings, the Mosaic Law was a shadow of Christ’s coming and once-for-all offering (Hebrews 10:1-4).[xliv]

Remember the thick temple veil that separated the most holy place (or holy of holies) from the holy place (2 Chronicles 3:14)? Only the High Priest was allowed to pass through that veil, and then only on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:2). At Jesus’ death, the temple veil was ripped from top to bottom, illustrating that Jesus had obliterated the barrier separating humanity from the presence of God (Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38, Luke 23:45).[xlv] A Levitical caste can no longer mediate between the sinner and his Judge. We may come boldly with loving confidence, not slavish fear, directly through Christ, the only mediating Priest. Of course, Jesus is a superior High Priest, or as Zechariah 6:13 prophesied, “a priestly King.” [xlvi] Because Jesus is superior in every way, believer-priests have incredible, unprecedented privileges. We can do something even the ancient High Priests only did once a year and even then, with great trepidation: Boldly enter into the holy of holies any time, day or night Hebrews 10:19-20). We have constant access, communion, and relationship to and with the presence of God. The blood of Jesus made these new priestly privileges possible once and for all.

In Conclusion

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing about the holy priesthood of believers. The beautifully intricate ways the Old and New Testaments complement and complete one another always astonish me. It’s so elegantly simple yet intensely profound. The perfection of it irrefutably proves the infallibility of the Bible. Each book, prophecy, revelation, precept, and illumination fit together like a hand into a custom-fitted glove. Of course, I know there is a danger of seeing correlations in Scripture where there are none. Still, we must fully integrate correlations into our daily Christian lives whenever they are well-defined. And the Bible is abundantly clear that believers today enter a holy royal priesthood via the New Birth. This new priesthood of believers gives us the ultimate privilege possible: The ability to step into the presence of God and have a personal relationship with Him. However, like all privileges, that privilege comes with significant expectations and responsibilities. Believer-priests must live holy lives separated from the defilements of this fallen world. They must reach, love, preach, and teach the lost. They must do the same for the saved. It’s a lifestyle of relationship with God, separation from the world, and daily spiritual sacrifice. It’s wild and exhilarating, all-consuming, transformative, and extraordinarily significant.

[i] Gangel, Kenneth O. John. B & H Publishing Group, 2000

[ii] Gangel, Kenneth O. John. B & H Publishing Group, 2000.

[iii] Strong, James. Strong’s Greek Dictionary of the New Testament. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.9. Altamonte Springs: OakTree Software, 1999.

[iv] NAS Topical Index. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.1. La Habra: The Lockman Foundation, 2000.

[v] Garrett, Duane A. A Commentary on Exodus. KEL. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.0. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2014.

[vi] Butler, Trent C., Chad Brand, Charles Draper, and Archie England, eds. Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.0. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2003.

[vii] Cargal, Timothy B. Freedman, David Noel, Allen C. Myers, and Astrid B. Beck, eds. Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Accordance electronic edition, version 3.8. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.

[viii] Ryken, Leland, Jim Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman, eds. Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.2. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998.

[ix] Wolf, H. J. Orr, James, ed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.5. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1915.

[x] Wolf, H. J. Orr, James, ed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.5. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1915.

[xi] Kohlenberger III, John R. and William D. Mounce. Kohlenberger/Mounce Concise Hebrew-Aramaic Dictionary of the Old Testament. Accordance electronic edition, version 3.4. Altamonte Springs: OakTree Software, 2012.

[xii] Easton, Burton Scott. Orr, James, ed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.5. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1915.

[xiii] Bernard, David K. Practical Holiness. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.2. Hazelwood, Missouri: Word Aflame Press, 1985.

[xiv] VanGemeren, Willem A. Psalms. EBC 5. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and J. D. Douglas. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.9. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991.

[xv] NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.2. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015.

[xvi] Zodhiates, Spiros, ed. The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament. Revised, Accordance electronic edition, version 1.3. Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1993.

[xvii] Macalister, Alex. Orr, James, ed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.5. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1915.

[xviii] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. 2d; Accordance electronic edition, version 1.0. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

[xix] Walton, John H. and Craig S. Keener, eds., NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.1. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016.

[xx] NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.2. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015.

[xxi] Mulholland Jr., M. Robert. “Revelation.” Pages 399-606 in James 1–2 Peter Jude Revelation. Vol. 18 of Cornerstone Bible Commentary. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.1. Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers, 2011.

[xxii] Johnson, Alan F. Revelation. EBC 12. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and J. D. Douglas. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.9. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981.

[xxiii] Beasley-Murray, George R. Revelation. New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition. Edited by D. A Carson, R. T France, J. A. Motyer, and Gordon J. Wenham. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.5. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994.

[xxiv] Johnson, Van. Romans. Life in the Spirit New Testament Commentary. Edited by French L. Arrington and Roger Stronstad. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.5. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999.

[xxv] Harrison, Everett F. Romans. EBC 10. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and J. D. Douglas. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.9. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977.

[xxvi] Johnson, Van. Romans. Life in the Spirit New Testament Commentary. Edited by French L. Arrington and Roger Stronstad. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.5. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999.

[xxvii] Phillips, John. Exploring Romans. John Phillips Commentary Series. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.6. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1969.

[xxviii] Witmer, John A. Romans. The Bible Knowledge Commentary. Edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.7. 2 vols. Wheaton: Victor Books, 1983.

[xxix] Maclaren, Alexander. Expositions of Holy Scripture. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.3. Altamonte Springs: OakTree Software, 2006.

[xxx] Maclaren, Alexander. Expositions of Holy Scripture. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.3. Altamonte Springs: OakTree Software, 2006.

[xxxi] Packer, J.I. Wood, D. R. W., ed. New Bible Dictionary. 3d, Accordance electronic edition, version 2.5. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996.

[xxxii] Horton, Stanley M. What the Bible Says about the Holy Spirit. Revised; Accordance electronic edition, version 1.2. Springfield: Gospel Publishing House, 2005.

[xxxiii] Reese, Coley (2023, November 6). This is a quotation of the entire post [Facebook status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/coley.reese/posts/pfbid02SUknCVgY5KA3KU2349S1wSCXp8uFEU7QtUhUCVm4xGLByUdyRJwyQ4X3w5f9kLaTl

[xxxiv] Harris, W. Hall, ed., The NET Bible Notes. 2nd edition, version 5.8. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2019.

[xxxv] Horton, Stanley M. What the Bible Says about the Holy Spirit. Revised; Accordance electronic edition, version 1.2. Springfield: Gospel Publishing House, 2005.

[xxxvi] Phillips, John. Exploring Romans. John Phillips Commentary Series. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.6. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1969.

[xxxvii] Dennis, Lane T. and Wayne Grudem, eds., The ESV Study Bible. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.0. Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2008.

[xxxviii] Barnes, Albert. Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament. Accordance electronic edition, version 2.2. Altamonte Springs: OakTree Software, 2006.

[xxxix] Adams, Wesley and Donald Stamps. Ephesians. Life in the Spirit New Testament Commentary. Edited by French L. Arrington and Roger Stronstad. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.5. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999.

[xl] “Priesthood: Christian Priesthood.” Encyclopedia of Religion. Retrieved October 18, 2023, from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/priesthood-christian-priesthood

[xli] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia (2023, October 29). priest. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/priest-Christianity

[xlii] Berkhof, Louis. The History of Christian Doctrines. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1937

[xliii] Robert Spears, The Unitarian Handbook of Scriptural Illustrations & Expositions. London: British and Foreign Unitarian Association, 1883.

[xliv] Ryrie, Charles Caldwell, ed., The Ryrie Study Bible. Expanded, Accordance electronic edition, version 2.3. Chicago: Moody Press, 1995.

[xlv] Blum, Edwin A. and Jeremy Royal Howard, eds., HCSB Study Bible: Holman Christian Standard Bible. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.2. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2010.

[xlvi] Jamieson, Robert, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown. A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible. 1871, Accordance electronic edition, version 2.6. Altamonte Springs: OakTree Software, 1996.

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What Will Become of Us All? – A Poem

Ryan A. French 
White picket lines of peaceful persuasion
Cannot undo the cost of invasion
Endless fine lines of baser perversions
Weakened strains of moral conversions
Flawlessly wielding falsified searches
What will become of us all?

Cold, calculating meaningless data 
Hiding underneath the smiling strata 
Clinging to less fortunate ideas 
Laughing, dragging, while dreaming of sions
Intricate veins coursing with curses
What will become of us all?

Meanwhile, one white robed throng preaches the Writ
Tenaciously keeping holy flames lit
Falling valiant, bleeding from vicious slits  
Ten thousand swords critically slashing hits
Battered, beleaguered saints climb past ashen fritz 
What will become of us all?

One bright light pierces the eastern sky
A triumphant shout falls from mountain highest   
One brilliant white horse gracefully flies
The armies of Heaven closely aligned 
Every blood-stained voice shouts toward the sight
What will become of us all?

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An Open Letter to Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

Ryan A. French

Dear Dr. Peterson

Please forgive the gimmicky aspect of this letter. Your immense popularity or repulsiveness (depending on whom you’re talking to) renders you unreachable by normal means. I’m under no illusion that you will see this letter. However, I sincerely hope this reaches you at some point. Allow me to begin by expressing my sincere earnestness in praying for your health and for the health and safety of your family, whom you seem to love dearly. Also, I’d like to thank you for your thoughtful, meaningful, and life-impacting contributions to national conversations. 12 Rules for Life has roused many forgotten young men to rally to the challenges of existence with courage, integrity, and goodness.

Beyond Refreshing

Along with millions, I’ve enjoyed listening to your podcast and following your lectures. I’ve cheered in admiration as you’ve resolutely refused to be cowed by woke media personalities or bullied into submission by cultural fads. You are a voice of reason, logic, and morality. That’s beyond refreshing in this post-postmodern or metamodernist culture (I’d love to hear your thoughts on post versus post-post versus metamodernism). It must be strange navigating the complexities of fame on a worldwide platform. I, for one, am appreciative that you do so with grace and kindness even when in strong disagreement.

Your Popularity Among Christians

I’ve heard you ponder the question of why you are so popular among Christians several times. And why your lectures on Genesis garnered overwhelming positive attention. Even though you are not a theologian, I thoroughly enjoy your religious conversations. Your influence has impacted me to take a renewed interest in Jungian psychology. I’m indebted to you for that as I quote Jung several times in a soon-to-be-released book that takes a biblical look at alcohol. Anyway, most people you speak with lean more philosophical than evangelical. Although you remain cautiously critical of “orthodox” Christianity, the liturgical influence on your religious (or philosophical) thinking is obvious.

A Brief Context

For the sake of transparency, I am a minister within a marginalized segment of Christianity. Interestingly, postmodernism helped and hurt us at the same time. It hurt in the sense that culture moved away from seeking or even believing in absolutes or Truth. Yet, it helped because we are less ostracized due to our beliefs (we were severely persecuted at the turn of the twentieth century). These words might sound a little foreign; I am a Oneness Apostolic Pentecostal Christian. We’re the fastest-growing religious movement in the world, even as liturgical churches are shrinking. In the past one hundred-plus years, we have exploded to the tune of approximately fifty million worldwide. Even though we are technically evangelical by definition, historically, our evangelical brethren have been loath to allow us that title.

Answering the Question

I mention my beliefs not because I expect you to find my theology particularly interesting (although you might). But because I believe my perspective allows a unique insight into your immense popularity among Christians of all stripes. You are tremendously popular in my circles and the converging circles of Christianity. And here’s why: You intellectually articulate the defense of our existence. That’s the nutshell version. Beyond that, you are the most intelligent person using your influence to help us maintain space and have a voice in the public space. Even when you don’t agree with everything we say or believe, you brilliantly defend our right to hold those thoughts and speak them out loud, whether in our churches, public forums, or the universities. Your unique one-foot in Christianity and one-foot outside Christianity stance gives you gravitas blatantly religious leaders can’t wield.  

The Woke Wave

Sincere Christians saw the woke wave coming decades before it hit culture full force. We were silenced and demonized in the public schools. Our children were bullied into submission by Stalin-like totalitarian tactics. The universities turned Christian shaming into an art form. I’ve been forbidden to open up city council meetings by praying in the name of Jesus. And that’s in the Bible Belt of the United States. That’s only one small aspect of the anti-free speech overreach directed at Christians in public forums. We’ve watched our cities covered in graffiti while the Ten Commandments were removed from our courtrooms. We’ve had to fight like mad to keep the government from forcing us to fund abortions for people on our payrolls. Same-sex couples who’ve never darkened the doors of our churches routinely try to force us to marry them in our buildings, hanging legal action over our heads if we don’t comply. If we dare try to help children suffering from gender dysphoria overcome their confusion lovingly, we’re called hate-mongers and worse. I could go on and on.

You’re the Voice We Could Not Use

We’re subjugated to name-calling constantly while being told to keep our mouths shut. Free speech is only allowed for certain woke groups these days. All this seemed to go from a simmer to a boil when the transgender movement began doing its best to force us into ignoring science and radically changing definitions. Then you stepped onto the scene and became the voice we could not use in that arena. Your brilliance, coupled with genuine humility, captured our consciousness. As we got to know you, we realized you were a true friend and a sincere moralist. And while we may approach morality from divergent directions, we hold it dear nonetheless.

You’re Much Like Aaron

In some ways, your notoriety reminds me of Aaron (greatly anticipating your book and lectures on Exodus). As you know, much has been assumed about the Bible’s description of Moses as being “slow of speech and slow of tongue (Exodus 4:10).” Was Moses simply inarticulate? Did he have a stutter? I’ve always leaned towards the theory that Moses had a speech impediment of some kind. Whatever it was, God wanted Moses to overcome it and speak. But Moses resisted God and failed to use his voice. God relented and sent Aaron to be Moses’ spokesman before Pharaoh and often before the people. Moses’ failure to speak up created a vacuum (particularly in the political and secular realm) that Aaron naturally filled. God even acknowledged that Aaron was intelligent and eloquent compared to Moses (Exodus 4:14-16). It seems you have become the confident voice the Church was too afraid or perhaps unable to use. You’re the unofficial spokesperson, if you will.

The Overlooked Experience of Glossolalia

Admittedly, my primary motivation for writing is a burning desire to humbly add something to an ongoing thread that permeates your conversations. First, you have mentioned a particular mystical religious encounter that was personal to you. Also, the question of transcendent, mysterious occurrences, their origins, and repeatability comes up periodically. Lately, I’ve been noticing more and more scientific questions involving the use of psychedelics to replicate (or achieve) a spiritually transformative experience. I find myself talking to your podcast through my air pods when these topics arise. Mainly because the transformative encounter described in these conversations, although rare in liturgical circles, are frequent experiences for Pentecostals. We experience many types of transcendent encounters with God, but most notable is what the book of Acts refers to as speaking in other tongues. Which can be a known language (although previously unlearned) or a heavenly language, but it produces an ecstasy and clarity like nothing in this world can offer. This biblical phenomenon is commonly referred to as glossolalia in academic circles. Apostolics consider it to be a necessary element in the process of redemption.

Glossolalia’s Transformative Narrative

Regardless, I’ve witnessed countless individuals give up smoking, various drugs, and alcohol without any withdrawal symptoms after experiencing glossolalia (we would refer to it as receiving the Holy Spirit). It’s that well-documented transformative religious experience you’ve mentioned at various times. I know how strange this can sound to a person unfamiliar with it. However, is it stranger than looking for answers in psychedelics? Having witnessed your intellectual curiosity at play, I’m reasonably confident you would find the data interesting at the very least. Hundreds of millions have experienced glossolalia. Many of those millions have been permanently changed for the good. If this sounds overly preachy, I apologize. I am a preacher, and there’s nothing I can do to change that reality. Believe it or not, I’ve tried very hard to avoid inserting gobs of theology, dogma, and personal opinions into this letter. My only hope is that perhaps you will use a measure of your vast intellect to investigate glossolalia with a level of openness. Whatever else, it can’t just be discarded outright or ignored with any genuine intellectual honesty. Just the plethora of historical biblical accounts (Isaiah 28:11-12, Mark 16:17, Acts 2:1-47, Acts 10:46, Acts 19:6) set a narrative that’s difficult to reject off-hand.

Encouragement in Exodus

Please continue to speak against impending malevolence courageously. May you and your family be blessed. I pray your body remains as strong as your mind. I’ll bid farewell with one of my favorite passages from the book of Exodus:

8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. 9 And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: 10 Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. 11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel (Exodus 1:8-12).

This passage encourages me when I’m feeling weak and insignificant, and adversaries seem intensely overwhelming. It’s a reminder that even enemies perceive the strengths that I can’t see. Furthermore, affliction placed upon righteous people is a precursor to growth and eventual deliverance.

Sincerely, Ryan French

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Our God Is One with Dr. Talmadge French (Article + Podcast)

Ryan A. French

Sweet Heat Skittles

My father, Dr. Talmadge French and I, just finished recording America and End Time Prophecy, the Oneness of God & Miracle Mission’s Moments for the podcast (linked below). You absolutely do not want to miss that episode. Dad recounted major miracles he’s witnessed and experienced from his missions trips around the world. We talk prophecy, rapture stuff, and think about where America fits into all of that. And dad gives an updated count of the number of oneness Pentecostal believers worldwide. We taste and rate Sweet Heat Skittles at the end. That was fun!

Our God Is One

We mentioned the release of his best-selling book Our God Is One: The Story of the Oneness Pentecostals in the Serbian language during that conversation. Dad originally released Our God Is One in 1999. It’s incredible to think that twenty-three years later, it’s impacting the Serbian work of God and has become an instrument to bring trinitarian churches into the oneness movement! Which inspired me to summarize Our God Is One in this format. Usually, I would include the link to purchase the book, but it’s been out of print for several months. Thankfully, it will be reprinted, rebranded, and updated in the near future. Our God Is One is a unique blending of oneness Pentecostal history, theology, methodology, and statistical analysis. This summary is not a replacement for the book itself but rather a complementarian, precursor, or refresher for those who have already read it. From this point forward, I will refer to dad as Dr. French for the sake of readability.

It’s All in Him!

Most apostolics are familiar with George Farrow’s classic song penned in 1920, “It’s All in Him.” It isn’t shocking to hear lyrics like that now, but there was a time at the turn of the twentieth century when lyrics like “For in Him Dwells All the Fullness of the Godhead and Lord of All is He” would have reeked of heresy to most Christians. Dr. French opens by quoting that and several other notable self-designated Jesus’ Name Pentecostal anthems. In those early days of the oneness movement, songs like that were an expression of separation and a brave exclamation of revelation. George Farrow and others differentiated themselves from their trinitarian counterparts with rhythms and rhymes.

Dr. French opens the book by quoting that great song in homage to those early oneness Pentecostal pioneers. Those first leaders couldn’t have imagined the phenomenal growth their movement would experience over the next one-hundred-plus years. In what Dr. French calls “those early, unassuming days of the movement,” their focus wasn’t on growth but correct doctrine and pleasing God.

In the early, unassuming days of the Oneness Pentecostal movement, their focus wasn’t on growth but correct doctrine and pleasing God. -Dr. Talmadge French

Important Definitions

It would be challenging to follow Our God Is One or this article without clarifying definitions. Thankfully, Dr. French gives two helpful definitions right away. He defines Oneness Pentecostalism below:

Oneness Pentecostalism is that theologically distinctive branch of the Pentecostal movement which emphasizes what it views as the Scriptural formula for water baptism – baptism ‘in the name of Jesus’ – and the absolute, indivisible ‘Oneness’ of God revealed in the full Deity of Jesus Christ. It emerged within the context of the fervor of restorationism and “back to the Bible” literalism at the turn of the century. Classical Pentecostalism’s argumentation for a return to “the Bible” regarding speaking with tongues and spiritual gifts was simply applied to the issues of baptism and the Godhead.

Notice the term Dr. French used in the above quote, “Classical Pentecostalism.” For some, that might not be a familiar term, so he goes on to explain further:

Oneness Pentecostals have usually been categorized as ‘classical’ Pentecostals, referring not only to their roots in the early movement but their shared belief in the essentiality of tongues as the “initial evidence” of the Spirit baptism.

Doctrinal Distinctives

The explosive growth of the oneness movement is intrinsically linked with its doctrinal distinctives. Dr. French gives a succinct overview of classical oneness theology:

In its rejection of the classical conception of the Trinity, it embraced, in actuality, a highly Christocentric, simultaneous modalism of the Father, Son, and Spirit, in which Jesus is God. Jesus is the Yahweh of the Old Testament, the one and only God in totality, incarnate in the New Testament. The ‘Oneness of God’ is an all-encompassing Jesus-centrism in which Father, Son, and Spirit are not conceived as separate, distinct ‘persons’ within the Godhead, but rather as ‘modes’ or ‘manifestations’ of God.

The explosive growth of the oneness movement is intrinsically linked with its doctrinal distinctives.

The Oneness of God is an all-encompassing Jesus-centrism in which Father, Son, and Spirit are not conceived as separate, distinct persons within the Godhead, but rather as modes or manifestations of God. -Dr. Talmadge French

Not unlike the theological constructs of early Jewish Christianity, Oneness theology link the Shema, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One,” with the most primitive of the kerygmatic confessions of the early church – “Jesus is Lord.” That is, Jesus is the one and only Lord, the ‘totality’ of the Godhead, incarnate. Thus, He is not a part, or a second part, or second person, but God in totality, manifest in human form as the unique God-man. “Father” and “Son” are viewed simply as incarnational terms necessary for the discussion of God in His dual nature, God and man. Likewise, “Holy Spirit” is the distinguishing expression for “Christ in,” God indwelling, the believer at and after Pentecost, in the unique manner made possible only by the reality of the resurrection.

Not unlike the theological constructs of early Jewish Christianity, Oneness theology link the Shema: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One, with the most primitive of the kerygmatic confessions of the early church – Jesus is Lord. -Dr. Talmadge French

Oneness Roots

Interestingly, Dr. French clarifies an often-asked question: Are oneness Pentecostal evangelical? And the answer to that is “yes.” The oneness movement is rooted in a passion for Jesus Christ, Scripture, life-changing new birth experiences, and evangelism. But that doesn’t mean mainstream Evangelicalism embraces the oneness movement. Dr. French mentions J.I. Packer, who referred to Pentecostalism as Evangelicalism’s “half-sister.” Sadly, that kind of pejorative, and worse, is historically typical. But oneness Pentecostalism traces its roots back to the holiness and restorationist movements of the nineteenth century, which, as Dr. French points out, “is sometimes referred to as ‘radical’ Evangelicalism.”

At its onset, the oneness movement was shunned, ostracized, criticized, and belittled by Evangelicals and classical trinitarian Pentecostals. The oneness movement’s explicit rejection of Trinitarian doctrine combined with its strong holiness underpinnings has made it a target for charges of cultism, bigotry, and heresy. And while Dr. French acknowledges that the oneness movement has become more widely accepted, “mainstream” Christianity still views it derisively. Especially in light of Evangelicalism’s rapid drift away from moral absolutes, biblical inerrancy, and godly living. This creates what Dr. French calls the “dilemma and paradox” of the oneness movement. He boils it down in this statement:

Their (the oneness movement’s) distinctive theological identity is, at one and the same time, both rooted in Pentecostal-Evangelicalism, and yet at enormous tension with it.

Though rooted in the holiness movement and budding trinitarian Pentecostalism, the oneness movement is best described as restorationism. Dr. French describes it this way:

Oneness Pentecostalism, within a dozen years of the rise of Pentecostalism, was birthed in a rekindling of restorationist fervor which swept through the entire movement, vigorously promoting a return to the New Testament baptismal formula and understanding of the Godhead.

Oneness Pentecostalism was birthed in a rekindling of restorationist fervor which swept through the entire movement, vigorously promoting a return to the New Testament baptismal formula and understanding of the Godhead. -Dr. Talmadge French

Pentecost In My Soul

Few things capture the essence of oneness theology as accurately and concisely as the songs birthed in those early days. To illustrate this, Dr. French highlights the famous Black Holiness songwriter Thoro Harris who, after converting to Pentecostalism, penned “Pentecost In My Soul” in 1914. He wrote many beloved Pentecostal hymns such as “Jesus Only” and “All That Thrills My Soul Is Jesus.” Those songs and many others encapsulate the highly Christocentric pietism that made the oneness movement radically distinct from its counterparts. And it was enormously successful. But that doesn’t mean it was easy, Dr. French notes:

Pentecostals were struggling with an inevitable clash with historic Christianity, the heritage of the Protestant Reformation, and their own spiritual identity. Central to this struggle was the conviction that the historic church, largely apostatized, required restoration to primitive Christian faith.

To be sure, there was some disagreement about what primitive Christianity was in practice and theology. However, Pentecostals genuinely believed they were experiencing a ‘latter day’ restoration. And they viewed the Reformation as a steppingstone towards restorationism. Dr. French summarizes those early views this way:

Pentecostalism, in this way, perceived the period from the Reformation forward as restoration, from Luther’s sola scriptura to Wesley’s holiness to Seymour’s Azusa revival. Oneness adherents have also identified elements within the Radical Reformation, especially Michael Servetus and the immersion and anti-Trinitarianism of the Anabaptists, as evidence of glimmers of restoration.

Pentecostalism, perceived the period from the Reformation forward as restoration, from Luther’s sola scriptura to Wesley’s holiness to Seymour’s Azusa revival. Dr. Talmadge French

Fundamentalist Influences

It would be incorrect to say that Pentecostalism is rooted in Fundamentalism. However, it is substantially influenced by it. Dr. French is quick to mention there is “considerable” debate about “the extent and precise nature of Fundamentalism’s influence upon Pentecostalism.” He clarifies the distinctions and the influences, stating:

Fundamentalism, like Pentecostalism, embraced premillennialism, dispensationalism, and the verbally inerrant inspiration of Scripture. At the turn of the century, as Pentecostalism was emerging, Fundamentalism was the point conservative force opposing the higher critics and the modernist attacks on the miracles of the Bible. Although these were issues with which Pentecostalism readily identified, it was tenuous indeed, for Fundamentalism opposed with equal rigor Pentecostalism’s belief in modern miracles and tongues.

Regardless, Pentecostalism often utilized Fundamentalist arguments to further the points they agreed with. And even found Fundamentalist writers who openly favored oneness doctrinal positions.

Higher Life Influences

In 1875, the Keswick movement formed a holiness group that emphasized “higher life” and promoted “experiential holiness.” Dr. French states:

Important themes included enduement with power and the infilling of the Spirit, stressed by such leaders as R.A. Torrey and D.L. Moody. Yet it rejected the phenomenon of emerging Pentecostalism.

If I understand correctly, it seems John Wesley’s Methodism, including its holiness beliefs and emphasis on Spirit baptism, greatly influenced the Keswick movement, which influenced the early Oneness Pentecostals. Dr. French says it like this:

As did their forerunners in the holiness movement, the Pentecostals emphasized holiness, enthusiastically and with restorationist zeal, as separation from sin and worldliness. And, due perhaps to the intensity of the restorationist motif as the dominant influence within Oneness Pentecostalism, the emphasis upon strict standards of holiness remains a prominent feature of the movement. Apart from the issue of the means of sanctification, holiness was considered a restored, essential element in the life of a believer. “A holiness preacher?” wrote D.C.O. Opperman, “God has no other kind. Might as well say `wet water’ as to say `holiness preacher.’”

As did their forerunners in the holiness movement, the Pentecostals emphasized holiness, enthusiastically and with restorationist zeal, as separation from sin and worldliness. -Dr. Talmadge French

Holiness was considered a restored, essential element in the life of a believer. A holiness preacher? wrote D.C.O. Opperman, God has no other kind. Might as well say wet water as to say holiness preacher.

The Predominant Impulse of Oneness Pentecostalism

Indeed, all of the above-mentioned theological strands converged at the dawning of the twentieth century to form the oneness movement. Even early healing movements helped weave conditions for Oneness Pentecostalism to emerge successfully. But Dr. French views restorationism as “the dominant and overarching influence amidst other significant streams which intermingled in important ways.” Unique to Oneness Pentecostalism was a predominant restorationist impulse that viewed the entire New Testament through the lens of the book of Acts. In doing so, they made the book of Acts accounts typical experiences for all believers.

The Founding of Pentecostalism

In addition to the “latter rain” metaphor, Pentecostal founders like Howard Goss referred to the movement as “the winds of God.” They spoke of tongues as falling “suddenly from Heaven.” And although glossolalia had occurred among earlier holiness movements sporadically, it was Charles Fox Parham that, as Dr. French says, “provided the spark which ignited Pentecostalism as a distinctive movement by theologically linking `tongues’ with the baptism of the Spirit.” Parham was the first to articulate that tongues were the evidence of Spirit baptism. Although he still considered tongues a “second work of grace.” Dr. French describes the early oneness movements preferences regarding their identity:

Interestingly, Oneness Pentecostals tended to self-identify most readily with Parham’s original designation for the movement, “Apostolic,” even more so than the term “Pentecostal.” “Pentecostal” related mostly to the experience of Spirit baptism, whereas “Apostolic” was a more direct identification with the restoration of the doctrine, faith, and experience of the New Testament witness of the apostles.

Early Pentecostal Controversies

Like every movement, the early Pentecostal movement was plagued with controversies and fraught with disagreements. Dr. French describes debates that surrounded the issue of sanctification:

William H. Durham, a Baptist minister from Chicago who experienced tongues at Azusa in 1907, opposed the commonly accepted holiness view of sanctification as a separate, second crisis experience, or a “second work of grace” distinct from salvation. Instead, Durham espoused a view that posited the work of sanctification in the single experience of conversion, not subsequent to conversion. This view was predicated on the sufficiency of Calvary to ascribe sanctification to the believer at the time of conversion but experienced as a spiritual process throughout life. Durham referred to this as the “finished work of Calvary” view of sanctification.

But the sanctification issue paled in comparison to the Oneness controversy. Dr. French summarizes the debate saying:

At issue in the Oneness controversy was the centrality of the name of Jesus in baptism, the soteriological significance of Spirit baptism, and the nature of the unity of the Godhead. The Oneness issue was commonly referred to as the “new issue” by its opponents, not for its novelty, but to distinguish the issue from the recent controversy over salvation.

The early Pentecostal movement prayed in the name of Jesus, claimed healing in Jesus’ name, sang Christocentric songs, and “largely ignored” the precision of Trinitarian faith. So, it shouldn’t have been all that shocking that many would eventually desire to be baptized in Jesus’ name. Dr. French quotes Charles F. Parham on this subject:

We were waiting upon God that we might know the Scriptural teaching of water baptism. Finally, the Spirit of God said: “We are buried by baptism into His death.” …Then how quickly we recognized the fact that we could not be buried by baptism in the name of the Father and in the name of the Holy Ghost because it stood for nothing as they never died or were resurrected.

The Spark That Lit the Flame

A Pentecostal camp meeting called the World-Wide Apostolic Camp Meeting took place in April of 1913. It was a much-anticipated meeting lauded as a great unifier. Yet, in actuality, it was the initial spark that lit the flame of the oneness movement, eventually separating it from Trinitarian Pentecostalism altogether. Canadian minister R.E. McAlister wasn’t the main speaker or even on the program. McAlister simply gave a short sermon as they were preparing for a baptismal service “in a pool near the big tent.” Dr. French describes the intense and pivotal moment this way:

In a cursory defense of single immersion, McAlister noted that apostolic baptism was administered as a single immersion in a single name, Jesus Christ. “The words Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were never used in Christian baptism.”

History records an “audible shudder” swept the preachers at the mention that the name Jesus was used exclusively in apostolic baptism. Of course, they tried to stop and sensor him, but the inspired words had already been spoken. The impact of that little sermon was far more significant than McAlister could have ever dreamed. Dr. French states:

The implications concerning Jesus’ name baptism raised at Arroyo Seco fueled the theological flame within many who attended. John G. Sharpe, a young minister, was so moved that, after praying and reading the Bible all night, he ran through the camp the following morning shouting that he’d received a “revelation” of the power of Jesus’ name. Frank J. Ewart, G.T. Haywood, Harry Morse, John G. Schaepe, R.J. Scott, George Studd, R.E. McAlister, Andrew D. Urshan, Homer L. Faulkner, and Frank Denny… would soon enthusiastically embrace baptism in the name of Jesus as the exclusive apostolic formula.

In Conclusion

Our God Is One goes on in far more detail concerning various splits among Pentecostal groups, eventually forming oneness groups like the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World and the United Pentecostal Church International, and many others. He recounts the stories of now-infamous pastors who were hepatized in Jesus’ name and branded as heretics by their peers. Many of those pastors went on to rebaptize entire congregations in Jesus’ name as revival swept the world. But Dr. French is most acclaimed for his unparalleled documentation of modern Oneness Pentecostalism worldwide. In 1999, it was staggering when Dr. French provided careful documentation of twenty million Oneness Pentecostals. He updates the number on the podcast episode below, but you’ll have to listen for yourself to hear that.

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Radically Apostolic! with Charles G. Robinette (Article + Podcast)

Ryan A. French

A Radically Apostolic Review

I recently had the opportunity to interview International Evangelist Charles G. Robinette about his new book, Radically Apostolic! The Reality, the Journey, and the Reward of the Call of God on the Apostolic Voice Podcast (which is linked below). Conversations like that always take on a life of their own, and that’s precisely what makes them so cool. However, it’s impossible to capture the essence of a book in a conversation format. So, even if you’ve listened to the episode with Rev. Robinette, this book review explores new territories. In my opinion, every believer should own a copy of Radically Apostolic (amazon.com links are included below). And if you would be so kind, leave a radically apostolic review of Radically Apostolic on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you buy books. It’s a blessing to the author and moves the book up in rankings and availability so others can find it and be blessed too.

More than High-Powered Testimonies

There’s been an exciting surge in apostolic books over the past few years. For a book nerd like me, that’s terrific news. But only a handful cover overtly apostolic topics. That’s not intended to be a criticism. There’s a great need for generic lifestyle, inspirational, and fiction books written by apostolics even if they don’t explicitly hit on hot button Pentecostal issues. However, we shouldn’t be afraid or shy away from writing blatantly unapologetic apostolic books chalked full of faith and Holy Ghost truth grenades. And that’s what Rev. Robinette has accomplished with Radically Apostolic! It will make you want to run the aisles, talk in tongues, and find a prayer meeting. You’ll probably even feel some good old-fashioned radical conviction. I did for sure. And that’s ok. We probably need a lot more of that. But the beauty of Rev. Robinette’s ministry style, which comes through in his writing as well, is that every truth bomb is tempered with the balm of love and genuine passion for the work of God.

When I purchased Radically Apostolic, I expected it to be filled with high-powered testimonies of revival, miracles, and mind-blowing God moments. I also anticipated chapters designed to be enormous faith builders for the reader. And it was! However, I was pleased to find the book full of deep wells of insight and instruction intended to take the reader from casual encounters with God to radically Apostolic encounters with God. Furthermore, the principles outlined in this book are for ministers and saints alike. Every apostolic believer is given the promise of Holy Ghost authority and to see demonstrations of Divine power in their lives. Radically Apostolic is not a quick microwave plan for walking in radical faith. Instead, it’s an honest outlining of biblical tried and true principles that work if implemented. If you’re looking for an easy three-step process, Radically Apostolic isn’t the book for you.

Radically Apostolic Defined

In the prologue, Robinette defines what it means to be radically apostolic this way:

To be radically apostolic means to be unreservedly committed to the teachings, doctrine, examples, and actions of the first apostles. It means to live a life that is in alignment with the first church in the book of Acts!

To me, it’s sad that we are forced to think of that definition as radical. Because in actuality, that is the description of being apostolic in general. We now call radical what the first church would have considered minimal. Or, at the very least, normal. Regardless, many of our beloved brothers and sisters are unacquainted with a genuine book of Acts experiences. But as Robinette pointed out in our podcast discussion, “There is a great thirst in this hour for apostolic demonstrations of the Spirit.”

To be radically apostolic means to be unreservedly committed to the teachings, doctrine, examples, and actions of the first apostles. It means to live a life that is in alignment with the first church in the book of Acts! -Charles G. Robinette

We now call radical what the first church would have considered minimal. Or, at the very least, normal.

If We Want What They Had…

Once a person has decided they want what the book of Acts church had, they must dedicate themselves to doing what the book of Acts church did. Robinette gives five convincing albeit challenging chapters that, if mirrored, accomplish that worthy goal: Radical apostolic exposure and impartation, radical prayer, radical submission, radical humility, and radical, sacrificial giving. Chapter six sums up the radical reality of employing those apostolic principles. Chapter seven is a soul-inspiring collection of radical testimonies that alone are worth the book’s price. As I read the book, the reality washed over me that God will always have a radically apostolic church; it’s just a matter of who will be a part of it.  

Once a person has decided they want what the book of Acts church had, they must dedicate themselves to doing what the book of Acts church did.

Radical Exposure & Impartation

While sharing his own early life story, Robinette describes the plethora of apostolic giants he was exposed to even in his teenage years. Primarily because of the tremendous leadership of his pastor, the late Rev. Bill Nix. Great men of God like Rev. Billy Cole, Rev. Lee Stoneking, the late Rev, R.L. Mitchel, Sis. Vests Mangun and many others imparted into Rev. Robinette’s life. There’s no substitute for radical apostolic exposure and impartation in a person’s life. And that exposure and impartation should inspire gratitude in our hearts. Radical exposure leads to radical opportunities and encounters with God. You might think that sounds too… well, radical. But I’m reminded of the book of Acts saints who were so desperate for impartation they only needed the apostle Peter’s shadow to pass over them to be healed (Acts 5:15-16).

Like Robinette, I was also blessed to have been naturally exposed to powerful ministries in my formative years. That’s one of the benefits of being a pastor’s kid. But even in my early ministry years, I learned a difficult lesson about exposure, impartation, and mentorship: It’s not the responsibility of a potential mentor to mentor you. Every mentor worth having, and every person who has something worth imparting is too busy to mentor and impart into your life. It’s the mentee’s responsibility to get close to the man of God. That means Elisha might have to quit a job to work with Elijah. It might mean mowing your pastor’s grass to be near him. It means offering to drive a man of God somewhere. Do whatever radical thing you have to do to get in the presence of great men of God. Get in a position to receive radical apostolic exposure and impartation.

Every mentor worth having, and every person who has something worth imparting is too busy to mentor and impart into your life. It’s the mentee’s responsibility to get close to the man of God.

Radical Prayer

This chapter begins by pointing out a simple but often overlooked reality:

We must never forget that the inaugural apostolic outpouring was the result of a ten-day prayer meeting. Everything radically apostolic in God’s kingdom begins with prayer!

We must never forget that the inaugural apostolic outpouring was the result of a ten-day prayer meeting. Everything radically apostolic in God’s kingdom begins with prayer! -Charles G. Robinette

Beware! You’re sure to be convicted by this chapter on prayer. For example, Robinette makes this observation:

The devil is not the primary problem of the Church. The primary problem of the Church is not worldliness, carnality, or people. The absence of radical prayer is the Church’s biggest problem!

The devil is not the primary problem of the Church. The primary problem of the Church is not worldliness, carnality, or people. The absence of radical prayer is the Church’s biggest problem! -Charles. G. Robinette

That statement resonates with my observations of the Church I love and care about so deeply. It’s not that we don’t battle carnality and worldliness in our churches. We do. But those things are symptoms of prayerlessness. Could it be that the simple remedy for all the woes of the Church is a renewal of radical prayer? I think it just might be the case. Robinette moves from corporate conviction and makes it personal to each of us:

Serving the Lord without a radical prayer life is like going to war without a weapon. Without prayer, you could actually become a weapon in the enemy’s hands. Yes, the tragedy of prayerless believers is not only the eternal damage they bring upon themselves but rather the damage they perpetrate against other believers and the kingdom of God.

  • A prayerless father or mother leaves the door of their spiritual house unlocked for the enemy to prey upon their children.
  • A prayerless apostolic preacher operates without power and authority. His congregation will never see the Spirit of the Lord confirming His Word.
  • The prayerless leader soon falls into the deception of trusting the arm of the flesh and man’s wisdom. He or she is soon choked out with pride.
  • The prayerless church becomes a stagnant pool where bacteria and disease hide. People are given infection rather than a remedy.

Serving the Lord without a radical prayer life is like going to war without a weapon. Without prayer, you could actually become a weapon in the enemy’s hands. -Charles G. Robinette

The spiritual and physical catastrophe of prayerlessness is immeasurable. Prayer is the life source of the Church. It is the primary instrument we have for an intimate connection with God. Prayer keeps us from mistakes our flesh would naturally make. Prayer gives us insight and wisdom we would not have on our own. Prayer might put you in a lion’s den, but it will also shut the mouths of those same lions. Prayer will unlock doors you couldn’t force open in the flesh. And prayer brings favor that prayerless praise will never produce.

Here’s another startling revelation from Robinette, “The failure of every fallen apostolic leader was first a failure to pray.” He goes on to say, “You don’t want to be a leader with big dreams but a small prayer life.” When you see the wreckage of a failed apostolic leader of any kind, let that be your reminder to engage in daily radical prayer. Otherwise, you could be the next tragic statistic leaving a legacy of brokenness in your wake.

The failure of every fallen apostolic leader was first a failure to pray. You don’t want to be a leader with big dreams but a small prayer life. -Charles G. Robinette

Radical Submission

Perhaps, this is the most critical and controversial chapter in Robinette’s book. He made this statement during our Apostolic Voice interview, “Everything else hinges on our commitment to radical apostolic submission.” In my youth, culture was at the tail end of enjoying a season of general respect for authority. It certainly wasn’t normal or common to challenge pastoral authority. Church hopping and pastor shopping for the right “brand” of preacher was unusual and severely frowned upon by most. Unfortunately, the antichrist spirit of the world has infiltrated the Church. It’s an anti-authority, anti-correction, anti-rebuke, and anti-accountability spirit. It often hides under the thin guise of maintaining accountability to peers or a panel of leaders. But all that does is give a person a license to shop around from peer to peer until someone validates their opinions or desires. That isn’t even close to the biblical idea of spiritual authority, submission, and accountability to leadership.

The antichrist spirit of the world has infiltrated the Church. It’s an anti-authority, anti-correction, anti-rebuke, and anti-accountability spirit.

The Buck Must Stop Somewhere

I stand behind Robinette’s robust endorsement of apostolic pastoral authority. He defends it vigorously and effectively below:

While it is permissible to have mentors who (with your pastor’s permission) impart methodology or expose you to greater apostolic understanding, there must be one spiritual leader: a pastor who has the final say. You need a pastor in your life whom you will not resist because they have veto power. There is no place in God’s kingdom for those who will not submit to spiritual authority.

You need a pastor in your life whom you will not resist because they have veto power. There is no place in God’s kingdom for those who will not submit to spiritual authority. -Charles G. Robinette

Admittedly, radical submission isn’t always easy. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be submission. It can be downright hard and even frustrating at times. Robinette acknowledges that reality by stating:

We may not enjoy the personality of everyone God places over us. We may not agree with everyone that God places over us. But we will never find a single scripture that encourages us to resist, reject or rebel against the spiritual authority God placed in our life!

Even when our spiritual authority is wrong. Even when our spiritual authority makes a bad judgment call. Even if they offend us with their words, actions, or attitudes. There is no scripture for packing our bags, finding a new pastor, or finding another church! There are lots of scriptures that would tell us to go to them and be reconciled, to speak truth in love, and to do the hard work of peacemaking.

Radical Consequences for Rebellion

Under the subtitle labeled The Good, the Bad, and Ugly, Robinette gives solid biblical examples that corroborate God’s displeasure with people who rebel against the man of God placed over them. In particular, I would insert that my generation has lost the understanding that when you rebel against a man of God, you are rebelling against God. Of those three stories, one that stood out the most is from Numbers 12:1, “And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses.” The details don’t matter. It doesn’t necessarily matter who was right or wrong; when you read the details of God’s wrath towards Miriam and Aaron in Numbers 12:5-11, it’s terrifying. It’s a somber reminder that God backs up his man. Robinette makes a significant point about that story:

Notice they didn’t raise a hand against Moses; they just opened their mouths. There is no area where we systematically violate God’s standards of submission more than in our ethics of speech. We pick up the phone, sit around restaurant tables, go on our favorite online forums, and commit the same sin as Miriam and Aaron.

There is no area where we violate God’s standards of submission more than in our speech. We pick up the phone, sit around restaurants, go to online forums, and commit the same sin as Miriam and Aaron. -Charles G. Robinette

Lifting Leaders Hands

Aside from the scary consequences of walking away from apostolic authority, Robinette passionately describes the benefits that only come through radical submission. He points out the blessings, protections, anointings, giftings, and associations that only come from submission. And then he pivots to further describe submission as a willingness to lift the hands of our leader as Hur and Aaron did for Moses in Exodus 17:8-16. And the paradoxical reality of radical submission is that it affords us authority that otherwise would be unavailable. To many, that seems counterintuitive, but it is the reality. If we could reincorporate that mentality into our collective minds, it would reinvigorate revival worldwide.

Radical Humility

It’s almost impossible to maintain radical humility without radical submission. So, having established that fact Robinette offers a biblical definition of humility this way: Humility is knowing who you are, knowing who God is, and never getting confused about who is who.” He lists three tests God brings into our lives to authenticate our humility or reveal our pride: 1) How we handle promotions in our lives and in the lives of others. 2) How we respond to correction and demotions in our lives and in the lives of others. 3) How we respond to gossip, slander, and criticism directed at ourselves and our family. Robinette makes a key point reminding us of the importance of humility:

Self-promotion is the fruit of an independent spirit. There’s no room for anyone else. Some people try to sanctify their independent spirit by convincing themselves that they are too spiritual to be understood and everyone else is too carnal. Independence is over-rated. We need a revival of apostolic codependency. We need God and each other.

We need a revival of apostolic codependency. We need God and each other. -Charles G. Robinette

Of all the gems in this chapter, Robinette’s comments regarding humility while under unfair attack shined the brightest. Because if you live a radically apostolic life long enough, you will be maligned, criticized, condemned, undermined, and worse. And the temptation will be to accept Saul’s armor and fight on Goliath’s terms instead of with the weapons God has approved. But as Robinette said, “If you rightly react to hurtful words, the experience will become a refining tool God uses to perfect his instruments.” Robinette encourages those under undue attack to hold their peace and say not a word. He continued, “The enemy is only victorious if we take on the same nature of those assaulting us.” I cannot win battles if I fight for myself. Instead, I must stand still and let God fight my battles.

If you rightly react to hurtful words, the experience will become a refining tool God uses to perfect his instruments. -Charles G. Robinette

The enemy is only victorious if we take on the same nature of those assaulting us. I cannot win battles if I fight for myself. Instead, I must stand still and let God fight my battles. -Charles G. Robinette

Radical Sacrificial Giving

Robinette offers dozens of real-life examples of radical giving and radical blessings afforded to the giver. And again, he takes us back to the book of Acts example by reminding us that the first Church sold all their possessions and lands and gave to those who had needs (Acts 2:44, Acts 4:32). Also, the early Church didn’t just give out of abundance or from extreme wealth. They gave sacrificially to the work of the Lord even when suffering poverty themselves (2 Corinthians 8:2). Like the widow who gave her last meal to the prophet Elijah and received unlimited supernatural provision from God, we too can tap into that type of radical favor through radical giving (1 Kings 17:13).

Like the widow who gave her last meal to the prophet Elijah and received unlimited supernatural provision from God, we too can tap into that type of radical favor through radical giving.

It’s impossible to overstate the blessings Scripture promises to those who give sacrificially. And many of those blessings are financial. However, I appreciate how Robinette carefully points out that not all gifts from God in response to our giving are monetary. Often, the blessings associated with giving are things like peace, joy, happiness, contentment, spiritual authority, relationship blessings, familial blessings, favor, health, healing, and stability, to name a few. Many of the most amazing gifts in my life in response to giving were not financial. Why? Because all the money in the world can’t bring joy, peace, or health. No amount of money will heal cancer, but one touch from God can!

Radical Apostolic Reality

The book culminates with a radical reminder that we will experience a revolutionary book of Acts-style apostolic reality if we live out the previously mentioned apostolic principles. Robinette asks this challenging question, “Which reality are you obsessing over, the kingdom of this world on the kingdom of God?” He then says:

Paul warns us in Colossians 3:2 to set our affections on things above, not on things of this world. Choose which reality you will live by. Choose to feed your faith, not your fears. If your life mantra is that the world is bad and getting worse, you’re not wrong. If you choose to believe that God is good and He is at work, you’re not wrong. Choose your reality.

Feed your faith, not your fears. If your life mantra is that the world is bad and getting worse, you’re not wrong. If you choose to believe that God is good and He is at work, you’re not wrong. Choose your reality. -Charles G. Robinette

Ultimately, Robinette beckons each of us to “accept the call” to live a radically apostolic life. And it is a lifestyle that demands our time, attention, and dedication. The world has yet to see the kind of revival that would take place if every professing apostolic became radically apostolic beyond mere verbiage. You can lay hands on the sick and see them recover in Jesus’ name! You can see mighty outpouring of the Holy Ghost in Jesus’ name! You can resist temptation and ungodliness in Jesus’ name? You can witness and be instrumental in seeing radical deliverances in Jesus’ name.

Left Wanting More

I finished the book wanting more from it. And that’s a good thing. If you’re relieved to finish a book, that’s a bad sign. However, the book left me longing for additional chapters titled Radical Suffering, Radical Sacrifice, Radical Rejection, and Radical Holiness. Oh, what an excellent sequel that would make! Let me say once more, the testimonies scattered throughout the book alone make it worth the price. I hope you’ll click the link below and purchase a copy for yourself. Hey, buy a couple of copies and give them away.

Related posts:

  1. Prayer, Revival & Spiritual Warfare with Joe Campetella (Article + Podcast)
  2. The Argument for Holiness with Charles A. Rhodus (Article + Podcast)
  3. Our God Is One with Dr. Talmadge French (Article + Podcast)
  4. Buried Alive (The Gospel According to the Bible) – Article + Podcast
  5. 9 Types of Church Services and Why We Need Them (Article + Podcast)
  6. What About Hell? – Everything You Need to Know (Article + Podcast)
  7. Politically Incorrect Prophets (Speaking Truth In an Age of Timidity)
  8. 8 Preacher Traps – That Can Develop Over Time

Oneness Theology, Church History & Where the Church Is Right Now – Podcast Transcript with Dr. Talmadge French

Ryan A. French

Below is the podcast transcript (episode 22) of a candid conversation between me and my dad, Dr. Talmadge French, author of the best-selling books Our God Is One, and G.T. Heywood: Early Interracial Oneness Pentecostalism. This is probably one of the best discussions you will ever hear about church history, the oneness of God in Church History, The Burning of Michael Servetus by John Calvin, baptism in Jesus’ name, and the Existence of Truth during the Dark Ages. If you’d like to listen to the entire podcast conversation I’ve attached it to the end of this article.

Ryan French: [00:01:44] You are my dad and you’re the premier Apostolic Pentecostal oneness historian, probably in the world, and I have a unique and rare opportunity to be able to just drag you in here kicking and screaming to talk about church history. And so I’m really excited about it and I hope we’ll do it fairly regularly. But what I wanted to do today is kind of backtrack from where most people want to start, which is the turn of the last century. And we’ll get to that. But there’s kind of that long gap of church history, certainly for us as Pentecostals that we don’t discuss as often, maybe as other traditions or denominations do. And certainly, the Dark Ages. Which brings me to the very first topic that I wanted to have you weigh in on. And it’s also a question that I receive a lot from people through the website and at www.ryanafrench.com. And it’s basically this question and I’m going to ask it to you the way people ask it to me. Do you believe the Church and by the church, I mean full truth, people filled with the Holy Ghost, baptized in Jesus’ name? Do you believe the Church existed throughout the Dark Ages and somewhere up until the outpourings of the Holy Ghost at the turn of the last century… Basically from the Book of Acts until today? Do you believe that a remnant somewhere, even if it might have been just a small group, do you believe it existed?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:03:45] Ok, well, that’s the question that every apostolic is interested in, because and it’s not just apostolics, but every Christian group has to believe or hope that their faith is a Bible faith, whether you can prove a direct line all the way back or not. Right. And of course, Pentecostals are like all restorationists. They believe that Pentecost and speaking in tongues is biblical. Therefore, our experience is biblical. So what happened during those intervening years and so on? And then secondarily, you have the issue of like for me, I was Trinitarian, but came to an understanding of oneness, belief, like millions of people have. And so I wanted to know, how did my faith line up with the apostles? That is what I’m saying, actually, apostolic. And if so, what happened to it? Yeah. So the short answer for me is, yes, the church has always existed. But what’s really important is, I mean, that’s important to be able to say, OK, my faith goes all the way back. But how do I know that and how does it work itself out? And the truth of the matter is that church history itself is extremely complex because of the way we interpret church history, there was a great deal of things going on all the way back to the time of the apostles. So I’ve spent a better part of my faith, especially since I’ve been apostolic looking at the historical record, trying to understand what people were saying and what actually occurred back there. And I would… I’d summarize it like this so we can maybe go to the next step. But that the fact of the matter is, for a very long time, the apostolic faith was definitely being preached in the early church. But there came a time when it began to evolve into something else so that after about the time of Sebelius, around two eighty-five roughly right in there, it started to be less and less where the truth was one hundred percent believed in all the churches. There came to be what I call an attack of intellectualism on the church, especially Greek intellectualism. And there was also a movement which was pretty well connected to Greek intellectualism. It was called Gnosticism; it was a movement that believed they were super-spiritual. And these things have always been what they’ve been throughout church history, but when that began to take effect, then the Greek mind, the intellectual mind began to try to square everything with Greek, with Philo and the Greek intellectualism. And the Church began to become more diverse so that you would have these really super smart guys out there at the periphery of the Church that were saying, well, Jesus is not actually the one God, he’s in the one God. And you begin somewhere in there around two hundred. And later, the beginnings of what we would think of as a trinitarian way of thinking or a binatarian way of thinking. And eventually, by the time you get to the councils in three, twenty-five, and so on, you’ve got full-blown Trinitarianism or debates about Trinitarianism and who Jesus was. And was he God or was he just in the Godhead? Well, these are things that the Bible doesn’t even address because they’re not biblical, but they’ve become pretty powerful by the time you get to the councils, and by the time the Catholic Church is an issue which is around 500, you’ve got I mean, just think about how long America’s been here, in about five hundred years of Christianity. That’s a lot of time. And by the end of it, you have Truth, and you have error all throughout Christianity

Ryan French: [00:08:18] Would you say it’s kind of a merging of the secular and the sacred or maybe a merging of secular philosophy in the same way and even throw government in there?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:08:31] Right. Because when you get to the time of Constantine in three hundred in the Council of Nicaea, there wouldn’t have been a Nicaea had there not been a Constantine who had converted to Christianity. But many, many scholars will tell you that Constantine was not much of a Christian, but yet he had the greatest impact on Christianity. And so, I would…

Ryan French: [00:08:55] Can we pause for the low information. I, I know we have a lot of wonderful listeners out there who may not know who Constantine is. Could you just give a brief description?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:09:07] He became the emperor of Rome. The Roman emperor.

Ryan French: [00:09:11] So was that roughly around three hundred?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:09:14] Let’s just say around three…

Ryan French: [00:09:15] Around three hundred. By then, the Church was in full swing…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:09:20] …and when he became a Christian, then the Roman Empire became Christian whether they were Christian or not. Right. Right. So, it was a whole new era.

Ryan French: [00:09:30] So in a lot of ways. You had kind of the advent of the Christians in name only.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:09:35] Well, it was definitely Christian in name only. But see, a lot of Christians today have a struggle with that because they want to believe that all of this error that’s going on in Christianity and the diversity of Christianity was just part and parcel of it. They don’t want to believe that at the very beginning there was a pristine Church that held to a pristine doctrine. So how do you explain in the Bible them baptizing in Jesus name and three hundred years later, they’re advocating for Trinity baptism? How do you explain that? Well, you go to Matthew chapter 19 and try to prove that’s the real baptism and they can’t do it. So, but of…

Ryan French: [00:10:16] …wouldn’t we as apostolics, point to Jesus himself who warned that there would be wolves that would come in and there would be false doctrines and false Christ of all kinds?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:10:29] And Paul himself said it was happening right under his nose

Ryan French: [00:10:33] Right in the beginning, Judaizers…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:10:34] But those errors, of course, weren’t Trinitarian, you don’t see anything remotely Trinitarian until close to two hundred, certainly, I’ve had a lot of Trinitarians say to me, well, oh my goodness. Well, if it could happen if Trinitarianism evolved by two hundred, it could have been one hundred years earlier as if the one hundred years doesn’t make a difference. Look at America right now, how quickly it’s gone from one type of country almost into socialism or bordering on it. We’re literally battling right now for the soul of America all within twenty-five years. So, think of that.

Ryan French: [00:11:16] Amazing how in one or two decades the whole world can change.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:11:19] And if you add a century to it, so in a century you could have a church, for example, a Pentecostal group could start off as holiness and one hundred years later, not even know what holiness is.

Ryan French: [00:11:33] Not even resemble what they began as…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:11:35] I was a part of a Pentecostal group that was strict holiness. And then within twenty-five years, they dropped it and moved on to something else. And today they don’t even know if they’re Pentecostal.

Ryan French: [00:11:46] I was listening to a podcast the other day. I can’t remember his name. The podcast is called Apologia and they’re Trinitarians. I think they consider themselves Southern Baptists of some kind. And he was really attacking… Actually, the podcast, for the most part, they’re pretty interesting. But out of nowhere, he started attacking what he called Modalists. But of course, he’s talking about oneness people and he wasn’t attacking us because I think he was looking at a kind of a charismatic, non-denominational, kind of wishy-washy group. They’re not really oneness, but they’re not really Trinitarian either. They’re just kind of a “whatever” kind of a deal. And it was so interesting because he had spent the beginning of the episode talking about Sola Scriptura and the inerrancy of Scripture, which, of course, I was on board with that. It sounded like something I would say that we’ve got to hold… we’ve got to pull all of our doctrines out and hold everything up to the light of Scripture, which is language that I identify with. But then when he started attacking modalism or the oneness and basically rebuking this group very strongly for basically rejecting what he called the Triune God or the Triune Godhead, he never used the word Trinity, which I thought was interesting. He always used the word triune. Instead of appealing to Scripture, he never once appealed to Scripture to do that, he appealed to church history. And I thought, how interesting, you just spent your forty-five minutes basically saying we’ve got to hold all of our beliefs up to the Word of God. But then when you’re defending your triune belief in the Godhead and a triune baptism and all of this, instead of going back to Sola Scriptura, you’re going to church history and stopping there and you’re not even going all the way back in church history. You’re going…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:14:00] Well, it’s really enlightening that you’re hearing this podcast and they’re doing this because that’s exactly what goes on with Trinitarian thought. Now, that doesn’t mean that Trinitarian scholars don’t think they can prove the trinity in the Bible. They basically think that they’re proving the trinity in the Bible through a series of hints. Like how can you have a Son if there’s not a Father? And so, everything’s through hints. There’s no direct teaching about it.

Ryan French: [00:14:39] You’ve got the dove and Jesus and the voice…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:14:42] I’ve often said this, and this is the way most oneness people think. If the Bible meant to teach a trinity, it would say there is a trinity. Now, then you would have the problem that Moses did not believe in a trinity, and the God of the Old Testament then and the revealed God of the New Testament would be very different. So they would say, well, the Son came. This is Trinitarian logic. So the Son came, was born, and came to earth and that proved there was a trinity before. So the logic of Trinitarianism theologically is not rooted in the Bible. It’s rooted in what the church accepted over three hundred years. And so, they have several issues with it, of course. But let’s go back to this group then that says, well, we’re going to condemn oneness people because of church history. That’s basically what they’re doing. They’re saying that we have to trust the church. So, whatever the church said in three hundred or five hundred, no matter that it became Catholic…

Ryan French: [00:15:46] I was just going to say, why aren’t we all Catholic then?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:15:48] Well, we would be if we followed that logic. But they’re not following logic. The only thing they’re following logically in that period is the doctrine of the Trinity. They don’t believe much else about it. And of course, the Catholic Church had lots of issues that even to this day are so far from Scripture. And oneness people are simply saying the trinity is not found in Scripture, therefore we don’t embrace it.

Ryan French: [00:16:18] This guy went so far as to say, and I’m not even mentioning his name because it’s not worth it to me, but I’m just wanting to think through the logic of how… I view him, I guess, as maybe a stand-in or a type of that group’s way of thinking. He was basically saying that if you’re not Trinitarian and again, I thought it was fascinating he never used the word Trinitarian or Trinity, but if you don’t believe in the triune Godhead, you’re not a Christian. You’re a cult of Christianity. In fairness to him, I’m actually thankful that he believes what he believes and that he’ll fight for it because I feel much the same way. But in reverse, I feel like, for example, I look at the Catholic Church in some ways as a Christian cult as well, at least theologically. I don’t mean that everyone in the Catholic Church is a cult, but at least the leadership of it. But then there’s also this secondary growing movement. That. Other generations have not seen like my generation is seeing, and that is a middle group that says, well, it doesn’t matter if you’re trinitarian or oneness. Because what people will say and I know you’ve heard this, that it’s all, it’s just semantics. It’s just semantics. So that’s why you have a lot of people, and we’re really rabbit trailing, but this is a great discussion. You have a lot of people who will say, how we’ll all kind of meet in the middle and we will baptize people and we’ll say in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, whose name is Jesus, and then they feel like they’re covering all their bases. And they’ll say, well, when you speak of the Trinity, we’re actually oneness. But then you have groups like this guy at Apologia who considers that to be heresy, and then you have groups like us on the complete other end of the spectrum. How do we start to combat? What I think of as the growing trend towards this kind of middle ground wishy-washy it doesn’t matter?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:18:42] That is exactly the most important question because what you’re really describing is the state of the Christian church today. You have Christianity, let’s call it Orthodox thinking. All right. The fellow you’re describing, whoever he is, is typical of people that are trying to hold on to Orthodoxy. Now he would be opposed to Catholicism. I’m just guessing. And so, in most of its varieties. But yet what he means by Orthodox thinking is there has to be something that roots, that roots the church and that’s Trinitarianism. Now, the fact of the matter is, though, that Christianity has moved away from that. They’re no longer looking at trinity. Christian liberalism is no longer worried about the trinity. This has been going on for a very long time. We’re talking seventeen hundreds all the way to now. So, we’re talking a very long time where Christians have begun to quit… For example, the deity of Jesus will this fellow you’re talking about is going to fight for the deity of Jesus. So really what we’re

Ryan French: [00:19:58] Really common ground there, which is interesting…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:19:59] We have common ground.

Ryan French: [00:20:01] It’s weird because we wind up almost having common ground with people who are very opposed to some of our beliefs…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:20:06] His starting point is the trinity. You either start with the trinity or you’re nothing. That’s what he says. Right. Liberalism has no starting point whatsoever. It’s what we think of it as sort of the squishy middle. All right. Now, Catholics are very Orthodox. They are basically unchanged now. There’s lots of troubles in the Catholic Church, but they’re basically unchanged. They’re still holding to the idea of the pope and the universal nature of Catholicism and the trinity. They’ve altered almost nothing regarding the trinity, even though many Catholic scholars have come along and wondered about the possibility of modal thinking and so on.

Ryan French: [00:20:51] And there’s even been outpourings of the Holy Ghost in the Catholic Church, is that correct? I don’t mean in the church as a whole, but in individual churches and…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:20:59] Absolutely, there’s been a major outpouring in all denominations and people have accepted speaking in tongues. It’s somewhat fading at the moment.

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Dr. Talmadge French: [00:22:48] What we’re seeing then is that there’s what liberalism has become, and what the oneness movement has become, and this is what this fellow is reacting to. The oneness movement, if you look at various groups that have diverged from Trinitarian thinking, you could think of the squishy middle and the liberals as diverging from Trinitarian thinking. But it’s not wholesale abandonment of Trinitarianism. But so you look at the groups out there that say, I just don’t think the Trinity is the right answer. Well, the largest group of those are oneness people because we’re talking somewhere between 30 and 50 million living believers right now that stand strong for oneness theology. All right. And so these folks are trying to hold on to a complete one hundred percent trinity is the answer. Well, the Catholic Church does it and they’re doing it. And we might call him the orthodox conservative element, they are doing it.

Ryan French: [00:23:50] Is there anybody else who holds on? And I know there is. But we could just for people who might be thinking with us in this discussion, aside from the Catholic Church, aside from maybe the Southern Baptists, are the Presbyterians still holding on to Trinitarianism?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:24:07] They’re split on the issue; Lutherans are split over lots of issues. So, you have a lot of liberals who would talk about the trinity, but they don’t believe in the Trinity in the way that we would think of as Orthodox. Right. They’re not quite sure of, for example, the deity of Christ is extremely squishy in the middle…

Ryan French: [00:24:35] Can you explain to people who may not understand what you mean by the deity of Christ…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:24:39] That Jesus is actually God…

Ryan French: [00:24:40] So maybe mention a popular, I’ll use the word heresy or false doctrine, that people are falling into about the deity of Jesus, that he was not God…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:25:04] Liberal Christians like, you know, it goes all the way back to the seventeen hundreds of people like Schleiermacher who thought that you could never be certain that Jesus was Divine. He wasn’t necessarily Divine. What he did was from God. So, the heresy would be what conservatives today would refer to as the Fatherhood of God, that God was just the Father. The Son was not Divine. So, you would end up with one God, but Jesus wasn’t part of a Godhead.

Ryan French: [00:25:40] What would you call that doctrine?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:25:42] Well, I call it liberalism or theologically, it was this idea of the Fatherhood of God.

Ryan French: [00:25:48] Now how is that different from Divine Flesh?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:25:53] Oh, totally. Yeah. There’s no relationship. Divine Flesh is that Jesus was not only God but that his flesh was Divine. His flesh was not his actual flesh. It was not an actual flesh. It was Divine something. Yes. Which is which is heresy!

Ryan French: [00:26:08] Which denies the humanity…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:26:10] It sacrifices the real humanity of Christ. So that’s a totally different error which is not just something that we see in Pentecostalism, it’s something that you see all the way back to the time of Luther. This idea that there was for example, that all comes from the idea that the Catholics said you could eat the actual flesh, the Eucharist, that when you take the Eucharist, you put it into your mouth, it becomes flesh. So, in that came all kinds of error, which, of course, is one of the problems with Catholic thinking, just one of the things. But you see, the fellow you’re talking about is attempting to hold on to the absolute trinity of God, whether the Bible ever taught it or not, because what they’re going to do is extrapolate it back. Now, in other words, say, even though the Bible doesn’t explicitly teach it, it’s there and that’s what they believe, though they never said it. Now, that’s, of course, rather crazy to say they believe something they never said they believed and never even used the word trinity.

Ryan French: [00:27:12] Yeah, I was going to say… So, this is kind of how our relationship for those that don’t know, I’m very privileged to serve with Dad, going on nine years now, here on the south side of Atlanta. The way we work in our church is, dad’s the genius and I’m always kind of the everyday weird word guy, but speaking of the word weird to use completely nontheological terminology, don’t you think? I don’t mean this in an ugly, disrespectful way. Just logically, isn’t it weird to go to church history? To pull the doctrine of the Trinity, but then ignore church history to leave the Catholic Church and then try to go back to the Bible? Just logically, isn’t that flawed? It’s flawed in so many ways…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:28:17] So one way to think of it, if we could not get too complex, is that they look back into church history and try to find the trinity. And of course, it did develop in the hundreds and hundreds of years so that you ended up with basically just one church that was Catholic. Now, that doesn’t mean there was just one church because we started up this discussion asking the question, did the oneness movement go all the way back? And I said, well, the answer is yes, it does go all the way back. But the question is, how does it do that?

Ryan French: [00:28:54] Well, and my answer is always that this movement goes all the way back to the Old Testament. Right. But you know that that’s a simplistic answer.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:29:02] So what oneness people need to be doing is finding out how it went all the way back, because you’re not going to have the enemies of the oneness of God looking for answers for how the oneness was embraced. I’m quite convinced by church history that there were tons of oneness people. And I see…

Ryan French: [00:29:25] Yes. OK, so we’re going to jump into that in just a second. But I keep feeling the need to backtrack for people who aren’t… I know we have people who have these kinds of discussions and read these kinds of things all the time, but I know there are some wonderful people out there and maybe this is the first time they’ve really used some of these terms. So, let me go all the way back to kind of the beginning. And you used the word restorationist. Can you just give a brief definition of what a restorationist is? OK, and you know, we’re restorationist.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:29:57] Many Christians that are not Pentecostal are restorationists and almost all Pentecostals are restorationists. A restorationist is someone who views Christian faith as something that they lost.

Ryan French: [00:30:17] Martin Luther for example?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:30:18] Well, Lutherans are not, strictly speaking, restorationists, but there were many restorationists…

Ryan French: [00:30:27] But Martin Luther himself was…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:30:28] Martin Luther saw himself as restoring to the church what he viewed as Catholicism’s having lost. So, you end up with Lutheranism now, Lutherans themselves did not view themselves as strict restorationists. And like Pentecostals do, Pentecostals view themselves as restorationists because people were not baptizing correctly. Well, let’s say, for example. The Catholic Church baptizes infants, yes, so do Methodists, so do lots of people, but restorationist-minded people say we have to go back to the Bible to find our answer. Or oneness Pentecostals say that not only for the way you baptize but people speaking in tongues. Well, did speaking in tongues stop? No. But did the church as a whole stop preaching, speaking in tongues? Obviously, they did. Certainly, was not practiced in the era of the Catholic dominance and so on, and so now does that mean nobody was speaking in tongues? No, I suspect a lot of people were speaking in tongues, but it was not something you got away with because Catholicism basically choked it up. There was a whole lot of rooting out people that didn’t believe what they wanted you to believe.

Ryan French: [00:31:51] That tags perfectly with where I wanted to go next, which is kind of a twofold question. I wanted you to maybe introduce Michael Servetus to people who maybe have never heard of him before. You might give some information they don’t know. But also tagging into that, at what point did the Catholic Church become militant in the sense that they forced you to believe with the sword? You’ve got the Crusades and you’ve got the Catholic Church burning people at the stake. I often tell people, well, of course, in history, if you’re oneness and if you were speaking in tongues you were probably going underground because otherwise you might get burned at the stake. Or you might have your tongue cut out. So, when did that start? When did the church become violent, which to me is evil, of course? Can you imagine if the Church was trying to be militant today how we’d be…?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:32:59] You know, it’s interesting because the group that you were describing at the beginning that is trying to hold on to strict Trinitarianism and condemning oneness people would probably say that when Calvin burned Servetus at the stake that that was OK because how dare him deny something that Calvin believed was 100% theologically correct.

Ryan French: [00:33:27] So for people who don’t know John Calvin…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:33:30] Was a reformer of Protestantism who had Servetus because he was oneness had him burned at the stake.

Ryan French: [00:33:39] So what time are we talking about here?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:33:41] That was in the fifteen hundreds.

Ryan French: [00:33:45] So you’re about a thousand five hundred or so…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:33:49] So we’re talking five hundred years ago. So, think of it. The Church involved in five hundred years at the beginning from an Apostolic Bible group. By 500 years later you have basically them talking about is Mary the mother of God and is there a pope that rules the church? None of that’s in the Bible. And yet that’s where the church is. Trinitarianism is pretty rampant in Christianity by then.

Ryan French: [00:34:15] John Calvin, even today, you have Calvinism and probably, I think, one of the most dangerous, deadly false doctrines that still permeates a lot of. Quote unquote, Christian thinking is what I call once saved, always saved, or the doctrine of eternal security, where no matter what you do, you can’t be plucked from the hand of God. You can be an adulterer. But if you’ve said your prayer and all that, then you’re saved. Or you’ve got some people who are Divinely destined for Hell and some people are Divinely destined for Heaven because God chose… All of this is Calvinism or finds its roots in Calvinism. And so, you have this massive segment of Christianity that puts Calvin on this huge pedestal. And yet he was a murderer. In my mind. I consider him wicked. Are you willing to say? We’ve talked about this, but are you willing to say that Calvin was a wicked maniac. And I know he was a genius in a certain sense, but…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:35:15] Oh, I don’t think anyone that burns people alive, is anything short of a wicked person. OK, so but to what I was referring to a moment ago, I’ve been very outspoken that Calvin’s behavior was unbelievable. And he was no. It turns out that here he was one of the most outspoken critics of Catholicism in the fifteen hundreds, and yet he used the same tactics. That was to kill the people he opposed, kill the opposition. Now, I had a professor because I’m oneness, but I haven’t always been and had a professor at a Christian university that I attended told me that you have to expect you’re going to be burned alive if you oppose theological thinking. And I said, so you’re saying that killing Christians is OK? And he said, no, no, I’m not saying that. I’m trying to say you have to understand that we have to forgive Calvin. I said, no, I cannot forgive Calvin. Nobody can forgive Calvin. But God. He murdered a man for no reason. So in other words, using that was the Catholic notion. And by the same token, Catholics forgive their past for killing, who knows how many thousands of people. I mean, in horrific ways, just think of the Inquisition. But to simplify this, though, what actually occurred. So you got 500 years of the early church where there was things happening, where the faith and speaking in tongues and baptism in Jesus’ name was becoming a minority and people were pushing it back. I call it the Dark Ages and I don’t get this from oneness people. I get this from conservatives who now are nervous about using the term the Dark Ages, where they begin to move into a period of time where one group began to take control of Christianity and everybody like you couldn’t, for example, at the time of the Reformation, which was fifteen hundreds and the hundred years or two-hundred years before that, you could be executed for owning a Bible. Yes, for printing a Bible, because the Catholic Church said nobody could control the Bible but them.

Ryan French: [00:37:41] Amazing stories of people who got a Tindale Bible and go hide in their closet to be able to read and…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:37:48] So a lot of people were really moving back into what I’m thinking of as a New Dark Age and have been for a very long time. It’s probably the era just before the coming of the Lord. But what actually occurred is that in that era where, for example, you could be executed and were executed by either a Catholic or a Protestant if you immerse people. If you just took a person out and baptized them in a river and buried them and they found out about it and got caught. You could be executed.

Ryan French: [00:38:31] So and then in modern history, I don’t think it’s as bad now as it was. But, you know, theologically speaking, there was a time where you were culturally burned at the stake or intellectually burned at the stake, you were blacklisted, you were boycotted. If you deviated from at least trinitarian orthodoxy, it’s always amazing to me how you have all these denominations, the Baptists, the Catholics, and of course, the Baptists have all kinds of variations of denominations, the Methodists, the Lutherans…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:39:06] And the Church of God…

Ryan French: [00:39:07] You have all of these and they’re all united by trinitarianism. And if you walk in that orthodoxy, it’s like you’re OK, no matter what else you do. I’ve always thought that was strange and very telling… It’s one of the major doctrines that they have that is non-biblical and totally historical in context. And yet that’s what unites them. And then they put everyone else in this camp of being anti orthodoxy when in reality we’re really the orthodox ones… I want to just say something before we go back. You were talking about people being burned at the stake just for owning a Bible in the Dark Ages, where all of this time in church history, where the Catholic Church controlled the narrative of Scripture because only, they had access to the Bible. So, you were having to completely trust a priest and the pope and his emissaries to tell you what the Bible said via their interpretation. And, of course, we know now that the Catholic Church has moved far beyond the Bible and the pope can speak for God as God, and his word becomes in their way of thinking, just as an errant as the word of God. So that creates all kinds of problems. And so, you have all of these years where people were hungry. This is a whole nother discussion. I’d love to have about men like Tyndale, who you mentioned, and Wycliff, who I mean, they gave their lives to be able to translate the word of God into a language that the commoner could read and understand without having to know Latin or Greek or Hebrew. And they did all of this knowing that they were going to be persecuted and probably killed at some point. And then they distributed these precious Bibles to people, often handwritten, and people were secretly getting them. I mean, some of these stories that I’ve read where I mean, it just makes you weep when people get a Bible and they’re having to hide it, they’re trying to read it for themselves. And so, you have this kind of this imposed dark age of spiritual ignorance where people, God bless them, they’re walking in darkness. But it was really the blind leading the blind. And the blind had no access to light because the Scripture was being completely controlled. But today, I think this is the point I wanted to get at. As you said, it’s like we’re going back to that. But this is different today. It’s like we have a self-imposed dark age where people have more access to the Bible than ever in the history of the world. I mean, even as I’m old enough now to remember a time when if you wanted to read the Bible. You were going to have to go to the bookstore and purchase a Bible for yourself. And if you wanted one that was going to last you were going to have to spend a good deal of money. But now people via smartphones, which it just seems like smartphones, have been with us since the beginning of time, but they haven’t. It’s a fairly recent phenomenon. And the Internet and computers, you can go to Bible Gateway right now and you can read the Bible online day or night, completely free, any translation you want, even horrific ones. But you have access to it. And yet statistics tell us that people are reading the Bible less and less and less. So, it’s almost as if we have this overwhelming access to it and now people are indifferent to it. It’s not that there’s a class of people above us keeping us from the Word of God, it’s that people are keeping themselves.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:43:42] Ok. Well, let’s go back to something we were talking about, and that is what does a man like Michael Servetus represent? Because the initial question has been do I believe that the oneness, Apostolic Pentecostal faith of repenting, and baptizing in the name of Jesus, receiving the Holy Spirit, and living holy, did that go all the way back to the early church? All those centuries, so Servetus represents a person. Who not only died for the very message that I’m preaching right now, but he represents an entire generation of people that believed because even though church history is difficult to trace, because, you know, the victors wipe out a great deal of the writings and..?

Ryan French: [00:44:50] Yeah, they get to write the history.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:44:52] And plus, if you know your children are going to die, if they find out who you are and where you are, you keep that a secret. So, you have these, you know, evidences. So, I’m going to give just a quick answer now that we’re in the context of Michael Servetus, who died brutally, by the way, I mean, of course, you couldn’t be burned at the stake without it being brutal, but the entire episode was brutal. It was a man that at the age of fourteen knew seven languages, I mean, he is one of the most brilliant men of the Reformation.

Ryan French: [00:45:25] …and not just the theologian.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:45:27] And he had gone to Calvin because he wanted so desperately to talk to him about the need to get back to Scripture. And they executed him. So, all of the people that held to oneness views throughout the centuries, we cannot excavate all of their writings even though we know about lots of them, but we don’t know what all of them believe because they’re lost to history.

Ryan French: [00:46:04] They’re not in the iCloud.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:46:05] And yet, if you say that to someone who’s the victor, who says, well, I’m a trinitarian and I am, bless God, it goes all the way back. And you said, well, you have killed all of our people. How are we supposed to be able to then mount a historical defense? We don’t have the ability to dig out their graves and find all their writings. But we know they were there because when we trace the evidence, we can find the group that he came from and why he held the oneness view goes all the way back to his childhood. And it’s difficult to do, but it can be done. We know that in, for example, that in Spain, where he was born, there was a group there baptizing in Jesus’ name all the way back. So, and what that did for me was it didn’t just demonstrate that Servetus believed in the oneness of God, but that he applied it to his understanding of baptism, in other words, he didn’t baptize in a trinity formula because he came from a group that didn’t baptize in the trinity formula and that this is the way you almost have to do history. Throughout the entire period.

Ryan French: [00:47:17] Servetus was a genius. Yes. Don’t you think some of Calvin’s venom towards Servetus was jealousy not just theologically rooted?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:47:30] There’s no doubt it was jealousy. There was a whole lot of jealousy. Yeah, Calvin as a man, not as a scholar, had a lot of faults. And one of them was this. I mean, he’s the great scourge on Calvin was the burning of a Protestant. He was burned. He became the martyr that shocked the world. There’s not a long history of Protestants burning one another. Right. But Servetus who was oneness is the one that they that basically…

Ryan French: [00:48:07] Is Servetus the only individual that we know of that Calvin burned or did… Was that common practice for him to have people executed?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:48:15] No, it was not common practice for him to execute people.

Ryan French: [00:48:20] You mentioned…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:48:21] So I want to say this, since we’re right there, that it’s difficult to understand why a trinitarian would be so opposed to oneness thinking because modalism espouses 100 percent the Father, Son, and the Spirit. Absolutely. And as one God, totally not in a trinitarian sense, but absolutely one God. Jesus is Divine. Jesus is God. The Holy Spirit is God. And they’re all one, actually one. And yet they’re so opposed to it that the hatred for it would literally lead a man to burn another man at the stake. I find it. I mean, to…

Ryan French: [00:49:07] To me, I’m just going to make a very controversial statement, maybe not to us, but to many Christians, it’s demonic. It’s rooted in a demonic…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:49:19] Well, you mean to kill someone?

Ryan French: [00:49:22] Well, trinitarian itself is, well, demonically inspired. I mean, when you have a group of people perverting the word of God and then turning into a movement that’s murdering people. To me, that is evidence of it being a demonically inspired theology. And for that to be the hill that, quote-unquote, Christians would be willing to kill people on. Throughout history and then today, for people to be willing to intellectually and culturally kill people to use extreme language…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:50:04] It’s extreme to burn someone at the stake. And then you also have the context that now after the oneness movement has been around here for over 100 years now. So today the trend is what liberalism is doing to say, I don’t believe in all that holiness and baptism in Jesus’ name and moralism, but I accept that they’re genuine Christians. That’s the trend. Yeah. So, your friend, the fellow you were listening to, he’s in the minority because today…

Ryan French: [00:50:41] He’s rejecting that…

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:50:43] He’s rejecting that trend that says, hey, I can accept because the Pentecostal church today, the oneness movement within it is massive. And even Trinitarian Pentecostals are more and more embraced. For example, I’m involved because I have a Ph.D. and I’m involved in lots of things in Pentecostalism. I’m involved with Trinitarians that I totally oppose their theological stance. And yet I’m in academic societies with them trying to get the oneness message in my beliefs and my writings out there. And they’re willing to allow that by not burning me at the stake,

Ryan French: [00:51:26] Not anymore.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:51:27] They’re not anymore that’s the trend. Now, that doesn’t mean there are tons of people that hold to a Trinitarianism. I guess we’d have to wait till the Lord comes to figure out what’s in people’s hearts. But the sad thing is that Calvin didn’t wait, he just went ahead and burned, burned oneness people. That’s what he did.

Ryan French: [00:51:49] Maybe we have someone listening who and I’m sure we do or will maybe they are trinitarians or maybe they’re not sure. And. They’re trying to think through, and I’ve had many sincere people, many sincere, good Christians who when I say this may take it in a condescending way and I don’t mean to be condescending, but what I think of as low information Christians, they don’t really know anything about church history. It’s amazing how many people you meet now. They don’t know anything about church history. They really don’t know their Bible. They might know like for God so loved the world. They might know, John, 3:16 or something like that, but they don’t really know Scripture. And so, they’re trying to very simplistically and sincerely, which, by the way, you know, if you will approach God simplistically and sincerely and you’re truly doing that with a heart to seek after God. You know, I believe the Bible says Jesus himself said seek and you shall find knock on the door, it will open. So that’s a beautiful thing. I’m not criticizing that. But maybe someone’s asking themselves and I even know apostolics who ask themselves this question, what is the difference theologically, and how does it affect our salvation? I always come back to baptism, but if I’m a trinitarian, or if I’m oneness, what does it matter to God? Why would God care how I view it, and I know that’s a big, broad, crazy, strange question loaded with minefields, but what does it matter? That’s really what the middle is asking. What does it matter? Does it ultimately matter if you’re trinitarian or if you’re oneness or…?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:53:35] It must matter. Let’s keep it in the context of our conversation right there. If it mattered enough to a trinitarian to kill a man who didn’t believe it. Then there is an enormous difference in my mind, having been a Trinitarian. And of course, I know a whole lot of oneness people who were trinitarian and there’s lots of them, they get a lot of flak because trinitarians believe that, as you said a moment ago, that if you think that Jesus is God but is not a second person in the Godhead, then you’re not even going to Heaven. That’s how strong they are now, I believe that trinitarianism and oneness doctrine are the same as light and darkness, because trinitarianism is not a biblical message when you say that Jesus is not God himself, but he’s part of God himself. That’s not a biblical message. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega. He’s the totality. He’s not part of the Godhead. He is the Godhead. So in my mind, trinitarianism was the godhead of a Christianity that had lost its way. The oneness doctrine is the godhead of the apostles, so it makes all the difference now, which is why we call ourselves apostolic.

Ryan French: [00:55:06] And so they change baptism. From Jesus’ name baptism to trinity baptism. But that in itself is heresy beyond… This is where I always go, right? Because it’s the easiest one to go to. The greatest flaw or the greatest evil of trinitarianism. Is that it now becomes a changing of the mode, the salvific mode of baptism, where now you are baptizing people in titles instead of in the name and we know that the name is really where the efficacy of baptism comes into play. It’s not the water. It can’t be the water. The Bible tells us that over and over again we’re supposed to be baptized in water. But it’s the calling of the name that is where the power comes from. So, you have trinitarianism that now affects the way you’re baptized, that directly impacts your salvation. And then also in the way that you prayed, because I talked to people all the time who are trinitarian and they’ll say or I’ve talked to people who used to be trinitarian and now they’re oneness and they say, I don’t know how to pray because should I be praying to the Father? Should I be praying to the Son? Should I be praying to the Holy Ghost? So now you’re not fulfilling Scripture and saying whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of Jesus. It affects all of it in a strange way.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:56:48] I agree. So, we’re deep here, we’re tiptoeing into church history, but we’re currently in a very deep theological question when we are thinking about how trinitarian thought and oneness thought are different. But that’s precisely what the church, the church was dealing with, going all the way back. What we’ve done is we’ve pulled ourselves for a moment out of just a theological intellectual conversation into a real practical world. How does this theology practically affect individuals and the tragedy of any false doctrine, just like any error, whether it’s religious or not? Error, always falsehood always has practical, real-world implications that wind up hurting everyday human beings who are seeking after God. This is the great tragedy of error and false doctrine. Of course, Jesus warned us this would happen. I’m always amazed when people act shocked that this could happen because it was so clear he couldn’t have possibly been clearer. You’re going to be persecuted. I think as Americans, though, we’re just so spoiled because we’ve had such a long history of freedom, although I think that’s in jeopardy. We may not get to enjoy that, at least not the way we have for much longer. At the rate, we’re going. What’s on the horizon? Only God knows. Only God’s plan is good. The rest of it is looking darker and darker as we go.

Ryan French: [00:58:57] Quickly. And I know we’ve gone close to an hour here, and I appreciate your time. I really do. We’ve already talked about Michael Servetus. I mean, we could just spend an hour introducing Servetus to people. And I feel bad saying what we’ve said without clarifying more for people. My hope is maybe this will spark people’s interest and some people will go dig deeper.

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:59:22] Yes.

Ryan French: [00:59:23] Sebelius as well, a different era. But in church history, we do know of some oneness or at least medalists who were speaking of these things. Can you mention just some of the common ones that we know of aside from Sebelius, and give just like the quick bullet point information about who those people, those people might be?

Dr. Talmadge French: [00:59:47] Well, there are dozens of oneness… What scholars sometimes call modalists. And the word modalists means that instead of there being multiple persons of God, there is God acting in different modes. So you call that modalism and the trend in modern theology is to think of God in modes. And so Carlebach, for example, spoke of modalism and favorably, but he, of course, still maintained they believed in the trinity. But so all the way back through church history.

Ryan French: [01:00:28] Is it correct to call ourselves modalists? Are we?

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:00:31] Well, I’ve always said there’s nothing wrong with it, but sometimes people are uncomfortable, especially current leaders in the modern oneness movement. I think most oneness people are uncomfortable with that because they don’t know where it came from or they think it came from the enemy or something. The fact of the matter is, modalism is a way of describing anyone who holds to a godhead in which the Father, Son, and the Spirit are in some way modal. And Oneness beliefs hold that Jesus and the Father were just modal differences, that the way in which God revealed himself in the Son was not a different person than the God who revealed himself in the Spirit. That’s what oneness is. So, to me, that modalism is fine. It’s just that some oneness people today are worried that there are forms of modalism we disagree with. So, I don’t have a problem with it. But, you know, that’s just the way it is. And so, for trinitarians to say modalists is helpful because they then realize you’re talking about church history, they typically think of them as modes because the term oneness is a fairly recent term. It’s a term that came to be very popular among former trinitarians that had become modalists and their view of who Jesus was. They saw it as a revelation a Divine revelation that Jesus was the Father in his human form, in the mode of humanity and therefore the son was not another person. It was the Father revealing himself. And this is exactly what Servetus taught. It’s exactly what Sebelius thought.

Ryan French: [01:02:24] Is it overly simplistic theologically, because I always go to the overly simplistic, but is it overly simplistic theologically for me and many others who have done it? To use the analogy that I’m a father and a son. Because people say, how can you be the father and son and I often say to people, I’m a father and a son. I could be multiple things at once but that doesn’t make me multiple people. But in the end, I have a legal name that must be used legally.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:02:57] And we can see that we’re moving now again into a very deeply theological way of understanding, which is important. It’s absolutely essential, but it’s difficult for some people, like, for example, trying to understand trinitarianism, you cannot comprehend. It’s not hard because you would have a father and a son who are both internal and they’re both God, they’re both gods within a God. That’s simply illogical. How can you be? And they’re going how can you…

Ryan French: [01:03:24] Right. How in the world can you both be all-powerful? Right.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:03:28] So but the same is true here when we’re talking about trying to explain modalism. Does it mean that I was a father, and I was a son? And of course, it is true of God. God was both Father and Son. How did that occur? Well, at the same time that he was a Father. He also became the Son. He didn’t quit being the Father when he became the Son. So, any modalism that held to that view I’ve just described. And so, this becomes deeply theological, rather because…

Ryan French: [01:04:03] He overshadows Mary.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:04:05] That’s right. The Father and the Spirit. So, the Spirit is the Father’s spirit. The Son is the Father’s humanity, you see. So, God becomes the Son. God is working in the Spirit. They’re not separate persons as though…

Ryan French: [01:04:22] Well, and even with Jesus you have this kind of interchangeable language where I come from my Father, but then I’m sending it. So even Jesus was kind of using interchangeable language that to me if I was trinitarian, would be extremely confusing because how could Jesus be sending his Spirit? You know, how is that even possible if they’re not the same thing?

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:04:45] So what we’re doing is we’re explaining how the oneness view differs from the trinitarian view. And so when oneness people view, Jesus, they view Jesus as being the revelation of the Father. He is the Father in his human form. He came to earth in Jesus Christ. So, yes. So, when says, for example, we’ll just give one example that this is very important to oneness theology, that Jesus said it’s not my work I’m doing. Yeah, I’m doing the works of the Father. All right. So it’s trinitarianism that can’t account for that. Now they claim they can because they say the Son laid down his deity or something like that.

Ryan French: [01:05:31] Almost every intellectually honest trinitarian that I’ve ever talked to or heard. At some point will get to a place where they say, I believe in the trinity, but it’s inexplicable. I believe in it, but it’s a great mystery that we’ll never fully understand. It’s the great mystery. How does the average trinitarian deal with Jesus saying something like, you know, Philip, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father?

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:06:00] Right now, my contention is they can’t. Now they will appear to be answering it, they’ll give answers. But, you know, you can give answers that aren’t answers. And that’s what trinitarians have to do when you get to the point where you’re talking about the biblical Jesus. He is not saying I’m another person from the Father. He’s not saying that. But they would then argue they said the opposite. How could you be the same person? This is where trinitarian. But when you’re not going back to John 14, where Jesus said, if you’ve seen me, well, you know, that’s not the question you ask. You didn’t ask that one you ask. Yeah, you did. If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen that his response was, if you’ve seen me, how can you ask me?

Ryan French: [01:06:45] Right.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:06:50] So a trinitarian would have to go back to John 10, four chapters earlier where Jesus said, I and the Father are one. And then they would have to argue that one there doesn’t mean one.

Ryan French: [01:07:02] I was just going to say, how could you even go to John…

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:07:08] They have to attempt to build a multiple-person God. That’s still one God, which of course, that in itself is illogical.

Ryan French: [01:07:17] Yes, it’s illogical. Now, this brings me to something I wanted to mention and define for people. We’ve used the word modalist, but then there’s another word people use for oneness people. Apostolic monotheism or monotheistic. So just simple mono meaning one and theistic meaning God. In the Old Testament, one of the great defining characteristics of the Old Testament and the great separator that God gave for the Israelites was the fact that they were a monotheistic people. Israel, the Lord, our God is one in a world at the time where Egypt, they’re worshipping thousands of gods and they have a god for everything. The sun, the moon, the stars, the grass, the bugs. And then you have all of these other pagan nations that are worshipping multiple gods. And then and then God commands. He says, you know, there’s no other God before me. Thou shalt have no other God before me. Do Trinitarians? Now, I’ll just put my belief out there, no matter how offensive it might be, I believe that trinitarians, if you follow their doctrine logically, are polytheists, meaning that they do believe whether they claim it or not, because most of them don’t, but they do essentially wind up worshipping three gods, which to me is an absolute affront to God himself in the sense that God over and over and over commands us to…

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:08:56] Yes.

Ryan French: [01:08:57] …understand that there is one God and that we’re to serve him alone. And when you separate him into three persons or beings now, you have done exactly what God essentially in my mind, what Satan did was he came in and he was able to convolute, quote unquote, Christianity to the point that now you have idolatry in the church.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:09:17] Right.

Ryan French: [01:09:19] But the idol that winds up being worshipped is supposedly the true God. But I know that most trinitarians would not. Am I correct in saying most trinitarians would never claim to be polytheistic? Is that correct? Absolutely. No one would claim not to be monotheistic.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:09:37] They do claim to be. And they and technically they are monotheists now, OK, because they say…

Ryan French: [01:09:43] How?

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:09:44] The reason they can claim it is that they make every effort from Nicaea till now to say that the trinity itself is one God, but existing somehow mysteriously beyond any human comprehension is that the three that are let’s call them the three divines that are in their right persons? Because let’s just not say persons for now that they’re still. It’s so mysterious. It’s incomprehensible. And of course, what they’re actually doing is having to be oneness. They have to start out being oneness. Yeah. In order to end up with three separate persons and they have to go back where they think they have to end up with three separate persons because there was a Father, Son, and a Spirit.

Ryan French: [01:10:37] So this takes me back and I keep coming to this because it’s so incomprehensible to me. So, if you’re claiming to be monotheistic.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:10:46] Right.

Ryan French: [01:10:48] Because most times when you pin them down, they want to say, well, there’s one God. I mean, I hear this all the time. You can hear it in music, in Christian music, popular Christian music written by trinitarians, where you can have a song written by a trinitarian called One God. I mean, there is one right now. It’s a great song. And I often ask myself, how can they write a song like that and then reject oneness. So why if they’re doing that why would you go to John Calvin for example, if he’s starting with and saying I’m monotheistic, why in the world would he attack someone and be angry towards someone who is monotheistic in every sense of the word? Does that make sense?

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:11:38] It makes sense to me. It’s complicated to the average person. We’re sitting here trying to explain why a deeply theological basically leader of one of the largest movements in Christianity murdered another Christian. That’s what we’re trying to explain.

Ryan French: [01:11:56] So that’s impossible. Let’s come to now let’s come to the present.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:12:00] All right.

Ryan French: [01:12:02] The unnamed guy that I can’t think of his name on the podcast, Apologia. How could he spend so much time and people like him? Why would they find it in their hearts so necessary to condemn truly monotheistic people? When yet he himself claims to be monotheistic, how does that jive and are you able to…

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:12:27] This is becoming I mean, very, very few people today take the position. I mean, fewer and fewer. He might could name millions, but very few people today look at oneness people and say you’re damned to hell. It’s not like it was…

Ryan French: [01:12:44] Because of your belief, not like it was at the turn of the last century.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:12:47] Things have changed so drastically. And they would consider that unfortunate because we ought to be condemned. We ought to do just what Calvin did. And this gentleman has to be careful because what he’s wrestling with is and it’s a fear of other monotheists that that upholds. Now, if you are violating Jesus himself and saying he’s not God, then you would have the basis on which to begin to condemn, truly condemn someone. But he believes that his trinitarian understanding of the oneness of God, of the one God blessed, that is so true that my denying it or not believing or accepting it, by the way, there’s tons and tons of trinitarians who do not believe the concepts of the trinity in their minds. They can’t accept that. They somehow just believe that it’s just one God. They cannot make this three person distinction that trinitarians want you to do so among their own people. They do it. More and more, but…

Ryan French: [01:13:55] Which is why I think if you’re not a theologian, someone’s listening who’s not a theologian or philosopher, you’re just, you know, a good person who loves the Lord. We have to try and help these individuals.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:14:03] Yes.

Ryan French: [01:14:07] When I say average, I don’t mean that in the sense that, I mean they may be very above average, but I mean average in the sense of their understanding and exposure to the Bible and theology. We have to help them understand there are real life spiritual consequences when you embrace the false doctrine of the trinity.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:14:18] Yes.

Ryan French: [01:14:20] …and we have to try to show why that is in the sense of baptism, in the sense of how you pray, in the sense of how you’re viewing God and does God care how you view him? Well, of course, he does, because the vast majority of the Bible is God very clearly saying to people, it matters what you believe about me and it matters how you worship me. It matters how you serve me. God doesn’t have the kind of the universal philosophical mindset that the world has embraced today where everything’s fine as long as you’re sincere, as long as you’re…

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:15:05] Well, basically the modern cultural mindset is it doesn’t matter at all what anybody believes, even conservative Christians today, among some of them, there is this notion that, well, in the end, it’s just all going to be just fine. But the consequences for believing that, look where we are in a culture, the culture is completely anti-Christian. America today is in dire straits.

Ryan French: [01:15:31] Yeah. And the question is, did the church begin that or did the world have it and it trickled into the church in a kind of ecumenical universalistic way of thinking, but that’s almost…

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:15:43] Like the chicken…

Ryan French: [01:15:44] Yeah. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s really almost impossible to know.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:15:49] Almost impossible.

Ryan French: [01:15:51] It’s tempting. I think for oneness people, you know, the oneness movement and the tongue talking movement and we won’t even throw holiness in. That’s a whole nother deal. But historically, and when I say historically, I don’t mean going back to Servetus. I mean since the turn of the last century we were very persecuted, lots of persecution, physical persecution, but…

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:16:18] Right.

Ryan French: [01:16:20] …even greater was the cultural persecution, the rejection, the being cast out from society, being marginalized. When you talk to the elders and there’s still elders today who are right here in our church, we have to Sister Cole, whose father founded Tupelo Children’s Mansion, and the stories of him being taken out and beaten within an inch of his life and the scars on his back and all of the things that people went through, the horrific things that we can’t even imagine. And as horrible as that was, and none of us would want to experience that, in many ways, it galvanized the movement. The church is always, I mean, even when you go back to the New Testament, the Church has always galvanized and grown in persecution. And the Church seems to always struggle in times of ease. I think it’s one of the reasons why you see, for example, this summer, we’ll talk about it hopefully soon. You know, your research on the oneness movement in China, you were shocked when you were writing and studying for the book Our God is One, which was first your thesis for your master’s at Wheaton College. And you studied how the preachers and the pastors, how they were I mean, unbelievable physical persecution, not just being thrown in jail. I mean, to be thrown in jail would have almost been a mercy. But the things that they went through beyond just being thrown in jail, the horrific physical things that happened to them in China, and even today, there’s persecution there.

Ryan French: [01:17:58] And yet the church, the oneness apostolic Church, the revival that has been mostly underground, that has just exploded in that nation. You see that repeated in different places around the world where there’s this great massive movement and outpouring of the Holy Ghost and in nations where there’s great persecution. And then you come to America, where we’re really fairly stagnant right now. And I think a lot of that is because of the ease. So, there’s a danger. I’ve spent a lot of time drawing you into a conversation about why do the hard-core trinitarians reject the modalists and or the monotheists. But really, in some ways, I would rather deal with them. Because at least we can have a discussion where we all believe things then the squishy middle, because the squishy middle, the danger of that, we’re and we get comfortable with the squishy middle or I don’t. But many apostolics do because they’re nice to us. Does that make sense? They’re nice to us. Of course, we’re nice to them, but they’re nice to us in the sense that they might say, well, you know, you’re saved. You know, you’re fine. And, you know, I am, too, of course. And there’s really not a major difference. You know, what you believe is great, and what they believe is great. And let’s all just be in this together. Well, that’s very dangerous.

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:19:32] Pulled into the idea that everybody’s just fine is the temptation.

Ryan French: [01:19:38] It is very appealing to the church in this, especially for people who want to avoid persecution at all costs. Or preserve their ease or their assets. We might could say preserve their financial gain,

Dr. Talmadge French: [01:20:01] It reminds me, where it just seems to insert itself in your discussion here, that the last days of Revelation were described to be to ease. Where they simply say, I have need of nothing. And whenever you’re in that area of time, there are always tremendous dangers. And you’re describing.

Ryan French: [01:20:26] Yeah. And I think that I do believe that’s exactly what we are seeing.

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Unmasked (Cogent COVID Thoughts)

Ryan A. French1 Comment

COVID has revealed tons of things, both good and bad, that need to be considered as we move into the future. The following cogent COVID thoughts have been swirling around in my brain for several months. I’m making a conscious effort to only mention things that will be relevant even after the virus itself is gone.

Unmasked: Our Religious Freedoms Are in Jeopardy

2019 seems like the distant past, but somehow, I can vaguely recall certain things that happened way back in the good old pre-COVID days. A particular memory keeps pushing its way to the forefront of my brain; it’s a conversation I overheard between two friends. Friend number one commented about the world’s increasing hostility towards the Church and his concerns about maintaining our freedoms. Friend number two considered this to be the silliest viewpoint a modern Christian could hold. He accused friend number one of nursing a persecution complex. I agreed with friend number one. There was an awkward silence and we all just agreed to disagree.

Today we have churches fighting their state government and the United States government for the right to simply have church. Startling numbers of churches are permanently closing their doors. And, pastors have been fined, harassed, and incarcerated for failing to comply with shutdown mandates. We are seeing the single greatest onslaught against religious freedoms in the history of the United States. COVID unmasked the animosity towards Christianity walking the halls of power at the state and federal levels. The waters are being tested and a stronger wave of discriminatory action towards Christianity is just around the corner.

This unmasking is probably for the best. Maybe it will shake some of us out of our naiveite and call us back to effectual fervent prayer (James 5:16). But one thing is for sure, antichrist spirits are only one pandemic away from stripping us of our freedoms. And for the non-religious folks out there, my freedom to worship won’t be the only freedom taken. They’ll come for something you care about eventually. If you dance with the devil long enough you will get burned.

“…antichrist spirits are only one pandemic away from stripping us of our freedoms.”

I’m not trying to stoke fears or be negative. I believe this is a great opportunity for the Church to reach the world with the Gospel. Jesus said, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid (Matthew 5:14)”. We usually think of this as a challenge to let our light shine as bright as possible, and that’s fine. We say things like don’t hide your light. However, Jesus compared the Church to a city set on a hill that “cannot” be hidden. That word “cannot” is translated into English from two Greek words, ou and dynatai, which means …does not have the ability. We could accurately translate that verse to say, “You are the light of the world. A city placed by God on a hill that does not have the ability to be hidden”. The Church is purposefully designed and carefully crafted by God to be set apart (that’s what holiness means) and brightly shining into the darkness. The true Church can’t hide, blend in, be comfortable in, or conform itself to, the world. So, as the world gets scarier the light of the Church will draw hungry hearts to itself as never before.

The true Church can’t hide, blend in, be comfortable in, or conform itself to, the world.

Unmasked: Christian Hypocrisies

My dad (Dr. Talmadge French) made a comment last night during midweek Bible study that is startlingly true: Many people are more influenced by their TV than by their pastor. Taking that thought even further, I’ve noticed throughout this pandemic how quickly we all allowed government officials to have absolute authority over us. Officials told us to wear masks and we all went out and bought masks. They told us to close businesses and stay home and we did. They told us to stay away from people and we did. They told us not to touch people and we did what they told us to do. They told our kids to stay home from school and learn online and they did (my kids still do). They told sports to shut down and they did. It drastically impacted our dress codes, our vacations, our social lives, our finances, and our education.

“Many people are more influenced by their TV than by their pastor.” -Dr. Talmadge French

Why did we fall in line so quickly? We fell in line (almost universally with a few exceptions) even when the “experts” disagreed. We fell in line even though the facts were (and are) difficult to decipher. We made great personal sacrifices. For some people, it will take them years to recover and some will never fully recover. I believe we did it because we perceived those sacrifices as being a greater good than the pain. We sensed the urgency and we pulled together. Perhaps some operated from raw fear, but even that fear wasn’t pure selfishness, it was born out of concern for others as well.

I’ve watched people faithfully wear masks and stay indoors for months who have never allowed their pastor to have any real influence in their lives. COVID unmasked a barren wasteland of hypocrisy in many professing Christians. They make all types of excuses for why they won’t listen to their pastor: He’s too intrusive, too cautious, too demanding, too blah blah blah. The reality is they are more than willing to comply when they think the stakes are high. They just don’t think biblical issues are that important. They don’t really consider sin as important or judgment as immanent. Furthermore, they do believe in authority they just don’t want godly authority.

Unmasked: A Realistic Path to a One-World Government

Prophecy pundits typically point to nuclear warfare or some type of World War III scenario as the catalyst which will bring the world under one global government (Revelation 13:1-18, Revelation 17:13, Daniel 2:44, Daniel 7:24, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-17). While possible, there wouldn’t be much left to govern after massive nuclear strikes around the world. However, this pandemic unmasked how easy it would be for a full-blown epidemic to usher in a one-world government. I can envision several epidemic scenarios where the people of the world would willingly give up their freedoms without a shot being fired or a bomb being dropped.

I can envision several epidemic scenarios where the people of the world would willingly give up their freedoms without a shot being fired or a bomb being dropped.

Think of the panic if people were dropping dead in the streets of an unknown and incurable virally transmitted disease. What if one government magically had the cure and would only give it to people who surrendered unconditionally to their authority? This virus could be manmade or not, it doesn’t matter because the opportunity for dominance could be leveraged either way. Even now it isn’t hard to imagine a world where individuals would not be allowed to buy or sell without having some kind of chip or government-issued ID proving they are virus-free (Revelation 13:17). COVID revealed a realistic path to the End Times that doesn’t sound like nonsensical conspiracy theories.

It isn’t hard to imagine a world where individuals would not be allowed to buy or sell without having some kind of chip or government-issued ID proving they are virus-free (Revelation 13:17).

COVID revealed a realistic path to the End Times that doesn’t sound like nonsensical conspiracy theories.

Unmasked: Disregard for Localized Pastoral Leadership

In many ways, the foundations of biblical Church government and the United States government are similar. And, that isn’t by accident, the founders modeled the Bible in numerous ways when crafting the Constitution. For example, individual states were originally intended to be autonomous yet governed and united by the Constitution. The federal government was limited and designed to have minimal interference in the affairs of local governments. Similarly, the Early Church was designed to be locally governed by pastors who were united by adherence to the Holy Word of God. Christ remained the head of the Church while bishops only intervened in local church matters when the Word was being disregarded. Biblically sound apostolic organizations follow this paradigm. Pastors are given leeway to govern their local flock as long as they remain doctrinally sound and morally pure. Most decisions are best made by local leadership because they are connected to the specific personalized needs of their congregations.  

So, COVID hit and local pastors were forced to make tough calls without any precedence to lean on. They were deluged with lots of convoluted “facts” being thrown at them from every direction. Some pastors closed down their gatherings and some remain closed. Some waited a little longer than others to close in-person gatherings. A very small number of pastors never closed at all. Some are fighting to reopen. Some did outdoor services, and zoom, and Facebook meetings, and anything else they could do to keep a sense of connectedness. In other words, local pastors did the best they could do for their flocks. They prayed, agonized, sought wise counsel, researched, and listened to the needs of the saints. The average pastor is working harder this year than in most previous years of ministry. They’ve diligently strived to do the right thing for their local assemblies and to please God.

The average pastor is working harder this year than in most previous years of ministry. They’ve diligently strived to do the right thing for their local assemblies and to please God.

Yet, regardless of what decisions local pastors made they were met with unrelenting condemnation at every turn. Facebook “pastors” went completely nuts commenting and criticizing from the comfort of their sideline seats. Pastors clashed with pastors over “right” pandemic protocols. Saints defended their pastor’s decisions by attacking other pastors’ decisions. Or worse, some saints threw their pastor under the bus and sided with a pastor who doesn’t even know their name. I expected worldly cultural commentators to aim their blistering attacks on church leaders, but I admit the infighting took me off guard.

The lack of civility, respect, charity, grace, and dignity in these public disagreements is deeply disturbing. But setting that aside, the complete disregard and disrespect towards localized church government was the real shocker unmasked by COVID. Doesn’t it make sense that local pastors would take different approaches based on the needs and facts on the ground in their community? Wouldn’t we expect different churches to adopt various approaches based on their surroundings? Why would our way be the only way? Looking back, I think every honest pastor wishes they had done at least one thing differently. Zero people had all the right answers in 2020.

It would be helpful moving forward to reestablish the authority of local church leadership in a global, information-saturated world. Anyone with the slightest understanding of ministry understands real-world decisions are complex and vary from place to place. Rarely do cookie-cutter policies work properly in every church. Regardless, lets at least try to recognize in extremely difficult times that no one wants what is best for a local church more than its local pastor. Let’s give them some grace and trust they are seeking God for the flock He entrusted to them.

No one wants what is best for a local church more than its local pastor.

Ep. 73 | Things That Make Us Weary in Well Doing, Good or Gooder (Popeyes vs. Chick-fil-A Sandwich Challenge) with Talmadge French Jr. – Apostolic Voice with Ryan French

Ryan and Talmadge discuss seven things that make Christians weary in well doing from the http://www.ryanafrench.com article 7 Things That Make Us Weary in Well Doing. They offer several ways to keep these common wearisome problems from wearing us down. The guys introduce a new segment called Good or Gooder, where they compare similar foods from competitors and decide which is good and which is gooder. In a nod to Episode 72, they pit the Popeyes chicken sandwich against the Chick-fil-A sandwich. — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/apostolicvoice/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/apostolicvoice/support
  1. Ep. 73 | Things That Make Us Weary in Well Doing, Good or Gooder (Popeyes vs. Chick-fil-A Sandwich Challenge) with Talmadge French Jr.
  2. Ep. 72 | What Can the Church Learn From Chick-fil-A? Ryan Raw & Real! Special Guest Talmadge French Jr.
  3. Ep. 71 | The French Bros. Collaboration with Special Guests Jonathan French & Nathan French
  4. Ep. 70 | Why Pray If God Already Knows? & Twix Popcorn Good, Gross, Great with the French Fam
  5. Ep. 69 | Should Christians & Pastors Be Involved in Politics? with David Tipton (MS District UPCI Superintendent), Pumpkin Oreos Good-Gross-Great with the Brocks, Sister Rachel Cole & French Fam

Related posts:

  1. Oneness Theology, Church History & Where the Church Is Right Now – Podcast Transcript with Dr. Talmadge French
  2. COVID Carnality (The Cause & Cure)
  3. Support Your Local Pastor’s Wife
  4. Connection vs. Carnality – In Student Ministry
  5. COVID-19 (A Christian Manual for Navigating Uncertain Times)
  6. Should Christians Dye Their Hair? (A Biblical Study) | Podcast Edition
  7. Let’s Be Honest – AV Interview with Jeremy Gove
  8. Takeaways from Church Planting (A Walk of Faith) – Podcast Episode 7

The Death of Reverence

Ryan A. French

CAN YOU DEFINE REVERENCE?

While contemplating this article, I conducted an extremely non-scientific, anecdotal experiment. I asked several people from various backgrounds (religious, irreligious, and a few in between) to define the word reverence as best they could without googling it or phoning a friend. As you can imagine, the answers were varied, to say the least: Some were spot on (mostly the extremely religious), others defined reverence as some type of fear (mostly the mildly religious), several people thought reverence was a title for priests or clergy (mostly the irreligious), and a handful didn’t know how to define the word reverence at all. If they were willing to play along, I also asked them to explain the terms sacred, hallowed, consecrated, holy, and inviolable (if you’re like most people, you had to google inviolable). People’s attempts to define these words sorted out pretty much the same way as it did for the word reverence; they were confused, uncertain, or outright wrong in their answers.

THE YOUNG & THE IRRELIGIOUS!

Pollsters, social scientists, and statisticians are super interested in putting us all into nice little categories. In reality, humans are far more complex and less monolithic than we have been led to believe. However, it’s increasingly clear from stats that the elderly are much likelier than younger generations to be religious.

Rest assured, many young adults are extremely religious, but there is an ever-widening gap between the spiritual and the irreligious. Meaning, the “in-betweeners” are disappearing. People are either becoming more religious than ever or joining the growing number of atheists. So, the question is why? Why is this gap ever-widening, and what can be done about it? From the secular perspective, nirvana can be reached by eradicating pesky religious notions. It’s a naive and ludicrous idea.

There is an ever-widening gap between the spiritual and the irreligious. Meaning, the “in-betweeners” are disappearing. People are either becoming more religious than ever or joining the growing number of atheists.

THE MEANINGLESSNESS CONUNDRUM

Douglas Rushkoff is a widely acclaimed media theorist, writer, and university professor. His name might not be familiar to you, but you’ve used phrases he coined. Terms like “viral media” and “social currency” originated with Rushkoff. Some of his thoughts on socialization and technology are fascinating. His theories have silently impacted your life in more ways than one. Rushkoff is one of many vogue atheists who laid the groundwork for secularizing modern young minds. Here’s a famous and particularly nauseating quote from Rushkoff:

“It’s also hard for people to contend with the difficult possibility that we are simply overadvanced fungi and bacteria hurtling through a galaxy in cold, meaningless space. But just because our existence may have arisen unintentionally and without purpose doesn’t preclude meaning or purpose from emerging as a result of our interaction and collaboration. Meaning may not be a precondition for humanity as much as a by-product of it.”

THE MEANINGLESS FALLOUT!

It’s almost painful to read Rushkoff, and countless others like him, trying to deal with the conundrum of meaninglessness that secularism produces. All the pandering platitudes and pointless philosophizing in the world can’t reconcile the awful emptiness that godlessness produces. Rushkoff’s quote reeks of desperation. It’s as if he’s trying to force the square peg of meaning into the circular slot of secularism. To his credit, at least he’s attempting to face the nothingness of secularism. He’s honest enough to admit that his worldview relegates us all to overadvanced fungi and bacteria hurtling through a galaxy in cold, meaningless space. His feeble attempt to insert meaning and purpose into this worldview falls flat on its face. Any intellectually honest person knows that if this trendy shift away from belief in God continues, there will be a catastrophic fallout in the collective human psyche.

All the pandering platitudes and pointless philosophizing in the world can’t reconcile the awful emptiness that godlessness produces.

Any intellectually honest person knows that if this trendy shift away from belief in God continues, there will be a catastrophic fallout in the collective human psyche.

I suspect that much of the world’s woes are precursors to this fallout. Many societal problems are directly linked to the psychological and spiritual disruption that occurs when humans start thinking of themselves as animals. Higher evolved perhaps, but animals, nonetheless. Even worse, what if large swaths of humanity adopt Rushkoff’s view and seriously think of humanity as being little more than bacteria? At least most people like animals, but no one likes or cares for fungi. Certainly, dangerous ideas have real-life consequences.

Many societal problems are directly linked to the psychological and spiritual disruption that occurs when humans start thinking of themselves as animals. Higher evolved perhaps, but animals, nonetheless.

HOW CAN IT FEEL SO WRONG IF THERE’S NO WRONG?

The repercussions of a perceived godless universe are already being felt in big and small ways. I believe the growing suicide rates indicate how a perceived world without eternal purpose affects people mentally. The staggering statistics on mass depression and substance abuse also highlight the failures of secularism. Secular thinkers are perplexed by the dilemma of a wildly advanced civilization filled with unhappy citizens. Our world has more wealth, health, comfort, entertainment, and prosperity than any other generation in civilization’s history. Yet, we are plagued with dissatisfaction, disappointment, and disenfranchisement. Predictably, while society encourages and celebrates freedom from religion, the warm fuzzy feelings quickly fade into a haze of melancholia.

Secular thinkers are perplexed by the dilemma of a wildly advanced civilization filled with unhappy citizens.

Our world has more wealth, health, comfort, entertainment, and prosperity than any other generation in civilization’s history. Yet, we are plagued with dissatisfaction, disappointment, and disenfranchisement.

Take racism, for example, an issue that is currently spotlighted in our nation. Many agnostic millennials are waking up to the shortcomings of their worldview. For instance, without a God, there is no such thing as tangible intrinsic human rights or freedoms. If we weren’t created equally by God and we’re just overadvanced fungi, what makes racism wrong? What makes anything wrong? Why would euthanasia be wrong? Why would suicide be wrong? Why would hatred, bigotry, dislike, or injustice be wrong? The very word injustice implies an intrinsic human right, but humanity doesn’t have inherent rights without God. Without God, the world is just an animalistic fight for survival where only the fittest survive.

Without a God, there is no such thing as tangible intrinsic human rights or freedoms. If we weren’t created equally by God and we’re just overadvanced fungi, what makes racism wrong? What makes anything wrong?

The very word injustice implies an intrinsic human right, but humanity doesn’t have inherent rights without God. Without God, the world is just an animalistic fight for survival where only the fittest survive.

Without God, we’re all just little specks looking for some silly bits of meaning in a vast ocean of nothingness. Try as they might, godless philosophers and thought leaders can’t change that reality because it’s the logical dead end to a series of agonizingly long and twisted veins of faulty philosophies.

Without God, we’re all just little specks looking for meaning in a vast ocean of nothingness. Godless philosophers can’t change that reality because it’s the logical dead end to a series of agonizingly long and twisted veins of philosophy.

INCUBATION, INEBRIATION, INHIBITION, HANGOVER

Like all philosophies (and sins), there’s a kind of early incubation period. During incubation, a new albeit terrible idea basks in the warmth of shiny newness. Of course, there’s nothing new under the sun, but mankind has a gullible tendency to mistake ancient sins for brand new brilliant ideas. The “new” worldview temporarily blooms into an exciting “free” way of life, unshackled by the silliness of past ideologies, morals, standards, or antiquated religious reverences.

Mankind has a gullible tendency to mistake old sins for brand new brilliant ideas. The new worldview temporarily blooms into an exciting free way of life, unshackled by past ideologies, morals, standards, or antiquated religious reverences.

For a long time, the Western Hemisphere has enjoyed the inebriations of heady Rushkoffian philosophies. Secular society has tried hard to create its own brand of morality from nothingness. The inebriation produces predictable inhibitions. They’ve been comfortably intoxicated with the exhilaration of their “new” notions, but for many, the hangover phase is kicking in. The stark realization that most secular “moralities” are poorly imitated holdovers from the Judeo-Christian worldview is unsettling. Morality always unravels without the involvement and recognition of humanity’s Divine Creator.

Morality always unravels without the involvement and recognition of humanity’s Divine Creator.

THE GROWING DIVIDE

There was a time when secularists and Christians agreed that certain things were considered sacred. They treated those things with reverence. For example, most agreed human life was sacred and should be treated with reverence. Most agreed there was something sacred about the innocence of children and that children should be protected. Most agreed freedom and common decencies were sacred. The family was also considered sacred by most of society. But an alarmingly large number of secularists hold their noses in disdain at the very mention of things we used to have in common.

THE DEATH OF REVERENCE

I could fill lots of paragraphs with examples of how society is cheapening the value of human life. The abortion issue alone could fill volumes of books. Certainly, secular society gives lip service to the sanctity of life, but they are increasingly less interested in protecting the lives of those who are in disagreement with their worldview. And, of course, the slow decline of the family unit has been documented for decades. Society can’t even agree to call biological men, men and biological women, women (and supposedly Christians are the science “deniers”). It’s not even socially acceptable to teach children that a family consists of a biological mom and a biological dad who are married. So, how can we expect the family unit (the basic fundamental building block of society) to thrive?

Secular society gives lip service to the sanctity of life, but they are increasingly less interested in protecting the lives of those who are in disagreement with their worldview.

It’s not even socially acceptable to teach children that a family consists of a biological mom and a biological dad who are married. So, how can we expect the family unit (the basic fundamental building block of society) to thrive?

Furthermore, marriage is viewed more and more as antiquated. Admittedly, if marriage isn’t a sacred covenant between a man, a woman, and God, it is pretty ridiculous. Western culture’s respect for marriage’s sanctity bit the dust when gay marriage was legalized and celebrated. To be sure, it was already gasping its last breaths, but it officially died with that legal pronouncement. Culture can’t even define the family properly anymore. Ironically, even morally ambiguous counterfeit Christians got more than they bargained for after supporting the homosexual agenda. Most liberal Christians never dreamed the transgender agenda would be the next culture battle. But if life, family, and marriage aren’t sacred or definable, sexuality isn’t either. Western society had already been pushed down the slippery slope of letting go of holy things. Vast groups of carnal gullible Christians became willing conspirators in the destruction of yet another holy and sacred institution, marriage, and family.

IT ONLY GETS WORSE

Ok. I’ll admit it! I really like to say, I told you so. But this is one situation where I desperately wish my predictions had been wrong. Years ago, on this blog, I predicted that pedophilia would become socially acceptable. My prophecy was met with incredulity, mockery, and dismissiveness. I was called a fear-monger and worse. Atheists told me that children were the last sacred totem. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at that because I’m fully aware of the massive abortion rates. At that time, science was already definitively affirming anti-abortionists’ position, yet secular culture didn’t care at all. So, why would I believe children are any safer out of the womb than in the womb? I didn’t believe it then, and I really don’t believe it now!

A recent TED Talk entitled Why Our Perception of Pedophilia Has to Change is just one of many disgusting examples of how pedophilia is being normalized in culture. Pedophiles are brazenly referring to themselves as Minor Attracted Persons or MAPs. The internet is filled with MAPs going public and beginning their sexual revolution. Much of the so-called scientific research in this area is trending more favorably towards the MAPs community. One recent study (The Internalization of Social Stigma Among Minor-Attracted Persons: Implications for Treatment) reports that 5% of the world’s population might be MAPs. The overwhelming reports of child molestation coupled with the bleak knowledge that most child molestation cases go unreported lend credence to the 5% theory. With that kind of percentage, the societal push for destigmatization will only grow stronger. One day soon, there will be no social stigma for MAPs.

NETFLIX HITS A NEW LOW

As if on cue, while writing this article, Netflix announced the release of a new show called Cuties, where little girls are explicitly sexualized in bizarre and repulsive ways. Girls as young as eleven are scantily dressed and perform sexually provocative dance routines. Children’s hyper-sexualization is hardly a first for the entertainment culture, but it is one of the more unblushingly pro MAPs shows ever released to the general public. It would do us all well to remember how the gay agenda used this same kind of strategy to normalize itself in the public eye. Little by little, shows were littered with overt references and subtle instances of homosexuality. Western culture was predictably desensitized over a relatively short period of time. History is repeating itself, but now innocent children will suffer because of our godless culture (godless churches aren’t helping either, but that’s a different blog for a different day).

DON’T PANIC! PRAY!

Keeping all of this in mind, it’s little wonder secular culture doesn’t value or consider it worthwhile to protect Christians’ religious freedoms or their churches. This long trending cultural shift makes the Church more countercultural than it’s ever been in modern times. I want to quickly look at how the Church should and should not respond to the death of reverence taking place right before our eyes. Of course, it’s easy to feel panicky when the world seems to be in a moral death spiral. But rather than panic, why don’t we commit ourselves to prayer as never before? Prayer will stabilize us and make a difference in the world around us. Prayer isn’t simplistic or naive. It isn’t a lesser course of action than other pursuits. Instead, prayer is the action by which all other actions are judged. Nothing else we do could ever match the importance of praying over our world.

Prayer will stabilize us and make a difference in the world around us. Prayer isn’t simplistic or naive. It isn’t a lesser course of action than other pursuits.

Prayer is the action by which all other actions are judged. Nothing else we do could ever match the importance of praying over our world.

BE SUPER SERIOUS ABOUT SACRED THINGS

In response to society’s drastic shift away from reverence, the Church should contrast itself by intensifying our respect and awe for sacred things. Our gatherings should be filled with a sense of reverence and majesty. I’m not talking about stuffy formalities; however, we must resist the external pressure to approach the things of God flippantly or casually. I’ve long contended our attire is a reflection of our sense of reverence for the house of God. We should oppose societal pressure to approach corporate worship casually in demeanor, clothing, focus, and attention. We must prioritize sacred things above the secular. For example, jobs, relaxation, and entertainment should never be prioritized over the sacred. Even family time shouldn’t be prioritized above sacred things. Family time should always be a major priority, but it should be balanced so the sacred isn’t infringed upon. When Christians consistently prioritize the secular over the sacred, it signifies the impending death of reverence in their hearts.

In response to society’s drastic shift away from reverence, the Church should contrast itself by intensifying our respect and awe for sacred things. Our gatherings should be filled with a sense of reverence and majesty.

We should oppose societal pressure to approach corporate worship casually in demeanor, clothing, focus, and attention. We must prioritize sacred things above the secular.

When Christians consistently prioritize the secular over the sacred, it signifies the impending death of reverence in their hearts.

You don’t have to go back too far in history to remember a time when American culture kept Sunday’s sacred on a national level. Even the irreligious enjoyed the benefits of work-free Sundays. Now, Christians are caught between the need to be in the workplace and the need to keep the Sabbath. But Christens must have the courage to put God first and trust Him to bless their faithfulness. This is an essential area where Christians must win the battle, or we will not stand when more significant battles move to the forefront. If we can’t prioritize God over our finances, how will we prioritize Him over our lives if needed?

BEWARE OF ALPHABET SOUP

Logical fallacies are fake or deceptive arguments that seem irrefutable but prove nothing. Fallacies often seem superficially sound, and far too often, they retain immense persuasive power even after being exposed as false. Alphabet Soup is a fairly modern fallacy where a person or group inappropriately overuses acronyms, abbreviations, form numbers, and arcane insider “shop talk” primarily to prove to people that an individual “speaks their language” and is “one of them.” Secondarily, people use Alphabet Soup to shut out, confuse, condescend, or to impress outsiders. Officially showing someone, they are on the outside looking in. For example, “It’s not uncommon for a KC-113 with ABC to be both GW and YB;” “I had a twenty-minute DX Q-so on 17with a SED-Q12 and a couple of SQ’s even though the QR-JANE was 34 over B10;” or “I hope I’ll keep on seeing my JNT on my HVL until the day I get my WW511.”

You get the picture. Alphabet Soup is a great way to misdirect someone from noticing you don’t actually know what you’re talking about. And, it’s a wonderful way to keep people at arm’s length by intimidating them into assuming you know things you don’t really know. Secularists use this pseudo-intellectual insider jargon all the time to make Christians feel feeble or out of touch. They use made-up phrases and talk about elaborate unprovable theories as if they are cold hard facts. They blather about billions of years and trillions of eons as if they know something with certainty they don’t even understand partially. It’s a condescending, intellectually dishonest way of dominating any form of real debate before it even begins.

Secularists use this pseudo-intellectual insider jargon all the time to make Christians feel feeble or out of touch. They use made-up phrases and talk about elaborate unprovable theories as if they are cold hard facts.

Secularists blather about billions of years and trillions of eons as if they know something with certainty they don’t understand partially. It’s a condescending, intellectually dishonest way of dominating a debate before it even begins.

REFUSE TO BE MARGINALIZED

We must not allow ourselves to be marginalized or bullied into silence. If you know Jesus, you know more than the most highly educated atheist in the world. Refuse to be overlooked because of your faith. Be vocal, confidant, and unashamed.

If you know Jesus, you know more than the most highly educated atheist in the world. Refuse to be overlooked because of your faith. Be vocal, confidant, and unashamed.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Initially, I set out to write an article about irreverent behaviors creeping into everyday Christian life and church services. You know, things like cell phones lit up throughout preaching. And, one of my biggest pet peeves; talking and joking around during altar services. Empty prayer rooms, grungy casual attire, disrespect towards ministry, disrespect towards elders, immodesty, untouched Bibles, and the list goes on. But while pondering these problems, I realized these are just spiritual manifestations of much deeper cultural problems ineluctably bleeding into the Church. Everywhere I look, irreverence seems to be the norm. The dereverencing and dismantling of traditional institutions like faith, family, honesty, and morality are eroding ordinary everyday life. The needed human perceptions of majesty, grandeur, and transcendent supernatural accouterments are sadly lacking even within sincere religious settings. We live in a post-respect, post-truth, post-logic, post-virtue secular society. That secular mindset has imperceptibly influenced unsuspecting Christians.

Everywhere I look, irreverence seems to be the norm. The dereverencing and dismantling of traditional institutions like faith, family, honesty, and morality are eroding ordinary everyday life.

The needed human perceptions of majesty, grandeur, and transcendent supernatural accouterments are sadly lacking even within sincere religious settings.

We live in a post-respect, post-truth, post-logic, post-virtue secular society. That secular mindset has imperceptibly influenced unsuspecting Christians.

How has this happened? Well, mostly through secular educational systems that work to legitimize secular evolutionary philosophies and stigmatize religious viewpoints. No longer can Christians unthinkingly hand their children over to be influenced carte blanche by secular educators from preschool to the end of college. Colleges are especially egregious in their cultural brainwashing efforts. This doesn’t mean we should become anti-education. On the contrary, we should be more educated than ever before. However, we must promote positive educational reforms and demand a seat at the table within educational systems.

Beyond that, Christians have allowed secular media to dominate their time and captivate their thinking for far too long. When the elders abstained from television and movies before television and movies were really all that bad, they had spiritual foresight. In the name of freedom and progress, many Christians engage in grotesquely sacrilegious and immoral viewing regularly. I know pointing out television is antiquated. Television is quickly becoming a thing of the past. But the ever-expanding web of the internet is far more dangerous than television could ever be. Not to mention the sticky world of social media and it’s mostly unknown negative impacts on the human psyche. It would be incredibly naive and foolish for the Church to ignore the vast powers of all media sources to influence, infiltrate, desensitize, destabilize, demoralize, and stigmatize the holy things of God.

Christians have allowed secular media to dominate their time and captivate their thinking for far too long.

In the name of freedom and progress, many Christians engage in grotesquely sacrilegious and immoral viewing regularly.

It would be incredibly naive and foolish for the Church to ignore the vast powers of all media sources to influence, infiltrate, desensitize, destabilize, demoralize, and stigmatize the holy things of God.

But the Church is shaking itself loose of past naivety. We are learning to recognize what reverence looks like when it is dying. It isn’t too late for the Church. The only hope for the world is a sanctified Church calling them to repentance and a supernatural Holy Ghost encounter with God.

“But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer (1 Peter 4:7).”

The only hope for the world is a sanctified Church calling them to repentance and a supernatural Holy Ghost encounter with God.

Related posts:

  1. Buried Alive (The Gospel According to the Bible) – Article + Podcast
  2. Politically Incorrect Prophets (Speaking Truth In an Age of Timidity)
  3. Should Christians Dye Their Hair? (Article + Podcast)
  4. COVID Carnality (The Cause & Cure)
  5. You Can’t Be A Church Leader If…
  6. What About Hell? – Everything You Need to Know (Article + Podcast)
  7. 8 Preacher Traps – That Can Develop Over Time
  8. Mass Killings and the Question of Evil

COVID-19 (A Christian Manual for Navigating Uncertain Times)

Ryan A. French

An unseen microscopic viral enemy is bringing the world economy to its knees and taking lives. Whether you believe the worldwide response has been warranted or irresponsible the impact of COVID-19 is tangible and far reaching. Secular and religious organizations alike have been forced to make difficult choices in these uncertain times. Churches are closing their doors to corporate worship and frantically ramping up live stream capabilities. Even now, we just aren’t sure how long this threat will last.

Because this is all so unprecedented and strange (for modern times) there’s not many resources teaching us how to think or react to the events unfolding around us. Godly saints are especially vulnerable during this time of disconnection between one another and pastoral leadership. Opinions abound, but wisdom and common sense are precious, hard to find commodities. Consider this a starter manual for spiritually navigating these uncertain times. This beginner manual will certainly need to be updated and revised over time, and applied to new and changing situations. However, it’s at least a start as we all prayerfully wait on the Lord.

Gathering Still Matters!

While nobly attempting to remain boldly optimistic, many leaders and saints have overblown the impact of having virtual church. This sends mixed messages to people about the continued need for the Church to gather together for corporate worship on a regular basis. Just because we temporarily can’t have church, doesn’t mean we aren’t desperately in need of having church.

To clarify, I’m all for live streaming and getting the Gospel out with every high-tech or low-tech tool available. However, nothing can, should, or will replace the necessity of the assembling of the Church. Beyond that, live streaming isn’t some sparkling new thing that just materialized because of the Corona pandemic. It’s been around for a long time and it can be a great blessing in certain situations. But, it simply cannot compare to what happens when God’s people get together and unify in faith, fellowship, worship, praise, prayer, preaching, and power.

Yes. The Church is not a building. Yes. The Church should be the Church outside of the building. But everyone stuck at home, watching live streaming in their pajamas while eating Lucky Charms, isn’t exactly an epic unleashing of the Church. It’s great to be positive, but let’s not be silly and trivial about the importance of corporate worship.

Trust Your Pastor In Times of Crisis

I’ll echo what many wise folks have already voiced: Your pastor has never pastored in a pandemic before, and he wants what’s best for the church more than anyone else. Pastors are doing their absolute level best to love, protect, and care for their flocks during this crazy and confusing time. They have to answer to God for the decisions they make during this season. They don’t need Monday morning quarter backs criticizing their every decision.

It’s important to note that God may direct one pastor differently than another pastor. Every church has a different dynamic. If you’ve ever trusted your pastor, trust him during this time. If you’ve ever supported your pastor, support him during this time. Your support means more to him than you can imagine. Either you believe your pastor is a God-called under-shepherd over your life or you don’t. Times of crisis reveal the heart; take inventory of your heart in times of crisis.

Speaking of the Heart

If mass social distancing and quarantines have taught me anything, it’s that we have taken too many luxuries for granted. Other nations struggle with hunger, but we feel majorly distressed if we can’t find our favorite brand of coffee creamer. We are, without a doubt, a spoiled people. We are totally unfamiliar with genuine sacrifice or deprivation.

We take our freedoms for granted, including our religious liberties, because we have been too busy and distracted with luxuries. As a nation, we have trended towards less and less church gatherings, and many Christians casually skip church for silly non-essential reasons.

We Americans make plenty of time for the internet, social media, Netflix, and sports; yet we struggle to find time for prayer and spiritual gatherings. This reveals an American heart problem. We are busy doing everything, except for the things that matter the most. Suddenly, when church buildings are temporarily closed our deep need for spiritual connectedness becomes crystal clear.

Many Christians are learning for the first time that sports are little more than a frivolous distraction from reality. We can and should spend more time with our families. Careers aren’t everything and economies and markets are fickle friends that will betray us without warning. Governments can’t save us or even really protect us from every threat. In other words, uncertain times clarify the things that truly matter in our lives. It gives us perspective. And, hopefully a fresh wellspring of gratitude for God and family is bursting into our national consciousness.

The things we care about most are far more fragile than we realize when the busyness of life jerks us from activity to activity. Maybe, just maybe, God is trying to slow us down long enough to remember to keep the main things the main thing. No. I don’t mean that God sent a COVID-19 plague upon the world. However, I do believe God would have us learn lessons in our crisis moments.

Speaking of Crisis Moments

Many people’s finances are being adversely impacted by the quarantines. Jobs are disappearing at staggering rates. Others are enduring layoffs and having their hours slashed. Businesses and small business owners are going under while others are hanging by a thread. If you aren’t being financially effected, you probably know many people who are being effected right now.

With that said, churches still need supported so they can survive this crisis too. If you still have income (be grateful) and be sure to get your tithes to the storehouse of God. Don’t take a vacation from giving God what is already His. That’s a sure way to lose His blessings over your life.

I’ve heard many reports of churches that are unable to pay their regular bills. Newer churches, and smaller to midsize churches in large numbers are facing financial collapse if things don’t change soon. There’s no government bailout for churches. And the church shouldn’t need a government bailout anyway. Let’s just keep being the Church like they were in the book of Acts. If the Early Church could find a way to faithfully give (without the internet) in the middle of literal physical persecution, we can too.

We Always Do Better Under Pressure

God’s true Church has always thrived under pressure. In fact, we seem to spiritually flourish in tough times and become spiritually anemic in times of ease. That was certainly true of the original book of Acts Church, and we see that same phenomenon in the great revivals and spiritual awakenings throughout history. Tremendous apostolic outpourings of the Holy Ghost were poured out during the Great Depression. Those revivals continued to spread even during the first and second World Wars. History is replete with examples of powerful revivals in crisis seasons and spiritual decline in seasons of prosperity. Just look at the reports from economically depressed, and physically oppressed countries outside of the United States. They have constant miracles, church growth, signs, wonders, and spiritual hunger in those regions. Why? Because the Church thrives under pressure and persecution.

But why does the Church thrive under pressure? And, why does the Church seem to struggle with prosperity? I could get very preachy and talk about how the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10), but it’s deeper than just loving money and stuff too much. That’s just part of the overall problem. I think (and I’m preaching to myself), in times of ease we lean to our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6) rather than leaning on the Lord. We rely on ourselves more and rely on God less. Essentially, we take God for granted without even meaning to do so. But times of crisis push us back into the arms of Christ. Pressure keeps us razor sharp and keenly focused on God. When we run out of options and resources, we come sheepishly back to our Creator for rescue. And, He rescues us because He loves us with a deep love.

This Will Pass

We’ll move from this valley to a mountaintop, and dip back into another valley. There’s a time and a season for everything under the sun (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). Perhaps God will teach some of us how to cry out to Him in our distress and face our fears and faithlessness (Mark 4:37-41). Maybe God will show some of us that we can walk on water and overcome the impossible if we keep our eyes fixed on Him (Matthew 14:22-33). How wonderful would it be if the Church rediscovered the power and importance of prayer meetings like the book of Acts Church (Acts 2:1-2, Acts 4:23-24, Acts 12:5-12, Acts 16:25)? The Church can and will continue to turn the world upside down (Acts 17:6) in the midst of pressure. However, when the pressure passes, let’s keep the lessons and priorities we have learned close to heart.

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