Transcript
Speaker: All right, everyone, welcome back to episode four of our Table Talk Recap podcast. I have Shane Finley with me. um Again, if you haven't had chance, go back, listen to the sermon. It'll help you guys with the context of this podcast.
Speaker: So with that, we're going to jump right into it. So Shane, this is going to be ah totally new series. So can you kind of give us a setup of what the series is about and how many weeks this is, what we're talking about, all that stuff?
Speaker: Yeah, we're basically just going through a doctrinal series we're going to do nine weeks going through the doctrinal statement of the FCA churches. um Basically just getting into the details of what we believe about core doctrine.
Speaker: um So, and then in that I'm trying to apply like why it matters in what you believe about these things. Got it. Cool.
Speaker: So we're part of the, we're at EFCA church. We're part of the EFCA. And you said it's not a denomination. It's a, but remind me, is it association you said it was? Association. Yeah. Okay, cool.
Speaker: So tell me a little bit about that. Why are why are, why are we EFCA? Is that a choice that you made? Is that something that was just, are the way the church was explained that a little bit? Well, we were planted by church.
Speaker: group of people who their home church was Mountain Life in Park City and that is an EFCA church. I was not EFCA but when I came to lead the plant That's what they were.
Speaker: There was no. And I read through the doctrinal statement and I actually really liked the doctrinal statement. In fact, what um one thing I like about it is it it doesn't get into a lot of like secondary stuff. So I was way behind that.
Speaker: And so I thought no need to make waves and try to do be someone else, because to me, know, you could get into other aspects of the church structure and all that behind outside of the doctrinal statement.
Speaker: and choose because of that and then end up with bigger problems because of doctrinal issues. so to me, the aligning with a group that doctrinally you know in line with where you're at is is really important.
Speaker: Okay, cool. um remind and Remind me again, so your background, because you've been a pastor. This isn't your first time being a pastor. Remind me what your background was. um And you were you know coming from California.
Speaker: um What were you like used to? is this Was this different? Was this about the same as what you were used to? Yeah, I came from the Christian churches. if you've ever been ah somewhere and you see first Christian church of, ah that is the Christian churches. And just to give you a quick example,
Speaker: Funny thing, um when I first began, I was only a believer for 18 months when I started going to seminary. and geez they And I went to a Christian church seminary, and they started talking about the Christian churches.
Speaker: And I could tell they were deciphering a difference between Christian churches and Baptist and the assembly God, blah, blah, blah. And I literally raised my hand and it was like an auditorium style class.
Speaker: And I go, ah excuse my ignorance, but aren't they all Christian churches? And the whole class died laughing. But um the Christian churches is a little bit like the FCA and it's more of a sisterhood than it is a real tight denomination.
Speaker: um Their big, the big difference would be they believe baptism is essential for salvation and they believe you need to take the Lord's supper every week. Every week. Interesting.
Speaker: Interesting. Cool. As far as like the denominations go, and i mean we could go down a whole rabbit hole talking about all the denominations. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think it helps with different like strengths of believers and different perspectives?
Speaker: Do you feel like the EFCA does a good job? like kind of consulting like I think you said it does a good job consolidating the core um Would you ever consider switching to an actual like different denomination? What are your thoughts on like that whole... there's a huge That's a huge topic to talk about, but what are your thoughts on that as a whole?
Speaker: The only way I would consider switching is if the EFCA became liberal um in their theology. you know If they started... you know saying well you know maybe like the trinity they if they took a different like the modelist modelism view of the trinity or they uh chose to say that you know um ah you know homosexuality is isn't a sin you know things like that they started doing that then i then i might consider leaving the denomination okay that's a good question to talk ah quickly just a little bit about
Speaker: you know you i think you brought up um primary recently, just like we were saying, like you know primary issues. So there's primary issues and secondary issues. Can you give me just a quick explanation? And for everyone like listening to, what's the difference between a primary issue and a secondary issue?
Speaker: And what are their functions? like what what Why do they exist? The primary issue to me is when you and I as believers sit down and we say, hey, to be considered a follower of Jesus, you have to do this.
Speaker: To me, that's a primary issue. um and you have, you know, this this is ancient doctrinal that has has been accepted by the church for 2,000 years.
Speaker: You know, we whether it be um Calvinist or Arminius, they they would still agree on these things, that kind of stuff. So those kinds of things to me,
Speaker: or primary issues or essential issues, you might say. Right. And then secondary issues would be just like I just said, ah predestination versus free will. You where someone lands on that.
Speaker: Got it. That to Things that are important and it might change where who you where you go to church, you know, where you can, you know, commune and have fellowship, but it's not whether or not you're a Christian, like you're not out of the group of believers. Yeah. Yeah. Like but if, for instance, if predestination was ah really important to you,
Speaker: then you'd probably want to go to a church that was going lean into teaching that theology. Although I do think it can also be really good for Christians to go to churches that do have some disagreement with who they are and that challenges them and helps teaches them to be flexible and not get dogmatic on secondary things and that kind thing.
Speaker: Got it. Okay. That's good to know. I think that that phrase primary, secondary gets thrown around a lot. And so would it be fair to say this, this whole sermon series, this is all in primary stuff. This is all when you say doctrinal stuff, is it all primary? Some of this not primary.
Speaker: So I would say it, it's primary leaning into secondary. So i'll I'll give you an example. ah This week we're teaching on the Bible. um Well, the the ESA doctrinal statement is the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Like it's,
Speaker: It's flawless. You know that um I don't think you need to believe exactly that. to be a believer, you know, like, oh, if you started questioning that, like all of a sudden you lost your salvation.
Speaker: um Okay, I see what you're saying. You know, so i would say i believe that and I think that's where we line and I think it's a very slippery slope when we start, you know, at least teaching that those things are not, you know, that the Bible isn't in there, but because it starts you know, making us start going, well, maybe this isn't true. Maybe that isn't true. maybe you know It's kind of a, yeah, no, i totally understand. and Okay.
Speaker: That makes sense. So you're saying if someone was struggling with that and trying to like work through that and that process, they could still be a believer and be, you know, have salvation, so to speak. But, you know, they don't have to hold completely to that if they're in like the process of coming to a point where they would eventually accept Okay. Yep.
Speaker: That's interesting. That's cool. Awesome. um So kind of diving into the sermon, you started off talking about God. And I thought that was really cool is the way that you set that up. And then you started talking about like the accurate picture of God and like who God says, know,
Speaker: like that he, that he describes himself as and then like that, that's like the truth perspective when it comes to truth and like, what's reality, what actually exists, why, know, especially how we feel about God, why do we as humans so easily fall into who we feel about God being our reality? Like that's like who I feel about God. That's, that's my truth.
Speaker: Why do we why we so easily fall into that? Well, the easy answer for me is Right.
Speaker: You know, we're egocentric and prideful and we think it's about us. So it makes sense that then when we think of God, we're going to want him to be the way we want him to be.
Speaker: um So, you know, but I would say really it's kind of deconstructionism has really changed.
Speaker: evolved over the last couple hundred years where people
Speaker: are are choosing not to accept but the bible says about who god is in western culture so we're talking about people not people who even deny faith or deny christ you know it be one thing right a muslim obviously isn't going to use that as their authority they're going to use the quran so but the last 200 years or so we have really started moving where people believe they can say I believe in Jesus. I believe in God.
Speaker: But then I'm going to kind of choose what I want to believe about him. I'm going to kind of make him up how I want him to be. Yeah. When you say deconstructionalism or deconstructioning, explain that because that's a big that's a big topic to unpack. But just like quickly. I'm going to be honest. I shouldn't have said that word because.
Speaker: If someone, you know, if the four people that are listening to this, if one of them really understands deconstructionism, I'm yeah i'm not i'm definitely going to not say it right. I can take a stab at it and not put you on the spot. I can tell you what I think it is.
Speaker: Okay. the number where you don't want to see As far as I know, it's when you start pulling apart your faith and tearing it down because you're just, something doesn't sit right with you, whether it's church hurt or you're having doubts, you pull it apart and then you build it back up into what you think it should be.
Speaker: But again, it's mostly self-centered. It's mostly like I, not self-centered, self, what's the word? Like my thoughts matter the most. Something external for me, like the Bible doesn't matter. What I think about X topic is but off the final authority. And then you kind of build yourself back up like a pillar of something that resembles faith, but it's not like the traditional Christian values or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah, that's how I would say and define it as well. There's probably a more scholarly answer yeah out there. And so really what I think, and I think it's fine to question your faith. I'm definitely a questioner.
Speaker: You know, i write I question the Bible. I question who God is. I question what is 100% truth I have to follow. i mean, you and I have had many of these discussions, but but you need to question it like you have to decide, well, what's the authority I go back to when I question it?
Speaker: You know, and if the Bible, if you choose to say, well, the Bible is no longer my authority. Well, now you're in weird. camp and we yeah We can get into this next week too. This is a big one I'm going talk about this week. So, but now, okay, well now it's all open.
Speaker: So yeah. Anything's off, anything's on or off the table. If it's up to your feelings, what happens? I put this as a question, like as like a side thing, what happens when someone says, God told me X, Y, Z,
Speaker: um What do you do with that? What if it's, I mean, obviously, if it's something that's super like black and white, like God told me to go kill so and so and so and so. Okay, no. But what happens if it's something that's kind of like in a gray area? How do you how do you deal with that?
Speaker: is that Is that trustworthy? Or do you go right to the Bible always? How does that work? Well, first of all, yeah, I mean, I don't think it's not trustworthy. I do think God speaks to people, but it does need to be consistent with Scripture.
Speaker: And then what I would always say is if God told you, you know, make sure it's consistent with Scripture and then get wise counsel.
Speaker: you know, um a wise person has many, has wise counsel, you know? And so get other believers, in fact, go to believers that you might think are further along in their faith than you and and get them to pray about it, get them to help talk about it with you.
Speaker: um And then the other thing I'm very leery of is when someone tells me God told them, But it has more to do with me or someone else than it does with them.
Speaker: um You know, if if God, when when someone tells them God told me and then they tell me something i'm supposed to do, I say, I'll tell you what, why don't you have another conversation with them and tell them to tell me?
Speaker: and this is on Has that happened to you? Is that like a is that like a thing? I've had that at least at least. seven eight times over the years as a pastor yeah goodness that's that's interesting ah that's good that's a good it's a good uh not like you're trying and i and i really don't do it mockingly i do it more like hey you know okay i want to be open to that so i'll i'll be praying about it you tell god to reveal that to me yeah that's interesting that's interesting that i think you're right that that that can happen and that maybe is a pitfall of some of that
Speaker: you're hearing from God, not really about yourself or where you need sanctification or any of that stuff. You're hearing, i should go tell that person they need to fix whatever, or that they to do whatever. And it just happens to line up with my personal interests as well.
Speaker: Yeah. I think God tells me all sorts of things that Tanya needs to do to be a better wife.
Speaker: you you You tell her that. Tell me about that. Just kidding. That's my selfish pride. I'm just, that was a joke. No, that's joke. Joke for those of you who are listening that are offended. So you talk about God in this sermon, you know, a lot. That's like the whole, the whole reason.
Speaker: I got this feeling like of almost, I don't know. I get this like thinking about eternity or things I can't understand of like almost like uncomfortable uncomfortableness. Like, wow, this is so much bigger than me. I can't even wrap my mind around it.
Speaker: Why is it important that our view of God is like that and not that we, Why is it important that we're not worshiping a God that we fully understand? What's the significance of that?
Speaker: Well, if God really is the way he is described in the Bible, then,
Speaker: you know, he's not a created, like, so if God is not a created being that elevated to a certain level, who once had a physical body, or, you know, who somehow,
Speaker: reached a certain point of enlightenment and he figured out how to be God, you know, whatever, all those things. If God isn't that, and he truly is an eternal being who was a creator of all things, regardless of how that was done,
Speaker: who who um is sovereign, who is not limited by time and space, Well, then, first of all, just even those things I just mentioned, I can't fully understand that.
Speaker: yeah um So we either have to have some level of trust and faith that we trust that God is so much bigger than us. or he is limited to our brain.
Speaker: um And if he's limited to our brain, I say all the time, i you've heard me say it, he's not a God I want to worship. Right, yeah. he's just a really good dude, like if Jesus was a good teacher with some good vibes and had some good things. Yeah, I mean, you know, Jim Carrey was able to actually take over the role for a while, then I'm not in. You know what movie I'm going to Yeah, Bruce Almighty or Evan Almighty, whichever one. Yeah, Bruce.
Speaker: Bruce Almighty. Yeah. No, that's a good answer. That makes sense. So... Moving forward into like the end of this next question, kind of talking about God's attributes as a church community, like not like as a whole, like capital C church, like all around, but at Mountain View specifically, do you think we get God right in the way that we think about him as a whole? Do you think that we give him enough adoration respect or do you think we think of him as a buddy? Like, where do you think we're as a generalized congregation? Where do you think we put him?
Speaker: Do we put him in his right place? yeah i know i no way. um But I also have never seen a church I think has it all right. um I know some pastors who think their church has it all right.
Speaker: um sure But just don't there again, if I can't fully understand him, that's not going to be the way it works. What I do think, you know, that going back, this is kind of a leadership thing.
Speaker: um And this does show why, man, quite I'll just be honest, I don't take, there's too many times I am not nearly as um reverent about the position I hold.
Speaker: Because i believe what John Maxwell says, everything rises and falls on leadership. And i believe that about a church. A church almost always has a little bit of the DNA of the pastor and the board, you know, whatever their leadership team is.
Speaker: Yep. and so, because quite frankly, it's there's a little bit of idol worship in that, you know, if we're just being really blunt about the whole thing.
Speaker: Sure. And then, you know, but as leaders, you're going to be passionate about certain things. You're going certain aspects that you care about. So, you know, it it flows out of you more.
Speaker: um And, you know, there's definitely aspects about God that flow out of me more. You know, I am... You know, I am all about God's grace and I'm an evangelist at heart.
Speaker: I want to see, you know, I got in the ministry because when I found Jesus, I wanted want to do whatever it took for me to figure out how to help the most people find Jesus. And everything I read and did said that more people do that at churches on a Sunday morning than any place else.
Speaker: And so I was like, well, I'm in. And so, you know, so I'm going to have that heart more, you know, versus a different pastor who just loves to just sit and study and and just is in all constantly of the sovereignty of God.
Speaker: um And they might not show grace as much, though. You know, they might not be able to sit with the sinner and love them slowly into knew a relationship with Christ. So, you know, I think all churches get it wrong.
Speaker: Right. Okay. No, that was a great answer. And and it's hard to, like I say generalize. It's hard to say how you think everyone in the church feels or the direction of the church totally. Like, I mean, there's going to be different people all over that are going have different thoughts.
Speaker: um That's interesting though. That's good. Yeah. And real quick on that. ability for that I want to say the idol worship thing. That's, that's not much of it. Most of it, honestly, is people want to go to a church where they resonate with the pastor.
Speaker: Right. And so you you attract the people that kind of have that giftedness and that that heart, that passion. So that's that's more of it than the like, oh, we lift up what the pastor thinks, especially in today's culture.
Speaker: No, ah that makes sense. That's cool. Yeah. Cool. um We're kind of getting close to wrapping up. um One more question. I know you'll talk about this next week, but I did want to mention this just because we we were talking about truth.
Speaker: and talking about the Bible specifically, but you mentioned the dangers of taking just small passages the Bible and you can kind of make it say whatever you want it to say versus taking the whole verses in context or multiple verses around the Bible and not just siloing one.
Speaker: Go into that a little bit. Why is that important that you're reading in context? um Aside from like the obvious, like you were just, that it contextual. Well, the the extreme example I give can't remember the verse, um but there's a verse, I think it's in, it's either Paul or Peter, I'm pretty sure, right into one that one of the letters says, there's a a literal verse that says, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
Speaker: That's the whole verse. So if you if you want to take a verse, you say and you can say, oh, there's a philosophy in that. So now that's extreme, right? But,
Speaker: um But, you know, we have to be careful to build ah theology that is taught through the whole of scripture, because if not, we're definitely going, we're still in a so sense building the God we want him to be.
Speaker: Because there's you know there's little parts of the scripture that go this way. There's little parts that lean this way. Because it's explaining this God that is bigger than our brains can understand. and And it's showing this whole you know multifaceted aspects of him.
Speaker: And if people just choose little parts of it, then they're going to just lean completely on that part. Interesting. Okay. that's That's helpful. um Yeah, I'm sure if you really wanted to, you could just try to make any verse say whatever, and you're just going to lean right into whatever makes you the most comfortable person.
Speaker: you're not going to let it speak to you. That being said, what would be, and i and again, I don't want to steal too much from next week talking about the Bible. What's a good way to approach scripture or when you read a verse that maybe you don't agree with and it's tough for you to like swallow. like, what is this even saying? Or I'd,
Speaker: Like I know you internally not supposed to disagree with scripture, but it just, it it gives you like your stomach is churning reading something. What's a good way to go across reading scripture. If you wanted to get full context, if you wanted to kind of understand the full, the full perspective of God's character, I'm thinking about a person that maybe is a newer Christian and they pop their ah book, book opened up to, they pop their Bible open to revelation or something or something that's, you know, Isaiah and it's,
Speaker: I don't understand this. I'm not seeing any, like how this lines up with God or his character. What's, what are some good ways to go about reading the scripture and what are some tools that they could use? I know that wasn't in our questions, but. Yeah, there's a lot there, but on the, if on the, I disagree with this side, I would say,
Speaker: That's why it's important to pray and ask God to give you a heart to understand and to accept his is truth. um And, you know, there's all sorts of things I've disagreed with over the years.
Speaker: and over time, if I keep reading and I keep praying and I keep seeking God, that's actually, the more I've done that, the bigger God gets to me because I get to a place where I'm like,
Speaker: Okay, I don't like that and I don't understand it. um It might even anger me, but I'm not God and he is. And ah and he is more than I'm going to understand.
Speaker: And yet he is self-described as love. So I'm going to trust that even though I don't understand this, it it's who he is and and it's gonna it works out so at some level when it would get bugged you know i would say that now when it comes to i just don't get it and i don't understand it that's why we should be digging deeper you know i mean we should be studying and the word um i would say if you have a bible and it's just a plain bible take the next step and buy a bible with study tools you know um after that step
Speaker: Maybe get one of the online um Bible programs or some in ah inexpensive ones, you know, where you get lots of different commentaries or, you know, start with, you know, some actual book commentaries, you know, but but start, you know, start digging in, start understanding the actual context they were written to and all that.
Speaker: Right. Our commentaries, therere I know at least the ones, i think I have one or two. The one I have specifically talks a lot about context. It's a book on my shelf.
Speaker: can't remember, but it's InterVarsity puts it out, but it's specifically about context. It's not like, know, like specifically about like the Jewish culture and a lot of that stuff. Is that what commentaries mostly are or is there different kinds of commentaries? I'm asking you just leg legitimately as like, I don't even know, to honest.
Speaker: There's definitely different kinds of commentaries and tools. um Some commentaries like, so there's a guy named J. Vernon McGee who did Through the Bible in a Year, Everyday on the Radio. yeah yeah And they released that as commentaries.
Speaker: it's really his ex expository preaching to through the bible verses so you're getting his opinion the john macarthur study bible yes what's that he goes every by every verse all the way through that's yeah he did that he did that every it was on every day for an hour I mean, it's like 70s and 80s.
Speaker: um You find online. um But you know, the John MacArthur Study Bible. Well, guess whose notes that is? Those are John MacArthur's notes. Now, these are going to be context and history in there.
Speaker: Absolutely. but you're also going to get a lot of his opinion. So, you know, there, there, you know how there are Bibles that are more literal, like word for word. And then there are some who are more paraphrased. Like there's a, yeah there's a continuum. Like ESV and NASB are more like literal. And then like NLT. Just like Bibles are more from literal to paraphrase in their translation.
Speaker: There are commentaries who are more context explaining to opinion in their, Okay, that's good to know. That's good to know. yeah maybe So you're saying essentially maybe don't just base your entire theology off of one commentary.
Speaker: and Obviously the Bible is the ultimate authority, but yeah, don't just read one commentary and pretend you have it all. Okay, that's... Yeah, when I prepare my sermons, I always try to read from at least at least two, if not three different perspectives.
Speaker: And you do all this online? Or I mean, I'm guessing you're not... looking Yeah, I use an expensive Bible program called Logos. Oh, yeah. the elite The Elite Bible app. yeah I got to get my hands on that one day. And I i use about 5% of it for all that it does. It's insane. It does everything, yeah. I've heard i've heard good stories about it.
Speaker: Cool. Awesome. Well, I think that rounds us out for the episode. um this was This was fun. I love talking about this stuff. I'm really excited about this series just because... I actually don't know what all the doctrinal statements of the EFCA are, like personally, so I'm excited just to kind of go through each one of those.
Speaker: And this is fun, to be able to kind of get down to the basics of why why we're believing these things, what things we actually believe, et cetera. So cool. yeah Awesome. So for those of you guys listening, Hope you guys are enjoying this.
Speaker: Hope you guys enjoy the series, first of all, that Mountain view is doing, but hopefully this podcast has also been beneficial and fun for you guys to listen to. We're still working through some of the audio bugs and some things. So Shane's on a new microphone. Hopefully that helps with some audio quality and we're just slowly improving this. And hopefully this, as this takes off, it's ah really enjoyable for you guys and beneficial.
Speaker: So awesome. We're going to end the episode. Thanks guys. Bye-bye.
