Q&A: Can I confess suicidal thoughts to my pastor? What is provenient grace? Can women teach in church? More.

Hey, welcome to the theology Q&A podcast. I'm Pastor Brian Wolfy there. St. Paul and Jesus

deaf Lutheran Church is an awesome Texas joined with, uh, with by four joined for pastor Andrew

Packer. Uh, good shepherd Lutheran Church Collinsville Illinois pastor Packer. I heard that, uh, you took

a Nazareille vow rumor that you, uh, that's where your head went. I mean, that'd be the conclusion of

the vow, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I took the vow. I want to be able to cut it for ever.

So I finished the vow. That's right. Okay. So it is true confirmed rumor confirmed. Finally,

that's right. I just finished the vow, shaved my head. You got some questions for us. I do.

The first one's on Prevenient Grace. Uh, what do Lutherans believe about so-called Prevenient Grace?

How about you tell me what it is and then I'll tell you what we believe about it. Well,

generally it's understood. Generally, I just said, Prevenient has the idea that it goes before,

right? So it's the grace that goes before that kind of frees your will so you can cooperate,

uh, with God for your salvation. That's a pretty short. I'll tell you what you definitely have to,

we have to protect our will like Fort Knox from this freedom creeping in because it wants to get,

I mean, you got Pelagianism and then you got semi-Pelagianism and then you got partially semi- I mean,

everybody wants to be a free will theologian. Uh, and, and it's dangerous. I think because

we're under the weird, um, illusion that to diminish our will and salvation is to diminish our,

I don't know, how we're created by God. It's to diminish our humanity. But the opposite is actually

the case as we see in so many practical examples is whenever you have a free will theology,

then you go on to prevent to create a will binding institution. Shish. So you get the free will

theology of Rome and then you get Rome, then you get the pope who enslaves men. I mean,

and then you do the same thing with any sort of conversion theology. Is it you like my will is free,

but it has to be manipulated. So I, in fact, on this side of the fall, the highest way to think about

man is according to his bound will, we consider that a man is justified by faith. That means a man

is a sinner who, who is rescued by the grace of God. Okay. So on this specific question,

we want to understand that our will is the object of conversion, not the instrument of conversion.

So, so that God's word and the spirit are working first and the thing that's converted is our will.

So that as St. Augustine says, the Lord makes willing those who are unwilling.

So grace is the efficient cause of conversion of faith, of our willing. It's God's it's God's doing

that we will first. And then once the Lord makes us willing, then our wills cooperate in a very

weak and I suppose limited sense with the continuing grace of God. But that first

moment of of willing and believing must be understood to be the Lord's work. It is the Lord

who works in us to will. And faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. We have to,

we have to hold onto that. So that any, if someone's trying to sneak in the free will through

pre prevenient grace, it's, it, I mean, the very name itself wants to drive a distinction between,

well, to drive a distinction between God's working so that I can will, so that I can be justified,

just that move has to be excluded. It might be helpful if we link to people,

article two of the formula of concord on free will, since it's so helpful in these hours, trying to

find a good summary there, but all of it's so good. It's hard to, it's hard to like pick one part out

of it. You know, of course, they quote Luther on the third article of the creed. I cannot by my own

reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But there does seem to be this

struggle we have. We want to be like, well, no, I can't do that. But if God does this, then I,

I can do all kinds of stuff. But they don't actually mean salvation, right? They're talking about

this idea is that, well, God gives you just enough so that you can do what you weren't able to do,

rather than it's kind of like you're dead. And then you get like partially resuscitated,

and then you can kind of help save yourself, rather than being completely dead and brought all

the way back to life. That seems to be what Peruvian grace is going for. And I understand, like you

said, why they, there's that temptation to want to do that, right? You want to be able to say you

did something. And so God comes along and helps you get there. And then you can take it the rest

of the way. But if you check out the solid declaration, especially free will from our formula of

Concord, which we'll try to put a link to in the description, it's extremely helpful because it

goes in a great detail about this. How it's not just that we're dead and trespasses and sins,

but we're actually rebelling against God. We actually don't want anything to do with God.

Our will is is completely messed up. It doesn't just need help. It needs to, as you said,

it needs to be the object of conversion. So I think it's extremely helpful with that.

We should do a deep dive into into the formula at some point and just kind of walk through it,

because it's so helpful and needful. Is that a word needed? That's the word.

I need for work. And you're right. And it just goes through the script with that.

We have a him with that. That's right. That's right. You wouldn't want to say one thing's needy.

One thing's needed. That's what you said. Okay. Good. So we'll do it. Let's do that. But I think

because the formula, it just quotes the scriptures too. I mean, it's great. And this came up,

I mean, this always comes up in the question. I mean, really, you can divide theology in this way.

You have free will theologians and you have bound will theologians. And we look at Rome,

and we're like, ah, free will theology. We look at the East, we're like, ah, free will theology.

We look at, I mean, Armenianism, ah, free will theology. We look at American evangelicalism,

Revivalized Revivalized Reform Theology, ah, free will theology. We even look at the reform,

like when they reformed, get tricked into talking about Previnian grace, we're like, ah,

now you're free will theology now too. So there's just two. And when we, and here's this thing,

I'm trying to figure out how to articulate, when we become free will theologians, we cease to be

theologians. We become philosophers now. And we're not really doing theology. So the object of

theology is man the sinner and God the forgiver of sins. And so as soon as we cease to speak of man

as sinner, but I mean, that, that's what we say. Our free will is free to sin in all different ways.

But that's all it's free to do. It's not free to serve God and to be righteous and holy.

And we should probably remember that like we had this big fight about this with St. Augustine

and Pelagius and everybody else was fighting St. Augustine. We kind of settled it back then. So

that's great. I always point to Luther in the bottoms of the will. Well, I paraphrase him.

He basically says, look, if you say God is 99.99% responsible for salvation and you and your will

are only 0.001% responsible. So you want to give all the credit to God except for 0.001%.

He says, well, then you still would never know if you did enough, right? You would never know

if your will, if you willed enough. And so you'd always have doubts. And so that one of the things

it robs you from is the assurance of your salvation. If you put it into your will at all, even if it's

that tiny little percentage and you're like, well, but God did most of the work. Luther says, nope,

if God didn't do all of the work, then you're just always going to wonder, did I do enough today?

And so it's either 100% God or not. And that's that's who there's biggest concern in the

bondage of the will, even though he's often I think misunderstood there. It's always the what

comes after. So if it's scripture and the thing that really matters is what is later, what what's

and or grace and while it's the end that matters or faith and it's the end. Now does we could I guess

we could ask this question as we're talking about preventing grace. Could we say that the grace of

God comes to us before that converting gracious act? Well, sure. I mean, this is everything that the

Lord does to us is gracious. The the chief question is in what way is it related to saving faith?

And to that, we have to say that that that saving faith is a work of God in us. And we are passive

in that work. It is it is we are the ones who believe, but that we believe is crafted in us

by God, the Holy Spirit through the word. All right. You're for the next one. Yeah. Yeah.

What kind of question is that? Can women teach in the church? Not only can women teach in the church,

women are commanded to teach in the church. I can't I'm excited to talk about this one. This is

good. All right. Well, here's here's the setup. So I'm not going to read the whole thing,

especially because she doesn't want her her name revealed. So I want to be careful with with this.

But essentially she was asked by her pastor to teach an adult Bible study on Sunday morning where

men were present. So she said no. But her pastor said, look, you've written materials that men can

read. You've you've done some other stuff. And she's talking women and done other stuff. And so she

said, no, I can't do this. There's been president. I think it's appropriate for me to do this.

And so she wants to know where the line is because she's done a bunch of stuff. She's done teaching

before women. She's done teaching before children. She's written some things. But now she feels like

she's being pressured into teaching before men. But that's where she wants to draw the line. So she

wants to know, where's the line? Yes, this is really good. So we so I mentioned that before that

women have the command to teach us, especially this is tightest to these instructions for the older

women to teach the younger women. And it even lists the things that are be taught. It not only

sets up the school, but gives the curriculum, just like the older men are supposed to teach the

younger men. And it also tells them what they're supposed to teach. It's really it's really quite

brilliant. Uh, uh, Reverend behavior. So they sure they should teach the young women to love their

husbands to love their children to be discreet, chased homemakers, good obedient to their own

husbands that the word of God may not be blasphemed. It just probably so happens that most women who

want to teach in the church are wouldn't be so keen in having that as their curriculum.

When you listen, we wait a minute, we have to do that before we start teaching it. And then the

young men are supposed to, especially teach the, the, uh, old men are supposed to teach the young

men to be self-controlled. That has to be taught sober minded and all things, etc. So that there's

a command that is, and this underlines this positive point is that is that every Christian is a

theologian. And we have to continue to come back to that point. Every Christian is called, uh,

to be a theologian, to be a student of the Lord's word and to pass on the Lord's word in our

conversations and vocations that the Lord gives to us. Now what the Lord hasn't, has not given to

women and to most men, but, but all women are excluded from the public teaching office. So, uh,

Paul will write about this in first Corinthians, uh, in Second Timothy, I do not permit a woman to

preach or teach or have authority over a man. So being a part of the preaching office and the public

administration of the word, uh, preached red, etc. And the sacraments distributed is forbidden from,

from all women according to God's clear word. I mean, there's really no way around it. I mean,

even those like when you go back, uh, uh, there's two ways that you get women pastors. One is the

higher critical way that says that either Paul was wrong or it was bound by the patriarchal

culture of his time over those kind of ridiculous arguments to which we say, thank you for confirming

that the word forbids it and also for showing your rejection of the word. Or the other way to get

women pastors is the Pentecostal way, which is to say the external word doesn't matter. All that

matters is the internal call and that overwhelms the word of God. That's just pure enthusiasm. So,

uh, that's how you end up with those two, um, the two ways that you end up with women in the office

and both are bad, bad for the gospel, bad for our confidence in Christ, bad for our reading the Bible,

bad for, for having a good conscience and so forth. So we, so we have to say that that, uh,

exercises the public office is limited to men. Now, can, and here's where we get into some

maybe a gray area. For me, it's not gray at all. For some, it might be. And that is what about

those, uh, instructing in helping ways. In other words, that I can teach but without authority.

And that would be like what we're doing here. You and I are, we're not teaching our congregations.

We're just blasting up the doctrine on the internet and we're doing it in a helpful way. Nobody

is required to listen to us. Um, nobody, in fact, you know, we, we're just here to try to be helpful.

So we're publishing doctrine in a way to be helpful. And that's really what, what scholarship is

and what writing is. It's presenting something helpful and it can be, uh, you can kind of take it or

leave it as, as useful or, and helpful or it's, in other words, it's not authoritative. So I

think writing books is the same way. And I think then it, it becomes, um, if there's women who have

particular knowledge or expertise in particular topics that they, when they write those things down,

they write books, I think that's helpful, especially for other women. But even just theological

reflections on theological texts, uh, these can be helpful also to, to men that you can rejoice in

so that there's a particular, there's a particular feminine way to do theology, which we see in

like the beautiful hymns of, of Hannah and Mary in the scriptures and some of the beautiful hymns

that were written by women in the church. There's a particular beauty to that, that way of doing

theology, but it's presented not from the office. It's presented as something that comes from the

office of a helper, which is the office that the Lord gives to, to Eve, uh, to help Adam. I do,

so I think that the way that this has been outlined in the email is like right on. In other words,

the books are there and presented to the church. And if I am teaching those as a woman that I'm

teaching those to other women, but if I were to stand in church in a Bible class and to teach this

to the men who are there, that's, that's where that, I think that does cross the line. It moves

into the public office. And so I, I think it's really quite beautiful that the, um, the lady who's

written this question has that sensitivity. I think that's, I think she's like a hundred percent

right on at where the line should be. Do you think part of the problem is, um, maybe,

maybe for confessional with her men sometimes is that we hear that women are not to have authority

over men. So we also, then we take that we say, therefore I can never learn anything from a woman.

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? We make that leap. So we're like, well, she can't,

raining that I could actually learn from because she's a woman, which is not the same thing as,

right? We're not, if I wasn't saying you can't learn anything from them or they have nothing of

value to add, it's saying they can't have authority in a particular way in a particular office,

which is very different than saying, well, that just means that as a pastor, I can't learn anything

ever from a woman, you know, even if she's an expert in some topic, like I can't learn from her

because well, she's a woman, there's, she has nothing I could possibly learn. Right. Which is not

what it's saying, but I think we fall into that trap. That's kind of where we, we end up because we

don't want to violate this one thing. And so then kind of like the Pharisees of old, right? We put

our fences around it and we say, well, that means I can't even listen to them talk or hear anything

from them or I can't learn something because then all of a sudden I'm, I'm giving her authority,

but it's like you said, like, when I read a book, there's, I've never, I don't think I've ever

wrote a book where I've been like, out, okay, outside the Bible. And then as a pastor, I found

myself to the confessions, but let's remove those from the discussion. I've never wrote a book and

thought, this author now has authority over me because I'm writing their book. I've never,

I've never thought that. In fact, often I'm marking out my books and like disagreeing and like,

oh, this is great. Oh, what do they mean by this? I think they're wrong on this. I mean, that's

typically how we read, right? And in fact, I think there's something very biblical about that because in

the Bible, hearing, right? Hearing is usually in the context of obedience and listening with the

thought of, oh, obeying, right? You're going to believe in the obey. So you're hearing and seeing

throughout the Bible, like reading is a thing of judgment. So even the moment you give me a text

to read, it is different the way I relate to that's different than just hearing it, especially

vividly speaking, that imagery of like, I'm, I'm now, I'm seeing, I'm looking over it. I am

judging it. So in some sense, I'm putting myself authoritative over it, which is why Luther warns us

when we read the Bible, we're not to do that because that's what we tend to do when we read something.

We put ourselves as judge and Lord over it and we want to decide and Luther says, no,

you've got to place yourself under the scripture. This you're to hear, you're not just to read it

and judge it, you're to hear it and receive it and it's to shape you and judge you. So that's how I

would maybe distinguish those things as well. No, that's really well said. That's so I'm, um,

and we have to do it because the great danger is that we would diminish the theological work that

the Lord has also given to all of the eaves. I mean, this is the point, every Christian is at the

ologian. All men, all women, all children are called to be theologians. And, and the the women should

be learning as much of the scripture and as much of the Bible as absolutely possible. And if the

Lord gives them particular insight, like what in the world would make us so crazy as to say it's

somehow invalid because the Lord has a woman has learned that then, then a man. So we see in the

scripture this beautiful team of Aquila and Priscilla who are instructing Apollo's and it's not like

I mean, this is, this is just how it goes. I mean, Aquila is even, you know, that it's a team,

the two of them, and there's teaching that's going on there so that all the Lord's Christians are

called to to be theologians. And especially when there's a humility of the office so that the

women can recognize, hey, I'm the office is not given to me and I want to be very careful to

extoll the office. But I can be a help to also to the office, even in my theological work, that's

going to, that's going to be very important. That's probably the head covering doctrine, by the way.

I mean, we've talked about head covering. When the Lord would choose some people in that

apostolic time to be prophecies. And so there were women who were in the public office, by the direct

mandate of God, they would still have to wear a head covering to show that they were under the

authority of their husband, even when they were in the public office. Now, that doesn't exist anymore,

that public office of profitus. But, but if, if the brides are being helpful, they're supposed to be

this kind of theological conversation happening all the time, especially in the home, if a wife has,

she calls commands this deal. If a bride has a question, ask her husband at home so that there's

this theological living theological conversation that's happening between husband and wife,

between men and women, it's just, it's part of the way that the Lord has, it wants us to always

be speaking of his word. So don't be, boy, you lady YouTube theologians, you know, keep digging in.

It's not, you're not given the office of public teacher. You are given the office of theologian.

That's what the Lord gives to every single Christian, every Christian is at theologian.

And should make the good confession. I mean, right? And it's right. And a confessor. And it's

just like, you know, some of the greatest martyrs were women and young women. I mean, probably the

greatest martyr of all felicitous and perpetua, perpetua, sheesh. I have been terrible with names

all dated at perpetua and felicitous. And then they're St. Agnes and Agatha Luther's two favorite

martyrs, young women who are confessing the faith boldly to the world, to the world. This is

great. And we're still learning from them today. If you want to check out this stuff on head

covering, you can just search on the channel for head coverings. And you'll see, I think at

least twice, we've discussed it before, at least twice. All right. Next one is on judge not.

What does Jesus mean when he says judge not, lest you be judged. Yeah. She says, oh, sorry.

I keep answering the questions before you ask them. Yes, there's more. There's got more here.

Um, a pastor said that Jesus only meant to take care of one's own sin before helping others with

theirs. My question is, how can we respond when someone cites Jesus in this case to help them know

what Jesus was actually saying? So when someone responds to you, as a Christian says, judge not,

you mean Christian. Uh, how can you help them understand what Jesus is actually saying in this

passage? That's so good. I want to maybe reflect on this a little bit differently than we've done in

the past, because I think we've talked about about this passage, what it means a few times. But,

but maybe to put it in the specific context, if that is being presented to me, what's going on?

Like if someone says, hey, Jesus says judge not lest you be judged. What is, what's the context

in which that comes to me as a command? In other words, it's because that person is judging me

that I am judgey and that I'm bringing a burden on their conscience that they're trying to avoid.

And it is really important for us to recognize not only in ourselves, but also in everyone that we

interact with that most of the time, what we're doing is trying to ease the pain of the conscience.

So the conscience is, it's like people who have chronic back pain and their just their whole life

is trying to figure out how to escape that back pain. We all have chronic heart pain.

We have chronic conscience pain. And almost everyone is going about their lives trying to alleviate

the pain. That's what drugs are doing. That's what alcohol is doing. That's what

that's what Islam and false religions are doing. That's what secularism is doing. That's what

entertainment is doing. It's all numbing, dulling, avoiding, trying to treat falsely that

groaning pain of the conscience that says something's wrong out there and in here, something's wrong.

And that pain is amplified by the word of God. So part of the reason that the law

exists is to point out that pain of the conscience is that it's connected to God.

That that pain is a little reflection of God's standard of right and wrong upon which we're

going to be judged on the judgment day. So the Lord gives us this groaning conscience so that we

can avoid the eternal groan of hell so that we can seek Him while there's still time. So that

there's this kind of painful impulse of humanity. We're all moaning in the conscience looking for

some relief. But here's what happens is when I come along bearing the light of the word of God,

just maybe because I speak it or because it's reflected in my own life or because people know

that I don't approve of that thing. Then what it does is it activates the groaning conscience

and it makes me feel worse. I might not be able to articulate it that way, but that's what's going on.

And I want that to stop. I want that voice of the law to cease so that my conscience doesn't hurt

as bad when you're around me and so and so it shows that groan shows up and being offended by you

and the easiest way to do it is to is to throw this verse at you. In other words, I it's a way of

appeasing my own guilty conscience. Hey, you're not supposed to judge. And if I and if I can get you

to accept whatever particular sin that is that is radiating with with pain in my own conscience,

then that'll that'll help that pain go away a little bit. So that's the internal dynamic

of what's functioning there. Now the point is that and I would like to suggest as a way to approach it

is that if I bring the law to someone just by existing, like I don't know, Pastor Packard,

this probably happens to you, like when you're wandering around in public and like total strangers

will come up to you and say, I know I should go to church more often. I know I should pray more.

I'm like, whoa, I'm Brian, you know what I'm like, but like just like having a collar on is like a

walking conscience activator, you know, and people are like it just sort of pops up into people's

minds like, oh, here's all the things I should be doing different. But you as a Christian have that

effect, especially to the people who know it. Like if there's people who are busy breaking the

six commandment, they know that you don't approve of that. And so just you being around activates

their own conscience and they flare up. Here's the point though, it's not you. It's not you who's

judging them. It's the law of God. You haven't just you haven't like sat down and said, okay,

here's Brian Wolfmuller's rules of right and wrong. I mean, maybe I have done that. But

I do it for the kids, you know, here's the standard, you know, but that's different than God's law.

And what and in some ways, it's like, well, what do you care what I think anyways? Of course,

that doesn't matter. I'm not judging you. I don't have my own kind of standard of what it means

to be righteous according to Wolfmuller. That's not the case. It's God who does it. So your problem

is not with me. Your problem is with God who invented the rules of life and the world and everything

in it. And so if we can if we can step away from the situation in such a way that they can see

that the pain is not originating in me, but the pain is originating in their own conscience.

This is helpful. This is really helpful. And so if someone says, hey, don't judge,

lest you be judged, I think the way to say it is, I think you're right. It's not me. I have no

authority to make a judgment. Jesus is the one who judges. What do you think he thinks?

So like, what's his opinion about this thing that's troubling your conscience? And also if

there's a way for us to say, look, I don't want to trouble your conscience. I happen to know the

only person who can deliver a good conscience. I happen to know the only way that exists in this

universe to a free and joyful conscience. And I want you to have that with me. But the way is not

avoiding the pain. It's not by promoting your own righteousness. It's not by escaping the judgment

by silencing the judgey. There's another way to get a good conscience. And I'll tell you about that.

If there's a way to get into that conversation, that will be that'll bear great fruit.

I have always fun and interesting because I think really what they mean is you have no right to tell

me what's right and wrong, right? Like who are you to say what's right was wrong? And then again,

well, it's not me. It's it's God. But then also I think behind that is you're a Christian you're

just supposed to be nice, right? Which is what they think Jesus means by judge not like just be nice to

me. Just let me do what I want. And it's I've always thought interesting because the very next word

Jesus says after encouraging us if we do approach someone who's in sin to to humble ourselves and to

not be hypocritical, but to confess our own sin. So we can out of love help this person, right?

confront the sin in their life. The very next thing he says is do not give dogs what is holy

and don't throw your pearls before pigs. Let's they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

And then a moment later, he says be wear a false prophets who are actually ravenous wolves,

but come to you and she's closing. Like Jesus uses a lot of like what they would consider judgey

and not nice language in the immediate context. So it cannot mean whatever it means it cannot mean

that Christians are never to call sinful things sinful or they're never to say evil things are evil

or they're never even to call out false teachers or wicked things because Jesus in the immediate

context is saying some really harsh things that these people would not want to read because generally

it's beyond as most people who quote that verse, they haven't actually read the rest of it at all.

Right. The rest of us are blacked out. They've read judge not stop. And like you said, they don't

even realize they're violating that because and if it just means simply what they think it means,

then they can't judge us for judging them. Right. You can't do that. You can't have it both ways.

If it doesn't, if it means you can't judge anyone, then just leave me alone in my judging you.

Like there's no point in you coming and talking to me. Just let it be. But the whole context lays out

Jesus going after false teaching, Jesus going after wickedness, Jesus calling something sinful and evil.

And in fact, it comes right the chapters before the sermon on the mount which give

some very clear direction and judgment concerning what's good and what's right for the Christian

and what's evil and what's wrong. So the whole part of that conversation, the moment they bring it up,

usually it just means they just want you to shut up. Right. And I think your approach about seeing

that their conscience is being bothered and attacking it that way is the way to go because they don't

really care what the text means. Their conscience is burning them and they just want you to stop

talking. What does Paul say? Right. To somewhere their Roma of life. Yeah. To those who are being

saved, but to those who are perishing, we're the aroma of death. Right. We stink. Right. And they

just want to get rid of us because we stink and we're reminding them of sin and death and judgments

until they want us out of the picture. So I think your approach to that's the only way that's

going to help. There might be a way. And so it's good for us. If someone does throw that at us,

it's probably telling us more about them than us. But at least it's so there's there is a danger

that we as Christians come from above rather than from the side or below. And that's what Jesus is

talking about when he says, look, you've got to take the the plank out of your own eye before you go

and try to scrape the speck out of your neighbor's eye. You know, our own sin is amplified in our

perspective and other sins other people sins are diminished. So if someone is using that against us,

that we can receive that as a gift. I mean, those are the words of our Lord Jesus. And so we can pause

and say, am I treating my neighbor's sin? Am I more offended by their sin than by my own sin? Am I

trying to? I mean, this is like the day of atonement stuff where the priest has to offer the blood of a

bull for his own sin and then the blood of a goat for everybody else's sin. In other words,

like my my own sin has to be big. I cannot come at my neighbor who's sinning from a from an arrogant

self-righteous position, but rather from a humble, you know, this old saying that Christianity is

one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. There's a truth to that. So I can say,

I can say, thank you, the Lord for this. I mean, I can let that preach to me even though it's not

the way it's intended and say as a reminder of humility and and there might be a way in like this

to say, if someone says, hey, Jesus says, don't judge, let's you'll be judged. For us to to

immediately receive those words with joy and invite the the person who's quoting them to receive

them with joy to to say to say, wow, you that's so that is so wonderful. Those words of our Lord

Jesus from the sermon on the mount are so precious to me. And I'm so glad that they're precious to you.

That's amazing that you can quote Jesus. Why do those why do those words mean so much to you?

And and now all of a sudden, they have to own the words, right? And the more that they can own

the word of God, the more it'll do the work. In other words, they want to use it as a cliche of

protection. But I'll say, all right, you got to if you're going to quote it, you're going to own it,

you know, and so you can teach me, I'll let you teach me about the sermon on the mount. And I'll

let you teach me about Jesus and his perspective on judgy. And and you might try to give me like

present your nice Christianity against my nice scene Christianity. We'll see and we'll just see how

it goes. But you can, you know, let you can articulate your theological perspective and and hopefully

there'll be something to gain in the conversation there as well. And just watched like minutes before

we started recording a West Huff. I don't know if you're familiar with him, the Canadian

apologist who's been on Joe Rogan. Amazing guy. Great, great apologists if you're listening to this

and haven't checked him out. But he just did a thing on why you should lose arguments about God.

And it's kind of making that point like rather than trying to prove them wrong, right? Step back and

ask them questions to get them thinking. What do you mean by judge not, right? What do you mean we're

saying? What do you think? What do you think? Jesus means when he says that? Who do you think the

Jesus is? Who said that? Right? We often want to defend ourselves and jump in there and like when

an argument's when that's that's not our job. Like we can ask questions to get them thinking

clearly they're already being convicted by something to want to use like you said use those

of protection. So maybe ask them some questions to figure out what's going on and you might get

further than just you know rebuking them or pointing out that they don't understand the passage or

or whatever it might be. Yep, it's great. All right. Another one on baptism. We get a lot of these.

This one's interesting though. So this is when we've actually I feel like we've we've covered

before. However, they want to know just baptism act really actually wash away your sins because

they grew up Methodist went to Penn and Causal Church and now essentially at a non-denominational

Baptist church, right? And so the concept of baptism in the name of their sins is foreign to them.

They always thought accepting Jesus as your Savior and having faith in His death and resurrection

was the cornerstone of our salvation. They also recently learned about the word contrition and

realized that this is what they've always thought repentance was. So here's the thing though,

they say they've watched most of your playlist on baptism from YouTube and still is struggling.

So that's why I put it in here because they've watched the other videos they've searched it out

and they're still struggling with what does it really mean for baptism to wash away their sins?

Yeah. So maybe this is helpful. There are two things in baptism. I mean, there's a lot of things,

but they're chiefly these two things in baptism. There's the water and the word.

The wall, Jesus says it like this in John 3, there's water and the spirit.

Paul says it in Ephesians 5, he cleans Jesus cleans the church by the washing of the water and the

word. So the word, the spirit brings the word, the word has the spirit. And so those two things

are active in baptism. The thing that washes away sin is the word, the spirit. So the water can wash

away the filth of the body, but baptism is a special washing. It's the word that's connected to the

water that brings this promise of the forgiveness of sins. And so it's faith that believes the promise

and has the forgiveness of sins. So this might be helpful because while we are arguing against the

kind of standard evangelicalism that rejects the water and anything outside of us, we want to assert

that no, baptism is water applied to the body in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the

Holy Spirit that it's a true thing that the Lord does and accomplishes. We also are fighting against

the Roman Catholic idea of the ex-Operé operato, of the working of the thing itself as if

it's blessing us apart from faith. And we have to say no, no, no, no, no, it's always through faith

that the Lord brings His promise of the forgiveness of sins. So the Lord delivers that promise

in baptism, that promise of the water and the word that washes away and forgive sins. We have it,

I mean, it's over and over in the Scriptures, whoever believes in His baptisms will be saved.

To rise and have your sins washed away, this is the, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ,

or be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and you'll receive the promise

of the Holy Spirit. And it's for you and for your children and for all who are far off.

Baptism now saves you, preaches Peter. In baptism, we're joined to Christ. In baptism, we're

adopted as the children of God. In baptism, we put on Christ. We're washed by baptism. I mean,

there's so many promises that the Lord gives to baptism, but that's the point is that baptism is

that delivery of the promise. And so that basic dynamic of faith, remember that that faith is that

which receives or clings or holds onto the promise. Faith is the reception of the promise.

Just like works are the way that we keep a command. Faith is the way we keep a promise.

And so baptism saves and forgives because it's in baptism that the Lord delivers this promise.

So maybe that might be helpful to just make that point explicit that baptism doesn't save apart

from faith. But baptism saves because it delivers the promise that faith receives.

I always like to point out, right, name and washing in the Jordan seven times because I think

it's a beautiful picture. It's not technically a baptism, although it kind of is, but it's not

a Trinitarian baptism, not a Christian baptism yet. But right, he goes to the prophet and says,

hey, I've got leprosy. I need to be. I want you to come out and do this big song and dance and

cleanse me. And Elijah doesn't want to get off the couch because he's watching basketball playoff,

which we're going on right now. And he says, sends his servant out to say, hey, tell him to go wash

seven times and namens furious. And it's his servant who's like, dude, if he, if he had told you

do some crazy thing, wouldn't you have done it? Like he just said, wash and be clean because namens

looked at the river and was like, man, the Jordan was kind of gross compared to the rivers. I've

got back home. They're beautiful and pristine. Like, wow, I washed in this stuff. And he says, that's

really all he said, go and wash. So he goes and wash seven times and it says his flesh is just

stored like the flesh of a newborn baby. And of course, throughout the Bible, right, leprosy is a

picture of sin and death. It cuts people off from God. And was it the dirty Jordan water river that

took away leprosy? Of course not. Otherwise, all the leprosy would be there every day, just washing

and having their sin, you know, having their leprosy removed. But it's the word of God, right, attached

with that water that cleansed him, right? He went to the water and it was cleansed because the word

of God was present there with the water. And so I usually like to use that as an example and say,

God's word, right, puts the gifts in the water, right? It's the word of God that puts the gifts in

the water and then your faith that receives those gifts. So I don't have to pit those things

against each other. The other thing I thought about, you mentioned a ton of verses as we're going

through them off the top of your head. When I thought about that maybe given their backgrounds,

because most of these people, most people from that background probably know the song,

what can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus, right? And Peter says,

in 1 Peter 1, not 3 where we often go, but in 1 Peter 1, talks about the sprinkling of the

blood that's been applied to us. Well, where's the blood of Jesus sprinkled on you? Where's

it applied to you in that way? It's your baptism, right? The word of God is applying the blood of

Jesus to you and your baptism. That's that's how you can sing what even that song, right? What can

wash away my sin? That's that's baptismal language, right? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. It's

100% accurate. As long as you understand that it's the word of God who's putting the blood of Jesus,

right? The benefit of the blood of Jesus in the water to wash away your sin. And then that's where it's

at. I found this little article that I wrote years and years ago called baptism big deal. I think,

if you go to wolfmule.co slash baptism big deal, it's this, what's the big deal about baptism?

And it just gathers these passages. And here's my suggestion. It's just to take a look at these

Bible passages that are there and just go and meditate on them. And then at some point you realize,

okay, there's something in my theology that does not want to hold on to these passages that

wants to diminish them or something, but I have to hold on to the word of God. Repent and for the

be baptized for the remission of sins, X 238, wash away your sins, X 22 16. According to his mercy,

he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing the Holy Spirit, Titus 35.

This is key. Who does the washing? Jesus loved the church and gave himself for her that he might

sanctify in cleanser with the washing of the water by the word. This is this, these beautiful

text about baptism. So just let those kind of sink in and see what the Holy Spirit is doing.

That's the, in the gift of baptism. It's not, this is the evangelical constraint because

it wants everything spiritual to be inside of me. And if it's outside of me, then it has to be a work.

It can't be spiritual. And in that way, we cut ourselves off from all of the saving works of God,

including his crucifixion. I mean, and then the external preaching of the word, the absolution

and baptism in the Lord's Supper. These ways that Jesus has instituted to get his promises to us

are now being artificially removed from my theological imagination because of this

gnostic constraint that says that if it's external, it's a work.

You're muted, Pastor Packer. That's my favorite part. It always happens to me.

Especially when I have a cold, and I'm trying not to, not to cough and be loud on the mic.

One of the things that I like to point out is people are struggling with this because

he basically asked, he didn't quite ask it this way, but he basically said,

I thought Jesus saved you're telling me baptism saves. That was kind of part of his question.

And I always like to tell people, like, you can't put them against each other. Jesus saved through

baptism. That's the thing. If you can learn anything from this, Jesus saves through the means of

baptism. We're not saying baptism saves you, therefore Jesus doesn't save you. We're telling you,

Jesus saves you through the means, through the waters of baptism. He's the one doing the work

there, not you. That's the biggest hang up I find with people. They're like, wait a minute,

you can't save baptism saves. Jesus saves. No, I'm saying both because I'm saying Jesus saves you

through baptism. That seems to be the hang up for so many people. If they could get past that,

I think they'd be like, oh, because a lot of them believe Jesus saves through the word,

right? If you ask them, well, the word of God, great. Well, what's baptism? It's the word

plus water. So what's saving you in baptism? It's the word of God. Like, keep just keep going with

that. You have this belief in the words. Let's apply it to where else the word's working.

And then I think maybe we could get them there. And there's a great irony here too.

How do we get to this? That people who say that baptism does not save

make baptism into a work because they've made faith into a work.

And all of the people trying to protect themselves from something else saving them

actually confess or believe that their own decision, that their own commitment, that their own

submission to the word of God, that their own faith is in fact a work. So that in the attempt to

protect Jesus alone saving and faith alone saving, you actually diminish it because you make your

faith into a work and do it. So that idea that if baptism is a work that I'm doing is a little

confession that I've actually added to grace alone and to Christ alone. Yeah, their faith ends

up being in their faith. They don't see it that way, which is again, one of the dangers,

which is why the point you made about it being outside of ourselves is so important.

Because we're not looking inward to our faith, we're looking outward to Jesus and where

promises to be for us. Last question, but I've switched it out because I realize this one,

I think it's more pressing, it's on suicide. It has to do with, can you confess, can you talk to

your pastor, evaluate suicidal thoughts without fear of judgments? It's particularly important,

because I just learned yesterday that we had another brother pastor, LC maskment, suicide

this week. So this question comes up a lot. So I thought I'd bump it up here. So we're going to

answer this one. So with someone who was struggling with suicidal ideation and was tempted by that

way, not be able to confess without getting reported, how does a confessional seal work when someone

is struggling with this in the present, but hadn't been successful in the past? Temptation to

suicide doesn't happen in a vacuum. Would you tell the confessor that temptation to suicide wasn't

a topic that could be discussed or confessed? How would you deal with someone who confessed to

wanting or planning or constantly thinking about suicide? So how can you, how would you address

suicide in private confession? How do you help someone who says they're struggling with suicidal

thoughts? Yeah, great. So the first thing, so we'll maybe start slightly abstract, although that

feels a little bit uncomfortable because this is such a personal question, but I think we'll get

there. So the one of the differences between the Lutheran doctrine and most other doctrines

is our understanding that concupacence is sin. So concupacence is that desire to sin that is corrupting

our own hearts so that we want the wrong things, we desire the wrong things, we plot and plan the

wrong things. Most theologies say that it's not a sin until you act on it. So your sinful thoughts

or your sinful desires are not yet sinful, do not yet deserve guilt until you actually

activate them in your life. The problem is the result of that theology is that there's no forgiveness

to be offered until you've actually done a thing. So if you go and confess to whatever, a person

who just thinks that if you haven't done it, you haven't sin. Boy, I'm thinking about doing this

wicked thing. All they can say is, well, don't, don't do it. Now the Lutheran pastor has two

things to say. He has the law to speak, hey, don't do that. That's dangerous, it's bad, it's harmful

to yourself, to others, to those around you. But also the blood of Jesus extends even to your

wicked desires. So the blood of Jesus covers even all of your own wicked thoughts. That evil thought

of destroying yourself, that wicked darkness that the devil's planted deep down in there,

that the Lord Jesus forgives you for that and sets you free from it, which is a huge thing.

So that the guilt and the shame of those evil thoughts, even if they're not acted upon,

the blood of Jesus can be applied to them. And that's exactly what confession and

absolution is for, for applying the blood of Jesus to our conscience and our heart, these things

that go all the way down there. So this is the first thing that the confessor can do is to apply it.

Now the second thing that the confessor ought to do is to love his neighbor such that when he sees a

real danger of self-harm or self-destruction, that he will do all that is given to him to do to

avoid it, which might even involve, well, like at the least setting up a no-harm contract,

but probably even saying, hey, I can see that you're a little bit beside yourself.

So we need to make sure that there's people who can help you. So can I call the hospital,

can I take you to the hospital, can I get other people involved and so forth and so on?

So that there's a way that the pastor wants to invest himself in the life, in the continued life

of someone and also avoiding sin. So this is the kind of general rubric that has to apply

when someone confesses a plan to sin. So here we distinguish between the desire to sin and the

plan to sin because I can confess, I can repent of a desire to sin. If I confess and repent of a

plan to sin, then I'm giving up that plan. And if someone will not be persuaded from a plan to sin,

then it's not really repentance. Now this might seem like splitting hairs,

but this has to do with someone who comes to the pastor and confesses a plan to like poison the

well, you know, this whole thing. I don't know where wells are and I don't know how to get poisoned.

I mean, I think it's kind of a funny picture. But if someone is confessing a plan to commit

crime and so forth, then that is actually not repentance, right? Like if I'm not turning or being

dissuaded from that plan, I'm not repentant. And then that now comes into the realm of law and

discipline and maybe even kind of action and legal action or whatever. In other words, as a pastor

and a neighbor, I am called to prevent sin from happening. And so if someone can't be dissuaded,

then by reason or by conversation or by the encouragement of the Word of God, then that's why

the Lord has given the sword to the government to dissuade them from committing a particular crime.

So I think those are the different constraints that come to pass in that particular situation.

So if someone is confessing the desire to harm themselves, that is the gospel is applied.

If someone is then confessing the plan to harm themselves, now you engage, you're engaging in

that plan to sin in a completely different way. Thoughts from you, Pastor Parker? Yeah, I would

just add like I would hope anyone listening to this. If you're struggling with those thoughts,

you should go talk to your pastor, go talk to someone, don't try to fight these thoughts on your own.

And don't be worried what your pastor or someone else will think. If you're struggling with this

and you're thinking about it in this way, you need to go talk to someone. I know far too many cases

of people who don't get help and we don't know pastor wants to lose someone to suicide. No pastor

wants to lose one of their members this way or one of friends of members. If you're struggling with

this or if you know someone struggling with this, make sure they're getting help and as much help

as you can. And even in that, it doesn't always go the way we want it to sadly. But like, you know,

we're here because as pastors we want to help you in any way we can and we know your loved ones do too.

So if you're struggling with this stuff, like reach out right away. Don't be afraid to talk about it.

Talk about it. Get your pastor, get others involved to help you.

The devil wants us to think. I mean, there's this extreme isolation that accompanies

self-harm and it's a demonic lie. But all these lies start to go around. So we have to recognize

the voice of the devil that says, well, no one cares. There's no way out. I'm into deep.

There's no help. There is help for you. And it's not only

from the Lord himself, but in the church and in the family that you have, even if it doesn't look

like it, there's help that's there. There's help that's available in your neighborhood. So there's,

I mean, if things are acute 9-1-1 is the here comes help and it might take a little while to get

into the right shape that you need, but it'll you'll get there. There's all sorts of suicide hotlines

which are which are also helpful to call your pastor to know that there there is help there that

this isolating this demonic isolating voice is the devil and it's lying to you.

There's a line in GK Chesterton where he says that suicide is not the murder of the self. It's the

murder murder of the universe. It's the murder of the whole world. It's that ultimate act of despair

that can't see any hope so that we we have to cling even as dim as that light can be sometimes

of the kindness of God, of the resurrection of Jesus, of the forgiveness of sins. I mean,

even when the smiling face of God seems so far away from us, we have to we have to pray that that

the spirit would cause that light to shine like a lamp burning in a in a very dark place.

So we can hold on to that hope so that so that I can culling on to it even with the

even when it feels like I don't have any strength left to know that the Lord is for me and not

against me. He's it might look like he's against me, but but he's promised it and he can't lie.

So we hold on to that hope in the midst of darkness. So we have to recognize the the devil's

pushing us to despair. The devil's pushing pushing us to to isolation and we're we're fighting against

the devil to hold on to that hope and that light in the midst of that dark place.

I don't I think too. I think it's a beautiful way to end.

Whew. Yeah. Like you said, we know people who are struggling with this. You you're not alone.

You're not by yourself. So that's great reason that the Lord has given you a past or neighbors

and and raise that flag up for help and it might take a couple of people might at first. Well,

no one takes me seriously. Raise the flag and let let people be your helper. That's

it's hard for us, but it's in some ways. It's what we're called to do is the sons of Adam and Eve.

Thanks everyone for the questions today. It's great.

He sent them to Wolfmiller.co slash contact. If you have more, happy to happy to see all these

questions, happy to address all these questions. So happy to be part of the conversation.

One announcement we're going to be, oh, maybe two announcements. Well, I don't know if we're

ready for the second one. I'll be at issues, etc. conference this June. If you're interested in that,

I think that's June 11 and 12 and 13th year, 2026. If you're watching before then,

join us in Chicago for that. And then not ready for an announcement yet.

Pastor Packer and I are planning a men's conference in Puerto Rico in November.

We don't have the dates and everything. That'll be really great. So keep an eye out for that.

Wednesday, what not we'll have all those announcements as well. So Wolfmiller.co slash Wednesday

for that newsletter. And we'll put all that stuff out there as well. So thanks, Pastor Packer.

God's peace be with all of you.