Participants:
Series Code: RQRA
Program Code: RQRA000022A
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00:01 I don't understand,
00:04 why did this have to happen to me? 00:08 I feel like I just can't make sense of things. 00:12 I need answers. 00:15 Where is God? 00:20 Hello and welcome to Raw Questions, 00:23 Relevant Answers. 00:25 In this program, we take the questions 00:27 that you have sent in 00:28 and we try to look at these answers 00:30 from a biblical perspective. 00:32 My name is Michelle Doucoumes, 00:33 and I'm joined by my co-host Dee Casper and Mark Paden. 00:37 Today, we have some pretty heavy questions 00:41 but they are real questions. 00:42 This is the thing... 00:43 These are the things you have asked, 00:45 and sent in to us, and it's specifically 00:47 about church issues today and how does the church 00:51 deal with some of the major things 00:53 that are going on and major issues. 00:55 This first one comes from 00:58 someone from the state of Illinois, 01:00 a 26-year-old female is asking a big question, 01:03 "How should the church handle involvement by homosexuals 01:07 and LGBTQI+?" 01:11 I think that the first thing that we acknowledge 01:14 as a Seventh-day Adventist Church 01:15 that God's love for humanity 01:17 is indeed that His love for all of humanity. 01:20 It is not dependent upon what one does or doesn't do, 01:23 that His love is unending, He's pursuing every soul 01:26 and places a high value on every soul. 01:27 So I just want to make sure 01:29 that's affirmed first and foremost. 01:30 I think the main question here is the one about involvement. 01:35 In a way that we would deal 01:37 with any other form of leadership, right, 01:39 their expectations of leadership 01:40 in the Seventh-day Adventist Church 01:42 or as there is with any church that their lifestyle should be 01:44 in harmony with what we believe are biblical teachings. 01:47 That can go for alcoholism, that can go for spouse abuse, 01:50 that can go for any other situation. 01:54 This lifestyle is no different in that sense 01:56 that we have taken the position as a church 01:59 that for to serve in leadership roles, 02:02 again, it's no different. 02:04 We can't really in good conscience 02:05 have that take place. 02:07 But that does not exclude someone 02:09 from attending a Seventh-day Adventist Church, 02:11 from having fellowship with Seventh-day Adventists. 02:14 That's not an issue, 02:15 and never has been in that sense and shouldn't be. 02:18 You know, to the other thing that I would say to that is, 02:21 you know, as a people, we have made the Bible 02:25 the rule of faith in practice, you know, 02:27 that's why we worship on the seventh day 02:30 because the Bible says that. 02:32 That's why we live in accordance 02:34 with all the other principles of the Bible. 02:36 And so, especially, in leadership 02:40 to fulfill those leadership positions, 02:43 we have selected people 02:44 who exemplify biblical principles 02:46 in all aspects of life. 02:48 In the New Testament, 02:49 there are lists of characteristic traits 02:52 that leaders need to have. 02:54 They need to not be sleeping around 02:56 with a bunch of other women. 02:58 They need to, you know, 03:00 have good family, good families, 03:03 and just all these other characteristics 03:05 that make them good people who obey the Word of God. 03:09 And so because of that, it just, you know, 03:12 it puts certain limitations on who can serve 03:15 in leadership roles. 03:17 And I think the difference that we talked about before 03:20 backstage was that someone 03:22 who is actively practicing a lifestyle 03:24 and someone who wrestles 03:26 with different forms of attraction internally, 03:29 those are two different scenarios, 03:30 those are two different situations. 03:31 In the same way that maybe someone was 03:33 a former alcoholic 03:34 and they're still tempted to want alcohol 03:36 but they don't partake of alcohol. 03:38 That's a whole another scenario altogether. 03:40 I just want to make sure that's clear as well that 03:42 we're talking about actively practicing individuals 03:45 in a particular lifestyle. 03:46 Big, big difference. 03:47 Yeah. Yeah. 03:49 You know, these are things that 03:51 people need to individually study out. 03:53 Yeah. 03:54 As far... 03:55 There's a lot going on in our world today 03:57 regarding this topic 03:59 and in the church with the biblical perspective, 04:03 we have to grapple with these things too 04:05 and we're not always going to do it correctly. 04:07 Right. And that's the sad part. 04:08 And sometimes we as a church have made people feel less than 04:13 or like this lifestyle separated them 04:16 from being as good as other people, 04:18 and that's not the intent, and if you've been there, 04:21 you have friends that have been there, 04:23 then my prayer is that you'll accept an apology 04:28 for how we as a church 04:29 sometimes have not treated things 04:30 the way that we should have. 04:32 Right. 04:33 I have a friend once who was, at that time, 04:35 practicing homosexual, and told the pastor, and said, 04:37 "Hey, I just want you to know this about me." 04:40 And the pastor said, "You know what, 04:41 just go have a seat with the other sinners." 04:44 And there's something to that I feel, 04:46 the fact that we are all sinners, in need of grace, 04:49 no matter what we're dealing with, 04:50 no matter what our views are on different things, 04:53 we all need Jesus. 04:55 And while the church has to deal with leadership 04:57 and think about that, that we should be a place 05:01 that is safe for anyone 05:02 to be able to come and feel welcome. 05:04 One hundred percent. Absolutely. 05:06 We have another question, another big one. 05:10 This is from a 25-year-old female 05:11 here in the United States, 05:13 and it says, "There seems to be too much separation, 05:15 both racially and spiritually in church leadership, 05:20 and not much cooperation. 05:21 Why does there have to be so much separation, 05:24 when we're supposed to be working together 05:27 to spread the word? 05:29 And just to preface this, she is right. 05:32 There have been separations in our church. 05:35 We as humans tend to separate into different camps over 05:39 who knows what issues. 05:40 And even racially, going way back to the Civil War era, 05:45 the church had to struggle with how to deal with a country 05:48 that was very separated and segregated. 05:51 And some of those things come down 05:53 and have their effects even to today. 05:55 Yeah. 05:57 So how do we deal with this? 05:58 Well, I think that the first thing is 06:00 we as a Seventh-day Adventist Church 06:01 have always had a drive and ambition for mission 06:03 and regardless of what situation 06:05 one may find themselves 06:06 in regarding the layout corporately of the church 06:08 in a general region, 06:10 mission is still our responsibility 06:12 and we don't have to stop that while working 06:14 with the other situation to find a reasonable solution. 06:17 So I don't think that that's a non issue 06:19 in that sense in my eyes, in the sense that yes, 06:21 we should focus on mission, of course, 06:23 we affirm that and we are working 06:26 on focusing on mission. 06:27 But while we work through other difficult issues, 06:30 that can still be going on. 06:31 I just wanted to start with that, but go ahead. 06:32 Sure. 06:34 You know, here's another thing too. 06:36 As human beings, 06:39 we have problems with differences. 06:40 Yes. 06:41 And we make differences sometimes on dumb things 06:43 and sometimes on important things. 06:46 And if you even look 06:48 at the disciples all through the gospels, 06:49 I mean they're constantly bickering back and forth 06:51 who's the greatest, "I'm better than you, 06:53 you're better than me," all this stuff, right? 06:55 They were from different classes, 06:57 different political ideologies within their times. 07:02 And so they had those differences. 07:03 But, you know, the beautiful thing 07:06 of the gospels is the Book of Acts 1, 07:09 you know, where all of these disciples, 07:11 they came together and they prayed. 07:14 Wow. 07:15 I don't want to miss the significance of that, 07:17 they came together and they prayed. 07:20 Confessed their differences and resolved their differences. 07:22 Yes. Yes. 07:24 They didn't just get together 07:26 and bicker with one another about their differences, 07:30 they prayed and sought the Holy Spirit to help them. 07:33 And I want to submit that 07:35 until we come together to do that, 07:39 we're going to be dealing with these differences. 07:41 Yes. 07:42 And it's only going to take a supernatural occurrence 07:45 and divine wisdom to know 07:47 how to work through this situation 07:49 that's regionally unique to the North American division 07:51 as far as two different conferences 07:54 on how do we make these conferences merge 07:56 while at the same time 07:57 being a globally diverse movement. 07:59 It's this unique situation to know 08:01 how to kind of work through in that sense. 08:02 It is not that we have... 08:05 We are very diverse movement and we have diverse leadership 08:09 even in our global world church, 08:11 but we also have an elephant in the room 08:12 that we're working on what do we do, 08:15 and I think that we need to be praying for leadership 08:17 in the Seventh-day Adventist Church 08:19 because it's not an easy situation. 08:20 No. 08:22 There is no easy, 08:23 flip this switch and it's fixed, 08:24 it's not like that at all, 08:26 and we need divine wisdom from heaven 08:28 to know how to go forward about that and it's true. 08:31 I like how you guys bring that out, 08:33 it's not as much just one issue or the other issue, 08:37 it's that we have a lot in human natures 08:39 that get in the way without the Holy Spirit subduing us. 08:42 Yes. 08:43 And there nasty racism happens in the church, 08:48 it shouldn't happen. 08:50 Yes. 08:51 Nasty hypocrisy and backbiting happen in the church 08:54 and it shouldn't happen. 08:56 But what do we do about it? 08:58 And I want to... 08:59 This is another question, it's related to the same thing, 09:01 a female, age 28 in Washington is asking, 09:04 "How do we seek unity in our diversity?" 09:07 And maybe that's a huge thing to talk about some more, 09:11 knowing that we have some problems, what do we do? 09:14 I think that is the issue. 09:16 In these two first questions 09:18 is this principle of unity in diversity, 09:19 do you want to go to that first? 09:21 Yeah, I just wanted to mention one thing 09:24 to define our terms first. 09:26 You know, there's two kinds of diversity. 09:29 There's diversity in which, you know... 09:33 There's diversity on little things that, 09:35 you know, I can like the color green, 09:37 you might like the color blue, right? 09:40 Neither one is better than the other, it's just diverse. 09:43 There's other things where it's, you know, 09:44 biblical truth. 09:46 When biblical truth is involved, 09:48 then diversity takes on a different meaning. 09:50 But when we're talking about race relations 09:52 or different things like this, 09:54 diversity is something very beautiful. 09:57 So in this thing that we're talking about now, 10:00 unity in diversity, how can we find unity 10:03 within our diversity in that sense. 10:05 I think one of the things that has fueled this problem 10:08 in both of the first two questions more than anything 10:10 is the media narrative that we're absorbing 10:13 as Christians and it's unfortunate. 10:15 Because many of us are absorbing a narrative 10:17 from the world, 10:19 not coming from a Seventh-day Adventist worldview 10:20 or just a Christian worldview, 10:22 and we're consuming far too much media 10:25 from the left or the right, 10:26 and that is causing us to adopt positions emotionally, 10:30 that there is a form of dissonance many times 10:33 because neither one of these camps politically 10:35 are fully endorsing a biblical position 10:37 in all the ways that they ought. 10:39 And so we end up finding ourselves bickering back 10:41 and forth based upon a news narrative, 10:43 or something we're reading on social media, 10:44 or the current hot topics. 10:46 Not based upon what the Word of God says 10:48 and it's certainly not being done 10:49 in the Spirit of the Word of God. 10:51 And this is a thing that's discouraging 10:52 to a lot of our young people is they see this vitriol 10:56 from people in the same movement 10:57 who are claiming to be on the same team, 10:59 who feel that, I can't talk to them, 11:01 we don't agree with them, we don't read their articles, 11:04 and we've missed a blessing because we are all Christians, 11:07 we're seeking to advance the mission, 11:09 as our second question asked, 11:11 and if that's actually the case, 11:12 we should be finding as many ways 11:13 to work together as possible, 11:15 not to marginalize and separate as possible, 11:18 and it's causing hardship, 11:19 and it's causing young people to want nothing 11:21 to do with our movement 11:22 because they see this petty, childish spirit 11:25 from people who are claiming to be Christian. 11:28 And so I think we need to make sure that our spirit 11:31 and our beliefs come from something that would be 11:33 adequately reflecting Jesus. 11:35 Amen. 11:36 And, you know, Mark, what you said was, yeah, 11:39 there are things where it's biblical principles 11:42 that we may not be able to just say, 11:44 "Oh, it doesn't matter, let's all just come together." 11:46 Right. 11:47 But in those cases, even then, 11:49 do we do it in the right spirit? 11:51 Do we do it in the spirit of really loving and caring, 11:53 and trying to seeing someone else's point of view? 11:55 Yeah. 11:57 And then in the things that there are a lot of things 11:59 maybe we don't need to die on that hill, so to speak, 12:02 and we should come together for a purpose. 12:05 Something that's impacted me 12:06 interestingly on this topic of unity 12:08 is the story of the Tower of Babel, like what is that. 12:11 Yeah. 12:12 Well, here's a people that came together 12:15 unfortunately for a wicked purpose, 12:17 they were trying to defy God 12:19 and build this tower up to heaven. 12:21 But the Lord says in verse 6 of Genesis 11, 12:23 "Indeed the people are one, they have one language, 12:26 this is what they begin to do, 12:27 now nothing that they proposed to do 12:30 will be withheld from them." 12:32 They were so unified that if you know the story, 12:35 God had to come down and actually split them up, 12:38 confuse their languages, otherwise He said, 12:41 "Nothing would be withheld from them." 12:42 And I long for that day when our church comes together 12:45 in the way for a good cause that nothing would be withheld 12:50 because we care about God's cause 12:52 and are so dedicated to that that other things 12:54 don't matter as much anymore. 12:56 I think it's a phenomenal point 12:57 because unity is not the goal per se, 13:01 let me explain myself, 13:02 just because people are unified in idea 13:04 does not mean they are unified with the Word of God 13:06 and its principles. 13:07 Yes. 13:08 So our burden is to be unified within the Word of God. 13:11 They were of one accord in the Book of Acts, 13:13 they were of one accord in the Tower of Babel 13:14 but there's... 13:16 And this is a crazy thing, in Acts 7, the people... 13:20 The religious leadership were in one accord 13:22 when they stoned Stephen, the Man of God. 13:23 Mercy. 13:25 So there's two one accords even in the Book of Acts 13:26 but is it led by the Spirit of God, 13:28 and is it uplift the loveliness of Jesus, 13:31 and how it's carried forward, and if it doesn't, 13:33 then just because you have one accord 13:34 or you are unified 13:36 does not mean that you're on God's side. 13:37 Right. 13:39 And so we need to be searching our own hearts 13:40 just because we may have some sense of agreement 13:42 with other people 13:43 is that what God wants in harmony with His Word. 13:45 Yeah. Yeah. 13:47 Well, thank you all for watching today, 13:50 and these are big topics. 13:52 They are topics with not easy answers, 13:54 but our prayer is that we can come together, 13:57 that you would go to your church leadership, 14:00 pray for them, labor with them, 14:02 and that God would use us together 14:04 for His purposes in the world. 14:06 Thank you for watching. 14:07 Send your questions in, RQRA3ABN on Facebook. 14:11 Good-bye. |
Revised 2018-09-17