Behind The Pulpit

Beware the Snare

• Millington Baptist Church • Season 3 • Episode 38

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Pastor Bob is back! After a whirlwind trip to Colorado filled with board meetings, whitewater rafting, and a little In-N-Out Burger, Bob returns to the mic with fresh insights—and a fresh shirt. In this packed episode, the team dives into the spiritual significance of contentment and the deceptive pull of wealth, unpacking 1 Timothy 6 and its relevance in our consumer-driven world.

They also explore the hot-button topic of current events in light of biblical prophecy, offering a balanced and thoughtful take on Ezekiel 38, Israel, and end-times speculation. Plus: a new book war showdown, commentary on socialism in NYC politics, and a light-hearted challenge to beware the snare of daily cravings (like that third Barrister coffee).

With plenty of laughs, deep theology, and practical wisdom, this episode will both challenge and encourage you. Oh—and you’ll want to stick around for a fiery Theology Sprint tackling gambling vs. investing, and two big church announcements, including a ballpark night you won’t want to miss.

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:58 Pastor Bob Trip Recap
8:00 In The News
15:41 Chart Sightings: What is Israel?
23:45 In The News Continued
28:59 The Great Book War
37:36 Sermon Recap
52:24 Theology Sprint
1:00:40 Church Body Life






Music Credit:
ZDQKW7GSXHGKGFAU

Bob:

Please begin that way.

Dave:

Hey everybody, welcome to our podcast. It is the end of June. We are in the hot days of the summer in New Jersey. Hope you're drinking your water. Hope that you are using some sunscreen and enjoying the fun days of the warmth. In speaking of having fun and getting away, finally, after two podcasts without your favorite host, the one and only Robert Erbig IV is back with us. So welcome back. back to Pastor Bob with the new shirt. Notice the

Bob:

swag. I'm here. I was gone. The W. I come back with a new wardrobe for my trip. Do tell. What does the W stand for, my friend? So, I was in Colorado for eight days, and I was asked to consider being on the board for our mission organization, WorldVenture. And that's what the shirt is here. The W. is the not Wonder Woman, not Wonder Bread, but WorldVenture right here is their logo. So I was out for meetings for that and got voted on, so I'm officially a member at large on the board. And my hat here is from Noah's Ark Whitewater Rafting Company in Buena Vista, Colorado. So I added a little bit of vacation where I took my oldest daughter and we went whitewater rafting. out there, and it was quite the experience. There you go. There's a picture of us. Pastor Dave, feast your eyes on that. What would you say was the level of difficulty here in your trip? Does it have

Dave:

rankings?

Bob:

They do have rankings. I'm glad you asked. I did not get a chart, but they rank the rapids anywhere from two to five. Five is actually unraftable, but really two to four is what you're looking at for rapids. I guess they add ones in there, but that's not really very much. That right there was, I believe, a three plus right there. So that was the biggest rapid we went through on the trip. And you can see me paddling. My daughter was nervous at the beginning. But then once we actually got in the rapid, she was very happy. She does not look nervous at all. No, she was super excited about this one. Yeah. You, on the other hand, look a little serious. Well, being on the outside, you get jolted around a little bit. And it's cold, man. You got to wear some gear because that water is kind of rigid. It was like in the 50s. But that was nice because in Denver it was equally hot. It was about 100 degrees for most of the days that I was there. Oh, a heat wave was over there too, huh? It was. Now, it's a dry heat. It's not quite as humid as over here, but in the mountains it was like 80 degrees and that was good.

Dave:

Well, welcome back and congratulations on your appointment to the board. For those of you who may not know, we serve as an associated member with Venture Church Network and we have an international organization that we partner with and a domestic organization that we partner with. The International Foreign Missions Society, formerly known as the Conservative Baptist Foreign Missions Society.

Bob:

Conservative Baptist Foreign Missions Society. It's now

Dave:

called WorldVenture.

Bob:

That's right.

Dave:

And Bob is in

Bob:

charge. So

Dave:

look out, world.

Bob:

I don't know. Do you want to see? I do have other pictures. I know Tim was going to drop them in later from the whole trip if you want to hear about it. Tell me, what else did you guys do besides rapid... The Rapids was like at the end, but we got there. I flew out of Newark on Sunday the 15th, and I actually got to Denver early. I was there 30 minutes early, which was kind of crazy. I was nervous about my flight, hearing about all the Newark stuff leading up to it. But yeah, the first day we did a little bit of hiking. There should be a picture of Jen and I up at Mount Falcon Park just outside of Denver. We did that for a little bit. I got to see some friends. We had some In-N-Out Burger, which I mentioned yesterday in my message. You

Dave:

had introduced me to In-N-Out Burger about a year ago when we were in Dallas. That's right. It's also

Bob:

in

Dave:

Dallas. And you pointed

Bob:

out in

Dave:

the bottom of the cup there was a biblical reference.

Bob:

There are. So some of the cups have John 3.16. One of my cups out there had Proverbs 3.5. Some people were mentioning some other references. But yeah, it's a Christian-owned company and they're not publicly traded. So they have standards on where they're going to open up their branches. I guess they have to have their proprietary meat plant needs to be within a one day of shipping the meat so it's fresh. Did you have those nasty fries or trash fries or garbage fries or whatever it was called? It was called animal style fries. Oh. I was way off. Which sounds a little more appealing than trash fries.

Tim:

I've heard of garbage fries before. They actually look really good. They don't

Bob:

look like garbage. Did you try that? I did. Yeah, they were good. They were good. So we did that. We saw some family, some friends. My brother-in-law's out there. They work for a mission organization called Cadence, which is also headquartered in Denver. Let's see. A couple other pictures I think I sent Tim after I was done. Oh, actually at the meeting, there should be a picture of me And Mark Hanke, who actually is the chairman of the board, so he's the taller guy. And then I have a picture of me and Jeff Denlinger, who's the president of WorldVenture. And then you can see a few pictures here of WorldVenture itself. There's one that has a mission statement for them, and it says, Billions of people don't know Jesus. We're not okay with that. And so they were working on sending people out to the field to share the gospel, to see more people come to Christ, which is super exciting. You know, they went to Impact the World for Gospel Impact. It was a great time. I really enjoyed my time with them. I'll be going back twice a year, so I go back in January and June and have some interfaces in between, and just a lot of really good things that are happening out there in Denver. After that was done, Jenna and I headed down to Colorado Springs. If you've ever been down there, we visited a place called Garden of the Gods. So this should be a picture of me and her right in front at the Visitor Center, looking out at the Garden of the Gods, and then there's a really famous rock in in the middle of the garden called balanced rock and everybody this is their big photo op if you go out there uh you can stand next to it you can see how big it is there and you can see her trying to hold it up uh which is kind of the photo picture that you get when you're out there um and then right down from garden of the gods there's manitou springs and they have a very famous penny arcade and so we went down there and jenna loved that so that was a lot of fun and then um we did the rafting the next So that was the rafting picture Tim showed at the beginning. But also, here's a picture of us gearing up to go out on the rapids. There's us in our gear. You can see the mountains behind us. Noah's Ark, the rafting company, which, by the way, if you ever go out there and you need to raft, Noah's Ark is a great company, a Christian company. I used to take youth groups out there all the time. I think Johnny, they did a mission trip to Denver, and he took the youth group out and rafted there as well. But it's in the middle of a valley, and so the mountains are just enormous. And so you can see a picture here of Jenna right in front of Mount Princeton. That Mount Princeton just like shoots up right from the valley. It's huge. It's beautiful. So that was a lot of fun. We enjoyed one more thing of In-N-Out on the way out and got to see some friends on Sunday that I hadn't seen in a while. And we made it back early also coming back from Denver. So it was a good trip. I think Jenna enjoyed the daddy-daughter time. WorldVenture was great. We got to see some family and friends. And now we're back. I will tell you, as soon as I left the airport in Newark when I got back, the humidity just literally engulfed me. It was a big smack in the face. I was like, welcome back to New Jersey. It's been rough. So here we are.

Dave:

We've been drinking water. Here we are. Hey, man. Welcome back. And a lot has happened since you were gone, not only in New Jersey, but... Also in the news. So, Pastor Bob, I don't know if you've been keeping up with the news with all your travels, but there's some things. Less than usual, but I saw

Bob:

a couple things were happening. All right. So... I heard we had some B-2 bombers that stealthily flew across the world to bomb a nuclear site.

Dave:

That was definitely huge news. We talked about that last Monday on the podcast. And since then... Thank God there's been an agreed upon ceasefire. So that seems to be holding.

Bob:

Although a lot of debate about whether there's still some uranium out there. I guess people are disputing the report.

Dave:

There's a lot of disputing about that and the damage and, you know, exactly the nature of the strike and how successful it was. A lot of debates going on. So I thought maybe we could talk about that news story more from a biblical perspective. Would that be okay?

Unknown:

Yeah.

Bob:

Well, how can I argue with talking about things from a biblical perspective? Let's get into it. What would you like to talk about, Pastor Dave? So some

Dave:

people read the book of Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39, describe a famous war called the War of Gog and Magog. And because the territories are in the vicinity of this skirmish in the Middle East, some people say, Is the world ramping up and moving toward the kind of alliances that we see in the book of Ezekiel? So, interesting. I've seen people talking about that online.

Bob:

I've seen people going back and forth on social media about this. Speculating.

Dave:

Yes. Yes, lots of speculating. Yeah. Well, that is probably one of the most debated passages, and there's been different interpretations over the years. Here's just like... five of them so in the 4th century Ambrose just five of them thought that Gog was the Goths that were invading and then in the 7th century it was the Arab armies and then in the 13th century it was the Mongols and then in the 17th century some people saw Gog as the Roman Emperor or the Pope or even the Turks and then by the 19th century during the tensions of Asia Minor there was somebody who linked this territory to Russia based on a Hebrew word in Ezekiel 38 Rosh, which actually means head or chief. It doesn't actually have the same derivation as the actual country of Russia. And then during World War I, Gomer became Germany. So there's been a long history of shifting interpretations about what Ezekiel 38 is actually

Bob:

talking about. So because Rosh began with R and Gomer began with G, clearly it

Dave:

was Russia or Germany. That's a little bit simplistic, but it was almost that simplistic. So it's an apocalyptic part of the Bible. I think we have to be careful about How do you interpret apocalyptic literature? there's some tricky things to do there. The passage talks about horses and bows and arrows and things like that, and those are not really modern.

Bob:

We spent a good deal of time talking about this during our Revelation series. We did. We did. So,

Dave:

you know, I think we have to be careful about making one-for-one, you know, necessary correlations between modern-day geographical categories and the cities that are named and the countries that are named in the Bible.

Bob:

So are some people saying, Gog and Magog, Iran is... Gog or Magog and

Dave:

Israel's Gog or Magog? So Gog is the name of a person. So they're hypothesizing that this is a future leader that will arrange for these nations to come together in some sort of confederacy where Russia, which they're speculating that Magog is Russia, will join together with Persia, which is Iran. And along with a couple other countries, they will align themselves against the nation of Israel. And so that's What you hear some people saying, is this alliance something that's beginning to get cooked up? So it mentions another country there, which is modern-day Sudan, which there is some friendliness there between Iran and Russia and Sudan. And then Turkey, some people say, is another one of those countries that's part of this coming alliance. You know, I'm not too sure that this is something that we can really know for sure, but I do think we should avoid the speculating and kind of following the headlines and, you know, insisting that the Bible is talking about exactly what's going on in our

Bob:

day. So those that make the argument is Gog and Magog legitimately in the historical sense with Ezekiel, those territories, or we're just somehow linking them together? Together.

Dave:

There's some debate about the exact location of those territories. So it's not like you can take a GPS and go, here's exactly what Ezekiel was talking about. He uses kind of vague terms. He says from the far north. Like, well, there's a lot of countries that are actually far north. So it's hard to pinpoint exactly

Bob:

what. From the far north of

Dave:

what? From Israel. Israel would be the kind of the. Everything is related to how it situates itself against Israel, right? So some people think this has already been fulfilled. So I'll just mention, so Gary DeMar actually thinks that this happened with Haman, the evil enemy in the book of Esther, that he's the one who actually came against, from Persia, right? He came against the Jews and tried to annihilate them. So the book of Esther was the fulfillment of this. That's Damar's view. And then Ezekiel's using, like, exhaustive hyperbole language that... that the prophets would often use to describe a decisive victory that God has against this enemy Gog. So that's one view of the fulfillment. Other people point to the Antiochus Epiphanes guy who came and waged war against the Jews. And then other people point to the– there was a northern invasion from the Scythians. During the intertestamental period. During the intertestamental period. So some people say this thing already happened. And then you see, if you read Revelation 20, it actually mentions Gog and Magog again. Remember, you preached that passage. And so in that way, some biblical interpreters say Gog and Magog become a symbol. They become like a larger than life symbol of the enemies of God. Kind of like how we think about the word Babylon. Babylon becomes like a cipher. It becomes this thing that's larger than life. Or the Leviathan in the Bible. It embodies the forces of chaos and the enemies of God that come against God's people. So some people see Gog and Magog as what's called a literary archetype. And that could be possible in the future that this is a picture of something that will culminate at the end of time as well. So there's a lot of different views on that. We would just encourage you to refrain from speculation and any degree of certainty because a lot of good godly scholars... Disagree about that. But I did want to talk about a chart, and this is where I'm going to put it. All right. We're going to save some time later. People who read Ezekiel 38, the moral of that story is that God is going to come to the aid of Israel. God actually rescues Israel from this enemy supernaturally. And so if you read that story through modern day 21st century lens, you're going, well, I got to be on Israel's side. because God's on Israel's side. Well, that can lead to some questions about what exactly does it mean to talk about Israel and how does the Bible use the word Israel and what exactly is our responsibility as Christians towards those who are part of Israel. And my answer is it depends. It depends what you mean when you say Israel. So here's my chart. a friend of mine, John Dyer, actually put this Venn diagram together. Hold on, I have to pull it up. Okay. So this Venn diagram is going to talk about

Bob:

all the different... You did not have the chart at the ready, Tim?

Tim:

I have to email it to myself. I emailed you, Tim. I don't know if you got that. You emailed it to me? Yeah, I did. Okay, hold on.

Dave:

So what this is, is like, how does the word Israel get used? And it doesn't get used uniformly... Always in the same way. Sometimes Israel means different things. And so we have to be careful when we say Israel because you have to define terms. It's always a good idea to define terms. Like, what do you mean? That is a good thing. What exactly do you mean when you say Israel? So there's a sense in which... Israel refers to an ethnicity, right? So this is the top circle. There it is. The red circle on the top. Ethnic Jews, those who are of the line of Abraham, those who come through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 tribes, they're ethnic Jews. In a sense, you could use Israel that way. Now, on the right side of the Venn diagram is the yellow circle, which refers to Israel as a piece of property, as a land. This is Israel. You can take an airplane and go there. It's a... piece of real estate right it's about the size of New Jersey that's also called Israel then the left circle the blue circle in this particular chart refers to those who are believers remember Paul says things like not all Israel is Israel so those who are believers actually are the true Israel and that would be represented in the blue circle and where they overlap is really actually quite interesting so at the top you would have Those who are ethnically Jewish, but they're still unbelieving and they're outside of the land of Israel. In the Old Testament, that would be like faithful exiles like Daniel. Today, they would be Jewish people around the world, like let's say in Brooklyn, who reject Jesus. They would be, in a sense, part of Israel. And then let's move around clockwise. So to the right, you would have that little slice that has unbelieving Jews in the land, which is the vast majority of Jewish people who are actually living in modern day Israel in the Middle East, right? Most of them do not have faith in Jesus as the Christ. So that would be one way to use the word Israel, that little section there. And it would also include like faithless Israelites in the past who were also in the land who didn't have faith in God. And then that portion in the green in the bottom, those would be believing non-Jews in the land of Israel. So in the Old Testament, that would be like those who feared God, like Cornelius or It could be today, Palestinian Christians. Like there's a lot of Christians who are Palestinian who are living in the land of Israel. And in a sense, they're not Jewish, but they actually would have more in common with you and I, Bob, than we would with a non-believing Jew in the land. Because these are our brothers and sisters in Christ. These are Palestinian Christians, many of whom are actually being, you know, persecuted at times and attacked and so forth. And so they could be part of God's chosen people. And then in the middle, you have the believing Jews in the land. So the middle one is probably the most interesting part, right? So these are people who They're ethnically Jewish, and they believe in Jesus as the Messiah, and they're also residing in the land of Israel. That's a small group of people, but they exist. One of them would be Jesus, right? So he would be the ultimate Israel, like the true and better Israel. Like out of Egypt, I called my son. He's like the son with a capital S. That would be faithful Jews throughout all time, including today. So those who are believing in Jesus, who are Christians, who are Jewish, who are living in the land. And there's a sense in which the word Jacob refers to a person, right? There'll be like one little dot, like Jacob would be one, because his name is Israel. So he would fit there. And then you have the future fulfillment. If you see Romans 11 pointing towards a future fulfillment of a conversion of Jews at the end, then they would also be in the middle there as well. Then you kind of go clockwise around, and then there's this overlap of blue there. You have some believing Jews that are outside the land. Those would be like Messianic Jews, like Messianic congregations, like we have some of those in America, and that kind of thing. So I shouldn't have said Daniel was in the red section. He's more like in the purple section here. He's a believing Jew. Right, right. All right. So what is this chart? What is Israel? Well, it could be one, two, three, four, five, six, at least seven things.

Bob:

Right. So what does this have to do with the current conflict with Iran? Or was this just for our benefit?

Dave:

I think we have to be careful about unconditionally, unilaterally supporting the modern state of Israel because we assume that somehow God is always okay with everything they're doing. That's not correct. Right. That's not actually even biblical. And I think we should be careful about— And God himself brought judgment on Israel, right? He did, many times. And so let's define terms when we talk about that. I do think they're our political ally. And as Americans, I see a lot of value in coming to their aid and defense. But that doesn't mean that they're above critique. That doesn't mean that we can't ever question some of the things that have been done, including sometimes there's noncombatants that get caught up in skirmishes that Israel has started. Some things that have been done in Gaza are really heartbreaking. And I think we have to give ourselves freedom to offer some criticism in those circumstances as well. Yeah. That might be a little controversial for me to say that, but

Bob:

I think it's important. I think it is important as well. There also was a rather fiery viral video with Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson that was going around. Did you see that? I didn't see the whole thing. I saw clips of it. I saw some

Tim:

clips.

Bob:

The interesting thing to me was when Ted Cruz cited the Bible says, you know, the blessing and the cursing from Genesis 12, Tucker Carlson challenged him and Ted Cruz couldn't remember the scripture verse. Right. Which... I think it's kind of important to know where the Bible says it if you're going to claim that.

Dave:

Exactly. Yeah. He said, you know, he learned that in church or Sunday school or something. Well, universally, all the time, we should support the government of Israel. And I think Tucker was right to push back on him a little bit and say, wait a minute, what exactly do you mean there? Yeah. Because that's important. It is. So, Iran-Israel in the news. That's a pretty big story. So, currently, we're at a

Bob:

ceasefire. Hopefully, we're getting to a deal. Yeah. But who knows? We'll see. We'll keep you posted. All right. There you go. Any other news stories we should talk about? Didn't you have another one you wanted to mention? We did.

Dave:

So if you were following the electoral process, we're at the phase where we are now going to be selecting the candidates from each party to run. This fall. And the Democratic Party has actually selected their presumptive Democratic nominee. In the New York City mayoral race. In the New York City mayoral race. And they have selected Zoran Mamdani. So he is the candidate. And last Wednesday, I think it was, they formally nominated him to be the Democratic nominee for mayor. And He's 33. He's an assembly member. The interesting thing about him is he is unabashedly a democratic socialist. I never heard of him. I don't know if you did, but he was not someone on my radar. But he had recently skyrocketed in the polls. And I think some people were a little bit taken aback that there is now a A socialist that is officially running and probably most likely going to win the election in the fall if the past is any indication as to how the New York City voters typically vote. And we may have a Muslim socialist who is the mayor of New York City, which I think is pretty significant.

Bob:

That is rather significant, I guess. So it is him, and then Eric Adams, the current mayor, is going to run as an independent. And then Curtis Sliwa of the Guardian Angels is running. But, you know, a lot of people that would be opposed to him, I think, have left the city, so it is likely that he's going to win, which, how is this going to play out? That's going to be a big question mark. That's

Dave:

the question. So from a Christian worldview perspective, let's talk about socialism for a second. So let's do it. Is there any scriptures that might help us here? So Dr. Al Mohler had a very intriguing quote that I texted you the other day about this topic. And he said, quote, the Bible reveals several important economic principles. First, the scripture affirms the dignity of work. That's Ephesians 4. Second, the scripture affirms the fact that those who refuse to work should not eat. That's 2 Thessalonians 3. Third, the Bible clearly affirms private property rights. That's in the law in Exodus 22. Fourth, the Bible clearly condemns both theft and covetousness in the Ten Commandments. Also, if you read through the book of Proverbs, the Bible commends the idea of saving, saving for the future. The wise will store up an inheritance for their children's children. Proverbs talks about that quite a bit. It also talks about thrift, Proverbs 21, 20. And it talks about the ability to own land in Acts 4 in the Bible. And it talks about the value of investment. Jesus spoke about that in Matthew 25. Finally, in 1 Timothy, we've talked about a verse that says the laborer is worthy of his wages, which is a principle that may contradict the idea of socialism. So I think socialism is bumping up against some basic biblical principles that I think have been helpful, not only for the church to understand, but even for society to flourish. And Some may push back and say, are you creating disincentives towards productivity, efficiency, creativity by bringing in socialist principles, which have not had a wonderful track record of economic progress over the last hundred years.

Bob:

Where they have been tried, they have not brought about the fruit that you would like them

Dave:

to bring about. Right. So some concerning trends there in society. I wonder how this will play out. I wonder if this will kind of backfire or if this will be the new

Bob:

normal. We do have a gubernatorial race in New Jersey, and those candidates have been selected as well. Mikey Sherrill on the Democratic side and Jack Cittarelli. And it's going to be a close race. It's going to be a close race. New Jersey, indeed, might shift their allegiances this year. We'll see.

Dave:

A little disappointed that the Republican candidate is not even pro-life. It's just like that's not even part of the platform anymore.

Bob:

But maybe he won't be chasing down crisis pregnancy centers, which, by the way, in the news, of course. Perhaps that's a win. First choice, their case is going to be heard at the Supreme Court. Incredible. So that's a big

Dave:

deal. Yeah. Big deal. We are praying for our sister Amy and all those on the board and staff at the local First Choice locations. So those are some news stories.

Bob:

Was there any candidates on the Republican side that were pro-life?

Dave:

Great question. Not really totally. Can you be pro-life in New Jersey and run for office? I'd have to look that up. Not sure. So those are some news stories. Let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from you. And now we're going to talk about another segment. I don't know where you want me to go, Tim. Book war. All right, book war. It's back. So...

Bob:

Bob. Do we have any stats from the previous book wars? Oh, yeah. Where are we holding off on some things? We have

Tim:

been waiting to have the results of the most recent book war for weeks because someone had to go, I don't know, Noah, someone to Colorado or something. Someone. Yeah, okay. I don't know who that was. Before Pastor Bob left, this was the score. Pastor Dave had a 15 to 13 point lead. And if you may notice... We are getting towards the end of the season of the book war. We are coming down to it here. Okay. And so the winner of the past book war, which the votes were so much better. There were nine votes instead of one vote. All right. And the winner was somehow the not Christian book that Pastor Dave brought in.

Dave:

Written by Mormons.

Tim:

You guys... Like overwhelmingly voted for the Mormons here. So that puts Pastor

Dave:

Dave up. Nine responses.

Bob:

Thank you, guys. Yeah, nine responses. That's a good turnout.

Tim:

Pastor Bob, how are you feeling right now? I

Bob:

feel like people don't care about disabilities right now. Yeah,

Tim:

I actually voted for Pastor Bob's book. So that was one of my votes there. So Pastor Dave has a three-point lead now. Because... of the length and time that we've not had a book war, this will be a three-point week.

Dave:

Oh,

Tim:

man. So Pastor Bob will either tie Pastor Dave. This feels socialistic. Or throw in the towel. It is. Or it will clinch. Listen, we haven't had a book war. Your thumbs are on the scale right here. Hold on, hold on. I'm just saying this is consistent with how we've done it all year that when we've not had a book war, we've added extra points to the next book war. There have been three no book war episodes. Okay. or two no book war episodes, therefore it will be three points. So Pastor Dave could win this week, or we could have one more episode to win it all before the last episode of the season.

Bob:

Okay. What would Bernie say about this, Tim?

Tim:

Who would what?

Bob:

What would Bernie say about this?

Tim:

Bernie would love it.

Bob:

It would be amazing.

Tim:

We need to have equal book war episodes. Representation. Equity for the book war. Okay.

Bob:

Be quiet, Bernie. Are you okay with these onesies? That's still, man. Bob

Tim:

brought a magazine, so I

Bob:

don't know if he's off to a good start. I decided to throw a periodical in today for my edition. So here is a magazine that I subscribe to called Salvo. Right here. And this comes out every month. And they cover topics on science, sex, and society. So it's dealing with some of the really pertinent issues that are going on within our world. So the head story here was science versus religion. The Scopes Monkey Trial turns 100. Did you remember that the Scopes Monkey Trial was 100 years ago? I learned about that in school. I remember reading about it. Betty Gallagher may remember. She's 100. That's true. My grandmother's almost 100, too. So anyway, some really good articles in here. Intelligent Design, Darwin. But sometimes they have different themes. So in the past they've covered some of the gender stuff. They've covered other topics in here. The Age of the Earth, Creation, Evolution Debate is what's kind of going on in here because that's the theme of this section. Here, Family Briefing, The Monogamy of Miracle, Marriage, and the Founding of the Democratic Self-Governance. So it talks a lot about marriage. stuff in here that's a society thing eugenics which is another big thing that's going on in here so they cover a lot of different topics my submission here is to to consider subscribing to to salvo and a salvo is a just to be clear about why it's named salvo a salvo is a group of shots fired simultaneously for effect or a forceful verbal or written assault so the magazine is taking on the false narrative we talked about yesterday false to Taking on the false narratives of the day. Right here. Salvo. There you go. We'll see if that's worth three points.

Dave:

So, ready for mine? All right. I am going to recommend today a double barrel book. This has actually two books inside of it. So this is not only the Baptist Confession of Faith. But it also is the Baptist catechism. So we Baptists do have confessions, contrary to popular belief. Some Baptists say there's no creed but the Bible. That's not true. So we actually have a very famous confession, the Second London Confection. It is robust in its theological depth, and it has Reformed roots. It is a little different from Westminster in that it obviously holds to believer's baptism as opposed to infant baptism. And there's a note in here about polity and congregational government. So there's an emphasis there. It also talks about religious liberty, the separation of church and state. And it's Christ-centered. It's scripture-saturated. It is put together by a lot of well-known Baptists in the 1600s, including Benjamin Keech, who is the main contributor to the catechism. So they call it Keech's Catechism. So if you're looking for something as a parent and you're going, what can I do to catechize my kids? We're Baptists. Well, you would want to use the Baptist Catechism. This is a good tool. And it's like super short. Look at this thing. It's only 121 pages for everything, including the confession and the catechism. And that even includes like a whole appendix here on baptism. And there's lots, lots, lots of scriptures and helpful things in here. And I think it's worth your... time and you can get this fairly cheap. I bet you can get this for three or four bucks on Amazon. This one was published by Solid Ground Christian Books, but you can get it from a bunch of different publishers. There's one out there that actually has more like modern English. You might like that one. But Baptist Confession of Faith, that's my recommendation.

Bob:

Yeah. Founders Ministries has a lot of resources around the Confession of Faith. It is a good confession. I noticed here, first of all, my magazine has only 64 pages with a lot of pictures. And it does have a book recommendation thing at the end, like Rod Dreher's book, Living in Wonder, Natasha Crane, When Culture Hates You, Katie Faust, Pro Child Politics, Happy Lies. Wow, I got to get this one. How a movement you probably never heard of shaped our self-obsessed world. The new thought.

Dave:

Hey. We recommend you decide. Let us know which book that you are going to be picking up and... Just a little short little preview. We are going to be talking about Baptist distinctives this coming Sunday in the sermon as we continue the series on A Divine Blueprint, the distinctives of a healthy church. And so we're going to kind of do more of a topical teaching this weekend. And there'll be a little First Timothy peppered in there, but it's mostly going to be topical. And how does Baptist polity or Baptist church government compare with maybe some other churches that you're

Bob:

familiar with? I

Dave:

heard through the grapevine that you have an acronym you're going to use this week. Yes, I am. Okay. It's not a secret. It's going to spell out the word Baptist.

Bob:

Okay. So if you want to come and hear how to use the acronym for Baptist, this is your week, my friends. I'm ready for you. I don't care if it's the 4th of July. You need to be here. That's right. What about a prop? We've only had four props this year. I know. We've been falling off on our prop game. Maybe we need to work that back in. We won't even have a top ten at this rate. You had a couple ideas for Isaiah, so maybe Isaiah will be. We're going to finish up. Believe it or not, Pastor

Tim:

Dave has three of the four props, which is kind of hard to believe. All right.

Dave:

Well, we're moving on to another segment. That sounds like a challenge right there, Tim. Indeed.

Tim:

Indeed.

Dave:

And I understand there might be some questions that you guys wanted us to tackle. Is that right? Audience questions?

Tim:

I don't think we have time for an audience question and the sermon and everything else. Never

Bob:

mind. I think they were talking about questions for the theology sprint, right? Yes. Okay. Very giddy about this theology

Dave:

sprint question at the end. So here we go. Pastor Bob was preaching yesterday from 1 Timothy chapter 6, verses 3 through 10, and then he also threw in there like verses 17 to 19 towards the end. But give us a 60-second flyover of what was that passage about.

Bob:

Well, it was about some love of money, Pastor Dave, and I see you over there with your bank account open checking it out. So... Yeah, 1 Timothy chapter 6. Not a whole lot of money in

Dave:

there

Bob:

to love. Not a lot of love to go around. 1 Timothy chapter 6, a very famous verse in verse 10 about how the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. And what Paul does within these seven verses is... Again, confront the false teachers who have been spreading poor doctrine, which has led to wrongful beliefs about life among the church nephesis. And Paul then ties that into the financial gain they were pursuing and warns the believers that money love is not something that we should be pursuing necessarily. So in the message, we talked a little bit about something called the fire movement at the beginning, which is this financial independence, retire early. And the general principle there was to save now and enjoy life later. And we talked about how that is behind that secular movement, but also is a biblical principle, but we take it as Christians to mean we can enjoy life in eternity. And so we can sacrifice now because we have the hope of the future in front of us. And so, so many of us wrestle with this This idea of money and contentment, generosity, greed, how do we handle that? And so that's what Paul covers here in this section. He talked about, we talked about the problem that he brings up, which is an obsession with worldly cravings. And then he gives a solution, which is to focus on eternal contentment. So really the main thrust of the message was to break down and go deep on what is this idea of worldly cravings and what is eternal contentment and how is that ultimately the solution to so many of our problems in life so I'll stop there and I'll entertain questions from the room from the gallery

Dave:

okay so you had this section that maybe isn't totally related to money although perhaps there's a driver of money underneath of this but there's this people in Ephesus that were stirring up controversy and they unnecessarily cause division over things that weren't worth dividing over. And you talked about how some people are just naturally more contentious and quarrelsome. And you just boldly said the reason why people are like that is because, why? Why did you say that?

Bob:

Because they're sick, Pastor Dave. We got some sick people around here.

Unknown:

Yeah.

Dave:

And exegetically, you've rooted that in a word, the word sound. Yeah, the sound, the sound teaching. It's more of like a medical term for healthy. Yes, yes. Yes. And unhealthy would be the opposite

Bob:

of that. You're healthy or you're unhealthy, right? And that can very much, if you're taking in an unhealthy spiritual diet of teaching, it's going to make you sick. It's going to give you indigestion, hopefully, if you're somebody who has had any background with sound teaching. Mm-hmm. So yes, I agree. I agree with

Dave:

that. So I wonder if you could expand on that and tell us what are some areas that perhaps would fall into the modern day category of quarrelsomeness that we should avoid or that perhaps we could caution people against strongly leveraging their opinion on certain topics or subjects in modern day ecclesiological life? How would this show up? Today, like July 2025, not quite July yet, but June 2025, how does this manifest itself, this sickness? Where do you see this happening?

Bob:

Well, good question. I think you've done some teaching on this, and we did do this behind the pulpit with Amy a while back about kind of the tiered issues. So there's first-tier issues, second-tier issues, third-tier issues. First-tier issues would be like the deity of Christ and the authority of the Bible. So those are things that we should stand firm on, and if that needs to create friction, it needs to create friction. But there are second-tier issues that are not quite as important, and we talked about things like women in ministry or– some practical issues that were within the church, things like baptism. You know, churches will divide over those things because they're very practical issues, but it doesn't necessarily mean that those people in that category aren't Christians when they disagree. And then third tier issues are things like eschatology, and we spent a whole lot of time talking about that last fall. But there are some people that like to really kind of Put up their dukes and really fight for their position on some of these topics. And it can create some unnecessary... quarrels

Dave:

and like if somebody was really fighting for the current fulfillment of Gog and Magog in a very certain geographical area and they didn't want to hear another perspective

Bob:

right and I've seen exactly that is an example I've seen a lot of people kind of posting those things on social media so that's an example it's not the only example yeah but a lot of times I think people have a hobby horse that they really want to see happen within the church and and they will just agitate, agitate, agitate until they get what they want. So,

Dave:

yeah. All right. The other thing you talked about was people sometimes see godliness as a means for gain. And then I think the word godliness was used elsewhere in the same passage, that godliness with contentment is great gain. Right. So how is it that you see people perhaps– using godliness as a means for gain today how can we be aware of that warned against that how can you caution us against that where does that show up in our lives

Bob:

yeah i mean i think i think in the in the opening part of the section when he's talking about they're imagining that godliness is a means for gain he's he's specifically confronting these teachers who are peddling these kind of false narratives, this false gospel that's appealing to the itching ears of their listeners, who are going to then pay the money. They're going to be getting rich off of the appearance of godliness. Where Paul corrects that then in verse 6 is to say, godliness with contentment is great gain, meaning you're not pursuing it for... worldly riches and cravings today, your gain is going to be in the future and ultimately in your relationship with Christ. But yeah, people can say whatever they want. They can use tactics to get people on the door. They can get people onto their movement and their side, even if they're not teaching things that are biblically correct. And there has been a lot of people over the years that have made a lot of money doing that, Pastor Dave. Sadly, yes. I gave a couple examples of those people in there and got some responses from the audience on Sunday. Got some dialogue going on there. I did. People were like, they were wanting to get up there and preach. Shout

Tim:

out John Batone.

Bob:

John Batone was heckling on Sunday, right? Shout for the heckling.

Dave:

Well, heckling is when they disagree with you. Isn't it more like the quarrelsomeness? Oh, I guess. It's an affirmation.

Bob:

Okay. A loud affirmation from the back of the balcony on Sunday. Okay.

Dave:

Have you seen people do this, Pastor Dave? You got any examples? Well, I mean, the prosperity gospel is the most obvious one, but I think in a more subtle form, you can see people using the term blessed to actually be a covering over our greed. So we tend to mask over our covetous heart, our greedy heart, and we Maybe you just say, well, the Lord has blessed me so much, and we actually make it into a good thing, the fact that we have these cravings and these unnecessary desires. I think that that can be sometimes a subtle way of having a deceptive desire for getting rich.

Noah:

Can I float in a question about this verse? Okay. Yeah, I had a good question. So, obviously, you know, the part where it says, imagine the godliness and means of the game, typically you think of that with financially. But would you guys say that this could be applied broader than that, such as someone who is pursuing, like, a teaching role or, like, a more prominent role in the church and wanting to have their own prestige in elevated through that. So the gain that they're seeking through their godliness and their ministry is not so much like a financial gain, but it's more of like a status gain, like wanting to be seen higher and more elevated because of what they're doing.

Bob:

I think the principle could allow for that. I think probably these teachers were looking for a both-and. And usually when you gain status like that, down the road, it can lead to a financial benefit to you in one way, shape, or form. But yeah, I think that principle is very much there.

Dave:

Yeah, it could be money, but it could also be other things like status or platform or influence or... Influence, yeah. You know, I think the principle there is you're exploiting faith for some other personal, selfish, or worldly benefit. You're actually using God as a means rather than actually God as the end. not a means to an end. And that could be manifested in many ways. Money, but other things, too. Perhaps even other things we're not thinking of. Yeah, scary. We have limited minds, Pastor Dave. Okay, let's talk about contentment. Let's talk about contentment. If I'm a Christian, and I believe in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit dwells inside of me, why can I now rationally and logically be free of... The desire to get rich, the desire for wealth. How can I not suffer the many pangs, I believe is the word used in the text? Why is it that someone who's a Christian actually is able to break the bonds of the shackles of greed? How come I don't have to struggle with that? And I know you mentioned one verse which talks about we've come into the world with nothing and we... will one day leave the world with nothing, which I think is a very powerful motivation. But maybe talk more about that or beyond that. Why is it that someone who is a Christian can find freedom from the desire for material worldly wealth?

Bob:

I like the way you word that to say they can find freedom. I would maybe add they should find freedom. And yet there is this kind of pull from the world that we live in. You know, we still live post-fall and pre-new heavens and new earth. And so we fall in love with the things that the world affords to us. But we don't have to. We don't have to. And this is partly where I think sanctification and godliness can come in, because if you know that you have everything you need in Christ, so we're blessed in That was that Ephesians 1 verse that I drew out, Ephesians 1. You've been blessed with all these blessings in the heavenly places. He's given you the riches of his grace. You have all that you need in Christ. The love, the acceptance is all found in him, and so you can be secure in him. Not only in your identity now, but... in the promise of the future hope to be with him forever and the fact that he is going to come back and make the world brand new. He's going to remake the world. Everything sad is going to become untrue. That is the future hope that we can cling to and be secure that no matter what is going to happen in this life, we do have that future hope. But the reason we aren't content, and I'll just speak for myself, the reason I'm not content is that we still wrestle and walk through the fallenness of the world right now. Things happen to us, things unexpected. I had a few people come up to me after the service and they were basically saying, right now I'm content, but the weird thing about contentment is that just give it a little bit of time and you might be uncontent. So, you know, maybe you walk through a hard season financially and now you're good. You know, the bank account is where you were hoping it to be. You work pretty hard for that. But then the next thing you know, your health fails. Well, then that's something else to be not content with. Or your kids, you know, there's something with your family. Your kids, you know, won't talk to you or whatever it is. That brings a sense of dissatisfaction and discontent. And it's in those moments you have to remember that there is one– the Lord Jesus who sees all things that you go through and he knows, you know, what does Hebrews tell us? He, he, um, you know, he, he can sympathize with us and our weaknesses. He knows exactly what we walk through and he will be there with us no matter what. So it's at least my, my thought.

Dave:

Yeah. Did you add, did you, um, choose the song that, uh, we closed with yesterday, uh, Or was that something that the worship director chose on your behalf? No, John chose that one, yeah. It worked out really well. It did? Yeah. So we sang, I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I'd rather have Jesus than riches untold. I'm not

Bob:

remembering. As most people were pushed, that's not reality in their lives. No, I'd like to have a little side of Jesus, but I'd really rather have the silver or gold. Right. There's a

Dave:

more modern

Bob:

song

Dave:

that... Maybe the Gen Z people who watch our podcast, which I'm sure that's our main demographic, Gen Z. There's one that I think it's passion called My Father Has It, and I think that's a great... The Lord Will Provide. I'm sorry, The Lord Will Provide. Yeah, the chorus is My Father Has It, right?

Tim:

I was listening to that on the way to work today. Yeah,

Dave:

and it's like everything I need, you know, My Father Has It, and... I'm going to be content in him, and I'm going to trust in him. It kind of quotes from Jesus' Matthew 6 portion of the Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, look at the lilies of the field. Look at the birds of the air.

Bob:

Didn't they do that when I did the... Second Corinthians passage? I think we sang that in the last couple months. I've heard it, yeah. I

Dave:

don't know where it went.

Bob:

I think it was with that one. I think it was with Johnny's leading worship. One of the ones that Johnny did.

Tim:

We did that. Actually, no, Doug. It was Doug. Doug. We did it at Night of Revival, and then Doug did it.

Bob:

I think he did it for the widow and the orphans a couple weeks ago, actually. Yeah, it was a few weeks ago when he was saying he

Tim:

might need some help from, what was it, the Zoomers. Oh, that's right, yeah. Does he need the Zoomers to help the Boomers with this song?

Dave:

The Lord will provide. Check it out. Put it on your playlist. I think it's pretty new. Right, Noah? It's fairly new.

Noah:

Yeah. Look it up, Noah. Yeah. We sang it at the 2024 Passion. So it's still

Dave:

pretty fresh. Okay. Never mind. Yeah. It's still hip, though. So godliness with contentment is great gain. Good passage. Anything else on the sermon portion you wanted to highlight or make mention of? Application. Application.

Bob:

You had four points. I had four points on application. Journal my cravings? Journal, list your cravings. Okay, pray, ask Jesus for contentment. Act, remove the traps from your life. And then last, I called it aspire. Beware the snare. Beware the snare, man. That's right. It'll get you. Orient your life towards simplicity. That was a Pastor Dave suggestion. So I got that in there for you. And I told that Paul Wilford story about Senegal. He was happy about that.

Dave:

Well, the spiritual discipline of simplicity is something I did want to talk about a little bit. I remember being in college and just eating like spam and being fine. So you talked about ramen, right? Spam was more robust than ramen, maybe. So the idea of simplicity is one of those disciplines of simplicity. where you remove something from your life rather than a discipline of engagement where you add something to your life. So it's like you focus your life on God and letting go of any excess, whether that's material or even mental excess, so that you're more free to love and serve God and trust Christ. So simplicity is about how can I declutter my life? What's extra so that I can give more undivided attention to God? to God. That's a spiritual discipline that I don't think Americans are very good at. We're pretty complicated people and we accumulate. It's amazing how much stuff that we just continue to add. So simplicity is about prioritizing God above all else and having a freedom from the materialism so you can have a clearer focus, a clearer purpose, and maybe a more generous spirit so that you can be good stewards of what God has given you. So Practice the discipline of simplicity this week. And then whenever you're passing by your cravings, remember the slogan. Beware the snare. Beware the snare. There you go. So for me, it's when I'm passing by Barrister Coffee. Beware the snare. Beware the snare. Beware the snare. Snare,

Bob:

man. I was there

Tim:

today.

Dave:

It's going to get you. Grab that leg. No offense to the wonderful owners of Barrister, but some of us don't have a whole lot of funds for extra coffee in those kind of places.

Bob:

There you go. I just want to read these last couple of verses that I did again because you asked me the question about why can the Christian have hope and I think they kind of capture it. So, as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches. which we didn't get quite into, but riches can be very uncertain, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasures for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

Dave:

Boom. Not only are riches kind of transient and... tenuous but maybe it's the case that all material things will one day you know yeah be eaten up with rust and the moth will destroy right none of that stuff really lasts none of that stuff follows us into eternity as ch stud said ct stud said Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Good sermon, man. Thank you. And now we're moving on to Baptist Distinctives next week, and we're going to sprint. So, Tim and Noah. Take it away, Noah. What do you got?

Noah:

All right. No one says he's got a real controversial one for us today. Oh, yeah. A little bit controversial here. Potentially. So this one is inspired by the passage and the sermon from yesterday. So it is somewhat of a two-part question, but the two questions here are connected to each other. So here we go. Is it a sin to place an educated financial bet on a sports game or a player, such as with DraftKings or FanDuel? Secondly, is it a sin to make an educated financial investment on a stock that could rise or fall?

Dave:

I actually talked about this in the Ecclesiastes series. So chapter 11 talks about godly risk and how you might... engage the topic of risk as a Christian. I do think, spiritually speaking, gambling, although it's not very explicit in Scripture, would fall into the territory of sinful activity. It raises several spiritual concerns to bet because it's not like the Ten Commandments say, thou shalt not gamble. But there's principles, I think, when it comes to risk in the Bible that gambling doesn't really fit the criteria necessary to be able to be risking something in a biblical way. So I would discourage that, and I would say it's markedly different from making an investment in a financial institution. I don't exactly remember every point I made, but it was the Ecclesiastes 11 sermon where I talked about the distinction there. So I would have to go back and look up my notes there.

Bob:

I agree about the gambling thing. The only thing I would add about the stock purchase is that you actually are buying a share in something. You're buying a share in a company. that is hopefully bringing about good to the world. And that's something that's worthy of talking about as well, the type of stock that you would, not that you would make an educated investment in a stock, but the type of stock that you might want to invest in, especially if it's a single stock, because you are buying ownership and you have then a responsibility over that company, which some people would say is a little different than buying a broad-based index fund because you're buying multiple stocks. So I think that one is fine, but I would agree about the gambling part.

Dave:

Somewhat controversial, but becoming more and more of a problem because you used to have to like drive to Atlantic City to gamble or fly to Vegas. But now it's like you can get an app on your phone and they entice you with like, hey, here's free $500 to start an account with us and start gambling. And it releases chemicals in your brain that are similar to any other addiction. That's why there's gamblers, anonymous groups. It can be very problematic. Yeah. You can really ruin your household by being addicted to gambling, and it can be something that really does a lot of damage to you and your family.

Bob:

Good. Good question. There we go. All right, so should we talk about announcements and then wrap up this week's edition of Behind the Pulpit? We should, and we only have two. Ooh, okay. Only two announcements, so here's the first one. All right, we got a family night at the ballpark. We got the Rumble Ponies and the Patriots. And if I remember correctly, the Rumble Ponies are the Mets farm team and the Patriots are the Yankees farm team, right? That is correct. Very inclusive of us. Right, so it basically is going to a Subway series right down here in Somerville, right? Or Bridgewater, is that where the thing is? Yes. Yeah, so this is going to be on August the 9th, 7.05 p.m. if you want to sign up for that. Do you know when people have to get their... to get their tickets purchased? Do they want to do this, Pastor Dave? What's the date? Might as well do it

Tim:

today.

Bob:

You should do it today, but if you don't get to it today, we'll let you know when you absolutely can't. But do it as soon as you possibly can. It's always a good time out at the ballpark.

Tim:

And if you're one of our YouTube viewers, you can scan this QR code with your phone. if you're not watching on your phone.

Bob:

There you go. And by the way, at the ballpark down there, at the Patriots ballpark, there is lots of activities to do. There's a fast pitch. There's other things to have fun with if your little ones get bored with the game.

Tim:

But not this ballpark. That's Dodger Stadium in the graphic here. That's

Bob:

not a Noah graphic. Sorry, not the exact ballpark here, but when you go to the actual... It's definitely a

Tim:

fun-filled

Bob:

place. Good. All right, what's the next one?

Tim:

The next one is a little announcement.

Bob:

All right. Oliver Aridi is... is our new youth ministry intern for the summer. We have three interns. We mentioned a few of them the other week, and he is joining us for a couple months here this summer to learn what it's like to actually be doing some ministry in the church. And I'm told that he's got a heart for the church, a heart for people, and is feeling God's the Holy Spirit's nudging on maybe going into ministry. So if you see Oliver, say hi to him, encourage him. And I was told, was there an alteration to his picture here? Is that what you're talking about? This picture right here? It's not this one. It's the picture in the email that's going out today with the announcement. All right. So same picture, but different clothes that Noah photoshopped on them.

Tim:

A little bit of

Bob:

work was done. Some cosmetics on the picture. Open

Tim:

your inbox if you're interested in seeing the changes.

Bob:

Anyway, say hi to Oliver. He's going to do a great job. We're excited about having him with us this summer.

Dave:

End of show. Have a great rest of your day, guys. Thanks for watching. Like and subscribe. See you next time on Behind the Pulpit.