Welcome to the Faith Debate on News Radio 930 WFMD. I'm Troy Skinner. We're online at WFMD.com, and you can follow me online at HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com. Last week, if you tuned in, you heard us talking about pastors, elders, overseers, undershepherds, whatever label you want to attach to, bishops, I guess. Are they the only ones that can preach? Are they the only ones that can administer the Lord's Supper or baptize someone? Are there certain roles that are reserved only for the pastors? And we came to a consensus really early, so it wasn't a huge debate show last week, but this week might be different because Daniel Razvi and David Forsey have differing opinions, I think. We'll see if I'm good at guessing. But I think they have differing opinions on whether or not pastors Only should officiate the wedding ceremony, but more particularly this is a fun question Can only married men serve as pastors so those be the primary focus of today's show you can Was I gonna say I lost my train of thought I was telling David Forsey earlier Today before the show that I think I'm losing brain cells by the half by the did you remember that author Troy? Still no William The author of the Shack who wrote the Shack Daniel, I don't know what's the Shack. Oh, man. What's the Shack? He's too young We had him on the faith debate I we did multiple shows I actually did a whole teaching series about the Shack and for the record against the Shack sure and because if you want to get a sense of every uh... popular heresy in the american church today just read the fact that all in their every single one is that it was a bestseller it's a bigger it's amazing but that that they can tell it to squeeze every hell man and i don't know about that that's a gift You sure it wasn't satire? This is a teaching tool. You could use it for that, and I actually have. Yeah, you did. Anyway, William P. Young. I got the William name. Good job, Troy. And he goes by Paul, that's what throws me, because he goes by Paul Young with his friends, and so the young part, and he's old, so that threw me too, because he's older than me, so he's an old guy. I feel like we need to circle back to last week, actually, a little bit, because I feel like we Pretty thoroughly talked about when I circle back. Yeah, he's standing behind a podium in the White House press briefing room or something Maybe they don't go back. They just ignore We talked pretty thoroughly about the Lord's Supper and baptism, but I don't feel like we actually spent much time talking about Who should do the preaching? Yeah, I mean you you said that a couple a couple words on it Yeah, there's been there's I've heard some teaching that that when it says prophesy in the New Testament often is just meaning the preaching what we used to what we would call preaching and And that that argument is usually made by cessationists who would always say that you can't ever prophesy anymore, but I think Linguistically they do have a point where some of those passages are really including anything that exhorting that's going on It's sometimes translated prophesy sometimes preach I Think to put an additional point on what I said last week, and if you didn't hear it go listen to the podcast I But basically I felt the short version of what I said last week was I think that the the elders the pastors of the church are responsible for what is taught in their church and so they responsibility to oversee that but if they Will sign off on somebody else preaching that I think that's well within their authority. I think it's a good thing And and I think it cannot be a woman that's teaching men specifically, or the whole congregation. Are we circling forward now? Are we jumping ahead, Troy? And I think we've kind of agreed on that in the past, but I would maybe make an exception for a woman who has come back from the mission field and wants to give a report to the congregation on some of the things she's seen God do that's not necessarily teaching them or expounding theological points. It's more like, here's a prayer request, here's something that happened to me last week. That, I think, is a reasonable thing for congregations to let women do, and certainly to teach any of the other women. position on that from you, so that's surprising. You surprise me all the time, I gotta tell you. I think going back, circling back, I'm staying behind the podium in the White House briefing room now, to last week a little bit to put a finer point on things, because we never got around to defining, okay, so what is that special role for the elders? If they're not the only ones that can do these things, what the heck do they do? I think their ultimate responsibility, and all three of us on this panel are pastors, so our ultimate responsibility is to be guardians of the gospel, and proclaimers of the gospel, and teachers of the gospel, and clarifying the gospel, and if the gospel comes under attack, to identify those wolves that are attacking the gospel, if people who are sullying the good news somehow, it's our responsibility to try to rectify the situation. I think that's what is a distinct responsibility for the elders. All Christians should be doing that, but I think the elders are the ones that are more responsible for that. Specifically within the Church. Yeah. Within what is taught and believed in the Church. Yeah. So that, and that would blend in. The elders are in accountability system and should have among themselves an accountability system, but they are an accountability system for the flock. So you have like a small localized version of a church council kind of thing, right? When the elders meet and they're trying to wrestle through what's going on in the church, that's kind of like a mini church council that's happening. And they have a responsibility, a real responsibility to hash those things out, figure them out and be biblical. They, so, all critics so that's where the difference comes because christians all should do that but i think that those who are ordained into those roles have a special responsibility and so not all should desire to be in those leadership positions because there's a greater weight of responsibility you'll be held to a higher account uh... by god so and i think that goes and all of this and so the the elders the pastors whatever you wanna call them uh... they need to make sure the lord supper is done the way that those elders feel like in their church it should be done. They're the ones that need to make sure that those who should be baptized are baptized and no one else. And that the baptism should be done in an orderly way, in a proper way. And if those elders feel like immersion's the only way to go, then they need to police that. If they're okay with sprinkling, then they can police that. And so that gets into what we're talking about more specifically this week, I think. Wedding ceremonies. That's a covenant that a man and woman enters into, and there's so much cultural confusion about that question, and it can have a real spiritual impact on the local bodies, you know, the churches, that the pastors, I think, do exercise some oversight on that question, but do they need to be the ones to officiate the ceremony? I would say no. I think the pastors should not be exercising oversight over that. The marriage the marriage is negotiated by the two fathers if they're unavailable somebody else the families are negotiating the marriage and There's a public Proclamation of we these two people are getting married husband and wife obviously that that will be the part that they pass just to be pleasing that these you're not calling something marriage is not marriage, but yeah, I mean I For that matter too right if that's between the that's the families that should be That that should be and then they can go to the cast pastor for counsel but in I'm even more Yeah, yeah, I would say the pastor should be teaching on that on that subject so let's say if somebody's in our church and I'll make myself the example right so I have Father who's in my church, and he wants to marry his believing daughter off to a Gentleman who you know is the son of some other father obviously who's not a believer? And I say yeah, you you can't enter into that kind of you can't do that. Well. He moves forward with anyway It's like I as the pastor have no Spiritual responsibility and that's sure sure you sure you can be you should be exhorting him and and and teaching him what what the And even challenging him with you know Matthew 18 Sure church discipline, right? Not more than any other area Exactly that that's kind of what I'm making because people make marriage out to be though This is something the pastor has to do I want the pastor to marry me or I want no In fact, I'm, I mean, I don't know if I would say exactly that I think it's a bad thing for a pastor to be officiating a ceremony, but I would almost be in that camp. Is it as important as getting married in a church building? What was that, Daniel? Well, I don't think that you should be necessarily getting married in a church building. You don't think there's any special significance to that? No. And there's no more special significance? I think it detracts from the biblical representation of marriage when you insist on the pastor and the church being involved to that extent. Because I think, biblically, marriages between the man and the woman he's marrying, with the encouragement and guidance and potentially arranging of the families, they're the ones that are doing this, and the two families are inviting other witnesses to see, look, my kids are getting married. And then you take her into your tent and you're married. Like that's the marriage ceremony. There's a lot of celebration involved, all this. But for a pastor to stand there and say, OK, repeat after me. Here's the different vows you have to say. No, no. The father should be involved, making sure that they trust that these people are making a commitment to each other. And whatever they decide, if they want to say some vow or not say some vow or whatever, they're making a public proclamation that these two people are married. The practice of pastors having to be involved, and in fact legally being required to be involved, as it is now in, I mean you don't have to get a pastor, you can get a justice of the peace, but somebody's got to officiate, that started as a Catholic doctrine. Because the Catholics in the Middle Ages and the Medieval period wanted to Wanted to control who was marrying who so they could tax them and tie them and the different things and control who? You know what was going on so they made this rule that you couldn't have any privileges unless you were married by the church That was when at a time when the church was The maybe the greatest political power in Right right right in the way, and basically they were they were doing that as a form of you know control of the populace And I think it's a shame that the protestant world Kept that catholic tradition of pastors being required to be involved and quote-unquote officiating weddings I think it's it's it's a travesty I don't have a problem like them and there was a pastor that that read some vows for me when I got married But it's see in my culture In the Middle Eastern culture. It's it's not very common to do it the way most people do in America. So in my case, the pastor signed the marriage document to get us legally married, and we didn't actually move in together or officially be married until a few months later when we had our actual wedding. and invite all the family and friends and so on to see. So that's more of a biblical. I mean, the pastor, if you want to invite your pastor to kind of witness as a witness, like, hey, I see these two people made a commitment. They're betrothed to each other. I think both the fathers are believers. I think this is a good idea. Like that's the extent the pastor is involved. And then the family's taking from there and they have the celebration and all of that. Um, but I'm, I'm against, uh, officiating, uh, being a requirement, uh, or, or even pastors being as involved as they normally are. By the way, this is the Faith Debate. I'm Troy Skinner. The voice you heard right before mine was Daniel Rasby, and the voice you're probably going to be hearing next is David Forsey. You're listening to us on News Radio 930 WFMD. I'm wondering if what happened, possibly, I'm trying to think about the cultural import, because that's really what it comes down to, right? These women, it's their dream to have the big special day and the big special ceremony and all that sort of stuff, and there's a lot of weight packed into the ceremony. And I'm wondering if that possibly happened culturally, because if you look at the, you still see it in the Near East and the Middle East, but in the Bible you see these long celebrations, days long. Sometimes a couple of weeks long would be a wedding feast. They turn it into a big feast. And so of course the bride's gonna feel special because they just spent two weeks. No, but see, you're getting it backwards. In the Western culture, it's all about the bride. In the Eastern culture, it's all about the groom. The groom is taking him away. Yeah, the bride gets all dressed up and adorned and is all special and stuff, but you don't give that reverence and worship to the bride. Well, hopefully you're not reverencing the groom either. No, but you don't give, but it's not the same. I mean, it's the families is who you're celebrating. Not really so much the groom or the bride necessarily, but if either one more than the other would be the groom, but really it's the whole family that is celebrating and the father is marrying their children off. That is the way they look at it in the Eastern culture. So the Western practice of, oh, this is the biggest day of her life, and it's all about her, and she's got to have the prettiest dress, and this and that, and everything's got to be perfect and accurate and all that, that is taking the focus away from marriage, where the husband's the head, and making the focus on the woman, the wife, which is completely backwards. And I think when Jesus proclaims the gospel, that is a picture of a Middle Eastern wedding ceremony. Because what does Jesus do? He becomes betrothed to us on Calvary. We are saved now. We are legally married. Anything to separate us from God, if it were even possible, would be a divorce, right? But we haven't consummated this wedding until he comes down to get his bride with much fanfare and excitement and enjoyment for the second coming of Christ, which we all look forward to in different ways, I'm told, based on the last few months of this program. But the point is he is coming again to get his bride. That's when we consummate our marriage with him And it's the same thing that that happens in there. I mean look at Joseph and Mary Joseph was gonna divorce her, but they hadn't slept together How are they married they but they were legally married because they were betrothed the fathers had agreed They're married now to separate would be a divorce and the angel said don't do that and he didn't and we all know that story and the Christmas story, but Then he went back to his father's house, built rooms onto his father's house to take his bride and he went to get his bride at a later date. That's the, the marriage is when the husband goes and takes his wife. And yes, you have a big celebration and feasting, and it's a family environment, not necessarily to reverence or give awe to a specific person, and certainly not just the wife. So, I don't know, I'm kind of on my soapbox here. I could talk about this for three hours. Well, and I think I would agree that we've gotten things out of whack and they're off balance, for sure. By the way, it might be irrelevant now, but the point I was going to be making was that there used to be this long celebration for a wedding, a big feast, that lasted days, if not weeks, And now it's all squeezed into like an afternoon or an evening or something like that. And so it might be some cultural pressure. Like, well, we're not doing 10 days of celebration. We're only doing three hours of celebration. So we got to add more pomp and circumstance into that to give it more weight because the time isn't there. So let's, it's like with parenting, right? I don't spend a lot of quantity time with my children. So I'm going to make sure I spend a lot of quality time with my children. What a cop out that is. But having been to a number of Eastern and Western weddings, I can tell you that even two or three hours of one of the days of a Middle Eastern wedding is so much more joy and fanfare and to-do than the whole thing of a Western wedding in most cases. It's just a lot more Celebration in a lot more festivity and joy and stuff I'm not trying to say that if you if you have a Western wedding or you're looking forward to Walking down the aisle in a white dress and having your pastor marry you and all that I'm not saying that's ungodly or something that you shouldn't be hoping for looking for but I think the focus is kind of backwards and I really think that the pastor being involved is not one of the most or even the top five most important parts of the wedding and Well, a lot of people in our culture today would agree with you because they don't include their pastors. I would include justice of the peace or anybody that's officiating. I think their best friend gets registered with the state so they can officiate the wedding and then sign off on paperwork. And right. But, but even doing an officiating of it, I think is not a good, not a really good thing to be looking forward to as this is a highlight of the wedding. The highlight of the wedding is when you go and consummate the marriage. Like that's the, it's all built around that. Yeah. With the consummating of the marriage, there's no public witness to that. Not America anyway, not usually but in Middle East normally the family's gonna follow them up to their room and then wait outside the door for the evidences of virginity like that's that's what they do normally they first of all prepare the room and make it all nice and decorated and pretty and stuff and then everybody's kind of Waiting out the outside to make sure it does get consummated so they do kind of play place a lot of emphasis on that That won't be part of the like the main Celebration they're gonna have the feast and stuff first and then he takes home his bride But the family is still gonna be kind of involved in that no no they're not in the room and I get that at that part's not public but But it is it is a very very different experience having a attended and been in a number of both types of weddings, I definitely feel like the Eastern wedding style is significantly more biblically based. Let me know there's a lot there Daniel and I kind of dominated the last you know 10 or 12 minutes So we'll get David Forsey in here anything drop anything in reaction There's more there's more. I'm going to want to say but David's here for a reason because as you learned last week. He's chock full of fun chuckle So he should know which of these? Any party here you can tell me which celebration is more fun the Western wedding and Eastern wedding yeah, well I haven't been to many maybe So I I mean I to some extent I agree I agree with Daniel that You know again, it's not officiating weddings is not listed as a Particular role of the elders Biblically like it's it's not there all we see there is is you know is the two families? coming together So I think it's I think in the sense of like Right like it's it is wise to seek To seek wise counsel right things like premarital counseling and so on would be very good things for pastors Yeah, like in that sense like pastors should be very involved by the families like the families should want to involve the pastors and in their in anything that goes on in their lives in general, really, right? Not to have them tell them exactly what to do in every situation, but again, to seek wisdom and advice and to help in pursuing righteousness. So yeah, my basic answer would be no, I don't think that pastors must be the officiant over a wedding. Yeah, and I don't think that they must be either. I feel like Daniel's pushing a little bit beyond that, saying that... Well, they can if they have to be, but he's almost saying they shouldn't be, and I don't know if I would go there. The pastor shouldn't be an integral part of the wedding, is what I would say. The pastor should not be a necessary or even a main part of the wedding. Yeah, and I would almost agree, if I could qualify it in ways that you would not be satisfied with, I would say that the pastor shouldn't be required to be an integral part of the wedding, but if the families and the bride and the groom would want their pastor to have an integral role in what's going on, I wouldn't see any problem with that. And one of the things- No, I don't think it's a sin to ask your pastor to fish at your wedding, and that's not what I'm saying. No, I'm saying that beyond even it not being a sin, at minimum, I would say it's not a sin. But I think there could be some really good things that come from the pastor to be involved. Like the teaching role, the pastor could be the one who really draws attention to the fact of what's being pictured by the marriage between the bride and the groom, right? How it helps to picture Christ's relations with this church and and it can highlight the things you think are out of balance the pastor could say now everybody likes in our culture likes to make it all about the The bride and her day, but you know biblically speaking. It's more about this I'm not sure I fully agree by the way with how far you go. I feel like the pendulum may be overcorrected just a hair Sure, certainly. It's about Christ Christ is the debate. I have to take the other position You know Christ is you know, he's the ultimate bridegroom and so it's certainly it's all about Christ and But Christ, in turn, then makes it all about his bride and gives all that he has to the bride. And so I think it's a both and. But I do think it's been out of balance. I do think that the groom sometimes is like dragged along for the ride and it's like, oh, you're here too? Hey, congratulations on the wedding. You know, I do think there's a lot of truth to that. And the woman ends up getting all that she wants. The man, you know, oftentimes gets nothing that he wants. And so I do think there's a lack of balance. But now it is... That we do have in America, it still is usually the practice of the bride's family to be the one organizing the wedding. And I think that is still a... that it has a lot of biblical basis for that, because the father of the bride is giving her away, basically. I think that... Yeah, I I think that the Amount that uh the pastors are typically involved in weddings is to some degree an example of an unhealthy Outsourcing that that families and an unhealthy outsourcing of spiritual things that that families That's a really tend to do that's a helpful insight. It's it's you know the way we do wedding ceremonies is the way we do you know youth group Yeah, yeah, right a family should be taking responsibility for things that they outsource it to the church or even the school in the first place That's why I own school. Yeah, and so So yeah, I think I think Keeping keeping that sort of thing in mind like yes there it if the if the if the fathers involved are spiritually inept, are not spiritual leaders, are not spiritual guides, then probably it would be good if the pastor is involved a lot with the bride and the groom, and helping to give them guidance in those things. But if the fathers are doing their job of being the spiritual leaders, and discipling their children, and teaching their children, and instructing their children in righteousness, then that that is their place well we're not going to have time to dive into what i thought would end up being the dominant portion of the topic selection for today which is uh... can only married men service pastors all answer it yes so so we don't know yeah i think i think there might be some disagreement in the room so well we'll start off next week show on that and then we might give it into something up brought up in last week show anyway about whether women can be quote-unquote pastors and in either function or title. There's been a debate about that recently. Well, they're not really the pastor. They only have the title. They don't do the things pastor or the vice, the opposite. So either one of those. They're trying to play fast and loose with defining their terms. So we'll do that next week. The one who I think kind of got the last salient point on this week's show, even though he didn't have very much opportunity to share, was David Forsey. The one who had the most to say this week, and maybe next week too, Daniel Rathbie, we'll see. And me, with the voice of reason, right, the ring of truth, I'm Troy Skinner. Take what I say to the bank and cash it. That's pretty much the players without a scorecard. Anyway, thanks so much for listening. Follow us online at WFMD.com or me and this show and the churches that we're involved with more specifically at HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com. Till next week, 167 and a half hours from, check your watches, yep, right about now. God bless.