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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.
Elders
Series The Faith Debate
Elders
Faith Debate: Sunday, December 8th, 2024
930 WFMD in Frederick, Maryland
Should pastors officiate wedding ceremonies?
This is the second of five sequential radio shows examining important questions about church leaders. All five are available as one long video on the Rumble channel for Household of Faith in Christ, as well as SermonAudio and Odysee.
The panel:
Troy Skinner. Pastor, Household of Faith in Christ
Daniel Razvi. Pastor, Church That Meets at Imran's
David Forsee. Pastor, multi-location house church
| Sermon ID | 18251432461527 |
| Duration | 26:02 |
| Date | |
| Category | Radio Broadcast |
| Language | English |
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