Chivalry & Disputable Matters | MailBox Monday – 780

Podcast (hsj): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:21 — 18.8MB)

“Dear Heidi, I just don’t know how what to teach my boys about how to treat women!” This question came from Amy, and she’s not alone. The modern feminist movement bears little to no resemblance to its original mission. Today, I’ll be answering Amy’s question as well as talking about disputable matters.

Transcribed version of the podcast is below

Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

Psalm 16:8-11

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

Scripture Mentioned in Podcast

Psalm 11:3
Romans 14
Romans 14:1-4
1 Corinthians 8-10
1 Corinthians 5:1-11

Join us at MomStrong International for our newest Bible Study and Scripture Writing!

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday: podcast@thebusymom.com

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John, welcome to the podcast. I’m so glad you guys have joined me. Today is Monday, June 17th episode number 780.

Man, do we have a lot of stuff to impact today! You guys send in awesome questions. We’re going to be talking about chivalry. You know, I guess we can kind of debate about whether or not it’s dead and talk about disputable matters, homeschooling with your hubby at home and a couple of things—it’s going to be a jam-packed episode.

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged

So wow, lots of stuff going on. Thank you to everyone who came out to the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference. That was an incredible time of just sharing God’s heart and hearing from you. We are so thrilled every time we get to meet you guys and just hear what God’s doing in your heart. You guys are up against a lot in Colorado—moment of silence. You got baker’s being sued—what, for the third time in a row now because he wants to celebrate a homosexual wedding with the cake? You got people coming after your homeschool freedom, you got all kinds of stuff—not the least of which Denver’s having the same problem that Seattle’s having in that itself has a little bit like weed.

I live in Portland. So can I just say—I will stand in solidarity with you. There’s a couple of things coming up. I want you guys to know about. First of all, I will be speaking for the NW Slavic Action Summit at Smirna Christian Church on Tuesday, July 2nd. That event starts at 6:00 PM. You are not going to want to miss it. I have been really encouraged in the last couple of years to see the Slavic community get off the bench and onto the battlefield. I learned several years ago that most of them are not registered to vote and they’re watching their freedoms being taken away from them a little bit at a time. So, I’ve got a couple of local friends here in that community, really wonderful people who are trying to get this community involved in what’s happening around us so their voices can be heard. And I have agreed to come encourage them. So Tuesday, July 2nd in Vancouver, Washington, the NW Slavic Action Summit at Smirna Christian Church. You can find out more about that event online and I will also link back to it in the show notes today.

After that, July 11 through 13th I’ll be at CHEA, one of my favorite events in homeschooling that’s happening in Pasadena. And then the 19th or the 20th I’ll be in Phoenix for the AFHE convention. If you guys are anywhere in the area for those conventions come on out, they’re going to be an incredible time of encouragement and I just have such a heart to encourage this generation of homeschool parents. You guys are up against it! There’s a lot going on, but God is doing something incredible right now in the hearts of His children and it’s a joy for me to be able to meet you on the road and just give a little bit of a shout out, and a high five, and hug your neck. So coming out and say hello. I would love to see you.

All right. I want to say thank you also for those of you who keep reviews for the podcast over at iTunes. Again, we read every single one of those. The staff reads them. We are so encouraged and I just wanted to say thank you. This one mom, she wrote—as a mother to little children I have so many areas where I need wisdom for women who have walked what I’m walking through. Heidi addresses current events with relevant biblical truth. She’s not afraid to be honest about godliness. Considering our culture and all things she brings hope and the truth of Christ despite the sad current events, our children will grow up to see being taught as normal.

And that’s absolutely true. Thank you for that review. I really appreciate it. It’s true that our children are being taught that right is wrong and wrong is right. So many things are upside down right now in the culture—but I also think that God is doing an incredible work in that we are seeing the spirit of fear pushed back in the church right now. Psalm 11:3 says—if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? And there’s no doubt that there has been a massive foundational shift in our culture, away from God’s Word and shifted to the authority of man’s word. And this transformation didn’t happen overnight. It’s been happening for many years while the Church has sat silently by and watched it continue. And it occurred in much the same way that a person is carried by the ocean’s tide when playing in the waves, right? That’s what we tell our kids. Watch out for sleeper waves. We call them sleeper waves here in the Pacific Northwest.

If you’ve ever been out on to the Oregon coast, one of the first things that we teach our children is to watch for patterns in the water so that they can see a rip current, otherwise called a sleeper wave. You’ll be standing there, maybe you’re knee deep, and one of those rip currents can come up and literally take your feet out from underneath you and drag you out into the ocean. And a lot of people die that way. And because one minute they’re having a great time and the next minute they look up and they don’t even know where they are and they’re struggling to stay above the water. And this is exactly what’s happened in the culture. It’s been sort of a steady erosion of biblical authority. And now we’re seeing a weakened church—absolutely not watching for these sleeper waves.

They’re not watching. We haven’t been watching for awhile. And a loss of biblical authority has happened within much of the church. And one of the things that I want to do here is to turn your eyes back to the authority of Scripture. The Bible teaches that Scripture is our go-to for everything, for all things related to life and godliness. The Bible says that it’s helpful for reproving, it’s helpful for teaching in righteousness, for opening our eyes to sin, and walking in right relationship with the Lord. And the concession that I am seeing of biblical truth, especially in regard to human sexuality, to the origin of life, to the authority in the inerrancy of Scripture—has allowed this infiltration of secular ideas to come into the church. And so the culture really has invaded the church.

And like I said a couple of weeks ago, my pastorJeremy was saying that culture is an incredibly powerful thing. And what happens is we tend to bend to the culture. And so like Israel of old, the first order of business for the church must be repentance inside the church before there can ever be influence outside of it. And so my heart here at the podcast, and all of the team that brings us to you every week, is to say— let’s follow the Lord. Repentance starts with the church. And you’ll know when we’ve experienced repentance because we see a change in attitude. We see a heart change, a desire to want to follow the Lord. And so that’s really the heart here. And I hope that it encourages you.

I love to answer your questions for a couple of reasons. One, I want this podcast to be a place where you can bring tough questions and we can talk about them together. One of the things we’re going to discuss today is this issue of disputable matters because there are gray areas in the Bible and in our walk with the Lord—where people who are sincere about their faith can disagree. And so we’re going to talk about that a little bit today. But before we get into it, I want to take you to today’s Scripture Writing Challenge. If you’re not following me over at the Scripture Writing Challenge, I want to encourage you to do it. It’s a free thing for you guys to get in there to get into the Word every day. There are copy pages for your kids. They can practice their handwriting—there’s cursive behind the paywall. In other words, we also have a Bible Study that you can subscribe to you. It’s about $8 a month and we’re going to take you a whole lot deeper, do more for your children. But for the free version of it—I’ve been doing this for many years. I’m writing a Scripture Writing Challenge for you every month and it goes along with what we’re studying at MomStrong International, so you can download the copywork for your children. We’ve just started doing it in Spanish. So if you have friends where Spanish is their primary language, or even I’ve heard from a lot of you who are saying—thank you, we’re trying to practice our Spanish—this is a great way to do it. So, my friend Marlene who works with me at Heidi St. John, she is the one who does all that. So shout out to my amazing friend Marlene for what an amazing job she’s doing there.

All right, first question. Goodness gracious you guys. First of all, you’re going to hear me say this over and over. I think it’s really important for us to have our heart set on God’s heart for us. So the first question comes from Amy, and Amy says—Dear Heidi, I’m not sure what to train my boys to think about women. Amy, you are not alone. This is one of the things that is so frustrating for me as I’m watching my young men go out into the world—that this idea of masculinity is being very much redefined and challenged in the culture right now. So Amy goes on to say—I’m not sure what to teach my boys about women. I have always believed that they should be chivalrous to open doors for women, to allow them to order first at restaurants, etc, etc—that men were born protectors of women and children. But lately my boys are feeling dismissed and even made fun of when they step out and act even remotely chivalrous. What is your suggestion?

All right, so first of all Amy—thank you for the question. I love that you brought this up. Today we are seeing the emasculation of men and it is accelerating at a rapid pace. We’re watching drag queens pretending to be women. This is being normalized in our libraries, which if you haven’t been following me and my absolute frustration with the American Library Association, I don’t even take my kids to the library anymore because they have made it absolutely 100% clear that they are not about protecting our children. They are about the indoctrination of children. They’ve made their bathrooms safe spaces for transgender and like….let’s say that my husband decides: today I feel like a woman. The American Library Association would say—then you go right on into the ladies restroom. Um, no, not on my watch. If that’s the way you guys feel about it we have turned in our library cards. We are not going back until we see a change.

These guys are bringing drag queens to the library for goodness sake! Parents, when this happens to your local library, and it will because this is a push that started on the west coast and then moved rapidly to the east coast, and now is encroaching into the heartland. When you see this happen, go to your libraries and let them know. And frankly, the most effective thing I’ve seen toward this right now is from a guy here in our area who went with me to a library board meeting and said— listen, I have done my homework. I realized that the last library bond only passed by 400 votes. If this is the way you guys are going to play the game. We will make sure no library bond is ever passed again. You could have heard a pin drop because they don’t want their funding threatened in any way. They don’t care about your kids. And they’ll bring drag queens in to read to your kids about how they don’t necessarily have to be a boy or a girl. They could be either or both…or you know—one of 15 genders. But they don’t want their funding threatened.

And can I just encourage you guys get off the bench, get onto the battlefield? I mean the reason why Amy’s sons are feeling like they can’t be behave as men anymore is because we have been teaching in the schools now for some time, and promoting in our libraries—that men aren’t special, that men could be women or women could be men. And it’s backwards. God said in His Word—I made them male and female in my image. And I want to just encourage you guys to encourage your boys.

I mean this is what I’m doing and I’ve told my sons—you’re going to be mocked for this. If you see a woman standing on the bus and you’re on the bus with her, or on the subway, or on the train into downtown Portland—offer her your seat. That’s actually a good thing to do. Women are created responders—born responders. Men have been created differently than women and they are supposed to be protectors. When I walked down into the streets of downtown Portland right now, I’m thinking if there was a military invasion right now, I would be dead because so many of these guys down here—they’re more like women than they are like men. And there’s enough of us women. We don’t anymore. And really, I would say 90% of the women that I talk to—you feel the same way that I do. And I saw an article on Fox News the other day. It came across my desk and I loved it. It was written by a woman named Carol Roth and she said—link back to it in my show notes. Dear militant feminists, stop messing it up for the rest of us.

And I just wanted to go—louder so that people in the back in hear. Here’s how she started out. She said— My husband has opened the car door for me every single time we have arrived at our vehicle since we met nearly 22 years ago. Colleagues and strangers open doors and let me enter a building or room first. Other work associates let me order first at the restaurant. And, here’s an almost “secret”… I absolutely love it. The website Eater, which describes itself a “the source for people who care about dining and drinking in the world’s best food cities,” recently ran an article that explained that many restaurants are doing away with classic training and etiquette, like serving the women at the table first and not using phrasing like “ladies” or “gentlemen” because they are eliminating “soft sexism.” [source]

You guys, this is ridiculous!

These are merely a few examples in a long list of grievances that are good manners being killed because some women don’t understand what equality or sexism really means. A restaurant serving women first is a sign of class, elegance and respect. If you are offended by that, have a hard think about why you are so angry. So, ultra-“feminists” here’s my request: be miserable if you want, but stop ruining chivalry, manners and civility for the rest of us. [source]

[clapping] I’m just—Yay! I want to stand up and say thank you.

She goes on to say—I am very grateful to the women who came before me, who fought for my and other women’s rights including voting and equal pay. While I appreciate immensely their sacrifices and hard work, I also can relish in the fact that because they have done so, there’s no other place or time in history where it is better to be a woman than right now in the United States of America. There are women around the world who are truly oppressed, who aren’t allowed basic human rights, who are caned for adultery, who can’t do basic tasks without the accompaniment and approval of men. We can continue to fight for them, while still appreciating the manners of a man—or anyone, for that matter—who is holding the door open for you. [source]

It’s a fantastic article. She wraps up by saying—So, to the women who are offended by civility and manners, I again politely ask you to stop screwing it up for the rest of us and ruining common courtesy in society. And to the chivalrous men, your courtesies are appreciated by many. I say thank you as I virtually curtsy in respect, not in deference. [source]

This is a great article and she speaks from the heart of so many women that I know in the culture who are very sad that our young men have been told that they can’t hold the door open for women anymore. It’s just not true. So Amy, keep teaching your boys to be gentlemen, a real woman will appreciate it and be thankful for it.

Next question comes from a listener who has a question that I actually haven’t had in a little while and I was very thankful to hear about it. She asked to remain anonymous. She said—Heidi, I’m writing to ask about issues in the Bible that are debatable. Not issues such as homosexuality, but things such as women wearing skirts only, or when to baptize. I’m interested in hearing how to deal with these opinions among friends and family. When my kids were baptized I had thought a family member would come but didn’t because this person doesn’t agree with when we decide to baptize our kids. It hurt a lot. And still does. Even though I’ve made my decision through prayer and reading, it doesn’t matter to this person. I’m upset that our kids weren’t supported in this amazing event and that this person would not be excited or happy about it at all. So here’s the question—Is it okay to support a person with a decision that differs from theirs without trying to convince that person of their differing opinion, and how to do this best…the best way to approach this from both sides.

Okay, so this is something called disputable matters. And the Apostle Paul talks about this in Romans 14. If you haven’t studied Romans 14, this is a great time to do it. And he talks about the weak and the strong. He says in verse one of chapter 14—Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. [Romans 14:1-4]

So first of all, I think we need to really decide what a disputable matter is. And so the difference between indisputable matters and disputable matters is very straightforward. So for example, the resurrection of Jesus is an indisputable matter. This means it’s something that we confess as a bedrock truth of our decision to follow Christ if the gospel is going to make any sense and if people are going to be saved. So in other words—if Christ didn’t rise from the dead, then our faith is futile. It means nothing. And the witness who claimed that they saw him aren’t telling the truth. So therefore we remain in our sin. And so that is an indisputable matter.

But in contrast, Paul allows people to differ on matters of honing certain days and with each side fully persuaded in his own mind. Paul is saying—listen, don’t argue about this stuff. It’s not worth it. And today there’s a tendency to refer to a disputable matters as sort of people saying—well, we’re indifferent about it, like theologically. So on the whole—that terminology is probably better. So in contemporary linguistic language—disputable matters is less likely to be misunderstood than indifferent matters. So we don’t want to be indifferent about things.

So it’s all right for your friend to have a position on baptism. I will say—I would have gone. So whether I agreed when you were doing it or not, I would have gone because I would see that your heart is to follow the Lord. And if at some point we can talk about it, I would, I would be willing and wanting to talk about it. Let’s discuss this stuff, right? Because we need to be walking around. What we’re doing is we’re given a black eye to the church, right? So, Paul is encouraging us—hey, let’s get it together why this issue on disputable matters is such a big deal.

Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8-10 are parallel passages. Another great passage for you to study. As I’m talking about this, I’m thinking we should totally do this at MomStrong International—so look for that this fall. I think we’ll make a study out of this because it’s important and I don’t have time to go as deep into it as I would like to right now. But when you understand the longer passage in 1 Corinthians, I think it really helps us to understand Romans 14. So in 1 Corinthians 5, which is a really it’s part of Paul getting us ready for 1 Corinthians 8-10. It helps us to see what qualifies as a disputable matter and what does not. And then it goes on to say when we really should pass judgment on our brothers.

So 1 Corinthians 5 says—It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? [1 Corinthians 5:1-2]

So here’s the situation. A man in the church was having sex with his stepmother, and Paul says that in a spirit, not of self righteousness, but of grief—that man should be confronted with his sin. And if he refused to repent, he should be put outside the fellowship. You know what that means? That means they are passing judgment. They’re saying—no, you can’t say that you’re walking with the Lord and do this horrible thing that even the pagans know to be wrong. But then Paul goes on to say in verse seven—you’re boasting isn’t good. Right? And so this echoes a statement in verse one where he says—a man has his father’s wife and you’re proud. So why would they be proud in boasting about this terrible sin? The only thing that I can think of is if they have taken the ground that so many in the church are taking right now in making excuses for homosexuality, for exercising Christian liberty…and everything from being mildly drunk, which the Bible says—hey, don’t do that—to excepting sin as if it were normal inside the church…and Paul is saying—that’s the indifference I was talking about a minute ago. Right?

And Paul notes we can’t be indifferent about these things. If you want to see grace, and tolerance, and liberty and not be judgmental—look at us. One of our brothers is sleeping with his stepmom. Lame, right? This is church who has gotten it completely wrong and they’re not exercising wise judgment.. And they’re not taking what they know to be true from the Word of God, right? So Paul explains why we should use decisive judgment in cases like this. He talks about how a little bit of yeast is going to work its way through the whole batch of dough. So he’s saying get rid of the old yeast so that you can have a new batch without this contamination, right? Without the yeast in it. And in verse 11, he goes on to make a really harsh statement, right?

He says—not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. Right? So Paul is saying—it’s up to us inside the church to judge each of us inside the church. A righteous judgment is a hallmark of a person who’s walking in right relationship with God. And then he goes on to talk about disputable matters in Romans 14. These are behaviors which Christians are not to pass judgment on their brothers concerning. In fact, what he’s saying is these are not matters in the Word of God, to which God has said—Hey, this is sin—right?

And so a disputable matter is something that God does not explicitly condemn. And so it’s going to fall into the circle of Christian liberty. And whenever I talk about Christian liberty, whether it’s out on the road or here at the podcast, people always want to throw stones, right? Because there is something that maybe the Lord has spoken directly to you about. And to you it’s sin and the Bible addresses this, right? But to me it isn’t sin. But if I know that it’s sin to you, and I do it in front of you…like let’s say that you believe that alcohol is a sin, that drinking is a sin in any situation. And I know that you believe that and I decide to drink in front of you. Well then I am blowing it because I am not being sensitive to your personal conviction on this issue, right?

And so it’s different to me than your friend not coming to the baptism because that’s just…that to me, these are dispute disputable matters. But there should be freedom in that for you to say—man I don’t understand and I disagree with you, but I can see that your heart is to follow the Lord. And so we want to be encouraging each other to follow the Lord and to be kind because Satan has a strategy in this. All right? And that is to divide us over issues that carry no eternal significance with them, right? And he wants to tempt us.

First of all, the enemy wants to tempt us not to judge our brother when we should in primary areas that have been revealed in Scripture, right? So sexual immorality, clearcut doctrines that Christianity wouldn’t be able to stand—such as the resurrection of Christ—without, right? The second one is to tempt us to judge our brother when we shouldn’t, about something that has not been clearly revealed to us in Scripture, right? And so we want to be very, very careful. Randy Alcorn says that there’s a third strategy, and he says—where there is indisputable sin, would be to tempt us to judge it with a spirit of self righteousness rather than what Paul encourages, which is a spirit of grief and humility.

So this a tough issue, but I have seen entire churches split over the most ridiculous things. A long time ago I was out on the circuit speaking, I want to say this is probably 10 years ago at least, and a young woman came up to me and their whole co-op split over the issue of organic food because “after all”, she said—“what would Jesus eat?” I was like, are you serious? Like this is wrong. That is the disputable matter. And so there are lots of disputable matters. Climate change is a disputable matters. Politics can be a disputable matter, although I think it’s becoming less and less as the far left launches into this infanticide, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual—these are all things that God says very clearly in His Word, are sin. But these many of the issues that hang up the church, whether or not we should wear skirts or pants, whether or not there should be contemporary Christian music.

A long time ago, the argument in the Church was contemporary music versus hymns—and man did people get all up in arms over it. And I think the enemy had a field day with it. So we need to be asking the Lord: Father, give us your heart. Tell me when to speak and when to be quiet. Show me when I need to exercise sound judgment. Because it’s actually sin that I’m seeing and where it’s a gray area and I should withhold judgment and give my brother and sister the benefit of the doubt.

So anyway, I’m over. I’m really over. I’m so sorry I’m over today. I love mailbox Monday. Thank you guys so much for tuning in today. If you want to get ahold of us, reach out to us. You can email us podcast@thebusymom.com or you can write to us at Heidi St. John c/o Firmly Planted Family 11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682.

Thanks for listening everybody, and I will see you back here on Wednesday.

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682