The level of damage a Christian leader’s moral failure causes is almost incalculable. Because much of a pastor’s ministry is explaining God’s Word to his congregation, his words necessarily begin to carry something of a divine weight, and as a result the Christian pastor represents God. The level of trust a congregation must have in its pastor means that the damage caused when a pastor betrays his congregation is exponentially greater than when a business, political, or entertainment leader commits the same sin.

With this in mind, churches and their pastors must care for each other in spiritually healthy ways. Churches must hold their pastors accountable to spiritual oversight, making sure they are confessing their sins regularly and have people in their lives who ask tough questions. And pastors must not use their authority to guard themselves from trusted Christians who would hold them to this accountability. But when Christian leaders fall, it’s important for all Christians to remember that only Jesus is without sin, only Jesus is a perfect leader, and only Jesus loves his people enough to never hurt them.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep140.

Finding it difficult to believe in a God who orders the destruction of human life is not a new phenomenon. Many have found it hard to square what the Bible says about God’s love with what it says about His violence.

But if we are intellectually honest, the question shouldn't be whether the God of the Bible conforms to our personal standards of right and wrong—but whether He is the real God. If He is true, the question of whether we "like" Him becomes secondary to the question of whether He is worthy of worship.

As it turns out, it is philosophically possible to believe in a God who is both loving and vengeful. Anger is often the only appropriate response when someone you love is hurt. In fact, we wouldn't want to worship a God who didn't respond to the injustices of this world with the determination to fix them.

The apex of this "two-sided" love and anger is the Cross. There, Jesus willingly absorbed the evil of a fallen world so that His Father’s wrath could lovingly cut it out forever.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep139.

Many biblical texts teach that Jesus gives his people “eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” But the Bible also warns Christians of the possibility of apostasy, encouraging followers of Jesus to stay on guard against an “evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.”

How can it be true that Christians cannot fall away and also true that they can fall away? The key is to understand the difference between the Christian’s condition as elected by God, and the lived-in experience of the Christian’s faith life. Those who are elected by God from before the foundation of the world can never finally fall away, but are assured by God that the faith which he has granted is secure. However, there are people who at one point genuinely believe that Jesus died for them, but who later in life turn away and abandon their Savior. These ultimately have no assurance of salvation, in spite of their previous baptism and confession. These do not apostasize because they “lost” their faith, as though they were faithfully following Jesus and one day realized they didn’t believe in him anymore. Instead, they sadly made a decision to abandon him and live for themselves, either implicitly or explicitly.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep138.