Theology in the Raw - Bonus Q&A: Contradictions in Jesus' Teachings, The Cannabis Debate, Gen Z Christians, and More!

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Bonus Q&A: Contradictions in Jesus' Teachings, The Cannabis Debate, Gen Z Christians, and More! If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com My Facebook public page: https://www.facebook.com/Preston-Sprinkle-1528559390808046/?pnref=story My Facebook private page: https://www.facebook.com/preston.sprinkle.7 Twitter: @PrestonSprinkle Instagram: preston.sprinkle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology in Iran. This is a bonus Q and a podcast episode that I do once a month when my Patreon supporters send in a whole slew of tough questions and I do my best to answer these questions here on the podcast. You'll get a sneak peek into this Q and a episode. Uh, but if you want the full length version, you have to go to patreon.com forward slash theology in Iran, become a patron supporter where you can not just get access to the full length Q Q&A, but also get opportunity to ask questions in the next Patreon podcast episode next month. So, some of the questions I'm going to address are, is it okay to pop some cannabis gummies to wind down? Can

someone lose their salvation? Is Scripture inerrant and infallible? What are we to do with the contradictions in Jesus' teaching and who wrote the book of Revelation? These are just some of the many questions I'm going to address on this episode. So let's jump in. Okay. Danny wants to know if I can help him reconcile the metaphors in the book of Matthew. In particular, Matthew 7, 14 says, the gate is narrow and the way is hard. While Matthew 11, 30, Jesus says, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. Which is the way of Jesus? Is it easy or is it hard?

It's a great question. I don't know if you thought about this tension in Jesus' teaching. There's actually lots of similar tensions in the Gospels and in things that Jesus said, especially among Jesus' more, let's say, proverbial kinds of statements. You know, when you think of proverbial statements, or you just think of the book of proverbs as a whole, you see lots of these kind of tensions between what one verse says over here and what another verse says over there. The classic example is when we have two verses side by side, that seems to say contradictory things like proverbs 26, four to five. I believe it's four to five

where, um, the first verse says, don't answer a fool. According to his folly. The next verse says answer a fool. According to his folly, you know, like what the heck am I supposed to answer a fool or not? Uh, maybe I'm the fool. Once you understand the way proverbial language works, it's not so much attention. Like these sayings, these proverbs are designed not to be just comprehensive, absolute statements that are true of every single case of all time. Otherwise, we would have a contradiction in Proverbs 24. Instead, there are situations when you are to answer a fool according to his folly, and there's other situations when you are not to answer a fool according to his folly. And the statement,

the wisdom saying is sort of thrown in the lap of the reader or listener so that they can figure out when and where to apply each respective statement. You have something similar in some of Jesus' teachings, and I think you have identified one here. I think it's helpful to look at the specific context in Matthew 11 when Jesus says, you know, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. I think here, He's contrasting, Jesus is contrasting His teaching with that of the Pharisees, where the Pharisees, you know, had added all kinds of extra laws to biblical law. It's not just observe the Sabbath, but it's like, okay, you can do this on the Sabbath, not

do this, not do this, not do this, do this, don't do that, don't do this, do that. And they added all kinds of extra things to, you know, many laws such as the Sabbath commands that are not part of the original Mosaic law. In fact, it's interesting that the very next story after this, you know, my yoke is easy, my burden is light statement is Matthew 12 where, you know, we have Jesus seemingly breaking the Sabbath on in Matthew 12. There's a debate about whether he's breaking the actual Sabbath, but certainly he's going against a pharisaical interpretation of the Sabbath. So here you have an example even of a Pharisaical interpretation of the Sabbath. So here you have an example even of Jesus's interaction, let's say, with the oral law passed down through tradition and maintained by the Pharisees. So I think that's primarily the context that he's getting at here. My yoke is eased,

my burden is light, not because the Christian life is easy, but because in contrast to the many, many extra laws demanded by the Pharisees, Jesus is, you know, his love, God love others ethic, you know, is a lot simpler and in many ways lighter than the demands of the Pharisees. The narrow gate passage in Matthew seven, you know, here, I think, you know, Jesus is talking not so much about the number of laws one must follow, but the difficult life one must live. And if you think about it, you know, the gate is narrow, few will find it. Yeah. In the first century, that's exactly true. Right. I mean, most people didn't follow Jesus. The whole pick up your cross, die with me, eat my flesh, drink my blood thing just didn't really jive with most people to put it lightly. And so, so this is the narrow gate, the hard way

that Jesus is talking about there in Matthew seven, you know, so compared to all the various laws out of other Pharisees, Jesus is, you know, love God, love others as much more lighter. But if you want to follow Jesus and pick up your cross and come die with him, yeah, that, that is, that is a challenging, difficult thing to do. It's a narrow gate and few will find it. That's so that's my best attempt to make sense of the kind of individual context that these statements occur in. It's interesting. If you look at even, you know, the, the, my burden is light. My burden is light. My yoke is easy. If you even look at the previous verse, there's another seemingly odd statement that Jesus says in verse 27, Matthew 11, 27, all things have been entrusted to me by my father. No one knows the son except

the father. No one knows the father, except the son and anyone whom the son desires to reveal it to them. Wait, so no one knows the son except the father. We don't know Jesus because we're not the father. Nobody knows Jesus. Nobody's safe. Like you could read into his provocative proverbial kind of statement here. Um, if we don't understand how the way proverbial statements work, but you didn't ask me about 11 27. So I'm just going to leave it there for, uh, maybe you to ask in the next podcast conversation about what that verse means. Okay. Next question. Morally speaking, is it, is taking a cannabis edible to unwind

any different than drinking a couple of beers? I love the all general so much. Seriously, podcasting is my favorite thing I do in life. I think right now, other than hanging out with my family and going to Dodger games. So let me just, first of all, say I'm not an expert on this. I know a lot more about alcohol, what the Bible says about alcohol than what the Bible says about cannabis, if it says anything about cannabis. I would point you to two different podcast episodes I did on this where I did have two experts on cannabis come on the show. So episodes 1045 with Todd Miles, Dr. Todd Miles, episode 1045.

And then after I had that episode, so Todd was much more negative on recreational cannabis use. He was okay with, I believe, medical uses of cannabis, but not recreational use. And after the episode released, I got a bunch of responses from people, but not recreational use. And after the episode released, I got a bunch of responses from people, as you can imagine. One response in particular was from a guy who was

very informed. And he agreed with a lot of things Todd said, but then also disagree to some things. So I said, Hey, why don't you come on the show and talk about it? So he came on the show and his episode aired as episode 1071. I don't think we listed his name because he wanted to be anonymous, but, um, he argued that, and again, he's kind of an expert in the, in the field for various reasons. I think he, yeah. Anyway. Um, and he said that, uh, people have different reactions to cannabis use. And for some people it's, it's, it's not like you can take a, for some people, you take a few gummies or whatever, and you're going to get high. Other people, not so much. I might just be more relaxing. You're not

like in an altered state of mind. And it really kind of depends on the person. There's, there's a lot more diversity in how people react to cannabis use. And I think he even would say that like, there are probably a lot fewer health risks and taking cannabis than there are in drinking alcohol. So again, that's just, I'm trying to summarize what those two perspectives were. So again, I, I'm, I'm, I'm not an expert in this. I'm just trying to summarize what I've heard other experts say. So here's a couple, I guess, responses, possible responses to your question. One argument could be, well, they're both bad. You shouldn't be taking two beers to wind down nor should

you be popping gummies to wind down. So yeah, that'd be one argument. Another argument would be, well, two beers doesn't alter your state of mind. Like THC does a couple of beers might make you relaxed. You know, you'd be, you know, a little more sedated, a little more, I don't know, happier, but THC, you take, you know, you pop some edibles and you're going to get high. And that is an altered state of mind. So it's comparing apples and oranges again, that this is one of the arguments that one could make some pushbacks to, I guess, both of the, well, yeah, I think some pushbacks are what you kind of what you hinted at. I think it had

a question that it would be inconsistent to say two beers, totally fine. THC. That's not, that's not okay. Like some people say, well, that's just kind of inconsistent or even, you know, people might even throw in something like caffeine or other alts, you know, physical sub substance, foreign substances that alter your state of being on some level. That gets a little tricky because, well, I don't know, like where do you draw the line on that? I don't know that, that, you know, but some people can make that argument that yes, it would be inconsistent to say no to THC gummies, but yes to a couple of beers. Um, other people would say that, well, and this is my podcast episode 10 71, that THC doesn't always get you high as a similar effect as say two beers. I mean,

different, but it would be on par with, you know, having a couple of beers and plus it's healthier than alcohol. So I'm going to plead the fifth on this one because I'm not an expert. I'm just trying to summarize what experts have said and maybe there's other perspectives there on that. So I am unfortunately not going to tell you whether you should or shouldn't take a cannabis edible to unwind and whether that's different than taking a couple, drinking a couple of beers. Next question. Amy wants to know, is there strong evidence a person cannot lose their salvation? Are we to believe a Christian friend who later denies faith

in Jesus that they were never truly a believer? Amy, this is an issue I studied quite a bit early in my Christian journey. So we're talking 25 years ago. Goodness. I haven't, I think I've read a few books on it early on. I looked at like, yeah, I just looked at some of the passages on both sides of this debate. Can you lose your salvation or not? You know, I think I even read a two views book on it, I'm reaching back like 25 years is important as this question is. It just hasn't been a main interest of mine in the last several years. I don't know. Um, so I would point you to other experts in this area. Um, my D the position that I arrived at after I studied it out and

I guess I would say it's my default position. I just, I wouldn't hold to it tooth and nail in, in let, you know, unless I did more study on it more recently, again, as I often say, the depth of your passion should match or sorry, the strength of your passion on any viewpoint should match the depth of your study. So I want to acknowledge my study is not very in depth and it's definitely not very recent. So I'm going to hold to the view that you cannot lose your salvation, but I'm going to hold onto that a little bit lightly just because, you know, you throw me on a stage with someone like Scott McKnight or the whole,

you know, all my Wesleyan friends who say you can't lose your salvation, who are much more well versed in the, in the, in the arguments. I mean, they would probably spank me a good one there. So, yeah, so my position, my default position that I hold onto somewhat loosely is that once somebody is genuinely converted, not simply makes a verbal confession, but is genuinely converted. They've had the Ezekiel 36, they've had their heart of stone has been ripped out and a heart of flesh has been placed inside them. Ezekiel 37, they are like dead

bones who have been quickened by the Holy Spirit and have come alive. They have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1. They have been given the spirit of life, Romans 8, 1 to 11, like these kinds of conversion passages that don't just narrate the kind of historical human perspective on somebody getting converted, like in the book of Acts or something, but they are speaking about the theological underpinnings of what happens when somebody is converted to Jesus Christ. My perspective is that that act of God cannot be reversed. Because it's an act of God, the human can't reverse it, And, um, God is not going to reverse his, his act. When you are indwell with the Holy spirit upon conversion, that is a permanent indwelling. That is my best understanding of the Holy spirit, the Holy spirit's role in conversion. What about people that

confess Jesus? Maybe they demonstrate some fruit and then later on they fall away. I mean, Jesus has parables about this, right? Like the parable of the soils, you know, where I'm going to spend a while since I read it, but the, the, the seed sown, I think it's on rise of the rocky soil where they, you know, the seed takes root, it springs up and lots of joy, immediate joy. You see evidence of conversion, but then later on, turns out it was, it didn't actually land on good soil. And so there was no perseverance. I guess that parable can be taken either way. Some people interpret the seed on the rocky soil to be evidence of someone losing their salvation or some evidence that wasn't good soil. Wasn't actually a genuine conversion. If it was, there would be lifelong obedience.

I have found that verse in 1 John 2.19 helpful where John says that, They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us. I think this isn't a context of a particular group of people, not every single believer who once confessed, but then no longer did. I think it is talking about a more limited, like apostolic or leadership community. But I do think this is an apt description of the kinds of people that externally confess, have an emotional experience, maybe even that produces fruit

for five, 10, maybe 15, maybe 20 years, you know? But because they were not genuinely converted that obedient response was not long lasting. So again, I'm summarizing the position that I hold to that I would be 70% sure of, but upon further study, I might realize that everything I've said is actually not the best representation, not the most accurate representation of what's going on in the Bible. Obviously there are, I shouldn't say obvious as if everybody necessarily knows this, but there are passages that do seem to say people lost their salvation. You know, Hebrew six is a notoriously difficult passage for those who say you can't lose your salvation. Hebrew six, four to six.

I, you know, there was a point in my career when I could wax eloquent on why Hebrew six does not say you can lose your salvation, the kind of wording there. But I couldn't do that now. Hebrews 10 is another one. The book of Hebrews as a whole, if all we had was Hebrews, you would probably conclude you could lose your salvation. The only reason why we look at Hebrews 6 and make arguments against it teaching that you could lose your salvation, I think, is because other passages it seems so you can't lose your salvation. So Amy, thank you for this very good question. Would highly recommend you read. I think it's a two views book on eternal security. If you go on Amazon and put that in, you'll probably, I'm not sure if that's the exact title, but that would

be a really good book to read where you can get kind of both views and see how they respond to each other. that would be a really good book to read where you can get kind of both views and see how they respond to each other. Mike wants to know, it seems Paul's views or teaching on women reverses the trajectory of Jesus's new kingdom. Do I have any thoughts on this? Mike, this is a great question. And as always, there's different perspectives on it. Do you guys get sick of me saying that? I don't, well, I get, I'm a huge fan of understanding something before you refute it. And so I always want to know like, well, what are, what are all, what are the smart people, the Bible centered smart people on different sides of this question?

What do they say? I want to understand the best arguments on each side before I start to weigh out which view I think is correct. So for those of you who may not be familiar with what Mike is asking here, so Jesus seems to have a very positive high view of women. You know, he's got women supporting his ministry in Luke 8, 1-3. You have women demonstrating great faith, as Jesus says, of the Canaanite women in Mark 7, Matthew—actually, I think it's Matthew 15 that she said to have great faith. You have Elizabeth, Mary, and Luke 1-2. Here's what's interesting, and this is, I'm actually knee-deep in a study on Jesus' view of women right now, so I was excited to see your question. One other thing that's interesting is all throughout the Gospels, you often see

the faithfulness and obedience of women being contrasted with the lack of faith and disobedience and hard-heartedness of the twelve disciples or apostles." So, it's not just that like Jesus humanizes women, that's awesome. It's like, no, if you actually look at how the narratives frame the faithfulness of women, it's often in contrast to the lack of faith in my men. That's fascinating. So there's really some interesting layers to Jesus' approach to women and how the gospel writers frame His approach to women. So, yeah, so Jesus elevates women, and your question sort of assumes that Paul kind of puts women back in their place. So Jesus elevates women, treats them like, you know, as equal to men, sometimes better than men. Um, whereas Paul says, no, no, no, we need to go back to the old school patriarchal

ways. You know, first Timothy two women be, you know, don't can't teach or exercise authority over men. And first Corinthians 14 women need to be silent in church. It's like, Jesus would never say that. So the argument goes, I would, so I would question, you know, don't can't teach or exercise authority over a man and first Corinthians 14 women would need to be silent in church. It's like Jesus would never say that. So the argument goes, I would, so I would question, I guess, both premises or at least say, I mean, to say that Jesus elevated women to where now they have full access to like, well, you're not even asking about leadership positions among women and Jesus, Jesus is teaching. Cause I don't, I, I don if, and this is the debate, right? I mean, Jesus' elevation of women,

does that necessarily mean He is wanting them to be in places of leadership in the church when the church is later formed? Like I do think we have to be cautious about making that leap. Clearly Jesus humanized women like crazy, especially when you compare it to the Greco-Roman and even Jewish background of His life teaching and ministry. Does that necessarily mean

that these same women would be placed as elders and leaders in the church? I think that, well, let me just say, I don't think we can simply assume that. I think we do need to make that argument. We can't just assume because Jesus humanized women like crazy, therefore they should be in positions of leader. I'll tease out later in the book that I'm working on. So if you're like, wait, what do you mean? I guess you've got to wait for me to tease out my thoughts. Cause that's getting a little beyond your question here. So I, so let me go to Paul's, the, the Pauline part here again, it's debated whether Paul is kind of representing a more patriarchal lower view of women. Some would argue that I think most people would say that his few passages, the few passages in Paul first, typically to first Corinthians 14, first Corinthians 11, that the, that seemed to have, you know, seem to exclude women from positions

of leadership or even maybe talk about women in a way that's kind of dehumanizing. Some people would argue that that's a, that's very questionable. Like if you look at those passages, there are other, I think legitimate ways to interpret those passages to where they are not making comprehensive statements about all women of all time, but more of a localized situation where certain women were abusing their positions of leadership and therefore were commanded not to do that. And again, I'm summarizing, you know, whole books have been written on this. I'm summarizing it in 90 seconds. So, to your question, it seems Paul's views of teaching of women reverses the trajectory

of Jesus in the New Kingdom. So, a couple different approaches to your question. Number one, some people would say that, yes, there is a trajectory in Jesus toward valuing women, like Jesus valued women compared to His culture, compared to maybe even the Old Testament. But the trajectory stopped short of including women in positions of leadership over men. And people would say, and that's exactly Paul's position. Paul actually humanizes women too. He had women co-workers. You have lots of positive statement about women in Paul's letters. But again, just like Jesus, he said women shouldn't be in positions of leadership.

Some people would say that so that Jesus and Paul are both kind of complementarian for lack of better terms. The other argument would say that both Jesus and Paul agreed with each other, but they were both egalitarian. They both affirm women, not just in dignity and value, but also in positions of leadership. And again, those passages in Paul that seem to go against that are referring to a more isolated specific incident. So all that to say, I mean, I'm in the middle of trying to figure out what I believe about all this.

So I can't answer for myself. I took all this time to say, I can't really give you a specific answer to this question again, because I am directly in the middle list. I think there are different legitimate perspectives on this. So I'll leave it at that, Mike. But you have another question here. Gosh, you asked two in a row that got voted up. That's what we do.

So what I do is I send out a link to a Q&A platform to my Patreon supporters, and they can vote on which questions they want me to address. Because I think I got like 40 questions here. So what I do is I take, I take like the top 10 most voted on questions. And that's why I'm addressing these. So I, by the way, so I don't know if you know,

like when I'm addressing these questions, these are the ones that my, Patreon community wanted me to address. Like these are literally the top one, two, three, four, five down. I didn't like hand pick these. So anyway, just a little insight into how I go

about my Q&As. And then at the end, when I get past 10 questions, then I do a rapid fire where I try to give some quick thoughts on as many other questions as I can. What is a traditional Jewish interpretation of let us in Genesis 1.26? Who are they? Who's the they? Let us, if it's not the Trinity. Like how do Jews interpret Genesis 1, 26, where it talks about God with the plural? There's various interpretations of this from a Jewish perspective. The two that stand out the most to me are number one, you know, the plural is kind of like a royal we. You know about the royal we like in writing, like you have like, like if I'm writing a book, people do this do this all the time and writing this out. All right. Um, we're going to begin

our study by looking at, and it's like one author, but he's saying, we're going to begin our study or, uh, let us turn now or whatever. And so you're, you're just referring to yourself as kind of the, in the plural, but in some cases that that's, I don't have examples of this, but in ancient writing, I believe, I would need to double check this, that it wasn't terribly uncommon for royal figures to refer to themselves in the plural. The plural could refer to somebody in a position of power. Again, I would need to double check that. I'm just, I'm reaching back in my mind from different arguments that I interacted with in the past on this passage.

Even, I mean, Elohim is often translated, most often translated God, but Elohim technically is the plural of El, which is why in some passages you have Elohim translated gods or you know, spirit beings in the Old Testament. But Elohim is a plural term. The im at the end of a Hebrew word is plural. Other Jewish interpretations refer to the Genesis 1.26. Hey friends, I hope you enjoyed this portion of the Patreon Only Q&A podcast. If you'd like to listen to the full-length episode and receive other bonus content like monthly podcasts, opportunities to ask questions, access to first drafts of my research and monthly zoom chats and more,

then please head over to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw to join theology in the raw as Patreon community. That's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Greetings and God bless. This is Tyler Burns. And this is Dr. Jamar Tisby. And we want to invite you to check out our podcast, Pass the Mic, Dynamic Voices for a Diverse Church. Pass the Mic has been speaking directly to the core concerns of Black Christians for over a decade.

On our show, we've got interviews from theologians, historians, actors, activists, and so much more. Not to mention heartfelt, open dialogue on some of the heaviest issues facing the church in the United States. Be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. We'll see you there on the next Pass the Mic. Hi I'm Haven and as long as I can remember, I have had different curiosities and thoughts and ideas that I like to explore, usually with a girlfriend over a matcha latte. But then when I had kids, I just didn't have the same time that I did before for the one-on-ones

that I crave. So I started Haven the Podcast. It's a safe space for curiosity and conversation and we talk about everything from relationships to parenting to Friendships to even your view of yourself and we don't have answers or solutions But I think the power is actually in the questions. So I'd love for you to join me Haven the podcast