Celebrity Pastors and Church Membership

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Well and our last broadcast, we discovered the secret of Secrets. We have discovered why Christians have been sinning for two thousand years plus. We have figured it all out because of a YouTube video. We discovered that the reason pastors fall into sin, and logically it would be implied, then why you fall into sin, why we all fall into sin, is because if our doctrine is. Wrong, then our morals will be wrong. Right doctrine fixes your morals, you'll just never sin again, you'll stop sinning. I guess you will basically be perfect.

0:47 But if your doctrine is not correct, then you're going to sin and sin and sin and sin. Now I don't know exactly who gets to determine whose doctrine is right or whose doctrine is wrong, And I don't really quite understand and how after two thousand years of church history we have seen sin, scandal and failure. Presbyterians, Baptists, Church of Christ, Charismatics, non Charismatics, you name it, free will, Baptist Reform Baptists. You just name the denomination, you name the group, and there's been sin scandal and failure. So I still don't know which group. Has the right doctrine that basically prevents anyone from falling into sin. I don't know, but according to the YouTube video in our last broadcast, we discovered and all you have to do is have the right doctrine, and ladies and gentlemen, everything is fixed.

1:41 That was crazy to hear. I'm still processing. But we need to move the conversation forward. Right because not only did we discover in the last broadcast that if your doctrine is wrong, you're gonna basically fall into sin, but if your doctrine is wrong about church membership, well that's one of the doctrines you have to have right or you will fall and descend. So we're going to take that and we're going to well discuss it and move it forward a little bit, and hopefully you'll find it to be interesting, all right, that's hopefully. I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that it will be. That is my hope that not only will it be interesting, it'll be somewhat beneficial. And of course, unfortunately it's going to be somewhat controversial because while we're going to get into something that's going to tick off a lot of people within the Christian world because even though it's considered the norm, I think it's ridiculous, and we're going to talk about it. But before we do that, let me go ahead. And I know I've already jumped right in.

2:40 I'm ready to. Go, but let me just take a breath, take a minute, and say good evening everyone. It is Saturday, November ninth, twenty twenty four. It is currently nine thirty nine pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now I know what I'm supposed to be you doing. It's Saturday evening, right, That means tomorrow morning, I'll get dressed, get in a car, drive what about twenty miles about fifteen to twenty minutes south of this very studio, and stand behind a pulpit, and I'm supposed to be We never know how things are actually going to work, even at church. I don't ever really know how things are going to work. I'll be starting and really getting into Isaiah chapter forty. Well, we'll kind of go back to chapter thirty nine and the move towards forty we'll do a lot of review get back to our series on Isaiah forty through fifty five, and I'm hoping if I can keep myself to it. The first hour is supposed to be Romans chapter four, verse sixteen. It's supposed to be, but.

3:42 We will see. I don't know. Reality is I probably should just dedicate both hours to Isaiah, is what I probably should do, or both hours to Romans chapter four, because in either case. It's going to be a mess. So I don't know. Last week we didn't have anything. The week before, a large number of people were out, so really you're going to have people walking in Sunday that are basically three weeks behind. It's going to be I don't know what to do, so I've got to make some determination. So that's what I really should be doing. I should be focusing on that. But how can I just ignore the great secret that we discovered that, Hey, ladies and gentlemen, the way to stop sinning is just get your doctrine right and then you'll stop sinning. Which is kind of ironic that someone would say that, because that demonstrates a completely wrong doctrine about.

4:28 The nature of sin. That sin is a part of our nature, and right doctrine doesn't fix my nature. I mean, the whole thing is just maddening. But let me try to put it all together and help you all. Right now, we know, I believe it was the month of October, a big scandal broke right Steve Lawson, a very famous pastor associated with Liganaire ministries, associated with Master Seminary. You know, Steve Lawson, who has preached at conferences all over the country, very much associated with lordships. That it was found out that he was engaged in inappropriate relationship with a younger woman. There was a lot of details that we did not know, and there was a lot of controversy, and I made the decision right from the start. I don't really care to get into the you know, the gossip, the rumors, the scandal, the dirt, and I'm not and everybody else can do that. So I said, okay, I'm not going to name the pastor. I'm not even going to name him.

5:23 I'm going to take this subject. A man fell into sin. Well, congratulations, we all sin So he fell into sin. Well, everyone that he was preaching to was already in sin and he's already been in sid. So I said, Christianity seems incapable of actually dealing with sin in a meaningful way. So we started a very lengthy conversation about sin, and it led to our current series that we've been doing on the Six Secrets of the Christian Life and how insane that book is, and we've just been we've just been talking about it from all kinds of different perspectives, law and gospel, and I thought that was. A pretty you know, a pretty good way to deal with that. I wouldn't have to mention this name, and so I've kind of avoided the name until today. And today I didn't really mention the name. Well, the video that I played mentioned the name, and their whole thing was, hey, ladies and gentlemen, Steve Lowson sinned. Nobody could figure out why he sinned.

6:14 What happened. Well, now we know, because anytime a pastor falls into sin, all you have to do is find the wrong doctrine, and the wrong doctrine is what led to the sin. And it's like just really crazy. So we discussed it and we talked about it, and then we found out that the wrong doctrine, according to the video we saw the wrong doctrine that led Steve Lowson to fall into sind the reason that got his mind thinking about a younger woman was because his doctrine about church was completely messed up. What do we mean by that, Well, according to the video, Steve, Now this is according to their claim. Now the claim is showing up all over the place, all right, So this the one video. In fact, I'm gonna be playing audio from a second video. This is going all over the place.

7:02 There's articles on the internet about this. I don't know if we have any actual confirmation of how true this is. But according to the claims, Steve Lawson's fraudulent doctrine that led him to fall into sin was that he was not a pastor. He was not even a member of a church. He basically was paid a paid speaker. Hey, come to Trinity, I think it's called Trinity Bible Church, and you're just going to preach Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, We're just going to pay you. You show up, you preach, we pay you, you leave. So he's not the pastor, he's not. Even a member of the church.

7:43 So he worked with Ligonary Mint Ministries. He worked with MacArthur's the seminary. He was basically the weekly speaker at this church, but he was not even a church member anywhere, wasn't even a pastor. And this raises all kinds of questions about the whole you know, scandal, Like, well, so then what do you do? Do you hold him to a standard of a pastor if he's not really a pastor. He's just a preacher, he's just a speaker, he's not a member of a church. So can you exercise church discipline? He's not even a member of a church. What can you actually do? How do we even approach this? So we talked about it in the crazy thing that well, just because you have right doctrine about church and even if you're a member of a church, doesn't stop people from sinning. So I mean that already kind of disproves the whole argument anyway. But a second video picks up this report about Steve Lawson not being a member of a church. Again, I don't know what. I don't really care to It's not even about Steve Lawson. Let me, I want to make sure everyone understands my last broadcast was not about Steve Lawson. It was about this crazy idea that the reason someone falls unto SND is because their doctrine is wrong, because wrong doctrine leads to sin and right doctrine leads to good, you know, good morality.

8:55 That whole fraudulent idea, that's what it was about. But we had to talk about Steve Lawson because that was the context in which that concept was being discussed. Once again, what we're getting ready to talk about surrounds the Steve Lawson controversy, but it's not really about Steve Lawson. What we're going to talk about here you're going to hear in just a second, is this clip is going to take to Steve Lawson controversy and talk about a broader phenomenon in the evangelical world. And I have been yelling and screaming about this phenomenon in the evangelical world, but in a way different way because everyone seems to condemn it, but then they are support the very industry that I think props it up and promotes it.

9:40 So I am going to use this. To go after the entire industry that I think is problematic. So we're going to go through this. Hopefully it's going to be beneficial. Hopefully this will move the conversation forward a little bit. In some ways, I just kind of want to get this out, just kind of put these concepts out there, and then you know, if we to return to them again, say Monday, we can, and we will see, because tomorrow my focus needs to be on something else. And what I've learned is if you have one, if you have something already on your mind as a pastor, you've been thinking about it and thinking about it, it's best to just go to church and say, hey, this is what we're going to talk about, instead of trying to preach your sermon, because inevitably, whatever you're thinking about will just kind of show up in your sermon, whether it's really connected or not. And so a lot of times when I'm reviewing sermons, I will say, clearly, this guy had something else on his mind even though he was supposed to be preaching on this today, because this was the text he read. He kind of started and then immediately he's all distracted.

10:40 That's what happens. So I like to prefer to just get rid of it right, let it out, and then when I get to church, I can focus on Isaiah forty or Our Romans, chapter four, verse sixteen that's the plan, all right, So are you ready to do this? Here we go. Now, the volume here is very typically the volumes are very well. Sermons on sermons two point oh tend to be recorded at a low volume. I think YouTube videos tend to be much louder. Not always, but I think. Most of the time. So this one is relatively loud. So it may be too loud at the beginning, and I'll try to pull the volume back after I look at my meters and see where it is. So just I don't want to blow your ear drums out because he comes in talking.

11:20 In fact, I'm going. To pull the volume down, then I'll increase it. That makes more sense, doesn't it. All right, here we. Go, Hello, and thank you for watching this video shocking new revelations about Steve Lawson, and we're going to be talking about the problems of celebrity pastors. This is a real issue. And before somebody comments, because yes, things are getting worse in the Steve Lawson situation, but before somebody watches ten seconds of the video and is ready to comment, oh well, I don't think you should be talking about his personal life and whatever in the details. That's not what we're going to be doing. So, Yes, things are getting worse in the story, but it's not what you think.

12:05 So here's the headline. Okay, so shocking new details. Shocking new details. Again. I'm not here to talk about the Steve Lowson issue. But you notice he talked about celebrity pastors. Celebrity pastors. I think I think he mentioned it there. I hope he did. I know it's in his title. I'm gonna play that again. Make sure he mentioned it. If he didn't, I kind of gave I kind of gave it away. So I'm already thinking where to go. Let me play that again. I hope he mentioned celebrity pastors or I just messed this all up. All right, let's listen to that again. Hello, and thank you for watching this video. Shocking new revelations about Steve Lawson, and we're going to be talking about the problems of celebrity pastors.

12:50 Okay, good, he mentioned it there. I wasn't jumping ahead the problem of celebrity pastors. So I'm gonna make this very clear. All right, whatever he says here about Steve Lawson's secondary it's not even the issue. The issue is the concept of celebrity pastors, and that's a common thing that people gripe about, and people gripe about. People be like, I'm so sick and tired of these celebrity pastors. While they're sitting there holding a MacArthur Study Bible. They're like, whoa, you don't like celebrity pastors. You just happen to buy a bible with a man's name at the forefront of the cover. But you're again celebrity pastors, right, I mean, I mean, come on now, hey, hey, I can't stand these celebrity pastors.

13:36 Hey what are you doing this weekend? Oh? We're driving about one hundred miles because there's this big conference and this person is preaching. This person is preaching. Oh how much did you pay for the conference? Well, I mean it's you know, one hundred dollars to get in. But I hate celebrity pastors. So you're going to a conference that you paid one hundred dollars to get in while you're carrying your MacArthur Study Bible. No, yeah, you're right, you hate celebrity pastors. You just pretend that pate in the very industry that props them up and helps generate and create the celebrity itself. That's my issue, all right, So does the Steve Lawson What does the Steve Lawson issue have to do with celebrity pastor as well? In some ways, Steve Lawson was kind of celebrity, right he preached at conference after Look, if anyone pays money to get inside a building to hear you preach, I don't care what you say you're a celebrity pastor, I don't care.

14:27 I don't care. If you're MacArthur, I don't care. If you're a RC Sproull, I don't care. If people pay money to get into a building to hear you preach the word of God, you are a celebrity. Because either one, you have to admit that you're charging people for the preaching of the Word of God. So you've turned the Bible into a product which you're selling. You've turned it into a commodity which you're selling. Which that seems utterly evil, that you've taken the word of God and you're selling, you're selling the preaching of it, so people have to pay money to hear it. That seems majorlyroblematic. And if said, well, no, no, no, no, they're not paying for the preaching of God's word. Then they're paying for the celebrities who are inside preaching. It's one of the other.

15:08 They're either paying for the word or they're paying for the celebrity. Which is it? Well, how come most pastors couldn't hold a conference and have people pay money to get in because they don't have the celebrity. But once you get a big enough name, you can charge one hundred dollars and people will pay money to get in to see the whole industry thing is just broken. So let's see where he takes this. What is this shocking news? I'm going to back this up, put it all back in its full context. Here we go, hello, and thank you for watching this video. Shocking new revelations about Steve Lawson, and we're going to be talking about the problems of celebrity pastors.

15:50 This is a real issue. And before somebody comments, because yes, things are getting worse in the Steve Lawson situation, But before somebody ten seconds of the video and is ready to comment, oh, well, I don't think you should be talking about his personal life and whatever in the details. That's not what we're going to be doing. So, yes, things are getting worse in the story. But it's not what you think. So here's the headline from Protestia. Steve Lawson was not a pastor. He was not even the pastor of Trinity Bible Church. Matter of fact, he wasn't even a member. He wasn't even an elder. Yeah, this is shocking and the fact that Steve Lawson, no one seems to be holding him accountable because there was no accountability.

16:38 That was the situation going in. He was just the guest preacher. He was the celebrity guest preacher. Only he was the guest preacher every single week. Okay, So this raises the question that while he's treated as a celebrity, right, I mean, he's paid money to come and speak, and he just is paid week after week after week after week, and people came and why were they coming to the church. They were coming for Steve Lawson. They were coming for the celebrity. Why did many people go to MacArthur's church for the celebrity? I mean, I mean, let's just be on, why did people pay to go to the Shepherd's conference? Why did people go to the conferences? Here? R C. Sprull, you just name the person, name the conference. I mean, how many times do I get the emails? I mean I think I think some people started realizing and stop sending me the emails. I think some of the conferences realize stop sending me the emails because they do so, and I bring them here, turn on the microphone and go, hey, you want to hear so and so preach. It will only cost you one hundred and seventy nine dollars. And that's if you sign up early. If you don't, you're gonna have to pay two hundred and.

17:39 Fifty right, And I I'm not nice about it because to. Me, it's it's a crime. What are you paying for the Bible? Are you paying for the preaching of the Bible? Are you paying for the celebrity? Well, and usually these are conferences, the ones I go after are the very conservative conferences that you know the evangelical celebrity world. Oh no, you you condemn their celebrity while you celebrate your celebrity. So just stop it, just stop it. So there is a problem here. There is a problem here. Now. Now it would be interesting to note I think many now this I could be wrong here. Now I always tell people to do this, but you should do this tomorrow at church. You should walk around with a clipboard and I would ask people, Hey, if you if you went to a church and the person who preaches every Sunday, you find out that he's not actually a pastor, he's not actually a member of the church's he's not an elder, he's not a deacon. We just pay him to come preach week after week after week, you know, year after year after year.

18:49 Would that be a problem. I would be curious. How many people do you like? I don't care. As long as someone's standing up there to preach, I don't really care. You know, we got to pay somebody or either paying a pastor a salary or we're paying this person to preach each week. What difference does it make? Is it a difference in would they They may be more worried about how much it costs versus they may go, well, we could actually possibly save money here, who knows, or we may have to pay more. It may come down to economics for them. Now, some people may care. I don't know. It would be interesting to know how many people actually care, because why, I mean, if this is true, if this claim is true, that he was not even a member of the church. Did no one there know? Did everyone just assume that he was did the leadership in the church is like, hey, guys, we don't actually have a pastor.

19:35 We just pay this guy to do the work. The rest of us will do the work as a pastor. He's the guy that just comes in to preach. I mean, And did no one think that this was a problem? Did? I mean? Did no one question this? And it does raise the question about church membership itself, right, So let's see what they have to say. So he would ride in on his chariot, preach, get paid, and then immediately leave because he just can't, you know. And the story says he needed to guard his time. And what it looks like is he just didn't want to have to talk to people.

20:16 He didn't want to. Have to rub shoulders with the hoy PELOI you know, he just couldn't be bothered with that. So this is bad. This story actually makes me angry. And I don't get too riled up. We talked about a lot of different things here, but this makes me mad. And it's the celebrity culture, you know, the celebrity preachers. It's like with the TGC conference, Why are people going to hear celebrity pastors, and there's a lot of money to be made. So if you whoa, that's one of the first times I've heard someone. Else go after it. Why do people go to these conferences to hear a celebrity and there's a lot of money to be made, And typically, and I condemn a conference, I almost immediately get some email people defending it.

21:06 That is crap. That my goodness, that is great to hear. That is great to hear someone else's because it's it's just a business. You just reach enough celebrity status and then you get to go to the conference circuit and you get paid money. And what are people paying for they? I mean, like I said, well they preach better. Give me a break, Just give me. I'm so sick of that. I can review a million sermons from any conference and then preaching give me so many times it's like no, it's now they they know all of the secrets of communication, how they communicate, how they structure their sermon, right, they know all of the communication tricks.

21:47 But they're preaching is no. Give me a break. It's somehow better than everyone else's, so so therefore they're worth paying one hundred dollars to hear that stuff drives me crazy. Really, that really does just that undermines like, well, that preacher doesn't nobody pays to hear him, so he's not a good as good a preacher as that person because that person gets paid, you know, money for people. We base the quality of preaching on how much money people pay to hear it is that? Is that the perception? So maybe you know, maybe if I start charging for all of my sermons, then then is that is that the way to the whole thing just is mess up? But I agree, it's a business. It's an it's the Christian conference industrial complex, and that is the heart of the the celebrity pastor culture. And unless we go after the conference complex industrial complex, unless you burn that system to the ground, you're going to continue to promote celebrity.

22:48 I mean, what are you saying when this man people pay one hundred dollars to get into a conference to hear this man preach. You are just advertising that. This man is somehow above all of the rest of the pastors in that town that nobody pays to hear They just walk into church on Sunday. Well, pastor you're great, But that guy people pay one hundred dollars to get. In to hear him. I mean, it's about money, It's the whole thing. Should just it should drive me crazy. So in this particular case, to bring it back to Lawson, he just got paid money to show up, preach and leave, paid money, show up. He wasn't really a preacher. He was just a speaker who got paid to deliver a message.

23:30 And he did it well enough that people kept coming and kept coming, and they listened to him online, listen to him here, and listened to him there, and paid money and paid money and paid money and paid money and paid money. So let's let's see what else they have to say here. You can just get some celebrity to come in and you hang out of your church for an hour and a half and preach and then he can leave. And yeah, this this really burns me up. So let's read the article again. This is from Protestia. Six weeks have passed since Trinity Bible Church revealed that Steve Lawson was disqualified from ministry activities for having an inappropriate relationship with a woman.

24:14 Who is not his wife. And of course she was much younger and all the rest lasted for five years. And again, even if I said this in a previous video, even if details came out, I'm not interested in covering the tabloid type details. But this is a massive issue. It exposes a massive issue within evangelical Christianity that this type of situation could even happen and people were okay with it. And let's continue reading. So new rapport operas insight into why the whole situation has. Been so strange in Murky. According to pastors Derek Brown and Cliff mccannis of Creekside Bible Church in California, on an episode of their podcast, Quote with All Wisdom, using information that had been quote verified by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

25:06 Steve Lawson, though he. Previously served as a pastor of previous churches, he was neither a pastor, nor an elder and not even a member, nor was he even a member at Trinity Bible Church. Yes, that's right, he was not a pastor. He was not an elder at Trinity Bible Church, which we said. He was not the pastor or lead pastor of that church, but he wasn't even. A member of the church. How do you know this because and here's a little picture from their website where they basically had admitted this this was an open secret. But check this out. Notice his title. Okay, so it's not like this was a secret.

25:53 The article continues, I've been trying to get a hold of Trinity Bible Church. So it's these guys talking on their podcast who revealed this. They said, We've been trying to get a hold of Trinity Bible Church in Texas for several weeks, and I finally got a hold of someone that was willing to talk to me, who actually worked at the church, and they verified everything that we said. They were reluctant to talk to me, and they were reluctant to tell me, but they agreed. He was not an elder, he was not a pastor, he was not the lead pastor. They kind of waffled when I said, was he even a member? And they didn't want to tell me, but it was pretty obvious Steve Lawson wasn't even a member at this church.

26:37 Now, their audio kind of cut out there. I think what they were showing is on the article there's a picture listing all the staff members, right, and I think the other people are like elder, pastor, and I think they just have him listed as like teacher. I can't remember how it's listed, but he's not listed as an elder, he's not listed as a pastor. He's not listed anywhere like that. So in a sense, it was kind of an open secret. It was right there, but nobody ever really, I guess nobody ever really caught on or ever or you know, anybody who went. To the well. Typically when people go to a website like that, unless they're considering joining the church, they're probably just looking for the sermons of a specific speaker, in this particular case, Steve Lawson. So I doubt they were looking around, but I guess it was kind of right there in the open.

27:21 But no one ever stopped and go, well, wait a minute, what does that mean. I think you would just look at it and probably not even register in your mind. Will wait a minute, what is this person's actual position? So it appears he had no connection to any of this. Now, again to me, this has nothing to do with the scandal per se. Everyone wants to say, well, see this is the reason with the scan. Let's just make it. Let's just stop that. Okay, let me make it very A lot of people like, well, see if he was in this situation or this situation, there wouldn't be a scandal, there wouldn't be a fall. Let me make it very clear. Pastors have sinned and fallen into sin, and denominational churches and independent churches they have. They have fallen in churches that are congregational led pastor led.

28:03 They have fallen in churches that have elder rule. It doesn't matter the structure, it doesn't matter the quote unquote accountability. People sin because sin arises from within us. It's a part of our sinful nature. It's what we do. It comes from there, and we always think that we can put these structures in place that will stop it. You can't stop. Is what is inevitably going to happen, which is sin of some case. Now you may be able to say, well you. Could protect from this particular sin or this particular sin, that's a different story. Hey, hey, we know you're going to sin, but these are the sins we have to stop. So here are our thirty seven step program to ensure you don't commit that sin.

28:47 Now, that's at least that's being. Honest, because even if you stop this particular sin. Every pastor is in sin because God's standard is perfection. No one is perfect. Therefore we're in a perpetual state of falling short of that perfection. So we are all in sin. I mean, I don't know why that's so difficult for Christians to admit, but particular sin. So everyone's focusing on why he wasn't even a member. Yeah, now they want to use it to talk now. Some want to use this to say this is the reason he fell. That's ridiculous. Others want to use this to say this is evidence of celebrity culture, and I think it is. I think we have reached a celebrity culture. You know, peak right, We've reached We've reached mass destruction when people now the person who I guess is the lead speaker at their church is not even a member of the church. He just gets paid each week to show up. Now, in some ways, I don't know how shocking that is.

29:45 Right. We see, if I leave my house in about five minutes, get on Highway eighty three eighty four head south, maybe maybe five minutes down the road. I think it's about five minutes. On the left hand side of the highway as River of Life River of Life Church. It's a big kind of ecumenical evangelical type church, kind of you know, one of those more modernized evangelical kinds of churches has the big praise band. Well, I used to know the drummer of their praise band. In fact, I worked with the drummer. He was an atheist. He got paid I think it was three hundred dollars every Sunday, may have been three fifty. I don't remember the exact dollar amount to play the drums and their praise band.

30:26 And he was an atheist. And I worked with him until he got kicked out of the military for drug use. An atheistic drug user was the drummer for their praise band because they just paid him money to play the drums because he was really really really really really really really really good drummer. He was a drummer for lots of country artist and he would go to Austin on the weekends sometimes to do studio work for a lot of different bands and artists, and oh he would make sure he was back on Sunday make a good three hundred dollars for like an hour of work playing in the praise band. So it's in a sense, it's was already happening there, right. And then in some cases I'm not shocked by this because the first time I became shocked by some of this is in my early I mean, i'd been a saved for a few years and I was, you know, learning about the Christian music industry at the time, and a lot of revelations were coming out. There was somewhat shocking, and I found out over and over and over that these Christian musicians they didn't go to church, They're not even members of a church nothing, but they were utilizing the church. They were playing at church conferences and going to youth camps and youth rallies. They needed the church to further their career. But many of them were not a member of a church, didn't go to church. And You're like, wait a minute, how can these Christian artists and a sense use the church in order to further their career but they're not part of one.

31:55 What is that all about? Right, So in this particular case, it's the same thing. So it happened to Christian music. It happened even in church. I know at least one case where it happens even in a church praise band. So I guess now you know there's at least one pastor. We know who. He shows up eat Sunday, he got paid and he left. It appears according again we need verification for all of this, that he. Wasn't even a member. Now does that bother? Does it not bother you? But again you can argue that. But is that not the pinnacle the peak of celebrity pastor in that case, celebrity speaker.

32:36 Now listen, if Steve Lawson was invited to speak once in a while, you know, every six months, they have a guest speaker come in, no problem. But for that kind of arrangement just to have him come in for an hour or two a week and he's not even he's not even a member there, but he's preaching every single week. And that's the arrangement to have a celebrity. What's the problem with that, Well, there's no accountability, right, You're setting up the situation to blow up in your face. No accountability. He has no real responsibility with the people. He doesn't even know the people that he's speaking to week after week. Again, if he was coming in to speak once a year or something, then fine. But if you're going to be if you're going to act as the pastor and preach every single week. That's what the pastor's job is. You need to know the flock. But anyway, this is just unbelievable. The article continues. They that is the church, Trinity Bible. They also agreed and acknowledged that, as far as they know, the elders at their church are not the ones managing the Matthew eighteen process with Steve Lawson. They are not disciplining him because they can't. Okay, So Trinity Bible Church seems to have admitted that they are not They are actually not in the process of disciplining Steve Lawson because they can't because he's not even

34:07 a member of our church. We can't discipline a non member. Absolutely outrageous, Okay, let's continue. Notably, the original announcement from Trinity reads quote, the elders at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas regretfully announced that, effective immediately, Stephen J. Lawson has been removed indefinitely from all ministry activities at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas. Noticed that while he was removed indefinitely from all ministry activities, he was not removed from a position. He was removed from all ministry activities instead, so he wasn't removed from being an elder or a pastor. So they say, what was Lawson if he wasn't their pastor or elder. He was the regular guest preacher, otherwise known as the lead preacher. And you saw that on the website, receiving a dispensation from the elders to preach the sermon and then depart once the message was done. What we know now is Steve Lawson didn't want to be a pastor.

35:17 He was a pastor at two previous churches and it didn't go well at either place. There was division, there were church splits. It's kind of an ugly history. And then he got to a point and he said, I don't want to be a pastor, and they honored his wishes. Well, if he didn't want to be a pastor, he shouldn't be preaching, that's my opinion, because what are the qualifications. See, they're blending it all together. He's acting as if he's the pastor, but he's not the pastor. So I know some people might disagree and they say, oh, this is a fine situation. If a church wants to outsource the preaching on Sunday morning to some celebrity or somebody who's not even a member. They can do that and he can just you know, whisk him in and out. And that it's not right. I don't care what anyone says.

36:08 That ain't right. That's not what we see in the Bible. That is not that is not the biblical model. So it says they honored his wishes and he was just a teacher. You just note at that point, I don't know how you hold for Timothy three against him. So they they, they set it all up. I'll play just a little bit more here in a second, because I want to just get into a few more things. But I want I want you to just show what I want you to take from all of this. I know we've talked about a lot of things. It's just take that this is really the pinnacle. This is the tip of the celebrity pastor the whole phenomenon. Right now, someone can just get paid a weekly fee to show up, preach and leave and have no connection, no affiliation, no membership of any local church, and not even as a pastor.

36:58 So they're not they say no accountability. Again, accountability does not stop sin. Okay, it can may stop certain sins if you have enough safeguards that you know nobody has an opportunity. I guess you could prevent some, but you're still gonna be sinning in some way, shape or form. But the issue becomes to me that it's not so much about accountability or not accountability. The issue becomes, Okay, well, now what do you do? Like, he's just a speaker that you paid money to come in. He's not associated with your church other than he's your speaker. He's not a member. He's not unless you have a contract, a contract that he signed. He's signed a If there's no contract, who just like he shows up and then we give him a certain amount and the church just pays a certain amount for the speaker. There's no contractual obligation. He hasn't signed a contract. Then really there's no what do you I don't even know what you do there? Like, I don't even know how you even handle that. It raises a bunch of questions. So everyone else can handle that, but it's it's the celebrity thing. And we're going to go through that really quick here and just man I'm going to go through a little bit of church history about well some of this stuff.

38:10 Was a guest teacher at all these places, guest teacher at Liganier and Trinity Bible Church. The revelation tracks. With what several members of Trinity Bible Church have reported to us, saying that loss and scandalous affair open their eyes to how problematic and challenging some of his behavior was, you think, which was never really questioned or considered before, but now is glaring in the light of this new exposure. Members report that he would show up on Sundays, head straight to the back, preach the sermon, and then leave immediately after, rarely if ever, sticking around to shake hands or spend time talking to these you know lowly uh, you know church people like I don't even want to have to deal with these people. Just ride in and ride out and get paid.

39:03 And that's it. That's what they're saying. And what's the excuse Steve Lawson had to quote unquote guard his time? Whose fault is this? Obviously the scandal the affair, The affair is Steve Lawson's fault and the woman obviously, But you know, the elders of the church they allowed for this situation. If the guy doesn't want to be a pastor, if he doesn't want to spend any time with God's people, he has no business teaching God's people. Okay, some exceptions, and this again, this is the whole problem with celebrity Christianity. You know, the celebrity pastors. They're completely inaccessible and many of them are unaccountable. So this has happened with This may not happen with Steve Lawson because in the Reformed world they're much more strict. But there's a long list of celebrity preachers the get busted, you know, in an affair, embezzling money.

40:04 You know, they wait six months. Or a year until things, you know, kind of die down, and then they're right back at it. Why Because there's no accountability. There's a celebrity, they will always have a following. We see that with Hillsong that's starting up again, you know, Karl Lentz and Brian Houston and a lot of these charismatic preachers. You know, there's no accountability that just come back and start it all over again, start the scam all over again. I love the fact they say there's no accountability. I love. Okay, So exactly what kind of system would you want to have accountability? Exactly? Let me explain. I would like you to explain to me what's the system that would mean? There's only like one denomination that controls everything, so you don't want any independent churches. Nobody can start a church. Well, what happens when there's fights and a denomination and people split from that denomination? Well, wait a minute, where's the accountability? You can have a denomination.

41:04 People split from denominations all the time. A lot of times we celebrate it. Going those are the Conservatives fighting and they well wait a minute, wait a minute, where's the accountability? The denomination couldn't hold them accountability because they just pulled away and split. So then they go form another group. So then you got to be who are you accountable to? Which group? The original group or the new group? And then those groups then people may leave those groups then go start another group. So where's the any accountability? You say, Well, if they were in a denomination, the denomination wouldn't. Let them back. Well, they can go start another denomination, they start another church, they can go start another movement, they can go start anything. There's no, unless you go back to like there's one church. Okay, there's one church and that's it. Every other church is not recognized. There's only one. Well it sounds like the Roman Catholic system. But while we celebrate the guy who broke away, well he got removed and then well guess what an entire group no ultimately come to know as the Lutherans started breaking away from that group, and then people broke away from Lutherans to start their group, and then people broke away from them to start their group, and then people broke away from them, and then people broke away and then them, and then them, and then them and then and.

42:14 Where does it ever stop? So what do you mean accountability? Well, these guys just come back. How are you going to hold them accountable? Tomorrow? Someone could start at church tomorrow, someone could break away from I mean, look at what happened to the Methodists. I mean how many different groups have emerged from that. I can't even keep up all the different Presbyterian groups, all the different Baptist group. I mean, it just goes on and on and on and on. So how do you I don't even know what that means? We need accountability accountability. How but you can deal with the rest of that issue. So let's talk a little bit about celebrity pastors. And again I'm going to first turn my attention to the whole conference issue. All Right, people paying money to hear the word of God preached. All Right. The conference industry, with its tickets, VIP access, and large venues, can indeed fuel a culture where certain pastors or speakers are elevated to celebrity status. The setup often mirrors the dynamics of fame, making the preacher seem more like figures to admire from a distance than shepherds to connect with personally.

43:16 It could be argued that this approach blurs the line between faith driven teaching and entertainment, feeding into the very issues often criticized for and the celebrity pastor phenomenon. And that's exactly what happens. Have you ever been to these conferences? If lucky, the only thing you get to do is stand in line with other people. Is they run up there and. Say, sign my Bible, take a selfie, selfie with me. I mean, it's the same nonsense. It's the same nonsense the first time. And I've talked about this that I was ever really really kind of confronted with this is I was going that evening, I was going to go to a Christian contemporary Christian music concert, right, and I think the name of the band was Mortal, the kind of an industrial nineties sound, right, kind of an industrial rock kind of sound.

44:02 And I went to the bookstore where they were going to do a signing, right, they were going to do kind of a signing, and they didn't really want to be there. Obviously it became my parents. They didn't really want to be there, and they didn't really do a signing like you typically would do, because you've ever been to one of these signings at a Christian bookstore, they have a table set up, everybody waits in line, you walk up, you can sign a photograph of them, or you can have them sign your album, you can take a selfie with them, and then you got to move on. You move on, just like they do in the secular world. Well, when I walked into the store, there was no line, there was no table. I was kind of like, what's going on? And the guys from the band were just walking around the bookstore looking around, and I'm like, what's going on here? So I kind of walked up and he was like, Hey, nice to meet you. But man, we don't do the whole autograph thing. We don't sign autographs.

44:48 We don't do that, but hey would love to talk to you. So we sat there and talked. He talked about the books he likes to read and different theological issues and I'm like, well, why don't you do the signing autographs. He's like, well, if I'm in a Christian band and this is ministry, should ministers be signing autographs? Should we be elevating ourselves? Are we supposed to point you to Christ not to ourselves? And was like, whoa, leave it. Leave it to a Christian rock band to have better theology than many conservative churches who would condemn that rock band to the eighteenth level. Of hell because our music is demonic. Okay, So I'm like, whoa, But you see that all the time in these conferences. You can't get to the people unless you have a VIP access and everyone's just there.

45:32 To sign my Bible, sign this, let me take a selfie. And it's like, what is happening right now? And well, litle, that literally fuels the problem that everyone condemns. If people are paying to attend these conferences. It implies that the preaching of God's word is something well, like a commodity. It's been turned into a commodity. It's something they're purchasing, like any other product or event. It shifts the focus from the message to the messenger, suggesting that people might be drawn as much, if not more, to the personalities and reputations of the speakers than to the word being preached. This not only turns preaching into a product, but it also reinforces the celebrity status of pastors, placing them in a spotlight that is ironically often at odds with humility and service oriented nature of the pastoral role.

46:22 So there's a problem. The conference industrial complex gives rise to the celebrity pastor. Everyone condemns the celebrity pastor while supporting the very industry that promotes it. And they and it's so weird that they can't see it. Oh, I'm sick of these celebrity pastors. And then they do all the things that are part of that. Idea. So where what is the origin of people starting to be charged to hear the Bible preach? So I had to trace the origin, and what I found is. Tracing the exact origin of charging for access to preaching can be sometimes complex, but there are some key historical shifts that help explain maybe how this developed. First, we have the Mid Evil and Renaissance period. The Mid Evil and Renaissance period, the concept of paying for religious services was not new. During the Middle Ages, people often paid for indulgences.

47:23 Remember that we just passed October thirty, First Reformation Day, right, paid for indulgences or to support your People often paid for indulgences or to support churches with sometimes indirectly funded preaching events. However, access to preaching itself was generally free, as sermons were often public and considered a core duty of the church. So they may not have had people paying necessarily for preaching, but they would pay for different things like indulgence. So yeah, and around it. By the way, the. Church is always found a way to get money from people. They've always found a way. They always have to have a produce. Here's an indulgence that'll get someone out of purgatory. Or hey, here here is the preaching of.

48:05 So and so. Either way, we always find to turn something into a product package it, market it and sell it. And well, it started in the mid Evil and Renaissance period. If you jump to the Reformation time, the Protestant Reformation emphasized the free proclamation of the word, pushing back against any notion of paying for grace. Leaders like Martin Luther strongly opposed the idea of monetizing religious teaching. This stance influenced Protestant traditions to value free access to sermons and scriptures. So at least during the Reformation they were like no, no, no, no, because they were rebelling in a sense against the whole indulgences and that whole system. So then they were like, no, free, We're not going to monetize this. There's no monetizing the preaching of God's word. Let's not do that, all right, Okay, that makes sense, right, I think it does.

48:56 Well. Then this leads to then there so we have the medievil Renaissance period, we have the Reformation influence, and then we jump to the Revivalist movement in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in the US and Europe. Revival movements, led by figures like George Whitfield, John Wesley, and Charles Finley, brought large crowds often and outdoor camp meetings. While preaching was generally free, costs related to traveling evangelists, traveling evangelists and event logistics sometimes led to offerings or suggested donations, yet entry fees were rare. So it started happening a little bit. But notice what why did it start? You get these pastors, these preachers who become basically celebrities, Finny Whitfield.

49:38 They become an attraction, and then you hold these big events where people come. So it's no longer a local church thing. It becomes a more public thing. It becomes a spectacle. It becomes an event. Instead of a Sunday morning worship service or a Monday night worship service, it becomes an event where you bring all the people together. So now you're going to have to a building. Now you're going to have to have a you know, an area, and so there's going to be logistics, and there's going to be money. Now, maybe if it stayed within the local church, none of that would have ever happened, right, I mean just the thought, just the thought, But you already start seeing a little bit of happening. And then we get to number four, the rise of evangel even evangelistic if I can read correctly, evangelistic crusades of the twentieth century, Figures like Billy Graham. Okay here, sorry, I'm having issues right.

50:32 Now, Yes you are, okay. That was Ai talking to me. I accidentally pressed Ai and AI started talking to me. I thought Siri was getting ready to talk to me. I said something that activated all of them at the same time. I don't know what I said, but all of a sudden activated all of them. Figures like Billy Graham held large scale. Maybe large scale did it? I don't know. Large scale Evangelistic crusades and arenas often free are with volunteering, voluntary donations. The conference model, where tickets were sold for organized Christian events, began in the mid twentieth century. We're in the mid twentieth century where.

51:13 You start having tickets being sold for organized Christian events. I want you to that just shows you it has no connection to historical Christianity. So when you start selling tickets for organized Christian events. It began most likely in the mid twentieth century with the growth of megachurches and Christian publishing. Conferences expanded to feature numerous speakers, requiring funds for venues logistics and speaker honorariums, gradually leading to ticketed events. Then this leads to the modern conference celebrity culture. In recent decades, as certain pastors and speakers become well known, churches and organizations began organizing ticketed conferences around these figures.

51:56 This format transformed preaching into a packaged experience, with high profile speakers, music, and other attractions mirroring. Basically, they were mirroring secular entertainment and conference industries. So while charging directly for access to preaching is relatively modern, it's rooted in developments like large scale revivalism and the logistical needs for big events. The shift from free to paid access is tied to the cultural shift towards professionalized, celebrity driven faith events in recent history. So if everyone wants to get caught up in all of the scandal of Steve Lawson, you can get caught up in all the scandal and yell and scream and tell them everyone how you don't sin and everyone else does and he's going to hell, and you can do all of that, or you can say, man, maybe the lesson we're hitting here is well one, the church doesn't really know how to acknowledge the reality of sin.

52:50 And two wait, he wasn't a member of a church. He wasn't a pastor. He just got paid to show up each week and preach. What in the name of bubblegum is this? What it is is the celebrity pastor phenomenon at its pinnacle. But here's the problem. Everyone who condemns the celebrity pastor almost inevitably participates, and the whole celebrity pastor industry. You do I have as well? I don't have one here in front of me. I don't have one here in front of me.

53:30 I don't think I do. No, I do not have a MacArthur Study Bible in front of me. I don't. I'm checking. I think it's probably sitting at church. But I I the first one I did not buy. The first one I got for free. But I think the second one I did purchase. So there we go. I purchased a study Bible with a man's name embolden up on the cover. That's that's that's the celebrity. When you're buying a Bible with a man's name on it. I was celebrating the celebrity pastor. I was. I was, Oh, you want to make it, I'll make it even worse. Early on, back in the day, if you wanted MacArthur's sermons, you had you could subscribe for like a monthly fee like we you know, way back before you had all these subscription services. You could subscribe to MacArthur. And what they would do, this is even before the internet. They would send you cassettes each week of the sermons. You paid a monthly fee and you would get the.

54:31 Sermons each week. Well, there you go. So I was paying for access to the preaching of Gost. I participated in it. I was right there. I was young. I didn't understand. I entered into the Christian world and I just like, oh, there's bookstores, and then there's this, and there's this, and I just kind of oh, there's Christian music, there's concerts, and like, okay, so I just I'm leaving all the world and I've just entered into now the Christian bubble, and it's just its own industry. It's got its own celebrities, it's got its own product, it's got its own merch and I was right there in all of it. And it took a long time for me to guys start thinking there's something wrong with all of this. Yes, and I probably I didn't really catch on, and probably until a conferences when I started realizing the amount of money people would pay to get into a conference to hear someone preach the word of God.

55:23 That's when I really started going, I'm having some issues. And I think really the first time it really hit me was in when I lived in Bellevue, Nebraska and the Assemblies of God Church and Bellevview, Nebraska, large Assemblies of God church Christian concert was going to happen. Steven Curtis Chapman was coming to Bellevue and Nebraska and they were playing in this church, and I thought, I'll get tickets. And now this was in the nineteen nineties, ladies and gentlemen, and I think the tickets was like fifty dollars a person to get inside a church, to get inside a church to see this conference. Now with a family, I was like, this is going to cost me, like, you know, two hundred.

56:08 Dollars, Well, this is crazy. I can't I was an airman in the United States Military. I'm like, there's no way to go. There's no way I can go. But at one hand, they meant it it was come here Stephen Curtis Chapman, minister. So I got to pay two hundred dollars to be ministered to the whole thing. And I already is having problems because by this point, even as a teenager, I'd volunteered for Carmen who was a famous Christian musician, and he didn't charge anyone for his concerts. And he had a huge stage. I don't put together the stage, put together the sound of quick I volunteered. I was a huge dancers, lights, the whole thing, huge production. He took a love offering, but he didn't charge people money to get in. And I'm like, okay, well wait a minute. Something doesn't make sense here. So we started questioning it. So we contacted the church and we found out that the church charges money for Stephen Curtis Chapman to use their building. I'm like, wait, so the church now charges people to use their building the minister, so the church now was operating a side hustle where they rent out their building. That sounds problematic.

57:06 And then when we contact I think Stephen Curtis Chapman, we got We've got some replies from like a managers and they try to argue, you know, well the ministry is free, but I mean it costs money for this, and it costs money for them, and it's like the whole thing is like, well, something I'm not understanding. And I think then they said, well it costs money to use the building, and I'm like, well, why is it costing money to use the building? It's a stinking church. Why wouldn't the church say you can use our building for free because we want you to minister to people. And how can we cover the cost so that we can get people into the building for cheaper because we want the building packed so that minister people can be ministered to by his music. I mean, the whole thing just seemed like no everyone was in it to get a piece of the pie and make some money. So that's when I started having some major issues with it.

57:48 But the industry, the Christian celebrity, look, you can if you condemn it, then you better look at yourself. That's what I'm going to say. People will look at like a Joe Ostein or or a Stephen Ferdach or name some of these famous pastors, and they're like. These celebrities pastors made me sick, right, and it's like, but. You're supporting the same industry. You're just supporting the industry that's promoting your favorite celebrities, not those celebrities. Either the whole system is wrong, or you can't, or you can't. Then pick and choose.

58:28 Either either the whole system is right or the whole system is wrong. It's kind of an either or, And now everybody's all shocked. Now I can't the first last broadcast, we did claim that Steve Lawson's doctrine about the church was wrong. So that's why I send that's just that was ridiculous. We've already talked about that. The issue here is we've reached a point where a man can just get paid weekly to show up, preach a sermon, and leave and he's not the pastor, he's not an elder, he's not even a member of any church. It appears.

59:09 Now you may not think there's a problem with that. Now that's that's a whole different issue. Is that wrong or is that right? We could have that discussion. We could have that discussion. I just know that that if that's the case, then what standard do you hold them to because they're just they're just paid to come in and preach a message, all right, lots of questions, lots of I don't have any good answers, but there you have it. You can you can take whatever you want. Let me just state this at the end. I know that article they quoted offered that they have confirmation about some of these facts being true. I don't know yet if it's true or not true. Ever, once you, I just taking this controversy about Steve Lawson, and I'm just using it to have these broader conversations. I'm not getting caught up in all all of that. Right, everyone can have that conversation, but the deeper issues are what we need to discuss.

1:00:06 The deeper issues, all right. And some of the people criticizing him again are saying crazy things like you know basically that you fall because your doctrine is wrong, and which completely misses the understanding of sinful nature, which then they would have then a wrong doctrine about the sinful. Nature, which is just ironic, see the whole thing. So, and even in this case, this person, I would be much more in agreement with and everything he's saying. I would be much more in agreement with a lot of the things he is saying but yeah, now he talks about the accountability again, I still think, what does that even mean? I love that we need accountability for what If.

1:00:47 You're a part of a denomination, you can literally all the people can split from a denomination and go form another denomination. So where's the accountability? Well, you gotta have good why anybody can leave your denomination at anytime and go to any other one star. I remember a church, and in fact, i'll end with this, we talk about accountability. There are members in my church who their previous church was located here in Applene, Texas. It no longer exists. It fell apart, There was a church split, everything fell apart. But they and their church had to exercise church discipline over one of their teaching elders because he started teaching open theism right, So they confront confrontation. He wouldn't repent. Basically, acted thought he was right.

1:01:29 They were wrong. They church disciplined him the very next sunday. The very next sunday, he was already in another church and I believe already teaching. Well accountability. Well, I guess you held him accountable, but he just went right to another church. It didn't matter. He said, Well, accountability. Well, how are you going to get accountability to worry? How? How? How do you how are you going to even do that? Like? What does they even look like? I mean, I don't even know what that means. Well, you need to denominate so that people can leave that denomination and start another one. Okay, what is that these independent churches are so wrong? Okay, so they need to be under some hierarchy and there's some control, but at some point they can rebel against that hierarchy.

1:02:15 Right, So yeah, I think accountability is an illusion. You can create some but I mean, yeah, the point is is, especially in the non Catholic world, we believe that I read the Bible, I determine if it's sure or false, and I'm the one who judges whether what's being preached is true or false. And yeah, I mean it comes very much down to an individualistic kind of thing. All right, thanks for listening. It's now fast approaching ten forty much more I could say, but we've gone an hour, so I think we've covered about everything we can cover. Now you can process it and have your own debates. Thanks for listening. God bless