Victor Chininin Buele

I was preaching on Sunday from Philippians chapter 4, verses 1-3. What does that have to do with David? Hang on with me.

I argue from the text that the admonition that Paul gives to Euodia and that Paul gives to Syntyche to agree in the Lord could really be the reason that he wrote the letter to the church at Philippi. Furthermore, in line with some of the arguments presented by Dr. Jeannine Brown, I am inclined to hear her out and entertain the idea that Paul’s ask for help for these two women was made to the church at Philippi and not to an individual (for more on the interpretation of “true companion” in verse 3, please refer to her TNTC commentary on Philippians). I say this because the admonition to stand firm mirrors chapter 1 and the call to “agree in the Lord” is the same call to have the same mind from chapter 2. I am persuaded to think that Paul taught all the wonders of the high Christology of Philippians in order to force us into the theological lab: now that you’ve seen the humility, majesty, and centrality of Jesus Christ, please have the same mind that he exemplified for you, and go help these two women to be of the same mind. You’d also notice something weird with my grammar there, “that Paul gives to Euodia and that Paul gives to Syntyche,” which I did because he is explicit in the text to address both equally, without favoritism or partiality. I want to echo that.

One of the things that came to mind while I was in the middle of my exegetical work was the question, “How did Paul know about Euodia and Syntyche?” I then realized, that somebody, just like the people of Chloe in 1 Corinthians, could have found a way to let Paul know this was happening. Obviously, it is also possible that such a visible issue with the leadership of the church was so obvious that the news traveled far and wide. Maybe somebody wrote to Epaphroditus about it, and he told Paul. Who knows.

A lot of chatter has been going on this week about a very public sin from a fairly famous man. Some people have said that such matters must be handled quietly and in-house to avoid gossip and to not bring disgrace to the church of the Lord.

Others have also expressed a lack of agreement with the action taken by the church and the ministries where this man had worked to delete his messages and content.

I want to advance the discussion on these two areas since we seem to be perpetually stuck in these two general issues. These things keep happening in the Church, and we keep coming back to the same and the same and more of the same.

On Talking about Steve Lawson as Gossip

Well, that’s enough for some of you to stop reading right there. I said this person’s name. Trust me when I say that I understand this. I lived in that way for many years. You believe that the world needs to see the church as a spotless bride, and you want to fight for the reputation of Christ’s bride on earth. You are also very gullible because of that predisposition to fall for characters of ill repute that mask themselves as knights of the light, or as Jesus called them, wolves. And you start to believe the tall tale that unbelievers would be harmed if they saw the truth of what happens when a wolf “pastors” a church. How will they believe if they see the church like this? So, we start to hide the sin and rename it and mask it and polish it, and before we realize it, we are covering it up.

Don’t read what I am not saying. I don’t know this man personally, and anything that I might say about any details about his life would be gossip, spreading untruths. I simply don’t know.

What I do know from public information, from public statements from the ministries where he worked or collaborated, is that this man was engaged in adultery for at least five years, that he did not repent but only spoke up about what he had been doing after the father of the young woman threatened to expose him. Lawson ended what would be his last sermon saying how much he was looking forward to seeing the church the following Sunday for communion. He did not expect to be going anywhere.

This is a man that has written many books, spoken at many conferences, was a teaching fellow at Ligonier, and worked as the Dean of the D.Min. program at The Master’s Seminary. That’s a lot of eyes on his work.

And we are people of the truth. We harm the reputation of the church of Christ when we use lies (that we tell ourselves are euphemisms) to clean things up. We are not called to be spin doctors. Our Master did not call the Pharisees “people with great intentions but with inappropriate conduct and deficient theology.” He called them hypocrites and whitewashed tombs. When we call something an “inappropriate relationship,” we plaster nasty wallpaper over sin. We flatten people and their complexity. We have the truth at stake, and as the big letters in one of Lawson’s books read, “It Will Cost You Everything.” Following Jesus is a call to die. It’s a call to die to the idea of having a nice reputation. A true believer is despicable to a world that hates his Master.

So, to publicly respond to public, grievous sin like this, given the public platform that this man profited from, is not gossip. If you want to see who brought disgrace upon the church living a lie and preaching a gospel contrary to the one he was living, look at Dr. Steven Lawson. He did it. Don’t take it on those you think that are gossiping. How did Paul find out about the Corinthians and the Philippians? How many verses in those two letters do you see him reprimanding those who let him know about the sin that was taking place in those churches?

Our Brother Steve

Next to it is the response that calls him our brother. Again, I understand the disposition to want to do that. But the evidence before our eyes is clear. This man (at least the way things stand right now, based on the evidence our eyes can see) is not our brother. I find it quite tragic to see how many “Calvinists” become “Arminians” under pressure. Why exactly are we calling this man a brother? Because he prayed a prayer? I know he preached a lot against “false conversions,” a popular subject amongst Southern Reformed preachers, but aren’t we just calling him a brother because of the things we believe we’ve seen him do for the Kingdom? Why? Because he wrote “good books”? Because he preached exegetically-accurate sermons? Because he taught you how to preach, even from a distance? Because he was “the Lloyd-Jones of our times”? James had a word about this: “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (2:19).

[18] Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the LORD our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, [19] one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. [20] The LORD will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the LORD and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. (ESV)
Deuteronomy 29:18–20

It is tragic to me that when we see things like what we are seeing unfold, this is not the passage that comes to our mind before we go on showing favoritism and crying out for our “BROTHER.” He might be our brother in the end. He might repent and truly believe and persevere through the end, far away from speaking from any pulpits. But what we see now is this: A man whose heart is turning away from the LORD to serve the gods of the nations, the very gods he had so seemingly passionately preached against; a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, one who blesses himself in his heart saying that everything is gonna be alright even though he walks in the stubbornness of his heart. For five years. Without a peep. Without a word. Teaching people to live pure and holy lives unto the Lord. Calling them to believe in a Jesus he was mocking with his actions.

Should We Rip Out David’s Psalms from the Bible?

And we land into our big question. David failed. You don’t see the pages written by David ripped out of the Bible by the hand of God himself. So, why should we obliterate Mr. Lawson’s messages from the internet?

I want to respond that even a broken watch is right twice a day. And there might be plenty in these books that points to the truth of the Word. But I just can’t read it the same way. When I opened the Church Planting book that my former pastor wrote, after he was found out in his sin and dismissed from his pastorate, it just didn’t read the same to me. I was looking at the words in those pages that I had heard repeatedly from his mouth, even as distant as we were. You see, he was a speaker, not a pastor to me. I learned from what he said from the pulpit. I never walked with him. We did not disciple one another. I don’t see what good can come from dwelling too much on this question. You can show any abuser or wolf or criminal or atheist or secularist or anyone, really, to have said at least something that is true. That doesn’t mean that it is to be a standard of excellence or godliness.

But I want to reflect more on the fact that we willingly make significant category mistakes when the emotions are high, and when our desire to defend Christ’s church is mixed up with the self-preservation of a wolf and our own self-preservation of comfort.

First of all, David was guilty of terrible sin. And he also went on carrying on being a king, though without really fulfilling his kingly responsibilities–requiring the privileges but not going into the battlefield. Nathan had to come and confront him. His confession, though, was not the result of coercion: “Hey, David, if you don’t tell, I will go right now and tell this sin to everyone at the gates of the city.” Nathan prompted repentance, and David repented. There is a massive difference between David’s response and Mr. Lawson’s.

Also, David persevered through the end. We are yet to see what Mr. Lawson does. And his repentance is something that I pray we see. But far away from microphones and the conference circuit. Repentance comes with humility and brokenness. Tim Keller waited a long time before publishing. I think there was some wisdom in that. For many years, he was not in what we now see as the cycle of sermon series or conferences turned into books that feed our modern evangelical publishing machine. I think that our worldly hunger for more predisposes us to make heroes of wolves and to rush everyone into the glory that yet awaits for us.

So, to equate “David failed” or “David was imperfect” with the active unrepentance of a wolf is not a particularly good argument to make about the permanence of the words written by “fallen men.” We love to call them fallen, to say that they fell. Doing that is very dangerous. It misrepresents the truth. This is not a man who fell on a banana peel and cursed when his head hit the ground but then cried in repentance at seeing the depths of his depravity come out of his mouth. This is a man who got up into the pulpit at his church and whatever other platforms to which he had access to and Sunday after Sunday, commitment after commitment, speaking engagement after speaking engagement, book after book preached of a gospel he did not really believe in, with his Southern gentleman look, suit and tie, and the “right” words.

James reminds us, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (2:17).

Brothers and sisters, let’s have the same mind, which is ours in Christ Jesus. Go, please, read Philippians. Look at what the bar is. It is far more precious and worth fighting for than any worldly platform even if we have baptized it as Christian. And let’s get on this business of truly being of the same mind which is ours in Christ Jesus who though he is God, he did not count equality with God as a privilege to grasp. He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death on a cross. For us, sinners.

I could say more, especially on the subject of “we are all two steps away from falling like this,” but let the reader grab on to his Reformed hat more tightly, if those words are in your head. Before you blinked, you turned into the Arminian you claim to oppose. God is bigger than you or I. Holier than you or I. More merciful than you or I. And more just than you or I. His persevering holiness is what we are called to imitate.