February 25, 2026 · 50:48

Dr. Renton Rathbun has returned to “The Corner.”

Culture & Media

Show notes

0:00 - 15:00. 1 Timothy 3:15. The Church is to be the pillar and ground of the truth. 15:00 - 31:00. Dr. Renton Rathbun has returned to “The Corner.” 31:00 - 48:00. God has determined that His Church is the vehicle through which He makes His manifold wisdom known. | 1-800-326-4543 ext. 345 To donate call: 877-616-2396

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1-800-326-4543 ext. 345
877-616-2396

Full transcript Auto-generated · 8,351 words

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force. Simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
0:10It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
0:15Delivering people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
0:18And the philosophies of this world.
0:20God has called you and me to be His ambassador.
0:24Even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment.
0:28And now the Hamilton Corner.
0:33Good evening everyone.
0:34Welcome to the Hamilton Corner here on American Family Radio.
0:37I am your host Abraham Hamilton III, broadcasting again live from beautiful downtown Greenville,
0:44South Carolina as we have been enjoying these last few days, the BJAU Press Foundations Summit.
0:50It has been an amazing time here.
0:54As you know, at this very moment, many of you are making your transition from your part-time
0:58jobs where you generate your income to your full-time jobs where you cultivate an outcome.
1:03And as you do so, I want to remind you to do so with intentionality, understanding the
1:07primacy that God places on, family, recognizing that what goes on in your house is far more
1:14important than what goes on in the White House, far more important than a buffoonery on display
1:20during the State of the Union address, far more important not because those things are unimportant,
1:26because 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is unimportant, but it's simply because you and I are directly
1:32accountable and responsible for what we have immediate access to and the jurisdiction that
1:37God has given us. Far too often, we allow things that transpire on the global level, international,
1:47level national media headlines and things of that nature to intrude upon our province and
1:51to cause us to be either disconnected,
1:54neglected, or alternatively,
1:58inordinately obsessed with national media.
2:01And then what happens?
2:03Our kids are having conversations with chatbots.
2:05We don't even know what's going on.
2:07With their newest iOS update.
2:10That is exceedingly, exceedingly problematic.
2:13And so I offer this recalibration daily,
2:17simply for that purpose, to get us thinking differently.
2:20Yes, we're all people.
2:21We have obligations.
2:22We have families that we need to provide for but what we do to generate revenue is not our full-time gig
2:27It's what we do out of necessity that enables us to engage with its full-time and for every single believer
2:33We have to understand this every single believer is called to ministry every single believer is called to
2:40Execute our Lord's Commission and so as you are making your transition
2:43I want to remind you to do it with intentionality of the human institutions God established
2:47Civil government, God established it.
2:50The New Testament Church, God established it.
2:52But the first of his institutions was the family with marriage at the center.
2:56And just because a politician discusses God's ideas,
3:01that discussion does not inherently reclassify God's ideas to political conversation.
3:06And so we need to remember that and be mindful of that.
3:09So as you're making your transition, let's be about the Father's business today.
3:14You guys know how often we talk about the necessity of discipling our children as parents who are invested in their children's lives
3:22Grandparents the scripture has room for you. You have a role to play in that as well as you're making your transition
3:29Let us do so with intentionality if you have been
3:32Laboring faithfully and God's harvest field field praise God. Let us not become weary in
3:38Well-doing if you're listening to me and some of you have sent me messages because I know you let you you think about this
3:44It's a man, Abe, I understand what you're saying,
3:46but I'm gonna do it tomorrow.
3:47Let today be the day.
3:48As you make your way home, let today be the day
3:52where you plant your feet solid on the ground,
3:54ten toes down and say today will be the day
3:57where we transform our dinner table or our living room
4:00or wherever it is, whatever space you have access to,
4:03to an altar to worship the King of glory.
4:05What you do in your homes.
4:08And I've shared my prayer and my own family, Lord,
4:11May my life be a runway for my children to come to know you
4:15and then to follow you as opposed to being an obstacle course
4:18where my children have to overcome my life,
4:20witness an example in order to meet the Lord.
4:23And I pray that you would adopt that,
4:24take it, use it, however you wanna use it.
4:26But that is what we need.
4:27And if God, if we would welcome the Lord to get a hold of us
4:31in our families first, in our families first,
4:35there's no question as to what would and could transpire
4:39in our communities.
4:40Now having said that, if you're new to the program,
4:42we start every show by turning to God's word first,
4:45because it's vitally important that we refuse to shelve
4:49the Lord's word and then attempt to do life.
4:52But that we understand that the Lord's word
4:54is truly a lamp unto our feet and a light into our past.
4:57And the only way we will be able to engage
5:00appropriately and successfully in the life
5:02that God has given us is if we do so,
5:04as the Lord empowers us by his grace,
5:07being anchored in the truth of his word
5:09as he has articulated it and revealed himself to us
5:11through his holy word.
5:13So today we're gonna do something a little differently
5:15where I've invited my friend and the guest
5:18who will be on the show with me
5:19for the duration of the program.
5:21This is really for my own benefit by the way
5:22because this is what I need.
5:24It's none other than Dr. Renton Rathbin,
5:27who, man, who, where do I start?
5:30Scholar, theologian, now pastor,
5:33we'll get to that later in the program,
5:35but I've invited him on with me
5:38to talk through a bit, walk through a little bit of Paul's
5:42Epistle to Timothy 1 Timothy chapter 3 verses 14 and 15.
5:46And if you're new to the program, as I said earlier,
5:49we never want to be the types of people who have Bibles.
5:54We must be the type of people who use Bibles.
5:58And as we use the Bibles, we use the Bibles to read them.
6:03But in reading the Bibles, we welcome the Lord
6:05to read us by His Spirit.
6:07And so as we do that, it puts us in a position where we then have our minds fit appropriately,
6:13our hearts anchored appropriately to be able to be salt and light and be effective ambassadors
6:18of the Lord's eternal kingdom.
6:20And we do life from heaven down.
6:21The eternal reality is what informs our temporal engagement.
6:25So today I want to turn our attention to 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 14 through 15.
6:31Timothy chapter 3 verses 14 through 15 and the apostle Paul writes this in
6:37addressing Timothy. He says, I'm writing these things to you, hoping to come to you
6:43before long, but in case I am delayed I write so that you will know how one ought
6:48to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living
6:53God, the pillar and support of the truth or some translations will say the pillar
6:59and ground of the truth. This is a portion of scripture that we've delved into on the program
7:05before, but I wanted to invite you, Dr. Rathbund, past the Dr. Rathbund, how many more superlatives
7:10can offer to share a bit of what the Lord's people should understand that God is revealing
7:18to us of himself and concerning his church in these few verses.
7:24You know, our congregation, we're going through the book of Ephesians right now.
7:30And the whole focus of Ephesians is that the Father has a vision for his Son, and that is for the Son to have a body.
7:41And we are the Church, we are His body.
7:46And so when it talks about here in 1 Timothy, when Paul is instructing another pastor,
7:53you know, how are we to understand the body of Christ, we see that part of that work is
8:02being grounded and being the ground of truth, not just for each other but in the world.
8:11you know, we see so much power everywhere. We see power in politics. We see power in the university,
8:19you know, and the power of professors. And we see power in talking heads and podcasts and fame.
8:29And that's where we see power. And the very last place we really think there's power
8:34is Christ's body, the church.
8:39And that's exactly where,
8:41and this is how the Father is glorified.
8:44It's in the body that this power is focused
8:49on that which grounds truth through the power
8:52of the Holy Spirit because of the work of the Son
8:55all because the Father,
8:56and this is what's so interesting about Ephesians,
8:59because the Father loved us.
9:01And in that love, he said, I want you to be the body of my son.
9:07And in that, we see great responsibility that's placed on the church, which starts with this
9:14whole idea of truth.
9:16And it bears down on the pastor, it bears down on other teachers in the church, and it bears
9:23down on our congregation, that they're not there just to observe and sit around.
9:27they're there to be part of the work of grounding truth
9:31in their community and society at large.
9:37Oh man, it's so profound and so true.
9:41It's one of the things that I reflect on
9:44and I endeavor to communicate accurately about,
9:48which is that the church's role is to be that
9:52within the body of Christ,
9:53but also to serve in that function in the world,
9:57and God and his divine providence could do whatever he wants to do,
10:01however he wants to do it, whenever he wanted to do it.
10:05But he's divinely designed his church to play an outsized role and what transpires.
10:14And I'm thinking about if he's a step to the reverse thing right now,
10:17the Lord literally says that through his church, his manifold wisdom would be made
10:21known, you know, he has it within himself.
10:24but the public demonstrability and accessibility to that wisdom,
10:29God is designed for that to come through his bride.
10:32Yet what we see more often in our own experiences,
10:38and there are always exceptions,
10:39I don't want to be over-broad in my speech.
10:41But largely in our country,
10:43what we see is the professing church attempting to catch whatever wave the world is distributing.
10:50You know, it's almost like the social equivalent of crowdsourcing.
10:56We want to, we want to crowdsource what is popular and then interpolated into a church
11:04context and put a standpoint and say, sound and let's see.
11:07Now this is the sanitized version of these things and what ends up happening, salt loses
11:13its savor.
11:14Yeah.
11:15And what you see even in Ephesians chapter four is this warning of I don't want you to,
11:21to think like the Gentiles think,
11:24because you're gonna be cast back and forth
11:26at every wind of doctrine like a child would.
11:29I mean, think about how insulting that might sound
11:32to a church that's well-seasoned,
11:34and I mean, even in Ephesians he talks about how,
11:37at the beginning, how it's clear you guys love each other,
11:40it's clear you've been grounded in the truth
11:42and all that's great, but don't act like a child,
11:45that you're gonna be tossed back and forth
11:47by some new thing that some shiny idea that someone has
11:52that you want to put into your church
11:53so you can be more effective.
11:55Your effectiveness of being a pillar of the truth
12:00is gonna be through something you can't see.
12:02It's gonna be through the work of the Holy Spirit.
12:05And this is, and of course,
12:07no one wants to talk about that.
12:10No one wants to talk about the Holy Spirit.
12:11I do.
12:13All right.
12:14I do.
12:15I mean, you think about it, it's like,
12:18when you see the beginning of Ephesians,
12:20it says, I want you to see the hope of your calling.
12:23I want you to see that the Father has this inheritance
12:28and that inheritance is gonna be the body of Christ.
12:31It's you, and I want you to see the power.
12:35And that's the third thing you want some to see,
12:36is the power.
12:37And when you get to a first Timothy,
12:40and you're start talking about this pillar of truth
12:44that is the ground of truth for the world,
12:48you see, well, how are we gonna do that?
12:50I mean, we're just a church.
12:52And I have, my church is small.
12:54And so small churches always think,
12:56well, that's probably gonna be one of the bigger churches.
12:59The guy that he wrote a book,
13:01and they have a better building,
13:04and they have all these programs.
13:05Our tiny little church won't make a difference.
13:08But your tiny little church has the power
13:11of the Holy Spirit.
13:13that is able to do exceedingly and abundantly
13:18far beyond what you ever thought could ever happen.
13:21Because you have all the tools,
13:25but you also have all the power.
13:28And when you don't see that,
13:29you start looking for power somewhere else,
13:32and it's always disastrous.
13:36Man, with that provokes in my mind,
13:41is that concept is almost like an ecclesiastical Napoleon complex, you know.
13:46But that would provoke really what is a deficiency in worship because the only way that those who profess to be redeemed by the potent grace of God
14:00that they can see that as being limited is if you begin to diminish your perception of God's capacity
14:06in view of, in contrast to what you see as alternative sources of potency.
14:12Which kind of reveals a little bit of idolatry.
14:18That there's power there, there, there, there, there, there.
14:22But what we can't do anything, so maybe they'll do it.
14:27And what leads to, and the music is disrespectful, I know you can hear it.
14:31Darkness is not an affirmative force, but it does reoccupy the space vacated by the light.
14:37And what's largely happening in our country is that the Christ follower has retreated on various fronts.
14:45So the ubiquitous advertising campaign of darkness has run amok.
14:49Yeah, that's right.
14:50We'll be right back after this break.
14:59A discipleship minute with Joseph Parker.
15:02Life is not a beach, nor is it a park. Life is a battlefield.
15:06Our goal is to be believers that are well equipped on the battlefields of life to go out and build the Kingdom of God
15:13and tear down the kingdom of darkness.
15:15Remember our goal is not just to hold ground.
15:18Our goal is to build the kingdom of God
15:21and tear down the kingdom of darkness.
15:23Every day we can be instruments through which the spirit
15:26of God can use to reach out to the world.
15:28How do we build the kingdom of God?
15:30By simply living a life where we're hearing God's word
15:33and obeying it every single day.
15:35Every day is a day for us to be bright,
15:36shining witnesses for Christ everywhere we go.
15:39Yes, we're wise to be believers that carry gospel tracks
15:43wherever we go and give them out as the Holy Spirit would direct us to.
15:46Yes, we're wise to be believers that daily are ready to share our testimony in any context.
15:52The Holy Spirit literally gives us tasks and missions daily.
15:57Shiting light into the darkness, this is the Hamilton Corner, an American family radio.
16:09Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton III here.
16:13My guest is Dr. Renton Rathbin.
16:16I'm glad to have you on the program with me, sir.
16:19I have to mention and I've been announcing this now March 27th through to 29th.
16:24I will be with the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church family in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at
16:30their Kingdom Come conference.
16:33You can go to their website to get all of the information.
16:36I'm looking forward to that.
16:37Oz Guinness will be ministering there.
16:40Rosaria Butterfield will be ministering there.
16:42David bombson will be there.
16:44Bill Federer will be there.
16:46Host of other people these are people that just remember who will be there
16:50I think Eric Metaxas will be speaking there as well. I was going to be an amazing time looking forward to that
16:55I don't know why they invited me
16:58But they did yeah, so so we'll be there
17:02In Fort Lauderdale if you're in the area willing to come to the area
17:06I'd love to meet you to shake shake your hand hug some next
17:09The the conference is the Kingdom come conference
17:12subtitled the Christian Citizen. And so I'm looking forward to that. Like I said, if
17:19you're in the area willing to come to the area, it'll be a great time to meet
17:22Huxham next and have some in-person communication, which is one of my favorite
17:26things to do. Because you get a little bit of down payment on what we're going to get
17:29to enjoy an eternity forever with the body of Christ. So that is coming up. Now
17:34back to my guest Dr. Rathbend. And I said this at the beginning of the first
17:39segment, your journey through academia and being a college
17:46professor and then biblical worldview training and then
17:51developing resources for homeschool families. I know you and
17:56your wife, April, you missed you, you homeschool your lovely
18:01children. And to now the latest stage in your trajectory is to
18:07take on the role of a pastor.
18:09How did you come to make that decision?
18:13Oh boy.
18:14Yeah, so I was a professor for a long time.
18:22I taught philosophy and things like that, logic.
18:25And I almost became, I almost got a PhD in philosophy
18:31because I had applied to University in Nebraska
18:36and they had accepted me, and I was all excited about going.
18:39And this was gonna be the trajectory of my life,
18:43but then the Lord got ahold of me and changed everything.
18:47I stopped playing the part of a Christian,
18:50and I came to know Christ, and that knowledge of him
18:55was very different than just knowing about him.
18:58And so it changed everything.
18:59So my wife said, we can't go to Nebraska.
19:02It's, first of all, I mean, it's Nebraska.
19:05I was no offense Nebraska listeners.
19:08I was born in Omaha, so I know how it goes.
19:12But she said, you're gonna be frustrated.
19:15You're gonna be frustrated the whole time
19:16because you're gonna want to talk about the Lord
19:19and you know they're not gonna let you.
19:21And so I ended up pursuing a THM at Puritan,
19:27and then we ended up at Westminster with my PhD.
19:30And during that time, the Lord really got a hold of my heart
19:33thinking about how the Lord is going to use me.
19:37And so as we were working at a Westminster,
19:43I started to think about the ministry.
19:47And we had elders that also believed
19:49that there was a calling there.
19:51And so we just kind of put that in our back pocket.
19:53Let's finish this terrible PhD that ruins people's lives.
19:59Get that done.
19:59And then we'll see what the Lord has.
20:01And we did.
20:02We got it done, we did all that, and the Lord, you know, I was still a professor, I was still
20:07doing stuff like that.
20:10And I went under care that's the Presbyterian's way of, you know, making sure you're called
20:16and that they can control the whole thing.
20:18And because, you know, we like control.
20:22And so, and so we, you know, I started to go through that process and the Lord just didn't
20:29open any doors.
20:30I could have pushed it.
20:32I could have just like, no, I'm gonna do this
20:34and I'm gonna quit my job and just trust the Lord.
20:37Maybe I should have, I just don't have that kind of faith.
20:39So with the Lord opened the doors other places.
20:43And so I just thought, okay, let's just pursue
20:46what's up with the Lord opened up.
20:48And so eventually I was an elder at a church
20:55for a long time.
20:56And for whatever reason, I can't remember what it was,
21:00I just started praying to the Lord,
21:02would you open a door?
21:05Somewhere right here, let us just start working for you.
21:11Not that I wasn't in the ministry,
21:13I mean, we're all in the ministry,
21:14but I just really, that burden came back.
21:17And I just started praying,
21:18and it was one of the few times in my life
21:20where I pray with faith.
21:24I know that sounds terrible, but I just, you know.
21:26It does sound terrible.
21:28The Lord is very patient with me.
21:30And I'm really good at praying prayers
21:33that I'm pretty sure already are taken care of.
21:35It's really hard for me to pray for something
21:38that just says I have no basis for it.
21:41And I just, there was nothing available.
21:44I mean, it was insane.
21:45It's hard enough to find a pastor at these days,
21:48you know, a million miles away, let alone just saying,
21:50Lord, can you open up something here
21:52that I might be able to start working full time for you?
21:57So it's an insane thing to ask.
22:00But I just started asking the Lord.
22:03And another thing that I'm not good at is I was consistent
22:08with it.
22:08Every day I was starting to pray this prayer.
22:11And I just thought, you know, maybe we'll see what the Lord does.
22:15And literally, and this is, okay, listeners,
22:18I know you're thinking, you know, of course,
22:21out of nowhere someone comes up to you
22:23and it was the Lord's will.
22:25And I hate hearing those stories
22:27because that never happens to me.
22:29I've heard those stories of these people that are like,
22:31well, we prayed to the Lord and we opened up the mailbox
22:35and there was a check for $1,000.
22:38I'm like, okay, good for you buddy, that doesn't happen to me.
22:44So I do get kind of tired of those kind of testimonies,
22:47but I will say this, just praying over this thing
22:51and out of the blue, someone came up to me and said,
22:54look, we're from Blue Ridge Presbyterian Church
22:58And we would like for you to consider maybe having a ministry here and maybe being our
23:05pastor.
23:06Now, this is a big deal because I wasn't ordained and so it's going to be a big hairy
23:12deal to do that.
23:13And so, you know, in the Presbyterian world, if you want to be ordained, man, you got to
23:17go through a thousand tests and a thousand oral tests, a thousand written tests and then
23:23you got to be checked.
23:24got to be humiliated in public a few times.
23:26And then, and then, you are finally qualified
23:30to take further tests that you will have to pass
23:34and then be humiliated a little more
23:36and then you get to be ordained.
23:38And so, what they were asking is we are willing,
23:44if you consider this, we're willing to go through
23:46all that stuff for you.
23:49And so that was very humbling.
23:51And so I thought, well, I need, you know,
23:54so I went to my wife and of course she's like,
23:57well, I've been telling you you need to be a pastor
23:58your whole marriage.
24:00So of course you should pursue this.
24:02Oh, wow.
24:03And so we pursued it and they had other candidates
24:08and that were probably more skilled
24:10and better looking than me.
24:12But in the end, the Lord called me there and they called me.
24:17And it was 100% call.
24:22Everyone, it's not a huge church,
24:24but it's big enough that a no would be pretty visible.
24:27Yeah.
24:28But yeah, everybody, it was 100% yes call,
24:32and so I answered that call.
24:34And we're still going through all the process
24:36of the denomination, all that stuff.
24:37But we are, but I've been there since September
24:42preaching there, and it has,
24:46It has just from September to now has changed everything about my life and about how I think
24:53about life and even how your life is on display as a pastor.
25:02I mean you know this.
25:04You go from being pretty anonymous to everyone's watching and we've had the congregation over
25:11our house twice now, the whole congregation.
25:14And you're like, oh man, we have a TV.
25:17Is that going to be a problem?
25:18Is it going to be a work?
25:19And you wonder about every little thing.
25:21We have a TV and we have the internet.
25:25Should I not have the internet?
25:27Should I live like an Amish person?
25:28What should I do?
25:29You're just really paranoid about all that stuff
25:32because you're out there.
25:34And yes, and you should be on display
25:36because there is incredible, incredible weight on you,
25:42that you can't mess this up.
25:46There's a lot of jobs you can kind of mess up and be okay.
25:49This isn't one of those,
25:50and because the Lord has a special judgment for those
25:53that fail at this.
25:56And so that has been on my mind a lot
26:00since we started now.
26:03Man, wow. So you mentioned that you were already involved in ministry and it's true.
26:11We're all in ministry. Not everybody though has the opportunities that you've had even
26:16prior to entering the pastorate, you know, with teaching at the collegiate level and
26:23traveling the country, if not the world, speaking in different places, being a very,
26:27won't say this, but I will quite, first of all, excellent. I mean, excellent speaker,
26:35excellent, and being in demand for that, some would say you already had a full plate in terms
26:42of ministry. So why would you want or seek something in addition to that? And then two,
26:53Do you see as being viable through the local church that may not have been viable in those
27:00other avenues that you're already functioning in?
27:03So you're right.
27:05I have been very blessed to be able to go out and speak and not have to really sell anything
27:12or talk about something that I just don't really believe in.
27:17I've gotten to talk about the Lord and of biblical worldview and what that means.
27:24And I mean, I could have been quite comfortable doing that because the weight of a congregation
27:35and their souls are not tied to you.
27:39And so what you're asking, and this is something a lot of people don't think about, because
27:47My brother died last year and the Lord brought cancer upon him to kind of bring him back to
27:58himself.
27:59But when my brother was away from the Lord, he had a congregation and he failed and he
28:09knows he did and he believed that the Lord was merciful to even bring him back to himself.
28:17before he died.
28:19And I think about that a lot.
28:22I think about how the repentance of my brother's heart
28:28with such sadness on how he saw himself
28:32treating the body of Christ.
28:35And so that I think about that every time
28:38because it's not just a side gig.
28:42It's not just, oh, I'll try this for a while
28:45and see how that goes.
28:46The souls of people that are in the image of God
28:51that have been bought by the blood of Christ
28:54are now depending on you.
28:57They're depending on you,
28:59both as a leader, to help them know what to do
29:04and help them know how to navigate even the conflicts
29:08that they have within themselves,
29:09but they're also relying on you
29:12to say what the Lord has for them to hear.
29:15Because we're not just giving a little devotional.
29:19Preaching is not a devotional in a formal sense.
29:24Preaching is actually a way of speaking God.
29:29God's voice, what God has to say to these people through you.
29:34And so there is a higher level.
29:38It's why we're all, there's so much debate on what the leadership should be.
29:45This is why first Timothy that you read from today, first Timothy is so important because it gives the structure of how
29:53leadership should be, how the church should be,
29:56because if we don't get that right, there's something, this isn't just a Bible study.
30:01This is the body of Christ in its formal governmental self and
30:08and how we will be judged how we deal with that.
30:13We will be judged how seriously we took God's word.
30:16We'll be judged how we treated Christ's body,
30:20the body of Christ.
30:21And so when you think about that, you're right.
30:25It's a good question.
30:28Why would you go into something that has that kind of weight?
30:32And I think that's what the call is.
30:34The call is a desire to do something
30:36that actually if you really thought about it,
30:39you would probably not do it.
30:40If you really believed what scripture says about,
30:43there's extra judgment on the pastor,
30:47if he treats Christ's body poorly,
30:51that the weight of these souls are on your shoulders.
30:56Not too many people would actually do it
30:58if they really believed that.
30:59And so there is a real calling to say yes to that.
31:05Man, I'm thinking so many different things.
31:07I've shared this on the show before.
31:14The way that the Lord kind of drew me a long time ago, my church in New Orleans where I grew
31:21up, my pastor discerned that the Lord was calling me to some form of ministry.
31:29So I did kind of a ministry internship and my assignment was to the sick and the shut
31:35in. You know and so through that process the Lord has just given me a great affinity for
31:41what I call a season saints. You know people who have been who've lived lives and the latter
31:48years remain faithful to the Lord. I just have a special place in my heart for them but in
31:55contrast recently we've seen scores of ministers fall publicly. In light of that and we're
32:07We're about to hit to the break, but I'll set my question up for you now and just welcome
32:12you to answer it on the other side of the break.
32:14When you think about that and you're aware of those things happening, is there anything
32:19in particular about that that kind of resonated with you to a degree and impacted your decision
32:25in any way, however, to respond to God's call to enter the pastor?
32:30That's the question I have.
32:34I asked the question, but the music is still disrespectful.
32:37You listen into the Hamilton Corner, my guest is Dr. Renton Rathbin.
32:41We're talking about really at this jump to the gravity of the call to be a Shepherd and
32:45God's flock.
32:46We'll continue this conversation and unfortunately it's the last segment when we get back from
32:51this break.
32:52We'll stay with us.
32:53If we lose this cultural war, we're going to have a hedonistic humanistic society.
33:06Discover the story of the culture warrior Don Wildman and how he went head to head with
33:11Hollywood, Playboy, the homosexual agenda, and the Disney Empire.
33:17The movement Don started paved the way for Christians to boldly stand for truth and
33:21righteousness in a hostile culture.
33:25Watch Culture Warrior today for free.
33:27Visit CultureWarrior.movie.
33:30Over the last ten years, young people have been deconstructing their faith, or more accurately,
33:35decrystionizing.
33:36The first great awakening was a supernatural move of God that happened in the American colonies
33:41just before the American Revolution.
33:43How we need another great awakening today.
33:46Please help spread the sparks of revival by supporting AFA with a gift, and we'll send
33:51you a free copy of the DVD Desperate for More, The First Great Awakening.
33:56Go to AFA.net slash revival today.
34:00Untethered Empathy This is David Wheaton, host of The Christian World
34:04View.
34:05While sympathy is a biblical virtue, there is a corrupted form of empathy today that
34:10It ignores moral truth and negative consequences because the object of their empathy holds an
34:16idolized status of being oppressed.
34:19This explains why protesters interfere with ICE agents, detaining criminal illegal immigrants,
34:24or why women support boys who identify as girls competing in girls' sports.
34:29The Bible says that Christians should put on a heart of compassion and kindness, but God's
34:34other truths of morality, justice, and obeying governing authorities should not be dismissed
34:39in the process.
34:40Here are most recent programs on Untethered Empathy with guest Joe Rigne at TheChristianWorldView.org
34:47and then tune in this weekend as Alex Newman joins us to discuss the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
34:52Listen to The Christian World View with David Wheaton, Saturday mornings at 8th Central on
34:57American Family Radio.
35:04The Hamilton Quarter Podcast and One-Minute Common Terrets are available at AFR.net back
35:10to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio.
35:14Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton the third here with Dr. Renton Rathbend.
35:20Pastor Renton Rathbend and I asked a question before the break and I'll just restate it for
35:26the sake of those who may just be tuning in and I don't know why you're coming in so late.
35:31The corner is always open but always.
35:35I asked just to kind of summarize the question that we've just witnessed a spate of public
35:43failings of shepherds in the Lord's flock.
35:48And we've had several men who have been faithful,
35:51who we've lost also, who've passed on into their eternal reward.
35:58But my question was particularly about those who have fallen
36:02recently in how that has impacted, if at all,
36:05your perception of responding to God's call into the pastorate.
36:11And if so, in what ways that may have impacted you.
36:16Yeah, I just, you know, it's funny, I just read,
36:19I think it was yesterday about a pastor
36:21who had been caught with,
36:27I think it was a five year molestation of a child.
36:34He got off on bail for the court hearing
36:39and then committed suicide.
36:40And you just think about that.
36:44I was asking my wife about it.
36:45I said, what was going through his mind?
36:49You know, was he a real believer that thought,
36:53I just need to get out of here?
36:55Or was he an unbeliever that never believed any of this
36:59and used his position to molest kids
37:03and then just wants out cause it's too humiliating
37:06at this point.
37:07You know, I, as I see all these failures happening and it's, it's almost sadly, it's almost a
37:14daily occurrence.
37:15If you look at the Christian post or any, any Christian outlet is, you know, that's willing
37:21to talk about it, you know, has another person, another person.
37:26And it affected me because that was happening back when I was praying over whether I should
37:30be a pastor or not.
37:34the two things I was thinking about is, number one, we have so much failure, we
37:41have all these open gaps, you know, but we also have a problem with the world
37:48blaspheming God now, you know, and I think that's why there's a bigger
37:53punishment on pastors, because this is why David experienced the punishment he
38:01experienced with, you know, when he murdered Bathsheba's husband and then took
38:06Bathsheba on, she got pregnant and the Lord said, I'm going to take the life of
38:12that child and David begged for his life. But you see, David caused God's enemies
38:20to blaspheme and God would not relent his his wrath and so that child died. Now
38:28Now there's always grace because right after that David comforts his wife and then she gets
38:37pregnant with Solomon.
38:41And when you know what's going to happen that Solomon's going to reign in peace and going
38:45to be prosperous, there's a catharsis there.
38:50But he does not relent when the enemies of God have blasphemed.
38:56That has stuck in my soul as I answered the call to be a pastor that if I would ever cause the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme,
39:07and the Lord's wrath would come down upon me, rightfully.
39:12And I am sure I would beg him not to let that wrath come, just to let me go like David.
39:19I would probably day and night beg and just lay in the dirt and beg.
39:27But if I cause the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, his wrath would not recede.
39:35And we see that promise that the teachers will be judged more viciously because of their position.
39:46And that has made me think about why these guys are doing this.
39:50you know, what happens.
39:52And I don't know exactly why I don't know
39:54what's going through their head.
39:55I know that they surround themselves
39:58with guys that are dependent on them.
40:01And so especially these big churches,
40:05you have these big churches
40:07and the pastor obviously can't do everything
40:09so he hires pastors to do a bunch of the work.
40:13But those pastors were hired by that guy.
40:15So they need to please that guy.
40:17Because everyone knows if the head pastor
40:19doesn't like, you know, Assistant Pastor so and so,
40:22and Assistant Pastor so and so is gone.
40:26And so, how are you to really be accountable to men
40:32that are dependent on you for their employee?
40:35How are you to really be dependent on other men,
40:40even in your congregation, that you and the elders
40:43might have to discipline one day?
40:45Where are the friendships that are inherently needed in men
40:50to have with other men, both for accountability,
40:54but also to bear our hearts to each other
40:57in ways that men bear their hearts to each other?
41:03Because I know, I'm in trouble, I'm getting for this one,
41:06but it's sweet when a guy who's married
41:11guys, you know, who's married says, my best friend is my wife.
41:15And I'm like, it's okay, it's weird, but it's cute.
41:20But is that really your best friend?
41:24Yes, she's she's your closest friend, I think.
41:27And I, you know, as far as what that means, but there is,
41:31there are roles, there's responsibility, there, there is
41:34authority structures in all of that.
41:38And there's, you know, there's sexual tension.
41:41And, you know, so what does a best friend really look like
41:45when it's free of sexual tension?
41:48That's the whole point of why men have such good friendships.
41:52Cause you know, you don't have to worry about
41:54the sexual tension.
41:55You have to worry about, you know,
41:57and that's why a lot of us guys we think,
42:00well, he's a really good friend,
42:01but man, he's a lousy husband.
42:02You know?
42:04You know, and we see that happening all the time,
42:08and what we need as men are men that we can rely on.
42:12Men that we can say, this guy will tell me what I need to hear.
42:17We need men that have read the book of Psalms
42:20and read the book of Proverbs,
42:22and have wisdom that they would give to us.
42:25And sometimes that friendship might be a mentorship.
42:29I mean, we just don't do Titus 2 churches anymore.
42:33Titus 2 churches like what you were talking about before the show,
42:36where the older are actually taking on the younger as mentees and saying,
42:43look, this is what I've learned in my life.
42:45You need to learn this before you make the mistakes I've made.
42:49These are the things I've learned as being faithful to the Lord,
42:53all the way up into my 70s.
42:56Now it's your turn to listen to me.
42:58How many Titus 2 churches do we have?
43:02What we end up having are young men listening to other young men, just as dumb as they are.
43:08Raya Bowen?
43:09Yeah.
43:10Yeah.
43:11Right.
43:12And you have guys need each other, but we also need mentors.
43:19And what I see a guy that has fallen from ministry because he got caught up in a sin,
43:27what I see as a guy that had a bunch of yes men surrounding him, he had no mentor.
43:33He had no real men friends that he could say,
43:36I can give you my heart and bear my heart to you
43:42and we can confess our sins to each other
43:44and hold each other accountable.
43:46You don't see any of that in guys that have fallen
43:48because a guy that has that kind of friendship
43:52where he knows this guy's gonna call me on this
43:55or this guy's my mentor and I wanna be just like him
43:58and he would never do this.
43:59Because it never starts off with, I went from being completely innocent to I have
44:10bedded a woman that's not my wife. That doesn't happen. It starts off
44:14with, well she sent me a DM. What are the message of whatever?
44:21And so I got this message from this woman. It's very innocent.
44:27You know, it's like, hey, I see you're a pastor now.
44:30All that's so neat, you know, and maybe it's someone you used to date when you're in high school,
44:34or someone that's just, you know, pretty or whatever.
44:37And now you have a choice of either just ignoring that, deleting it, because it's just inappropriate.
44:45Or you're really nice back, because you want to be a nice guy, right?
44:52And being a nice guy is really what, you know, the Bible's all about.
44:56And so you write back and say, yes, the Lord has blessed
45:01and you say all these wonderful things.
45:03And really what's going on in your heart
45:06is that you're taking that first step
45:09and that first step is sin.
45:12And it doesn't look like sin, it doesn't smell like sin.
45:14And if anyone called you on it,
45:16you'd be like, it's just a message,
45:18I gotta answer a message.
45:22But what it is is if he had maybe friends in his life
45:26says, you what, you answered that?
45:28You need to confess that to your wife
45:30and you need to delete that and be done with that.
45:33But if you don't have that, if you have a bunch of yes men
45:35and that's all you're used to is people just agreeing
45:38and saying you're the best in the whole wide world,
45:41yeah, you're gonna take the next step
45:43and then the next step and then you will end up there
45:47at a place where there's no going back.
45:48And I think that is at the heart of most pastors,
45:53pastors because most pastors find themselves utterly alone.
46:00They have their family, so they cocoon themselves
46:04with their family, but in the end,
46:07they see other pastors as nice to do coffee with,
46:11but really we're kind of in competition
46:13because you're sucking people from my community
46:17and I'm trying to suck people from your community
46:19and we gotta make this work, but you're a good guy
46:22and we'll have coffee, but will I bear my heart to you?
46:26I mean, there's just not very many pastors
46:28that have a David-Johnathan relationship with someone
46:31that would be a balm to their soul.
46:35They just are alone.
46:37And sometimes it leaves a sin,
46:38sometimes it just leads to burnout.
46:40But something's gotta be done.
46:43Yeah, I mean, how do we reverse that?
46:45Because I'm thinking about an app I've talked about
46:48on the show, because our culture likes to talk about,
46:51and being visual and all these other kind of things,
46:53but Proverbs is specific in pointing out,
46:55be aware of the adulterous and her flattering words.
46:59Like we, people talk about having covened eyes,
47:02but there is a reality of having covened ears,
47:05and with the scenario that you mentioned of the DM,
47:09where you're not audibly hearing the words,
47:11you're reading the words, but it's the flattering words,
47:15that's the gateway, if you will,
47:16to the problematic conduct that follows.
47:19So how do we get out of this scenario?
47:22And the whole concept of being in competition
47:25just really grinds my gears because
47:29what kind of thought is that for the body of Christ?
47:31But how do we get out of this?
47:33Because, you know, I weep, my wife can tell you,
47:36it breaks me.
47:37You know, I don't even have to know them personally,
47:40but I'm a member of the Lord's body.
47:43So when the unbeliever is given an occasion to blaspheme God
47:48because of a public moral failure of whatever variety,
47:53it impacts me because I'm a member of the Lord's bride as well.
47:56Where God is in occasion has been given a blaspheme God,
48:00and then my eternal family is being cast
48:02in an inappropriate light.
48:05It's something that bothers me.
48:06So how do we get out of this notion
48:09to where we kind of have these silos,
48:11not silos, islands unto ourselves,
48:14that create a context that makes it
48:17an environment conducive to false.
48:20Boy, you know, that's a big question.
48:24But I think there is a pathway.
48:28It involves some of us who are in denominations
48:34that have high, high bars that must be passed
48:39in order to be a part of that denomination
48:42or a part of that denomination, that then makes you feel like you don't want to condescend other
48:48denominations. They might be brothers in Christ, but you know, they're those people. You know
48:56what I'm saying? And there is a pride that goes along with certain denominations. There's
49:04a pride that says, you know, I don't feel like I need to go over and be a friend of this other
49:12pastor. And then there's the issue of the fact that we're a little afraid to be transparent
49:22to another person. Because a lot of times we do have sins that we are cultivating. And so
49:34we don't want someone else involved in our lives that's going to root out the stuff that
49:40we think is kind of okay to stay in our hearts.
49:44So, you know, when you have that kind of relationship
49:47with someone that's that transparent,
49:48you know, you gotta be flush it all out.
49:52Boy, that's hard, but man, do we need to do it.
49:56We need each other.
50:00Man, I often say that the Lord establishes church
50:04to be a means of grace.
50:07And there's a combination of having a low view,
50:11the low estimation of God's word and also kind of a low ecclesiology, a low view of God's
50:17body.
50:18But in order to be the church that the Lord has established us to be, to be that pill and
50:22the ground of truth, we have to rediscover what God has provided for us in His word concerning
50:28what we are to be as His bride.
50:31Thank you for joining me this evening.
50:33Thanks for having me.
50:39The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American
50:44Family Association or American Family Radio.

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