Podcast: Rev. Dr. Peter Lillback, President of WTS on "What the Apostle Peter Can Teach Us About Serving and Leading"

Open the original episode on Substack for the synchronized transcript.

0:03 Greetings and welcome to another edition of the Faithful Presence podcast. I am your host, Reverend Michael Langer, founder and president of Faithful Presence, a ministry in Washington, D.C., equipping servants and leaders working in the public square to flourish as they participate in Christ's mission of making all things new. We do that through providing spiritual, emotional, relational, vocational,

0:32 ideological, cultural, and evangelical discipleship, which spells out service, and supporting the local church in equipping their members for Christ-centered engagement in the public square. In other words, we provide whole life discipleship in the whole of life through for the whole of the public square. All of those prepositions matter. They're all intentional.

0:57 For those of you who study Greek, you know exactly what I'm meaning. I wanted to just say it has been a very busy summer here for Faithful Presence. I've been traveling, been doing a lot of conferences back and forth, but we are finally back here in Northern Virginia.

1:14 And I am so pleased today to welcome Dr. Peter Littleback, He is the president of Westminster Theological Seminary. He's a professor of historical theology and church history there. He also serves as the president emeritus and founder of the Providence Forum. Here's the reason I wanted to have Dr. Lulbeck on the podcast.

1:38 He is the author of numerous books, including one that everybody I meet seems to have read, George Washington's Sacred Fire. Also, Wall of Misconception. Does the separation of church and state mean separation of God and government? Want to hear his thoughts on that? Annotations on a letter that changed the world from the Birmingham jail.

2:00 And one of my favorite books, St. Peter's Principles, Leadership for Those Who Already Know Their Incompetence. Dr. Lillibach, thank you for coming on the podcast and welcome. How the heck are you doing?

2:15 I'm doing well, Michael. Thank you for the privilege to be with your listeners on Faithful Presence. And for our communication, may I call you Michael? Sure. Of course. Of course. And you call me Pete because that's what my friends call me.

2:30 Okay. Now, you know, in Washington, sometimes I'll have a secretary or congressman or a senator say, well, no, you can just call me by my first name and I'll say, okay, Senator. And he's like, so that's a no then? I'm like, yeah, that's going to be a no. But for you, I'll make an exception.

2:47 So tell us a little bit about what you do.

2:49 Well, we're brother ministers in the gospel, so we should be on a first name basis.

2:55 I agree wholeheartedly. Tell us a little bit about what's going on at Westminster this year, what you've got going on. Kind of paint us a little picture about what it's like being the president of one of the foremost Reformed theological seminaries in the country.

3:11 Well, thank you for the opportunity. So let me begin by saying we are moving toward our 100th anniversary. In 2029, Westminster will be 100 years old. J. Gressa Machen and a band of about five professors from the old Princeton started our school to be faithful to the scriptures and the classic old Princeton theology of the Westminster Confession.

3:34 And we're thrilled that we're coming into that time of celebration. Some of the things that we're delighting in at the moment are we now have 100% scholarships for all the students who are accepted into our on-campus MAR and MDiv program. It's hard to believe, but I think this year we have potentially over 250 applicants,

3:59 and we can only take about 10% or so of those now. So our acceptance rate is quite remarkable. And further... We have an online program called the Master of Arts of Theology with our on-campus students. And then those, we have over a thousand students that are part of Westminster now.

4:19 We're working in four different languages beyond English in our online presence. So we have Arabic, Mandarin, Korean, and Spanish. And we're very excited about that. And we're very grateful. We got a new building coming up. Our classic educational building named for Cornelius Van Til has been removed.

4:41 Van Til has not been removed from our curriculum or our thinking. Don't want to make that clear. We have a new building called Westminster Hall. It should be having its dedication groundbreaking sometimes in 2026. Hopefully we'll cut the ribbon at our commencement this next May when we have our graduation. That'll be a wonderful time.

5:01 So there's a lot of good things going on. Believe it or not, this is my 20th year of serving as the president of Westminster. So, you know, actuarial tables being what they are, I've got to be somewhere close to landing my plane of this administration. But it's been an honor to serve for these many years.

5:19 Oh, that's great. So one of the things that you mentioned in there, I just want to maybe circle back on that. You mentioned that you teach in Arabic. For me, for sure, and maybe for a number of our listeners, trying to wrap their head around a Reformed Presbyterian seminary in the United States—

5:40 needing to offer courses in Arabic is maybe a bit of a brain breaker. You want to talk a little bit about how you came to offer those courses and what the need was that drove that?

5:54 Well, it's amazing as you think about it, that there are mission organizations that want to go where the most unreached people are, the most difficult people. In conjunction with donors in those sorts of ministries, they said, we'd love to help fund a theological program that will bless the burgeoning church of Jesus Christ in the Arabic speaking lands.

6:20 We can't say a lot because this is a very dangerous thing to speak about who our students are and where they are. but there is a renewal of Christian theology and Middle East and closed countries. And so it takes lots of work to figure out how to bring quality theological education, uh, that students can have.

6:45 It takes all sorts of clandestine operations to make it happen. But I can tell you, uh, that we have a program now that's, uh, probably beginning to reach somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 students, I think, that are seriously learning.

7:01 That is incredible.

7:03 Arabic language that includes our classes of our MATS being translated in Arabic with a live teacher who is translated as part of the, if you will, the learning facilitator at an undisclosed location. And our students that are taking this They are risking their lives,

7:25 but they are so hungry for the gospel of Christ that they're willing to do whatever they need. And some of them have been incarcerated and other things. They are real heroes of the faith, and it's an honor to be supporting them.

7:41 Yeah, it's wonderful to hear about the work of the gospel that you would not expect to be happening. And I'm glad for your and for Westminster's work on that. What I want to do, and maybe just kind of to make sure that everybody understands, if you are a leader, a servant or leader,

8:05 you're working in the public square, or you're a servant and leader and you're not working in the public square, even though the public square is wherever you are and has to do with whatever it is that you're talking about, but... More specifically, if you don't have a copy of this book, St. Peter's Principles,

8:22 which I'm holding up right now on the screen for those of you who are watching the video. This book sits on my shelf next to the leather chair I sit in the morning when I do my devotionals. And every morning I work through another one of these.

8:38 And when I get to the end, I just start over again.

8:40 Praise the Lord.

8:42 Wow. Well, it's... Yes, absolutely. Praise the Lord. But thank you for this work, because it's the name, actually, that got me. Leadership for those who already know their incompetence. So, you know, as you talk about in the book, the imposter syndrome, it's huge, right? And it is unsurprisingly popular in Washington, D.C., Right.

9:13 Where you're sitting across and you're talking to somebody who was, you know, Senate appointed, running an agency, you know, working on important legislation. And privately, they will say, I have no idea what I'm doing. Like, I don't know how I got here. There's 10,000 people that are better than this. Somebody's going to figure this out eventually.

9:42 And the reason that I love Peter so much is is that he is that guy. He's the guy who spends three years trying to prove to Jesus that he has got it all figured out, and that if Jesus is looking for a number two guy, he's going to be the go-to guy.

10:01 And yet, that entire three years is really about Jesus working him through everything. So tell us a little bit about how this book came about, how you came to write it, and what kind of what you were hoping it would do for and in the church.

10:21 Oh, thank you for that. It's really encouraging to know that it's been helpful. Basically, I just had become the president of Westminster many years ago, and about— Three years into my work, I became quite ill. I had a heart affliction that actually required a little hospitalization. And that heart infection put me in bed.

10:47 And my older daughter said, Dad, you're not designed to be in bed. You're going to go crazy. You need to do something. So she brought me a book, just a writing pad and a pen and said, write something. Because she knew I'd been writing on and off through the years. So

11:03 I had zero resources except just my own cogitations. And I started writing many essays. And what I realized after I looked at them after I got out of the hospital, I kept going because I was convalescing. I said, you know what? I'm writing on leadership. I had no idea. But obviously,

11:22 I had been thinking about what it means to be a leader because I was thrust into this role. And the more I wrote on it, the more I realized I had taken seriously that famous Peter principle, which is in the business world, that people rise to their highest level of incompetence. Yep.

11:43 And I was thinking about maybe I'm pretty incompetent and I'm trying to lead. Maybe this is my fallout point. And then I thought, you know, I really don't want to. I saw the connection with Peter in the Bible with Dr. Peter, the business analyst. And I said, we need to really write the St. Peter's principles.

12:02 But it was he turns everything on its head. Because when you see Peter being called by the Lord, he's at the height of his professional competence, but he's also at the very bottom of his spiritual competence. So you remember it's that fishing scene, fishing all night, no fish.

12:22 And the Lord says, why don't you go out and put the net on that side? It's a ridiculous moment. Who are you to tell me how to fish? This is my business. But he humbled himself, and he got this incredible collection of fish.

12:36 And then when he comes in, he says two of the most foolish and brilliant statements ever. He said, depart from me, Lord. I'm a sinful man. He needed Jesus, and he said, go away. But he was a sinful man. And I said, if you put those two together, you've got the beginnings of the St. Peter's Principle.

12:59 that in our greatest competence, we are sinners and we're able to blow up our best work in an afternoon by foolishness. And it's not sending Christ that we need to recognize before Jesus. We have the one who can complete our inadequacies and make us achieve above and beyond what we're capable of in the humility of saying, Lord,

13:19 I need your grace and your wisdom, your sanctifying power, your direction, I can accomplish it. So then based on that basic idea, I started writing out what have been the lessons I've learned by stubbing my toe, falling flat on my face, or maybe seeing somebody do it right where I hadn't. And I just kept working that out.

13:39 And after a whole year of just meditating, out came St. Peter's Principles. And the idea is it's not that you rise to your level of incompetence, but if you're really following Peter before Christ, that's where you start. And Jesus keeps building you little by little to be more effective by his grace. So that's the story.

14:01 Yeah, the way that I've kind of come to see it is that you rise through the level of your own incompetence. Over and over again, I mean, anybody who's listened to this podcast knows that I'm pretty affectionate towards Peter. Just because he works so hard and gets so many things right.

14:26 I mean, he really is pretty stellar in a lot of, and he's willing to risk it. He's like, I'll jump out of the boat. I'll do this. You know, tell us what you need. He's the guy. But as soon as he does that, he follows it up with an equally incredible blunder.

14:44 Just absolutely just, you just think, man, what in the world is going on with you? The reason that I love Peter is is, especially for the public square and, you know, so much of what faithful presence is about kind of comes from, specifically from 1 Peter,

15:03 because you have a guy who is spending so much of his energy trying to impress everybody. And, you know, even to trying to kind of work the disciples to be like, I want to be the one, I want to be the inside guy.

15:19 And he's able to go in the course of maybe six hours from, I know what you need from me, Jesus. It seems like our whole little political campaign here is coming to an end. I'm not going to let you go down. I'm going to pull out my sword and I'm going to fight and we're going down together.

15:39 And Jesus says, yeah, I don't need that. That's not what I need. And then just hours later, so he's taken out his sword to fight the temple guard, heavily armed. A few hours later, he's telling a slave girl, I don't know that guy. I know nothing about him.

15:58 I swear to you, I have no intersection with him whatsoever. And that kind of, I don't know what you call whiplashing back and forth that he goes has to do with the fact that he didn't get it yet. And it's when Jesus comes back and says, you know, kind of, I just picture Jesus saying, are you done?

16:17 Like, are you done now? Okay. I need you to feed the sheep. I need you to feed the sheep because they are going to be on the wrong side of a power differential forever. And they cannot do the whiplash thing. Please, please feed them so that they know how to live this way.

16:36 I wonder if you would just talk a little bit maybe and kind of interact with that. And specifically, I don't know if you've watched the show Chosen. Have you seen that?

16:47 I've only seen one episode, I think, but I'm grateful that people have been blessed by it.

16:52 Yeah, it's good because I think they nail Peter. They make Peter kind of a campaigning, also a space cadet. But I'd love for you to talk just a little bit about that transition that Peter is able to make and how that might be helpful for those of us who are working in and for the public square,

17:14 this idea of being able to move kind of through your own incompetencies with Christ.

17:21 Well, I think you should write volume two of St. Peter's Principles because I think you've captured him better than I have. I think that's fabulous.

17:29 No, that's no.

17:31 So I hope you do. But my thought is, one, Peter had to be brought face to face with his own inadequacies. And that moment where Jesus says, do you love me more than these? that really was a moment where he had to say, who is he really loving here? What is this ultimate commitment?

17:58 He thought he loved Jesus, but there was something else that he loved, which was his success in fishing, his leadership, maybe his identity. Who knows what it was? But that was the first. And then Jesus's incredibly mild rebuke and restoration, where he three times, he says, do you love me? In other words, okay, yeah, I love you.

18:21 But when he heard it the third time, he knew exactly what Jesus was doing. Point by point, where you sailed, where you sailed, do you love me? And Jesus beautifully restores Peter and then gives him that prophecy and says, you know what, you're going to do a lot for me,

18:40 but you are going to make that ultimate sacrifice. But in my time, you're going to be carried where you don't want to be carried. Follow me. And of course, now Peter still had to figure out how is he going to deal with it?

18:55 And it was really the wonderful gift of the ascended Christ and the gift of the spirit. After Peter had been humbled, restored, patiently waited, and the spiritual anointing of God in his word turned him into the courageous man that could get up on the day of Pentecost and proclaim the truth of Christ,

19:16 regardless of what it would cost. And I think while we can't create the paradigm of what it means to become a leader for Christ, those are elements that ought to be part of our own story where we can say, yeah, I want to do something for Jesus.

19:32 That's part of your call, that internal call and that external call. But then learning little by little how you just can't do it yourself. You're going to fail. You're going to be too proud. You're going to be too hesitant. You're going to be too contradictory. We were too weak. You're going to overdo it.

19:51 But when you see your sin and you come to grips with the fact, I really can't do this unless I am truly forgiven. And then trusting God to use you in spite of your weakness, recognizing you're a broken sinner. But grace is greater than our sin.

20:07 And God can use broken people to do extraordinary things if they'll trust the Lord to use them in their inadequacy. So I think that process of true humbling, true restoration, true gratitude, waiting upon the Lord's provision, and then whatever that ineluctable gift of the anointing of the Spirit is, but that sense,

20:30 God's given me the ability to do something I can't do on my own, but he'll use me. That's the walk of faith. And that's where you're not an imposter anymore. What you are is you're saying, I'm a vessel. And so I love the pictures of, you know,

20:45 this goes to Pilgrim's Progress is that great story in the storehouse where he pulls out the great mighty things that God uses, which is, you know, a jawbone of an ass, an ox goad, you know, a rod. They're nothing. But when they're put in God's hands, they change the world. And so when we realize it's our brokenness,

21:09 our inadequacy, but our willingness to be used, we're no longer imposters because it's not us anyway. So my final analogy is I always have loved the illustration of the latex glove and the surgeon. The surgeon that saves a man's life never touches the patient. It's only the glove that does it,

21:28 but the glove can do nothing unless it's filled with the hand of the surgeon. We're just latex gloves. That's pretty good. God's hand by his spirit takes us, and he does things with us that we can't do. We're utterly inadequate, but God does above and beyond all we can ask or think.

21:47 When we're called and we say, Lord, okay, use me. I don't know how, but I will be faithful. I'll be a faithful presence through your power.

21:54 Well, I appreciate you making that connection, and it really does. It goes to why Peter and 1 Peter is so integral to what we're trying to do. It's exactly that. It is. God does not need you. You're not bringing something that, oh, he was missing all of your talents and gifts. No,

22:21 he's going to give you talents and gifts for you to use to proclaim the excellencies of his kingdom. He doesn't need you to change the world. He's going to take care of that. He just needs you to participate in it. And the burden that that removes from people who come to Washington and we're going

22:38 to work in the public square, I mean, the sometimes when I'm talking to like a brand new intern, they'll say, you know what, tell me what motivated you here? Oh, well, you know, I'm a Christian, you know, I'm really, I want to change the world. I'm like, well, a number of people before you have said that.

22:56 And it's, it's still the way it is. Right. And that the, that when Christ says, behold, I am making all things new, he is making a statement about something that's going to absolutely happen. But yet we come to think that we're somehow integral in that.

23:14 And so what I want to do now is I want to connect this book and St. Peter's Principles to something that I see happening in ministry, and I know that you do too. And sadly, it is that the church doesn't look much different than the political world.

23:36 when it comes to the leaders and the people who end up on TV. And, you know, I would just got back from the general assembly. And part of what you hear about when you go to one of these church assemblies is you hear about the pastors who've had to leave the pastorate because of they've failed somehow.

23:59 And what was interesting was in several of these conversations, the person would say, well, you know, it wasn't a moral failure. It was this other thing. You know, he was, you know, a rude jerk and belligerent and treated his congregation badly. And over the course of the last couple of years,

24:22 I've kind of gotten to a place where I just now say, well, that is a moral failure. Like, that's a moral failure. That's trying to say that the only moral failures that pastors have are sexual is to minimize... the importance of what a pastor is supposed to be doing.

24:43 And so we see in a lot of these pastors, it's about having your name as a pastor.com, right? I think when you're a pastor and your website is your name.com, to me, that doesn't seem good. And so I, I wonder if like, what, what are you doing? What is Westminster doing to, I don't know,

25:06 to kind of push back against some of this, you know, and especially now with, with social media, kind of the branding and the kind of chasing popularity that, that pastors also get into. Like I wanted, you said, I want to do something. I want to do something significant. And how do you, how do you,

25:25 How do you shepherd them through the wanting to do that, but not having it become about them?

25:32 Okay, those are great questions. I think the first thing that is important in our pastoral theology program is that we sought to emphasize character. as the prerequisite of the competencies of all the things that a minister brings to his calling first timothy three and titus one are the classic pauline summation of

25:58 what an elder should look like and of course by that it's really all christians should aspire to be like them because a pastor is an example to the flock of the godliness and when you look at those character elements Teaching is only one among them, and the rest of them really impact moral character relationships,

26:18 how they conduct their family life. Those are amazingly powerful. So character is a high-level concern. Secondly, we also want to recognize that faithfulness is far more important than popularity and success. God's measure of success is being faithful to the calling that you're entrusted with. He that will be faithful in little will be faithful in much.

26:46 So the idea is that whatever you've been entrusted with, are you fulfilling the duty that God has given you in that place? Thirdly, we emphasize gifting. Not everybody has the same gift set as the next one. There are certain ways in which many people can be pastors, but only some can be, let's say in this context,

27:07 a public theologian going into the marketplace of ideas and doing politics. Others need to go into the counseling room and go do one-on-one ministry. Others are extraordinarily gifted with proclaiming the gospel in unreached areas or cross-culturally. Instead of saying you've got to be all these things, you need to say, who has God made you to be?

27:30 Be faithful in that. And then with biblical character, exercise that. But then don't fail to try to work on these other things as the Lord calls you. I love how Paul says to Timothy, do the work of an evangelist. Maybe you're not an evangelist, but we all have the duty to to share the good news.

27:50 Well, I'm not this kind of an evangelist. It's okay. But are you working at it? So it's kind of like there's multiple talents in life, and some we're extraordinarily good at, and we ought to shine in those. But we still have to do all the basic functions of life, even if we're not good. Same true in ministry.

28:09 So if we keep character first, Secondly, if we remember it's being faithful in the calling as God has given us according to the gifts that we've done. And then finally, recognizing that repentance is a daily responsibility. In other words, when you realize, wow, the Lord's convicted, instead of stuffing it and saying, I'm not going to do it.

28:31 You say, Lord, I got to deal with this right now. I've had a lustful thought. Or man, I was really arrogant in that. God, forgive me. Don't let me go down that path. And then finally, one of the great traits of historic Presbyterianism is the plurality of the ogres, that you're not to be a solo man,

28:50 that you have those that you're accountable to and with who are your peers. And that do we have the ability to sit down and say, okay, before I jump into this, what's the pros and cons of it? There's wisdom in many counselors that That's said in the Proverbs, but that's built into the ecclesiology of Presbyterianism.

29:09 You've got to say, is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Before I step, give me your wisdom. Those are some of the things we try to teach our people. And then finally, we say, take heed lest you fall. There is no one that is above falling.

29:26 The greatest people in this world are sinners, and they can easily stumble. And that's why Paul says, as you seek to restore, brother, watch out for yourself so that we're recognized and we're all very vulnerable. If King David could fall, he's a man after God's own heart, so can we. Pride comes before the fall,

29:46 and ministry puts a person on a pedestal, hopefully not because you want to, but you need to step out of that pedestal and say, I'm an incompetent man serving a great master, and I want to be faithful to him. So those are some of the things that we try to teach our students and try to live by.

30:05 One of the things that I look at is the fact that David did. I mean, he had an affair. He murdered a guy. I mean, he was pretty bad. And he repented. He was confronted with his sin. He acknowledged it and repented. And there were still devastating consequences for it. Solomon, what I find interesting is, you know,

30:29 at the end of the section on Solomon's life, you have this list of all the things that he had, all the things that he'd accomplished. I can remember being little and hearing, oh, look at how the Lord blessed Solomon. And it was when I was in, it was in seminary where one of my professors was like,

30:49 he said, what's the most evil number that you can think of? And everybody's like, oh, you know, 666. And he's like, okay, so let's read about Solomon. How much gold came to Solomon in one year? And you look down and you're like, oh, 666. That doesn't sound awesome.

31:09 And then you compare what it is that they've been told, hey, when you get a king, make sure he doesn't accumulate wives, accumulate horses. Whatever he does, he shouldn't go back to Egypt to get them. He shouldn't make gold and silver plentiful.

31:24 And then you reread the list of things that Solomon did, and you realize that's an indictment. It is an indictment that he didn't end well, that he pursued the It really is about, look at my house. It's bigger than the temple. These, you know, and those are the things I think that so often,

31:49 those are the draw of the public square. It's the draw of ministry. It's you can be great. You can be famous. And it is being humbled by the gospel in the middle of that. So, yeah, I just, I really appreciate the work that you're doing. And our denomination, the EPC,

32:12 we are changing the criteria for ordination to include character as part of the competencies and being able to tell the ordinance, hey, you do have to agree with the confession. But that's necessary but not sufficient for you to be a pastor. There's a lot of people that can memorize the confession and agree with it.

32:39 That does not mean you are qualified to be a pastor. So I'm appreciative of seeing that. I mentioned I was just at this conference. One of the other things that happened is the number of people who came by my booth, and said, oh my gosh, I'm dealing with all of this strife, political strife in the church.

33:02 And I would say, well, how often do you talk about political issues, public square issues? How often do you address policy matters? Oh, never. I would never do that. Either it's theologically bad, they say, or they say it's divisive and it'll split my church in half, so I don't touch it.

33:23 One of the things I appreciate about you and Westminster is you've got a very particular view on this. And I'd love it if you just talk a little bit about the emphasis that you put in training pastors in being able to speak into public square issues.

33:41 Well, one of the things we've realized is that nobody can escape the public square or the political influences, however you want to speak of it. Because even if you want to be insular and stay in your church, the public square is going to invade your pulpit.

33:57 They're going to say, don't you dare preach on Romans 1 if you want to get zoning. Don't you dare preach on the sanctity of life if you want to make a good impact on our community. These are issues that you're going to have to deal with.

34:11 And so what we've asked our program to do is to look at all the different contexts in which we're teaching students and raise the question, what do we learn about engaging the public part as part of our ministry? So, for example, we will ask the question in church history,

34:31 how has the church in the past engaged the public square? When we come to homiletics, we'll ask our students to preach at least one sermon that we could call a public theological sermon, an issue they know in their community where there's contradictory viewpoints. How will you take a text, preach it biblically, gospel-centeredly,

34:54 addressing issues that people are going to fight about? So you've actually done it once in a practice session. So you're learning to do that. And counseling, we recognize that counseling is a battle zone. How do you prepare when you go into the fact that there are some people that say,

35:11 you can't talk about restoring your view of sexuality, that that's a constitutional right note. That's a personal grievance against God. How do you deal with that as a pastoral counselor? Are you going to deal with a stake? So counseling, We're trying to address the reality of all of that. And then in our ethics classes,

35:32 we've taken various cases of conscience where we've tried to talk about issues like, well, about marriage and divorce and remarriage, about same-sex attraction. What about issues such as conscientious objection? What is the role of conscience? Is there an ability to people to disagree honorably before God and be part of the same community?

35:56 These are issues that we're trying to wrestle with because they are going to be facing them as they go into ministry. So then beyond that, we have tried from time to time, almost every year for the last several years, to do a Faith in the Public Square seminar where we'll try to take an issue or two

36:14 and go to different churches. We don't do it nationally, but a church or two that is interested in We'll take some of our professors and other public theologically motivated speakers and just come and say, let's discuss this issue. And then we try to create materials. We've begun to publish something that we call point of contact,

36:36 which takes on contemporary issues and tries to do it from a biblical theological perspective. historically conscious, contemporary in its application, would say, how does a Christian look at these things? And that's gaining a lot of traction. So little by little, we're trying to do it more fully. And our great founding professor, John Murray,

36:58 and his collected works in volume one, had a great article called Church and State. And I would recommend it to all of your readers. And basically what he says is that the church should have the courage to address all the things the Bible addresses. The Bible speaks to all of life, including the different institutions of culture,

37:20 the family, the church, and the state. It has something to say. But in addressing those things, we want to make sure that we recognize the church is not to become a political institution. We are not creating a political party. We don't tell you who to vote for. Maybe we'll say as a citizen in your country,

37:40 you have a duty to be involved in whatever the cultural issues are. And we'll talk about policy if it's appropriate to the text we're preaching. But, you know, we're going to honor the conscience of each of our people and say, you go be political in your day-to-day life. But that's not the calling of the church.

37:58 So John Murray gives us that razor-edge distinction between speaking to all of life with biblical truth and then allowing people to go out and be who they are politically, because the church, at the end of the day, is not a political entity. It's the kingdom of God. It's going to outlive all politics.

38:16 It's going to outlive all governments. It's going to outlive all controversial issues when the resurrection is completed and the kingdom of God comes in all of its might and power. The church is the only eternal organization that transcends everything else. And so we're always looking about the great eschaton and its impact right now.

38:37 Here's what the Bible says. I'll live in light of the resurrection and eternity and will honor your conscience as you wrestle with these things. So I like Murray's approach. So I call it the activistic spiritual presence of the church. That's my view.

38:54 Yeah. Okay. So we're going to put a link to that article on the website and on this podcast so folks can read that. Murray, though, he's not saying anything new. I mean, he's saying something wonderful. He's not saying anything new. He's not saying anything that... Martin Luther didn't say when he said, hey,

39:14 if there's an issue and the church doesn't speak to it, we're worthless. We speak where there is conflict, where there is confusion, where there is dissonance, the church needs to go there. John Calvin said the same thing. You've got Abram Kuyper said the exact same thing. Like, hey, the church is an important organism and an institution.

39:39 It operates under both things. But it is not the government. We're not the government, and we shouldn't try to confuse it. And Peter and Paul, I was talking to somebody at the assembly, and he's like, you know, we need a Christian nation. I'm like, oh, no, no, no.

39:56 No, Peter and Paul, that was the last thing they did not have in their mind. Christians ruling the country. That was not anything that they were promoting. What they were promoting was a Christian citizenry who were acting in God's interests in their political sphere. So I would love for you to maybe just kind of unpack how

40:27 So I saw today there was an AEI, which is a think tank here in Washington, released an infographic. In maybe 1964, 65, the number of Americans that would say, I would be really disturbed if my child married somebody from the other political party was 4% for Democrats and 4% for Republicans. In 2019, that number is over 50.

41:00 And that didn't happen accidentally. And I think the church played a role in that, is we have politicized the things that God teaches us. We've turned them into a political kind of weapon. I wonder if you... How do you think that the church and pastors can navigate...

41:24 this increasingly polarized landscape and do it well while being faithful to scripture. Because it is scary for some pastors. They're like, my church will, half my people will walk out.

41:43 Okay, well, first of all, I think the culture is what we have to engage and not be afraid to do it. Jesus said, you're the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Paul says, if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, no one will know when it's time to go into battle. And so,

42:03 first of all, I think what we've said from the Murray approach is to say, we're not telling you who to become politically. And I think the church has decided that we need to tell what people need to be. I think the policy issues certainly lend themselves to political implications.

42:22 But we have a great doctrine as part of our biblical history, our Puritan history, and our confessional history, which is the word conscience. At the end of the day, Paul teaches us, there's two great chapters at the end of Romans that are all about conscience, where he basically says, you know,

42:40 you are not going to agree on everything. Some are going to have one view and some are going to have another view. And yet you're both in the gospel of Christ and and that no man lives or dies to someone else's judgment. They live or die to the Lord.

42:55 And I think part of our success in having conflicts resolved in the church is a renewed doctrine of conscience and saying, you don't answer to me. Here are the issues I think the Bible speaks out. Now, how you live them out in your political life or in your freedoms as a Christian is

43:16 unless they're clearly violating what we hold to as a congregation and they're explicitly stated, we're going to let you live who you are. If you choose to be a Democrat in my church, I'm not going to say you can't come to the Lord's Supper. You heard what I think the Bible teaches on policy,

43:35 but this is a choice of your conscience, and I'm not going to judge you for it. If I get out of the pulpit, we can debate politics, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to judge you for it. It's the same thing that happened more narrowly, I think, when we came to the COVID issue.

43:52 We had a huge problem. You got to mask. No, you can't mask. Well, you know, I wish we had just simply said, we're going to have to serve all the consciences of our church. Some are going to have a mask service. Some are not going to have a mask service. We're going to do it this way.

44:07 We're going to respect people that want to stay home because we don't know what's right here. And if we'd had a healthy doctrine of conscience, we could have said, this is who we are right now. There's confusion, but we love each other in Christ. So the transcendence of the gospel reflecting the conscience of individuals is part

44:27 of what we have to navigate. Now, there are going to be moral issues where we come down as a church and say, this is what we believe. And that's a conscience issue, too. A congregation may say, for us and for our community, we believe this. And we have to take a stand.

44:44 And that should not be the pastor's choice. I believe in elder rules. So elders need to come together and say, we've wrestled with it. We are probably going to offend a number of people in our church. But for us and for our witness for Christ, this is who we are, and we make it clear.

45:02 And if you are angry with us, we ask you to please forgive us for harming you, but we have to be faithful. And so that's part of what we do. So we need to do. A great Presbyterian principle is not only conscience— But 1 Corinthians 14, 40, do all things decently and in good order.

45:21 A process of communicating why we've come to this position, communicating it well, and then saying this is where we are. And if we cannot reach it, an agreement, then we ask you to humbly leave with a disagreement or join us by changing your view. Now, you don't do that lightly, but there are moral issues like that.

45:41 And of course, that was the example to take the most difficult in Presbyterian history was the slavery issue. Do we speak about slavery or do we not? That divided the nation, divided the church. And I think that's a matter of conscience that sometimes you cannot help it.

45:59 But we need to do as much as we can to be clear about our convictions and then respect the consciences of those who disagree with us with a transcendent commitment to the Lordship of Christ. And that helps us to find a way to unite and where we can't, hopefully we'll separate with respect and say,

46:17 you're different from us. We ask that the Lord might bless you, but this is where we need to stand. So those are hard things, but they're inescapable in the fallen world.

46:28 Okay, so as you were saying that, I was thinking to myself, you know, okay, I'm just going to probably edit that part out. But the reason I thought that is like, ah, that will be divisive if he says that, which really goes against the thing that I just said about how we got to go.

46:45 So you said you were talking about slavery. And I think some of our listeners may hear when you said, well, you know, it's a matter of conscience. And I'd love for you to unpack what you mean by that and what you don't mean, because some people will hear you say, oh, so whether slavery is good or bad,

47:06 that's just a matter of conscience. And I know that you're not saying that. And this is how I think Christians... Christians get misread a lot. Sometimes Christians have wrong views, but sometimes they get misread because people don't understand the context behind what it is they're saying. Because Westminster and Princeton,

47:27 this whole debate was happening during the Civil War, where the Presbyterian Church, it split in two over this issue. And it was when they decided, oh, well, you know, I guess the Civil War is over now. We should probably reunite again. There were churches in the South and the North that were like, you know what?

47:46 This is not the same Presbyterian church. You guys have gone off the deep end. Can you, as we close, talk a little bit about how conscience relates to slavery when it's such a divisive issue in our culture today.

48:01 Yeah. So I come from the Northern tradition, and of course, I'm totally opposed to slavery, and I would have stood on the North and probably gone and died at Gettysburg, I suppose, would have been my history had I lived back in those days fighting for the North. But at the time, if you can go pre-Civil War,

48:23 there was a tremendous debate over whether slavery was biblical. Any form of slavery was biblical. And you had great theologians like Thornwell and Dabney, great Reformed theologians, Presbyterians through and through, that said, we believe this is a matter of the government and not of the church. And therefore,

48:44 the church is going to have to just allow these matters to be wrestled with conscience. It became clear for many that it was not just a matter of conscience, because the Bible's teaching on the family is that you're to be married to husband and wife, and here they are tearing apart families, taking away children,

49:05 taking away human dignity. And they said, this is not slavery. This is man-stealing. This is attacking human dignity. And the South said, even if it is, it's not the church's business, it's the government's business. So for the Presbyterians, they tried to make it a matter of conscience as long as they could.

49:27 But it finally came to the point where it was going to tear the whole country apart. And they said, we're going to have to take a stand. I think if we move forward in time, the abortion issue would be the same sort of thing where you could not be neutral anymore.

49:41 You say, we know what's going on here.

49:43 That's an excellent connection.

49:45 Yeah. So I think while I'm pro-life and anti-slavery, There was a period of time where the church wrestled with new moral questions that came to the head. They said, can we live with them with conscience? And for a while we were able to, and then finally we said we can't. And that's when I think, decently in order,

50:06 you say, we're going to have to take a stand as a church on this. And if people disagree with us, then we cannot escape it. You know, there's another passage. It's a difficult one where Paul will say, I think it's in 1 Corinthians 11.

50:21 I may be wrong in the passage where he says there must be heresies or divisions that the truth may be established. That doesn't say go out and divide the church. Right, right. What he's saying is, you know, sooner or later, there are going to be issues where conscience can no longer satisfy.

50:40 We need to have a division because it's so morally significant that you cannot continue because now you believe that sin is inevitable by your conduct. And I think slavery was an example, that abortion was another one. I think we're living in a day where same-sex attraction has come to that point, where how do we define it?

51:02 We need to be careful. So I think, one, I'm elevating conscience as our first line of defense and challenge. But there may be a moment where conscience compels us, where we say we cannot live with just differending of conscience because we believe before God we are morally culpable.

51:21 And so at that point, there's ways in which we cannot escape it. But then the point is, there's still a biblical standard. Do you love your enemy as much as lies within you? Do you live at peace with all men? Do you seek to restore broken relationship? Do you speak the truth in love?

51:43 Do you overcome evil with good? You know, there's a whole Christian response, even when division happens, where you try to say, we still have to work together in some way. How do we overcome these issues? And this is where we get into other language, such as I think Francis Schaeffer gave us the phrase co-belligerent,

52:03 which is how do we stand against the common enemy when we can't agree? Right. There are other issues that maybe we care about where we can work together, even though we cannot work together in other areas of common worship and church governance.

52:18 So these are moral issues that are not easy, but they are inescapable in a fallen world.

52:24 Yeah, that's good. And I appreciate you bringing us kind of landing the plane there, because one of the things that I think is important for Christians to realize is that political disagreements are not litmus tests for orthodoxy. And that's really what you're saying is like, look, we disagree on this.

52:43 And you're going to go to the Bible and you're going to show me that I'm wrong. And I'm going to say, yeah, you know, I just don't see that. The key is what Paul said, which is, here's the gospel. Jesus Christ came. He lived as the scripture said he was going to live. He was betrayed.

53:04 He was crucified. He died. He rose on the third day for forgiveness of sins. Believing in that, trusting in that, that's the gospel. disagreements about various political aspects is not the thing. Well, you say you believe that, but if you also believe in rolling back taxes, then you can't really be a Christian.

53:28 Well, no, that's no, that's no, the gospel is the gospel and it's not a negotiable thing. And that does mean that we're, you know, the picture that I love is that Two of Peter's probably closest friends were Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector, and I can't imagine how little they agreed on politically,

53:51 the two of them. Yeah, that's great.

53:53 And yet Jesus brings them together for the gospel. Dr. Lulbeck, just tell us what's going on in your life this next year. How can our listeners be praying for you and for Westminster?

54:06 Well, thank you very much. One, I hope as time goes on and as I move more and more toward whatever the next phase of my career will be, that I might, one, be an agent of encouraging the church and all of its impact in all spheres of life, in the family, church, and state.

54:27 So I love those Kuyperian major categories. Secondly, I would hope that I might find a way to be more effective equipping of Christians to be engaged in the public square with an attitude of camaraderie as believers, even when we have to agree to disagree on major issues. But the transcendence of the gospel is our great uniting force.

54:53 I think also as Westminster moves toward its 100th anniversary, I hope I can help the seminary get ready for its next 100 years. And finally, on a personal level, that I continue to enjoy my four grandkids and my wife of over 50 years until whenever the Lord calls us home.

55:14 How many grandkids do you have?

55:16 I have four grandkids.

55:18 Four. You said that.

55:19 Eleven, nine, five, and two.

55:22 We have two on the way, both boys, both under five, and we have a daughter coming in November. And I got to tell you, I love being Papa, but I love being Papa Donut even more because it is being a grandparent. Man, if I had known being a grandparent was like this,

55:45 I would have just signed up for that and skipped the whole parenting thing because that

55:49 That's a lot of work. I'm willing to second that motion.

55:54 Well, Dr. Lilbeck, thank you so much for your work. Thank you so much for what you're doing to advance the gospel, to advance the kingdom, and to train the next generation of leaders and for the generations you've already trained. So thank you for that. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

56:17 Well, may the Lord continue to bless your work, Michael. And I hope that you'll think about writing the sequel to St. Peter's Principles, because you see a lot more than I did when I wrote that down 10 years ago. So keep up the good work.

56:31 Well, we'll see. Thank you again. And that is it for this edition of the Faithful Presence podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, do all the things that you know you're supposed to do because you listen to other podcasts, which is like us, follow us, send us to your friends,

56:49 do all of those things. Also, the thing that you could do for us most is to pray for us. Pray for Faithful Presence, pray for Westminster Seminary, pray for Dr. Lilbeck, and pray for the Christians who are leading and serving in government.

57:05 I want to thank everybody for all the work that it's going to take to make this podcast sound the way you're going to hear it. So thank you to Andrew and Josie and the team that work on these podcasts. Until next time, receive this blessing.

57:20 May our Father in heaven make you one as he and his son are one so that the world will know that he loves them and sent his son for them. Amen. Go into the public square in peace.