Reformed Resourcement: Recovering Biblical Patriarchy with Zach Garris

Thus Calvin rooted male headship in creation , since God , quote in his free goodness , created man and gave him superiority over the woman end quote . However , he also held that marital subordination is harsher as a result of the fall .

In a sermon on 1 Timothy 2.14 , calvin said that quote women are made subordinate on account of Eve's transgression end quote a punishment that is rooted in Genesis 3.16 .

According to Calvin , adam sinned , but Eve was the source of the fall and more at fault than man , and thus Eve's trespass had to be punished in every woman , similar in how God punished the whole human race for Adam's sin .

According to Calvin , women would still have been subordinate to men , apart from the fall , but now it is a harsher rule that can feel like bondage . Additionally , calvin affirmed different duties for men and women in marriage , with women called to motherhood .

He understood Paul's words that women should bear children in 1 Timothy 5.14 to mean all the hardship which women suffer in looking after their offspring . Paul bids them to do the work of mothers which is pleasing to God .

If a woman were to spend all day long in church praying and chanting , her style of life would not be as agreeable to God as if she were a wife who patiently performed her duties , feeding her children , caring for them , guiding them and doing all she could to teach and train them .

Excerpt from Honor Thy Fathers , recovering the Anti-Feminist Theology of the Reformers by Pastor Zachary Garris . The King's Hall Podcast exists to make self-ruled men rule well and win the world .

I just think that there's much in the heritage Frenchman , yes , that has contributed to Christendom , and that we , you know , maybe , maybe we can pray that that France will rise again . Well it's interesting .

Then they got to the French and they're like what are the French ? And they had a German guy and he said they think they are better than all of us .

We want to let people know you can still purchase this book newchristendompresscom slash fathers . And what a steal of a book . It's not going to take you six weeks to read it . Nope , it's a , I would say , a very readable rendition of , you know , sort of summarizing what the reformers consensus view on biblical patriarchy was . I find that helpful .

And then I find the modern application helpful .

And Zach definitely did that . He put it together . Well , it's a book that has a lot of punch of clarity to it and it's pretty difficult to argue with .

But our friend Samuel Johnson , who's a you know I thought a lawyer of some sort was giving props on Twitter to Zach and he said this book is like somebody making you can tell he's a lawyer from one lawyer to another like his case is airtight , the arguments make sense .

I think it's helpful in this situation just to have clear thinking , dan , like that it's not muddled .

She'll say you know I'm a patriarchalist or a complementarian , but she's arguing for positions like functional egalitarianism in marriage is what works best , of course , citing Brad Wilcox , university of Virginia's sociologist . And there's not .

It's not all bad , but one of the questions I asked Zach was why do you think so many moderns , particularly in the conservative camps , they view themselves as the staunch conservatives but don't ? Is it ignorance ? What's driving the fact that , like you're actually an egalitarian though you see what I'm saying Like they think they're conservative and they claim to be ?

Do you think it's a mix of ignorance , lack of courage ? What would you say on that ?

And so it is really ironic that you have people that have this cognitive dissidence between being reformed and being a conservative , and it's almost like they're able to pick and choose at what point in time they're trying to conserve .

And so for soteriology , they want to conserve the reformers , but as far as sexual ethics and anthropology and things like that , they're going to like 1950s , you know , or even later in a lot of cases . And so I think it's cognitive dissidence and just not knowing what the target is , exactly what they're trying to conserve .

Like reading some of these quotes the one that you read in the cold open I was like , wow , calvin .

We have to understand how they used words like superiority and inferiority , which Zach does well in the book to diligently explain the context , historical context and theological context and cultural context of the reformers , what they meant and didn't mean when they used words like superiority and inferiority .

But even once you do all that historical understanding , there remains a significant part of their actual words that are frankly offensive to our sensibilities .

And so one of the things I think is happening with Nancy Piercy or some of these like conservatives that are that would still look at a lot of what we do and say , wow , you guys are crazy , or you're you're out there , or you're radical , or they'd be tempted to put a word like radical in front of patriarchy , hyper , it's a lot of it .

I think is explicable because the get when the gap between the current cult state of cultural affairs and the actual classical position is so huge , the temptation is to hate . Will hate the current thing be like ? Well , this egalitarianism , feminism , it's crazy .

And so I'm going to be really conservative and I'm going to go 40% of the way back , and 40% of the way back really is very conservative compared to what we're doing today , right ? So it's much more comfortable , though , to remain there than it is to keep going all the way back and at least do the work of understanding .

And then , if you're going to reject it , work of understanding . And then , if you're going to reject it knowledgeably , reject the 100% back to the classical patriarchal position .

If you're going to reject it at all or embrace it , to really truly embrace some of these positions is to make yourself the laughing stock or the object of derision by the modern sensibility . So would you say it's a lack of courage . Yeah , I think it can be a lack of courage . I think , is it ignorance ? Back to .

You have the sensation of being conservative yeah right , without actually realizing that all you are is a liberal from 60 years ago . And that's a a difficult sensation , I think , to figure out when you're in the midst of it . We've all been there as you start shedding belief Like .

I remember , as a totally different example , I'd gone to Calvary Chapel Bible College dispensational , growing all the way up , and I remember , after becoming the teaching pastor of the church , deciding we needed to brush up as a church on some of our systematic theology . So I'm like , okay , let's do a little eschatology , let me teach on um the rapture .

I need to go back and brush up on the rapture , get my key verses , unpack them and teach the church , cause I think people might not have a full understanding here . So then I went back and I realized , oh , the rapture is biblical , but it's just at the return of Christ , where you know they're caught up and glorified with the resurrected saints .

It's not this event that happened seven years prior to the return of Christ pre-tribulational dispensationalism , basically . And so I rejected that , and at first what I did was I went back to historic premillennialism because it felt comfortable to me .

I was like well , I can keep a lot of what I already thought about premillennialism with and I can get rid of some of these things that I think are problematic .

But what I found is that as I kept testing and going back , I kept shedding more and more of these things until I ended up with a position that , to the dispensationalist , is like radical post-millennialism . Something similar happens when a modern conservative . They reject egalitarianism .

It's like they've rejected the pre-tribulational rapture , but they still want to maintain their some of the sensibilities about sex and sex roles , some of the post-World War II , some of the modern , like third wave , even second wave , even first wave feminist ideas Like , for example , women's suffrage .

If you , if you think women's suffrage is obviously correct and anybody who would question the 19th Amendment is crazy , I think . And you're like well , I'm a conservative and I think they're crazy . What you've done is you've gone from the 33 degree water to the 53 degree and you think you're in a warm bath , like you're just not there yet .

As you become a PhD and expert , you know that sort of level , your confidence goes up , but never as high as the ignorant person . And , um , I think it actually explains a lot of this where we'll see in conservative circles like people will react like violently toward what we're saying . And no pastor of mine I can't believe you know what kind of you know .

Today on Twitter , people are like oh , you know Eric's advocating marital rape and all this crazy stuff , and you look at it and you go . Almost what I want to say to the Christian camp is hey , be a good exegete of the Bible , especially to pastors hey , study the Bible , see if these things are true , weigh the historical theological data .

And it's almost like we have to just be aware that we have that impulse instinct what Brian's saying about something that's really new and weird saying about something that's really new and weird .

I mean , the first time I heard somebody say that complementarianism I actually think it was aaron wren that complementarianism was like a departure from , like more traditional views on sex piety . I was like excuse me , aaron wren , I'm pretty sure it was him early on well , aaron .

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One of the things I'll throw out there too , dan , I don't know if you think this is true there is sort of because of 2020 , again , I keep going back to this , but because of 2020 , I think people have been so surprised by the things that turned out to be true that we were lied about that I think people actually are that right now , that muscle's been honed

for a lot of people where they're like oh , actually , I mean like more and more people . You see this with Candace Owens . She's like well , I know , you know , flat earth people say it's crazy , but I don't as many crazy things as happened . I'm going to hear them out first .

Now , whatever you think about some of those positions , I think that instinct of I'm going to , I'm going to delay my reaction until I do the reading is because we've been lied to so much , so so , for you know , if they lied to you about COVID , like why wouldn't they lie to you about feminism ?

So do you think that's true Particularly , like something about our moment that could be advantageous , that people maybe are willing to hear a book like Zach's ?

You know , when people are like trust the experts , you know you just need to trust the experts the economic experts , the political experts , the medical experts and all of a sudden you realize all of the experts were wrong or lying , which is worse , and and so you then start to go back and this is a lot of the work that we've done , right ?

This is like the crusades thing . All about that is is we're asking the question . Well , I mean , we've heard some people say the crusades weren't actually like the worst evil that's ever happened in the world , and so what are ? What's that position ?

You know we should read these guys and really go back in time , and I think you know what Zach has done is the same thing with anthropology and patriarchy and and with sex roles and things like that .

Is that all he's done is gone back in time and said , hey , the predominant narrative that's been shoved down your throat since you were a young child by the media you know media experts and by educational experts , by religious experts .

You've been lied to in this point too , and I think it's really important work in that sphere because the ramifications are actually massive for all of human culture and flourishing , especially here in this moment in time in our place in the United States . I mean it's also important elsewhere as well , but particularly pertinent for us .

egalitarian world and then you discovered like complementarianism and you went , you were like , ah , good , back and then , and then I would hope you go oh wait , even that , though . Let's talk about the commonwealth and let's talk about , uh , the things outside of just , uh , men being pastors .

Let's also talk about men being rulers , godly rulers in their police officers military all this stuff . It's kind of like in 2020 . A lot of people were like now , all the other vaccines are fine , but this recent one , this one's crazy , it's so . It's so wildly unsafe . They didn't study it at all .

So I'm an anti-covid vaxxer , but not an anti-vaxxer no , no , no , no . And then they find out that no vaccine has submitted itself to a double blind medical study and that the entire vaccine industry is basically as corrupt and wicked as the COVID vaccine was . And so then they go all the way .

And that's what I hope happens is that you don't land in the halfway house of modern complementarianism , but that you would just just go all the way , just become patriarchal . And you even see , in a book like that doesn't mean that we all agree on every single possible question . Calvin and Knox in the book , zach is a good lawyer .

He'll show you that when we say there is a unified tradition , it doesn't mean everybody thought the exact same thought about every single question at every single point , but they were all reasoning from the same foundations in the same background , basic background presuppositions .

That's what I'd want to have happen , so that then we can return to a broadly patriarchal background to understand these things , because it's one of the key issues of our day . A lot of what we're getting wrong today in culture flows from getting this wrong , so it really is important it's at the center .

You'll probably get the silent treatment , or the cone of silence as it was called . But I don't know . Maybe some of them read it , Some of them interact . Dan , what do you think ?

But the influence of that movement caused a lot of these big Eva guys to at least in the closet in their , in their office . They were Calvinists and I suspect that something similar could happen to some of the fringe of the big evil world is that they'll pick up this book and they might , you know , they might believe it . I don't know .

That's , that's what I suspect .

They'll probably launch some big side swipe at the Ogden borough and it'll , you know , try to discredit us in one fell pass , you know .

You know somebody was writing about this recently , but even in the PCA what's held it together on the conservative front is not the teaching elders , it's the ruling elders , because they're in touch with blue collar America .

Still , that's a good point , and so I think that you know that's also an encouragement to me and the number of blue collar guys that we wanted a book to be accessible to them and they're willing to do the reading and to think about the application for their families and their communities . So just continue to encourage people to do the reading .

If you're a pastor , if you're a blue collar guy , it's encouraging to see .

Yeah , I mean dang .

So , zach , I want to jump in . We've been touting the book , we've been exciteding the book , we've been excited about the book we have Honor Thy Fathers , now available from New Christendom Press . First of all , it's funny how this project kind of started . Because you said I have a manuscript you guys might be interested in .

Originally , we're like , yeah , well , maybe we'll do a paperback , whatever we get into the weeds and we're like , no , we're going to do a nice hard cover . We've got Medusa on the front . I mean , how could it get better than this ? So I just want to hear kind of your take , like what was it that got you originally ?

Obviously , you wrote Masculine Christianity , but this book in particular , what made you want to start writing along this path of reformed resourcement on sort of the issue of patriarchy ?

So I had this essay in my possession and I said , well , what in the world am I going to do with this thing ? And I'm like it's too long for like a webpage , but it's , you know , I just don't know where to publish it . So I just started thinking about it and I don't remember at what point I asked you guys about it , but I just started expanding it .

I was adding other reformers , reformed theologians that I had read on the subject , and so I don't know . This went through a couple phases basically , and I expanded even the second part where I interacted with modern pastors and the like , kind of contrasting or criticizing them for deviating from the reform .

So yeah , there was kind of an evolution of this whole book .

You know a lot of people may think if they're on the outside of that they're like well , everybody in the PCA already knows that these doctrines are true and everybody holds to the position of the reformers . But of course that isn't the case .

So talk about why it was so important to start there and to go back to OK , what do these guys actually say and think on headship and particularly not just family and church but also with the Commonwealth ? Why was it so important to start with their views and just getting that out there ?

You know , that book was more , you know , biblically based , getting to exegesis , theological arguments , and so I was using theologians from earlier times to kind of support my arguments and sprinkle them in there along the way . But this book was just more expanded on that foundation .

I mean , it's more of a historical argument of course , the entire book , but it's just kind of fascinating . It's like , oh well , it wasn't just Calvin or Gouge , like it was pretty much everybody .

Those guys maybe said the most or wrote the most on the topics of male rule and the home church , commonwealth , but , yeah , I think , just the ignorance of what our spiritual forefathers said .

That's certainly tied with some of the modern deviations , whether it's narrow complementarianism or egalitarianism , you know , which even exists within some so-called reformed churches . Yeah , and you know , I mean these same reformed churches . They'll quote Calvin or whoever on other topics . You know , people always say go read the Puritans .

But why not read the Puritans on the family or male headship . I mean why do we ignore them on these things ? I mean that's something I started to ask myself and I'm like , well , we need to just really make this stuff known . And so that's the foundation of the book .

I mean the first chapter is basically just it's on the home male headship in the home , but it's a lot of quotes . I mean it's just trying to show like , look , this was everybody . They all held pretty much the same view .

I mean , today you go to many quote unquote reformed churches and if you talk like this , you're going to have problems with elders and particularly with elders' wives probably , but these would be seen as controversial doctrines . So what do you think happened societally , but also in the church , that we got that far away from the classic reform positions ?

But really some of these changes started to happen in the mid to late 1800s with first wave feminism , and so you just start to see attacks on male rule from the culture and sometimes even within the church . So that didn't really take off until probably the mid 1900s .

And the push as far as the church goes , it's the push for female pastors and I mean you had pretty broad capitulation there in I don't know , noted before the whole complementarian movement , council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in the 1980s . But that really wasn't returning to the 16th and 17th century reformed theologians .

In fact , and maybe this is something you want to get into , but it was almost a clear break . I think they consciously said we don't want to go back to get into . But it was almost a clear break .

I think they consciously said we don't want to go back to traditional views , we want to have some kind of distance or separation , because I don't know they thought that sounded sexist or whatnot , to quote Calvin . But yeah , so a lot of what we're just dealing with today is a response to feminism .

We all have to deal with the reality of feminism in our culture , and it certainly is not limited to outside the church , but exists even within , within the church , even to our day . We , you know , many of us , just are kind of born into feminist , a feminist mindset .

You know , I kind of grew up in the in the young restless and reform movement thinking that that was the really conservative position , later finding out it's actually , you know , a compromise , I think already . Do you think it was originally ignorance or do you think it was like how much is intentionally saying no , we don't want that .

And the reason I ask is because even in Piper and Grudem's book they'll say things like we were , like intentionally being non-hierarchicalist , like at least that part was intentional . So what do you attribute to active choice they made versus like people just being ignorant of what the reformers taught ?

They're not even necessarily Presbyterian , so they're not necessarily committed to the reformed tradition in the same way that I would want to be as a Presbyterian . Yeah , so you have that , but you also have . They're clearly aware of the controversial nature of embracing what At the time they weren't necessarily calling it patriarchy .

They were referring to traditionalism or you know , the traditional position , and I've seen that word used in some of those early writings , some that were not republished , like Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood , edited by Piper and Grudem . That's continued to be published .

But some of the other stuff early on was using I think it was maybe early 1990s was using the language of traditional . So I think there's a clear break there . They did not want to be entirely tied to some of the reformers . Some of them might have been concerned over . I think they thought that some of the reformed or earlier theologians went too far .

As far as the way they would maybe even speak of ontology , like the , the natural differences of men and women , like rooting god's commands like in in those natural differences .

I mean that I think you have to go there to to some extent and that that maybe introduced or I think did introduce the problem of like narrow complementarianism where they almost make God's commands for men and women arbitrary in a sense .

God said women can't preach or teach publicly in the church , but that's just kind of the way he designed it and so we need to follow him . But that that's , that's just kind of the way he designed it and so we need to follow him . But they don't want to really go to the point of like rooting that in the god's design differences between men and women .

And as far as authority and I mean those are places I like to go it's like well , just listen to . You know the way god designed a man to speak and carry himself . He's fit for preaching , or at least some men are , whereas women are never fit for preaching , or at least some men are , whereas women are never fit for preaching . I'm comfortable saying that .

I think that makes perfect sense and is common sense really , but that's considered controversial , so a lot of complementarians don't want to go there . Look at the end of the day , though , if you just say a woman can't do whatever or shouldn't do whatever , that is considered sexist .

So I mean , if you're going to go ahead and say that you might as well have a consistent , robust biblical I think that's the key is , we want a biblical view , but also a consistently Reformed view , and that's what's great about looking to our Reformed forefathers , I mean , they're guides for interpreting scripture and Christian theology in all regards , and so why

are they off limits on this kind of stuff ? I don't think they should be . In fact , I think that's who we should be going to for guidance .

I mean , I remember the first time reading Gouge , I thought , holy cow , the stuff that I've gotten in trouble for saying is like a fraction of this . And then I just was like , well , I'm going to put Gouge on Twitter and see what happens . And of course , people lose their minds over this .

But the other question I want to ask you is so how describe the consensus view of the reformers ?

They universally affirmed that the husband is the head of his wife , meaning he holds authority over her . And yet they would all basically come back and they're going to explain duties for both husband and wife .

I mean , because this is just what I think is pretty obvious plain scripture , scriptural teaching that the husband's to to love his wife , to lovingly lead her , but the wife is to submit to her husband and in all things , so she's to have a submissive attitude . And I mean that's . I mean complementarians will say the same thing .

They might just kind of water it down , some , some of them , but so that's universal amongst the reformed kind of water it down some of them , so that's universal amongst the reformed .

Now Knox in one sense takes a little more extreme view because he was and by the way he wrote that anonymously and initially it was published that way , but people kind of figured out who wrote it .

So they're not illegitimate , they're still rulers , but it definitely should be the exception and it really doesn't fit with God's design , which is for men to rule in the home and also the church .

And so they would say , like a female pastor is illegitimate , right that you can't have a female pastor , but as far as a female ruler in the Commonwealth , she's legitimate , but it shouldn't be ordinary . And one of the arguments they make I mean there's a variety , but one of them is that the home is kind of the basis for the church and the commonwealth .

So they speak of that language , of the seminary . The home is the seminary of the church and commonwealth . So it's the seed , the foundation , where Paul is saying you know , if a man doesn't rule his household , well how is he going to rule in church ? And so you know , you have the comparison there .

He needs to show himself , prove himself in his household and then he can rule in the church . And so I mean we can ask why would that same principle not also apply to the state or the commonwealth ? I mean , of course we have that problem today .

We have all sorts of politicians who their households are a complete mess , but they think they can come rule over the rest of us , and of course that doesn't go very well , right .

But even in Calvin's case I feel like most reformed pastors wouldn't even want to go as far as Calvin did and saying that it's unnatural , it's not ideal , you know , and it gets into things like just not just politicians but women ruling in the Commonwealth in general , whereas Calvin was , you know , quick to say there's one of my favorite quotes like God , god is

commending her for all the work she does in the home and if she never does anything except be a mother , like that's good , like there's not a push for her to go . You know , rule in the civil sphere and the Commonwealth . It seems like that .

I don't know many complimentarians , like John Piper kind of got in trouble for this , but he was like I don't know if a woman should be a police officer , and there was , you know , carl Truman and Amy Byrd when she was on the podcast . There was a huge pushback on that . So it seems like that's going to be .

I don't know if this is what you found , but it seems like particularly the Commonwealth , that's going to be a huge problem for moderns , even if they're claiming the reformed moniker .

I think he's more consistent than a lot of other complementarians , but yeah , a lot don't want to say that I guess . I mean there's a couple of problems with women's civil rulers . You bring up the one which is well , that means they're not probably doing much in their own household and that's a problem .

But then they're also tied with that setting a poor example . Right , and it's just kind of the snowball effect with feminism is the more women we have leading like publicly and things like the Commonwealth , then women and even men are taught that that's normative rather than extraordinary and I mean that can undermine male rule in other spheres .

I mean we have this problem . I mean some of the early feminists even argued this way Well , if a woman we think a woman should be able to lead in the public sphere or civil sphere , and if she can do that , then why can't she also lead in the church ?

I mean , if God made men to rule , then he made them also to rule in the church and in the state , and so we should expect that we want to raise our men to lead in their homes . And some men are going to lead publicly and have a public role . But yeah , this does come back . I mean , this is definitely tied with the home .

I mean , all of this is woman's role or duties . I mean , part of the reason people are not as sound on , you know , male rule in the home or the church or even the commonwealth is they don't necessarily see a strong distinction between male-female duties in the home .

But if you affirm that , which the reformers definitely did and I think the scriptures do , then things will kind of flow out of that . I mean , there's lots of work to do in the home that we need our wives to fulfill as wives and mothers and if they're doing those things , part of it's just going to be too busy to go run for office .

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You know we've I think we're well . We launched a conference so , and then we have online sales for a while . So a month , a couple of weeks have you had a chance to see much feedback or hear much feedback from people yet ? I'm just curious from your angle , how has it been received ?

I mean they could just come out and say , well , hey , all of the reform , early reform theologians were just wrong and men of their time and sexists or whatever they want to call them . I mean they don't have to claim the reform tradition .

But kind of my argument is well , if you do claim the reform tradition for other things , then you need to claim this as well . So we'll see . I mean even kind of more narrow complementarians . I'm curious what the reaction will be , but I haven't seen much criticism yet .

Of course we had her on the show , talked about her new book , I think , the War on Toxic Masculinity or something Her book is actually designed to be a defense of . You know what she would call biblical masculinity .

But you point out in your book that there's some problems , maybe some modern assumptions , I think , with where she goes , problems , maybe some modern assumptions , I think , with where she goes . So I guess let's just start there . Why bring up that as an example ? Why include that ? Why is that important ?

But I reviewed that book initially for American Reformer so people can find that online if they want to see the whole thing . I included some of that in here , kind of like a summary , maybe a couple parts . But then I actually added some further criticism and so that's why I included .

I mean , she studied under Francis Schaeffer at LaBrie and so she has some kind of reformed roots and but unfortunately , I think what happens with her book is she ends up redefining male headship , redefining male headship , and she ends up taking this really narrow complementarian view where she kind of undermines the whole thing .

And I'm forgetting some of the language she uses . But she really doesn't like the idea of a man ruling in his home . A lot of people are uncomfortable with that kind of language , but that's really what leadership is . It's exercising rule and authority . So she actually , if I recall correctly , she rejects this very idea of a man exercising authority .

Some of this stuff is helpful , but , like Brad Wilcox , university of Virginia , like Russ Moore was quoting him in a paper back in like 06 . So , looking to sociology and saying what are healthy , thriving marriages ? And she'd say , well , it's with headship , okay . And saying what are healthy , thriving marriages ? And she'd say , well , it's with headship , ok .

But then define headship and then it's headship is functionally nobody's in charge . We just sort of , you know , collaborate and work things out , and so , like we would say , I would say , reading that it's like well , but that's not headship , though .

Yeah , we agree , husband and wife pretty much agree on everything , work things out , but if there's a tie-breaking vote then we go with the man , of course . But there never is a tie-breaking vote , right ? It never happens , probably . So , yeah , I mean , it's basically .

She's basically saying well , most people today are just practically egalitarians and she thinks that's a good thing . And I'm like that's actually not a good thing , because that's not what scripture teaches at all . And if that's the case , it's probably just a lot of men catering to their wives and let's put it this way not leading , right ? That's the whole point .

They're supposed to lead , which you know . It's not a tyrannical rule . I mean , the reformers all use that kind of language . Right , it's supposed to be a gentle rule . But you are supposed to rule your house as a man . You set the tone , you make decisions , you consult your wife .

She's your counselor and advisor , but sometimes you make decisions that she disagrees with , and that's part of what it means to be the head of your household .

And I remember the owner coming in and he was like listen , man , like nobody works for anybody , like we're just working together as a team . And then what would happen is there would be huge frustration because like projects wouldn't get done on time , and they would say , eric , you know , this was your responsibility .

And I'd say , well , I'm technically not in charge of that . I've never been put in charge of that . Well , I know , but as a team member , you know , we , you know everybody needs to step up . Basically , what I learned from the experience is we actually need hierarchy , chain of command , authority .

It's actually really helpful to know in a business , but then , okay , also in the home , it's really helpful to know well , who's in charge , who actually has the authority to make these decisions . And then , just like in the business , it's like what do you know when we actually start instituting biblical patriarchy in the home ?

The biggest comment I always get that is so shocking is the women are like I'm so much happier , like this is so much better , that we're not fighting to decide who's in charge or who is going to make the decision , because we know , you know , the man is leading , he's ruling . I also think it's tied Zach to .

As I mentioned before , this concept of servant leadership where I heard this forever actually still goes on with like promise keepers . They think they're doing a good thing . What they're trying to do is call men to not be selfish , but what you're functionally telling them is you're in charge and your job is to make sure your wife's happy .

Yeah , right , and so , pastorally , there's ramifications for this . We look at societal collapse , collapse of the family , stuff . You've cataloged no fault , divorce , all that . You're like . But this would be my contention Even at a practical level , that's not working .

So to me , it's worth going back and saying , okay , maybe at a time period like look at the reform time period when all these guys are writing and you're like were families better or worse than now ? Most people , you know it was better You're like okay , well , patriarchy is so bad . Why is it ?

Why is it so much worse now that feminism has been a dominant force ?

But some of the problems are like you're right is one , it's construed as if the husband should just please his wife , like that's his whole goal is just to make her happy .

And that's not what it means to be a leader who serves , because he may make decisions that his wife actually doesn't like but are for her good right , because he's supposed to lead her spiritually and he sins and she sins and he shouldn't cater to her sinful desires . He should correct her and guide her . So you got that .

But also , the husband doesn't only serve his wife , he serves his children , he serves his church , he serves his neighbors , right , I mean , obviously you have primary duties with your immediate family , but I don't know why don't people speak of the husband as the man is servant leader for others ?

It seems like it's always just directed towards the wife , as if , like he just exists , as if Paul said the man was made for woman and not the woman for man . But that's actually not what he says , right , he says the opposite . So yeah , there's problems there .

As far as , like , happiness and things getting worse with the family , I mean it's hard to argue with this . I mean this is why I don't even cite statistics on these things , because people just dispute them or whatnot . But some of this is just common sense , like , obviously the divorce rate is atrocious today .

The number of children born out of wedlock , I mean we could just go down the line . But I think even happiness I mean there's lots of studies that come out and just kind of highlighting people being depressed or whatever . And it's not like people were never addicted to substances , abusing alcohol or drugs or whatever . But obviously we had problems .

We had men abusing their wives , cheating on their spouses . I mean this stuff has always existed with humans , you know , for the entire history of the world . The question isn't has there always been problems with marriage and humanity ? But are we better off now than we were with feminism ? And I think the answer is no .

Let me give one example If you go read Archibald Alexander , he's the first professor of theology at Princeton Seminary . He was found in 1812 . And you can go read . He's got a good book on religious experience . I think it's Thoughts on Religious Experience . At the end at least one of those editions , he has letters to the aged .

But then he has some to like the young men , I think , some to women and mothers maybe I think it's to women and he's there's several spots where he's like praising the women of Virginia . He's like we have the best right , the best women . That's where he's from . Originally was Virginia .

He praised his mother and then he's like these are just godly women and I just I'm like could anybody really write that today about their home state within the United States , their hometown I mean , maybe there's some towns that are exceptions Maybe like a church .

But yeah , the quality of feminine character has definitely declined since pre-feminism and all you have to do is go , like I said , go read words of older people . They used to praise the women in those Christian societies and now we can't do that . So obviously things are worse off than they were .

But I think you mentioned he wrote a book on marriage and then there's a book Is it the book on marriage where they don't talk about motherhood .

Let's keep the five solos , basically , but well , really , let's keep sort of the core soteriology , but we need to jettison fundamentalism . Even complementarianism was like too right wing all of a sudden , and so there's a clear push left there .

You kind of look at the overall trajectory , though , and you know another pastor read your book and we were texting about it , and he told me he said I had no idea the negative influence that Keller had , cause I think a lot of us probably weren't following that really closely .

You know , when you go on Twitter , you see some stupid clips of , you know , gay belay and all that stuff that they're doing for communion and stuff , but you know when he's actually explicitly saying what he said . So just talk about that . You obviously include that in the book .

Why is this important to address somebody who had such a really a predominant role in shaping what we think about sexuality ?

But even outside . I mean he was one of the founders of the Gospel Coalition with DA Carson there . But yeah , I mean one thing I just try to do in here is highlight some of his more egalitarian direction . I mean he would have called himself complementarian , of course , and he wasn't promoting women pastors or anything like that . So I try to be fair in him .

I mean fair to him . Some of this is just me . I had done some research and just kind of highlighting here's what he actually thought . So , yeah , I mean you mentioned the book on vocation was Every Good Endeavor Connecting your Work to God's Work ? It was published in 2014 .

And I remember I read that as part of a book study at church several years back and my wife was in there with me and we had discussed that and we both had that kind of the same thought Like there was good stuff in there . And then you're like , wait a second , though we finished the book , he never talked about motherhood .

And so I did word searches and stuff after to verify this and yeah , sure enough , I think I said in there he never uses the word motherhood . I mean , mother comes up a couple of times in certain contexts , but it's just it's kind of mind blowing that you're writing a book on vocation , which is your calling , one's calling in life , which is God's calling .

That's what vocation is getting at . And I read scripture and I read the reformers , early reformed theologians and God's calling on women's life is motherhood . For the most part that's normative .

There might be some exceptions , but most women are called to be wives and mothers , be wives and mothers , and so they're not going to go out into the workplace full time . And I mean I realize that we have some cultural problems here , but primarily I think a woman should be domestically oriented , focused on children in the home .

All these great things , important things , needed , things that are lost today for a lot of Americans , and I just can't imagine talking about vocation and not talking about motherhood . So I think that just kind of tells you where he's coming from . I mean , yeah , I know Tim Keller ministered in New York where they probably had a lot of career women .

But I mean , even still , first teach what scripture says . But second is also , a book like this is going out well beyond New York City and yeah . So I just kind of highlight that and contrast it with some scriptural passages as well , as I mean , you can just kind of see the , even the background of the reformers .

You could contrast yourself I I did that a little bit too with uh , nancy piercy on that subject , because she kind of says , like a woman the passage in um as a titus to women should be working at home and she says that it doesn't mean they have to work . What does she say ? It's something the effect of like it doesn't have to be at home .

This is one of the concerns I have , though I noticed this a couple of times with some of her interactions on Twitter , where it's it's still the egalitarian instinct to be like yeah , you know , let's talk about context , let's talk about all this stuff historically surrounding , culturally surrounding the passage of historically surrounding , culturally surrounding the passage ,

and then by the end of the exposition , the passage means exactly the opposite of what it plainly means . You know what I mean . Like titus 2 is pretty clear . I've had people even say to me well , you know , it's not like paul actually gives a syllabus for what they should be teaching , and our position has been no , but like he actually does .

It's actually spelled out in the next verses about what is supposed to be taught and I think that is just .

It's a good warning that any commentary , any modern interpretation of a text that I hear and we're going to lean on a sociologist or we're going to lean on you know we just don't understand the culture right , or something like that , I immediately especially if it just flies in the face of the plain reading of the text , or we're going to lean on you know , we

just don't understand the culture , right , or something like that I immediately , especially if it just flies in the face of the plain reading of the text . I'm immediately like that's probably not where I , would , you know , lay all my chips . Yeah , if it's going to come down to that , yeah , exactly .

But then he says in 1 Timothy 5 , 14 , for the younger widows , he says so , I would have younger widows . He doesn't say go do something else outside the house , he says I'd have younger widows , marry , bear children , manage their households and give the adversary no occasion for slander .

So I'd like to point this out is the New Testament doesn't prohibit a woman from working outside the home or bringing in income , but it does orient her work towards the home , and so we have to have that same mindset . I mean that is the scripture's mindset and it's for the good of mankind , and when that's lost , yes , people suffer and our culture suffers .

So yeah , I mean one thing is like you go read a lot of modern commentaries . It's kind of like what you're saying . They just really I mean everybody's reading these texts from their perspective , from their culture . I mean I am reading these texts from their perspective , from their culture . I mean , I am too . I understand that .

That's why it's good to go read earlier , you know . Or I like to say old dead guys . I like to read a bunch of old dead guys because they didn't see things the exact same way we do and they don't have the blind spots we do . I can tell you this from writing this book .

The old reformed theologians were not explaining these passages away , they embraced them . They just said , obviously here's what it says , right , that women should be focusing their efforts on the home and children and the husband has the duty to provide , and so that's where they go .

And that's why it's nice to read old commentators , old theologians and I love modern commentaries too . I'm not saying , don't read them , but some of them are straight up egalitarian and some of the guys , even who aren't , are still compromised sometimes on some of these issues . So you just have to keep that in mind .

I have been encouraged , even if it's a small number , but there's more people now than there were 10 years ago who are willing to talk about just straight up , high octane , you know , biblical patriarchy . I'm grateful for groups like American Reformer .

They've been reviewing the book , Matthew Pearson , you know there's been a number of guys who've been willing to say , yeah , absolutely We'll read it . It's been a positive thing in terms of reform resourcement . So I've been encouraged with that .

I've been encouraged by the book sales because I've noticed as actually my son is the one processing the orders right now and so but like going through the orders , it's really cool . I know a lot of the people but a lot of pastors buying five , 10 books for their elder team . So as you look at all that , I know we're very prayerful .

We're hoping that this will have a broad impact , that this , as opposed to what's been in the teaching of the church for some time , that this will get a foothold and will grow and people will understand it .

But I just want to get your feel for what your hope is for the book , how it will kind of be a part of the conversation and start pushing in a different direction .

But some things just are going to be more relevant , more practical and how we structure our families and who leads in the home and church and commonwealth All of these are very important questions and if we get them wrong they have negative consequences .

But on the bright side is , if we get them right , that's for our good and God blesses that and God blesses obedience to him .

Yeah , and so I mean that's really my goal when I write these things , Whether it's Masculine Christianity or this book , honor Thy Fathers is I really just want to take people back to the Bible and interpret it properly and apply it properly and to live it out .

I mean , that's what we do as Christians we want to please God , we want to order our lives according to His ways . And you know we talk about faith , right , we trust God . What does faith look like ? It should lead to obedience and it should lead to trusting him . Even the culture tells us male headship , that stuff's bad and sexist and abusive .

But faith in Christ says no , I'm going to do what God tells me to do . So , whether you're a husband or a wife or looking to marry at some point is saying I'm going to do what God says and even if some people in my church don't like it , I'm going to please god and so .

So this book is aimed at helping people live out scripture and and obey god as calling husbands to lead their households , and that includes loving their wives , leading them spiritually , providing for their households , giving their children a Christian education , raising them in the faith , helping wives to submit to their husbands to actually that is pleasing to God ,

right ? 1 Peter 3, . It's very clear and it's good to hear . Yeah , it's not just me saying this , but you can go read all of these reformed guys we love and respect . On other things , calvin Gouge . I even quote Herman Bovink quite a bit in chapter four . Everybody loves Bovink today , but then a bunch of egalitarians love him too .

Well , what about his book , the Christian Family ? I mean , he's pretty traditional in his views and I think all those guys are traditional because scripture is pretty plain on these topics . Yeah , despite all of the challenges of feminism and you know , christian feminism , egalitarianism , whatever you want to call it .

I think their arguments are bad , I think they're going to lose long-term and I think they've led people actually away from obedience to Christ , and so that's really what we want to recover . We want to please God , we want to bless our families , and we do that by following God's design .

That was pretty cool to have him contribute .