Membership Bible Training: Session 1

May 26

Introduction

This post covers Session 1 of Membership Bible Training, as taught by Luke Williams at Vista Church (San Luis Obispo, California). I believe this teaching is dated January 27th, 2020, but it could have been from January 2019. I will break this article into three sections:

Description of the audio
A highlight of a key trend in it
A chronological, but not fully exhaustive, analysis of the points taught

About the recording

The audio is an hour and fifty-five minutes of teaching, nearly 20,000 words. It’s the first of seven sessions. This session covers three major topics:

What is the Bible?
Who is God? And what is he like?
Cultural Issue: “Relative Truth”

Williams had planned to cover a “practical application” of “worship” but ran out of time.

About Luke Williams

Williams is one of the six members of the Network Leadership Team, according to Leaving the Network. He is believed to oversee the churches on the west coast including Blue Sky Church (Bellevue, WA), Hills Church (Pullman, WA), Summit Creek Church (Eugene, OR), and Valley Springs Church (Corvalis, OR).

Disclaimers

About transcription

Transcription errors (or other feedback!) can be reported to not.overcome@outlook.com.

I’ve used a transcription service to create the original transcription, and then I’ve hand-edited it to improve accuracy Transcribed teachings always lose something from the delivered version — speaking is a different art than writing — and this is no exception. The transcription is provided as an aid, not as the authoritative record, and undoubtedly contains errors. That said, I hope it’s helpful. A couple things you will see as you go:

A lot of doubled words or phrases – this is actually a pretty normal thing for people to do, and I don’t judge Williams for it. I suspect a public speaking coach would want to work on it, but it’s pretty natural. Most verbal pauses are automatically removed by the transcription service, so you won’t see too many of those in the writing (um, uh).
A few times you will see me use square brackets [like this]. You can effectively read right over those – they are places where either I couldn’t understand, Williams misspeaks a whole phrase and starts over, or something similar.

I do not guarantee the accuracy of this transcription, and encourage people to listen to the audio of any section they find interesting, particularly if you intend on taking any kinds of actions based on what you find here.

Timestamps are provided throughout the transcription, in general at least once every two minutes, and I’ve tried to use them to delineate new sections as well.

Punctuation is difficult in transcription precisely because it’s not actually spoken. I’ve done my best, and added quote marks, but somewhat inconsistently. You can probably infer most of it, and I’ll get better at it as I do more transcriptions.

About audio and clips

Clips

In this article, I’ve extracted around twenty specific clips so that you can play them inline as you read my comments. In every case except one, the clip is an uncut portion of the original. In the one case, I insert a sound effect (whoosh) to mark switching from one clip to the next, and noted it in the transcription.

Editing

In the full audio and clips, the only editing I have done is to clean up the sound quality

equalizer for voice clarity (this is a matter of preference, but I’ve attempted to use settings that made it easiest to understand, while still sounding very much like Williams’ natural speaking voice).
background noise reduction
volume leveling applied consistently start-to-finish – I have not attempted to normalize Williams’ volume segment-to-segment or do anything that would otherwise affect his content or tone.

In my reporting on The Network, it is my view that recordings like these are in the public interest, for those who are in or out of The Network, and am sharing them for that reason. I would only share the clips, like a book review, except I believe it’s important for people to be able to hear the entire thing, to know that I’ve shared all relevant context. Not to mention, others will undoubtedly notice important things that I have missed.

About Me

I’m not a Biblical scholar or Theologian. Any and all Biblical insight below comes with a caveat that I recommend doing your own research. My main point is to show that there are other viewpoints, where Williams might claim to be stating the only valid one. Some critiques below are style, others are substance, and some are both. Please pay attention to which is which.

I’m not a perfect writer - corrections and feedback are welcome on either the reddit or by emailing me at not.overcome@outlook.com.

Listen and Read

Here is the entire training.

Rhetorical Highlight: "The Bible is very clear"

Rhetorical Device #1: The Bible is clear.

Williams, along with other Network pastors, uses a lot of rhetorical devices. These are speaking tools that can make an argument sound more persuasive without actually being more persuasive. I’ll highlight the ones I see over a series of blog post, but since Williams is talking about the Bible in this one, I thought I’d address “clear” in this one.

Williams uses the word “clear” or “clearly” 17 times in reference to the bible teaching the things he is saying “clearly” or similar language. He adds four more uses of the word “actually” (“actually says”), and more than 25 instances of “really” in a context of “the bible really is God speaking to us” or “these really are God’s word” or other such statements. That’s nearly 50 uses of words that add certainty.

Saying “the Bible is clear” is a favorite rhetorical device of pastors who do not want to be questioned. It’s so common that popular artist, cartoonist, and former pastor David Hayward drew a comic of it, with the hand of God reaching down to correct “The Bible clearly says…” to say, “My interpretation of the Bible to me clearly says what I want it to say!”

What’s interesting is that it’s frequently not true. For example, Williams states that “[Jesus] speaks very clearly to us that all that we have in the Bible is God speaking to us.” Except Jesus himself does not actually say this – he couldn’t. The New Testament hadn’t yet been written or canonized yet. Rather than cite a verse where Jesus says this, Williams just says that it happened, even though it didn’t. Here’s the audio at approximately the 28:45 mark.

My experience with the teachings in The Network is that language that rhetorically added certainty was used more frequently when things were actually less clear. It’s thought-terminating language that makes you aware that you cannot disagree with him, because, after all, the Bible is clear, even if you don’t understand why it’s clear.

For the record, the Bible is actually clear about a lot of things. I’m not saying it’s not. I’m saying that if it’s clear, show where it says things clearly, rather than using this rhetorical language to shut down conversation, but without actually proving your point.

As you listen to other audio by Network pastors, think about whether you see them use this device.

Specific Content (presented chronologically)

One of the difficulties with this content is that because it’s presented topically, a fair treatment of some of the biblical concepts would take much longer than I have to type (though I ended up typing so much more than I expected). So I’ve limited my content to just things that stick out as significant red flags to me. You may find other things interesting, and that’s what the r/leavingthenetwork forum is for!

Some Christians don't know the Bible

(@ 2:40) And so there may be a lot of things as we're working through this. That you may be learning. It amazes me the number of Christians that can be around Christianity can grow up in the church and there's still significant key doctrinal issues that are clearly biblical that Christians might say, well, I don't know much about this. There may be things as we look to the Bible on different issues through this that you would say, man, I've read this before, but I'm seeing this for maybe for the first time, or it's jumping out at me, I didn't know this. Some of you may find yourself saying, "Whoa, does the Bible actually say this?" You might find yourself realizing that you believe popular or cultural things on a particular topic. And I would challenge you to grow in what does the Bible actually say?

Williams is priming you to being surprised, even if you’ve grown up in the church. He frames it as surprise at new truth, rather than valid skepticism. He also uses “clearly biblical” once and “the bible actually [says]” twice, and dismisses “popular or cultural things.”

Amy Fritz talks about this in Episode 17 of the Untangled Faith podcast. Christian Finance personality Dave Ramsey’s organization consistently talks about how they are a “different” kind of place to work. As her husband, Nathan, went through the interview process, they dismissed many “red flags” as they simply believed it was part of what made the organization different.

A new, growing church

(@ 5:12) We are a new growing church here in San Luis Obispo.

The church was at least 2.5 years old, maybe 3.5 years old at the time, not exactly new anymore.

This clip also indicates that he sees “growing” as something worth noting. According to Williams, a number of people also left after the first MBT. If this was in 2020, as the file states, then it actually was really not true anymore, as the church had already leveled off or even declined somewhat. Read more: If the Lord Wills: The Story of Vista Church — Not Overcome.

Membership Benefits

(@5:24) And as a gift, sometimes people ask, so what's the benefit of becoming a member. And I kind of laugh a little bit, we'll give you later on in this, the Membership Bible Training, our affirmation of Bible beliefs, and then also too our bylaws that we operate under as a church. I think the primary benefit of becoming a member is if you die here at Vista, we'll do your funeral for you. [laughter] It's one of the primary benefits and then also too the second one, is you get a copy of systematic theology.

Here's Williams, literally laughing at the fact that they give you almost nothing. When I worked at a technology store, some people would compete to see the most ridiculous thing they could get someone to buy the extended warranty on. Here, Williams seems to understand the absurdity of what he is saying. “Sign a form guaranteeing us 10% of your income as long as you are here. We’ll give you a book and maybe a funeral.”

Praise for Wayne Grudem

(@ 5:55) And Wayne Grudem is, is widely respected. Just as a whole and evangelical Christianity as a very reputable theologian. I've, I've, you know, looked at and read a number of different systematic theologies. And his is, by far the best that I've come across.

Williams, who has a degree in communications, and no formal biblical training at all, is telling the audience that Grudem’s Systematic Theology is “by far the best”. How does he know? By what is he evaluating them? What makes a good systematic theology? Which others has he read? Has he read them exhaustively?

And with Williams lack of training, the only thing he’d really be able to say would be, “Grudem’s made the most sense to me.” Instead, he says it’s “by far the best.”

I saw someone on Twitter recently say that there are at least 150 different Systematic Theologies out there. Grudem didn’t invent it, and you can actually take courses in Systematic Theology in seminary programs.

Agreement Required

(@ 8:54) And so I want to encourage you, if you there's things that you would say, oh, man, how do I wrestle with this? What do I do with this? I love it at Vista when people feel comfortable to be able to ask questions, it's okay to ask questions. All we're going to do is look at this book more closely as we as we ask questions. And there may be things where as we're looking through the Bible, you might say, man I just can't get there. I don't know if I believe that. Where it's okay. You may find out Vista's not home for you. And that's okay, we want to really hold the Bible truth.

I can’t overstate the significance of this. If anyone is questioning whether or not The Network requires agreement on all things, Williams says it here, less than ten minutes into MBT, talking about the entire set that we’re going to be discussing in MBT. You can have questions. But you need to end up agreeing with Vista, or you need to find a different church. And he equates the Network’s views with “Bible truth.” There’s no room for respectful disagreement, or even just a lack of agreement. Williams to learn something. It’s a bold faced assertion that if there is lack of agreement, it’s because you aren’t following the Bible.

The membership form on Leaving the Network requires members to sign, affirming that, “I have finished the Vista Series and Membership Bible Training, and hold to the clear Bible teaching taught in the trainings.”

While I was a small group leader, someone came to me asking about the status of their membership, someone who had previously raised questions regarding the church’s stance on election. When Williams asked about where they stood now, I described to him where I thought that person now stood, then asked how important an issue like this was to maintaining membership. The relevant portion of my email to Williams reads:

Just checking (for future reference and curiosity) - are we saying that agreeing with the doctrine of election is a requirement for membership? My interpretation (maybe just a guess) was that it was more like a "this is what we believe - if you disagree, you can be a member, but please keep talking to your SG leader, but also please don't cause trouble over it". I forget if you use Tier1/2/3/4 framework for importance of things and allowable disagreement, but I use it frequently in my mind - Tier1=Salvation, Tier2=completely incompatible - can't be in same church, Tier3=true disagreement, the church has a viewpoint, the member disagrees, but unity/peace are possible, people should agree that while they don't agree they need to not sow division over it, and should humbly remain open to further teaching on it; Tier4=for sure don't cause division, as reasonable Christians may disagree, and the church itself has no strong opinion. I would have thought we would put election in tier 3, but let me know if I'm incorrect about that. If so, would be interested in knowing if there's others that make the bar that I might not be aware of 🙂

The relevant portion of Williams’ response:

One of the requirements on our current membership form (among other basic christian commitments) is “I have finished the Membership Bible Training and Vista Series and hold to the clear Bible teaching taught in the trainings.” In those trainings we try to cover the most main/plain/clear bible doctrines, with the hope that all our members will be in unity on those issues. We don’t have a ranking system for level of importance, although I agree there are issues that are less “main” and less “clear” that Christians could vary on. We haven’t gone to the point of ranking all of them. Just trying to stick to the main ones and have people agree on those. Does that make sense?

At the time, I was unaware of Sandor Paull’s teaching on unity from summer 2018 (Leaving the Network), in which he talks at length about not having any kind of lists or buckets that would separate more important and less important issues. Paull describes such a system almost the exact same way I do here, and rejects it (The concept is called “Theological Triage” and. is employed broadly). Williams uses the phrase “be in unity on those issues,” which echoes Paul’s training, but he doesn’t go as far. Finally, “haven’t gone to the point of ranking them” actually sounds a like “we haven’t done that yet,” when we know they have no plans to.

Agreement, not merely lack of disagreement

Note in all of the above that the person who fails to agree is disqualified from membership. Not just the person who disagrees. This is exactly what Williams says in this teaching: “And there may be things where as we're looking through the Bible, you might say, man I just can't get there. I don't know if I believe that. Where it's okay. You may find out Vista's not home for you.”

So if you just can’t quite get there, and don’t know if you believe it, you’re out. Questions are fine for a time, but you need to accept the answer or find another church.

Keep that in mind as we look at the beliefs. If there is even one thing you disagree on, or just aren’t sure about, Williams would say that you cannot be a member.

Disagreeing with "prominent pastors"

(@ 28:13) And this is so important for us to understand the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Because we actually live in a time in our culture now where it's increasingly popular to say, if you've ever heard the phrase, I'm not going to say who said this, because I don't want to dog on the guy, “we should unhitch from the Old Testament.” I mean, you guys have heard that phrase lately, where there's prominent pastors in Christianity today. Saying, “Yeah, God’s a little harsh in the Old Testament, we really should we should unhitch from the Old Testament, just focus on the New Testament.” Jesus does not allow that. He speaks very clearly to us that all that we have in the Bible is God speaking to us.

Williams raises a kind of boogeyman here, saying there’s “prominent pastors” that are dismissive of the Old Testament – but doesn’t want to “dog on the guy.” Paul says to call out false teachers (Galatians), so Williams could have and should have named names if this was true. You can google the phrase, “unhitch from the Old Testament.” It comes from a 2018 sermon by Andy Stanley, a pastor in Georgia with over five hundred thousand followers on twitter (for comparison, John Piper has one million). He clarified the remarks as wrestling with the apostles’ decision to not require circumcision by the gentiles in Acts 15. I see no evidence that the phrase gains steam past that, and I see backlash from a number of other pastors.

Williams has exaggerated the meaning, which has the effect of making it look like he and Vista Church are more committed to Bible truth than others. In this case, even the originator of the quote wasn’t saying what Williams implies, let alone “prominent pastors” (plural). But it allows Williams to make it look like “See, we’re standing for truth while others abandon it.”

Williams also exhibits sloppy or uncharitable reading or research. The fact that he says “you can google it” implies that he is speaking with certainty, and has in fact googled it. I’ve been careful in my writing to only use what he says in its full context, providing exact quotes and audio. If I’d misquoted or misrepresented him as badly as he misrepresented Stanley, I suspect that Williams would be upset, and justifiably so. And In fact, I suspect that you would be upset with me as well. It’s a right reaction to being misrepresented or hearing someone misrepresent someone else.

Josephus

(@ 30:31, discussing 2nd Peter 1:16-21) I mean, you can read about Jewish historians like Josephus, in his account of Jesus, where he's like, "we don't even know how to make sense of this. But yet Jesus actually did rise from the dead." He wasn't a Christian. He's recording - these events actually took place. Peter’s saying "they're not cleverly devised myths. These are eyewitness accounts."

Like Williams says, you can read about Josephus, and in doing so, you will find that the reported writing by Josephus in which he attests to the resurrection is broadly agreed to have been fake. Christians have tried to cite Josephus for a long time, because a Jewish Historian confirming that Jesus’ resurrection was real would be powerful evidence. And that’s exactly how Williams uses it here. This article, by church planting network NAMB, is also quite fascinating, and makes the case that Josephus did report that Jesus’ disciples believed he had been resurrected, but that is quite different from Josephus making the same claim himself. Josephus’ writings are important in that they help validate that Jesus Christ was a real, historical person, and that he had a following of people who believed common Christian beliefs about him.

In any case, it only takes a few minutes of a google search to see that this account is, at best, disputed. Williams either doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, as he states this with absolute certainty in his voice.

One additional wrinkle is that Williams adds “Jewish historians like Josephus.” I’ve never heard of another one, though I can’t say for sure that they don’t exist - but Williams doesn’t cite them. This is similar to the “prominent pastors” line, where Williams seems comfortable exaggerating things to the point of inaccuracy - again, either out of ignorance or just apathy toward the truth.

This is all made worse by context. Williams is talking about how Peter said “we did not follow cleverly devised myths” (2nd Peter 1:16-21). And for evidence, Williams ends up citing something that is widely, even by Christians, believed to be not just myth, but outright fraud.

Echoes into Eternity

(@ 29:33) Look, we understand at this at this time in history, Greek mythology just kind of ruled the show, until it was Greek mythology and stoicism," which man, there are two of the most depressing religions a person could turn to. They're just, there's no hope in it. There's no life and it's just burdensome to people.
[Jump, marked in audio by “whoosh” sound]
(@ 34:54) And the Bible speaks to us that our actions in this life the way we live, will carry on. It echoes into eternity. It has an effect. There's a, there's a profound answering for how we live in this life.

Williams says stoicism is one of the two main religions of the time, and is “just burdensome”, and in the broader context of this part of the teaching, he’s saying that it’s part of the “cleverly devised myths” (see previous section on Josephus) going around. And then a little over five minutes later, Williams talks about how “our actions in this life … echoes into eternity.”

You might recognize that quote from Gladiator, and indeed it’s much older than that. Marcus Aurelius (the original emperor in the movie) is the true origin of the quote, in the 2nd century. He wrote, “What we do echoes in eternity.” Aurelius was a Roman emperor (pre-Constantine, so not Christian), and a stoic philosopher. In fact, according to wikipedia, “Meditations, the writings of ‘the philosopher’ – as contemporary biographers called Marcus – are a significant source of the modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy.”

So Williams, in attempting to make a point about how important it is that we follow the bible, quotes an action movie, which is quoting a famed philosopher of a religion/philosophy that Williams just got done telling you was wrong.

He also doesn’t attribute the quote, which I just find to be poor form. It’s probably a famous enough quote that it doesn’t really count as plagiarism, but I just think attributing sources is good practice, as the Bible says to give, “respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” (Romans 13:7)

Jericho

(@35:36) I think it's common in our culture for us to rely on human intellect to shape what we believe, or public opinion. Or for there to be an expert opinion. This expert said this. And so that shapes the way I think about things. Let me give an example. Sometimes there can be things that may challenge the Bible. And we might say, what do we do with that? For example, there's an architect her She's a famous artist, or an archaeologist. Her name was Kathleen Kenyon. And in 1967, she was under or uncovering, I guess, Indiana Jones style uncovering the sight of Jericho, where if any of you guys are familiar with the story of of Jericho in the walls of Jericho falling down, where she was uncovering evidence that looked like it was contrary to Bible truth, she found that it didn't look like the walls suddenly fell down around the city, it looked like it was actually burned down. And based on some other pottery and things that were found, it looked like that the timeline of the Bible didn't line up with the archaeological evidence that was found. And it was this massive archaeological find where in 1967, Christians were scratching their head saying, how do we make sense of this? This evidence seems to suggest the Bible is not accurate in its claims. What do you do with things like that? Were with what the Bible says may disagree with an expert. How do you respond? It's a really important question. What's our source for truth as we go through this life.
And it was interesting. In 1990, there was additional archaeological finds where you can Google this. I went to print it out. But I'm not a subscriber of Time magazine. I didn't want to pay the extra what five bucks to print out to "Hey, look at this, guys." I'm a cheapie so you guys can feel free to Google it. Time magazine that I think the headline for the article was "Score one for the Bible, new findings verify the historical timeline of what the Bible says For the walls of Jericho." And as a Christian, it's like, "woohoo, all right!" You know, Time Magazine, here, they are saying something like this. And they said, no, no new findings reveal, actually, the Bible is accurate in what it says.

You can read the article (Science: Score One for the Bible - TIME), titled, “Score One for the Bible: Fresh clues support the story of Joshua at the walls of Jericho.” It’s not long, and I recommend reading it. First, note that Williams’ title is different than the one used in Time. “support the story” is different than “verify the historical timeline of what the Bible says.” Williams says that he wanted to go as far as printing it out, but was “a cheapie”. But then he fails to get the headline right. He also gets the date wrong, twice - the article states, “The late British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon established in the 1950s that while the ancient city was indeed destroyed.” She published a work on Jericho in 1957 (10 years earlier than Williams states) and her work there continued into 1958.

Williams describes Kenyon’s research as saying that “she found that it didn't look like the walls suddenly fell down around the city, it looked like it was actually burned down”. That’s not accurate – she agreed that the walls had collapsed, and in Joshua 6:24, we see that, “And they burned the city with fire, and everything in it.” It’s unclear what Williams means – it’s possible that he doesn’t know that Jericho was burned as well – but it’s worth noting that the article he cites doesn’t even say that Kenyon said what he’s saying she said. It says:

Except for the disputed dating, Kenyon's discoveries at Jericho were largely consistent with the Bible story. For one thing, she found that the city's walls had fallen in a way suggestive of sudden collapse. Many scholars think the destruction was caused by an earthquake, which could also account for a temporary damming of the Jordan River described in the Bible. Moreover, Kenyon found bushels of grain on the site. That is consistent with the Bible's assertions that Jericho was conquered quickly. If the city had capitulated after a long siege, the grain would have been used up.
A thick layer of soot at the site, which according to radioactive carbon-14 dating was laid down about 1400 B.C., supports the biblical idea that the city was burned, not simply conquered.

So Williams says that she said it burned instead of collapsing, when she says it collapsed in addition to being burned, which is exactly what the Bible says.

Second, Williams seems to imply that in 1990, the new finds basically confirmed the Bible. Except that today, at least secular sources, based on additional evidence after that, still believe the story in Joshua is at least not fully accurate: Battle of Jericho - Wikipedia. It says that Kenyon’s finding’s around the date of the battle (which is what was disputed, not the method) was actually bolstered by further dating in 1995. The idea that the walls of Jericho collapsed is apparently fully agreed upon, in addition to a fire.

I’m not an archaeologist or old testament scholar, and I’ve also found Christian sources (such as this video that a friend sent to me when I asked Twitter what they knew about this topic) that dispute the secular sources. It’s complicated, and I’m not qualified to sort through it. My only point here is that Wiliams is presenting an over-simplistic (and in several cases incorrect) view that claims far more certainty than what actually happened.

So much more could be said, and I am not saying that the Bible is inaccurate. My point is that this is another example of Williams summarizing external things in ways that are not accurate, in order to support his claims.

A common thread

If we pause here, just forty minutes into the teaching, Williams has made misleading or false claims about “prominent pastors”, Josephus, and the archeological support for Jericho. Each of those things took me just a few minutes to google and find that the truth was at least far more complicated than Williams describes, and in several cases he’s just wrong, and somewhat inexcusably given the ease with which these things can be researched.

The problem with Williams’ teaching this way is that it undermines his credibility. He’s trying to teach people about the truth of Christianity, and if someone were to go research this after, they’d find that Williams was either uneducated or biased in the facts he presented, repeatedly. What is the effect on their view of the rest of his teaching? He’s misstated the contents of that article that he claimed he almost printed out. Are his stories accurate? Is his knowledge of the Bible stronger? Do they start wondering what else Williams doesn’t know or doesn’t say? Does this affect their ability to believe in the Gospel? It’s dangerous, when he could just say “I don’t know”, or not say anything, or do the same few minutes of research that I did.

It's also worth remembering: Williams is teaching a series that is taught at many Network churches, and was taught for the first time in 2014. There’s every reason to believe that the notes he is using are common across the Network, same as “The Series.” If Blue Sky teaches it every year, and Vine does, and Foundation does, and some others do, it would have been taught at least a couple dozen times by the time Williams gave this teaching. Why has no one corrected these things or added nuance to them and let the others know to avoid these misstatements? If The Network is holding closer to the Bible than any other set of churches, why is a member of its leadership team getting basic facts wrong when teaching about it?

Remember, Sándor Paull said this in 2018 (@ 1:10:56 in his “Unity” teaching, found on Leaving the Network):

What is it that we value that you'd say, "I don't care about that. It's irrelevant." What is it that in the Bible you'd say, "I don't believe that at all." What Jesus has asked us to be does not exist anywhere else on this earth. This family that we have, it does not exist anywhere else on this earth. At all. Now, there are places that are closer, New Frontiers, closer, more things that line up with what Jesus has asked us to be as a family with what we believe in the Bible and how we live that out in terms of values, but it does not exist.

Paull is really saying that The Network’s biblical accuracy is better than anything else “on this earth.” I encourage you to hit play on the clip, because Paull’s inflections actually make it much clearer that he’s saying this than just the raw text.

Inerrancy

Okay, so moving on Bible inerrancy. It says in Systematic on page 90, that in the original manuscripts, or sorry, the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. And so we believe that everything in the Bible everything that God reveals to us in the Bible is true.

Williams does not wrestle at all with the implications that only the original manuscripts were inerrant. With great humility, I present a few thoughts on the matter. Please understand that I am not a Bible scholar or professional theologian, and neither is any pastor in The Network as far as I’m aware (having a degree doesn’t make you a scholar in that field). But I’ve wrestled a lot with all of this over the last year or two. Feel free to skip, and just note that Williams presents an overly simplified view of inerrancy that fails to wrestle with a lot of complicating factors.

The text being inerrant only matters if we apply it properly, which means we need the following five things to happen.

1. Original manuscripts contain no factual errors:

This is the doctrine of inerrancy, called “verbal plenary inspiration” by Grudem and others. That article is super technical and I haven’t read the whole thing.

2. Existing manuscripts are reliable enough to not change the meaning

Any time your Bible has a footnote that says “some manuscripts say”, it means that there is doubt. For example, the story of the woman caught in adultery has a giant tag around it in the ESV saying that it was likely not part of the original. The events of Abraham happened 1500 years before the earliest manuscripts we have.

3. Translation of the manuscripts captures the meaning well

Translation is difficult. Exact, word-for-word translations do not exist, despite what you might have been told about the ESV. Even Grudem in the above article calls the ESV method “essentially literal” and puts “word-for-word” in scare quotes. Even the ESV, published in 2001 originally, was revised in 2006, 2011, and 2016, and it will need future revisions. Some words in ancient Greek or Hebrew don’t even exist in English. And some are ambiguous. The work of translators is very, very difficult, and rarely exact. Examples:

In much of ancient hebrew, the word “wife” doesn’t exist. It’s just “woman.” Any time in Genesis you see the word wife, it’s the translators making an assumption.
Greek doesn’t require as many pronouns as English, so in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, where there are eight masculine “he/his” pronouns in the ESV, there are exactly zero in the ancient greek. The only masculine word in the passage is “husband.” James Pruch writes about it here. You can disagree with his conclusions, but his descriptions of the Greek are not controversial. Marg Mowczko writes even more about it here.
Just an example of the problems, Luke 4:13 in your ESV says “And when the devil had ended every temptation.” In Greek, it’s “kai synteleō pas peirasmos.” That’s it. Four words. An teh first one (kai) is “and”. The other seven words are derived from just three words in the greek.
The word “adelphos” (transliterated) in Greek can mean “brothers” (all male) or “brothers and sisters” (male and female). Both are perfectly legal, so which one is right in which circumstances. The ESV only uses “and sisters” when context indicates that there are women present. Other translations like the NIV generally use “brothers and sisters” except when it’s clear that no women are present. On ambiguous cases, these two translations disagree, not because of unfaithfulness to the text, but because the original Greek itself is ambiguous.
Phoebe (Romans 16:1) is a “Deacon” in some translations, and a “Servant” in others. The ESV chooses “servant”, even though the Greek word is the exact same word used in 1 Timothy 3 to talk about deacons, because the translators of the ESV believe that women cannot be deacons. The NIV uses “deacon”, and the CEB uses “servant” both in Romans 16 and in 1 Timothy 3, doing away with the English word “deacon” entirely. Which is “right?” Bible scholars disagree. But your Bible doesn’t include all of this extra information every time a word like this is used. Sometimes there’s a footnote (the ESV has one for “or servant” regarding Phoebe). But sometimes there is not.

This is why most biblical scholars and many pastors learn Greek and Hebrew, and why many people recommend never just using one translation for your studies. Unfortunately, the Network has adopted a near completely “ESV-only” culture, when a much more prudent view would recommend looking to a number of translations so that you at least are aware of where the translators disagree.

One last note here - Grudem was a key figure in the creation of the ESV. You can read more about the ESV’s origins in this article by Beth Allison Barr. He is also general editor of the ESV Study Bible. You cannot use the ESV to determine whether or not Grudem’s Systematic Theology is accurately interpretation of the Bible. It’s like asking Grudem if he agrees with himself.

4. The reader’s understanding of the translation is accurate

“Mary had a little lamb.”

What are you thinking about right now? Probably a woman (or girl?), standing next to a cute little lamb. But let’s consider some alternate meanings, drawn out by simply emphasizing different words. All of these meanings are reasonable, without context.

“Mary had a little lamb.” This is perhaps answering the question, “Did anyone ever have any pets?”
“Mary had a little lamb.” Perhaps followed by, “but she had to sell it.”
“Mary had a little lamb.” Perhaps answering, “How many pets did Mary have?”
“Mary had a little lamb.” What kind of lamb did Mary have?
“Mary had a little lamb.” What kind of pet does Mary have?

And finally, there’s the much darker alternate meaning, which answer’s the question, “What did Mary have for dinner?” (A little lamb, and it was delicious). You can probably come up with more meanings if you try.

Comical? Yes. I got this example from a college professor who was talking about how to write clearly. But it’s incredibly important as your read the Bible to ask yourself what question is being answered. This is not to say that we can’t understand the truth. It just means that we, as humans, are constantly misinterpreting each other, even when we think we are being clear. You’ve probably already misinterpreted something I’ve said, and I’m hyper-vigilent about being misunderstood (thus I write too many words).

And you can do this with verses in the Bible as well. Most of the time, context makes it reasonably clear, or we can find enough corroborating verses to get a good sense of what it all says when put together. But sometimes, the meaning is tricky. For example, John Piper wrestles with 1 Timothy 2:15 (“Yet she will be saved through childbearing”). Does that mean “by the process of childbearing, she will be saved?” Or does that mean “she will be protected and saved as she goes through the dangerous process of childbearing?” The grammar works either way. Similarly, “That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” (1 Cor 11:10). If you can figure out "what “symbol of authority on her head” or “because of the angels” mean, conclusively, then write a book and lots of people will buy it. Again - much of scripture is easier to understand than this, but there are degrees of certainty and we need to be careful.

5. And then we apply it correctly

And then finally, do we actually apply that understanding correctly. “Love your neighbor” is easy to understand. How do you apply it? Again - this isn’t to say that “there is no truth.” I’m just saying that there’s always nuance, and just saying it’s “clear” over and over does not mean that every single situation is obviously and easily resolved by an easily understood verse.

In summary

In Psalm 1, the Psalmist says that the man is blessed whose “… delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” There’s an implied studying, thinking, mulling over. Not a one-time read and saying “ok, I got it all and know what to do.”

Inerrancy only implies the original manuscripts, and not even Grudem takes it farther than that. The remaining are all works of people, and are fallible. I’m not saying this means we can’t trust the Bible. I am saying that when “inerrancy” becomes inerrancy of the teacher’s interpretation, not inerrancy of the original text, that’s dangerous.

Williams instead, throughout this training, expresses little doubt or humility, and does not arm the listener with any of the above information. He spends a grand total of two minutes and ten seconds talking about inerrancy, which is maybe the most important question as we decide how to interpret the Bible. If we do not believe in inerrancy, we can throw out any part of the Bible we want. If we believe in the inerrancy of The Network’s interpretation, then we are in danger of following man, and not God.

Spiritual condition, not intellectual ability

(@ 42:05) I love it in Christian beliefs on page 16, it says "a proper understanding of Scripture is often more the result of an individual spiritual condition than his or her intellectual ability." What do you guys think as you read that? You believe that? That is we turn to the Bible, our understanding it, our delighting in it is more a reflection of our spiritual condition, and not a reflection on the power or the authority of Scripture.

Quoting Christian Beliefs, Williams drives another important point: if you don’t understand the Bible, the problem must just be that you are spiritually unhealthy. He actually repeats Grudem, but finishes the statement differently.

This is called “dismantling”, and he (and Grudem) are basically saying, “if you don’t understand the Bible the way they say to understand it, the problem is you. Don’t trust yourself.” Again - this is dangerous. It’s similar to churches that might say “the heart is deceitful above all things,” as a way of downplaying emotions, or “lean not on your own understanding” or “never be wise in your own sight” to get you to doubt your mind.

If you get someone to doubt their own mind, it should be obvious that you can then have them believe almost anything you want. These are tactics of high-control groups, according to Dr. Steven Hassan.

Sufficiency

(@ 57:14) Bible sufficiency. And then I'm I really got to pick up the pace here, page 175. And systematic, says "the Bible contained all the words of God, he intended as people to have each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of God, we need for salvation for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly. The Bible is sufficient and contains everything God wants us to know. And in no way are we supposed to add to it or take away from it."

Williams then talks about the sufficiency of Scripture, but not in nearly enough depth. Sufficiency of scripture is a prime doctrine that The Network denies by their actions. They have a constant view of needing visions or “Holy Spirit nudges”, which are not in line with the sufficiency of scripture. This doctrine says that the Bible is enough to “obey [God] perfectly”. You *do not* need “Jesus leading” to figure out the right course of action.

While I was in The Network, myself and many others would spend so much more time “getting prayer” for some decision, rather than going to the Bible to seek God’s Wisdom. We would say we need the “Holy Spirit leading.” But the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible. The Holy Spirit is already leading, through the written words of scripture. Additionally, Tim Keller (I think it was Keller, I can’t find the quote) says something like, “Without the Psalms, we wouldn’t understand the Lord’s Prayer, and without the Proverbs, we wouldn’t understand the ten commandments.” I recently reviewed the small group discussion topic list, and suggested passages. There are exactly zero from the book of Proverbs, which is given by God to help us know how to act wisely in all manner of situations. The Network focuses too narrowly on specific areas of The Bible, and insufficiently on others, which keeps people in a perpetual state of waiting for “God to lead,” rather than doing as the Proverbs say: “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.” (Proverbs 4:7).

I find some of his views problematic now, but I found Kevin DeYoung’s books “Just Do Something” and “Taking God at His Word” to be truly helpful in learning to turn to scripture more.

Of course - the Holy Spirit can lead. Absolutely. But we should not require that in order to move forward with our lives, and we see the apostles consistently just doing what seems best to them based on what they know. Sometimes they get a miraculous intervention. But much of the time they do not. I’d say it this way: It’s right to give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to speak. But if you hear nothing, don’t get stuck, proceed believing that you already have what you need in the Bible.

Fears of persecution

(@ 1:02:09) I wonder sometimes, and Julia and I have talked about this at times, like, what are we going to do if there's things that the Bible says really clearly where we would say it in truth, but with love, and even if we do it compassionately, it would be considered hate speech, to believe the Bible. I mean, we've talked and we've actually, Julia, and I've had conversations of what happens if I end up going to jail someday, for teaching the Bible, are we willing?

This is meant to sound brave, but we live in a country where this has not happened, and in fact the Supreme Court has been deciding in favor of religious freedom over and over and over. David French talks in this episode of The Holy Post (I think) about a long-running win streak for religious freedom at the Supreme Court.

There’s just no need for this type of language, especially in a Network that frequently labels fear and anxiety as sin. A sermon I have by Alex Dieckmann (Lead Pastor at Rock River Church in San Marcos, Texas) actually specifically says that people are doing the wrong thing to be scaring themselves with news about COVID (Fall 2020).

Science

The Hubble Space Telescope

(@ 1:10:56) One of the things that again, I love to nerd out over this stuff. If you guys if guys are like me in this, YouTube, the power of 10 it is the cheesiest, like it's a National Geographic 15 minute segment, where they zoom in the power of 10 It's this like 1970s 80s video, this cheesy couple hanging out in the park and they're having a picnic and zooms in the power of 10 on the guy's skin and then it goes beyond his skin and keep zooming in by the power of 10 And you understand the complexity of the human body. Zooms out goes back to the cheesy scene, I think they're having wine and cheese and a little picnic, and then it zooms out by the power of 10. And at the time it shows the furthest picture we had of earth from the Hubble, the Hubble telescope. It's just this teeny little dot in this ray of sunshine. And it gives you perspective of what God has created where the effect it's supposed to have is. There's a design to this where it's not just accidental.

Williams again tries to use external support, and says that he loves to “nerd out over this stuff.” Remember, Cal Poly is the local university, and is a revered engineering school. The ability to “speak nerd” would be a tremendous asset in reaching out to them, which may be why he drops in these references. Unfortunately, Williams doesn’t actually “speak nerd” well.

The video referenced is here, and it’s from 1977, produced by “Charles and Ray Eames” for IBM. It zooms out and then in, not in and then out, but whatever. That reference to Hubble is the one I want to point out. First, the Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990. It literally didn’t exist yet (From wikipedia, it looks like it might have been in production). Second, the Hubble orbits the earth at a height of roughly 334 miles (the Earth is over 8,000 miles across). The Hubble is literally incapable of taking a photo of the entire earth – it’s too close (it can see less than half of the diameter of earth from its altitude), and moving around the earth too fast to fix on a single target to take a photo of. This article does a great job of debunking a different fake photo from Hubble, but then actually includes photos the Hubble took of earth which are kind of interesting, but obviously not what Williams is talking about. If he truly loved to “nerd out over this stuff”, he’d almost certainly cite a more recent source (in fact, the 1977 view of the universe wasn’t informed by the absolutely game-changing discoveries that were made by Hubble in the 90’s). And it’s not the only example, but even at the time, the famous photo “Earthrise” had been taken in 1968, taken by Bill Anders from at least 200,000 miles away as Apollo 8 was coming around from the far side of the moon.

The springs of the sea

(@ 1:14:39)[Quoting Job 38] “Have you entered into the springs of the sea?" Which is describing like, gosh, what's that? What's the deepest part of the sea? What's that called again? Yes, and it's like five miles deep or something like that. That's what it's referring to. "Job have you swam down there?"

A few minutes after the Hubble example, Williams says that the “springs of the sea” are referring to the Marianas Trench. Two big problems:

There were no submarines. Ancient Hebrew people had absolutely no idea how deep the ocean was.
The Marianas Trench is in the Pacific Ocean, south of Japan, not too far from Guam. Ancient Hebrew people had no idea the Pacific Ocean even existed, and might not have even known about the Indian Ocean. The Mediterranean Sea might have been the largest body of water they were familiar with.

This article on cosmology of the ancient Hebrews is interesting, though I can’t vouch for its accuracy. The “fountains of the deep” are labeled on a diagram about half-way down the article.

Why does this matter?

Why does this even matter? I’m being too harsh, right? I don’t think I am. The issue here is that Williams shows zero uncertainty as he relays this information. He says that “that’s what it’s referring to” about the Marianas Trench. He’s incredibly confident sounding. And completely wrong. My point is that Williams, again, either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that he’s not dealing with proper information. He’s convinced of what he’s saying. This is a common pattern in the teaching of leaders of The Network, where they will claim things quite confidently, and without any shred of uncertainty to them, when in fact some humility would go a very, very long way, especially as they get out of their field.

What else is he confident about but wrong? If this is how wrong he is about stuff he “nerds out” over, and is comfortable bringing into a membership training, is he any more right about his teaching of the Bible?

Capital W

(@ 1:22:47) "In the beginning was the Word," and you'll notice it's capital ‘W’ word.

We get an example of this type of confident error in his understanding of the Bible just a few minutes later. Greek didn’t use capitals or lowercase at the time. The capitalization is added by the translators as they believe it’s a better rendering into English. Using BibleHub, it looks like this is a universal or near-universal rendering, but again, Williams is potentially implying that the original Greek uses a capital letter, like this capital is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but it literally cannot be.

Williams is playing the role of Bible professor, except he has insufficient training to do so.

Marriage as Analogy for the Trinity

(@ 1:25:38) And the Old Testament and the New Testament alike says there is one God, three persons. And some people try and use all sorts of I don't know cheesy, weird Christian Christian analogies to make sense of this because if you've ever heard any of those. [inaudible] Okay, there we go. Ice, water. Egg, that's the one I've heard most common. "Trinity is like an egg." You're like, "God's like an egg?" It's like, "Oh, that doesn't sound too cool." You know, you get the shell, the yolk and the white. [laughter] And I don't know which part's which. But sometimes we kind of try to try and understand this mysterious doctrine. And we kind of oversimplify it, which I don't think is helpful. I actually think the most helpful way to understand this is kind of how the Bible talks about marriage, where it's two people become one flesh, and it's very specific in language, one flesh, but yet two distinct people, two people that are equal in value in the eyes of God, and yet God sees them as one person for married couple. Julia and I, God sees one person, [couple's names] numero uno, one person, right? But yet two distinct people. And it's mysterious, but it's maybe a helpful way to understand this.

The Trinity

Ok, I want to tread delicately here, as I am not a Bible scholar or theologian. I’ve heavily sourced this section with external links so that you can research for yourself, and not take my word for it.

Before I continue, here is an article where a Roman Catholic writer attempts to make the case Williams is making. I was unable to find any significant protestant support for use of this analogy.

The view of marriage as the best analogy for the Trinity does not appear to be a commonly held view. The Trinity is one, not because of “very close agreement” among the members, or a particular closeness, but because they truly share the same “substance” or “essence”.

My best guess is that Williams here is overextending even what Wayne Grudem has written on the subject of eternal subordination of the son (ESS). Grudem uses the relationship of the Father and the Son as an analogy for the relationship of husband and wife. The validity of that is a topic for the future, but relevant here is the difference:

Grudem says that an aspect (subordination of the son) of the Trinity helps us understand an aspect of how marriage should work (submission of wives)
Williams says that marriage serves as the best analogy for the oneness of the trinity.

Williams’ argument is kind of like saying that, because people described Michael Jordan as “flying” through the air, that the best way to understand flight is by watching Michael Jordan. In this case, he’s saying, because the Bible describes marriage as “one flesh” that the best way to understand the unity of the trinity is by looking at marriage. In reality, the unity of the trinity goes far beyond anything marriage can do, in the same way that the flight of an eagle goes far beyond what Michael Jordan could do.

This article on how Grudem himself has had to correct some of his views of the Trinity may be helpful.

Marg Mowczko addresses the concept here (and touches on complementarianism as well, which I’ll come back to in the future). Item 4 in her discussion is particularly interesting.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge that nowhere in scripture does it suggest, or even hint, that the relationships between the members of the Godhead are an illustration of the marriage relationship. While both men and women are made in the image of God, I simply cannot see that a case can be made to use any of the relationships within the Trinity as a model for marriage. It is a concern when people believe husbands are somehow analogous to God the Father, and wives are somehow analogous to Jesus Christ or, occasionally, the Holy Spirit.

Mowczko is specifically addressing it from the other way here. She’s asking, “is the Trinity a model for marriage,” but I believe the argument holds the other way – namely, the Bible never says that marriage is a model for the Trinity. It says that marriage is analogous to Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5), but not to any two members of the godhead. Like I noted about Grudem above, this view that the Trinity is a good model for marriage is somewhat common among complementarians (I’ll come back to it at some point later), but the opposite view is rare. That is, there are those who say that a marriage should aspire to function like the Trinity as much as possible, but there are few who say that marriage is given as a picture of the trinity.

The Trinity is mysterious precisely because we do not have good analogs for it in our world, and it’s best not to try. The three persons of the Trinity truly share an essence of some kind and are therefore truly “one”, not just “agreed”, but also exist as distinct members. A husband and wife never share the same essence or soul. They do not share the same DNA. The Trinity is not one simply because others perceive it to be one. But rather, it’s one because the three members of the Godhead truly share an essence, and it’s three because they are truly three persons. Pastor Justin Deeter (with a PhD in Historical Theology) wrote a helpful post that defines the heresies of Arianism, Modalism, and Tritheism. I love how Deeter closes:

The trinity is a mystery that cannot be fully comprehended. The trinity is not a contradiction, but a paradox. God is much bigger and much greater than we can understand, and to be honest, I'm ok with that. The teaching of the trinity is clearly taught in Scripture and must be preserved as such. Here many of the creeds help us in clearly articulating the trinity.
In the words of the Athanasian Creed:
we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.

Numero Uno

One final, much less significant issue: Williams’ use of “numero uno” here is also just strange. It’s typically used as meaning something like “the best” or “oneself.” Williams uses it to mean “one person”, which is just not how that phrase is used.

Relative Truth

(@ 1:43:53) But we've seen this, this view of relative truth just taken to extremes, not only with gender confusion, in our culture, and people trying to define how they think about that. I was watching or in other areas, I was watching a documentary recently about this guy who has modified his body to an extreme where he believes he's supposed to be a cat. But he actually believes I was made to be a cat, but unfortunately, it was born a human man. And so he spent thousands and thousands of dollars to modify his body to try and look like a cat. He's even contemplated surgeries of trying to change the position of his hips, so that he could try and walk on all fours like a cat. And our culture just says, "Oh, if you think you're a cat, well, then you must be a cat." And we might look at extreme examples like that and say, "oh, so heartbreaking." It's not how it's supposed to be. It leads to brokenness.

Williams uses a straw man argument here, and maybe a slippery slope, too. Stalking Cat (born: Dennis Avner) was a man who truly did want to change his appearance to become that of a tiger. He died by suicide at the age of 54 in 2012.

Contrary to Williams’ statement that “our culture” affirms his decision, we see this on Wikipedia:

Glenn McGee, director of the Center for Bioethics at Albany Medical College in New York, said: "Cosmetic surgery is a practice based on informed consent that needs to balance the risks with the benefits. It is possible to have a coherent view that is nonetheless detrimental to one's well-being. This is a patient who's being harmed by medicine in the interest of his tradition."[7]

Like the earlier example with Andy Stanley, Williams asserts that some view is popular, but that Vista Church stands against it. And like that earlier example, the view that he is trying to stand against is actually not that popular.

Williams is using this right after raising “gender confusion.” It appears that, rather than take on transgenderism itself, he goes after a much more extreme example. And transgenderism is categorically different than someone believing they are a cat. In fact, Christians have great rationale for why:

Changing gender from one to another maintains the person’s status as human (image bearer) while changing an attribute (gender).
Changing species from human to non-human is to deny being an image bearer entirely.

He’s going for the most extreme example he can find, and then using that to say “culture says”, when they actually don’t, in order to cast suspicions on transgenderism.

And I say all of that without saying anything on the ethics of transgenderism. I’m just saying that Williams’ logic here is categorically misrepresenting the nature of transgenderism, and harmfully so, casting them as doing something that they are not. While Stalking Cat undoubtedly had friends and people who supported him, it’s wrong to use his choices to discuss the transgender community. From what I have seen, most trans individuals would be highly offended at Williams’ example, in the same way that those in the homosexual community are very upset when someone compares homosexuality to pedophilia or beastiality (in both cases, most homosexual individuals strongly disapprove, on the grounds that the other party is unable consent). On a different side, most people who are against the use or teaching of Critical Race Theory would be very upset if someone said that they were basically KKK members. One can disagree with someone’s lifestyle and choices without making comparisons to much more extreme lifestyles and choices.

Transgenderism is an important issue of our time, with real people, real lives behind the it, just like with abortion, racism, or any number of other hot issues. We owe those people better than to reduce them to a caricature of their beliefs.

Why does it matter? Well beyond the human impacts of this, it’s one more example of Williams insisting on disagreeing with an exaggerated view of those he’s disagreeing with. I saw him do this with me multiple times, notably by saying that my view that women were not being sufficiently being discipled was a view that the leaders were “sexist”, and my view that we could be more active on racial injustice was a view that the leaders are “racist.” I neither used nor believed either word at the time. Given more recent stories, I now think it’s fair to attribute the leaders with misogyny, but “racist” is still a very loaded term. I’d be much more comfortable with simply saying that The Network leaders fail to grapple with racism in the ways that they should, and they have (perhaps unconscious) racial biases. Both of these are supported by the data on leadership demographics I’ve published.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, I ask that as we go through this, I thank you for these seven weeks for us to turn to your Bible week after week after week. And, Lord, I know that if we're going to really grow the way that you intend or hope, I ask, Holy Spirit, would you be working in us over these next seven weeks? Guys I just, I wondered what it would be like for us if each of us over these next seven weeks, were really intentional to be going to God in the Bible, and reading the Bible over these next seven weeks or even if there's stuff for you would say, "I want more of that," like us praying and seeking Jesus in it. Would you do that Lord, would you deepen us? We don't want just to grow in head knowledge we want all that you have to offer. All of the wonderful claims in the Bible. You're so good to us. We thank you for truth we thank you that really is like a like a light to our feet that as we walk through this life, we wouldn't fall in the halls or trip or stumble but you'd show us like the safe path to walk on. Lord, have your way in all of us. Holy Spirit, I just ask you'd continue to work in all of us, Lord. Draw us to you. We love what you do. I pray your blessing over every person here. Deepen us, grow us. I pray, Lord, as we continue through this and we look at other doctrines that may be challenging or hard for us to grasp, I pray that you would work among us Lord, deepen us. We love you, Jesus. I thank you that you're with us.
And Lord, I pray too even would you challenge us over this next week to be attentive to people around us. Could we be on mission for you? I even asked you for me personally, Jesus, could I wake up tomorrow saying, "okay, Father, what are you doing today? Who are you working in?" Challenge us to live for you. Oh, there's such hope in you. Remind us again, that you save people where there's real delight and joy in you. Could I ask Jesus over this next year could each of us see a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor, a family member saved, where it would remind us of how you pursue people? Would you work among us Lord? Use our really really small efforts as they serve you, would you use them Lord? Love you, I pray as many days you give us learn let them be used to honor you. Love you Jesus, thank you that you're with us. Amen. Amen.

I want to make two notes, but I first want to remind you that within the last 30 minutes, Williams taught on the Trinity and the individual members of it.

Where is the Father?

Williams only mentions the Father once, and it’s in a scripted prayer that others should pray. He doesn’t actually pray to the Father once in this entire prayer (possible but unlikely explanation below). This is problematic, because Jesus literally taught his disciples how to pray:

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Jesus instructs us to pray to the father. John Piper says on Desiring God that we are to “Pray to the Father in the power of the Spirit, in the name or by the authority and the merit of the Son. That is the Bible’s trinitarian prayer structure.” He allows for and cites scripture for praying to Jesus and the Holy Spirit as well, but says that the Father is to be the most common member we pray to. He concludes with this:

So my conclusion is: Let your normal, regular praying be prayer to the Father through the Spirit in the name of Jesus, but realize that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are persons and to speak to them as a saved sinner would, cannot be unnatural.

I have issues with some other things Piper teaches, but on this he’s certainly right in line with many if not most evangelical theologians might say. Neglecting the Father in prayer entirely is certainly not Biblical.

Holy Spirit… Lord

Ok, I’ll be honest, this one’s a bit personal for me. In fall 2020, Williams accused me of wanting to control things, because I’d asked a question about what someone meant in a small group leader meeting. In an attempt to demonstrate that I did not need to bring up everything, I brought up “For example, I’m not sure you get the members of the trinity right when you pray.” I prefaced it with a lot of “I haven’t even really looked into it, because I don’t care, and I’m bringing this up to show you the sorts of things that I would never bring up.” The following 30+ minutes was Williams being angry at me for having brought it up, and having even noticed what he was praying. He thought it was nitpicky. He said the fact that I would notice was going to make him super self-concious. I kept trying over and over to tell him that I didn’t care and didn’t even know if he was right, and that I’d even intentionally not really researched it.

A mature pastor would have responded with one of two answers:

Teaching: Why didn’t you ask? I’ve actually spent a lot of time looking at it, and would love to walk you through what I’ve seen, and maybe there’s still something I’ve missed. The Trinity matters, especially for small group leaders to model to their groups in prayer, so I wish you’d just asked, Jeff. He might have even actually engaged a conversation about if there was anything he was doing that made me afraid to ask.
Learning: Oh really? Wow, I don’t want to get that wrong, that’d be a big deal. Why didn’t you tell me? What have you noticed? I gotta clean that up if I’m off on it. Again, he might have engaged a conversation about why I didn’t feel comfortable talking to him about it.

But instead he attacked me for even noticing how he’s praying, with no defense that he was doing it right, or even statement that it was something he had a good understanding. He refused to back off despite me repeatedly saying that I didn’t know and didn’t care (for the record, I should have known, and I should have cared).

So imagine my shock when I looked at Williams’ prayer here, and in addition to not even seeing the Father prayed to once, Williams only mentions the Holy Spirit twice (it’s worth noting, it’s the Holy Spirit that is with us each day, and leads us, and guides us, and empowers us).

“And, Lord, I know that if we're going to really grow the way that you intend or hope, I ask, Holy Spirit, would you be working in us over these next seven weeks?”

I’d probably address the first part to Father, not “Lord” (a title Williams uses typically for Jesus). But the Holy Spirit reference is good, that’s the sort of work that the Holy Spirit does.

Then we have this:

Holy Spirit, I just ask you'd continue to work in all of us, Lord.

I’ve listened to the audio over and over, and while the lead-in is quick, I’m confident that this is the accurate transcription of what he’s saying. He calls the Holy Spirit “Lord”, almost casually, just dropping “Lord” in at the end of the sentence almost as a filler word. That’s pretty common among evangelicals - adding in words like “Lord” or “just” all over the place. It’s not good practice, and Jesus teaches to not “heap up empty phrases”, but he’s not alone. But in this case, he applies the “Lord” name to the Holy Spirit, and if Williams exclusively uses the title “Lord” for Jesus, is just flat out incorrect.

This article states that “Lord” is a valid title for the Holy Spirit, but I’d argue that The Network simply does not use it that way, nor does Williams teach it that way.

One Possibility

I suppose it’s possible that Williams uses the word “Lord” interchangeably between all three members of the Trinity, though I certainly never understood it that way and don’t recall ever hearing this taught in the Network.

Why it matters

This is where the lack of humility by the pastors is so damaging. Williams attacked me (and I don’t use that word lightly) in one of the most confusing conversations I’ve ever had, for even hypothesizing that he might get the members of the trinity wrong when he prays. If he meant something different, he could have explained it, and I would have learned something. If my view was commonly held, he could have retaught it on a Sunday. If he was mistaken, he could have fixed it.

Instead, I walked away fearing asking more questions, he walked away (he says) more self-conscious, and so I guess we both just walked away learning nothing other than to be more afraid of each other.

Summary

There’s a lot more in this teaching, and I’ll be on the reddit to see any further observations others have!

Celeste Irwin