Join Lucas Kitchen and Shawn Lazar as they talk about a topic that has sparked many debates - repentance. As they navigate through a recent Bible study experience at Lucas's sister-in-law's house, they candidly discuss the nuanced differences within the free grace community regarding repentance. But it's not just about theology; they touch upon the real-world challenges faced by support-based ministries and the often-unspoken concerns about expressing views that may not align with supporters. This is a candid, thought-provoking conversation you won't want to miss.

Transcript

Shawn Lazar:
You can't do theology without talking about theology. And I live in, even though I live in Denton, which is kind of a suburb of Dallas, you live in East Texas, about two and a half hours away

Lucas Kitchen:
Yep.

Shawn Lazar:
in Longview. So we see each other maybe about once a month, but we talk on the phone every day,

Lucas Kitchen:
Everyday.

Shawn Lazar:
right? Pretty much every day for at least an hour, if not more.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, that's true.

Shawn Lazar:
So it's like, and we're hashing out things, we're hashing out ideas, we're running arguments past each other. And this morning actually, you suggested, why don't we just record, why don't we record this? Why don't we record these conversations? Because

Lucas Kitchen:
And maybe we

Shawn Lazar:
people

Lucas Kitchen:
should

Shawn Lazar:
might

Lucas Kitchen:
have a

Shawn Lazar:
find

Lucas Kitchen:
title

Shawn Lazar:
them helpful.

Lucas Kitchen:
for it. I mean, like, what would we call it? It's like theology conversations or something.

Shawn Lazar:
hashing out grace, you know, the

Lucas Kitchen:
What if we called it hash browns?

Shawn Lazar:
hash browns, yeah, the… What's that? What is that? Have you ever seen that meat in the can that's supposed to go with breakfast? What is that called?

Lucas Kitchen:
Spam?

Shawn Lazar:
Are you up on your canned beef? It's like canned

Lucas Kitchen:
Are you?

Shawn Lazar:
meats? Not really, I wish I was. But

Lucas Kitchen:
Really?

Shawn Lazar:
whatever it is, what we're doing, it's that. Not spam though, not spam.

Lucas Kitchen:
So your aspiration in life is to be up on canned meats.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
Okay

Shawn Lazar:
I'm really into

Lucas Kitchen:
well,

Shawn Lazar:
canned meats

Lucas Kitchen:
you

Shawn Lazar:
lately.

Lucas Kitchen:
can do anything you set your mind to, I've heard.

Shawn Lazar:
So we hash out theology, we discuss theology together. Like this morning, we were talking about repentance.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, so let me just paint the scene here. So we're doing Bible study, and this week we do a small group Bible study in my sister-in-law's house. And we come to a verse about repentance. Now, I knew this was a… this verse is a bit of a bear trap. Okay, so we're free grace. We're in the free grace group. But even within free grace, there's disagreement about what repentance means, you know? And so you can be… You can have an acceptable view of it in one like half of the circle of free grace folks and that one doesn't Agree with the other half and so on so forth. So even within free grace, there's like there's a there's a distance between certain terms and certain definitions and so So yeah, Sean, what's your I mean, like what's your take on repentance? Where do you land

Shawn Lazar:
Well,

Lucas Kitchen:
on that?

Shawn Lazar:
I think the first I look, it's interesting that you say it's a bear trap. Okay. So what does it mean that it's a bear trap?

Lucas Kitchen:
I'll tell you what it means, it means you're not going to answer this question directly.

Shawn Lazar:
No,

Lucas Kitchen:
That's what I'm sensing.

Shawn Lazar:
I am gonna answer it, but I want to set the tone and maybe kind of explain to people that maybe our tone is a little bit different than other people's.

Lucas Kitchen:
Okay.

Shawn Lazar:
For some people, it's a bear trap. So that makes someone a bear. I don't know who's the bear. But

Lucas Kitchen:
Well, the bear's whoever steps in it, so

Shawn Lazar:
yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
don't be a bear.

Shawn Lazar:
So the bear trap is, I'm understanding you as saying… This isn't just some, for some people, it's not just something you disagree on. It's huge. It's really, it's pivotal, right? And if you and I end up coming on different sides of the repentance debate, I don't know that it's gonna be all that pivotal for us necessarily, not

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
in that issue all by itself.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, probably not.

Shawn Lazar:
So it's not, I guess to me, I was thinking, I'm not scared of… I don't know, I'm not scared of whatever the answer is. It doesn't really bother me, I'm interested, but I'm not super duper bothered by a position a

Lucas Kitchen:
Oh

Shawn Lazar:
person

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah,

Shawn Lazar:
takes.

Lucas Kitchen:
let's be honest about what actually scares us. I mean, I'm not scared of the answer. I'm a human and we're in a support-based ministry and so what's easy to be scared about is how it affects our bottom line, right? I mean,

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
we have supporters and if we say things that disagree with our supporters, for instance, then it affects the support we get. And… You know, that's one of those kind of under the hood things that people maybe don't want to hear about or know about, but I'm just going to tell you, it affects anybody that's in a support-based ministry to think at

Shawn Lazar:
Oh

Lucas Kitchen:
least

Shawn Lazar:
yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
a little bit about what do my supporters think about what I'm saying.

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
And I don't want to be that way. I mean, like for me,

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
I want to be I want to be honest and truthful no matter what the consequences, seeking the truth, you know. But that's what I found myself in this week in Bible study is the word comes to mind navigating. I'm navigating

Shawn Lazar:
Hmm.

Lucas Kitchen:
even

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
in the discussion. You know I'm navigating. I literally told them hey I don't want to tell you where I land on this issue. So what I did is I've just presented the two different kind of perspectives and I was like I don't want to I don't actually want to say where I land. And I'm thinking. Is this not an unhealthy situation that we've gotten ourselves into? If

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
this is how we're having to navigate through the Bible, then ultimately it hurts those that are listening to us, if that's what we're doing.

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
And I'm not saying that particular Bible study hurt anybody, I just mean that posture, I don't know that posture is healthy for us.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah, yeah, I agree 100%. And I mean, the thing is that people might know this, there are two main views, you know, the view that repentance always means a change of mind. And the other view that says repentance always means a change of behavior. Those seem to be the two big views in free grace. And there are people who are like, you know, they believe one side and not only do they believe it, but it's like you know, it's a fellowship breaking issue for them. So if you disagree on that issue with them, then you'll probably lose your support.

Lucas Kitchen:
But it's safe

Shawn Lazar:
Whereas

Lucas Kitchen:
to

Shawn Lazar:
you

Lucas Kitchen:
say,

Shawn Lazar:
might gain support from the

Lucas Kitchen:
you

Shawn Lazar:
other

Lucas Kitchen:
might get

Shawn Lazar:
side

Lucas Kitchen:
supports

Shawn Lazar:
who are like.

Lucas Kitchen:
from others, but it's safe to say that that's not our mentality on this

Shawn Lazar:
No,

Lucas Kitchen:
particular subject.

Shawn Lazar:
not really, no. I mean, so you and I were talking this morning about, and this is one of these areas where I'm so glad that we're working together, because we're so like-minded. We both asked, I mean, Kent, isn't it possible that this word, like every other word, might mean different things in different contexts? And so isn't it possible it could be change of mind in some verses and… It could be a change of behavior in other verses and it might mean something else in other verses. Isn't that at least possible? Not a lot of people, I mean I don't know of a single book or a single article in the free grace world where a person has taken that perspective, but I kind of took a poll this morning and there were some people who kind of came out and said, well, yeah, that's kind of what I thought. It depends on the context. So But you and I have not done a complete study of this word, right? I mean, I haven't done a total study.

Lucas Kitchen:
You know, over the years, so what I'll do is I'll pull up all the instances in the New Testament. I've done this a few times and I'll just kind of look through them and read them. That's about the level that I have.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
So I haven't gone past reading just the context and the word, but I've definitely done that. And for me, you know, what I've noticed is just the wide difference in… Okay, so I think of it this way. If you were to take this verse and you were to mark out the word repent or repentance

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
and then tell a person, guess from the context what that missing word would mean.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
Because that's in a sense what we're kind of asking is like, let's pretend like we don't know what this word means. What would it mean by the context? A lot

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
of Bible study, that's actually what we're doing. And so if you do that, depending on which verse you go to, you would get a really different answer. And

Shawn Lazar:
I think so, yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
sometimes they fall into the same category. Sometimes, I mean, it feels like there's like a range of categories that they fall into.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah, yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
I hear the pages of your Bible turn, and what

Shawn Lazar:
and

Lucas Kitchen:
do you

Shawn Lazar:
I

Lucas Kitchen:
get?

Shawn Lazar:
have my Bible open just in case we go to it,

Lucas Kitchen:
Just

Shawn Lazar:
and

Lucas Kitchen:
in case.

Shawn Lazar:
I assume that we are. I think that we are going to go to it. But yeah, I mean, when you look at these verses in context, it's really hard to say that they fit. Every verse fits the same definition. I personally, I just don't see it. I don't see it. And I'll give you two examples. and to anyone listening, I'll give you two examples. We talked about these this morning. In Acts 26 verse 20, it says, Paul's talking about his obedience to the heavenly vision and he's telling King Agrippa, like kind of summarizing his preaching. And he says, to the Gentiles, what he preached was that they should repent and turn to God. and do deeds consistent with repentance.

Lucas Kitchen:
My translation

Shawn Lazar:
So.

Lucas Kitchen:
says demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.

Shawn Lazar:
demonstrate their repentance by their

Lucas Kitchen:
But

Shawn Lazar:
deeds.

Lucas Kitchen:
same verse though.

Shawn Lazar:
Yes, and deeds consistent with repentance. So for the people who say, you know, repentance is always a change of behavior. I go to a verse like this and I think to myself, no, it looks like the deeds, which is the change of behavior, comes out of repentance, but it's not the same thing as repentance, at least

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah,

Shawn Lazar:
not in

Lucas Kitchen:
it's

Shawn Lazar:
this

Lucas Kitchen:
a

Shawn Lazar:
verse.

Lucas Kitchen:
unique thing.

Shawn Lazar:
So this,

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, so like

Shawn Lazar:
whatever.

Lucas Kitchen:
if we were to replace the word with change of behavior, it would read, in my version it would read, demonstrate a change of behavior by your deeds. It's redundant. It's not completely

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
nonsense, but it's redundant.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
So

Shawn Lazar:
it's…

Lucas Kitchen:
to me that's not like a lock, but it does imply that there's some redundancy. So why would you, if it

Shawn Lazar:
Right,

Lucas Kitchen:
means that, why would

Shawn Lazar:
right,

Lucas Kitchen:
you say it that way?

Shawn Lazar:
right. And Luke, everyone, you guys know that Luke wrote, Luke and Acts is, it's basically two volumes of one coherent work, right? And in Luke chapter three, verse eight, John the Baptist tells, is addressing the crowds, and he says, bear fruits worthy of repentance. And so there again, I look at that and I think, okay, well. Repentance can't be a change of behavior. The change of behavior is the fruits, you know, the that's the at least in these verses at least in these verses it looks like repentance is a Change of mind or a change of will or I don't know what it is

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah. It almost makes it sound like a quality, a qualitative test for your fruits. It's saying that you will have fruit and the way that you know that you're in line with what God wants or whatever is test the fruit, the action, the good work against some quality, some mental understanding of what repentance would require. So again, to me again, that's kind of makes it redundant. Does that mean for sure it's not a change of behavior? Well, no, they could be redundant, but to me, New Testament writers are pretty much efficiency writers. They're choosing their words clearly

Shawn Lazar:
Okay.

Lucas Kitchen:
and yeah. Okay, so Sean, what you're stabbing at here is there are verses that make it sound like it's not a change of behavior, but then the… other side of it is that there are those that say it is only ever a change of mind. But I'll

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
give you one that stands out to me on that one.

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
It says, I've declared to both Jews and Greeks, this is Acts 20-21, I've declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus. That

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
makes it sound like having faith might be somehow separate from repentance. Now, it might be that repentance is like an umbrella term that includes faith and he's just highlighting faith.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
It might be that he's just being redundant, maybe he's being redundant.

Shawn Lazar:
I would say instead of redundant, you know, is this a rhetorical, is this a rhetorical flourish? You know, he's, you know,

Lucas Kitchen:
Could be rhetorical,

Shawn Lazar:
two sides of

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
the same coin. Repent. He's just trying to be poetic or creative or something.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah. Another one that I came across earlier, I don't think I have it written down here, but it's when they're talking to Simon the Sorcerer and it says, repent of your wickedness. So it's like,

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
in that case, it'd be hard. Okay, let's say that they told him to repent of his wickedness, but he didn't stop doing whatever the bad thing was that he was doing.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
Well,

Shawn Lazar:
yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
in that

Shawn Lazar:
yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
case, it's like, he hasn't repented until he stopped that. So they are expecting a change of behavior by that

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
definition.

Shawn Lazar:
I would say yeah, that one, I don't have the verse in front of me. I don't know if you can think of it off the top of your head, but yeah, for that one I would think that's a change of behavior one. Like stop, stop this bad behavior. Although, I mean, I don't know. I want to look at it. Simon the Magician, Repent, Acts 8, 17 to 24. Let's see, let's see what it says. Let's go there. You have no part or share in this for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that if possible the intent of your heart may be forgiven

Lucas Kitchen:
Uh,

Shawn Lazar:
you.

Lucas Kitchen:
okay. Then now I do see something in that.

Shawn Lazar:
See

Lucas Kitchen:
He,

Shawn Lazar:
is

Lucas Kitchen:
it

Shawn Lazar:
that.

Lucas Kitchen:
could be repent of the, like the position of your heart.

Shawn Lazar:
the position of your heart.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah,

Shawn Lazar:
So

Lucas Kitchen:
that

Shawn Lazar:
maybe

Lucas Kitchen:
could

Shawn Lazar:
it's

Lucas Kitchen:
be.

Shawn Lazar:
change. So changing your heart, you know, heart, heart is sometimes a synonym with mind.

Lucas Kitchen:
That

Shawn Lazar:
So,

Lucas Kitchen:
could be, yeah,

Shawn Lazar:
but

Lucas Kitchen:
that's interesting.

Shawn Lazar:
yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
Okay.

Shawn Lazar:
so I don't know, is it change your intentions? So does the fruit do the deeds consistent with changing your intentions, produce fruit consistent with changing your intentions? I mean, I don't know, there, there are, again, we've, you and I have not done this study, uh, in depth. We've looked at all the verses, you know, kind of kind of casually, more or less casually. But to do a deep study, I think I'd like to do that. And I don't know, to me, I just wonder if the Bible's never as simple as preachers would like to make it. I don't know, sometimes, there's usually more nuances that you can cover in a sermon, and sometimes you just wanna avoid the nuance and just give the people the simple thing, because that's the only thing they'll remember. But that can get you into trouble later on if you become really dogmatic about stuff.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, okay, so here's another one that, it seems like you're trying to do some kind of wrap up, I'm not, boy, I'm just

Shawn Lazar:
I'm

Lucas Kitchen:
getting

Shawn Lazar:
no,

Lucas Kitchen:
rolling.

Shawn Lazar:
I'm not

Lucas Kitchen:
Okay,

Shawn Lazar:
rapping, no.

Lucas Kitchen:
so Acts 11, 18.

Shawn Lazar:
Okay.

Lucas Kitchen:
So then, even to the Gentiles, God has granted repentance that leads to life.

Shawn Lazar:
Mmm.

Lucas Kitchen:
Repentance that leads to life. To me, if you were to ask a standard free grace person what leads to life, they would say faith or belief.

Shawn Lazar:
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Kitchen:
So in that sense, so I'm thinking of this one this way, that it could be kind of an umbrella term that includes faith. That's a possibility.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
It could be a process, repentance could be a process in which one of the steps in this process is faith. Or it could be just a synonym to faith. And I know that's not the going, you know, that's not, I've published… I've published things in books before that disagree with what I just said. And so I know that. And that's what we're wrestling with is that we, you know, well, and Sean, you were part of an organization that took, by and large took that approach, right? That it was that, I mean, the opposite

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
to that approach, which was that it's a change of behavior. Is that

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
fairly

Shawn Lazar:
well,

Lucas Kitchen:
accurate?

Shawn Lazar:
actually, you know, Bob, yeah, Bob, I used to work for Bob Wilkin and, you know, he said he would say all the time he wrote his dissertation defending the change of mind view. You know, it's always a change of mind. But then he changed his mind, you know, he'd say. And then he took the change of behavior view and we published a book called Turn and Live that people can check out at faithalone.org or amazon.com to see that side of the argument. But it was like, I don't know, I'm not sure. I can't remember if Bob was always dogmatic about it. since I started working at GES or if this he just kind of came to that point and then published the book I don't I don't really remember.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah. Okay, here's another one. 1904, an act says, John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told people to believe in the one coming after him. That makes it sound like whatever repentance is, is strongly associated with believe.

Shawn Lazar:
Mm.

Lucas Kitchen:
It doesn't necessarily say it's the same thing,

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
but it makes it feel like it's very strongly associated. Almost to

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
the point where it might- could be a synonym.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah, and that reminds me of Peter in Acts 2 38 where he says, repent and be

Lucas Kitchen:
Repent

Shawn Lazar:
baptized

Lucas Kitchen:
and be baptized,

Shawn Lazar:
every

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
one of you in the name of Christ Jesus. So your sins may be forgiven and so you'll receive the Holy Spirit for the promise. So there's a promise here. So repentance has to do with like this promise and he calls them to save themselves from this corrupt generation. And it says 3000 people were added to the church that day. And he says in verse 44, all who believed were together and had all things in common. It's like, I don't know, it just seems like Peter and Luke are just switching between repent

Lucas Kitchen:
Well,

Shawn Lazar:
and

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah,

Shawn Lazar:
believe

Lucas Kitchen:
I'll give you one

Shawn Lazar:
and-

Lucas Kitchen:
on that one. If you look at, there's an interesting construction. You have Peter says, repent and be baptized. Then a little bit later, a few verses later, it says they accepted his message and were baptized.

Shawn Lazar:
Alright, verse

Lucas Kitchen:
It

Shawn Lazar:
41.

Lucas Kitchen:
feels, yeah, it feels like, and I'm not saying this is my official position. I'm just saying that I want to be honest with people. It feels like there is a formula that Peter says, And then when you see the same formula, but one of the words is replaced, you would be able to take that as a synonym. And so if I'm looking

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
at those two, I would say, hey, that second, which is, what is, do you have it right in there in front of you? Accepted the message or something like that? What is

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
the phrase?

Shawn Lazar:
verse 38 is repent, verse 40, verse 41 is accepted, or those who welcomed the message were baptized, verse 44 all who believed, and then you know verse 47 all these people are being saved, you know, so it's like I know some people are really uncomfortable with the apostles using metaphors and synonyms, it makes them uncomfortable, they're like how can I keep track of all this language? but I think that's really just consistent. It's just consistent in human communication, but also in the New Testament. You know, it's like we use more than, we don't only just say believe, we say welcome, we say receive, we say take a drink, we say take a bite to eat, we say, you know, it's like there's all kinds of come, come like a sheep to a shepherd. We use all kinds of language for believing, and it means believing, but you know, there's a little bit of poetry there, there's a little bit of a. Hebraic love of poetry and language. So it's like, I don't know. But the

Lucas Kitchen:
Does

Shawn Lazar:
problem

Lucas Kitchen:
it ever feel…

Shawn Lazar:
is,

Lucas Kitchen:
No, go ahead.

Shawn Lazar:
I was gonna say that, but the problem is when people, it's almost like when they over isolate a metaphor and then make it into something that is distinct and very difficult, you know, they add it as a co-condition to the saving message. That's where the problems come in. Like, well, you believe, but have you received? You believed, have

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
you really welcomed? You believe, but did you really repent as this other thing that you need to do? And it's like, I don't, that's, and then we react by saying, oh, well, it is something different than believing, but it really means this other thing. And I sometimes wonder if we're just missing the literary quality of the Bible there, but I'm not sure.

Lucas Kitchen:
Josh Jones on, I shouldn't say your last name's Josh, sorry, but Josh put a comment in that said, instructing his opponents with gentleness, perhaps God will grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth. 2nd Timothy

Shawn Lazar:
Mm.

Lucas Kitchen:
2.25. That's a good example.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
Repentance in that case, okay, Josh, I think what you're saying, I mean, I think you pointing this out supports what we're saying is here's another example of something that feels slightly different in my mind, repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth. Well, you need

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
the, okay, so you could think of it as a process, repentance, then that would lead to the knowledge of the truth. And then the knowledge of the truth would, you hope, lead to a belief in the truth, a saving message. So in that case, I would say that one very well could be a change of behavior. Because there are times when if you leave a certain sin behind, it clears your mind a little bit, you're able to kind of understand. But you could also say that one could be a synonym for a change of mind in the sense that your mind needs a change before you come to an understanding the truth.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
So it's like, you know, the Bible didn't come with a dictionary, you know. All of the dictionary work we have is generally done by context. It's generally done either by context from the biblical text or context from contemporary Greek, you know, that we have. And

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah, yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
so, anyway, so that one for me kind of is a split. That one could kind of fit into either category. But Sean,

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
what I think it's important that we say is, I don't think either of us is saying one or the other. I think it sounds like what we're both saying is, why does it have to be one or the other?

Shawn Lazar:
Why does it have to be? Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
Because when we see the word saved, for instance, we've been trained to recognize that saved is a word that's fluid, and we'll ask

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
the question, saved from what?

Shawn Lazar:
right.

Lucas Kitchen:
Now, growing up, I always thought of being saved as like, it meant one thing, saved from hell. And it was very helpful for me to come to the understanding that saved doesn't always mean the same thing in the Bible. And so I'm used to that now. I'm thinking along those lines, but then we come to repentance and it's like, no, this only means one thing and it's either this meaning or it's this meaning. And I don't understand why that is. I don't understand why for the word

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
repentance we have to pick one side or the other,

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
why it can't be there's some fluidity to it.

Shawn Lazar:
Now,

Lucas Kitchen:
And here's-

Shawn Lazar:
it could be. It could be though. You know,

Lucas Kitchen:
It could be one or the other, yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
if we studied and that was evident from the text, then I'd be happy to say it's one or the other. But I just, you know, I just don't see that,

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
you know, yet.

Lucas Kitchen:
Well, so yeah, so I mean, I guess what I'm saying is at the moment, and you know, after I've read verses about repentance, at the moment, it feels like there are examples that fall into the change of mind category, and there's examples that fall into the change of behavior category. I mean,

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
that's what I'm saying is, you know, and this is not an official position, but…

Shawn Lazar:
No.

Lucas Kitchen:
One of the reasons I want to say it out loud is because I've published before, in Salvation and Discipleship for instance, in that book I published one definition, which was that it's a change of behavior. And if it's a change of behavior, it never has a place in evangelism.

Shawn Lazar:
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Kitchen:
And I think we'd agree on that. If repentance

Shawn Lazar:
No.

Lucas Kitchen:
means, if it always only means a change of behavior, then we really shouldn't use it in an evangelistic way. If it means only a change of mind, if that's all that repentance means, then you could always put the word repentance in a gospel message if it's a synonym for belief.

Shawn Lazar:
Well, okay, so, and I want to just point this out. You mentioned two possibilities, change of mind or change of behavior. And I think there's probably at least three or four, there's a change of mind, like a broad change of mind, like stop with this idolatry and maybe be open to the gospel and that might lead you to knowledge of the truth. But then I think that it's sometimes a straight up synonym for belief, not just a change of mind, it's just a synonym for belief. But then it's also, you know, change of behavior too. Although I don't think we really came across, we haven't, we didn't pick a verse out that was obviously a change of behavior. But yeah, there seems to be a spectrum. And I think part of being any type of good Berean is doing like what you just said. It's like, yeah, I did publish this, but you know, that was several years ago and I've studied the Bible more. And I think I've come to a more nuanced position now. I think that's a good thing. That's a… That's an admirable thing. That's what we should all be doing. If we've never changed our mind, the reason why Paul says we need to be transformed by the renewing of our mind is because all of us have areas in our thoughts that need renewing. There's something that everybody listening to this here now absolutely believes is true and you're totally wrong. Your mind has to be renewed on that issue. And it's just, but you're gonna have to get to that point. So you have to be open to be proven wrong and just open to learn. And maybe that's what. Maybe ironically that's what repentance can also mean. You know, if faith means to be persuaded, maybe some of us need to repent in the sense of we have to become persuadable, you know.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah,

Shawn Lazar:
We have to

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah, become persuadable.

Shawn Lazar:
be open to changing our minds.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, but if it means to become persuadable, that's different than actually changing your mind. That's the pre-work. That's what would come

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
before the change of mind. So that could answer why we sometimes see repent and believe, or repent and have faith

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
in Christ.

Shawn Lazar:
right.

Lucas Kitchen:
Now, the last time I did this sort of loose study, I'll call it a loose study because it was just read through the verses and try to categorize them. I've done that a couple of times. The first time I did it, I had about five different categories that they seemed to fall in. And one of the

Shawn Lazar:
Okay,

Lucas Kitchen:
categories

Shawn Lazar:
yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
was what I called just a catch-all term that basically means the Christian life. So it would

Shawn Lazar:
Okay.

Lucas Kitchen:
include the idea of believing, initially of course, but then it would include you know, kind of the process of discipleship and all of that. And so I have kind of wondered if it might be a stand-in for, or maybe even a replacement of the word discipleship. You know, because

Shawn Lazar:
Oh, interesting.

Lucas Kitchen:
the word disciples kind of disappears after the Gospels and Acts, I guess. So you don't see that concept named much in the in the epistles, but you do see

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
the idea of repentance. You do see that show up.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
But again, that's not most of the cases. That was a handful. That was maybe,

Shawn Lazar:
That was just a

Lucas Kitchen:
that

Shawn Lazar:
thought

Lucas Kitchen:
was

Shawn Lazar:
that

Lucas Kitchen:
two

Shawn Lazar:
occurred

Lucas Kitchen:
or three.

Shawn Lazar:
to you. Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, that was like

Shawn Lazar:
yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
two or three. But then you go to some of these in Acts, and you're like, well, it doesn't fit that. He's talking about a really specific thing. So,

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
one that occurs to me, Sean, on that does seem like a change of behavior is when Jesus says that the the Ninevites repented.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah

Lucas Kitchen:
Now I know in that list when you go to Jonah, it does mention that they believed Jonah. So whatever they did, did include a change of mind. But it also included an action. So for me, is Jesus saying they believed Jonah when he said they repented? Well, maybe, but I think the more obvious thing would be to say, take that big old list of 12 things or whatever that the Ninevites did. And

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
Jesus is basically saying, yeah, that whole ball of stuff is

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
a definition of repentance. Is it the only definition of repentance?

Shawn Lazar:
Is

Lucas Kitchen:
Well

Shawn Lazar:
it

Lucas Kitchen:
that's

Shawn Lazar:
the

Lucas Kitchen:
where,

Shawn Lazar:
only definition?

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah, I think

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
that's where we get into a bit of a bear trap.

Shawn Lazar:
It's

Lucas Kitchen:
Because

Shawn Lazar:
whenever

Lucas Kitchen:
Jesus…

Shawn Lazar:
we say, whenever we say only this, always and always this, that's always saying, I wish people would get this more saying this is a definition or a example, you know, but what we want to say is this is the only, you know, everything

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
has to fit this mold.

Lucas Kitchen:
And that's

Shawn Lazar:
And we

Lucas Kitchen:
convenient.

Shawn Lazar:
always get it's convenient,

Lucas Kitchen:
It's convenient.

Shawn Lazar:
but we always get into trouble when we do that.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah. And so if you think about what Jesus said there, he didn't say this is the only definition. He did give a definition. And I agree with that. You know, and I've taught that. I have videos on YouTube about that, taking that approach. You know, that he did give us a definition for what repentance meant to him and the Ninevites. But he then also used the term in at least a few places that are debatably evangelistic. And I know that's a big statement, but I mean, I think a couple of the places where he used the word early in his ministry, mostly it seems like, potentially could be evangelistic. Are they for sure? No, I don't know. It's they're a little hazy to me. It's kind

Shawn Lazar:
I'm

Lucas Kitchen:
of like.

Shawn Lazar:
with you. I was reading someone, I was reading some guy the other day, I forget who now, but he was like, repent and believe the gospel when Jesus says that. He was like, obviously this is just a rhetorical flourish. It's just the same thing. Repent

Lucas Kitchen:
Hmm.

Shawn Lazar:
and believe is just is just a Hebraic way of just saying believe. So that's one that comes to mind to me.

Lucas Kitchen:
See, that's hard for me to think, though, that they don't have some different tone to them. Although I do know that when I'm writing, it's really common that at the end of a sentence, if I'm putting in a couple of characteristics, I just sort of analyze this about how I write, I feel like they need to come in doubles or triples. And

Shawn Lazar:
Okay.

Lucas Kitchen:
sometimes I might say kindness and gentleness. Would

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
kindness by itself be good enough? Yeah, it would because they do kind of overlap. Although

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
there is a little bit of a different tone

Shawn Lazar:
Yes,

Lucas Kitchen:
about those.

Shawn Lazar:
there's

Lucas Kitchen:
So

Shawn Lazar:
a slightly

Lucas Kitchen:
I suspect,

Shawn Lazar:
different meaning.

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah, I suspect that if repentance is being used as a synonym for belief, it still has a different tone. And I have a theory on what I think the tone difference might be. I think the tone difference might be repentance. seems to usually be used when somebody has had either a public or a private position of rejection for a message. So, like, I don't think I would approach my kids who have never heard the gospel before. I don't know that I would go in hard on repent because what are they repenting from? They haven't rejected Christ. They just haven't heard about Him yet. the first century Jews, I mean, they had rejected him. And so do they need to believe? Yes, but they also have an opposing belief that is counter to the belief that they need to have. And so it seems like the word repentance is a tool that's often used in that context. Exactly what does it mean? I don't know. I think it might be based on the context, but it seems like it's a tool that gets used in that context. I mean, does that seem… Does that seem true to you, Sean?

Shawn Lazar:
I think I need to hear you explain a little more about what you mean, because this touches on why I think some people… take repentance as being so incredibly important. Just this morning, I was reading through John MacArthur's The Gospel According to Jesus, chapter 17, which is the call to repentance chapter. I've never actually read this book. You know,

Lucas Kitchen:
I haven't

Shawn Lazar:
I've

Lucas Kitchen:
either,

Shawn Lazar:
never

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
actually read it. I didn't grow up with John MacArthur. I never really thought he was all that important, but. I know in the 80s he really, really influenced a lot of people and even today he's really influenced a lot of people. So what he says here has influenced a lot of preaching. And he says in this chapter, he's all over the place. Honestly he really flips between different positions and I'm going to be covering this soon. But he attacks the change of mind only view. And he says… He vacillates between saying it's a intention to change your life versus you actually have to change your life. He just flip flops on that.

Lucas Kitchen:
Okay.

Shawn Lazar:
But he's so dogmatic. He says there is no evangelism. No evangelism has occurred unless you have called people to turn away from their sins and they absolutely have to recognize that they are sinners and they have to… At some point he gives like nine, yeah, he gives nine elements of repentance and based on Isaiah. Anyways, he has all kinds of, it's so important and he's so dogmatic and he's like, if you have not done these things, then you've not really converted. And if you haven't converted, then you're not going to be saved. So it's like, it becomes this, I could see why a lot of people were harmed by his preaching because it's like, everyone is under a big question mark. You're only really saved if you've repented. Or sorry, you've only really saved if you have saving faith, and you only have saving faith if you have repented, and you've only repented if you've done these nine things. And these nine things are so subjective. It's like you can't ever really know, like, well, did I really? It's like, you know, repentance might include sorrow for sin, which I think is involved in Jonah, probably. They were in sackcloth and all that stuff. But then you can always ask yourself, well, how much sorrow? Did

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah,

Shawn Lazar:
you really,

Lucas Kitchen:
that

Shawn Lazar:
you know?

Lucas Kitchen:
is super subjective to me.

Shawn Lazar:
You know, it's very

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
subjective, and maybe that's a modern approach that we shouldn't impose on the text. But when I'm reading this chapter, in the dogmatic way, he says, No message that eliminates repentance can properly be called the gospel. For sinners cannot come to Jesus Christ apart from a radical change of heart, mind and will.

Lucas Kitchen:
Okay,

Shawn Lazar:
I can

Lucas Kitchen:
so that's

Shawn Lazar:
see why.

Lucas Kitchen:
his definition of repentance, is a radical

Shawn Lazar:
Oh, his definition

Lucas Kitchen:
change of heart,

Shawn Lazar:
is,

Lucas Kitchen:
mind and will.

Shawn Lazar:
his definition is, there's nine activities related to repentance. You have to wash yourself, make yourself clean, remove the evil of your deeds from God's sight, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. But that's just nine in that passage. He has a bunch more. A

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
bunch more elements of repentance. So I can imagine someone who's like… A MacArthur fan living under MacArthur's teaching, being bombarded with all of these things that they need to do to be really saved, otherwise they're going to prove they've never been saved at all. And they're horrified by this, and so the reaction from the free grace side is to just dump it all and say, repentance is just a change of mind. It's just a synonym for belief, so don't worry about it. Or, yeah, repentance is a change of behavior but has absolutely nothing to do with evangelists. And I understand the rationale for that reaction to MacArthur, but you and I, we have nothing to do with MacArthur really, so we just want to look at the… we haven't inherited that, or have we? I don't know. We're struggling with that inheritance, and we just want to look at the Bible and just what does the Bible have to say about repentance? Maybe we should just start over, you know? Let's… Okay, all these fights have happened, and let's just start over with this word and just see with fresh eyes what it means from the text.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
Um…

Lucas Kitchen:
I got a message yesterday from our friend Antonio. Antonio, if you're watching, then kudos to you.

Shawn Lazar:
He's my good friend. He is my friend

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, he's my friend too.

Shawn Lazar:
that I fight with.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, I don't

Shawn Lazar:
You just

Lucas Kitchen:
fight

Shawn Lazar:
have friends

Lucas Kitchen:
with him.

Shawn Lazar:
with that.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, I don't fight with him, but I like Antonio. He's been good to us and he's a sweet guy. But he sent me a message yesterday that said he felt like the Lord had put it on his heart to tell me specifically, don't be reactionary. And what you just were saying was interesting to me because I wonder how many of these issues were legitimate things that needed to be wrestled with because of the pot stirring that John MacArthur did in the 80s and probably early 90s. But without the context, maybe what we're struggling with is we don't have the context. We don't have the other side of the argument to see why what has been said has been said. Like if we had a good grasp, and it sounds like you're reading through his stuff, so maybe you'll spot it, but, you know, if you only hear one side of a conversation, then it can be a bit confusing on why is this person saying this, you know?

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
So I just, I don't know, I wonder if maybe there's something in that we, yeah, this is my temptation to ramble, so I don't know. Does that resonate with you at all?

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah, I mean, just to we definitely should not make the same mistake of now reacting, you know, and maybe I wonder if maybe some people would just see this as, oh, you guys are just you just want to be different. So instead of taking a side, you want to take this middle road of it means you're reacting by taking this middle road of maybe it means different things in different contexts. I don't think that I am. I think that I'm just. reading the text and trying to wrestle with these uses of repentance. I'm not trying to be, you know, I'm not trying to like set a bear trap like the image used before. I don't consider this like even a, I don't know, I don't think about it in those terms. I'm just like, I just want to understand what the text is saying.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah. Well, and to be fair, I don't know that anybody else is setting it as a bear trap. It's just become an issue that gets debated, you know.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
Okay, let's just zoom backward in time. So I'm a, let's say, maybe 12-year-old kid. I don't know when, but this is the kind of stuff I was thinking about when I was 10, 11, 12. I would hear repentance used in evangelistic presentations. And then I like the definition of words. I like knowing what somebody means. And so I would, in different contexts, then pay attention to how people generally defined repentance. And generally speaking, repentance is defined in association with some kind of behavior change. Just

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
generally speaking.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
That's across the board in evangelical circles. you know, probably even other branches, maybe even in Islam it's defined that way. I don't know, but I assume it would be. It is mostly associated with a change of deeds or at least the negative space idea of like, stop doing

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
something, you know, like if you haven't stopped doing something, you haven't repented yet, that's the general idea I was getting from

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
what I was hearing. Now then, add to that the fact that I would hear evangelistic presentations that included repentance. Well, what in the world am I supposed to think?

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
The only conclusion I could draw as a kid is that there is some inconsistency here because I would hear people say it's a free gift. Actually, I knew of verses that say that. That eternal life is a gift for those who are in Christ. And so… So I knew that, it was by faith, it was a free gift, but then people were saying you had to repent to have it. And then the third leg of this weird little stool was that I knew generally what people were defining it as, which was change your behavior.

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
I don't know what else to think in that context other than that we are lying or we are confused because we're saying that this thing

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
is required which totally has to do with works. And so at that point, for me, there was a long-standing question. How could repentance have anything to do with the gospel? And when I came into the free grace circles, I didn't realize this at the time, but there's really, in my opinion, two main answers to that within the free grace circles. Had I encountered answer A rather than the answer B, I probably would have been fine with it. Had

Shawn Lazar:
Okay.

Lucas Kitchen:
I encountered answer B, instead of answer A, I probably would have been fine with it because both answers to that do solve that, they do solve the problem in that equation. They

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
do balance the formula. And so I think it would be easy to just stop there and say, well that's good enough because it solves the faith alone issue. But if that's not the actual biblical answer, it might solve the theological issue, it might, you know, bring balance to the equation. But it might confuse us in other contexts when we're just reading scripture and we come across that word.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
And so what I'm proposing is that it might be only a change of behavior. It might be a change of mind. Or it might be either, depending on the context. And that's

Shawn Lazar:
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Kitchen:
kind of where I am right now, is that I lean towards thinking it's usually a change of behavior. I mean, that's still kind of my default position,

Shawn Lazar:
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Kitchen:
is to think that like you know, I don't know, maybe like 90% of the time, it does look like it has something to do with action, with behavior, with a change of, you know, your activities. But I have to admit, if I'm being completely honest and I'm not worried about losing support, I have to admit that there are a handful of verses that I have spent some time looking at and I don't know how to see those as just a change of behavior.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
I just don't know how to do it.

Shawn Lazar:
yeah, and

Lucas Kitchen:
And

Shawn Lazar:
maybe

Lucas Kitchen:
I've read the

Shawn Lazar:
I…

Lucas Kitchen:
commentaries. I mean, like I've looked at

Shawn Lazar:
right.

Lucas Kitchen:
the commentaries, I'm like, I don't know. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like it answers it for me to say that it has to be one or the other because in some cases, sorry, Sean, I'm just steamrolling here, but

Shawn Lazar:
No, that's okay, it's good.

Lucas Kitchen:
in some cases, it feels like the best answer is, he's talking about a change of mind. In some cases, it feels like the best answer is, he's talking about a change of behavior. And so, I'm not trying to be wishy-washy. I wish it was just one, because that's convenient. That would be so much easier.

Shawn Lazar:
It would

Lucas Kitchen:
But

Shawn Lazar:
be.

Lucas Kitchen:
I just can't, in good conscience, say that I think

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
that there's a single answer that fits all of them.

Shawn Lazar:
Right,

Lucas Kitchen:
So anyway,

Shawn Lazar:
right.

Lucas Kitchen:
that's my. That's

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
my.

Shawn Lazar:
well, and see, I'm almost the flip, maybe I'm the flip side of you. I'm more like, probably 80%, I think it's probably a change of mind generally, or just a straight up synonym for faith. And then the 20% is probably a change of behavior involved in there too. But where we're both agreeing is, it looks like it can mean just different things. But I also want to go back to what you said at the beginning of your story when you were a kid hearing repentance. I mean, I definitely heard that too. I didn't grow up as a Christian, but in my teen years. And, but I, this is what I understood. I understood you got to repent from the big stuff. If there's any big stuff, you got to, you got to change that. But everyone is going to, you know, struggle with the little stuff and that'll take time. But to be saved. You gotta drop the big stuff, whatever the big stuff is. And it was usually, you know, typical, you know, alcoholism, drug addiction, living with your girlfriend, whatever it is, those are the big things. And if you're doing the big things, then who knows if you're saved or not. You gotta stop that to be saved. But you know, we all got little things, so you don't have to change that to be saved. I don't know, is that kind of, maybe that was just my evangelical Baptist circles

Lucas Kitchen:
I don't know.

Shawn Lazar:
kind of floating

Lucas Kitchen:
It's kind

Shawn Lazar:
around.

Lucas Kitchen:
of like, it's like kind of diet repentance, you know?

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah, it was definitely diet repentance. Absolutely.

Lucas Kitchen:
No, it's almost the opposite of diet. It's like, it's almost like you do the big animal sacrifice once a year, but the rest of them will pick it up next time we're in Jerusalem. You know, it's just, I don't

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah, maybe that's it. It's like,

Lucas Kitchen:
know.

Shawn Lazar:
or yeah, maybe it's like, you know, maybe it came from Roman Catholic ideas that there are mortal sins and there are venial sins,

Lucas Kitchen:
Mmm,

Shawn Lazar:
and you better

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
not do the mortal sins. Gotta

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
repent of those, and then confession can handle the venial sins in your life or something. And that, I don't, you know, I don't see that in scripture. You know, that type of evangelism, I just don't see that in scripture. I mean… You and I are both faith alone apart from works, guys. So if that is what someone is teaching, if that's how someone is evangelizing, that's wrong, that's wrong. Salvation only has one condition, to believe in Jesus. But we don't need to let that concern force us to force these different verses into a particular mold that solves

Lucas Kitchen:
Mmm,

Shawn Lazar:
that

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
theological problem.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
We've gotta resist. We gotta resist doing that.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
Anyways, yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
You know, I think this is one of the things I said at the Bible

Shawn Lazar:
Thanks

Lucas Kitchen:
study

Shawn Lazar:
for watching!

Lucas Kitchen:
this week as we were kind of dealing with this, is that whether somebody believes in a change of mind or a change of behavior perspective, we still are aiming at the same destination. The reason why we even bring either of those perspectives up is to defend faith alone and Christ alone apart from works gospel. there's a person who has a third or a fourth or a fifth approach to how to answer the definition of repentance but their end goal is to you know uh is to defend a faith alone in Christ alone apart from works gospel then i'm probably going to listen to them and see if they have something to say because

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
the destination that faith alone destination is the most important thing to me

Shawn Lazar:
Yes, yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
has a creative way that's different that can get us there and get us there more efficiently with less debates, I'm all ears. I mean I'm open

Shawn Lazar:
Oh yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
to it. You know I

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
read on the Wikipedia page that Jody Dillow for instance has, and I don't know what this means really, but that he has a different perspective on repentance. If somebody's watching and knows what his is, I'm not actually clear on that. So and there's probably others in fact Shawnyou made me think of another as you were talking. One is that repentance might be remorse it might be sorrow.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
But golly there was a there was like a fourth one that came through my I can't remember what it was as you were as you were talking I didn't want to interrupt which is a novel idea I normally interrupt but.

Shawn Lazar:
And by the way,

Lucas Kitchen:
But yeah

Shawn Lazar:
part of

Lucas Kitchen:
so.

Shawn Lazar:
the, I was going to say part of the complication of this whole debate is there's a bunch of Hebrew words and there's a bunch of Greek words. There's more

Lucas Kitchen:
Mm.

Shawn Lazar:
than one Greek word. And then there's, there's English. You have like three languages and we're trying to figure out and we're trying to say there's only one definition for, for

Lucas Kitchen:
Wait a

Shawn Lazar:
between

Lucas Kitchen:
minute.

Shawn Lazar:
all three languages.

Lucas Kitchen:
I didn't think to look at that. So there are multiple Greek words that are getting d-

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah, there's

Lucas Kitchen:
Oh, man.

Shawn Lazar:
metanoya is like the classic change of

Lucas Kitchen:
See,

Shawn Lazar:
mind,

Lucas Kitchen:
that's

Shawn Lazar:
but

Lucas Kitchen:
the one I'm aware of.

Shawn Lazar:
there's another one closely related to it. I can't think of it off the top of my head, but it is more related to the remorse. It's more of the broken heartedness.

Lucas Kitchen:
Wow.

Shawn Lazar:
And I don't, I can't think of what it is off hand. But then Hebrew, you have words for turn, you like literally, it means physically turn yourself.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
But it's a metaphor for something else, you know? So it's like, I don't know. How

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
can we be dogmatic about all these uses? I don't know.

Lucas Kitchen:
Okay, so one of the big defenses of the free grace approach, on one side at least, one of the big defenses to the free grace definition of repentance that kind of supports the idea that it's a change of behavior, is the idea that we don't see repentance in the Gospel of John. Now, what that says to me is that it's possible and it's okay to share the gospel without the word repentance.

Shawn Lazar:
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Lucas Kitchen:
For me that doesn't however mean the inverse which would be it's wrong to share repentance in an evangelistic

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
context. Now

Shawn Lazar:
Thank you.

Lucas Kitchen:
it might be wrong but we can't we can't draw it from that conclusion. All we could say from that is we at least know that it's acceptable. to use it either as you know to not use it or use some equivalent or something like that. The other challenge that gets thrown in with this is the idea that the gospel of John is only for the purpose of evangelism. Now Shawnyou and I both would say yes it is definitely an evangelistic book it's part of it but I have a hard time saying that's the only purpose of the Gospel of John. I mean, for me,

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
for me, John 20, 30, and 31 is helped by John 10, where Jesus says, hey, I came to do two things. I came to give life, which I take in that meaning, probably eternal life, but then he says life more abundantly.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
So for

Shawn Lazar:
absolutely.

Lucas Kitchen:
me, those, that is a clarifier. on John 20, 30, and 31. So if you take John 20, 30, and 31 and say this proves that there is only one purpose of the Gospel of John, I just don't think we're getting that from the text. I

Shawn Lazar:
No.

Lucas Kitchen:
think the text actually points to the fact that there are discipleship themes. I mean, think about John 8, I think it's 31. Jesus, he converts part of the crowd. They believe in him, and then he says, He sort of speaks directly to those who just believed, and he gives them a note on what is gonna be required to be good disciples. Do you remember what he says, Sean? Oh, of course,

Shawn Lazar:
If

Lucas Kitchen:
you gotta

Shawn Lazar:
you can,

Lucas Kitchen:
look it up.

Shawn Lazar:
I got

Lucas Kitchen:
I'm in

Shawn Lazar:
it,

Lucas Kitchen:
the

Shawn Lazar:
I

Lucas Kitchen:
flow,

Shawn Lazar:
had to look it

Lucas Kitchen:
and

Shawn Lazar:
up.

Lucas Kitchen:
you gotta go

Shawn Lazar:
If you

Lucas Kitchen:
turn

Shawn Lazar:
continue

Lucas Kitchen:
in your old page.

Shawn Lazar:
in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah, so continue, abide, remain. What's interesting to me is he associates discipleship with abiding, most people would agree with that. Then when you

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
get to chapter 15, he says abide 10 times in that chapter. And it is so clearly about discipleship. It's, as you've said before, I heard you say this, that it's Jesus discipling his disciples. You know.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah, so my perspective is, and please hear me out people, I don't know, to me I think we're guessing, we're kind of guessing what the purpose of John's gospel is, but there's no guessing that Jesus is literally discipling his disciples in those chapters. I mean, that's what he's doing. Like what is John's purpose for recording it? We can like hypothesize what his purpose is, but Jesus is literally discipling those people

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
there.

Lucas Kitchen:
And he's literally evangelizing people in chapter 1 through

Shawn Lazar:
and

Lucas Kitchen:
12.

Shawn Lazar:
he's literally evangelizing. Yeah, Nicodemus and the woman at the well, for sure. So I don't know. Yeah. Talk about bear traps here. Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, I don't see John 20, 30, and 31 being a homerun for evangelism. That's not what those verses literally say. I always ask myself, okay, when a theologian tells me this verse means this, my first question is, claims literally say the same thing. Like, does John 20, 30, and 31 say, I wrote this for evangelistic purposes? The answer is no. That's not what he literally says.

Lucas Kitchen:
Now, but let's clarify why, because I think you and I might be similar on this. If it said that by believing you have eternal life, we might be different. But he, okay, so all through the Gospel of John, John notes that Jesus uses this term eternal life, eternal life, eternal life, eternal life. And then he gets to John 20, 30, and 31, and he doesn't say that his purpose is so that by believing you may have eternal life.

Shawn Lazar:
No.

Lucas Kitchen:
so that you may, by believing, have life. And that

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
takes me back to what I said a second ago. That takes me back to John 10, 10. What

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
did he come to do? He came to give life and

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
to give it more abundantly.

Shawn Lazar:
yeah, I mean, John's gospel, I mean, John's gospel talks about more than just eternal life. It starts off with Jesus creating everything and being the life, giving life to everyone. It talks about eternal life, yes. It talks about abundant life. In John 11, 25, and 26, it talks about resurrection life. I mean, there's more than just… There's more than just being born again life. And John 10, I mean, I don't see how you can get beyond that. John is just as concerned that believers have abundant life. And so I think that totally fits verse 30 and 31. You have to continue to believe. And in fact, people don't know this, but there's the earliest Greek manuscripts have the sense of not come to believe, but continue to believe. So it's like, I don't know, to me, 20, 30, and 31 does not clearly say this is strictly evangelistic. It doesn't say it explicitly, and I don't know that it's even implied in these

Lucas Kitchen:
Now

Shawn Lazar:
verses.

Lucas Kitchen:
so for the continue to believe, I've been thinking about this. So for me, to have abundant life, you do have to continue to believe.

Shawn Lazar:
Oh

Lucas Kitchen:
I mean

Shawn Lazar:
yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
I'm very confident that a moment, an instant of belief gains a person eternal life, provided they believe in Jesus for the right thing, that they believe for salvation. I

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
believe that at that very moment they have eternal life. But if

Shawn Lazar:
Absolutely.

Lucas Kitchen:
you want someone to have abundant life…

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
a single instant of belief is not going to do it. And so if John's purpose is not only to give eternal life, but also to help people understand what it takes to have abundant life, then he needs to have a present tense continuous

Shawn Lazar:
Absolutely.

Lucas Kitchen:
belief. So it makes

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
total sense. So that we could reverse engineer and say, therefore that would mean that you can't say that eternal life requires continuous belief as long as the Gospel of John is both about how to have eternal life and abundant life. But if we say it's just about having eternal life, then we put ourselves in a trap on that side of it. So

Shawn Lazar:
Right,

Lucas Kitchen:
for me, let's

Shawn Lazar:
right.

Lucas Kitchen:
go back to what we're agreeing on. I mean we are saying that the word repentance is not used in the Gospel of John and John's Gospel is evangelistic. We get to see how Jesus evangelizes.

Shawn Lazar:
Well, I'd rather say forget about saying John's gospel is evangelistic. We see how Jesus evangelizes.

Lucas Kitchen:
That's, yeah, that's what I was saying,

Shawn Lazar:
Whatever

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
the purpose is, we see how Jesus evangelizes there. And he doesn't tell Nicodemus to repent. He doesn't use that word. He doesn't tell the woman at the well to repent. So like John MacArthur saying, you have not evangelized unless you use this word. Well, then you're saying the Lord Jesus didn't evangelize. So that's a reductio. That's a refutation of that position.

Lucas Kitchen:
Although

Shawn Lazar:
So

Lucas Kitchen:
to their

Shawn Lazar:
you…

Lucas Kitchen:
point, he did tell a couple of people to go, you know, I mean the guy that he healed by the pool, you know, he told him to stop sinning or something worse will happen to you. You know?

Shawn Lazar:
Well, yeah, and so, oh man,

Lucas Kitchen:
So if repentance

Shawn Lazar:
yeah, yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
means change your behavior, then the concept is present, at least.

Shawn Lazar:
Oh yeah, and I would say, you know, I mean, I think the concept of pointing out sins is definitely present. Even with Nicodemus, he's like, you're the teacher of Israel and you don't know this. It's like you're failing as a teacher. And he reminds them of the serpent in the wilderness. It's like they sinned and they rebelled against God and God sent these serpents to bite them and they were dying of this, dying of snake poison and they needed to look at the bronze serpent in order to be healed. And he's saying, just like that, I'm going to be lifted up. And clearly the implication is you're a sinner. You're just as much a sinner and you're dying. just like these Israelites are dying. So you need to believe in me. So it's not in your face, like, at least to our ears, it's not in your face, you are a wicked sinner and you've got to, if you don't change, you're gonna go to hell. But to an educated Jew, he knew what that symbol meant. He knew that was a very gentle, I would say, very gentle pointing out of his sinfulness. But it's not the use of the word repentance. And it's definitely not the use of the word you've got to change your behavior in order to be saved. There's only one condition, believe.

Lucas Kitchen:
I would even say that if the concept of repentance is present in the Gospel of John, one thing that we notice are these various places where it would be really obvious to go in hard on changing behavior, and he just doesn't do it.

Shawn Lazar:
He doesn't,

Lucas Kitchen:
He

Shawn Lazar:
no.

Lucas Kitchen:
just avoids it.

Shawn Lazar:
He points it out, like the woman at the well. I mean, he could have said, you know, he points out her sin, he's like, hey, you've had all kinds of husbands, you know. It's like, he points it out. And that kind of gets her attention, you know. But he doesn't say, you've got to, don't come to me for this gift until you fix your marital problems first. And that's what a lot of Baptist preachers, you know, evangelical preachers would say. That's not what Jesus does. Whatever the purpose of pointing out her marital sins were, it was not as a co-condition to be born again. The only condition was to believe in him. But it did get her attention. It did make her realize, wait a second, this guy is, it made her realize who Jesus was. She goes from believing he's a Jew to believing he's a, you know, maybe a gentleman to believing he's a prophet to believing,

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
oh, it's the Messiah.

Lucas Kitchen:
And that is

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
not necessarily mutually exclusive. Okay, so some will say the only, only reason he's pointed out her sin was to prove that she, to prove he was a prophet. It might be, but we

Shawn Lazar:
Right.

Lucas Kitchen:
don't know that. I mean, it's,

Shawn Lazar:
No.

Lucas Kitchen:
it's possible that

Shawn Lazar:
No,

Lucas Kitchen:
the

Shawn Lazar:
we don't know.

Lucas Kitchen:
author of life could have multiple purposes in what

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
he does, you know?

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
Could

Shawn Lazar:
yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
he possibly point out her sin to give her… you know, give her a light critique on some problems, also prove that he's a prophet, also make the point that you can come to me even in the midst of your sin. I mean, all of that's a possibility

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
and

Shawn Lazar:
there

Lucas Kitchen:
maybe

Shawn Lazar:
you go.

Lucas Kitchen:
a

Shawn Lazar:
Absolutely.

Lucas Kitchen:
thousand more things.

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
So when we try to turn it into this very narrow interpretation that we know exactly what he's doing but more importantly we know what he's not doing, that's hard for me. That's hard for me to say that that's, you know, that we're sure that these other things aren't the case.

Shawn Lazar:
Right, so

Lucas Kitchen:
So.

Shawn Lazar:
I think we're agreeing that like in John's gospel, since Jesus doesn't ever say repentance, John MacArthur is wrong. It's possible to evangelize without having to use that word. John MacArthur

Lucas Kitchen:
I agree,

Shawn Lazar:
is

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
wrong. But on the other side, but we're not willing to say therefore, This is normative and you should never use the word repentance in evangelism. And if the word appears in a passage and then that can't be an evangelistic passage, that is not a valid inference either.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah. And there may be a way to get there, but I don't think we're going to get there with the method that we've done. And so I want to be careful about jumping to a conclusion. Here's the other thing, Sean, is I want to be responsible to people that don't have the time to do the study. I mean, the reason why people

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
support us

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
is because we are we are serving them by reading time. We

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
are supported so that we can read, we can consider, we can think about it. and it isn't fair to not mention the level of confidence that we have in certain things. And so for me, I've thought for a long time it would be very useful if theologians would give a sense of not just their position but the other positions, the level of confidence they have that theirs is the right one, and how much farther above all the other ones in their mind their position is. What I see in a lot of theological discussions is a theologian will say, this is what it is, the end. I'm like, well, I actually came up in a Bible church where it was really common to hear the top three theories from three different commentators on what,

Shawn Lazar:
Okay.

Lucas Kitchen:
you know, what the, you know, and then allowing people to consider that, you know. And so I'm not saying that we do that on every issue. John 316 doesn't need a bunch of different commentators. It's just so clear. And

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
faith alone verses, I feel like are so clear. And that's kind of our, that's our center point. That's our, you know, we understand that, and that's very clear. So I'm not saying that we go and present John MacArthur's view of the gospel every time we talk about John 316.

Shawn Lazar:
You don't need to present heresy, you know, you don't

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah,

Shawn Lazar:
ever have

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
to say, well, you know, Jesus could be God or he's maybe he's not God. You don't need to do that. But like, there are hard passages. Just be honest, be honest that it's hard. Don't be overly dogmatic.

Lucas Kitchen:
And I don't think it's gonna hurt people. Like I trust that the people that are interested in what we're talking about are intelligent. They're many times they're very well read and they're very fair minded. I don't want to distrust them. I wanna trust that it's okay to allow them to understand a broader sense of the debate. And sometimes there's a temptation to make this absolute straw man where you know, I'm going to give the opposing view that I don't take one sentence, and then I'm going to go in hard on my thing. I want to be more fair than that. I want to let people sense that just because this is my default position, like I said, for repentance, my default position is mostly that it's a change of behavior. And then there's a, you know, five to ten percent… of the verses that I can think of, they break my confidence in that singular definition. I just wanna be honest about that. And I don't want to be pressured into staying quiet about that. And I feel guilty about that, Sean. I mean, I feel like, I feel like for fear of, you know, acceptance. it's been tempting to stay really quiet about a lot of these things that I don't feel as confident about. I don't feel like they're all wrong, I just don't feel like it's a thousand percent confidence. And so hopefully that helps somebody. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it wrecks everybody's faith that's listening, I hope not.

Shawn Lazar:
Hehehehe

Lucas Kitchen:
Hopefully it helps somebody. And so that's all I want to do. I want to be honest. Like, I can feel… Can you feel it, Sean? Can you feel the thunder rumbling through the ground already? Can you feel it? I feel it. We've stepped on some toes, I'm pretty sure, but that's not what we're trying to do. Just

Shawn Lazar:
No,

Lucas Kitchen:
trying

Shawn Lazar:
we're

Lucas Kitchen:
to be

Shawn Lazar:
not.

Lucas Kitchen:
honest.

Shawn Lazar:
We are not, I don't know, to me I just don't. Trying to study the Bible does not involve, who am I, who can I get, you know, who can I, which, who can I poke today? You know,

Lucas Kitchen:
Ha ha

Shawn Lazar:
Bible

Lucas Kitchen:
ha.

Shawn Lazar:
state to me is not about poking other people and trying to annoy other people. I just want to understand what this text says. This is the richest book that I've ever read. I have never. gotten bored of this book. Every single time I go to the Bible, it's like a mine that will never run out of gold and silver.

Lucas Kitchen:
Hmm, yeah.

Shawn Lazar:
But you gotta dig for it. You know, and digging can be messy sometimes. And if you ever seen a miner, they're covered in dirt. And I mean, that's the process. But it's never about trying to hurt anyone, or it's not a competition, it's not about attacking anybody. I just wanna understand what the text is. And if… If I disagree with your interpretation, I just want you to know that doesn't mean I hate you, that doesn't mean I'm saying you've gotten everything wrong, that doesn't mean I'm attacking you or your legacy. I love you and I can agree to disagree and it's not at all personal for me. And I don't think it's personal for you too either Lucas. But maybe sometimes we're afraid that it is. And so we try to be sensitive to other people's feelings and so we be… require it to save them disturbance of feelings. But

Lucas Kitchen:
That's

Shawn Lazar:
I don't

Lucas Kitchen:
a

Shawn Lazar:
know

Lucas Kitchen:
good

Shawn Lazar:
if that's

Lucas Kitchen:
point.

Shawn Lazar:
the best, you know,

Lucas Kitchen:
That's

Shawn Lazar:
maybe

Lucas Kitchen:
a good

Shawn Lazar:
that's

Lucas Kitchen:
point.

Shawn Lazar:
not

Lucas Kitchen:
It's

Shawn Lazar:
the.

Lucas Kitchen:
yeah, it's not. I'm not afraid I'm being personal. I'm not upset right now. I'm

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
just being honest. These this is what's going on in Lucas's head. You know, so this is nothing new to my brain.

Shawn Lazar:
Oh.

Lucas Kitchen:
But I've been quiet

Shawn Lazar:
I think

Lucas Kitchen:
because

Shawn Lazar:
I lost him.

Lucas Kitchen:
I don't want it to be perceived as a personal attack. You know,

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
and I know that it can it can feel that way.

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
If you are a person who has a following. and you have very well-loved teachings, it's very easy to feel like if someone disagrees with you that it's personal.

Shawn Lazar:
It's personal, yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
And it just isn't in my mind. It's, you know, we're

Shawn Lazar:
That's

Lucas Kitchen:
trying

Shawn Lazar:
not…

Lucas Kitchen:
to seek the truth

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah.

Lucas Kitchen:
and we have inherited some theological approaches and a lot of them are great, but

Shawn Lazar:
Mm-hmm.

Lucas Kitchen:
some of them we question. And… I don't know what other to do with that other than to just be honest about it. And I think that's what we're doing. Hopefully that's what we're doing. I told my dad a while back about a conflict that I had gotten in and his response was actually really helpful. He said, well Lucas, I know you. I know you're not trying to steamroll anybody. Because I was kind of feeling guilty, you know. And I was like, well dad, you might be giving me too much credit, but that is good to remember that. Let's just remember what we're trying to do. We're not trying to steamroll anybody. We're not trying to be rude. For those of you that are not in the Free Grace Circle and might be watching this, you're probably thinking, what are these guys going on and on about? Like, what's the big deal?

Shawn Lazar:
Yes.

Lucas Kitchen:
But, yeah, this very recording may be used against us in a court of law, who knows? Ha

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
ha ha.

Shawn Lazar:
yeah, yeah. I've talked to, I've often, I guess where I sense that we're wrapping up here, but let me just say this. I've often talked to, it seems to be women, women mostly, who will say, I just can't stand all this fighting in theology. I just can't, I can't stand it. Why do you guys fight? And I always tell her, or tell them, guys like fighting. Pick any topic and we will get into a heated argument about it. Baseball, who makes the best pickup truck. politics, economics, who's a better fantasy writer? We're gonna have a heated debate about all those things. But it doesn't have to be personal. It could be heated without being personal. And so if anyone has seen me get into a kind of like a heated exchange online, a Socratic back and forth type online, if you're perceiving it as personal, please don't. It is not. It's just searching for the truth. And sometimes that's just how guys… guys do it. You mentioned Antonio before, Antonio De Rosa. He's a friend of mine. He's been to my house, he's invited me to go out to his house. We talk every week. We mostly just have heated exchanges, but we love each other. It's not personal. So please, if you ever see me online doing that, please understand. I'm not attacking anybody. I don't have any grudges. It's really just about finding the truth. that takes a passionate argument.

Lucas Kitchen:
Yeah. Well, I think I've run the steam out of the tank. You got anything

Shawn Lazar:
Alright,

Lucas Kitchen:
else?

Shawn Lazar:
no I'm good, I'm good. Let's

Lucas Kitchen:
Alright.

Shawn Lazar:
see what happens.

Lucas Kitchen:
Well, this is our first time in a long time to use the platform we're using, so I'm going to start searching for the button that gets us out of this deal.

Shawn Lazar:
Okay, very good.

Lucas Kitchen:
There's a button that says leave, what do you think? Oh no

Shawn Lazar:
Yeah,

Lucas Kitchen:
wait,

Shawn Lazar:
what?

Lucas Kitchen:
don't leave, no don't leave, I'll

Shawn Lazar:
Don't

Lucas Kitchen:
just stop

Shawn Lazar:
leave.

Lucas Kitchen:
the recording. Thanks for listening, all of you who did. I do want to send a shout out to Josh on YouTube and a username Toronto Bible Study. I saw your comments, I'll uh… I'll respond here in a minute. If you're watching on another platform, thanks for watching, and we'll see you later on.

Shawn Lazar:
See ya.