TRANSCRIPT
Hello brothers and sisters. I want to do something tonight that I have never done before, and that is an unscripted response to an article. It’s from Protestia, it’s about Steve Lawson; and I never intended to do my own video on Steve Lawson. I still don’t. This is going to be more about the reaction than the actual situation; and the reason is because, frankly, I think what the internet needs on this issue more than anything right now is silence.
I’ve been really disheartened by the absolutely out-of-control reaction to this. And it’s not because “oh, Christians just need to be soft” or “judge not” or anything like that. It’s actually with Proverbs 18:13 in mind:
“He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.”
Now I trust we’re all familiar with Matthew 7, which famously opens with the words “judge not.” But verse 4 says:
“Or how can you say to your brother, ‘let me remove the speck from your eye,’ and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Now a lot of people who probably have a decent understanding of this passage may be thinking, “Well, I’ve kept myself pure, so I don’t have a plank in my eye.” But what if the plank in your eye is you’re answering a matter before you hear it? I’ve been seeing a lot of that going on. And I think part of the reason is because Trinity Bible Church, when they first made the announcement, they kept it pretty vague. And I assume that is because they wanted to make sure they had their own ducks in a row before they just dumped out all the details. And there’s wisdom in that; but I’ve also seen some critiques of the decision, which I can understand.
But I think that the bride of Christ should be able to be trusted to react a lot better than we did. So I would argue that this is just cause for self-examination more than anything else. And that brings me to this article from Protestia, which I am afraid perpetuates that problem somewhat. We don’t want to sensationalize this the way the world sensationalizes celebrity scandals. Check out this title: “Betrayed,” like we didn’t already know that, “More Details About Steve Lawson’s Double Life Revealed.” We’ll see about that.
“According to inside sources speaking to Protestia on condition of anonymity, the fixture in conservative, reformed evangelicalism was living a double life in the heart of the reformed community.”
Now the anonymity here makes it a little tricky, because, are we to take this as a direct quote from somebody? Hearsay? General consensus? That that can make it a little bit tough. It goes on to say:
“Lawson’s time away from home teaching expository preaching at TMS as well as his frequent traveling for preaching appearances and conferences provided both the proximity to the young woman and the distance from family needed to engage in what amounted to not just an affair but a secret second life that reportedly saw him paying for travel for the young woman to rendezvous with him during ministerial trips.”
Wow, that is a run-on sentence that would make the old-time theologians proud. But okay, so suddenly we’re using the word “affair” here? What does that mean though? Are we saying that it was full-blown physical sexual adultery, or was it just an emotional affair? I mean, either case is adultery. Either case is sin. But they are drastically different. And “rendezvous,” what kind of rendezvous? What were they doing? See, these vague terms actually spark more speculation. “Oh, I wonder what he was doing with that woman.” And that’s not good. That’s almost the definition of gossip in this situation. So how much detail do we really need?
I was actually challenged on this issue by a fellow church member in a private conversation where I said we need more detail before we can talk about this; and I quickly had to clarify that I was not saying that we should be on the edge of our seat waiting for more juicy detail. Okay? That that is not a Christian attitude at all, of course. But Steve Lawson was a public figure, he preached to the public; and therefore he is accountable to the public. You are accountable to the people you preach to.
So if he had just kept to his local church, he would only be accountable to them, and it would be none of our business. We would not need more detail. But because he was a public figure—touring, conferences, books, etc.—he made this public business. And so the details should be released. But we should not talk about them until they are released, because otherwise, we don’t know what we’re talking about; and that’s where Proverbs 18:13 comes in. Whether or not the details should all be released by now is really not relevant. Alas, they are not; and so we are responsible to pray, wait patiently for those additional details, and simply go about our own Christian duties.
And this is why I have such a problem with this article and its title: because it leads us to believe that we are descending into the second circle; but we’re not really being told much that we didn’t already know. I mean, yeah, his paying for her travel and those fine details we didn’t know; but the actual nature of the relationship is still in the dark. And then we have this:
“Reports have publicly circulated of whistleblowers reporting their concern with Lawson’s interaction with the young woman only to face retaliation from authorities at both Grace Community Church and the Master’s University, but Protestia has yet to confirm the validity of such claims.”
Well then why am I reading about it? Why even draw more attention to that if you can’t even provide a source or a citation or proof that it’s true? This is what I’m talking about: it is it is not good for us to be preoccupied with this. This article just feels like a recap of a bunch of things that I already knew, so it’s keeping my mind on it without actually giving me any more information. Now the title is not technically false, because yes: more details about Steve Lawson’s double life are being revealed—behind closed doors. People in inner circles are being told more information. But more details are not being revealed to us, and that’s what the article’s title implies: that we are going to get more details.
Brethren, we do not need to be writing articles like this. Protestia should know better. I think that, during this season, we all just need to keep our mouths closed on this subject. Actually, I take that
back: we need to open our mouths on this subject, but we should only open our mouths before the
Throne of Grace. Because, the two people in question, as well as their families and churches, need prayer.
And what they don’t need… do I want to talk about this? I think I should say a word about this. I’ve been seeing some memes from fairly prominent Christian meme pages joking about the situation. And I saw someone justify that by saying they’ve brought great reproach. Well, that’s true enough; but I don’t think this is an Elijah and the prophets of Baal situation. I understand that there is a time and a place for Biblical mockery. If you’ve watched my videos, you probably know that I occasionally employ it myself. But I don’t believe this is one of those situations.
Number one: people are suffering, churches are suffering, families are suffering. Don’t make light of that. Number two: Steve Lawson and the young woman, as much reproach as they have brought, are still probably a brother and sister in Christ. Now repentance has been implied; we haven’t heard it directly from them, but so far they haven’t been excommunicated. We believe they’re penitent. Until we hear otherwise, we should at the very least refrain from mocking.
So I think that about wraps it up, brethren. That’s all I have to say about this. Please, let’s just pray about this situation, all right? If we have to talk about it with each other, let’s pray together. But that that should be the extent of our conversation on the topic of Steve Lawson until further notice.