“What do I do with family struggles?”

Steve Brown:
What do I do with family struggles? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s no guru, but he does have honest answers to honest questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase and worship. So here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with street-smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Hey Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. How you doing?

Steve Brown:
I’m doing good.

Pete Alwinson:
Friday.

Steve Brown:
And better, now that I’m sitting here with you. It hasn’t been exactly a wonderful day. As you know, I wear hearing AIDS and they went dead on me.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
And, and it was kinda good. Cause a lot of the conversations I didn’t want to hear, but it got fixed.

Pete Alwinson:

all things work together for good.

Steve Brown:
My audiologist is a Christian and a strong one and he fixed it this morning, so I could hear. And since he’s a Christian, and since greater works than I do, will you do. And he’s a part of the body of Christ. Jesus healed me this morning.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow. Yeah, I liked the theological.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, right.

Pete Alwinson:
Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Brown:
Guys, that’s Pete Alwinson, go to ForgeTruth.com and if you live in central Florida, you might want to be a part of one of the Forge men’s groups. Those are outstanding and lives are changed and there are differences made. And if you’ll go to that website, ForgeTruth.com and check it out, you can find out where and when, and they would love to have you, if you would like to come. And Pete comes in and we answer questions and have been doing it for a long time. We love your questions. And when I say that, I really mean it. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE. And you can do that anytime you want to, 24 seven, you have a question that comes to mind, pick up the phone, call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, record your question, and sometimes we put that on the air. And by the way, don’t preach, we’re the preachers and we’re well to change, so don’t try to correct us, but if you have a question, you could make it on the air. Or you can send your question to

Key Life Network

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Or you can e-mail us at [email protected]. And those are places where you can help us financially, if that’s what you’re called to do. We’ll be faithful with your gift and we’ll use it in the lives of people who can’t afford to give. And if you can’t give or don’t feel led to, we get that too, do say a prayer when you get a chance for Key Life. By the way, did you know that you can give on your phone, not give your phone, but give on your phone. You text Key Life at 28950. That’s 28950 and just follow instructions. And, maybe you can help us that way. Pete lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright, Our Great God, we stop for just a minute to thank you for everything that you are and that you’ve done. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we worship you. You are all knowing, you are all wise, you are all giving. You are gracious and merciful. Oh Lord, thank you for holding back what we deserve and giving us what we don’t deserve. But most of all, thank you for the Cross. And Lord Jesus, we honor you and praise you. And we ask that in a very real way, we would know you and the power of your resurrection and the fellowship, even if you’re suffering, Lord, and being conformed to your death though. So, thank you for your grace and mercy in our lives. You know us and Lord, you know our leaders and they need your grace, as we get ready for this week-end of worship, we pray for our worship directors, our pastors, priests, leaders, teachers, nursery workers, all who serve and will serve this week-end, so that we could worship you. Make your church healthy, I pray, Lord Jesus, in these changing times. And then, be honored and glorified as we do Q&A now. We lift it up to you. In your Holy name, we pray. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
I’ve been married for 20 years and it ain’t been good. It’s been up and down, my wife is a Christian too. I got three kids. Not being good, being a parent and a husband. I’ve been crying out to God and sometimes I give up.

Steve Brown:
Well, you want to fix it?

Pete Alwinson:
Boy. I, you know, I tell men,

Steve Brown:
That’s an honest statement.

Pete Alwinson:
I love that. I love that straight out. Because on Sunday morning, somebody comes up to, you says, Hey, how are you doing? We say, fine.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
And really what they mean is, I’m frustrated, insecure, nervous and exhausted.

Steve Brown:
You know, what would happen in the church, if somebody responded the way that guy did and said, I’m doing awful, I’ve been married 20 years. I’m not a good husband. I don’t like being a parent. I don’t know what to do with my kids. Can you help me?

Pete Alwinson:
Wow.

Steve Brown:
Well, whoever you tell that to would faint, you’d have to fan them to get them up to give you some answers.

Pete Alwinson:
They’d faint, and then they shun you, like we talked about the other week.

Steve Brown:
They’d shun you, right. I get, the first thing he needs to do is repent. And what does repent mean? It doesn’t mean change, because you’ve tried to change, you haven’t been able to, but it means that you agree with God. And, I think you’re halfway there, by asking that question. Just say, God, I’m not proud of this, but I haven’t been a wonderful husband or a good father. And I don’t know what to do with these kids, or with my wife. And I know that’s wrong, cause I know that the nuclear family is really important to you. And I repent of that, could you help me? And that’s genuine repentance.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, it is. It is. I like that. And I agree with you a hundred percent, and then go to church and listen to a gospel message, preach the gospel and just relax in Jesus. Then maybe write a note to the pastor or somebody else and say, Hey, is there an older guy in the church that can walk alongside me? Just, become my friend. And that I could ask questions to, somebody that knows the Bible better than I do. We need mentors. The community brotherhood, sisterhood in the church is crucial for our growth.

Steve Brown:
Oh, it really is. We can’t do this by ourselves.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
You know, I can’t be a good husband. I can’t do that by myself. I’m just not good enough, or a good father, or a good person. So, God put a bunch of sinners together, who are all struggling with those issues, but maybe not as honest as this man, so that we, and I love your thing about finding an older guy who’s been there and done that, who will be honest with you, and walk with you through some of those decisions. And I’ll tell you something, like what you do does that, the Forge ministry is a group of men, who are honest with one another. I’ll bet you, things like that are said often every week by a lot of men in a lot of situations.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, man. You know, cause grace makes you much more authentic.

Steve Brown:
Oh yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
And we know that he’s not angry at us, right? And so, we have the opportunity to actually face the real issues in our life. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Good, good stuff. And good for you, sir, for you’re honest.

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely.

Steve Brown:
But don’t just sit on it, go and do what we said or you’ll get the fever and die. Alright, this is an e-mail, in Galatians 2:11-14, Paul called Peter a hypocrite because Peter would eat with Gentiles. But when Paul arrived, he separated himself from the Gentiles, because he was afraid of those who belong to the circumcision group. In Acts 16, it says that Timothy’s mother was Jewish and his father was Greek. Paul wanted to take Timothy on the journey, so he circumcised him, because of the Jews who lived in the area, where they all knew that his father was Greek. Doesn’t that make Paula hypocrite too?

Pete Alwinson:
That’s a good question, isn’t it?

Steve Brown:
And it’s right on. Yeah, it does. I guess.

Pete Alwinson:
Well, you.

Steve Brown:
In the same way Peter was.

Pete Alwinson:
You, you, you, you could say that. I think, I think that’s one response to this. I really do. I think another response would be say there’s two different principles at work.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
And, and the Pauline principle, which he operated on in Corinthians was,

I’ve become all things to all men that I might by all means win some.

And so, he was trying to remove, he wasn’t making it a test of orthodoxy, as far as I can tell, circumcision for Timothy, he was making it a text of, the context of not unnecessarily offending, so as to retain an audience. Now, I could be wrong on that.

Steve Brown:
No, you’re right. And what I said, well, could be right.

Pete Alwinson:
Could be right.

Steve Brown:
But as you said that, I thought, he’s right on, that’s exactly what it’s about, but let me tell you something, you gotta be careful about, the writers of Scripture are sinners, just like you. And the Bible is clear about their sin. So, people are always trying to defend Paul, when he does dumb and sinful things, and he did. And, we try to defend him as if Paul were the perfect example of everything, and he wasn’t.

Pete Alwinson:
Are you thinking of the thing with Barnabas, the missionary journey?

Steve Brown:
He did it a lot of fighting, a lot of church fighting. In II Corinthians, he starts bragging and he knows he’s sinning, he says, as he talks about all that God has, he’s gone through, the whippings and, and then he says, I’m talking like a fool. In other words, I know this is sin, but I’m going to do it anyway. And he goes ahead. Now what he said, is inerrant. Paul was not inerrant, and you got to keep those things separately, or you’ll get into trouble. But, to the original question, you’re absolutely right, there was a different principle involved in the thing with Peter and what Paul was doing. Paul had a vision. And that was a part of the vision. Peter, just wanted people to like him. So, he was a hypocrite.

Pete Alwinson:
He was weak in the flesh there. Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Listen, would you sing a hymn, while I look for another question here?,

Pete Alwinson:
I’m not going to do it, man. Not going to do it.

Steve Brown:
Why wasn’t the Epistle of John written in the first person?

Pete Alwinson:
Well.

Steve Brown:
Never been asked that before.

Pete Alwinson:
I’ve never been asked that one before. What initial response would we give to that? You know, John’s style is so different from Paul’s too. John wrote a circularly, coming back to the same, different topics, two or three times throughout the letter.

Steve Brown:
He did. He also wrote in the first person. I’m not sure I get that question. And he, sometimes he would be pontificating, I guess, and speaking for God, but he says a lot of things in the, for my little children, would you do this?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
So, at times it’s not the first person, but at other times, it is the first person. My sermons are kind of like that.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
So, I understand that.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, sure. I think that’s probably not an accurate question, but go back and read I John, it’ll take you 10 minutes. And, and you can see for yourself.

Steve Brown:
Listen, I was gonna ask you a question about the Graf-Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis.

Pete Alwinson:

Steve Brown:
But we’re out of time.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh boy, boy. Am I glad.

Steve Brown:
Will you come back next week?

Pete Alwinson:
I’ll see you here.

Steve Brown:
Alright guys, by the way, we do love to get your questions and we kid around, but we take it seriously. And, we take you and your question seriously. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.