Dennis Tuuri

Q1:
**Questioner:** Thank you for the question, Teresa. Did you have a follow-up?

**Pastor Tuuri:** Does that make sense? (The questioner indicates they did not move or speak further.)

—

Q2:
**Lorraine Husky:** Pastor Tuuri, this is Lorraine Husky over here by your wife, right behind her. I just wanted to say thank you for the sermon. One of the scriptures that came to my mind when you were speaking about shining in seasons—the times that God gives us—is Psalm 31. It says, “But for me I trust in you, O Lord. I say that you are my God.” The verse that came to my heart was “my times are in your hand.” And then it goes on to talk about his face shining upon us, which I wasn’t aware of. So it’s just kind of a timely verse that came to my heart. So thank you.

**Pastor Tuuri:** Great. Thank you for sharing that. You know, there’s another reference—John, is John over there too? Maybe he’ll remember, or somebody else might remember this. I think it’s in Genesis, but it talks about God’s covenant in terms of God’s faithfulness in springtime and harvest, in summer and cold. Does anybody know where that?

**Questioner:** Very good.

**Pastor Tuuri:** And you know, so it’s interesting because it links these seasonal periods to God’s faithfulness, right? So there’s this connection again with seasonality to the faithfulness of God’s covenant. And some people think that Genesis 9 is actually the reference in Revelation where Jesus says, “If you are hot or cold, but since you’re lukewarm, I spew you out of my mouth.” That hot or cold means you’re operating in the context of the seasonality of the covenant. Anyway, yeah, there’s a wonderful set of verses that talk about that seasonality and consistency, etc.

—

Q3:
**Peggy:** Pastor Tuuri, here’s Peggy. I’m back here directly in front of you, actually. If you stay exactly in your same angle and you look straight ahead, that’s where I am. I just wanted to say that we do not want to rebel against the authority of an employer ever in an unrighteous way. But it is very important, I think, for employees to understand that there are times to speak up and go to the authority above them, or even the authority above that, or even to legal powers in order to fulfill their duty. And we should never—it’s a difficult decision when to do so—but I think it’s really important that we emphasize that Christians should receive protection under the law and employers are required to obey God’s law also, even if they don’t think they are.

Oppression, improper sexual harassment, or just mental duress, not paying people properly—you know, we need to complain righteously, but we need to make sure that we understand that God loves us, not just our employer. And so we need to make sure to properly report wrongdoing—not too much but not too little.

**Pastor Tuuri:** No, I completely agree. I think I threw in maybe one caveat along those lines, but no, I completely agree with you. And in fact, you know, the other side of it is the best way to serve an employer who’s breaking the law or just being a jerk, violating whatever it might be. The best way to serve him for the well-being of the business is actually to speak to him and to make a respectful appeal, but an appeal nonetheless.

And if necessary, you know, make that appeal to the one over him if he won’t hear. I completely agree with that. And in fact, I think that’s an essential part of lightbearing in the workplace because, you know, again, our goal is that the workplace becomes lighter and lighter and lighter. And if all you do is suck it up and never say anything and think you’re being so nicely submissive, then really you’ve left the workplace somewhat dark.

So it’s always, you know, two ditches in the road, but yeah, I completely agree with what you say, and it’s part of loving people.

—

Q4:
**Questioner:** Hi, Dennis. Wonderful message. I was wondering if you could comment and follow up on a scenario that I watched recently—a rerun of Firing Line with William F. Buckley and Thomas Sowell. The opponent on Firing Line—I can’t remember her name, but she was a liberal and wore rose-colored glasses—anyway, Thomas Sowell was making the statement that we have to back away from all the things that are going on and fix the situation by no longer having the pay scale that the liberals were demanding, and all these things, push them all back. And he was saying that will eventually correct things and bring them back to the way they were before, you know, the Depression, which you said was much better than they are now for minorities.

And this lady was saying, “Well, yeah, well, what are you going to do for the disadvantaged youth right now?” And you were talking about the impatience thing. And it seems like they want you to short-circuit the fix in order to do everything right now. And when you said that, it just brought it home to me. I wonder if you could comment on that.

**Pastor Tuuri:** Well, it’s a typical debating trick. When you’re discussing solutions to societal problems such as the economy, you know, you have to talk big issues. You’ve got to kind of know where you’re going. Once you sort of know where you’re going, then of course there are paths to be taken, and you know, what’s the right way and wrong way to get there and all that stuff. But what the left tends to want to do typically, and the right does it too sometimes, is they’ll look at their goal and then say, “Well, there’s no way we can do that today.” As if that’s the end of the argument.

So you never get anywhere in terms of a long-term plan or projection or goal that you can work toward slowly over time. I think it’s a typical debating trick. It might have to do with just that particular person’s shortsightedness and wanting to live in the moment. And the left tends to be revolutionary and the right tends to be gradualist, which I think is more biblical. You know, I wouldn’t want to make those categories too firm, but there is something in the nature of it.

Plus, it’s a debating tactic to discredit people, so it’s hard to tell without watching the actual show, but it’s very typical. It’s very typical. You know, it’s the same with, for instance, all the discussion over the last ten years about Social Security or Medicare. You know, the right envisions more of a privatized system. The left says, “Well, if you did that today, everybody would get hurt. Look what happened to the stock market.” So, you see, and you know, people that make those comments anyway—the point is, it’s the same thing: establishing a goal. What does public policy look like? And we would say trying to base that on the principles of the scriptures. And then what steps would God have us take to reach that?

—

Q5:
**Louis:** Pastor Tuuri, this is Louis. I was wondering about something with the Taming of the Shrew and the changing of Kate’s name.

**Pastor Tuuri:** Yeah, it’s amazing how important that can be. I was in the Army, and when I first got in, this was about 20—let’s see, I can’t even remember how long ago that was. Long time. The Army, about 35 years I guess ago or 40—I don’t know. The Army did what seems to me a simple thing: they required all enlisted people and officers to call enlisted people, once they got past Private and once they became a Sergeant of some sort, to call them Sergeant.

Before that, the Army was in really bad shape in America. It was after Vietnam, and it just self-destructed almost, and people used the term Sarge. “Hey Sarge, what should I do about this?” Yeah. And they changed it at one point to Sergeant. And you always called an officer Sir. And none of this overfamiliarization. And you know what? I think that’s a big part of the whole change in the Army.

**Louis:** Yeah. And now we have a very structured Army and very serious. And I don’t see any other Army in the world defeating our Army.

**Pastor Tuuri:** Yeah. And anyway, that was one thing that really—that’s a great example. Yeah. I mean, you know, and we’re people of the word. God brings about the new creation by his word, so words have a tremendous ability. We’re told, you know, that our words should be chosen to minister grace to other people.

So I think it’s a great illustration of the significance of using our words and naming a thing, which then produces the respect. Some people say, “Well, that’s silly. Just get respect first, then change the name.” But no, it’s the other way around. Those habits and patterns and liturgies of speech, you know, I think really do create the kind of reality. That’s what the prophet does. He speaks reality into existence by his words. And that’s an example of that. That’s a prophetic use of the tongue. I would say that’s a good illustration.