Rabbi Singer on the Old Testament, Then Calls on Various Topics

Welcome to the dividing line just want to let you know Ahead of time that this could be an abbreviated version of the dividing line if you're watching you're listening live. And if in iTunes, it says it's like 12 minutes long or something like that.

Maybe it is it's hard to say I want to show you the current radar here at there we go and I'd say our offices are somewhere around the P in Phoenix sort of. This this general area around here. Yeah. So That that big old blob in fact, there's some purple in there for a while.

In this the thing it's heading for us purple purples a bad thing purples hail and purples purples bad. Purple rain, yeah, okay, whatever that is. Um, so If if all of a sudden we're gone, it's it's it's because the power went out and and We lost connection and that's that's why.

So I'm actually gonna leave that running. Who knows what we'll what we'll get to see from that but just just a warning just in case we disappear that's that's why this morning I went out real early and I forget who had mentioned it somebody online had mentioned a debate that I had not seen.

I still haven't seen it because I listened to it, but I Downloaded it and and this morning. I say, okay. Let's let's finally get around to to listening to this debate and So I I put it on the the list and I found it very interesting.

As far as debates go Not not the best debate. There was no cross-examination there was basically half-hour statements and then what was supposed to be I think like 10 or 15 minute second statements and that was it and It just seemed to me that the Christian dr. Evans Didn't talk nearly as long as a rabbi Tovia singer did this is the debate on whether Jesus fulfilled Biblical prophecy between dr. Craig Evans and Rabbi Tovia singer.

I've certainly heard of rabbi singer a number of times. Ironically, I have not heard I I believe that he debated Michael Brown once but won't debate him again. I don't know. That's what I've heard. And I've just been too busy today to be checking stuff out.

I've had other things going on. So I Had I've heard of rabbi singer for quite some time but this was the first time other than a couple weeks ago someone tweeted me something where Rabbi singer was explaining why Jesus could not have died for your sins and after about seven or eight minutes I just I just gave up because I could not make heads or tails of what in the world was being said Why what was being said was being said or anything?

I mean, I just sort of gave up on it. So I was quite interested Once we got into this Dr. Evans presentation You know, dr. Evans is a fine scholar in many ways. He's a little to the left of me in many areas, but It was it was an interesting presentation it wasn't really compelling and and I It comes to debate my primary Criticism of dr. Evans is that he's a very good lecturer doesn't make you a very good debater, but makes a very good lecturer and It's not really a passionate presentation and I really wasn't certain exactly how Jesus Fulfilled scriptural prophecy in light of what he said well rabbi singer gets up and the first five minutes easily I Sounds like something from Comedy Central.

I mean, he's he's a he's good at telling jokes with that very thick Jewish accent and and you know, you can say lots of you know, there's some very funny Jewish comics out there and It took him a while to get around to the issue and Honestly, we're gonna look at one of the objections By the way, we're gonna open up the phone lines, too I guess I should have told told rich that but hey, this is I didn't say we're gonna open up Skype so that way, you know, that would really throw you a throw you a curve, but But eight seven seven seven five three three, three, four one.

I'm not sure how long it'll take Oh, look at that rain coming down outside I'm sorry Announce announce it after I do this. Okay. All right. Yeah, there's there's very large Drops of rain coming down outside now.

So as long as that's rain and not hail I Both of us would not be happy about a big hailstorm right now and not with our cars out there right out in the open That would be unfun. Anyway Eventually he got into the why but I'm as far as the debate was concerned.

It really wasn't much of a debate But I was blown away by this section Of the rabbi's Presentation and I just found it fascinating found it. Absolutely. Fascinating and once you hear what he says you'll Understand why I think it's absolutely fascinating that this is being said by a very strong opponent To the To the Christian faith very strong opponent but let's just see if we can even get this play because we're rich and I are listening to the thundering on the roof and like I said, we'll see But let's let's listen to what rabbi singer says at this point in his presentation.

The Authority of Tanakh and the Rejection of Liberal Old Testament Criticism

Unless you can't let that you got to know the Hebrew. So how. So the issue is this, of course, we have opinions. Everybody has an opinion, but we Jews are not interested in opinion. My opinion does not matter.

We have to ask listen to me. We have to ask the question. And people don't ask it sometimes. We're so caught up with theology and this is a tulip. What's God's opinion? What is God's opinion that's all we ask.

What does Hashem say. What does God say and whatever he says will follow it. We're not interested in my opinion. It seems more like this than like that. No. We want to know what does scripture say because Tanakh is the Word of God and it's holy and divinely inspired and we do not interfere with the text and Isaiah wrote Isaiah all 66 chapters and.

The reason why people say that Isaiah is written by multiple authors is not because it was some linguistic study. We all know the reason because they don't believe in the God of Israel. So when Isaiah 45 verse 1 when Isaiah says that Cyrus Cyrus lived how will this century later?

Says that Cyrus is the Messiah. Many people who are anointed so of course people who a priori. Of course a priori if you don't believe in the Word of God. If you don't believe Isaiah is divinely inspired, of course, you have to say that Isaiah who lived 2 ,700 years ago.

Couldn't have known about Cyrus who's the king of Persia? What do you think you're gonna be told listen to me you who are going to this university you go to a Christian University. I imagine here the devout Christian so on but you know, you're gonna be going to maybe go to another place.

You know, they could tell you you think Daniel was written by Daniel. Haha, Daniel's not written by Daniel. The question is why in the Dead Sea Scrolls Daniel was one of their favorite texts. But they didn't know then it was written during the time of the Maccabees written.

Why why I can tell you why? Dr. Evans will say the reason is not because of some study of Daniel. They walk in with the Preconceived notion that Daniel who is writing clearly about the Greek Empire. He'd lived during the Babylonian Empire couldn't possibly know about the early death of Alexander the great.

He couldn't know about the kingdom divided into four parts. Then, you know, he couldn't know that so therefore because people walk in with their emotional Psychological religious things they then have to twist themselves into a thing.

You don't have to put Daniel there. And if you try go to some liberal university and say a Daniel lived during the Babylon. He didn't say a Daniel lived during the time of Hanukkah in time of the Seleucid.

It's a he's attested to so widely. Prophets often do not speak about other prophets just happens to me. It happens to be Ezekiel who lived during the Babylonian exile. We know where he's buried. Ezekiel describes Daniel three times.

He talks about him passingly. He's not trying to be but how did he seek to know about Daniel? It doesn't make sense a Jew. He's basically the vice president. So, how do we know what God opinion is? The answer is we have to look at Tanakh.

We look at scripture scripture is our only authority not some text not some this we do not recognize anything. But the Bible the Bible is the Word of God and it is based on that that that's how we worship God is based on that.

That's how we bend our knees. It's based on that. That's how we speak to the God of Israel. And that's it now, I Don't know about you. But I.

Was just sort of blown away I I really really really really wish that I would hear Christian Old Testament scholars talking like that. I've said many times on this program that We basically gave the Old Testament up no, no, no, don't get me wrong there are Believing Old Testament scholars, but let's admit it in the majority of instances in The majority of seminaries certainly majority of published works these days There are certain givens That have taken over the Old Testament that are based upon a very Naturalistic secular worldview, I mean a Large portion of Old Testament scholarship.

Moses didn't exist. He didn't have anything to do with the with the writing of the Tanakh and and of course, I I I don't have any numbers here. I'm just guesstimating but I would say 85 of Everyone teaching in Old Testament would would Speak of Deutero Isaiah just what he was just talking about.

So, I believe Isaiah wrote all 66 books of Isaiah and the reason that people don't believe that has nothing to do with the text it has to do with the presuppositions that they have and He's right. He's he's just right and You know, I can deal with someone who will say stuff like this and say we need to go the text and.

But it just struck me That man, I wish I would hear more people Saying that no, of course, we do hear people saying things similar to what rabbi singer just said but when you join that together with a Well, what what term shall we use anymore?

That the standard term that would be used would be a fundamentalist mindset. Unfortunately that term used to have a meaning it doesn't have anymore. It used to have a meaning that Went back historically to certain doctrines and beliefs, but when people talk about a fundamentalist mindset today They're talking about the Sam Gibbs of the world they're talking about people who Show absolutely no evidence of being able to hear Any other position but their own?

So we got plenty of people who will say some of the things that rabbi singer said. But I'm talking about scholars of the subject. Who will stand up and we'll say, you know It may be the most common position taken it may be may be the only way that you can That you can You know Get published it may be the only way you can get tenure.

But There you go, I'm gonna go against it. I'm gonna I'm gonna put myself in jeopardy and say, you know what? When I look at the prophecies of Cyrus, I think God actually knew something about Cyrus. I don't think this is just a big fat lie.

Because if you if you do the Deutero Isaiah thing. That last half of Isaiah becomes a big fat lie. Oh. You can dress it up. You can say oh, well This was this was just meant to comfort the people of Israel and assure them that God is still in control of history.

Well, it's still a lie. Isaiah didn't know this was gonna happen. Um, there's no prophecy here and that's clearly not the view of Jesus it's clearly not the view of the Apostles and So it really is modern man going.

Yeah, I know it wasn't apostolic. Yeah, and I know the early church didn't have these views either but You know, we've we've just gotten so smart now. We've just gotten so brilliant now. We know things, you know that nobody ever knew before well, okay on some levels We do know things today that no one ever knew before whether We join our knowledge with wisdom is a different issue and So I was I heard that part part I'd be honest with you wasn't sure what had to do with the debate in fact.

Almost nothing that rabbi singer said had much to do with the debate at all and I was really taken aback and confused by dr. Evans response was supposed to be his response and closing statement all-in-one I It seemed exceptionally short and really didn't engage the subject at all.

But I want to play that just simply to go, you know I wish more people would Would basically say the same thing but join that with you know Christian faith. Rather than hearing it coming from someone who you know, very radically opposes Our our faith, but it was it was actually refreshing to hear that but You know, you can't get too excited because as soon as That happens Then you start getting some of the objections.

And I just want to play one of them because You know, I hear all of that and I I'm like great that's that's wonderful and then I hear One of his primary objections to the Christian belief specifically of the Trinity and I'm just left going this this is very simplistic basic stuff.

Just like what we have to deal with with the Muslims all the time I It's not overly not overly in-depth now. I know there are people who who try to go more in-depth Sometime. Either earlier this year.

Maybe late last year. I forget exactly when it was Michael Brown got me in touch with a Jewish writer and I I Engaged in some fairly lengthy emails back and forth initially Identifying his miss I his misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the Trinity, but it became very clear very quickly that this fellow has a Lot more time on his hands than I do and I would get these huge emails just wandering all across the historical theological and philosophical landscape and I And it all boiled down to the the demand to abandon the very foundational elements Of what the doctrine of Trinity is in the first place and I'm like, well, I could be doing that.

So I don't really see that we're going anywhere here and and a demanded redefinition of what the doctrine of Trinity actually is so I know there's some people out there that will do that kind of thing but let me just play this for you and see for yourself here's here's one of the objections that rabbi singer raises.

The Trinity, the Messiah, and the Meaning of Numbers 23:19

Because love is talking about okay. There's not okay. What we're doing is we are not going to take some amorphic text and then apply them to texts that are graphic. What we do is we take texts that are in the most basic principle.

We take texts that are in the light that are clear and we we then understand ambiguous text not the other way. That's how cults start by going the wrong direction. So what we do is we look at the Bible we ask ourselves the question we look at Isaiah chapter 11.

Which which which dr. Craig Evans brought up and he's right. It is talking about the Messiah. But what does Isaiah chapter 11 tell us about. Isaiah chapter 11 verse 1 tells us from the shooter Jesse, but verse 2 How does it end?

It's talking about the Messiah. Everyone agrees. That's critical here. We don't disagree. It's talking about Moshiach. You know how it ends it end this thing and he will fear the Lord fear the Lord.

He's telling me that the Lord feels himself does God fear anything. And now there's the actually we do two objections as realized. He's gonna fear the Lord. Yeah, if you're the God man, you are not gonna fear the Lord.

You can be an atheist. You're gonna you're gonna break God's law see once again. The exact assumption is being made That the Muslim makes in fact in many ways I've said this for years in in discussing Islamic apologetics Islam is a is a u-turn.

Islam refuses to go as far and to accept the the Further revelation of God made of himself in the person of Jesus Christ. So it makes a u-turn goes back to the position that the Jews had who refused likewise To allow that revelation on the part of the triune God of himself.

Incarnation outpouring the Holy Spirit. They both reject the exact same thing. So they're gonna argue the exact same way and that's what they do. Well, he it can't be the Messiah because Messiah fears the Lord.

Well, so you're assuming That there can be no incarnation because if there are multiple persons in the Godhead if Psalm 110 one is indicating that kind of situation and If the son were to become incarnate you mean he wouldn't fear the Lord.

The fear of the Lord beginning of wisdom the very one who's always been wisdom. He's not gonna he's not gonna be consistent with himself. He's gonna be a sinner he's gonna be a rebel. He's gonna be an atheist.

He's gonna be agnostic. He's gonna be a Cowboys fan. I mean what there's only so many possibilities, you know I mean that all which are completely impossible. Just saying if anybody was awake and especially one particular guy over in Texas someplace that you know he may be he's out mowing his lawn or something listening to dividing line and he just Just turned off some direction and ran over his azaleas or something I don't know just because I said that but just saying if you're awake.

It's the exact presuppositional assumption That all our Muslim friends make well God can't become man. Because if you even allow for okay hypothetically if it happened would he fear the Lord. Well, of course then this really isn't an argument Against Jesus being the Messiah is it because you're assuming Unitarianism you're assuming there could be no incarnation and you're assuming a very odd Understanding of what an incarnate one would be like in the first place.

So it's not really an argument. But there you go. And it then the next one's very similar then verse 3 if Isaiah 11 begin.

He will be filled with the fear of God. Why would God fear himself? The reason we don't accept Jesus as God man and flesh was the most Serious aspect is because God tells us in Numbers chapter 23 verse 19 that God is not a man.

He will not lie. He will not change his mind become Netzach Yisrael The the the power of the way is shackled. We know him the God of Israel will not change his mind. He won't you know, I He Lie Adam who because he's not a man.

We know him. He won't change his mind. That's what my Bible says.

Yeah, that's what your Bible says and that's what our Bible says and that's what we how many times if I quoted numbers 23 19 To a Mormon and in fact, it's funny. I didn't queue it up but he starts his Closing statement with a joke and the joke was why did God make Mormons?

So Christians would know what Jews feel like well think about what that means. What he's basically saying is, you know Christians look at Mormons polytheists. Well, the Jew looks at the Christian polytheist just like the Muslim does.

The difference is of course that the Mormons openly fundamentally without question embrace Polytheism so much so that the very God of this world Was once a man who lived on another planet had a God before him and there's an unlimited number of gods.

Okay, the most polytheistic religion on the face of God's green earth. So we quote numbers 23 19 to the Mormons all the time because we have to because in Mormon theology the very essence of God's being is that God.

Man and angels are all the same kind of being. We're all the same species just at different levels of exaltation. So is that what we are saying? Of course not fundamental misunderstanding. We are not saying that the fundamental essence of God is man.

God created man. God did not cease to be God when he entered into human existence. But our assertion is and Maybe this would be. Maybe rabbi singer would repeat the topic that I did with Abdullah Kunda.

Can God become man? Because that's the presuppositional issue here is. Presuppositionally he's assuming that can't happen. But my argument has been and continues to be. If God can create perfect human nature Why cannot he join a perfect human nature to himself for his own purposes for his own self-glorification?

It does not change his essential nature. It is it is not a You understand the doctor the hypostatic Union. It is not a mixture of Divine and humans so that Jesus becomes 50 God and 50 man and it's a Demi-god type mixture type.

No, none of that none of that so When you when you hear someone quoting numbers 2319 against Christianity there is a fundamental problem on the part of their understanding of what our assertion actually is and certainly any Christian any Christian Should know their own faith well enough to be able to explain to anyone whether it's to rabbi singer or to any of my many Muslim friends out there who will quote the exact same text and I think in their more honest moments will admit that they frequently find themselves Visiting Jewish apologetic sites to get some of their arguments.

Whoever it might be We need to be ready to say well, we believe numbers 2390. We're not saying that the essential nature of God has eternally been that he's a man. The word became flesh at a point in time.

The word has not always been flesh but the word has always been the word and The word has always been eternal and the word has always been in the presence of the Father and the word has always been As to his nature deity John 1 1 so There's just some of the things that we need to consider.

And I was I was really surprised at at the argumentation that Rabbi singer presented because it it did not present to me a real full understanding of What the doctrine of the Trinity is actually stating and hence did not really provide a real strong critique of the Christian position, but again, it was extremely Interesting to hear him unabashedly affirming belief in the entirety of the Tanakh and a rejection of the Liberal consensus that unfortunately has become.

You know, I would like to hear his responses to some of the criticisms and things like that. But the main thing that that caught my attention was the simple fact that the real impetus behind JEDP and Deutero Isaiah and view of Daniel all the rest of stuff is people who simply go.

Well, we can't really think that these folks had you know, but there was prophecies. And I especially find that so completely problematic for a Christian. Given that you can't read the Gospels without Recognizing the centrality of the fulfillment of Prophecy in the life of Jesus and in his own self-understanding of himself.

It's just there. You can't. You can try to attribute that to Matthew or something and say he went overboard. It was too zealous or whatever else you can do whatever you want but There there you go, so I found that interesting wanted to share that with you today.

And so there you go. You can find that debate. You can watch the whole thing. It wasn't very long. Like I said it It was more like dueling Presentations than it was a debate because it again if you don't have interaction, you're not having a debate.

You know, dr. Evans could have gone into one of his classes given his 30-minute presentation and his what sound like a well He spent a bunch of time talking about anti-semitism In his closing thing and almost nothing on the topic of the debate.

He could have done all that in his class record that and then Rabbi singer could have recorded his thing and you could have watched both of them and you would have had the exact same thing. That's why it wasn't really a debate.

You don't have cross X. Don't have interaction debate. Could have been done some other way and probably saved the airline tickets a few things like that eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three three three four one now.

Rich are you sure about line two? You are huh because I told him I told him in channel that you were pretty well trained at getting rid of him. You know just just simply by voice.

So that's what you get for telling me five minutes after we start the show. So oh.

Okay, all right, so I'll all right, okay. There there you go, okay, let's see here. So let's uh, if anybody else can't calls in we'll make sure to put them before Alan, but Andrew called in first. Anyways, so let's let's talk with Andrew.

Hi Andrew doing good. Well, we're having a little problem getting him on a Christian booksellers Christian booksellers distributors or whatever it is because I think there's there's too many Methodists on there and so they're into a second work of grace or something and so.

They they're not they're not carrying it for us and Amazon turned us down. So I'm not it may all be on eBay or something eventually because you can sell anything on eBay, I guess. So I saw someone actually posting their Fitbit right before the program on on Twitter and they had like 2 ,300 steps and so they said man, I'm doing pretty good in my salvation today.

And I looked at mine. I have 26 ,000 which means I'm that's sinless perfection right there. Which I think is your your question. Anyways, so.

Yeah is the mong vision, which is very I've heard every objection that they've ever 3 ,000 times already. So but I think the best one that I've heard so far Goes into this area is which I had a hard time responding to which is if we accept Those what defense do we have against endless perfectionism where it says if we have been born of God Whoever has been born of God does not sin or if we know him we will walk at the a walk and various Other scriptures in first John that have that feeling where.

Well, it well it does in the sense that it does in two ways a first John has started off talking about those who would deny that they sin and The answer to that is Seen in we have an ad if any man does sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous and that's present tense so that the there there would be no way to go through first John 1 and Come up with the idea that we don't need an advocate with a father because there's there clearly is the continued experience of sin.

And so that's why when you look at he was born of God does not sin. You have to recognize the difference between heiress and presence and that John is using The present in the habitual sense of that that lifestyle not the heiress sense of individual experience of sin and That's certainly how the text has been understood.

It's certainly it wasn't understood that way by Many in the early church and that demonstrates how many in the early church had a very sub biblical understanding of Anthropology and things like that I mean when you have some of those early writers who had the idea that a single sin after baptism would Cause you'd be lost forever Really good origin believe that or something.

Well, who knows what origin believed? I mean origin right you could claim origin for almost anything and Remember the majority of his works have never even been translated into English. So there's probably all sorts of other wild crazy loony stuff out there.

We've have any run into but The the if I recall the Epistle of Barnabas Shepherd of Hermas Has some of that kind of of idea connected to it? You listen to something like that and you go then exactly. Did these folks really deal with the concept of the mediator in Hebrews or or any the rest of stuff?

So there there are a lot of There are a lot of early writers that did not have what we would call a pan canonical view. You know, Justin Martyr never quotes from Paul. So there's some real Imbalances with with him as well.

So you've got that but if you've got the entirety of scripture and you're looking at the entirety of the New Testament You're allowing it all to speak. You just can't come up with these these extremist positions without Ending up Basically doing to some text of scripture what the non Lordship people end up doing with James 2 which is Fundamentally standing is on its head and you end up having to do that with the mediatorship of Christ or whatever else it might Be in these other other other things.

So I think I think there is a Rather strong argument to be made in regards to first John That when he's he's talking, you know, they're talking about sinless perfection there they've missed the introduction of John and they're also missing the difference between the The aorist experience of sin and the present tense experience of sin.

There is a there is a difference between those two and I think most of us recognize that in their own experience. Well, you know I said long time ago when I wrote the little book on the late Harold camping dangerous airwaves I had a whole section in there on the fact that You know camping would talk a lot about believing the Bible to be the Word of God.

We believe the Bible to be the Word of God over and over and over again but when. Yeah, but that's the whole point when you Refuse to utilize a meaningful exegetical system that allows God to speak in his word.

And force the word into the parameters that your method of interpretation will force it into well. You're not, you know, you can talk about being the Word of God, but you're not treating it like the Word of God.

And so the more we work at truly allowing the text to speak for itself. And that means the work that goes into doing serious exegesis the more we're showing we really do honor This as God's Word and we want to function it to function in our lives as God's Word and that's why a few of us are a little bit on the Particular side when we hear people talking about how you shouldn't bore your people with verse-by-verse Exposition and all the rest this kind of stuff.

I just There there's some there's some serious problems there and exegesis. I think is one of the most important ways of honoring God and Honoring his word as as scripture.

All right, just one. Yes a real quick resource then looking for this on the internet and all I've been able to get. Rhetorically liberal stuff. Is there anything out and the so world and how like different tasks were viewed and maybe how the Jews had a vitriolic hate for the arrival, well.

You know.

There are resources and You know like FF Bruce did I think I've have Bruce did a New Testament history book that was that covered the intertestamental period quite well. I'm trying to remember what my particular seminary Textbooks were for that particular class because when I took it I remember very clearly how most of my my fellow students were bored out of their minds and I was The only one who realized how vitally important this was because I was already involved in apologetics.

Sometimes you can get some of those textbooks and and those textbooks will almost always have for further reading Bibliographies stuff like that. They're a goldmine for that kind of information especially articles that you'll find In various of the of the journals that might get a little more focused in regards to the view of the goyim by the the Jews as Represented in the intertestamental literature of such-and-such a book or something like that that's that's normally the best way to track down that kind of level of Information but I'm thinking it was a I think you know thing.

It was FF Bruce New Testament history was one of them, but I can't remember the others off top my hand. But the head but there and there's also some excellent Jewish sources. I'm trying to remember the the name of the Jewish scholar again if I was in my library be able to Jacob Neusner.

Jacob Neusner would be another one to see if he has something on that particular period of time Might be helpful to you. All right, thank you. I guess I shouldn't skip him. Yeah. All right. Hello Alan.

First John 2:2 and the Meaning of Propitiation

Yeah, are you driving right now? Yeah, that's it. That's that's I I should hang up right now because Because I know you're driving skills or lack thereof and so distraction I mean I Distracted you once while I was in the car with you and ended up sitting in traffic for a half hour as a result.

So what this this could be disastrous?

No, it's fine. I'm not gonna get lost on my way home. And you told me in channel not an hour ago now that you're gonna talk about my favorite topics on today's show.

Jewish misunderstandings are not my favorite topic. Dr. White. Well, I was actually obviously being completely facetious. Because I said you were leaving and so I just wanted to pretty much. Anytime you speak to me in channel would be that way.

That's true. That is very true. Yeah, I should have understood it.

So hey, listen, I'm an excellent driver. So and I was thinking about gay marriage while I'm driving on the way home and the approval of it. I was Talking in channel to some mutual friends of ours who shall remain anonymous because well They're anonymous and we talked about Whether or not it's You know an outright sin to attend a gay wedding.

We've talked about baking a cake before and stuff. But this was a little different attending a gay wedding and so the text in mine is Romans 132 sure, you know it. And there's a distinction in the text that That I hadn't thought about before.

And the distinction is that in Romans 132 It says though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Now some churches and some people that we both know are taking the approval clause there and Saying anybody who attends the gay wedding is in sin. Which on the surface sounds good. But when you look at the text, it actually says that those who do the misdeeds the sin and Give approval to them.

All right, you know give approval to those who practice them. So it seems to be there if somebody If a Christian who is not doing Them as it says in Romans Romans 132, but merely attends a gay wedding Are they they fall under the condemnation of Romans 132?

And then the fact is I would think that any time you approve sin You're in sin by approving sin. So maybe this verse just isn't applicable at all.

Well, it wouldn't be the first verse that I would go to on the subject because it the verse is specifically referring to the insanity of sinners and the fact that they love company in their sin and Even in knowing that they're under the wrath of God they encourage others to put themselves under the wrath of God as well.

And that's really what it's talking about. I Would be much more in line with what? Dr. Mohler has said and that is the recognition that Attendance at a wedding is from a Christian perspective attendance at a covenant Relationship the beginning of a covenant relationship and that you are participating As the audience which is why in the the Christian tradition down through the years you had Such things as if anyone can give reason why this couple should not be joined together let them speak now forever hold their peace and Before these who are gathered here and before God you're making these these these vows and and it was very very clearly Intended to be a a public statement of a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman and so it is To me anyways the real foundation for saying that a Christian cannot attend a Profaning of marriage ceremony is found in the very name It's a profaning of marriage ceremony in the same from my perspective it's the exact same issue of of my going to a Roman Catholic wedding and Actually attending in and participating in the mass as a part of that wedding.