Fourth Program for the Week!

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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We're back, it's Friday, and we've been with you for, well, if you listen to Iron Shepard's Iron, we've been with you the whole week.

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You must be getting sick and tired of this. Just trying to, like I said, there's a bunch of truck drivers out there that are just working themselves to a frazzle, and we just figure we'll try to get you a master's degree during this period of time.

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Just apply at various seminaries and test out of everything, and you'll be good.

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No, it is good to be with you on a good Friday. The issue of the crucifixion and resurrection of our

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Lord, very, very important, obviously, to all Christians, central to our understanding of the faith.

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And I said yesterday that, oh, I didn't want to do that, well,

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I guess I'm sort of stuck with it. I imagine that looks best on your side, huh? Yeah, unfortunately, it's put everything over there.

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I can't see anything on that side of the screen. I hadn't tested this, so let me fix something here real quick and turn off the presenter stuff somehow.

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I'm not sure how to do that off the top of my head, just looking at it. But I want to talk to you about, there it is, the

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Enable Presenter Display. There we go. Preferences, they're wonderful things.

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Let's see if it works this time. No, it just blanks the other screen. That's real helpful.

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I have a nice presentation here, but it's going to blank out everything I have on the screen, so I may just blow it up real big here and let you mess with it from there, if that's all right.

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That way I can have the accordance program over here.

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There we go. Sorry about this, folks. I should have double -checked all these things, but you know how it works.

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What? It's Friday. Okay, I'll leave it there. It's Friday.

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How can this be traditionally, or in reality, the date of the crucifixion?

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Jesus said he was the sign of Jonah. He would be in the earth three days and three nights, and you cannot get three days and three nights out of Friday afternoon to crack a dawn

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Sunday morning. You can't pull that off, can you? And if you can't, why would you?

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Why not just say it was Wednesday, or at least Thursday and stretch it that far?

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And of course, there are lots of folks. This is the kind of internet thing that gets passed around and people go, hey,

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I've never even thought about that before. And so it causes issues and divisions and things like that.

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So I wanted to address the issue with you just for your own edification and consideration, and also because it is one of the standard arguments.

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In fact, the presentation I have is called Airman's Best. I did this.

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My recollection is I presented this somewhere in New York for Jeremiah Cry, and I don't remember what year it was.

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May have been 2012. I don't know. May have even been before that.

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I'm not sure. But it was not too long after Bart Ehrman sort of stormed on the scene with his popular level books going after the

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Christian faith. And so I was asked to address some of his best arguments.

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I'm not sure necessarily best as they would be most common or most frequently repeated because he does do that a lot in debates.

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So we frequently repeat these things. And since this does require some level of knowledge of the

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Passover and Jewish practice, that's where the problem comes in is the

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I was the most awake, attentive and alert student in the

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Old and New Testament backgrounds classes in seminary of anybody.

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And the reason was I was already involved with apologetics. And so while most everybody else was just like, you know, either nodding off, wondering how is this ever going to be relevant to me if I go in the ministry or working on papers due in another class?

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I was eating it all up because I recognized how important it was to to know this material, the background material, the contextual material, because so much of the argumentation that is used against the faith draws from that genre of information.

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And since a lot of seminary graduates do sort of, you know, put that off, there's not really paying attention.

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It's not something they remember. That means it doesn't end up in sermons, which means it's not that does end up being communicated to the people.

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And that opens up a huge place for unbelievers, cultists and others to drive a big old truck of unbelief right in the middle of our of our theology.

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Or if you want to use, hey, I started saying if you want to use a Lord of the

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Rings analogy. This is the classical literature here. It's like it helms deep when they they plant that explosive and Legolas is trying to take down the the the orc that has the the the thing is going to, you know, the fire is going to blow it up and he hits him, but doesn't take him down.

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He dives in and boom, blows it up. That that's that that allows the orc army to to get inside and to wreak havoc.

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And so some of you are going, hey, I'm not going to I'm going to I'm going to stop listening to this guy now and go watch that again.

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Just you're firing up, you're firing up your Apple TV right now and just going to ignore everything else comes after this.

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I just just I can't stop him doing that anyway. Anyway, so with that in mind,

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I would imagine this is probably clear enough to to read in the small screen, but, you know, we can blow it up or whatever.

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I'm sorry. There you go. Let's see. Move this way a little bit.

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Go like that. OK, what's the assertion?

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The assertion is there is a fundamental, clear contradiction without possible explanation between the synoptics and John as to whether Jesus ate the

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Passover and hence upon which day he was crucified, whether 14 or 15 Nissan. Now, of course,

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Nissan is not a Japanese made automobile or truck.

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I've owned a few Nissan trucks over the years. This is, of course, the month and again, lunar calendar.

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Therefore, it moves back and forth, which you may have wondered, why can't we ever figure out where Easter is? Long history of that in the church, by the way, which we're not getting into today, but a long history of that in the church concerning how you figure out when

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Easter is to be celebrated. And there was actually difference between the

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East and the West on this subject. This is this is actually it's called the Quartodeciman controversy.

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If you want to, that'd be a really good scrabble word. Quartodeciman. Wow. That just wipe everybody right off the board with that one.

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That just win the whole thing. Quartodeciman controversy. Look it up sometime. It is, I think, very it shines a bright light into the into the second century context of what was developing at that time and what was important at that time.

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Things like that. But anyway, this is why the date changes is because of when

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Passover will be observed and that's done on the basis of a lunar calendar.

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And so it'll pop back into March eventually, you know, right now it's in April and so it goes back and forth.

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So the argument that is being put forward, and you will find this in many books of theology.

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Once again, you buy a commentary on the Gospel of John or on the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and you will be told that in essence there is a historical problem here.

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That plainly and clearly John is seeking to make a theological point by changing history and saying that Jesus was actually crucified at the same time the

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Passover lambs would be being slaughtered. So that makes Jesus a Passover lamb and behold, the

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Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world. And the whole idea is if John is willing to sacrifice history, then should we really be all that concerned about silly things like inerrancy and contradiction and things like that?

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We should just let John be John and John isn't giving us a strict history.

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And so that's why we don't really have to believe that the stuff that accompanied the crucifixion with Jesus is real or the stuff that accompanied the crucifixion with Matthew is real.

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I mean, the zombie apocalypse, the zombie resurrection, the dead coming out of the grave, we don't have to, you know, that had a certain point.

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We're not really sure what the point was, but it must have had some point to Matthew anyways. And so we don't have to worry about it and it didn't really happen historically and all as well.

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So this is what we are told not only by Dr. Ehrman, but by many others. And that is that John and the synoptics give a different day for the crucifixion of Jesus.

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Well, is that the case? Well, we know that the Passover lamb was slain on the afternoon of Nisan 14.

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The Passover feast, the feast of unleavened bread began that day with the

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Passover meal until that evening, the beginning of Nisan 15. Now this is where background is important.

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Nisan 15 would begin at sunset, begins at sunset.

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There have been down through the centuries, many different ways of figuring time, days, weeks, months, years.

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One of the most difficult studies in antiquity is looking at ancient documents and figuring out what year in the modern calendar that would have been because January to December, that's natural for us, but that's not how people have necessarily counted years in the past.

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In fact, it was more common to utilize the agricultural year and that calendar, and so begin the year in the spring or maybe at harvest in the fall or whatever.

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Our solar calendar isn't even quite right. If you wanted to do a serious solar calendar, then you'd have it starting where the sun begins once the day begins to lengthen again, right?

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If you could tell that, that would be the way to do it. The point is that ancient king lists, for example, had what were called accession years, so the first year of reigning would actually be, in our reckoning, the second year of reigning, and you start getting an idea, man, if you're trying to correlate the

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Babylonians and the Egyptians and the Israelites and all these ancient documents to figure out who was reigning when and how long they reigned, it gets ugly, really, really ugly.

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But in this instance, now we're talking about, well, when does the day begin? How many hours is the day?

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When does it start? And the Jews began the day at sunset, so as the sun is setting, that's the end of the previous day, and so the day begins when the sun sets, that's the next day.

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So it goes to Nisan 14, so you would slaughter the Passover lamb in the afternoon.

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So in other words, right at the end of Nisan 14, and then the

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Passover feast, the feast of unleavened bread, which lasts for a week, begins at sunset, and so you would then partake of that first meal of the entire feast.

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The feast is not a one -day thing. We tend to think of Passover, the

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Passover meal, as a singular thing because of what happened in Exodus, because that's when

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God strikes the firstborn dead and all the other associated things, but once it's established as a festival, it's a week long.

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And so to eat the Passover is not just to eat the Passover first supper.

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That's very important. It sort of symbolizes the whole thing, and obviously as Judaism has secularized over the years, then what was once a week shrinks down to a day, just as the 12 days of Christmas are now basically about 12 minutes of Christmas until the packages are opened, and then here we go to the next year, right?

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You know, this is really weird because I can't tell whether you're smiling or laughing or anything like that, so it's strange.

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But my door is closed, and the glass, I'm sure, is not permeable, so anyway, okay, so I can't, and I can't understand a word you're saying either, so I guess it doesn't matter.

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So keep that in mind, two things, a couple things to remember then is the Jewish day begins at sunset, and here's the big key, when the

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Jews are counting days, they count any portion of a day as a full day.

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So if you start, let's say, at 3 p .m.

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our time and count till just after sunset the next day, how many days is that, three, 3 p .m.

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to sunset one day, the next full day you go past sunset to the next day, so any portion of a day is counted as a day in Jewish reckoning of days.

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So that will help, so those time issues and keeping in mind that the

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Passover is not a single meal, it is a week -long festival, will help a lot with a lot of these things.

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So the synoptics all agree that on the first day of unleavened bread,

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Jesus sent Peter and John from Bethany to make preparation for eating the Passover meal. This is recorded for us in Mark and Matthew and in Luke.

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And so Jesus sends Peter and John, clearly then in the synoptics in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus ate the normal Passover meal and hence was crucified on Nisan 14.

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So you have the Passover meal, you have the establishment of the Lord's Supper, and this then takes place in the evening, which is the beginning of Nisan 15, but the same day, so overnight, into what would be for us the next day, but it's just simply the continuation of Nisan 15, you have that evening, you have the betrayal, the arrest goes all overnight, trial, running back and forth,

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Herod, Pilate, and then around noon, and then this is another thing,

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I forgot about something else here. There are multiple ways of counting hours at this time in history as well.

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And what I mean by that is when you say the sixth hour, for us, you're starting at midnight, so that'd be 6 a .m.,

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but if you start at sunrise, that's no longer 6 a .m., that's noon. And the

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Jews and Romans did this in different ways. So because of the difference in how they handled this, that explains some of the differences in how it's recorded, because if you're writing, if you're writing for an audience that uses

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Jewish timekeeping, then that's going to be confusing for an audience that doesn't use

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Jewish timekeeping, and vice versa. And so you immediately see that there are questions that are raised as to, well, how should you record these things?

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And we have to look at each one. And when you look at the four

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Gospels, and most people feel John is the last one written, and most feel

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John was written after the destruction of Jerusalem, doesn't have to have been, but if it was, then it would be even more logical to use the

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Roman time system than the Jewish time system, because of who you're writing to and who the audience of your work is going to be.

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And so that's important to keep in mind, too, as to whether it was, you know, what is the ninth hour? The ninth is the ninth hour, 3 p .m.

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Well, if you started at 6 a .m. sunrise, yeah.

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If you start at midnight, then it's 9 a .m. in the morning. So it's going to be a six -hour difference between the two, and you'll notice that there are differences.

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We're not so much concerned about that right now as another background thing to keep in mind when you're looking at alleged contradictions.

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You don't ever want to make the accusation of contradiction when the reality is it's just your own ignorance that is producing this.

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So, in the Synoptics, Jesus eats the normal Passover meal and hence was crucified on Nisan 14, midday approximately, for the sun to be darkened and things like that.

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Many scholars, including modern and mainly conservative scholars, have concluded that John has Jesus eat the

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Passover on Nisan 13 so that he is crucified at the same time as the Passover lamb on Nisan 14.

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And so, they would see a day difference, and the day difference they would explain as a theological embellishment.

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It is meant to create a connection in the mind of the reader that, if we're honest, did not exist historically.

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Jesus is the lamb that takes away the sin of the world, therefore, wouldn't it be wonderful if he's crucified at the exact same time as the

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Passover lambs were being crucified in Jerusalem? And so, that's the idea.

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And even, and of course, some people would dispute the use of the word conservative here, but what would be generally considered conservative interpreters, you buy a commentary, you're going to run into this perspective.

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And some of those commentaries, honestly, will not even give space to what would be called a harmonization of the sources.

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You need to understand, over the years,

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I've had lay people who have not had the opportunity of taking Bible College Seminary, have been assisted when

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I've pointed sort of a fact out to them that they were not aware of. And that is that when you look at, there is a, because in history, there have been periods of time when you weren't even allowed to question current narratives.

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You think of Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church and Inquisitions and stuff like that.

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Because of that, people today do not feel like it's necessary to allow freedom for harmonization.

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You all already had your shot. That's considered fundamentalistic, simplistic, shallow.

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You're simply to accept as a given the presence of, well, when

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I was in seminary, at least they used the term, at least most of the professors used the term, tension in the text.

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That's their way of saying contradictions. And so the accepted scholarly way of dealing with this is to embrace the contradiction and to look for the deeper meaning of the contradiction.

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So that's really, really common. That's what's out there. And so you will find people who you would think generally, in other ways, are very conservative, who will take this perspective.

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So that's the idea. So the spiritual way to look at is John is making a spiritual point, and isn't it a beautiful spiritual point, et cetera, et cetera.

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Now there are five relevant passages in the Gospel of John to examine. Ehrman says that clearly, and since I put that in quotes, he must have said clearly.

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Clearly John contradicts the synoptics, but is this so?

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John chapter 13, verses one through three. Now before the Feast of the Passover, when

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Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

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During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the

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Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God, is the quotation.

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And I stopped it there. It is assumed on the basis of this being before the

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Feast of the Passover, this means that it was 24 hours before, that is 13 Nisan. But this requires us to read

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Feast of the Passover as referring only to the initial meal, not the entire celebration, which lasted an entire week.

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Instead the text speaks of Jesus doing things during the supper, which is clearly the normal Passover meal.

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So one of the primary assumptions that has to be questioned and abandoned is that the

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Passover is a single meal. And isn't that how most people think of it? I mean, even if you have

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Jewish friends, what are you seeing right now on Twitter?

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People talking about what? The Passover Seder. Are you talking about something three days from now?

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No. So it was last night. So the

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Passover Seder was just one thing. Al Mohler was talking, he read portions of an article this morning by a

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Jewish atheist, which is fascinating. I've met so many Jewish atheists.

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And the idea was she participated in a quarantine

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Seder via Zoom with her family as an atheist because it made her feel good, even though she can't believe in a capricious

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God that would throw plagues around. As if there is such a thing in the Bible. Of course there isn't, but that's a whole other topic.

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The idea was, this is the Passover. It was last night. The next one is going to be a year from now.

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Well, not quite exactly a year, again, it's lunar, but anyway, it's not considered a feast.

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And as we're going to see, John is dealing with it as the whole week rather than a single event on what we would call

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Thursday night, as we will see. John 13, 27, then after he had taken the morsel,

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Satan entered into him, Jesus said to him, what you are going to do, do quickly. Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him.

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Some thought that because Judas had the money bag. Judas was telling him, buy what we need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.

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Now notice, buy what we need for the feast. Not a single supper, but for the feast, it is assumed the disciples would not have thought

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Judas was going to make preparations for the feast. If the Passover meal itself was already over, hence this must be

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Nisan 13, not Nisan 14. But there is no reason to limit the meaning of the feast to the

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Passover meal only, especially because this had been prepared. I mean, there was special preparation because the supper was unique.

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It didn't make it the whole feast, but it was unique of everything else that was done during the feast because of the blood and what happened in Egypt and things like that.

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But there is no reason to limit the meaning of the feast to the Passover meal only, but to the entire feast of unleavened bread, which makes the statement consistent with the synoptics, with the synoptic

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Gospels. Which is interesting to me, before I read the next section, it's interesting to me that people will theorize that the synoptic

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Gospels were all written before John. And then they'll theorize that John had no idea it was in the synoptic Gospels.

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So, Matthew and Luke are editing Mark, but John's clueless. John doesn't know what's going on, decades later.

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He didn't know what the other Gospels actually said? It's weird, but anyway.

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John 18, 28, then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning.

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So, there's only two possible early mornings here, Nisan 14 or 15.

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They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled but could eat the

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Passover. Now, does eat the Passover mean simply the

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Paschal Supper? No, the term Passover is used eight times in John besides this instance, and each refers to the

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Passover festival, not simply to the supper. And so, if you forget that it's a whole festival, then it sounds like what

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John 18, 28 is saying is they didn't enter the governor's headquarters so they could eat the

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Seder meal that night. So, that would make this the 13th and then become the 14th at sunset, because that would be going into a

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Gentile's place that would bring defilement, and so they're not going to do that.

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But that's not what's being said. The term Passover is used eight times in John besides this particular instance, and each refers to the

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Passover festival, never to the single supper itself. So, let's put it this way.

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Let's say this was two days later, but still during the Passover festival, the same thing would happen, because they would not be able to eat the rest of the

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Passover because they'd have to be separated because of their defilement, see? So, notice 2

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Chronicles 30, verse 22, so they ate the food of the festival for how long? Seven days.

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Seven days. So any defilement during that period of time would interrupt the ability to participate in the festival. Since this comment is made early in the morning, this must mean the festival, not the supper alone, is meant as any impurities would pass away at sundown.

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So think about that. It's another reason that particular text has been used to support the idea that John's going a day early, but the fact is that the impurity would have passed away at sunset anyways, so they would have been able to partake even of the

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Seder, even if the Seder was that night, see? So it is the fact that it's a seven -day -long festival that is in view in John's words.

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John 19, 14. Now, it was the day of preparation of the Passover.

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It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, Behold your king.

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Now, what is important here, and I'm not getting into this right now, and it would take a...

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I'd like to... I've read articles and listened to presentations, and it's pretty complicated, but there is a lot of discussion about what year this took place.

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You'll hear 30. You'll hear 33. There is a lunar eclipse,

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I think, in 33, that people try to connect to the darkening of the skies and all that kind of fun stuff.

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And then there's the theory that there was a conjunction of holidays, so this was a special high feast.

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Now, obviously, the Sabbath day of any Passover is going to be a high day, but there was a special situation here.

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We don't know what year it was. You can speculate, but there just isn't any way to nail it down quite that tightly.

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It'd be nice to do that. Maybe they'll discover something someday that might shed some more light.

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I don't know. They're always digging around Jerusalem. I mean, it's amazing that place doesn't just go...

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From all the digging around they've done in there. But here's the point on this.

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When it says it was the day of preparation of the

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Passover, and it was about the sixth hour, the term for preparation is paraskue, in Greek, and yes, it means preparation.

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But if you ask a Greek, even to this day, to name the days of the week, you know what

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Friday is going to be? Paraskue. It's just the Greek word for Friday, and this is where it came from.

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So it's saying, now, it was Friday of the Passover. That's what it's saying.

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So it's the day before the Sabbath. The Sabbath day is Saturday. So it's

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Friday. I mean, the text says this happened on Friday, and this is right before the crucifixion.

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So when was Jesus crucified? He was crucified on Friday, the Friday before the

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Sabbath day of the Passover week, and rose Sunday morning. So that is

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Friday of Passover week. It's straightforward, it's clear, but most people are not aware because, see, we don't call

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Friday preparation day, paraskue, but they did in Greek, and it was because of this very issue right here.

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John 19 .31, since it was the day of preparation, in other words, since it was Friday, and so the bodies would not remain on the cross on the

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Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, so it's the Sabbath, the

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Passover week, therefore, this is preparation day. It's the Friday before a high

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Sabbath. The Jews asked Pilate their legs might be broken, they might be taken away.

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And so, straightforward statement, straight up and down, this took place on Friday.

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That is the specifics. Every day of the festival was a high day, including the

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Sabbath of the festival. This does not mean the first day of the festival coincided with the

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Sabbath, altering the timeline. So we see that John is in harmony with the synoptics on this matter.

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It has been just simply bad assumptions at certain points.

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And then an ignorance of how the Jews count time. Not only hours and day, sixth hour, twelfth hour, ninth hour, third hour, six hour difference between Romans and Jews, but any portion of a day is a full day in Jewish thought.

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And so, the audience that originally would have heard Jesus's teaching on the sign of Jonah would never have understood why modern people and why

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Muslims get all in a tizzy about this subject.

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They would have gone, no, we get it, any portion of a day, full day, three days, three nights, we get it.

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You have to become a fundamentalist literalist to miss the point of what's being said at that point. It is the usage that existed at that time that determines the meaning of the word, not one that develops at a much later point in time.

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So remembering that the Passover is an entire feast, how the Jews kept time, no reason to assert that John is unconcerned about history and has decided to change things around.

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But again, I'll tell you right now, I would predict the majority of commentaries on John written in the past 50 years won't even bother to give the harmonization.

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If you want to see someone else harmonizing the exact same way, A .T. Robertson's Harmony of the

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Gospels, one of the appendices has the same information in it. And that's been around, when did you write that, the 30s, 1930s, maybe earlier,

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I forget. So take a look at it. You can go ahead and take that down because we are done with that particular portion of things and I hope that is helpful to you.

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I think we have an entire, you said we have an entire program somewhere already on that, probably used the exact same presentation at that point.

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I'm sorry, crucifixion, just put crucifixion in the, well,

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I just watched it. We just did it for him. But if you want to give somebody another reference, didn't like the way

40:50

I did it this time, whatever. We can do it that way. Doing this many dividing lines means a lot.

41:03

This has become my full -time job. In other words, I don't have,

41:09

I don't have, this is what I do until I go to bed at night and when I get up in the morning, it's the only way to prepare.

41:17

I rode a little bit this morning, I did a little run, got my headphones on, listening, because what is interesting is there's,

41:26

I'm sensing a little bit of an uptick in the production of material for distribution.

41:38

We're doing it. I think everybody else is doing it too, because I'm seeing a lot of stuff getting posted.

41:44

So what was posted since yesterday? Well, a fellow by the name of Cameron, who

41:54

I've talked to about being on this program, we've never worked it out yet. He was the one that did the hour -long talk with the

42:01

Roman Catholic apologist and I was going to have

42:06

Mon to say, do you know what Protestants believe, because of some of the questions he was asking.

42:14

He interviewed Dr. Howe from SES and I think the,

42:20

I really think that the title that was given to the interview is 20, 25 minute interview, it wasn't very long, was really misleading.

42:31

A sound refutation of presuppositional methodology. It was nothing, nothing even close to that.

42:38

And I think Dr. Howe would be a little concerned about that title.

42:47

I actually appreciated what Dr. Howe had to say and how he said it and as true scholars must be, he was restrained and he also said some nice things.

43:00

He says, I really appreciate how presuppositionalists are very concerned about the noetic effects of sin, which to me is one of the central reasons why presuppositionalism is absolutely necessary.

43:09

When men suppress the knowledge of God and unrighteousness, just giving them more arguments for the existence of God is not going to do anything.

43:19

Dr. Howe recognized it. Now I'd like to hope he didn't mention me, but you go on YouTube, put

43:29

James White, SES, Southern Evangelical Seminary, Dr. Howe, whatever.

43:35

First thing that's going to come up is going to be the impromptu, completely unprepared on my part anyways, dialogue that we had in front of a bunch of students at SES, the one time that I was allowed on campus without being shot.

43:55

So I would like to hope that that conversation maybe helped a little bit along those lines.

44:02

But that, so I need to listen to that. And then a debate was posted between a

44:13

Christian theistic evolutionist and Dr. Joseph Boot on whether evolution should be a part of Christian teaching.

44:25

And I'm sorry, I didn't catch the guy's name. I haven't even finished listening to all of it yet.

44:30

I've listened to his presentation. I haven't listened to all the rest of the debate yet. But the young guy is a sharp guy.

44:38

And I was listening with great interest to his presentation, found it problematic at some points, but it was interesting.

44:55

And then last night, I could have predicted this one.

45:07

Some fella decided that it would be interesting, did you hear about this? Some fella decided it would be interesting to have a

45:16

Skype debate between Kwaku L and Sam Shamoon.

45:26

And I was just like, yeah,

45:32

I bet that was interesting. It ended early, shall we say. And I could have told you that it would from my own experience.

45:43

You know, someone knocked one of the panels over here about six inches this way.

45:50

That was you? Oh, I don't know if it was you or not, because I can't understand anything you're saying right now.

45:56

But I just keep looking over there going. What is going on?

46:02

And it's thrown the feng shui of the entire place off. Yeah, I know what feng shui is.

46:09

Can't you tell I'm really into that kind of thing? Don't even go there. Anyway, so we'll fix that later, won't we?

46:18

I'll work on it later on, because it's scary. What was

46:25

I saying? Oh, yes. So the conversation didn't last very long. It would be worthwhile to me to go through Kwaku's opening statement, because there was some really interesting stuff.

46:41

And what Sam did in his opening statement is he went after the Book of Mormon, and what he did was pointed out what we've been pointing out for many, many, many years.

46:57

And that is that the Book of Mormon is modalistic.

47:04

It's written by someone who's trying to present a Trinitarian understanding, but in the process says that Jesus is the

47:11

Father and the Son, multiple times. So he's trying to be a monotheist, but he's confused about the relationship with the

47:21

Father and Son, and the Spirit, for that matter. And this is consistent with what we know, that there was no first vision.

47:32

Joseph Smith didn't live where he said he lived in 1820. The revival he talks about didn't happen until 1824, 1825.

47:40

So since it was in, by the way, I've said four years, I was thinking about this, since the revival took place 1824, 1825, the spring, the only spring where there would be a revival would be the spring of 1825.

47:54

So there's a five year whoops. Once Joseph Smith gets to creating the story of the first vision, he does so initially seven years later, 1832,

48:13

I think, it might be 1834, I think it's, let's say 1832,

48:19

I don't have anything in front of me, I'm going off the top of my head. And that, but again, there's nothing polytheistic about that.

48:28

You don't get two separate and distinct personages until after you start getting the weirdness of the book of Abraham and all the stuff that eventually leads to the wildly polytheistic perspectives that he is espousing the

48:45

King Fella funeral discourse shortly before he dies in 1844, which is why

48:51

I've said before, say it again, if he had not been murdered in 1844, if he'd been given just two more years, there would be no

48:56

Mormonism today. There'd be no more, no one would be able to figure out what in the world he was saying.

49:03

He was becoming so wildly self -contradictory that there wouldn't be a

49:11

Mormonism. But those, those people had murdered him in the Carthage jail. It was not a martyrdom.

49:17

He was shooting back. It was a gunfight, but they still murdered him. They made sure we'd end up having the

49:25

Mormon church today by, by doing what they did. But the point is that Joseph Smith went through massive change and development in his doctrine of God and the book of Mormon reflects it.

49:41

The book of Mormon is the first. You can only do so many changes in it. And there were changes regarding this later on, but not nearly enough to hide the fact that it is a modalistic book.

49:57

Joseph Smith is a modalist in 1829, 1830. And if you know any modalists, they're all monotheists.

50:04

They're not, they're not polytheists. So that was, that was straightforward.

50:10

And then I didn't have this at home when

50:18

I was listening to this, but Sam brought this up. Now, let me just mention something.

50:24

I haven't gotten to the point. I first heard about this on Twitter because somebody on Twitter said,

50:33

Hey, I was just listening to Sam Shimon and Kwaku L. And Sam said something really nice about you.

50:46

Is everything okay? Are you guys friends again or something along those lines? And I don't think, did

50:54

I respond? I did respond. I think I responded something along the lines of, he's stuck with me.

51:01

Um, even when Sam was on Blowtorch level four, which is just below flamethrower level, um, a few years ago, the fact of the matter is, um, despite what some, some people think of that,

51:24

I'm absolutely insane. I, I, I just can't stay mad at the guy. And I think part of it is because I know all the stuff that he's gone through.

51:37

And I'm just sort of like, you know what, um, I'm going to just keep praying and just keep doing, doing the right thing.

51:48

And, um, so yeah, we're fine actually. Um, thank you for asking.

51:54

Um, though I could have told Sam, Sam, you're not gonna make, I would have said, Sam, you're not going to make it through your opening statement.

52:01

He got, he got a little bit beyond the opening statement, not far, because I knew,

52:07

I could, I could, I just knew, um, from the conversations I've already had with Kwaku. But this came up and I wanted to look at this because this is, uh,

52:17

Thomas Wayman's, The Complete Joseph Smith Translation of the New Testament. And what happened was Sam quoted from what's called the

52:24

Inspired Version, the Joseph Smith Translation. And Kwaku's response is, well, it was never finished, so it can't be authoritative.

52:31

Well, all right, then why the Mormon church print it in its edition of the

52:36

King James Bible, if it's not reliable? The fact is we have

52:42

Smith's work and it is plain enough that the church even, you know, other groups printed the, the freestanding versions.

52:53

It was, it wasn't the Salt Lake Church did that. Because I think a lot of the original manuscripts,

52:59

I'd have to go back and look. I think a lot of that original stuff is owned by the

53:04

RLDS Church or another group like that. And, uh, they were left with Lucy Mack Smith.

53:09

They didn't go, they didn't go with, bring them to Salt Lake City. And so, um, but Wayman's book is really, you know, sort of, it's very scholarly in its utilization of the sources.

53:27

And here was, um, Luke 10, 22, uh,

53:34

Luke 10, 22, uh, in the King James, all things are delivered to me by my, of my father and no man knoweth, okay,

53:44

I'm sorry. Other side, all things delivered to me of my father and no man knoweth who the son is, but the father and who the father is, but the son and he to whom the son will reveal him.

53:57

So that's King James. Here's, and now what

54:03

Wayman has done is he's marked in the King James where the changes are. I wish I could display this if I can.

54:10

So here's what it comes out as. This is, this is Smith's final version. Well, the version that's in the manuscripts.

54:18

All things are delivered to me of my father and no man knoweth that the son is the father and that the father is the son, but him to whom the son will reveal it.

54:36

Now, um, there isn't any question anywhere in anyone's mind who studies

54:46

New Testament manuscripts, that that was ever a reading that ever existed in the history of the

54:56

New Testament. So my guess is that Kwaku's response to that would be, right, that's because these are inspirational insights and not an attempt to determine what

55:19

Luke originally wrote. That'd be my guess. I, the conversation didn't go well.

55:26

There was a lot of talking over and so I don't know. Um, but that would be my guess is that what he was trying to say was that it's not, this isn't

55:39

Joseph Smith correcting to what Luke originally wrote. This is a new inspired insight.

55:46

Now you and I go, well, why not write an inspired commentary on Luke then and say, this may be what

55:56

Luke wrote, but this is how we should understand it or something like that. It's obvious to me,

56:02

I think it should be obvious to anyone that Joseph Smith was intending to say that this was what

56:09

Luke originally wrote. And of course, there is zero evidence of that whatsoever, uh, from a manuscript perspective.

56:21

But what's interesting is how the theology then is relevant here and how it impacts this and how, you know, what we should do is we should put our calendars that in April of 2025, if there's still even a public conference that is held and you go, oh, come on, don't, oh, come on me.

56:49

Um, this world has changed and it's changed big time over the past six weeks. Um, but let's say there is, and, uh, we actually have freedom to travel across state lines, if there are still state lines.

57:04

Um, I think what we should, uh, we should do is, you know, come up with some signs for the, um, 200th anniversary of the, uh,

57:20

Palmyra revivals and, uh, uh, you know, really, really nail it then and say,

57:28

Hey, actually, if you apply any meaningful historical study standard to the sources that have been collected by BYU itself into the early years of Joseph Smith's life and family, um, you would come to the conclusion that if you want the spring when revivals took place in the

57:57

Palmyra area that would have prompted a young man, though not nearly as young a man as they're thinking now he'd be 19, not 14.

58:07

Um, but to prompt a young man to go out into the field to pray, it's the spring of 1825, um, and, um, that might catch some, some people's attention.

58:21

I don't know, maybe possibly. Uh, so yeah, that, that was, um, so those are the three things, uh, that I was trying to catch up on.

58:32

Um, I'm going to try to get the, um, how stuff put into audio note taker before Monday.

58:43

So that we can, uh, do some stuff on presuppositionalism. Um, because again, uh,

58:52

Dr. Howe was making a good faith effort to accurately represent the best of his ability, the other side.

59:05

And I just don't, I really don't think that the title, a sound refutation or something,

59:13

I don't think even, I don't think it came from him. Um, but in the process said things that would be very helpful for us to again, provide some level of clarity on that particular subject.

59:27

And then I don't, I'll try to find the time to finish up the, the

59:33

Joseph boot debate too, because I think that's really important, um, topic. So there's a lot of this type of stuff.

59:40

I mean, I've lost track of how many books I have in the queue right now, uh, to try to, to get through.

59:46

And part of this, honestly, I'm still doing a lot of writing, but it's a little harder for me to listen to stuff riding inside rather than outside to go.

59:55

Why? Um, too many distractions. Um, when you're out on the road, pretty much got to pay attention to what you're listening to and to the road.

01:00:05

You, you're not going to get interrupted by knocks on the door or, you know, if the phone goes off, you have to ignore it, uh, while you're on the bike, uh, outside, inside, you can look at like, uh, and so it's actually a little bit easier for me to get long chunks of time in on a 70 mile ride outside than it is.

01:00:24

Um, inside. Um, I'm not sure exactly what it's, it's psychological. It's, it's mental, but you know, that's the way it is.

01:00:33

So, um, all right. So we've got some Mormonism in there. We've gotten whoo, apple cider vinegar.

01:00:48

I'll wake you up in the morning. That's what you need. That'll just clean it and just clean anything out right there.

01:00:54

Apple cider vinegar, good stuff. That's, uh, it's helping. It's helping. Now I'd like to pick up some loose threads that I've left laying around in this last portion of the program.

01:01:06

If you don't mind. Um, loose thread.

01:01:12

Number one, uh, I am going to be preaching, uh, on a

01:01:17

Sunday on a very, very de -emphasized or it's not even de -emphasized.

01:01:31

It's almost, how do I put this? It seems it's, it's a part of the pigeonhole mentality of people, the

01:01:45

Christian faith in the West that we do not seek the connectedness of our faith.

01:01:59

And so it's very easy for us to talk about the doctrine of justification.

01:02:08

And if we're pushed, we'll go, oh yes, the doctrine of justification requires the finished work of Christ. But it's like our doctrine of atonement is over here and our doctrine of justification is over here.

01:02:20

And there is a line, you know, like if we were to draw one of those web type things where all the lines going back and forth and influence and stuff like that.

01:02:28

Yeah, there, there, there's a line, but is it an intimate connection?

01:02:36

And one of the texts in scripture that has always struck me as being not what

01:02:50

I would have expected to have been said is Romans 4, 25, he who was delivered, para didn't mean the same term that's always used of giving over, he who was delivered over, dia ta paraptomata, because of our transgressions, dia with the accusative, and was raised, dia tein dikaiosen haimon, was raised because of our justification, so you have given over and you have raised.

01:03:41

So you, given over is used over and over again in regards to the sacrificial giving up of the son.

01:03:47

So you've got the, you've got the cross, you have the atonement right there. And then you have the resurrection, was raised, connected to the giving over, our transgressions.

01:04:02

Connected to our resurrection, our justification. So what's the relationship?

01:04:13

Well, a couple of just quick observations, and I'll obviously be fleshing this out on the

01:04:18

Lord's day, but when you think about it, this does seem to be a direct parallel.

01:04:29

You have the exact same preposition used with the exact same cases. Many have felt comfortable suggesting you translate dia two different ways within one sentence, within a few words of each other,

01:04:42

I'm not comfortable with that. And so whatever the giving over because of transgressions, the resurrection, because of justification, there has to be a parallel between the two.

01:04:58

And I think when you think it through, it really does forge a beautiful link in the consistency of biblical revelation concerning how we have peace with God, and I think

01:05:19

Romans 4 25 connects very, very seamlessly with Romans 8 30 through 34,

01:05:29

I think here you have the same consistency in the accomplishment of what the father, son, and spirit intended to do in the cross and resurrection resulting in the redemption of a particular people in Christ Jesus.

01:05:47

So in other words, the, our sins of Romans 4 25, our justification, justification is part of the golden chain.

01:05:57

Who is the hour, the elect of God. So in other words, there is beautiful consistency in the giving over, given over for our transgressions, who the elect and raised for our justification.

01:06:18

Because unless you're, unless you're a universalist, how do you get around this?

01:06:25

In other words, the consistent understanding that forges the connection between resurrection and justification is the reformed understanding given to us by Paul himself.

01:06:39

And I didn't have to mention a Manichean anywhere to come up with that understanding.

01:06:47

There is not, there is no, Rich, is there a little Manichean man over here telling me what to say? Do you see a little

01:06:52

Manichean man? Oh, oh yeah.

01:06:58

You, you want, you want me to bring the little Manichean man down? Okay. So, all right, we do it. We shouldn't do this because I'm sure that this has been discussed in certain

01:07:10

Facebook groups that have words that start with an

01:07:16

S and numbers in them. Um, but we have decided to come clean and to show you,

01:07:25

I'm not sure if I can reach him without going over the work or, but we've decided to show you the little

01:07:30

Manichean man who has been providing me with my biblical exegesis all along.

01:07:38

My, he, he has control of my spark, um, and, uh, the only way that my spark can ever, um, make it to the realm of light via the

01:07:53

Milky Way to the moon, of course, the Milky Way is so far beyond the moon. It's not even funny, but anyway, that's, let's not worry about that.

01:08:00

Um, the only way that, that he's going to allow it to happen is if I keep teaching his teaching as if it's actually

01:08:07

Christianity, but it's actually Manichaeism. So we just, just wanted you to know. So you're sure you, cause no one's ever seen him before.

01:08:12

You can't, but he's been elevated.

01:08:18

He's been, he's been, he's been raised up. He got a higher, he's been, he's exalted and, and he's one of the, cause there's different levels amongst the elect, amongst the

01:08:28

Manicheans. And so he got a higher level. So, all right. All right. So, all right.

01:08:37

So here's, here he is. Um, here's the little Manichean man, um, who has been giving me,

01:08:44

I mean, he just now was, was telling me, look at the parallels in the

01:08:51

Greek grammar. Um, uh, we Manicheans understand the, ah, with the accusative in a particular fashion, and this is what we, this is what we taught

01:09:05

Augustine to, I'm sorry.

01:09:12

Not really, but there he is. Yeah. There's Disney's going to charge us for that.

01:09:20

You realize that? Um, cause it's got a little Disney thing down there, but, um, they're closed.

01:09:28

That's right. They don't, they'll take, they'll take the free advertise right now.

01:09:34

I didn't get anything and we're dying over here. Yeah. So that's, that's, that's sort of how it works. There you go. So I'm sorry.

01:09:42

I didn't, I did mean to bring that up. Okay. Um, so I hope you'll be looking for, um, we do live stream, uh, the services.

01:09:53

And, um, so they will be available. And of course that's Sunday afternoon, our time it's 7

01:09:59

PM Eastern daylight time, um, is when we start and the sermon doesn't get started.

01:10:06

So, well, it depends on how much time I take for my little mini sermon, which

01:10:12

I get to have every Sunday because I do the catechism question and the voices thing, um, and sometimes that ends up going a little long, um, but sometime between seven 45 and eight

01:10:25

Eastern time. Uh, if you watch the, uh, apologies studios, uh,

01:10:31

I think it's the Facebook page, you can, you can catch that live, um, as it will be, uh, live streamed

01:10:37

Lord willing, uh, because we still live in a state without fascists in control.

01:10:43

So that's, uh, that's good. We're, we're thankful for that. Um, it's, it's good.

01:10:49

All right. Now, a couple of things I forgot to do, and I apologize for that. By the way, everybody knows

01:10:59

I'm weird. I admit to being weird and strange and, and all those things. The mind is an amazing thing.

01:11:10

Evidently what my mind does is in the period of time after I speak, my mind goes back over what

01:11:23

I said. Now, I don't know how it does that. Cause I can't, we'll sit here at the end of the program.

01:11:28

We've gone off the air. I'm trying to type it up for the blog and we're looking at each other going, what did we talk about?

01:11:33

I don't remember. What was the first topic? I don't know. I remember the second one. Oh, the second one. Yeah, that's right. It's terrible.

01:11:41

But somewhere in my mind, I can actually remember what I said. And, and I think early last week

01:11:51

I was talking about the persecution that took place in the nineties in the

01:11:58

Roman empire. And I think I mixed up the Diocletian and Domitian persecutions.

01:12:09

And I think like in the middle of the night, I woke up thinking about that. I think you misspoke.

01:12:18

Strange. Don't ask me how stuff like, if I did then, sincere apologies.

01:12:25

But once in a while I'll get done and I'll go and I'll look at the screen. I'll go, I, I forgot to mention that.

01:12:34

Oh, by the way, before I get totally into this, Quaker in his opening said that he's examined all the supposed false prophecies of Joseph Smith and not a one of them has any merit.

01:12:45

I actually had section 114 up here, but I'll, I'll hold that for a little bit later on, false prophecies.

01:12:54

That was a little bit of a different, a little bit of a different thing. But I have had this sitting on my screen for days.

01:13:02

So I want to get, I want to close this tab, if you don't mind. I have an article up here.

01:13:10

This is from the Scottish Journal of Theology, Manifold Grace and John Cassian and Prosper of Aquitaine.

01:13:17

And it includes the references. And this is reference three.

01:13:24

Now you make, wait a minute, you just lost us all. Hold on a second. This is a great example of how real historical scholarship speaks.

01:13:39

When you know, let me put it this way. Some people have been upset with me over the years because I always describe myself as a student of Islam, not an expert in Islam.

01:13:50

You know why I say that? Because I didn't start studying it early enough in life to ever become an expert on it.

01:13:56

There's too much to read and master. There's too much to read and master.

01:14:04

And I get a little worried about the people who call themselves experts in these things, because I'm like, man, you must have, must have, must read a whole lot faster than I do.

01:14:14

Remember a whole lot better than I do. Because man, that's a big field. And church history is the same. Actually, Augustine is the same.

01:14:26

I am very skeptical of anyone who would say, that guy is the greatest living

01:14:33

Augustine scholar today. Really? Okay. So when

01:14:41

I say scholarship speaks in a certain way, it speaks with a level of humility that is born from a recognition of how big the field of discussion actually is.

01:14:55

So this is a single paragraph footnote discussing the response to Augustine's teachings, particularly on grace, hence original sin and predestination.

01:15:21

Because we're being told by Ken Wilson and others that everyone before Augustine had the same view.

01:15:31

That's not true, but that's the idea. Everybody had the same view. Anybody who can read the early church, you go, bad, they all had the same view, is not reading very carefully.

01:15:47

The response to Augustine demonstrates this. And here's what it says.

01:15:52

I'm just going to read it for you. Again, this is Alexander Huang from 2009,

01:16:02

Manifold Grace and John Cassian and Professor of Aquitaine. Footnote number three reads as follows, wet the whistle.

01:16:13

Augustine's doctrine aroused controversy and there were several levels of reaction, not one unified voice of opposition as has been traditionally maintained.

01:16:25

There were some who zealously admired and defended Augustine and his doctrine. Some who became convinced in the course of discussions.

01:16:33

And then there were those opposed to the doctrine. This last group was the largest and consisted of three varying levels of opposition, those adamant in their opposition, those who simply followed the opinions of the powerful and respected ascetics and those who raised objections, but wished to remain silent on what is a mystery.

01:16:53

Then there are a number of references given and it continues. Thus Cassian was not the spokesperson or the leader of the

01:17:02

Massilian or South Gallic monastic opposition to Augustine's doctrine of predestination.

01:17:08

Instead, Cassian was one of the many distinct dissenting voices. Cassian's role in the

01:17:14

Augustinian conflict has been greatly exaggerated due to his fame and the convenience afforded by his body of works, which present the most comprehensive treatment on grace among Augustine's opponents in the

01:17:27

Augustinian conflict. From these writings, scholars working on the false assumption of a cohesive

01:17:33

South Gallic monasticism have inaccurately presented Cassian as the representative and main opponent of Augustine's doctrine of grace.

01:17:43

Now, there you have the recognition of differing kinds of responses, even differing levels of support for those who agreed, differing levels of those who then disagreed, why they disagreed, what their relationship to one another was, et cetera, et cetera.

01:18:05

I appreciated that kind of careful historical inquiry.

01:18:12

Now contrast that with the quotation that we gave while listening to the interview, the quotation we gave while listening to the interview, where who before held any—nobody!

01:18:27

Everybody had the exact same view. There you go.

01:18:34

That's where the issue is, for me, most seen, and I think that's extremely, extremely important.

01:18:46

That's also seen—excuse me, Mr. I'm trying to remember, you know, which level of the—oh,

01:18:54

I need to hide you. You can still send me the interpretations that way.

01:19:05

I'm sorry. He's right next to the microphone, but he's on this side of the microphone, so you shouldn't be able to—don't turn that on.

01:19:14

Your spark will go out if you do. Well, go out. Saying your spark will go out to a

01:19:20

Manichaean is a little bit of a dangerous thing to say when you think about it. Look, look, our office chairs are dying, and have you given up on the fact that you have other thingies to put into them?

01:19:57

Yeah, when I first came in one day, Rich was going, hey, I've got some—I've got a new—what do you call it? Piston.

01:20:03

I've got a new piston for you for your chair at home and stuff like that. They're easy to put in.

01:20:09

So he takes one of the chairs in the other room. I start hearing ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting. A few minutes later, he comes back.

01:20:15

Okay, so they're not so easy to put in. Well, we'd be needing a new one pretty soon, because I'm just going to keep disappearing every little bit over here.

01:20:27

I'm not sure. And we've actually looked at ordering new ones, and it's like, right now?

01:20:34

Nobody's got nothing, because that is not required stuff. So there you go.

01:20:41

What was I talking about? I don't know. I've got 10 minutes left here. So this was actually relevant to something that I read yesterday.

01:20:51

Chapter two—and by the way, this is the dissertation, okay? We're not talking about this book here.

01:20:56

We're talking dissertation now. Chapter two, traditional free choice, Christian authors in 95 -215

01:21:02

CE. Now, this is a single chapter.

01:21:08

I don't know how many—okay, so it is just over 20 pages long.

01:21:20

I'm covering 120 years. So you have

01:21:26

Clement, Shepherd of Hermas, Didache, Polycarp, Ignatius.

01:21:31

Why would you have—that's weird.

01:21:38

Okay, so the entire—all the Apostolic Fathers are covered in one, two, three and a half pages.

01:21:47

I could come up with a whole lot more in Apostolic Fathers, something like that. But this is a survey of 120 years worth.

01:21:59

Now, there's—it's not like there's a huge amount of writing here, but, you know, we talked about Clement yesterday and his one epistle from the patristic sources and stuff like that.

01:22:13

And I've been doing some. Speaking of, so that to be saved by mercy and good conscience, the number of his elect, the number, arithmon, from which we get arithmetic, arithmon, the number of his elect.

01:22:36

Now, who speaks of the number of the elect? Well, Reformed people do.

01:22:42

Don't go with the Manichaeans. This was written before Manny was born. Okay? Can't go there. And you don't have an elect amongst the

01:22:52

Stoics, because you don't have a god who would make a choice. And if you want to try to come up with some type—because there was a specific term, elect amongst the

01:23:05

Manichaeans, but obviously has a completely different reference and understanding. The background to this is going to be

01:23:14

Paul. It's going to be Romans. It's going to be who will bring a charge against God's elect.

01:23:23

All right? So what's the number? And let me just ask a simple question.

01:23:29

If you are surveying patristic sources as to their understanding of the relationship of God's decree and will, and man's will, and the freedom or whatever of that will, shouldn't you at least note that Clement seemed to believe that there was a specific number of the elect?

01:23:53

Because if the elect is just a group that we fill up by our choices, then—which is what the quote -unquote traditionalist position—and reading, even using that term and reading it back into patristics is just horrible.

01:24:13

But this clearly is based upon the idea that there is a number.

01:24:23

And it's not saying so that that number can be increased.

01:24:32

There is a fixed number that is being saved, and that's what the reference is to.

01:24:39

Wouldn't that be relevant to this? There's only three paragraphs about 1

01:24:44

Clement, and one paragraph is a Greek citation from Clement. So there's only two sections.

01:24:54

Why isn't this included, or all the other references to the elect? And then just looking at it, and I just happened to turn the page and saw this, and I went, let's just go ahead and read this.

01:25:12

Okay, we've got enough time. We've got a couple more minutes before it's over. Page 42, the

01:25:18

Didache, Polycarp, and Ignatius. The Didache and Polycarp are non -contributory.

01:25:26

So what the Didache says, and of course Polycarp, which

01:25:31

I don't have time to do this, but if someone's like really bored in isolation, you are in a leftist state, and like you can't even look out your window without getting reported by the old lady across the street if you're not wearing a mask inside and gloves, and you've got time to do it.

01:25:52

Now, somewhere in the back of my mind, either during the debate or during that interview,

01:26:03

Leighton Flowers mentioned Polycarp. He mentioned Polycarp. But according to this,

01:26:10

Polycarp's non -contributory. Can't tell us anything about it. So in other words, here you have some of our earliest sources.

01:26:21

They don't tell us anything about what people believe at this point in time. For Ignatius, circa 110

01:26:29

CE, each person bears either a stamp of God or the world.

01:26:35

From Magnesians 5. The Caractera character could possibly be interpreted as God's unilateral mark upon the faithful elect versus unbelievers, but his emphasis upon voluntary martyrdom suggests otherwise.

01:26:51

Why? Why? Do you see that there are assumptions working here?

01:27:00

The assumption is if you can make the voluntary choice for martyrdom, then you can't believe in God's unilateral mark upon the faithful elect.

01:27:11

Why? Ignatius implies we possess a free choice that enables us to choose to suffer death with Christ resulting in life or alternatively clinging to life with death resulting.

01:27:26

Persons decide between the two ways. Do you see a system in operation here?

01:27:33

Do you see a interpretive grid that is being placed in these things?

01:27:44

Boy, I want to hear, oh wow, this is going to be fun.

01:27:55

And you know, it's going to be fun for all of us. You're sitting there going, oh no, no, this will be fun for all of us. Because he does deal with the

01:28:01

Epistle to Diognetus. Epistle to Diognetus is one of the most important fragments we have.

01:28:10

Boy, I wish we had the whole thing. Really do. But it's sometimes called

01:28:15

Mathetes because he calls himself a disciple. It's just a word for disciple. We don't have the name of the writer. You don't know who wrote it.

01:28:22

But it has a tremendous section on a thoroughly

01:28:28

Pauline and Biblical presentation of the Gospel. And so I want to, you see, when we dig into stuff like this, even if you are not particularly focused upon dealing with this theory that's being promoted that all

01:28:51

Calvinists are actually secret manichaeists, that all Calvinists are actually secret manichaeans. What? What was that?

01:28:57

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, okay. Thank you. Even if you're not necessarily into all of that, the fact is we are delving into, we are getting deeper into church history than you get in the vast majority, vast majority of seminary church history classes, unless you're specializing in history.

01:29:20

You don't believe me? There's a tremendous series of church history classes from Covenant Seminary, from one of the old professors there.

01:29:26

I've listened to it three or four times. On the old iTunes universe, I don't know where that is anymore, but you can still find them.

01:29:34

Go listen. And tell me if we are not going much more in depth, far more citations, far more of the theology than you would get, and that would be considered a a standard fulfilling the requirements for a master's degree in seminary type stuff.

01:29:54

We have to, given the nature of the claims that are being made. But what's vital is that's important in dealing with Roman Catholicism.

01:30:04

That's important in dealing with Islam. That's important in dealing with Oneness Pentecostalism.

01:30:12

Because remember, I'm repeating myself, but people always ask me, what are the two classes you took that were most important to you?

01:30:22

Greek? Church history. Why? Because church history is so liable to be twisted and abused and misused.

01:30:32

And we are in a bad place to respond if we don't know who these people were, when they wrote, what they believed, and especially if we don't allow them to be who they were.

01:30:45

Simply to be who they were, not to force them into the service of some modern controversy.

01:30:52

Very, very important stuff. So with that, we are out of time for programs this week.

01:30:59

Something tells me something's going to happen over the weekend that will give us some stuff to talk about come Monday.

01:31:07

But we'll see. What will happen over the weekend, no matter where you are, if you do have the opportunity of tuning in Sunday evening,

01:31:22

I would encourage you to do so. I'm looking forward to preaching on Easter Sunday.

01:31:31

I have a special suit. Remember how we all used to get dressed up in our

01:31:37

Easter Sunday best? Well, I'm going to have my Easter Sunday best on. And I'm going to tell you right now,

01:31:48

I could not, the only part of this suit that I could wear six weeks ago was the jacket.

01:32:00

So it has actually almost nothing to do with all the corona stuff.

01:32:07

It just so happens that I got really serious about getting back to where I was from 2014 to 2017, about six weeks ago.

01:32:19

And I still got a long ways to go, but I'm over halfway there. And so got a new suit that I'm going to be wearing.

01:32:31

That should not be why you tune in at all. But I will be working out of Romans four into the beginning of Romans five.

01:32:42

And hopefully it'll be a blessing to folks. Pray for me as I do that.