Worship Wars and Media with Theology Gals | Rapp Report Weekly 0012 | Striving for Eternity

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:03

Welcome to The Rap Report with Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

00:11

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

00:26

Welcome to The Rap Report. No, it's Theology Gals.

00:32

No, no, no, this is The Rap Report with Andrew Rapoport. No, it's

00:39

Theology Gals with Colleen Sharp. Actually, it's both.

00:49

Well, if you're wondering, we're actually going to record this on both of our channels.

00:56

And I'm Andrew Rapoport from The Rap Report. And I'm Colleen Sharp from Theology Gals.

01:03

And we came up, actually, you came up with this topic of discussion when

01:09

I said that I was going to respond to one of your podcasts on the Sabbath. Uh oh, I'm going to get myself in trouble.

01:15

Is a dispensationalist going to talk about Sabbath? Well, not today. Okay. Yeah, that will be the next joint

01:23

Rap Report, Theology Gals episode, a dispensationalist and a covenant theologian discussing the

01:31

Sabbath, which will be really fun. In other words, you'll try to keep me straight when I talk about your position? That's right.

01:38

Well, I think the one thing I do think, and obviously won't get in deep into this topic, is

01:45

I think unlike some people, you actually do understand our position. I try to.

01:52

So we want to talk today about media. Yes, yes.

01:57

The reason this came up is I've really noticed that there seems to be a lot less discernment among Christians on media.

02:08

And what we're not saying is that you can never watch TV or listen to music that's not Christian.

02:14

But what we do want to talk about is the necessity of discernment in the things that we watch and listen to.

02:23

Well, there seems to be a lack of discernment,

02:30

I think. And I think that really what we've seen is a change within the church, and it's worked down to the body, the people.

02:43

I really think that a lot of this comes about the church marketing that's been going on with the megachurch movement and all the church growth movement, where the church wanted to be like the world to try to appease the world.

02:58

And people in the church started to realize, well, gee, I could be like that.

03:04

And I really think it's had an effect where the people that make up the church no longer are looking to be distinct from the world, but like their churches trying to look like the world.

03:18

Right. You see it in worship services. I don't know if you've seen this thing going around social media,

03:24

Andrew, but I've seen it going around social media, and today

03:30

I decided I need to watch this thing, and it's about this Beyonce mass. Have you seen this?

03:36

I have not. Okay. I heard someone talk about this and was like, what is this? Well, there's this—I know nothing about Beyonce's music, but what they do, from what

03:48

I can understand, because I couldn't even watch the whole thing. It was difficult to watch, but they've taken Beyonce songs and made it—they actually do call it a

03:57

Beyonce mass, though, and it's in San Francisco—and they've made it where you can take a

04:02

Beyonce song and you can sing it to God, which really isn't far -fetched from a lot of some of the crazy stuff.

04:12

Most of the stuff in church today? Right. Right. I've talked about before that I was in high school, and one night, my girlfriend and I—not girlfriend, but a friend that's a girl—we're—because

04:25

I just realized some people might— Okay. They might assume something. Hold on. Let's go on that rabbit trail, because this is something

04:31

I've been thinking about, is that the words we use, it's becoming a thing where almost everything that people say nowadays has some either sexual innuendo or changing of its meaning, and you can't use words anymore.

04:48

I was listening to a book on cassette—well, not cassette,

04:53

CD, I guess—from Jonathan Edwards, and he was talking about having intercourse with God, and I went, what?

05:06

And then I realized, he's using the word so totally different, but it showed me how the culture is affected that intercourse only has one possible meaning anymore.

05:15

Right. That's true, and I used to—I won't say how old

05:21

I'm turning this month, but— Twenty -five. Yeah, I have children almost that age, but, you know,

05:27

I used to say— Doesn't matter. I'm going out—if I'm going out with my girlfriend tonight, you know, I'd tell my boyfriend that, but what

05:34

I meant was my friend, she was a girl, and so sometimes I say that, but I realized today, just like you said, that people might think, wait, what?

05:44

What? You had a girlfriend? And in no way, I never had a girlfriend in that way, but I would refer to my friends that were girls in that way, but I think now that would be seen as people would make assumptions automatically.

06:01

Yeah, my daughter came to church with us. This is one of those—I may get myself in trouble if my pastor hears this, right?

06:09

So, he was talking about his daughter and her best friend.

06:15

I mean, these two do like everything together, and they came back from a missions trip, and he didn't provide enough context.

06:24

Now, most of the people in the church knew his daughter and, you know, knew the friendship, but he referred to his daughter and her partner.

06:35

Right, and there's another one. And that one, especially, I would say probably in the last five to ten years, has really taken on a specific meaning instead of what it maybe would have been 20 years ago.

06:54

Yeah, I mean, it really makes it hard for conversations sometimes because the words are changing so much.

07:01

And I guess this does get to some of the cultural issues we want to talk about, but— Right.

07:07

Well, there's a story I started to tell about my friend that's a girl.

07:12

But we were in high school, and I was over at her house one night, and I don't know exactly which one of us figured it out, but she said,

07:23

You know what? I could take this praise song, and I could just change a few words and make it to my boyfriend.

07:29

And it can be a song to my boyfriend. And at that point in time, and this is probably around 1990, in our church was kind of the worship wars that happened a lot in the 80s and 90s, whether we're going to sing hymns or praise music and whatnot.

07:44

But we sat there and figured out how many praise songs we could just change a few words, and they would work for our boyfriends.

07:52

And that was the night that I really said, Okay, I'm not sure about some of these praise songs after all.

07:58

Well, I was the worship leader's nightmare when I was pastoring at church because I would sit in the front row, and he would do a new song every once in a while.

08:10

And he would look at me, and I would have just, Son, he would see it, but I'd point to myself, then

08:17

I'd point to the sky, point to myself, point to the sky. And he knew exactly what that meant.

08:22

Is this song all about me or God? And it's okay to have some songs that are testimony.

08:30

Right. Or about what God has done for you. Right. But I think it has to be balanced.

08:37

And if it's not going to be balanced, it should be way out of balance in the way of songs about God and what he's done.

08:45

Not what he's done for me, but what he's done, who he is. And that was my way of kind of quietly letting the song leader know, we shouldn't be doing this one again, or we're doing too many about me.

09:01

Yeah. Well, even some things that you see in church, I saw something, and I should have saved it because I don't have it right in front of me, but it was something like, this summer series, we're going to take popular movies, and we're going to watch them, and then we're going to find the

09:17

Christian meaning in them. And the thing is, is that necessary?

09:23

You know, and is that wise? Well, I thought you were going to say the thing is, is why are they always movies that are 30 years old?

09:31

Yeah. And I think they said it sounded like current popular movies.

09:36

And of course, my mind is thinking, what current popular movies are going to be appropriate to be shown in church, for one?

09:43

And so I think that there's a few things that happen, like you were saying, where they do not distinguish between Christians and the world, where there is an appropriate time to go and see a movie that may not be a

10:00

Christian movie, if it's appropriate, if it's, you know, there's some that are not appropriate. There is an appropriate time for that.

10:06

That time is not Sunday morning. You've seen this, even I'm sure that you've seen it in the time since you've been a

10:12

Christian, just how much worship services have changed. When you see some of these mega churches, you know, they'll have practically, you know, it's like a carnival or a circus that they have going on instead of it being the corporate worship.

10:31

Instead of being about God. I did actually go to a church where afterwards there was a literal circus, but that's because right outside of the church, the town had a circus.

10:41

But I mean, being that I travel and speak at a lot of different churches every year, I get to see a lot of different services.

10:49

So I get to see more than probably most people. Because I'm not going just to my church every week.

10:56

Every other week I'm at someone else's church. And I get to see a lot of different types of styles of music.

11:05

And to be honest, I'm glad when I'm in a church where we're singing mostly hymns, because it's rare that you have that anymore.

11:16

Maybe not as rare in Presbyterian churches. Right. So we sing hymns and psalms.

11:22

Yeah, I was going to say in Presbyterian churches, it's, you know, like more surprising if you get hymns because they're not psalms.

11:29

Well, depends on what kind of Presbyterian. I think in the OPC and PCA, you're going to find a majority of of hymns more than the psalms.

11:42

Yeah. But, you know, the thing that's so frustrating with it is the singing of the songs is a form of teaching.

11:54

I think this is what we've lost in many churches. They have changed the idea of singing to praise

12:03

God and yet teach to becoming something where it is about trying to stir up an emotional feeling.

12:14

Why is it that the psalms, if you go through the psalms, you'll see most of our theology.

12:22

If you take any theology book, you're going to see them quoting the psalms. The psalms have most of our theology.

12:31

Why? Because it was theology put to lyric. Theology put the song.

12:37

And it was done so people who couldn't read, people who couldn't have a

12:43

Bible, could know theology, could know who God is. And this is the thing that's lacking.

12:51

Instead of using that time of corporate singing as a teaching time, we use it nowadays as a time of trying to generate an emotion.

13:05

Right. And I think if you have lyrics that lift

13:14

God up on high so much, then you're going to have no other response than to be in awe of how great

13:23

God is. And that is what will lift your heart in worship, in being of awe of God.

13:31

I don't need to repeat the same phrase a dozen times until I get into this mantra type of thing.

13:39

So I'm saying it over and over and over and over until like my heart starts knowing the words.

13:45

So I'm going to start feeling better about myself. Right. Right. So many hymns and psalms, when

13:54

I sing them in church, they bring me to tears. But it's not because I'm looking for some emotion that that's the reason why

14:05

I'm worshiping God. It is for the reasons that you said. When you sing about God and His grace and what

14:12

He's done, you are in awe. It can be overwhelming just reflecting on His work and who

14:21

He is. You know, I don't know if you've ever had the experience when you just, either something's either busyness in your life or sin in your life, and you go to church, but you really don't feel like being there.

14:38

And by the way, if anyone's listening, those are the times you should go to church. Right. Right. Because that feeling is called guilt.

14:48

And if we try to avoid the guilt, we're avoiding the very thing we need. But when we do that,

14:55

I have countless times in the past would go to church feeling that way.

15:03

And by the time we get done with singing songs of worship to God, my heart's already changed.

15:12

Because I sung about how great He is. And by the time we get to the preaching of His Word, I feel like being there.

15:21

Now, sometimes it would be at the preaching of the Word of God. But the majority of times it would happen when we're singing songs to God.

15:29

Now, in some churches that I go to, that wouldn't happen. Because the songs are all about me, and I don't feel like being there in the first place.

15:40

Right. And singing about you is not going to bring you back to God's grace and His work on the cross and what it is that drives us to repentance and love of God.

15:56

And really, I think this gets to the heart of why are we singing? Are we singing for a teaching time?

16:06

Are we singing because we are in awe of how great God is? Or are we singing to try to generate or manufacture some emotion so that people would be ready to worship?

16:18

Right. Well, one thing that I have noticed is when I was growing up, church was called the worship service.

16:26

Now people will say, they'll refer to the worship just as the singing instead of the entire service as corporate worship of God.

16:37

And this goes back to the worship wars that you brought up. I mean, this was back in the 80s where worship styles were all the rage.

16:46

And churches were mentioning whether they have traditional or contemporary worship, referring to the style of music that they had.

16:57

And I remember in college, which was only a few years ago.

17:03

That's right. And but I had a friend of mine come to church with me and I was going to a fundamentalist

17:13

Baptist church, King James, not King James only, but we use King James. And we got done.

17:21

And he said, you know, I it was a good. I asked him how like service.

17:26

He's like, it's a good service. But there was no worship. What do you mean there was no worship? He's like, well, there was no like singing and all that made me feel really good.

17:37

And I really got me wondering because from my background. And as you know, I'm from a

17:42

Jewish background. The word worship meant to bow down. That's how

17:48

I had looked at that. And I said, you know, I need to look at what this actually means. And so I had spent the summer because I had next see next semester.

17:59

I had to teach a Bible study and I was looking for topics to teach. So I spent the summer studying the topic of worship.

18:05

And I ended up working on a biblical theology of worship. One of the things

18:10

I found is that almost everywhere the word for worship means to bow down. It's one of the reasons when if you ever if you would look at the

18:20

Western Wall, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, you'll see people and they're bowing as they're doing their prayers.

18:26

Well, they're bowing. That's their worship, literally bowing. And this is what the word actually means.

18:34

What is it? What does it have the idea of? Well, it's the idea of people who are submitting themselves to someone who is a greater authority than them.

18:47

It actually has the word worship from worth ship is the idea of someone finding worth in someone.

18:55

It's to be in awe of God. That's what worship is. It's not about the style of music.

19:04

And this is how the words that we use have changed. Yeah, that's a that's a really good, really good point.

19:11

Because when you had the worship service, it included the entire service, including the giving of money.

19:19

Yeah, right. I mean, in the Presbyterian side, we we talk about this a lot and believe in the regulative principle of worship that we even look and and see, how does

19:30

God say that he is to be worshipped? Because I think worship and and even even for those who do not fully hold to it, there are many that still do take this serious, even if they don't fully hold to the regulative principle of worship.

19:44

But the thing is, is that worship has become more about about me and and what emotions that I can have.

19:54

And I had a situation when I was in high school and I had a friend and he was not a

20:00

Christian. And so I invited him to church. And this this friend, he really he was an excellent musician and he really understood music.

20:12

And he said, and at this particular church that he came to with me, there was a lot of the praise and worship songs.

20:20

And he said, you know that the way that those tunes are, that they're actually intended to bring about certain emotions.

20:30

And he said, just like if you watch a movie that will have certain music in the background, that is that the point is to make you feel a certain thing.

20:39

So if you watch a horror movie, which I never watch horror movies, but if if you do or you watch some dramatic movie, if it's coming upon a certain scene, you might hear a certain kind of music that puts you on the edge of your seat.

20:52

Or if it's a love story, it'll be certain music that will make you feel good about the scene.

20:59

And so that really changed the way I saw it because I thought, wow. So some of these tunes, the intention is actually to make you feel a certain thing.

21:09

And when we did the episode on the new apostolic reformation,

21:14

Amy Spreeman talked about this. When in NAR, they use something called whole tones, which is intended to bring about something too.

21:23

And so I can listen to a beautiful classical piece of music that has nothing to do with a hymn or a psalm or worship of God, and it can make me feel good.

21:37

And so what what exactly are we feeling? What is the point of of our worship?

21:44

Have we forgotten to focus on on the object of our worship and we look more inward than we do outward?

21:53

And you're referring to episode 62 of Theology Gals that could be heard at Theology Gals.

22:00

Actually, it's Theology Desk Gals dot Blueberry dot com.

22:06

Until we get the new website, which my poor listeners have been waiting forever. But I promise it will be coming soon.

22:12

But yeah, we did an episode. If you're not familiar with the new apostolic reformation, I think it's going to end up one of our most listened to episodes ever.

22:20

Because and if you don't know what it is, go and listen to it, because you probably have run into some of these things in the church and didn't even know it.

22:28

And I'll probably have to redrop it at some point in the future, maybe shortly after this one drops.

22:35

Now that I mention it, but so listen for a future episode of The Rap Report Weekly. But I had an interview that we had on a previous network with with Justin Peters.

22:48

And in that we talked about the charismatic Catholic. And a lot of people didn't know that charismaticism is running rampant within the

22:57

Catholic Church. And the thing that he had mentioned is that if you don't have the music, you don't have the charismaticism and the whole faith healing movement.

23:13

He said they'll go for hours until they get that emotional stirred up.

23:18

And that's why you see when if you see like the Benny Hinn crusades and all those, you see everyone there almost in that hypnotic state because they've they have the music going over and over and over until everyone gets into that that state.

23:33

He also mentioned in there, which is really interesting, because he he he gave a list of things.

23:38

He said, where do you see speaking of tongues and the swaying and this music and all this this stuff?

23:47

And you think the answer is going to be in the word of faith movement.

23:53

And he says, no, in Hinduism, the Konalini Hindus have the same exact.

23:59

They speak in tongues, everything that you end up seeing in that emotional word of faith movement.

24:07

But if you remove the music, you remove their whole thing.

24:13

You can't have that. Yeah, I did it when I did a study on the history of speaking in tongues.

24:21

I found that I mean, throughout history, we had Gnostics in the early church that did something like modern day tongues because it's not actually speaking in tongues like scripture talks about.

24:33

And but I also learned that Mormons in early in the Mormon church also did.

24:38

And so it's really interesting to see these different movements that that did the same exact thing.

24:48

So it's really very interesting because you see after the first century and you mentioned biblically tongues were languages.

24:56

It's one of the things I loved about the Holman translation when they had it as the Holman and not the Christian standard they are today because they translated it as languages.

25:05

Those languages are mentioned in Acts chapter two. So the only place where you see a reference to an angelic language, which everyone seems to speak angelic languages, every charismatic

25:17

I know when I was involved in the movement, everyone speaks angelic languages. When I read

25:23

First Corinthians 13, one in two, you end up seeing that it's called sarcasm.

25:32

Maybe it's because I have a black belt in sarcasm that I recognize. But, you know, and I have if you go to striving for attorney dot dot org and just do a search for tongues, there's a paper

25:45

I have that goes through First Corinthians 12, 13, 14 in context. And what

25:52

I found in there is I was in the charismatic movement because I didn't know any better.

25:57

I came from a Jewish background, didn't know Christians for two years. It was just me and a

26:04

Bible until I well, when I started driving, I found Christian radio, Harold Camping, and I thought he was the bomb.

26:11

It sounded so authoritative. It sounded like he knew what he was talking about. I thought he was the greatest thing until I actually learned my

26:18

Bible better. But the thing was, is that, you know,

26:24

I got involved in the charismatic movement in college and didn't know any different.

26:30

And I remember sitting in a Bible study and one person was telling another person, well, not everyone believes that those gifts continued and wait, what?

26:38

And I went home that night and decided I was going to read First Corinthians 12, 13 and 14 in one sitting.

26:46

And in doing that, I realized all the verses that I was told, this means this and this means this, this means this.

26:51

When I read it in context, I realized that Paul was saying the exact opposite of everything I was being taught.

26:58

And if you look at the passage we're referring to that, or at least I'm referring to in First Corinthians 13 in verses one and two,

27:07

I take to purposely because he's going to say in First Corinthians 13, one, when we look at that,

27:16

I'm just going to read that. Of course, I have a new Bible. It's pages are sticking.

27:22

If I the new MacArthur study Bible. No, this is my. OK, this is my.

27:28

So and as you so you're referring to. Well, not the MacArthur study Bible, but I guess the preacher's

27:34

Bible preacher's Bible. And so this would be a good plug for where we are giving away a

27:39

MacArthur ESV. No, sorry. NSA and ASB study

27:45

Bible and not say by a Bible preacher's Bible. And the thing about the preacher's Bible, it is great for note taking.

27:51

If you are a note taker and you like the NASB, this is the best because you can always use it as a, you know, anchor for your boat if you needed to.

28:04

It's about like that big. It's like eight pounds. I think it's it's it's heavy.

28:10

It's not something you want to carry to church is actually designed for the preacher to lay flat at the pulpit.

28:17

But you write in that and it's not bleeding through. The reason it's so heavy and so big is because the pages are thick.

28:24

It's just really good quality. It's like it's not a study. It's not a study

28:29

Bible with notes. It's an actual just Bible that happens to have room. I've seen some pictures of it room in the margins to write notes, bigger pages.

28:40

And OK, and so where can people enter you? It's for you to have for your study

28:46

Bible so you could pass it on to a next generation. That's really what it is. John MacArthur wanted it said he's got his grandfather's

28:53

Bible and he wanted a Bible. That's going to last. His grandfather's Bible is falling apart. And the way to enter is you have to you have to hopefully listen and subscribe to the rap report.

29:06

But if you write a review for us on iTunes, that's one way to enter or to email us at info at striving for attorney dot org.

29:17

And either give us some topics you want us to talk about or let us know what you think about our podcast.

29:22

Good or bad. And that's how you enter. But you also have to follow us on Twitter.

29:29

And the way to follow us is at Andrew Rapport on Twitter or follow striving for attorney ministries on Facebook.

29:39

But the Bible I'm actually holding is the next one that we're going to give away probably in the summer, which is a nice goat skin

29:48

ESV because some people are saying, well, I don't use new American standards. So I was given this nice goat skin

29:55

ESV. But here back to First Corinthians 13. OK. Yes, I know we get in little rabbit trails here, but go ahead with First Corinthians 13.

30:05

I had a friend of mine that once told me he says, and this is more of an old browser type thing for people who use the

30:10

Internet years ago when you said bookmarks before Google and you had to now everyone just Googles it. He said, who's with you is like a is like just you bookmark the conversation and you always back up to it.

30:23

But First Corinthians 13, one and two says this. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,

30:32

I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And so this is the only passage in the

30:39

Bible that refers to some maybe an angelic language. Why do I say maybe? I don't think he's actually saying there is an angelic language.

30:48

He's saying, if I speak of the language of men, even of angels, but I have not love,

30:54

I'm a noisy cymbal, a clanging cymbal, a noisy gong clanging cymbal. Now, the emphasis is on the love.

31:01

First off, he's not trying to teach that there's angelic languages, but he's using sarcasm.

31:07

How do I know that? Because of verse two. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge.

31:18

And if I have all faith, so to remove mountains, but have not love,

31:25

I am nothing. So you see the same pattern that he's using. He's escalating it and then exaggerating it and then comparing it to love and saying love is the more important thing.

31:37

And all these miraculous things, I have all these gifts, but love is the most important.

31:43

And so if I had all knowledge and understood all mysteries, what would you call me?

31:50

God. Yeah, exactly. So is Paul claiming he's God? No. No, he's using sarcasm there.

31:59

And if he's using sarcasm in verse two, I think he's using it in verse one as well. That's also a little bit of how to interpret the

32:06

Bible there, too. I mean, these are just little things that if you learn how to interpret the Bible, these things become very clear to lay out.

32:14

And there may be listeners who are saying, dude, I believe in tongues.

32:20

I speak in tongues. And, you know, you just don't understand. Maybe you were taught wrong.

32:27

We could do a whole episode on that and explain that. But the point of this is that most of the very, very charismatic churches, especially the word of faith churches, the

32:42

NAR churches, are not going to be able to do their services unless they have that music creating the emotion.

32:50

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what a lot of the tongues comes from.

32:56

But you actually bring up a really important point, and that is how we read

33:02

Scripture and understanding Scripture in its context. Because I've been talking with a friend and actually talked to her for a few hours on the phone today.

33:12

And she knows some people that have got sucked into Hebrew roots. So she was asking me some questions about things that they were claiming.

33:20

And a lot of the things that they claim, they literally just take a verse over here out of context and over here out of context, instead of actually understanding what is actually being said.

33:33

And so I think we see a lot of that even in NAR, where they will use

33:40

Scripture, but they're not using it in context. Well, you see this in a lot of groups.

33:46

I don't know what's up with Hebrew roots. I have been coming upon, I got asked this again today.

33:51

This is becoming something, I may have to start studying it because it really is coming up a lot. They're different than the black

33:58

Hebrew Israelites, but they interpret Scripture similarly. And the way, the thing that you're going to see consistent with both groups is this misapplication of Isaiah 28 and verse 10.

34:14

They both do this, and it is frustrating. I will have black Hebrew Israelites tell me that I don't know how to read the

34:21

Bible because I think that I should read it like a novel. And they go to Isaiah 28, 10, and they'll just quote the one verse.

34:31

For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.

34:40

And the interesting thing is the only thing they ever want to focus on is that last phrase, here a little, there a little.

34:48

Because if they actually read the first two parts of that, precept upon precept, and that's repeated, line upon line, and that's repeated, that would tell you you shouldn't just grab here a little, there a little, the way they interpret that last part.

35:07

You're taking the concept one after the other, the lines one after the other, not just grabbing one from the air, grabbing another from the air, and slamming them together.

35:18

That is one of the ways not to interpret the Bible. It's called isolation. And what isolationism is, is where you grab a verse, and you rip it out of its context, and you give it a new meaning.

35:32

And really what they do is they do that with several verses, and they put them together, and that's called proof texting.

35:40

And proof texting is where you take different verses, often ripping them out of their context, isolating them from the context, and putting them together to prove a point that the

35:49

Scriptures never actually proved. One thing that's very interesting that she shared with me, because she had joined a women's group with Hebrew Roots people, and she said that anyone who has even a little bit of biblical knowledge, that the admin of the group will pretty much mark you and kick you out.

36:15

And you're not to question anything. They're very into being Torah observant.

36:21

Today, one of them was saying that the Puritans were

36:27

Torah observant, and just a complete misunderstanding of what exactly the

36:34

Puritans believed about things like the Sabbath. It was not the same way as what they're doing, and they were not

36:42

Torah observant. They held strongly to the moral law, and they believed the Sabbath was part of the moral law, but they were not what these people were claiming.

36:51

And I finally said to her, are they just making stuff up? Because some of the stuff was, I think that what happens is people say stuff, and then other people repeat it.

37:01

But in talking to her, I just realized just how little actual biblical knowledge that they have.

37:08

And I think that you're right, that you should study this, Andrew, with your book, What Do They Believe? It would be a good addition to that, because I think it's becoming more influential, and people are being deceived by it.

37:21

Because this friend of mine has known people that are being deceived by it. And it's exactly opposite to what

37:28

Scripture says. In Acts, Paul commends the Bereans. Why? Because they take what he says and what the

37:35

Torah says verbatim? No. He praised the Bereans because what they did was look at what

37:43

Paul said, compared it to Scripture, to see if these things were so. Paul saw that as a mark of maturity.

37:51

And if a group is saying, oh, you know something about Scripture? Okay, please leave. That's a sign they only want the immature to do is what

38:00

Paul said in Ephesians. They want to take the immature so they'd be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.

38:08

Right. She said to me that if somebody sounds too smart, almost, that they'll kick them out.

38:15

It's almost like they just want an echo chamber, and they don't want anyone to question anything.

38:23

And it's really sad, especially because I think that there are a lot of people out there that are searching, and they're looking for something, and then they happen upon something like this.

38:35

And then they're being deceived. You know, and you mentioned my book,

38:40

What Do We Believe? And the reason I wrote it the way that I did, which is, I mean, for someone like you who likes studying theology, you could get it and it could be a quick reference for you and you can enjoy reading it.

38:53

You could learn good theology, you know, talk about the dispensationalism. I actually was talking about your other book.

39:03

No, but seriously, the thing that's lacking is the fact that people don't want to study theology anymore.

39:13

They think they get like a Grudem's systematic theology or MacArthur's new thing called biblical doctrine, and they're thick and they're heavy and people go, oh, that's daunting.

39:26

I wanted something that was easy to read. Someone that doesn't know theology could get through it.

39:33

And actually read it a couple times because the more you read it, I tried to read it at reaching different levels.

39:39

So if you're brand new to theology, you can understand these things. If you know theology, you can still pick up some stuff.

39:48

You know, even like the lesson on the church, Presbyterians can learn a lot about how the word church has changed over time.

39:56

It's not Israel. That's another podcast we'll have to do.

40:01

But I want you to talk about your other book. Not what do we believe, but what do they believe? I want you to explain that one.

40:08

The thing, though, is that we first have to realize because what do they believe is going to be a systematic theology of the

40:16

Western religions. And. It's important to know what people believe from their sources, from their their position, not misrepresentations of them.

40:31

And even in there, I have a chapter on Christianity to give a basic understanding of what Christian Christianity believes.

40:38

But I think the reason people get sucked into the Hebrew roots movement. The they get sucked into all these different isms and movements is because they don't want to study who

40:52

God is. If we are Christian, we are by definition theologians, people who study

40:59

God. Right. We may be poor at it, but we're theologians and or we ought to be.

41:07

Yeah, we well, we are we're either doing a very bad job of it. Right.

41:12

We're not right. And people don't know what happens is, is people don't know the word of God.

41:18

And so something like this comes along and it sounds good. And they don't even recognize that it's false doctrine.

41:26

And all false teaching will always have enough truth to make it believable. That's the thing.

41:32

It only has to be wrong in the area of how you how you get right with God, making it into a workspace system.

41:40

But what you're going to see with many of these is you're going to always see people who have a pride issue.

41:48

And and I don't care if it's the charismatic church, you get saved, then you get a second blessing. You'll see what we call stagecage

41:55

Calvinists. You get saved. Now you get reformed and now you're like a higher level of spirituality.

42:00

If you're in. That's true. That's like gospel right there. I'm just kidding.

42:06

Fundamentalist Baptists, you get saved, then you learn about the King James. Hebrew roots is no different.

42:12

You get you get saved and then you learn about all of Hebraism. And and I think

42:18

I shared with you this story once. I worked at Lucent Technologies many years ago and we had a security guard who was a.

42:27

She was part of what was called the messianic movement. And so she had been doing some festival that she was all proud to tell me about.

42:42

And I looked at her and I said, you know, I don't know how to tell you this, but I never heard of that before.

42:48

And she goes, oh, yeah, all Jewish people know about this. And I'm like, oh, I'm just telling you, as a

42:55

Jewish person, I never heard of this before. Like, I think someone's making this up.

43:01

I mean, you don't know any better because if you don't know anything of Judaism, you don't know that Jewish people don't celebrate this.

43:09

And she literally looked at me and she goes, you're just jealous because I'm more Jewish than you.

43:14

I'm like, what? Like I said, I'm like, I'm a Levite.

43:19

I was back at Bar Mitzvahed. I'm like, I've got years of Hebrew school.

43:25

What do you mean you're more Jewish than me? But it was a pride issue. And so some of this does become a pride issue.

43:34

And there is something, you know, James Tippins on one of his podcasts had had done.

43:40

I'm not sure if it's the Are You Listening podcast or one of his others. Actually, I think it was one of his others.

43:49

But he ended up talking about, actually was his

43:54

Are You Listening podcast. He talked about the fact that when people start actually repeating something that other people say long enough that they actually start believing it themselves.

44:04

And that's how I think people get into that. They get into it because they, I mean, how are people believing in flat earth?

44:11

I mean, I joked when I first heard about the flat earth that this has got to be some atheist that just wants to show how gullible

44:20

Christians are. And then someone sent me an article that actually said that the founder of the flat earth society is an agnostic.

44:27

But so many Christians are involved in it. I'm like, how could they be so gullible? And I think what it is, is they start out trying to refute it and they start researching it.

44:37

And they're talking to friends about it. And their friends are like, what is this? And they start explaining the position.

44:44

And because they're trying to explain the position fairly, they're arguing the position that these people would hold.

44:51

And before long, they're defending it enough that they start actually believing it.

44:57

And it becomes something that they actually start to believe. And now they know knowledge that others don't, and it becomes an issue of pride.

45:06

I know something you don't. I have this secret knowledge. It really is like you said earlier, the

45:11

Gnosticism. Gnosticism was this idea that they had a secret knowledge, an enlightened knowledge. And that's what we see in a lot of different religions.

45:19

You know, it occurred to me that there may be a rare theology gals listener and probably many rap report listeners that don't know that you're a dispensational and I'm a

45:32

Presbyterian. Some of what we've said so far, maybe they've thought, what is going on here?

45:40

But one thing I wanted to say, one thing that Ashley and I have, and she's my co -host on Theology Gals for those that have never listened, is that we want to have respectful conversations with our brothers and sisters in Christ where we differ on secondary issues.

45:59

And I'm hoping that Andrew and my conversation here can be an example of that, that yes, we do have differences.

46:08

We have differences on Israel in the church and on the Sabbath and several other things, but they are not foundational doctrines of the

46:18

Christian faith. And so even more than our differences, we do have unity in the gospel and on those foundational doctrines of the

46:25

Christian faith. So I thought I should explain that because it occurred to me. Some people maybe missed the

46:30

Theology Gals episode on dispensationalism. And when we did an episode on dispensationalism, we had a dispensational on.

46:38

And when we did our episode on Lutheranism, we had a Lutheran on. And I think those were good conversations.

46:47

And that goes all the way back to episode eight of Theology Gals. You know my podcast better than I do.

46:56

No, I'm just better at searching. But I was on on episode eight with you all the way back then.

47:04

You're at like you're in the 60s now. So you've come on. It took a while to get you back on to Theology Gals.

47:12

Can you answer the following questions for your children or for the person to whom you are witnessing?

47:18

Number one, is the New Testament reliable? Two, can you explain the Trinity to me?

47:23

Three, how is Jesus both God and man? And a slew of other questions you will be able to answer if you get

47:30

Andrew Rappaport's new book, What Do We Believe? It will help you a ton.

47:36

Get your copy at whatdowebelievebook .com.

47:42

For the month of June, listeners to the podcast can get $5 off Andrew's book,

47:50

What Do We Believe? With the code JUNE2018. Well, I think we should move on to what we were going to talk about or we might not ever, ever get to it.

48:01

So this kind of started because of me on something that I was telling

48:08

Andrew. I was thinking back to when my husband and I got married and we got married in 1995.

48:16

And when we got married, we didn't want a TV at least for the first year in our house.

48:25

And I think an older couple in our lives had suggested that. Don't have a

48:30

TV for the first year. The Internet was new. We didn't have it yet. And so we actually had a

48:38

TV on a rolling cart that we kept in the closet. And we would pull it out every once in a while to watch an old movie we got at the library.

48:47

But from early in our marriage, we had very specific standards for what we did and didn't watch.

48:54

And it's not my intention to be legalistic here, but just to express some things that do concern me about what

49:04

I think is a lack of discernment in some of the things. And we talked a little bit about earlier about our culture being so kind of everything being very sexual.

49:16

And that is the case on things that you watch on TV. For people like Brent and I that have watched very little

49:24

TV through the years, we do have Netflix. We do have a couple of shows we watch.

49:30

We do not watch TV even every single day, but we do have a few shows that we watch and whatnot.

49:38

But we do have certain standards. We also have times where we've started a movie and we've said, oh, this is not an appropriate movie.

49:48

We usually check the plugged in from Focus on the Family because it'll tell you what language is in it, what sexual situations and whatnot.

49:58

But what happened was I found out that there are several girls that were talking about a certain show and that they liked the certain show.

50:10

And I didn't really know anything about the show. But in their conversation, they kind of seemed ashamed, like, oh,

50:17

I don't know if I should admit I watched this show. So I turned it on to see what it was about. And I could not get through one episode.

50:25

In my mind, I've never seen pornography, but this seemed to be like light pornography.

50:30

And this concerns me because I think of our friends back when we got married and I think even still had very similar kind of ideas on boundaries we had on things that we would watch.

50:49

In fact, this even goes for things like some of the romance novels for women, to be honest.

50:55

And I think that we've gotten on a slippery slope and allowed more and more.

51:03

So right now people freak out about a Christian watching Game of Thrones. But if we continue on this path, there might come a time where people might not be as horrified by a

51:14

Christian watching Game of Thrones. And because as a woman with a podcast, I hear from a lot of women.

51:21

And the second most common thing that women write to me about is my husband is addicted to pornography.

51:28

And I really started thinking, I wonder if even having these TV shows that are almost like a light porn gives somebody like,

51:36

I want to see more. And so this is something that does concern me, especially from where we've gone in since we got married 23 years ago to now.

51:47

I'm concerned about where we're going to be in another 20 years. Well, yeah, because and let me give you some you mentioned plug in plugged in online.

51:57

So it's plugged plugged in dot com. And another one is dove dot org.

52:03

Both of them are two sites that will give you movie reviews. I think even TV reviews.

52:09

I have a similar background to you. I didn't have a TV. You and I talked about this. I didn't have a TV in our living room for years after we got married.

52:20

We had a TV, I think, in our bedroom, my wife and I.

52:26

No, not even in our bedroom. No, we had it downstairs in the basement. And we got a

52:31

TV in our living room September 11th. That's when we brought it upstairs because I and I ordered cable or satellite dish, one of the two, because I wanted to get the news after that.

52:42

I wanted to we had we had no news. And that's what got me to get a

52:47

TV in the living room. And I didn't really have one for years. I am not a

52:53

TV watcher. Anyone that knows who Frank Mullis is knows is

52:59

Frank likes to bust on me because he and he will give movie quotes to see if I even have the foggiest idea that it was a quote from a movie because I'm that clueless.

53:09

What I think has happened is that people have watched these TV shows and movies and they're just subtly moving in a direction where people have become so desensitized to it.

53:26

I remember a program that my kids were watching on TV. I have adult kids, but they and it was like my wife and I were just sitting there and I was like, everyone just it's like everyone just kisses one another all the time.

53:41

It's like every other scene is this one's kissing that one. It reminded me of the soap operas that my mom used to watch and where it's like, but it's become more prevalent.

53:51

And the thing that got me was and I think that's how you and I started with this conversation that brought up this topic was

53:59

I was listening to a podcast just about iPhones or the

54:06

Apple software. And one of the podcasters is a big gamer and she was mentioning this game that Nintendo said 10 years ago, this will never be on the

54:18

Nintendo platform. And now it is. And the reason they weren't going to let it on the platform was because it was too horrific.

54:26

It was a horror game. It was just too horrific. And the podcaster said, you know, this is such light stuff.

54:34

This isn't even anything serious. It's not it's such light horror. Why would they ever have had a problem with it?

54:42

Well, the game didn't change. What changed was the perspective of 10 years of influence in the media.

54:51

And I'll give a plug for a ministry you may not be aware of, but it's called Apollo Media.

54:59

It's the guy who runs who runs it is he is

55:06

Carl Kirby Jr. Now, I don't know if if name called Kirby sounds familiar to anyone, but Carl Kirby Sr.

55:14

used to be a speaker with answers in Genesis. He's now at the Ministry of Reasons for Hope.

55:19

But Apollo Media and it's Apollo Media dot org. What Carl Kirby Jr.

55:26

does, he looks at media and video games, and I will just say this to anyone listening.

55:32

I've had Carl Jr. speak at each of our conferences in each of the areas that we have done it.

55:39

And I've told people when he gets done speaking, your jaw will hit the ground. He will play things in games.

55:47

He'll show you these games. And you won't believe what your kids are playing all the time.

55:53

And after every conference, I'd love to go to the back before he wraps up and just watch everyone walk out.

56:00

Because person after person, when he gets done with his presentation, their jaw is just open. And they're like,

56:06

I can't believe it. I had one one grandfather go. I have to go home and figure out what it is my grandson's playing all the time.

56:13

He was showing me stuff in these games. The games are all that they all if they use scripture, it's a misrepresentation of scripture.

56:24

He was showing that there's one one of the most popular games is where you are a you're a gunslinger.

56:31

And your object is to get all the other gunslingers to convert to Christianity so that you can bring them to church.

56:41

So you have a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other. And your job is to get them all to convert. Use the

56:46

Bible to get them to convert, to get them to church and put down their arms so that when all their arms are put down, you can shoot them all.

56:55

That's the game. There's a game called Denouncing Isaac.

57:01

No, now I can remember it. But he's got a game where in the beginning of the game is this little stick figure representation.

57:11

And you have to watch this every time. And here you got a mother and Isaac and they're they're getting along great.

57:19

But the mother hears the voice of God and God says, you don't love me enough. You got to show me you love me.

57:25

Take off Isaac's toys away. So it takes all toys away. I don't think you love me enough.

57:31

You got to bring Isaac to church. And so brings Isaac to church. I don't think you love me enough still.

57:37

I think you need to sacrifice Isaac to me. And Isaac overhears this. And then

57:44

Isaac discovers that the mother is going to kill him. And she's charging in the room with a knife.

57:49

And then he finds an escape, like an escape hatch underneath his in his bedroom.

57:55

And he runs out of the escape hatch. And then the game starts and you're Isaac running away from your mother who's trying to kill you to sacrifice you to God to show her love to God.

58:07

The author of that game grew up in a Christian home. It is modeled after Abraham and Isaac.

58:14

Okay. It's just with a mother. And he specifically trying to show this is what

58:20

Christianity is. And this is a game that people play. Kids, this is designed for five and six -year -olds.

58:29

This is the message they're getting. Yeah. Well, I actually did not.

58:36

My kids do play some games. I didn't allow video games in our home for a really long time.

58:42

And then we did, but we were very picky. I think your children are a little older than mine. And so Minecraft was what they played all the time, which you go and mine stuff and build a house and whatnot.

58:55

But it's kind of funny because we rarely watch TV, but we actually do have a 60 -inch flat screen in our basement.

59:03

But it's to watch hockey. That's what it's for. Because our home is very big hockey fans.

59:11

So go Blackhawks. Yeah, I don't even get that. Chicago Blackhawks.

59:19

And I should say my husband played hockey when he was young. And my kids developed a love because of his love of hockey.

59:28

But the main games my kids play are the sports games. And they're sports -type games.

59:36

Because I'm not even familiar with a lot of the different games that are out there.

59:42

And we've been very, very picky. And one thing I am grateful for is that my kids are not

59:48

TV watchers. They just watch almost no television except sports when they watch any.

59:57

And one reason is because I did grow up in a home where the

01:00:02

TV was on all the time. And so did my husband. And so we really didn't want that.

01:00:08

And I think because they—I'm not sure if young people are big TV watchers or not. But I think probably a lot of them are.

01:00:15

My kids just don't really watch television, which I'm grateful for.

01:00:22

But I think that—I think my generation, we really didn't have our kids watch

01:00:28

TV. I think—I'm not sure because there was kind of a—at least in Christian circles, in the circles I was in, especially homeschool circles, there was kind of a move to not be like our parents that had the

01:00:41

TV on all the time and to not let our kids watch TV. And that may be changing a little bit. I'm not entirely sure.

01:00:47

It's changing to where now they watch it on their phones. I recently heard a podcast where a gentleman was saying how he had—

01:00:58

I forget. It was some enormous number of pornographic images that he had on his computer when he had finally stopped with porn.

01:01:08

And he said he used to have magazines. But now, it's so easily available online.

01:01:16

Everyone has it on their phones. Yeah. I actually— They watch TV on their phones.

01:01:22

That's where—this boggles my mind. But I've talked to people our age who have kids that are our kids' age.

01:01:31

And I ask them sometimes, do your kids watch TV? Where do they watch? I don't know how many parents have told me they'll have a 60 -inch

01:01:37

TV in their house and their kids are watching on a 5 -inch phone or a 10 -inch iPad.

01:01:46

Right. Well, yeah. I'm glad that my kids don't. I mean, it's just as well.

01:01:53

We would have a family movie night every once in a while. We're not big movie people either.

01:01:58

So, I wouldn't know the movies that Frank is talking about either. But I was doing some research for an article that I'm writing.

01:02:08

And they were talking about that pornography is more accessible now than ever before.

01:02:14

You know, like you said, it's not a Playboy magazine. You can go right online. I mean,

01:02:19

I've heard that they even have stuff on YouTube. And so, one thing I do want to say to parents out there, if your children have any electronic devices, go and get a filter.

01:02:33

Get parental filters where you know what websites they're going to, which prevents them from going to websites they should not be going to.

01:02:43

I know I've heard, you know, people will say, well, kids can get around those. But I think that they're improving them all the time.

01:02:49

And you can even put, we even have something on our kids so that they can't go on any devices after a certain time and until the next day.

01:03:01

And, you know, get something like that on your internet. Let me say this.

01:03:07

If you have children, they should not have a, in my opinion, a

01:03:14

TV or a computer in the room. When I was pastoring, I don't know how many kids told me that they were looking at pornography or movies that they shouldn't be watching at night in the room because they had a computer with access.

01:03:32

My kids, we had a computer. The computers were in open view of the main house, so in the kitchen area.

01:03:42

Their backs were to my wife, so my wife could see at any time in the kitchen what's on the screens.

01:03:49

We had software. I had a thing called eBlaster. And the thing with that was

01:03:55

I had two different things that were on my kid's computer. eBlaster was something that would send me a daily report of every website they went to, but they didn't know that that was on there.

01:04:07

Okay? It sent me a report, but there's nothing for them to even know that it's running.

01:04:13

Every keystroke, everything. I could get a report on it. But then

01:04:18

I would have something that would end up being something they have to sign into.

01:04:28

I forget what it was called, but it had filters. It would prevent them from going to certain sites.

01:04:34

And so they had time limits on there, and they needed my wife to put a password in.

01:04:41

And they always looked for ways around it. I mean, my wife would make them turn away to not look when she's typing in the password.

01:04:48

My son got smart. He got his camera, put it in video mode, and figured out her password. And he thought he was all smart.

01:04:55

But guess what? He got the password and put it in. Once he went to a site that I knew he shouldn't be at,

01:05:01

I had another system that told me that. So they think that the one thing that's filtering, they find a way around the filter.

01:05:07

But guess what? I knew every site they were going to with another system that they didn't know about. I say you want to have that.

01:05:15

You want to know where they're going. And so I wouldn't allow computers in their room.

01:05:24

I would have software to filter it, but also software to know where they're going.

01:05:30

But all that really, the real issue is we have to teach our children why they shouldn't go to those sites.

01:05:40

Because everything in the culture is desensitizing them to say this is okay, this is normal.

01:05:46

Yeah, and let me even say this. Protect your children. I know it's not just boys who look at pornography, but it is a much higher percentage.

01:05:57

And one thing I've learned with the women that write to me about this is that the pornography addiction started before marriage in a large percentage.

01:06:08

And sometimes they thought that getting married would fix it. And because of what happens in the brain and various things, they still went back to it after getting married.

01:06:19

And it's such a difficult thing. And you want to talk to your children about, be open and talk with your children about why that you don't want them using pornography.

01:06:34

Most of the people that struggle with it started in the teenage years or before. Yep. It actually said that,

01:06:43

I forget what percentage. There was a percentage of 10 -year -old boys that started looking at it.

01:06:49

I didn't even, I was completely unaware that it was that young that some of these kids are looking at it.

01:06:58

Yeah, and the thing is they're being desensitized to it in the

01:07:05

TV, in the games. Most parents don't realize how much the graphics in some of these games are very detailed and yet very pornographic.

01:07:26

And parents think it's just a game. So they don't think much of it. And because of that, oh, it's on TV.

01:07:34

It's okay. No. There's TV shows, and look,

01:07:40

I'm not judging people for what they watch because I admit I don't watch any of it, but there's shows that I end up asking people, what's this show about?

01:07:52

Do we need, as Christians, do we need something the world has to offer to appease us?

01:08:00

I mean, one of the things that amazed me is there was a, when the movie Noah came out, remember that movie?

01:08:06

Yeah. I didn't see it, but I heard about it. I did watch it. My wife and I waited until it was out at the library because I'm too

01:08:13

Jewish to pay for things like that. So I get it from the library for free. And my wife and I, we decided we were going to see how many things they got correct.

01:08:24

We counted six things that they got right, including the names of Noah and his children and that it was a big boat and it rained, you know, things like that.

01:08:35

We could only count six things they got right. And I remember a blog that argued how this movie was so cinematically well done.

01:08:47

And I was like, and this is a Christian blog. And I responded and said, are you nuts?

01:08:54

Like a movie that the producers say they want to make the most un -Christian

01:09:00

Christian movie and you're going to praise it for its somatic, how well done it is when it's biblically inaccurate.

01:09:09

And this is all that the world, they see this movie and they think that's it. It's accurate. They don't know the difference.

01:09:15

I was like, you know, I literally said, you know, next you're going to be praising pornography and saying, oh, look, it's, it's, as long as it's, you know, depicting a husband and wife, it'll be okay.

01:09:26

Cause look at the beauty of marriage. I mean, I'm waiting for the Christian bloggers to start doing that.

01:09:32

And I hate the thought that I, that joke could be true one day, but it could.

01:09:38

The way we're headed, people are, they're looking for a reason to justify not only

01:09:45

Christian liberties, but they've gone beyond that. Right. And let, and let's talk about that for a second, that we do have

01:09:53

Christian liberty in so far as it is not opposed to God's law.

01:09:59

And so there, there may be appropriate shows to watch. My husband and I have found a couple that we enjoy.

01:10:06

And, you know, so they, so we're not saying you can't ever watch a show, but I would much prefer an appropriate secular show than one that's based on a

01:10:17

Bible story and, and not accurate. Yeah. My wife and I, we, there was a

01:10:25

TV show. I forget the name of it that we actually watched. My daughter had got us watching it, but it was like in England in the 1800s.

01:10:33

And it's, you know, it talked about the lifestyle, the upstairs, downstairs of the classes of people.

01:10:40

And we, we started liking that sort of genre. And then we started to try to watch some other things that like historically related.

01:10:50

And we were watching something and it was about Queen Elizabeth or Queen Mary, sorry,

01:10:56

Queen Mary. And we had to give up because it's like every other scene, someone's kissing somebody and they're not married.

01:11:03

And we're like, you know, this just, it doesn't, it's not needed for the plot in the first place.

01:11:13

They're just putting it in on purpose to, because this is what the culture says.

01:11:19

And here's the thing that amazes me, the same culture that wants to promote a Me Too campaign and say how, you know, you shouldn't, we should be pointing out that we shouldn't be, you know, sexually assaulting women is the same group of people who are putting out this dog show movie where they're trying to teach children how to be, get into their, as you were, as you informed me, how to get into their

01:11:46

Zen place when they're being sexually assaulted by an adult.

01:11:52

It's like, you can't have both, but they want both. They want to say it's wrong if we say it's wrong, but we still want to encourage the very behavior that we're going to say is wrong later.

01:12:04

Right. And for those who are not familiar, the movie Dog Show, which recently came out, it's since been pulled and some of the scenes taken out, but there are, there's articles out there about why it's still not something you should take your children to see.

01:12:20

And the very fact that they released it the way that they did, but basically. Well, continue with that because you had a great point on this when we talked about it.

01:12:30

I'm not sure if I remember my great point. The fact that they released it and they didn't think it was cool.

01:12:36

In Australia, you told me they pulled it and said, no, we're not playing this, but they played it in America. And no one thought this was a problem.

01:12:43

Well, and the other thing is, I think that their initial apology really was kind of a more of, we're sorry that you're so upset instead of, but this is how dog shows are.

01:12:54

And they basically showed somebody, a dog learning to have his private parts examined, which he did not like to have happen.

01:13:04

And so then he learns to go to a Zen place for it to happen. And this is what happens when child molesters groom a child, that's what they do.

01:13:13

And so it's very, very disturbing that it came out at all. And so it's kind of the fact that they pulled it and I think it probably had more to do with money than anything else.

01:13:24

They pulled it and took those scenes out. I think it's a little too late. I think the fact that nobody within that, that was producing the movie stopped and making the movie in any way that was associated with it, stopped and said, this is probably not appropriate.

01:13:44

Until they started losing money. Then they changed it. And then you have to be careful.

01:13:50

This is why whenever we, we had a couple of times where we heard about a kid's movie coming out and we'd go look on Plugged In when our kids were little and we'd say, okay, this is not something that we want our children to see.

01:14:08

And one time I, there was one movie, I cannot remember the name of it. And I went by word of mouth, some homeschool moms talking about it.

01:14:18

And then there was stuff in it that I definitely didn't want my children to see.

01:14:23

So you want to look at one of the sites and I will link in the Theology Gals episode notes for this episode, some of those sites that we talked about where you can go and check out what is in a movie.

01:14:37

I'm not familiar with the one Andrew mentioned, but with Plugged In, and I'm not sure what's going on with Plugged In right now, but I haven't been on it in a while, but historically what they've done is they'll say this is exactly what's in the movie in regards to sexual situations.

01:14:53

So it's great for adults too, if you're going to watch a movie. To give some balance,

01:14:59

I will say that there was one or two movies that Disney put out that many

01:15:08

Christians were very much against. And my daughter wanted to see them. And I was like, all right, well,

01:15:14

I'll go with you, but if there's anything I think inappropriate, we're leaving. And I remember there was one where they made this big thing about a homosexual relationship with two of the characters.

01:15:27

I was watching this movie and I couldn't figure that out. And I was looking for it.

01:15:33

So I think sometimes there's sometimes where Hollywood will put something out there to stir up Christians to just get publicity.

01:15:45

And I wouldn't be, I don't put that past them. So going to a site like Plugged In or Dove .org,

01:15:55

the advantage of it is these are people that are going to actually watch the movie. And some of them, what they'll do is they'll count the very specifically, okay, there's this many foul languages.

01:16:07

These are the words that are used, things like that. And so that gives you an idea of, okay, what are we looking at?

01:16:19

What specifically is there that would be of concern? For example, with Dove, they'll have different categories.

01:16:28

Faith, integrity, sex, language, violence, drugs, nudity. And then they have other.

01:16:34

They'll have different things there. And so you can, and they'll actually have a chart so you can quickly see with all those categories.

01:16:42

They have a chart from one to five to say whether it's appropriate or not. So you can quickly see it.

01:16:49

Yeah, and that's a good idea. And the other thing, and I don't want to neglect to say this. I've seen some parents really make a really big mistake by giving their children lots of rules and neglecting the gospel.

01:17:05

And there's one writer that says that legalism will produce rebellion or self -righteousness.

01:17:12

So if you're just teaching your children a bunch of moralism, that is not going to be fruitful.

01:17:17

You need to be preaching the gospel to your children. You need to be preaching about sin and Christ's work on the cross to your children so that they understand.

01:17:28

And they need to understand the gospel. They need to understand why certain things are important to you, not just a list of do's and don'ts without any understanding.

01:17:40

Well, you're mentioning the gospel. Do you think we have time to play a game?

01:17:46

Oh, now you're worrying me. Okay, I think we can wrap up with a game, I think. Well, for listeners of The Wrap Report, they're going to know this game.

01:17:54

I'll play the intro music for it. Okay. It's time now to start the

01:18:00

Spiritual Transition Game. So the way we play this game is you are going to give me something.

01:18:11

And whatever it is, I have to transition to the gospel. And the reason we play this game is because most

01:18:17

Christians are perfectly okay sharing the gospel when the conversation is spiritual.

01:18:23

The problem that many people have is how do I transition from the natural to the spiritual?

01:18:29

So you're going to give me something, and I'm going to have to transition as quickly as I can to the gospel.

01:18:37

Okay, now you put me on the spot so I wasn't prepared. I know the game because I've listened to The Wrap Report, but I did not come prepared for this.

01:18:45

Whatever's in front of you. Okay. Facebook groups. Facebook groups.

01:18:52

Well, that just shows the depravity of man. That one was too easy.

01:18:58

Facebook groups. I mean, look, what do we see when we have Facebook groups? Facebook is the social media that's designed to get people to be able to find things that they have in common and to be able to talk about them, to share things in common.

01:19:15

And that could be good or it could be bad. The reality is that, as you and I have both known because we're in plenty of Facebook groups, that sometimes the

01:19:24

Facebook groups bring out the worst in someone because they're not face -to -face, because they're behind a keyboard and people will say things that they know they would never say to someone's face.

01:19:37

Why wouldn't they say it to someone's face? Well, quite honestly, because if they say it to someone's face, they're going to know the person's going to respond or be upset.

01:19:46

And they generally want... They might get punched. They might get punched for some of the things said, yes.

01:19:52

But generally, people want to be liked. It's part of our human nature, our pride.

01:19:59

We want others to like us. And it's one of the reasons that we think so highly of ourselves.

01:20:06

People go into these Facebook groups and they will present a persona that's so different than the way they are in real life because they want people to think differently of them than they really are.

01:20:18

It's just the way that we are. And the reason that we do that is because we want everybody to think we're the best.

01:20:27

And the reality is, in doing so, we diminish someone who really is the best to make ourselves look better than that person.

01:20:37

That person is so much the best is so great that that person did something that you and I would never do.

01:20:45

That person was completely innocent of ever doing any crime. And yet that person came and died in my place and paid a punishment that I owe.

01:20:55

I owed him a death. And he paid it in my place. That person is Jesus Christ, Almighty God, who came to earth and died on a cross as a payment of sin that though I was guilty,

01:21:07

I would be forgiven. And though many people go to Facebook to escape guilt of sins that they do and try to go to drugs and alcohol and pornography and work and do different things to get rid of guilt, the only way to get rid of guilt of sin is at the cross of Jesus Christ where you could be forgiven.

01:21:26

So that was a good transition. And I think you're right. Sometimes Facebook does show the depravity of man.

01:21:34

But I think there's also some good things that happen. Sometimes I have a love -hate relationship with it.

01:21:42

For any women out there that are not in the Theology Gals Facebook group, you can go to our website, which if you're just a

01:21:51

Rap Report listener, Andrew will link my website in this episode. We're going to put all the links in the show notes.

01:21:58

We'll put the same. Yeah, and I will put a link to Striving for Eternity, to Andrew's ministry.

01:22:05

I have a hate -love -hate -hate -hate -love -hate -hate -hate -hate relationship with Facebook. There is a group for any of my listeners, female listeners, called

01:22:20

Theology Gals that you can join. They don't let me in there. No men are allowed.

01:22:28

That's right. You know, I tried. I got blocked. It came up in the recommended groups on Facebook.

01:22:35

I said, let me try. I've been disallowed from two groups. Theology Gals, because I'm a man, and the

01:22:45

Conversation from the Porch used to have a New Covenant Theology only group.

01:22:51

They kicked me out because I'm dispensational. Oh, because you're not. Yeah, well,

01:22:56

I will say we do allow dispensationals. Are they allowed to talk?

01:23:03

They're allowed to talk within reason. Some people think

01:23:10

I'm too strict, but one thing that we do emphasize in the Theology Gals group is that we are not a debate group.

01:23:16

In fact, we have a list of things, of topics we don't approve, like vaccines.

01:23:25

If you get a bunch of women together, there are certain topics that tend to come up.

01:23:31

We do have some rules just because we don't want to turn into a debate group.

01:23:37

Certain things, certain topics are not allowed. Do you allow discussion on crochet versus knitting?

01:23:43

I mean, is this allowed? Yeah, we will allow. That is one we will allow.

01:23:49

I don't think it has come up thus far. That's a heated debate. That's what

01:23:55

I hear from Andrew. One needle or two. Yeah. The reason Andrew is saying that is because a couple of weeks ago,

01:24:03

I said we have a controversial topic coming up. One of my Twitter friends, actually a guy that I've met in real life, he said,

01:24:10

I know what it is. It's keto versus paleo versus Atkins.

01:24:16

We said, oh, yes. Angela, my co -host that's sitting in for my regular co -host who's having a baby, she said, yes, we're going to talk about how to make dessert from bacon and if you're tired of cauliflower.

01:24:32

And then she said, next week we'll be talking fibers and that will be crocheting versus knitting.

01:24:41

Well, and that was from your last episode, episode 64, on can Christian men and women be friends and the

01:24:46

Penns rule. Really the Billy Graham rule. Right. And, you know, look,

01:24:52

I'm looking forward. You and I are part of a community of podcasters. The Christian podcast community.

01:24:59

Well, I am. You're coming. You may be coming over. We'll see. But you are in the

01:25:05

Facebook group, at least. And I'm looking forward with that community to get back to doing what we used to do is having, what

01:25:15

I'm going to end up calling up for the new podcast, we're going to call it the Theological Throwdown. And you used to be part of this when

01:25:22

I used to do this, is get people from different backgrounds to discuss theology from our different perspectives in a loving, gracious, charitable way.

01:25:32

It can be done as Christians. Yes, it absolutely can. And I'm grateful because I've really learned this hanging out with Lutherans at the

01:25:42

Rosenblatt house because there's a bunch of Lutherans and then my husband and I, the only non -Lutherans. But we have these wonderful discussions and they're actually charitable and respectful, even though we disagree.

01:25:53

And it is possible. And I think people think theological debate only looks like it looks on Facebook, but it is possible.

01:26:03

And one reason Andrew and I did this episode, we're going to be doing another one and I still want to have him on our podcast to talk about his book,

01:26:11

What Do They Believe? But one thing that we want people to know, one of my favorite things is

01:26:17

Andrew's friendship with Matt Slick. He's a heretic. Yes. They tease each other, but they're good friends.

01:26:27

This Presbyterian charismatic and this dispensational cessationist. And yet they have this very charitable and respectful friendship.

01:26:38

Well, and if you want to see a good example of that, and I'll give you the link, is the debate that Matt, sort of debate that Matt and I did on the charismatic gifts is because the pastor of the church actually had to mention, he goes,

01:26:58

I don't know if people realize from watching these two that they're actually good friends. Well, I think some people know that, but some people may have listened to your podcast that you had with Matt, Slick Answers.

01:27:14

And on there, you kind of hosted, but Matt answered a lot of the questions that came in.

01:27:20

And you could tell your chemistry, even through the speakers.

01:27:27

You guys have a healthy joking around and you joke around about your differences a little bit, like you calling him a heretic and things like that.

01:27:36

The reason we ended up doing that debate at a conference, an apologetics conference, was that we've become known,

01:27:43

Matt and I, for publicly disagreeing with each other, debating on covenant theology versus dispensational theology, the gifts, baptism.

01:27:55

We've done it on a number of different topics, both on podcasts and at conferences now.

01:28:01

And the reason that people are looking at it is because Matt and I, we disagree on a lot of things, but we both love each other.

01:28:10

We can discuss our differences. And even though we may disagree,

01:28:17

I jokingly call him a heretic and he would jokingly call me a heretic, but we really do have a lot of respect for one another and love one another.

01:28:26

And that's what undergirds the way we're going to deal with one another. I mean, I'm going to disagree with him, but I know he's never going to reject me as a brother in Christ because of my positions and I won't do the same for him.

01:28:40

Right. Right. And he'll be corrected. All you Presbyterians will be corrected when you get to heaven.

01:28:45

I'm not worried about that. That's what you think. That's what you think. And Andrew and I have lots of disagreements too.

01:28:52

We didn't focus on disagreements in this. We're going to do that on another podcast, but we do. The Sabbath. Yes, on the

01:28:58

Sabbath. So if you want to hear a really good discussion between a Presbyterian and a dispensational on the

01:29:05

Sabbath, tune into that because one thing we're going to talk about is sometimes, we find in the

01:29:11

Theology Gals Facebook group, sometimes people want to just dive right into the topic and you actually have to understand that it's two different systems that are being used.

01:29:24

It's not just some proof text to make our point. Yeah, and when you say systems, it's two different ways of interpreting

01:29:31

Scripture. Right. Yep. And so your systematic theology is going to be different than mine.

01:29:39

But we can still have respectful, charitable discussions and respect one another at the end even if we disagree.

01:29:48

That's it. You're a heretic. I'm leaving. Well, I did just read today that somebody said that Presbyterians are heretics.

01:29:57

Everybody said, you know, when Metzlick first, and we could probably close with this, but when Metzlick first interviewed me on his radio show, he asked me whether I'm a

01:30:07

Calvinist. And I had said, you know, I really don't use certain labels because I don't know what people mean by them.

01:30:14

I said, all that I know is that I've been told I'm a heretic because I am a

01:30:20

Calvinist and I've been told that I'm a heretic because I'm not a Calvinist. The only thing that everyone seems to be able to agree on is that I'm a heretic.

01:30:29

Yes, well, some people don't think that somebody is Calvinist enough. So you're not really a real

01:30:34

Calvinist if you're not Calvinist enough. Yeah. So, well, to end,

01:30:41

I don't think Andrew's a heretic. Definitely check out his podcast, The Rap Report. He has a daily podcast.

01:30:48

They're about two minutes each and he posts them on social media, but you can also go to The Rap Report on iTunes or whatever podcast app that you use and you can look up Rap Report and that will give you his daily two -minute podcast.

01:31:05

He'll usually take a topic and deal with that topic throughout the week and then he has a one -hour show and I think, are you releasing those on Saturday?

01:31:15

I release the, on Saturday, we kind of do a wrap -up of the dailies and then on Sunday, we do. Okay. It's Sundays, okay.

01:31:22

I usually don't get to them until the next week. So, okay, well. And for my listeners,

01:31:27

I encourage you to go and subscribe to Theology Gals and there's 64 episodes, a lot of different topics that you're going to see.

01:31:36

We mentioned some of them already on whether men and women could be friends, New Apostolic Reformation.

01:31:44

They've have some where they've done interviews with people. It's not just on, you know, people think

01:31:50

Theology Gals, like it's just going to be moms talking about raising their kids. No, as I said,

01:31:56

I'm going to end up, you know, talking about the Sabbath one that they did. They have ones on the Sabbath and the law.

01:32:02

So there's a lot of different topics, 64 of them. So there's going to be many. But I encourage you to go and subscribe to that.

01:32:10

And if you just search for Theology Gals in whatever podcast app you have, you'll find it or you could go to, you'll see it in the links.

01:32:21

Theology Gals, if you search for it, but it's theology -gals .blueberry .net for right now.

01:32:28

They're going to get a new one soon. They've been getting a new website for a really long time.

01:32:35

Yes, people are starting to think I'm dishonest. There's a long story behind why we don't have it yet.

01:32:42

I could be wrong, but I think Noah built the ark in less time than Theology Gals. I'm just saying.

01:32:49

It might turn out that way. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us and definitely look out for our next episode of I guess we call it the

01:33:01

Rap Report Theology Gals. I'm not sure what to call it. Well, the next episode that we're going to do, and the reason is

01:33:09

I wanted to respond to the Sabbath one that you guys did. So I'd encourage people to go and listen to your episode 63 and then you and I can, you know,

01:33:18

I wanted to, and that one's going to be more of a, you know, it's going to be more of a discussion back and forth of our differences with that view maybe.

01:33:25

Right, and I think hopefully a good example of how to people that, because we didn't really take time to disagree with one another on things or expound on anything we may disagree on like the

01:33:39

Sabbath on this episode, but on there, and I hope it can be a good example of how you can disagree and do so respectfully.

01:33:47

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.