Open Air Theology “Reunion”

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

He never let a cigar that way. You use a wooden match.

Preserves the flavor, you see.

But the worst curse would come upon the one who seduced him. Whose head would be crushed by the seed of the woman. And the punishment was too severe.

What's wrong with you people?

Are you ready to get back to work?

With pleasure.

So, Senor Kramer,.

What is this about?

I choose to believe the Bible because it's a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report to us supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim that their writings are divine rather than human in origin.

Don't any of you have any guts to play for blood?

I'm your huckleberry. But because of his own purpose and grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

I don't know why you're clapping. I'm talking about you. I didn't come here to get amens. I didn't come here to be applauded. I'm talking about you. We did not come here to be applauded. But we came here to rumble.

I don't think it gets better than that right there.

Let's get rid of rumble.

Washer's last statement there.

You did.

You were right on point with that. Just drop down. That was perfect.

I was trying.

Yeah, that's awesome. My name is Tom Shepard. I'm with Grace Bible Church of Birney, Texas. A member there. Also a co-host of Open Air Theology and another co-host for Striving for Eternity Apologetics Live.

We just want to welcome you. We have a great show today. We have two guests today. But first, before we get to those, I want to introduce my left.

I'm going next?

My name is Brayden Patterson. I'm the pastor here at Grace Bible Church in Moorpark, California. It's a great blessing to be here. Our services are at 1030 on the Lord's Day Sundays. It'd be a great blessing if you live in the Ventura County area.

Simi Valley or somewhere nearby there. You should come check out our church. It'd be a great blessing. Get plugged in. Worship the Lord with us on Sundays. Also, I have a YouTube channel called Reformed Ex-Mormon.

Before we go any further, let me just say this. Our show is Open Air Theology. We would love for you to go onto YouTube, look up Open Air Theology, subscribe to that channel, share it with your mom, your stepmom, your stepgrandma, share it with your second cousin as well.

Share it with everybody and tell them to subscribe and tell them to share it as well. Also, just a great blessing to be able to partner here with Striving for Eternity. Just love the fellowship that we share with Andrew Rapoport.

Show him some love as well and go like and share his stuff as well. On that note, I'll pass the mic down to my brother below me, our special guest that we were waiting to announce.

Go ahead.

Special, not so special. As you can see, my name is Aaron Dufresne. That's Dufresne like Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne. Not Dufreshni, not Dufresni, but Dufresne. It is French. That's all you need to know about me.

No, I'm just kidding. Member at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. Born again, Christian. I guess those are synonymous terms. I don't usually even say that. I just say Christian. That's what's the most important about me.

Married for going on 10 years to Ali and two beautiful children, Hadden, who is two years old and Talitha, who's seven. That's me.

We have one more. One more, but he's well-known. He is the one and the only, Paps Addison.

What is up, y 'all?

How you doing, Paps?

I'm doing pretty good, man. I love Idaho.

My name's Paps Addison. I go to Agape Bible Church in Payette. I'm the founder of Passing the Torch School of Apologetics. That's what I like. I like apologetics and I evangelize and do all that fun stuff.

All for the glory of God.

What's Idaho like?

I don't know anything about that.

That's bigfoot country. Straight up, dude. I live in a little town called Windsor, Idaho. I help my brother. You guys know my brother's got some medical conditions. I help him run a show on WhatNot called Open Air...

I mean, not Open Air. It's a good name.

It's called.

Idaho Coin Exchange.

I do coin auctions.

I love it.

That's awesome. As you guys noticed, I think Braden talked about it earlier, we are partnering with Striving for Eternity. Andrew Rappaport has allowed us to come alongside him. If you are seeing this stream through Striving for Eternity or on one of his Facebook page or one of ours, please go to Open Air Theology.

On YouTube, subscribe, like, and share it with everybody. Today we have a really cool show. We've gone to AI to find out what are some of these random questions that AI is going to ask us. We have to answer them and try and give a biblical answer.

Most importantly, we're here to point people to Christ. We want to see people saved. We want to announce to everyone that Christ is King, that we are all sinners, and that we need a substitute. We need to be covered by the blood of Christ.

If you don't know Him, repent and believe the gospel today.

Before we jump into AI questions, because that's what we've been really enjoying doing. By the way, if you're in the audience and you would like us to answer some questions, please shoot them over our way.

We would love to be able to interact with those things. This show is Reunion. We haven't talked to Haps Addison in a long time. Haps, what have you been up to in the last year? You just did a show the other day.

It was good to see your face back on the interwebs.

You know what? I've been going through something called the wilderness experience. I think that every believer should be taught. I think it's something every believer should go through. It's a reminder as we're wandering in the wilderness and everything, it's a reminder that it's the Lord that provides everything, the food, the clothing, the shoes not wearing out.

Just this. It was a beautiful experience. The Lord is our protector and we can hide behind Him and put our hope and faith and trust in Him. He has provided everything for me and my wife here. Just everything.

Now we're able to give back. We're able to help out this small little community here. It's beautiful.

When you say you've been through the wilderness, tell everybody what you mean by wilderness.

I was just talking.

About this with another pastor the other day that had a wilderness experience.

When.

The ministry the Lord gave me shut down, I was like, I don't have a career or anything like that. I'm an ex-criminal. I have nothing to go back to. I understand completely what.

The.

Followers of Jesus Christ, the 12 that were left standing there, and he said, don't you want to go with them as well? They said, we have nothing to go back to. Your words lead to eternal life. It was just this, where's my place now?

When you do full-time ministry for years and years and years, and you're so embedded into your community, and it's just.

This,.

Yeah, it's highs and lows, and a lot of emotion. Then there's,.

You know,.

You come under a spiritual attack as well.

You're not.

Hearing anything from God. I don't mean like a charismatic, like Shyamalan Ding Dong, but.

It's where you have to sit there.

And you're just like, gosh, you know what? Then it was like three days before Christmas, like that. It was just like, it was like, this peace came over me that I can't even explain. It is true. It's a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Then all of a sudden, I got a phone call from you guys.

You know what's amazing is that, and I know what you mean by going through a trial and tribulation, when you said peaks and valleys in our walk with Christ, that there are times when it seems like we're alone, but we know that God is faithful, that He never leaves us, He will never forsake us nor abandon us.

He's always there. In that peace, knowing that we have a hope that this world is not our home, we trust in Him that regardless of what we're going through, we're not to respond like the world does, but we're to have faith and trust in Christ and live a life, continue to be pleasing to Him, right?

Yeah.

Yo, what do you say?

You're sounding all prim and proper tonight. What's up?

I actually took a shower today.

So did I, dude.

So did I.

That's what it is.

I'm all spiritual and everything. I dress like an adult and everything.

That's why I haven't said anything yet, because I have not showered.

So, Abs, thank you, brother. Aaron, so this is your first time on the show. You're going to definitely be coming back on another day, Lord willing, of course, but Beacon Hill Binding. Tell people about that.

Boom.

Yeah, and I just want to add to what Hap said, too. Those are the most glorious times, I think, in our lives, the wilderness experiences, because beholding Him as an emir, beholding the glory of the Lord as an emir, it's when we see the glory of Christ.

The most clearly, is when we're going through seasons where the world is becoming less and less fulfilling, I guess you could say. We're not getting what we either expected or whatever.

From.

Greetings, brother. Let's continue to shower this way.

But yeah.

So I was just saying, seeing the glory of Christ more clearly in the world less and less. We went through... It's funny. I have been desiring to rebind Bibles for a long time before it all blew up. But it's kind of funny that now that it's all blown up, that's when I started.

But it doesn't bother me whatsoever because though the rebinding market, some viewers will know, some won't, that rebinding Bibles is kind of like a... It seems like a sort of a fad right now, in a sense, because there's so many people coming in and doing it.

And in one sense, that is great. And I think if people do it to the glory of God and their heart is in the right place and wanting to restore those specifically starting... Because this was my desire.

I'll just tell you my desire was those closest to me, those around me locally and stuff like that, dealing mainly with people that I know or don't know, but that I run into that are like, hey, I have this Bible.

That's my first Bible. It's got all my notes in it and stuff. It's falling apart. Can you help me? Because they heard through word of mouth that I was repairing Bibles or something. Because that's kind of how I started.

I love books and love just binding. I always had attraction to... One of my closest friends and mentors is John Stone, who's the Dean of the Masters Seminary and Masters University Library. With his knowledge of books and everything like that, he kind of took me under his wing.

Well, his knowledge of really the Puritans and things like that. Obviously, my love for books and Bibles and things goes far beyond the binding of them. That goes without saying.

However,.

I just always had sort of an attraction to how are these bound together, the beauty of them when they're done with leather, especially like leather overboard. That's something that I'm going to be learning to do as well, rebinding old books and things like that.

To make a very long story short, that was over a six-year span from now. Six years ago, just starting to take apart Bibles and see the binding and stuff like that. Then just going, man, I really would love to be able to do this someday.

Well, to start in Bible rebinding, you have to have money. That's something we never have. But the Lord opened a door. Hey, Ben. There's another fellow rebinder right there. He's a great brother. The Lord opened a door because there's a brother named Tom Pennington, who calls himself Tom the Lesser because he's not Tom Pennington in Texas at Countryside Bible Church.

Not that Tom Pennington, but Pennington up north, same exact name. They're both pastors, but Tom Pennington up north in Oregon is he does rebinding, has been doing it for a long time. His rebinding company is Telltale so it is finished rebinding.

Anyway,.

He's the one who always encouraged me to get started. Then the Lord opened a door where he texted me one day and he's like, hey, there's a bindery that's really old bindery up here in Oregon that is shutting down.

I know the guy. He's got like over $7 ,000 worth of rebinding equipment. I think we can get it for dirt cheap.

That's what.

We did. We pulled the trigger on that, got it for dirt cheap, and that's what's sitting behind me. I have this really cool from this guy. This is a 1930s Hamilton typeset dresser and it has like over $6 ,000 worth of typeset, which I will never use.

I've used some of it, but I'm coming to find out in rebinding I really just need like two types.

And I have.

Like thousands. But yeah, so I got all this equipment and really it was just the Lord's providence and huge blessing.

Do you have that one? Have you sold that one yet?

The ESV?

No, it's behind me, I think. The ESV?

Show that one, the new King James version, and then show off the 16... Do you have that 1689 in front of you right now?

Real quick, while he's looking for that, it's so funny because when he mentions Tom Pennington, I remember friending a guy by the name of Tom Pennington on Facebook thinking that it was Tom Pennington the greater.

Hey,.

Tom has some funny stories, bro, of people that know Tom Pennington's name but don't know his face. Tom the greater's face.

Are you unwrapping that Bible right now? I didn't mean for you to unwrap it.

I wanted to use it. I wanted to smell it anyway, so. Fair enough.

So,.

Tom Pennington would be at Shepherd's Conference. Tom Pennington the lesser would be at Shepherd's Conference and people would come up to him and see his name tag and he would side their Bible for them.

No.

Hey, Caleb, what's up, man? Nice seeing you, brother.

Let me say this, too.

Yeah, I know. I love the smell of the new Bible, too. Let me say this. Tom literally went out of his way. Picked all this stuff up for me. I mean, heavy-duty presses, stamping machines for where you stamp the gold gilding on the Bible and everything like that.

They're big. All this stuff, he picked it up for me, drove four hours south to meet me in Redding, California, and I drove eight hours.

North.

It was just amazing. He was just like, yeah, man, I want to bless you. That right there is the heart of a fellow rebinder who's not in it necessarily to undercut somebody else but to build other brothers up, and Tom really showed me the way in that.

He was never like, hey, I'm worried about you. You know what he told me? He goes, you're going to be a top rebinder, and I want you to be, and I'm going to help you get there. I'm like, that's not going to happen, but thank you.

The attitude is great. That's what that's all about.

Let's see that one.

Yeah, let's see that. This is a King James.

No, this is the ESV.

This is the ESV, English Standard, and I just went my own route on this stamping. I knew it was going to be confusing to some people because they might think it's an LSV, but people who know the legacy, it's a single column legacy.

From ESV.

People who know that text block would know when it says on the spine English Standard and legacy together, you're going to know it's this beautiful...

Yeah. That's good, dude.

It's just a very soft, it's called Aloran native goatskin with a dark navy liner, maroon end sheets, and this is just one of many black.

Beresfords.

From the United Kingdom. Those are like top of the line.

I saw you recently stitched one as well.

Yeah, so that one's off in the mail to its owner, and that was my first stitch job.

Yours look better than mine.

Look at that, dude. That's so cool.

Come check it out tomorrow, dude. You'll see it tomorrow. Yours look way better than mine.

Those are from the tale of the Crips. What is it? Indiana Jones.

Listen, this one, I did this one because the death of death and the death of Christ from John Owen, it just inspired me that on the hill of Calvary, the school is where Christ paid my sin debt.

Anyway.

Aaron, real quick, that's my wife right there. She says she wants a King James, so we're going to have to put you to work.

Let's do it. That's great.

Braden, is there anything else before we get on with the show?

I don't think so.

Give a shout out.

Real fast to the YouTube channel.

Again.

I don't have the little things. We are partnering with Striving for Eternity and Apologetics Live with Andrew Rapoport. There it is right there. We are Open Air Theology. Andrew is helping us get popular.

If you guys have not done it,.

Get popular.

If you guys have not done it, go to the YouTube channel. I've got to say it the way it is. I just say things.

I'm sorry.

Go get another shower.

I need to clean up. I'm already dirty.

I'm a Baptist. I don't want to get bathed. I want to get submerged.

That's right. None of this sprinkling stuff. Anyway. Go to the YouTube channel that says Open Air Theology. Click on Like and Subscribe and Share it, please. Yes, I know. I know, Melissa. We're losers.

That's why we're here. Losers together.

Today's show is about answering questions. We want to be able to answer your questions. Hopefully, we'll be able to edify other believers. If you don't know Christ, we want to be able to answer those questions as well.

Because we're just now introducing this, we went to AI to ask some random questions that AI popped for us. If you have questions of your own that you want answered, shoot. The hard ones, we're going to give to Braden and Haps.

Me and Aaron are going to take the easy ones.

Real quick, before you start, let me just bend. The stitch took three to four hours, I think. I did it in sections. I just wanted to answer his deep theological question there first before we got going.

It was a Q &A nonetheless.

Haps, real quick, pick a number between one and ten.

One.

And ten.

Seven.

AI question number seven. It says this. Is post-traumatic stress disorder a legitimate condition, or is it overdiagnosed in today's culture?

It is a real condition. A lot of the men that I would get back from overseas when they would come into my program. I'm a stickler on that. It's a real post-traumatic stress disorder is real. They can be talking to you and like that, be back over there.

They're not there right now. They're over there. Do I think it gets overdiagnosed?

Sure.

I think so. I really dealt with the real deal. There's a lot of over...

There is.

There's a lot of that.

You can't throw the baby out with the.

Bathwater either.

Let me ask you this. There's a follow-up to this. It really doesn't matter our opinion and stuff like that, not that that's just your opinion, but what does the Bible provide for sufficient resources to address these issues, or does God also provide additional tools other than.

Scripture? He provides tools, of course, with Scripture. You have doctors. If there's something wrong with your health, what if something's wrong with your mind? Your mind's still a part of your body.

Sometimes, like my dad. My dad was in Vietnam. My dad was... Have you ever seen the movie Hammond or Hill? Yes.

That's my dad. My dad was.

The sergeant of that platoon. Growing up, we couldn't watch The Deer Hunter or anything like that because he would just snap. He was a believer in Jesus Christ. I mean, hardcore. He went to shepherd school through Calvary Chapel.

Him and my uncle planted a church in Hosanna. He would definitely have those moments, but now that he's older,.

He.

Can't go out and hear fireworks and stuff like that, but he's not the same dad when I was younger. I do see some healing over time.

Braden, being a firefighter, a fighter-fighter?

He's a real fighter. He's a.

Fighter-fighter. Fighting fires,.

Have you run with people that have lost their homes. Or maybe you've lost a loved one that may be driving by their home? What happens? Is there post-traumatic stress disorder? Is it real?

It absolutely is a real thing. I would.

Say yes. It.

Can be in a very... All things in the world right now, it seems like there's over-diagnoses with so many different things, but it is a real thing. I would go back... A couple things. I think going back to something that Hap said is true.

We go to doctors. We have math teachers that is secular but helpful to us. Math could be improved to us if we had a presupposition taught to us in math school that God is a logical, consistent God, therefore we can trust these math methods.

You can go that route, but still, the secular math thing helps. I think even in the medical side of things as well, on one hand, we should be trusting our diseases with God, but that doesn't mean that He hasn't given us the command to go out and subdue and take dominion over the world.

Part of that, I think, is to fight against those parts of curses, the curse that we experience in the world from the fall. I think one of those things is mental things. Mental things of different capacities.

Going to the firefighting example, yeah, no. Firefighters pulling out burned, charred.

Dead bodies.

Parents losing children. Real things that affect people in a long, drawn-out.

Course.

Sometimes, are they a result of sin? They can be, but not all the time. Like, for example, a mental chemical imbalance is something that almost every woman experiences after having a child. They have a child, and guess what happens?

Post-partum.

Depression.

It's chemical-related, not related to actions or a lack of ability on their side. It's a chemical imbalance, and that's what's going on right there. When it comes to PTSD, there can be things that will affect people in the long run, and it's something that they have to battle with.

They should be living up to God with and helping with in different ways. I hope that answers your question.

It is good, but I want to move on to another question on this, because it's very much related. Aaron, and you're up.

That's a good answer to this one.

It's going to be very related, so I think it's going to tie it in great. Can Christians use psychotropic drugs for conditions like anxiety or depression, or does the reliance on medication reflect the lack of faith?

Follow-up, before you answer that. Is anxiety purely a spiritual issue, or is it possible for physical and spiritual factors to coexist, and where would you go in the Bible to look for biblical trust or medical sciences?

Sure. I think, first of all, I don't want to say too much because this was kind of like when I read when I was looking through some of these questions. They're important questions that I think you know, Brayden answered, I think, even the one that you just asked really well, because it's a both-and.

It's a both-and situation because Scripture does give answers, and I got some here, and I even want to speak to it on a personal level of personal experience, which isn't authoritative, but I'll tell you it's authoritative when it got submitted to the Word of God.

But.

I did want to say that Brayden answered that well because what you have in these situations is you have the common grace of God given to us through certain mediums like doctors and stuff, but yes, I think just to rewind just a little bit, just like Hap said right away, that yes, it can be over-diagnosed because we live in a fallen world, and there's going to be thousands upon thousands of doctors who have no authority to stand upon, and so they're diagnosing things that they believe are the solution, not just diagnosing, but giving a solution that may not be the full and final good solution that God would have for this person in a fallen world.

And so it's a both-and. I think you have to be very careful with who you source out for those things, but I don't want to speak directly to a psychotropic situation either because on the surface, I would disagree as far as I've never seen anything good come out of psychotropics, but again, that's a non-authoritative statement in a sense because I don't know enough about that drug.

So without even getting into the details of that specific drug or other drugs, I think Brayden just nailed it on the head saying that there's common graces God has given us.

However,.

I think what's expected sometimes from either the watching world or even other Christians who are frustrated with their spiritual state, whether it be PTSD or something else like spiritual battles that they're going through, they don't want people to come along and just slap a sticker on it or a scripture sticker on it and say, get over it.

However, I think that there's a way to do that without just saying, okay, here's this text, go and be alone with this text. There's a way to come along somebody with the text and encourage them in the text of scripture to trust God rather than.

Just.

Like I said, giving them a scripture and saying, get over the issue.

Which I think that goes back to that part of, part of, so I think that that's seen in the church, right? Because.

As a shepherd, as a pastor, you're supposed to.

Be shepherding those that are a part of your flock, those that Christ has given you charge of, those that you are acting as an under-shepherd over. And part of that is that you are caring for them in ways that you can't, which is sometimes in these depressed, anxious states and it's not just a, all right, we had one meeting, high five, all right, bye, I'm not going to do that again.

It's a matter of discipleship over a long period of time that can see those, that fruit. I mean, all of us need to be continually reminded in different means and methods from different portions of scripture in different seasons of our lives to keep our trust and eyes on Christ.

And so, no one's above that. And so, we can all follow those seasons.

So, I think that's an important thing to do, too, is, especially as for Christians, is if the Bible is going to speak on it and if we can get help from the scriptures, you know, from whatever we're struggling with, first and foremost, seek your spiritual help from your pastor, from somebody who is caring for your soul.

And.

Start there. That should be the number one priority. But there are cases where, there are extreme cases where people, you know, does it mean that it's just simply a lack of faith? Does it mean that your anxiety is when you feel your heart beat coming and so anxious that you can't even breathe?

Is that some, is that brought on by a sin issue? You know, perhaps, maybe, maybe there is some guilt there. And you need to talk that out with your pastor.

But not always.

But not always. Yeah, but not always. There are other times, like you brought up post-traumatic stress, or postpartum stress, right, with a baby. I mean, that happens. Me and you were talking about this the other day, Brayden, and you were talking about that some drugs that they give you actually cause, one of the symptoms of it, actually cause you to be more anxious.

That's right. So how can that be a sin issue?

Yeah, I mean, that just proves that there's something chemically that's going on right there. If it can produce more anxiety, it doesn't mean that it's a function of low faith. It means that there's a chemical there's something going on inside of you that's causing that to take place.

I think scripturally, too, I think you can see a very clear, in my opinion, on how I would interpret this, in Timothy, where Paul is instructing Timothy to drink a little bit of wine, that's on the coattail of do not accept an accusation against an elder, but on the basis of two or three witnesses.

Don't accept an anonymous accusation. And then right after that, drink wine for your upset stomach. Why would Paul be instructing Timothy that? Because Timothy is going to experience.

The previous said verse with.

Accusations coming in against him. So I think, what is that going to produce in Timothy at the time? As any pastor,.

Any pastor that has ever shepherded.

Any flock, guess what's going to be inside of your gut.

Is worry.

And Paul tells Timothy, it's not because it's a lack of faith on your side. He says, go ahead and drink a little bit of wine to help soothe your stomach. Take this medicinal.

Type of object.

For you and your help.

And we know wine cheers a man's heart, right? Absolutely. I mean, according to Scripture.

I also.

Think that.

The.

One thing that being a pastor all those years and everything and having to really, you know, talk to people in your congregation and everything,.