The Jerusalem Council and Church Government

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence

Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation if you'd like to talk with dr.

White call now at 602 973 4602 or toll -free across the

United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is

James White And good morning. Welcome to the dividing line on the 5th of December 2006 almost in the book something unusual on the program today

Unless you are driving. I would invite you to obtain

Watching Distracting we have we've made it possible now for me be able to see our our security cameras while I'm doing the program and evidently one of our security cameras has really made a bird angry and It is currently

Attacking the camera now. I don't know what who's gonna win in this thing, but it's very odd To to see the the bird doing that I honestly the the bird doesn't the camera doesn't really do anything but birds cranial area is

Fairly fairly small anyways, but anyhow something unusual in the program today. I Invite you if you have a

Bible nearby and you're not driving. Please do not do that part I I I tell you some of the things you see driving these days, you know people texting while smoking and eating french fries you know, it's just you sometimes wonder how you get anywhere without dying on the roads these days, but if you're not driving and you're not in a position where your boss will fire you for so doing

I would invite you to take your Bible and Turn with me to the 15th chapter of Acts.

I would like to look at this text today and offer some comments in response to and about various issues that are relevant to the 15th chapter of Acts which hopefully if you have walked with the

Lord any period of time at all you have started to look at the subject of possibly learning in an outline form the general contact content of the books of the

New Testament and It's always good if you can't if you're not, you know memorizing the entirety of the

New Testament to at least know where things are in Major books such as Romans and Acts and things like that.

And so you would know that acts 15 is extremely important because it contains the story of what is generally called the

Jerusalem Council the meeting together of apostles and elders the

Representatives of two churches the Jerusalem Church and the Antioch Church and Their discussions together regarding the very nature of the gospel

So I'm going to read the text Acts chapter 15 Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren unless you are circumcised according the custom of Moses You cannot be saved and when

Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them The brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders

Concerning this issue therefore being sent on their way by the church they were passing through both

Phoenicia and Samaria describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and We're bringing great joy to all the brethren.

Please. Remember this is right after Acts 14 the end of that particular missionary journey

And the blessings of God upon it and so it is that That outgoing of the gospel to the

Gentile peoples that then prompts this when they arrived Jerusalem They were received by the church and the

Apostles and the elders and they reported all that God had done with them but some of the sect of the

Pharisees who had believed stood up saying it is necessary to Circumcise them and to direct them to observe the law of Moses the

Apostles and the elders Came together to look into this matter After there had been much debate and I wonder how long that took actually

Peter stood up and said to them brethren you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth the

Gentiles would hear the gospel the word of the gospel and Believe and God who knows the heart testified to them giving them the

Holy Spirit just as he did to us And he made no distinction between us and them cleansing their hearts by faith

Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we

Have been able to bear But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are

All the people kept silent and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders

God had done through them Among the Gentiles after they had stopped speaking James answered saying brethren.

Listen to me Simon has related how God first concerned himself about taking from among the

Gentiles of people for his name With this the words the prophets agree just as it is written after these things our return

I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen I will rebuild its ruins and I will restore it So that the rest of mankind may seek the

Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name says the Lord Who makes these things known from long ago?

Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the

Gentiles But that we write to them that they have stained from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and for it is strangled and from blood

For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him since he is read in the synagogues every

Sabbath Then it seemed good to the Apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas Judas called

Barsabbas and Silas leading men among their brethren and they sent this letter by them and here is the then the letter

The Apostles and the brethren who are elders to the brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from the

Gentiles greetings Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction have disturbed you with their words and settling your souls

It seemed good to us having become of one mind to select men to send you to you with our beloved

Barnabas and Paul Men who have risked their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Therefore we have sent

Judas and Silas who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth Where it seemed good to the

Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you No greater burden than these essentials That you abstain from things sacrifice to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication

And if you keep yourselves free from such things you will do well Farewell, so when they were sent away they went down to Antioch and having gathered the congregation together

They delivered the letter when they had read it They rejoiced because of its encouragement Judas and Silas also being prophets themselves encouraged and strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message

After they had spent time there. They were sent away from their brethren in peace to those who had sent them out

But it seemed good to Silas to remain there But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch teaching and preaching with many others also the word of the

Lord and then it goes on from there for yet another Missionary journey flows from this particular

Incident now, why do I bring this up? Well, there's a number of things Obviously this is a

Extremely important text on many levels the most obvious utilization of the text at least apologetically and theologically is that this introduces us to the fact that the relationship between Jews and Gentiles Something that we see in the

Gospels something that we see all the way through Acts We see this this building up to this point

We saw it in Acts chapter 10 When Peter is sent to Cornelius's house and in Acts chapter 11

Peter basically has to answer for what he did because there was this very deep tradition that was very much a part of the

Jerusalem Church and and the Jewish converts who Continued to meet in the temple and they they saw themselves as a continuation of Judaism and and The idea that the gospel first goes out the

Samaritans and then it goes out to to full Gentiles themselves Could not help but eventually precipitate

The need to state plainly what had been seen in the scriptures when you look back at the

Old Testament scriptures you saw for example the Citation from James there that comes from the book of Amos that the church began to see that as She looked into her own scriptures the

Old Testament scriptures. She saw that this prophecy was that this gospel would be going out to all the world and that it would be going out to Gentiles as well and So they they see that They recognize that and yet at the same time how do you make that work and This is a vitally important issue because I mentioned this past weekend in in st

Louis that one of the fundamental differences between the Christian faith and say for example that of Islam is that the

Christian faith transcends geography it transcends The time frame in which it is found and it transcends culture

It does not require and I think we need to hear this We need to be reminded this once a while because there have been times

When the Christian faith or at least those who profess the Christian faith have fallen into error on this

It does not require a particular culture to be Christian in other words

What we see in Acts 15 is basically the repudiation that you have to be Jewish before you can be

Christian You have to go through these certain things you have to bear certain physical marks in your body before You can become a

Christian you have to become Jewish before you become Christian and the church said no The church said you do not have to become

Jewish to become Christian There is not a a culture that you need to enforce

You don't have to wipe out the pre -existing culture for Christianity to take over now, of course for What I would call full -blooded

Islam that is what you have to do You have to establish a real law. You have to establish a particular kind of culture because the

Quran does not come Without the the hadith it does not come without the without the

Sunnah without the examples of the of the very behavior and life of Muhammad and that becomes the template for the entirety of society itself and That has to be enforced upon individuals within a society and and transform the society into an

Islamic society But while a Christian will always seek to do justice and righteousness there have been

Christians who have been able to live the Christian life in all sorts of different kinds of Societies in monarchies and democracies and socialism and and even under communism they have been able to be

Christians Not just partially Christians not not not Damaged Christians, but fully

Christian whatever society that is that they were living in and so Acts 15 is very important along those lines.

Of course, it's extremely important in regards to soteriology itself That is these individuals who came from Judea Were teaching the brethren unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses you cannot be saved now

There's a lot of discussion by the way in commentaries and things like that Regarding whether these are the the false brethren who had snuck in of Galatians and so there's all sorts of discussion of what is

Galatians before or after acts 15 and things along those lines and There seems to be a good good reason to believe that many of these of the sect of the

Pharisees verse 5 of chapter 15 When they are repudiated here would eventually go off and establish what history would identify to us as the

Ebionite movement a heretical movement that that would deny the deity of Christ and it would in essence be a a

Sub -christian Jewish sect that allows for a role for Jesus but but not the fullness of the revelation of salvation in Jesus Christ and things like that and So these individuals would leave and would go their way and maybe that's when they become the false brethren, you know, etc

So there's there's argument about that But the point is that you have individuals who are saying

Circumcision is not just something that's good to be done Unless you are circumcised according to custom

Moses. You cannot be saved now what kind of impact would this have in regards for example to women in the church and that kind of proclamation and and this in essence would have created a connection to Judaism that would have kept

Christianity as nothing more than a sect of Judaism and limited it to those who could express a

Cultural Judaism and would have greatly changed the very nature of the proclamation itself and that is what

Paul sees in Galatians and that is what is found here in in Acts as well because we are told

In verse 2 that Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them this is inside the church and we can learn from this the fact that you you cannot when you see something like this that is

Absolutely Definitional of the gospel you cannot be silent You cannot just acquiesce to these things

Paul and Barnabas had great dissension debate with them And this is why they they came down to the church at Jerusalem and were sent by the church down to Jerusalem for this discussion to take place and so the whole issue of The freeness of the gospel and to whom it is addressed

Peter's words, for example We believe verse 11 that we are saved through the grace of the

Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are that salvation is by grace that the heart is cleansed by faith

All of these things verse 9 that's we're cleansing their hearts by faith We see even though it is not the intention in this text to expand upon these things

By just listening to the language that is used by the Apostles of what salvation is

We see a cleansing of the heart by faith. We have salvation by grace these are very important texts in regards to the very nature of the gospel and In standing against those who would pervert the gospel and turn the gospel into a a works salvation system

How is a heart cleansed that is cleansed by faith? How is a person saved saved through the grace

Lord Jesus Christ in the same way that they also are But notice as well

That this text is is important in other ways and I hope as you were listening to it

Maybe if you have not encountered the Roman Catholic system in an apologetic context

It would not necessarily stand out to you as much But when you take the time to read the exalted language and I realize we live in a modern day where the papacy is not seen

In quite the exalted way by many Roman Catholics that it has been the past. It certainly is by some

But and certainly it is it is unusual to it would be unusual to hear

Benedict speaking of the papacy in the way that innocent the third did or the medieval Popes did who so greatly

Exalted that that office to the highest levels that maybe it didn't catch your attention what you

What you Rich and I are laughing because there's that bird his head must hurt by now.

I just sure hope he doesn't can't damage that lens That's all I can say. He's he's going nuts out there Yes This is a live webcast folks

And when I look up from my screen to see a bird attacking a television screen, it looks very odd from here

So, what can I say? Anyway, it may not have caught your attention but whenever Peter the name of Peter appears in the text if you're used to debating with Roman Catholics and you're used to hearing their claims and so on and so forth you're gonna your antenna is sort of gonna gonna raise up and Acts 15 is not a good text

For the concept of the papacy the concept that from the beginning from Matthew 16, for example

Peter is seen as the supreme pontiff the the the leader of the apostolic band, etc, etc

He's seen as a very important person. There's no question about that. There's no question. He was probably the oldest of the

Apostles He's given that kind of preference and deference in the Gospels and all those things are true but he was also the first one in denial as well and the first one needing restoration and He has to have a vision shown to him three times just to get it through his thick skull that's a don't call unclean what

God has called clean and and These things are just as much a part of the text as anything else. And so when we see him here you would think first of all that if Peter had the position that modern

Roman Catholicism or at least a Roman Catholicism leading up to our time period ascribes to him

Why in the world even bother having this why not? Just send a note to Jerusalem where Peter evidently is and say

Peter What about these guys who have come up here and are saying that people must be circumcised to be saved?

Give us the interpretation of the successor of Christ the the one who sits in the chair and Has infallible teaching authority blah blah blah blah blah.

Well Given what had either happened or would be happening and again depending where you put the

Galatian letter in relationship to Acts 15 In Antioch, which would evidently probably before this we would hope

Certainly or if it's afterwards and Peter isn't even consistent with his own decisions here Paul would not be exactly inclined to to take that perspective given that he had to publicly rebuke

Peter either before after this event in regards to not walking straight in accordance with the gospel and Beyond that there's just simply no inkling that this was a

Possibility no one in the church has the idea. Hey, all you got to do is Is drop a line to to Peter and Peter will render this infallible decision

It's just not there, but there's even more along this That is who gives the judgment of this meeting it's not

Peter There was much debate even with Peter there which again if you think he's infallible and we're talking here

We're not talking about a non dogmatic concept here. We're talking about the very gospel itself but there's much debate

Peter stands up and he talks and He speaks and he gives his judgment

But then even when he's done Barnabas and Paul Relate the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the

Gentiles as evidence of God's blessing Upon the very proclamation that these of the sect of the

Pharisees were denying But even that's not enough after they had stopped speaking verse 13

James answered saying brethren listen to me and here you have the the summarization and the conclusion and the the

Authoritative decision and it's not given by Peter. It's given by James James is the head of the church in Jerusalem, not

Peter Peter has a does not have the position of supremacy in the context of the church at Jerusalem Now, I guess some might argue.

Well, that's because he needed to go to Rome that's if that's a moment and clearly the the the

Largest most important church at this point in time Is that of Jerusalem certainly not

Rome now, this is very early on but that's the case, but Peter isn't even the head of that church he is not he's simply not functioning like innocent the third would in a context like this and After James cites these texts notice that what he says therefore it is my judgment

I give judgment He didn't even say our judgment it is my judgment

Do we not trouble those who are turning to God from among Gentiles? Rewrite to them and they abstain and that's how the letter is is sent and please note the nature of this letter

This letter does not say to the churches that are primarily

Jewish That they somehow are supposed to stop being primarily

Jewish There's nothing this letter that says now Those of you who are

Jewish churches, you need to stop being Jewish churches Now it does say that you cannot demand

Circumcision as part of the gospel. There's no question about that But it does not enforce some kind of uniformity on all churches

It simply lists these things that would divide the churches that is Jewish Christians simply could not have fellowship

With with Gentile churches that would do these things It would be engaged in any types of these activities now fornication obviously would be universal

But the the issues of things strangle and things like that. These are things that maintain harmony within church but this is not some lengthy tome establishing some kind of of Uniformity of worship and practice and so on and so forth

This is meant to allow for harmony at this period of time when the

Gentile churches the churches are going to be primarily Gentile in orientation because they're primarily in Gentile areas are

Just being one and formed and it is is meant to stop this teaching that you have to do these things

Okay, but it comes from the Apostles and Please please note

That in the letter itself, this is I think this is very important to to recognize this verse 28 for it seemed good to the

Holy Spirit and to us and So this is a part of Scripture.

It is inspired in its nature we have Apostles being involved with it claiming the the the role of the

Holy Spirit himself in this decision and It is this letter that is then sent out at that point in time so hopefully you see the importance of that along those lines in regards to the nature of claims of the papacy but the reason

I bring all of this up today is Partly due to the fact that I'm working on writing something right now and and that's

I have found it's given my Limited intellectual capacity

It's always best to talk about things and I'm actually thinking about because sometimes Especially when

I'm writing something if I try to wander off some other direction The results aren't overly good

This is a text that is likewise utilized to say that there is a

New Testament not only foundation, but but really a necessity to establish a hierarchy of authority within the church

Some of you have I hope picked up a book called perspectives on church government five views of church polity edited by Chad Owen Brand and R.

Stanton Norman, this is a Brodman Holman publication from a few years ago. We offer it in our book ministry and Daniel Aiken James Leo Garrett Robert L Raymond myself and Paul FM Zoll were the ones who contributed to this

I wrote the plurality of elders chapter from a reformed Baptist perspective and of course,

Robert L Raymond with his New systematic theology the Christian faith for example is one that we have referred people to in the past wrote on the

Presbyterian perspective as well and the primary area of conflict between myself and dr.

Raymond if you read it is about Acts chapter 15 Acts chapter 15 is the primary text that dr.

Raymond utilizes to establish the necessity of a series of courts a a authority structure above that of the elders and deacons of the local churches and He even goes so far as to in essence say that What he what we we need to see here is that the

Antioch Presbytery sent a delegation to the

Jerusalem Presbytery and that this then becomes an example of where one local church recognizes its inability and the limitation of its authority and therefore refers to a higher authority which would be something similar to a general assembly and that what you have in Jerusalem is just that a general assembly and I knew this

In writing my presentation and when you read the presentations it's it's it is interesting if you have the book that In in my responses to a couple of the other positions were fairly brief but we had a word limitation as to how much we could respond to somebody else and It was 2 ,500 words and I used 2 ,499 in response to dr.

Raymond and I've not taken the time to read his response to me But something tells me it's probably right around the exact same same amount as well.

And so obviously the the two of us argued very very similarly as to the establishment of a plurality of elders in the local churches, but The difference then comes at the particular point in time where we deal with this this particular issue and I I think

I pretty much managed to get through at least one my first master's degree without having ever even given consideration

To this issue. It wasn't raised in classes. It wasn't discussed. It wasn't talked about and And When when

Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians get together we we recognize that unless we're all In a highly sanctified state.

It's somewhat dangerous to discuss these issues because people can get mad at other people But with the release of the audio tapes and hopefully someday

Lord willing The DVD of the debate between myself and Bill Shishko on the subject of infant baptism

Hopefully we demonstrated there that the two sides can can make their strongest Presentations and then question each other and go to the

Word of God and and do so and leave at the end of the evening Firmly convinced of our brotherhood in Christ and still firmly convinced the other side's wrong and still cooperate together and address important issues together and things like that and When it comes to this text,

I I once again make the argument that I really believe that if we are consistent with our

Interpretation if we use the same set of hermeneutics that we would we would use in any other context that it's very

It's a it's a long stretch to come up with the idea that this Jerusalem Council lays the foundation

For a Presbyterian form of church government and the existence of some external authority at that point

And I will explain that and then we will take our phone calls which have absolutely positively nothing whatsoever to do with our topic today

But that's okay. I didn't expect a whole lot of phone calls on this particular topic. Anyway But we need to take a timeout because because we have important announcements to make today and so we'll be right back

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And welcome back to the dividing line. I'd like to summarize Dr. Raymond's argumentation on the subject of Acts 15

First he says that the Antioch Presbytery recognized that it did not have the authority to determine church membership and hence appealed to a higher

Authority Paul and Barnabas there Therefore were deputed by the Antioch Presbytery to go to Jerusalem to represent

Antioch in the deliberations Secondly, let me it's very important So let me quote him directly quote the appeal made by the

Antioch Presbytery to the Apostles acting as elders in the church and the

Jerusalem Presbytery Resulted in the Antioch elders overseers meeting as delegated commissioners with the

Jerusalem Presbytery in a general assembly deliberating together They determined the condition of church membership for the entire church and rendered that assert decision in the form of a letter

Which letter is referred to technically by many New Testament scholars as the apostolic decree and quote

The third argument is that the decisions of the council were considered universal that they were considered binding on all the churches and hence quote clearly the

Apostles and elders did not regard these congregations as independent and autonomous and quote and finally the fourth argument drawn from the

Jerusalem Council is Quote in order to confirm the Jerusalem Assembly's rules and to provide any requested explanation of their meaning to the to the original lower courts the

Assembly Commission Judas and Silas both to convey to the Antioch Church their letter and to confirm to them as living minutes of the proceedings what the upper court had decided and quote now

I Responded to those assertions this again is in perspectives on church government five views of church polity

I'm just expanding on a few items here with a little bit more context first of all I objected to the frequent insertion of such ideas as the

Antioch Presbytery a Terminology such as the General Assembly when the text does not even hint at such things this involves circular reasoning

And I'd say anachronistic reading as well reading back into the text later developments That certainly were not a part of the text at the time

The church Singular at Antioch was troubled by men sent from James the issue of table fellowship took place within a singular

Church Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ seeing that this issue threatened the very truth of the gospel

Faced Peter directly over the issue and rebuked him the meeting narrated in Acts 15 involved not merely the issue of church membership

But of the very nature of the gospel of grace itself as dr. Raymond elsewhere recognizes This was not an issue where the singular

Church at Antioch sought out a higher court in a Presbyterian form of church government Apostles and elders were involved in setting straight the very nature of the gospel of grace itself and the results recorded for us in inspired

Scripture something far beyond anything any General Assembly could claim for itself

And I I made the assertion in my opening statement in the book and I and I made it again in my response to dr

Raymond the acts 15 events were unique they were apostolic and they were inspired and as a result,

I would say utilizing a Standard reformed hermeneutic they cannot be repeated outside of the apostolic age in that context now in regards

The second argument it should be noted that dr Raymond provides a footnote in his book in his presentation, which he seeks to establish what might be called the non

Apostolic nature of the Jerusalem Council now think about that for a moment the Jerusalem Council's non

Apostolic in that particular footnote. He wrote quote I say acting as elders in the church here because there is no indication anywhere in Luke's account of the assembly's proceedings that Peter or Paul Pulled rank on the assembly and appealed their apostolic authority per se

Which they could have done to settle the case of the church rather Luke portrays the assembly as a deliberative

Body and quote Now, I think this is very important. I think it's vital for the Presbyterian position if acts 15 is apostolic it becomes non repetitive and far less useful as a foundation for the creation of the graded system of courts and Connectionalism being presented hence.

It is emphasized that the council was Deliberative just as a general assembly might be and certainly there was deliberation

There was great debate was there not none of its recorded for us, but there was great debate and then

The Apostles stand Hence it is emphasized by dr

Raymond that the council was Deliberative just as a general assembly might be and yet it is clear that the council itself claimed

Holy Spirit guidance for its decisions acts 1528 a claim that is borne out by the presence of Apostles and the inclusion

Of the proceedings in God -breathed scripture This effort simply fails to test a consistency in scriptural context and the decision while impacting church membership did so Because it spoke to the heart of the gospel itself

The event simply does not provide the foundation claimed for it in that context The third argument follows closely on the second the decision reached by the

Apostles and elders given by the Holy Spirit was considered binding upon All of course anything inspired given by the

Holy Spirit and promulgated by Apostles is binding upon all Such hardly provides a basis of the conclusion drawn that being that the

Apostles did not consider the churches autonomous No one said they did for no one asserts local churches are not under Apostolic authority the question is of course does that apostolic authority pass to some extra biblical

Ecclesiastical structure derived from the implied arguments from Acts 15 and never once referred to by Paul in The epistles he wrote regarding the nature and function of the church and I would say no

By the fourth argument in light of the preceding observation speaks for itself The language in which it speaks is foreign to both the

New Testament and the ancient church The idea of courts and proceedings may well be deeply entrenched in a certain form of polity

But it is anachronistic in the exegesis of the text of Scripture itself and so I think that this is the other area when when

I travel around and and People say what's a reformed Baptist never heard of that and and you say well, you know

You try to make reference to to being reformed you try to make reference to The relationship of the

London Bapst Confession and the Savoy Declaration and the Westminster Confession of Faith and things like that People say oh, so you're just a bunch of Presbyterians in it.

Well, no, we we have two major areas of disagreement and that is on the the nature of baptism and who should be baptized what it refers to and on the church government and Most folks could care less about the second you could you could speak the second part in Swahili and they would not care

Because let's face it. Most folks don't care about church government. Most most folks could just absolutely care less is

Most folks are really convinced that it's just up to whatever you want to do You know, it's a whatever works for you if you want to have the one pastor thing or You know multiple pastors or no pastors at all and you want to make all the deacons into elders and not really have any deacons

At all and blah blah blah. Hey, it just doesn't matter. Just do whatever you want to do and And I'm not one of those folks that believes that I believe that A plurality of elders is very important.

Can that truth be abused sure can Any divine truth can be abused

But have you not seen what's what happens in a church when you have one King and everybody else is just under his authority

I can point you to all sorts of problems there and I Think it's a subject that's worth discussing

It's a subject worth talking about the subject worth considering and the vast majority of people and that's even a minute

Even people with a biblical foundation and background have never really given a whole lot of consider Consideration of the issue the debate that I did with Mitch Pacwa a number of years ago on the priesthood

I think spoke to this subject and spoke to it fairly clearly and I think some people saw hey, you know what what you believe about the form of the church is

Sort of important apologetically in responding to aberrations, especially in those aberrations become sacramental aberrations

We have individuals with sacramental powers and by the sacramental power of the of the priesthood The priest is able to speak the words of consecration.

The host has changed and blah blah blah blah See, it's all connected together. And there's a reason why you have first second

Timothy and Titus you have the pastoral epistles you have Paul strengthening the churches by appointing elders in the churches.

There's a reason for that it's it's God's wisdom and I did address some of this in pulpit crimes as well because ignoring that form of Of the church it can be very very damaging to the church itself

So I throw these things out there and I know that my my Presbyterian brothers may disagree with my comments but again,

I do so fully cognizant of what their position is and embracing them as my brothers and saying let's go to the

Word of God and consider these things and and Do so within the light of scripture itself eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number let's start up in Canada did yeah

Canada the the 51st state up north up. Sorry about that Yeah, I know Canada and let's talk with Stephen.

Hi Stephen. Oh, how are you doing? Pretty good. And it's the People's Republic Ah, yes. Yes, so we've heard

Anyways, listen, I was dr. Rich on Wednesday was very helpful because I was on Thursday evening

I was going up to hear a presentation of Islam and Christianity between Shabir Ali and Tony Costa.

Uh -huh and Tony Costa did a fantastic job Well, we were praying for Tony and we know

Tony does does a good job when he engages those subjects Yeah, I was I was surprised he was reformed

Why is that he was at the at the conference? Didn't throw any rotten apples at me while I was speaking. Oh, well,

I was I must have missed that one. Oh, yeah No, no, the one that you have Yeah, oh, yeah, that's right.

That's right. I just Don't remember that Anyways, listen, I had a couple of things first of all there was a couple of testimonies given one of the questions they asked because this wasn't really a debate was more of a kind of a a love in or a dialogue and And I thought that those

People it's no longer a campus crusade for Christ. It's campus for Christ. Apparently the word crusade has become

Politically incorrect. Oh, well, it certainly is amongst Muslims. Yeah Well, anyways, one of them was that you know, what why you a

Muslim or what makes you you know, how does your faith relate? to everyday life and both the

Christian and the Muslim Told them how it related to everyday life and I really couldn't have told the difference.

Mm -hmm One Muslim girl who was dressed up in the traditional garb of having her everything covered by her face

So well, what why are you so different? And then she went on to proceed and if she had given it a basically what was

Jesus? It would have been the same testimony Hmm and I just found that extremely interesting whether or not

Our thinking and our presentation is becoming more and more Subjective rather than objective.

Well, there's no question that in a large portion of will be identified as Evangelical churches the testimony that we are we are trained from childhood to give is is almost always only

Subjective and it's hard not to give a personal testimony that does not have subjective elements but it is the failure to connect the subjective experience the objective reality that makes the

The even jellyfish testimony Yeah sound pretty much like the Mormon testimony or the Muslim testimony or whatever else if you don't especially in a context where of apologetic context in a clash between worldviews and world religions there should be in our minds a desire to emphasize the uniqueness of The role of Christ and to point away from ourselves and and to Christ and to those elements of Christ's ministry that are that are shall we say under attack within that dialogue and That seems like second nature to me.

But a lot of folks just don't Think along those lines, unfortunately, and the results are sometimes rather ugly

Well, I was very telling because one of the persons got up and asked a question of the participants

Was a non -believer of any kind and he said you could have flipped it and that he Honestly couldn't tell the difference between the two.

Mm -hmm, and I found that very telling You know from his perspective he just sees a bunch of religious zealots and they only differ in the in the minutia not in the primary error of simply believing in God, so yeah,

I can see how a Non -believer would approach it from that direction. So but so it went well for Tony and And At least in that context there was

There was some other things. I just sort of wanted to touch on I asked Shabir a question about the justice of God and Does and he

Indicated that our our good deeds negate the justice of God. In other words I believe it was well surah 111 if I'm not

I can't remember the surah at the moment But basically is there are good deeds and all the bad when I asked him how does that negate the justice of God and and I use the illustration of you know if I'm brought before a

Magistrate in charge with a crime just because I'm kind to my family doesn't negate or you know

Get rid of the crime that I've actually committed and he dismissed it as being kind of a silly question, but Well, there's there is no question that in listening to Previous encounters where Shabir was speaking with Tony on those very issues.

He has he has given a Consistent viewpoint at least from the

Islamic perspective that is that truly illustrates the vast difference between us in regards to the holiness of God and man's sin and That that's not something unique to Shabir Ali that's just simply

Islam itself has a very very different view of the subject of sin than Christianity does and That is a an area that is well worth addressing and and presenting in that context

So well, they are very collegiate, aren't they? Well We can use that term

And as long as we understand it's it's sort of anachronistic Application there.

Yeah in the sense that they do not recognize given the holiness of God the necessity of Atonement the necessity of grace

Anything like that man certainly is not dead in sin and and he's really not even overly damaged by sin either

Very very much. So we need to understand that. Hey got other callers in line got a run. Thank you. Thank you

Thank you very much. God bless. Bye. Bye. All righty, and let's continue on with Jim and Nashville. Hi, Jim Well, hello there.

How are you doing? Good good. You're talking about good important stuff today and so I'm afraid my phone call sort of takes us from the sublime to the ridiculous, but I listened to your program where you were responding to Nelson Price and and then

I went and watched the Watched the the sermon on the internet just couldn't get enough from what

I played, huh? Well, I really wanted to see what the big context was, you know, I mean the bus stop example was absurd enough yes, but really how do you work that into a sermon and so I watched the whole thing and and Really I think the the more egregious part of that sermon is what he was really trying to drive at ostensibly

This was a sermon about what do we say about those folks who have never heard the gospel of Christ?

if responding to Christ in a positive way is what gets you saved and I don't know if you followed all the way through to his conclusion, but I thought his conclusion was

Not just egregious but absurd because he ended up saying

That everybody on the planet has a moment when God Basically gives them a moment of enlightenment a moment where they have a chance to respond and if they respond positively

Which he said was like sending signals up to heaven if you sent these mysterious signals up to heaven

God would then send you somebody to tell you about Jesus And he was careful to say that even if you sent these positive signals up toward heaven

You were still not yet saved Then a man would come and preach Christ to you and you have the opportunity to accept or reject him and then

Your eternity was determined on the basis of that acceptance So so the big question was what do we say about these people living in darkness who have never heard the gospel and the only?

Conclusion we can draw from from the paradigm He built was those people aren't going to heaven and they are in darkness because when they had their moment when they could have

Sent positive signals up. They just didn't and their lack of positive signals is why there's no missionaries

Teaching them about Jesus. So in other words, they're going to hell and it's their fault. So don't feel bad and That due to a lack of positive signals to a lack of positive signals

That's exactly now the whole last 15 minutes of his sermon was wrapped up in this concept This isn't something he just like said glancingly and then moved on He kept repeating this because it was the very

This is his paradigm of how people get saved. You have that moment where you can Respond then

God sends you someone to tell you about Jesus and how you respond to the gospel of Jesus Determines your eternity.

So I mean it was it was genuinely absurd, but it also raised questions like Well, then what about a mentally challenged person?

What about babies that die in infancy? What about people who who never have that moment of enlightenment to send up positive signals and then

Hear the message and certainly the the Calvinist has the advantage here. Well, yeah, there's no question.

I had mentioned that that that is part of his context is a Paradigm in regards to world missions and things along those lines and that that's certainly where he's coming at this from He's not coming at this from a a serious study of Reformed literature

He just simply sees that as a a fatal objection to the paradigm. He's used in missions his entire life.

Therefore he responds to it in the way that he does, but certainly it also requires a exceptionally unbiblical anthropology so that you basically turn men into Signal repeating devices and whether they whether they respond to that one pulse you send to them in a positive way

It's sort of like the key to my my car Unfortunately, I have one of those keys that You can't just go down have another one made it has a little chip in it

And when you turn the key it sends a signal to the key and the key has to respond in a certain way or the car

Is not going to start right? That sounds almost identical to what you're saying there. And of course the problem is

Who determines whether that's the right key or not? How does how can God have knowledge of these?

I mean, there's just so many problems that it it it it it's it's what happens when you start with a

Pragmatic paradigm and then you move backwards and you force a theology

Into the foundation for the paradigm that you're already practicing and the result is always disastrous but I think we're seeing that in a lot of these missions agencies where they go out and Hey, it looks like this is the most pragmatic way of doing things.

This seems to be working better than this over here Therefore let's develop a theology that is that is supportive of the pragmatic process that we've developed over time

And that's that's a recipe for utter disaster. You never you cannot build long -living churches in in amongst indigenous peoples

With that kind of a of a viewpoint, but when you're when you're forced to judge your success based upon numbers

Well, then you do what you have to do. Mm -hmm Well, I think we all understand garbage in garbage out basically

All right, Jim, thank you very much we've got some other callers online try to sneak him in thank you Let's head down to Texas and talk to JT.

Hi JT. Hey, dr. White. How you doing doing good good. I'm one of your Presbyterian brothers, well good and I am a big fan of yours

I pray for you often as you go out debate, of course a couple weeks ago. I was praying for your conversion Well didn't quite work that way.

I understand I called in before you made your argument after the break.

And so just before I go further. I just wanted to ask you Do you? Is it your argument that the

Jerusalem Council's decree was binding on the church in Antioch? Well, certainly it was apostolic in nature.

So The whole point is that the Jerusalem Council says it seemed good to us into the

Holy Spirit and That makes it it was the decree was delivered by Apostles the decision was made by the

Apostle James in regards to the sending of the letter Peter and Paul both had addressed the issue that this is a gospel issue.

And in fact when Paul applies this Whether you view it as before or after but when

Paul applies this To Peter, he says that Peter by withdrawing from table fellowship there in Antioch that he was not walking straight in accordance with the truth of the not a decision of the

General Assembly, but with the gospel itself and so this isn't I Disagree that with dr.

Raymond that this is just simply a matter of church membership that that to me to be perfectly honest with you smacks of what

NT Wright is saying about justification that This is just a matter of table fellowship and church membership, and that's what justification is about No, they're talking about the gospel now that does impact church membership but the the point that even

Peter makes in the in the Deliberations in Jerusalem is that this is about grace.

This is about faith. This is about how a person is saved and to to view the decision that Brings peace to the churches in regards to the nature of the gospel as non

Apostolic in light of Acts 15. I just I don't I can't see that in the text at all Does the fact that the letter that was addressed to them?

Start with but by saying both the Apostles and the elders That's just simply again, you know if if if there

If there was not a tradition already in place at this point I think most reformed people who read that letter would read this as an indication of the unity of the

Entirety of the church at Jerusalem on these subjects. They wouldn't read it as well

What you've got here is yeah, you've got Apostles, but you've got Apostles acting as elders I mean I'd really don't think that if the tradition wasn't already in place that there would be any reason to begin to read it within that Context especially because as I understand it as reformed exegetes

The first question that we would ask would in regards to the government of the church We would go to the plain and main text that discussed this the pastoral epistles

We wouldn't be going to a doctrinal dispute about justification in the context of the very first missionary

Outreaches of the church and trying to make that normative in light of the complete absence of any reference whatsoever in the pastoral epistles

To anything that even smacks of any type of extra

Ecclesiastical structure over and above the elders and the deacons of the local church Okay, would you would you what would you say to the idea that the structure was in place in how?

Israel had been set up I Would say I would say that that's another real big example of stretching and that the only other time

I've seen that kind of Argumentation is when Rome tries to argue for her priests on the exact same basis and that would be rejected by reformed writers interestingly enough in the very same way that the early reformed writers

Argued against the expansion of the sacraments on the part of Rome by saying a sacrament must have a direct

Establishment in the text of scripture and yet on the one area in regards to pato baptism

They say but this is the one area where you don't have to have that same kind of explicit level in that particular context

Hey, I'm awfully. Thank you very much for college 80 and sorry to Paul Didn't get to you this this afternoon, but we'll be back again

Thursday afternoon and probably get back to the Jerry Vine sermon and other things as they come up.

Thanks for listening. God bless We need a new

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