WWUTT 1415 Q&A Legacy Standard Bible, Pastors Above Reproach, Avoiding Bethel and Elevation

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Responding to questions from listeners about the Legacy Standard Bible, what kinds of things could disqualify an elder permanently, and confronting the use of Bethel, Hillsong, and Elevation worship songs. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

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What is there to know about the legacy standard Bible? Other than adultery, what else could disqualify a man from eldership permanently?
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And why not sing Bethel music in church? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.
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This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible study that we may be blameless and pure children of God without fault in a crooked generation in which we shine as lights in the world.
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Here is your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Yahweh is my shepherd.
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I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.
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He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
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What am I reading? You're reading the Bible. Thank you.
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You're welcome. Psalm, what is it, 23? Yeah, I was right. Okay. Yeah, Psalm 23.
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I was double checking in my head. I'm like, which one is it? But how do you usually hear Psalm 23 begin?
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Not like that. Right. Yeah. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. This is Yahweh is my shepherd.
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So I'm reading from the legacy standard Bible. There's just three more verses here, so let me continue.
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Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff.
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They comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil.
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My cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving kindness will pursue me all the days of my life.
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And I will dwell in the house of Yahweh forever. So this is a translation that has, well, they're attempting to preserve the
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New American Standard 95. Okay. Yeah. The NASB just came out with a 2020 version last year.
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And some of the changes they made in the language were disappointing enough, we'll put it that way.
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Okay. That Grace To You, John MacArthur, Grace Community Church, all that ministry wanted to preserve what was accomplished with the
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NASB 95, but even to update it just ever so slightly. And one of those changes that they made with this new translation is that places where you would ordinarily see capital
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L -O -R -D, because in English, that's the way we've translated Yahweh into English.
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Right. They've gone to using the name of the Lord as it appears in Hebrew. So it's the name
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Yahweh, and that's what you have in this translation. It's a great little Bible. This was a gift that was given to me.
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We would have ordinarily received a copy if you had gone to Shepcon in March.
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Yeah. But of course, you've probably... But it kind of didn't happen yet. You've heard the story about Shepcon getting postponed.
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Yes. Because the state of California said, uh -uh. And although Grace Community Church was still meeting, their lawyers said, there's no way you're going to be able to get around this.
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Yeah. That's pushing the limit. Yeah. It was pushing it with the state a little bit. So they decided to postpone
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Shepcon. Hopefully it's going to happen in the fall. We will see. But in the meantime, I did get a copy of the
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Legacy Standard Bible, New Testament Psalms and Proverbs. This is what I've been reading on the podcast this week,
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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday. Because in our
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Old Testament study, we're doing Proverbs, and this is New Testament Psalms and Proverbs. Yeah. So I was still able to do both my
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New Testament and Old Testament studies from this book. So I've had a few people write in emails and said, have you read all the way through it?
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How do you like it? I haven't gotten through the whole New Testament yet in the LSB. I'm currently reading it.
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But I really do like this translation. It's very smooth. Some had asked me, since you're doing the
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Bible reading for literal word, are you going to switch to the
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NASB? No, I really wasn't planning on it. A lot of the verses that I have memorized are still the
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English Standard. We do all of our devotions with the kids, with family. That's still in the
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English Standard Bible. Even this past week, when I was doing my devotions from the
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Legacy Standard, when I was recalling off the top of my head my cross -references, all of them were ESV. So I might be reading to you and teaching you from the
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LSB, but everything that I'm quoting off the top of my head, that's ESV. Yeah. You're a little confusing.
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It's okay. That's right. Well, even when I made the switch nine years ago. Yeah. I remember that being a tough switch.
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Yeah. So I had to unlearn all the scripture I had memorized from the NIV, because that's what
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I was raised on. Well, it was the old NIV. Yeah. And then they updated it.
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Yeah. Additions prior to 2010. Yes. But they changed it so much that it was like,
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I'm not learning a new version of the NIV. If I have to learn the NIV over again,
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I'm going to switch translations. Yeah. Or find the best one. I think what your goal was.
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That's really what it was. The easiest one to understand. Yeah. So you could have walked into my office and on my desk was the new
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King James, the new American Standard, the ESV, and the NIV. And I was not reading the
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NIV. I was reading the old NIV, the old new international version. I'm looking at the scripture that I knew, the wording that I had in my mind, and then kind of crossing it with what
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I had in these other translations. Oh, I did also include the Holman Christian Standard. Okay.
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So at that time, it wasn't the Christian Standard Bible. It was the Holman Christian Standard. I quickly ruled that one out.
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There were just things about it I didn't like. And so I didn't get all the way through the HCSB.
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I just got to a point where I was like, I know I'm not going to use this one. And the only reason I was considering it is because I'm a
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Southern Baptist, so that was considered to be the Southern Baptist translation. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, it was published by Lifeway.
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But now it's the Christian Standard Bible. Oh, okay. That's why it sounds so familiar.
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So all the more reason why I didn't pick the HCSB in 2012, or I'm glad I didn't because then they changed it again.
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They changed that translation, changed it to the Christian Standard. But now we've got the Legacy Standard, and so I'm doing this again.
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This is the second time in my pastoral years that I'm doing a translation comparison, and right now
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I'm reading the ESV, the NASB, both of which I'm a lot more familiar with. But I'm doing that so I can get used to the wording of the
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Legacy Standard. Oh, okay. So I'm kind of getting in my mind how the wording might be a little bit different. I'm still preaching from the
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ESV, and like I said, a lot of my memory recall, it's all
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ESV. But it is a great translation. I really am enjoying this. I particularly like seeing the name
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Yahweh. Just doing that and reading Yahweh was neat. It was like, ooh, I do like that.
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I didn't know how I would feel about that, but I like it a lot. And it's just a little bit smoother than the
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NASB. There were things about the New American Standard, I just felt like it was a little clunky. I don't really know how else to describe, because people ask me.
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There were a couple spots where you were like, I just can't record it, because it's just not flowing.
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Oh, it was hard. Yeah. Yeah. So that part, I know you struggled with that part. It was difficult.
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You said reading it in sections, though, was okay, because it was just little bits by little bits. But reading it as a whole was tough, but out loud.
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Out loud, right. I know. Like when I'm reading it and I'm going, okay, this all makes sense. But then when you try to articulate it, it's like, oh, where's my pause going there?
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Just keep going. Keep going. Which syllable gets the right emphasis? I can't tell.
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It actually helped me out doing my recording of the NASB when
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I used a two -column NASB Bible. Oh, yeah. So I was trying to read it off the screen.
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I was just going to Literal Words' website, and I was reading it off of their big blocks of text.
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It was so hard to process. I couldn't really figure out why I was stumbling in certain places, why
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I would have to back up and do that again. When I switched to a two -column NASB, it was a lot easier to do.
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That's not really the way I read. I find the two -column a bit distracting when
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I'm reading silently. But doing it out loud, that was easier to do for some reason.
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Maybe just more condensed. You don't have to go so far. Yeah, read across the line and then figure out where the beginning of the next line is when you're reading it out loud.
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Anyway, so yeah, there's my quick review of the Legacy Standard. I said on Twitter that we were going to talk about this today, and I got a few comments here.
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So Jamie said, my husband and I ordered the Legacy. We were remarkably surprised about the size of it when it came.
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Checking the measurements took a backseat to our excitement of ordering this translation. I can't wait for the full version.
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So yeah, this is... It's pretty tiny. It is. It's like a handbook. Four and a half. It's like for your hand.
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Yeah. Like one hand. Yeah, just held in one hand. I like it though because I can stick it in my back pocket.
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Yeah. It is about the size of a phone nowadays. Maybe a note.
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What do they call those? The notes. The notes, yeah. Because it's a little wider than a phone. Smaller than a
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Kindle. Bigger than a smartphone. See, there's my smartphone on it. Yeah. Okay, so it's a little bit wider than a smartphone, but a little shorter.
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So that's about six and a half, a little over six inches by four and a half. And the width is, it's less than an inch.
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It is a smaller Bible, and when you buy the faux leather, you're spending 30 bucks. If you get the genuine leather one,
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I think it's about 50 bucks. Okay. And of course, you're talking about a book that is the pre -release to the full version, which comes out in the fall.
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This is just New Testament Psalms and Proverbs. But I - It's just a taste. I can't even remember the last time
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I bought a New Testament. I think all the New Testaments I had were Gideon Bibles. Okay.
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You know, like you'll just encounter the Gideon missionaries, they'll just hand you a New Testament. I think all the New Testaments I had, that's where I got them from.
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Interesting. So this would be the first New Testament that I've picked up, and it's been years.
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And I forgot how much I like just the little book. You know, you have the little book in your hands. It's nice.
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You are expecting something bigger until you get it. Well, because you're buying a
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Bible. You kind of have your own idea of what fits as a Bible size. Yeah.
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But I also don't have to worry about, when I throw this in my bag, I'm not worried about this getting like smashed and pages wrinkled.
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Very true. Yeah. It's compact. Because it's already smashed. It is. It's a little bitty
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Bible. A little bitty. Yeah.
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So right now, this is the legacy standard Bible. And then this fall, we'll have the legacy standard
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Bible. Holly made this comment.
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She said, it's so hard to get used to the new language. Is it just me? I guess I've memorized a lot in the
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KJV and the NASB. That's why I'm hesitant to switch. Pastor Tom's really trying to get me to go to the
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NASB. Yes. But maybe I can get him to compromise on the two of us together. We'll switch to the legacy standard in the fall.
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Maybe. We'll see how that goes. Maybe he would agree. He would agree to that. Yeah. So I haven't said this is an official switch.
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Right. I am liking the feel of it, though. It's the flow of the text. It was great teaching from it this past week.
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I was afraid that doing a devotional lesson in 1 Corinthians and as fast as I talk,
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I mean, you hear as fast as I talk on the – I just thought like maybe my recall is not going to come in as quick.
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I'm going to stumble more because I'm trying to jump from legacy to ESV. But it wasn't.
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It really was quite a smooth – Flowed nicely. Yeah, it did. It flowed real nicely.
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Good. Suzanne made this comment, I'm talking to our women about how to read the
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Bible or how to study the Bible, and I'm using Psalm 23 and 146 out of the legacy standard
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Bible. The Yah took me by surprise. Yah. Yah. Yah.
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Psalm 146, verse 1, praise Yah. Praise Yahweh, oh my soul.
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So, the name Yahweh comes up in the Bible something like 2 ,250 times, if memory serves.
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Wow, that's a lot. 2 ,250 times. The name Yah, which is the shortened form of Yahweh, appears about 50 times.
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But you actually say Yah fairly regularly and you're not even aware that you do it.
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Do you know where you use this word Yah? No. Hallelujah. Oh, got it.
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Halle is – or it's Hallel in the Hebrew. That's the word for praise.
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You add in the U and then Yah, praise to God. That's what that means.
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Neat. Praise be God. Praise be Yahweh, technically. So, Yahweh is the shortened form – or Yah is the shortened form of Yahweh.
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We use it pretty often. We just don't think about it. Yeah, don't. Don't at all. That Yah is more regularly used in our
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Christian speak than you're aware. But anyway – So, do they only use it in like the
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Psalms to make the poem to go better, like flow more – I am not – yeah,
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I'm not a Hebrew scholar, so I don't really know. I'm curious. Curious minds want to know. Yep.
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Because you said it's only 50 times, so I would assume that it's very condensed area. And you have the
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Psalms there, so maybe it's a Psalm thing. And I think it is only in the Psalms. I don't recall.
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I'd have to go back and look. But I think only in the Psalms do you have Yah. Curious. And here in 146,
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Yahweh comes up a lot. So, verses 8 through 10, Yahweh opens the eyes of the blind, Yahweh raises up those who are bowed down,
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Yahweh loves the righteous, Yahweh keeps the sojourners, he helps up the orphan and the widow, but he bends the way of the wicked,
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Yahweh will reign forever, your God, oh Zion, from generation to generation, praise
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Yah. Hmm. That's neat. Yeah, don't you like that? I kind of do.
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I kind of like the differentiating part of – because we use the word
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Lord for a lot of different – Yes. Applications. Right. And so, this gives a distinction of the
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Lord of Lords, you know, like the – I mean, like God Almighty. Yeah. Well, yeah, the expression
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Lord of Lords, that is actually the expression. Is it really? Yeah. Okay. I did it right. Because he is the
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Lord – Yes. As a title. Right. But that capital L -O -R -D, that's specifically his name.
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That's Yahweh. Right. And that's – in my mind, this makes it easier to separate
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Lord versus Lord, you know. I don't know if that's helpful to anybody.
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Yeah. There are occasions in the language where it would literally translate out in English as Lord the
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Lord. Okay. If we were spelling out Yahweh as L -O -R -D. And so, they come up with different ways when translating into English, like you'll see a capital
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G -O -D, just like you would see a capital L -O -R -D. Right. And that's their way of doing Lord the
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Lord. Okay. So, because otherwise, yeah, then it just sounds redundant. Yes.
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That's one of the problems with taking Yahweh and just making it the word Lord. But now you can read the
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Psalms and you'll read it as Yahweh the Lord. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. I like that a lot.
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It is good. It's a good little translation. You can download the app for free. So, even if you want to read the legacy standard, but you don't want to pay 30 bucks for the faux leather or 50 for the genuine leather, you can download the app.
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It's just LSB. Just pull it up on either your, what, iPhone or Android.
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It's got red text. Oh, interesting. So, it's red letter. I don't know if you can switch that off or not. I really don't use the app very much.
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And do they only have what's out in the book right now? It's still only New Testament Psalms and Proverbs.
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Yep. Hang on. I was trying to go back here. And let's see. I don't know.
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Anyway, there's my table of contents. Okay. Now, in this book, it starts with Matthew and then
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Psalms and Proverbs are at the end. Oh, interesting. But here it starts on the app. It starts with Psalms and Proverbs.
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Right. And then goes Matthew through Revelation. Interesting. Which in, you know, in canon order, that would be correct.
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Yes. But I like the New Testament. You know, a little New Testament starts with Matthew. You can open it up and read right away the genealogy of Jesus Christ right there at the start of Matthew.
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So cool. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, then all those names.
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I'm not going to pronounce. All right. Let's get to some questions here. So, being the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners.
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We're more than halfway through here and I'm getting to this part. You can send your emails to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
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This first one comes from Sylvester. He says, hi, Pastor Gabe. I hope things are well with you, your family and ministry, especially after the move to Texas.
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I pray that God continues to bless and use you all to bless the church and equip the saints. We're very blessed here.
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Oh, yes. Definitely. And yeah, making great friends. It just feels like we had finished visiting with one family in Kansas and we've moved to spend time with another family in Texas.
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That's the way it feels. It was a very – It's like another side of the family. That's right. Yeah. It was a very smooth transition.
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And that's to speak to the awesomeness of God. Yes. I mean, how in Christ we have brothers and sisters in the
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Lord. We are actually the body no matter where we're at. That's right. That's right. I love it. So, he goes on.
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My question is about 1 Timothy 3 -2 when Paul says an elder's life has to be above reproach.
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So, we have the qualifications of overseers there or a pastor or an elder, episkopos is the
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Greek word that's used there. So, when we first get into the qualifications of an overseer, it says that an overseer must be above reproach.
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That's the first qualification of an elder in 1 Timothy 3 -2.
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So, he goes on to say, what are examples besides sexual sins that would make a person not eligible for eldership?
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Do you think that there is a time limit to return to ministry or eldership on a person's reproach or is it a lifetime ban?
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I ask this because the person that discipled me fell about 20 years ago and he went back to using drugs and doing various other crimes.
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Well, I really don't know. Like, what other things would a person do that would otherwise disqualify them permanently from ministry because their reputation would now no longer be above reproach?
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Well, I can tell you about Tertullian in the late 2nd century and early 3rd century.
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He wrote about an elder and doesn't mention this elder's name, I believe. This is in his book on baptism.
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But he wrote about an elder who had written a canonical work called the
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Acts of Paul. Well, let me rephrase that, an extra canonical work.
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I don't know if he meant for it to be canonical, like, hey, I'm going to write a new book of the Bible. But he wrote this extra canonical work called the
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Acts of Paul and then wrote another letter that Paul had sent to the Corinthians and called it 3rd
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Corinthians. Of course, Paul did not actually write these things. But this elder had done that.
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Well, when this was discovered, he was defrocked, meaning that he was removed. And he was marked that he could never be an elder in the church again.
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And his writings were destroyed. Everything that he was trying to pass off as a genuine work was wiped out.
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And we have no trace of it. I don't even think Tertullian quoted any of it. So we only have this account in Tertullian's work on baptism that we even know about this thing that had happened in the late 2nd century and early 3rd century.
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So nobody's going to uncover these works from this elder and then go, oh, look, there's a 3rd Corinthians and try to insert it into canon.
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So he had done something that permanently disqualified him. And it wasn't sexual immorality.
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Right. He was adding to the word of God. Right. And that was enough to permanently disqualify him.
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Now, whenever we repent, we get rid of the sin, you still have the consequences of that sin.
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Right. There's still consequences. Absolutely. You can't get out of the consequences.
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You can repent, you can be forgiven, but you still have consequences.
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And you can read all through the Bible about consequences from sin, even though they're forgiven.
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Yeah. So that is a consequence for being sinful. And that is something you will take with you for the rest of your life.
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Right. Yeah, there was a I remember there was a man who came to our church. Well, he had been in our church in a long time.
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I think he had been there before me. This was back in Kansas. And we had approached him for to be a deacon.
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And he said, I can't be a deacon. He was such a good servant in the church. And finally, one day I did ask him,
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I was like, OK, why can't you be a deacon? You're not saying I don't want to be a deacon. You're saying I can't be a deacon.
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He said, I've been married four times. Yeah. And I just don't it was it was very honest of him to say that by his own convictions, he couldn't serve.
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He was not above reproach. He couldn't serve in the position of deacon. Yeah. When he's been divorced and remarried four times.
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Yeah. So that was I didn't know that about him. So I'm glad that he was honest about that kind of thing.
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Yeah. And this church might not know about his past. I mean, I would hope to do a background check.
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Yeah. But I mean, you just never know. I have had situations where somebody who had previously been under my employment goes and tries to get a ministry job somewhere else.
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And that church calls me up as a reference check and says, hey, so and so is trying to get a job here, wanted to ask about such and such.
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And I tell him, well, while he was here, he did this. And they're like, oh, we didn't know that.
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So, yeah, I mean, really, it's going to be on that church to check references of something like that. And it's it's kind of sad that they don't take that kind of thing seriously.
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You have laws that are in place right now that say things like you can't do those background checks.
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You know, I'm talking about. Oh, no, I haven't heard. So there's there's legal legally there are laws in place where you can't background check somebody.
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It depends on the state. There's different states to do this. True. But that way, you know, like a prison sentence or some sort of can't affect the hiring of them.
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Yeah. Some some kind of felony they've done or something like that can't affect their being able to get a job.
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OK. And even though the church is not bound to that, there's churches that functionally operate that way.
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I'm just not going to look in this guy's past. I'm going to give him a clean slate because that's how grace works.
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Right. And that's why people think that forgiveness, repentance and forgiveness are how that works, is that it's like just a clean slate.
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And it's not. It's really not. So, yeah, we have to understand there are consequences for our actions.
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Doesn't mean you stand in judgment before God. Right. Over something that can't ever be atoned for.
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Right. Christ has atoned for our sins with his death on the cross. Amen. But a person still must meet the qualifications needed for eldership in First Timothy, Chapter three.
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And that first one is must be above reproach. This next question comes from John in North Carolina.
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Hey, Pastor Gabe and Becky, I hope this email finds you guys doing well, that the move in to your new house was successful and the baby number five is coming along nicely.
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Yes. That bun in the oven is rising presently.
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Wasn't a fat joke, babe. Yeah. I'm going to look past this. We're going to have consequences.
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There's going to be consequences for that one. The church that my wife and I belong to is more traditional slash
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Armenian than reformed. He spells it Armenian, but we know he means
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Armenian. But a dear friend of mine who teaches and is a deacon there is very reformed, leading our
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Sunday school class exegetically through the word. Something my church does that really bothers me, though, is leading special music from sources like Bethel, Hillsong and Elevation worship to be sung in the church.
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I have approached my friend primarily because I trust him and I explained how I feel about those heretical venues and even mentioned something you said in a podcast a couple of years ago about the fact that these people do not worship the
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God of the Bible. Therefore, their music is idolatrous. Yeah, I think I've said that like Bethel Music's version or Bethel Church's version of the
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Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is to Bethel Church what Jesus is to the Latter Day Saints.
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It's a different Holy Spirit. It is not the Holy Spirit of the Bible. So he goes on to say he seems to think that as long as the lyrics are orthodox, the music should be
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OK, even though I explained to him that that is not the case. I need some advice, please. First, can you tell me where the podcast might be that you did extensive talk about this type of music?
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Oh, heavens. I don't know. I don't know which episode that was helpful, babe. I know.
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There you go. There's your answer. Thanks for writing in. Then can you give me some advice that I can present respectfully to the pastor?
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My pastor knows that I am reformed and has commented in private to me about my
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Facebook post. He knows that I believe differently than he does in some areas. So I definitely want to approach him with humility and respect to present my case.
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Thank you so very much. Sincerely, John. Well, yeah, I gave my answer. I don't know where that that episode is.
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OK, so as a pastor, if you were playing some music that you thought was fine, because I mean, everybody has their own filter.
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Sure. You you put it through your own filter. It sounds good. It's catchy. Right. And you play it.
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Well, one of the big arguments that comes up regarding Bethel, Hillsong and Elevation, when we say not to play those guys because their their teachings heretical, they'll say, well, the lyrics are fine.
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Right. But but you're worshiping God with somebody who's not worshiping God. God, he's not worshiping the
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God of the Bible, especially in the case of Bethel. You know, you're you're talking about this is a heretical church, heretical definitions of the
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Trinity, heretical understanding of Christ and his lordship, heretical understanding of the
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Holy Spirit and and all of the qualities that we read about concerning the person of the
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Holy Spirit in the scriptures. But, babe, you can totally take that. And the words that they put down, you know, you you're not worshiping with them.
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You are just singing from your heart to your God because you can do that. Right. So the this is the way, though, that these ministries wrote people in.
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They use music. This has been their strategy. So when you see these songs from Bethel, Hillsong and Elevation and Elevation, by the way, is mimicking what
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Bethel and Hillsong have done. They're following the same pattern. They're they're all cut from the same cloth. Money making.
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That's right. It's about it's making money. It's their brand. It's putting their brand out there and pulling people in with this stuff.
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So you you buy their music. You give money to their ministry. You play their music before their church.
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People want to hear their songs. They start listening to that. They will get pulled into the teaching. And you have to hear me on this because I've received numerous testimonies from people who have said my son was listening to Bethel.
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I liked the music, too. So I went and grabbed the CD. We started listening to the teaching together. And then, praise
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God, somebody alerted us to the problems with what it was that we were listening to. It's just kind of an example of the testimonies that I get.
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But I have heard third hand stories or second hand stories, rather, of somebody saying I had a friend who got roped into Bethel music and they got pulled away.
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Yeah, I know somebody I've heard that a lot. Yeah. I know somebody personally who says that that they got roped into Elevation and Elevation was specifically the music.
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And they watched them lose orthodoxy. And he's not ready to say my friend is not a
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Christian anymore. Yeah. But it's still going away. That was totally different than who he was 10 years ago.
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And that's what happens with this kind of stuff. That's why it's so dangerous. Yeah. They can sing some things that may sound orthodox.
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You're comparing it with scripture, the lyrics. OK, they sound all right. Which, by the way, Bethel does sing some stuff that's very much not orthodox.
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Very much. So it's not like all their songs are good. There's stuff that's really bad. But yeah.
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So they they pull people in with the music. They get sucked into the teaching. That's the problem with using any of this stuff from Bethel.
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And if you have to pay in order to sing the songs in your church, you are supporting their ministry.
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Yeah. You're giving back to their ministry. Why would you give to their ministry? Now, somebody might somebody might say, well, what about songs like It Is Well With My Soul?
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Because I read online that Horatio Spafford. Right. There's a lot of those. Yeah. Had you know, he had he had basically gone a direction of heresy.
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What he believed at the end of his life was heresy. So should we not be singing these songs anymore in our hymnals or like Oh, Holy Night?
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That was written by one of the guys was a Unitarian minister and the other one became apostate.
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He left the faith altogether. He became an atheist. So do we not sing those songs? Well, you can sing those songs, seeing that they're orthodox.
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They go right along with scripture and you're not supporting anybody's ministry with that. Exactly. That's the difference.
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And nobody's looking up Horatio Spafford and then listening to his teaching and be laying and letting that being led astray by his stuff.
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Yeah. With these bands, we're talking about something that is active and ongoing all over the radio, online, online, around the world.
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These are international ministries. They are. And what they're doing is not leading anyone to Christ.
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Right. They are leading people to hell. I was just talking with somebody yesterday about how, you know, the
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Bethel stuff that they would do would it was somebody that was led into the Bethel teaching and they would go door to door.
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But instead of doing evangelism and sharing the gospel, they're going door to door and saying, can we come in and heal you of anything?
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That's not the gospel. No, definitely not. You're not telling anybody about sin and to trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
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And it is by faith in Jesus Christ that we have been brought from death to life. It's going around and pretending to do parlor tricks, but you're not actually healing anybody.
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You're not doing that at all. And as far as approaching your pastor with it, I would just be as humble as possible.
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Don't don't come with with a chip on your shoulder or anything.
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You know, it sounds like you're trying to be very understanding of of the different positions that you guys hold and respectful of that.
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So I would just continue to say, start off, even start off by saying, I know we disagree on some things.
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I'm really just wanting to voice my concerns about the music and then head that direction.
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Yeah. I mean, would you would you agree with that? You do a good job of bringing it back to the subject or the question that was asked, because, yeah,
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I was just I was rabid trailing there. We could go on and I was ranting. Yes, you were.
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You were. So, yeah, just, you know, and think of it as being it's going to be a long term conversation.
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It's not going to be something that's going to change right away. But I really do hope that they'll stop using those artist venues.
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I don't know. But everything are churches. Yeah. Heretics. They'll stop using those.
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Here we go. That's the word. Okay. I got one last question here and I think I can do this real quick and then we're done.
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So this is from Alec. Hello. I really enjoy your videos. I'm working on a video about abortion, according to the
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Bible. And I learned through your videos that the Didache talks about abortion. Even though it's not the
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Bible, it will help me to make a point in my video. Well, that's good. Appreciate that. So here is my question. Do you believe the angel of the
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Lord is a Christophany? We have references to the angel of the Lord in the
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Old Testament. Is that a pre incarnate appearance of Christ? I would say, yes, as far as I know.
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There you go. There's my answer. I just I can't think of an occasion when the angel of the
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Lord is used where I might say, hang on. That's not that would not be a Christophany because of this reason.
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So, yeah, I mean, everything that you've mentioned to me has been the right. It's an appearance of a pre incarnate
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Christ. Right. So anyway, there we go. I don't know. We'll finish with that.
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My brain went everywhere. So now our children started making noise outside the door. So our parent minds are now going,
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OK, we got to go get our kids. So let's pray. Yes, let's.
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Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time together. And I pray for John. I pray that you give him wisdom in the way that he approaches this matter that's that's going on in his church with the music.
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And I pray that the worship leader would have an understanding of how worship should be conducted and led and the music that we use.
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And and even that those sources would be sound and would be right, that we might give right praise unto the
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Lord, as you have said, according to your word. We pray for Sylvester and the matter that's going on with this friend of his that used to be a pastor and now he's being ordained again.
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We pray you would give him wisdom in that matter as well. And I pray that you would convict all our hearts, that we would first look inward and recognize those places in us where we are being self -centered and sinful, and that we would be convicted of our sin.
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Ask God for forgiveness and that you would lead us in paths of righteousness for your namesake, as we read in the very beginning from Psalm 23.
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Thank you for this time that we have together. And may your word continue to feed and edify us even as we go from this recording today.