Cultish: Revisting The Church of Christ

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Hey, what's up, everyone? This is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here at Cultus. I want to first and foremost thank all of you who stepped up to the plate and support us and donated at the end of last year to help out our podcast.

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As we mentioned at the end of the year, we currently still stand around less than 1 % of our audience who are giving.

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We really want to try and push that up to around like 3 % to 5%, a really small amount that we just need of our audience so we can stay crowdfunded to keep going on a regular basis.

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So if you want to go to thecultishshow .com, you can go to the Donate tab. You can become a monthly partner with us, or if you want to do a one -time donation, you can as well, too.

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Thank you all so much for supporting us, for listening to us, for sharing our content. Again, thecultishshow .com,

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go to the Donate tab. All that being said, enjoy this podcast. All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, Entering the

00:58

Kingdom of the Cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here. I'm joined by Andrew, the super sleuth of the show.

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What's up, man? I'm stoked to be here. We are back together. You're not in your super secret headquarters, but we are back.

01:12

It's back with Pastor Trey Fisher. We did an episode about a year ago on the Church of Christ.

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It's good to have you back, man. What about it? And you've got another partner in crime. It's another Jeremiah over here.

01:24

That's right. Jeremiah Nortier, also known as the Apologetic Dog. Okay. Super excited to discuss this.

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We're going to be talking today about the Church of Christ once again. Like I said, we talked about it about a year ago.

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Tell everyone, what's been the impact of that initial podcast? It's been so good,

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Jerry. I've gotten phone calls, emails, messages from people at least once a week just wanting to talk about how do they get out of the

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Church of Christ. I've talked to pastors—well, they're not pastors. They call themselves preachers in the Church of Christ, but preachers in the

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Church of Christ—of how to get out of it. What do they do now? Just studying with people who have questions in the

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Church of Christ, with their family members, friends, or whatever the case may be. But so much, so much, way more good has come out of it than the negative stuff.

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Yeah, that's what I've heard. I know that there's some people who, if you messaged us, who are just really struggling in their faith, really under that oppressive burden of just knowing, am

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I being sincere enough? Was my baptisms sincere enough? And having me baptized multiple times.

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Yeah, I think what we're going to do really is kind of maybe even follow up and address, because we did get a lot of response, a lot of fiery pushback of sorts.

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I think that's really, really important to respond to that. Yeah. Well, Jeremiah here, we do a lot of work together on our podcast,

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The Parish Reformed, The Apologetic Dog, a lot of Church of Christ material and content.

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So you can go to those pages and find that stuff. But I've debated this stuff with him. Jeremiah's had a debate. This is actually how we came in contact with one another.

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I had a debate live in person with the Church of Christ preacher that called me out in my hometown. I said, oh yeah, let's go.

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And so on a Facebook group, I was sending out some of my ideas and points, and Trey Fisher was like, hey, call me up.

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I was like, this is the cultish guy. Yeah. And so we've hit it off. Thanks Jerry, that's what I'm known as now. Yeah, that's awesome.

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The cultish Church of Christ guy. Yeah, I was going against the cultish things, but now I'm the cultish guy. So, yeah.

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Yeah. Well, tell everyone, you've got some, you've got an awesome, amazing beard.

03:32

Well, thank you. So very complimentary. Me? Facially, here's the matter of the heart.

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As long as your heart's in the right place, we can give grace in the length. I think that's something that you can definitely do. Grace in the length, man.

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The spirit beard. I have some gifts from y 'all. Our sponsor is

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Bearded Brothers, and these are some beard oils for y 'all. Beard oils. Andrew, cheers,

03:53

Andrew. Oh, we get beard oils. Beard oils. Okay. I get two of them? Yeah, you get two.

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Oh, Jerry, give me that. Jerry's trying to take my other one. Hey, we got the hookups going on. Thanks. Stop being cultish and taking all the stuff.

04:05

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04:50

Back to the episode. All right. So how do you want to do this? Do you want to just start getting into the responses? Yeah. So just so you know what we did is our lovely assistant,

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Ashley, shout out to Ashley. She went through and did an audit through all our social media, our

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YouTube channel. The initial YouTube video has about 30 ,000 views, has about a thousand comments.

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She went through all of the social media platforms and took the most positive, but also took the most negative.

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And in fact, we just actually got an email from somebody who was part of the Church of Christ. They were kind enough to give themselves their feedback as well too.

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So we're just going to go through like line by line and maybe give some responses. So yeah. What would you say?

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What's the first negative? I don't even say negative like critique pushback, I would say to this.

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As far as like the responses? Yeah. The responses to the initial episode. We expected that.

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Right. Yeah. Of course. Here's what was crazy to me. I had to go back and watch it because I hadn't watched it since we did it.

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And when I got these responses, I'm reading the cons and they're saying that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

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No Church of Christ believes that. I've never heard of that ever in my life in the Church of Christ. And I'm thinking, are these people in the

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Church of Christ? Because all I talked about was that they believe you're born perfect, right? Which AB Mama here,

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I'm going to talk about her in just a minute. Hopefully she's watching this episode. I want to answer her question. But I said that they believe you're born perfect, which is plagianism.

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Okay. That's a heresy. That you have to be baptized in order to be saved. Right. I didn't think that was a mind blower.

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I didn't think that was some crazy thing that the Church of Christ is hiding. I mean, they're pretty adamant about that.

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So I talked about how they believe that you have to be baptized in order to be saved and that you can lose your salvation. I mean, those are the three things

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I talked about on the episode, didn't I? Yeah. Did I go into anything else? I mean, I think we might've hit on a little bit of this or that, but like just...

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Yeah. Talked about abortion a little bit. I just want to say real quickly, this beard oil, I just put it on. Is it shinier?

06:49

Oh, yeah. It is. I can see it. You can see it? It's sparkly now. Just so you know, this is the beard oil. We'll have links available.

06:54

It's Bearded Brothers. Yeah. And this is the smell of St.

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Nick. It smells like St. Nick. Oh, that smells like Christmas. It is super Christmassy. It's a punch in the face.

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Yes. And I feel energized. It's like a fusion of energy because we've got two podcasts here back to back.

07:12

Yes. Yes. I might need some of my whatever gracious thing I have. We need your beard to grow out just a little bit more.

07:18

Come on now. Yeah. So yeah, I would say that the thing that shocked me the most about the first episode is when I get and I hear back from people that we don't teach that.

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I'm like, what are you talking about? You don't teach that. Yeah. Yeah. So but I want to go you want to go in a few of these cons.

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Yeah. Yeah. Let's just go through the comments. What caught your attention with the with the comments we were able to pull from our initial?

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First, let's just start off with one of the pros. There's a lot of pros. Your first page and a half are pros. Right. And I want to say this one to Will, whoever

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Will is who watched that episode. Thank God for you and for his work in your life. He says,

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I was saved out of the Church of Christ at 16 when I was about to commit suicide because I couldn't live a righteous life before God.

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I hated God and everyone else. But God opened my heart to believe in his name right before I was about to end my life.

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And he goes on to write some more stuff. But just amazing. Wow. Praise God. But this is where I would say this is where this stuff leads.

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And this is where when you feel like you have to live a righteous life, a perfect life and you know, they're going to say, oh, we don't think you have to be perfect.

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I'm going to show you the cons of what people said. Like, this is, you know, anyway, thank

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God that he worked in Will's life. So here's the first two cons here.

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I do want to address this. Aaron and Nathan Moore says this right here. Is it OK if I say their names?

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Publicly, I mean, this is on Facebook. Yeah, it's there. I mean, it's a public platform. So Aaron and Nathan pretty much say the same thing.

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I'll read both. Aaron says there is a difference between the International Church of Christ, the ICOC, for example, the

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Australian Church of Christ. They're unaffiliated, but confusion is caused by the similarity in the names.

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OK, so Nathan says, please be sure to make a distinction between the mainline churches of Christ that came from the

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Stone Campbell Restoration Movement and the Boston Church of Christ, which is a cult.

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OK, so Aaron Gallagher just emailed you saying the same thing, saying that, well, we're not the

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IOCC, you know, you got to, the IO whatever, International Church of Christ, ICOC.

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Well, here's the deal. I'm going to put a, there's going to be a link on this episode when you post it where people can go to and see the just deep history of the

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Church of Christ and the beginnings and the history of the Boston Movement or the

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International Church of Christ. So I don't want to go too much in this. I want them to study for themselves, but I do want to address something here.

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I can't make a distinction between the Church of Christ and the Boston Movement or the International Church of Christ because it is the same thing.

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Their discipleship methods are different. OK, but I'll give you a little bit of history here that Kit McCain is the one who started it, and he came from Crossroads Church of Christ in Gainesville, Florida.

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I had some old friends who came from that church. They were very close, but they came from that church,

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Crossroads Church of Christ. That's where the Boston Movement started and came from. So their whole roots are from the

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Church of Christ, but the movement started because of their discipleship that they wanted to do at the

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University of Florida and how to reach people, and so they came very oppressive. And you know, I'll give you an example.

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I mean, I'll give you the website. You go and look at it, read it for yourself, study yourself. It's going to give you a huge history of the Church of Christ that leads down into the

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Boston Movement, International Church of Christ. So when you say make a distinction between the two, I can't. They came from it.

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They share those fundamental things you were talking about earlier. Oh, the fundamental beliefs. Everything, yeah. But their discipleship's different.

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It's a little bit more oppressive, you could argue. I wouldn't, but maybe, you know, just study yourself.

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But there's no distinction between their belief system as far as their core beliefs, OK? Baptism, regeneration, and all that.

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So I can't do it. I can't be honest with you and tell you that there's something different. It came and birthed out of the

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Church of Christ. So didn't want to answer that one. I have a question, too, with regards to that, Trey. Maybe you can clarify it. Is the guy kind of assuming that the

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Stone Campbell Church of Christ that came from the Restoration Movement and the Boston Church of Christ different because mainly the

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Stone Campbell was part of the Restoration Movement? I assume that most of the cults that came out of the

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Restoration Movement were because of the Restoration Movement. Like, what was supposed to be restored, Trey? How can the

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Stone Campbell not be part of a cultish movement when it comes from the very

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Restoration Movement itself? From the cult movement in America. Yeah. I mean, Mormonism, Restoration Movement. Jehovah's Witness, right?

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Yeah. So it can't be. And so here's the thing. The Boston Movement basically restored the

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Restoration Movement from the Church of Christ is what their belief is. So they just took it a little bit further.

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And so you know how like Mormons today say that, you know, they try to separate themselves from fundamentalist

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Mormons, right? The old school ones. Well, the Church of Christ today, the mainline, mainstream Church of Christ try to separate themselves from the

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Boston Movement. They don't want people to know that it's it birthed from them. It came from them. Right. I mean, they're the ones who write the most about it, calling it a cult.

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So plenty of research. What's this guy's name here? Russell Padden at the

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University of Kansas wrote his thesis on this, on the history of the Church of Christ and the Boston Movement. So this is what he wrote.

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I mean, so I cannot wait for you people to read this, study it for yourself, look at it for yourself. Is there anything you want to add to that?

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Yeah, so a lot of my experience. So in northeast Arkansas, tons of Church of Christ.

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Anytime we talk about church history, they want to distance themselves from that. So with us being Reformed Baptists, we understand

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Sola Scriptura, that Scripture is the ultimate authority. But Christ has been building His church for 2 ,000 years.

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It's to our benefit to study what the saints of old have been revealing. So we understand the value of church history.

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And so my experience is when we do go to all the works of what Alexander Campbell, they want nothing to do with that at large.

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So it's interesting how we've had some feedback on a lot of historical points, because my conversations,

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I talk to a lot of Solo Scripturists. Kind of this, my Bible, me under a tree, no creed, but Christ mentality.

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And so a lot of my experience, Church of Christ don't want to talk about history at all. We understand the benefit with that.

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So I was encouraged just to see that some Church of Christ were wanting to talk about some of these historical points. Right. Well, I don't think they really want to, but they bring it up.

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And if you want to bring it up, we can talk about it. Here's the next guy, Carter. Here's what Carter says.

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I'm going to read all of it, but the points I want to make out here, he says that there's no denomination called the Church of Christ.

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Now, what do you think about that? Literally every Church of Christ church you go by says

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Church of Christ on it, and all of their materials in the Church of Christ are officially logoed under the

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Church of Christ. If that's not a categorical denomination, but the catch is, is that what they do is,

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I don't know if every single Church of Christ does this, but they proof text Romans 16, 16, which says, greet one another with a holy kiss, all the

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Churches of Christ send greetings. And so they use that proof text to specifically say, this is the name of God's true church.

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And so I remember I had a friend in high school, who's part of the Church of Christ. And he, remember he proof texts that. And he was, I remember he was like walking back.

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I mean, we were driving through a neighborhood and he would just arrogantly point to some

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Baptist church. He'd be like, denomination. And then you go back denomination.

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And I guess he apparently, he knew the root. And as soon as we drove by a Church of Christ, he's like, the church that Christ established, denomination.

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I remember this like back in high school, I'm going back. But yeah, that's the part that's interesting. But you do use the title.

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What were you going to say, man? So Romans 16, 16, that's a description of what the Church of Christ is.

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It's Christ's church. So they're begging the question about what that actually is, the ecclesia. Like we want to get into the roots of God's children are those who are called out by faith.

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They're just assuming, you see one phrase in Romans 16, 16. It doesn't say that if you're the true church, that this should be on your church building.

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And so, and like you were saying, denomination, they are a group of people, a sect that hold to a standard of doctrine.

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That's a denomination. But they have to try to distinguish themselves in some way as the one true church. So these are some of the conversations we get into.

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You've got to show that they're just begging the question of what the church actually is, and we don't even define denomination. But anyway.

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Yeah, but also, just real quick, as far as a proof that goes, there's other passages in the New Testament where they actually address a church that actually has a different name than...

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Like the Church of Rome or the Church of Corinth? Yeah. Are they not Christians? Because it's not the

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Church of Christ in Rome. It's the Church of Rome. Yeah. Yeah. Can I kind of even agree with them in terms of it's not being a denomination?

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Well, if you're not holding to the core essentials of Christianity, say by grace through faith, and if there's a part of works in baptism for us, essentially, you're not a denomination anymore.

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You're no longer Orthodox. So I would say considering yourself in a denomination is giving yourself more credit than you deserve.

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It's like a Mormon trying to say that they're a denomination. That's strong. I'd say you're actually not part of a denomination. You're actually a cult.

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Right. That's what makes you outside of Orthodox. Exactly. It's heterodox at best. Yeah, that's good. And so like what you just said there, right?

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You said something about being saved by grace through faith, right? This is what I'm talking about. And there's a lot of these in here in these comments.

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Carter says in that after the denomination, there's no denomination Church of Christ. I think I like your answer, Andrew. I think

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I can start saying I agree with you. Yeah. But he says, I believe Ephesians 2, 8 through 10, Acts 2, 38, 41,

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Romans 10, 9 and 10, just like you do. Stop. I would like to say stop right there. No, you don't. No, you don't.

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Look, he goes on to say, and I'll show you how he does it. The next thing he says, I do find it funny that you preach that we are saved by grace through faith.

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Now, why do you think that's funny if you agree with Ephesians 2, 8 through 10, right? What's funny about that? And so this is my point.

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I want to get to this lovely lady, Penny Ellis here later, you know, because I just want to work through this, but she proves my point exactly of what

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I was talking about in the first episode. And it's heartbreaking. I mean, you understand if you hadn't been in it, you're just dripped in your head, these verses over and over again, and you're in this echo chamber and you're told the same thing over and over again by people who believe the same thing you believe over and over again.

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And you can't, you just can't even see what you can't even see the blatant contradictions in what you're saying.

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Yeah. Well, I mean, it's also, and you say over and over and over again, it's isolated passages out of context with a pre -commitment.

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And this, for example, and I'll just mention him because he knows who we are, Leighton, who, when we first dropped the episode, he might see him again.

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Yeah. Yeah. He's pal. Yeah. He's pals with Johnny Robinson. We'll mention him in a moment. Hi Johnny. But what's interesting is that when

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I was talking with him, nice guy, we, we, he, he met a couple to pick it a couple of times outside of our church.

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I, we, I, we met with him separately, Adika and I, we met with him separately for coffee or tea, whatever it was. And I think one that was interesting is that they were just so committed to the isolated verses out of context.

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Like they would not look at Ezekiel. And I was pushing on that, showing the category of regeneration, the new heart being changed.

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And then the obedience, like God says, I'll cause you to walk in my attributes. And like, they couldn't fathom that immediately.

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They would switch the topic. They do a bait and switch, try and go to the new Testament. And it's one of those category areas where a lot of cults and a lot of doctrinally off groups or even cultish groups, they'll, they're not just read verses out of context, but they'll actually go and start with a new

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Testament and read their way backwards. In this case, a lot of times they'll, they'll start with the book of Acts and like, that's almost their

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Bible. But then, but then they read everything into that. Even like they put

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Acts as a precedent, even over the Old Testament, for sure. Now, I got a question. So would you say that they interpret basically the entire

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Bible in light of the book of Acts? And so what you should be doing is you should be interpreting the book of Acts in light of the doctrinal letters, right?

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And so that's you got the description of Acts versus the prescription of... Yeah. And that's, and that's what you realize too.

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Now, what I was trying to explain to them like contextually, and I'll get you back to your responses is that the book of Acts is basically an

19:40

ESPN highlights of the early church. Like that's, that's what you see. So more than likely

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Peter's sermon, where he preaches and 3000 people trample on each other to get to Calvary afterwards, an amazing sermon.

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I would say that's very much like a cliff note sermon, just given the nature and the heritage of how people would conduct themselves in a synagogue.

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It probably was a bit longer, but that was basically in many ways, probably paraphrased. Well, and here's the thing with fundamentalist groups, any fundamentalist group, doesn't matter.

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They don't like the genre of books, right? So they don't see Acts as a historical book and the epistles as doctrinal books, right?

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They would rather look at, they don't care about genre. They don't care about the context. And this is why they get so many things out of context, right?

20:26

So I want Jeremiah to answer this one for Nick Russell. He says, another misunderstanding on the part of your expert.

20:33

That was me. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I don't think I claim to be an expert on that one anyway, but we have some people here that will claim to be experts and we'll look at them in a minute.

20:40

But another misunderstanding on the part of your expert, the COC does not teach that your works can save you.

20:48

Yeah. So later someone else is going to say, we don't believe that your works alone can save you, right? With their little five -step formula, but that's actually not wrong.

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I'm not true at all because most all cults I've noticed, it's how fast can we get back to James chapter two as like the, the baseline of showing that because they're going to interpret that as that justification is based on works before God.

21:11

Right. So I just, we could probably point him to other church Christ that would disagree with that, but you know, the

21:19

Christianese language, right, Andrew, you have to speak Christianese. So they can't come out and say, we believe works save you.

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Just like a Mormon won't say that. Well, they also, they play games too with parsing words. So they try and differentiate works versus obedience.

21:32

Right. Well, that, cause that one, I would push Layton on that. He would say, well, don't you just want to, and I, and again, this is,

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I'm paraphrasing it cause I don't have the word for work, complete recollection of the conversation. It's not just him, but he did record it and he'll probably go back and play and say, you lied about the conversation.

21:46

Yeah. And I'll talk about that in a second. It's very, they like to parse clips together, very TMZ anyways.

21:54

But yeah, the reality is that they try and say, well, no, we're not saying works. We're not saying works, you're saved by works, but don't you want to be obedience towards God?

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But that's the cast 22 is that how can someone who is spiritually dead, who is hostile towards God conjure up within themselves the ability to obey in order to bring about one spirit, like in order to bring about one spiritual life, one has to obey

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God. One has to agree that I need to obey to be baptized in order to be saved.

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Right. So one, so this is a definition I go to war for is obedience or obey means to submit to or to be in agreement with.

22:34

So you must obey the gospel by repentance and faith. So obey doesn't always entail works, but they want that to mean that every single time.

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And you're getting to a more fundamental point that if you're dead and your sins and trespasses, there's going to be no response, period.

22:49

Yeah. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. I got a, I got a question too, just to flesh out a little bit. Cause I've heard, uh, in terms of church, the church of Christ and talking about baptism, they'll argue, well, baptism isn't a work.

22:59

They would, they try to God. Yeah. They'll try. Yeah. They'll say it's a work of God. They'll say repentance. Is that a work you're caught? You're called to repent.

23:05

Shouldn't that also be qualified to work as a work? If baptism is a work, can you guys explain that a little bit how it's different? Okay. If I hit on that first, go ahead.

23:12

So a lot of times they're alluding to Colossians 2 .12, because it's talking about the circumcision made without hands.

23:18

And then you got baptism, right? But it's in the context of regeneration. They said the powerful working of God.

23:24

See, baptism is not a work of man. It's a work of God. It's not a work you do. That's what they say. And for one, they missed the context because it is about the atonement of Christ, right?

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It's also talking about, I would say a baptism made without hands. So it is a work of God in the heart. And so what

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I try to take them to is Ephesians chapter two, verses 12 and 13, because we are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

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This is in the context of our sanctification. That's where baptism belongs. And that is something that we do.

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And earlier in Ephesians 1 .6, God begins that good work in you and he brings it to completion. And so there is a underlying conflation of justification and sanctification, just like Roman Catholicism.

24:04

So by definition, works are gone is your human accomplishment and achievement.

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Guess what? That's your baptism. You played a part in getting up and walking into your baptistry. That is works.

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And so what they try to do is say, well, it's certain kinds of works that don't save you. It's works of merit.

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It's works of righteousness that doesn't save you. We're doing the works of God because we're being obedient to the law.

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And I'm saying that's literally the argument that the Pharisees made. The exact argument that the Pharisees made.

24:33

So let's go on to AB Mama. This is a good one. I kind of like that name. I like AB Mama. So AB Mama, I'm going to get you,

24:40

I would love for you to get hooked up with Clark A, whoever Clark A is. I don't know how y 'all can get hooked up, but here's what it is.

24:47

She says, I have never been taught that I was born perfect. Okay. Skinless perfectionism is what we're talking about.

24:54

But she says she has never been taught that. She goes on to say, I've never heard that in my life. And I was born into the church of Christ and I've been baptized believer since I was 16 years old.

25:03

I know everything about the church of Christ. That's pretty big, right? So she knows everything about the church of Christ or he does.

25:11

I'm assuming it's a she. She knows everything about the church of Christ. Her grandfather and father were both elders and ministers.

25:17

Now, here's what I want you to remember now. AB Mama knows everything about the church of Christ. She's never been told.

25:23

She's never heard that she's born perfect, right? I'm just going to flip the page to go to Clark A. He starts off his con with this right here.

25:31

Because the explanations given are shallow. I want to give a defense for not being born a sinner.

25:38

So here's, you see like, here's this one, AB Mama's a, she knows everything about the church of Christ. She's never been taught that.

25:44

And then you have Clark A over here says, let me give you a biblical reason as to why you're born perfect. Yeah. Why you're not born a sinner, because if you're not born a sinner, wouldn't that mean you're born perfect?

25:53

Yeah. Right. Right. So it's just very confusing, but hopefully they can get together. We'll just,

25:59

I just want to point that out with AB Mama. Yeah. I want to address that with her. You know, I'm sorry that man,

26:05

I know a lot of church of Christ people went to Harvard university and sat in a lot of classes. They think you're.

26:11

Yeah. This is just one of the great things too, about the gift of soul and beauty of social media is that a lot of times, you know, you can make a post about something and all of a sudden it just, people get riled up and they get, they tend to get really rowdy in the comment section.

26:26

Well, the nice thing is that once that all calms down, what you have is like, this is like real raw, emotional data that all these people saw what we said in our initial conversation.

26:39

And they passionately wrote down in the moment, uh, either on a keyboard or, or going, going on their phone and texting and saying out passionately.

26:48

So what you end up seeing is not only you have differing views and someone else from the church of Christ is contradicting what she's saying, but it goes to show that there's a lot of broad, diverse, it's kind of, there's a lot of different angles.

27:02

And I got, and it's kind of nuanced when you, depending on which sort of sect or even denomination or version of the church of Christ you're talking about.

27:11

Right. Yeah. So I think this is a funny one. I want to make this a really quick fly by for Cole Price guitar.

27:17

I just want to address his con. He says, uh, COC are independent. So you can't lump them all together.

27:22

I think I even said that in the first podcast, he said, I do agree with general beliefs of the COC, except I don't condemn instruments in worship as long as you're singing while playing.

27:33

Well, his name is Cole Price guitar. So I can see why he's okay with instruments, right? But here's where the legalism takes you.

27:40

Right. So he says, as long as it's okay, as long as you're singing while playing. So does that mean if I strum once without singing anything, is that wrong?

27:49

Like what point do we draw that line? But this is where legalism will always take you. Yeah. Right. Nick Russell.

27:57

Look at this one. Yeah. This is, this is the heartbreaking thing about bad theology. Like your, your hat says bad theology hurts people.

28:03

Yeah. Um, this is it right here. He says, I'll let you, I'll let you talk to this one.

28:09

Okay. The COC does not teach that you can lose your salvation because of sin, but because of willful sin.

28:17

Well, my first question would be to Russell, like, Hey Nick, do you willfully sin or do you just always just accidentally do it?

28:24

He says this right here, human sin. That's part of our nature. But when you knowingly choose sin over your faith, you have a problem.

28:34

So I would say, Nick, you have a problem because I think that you knowingly sin, like you choose to sin, but he doesn't even see that.

28:41

Go ahead here. Cause he has some verses. He has a problem with the apostle Paul in Romans seven, because he is also warring against sin.

28:48

Yeah. Willfully. Yeah. But who's going to save me out of this body of wretch? Yeah.

28:53

Right. We rest in Christ. And so once again, I think this shows that they conflate justification and sanctification. And it's really absurd to say that there's a difference between, you know, whether you, you knowingly do a sin.

29:04

Like I know there, there are times you can trespass and you're unaware, but the majority of our sanctification is warring against sin that we are cognizant.

29:11

Yeah. Right. And so it's just absurd. And I would say that's probably not a major view.

29:17

That's someone speaking passionately like you were talking about. Right. Hey, what's up everyone. We love that you are enjoying our content on a weekly basis, but this program cannot continue and wouldn't be possible without your support.

29:29

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29:56

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30:05

Yeah. Let me ask you this trade to just jumping back to the instrument, the acapella and worship. So my friend

30:11

Andre Thompson, who I went to high school with, I remember going to a

30:18

Wednesday Bible study at the church of Christ. And I was aware that they believed in doing just acapella.

30:25

And you know, those times where like you, you experienced something, it's a conversation and it's just the way that words land or just the atmosphere of the conversation.

30:33

There's just an aesthetic to it that bothers you. And you're like, I can't put my finger on this. Or sometimes it's just a message or how you perceive a comment on social media.

30:42

Um, I want to get your thoughts on this. I remember at the end of this Bible study, uh, they'd closed with this hymn.

30:49

It was all acapella. And again, this is just me when I'm 16 years. I think I was 15 years old. Um, this is my first year in high school or second year.

30:56

Exactly. And when they close out this hymn, I can, I can't judge their hearts.

31:02

There is almost like this underlying aesthetic of pride. Like we are worshiping an acapella because this is

31:10

God's way to do it. And this is a have and have nots. Like when I think like retrospectively all these years later,

31:18

I remember just me as a 15 year old kid, like that was just odd to me.

31:23

And it like, it bothered me because I'm down for like, there's a group, there's an old group called glad.

31:29

I think they're called, they're just like cool, like acapella worship. And it's, that's a great way. Like I love, there's a lot of cool things you can do with being acapella.

31:36

Um, but there were just something about that, like that bothered me. Is that anything that you ever pick up on that when you're in the church?

31:43

So when I was in the church of Christ, I can't, I did not, I'll be honest with you. I did not pick up on that. I didn't pick up on that at all when

31:49

I was there. I mean, I thought that, because I was part of it, right. And I really felt like I was singing to the Lord that I was loving

31:55

God and the people around me were doing it. And so I didn't ever pick up on that. I'm sure that I'm sure that's out there. I mean, there's, there's crazy cousins everywhere, but I never, um,

32:04

I never experienced that, that type of mentality in worship. And I'll tell you that, I mean,

32:10

I'm probably one that will say not, I don't think because of a church Christ background, maybe I am biased.

32:15

I don't know. I love instruments. I love instrumental worship. Um, I think it adds so much to it, but man, sometimes when you just have acapella people singing just with their voices,

32:24

Oh, that's great is amazing. We do the Psalms things. Those are great. Yeah. I love them. So can I, can

32:29

I go back to Nick, Nick, uh, Russell's they're talking about losing your salvation. I think it's extremely important to understand the point that we can see the beautiful things about Jesus's statements is

32:39

I don't think we can walk out of the hand of God, right? Like Jesus says in John chapter six, that no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.

32:47

He says, all that the father draws me will come to me. And then it says, is the will of the father that all that come to me, I will not lose one of them, but raise him up on the last day.

32:55

And then in John 17, it states that Jesus has protected us. He says that he says, I have,

33:01

I've guarded them, but except the one, the son of perdition that was predestined to occur, went from me,

33:06

Judas, but you think he's only talking about the disciples there. But later he says, I pray this prayer, not for, uh, just the disciples, but for everyone who believes in me.

33:15

But then he also says it's when he's praying for all who believe in Jesus, he says, don't take them out of this world, but do what?

33:21

Keep them from the evil one, which is what, how are you going to be taken out of the hand of God? You can't walk out of your salvation.

33:29

If you could walk out of your salvation, you would have, you never have the salvation to begin with. John qualifies that as well in first John two, uh, where he says they went out from us because they did not really belong to us.

33:39

Like we have to look at a holistic approach to the Bible instead of taking Peter, you know, when Peter says that your salvation is kept in heaven for you, guarded by God.

33:45

Yeah. Like, I mean, you're going to go up there and get it. Yeah. You're right. Even in Ephesians, it says the Holy spirit is the seal of the gift of the inheritance to come.

33:52

So do you think the Holy spirit can fail you? Yeah. No. How about this? Like you no longer live, but Christ lives in you.

33:58

So now if, how can Christ deny himself, that would be a kingdom divided in a kingdom divided, cannot stand. I mean, there's so much we can go through in so many scriptures.

34:04

You didn't read his proof texts. It was first Corinthians nine 27. Paul wrote that he had to keep his body under subjection lest he would be disqualified for the prize.

34:13

I want to point out that that's actually not what the verse says. He, uh, so I'm actually reading from the SV, but I disciplined my body.

34:19

Paul says to keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified.

34:26

This is evangelism ministry is evangelical ministry. Yeah. It would be disqualified. He was using that as a proof tech to say you could lose your salvation.

34:32

Paul's trying really hard not to lose it. Right. But like you said, if the Holy spirit begins that good work in he's going to bring it to completion, golden chain of redemption, right?

34:41

Those whom have been predestined, we're going to be called. We're going to be justified. We're going to be glorified all in the past tense because from God's perspective, it's a done deal.

34:49

Amen. And after that golden chain, he goes on to say that nothing in all of creation can separate you right from God.

34:56

And you are in creation. You like that context thing. Love it. I love the whole context deal.

35:01

So I want to point this out for Audrey Jimenez. Uh, I, I didn't read a lot of the pros cause kind of just got this really want to answer the cons, but I'm going to say thank you,

35:14

Audrey. Uh, because I do love the church of Christ. I love the people in the church of Christ. I have family still in the church of Christ.

35:19

I have friends, old friends still in the church of Christ. I want them to see the freedom in Jesus Christ. Okay. And I know that my life would be so much easier if I didn't do stuff like this.

35:28

Like I'm not that dumb of a person. Like I know you call them that you're in Nineveh. It's my Nineveh.

35:33

I don't want to do it. Right. But, but here's what Audrey says. And I thank you so much for this. She says 28 years in the church of Christ here.

35:40

And I don't think this was one sided at all. Speaking about the first episode, Trey seemed to be more than fair when talking about their beliefs.

35:46

And I share the sentiment for loving these people so much that you want to have the difficult theological discussions with them, even though it raises some rather disheartening emotions.

35:55

And so, and she goes on and says a lot, a lot more things. I got to watch this guy right here. Hold on. He's coming. Get away from me,

36:02

Luke. We're going to get him on the podcast for these days too. I'm going to get you in a minute. I owe you some stuff.

36:10

So yeah, he's a bear. You just got to hug like a bear. You caught me. Oh, we're caught. Oh, we're good.

36:16

We're good. Thank you. Give me some water dog. I don't want that.

36:21

That's fancy water. I'm a redneck tap water. Lukewarm tap water.

36:29

There you go. So I would love to go to the pros. I would love for people to actually hear so many of the pros. I mean, what's funny is these people in the cons,

36:36

I know that was never taught. They never teach that, but all the pros are like, that's exactly what I was taught my whole life. Right.

36:42

But there's even other people who are cons who actually are saying, yes, I don't like how you misrepresented how you,

36:48

I don't like how you misrepresented this teaching. Then another con will say, well, we never taught that. Right. We never taught that.

36:54

And then the other guy's like, let me show you exactly why we teach that. So, um, look at Mark Griggs here.

37:00

This is a con. I want you to add to this. Um, Jeremiah, that Jeremiah.

37:06

Yeah, we got two Jeremiah's here. Jeremiah squared. Uh, so here's what Mark says. This is a very shallow perspective of the

37:12

COC talking about us y 'all. How do you take that? Andrew, you okay with that?

37:18

I'm good. All right. So he says salvation is not based on works alone.

37:24

So this is what I'm talking to people. I just want to stop and say, wait, stop. Let's think about this. What did you, okay.

37:30

So it's not based on works alone. So it's based on a little bit of works. Are you now agreeing that it's based on some works? And then he goes on to say this right here.

37:37

It's not based on faith alone. So it's not faith alone. It's not works alone. He says it's based on hearing the word, believing the word, developing faith, repenting of past life, and being baptized into Christ.

37:53

Developing faith really stuck out to me. Like this is what, this is how salvation works. Developing faith.

37:58

Like here's the, this is the, this is my, if you don't hear anything I say to you, church of Christ person, if I embellish everything else and everything else

38:05

I'm saying is a lie, I'm telling right here, this is the truth. So listen to this one. He says that you have to be developing faith in order to be saved.

38:13

It's not the amount of faith that saves you. It's the object of your faith that saves you. And the object of your faith is

38:19

Jesus Christ. And if your faith is not in Christ alone, you are not saved. You cannot play a part in your salvation.

38:26

Christ alone saves you. He is the object of your faith. It's not the amount of faith like Mark or I'm sorry.

38:32

Yeah. Mark Griggs says here and it breaks my heart for Mark. This is all he knows. And he believes it with all his heart. I'm sure he does, but it's just wrong.

38:39

And I have to, I have to tell you the truth. Don't, don't hate me because I tell you the truth now. Right. That's what Paul says.

38:45

You want to add to that? Yeah. So you said an important term. You said faith alone, right? Because I've interacted with a lot of church of Christ.

38:52

They're going to key in on that and say, Oh, that's nowhere in the Bible. Um, let's go to James two.

38:57

If you want to talk about faith only, and we're saying, look, we're talking about when we say faith alone, this has a historical context.

39:03

We're talking about justification by faith apart from works. And so that's an important conversation to have in this is justification, sanctification.

39:12

And you read another key phrase, developing faith. This is a slightly redefining of pistis, right?

39:19

That's what faith is. Firm trust. Now I do agree that we grow in our faith, but that belongs in our sanctification, right?

39:26

We're, we're called to repent and believe the gospel, right? We're to put our faith apart from our works.

39:31

Any, any accomplishments that we could possibly conjure up, that's not added into our responding of that good news.

39:38

Yeah. You know what this sounds like when I read this too, from Mark Griggs, I wonder if there's any church of Christ people listening,

39:44

I have a scripture for you. And I wonder if you agree with this, just listen. It says, if you deny yourself of all ungodliness and love the

39:50

Lord with all your might, mind, and strength, then God's grace is sufficient for you. Does that sound good? Do you like that? Well, guess what?

39:56

That's from the book of Mormon. It's Moroni 1032. And it's no surprise to me that Sidney Rigdon, who was a

40:02

Campbellite minister from the restoration movement, actually converted to Mormonism because Parley Pratt, uh, ministered to him and his whole congregation in Kirtland, Oregon, then, or Kirtland, Ohio, then followed and became

40:15

Mormon as well. Have you heard of that? That's actual Mormon history. Sidney Rigdon was a Campbellite minister who had his own communion offshoot.

40:22

That's where he disagreed with Campbell. But the interesting fact is, is it sounds so much like Mormonism.

40:28

We hear a redefinition of terms, developing faith, uh, were things that supposedly aren't works anymore, but are actual works.

40:36

I wouldn't be surprised, uh, if you heard me quote that quote unquote scripture and you agreed with it to an extent because that's, that's

40:42

Mormonism, right? Oh man, that's scary. So thank you for that. That's a very good, um, history lesson.

40:50

You can even go deeper into Mark Riggs goes on to say this post baptism, one must do their very best to walk in the light.

40:59

And if you have truly repented, why would you not desire to walk in the light? Two things I want to make a point here.

41:04

Do you remember how I read the first one? This guy says, um, that he was going to kill himself, right?

41:12

This guy will says, I was saved out of the church crisis 16 when I was about to commit suicide because I couldn't live a righteous life before God.

41:19

And they would say, they would tell you like, we don't teach that. We don't teach that. Well, you probably don't come out and actually say it, but the takeaway of your teaching is that, and here is

41:28

Mark Riggs telling you that after baptism, one must do their very best to walk in the light. There it is. Well, let me ask you something,

41:34

Mark Riggs, are you doing your very best? Do you fail short? I think you do, right? And if you've truly repented, why would you not desire to walk in the light?

41:43

So Mark Riggs, here's what I would ask you. If you truly repented, why do you still sin?

41:48

If you truly repented, do you see, do you see the bondage it puts on people? It's heartbreaking.

41:54

And I know this, this Mark guy, this is all he knows. It's probably all he's been taught his whole life. And he really believes it with all of his heart, but he himself is in bondage and he's putting other people in bondage with his teaching.

42:05

Yeah. Can I make just a slight note? Um, if you look to the first and second greatest commandment to love

42:10

God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, those aren't just suggestions. That is a law that you cannot fulfill perfectly.

42:19

Yeah. Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. Right. And he goes on to say this right here. If you're doing your best to walk in the light, you will receive the continual cleansing of the blood of Christ.

42:28

If you're doing your very best. Wow. Yeah. It's so sad. And like, again,

42:34

I don't think anybody in the church of Christ that I know would actually say those things, but this is the takeaway. This is the teachings that were at lead.

42:41

You see what I'm saying? And this is him actually putting it in paper. Um, so Clark, I, you need to get with AB mama.

42:52

Clark goes on to give you an exegetical example of how you're born perfect and you're not born a sinner.

42:59

So again, get with AB mama there. Can we just say that that's called Pelagian ism that you're, you're born perfect and it's your environment that corruption, right?

43:07

That's a, that's a heresy that's always been held to for a long time. Yeah. So this is the website.

43:14

Um, yeah, this was actually with now the websites, this is actually people on the cult of show .com. If you go to our initial podcast, uh, on the church of Christ, we have like a blog comment section and hardly anyone ever comments there, but for whatever reason, like everyone went to the blog, uh, like below where the episode wasn't our website.

43:33

We got a bunch of comments there as Right. Um, and I want to make this point right here, so I don't forget, maybe you can do something in the front of it as well, but we have a

43:42

Facebook page. We're just launching when this launches, we're launching it. It's called church of Christ exiles.

43:48

And it is literally not to bash church of Christ, not to hammer church of Christ, anything like that is to love the church of Christ is to have people who are getting out of the church of Christ who can come and be ministered to.

43:59

We already have people set up in there who can answer questions and talk with you through some things is for people who, um, just have major questions about the church

44:07

Christ, but go ahead. I was going to tell Jerry and Andrew that the reason why we really started talking about this is we've had so many people reach out to Trey and include me on those zoom calls saying what we're believing, everything that you said on that is true.

44:20

We want out, but we don't know what to do. We've had church of Christ preachers saying we, we believe exactly what you're saying, that it's not a part of baptism.

44:29

They're still preaching, but they don't know what to do from there. So we got to have some type of safe haven to help these people.

44:36

Because when you're going through like a rethinking of it, whether it's your theology or if you're in a sociological situation, whatever it is, um, like you, a lot of times you feel like,

44:44

Oh, I I'm the, I feel like I'm going crazy because I'm the only one who's getting this. So it's always such a relief when someone's having to rethink stuff is to be able to have somewhat of a group of like -minded people.

44:55

Cause there's a relaxed relatability when you say, Oh, you too. I thought I was the only one. Oh my gosh. Thank you for at least affirming me.

45:02

So I don't lose my mind. I go crazy. And it's, it's scary. You know, when you get out, especially if you're one of the first ones out and you don't have anybody or nowhere to go, you know, like you don't have any friends outside of it.

45:11

You know, a lot of times lose your community. Oh, you will. You'll lose your community. Family will shun you. A lot of these people in the pros comments, we're talking about how their family has shunned them and they're going through all that, which then, you know, the church

45:23

Christ says they don't do that. They don't practice that, which I mean, who's, who's going to say, listen, Hey, welcome in.

45:29

But we just want you to know, if you leave, we're going to shun you. Like nobody's going to say that. Right. Right. And so, so here, let's see here.

45:37

Where do you want to go here? Well, any of the websites or like the website, just people that, that quarter there, anything catches your attention?

45:45

Well, here's the pro one. Watch this. I like this one right here. There's so many of them.

45:50

Let's just do the John. Let's do John here. We'll skip this one. I'm going to come back over here to H she's a pro, but I'll come to her in a minute.

45:59

But here's what John says. This is a con I want to address this. He says all the new

46:04

Testament were written to the churches and the members of the church who had been saved by baptism obedience to the gospel period.

46:11

Like that's, that's heartbreaking to me. Right. Cause if I asked somebody, are you saved by baptism or by Christ?

46:17

Right. You should say Christ. Yeah. Like if you don't say Christ or Jesus, that should be a red flag.

46:23

But so this is what he says. And he says the gospel is you ready? Andrew, you ready for this?

46:28

I'm listening. The gospel is hear the word, believe the gospel, confess

46:34

Christ is the son of God. Be baptized for the remission of your sins and stay faithful to the end.

46:40

Then he skipped a step. He skipped repentance. So, but John here would say,

46:46

I mean, I don't know what I'm talking about in the church Christ. And he missed his own five steps. He didn't even put repentant there. I'm sure he would say that, but I mean, but just the fact that he says the gospel is what here, believe, confess, no repent, but repent, be baptized.

46:59

Right. Right. Stay faithful to the end. Yeah, man, the Bible says the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

47:04

And Galatians one states, if an angel, even from heaven comes and preaches a different gospel, let them be accursed.

47:10

He's making this seem like here, believe, confess. These are things that are actually, uh, not works of man, but works of God in a sense.

47:23

Um, and I would agree that there's a confession of Christ is something that takes faith, uh, believing takes faith, but these are all gifts from God, but he mixes in there hearing, uh, and then the baptism for the remission of sins.

47:34

And then the stay faithful unto death means totally different things than a typical Christian would when you say these types of things.

47:39

And this will always say is you gotta be careful, you know, discernment, you have discernment, right? Discernment is not knowing what's right and wrong.

47:45

Discernment is knowing what's almost right and what's not right. Right. Because the best lie you can hear is the one that has the most truth in it.

47:52

Right. So a lot of, there's a lot of truth in here, but man, the twisting did God really say that business is so scary.

47:59

John goes on to say, um, he says this right here, and this is what

48:04

I like to do. I just want to get people to slow down and think about what they're saying. Like if I was talking to John, when he says this, anything outside of the new

48:11

Testament gospel is man -made. Okay. Remember that let's not forget that. Okay. Yeah. Me, Jay, if anything, new

48:18

Testament gospel, anything that's not in there, then that's man -made. Okay. Okay. Christ has only one church and anyone can be a part of it.

48:26

If you obey the fullness of Christ's message. What verse is that? Yeah. Where'd you get that,

48:31

John? Like where in the Bible does it say if you obey fully the fullness of Christ's message?

48:37

That sounds like one of the LDS articles of faith. I know it does. Yeah. We believe that. So one of the LDS, what's the article of faith is that?

48:42

Article of faith number three. We believe that all mankind may be saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ by the obedience of the gospel ordinances and principles.

48:49

I was thinking the same exact thing. I know. But they're both restoration movements, right? Yeah. They're both restoring the one true church.

48:57

And then he says this, every example of someone becoming a Christian in the new Testament was after they were baptized every single one period.

49:04

That's man -made. That's not true. That's not true. And it's just, I mean, we can just stay in Acts and find that.

49:09

The Holy Spirit has come upon them. Why withhold water baptism? Right. It's in Acts. Well, how about Acts chapter four, 5 ,000 were saved by believing.

49:17

Right. Yeah. Then he says this, faith is an action word. No, it's not, John. Faith is not an action word.

49:23

What's faith? Faith is pistis, firm trust. And then he says not simply believing.

49:28

Well, that's pistou. So it depends on the context because we believe there is a type of an ascent to the facts, but pistis is firm trust.

49:37

And that's apart from works. Now saving faith actually works, but Paul understood the distinctions between those things.

49:44

So what you see here is... Faith produces action. Absolutely. Right. Which, you know, the guy that Jeremiah debated,

49:50

I called him up one day. Do you want to mention his name? Brock Kendall. Brock Kendall.

49:56

He debated Brock Kendall in a Church of Christ debate at Arkansas State University. You should go on YouTube and watch that. And then

50:02

I called up Brock Kendall to ask him a question for something he said in the debate, and the question he would not answer, and I can't wait for him to watch this, right?

50:09

Yeah. So the question he wouldn't answer, I said, let me ask you a question. Does saving faith produce obedience, or does obedience produce saving faith?

50:21

He wouldn't answer it. Yeah. Because it like... You really can't without exposing... It'll expose your real beliefs.

50:28

Yeah. And why would you not want to answer that, right? Yeah. That should be a red flag. And so this guy goes on and says, his children are innocent until they become of the age of accountability.

50:38

I just highlighted that because anything that's not in the New Testament Gospels is man -made. Nice. And he just talks about the age of accountability.

50:47

Yeah. I would say, John, that's man -made. That's nowhere, not even in the Old Testament, much less the New Testament. Tell the listeners just where in the

50:54

Old Testament do people try to get this from? Go ahead. We're in the Old Testament? Yeah. Do they try to get that we're of the age of accountability?

51:02

Yeah. King David. When his son passed away? Yeah. Just tell the listeners just how he kind of got himself there.

51:08

Well, so David has a son out of a bad circumstance, and he's praying that the son will live, and the son dies.

51:16

And so he says, look, I'll never see him again here, but I will go up and see him. So the takeaway is that this child went to heaven, and that David, obviously,

51:26

King David will be in heaven, so he's going to go up and see him again. Is that the reference you're talking about? Yeah. You want to add anything to that?

51:32

No. Well, with the Church Christ, and we all feel the tension of babies, right?

51:40

And I would say Scripture's not explicit with how these things work, but you know what the Bible does say? That we trust in the just judge of all the earth to do right, right?

51:49

And so a lot of these babies grow up to be rebellious sinners against God and store up for themselves wrath for the day of wrath, right?

51:56

And God's going to be just on that day. So I'm just saying this is a highly emotional appeal, and I think you've exposed that they break their own standard, right, of speaking where the

52:03

Bible speaks and is silent where the Bible is silent to formulate the age of accountability, which is nowhere to be found.

52:09

Yeah. Nowhere to be found. Man -made. Drew Dixon, Jerry, you're going to like this one. You're probably going to want to add some stuff to this one right here.

52:17

So before we get down to it, he talks about how the critiques do accurately. So the last podcast, he says, look, the critiques do accurately identify some hyper -fundamentalist sex within the

52:27

Church of Christ. But overall, this episodier drastically failed to paint an adequate picture of the context and background of the

52:34

Church of Christ tradition. Well, I didn't really do the podcast to give a big historical background.

52:40

Yeah, we're focused on the theology, and this one is too. Right. But I will, again, give you the website to give them as much history as they want and of the

52:49

Boston Movement and the International Church of Christ. So hopefully, Drew Dixon will be satisfied with that. He goes on to say this right here.

52:56

The episode did not accurately depict Churches of Christ as a whole and certainly does not reflect the one where I currently serve.

53:02

I don't understand what he's talking about when I just said, look, they believe you're born perfect. We talked about that, right?

53:07

I gave the verses of why they believe that, and here's why it's wrong. They believe that you have to be baptized in order to be saved.

53:13

Gave them the verses why they believe that, why they're wrong, and that you can lose your salvation. Those are the three points that we really spent a lot of time talking about.

53:21

So if those don't accurately describe where you're at, you're not at a Church of Christ. That's it.

53:27

But then he goes on to say this. I'll let you take this one, Jerry, because you had a lot of fun with this one. He goes on to say this.

53:32

You ought to do a follow -up episode with prominent Church of Christ theologians and ministers. Yeah. Well, here's the reality.

53:41

So Johnny Robertson— This gets me fired up right here. Well, the reality is we did. So Johnny Robertson was one of the most outspoken critics of our show.

53:51

He's got multiple times the thumbnails with him kind of priding himself like, I'm going to school these guys, and I'm going to go ahead and show them what's up.

54:00

And so there's plenty of times where he's going in public or trying to publicly refute us. Leighton, like I said,

54:05

Leighton, if you listen to this, love you, man. I really enjoyed the conversations with you. I will. As well.

54:11

Trey as well, too. But the reality is that we reached out to him, offered him to pay for him to come out here, to fly here.

54:21

We paid for his ticket, plane ticket. We paid for his hotel. We'd allow him to pick the moderator and do a moderator debate to actually discuss these issues hand -in -hand, because there's a huge difference behind hiding behind a keyboard and making sure you can allow all your yes -men to say, ha -ha, here, here, and think that you're good versus being a man in the arena.

54:42

Once we offered that to him, he declined. He backed out. So I'll say bluntly,

54:48

Johnny Robinson, you're all barking no bite. If you want to be a man in the arena, if you want to be a man in the arena, we'll pay for your ticket.

54:57

We'll pay for your plane ticket. We'll pay for your hotel. The offer's still there. Let's do a debate.

55:02

Let's ask these issues out. He was the most prominent person we chose him. If Johnny Robinson doesn't want to be a man in the arena, then we'll pick somebody else.

55:14

And that's great. You know, the funny thing is when you say that he was prominent, and I think he is in his area, but you're not going to find people agree even in the

55:23

Church of Christ. A lot of people say that he's not, because he doesn't have elders in his church yet. He's read something, heard something.

55:28

I don't know. Maybe he does now. There's some issues that he's had in some areas, and other areas probably love him.

55:36

There's all those type of things. There's somebody else that seems to be, and I hope this doesn't deviate too much, but Travis Thomas runs a

55:45

YouTube channel called Truth with Proof. You should check it out. Go check it out. We're some of his favorite people to talk about, and I've asked

55:53

Travis if he would like to debate on original sin, and he wants nothing to do with me or Trey anymore, yet he will take many clips.

56:04

Yeah, and that's even what happened, and Layden, love you. No hard feelings, but the reality is when

56:10

Layden initially came out to our church to initiate a conversation, I went out there to talk to him for the first time.

56:17

I was kind of curious, like, who's this guy? I think he mentioned our podcast in the sign that he was holding.

56:24

I can't remember exactly, so I was generally curious what he was talking about, and then I was in a hurry to get to church, so I just kind of wanted to see what was up, what it was all about, and he just said things that fundamentally made no sense to me, talking about how the

56:37

Holy Spirit is the Bible, and so honestly, I just genuinely didn't understand what, like, what are you saying?

56:45

Not that he had won, and all of a sudden, we had two gals there who had their phones up, and they went and parsed and clipped that, and it basically seemed like, oh, he has stunned me.

56:58

They won the debate, so there's a bunch of TMZ -style videos out there, and honestly, like, the very next time, like,

57:04

I called him out on it. What you don't see is a video that I have, and it's somewhere on one of my

57:10

GoPros of us talking for 40 minutes. That's the conversation that I would play in full in context.

57:17

That's something that they wouldn't play. They want to play games. They want to parse little clips and then try and give, convince their yes men that, oh,

57:25

I won them. I stumped them, but that's not the reality of the conversation, so really, what we would love to do is, like I said,

57:33

I mean, we're not attacking anyone's character here. It's just the reality. If you want to confront an issue, the best way to do it is in the arena of ideas.

57:42

That's a principle that's given in Proverbs, where it says one man seems to have an immediate idea, basically paraphrasing, until another one comes and cross -examines it.

57:50

Like, that's the nature of, like, God's law when you confirm things by two to three independent lines of testimony and witness, so really, the nature of public moderated debates is probably one of the most

57:59

God -honoring ways to be a man in the arena and to decipher these ideas. I had a, talking about the next guys, the next guy's

58:06

Jacob here, and I had Anthony Johnson. He had his own YouTube channel. He's gone now. I don't know what's going on there, but he called me and asked me a question.

58:14

We talked for, like, 30 minutes on the phone. Super nice, it seemed, you know what I'm saying? It's the first time I ever talked to this guy. I don't know who he is, and he was asking about when

58:22

I said about the abortion, right? If you believe you're born perfect, then you shouldn't be against abortion. I mean, of course, it's wrong, and I mean, you would say it's wrong.

58:29

You shouldn't do it, but at the end of the day, if our ultimate goal is to get people to heaven, you shouldn't be that really upset about abortion, right, because you're just pumping them to heaven, and so he's asking about that, and we talked for, like, 30 minutes, and then he sends me his

58:42

YouTube channel, which I didn't even know he had, whatever, and he'd recorded the conversation, which I don't care if you record my conversation.

58:48

I'm not going to say anything that I'm ashamed of, so he says this, right, but what he did is he took a 15 -second clip of a 30 -minute conversation and just looped it, looped it, looped it, and just kept talking about it, and I even emailed him, and I said, listen, man,

59:00

I don't mind if you record my conversation, but play the whole thing in context so people can actually hear it, right, and so here,

59:07

I want to address that here. Jacob says, so does Trey think that aborted babies go to hell? This person's information on the

59:14

COC is very weak. Okay, well, no, I don't believe that aborted babies or any babies go to hell, none.

59:20

That wasn't even my point I was trying to make. I was trying to explain the logic behind it, and here's what

59:25

I like. Here's H. She's in one of the pros here. Miss H. Yeah, so he's wanting to know, do

59:32

I think that aborted babies go to hell? No, I don't. I don't think any baby goes to hell, but H says here in the pros, see, she understood the logic of what

59:41

I was saying. She said, stumbled across this on YouTube. I was raised Church of Christ, and it's what drove me away from the church the first time and went to a

59:49

Church of Christ school as a child, so I was glad and interested that you raised the point about abortion under the

59:56

Church of Christ beliefs. Starting in third grade, I was wholly unbothered by abortion because the theology we were being taught basically said to us it was best case scenario for a baby avoiding a sinful life and getting booted straight to heaven.

01:00:08

The teacher obviously didn't like this, but couldn't contend against it. So you see

01:00:13

H here understood my point that I was trying to make. Yeah, it's the same logic that says people that don't hear the gospel go to heaven.

01:00:19

It's like, then why evangelize? Yeah, what's the point of evangelizing? Babies go straight to heaven, then that's the best thing you could do is avoid the whole life of misery, right?

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01:00:38

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01:00:59

So we thank you all for watching us and now back to the episode. So Penny Ellis, I really have to say

01:01:07

I don't know Penny Ellis. Yeah. I don't know Penny Ellis. I'm not even sure she says.

01:01:15

I don't know if she says where she went, but she says, I can assure you that Trey, you know, the brush which

01:01:23

Trey paints the entire Church of Christ is broad and greatly misuses, misses the mark.

01:01:29

No doubt there are churches of Christ that teach some of the things he mentioned. Well, thank you, right? I greatly miss it, but he's right on some of it.

01:01:37

She says this, I'm a member of the Church of Christ, yet I do not believe most everything Trey says about the

01:01:43

Church of Christ. Again, I'm like, what is it that you're born perfect? You have to be baptized, be saved, and you can lose your salvation.

01:01:50

So she goes on to say this. He kept saying that the Church of Christ people say this and say that, but they don't really mean it.

01:01:59

How in the world does he know that? How dare you? Right? So he said, like Trey says that they say this, they say that, but they don't really mean it.

01:02:06

Who is he to say that? How can he say that? And I would say, Penny, that you did hear that. I'm thankful that you heard that.

01:02:11

I did say that. I do mean that. And I'm going to show you how I can say that someone that says, you know,

01:02:17

I believe this, I believe that, but don't really mean it. Here it is. I'm going to show you why I can say that.

01:02:23

Your next sentence says this right here. I positively believe that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ. So let's pause and let's think about that.

01:02:30

Let that marinate for a little bit. Penny positively believes that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ.

01:02:38

Next sentence. I also believe, as most members of the Church of Christ do, that one must repent, confess, and yes, be baptized for that is the point at which we are washed clean from our sins and receive the gift of the

01:02:49

Holy Spirit. Andrew, do you see a contradiction there? I absolutely do see a contradiction. What would you say it is?

01:02:59

Sadly, you can't speak out of both sides of your mouth. And that's where the confusion comes from, right?

01:03:06

My question is, do you find it odd enough, Penny, that it's hard for you to actually agree with your church's teachings that you have to try to mold them into some shed of orthodoxy in your own mind, while then speak of something totally different at the same time?

01:03:21

It's a level of cognitive dissonance. Yeah. A lack of self -awareness. But it's something that has to be done because if you were to admit to yourself that, yes, you're not saved by grace through faith, then you are separating yourself from orthodoxy in a sense.

01:03:41

That's got to be a very hard thing to do. But the beautiful thing, though, about God, the beautiful thing about the gift of the

01:03:49

Holy Spirit is just like John 3, right? One must be born again of water and spirit.

01:03:54

And if you look at the Greek there, it's water and spirit as one thing in the Greek, not two separate actions.

01:04:00

Jesus referring to Ezekiel 36, regeneration, the washing of the waters of regeneration, the gift of the

01:04:06

Holy Spirit, not water baptism. So the beautiful thing about being a Christian is the fact that we are cleansed through Christ and his blood alone, not an act of me getting put into water.

01:04:20

It's just water. It doesn't wash me clean of anything. What it does instead just aligns me with the body of Christ that I have died with Christ in my baptism, a public proclamation of my faith that has been given a gift to me in which

01:04:33

I want to honor God in that sense. You're talking about sanctification. Penny, the gospel is not repent, believe, and be baptized.

01:04:43

That's not the gospel. It's believe and have faith, which is a gift from God. I'd like to add to this because she's alluding to probably a number of verses, but Ephesians 2, 8, 9 is probably the best one, that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ.

01:04:58

It goes on to say not of our works, right? So that's assumed in that statement. That's why we can say yes and amen to that.

01:05:05

But this is why it's a contradiction. So you get into the rest of the list, repent, confess, and yes, be baptized.

01:05:12

Okay. Well, the backside of faith is always repentance, metanoia, change your mind. So as you're looking to Christ, you are turning and not looking at yourself, right?

01:05:19

So there's a change of mind. This is not a work that we do. This is a category of the heart, right?

01:05:25

Repent and believe the gospel. And so the word confess, this is not me to say a correct prayer or proper incantation.

01:05:32

This is a worship of the heart. Once again, to confess Jesus as Lord is a life that reveres, honors, and worships him.

01:05:39

Humility, yeah. Because if we're going to be legalistic, someone who can't talk couldn't be saved. Well, that's what they're going to do when they look at Romans 10, 9 through 13, confess with the mouth.

01:05:48

And it's like, well, wait a second, what does that mean? Because confession originates with the heart of worship when you look at the semantic domain of the word.

01:05:57

And so here's the issue. And yes, be baptized. Well, that's a work that you do. That's why you can't say your faith plus your works, because we're going to be consistent with what faith and works actually mean.

01:06:07

So that's where the battle is being warred here, I think, is for defining these words properly.

01:06:12

Well, that's what all the battles of cults is, the battle of definitions of words. And I just want to point this out again, real quick for Penny, that Trey says that they say this and they say that, they believe this and they believe that, but they really don't.

01:06:24

And when she says to me, like, how can you, Trey, how can you really say that? I'm telling you, Penny, please listen.

01:06:29

Seriously, truly listen. I can say it because of your next sentence. You say that you agree that you're saved by grace through faith.

01:06:38

But then you say, but I don't really, because you also have to do X, Y, and Z.

01:06:44

And then when you do X, Y, and Z, then your sins are forgiven. And then you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. What that means is then you really didn't receive forgiveness of sins and the

01:06:51

Holy Spirit when you believed and had faith in Jesus Christ. Because see,

01:06:57

Galatians 3 says, let me ask you only this, did you receive, did you receive the

01:07:02

Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? How did you receive it,

01:07:07

Penny? How did you receive it? Whoever you are listening to this, did you receive the Spirit by anything else other than by hearing with faith?

01:07:13

And if you think you've received the Holy Spirit by doing anything else other than hearing by faith, then you're under a false gospel, according to the book of Galatians, God's word.

01:07:23

Because they will say, oh, it says works of law there. That's not Paul's point. You could put anything in that box. I don't care, climb a tree and drink a glass of milk, it doesn't matter.

01:07:32

What did Walter Martin say that we have to scale the language barrier? We have really defined terms, and so that's what we've had to continuously do.

01:07:41

What do you got next? Well, Penny, God love her, I pray to God that we meet one day and hug.

01:07:49

But she says I'm also offended by Trey's categorical statement that members of the church of Christ just proof text to make their points.

01:07:57

That is such an egregious accusation. Would you like to say anything to her? Well, she goes on to say, just Google Francis Chan's teachings on baptism.

01:08:10

And so we're not trying to be mean when we say proof text. I've been guilty of that in the past.

01:08:15

I've been rebuked. I've received healthy rebuke and go back and I'm like, oh man, the context didn't say that.

01:08:21

But if you really are, and we're showing you and demonstrating that, then this is the most loving thing we could possibly do.

01:08:26

And yet we're accused as being enemies and hostile and mean, right? So that's not our heart's intent. And I love what you said, like we love the church of Christ.

01:08:34

This is our Nineveh. And a lot of times this is really hard. And we believe that God is sovereign and there are people that are saved in the church.

01:08:43

In spite of what's being taught to them. That's why we're doing this. So can I echo what you just said there?

01:08:48

Let me be clear. I said on the first episode, I want to say it again. There are people in the church of Christ who are Christians. There are people in so many denominations, horrible denominations, horrible, not even denominations, right?

01:08:59

Outside of things that there are God's people everywhere, but God will get his sheep and he will bring them to good pasture.

01:09:05

But they're there right now. And they feel the yoke, a weight of works and bondage on them. And I just pray that they come to know the true gospel of Jesus Christ, right?

01:09:13

And true, a good understanding of it, that frees them where they'll go back and try to get more people out and to teach the gospel and preach the gospel.

01:09:21

So, yeah. So that's pretty much the cons. I mean, if we went through all the pros, it would be a long time.

01:09:28

I just want to address some of the cons, you know? Yeah. And this is really good because, I mean, again, this is a definitive of just the situation.

01:09:34

In fact, you know, actually Dale Partridge just walked by and he was like to talk to us prior to the episode of how much he appreciated it because he's had people that he's interacted with too, who have come out of the church of Christ.

01:09:45

And one of the things I remember he articulated with me just kind of chatting a little while back was just the amount of burden and the yoke.

01:09:53

And I think, like I said, I think that there are people in the church of Christ who are Christian, who are gently born again, who love the

01:09:58

Lord. But the problem is with this isolated eisegesis with the selective passages, and you just see it as self -demonstrative, like all they have to do is open their mouth and respond.

01:10:10

You'll see how they pick and choose the different texts of the Bible, but like a big, a huge part of them are under this burden.

01:10:16

And like under this yoke, so almost in the same way we talked about it, where just because of the nature of what they believe about baptism, there's a lot of people all of a sudden, like now you're now all of a sudden, like struggling with this particular sin.

01:10:29

You're going back over and over and over again. Well, what was wrong with me? Did I not, was I not sincere enough?

01:10:35

And they have to be rebaptized over and over again. That's a normative situation in a lot of churches of Christ from people who have messaged me as well too.

01:10:44

In the same way, when you talk about the easy believism, like the same way with people who believe in altar calls, where they're like, you know, and again,

01:10:52

I'm not taking shots at people who do that, but there's a lot of people in that realm where all of a sudden they're like, well, what's wrong?

01:10:58

Was I not sincere enough when I did that altar call? Well, I need to do the altar call again, but this time

01:11:04

I'm going to be really sorrowful. I'm going to be really repentant. And then, you know, so all of a sudden then you're more dependent upon your salvation based off of that experience of walking down the aisle again, rather than the completed work of Calvary.

01:11:21

So something else that may help, because I've been in conversation with many church of Christ, because baptismal regeneration gets brought up, right?

01:11:29

And they say, we don't believe in baptismal regeneration. I want to say, I agree. Now, functionally they're doing what

01:11:34

Roman Catholics do, but they deny original sin. So what do they need to be regenerated from? They don't need to change nature.

01:11:40

So what I think makes more sense and what we can help scaling this language barrier, Andrew, is baptismal justification is really what's going on.

01:11:49

And Paul lays that out so clearly that that is by faith apart from any works that you could add to that.

01:11:56

So that's another huge distinction. Now, functionally they're doing the same thing that all the other groups that affirm baptismal regeneration are going on.

01:12:04

And even in my debate with the gentleman, the church of Christ, we went to Romans 8, talking about, you know, those who are in the flesh, the natural man cannot do anything pleasing to God.

01:12:14

And he looked at me like he's seen a ghost. Remember, you got regenerated folks and you got degenerated folks.

01:12:21

Yeah, that's not the term. Right, which is not the term. But the point is, he even recognized, no, you got to get into the waters in order to be regenerated.

01:12:28

And I'm like, man, I've talked to so many people that contradict themselves. And so the issue is justification.

01:12:34

Does that happen at the moment you have faith, when you have faith, or does it happen when you bring your works to the table? And then the question is, is can you lose your justification?

01:12:41

If you lose justification, then you were never justified, declared righteous to begin with. It's a declaration of something being done.

01:12:48

And one thing I just want to articulate that's just very, very important. This is honestly one of my favorite passages in the entire

01:12:54

Bible, not just as an apologetic, but just really getting a good understanding of what the gospel is.

01:13:01

And that is Ezekiel 36. And I just want to read this because even if they try and do a bait and switch and trying to find obedience versus faith,

01:13:11

I'll hear him talking about faith alone. And James White is right here. I'm like this. I hope I say this. I hope I say this right.

01:13:17

That's the dog there. He is. But anyways, Ezekiel 36, and this is what

01:13:24

I love. And when he talks about, if I can find it here, but Ezekiel 36, and this is

01:13:31

God talking. So again, they try and talk about faith versus obedience and say, well, don't you want to be obedient towards God?

01:13:37

And this is what takes place in Ezekiel 36. This is old covenant prior to Acts 2 38, just so you know, just, you know, yeah.

01:13:45

So this actually takes place by the way, John Jesus and John three is referring. So when he tells

01:13:51

Nicodemus, he says, you're the teacher of Israelian that you don't know all these things. He's basically saying, haven't you read

01:13:57

Ezekiel 36? I mean, if they did chapter and verse back then, but, you know, talking about the papyrus probably.

01:14:04

But he says, moreover, this is Ezekiel 36 verse 26. He says, moreover,

01:14:09

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the flesh of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

01:14:18

I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my attributes. And you will be careful to observe my ordinances.

01:14:25

You will live in the land of your forefathers to my people. But the important part is when he says,

01:14:31

I will put my spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my attributes.

01:14:38

So what you see is that obedience and the desire to obey comes about from having your heart of stone taken out, being put in a heart of flesh.

01:14:50

Only a heart of flesh has the ability to obey because God causes you to do it.

01:14:56

So the desire, and they would all admit baptism is obedience, but the only way to be obedient is to have a new heart.

01:15:06

Well, if you have a new heart to obey prior to going into baptism, like from your point, how are you doing a effort?

01:15:17

So how are you being obedient on your own to bring about something that brings about your spiritual life?

01:15:23

How is that congruent with Ezekiel 36? I would give a challenge to anybody who's a church of Christ minister.

01:15:31

Uh, you can message me personally at my email, Jeremiah, the cult of show .com. Give me your exegesis of Ezekiel 36 verse 26 through, uh, yeah,

01:15:44

Ezekiel 26, Ezekiel 36, this entire passage explained to me this, which came before acts 238 and John three, five

01:15:53

GS is referring to this passage in John three, five exegete that for me.

01:15:59

I really, how do you work? How do you make that work? I can give you, I can give you a video footage of, uh, a very well -known preacher from where I'm from who says, you know what

01:16:09

God wants from you. He wants you to take out your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. You can't tell me that this man doesn't know where he got that from, right?

01:16:19

Like that's, that's a very sad thing. Here's the other thing I want to, I want to point out. You mentioned baptismal regeneration, things like that.

01:16:26

And this is what you hear in the, in the, uh, church of Christ. You're taught so much in your life that you, you come into contact with the blood of Christ and the watery graves of baptism.

01:16:35

Well, I'd just like to say, can you show me the book chapter and verse for that? You know, because you speak where the Bible speaks and you're silent where it's silent.

01:16:41

So where in the Bible does it say that I come into the contact of the blood of Christ through the watery graves of baptism?

01:16:47

No, it actually doesn't. There's nowhere in there that says that. It's just not in there, but here's where I can show you where you come into the contact of the blood of Christ.

01:16:54

In Romans 3, uh, 25, I'll start with verse 24. You're justified by the grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

01:17:01

God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith, not by baptism.

01:17:08

You want to get a part of that blood is to be by faith, not by baptism. So the proof text though, is

01:17:15

Acts 20 to 16, which doesn't say, I love it. I love it. It's my favorite one. I'll tell you this.

01:17:21

Uh, Aaron Gallagher, uh, reached out to me when I told him I was going to be doing this episode too. Um, and then he wanted me to come on his show.

01:17:29

He sent me, he sent me an email, found out how he starts texting you. And then he shows you where all the things I was wrong on.

01:17:34

Yeah. And just, you know, too, I, he reached out to me prior to the recording. I mean, I'll just say it because he'll, he'll probably be watching this too.

01:17:42

Uh, he reached out to me. I let him know where, Hey, just so happens. I'm going to be talking with you. Um, I asked the audit of those comments.

01:17:48

I actually forwarded to him and then, uh, he went ahead and kind of gave me his thoughts on that. Um, yeah.

01:17:54

What did you think about that? Was there anything significant other than, you know, uh, we're not the IOC, you know,

01:18:00

IOC international church of Christ, but they are, I can give you the whole history on that. The international church of Christ, Boston movement came directly from the church of Christ from crossroads, church of Christ in Gainesville, Florida, get

01:18:10

McCain. We can go, we can do all that. Yeah. Um, but yeah, there's nothing significant. I mean, it's just like,

01:18:16

I mean, whatever, I'm going to go on a show. We'll talk about, I'd love to discuss whatever he wants to discuss here.

01:18:22

But, um, you know, he, he brought up, I asked him, I said, so will you raise church of Christ? When I was messaging him,

01:18:27

I have some texts here from him. Uh, seems to be a super nice guy. Hopefully it ends well with some good discussions.

01:18:34

But I said, are you, were you always church of Christ? He said, no. He said, well, yeah, I was raised church of Christ, but in my twenties, he went off, he went to a reform

01:18:41

Baptist church a couple of times it says. And I said, well, what, what was it? You know, he said, well, I just was trying to find a way around what

01:18:48

I was taught my whole life, but I couldn't get around acts 22. Right. And I said, well, let's talk. I would love to help you out with that because I love that chapter to be able to explain to me.

01:18:57

It's just so clear. So hopefully at me and Aaron, we'll get to do that. I look forward to that. Jerry, can we cover that proof text really quick?

01:19:04

Uh, just very, very quickly. So here's the verse. Um, and why, and now why do you wait?

01:19:09

Rise to be baptized and wash away your sins calling on his name. So Ananias is talking to Paul, right? And this is the proof texts.

01:19:15

This is where you get your sins washed away when you go into the watery graves of baptism. What we got to understand is Ananias is being obedient to the preaching of the gospel and the great commission, right?

01:19:24

He's, calling Paul to that. And so we got to ask the question, um, how would Paul have understood this experience?

01:19:30

Because he even qualifies how you wash away your sins. It's not his baptism. We're talking about Acts 2 38, 22, 26.

01:19:36

Okay. For some reason, my it's we're out where we've been coming all day. Yeah. And Ananias says, wash away your sins calling on his name.

01:19:44

Yeah. Okay. Now Paul gives a wonderful exegesis in Romans 10, uh, nine through 13, that, that the moment that you, whoever calls upon the name of the

01:19:52

Lord, that God raised Jesus from the dead, you are justified present tense. And I want to point out to people, when did

01:19:59

Paul call upon the name of Jesus? Was it at his baptism or was it before his baptism?

01:20:05

Because if you quickly go up in verse eight, so Paul says, who are you Lord? When the Shekinah glory of God was in front of him, he said, and he called him

01:20:13

Lord. And then, and then Christ said, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.

01:20:18

Right. And then he responds, what shall I do? Lord. Yeah. And this isn't just a generic, you know, people say,

01:20:26

Lord, Lord, on the, on that day, many people will confess things. We know Paul was actually saved. He was the real deal.

01:20:32

So this is where his justification began before his baptism. Wow. And it's holistic with all of scripture and testimony, because in John chapter one, in the prologue of John, which is the highlight to all of the book in the first 18 verses, it says,

01:20:44

I'll read it just real quick. Uh, one nine through 13, it says the true light, which gives light to everyone was coming to the world.

01:20:50

He was in the world and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him referring to Jesus, right? He came to his own and his own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, right?

01:21:01

He gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

01:21:08

So according with this, we have a holistic understanding of scripture where scripture actually does not contradict itself whatsoever.

01:21:14

What, what did, what did Paul do? He believed in the name of Jesus called him Lord. And he, Andrew, I just want to jump in because I know that Jerry's probably want to shut this down, but look,

01:21:24

I got to say this before we go. Here's, what's crazy when you talk about a church of Christ, you're talking about John, you know, you're talking about John one, you know, the crazy thing is when you go to the end of John, it says the reason this book was written was so that you may believe that Jesus is the

01:21:36

Christ, the son of God. And by believing you may have life in his name at the end of the day, they don't believe the reason the book of John was even written.

01:21:42

And it was written in 90 AD, way after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So that's the things you have to put yourself to sleep at night and think to yourself, man,

01:21:51

I don't even believe the gospel of John was written for the reason God said it was written for that. Whoever believes will have eternal life.

01:21:57

Yeah. Well, Layton was really have to jump through a lot, a lot of hoops. Uh, yeah, he was definitely having a,

01:22:03

I want to, I want to plug two things here for my church of Christ friends. Cause I do love them to death.

01:22:09

Um, again, I want to say, I know it's, it would be easier on my life and my family's life if I never said anything, but we do love them.

01:22:16

And I want you to understand that the true goodness of the grace of God. Uh, but I have a podcast called the parish reformed on YouTube.

01:22:23

So the parish reformed we'll have links in the description to the apologetic dog here, uh, on YouTube as well.

01:22:29

We do a lot of work together with church of Christ and other things, but also the Facebook page, uh, church of Christ exiles.

01:22:35

When you open this up, we're going to open it up. We have people there waiting. There's going to be questions. You can't just jump in.

01:22:41

I mean, you're gonna have to answer some questions. So we know we're going to vet you out that this isn't to argue debate.

01:22:46

This is not what this is for. This is for people coming in and you're looking for some, um, you know, help.

01:22:51

Yeah. And so you can, you can find me Jeremiah Nortier on Facebook. I'll add you as a friend. I'd love to talk through messenger.

01:22:58

Uh, also serve as a pastor elder at 12 five church in Northeast Arkansas, specifically in Jonesboro.

01:23:04

And you can find a lot of my content on the apologetic dog YouTube page. I love doing stuff with Trey Fisher and he's getting to introduce me to some of his friends like these guys here.

01:23:14

Yeah. Yeah. What's been awesome, ma 'am. So really appreciate your contribution, both in your amazing beard oil or build amazing.

01:23:23

Tell everyone the real quick, what's the name of, is there a website where people can get that beard oil at? Yeah. So it's bearded brothers at faith farms .com.

01:23:30

So you'll be able to find it farms .com. All right. We'll check that out. Yeah, it's definitely great. Uh, my beard smells amazing.

01:23:36

It's nice and shiny and full of glory. So, uh, definitely loving that for sure. All right. Well, so if you guys enjoyed this episode, it's pretty cool.

01:23:43

We're doing the followup at another live event. Uh, last time at fight lab feast this time at reform con.

01:23:49

Uh, so as always a program like this cannot continue without your support. So if you were blessed by the initial episode and you really enjoyed this one, perhaps it was challenging to you or you want conversations like this to continue.

01:24:00

We are listener supported. So please, uh, prayerfully consider going to the cultistshow .com. There's a donate tab.

01:24:06

Uh, you can donate one time or choose to become a monthly partner with us. Uh, all that being said, we'll talk to you all next time on cultish, uh, either, uh, on the podcast or, uh, at a live event and another reform con wherever.