Have Some Spiritual Gifts Ceased?

Hi, I'm Andrew Rappaport from the Christian Exhibit. Let me do that again, yikes. I'm all nervous for Justin here, that must be it.

Oh yes, I'm very intimidating. Welcome to Apologetics Live.

We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible. Meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr.

Anthony Silvestro and Pastor Justin Peters. We are live,

Apologetics Live here. I just had a little bit of a technical problem in the background, but you guys probably didn't notice that fortunately.

But we do have, for that quick intro that we had there, we will be joined by none other than Mr.

Justin Peters. And so I figured that'd be appropriate to get that in there. So hello,

Mr. Justin, how are you, sir? Andrew, I'm doing okay. I've got a little bit of a cold, so folks might have to bear with me a little bit, but all in all, doing okay.

COVID. Okay. I've already had COVID. Been there, done that, got the t -shirt. Been there, done that, got the immunity.

That's right. Hey, so for folks, this may be enjoyable. We do plan today, today's topic is, have some spiritual gifts ceased?

This is because if you remember two weeks ago, Justin, you were on two weeks ago and we had a gentleman,

Michael Salmon. He was chatting with us, kept inviting him to come in and he didn't.

But he afterwards, after you and I did a show, he ended up doing a response video, tagged me and I said, come on in and we can do a show.

And so we wanted to be able to interact with him, but before we do, there is someone backstage that maybe we can introduce folks to.

I'm not sure who this is and what he may have as a question or challenge for us today, but it says his name is

Anthony Silvestro. Welcome, sir. What challenges or questions do you have for us tonight?

What do we do, obey God or defy tyrants? You know what,

I'm repping my shirt from Cruciform Ministries. Love this shirt. And at the gym today, yes,

I do work out. It may not look like that all the time. No, no, no. Hold on. Be honest. Would you consider a workout?

Okay. Well, so my wife works out. You pick up this device and you sit there and you call people. It's a whole lot easier to work out when

I'm talking to somebody than to just run to nowhere on a treadmill. So my wife spends two hours working out.

I spend an hour and like 20 minutes working out and then I sit in the massage chair the rest of the time while she finishes up.

But today there was a young guy who was walking around with a shirt, black shirt that said unvaccinated.

And I'm like, wow, that's old. So of course I had to talk to him and a

Christian guy who has just been upset with all the nonsense the last two years.

And so he went out there and started making some T -shirts for people. That's neat.

So we were actually in the news segment that we wanted to do is, and Justin and I were talking about this earlier today, is the fact that anyone who's listening, anyone who's watching who's black, which we're,

I guess we're not allowed to say now because we can say black and brown people instead of African American. It changes every couple of years.

But anyone who's black who voted for Biden, if you want to know what he thinks of you, he made it clear this week because what he thinks is you want crack pipes because that's what he is going to have taxpayer dollars to fund.

That in my mind made it crystal clear what he really thinks about the people who actually voted for him into office is they're just a bunch of druggies that he doesn't, he wants to keep them on drugs, doesn't want to get them all.

He wants to keep them on drugs, help their drug habit and use taxpayer dollars to do so.

Yeah. It sounds like a story about the CIA and dropping LSD on the streets back in the day and possibly the opioids that we see on the streets today too with fentanyl and heroin because as a, as a dentist,

I can, I can tell you that when the media and other people keep telling you that it's all about narcotics, prescription drugs, that they're accusing dentist number one of overprescribing and, and, and pain clinics number two over overprescribing.

Most people are not dying of opioid of an opioid overdose.

It's fentanyl and heroin. Yeah. So yeah, very different story out there. Sure. And then we had this in the news today, the doctor who helped discover the

Omicron variant says she was pressured by government officials not to reveal how mild it was.

Hmm. I wonder why they would want that, but they've been doing that for two years now.

So yeah. Well, and then I thought this was interesting. I don't know if you guys heard about this. Joe Rogan has returned to stand up comedy.

Yeah, he, he decided to return to stand up comedy. And I, this one line from Rogan, man, does this really hit home?

This is some of the things we said two years ago. I was actually thinking, you know, Anthony, Justin, we should probably go back to some of the old episodes we did on masks and black lives matters and vaccinations and see how right we were.

Because we haven't changed our policy, but boy, it seems like CNN and the, and the left has all started to agree with us, but Joe Rogan nails it with this.

So Joe Rogan said this, you know, if for folks who don't know, Joe Rogan is a, a podcaster. Actually, Joe Rogan's podcast has more downloads.

They said then CNN, MSNBC, and Fox news combined. That's why they're afraid of them because he's giving a voice to people that don't pull the narrative and he's, he's got the largest audience there.

And so they're trying to get them off Spotify. They, you know, they went back in years and found that he used the

N word. It is kind of funny because the guy who, the author who put it out saying that he uses the

N word yet, they found that he used the N word more often. Um, yes.

So Mike Smith is saying rumble offered Joe Rogan a hundred million dollars to, to go to rumble. He turned it down.

He said he's sticking by Spotify for now, but this, this came in his standup comedy.

Check, just listen to this because there is, this is one of these hard hitting comments where yeah, it's, it's meant for humor, humor with a point.

He said, I've, I've used that word in the years referring to the

N word quote, but it's kind of weird. People will get really mad if you use that word and tweet about it on a phone that's made by slaves, unquote.

That is a brilliant point, right? I mean, they complain, Oh, that word's so bad because of slavery.

Uh, and yet what do we end up finding? They're not really so much against slavery, just the slavery that happened a couple hundred years ago, not a slavery that's happening today.

Oh, and certainly by none of the Hollywood figures or people like LeBron James who are using the manufacturing plants that act like slavery, right?

Going on in China and other third world countries. So yeah, so let's, before we get started with time, um,

Michael is in the, in the backstage before we bring them in. I just want to give a quick review. We got a review, uh, and you know, we, we try to make it easy to give us reviews.

Just go to love the podcast .com slash apologetics live. And that's how you can send us a review.

We got a five star review. Um, and Anthony, I know you're going to know exactly who this is from, but we got a five star review from grapplers quest and it says

Christ centered instruction and discipleship.

Christ centered instruction and discipleship from pastor Andrew met him in the summer of 2014 and he has brought me to the truth in salvation through Christ alone, saved by his grace through faith and not of works of, and not of our works, uh, for God knew we would, uh, knew we would boast.

He offered to help with us with content, countless book projects, uh, and love hope

FM radio ministry at your free radio .com. God bless this ministry and podcast community, all the glory to God.

And so that is a dear brother of ours, uh, Brian, who is with, um, now with love hope

FM. And so the, if you want to listen to that and, uh, my rap report daily is played on there.

Several of our podcasts get played on there. You can go to free your free radio .com your free radio .com.

And so, uh, with that, uh, I don't know if we have any other, do we get any other announcements?

I don't know if we have Justin, you, you got any speaking that you're doing before a shepherd's conference? No. Uh, I just got back from Texas, but, uh, no, actually nothing between now and Texas.

So I have some time to try to get caught up on some work. Well, that's a crazy idea.

Okay. So, uh, I will be, uh, we, the three of us will be at shepherd's conference the first week of March.

Um, so we will be out there and second week, I was the second, sorry.

Second week of March. Let me look on a calendar check. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's the eighth. Yeah. The ninth to 11th. So we'll be out in shepherd's conference in your

LA area. We are excited that they dropped a mask mandates indoors so we can like actually eat food.

It's hard to eat the food through the cloth mask that doesn't actually do anything. I'm glad they finally admitted to that.

Uh, I will be, if you're, uh, in Medford, Oregon, um, for an evangelism training that will be, um,

March 18th and 19th. So if you're in that area, we can, you can come look me up there.

Uh, that is pastor Kofi. Just we'll go with Kofi. A bond to a bond, a bonu

Kofi, if you're listening, just come on in and pronounce your name for us so we can have it. I mean, what do you say?

Kofi? Everybody knows who it is. I like when you say Vody. No, no, no, no, no. Maybe in America, but here's the thing.

If you don't know, Kofi is actually is. So the way it works is that you get, he was born on Thursday.

Everybody born on Thursday, his name is Kofi. And so, uh, that is actually a really common name.

You have a one in seven chance of being named Kofi. Wow. So, so there you go.

I only know one other person named Kofi. So, all right, so, and so after Shepard's conference,

I'll be in the Boise and Nampa Idaho area. I'm doing teaching from March 15th through March 20th at different churches and Christian schools and stuff.

So that schedule should be coming out here shortly. All right. Well, let us bring in Michael.

Michael, how are you, sir? Hey, my brother. How are you? Good. Good. Long time no speak.

Yeah, we are. Is it me? Or are we getting a lag from him? Okay. So let me ask you a question.

Let me adjust my, uh, uh, my audio to video. So let me check it out. Okay. All right.

Let me get this here. Give me a second. Was it, was it just me or were we hearing him before his lips were moving?

Yeah. Okay. Cause that would have driven me crazy for two hours. Unless that's a spiritual gift.

Right? I mean. How about now? Am I right on? Am I right on?

No. Am I worse? Hey, for the, for the audio podcast, it'll, it'll be great.

Okay. How about this? Hold on one second. So I guess Andrew, you have people to introduce me to at a

Shepherd's conference. How about now? Nope. Still not. Okay. How about now? Worse or better?

About the same. About the same. There's like a, a, a one second delay.

One second. Okay. Give me a second. Yeah. So I will introduce you to KT's family out there. As you put up that comment. Um, her, her, her, at least

I can recognize her sister, Wendy. I don't always recognize Wendy's husband, but, um, so,

Oh, Kofi is correcting me. Uh, Kofi, he's, he's promoting his podcast there,

Deep Dive Discipleship, which hasn't had a new podcast in a while, sir, just saying some of us actually look forward to those podcasts and that accent of yours, but he says he is born on Friday.

It's a Friday name. So can Kofi come in and join us? I'm corrected.

Kofi you should. Try again. Michael. One, two, three. It's better.

Better. Okay. It's like a half second off. Okay. What's your equipment that you're playing with?

You obviously have some fancy equipment and it's, I mean, you got your partner up there behind you.

One, two, three. No. That got worse.

It got worse? We'll just, we'll, we'll, we'll just, we'll have to just deal with it. All right. All right.

Hey, don't worry. I always have problems with my sound system and everything. So you're not the only one.

So so Michael, let's for the ones to catch up, you, you were responding via chat two weeks ago when we were doing a show and you, you and I actually met,

I stayed in your home. I want to say close to 10 years ago. I don't know, you know, eight, nine, 10 years ago,

I think it was for the Superbowl when and now you, is it Arizona you're at? Arizona.

Yep. Okay. That's what I had thought. So the Superbowl was out in Arizona. We were doing a Superbowl outreach. You kindly put up a, a lot of us actually,

I believe you, you had RVs in your church parking lot and you had several of us and we kind of invaded your home.

You had that big area, like a, like a, a kind of a big gym or what it was a gym or something to say.

I remember, but you put, you put us up and we had lots of conversations.

And so, so we do, we, we haven't seen each other since then, but after the show two weeks ago, you did a kind of a response video.

You tagged me in it. And I said, why don't you come on in so we can, we could discuss this a little bit more.

So why don't you just, you know, real quick, since folks may not know who you are, just introduce yourself a bit more.

Okay. Well, um, I should just put a mask on that way. I can sound without my lips moving, but, well, that is the way we do it in culture nowadays.

And it drives, for those of us who read lips, it drives me nuts because I can't sing. So let me ask you a question.

Is my audio better? The audio actually sounds fine. It's just not synced with your video.

Is my syncing a little better? No. Okay. Let me try one other thing.

I really want to get this set because this is very important. I mean, we have some time here, but, um, um, let me see if that helps out a little bit.

All right. Well, um, what can I say about myself? Uh, you want to know what I'm doing now?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we don't, don't have to give your whole life history. Uh, yes.

It'd be too long, but, uh, I'm a, I pastor Harvest Christian Fellowship. And, uh,

Phoenix, Arizona. I've been the pastor since, uh, let's see, uh, well, prior to it becoming public, uh, as we were in 2012, we were just a home fellowship.

Um, as you know, uh, you know, my story, I went to jail for 60 days for having Bible studies in our living room, having home groups.

Uh, then, uh, in 2009, I built that building in the backyard, in my backyard and our home group went from our living room into our backyard.

And we started worshiping in the backyard with like 20 of us, 20, 30 of us. And, uh, the city was wanting to, was wanting to convert our whole property into a church.

And we're like, this is my residence. This is not a church. And uh, so they ended up putting me 60 days in jail.

That was 2012. Uh, when I got out, uh, I did not know what God wanted me to do.

And, um, the Holy spirit led me. So there you go. There's one of the gifts there, the spirit of God just really led me.

And, and at that point I did not want to do anything and, and God just, uh, you know, moved me.

And in 2012, uh, we just happened to come across that property where we had those

RVs at, uh, for the Superbowl and, uh, we purchased the property.

We don't even know how it happened, but it just happened. Uh, then about, we were there two years, two years later, we moved into our current property now, which was like triple the size of where we were.

So God just had totally just transformed our small 20, you know, 15, 20 person home group to about 150 persons, uh, uh, you know, fellowship at harvest at, uh, where we're at now.

So I've been very honored. I have, I've been married 22 years. My beautiful wife, Suzanne, I have seven daughters, seven girls.

Yeah. And, and, and they, they, they rage in age. I remember when I was there, you're, you had a couple of really young ones that were, they just loved having everybody at the house.

We are very, we are very social people, you know, I'm middle Eastern, I'm Jordanian. So my, we are very social people.

This house is like grand central station. And sometimes, you know, I have all the kids coming and, and, and, uh, all are my daughter's friends and people that like to come over here.

And we always have a traveling evangelist or ministers who, who traveled, go out to the

Superbowl and other places, stay over here, um, who go out to the schools, preaching and teaching. Uh, you know,

I go out to the streets, uh, at least once or twice a week, I try to, uh, you know, with the signs passing out tracks.

So we're that type of, that type of spirit here, uh, doors always open. You know,

I think, I think you really should, you really should invite me out to your churches to preach through first Corinthians 12, 13 and 14.

I think it would be great for you after this. So, uh, so, so, uh,

I mean, let's, let's get into some of the discussion now that there, there was, there were a lot of different things, uh, that were coming up during the show two weeks ago.

And then in your, your, um, your kind of response video after, and I almost don't know where to start.

Um, but I, I'll start with this. I want to, cause I wanted to explain one thing that you brought up in your, in your show, right.

That I, we, it was kind of, it was kind of the reverse. I was chatting and you're like, there was a delay and you were trying to respond.

It kind of ruined your flow because you were basically saying something and then you were seeing my comment and then like cutting off your thought and trying to answer it and then go back to it.

And then I'm going to, so this is a much better way of, of doing it. Um, I asked you the question, cause you, you said you, you speak in tongues, correct?

Absolutely. Okay. And I asked you which languages you speak. And so what was your response with that language?

When you're talking about language, uh, I speak English. I said English and, uh, Middle Eastern Jordanian Arabic.

Uh, then when I think what you're referring to is when I said I speak in tongues, uh, you asked me what language

I was speaking when I spoke in tongues and I said it wasn't an actual physical language or language that's perceivable to humans.

At least I don't believe so. Um, but I believe, uh, it is a spiritual language.

I don't know what it is. My mind is not, does not comprehend it, but my spirit does.

And I feel in my heart, something just really edifies what

God is, is wanting to say to me or do in my life. So if that's, that's kind of where we were at.

Yeah. So do you know, I mean, is there anywhere in scripture where there's a language, it's not a known human language?

I mean, can you point somewhere in scripture where we would have some language that we don't know?

That'd be my first question. A second question is, can you point anywhere in scripture where we have a spiritual gift that's not used for the body of Christ?

Um, yes, yes. I think there is. Um, well there has been some debate over, uh, for example, uh, first Corinthians chapter 13, some people have debated whether or not, uh, if I speak in the tongues of men or in the tongue of angels, uh, there's been some out, you know, debate on whether or not, uh, the tongues of men, which would mean the regular language of, of, of a person, you know, of human language or in the tongue of angels, meaning the speaking of tongues.

Uh, so you can look at it both ways, um, where I would look at it in a way saying, well, here's the tongue of men as of human language and the tongue of angels as in the spiritual language.

Um, so that's one where that kind of shows that there is a different language. Another, uh, would be as the apostle

Paul said, I believe it's in first Corinthians 14, um, where he says, well,

I will pray in tongues. I will pray, uh, in the spirit, even though my mind is unfruitful.

I don't know what I'm saying, but my spirit is edified. Uh, so I don't know what he's, he doesn't know what he's saying.

He doesn't understand it in human perspective, but his spirit is edified.

Um, so, and that it's, he's not understanding what he's saying, but he knows that his spirit is being edified.

Um, did that kind of answer both of your questions? Let me start with the first one. Um, but answer the, it was answered the first question.

Let me just put some scripture up here. Um, this is, this is first Corinthians chapter 13, verse one.

Um, and I guess I'm just moving around to see how it looks on that. Um, all right. So if we, if we look at this, uh, it says, if I speak, and this is what, this was really hard for me to communicate to you when

I'm doing it in chat, but so, so it says here if right to, so right off the bat, it's not, he's not saying he does this.

He's saying, if, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love,

I become a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. Okay. So, so the question there is, cause you had said you speak in the language of angels, which is the thing that I find,

I ask, the question I asked you was a question I ask everyone who says they have the gift of, of tongues or languages.

They all say they speak in angelic language. Well, I think we need, before we look at that, the word

Ehan in the Greek, you need to say, if I speak with the tongues of men, there's no, if there, he says, though I speak and the great, the better interpretation is though, because he does speak in the tongues of men.

He does speak in the language of men. So that's a given. It's not, if he does, he definitely does.

And he definitely does of angels. So this is definitely a clear, if I, or though I speak with tongues of men.

So there's no, if I speak, it's definitely, he does, right? Well also speak with the tongues of men.

The this is, so when we have in Greek, there's four different conditional clauses, right?

In this context, Andrew, my brother, he definitely does speak in the tongues of men.

Oh, I would, I would say this and I'm going to, I'll, I'll prove it in verse two. My point is that he's exaggerating.

Verse two. Yeah. That could be a different, different thought, but in the very first. Oh no, it's exactly.

Yeah. Well, let me, let me finish and maybe it'll make sense to you. I think it's the same exact thought.

Okay. I think what he's doing here, I'll let you complete your thought and then

I will kind of. Okay. The focus here I think is love. Love is greater than a gift of tongues or languages.

Love is greater than a gift of prophecy. And so he uses an, a, you know, an illustration here to say, or an exaggeration of something he does do speak in the language of men.

And then an exaggeration, a language of angels. This isn't saying he does speak in a language of angels.

Well, why wouldn't it be, I'm just, why wouldn't it also be an exaggeration of the tongues of men?

I mean, where did you put in the word exaggeration? You just put that in there.

Yeah. I mean, I'll get to that. But I'm just wondering, are you wanting to make sure your theology is not being inserted into the actual text?

No. I mean, so let's, let's, let's walk through this and see, he's saying he's, this is, this is a conditional.

That's not saying a, therefore it's saying if, so he's saying if he, if he speaks in the language of men and a language of angels, but does not have love, he's nothing but a noisy symbol.

But then look at verse two, if I have a gift of prophecy, which he had, right.

But then we have the exaggeration. And if I know all mysteries and all knowledge and have all faith, sort of remove mountains, but have not love,

I'm nothing. Now if he understood, if, if he, in the context, you have to see it the same way.

So if he, if it is that he's speaking the language of angels, then he's also has all knowledge.

There's only one being that has all knowledge. And so if that is, if, if we make the case, you're saying with that thought, would you also go to verse three and say, though,

I bestow all my goods to feed the poor. And though I give my body to be burned, would that be an exaggeration?

Would the second though be an exaggeration in verse three? Yeah. If he's, if he, he surrenders his body to be burned, he doesn't know that he's, that that's going to happen.

Okay. But would you say that's an exaggeration? Like that would not happen? Well, and, and the, the exaggeration

I would argue may be found in some of the earlier manuscripts, which would read, and I surrender my body that I may boast to be burned.

And that would be an exaggeration in his case, because he wouldn't boast to do that. Okay. Well, I don't,

I don't know all the extra stuff. I don't know what you're saying on this one.

To surrender. I get that. I get that. My body, I don't know about the boasting part to be burned.

Okay. To be set on fire. That's pretty clear. So I'm just saying, I think we need to be very consistent.

Yeah. And I'm, I'm trying to be consistent and I'm now, so here's the thing. What's the focus of all three of those verses?

It's not, it's not on the, the language of angels or of men.

It's not on the, the knowing all things. It's not on him surrendering his body.

The focus on all three of these is on love and love being a priority over these other gifts.

Yeah. Right. And so to make something a literal that's, that's actually an illustration is a, is a wrong hermeneutic, right, right, right off the bat.

We're trying to make something that it's, it's not meant to be literal.

And if it is meant to be literal, then you, if you're going to be consistent, then

Paul is saying he could be God, that he's omniscient. Well, I don't know.

First of all, why you brought it up? Because I mean, we are talking about the gifts of the spirit.

So in context, we're talking about, you know, I brought up 13 .1 don't,

I don't, I don't mean like why you brought it up, but we were, why this would even change anything.

I mean, prophecy is definitely a gift. And though I have prophecy and understand all mysteries,

I think that's where you're, where you're trying to say that he would be God because he would say, understand all mysteries and all knowledge.

All knowledge. Oh, I have all faith. I get it. I understand what you're trying to say.

And I think that through the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul or the spirit of God is telling us through that scripture is really, it doesn't matter what you have and who you are.

If it's not bathed in love, it means absolutely nothing. That's the context.

Wouldn't you agree? I would, I would agree with that. Okay. But see, the reason I bring it up is because if someone says they have the gift of languages, we can test that if it's a human language.

But if someone is going to do something where, and I'm going to argue that I believe many who, many in the

Karismatic movement are just, and I don't, you know, Michael, I don't mean this as an offense to you.

And I don't think you're going to take it as an offense. I think you understand our differences. But I think that people are deceived in thinking, well, this is something that's a spiritual thing and therefore

I don't have to understand it. And it's an angelic language, but there's no text of scripture that says that we do speak angelic languages.

And the, and that's the reason I had that follow -up question is if it, if we do speak some angelic language, how does that benefit the church?

It doesn't. Well, I think, I think, let's just stick on 13 for a moment.

There's nothing on there that's exaggerated. The apostle Paul didn't give anything that is exaggerated here.

I mean, he's not saying though, if I had a laptop computer or though I can swim the

English canal or if I can fly over mountains, he's using things that are real.

Though I can speak of tons of men and of angels and not have love, I'm nothing. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all, and of course the word all, which would mean any or poss, okay, always or any or all, any, every or the whole, either way, knowledge.

And though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, right? Jesus said, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can tell this mountain to move and it shall be moved, scriptural, even though I haven't moved many mountains.

But there has been hills in my life that have been changed. And not have love, I'm nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, I have not love.

It profits me nothing. So there's nothing that's exaggerative, so exaggerative that he's saying, look, this is,

I can have knowledge, prophecy, wisdom, mystery. I can feed the poor.

I can give my body to be burned. I can speak with tons of men and I can speak with tons of angels.

It doesn't matter if it does not have love. It means nothing. Well, I, I agree that if it doesn't have love, it means nothing.

But are you saying that Paul had the ability to have all knowledge? Well, he's not saying that again, the context here is love.

And I think what you and I are talking about is, is the tongue of angels real?

And the answer is yes. And is the gifts of prophecy and understanding and mysteries and knowledge real?

Yes. Is faith real? Yes. Is given to the poor real? Yes. Is giving your body to be burned real?

Yes. So you can't say all, all of this, you can't say all of this is real except for the tongues of angels.

That's not real. All right. Well, you say that, you know, an angels may have a language, but you're saying

Paul can speak that language. Well, let's go, let's go to your next, the next question is, well, hold on, let me just finish.

Can Paul speak the language of angels? Well, you asked, you asked me, is there anywhere where there is a language that is not of men and you know, like a regular language?

And I said to you, well, here's one is first Corinthians chapter 13, verse one.

And the other coincide one, one that sits next to it would be chapter 14, where it says in verse, we can look at,

I'm just going to shoot this one out. Maybe a verse four, verse two, sorry. For he that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not unto men, but unto

God, for no man understands him. See, no man understands him, but in the spirit, he speaks mysteries.

So if it says he speaks for he that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not unto men, but unto

God, we have to accept that, that a person who speaks in this unknown tongue speaks not unto men, for no man understands him.

And no man means there's not a person who may understand him, but the spirit speaks mysteries.

Well, okay. Let's, let's continue with the context though, verses three and four. Okay. So that's going to be one her, okay.

Um, but he, but he that prophesies speaks unto men to edify and exhort and comfort.

He that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself, but he that prophesies edifies the church.

Okay. So, so is there anywhere in scripture, cause, cause you're going to say that this is proof, right?

That we, we can speak and not know what we're speaking. That's your case. I would argue that what he's saying here is that, slow down, say that last statement one more time.

Okay. You would say here that he's, he's speaking that when he says he speaks of a tongue, he doesn't know what he speaks.

That's not what I said. That's what he said. Okay. Well, right. The way you're interpreting this versus the way

I'm going to interpret this. Andrew, look at it. For he that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not unto men, but unto

God. So he understands how bit in the spirit he speaks mysteries.

All right. So in verse four, it says the one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself. That's right.

Okay. Is self edification a biblical principle or is, or is that something that we see that's demonic?

Ooh, self edification. Um, that's,

I mean, in, in what sense, like when we pray to the Lord and when we read our scriptures, are we not edified by the word?

Like when we pray or when we read his word or we spend time in worship, are we not edified?

I mean, we're not, you're adding the word self edification, but no, I'm okay.

Edifies himself is self edification. Okay. So the whole, the whole contrast, the contrast of verse four,

I'm not having it up on screen enough. Sorry. Is it's a contrast between tongues speaking in tongues versus prophesying edifying self versus edifying the church.

So that's the contrast there, right? So, so if it, can you show a point where God's gives us gifts to edify ourselves and not the church?

Because what I'm going to argue is what he's saying here, let me explain what he's arguing.

I think what he's arguing is that the people who are, who are speaking in a tongue where no one knows what it is,

I think he's condemning that exact behavior. Okay. Well, let's, I'm, cause he's saying the whole thing is it doesn't sat, it doesn't satisfy what a spiritual gift does.

It's not edifying the church. So you placed, you place that obstacle. Let's talk about that obstacle.

Your last comment was that you think the apostle Paul is condemning or is coming against someone who is edifying themselves, correct?

Because they're being set, there's edifying themselves when they speak in tongues, well, in the tongues that is being done and mostly what's being done, you know, in our, in, in the 20, 21st,

I mean, we haven't seen tongues since the 20th century, right? 1905 is when that became popular within Christian circles.

Obviously it was very popular, you know, in the occult and cultic circles and Hindus that speak in ecstatic languages.

But we didn't see it within Christianity. But what we now, what we see is a bunch of people that speak a gibberish that they claim is angelic and spiritual, and they're not edifying the church at all.

They're doing exactly what, what I would say Paul is condemning here. They're not, the, the focus is on, you know, on what they are getting, like, you know, cause

I've been in the circles where people try to outdo each other spiritually. I have this gift, I have that gift. Paul condemns that in chapter 12.

In chapter 13, he condemns the fact that people aren't showing love to one another. Love is what matters more.

And in here he condemns the way people are practicing this with, where people are just looking to edify self and not using the gifts the way they're designed to be made, to be used, which is for the church.

Every other spiritual gift is, is used in the purpose for the body of Christ, the church, not self.

And, and, and so here, here'd be another thing I'm curious of, and I don't know if we, you know, cause

I know Justin may have questions too, and I'm going to take it up a lot of the time. Well before you jump to, to that question or that statement, you would have to, you would have to hurdle a lot of things that the

Apostle Paul says. For example, you would have to hurdle all of 14, majority of it, which talks about that if you speak in tongues and there is no interpreter to be silent and to pray between you and God.

You would also have to hurdle where he talks about in Ephesians six, to pray in the spirit.

You'd also have to hurdle where the Apostle Paul says, I will speak, I will pray and sing in regular language and in the spiritual language.

You want to know why I wouldn't, I wouldn't have to do that? Because I understand that in the book of Corinthians that you're, it seems like you're treating first Corinthians 14 as an instruction manual, not a corrective where every other chapter of this book, the entire book is corrective, corrective of things they're doing wrong and he's correcting them.

So, so this is going to be similar with that where he's correcting a wrong behavior they're doing with the gifts.

You couldn't, you can also agree that he doesn't say, do not pray in the, in tongues or do not deal with certain things that he does say, do not do.

No, but he, because at that time that he's still writing this, the gift of tongues still continued at that day.

It hadn't stopped. I understand. But he also talks to this, to the Ephesians on praying in the spirit.

And he also talks about, I will sing in the spirit and I will sing in my regular language.

So he's not saying do not do that. He emphasizes that he still does it and even says, like we just read,

I would, I would that you all spoke with tongues rather that you would prophesy.

Okay. So he's not saying that. No, do not. He says, I would not, I would not you speak in tongues, but he said,

I would like that you all spoke in tongues, but it's better that you speak in a known language.

And I agree with him and I believe it for the edifying of the church. That would be, that would be great.

I mean, everyone has the gift of tongues, some people have it. Some people don't. Well, yeah.

And that's coming with all the gifts, but, you know, and here's an interesting thing. So Jim Osmond and I do a podcast called

Andrew Rapwort's Rap Report. And we recently did it. We're, we're going through basically the doctrinal statement of striving fraternity, going through the theology very slowly, methodically looking at all that's behind a doctrinal statement.

We just finished up the, the person of the Holy Spirit. And in doing that, we looked at some of these issues that come up with the charismatic gifts

And I think Jim brought up a really good point. That is something where what we see in, in every church, everywhere, we see all these other gifts, teaching, giving, exhorting, mercy, all those gifts are in every church.

Why is it that these gifts seem to only be in a certain group of churches? If God is giving this gift, why is he not giving it to every church as he says he would do with spiritual gifts?

Because I think. And that'll be, that's going to be my last question. I'm going to hand it over to Justin. All right.

It's okay. It's all right. So in our church, we believe in the full gifts of the spirit, the

Holy Spirit. He is the Lord. He is, he's God. He moves through us.

His spirit abides in us and through us. I, we teach when it comes down to being in the church body, the main purpose of being there corporately as a body of Christ is the edification of one another, the edification, the whole sole purpose of the church being there is to edify one another.

I think you and I, we are in agreement, in agreement with that, plus to worship our

Lord. We're there to serve and to worship corporately, corporately as a body, to give

God the glory and honor, to partake of the sacraments, to remember who we are and what we are.

We in first hold abide by the gift of tongues. If someone has a gift of tongues, we do not hinder it, nor do we quench it or put it down.

But if there's no interpreter, they are to keep silent. We have had people in the church who's been very charismatic.

They've walked into the church and been praying. And then next thing you know, they're praying in tongues and, and they continue and it disrupts the service where we almost have to kind of during praise and worship kind of slow things down and kind of, you know, just let things kind of fade away.

So I think a lot of people, a good church, a good disciplined church, a good disciplined fellowship and a good pastor or bishop will learn that the speaking of tongues, if there's no interpretation, a person must keep silent.

That is a problem. That's probably why you're not seeing it. And of course, you know, as well as I, whatever circles you go to or wherever you're invited, that's where what, you know, people know who you are, you know.

So, Justin, I wanted to, you know, to give you a chance here to to respond as well and to ask some questions.

I mean, I know a lot of the questions directed two weeks ago were directed at you, but. I love you,

Justin. Well, thank you, Michael. So I know this is kind of backtracking a lot, but when you when you first came on in listening to what you were describing about your home church and all that was in the news.

Right. Was that really rang a bell with me that. Yeah, I was all over the news. That was you. OK. He was being arrested for having church services long before the

Canadians. Yeah, I remember reading about that in the news. I had no idea that was you.

But yeah, that was me. Yeah. OK. All right. You know, it is what it is, but praise

God. God was able to use me to spread the gospel even in the jail.

So, yeah, you know, that's that was a blessing, too. And, you know, during that time,

I think. I knew I was a lot what a lot of people don't know is when

I actually got out of jail, Justin is is I told God I quit. I said,

Lord, I'm done. I'm done. I'm tired of fighting. I'm so exhausted.

I'm finished. And as I sat down on the couch, I said, I just want to be

I just want to go to church. I don't want to. Preach, teach, I just want to go to church.

I just want to be a servant of yours. I don't want to do anything. I just want to.

That's all I want to do. And I sat down on the couch and. Whether you believe it or not, the spirit moved me.

Picked me up from that couch. I mean, I felt the Holy Spirit and I resisted.

I'm like, no, Lord, I'm not doing this. And he says, yes, you are. And I walked over to the computer and he says, type in churches for sale.

And I like churches for sale. And this one popped up and it was right next to our attorney's office.

I mean, right across. I've never I've been to my attorney's office several times and I never saw it.

And when I went there, I was like, what? You know, I mean, and where where you were at,

Andrew, where we had the Super Bowl. Part, you know, the thing, the Super Bowl thing there and the prayer and all that building that God gave us, he literally handed this over to our hands was just.

Remarkable, but yeah, I thank God, you know, and now I see the rewards of what I'm just I'm a big coward,

I'm a big baby, I really wish, you know, sometimes I think, God, I'm so I was all like, oh,

I'm going to jail for 16. Oh, I'm like, and now

I see the blessing. I'm like, I'm I was such a baby. I mean, even though I was strong, there were times

I was weak. And I think, man, I wish I was so much stronger.

Lord, I wish I and now I'm kind of like just when when people talk about persecution, there's a few songs that I I do not like anymore.

And those are the ones that call bring the rain. You know that song, bring the rain, Jesus, bring that one.

I don't know who it was. I think Casting Crowns or somebody sings, I'll bring the rain, bring the fire, bring the rain, whatever it is, bring the rain.

And and that though God will slay me, I will worship him. I'm like, God, don't slay me. I'll worship you.

I promise you. Don't test me. I don't want to go through the persecution. I'm I'm just total, you know, but thank

God. Amen. Yep, that's me. Yeah, I remember that. OK, well,

I think the day will probably come within our lifetimes that we very well may spend our last days in prison.

I used to think that was hyperbole, like First Corinthians 13. What Paul was saying there was.

But anyway, I used to think that was hyperbole. But I think I think that time is it's.

Yeah, I can see it. I can I can see it happening. You have children. Yes, three, three kids.

Yep. Two boys and an old. Yeah, old, I mean, old, but they're married and out of the house, so all of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, as well as I sometimes I think, Lord, if it's going to happen, let it be in our lifetime of some sort, you know, that I can be there, you know, you know, to kind of continue strengthening our kids and.

Yeah. And giving them that encouragement to stay strong. Yeah. Especially during that time.

But. Well, yeah, a few things, I do believe that First Corinthians 13 is hyperbolic, as Andrew was saying, and that if I speak, that is in in the in the

Greek and it's a conditional particle, but it the it fits with the overall context of First Corinthians, the entire book.

So for historical context, the Corinthians, the residents of Corinth before Paul came to Corinth were pagans and they were worshiping in pagan cults,

Apollinarian, Dionysian cults, and part of their pagan worship was to speak in unintelligible, ecstatic gibberish.

That's what they did. That was part of their pagan worship to speak in this nonsense, this gibberish baby talk, and one of the things that they used to whip themselves up into these frenzied emotional states in which they spoke unintelligible, ecstatic gibberish was actually noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.

That was part of their pagan worship. And so that reference there in First Corinthians 13, verse one, when

Paul said noisy gong or clanging cymbal, that would have been a very pointed, very direct reference to the to the

Corinthians. It was a it was a very pointed corrective to the

Corinthians, ironically correcting them for doing the exact same thing that we see in most charismatic churches today, speaking in unintelligible, ecstatic gibberish.

So, Justin, what if he did have love? Would his tons of men and of angels not be a sounding brass or tinkling cymbal, because I mean,

I speak with tons of men and of angels and have not love. But what if he did have love?

Well, Paul did have love, and that was the problem with the Corinthians is because they didn't. Well, they were they were very arrogant in their exercise of what they perceived to be the spiritual gifts.

They were boasting amongst themselves. Look at me. Look how spiritual I am.

Look what I can do. And and Paul was saying, as you rightly said, Michael, that if if what we know and what we do is not built upon a foundation of love, biblical love, doctrinal love, then it profits us nothing.

And but that's exactly the error that the Corinthians were making, is that they weren't doing what they were doing out of love because what they were doing was not biblical.

They had exceeded what is written per Paul's reference in 1 Corinthians 4, verse six, they had exceeded biblical parameters and they were confusing the pagan practice of speaking in gibberish with the genuine gift of speaking in languages.

And the real gift of tongues was speaking in known human languages.

Those languages are even listed there in Acts chapter two day of Pentecost.

There's like 15 or 16 languages that are listed there. And as for 1 Corinthians 14.

It's important to to notice when Paul uses the singular versus the plural, when

Paul uses the singular, he's referring to gibberish, the pagan practice of gibberish, because there's not there's no such thing.

There's no plural of gibberish. There's no gibberish is, you know, it's just gibberish.

And but when Paul uses the plural, that's referring to the genuine gift of languages, because there are multiple languages, obviously.

And so like in 1 Corinthians 14, verse two, for one who speaks,

I'll read this in the way in which for one who speaks in gibberish does not speak to men, but to God, and many commentators would say that could be a

God, not necessarily the God, but so one who speaks in gibberish speaks to men.

He's not speaking to God because it's just gibberish. Or does not speak to men, rather, because no one understands what he's saying.

It's just gibberish. But when Paul uses the plural. So what about the spirit? Justin, this is very, very important.

Because what you're saying is you're saying plural and you're saying singular.

But where are you? Are you talking about that? Where are you talking about plural and singular?

Well, where are you implying plural and singular? Are you talking about how the interpreters place the plural, like the same word?

The plural and singular of tongue. OK, where is the plural or singular version of tongue?

Because it's the same. It's the same word. It's the same. It's the same.

It's the same root word, but it has a different ending. OK, where is there a different ending in the

Greek? Where is there a different ending? I mean, for example, verse five, the interpreters or translators, he that speaketh with tongues.

But they put the S on there, but it's actually the same word.

So he that speaketh with tongues in verse five, the word S, tongues.

But then the word in verse four is the same word, but they didn't use it. They didn't put an

S. So they decided where to put an S and where not to put an S, even though there is absolutely nothing that indicates how to or when to put it.

Because it's the same thing. He that speaketh or he that spake, right, in tongue edifies himself.

And in verse five, he that spake with tongues, why they add the S, I don't know, but rather he that prophesied for greater.

So I understand what you're trying to say, but I want to make sure you're not adding the

S and the no S singular and plural just so that it can fit what you understand or what your theology is rather than what the actual

Greek is saying or what actually the Apostle Paul for the Spirit is saying. This is very, very important because I have seen and heard a lot of people adding their own.

Like, I don't mind agreeing with you with... So let me just put it up on... We'll save some time and I'll put it up on screen here.

Sorry. Okay. So just so you can see, I highlighted here the tongue, just the passages where tongue exists.

I'm going to move us to the side here so that we can see the... I'll remove the banner so you can see the

Greek underneath. Okay? So now that I've done that, I can print make this a little larger then so we can see it.

All right. So as you can see here... Can you guys look at this for a second?

Can you give me just a minute, Andrew? Okay. Justin, please, gentlemen. I'll be right back. Okay. That gives us a good time.

This is a good time for a commercial break. How's that? Because he just went...

I know what he went to do. He went to go get his pillow. That's it. That's what he went for. He went to get a pillow.

He probably wants to get a MyPillow, no less. And so this show is sponsored by MyPillow and they have excellent, excellent products.

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My, MyPillow. It just sounds... I wish they'd changed the company name, but hey. But they got a slew of products.

I absolutely love their three -inch mattress topper. That has been a great thing for my sleep and I strongly encourage you to consider getting one.

Go to mypillow .com and use our promo code SFE. That stands for Striving For Eternity.

Use our promo code there or what you could do is call the 1 -800 number that they have for us, 1 -800 -873 -0176.

That's 800 -873 -0176. Again, use promo code SFE to get all the discounts that they offer.

And they do offer a lot of discounts with the promo code. So you can get them.

If you go there, there are times where I've seen where we can get some of their products at half off.

They had a sale not too long ago to get their premium MyPillow for 60 % off. And so that's something where you can really get those products and enjoy them.

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This is a podcast. So you can go to just follow us in any podcast catcher.

Just look for Apologetics Live and that way you can find us there.

Another way you could find us, though, is just go to ChristianPodcastCommunity .org.

The Christian Podcast Community is a community of podcasters. Not easy to get into that group, but I guess since it's part of Striving For Eternity, they let me in anyway.

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So I encourage you to check those out. And so but you can you can get this show that would download automatically there.

And I do want to say, you know, we have this streaming at the bottom there. At the very bottom, it says join on Thursday nights to ask questions or offer challenges.

ApologeticsLive .com. Now, you know, it is interesting because we have a lot of people that don't know you can come in here.

We actually encourage that. We we try to have a guest where we have discussion or we pick a topic, have discussion.

But we we prefer to have everybody, you know, if you have questions,

I know many like to chat, but you can come in and actually ask the questions. So now that Michael's back and Justin is back,

Justin had walked off, but nobody saw that. We think he's back. Are we back?

Yeah. So so, yeah. So so let me put back on screen what

Justin was saying then. And Justin, I never you know, I appreciate this because I never had noticed that before.

But what I have here on screen, let me just get rid of the banner so we have more room.

What you see here on the top is the English and highlighted in in orange.

I guess that is is anywhere where tongue is. So there's so tongue or tongues appears one hundred and forty two times in at least

New American Standard. What you're seeing at the bottom, though, if you look at verse four and verse five, you can see two different words.

They have, OK, two different endings to the word between what is in singular and what is in plural.

And that was the point that Justin was was making there. So you were saying, you know, see it in the Greek, you're able to see here that these are two different words.

If you look on the lower part between verses four and verse five. Right. And that's exactly what

I was out. I got up to get my Greek New Testament. I was going to go analog and show you the the

I don't know if you don't see that. Anyway, I circled the the plural in verse verse two and verse four, it's close a singular verse five, though it changes to plural.

So in close size. And so it is it's a different ending. That's the plural ending. So that's why it's you see it in our

English Bibles as singular and plural. So let me let me ask you a question.

Even if if we were to go with. The glow, say or glow, saw.

All right, one second, sorry, close. Yes. OK, even if we were to go to glow, say

I would that you all spoke with tongues, but rather that you prophesied.

So you're saying glow says that the plural is what exactly the plural is, the genuine gift of languages, the singular.

OK, so why would the apostle not want us to speak in a regular language, but rather that you prophesy?

So why wouldn't he want us to speak in a regular language?

Why would not glow space also mean glow say, but in the plural, because that does not make sense if.

If you were to use it under that context, that the apostle Paul does not want us to speak in our language like I would rather that you all spoke,

I would that you all spoke with. Your regular language, but rather that you prophesy like that, but that's that is the whole point of that.

I mean, that's the whole point he's making when you read it in context is he's saying he'd rather people speak in their own language.

He calls that prophesy. Well, he said that you all spoke with tongues, but rather that you prophesied for greater.

But what is he saying that speaks with his own language? But that makes no sense.

Well, no, Michael, Michael, it makes sense because he says in in the context, he says it's it better to speak a few words in a known language than many words in an unknown one.

So so the point that you're making, Paul does make he does make that he'd rather people speak in the in the language they know rather than a language they don't know, and then compares it with this gibberish.

That's the point that Justin was saying. Well, and what Justin is saying, but again, my the context of this.

The context is so very important, this is why you've got to and I don't say you specifically,

Michael, a general you was what I mean. We let's put it that way. That's why we've got to understand.

Authorial intent and the original context, the original purpose for which a book was written, especially

First Corinthians 14, because it's just so loaded with historical context, what was going on in the

Church of Corinth and this was a corrective. The whole letter really is a corrective against the abuses of the

Corinthians, their sin, their all their infighting, all of that. I mean, the Church of Corinth was a mess.

And so Paul was writing to correct these abuses. Now, there's a few other aspects of this that I think we need to to get to, too, is that the gift of languages and I really wish our

English translations would render it that way. Languages, because that's what it was.

It had a purpose and the purpose is found in in chapter 14,

First Corinthians 14, 20 through 22. Paul says it tongues were for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers.

So the gift of languages had a purpose. It was a sign to unbelievers.

It was a sign of judgment. And we we know that it was a sign of judgment because in that text,

Paul quotes Isaiah chapter 28 and the context of Isaiah chapter 28 is judgment.

One of the signs that God was bringing judgment on Israel in the

Old Testament was that there would be a group of people in their midst speaking a foreign language, not gibberish, but a foreign language of a foreign tongue,

Assyrian, Babylonian. And when that happened, then Israel knew, oh,

God's about to bring the hammer down. God's bringing judgment. And this is this was the purpose, the function of the gift of the gift of tongues, gift of languages.

It was. And by the way, I think that that reference.

So, Justin, I think the question. Is you would have to.

With that type of theology or that type of understanding or exegesis on the text, you would have to have a problem with verse 14 and 15, because he says, for if I pray in an unknown tongue or a tongue.

Now, do you believe that tongue is what you believe that's the gibberish tongue or the language tongue?

Like, let's take a look at first verse 14 and is it getting is it getting worse?

Oh, is it? OK, good. OK, I know I know that, but you need to tell me, like, is it getting better or worse?

So I got my production team here. Is it your wife or your kids?

You're a smart man. Yeah, I heard I like her. I love her, too.

I liked her, too. She is worth taking home. So is verse 14 and 15

Glokesa or Glokasa?

What is it? Let me bring it up to you. It's on screen. OK, and I can.

That's it. That's it. That's the best I can do is negative 5, 950. So there

I put it. I put it on screen and I highlighted the Greek so you can see the

Greek there. But what is that according to your understanding of that word?

What's that mean? Verse 13 and verse 14 are contrasts. And again, this goes, this goes to authorial intent.

It goes to context. But Paul says, therefore, let one who who speaks in a tongue.

That would verse 13 is the is the one exception to the singular versus plural rule.

So that's singular. So Paul is saying, let one who speaks in a language.

Pray that he may interpret for if I pray. In a if I pray in a language, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.

I believe 14 is referring to the gibberish. 13 is referring to the to the genuine gift.

Because of the word interpret translate. OK, you can only translate a language.

OK, so so you see what you just did right there is you took the same word and you let it.

You just changed it just so that it can fit your theology.

You can't do that. No, he gave you the context. How is that you can't you can't interpret the gibberish?

Your first foundation, just like in any legal argument, you must create a foundation.

And you created the definition that tongue in the singular means this and tongue in the

S, the plural. Almost without except. But there the one exception is verse 13.

OK, so and that's why in verse 14, who decides who puts in that context decides.

OK, so if you look at the if I pray in. OK, let therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.

You're saying that's regular or gibberish. That's that's the genuine gift because of interpret which which is which is translate.

So someone who speaks in a tongue not know. What he's interpreting, what he's saying, because someone because the gift of interpretation or rather better said translation.

The gift of translation of tongues is a different gift than the gift of tongues.

There's two separate gifts. The one who speaks in a tongue in a language does not have the gift of interpretation of language.

That would be someone else. That's why I said let let tongues let languages be done by two or at the most three each in turn and let one translate.

Most English Bible say interpret, but but better rendered translate. OK, so has the

Holy Spirit moved you to decide to interpret it a certain way? I'm being

I'm being obviously facetious because I'm just wondering. You can't just decide to to put a word and say to us just 10 minutes ago that if there's a plural, it means languages.

If there's a plural, it doesn't mean languages, but it means that. But the yeah, the the general principle, what you see for the most part through this section is the singular and the plural.

The distinction between the gibberish and the genuine gift. But this verse is an exception because of two things, because of context and because of the word translate.

OK, so I mean, which fits the most three. Let one everyone is going to have a big problem with Chapter 14.

A large problem with Chapter 14 because they're going to have to figure out is it language is a glucose, glucose, or is it glucosia?

Is it plural? Is it singular? Or does it fit here? Does it not fit there?

And decide whether or not they want to or they don't want to, rather than just understanding. What the apostle

Paul is saying that there is a language that you cannot understand.

It's very easy. It's not really difficult. It doesn't take, you know, our intellect to understand that there is definitely something there, a language that a person cannot interpret.

That may sound gibberish to us, but our spirit edifies, is edified, and that can actually be interpreted by someone who has the gift of interpretation.

Because it does say later on if a person speaks in that tongue and there's not an interpretation to be silent.

But there is interpretation, so someone is speaking something. So the question is, why would

God let me speak in a language that I don't understand, but someone has interpretation?

Why wouldn't God just let me speak in an English? And let me interpret?

So, I mean, I'm not asking you that question because that would, I would have to, you would have to know the mind of God for that context.

But my point is, you really have to skip and jump and go under and over just to fit your theology that there is no gift of tongues.

Like, it's not a language. Because Apostle Paul says, I will sing. He even goes on in verse, what is it, 20, what is it here?

14, where were we at here? Verse 15.

What is it then? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the understanding also.

So obviously there's two, something there. You can't ignore that.

Like, what does he mean there? I'm just curious. I just really want to know your understanding of verse 14.

15, what does the Apostle Paul mean when he says, I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding?

What do you think he means there? Anthony, do you want to, I feel like, do you want to jump in?

Man, I feel bad. Keep on going. Once you guys get this done, I do have a couple of questions to ask.

Okay, well, yeah, Anthony, don't be shy. I don't want to be like, have to answer all these questions and have to go back.

You know, because I did that already with Andrew. Now I'm going back with Justin. Now I'm going back with Anthony. I mean,

I'm not going to feel like I'm being ambushed. Yeah, okay. We'll let everyone in the backstage on.

Okay, so let me ask this question then, right? Someone going to answer. First of all,

Anthony, let me ask you a question. Are you in the same thoughts as Justin? Yes.

Okay. All right, good. So who would like to answer out of you three and anyone else?

Who would like to answer verse 15 for me? Because I'm, I'm, I'm a type of person.

Look, you and I know I've been a believer a long time. I love the word of God.

I came to, to the word. I came to Christ. Yeah. I mean, so in my theology.

Yeah. I mean, let me, let me answer. Cause you go, I'm not just, I mean, cause we are limited in time tonight.

Okay. So, I mean, I think, I think it's, you know, the, the idea here, right. I have it up on screen.

Okay. Therefore let one who speaks in a, in, in a language pray that he may, that he may interpret or translate.

For, for if I pray in, in a gibberish, my spirit praise, but my mind is unfruitful.

It's okay. Right there. Is the apostle Paul lying that he doesn't pray in a gibberish or he does pray in a gibberish.

Okay. So, so, um, so one of the things you ask a question, you do this a bunch, right?

You ask a question, then you interrupt with another question. So it's hard to, it's hard to back all this up. Okay. I apologize.

So he's not, I don't think he's saying that he speaks that again, this is the adverbial condition.

Okay. And so, um, let me just, uh, cause I actually had this, um, ready for when we had the, the gentleman who was, uh, um,

I changed to see if I could change what I'm sharing here. This may help you. I had this when we were, we had the fellow from the church of Christ cause

I thought this was going to come up, but, uh, just real quick. Oh, that needs to be larger.

That's the church of Christ speaking in tongues. Uh, no, they believe in baptismal regeneration, but big argument that they make is based off of this, which are cessationists of anything.

So what? Okay. So, so this is just a simple thing with, with Greek is you have, what you have in the

Greek is four different classes of Greek and they don't always mean, you know, if the, in a conditional sense, the way that we might think of it.

All right. And so he's not, you know, the, if can mean, yes, it is something that is going to happen.

All right. But not always. It could be a condition. He could be saying something hypothetical. All right.

So what you have here is what's called the third class. Okay. That is this, this third one right here that you can see down.

It's probably not great to read, but someone can go do some searching on third class conditional statement in Greek and you'll find it out.

So what it says is it's here. It's hypothetical.

So, so you're, you're saying as, as if it's an actual thing that Paul saying he speaks in a tongue, he's saying it in a hypothetical sense.

And we know that from the Greek. Okay. And just, just so folks can see it, if, if you can see this, which verse you're at Andrew.

Well, so, so if we go back to our text, we're, we're in a verse 14.

Okay. If. Yeah. So if we bring up the

Greek here, the word right here in verse 14 is this one right here.

That is a third class conditional statement, which would be a hypothetical.

So specific situation in a future sense, we're only hypothetical. So Justin said that if I pray in a, what does that, is that gibberish or is it regular language?

Well, okay. So, so what we're going to do, I mean, you've, you asked a question.

Let's continue with that answer. Okay. Right. Cause we've, we've, we've said, Justin said that in this context of this chapter, the way

Paul's using it, Paul is correcting a gibberish language. So he's saying here, if I pray in a tongue, my spirit praise.

So he's, he's saying his spirit, what's he comparing the spirit to his mind? He's making a distinction between spirit and mind.

The spirit praise, the mind is unfruitful. What is, what is the outcome then?

I will pray with the spirit. So now we know the spirit isn't talking about the

Holy spirit. It's, it's speaking, it's contrasted with the mind and I will pray with the mind.

Also. I will sing with the spirit. I will sing with the mind also. So, so that should be the outcome.

The outcome should be that we can know what we're saying. We understand that the, the language, and it would be fruitful in both mind and spirit.

But if you're speaking in some gibberish, it's a, it's, it's mindless.

Well, I understand what you're trying to say. I don't agree with it.

I really believe that he's, that 15 is saying that I will pray as 14 and I will sing as 14.

So if I pray in an, in a tongue, my spirit praise, that is a fact, not a, if, or an, it is, my spirit does pray and my understanding is unfruitful.

So what am I going to do? I will pray in the spirit and in my understanding,

I will sing in the spirit and I will pray and understanding. So in other words, I will sing and pray in an unknown tongue and I will sing and pray in a known tongue.

That is. Then verse 16 doesn't make any sense. Otherwise, if you bless the spirit only, you will you, how will the one who fills the place of the ungifted say, amen, you have no way of doing different, different period, different subject.

Now, this is why he talks about why he doesn't wait. You're saying it's a different subject.

The word otherwise I meant was like in different contexts. This is why when we don't, this is why we don't bless openly in an open occupied room in the spirit, because no one understands us.

Well, see, I would say that gets back to what I was originally, you know, saying is if, if the, if you have a spiritual gift and the spiritual gift is designed for the church, but you're going to restrict the church from having this gift or you have a gift that's only meant to be used in, in, you know, your own personal prayer life, then it's not, it's not a spiritual gift because it's not benefiting the church.

It's something different. And that's what Paul says throughout this. He's criticizing them. See, I think if you take a look at the current charismatic movement, if you read this and you see that him criticizing and correcting a behavior, and it's the same behavior

I would say that we see in the current charismatic movement, you, then this does become very easy to just read and see what he's saying.

If you look at this as an instruction manual instead of corrective, yeah, you're going to have a very different conclusion, but the burden is on you then to say why all of a sudden everything he's done throughout this is all corrective of, of things they're doing wrong.

And this somehow is not this somehow he skips that and says, Oh no, you're doing everything right.

Andrew, when, when, if there is outside knowledge or outside understanding that we need to understand the word of God, would you think that there's a problem with that?

Yeah. And I'll tell you why. So then if that outside understanding, if you need that outside understanding, okay, every cult has an outside understanding to understanding the

Bible. So then why do you think I would need the outside understanding that the

Corinthians were going through this for me to understand the past? Well, you're absolutely this.

If I, if I gave a young, that's, that's called first Corinthians 14.

And I said to them, read for me first Corinthians 14 and they read it. They would come to the conclusion that there is a language that their spirit prays that their mind is not understanding.

It's amazing you say that because for 1900 years, nobody had that interpretation that you had until some woman comes up with it and says, look, we should be speaking in tongues.

Where was the interpretation for 1900 years, 1500 years before the reformation, the

Catholic church has suppressed the knowledge of the Holy word of God.

So there's nothing new that 400 years after that, once we have the word in front of us and accessible to humanity, do we now come to the understanding?

And why don't we have it in the second or third or fourth centuries before the Catholic church? And by the way, the Catholic church that we know of today was in until a thousand a day when it became what it did.

So the question still remains where, why was there silence with this interpretation?

Why did everybody read it the same way for hundreds of years, 1905?

Let me, let me say something. Let me jump in with a little historical context here. Not only, not only, not only was, was the genuine gift of tongues absent for 1900 years and still is, but anyway, but initially charismatics themselves, you go back to a man named

Frank Sanford, who is or was a, an absolute scoundrel charlatan.

I mean, he was a horrible, horrible man, but Frank Sanford and his cult started speaking in quote unquote tongues before Charles Fox Parham did.

Charles Fox Parham visited Frank Sanford and was impressed by their supposed ability and started doing it a year, almost exactly one year later.

But when you look at Charles Fox Parham and he's widely credited as being the father of American Pentecostalism.

When you look at their history, Charles Fox Parham is as much of a scoundrel he himself was.

I mean, he claimed he had a device that would turn rocks into gold and he claimed to know the location of the

Ark of the Covenant and he raised money for all this garbage and, you know, it was obviously a sham, but anyway,

I mean, that's who he was. He was a sham and he's a reciprocodemy, but whatever. Initially they thought, he thought and taught that the gift of tongues was speaking in a known language, just not known to the one speaking it.

And so in other words, generally speaking, he had the right theology of the gift of tongues, even though he didn't understand the purpose for which it was given, but he did understand that the real gift of tongues was speaking in a known human language, just not known to the one speaking it.

And they were so convinced that their followers would be given this gift that Charles Fox Parham, he and his group of his followers, he divvied them up into three different boats, basically.

One went to China, one went to India, one went to Japan. And they fully believed that after they got to those destinations, then

God would give them the gift, the supernatural ability to speak in a foreign language, whichever, you know,

Chinese, Japanese, or, you know, whatever dialect of India that they landed in.

They believed that, but once they got there, it didn't happen. They couldn't understand the natives, the natives couldn't understand them.

And so they basically got back on the boats and came back to the

United States in failure. It was only after this dramatic failure that Charles Fox Parham said, oh, wait a minute, we had this wrong.

The gift of tongues is actually speaking in unintelligible, ecstatic gibberish. That's what it actually is.

It was only after their abject failure that they came back and said, oh, wait, no, no, it's gibberish. And it's been gibberish ever since.

So the whole history of the charismatic movement, Charles Fox Parham, Seymour, Frank Sanford, John Alexander, Dowie.

I mean, all of those guys were just horrible individuals. Hold on one second,

Justin, if you could maybe explain this picture. So that's

Agnes Osman's writings in Chinese. Agnes Osman was a one of Charles Fox Parham's followers, and she was the one person that claimed to actually get the real gift of tongues.

And she said that all of a sudden she could she could not only speak in Chinese, but she could write in Chinese.

And that is an actual copy. That is a that is a photocopy of some of her original writings in Chinese.

So so then with that, what we should do. You don't have to know Chinese or be Chinese to.

Well, but take a look at that. And then let me just share something else that my wife needs to get in here.

Someone else backstage wants to get into that is what real Chinese looks like. Justin, do you want to write up and down?

Well, they can they can write side to side. Justin, do you want to interpret that for us? Yeah. In Chinese, that says these words are not

Chinese. Referring to Agnes Osman's chicken scratch. And and I happen to be married to the one who wrote that.

So, yeah, I mean, so. So, Anthony, I know you had something. We got someone else backstage that that has done it.

Justin, were you done or no? Yeah. Yeah. I want to get there. And I feel bad. An hour and a half. Well, no, that's that's

OK, because it's been probably about four or five months, maybe six months since he's actually come in. So, you know, it's kind of like being put in the penalty box.

You know, I'm just getting warmed up again. That's a co -host that doesn't show up for you. He's got to be on penalty.

OK, so obviously,

Justin and Andrew know their stuff. I don't need to repeat anything they've said. I'm going to ask you a couple different questions.

Well, what about me? I don't know my stuff. See how you are, Anthony. Well, you made a penalty, brother.

I mean, I think, you know, stuff I know. No. OK.

In all seriousness, Mike, you know. What's the point? Right.

What's the point in holding so hard to languages? I mean, because let's be honest.

We look at Pentecostal churches in general, and they have such a heavy, heavy, heavy focus on these gifts.

So much so that a lot of churches will proclaim you're not even saved unless you can do these things.

Right. And so really, what is the point to all this? I mean, on one hand, this is a friendly debate and whatnot.

And obviously, there's three of us who think that you're misinterpreting scripture terribly in this area.

But that aside. Right. What's the what's the point? Do you feel like that that you're more you're closer to God, that you're more holy because of it?

I mean, is there anything else to it? Oh, so.

OK, so you're stating that as a question. I am. Yeah. I make really long questions.

Run on sentences. Um, no,

I think I think everyone has a gift. There's God gives gifts to to every man.

OK, I mean, the measure of faith and the gifts of every man. We know that. I mean, it's we know we know what the scripture says.

You know, the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit with all so that everyone profits.

So we may have a gift of teaching, gift of prayer, gift of tongues, interpretation of tongues.

I cannot deny that gift, the gift of tongues that God has given to me. I, I know that.

I've had that gift. God has given me that gift. God has given many people that gift.

I don't say handle a handle on my mama has a Honda type of person. You know,

I can't. I understood that language. Yeah, I can't speak a language that's known.

Everyone picks up on that, even in gibberish. I can't. You can't.

I can't just you can't tell me. Oh, just speak the language. I can't just say it. It's something that like I'm in.

I'm in prayer. Just feel it like just just this deep yearning, groaning and moaning inside my heart.

Like when I'm just seeking God, it's like in that time of worship, like I'm just, yeah.

But doesn't the Bible say that our heart is could deceive us? Well, again, not, you know what

I'm saying? It's deep inside my heart. And when I mean heart, I can mean the inner man. But how do you enter my inner

Anthony's question time? So, no, I mean, but the point is, is that, I mean, I've talked,

I've witnessed too many. I've witnessed too many Mormons who who who say that the that their faith is based off of this burning in the bosom.

Right. No different than what I hear from charismatics. Oh, by the way, you hear that from Catholics and you hear it from other other cults.

Right. And Mormons and Catholics speak in tongues, too, by the way. Yeah. To kind of well, this is part of my seminar.

Michael, how would you explain that? And this is not hyperbole and I'm not meaning to insult or anything.

This is just fact. Many pagan religions speak in tongues and they do it in exactly the same way.

Not mostly the same, not kind of somewhat similar. Not like, yeah, I can see where. No. People in Hindu Kundalini speak in tongues in exactly the same way that charismatics do.

One hundred percent identical. But look at video clips of Kundalini, put them side by side video clips of charismatics.

And without any hint of hyperbole or exaggeration, you cannot tell the difference.

They look exactly alike. Well, let me let me just say this.

There is no doubt that there are people who. Whether counterfeit or mimic these guys or they mimic us either way.

You would have to ask yourself who had the first claim of this. Was it them or was it.

Well, yeah, it was the way before they heard the gospel. Yeah, but the thing is, to your question in recent history, it's the occult and the cult.

Well, you had it first. Let me ask you who was silent for years. And then you see it in the cult and the occult and then

Christianity. So they're mimicking the cult. I've never seen what you're what you're showing or what you're saying.

I don't know exactly what, but I do know. Yeah, quick YouTube search. There is demonic.

There is demonic out there. They're demonic. There is the spirit of demonic that are that is a spiritual demonic.

We cannot discredit. I mean, do you discredit demonic spirits? You believe?

No, I don't discredit demonic spirits at all. They exist. Of course. Yeah. OK, so so there's definitely an occult ish, a demonic spiritual power out there that know the spiritual language of some sort.

And when they pray in the spirit, they pray to demonic. So there's a lot of things that are they try to copy or we pray in the spirit, but we pray unto

God. They pray demonically. But I don't know. All I know is the gift that God has given to me that I have that gift.

I know my spirit. I also know that I'm not demonic. I believe in Jesus Christ.

He died on the cross for my sins. He's the son of God, resurrected king of kings and lord of lords returned to judge the living and the dead.

I know who he is. So I'm not demonic. No man can say Jesus is

Lord without the spirit. I know my life. My spirit bears witness, just like the

Holy Spirit says, just like in John, he says, your spirit bears witness. So can we be deceived?

Can our hearts be deceived? The answer is yes. Is my heart deceived? I don't believe so.

I know what the gift God has given to me. I know how I feel when I pray, when

I read the word, when I sing, when I glorify God. Am I edified in myself?

Yeah. Is there gifts that God has given me to edify the church? Yes. So are there gifts that edify you?

And the answer is yeah. There's revelation. You get Andrew and you do also

Justin and you do also Anthony. When you're reading the word of God and there's a special revelation like you get and you're like, oh, and you get that.

Oh, wow. That feeling. That's more illumination, not revelation.

But you can put whatever definition you want to award to it. It's still that you feel excited with what

God has shown you. Let me say something, Michael, just for clarification. I don't at all believe that you are, when you're praying in tongues,

I don't think you're doing anything demonic. What I think you're doing is something that you have just learned how to do.

I cannot tell you. I cannot tell you how many people I have talked to, how many emails

I've received from former Charismatics who did the exact same thing you did.

Andrew used to speak in tongues, used to think it was real. They prayed in tongues.

And most of these people, at least a lot of them, probably most of them would tell me it's just something

I did between me and the Lord. You know, my own private prayer. I didn't do it in churches between me and the Lord. But now they're no longer charismatic.

They're cessationists. They would agree with three of us here on cessationism. But when

I ask them, can you still do it? Can you still speak in tongues?

100 % of them say, yeah. And they'll even do it for me. Most of them.

And they'll just speak in tongues. They can do it because it's a learned behavior. So I don't think you're demonic.

I think it's just a learned behavior. Who taught it to me? When I came, when I was raised in the

Greek Orthodox. I'll tell you who taught it to me. It was basically my sister and I were in the shopping as kids.

We'd hear everyone speak Spanish and we didn't know what they were saying.

It was foreign to us. So we created our own. We just spoke gibberish, complete utter nonsense.

And that's exactly what I was doing when I was a charismatic, complete utter nonsense. And over time, the words became more words that were

Hebrew or at least had a Hebrew sound to it and less of a Spanish sound to it.

Why? Because I knew Hebrew. So there was more of a ring that way.

But the reality is it was complete gibberish. But I was told this is of the Lord. So when

I'm told this is of the Lord, I'm believing this is of the Lord. Until I sat down and read 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14 in one sitting.

And instead of looking at it as an instruction manual the way I was taught, I looked at it saying, well, wait, what's he criticizing them for?

And when I saw that, just reading it, a simple reading of it, without the preconceived idea that this is an instruction manual, it became clear that what

I was taught was being criticized. And let me make this point, too. And thank you for saying that.

Who explained that to you? What's that? Andrew, who explained that to you?

No one needed to. You said that once you read 12, 13, 14. The other charismatics, once I started doing it, it was like, well, this is what you do.

Just try to pray that you'll speak in tongues. So I started doing the gibberish that I did when I was a kid.

And they were like, that's it. That's what it is. Okay, so they told you you had that, but you didn't really have it.

I would say the same with you, though. Okay, believe me,

I'm not insulting. But you would have to explain to me that in 1995, on February 26, 1995,

I came to Christ after reading the word. I was in a solitary confinement in Winslow, Arizona, in a prison,

Kaibab unit prison. I had only the word of God. I had been in Islam for two and a half years in prison in Islam, raised

Orthodox Catholic. We didn't have any of that. In Islam, for two and a half years, with the

Bible, in a solitary confinement, I opened up, placed by the Gideons. I passed

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John because I didn't care. I started reading Acts on down. When that night came on February 26, midnight, the

Lord walked into my room. The light shone in that room. As I got on my knees and started sobbing, feeling the hand of the

Lord on my head, and my body was like electricity. Hold on.

But here's the whole thing with it. That's your experience. Okay, but you have to ask yourself, from someone like me,

I'm a sane person, Andrew. I'm not. No, but hold on. I'm not saying you're not sane, but this is your experience.

Now, here's the whole thing, what you're saying. You're saying this is what you experienced, and therefore it must be true.

But now I want you to think about something. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying to you is, when

Christ touched my life and changed me, and the Holy Spirit indwelt in me, when

God gave me His Spirit, and I was crying and weeping and moaning and groaning, and words were coming out of my mouth, there was something there.

You can't tell me. This is prior to me even knowing about praying in tongues or any of that stuff.

I didn't know any of that. All I knew is I was praying, and I was so in the Holy Spirit.

I'm not the only person who had that same experience. Cornelius did.

No, I'm not going to disagree. I think there's many Mormons that have that experience, many

Catholics that have that experience. Slow down. I'm not talking at all. No, but that's what

I want you to think about. How do I know the experience is genuine?

The only way I know is to compare it to Scripture. Exactly. If Scripture is not aligning with your experience, then guess what?

You had that experience, not denying that. I'm not saying it's demonic. I'm just saying your experience doesn't vindicate your interpretation of Scripture.

Not according to 1 Corinthians 14, outside interpretation, reading it just the way it is, and anyone who reads it will come to the understanding that you can pray—

Then how is it that I was a charismatic—hold on, Michael. How is it that I, as a charismatic, only knowing the charismatic movement, could hear a conversation where someone says, not everyone believes the gifts continue.

I can, in a simple sit -down, read the chapters, all three together in one sitting, and suddenly go, this is teaching everything against what the charismatic church is teaching.

It's not reading. It wasn't interpretation. I was fully indoctrinated with the charismatic thinking, but all

I had to do is leave my preconditions at the door, read the text, and come to a complete opposite conclusion.

Well, again, you would have to have external— I didn't have external. Andrew, my brother,

I don't know what your experience is, but you would have to, like you said to me, I would say to you, you would have to take the

Scripture and put it to your experience. And that's what we've been trying to do. But that's what we've been trying to do with you.

Okay, my brother, I'll ask you a question. Outside, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, no external teaching or preaching, no external adding commentary.

If you were to read through 1 Corinthians 14 and go straight down and read it, you would come to the conclusion that a person can pray in understanding and pray in a spirit, pray with a tongue that's known, and pray with an unknown tongue.

Okay, I will agree with you. If I take it out of context and ignore the entire book of Corinthians, ignore chapter 12, ignore chapter 13, and just read this with the belief that God still gives tongues today, then yes, maybe

I would come to that conclusion. If I read it in its context of what

Paul is doing throughout the entire book, then you have to look at this and say, well, what is he actually saying here?

Because there's things that here, it doesn't line up with the way you're saying a simple reading. A simple reading says that Paul is omniscient.

Chapter 14, verse 2. It says that Paul is saying that, hold on, it's saying that Paul is saying something that, in the rest of the word of God, condemns selfishness, self -edification.

And yet here it's praising it. So in a simple reading, it says, wait, when does

God ever say that we should be exalting self or to be having self -exaltation to exalt ourselves?

No, that's condemned everywhere. So it's Paul condemning a behavior. And once you accept that, then it's very clear to see everything else that we're saying.

And so it's simple reading. Yes, it is a very simple reading. If you don't start with the premise that the tongues continue today, the whole thing is,

I put it this way, it's a begging the question fallacy. And the reason

I say that is because, and I've had this with discussions with many Charismatics, the argument is you have to accept that tongues exist today to be able to read these chapters and understand them.

That's not true. Anyone who reads 12, 13, and 14, all you have to do is show me one scripture where it says it's not applicable.

Show me a scripture that says it's not here or that this is not really a gift.

I'll give it to you. You want it? It's in the chapter before. What is it?

The chapter before, chapter 13, verse 8. Tongues will cease. Okay.

Will be done away with. Will, will, not if. And I would say they will once the canon was complete, the revelation.

Well, where does it say where the canon is complete? Where does it say that? Well, it says when.

I don't remember where. So it says when the teleos comes, let's put this up on screen.

Okay. You're talking about verse 10. So, so when the teleos comes, the word for teleos means to complete.

So when the teleos comes. Okay. The, the, the, and as you see with everything here, right?

It is, it's so the word teleos is the word perfect here in verse 10, but everything about this, what do you see verse nine, something partial to something to, to, to, to, we pro we know in part, we prophesy in part, right?

So that's the starting point. Verse 10. When the, when the completion comes, this word for teleos means complete, mature.

It could be perfect as like you, if a jigsaw puzzle, you finish it. It's perfect. It's done. It's complete.

It's matured. What happens when that happens? The partial is done away with. So what is it that we know in part we prophesy in part that that's, that gets done with, what do you then have?

Three illustrations, a child who knows in part to a child, which is a man.

You have a, a, a person looking in a mirror, not the mirrors we have today, but polished metal looking face to face, being able to see clearly like looking at polished metal versus a mirror that we would have today, knowing in part and knowing fully, what do you have in all of that?

You, you have partial to complete. What do you have in the scripture of the time of Paul?

You have partial scripture completed once it's completed. Now I know

Justin disagrees with me on this conclusion. He has a different reason why, but I would say that once you have three gifts that deal with revelation, once those three gifts are done, once the canons complete, you don't need the revelation.

You don't need the gifts of revelation. They're complete. They're done away with it's ceased. And if you read this, these chapters with this in mind that they have ceased because they're no longer needed.

It's easy to understand. And that will cease. That's that's in the middle voice in the correct house and tie house and tie.

Did he leave? Did he leave? Yeah.

He left a little bit ago. There we go. Okay. So I don't know if he can still hear us. I can. I can still hear you.

Okay. All right. I understand, but there's Justin was letting

Justin finish. What do you say? I'm sorry about that. No, that's okay. That tongues will cease.

That's that's in the middle voice in the Greek house and tie. And it basically, it means that they will cease on their own.

They'll just, in other words, they'll just fade away. They'll just fade away. And, and I believe that that is exactly what happened.

They just faded away. They had already fulfilled the purpose for which they had been given the sign of judgment against unbelieving

Israel. And there's no longer any need for them. I want to bring up this point.

And this, let's, let's broaden our perspective here. Let's go up a few feet and look at this with a bit of more of a bird's eye view.

Well, can I ask you a question? One second, real quick. What about knowledge? I mean, verse eight, charity never fails, but whether there be prophecies, do you believe they failed?

it's, it's not once predictions or, or, or prophesying is failing.

Would that be gone? Well, the, the prophecy that we have, right there, there, these are three different things that we're revealing of scripture.

And so what I would end up saying is, you know, the, the prophesy, like some of the things, like,

I know you gave your account where your wife heard from God, right? She, she, right.

That's that scripture. Then that's equal to scripture. Why would God be equal to scripture?

God spoke. Okay. So, I mean, why would it be if God speaks to her?

What makes scripture an authority? Isn't it? Doing that. The question comes down to is, okay, what about tongues?

You think they ceased? Yes. What about knowledge? Has knowing gone? Knowledge, the knowledge of revealing scripture.

Yes. And the, the prophesying of scripture. Yes. My brother, you don't have knowledge. You don't have gnosis.

What? How did I, what did I say? Like, a word, you can't be okay.

So there's a, there's a fallacy of equivocation. That we could, that we're, I think we're falling into here. Okay. Knowledge can be used different ways.

My, my point is you, there's too much that you would have to hurdle.

When you're talking about 12, 13, and 14, you stick any person in a room by themselves with the

Bible. They'll come out with the conclusion that I came to. Thank you. Like people don't, people don't, people don't open up a novel.

In the middle of it. This is why

I love you. He was just trying to set that up for me. That's all folks. You know, we're at a good time.

I'm convinced. I'm leaving. We're, we're right at the top of the hour. And I know we have backstage.

It's going to be that we're going to put on, but, but I need to make. Okay. Just before we shut it down. I need to make.

No, no, no, we're not shutting it down. We're not shutting it down. I was going to announce that, you know, in honor of Anthony being back after so many months, people have been asking for Anthony time.

Michael, let me explain. I know you watch regularly. Maybe you don't pick up on Anthony time. Cause we don't want to have inside jokes. We don't explain when

I was moving and I was, I couldn't do the show regularly. And Anthony and Justin would do this every time

Anthony hosted, it went over two hours every time. And so now I will admit,

I do have the record for the longest apologetics live. I do recognize that I beat his time, uh, one show, but, uh, but whenever we go past the two hour mark, we call that Anthony time.

And people seem to like Anthony time. They, they, they, they call for Anthony time. And, and here you can see, here we go.

There's a comment. Yay. Anthony time. So, uh, so Anthony, I know you had some questions, Justin, and you were kind of mid mid thought there.

So let's let Justin finish that up and then I'll let, and then we let Anthony go and then we'll bring someone in from backstage. Okay. Well, there's so much that there's so many other avenues we could go with the whole issue of cessationism.

We spent all of our time on one particular aspect tongues, but I will say this, uh, going back to what

I was saying about Hindus, Buddhists speak in tongues. So known pagan religions, they speak in tongues in exactly the same way.

It's a quick YouTube search. Look up Hindu tongues or Kundalini tongues. And look,

I mean, it looks exactly like, so the apostolic gifts, the sign gifts, the things that, that the, the thing that set them apart is that they were undeniable.

They were unique to the apostles. They could not be duplicated.

In fact, remember the man who was born lame from his mother's womb,

Peter and John healed him in Acts chapter three lame from his mother's womb.

And now he's running like a deer in verse, look at verse chapter four, verse 16. Uh, what should we do with these men for the fact that a noteworthy sign has happened through them as a parent to all who live in Jerusalem.

And we cannot deny it. We cannot deny it. And so the real apostolic gifts, the real sign gifts were undeniable.

Not only to believers, but to unbelievers, because they could not replicate them.

They could not duplicate what the apostles were doing. The way that charismatic speak in tongues is easily duplicated and is duplicated by millions of people all around the world.

Non -Christian people easily duplicated. That's a fact. I mean, that's not even up for debate.

It's a fact. Now, what cannot be duplicated duplicated would be the real gift of languages, real gift of tongues.

Like me speaking for our purposes here, it would be like me all of a sudden speaking fluent

Zulu. It's a known language. It's just not known to me. I could speak fluent

Zulu instantaneously. And then Andrew, who doesn't know

Zulu either, let's say he has the gift of interpretation of languages. He could translate what

I'm saying in Zulu back into English, even though he doesn't know Zulu either. That's what the genuine gift of tongues languages would have looked like.

That cannot be duplicated. Just like the gifts of healing by the apostles cannot be duplicated.

That's what made them so unique. Is that they couldn't be duplicated and everyone, even the pagans, even the non -Christians could not deny it.

Now with the gift of tongues, the way the charismatics do easily deniable, easily deniable.

And so you asked, you asked where, where is it taught? How does someone get taught this? Let's just watch.

This is how it's taught. In tongues. If you follow my instructions, the anointing is here to do the rest.

I can't do it for you, but I can tell you how to pray in supernatural languages. So you start speaking like little baby words and say them as fast as you humanly can.

When I begin to pray and the supernatural will become natural.

As you take a step, Peter. Okay, so I'm just going to stop that for the sake of time, but that's how you, there you go.

I mean, this is someone in the clip that I just grabbed a clip. I know Justin, you have that, that continuing clip where he actually does.

He just starts talking like a baby and just speeds it up until, you know, just making nonsense. It is taught.

You know, that's, that's how people know it. It is a taught thing. So Anthony, I'm not saying that there aren't people who, what you, what you're showing me there, like I said, that's counterfeit.

It's not true. You know, you can't just be taught. It's something that's internal, but you know, on the thing,

Justin, that you said, and I know Anthony, I'm sorry to cut on your time, but you're a man after my own heart.

I'm one of those preachers are like, and finally I'm going through, as a matter of fact,

Andrew, I'm going through first Peter, you know, I teach expository preaching and teaching. I'm like chapter by chapter, verse by verse, you know, through the scriptures.

But one of the things is I said to the church on, on a Sunday, I said, listen, I just want you guys to know that when your pastor says, finally, and I spend another 20 minutes,

I'm following after Paul, the apostle Peter. So, but when you said that they cannot deny it, and that's, that those miracles are the authentication, that this is a person who is an apostle.

Is that what you're trying to say? Yeah, basically. I mean, yeah. Okay. So then, but there has been people who have received miracles, extraordinary miracles throughout the world, whether they were dead and raised to life.

Cause there are those, there are people who have had some kind of deformity and have been healed in America and third world countries.

And we won't say, we would not dare say that these guys were apostles or maybe you wouldn't, but it would not make them apostles because,

I mean, even in Islam, even in Islam, they believe that in the name of Allah, under the prophet

Muhammad, that this person was healed. He was dead and, and Allah raised him from the dead by this

Iman. And we would not say that he's an apostle. So we can't just automatically say that anyone who duplicates this miracle would be an apostle.

I don't think you would agree with that. Would you? I don't, I don't, I don't affirm that.

I know some Muslims believe that, that, but I don't believe, I mean, there's no, there's no documentation of them actually happening.

I mean, there's all kinds, even today, there's all kinds of reports of people being raised from the dead, but none of them are documented.

None of like zero of them are documented. Now I'm a cessationist. I fully affirm that God still heals people today when it is his sovereign will to do so.

In fact, just two weeks ago, I was at a church in Virginia and I heard one of the most compelling, um, true miracles of healing that I've ever heard.

And I rejoiced with it a little baby. Um, I mean, just a dramatic medically inex, inexplainable, unexplainable miracle that the, even the doctors were absolutely dumbfounded.

They could, they had no explanation for it. Not zero. I rejoice in that. God healed that little baby, that little boy, but nobody had the gift of healing to perform it.

When God heals someone today, he just does it because it's his sovereign will to do so. And it pleases him to do it.

But no one today actually possesses the gift of healing. The parents, the adoptive parents of this little boy.

Oh, let me just tell it real quick, real quick. This little guy was born to a meth mom. Uh, she knew that she couldn't take care of him.

And so they had it prearranged that when he was born, he would go be adopted by this couple in this church.

I was preaching at, she was strung out on meth and who knows what else. So when this little guy was born, he was born with horrific health issues.

Um, they had to do emergency surgery on him practically right after birth.

And they went into his abdomen and when they opened him up, his intestines were ribbons shredded because of the meth and whatever else this woman was strung out on just, and there was nothing they could do for him, nothing they could do for him.

And so they sewed him back up, gave him to his adopted parents. And they said, he's not going to live for long.

Um, and, um, they were trying to figure out some way to maybe feed him, you know, through a tube or something, but his intestines were shredded.

Um, but then after a few hours of, of having him back after surgery, um, he pooped impossible.

Uh, the parents called in the nurse, the nurse looked at him, rushed to get the doctor.

The doctor came in and he said, this is not possible.

This literally is not even possible. Um, but then a few hours after that, um, he pooped again.

So they did a barium test on him. They put barium in a system and they watched it on the camera, watched it go all the way through his system.

And it went through lickety split, no leaks anywhere, no medical explanation for that genuine miracle of God.

I rejoice in that. I don't doubt that praise the Lord, but no one had the gift of healing.

No one laid hands on that little guy. Many people were praying for him, but no faith healer, nobody with the gift of healing.

So God heals people today. Absolutely. When it's a sovereign will to do so, but nobody, and I mean, nobody today possesses the gift of healing.

Okay. Well, I, I understand what you're saying. I mean, that's, that's, that's a whole different subject, but it's

Anthony time. So I don't really want to open up. I don't want to open up a new can of, you know, worms.

So we'll just, uh, go to Anthony. Maybe I'll come back later on and we can discuss on other things, but, uh,

You'll see, we, we did, Michael, we did say that, um, Anthony did say he's, you're not the only one that has technical issues.

Anthony doesn't know how to unmute himself. Oh, so I just forgot that.

I muted myself. Okay. So I'm just going to ask a couple of quick questions. I know that, uh, I think Kofi in the background,

I've been seeing him wag his finger and some different things. Like I think he's ready to come on. So you just spilled the beans on one of the, the two people that are backstage.

Sorry. Forget. I said that. Um, okay. So I, I just want to go back to, first of all, what is the gospel

Mike? The God, the good news. Yeah. Jesus Christ, the cross for our sins that he was buried on the third day.

He rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, that faith in him, that he's going to return the judge, the living and the dead faith in him saves us, pays the penalty for our sins, our iniquities, our transgressions.

There's nothing else we need to do. We need to do to be saved. Right. Or no, no faith, faith, faith in him saves us from the damnation through Adams.

You know, the original sin, what Adam and Eve did on the garden, you know, all that. So, yes. Okay. So you're not one of those full gospel people that a lot of Pentecostal churches are today.

What's full gospel. Well, what I mean is, is most

Pentecostal churches that, um, when they preach the gospel, they say that the full gospel is what you just said there.

Plus tongues. Oh, plus no, not everyone. Yeah. So, okay.

Now I want to go back to a couple other questions with that clarified. Are you more holy than us?

Three who don't speak in tongues? Maybe two of you, not three of you, this game.

You guys are going to have to fight out. I won't ask which to odd one out. Uh, what do you mean?

Holy, like holy, like, are you closer? Are you closer to God? Do you feel like you are more sanctified because of it?

I mean, like, again, I mean, I'm trying to get back to what is, what is the point of. I think we're all saying you and I, we're all sanctified by God set apart.

We are his children called by his name. You know, peculiar people, holy nation, right? Do I have a closer relationship with Christ than you?

I don't know you. I have a very close relationship. I don't know your relationship with Jesus. There are people who have a close relationship with certain people, you know, with God, then maybe

I, you know, do, um, for example, I have seven daughters. I love all my daughters.

They're all my daughters, but there's two or three that have a very close relationship with me.

Right. But I'm speaking in the context of tongues though, right? I mean, the fact that you speak tongues versus somebody else.

No, because like you may have the teaching, the gift of teaching or preaching or evangelist.

You may have an evangelical heart. You know, you may have a different heart like my mother -in -law.

I'm going to speak good about her. So don't hold that against me. Um, she has, she has a compassionate heart.

Her heart is compassionate and mercy. And she just has that, ah, that's an awesome heart to have.

I don't have that. I wish I had that. I mean, I have compassion and mercy, but not like her.

So she has a really awesome heart. So everyone has a certain gift, you know, in their own way.

so me speaking in tongues, does it make me closer to God than you? Um, maybe, maybe

I'm immature. Maybe I need the gift of tongues because my vocabulary isn't as extensive.

And I don't know what to say, but I want to say it. And maybe God gives it to me because I'm not, you know,

I don't have it. I don't have the words to say, I don't have the ability to say it, but I want to say it.

So maybe gift of tongues to be someone, to someone who's not as, you know, who can use their understanding mind to speak closer or get, get to that point.

So, I mean, it's just the way you look at it. It just depends, you know, well, I mean, that's why I'm asking these questions, right?

Because there's, there's obviously reasons why, I mean, look, the bottom line is, of course,

I, I believe what Andrew and Justin do, that the scriptures don't teach what you say. It teaches that if you read the entire context of, of first Corinthians, you would see what the, what the context of that entire book is.

But I mean, doesn't it, does it worry you in this sense that I can go through the biggest cults of, of today, right?

Excluding Catholicism and, and Muslims, which are two of the biggest, I can go through Mormons, seven day

Venice, Jehovah's witnesses, Christian scientists, Pentecostals and others.

I can even include evolution evolutionists. I think that's a cult out there. And this all arose within literally the last 150 to 200 years, all of these.

So we don't, we don't have Jehovah's witnesses a thousand years ago. We don't have Pentecostals a thousand years ago.

We don't have Mormons a thousand years ago. I mean, they didn't exist. And as Cody Robbins pointed out earlier, we have an entire church history.

We've got wonderful church history that we can rely upon to see what Orthodox teachings have been through the years.

We build on the shoulders of giants. Where is our church history, Anthony, where, what are you talking about?

I mean, you know, the Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Roman Catholic have fled the same cause that Protestants and reformationists plea today, that reformation is 1500 years.

We're talking about, we've had, we were of Christ, Protestantism, and more reformation is only 500 years.

No, no, no, no. Okay. So, so then you have to study church history because the Catholic church was, was killing many, many, many people because they had a true gospel message throughout history.

The gospels, the church has never been lost, even though the Catholic church tried to corrupt it.

It was, it wasn't lost. What I understand. And, and, and it's still, it still doesn't, you're trying to say, well, the

Catholic church kept suppressed it, but you still have to deal with the fact that after the first century, you don't see tongues from the, the, the early church fathers and all these guys, you don't see this as normative as it was in the, in the first century.

Says who says who the people who were living at the time that recorded the history.

What are you talking about? What you don't see it in the dedicate, which is the instruction manual for the early church.

Okay. There's a lot of things you don't see in the dedicate. If, even if you were to confirm that, the point is you're making your argument is from silence.

You're, you're an argument from science because you're saying that this, this is, this is really biblical, but it hasn't been done for, for it.

We don't see it before the Catholic church. We don't see it after the Catholic church. And you're saying it's because of the

Catholic church. Let me ask you a question. What about prophecy? Are you saying that left that left too?

I already said that. but you also have equivocation. My brother. Yes. Prophecy.

The, the revealing of scripture has ended. That's not what it means. Prophets. And like I said, it's a fallacy of equivocation.

If you're going to use it two different ways in the context there. Okay. Because it says it's ceased.

What do you see? My point is my point is my brother and I'll go back to Anthony.

Just first quick. I'm good. I asked my last one. No problem. my, the question, the thing comes down to is, and my point really, and all of it is age does not confirm.

Okay. Age does not confirm authenticity. And you can't say we've had 700 years or 2000 years or 1500 years.

Of this Christianity. But here's the thing. Do that because the, the, the doctrines that were taught by many of these men, but there's one thing you have to do.

All that. We know that the doctrines have changed. Michael, we're not disputing that here.

Here's the thing that we're saying though. Here's the thing. Like, for example, we can put an exact date.

We can put an exact date. When the speaking of tongues started again as being normative within Christianity.

Okay. Can you put it in 1905? Okay. What about when it stopped?

Well, it stopped on its own. As we see, scripture would say it would. Okay. How do you know? And we, we don't see it in history.

How do you know? How do you know? You don't see it in history. How you're just coming to your only what you know, when it started, not when you know what it means that we, we, we look at history by looking at what the historical accounts say.

And so the historical accounts don't support the claim. So you can't say it. That's why I say, it's an argument from silence saying it was happening when there's no evidence of it.

You have the burden of proof to say that, because here's the question. Why on Azusa street to 1905, why did all of a sudden, why was that a change in thinking?

And, and that's what everybody points to. That's when it started again. I believe, I believe the reason is, is no different than what happened with Martin Luther and love.

The reformationist is those scriptures were open to us. The understanding were available to us that we have today, but that didn't start with Luther.

That's why we went from there. There was my Catholicism, even what you believe, like, but you're proving my point,

Michael, listen, you're proving, you're proving my point because before Luther, there was

Huss that was a hundred years before, before Huston was Wycliffe before Wycliffe, there were plenty of others.

So we, and we have the historical accounts of them. That's how we know the gospel was never lost.

All right. Sorry. 1300s. Okay. Sorry. No, you're still missing the point. The point's not the date.

The point is we have the historical accounts, you know, as, as you know, people are putting names in here.

You have KT saying the was all the ends and you, you have plenty of others that throughout history, Now, you have, you have the

English. No, we don't. You don't have Middle East language, the

Middle Eastern accounts. You don't have the chance and all the things that they, whatever they were, they were praying.

Now, I don't want to listen. My point is an English account. It's impossible to be an English account. The English didn't start until like, my point is you're asking me, you're asking me the question.

And the question is, why did, why did it stop? And then we claim 19 in 1900s, it started back up again.

And I would say to you, no different than why a lot of things stopped and were brought back in the time of 1300, 1400.

I think when scripture, when scripture was revealed and shown to us in our language, and we were able to read and understand it, we came to realize that, wait a minute here.

These guys have suppressed the truth. They have put down the understanding of the word.

So, I mean, I could, I could, Joseph Smith says the same thing. Well, maybe scripture does have an answer,

Anthony. Maybe, maybe it does. It's because at the end times, in the end times, there will be miracles that people will do to deceive if possible, even the elect.

My brother. It also says in the last days, Joel chapter two, we're still in the last days.

So you can't say that we're no longer in the last days. We still see visions and prophesy and dream dreams.

So you can't just cut it out because we're still in the last days. Michael, would you rehashing?

I think, I think it's another program. My only point to go back. To what we're saying is.

You cannot say something is right or wrong. Based on when it started or when it restarted or when it stopped.

It's the word of God. That is our authority. And understanding the only thing, only question

I have for you, or the only answer I have for you. Why in 1900s, do we find an, an exponential increase.

Of speaking tongues could be, and this is only my understanding could be.

But because we now had access, we were now became literate to the word.

We started becoming much more literate to reading it. You know, just like they did in, in 1300s with Tyndale, with Cliff.

Even if we, even if we accept your logic there.

The Protestant Reformation began. The Protestant Reformation began. In the early 1500s.

So to, to use your logic, I mean, the scriptures had been freed up for the common man for 400 years before Azusa Street.

And the only time you see tongues in that 400 years, it's always, always, always connected with kooky, heretical groups like the shakers, the shaker spoken tongues, and they shaped as their name implies.

The Jansenists. So for that, and that was a radical Roman Catholic group, but you only.

So let's just, let's see your argument for 400 years. I mean, the scriptures were available, circulated available to anyone, but the only time you see tongues is with kooky fringe, heretical groups.

Well, I mean, again, my point, my point is, and is goes back to where you're.

And then on top of that, you can't really say the only place you see tongues is with kooky groups.

But that is true. But it's true. I mean, I believe in the gift of tongues. I don't believe harvest before 1905, before Azusa street.

I mean, even charismatic. So my, my, my issue is, again, we can't go back.

We cannot use when it started or dates to say, Oh, why do we see it then?

Why do we see it stopped to where we see it now? But we can, because here's the thing.

Here's why we can, because if the scriptures say it'll cease, and then we see it cease in history and we don't see it start up again until you start to see fringe groups starting it.

And then it's spread like wildfire fire. The, the thing is, where was it for all that time?

The scripture says it will cease. And it did the burden of proof.

The burden of proof is on you to say either. It never did, or that it, it somehow was going to start up again after God says it won't.

And then you have the different problem of if this is a gift for the church, why doesn't every church have this gift?

Okay, fine. If you said, let me go with your thing. Cause I'm, I'm good with that. If you said it did cease, where does it say it will cease forever.

And if it doesn't cease forever, can we not say that it didn't say cease forever, but rather it did cease, but now it hasn't ceased forever.

For example, let's use the word knowledge in there. We know that knowledge ceased.

We didn't really understand until we were able to access the word of God. When we were able then to read the word of God, we came to that understanding and knowledge was reinserted into the believer.

Other than that, when did that happen? And how did that happen? Well, when, when the scriptures, when the word was given to us in English, when we were raised or in German or, you know, translated from the

Latin, wherever you want us, however, whoever you believe your, you know, Reformationists, whether you're a

Tyndale -ish Wycliffe. The point is it says it'll cease.

It doesn't say it's going to come back. Well, it doesn't say that it will cease forever. And if it didn't come back, which we see it,

I believe it's come back. Yeah, but it says it's going to come back to deceive people, come back to deceive people.

My brother, you cannot, you cannot say that because if you say that, the church, the church, the, from, from Nicaea all the way down.

And even a little bit earlier to that, we used to believe the early, not even, or I'm going to even claim the early church, the apostate church, no matter what knowledge they had, because God preserved it, used to believe in transubstantiation.

Okay. It was not until Luther, we go consubstantiation until Zendel. We go, no. And Calvin, no, no,

I would disagree with you. I would disagree with you. Okay. Transubstantiation.

Yes. Not the church. There's a big difference between the two. Hold on. No, because let me say this.

If you go back, if you go back, I'm laughing, I'm laughing. Cause Anthony's putting up comments. Someone put a comment, says,

Dr. Anthony looks very impressed. Sorry.

I was laughing at you at that moment. I just see the comments,

Anthony highlights, and it's kind of cracks me up. Sorry. My only point was I've debated or had,

I won't say debated discussions with Catholics, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Catholicism, you know,

Oriental Russian, you name it. Okay. I won't, I won't say a lot of those guys, but I've had discussion.

And, and, and one of the, always the returning argument is you, you

Protestants. And I always say, well, hold on here. I'm not a Protestant. Stop counting me as a Protestant. He goes, you

Protestants, you guys are the ones who pulled away from the true church. You guys started your own church and your own way of thinking.

We've been around since 33 AD. And even the Eastern Orthodox church would say the

Greek Orthodox. We are, our church was established in 33 AD. Anyone who's gone after that, they've, they've diverted.

And I know that you've referenced the schism in a thousand with the Roman, the Eastern and the West, but either nonetheless, the

Eastern always believe them to be the first. And they can always go back to the same argument.

If you go back to who the original church is, it's us. Everyone else is not even true.

And we've said, well, the reason why we believe what we believe is because the word of God is accessible to us.

And after reading, we've come to that knowledge. Okay. So, so right there is where we're going to differ.

All right. Because what I would say is that, because I believe that's the Holy spirit's job. That's the whole thing of the indwelling of spirit.

We differ. Okay. That's, that's where we have from, from, and I know Anthony, I'm going to let you, I'll just say this as a hand back over to you, but I know,

I know poor Edison has been having his hand up in the back and I want to get him in and, and it is very late in the

Philippines. So he's staying up very late for this. So I want to get, I want to get him for a while, but I am,

I am, uh, uh, what do you call honored and impressed that you would stay up this late to hear us talk.

And so, so the, the, the thing is, is that, um, when we, what we end up seeing is that Jeremiah 31, uh,

Ezekiel, uh, 36, the, the promise of the new covenant is that the

Holy spirit wouldn't dwell us and he will be the one to help us.

We don't need a priest to tell us we, we have the Holy spirit. Now this is the thing. It's not that there, we needed it in, in a, you know, some in English or a language to, to open it up.

It's not that we, the Catholic church held the truth down. The truth I'm saying has always been there. Yes.

There's people that having differing views, but I would say the truth has always been known. Okay. So I can say the same thing.

I can say the same thing about speaking in tongues. It's always, but you have to prove that in history.

We see where I can look to history and see historical accounts. Look at Tertullian, look at Ignatius, look at Arrhenius.

They also, they all believed in, in, uh, in transubstantiation. Look at, look at perpetua, look at the stories.

And there was debates too, wasn't there? Huh? There were debates on that as well.

Wasn't there? Well, not, yeah, but the church, this is what the church believed in.

And those debates, you know, they were, they were just like everyone else. They would just easily end, uh, anathemize somebody just because they don't believe you're done off the hell to you, you know?

But my point is, my whole point is it doesn't matter if you're

Catholic or whatever, just like what you believe. I believe the truth was always there.

Men held it back. It was not until we get the, the word that we had the cannon and we're able to understand and read it and understand it.

Did we come to. Okay. I want to get in. Let me just real quick answer some questions.

I saw Cody said, Cody said, did you all go over what tongues are with him? Maybe I missed it. Mike Murray, um, said, maybe you said this earlier, but when you examine the tongues, uh, spoken today, they don't resent the resemble a basic characteristics of language.

It is gibberish. Um, and so we did, we did cover that. We're not as much as what Mike said, Mike, Mike was focusing more on, and this is something that you can see.

Language has a, a grammar. And this is how we know though.

Animals can have words that have a meaning. They don't have a language because there's not a grammar to it.

That's something you can examine. Even if you don't know the language, you can examine a grammar. Linguistics do this, the, the, what's spoken of in tongues.

And I had a linguistics, someone who's got his, his PhD in linguistics, who is a Christian. And he, he said he has, he has done looked at tons of people that speak in, in, um, in different, what they call tongues.

And he said, as a linguistics, as a linguistic, they, these are not languages. It's a gibberish, but let me, let me get

Anthony. Do you have something else you want? You were wanting to say before I'm bringing Edison in? No, no.

Other than, uh, it, this brings up some mind, a great video by Lutheran satire where CP three, uh, uh, is talking about the crash as a

Pentecostal revival. I encourage you all to go look that up. It is hilarious. I'll start looking it up, but let me bring, let me bring

Edison in Edison. Welcome. Uh, Edison is, is what time is it there in the Philippines right now? You just muted yourself.

There you go. So satire is hysterical. We've got a lot of, we're in the Philippines. We are actually morning.

This is, yeah. Uh, 11 34 in the morning.

Oh, okay. So yeah. So it's not so late for you then. I was impressed. Now I'm like, so you had your hand up quite a bit.

You had some things you wanted to bring up with that. And I hope you wrote them all down. Cause yeah,

I just wanted a, I wanted a quick question still with a brother. Mike, I do appreciate the conversations between a brother,

Mike and brother Anthony. Uh, I am confident that he is our brother. Unlike, uh, what we have here in the

Philippines, the United Pentecostal, um, did I just get muted?

Or, uh, did I just hear you? Okay. Uh, we have a church here, a group of religious group here, uh,

United Pentecostal. And, uh, we, they condemn people. Uh, if they don't, if you don't speak in tongues and they deny the

Trinity, you know, they have all a lot of crazy stuff. So I, I am confident that a brother

Mike is our brother, uh, based on the conversation with brother Anthony. So, um,

I just wanted to, because I, I, as I've heard the conversation, I, it seems that, um, you believe that the speaking in tongues or the gift of, uh, apostles gift are still applicable for us today.

Is that correct? Brother? I do. I do my brother. I believe the gift of tongues is still applicable today. Yes, sir.

And, uh, including the, uh, apostolic science and, uh, miracles.

I believe there are signs and miracles. Yeah, absolutely. So would you believe,

I'm going to read a verse in Acts chapter 16. Now I'm not going to trap you.

Some people will trap people on this comment on this. It says here in acts, um, no, uh,

Mark 16 or 17. Yeah. Mark 16, we're 17 and 18.

These things shall accompany those who have believed in my name. They will cast out demons.

They will speak with new tongues. They will pick up serpents. And if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.

They will lay their hands in the sick and they will recover. Uh, what are your comments on this? Especially drinking deadly poisons or.

I wouldn't recommend it, but do you think it will be available for us to believe?

Can we challenge it? Have poison control on your 911. Um, all right.

Mark, Mark chapter 16. As, as you know, there's always been certain arguments on Mark 16, whether it is applicable or in the manuscripts or not, but let's just assume, let's just assume it is part of the real manuscripts.

Okay. Um, so let's just assume that it is authentic and it should be there.

All right. Let's, let's just go by that. Um, and he said to go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Was that a command? Sure. Okay. We'll say yes. Okay. God tells us to go out. Do you agree to that?

I agree with that. I think everybody. To, to preach the gospel and he that believes is baptized shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be damned.

I think that's a truth. If we believe in Jesus Christ, we should be baptized. I mean, it's part of our, our calling, not that baptism saves you.

I'm not church of Christ. I'm not saying that you, you have to, if you're not, you're going to hell. But any true believer who understands the word will know his calling to be baptized.

And we know that he who does not believe in the son of God shall be damned. We know that that's a truth, right?

Okay. Not that, not that they're damned for not believing they're already damned. We're already condemned.

It's Jesus who saves us. Okay. Now, and these signs shall follow them that believe.

Now we all, we know that, uh, Paul cast out devils. So he was a believer.

He did cast out devils. All right. And they shall speak with new tongues. Um, that could be languages.

It could be the, the heavenly language. I don't know. That's up for interpretation.

Okay. I mean, let me take a look at it in the Greek. That could be up for interpretation in tongue because he's not teaching the spirit, you know, the, you know, the, uh, what do you call it?

Uh, speaking in tongues as a spiritual language. Um, they shall take up serpents.

Um, apostle Paul had a serpent wrapped around his hand in Malta, right? Fit them.

And it didn't affect him. Um, and it's not again saying that this is apostle

Paul only. Um, and it shall not hurt them. Is that possible? Yeah.

Uh, they shall lay hands on. Did I miss something? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, And they shall drink any deadly thing.

It shall not hurt them. Okay. I didn't, I missed that part. Um, has there been people who have, uh, uh, drink something and it didn't hurt them?

Um, there's a story. I don't, I don't think there's any example in school. That's the, that's the one I don't think. I mean, you do have, like you mentioned the serpent, but I don't think there's, uh, there is a story where the guy converted his whole family.

I can't remember where it is. I think it was one of the, huh? Not in the

Bible, not in the Bible. It was a missionary of some sort. Do you know what

I'm talking about? No, I don't. But you know, that that's like all the people that get healed without a video camera.

Okay. This guy, they actually went to go poison him. He was a missionary that he went to drink something.

They wouldn't go poisoning him when they found out he didn't die. His, the whole tribe got converted.

So is there stories where people drink something deadly on accident or whether they were, you know, trying to get poison and they did not die or did not hurt them.

It's possible. So, I mean, shall they lay hands on the sick and they shall recover? Sure. There's times many times people laid hands on the sick and they have recovered.

So if you're asking me, what do I think about this? I think it's, it does follow certain believers, not everything, but anyone who believes or people who do believe that there have been believers that have cast out devils.

Um, there have, there are believers who speak with tongues, not everyone. And there are believers that have been bit by serpents, uh, whether you take it literally or figuratively, however, and drink any deadly thing figuratively or literally.

I mean, it's, it's happened. I can't say it's not happened. Um, but I've heard stories of someone.

I wish I knew this story. I just, I just heard it just recently about some guy who, you know, did it was fed poison and he drank it and the tribe thought he'd be dead.

But he didn't. And the whole tribe was converted, whatever it was. So it's happened.

Is that what, is that, is that the answer you're looking for? No, because the thing is the, uh, the scripture, um, in Mark seems to be, uh, very, uh, emphatic and, not just a possibility or, um, you know, because when, when, when, if, if this is the

Lord's, or, uh, saying, uh, when he says in verse 17, these signs shall follow those who believe, who believe in my name.

So it seems that, um, uh, according to the structure of the text, it applies to every believer.

I'd say I, I differ with that. I don't believe it applies for every believer. It just, these are the signs that should follow them that believe.

So who believe you and I, everyone who believes that Christians will have these signs.

We shall, we will cast out devils and speak with new tongues. And, and not everyone.

Like if I, I think if I got bit by a copperhead, I'd probably die, but who knows, maybe

Andrew wouldn't, or Justin wouldn't, you know, but I don't know. Justin has,

Justin has some video of it on a snake handler that he sent me. I wouldn't dance.

I wouldn't dance with one like Anthony would, but you know, Anthony, I have a,

I have a question real quick. So Michael, we would agree.

I think that, uh, there is a gift of being an apostle, correct?

Ephesians four, a gift or a calling. I mean, it just really depends how you look at it.

My brother, four 11. Well, yeah. Ephesians four 11. He himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets.

Yeah. He gave gifts, man. Yeah. But I guess, do you believe, do you believe there are modern day apostles like Peter, like John, like Paul, those guys, those, those, those apostles like Peter, John, Paul, uh, these men, um, have walked with Christ other, except for Paul.

Paul probably had made maybe the same experience. Um, that I don't know whether, if I had the same experience as him or he had a more glorified one where he saw

Christ speaking to him in a verbal way, I think way more than I did. Um, but I mean, he walked with them.

So, I mean, not, you can't, it's really hard to compare. Like, are you like me or I'm like you?

Um, but do you, do you believe there are modern day apostles, capital a, office of being an apostle today?

Uh, yes, I believe that there are people, there are calling. People have been called as an apostle.

And these are men who go out into the world and start churches that God has tremendously or some capacity.

Okay. So the word apostle in Greek, uh, apostolos generally means, it just means one who has sent a sent one.

But like elder and like deacon, it depends upon the context in which it's used. Elder could refer to an older man and that's it.

Or it could refer to the office of being an elder. You got to look at the context in which it's used. Same thing as apostle.

There are general apostles, like apostles of the church, those who are sent out from a local body.

In that sense, I am a very, you know, bear with me. I am in a general sense, an apostle of the church, just because I'm sent out from my local church.

I preach and teach, you know, across the United States and around the world. I'm one who sent out that.

I'm not, not, not, not, not, not a, uh, uh, an apostle of Christ.

I do not have that authority. I do not have that office. So I'm talking about Peter James.

Um, Paul, do you believe that though, that there are modern day apostles today who hold that office?

You and I, we believe the same. We believe the same. There are general apostles who are called to start churches who are mission missionaries.

Okay. Go out. They established, they were sent by the church, uh, you know, et cetera, the fellowship.

And then there are apostles, the apostles, the 12, 13, however you want to count them.

Right. So those, that office, the office of an apostle, do you believe that office continues today or not?

Just like the general apostle, like what you said, apostles, pastors, teachers, evangelists. I'm not talking about, but I'm not talking about the general apostle.

I'm talking about the office of an apostle. The 12, one of the 12, the 12, 12 or 13, the office as one of the 13.

No, I, that those are, they saw Christ. They saw the manifest.

Walk with Jesus. They saw the manifestation of Christ. Yeah. That was a special apostle, an office, a gift.

As, as Paul says, these guys were apostles, but they were special men.

They were called by Christ himself. Yeah. So that office that they carry, that they had no longer exist today.

Listen, you can't say the office doesn't exist. The office still exists. Those type of men who were called in that capacity, no longer exists in that capacity.

That was a special calling. That was a special gifting. Yeah, absolutely.

I agree with that, but you can't just tie in the word apostle there, because I believe in the general apostleship and calling of the church, such as you said, you're an apostle sent by your church.

Yeah, but I'm just automatically. You're a different kind of apostle. Either way, you're still an apostle.

You can't just say you're now a sub apostle. Oh, yeah. No, it's, it's, it's again, context, that office of apostle to be an apostle of Christ, to have that office, you had to be a first person eyewitness of the risen

Lord Jesus. You had to be called by Christ to be an apostle. And you had to have, you had to be able to perform the signs and wonders of an apostle.

Second Corinthians 12, 12, the sides of an apostle. So, and there were only 12, or depending on what you think about Matthias, possibly 13, but the new

Jerusalem, I'm talking new Jerusalem, 12 foundation stones, names are inscribed with those 12 apostles.

Has that office ceased? Okay. So has, if your definition of an apostle is according to what

Peter said in Acts chapter two, or one, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, Was it in one?

Yeah. One 21. One. Okay. So if your definition of acts of an apostle is based on what

Peter said in Acts chapter one, if that's your definition, then yes, it has ceased.

Welcome. Congratulations. You're a cessationist. But I don't believe in what the way the apostle

Peter called apostle. That's why I also, I believe what the apostle

Paul created as an apostle. See, Paul was one who was not considered an apostle from the apostles.

He was called by God. And anyone who knows his history, He even makes it a point that he was not called by men, but by God himself.

And is very emphatical about that in Galatians saying that I don't, I was not called by men as an apostle, but God himself called as an apostle.

So we can say that he did not fit. He did not fit.

Acts chapter one. According to Peter. The other apostles were called by Christ too.

They didn't appoint themselves as apostles. I understand that, but you know, as well as I, when

Paul makes a point in Galatians. In chapter one, he makes it a point that he was not called by men, but by God and that his apostleship, even when he writes in second

Corinthians. When he writes to the Corinthian church and he tells them that, Hey, these so -called people who are questioning my apostleship, you are my letter.

You are my. Epistle. Look at what I've done for you. And all these chief apostles and super apostles, he calls them.

They don't know nothing. So the apostle Paul was questioned. His apostleship was questioned because he did not fit acts chapter one.

So I am not what you, I know you were so excited, but I'm sorry to kind of throw the air out.

But my point was, my point was the apostleship as those guys, or I wouldn't even call them apostleship as those guys.

Acts chapter one, apostle. No, the real word for apostle.

Yes. The word apostle and acts in Ephesians that talks about apostles.

Yes, absolutely. Still exists today in Ephesians chapter four. Okay. So Edison, you want to continue on that or no, can we go to Edison and then bring one last.

Yeah. If it's okay. Okay. Go ahead. Edison. Yeah. One last question.

I understand. It's kind of late in your place. Probably. I don't know if you go your, your Pacific Pacific standard.

It's probably eight o 'clock. I'm good. I'm like nine o 'clock. I'm here. Those guys are.

I just want to say my, my point of view in terms of science and wonders.

And healing and all that. And why I believe that it is no longer the primary ministry.

I do believe that it is still existing. My church, our church is not technically a cessationist.

Our pastor loves John Piper. so we, we, we do not, we are not totally cessationist, but we do have our belief in terms of science and wonders, according to the

Bible. And I don't know if you would confirm with this brother, Mike, that biblically speaking the beginning of the science and wonders, which is in Exodus chapter four was to confirm the authenticity of the message.

It was not the primary intention, but rather to confirm that the message

Moses was declaring was from God in Exodus chapter four.

And that also goes in the new Testament in Hebrews chapter four. Coincidentally Hebrews chapter four.

It also says in verse number, actually not chapter four, chapter two, verse number three to four, how shall we escape with neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the

Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him. God also bearing them witness both signs and wonders and diverse miracles.

So it's basically to confirm the message. And since right now we have the completion of the

Bible, how do I know that? How do you know that the message is true or authentic? If it is in the

Bible. Now in the time of Moses, in the time of the apostles, there was no complete scan, a complete

Canon. So they have to go with the miracles of the miracles who are not the primary ministry, but they were to confirm the authenticity of the message.

I just want to share what are your comments on that. And I think that'll be all for me guys.

Thank you. Okay. And let me just, let me just tweak that a little bit. Edison is that the, and we mentioned this two weeks ago, but there's three times in history where miracles were more normative and they all followed a silence of scripture,

Moses, Elijah and Elisha, Jesus. There was a period where there wasn't scripture and scripture started being recorded again, or started for the first time.

The miracles are there to vindicate the message in each. So just tweak that a little bit more.

Thank you for your question, Edison. It's a very fantastic question. As a matter of fact, um,

I see that question as a very, uh, Americanized modern day question because you're speaking to someone from the

Philippines. Yeah. Yeah. He's still, he has, he's are very modernized.

They still have, they are, they have Americanization to them. That's why they have the internet and et cetera, and access access to the

Bible and everything. Uh, they are very, very much. They know their stuff over there. Okay. They're just like a sub

America. No, no offense. Yeah. Um, American Commonwealth.

Yes. I'm telling you. Um, the Bible is not always accessible to every person in the world.

For example, people in the jungles and missionaries, et cetera, they don't have, they don't, they can't show the scriptures in their language.

So there are people who don't speak the English language or a language that is set up, et cetera.

Um, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, and to prove him out that anyone needed authentication.

For example, like Abraham, Abraham knew God existed. He knew

God, he believed in God. Um, but he asked God to show himself.

And even though he knew God and believed in God, he, God said, okay, I'm going to show myself to you.

Um, so he did show enough that Abraham didn't believe prior or knew God prior.

I mean, he followed the Lord. We know that. So I guess the answer would be yes, it is used and no, not always.

Um, God's signs and wonders are not always used to authenticate, but it can be used to authenticate.

Um, and if there is signs and wonders, it doesn't mean that God is using it just to authenticate.

Um, it could be just to authenticate, to show his presence or that he is there and that he is who he says he is.

In Exodus chapter four, he deals with Pharaoh. Prior to that, he dealt with Moses.

Moses, stick your hand in, take your hand out, throw your rod down, pick up your rod. Now show here's, you know, all these things go to Pharaoh fair.

You know, these were all things that Moses had to be shown. I mean, how do you, how do you talk to a person who sees a burning bush, sees

Yahweh in front of him, speaks with him. And how do you not believe? Okay.

Now Moses, go to, go to Pharaoh. Let me tell you what you're going to do. Stick your hand in, stick it out where you're, you know, so yes and no.

So I guess does that answer, does that help answer a little bit? Yeah.

Yeah. I just wanted to, uh, understand your thoughts about it, but yeah, that's good. Thank you. Yeah. My pleasure, my brother.

God bless you. All right. So to the Philippines, to our brothers and sisters in Christ, send them our love in the name of Jesus.

All right. So let me, uh, okay. So let me bring in Mr. Kofi Abahu.

You just do it. Kofi. Where is

Kofi from? Where is he at? You got to unmute yourself though first. You're muted,

Kofi. Yeah. No, it says you're not muted, but we can't hear you.

Nope. Can't hear you. I can read lips though. It says he's unmuted. It says he's unmuted.

Yeah. You're probably on an, on an iPad or like a, there we go. Now we hear you. okay.

Hold on. Give me a second. I have my earpiece in. Oh, that's fine.

Kofi. So Kofi, introduce yourself properly. Give your name. Okay. So my surname is actually very easy.

Just break it into three parts. So Edu, that's what the A -D -U sounds like.

So swap the A for an E. Edu Buahit. So thank you. Yeah, Edu Buahit.

Yeah, there you go. See, there you are. How are you,

Edu Buahit? Salaam. Where are you from?

Where are you at? So, Medford, Oregon. Oh, you're in America. Yeah. Got me all excited.

So, Medford, Oregon, originally from London, England. Okay. Born to parents who are from Ghana, which is where my name's from.

Nice. Nice. Nice. All right.

I won't be on long because my wife just got home from work, so I'll try and make this brief, but...

Oh, why? Because I'd like to spend time with my wife today. Good answer.

My question's for Mike, and it's fairly simple. Actually, it's kind of complex, but kind of simple.

I like this. So, Matthew chapter 16, verse 18, Jesus makes the promise,

I will build my church, and the gates of hell, Hades, the grave, however it's translated, whatever translation you use, will not prevail against it.

Would you affirm that promise? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, the gates, that would mean the death grave, the grave will not prevail over God's church, yeah.

Right. So, if you affirm that promise, I want to go back, as I said, the question

I wanted to ask has kind of changed two or three times, as other stuff has come up, and then it gets dealt with, so I'm like, okay.

But, something was said about 25, 30 minutes ago, and I've been listening pretty much from the beginning of the show.

Regarding the nature of the church's understanding of these things for almost 2 ,000 years, and the case was made that, well, if we say, as, and I'm a former

Pentecostal, so I used to be Pentecostal, and, no Pentecostal history somewhat, well,

I'm a history buff, so. So, you're a former Pentecostal? Yes, I used to be a

Pentecostal, I'm not now. Okay, what are you now? Biblical. Ouch.

What are you, what are you now? I guess I would say, I am a, some people would say

Reformed Baptist, that gets kind of touchy, I'm not big on that label. Well, what church do you currently attend? I just consider myself, so,

I am the pastor of a church called, Redeemer Bible Fellowship, here in Medford, church is about three years old.

We would say that, theologically, we are Reformed and Baptistic, but, we wouldn't, yeah, but that can get very complicated, very quickly.

Okay. So, broadly, Anthony and I, I keep saying Anthony, because Anthony was here.

Andrew and I would be in, and Justin as well, would very much be on the same page, theologically. So, yeah, theologically speaking,

I share a theology with them. Um, but I got a little troubled, I'll be honest brother, when,

I started hearing comments about, the nature of church history, that seemed to suggest, a very

Restorationist understanding, um, for the benefit of those who are at home. Restorationism is basically the idea, that the true church, or aspects of the true church, were lost, for a long period of time, and then were suddenly recovered, at some later point.

Lots of groups through church history, have taught this, to varying degrees. Um, you mentioned

Sertullian, and that's going to be part of my question, in just a moment, um, in relation to the tongues issue. There, there were always these groups, who pop up every so often, talk about great apostasy, that happened, and now they're bringing the church back.

In relation to the tongues issue, you kind of, forgive me if I was wrong, because this was almost half an hour ago, maybe 40 minutes, you seem to suggest that, um, these gifts were lost, and then, recovered in the 1900s, with the

Azusa Street Revival, and events prior to that. Um, the same way that, the gospel seems to have been lost, um, during the

Reformation, and then was re, was recovered, or rediscovered, during the Reformation period. I guess the first part of my question, would be, do you realize, or would you realize, that there's a small problem, with saying that, in light of Jesus's words, in Matthew chapter 16, that, he would build his church, and that the gates of hell, would not prevail against it.

A, restorationist understanding, even a limited one, would have to say, that yeah,

Jesus said that, but that's not what really, happened in the end. What happened was, yeah, actually the gates of hell, did prevail against the church, in some sense, in that, either some part of the truth, or multiple parts of the truth, were lost, for long periods of time, only to be recovered later.

I want to be clear, I want to make sure that, I'm understanding you correctly, brother Mike. Are you saying that, that's what happened, with the tongues issue?

I just want to make sure, I'm not mishearing you, before I go on. Is that what you're saying? Well, first of all, our understanding of Acts 16, between you and I, is completely different, than,

I think you mean Matthew 16. I mean Matthew 16, what did he say? Acts, Matthew 16, is completely different.

You know, Christ says he will establish, his church, you know he'll build his church, and upon this rock, I will build my church.

The truth, that Jesus Christ, is the son of God, the Christ, has never been lost.

That truth is always, that's what the church, is built on. It is built on, Christ being the son of God, that truth has never, ever been lost, and that truth, the gates of hell, will not prevail.

A person who believes, that Jesus Christ, is the son of the living God, God incarnate, shall be saved, and understanding the cross, et cetera, the gospel.

That truth, what happens, whether someone believes, in tongues, or doesn't believe in tongues, or whether they believe, in transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or spiritual, whatever it is, those are all accessory, to, the doctrines, or the teachings of Christ, whether they're

Calvinist, or Arminianist, or Molinist, doesn't matter, these are all accessory. So that truth, still remains.

So I believe, and I think that you believe, the same way too, that the truth, that Jesus Christ, being the son of God, has never, ever, ever, been lost.

Wouldn't you agree? I would agree, I think you're, misunderstanding my questions, I'm going to try again.

So what, what was, so when I say, when

I say things like, the Bible being rediscovered, I'm not saying the Bible, being rediscovered, the

Bible has always been, the word of God, in the Greek, depends on whether you believe, in the majority text, you know,

Alexandrian, whatever you believe, and, the truth, of the scriptures, have always been there.

We now have, access to it, and that access, enables us,

I guess for the lack, of better terms, we'll use the word, Justin used, illuminates us, illuminated us, and enabled us to see, the truth that has been hidden, from us, and I'm talking about, the accessory truths, not the main truth, not the main gospel, the gospel wasn't hidden, from us, we knew,

Jesus Christ died on the cross, for our sins, that wasn't lost, just the other truths, in the scriptures, that were shown to us, had been revealed, when the word, was given to us, you know, that we're able to read it, and understand it, so, same thing when it comes, you know, further down the line, we're now able to see it, we're able to read it, we're able to understand it, there were people, in different cultures, that understood it differently, according to their culture, when

America receives it, we started reading it, in America, and we started receiving it, Americans are a little bit, more emotional, you know, than, you know, other people in the world, other people are more intellect, you know, you being from Ghana know, me being from, you know, from the

Middle Eastern culture, we know that, everyone has their different, you know, feelings, about certain things, and we react, to the word in a different way, so, does that help answer, a little bit, for you?

Okay, I don't think you really, answered my question, okay, so, first of all,

I would agree that, I know, different people, go different ways, of how to understand, what the rock, that Matthew 16 refers to,

I would actually, agree with you that, I do think that the rock, is Peter's confession, of the Lordship of Christ, I would actually, agree with you on that one, but you know, we agree, that the, so you agree with me, that the rock, that God built his church on, is that Jesus Christ, is the son of the living

God, that he is the Christ, no argument there, okay, fantastic, yeah, so we're in agreement there, so how does, the question that,

I'm asking about, relates to, the second half of that,

Jesus on this rock, and then here's the verb, I will build my church, that's the action of that verse,

Jesus makes a promise, that he would build his church, he would establish his church, and that the gates of hell, would not prevail against it, yeah, so my question is, how can,

I would argue first of all, and I want to correct you on this, because you said this about the reformation, that I don't agree, you said that the reformation, was similar to what happened in 1900, here's the difference, when you read the reformers,

I don't know how much of them you've read, I love church history, so I read a lot of them, you read

Luther, you read Calvin, you read Zwingli, you read Buta, you read Malachi, you read all these guys, they were not trying to, rediscover anything, what they were saying was, no, here's what the early church said, and the church has gotten off path, we're trying to get back, to where the early church was, you read

Calvin's Institutes, and the one person next to scripture, he quotes the most, St. Augustine, why?

Because he's trying not to, bring such a radical cleavage, between the historic church, and the reformation, he's saying no, we're going back,

Roman Catholicism is the usurper, so even that kind of an argument, doesn't work, the question that would have to be asked is, where do you find a, you can find a continued thread, of the truth taught in the reformation, that goes all the way back, to the apostles,

Justin made a point, and I don't think you heard him properly, or you didn't accept, or either one of the two, he made a point that, when you look through history, all the groups, all of them, through church history, that affirmed continuing gifts, have problems, you mentioned

Tertullian, would you affirm the Montanists, as a true part of the church? Well, I don't accept,

Tertullian, or certain teachers, beyond the successors of the apostles, as to indicate doctrine,

I think a lot of people. Okay, but hold on, let me ask you a question, my brother, let me ask you a question, what does that, how does that tie down, to Matthew 16, because you can't, automatically say, that the church, is somehow tied, to, other than, what we understand, is the gospel, how are you?

Okay, first and foremost, because, I'm not saying that the church, is tied to anything other than the gospel. Okay, so then, how does that tie in?

Allow me to explain, you can't just throw stuff out there, and allow me not to explain. Okay. Sorry. Thank you.

Because I'm having, that's what I'm having difficulty. Right, what I'm saying is, that, what you're essentially saying is, well, all that matters is, the truth, the people, the institution called the church, we can take or leave that, and what

I'm saying is actually, Jesus promised to preserve, not just the, the truth of the confession of his lordship, as we see in Matthew 16, but this entity that we call, the church, he explicitly says, that he would build his church, and the church didn't get lost, and then rediscovered, no, the church has always been there.

Who's ever said that? Stronger and weaker at various points, but the church has always been there. And so,

I'm not quite done yet, I'm not quite done yet. Okay, I'm sorry. Allow me to finish. I want to make sure we keep, you know, on that, because you can't.

Okay, but hold on, you've had plenty, you've had multiple hours to make your point, please allow me a few minutes, to make my point uninterrupted.

Thank you. That was, I'm sorry, I just, first of all, I apologize. Thank you.

I mean, it wasn't this, but go ahead, I'll let you say what you need to say. What I'm saying is, what we do see in the scriptures, and this is another aspect, that I don't hear you discussing, and that's kind of troublesome for me.

What we see in the New Testament, is this emphasis on, the truth being passed down, from generation to generation, and God's people, being able to look back, and trace, oh, who was teaching these things?

Who did I learn these things from? The clearest example we see, is Paul and Timothy. Paul is constantly telling

Timothy, remember who you learned these things from, the things that you've seen and heard from me, one of my favorite verses, 2

Timothy 2 .2, the things that you've seen and heard from me, these commit to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

There is this emphasis, on the truth being passed down, from generation to generation, such that you can't just have, just a confession of faith, there are people, flesh and blood human beings, who are involved, in passing down that, confession of faith, from age to age, and we call that, the historic church, we call that, the body of believers, down through the ages.

Yes, with greater and lesser, measures of understanding, with greater, and lesser measures of faithfulness, of course, but we can't just sit there and say, well, it's all about the truth, and forget the church, actually, we need both, the, confession of faith, and the body of people, who from age to age, hold fast that confession, that pattern of sound words, as Titus, no, first Timothy says, pattern of sound words.

So, when I ask that question, I'm asking the question, not because I think the people, are more important, but because I'm asking, where can we see this, faithful handing down of the truth, from age to age,

I can make that case, of somebody who believes, in the doctrines of the reformation, my contention is, and you read early

Pentecostal history, even they acknowledge this, you can't say the same, about the modern

Pentecostal, and charismatic movements, and I say this as somebody, who's a former Pentecostal, and knows the history of Pentecostalism, pretty well, they did not make this contention, they believe that they were, a restoration of the church, not a continuation of it, to me, that's very, very problematic, great

Kofi, I agree, he walked away, he can still hear us, but he walked away, the reason, while I have a chance, the reason

I brought up, Tertullian was, Tertullian got involved, with the Montanist heresy, if you know anything, about the

Montanist, they were far from, Bible believing Christians, by any sense, yes, when

I asked like, when you, will you affirm the Montanist, there are Pentecostals, who want to affirm Montanism, they would say no, that was an aberration, right, right, so if you're gonna say, okay, well we see these gifts, with people like that, okay, if you're gonna say that, then how much of that, do we affirm is it, well they had the gifts, but the teaching was off, well hold on, how can you have, true gifts, with false teaching, that becomes it's own problem, and that's, that's the reason, we can also look at the, the occult, and the, you know,

Kundalini, and you know, Mormons, and it's the same, it's the same thing, now we lost both

Kofi, and Mike, nope, I'm moving into my bedroom, okay, sorry,

I had to listen to you, auxiliary, okay, did he leave, no, he's here, so the last, the last statement, was, the continuation, versus the restoration, that's the last statement,

I heard from you, is that correct, yes, I would argue, that what we, a healthy view, of what

God has done, in 2000 years of the church, is that the church, his emphasis is on restoration, not restoration, excuse me, continuation, and passing on the truth, not a restoration, because the truth is always there, the job of the church, in various ages, is to get back, to biblical faithfulness, that's, okay,

I understand, what you're trying to say, and I understand, what you're, what you're, not just trying to say, what you're emphasizing here, okay, so I guess the question, is you'd have to, take a look at scripture, take a look at understanding, of church history, whether it's, from the reformation point, whether it's

Protestant point, and in between, so you got, you got a place, from the early church, then you have, right when the apostles died, you had, what we know,

Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement, of Rome, okay, then we have, you know,

Justin Martyr, we have those guys writings, and then after that, it starts getting a little, kind of weirdish, with, you know,

Tertullian, and then you keep going, all the way through, right, about 300 AD, at time of Nicaea, I'm telling,

I'm probably not even telling, anything that's new to you, we have a real, crazy change, of understanding, now

I'm not saying that from, from, 33 or you know, from Polycarp, or from the, you know,

Ignatius, or any of the church, you know, successors, the apostle successors, that, that, it stopped, there are people, who still believed, and still trusted, in the

Holy Scriptures, even when, Nicaea, the Roman church, you know,

I still, even they call it, it's not the Roman Catholic, I still believe, it was the Roman Catholic Church, still had the strong influence,

I was going, there were other people, who were contrary, you know, the Antinousian, or maybe

Pro -Orthodoxy, Christians, who did not trust, and follow through, with, you know, the continuation, of whatever, was called, the church by man, there were other believers, who are part of the church, and that's why the

Bible says, that the gates of hell, shall not prevail, okay, over the church, so there were, there was a place called, the church by, the institution of man, but then there was, the real church, the real believers, that were called out, and in, among the institution of man, there were the church, and outside of the, institution of man, there was the church, the believers, that God kept, all the way through, now when the scriptures, were given to us, or not so much given to us, but as much as, placed in the

English language, or German language, or whatever language, you see, we were then enlightened, to understand that, the institution of men, which they called the church, had deceived us, that they were, holding the truth, back from full of humanity, and we came to that realization, so after that, we, different things were created,

Calvinism, you know, Arminianism, Moulinism, you know, and of course, there's different dates, and times were, and all this systematic, theology was, was presented, so we can't say, oh, you know, that it was just now, presented at that time, it always was, so I'm not saying, that it was restored, or it was lost, the church, there's a church, that is outside of the church, even to this day, there's the institution of men, and there's the church,

God's church, God's calling out, God's people, in there, so, we come up with,

John Calvin, you know, being reformed, I'm sure you're, you believe in, in systematic theologies, of John Calvin, right?

Would you agree? Yeah, I disagree with Calvin, on a number of reasons, a number of years, okay, a number, but usually, you know, there's that, that, whatever it is, and, but nonetheless, we can say, oh,

John Calvin, the perseverance of saints, once saved, always saved, or limited atonement, which

I think, you probably don't agree, with limited atonement, that's probably why, no, I believe in limited atonement, okay, so, limited atonement, you know, are you telling me, that limited atonement, was lost, from the early church, all the way to now, if you're, actually,

I don't believe that, I mean, you know, so, if you go back, to, if you go back, to the,

Tertullian, and Polycarp, and all those other writers, all the way through, origin, and, et cetera, and we're gonna read them, you wouldn't, get a hint of, of, what do you call it, limited atonement, from them, actually, you would, right, well,

I don't think you would, but nonetheless, okay, okay, if you're gonna make, a statement like that, fine, the burden of proof, is on you to say that, because I have read, those guys, and you can actually see, a strong doctrine of, firstly,

I don't like the term, limited atonement, it's a fairly modern term, and I can't stand it, because I don't think, it actually explains, the biblical doctrine, well,

I prefer, a particular atonement, and actually, I do see a particularity, to the atonement, in the early church fathers, a ton of research, has been done on this, by people who are, far more expert, in that subject than myself, but to say that, you don't see a hint of that,

I'm sorry, I would hardly disagree, so let's talk about something, so that you and I are, in common denominator, do you believe in transubstantiation, no,

I don't, neither did the early church fathers, but that's a conversation, for us to have, no, it's okay, but my point was, the institutional church, took transubstantiation, as their main doctrine, and taught it, all the way from 300, to the 13, 14, 15, no matter how,

I don't know, where you're at, and that's what they taught, was transubstantiation, so would we say, that consubstantiation, or no substantiation, was lost in that, no, it was only until, after we get the scripture, do we look and go, oh, this is wrong, it's not that it was lost, the truth was always there, but it was in the true church, the body of Christ, the believers, who believed in his word, that's my point, that's my only point to you, my brother, is only to say, that God's truth, which is, according to Matthew 16, that one, has never been lost, everything else, is exemplary, whether it's in the

Bible, whether it's Calvinism, whether it's mini -ism, whether it's speaking in tongues, whether it's, you know, it's exemplary, it has nothing to do, and if you attach anything to it, then you take away from the gospel,

Jesus Christ dying on the cross, paying the penalty for your sins, does, me speaking in tongues, or me believing in tongues, doesn't give it, or take it away,

I don't have that much power, to take away, what happened on Calvary, 2 ,000 years ago, I think you'd agree to that, right?

I don't think that's actually up, for debate, between the both of us, oh, exactly, so, awesome,

I appreciate that, I agree with you then, I don't think anyone can debate, what happened 2 ,000 years ago, can ever, change what

I believe, or what you believe, it happened, Jesus paid the penalty, that, of sin, he paid it, on the cross, it didn't, doesn't change, if I don't believe, or I don't believe, it paid, and whether I receive it, it depends on, what it applies to me, whether it applies to me, or it doesn't apply to me, that's up to me, whether it's applied, at the payment, of all sin, that's done, it's finished, well, this isn't really a, we're not really, we're not really here, to talk about the atonement, that's not, so I won't, but I'm just saying, that's, but what my point is,

God's church, the issue I have, with what you're saying, I don't disagree, that the gospel, is the most central thing,

I don't disagree, that it is the main thing, I don't disagree, that the gospel, is the lifeblood, of God's church, I don't disagree, with any of that, that being said, however, when we do read, the so -called pastoral epistles,

I have my issues, of calling them that, but for the sake of argument, the pastoral epistles, first, first second,

Timothy and Titus, when you read, those epistles, there is an emphasis, on this body of truth, which is not, just the gospel, of course, it includes the gospel, the gospels, at the heart of that, but there is, a body of truth, that we as the people of God, are told to hold fast to, we are told to defend, and we're told to pass on, so we can't be, so reductionist, that's to say well, okay as long as the gospel, that all this other stuff, is not important, well actually it is, because as we've already, seen tonight, this has implications, for how we view the church, how we view worship, how we view, the nature of scripture, how we view, the nature of ministry, these things have implications, outside of just,

Jesus died for me, and again I'm not saying, just Jesus died for me, because again, I can't die for anyone, so that's kind of a big deal, but what

I'm saying is, we cannot sit there and say, well you know, these other doctrines, you know that kind, you know everything else, no actually these things matter, and again

I simply have to ask, matter to who? To God, because he's the one, who puts them in his word, for us to discover, and to think through, let me ask you a question, do you think it really matters, to that to God, to that point, of what man has systematically, placed in their own heart, to believe,

I mean when I go into the jails, to preach, and to the prisons, and I preach the gospel, and I have men crying, and their hands raised up, and worshiping

God, and God thank you, that God's like, well hold on, wait a minute here, do you believe, or do you not believe, do you this, are you

Baptist, or are you Lutheran, are you Methodist, or are you, people are, the word of God, to worship

God, is much simpler, than men make it. Okay brother, I'm not disagreeing with you,

I am not disagreeing, with the centrality of the gospel, I praise God, for your ministry in the jails, and seeing people come to Christ, I do not debate, a simple point of that,

I never debated that, what I'm saying is, and even the great commission, makes this point, we are to go into all the world, and to make disciples, of all believers, baptizing them, in the name of the father, the son, and the

Holy Spirit, that implies they've heard the gospel, they've believed, and they've been baptized, but do we stop there, no, actually

Jesus goes on and says, teaching them to observe, everything I've commanded you, there's a lot more, to what we're commanded to teach, than just that, yeah, and these things do matter to God, because they're important, for our discipleship, they're important, for our ongoing, ongoing excuse me, growth in godliness, they're important, for the training of other men, who will teach, and who will preach to others, so actually these things, do matter to God, not in a salvific sense, you can be a

Christian, and not understand any of this, I didn't when I became, a Christian at 14, I'm 31 now, I've learned a lot more, since I became a

Christian, by the age of 14, did I need to understand, all the things that I understand now, of course not, nobody here is saying that, what we're saying is, these things still are important, and we can't just say, well it's no big deal, here's what's important, actually all of it matters, maybe to different degrees, maybe in different contexts, but all of it matters, because God inspired, the truths in his word, that we as men, yes

I agree, men obviously will come up, with their interpretations, what have you, nobody argues that, that doesn't mean, we don't seek to be diligent, in the scriptures, to take time to understand, what the scriptures say, to compare scripture, with scripture, and to come to conclusions, which is all systematic theology is, asking what does the whole

Bible, teach on any given subject, that doesn't mean, we don't do any of that, so my point is, my brother, guys

I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm going to have to sign off, I got to, thanks for coming, thank you

Justin, see you guys, God bless you, take care brother, you too, okay, my point was, when did we have, the full canon of scripture, can you tell me the date, when revelation was finished, okay, so when did we actually have, what we have, the 66 books, when were they established, as we have them, as a volume of books, when

John finished revelation, okay, so that's, let's say 90 AD, 70, what do you think,

I say 90, I'm going to leave it, yeah, so the church had been, already for 60 years, 60 years they were still, the church was still the church, prior to them having, the canons, the epistles, and all the epistles, no argument in that, and once revelation completed in 90, the gifts that were needed for revelation, are no longer needed, what

I'm saying is, it wasn't dependent, it wasn't dependent, on the canonization of, the whole thing, and we've said this,

I mean, this is the thing, we're trying to present, a consistent biblical argument, and I think you got to do,

I know you have your experience, but take a step back from your experience, what's the purpose of gifts, what's the purpose of miracles, what's the purpose, we keep doing this, the purpose of the miracles, is to vindicate a new message, after a period of silence, so once the silence is done, you don't need, maybe

God will bring miracles back, when he's writing scripture again, but that's the purpose of those miracles, he says, these things will cease, when the perfect is done, because it's complete, the thing in part, is no longer needed, now that we have a completed canon, we don't need the partial gifts, that were for that period of time, so you think that these all existed, all the way until 90

AD, no, I would say that you see, those gifts that are specifically mentioned, as in first Corinthians, which we're speaking of tongues, it says it's going to cease, and yet I think it continued, why did it cease on their own, because the people who had that gift, the other two gifts, the wisdom and the prophecy, stop immediately, but the tongues cease on their own, and they cease on their own, for a very simple reason, someone has that gift, they have that till they die, and it's gone, but once the scripture is completed, they're not getting new revelation, that stops immediately, so you believe that stopped at 90

AD, after the book of revelation, yeah, and here's the thing, history supports that claim, you're arguing for what,

I think you're saying, history supports that claim, but I don't think, I don't believe it does, you got to show in history, you got to show the history, that says that, people continue to believe this, and teach this, the way they do today,

I do not need to show it, I just have to show it in the word, I don't care what, that's not history, no, you're talking two different things, history is shown by history, my brother

Andrew, I don't need to prove, what humanity did after, or whatever it is, well you do, because scripture says it's going to cease, and you say it didn't, so yes, because I am a manifestation of it,

I have it, and many millions of people have the gift, you can't say it's ceased, again, but you're proving my point, the fact that scripture says, they will cease, and they ceased, but you don't know where they ceased, and you don't know if they ceased, you're only assuming they ceased, well no, actually, maybe you're an anomaly, but most, if not all,

Pentecostal historians, or theologians, admit that it started up again in 1905, that's only because they want credit for it, that's what makes them an occult,

I don't care what they said, the point comes down to is, the situation comes down, is it has not ceased, and if it did cease, it was suspended, and it didn't cease forever, that in the last days,

God says I will pour out my spirit, and he has done this, the Holy Spirit still speaks, but that doesn't fit with the whole argument he makes, in the context of it ceasing, that when the perfect comes, when the thing that is completely matured, you're saying that the perfect is a canonization, of the scripture, there is nothing that supports that, other than you saying that,

No, the text is what I would use to argue that, the text doesn't say that, anyone who reads, 1

Corinthians chapter 13, will not see, this will cease, when the perfect, or when the canonization of the

Bible, will be done away with, will done away with, okay, can we agree that the partial, is tongues prophecy and knowledge, okay, for we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part, shall be done away with, okay, in the context, so what we know in part, will be done away with, and what we prophesy in part, will be done away with,

I can't agree to that, that's not true, because that is not what happened, if I believe, that the scriptures, is the perfect, then

I would have to say, that what we know in part, is done away with, and what we prophesy in part, is done away with, that's wrong, no, the context is verse 8, prophecy, tongues, and knowledge, will be done away, but there's, we know in part, and prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away, so the partial, is those three, and they're done away, when the perfect comes, my brother, you are, okay, it looks like, it looks like, we're kind of going backwards,

I understand what you believe, but you have to, you are inserting, your own doctrine, by reading it, out of disrespect, what

I'm saying is, anyone who has a preconceived idea, and they read that, and they go, love never fails, but whether there be prophecy, or whether prophecy, okay, and the word prophecy, is what?

Well Michael, Michael, take what you're saying, and do me a favor, apply it to yourself,

I know, I'm saying it seriously, you have a preconceived idea, and I'm, all

I'm doing, is walking through the text, the way we do hermeneutics, with any other passage of scripture, I'm not having to change it, and what do you see?

You see very clearly, that he's saying here, here's three things, they, it says, they will be done away, and then he says four, right, that's,

Gar, that is explaining, why they go away, because when we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when something is complete, the partial is done away, so those three things, will be done away, when something is completed, that is not me inserting anything, that's directly from the text, no, that is not, that is not my brother

Andrew, my brother, that is not what it says, that is exactly what it says, in any reading of it, you're a preconceived idea, it doesn't say, that the perfect, is the canonization of the scripture, you're just adding to that, and obviously, so notice folks, what he just did,

I just gave a very clear thing, and he just inserted something, that I believe, but didn't say, and it's also, that's all, we're dealing with this, one step at a time, he can't deal with that, because he knows, what the text is saying, doesn't fit, so Mike, I'll ask it again, are the three, prophecy, tongues, knowledge, are those in this text, the partial that will be done away with, yeah,

I believe it will be done away with, yes, okay, then when is it going to be done away with, when Christ returns, at the end of the age, so when

Christ returns, these will be done away with, correct, correct, yep, okay, and yet in history, we don't see this happening, other than in cults and occult, until 1905, you're only assuming by 1905,

I don't know, even though, it hasn't been used, the gift is not used, doesn't mean it went away, so just because something, hasn't been used, or exercised, in writing, doesn't mean it's gone away, you don't, taking your preconceived idea, and trying to, because I have to understand, hold on, here's the thing,

I have to, you have to account, that if it's there, then it hasn't gone away, well,

I'll tell you, I'll tell you why, your position has a problem, one, your position has, your scripture explains, the purpose of gifts, your position teaches, against that, the scripture is clear, on the purpose of miracles, your position teaches, against that, so, so, your, the position you have, would be supportive, that we are to have a gift, to edify self, scripture speaks against that, throughout the rest of scripture, so, that's not true, that's not, you're not, that is absolutely not true, that is not, where does scripture say, that we should, study, show thyself approved, a workman unto

Christ, that he not to be ashamed, wouldn't that be, a self edification, to study, to show thyself approved, can

I, can I jump in here, one moment my brother, okay, go ahead, I'm going to stay on your subject, on verse eight, did prophecy, is prophecy done away with,

I keep telling you, yes, I don't know how many times, is knowledge done away with, yes, do you mean, there's no knowledge, fallacy of equivocation, you just added that, you just added that word, into your, no, added it,

I didn't add the word knowledge, you added it, you added it, you added it,

I just, I'm using the meaning, of this text, I'm not giving it a different meaning, it doesn't say anywhere, where fallacy, it says knowledge, it says the word knowledge, what is the knowledge, directly referring to, knowing, the act of knowing, that is knowledge, so it's not referring to a gift, so, the whole context, is spiritual gifts, but suddenly he's not talking, about a spiritual gift, my brother, prophecies, knowledge, tongues, answer the question, is he talking about, a gift of knowledge, you, here's the thing, here's what, here's what the scripture says, whether, whether it's, just answer the question, whether speaking in tongues, whether it's into knowing, all that stuff will vanish, when

Christ returns, we will know, as he, we, we are known, that's why it says, but when that, which is, it's taking that out of context, there as well, it says it right there, it says it right there, the context, now

I know, Michael, listen, you, you, you've, you've done this, like, for almost four hours, you've done the same thing, you get asked a question, when the, and when, when you get stuck, when you get stuck with a question, what you're doing, is going and answering something else, or bringing a different thing up, you keep doing that, so,

I have my, my brother, you know, as well as I, the only way, to get the clear understanding of text, is text has to confirm by text, no, no, no, no, you're doing the same thing, no, my brother, you are inserting your own,

I am, okay, into the text, Michael, Michael, here's the thing, you're taking an illustration, and using it as a literal, that's not harmonics, you're, you want to take, jump to other texts, you first start with the immediate text, so, again, let me ask you a question, is it up to the people to decide,

I'm going to ask this, Michael, I'm going to ask this one more time, yeah, my brother, a simple answer, yes or no, prophecy, tongues, knowledge, in this context, are they a gift, are, in this, in this context, what do you mean, in the context of this passage, well, prophecy, prophecy, is, tongues are, knowledge is not,

I mean, knowledge is knowing, according to this, give me a second here, give me a second, okay, give me a second, okay, oh,

I'm just having a little, while you're looking at, let me, the answer is, is in this context, no, in Acts chapter, in, in 1

Corinthians chapter 13, the answer is no, it is not a gift, as a matter of fact, it is not, because in 1

Corinthians 13, though I speak with tongues of men of angels, and though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand mysteries, and have all knowledge, and have faith that I could remove mountains, and I bestow all my food, my goods to feed the poor, and burn my body, and et cetera,

I'm nothing, charity suffers long, it does not behave itself, charity never fails, it has nothing to do with the question, whether there be tongues, it will cease, whether there be knowledge, it will vanish away, so the answer to your question, is according to this context, the answer is a resounding no, he's not talking about,

And here's the thing, now here's the thing, Michael, because you go very long with red herrings, so.

That's not, hold on, don't say it's a red herring, you know as well as I. You're going to things that aren't, not dealing with the text, we have right in front of us, going to Acts.

verse three, verse two, it says, though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge,

I don't have knowledge of sin here. Chapter 13 is not about gifts, it's about saying that love precedes all.

You must get 13 and 14, 14 is talking about gifts, 12 is talking about gifts, 13 is not, 13 isn't, 12 is chapter 12 talking about gifts?

Yeah, chapter 12 is talking about gifts, yeah. And chapter 13 is not talking about gifts?

Talking about love. Okay, so tongues are not a gift. Prophecy is not a gift. No, no.

Chapter 12 is talking about love. Chapter 13. Chapter 13 is emphasis on love.

In the immediate context, is prophecy a gift? No. Listen. Chapter 13 is talking about love.

And it's saying, look, if I have faith, if I have love, if I have knowledge,

I'm sorry, if I have faith. This is why I say red herring. You're not answering the question. I continuously ask,

I'm trying it several different ways. In verse 8, a gift, it's a yes or no.

Is it a gift or is it not? What is? Prophecy. In this case, yeah. Is tongues a gift?

Yes or no? It's a gift, yeah. Is knowledge a gift? Yes or no? It just depends, but not a spiritual gift, no.

See, and what we did right there, this is you inserting something. You can agree with it step -by -step, but all of a sudden you have to change something because you want to make it say something else.

Because we know prophecy is a gift. And we know tongues is a gift. But we know knowledge.

I have knowledge. There are 18 ways to have knowledge. Equivocation. We're not talking about if you have knowledge.

We're talking about having the gift of knowledge. My brother, same thing. Two different meanings.

Verse 13, verse 2. Chapter 13, verse 2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, is that a gift?

Yes. Is understanding a gift? Huh? And understand all mysteries.

Is that a gift? Now he's using, now he's, just like with the angels and things like that, he's using this as the comparison now.

Yeah, okay. He's understanding mysteries. So you have the gift is tongues in verse 1.

No, verse 2. Verse 2. What about prophecy? In verse 3. Is prophecy a gift?

Yes. What about and understand all mysteries? That's, that is the illustration of it, but.

Okay, what about knowledge and all knowledge? Again, the illustration of it.

This is where he is now expanding, he's now going to, he's doing an argument called argument.

I understand that, but is mysteries understanding all mysteries a gift? The way that it is used here, he's saying the gift of prophecy, right?

I have the gift of prophecy. Okay. Is that a gift? So here knowledge, to take this knowledge here, and the knowledge of it, the gift of knowledge that's used below is a fallacy of equivocation.

You're using the same English word, two different ways. See how easy it is from football to fame.

See how I can give you, I can talk to you like a prosecutor, like you talk to me like a prosecutor.

We all know the truth. No, Mike. Understanding all mysteries is not about gift, and all knowledge is not a gift.

See, Mike, used differently. This is the whole thing that you're not seeing. The gift of prophecy in verse two is not used the same way.

I'm going to treat you like you treat me. Yes or no. Is understanding all mysteries a gift?

No. I've been consistently answering yes or no. Is all knowledge a gift, yes or no?

No. Okay then. Why not use that in chapter 10, verse 10?

Because of the way it's used in the verse. You're taking it out of context. All mysteries is not referring to the gift the way prophecy is.

All knowledge is not speaking about a gift the way prophecy is. Down below in verse eight, it is.

And you can see that by the way it's used in the text. You answered no on all knowledge, but then when knowledge came back up in the same chapter, you said yes.

How does that happen? You can't do that. For a very simple reason. Okay? You can't do that, my brother.

You can't just change the word knowledge. I'm not changing anything. I'll show you a very easy way to see it in the

Greek. Ready? You see these words in blue? You see these words in blue? Okay. Hold on.

Hold on. Let me get just a little bit. Verse two, right? If you see my screen and you see the words in blue.

Got it. Got it. I'm going to have to wrap up. That says it's the definitive article. So mysteries, knowledge, and faith are tied together, along with possessions and body tied together.

They are a definitive article. The mysteries, the knowledge, the faith.

It's not the way gifts and prophecies used here, is it? Nor tongues, nor to give. Okay, I'm not arguing with you.

I'm saying mysteries, knowledge, and faith are not gifts. So we have three gifts mentioned here in verses one, two, and three.

Tongues, prophecy, and give. We have, when we drop down to verse eight, we have three different gifts.

The gift of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. You mentioned as gifts.

They're right there. Where is that? Where is that in your definition?

No, you just proved my point there. Okay. So this is the thing.

You're not following. You just proved my. Hold on. Put that back. You just proved my point.

Put that back. You just, again, proved my point right there. Put that back.

Let people see that. You just proved my point. Okay. There's prophecy.

There's tongues. And if there's our knowledge, it will done away. Now you go back up and you're definitive. You just proved my point.

Knowledge is not a gift. Knowledge is talking about the same thing in verse two. Hold on. You're saying that I proved your point.

So my point is that these three here are not definitive articles, correct? They're not in blue, which is the way my

Bible set up it. That'll be a definitive article. Is prophecy a definitive article here? No. Is tongues a definitive article?

No. Is knowledge a definitive article? No. So let's go back up and look the way you're arguing. Here in verse one, is tongues a definitive article?

No. Is prophecy a definitive article? No. Is giving? Is give a definitive article? No. But mystery, knowledge, faith, possessions.

What about love? Don't forget knowledge. Knowledge is not. Knowledge is in blue right there.

It is definitive. It's definitive. It's non -knowledge. That same gnosis is the same gnosis in verse 14.

And the context gives us the meaning. Anyway, it's okay, my brother.

It's all right. There's nothing bad about saying okay. I mean, there's nothing bad.

Everyone knows whether you believe in speaking in tongues or you don't. I think we all have.

There's a lot of things that we'll read and we all— Kofi, Edson, you wanted to wrap up with—I'm going to give you the chance.

Sure. First of all, Kofi, does your name really mean

Thursday? No, it means Friday. Oh, Friday? Yeah. Brother, I've got to be honest.

I don't mean to be cruel when I say this. Yeah, you do. But the hermeneutics that have been applied this evening have been painful to listen to.

Painful. I agree. Basic rules of grammar have been ignored. The fact that words can—the same word can have a different meaning depending on the context in the same sentence, that's been ignored.

I teach hermeneutics. So I have—here's an example I use in my hermeneutics class. Where do you teach hermeneutics?

Brother, you've had plenty of time. Please allow me to make my point. Thank you. Okay, yeah.

A father and a son are walking. The father is a farmer, and he's walking with his son. And his son is on this farm.

The son points out excitedly, Daddy, duck. The word duck is there.

We've all heard the word duck. Yep. Later on in the day, he's working with his father on the farm.

They're lifting up bales of hay. One of the bales of hay falls. The kid says to Daddy, Daddy, duck.

Same word. Same four letters. D -U -C -K, duck. The context, however, determines what the meaning is.

The first time, he's not—the son is not giving an instruction to his dad to duck down, like we would say, or to crouch down.

No, he's pointing to an animal. The second time, is he pointing to an animal that uses the same word?

No. He's saying, Dad, get down. That's going to get you. Words that you can have exactly the same word and have it have two very different meanings depending on the immediate context.

That's what Andrew's been trying to point out. He even pulled up his loggers. He needs to tell me how to do that, by the way,

Andrew, with my loggers, because that's amazing. You know, Kofi, with all due respect, that's what I would say. No, Kofi, hold on, man.

I'm just going to mute you, Michael. I've just muted you, Michael, so that Kofi can finish. Thank you.

My point is, you seem to be ignoring just basic hermeneutics, the way in which we handle the text.

You simply say, oh, I read it. It says this. It means this. Texts are way more complex than that. You have to take your time.

Break the text down. Actually, look at, OK, is this the same form of the word that's being used? Our English translation—English is such a limited language.

We can only do so much in communicating ideas in English. That's why Andrew's taking his time, going back to the original language, pointing out differences in the use of the word.

Yes, the same word may be being used, but the context tells you something different. Also, there is a gift of knowledge.

Paul talks about that in Chapter 12. Twelve, 13, and 14 is a unit. And in Chapter 12, he clearly talks about the word or the message of knowledge.

That there is a word of knowledge that is a gift that he mentions. If you take that view, I take a slightly different view of gifts myself.

But if you take the view that gifts are special abilities, he says that there was an ability that includes the word or the message of knowledge.

And that seems to be what he's talking about in 1 Corinthians 13, 10, not in 1 Corinthians 13, 1 through 3.

That's the point Andrew's trying to make. Quite painstakingly, I might add. But he's trying to make a point.

And, brother, I feel like you're accusing us of inserting things into the text. But you're doing the same thing.

The only difference is the thing you're inserting is your experience. Your personal experience.

You may accuse us of, well, you're inserting all this grammatical stuff in the text. OK, fine. But if we're going to say that, then that's happening on both sides here.

If we're saying that's what's happening. Because now an experience is being imported into the passage that Paul would have not understood.

The same thing happened earlier. And I was going to make this point and someone else answered it in reference to 1 Corinthians 14 and praying in the spirit and praying in the understanding.

There is an assumption being brought to the text, a presupposition being brought to the text. And, brother,

I would advise you that if you're going to have conversations like this, you need to, one, learn what your presuppositions are that you bring to the text.

And not only learn what your presuppositions are, be very careful to say to kind of differentiate between this is my presupposition and this is what this text is saying.

Because otherwise we end up having a conversation where no one's actually hearing anything because one person is saying, but hold on, it has to mean this because of my presupposition rather than allowing the text as it is to make its point.

That's the thing I'd like to end up with. Brothers, this has been great. I need to go, but I will be listening to the end of the show.

Andrew, Mike, thanks for your time. Not a problem. Thank you very much. Have a blessed day and send our love to the saints over there.

Thank you. All right. So we've gone four hours. You know, this is almost as long as we went with Norm, the guy from Church of Christ, which hopefully he will be back next week.

There's some things both of you do, which makes it hard for conversation, is just the talking over.

It's not helpful. You know, and it's a thing where, you know,

I think that, folks, I hope that you at least got this was more helpful.

You know, we wanted to, I at least wanted to give Michael the chance to, you know, because we had the show a couple weeks ago.

I wanted to give, instead of typing in chat, which is not an effective way.

I mean, we get the questions we have in chat. It's just not the greatest way to answer things. Makes it kind of hard.

So I wanted to give a chance for Michael to come in and be able to dialogue and have the back and forth with both

Justin and myself, since that's who he was mostly talking with. And so, you know, at least, oh, and John is saying he's not sure

Norm will be back. Well, I did. John, I did text him. So we'll see whether he'll come back.

I sent him my list of 20 questions I had for him, and we'll see if he's going to answer those.

I hope he does and comes back. We'll see. But if not,

I think we'll still talk about what happened in the show last week with him and Pastor Justin.

And so, but the thing that I think, I hope this has been helpful.

I'm just going to put, Micah, anything you want to say before I close up?

And you don't have to take off. Just anything you want to go, and then I have some things just to wrap up with. Sure.

First of all, I appreciate the time you give me. And it's precious time.

I mean, it's time away from your family, from other people's family to listen to us rant and rave about what we believe and what we hold on to.

And our teachings and doctrines and et cetera. I guess the greatest thing that we must hold on to is just exactly what the

Apostle Paul through the Holy Word of God says to us. That even if you believe in tongues or you don't believe in tongues, if you don't have love, you're nothing.

It doesn't matter. Love is what keeps us together and holds us together.

I believe and I understand just by reading the scripture and hearing the word, what the word says by itself without any external beliefs or et cetera.

Now you believe the same way. And we can be head and head and bang heads with one another.

But the greatest thing we need to understand is the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. He still exists.

I know you believe he does as well as I. God is still doing healings.

God is still speaking to our hearts and our lives. He moves us in his own ways. He moves us in doing something or going somewhere.

He speaks to our heart in our internal inner man at different degrees. Mine different, yours different.

Either way, we know that we serve the one spirit, one God, one

Lord. And that same spirit as the Apostle Paul talks about is in 1 Corinthians 12.

He says that same spirit gives these gifts so that manifest to all men for the profit of all.

I believe those gifts in 12 and 13 and the speaking in tongues in 14 is very clear.

Anyone who would read the scriptures just straight down, no external interpretation will come to the understanding of that.

Again, I thank you for letting me express my view. I thank you for the great questions you give to me.

I think anyone, I would encourage anyone to, again, go back, read 12, 13, and 14 without any preconceived ideas.

Just read it, and I think you'll draw to the same conclusion that I would draw to.

But again, thank you so much, Andrew. Send my blessings to the brothers and sisters in Christ.

You're doing a fantastic job on Wednesday night. I try to get to hearing you right before, what do you call it?

For your Wednesday night. Wednesday night. I pray your fellowship, the fellowship is growing over there and you're continuing reaching out to the

Lord. I know sometimes when we're on there, we get two, three people listening to us. And we think, but we know that the seed is sown and more than anything, our heart is poured out.

And whether it's a million people or if it's that one special person, God will use them tremendously.

So thank you again, my brother. And I look forward to seeing you in Arizona one day. God willing. You can always have me out to your church to speak.

Maybe not on 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, but you know. I wouldn't mind.

I would be happy to speak on those passages. You know, as our church, we went through your first, what is it?

The growing in grace book. Yeah. The discipleship book that we have. Fantastic.

Especially for new believers. They loved it. It really kind of shows people the grace of God. Definitely encouraging and motivating others.

So thank you so much. Thank you, my brothers and sisters in Christ for taking four hours of our time.

Now I got to go take care of my family. Oh, okay. Well, you can stick around. I'll put you backstage while I just wrap some things up.

Yes. So, folks, as I put, I wanted to try this out early on, but one of the things

I want to do, there's some questions I'm going to get to that we had. I put a poll in, I'm going to put a poll up in YouTube.

So those who are watching in YouTube, this is something new I want to try. We want to do it. I want to do it early on.

I was going to ask the question, do you believe the gift of tongues continue today or not?

But since I didn't do it in the beginning, I put this question as a poll question. Did Michael do a good job defending his view?

Yes or no? Primarily, I'm looking to see how the polls work. And so just fill in your answers.

I'm going to give that some time while I answer some questions that we had or put some comments up that we saw.

So one of the questions that came in was, has a person ever had a person interpret other

Christians who spoke in tongues? Further, what was the message that was interpreted?

Now, I have seen this where people have said that they interpreted someone else.

The problem is there's no way to prove it because of the fact that the person who ends up saying that they had the gift of tongues doesn't know the language they're speaking.

The other person who says he has got the gift of interpretation doesn't know the language he's speaking. That becomes the problem.

This is one of the reasons. So this is one of the areas Justin and I would disagree. I believe in the gift of tongues was a known language.

But when someone got that gift, they got the gift and they knew what they were saying. And so there can be vindicated.

So I think that another thing that we had come in. Hello, Brother Andrew, Pastor Justin.

By the way, just so folks know, Justin's not a pastor. He's pretty open about that.

He's an evangelist, but people call him pastor. Hello, Brother Andrew, Pastor Justin, please pray for the

Philippines, especially in our area. So the Philippines, I guess, had filed a slander case against us for preaching a genuine gospel.

Called false teachers by name. By calling false teachers by name and exposing their schemes to gain money.

So be praying for those in the Philippines. Jason, it said, thank you for striving for eternity, for your diligent study of God's word, and thank you for the sufficiency of scripture, sola scriptura.

And that is the key right there. We didn't get to talk about this tonight, but that is the key.

I don't think it would be an issue for Michael as much as many other Charismatics, but many

Charismatics, the issue is the sufficiency of scripture. They do not believe the scriptures are sufficient.

And they hold to the fact that they look for something more. You see this often and it is frustrating to see that when people look to external experience or whatever, because the scripture just isn't sufficient for them.

Vincent says, my goodness, this is such a frustrating topic. Let me tell you, if you are getting new revelation or words from God, then all of the prior is insufficient and you make

God a liar. Strong statement. Cody, sorry about this. I didn't get to it.

You said you just got on some time ago. You said, did I answer a question that you messaged me?

Sorry, Cody, I missed the message. Didn't get it. So, Michael had asked, how does

Justin Peters live for God and not have a spiritual relationship? Just a question.

I don't know that he doesn't have a spiritual relationship if he said that. Not sure.

And then Facebook user, which by the way, if you don't want to be called Facebook user, what you got to do is go to PaulJacksLive .com

and there is a link and instructions on how to not be Facebook user and we get your name. But Facebook user said, great show,

Andrew Epper. First time viewer. I like your page. Looking forward to more videos. We like that too.

We're glad that you guys find this helpful, educational, and beneficial.

So, let me end the poll and get the numbers here. I'm wondering if numbers will show up here.

I guess they try to see. I was hoping they would show up here in the show, but I guess it just shows up where?

I don't even see it. That's kind of interesting. Oh, there we go. It shows up at least on YouTube.

I was hoping it would pop in as a comment that then I can share, but it doesn't.

So, the poll is in. 77 % of the people felt that Michael did not do a good job defending his view and 22 % of the people said he did.

So, sorry, Michael. But I was hoping he'd stick around at least.

I do appreciate him coming in. Look, folks, it is difficult. We did have three different people here, four different people actually really engaging back and forth with him.

That makes it difficult. We were trying to keep it one at a time so that it wasn't ganging up. But I love

Michael. It's not that I don't. We disagree on these things, but we still have a love for one another.

At least I have a love for him. I think he's got a love for me. And this is the thing we have to focus on.

There's going to be areas we're going to disagree, but I do believe, as others said here, that we'll be in heaven together. So, until next week, just remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God, and we'll see you next time.