Elder Gets Grilled w/ apologist Anthony Uvenio

Introduction and Support for the Show

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala and today I have another guest with me. So this guest that I'm going to be having on with me is a very good friend of mine.

He's been a good friend for many years and we have spoken together at apologetics conferences and he is an awesome friend. Let's just say this this individual that I'm about to introduce was one of the people when I started Revealed Apologetics, he encouraged me and really kind of just you know said, hey I know God is going to use you and and he gave me really that that boost and encouragement that a brother in Christ would give right and I really just appreciated his his friendship and just many conversations that we've had whether it's on theology or apologetics.

This guy is the real deal. He is an awesome apologist. He is an excellent teacher. He's got a way to really simplify complicated topics. So every time I listen to him explain something I'm like, hmm, I should have said that bro, you know, he's He's he's got the he's the acronym King.

He makes acronyms to help people remember things and it's just so stinking helpful. So I am very very excited to have my friend and fellow apologist and now elder pastor. He'll kind of explain that the title of this episode is you know an an elder gets grilled.

I want to he's gonna explain to you what that's all about and hopefully we can draw some important and useful elements from his experience so that hopefully the body of Christ can be benefited from it.

So but before we do that I want to kind of throw this out and I'll kind of remind people throughout the the episode if you're looking to support Revealed Apologetics, it would be greatly appreciated and you can do so by checking out this upcoming conference that I will be hosting.

We hosted the Epic Online Presup conference, which did really well. We had a bunch of people sign up and each of the speakers really brought their a-game and for those who missed that you can actually still purchase at a reduced price purchase that conference on the website RevealedApologetics .com.

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I'm super excited about this one. I've got James White. I've got Guillaume Bignon. I've got Saiten Bruggenkade and Scott Christensen and myself and we're going to be covering a wide range of issues relating to Calvinism.

Just to give you a taste. Okay, I will post this later. But my topic is undecided. I'm still working through a topic that I will be presenting. It's going to be on January 21st. Okay from 10 a .m. To 4 30 p .m.

It's gonna be an all-day thing. Dr. White is going to be presenting on some key passages relevant to defending the Calvinist position. Dr. Guillaume Bignon is going to be explaining the proper use of analogies.

So when people bring up analogies against the Calvinist position Guillaume is going to help us navigate how to respond to analogies that are not being used appropriately. I think that's a really important topic to kind of get a grasp on.

So that's going to be exciting. I'm really excited for that. Scott Christensen is going to be bringing a talk entitled In Defense of Compatibilism. So we'll get some discussions on free will and things like that.

And what is a good old Calvinist defense of a compatibilist position. And Saiten Bruggenkade is going to be presenting on Calvinism from you know, street Calvinism. You know, how do we talk about reformed theology on the street level within the context of evangelism and things like that.

So I'm super excited about those topics. I may, I'm kind of juggling. I may talk about Calvinism and Molinism or something related to anything along those lines. And so I'm super excited. So if you're looking to support Revealed Apologetics, one of the best ways you could do that is sign up for this conference right now.

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So with that out of the way, I'd like to introduce my good friend, Anthony Eugenio. How are you doing, brother?

I'm doing well, pal. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm just hoping that I can live up to your.

Little introduction to me. That's always awkward. He's a great guy and he explains things really well. And then after the show, he's like, that guy was really weird and I couldn't understand anything he said.

I'm sure no one's gonna say that. So let's jump right in. So you got grilled recently and you had to go through this long exam in which you had to stand before the Sanhedrin. No, I'm just kidding. You had to stand before a bunch of pastors and leaders and answer their doctrinal questions.

So why don't you unpack that for us? What's the context for that? What was the exam about? What are you doing now in light of the fact that we assume that you passed? Okay.

Why don't you explain that for us? Sure. So to be an elder in our church, anyway, you need to be examined by your peers. And they're gonna test you to make sure that you understand what biblical doctrine is, that you don't hold any heretical views, and they're gonna pressure you.

They're gonna ask you questions that are gonna be more challenging than a normal conversation because they want to make sure that you are equipped to handle the office. I mean, we need to have strong biblical elders governing over the churches because we're the ones who teach the flock.

We guard the flock. You know, an elder's job is to lead, feed, correct, and protect. So how can I lead the congregation if I don't know sound theology? How can I protect them from false teachers if I don't know what false teaching is?

So it's real important that an elder have a well-rounded understanding of all topics in theology. You don't have to be an expert. I mean, it helps, obviously. But you want to make sure that you're well-versed in all of these things so that you can give an answer for the hope that lies within you with gentleness and respect.

Right. That's awesome. Well, you kind of just made me think of, I'm looking for a passage here, Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 20. I'm gonna do it old-fashioned way. Usually I use my phone or it's a screen.

I'm gonna read from a physical Bible here. My nifty John MacArthur study Bible. I have to skip over the dispensationalism. So I have to make sure. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Okay, so Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 23, okay.

I typically use this verse, Anthony, when people ask like, well, why is theology so important? Why is doctrine so important? And I want to share this with folks here. So Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 23 says the following.

It says, thus says the Lord, and I want you to listen to this, listeners. Okay, God is speaking here, right, through Jeremiah. Thus says the Lord. Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast of his might.

Let not the rich man boast of his riches. But let him who boasts boast of this. Okay. God is telling us now there is something worthy of boasting about. That he understands and knows me. That I am the Lord who exercises loving-kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth.

For I delight in these things, declares the Lord. God delights in the fact that we know and understand. And of course, Anthony, that involves not just the mental capacity to know like propositions about God, but also to know God relationally.

So why is theology important? Because God delights in our knowing him. Knowing him and knowing him, right? Relationship, right? And I think that's so important. What role does theology play in your personal life?

How does doctrine in general impact how you live your life, Anthony?

Well, Paul tells Timothy to watch your life and your doctrine closely. Because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers, right? That's really a heavy verse, to watch your life and your doctrine closely.

He puts those two things side by side, such that if your doctrine is off, your life is going to be off, right? So, you know, we've talked about this before. Our job is to think God's thoughts after him.

He's the author of life. He's the creator of the universe. He's the one who set up the parameters. What better way to live life than by using the principles that God's given us to live life correctly?

The book of Proverbs, my pastor says, Proverbs is basically how to live life skillfully. So how to live a life with skill? You look through the Proverbs and you read those. And the wisdom that you glean from that just helps you in everyday, ordinary life.

I mean, again, this is when we recognize what the Bible actually is, it's God breathed, it's divine in nature. And he's given that to us. We have everything we need for life and godliness in the scriptures.

My goodness, what a tremendous advantage over unbelievers or people who reject the scriptures to live a life that is according to the author of life. Right, right.

So I don't remember where I read it. It might have been in a textbook that I had to read when I was in seminary, but it was talking about different ways of doing apologetics. And you have like historical apologetics, philosophical apologetics, scientific apologetics.

And then there was one section called incarnational apologetics, incarnational in the flesh. You are defending the faith in the flesh, in the manner in which you live. And sometimes that is just as or even more powerful than rational argument when you're able to kind of show existentially through like the way you live your life, how Christ has transformed you.

And so I think that's a powerful tool for defending the faith as well as just being obedient to the Lord, right? Demonstrating our love for him. So super, super important. Now, okay, now the super cool thing about all of this, you grilled in this, this kind of this exam, this a grill fest where they just asked you a bunch of questions.

And the reason why I wanted to have you on, because I know we primarily focus on apologetics here, even though it was a test for ordination, everything they asked you, everything had apologetic import.

Sure. And so they started right where they should have started asking you questions about bibliology. Now, can you define for us what bibliology is and why it's important to have a proper bibliology?

Bibliology would basically be a study of the scriptures. You know, what is the Bible? What books are contained in the Bible? Why is it that the Bible is, is our standard? Like you and I would hold to sola scriptura, we would recognize that the scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith.

It doesn't mean that the scripture is the only authority. Like we have pastors and teachers and evangelists, but pastors, teachers, and evangelists are human beings stained by sin. So they're not infallible since the scripture is breathed out by God.

Second Timothy three 16, all scriptures, God breathed and useful for teaching through proof, correction, and the training and righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

That is the basis for everything that we teach and know. So if, if we're going to live lives and think God's thoughts after him, he's given us his thoughts in scripturated. So the Bible contains God's words.

It contains everything that he wants us to know. Jesus says, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth, right? So the word sanctifies us as we read it, it corrects our crooked thinking such that we can think the way God wants us to think and live lives that magnify.

And glorify him. So everything starts on with the scriptures. The church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. So the church holds the scriptures up as the rule of faith. The church didn't give us the scriptures.

The scriptures gave us the church. We have to recognize that authority scheme. Sorry, Catholics. Well, yeah, look, if you think that the church gave us the scriptures, now God used the church to bring the scriptures to us, of course.

But the word of God says itself that God's word is settled in the heavens forever. The scriptures come top down, not bottom up. So when we recognize that you have in your hand a divine instrument, breathe out by God.

Oh, my goodness, that in and of itself is worthy of awe. So, and Moses would tell us in Deuteronomy 8 .3, man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word out of the mouth of God, not just some of the words, every word.

That's why Paul labors in the book of Acts to say, I taught you the whole counsel of God. There's not one word that God uttered in the scriptures that is unimportant. Every single word is important such that we eat them.

We can't live just by food. We need to ingest and take God's word in every single day.

If you keep going, Anthony, we're going to have to collect the offering. You're preaching there, that's good stuff.

Whatever's going to help you in ministry, I'm committed to it. That's right.

We're going to collect the offering. We'll ask a sister so-and-so to sing a song, a special. Now that's awesome. There are a lot of things that you said there. Again, everything that you just said is apologetically relevant, understanding the nature and role of scripture.

What is the role of scripture in terms of its authority? What is the nature of that authority? And then I have a follow-up question here. Now, as presuppositionalists, I think this question is very relevant for those who are listening and are saying, hey, I'm trying to get a firm grasp on presuppositional apologetics, whatever.

Understanding the role of the authority of scripture is vital. Can you unpack that for us? What does it mean to say that the scriptures are authoritative?

It means that the scriptures are what God wanted to convey to us infallibly, without error, such that we can live lives that magnify and glorify him. So if this Bible is God's word, which I believe it is, every single one of those words are perfect.

They are exactly what we need in order to live lives, again, to glorify God, to love God with all our hearts, all mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourself. So the scriptures have to take precedent over any other authority because every other authority must be subservient to God.

When we say that scriptures are God-breathed, that's the Greek word theopneustos. They're inspired. Inspired really isn't the right word. It's expired. But when you say God's word expired, people think, oh, it's old, like milk.

Expired by, expired by, and then it has a date.

So God's truth never expires. God's truth is true no matter when it's, there is no expiration date on truth. So the scriptures are our divine authority because in it, he's given us everything we need for life and godliness.

So that has to be the supreme authority because there's no human authority that can be as perfect as the scriptures. Yeah.

Okay. So now this is relevant, as I said, to apologetics. I mean, some people might disagree with this. I think both of us are in agreement. Catholics, for example, are objects of evangelism. So when someone converts to Catholicism, we don't be like, oh, it's okay.

It's just another denomination. Actually, there's some core differences between what we would call biblical Christianity and, you know, a presentation of a gospel that doesn't save. And so I have no qualms about saying that.

I know that's kind of controversial these days. But when we talk to Catholics, the issue of authority comes up often. And so we're often attacked on our stance as reformed Protestants on solo scriptura.

So if someone says, well, how do you know solo scriptura is true? And how do you know that, you know, you have the right books of the Bible in your Bible? You know, the Catholic church gave you those things, right?

There's something along those lines. I'm kind of being, you know, lazy here. I'm kind of just throwing it out there. Folks know where I'm coming from. When we defend the books of the Bible as being the canon that we should have, the Catholic will be quick to point out as soon as you appeal to church history, they'll go, wait a minute.

You see, you need the tradition to know what scripture is. Okay. And so they will point to the fact that because we point outside of the Bible evidence for a particular Bible belonging in the canon, they'll say, see, you don't follow your own principle of solo scriptura.

How would you interact with something like that? Because that's an apologetic issue because Catholic is questioning the very nature of our understanding of the authority of scripture, the role of say, external evidence in support of biblical books and things like that.

How would you engage in that?

Sure. I would use the illustration that Michael Kruger uses. And I loved it when I first heard him talk about it. He says, knowing what the scriptures are is basically like a thermostat. Okay. When you look at the thermostat, the thermostat will tell you what the temperature in the room is.

Okay. So if I look at the thermostat, it says 68 degrees. I know that 68 degrees in the room. Now I could also hit the buttons and set the thermostat for 71 degrees. Right. So how does that relate to the scriptures?

Well, the thermostat is like a thermometer. It tells you what the temperature of the room is. In other words, you read the thermometer and you recognize that the temperature in the room is 68 degrees.

The church, let's say in Roman Catholicism, they would say the church tells us what the scriptures are. So they dialed up 71 degrees and says, okay, now this is what the scriptures are. So I see God giving the scriptures to his church and the church like a thermometer recognizing what the scriptures were, not making them scripture.

God gives us the scripture. God's body, his church recognizes what his scripture is and gives it out to the rest of the people. Same way that the Old Testament Jews recognized what scripture was without having a Pope and all this ecclesiastical authority that the Roman Catholic church has.

All right.

Excellent. Well, cool. Again, I hope people see that that's apologetically relevant, right? To understand how we got the Bible, the role of the authority of the Bible and how that, by the way, the authority of the Bible even allows for us to appeal to external evidences for its own, I don't want to say validity.

I mean, the Bible is self-attesting, but you get what I'm saying. There's nothing against the content of the Sola Scriptura by appealing to sources outside the Bible to support or give evidence for why a particular book is to be canon, if that makes sense.

Absolutely. And it's not that you can't appeal to churches that recognize and other authorities that recognize that these were the scriptures. We just recognize that those authorities are not infallible.

They could make mistakes and has. I don't think there's one early church father that hasn't, they don't have unanimity. That's for sure. Right, right, right. They're all over the place. They look much like the Protestant church, but they're united on the essentials, right?

So we look at the essentials and say, wow, this informs the core basis for Christianity. And then there's non-essentials and things they differed on that I think we have room to differ on.

So when you were being asked these questions, what, in your opinion, when you were, when they were talking about kind of the, your views on the Bible, what was the hardest question that they asked? If you remember kind of like, oh, you know, you don't know what they're going to ask.

You're kind of just being grilled. You literally are, when you're being tested, a living embodiment of first Peter through 15, where you have to always be ready. You literally have to prepare in the sense that you're ready to respond to whatever they might ask you.

And sometimes they can throw curve balls. Was there any curve ball question with respect to the authority of scripture that when they asked you were kind of like, oh my God, I really think about that one.

There weren't any curve ball questions, but what you're allowed to do, but before you go before the ordination council, you have to write an ordination paper. You go through 10 topics and one of them is bibliology.

So, and you're allowed to quote other sources. So I had quoted Wayne Grudem in his systematic theology showing that the early church, Jerome, Athanasius, and even Josephus had the 39 books of the old Testament.

So one of the questions to me was, because I also cited that in 386 in the council of Carthage, they codified the books of the Bible as the 66 that we have today. So he wanted to know, was it the church that gave us the scriptures?

Like, is that the reason we know that those are the scriptures? And I said, no. And I used the Michael Kruger illustration to show that God reveals his scriptures to us and the church acts like a thermometer in recognizing the divine origin of the scriptures.

It doesn't make the scriptures divine. Right. Now you mentioned Michael Kruger. I've had Michael Kruger on the show.

So if anyone's like, who's Michael Kruger? Who's this guy he's quoting? He is the author of this excellent book, The Canon Revisited. He is an excellent resource on issues of like the canon and why I highly recommend him is not only as an expert, he really comes at this question from a presuppositional and theological perspective.

So it's very interesting to kind of see him come at like the question of history and theology and the development of canon from kind of that like presuppositional approach. So I highly recommend this book.

That's, I'm sure that's the book you're referring to, but he's maybe another one. He's got a couple of them. So I highly recommend that. All right. So when we talk about the authority of scripture, we often refer to the scripture as self-attesting.

Can you unpack for us what that means and why is it important to understand the Bible in that way?

Right. Well, in 2 Corinthians 2, 14, it says the things of the spirit are spiritually discerned. The man in the flesh cannot know them. And right before that, it says, we've received the spirit of God so that we can understand freely the things that God has given to us.

So a man apart from the spirit of God is gonna read these words and it's just gonna be words to him. It's gonna be words on a page, basically information. For those who have the spirit of God, now we're talking about revelation.

There's a big difference between revelation and information. So when the spirit of God lives inside of you and you're reading the scriptures and all of a sudden it could be a scripture that you've read a hundred times on the 101st time, all of a sudden God opens an understanding to you and starts connecting dots that you never saw before.

And man, things come to gel together and you start understanding on a deeper level. Again, the spirit of God within us testifies to us that this is the very word of God because it changes. Once you start applying the scriptures to your life in the way you live and the way you treat other people and in the way you worship God and see in apologetic sense, how the necessity of the triune God to solve the problem of the one and the many, oh my goodness, you start to really love God all the more because you recognize that the scriptures are not human in origin, but divine.

Yeah, I think that's great that you mentioned that too. That makes us stand more in awe of God. I think the study of theology, we need to be very careful, especially us who are in apologetics. We tend to be very intellectual and we lose, we kind of become desensitized to the fact that we're handling God's word.

We're talking about the nature and the workings of the almighty creator. And so I hope that the folks who are studying apologetics and theology, you never lose that sense of awe with what you're dealing with when you're studying the things of God.

So I think that's a good reminder of that.

You've said many times, the best book to read on apologetics is the scriptures.

Yeah, and that's not just being sanctimonious. Oh, it's the scriptures. It literally is the best book to read.

Every apologist that writes a book is fallible, right? They're gonna make mistakes. And what are they doing? They're interpreting God's words and trying to explain them to us in a way that we can understand.

And that's great. We need guys to continue to do that. And I love reading these books because they help. But when you go right to the source, to the scriptures, and you got the Holy Spirit inside of you, oh my goodness, you now are able to speak with authority because God gave you those words, right?

So that we can know with certainty the things that he's revealed to us because what? He's omniscient, right? Whereas the apologetic author who writes something doesn't have all knowledge. We can trust and have certainty when the words come from God because God's omniscient.

So when he reveals something to us, it's impossible for it to be wrong.

Yeah, excellent. Very good. Okay, so they grilled you on bibliology. Obviously, that's foundational because you wouldn't know anything about God unless God revealed himself, right? So we start with divine revelation, God's own self-disclosure.

There was a mention of kind of like natural revelation and special revelation. And I think they asked you a question relating to the importance. How do you understand the importance and the role of natural revelation?

Why don't you unpack how you answered that question? Why is natural revelation important? What is its function? What does it do? Why is it important for us to be familiar with what natural revelation is all about?

Well, like you've said many times before, God is the father of all facts, right? So any fact that comes to us from nature, the heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament, the work of his hands, day after day, they pour forth speech, night after night, they bring forth knowledge.

So the universe is speaking to us on a daily basis, right? And everything in the universe is created by God and in some way, shape or form, reflects the nature of God to us. So that you can look at the vastness of the universe and just be in awe of how big it is.

And what does that point you to? The vastness of God, like he has no end. When you realize just how big the universe is, you realize that God's bigger, that should make you more in awe. And then when you see the DNA that we have in our bodies and you recognize that that's a code, you recognize that the universe was created with intelligence behind it.

Whoa, Anthony, Anthony, you're a presuppositionalist, right? Yeah. Why are you talking about all this evidence? You're not supposed to do that. I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. Talking about the DNA and complexity.

Presuppositionalists aren't allowed to talk about teleology. I'm just kidding. By what standard are you saying? By what standard? No, that's excellent stuff. Now, I wanted to mention something because we had spoken about it over the phone.

I think it's important for people to know the difference between natural revelation and natural theology. Sure. Very different things. I don't know if you remembered what I said. Do you think you can unpack the difference for us?

Since you're like, yeah, I could just blab what I think, but why don't you give us the important distinction between natural theology and natural revelation? Because they're not the same.

Right, and the way you explained it was perfect, and I'm glad that you did. So natural revelation comes from top down, right? This is God revealing Himself to us such that we can understand His divine nature and eternal power, right?

We see that through the creation. Natural theology is using nature to reason up to the existence of God to know who He is. I don't think through natural theology we can understand and know the triune God.

In fact, John says at the end of his gospel, these things are written so that you may know, believe and trust in the Son of God that you may have eternal life. We need the scriptures to know who God is specifically.

In fact, God sends Jesus into the world in John 1 to exegete the Father, to reveal the Father to us. Matthew 11, 27, no one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.

And then we go back to Peter's confession. Jesus said, who do you say I am? Peter says, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus blesses him and says, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.

So knowing God personally comes through revelation, not information. It's a divine transaction that's necessary for eternal life, right? No one can see, understand, know the kingdom of God unless he's born again.

So without spiritual eyes, you're gonna look at the world, you're gonna come, you can discern and be held without excuse that God exists, but you can't know in an intimate way who this God is. You need to know Him revelationally.

Yeah, there are different ways of knowing, right? You know, I ask my students sometimes, is God all knowing? They'll say, yes. And does God know everyone? And they'll say, yes. I'm like, really? So let's take a look in the scriptures.

It says on judgment day, Jesus will say to those on his right, well done, good and faithful servant, entered to the kingdom that has been prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. And to those on his left, he'll say, get away from me.

I never knew you. So here's a question class. How does the all-knowing Son of God, who knows all things, can, how can he meaningfully say, get away from me, I never knew you. And there is that, I think you captured it well.

There's that important difference of the different senses in which one can know. You could know, and you could know relationally. You have this Hebrew concept of Yadah, right? That Adam Yadah'd his wife, right?

Adam knew his wife and she became pregnant. That's not intellectual knowledge. Like, oh, she's my wife. And all of a sudden, oh, my water broke. That's not how it works, right? You know, that sounds like something that would happen in a Jerry Lewis movie.

Oh my goodness, lady, your water broke. You know, it's not like that, right? To know entails this kind of infinite, this intimate relationship. And I think that's such an important thing that we need to have together with our study.

Our study must be to the end that we know him more, right? And Jesus says, this is eternal life to know the one and only one God, the only true God and his Son whom he has sent. So I think that's very important.

Yeah, Jesus, in fact,.

I think it's in the book of Amos. God says, speaking about Israel, you only have I known from all the nations of the world. There's this intimate hesed, covenantal love that God has for his people where he knows them on an intimate basis.

Basically the same way Jesus says, love your wife like Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Now, there's other women in my life besides my wife that I love, but there's a special certain covenantal love that I have for my wife that I don't have for the rest of the women in the congregation and I better not, right?

So there's a certain special love that God has for his people, for his covenant bride that he doesn't have for the rest of the world. That's why it's important to be in covenant and know God personally through the power of the Spirit and the only way you could do that is being born of the Holy Spirit.

You're talking about love, you know?

It's like, all right, God is love. We all know this. How is, there's a little curveball here, but it's not too much of a curveball. I don't play baseball, so my curveball will be pretty weak. But what role or why is it important to know about the love of God within the context of apologetics?

Because it does come up, right? Is it not the case that the attribute of God's love is often attacked in apologetics? How is understanding the biblical conception of the love of God relevant.

To the defense of the faith in your opinion? Okay, God loves people so much that he hates murder. God loves marriage so much that he hates divorce, right? There's always that, I called it a flip side.

In fact, in the ordination, I called it the flip side and one of the pastors took issue. He's like, what do you mean? That's the opposite. You're not saying that's the opposite. I said, no, no, no, no.

So if God loves people, right? Murder would be the antithesis of that. So he hates murder, right? When you go to 1 Corinthians 13, love does not rejoice with wrongdoing, right? So although there's a general love that God has for all mankind, he loves human beings.

Therefore, if you murder a human being, you're attacking an image bearer of God. You are attacking his creation. And in the Old Testament, it says an eye for an eye, right? If you take a life, you're gonna owe your life.

So love, most people watch romantic comedies and they think that's what love is. Unfortunately, that's not what love is. You know, love, and this was a question that one of the guys asked me, and I think you really need to understand what is the biblical definition of love?

So now we can go to 1 Corinthians 13 and say, love is patient, love is kind. You know, we could do that. But that, and that obviously captures the essence of what love is about. Love is giving yourself over to someone else for their benefit.