Open Phones Topic: Sola Scriptura!

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:34

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a Thursday. Just a programming note, next

00:39

Tuesday the program is going to be earlier, I believe. It's 10 a .m.

00:45

our time, noon Central 1 Eastern. Oh man, I wish you would just stop this.

00:52

Time zone stuff. Didn't we, didn't the Senate pass something? Did they? That's just not,

00:58

I don't know. Anyway, we're going to be talking with Cameron about Roman Catholicism on Tuesday, and it's 12

01:12

Central, whenever that's going to be. I don't know, we'll figure it out. I'll have to arrange my day around that, but and I would assume that some of the things we'll be talking about will be similar to what we're talking about today, but I decided let's just open the phones today, and we haven't done that for a long, long time.

01:30

It's not quite as easy while traveling to do open phone type stuff, and I've been gone for a long time, but we haven't done a lot even when

01:41

I've been here for that matter. And last time we did it, Rich was all into we got to do it on Zoom and, you know, all the rest of stuff, but we are going old school.

01:54

You have to dial a number. Some of you are not sure how to do that. We've had the same toll -free number.

02:04

I don't know how long we've had this, but I mean this this thing here, this is, there it is.

02:14

This is how high -tech we are. I've had this thing taped to one of the microphone stands since we moved in here, definitely, so it's at least been 2006 and this very one, and I'm pretty sure this came before then, so I don't know, but 877 -753 -3341.

02:39

There you go. You got the graphic right there. Got four calls. Okay. All right. So when we first sort of like in debates, you know, when you ask for audience questions, you have to actually explain what the squiggly thing with the dot is.

02:56

So we throw it out there, and we want to have the subjects be somewhat related, related to Sola Scriptura, and so we went through the first whole bank of calls and got one person that was actually calling on that subject.

03:10

So yes. So now just because I want to make sure we don't have any rust in the system because it's been so long since we've used it or any barnacles in there, we're going to bring up the first caller kind of low, so if he sounds a dist,

03:23

I'll bring him up to, you know, I just want to make sure that we don't blow anybody's eardrums out, you know.

03:29

Okay, but we should be starting with Josh because he's calling long distance, right? Besides that,

03:37

I'll go here to Josh, and I'm hearing myself, Rich, but anyway, it's not too bad, but we'll go to Josh first because Josh is in the

03:48

Soviet Socialist Republic of Canada, and that means the Royal Canadian Mounted Police may be coming through his door at any moment and trampling him with a horse, so therefore, we need to get to him as quickly as possible.

03:59

So Josh in Toronto, are you with us? Yes, Dr. White, can you hear us?

04:05

Yes, my ear is bleeding actually, but we're good. Right, I think

04:11

I can hear my voice back to me. Yeah, you know, I don't know what the problem is with Rich, but you know, it's not like we haven't been doing this for 20 years, but you know, he keeps blaming the equipment, but the equipment has just been sitting here collecting dust.

04:27

So, you know, what can I say? Yep. I think it is. I think it is. But anyway, go ahead. Still there?

04:39

Evidently, it says idle right now. It's gone.

04:46

Maybe I shouldn't have made the comment about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It's ringing again.

04:54

Let's see. Let's see if that was ringing. Uh, no. Oh, there.

04:59

There. Well, I don't know. All right. Well, Josh tries to give us a call back. We'll see if we can get that.

05:08

I have to, you got to admit, what's freaky about that was that sound, because if you've, what was that 1960s thriller about nuclear war where, um, you know, uh, one of our bombers got through on a, uh, and so we had to drop bombs on like New York or something like that.

05:30

And everybody had to be on a phone. And when the phone would go, that meant that that guy just got fried by a nuclear weapon.

05:37

None of you remember that, do you? It is real. Uh, in fact, I think it was, they turned it into a movie.

05:44

Uh, I read the book, uh, old school, actually read the book, sat there, pages, turned pages.

05:49

It's a old technology. All right, then let's, uh, go to, uh, Ken in Houston.

05:55

Hi, Ken. Oh, good afternoon, Dr. White. Hello. Yes, sir.

06:02

Yes, sir. I actually met you after the Tim Stratton debate when you were in Houston, uh, a couple of months ago. That's a great time.

06:08

Yes, I recall it well. Yes, sir. So, uh, my question, uh, was, was tangentially related, a little bit more related to the canon, and I apologize for that, but I have been dying to get a good answer to this.

06:21

Uh, who in particular can I look to or in what time period in church history would

06:27

I be able to look into to, to point to and say, this is, this is the same

06:32

Bible that I have right now, Old Testament and New Testament. So. Well, it sounds like what you're, you're asking is someone who would reproduce a list of books identical to what you would have right now, and that would, there would be two different answers because there are two different Testaments.

06:58

And so if you were to, uh, transport back to about the time, the translation, the

07:06

Greek Septuagint, um, initially, the first translation, anyways, first books were translated, uh, about 200 years before Christ, and you were to go to the, uh, temple, you would, uh, find that they had laid up in the temple a certain set of books that would make the hands, uh, would profane the hands of the, in other words, the, the, the books are holy, the hands are not, so it would dirty the hands to touch them.

07:36

Um, and you would discover that the books that were laid up in the temple 200 years before Christ are the same books that you have in your

07:44

Old Testament canon today. Now, they, they were identified as 22 or 24 books, but that's because, for example, the

07:51

Minor Prophets were considered one, Lamentations was frequently connected with Jeremiah, et cetera, et cetera.

07:57

And so for the Old Testament, I'd highly recommend, uh, if you really want to dig into stuff like this, um,

08:04

Roger Beckwith's rather difficult to read, but very useful, uh, book, the

08:11

Old Testament Canon, New Testament Church. And so what you have there is you have somewhat of a paradigm.

08:16

You have, uh, the Jews had recognized that the bath kol, the voice of God, had ended amongst, uh, the people, that there were no prophets any longer.

08:28

And about 200 years down the road from that, you have the laying up of these books in the temple, uh, so that by the time you get to the time of Christ, Christ, of course, is quoting from all over what would be known as the

08:44

Old Testament canon. And you don't have any arguments, uh, between the

08:49

Lord and his interlocutors concerning the nature of the canon.

08:55

So if you look at the time frames after the death, birth, and resurrection of Christ, they're very similar.

09:03

Now, you don't have a temple to lay books up in, but you have significantly more literature that gives us an insight into, um, the life of the churches and the teaching and preaching of the churches.

09:18

And so what you would find, for example, around, and the dates depend, uh, but most people would say around 190 to 200, uh, you have what's called the

09:29

Muratorian Fragment. Unfortunately, its name is descriptive. It's a fragment. And so it's not complete.

09:35

And so we don't know everything that it, it had and, and contained within it.

09:41

But it seems to give us a large majority of what we would have in the New Testament. And as you look at the books that are quoted from across the

09:53

Christian world, um, you find a tremendous amount of unanimity.

09:58

So in other words, you might find local areas like in Rome, where a book might be popular that isn't ever mentioned by anybody outside of that area.

10:07

So there are a few books that, uh, obtain, uh, some level of authority amongst small groups of people, but not across the whole, the whole church, uh, such as Epistle of Barnabas or Shepherd of Hermas or something like that.

10:23

Um, but by the not fully late fourth century, about the seventh decade of the fourth century, uh, you have, uh,

10:36

Athanasius when he sends out his 39th Festal Letter to announce to the churches what the date of Easter is going to be, which was a big controversy for literally hundreds of years.

10:46

It still is actually in Eastern churches with the new calendar, old calendar stuff. But anyway, um, when he sends out that, uh, letter, uh, he rather unremarkably, it's certainly not with fanfare.

10:59

It's not I am creating the canon or anything else. He's just, uh, he lists the books of New Testament because there were books that were circulating.

11:08

The Jews, the, uh, not the Jews, the, uh, Gnostics were circulating weird books like the Gospel of Peter and weird stuff like that.

11:16

And so it's like, and, and by the way, you know, this is where I'm going to be doing, uh, the Celebration of Resurrection.

11:21

And by the way, just so that everybody is clear on this, uh, here are the books of New Testament and they're exactly what you have, uh, today.

11:29

There wasn't any, there wasn't any council and there was, you know, you can go on YouTube and, and there are hooded monks, uh, running around in smoke -filled rooms.

11:38

I'm not sure what they were smoking, but, um, in videos, uh, voting on, on Gospels and none of that ever happened.

11:46

It's just, it's pure theater. Um, it was the same kind of rather quiet process that you had, uh, with the, with the

11:54

Old Testament canon. No angels came down from heaven, no golden indexes. Uh, it was a rather passive, uh, project where the people of God recognize they don't have the authority to define these things.

12:07

Uh, but God certainly has the ability if he's going to inspire his word to let his people know what it is.

12:13

And he does so through the community. Uh, it's, it's a passive thing. So, um, that would be, it has to be a two -part answer because there's a huge difference, you know, between uh, the

12:28

Old Testament, the New Testament, especially in the fact the Old Testament, you're talking, uh, a thousand years for its writing, whereas the

12:38

New Testament, you're looking for less than a hundred. So it's a much faster, uh, situation, uh, in that context.

12:46

That makes sense, and I understand that. If I could ask, would it be an accurate statement then to simply, would this sentence be accurate?

12:53

That Athanasius defended the Trinity using the same Bible that we have today? Yes. The same canon.

13:00

Definitely. Definitely. Now, uh, the only, the only argument someone, if they're just trying to be argumentative, uh, might try to throw out, uh, would be the, the nature of the septuagint at that time, um, because there, there is, all the, all the manuscripts we have of the septuagint today are

13:23

Christian in origin rather than Jewish in origin. And so, uh, there are some questions as to, uh, what was contained in some of the septuagint manuscripts, um, but, uh, yes, as far as his defense of the

13:39

Trinity and stuff like that, he's not quoting from anything other than what we'd be quoting from today. And it sounds like the aliens are landing in Houston.

13:49

I understand it. Well, thank you. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it, sir. Thanks again. All right.

13:54

God bless. Yeah, uh, that's, uh, that's, that is the one advantage to Zoom, I guess, uh, is, you know, you got that.

14:01

Uh, we never got, we never, I'm a little concerned that, um, we now have a political prisoner in, uh, in Canada.

14:11

Um, you know, we, we, we chuckle, but I'm not sure we should chuckle at all about that.

14:19

So, um, anyway, all right, let's, uh, talk to Frank in New Jersey.

14:24

Hi, Frank. Hi, Jane. Uh, you taking my call? So, um, my question,

14:31

I didn't, uh, I don't know if Rich told you, but I didn't know that this was a specific topic. So I need a moment to think, but I remember, um, your debate,

14:39

I think it was with Jerry Madetik, I can't remember, but it was on the Holy Scripture Torah, and, um, you were asked, did the apostles follow the

14:49

Scripture Torah, and you said no. And at that time, um,

14:54

I wasn't as well understanding in all the theology that I've learned from you, but, um,

15:00

I've been thinking about, like, the gifts were given to the Church to authenticate the

15:05

Scriptures. So how do we know when that switched over to Sola Scriptura?

15:13

Okay, and I, you broke up, but I'm assuming what you said was, you're referring to, did the apostles function on the basis of Sola Scriptura?

15:23

And when I said no, what I meant by that is, obviously, when you, when you find the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, you're talking about a definable scriptura to begin with, and, uh, he was talking about during a period of divine revelation.

15:41

So you can't, you can't function, um, and, and, and in a

15:47

Roman Catholic debate, that's irrelevant because Rome, at least technically, um, not so much functionally over the past number of centuries, but at least technically agrees that revelation has ceased and that the

16:03

New Testament, uh, documents were written by apostles and that the office of apostle, uh, ceased in, in antiquity as well.

16:14

Excuse me. So in essence, there is a, um, agreement that what we're debating today is the situation that exists today and that is not a situation where revelation is going to be continuing.

16:32

Now, obviously, that's very different than debating with a Mormon, uh, who claims continuing revelation.

16:40

Um, well, Mormons who used to claim continuing revelation is really not so much a vital part of Mormonism today.

16:49

Um, so, uh, your question would be, all right, if that's the case, uh, then when does that become, uh, the experience of the church?

17:02

And obviously on the, the technical, uh, the technical answer to that is when the last apostle dies and there's no more divine revelation to be given or to put it,

17:16

I think, in a, in a better, a less man -centered way, um, when, when the spirit, uh, completes the revelation of what the triune

17:30

God wants the church to possess for the rest of her experience. Um, so God knows when that is, uh, and so that actually is related to the difference between canon one and canon two, if you're familiar with that terminology that I've used a number of times in talking about, uh, the canon is known by God, which is an artifact of revelation, and canon two, the recognition, the passive recognition, which obviously takes place over time on the part of the church.

17:56

So canon one is known as soon as the last, whatever it was, we don't know what it was, but the last, um, inspired revelation was, was provided.

18:06

Um, and then canon two, uh, would, would really, I think, come in a similar fashion in both the old and new testament, and that is that while there may have been periods of time where there were, as I mentioned the last caller in regards to the epistle of Barnabas or, um, uh, shepherd of Hermas and like that, there may have been, and we don't know about this because we're talking about a much earlier time period, but there may have been uh, maybe some writings of some prophets that we're not aware of that, you know, in his hometown somewhere in Israel, there were

18:47

Jews who believed that those were, were scriptural, but it never became something that all the, all the

18:53

Jewish people as a whole ever viewed as being scriptural. So there may have been a period of time like that. It's too far back for us to have any knowledge of that.

19:01

Um, but then over time you have this recognition that, um, uh, encompasses the entirety of, of the community in, in all places and, uh, you have the same, same process going on there in about the same period of amount of time.

19:20

And so it's a, it's a discernment, uh, process and of course it's communication process because we, we look back and we communicate instantly.

19:32

I mean, for crying out loud for the, for the vast majority of the history of the world, the idea that you could be sitting in a place called

19:39

New Jersey, uh, literally, literally talking to me and there are people in South Africa listening to you and me talk concurrently at the same time would have been considered witchcraft.

19:51

I mean, you know, just as it's not possible. So, um, uh,

19:57

I would imagine that those processes technically could have gone much faster had there been modern means of communication and things like that.

20:07

There's, there just weren't. Um, and, and so, uh, you have very similar timeframes between the two.

20:14

So, uh, the answer would, interestingly enough, go along with the recognition of Canon 1 and Canon 2 and the timeframes involved with those.

20:25

Right. So by Canon 1 and Canon 2, would you, that, that's like the theological view of it and the historical view of it.

20:32

Well, Canon 1 is the, is the canon as known by God. It's an artifact of revelation.

20:38

It's not an object of revelation. It's, um, when, you know, God is the one who inspires scripture, it is unique since he inspired more than one book, but did not inspire all books.

20:49

Then the canon comes into existence simply by the exercise of divine power. It's a, it's a necessary reality.

20:56

And hence, when the last book that he intends his church to have is given, then that canon exists and, um, it's known perfectly to God.

21:10

Excuse me. Um, the, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to put the cough drop, which is not a cough drop, but it's the mute.

21:18

Um, you have to put it closer so I can grab it. Um, and then

21:23

Canon 2 is the passive recognition of what God has done by the church, uh, which is analyzed by history, by, um, well, the books that were laid up in the temple and the commentaries of the

21:37

Jews and things like that with the old testament writings, early church fathers in the, um, in the new testament.

21:44

Right, right. So, um, when it comes to recognizing scripture as authoritative, um, you know, the

21:53

Catholic church will say that it was, um, deemed scripture rather than passively accepted.

21:59

Uh, well, well, but you got to be careful there because a, a, a, a fair sharp

22:05

Roman Catholic knows that, um, there are numerous instances well, the, from the earliest writings that we have, uh, in fact, hey, uh,

22:20

Frank, I'll use your, your phone call as a reminder, uh, to let people know, uh, that, uh, we're just now announcing that, uh, last weekend in September, actually it goes into October 1st,

22:33

I believe, um, I will be teaching early church history at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, uh, Conway, Arkansas, and this will be one of the topics that we will be addressing, obviously, and we will be looking very carefully at, um, those early writings and the, from the earliest writings we have, whatever they are, whether it's

22:53

Clement, whether it's the Didache, um, you've got Ignatius, you, you've got the

22:58

Epistle of Diognetus, um, all of these are, uh, soaked in the recognition already of authoritative

23:10

New Testament writings, and that's before there is a, anybody in the city of Rome who could even be, uh, anachronistically thought of as a pope, because the monarchical episcopate doesn't develop in Rome until about 140, and so well before even anybody in Rome thought there was, their bishop was somehow superior to everybody else, um, you have

23:39

New Testament scripture functioning as New Testament scripture, and Rome, of course, does not, uh, then give us a quote -unquote dogmatic definition of the canon of scripture, um, until the 16th century.

23:53

So, uh, you, you can't, you can't go that direction in, and, and there are

23:58

Roman Catholic apologists that know that, so they're, they're much more, um, nuanced in, in their, in their way of expressing that.

24:06

Yeah, so after the Reformation, Rome declared or dogmatically defined the

24:13

Apocrypha, the Scriptures, so how would they, like, if it's always been

24:19

Scripture, how would they, like, are they saying that, you know, from the, from the beginning of the

24:24

Church, it was seen as Scripture, but now we're just making the declarative enunciation towards that?

24:31

Well, they didn't bother to say that, um, it's similar to saying that the, the

24:37

Church universal has always understood Matthew 16 and 18 the way that the, uh,

24:43

First Vatican Council did. Well, it's just a lie. It's just not true. The documentation is, remember, the entire papacy would not exist today without a mountain of forged quotations from the early

24:54

Church. So Rome, Rome has not had to deal, think about it, let,

25:01

I'm not gonna, I'm not trying to offend my Roman Catholic friends by making this parallel, but it's a very valid parallel.

25:07

Up until, uh, the, around, mid, probably about 2005 to that area, the

25:15

Jehovah's Witnesses were able to control the knowledge of the history of their movement amongst their own people very effectively because there wasn't something called the internet.

25:28

And so they were able to publish just outrageous statements in their publications because their people didn't have any way of really finding out one way or the other.

25:39

And so through the history of Rome, uh, you had, I mean, it was only about 12, 14 years ago,

25:48

I debated a Roman Catholic, um, attorney on Long Island, and he used a, uh, a forged citation from Augustine.

25:59

And so, I mean, the ability to identify these things is really, really, really, really modern.

26:07

It's, it's, you know, we just, we didn't have the ability to do these types of things in the past because we didn't have the technology, but now we can.

26:14

And so it's, it's important to recognize that anybody today knows that Melito Sardis and Jerome, uh, and, and Gregory the

26:25

Great, um, and all the way up through Cardinal Jimenez, the Cardinal who, who interviewed

26:30

Luther, they all rejected the apocryphal books as canon. Yeah. And, and so there was a very clear, uh, tradition that goes, that goes all the way back to the earliest period.

26:42

And then there were others who did, and it was primarily because, were you, were you dependent upon the, on the, uh, the

26:49

Greek Septuagint? Did you have access to the Hebrew canon? It, you know, it depended on, on your knowledge of those particular things.

26:56

And so when, when Rome, you know, at the Council of Trent, there is, there's no, there's no internet.

27:02

So you can say what you want, and you can make claims as you want, but you can't do that as much today.

27:08

So it's, it's a different world that, that we live in than, than they did back then. And so, uh, today a

27:15

Roman Catholic apologist, you'd have to ask them, uh, how do you deal with the reality, uh, that, that people like, uh,

27:23

Popes specifically said, uh, Second Maccabees wasn't scripture, not part of the canon.

27:28

How do you deal with Jerome's testimony? How do you deal with Melito Sardis? These guys, these are the guys who actually had access to, uh, the

27:36

Jewish canon itself. And how do you know that the, the, the council fathers at Trent knew more than all they, they did?

27:44

Because there's no evidence they did. Um, and so anyway.

27:51

So, and I just want to like, cause I was wondering, um, cause I think it's very important, but I feel like this is kind of dismissed and especially with the current

27:59

Pope, um, you know, they're supposed to be the Vicar of Christ, but they say a lot of things that contradict what a

28:07

Christian would say. Yeah. Can you, can you, can you imagine if the canon was dependent upon Frankie? Oh, that would be pretty, that'd be pretty wild.

28:17

Yeah. We have the same name, but, um, um, I was actually born Catholic, not practicing, but I was in the world, but that's a different story.

28:25

It was just a cultural thing. But, um, so I feel like a lot of times

28:31

I just, they watered down the, that hard line of, okay, well, he didn't say it, you know, as like without authority, like thus says the

28:39

Lord or something like that. Right, right. I'm like that. So it's the only Christian when he prefaces his statements by saying that, like it, you can't,

28:46

I don't know how you could do that. Cause it would be anathema by this, by Rome anytime in history. Well, uh, real quickly, cause we got other callers to get to, but, um, the, the, the whole concept of papal infallibility to me is, is one of the most worthless dogmatic assertions because when you really press on it, as we have in the debates we've done on the subject, what you discover is you can never know if what the

29:10

Pope is saying is infallible until about 40 years later after both you and he are dead.

29:16

So what good is that? I mean, you, you, you can't, you can't know. So, so if, if Frankie says, uh, something, um, about, you know, who am

29:27

I to judge about homosexuality or something like that? Obvious that's not meant to be some type of dogmatic definitional thing, but the point is, how do you know, does he have to use that specific, uh, formula that, that, that, that set out.

29:40

And even then the fact of the matter is it when, when if, if you can explain away the fact that for 400 years, every single

29:54

Bishop of Rome that took the chair of Peter anathematized

30:00

Honorius as a heretic. And yet Honorius is one of the infallible

30:08

Popes. If you can figure that one out, you can figure anything out. That's, that's just all there is to it.

30:14

There's, there's that. Yeah, that's the way it is. So anyway, Frank, thanks for your phone call from New Jersey today.

30:19

I hope that was helpful to you. And, uh, all right. God bless you. Bye -bye. All right.

30:24

Let's see here. It looks like Ryan is been on hold the longest. Hello, Ryan.

30:32

Hello, Dr. White. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir. I think we should probably first pray for our friend,

30:38

Josh, and his equestrian encounter. Uh, he, uh, he could be in a world of hurt by now. Well, that poor, that poor lady that had the equestrian encounter, uh, was in a world of hurt.

30:49

So yeah. Um, yeah, poor, poor Josh. I mean, that, that, that, that squeal did sound a little bit like something really bad happened.

30:58

So yeah, we're, we're definitely praying for Josh anyway. Oh, wait a minute.

31:04

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What, what, what rich? Oh, he's texted you a couple of times.

31:11

Are you, are you, are you certain that that's not the Mounties texting you with this? Well, according to Rich, he's texted a few times.

31:19

He's having trouble getting through. And I'm just like, are you sure that's not the Mounties texting you? I mean, how would you know?

31:25

I don't, I have no idea. You know, sounds like big brother to me. It does sound like big brother to me. Anyways, Ryan, well,

31:31

I noticed I don't have a location for you. So how do I know you're not big brother? Hmm.

31:37

Fair enough. Uh, I'm, I am in, uh, in Washington, just a couple of hours away from Moscow where, uh,

31:43

I debated Pastor Wilson a couple of weeks ago. That's where I'm hiding out. Uh, well that is, you're hiding out amongst the enemy, uh, because Washington state,

31:52

I'm going to tell you, uh, when, when the big one hits Washington and Oregon are going with California and they're, they're going to float off to China.

32:01

I'm just trying to warn you right now, unless you're in the, unless you're in the Eastern part of the state, then you, you might be okay.

32:08

I am an hour and 58 minutes from Moscow. So that tells you how Eastern I am. Okay. That's close, man.

32:14

That you, I, if you pray, maybe the Lord will let you, let you stay. Anyway. My, my, my, my, my question revolves around, um, sola scriptura and the sufficiency of scripture and the, does, does affirming those types of doctrines, does it necessitate, um, affirming the regulative principle of worship?

32:38

Um, well, obviously, um, the, the, the relationship that exists between the regular, let's make sure everybody's understanding what in the world we're talking about, or they're all going to tune out.

32:53

Uh, the regulative principle of worship is the concept, and this is, this is why it's related to the, to the question, is the concept that God's word, uh, determines what is pleasing to him in worship.

33:11

And therefore you have to have a biblical foundation, a biblical basis for what you do in worship.

33:18

And that's a, that's a theological, um, conclusion that frequently requires, uh, looking at how worship was handled in the old

33:29

Testament. Uh, there will be examples from the old Testament where strange worship was rejected by God.

33:35

And then that has to be mediated through looking at the new Testament and the, um,

33:42

I guess what we would call what seems like evident divergences between some of the churches, um, in some of the issues related to worship there.

33:53

And so part of the relationship then is, uh, is it

33:59

God's intention to provide in the canon of scripture a sufficient, um, amount of revelation, nature of revelation, uh, to provide that regulative principle and how strict would that, could that regulative principle be?

34:17

This was a major area of debate at the time of the

34:23

Reformation, uh, because to be honest with you, the, the issue had languished from an exegetical perspective for at least, uh, 1100 years, maybe, uh, probably at that point in time.

34:40

And obviously at the time of the Reformation, part of your, the issue you have to deal with is there were, you had the

34:49

Radical Reformation and the, um, the reality that the

34:54

Reformers were attempting to balance between that Radical Reformation and the tendencies toward radicalism, even amongst their own people.

35:04

And so you have someone like an Ulrich Zwingli, who himself is an, is an accomplished musician, uh, a tremendous musician.

35:14

Uh, but he adopts the idea that, uh, that that instrumental music is not to be used in, in the churches.

35:21

And so, so during all of that, and it's difficult for us to analyze some of these things, partly because of a lack of information, partly because that information isn't necessarily all that accessible to us.

35:35

Um, it was really an, an attempt on the part of the Reformers to make application of Sola Scriptura, which had become the formal principle of, of the

35:47

Reformation, but at the same time to avoid, um, really ecclesial, ecclesiastical and liturgical, uh, anarchy,

35:58

I guess would be the way to put it. Um, I, I can't help but, but mention, um, uh,

36:06

I, I told a story when I preached from Luther's pulpit in the

36:11

Castle Church in Wittenberg in 2017. Um, I told the story of what had happened in that very room when the

36:21

Lord's Supper in both forms, so the cup and the bread, uh, was offered to the people and that they had surged forward and that there had been such a, the place was filled because the people had been, uh, kept from the cup for hundreds of years.

36:41

And so the idea of partaking in that, they so wanted to do that. And yet there were people who were scandalized by that, seeing people partaking of the cup.

36:52

And, and so where is the tradition? Cause no one's scandalized today, uh, by, you know, so it's, it's so, so that was a very challenging period of time.

37:08

And one of the questions that all of us who are Reformed have to ask ourselves, I'm at, I'm not, don't know where you are, but I'm just speaking for myself.

37:15

Um, how, how easy is it for the decisions that were made in a very different context, that being the

37:25

Reformation and the decades or centuries, century after that?

37:31

How is it for the, that is it possible that the decisions made then can become a new liturgical tradition that in, in the centuries after that, that just simply can't be examined anymore because it has been enshrined in confessions of faith and in liturgical practice and all sorts of things like that.

37:51

And yet, when you look back at the Reformation, you realize, man, they were facing some tough stuff. I mean, uh, could

37:57

I have gone as far as they did? Would I have been as, as bold as they were?

38:04

Um, or is it possible there are some things that they should have gone farther, but look in their experience, this is what people had done for 1100 years.

38:15

I mean, people were just starting to get away from the concept of anachronism back then, where they, where they thought that everybody had always dressed like they dressed and done things the way they did, um, because that's all anyone knew.

38:27

Um, it's, it's all of that's pretty, um, pretty fascinating.

38:33

And so when you get to the regulative principle of worship, obviously it's, it's a desire first and foremost, to recognize that biblically speaking, um,

38:45

God has always been the one to define his worship. And what's fascinating to me now,

38:50

I'm not an expert on, on principles, regular worship. Um, uh, Scott annual at, at, uh, at the seminary would be the guy to talk to.

38:58

Uh, he's, he's our, our worship and liturgy guy. And he's, uh, really, really good at it.

39:04

Um, but just as I think about it, um, one, the one thing that really strikes me along these lines, and this has nothing to do with soul scripture, but that's okay.

39:15

I'm talking about anyways, um, is the fact that the worship that is seen in Isaiah chapter six moves seamlessly into the worship in revelation four and five with obviously the vital, um, reality of what has happened in the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

39:43

Now you had the lamb, uh, before the throne. But the point is that the book of revelation is telling us that what was pleasing to God in worship in heaven is still pleasing to God in worship in And we now have a, a greater, uh, participation through our union with the lamb.

40:07

That's a, an amazing thing, but that doesn't result in, uh, some massive change to where worship is.

40:18

Well, whatever we feel it should be. So I, so for me, I think that there does need to be a, uh, a, if there's, if we want to have balance, it needs to be, uh, based upon the reality that God has revealed what his worship is to look like.

40:41

That doesn't mean it's going to look the exact same in every single congregation, but there should be a, uh, strongly, um, uh, biblical foundation because our tendency is to get man -centered.

40:58

Our tendency is to lose balance and to, to, to lose connectedness to the fact that worship on earth is supposed to be reflecting what's going on in heaven.

41:11

Um, that's my contribution to that. Take it for what it's worth because I don't claim to be any kind of expert or anything like that on that particular subject.

41:20

It's not something I've read a bunch of books on, things like that. Um, so there you go. Well, I, I appreciate that and, and the humility with it too.

41:30

I, just one quick, uh, clarification. You said everybody in your church partakes of the cup. I, I listened to a debate with you and Pastor Wilson in Moscow a couple of weeks ago.

41:39

I'm pretty sure not everyone is partaking of the cup. Well, what I'm, obviously I meant Communicate members.

41:45

Uh, yeah. Communicate members. Yes, yes, that's true. Yeah, yeah.

41:50

Does all, does all, does all really mean all? Uh, there you go. Well, yeah,

41:57

I, I think you were too friendly with Pastor Wilson if it's any, uh, if it's any consolation. Well, I, and, and, and the, the first thing that I said to, um, almost anybody that I talked to after, you know, in the days afterwards to my friends, fellow elders, uh, was,

42:15

I said, if I'm going to be criticized, it will be for the fact that it was, we were too collegial, uh, with one another.

42:23

Uh, but the, the, I'm going to, I was going to say this anyways, it's given me the opportunity of doing it.

42:29

Um, I said this after I spoke at Grace Agenda last year in Moscow.

42:36

And, uh, again, I spent a full week, uh, in Moscow. I was with, uh, pretty much everybody, uh, up there, but I did get again to spend a fair amount of time, uh, with Doug and talking with Doug.

42:50

And I, I need to repeat what I said last year so that people can hear this and understand this.

42:56

And I think people will see this, especially when they see the Man Rampant, um, episode that we recorded, the two sweater vest dialogues we did, um, where for some strange reason, we're wearing the exact same sweater vest and shirt.

43:08

It's really weird. That's because we recorded them back to back, obviously. Um, but, uh, Doug Wilson is who he is at all times.

43:20

There are no errors. Um, I, I sat, uh, at taco time eating crisp meat burritos with Doug Wilson.

43:29

And he's exactly as he is on blog and may blog. Um, uh, when he's doing

43:35

Man Rampant, when he's preaching, um, he, he is who he is all the time.

43:42

And I think that's important. Uh, people are, are sometimes surprised that I tried to be that way too, that I don't put on errors, um, that I, you know, uh,

43:56

I cut up and have a sense of humor as does Doug for that matter. He normally does it through his massive vocabulary, but, um, uh, he is exactly who he portrays himself to be.

44:09

He lives a very frugal life. Uh, he drives the same old beat up pickup truck.

44:16

I'm a little concerned given that every November they burn something, uh, that, uh, that pickup truck may, may, may be destined for the afterlife in the future too.

44:26

But anyway, um, so, uh, the response of one of my fellow elders was it was exactly the way that it, that it needed to be.

44:35

Um, and I, I felt that way too, but anyways, I appreciate you watching and listening. Uh, and I hope that was all very useful to you.

44:43

It was there. And I did appreciate the attitude and the spirit that you guys modeled for, for Christians on how we can engage one another about these types of issues.

44:52

So thanks for all that you do, Dr. White. I'll let you go. I know you got a call. All right. Thanks Ryan. All right. God bless. All right. Bye -bye.

44:58

All right. All right. So I think, uh, probably we get these last three, uh, and we, well,

45:05

I don't know that let's just get the last three. I don't want to have people holding on forever. So let's talk to, uh,

45:11

Taylor in Ohio. Hi Taylor. Hi, Dr. White. How are you? Well, I've got a cough that doesn't want to go away, but other than that,

45:18

I'm doing pretty good. Good. Uh, first, no, thanks for taking my call and, uh, thank you for your clear teaching and pointing us to Christ.

45:27

Um, it really is always encouraging to listen to you. And it's encouraging for me to hear it. Ha, and now you can pay me later.

45:36

Um, I'm, I'm zelling you, I'm zelling you now.

45:41

Uh, what, what was that number again? Um, hopefully this is in line with, uh,

45:49

Sola Scriptura, but as a Protestant, how do we deal with the sign gift?

45:56

Can we hold Sola Scriptura and still believe the revelatory gifts are active today? Or how, how do those two go together?

46:04

Well, uh, let's, let's define, uh, what you mean by sign gifts. Um, are, are we, are, well, how would you define that?

46:13

Uh, like modern day prophecy or tongues, you know, like the, uh, like the

46:19

Charismatics would say in Aaron Prophecy. Right. Or I guess Aaron Prophecy, sorry.

46:24

There's a, um, there's a chapter in my book, Scripture Alone, that actually addresses this, and my position is that the apostolic sign gifts have ended.

46:39

Um, the gifts to the church for the edification of the church, the building up the church, the continuation of the church, uh, cannot end until, uh, until the end of the church age.

46:51

And so I, I've mentioned this a what everybody meant by being a cessationist, but it's not.

47:04

And I, I didn't realize that there are cessationists who believe that all spiritual gifts mentioned in the

47:12

New Testament have ceased, uh, discernment helps everything. And so I, I didn't know that there were people who held that view, but there are.

47:22

And so you have to define what you're talking about when you talk about what the gifts are.

47:30

And so from my perspective, the, the term that you used, revelatory, um,

47:37

I think is, it's fundamental to historic, well, it's, it's fundamental to Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant, um, epistemology that revelation as divine revelation ended with the apostles.

47:59

So you have to, you have to differentiate between terms like illumination, um, and revelation.

48:10

So the, the idea of, uh, illumination is giving insight and light upon what's already been revealed.

48:22

Um, and you know, you can make an argument for that, but when someone literally stands up and says, thus sayeth the

48:31

Lord, this is going to happen, thus sayeth the Lord, this is a vision given to me by God, et cetera, et cetera.

48:38

Um, those, that, that, as far as I can understand it as revelate is a claim to revelation.

48:44

And that, that, that violates sola scriptura. You, you, you, you, you can't, you cannot test, um, a claim thus sayeth the

48:56

Lord, uh, by scripture, unless what you're saying is, well, thus sayeth the

49:03

Lord, but not really the way he used to say it. I mean, I don't know exactly how that works.

49:09

Um, and, but, but I know there are lots of people that try to walk that line. I know lots of charismatics will say, no scripture, uh, is the

49:20

Anustos in a way that nothing that's going on today is well, okay.

49:28

But then it's not really thus sayeth the Lord. Is it, is, is it not thus I feel led by the spirit illumined by the spirit to think of something along these lines based on this scripture or like that.

49:42

I, I, I, you'd have to ask someone who would say, I hold the solo scriptura, but I also believe that, uh,

49:52

God speaks in a revelatory fashion. Um, and a lot of them,

49:58

I think would, would, will hesitate on the term revelatory and will want to substitute some other term that will not put that in competition with scripture, but it's hard to do.

50:09

It's really hard to do. Sure. Yeah. So yeah, that's, that's where I come down.

50:17

No, yeah, no, that, that makes sense. So when someone says, well, we can still expect tongues today, uh, is that just a happy inconsistency when they say full -throated, they, they endorse full scriptura?

50:29

Um, for, for given, given how it functions for a lot of people to where you have to have an interpreter that's going to tell it, say thus, say it, the

50:40

Lord type thing. Yes. For a lot of people, they, uh, would limit the experience of tongues to a prayer language type thing.

50:52

And as such, um, since it doesn't have to be interpreted, therefore it doesn't require, you know, the groanings, the

50:58

Holy Spirit, therefore it doesn't require it to become revelatory in that sense. But it's a, it's a very, very, uh, blurred line and certainly has been the very foundation of a tremendous amount of, of abuse, uh, along those lines.

51:18

And so, um, that would be a, that would be a good call for my friend,

51:24

Michael Brown. Um, that, that would be, that would be because he's going to want to affirm solo scriptura.

51:31

Um, and, uh, yeah, yeah, that would, that would tell him, tell him

51:37

James White sent you. And, uh, yeah, well, no, you're not gonna get in trouble with Mike.

51:46

He's, uh, he's not gonna, he's not that kind of guy, but, um, uh, it would be interesting, uh, you know, in light of, uh, the fact that, that, yeah, we, we do, he does believe in solo scriptura.

51:59

So how does he, you know, nuance those definitions? Uh, it would be better for someone who holds that position to, to answer that than for me to do a lot of speculation about it.

52:12

Sure. No, that's something I've always wondered how, how those two, uh, are harmonized when someone says that. So, no, that's not a hat.

52:18

So thank you. Okay. All right. Thanks, Taylor. All right. God bless. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Always good questions when we open the phones here at the dividing line.

52:27

I do not have a name or did you busy the two out? That's the only one

52:33

I've got left. I thought we had somebody on too. Oh, all right.

52:39

So Tristan, how are you? Good. How are you doing Dr. White? Pretty good. Good. Um, my question is very related to the last one.

52:49

Um, is there any way to understand the seventh day Adventist claim, uh, that LNG White's writings hold prophetic authority without denying solo scriptura?

53:03

Well, um, what's interesting is that was a pretty easy question 20 years ago.

53:14

Um, I, I, I'm not going to claim to be an expert on all the developments amongst the

53:19

SDA since then. I'm just aware of the fact that there has been, uh, some type of movement amongst

53:29

SDAs to, um, sort of do what the charismatics do, uh, in the sense of, um, creating a lesser level of inspiration in, in a sense.

53:47

So in other words, there have been seventh day Adventists and what's happened is they've, uh, you know, started reading in reformed literature or, you know, outside of their own tradition and they start realizing, wow, this is a real problem.

54:02

Uh, but I don't want to, I don't want to throw everything out. Uh, and so you, you end up with a, um, you know, simple things have happened amongst some of the

54:12

Church of Christ folks. In fact, I, I don't have it with me, but someone somewhere along my travels gave me a book.

54:20

I'm pretty sure it was Church of Christ. I think it was Church of Christ. Um, I need to grab it and, and, uh, double check on this, but someone gave me a book, wanted me to encourage the authors, uh, because I think they were

54:33

Church of Christ and the book was on justification by faith alone. So they're presenting justification by faith alone within the

54:39

Church of Christ, which is not really where you get justification by faith alone. Um, and so there are a number of groups that have had, you know, sort of their definitional, you know,

54:51

LNG white being one of the definitional aspects of Seventh -day Adventism and they start really getting into the scriptures and they don't want to let go of the, the, the definitional stuff that has defined them, but they, they, they want to, you know, start partaking of the, of the, the broader river of biblical truth that they realize is, is being cut off by how narrow the stream they're in is.

55:19

And so with, with what LNG white claimed for herself, um,

55:25

I would say no, but again, what you have to do is start redefining, uh, the parameters of, of those things.

55:33

So for example, the, the, the most pernicious doctrine that, that I know of amongst the

55:39

Seventh -day Adventists and a large portion of my family on both my father and mother's side, um, still are

55:47

Seventh -day Adventist. And so when I started studying Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, I had one particular, uh, aunt on my mother's side,

55:58

I think, who started sending me books and I've got a fairly decent Seventh -day Adventist library.

56:03

Uh, the most, uh, pernicious error that, that I can identify in LNG white, um, is called the investigative judgment.

56:13

Are you familiar with it? A little bit. Yeah. Um, the investigative judgment is, um, based in the, the failed prophecies that actually gave, gave rise to Seventh -day

56:25

Adventism, the Millerite movement, uh, in the 19th century. Um, and so what they did is, you know,

56:33

Miller's dates didn't work, Christ didn't return. And so they spiritualized it, which is what everybody always does.

56:40

And, uh, so that Christ entered into his temple at that point in history and began to, uh, examine the lives of everyone who had trusted in him for salvation to see if they kept the law well enough, and especially the

56:58

Sabbath law, um, for him to apply the merit of his atonement to them.

57:05

Now, just think about that for half a second and you go, whoa, that's a, that's a massive, uh, denial of justification by faith and grace and everything that is a part of, of the gospel presentation.

57:20

And it also could only work for so long. How long does it take Jesus to do this?

57:25

I mean, you know, he's been at it for a really long time now. Um, it's just sort of like the 1914 stuff, which is slowly fading away from Jehovah's witnesses.

57:33

You know, it, it looked good at the time, but, uh, it doesn't work any longer because time has been marching on.

57:40

Um, so I would say the easy answer years ago was no, you couldn't.

57:47

Uh, the, the more complex answer is, it seems like there have been some amongst the SDA that are trying to sort of, uh, redefine that authority so as to still have it, have some type of influence upon the formation of their theology, but not in the sense of a revelatory, uh, prophetic kind of thing.

58:13

And, you know, can you be successful in that? Um, you know, like I would say, like, like the worldwide church of God, uh, tried to get rid of, uh, the writings of Herbert W.

58:26

Armstrong and become Orthodox. Well, that was pretty tough to do. Um, and how, how could

58:34

Mormonism do that? I don't think so. You, you, you'd have to, you, you obviously can't accept the

58:40

Book of Mormon, Doctrine, Covenants, Prophetic Prices, Revelation for God and believe in Sola Scriptura. I mean, that's, that's pretty obvious. So, but what about something like an

58:48

Ellen G. White where it's not, her writings aren't considered another book of scripture specifically, but they are given that level of prophetic, uh, authority.

58:57

And so, um, yeah, that's a, that, the, the, you, you pray, you pray for them that they will just keep going until, until eventually it's like, you know what, we don't need any of this at all.

59:11

And, um, and, and we're free of it, you know. If it's given as a necessary lens to view scripture, then how could you not deny

59:21

Sola Scriptura at that point? Right, right. All right. Thank you, Tristan.

59:27

All right. Thank you. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. Well, I don't know what this is all about, but Rich seems to.

59:35

So, uh, we take one more call. I thought I had timed it perfectly, but, uh, let's talk to, uh,

59:41

Pedro. Hi, Pedro. Hello, sir. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you.

59:47

Perfect. I've called in before. So I, I, time is up to ask the police are at the door now. I'm trying to knock down the door.

59:52

So I need to get this in. Um, I have two questions. One is from scripture. And then the next one is for early church father,

01:00:00

Dustin, but, uh, first Corinthians chapter 15, starting at verse three, going through four.

01:00:08

I feel like this is a gunshot for Sola Scriptura in the positive light meeting, supporting for it, where he says two times he like references

01:00:20

Christ's resurrection and Christ's coming by the scriptures repeatedly.

01:00:26

Shouldn't that end the conversation right there by what, like when they ask us whether it's

01:00:32

Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic, does the church even know what scripture is before it's dogmatically declared or anything like that?

01:00:42

Well, uh, that's used in both, uh, both those texts at 15, three, 15, four.

01:00:49

Okay. Um, let me just take their side for a second and, and what they will say in response is, well, of course, uh, what

01:00:59

Paul is saying there is the gospel message that he is preaching as an apostle is consistent with the scriptures that existed at that time.

01:01:08

That is, you know, Luke 24, Jesus opens the scriptures from Moses to all the prophets.

01:01:14

They testified of me. Um, and that's all he's saying is that there is a fundamental consistent, um, uh, consistency.

01:01:23

Now, if what you're saying is, yeah, but how could they know what the before Trent, um, that's, that opens the whole, uh, uh, can of worms of what we call the white question, because that's what the

01:01:36

Catholics used to call it was the white question. Exactly. The white, the white question is the ultimate. Okay. Now do the

01:01:42

Jews know what Chronicles and Judges is? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. What's going on? Yeah. Yeah.

01:01:47

So now it, so the way that they would get around that, at least here would be to say that they could know what the scriptures were because the prophet, the,

01:01:58

I'm sorry, the apostles were alive at that time and could define that for them at that point in time.

01:02:04

I, you know, that doesn't work for someone that's not a Corinth or whatever else, but that's, that's how

01:02:10

I would expect that they would, would say that, uh, would answer that particular question.

01:02:15

The reality is that the, the way that everyone knew what the scriptures were was not because an angel came down with golden indexes or there was some infallible magisterial authority, uh, because the magisterial authority in the old

01:02:30

Testament doesn't agree with Rome, uh, on, on the old Testament. So that's a, that's a real problem. But so, yeah,

01:02:36

I mean, I think it's, it, it's in its context is, is very important, but I could see because of the fact that you have revelation going on at this time, that they would use that as a means of getting around it, uh, as far as it being applied today.

01:02:51

Gotcha. Cause this is how, and how I see Sola Scriptura in operation.

01:02:57

I'm not, and I'm not saying that you don't see it in this operation, but say someone comes to us with a rule tradition or something they want us to follow.

01:03:05

That's not explicitly found in scripture. Then we still get the tested by scripture. Just like,

01:03:11

I think during the time of, you know, that apostolic period where revelation is still being made, you have the

01:03:17

Bereans in Acts chapter 17. What are they testing, um, Paul by? The scriptures.

01:03:23

And guess what happens? Everything's copacetic. Everyone's all good. They're even called the most honorable.

01:03:30

Right. So, well, yeah, there's, there's, there's a question of that and, and that, that's still how we function today is because, but this takes me back to the definition of Sola Scriptura and the definition of Sola Scriptura requires you to look at the nature of scripture.

01:03:46

Uh, it is Theanoustos. That's what gives it its, its, its ultimate authority. And there is nothing else. And there's nothing else that we possess that is

01:03:53

Theanoustos. And that's why I asked Mitch Pacwa, my goodness, 23 years ago now in San Diego, uh, does the, does the church possess anything, uh, outside of the old and new testaments that it would claim as Theanoustos?

01:04:08

And he's like, no, no, we don't. So there you go. That was a good debate. I just actually, uh,

01:04:14

I, this morning I woke up and I, cause of your last dividing line, I decided to rewatch this father

01:04:21

Stavinsky debate. Oh my goodness. So there we go. Yeah. So if I, if, so if I was wearing a collar, uh,

01:04:29

I'd be doing, I'd be doing this number the whole time. He, he, he was so cool and collected when he came in.

01:04:38

Uh, I mean, this was just going to be, I, cause most people, uh, uh, Chris Arnzen has told this story cause he's the one that set it up.

01:04:46

He's told this story when he was trying to get Stravinskis to do the debate. He said, well, who would I be debating?

01:04:52

And he says, uh, James White says, oh, no problem. Uh, so he was like, ah, you know, no, no problem whatsoever.

01:04:59

And by the end of that night, he wanted to get out of that room so bad. And look, you watched it.

01:05:05

Oh, you could, but it wasn't, but it wasn't because I was being mean to him. It was because I was asking him questions that he had obviously never even given a second thought to and how you can be the editor of the

01:05:18

Catholic answer and have never even, he literally thought that talking with somebody like, oh, what was the guy you mentioned?

01:05:27

The charismatic guy. Um, oh gosh, it's just, it's just skipped my brain.

01:05:33

See, I thought I was going to be done right at the top of the hour. So my brain just shut down. Um, uh, the assemblies of God guy, the real big assemblies of God preacher,

01:05:41

Jimmy Swaggart, Jimmy Swaggart. He thought that, that having an exchange with Jimmy Swaggart was all he was going to need to do to have an exchange with a reformed theologian.

01:05:50

And that just tells you how little interaction they do with hearing a reformed, uh, uh, criticism of, of their position.

01:05:59

But anyways, the difference is market. It's like fighting a Jedi and fighting a Sith. One is like, knows what he's doing.

01:06:06

So that's what he wanted. He thought he was going to be disarmed and he didn't know we were coming for his heels.

01:06:12

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, do you have time for my, uh, early church father question?

01:06:18

Yeah. Perfect. Cool. So, and this is where, um, Augustine, I've been reading a lot of Augustine because of you and thank you for your ministry, sir.

01:06:26

Once again, because man, I cannot say how much some of this and I find well of knowledge.

01:06:33

So, so I've got to, so I've got to ask you, have you stumbled on my friend and he's involved with our ministry or quit

01:06:39

Chris Wisenant? No, no, sir. I'll have to, I'll have to link to Chris's stuff.

01:06:47

Maybe when I, when I, when I blog this in a few minutes. Um, but, uh,

01:06:52

Chris has spent an astonishing amount of time, uh, reading

01:06:59

Augustine. And so if you really want, uh, a, a, a fount of, um, uh, knowledge, uh, on Augustine, uh,

01:07:08

Chris is, Chris is our go -to guy there. So I'll try to link over to his, his blog because I think you'd find it to be really, really, really interesting because there's,

01:07:17

I mean, there's only so many hours in a day and there's a lot of church fathers to be reading. And Augustine can take up a lot of your time.

01:07:23

Uh, and, uh, so go, go ahead with your, with your quote. I may end up just pawning you off on Chris anyways.

01:07:30

No worries, no worries. So it goes like this better far that I should read with certainty and persuasion of its truth.

01:07:38

The Holy scripture placed on the highest, even the heavenly pinnacle of authority and should without questioning and trustworthiness of its statements learned from it, that men have been either commended or corrected or condemned that they through fear of believing that by men who though of most praiseworthy excellence were no more than men.

01:08:06

I was, when I read that, I was like, why is the, why are we not called this gentleman reformed right now?

01:08:12

What's the, what's, what's the reference? Oh, it's, uh, Augustine letter 82, letter 82 chapter 2 .5.

01:08:22

I got it from, uh, your quote book that you recommended from that volume set. I got the whole volume set.

01:08:28

Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. Holy scripture. Holy scripture. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Um, I'll, I'd like to, obviously in all of those,

01:08:36

I, I love to look at the context is, uh, because so often the, uh, abuse of the early fathers is based upon isolating their context.

01:08:50

I've, I would say that William Jurgens did that a lot in his three volume set. Uh, and there was a bias to it.

01:08:57

I don't want to be biased. I want to know what's being referred to. Uh, because obviously

01:09:02

I've got dozens of Augustine quotes where he makes that argument, the argument, the, the, the response that you need to be prepared for is when he is not consistent with his own stated principles.

01:09:19

Right. And so most of the time when I'm reading

01:09:24

Augustine and I, I see him losing balance on something, which he did.

01:09:31

Uh, and, and I don't know how anybody who dealt with all the stuff that he did couldn't, but when he did, um, that's, that's when the exegesis slips.

01:09:43

And so, so for example, I criticized Augustine, um, in his comments on John 17,

01:09:50

I just felt like they were completely muddled. How dare you, sir? Uh, exactly. How dare you?

01:09:56

Yeah. Um, and there are other places on the Trinity, um, where some of the speculative stuff he gets into the farther away you get from the light of scripture, the more muddled stuff becomes.

01:10:08

And so, um, you know, I've never written anything nearly as much as Augustine has.

01:10:14

So, uh, he was, he was in a completely different situation and man, can you imagine, you know, we have those letters.

01:10:22

Can you imagine if, if, if, if future generations had your Google account and all your emails, uh, and stuff like that?

01:10:30

Um, I wouldn't want to be in that boat, uh, in any way, shape or form. They'd find out how many dumb jokes

01:10:36

I tell. So, um, yeah, I, I keep all that in mind so that I can, uh, with Calvin, um, enjoy, uh, quoting

01:10:48

Augustine when he's on my side, but look, Warfield was right. Despite everybody trying to get rid of him these days,

01:10:55

Warfield was right. The reformation in really considered was nothing more than the victory of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church.

01:11:03

And so that means in the same book toward the end of your life, end of his life, you can find both of those in conflict with one another.

01:11:12

He had made peace in his own mind, but, uh, we sit here going, uh, you know, uh, at some of the stuff that ends up saying so, yeah, that's, that sounds like a, sounds like a, a great, a great citation.

01:11:25

And, uh, there are a lot of them like it, uh, in, uh, in Augusta. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you, sir.

01:11:30

I think it goes back to that lesson. You said, when you go back into history, let these people be who exactly who they are.

01:11:35

You know, sometimes you're going to find some slam dunks on your core side of the court and others on the other side of the court.

01:11:42

So I very much appreciate you, sir. Thank you. You're a warrior for the faith. Like, honestly.

01:11:48

Well, thank you, Pedro. I just pray that we will pray that for all of us, that we end well, because that is the real, the real challenge.

01:11:55

So I appreciate you sneaking in on, uh, on zoom and I'm not sure how you did that, but I'll find out from Rich after the program's over.

01:12:04

Well, you know, I am a computer scientist, so I did, I have my ways. All right,

01:12:09

Pedro. Thanks a lot. Thanks for calling. All right. God bless. All right. Well, uh, the open phone, what?

01:12:20

Okay. So, um, let me bring this up here real quick for those of you.

01:12:26

And Pedro was the only one that actually understood what it was that I was saying on Twitter about zoom.

01:12:35

I lined it up. And so if you would have clicked on the link that I put on Twitter, it's gone now.

01:12:44

So you're not going to find it. Okay. So don't be looking for it. All right. But if you would have clicked on the link, say on your phone and you, it opens up zoom and you get this, that's what you see.

01:12:56

And it, the, the point here is that you need to put your first name in like I did there. And then your topic, and then you're going to land in the waiting room.

01:13:06

And when you're in the waiting room, I'm going to see that you have a topic and your name and the topic actually goes to the show.

01:13:14

Why are we doing this? First of all, you heard the difference in quality between Pedro's calls and all of the other calls.

01:13:21

I mean, you know, uh, he came in pretty exuberant and I need to put the women to run. So he doesn't want still ringing about that one.

01:13:28

But, uh, the, the thing is, if we're going to use zoom, you and I learned when we tried to do it in the big room a couple of three months ago that when we put the link up on Twitter, all of the juvenile delinquents in the face of the earth decide that's the thing to do and go have fun.

01:13:48

And next thing you know, it's one color after another color, after another color dropping four letter words on us and they think they're funny, dot, dot, dot, dot.

01:13:57

So how do we screen that? First of all, by doing that method, put your name in and a meaningful topic.

01:14:05

That's actually going to make me think you're the real deal. Secondly, make sure you have your chat open because I'm going to be saying things to you, letting you know, okay, you're still in the waiting room.

01:14:16

You need a better topic. You need a better this or that. I'm telling you these things at the same time, when you do get lined up like Pedro did into the chat itself or into the room, you're going to hear

01:14:30

James talking. That's when you know you're, you're in line and I'm going to tell you when you're next.

01:14:36

So that's how it works. And this board that I'm using is just a lot happier with zoom than it is that old telephone line system.

01:14:45

As we found out with poor Josh in Toronto, who is probably heading for Canadian jail right now or something, you know, never to be heard from again.

01:14:56

Um, so that's what I wanted to interject there. If we do this more often and I know we get a lot of people asking that we do, that's the way it's going to have to work.

01:15:05

So just say, we should do it more often. Um, you know, it's, uh, it's fun.

01:15:12

And a lot of folks sort of like, you know, sort of like, well, I can't, I can't take church history in seminary, but I'd like to ask a question anyways.

01:15:22

And it's sort of how we can do it that way. Um, though I, I don't claim to be, you know, and this term has now been changed and it's meaning the

01:15:33

Bible answer, man. Um, you have to realize that if you're asking technical questions of someone who has no idea, you know, that, uh, it would be nice if I could be extended grace, but I'm going to realize that my critics will never do that anyways.

01:15:53

So it doesn't really matter one way or the other. Um, but those were all great questions. I want to compliment everybody. Uh, you had good questions, good interactions, and that's the way we can do it.

01:16:03

And we'll try to do that a little bit more often. Remember next week on Tuesday, it'll be a earlier time.

01:16:10

We'll be talking, um, with Cameron, uh, Bertuzzi on the subject of his, uh, studying of Catholicism and issues about the papacy and undoubtedly sola scriptura.

01:16:26

And of course, for me, if you claim to have been a Protestant, pretty straightforward, how do you look me in the eye, even if it's over Zoom and explain to me how you can move from trusting in the imputed righteousness of Christ to the sacramental system of Rome.

01:16:50

It's where the rubber meets the road, shall we say? So, all right. Thanks for watching the program today. We'll see you next week.