March 23, 2017 Show with Jason Helopoulos on “Let the Children Worship” PLUS Jonathan Master on “The Sufficiency of Scripture”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 23rd day of March 2017.

Well, we're supposed to be having two guests on today, and one of them, the first one, has not yet called into the studio, so we're awaiting anxiously for him to contact us.

But his name is Jason Helopoulos, and I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. It's a Greek name,

I'm assuming. He is assistant pastor at University Reform Church in East Lansing, Michigan, and a guest blogger at the

Gospel Coalition. We were discussing his book, Let the Children Worship. The second hour of the program, we're going to have

Jonathan Master on the program. He is professor of theology and dean of the

School of Divinity at Calm University, or Karn University. I thought that was an odd name.

I thought it was C -A -L -M, and it's C -A -I -R -N, just another evidence that I'm going blind. Karn University, or Cairn University, he'll correct me on the pronunciation,

I'm sure, in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. He's the editorial director for the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and host of the Alliance podcast, Theology on the

Go. He's the author of A Question of Consensus, The Doctrine of Assurance After the

Westminster Confession, and editor of The God We Worship. We're discussing the second hour with Jonathan Master, The Sufficiency of Scripture.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And what we're going to do is, we're going to go to an early break, because I have to make sure that our first guest,

Jason Helopoulos, is going to be joining us. So I have to make a couple of phone calls, unfortunately.

That's the way live radio goes sometimes. So we're going to an early break right now, and don't go away,

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Welcome back, and yes we do, thank God, have our first guest on today, Jason Helopoulos, and he will correct me if I mispronounce that any moment,

Assistant Pastor at University Reform Church in East Lansing, Michigan, and a guest blogger at the

Gospel Coalition, and we are discussing his book today for the first hour, Let the

Children Worship, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sherpa's Iron, Jason Helopoulos.

Thank you for having me today. And Jason, am I mispronouncing your name? You are a little bit, but that would be par for the course when you get a last name like I do, so it is

Helopoulos, Jason Helopoulos. Helopoulos, okay, I will try to remember that. I'll think of Metropolis and Helopoulos.

There you go, that works. And in studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Good to meet you, Jason. Good to meet you, Doug. And we are discussing this book,

Let the Children Worship, but before we get to that, I want to know something about University Reform Church in East Lansing, Michigan.

Yeah, this is a church that's right here in the middle of mid -Michigan. We have

Michigan State right down the road, and so hence our name, University Reform Church. This church started out on the campus 50 years ago.

We're celebrating our 50th year anniversary and 48 ,000 students there at Michigan State, and that has been our ministry for the past 50 years, especially reaching out to those students and the faculty there.

And this is a wonderful church that loves the gospel, loves the

Lord, and loves each other well. So it's been just a joy to serve this church over the past years.

And is it an independent church, or is it a part of a denomination? Yeah, so this church is part of the

Presbyterian Church in America, the PCA, which is, you know, mainly down in the

South, because it came off of the Southern Presbyterian Church back in 1973, but has been spreading here in the

North over the past 20 or so years, and URC is one of those churches up here. Yes, and for some reason the

Reverend Buzz Taylor's microphone is not working. Maybe you got to switch headphones, Reverend Buzz. Well, yeah,

Reverend Buzz Taylor, my co -host, is a member of a local PCA church, the

Carlisle Reform Presbyterian Church, which is a PCA church. Yeah. And are you with us,

Buzz? Is this better? Yeah, it sounds better. And let me announce once again our email address for our listeners to join us with a question of their own on Let the

Children Worship. It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And let me read a description of this book. Jason Halopoulos encourages the church to embrace the important part children play in the life of the church and enfolds the enormous blessing to be found in having them present in the worship service of the congregation.

He points out how the struggles are temporary, whereas the blessings can be eternal.

And let me read a couple of reviews for this book. Both of these men have been on my program.

In fact, one was just on the day before yesterday, Dr. Carl Truman of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He says, in a series of short chapters, Jason Halopoulos explains the nature and importance of worship and then offers practical guidance on how to communicate this to our young people.

This is very useful and this is a very useful and practical book which deserves to be widely read in our churches.

And then Derek Thomas, senior minister of preaching and teaching at the First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, who

I have had on the program a number of years ago and look forward to having him back. Derek Thomas says, in Jesus's ministry the disciples were at one point indignant at the presence of children.

And this fine book, Jason Halopoulos, makes a compelling scriptural case for the inclusion of children in worship.

It deserves serious and a sustained consideration. Now Jason, today you have interviewing you, me, who would be a

Reformed Baptist, my co -host who's a Presbyterian. Is this the type of book that both

Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians or perhaps even Christians across the theological spectrum would be able to appreciate and make use of?

Well, I hope so. There are a lot of practical things in here about including children in corporate worship.

Of course I am writing it from a Presbyterian perspective in that I do hold to the conviction that children are part of the covenant family of God and part of the covenant community, and so there are a couple of chapters that that is clearly in those pages.

But I think across the spectrum, whether we are talking about Baptists or Presbyterians or Anglicans or whatever it may be, that I think there is a lot of common ground here that we all love our children, we all love the

Lord, we all see the benefit of worship and the mandate that has been placed upon us to worship, and I'm hopeful that these pages will be able to reach quite a diverse audience to encourage just Christians in general to think about incorporating their children in their corporate worship services at church.

Now there is a movement that I'm sure you're familiar with called the Family Integrated Community of Churches, where some of them don't even believe in having nurseries or anything like that.

They don't believe in the segregation of little children or infants from the assembly at all.

Is yours identical or similar to that approach, or is it somewhat different? Yeah, you know,

I'm not a proponent of that view. I think there's a lot of wonderful people in that movement, and I think they are rightfully placing emphasis upon the institution of the family, and they are emphasizing the need for families to minister to their children, but I think there are benefits to different age -segregated or variated ministries within the church.

I think there is a place for Sunday school, and there's a place for a youth group. I think we have to define that a little bit, and we have to give it some parameters and say, you know, minister to in the same way in those contexts with the

Word of God and with prayer as the primary means by which God ministers his grace to us.

But I think there are some benefits to doing some age -appropriate things for our children, but I don't think we do those to the exclusion of having them in the high point and the monumental moment of the church's life, which is its gathering each

Sunday morning before its Creator God, its redeeming God, in worship as the covenant people of God.

So I think there's a place for some age -appropriate diversity and dividing of putting children here or there, but I don't want to see that to the exclusion of incorporating them in corporate worship.

Now what do you think the typical evangelical congregation, perhaps even typical

Reformed congregation, is doing that would be somewhat different than your vision from involving children in the worship services?

Like for instance especially you have Presbyterian churches that you are a part of that believe that children by virtue of their baptism are genuine members of the covenant.

What is it that especially they are doing or not doing in the ordinary gathering of the

Saints that you think is lacking in regard to this concept of involving children? Yeah, you know,

I think as I visit different churches and as I've even pastored in different churches, there is not a church that I've ever walked into that I think, oh these people detest their children.

They don't want what is best for their children. I think we want to start there and say no one has that view.

Everyone wants what is best for their children and wants to see their children come to know and love

Christ as Lord and Savior. But I think a lot of churches today have a view that corporate worship, when we gather together on Sunday morning and we hear that word preached and the congregation prays together and we participate in the

Lord's table and we see baptisms and there's confessing of sin and there's confessions of what we believe and there are prayers of Thanksgiving and adoration that those services are really services for adults and that the best way to minister to our children is to put them in age -appropriate nurseries and Sunday school classes where they can hear things at their level and that's the best way to teach them or to grow them in the faith.

And I would argue that now I think the best thing and what we see scripturally,

I think what we have also seen in the history of the church, is that we include our children in the corporate worship of the church because there's something that's very unique that is going on there.

God is meeting with his people by his Word and by his Spirit and it is there that the covenant community is gathering together to give him praise and to hear from him and to be ministered to by him and there are incredible benefits that flow from having our children in that gathering.

And we do have CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York who says, one of the things that I must confess troubles me frequently is when

I am trying to pay attention to a sermon being preached and a child somewhere in the assembly or perhaps more than one are being disobedient to their parents, making noise, playing, running around and it is very distracting from the most vital thing that is occurring during that gathered worship service that is hearing the

Word of God exegeted. What is your response to my complaint? Am I being too fussy or is there something lacking in the parenting of these people who are permitting this with their children?

Well, I think it could probably be both. You know, I think there's a patience that we need to exercise towards parents that are wrestling with their children in the pew and with children that probably a lot of us over the years have not experienced this and it's new to have children in worship and it's a new thing for us.

And yet, I think it can be so distracting it feels like to have a kid that's wrestling a little paper, some papers down at the end of the pew or a child that is fidgeting in front of us.

And yet, I think many of us can watch a football game on Saturday afternoon and our wife or husband can be banging pots and pans in the kitchen and they will be talking to us and we don't hear a thing that they say, because we can stay focused on that game.

So I think part of it is retraining ourselves as a congregation, as adults, to say, you know what, a little bit of noise is not a death nail to my focusing upon hearing the

Word of God preached. That I need to grow a little bit in this patience.

But on the other end, I think parents have to be very aware that are bringing their children into worship that there are points where it's not children just wrestling papers anymore or children that are fidgeting and they have to be sensitive to the other people that are in the room and exit with their child at times.

And that is part of bringing your child into worship is that there are times that you're going to miss a little of worship because you have to take your child out to discipline them or to correct them or just because this is not a good morning for them.

And you're training them over time. And so it may be at the beginning there that you're having to take them out routinely and over time it will become less and less.

And those trials, they really don't compare to the benefits that can accrue from having your child in worship for all those years that they're in your home.

Well, this is a Reverend Buzz Taylor has a comment for you. Yeah, it seems to me that the problem that I'm picking up from the question is that it seems there are a number of times parents who don't seem to understand when it's time to get their

Children out of the service. And it can be very distracting when they're making very loud noises and things like that.

I think that's what the caller is referring to the emailer. Thank you, emailer.

Okay, but yeah, so I agree. Of course, in our church, they do practice removing children when they're making noise.

And you know, I really appreciate the parents that do that. But I think that I hope that there's a lot of listeners who get it into their head.

If your child is being very disruptive, that's not a time to have a little discussion with them or anything.

It is time to get them out. Yeah, I think it's on both ends.

I think it's a congregation becomes a little more patient and can handle a little more rustling of papers and a little more fidgeting.

And parents are also learning the discipline of when to take their Children out that that that happy medium as much as you can reach it is a good thing for for the benefit of our

Children and the congregation. But now in your book, though, let the

Children worship. You're talking primarily there about, for example, correct me if I'm wrong, but for example, a youth group meeting during church services and things like that, where they're actually being removed for other, like junior church,

I think is a big one. So you would say keep the family together, at least for that morning worships, morning worship service.

What about like evening services and so forth? Yeah, I think anytime that the congregation is gathering together for corporate worship, we should include children in it.

And you know, there are different things that have been promoted over the years, whether that is

Sunday school, which wasn't started for this purpose, but has taken the place of worship for children, and with the idea that now that helps them because it's aimed at their level.

Or whether it's children's worship, which a lot of, especially independent churches and kind of free churches,

I've noticed over the years have begun implementing, where they believe they are constructing the worship services at the level of the children.

And so there are puppets and things like that that they're,

I would say, entertaining the children with. And then there's a struggle to understand why, when those teenagers come into the corporate worship services, that they say, this is boring and this isn't what we experience all these years.

Or there's, I think the third, which is the closest, which a lot of churches have begun doing, especially over the last, it seems, 15 or so years, is what they call worship training, where they're taking children and they're doing kind of a slimmed -down version of worship, and they're teaching them through it what worship is, and just doing it at a much smaller timetable, and they're doing it much simpler.

And I would say a couple of things is that with all of those, we're communicating to our children that the worship of God is something that adults do.

This isn't something that children can participate in. And the second is that we believe that there are true benefits that are occurring in corporate worship, and that really, in a very specific way,

God is ministering to his people, and we're excluding our children from that blessing and from that gathering.

And this is the major thrust of your book, you're saying? Yes, that's correct. Yeah, okay, and what are some of the, like, the chapter contents?

Yeah, so the book begins with just kind of a description of worship, you know, why is it that the

Church worships? I think it's fundamental that we understand the purpose in doing so, and what it is that God has called us to, and kind of walk through what corporate worship should look like, and some of those different elements that are in it.

And then I begin looking at the Scriptures and the inclusion of children in worship in the

Scriptures, and then also in the history of the Church. And then I take some time just to do the practical side, so what are the blessings and the benefits that children receive from being in worship?

And then just giving some practical helps for... there are two, then, chapters, some practical helps for parents as they bring their children into these services, and then just some practical advice for elders and pastors and leaders in a local congregation about how they approach this, and how they implement this in a very gracious and winsome and helpful way, how they can help parents and really assist them in this, and assist the congregation in adopting this kind of mentality and vision for its corporate worship services.

Well, CJ and Lindenhurst, Long Island, you have won a free copy of Let the

Children Worship, compliments of Christian -focused publications, and you're going to be receiving that in the mail, compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com,

CVBBS .com, so look out in the mail for a package that has CVBBS .com

on the address label, on the a week, and we are on top of the game right now.

Those of you who are winning books and Bibles should be getting them in a more rapid function, or rapid pace right now, because of the fact that we seem to be caught up with all the

Bibles and books that were delayed for a couple of weeks. So we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for all their hard work over there at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service and shipping out all of our winners what they received by submitting questions to our guests during the daily broadcast.

We have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who says, if worship actually means worth -ship,

W -O -R -T -H -S -H -I -P, telling forth the worth of God, then it is possible for children to be capable of worship.

For is the point here that they are present in worship rather than participating in it?

Yeah, I think that's a very good question. You know, as we look at worship in the

Scriptures, so whether we're looking at it in the Old Testament and the Hebrew, or we're looking at it in Greek and the

New Testament, that word that we translate, worship, in both languages, and both has the idea of bowing down before.

In the Greek, it even has the idea of bowing down before and kissing the hem or the robe of the garment of the person before you.

So it's really bowing down before, it's showing honor and respect, admiration, even fear to some regard, before that person.

And so as we talk about worship, we're gathering together in a very real sense to do that.

You know, as we talk about worship, though, I think we want to say this, is that, you know, we often talk about worship as it is this giving that is happening, and it's true, we are giving in worship.

So we're giving adoration, we're giving thanksgiving, we're confessing our sins, so we're giving that to the

Lord. And yet, we have to say that the essence of worship is not that, it's not giving.

You know, we also talk about receiving in worship, so we receive in worship, that's very true, you know, we receive the

Word of God, we hear His voice, we receive His blessing, we receive that assurance of pardoning grace, we receive all kinds of things in worship.

And yet, that is also not the essence of worship. We have to say that the essence of worship, as we see it in the

Scriptures, is not so much about giving and receiving as it is about being, and that giving and that receiving flows from the being.

The essence of worship is that God is meeting with us, and we are meeting with Him, and the giving and the receiving flows from that.

And so when we're in worship on Sunday mornings, we're including our children in that meeting with God, as He's gathering together with His people.

The people of God are gathering before Him, and He is gathering with them,

He is dwelling in their midst by His Word and Spirit. And so it is the community that's gathering together to dwell with their

God as He dwells with them. And this is the picture throughout the Scriptures, whether we go to the foot of Mount Sinai, to the tabernacle, to the temple, to the house churches, to the synagogues, to Revelation 21, where what is the picture of the new heavens and new earth?

It is that new Jerusalem that is descending out of the heavens, and it lands upon the earth, and truly heaven and earth meet, and it says,

God made His home among them. He makes His home among them. He's going to dwell in their midst for all of eternity.

And this is the essence of worship. So when we include our children in worship, we're including them in this meeting with God, and God's meeting with His covenant people.

Well, thank you, Murray in Kinross, Scotland. And guess what? I have a surprise for you, Murray. We usually don't ship out books to our listeners who are living overseas because of the extravagant or really steep shipping costs.

But I'm going to make sure that since the book is a fairly brief book and light in weight,

I will make sure that we ship out a free copy of this book to you in Kinross, Scotland.

And that is the book, Let the Children Worship, compliments of Christian Focus Publications, and compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

C -V for Cumberland Valley, B -B -S for BibleBookService .com. And we're going to go to a break right now, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Jason Halopoulos, our email address is

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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This is Chris Orns, and if you just tuned us in, our first guest for today who will be with us for the next half hour is

Jason Holopoulos, Assistant Pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan. Our second guest coming up at the top of the hour at 5 p .m.

Eastern Time will be Jonathan Master, and he is going to be addressing the sufficiency of Scripture. But if anybody would like to join us on the air now with a question regarding Jason Holopoulos' book,

Let the Children Worship, our email address is ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

We have Joe in Slovenia who says, maybe someone already asked this question to it, though it is very important how to talk with the pastor and elders of a church that is currently sending the children out to Sunday school during the worship service.

What does your guest advise about how to approach this topic? Thanks so much for your ministry.

That was Joe in Slovenia. So Chris, could you repeat the question for me? Yes, I will repeat the question for you, and I have to find it again because I just deleted it.

This is Joe in Slovenia. Let's see, he asked the question, and I have to re -enlarge it because it's microscopic on his font that he emailed me with.

So I am enlarging the question now, and his question is, maybe someone already asked this question, though it is very important,

I think is what he meant to say, there's a typo here, though it is very important how to talk with the pastor and elders of a church that is currently sending the children out to Sunday school during the worship service.

What does your guest advise about how to approach this topic? I guess what he's saying is, how do you talk to your pastor, your own pastor or elders, if when a worship service starts, the children have their own kind of children's worship service or Sunday school that they are being led out of the sanctuary where the adults are gathered into another assembly for children alone, and I guess he's just asking for advice.

How do you speak to your own elders about that, or he's asking for advice on that. Yeah, I think that's an excellent question, and I really appreciate that.

You know, as a pastor, I welcome congregants here in the

Church approaching me with different things that they are wrestling with, or different things that they would like to see changed or adapted in the

Church, things that they think would be more helpful, and I think that approach is all -important, how you do that.

I think that's what your guest is asking, or the emailer is asking, and I always appreciate it when it is always a respectful tone, that someone is saying, look, you know,

Pastor, I have wondered why we do this, and that gives me the opportunity to speak to that, and then that respectful kind of suggestion of, you know,

I've wondered if this would be more helpful for our children, to include them in worship, and to get the rationale.

And I think any pastor would welcome that, if it is done with that kind of tone of respectful, look,

I'm not looking to cause a stir here in the Church, I'm not trying to create a faction that is advocating for this, but I just want to suggest this and get your feedback on why we don't do this, and wonder if you would consider, you and the leadership would consider thinking about doing this.

And any pastor who is worth worth his weight would be more than happy to have a congregant come to them with that kind of respectful approach.

Well, Joe in Slovenia, we thank you for providing an American address for us, where we can give you this free book, where we can ship that free book, where your daughter lives in Georgia, here in the

United States. So we will be shipping out to her, to your attention, a copy of Let the

Children Worship by Jason Holopoulos. Thanks for your sending in the question, and please continue spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in Slovenia and beyond.

And the rest of Europe, yes. What did you say, Buzz? And the rest of Europe, yes. And our email address, if anybody else would like to join us, is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the good old

USA. And we have Tony in South Carolina, and Tony with an

I. Tony asks a question that I have to enlarge her font too, because it's too microscopic.

Let's see, I believe age -segregated church gatherings are unbiblical, and I believe age segregation is one of the primary causes for the worldly Christian youth that are walking away from the faith in large numbers.

I recently visited a family -integrated church for about four weeks, and I was amazed how quiet the children were during worship, which lasted about an hour and a half.

I also noticed that this church was made up primarily of large families with young children.

There were no senior citizens in the congregation of about 75. Well over half were young children.

I am convinced that these parents were very much focused on teaching their children a real reverence for the worship service and for behavior in the house of the

Lord. What a wonderful experience it was. And that is Tony in South Carolina.

And folks, when you submit your questions, please also give your city as well as your state.

I would appreciate that. But do you have any response to Tony's comment, really?

It's more of a comment than a question. Yeah, you know, it makes me think of the

Lord Jesus there in the Gospels when the the disciples are trying to borrow the children, the parents, from bringing their children to him for a blessing.

And you know, Matthew's Gospel, he says that the Lord Jesus was indignant, you know, that he was...

it wasn't just that he was bothered by the trying to borrow these children from receiving his blessing, but he was indignant.

He was upset. He was angry. And he says, you know, for such is made up of the kingdom.

And for the Lord Jesus, as we see there in the Gospels, you know, children are not a distraction, but he rather presents them as an example.

And I think as we gather together on Sunday mornings and we see children and they're worshiping the

Lord, there are things that they teach us as adults. And we often see him as a distraction, and yet what the

Lord Jesus does is he holds him up as an example. And I agree with the caller.

It is a blessing to me when I look around here on Sunday mornings. We have about 300 children that cycle through our church here, and I would say probably, you know, 120 of them or 150 of them are in worship every week.

And it blesses me every week when I can look around and I see a little boy that is singing at the top of his lungs, or a couple of weeks ago

I was sitting down the pew from a little boy that as soon as a congregational prayer was done, he gave a loud amen.

And it just encourages my soul. As I was telling my congregation here a few weeks ago, it is one of the true signs that the

Lord gives to us that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church, is that we can look around and we can see the next generation is here, and they're worshiping, and they're hearing the

Word of God, and they're praying, and they're singing. And it is one of the true signs that the

Lord gives to us that his church shall prevail. Well, thank you for the question,

Tony, in Rock Hill, South Carolina. And now we need your full address because we're going to be sending you a free copy of the book that we are discussing today,

Let the Children Worship, and that's compliments of our friends at Christian Focus Publications and compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service who are shipping it out to you.

CVBBS .com. That's CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS .com. So keep your eye open for a package from CVBBS .com.

And please give us your full mailing address so we can have them get it out to you in a timely fashion. We have

RJ in White Plains, New York, who says, I've often wondered if we are teaching our children to lie when they are being told to sing hymns, especially up on the podium of the church as a part of the worship service where you have a children's choir or something like that, where children are singing words to hymns that they really don't believe, or at least as you can tell they couldn't possibly comprehend.

Do you think that, in other words, are children being taught to lie if they're just being taught to sing words to a hymn and you don't even really know if they believe in these words?

Yeah, you know, this is a question that I think all of us have to wrestle with across our affiliations and denominations, and we all come to the same conclusion.

We all do, because we all at home, we teach our children to pray, and at home we teach them the

Lord's Prayer, and we teach them to sing the doxology, and we teach them to say their prayers before they go to bed at night.

And why is that? It's because in their small way, they can express small faith.

Now, it may not be the mature faith that you have as an adult that has wrestled with the

Scriptures for 30 years or 40 years and has seen all the benefits of the

Lord Jesus Christ and continue to grow in that knowledge. They may not have that informed of a faith, and yet an ounce of saving faith is saving faith.

And our children at the youngest of ages can have that faith, and whether we are

Presbyterian or Baptist, we all treat our children the same in this regard. We teach them to pray, and we teach them to sing, and we teach them to adore our

God and our Savior. And this is part of what it means to be Christian parents, and this is part of what it means to be,

I think, a Christian church, is that we're doing that with our children. Well, thank you,

RJ, in White Plains, New York, and you are also getting a free copy of Let the

Children Worship, so please make sure we have your full mailing address so we can have CVBBS .com

ship that out to you. Thanks again for joining us on Iron Sharpens Iron, and please keep spreading the word in White Plains, New York, and beyond.

Before we run out of time, I really want you to summarize those things that you primarily want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Jason? Yeah, I think it's this. I think to parents,

I would say this. I would say it is a struggle. I understand that there are weeks that my wife and I have felt like, you know, we just went through a marathon race, and we were wrestling our small child in those early years, and I felt like that's all we were doing during the service.

And it was painful and exhausting, and you get home and you think, you know what, there were four points in that sermon, and maybe between the two of us, we could come up with one of them.

And then the next week comes again, and it's, we got to do this again.

And it can be exhausting and frustrating. And yet, I would say this to parents. I would say the toil and the labor is more than worth the effort, because God chooses to minister to us by His means of grace, by the word preached, by a gathering of His people, by prayer, as we see the sacraments and participate in the sacraments.

And we are blessing our children. The more we can put them in the way of the means of grace, the better it is for them.

And there are incredible benefits and blessings that flow from the hard labor of bringing your children in there.

And this too shall pass. There shall be a day that they will actually sit there, and they will be attentive, and you won't have to wrestle with them week in and week out.

So keep at it. Persevere. You know, I would say to the elders and pastors and those in leadership that are right now loving loving the children of the church and thinking they're doing what is best by sending them to Sunday school or worship training or whatever it may be, and then they've heard this broadcast today, and maybe their brains are clicking in a little different way,

I would say be patient, take it slow, be very gracious with your people. Don't mandate this off the bat, and cancel all those things.

And I think there should always be an outlet for families that aren't ready for this and for visitors to the church to have somewhere that their children can be cared for and are being taught.

But I'd have you think about it, and think about the benefits that we're keeping from our children, the blessings that we're borrowing our children from by not having them in that gathering community with God's people.

And I would say it's worth the study. I'd have you convinced by the Scriptures and according to your own wisdom as you're led by the

Spirit, but it's worth the study. It's worth the time to pray about as an elder board or as a session or as a leadership team, a pastoral staff, whatever it may be, and think through, are we really doing what is best for our children and passing on this faith to them as a church and as a body.

Well I want to thank you so much Pastor Jason Holopoulos for being on the program, and I really enjoyed our first interview, and I look forward to many more,

God willing, if you are interested and if God is willing, we'd love to have you back in the program. Well Chris, it's been a delight to be with you,

Doug with you as well, and I appreciate your listeners taking the time to listen.

And I want our listeners to know that the website for University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan is universityreformedchurch .org.

universityreformedchurch .org. You guys really got a hold of a perfect website there before somebody else. universityreformedchurch .org.

If anybody wants to purchase this book that we have been discussing, Let the

Children Worship, you can go to cvbbs .com. That's C -V for Cumberland Valley, B -B -S for Bible Book Service dot com.

If you live in the UK, you can go directly to Christian Focus Publications, which is located in the

UK, and their website is christianfocus .com, christianfocus .com,

and you could type in the search engine right in the top left corner, Let the Children Worship, Let the

Children Worship, and that book will come up. Well, thanks again, Jason, and we look forward to your return, God willing, in the near future.

Thank you. I look forward to being back with you. God bless. And don't go away, folks, because coming up next, in a matter of moments, we have our second guest,

Jonathan Master, discussing the sufficiency of Scripture, and also letting us know about a

Bible conference that he is participating in, in the very near future, that is being conducted by the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. So don't go away. We will be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Orrins, and if you just tuned us in, our second guest today, who will be discussing the sufficiency of Scripture from 5 to 6 p .m.

Eastern Time, is Jonathan Master. But before we introduce him formally and introduce our topic formally,

I want to remind our listeners that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is in urgent need of new benefactors and new sponsors who are willing to advertise or interested in advertising their products, services, or perhaps their church or parachurch organization on our program.

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But right now, Jonathan Master is our second and final guest for the day. He is Professor of Theology and Dean of the

School of Divinity at Carn University in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, Editorial Director for the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and host of the Alliance podcast, Theology on the Go.

He's the author of A Question of Consensus, The Doctrine of Assurance After the Westminster Confession, and editor of The God We Worship.

We are discussing the sufficiency of scripture, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron, Sharp, and Zion, Jonathan Master.

Chris, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. And in studio with me is my co -host, the

Reverend Buzz Taylor. Hello. Hello, how are you? Just fine, thank you. Yes, and by the way,

I think that our previous guest called you Doug. Yes. But that's okay.

It's a better name anyway. Well, it was a first. Tell us,

Jonathan, before we go into the topic at hand of sufficiency of scripture, a very vital topic, especially as we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation, a very appropriate and timely subject. But tell us something about Carn or Cairn University in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.

And I should know how to pronounce that since I live in Pennsylvania, but if you could tell me how to pronounce that and tell us about the university.

Yes, I'm happy to do that. It's pronounced Cairn University, so you got it right the second time, which is not too bad.

I think it's four times than that. But we have, Cairn University has been in existence since 1913, so a little over 100 years.

And we're a Christian university committed to the inerrancy of scripture, the centrality of the word of God and of Jesus Christ on all of the subjects of study.

Cairn has a number of different majors. I don't remember what the current number is, but it's a significant number of things that students major in and degrees that are offered.

But we want every student, we actually have every student take at least 30 hours, 30 credit hours of Bible and theology, so that's sort of central to our core curriculum.

And then, of course, we have a number of students who are actually preparing for gospel ministry, and so they're taking even more than that.

But all the students, regardless of their major, regardless of their degree program, are taking a substantial amount of Bible and theology.

And that kind of infuses the whole place. So, yeah,

Cairn University, Langhorne, Pennsylvania. We're a suburb of Philadelphia, just north of the city. And I'd love to have people check us out at cairn .edu,

and we can answer any questions you might have. Now, I personally know a lot about the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, since I have worked with them on various events and know

Bob Brady very well and have participated with them in certain ministry activities.

But for our listeners who are unfamiliar with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, why don't you share a bit of information about them?

Yeah, the Alliance is a coalition of pastors and scholars and churchmen who hold the historic creeds and confessions of the

Reformed faith. And the objective of the Alliance is to proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a

Reformed awakening in today's church. The history of the Alliance goes back a long way.

I first connected with it and sort of learned a lot from Alliance materials through the ministry of the late

James Montgomery Boyce. But the Alliance is generally concerned with hosting events, connecting pastors and churches, and then we also have several

Alliance websites that post daily content for all different kinds of people.

There's Reformation 21, which is perhaps the best known of our sites, PlaceForTruth .org,

which is focused on biblical doctrine, Mortification of Spin, which some of your listeners might be familiar with, and then

Meet the Puritans. So the Alliance has a lot of things going on and always glad to connect with new people.

So if anyone has an interest in that, I'll point out another website. They can go to AllianceNet .org,

and from there you can get to the other sites that I've mentioned. AllianceNet .org, AllianceNet .org,

and also there are a couple of events coming up that, God willing, I am going to be at both of them with an exhibitor's booth where we have the

Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology coming up, and we also have the

Faithful Shepherd Pastors Retreat coming up in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey, which is on Long Beach Island, and the two events are both being conducted by the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The first is actually coming up tomorrow, the one that is actually in Byron Center, Michigan, which

I didn't mention. The Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology is held in more places than just Philadelphia.

The first one is going to be from March 24 through the 26th at the First Christian Reform Church of Byron Center, Michigan, which is in the

Grand Rapids area. That's March 24 through the 26th. The second

Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology, the one that I'm attending, God willing, is going to be at Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, April 28 through the 30th, and that is on the theme

Reformation, Recovering the Essence of the Gospel. And, of course, you could go to that same website that our guest just mentioned for more details,

AllianceNet .org, AllianceNet .org, and click on Events, and also the

Faithful Shepherd Pastors Retreat is being held in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey, May 15 through the 17th in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey, and for more details on that, you can go to AllianceNet .org,

AllianceNet .org. And, Jonathan, you are one of the speakers at one of the events coming up, aren't you?

Yeah, I am, Chris. I'm scheduled to speak at one that you didn't mention, which is the

Blue Ridge Bible Conference. That's next Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1 in Harrisonburg, Virginia, so in the

Blue Ridge area at Covenant Presbyterian Church down in Harrisonburg. And that, too, is also kind of outlined on the same website.

So, yeah, we've got a number of events coming up. We've got the PCRT out in Grand Rapids tomorrow. We've got the

Blue Ridge Bible Conference next week. We have the other PCRT that you mentioned in Bryn Mawr and then the

Harvey Cedars event as well, so a lot of different things going on this spring and early summer.

Great. Well, we give our email address for our listeners so that they can send in questions for you on our topic today, the sufficiency of Scripture.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. And you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter. For instance, if you disagree with your own pastor on something, we obviously don't want to identify you or your pastor by name.

But any other reason that you're asking a question, please give at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

And Joe in Slovenia again, who asked our first guest a question.

He is asking our current guest a question on the sufficiency of Scripture.

He says, Dear Brother Chris, I'm puzzled by certain Pentecostals and Charismatics who, on the one hand, claim to affirm the sufficiency of Scripture, while on the other hand practice, condone, or even promote the notions of believers getting new direct revelation.

Listen to supposed modern day prophets and apostles who proclaim new direct revelation, and engage in what amounts to reading omens when they interpret everyday occurrences as signs from God.

How is it that large segments of Evangelicalism are so confused about the sufficiency of Scripture and how to adhere to it?

And what is the meaning of sufficiency and how is that understanding applied in the church and individual

Christian life? Thank you for this needed topic. If you could,

Jonathan. No, that's a great question. Actually, a lot of different questions in there. I'm sorry, Chris, I've forgotten the listener's name.

His name is Joe and he lives in Slovenia. Okay, Joe, thanks for that question. A lot of things packed in there.

So, obviously, the focal point of your question had to do with some modern

Pentecostal and Charismatic teachers that claim new revelation. And, you know, I agree with what you're saying.

I think that if they're claiming to believe in the sufficiency of the Scripture, but then essentially, in the same sentence, saying that, in fact, we need new revelation, because that's the issue, that they believe that this is absolutely necessary for the faith and life of the church.

But I agree with your confusion. I think that is a confused statement, and one of those two things can't be true.

So I think you're right. I think they're undermining the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. At the end of your question, you asked,

I think, a slightly broader question as well, which was, you know, what do we mean by this?

And that's an excellent question to ask, because I think part of the confusion, even perhaps in some of the speakers that you're encountering, is that they may not mean the same thing that we mean when they talk about Scripture's sufficiency.

What I mean when I talk about it, and what I think those of us who are represented by the

Alliance and other things like that would mean when we say it, is that God has given us, in His Word, all the things we need for an understanding of the salvation that's given in Jesus Christ for our faith and life, for our faith and life as individual

Christians, and our faith and life in the context of the local church.

So that's what we're saying, that in fact we don't need additional revelation, we don't need the traditions of men to explain these kinds of things to us, and in fact that those things, when people attempt to add them, actually undercut the authority of the

Scriptures. So that's maybe a summary of it, and Joe, forgive me if I'm omitting a part of your question, but I think that captures what you're after, and I agree with you 100%.

In fact, I'll tell you, in the Westminster Confession of Faith, it explicitly says this.

It talks about the sufficiency of Scripture, and then it said, "...unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the

Spirit or traditions of men." And that, I think, is the traditional Protestant understanding of what we mean when we talk about Scripture sufficiency.

Thank you, Joe Eslovenia. And by the way, my co -host, the Rev. Buzz Taylor, for a period of his

Christian life, even as a pastor, was a charismatic. He's had quite the journey,

Jonathan. He started off in his Christian life as a fundamentalist Baptist, became later on in his life charismatic, then wound up with the

Church of God, Findlay, Ohio denomination, which is more like a Wesleyan Baptist group, and then he eventually became what he is now, a

Presbyterian, a cessationist Presbyterian. But if you could,

Rev. Buzz, when you were a charismatic, how were you able to harmonize, if at all, the sufficiency of Scripture and the fact that charismatics, by and large, believe in ongoing new revelation from God and also believe in the manifestations of tongues and other things where you are speaking an unknown language, apparently, allegedly, and these things are, these languages and these things that you're speaking are not in the

Scripture themselves. So how do you harmonize these things? Okay, well, I'm going to have to say, first of all, some of the things

I'm going to say now, please remember I do not believe these things now. You don't believe them anymore.

Right, yeah. But, of course, I've mentioned over and over again that I never was what you would call a good charismatic because one of the things that I had learned from Bible college and from previously my

Baptist background is that the Word is very important. And I never really,

I never believed in extra -biblical revelation. In fact, my belief in tongues was more related to a prayer language.

That's why I'm saying I do not agree with that now. So, you know, I'm not saying tongues is a prayer language. Wouldn't that have been, though, a revelatory thing even though?

Yes, well, yes. In many, most of my friends in there are thinking, yes, that would have been it.

But that was never actually a part of my thinking. That used to bother me that, you know, like if Scripture is sufficient, then what is all this extra revelation?

So, like I said, when I was even charismatic, I wasn't really what you would call full -blown charismatic. I was more like a non -cessationist fundamentalist.

And, of course, Jonathan, as I mentioned earlier, since this is the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation, when Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg protesting the church's sale of indulgences in order to purchase the souls of themselves and their loved ones, or lessen the time of themselves and their loved ones being in purgatory.

And this teaching of the sufficiency of Scripture is one of the hallmarks of the

Protestant Reformation, one of the pillars or watchwords. Why is it so important when we embrace this doctrine that we keep it alive and fresh and vital and important and in the forefront of our communication with those in the

Church of Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy and others within the realm of what is known as Christendom who obviously have come to embrace false

Gospels or different Gospels than the one in the Scripture? Yeah, I think in discussions with those communities, it becomes important with respect to the introduction of tradition added to Scripture.

So again, just to return to the language that I was quoting earlier, we learn about the so -called new revelations of the

Spirit being something that chips away at the sufficiency of Scripture, but also the traditions of men being something that can chip away at that sufficiency and primacy of the

Word of God. So I think that might be where the real rub is. Now, it's difficult to speak in generalities about this, because as anyone knows who has spoken with Roman Catholic friends or Eastern Orthodox friends, what you quickly realize is that, you know, oftentimes they're coming at this in very, very different ways.

But at a fundamental level, there's a commitment, a dogmatic commitment in the

Roman Church to traditions that are on essentially equal footing with the

Scriptures and that are necessary for the faith and life of individuals and for the corporate life of the

Church. Yeah, in fact, I orchestrated a theological debate recently in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in January of this year between two friends of mine.

One, Dr. Tony Costa, a professor of apologetics at Toronto Baptist Seminary. The other,

Robert St. Genes, founder of Catholic Apologetics International. And the theme was

Mary, Sinless Queen of Heaven or Sinner Saved by Grace. And it was quite breathtakingly disturbing to hear my

Catholic friend, Robert St. Genes, declare that without Mary there is no salvation.

And basically the debate, as I always guess it will when

I have a debate, when I organize a debate with a Protestant and a Roman Catholic, it really always eventually gets back to the issue of the sufficiency of Scripture, or even more specifically sola scriptura, that Scripture alone is our sole, inerrant, infallible authority over the

Church. And without the sufficiency of Scripture, this is where all of these heretical doctrines and even bizarre teachings get developed and accepted into the

Church. Not only with our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends, but even as the aforementioned

Pentecostals are many within their ranks. If you don't have the Scripture alone as your guide, and you don't believe they're sufficient, anything is likely to creep in.

Am I right? Well, I think that's certainly the danger. I mean, that it doesn't really, you don't really have those

God -given limits for what might creep in. And it's interesting, of course, because Jesus dealt with this in his own day.

He spoke with those teachers of the law who were adding to the law, and he says in no uncertain terms, by adding to it, you're actually undermining it completely.

And so I think you're right. I think that's ultimately what's at stake in these kinds of debates. We're going to go to our final break of the day right now.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. We do have a couple of you waiting to have your questions asked and answered, and we will try to get to you as soon as possible before the program is over.

But don't go away. God willing, we will be right back with these messages and more of Jonathan Master on the sufficiency of scripture.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Zarnes, and if you just tuned us in, our second guest today who will be on for the remaining half hour of the program is

Jonathan Master, Professor of Theology and Dean of the School of Divinity at Cairn University in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, Editorial Director of the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and host of the Alliance podcast Theology on the

Go. He's also the author of A Question of Consensus, The Doctrine of Assurance After the

Westminster Confession, and editor of The God We Worship. We are discussing the sufficiency of Scripture, and our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

If you have any questions for him, chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And before I go to any of our listener questions, because there are a couple of people waiting,

I wanted to get to the heart of the matter from the Scripture with you, Jonathan. Obviously, since you are speaking on the sufficiency of Scripture at your next conference, 2

Timothy 3, 16 through 17, must be at the heart of what you're discussing.

And that says, the Apostle Paul, saying in his letter to Timothy, All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Obviously, if the prayer to Mary and the saints, if the sacrifice of the

Mass, and a lot of these things that are unique to Roman Catholic belief and practice are good works, the

Scriptures should be sufficient to teach them, but they do not, am I right? Well, yeah, you're absolutely right.

I mean, and just a few verses before what you quoted in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17,

Paul is very clear when he even describes Timothy's own conversion. He says, From childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred running, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

So, you're absolutely correct that the Gospel that's proclaimed clearly in the

Scriptures is the Gospel of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And even in the context you read, which we primarily go to to sort of zero in on the inspiration and the sufficiency of the

Scripture, but even right there, it couldn't be clearer that this is the

Gospel, and this is the essence of what we are to believe. Yes, and that term there, all

Scripture is inspired, I believe the original Greek is theanoustos, which actually means

God breathed, does it not? Yeah, that's exactly right, and it's an unusual term.

In fact, it's a unique term in the Scriptures, and you captured it perfectly.

It's breathed out by God. That's the meaning of that Greek term, and it's as if Paul had to grapple for a term, perhaps even coin a term to describe exactly what we see in the

Scriptures. Now, how do you react to the Roman Catholic who may say, and this of course would be typically the more well -read

Catholic or a Catholic apologist, your average Catholic might not say this, but a well -read

Catholic or somebody who has heard a Catholic apologist oppose the concept of sola scriptura may say, well,

Paul is only talking about the Old Testament here because the New Testament wasn't even complete at the time that Paul wrote that to Timothy, so how could you use this as a proof text for sola scriptura that includes the

New Testament? Well, if this is inspired by the Holy Spirit, would not the Holy Spirit, knowing all things, know that there would be further revelation that would be a part of the canon later on after Paul wrote this?

Well, absolutely that's true, but I think you can even go a step further than that, because that term

Scripture is used by Paul in 1 Timothy, and in 1 Timothy chapter 5 it's a different kind of context, but Paul quotes from two different Scriptures in 1

Timothy 5 beginning in verse 18, and he uses the word Scripture for both, and one of them is from the

Old Testament, and the other one is from the New Testament. It's a quotation from Luke's Gospel.

And then we could debate perhaps a little bit whether this comes before 2

Timothy or not. 1 Timothy certainly does, but at the end of 2 Peter, Peter does the same kind of thing because he talks about Paul's letters being hard to understand in places, and he says, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other

Scriptures. That's in 2 Peter 3 .16. So I think ultimately what you're saying is correct about the knowledge of the

Holy Spirit, and that is a point worth bringing out, but I think too we can say, no, you know, this word

Scripture is used to describe New Testament texts, not simply

Old Testament texts. Now with that said, of course, you know, the book of Revelation had not yet been given, and other texts that we have probably weren't in existence when

Paul wrote those words in 2 Timothy, so that's where I think you'd want to lean on the argument that you made, but I think there is ample evidence to say, no,

Scripture isn't just used of the Old Testament, although for sure it would include all of the Old Testament.

Paul at least has that in mind, but there is some evidence that even in Paul's mind he will use that term to talk about New Testament texts.

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says,

How do you respond to the one opposing Sola Scriptura, or the sufficiency of Scripture, who says that we who are

Protestants don't really consistently believe or uphold this principle, because when our pastors get up to their pulpits, they don't just read the

Bible, they teach what it means in their own words, therefore relying upon human reasoning and logic, not just the words that are contained in the

Bible. How do you respond to that kind of an accusation? Well, B .B.,

that's a great question, very perceptive question. I think the difference, the major difference is this, that we're testing everything that at least we should be.

We're commanded to test everything that a pastor or other teacher might say by and against the written

Word of God. So the model that might be the best one for us is what happened in the

Berean Church when those Christians heard the Apostle Paul explain the

Scriptures to them, which he apparently did on a daily basis, they would go home and search the

Scriptures to see whether what he was saying was true. So, look, it's always been the case that the

Word of God is proclaimed by the servants of the

Lord. That's true in the Old Testament. We see Ezra stand up on a wooden platform and read the

Scriptures, and it's explained to them by Ezra and by the Levites. And we see, of course, in the

New Testament this kind of proclamation happening all the time in the book of Acts, for instance, as Paul will rent out the

Hall of Tyrannus and proclaim the Word of God to hearers there.

So the fact that there's a teacher, I think, is different in significant ways from the idea that there is something standing over against Scripture through which we must filter all of Scripture.

So even if the Apostle Paul can be questioned, and if he, in fact, tells congregations to search the

Scriptures and question what he's saying, we should be doing that with our pastors. The problem, of course, is in, for instance, the

Roman Catholic magisterial teaching, that it can't be checked by the

Word of God. That is, as an individual church -goer, you don't have the right to be able to check these things against the

Scriptures and let the Word of God speak. So I think that's the big difference, although you're absolutely right, we do have teachers, and we should have teachers.

I think they're necessary and scriptural, but I think that's different from having a tradition added onto the

Word of God with the authority of God. I mentioned, I think I alluded briefly to a conversation that Jesus had with the false teachers, and what he says to them is, he quotes from Isaiah 29 and says, they teach as doctrines the commandments of men.

And that's the real problem, as I see it. In fact, if the pastor was not explaining what the

Word of God says, he would be violating the very Scripture that he has up there on the pulpit with him.

Because the Scriptures themselves not only have in their design that the

Church has teachers among us, the Scriptures even tell us that we have to be careful about who we appoint as a teacher.

There are certain qualifications to that. That's absolutely right, Chris. That's a great point.

And you know, when Paul gives these instructions to Timothy, we were just kind of meditating on Second Timothy a minute ago, and in Second Timothy, what

Paul defines as an approved worker is one who rightly handles the

Word of Truth. And so for a pastor to not do that is actually, you're absolutely right, for him to abandon what

God calls him to do in the first place. Ronald in eastern

Suffolk County, Long Island, wants to know, how do you respond to the anti -Calvinist who says that we who are

Reformed never would believe the things we believe by just reading the Bible, that we would have to have learned them from someone else who was a

Calvinist? Well, I think there are two levels on which

I would want to engage that conversation. On the one hand, I would say, of course it's true that we all have teachers from whom we've learned various things, and it's impossible for any of us, whatever our theological persuasion, whether Calvinist or not, it's impossible for any of us to sort of hypothetically figure out what we would know if no one had ever taught us the

Scripture. Because as you pointed out earlier, that's just not the pattern that's been set up in the Word of God.

We do have pastors, we do have teachers. So on the one hand, it's sort of impossible to answer that at a personal level.

I would say, though, at a bigger level, my answer would be that all the

Reformers, and certainly those who followed them, are very clear about the fact that the

Word of God is to be the supreme authority that should act as a check on their teachings.

So I think we need to engage in looking at the

Scriptures ourselves, in searching the Scriptures ourselves, and in seeing if these things that we've been taught or these things that we've encountered are true.

And I would say that anyone who affirms the authority and sufficiency of Scripture should be doing the exact same thing.

So it's one of those arguments that could really cut both ways. It's as true of the

Calvinist as it is of the non -Calvinist at one level, and yet at another level, what we really need to be talking about is not who got something from where, but is this in the

Word of God? Is this actually biblical? And I'm persuaded that the doctrines of grace are absolutely biblical, and in fact central to the

Gospel message in the Scriptures. Yeah, what you just said is bolstered by Acts chapter 8, when

Philip is confronted by the Ethiopian eunuch, and it says in verse 30,

Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet.

Do you understand what you are reading? Philip asked, How can, he said, unless someone explains it to me?

So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. And so there was obviously the necessity of the

Scriptures being taught there. Yeah, that's a great example.

I mean, it's really found throughout the Scriptures, isn't it? I mean, you could start with Moses and the

Levites, and you could move on to Ezra, and you could look at Philip and the

Ethiopian eunuch, or the Apostle Paul, or even Timothy's own role. And that is what we see, that there are teachers of the

Word of God, and that's as it should be, and then we need to be checking everything against the standard of the

Scripture. And this also goes back to the fact that people have preconceived notions or presuppositions about someone else's beliefs that may come from just what they've heard in someone slandering that other person's beliefs.

I'm convinced that most anti -Calvinists have never really thoroughly read the writings of Calvinists themselves, and most of what they know about Calvinism is found in the books that they have read or the sermons that they have heard by anti -Calvinists, not by the men who believe in these things themselves.

And I, for instance, I came to the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, well, not only because I was hearing them preached at the church where I was baptized and a new member, but the straw that broke the camel's back as far as my blindness to these things was when someone gave me a tract,

George Whitefield's letter to John Wesley on election. I didn't know who George Whitefield was.

I didn't know who John Calvin was. I didn't know who Charles Spurgeon was. But it was the Scriptures that George Whitefield used in that tract, not the eloquence of George Whitefield, but the

Scriptures that George Whitefield used when trying to convey these truths to John Wesley.

They're the things that God used to open my eyes, because I had no previous bias as to what

George Whitefield or John Calvin or anybody else believed. I didn't know who they were. I just wanted to know what the

Bible taught, and it was the Scriptures alone that revealed these things to me as being true.

And on top of that, years ago, I organized a debate on the radio between an Orthodox Jewish journalist and a freewill, believing, fundamentalist

Baptist pastor, and I sat there in astonishment as I heard the elderly

Jewish journalist say to the Baptist pastor in the debate, Now, let me get this straight.

You believe that God has elected, before the world began, a certain number of people for salvation, and he has bypassed all the rest of humanity who will die in their sins and go to hell.

And the Baptist pastor interrupted this Jewish man and said, Oh, no, no, no, you don't understand.

I'm not a Calvinist. So what you're talking about is Calvinism. And the Jewish man said, Calvinism? What is that?

I've never heard that word before. I'm talking about your Bible. And so it was obviously this

Jewish man who claimed to be a student of the New Testament, even though he was not a

Christian. He said that he had read it hundreds of times. He came to the conclusion that all

Christians believed in unconditional election just because he saw them clearly taught in the

New Testament. Yeah, it's a great story. I mean, I think it is striking in the

New Testament to see the way in which Paul sort of sometimes almost casually throws out these terms to describe the people to whom he's writing.

You, God's chosen ones. You, God's elect. And then, of course, there are the passages, the sort of Romans 9 and Ephesians 1, that drive these points home.

But even in the more casual ways that he talks, it's clear that the doctrine of election undergirds his whole understanding of what

God has done in Jesus Christ. So, you know, I haven't had the experience that you've described with someone coming to the

New Testament from that perspective, but I can sort of imagine the way in which they would just see it as almost infused in everything.

And I'd like you now basically to summarize what you most want our listeners to have etched in their hearts and minds regarding the sufficiency of Scripture before we run out of time.

You know, there has been an ongoing debate and battle, really, that we constantly have to fight over the inerrancy of the

Scriptures, the fact that the Scriptures are fully truthful, fully reliable, without error in their original manuscripts.

And I think we need to continue to remind ourselves of the authority and truthfulness of the

Scriptures. But along with that, I think what we can easily neglect is the idea that the

Scriptures are sufficient for our life in government. That is, God has not held out on us.

I meet people all the time who are struggling with sin or struggling with doubt in different ways, and they really want to know, what's the secret ingredient that I'm missing?

What prayer do I need to pray? What guru do I need to talk to? What ecstatic gift do

I need to embrace or try to pursue in my life? And all those things ultimately will bring you up short.

All those things are dead ends because the Lord has given us in His Word what is necessary for our understanding and knowledge of the

Lord Jesus Christ and what is necessary for our faith and life as Christians. And so what

I would want to impress upon people is the richness of God's Word, the need for us to continually be immersed in it, and ultimately the goodness of God in giving it to us.

That God says, the things that are revealed belong to you and your children forever. That you may observe the words of this law.

Jesus says in John 17, Your word is truth. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth.

So we have in the Scriptures what we need to come to a knowledge of the

Lord Jesus Christ, to grow in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to have an understanding of our faith and life that enables us to worship the

Lord and serve Him with all of our hearts. And it's a wonderful freeing truth to grab ahold of.

It's freeing for individuals who are thinking that maybe they're missing something in their Christian life. It's freeing for pastors who are feeling discouraged by the apparent fruitlessness that they're seeing in their ministries.

It's freeing for all of us to recognize the goodness of God in giving us His perfect and holy word.

Amen. And let's see. We have time for one more question.

Let's see here. We have Christian in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania who says,

Isn't it true that although we as Bible -believing Protestants have a strongly held belief in the sufficiency of Scripture, that traditions that are man -made do exist among us, and that they are even appropriate, the problem becomes when we raise these traditions to an improper level of importance that conflict with the

Scripture. Do you have any comment on this question?

Well, only to say that, Christian, I think you're exactly right about that.

Tradition in itself is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. Paul talks about the pattern of sound teaching that has been passed down to Timothy.

There are these traditions that were passed down even in the earliest time of the

Church, and there are traditions today, but you put your finger on it exactly. What we want to be really careful about is, number one, teaching traditions as if they are the word of God, and then essentially putting those traditions ahead of the doctrines of the word of God.

So tradition is a good thing, it's a wonderful thing, it's something that we should embrace probably more than we do,

I think, in general, probably too ready to just drop the traditional formulations that our fathers in the faith have developed for us, but at the same time,

Christian, you're exactly right. What we don't want to be doing is teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

Right. And, of course, the tradition itself can't be unbiblical or anti -biblical, can't contradict the

Scriptures. Absolutely. Like so many of the things that the Roman Catholic Church does are actually condemned in the

Scriptures, such as the idolatrous practices. That's right. I mean, so that's another very important warning,

Chris, that we want to be checking every tradition that we have received or that we have been brought up in against the

Scriptures, and very often when we do that we find the reason for it, and perhaps there's a biblical basis, and then sometimes many, many people

I meet, they realize, boy, when I started to look at the Bible, I realized that this is, as you said, contrary to Scripture.

Yeah, I mean, there are all kinds of things that the most literal

Christian who takes the Bible literally, there are all kinds of traditions that those

Christians embrace and practice, perhaps even sometimes unconsciously, but some of these, they are completely neutral in regard to whether or not they are acceptable, you know, whether they are compatible with the

Bible. There's nothing inappropriate about them, is what I'm trying to say. Like, for instance, you know, you might have one church that's more liturgical, and they may, in every worship service, recite the

Lord's Prayer, or they may do something just differently than other churches. Some churches have a particular day of the month when they collect money for the poor or the needs of those less fortunate in the church.

These kinds of things that are, that contain biblical teaching, like providing for the poor, but the way that it has been put out in practice is a part of a tradition if you do it on the third

Sunday of every month or something. Yeah, that's exactly right.

I mean, it's what John tells us in 1 John 4, test the spirits, and I think you could apply that in some respects to the kinds of things you're saying about various traditions.

Okay, well, I know that, as you were saying earlier, that you are going to be one of the speakers at the

God Has Spoken Conference, March 31st through April 1st, at the

Blue Ridge Bible Conference in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and for more information, our listeners can go to AllianceNet .org,

AllianceNet .org, and any other contact information you care to give. No, I think that's the best way to find out more information.

You can, I think, still register online. Otherwise, you can register at the church, and we'd love to see some of your listeners come and join us there.

It should be a very enriching weekend. Yes, and I'm going to be,

God willing, at a number of the events that the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is conducting, so I hope to see you there, and I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater