December 7, 2022 Show with Rob Ventura on “William Burkitt: Introducing a Forgotten 17th Century Theological Giant to a 21st Century Audience”

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of iron sharpens iron radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this seventh day of

December 2022.

I'm thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest.

His name is Rob Ventura.

He is an author and one of two pastors at Grace Community Baptist Church in North Providence,

Rhode Island, and he's an instructor at Rhode Island School of the Bible.

Today, we are going to be addressing the theme William Burkett, Introducing a Forgotten

17th Century Theological Giant to a 21st century audience.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to iron sharpens iron radio, Rob Ventura.

Thanks brother, great to be with you all.

It's great to have you back.

For the sake of our listeners who have not heard you on this program or are unfamiliar with

you in any other way, tell our listeners about Grace Community Baptist Church of North

Providence, Rhode Island.

Sure, Grace is a Reformed Baptist Church confessional 1689

congregation.

They've been Reformed Baptists for probably just under 40 years now, and I've been the full

-time pastor there for 15 years now.

The church was founded by Pastor Sherwood Becker, who went to be with the Lord many years ago

now, and I came here to replace him as he called me on the phone and asked if I would do,

and I was able to be with him his last few years of ministry, and then

since then again been full -time in the ministry here.

I do have a fellow elder who labors hard with me, Pastor Jack Buckley.

He's been at the church probably about 19 years now.

Pastor Jack is bivocational, and it's a wonderful delight to labor with him for the last, well,

just over 15 years together.

It's a great congregation.

If you're ever in New England, come and visit us.

We love the Word of God, and we love the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

If anybody wants more details on Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence, Rhode Island, go

to gcbcri .org

gcbcri .org.

And God willing, we'll be repeating that towards the end of the program.

Just mentioning Rhode Island brings back bittersweet memories.

My late wife and I had a wonderful vacation in Providence, Rhode Island

many years ago, a couple of decades ago, and we didn't even realize that the

day after we were scheduled to leave there was a major jazz festival that we would have loved to have

attended.

But it's just some beautiful memories, and I hope to visit there again sometime,

and this time or next time visit Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence.

I was not even aware of its existence back then when I when I visited your fine state.

Well, we'd love to have you anytime, brethren.

Speaking of islands, you're from Long Island, aren't you, just like myself?

That's right.

I forgot you were from Long Island.

That's right.

We like to say Strong Island.

That's how it is.

Well, at least the guys in the hood call it that anyway.

Exactly.

Those are the guys I used to hang out with before I got converted.

And I forget where exactly on Long Island you were from.

Yes, I was born and raised in Hotesville, so I was about 30 minutes from the Hamptons, Suffolk County.

So you were Nassau, right?

No, I was on the borderline of Nassau and Suffolk.

I was born and raised in Amityville, Long Island.

Right on the borderline.

That's right.

Right next to Massapequa, which is in Nassau County.

Oh, I remember the Massapequa Mall.

Yes, and.

So, and I also, after 10 years of living in Lindenhurst, after I got married, I moved

back to Amityville and lived there for a number of years after my parents went to

be with the Lord, and I purchased the house and lived there for a while.

But, Long Island also always has bittersweet memories because of my late wife.

And I do try to get out there once a year to visit

not only my own former church, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, but also Hope Reformed

Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, where I have many friends.

And I hope to get out there in 2023 sometime.

Well, we are discussing a figure from history that it is absolutely amazing to

me that today he is virtually unknown.

I mean, he's likely known by most historians and scholars,

but William Burkett, who was an Anglican theologian,

was a great inspiration to some extraordinary men of

God who many, if not most, if not all of our listeners will recognize.

The great Puritan William Gurnall, he would be the least recognizable among the

names I'm going to mention.

But Matthew Henry, most of our listeners have heard of Matthew Henry, whether they're Reformed or not, because of his commentaries.

George Whitefield and Charles Haddon Spurgeon, all were inspired by

William Burkett.

And in fact, Matthew Henry was inspired to write his own commentaries

because of William Burkett.

So why don't you set up the stage here as to why

you are actually involved now in the republishing of William Burkett's

expository notes with practical observations on the New Testament,

and you have written the New Forward to it.

Yes, let me just jump on a few things you said.

So Burkett was a good friend of William Gurnall.

So both of them, I believe both of them, stayed in the the Church of England.

They were Anglicans, as you said, Reformed Anglicans, so we want to be clear about that.

They were not Puritans.

They were in the Puritan time frame, but they were Reformed Anglicans, and he and Gurnall were buddies.

And of course, we all know William Gurnall, or we should know William Gurnall from his classic, The Christian

Incomplete Armor.

So when Gurnall died, before he died, but when he died, he asked Burkett to preach

his funeral sermon.

So that is striking just to see Burkett, how well he was loved among

various people in that particular time frame, but to preach the funeral sermon of William Gurnall, I mean, what a great honor

that must have been.

And then jumping to Matthew Henry, so what you had at that time frame, you had Burkett's

commentary on the New Testament circulating among the Puritans, and again those in the Church of

England, etc, and it was well received by the brethren.

In fact, Henry said that in his day Burkett's work met with good acceptance

among serious people, and I'm quoting him here.

He said, quote, and no doubt with the blessing of God, it will continue to do great service in the

church.

So there you've got Burkett's New Testament commentary.

Pastors are using it, various ones are using it, just like we use commentaries in our own day to

help expound Scripture, open up various things, get some good applications, etc.

So then Burkett dies.

He goes to glory, and the church is left just with the New Testament commentary by this excellent

Evangelical Reformed writer, and so then Matthew Henry's friends encouraged him to write the

Old Testament.

So that we would now have an Old Testament commentary and a New Testament commentary, again, that we could use just to

be a blessing and a tool for ministers of the gospel, etc.

So, of course, Matthew Henry would write the Old Testament and then write much of the New Testament before he went to glory.

Some of his friends would compile some of his notes and and finish out the rest of the New Testament, but

that's what was going on then.

You've got Burkett's New Testament commentary, again, an excellent resource that Henry would be using, and then

people say, hey, why don't you, now that he died, why don't you finish it out?

So again, we have a complete exposition on the whole Word of God.

So it's interesting when you read Matthew Henry, now understanding a little bit about Burkett and

how he used him foundationally for his own commentary and Burkett's thoughts and style were floating

in his own thinking, how, when you look now at Matthew Henry, and eventually you'll be able to look at

Burkett in a few months, you see how he really was impressed with

Burkett's style and influence with his style, so that when you crack Burkett open, you'll see,

observe this, observe that, learn this, learn that, and then you read, again, the

wonderful Matthew Henry in his commentary.

You see, it's just like Burkett.

So he wasn't original in his style, but he definitely, maybe he's great at what he did,

but he definitely got what he got from Burkett, at least in essence and in style.

So at that time, you also had Matthew Poole, I believe would come out a little later.

Matthew Poole's another great commentary.

If you, your listeners want, again, some good, you know, Puritan reform, very applicable

commentaries, then you get, of course, Matthew Henry.

That would be the first one, and you'd want to get the five -volume set, as opposed to the abridged, unless you just want some

short reading, but typically I encourage the five -volume set, or maybe it's even six volumes, Hendrickson Publisher,

and then you get Matthew Poole, which is three volumes, and Matthew Poole, rather, is much more

pithy, as Spurgeon said, and between the two, you generally had really good exposition of the

whole Bible.

Well, you know, enter William Burkett now, and Burkett, actually, in my perspective,

fits very nicely between the two.

Poole is very pithy, Matthew Henry is very wordy, but William Burkett is

kind of a nice balance between the two.

He's more than Poole in his comments, but he's less than Matthew Henry.

So I'm just thrilled to have another commentary to fit that slot.

So we've got this nice trilogy, as it were, of, you know, Puritan -esque writing,

Reformed expository notes, etc.

So it's really fantastic, but that's some of the historical background of what was going on at that

time.

Well, I'm so thrilled also that you are collaborating with my very dear friend,

Mike Gaydosh of Solid Ground Christian Books on this project.

Oh, yeah.

And Mike is my very first pastor as an evangelical Christian.

He is the one that plunged me into the waters of baptism, and we have remained dear friends

to this day, and he is one of the prominent sponsors of this program.

Without Solid Ground Christian Books, I doubt we would be airing this interview right

now.

So thrilled that you're working with him on this.

Also, to let our listeners know, especially our Reformed listeners, will readily

recognize immediately some of the modern -day brethren who

have provided their glowing recommendations for this two -volume set of

a thousand pages total, which is expected to be

in print again in March of 2023.

But some of these modern names that have written glowing commendations are Dr. Joel

Beeky, Eric Thomas, Michael A .G. Haken,

and Ian Hamilton, just to name some of the more recognizable names that

are raving about this masterful two -volume work.

Why do you think it is that so many of us who are not Anglican, who

are Reformed Baptists, who are Presbyterian, and even those from

outside of the Reformed faith, have gleaned so much and consider

their literary heroes men, and many of the folks who consider these men their literary heroes,

might not even know that they were Anglican.

Why is it that the the Church of England, especially in centuries past,

not to exclude anybody who's writing today who's biblically sound, but in centuries past,

there has been such a treasure trove of literature that has come from the Church of England.

Why do you think that is?

Yeah, I mean, so you've got a guy like J .C. Ryle, for example, all right?

I mean, he's just absolutely fantastic, or J .I. Packer.

So you've got guys who remained in the Church, and yet they were real Christians,

and loved the Lord, and they had an experiential Calvinism, and God used them

greatly.

I mean, I recommend, you know, J .C. Ryle all the time, and Packer also on some things.

So, I mean, it's obviously a huge church, and with any denomination, you're gonna have, you know,

great men of God in that group, in that denomination, that are gonna be used of God.

And of course, Evangelical, Reformed, and of course, you know, Church of, you know, England, Anglican

Church.

I mean, this is a mixed bag, but these guys are the cream of the crop.

These are, you know, solid, you know, Reformed, Evangelical men that have blessed the church for

really centuries.

I mean, just jumping back to Burkett himself, Spurgeon, you know, recommended that his

ministerial students give, quote, attentive perusal to Burkett's

commentaries.

Spurgeon called it a goodly volume, and then, again, going back historically, George Whitefield

testified how Burkett's commentary helped him to understand free grace and the necessity of being

justified in God's sight by faith only.

So, again, these guys were brothers in the Lord that God raised up to do good

to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ worldwide, and for that, we should thank God, and, you know,

one day in glory, we'll probably thank them.

Amen.

If anybody wants to find out more information about this two -volume set, which

will be, as I said, not available until March of 2023, God willing,

but if you want a pre -publication discount, go to solid

-ground -books .com, solid -ground -books .com, and this rare two

-volume 1 ,000 -page set is only $79 .95.

It lists for $120, so you're getting an excellent discount off of this,

and it is an oversized hardcover set.

I'm hoping that oversized really means that the typeface is

readable, because I just was so blessed.

I was so thrilled that the widow of a very dear friend of mine, Pete Padre,

who at one time was a conservative, evangelical, and

reformed pastor of a church in a liberal denomination in

Spanish Harlem, Church of the Good Neighbor.

He was there when I first met Pete, and he went home to be with the Lord about a year ago now, but his

widow gifted me with John Gill's commentaries.

I was so thrilled about that, but since I'm 60 years old and

require reading glasses, the typeface and this commentary by Gill is

microscopic in order to fit it in, I think it's four volumes, but

is the oversized reference to the fact that it is going to be readable?

Yes, yes, yes.

So let me talk about Mike Gaydosh just a bit.

You mentioned in the outset how, you know, you would think historians would know who

Burkitt was, and that's true, but I've got to be honest.

I searched for weeks to find people who knew who Burkitt was, and

most did not.

98 % of the people did not, and I did check with some historians.

I was kind of shocked, actually.

So what happened is that Burkitt's work, just, you know, turn of the century, 1800s,

19th century, his work just stopped getting reprinted, so people haven't seen him in a

good while.

So, I mean, you'd have to really be into, you know, church history and especially Reformed Anglicans to know who

Burkitt was.

I just happened to stumble upon him online, and his commentary is online, but

the link that it's connected to, it always jams up my computer, and it

gives trouble, and reading it is not always so easy.

So I was being blessed by this guy, and I'm like, man, who is he?

Well, I started researching, reached out to Dr. Beakey, who's heard of him.

He sent me some stuff, and then I spoke to other guys.

Nobody knew who he was.

I reached out to my very good friend Lee McKinnon, and Lee actually used to be part of a bookstore in

Ireland, and he said, yeah, I remember Burkitt, and I still use him online, and then I

said, okay, that's great.

I got one guy who knows who he was, and then I called Mike Gaydosh, because Mike is always printing older stuff,

and I said, hey, do you know this guy, William Burkitt?

He says, oh, I love Burkitt, and I said, well, this is great, and I want to go ahead and, you know, reprint it, whatever

you're interested in doing, and he was all for it.

So as far as the printing itself, it will be a nice typeface, and it will be of a

size that you'll be able to see it readily.

If you have Mike Gaydosh's two volumes on Hebrews, I believe, by William Gouge, Mike

published that as well.

That is very clear on the page, and we're going to pretty much follow that same type set and print, etc.

So it's going to be a beautiful, a beautiful two -volume set.

Mike was actually able to get a two -volume set of Burkitt that was super clean.

We're on the phone, he's able to find it, and Mike was jamming away, and he's like, oh, I found two volumes.

He purchased those from someone wherever they were, was able to get them to his house, and just

said to me, these are excellent, super great shape.

So it's going to be very, you know, clear to read.

I mean, I'm not quite 60 yet, but I am getting there, and yeah, we need some

real clarity when it comes to print.

So Chris, I think you'll be able to read it very easily, as well as your listeners.

And so glad that it will be published in hardback.

So that is another blessing, so that will last a long time.

And what is it about Burkitt?

I mean, I'm sure that there are a lot of things that could not fit in this two -hour interview.

But what is it about Burkitt that captured the hearts, minds, and

souls of people like William Gurnall, and Matthew Henry, and George

Whitfield, and Charles Spurgeon, that made him stand out?

And the follow -up question is, how on earth did he fall out of common knowledge

amongst Christians, even well -read ones?

Yeah, it's a great question.

I think what stands out about Burkitt, for me at least, is, again, it's just experiential

Calvinism.

It's just warm.

It's to the heart.

Actually, in Burkitt's own work, he tells us that he wrote his commentary so that families could

use it during family worship.

Could you imagine?

So he made it super practical so that moms and dads can, you know, break open a text and have

Burkitt's comments there.

Again, which points are pithy.

Other points, they're outliny.

And then, almost at all points, they're heart -driven.

They're to the heart, they're to the conscience, to the mind.

So I just think he stands out for those type of reasons.

I mean, I've got a few thousand books in my library.

Any book I'm preaching on, whether it's Romans or Philippians, as I'm doing now, I generally have

85 -plus commentaries on any given book that I preach on because I love to study, love to see the

comments of other people after I've done my own study, etc., etc.

However, I can read all of those various commentaries, and they're good for different reasons, whatever

it might be, the exegesis, the Greek work.

But then I pull Burkitt, and it's, like, to the heart.

It's to the conscience.

It's to the mind.

I'm like, this guy is so, so, so good.

So when you're preaching, you want various commentaries, some to, again, motivate your feet to

walk in the ways of obedience, others to warm your heart, others to just instruct your mind, as a lot of Greek -based

commentaries will do.

So people ask me, what's the best comment to get in this book?

I say, get them all, get them all.

But now I'll be able to say, get Burkitt also, because, again, he does what very few

individuals were able to do, make the text practical, make it warm to the heart so

that people will love the Lord Jesus Christ and want to obey Him with all that they've got.

As far as it falling out of vogue among people and all that, you know, this is how it goes.

You know, various publishers will pick up a work and, you know, maybe just, you know, whatever.

Sales were not what it, you know, needed to be at a certain point in history, and then it just never got picked up

again.

Somebody, thankfully, was smart enough to put it online.

But as a pastor, generally speaking, I'm not really an online guy.

I mean, going back and forth, all that kind of stuff, I want to hold a book in my hand.

I want to wrestle with that book.

I want to highlight that book.

And again, the link to Burkitt is, it has jammed up my computer several times.

I'm not sure if it's a bootleg link, if there's such a thing as that.

But whatever the case is, yeah, we needed this thing in hardback.

And again, I'm thrilled that Mikey Gaydosh is.

Going to put it out.

Amen.

And we're going to our first station break.

If you have a question for Rob Ventura, since he is a pastor, we would open

up the floor for any question on theology or pastoral concerns.

But we would especially love for you to ask questions about this forgotten

17th century theological giant, William Burkitt.

But we, as I said, will invite any of your questions that are involving the scriptures,

doctrine, theology, history, pastoral concerns.

The email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at

gmail .com.

Give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence.

And I would like to remind my guest Rob Ventura to mute himself during the breaks, because the entire

audience will hear every noise you make.

But we're going to be right back after these messages.

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We are now back with our guest today, Rob Ventura.

He is one of two pastors at Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence, Rhode Island, and an instructor at

Rhode Island School of the Bible.

We are discussing William Burkett, introducing a forgotten 17th century theological giant to

a 21st century audience, and we are also talking about the

project that my guest is working on with Mike Adosh, my dear friend

and my very first pastor as a born -again believer at Solid Ground Christian Books, one of the most

prominent sponsors of this show.

They are bringing back into print the two -volume commentary, William Burkett, Expository Notes with Practical

Observations in the New Testament.

It's two volumes, 1 ,000 pages in total, hardback, and a large

size, so I can't wait to purchase my own set and get some

for gifts as well.

Let's see, we have here Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, has a question for

you.

How do you respond to those critics of the use of commentaries

when they say if the Bible is easy enough to understand on important issues

and the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture is true, why do we

depend so much on these commentaries?

I am not arguing that we should not, but there are those among us in the body of Christ who do.

Yeah, it's a very good question.

I would argue back with whoever is bringing this up to

the brother who wrote in the question and say, according to Paul, God has given teachers to the

church, and because God has given teachers to the church, looking at Ephesians 4 here,

we ought to benefit from those teachers.

We ought to learn from those teachers, again, whether it was Calvin or Luther or

Spurgeon or Whitefield or Edwards, etc.

So, you know, Paul anticipated, and he himself gave some to be apostles and

evangelists and pastors, teachers, etc.

Well, God has done that all throughout the generations, and he's raised up, again, great luminaries

like a Calvin or a Burkitt or an Edwards or a Spurgeon, etc. to be a blessing to the church,

and I believe that it's really the height of arrogance for us not to avail ourselves to their wonderful

instruction.

So, you know, we have our Bibles, of course.

We have the light that God gives us, of course.

As I mentioned in the outset before I ever check a commentary, I'm always firstly seeking the Lord in

prayer, and then I, you know, break open my Greek New Testament or my Hebrew Old Testament Bible.

I do all my own work there, and then I formulate my own sermons, and I do all of that work.

Once that's all done, then I go and check the commentators who really become, as

it were, a check and balance on my own information that I've put out, my own instruction.

And the wonderful thing about having great commentaries is that you see the witness of the church

throughout 2 ,000 years of just, there's a unified voice, and, you know, 98

of the commentaries and commentators are all saying the same thing, some saying them in different ways, some in

better ways.

But it's wonderful to be able to look at a passage of Scripture after you've studied it and then check again

Burkitt or somebody else and say, man, you know, or Calvin, he sees the exact same thing.

Now typically with these great lights such as Calvin or Burkitt or Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, at

least for a guy like me, I'll be like, man, that's much better than I thought or said it, and I can learn from

this guy and or quote him in my own sermon.

So again, God has never called us to study the Bible alone, and he's given these wonderful

men of God throughout history to instruct us in the things of God.

I recall one time I was speaking with Warren Worsby.

Remember Warren Worsby, Chris?

So he was a classic, you know, Bible guy, Bible hour.

Now when you say was, is he not still with us?

I think Worsby passed away.

I could be wrong, but I think he passed away.

He was definitely up there in age, and when I spoke to him, yeah, so you could double check that, you know, but

yeah, so I believe he went to be with the Lord.

I could be wrong, and in that case I hope, at least for our sake, it's wrong for his sake.

I hope it's right, but I remember speaking to him on the phone one time, and I told him, you know, Mr.

Worsby, I've never heard you preach before, and he says, well, Rob, you haven't missed much, and I thought that was a nice humble

response, and then I said, you know, but I really appreciate your commentary on, you know, some levels.

It's evangelical.

Obviously I would disagree with a couple things here and there, but he said to me, you know, Rob, when it comes to commentaries, he says,

we all milk from many cows, but we make our own

butter.

So, you know, this is commentaries, right?

They're all like, you know, cows.

We all milk from many cows, whether, again, it's Spurgeon or Burkitt or

Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, but at the end of the day, we make our own butter.

So that sermon is mine, but I gleaned from Burkitt.

I gleaned from Henry.

I gleaned from, you know, Calvin, and all of that helps our sermons, I think, to be

as clear as they can be and as useful as they can be.

So, yeah, it's not just enough to say I've got, you know, myself, my Bible, I've got the Holy Ghost, I'm good to go.

I think it's the height of arrogance for people who say that.

It's kind of like the Church of Christ, the Bible only, right?

So we don't use confession to faith.

We've got our Bibles.

We're good to go.

Yeah, well, the Church of Christ is a heretical group which teaches baptismal regeneration, and that's why we don't despise,

for example, confessions of faith, which really are a commentary on the Bible.

No, we rejoice that we put forth those things most surely believed among us, and

we are unashamed of those things.

And we see that as we check Church history, all Christians have believed these same things, and they were not

afraid or ashamed to put them out in historic confessions of faith.

Same thing again with commentaries.

Commentaries are an excellent source for the preacher to glean from other men

and in a multitude of counselors, their safety.

And I would say that if a guy is, you know, preaching a text and he comes up with some

idea, i .e. an interpretation on a text of Scripture that nobody else over 2 ,000 years

of Christian witness has seen that in the text or, you know, even comes close to it, you probably want to be

careful about putting out that particular interpretation, because the Word of God tells us there's nothing new under the heavenlies, right?

So for us to be coming up with some, you know, idea about something that's just kind of like, hmm, never heard of that

before, really we should be careful.

Matter of fact, our people should never quite be saying, hmm, I never heard of that before.

We want them to say, you know what, I've heard that before, and based on your exegesis, it looks like I've heard it wrong

in the past.

Now I hear it right, and I'm thankful for that.

I had a woman say that to me last week at church, Pastor, I've been taught that text wrongly all my life.

Now I see it correctly in its context.

Well, praise God!

But there should be nothing unique, as it were, about our interpretations of Scripture.

No, we've got a full body of witness, and again, this is because Paul tells us that the Lord

Jesus Christ, in His kindness, has given teachers to the Church.

So therefore, we want to avail ourselves to those good teachers.

I'm talking about solid evangelical teachers who have blessed us by putting their

understanding of Scripture in commentaries.

And you are absolutely.

Correct.

Warren Wiersbe did go home to the Lord in 2019, and I was

confusing him with Erwin Lutzer because they both pastored the Moody Church at

some point.

Although Erwin Lutzer is a thoroughgoing Calvinist, and in fact, I look forward to having

Erwin on my program at some point.

He's a good man.

Yes, he is.

Well, let's see.

Oh, and one thing I just wanted to add, and I'm sure you agree, that when we use

commentaries and we glean from and make use of the

works of great Christians of history and even of our modern day, we must prayerfully

make sure that we are always behaving as the Bereans did, and we

are to treat these great men as our servants in learning the Scriptures, not as our

masters.

We cannot make idols out of them, and we cannot become their slaves and

change or even adopt theological positions merely because we are so impressed

by these men and fall in love with them as our heroes that we just say, well, if they're right on

many things, they're right on everything.

No, that's a great point, Chris.

So I tell people, I don't go to commentaries to get my theology.

That's what I went to seminary for.

So that's why I can use a guy like, who did I just mention?

What was his name who you said we said passed away?

Warren Wiersbe.

Exactly, Wiersbe.

So he's a dispensational four -point Calvinist probably.

So yeah, with Wiersbe again.

Not now, he's a five -pointer now.

No, now he's a five -pointer.

He's a glory.

Yeah, he's a 10 -pointer actually after this.

But he, yeah, so his commentary is again not, you know, all that Matthew, Henry's or Burkitt's would be at

least theologically, but, you know, he was a good commentator.

It's probably the first commentary I got about 25 years ago, but he's an evangelical.

So again, you know, he had good stuff to say and some good illustrations here and there.

So anyone who's evangelical I can learn from, but I don't ever go to commentaries for my theology.

As I said, that's what I went to seminary for, and here I'll give a good plug for Reform Baptist Seminary because I'm very thankful for the

education I got.

So I know what I believe before I go to the commentaries, and if you don't know what you believe before you go to the commentaries, you can definitely get a bit messed up

because obviously at certain points there's going to be, you know, some variations of theological understanding, whether it's, you

know, Calvinism or dispensationalism versus covenantalism, etc.

But evangelical is the standard, and I think generally speaking we can learn from

anyone again, whether it's a Warren Worsby or a John Calvin.

These are our brothers, and as you correctly said, they are our servants.

For Christ's sake.

Amen, and one of the reasons I brought that up is that I actually

personally know—now please, all of my Presbyterian and Pado -Baptist brethren, I'm not

saying this as an insult to you.

I love you, and you know that I interview probably more Presbyterians than Reformed Baptists on this program.

But I have actually met, and I'm not making this up or exaggerating, I have met and

know peoples, some of whom I knew very well, who have actually told me that

they converted to a Pado -Baptist position merely because Calvin believed it,

Owen believed it, etc., etc.

And I would not even be happy if somebody said, well, I'm a Baptist now because Charles Spurgeon was,

and that's good enough for me.

I wouldn't be happy about that either.

And one thing I wanted to interject, just because of the fact that I have interviewed a

couple of these folks, the Church of Christ is not monolithic.

There are actually, believe it or not, some congregations that have adopted Reformed theology,

so not all their ministers and congregations are heretical.

I do know that there are indeed some raw Pelagian ministers and

scholars and theologians and members of the Church of Christ who

really don't even believe in the necessity of grace, even if they never phrased it that way.

But I do know some good, solid men.

I just wanted to throw that out there.

Well, that's good, and mainly I was speaking against baptismal regeneration.

But with any group, of course, you can get congregations that, you know, they just, hey, they're not holding to that, and

for that we bless God.

Let me just read a footnote I've got in my forward for Burkitt.

I say here, my commendation of this volume does not imply complete agreement with all of Burkitt's theological

comments.

However, because my overall differences are so few, I can recommend him enthusiastically.

And I put that in there because, you know, Burkitt is a staunch Pato

Baptist.

So as a Reformed Baptist, I'm like, ugh, ugh, ugh on a few texts that, you know, he believes

highlights infant baptism.

So, you know, again, this would be like me discovering Matthew Henry or Matthew Poole or Calvin.

What am I, not going to put it out because, you know, they hold to a different perspective than I do regarding

baptism.

Of course not, I disagree with that particular position.

But again, we love our Pato Baptist brethren.

I mean, I called all my friends who are Pato Baptists and asked them to endorse this book.

Again, whether it was Beaky or Derek Thomas or Ian Hamilton, those are great men of God of whose, you know,

shoes I'm unworthy to tie or untie in that case.

So, no, we're very thankful for them.

But yeah, we disagree with a few things, but overall there's so much wonderful agreement and we're

indebted to our Pato Baptist brethren that I have no problem putting forth an excellent.

Work like William Burkitt.

And we have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina, one of our most valued listeners.

He's a monthly supporter of this program, sometimes a bi -monthly and sometimes a tri -monthly supporter.

Grady says, greetings brothers.

Did Burkitt have any other works.

That are available?

Yeah, you can Google online.

He did write several works, other works, and I don't know if any of them are out at this

point.

He had something like a directive to families for family worship.

Again, he was big time into the family, which I really like.

As I said earlier, this commentary was actually written for family devotions.

But again, Matthew Henry, his commentary comes out of his family devotions and turned into a commentary.

So he does have other works.

You can Google him and you'll see those listed, probably Wikipedia and other places put them

forth.

And I may get into those at some point, but you know how it is.

It's one work at a time.

As you know, Chris, speaking of works, we have the new exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith coming out in January,

and then at the end of next year I've got my Romans commentary coming out.

So Burkitt just happened to squeeze himself in between these two works, and I'm very grateful

again that we discovered him and Mike G is going to be able to get him out by March.

Great.

Well, thanks, Grady.

And we are going to our midway break right now.

The midway break is always a bit longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in

Lake City, Florida requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because they are required by

the FCC to air their own public service announcements and other local things to Lake

City, Florida that geographically connect their programming to Lake City, Florida.

While they do that, we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

So please use this time wisely.

Write down as much of the information for as many of our advertisers as you can during this break so that you can more

frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

And not only does that mean whatever possible purchasing their products, using their services,

supporting their parachurch organizations and visiting their churches, but when you can't do any of that, there's

one thing that anybody listening can do.

If they really love the show, please contact our advertisers and say, thank you

for sponsoring Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and fill in the blank.

It means so much to me.

I love to listen to it every day.

It transformed my thinking on and on and on.

We could go.

If you really love the show and you don't want it to disappear, we have our advertisers largely to thank.

So please thank them so that they will be so encouraged that our listeners

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So please do that.

And also, of course, send in your questions to Rob Ventura, to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at

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Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back.

Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron.

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Before I return to Rob Ventura and our discussion on William Burkett, I just have

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of North Providence, Rhode Island.

We are discussing William Burkett, but we will also take any theological,

doctrinal, or pastoral question.

And we have such a question that is off topic from

Cindy in Findlay, Ohio.

She says, Hello Chris and Pastor Ventura.

I recently heard R .C. Sproul say that when God told Adam that

if he ate of the forbidden fruit that he would die that God meant physically.

I've been told in the past and numerous times that he meant spiritually.

Well, we know that they did die spiritually, but if R .C. is correct, that

God meant they would die physically.

How can we explain this without accusing God of being a liar?

Well, before you even answer, Adam and Eve both died physically too.

But if you want to answer that question.

Yourself, Pastor Rob.

No, it's clear to me that both are true.

That day, the very day you will surely die was spiritual, but physical death was a

consequence of their rebellion as well.

So from Genesis 3 onward, you see how life expectancy, as it were, just continues

to go down and down and down and down.

People are living hundreds of years, hundreds of years, but when you bring that to our day, 21st century, that's not how it

goes.

We get three score and whatever it is.

So people are 70, 75, 80, 85, but it's much less, biblically speaking, historically

speaking.

So the curse has come upon the earth.

It's come upon mankind and the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

So Sproul was right in that, but I think we would all agree, contextually speaking, but when

Moses says there, God, as Moses records it, and God saying in the narrative,

the day you will die, it was clearly a spiritual death.

Right, obviously, because we have their banishment out of the Garden of Eden and all that.

So they didn't die instantly, but they did die eventually.

Thank you.

Oh, and Cindy also has a question for me.

When am I expected to receive the free copy of Jeff Thomas's

autobiography, In the Shadow of the Cross, that I won when I sent in a question when you

interviewed Jeff recently?

You'll, God willing, get that within a couple of weeks, maybe sooner.

I was just at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service today who ships those out, and they do have you

on the list, and they are intending to make that shipment very soon.

They like to gather a lot of winners mailing addresses

together, which means multiple books, multiple different books that people have won,

because apparently it is a lot cheaper for them to mail these shipments out

when there are a greater number of them.

Just to let you know, and anybody else that may be waiting and wondering why they haven't received their book, thanks for being

patient with us, folks.

Let's see, we have a question from Joseph in South Central

Pennsylvania, and Joseph says that among

all the commentaries available to Christians in the 21st century, obviously you would

highly recommend Birkett's volumes, but are there any others that you would include in that

recommendation as being.

First choices of yours personally?

Yeah, that's a great comment.

So there are, thankfully, evangelicals have done a good job over the last 20 years in writing

really excellent commentaries and Greek -based commentaries.

For a long time the liberals were doing that, that was a crying shame, but evangelicals have done a great job.

So several of the wonderful sets are the Baker Exegetical Series, really outstanding.

The Zondervan Exegetical Series, very, very helpful.

The New International Greek Testament, also known as the NIGNT, really, really excellent.

The Pillar Commentary, really, really excellent, just great stuff in there.

So those are the four main sets that I would strongly recommend, those are excellent.

There's also a new one, it's called, this is how people refer to it, the EGNT, and

that's a very high -level technical commentary, but if you know Greek, that

is a series that you want to get.

It's the Exegetical Commentary, I forget exactly what

the letters break down for, I'm actually at my desk here looking to see if I could find it on my desk.

Let me see here, oh, here it is right here in front of me.

Yeah, so the EGNT, it's the Exegetical Guide to the New Testament, and that's General

Editors Andreas Kastenberger and Robert Yarbrough, so excellent.

I'm using on Philippians, so if you know Greek, Greek is a must for that series.

The EGNT, and for the others, whether it's Pillar or Zondervan,

those, or Baker, those are pretty straightforward.

For the NIGNT series, New International Greek Testament, definitely some Greek is needed, but those are excellent,

excellent sets, and I'm very thankful that in our day there are a plethora of good commentaries coming

out that are very accessible for pastors and preachers alike.

Yeah, you just reminded me, I've got to get Andreas Kastenberger.

Back on the program.

I've interviewed him a number of times and always am the better for it, brilliant, brilliant

brother and humble brother, love having him on the show.

Thank you, Joseph, for the excellent question, and let's

see, we, oh, we have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York,

who says, you mentioned earlier that William Burkett was a Reformed Anglican, but

not a Puritan.

What were the major distinctions between.

The Reformed Anglicans and the Puritans?

Yeah, so the Puritans were basically ejected from the Anglican

Church, so you had the whole issue going on there at that

time, the act of nonconformity, so the Puritans were not willing to

accept everything that was going on in the Church of England.

They felt that the Church of England, the Anglican Church, had gone only so far, but the Puritans wanted to see

the Church go much further.

It wouldn't do that, so you had, again, the great ejection where 2 ,000 Puritan ministers

left the Church of England, and basically they had to fend for themselves.

It was a very difficult time for the Puritans, but the Puritans were willing to go as far as the Bible

took them.

Again, they felt that the Church of England at that time was not willing to reform, especially its worship, hence

you have, you know, the great confessions coming out, Westminster, etc., even, of course, for the Puritan

Baptist, the 1689, setting forth, for example, regulative worship, right?

So only what God commands we do.

So while there were, again, good men within the Anglican Church, whether it was Burkitt, or whether it was

Gurnall, or, you know, J .C. Ryle, or J .I. Packer,

there were good men still that remained in the Church, but the Puritans, again, I

believe, and I think many others would agree, that they were willing to follow the Scripture as far as the Scripture

took them.

So differences among them, again, worship, I think, would be one of the main things.

Certainly some in the Church of England would, I think, waffle on Calvinism,

and you did have, even in the Church of England, some baptismal regeneration existing.

So yeah, it's a mixed bag.

Whenever you have a huge denomination like that, with millions of people, you're going to have, you know, millions of different

thoughts.

But with the Puritans, their thinking, by and large, was really quite similar, and, you know,

personally, I believe, was much better than many that were remaining in the Church of England.

But again, thankfully, you had good men in there, and one of those good men was William

Burkett.

CB And it would have been primarily over the issue that we now call regulative

principle, correct?

Because, I mean, even the

fact that the Book of Common Prayer is considered and valued

as a beautiful document, and it's gone through many changes over the centuries,

but it's even valued by those who are not Anglican, but there's a difference between valuing it

and mandating its use, and that would be a violation of the regulative principle

in the minds of many, including Puritans, right?

Dr. Seheult – Absolutely.

And again,.

Within the Anglican Church, you had the 39 Articles as they put forth, and those Articles were

really excellent.

So again, there were good things that were happening there in the Church, good Reformed

doctrine and teaching, which the Puritans were blessed by and sat under.

But ultimately, again, their consciences would not allow them to continue, and neither would the Church.

So again, you had the Great Ejection, and, you know, in that sense, I'm thankful because in

that sense, the Puritans were purified, and they really put forth excellent biblical doctrines

that were still being blessed by in the 21st century.

Dr. Kahneman – Amen.

Well, we still invite questions.

From our listeners on William Birkett, but we also know,

or at least Rob and I know, that there are other projects that he is working on that he's very

excited about, and I don't want the time to slip away from us without him mentioning some of those projects

that we should be waiting with bated breath to see come to fruition

and to come into print again.

So why don't you tell us about some of these things that we should be expecting in 2023?

Yes, first and foremost, and we had an.

Interview about it I believe some months ago, Chris, a new exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith,

and that was outstanding.

Appreciate you for that.

And yeah, so we're going to have a new exposition of our wonderful Puritan

Confession of Faith by the Puritan Baptist in the 1600s, originally written in 1677 but then

published in 1689.

So we have that outstanding exposition of our confession that was done about 30 years ago by Dr.

Sam Waldron, my very dear friend, just on the phone with him the other day, and he did the Church a great service in

expounding that confession.

He did an outstanding job.

I recommend that all the time, and I felt, however, that it

was time for a new one, for an updated one.

So I actually reached out to Sam and said, hey, what do you think about us doing a new one, or me doing a new one as

the general editor, and getting a bunch of guys, other than just you, a bunch of

other guys now to contribute to it.

And he thought it was an excellent idea, and he contributed three chapters to the new work.

But now I've got just a bunch of guys who are very well known among the Reformed Baptist world, such as

Jeremy Walker and Brian Borgman, other guys, Jim Dom, and Gary

Hendricks was in there as well, John Price, John Ruther, again just lots of guys, Dave

Chansky, and again Sam Waldron did several chapters for me.

So that book is due out January 17th.

Mentor Books is publishing the new exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith, and that book's going to go

around the world.

It already has three different foreign publishers who want to publish it in different languages.

Its chapters have been on Reformation 21 throughout this past year,

and we just got the first review from it by a guy named Matt Foreman, who really, really liked it.

So a lot is going to be said about that book in the next several weeks.

I'm very thankful for it.

Dr. Beakey will put an email out on it.

They bought multiple copies.

Westminster's looking at it now.

Mikey Gaydosh, of course, will be pushing it.

So super excited about the 1689.

It's wonderful for us as Reformed Baptists to have multiple expositions of our Confession of Faith.

To date we only have one, essentially, by Sam Waldron, 30 years old.

Now we have another one, also our dear brother Jim Renahan.

He's got one on 1644 and then the 1689 as well coming out, I believe, is

1689 when it comes out in February.

So this is good stuff for us as Baptists.

If you look at the Presbyterians, they've got multiple commentaries, expositions, if you will, of the

Westminster Confession of Faith.

So I'm glad to see the Baptists doing some catch -up regarding that.

So that's January, God willing, and then we've got Birken in March, and then looking forward

to my first commentary coming out on Romans, God willing, October, November next

year.

And again, Mentor Books will be publishing that as well.

So.

Excited about that.

Dr. Laird.

And when can we expect the biography of me

that is the sequel to James White's book, Is the

Mormon My Brother?

And the biography of me is, Is That Moron My Brother?

And I've been riding this till the wheels will fall off

because I told that joke many years ago in the introduction of a debate I had featuring James

White.

I just couldn't resist.

Bringing that up again.

One thing I want to -.

Dr. Laird.

Yes, well you are full of good jokes, Chris.

Trust me, I've heard them before.

Dr. Laird I wanted to ask you something about,.

Since you brought up Jim Renahan's commentary on the 1644, the first

London Baptist confession.

That seems to be the favorite of those who endorse New Covenant theology, and just

to make sure everybody knows this, Jim Renahan is a Covenant Reform

Baptist theologian.

He is not a New Covenant believer, and that's in regard to the new use

of the term New Covenant.

I have many friends who are New Covenant theologians, and I've interviewed many on the show, and I still

cherish their friendship.

I just have some disagreements here and there.

But what is it about the 1644 that seems to draw

more acceptance from the New Covenant Calvinist,

which is basically a nickname for those who do not believe in the perpetuity of the Decalogue, and

yet believe that nine of the Ten Commandments were reiterated by Christ anyway in the New Covenant?

So I know that people hate for me to say this, but it seems to me to be a Sabbatarian issue primarily.

But why is it?

How did the 1689 or 1677, as it was originally

finished in its writing,.

How are they different?

Yeah, you really nailed it, Chris.

It is a Sabbath issue.

So first off, we want to give kudos to our Reform Baptist brothers who put out the 1644,

and it's a to read it.

It's all outstanding.

But you've got the 1644, the First London Baptist Confession of Faith, coming out in that year.

Then you've got 1646, the Westminster coming out, and then 1677, the 1689.

And mind you, our 1689 is called the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.

So I tell our dear Presbyterian Paedo -Baptist brethren, I say, look it, you see our

Confession of Faith written 1689, the one we hold to, but this is called the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.

I say, you know what year the other one came out?

They say, no, I said 1644, which means it predates the Westminster by two years.

So we're not the new kids on the block.

I say, you are.

Anyway, I joke.

Exactly.

But I will say, certainly the Reform Baptists learned a few things from the Westminster Divines,

and I think they helped the Reform Baptists to clarify their thinking in some key areas,

certainly with reference to regular worship.

But then secondly, and I think most importantly, as you highlighted, is the Sabbath and the perpetuity of the Fourth Commandment.

So I think that's absolutely correct, and the 1644 is weaker on the Sabbath.

So then again, you've got Westminster comes out, and you have those great Divines who wrote in it, and I think the Reform Baptists looked at that,

chewed on it, and embraced it.

Hence, you have in the 1677 -1689 Second London Baptist Confession

of Faith, a more robust Reform theology.

And I really think that's important to say, because again, you've got guys who are Calvinistic Baptists, and all that's fine,

but we need to go beyond the five points.

Oh, isn't that funny?

I edited a book entitled that very thing, Beyond the Five Points, which your buddy

James White wrote the foreword to.

So yeah, so it's a good document, the 1644, excellent, but if we want a more

robust Reform theology, the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith is

the place to go.

Now, how do you respond to our Presbyterian brethren who at times

mean this in a light -hearted spirit, and as a joke, and as an elbow to our rib

cage, a gentle elbow to our rib cage, that

the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith is one of the greatest examples

of plagiarism in church history, because it's nearly identical to the Westminster, as

all of us know who are.

Familiar with the document.

But how do you respond to that?

Yeah, so I would say, look, it's hard to improve on an excellent

document like the Westminster Confession of Faith.

It's hard to improve on such an excellent document, but as a Reform Baptist, I would say the Reform

Baptists certainly did.

So they definitely took the two areas where they differed with their

Pato Baptist brethren, and they made it better.

They went better with reference to the church, which is clearly seen by

how many paragraphs we have on our chapter on the church versus the Westminster.

It's probably three times the size, and of course the issue of baptism.

As Reform Baptists, we believe that believers' baptism is clearly what the Bible teaches, not only

by way of example, but also command.

So yeah, I think the Reform Baptists, they saw the Westminster.

Of course, they already had the 1644, so who's to say that the Westminster divines weren't leaning on the 1644?

They had these documents, of course.

And of course, you also have the Savoy out around at that time.

So anyway, I would just say that, look it, they looked at the document, and they didn't copy the thing verbatim.

Clearly, they changed words, and they check on their issue with covenants.

It's a different perspective at some point.

Adoption, again, different word here and there.

So they saw that this was a great document.

They adopted it, but they made it better from our perspective in at least two areas.

But remember, again, Chris, historically speaking, the Reform Baptists were not trying to be troublemakers by putting out a new

confession of faith.

They were actually, as they say in the introduction to the whole thing, I use this kind of in a modern -day language, hi,

Pato Baptist friends, we're trying to let you know on the one hand we're not Arminians, and on the other hand we're not Anabaptists.

They were trying to let them know we're really just like you, and I think that's important

that we see that there was an Irenic spirit among them.

And I think the same should hold forth with us today.

Of course, you and I like to joke about, you know, Pato Baptism and all that, but we do it lightheartedly,

just like they do with us.

But we're indebted to our Pato Baptist brethren, and most of my books on my shelf are written by

Pato Baptists, but at the same time, we've got to say that we've got to follow the

Scripture wherever it takes us.

And in that sense, I would say I believe that the Reformed Baptists are the only true Reformers, because they were willing

to go forth in their understanding of baptism, which I believe is biblical

and clearly squares with Scripture, and also their view of the Church.

So that's why I am a Reformed Baptist, but 98 of what I hold to,

any good Pato Baptist Presbyterian would hold to as well.

So there's great affinity there.

There should be great thankfulness in our hearts for their documents, but we hold to the 1689 because

we've got to be convinced from Scripture what the Bible says about all areas, and we differ with the

Westminster on two major points, hence we have our own.

Confession of faith.

Yes, this was not something done covertly and where there was intentional

plagiarism.

It was an intentional olive branch to a degree, not only to show commonality, but also

to show how they had biblical convictions that compelled

them to change things about church polity and the

ordinances or sacraments.

Absolutely.

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who says,

since there were Baptists who had their own version of the Westminster

Confession of Faith, known as the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith,

were there any Baptists who transformed the three forms of unity into their own Baptist

version?

Oh, I know at least not all three forms of unity, but I know that the Heidelberg

Catechism has a Baptist version by Hercules Collins, an Orthodox.

Correct.

Do you know any other volumes that may exist that might include all three forms of unity?

Yeah, I can't think of, other than what you mentioned, I can't think of anything else, but those are great documents,

and I think, I mean, the Heidelberg is just a wonderful, wonderful document, the Further Reformation.

I mean, that's just such experiential Calvinism, and, you know,

by our Dutch brethren, so we, all of these things are ours to use.

I mean, I think the Westminster and the London Baptist and the Savoy, they're very doctrinaire in the right

sense of the word, but the Heidelberg is just super warm and devotional and practical.

I mean, all these things are for us to use and enjoy, and I think that we ought not to get,

you know, all caught up or, you know, entangled in, you know, debating baptism issues all day long and some church

polity matters.

I mean, again, we can have our differences, that's fine, but there ought to be great agape among all of us.

And that was published, by the way, the Unorthodox Catechism by Hercules Collins, that

was published by Reformed Baptist Academic Press, and I know that you could even get it on Amazon, so

a good recommendation.

Thank you, Susan Margaret.

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says, just as you were

mentioning earlier, there are critics of those who rely on commentaries in the books of great men,

in addition to the scriptures, to rightly understand the Bible.

There is always some kind of complaint, especially by fundamentalists, about confessionalism.

Can you respond to that?

Yeah, that question comes up every single time we address the

confessions, any of them, and it is an obvious, it's an excellent question,

because it's an obvious critique when people know that we as a people

adhere to the Reformation principle of sola scriptura, they wonder, wait a minute, I thought you

believed in scripture alone, that it's the sola inerrant infallible authority

for the church.

Why are you using confession?

And so why don't you respond to that?

Yeah, so sola scriptura does.

Scriptura, so we have, good, I'm sorry, you want to jump, Chris?

No, you just cut out.

I don't know.

Why.

Repeat what you were saying.

I don't know why you went to silent just for a couple of seconds.

Yeah, so I was saying that sola scriptura does not mean solo scriptura, so that we just have

the Bible only, in the sense that that doesn't mean that we can never learn from anybody else, or we

just have to have our own Bibles.

I mean, clearly our own confession of faith says, paragraph one, sentence one, the only

infallible truth for all faith, life, and practice is the Bible, so the

confessions of faith say that.

But to say again, oh, we just have our Bibles, we don't need confessions of faith, again, this kind of goes back to a group I

mentioned earlier, it's the Bible only.

But yeah, when you say the Bible only, you're basically saying what our group understands about the Bible only.

But we don't want to cut ourselves off from the body of truth that God has given to us through the church,

teachers in the church, again, Ephesians 4.

So to be able to check the historical record, what is justification by faith alone?

What is sanctification?

Who is Christ?

We're not the first people looking at our Bibles, and it's the height of arrogance to think that we are, or we know all that has to be said

about these documents.

In fact, when someone starts reading the confessions of faith, they say, man, oh man, I've never seen

such truths as these articulated in this way, and again, by Christians throughout the

centuries.

I tell people, you see the number there on that confession?

I say, that's not the word count, that's the year it was written.

So you see, you had Christians back then holding to those great doctrines that we

hold to today, and it's a glorious thing to be able to see, hey, this is

historic Christianity.

We're not new kids on the block, but this is what the church has always believed.

And really, any church, fundamentalist or whatever it is, they all have a one -page statement of

faith.

So in that sense, they have their own confession.

We believe the Bible is the Word of God, the Holy Spirit.

We believe in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone.

So they have a one -page confession of faith.

We have a 32 -page confession of faith.

But let me quote here from B .H. Carroll, who was a pastor, theologian, and the first president of Southern

Baptist Theological Seminary.

He put it this way, quote, the modern cry, less creed and more liberty,

is a degeneration from the vertebrae to the jellyfish and means less unity

and less morality, and it means more heresy.

He said, quote, definitive truth does not create heresy, it only exposes and

corrects.

Shut off the creeds and the Christian world would fill up with heresy, unsuspected

and uncorrected, but nonetheless deadly.

And that is what has happened in the church today.

Churches have gone away from historical biblical Christianity.

That's why we've got all kind of nonsense happening in the broad evangelical church, and it's a

crying shame.

And you mentioned the Church of Christ earlier.

I was, years ago, sometime in the 90s, visiting at the invitation of a

friend, a Bible conference at a Church of Christ congregation, and

the scholar leading the discussion said that we as a people in

the Church of Christ have always believed in no creed but

Christ and no confession but the Scriptures.

And I raised my hand during a Q &A, and I said, I have a

church bulletin that is in the lobby of this congregation, and it

lists a bunch of things that this congregation believes.

It says that you have exclusively male leadership, that the

ministers do not wear clerical garments but typically wear

business suits, that you believe in a plurality of elders, that you

only use acapella worship and no instrumental

accompaniment of your hymns, that baptism

is conducted by immersion of a believer only, etc., etc.

I said, that's your confession.

And as John Thornberry once said in a message he

gave that was a defense of the use of confessions by Baptists, he was

reading an article in the American Baptist Association magazine

at the time that basically had the same statement that

we as a people believe there is no creed but Christ, no confession but the Scriptures.

And John wrote to them and said, that is a creed.

It's a creedal statement.

So anytime you're using your own words

to explain what you believe the Bible teaches, you are giving a creedal statement, and you can't escape it.

Even if you were to say, you can interpret the Bible in any way you want, that's a creedal statement.

I mean, you can't get around it.

No, that's right, because we can say, we believe the Bible.

So we say, for example, we believe in Christ.

Okay, well, the cults say the same.

So which Christ?

So we believe the Bible, yet what is it about the Bible that you believe?

You see, so as Reformed Baptists, we were not afraid or ashamed or like our Pado -Baptist friends to

put those things in print.

Let me just read you something quickly from my preface to the new exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith.

I say, it has been correctly said that true Christianity is confessional Christianity, and that a

church with a little creed is a church with a little life.

The true church has always confessed her faith openly, for there is a faith which has once for all been

delivered to the saints, Jude 3.

As Christians, we should never be ashamed of this fact.

Sadly, there is a motto which is proclaimed by some professed believers, which says, no creed but the

Bible, like you just said, Chris.

The problem with such a slogan is that it completely cuts people off from the body of instruction that

God has so wonderfully given to the churches by means of gospel teachers throughout the centuries.

Such a notion, if embraced, leaves an individual with only what one particular group believes

and teaches.

This is dangerous and has resulted in many being misled.

Amen.

And by the way, if anybody listening.

Would like to hear, I think an excellent interview I conducted with the

aforementioned Dr. Sam Waldron.

He gave a warning against abuses

in confessionalism.

He himself, obviously, is a firm confessionalist and wrote the commentary on the 1689,

the original one.

But he also knows that sometimes people, even in the body of Christ, because we are

all sinners, that some too do gravitate towards an

unconscious idolatry of the confession.

And we had a discussion, do we still believe in Sola Scriptura, a word of caution to reform churches and

leaders about present -day dangerous paths and slippery slopes on the rise among us?

And if you want to listen to that, just type in Waldron, W -A -L -D -R -O -N, in the Iron Sharpens Iron

Radio search engine, and that interview from June 17th of 2022 will come up.

We're going to our final break.

It's going to be a lot more brief than the other breaks.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American

Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors.

It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been

sticking with or switching to the NASB.

I'm author Gary DeMar, president of American Vision, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

I'm pastor Dan LeBennick of West Hills Baptist Church in Huntington Station, New York, and the NASB

is my Bible of choice.

I'm Justin Peters of Justin Peters Ministries, and the NASB.

Is my Bible of choice.

I'm Reverend Buzz Taylor, author of God's Lawson, and the NASB is my Bible.

Of choice.

I'm Dr. William Webster, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Battleground, Washington, founder of

the ministry Christian Resources, and the NASB is my Bible.

Of choice.

I'm pastor Ryan Galan of Central Islip Community Church in Central Islip, New York, and the NASB

is my Bible.

Of choice.

I'm pastor Brandon Smith of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Jackson, Georgia,.

And the NASB is my Bible of choice.

Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air.

Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?

Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them

from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Go to nasbible .com.

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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show.

On the air is by supporting our advertisers.

One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnzen is doing is

Daniel P. Buttafuoco, serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.

Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society.

Their mission?

To foster belief in the credibility of scripture as the written word of God.

They go to various churches, schools, and institutions to publicly display a rare

collection of biblical texts, along with a presentation by Mr. Buttafuoco

demonstrating the reliability of scripture.

To advance the cause of the gospel, they created a beautiful perfect facsimile of the

genealogy of Jesus Christ from the original engravings contained in a first edition

1611 King James Bible.

This 17th century hand engraved chart shows the family tree of Jesus Christ

going back to Adam and Eve.

This book is complete with gorgeous full -size illustrations of Noah's Ark and the Tower of

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Originals of this work are in museums and nobody has ever made it accessible to the public

in a large book form before.

You can have your own copy of this 44 -page genealogy book for a donation of $35

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Visit historicalbiblesociety .org.

That's historicalbiblesociety .org.

Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the.

Air.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often.

Enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to

preserve and ensure their longevity.

And besides that, they feel so good.

I'm so delighted I discovered Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding.

No radio ad will be long enough to sing their praises sufficiently, but I'll give it a shot.

Jeffrey Rice of Post -Tenebrous Lux is a remarkably gifted craftsman and artisan.

All his work is done by hand from the cutting to the pleating of corners to the perimeter stitching.

Jeffrey uses the finest and buttery soft imported leathers in a wide variety of gorgeous colors like

the turquoise goatskin tanned in Italy used for my Nestle All in 28th edition with a navy

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Reformation study Bible I used as a gift.

The silver gilding he added on the page edges has a stunning mirror finish resembling highly polished

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For more details on Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding, go to

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As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners.

For church recommendations.

The church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church

in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he

shall be represented in the world.

They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship

God in spirit and truth.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a God -centered focus.

Reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,

baptism, and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy,

and sobriety.

Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at

gcbcnj .squarespace .com.

That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com or

call them at 908 -996 -7654.

That's 908 -996 -7654.

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

And we want to thank Pastor Alan Dunn and Grace Covenant Baptist Church of

Flemington, New Jersey for recently renewing their annual advertising contract

with Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

We are forever in your debt, brethren, and I thank God that I can promote such a fine

congregation.

We are now back with our guest today, Pastor Rob Ventura.

And Rob, if you could now summarize what you most want to etch in the hearts and minds of

our listeners in regard to these very important.

Projects on which you are working.

Well, regarding Birkut especially, five words sums it up, buy Birkut and be blessed.

Amen.

Yep, there you have it.

So I'm just very thankful that in God's providence I was able to discover him, and I think he's going to be

a real help to ministers and to families around the world with God's blessings.

As far as everything else, encourage people to look out for the 1689 in January, and then I'm sure

Chris will talk about Romans down the road when we get closer to that.

But also very thankful, brother, for all that you do, laboring for many years.

You mentioned Alan Dunn.

Alan's been a close friend for over 25 years.

Just love Alan.

And the Reformed Baptists and Pedobaptists all around the world are very grateful for you.

So thanks for your labors, brother.

Oh, thank you so much for those kind.

Words and that encouragement.

And I look forward to having you back on the program many more times in the future.

And I want to remind our listeners, if you want to get a pre -publication

discount, a really large pre -publication discount, on this

book we are addressing, it's normally going to be $120 when it's actually in print,

but you will get it for less than $80 if you go to solid -ground -books .com,

solid -ground -books .com, and order it before it's in print to get this discount.

Please remember to tell Mike Adosh at solid -ground -books .com that you heard about this

offer from Chris Arnson of Iron Sharp and Zion Radio.

I also want to repeat Rob Ventura's church website, which is

gcbri .org, that's Grace Community Baptist Church of Northern

Rhode Island, gcbcri

.org, and the Rhode Island School of the Bible can be found at

risbible .org, r -i -s for Rhode Island School,

bible .org, risbible .org.

Thank you so much again, Pastor Rob, you are always a superb guest.

I want to thank all of you who have listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

I want to remind you about the Royal Diadem offer, royaldiadem .com, if you

purchase any piece of jewelry from them for Christmas or Valentine's Day,

or if you have a custom piece created, an engagement ring or something using your church or parachurch ministry logo or

anything else, we will get 100 of the profits from that sale of $100 or more, so

please go to royaldiadem .com, royaldiadem .com, and tell them Chris Arnson of Iron Sharp and Zion

Radio sent you.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior

than you are a sinner.