The Laborers' Podcast- How does the Bible apply to me?

Hello, this is the Labor's podcast. We're so thankful that you have chosen to watch and join with us tonight.

Tonight, we're going to talk about the Bible and how it makes sense to us and how we can apply it to our lives.

We hope you will join us and participate in this conversation. Once again,

I want to thank you for watching. This is the Labor's podcast. I am with my co -Labors whom

I love, and I love to speak about God's word with them and with you and have conversations about Jesus and his word and reach out to our communities together.

It's such a wonderful thing God has done for us. So how are you guys doing? Doing well.

Happy to be here. I'm glad to be with you guys as well. Yeah, tonight we're going to talk about the

Bible and try to make sense of the Bible in our lives, how it applies to us.

We've got the comments open, so we would love to hear from you. If you have any questions about the Bible, if you have any critiques about what we're saying, we'd love to hear that.

We can pray for you, too, if you'd like for us to do that. Give us a share, a like, a heart, all those wonderful things just so that we are able to partner together to reach our community.

Without any further ado, I want to jump in because we've got a whole list of things that we want to get to, and I want to let these guys talk, and I want to learn from them tonight as well.

So the Bible, we're kind of bringing in from last week.

This is part two. So we're first going to talk about some misconceptions. And I think these things are relevant.

Some of them may be a little deep. Some of the things were a little deep last week, but I think they're also relevant for everyone because a lot of people are on TikTok, a lot of people are on Facebook.

And when you get on those social media sites, you've got folks who really seem to know what they're talking about, but they believe a whole lot different than you do or than I do.

And so it's important for us to take these subjects and study them, know what they are, and know what we believe.

So kind of carrying over from last week, let's start with you, Tyler. What is the difference or what is different from the other holy books and the

Bible? What's the difference? Well, I think the primary difference between the

Bible and other holy books is the author, that at the end of the day, this is the only book that is attributed to the

God who is. When we actually read some of the Greek phrasing for how they describe

God in this, it doesn't just say God like it's any God. It literally reads the

God. And so there's a different author between here and any holy book, whatever.

However, we wanted to find a holy book. This is the only book that is written by God for the people of God.

And it sits in its own category in that sense. Amen.

I'm going to just go through our guide, guys. And if you want to add anything to any of the other questions, you guys feel free to do that.

Claude, the Bible was written by man. Can it be trusted? Yes. It was written by man.

I believe the numbers are something like 40 different authors over the period of 1 ,500 years, all of which are in different geographic locations.

And they all coincide and testify to the truth of the other's statements.

So I would say, yes, it was written by man. And yes, it can be trusted. This question kind of takes us back to one of the questions we talked about in our last program to help us understand why we can trust the

Bible, even though it was written by man. And it takes us back to the inspiration question. Can you help us understand how inspiration allows us to trust the

Bible, even though it was written by man? Are you going to Pastor Jonathan? Either one, if you want to.

I'll defer to Pastor Jonathan on that. Send me the question one more time. I'm sorry.

Going back to, I think it will help us because this question kind of takes us back to last week when we talked about inspiration, the inspiration of Scripture.

And so the Bible was written by man. God chose to do it that way. And so some people questioned, well, how can it be trusted if it was written by man?

So we kind of need to pull from that question we had last week to help us understand why we can trust it, even though it was written by man.

So just briefly tell us about the inspiration of Scripture and how that helps us to trust the

Bible, even though it was written by man. Sure. So inspiration of Scripture is the idea that it's

God breathed, God sent. And I don't think God expects us to take inspiration by a blind faith.

It's still faith, of course. And so I'll start there.

It requires faith. There's no question it requires faith, but it's not a blind faith. And so there is so many levels of apologetics and so many levels of textual criticism is what we call it.

Now, that doesn't mean we're criticizing, but it means we look deeply at the text.

We look for consistency. We look for inconsistency. We look for all of those kind of things.

And so so is the Bible inspired? Well, Claude gave us some pretty cool statistics with over 40 authors over 1500 years.

And it's amazing over that span of time that all of those authors came to the same conclusion of a one true

God. Old Testament comes to the conclusion that there is a Messiah that is prophesied.

And New Testament records a man named Jesus that fulfilled every single messianic prophecy.

And so so that in of itself, if you just study the life of Jesus, if you can show me one messianic prophecy that Jesus did not fulfill, then we'll we'll turn our back on Jesus and say he's no longer

Savior and Lord. So so first of all, it requires faith. And the reason it requires faith and not a blind faith, but it requires a studied faith, is then one has to admit this is absolutely miraculous that men who never knew each other, never met each other, never spoke to each other, all consistently say the same things and record the same things and point to the same person of Jesus Christ.

And and so the New Testament is the prophecy of Jesus. The Old Testament is the is the is the coming of Christ and the fulfillment of those prophecies.

And and all of that has to be inspired by a creator, by a

God who inspired men to reveal his plan, his will for the redemption of the earth, for the redemption of mankind.

And so so it that in itself, just the consistency of.

Over thousands of years and then and then on top of that, the preservation of these words over thousands of years.

And so so that in itself is inspired. It has to be inspired. And then this is semantics.

It's a play on words because a lot of people are always like, well, that's so that inspired me. When I read this, you know, well,

I think God still does some inspiring things, but not in the same way. I think I think that's more of illumination.

I'm illuminated to something. I'm motivated. I'm I'm exhilarated. But I believe inspiration in this manner of truth only happened during this time frame.

That's where the book of Revelation says there's nothing going to be added or taken away from this. This is the word of God and it's going to stand forever.

So so that's it is a unique, miraculous

God inspired work. And that is the only only possible explanation that 40 authors over 1500 years could all point to the same conclusion with the same result, with the same consistency, with the same doctrine, with the same belief system.

It's it's the only way to explain it is that it was inspired by God and God used men, inspired men to write his words.

And it goes back to what we said last week. We call it the word of God because it is God's words that he gave to men to pin down on papyrus or paper or whatever was used at that time.

You know, it was God through men inspired, but it's not men's opinions.

That becomes very clear. And I think that's the argument when we ask about the dealing with man, it's a man written book.

Well, if that's the case, then there would have been so many inconsistencies, so many fallacies, so many opinions, so many inaccurate things.

I mean, we can't even go around this, around this podcast, around this group right here and come up with the same story.

If we if we had it, you know, like the gossip game. Yeah. Yeah. And so so God has done a work to inspire men to write truth.

And it is reliable and it is profitable, profitable for every element of life we need.

So so that's that's the short answer for it. There's so many other things you could go with inspiration, but but it's not it's not a blind faith.

It's it's it's a it's a studied faith. There is a reason that we believe this, that it's been proven through through textual criticism, through all kind of investigative measures, all those kind of things.

So it's proven itself that it has to be inspired by God is the only explanation that we can have for the survival of of all this and the consistency of it.

So, Big John, I want to go with you to the next question, unless you want to defer. People come at us and go ahead.

I was thinking, if you take that, that question, Bible written by man, can it be trusted?

And I'm just reading the list in front of me. And the next one says the Bible has contradictions. And the following says, has it changed over time?

I think that in a lot of ways, these three questions are almost answered in the same in the same manner.

I mean, if you think about it, the logical conclusion is if if a skeptical person was going to say something to the effect of, well, if the

Bible is written by man, it can't be trusted. And no book can. I mean, I just if you know, there's no alternative, is there?

Who else is writing them? So and you can't trust a single textbook. You can't trust a single periodical.

You can't trust anything. So, you know, there's a certain amount of, you know, what you call it.

I don't know what you call real real life or real world logic or whatever. But and then the Bible that you got here is not really a question as much as a statement.

But but I suppose that is being asked. There is no contradiction in the

Bible. I just say that up front, I will say, and I've shared this with my children before, that there are areas of the

Bible that at first glance at times may appear to be contradictory to other areas.

I can think about when Jesus crossed Galilee and there was and I'm forgetting which book says there was a man approached him outside the temple who had a legion of demons in him.

And I think it's maybe it's Luke that says to approach him. But in any case, the fact that the the latter gospel message increases the accuracy doesn't make the former less true.

And oftentimes it's a it's a misunderstanding of just basic facts and how you interpret facts that make someone look for contradiction where one doesn't exist.

This is. I mean, this is true in every single account, from everything from a courtroom to trying to troubleshoot machines.

All the facts are out there before you and the way that you approach them may make one seem to disagree with the other.

But their order may be important or something like that. But if you read the Bible. For truth, if you read the

Bible to be taught and to learn from the Bible, you'll find it has no contradictions and you'll find that when the it appears that there is an area that doesn't agree, it's your failure to understand the scripture in its entirety that makes it look that way and further investigation will prove out that there isn't one.

And I'm going to probably going to defer to somebody with more Greek and Latin expertise on the how the

Bible has changed over time. I don't know if this is a reference to different translations in different languages or if this is a reference to the types of books that were in the

Bible. I don't know that I fully understand what the question is being asked, but I'll yield the rest of the time to Brother Rob.

Hey, can I jump in there real quick with one thing right there? Absolutely. Just John, everything you said is dead on, brother.

So this is no contradiction of what you said. I want to give us some terminology to help folks that may deal with this, because this is one of the major things that people want to come against when it comes to believing the

Bible. So there is a difference between contradictions and differences.

You said that. OK, but John, I'll take another example. You use the one witness versus two.

For example, in John, he records one woman come to the tomb. Matthew 28 records two women.

Mark records three women. So which was it? One, two or three? OK, is that a contradiction?

And actually, it's no, it's actually just a difference. It's a difference of an eyewitness account during the time of eyewitnesses.

And so actually, an FBI investigation, when they do that and they start taking eyewitnesses accounts, if they interview three eyewitnesses, all three tell the exact same story, like exact verbatim, word for word with no differences.

Yeah. Then the FBI agent's like, OK, something's amiss here. There's a lie here because not every eyewitness is going to come up with the exact same story.

Unless they're in cahoots. That's right. Unless they somehow stirred the water.

They got together. They made their story. And so now. So actually, it's not a contradiction.

It's just a difference with eyewitness accounts. It does nothing to diminish the fact that there were women that came to the tomb of Jesus.

There's absolutely nothing to diminish that fact. But in the moment of these eyewitness accounts and all three, they came up with a different number.

Now, is that a contradiction? No, it's just the difference. And that's OK. That doesn't refute the truth.

It's just the difference in eyewitness accounts. So I just want to make sure we distinguish that. There's a difference between contradiction and differences.

And then the second thing I want to say is, and you said it right. You may not have meant to say it, but I had this other note here that I wanted to pull up that I thought was really, really good.

So what about apparent contradictions? And John used that word apparent.

And see, the thing is this, too. We're still learning. We're still learning of things in the

Bible. OK, we're still things are still being revealed historically as as time goes along.

And and so there are apparent contradictions with history. But then the more archaeological things that are discovered, the more things that are revealed to affirm the

Bible. So so I think there has to be room when, like, for example,

Daniel chapter five verse one. OK. And Daniel five one. This is Belshazzar is named the king of Babylon.

So this is one that that's pretty common. Right. But all of history knows that Nabindus, however you say his name,

Nabindus is actually the king during that time. OK. All of history records that.

So they're like, see, look, the Bible's historically inaccurate. Well, that was true until an archaeological dig in the

Persian verse accounts of Nabius. There's an inscription that describes that Nabindus went away on a long journey.

And during his long journey, he left the kingdom in the hands of his son, Belshazzar.

And so so that wasn't discovered until recent history. OK. But now it's affirming

Daniel chapter five verse one, where until that till that manuscript of the king was found.

Everybody's like, look, historical discrepancy right here. This just proves it. No, it's not.

I want to play devil's advocate for a second. So it's an apparent discrepancy. OK, go ahead.

So now I don't know who watches all these things. I have no idea how you know.

But if I were say I were a skeptic and I would ask you to explain or define the difference between a difference versus a contradiction, how would you defend that against a skeptic for two reasons?

One, say there's a skeptic watching this. And I hope there is somewhere or two.

Even more of a hope I've got is that somebody takes the ammunition that we put out here and they use it to talk to people about Christ.

And it might be a tool they put in their box. So how would you, if pressed on it, how would you define the difference between or explain to, you know,

Johnny on the street how a difference is not a contradiction and go? Cause got his hand up.

Hit it, brother. So very simply, I would go to this link that's going to be added to the show notes.

And I would simply say this. I would say there's three things. What you and Jonathan both have just said.

Paradox, mystery and contradiction. Paradox is an apparent contradiction, but not a contradiction.

That's a paradox that under close scrutiny yields an answer or resolution.

Number two, a mystery. We hear that talk and talked about a lot in the scriptures. A mystery is something unknown to us now, but it will be resolved or cleared up.

So, for example, if you're talking to somebody that ask about this, the mystery, the paradox, the contradiction.

For example, the mystery of Christ was not revealed until the

New Testament, but it was revealed in time so that we can know and understand that the mystery that was once hidden was now revealed.

It's the truth that was there that just was uncovered. And last of all, contradictions.

If someone says there's contradictions, contradiction, number three, is a violation of the law of non -contradiction.

So if you're talking to somebody that's educated and they want to throw out that word contradiction, you can simply memorize this.

Contradiction is a violation of the law of non -contradiction for this reason.

It is impossible to resolve either by mortals or by God, either in this world or the next.

A contradiction, in other words, can't truly be resolved without an ultimate truth.

And the ultimate truth always points us to the scriptures where we can know the difference between a mystery and a paradox.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Well said. And there are a ton. You may be hearing some things that are new to you.

You may be hearing some things that you're saying to yourself, I would like to investigate more. There are a lot of answers out there.

There are some really good apologetics ministries out there. We're going to be posting some of those, and I'm glad Claude mentioned it because I want to go to that next.

We're going to be posting those links and resources on our resource page. I know that James White has helped me a lot.

For me personally, Answers in Genesis has helped me a lot. And there's a ton of other apologetic ministries that have lots and lots of answers.

There are answers out there, so there's no need to worry or fret. And speaking of the resources, let me take just a minute.

Tyler, I want to go to you next after we look at the resources. So the next question is the

Bible is full of myths, and they get a lot of those myths from the ancient Near East. But before we go to that question, let me show you the website.

So you want to go to truthandlove .com. And when you go to truthandlove .com, you'll see the

Labor's Podcast up at the top. It has a scroll down section, the

Labor's Resources. You can click on that, then scroll down, and I already have some up for tonight's podcast.

Resources, just click on the link, and there's already a ton of resources. And there'll be some added that was already mentioned that you can go and check out and do some more studying on your own.

So we hope this resource guide will be helpful for you. Claude, I thank you.

I got to give you this. Oh, yeah. Thank you, Jesus.

Hallelujah. Thank you for the resources. All right.

I think it was you. I think we can use some videos maybe from YouTube if it's educational for a certain short period of time.

Is that okay? This is a funny one, and it's kind of odd that we don't.

We've got some Presbyterians. We've got some Church of God. We've got some Reformed Baptists. We've got

Southern Baptists. But we don't have any Lutherans on here. I don't know what that says of us, but maybe we need to find one.

We're trying to get Chris Roseboro on here. Yeah. You have some contact with him.

But if you go to YouTube, there's a place called Lutheran Satire, and they do some really good stuff.

And I just want to play a short clip of this video. Uh -oh. All right, Patrick.

Exactly. That's modalism. Patrick. It speaks to this next question.

If I can bring it up, it speaks to this next question. I've never seen this video. It's fantastic. The Bible is full of myths, and they get it from – the

Bible borrows religious myths from the ancient

Near East cultures. And so Lutheran Satire kind of tackles that in a funny way.

So we'll play this short little clip. Oh, I love this. Thank you for coming out to our service this morning, and I pray that the rest of this

Christmas Day is wonderful for each and every one of you. Not so fast, preacher man.

Behold, it is I, Horus, Egyptian god of the sun. And while you all believe that you've been celebrating the birth of your

Lord Jesus, you've really been celebrating the birth of me. For you see, thousands of years before your

Jesus was born, I, Horus, was born on December 25th.

I, Horus, was born of a virgin. I, Horus, was baptized by a man called

Arnolp the Baptizer, was crucified, and was resurrected three days later. So you see, your

Jesus is nothing more than plagiarized poppycock. And I, Horus, have come to feast upon the sorrow of you foolish

Christians. Yeah, none of the stuff you just said is true. Yes, it is.

No, there's no reference in Egyptian mythology to Horus being crucified or resurrected three days later.

There's no documentation anywhere for the existence of a figure named Arnolp the Baptizer. Horus' mother was not a virgin woman, but a god of Jesus.

And there is no specific date anywhere tied to the birth of Horus. I'm pretty sure there is.

Actually, no. All of these claims and many others indicating that early Christians yoinked the mythology of Horus and stuck it on top of Jesus were all completely made up by Harold Massey, a 19th century cuckoo -banana -bird self -taught

Egyptologist who never provided the slightest shred of evidence for any of these claims and who was laughed out of the room by every serious

Egyptologist on the planet. So, if you continue to watch that video, he plays on some more claims that Biblical Christianity borrowed from other religions.

And it's not just Horus, it's other religions. And then this pastor, of course, knocks down those claims.

So, Tyler, when somebody comes at us and says, you know, the Bible's full of myths, they borrow from other religions that were before them, the flood account.

You know, you see that flood account in other religions and Christianity just borrows it.

What do you say to those guys? Well, if there was a flood that covered the entire earth and killed every living thing,

I get the feeling it wouldn't be just the Jews that were talking about it. That's true.

The fact that every ancient society literally has a flood myth is not a deal breaker.

The Mesopotamians had a flood myth. The Jews had a flood myth.

All of these ancient worlds that we talk about in history class had a flood myth. And while they may have some different points, the basic idea is that the ruling deity brought a flood to cleanse the world for whatever reason they may have.

And so the fact that the Bible says there was a flood and that Mesopotamia says there was a flood is not a contradiction.

If anything, it just further affirms what the Bible says about there being a flood because Mesopotamia is gone.

I've met a whole lot of people that are familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh. But I have come across a lot of people that are familiar with the

Book of Genesis. Because of the one who's authored it, the

Book of Genesis has persisted. But the Epic of Gilgamesh is reserved for the lofty intellectuals as an obscure Mesopotamian text.

I don't know about that. I've read that book. And I wouldn't consider myself a lofty intellectual by no means.

You know what I'm trying to say. I get what you're saying. Genesis is what's persisted.

And we can likewise go through some of these other ones. We can talk about the conquest of Jericho.

Because Jericho is a real place. Jericho was a very prominent city in the ancient Near East. They weren't known for their army, but they were known for their development as a city.

And there is an entire passage in the Book of Joshua where Joshua literally curses the city of Jericho.

May their walls never be rebuilt. And we have historical evidence that that did happen and it did not go well.

We have that. We have various other ones. One of my personal favorites is when you have

Ken Ham who talks about dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden. And this is something that we've often heard for millions of years.

And then we stumbled upon these records from Alexander the Great who was ancient

Greece. And he recounts encountering a dinosaur during his conquest in Asia.

That he came across this village that was literally worshiping a giant lizard. Wow. That's awesome.

This is documented. There are cave paintings in some places in America with dinosaurs.

And so it's not really as outlandish as we tend to think. And I guess back to the myths of the ancient

Near East. If they're in other myths, that doesn't necessarily mean that they cease to be true.

If anything, it continues to affirm that they are true. Because those stories came from somewhere.

They have an original source. The Word of God is the original source. Claude, I think you requested this next question.

If you're ready for it. How do we approach studying a passage of Scripture and discovering its original meaning?

All right. So I did. And simply because I found this to be something that years ago that I learned that was practical.

Because I'm, like John said, I too am not a lofty intellectual.

But something that I learned, and I did want to share in this tonight with us, is because, or when it comes to studying a passage of Scripture and discovering its original meaning, we need practical application, right?

It's not something that, you know, you can't just hold the Bible to your forehead, and by osmosis you learn the truth.

I had a geography teacher in high school that when you'd fall asleep on your desk, he would wake you up and ask, are you studying by osmosis?

But the Scriptures are meant for us as Christians to study them, and to draw out the meaning of the text, not to read into, but to draw out the meaning.

And so when it comes to studying a passage of Scripture and discovering its original meaning, there's really just a few simple things that all

Christians can do. Number one, read the plain sense of the word, what it says.

Don't go into it, you know, trying to assume that you know what's being said.

Next, it's not just the plain reading of the text, but it is doing the hard work of digging in and seeing what was going on at that time, asking context questions, like who is speaking?

Who is being spoken to? What is being said? Again, that goes to the plain reading of the text.

It's these simple things. What's taking place in this time? What were the cultural practices?

What was the principal practices? These are things that we look at, and then in doing that, we're able to better understand and ascertain, if you'd have it, the meaning of what is written.

Because the meaning of what is written isn't going, as we've already been through, the

Scriptures aren't going to contradict themselves. There may be paradoxes, and there may be mysteries, but there will never be contradictions.

And so, again, to this, I told you I was going to be a little slow tonight, but discovering its original meaning, when we do those things, when we ask those context questions, we read the plain sense, we ask these context questions, and we read before and after.

I know people don't want to hear that. Somebody might say, this sounds like a whole lot of work.

Well, yes, studying the Scripture is, in a term that I can understand, is a terrible, awful amount of work.

It is difficult. It is taxing. And Tyler, I think it wasn't

Solomon that said it in Ecclesiastes 12, of making many books, there is no end, and much study is weariness of the flesh.

I think that's what he said. And so it truly is, but you'll find that it is so beneficial to your spiritual health when you just look to the text to read for what it's saying, and then it's like, one by one, the dominoes begin to fall.

And so when you do run upon these paradoxical sections of Scripture, when you run upon these mysterious sections of Scripture, once you begin to look at Scripture just in its context, it's like Jonathan said it earlier, it's illumination.

It's like you walk around with a light bulb above your head all the time. It's awesome.

And I want to say something about that illumination, and the experience that I have in my life.

The illumination is not just intellectual knowledge. The illumination that goes off in your head, that light bulb that goes off in your head, it's so amazing what the

Holy Spirit does in your heart when you're illuminated and you see

Jesus from that illumination. I mean, I'm talking about exhilaration,

I'm talking about joy, and it's hard to describe when that illumination happens and God is showing you

Christ in Scripture. It's amazing. All right, Pastor John.

In your opinion, what are the most reliable translations, but yet most reasonable?

Amen. Can I add one thing to what Brother Happy Calvinist said? Absolutely. No, what he described,

I'm not going to add anything to what he said as far as praxis. I just wanted to say for our viewers, if you hear the word hermeneutics, that's what he just described.

So don't be freaked out by someone saying, well, your hermeneutic isn't accurate or whatever.

That's just a fancy word of saying your way of arriving at the meaning of the text is not accurate, and that is important.

How we approach to discover the meaning of a text, our hermeneutic is very important.

Thank you, Claude, for helping making that simple. You know what I mean? Because a lot of people try to make it so hard, but I just want our listeners to know some of those theological terms, too.

It's excellent. Thank you very much. I refrain from using hermeneutic because I had it in my head, but I thought, no,

I'm just going to make it plain. It's perfect. We were talking about that last week and making sure that it's digestible, but it doesn't mean we don't throw it out there.

There's that tension there. So thank you very much. It's excellent. So I have grappled with this question for a lot of years and grew up on the

King James Bible, then had a little NIV stint for a little while after a while, and when it first came out in my life, and again, we're dating ourselves as we're talking, but it became popular, but kind of became a pew

Bible in a lot of churches, the NIV Bible. Then I came back to New King James because I grew up on King James, memorized most of it.

Then I went to seminary, and seminarians make you carry an NASB all the time everywhere you go.

That's required purchase. So you get this Bible that's like this thick, and so NASB.

So to give a short answer, where I've arrived, when you look at translations of the

Bible, you have a word -for -word attempt at a translation. That would be that NASB translation.

Matter of fact, some of the NASB is not even good English because it is an attempt at a word -for -word translation.

So you have word -for -word translation, then you have like a thought -for -thought translation that's trying to capture the truth, but it's thought -for -thought, and then you've got even further extreme, a paraphrase.

So I'm going to take a cop -out answer to start with. For a new believer, what is the best translation for you?

The one that you will read, okay? The one that you read. Now, there are bad translations.

We discovered that last week, but as far as a conservative translation, that is a word -for -word translation or a thought -for -thought translation, what is the best one for you?

The one that you will actually pick up and read and study. And what you'll find is, as Big John was talking about last week, what you'll find is you'll probably end up having multiple translations laying across your table because you're really trying to discover the truth of that text.

Now, me, where I have personally arrived in the last 10 to 12 years, I personally prefer the

ESV Bible, and the reason the ESV, I prefer, personally, this is opinion, okay?

This is not doctrine. The reason I personally prefer the ESV Bible is because I do feel like it is a rugged word -for -word translation, but it has better readability than the

NASB Bible, okay? So when we planted our church, that's the version of the

Bible that we said, hey, we're going to be preaching from this version. This is not legalism.

We're not elevating this version over another version, but we do believe it has a good word -for -word translation that has a higher level of readability than the

NASB or other word -for -word translations. And so that's the one that we've chosen, and the one

I've been reading and studying from for the last several years, but I still,

I always have multiple translations across, and then if I'm preparing a message or even in my own personal study,

I still refer back to original languages as best I can, you know, and best as I can understand to understand those verbiages.

So ESV is where I'm at right now, and who knows, with the new discoveries we have and Dead Sea Scrolls and things, there's a lot of new versions of the

Bible coming out as far as translations. And I'll just say this, why do they come out? Why aren't people printing new translations?

Because they make a lot of money. That's one, if you want to get right down to it. But at the same time,

I praise God that God is still using people to dig deep into original manuscripts to continue to accurately present the truth of the gospel and it's a beautiful thing.

So, but like I said, as of right now, I'm an ESV guy, but it's not the idol nor the hill to down for me.

That's right. That was really good. Did you want me to show this on the podcast?

Yeah, if you could. I'll see if I can figure out how to do that real quick. All right, share screen.

So while he's setting this up, Jonathan said you'll find that once you really start studying that you'll have many open translations before you.

That's a picture of Braden Patterson. By the way, if you don't know Braden Patterson, I want to encourage you to go over to his web or his

YouTube page. Like him on Facebook, but he's a reformed ex -Mormon.

He is an ex -Mormon that has been saved by God's grace. He's pastors in Idaho somewhere.

I can't remember where, but he is a solid dude. But in that picture, he took a picture apparently in one of his study sessions.

It looks like there's about 12 Bibles open. He's got them on the floor and everywhere. Amen. Takes what it takes.

That's right. So, Big John. Yes, sir. I know most of you are probably like me.

You know, there's certain things that we've studied more than others. I don't want to put you on the spot with any of the questions with some than you are with others.

Same goes with you guys. Feel free to defer if I throw a question at you that you prefer one over the other.

Out of the next few questions, is there one that you favor more than the other? I mean, I haven't read all the questions in front of me, but the one that was slated next,

I like. I thought it was pretty providential that it was coming up because it's something that I feel that I can learn if that's

OK. And a study because I believe you ought to be reading scripture every day. And there should be a time that you devote to God and God alone.

You don't share that time, but you don't try to put that time with anything else.

You don't read your Bible. And for instance, you don't read your Bible with the television on. You get what I'm saying?

Turn the television off, get up, leave the room if you have to. In any case, those moments, those moments are crucial for the spiritual growth of the individual.

Those moments cannot be placed on a back burner. You must keep those moments.

But there is a difference between that and study. And as a as a preacher, as somebody who's every night we have a devotion in our house and I make somebody else lead it every night.

All my kids will lead a devotion throughout the week. There's six of us and there's seven days in the week. Everybody gets one during the week.

And it's just the way it's going to be as long as I'm alive. And in that, I'm teaching my kids hermeneutics by forcing them to defend their devotion or defend.

And I've turned maybe a little bit of a devotion to a Bible study. But there will be a deeper dive into a study and there will be a devotion.

When I read a portion of Scripture that I'm on, I've got a daily plan that I read through this section every day throughout the entire year.

But I may not do a deep study on that section of Scripture. I read the

Scripture. I pray through the Scripture. I think that's important to do both of those. And I let that,

I let that give me nourishment to my marrow, which is what I need. But I don't take those to the church.

I only take messages to the church that have been studied through. And you may have to read three, four, five books in order to catch all the context around the

Scripture that you're going to teach. And this takes a lot of study. This takes hours. It takes what it takes.

And we don't cheapen that by breezing through it. So there's a difference between a devotion and a study.

And the study is always going to be far deeper than the devotion. But do not, do not get those confused and think that my study will supplement my devotion for today because you can't get up and labor in the

Lord in front of God's people and be starving to death spiritually because you haven't been reading for yourself to grow closer to God on the daily.

and you don't have to be a leader in a church or in a Sunday school class or anything else for you need to do a

Bible study. I was studying the Bible because it's the best news

I'd ever heard in my entire life and I wanted to know everything I could know about it. Long before I was ever preaching the gospel, I was studying the

Word. And there was differences between my studies then and my devotion. Typically for me, the study is not really a study until the spiral round notebook comes out and the concordance comes off the shelf.

When the concordance comes off the shelf and the notebook comes out and you don't get three verses in without having to read some of Tyler's favorite languages and some of Pastor John's favorite languages and your best charitable dialect, you don't consider it.

You don't consider it a study unless those things start to happen. Doulos was the word that made me study.

What's it mean, Tyler? Slave. It means exactly one thing. I bought the Holman Christian Standard Bible when it came out when

I found out that it was the only Bible at the time in print that had doulos as accurately written down.

I was studying and I was going through the computer and I ran across a clip from John MacArthur. And I know you

Church of God boys ain't supposed to listen to John MacArthur. But I was reading. That's all right.

That's all right. I'm a big dude. I was sitting there listening to him.

I said, wait a minute. So I pulled it up on my computer and I went to Lifeway.

That's how long ago that's been. I bought me one. Have you read his book?

Slave? No, but believe it or not. Check it out. Yeah, look it up.

It's great. Like I said, this is something you're probably not going to have on most

Pentecostal shelf. And that's a good one.

That's a good one. And I think what you said, King James, I think what you said, big John is really key and really important for parents who are listening because scripture commands parents to.

And I think somebody mentioned this. Either this podcast or last one. Scripture commands parents to train up a child in ways that they should go to teach their children.

And one of the things that we hear a lot is that I don't feel adequate. I don't feel equipped.

You know, I don't have a seminary degree. But, you know, what you were saying encourages the parent because the

Holy Spirit will equip us and the Holy Spirit will guide us and come on to do what he has called us to do.

And I think what you said was very encouraging, especially to parents. And I want to share something, too, with you.

Let me know if you agree with this conversation versus studying. I think both have if you go down both paths, the path of devotional, the path of studying, they're both going to lead to the same destination.

You're going to have a deeper rest in God. But there may be those times where you're struggling or you need that joy.

You need to return to that joy. And so you may be going down that devotional path where you're looking for those passages that's going to give you, bring you joy and bring that joy back or help you in your struggle where the study time is going to, like you said, be a little more extensive and take a little bit longer.

But essentially, both paths are going to lead you to the same destination, that destination of deeper peace and rest in God.

Does that make sense? Yeah, I don't know if that statement whatsoever. Gotcha. Sorry, real quick.

So just for an example, a quick example, because I don't think we gave any examples earlier.

Well, there were some, but this particular is one that has jumped out to me as a,

I know it's jumping backwards a little bit, but going to an apparent contradiction in the scriptures or in this goes to the

Bible translations and everything else. So in Jude, Jude chapter one, you all probably know what

I'm going to read here. But for example, just in the New King James, the difference between the

New King James and the ESV, the

New King James in Jude verse, let's just read from three.

Beloved, I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation. I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once delivered to all the saints.

For certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only

Lord, Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the

Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt after were destroyed, those who did not believe.

So this right here is one of those things that secular folk, that folks who want to deny the authority and errancy, veracity of the scripture will go to in the new translations.

So for example, again, I like Pastor Jonathan M., my preaching Bible, that's what

I use, ESV. But this is what it says. If you, back to verse five, remember what verse five said.

I want to remind you that though you once knew this, the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt after were destroyed, those who did not believe.

The ESV puts it this way. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward, destroyed those who did not believe it.

Now, to some folks, that may seem an apparent contradiction, but that is just, that is just specificity in who the

Lord is. Who is the Lord? The Lord is Jesus Christ. Throughout the

New Testament Scriptures, we have that. We have that specified, but that, there's a generality that's used in the, like the

King James and the New King James, some of those older translations. There's a generality there that is specified in the newer translations because of, like what

Jonathan sent us and what's going to be an available resource on the site.

By the way, that's truthandlove .org, right? Truthandlovenetwork .com.

Truthandlovenetwork .com. Sorry. Truthandlovenetwork .com. This is going to be a resource, but Pastor Jonathan has a fantastic resource that he's put up here but that will talk about many of the different manuscripts and the opportunity and the new manuscripts that we have access to and so on and so forth.

Some things that you'll find very beneficial to you there, but that is just one of those things that I absolutely love about the

ESV is the specificity. It's so interesting that you say that,

Claude, because I know in the last program we talked about the King James only folks and that's one of their arguments is that the

King James is the more specific and the newer translations are the more general. They don't say it like that.

They say the newer translations have taken out Jesus and are not as specific as the

King James, but there you've just shown us where this newer translation is more specific. Yep.

Fascinating. Now, interesting enough, I've got the updated Holman Christian Standard Bible that came out a couple years ago and they do not render

Dulas a slave. Really? They've changed it to servant. Hmm.

I wonder why. I don't know. The only exception I can see would be like Philippians 2.

He took on the humble position of a slave, I think it says, but I'm looking everywhere else and it's servant.

Wow. Well, that's what the King James used too, wasn't it?

Servant. Two times. Bond, servant, servant. Yep. Yeah, because that's what Paul referred to himself as repeatedly in there.

Yeah. But slave is the accurate rendering. Yeah. Sometimes the word bond, servant is rendered

Dulos and I may be saying that wrong. That's the way it's spelled. So, you know, put your rocks down.

Okay, it says... Dulos. It says servant in Philippians as well, but it's in the concordance of slave, but it's not in the

Texas slave. It's weird. That's kind of weird. I've got my Holman Christian Standard is probably a decade old by now.

I mean, because it's been a while. And I think that shows some of the systematic theology of the influence of culture too.

It really does. I think that's these new issues of culture and those kind of stuff.

That's why you do have to... Going back to what we said a while ago, textual criticism.

You know, even English translations, you have to do textual criticism. You have to...

You can read it. Now, here's what I would say. I would argue that servant, bond, servant or slave in English potentially mean different things to us based on our presupposition.

Based on our own presuppositions. But the word dulos in Greek had one meaning. That's right.

And that's what we need to understand. And that's why it's very important with our hermeneutics, with our discovery of what that author was saying.

A slave cannot serve two masters. Thank you. I was fixing to say, you can use context to differentiate.

But I do think in modern translations, culture does affect the words that translators choose to use.

And so some of it may be politically driven. Some of it may be sensitivity driven. Some, you know, all those kind of issues.

So does it change the meaning of the verse? No, it doesn't. It doesn't. But at the same time, if you really want to know the weight of what

Paul was adding in there, to me, the word servant is a very positive term. To me, the word slave isn't necessarily a really positive term.

You know, I mean, that's not. And so that's why we have to parse through those things and exegete through those things.

And so thank you for bringing that out, Tom. That's interesting. That's very interesting. The thing that Brother Claw was saying earlier, regardless of which translation you decide to read, it will never negate context surrounding what you're reading.

That's right, Brother. And just like you were talking about, Pastor John, if you read

Jesus's parable, where he says a slave or a servant, according to which translation you're reading, cannot serve two masters, in a lot of ways, if you think about a servant as a very superficial term that we might use in America, well, he could.

A servant, a butler, could have more than one master, you know? And then whenever he gets off work, he's his own master, right?

But a slave is bought. A slave was paid for. And a slave was completely used in all areas by his master.

So even if the word used is bond servant, servant, doulos or doulos, how'd you say that?

Doulos. Doulos, all right. So the context surrounding the word is gonna drive out the meaning of the word.

And so long as Christ is the forefront of what you're looking into, and so long as man being abased is in your heart when you're reading scripture, the

Holy Spirit will pull the truth out of scripture every single time. Amen. I gotta run all the way through that on this.

So I'm gonna send you guys to two places. For the sake of time,

I'm gonna send you guys to three places. If you have questions, put them in the comments and you can ask those questions.

You can continue with the organ. I was just gonna talk through it. No, I did. Yes, send us those questions if you have questions because for the sake of time,

I wanna get to some more of the practical questions. But we have some more academic technical questions like the history of the

Bible and translations. Why does the Catholic Bible have extra books? Some people may be interested in that.

Why do people disagree over translations? If there's inconsistencies, does that affect inerrancy and infallibility?

If you have more questions like those, send us a message or go to the resource page.

There's a lot of answers out there and we'd be glad to point you in the right direction or try to answer those questions.

So Tyler, let's finish up with a few more of these practical questions and I'll give you the next one. So for a new believer or a young believer, where should they begin their reading and how should they approach the

Bible? When you were first starting out, my recommendation personally would be one of two things.

I would say either start in the beginning and get to know the history of God with like Genesis, Exodus, some of those early books as he's laying out beginnings.

Or I would say start in the book of Psalms. And the reason I give

Psalms is because the book of Psalms is essentially a collection of prayers. Psalms illustrate how we commune with God, how we interact with God, the way that we pray, how we sing to Him, how we...

It shows us how to get into that character of God, how to anchor ourselves in who

He is. And I think that's equally important. So I would, I guess say, the best place to start as a new believer is getting to know

God, getting to know who He is, what He does, and how

He has revealed Himself to us through the written word. Is there a certain book of the Bible that a person should begin with?

And your recommendation? I mean, I'll always say Psalms. John is a great place to be as well.

John is very clear. It's very... He speaks like the people.

He speaks the language of the people. Even when we look at it in Greek, I've heard it said that Greek, that in Greek, John is some of the easiest

Greek to read. It's like the redneck English of Greek. John is very...

He's very readable. He's very to the point. He's got big points, but he makes them very concisely.

And he introduces you to Jesus, who is God, on every page. Well, can't hear you, brother.

If I lead somebody to the Lord, I always point to the book of John because it's absolutely unapologetic in dictating

Christ as God. You don't get to the end of the book of John and be on the fence as to who

Jesus is. Since our order changed,

John, I'm going to go to you. Big John, I'm going to go to you next. Certainly. I do not read the Bible well, and I have a learning disability with comprehension.

So did I. How can I study the Bible? I had a reading disability whenever I was in school, too.

I had to go to a special class for it. And just like playing guitar, once I couldn't do that,

I used to couldn't play a banjo or a machine or a whale or any of those things. But the more I've done it, the better I got at it.

And the more that I've read and the more that I've committed myself to God's word, the more he has taught me.

You'll never get good at anything if you don't ever try. However, Scripture is something slightly different than any other trade in that you're led by the

Lord in Scripture. And if you refuse the Holy Spirit's role in understanding Scripture, you'll never understand

Scripture the way it was intended to be written because you're reading it apart from the author. So if a person doesn't read well,

I know a lot of folks don't like the NLT, but I've given a bunch of them out. I've read it.

It's not a bad translation. It is easier to read than the NASB or the ACSB or the

CSB or the KJV. I've got bunches of them. I still like the NLT Bible and occasionally we'll pick it up and read it.

I've compared it to the ESV in terms of some Scriptures, not all of them, and its readability is a little bit better.

It may not be a word for word. I can't speak to that. Pastor John might be able to speak to that more than I can.

But if you don't read well and you got to start somewhere,

I would recommend the NLT and the Book of John and pray through every Scripture you read.

And it takes what it takes. Don't rush it. Don't think that there's a number of verses you need to read in a day.

Read to understand. If you have to read it 17 times to understand it, it don't do you a bit of good to go through it and not understand it.

Amen. Amen. Before we go on, I want to give a big thank you to everybody who is watching now and has watched before and will watch in the future on Sermon Audio.

So if you're watching on Sermon Audio, I know on this format you're not able to give a comment, but we would like to hear from you.

So you can find us live on YouTube or on Facebook, Truth in Love Network.

You can just search those on Facebook or YouTube. You can leave your comments there live or you can leave your comments there later.

But we'd love to hear from you and we thank you for... We don't want to take you from Sermon Audio, but we thank you for watching while you're on Sermon Audio.

Claude, how important is it to study the Bible in community?

Very important. Hey, I'll take that.

And for this reason... Really important, Tonto. Oh, there you go. I feel like Ricky Bobby.

I don't know what to do with my hands. It's very important. That was super spiritual, wasn't it?

So it's important because of this. It's important because in community, you're not...

Scripture, of course, is not dependent upon our opinion of what it's saying, but community, number one, is physical community within the local congregation.

You're not a member of a local church and you're a Christian. I'll say it, shame on you.

You need to find a Bible -believing, Bible -teaching, Bible -preaching church where men and women, boys and girls just like you are there.

And by doing so, you create accountability with one another and you can bounce what you think the

Scripture is saying off one another. And then greater community, expanding out like one of those little toy atoms, expanding out, reading this, studying the

Bible in community, looking at church history, what church history has... What has been the pattern of the interpretation of Scriptures throughout church history so that...

And you'll see it. It bears... History has borne itself out that there have been errant views and errant interpretations of Scripture that have been addressed an issue and the issue has been resolved.

There's been clarity brought to the matter. So local community is important because it creates personal accountability, larger community, church history, so on and so forth, good theology books, again, create a level of accountability.

Amen, amen. Pastor John, how can I motivate myself to want to study or to get back in motivation to read and study the

Bible with all the distractions in the world? We all chase after what we're hungry for.

Amen, Jonathan. And so, the Bible says, those that hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled.

And so, the more I learn about myself, the more I realize how sinful

I am and how desperately I need a Savior. And so then, if I want to get to know my

Savior, then I need to pursue Him through His Word. That is the best methodology.

And so, for me to motivate myself, and I'm as guilty as Him when we all go through seasons of life that are busy.

That's right. Any preacher that said he's never prepared a Saturday night special, he's a liar.

So I want to make sure I want to make sure everyone knows that is listening to this.

We all struggle with time management, priority management, and have all fallen guilty of binging

Netflix or whatever TV show that we like versus picking up our Bible. So, first of all,

I'd say don't let that question create condemnation for believers.

And don't think that reading your Bible is going to make you more righteous. Your righteousness is sealed in Christ. But if I want to learn about my righteousness and I want to learn about my identity and I want to learn of the things of God, then we pick up the

Bible. And so, for me, my constant prayer to keep me motivated is,

Lord, make me hungry and make me thirsty. And then

Jesus said, all that are thirsty, come unto me and I'll give you something to drink. And all that are hungry, come unto me.

I'll give you bread. I'm the bread. He is the Logos. And so, for me, it is precious when

I pick up my Bible, I'm going to drink of that and I'm going to eat of that. That is, that is the water, that is the bread, that is the body, that is

Christ, that is the Logos that I'm going to consume of him in a very spiritual way.

And, and when I experience that, it, it makes me want it again.

So, but then you create priority for that. So, so it is a struggle.

We all be honest about that, but, but thirst for it. It's interesting how not, not all physical analogies translate well over into spiritual analogies.

But, but in this case, I think this one does. And it speaks to what you were saying.

Changing your diet really makes a difference. You, and you can, you can tell the difference.

When you stop eating certain foods and you start eating other foods, there's a different satisfaction.

There's a different energy level. And so, same thing is true spiritually. When you change your diet, you get rid of these things and you fill yourself with, with spiritual things.

It's amazing the difference that you'll see. I think that's a lot of what you were saying.

All right, Tyler, am I, am I sinning? If I'm, if I miss a day, I know in my generation, and it's, you know, and it's a good thing to encourage people to do.

But we, we've all heard the encouragement and the, the harping on daily

Bible reading, daily Bible reading plans and get your daily, daily Bible reading plans. But what if I miss a day?

Am I sinning if I miss a day? And Pastor John already spoke to this, really, but how do

I get back on track? If I, if I do miss a day or two? Well, we're all familiar,

I think, with the first chapter of Psalms. Blessed is the man who walketh not in the council of the ungodly, or standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is on the law of the Lord, and on his law does he meditate day and night.

Amen. And, and maybe it's, it's my generation, but we tend to look at that and think,

I can't do that. I firmly believe that the only person that has ever truly lived that Psalm was

Jesus. The only one that could truly delight in the law and meditate on that law day and night, every minute of every day was

Jesus. Right. And so by definition, every single one of us falls short of that metric to some degree or another.

Now we will never read the Bible enough. We can always put more into spending time with God.

We can always read more. And so we can get caught in that, that I didn't read enough today.

I didn't take enough notes. I didn't do this. I didn't buy enough commentaries this week. We can, we can get into all that and we can kind of beat our heads up about that.

But the reality is it's not, it's not about the volume. I don't think as much as it is getting to know

Jesus. Amen. As much as it is being saturated with who he is. Amen.

Not just in the head, but in the heart. Amen. And so when we do get off track, let's open the

Bible. Let's start again. It's a, it's a rainy day. So let's, let's read in light of the fact that it's a rainy day.

Let's go to Psalm 42 as the deer longs for flowing streams.

So I long for you. Oh God. Amen. One of the things

I think I heard you say was it really, it really may not cross over the line into the sin area until we make it legalistic.

Is that I would think so. Yes. Okay. Because then we make it a work. Right. And then it, you know, it's not by grace anymore.

And it becomes a measure of our righteousness. Absolutely. John. Yes, sir.

Not all of us are like our pastors. We don't have a special study or we don't have a special room designated with bookshelves and filled with books and commentaries.

So is it okay to listen to the podcast or listen to sermons online to help me study the

Bible? Sure. Well, sure. I mean, I'm sitting in my kitchen table right now. I mean, fact of the matter is, if you want to do anything and you want to do it, well, use every tool at your disposal.

We live in a generation and a time and an age when information is at your fingertips. You carry a device in your pocket that has access to probably every single translation of the

Bible that is in print. And they're free. Shame on you. If you don't use it, there's no excuse, really, for most of us.

Now, I know there's going to be somebody listening. Maybe they won't because they don't have a phone to listen on, but they might be somebody who doesn't have a phone in their pocket or internet at their home.

You know, there, there's still ways. There's still ways to get and still get a

Bible and go through it in America and other countries. It may be more difficult, but if we're speaking to Americans and we're speaking to people in our, in our age and of like, of like areas,

I suppose, use podcast, sermon, audio, uh, whatever, whatever is out there, but always, always, always back it with scripture.

Don't just take and substitute scripture reading for a good Paul Washer sermon.

I love Paul Washer sermons. Listen to all of them if you want to, but don't take Paul Washer study for your own.

Don't take, don't take John McArthur's John Pipers or pastor John, uh, foster sermons for your own study.

Study the, this scripture out. And, uh, fact matter is there's a lot of times that these, these resources have helped me to understand something just because it's from a different perspective and perspectives a lot.

You're, you're reading scripture. If you get tunneled into something and maybe you have one of these apparent contradictions that you can't work through, man, use

YouTube your advantage. You'd use it. If he's working on the rear end of your Plymouth, yep. You know, get pull

YouTube out and type it up. I guarantee you somebody on there has already dealt with this and let that be a resource to you.

And, uh, to what, what brother Tyler was saying, if, if there's somebody who's listening and they have gotten out of practice of reading scripture for whatever reason, the reason is irrelevant.

Uh, don't let condemnation. Like we spoke about in a couple of podcasts together, different con condemnation and conviction, but don't let the condemnation of the enemy stop you from getting back in the

Bible. Don't feel so guilty about having stopped reading that you don't ever go back to reading because that's, that's one of the traps

I've heard. And, and, and been in more than anything is like you missed two or three days. Like, Oh, where do

I start now? You know, I've done, I forgot where I was at. I forgot what I was reading. Just pick it back up and start again.

You know, get back up on the horse. What throws you, man.

It could add one last thing to that last question there. Is it okay to listen to sermons and podcasts to help me study the

Bible? Yeah. Um, I know I'm the guy, the, uh, the pooper of the parties a lot of times, but I think it's very important that we keep in mind here for that question.

When folks are listening that I am going to say, sure. It's okay to listen to sermons and podcasts to help you study the

Bible. But if you are in a Bible preaching and a Bible teaching church, what would be extremely beneficial to you, particularly if you're elders and pastors are putting in the work to prepare

God's word to sit before you each week to take that message, whether it's one message on Sunday, or if you have two sermon or two services on Sunday, both messages at that, take that home and determined to do what big

John said, where they have devotional every night and say, let's examine the preacher's message this week.

Like, you know, and I tell her, I tell the folks at reformata every week test everything you hear me say by the word, because I could tell you something wrong.

And if, and if they just take the word, take the time to go home on a

Monday or Tuesday, whatever the case may be, and literally listen to the message and pick it apart with minor exclusions.

You can't, a pet peeve doesn't count as a strike against me.

He didn't pronounce that right. That's what's wrong with his sermons. Right. But to literally walk through the sermons that, that your pastors are so diligently praying and working and studying to prepare, to feed the congregation.

If the congregations would just do that, that would be a great benefit to their spiritual health and wellbeing and doing that.

yeah. And that, that speaks to the fact that your elders have you in mind.

Right. And that's significant. That we actually love and care for the congregation souls.

Yeah, absolutely. Pastor John, this is the last and final question for tonight.

When you finish, it doesn't matter. I love all you guys. I love to hear you guys share the gospel.

So big John, you want to share the gospel and Tyler, you want to pray when he finishes, that'd be great.

Pastor John, last final question. We've learned that it's okay to listen to sermons and listen to podcasts.

But as big John mentioned, you got YouTube out there and there, there's a plethora there.

There is many out there that we could find. How do we know who we can trust? That's what

I was thinking in the, in the back of my mind. So I'm thankful that that's, that I'm getting to say this.

So if you do just Google or you do just YouTube something, you're going to have tons of opinions.

And so I value what Claude just said. It has been a major challenge to me to know that our missional communities and our small groups, they take my sermon on Sunday and every single church member that gathers in small groups all week long is unpacking and critiquing my message.

And so it's, it is, it's really good. And it, and it holds me accountable.

That's right. And, and, and then also it, we, we, we've started using technology.

So we have a church app and, and so it's vertical life church and not trying to make a plug there, but if you want to download it, you can, but I upload my sermon notes every single week so that they have exactly what

I have in front of me, every cross reference, everything. And so it's like a spoiler alert if they read ahead, you know, when

I upload that typically I do wait until Saturday night to upload the notes or Sunday morning. um, so, so how do you know who to trust?

It can be very difficult, but I thought about this passage of scripture in Galatians chapter one, and I looked it up a few minutes ago cause

I was trying to calculate, am I going to get that one or not? So let's do what

Paul says in Galatians chapter one, verses eight and nine. Okay. Verses eight, nine, it says, but though we were an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you.

Let him be accursed. And then he repeats it again. And as we said before, so now I say again, if any man preached any other gospel unto you, uh, unto you, then that you have received, let him be accursed.

In other words, Paul said, let him go to hell. Let him be damned. Let him be cut off from the grace of God.

If he preaches any other gospel. And so how do you know who to trust? Well, guys, we all know, we all say, well, we like reform theology or we like freewill theology, or we like Baptist theology.

We like Presbyterian theology. We like Lutheran theology or all this. We can actually punch holes or find people in every theological system.

That's not trustworthy and mishandles the gospel. And so who do we know how to trust?

At the end of the day, we don't trust anybody. Preach.

Claude just said it. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Every week.

The only thing we have that we can trust 100 % of the time is the word of God. And there's been, there's been times and I've been preaching for 20, over 22 years now.

So it's one of my ball spots getting bigger and my hair. For long, I'll be looking like poor

Rob, going to club. But really, we trust the word of God.

And folks, if you're listening tonight, that's why that's what we're trying to tell you. That is so important. We do honor those.

We do honor those that have rule over us. The Bible tells that in the book of Hebrews, those elders, especially those that labor in the teaching of the word of God.

But even in our best labor and our best effort with a pure motive and a clear conscience, is it possible that a man can misinterpret something, can misunderstand something in the word?

And the answer is absolutely yes. We try not to. And as years go along, we get better at it.

But I go back and listen to some messages that I preached when I first started preaching. And I just, I cringe.

I'm like, I cannot believe I said that. Yeah. So I love the sovereignty of God. And a lot of my life has been by the foolishness of preaching.

Okay. This is the word describes it, that people have heard the word of God. So, so at the end of the day, what

I would say is there are men of God that are striving to rightly divine the word of truth across every spectrum.

Listen to them. Pay attention to what they say. But we don't trust them apart from the truth of the word of God.

And if you find any man at any time preaching any other gospel, this goes back to that, to that question, even earlier, how do we deal with if we disagree on translation or interpretation?

Well, there are absolutely close handed issues that no one in this group, even though we may joyfully spar around open handed issues, as we've said before, that, that issues that, that's as, as, as Paul was saying, it's still a mystery.

It's not revealed yet, but we, we've got our best idea. Well, we can joyfully spar around those things and not divide.

But Paul said here is there is an absolutely ironclad truth. And you better know that truth, church family.

You better know that truth in any man. Amen. That diverts from that truth.

I don't care what theological system he promotes or, what denomination he, if he, even with an angel from heaven, diverts from that gospel, and turn away and run away, separate yourself from them.

The Bible says, cut them off and separate yourself until they come to repentance. And so, so only trust the word of God.

Don't, don't put your confidence in men. And my heart's breaking is, is even I'm, I'm hearing news reports today of, of another pastor who

I think through the years has, has been very intentional in trying to rightly divide the word of truth and very practical and very apical, but had to step down from his congregation, you know, and it breaks our heart, you know, in those things.

And we see these celebrity pastors that get a lot of attention. And, and the only reason we, they get a lot of attention is because the

Lord is very greatly, but are they failure? Absolutely. And how many hundreds of more pastors fail daily that are never on the internet or never on the news or never on those things.

And that's why I just tell people, look, please, please. I tell my church family Tom, don't, don't tell people come to our church.

We got a great preacher or don't tell people come to our church because we've got a great praise team, or we got a cool building, which we don't have a cool building.

By the way, we don't even have air conditioning, but it's hot. It's a hot building, but don't, don't tell people that what you, what you win people with is what you want them to.

And we lead people to Jesus and the truth of the word of God. And if they, if they are overcome to salvation by the truth of the word of God and fall in love with Jesus Christ, then, then they can respect a man of God who is leading them rightly in the word of God.

But they'll also have discernment when someone leaves them wrongly and they'll know the truth and they'll be able to turn away from false teaching.

So it may not be the answer we was looking for, but that's, that's really my conviction. Don't trust anybody, listen to them.

But then just like Claude said to test them, test all of us, test everything you've heard in this podcast tonight, go look it up in the scriptures and see, see what you find.

And eventually though, you'll find consistency among guys. You'll find guys who, who are consistently striving.

And then there can be a fatherly figure, but again, only trust the scripture only.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And just to try and stay in line with it, with what you were saying, would you agree with this?

That if, you know, I'm young in the faith and I'm new to this and I want to listen to some sermons.

I'll come across somebody and I don't recognize them. I don't know them, but I know pastor

John, I know big John, I know Claude. And I believe that they are striving to rightly divide the word of truth.

Go to them. And have you heard of this guy? Is that okay to get recommendations? Of course, that's going back to what, what we, what

Claude answered earlier too, is that how important it is to study the word of God in community. And, and it's absolutely essential.

It's a non -negotiable for the scriptures. The Koinonia of the church is one of the major functions of the church is the fellowship.

And, and we go to acts two and acts four. What did you find the early church doing, man? They're meeting house to house.

They're breaking bread together. They're discussing the teaching of the apostles. That makes sense.

I mean, so, so by all means, absolutely that should happen among the brotherhood.

And that is discipleship. So I hope I'm not coming across too strongly on don't trust that there is.

I have confidence in brothers, y 'all included. I mean, even me and Robert had good conversation this week where I was like, bro,

I am sorry. If I mean, we were kind of having some spirit of conversation on Facebook and I know it can be so misinterpreted tone and those kinds of things just through texts, you know?

And so, so Bob in brotherhood guys, we should, should counsel one another and ask advice.

But what I'm saying, clause might say, well, the sky is green today, you know? Well, I love you,

Claude, and I trust you. That's what I'm going to do. Walk outside and look up.

Well, that's trust. Trust is earned. It truly is. Trust is earned.

And we've got to be disciplined in our, by using discretion.

We've got to be disciplined where that over a period of time, like when we, when Rob started getting all of us together,

I mean, every one of us, well, I don't know how this person will react or respond.

If I say that, or what if so -and -so does that, what will I say it right?

We, this is, it's a natural part of it's organic. It's it's the organic friendship growing.

You have to, you have to see that you can trust. And when you see that you can trust, then you begin to trust.

And then you do the fall test, right? Okay. Everybody stand behind big John. John, don't worry.

Just close your eyes and fall. Yeah, we've got you. And everybody's winking at each other.

We've got you. We've got you. All right. On the count of three. Oh, on one.

Everybody goes out the door to three. Well, we know that's not going to kill you.

And we know that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. So you know what

I'm saying though? That was just to give a funny illustration, but truly there is a trust that is built up amongst the people of God.

Particularly the scripture teaches us in, I think it's in Galatians do good unto all men, but especially unto them who are of the household faith.

So that, that, that coin on the fellowship, right? That's what's happens when we, when we come together and we, that's, that's part of like in another very simple, simple way.

When, when we hear each other preach and teach. And guess what?

I know that Tyler is a man of the word. So when I hear him preach or teach, and I hear him say a thing, plain scripture, it ought to be instinct for me to say, amen,

Tyler. Now, if he starts saying, and he starts making an illustration to, to, to kind of open, open and expand his thought on what he said about that text.

And that illustration, no matter how strange it may seem to me at first, because I've never heard of some of the things that he's talking about, but it does make full connection.

It's what I should do. Amen. Amen. we need to be willing to say amen.

And to encourage our brothers in the truth. It doesn't happen.

First time hearing. It doesn't happen. The 50th time hearing, but if it's a faithful and a, and a consistent gathering, like what we're doing on Thursday nights.

And we are, we are, I mean, I'm telling you what coming in here tonight.

I texted everybody. I said, I'll be slow tonight, but man, just to think about.

Of course, this doesn't replace church, but just to think that I get the same.

Cause I don't have any better word for it feeling about coming in to be with you all on Thursday nights.

That feeling of man, we're getting to know each other better. I'm getting to know these guys a little bit more.

I'm learning a little bit more about what makes them tick. I'm learning that they've got problems that they've got issues.

And I'm learning that. If I say something stupid or out of line.

They're probably going to give me some visual cues. Or maybe even after the show is over, say, you know, that might've been a little over the top, but, but we can, it's that mutual trust that is built up amongst one another.

And I, so, and I mean this man, I do this at church. I'm trying to look around my camera and my mic here, but I won't look at you in the eyes.

I guess I can just do that like this. Can I just tell y 'all, I love you. And I appreciate you and all of y 'all's faithfulness to the

Lord. Amen. And see that builds trust. That's transparency.

And, and that, that brings hope and that brings confidence and brotherhood. And, and I think,

I think part of what I was saying earlier too, the reason I was coming at it so strongly, I grew up in a culture.

That was more interested in, in preaching. Tradition.

And preaching. A denomination or preaching a culture. More than rightly.

Yeah. So who I trust. Our brothers that say tradition is important.

Denominations are important. There's things that we have convictions about that. Those important that those are important, but who

I turn to, to trust is the one that says, but all those are secondary. If any, at any time it disagrees with the word of God.

Amen. Disagrees with this word. Then no matter where I'm at, what church I mean, if it disagrees with this word, all of that becomes secondary.

And so that's, that's what we learned to trust is those that will, that are faithfully striving, not imperfection, not with all knowledge, but with genuine, authentic, heartfelt submission that submitting ourselves one to another, loving one another, just like called said.

And, and again, even in this group is we all come from different backgrounds, different histories, different stories, different denominations.

But all of us around this table right here would say, let's open the Bible and let's dig into what it says.

And a guy that authentically does that. I'll trust him enough to sit at the table with him and labor with him.

Labor. Yes. By the way, we're laboring together to discover those truths.

So thank you. Thank you very much for, for that call. And, and I'm thankful as well.

Absolutely. And that feeling that I think Paul was talking about is where I was coming from.

And I was talking about the, the illumination of the Holy spirit shows us Christ. And you, you may say, well, well,

Claude wasn't talking about Jesus or he wasn't talking about a passage of scripture, but what he was describing was the work of the

Holy spirit among brothers using the word. And when we see that I'm seeing

Christ and it energizes me. And so I'm seeing

Christ because the Holy spirit is illuminating us. And it's, it's beautiful.

And it's energizing. And with that being said, I do appreciate and love all you guys as well. And the guys that aren't with us tonight.

I love them too. I'm going to turn it over to you, big John. And then Tyler. To close us in prayer.

So for, for the sake of context, I like to take the bulk of my gospel message out of first Corinthians chapter 15.

And this is my favorite, my favorite chapter of scripture, but I'll condense the best

I can. God being infinitely Holy after having created man who he wanted to be in communion with him and man sin and was because of man's sin, death entered into man.

And the whole creation was cursed because of that. And because God being

Holy, can't simply pardon sin. And he had to become a propitiation for sin.

Sin had to be atoned for. So Christ God in the flesh coming down, fully fulfilling the entire law that he give goes to the cross.

Innocently. And become sin. So that we might have his righteousness.

And all those who put their faith and trust in Christ and Christ alone, he pardons them and they enter from death to life.

This is done completely as a work of grace and faith in Christ alone.

And is only achieved by the initiation of God toward man and man and submission to God.

100%. And all those who surrendered to him will be born again.

God will take up resident in them and they'll live forever. They'll have eternal life.

All right.

Let us pray. Father God, you have continued to feed us through your word.

And it says in first Corinthians chapter 15, just as John was referring to the first man was from the earth.

A man of dust, but the second man is from heaven. And Lord, we are anchored.

And the second man who came from heaven, made himself known to us in a way that only you could do.

And we are grateful. That you have preserved this word for us for our edification, for our increased knowledge of you for 2000 years,

Lord continue to feed us. We are hungry in Christ's name.

Amen. Amen. I want to thank everybody for watching. Thank you guys for your participation tonight and all your encouragement to me.

Yeah. Thank you guys for watching. We would love to see you at truth and love network .com. You can find all of our other podcasts or at least links to those other podcasts there.

And you can also find that resource page that we were talking about. And with that being said, do you have anything?

Yeah. Tell them, tell them where they can see us on October 6th, 7th and 8th,

October 6th, 7th and 8th. Claude and Lord willing are going to be together at the fight lab feast conference in Knoxville, Tennessee.

If you want to look it up, we'd love to see you there in attendance, fight lab feast conference.

I don't know the official website, but you can Google it. Fight lab feast conference,

Knoxville, Tennessee. We're going to be there. We're going to have a booth and we'd love to see you at that conference.

Um, like for you to remember that Jesus is King. Go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the, um, authority, authority of Christ is getting late.

It's getting late to the authority of Christ and, continue to go out there and share the gospel of Christ.