Bow Tie Dialogues (***The Superior Theology Show!***)

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And I'm proud to be Presbyterian, where we have strong polity.

00:06

And I won't forget the men who wrote the B.C.O.

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for me.

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And I gladly stand up and fight to defend her still today.

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Cause there ain't no doubt I love this church.

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God bless the P.C.A.

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And welcome to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:33

My name is Keith Foskey, and today I'm coming to you as the Presbyterian.

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Yes, thank you for being a part of today's show.

00:40

And I am so excited and so blessed to be surrounded today by a group of baby baptizers.

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Yes, it is the Bowtie Dialogues.

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I am here surrounded by a group of men who all represent the Presbyterian Church of America.

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Not the P.C.U.S.A., because all of these men are men.

01:00

We're going to be talking today to Fred Greco.

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He is the moderator of the P.C.A.

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We're so grateful to have him.

01:07

We're also going to be having Jared Nelson, Zachary Groff, Dave Bradsher, Jacob Gerber, and Derek Bright.

01:14

And they are all ministers in the P.C.A.

01:18

Gentlemen, thank you all for being here on Conversations with a Calvinist.

01:22

I appreciate you being here.

01:25

Okay, everybody's muted, and I appreciate that.

01:27

That's fine.

01:28

Thanks for having us.

01:29

You're welcome.

01:29

Thank you for inviting us.

01:31

Absolutely.

01:32

And so what we're doing today is something that— it was actually Zachary and I who had this conversation earlier last week.

01:39

He had posted the video that I just played, or he shared with me the video that I just played, which is the song, God Bless the P.C.A.

01:46

And that's you singing, right, Zach? That's you singing the song? So Zach was singing that song.

01:51

I thought it was great.

01:52

It showed me that he has a sense of humor.

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And I said, man, we should get a group of Presbyterians together and actually talk about some of the things that Baptists wonder about Presbyterians.

02:03

I have to let you know, guys, my wife and I sometimes sit in our chair at night, and we wonder, what do Presbyterians think about these things? How do they get to where they get? And we love you guys.

02:16

Some of our favorite people in the world are Presbyterians.

02:20

Dr.

02:21

R.C.

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Sproul, I had the opportunity on several occasions to meet him, to go to pastors' conferences where he was speaking, and he and I had interactions.

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And it was some of the greatest years of my life when he was alive and he was close enough for me to drive down to his church, because I live in Jacksonville and he was in Lake Mary.

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And he was such a great influence to me.

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And, of course, David, who is with us today, is one of my dearest friends, and our wives are close friends.

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And so we have a wonderful fellowship with our Presbyterian brothers.

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And so I thought it would be great to have you guys on, to ask you questions, to have these what we call bowtie dialogues.

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And I've got to say, Derek's the only one who got the memo, apparently, because he's the only one with the bowtie on, but that's okay.

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This is the Presbyterian uniform.

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My son, who saw me walking to my office to do this video, he said, Dad, you got the Presbyterian outfit on.

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So he knows, like my kids, he wears his bowtie.

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He says that's his superior theology outfit.

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So just so you guys know.

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My question for you, though, is, is that a clip-on or did you tie it? I don't answer questions to which I don't want to give the answer.

03:32

I don't respond to questions.

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No, honestly, I don't own a real bowtie.

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This is a cheap clip-on, but it does go around the neck.

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It goes around in clips here.

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For those who are disappointed, I do apologize, but I do have my prop, because if I'm going to be talking to Presbyterians, I have to have my cigar.

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I didn't bring the brandy.

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It's in the closet, but I've got this, so we're all good.

04:01

Well, gentlemen, I'm going to go around, and I'm going to have you introduce yourselves, and this is the way I would like for you to introduce yourself.

04:07

I would like for you to give me just a brief history of who you are, where you minister, but also I want to ask you, were you born in a Presbyterian home, or were you, and I know this is maybe the wrong word when I say converted to Presbyterianism, because we talk about being converted to Christ, but were you moved in your heart toward the correct theology or the superior theology of Presbyterianism? When did you adopt superior theology? That's the question that I want to ask, and I'm going to start with Fred.

04:43

I appreciate him being here, and I appreciate all of you, but I'm going to give him the opportunity to go first.

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Tell us a little bit about yourself, Fred.

04:49

Well, Keith, I am up by nature an Italian and Polish descent, so three guesses what my family was growing up in terms of church background.

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I grew up in a Roman Catholic family.

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My wife, interestingly enough, is Spanish and Polish, so we argue that the only way we could possibly have our kids be more Roman Catholic in background would be to throw some Irish in there, but I grew up in the Roman Catholic communion and was converted in college slash law school, and I made the journey.

05:35

I wasn't born into a Presbyterian home, but I made the journey to superior theology in what would be the natural progression.

05:43

When I first came to the faith, I was in a dispensationalist Baptist church, and then I became a Reformed Baptist, and then I got married, and when we went to move into our new home apartment after marriage in Cleveland, Ohio, I couldn't find a close Reformed Baptist church, so we started to go to a PCA church.

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When I went and talked to the pastor, I told him that he'd never baptize any of my kids because I was a Reformed Baptist, like Charles Spurgeon, so don't be disappointed if you'll never baptize any of our kids.

06:18

Within a few months of being married, my wife was pregnant with our first.

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He was born two weeks after our first anniversary, and in the upcoming to his birth, I started to really study the issue.

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I thought, I'm in a Presbyterian church.

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I've got Presbyterians on all my bookshelves.

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I'm about to have a baby.

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I better figure this out, and so I became then eventually a Presbyterian, had our first baptized, and then the subsequent three, I've got four children, and Lord willing, I'm about to become a grandfather later this year, and I'm planning on baptizing my granddaughter when she's born, so I have come the full circle to superior theology, and I'm glad to do it.

07:03

I joke with friends that say I've become more Presbyterian and a little bit crankier each year.

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Yeah, I think that goes along with it.

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Is that what it is, a little bit more cranky? You get certain cards and awards for love.

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You reach certain plateaus of crankiness and superiorness, and they hand them out at general assemblies.

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I got you.

07:24

Well, one day, you'll just be sitting there, and you'll look out at the audience and say, what's wrong with you people? Well, Fred, I appreciate you sharing that, and what's interesting is what you just shared is a very common story that I have heard, people going from Baptist to Reformed Baptist to Presbyterian.

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Now, I'm a Reformed Baptist, and some people don't know that.

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They think I'm Presbyterian because I make the Presbyterian the hero of all my videos, but I am a Reformed Baptist, and I don't plan to go any further.

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I just want to say that.

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I know.

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Don't get angry.

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Where you were, you said you had the same thought, right? And I honestly, I'm quite content with where I'm at now.

08:08

Keith, I'm going to tell you, what comes with superior theology is superior books.

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This is a nice leather-bound copy of the Westminster Confession of Faith that a minister sent me as a gift for being moderator, and it even goes to this, Keith.

08:24

I've got my own leather-bound Robert's Rules of Order.

08:27

Oh, okay.

08:28

So when you have superior theology, you have superior books as well.

08:33

Well, real quick, and I do want to get to the other gentleman, but I have to say the reason why the superior theology— I have a copy of the Westminster Standards on my shelf.

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It's in the other room, and when I was doing the Thanksgiving episode of the denominations, everybody was going around for what they were thankful for, and I held up the Westminster Standards, and I said, I'm thankful for superior theology.

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That's where the joke came from.

08:53

So it's funny that you say that, because that was where what you just said was almost exactly what I said when I was playing you, so at least I'm doing it right.

09:04

All right, Fred, well, thank you.

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I'm just going to go around the room now.

09:07

Jared, you're immediately to my side here, so I'm going to let you share with us your story, and you can go ahead.

09:15

Sure.

09:16

I was actually converted under the preaching of a Bible church pastor, which is a Baptist pastor that doesn't want to admit that they're Baptist, but it was really Calvinistic and soteriology, and I decided to go to seminary, and while I was at seminary, went to that Presbyterian seminary that everybody knows about, Dallas Theological Seminary, and while I was there, I started attending a PCA church, and it was actually interesting to be in a church that I felt like I could get something out of the Old Testament.

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Things fit together.

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It wasn't this foreign book in the past, and we loved everything except for infant baptism, and then it took me about a year of getting together with a few of the guys and a few of the pastors that were there, where we just kind of walked through a theology of covenant and a theology of circumcision, and at the end of that, I entered into the PCA, and I wanted to originally teach with a seminary degree, but then I realized that my gifts were calling me into church service, and so then I decided to pursue ordination in the PCA.

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So I'm trying to give a real nutshell.

10:28

That was my journey, kind of a Baptist-y type background, but yeah, into the PCA.

10:36

Amen, and I just want to say I love that you have Johnny Cash behind you.

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I didn't see that until I made the picture bigger, but I have a really big Johnny Cash poster over there that you can't see, but yeah.

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One of my favorite Armenians.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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He sang with Billy Graham.

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That's right.

10:53

All right, well, Zach, we're going to turn it over to you for a minute and let you share with us your story.

10:59

Well, Keith, thank you so much for welcoming us onto your podcast.

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This is a real privilege and a joy.

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I grew up in a nominally Christian home, and we attended an evangelical congregation of the Philadelphia Presbytery of the PCUSA, which, if memory serves me right, very fittingly had 66 churches in it when I was in that congregation.

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That church is now in the Presbytery of the East of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which is a much better fit for that particular congregation and one that's still near and dear to my heart.

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That's where I was converted.

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That's where I was discipled early on in my high school years.

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That's where I made some of my best and strongest lasting friendships, and it's also where I met my wife.

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Shortly after getting married, about halfway through college, my wife and I moved to a PCA congregation.

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It is Crossroads Community Church in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, in the Philadelphia Metro West Presbytery of the PCA.

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That's where I first encountered Reformed theology as such.

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That's where I first read the Westminster Standards, the Confession, and larger and shorter catechisms.

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That's where I sensed a call to the gospel ministry, actually.

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Crossroads then sent me to seminary.

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One of the elders there at the time recommended that I look at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and that's where I studied part-time for the ministry while working full-time to provide for my family over a period of six years.

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So it was kind of the long track through seminary.

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But I graduated in 2021, and I was ordained by Calvary Presbytery of the PCA here in the South Carolina upcountry as a church planting pastor in what's called a reorganization or replant work here at Antioch Presbyterian Church in Cacheville, South Carolina, right between Woodruff and Greer, not far outside of Greenville and Spartanburg.

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We are what I like to call the oldest church plant in the PCA, celebrating our 180th anniversary this year, but it's also the three-year anniversary of our reorganization work, which is going quite well.

13:04

Awesome.

13:05

Thank you, Zachary.

13:06

All right, so Dave, I know you, but I'm not sure everybody here knows you.

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I invited you.

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You, as I said, you're the closest to me in this group, and you're here to protect me in the event of an emergency.

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You're here to protect me.

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But Dave, can you share with us? I'm not sure how I'm protecting you.

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Hey, hey, I tell you, as Paul Washer said, Presbyterians are Reformed Baptists who can read.

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I might need you to save me intellectually.

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That's what I'm saying.

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Got you.

13:38

All right.

13:38

Dave Bradsher.

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I pastor Grace Church here in Yulee, Florida, which is just north of Jacksonville.

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The rest of you guys, North Florida Presbytery.

13:51

I did not grow up PCA.

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I grew up in the Assemblies of God, and I, of course, still heard the ABCs of the gospel, grew up in a church where my whole family was part of that church.

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In fact, I had a great aunt who was one of the original founding members when the evangelist was going around doing tent meetings, you know, back in the 30s and that kind of thing.

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And so that's kind of how I got into that church movement, was through family.

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But I did become a Christian in the Assemblies of God, and my grandpa was very instrumental in helping me come to know Christ.

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And so I'm thankful for that.

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However, I went through some seasons where I was starting to do a little more research and studying.

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I mean, maybe I'm going to say mistakes, but my Sunday school teachers always told me, hey, make sure you're reading your Bible.

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And then I started reading it, realizing that we were doing a lot of things in church that are not biblical.

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And so I think God was already prepping me to kind of start thinking biblically.

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And then, you know, I went through a season of just growth of just kind of learning more.

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And then someone introduced me to reform teaching.

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He's using all these big words I hadn't really heard of.

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And so I started digging into it more.

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He told me about the Westminster Confession of Faith.

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I started reading that and everything started clicking.

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It made sense.

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And first I think I became a Calvinist first, then later came to understand that there was more to Calvinism than just that God saves people without their help, you know, that he chooses who he, you know, who he's going to save.

15:33

And so, you know, eventually I couldn't stay at, I had since, since my upbringing had moved on to a kind of a charismatic non-denominational charismatic church.

15:43

And I couldn't stay there anymore because of the things going on, revivalism, all these things.

15:48

And so I started attending an OPC church.

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That I passed every Sunday on my way to church.

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And so I ended up going there and that is where I met, met my wife.

15:59

Her dad was an elder there.

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I brought a bunch of people with me too.

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So they, they thought that the end times were upon them as I'm filled two pews of, of all these people with piercings and tattoos.

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It was really quite a, quite a, a scene.

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And but anyways, that's where we got married and that was the church that sent me to seminary.

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And so I start, I was in the OPC first for a while, and then I ended up working with a church planner in the PCA.

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That's how I got into the PCA.

16:28

So I came, I've been here now, 14 years.

16:31

Awesome.

16:32

Awesome.

16:33

Well, Jacob, can you share with us your, your story? Yeah, absolutely.

16:37

Thanks for having me on.

16:39

I was largely that familiar path into Presbyterianism, except I didn't start in the Roman Catholic church.

16:45

I actually started as an Anabaptist in the Mennonite church.

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And I lived in Western Nebraska, but kind of a little church right across the border in Northeastern Colorado.

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So Mennonite growing up, I remember we did, we did foot washings, you know, the whole, the whole nine yards there.

17:03

When we moved, when I was about eight, we started going to an evangelical free church.

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So largely dispensational.

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There were some people who were more serious about that in the congregation than others.

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But then in college, went to kind of a non-denominational largely dispensational church.

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But that was where in college, I met people in the Reform University Fellowship and who were part of a PCA church.

17:30

And where I had come from, Presbyterians were PCUSA.

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So, you know, pretty, pretty liberal.

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They didn't really, I didn't think they took the Bible very seriously, but here were Presbyterians who took the Bible seriously.

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When I read the Westminster Confession for the first time, I thought this is what I've always believed, except for a few things like infant baptism didn't really understand at the time.

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But spent a lot of time studying that, went off to an interdenominational seminary after college, because I couldn't quite get my head around the infant baptism thing.

18:03

But I went down to Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama.

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And while I was there, I think it's November 15th, whatever date Hebrews 10 is on the McShane Bible reading plan, I was coming across Hebrews 10 and as a Reformed Baptist at the time, really wrestled with covenant membership.

18:23

And when I talked about those who fell away, who profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified and the Lord will judge his people, I realized, oh, maybe covenant membership is not only a spiritual regenerate people.

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And for me, that was the question that had hung me up.

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And so things kind of switched.

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I joined the PCA church from there and the rest is history all this way.

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So I've been in the PCA as a pastor for a little over 12 years and I'm in Omaha, Nebraska right now at Harvest Community Church.

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And so I've been there for about eight years.

18:57

Awesome.

18:57

Thank you, Jacob, for sharing that.

18:59

All right, Derek, you are the last I think of the group to share.

19:03

And again, the most dapper of the bunch gets to go last here.

19:07

Tell us about yourself.

19:10

Yeah, so I was not born in a, you could call it nominal Christian home, but I'm not even sure that that's an appropriate term.

19:19

We didn't really go to church for most of my life.

19:24

And when we did, it was an independent Baptist church.

19:27

Starting when I was about 15 or 16, I moved in with my dad and they went to a large Southern Baptist church.

19:35

And it was modeled actually after Rick Warren Saddleback.

19:40

And what was interesting about this church is that the youth pastor at the time was a 16 and still is a 1689 Reformed Baptist.

19:51

And he believed it was his mission to disciple this very large youth group and disciple them into superior theology.

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Although he hates that I did not say a Baptist.

20:04

He loved that I embraced the Reformed faith.

20:06

And so I converted to cross about the age of 16.

20:12

And ever really since that time, he began to disciple me.

20:18

He introduced me to even at 16 and a brand new Christian, some very heavy reading.

20:23

I was reading Calvin and Edwards and then going back to some of the Puritans.

20:28

And that really started my journey.

20:30

I began to ask questions then of, hey, we really like reading these guys and it's really beneficial, but why don't we do anything they say we should do? Why don't we actually employ some of this? And so fast forward a few years, my wife and I were studying the scriptures and we became more and more resolutely convinced of pato-baptism as well as Presbyterian ecclesiology.

20:57

And so I joined the PCA, and I want to say the year was maybe 2014 or so, right before I started seminary in 2015.

21:11

And upon graduating, I was ordained and installed as the first, as the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Aliceville, Alabama.

21:20

And of course, everyone knows Aliceville, Alabama.

21:24

It's a big metropolis.

21:25

I say that jokingly because people right now are probably Googling, where is Aliceville, Alabama? Very small, one red light town with a historic church that's been here since 1837.

21:37

And I've been the pastor here since November of 2019.

21:41

And I also am ordained in the best named Presbytery, which is the Warrior Presbytery.

21:51

And it's named after a body of water, but Warrior Presbytery is most aptly named.

21:59

And I also teach systematic theology at Birmingham Theological Seminary.

22:04

Very nice.

22:05

Very nice.

22:06

Well, I am surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses as you all.

22:10

So thank you all for sharing with me your history.

22:13

I do pick up on something, though.

22:16

Going back, I think Zach is the only one who was saved in the Presbyterian Church.

22:20

Is that right, going back? Is everybody else coming from other churches? Am I okay? Because I was trying to keep it up in my head.

22:28

I'm not writing it down.

22:30

I just find that interesting.

22:31

Like I said, so many people that I know are Presbyterians now weren't Presbyterians when they started.

22:36

And that's not to say anything.

22:38

I'm sure there are tons of Presbyterians who were born Presbyterian, grew up Presbyterian.

22:41

It's just interesting that so many of the ministers I know I do find to be, and again, I don't know if the word's the right word, but converts to Presbyterian theology.

22:50

And the idea of being influenced by a higher level of theology.

22:56

I know that that's what turned me on to men like R.C.

22:59

Sproul and others who I listened to and read, and men like James Montgomery Boyce and things like that, reading his commentaries.

23:09

And it was a higher level.

23:11

It was something that does take someone who wants to go from the baby food to the meat of the gospel and be able to chew more and learn more.

23:21

Certainly there is an appeal for that.

23:24

And I want to be clear for my audience, today is not an advertisement for Presbyterianism, even though it may come off that way.

23:32

But people ask me, why do you call it superior theology? And the reason is, not only was it a joke with the Thanksgiving episode, but there is a high bar, which is, Zach just put up a sign that said, yes, it is.

23:47

Well, the reason we say superior theology, the reason I say it is, there is a high bar in regard to things like ordination in the Presbyterian church, where I've sat in Baptist ordinations that were sort of almost a joke, because the questions that were asked, I asked questions that were hard and I got rebuked for asking hard questions.

24:11

I asked the guy who was being ordained, I asked him a question about the Trinity, I asked him a question about perseverance of the saints, he couldn't answer either question and the people beside me were like, why are you asking him such hard questions? I said, because we're not ordaining him to be a mailman.

24:26

We're not ordaining him to be a dog catcher.

24:30

We're ordaining him to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and he should be able to answer at least basic questions.

24:37

And so when I say superior theology, it is a nod in your direction, but it's also a joke because there is at times a sense of maybe, I don't wanna say pride, but there is somewhat of a pride that sneaks in within the Presbyterian church.

24:58

So how do you guys feel about that term superior theology? I sell shirts with it on there.

25:03

So I just wanna hear, and you can all unmute yourself if you wanna hop in, I don't wanna call you by name, but if you wanna say a thought or two, what are your thoughts when you hear me do that? You know I'm kidding, but do you think it's a good, bad, or indifferent? What are your thoughts? Well, if I can jump in, because I have a real brief kind of two point answer to that, as I've been thinking about just what you've been doing with these videos and why they're so funny, why they resonate so much with us.

25:27

I think it's for two somewhat ironic reasons, or at least might be regarded by your listeners as ironic reasons.

25:33

First, our posture as Reformed believers of all stripes, Presbyterian, Baptist, whatever, should be one of humility and meekness and gratitude.

25:43

It should not be one of arrogance.

25:46

And so this whole pompous superior theology thing, if it's earnest and if it's self-unaware, and I think we've all seen folks who carry themselves with it, perhaps even in the mirror we've seen that guy, that would be the very opposite of humble and meek and grateful.

26:04

There's really no true justification for that kind of bearing oneself around, pompously spouting off superior theology.

26:14

However, that leads me to my second reason for amusement, and it's funny because it is kind of true.

26:20

There's this famous cage stage Calvinism.

26:23

When you first start reading Calvin, you first start engaging at the level of the mind, which so much of the American evangelical church seems to squelch and push off to the side.

26:35

You can fall very easily into this pattern of arrogance and spouting off and seeming to come across as like that guy who ruins the Bible study, you know? And so it's funny in those two respects, but you hit the nail on the head.

26:51

The background behind it is a real functional one, and indeed the first presbytery in America in 1706 meant largely to examine candidates for the ministry, to make sure men had the requisite education and handle of the scriptures to be able effectively to minister to God's people, not from a place of ignorance and certainly not from a place of arrogance, but from a position of true commitment to the Word of God and seeing it lived out in their lives and in the lives of their churches.

27:23

But we do have superior theology.

27:31

You're muted.

27:36

Oh, I'm muted.

27:38

I'm sorry, I'm an idiot.

27:40

I'm talking.

27:41

No, anybody else? Feel free, jump in.

27:43

I do think, Keith, that there is something to it, and I think it can fit in with a level of humility, and I like to think of it this way.

27:53

It fits in the idea of theology.

27:56

I like to think of my theology being superior without me being superior.

28:00

So I'm a confessionalist.

28:02

I'm a creedalist, and so I find that that's helpful.

28:06

Whenever we have new members or guests come to our church, I like to tell them, if you want to know what I think about the Lord's Supper, look at the chapter in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

28:16

That's what it is.

28:16

If you want to know what I think about the end times, it's right there in writing.

28:20

If you want to know what I think about the Trinity, it's right there in writing.

28:24

I like to think of myself, it's a phrase that I've borrowed from Dr.

28:27

Derek Thomas, who's at First Press while actually retiring in Columbia, calls himself a vanilla Westminsterian.

28:35

And so I don't like to have any hobby horses.

28:38

You can go online all day on Twitter and see people fighting about name tags they want to get to each other.

28:46

And so I try to follow the scriptures, but it's helpful to have creeds and confessions because we all have beliefs that come from the scriptures.

28:56

Even people that say they have no creeds will begin to then tell you who Jesus is and what he's done and what the Bible is, and that's doing confessional work.

29:04

And so for me, it's about what I hold onto when I profess rather than my ability to espouse it better than everybody else.

29:15

Amen.

29:15

Amen.

29:17

Anybody else have thoughts? You ready to move on or do y'all want to add anything? Anything? The only thing I would just add is that it's ingrained in our very nature as Presbyterians because not only is what Zach said true, but if you go back to the Westminster Assembly, their task was that not only were they writing the confession and the catechisms in 1643 to 46 or so, but they examined men for ministry and gave them hard examinations as they were writing these confessions and also her preaching.

29:52

And so it's something that is just naturally, I think, ingrained in us that once you become a Presbyterian, even as a layperson, somehow you just become smarter and buy osmosis or something.

30:04

I don't know.

30:06

By show of hands, how many of you have had someone in your church show you one of my videos and make the superior theology reference? Okay, not David.

30:19

David didn't have anybody in his shirt.

30:20

Okay.

30:22

That's what makes me happy is when I get a message from a Presbyterian minister who sends me an email and says, hey, somebody in my church showed me your videos and I want to thank you for representing us well.

30:34

And I'll write them back and I'll say, you know I'm teasing you, right? Even if I believe, I would say a very large amount of what you believe, I would say there's a rib in there and it's all in good fun.

30:49

Even my Methodist is intended to be somewhat of a tease because I know not every Methodist is a flaming liberal effeminate man, even though most of them are.

31:04

Everything is meant to be a little bit of a joke.

31:06

And I had somebody tell me one time, well, you never joke about Presbyterians.

31:10

I said, I absolutely do.

31:11

This is all intended to point out our proclivities.

31:15

And one of the things, you know, is the proclivity to say superior, you know, superior theology.

31:20

But again, tongue in cheek with a twinkle in the eye as Spinning Webber.

31:26

You guys know Spinning Webber? He's here in Jacksonville.

31:28

He's a friend as well.

31:29

And he was on PresbyCast with me.

31:31

And he said he was thankful that I did it with a twinkle in the eye.

31:34

And I hope that that's the way it comes across because I love you guys.

31:37

I really do.

31:38

I mean, I consider us brothers in Christ.

31:40

You know, I may be the lesser brethren.

31:42

I may be the deep water Presbyterian, but I can still call you brethren.

31:48

All right, so, and with that, I'm gonna go to the next question.

31:51

That's the question of being a Reformed Baptist.

31:53

Our church is not a 1689 church.

31:59

Our church actually holds to the 1646 Baptist Confession, which is interesting because the Westminster was also a 1646 Confession.

32:09

So sometimes people hear 1646 and they get all excited and I say, well, don't get too excited.

32:13

It's the 1646 Baptist, not the 1646 Westminster.

32:17

And so we would identify ourselves as Baptists.

32:21

We would actually identify ourselves probably more in line as particular Baptists, but some people would say Reformed Baptists.

32:28

And I wanna get your thoughts on that term because some people get really angry if somebody identifies themselves as Reformed, but they are not Presbyterian.

32:38

So what are your personal thoughts on that? And I'll let everybody who wants to share, give me your thoughts.

32:45

And you can't, well, I wouldn't say you can't hurt my feelings, you could, but you're not going to hurt my feelings if you tell me that you don't think we should use that title.

32:53

I'm just curious.

32:56

Nobody wants to say anything.

32:58

Okay, Jared will go.

32:59

Yeah.

32:59

Well, if you think about where, especially English speaking Baptists came from, they came from the Reformed tradition.

33:05

And so there's a common connection there in the same way that you can have kind of Reformed Anglicans.

33:12

And so you can have Reformed Baptists.

33:14

And I don't really mind the term being used as long as we know what we're talking about.

33:18

And that's different than the Reformed Presbyterian or Dutch Reformed.

33:23

And so it's, I would have considered myself a Reformed Baptist at some point just before becoming PCA.

33:32

Yeah.

33:33

Oh, go ahead.

33:35

Go ahead, Jacob.

33:36

Oh, well, I was just going to say, I was looking at the introduction to the London Baptist Confession in 1689.

33:43

I didn't know that you guys were the really early ones, but I really liked that.

33:47

They explicitly wanted to show solidarity with, you know, the Presbyterians who had used the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Congregationalists who had used the Savoy Declaration, which was largely barred from the words.

33:58

And they had this line that say, to convince all that we have no itch to clog religion with new words.

34:04

They wanted to use a lot of what had been used.

34:07

I think it's helpful to be confessional is more the issue that you lay down what you believe in and the scriptural backing for why you believe it.

34:18

But again, even the word Reformed, we would say we're Reformed or say we're Presbyterian.

34:23

But if you put those two words together, even that in the Presbyterian circles or Reformed Presbyterian really has like Scottish exclusive psalmody kind of connotations.

34:33

So really it's all what you're using the word and how you're using it.

34:38

So I don't have a problem with it.

34:39

But again, all of us have made that trail.

34:41

It sounds like through the Reformed Baptist world.

34:44

So we also kind of appreciate, at least from that stage in our own lives.

34:51

Yeah, I was just going to say, I think it depends.

34:55

It depends kind of like what you just said, Jacob, you know how it's being used because I have certainly encountered some brothers, dear brothers, of course, and who will say, well, I'm a Reformed Baptist.

35:07

And not referring, of course, to you, Keith.

35:10

But and yet really what they mean is they're a Calvinistic Baptist.

35:15

You know, because, you know, obviously, you know.

35:19

The Reformed tradition is much broader than just, you know, a Calvinistic understanding of soteriology.

35:28

And so just because they have a Reformed or Calvinistic soteriology, they think they're Reformed and use that term.

35:35

And I think that, you know, there's there's there's so much more to it.

35:38

You know, so, yeah, just piggyback off what Jacob said.

35:40

I think that sometimes I have to chuckle when I'm when I've heard some guys use that term.

35:45

Well, yeah, I'm a Reformed Baptist, you know, but then, you know, I listen to the preaching and they're doing altar calls and things like that.

35:51

You just go, well, you know, I'm not sure that you know what that means.

35:53

You keep using that word.

35:55

I don't think it means what you think it means.

35:57

I think that's a really good point.

35:59

And I think that's actually where, from my perspective, if someone is a Reformed Baptist, I have a lot of respect for them because Reformed Baptists can be more classically Reformed on issues like images of Christ or the Lord's Day than even many, you know, dyed in the wool Presbyterians.

36:22

And so I think, you know, there are the obvious differences.

36:26

So someday, Keith, you'll understand what church government should be like.

36:31

You know, you have a group of Baptist pastors that get together to do an ordination.

36:36

If they only had a name for what that might be, like, I don't know, a Presbytery.

36:40

But, you know, at some point you'll get those things figured out.

36:44

But I really appreciate, and I don't feel jealous at all, standing side by side with Reformed Baptists.

36:50

I actually tell people that I think one of the best commentaries on creeds and confessions is Sam Waldron's commentary on the 1689.

36:59

And it's especially good because, for example, his treatment of chapter four on creation is better than Hodge's because Hodge wasn't really dealing with Darwinism front and center.

37:13

You know, Waldron is, just because it's newer.

37:16

And the work is incredible.

37:18

So I think Dave's point is well taken.

37:21

There is a difference between being Calvinistic or being a five-pointer or people who say the Reforms that they're a four-pointer or three-and-a-half-pointer, which doesn't even really exist, and someone who takes seriously the Reformed tradition.

37:35

I don't have any hesitancy at all with standing side by side with them.

37:40

Amen.

37:40

You remind me a little bit of Sam Waldron.

37:43

Are you friends with him? I mean, you all kind of have a similar look there.

37:48

I've never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I do enjoy his writing.

37:50

I do enjoy his work.

37:52

Yeah, I've got to sit in on a few of his seminars.

37:55

So, again, I appreciate his work as well.

37:58

Well, gentlemen, if we're good with that question, I would like to move on unless there's something else we want to add.

38:05

This next question is going to deal with the primary distinction.

38:10

Well, I wouldn't necessarily say the primary.

38:12

The primary outworking distinction between Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians would be the distinction of how we administer the sacrament of baptism.

38:23

I know that sometimes language can divide us, and so a lot of Baptists will use the word ordinance.

38:28

I'm happy to use either word, sacrament or ordinance.

38:31

I don't think that there's an issue there for me.

38:33

So in regard to that, I do want to do something a little different than the way the notes are written.

38:39

I know I gave you guys a pre-show note, but for the sake of my own benefit here, and this is a little selfish, I want to ask you all to critique me because I am a teacher of Scripture.

38:57

I'm a pastor, but I also teach in our church.

39:00

Our church has an academy where we teach Scripture, as well as every Thursday I go to a group called Set Free, and David shares this ministry with me.

39:10

He goes and shares with a group of men.

39:13

And just this morning I was in Colossians 2, and I was talking about Paul's use of circumcision in regard to baptism, and I want to explain to you the way I understand covenant baptism, and I want you to tell me if I'm wrong.

39:29

Is that fair to ask you to do that? You're going to get to be the presbytery.

39:36

You're going to get to be the examining body.

39:39

I'm going to tell you what I believe you believe.

39:42

You're wrong.

39:46

See? I knew.

39:47

Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.

39:52

And I'm going to try to do it as succinctly as I can, so I know that there's probably more that I could say, but just to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly, because I do want to represent well even a position that I don't necessarily hold.

40:05

So you would believe in what we would call covenant theology.

40:11

There are three primary covenants in Scripture, the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works, which was with Adam in the garden, and the covenant of grace, which began after the fall.

40:21

And all subsequent covenants that would come after the fall would be administrations of what would be known as the covenant of grace.

40:30

Am I correct so far? So because of all of the—and by the way, for those who are just listening to this, they're all shaking their heads yes, so so far I'm correct.

40:40

And within the covenant of grace, there are covenant signs that accompany these administrations.

40:46

And so with the Noahic covenant, we have the rainbow.

40:49

With the Abrahamic covenant, we have circumcision.

40:52

With the Mosaic covenant, we have—I would say it's the Sabbath.

40:55

It says the Sabbath is the sign of the Mosaic covenant.

40:58

And then, of course, there's debate about the Davidic covenant, whether or not there was a sign with the Davidic covenant.

41:03

Some people think it was the throne.

41:05

But in the new covenant, the sign, of course, is baptism and the Lord's Supper, but primarily baptism as the sign of entrance into the covenant, as the sign of receiving the covenant, becoming a part of the covenant community is through baptism.

41:22

Am I correct now, or have I missed anything? I know I'm going quickly, so feel free.

41:27

You are correct, sir.

41:28

I think you should probably include the Passover as a sacrament in the Mosaic covenant.

41:34

Okay, okay.

41:35

That would be fine, and that would be, we would say, a prefiguring of the Lord's table, or a type of the table, maybe depending on how we use the language there, type and fulfillment.

41:45

Okay.

41:47

I'd add one more, actually.

41:49

All right.

41:49

I would say go back to even the garden and the trees, sacramental trees, and Gerhardus Voss argues that they were normal trees, but they were set aside for holy purposes, and I think that helps set up things that we do, such as baptism and the Lord's Supper.

42:10

It's normal bread and wine.

42:11

It's normal water set aside for holy purposes.

42:15

So I would, since we're critiquing you for your bad theology, we would, no, I'm just kidding.

42:21

You see me, I can take it, I can take it.

42:26

But anyways, I would just say, let's push that back even further to the sacramental trees and how God used those.

42:34

So that's just a minor thing, but that's what I would, if I was critiquing you in a presbytery, that's what I'd hit you with.

42:40

Okay.

42:41

All right, so when we get to the new covenant, the new covenant administrative, or the new covenant sacrament is the administration of baptism, and we're not going to get into whether or not it should be immersion or pouring or sprinkling.

42:53

We know it's an administration of water.

42:55

We know that it has to go on the head, because that's the most important part.

42:59

I'm just kidding.

43:00

That's just a joke, because, you know, you've heard the old joke about the Baptist who didn't get him all the way under the water, and the Presbyterian said, well, that's because that's the most important part.

43:07

You know, that's why I said that.

43:09

So, all right, so the administration of baptism happens, and your reasoning for children of believers being included as recipients of baptism is because they are born into a covenant family which includes at least one believing parent, based on 1 Corinthians 7, which says that a child of at least one believing parent is sanctified, and in that sanctification, you see that as a representation of them being included in the covenant family, and you would argue from the covenant, the familial baptism such as the household of Stephanas and things like that is an example of the Philippian jailer as families receiving covenant baptism, not just the individual who is believing, and you base this upon the principle of Abraham where his children, not only him, but his children in infancy receive the sign of the covenant, therefore your children, because at least one believing parent is a believer, should receive the sign of the covenant.

44:15

Am I getting that basically correct? Yes, you are, and I think this is a very important distinction.

44:22

It's a sign of membership in the covenant, not a sign of regeneration.

44:29

That's a very important point, and it harkens back to the Old Testament, and we would point to, for example, you have Isaac, but you also have Ishmael.

44:38

You have Jacob, but you also have Esau.

44:43

Just being in the covenant does not guarantee salvation or regeneration.

44:50

What's required for salvation is a personal relationship with the Lord through his mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, not through a sign or an act, but that sign is still important because it is a symbol of that reality.

45:07

It's not the reality itself, but it's a symbol of the reality.

45:12

Okay, with that in mind, now I want to ask you guys a question.

45:15

Recently, there was sort of a kerfuffle about Mark Dever had put out a video, and Fred, you said you responded to him, so I'll allow you to voice your response again.

45:30

He made the point that in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, baptism was meant to be the tool of regeneration.

45:41

And I think we would all agree that baptism in Roman Catholic theology produces regeneration.

45:46

Do we all agree that that's their theology and that's what they teach? Okay.

45:50

And I think Eastern Orthodoxy essentially believes the same thing.

45:54

But you all would not— Zach, did I get that wrong? You looked like you were going to say something.

45:59

I said probably.

46:01

The Eastern Orthodox Church is not quite as clear in its articulation of doctrine as the Western churches.

46:07

I agree.

46:08

I agree 100%.

46:09

I'm just saying basically, I think that's what they would assume.

46:12

Hey, if an Eastern Orthodox is watching and you want to leave a comment, you know where the boxes are.

46:16

Tell me where we're wrong.

46:18

But okay, so you guys would repudiate, as a whole, the doctrine of baptismal regeneration.

46:24

That's correct? Yes.

46:27

So you don't believe that baptism produces regeneration.

46:31

So what does baptism then do? Well, if I might begin by just reading the sixth paragraph of the 28th chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

46:44

This is where that issue is directly addressed.

46:47

The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered, yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost to such, whether of age or infants, as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's own will in His appointed time.

47:09

And so it's a sign and a seal of a spiritual reality.

47:13

It is not an efficacious means of bringing it about, so to speak.

47:21

So if a person withholds baptism from their child...

47:25

Yeah.

47:26

Oh, go ahead.

47:26

I'm sorry.

47:27

I didn't mean to cut anyone off.

47:31

Oh, well, it's...

47:34

You said that you were in Colossians 2 earlier, and there's a real connection there that Paul makes with the circumcision of Christ and with baptism there.

47:44

And so that connection helps me figure out what Paul is doing in Romans 3 too.

47:49

And I would say, I think that's part of the question that Paul is asking except about circumcision.

47:55

In Romans 3, he says, what advantage has the Jew? What is the value of circumcision? And he says, much in every way.

48:01

And his biggest one, he says, to begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

48:05

So I think what baptism is doing is bringing somebody within the covenant community.

48:09

It's bringing them in to sit under the gospel.

48:13

It's bringing them in and giving responsibilities to the other people in the community.

48:17

They have a responsibility to them too.

48:20

And so it's bringing them in, and they're under the oracles of God.

48:22

They're going to have the means of grace around them.

48:25

They're going to hear the gospel.

48:26

So it's benefiting them in what it's representing is bringing them into the covenant community.

48:32

Okay.

48:33

Thank you.

48:34

And this is, again, this may be kind of an out of left field question.

48:38

And if you all were, this was not on my list.

48:42

This just came to my mind as we were talking.

48:43

I just pulled it up on my phone.

48:46

As you know, I have a Twitter relationship with a lot of people.

48:50

A lot of them are Presbyterians.

48:52

And one of the men who is a Presbyterian posted this.

48:55

He said, reform friends, what is your view of baptismal efficacy? And he claimed a few that I'd never heard of.

49:02

And I just wanted to know if any of you have heard of these.

49:04

He called one presumptive regeneration.

49:07

Two, he called the davenant view of regeneration and baptism.

49:11

And the other, he called Burgess's view of regeneration and baptism.

49:15

And he said, do you guys hold to that? And a lot of people were arguing for those different views.

49:20

Have y'all heard of any of those? And do you know what I'm even referring to? And if not, no problem.

49:24

We can move on.

49:24

I just didn't know.

49:26

He was really seeming to make the argument that the reform faith ties regeneration to baptism.

49:33

And you guys have said that's not the case.

49:35

So have y'all heard of other reform guys who are moving in that direction or who teach that? Yes.

49:43

And it's ironic, Keith, because those who are, at least in modern, quote unquote, reform circles, most vociferous about presumptive generation, their historical background tends to be fundamentalist Baptist.

49:59

And they're reacting to that, to what they see as that.

50:03

And I think, you know, there's an important distinction that was given to me by some mentors decades ago.

50:10

There's a difference between presumptive regeneration, which makes us, I think, slack in bringing our children to close with Christ and presumptive election in which we presume that God works in families, but that must show itself through a profession of faith.

50:30

There's kind of a cliche saying that God has no grandchildren.

50:35

And it's true.

50:36

But those who are born into a covenant household have much advantage, as Paul says in Romans, every way.

50:44

I think even the staunchest of Baptists would say that a child born into a church going home, where they're prayed for, where the scriptures are read and taught, where preaching is given to them, have a huge advantage over someone whose family never darkens the door of a church and doesn't know the Bible.

51:03

We might have differences about what that exactly looks like theologically.

51:07

But I think some want to make these categories do the work of their own work of evangelism and discipleship and raising their children.

51:18

I think that's an important distinction.

51:21

Thank you so much, Fred, for that.

51:23

And I'm sorry if there's any noise coming through, but it just started storming at my house, and I have a metal roof.

51:29

So if you can hear a little bit of noise, I do apologize.

51:31

And I do want to make mention that Zach pulled out a pipe.

51:34

So by the grace of God, we have now entered the smoking section of the podcast.

51:41

All right, so before we move on, one last question.

51:44

What would be...

51:48

I'm a huge fan of Luther, even with all of his failures and the areas that he failed.

51:54

If someone could give me a one-minute distinction.

51:58

If I said, the Lutherans believe in infant baptism, but they don't believe in it for the same reason, what's the Lutheran view as opposed to the Reformed Presbyterian view? And again, one minute may not be enough, but this is for the benefit of the audience.

52:12

I think I know, but I want to make sure that other people understand because if they see a baptized baby in a Catholic church versus a Presbyterian church versus a Lutheran church, all three are baptizing babies, but for, in a sense, different reasons.

52:26

I'll take that.

52:27

My brother's a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor.

52:29

So we've talked about this.

52:31

So for Lutherans, they would also affirm baptismal regeneration, but in a very different way than Roman Catholics would.

52:39

Luther would have been very insistent that when the child was baptized, the Holy Spirit comes, but the Holy Spirit brings faith.

52:48

So there's a view there that the Holy Spirit is actually bringing, you know, it's not just the mechanical working of the work in baptism of the water saving the child.

52:59

It's actually the Holy Spirit is bringing faith and that child is believing in a spiritual miracle right there.

53:06

So for them, they're still wanting to kind of hold on to that.

53:10

Whereas for us, we would see the sign as a seal, a confirmation, a ratification of the reliability that righteousness comes by faith without making a claim about the recipient's spiritual state at the moment where they received that, like Zach was reading earlier in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

53:32

It's still true.

53:34

It's still talking about the great promises of the gospel.

53:36

So talking about the promises of regeneration, but we would simply affirm that that, you know, like Fred was talking about a moment ago, it's still through the means in due time as someone is coming to believe in Jesus through the ordinary means of grace, the preaching of the word, God making use of the promises that were conferred through baptism for someone to actually come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

54:00

Would any of you or would the PCA rather, maybe this would be a question for Fred, would there be any case in which you would require a person coming into a Presbyterian church to be baptized, again, if they had been baptized in a Catholic church, a Lutheran church, or any of those other churches, would you accept their baptism or would you require, and I don't like the word re-baptism, or would you require what you would consider to be a faithful baptism? Well, this is an interesting question, Keith, and it gets at the heart of the nature of the PCA.

54:35

And so the big issue really comes around Roman Catholic baptism.

54:39

And there has been a debate within the Reformed world for centuries about the validity of Roman Catholic baptism.

54:47

Is it valid but irregular, or is it not valid? And it really comes about, is Rome a true church? Are priests true ministers? It gets very theologically in the weeds.

54:57

And the PCA has a habit of dealing with these things by having a study committee at the national level in which there was a committee report, and then there was a minority report, one saying that Roman Catholic baptism was not valid, and one saying that it was, and then they just left it up to individual churches to decide.

55:17

And so you've got a hopscotch landscape in the PCA, and it really depends on the individual minister and the individual church and what the person thinks.

55:32

Because I've experienced, for example, someone joining my church who comes from a Roman Catholic background that strongly believes that that baptism was not valid because their parents weren't believers and they don't think the church is a true church and they want to be baptized, not re-baptized, but baptized.

55:48

And then I had other people join the church that believed that while there's all kinds of error in the Roman Catholic church, it was a true baptism and they didn't need to be re-baptized.

55:57

So that's a pretty interesting landscape.

56:00

And it's one of the things that I think is fascinating for us as Presbyterians dealing with a lot of Baptists is that we tend to be less dogmatic about baptism in general than Baptists.

56:12

I know the Baptist landscape is changing, but if you go back to like Hickson's principles and practices of baptism, they would say that if you were a Presbyterian, you couldn't take communion in their church because you weren't validly baptized.

56:27

And now we've had, you know, we've even had incidents like, for example, when John Piper was at Bethlehem, still the senior pastor, the question came up, would they consider Sinclair Ferguson validly baptized even though, because they let him in their pulpit, but he was baptized, sprinkled as an infant.

56:46

So, you know, this is an issue that's confusing to a lot of people.

56:50

There's a lot of personal emotion that's tied into it.

56:55

And so it, on the bad side, it represents a difficulty.

57:00

On the good side, in my perspective, it's not a primary doctrine.

57:04

It's not the Trinity.

57:05

It's not the deity of Christ.

57:06

It's not the authority of scripture.

57:09

And so we can still come together and talk about these differences.

57:13

They're important differences, but we don't need to anathematize each other.

57:17

Well, thank you.

57:18

That was very, very helpful and very encouraging.

57:21

And that leads to another secondary doctrine, but one that is divisive among Presbyterians, but not necessarily the PCA.

57:30

I know the PCA, at least I think the PCA holds a position on this, but within Presbyterian, within the wide birth of Presbyterianism, and we know we go all the way from the PCUSA all the way to the OPC, to the PCA, and all those things.

57:46

Within the wide birth of Presbyterianism, there is a seemingly recent debate, and maybe I'm wrong about the recent nature of it, but seeming to me to be a recent debate over the subject of infant or pedo communion.

58:02

Because I've even had people come to our church who have asked if their children were allowed to take communion.

58:09

And my answer, of course, as a Baptist, is we would ask that the child be a believer, at least professing believer, and have been baptized.

58:17

And if they haven't been baptized, then they wouldn't be welcomed to the table.

58:20

That's a simple marker for us, because obviously the logical priority is you would be baptized before you receive the table.

58:27

But in your situation, it's obviously different because the person is baptized as an infant, so really this is a two-part question.

58:36

One, how do you deal with pedo communion? And two, when do you believe a person is fit to receive the table? So what would be the time that you would receive your children to the Lord's table, for instance? Don't all run at once.

58:57

Well, yeah, this has been, pedo communion is not something that can be practiced within the PCA in terms of our PCO.

59:06

There are some people who may have some private convictions about it, and it's up to the presbytery whether or not to allow them to hold those and be a minister, but they can't practice them.

59:16

And that's because our standards see the sacrament of the Lord's Supper as a sacrament basically of discernment.

59:25

If you read the larger catechism, basically in the 170s, before coming to communion, you have to have certain discernment.

59:31

During it, there are certain things that are happening.

59:33

After it, you're reflecting, and if you're not able to do those things because you don't have the cognitive abilities to do that, then you can't come to the table.

59:41

And so it's not been something that's ever been allowed.

59:44

I think it's actually more out of a line with our standards even than credo-only baptism because our standards will say it's a great sin to neglect baptism, but it's not something that the grace that's tied to it that you're not going to be saved.

01:00:01

But for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, it's something that you're talking about.

01:00:05

If you don't partake of it worthily, there's condemnation that's involved.

01:00:09

And Paul talking about people getting sick and dying, I mean, it's a serious issue and it's something that's not allowed to be practiced at all in PCA churches.

01:00:19

It's funny because we have the Lord's Supper every week at our church.

01:00:23

And two or three weeks ago, as I was receiving the Lord's Supper, I began to choke.

01:00:28

The bread got caught in my throat.

01:00:30

And so I'm sitting on the first row of the church choking on the Lord's Supper.

01:00:35

And when it's finally over, my face is red.

01:00:39

I've been able to choke everything.

01:00:41

I looked at the person beside me.

01:00:43

I said, I promise I don't have any hidden sins and it's not trying to kill me.

01:00:50

It was just a moment where everybody was looking at me.

01:00:53

But yeah, you're right.

01:00:54

There is a condemnation that is tied to the misuse of the Lord's Table.

01:01:01

So across the board, within the PCA, it's not allowed.

01:01:07

True.

01:01:09

You cannot practice it.

01:01:10

Now, that doesn't mean that we all have, at the congregational level, within the PCA, the same threshold of spiritual maturity and discernment and profession of faith applied equally around the PCA.

01:01:24

I can just share for my church what we seek to see in a child, a covenant child, who's requesting access to the table or whose parents are presenting them to be examined by the elders, to be brought to the table, is an ability, clearly, to articulate the Lord's work of grace in their life, be that by conversion or by that blessed testament I wish I had of saying, I've never known a day when Jesus was not my Savior.

01:01:52

I love to hear that.

01:01:54

Other things that I ask them, following actually Calvin's example in Geneva, I just ask them, well, recite for me the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles' Creed as a basic baseline to show that they have at least some cognitive apprehension of the basics of the Christian faith.

01:02:10

And then we also ask them, pointedly, why do you want to take the Lord's Supper? Don't let your dad answer for you.

01:02:18

We want to hear from you.

01:02:19

Why do you wish to come to the table? What does your baptism mean to you? What does it mean to improve upon your baptism? How should you prepare to come to the table? And then after you take the Lord's Supper, what difference does that make in your life? What is the Lord doing? If a covenant child can articulate all of that to the satisfaction of our elders at eight years old, praise the Lord.

01:02:44

Generally, I don't expect to see that until like 12, but there's no hard and fast set in stone age.

01:02:50

Now, I have heard of some churches who examine children as young as even four years old and basically just ask them, does Jesus love you? How do you know that? I think that that's a rather low threshold, but I'm not an elder on that session.

01:03:06

So I can speak for my church, for our session, on our practice.

01:03:10

We do look, as Jared said, for discernment of what is going on in the sacrament and what benefit it is to us and why Christ instituted it.

01:03:21

So that's a good answer.

01:03:22

If I could just kind of jump in on that.

01:03:25

We have allowed some younger children to come to the table, not as young as four, but we've had some younger than eight come to the table.

01:03:33

And I think this goes to really what I feel like is a comprehensive view of the nature of the church and of the covenant family in Presbyterianism, that one of the things when I had a parent come to me with their child and the child had made what they felt was a credible profession of faith, but she was a little on the young side.

01:03:59

But they wanted to do the communicants class, which I teach.

01:04:03

And I said, well, she can come through.

01:04:05

And if we find out that she's not mature enough, then that's fine.

01:04:10

We'll delay it.

01:04:11

But if we find out she's mature enough, we'll go forward.

01:04:15

Because there's not a particular age.

01:04:17

And honestly, I'm not someone who believes in presumptive regeneration, but it's also not surprising when we have a covenant child make a profession of faith and want to come to the table.

01:04:28

And so the first thing I ask in catechism class before we go through the shorter catechism, before we go through what communion is and what's happening and all those things, I just ask a very basic question to start off.

01:04:41

And I say, what has Jesus done for us? I ask, what is the gospel? And this young girl popped up and she said that Jesus was crucified, dead and buried.

01:04:58

He descended into hell and on the third day he rose again.

01:05:01

And, you know, it started to quote the Apostles' Creed, which made me leap for joy.

01:05:07

And then the more I even press this young child, well, tell me more about she was on it.

01:05:13

And now she's come to the table and we have seen tremendous growth and fruit in her life, improving upon her baptism, even at a young age.

01:05:22

Another young child we had that was, you know, older but still young.

01:05:27

I remember going to her house and she wanted to talk to me about communion.

01:05:31

And we began to discuss the Passover.

01:05:33

And I said, why don't we take the Passover like the believers in the old covenant did? And she said, and here's this little girl, you know, not even 10 years old.

01:05:44

And she says, because Jesus crossed as our Passover lamb who's been crucified for us.

01:05:50

And she just, and I said, you know, I wish I could get some adults in my congregation to come hear what you just said because you have a far greater grasp even in the way she was beginning to articulate it.

01:06:01

And so I think we, what I would say is that to wrap this up is I know I'm kind of long-winded here, but what I would say to wrap this up is that we really rely as pastors upon the parents and are they doing family worship at home? Are they discipling their children at home? And when I ask the parents, tell me about this child's life.

01:06:27

Are they evidencing fruit of the gospel in their life? And if they can't tell me anything or they, you know, then that's not a good sign.

01:06:35

But if the parent says, we've been doing Bible study, we've been doing family worship, we've been catechizing, well then I naturally think, well, of course that child has come to faith and is articulating the doctrines of the faith.

01:06:48

Of course they have because they've been raised in a covenant home as a Christian child.

01:06:53

Not saying that they were automatically a Christian, but we raised them as Christians.

01:06:58

We raised them in hopes, obviously, that they would turn and be saved.

01:07:03

But we don't let the world catechize them.

01:07:05

We catechize them.

01:07:06

And so I would just say that, you know, everything Zach said was true, but we just rely really heavily, I think, upon the parents.

01:07:14

And so the parents have a great responsibility, just as I did in Deuteronomy, just as I did elsewhere in Scripture, to raise up their children and teach them the faith.

01:07:24

And so I think that's one of the benefits, perhaps, that maybe makes things somewhat easier for us when it comes to administering the active sacrament, where someone's an active recipient.

01:07:38

Well, thank you, Derek, for sharing that.

01:07:41

And I, you know, I've been very hesitant.

01:07:44

I invited all of you gentlemen on.

01:07:46

This is certainly not a debate, but I do want to throw out a few thoughts as we begin to draw to a close.

01:07:52

I have one last question for you all, but before I get to that question, I want to say, in many ways, there's so much agreement, and there are things that, obviously, we would see different.

01:08:01

But, for instance, the way that you would discern someone's fitness for the table is very much the way we would seek to discern someone's fitness for baptism.

01:08:10

And, you know, I think it's fair to say we're looking for the same things, the confession, fruit of repentance, understanding of the gospel, things like that.

01:08:20

So there are similarities, and there are things that we would agree on, just maybe in the application of how we see baptism.

01:08:28

But I just think that that's an interesting parallel, because the way you answered how should someone be fit for communion is very similar to the way I would answer someone being fit for baptism, as well as the idea of raising your children up and catechizing them.

01:08:47

I mean, obviously, we believe in catechizing our children.

01:08:49

We practice catechizing our children, and we use confessions, and we believe that the Bible is to be understood through these creeds and confessions that have been handed down to us from our spiritual ancestors.

01:09:07

Again, I'm not trying to blur the lines too much, but I am hoping to say, as I jokingly call myself a deepwater Presbyterian, obviously, there are some differences.

01:09:17

Obviously, there are some places where if this were a debate, we would say, well, what about this, and what about that? But I'm thankful for the unity and those things that are blessings.

01:09:28

And so this is going to bring me to my last question.

01:09:30

And this question, again, feel free to anybody is welcome to share.

01:09:34

I know we're past an hour now, and I know some of you have other things to do, so I don't want to hold you too long.

01:09:39

But in regard to children, and this whether you're Presbyterian or whether you're a Baptist, we raise our children up with the hope, and I would even say with the expectation that God is in His grace going to open their heart to believe His gospel.

01:09:59

And I would say like when I talk about my son who is an adult, I say he's not yet a believer.

01:10:05

And I always say not yet because I pray to God that he will be one day.

01:10:10

And I continue to ask my friends and family and my elders to pray for him because he's not yet a believer.

01:10:17

But we all know that there are children of believers who never come to faith, and there are children of believers who die outside of having made a confession of faith.

01:10:30

And at least I have known that.

01:10:33

And so my question to you is, well, first, do you believe a covenant child will necessarily be saved? And I think the answer would have to be no, but if I'm wrong, tell me.

01:10:46

But how would you counsel someone who has a wayward child, and maybe even if that child has passed? So how would you, if they have trusted in having baptized their child, trusted in raising them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, I know this is a heavy question, and maybe this isn't where people thought we were going to go with this, but to me, this is a ministerial, every one of you are pastors, and every one of you shepherd souls.

01:11:11

So I ask you this, from pastor to pastor, how do you minister to somebody in that? And I know in a short amount of time, you might not be able to give me the best answer, but give me the best you got.

01:11:23

Keith, I think you need to point people to the character of God and our understanding of salvation.

01:11:33

Because in my experience pastorally, what's most difficult about the scenario you described is that parents tend to blame themselves.

01:11:42

They say, if I had just done more, if I had explained it better, if I had read the Bible to them more, if I had brought them to church more, if I had found them the right youth group, if I had done this, if I had done that.

01:11:56

And we have to understand that we can strive to be faithful, but we can't save anyone.

01:12:02

We can be the instrument that God uses to bring them to faith.

01:12:06

And so we can't beat ourselves up about that.

01:12:09

I think that's important.

01:12:11

And that is, if children or loved ones have not come to know the Lord, I think we need to rely upon Him.

01:12:18

We need to continue in prayer.

01:12:20

We need to never give up.

01:12:22

While there's life, there's hope.

01:12:24

And there's many examples, Augustine's mother praying for him, John Newton's mother praying for him.

01:12:31

And so we need to seek the Lord and fall on our face before Him and trust the Lord.

01:12:39

But I don't think we give ourselves any advantage by criticizing ourselves or blaming ourselves.

01:12:46

And that's often where people go.

01:12:48

And I try to give folks encouragement in that.

01:12:54

Amen, Fred.

01:12:54

Thank you so much for that.

01:12:56

That is encouraging.

01:12:57

I would say don't stop.

01:13:00

Don't stop praying until you've stopped breathing or they've stopped breathing.

01:13:06

That was one thing that we've mentioned Derek Thomas earlier.

01:13:10

He's been a mentor and a friend of mine.

01:13:11

And he told, I don't have children yet.

01:13:15

The Lord's not blessed us with children as of right now.

01:13:17

But having counseled many and he would always say, you know, never give up.

01:13:26

Because of the character of God, like Fred said, but don't stop praying.

01:13:30

Call down the blessings of God upon your family and shake the tree, the apple tree of God's favor and watch the apples of His blessing come down.

01:13:40

But shake it hard to where every apple comes down.

01:13:43

And I'm a huge believer in prayers and means of grace.

01:13:47

And we don't know what the Lord has for each person.

01:13:51

But do as Isaiah 64, I believe it's verse seven says, and rouse yourself up and take hold of God and call down the blessings of God on your family.

01:14:02

And again, we don't know what the outcome will be, but just don't stop trusting God.

01:14:09

Yeah, very, very briefly.

01:14:11

If you, when reading the gospel stories at a certain point in the story, Peter and Judas look very similar, like they're going to have the same end of the story.

01:14:21

But as you keep reading, you realize Jesus has promised Peter, I have prayed for you.

01:14:27

Satan would have you, but I had prayed for you.

01:14:29

And so that's the example that we're given and the intercession of Christ is stronger than even our denials for a season.

01:14:37

And that leads to a very familiar text that is salvation belongs to the Lord.

01:14:43

It doesn't belong to parenting.

01:14:44

It doesn't belong to you, dad, or to you, mom, or to you, older brother, or younger brother who's pleading with God to save a beloved family member.

01:14:54

Salvation belongs to Him.

01:14:55

We rest in that.

01:14:57

We trust Him.

01:14:58

There are some remarkable accounts, particularly from the 19th century, because we have so many more, we have more diaries and things from that period of time of people praying for 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years, and then even dying.

01:15:11

And then 10 years later, the person for whom they were praying comes to the Lord and they find out the other person was praying for them and they give testimony to God's grace.

01:15:20

And to just this signal grace of the Lord in answering our prayers and hearing us.

01:15:29

I try to remind parents that God is the hearer of prayers.

01:15:33

Arguably in Psalm 65, that's a title of His, He who hears prayers.

01:15:37

And I remind folks who have lots of kids, I got a lot of big families, who maybe are anxious about how one kid is gonna end up or another, I say, trust and trust this child's salvation and life to God.

01:15:52

And Keith, whether you're a Baptist or a Presbyterian, whether your children have received that sign and seal of baptism as infants or not, I still believe that your son is a covenant child by merit of the fact that he is sanctified as your son.

01:16:11

And so I could encourage you as a Presbyterian minister to pray for your son as I will pray for my children as they grow older and as hopefully they get to the point where I'm expecting to see them closing with Christ, as Fred said.

01:16:25

So a lot of encouragement for parents.

01:16:28

I think the temptation is to be discouraged and self-critical in a way that seems to lose sight of the fact that salvation belongs to the Lord and His purposes are always best, whatever they may be, which we cannot really see into from our human perspective.

01:16:46

We'd also answer that differently depending on the situation.

01:16:51

If a parent lost a child in infancy, our answer would be different.

01:16:56

And I think that's an important distinction.

01:16:58

And the reason I say our answer would be different is because the Westminster Standards tell us that elect infants, this is in 10.3, elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit who worketh when and where and how He pleaseth.

01:17:17

So also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.

01:17:23

That's a good, that last section that unable to be, or they're incapable of being outwardly called, that not only applies to infants, but you think about children with disabilities, right, that can't understand the gospel, but also the canons of Dort.

01:17:40

The canons of Dort tell us even more strongly first head article 17, since we are to judge the will of God from His Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, going from 1st Corinthians 7 there, not by nature, but in virtue of the covenant of grace in which they were together with the parents or comprehended godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom it pleases God to call out of this life in their infancy.

01:18:11

And so the only reason I bring that up is because we, you know, if a parent comes to us and says, I've lost a child, you know, they didn't make it through the delivery room and, you know, I think all of us here have probably done a funeral for a child or for an infant.

01:18:26

It's one of the saddest things you can do, but it's one of the most greatest blessings to say by virtue of them being holy, not by nature, but by virtue of the covenant, you can be assured that you, like David, I will go and I will see him again.

01:18:41

He will not come back, but I will go to him.

01:18:43

And so there, I just want to add that distinction because I think it's a helpful pastoral distinction.

01:18:50

All right, brothers.

01:18:51

Well, I again am very grateful for you coming on and sharing your perspectives.

01:18:55

And as I said, there may be some areas where we would differ.

01:19:00

Certainly there are, but I think we have been, hopefully you feel as you've been treated well and graciously and been welcome to share your perspectives.

01:19:11

And I'm thankful for you all giving this now over an hour, almost hour and a half to our audience.

01:19:19

And as I've said, this is the Bowtie Dialogues and perhaps maybe there may come a day again where we can all gather together for another subject and maybe something else that would be of interest to the audience.

01:19:33

But until that time, I want to thank all of you for being here and being a part of our show today.

01:19:39

And would anybody have anything to close before I close this out? If you're going to become a Presbyterian, do it because the Bible, not because of superior theology so-called.

01:19:52

I think I can speak for all of us here.

01:19:54

We have been convinced from Scripture as that fundamental principle of knowing true theology of what we might call Presbyterian theology or distinctives.

01:20:05

It's because this is what we believe the Bible is teaching us, that we're Presbyterians.

01:20:10

Not because we want to be part of some grand pipe smoking, cigar toting tradition or something like that or we want to be cool.

01:20:18

And so let the Scripture or be in submission to Scripture.

01:20:23

Don't be in submission to men or popularity or things like that.

01:20:26

I just definitely want to get that out there.

01:20:29

And that's a good thought.

01:20:30

I have seen a lot of people as of late who seem to be more concerned with the pipe smoking and more concerned with the hashtags and the things that don't matter versus the things that do.

01:20:43

So definitely, that was a great thought to end us on, Zach.

01:20:46

And thank you all again for being a part of today's show.

01:20:49

Now, don't sign off just immediately because I do have a final word.

01:20:52

Dave, you want to say something? You look like you're going to...

01:20:54

Okay.

01:20:55

I was just going to say thanks.

01:20:56

It's been great.

01:20:57

Yeah, I appreciate all of you.

01:21:01

Thanks.

01:21:02

Yep, absolutely.

01:21:03

And I want to thank all of you who have been with us now for the last hour and a half.

01:21:07

I want to thank you for continuing to support Conversations with a Calvinist.

01:21:10

Keep in mind that this show goes out every week and you can offer up suggestions and questions by simply emailing me at calvinispodcasts at gmail.com.

01:21:19

You can find all of our podcasts as well as our funny videos at calvinispodcasts.com and you can follow me on Twitter at YourCalvinist.

01:21:28

I want to thank you again for being a part of Conversations with a Calvinist.

01:21:32

My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.

01:21:34

May God bless you.