Primary vs. Secondary Issues in Christianity

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Welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host Andrew Rapaport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the
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Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member. With over 50 podcasts, I'm sure you're going to find something worth listening to over there.
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This would be one that's, well, maybe worth listening to. And if you're not following it, wouldn't you mind doing that now?
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Follow it, maybe share it with friends so others will. Today's topic is defining primary and secondary issues of faith.
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This is a podcast where I was the guest on the Providence Perspective podcast with the
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Reformed Rican. It was a good, lively discussion. I think this will be helpful to many in defining what issues we need to fight over, which ones can we let pass, where is it when we have something that happens that we have to say, okay, this is something
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I die for versus I feel strongly about versus say it's just a preference, let it go. This is something where what we often see within Christianity, many people major on the minors and minor on the majors, and that's a big problem.
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A lot of social media is fighting over things that really shouldn't be fought over. And so I hope that this episode is very helpful for you and others to learn where to draw those lines and how to know what things really need to be addressed, whether it be within your church, online, your family, your work, what issues need to be addressed and which don't, what do you have to say things, when do you maybe don't need to.
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I hope this is very helpful. I hope this lively discussion educates you. And if it does, would you do us a favor and share it with others?
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Maybe you can just grab your phone out and text it to five friends. If you find a good quote that you liken it, just quote it out and then reference the podcast.
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We would appreciate it. And now for the Providence Perspective with the Reformed Rican.
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What's going on, everybody? Welcome to Providence Perspective today, wherever you are right now watching.
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Guys, we're going to talk about something that is very, very important. Something that I've discussed in the past briefly, but I've never really gone in depth too much on.
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And that is the essentials of the faith versus secondary issues, right? How do we determine these things?
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When does something matter? Does it matter at all? Those kinds of things. And so I'm not going to try to figure this out myself.
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I do have a guest with me. Please welcome Pastor Andrew Rappaport.
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How are you doing today? Good, Jay. How are you doing? Good, good.
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How are you doing? I'm doing well. And so why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, that kind of thing?
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Sure. Yeah. Long, long ago, I was born... No, we won't go that far back.
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But what a lot of people do find interesting about me is that I was raised in a Jewish home, bar mitzvahed at, well, technically 12, just before 13.
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My parents, when they found out, did exactly what I expected them to do.
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They went casket shopping, looking to what we call sit shiva. They were going to... I'd be dead to them.
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They chose not to do that, which I was glad for. But later, as they, you know, that kind of...
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I actually had to... Living in their house, I was saved at 16 and lived a secret Christian life for two years.
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No one knew I was a Christian until 18. They discovered that. And by then
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I was kind of halfway out the house anyway. So I, later on, went to seminary, became a pastor, was left the pastorate in 2010, and have been traveling around the world, preaching, well, literally preaching the gospel.
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But most people know me for my evangelism. But started a ministry called Striving for Eternity, which is a discipling ministry.
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So we go into churches to do weekend seminars. Basically, for smaller churches, we try to give that big conference feel at a small church.
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And so that's what we do. We have four speakers. We have online classes people could take at our
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Striving for Eternity Academy. We have a Christian podcast community very similar to the network that you have with Truth and Love, right?
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I always get mixed up. I think it's Truth and Love. And so, you know, similar thing, just getting...
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I shouldn't say guys, but getting Christians working together in the podcasting realm. So my podcasts are
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The Rap... I should say the full name so you get the pun, but it's Andrew Rapaport's Rap Report.
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And then Apologize Live is a live stream we do every Thursday night, where we answer anyone's questions, any difficult questions.
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I like this. Okay, Jay, I know you're going to think I'm nuts, but I love it when someone comes in and they're ready for a debate.
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And I don't know I'm debating that night. You know, they come into Apologize Live because anyone can come in and I get
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Catholics and Church of Christ and Mormons and they want to debate something and I'm like, oh, we're doing a debate tonight.
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Okay. It makes for a lot of fun for the audience, but we answer any questions people have.
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So people want to join, they could go to ApologizeLive .com. So that's what I do. Absolutely.
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Great. Thank you so much for that. And guys, by the way, I will be putting more of Pastor Rapaport's information in the description below.
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So be sure to check that out, especially if you enjoy the video. If you don't enjoy the video, don't go be mean or anything like that.
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Just move on. Okay. Why not? Well, actually, you know what? He did say he likes debates, in fairness.
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So yeah, I mean, we just had recently in Apologize Live, we had, was it five full preterists that told me that full preterism is undeniable.
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It's irrefutable. And none of them came on to discuss it.
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I guess it was, you know, it's unrefutable in an echo chamber. That would have been very fun to watch.
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So sad that they missed it. But see, that is some of what we're going to talk about tonight, right? Is the fact that for some people, okay, for a large group of people that are on social media, they do not know how to have discussions without feeling that if you disagree with them, you're calling them unsaved.
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Or nowadays, the thing to say is if you disagree with someone, you're saying they don't exist, which is really strange, because if I'm talking to you, obviously,
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I think you exist. But that's, I mean, that's the culture we're in now that everyone must agree.
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And that's just not reasonable, logical, or realistic. And so when people do that, it's like, what are you really trying to get out of this?
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And so this is the thing that we end up seeing is that for many people, they get too tied up in what they believe and cannot separate primary doctrines, secondary doctrines, tertiary doctrines.
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I'm sure we'll get into what those mean throughout the show. Yeah, absolutely. Actually, that's a great segue, because I wanted to ask you the first question that I wanted to discuss with you.
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What are primary versus secondary or even tertiary issues? You brought that up as well.
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Like, what do we mean by those terms? Yeah, so when we talk doctrines, theology, there are certain things that we're going to hold at different levels, especially as we communicate with people.
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So primary, I mean, I think people can figure out primary first, secondary second, tertiary third.
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I like to explain it this way. Primary issues are beliefs.
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They're things I'm going to die for, right? Someone puts a gun to my head and says, deny
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Jesus is God. That's a primary thing. That's a belief.
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And that's something, if we're going to do ministry together, we must agree with. Then you have a secondary issues, convictions.
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I feel really strongly about some things, but it's not a salvation thing. So I'll give some examples.
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I feel I'm a cessationist. I believe that some of the gifts, those miraculous gifts have ceased after the completion of the canon.
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Now, am I going to break fellowship with that? No. One of my very good friends, we've debated the issue of gifts probably a half dozen times formally.
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So does that affect our friendship? No. Can we do ministry together?
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Yes. But do we have strong convictions against each other's view?
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Yes, we do. Then that would be secondary. Tertiary are what
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I would call preferences. Things that, I prefer this, but it's not a big deal if we disagree.
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And there's going to be a wide range in there. But let's do some extremes.
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I mean, there's things that people will, you know, right nowadays, there are folks who are in reformed camp that it's big to show yourself having a cigar with alcohol and posting pictures.
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Okay. Does the Bible condemn that? Well, it condemns drunkenness.
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Now, that's not what I would present. I wouldn't do that. But that's a preference.
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I can't sit there and say, this is something, the first is I'll die for, the second is
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I'll fight for, and the third is, okay, we can just forgo these things.
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We can just deal with one another and say, that's not a big deal.
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Music is another one. Although some churches put music to the level of, well, belief of primary.
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I mean, there's some churches that music is the main issue that they're going to fight over and divide over.
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Music shouldn't be. Now, to some extent, if you're singing unbiblical lyrics, if you're singing like, boy,
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I may get myself in trouble with you in your audience, Jay, I'll try not to, but send the hate mail to me, not
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Jay. I'm saying this, he has no, but I won't sing in my church songs from Bethel or Hillsong.
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Why? Because, well, when you start to dig into Bethel and Hillsong and their theology, it's cultic.
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The problem is, is that they use their music as the hook, as the evangelism to get professing
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Christians to get into their belief system. And that's where I have the issue with it is because they openly admit their music is the hook to bring people into.
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So I wouldn't do that any more than I would have the Mormon tabernacle choir singing in my church.
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Because it's a known heretical group that's using it to bring people to their false teaching.
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Yeah. Yeah. No, by the way, I think if anybody's been following my show for a while, they would know that, yeah, they can go ahead and send me hate mail as well, because that's my position.
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And I've spoken about it at length, at least, I don't know, two or three times.
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I don't remember how many videos I've done on that. And you know, the funny thing is I've had good, solid brothers who don't necessarily agree with that.
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And I guess that kind of leads to a follow -up question that I want to ask, because it can get muddy.
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From the way I see it, it can get muddy sometimes, you know, when we're talking about like tertiary issues versus like secondary issues, or even sometimes, and we'll probably talk about this a little bit more a little bit later, but even, you know, secondary issues and how they affect what is essential.
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So how do you work your way through this stuff? Carefully. Fair enough.
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So when we look at the primary issues, they're going to be things where we look in Scripture, and it says you are outside of the faith if you don't hold to this, such as Jesus being
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God. That salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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Right? Those are things Scripture is clear that we cannot be saved by works.
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That's explicit in Scripture. And when it's explicit, then
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I'm going to take that in a primary way. But there's a lot of things where it comes to how you're interpreting.
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And even if someone disagrees with me, I can look at how they're coming about their conclusions from the way they interpret and say, okay,
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I disagree with your conclusion, but at least you're being consistent within your system of interpretation.
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And I'm going to have a little bit more grace there and say, okay, that's going to be a belief. You know,
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I personally, I'm Baptist, so I'm not going to believe in infant baptism.
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But if I'm talking with a Presbyterian, in fact, I was preaching in a Presbyterian church, and first time visitor came up, and because he saw me at the pulpit, he walks up to me, and he literally says to me,
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I was raised Baptist, but my first time in this church, how would this church differ from my church, like with baptism?
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So I said, well, I'm a Baptist. What did I do? I immediately identified that I'm not in agreement with Presbyterian baptism.
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But then I went on to explain Presbyterian baptism. Why? I mean, shouldn't
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I fight to say, like, no, you must believe the Baptist baptism. No, I am at that moment an ambassador for that church.
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I am representing that church. So I'm going to explain their view of baptism. In fact, when the pastor took me to lunch afterwards, he actually said,
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Andrew, I wish people in my church understood Presbyterian baptism as well as your
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Baptists do. And we got to be able to be fair with each other's sides to do that, to rightly define what they believe.
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And so it's a matter of, I would say that baptism is a sign after salvation.
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But when you're viewing it through a covenant lens and you're looking at baptism replacing circumcision, therefore, you're going to see why you would baptize children as a covenant sign.
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So we're going to approach that differently. But people can be consistent with their system, and that becomes a belief thing.
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So I'm not going to fight them over it in that sense. And so, by the way, for any
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Presbyterians listening, sometimes Baptists will make the claim that Presbyterians don't believe in believer's baptism.
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Because Baptists think they're the only ones that believe in believer's baptism. To which I will always ask the
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Baptist that says that, what do you think Presbyterians do with adults that get saved? And they go, well, they baptize them.
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What's that called? Infant baptism? They're like, no, it's for adults.
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So when you get baptized as an adult, what do you call it? They go, believer's baptism. What do you think they call it?
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Oh, you know, the point being is a lot of times what we're doing in discussions like that is we're looking how to attack someone's view rather than how to understand someone's view.
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If we're looking to attack it, we think we have great arguments and they're straw man arguments that get burned down very quickly, but we don't accept that they got burned down because we think they're good, but we didn't take the time to try to understand them.
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And part of being raised Jewish, it does affect it because just a
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Jewish way of raising your kids, you raise them to debate. And that's why
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I think so many Jewish people become lawyers. What other profession do you get paid to debate, right? So I think that's why so many
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Jewish people become lawyers. But the purpose of it is for sharpening your thinking and being able to understand someone else's perspective.
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I mean, a Jewish father will sit down and say, okay, older son, you're going to debate this.
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You're for it. Younger son, you're against it. Go ahead. And you may not have been prepared.
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You're just okay. What are some good arguments? The good news is Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks, teaching them biblical hermeneutics.
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That's right. The art and science of interpreting scripture. The bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover
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Jeremiah 29 11 should not be their life first. To learn more, go to strivingforeternity .org
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to host a Bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area. What you're doing is working off one another to sharpen your thinking, even in something you would disagree with.
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I think that a lot more Christians need to do that, be a lot more open -minded, be more willing to have their own thoughts challenged.
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Because if you think your theology is perfect, let me reassure you, you're wrong.
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Well, I don't know about that. I know my theology is perfect. I'm just being great.
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No, I'm just kidding. So I was invited to be a keynote speaker on an
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Apologetics cruise with a friend of mine, Matt Sleck. We were debating. We did a whole bunch of talks. I think
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I did nine talks. He did 10. And one of those was we did a debate against each other on covenant theology versus dispensational theology.
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Very interesting comment from one of the people in the audience was that this woman had said, you know,
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I notice that Andrew, you keep defending bad arguments that your side makes against Matt's side.
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And Matt, you keep arguing for bad arguments your side makes against Andrew's side.
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Why do you do that? Now, I'm going to give you my answer first because Matt's was far better. So even though Matt answered her correctly, and after he did,
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I was like, yeah, I got nothing to say after that. But my response was because I do it because someone from my side will hear it better when they're making bad arguments, when it's coming from someone that agrees with their position.
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Matt's argument was even better. His answer. He just said, because Andrew and I both know we're wrong in our theology, we do not know where, because if we did, we would change.
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But when we sit at the feet of Christ, both of us know that we will be corrected in areas of our theology.
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Amen. And really what he's saying there is that neither one of us holds so tightly to our theological systems that we can't be convinced otherwise and that we don't recognize that we could be wrong in some areas.
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We don't think we are. I mean, you don't think you're wrong. Otherwise you would change. Right. Absolutely.
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Yeah, exactly. But if you do disagree with me, you are wrong. No. We will find out soon enough.
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Yeah, I will say this. I will say this. R .C. Sproul will agree with me when
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I get to heaven. On everything. On everything. All right.
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And both of us will be corrected. Correct. Correct. Because he's already got it, right?
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His theology is solid today. I argue he's a Baptist today.
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He is a Baptist. I'm a
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Baptist, so I don't have any problems there. On my podcast, sometimes when I do a live stream, I get Presbyterian and they really want to push for Presbyterian.
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I'll just say, you know that R .C. Sproul is a Baptist today. He was not a Baptist. And then they realize
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I said today, they get what I'm saying. That's awesome. You know, so, okay.
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I'm thinking through this. And so just kind of going back to the whole essential versus secondary thing, right?
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We can work with our differences, obviously. But sometimes, and I think this is one of the biggest problems that we have with this whole thing is who, or what,
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I guess you could say, who or what gets to determine what is a primary, secondary, or tertiary issue, right?
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Because I'm thinking of, for example, some churches, they say, well, we got to sing Psalms only, right?
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And that's very important. Or not have instruments. Or, you know, we wear head coverings, or we don't wear head coverings, or, you know, who gets to say how important these things really are?
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Because I can almost see, like, if we had a Roman Catholic or an Eastern Orthodox or something like that listening in, they would say, well, that's the problem with you guys is that you guys don't have a centralized authority.
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So how would you respond? Well, we need a Pope. And there it is.
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We need some fallible man who could speak ex -cathedra who they claim never did it.
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Because any of the things that they used to say was ex -cathedra, they now disagree, right? So I think the way it really comes down to is, like I said earlier, those things that are absolutes in Scripture, those things that the
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Scripture is clearly explicit on that are required for regeneration.
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Or required, in other words, when Scripture makes it explicit that homosexuality is a sin, and someone wants to say, no,
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God never meant that. He just meant the abuse of homosexuality, that's the sin. It's pretty explicit.
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And now you're trying to twist and rewrite Scripture to fit what you wish it said.
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Well, when it's explicit and you're in denial, then you got a problem. So let me give an example of this.
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Do you need, well, let me ask you this, Jay. I'll ask it and do you need to believe in the
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Trinity to be saved? I mean, I would say so.
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If you don't know who the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are, their nature, the centrality of who they are, or even
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God's attributes, if we want to add that in there as well, I would say you don't know God.
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Because if you say you come from a Jewish background, for example, well,
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Jews say that they believe in the God of the Bible, but Jesus is the
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God of the Bible. And so if they deny Jesus, there's no salvation in anyone else.
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So I would say, yeah, you kind of have to affirm the Trinity. Okay, so now here's where I'll, let me twist it for you and see whether you're going to change your view quickly, because I think you will.
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Okay. Being Jewish, I never heard the word Trinity, nor understood anything about the
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Trinity. I was told Jesus is God. That was enough.
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Did I understand there's separation between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit? No. And people will say, well, how did you believe
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Jesus was God and he was on the cross and still controlling things? Because he's God. I can't understand him, right?
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I knew enough to know Jesus was God. I didn't understand all the in -depth things of the
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Trinity. In fact, the Trinity wasn't defined for quite a while after a few hundred years after Christ died.
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So we have all the Old Testament saints, plus many of those first couple century saints that never had the
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Trinity defined and laid out. It needed to be, it came about when someone denied that Jesus was
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God, that it was defined. So the difference being is I believe, yes, you can be saved, but you have to believe
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Jesus is God, because that's explicit. But the Trinity, though taught in scripture, doesn't say you have to explicitly teach that or understand that to be saved.
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But I would say that in a case like where I was, out of ignorance, I could be saved, not knowing the
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Trinity. However, if I understand the biblical teaching of the Trinity and then deny it, believe in modalism or something else, now
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I can't be. Because it's open denial of the truth versus ignorance of the truth.
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Right. Okay. So now you're getting into what I was thinking, because I believe your initial question, maybe
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I'm wrong on this, was it, do you have to believe in the Trinity in order to be saved?
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Correct. Okay. Not to believe in a triune God or believe in, the idea is there are people who, and the reason
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I use this as an example is because when we think about it, there's so many who think that everyone has some orthodox doctrine.
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So when we hear Trinity, well, you must believe in the
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Trinity, because that's what the Bible teaches. That's what the church has taught. And yet it doesn't explicitly teach that.
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It implicitly teaches that. It explicitly teaches that Jesus is
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God. And so now what we end up looking at is which, what are we actually seeing?
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Well, we're seeing that we have to believe that Jesus is God, but the
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Trinity is a solution to a problem. You have three persons that are separate from one another and they're all called
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God. Right. So you're right when you said, hey, the view of the
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God of rabbinic Judaism today would not be the God of the Bible. Why?
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Because they deny the triune nature of God. They believe in a
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God that will not come as a suffering servant, Isaiah 53. They believe in a
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God who will not make a sacrifice for them, you know, Psalm 22. So they're holding to a different God.
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That's different. Knowing the truth and denying it is different than just being ignorant of the truth.
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If they're just denying, well, you know, that doesn't don't know anything about it. There's a difference,
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I think, there. And we have to treat that differently, too, with one another. Right.
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It's funny because providentially, we'll say, because it is.
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Because this is the providence perspective. So exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
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So I was speaking to a friend of mine. And as a Baptist, you have, you know, you have, you don't have, you know, you have providences, right, at your church.
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We are a Reformed Baptist. So we kind of try to be like the Presbyterians sometimes. We're just posing as Presbyterians.
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But then when it comes to baptism, then we get weird about it. So yeah. So I was talking to a friend of mine, providentially, like I said, today about my conversion.
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And it was about how, just like that, just like what you were saying. I did not understand the
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Trinity, right? Like, I kind of heard about it. I was like, yeah, I believe Jesus is
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God. And I've had heard the explanation, right? Well, the
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Trinity is like a tree, right? And then there's the roots, and then there's the trunk, and there's the branches.
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And so those are, right, which, of course, I didn't realize that was modalism. Or actually partialism,
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I should say. But I believed that Jesus was God, right?
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But it's like you're saying, because that's what we were talking about. If you come to an understanding of the truth, somebody teaches you, walks you through it, shows you in Scripture, and you're like, no, no, it's, you know, that's not true.
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At that point, I'm wondering, do they even know the of the Bible, right? Because they're not, they're no longer following, not just what church teaches, right?
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But ultimately what the Scriptures teach. Yeah. And that's where, if they're being ignorant of it,
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I'm going to treat it differently. If someone's like, I never heard this before.
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Right. Okay. But if they know it, and they're debating it and arguing, and they're telling you how wrong you are, then we're in a different, we're at a different level.
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So you're talking to, let's say you're talking to a
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Mormon. Are they going to have the same view that we would have of the
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Trinity? No, very different. I mean, they're going to think that Jesus, that Heavenly Father was a man on another planet who lived as a good
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Mormon and became God of this world. And they'd even argue he sinned in that other world.
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Very different view, right? But if they're arguing it because that's the only thing they ever heard, okay,
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I'm going to give a little bit more grace with that and try to work with them. But if they understand that the
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Bible teaches that the God of this world was from everlasting to everlasting, and they still deny that and say, no, no, no, it's that Jesus was, or the
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Heavenly Father was a God of another planet. I'm going to go, okay, we're now, this can't be reconciled, right?
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And so when do we have grace with one another? I think it's going to come down to the fact of what we're looking for is how much they understand first.
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We don't want to take our theology like a sledgehammer to people, because I don't know about you,
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Jay. Typically, when people come at me with a sledgehammer,
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I don't sit there and say, yeah, hit me over the head, right?
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I don't appreciate it. I don't want to hear from them. That becomes the difference.
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Now, on Apologetics Live, we get different people that come in. And my audience was very surprised when
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I had a Jewish rabbi came in, and people will always tell me what patience
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I have with different people that come in. But with the rabbi, they saw that I took a very aggressive stance, and people were confused with it.
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Because I know that he knows what we're saying. He knows he's making an argument out of Hebrew that he knows is not valid, but he wants to keep making it.
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But he's doing it aggressively. And so, I returned in kind to—and
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I explained to people that there's two factors there. One, knowing the person you're talking to—and this is why on my show
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I can explain to the audience why I do what I do. And that's what we do in Apologetics Live, is things like that.
34:21
But when you have certain—there are certain people or groups, for example,
34:27
Nabil Quresh. People didn't understand how he would speak to American Muslims and be very calm.
34:33
But if he spoke to a Middle Eastern Muslim, he would get very emotional and raise his voice and be very adamant.
34:42
And people couldn't understand why. Well, I understand why very well. And he's explained it when he was alive.
34:49
But because in the Middle East, if you don't show emotion, it's as if you don't really believe what you're saying.
34:58
You don't truly believe it. You're just saying it. So he has to show that emotion to the person he's speaking with, to show that he believes this firmly.
35:09
Now, that's a cultural understanding. It's kind of like Paul's becoming all things to all people.
35:16
Would you say that? Exactly what it is. And that's the passage that I used with explaining with the Jewish rabbi.
35:21
This Jewish rabbi knows what he's saying is not valid.
35:27
He understands the Hebrew better than me. But he also knows that if he gives an inch, he lost his argument.
36:07
And his pride is such that he didn't want to even give an inch. Right. And so this is the thing that sometimes you deal with.
36:18
And so I'm going to deal with everybody as an individual. Someone comes to me and disagrees, even if they disagree adamantly,
36:26
I'm looking to see, A, are they consistent within their hermeneutic? Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation.
36:35
And so a Presbyterian covenantal hermeneutic would be different than a dispensational one.
36:41
There's just going to be differences in the way we approach things. A Presbyterian reformed hermeneutic is going to be different than a
36:48
Reformed Baptist 1689 hermeneutic. Because the
36:53
Presbyterians believe that you should be reformed and stop reforming. And the
36:59
Reformed Baptists believe you should be reformed and keep reforming, because that's actually what it means. They just stopped.
37:05
See, you had the Westminster that kept reforming it, you got the 1689. The Baptists just kept reforming, that's all.
37:15
That's exactly what it is. That's what it is. But are they consistent within that hermeneutic?
37:22
And if they are, I can say, okay, I disagree with it. I was out speaking in the
37:28
United Kingdom and got there late at night and a bunch of the guys wanted to go out grab something to eat.
37:36
And one of the guys, it was me and this other guy, and we were talking about some differences we have between covenant theology and dispensational theology.
37:45
And as we're having that discussion, this other guy who's just listening in, we were walking him to the hotel after we eat and he says, you know,
37:54
I got to tell you two something. I have never seen two guys who feel so strongly about their own position, discuss opposing views so civilly.
38:08
And what struck him is because at one point, as I'm listening to this brother explain his view, and I'm asking him, well, how do you interpret this?
38:16
How do you interpret it? How do you? And I said, well, at least I see that you're consistent in your system of hermeneutic.
38:24
You're being consistent. I disagree with your conclusion, but you're consistent. And he appreciated that and said, well,
38:31
I can see how you are too. This is the hardest thing,
38:37
Jay, in social media. Man, it's like people put something out there on social media and it's as if, no,
38:46
I can never take it back. I always have to prove them right. I don't know what you're talking about. I've never seen that.
38:54
I've seen people be cordial with one another and never, never hurl insults at each other.
39:01
For the audience, I encourage you to go back a few episodes to when Jay was talking on several episodes about, you know,
39:08
Joel Webben. And we will see whether he thinks that he's never seen this before.
39:19
No, I'm sorry. The internet's out there, Jay. We have the record. Listen, I don't know what you saw in those episodes, but it's a lie.
39:33
You think it's what you think you saw, Andrew. It wasn't what really happened. Joel and Tobias were getting along just fine.
39:42
There was no disagreement. Absolutely. Absolutely. There was no problems at all. Listen, so, okay, we can disagree and still have fellowship and still have friendship and be respectful.
39:58
But you mentioned earlier that there are things that you would fight for. Maybe you wouldn't necessarily die for them, but you would fight for them, right?
40:04
So you were referring to secondary issues. So why fight for them?
40:12
Why do they still matter, even though they're not essential? Okay, so because I think that when we get to the secondary issues, they are ones that we feel are very important.
40:24
They're implicit in Scripture. And because they're implicit, we can't be absolutely dogmatic on it, but we're inferring it.
40:34
So let me use the example that I used earlier, the miraculous gifts.
40:41
Some people would say they continue for today. I would believe that they had ceased after the completion of the canon.
40:47
Now, why would I fight over that? Well, it's because it becomes a serious issue if you believe that God is still speaking and providing prophecy today, because that would say that the
41:04
Scripture He gave us is not sufficient if we have to look for something more.
41:12
And so at the heart of the issue is the sufficiency of Scripture and the sufficiency of Christ.
41:21
And because of that, I'm going to approach that to say, okay, is your salvation on the line?
41:28
No, not unless—and there are some who I then put it to a belief system.
41:34
There are some charismatics I've spoken to that would say you must speak in tongues to be saved.
41:42
Well, 1 Corinthians 12 would definitely not say that. Now, are they consistent with their view?
41:50
Well, yes, because their starting point is that speaking in tongues is proof that you're baptized in the
41:56
Spirit. So if you remember that that's their starting point, then they come to a pastor that says we're all of one baptism, the baptism of the
42:06
Spirit. So they then conclude you must speak in tongues to have that baptism. You must speak in tongues to be saved.
42:15
Now, there's a consistency there. When we deal with logic, and I teach a class on logic and debate, you can see that, okay, the issue there is the premise is wrong.
42:29
Because 1 Corinthians 12 makes it really clear that not everyone's going to have the same gift. So we can't expect that everyone will speak in tongues.
42:38
But if their starting point is that everyone must, then you might be consistent in your interpretation, just consistently wrong.
42:47
And so what we have to do is, in that case, recognize that, well, why will they fight over it?
42:55
Because it can mislead people. To distract them, rather than looking to Scripture alone, they look to experience with Scripture.
43:05
And there's so many people I know who have had that. I've said this for four decades now, sorry, three decades, because I was charismatic for a while.
43:17
But over three decades, I have said that I have yet to find a charismatic who will not eventually fall back to their experience when we start discussing spiritual gifts.
43:32
Now, I'm looking forward to a discussion I'm going to be having with Michael Brown on this.
43:38
Originally, we were planning a formal debate. We both agreed to do a long -form discussion so we can go longer, three, four hours, and get more into details.
43:50
And so the issue is he says, we are going to argue just from Scripture. And I told him,
43:55
I would love to see you do that. I've never seen it done before. Because even though they start from Scripture, they eventually fall back to experience.
44:05
And now we get into the question, what becomes our ultimate authority, Scripture or our experience? Because for so many charismatics, and there may be charismatics listening, and they're disagreeing with what
44:15
I'm saying. And yet, when it ultimately comes down to it, how do you know the gifts continue for today?
44:23
So many of them will say, because I, I speak in tongues, I healed someone,
44:29
I, I, I, I, and they go back to the experience. So I think there's a danger in the areas where I'm on secondary issues.
44:41
But I can't be dogmatic on it because I'm taking it implicitly and not explicitly.
44:49
So explicit, it's a clear command. Implicit, I'm implying it. I'm taking some things that I'm seeing.
44:55
I'm seeing that in second, first Corinthians 13, eight and following, he's saying that there's things like tongues, prophecy, wisdom, they are, they're partial.
45:06
But the prophecy and wisdom is in part, but when the teleos comes, they, these won't be needed.
45:16
It's complete. So, so whatever that thing is, it's got to complete the prophecy and wisdom.
45:23
Notice which one's missing there. The, the, the gift of languages, that's, that one's different than those other two, but, but those other two give us the indicator for what the teleos is.
45:35
Those other two are revelatory gifts. They have to do with revelation and they would stop once the canon is complete, because if God is no longer speaking that way, when the canon is complete, he doesn't need those gifts anymore.
45:52
And so, so I mean, this, this is just an example of it. And there's many others that we could look at, but, and, and let me take the side of the charismatic now.
46:03
Okay. And this is something folks, we have to be able to do when we do apologetics.
46:09
If we're going to do, or polemics, polemics is we're defending the faith within the Christianity.
46:15
So if you're, if I'm discussing, debating it with a Presbyterian, it's, it's an in -house debate.
46:23
We're both saved. Okay. That's polemics. But where I'm defending the faith apologetics to unbelievers, that would be the apologetics.
46:31
So in, when we are doing polemics, we're doing an in -house debate. We need to be able to understand the other side.
46:39
We should be able to do it for, with either one. Okay. You, you want to make sure you know that you're opposing the opposing view.
46:45
So from, from a, a charismatic view, and now, so all the charismatics who are just angry at me in your audience now, now they're going to see whether I actually understand their view, but they're going to have an issue with someone like me, because quite frankly, they look at me and say, well, you're denying the
47:01
Holy Spirit, what he does. You're grieving the Spirit. If the Spirit gives these gifts, you're, you're trying to suppress the work of the
47:09
Holy Spirit. And that's a serious issue for them. And they want to fight for that because to them,
47:15
I present a danger in what I teach because it's suppressing or an attempt to suppress the work of the
47:23
Holy Spirit, which in their mind would be a danger. And it would be a danger if we were doing that.
47:30
Right. And so I can recognize where each side is, is, is arguing.
47:39
That is a very, very, very helpful thing to do when you have these kinds of discussions.
47:47
And if you can't do that, then, then take the time to understand the view you're arguing against.
47:53
Don't just counter it, but, you know, don't just look for, for holes to poke in it, but look to understand it so you could debate their argument.
48:03
Yeah. You know, one thing I have found is if you do not try to understand the other side, they're going to expose you for that anyway.
48:15
So you might as well get on board and try to figure it out from their end. Right. Because ultimately, if you do not understand it, it will show that you do not understand it.
48:25
And if it shows that you do not understand it, even if ultimately, maybe you are correct, you've lost your credibility.
48:32
Right. And so it's important to try to, to understand that. I say that just on top of everything that you're saying, just because if anybody out there says, well, you know,
48:43
I, you know, I don't care. Right. I don't want to understand it, their heretics or whatever else.
48:49
Right. But even, even if you're right, even if you're right, you still, if nothing else, want to show that you actually know what you're talking about.
49:01
And if you, maybe you're correct, but it's not going to seem that way. So let me, let me ask you this.
49:09
Actually, let me, let me give you an example. I'll give you a quick example that I'm in the streets of New York city, union square.
49:17
This is probably about seven years ago, a Muslim family.
49:23
And when I say family, it's adult children. So it was a father, mother, their two sons and the son's wives.
49:31
Okay. The father was a PhD professor at a university. And he, we start talking.
49:40
A friend of mine was doing open air. And I was over there when they came up and we're challenging him on, on his, what he was saying about Jesus.
49:47
He just directed them to me. So they came over this group of, of six people.
49:55
And they, this professor tells me he understands Christianity.
50:01
And I'm like, okay, I start to address the, does the
50:07
Quran teach that we believe in three gods? Yes. Does the
50:12
Quran teach that we believe that the Trinity is the father, the mother, and the son? Yes.
50:18
Is that what we believe? He goes, yes. I said, but you've said you understand Christianity.
50:23
And I literally was picking one after another in the, in the crowd of the evangelists that we had out there.
50:30
Cause we had 25 of us and I'm just grabbing them. Bobby, come here. Define the
50:35
Trinity. You know, Paul, come here. Define the Trinity. You know, and one after another, three persons, one
50:43
God. And I'd go, how many gods? One God, not three gods. No one God. Okay. And after about seven people, the guy goes,
50:50
I get it. I get it. I get what you're saying. Right. At the end of the conversation, I literally said to him,
50:56
I said, let me ask you this at any point during our, it was like two hour conversation.
51:01
I said, at any point in our conversation, did I misrepresent anything that you believe when
51:07
I spoke about Islam? And he says, no, no, you had a really good understanding of Islam. I said, okay, in any point during this conversation, did
51:15
I correct you on what you said Christians believe? And at first he said no.
51:21
And then I started laying out four or five different things. I corrected him on it. He ended up going, yeah, yeah,
51:26
I guess you're right. I said, so your view of Christianity that you, you and I both agree you got from the
51:32
Quran is false to what Christians actually believe. I said, so this is why
51:39
I don't believe you when you say that I'm wrong because you misrepresented what I believe.
51:45
Secondarily, he said to him, it means that the author of the Quran did not know
51:51
Christianity, which means he could not be God. He did not like that at all. And I hope to see him in heaven one day because of that comment.
52:00
You never know. You plant the seed. You know, I'll say this guys. I was talking to some people from church this past Sunday, and we were talking about how often you share the gospel with somebody and you will never see the results, but it's not up to you.
52:17
Not that it has anything to do with this conversation, but I just want to encourage you. If you're afraid of sharing the gospel, or you have, you haven't, you've shared the gospel in the past and you've been kind of discouraged because you're like, yeah, nobody believes it.
52:28
You don't know that. You don't know when God's going to work. So plant water, but God will make it grow in its own time.
52:36
Yeah. I mean, two decades of going to New York city union square, I have had 12 people that I know got saved.
52:43
Wow. And you'd go after two decades. Wow. Yeah. That's the people who knew who
52:49
I was to be able to look me up on social media or I happened to be there when they happened to be there and they saw me.
52:55
But here's the thing. Those 12 people that I know of were people that heckled me so hard that when they got saved, several of them said,
53:08
I needed to tell you because I gave you such a hard time. How many others were just passing by?
53:14
I have no idea. Right. So when people go, oh, how's, how successful is it?
53:20
I go 100 % as long as I was faithful, that's nothing to do with the number of people that are saved.
53:28
It has to do with what it was. I being obedient to Christ. And if the answer to that is yes, then
53:34
I was 100 % successful. Amen. Even if no one comes to Christ, because that was
53:40
God's will, as long as I was faithful to him. Amen. That takes all the pressure off. And God's words never, never returns back void.
53:50
Right. So you're, you're, you just got to trust and do your part and let, let
53:56
God do what he does. Right. So you, well, I'm a Calvinist first and foremost, right?
54:01
So maybe somebody who's not a Calvinist would disagree with what I'm about to say. That makes it easier as well, again, because now there's no turn from you.
54:09
Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, if you're watching, you're not a Calvinist, maybe you disagree with this, but really it is just in God's hands to open the heart of somebody and believe.
54:18
So pressure's off, man. I had a friend in church many, many years ago. He says to me, when my kids were young, he didn't have kids at that point.
54:26
He says to me, you know, he's arguing against Calvinism. He goes, well, how are you with your Calvinism?
54:32
He says, you know, what would you, what would happen if your kids didn't believe? Like if your kids weren't saved,
54:37
I mean, you would just be like, Oh God hates my kids. I said, well, I would, I wouldn't,
54:43
I'd say God knows better than me. I said, but if I wasn't, if I was in your shoes and my kids aren't saved,
54:49
I'd be beating myself up because I'd be like, why didn't I try harder? What did I say wrong? I must've,
54:56
I didn't do something right. Cause it must be on me. I said,
55:01
I'm more happy. I'm happier to say God knows what he's doing better than me because yeah, he knows way better than I do.
55:10
Exactly. 100%. Yep. Okay. So, uh, that was something I, Oh, okay.
55:15
Okay. So I have this question. Um, but I have to ask a question before the question.
55:24
So, um, would you agree that, uh, women should not be pastors?
55:34
Uh, I, I would say that that is explicit in scripture. Okay. So, okay.
55:39
So that kind of answers my second question, which is, would you say that that is an essential issue?
55:45
Yeah, that's an essential issue because it's very clear in first Timothy that women should not be having authority, a forceful authority, or give general instruction.
55:59
That's what the Greek means there that women should not give a general instruction or have a forceful authority over men in the church.
56:08
And so what you have there is the fact that that is tied not to some cultural thing, as people try to say in the first century, the, the purpose clause is following it and it's rooted in the creation order and the sin order.
56:31
So it's rooted in Adam being created first Eve having sinned first. I don't have to like it,
56:38
Jay. I, that's the reality. I don't have to like what scripture says, but he explicitly teaches this.
56:46
Are there women who can teach and preach better than me? Yeah. Lots of them.
56:55
Should they do that in the church with men there? No. Why? Because I don't like women?
57:01
No, because God said so. God gets to make the rules of how he wants us to function within his body.
57:10
We don't get the right to change it because the culture feels different. And so, yeah,
57:16
I, that is a primary issue because it's explicit in scripture. Okay. I'm asking that because there are
57:24
Christians. I know of Christians who hold to the essentials, right?
57:29
But when it comes to, for example, this issue, they would say, well, it's a really, really important issue, you know, and I don't believe that women should be pastors, but I'm not willing to say that it's an essential issue.
57:43
So when you, when you're dealing with brethren who, who do take that position, brothers who, who, you know, are solid, you know, maybe you disagree on some things, but, but otherwise, you know, you would work with them.
57:56
How do you handle these kinds of situations where you don't necessarily agree on something that one would say it's secondary.
58:03
The other says is essential. Yeah. First off, let me first start by saying there's an important thing that you express there because you're saying brothers, people who are saved.
58:18
I want to say that the way I'm defining primary, secondary, tertiary is different than others.
58:24
Some will say primary is specific to salvation. So in other words, do you have to believe that women can't preach or teach in the church to men to be saved?
58:37
I would say, no, you don't have, that's not a salvific thing. But if your view is that a primary issue is anything dealing with salvation, you're going to have a problem with that, with what
58:49
I just said, because you're saying, well, that you're saying that if I, if, if there's a woman pastor, she's not saved.
58:55
I'm not saying that my way of defining the difference between primary and secondary are explicitly taught versus implicitly taught, and that's the difference.
59:07
So I just want to explain that, lay that groundwork so people don't say that I'm saying female pastors aren't saved.
59:15
Many of them aren't. But you know, let me put it this way.
59:21
I was in the Philippines preaching, and we actually had a woman who had heard,
59:31
I don't know if it was Justin Peter's message or my message, but one of our messages where we mentioned it, and that night she resigned from her church.
59:43
That night it was, and she made it effective immediately. One of the pastors contacted us and said, this woman contacted him to say, can you find someone to fill in the pulpit this week and for the next couple weeks because I am resigned immediately because I am not,
01:00:03
I do not belong in a position of pastor of the church. So there's someone who heard the teaching, the
01:00:09
Holy Spirit convicted her, she's saved, right? But she's just hadn't heard, that's the ignorance again.
01:00:16
But once she heard the true teaching, what happened? She immediately took action and repented, right?
01:00:22
So I'm not saying that some, you know, just so we clarify. So how do we know? Where do we draw these lines?
01:00:31
I think that, so let me go back to the gifts issue.
01:00:38
I had a fun discussion with Michael Brown on this. I said to Michael that I think that part of the issue is, you know, cessationists like me tend to be a little bit quicker to judge and call people out and whatnot and say, okay, you know, and be more, having too much discernment to where we lack grace.
01:01:05
Where a guy like Michael Brown has so much grace, I say, I think he lacks some discernment.
01:01:12
And he actually said, you know, it's a fair point, right? We both can do that.
01:01:18
So what are we doing? Like you take someone like Michael Brown and myself who very much disagree on these areas, but we can have really good, enjoyable conversations because we want to learn how each other's point of view is.
01:01:33
We try not to misrepresent one another. And, you know, he and I have said hard things to one another and we both receive it well.
01:01:43
And so we have to first off, and the area that I would struggle more with than he would be, is to have a little bit more grace than discernment, right?
01:01:53
And I would challenge him to have a little bit more discernment than grace. And that's the thing is what we need to do is have grace in these areas.
01:02:06
We have to recognize as we work with one another that we're not going to be perfect.
01:02:14
We're not going to be flawless in our theology or in our approach. And so we're going to have to come to Scripture, look at what the
01:02:24
Word of God says, if it's explicit or implicit. And we got to recognize when we are saying it's explicit, when it really is implicit.
01:02:34
The teaching of the Trinity is implicit in Scripture. Is it really strong?
01:02:41
Yes. Is it really clear? I would say yes, but it is implicit. We are referring from different passages and inferring things from that.
01:02:53
And so I think what we have to do is first, and this is what I teach when I teach hermeneutics, how to interpret the
01:03:00
Bible. One of the first things we have to do is question our own presuppositions. We all come to the
01:03:05
Bible with presuppositions. We have to be willing to question those, to say, is this explicit?
01:03:12
Is it implicit? Is it really a matter I should put as a primary or am I making too much of it?
01:03:19
And that becomes a starting point of how the rest of the conversation is going to go with someone.
01:03:28
The biggest thing we need is grace. Absolutely.
01:03:36
Absolutely. I don't know if you might have any last comments for anybody that might be listening in terms of how they would,
01:03:46
I guess, work through these different things. Maybe there's a new
01:03:52
Christian who's listening in. I know that once in a while I've gotten messages from brand new
01:03:58
Christians and asking me questions about the things that they just watch on my channel, or even a seasoned
01:04:04
Christian that has never really thought about these things before. Is there anything that you would want to leave them with?
01:04:11
Asking a pastor if he has any last words. You do realize you're, you know, you got two minutes, you finish a sermon, you know, you got a hard two minutes.
01:04:25
Take your time. Take your time. No, but I think if someone's newer listening, you know,
01:04:30
I think of the passage in Scripture, and there's two that I'm thinking where you kind of see the depiction of the
01:04:41
Christian life, right? As the young man, you know, first, you know, that young child that just wants to follow the father, wherever the father is, just wants to learn.
01:04:55
Then you get the young man who wants to fight Satan, right? And then you get the old man who just wants the wisdom, just sit back and, you know, and so there really is depicting a lot of our
01:05:09
Christian walks. You know, we get saved, and it's just like, we just grabbed the Bible and all, we just want to keep studying, studying, studying, studying.
01:05:17
And there becomes a point where as we're studying and we start seeing differing views, then we want to fight over it, because everything's
01:05:24
Satan, right? In Calvinism, we call that the stage cage, right?
01:05:31
We just stick them in a cage until they're past that point of wanting to fight everyone over everything, right? I think
01:05:37
I'm still there sometimes. Yeah, and so as you get older, encouragement, brother, we get to, hopefully we all get to that final point where, you know, and I think
01:05:47
I'm there in my walk is where I'm a lot more forgiving with the differences with other people.
01:05:54
I can forbear it a lot more than I used to. I mean, I used to, you know,
01:06:00
I literally remember fighting against parts of Calvinism for the longest time.
01:06:07
And I remember, you know, with guys, you know, well -known Calvinist guys that I'd go to conferences with, and they would just, every year at the conference, these speakers, their mission was convert me to Calvinism.
01:06:20
And we'd talk about it for hours and hours and hours. I'd disagree, and we'd make our arguments. And then
01:06:25
I'm preaching through Philippians 1, and I get to 29. Just as it has been granted to you to believe, so it's been granted to suffer.
01:06:37
Oh, wait, wait, my belief was granted to me.
01:06:45
Oh, yeah. So I had to call some friends and go, hey, Fred, you know,
01:06:51
I got to tell you, I was praying my sermon on Philippians 1, 29. Why didn't you years ago bring that passage instead of Ephesians 2?
01:07:00
It's like, that one's clear. That's explicit. But we have to submit to Scripture.
01:07:07
And a lot of times, whether we like it or not, we tend to submit to our theological system unknowingly more than we do
01:07:17
Scripture. And that's why I say there's two ways to interpret Scripture. By rules or personal.
01:07:27
Personal experience, personal theology, whatever you want to put there. It's either,
01:07:33
I believe the Bible teaches this because I had this experience, or this is what my systematic theology teaches, so therefore, no.
01:07:43
The Scripture should inform your theology, not your theology inform the Scripture. And so we really need to—I know it feels like we're doing the right thing when we're constantly fighting everyone and saying we're doing it because we got the truth.
01:08:02
But as you mature in your walk, you eventually get to the point, as Paul was, where you don't have to fight everyone all the time.
01:08:10
You can forbear and you can realize others are growing too. I'll illustrate that with an event that happened, and I'm just talking against experience, and I'm giving you an experience, right?
01:08:22
So I'm recognizing what I'm doing. But I remember in my first church, there was this guy,
01:08:28
Danny. He's gone to be with the Lord now, but he was saved for like 30 years when
01:08:36
I met him. And you know, saved from a rough background. And there was a time where there was a guy, he had just came in the church.
01:08:45
He had been saved, I think, a few days, if not weeks. And we're in church, those two happen to be sitting in front of me next to each other.
01:08:55
And this guy didn't know his way around the Bible. I remember that.
01:09:01
I remember when I was looking at a table of contents, especially for New Testament, but even
01:09:06
Old Testament, because the Jewish—the way the Jewish Bible is laid out is different than the way the
01:09:13
Christians lay out in the Old Testament. So I remember going to the table of contents and flipping around and flipping around.
01:09:22
And I felt bad for the guy, because it takes extra time, and he's trying to keep up.
01:09:29
But Danny was so frustrated. He literally grabs that guy's Bible and like flips to the page and shoves it back in, right?
01:09:39
And I talked to Danny after church, and I said, you know, Danny, you were really frustrated with that guy.
01:09:46
Why? He goes, he's just flipping pages. Why doesn't he just open to the book? He should know his Bible. I said,
01:09:52
Danny, do you remember when you first got saved? Did you know your way around the Bible? He's like, no.
01:10:02
Why do you expect him to know what it took you years? So you expect him to have the theology you have of 30 years of studying, and he's been saved only a few days.
01:10:14
Needless to say, we never saw that guy come back to church, right? And so the next week when he didn't come back, it was a different discussion with Danny.
01:10:23
And now he was a lot more humble and realized, you know what? I should have been more patient with him.
01:10:29
I say that to say that was something early in my Christian walk to help me realize
01:10:35
I too need to learn to be more humble with others and not think
01:10:41
I'm always right. I think I'm right. You think you're right, right? We always do, but we have to not always think that we're always right, because we may not be.
01:10:51
You know, it's a hard thing to do, especially on social media, you know, where no one's ever wrong.
01:11:00
You know, look, and folks who follow me on social media, you'll see me on X or Facebook, and you'll see.
01:11:07
I'll blow it. I'll get into a discussion. I'll say something wrong, or I'll do it on Apologetics Live.
01:11:13
I just did this recently where I said something wrong in Apologetics Live, and it was pointed out to me after the show.
01:11:22
And the next week, the first thing I'm doing, correcting it. You know, you'll see me apologize to people on social media when
01:11:30
I say something wrong, and I blow it. If I sinned in public, I need to ask forgiveness in public.
01:11:36
Right. And I had one guy who I publicly, you know, I privately apologized to him, and I told him,
01:11:45
I'm going to be doing this publicly. And he's like, you don't need to, brother. I said, no, I do need to, because I called you out, and I was wrong, and I did that publicly.
01:11:56
And everyone needs to see that not only was I wrong, but that I repented of it. Right. And when
01:12:03
I did do that, he actually posted and said, I told him he didn't need to do this, but I have way more respect for him that he did.
01:12:14
Yeah. I think we, and I'm saying that, but it doesn't mean I've always been perfect at doing things.
01:12:20
I don't want to make it look like I always do things right. If you want to talk to my bride, she'll have plenty of grace for you.
01:12:27
But let's try to show more grace with one another. Look, folks, if we're believers in Christ, we are going to be spending eternity together.
01:12:35
Yep. Can we get along now? I mean, we differ now. We won't differ then.
01:12:42
But how much sweeter will it be in heaven when we, if we differ now and can get along, and then we don't differ and we can get along?
01:12:50
Exactly. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Pastor Apropos, I appreciate your time.
01:12:57
Stick around for just one moment. I'm sorry, you want to say one more thing? Go ahead. No. I mean, all
01:13:03
I was going to say is I really appreciate you having me on. I appreciate, you know, you and I, you were going to have me on originally talk dispensationalism, which would have been a lot of fun.
01:13:14
But, you know, I appreciate the fact that you were like, hey, we couldn't talk on that.
01:13:20
But let's talk about the fact of how we do have differences. And it is an important thing for us to do. So I really appreciate you having me on and give me a chance to be part of, you know, with your audience and being able to be part of your podcast.
01:13:35
Yeah, no, absolutely. And actually, since you touched on it, I just want to let you guys watching know,
01:13:41
I do have a dispensationalist debate coming up. I'm going to give more details as we go forward.
01:13:48
I was about to say Dr. Rappaport, Pastor Rappaport. I can't help doing it, man. Pastor Rappaport.
01:13:55
I want to make a good doctor. I don't have any patients. That is a dad joke.
01:14:03
And while some people watching may not appreciate it, I certainly will appreciate it.
01:14:09
And if I get a chance to, I'm going to use it with my wife so that she can lower her face and wonder why she ever married me.
01:14:18
So I can tell you why my bride married me. Rewards in heaven.
01:14:26
Crowns upon crowns upon crowns for her. I think my wife can say the same.
01:14:33
Yeah. So guys, I'm going to be hosting a dispensationalism debate.
01:14:49
I will be giving out more details. Pastor Rappaport had actually reached out to me because he heard that I was looking for somebody to join in debate.
01:14:57
And unfortunately I had already set it up with two guys already. But yeah, I was, I'm very glad that he was able to be here with us.
01:15:05
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01:15:16
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