May 11, 2004

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From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good morning. Welcome to The Dividing Line. It is the 11th of May and this is going to be the last
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Dividing Line. We should be able, might be able to work it out, hopefully can work it out to where we might be able to do the
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Dividing Line next Tuesday because I don't have anything specifically planned that day when
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I'm in New York. And so I should be able to get on ye olde digital phone and make the phone call back here.
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My voice, I thought it was doing fine, but now I try to use it and it's messing up on me. There's the use of the cough button.
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Anyway, we'll see. But Thursday we will be on our way out to New York and then the week after that, the
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Thursday after that will be the debate on Long Island. In fact, the normal time that we start the
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Thursday night edition of The Dividing Line, Thursday afternoon here, would be the time that the debate will be starting at the
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Huntington Townhouse in Long Island. I'll be debating Gary Machuta on the subject of the
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Apocrypha. And I'm looking forward to that debate and to my time there on Long Island.
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I'm going to be flying out and whipping back from my son's graduation and then flying back out again. And so the calendar page has been updated.
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For those of you back east, you might want to check that out. And what is that? It's almost sound like there's another microphone on some place or something that's on.
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Anyway, what would that be? I have no idea. Anyway, a couple of things before we get started today.
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Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, thirty, three, forty one. Just probably even if my door was closed,
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I'd hear that one. Good grief. That was a sneeze. And when some people sneeze, they put their whole bodies into it.
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That's something I can hear when I'm next door with the windows and doors closed. Anyway, just a couple of reminders.
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We generally don't talk about things like this, and there's actually no particular reason for this at the moment other than simply to remind folks, since we have new people who listen all the time, this is not a mega sized ministry.
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This is a small ministry. And we are dependent upon those who listen and who partake in the ministry work for our support.
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We don't talk about money very often, but we do accept donations.
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That is how we get the work done. And so we want to remind you of that.
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Sometimes people forget about that. For example, right now, the free archives, the program are not available.
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The reason being we store them at the leisure and the service and ministry of straightgate .com
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and the proprietor of straight gates, very busy with other things. And we can't get hold of him and the site's filled up and there's nothing we can do about it.
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And it's always amazing when folks will will call or write or make comments about how how terrible you all aren't giving us our freebies.
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Well, just so you remember, there are MP3s available on our website for a whopping buck, as I recall.
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And if what we do isn't worth a buck and we really can't, you know, well, why why in the world are we doing this anyways?
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So as long as those, you know, the freebies aren't available and we'd like to have the freebies available, but there's nothing we can do about it right now.
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So if if you want to listen to the program, you might have to put out a whopping dollar to grab that thing.
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And that's less than half of a gallon of gas anymore here in the Phoenix area. It's up to like 219 in some places.
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And so anyway, keep that in mind. We are a small organization.
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And if you are looking at helping to support a ministry, we certainly could use your assistance.
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There's many things we would like to do. I just this morning was mentioning a fairly major project to the powers that be, which is just the other side of the wall.
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There's only two of us. And so your support would be greatly appreciated on another issue.
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It's it is truly amazing. It's been a fascinating insight into human nature of late.
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I don't know if I ever told the story on the program, but the great debates on Long Island almost never got started.
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And the reason I almost never got started was because of lies, lies, rumors. When people cannot deal with your argumentation, what they do is they they attack you as a person.
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Now, we know this is how things work in politics. We see this every day.
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And the real fact matter is we we become jaded to it. We become accustomed to it.
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It's something that is just so common and so regular that we don't we don't think much about it.
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And unfortunately, when we see it in theological realms, we tend to think of it almost in the same way as political realms.
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And. In essence, what happened is back on Long Island, there was a
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Roman Catholic gentleman who would have theological dialogues at his home and he was bringing gerrymatics in and he he said to Chris Arnzen, who, as you may know,
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Chris Arnzen is the gentleman who works so hard to put together the debates on Long Island.
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He said to Chris Arnzen, he said, look, I'm bringing this gerrymatics fellow in. You find yourself a local pastor and this this gerrymatics will wipe the floor with him.
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And so Chris began looking around and he eventually spoke with Bill Webster and Bill Webster said, look, if you want somebody to debate on Roman Catholicism, then contact
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James White. Well, when he said that Chris's response is, well,
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I don't know, I've heard some bad things about him. And Bill said, well, what do you mean?
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What have you heard? He said, well, he's pretty mean and, you know, he won't shake his opponent's hands and I don't want that.
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And Bill said, and where did you hear this? Well, from a Roman Catholic magazine and Bill started laughing and you believed him.
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Now, the funny thing is, what eventually happened was Bill gave him a number, but what he didn't tell
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Chris was that we had just changed that number. There had been a Catholic apologist, well, sort of a pseudo
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Catholic apologist who had been calling us and calling me and just and just wasting my time.
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And we finally just had to change the number to get rid of the guy. And so one of the very first calls that I get,
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I pick up the phone and hi, my name is Chris Arnzen from WMCA in Long Island. And the first words
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I ever said to Chris Arnzen were, how'd you get this number? Now, I realize he's already a little bit worried that I'm just mean, terrible, horrible, nasty guy.
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And it took a little while for me to win old Chris over. But we finally did. Now, how did that rumor get started?
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I mean, we could provide we could go back through our videotapes and we could provide all sorts of video of my shaking hands with people, with with Muslims and with Jehovah's Witnesses and with Roman Catholics and with Mormons.
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We have still pictures, we have video, we have all this stuff. So where would that come from?
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Well, it came from one debate. One time. In one debate, it was the debate with Art Sippo at the end of the debate after the most egregious public behavior
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I'd ever seen in my life after at the end of that debate, I did not shake hands with Art Sippo.
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Now, there may be some other debates where, like, my opponent was immediately surrounded by people and I was immediately surrounded by people and somebody left and it was just, you know, we never saw each other again and never spoke to each other again.
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There may be something like that. But in the only time that I simply would not shake a person's hand was
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Art Sippo, one time. And I had a reason for that. And so you take that and then you just repeat it over and over and over again.
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There's someone right now that I mentioned on my blog fairly regularly. And despite the fact that I have corrected him repeatedly and have explained repeatedly where he's wrong, he insists on taking a segment from a sermon that I preached a number of years ago at our church in which
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I explained and I've explained this many times before, the experience that I had many years ago, recognizing first coming to recognize how the differences that a
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Reformed Baptist has with a Paedo Baptist, whether it be a Presbyterian or or another
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Reformed group in regards to the nature of the New Covenant and the argument that I use against the
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Roman Catholic Mass and that being, look, the Mass cannot be the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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It cannot be the representation, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Why? Because the sacrifice of Jesus Christ perfects all those for whom it is made.
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And I go to Hebrews chapter 10 and I walk through the whole chapter and I well, not the whole chapter, but the beginning chapter through verses 10 and 14.
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And I say, look, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ perfects all for whom it is made.
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And if you continue in verses 15 through 18, you have the repetition of the Jeremiah 31 passage about the
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New Covenant. Well, I was talking about in this sermon in my own church to my own people about when
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I realized, you know what, because of the differences that we have on the nature of the New Covenant, a
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Presbyterian would not use the same argument that I do. They would believe what I believe about the the finished work of Christ and the perfection of the work of Christ.
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But because of that one issue, they would not be able to use the same argument that I use in regards to the demonstration.
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That cannot be the same sacrifice. They'd have to approach from a different perspective. Well, this particular individual who has gone way off into the ozone on a number of different things.
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When people lead, you know, they were once, you know, your ally, but then they turn against you.
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It's amazing how all of a sudden their memory of what you used to believe, it gets really bad.
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You notice that some people say, well, you know, look at these Roman Catholic apologists who used to be
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Protestants. And they say they used to believe this and they say they used to believe that. And you just go, no, they didn't believe that.
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For example, Chris Aronson himself caught geriatrics in a situation like that.
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He was listening to a tape geriatrics had done on the issue of the perseverance of the
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Saints or, quote, unquote, eternal security. And the way that Jerry presented it was absolutely laughable as to what
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Protestants believed. And the reason that Chris caught him on it and caught it brought his attention to it was that Chris had talked to one of Maddox's old seminary professors.
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And the seminary professor had mentioned to him that Jerry Maddox, when he was at Gordon Conwell, had written a what the seminary professor called a classic paper on, as I recall, it was
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John Owen's Doctrine of Perseverance. He said it was a tremendous paper.
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So Maddox knows the best, but he doesn't present the best. All of a sudden he's presenting these caricatures, the worst case scenario rather than the best.
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Well, it's the same type of thing that that I experienced with this particular individual. This is someone who surely has to know what
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I actually believe on on all of these issues, surely has to know that it is a lie.
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And that's the only way to put it. We're not talking about a slight misrepresentation. We're talking about a lie, especially since I've corrected him over and over again.
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He continues repeating it anyways, that it is a lie to say, and this is what he's saying.
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In fact, he said this within the past couple of days. In fact, I think I have it. Let me see if I've got the exact.
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Oh, yeah, there it is. Exact words here. Here it is. These are men who, for example, reading this directly.
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These are men who, for example, believe that the perfection of Christ's atonement necessitates such a radical opposition to means of applying the atonement that they feel driven to say paedo -baptism ultimately commits the same error as the
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Roman Catholic mass. I have never said that. You cannot find anything even remotely like that.
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But when people lose their their footing and they turn on you, then they can hear anything they want in your words.
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And they'll repeat lies even when you correct them, even when you say, I never said that.
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Listen to what I said. Listen, be fair. They will not be fair. And so this is how lies get started and they get repeated and they take on a life of their own and just go on and on and on and on.
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And so the moral of the story is. When you hear somebody say such and such a person said such and such a thing, it's real easy for us all, especially when we don't like that person, we don't agree with that person's theology, whatever it might be.
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It's so easy for us to go, you know what? I bet you they did say that. I'll bet you that sounds like, you know, and we all do it.
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We, you know, we're all guilty of it one way or the other. But, you know, as one who experiences it all the time, it's at least when
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I put quotes around somebody's words, they actually said them. Unlike the same individual who created a quote for me that had nothing to do with anything
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I believed. And, you know, I know, I know people say, but wait a minute, listen, if these people have to continually misrepresent you, it must mean they have no real response to what you're saying.
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Right. And the answer, of course, is yes, that's right. They don't have any real response. And and they're just, in essence, trying to make themselves feel better by by handling it that way.
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Now, yesterday. I was on my way out to give my finals to my victims of students, and even they said it was a very fair and very easy finals.
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That was they're very straightforward. And, you know, I'm really going to miss some of the students that are graduating.
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And I'm really bummed, but I'm going to be back in New York at graduation for the current Golden Gate class.
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And that really, really bums me out because some of my absolute favorite students are graduating this time around.
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Andre Mooney is graduating and Josh McClellan, I'll tell you, there's there's the guy
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Josh McClellan, the poor man. I failed him because he never, ever really did get any verbs down.
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I taught him Greek, but let me tell you something. There's there's a young man who has just grown and matured and has such wonderful insights.
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And congratulations to all the graduates and to everybody who's graduating. My son's graduating from high school and and Josh and Andre and the others graduating with their
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MDivs. And so congratulations to all of our all the graduates out there for the hard work you've put in.
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But anyway, I was going out to do that last night. And it's a long ways out of the campus on the other side of the valley from from where I live.
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And I was listening to the Bible Answer Man broadcast. And as soon as I turned it on, a fellow from I believe it was
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Sacramento called in Caleb, I think was his name. And Caleb was very concerned because someone in his church was a
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Calvinist. And so the couple of things I want you to hear in this clip, well,
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I'll probably start and stop it. I want to go ahead and respond to this, but there's nothing really new here. Except listen to what
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Caleb says, and I'm thankful you got to give you got to give Hank credit here, because as soon as Caleb said what he said,
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Hank tried to correct him because it's very clear that Hank saw exactly what
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I saw. And that is this guy's going, oh, is this Calvinist? He thinks God's wrathful.
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And it's like, well, yeah, the Bible does talk about the wrath of God.
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But what I wanted to raise, aside from we hear doom from the womb and all the libertarian stuff, one of the passages that's cited is
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Matthew 23, 37. Now, those of you who remember the debate back in December, I briefly addressed that.
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I have addressed the exegesis of the text, but I've never, ever heard anyone.
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Dave Hunt utterly failed to even begin to try to respond to it.
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Dr. Geisler has never deemed it proper to do so. I've never heard how anyone responds to this.
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And so when I hear it being presented, and you can tell if you listen carefully to the way that it's cited exactly what the application is, when you look at the text, that application simply can't be there.
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And so I would think, you know, if this guy called up and this guy said, you know, this I'm talking to a friend at work.
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He's a Jehovah's Witness. And I want to talk to him as and I want to share the deity of Christ with him.
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If Hank were to say or anyone, any apologist were to say, well, read him
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John 1 .1. Well, you know what the Jehovah's Witnesses are going to say to John 1 .1,
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right? And so you prepare the person, you go, all right, I'm an apologist. I know where they're coming from.
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And therefore, when you, if you're going to read John 1 .1, be aware of this is what they believe.
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This is how they interpret and this is how you respond to it. But isn't it odd that when you hear non -Calvinists, and I was about to say
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Arminians, but there are so many people who don't like to, I'm listening, just started listening to the debate from last year between the two
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Asbury Theological Seminary professors and and the two Southern Seminary professors and Thomas Schreiner and Bruce Ware, and they call themselves
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Arminians. And so that's why I was saying, when you hear an Arminian say that, but, you know, you just got to be careful because people get so offended.
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But anyway, when you hear these folks and I was listening to the opening presentation from the Arminian side in that debate, there they go.
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1 Timothy 2 .4, 2 Peter 3 .9, Matthew 23 .37, the big three, they've got to know what the responses are to those.
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So why don't you hear, when I present passages, I do so in such a way as to provide an answer for those who are going to automatically have a, you know, some type of response.
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That's what you do as an apologist, isn't it? Well, anyways, let's take a listen to this call. Hey, I have a quick question for you.
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I have a really close friend who we were talking the other night, and he teaches in our church, really awesome man of God.
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And we got talking about predestination. And he strongly believes that God has predestined each of us to go to either heaven or hell, and that God shows this or does this to show his justice.
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My question for you is, where does this come up in scripture, if at all? And how do
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I attempt to humbly kind of enlighten the scriptures to him? Because he firmly believes in this major wrathful element of God.
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Well, you know, certainly I think that you don't have a full or concept of God if you say
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God is a God of love and you don't recognize that God is also a
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God of justice whose eyes are too pure to look upon evil who cannot tolerate wrong.
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So God is a God of justice. And the thing that you want to make sure you maintain in the debate is that you maintain the sovereignty of God, the justice of God, and then genuine human moral culpability.
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So God doesn't predestine us to hell arbitrarily. So what you're arguing with is the idea that's communicated in Calvinist circles oftentimes, that not all are created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation.
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And accordingly, as each has been created for one or the other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death.
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Or as some would put it, including Calvin, that you were actually arranged before you were born to either go to heaven or go to hell, apart from any human volition or will.
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So as I think Calvin put it, God arranges all things by his sovereign counsel in such a way that that individuals are born who are doomed from the womb to certain death.
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Predestination is biblical. And you have to start with that premise. The Bible teaches predestination.
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I was researching this the other night because it was really laid heavily on my heart.
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And I tried to reference almost every scriptural piece throughout the
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Old and New Testament. And it's very clear. I'll just use Paul as a reference. But he talks about predestination in Christ, that we're predestined in Christ.
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He talks about it in Romans 28. Yes. And in fact, in Ephesians, he uses that very language where he says,
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Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us. And in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy, blameless in his sight and love.
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He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ. So the point here is not whether or not the
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Bible teaches predestination. That's not up for grabs. The Bible does teach predestination. The point, again, becomes what do you mean when you use that term?
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Everyone that's a Christian believes in predestination or the subset election.
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The question is, on what basis are you elect? And some say that God elects us by his own pleasure, his own predilection or purpose apart from our will playing any factor in the process.
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Some say God looks down the corridor of time, sees what we will do and chooses us on that basis.
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And some say the emphasis really isn't on the individual. It's on Christ. So there are various, various views on predestination.
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So it's a matter. Again, the question is, on what basis are we predestined?
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And we say that our will is involved because God chooses us as volitional beings.
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So God puts a high priority on the will. And if you look at many of the passages that I'm so gratified to hear you looked up in the
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Bible, because if you look at the passages in the Bible, then you get the full Lord picture. Well, let me just comment before we continue on, because we're about to hear
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Matthew 23, 37. You'll notice the regular elements here.
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We are chosen as volitional beings as if being coming from the reform perspective.
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We're not volitional beings. We don't have a will. The idea of an enslaved will means no will at all.
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Well, the scriptures very clearly teach that man's will is enslaved to sin, that men are not able to do what is pleasing to God, all the rest, that kind of stuff.
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And so all of all of that stuff we've addressed many, many times in the past.
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But we hear that and we've responded to it. And it's a part and parcel of that.
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That then provides a background to then the use of these passages. And listen to which passages are used.
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Don't compromise anything that's essential to the process. A couple of verses that come to mind,
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Matthew 23, 37, which is sort of the prologue to the famous Olivet discourse where Jesus says,
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Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often
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I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.
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But you were not willing. Well, that's not an arbitrary or singular verse there.
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Now, notice what said there, you were not willing. Well, of course, they were not willing.
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But what does the passage say? They were not the ones that Christ was seeking to gather. The normal application of the passage is
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Christ was seeking to gather them, but they were not willing and therefore Christ failed in his desire to gather them.
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But that's not what it says. This is addressed to Jewish leaders. It differentiates in the text between them and those who are under their authority.
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And it says they were not willing that Christ would minister to the people, those who are under their authority.
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Same thing, Matthew 23, I believe is 13. It talks about how they they will not lift a finger to help anyone who's going in the kingdom.
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Same type of concepts going on here. This is a judgment passage. Why why not say and the reason that's wrong, the reason this actually teaches that God's will in salvation is resistible is the following.
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And that would involve establishing that Matthew 23, 37 is even addressing the issue of God's desiring to draw his elect.
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And save his elect. That this is a satirical logical passage in the first place and then dealing with the differentiation.
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The Jesus Christ himself makes between the Jewish leaders and those who were under their authority.
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But I don't hear anybody doing that. The same thing is going to happen in the next reference. The next reference is going to jump over to Acts chapter seven and eight.
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You go to Stephen, you're always resisting the Holy Spirit. It's really funny. It has nothing to do with saying, well, and you're resisting the
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Holy Spirit when the Holy Spirit seeks to bring you to salvation. As if that's the only ministry of the
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Holy Spirit. Which it obviously is not. And as if Paul himself would say, oh,
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I could have resisted being knocked off my horse. I could have I could have stayed on the horse if I had wanted to. Of course not.
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But it is interesting if you could take it that way. It says you are always resisting. So if you're going to say that human beings have been given this libertarian power to overthrow the grace of God, if they're always resisting, then why in the world are you preaching to them?
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Why in the world even pray for them? An amazing inconsistency from my perspective.
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There are many other verses that are communicating the same thing. For example, the idea that you can resist the
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Holy Spirit. You stiff -necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You were just like your fathers.
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You always resist the Holy Spirit or Dr. Luke, where he says the
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Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves because they had not been baptized by John.
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So they reject God's purpose. Or Jonah is a good example where those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could have been theirs.
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Now, did you catch that? And I'm going to go ahead and stop there because we're coming up on our break. But Jonah 2 .8,
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the only passage, the only version that is being made reference to there is the
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NIV. The NIV says there those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
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Let's see if that concept, emphasized even in the reading, is found in any other translation.
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The New Revised Standard Version says those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty.
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The New King James Version says those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy.
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The New American Standard says those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness. The ESV says those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.
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The American Standard Version says they that regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy. The term is chesed and it simply means to forsake, to abandon their chesed.
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And so it is a interpretation and a stretch of interpretation to render it as the
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NIV does here. But it is a interpretation, not really a translation of that particular text.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. We have one person online and that means there's room for you and a question to answer from the channel, too, in regards to Newman's development hypothesis.
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We'll do that after our break. We'll be right back. It's all righteousness, you know, and under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality, even more disturbing.
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Some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior. In their book,
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The Same Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
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Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
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Genesis, Leviticus and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law in a straightforward and loving manner.
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They appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.
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The Same Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMEN .ORG,
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answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the word of God. James White, in his book,
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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .AOMEN
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.ORG. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free?
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A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios? No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called
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Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Pottish Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, But the Pottish Freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.
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In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the
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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Pottish Freedom, a defense of the
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Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .AOMEN
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.ORG. We have quite some time, so let's go ahead and talk with Jeff.
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Hi, Jeff. Hi, Dr. White, how are you? Doing good. Dr. White? Yes, sir. OK, I didn't know if you could hear me.
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Yes, sir. I had a I was I've been thinking for a little bit of time about your upcoming debate with on the justification controversy or the
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Auburn controversy. Well, yeah. OK, the current terminology that is generally being used is the federal vision movement or federal visionism.
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And it's the topic of the debate, of course, is our Roman Catholics a part of the New Covenant? It's dealing with the the issue of the objectivity of the covenant sign, et cetera, et cetera.
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Yes. Obviously, I know in the debate you're probably going to have to it's going to be a
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Galatians two versus John 15 sort of understanding kind of thing. Maybe.
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I mean, I know what passages he's going to be using. That's certainly going to come up.
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It's certainly be a part of my presentation that the New Testament recognizes and that the the explanation of false brethren used by Mr.
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Wilson and others does not comport with the exegetical presentation there.
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I suppose he may wish to present numerous apostasy passages, but that's going to take us then into the nature of the
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New Covenant as well. Well, one of the things I'm I'm kind of curious about is in in a lot of these,
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I'm not saying Douglas Wilson specifically, but that there's a lot of claims about that, you know, you and others and, you know, pseudo
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Presbyterians have kind of a enlightenment bias. And I kind of see my first question would be like,
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I'm kind of confused as to what exactly your enlightenment bias is and what they say it is.
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And the second thing would be, I kind of see an idealized view of the magisterial reformers.
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And don't get me wrong, I love the magisterial reformers, but they don't they seem to kind of assume what they want out of the magisterial reformers.
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And without kind of telling me why I think why that that that bias is better than, say, some some enlightenment bias or what.
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Well, I don't know that I can answer those questions for you because I don't find a whole lot of consistency in those who would go so far as to attempt to say that, for example, the
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Presbyterians who are friends of mine and who would actually put up with me are not truly
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Presbyterians because they don't take the same viewpoint as these particular individuals. But, you know, if those folks would make themselves available for dialogue and discussion one on one, then you could call in and ask them.
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But while we have invited them to do so, they won't do so. So possibly that will come out in the debate.
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But, you know, a debate's always very limited as far as the number of topics you can address. But the constant...
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Would you deny you have an enlightenment era bias? Well, you know, you have to you have to ask for specifics there.
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And that's where you get into a problem. From the very beginning of this conflict, especially probably in regards to one person you're talking about, you know,
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I've tried to take it into the text of scripture. And it is that very attempt to take it into the text of scripture that has resulted in that accusation that, well, you know, you don't seem to understand the the relationship of your presuppositions to exegesis and all the rest of that stuff.
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And that's a bunch of baloney. I do. I'm fully aware of all that stuff.
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However, I don't believe that that means that the text, as it was written in the first century, requires it to be read through a filter of the medieval period or Aquinas or anyone else.
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Have I been have I been impacted by Aquinas? Yes, I have. Does that mean that that impact precludes me from understanding the text as it was originally written in the context of Galatians or Paul?
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No. And yet the irony is here is the is the utter hypocrisy of this, because I've been listening to Douglas Wilson's sermons on Galatians.
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And you know what? I disagree with some of the things he says, but he uses the same methodology of exegeting the text of scripture that I do.
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And that's why I can have a conversation with him is you go to the meaning of the words you go, the grammar, you go, the syntax, he goes to the to the culture and language of the person who's writing and the people to whom he's writing it to and all the rest of that stuff.
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And that's where the discussion takes place. And for some reason, instead of doing that, you get all this dirt thrown in the air and all this dust thrown in the air about, well, you know, you just think that you can just go the objective meaning of the text and yada, yada, yada.
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And it's like, yeah, well, shouldn't we go to the text first?
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Sounds like they agree with like postmodernist biases that, you know, text to mean whatever they say, unless you put them through a filter.
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Well, it's you know, they'll they'll have a cow and a conniption when you say that. But it certainly does sound that way when when they they undercut the perspicuity of the scriptures by saying, well, you know, you we're really not certain what's going on here.
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And it's funny how they're very certain about John 15, but they're not overly certain about Galatians, too.
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It seems to be a sort of a pick and choose methodology there. Well, it seems like you want to sanity check, you know, well, how did
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Jesus and the apostles use the scriptures, say, against the Pharisees? Right. And it seems like everybody was kind of in agreement in agreement that the scriptures meant what the you know, you could pull when
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Jesus was chiding them for not reading the scriptures. He wasn't, you know, it seemed like everybody could assume that the text meant what they said.
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Well, you know, it's funny, some of some of those that have been impacted by that are also really buying into some of the perspectives that are very present within our seminaries today, where, for example,
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I saw an article by a Westminster seminary professor just recently that in essence said, well, it's pretty obvious that Jesus and the apostles didn't use a historical grammatical methodology of interpretation.
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That doesn't mean that we shouldn't, but it certainly means that we should take that in consideration. And his whole argument was the number of the interpretations that you find of the
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Old Testament and the new aren't based upon the original context, the old. Well, you have to go into each one and try to figure out exactly what the argument there is.
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But the point is, these folks like to grab those and go, see, see, see this. You know, you try to hit me over the head with the exegesis text of scripture, but we don't really know.
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Now, they then don't turn around and apply that to their favorite texts and to their favorite issues.
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But when it comes to anybody else, well, we're not really certain. And is that pretty?
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That is almost something sort of new in the history of the church in the sense of the postmodern application of it.
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But they do they do grab on to those things and try to use them. OK, so it's going to be interesting.
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I don't know what's going to happen. I mean, I'm your assumptions are pretty close to mine as to what what texts are going to be primary and what issues are going to come up.
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And certainly there's going to be a discussion of the apostasy passages and the issue of the
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New Covenant. And but the main thing, obviously, from my perspective that I've said over and over again,
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I've said this on my blog repeatedly, is the idea of identifying the new test, the issue of what a
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Christian is in its least common denominator, separate from the gospel, which is what
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I see really as the as the thesis of the debate is that how can you call anything Christian outside of the gospel?
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That's that's what's going on. So anyway, OK, OK, I'll let you get out of the wind there.
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Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm in Valley Forge right now. That's where I work. And it's whipping up pretty good today.
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All right. All right. All right. God bless. Thanks. Bye bye. Eight seven seven seven five three thirty three forty one.
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Let's talk with Chuck in Virginia. Hi, Chuck. Yes. How are you, sir?
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Oh, I'm fine. I have a question about Matthew twenty three.
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I've been a Calvinist for a couple of years now after reading the Potter's Freedom and Chosen the
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Free. And it amazes me how verses that I've always read in the past have taken on a new light.
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And yeah, like Matthew twenty three. Now, if we granted the
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Armenian position that what Dave Hunt and all the rest of them say is right, wouldn't it just prove that what we're seeing there is total depravity and resisting the general cause of those?
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Well, as opposed to the effective call of the gospel. Oh, yeah. I think that's the only way that you could consistently put these things together.
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I've never seen any meaningful attempt made. And in fact, I point out in the
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Potter's Freedom that when Dr. Geisler cites this, the only exegesis he offers is, in essence, well, the plain meaning of the text is so and so.
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And so I've never, never heard of any meaningful attempt made to a contextualize
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Matthew twenty three thirty seven, take it out of the the clear judgment passage that it is against the leadership of Jerusalem, against the
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Jewish leaders, place it into a soteriological concept, make this gathering together a soteriological issue of individual salvation.
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Therefore, what we have here is the Holy Spirit coming to seek to apply salvation. And therefore, despite all of that, you were unwilling.
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Yeah, there's there's there's no question that the only way to consistently fit this in with anything else, if you're going to read it that way, is to see even
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Jesus himself talking about the seed and the sower and the kinds of seed that in the ground that it lands upon and and the general call, the gospel and the
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Broadway and the narrow way. And many are called for your chosen. All that type of stuff would be the context in which you'd have to put it.
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But even then, there's no attempt on these folks parts to do that because these are simply proof texts.
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And it's it's not and you didn't sit there and go through Matthew 23, trying to deal with the context and understanding it as a whole and go, wow, look, here's a section that says that that as hard as God can try, we can turn him away.
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That's not how it came about. What you're what you're seeing here is a tradition and you cast about through the scriptures to find the best passages you can try to fit within your tradition.
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Yeah, well, I've been at home this week recovering from knee surgery and catching up on a lot of reading, and I just got a chance to read
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Dave Hunt's book. Well, yeah, I know that while recovering from surgery, isn't that enough pain in and of itself in a battle?
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But I'll tell you something. It isn't. I've never spent so much time in a book in my life.
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I have this thing written up all through the margins. So so my debate book with him wasn't enough.
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You had to go and get What Love Is This. I'm going to I'm going to order the debate. Oh, you even haven't seen that.
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I have been reading everything. I think my biggest problem was that and most.
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Armenians, well, I was a secure Armenian, I guess you could call it, but I had always read a lot of things about Calvinists, but they were by Armenians.
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I mean, it would be like getting James Carville to tell you about Ronald Reagan. So when
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I started accepting Calvinism and well, you know, my last one was limited atonement, but I really, you know, started seeing the truth of that.
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I started reading everything I could by Calvinist and it made so much sense.
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It was like so coherent. And what can I ask you one more question? Sure. Well, one of the things when
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I said that I had seen passages in the new light, like, say, John three, five and water from, you know, the standard interpretations of it being physical birth, the word of God, when
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I realized that what it was referring to was Ezekiel 36, it made so much sense.
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And when I look at John six, twenty nine, where it says Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God that you believe in him.
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I tended to see that in light of it, saying that you can't work to save yourself.
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It is the work of God in giving you the belief that saves you. Now, I noticed that Calvin said that he doesn't think that's a good interpretation.
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I think John Gill uses it, though. Would would there be some reason linguistically that I can't see why this would not be a good interpretation of it?
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Well, I'm going to have to admit immediately that I became distracted for a second because I just got an email from a radio host inviting me to be on with Dave Hunt to discuss our book.
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And unfortunately, he's inviting me to do that while I am on a flight to New York and I can't.
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But my first thought immediately was, does Dave Hunt know you're inviting me to be on?
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Because I don't think he'd let me. I don't think he'd do that. So were you talking about Ephesians two?
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No, I'm sorry. That's OK. I'm sorry. See, as soon as I see something like that, I'm like, ah, I had a chance to talk to Dave Hunt.
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It would distract me. Very, very distracted. I have been going through your archives on all the Dave Hunt material you have listed there.
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And it's like I said, well, I don't want to get on with it, I've written so many notes in that book, it's pathetic.
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Now, which passage are you referring to? John 629. Oh, OK. Right. When I started reading that, it looked to me, well,
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I started interpreting it in a different light and I was wondering if I'm wrong for some reason.
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I look at this as saying that it's the work of God that you believe it is not your work to do.
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It is God in giving this to you like Philippians 129. Is that is there some reason why that could not be a good interpretation of that?
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Well, I think the the the the the term work there needs to be interpreted in light of the context.
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Verse 28. Therefore, they said to him, what shall we do that we may work the works of God?
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And so they're they're using the plural ta erga, the works of God.
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And Jesus then defines for them. It's not a matter of what they what they do.
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The this is the work of God. So he they've said, what can we do that we might work the works of God?
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And his response is this is the work. So he changes it from the plural to the singular.
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These are individuals who don't see that they're in no position to be doing works. I mean, what
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I would see here is more the proper relationship that we see in Ephesians two, eight through 10 of the relationship of grace and faith and works.
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They they think they're already in, but they haven't believed. And so he's saying this is the work of God, singular, that you believe in him whom he is sent.
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And so the idea I don't really I would not feel comfortable reading into that the idea that that this is the work that God does that you might believe.
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Instead, ta erga unto the work of God is being defined as that you believe in the one whom he has sent.
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You can't do any other works of God. You can't do anything good as long as you remain in rebellion against the one whom he has sent.
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And the rest of the excuse me, the rest of the dialogue with them is going to explain that, expand upon that and demonstrate that they do not believe.
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He says you you are not believing you have not believed in me. And so I wouldn't tend to see it in the context of Philippians one twenty nine.
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I'd see it within the context of John six. And that is the the work of God is to believe in the one whom he has sent.
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They will not believe. Why will they not believe? Because they've not been given by the father to the son. John six. Okay, well, thank you very much.
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All right. And thanks again for your ministry. I've really benefited from it a lot. Well, thanks. Well, I hope the knee gets feeling better.
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And then I'll tell you, anybody who can read what love is this during recuperation from surgery is a better man than I.
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I appreciate it. God bless you. Goodbye. Well, boy, hmm.
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How am I going to respond to this? No, I will be at thirty three thousand feet, unfortunately.
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Boy, I wish we could reschedule that because I would be there in a heartbeat.
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Please let me know if Dave, Dave, we need to spell
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Dave correctly. If Dave said it would be OK, I will make myself available any other day.
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I just have to travel that day. James. OK, we're sending that baby out right now because I would love to see that happen.
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Is this an indication that maybe possibly breaking the wall, a possibility of getting getting a debate set up of a discussion set up?
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Who knows? We will we will let you know. And of course, we can't let you know on Thursday because the very same reason
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I can't be on that program is because we're not going to be doing a dividing line that day is because, yes,
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I can type fairly fast. What do you think I spent all that time in a chat channel for anyways? Oh, very quickly, a channel participant said, what do you think of Newman's argument that since doctrine has developed, we need someone to tell us which developments are
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OK and which aren't? Well, Newman's development hypothesis was that that truth is like the acorn that develops into the oak tree.
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That is a process of development. I have discussed the doctrine of development in two books,
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Answers to Catholic Claims, and then that material I brought straight over into into the
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Roman Catholic controversy because that was so important. And what I demonstrated there was that the fundamental difference between Newman's hypothesis, a hypothesis which, by the way, backfired in his own life in light of his opposition to the establishment of papal infallibility and then his eventual capitulation to that, which is,
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I think, one of the saddest specters of church history. But the primary difference between Newman's Roman Catholic perspective that doctrine develops and the proper recognition of doctrinal development is the boundaries and the guidance for that development.
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And the illustration I've used, of course, of that is the fact that there was there were all sorts of very poor theories concerning the nature of the atonement present within the writings of the early church fathers.
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And the only way to truly understand the nature and purpose of the atonement is to go to the scriptures themselves.
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And as our knowledge of the scriptures has increased, for example, the early church very early on was very much at odds with the
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Jewish people. And so as a result, the Jewish background of the New Testament, especially books like Hebrews, was lost with Origen's view of allegorical interpretation, the actual textual meaning of the
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Old Testament was pretty much lost to the New Testament, to the Christian church. And so as a result, books like the book of Hebrews were seen in very odd ways.
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As we have recovered our balance in the interpretation of texts of scripture, then our knowledge, understanding of the application of books like Hebrews and what they're actually talking about has increased.
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This is proper doctrinal development because it is guided by that which is that which is
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God breathe, that is the scriptures themselves. The scriptures then bound us in. It was like Calvin said many times and he was quite right.
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We should make an end of speaking where God has made an end of speaking. Once we go into speculation and once we knock down those walls, in essence, there's no place we cannot go, which is why you end up with these wildly unbiblical, wildly unhistorical dogmas like the
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Immaculate Conception and the result of that and perpetual virginity overturning the plain meaning of scripture, the bodily assumption of Mary.
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These all become possibilities and there are other possibilities beyond that as well in regards to where Rome could go because once you no longer have scripture, or in that case, even scripture in tradition functioning as a boundary marker, as the walls that keep you from wandering beyond those levels, then obviously in that situation, you can go anywhere and so Newman's development hypothesis, if you really want to read a good contemporary, and I mean contemporary to Newman, response, then
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George Salmon's excellent work, The Infallibility of the Church, which is still bouncing around on eBay and HalfPrice .com
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and places like that, certainly in interlibrary loan. You would want to obtain that and take a look at that as written from a contemporary of Newman, does an excellent job in discussing that issue.
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So that would be an excellent work to look at. Well, just a reminder for those of you back east, look at our calendar page.
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This coming Sunday, I believe I'm in Massapequa.
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I should have brought it up, but look at our calendar page for the various places. I'm going to be in New Jersey on Saturday and then forget where I am on Wednesday, but Thursday is the debate on Long Island.
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I know I'm going to be seeing some of you at that time, some of our regular listeners. Make sure to say hello, and please do not assume that I'm going to just automatically figure out who you are by you saying hi, as if somehow
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I, having never seen you before, somehow that's just going to, you know, I'm going to know who you are. So anyway, say hello and introduce yourself.
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I'll be praying for that debate. Hopefully, maybe next Tuesday we'll be able to work it out to where we'll be able to do a
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Divine Line program the long distance way. We'll see how that works out. If not, then when
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I get back, whenever that is, maybe the week after that. Who knows? It's going to be a while. Busy time. Thanks for listening.