July 6, 2004

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is 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. Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. 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 United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Opening Reflections on the Program, the Blog, and the Current Controversy

Well, good morning and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is indeed James White. We are live this morning again on The Dividing Line. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you would like to participate today.

I'm actually looking for something online at the moment. Isn't that always a good thing to be doing? Right at the last second. But I've just been having network problems. I learned a lot about networks yesterday.

I really did. And it still isn't quite right, unfortunately. I really wish it was. But if anyone understands why activating WEP, W-E-P, security protocols, would cause an access point to no longer be able to set IPs for the things connected to it, you just all give me a call, let me know, because nobody seems to know.

So it's just... There are a few things in life that get me going quite as much as computer problems. And I'm not really exactly certain why that is, but I can guarantee you that it is that way. Anyway, I'll tell you, it's...

What can I say? It's sort of, shall we say, hitting the fan. I took the time to just mention in passing, because of the fact that we have recommended to many people over the years that they get in contact with certain folks, that they utilize certain ministries.

I took the time to mention on our blog the rather intriguing responses that I have gotten from certain individuals, specifically from the head of DiscerningReader .com. And I'll tell you, the emails are coming fast and furious.

I found that file, by the way. It's sort of hard to multitask, but it is interesting. So we're getting lots of emails, because a lot of folks are going, what in the world is going on? Maybe with what's going on with Rob Schlafer, and he's put a blog up, and I'm unteachable and just a traditionalist and don't do exegesis and all that stuff.

It's amazing to me the number of things I get accused of. Either all I can do is exegesis, or I don't do exegesis. Or the King James Only folks say you're a crypto-Roman Catholic, and of course Roman Catholics laugh at that.

I guess it's always good to be taking fire from both sides. If it's coming from both directions, that probably means you haven't quite gotten out to an extreme on either side yet. Obviously there is an issue in regards to what's going on within what used to be the Reformed community.

A lot of people are asking questions about it. I just saw some emails come in from our guys that help answer emails for the ministry, and I can tell that people are asking questions, what's going on. Folks coming into channel asking what's going on with this stuff, and people are asking for the URL and channel.

I don't know what the URL and channel is. I looked it up this morning, but I don't know what it is. Not that I'm going to advertise it anyways, but anyhow, there's a lot of confusion, and that's unfortunate because all the time that's spent on that kind of stuff is time that's not being spent dealing with meaningful issues in Roman Catholic apologetics and things like that, but we can't avoid it.

We can't avoid it simply because if the message, let's face it, the message that I have in response to any group, if I'm talking to a Mormon, if I'm talking to a Roman Catholic, and I'm talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ, part of that gospel is the centrality of Christ, the perfection of Christ's work, the truth that I was dead in sin and was made alive by a sovereign act of God, and the fact that my standing before God is not a cooperative effort between myself and the Spirit of God.

It's not that the Spirit of God is prompting me to do things that are going to in some way add to my standing before God. My standing before God is going to be determined by how well I cooperated with the Spirit of God.

As if that determines the foundation. Now, there's everything important about doing our duty, but the reason for it and the result of it is just so substantially different between men's religions and the religion of the New Testament, and I honestly believe that this issue is coming up now in the application of new perspectivism.

N. T. Wright, Justification, and the Reformed Response

Oh, I do have that URL. I'm not sure why in the world I'm doing this, but I just happened to notice it's on the screen here. There it is for those of you in the chat channel. Rob Schlafer made some comments about me, some of which I didn't understand.

He's used some colorful metaphors of me, similar to Peter Ruckman. Peter Ruckman's colorful metaphors. If you've seen Star Trek, then you know what colorful metaphors are. I think he did a little bit too much LDS.

A couple of things I didn't understand in Rob's stuff here. First of all, looking at Rob, I didn't know Rob. We had exchanged a couple of emails. There had been some discussions. They had been very helpful a while back in doing this program, which now all of a sudden, even though I'm doing it the same way I've always done it, now I'm a mean, terrible, horrible, nasty person.

Anyway, I guess I did not know Rob because it looks like Rob's my age. I assumed Rob was younger. I don't know why, but it looks like we're about the same age. That's fine. That's great. That's wonderful.

A couple of things he says I don't understand. Tactics like tying Tom Wright in with the present controversy of the homosexual bishop in New England, presumably because they're both Anglican, is just asinine, which means silly.

I didn't know I had done that. Rob might want to think about the fact that I try to explain things to a fairly wide audience on this program. I don't assume things. You know what? Not everybody is completely aware of the relationship of Episcopalians and Anglicans, and the fact that I was trying to explain that N .T. Wright is very, very conservative for an Anglican.

How do we know that? Well, look at the Anglican Church. Look at what's going on in the Anglican Church. This isn't an argument. I wasn't making that as an argument against N .T. Wright. If anything, it was an argument for N .T. Wright.

I have bent over backwards to be fair to the man. I have respect for many of the things that he's done. I just think what he's teaching on this is absolutely dangerous. I don't even follow this type of stuff, but there's stuff in here that's very interesting.

My contention all along is that we need to meet Wright's arguments and respond to them biblically. Okay, biblically is misspelled, but that's all right. That's my concern, too, so why have I had my head hanging on a platter for even suggesting that, for example, in 2 Corinthians 5 .21, that's someplace we need to go.

Well, when I mention that, and of course I've addressed 2 Corinthians 5 .21 here on The Dividing Line, I even offered to give Rob the URL to The Dividing Line, where those of you who have listened to The Dividing Line for a long time know that I don't know when it was now.

I was going to go look, but he didn't show interest in looking. I took the time. Some of you know that, as we mentioned on the last program, the most popular of Wright's books as far as communicating his perspective to a Reformed audience or to just a layman's audience is called What St. Paul Really Said.

In there, he addresses 2 Corinthians 5 .21, and he says this is about the apostles. This is not just some disconnected piece of theology, which I completely disagree that the historic interpretation of it, and we do need to recognize it is the historic interpretation of it, views it in that way.

I strongly disagree, but be that as it may. In there, he says, as I've demonstrated elsewhere, and doesn't even give a footnote, doesn't even give a reference. And so I found out where it was, found out where this discussion was, and utilized the chat channel, which is often a resource.

I contacted one of the folks in the chat channel, and he tracked down the resource for me at the library. He lived near a seminary at the time, and actually now lives near another seminary, which also had the book, since I lost the first that he sent me.

And he sent me the article that Wright was making reference to, his fullest discussion of 2 Corinthians 5 .21. And we took the time, here on The Dividing Line, to go over that. In fact, if someone's bored that's listening right now, and you'd like to go back and look at the archives, because I know this was before we lost contact with Straightgate.

This was last year sometime. If someone would like to look at the archives and track down where we did the discussion, the 2 Corinthians 5 .21 and N .T. Wright, I'd appreciate it. I'll let everybody know where it is.

They can go look and listen for themselves. So I took the time to track down exactly what Wright said, and the context of what he said. And we discussed it on the program. And I did exactly what Rob says here.

We need to meet Wright's arguments from the Biblica. I don't see that he's doing that. I don't see any evidence that there's even any willingness. In fact, when I made reference to Rob, to Dr. Duncan's article, extensive article, it's listed in the first archives that we have on the blog.

It's a big, huge, long URL. I'm not even going to bother to try it. It's El Masivo. I had to do one of those tiny URL things. That's what I do and make that available to everybody. But I just posted the big, huge version in the chat channel.

It's the very bottom of the first archives section. From the inception of the blog, you'll see the article. And I made reference to it. Well, Rob just dismissed it. I mean, this is what I don't get. If you want to give a biblical response, then, you know, why just automatically dismiss what Duncan has to say?

You know, it's just I don't understand that part. And when I, like I said, when I made reference to it, he says, and I read the Duncan paper, and born and bred Presbyterian who could never look past his tradition.

Oh, well, that's nice. So I guess if you're a born and bred Presbyterian, then you can't possibly have any insights into these things. January 11, 2003, James examines N .T. Wright's new perspective. Okay.

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was a year ago. More than a year ago. That's possible. I'm not sure. You all can take a look at it and see if that's what it is. I don't know. But anyhow, just dismissed Duncan's article.

And it's fascinating. In one of the footnotes, and this is just I'm just sort of wandering around here, folks. Don't worry about me. There's so much to discuss. In Duncan's article, he reproduces a footnote.

Well, actually, it's an e-mail that was sent to Wright. And, of course, e-mails are e-mails, and we all get e-mails, and sometimes we respond to e-mails way too quickly, and I wouldn't want to be held accountable for everything that was ever said in an e-mail, especially if it was a short e-mail.

If it's a real long e-mail that demonstrates that I've been, you know, thinking about what was said and so on and so forth, that's one thing. But, you know, but still, it is fascinating because as I was reading what St. Paul really said, I remember I was sitting in an airport at one point, and I kept stopping and going, man, am I just completely stupid, which is a good possibility.

But every time he talks about how we viewed the Jews and how the Reformers viewed the Jews, I never viewed them that way. So did I completely miss Reform theology all along? Or is it Wright that has sort of missed on that subject?

And in this article, let me give you the context of it. I'm just sort of jumping in here. So if you were to quote approvingly the answer to the Westminster Shorter Catechism's question 33 as your way of teaching, of Paul's teaching on justification, quote, justification is an act of God's free grace wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.

And then ask N .T. Wright to comment, he may say something like this, quote, well, there are at least three problems with that particular answer. First of all, it doesn't understand what justification is.

Justification has a forensic aspect, true, but it primarily has to do with how you know you're a member of God's people. Second, this definition imports an idea alien into the biblical text, the idea of imputation.

Imputation is nowhere to be found in either the teaching of Paul, anywhere else in the New Testament, or indeed anywhere in the first century context of the New Testament. Third, it misplaces the subject of justification by putting it in the category of soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, whereas justification really ought to be back in the ethical section of the Shorter Catechism under the rubric of ecclesiology, end quote.

Now, that's Duncan representing Wright, and I believe Duncan is right in representing Wright. If you've read what St. Paul really said, that is accurate. I mean, I honestly think anybody who says otherwise just isn't playing fairly here.

That is what Wright says. And Duncan's comment is that is how comprehensive the rejection of a traditional understanding of justification you would get. And then there's a footnote, and I found this footnote to be fascinating.

It's footnote number seven. It's a huge footnote in this article, if you're tracking this thing down on the net, which if you're listening on the net, it's easily done. Let me read you this long, lengthy footnote.

This is my attempt to provide an answer to a specific question from Wright's perspective that Wright himself has not answered succinctly. And that is, by the way, a problem, breaking in here to the reading.

You can get all sorts of different answers from N .T. Wright. We mentioned this last time. I got an email after the last program. Well, no, you just don't understand Wright. You know, that's what everybody says.

But I can read just as well as anybody else can. And if there are so many different responses that come from so many different perspectives, that even someone who has at least, you know, I have taught for a while, you know, I may not be the smartest guy on the planet, but I've written a few books, done a few things.

If I can't figure it out, then we can maybe come to the conclusion that possibly a couple things have happened. Maybe there's been evolution in his thought that results in contradictions between previous statements and current statements.

Or maybe there's something more going on. Maybe there's some, you know, sort of like when we ask questions of Eastern Orthodox folks. You know, you get a lot of different answers. Because we're asking the wrong questions, you know.

I'll be willing to say maybe we're asking the wrong questions of him, but, you know, he's addressing the issues of the Westminster Confession of Faith. So I suppose it's fair to utilize that context. But anyways, I continue with the quote.

My condensation of his view is based on his explicit assertions about the nature of justification. For instance, here is an email exchange between Wright and a Westminster Seminary student who is sympathetic to his position.

I'll withhold names to protect the not-so-innocent. It is in the form of a two-question answer dialogue with Wright. The student is asking and Wright is answering. Question. So here's what the student is asking, and to Wright.

Your exposition of justification per Paul and the covenant makes much sense, given your understanding of justification in the theology of Paul. What room is there for the historic definitions of justification as set forth in the Westminster Confession and catechisms?

Answer. Here's Wright's answer. I don't have the Westminster Confession and catechisms to hand, despite sitting here in Westminster. But I think I know what you mean. Now, let me just stop there. I don't know.

I find it rather odd that the man who is now the Bishop of Durham and so on and so forth would not have easily at hand those materials. I do, and I'm Reformed Baptist, and of course there are some that would say I'm not Reformed at all.

It just seems odd to me, but I continue on. Quote. The historic definitions of justification assumed that the word justification, shortened hereafter to JN, means the event or process whereby someone becomes a Christian.

Listen to that again. Let me just... He says, I don't have the Westminster Confession. So, my understanding off the top of my head, the historic definition of justification means the event or process whereby someone becomes a Christian.

Is that how you define justification? I hope you define it a little bit more specifically than that and make some clarifications there. In other words, and I'm going back to the quote here. In other words, it appears as a synonym for conversion or near equivalent.

I don't believe that is actually how Paul uses it. When Paul talks about justification, he is referring to God's declaration that someone is within the forgiven covenant family. A declaration that we made on the last day, according to the whole life lived, Romans 2, 1 -16, which future declaration is anticipated in the present on the basis of faith alone, 321 -31.

I stop the quote there for a moment and just ask you, you tracking with this? You hearing this? If you're used to dealing in Roman Catholic apologetics, and they're like, oh, you're making a genetic fallacy.

I'm just trying to help people understand this. I'm not making a genetic fallacy. But if you're used to dealing with Roman Catholic apologists, you've heard Romans 2, 1 -16 used in exactly that way. Exactly that way.

I continue the quote. But when the question is raised, how does someone get into this family, the question the Westminster Confession and Catechism is asking, as with much Reformation thought, the answer must, of course, be that it's God's action through Christ and the Spirit to which the human being concerned simply responds in faith.

Indeed, according to Paul, Ephesians 2, 8 -10, the faith itself is a gift of God. Boy, there's... That's why some people go, you know, there's times I like what he says, and there's times I don't like what he says.

Yes, and there's a time where you just sort of chuckle, because you can't help but hearing Dave Hunt exploding up in Oregon at that particular point. I continue the quote. A mind-boggling idea, but he is quite consistent.

So the emphasis on grace and faith is exactly right, granted the question they were intending to ask. Much more to say about this, but no space here. Sorry. Okay, then the student responds. Thank you.

What I have in mind in particular is the Reformed definition of justification as an act of God's free grace whereby a sinner is pardoned of all his sin and accepted as righteous in God's sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to him and received by faith alone.

Now, of course, you can see that. That's the Westminster definition. Excuse me. So, as I read you, there is room for this precise definition under the bigger heading of Paul's position that justification involves one's being received into the covenant family, the family of Abraham.

As you say, a commentary upon where one is and not how one gets there. I look for this clarification as I try to understand why in the world so many Reformed men are so overwrought about what you are saying or what they think you are saying or not saying.

It appears they think you are abandoning, denying or wrongly modifying the historic formulations. To the life of me, I cannot see the warrant for their concerns. Should I? And then he responds again, and T. Wright responds again.

Still a huge question. Let me try it again. Let me try again. I, too, am somewhat puzzled by the storm in Reformed circles. I haven't published a major book in this area, after all. I guess that means he doesn't view what St. Paul really said as a major book.

He would consider Resurrection, Son of God, or the New Testament, The People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God. Those are major books because they are all big enough to be considered lethal weapons if you swing them at somebody.

Nor do I agree with Ed Sanders all down the line. The new perspective on Paul is a very mixed bag of people and I'm quite different from some of them. The imputed righteousness thing is a problem because though I know exactly what job that is doing within Reformed thought, I simply don't find it in Paul.

2 Corinthians 5 .21 simply doesn't mean that. See the relevant section of my book, What St. Paul Really Said. Let me stop right there. That's exactly what I was addressing earlier. So he directs people to that, but when you go there, even he then there says, well, I actually addressed this someplace else, and you have to go and you have to find this festschrift of articles written for Hays, and that's where you find his argumentation, which is what we dealt with in the dividing line 18 months ago now.

Back there somewhere. So I continue back with the quotation here. Nor does 1 Corinthians 1 .30 and following. The trouble is that I take every syllable of Paul, of what Paul said, very, very seriously.

Whereas the Reformed confessions were making their best shot while not always being on top of the exegesis. A huge claim I know, but I am prepared, though not here obviously, to back it up. I claim the high ground.

My aim is to be faithful to what St. Paul actually said, as opposed to what any and every tradition, whether Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, Charismatic, or whatever, tells me he said. I continue to find Paul totally stimulating, exciting and fascinating, which is more than I can say for any creed or confessional formula.

That's the end of the quote. Then Dr. Duncan comments, Wright's utter theological confusion here is apparent to anyone conversant with the historical, theological, exegetical context of Reformed teaching on justification.

Furthermore, he seems oblivious to the fundamental incompatibility of his views with that of historic Protestantism and or the consequences thereof. I cannot agree more firmly with what Dr. Duncan is saying in response to that.

I mean, if those responses are at all indicative of Wright's position, and I see nothing there that is not exactly in line with what St. Paul really said, then there is a huge difference here. There is a huge departure that seemingly Wright himself may not be fully cognizant of.

He certainly does not strike me as being an expert in Reformed theology historically, because every time, let's face it, when you constantly summarize the view of the Reformers of the Jews as the Jews being ancient Pelagians pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, when you use the same illustration over and over again, and it's not an apt illustration, then what's the problem?

You know, I mean, does that not indicate that there's an issue here? That there's a problem? And does that not indicate that maybe this person does not have all that much of an in-depth understanding of what the situation really is?

So, anyway, going back to Rob Schlafer, I look, just real quickly, just a couple of things, you know, some of the things he says here, you know, it's about exegesis, he laughs at the exegesis that I offered in The God Who Justifies, I would just again recommend that individuals take the time to look at what I said and to listen to my examination of right.

I'd ask Rob Schlafer, how many of NC Rights critics do you know that would take the time, before commenting on what he said in 2 Corinthians 5 .21, to actually track down those resources? All Rob Schlafer did, and I mean, as soon as I told him I disagree with right, boom, there was no transition period, there was no, oh, why do you disagree or anything, it was immediately insults, personal insults, off-color language, just right, I mean, it reminds me a little bit, did any of you see The Last Samurai?

And if you got the DVD version of it, you can look at the deleted scenes, and there's this one deleted scene, where one of the samurai, the number two guy, the one that Tom Cruise is always fighting with and finally draws with him, and they become honorable friends and so on, he's walking through Tokyo, and these two guys start mocking him, and then one of them makes a mistake of touching him with his cane, and in one move, he just, and decapitates the guy, just one shot, just, and it's over with.

That's sort of the speed at which Rob Schlafer went from being, that's the speed at which I went from being recommended author to ignoramus who can't learn anything. That's the speed at which we went there.

It was just shocking. And what's really shocking, to me anyway, and this is where it becomes important, and then I'm going to go ahead and open the phone lines, and I don't know what we're going to bother with a break today, because I'm doing all right.

Here's where I was really left amazed, and again, notice something folks, I did not say anything about this when it happened. I mean, I was thinking about it, but I didn't say anything about it. I didn't start talking about, you know, how, you know, you should do this about discerning reader, I didn't do that.

And in fact, if Rob Schlafer had not bothered to respond to last Thursday's program and send me an email that simply quoted from my blog and then had one line, James, you're a blank, I wouldn't have, I never would have said anything about it.

So, you know, if he wants to complain about my having exposed his particular way of dealing with issues, well, you know, then you might want to come from a different direction there, Rob. What I don't understand is this.

I'm one of those strange folks that happens to think that theology and doctrine are directly related to everyday life. And in fact, I'm one of those folks that believes that what I believe about the gospel, if it doesn't impact everyday, if it doesn't speak to how I deal with all of life, then I'm really not believing in the proper way.

That all of this is just, you know, it's like studying history or medicine or all the stuff I learned about wireless networking and everything else yesterday. It's stuff that's just going to go away when you die.

It has no eternal meaning to it. And I'm just odd that way. And so you see, when I say that I believe in the imputed righteousness of Christ, when I look at Legitimae and I look at its usage and I look at the exegesis of Romans 8 and I see how all of this is revealed to me and I see, you know what?

My peace with God, the shalom that I have with God, the Irenae that is mine, Romans 5 .1, therefore having been justified, not therefore looking forward to some future situation where I hope I will be found worthy, Romans 2, to be justified, but having been justified by faith, I have peace with God.

That's not just some doctrinal, traditional, creedal statement that I want to go to war over because I like to argue about traditions. That's not why I believe that. That's not how I function. And I thought, silly me, I thought that when other people said, you know what?

I love Reformed theology. I'm passionate about Reformed theology. Silly me, I thought that meant they believed the same thing. In fact, I've gotten into a lot of problems recently because I thought that when people honestly said to me, you know what?

I love Reformed theology. I love the doctrines of grace. I love the fact that I'm saved perfectly through the work of another, that I have no grounds of boasting. I thought that when people said that, that it actually meant something, that it reflected something real, not something that was just transitory.

Something that, well, you know, right now that sounds cool to me, but hey, you know, two weeks from now I might believe something different. See, I don't understand that. I don't understand, A, those people who hold to a theological position but it does not have any impact upon them or it doesn't, there's no passion there and hence they can just, oh, there's a new belief over there.

I'll go grab that and I'll just leave this stuff I used to believe behind. I'm just going to run over there and get that and then I'm going to run over there. I don't understand that. That says to me they never really did believe what they were saying they believed.

I mean, how many times have people asked me, what about Jerry Matitix and Scott Hahn? They were Reformed once, you know, and now they believe something else. Do you think they ever really did believe?

And I go, no, no, I don't. I don't understand how a person can say my whole life is based upon an alien righteousness, the righteousness of another and then at any time later on go, well, you know what, no.

I can understand that eschatology. You know, I can understand, you know, look at R .C. Sproul. How many eschatological positions has R .C. held and gone in print in defense of I think all three of the major ones at some point or another.

I can understand that. That's not definitional of my very relationship to God. But this is different. The gospel is different. And so you see what really blew me away about Rob Schlafer's emails is I don't understand how you can say I'm passionate about the fact that I stand before God and my peace with him, that very foundation, it's all about somebody else.

It's all about the righteousness of Christ. It's not me. It's not what I've done or will do. It is this imputed righteousness of Christ. I stand clothed in that seamless garment. I don't understand how you can say that and then go read N .T. Wright and go, whoa, wow, cool.

I'm going to believe something else now. You know, I just don't understand that. I just don't follow it. And I don't understand the folks who can say that and say, hey, you know, it's like changing shirts, changing shoes.

I don't understand that. And I never will. And so, yeah, it does leave me just shaking my head and going, wow, I just, how does that happen? What's the process that somebody goes through to where now I'm sitting here reading the blog here and it says, you know, the same paragraph that I was serving before.

My contention all along is that we need to meet Wright's arguments and respond to them biblically. There is much to learn from Tom and other New Testament scholars today. Well, who's going to argue with that?

James wants to create a ridiculous asinine, either or. It's Tom Wright or me. Now that's, by the way, that is absurd. Okay? I've never made myself the standard, would never think of myself as a standard in any way, shape, or form.

That's just a gross red herring. Another misrepresentation. It's NPP or the Reformation. Well, that's true. There's no question about that. I mean, unless you want to just completely redefine the Reformation, there's plenty of folks willing to do that, then, yeah, the two are not compatible.

That is a false choice. We can have both and. No, I'm sorry, Rob, you may think you can, but it doesn't work that way. Then notice this phrase. There are aspects of Reformed theology that just don't stand up to Scripture.

Well, then, don't call yourself Reformed. Okay? Come up with a new word, please. Thank you. There are aspects of NPP that just don't stand up to Scripture. I'd like to know what they are. That'd be interesting.

We embrace neither wholesale, but simply follow the Bible as best we can. And, of course, you heard N .T. Wright in the quotation that I gave likewise making the same argument. And that's one of the things that's causing some people some confusion is they know where I stand on Sola Scriptura.

In fact, I just love it. I walk into my office right before the program and what is sitting on my desk but the galley proves for Scripture alone. The book coming out in October. Here's the galley. See, I'm trying to do the Rush Limbaugh thing here.

There's the galley proves. I have to have them back by next week. And, of course, I'm traveling to Golden Gate to teach next week. So much for getting any sleep. Everybody knows where I stand on that.

Everybody knows that for years and years and years I've defended the perspicuity of Scripture, the sufficiency of Scripture. And now they hear these folks who are obviously taking shots at me. They're taking shots at Reformed theologians who likewise have been defending Sola Scriptura for a long time.

And they call themselves Reformed or at least did once call themselves Reformed or seem to have been in that group. And they're saying they are the practitioners of Sola Scriptura. They say they are the ones who believe in exegesis.

Rob said that to me in a number of those emails. I'm just repeating what Hodge said. You're not doing exegesis. Well, I would invite folks to take a look at the documents for themselves and find out if that's the case.

Listen to our review of N .T. Wright, Second Corinthians 521, a couple of other passages. But anyway, so people are finding it to be confusing. Why in the world is it that way? Now you've got some idea of sort of what's going on and where we're going from here.

I mean, you know what? As far as I can tell, we're saying the same things, talking about the same issues that we were 10, 15 years ago. It's just that, unfortunately, the spectrum of people that we are now addressing who hold to various errors has increased and now includes people who used to, we thought, stand next to us.

I can't think. I can't even begin to name the number of people. People I've known personally, people who've been involved in this ministry who are now completely opposed to what we're about and what we're doing.

But we're not the ones who changed. Yeah, you're a crusty traditionalist. Wow, never thought I'd ever be accused of being a crusty traditionalist. But that's what we're accused of very commonly now. Well, if you'd like to talk to the crusty traditionalist, 877 -753 -3341.