June 22, 2006

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from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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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. Good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line. It has been an interesting day so far.
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I had plans for today. There was stuff I needed to get researched and there was stuff
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I needed to get written. And I didn't get any of it done. I can't believe that it is four o 'clock in the afternoon, but it is.
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And what has taken my time? Well, if you go to my blog right now, you will see that within the past two minutes,
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I posted a new document on my blog, on the website. And you will see that it is the third in the
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Canor correspondence files, Canor3 .pdf.
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I actually put out a PDF and it looks semi -decent. It's not quite as good as what was typeset for me before, but I put all of the stuff from the other side in blue.
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I did the PDF, yes. OpenOffice can export it in PDF and it looks pretty good.
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So I'm fairly impressed. I'm very, very happy. Anyway, the link is there and some of you have been wondering what the status has been in regards to the situation with the debate
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October 16th. I had written to Dr. O'Donnell, the head of debate at Liberty University, and I had written last week and I had asked, since it had been a full month since we had begun attempting to contact
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Dr. O'Donnell, that he contact us, that he get back to us.
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And what did you do, knock something over in there? Good. All right. Great. I get the studio audience is not behaving well today, folks, and it can be somewhat distracting when they start doing that.
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Anyway, we hadn't heard anything back. And honestly, if Dr.
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O'Donnell was sent off to the deepest, darkest African nation someplace and was far away from the
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Internet, I can understand that. And I left that as a possibility. But that didn't seem overly likely.
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Instead, it looked like we were facing another situation as we had faced before, where a month would go by and no one would respond to anything that you had said, even though you would drop reminders and, you know, are you all out there?
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There's some issues on the table here. And of course, the response I was best, you're just not that important to us.
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You know, this is way down the road and you're not important to us and we'll respond to you at our own. You know, we're in a big university here, you know, we're in the big time and we get lots of email and and things like that.
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So finally, I called Dr. O'Donnell's office on Monday, I believe.
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And when I start talking about calling and talking to folks on the phone, all of a sudden we start getting responses. That's how
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I ended the month long silence before. And so I called, left a message. And the day after we had asked that someone respond, we finally did get a response from Dr.
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O'Donnell. And it's part of that correspondence file. And of course, his big thing is how unprofessional I am and how mean spirits and have poisoned the atmosphere and so on and so forth.
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And of course, I respond to those things and demonstrate they're untrue. But yet, as it may, I asked for details concerning this parliamentary, this long table parliamentary form of debate.
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Now, it's not that there are not books, John Meany's books on parliamentary debate are out there. The point is, you've got to be using the same standards, the same material that the other guys are using.
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And so I have every reason to ask the individual who is going to be moderating for the rule book he's going to be using.
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Since parliamentary debate is going to involve asking interrogatives, what kind of interrogatives can be asked?
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How often can they be asked? These are all basic things that we need to know and we need to have reference sources that we can hold everyone to a fair standard.
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Right? I mean, what's unusual about any of this? Absolutely nothing, except that we don't get a response for a month.
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And so you can read the response there. Basically, he said the rule book I will use is fairness, to which
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I said, that's very nice, but I'd like something a little more substantive that I can study. And so when
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I responded, I responded last evening, when I came in this morning, Rich starts talking to me about Ergin Kanner's response.
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I'm going, I don't have a response from Ergin Kanner. So he sent it over to me somehow, even though it was addressed directly to me.
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It wasn't sent to me. It was sent to others. It was sent to Tom Askell. It was sent to Rich Pierce. It wasn't sent to me.
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And so I got it. And here's what it said.
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Dear James, my goodness, it takes something for email to call me in the summer just to draw my attention to an email.
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I will do this quickly. Number one, the debate which you demanded we agreed to was settled in February.
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Number two, we provide the format, the issue for resolution, and even the location. Number three, all you have to do is show up.
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Number four, the reason this has been so difficult is because you didn't like it and could not manipulate it. Number five, if you do not have the ability to prepare for this debate, fine.
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I care not how many debates you have had. This is a debate to which we agreed. Back out and admit failure or simply come to debate.
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Neither email nor I have any plans to allow you to manipulate this debate to your advantage. This is level ground, so I assume this will be new for you.
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Number six, further, simply sending an email does not require a response. I receive spam daily. Your voluminous emails do not demand response.
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I receive countless letters and emails every day. Whether I respond or not is entirely within my purview and fitting the demands of my schedule.
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If you have the ability to respond to your email list daily, wonderful. That is not my concern. Number seven, finally, since you have chosen, ironically by your own free will, to publish everything in this exchange,
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I treat your emails like a gossip column, only written to draw the attention of your cadre. Number eight, the debate is
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October 16th, not June, not July. I have absolutely no reason to engage in your meanderings four months prior to the debate.
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It is simply one item on one date on my calendar. This is not the Council of Constance.
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I will not be drawn into some delusional drama. It is just a debate. Come to it or don't. I have a full time job and a family.
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Liberty University has become the largest Christian university in the world. Under the direction of our chancellor, we have much to do and very little time.
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The important things shall be done first. And there was the,
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I'm sorry, in any case, I assure you that Emir and I will go to a library, read up on this debate style, and shall be prepared, signed,
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Ergen Kanner. So, if you read it all at once, it's even worse than when you cut it up and respond to it.
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I have responded to that and you can read that on the website.
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I just quoted one little segment of it, the segment I, after going through each one of the points and pointing out, you know, for example, when he talked about the spam and my voluminous emails to not demand response,
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I said, yes, we have seen how much respect you have shown in this situation, Dr. Kanner. You sent me a dozen emails in one day, if I may remind you.
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I replied to every single one. I do not liken your correspondence to spam. I allow the reader to determine what it says when you make this kind of statement.
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Besides, it is one thing to take a day or two to respond. You went silent for a month. Let's keep the facts in sight, shall we?
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Thankfully, those facts are in the public domain where they belong. And so then when he said that he and Emir would go to a library and read up on this debate style,
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I said, classic. You admit you have never used this format either. Amazing. And it truly seems that you have no idea how this demonstrates that you are manipulating the format, the very thing you have falsely accused me of doing.
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So if this is the kind of argumentation we're going to be looking at, it's not going to be that difficult of a debate. So anyway, the part that I quoted at the end of my email goes like this.
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OK, evidently you are saying the following. One, this is our house. We will do what we please.
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Number two, we choose the format. Tough if you don't like it. Tough if nobody uses it in theological debates. Tough if it doesn't allow for meaningful and extensive cross -examination like you do with others.
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We don't want that anyways. Number three, we choose the thesis statement. We will not answer your questions about it.
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We will not respond to the fact that it could just as easily be used by universalists. Tough. We like ambiguity. Live with it.
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By the way, the ambiguity part there was Dr. O'Donnell actually says in his letter that that we could never come to agreement on a thesis statement.
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That's good for the debate. The ambiguity is good for the debate. And I'm just like, wow, that's not how maybe in all these debates
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I've done that. That wasn't that wasn't something that really had come up that we needed ambiguous thesis statements.
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The better thesis statements, the clear ones seemed to be better for debates.
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But anyway, number four, we would rather behave like this in private, please. Remember, they're the ones constantly complaining that the world is watching this and I don't have any problem with everybody reading what
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I've said and how I've behaved. I wonder why the other side does. And number five, if you don't like it, go away.
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Otherwise show up. It's not important to us. We are part of the biggest university around and you are no more important than spam anyway.
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So that is that's the summary that I posted on my blog, along with the issue of indicating that the that the thesis statement only makes sense when translated into Tongan.
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That was the comment I made. So there you go.
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It's it's right there. I have content I've mentioned to them. This is you know,
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I said, all right, if that's how you want to do it, it's out in the open. Here's the things we need to understand in response.
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First of all, we will show up, but we will not be alone. We will have what I might call a backup moderator on the front row.
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He will have expertise in parliamentary debate. He will have a timer. He will make sure the time frames are being kept fairly for both sides.
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And if there are any questions concerning moderatorial action, I will call upon him for input. As long as fairness takes place, no one will even need to know he is there.
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I think that's absolutely necessary. Number two, Rich Pierce will be forwarding you to you information on the contract regarding the videotaping of this debate.
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This material was drawn up by our attorneys after the Barry Lynn debate, wherein he attempted to suppress the distribution of the videotape of our debate on homosexuality through legal means.
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It gives full and unhindered freedom to both sides to distribute the unedited video and audio of the debate as they see fit, without any claims by the other side.
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Number three, Rich Pierce and others will wish to speak to those at Liberty who will be involved in the audio and video production to ensure redundancy and backup measures to make sure the recording is not accidentally lost or erased or damaged or anything else.
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We may well need to arrange for a backup recording procedure using our own personnel just to be sure.
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Number four, use whatever incoherent thesis statement you wish. I will be debating the topic, quote, God seeks to save every person equally without distinction, end quote.
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This is what you believe. This is where we differ. And unlike your proposed statement, this one makes sense. You may spend all the very brief time you have explaining your thesis statement, knock yourself out.
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And number five, we will let anyone and everyone know we wanted cross -examination wherein the text of scripture could be closely examined.
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The canners did not. We wanted a minimum of three hours. The canners wanted two, as they did not think you could sit still for three hours.
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This correspondence and accompanying documentation will remain available for any and all to read and judge for themselves.
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And then I closed with this statement. I assure you, Dr. Cantor, we will be more than ready for October 16th. But it seems we have a different reason for looking forward to that date.
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Brushing up on an obtuse and unusual debate format is not the issue. A good debater can adjust to a less than useful situation.
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The reason will be this. We will have the opportunity, as brief as it is by your choice, to talk about the freedom of the king of the universe to rule over his creation that night.
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We will be able to talk about a perfect savior, a powerful savior who never fails, who is worthy of our worship.
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We will get to contrast a presentation that is solidly rooted in the exegesis of the text with the inspired and errant word of God, with that which is based upon emotional appeals, straw men and the revision of history itself.
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And we will get to trust the spirit of God to make his truths come alive in the hearts of young men and women and maybe a few old folks like us.
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For we will challenge those folks to make that night a starting point. Nothing more. A starting point from which they must move in their study of God's word.
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We will challenge them not to be content with man's shallow traditions. We will challenge them to struggle hard with God's truth, trusting the
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Holy Spirit did not reveal anything in the word in vain. We will challenge them to not accept the whitewashing of entire texts like Romans 8 through 9 or John 6.
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And we can trust God's spirit to light a flame in the hearts of his people. That's why we will look forward to that evening.
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So once again, I present this to the people of God as a minister who stands before those people. I have been open and honest in seeking to carry out my ministry to their benefit in this situation, and I will do so despite the roadblocks you have forced upon us.
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Please be looking for Mr. Pierce's correspondence on the videotaping recording issues. His email will not be spam and should not be treated as spam and should be responded to in a timely fashion.
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Thank you. And we will see you on the 16th of October. Well, I confess
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I have never experienced anything like this in my life.
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This will be number 60, I believe, of the debates that I have done. That's a five dozen of them.
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And no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Open it and bring it in here. Please.
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I just saw I saw something arrived and it looked way too light to be the book I'm hoping to receive. But it may be something else.
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So I want to see it while we're on the air. This is a live program, folks, and it's not meant to be overly stuffy.
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Anyway, I have five dozen of these debates. It's a lot of them. And some of them, there was some pretty nasty pre -debate stuff, especially with Bobs and Janice.
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There is some pretty nasty post -debate stuff with Art Sippo, but Art Sippo is Art Sippo. I think what bothers most people about this is the fact that we're talking about one of these men teaches at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest, well, probably the largest evangelical seminary in the
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United States. And the other is the newly minted president of Liberty Theological Seminary and the dean of students at Liberty University.
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And as often as there have been times you've wondered about some of the things that take place, you still just can't help but go, you know, these these folks should be behaving differently.
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Oh, not what I was looking for, but that's nice, too. Boy, those are hot, man. Whatever you do, folks, do not ship much out to Phoenix, Arizona that can melt during the summer.
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OK, I just we just opened up a package from UPS. And what do you think these things are probably about 100, 105, 106 degrees because they've been inside that truck, maybe even hotter anyway.
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And I think that's what bothers people. It bothers people that that folks in that situation will behave in in this fashion.
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It just it shouldn't be this way. And, you know, Dr. O'Donnell's right. There should be no reason for me to have ever had to post this material in public.
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This should have been able to be done with just a small number of emails. And it was done and it was set and it was ready to go.
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But read the correspondence for yourself and you'll see why. You'll be able to see why it had to be exposed for what was actually taking place, what's actually going on.
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And so that is the current situation, 877 -753 -3341.
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Let me address a concern immediately. And if you want to call in, that's great. The lines are open at 877 -753 -3341.
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Let me let me address a an honest and good concern, one that I do understand.
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And that is, should we even bother? Should we even bother? Let's face it. This is an important topic.
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And I don't like the idea of dealing with folks that treat it in such a cavalier fashion.
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There's no there's no two ways about that. And if this was going to be almost anywhere else than where it's going to be,
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I don't think I would bother with it. It is clear to me, I mean, when
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Ergen -Kanner can stand in front of the congregation and say that God hated Esau because of what Esau did, when he can turn the text of the
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Bible completely on its head right after it is said, not because of anything they had done, good or bad, even before they were born, it was said, when you can completely miss a text like that, just just show no exegetical capacity at all like that, then generally
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I would probably go, you know, been there, done that, got the
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T -shirt, no real reason to go back over this again. He's not going to be presenting anything that has not been refuted a thousand times before.
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No question. And given the behavior, the the the moderator starting off by how unprofessional of you and you've poisoned the atmosphere and all the rest of stuff, not a word to the
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Kanners. The fact that the Kanners can't even call us Christians, won't answer questions.
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All the all the documentation of the of the straw men and the misrepresentations, everything else, none of that gets mentioned.
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But if we dare let the the people know what's going on, well, you've poisoned the atmosphere.
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All of that would probably be enough to make me go, this is absolutely ridiculous. There's no reason to do any of this.
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So why go through with it? Well, first of all, I cannot guarantee that the people who've heard about it would ever hear both sides, even though we've put everything out.
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Hey, we're a small little ministry and I've got a small little website. And and how do I know the people who've heard about it would ever get an opportunity to actually read the documentation to know as to what actually took place?
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But beyond that, beyond that particular situation, is the reality that no matter what we think of the long table parliamentary form, we're still going to have an equal amount of time.
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Short amount of time, yeah, but an equal amount of time. And folks, I have seen the proclamation of the perfection.
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Of Christ, the Lord. Christ, the powerful savior,
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Christ, the perfect savior, Christ, not the the the milk toast Jesus at the door, but the powerful king.
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I've seen the proclamation of that truth from the word of God, from John six,
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John eight, John 10, John 17, from from the book of Hebrews, he is able to save to the uttermost those who are drawn to God by him.
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I have seen that proclamation. When it is finally presented, it's all the human tradition, it's gotten out of the way,
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I've seen it change people and I can trust the
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Holy Spirit of God. I can trust the spirit of God to to make that come alive in the hearts and minds of people.
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I don't have to worry about about using some kind of, you know, emotional appeals and all the rest of stuff.
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I can simply trust the spirit of God to do that. And so there's going to be a large group of people there.
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And I know Tom Askell. And Tom Askell knows me and the people who know us know how we are going to behave.
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And they know that we are not going to be that we are not going to be behaving in such a fashion as to detract from our message.
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We are going to be there and we're going to be focused as much time as we're given or as little. We are going to be focused.
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And I will allow that presentation to contrast itself to whatever else takes place, to whatever else happens.
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And hope that the Lord opens opportunities of discussion. So that's the situation.
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877 -753 -3341. That's why I'm pressing forward with it. I fully understand that.
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Let's let's start taking our phone calls. And let's start with Stephen.
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Hi, Stephen. How are you doing? I'm doing well, Dr. Whiting. Yourself? Doing well. Well, listen, I just wanted to encourage you somewhat that you're going with this with this thing with the cameras.
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I was as I was listening to you talk earlier, I was wondering, you know, why bother? But I understand why and why you need to do it.
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Yes, well, yeah, I do, too. And I fully you know, there are going to be people who are going to disagree and I fully understand that.
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I know Tom has said he's been very disappointed in all of this. And I fully understand that as well.
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I I would not fault anyone, anyone else for saying, you know what, this is this is no,
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I'm not not interested in this and I'm not going to be involved. I fully understand that.
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But but I I think that the Lord can do something with this, given the context, given the audience, given the fact that we've tried to be wide open about this and people can examine this stuff.
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I I want to press forward and I'm willing to do so. And even though we're going to be walking into a very uncomfortable situation, still,
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I want to see this take place. So I'd like to ask you, what do you think it is with Baptists in particular?
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And I'm a Baptist and where I am, there's not a lot of Calvinistic Baptist churches. But what what do you think it is that they just seem to have abandoned their traditional roots?
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Well, I think a couple of things. First of all, one one knock on a lot of Baptists, and it's a it's a fair knock, is that we don't see ourselves as we really are in history.
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And so we don't see ourselves as standing in any kind of meaningful history. And so if church history ended basically 50 years ago, then all we know is what we can sort of briefly look back over our history and see.
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And for a lot of them, it's been the revivalism, the Phineas, the things like that. And they think that's what defines what it means to be a
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Baptist. And they don't realize they've never they've never read the 1689. They don't they don't they don't read
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Spurgeon and things like that. And so unfortunately, if you don't have a deep root at that point, you're going to be blown about by every not only wind of doctrine, but by wind of culture and things like that.
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And I think it's one of the reasons that we see what we see in a lot of situations. Well, I think to sort of just share with you, I I was saved in the
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Baptist church in 1968, but it was not until five years ago that I knew there was a 1689
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Baptist confession. Oh, yeah. And that was basically through your ministry. I mean, I heard of the doctrines of grace before that.
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But actually, what happened, I was doing some research on the King James only controversy.
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I read your book and I began listening to your program. It is, boy, is that guy ever Calvinistic? And it was basically
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I think I listened to about three or four programs. And I had to admit that that what you were saying was correct in the word of God.
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And I mean, it's it's made a big difference in my own life as far as my evangelism is concerned and other things as well.
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Well, you realize, Stephen, that we trapped you, that that is a mean Calvinist trap. And the only reason
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I wrote the King James only controversy was to trap people like you and turn you into Calvinist.
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So I just just so you know, you've exposed me at that point. And it's a joke.
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Well, listen, brother, I'm just so glad for your ministry. And I think that we need more ministries like you on the
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Internet and on on radio as well. And I'm looking forward to seeing you when you come back to Toronto in September.
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Well, I'm still going up to Toronto, even though I'm going to be going straight to Toronto now instead of going through through Fort Worth.
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I was going to be speaking at an apologetics conference at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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And in fact, only I think three days ago had been told to to get my tickets.
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And we had worked it out so that I would fly from Phoenix to Fort Worth. I'd speak there on a Wednesday on Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses and others.
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And then I was going to fly from Fort Worth via, I think, Charlotte up to Toronto.
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And I'm speaking up there and then fly back from Toronto. But just a couple of hours ago, not even two hours ago,
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I think, I received a phone call and was disinvited from speaking at the apologetics conference.
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And it it had seemed rather odd to me because the night after I'm speaking,
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Emir Kaner is speaking on Islam and he is a teacher there. And I had always found that a little bit different, a little bit odd.
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It was going to be a little bit unusual, but I didn't have any problem with it. I had been scheduled to speak here for probably at least a year now.
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And around that period of time, I would say it's been one of the longer standing commitments
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I had. And so I was just disinvited. And I asked, could
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I ask why? Well, we've just decided to go another direction. And I said, is Dr. Kaner still speaking?
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Yes, he's still speaking. And so I went on the website and I have been replaced by a discussion of the
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Word Faith Movement. I'm not sure how that's a real big change in direction, but I have been disinvited from from speaking there.
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So I ask you also, are you still planning on doing something on Islam up here as well?
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Because last time I spoke, you said you were. No, I was going to try to find some way of doing something on a
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Monday with Shabir Ali, but that is during Ramadan. And so I was going to do something on the deity of Christ.
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But since then, Shabir has agreed to debate that subject in Scotland.
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And in fact, we right now are working on arranging three debates for Scotland for next year, one, the deity of Christ, one on whether the
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Old Testament prophesies Jesus Christ. Believe it or not, he's the one who asked that.
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He's come to the conclusion that it does not. And then one on whether the Old Testament speaks of Muhammad.
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And so there will be three debates that we'll do in that context. And so since he has agreed to do the debate on the deity of Christ, then, no, we won't be doing that.
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I'll just be speaking at the conference there for Sola Scriptura Ministries. Well, that's great. And listen, I'm just, you know, so grateful that you've been able to, you know, keep going up because I think
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I would have given up in disgust on those guys a long time ago. And it bothers me that a person of Dr.
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Cantor's stature is behaving like a child. Well, I just put it out there and let folks see for themselves and go from there.
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Hey, thanks. We'll see you in September. OK, thank you. All right. God bless. 877 -753 -3341.
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What's the Muslim population in Scotland? You'd be surprised. Universities in Scotland, UK, there's more folks up there than you might imagine.
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And there's a fairly active Islamic university student associations up there.
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And a number of the debates I've seen, for example, between Shabir Ali and Jay Smith have been taking place because those
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Muslim student associations were able to do that. We're hoping to sort of utilize that kind of help to get our debates set up as well.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. Phone lines are open for your comments on this subject and others.
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Lots of stuff going on before we take our break. The Anglicans are at it and the Episcopalians are at it.
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And we'll be talking about that when we come back as well. And your phone calls 877 -753 -3341.
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What is
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Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free? A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?
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No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, But The Potter's Freedom is much more than just a reply.
30:14
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.
30:22
In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
30:29
Calvinism. Defines what the Reformed faith actually is and concludes that the gospel preached by the
30:34
Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Potter's Freedom, a defense of the
30:39
Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free? You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomin .org.
30:47
This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.
30:58
The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the
31:05
Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning
31:10
Bible study begins at 9 30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 45. Evening services are at 6 30 p .m.
31:18
on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805
31:26
North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.
31:33
If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at PRBC .org,
31:40
where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
31:47
Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.
31:54
Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.
32:00
In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the
32:06
Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including
32:13
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.
32:23
In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.
32:33
The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMIN .org.
33:10
777 -753 -3341 Just today, the dateline on this is, how can this?
33:22
Oh, I see what, well, could it be? Well, this is Times Online, and yeah,
33:28
I guess it could be eight hours. Yeah, it could be tomorrow. Yeah, this is dated, dated tomorrow, June 23rd.
33:36
American churches shown door as gay row deepens. The Anglican Church moved closer to schism yesterday when members of its
33:44
Central Administrative Council formally asked the churches of Canada and the US to go. Unconvinced by the justifications offered by both churches on Tuesday for their actions in ordaining an openly homosexual bishop and authorizing same -sex blessings, members of the
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Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nottingham asked them to leave the council and its central finance and standing committees.
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Although the motion invites the churches to withdraw voluntarily, it amounts in effect to a punishing expulsion.
34:15
The debate was held behind closed doors at Nottingham University yesterday, and the motion passed 30 to 28 by secret ballot with four abstentions.
34:26
Ooh, that was close. The Anglican Consultative Council is one of the four instruments of unity of the worldwide
34:33
Anglican Church, but is the only one that has a legal constitution. Based in Britain, it is in effect the central administrative body of the
34:41
Anglican Communion worldwide. The primates of the Anglican Church meeting in Dramontene in Ireland in February had also asked the
34:49
US and Canadian churches to withdraw from this week's meeting in Nottingham. They did so in theory and turned up as observers only, but with the additional representatives who also turned up to make their presentations, it appeared to observers that one effect of the crisis had been to augment, not decrease, the
35:05
North American presence in Anglican governing matters. However, the US and Canadian delegates were excluded from the meeting yesterday afternoon in keeping with their voluntary withdrawal.
35:15
The meeting also endorsed the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution, which took a traditionalist line on human sexuality, but also called for listening to the gay and lesbian community.
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The expulsion is effective until Lambeth 2008, when bishops and archbishops are expected to call the North Americans to account.
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If there were any doubt left about the serious nature of the rift, this week's meeting has made clear how far from agreement both sides appear to be, and the extent to which neither is willing to compromise.
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The motion was put forward by leaders of the Orthodox Wing, the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. John Moses, one of the Church of England's three representatives, called unsuccessfully for a two -thirds majority if it was to be passed.
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The US Church has made clear in its Tuesday presentation, has been developing its theology in favor of ordination of homosexuals for 40 years, and regards itself as a pioneer to the
36:05
Africans, Asians, and other fast -growing churches of the global South. The issue of homosexual rights represents not liberation, but the threat of another enslavement to decadent,
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Western liberalism. Well, in light of that, same times online, from June 22nd, and this is, in other words, this may have been last evening our time, because this is from the
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UK, the Episcopalians are in disarray as their primate shows her feminist credentials.
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Remember the the Anglicans ordained a woman bishop as their primate, their lead bishop, and you'll love this, the
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Episcopal Church in America descended into chaos last night after leading bishops on both the liberal and conservative wings disassociated themselves from a last gasp effort to avert a schism with the worldwide
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Anglican communion just hours after its newly elected woman head preached a sermon in praise of our mother
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Jesus. The Episcopal Church agreed to exercise restraint in appointing any more gay bishops after a tense day of debate and argument.
37:15
Let me just skip down to the mother Jesus stuff. Delegates, many wearing pink it's a girl badges in celebration of the right reverend
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Catherine Scories' election as the new presiding bishop, were warned by the current primate of the
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Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold, that if they did not at least make an attempt to comply with demands for a moratorium on the consecration of any more gay bishops, they would risk exclusion from key bodies of the
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Anglican Church, which of course is exactly what ended up taking place. Earlier at the morning Eucharist at the convention in Columbus, Ohio, Dr.
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Scories signaled her feminist credentials in a sermon that drew on the writings of the 14th century
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Julian of Norwich. She said, quote, Mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation and you and I are his children.
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If we are going to keep on growing into Christ images for the world around us, we were going to have to give up fear.
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Liberals in Britain and America defended her sermon as being in a long tradition of writings by women theologians that used the metaphor of Jesus as mother.
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Well, not to be left out, not to be left out, remember what the folks at the
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PCUSA were doing this week is they were coming up with new words for the
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Trinity. Did we cover that in Divine Line? We did. Remember that? We were coming up with all sorts of different names.
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The one that they used in the story was Mother Child Womb.
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Isn't that just, it's just so warm and inclusive and accepting and Dan Brown would like it.
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Dan Brown would like the sacred feminine. Oh, that would Da Vinci Code folks. There's the church for you guys.
39:16
PCUSA, Anglicans, go get them boys. That's where you'll find the
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Da Vinci Code stuff that'll fit in real well. You listen to this stuff and you sit there and you go, what, now what religion do they claim to be a part of?
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Which one? It doesn't look anything like what I believe. So what religion is that again?
39:40
I still like tree bark sap. Tree bark sap. Was that your favorite one? Okay. Well, and you could hug that.
39:47
You could hug that tree. That's why. That's a tree hugger's trinity right there. And who was the chick they just had to cut out of the tree?
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What was her name? Remember who? Daryl Hannah. Daryl Hannah.
40:01
Daryl Hannah could become a Presbyterian. Like Britney Spears, which is an anagram for Presbyterians.
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Did you know that Britney Spears name, if you mix the letters up, you can spell Presbyterians with it? That should scare a lot of people.
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That really should. All my OPC brothers are going, stop, stop.
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Don't do this to us. It's them. PCUSA, you've got your American badness.
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Be afraid. Be very afraid. Oh my, the whole world has gone insane.
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It's simply gone nuts. 877. I got a new
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USB drive here. That's really cool. 877 -753 -3341.
40:49
It's the number that Pierre called. But Pierre, you're in Canada, and you're not a
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Mormon, right? No, I'm not. Okay, just want to make sure, because we have a very famous caller by the name of Pierre, and he's a
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Mormon. No, that's not me. Definitely not. Okay, we just want to make sure that we didn't confuse you with anything like that.
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So anyways, Pierre, what can we do for you? Yeah, I just, I know it's a little, quite a little bit off topic, but this is about King James's only related topic.
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And I just wanted to know, like, in your book, King James's Only Controversy, you state that you believe 1
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Timothy 3 .16, where it says, God was manifest in the flesh, is probably the right reading, or at least you suspect that it's probably the right reading.
41:39
And I just want to know, like, when you think that way, and you have a, you know, a view that holds that you can use criticism to basically determine the reading, like, he who was manifest in the flesh, how do you get, how do you resolve that in your thinking?
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Well, I'm not sure what the resolution is. I mean, the nice thing is, I have in front of me, in fact,
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I just, I just fired up in front of me, I fired up the Libronics digital library, or if I just simply had my regular
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Greek text in front of me, I have that information presented to me right on the page.
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And it tells me, this is the readings, these are the manuscripts, and I am able to examine that.
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I'm able to look into the historical backgrounds of the subject. And as that's part of my work as a critical consultant on the
42:39
New American Standard Bible, I look at that kind of stuff. And I go, well, you know what, there seems to be some good reason why the term
42:49
God would be the best to look at here. There's some indication that that reading not only has a good external evidence to it, but as far as how it's written, and you saw how
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I even laid out in the book, the fact that Has and Theos look very, very, very much alike, as far as their forms would be, especially written upon a piece of papyri or something like that.
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And so that one especially, it's more a matter of simply looking at the two readings and the probabilities as to why one would go one direction or the other.
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And it just seems to me in Paul's theology, that saying God was manifest in the flesh is very consistent with what he says in Romans 9, 5, and Acts 20, and Titus 2, 13, and things like that.
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There's no problem with that in a theological basis. But I'm not sure what you mean by, how do
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I substantiate that as far as the thinking goes? Over against what?
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Just accepting one reading? Well, when you look at your Bible, when you look at the
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Nazbi, and it says, He was manifest in the flesh, and that's in the text.
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Yeah, but it has a footnote that gives the other reading, too. Yeah, but if you feel that God is the better reading, wouldn't you want that in the text?
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You can point to that and say, well, that's in the text, and the text is inspired. But see, you're trying to place inspiration into an
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English translation. And given that English didn't even exist when the New Testament was written, that's not a good direction to go.
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We need to be careful that we don't try to put the authority and the certainty of Scripture in a place where it doesn't belong.
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The fact of the matter is, there are variations between manuscripts. God, in His providence, has allowed that to take place, and in fact, it is the means by which we can with certainty say that when
44:47
New Agers and others say that entire doctrines and beliefs have been either inserted or removed from the
44:53
Bible, we can demonstrate that that's not true. When the New Testament was originally written, it was very quickly distributed all over the place.
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Paul wanted his letters, as we see in Colossians chapter 4, read and passed from church to church.
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He did not say, now keep just one copy and protect it with your life, and that way we won't have textual variations.
45:16
No, he wanted it copied, he wanted it passed around, he wanted this message distributed. And it's because of that distribution that we can demonstrate that there cannot have been this kind of wholesale editing, insertion of doctrine, removal of doctrine.
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The result of that kind of transmission is textual variation, but that textual variation does not preclude us from being able to say that we have all the original readings.
45:43
Haas or Theos is the original reading of 1 Timothy 3 .16. There's no question about that.
45:48
The question is, which one? And I think any decent translation today should give you all that information, it should let you know that there's a variation there, and as I can,
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I look at it and go, you know what, the textual choice here was Haas because they're following at that point the 26th edition of the
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Nestle -Lawn text. But I can look at that and go, you know, when I preach this, I'm going to make this presentation,
46:10
I'm going to say, actually I think this is a better reading, and I'm going to go with it. So I think that especially ministers and mature churches should be able to do that.
46:18
I think they should have that kind of training and be able to explain that to people, and I think they should be able to call their audiences to that level of understanding the text, because we live in a day where we can no longer, there's so much material attacking the text of the
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New Testament that we need to, in the context of faith, be addressing these issues. That's why I'm teaching in the
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Synoptic Gospels right now at PRBC, and we just ran into a really tough synoptic issue that we're going to be working on for quite some time.
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But anyway, so no, I don't have any problem, you know, telling people, yeah, there's a variant there.
46:54
It's right there in the footnotes, here are the issues with it, and in fact, at our church, we use the
47:01
New King James Version as the pew bible, and the reading bible, actually a different pew bible, but what we read from, and there are a number of times where that's going to disagree with the
47:11
New American Standard because of the textual variations that exist between them. But I'll address them when I preach on it, and so will
47:18
Don Fry. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you for your help. Thank you. God bless. Okay. Bye -bye.
47:24
877 -753 -3341. Let's talk with Miles.
47:31
Hi, Miles, how are you? Hi, I'm doing great. It's a pleasure talking to you. Yes, sir. I have a question about Revelation 5 .10.
47:41
I just set up my question. I attended Calvary Chapel. Please don't hold that against me. But I, you know, through your ministry, did come to the doctrines of grace.
47:51
But I was hearing a message taught by a Calvary Chapel pastor on Revelation 5 .10, and I compared it with what's in the
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NASB. The variant is, and I guess I'll just read the verse real quick, and have made us kings and priests to our
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God, and we shall reign on the earth. And the NASB has it, I'm going to get it right here, and he made them.
48:18
Instead of us, it's them, yeah. And this pastor said that the only, the them part, it's found in Codex Alexandritus.
48:33
I'm not sure if I pronounced it correctly. But it's us in the other
48:38
Greek manuscripts. No, no. I'm so glad that came right on the end of Pierre's question, because I had opened the
48:48
Nessiolan text electronically to look at his, and it just popped over Revelation 5 .10.
48:54
There is the word us, for example, in certain segments of the
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Latin, but that's actually not a majority reading at all in the
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Greek. Let me just back up a second here and point out, the textual history of the
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Book of Revelation is unlike any other book in the New Testament. So anything that you've heard about the
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Gospels, or about Acts, or about the Pauline Epistles, all that stuff is thrown out the window when it comes to looking at the textual history of the
49:37
Book of Revelation. It's completely different. That's the first thing to remember. So in almost any variant in the text of Revelation, you're going to have the normal groups that stick together splitting up.
49:51
And it's very difficult, very often, to identify what the majority reading is, for example, in the
49:58
Book of Revelation. And you'll find Sinaiticus joining with Alexandrinus and Byzantine manuscripts over against Western manuscripts.
50:06
And it's just a completely, completely different thing. And when you're looking at 5 .10,
50:12
you would have to have a different word for he made them, would have to be he made us.
50:19
There are a few, as I said, primarily Latin manuscripts that say us, but the
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Greek manuscript tradition says them. And the word us, then, is our
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God. He made them kings and priests to our God. And then the second variant involves the verb, and they, is it they will reign upon the earth, which is, again,
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I would say the best reading. That's Sinaiticus 1854, 2050, 2053,
50:54
Majority A, Latin, Hippolytus, Cyprian, they all have what is in our text, and they shall reign upon the earth, over against we will reign upon the earth, which is a another part of the tradition in Codex Alexandrinus.
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And so it's a split there. But the reason that the
51:15
Nessiolan text doesn't go with that is because if you have us up at the beginning of the verse, then that's going to tend to make you change the verb to match that as you're copying later on, if you understand the language.
51:32
And so that sort of weakens the basis for saying us there. So if what the
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Calvary Chapel pastor was saying was, well, there's only one manuscript that doesn't have this, then he's wrong about that, because actually
51:43
Sinaiticus is joined with the Majority A, the Latin, the
51:49
Coptic, Hippolytus, Cyprian, and at least, let's see, one, two, three, four, five minuscule manuscripts, major minuscule manuscripts that I have listed right here, over against Alexandrinus, four minuscules, and the
52:01
K majority group. So it's a split there, and most scholars, I think, would go with the
52:07
Nessiolan because of the variant that goes before that between them or us, and that's the reason for that.
52:14
And so trying to just lay that off on Sinaiticus, especially because Sinaiticus is so vilified by so many people, just won't work.
52:22
Okay, so them is probably the better reason. Oh, yes, yeah, no question about it. Okay. All right.
52:27
Okay. Hey, I just want to say I'm sorry there's no great debate this year in Long Island, New York.
52:33
It's one of my highlights of the year. Well, it's going to happen again someday, but I don't want to make that something that we just simply do because it's that time of year.
52:42
I want to make it something to where we have a good opponent and a good subject and not just simply, you know, be trying to find somebody just to do it.
52:54
And so that's going to happen again. We just need to make sure that it's something that's going to be of the most benefit to the most people because there's a lot of work that goes into it.
53:02
I understand. Well, I'm going to try to catch you. I guess you and Pastor Shishko are going to debate.
53:09
We're going to have a debate on October 19th on baptism. It's objects and purposes, shall we say, and I'm not completely certain right now where that's going to be, but it's going to be somewhere there on Long Island because I'm preaching at Pastor Shishko's church the next
53:24
Sunday. So it's got to be somewhere along those lines. So. Okay. All righty. Well, thank you for your time.
53:30
Really appreciate it. Okay. Thanks. God bless. Bye. All right. Let's try to sneak
53:35
Alan in here right at the end. How you doing, Alan? Hey, I'm good. How are you? This is line 13,
53:42
Alan. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, wait a minute. I'm trying to find my... It's getting dark in here.
53:48
I can't see. Oh, there. Okay. Thank you, Rich, for turning the lights back on. So, Alan, how you doing?
53:54
I'm good. You know, someday that joke's going to get old. Someday, but not yet. Well, I want to congratulate you on your demeanor in dealing with this stuff.
54:10
I saw Norris wrote something in Channel about how you can deal with someone like John Shelby Spong seemingly fairly easy.
54:21
In comparison, yes. Yeah, in comparison to Dr. Kanner, to Ergen and Emer Kanner.
54:28
And I almost blew my top when you had mentioned that you were disinvited to that thing in Southwestern.
54:35
Yeah, well, that's disappointing, but it's not unexpected.
54:41
And in point of fact, it would have been really odd. I think a lot of folks would be saying, look, in light of what's coming up, in light of all this stuff that's going on the internet and everything else, this would be a distraction.
54:53
If that's why it was, I just wish that's what I had been told, because I would have gone, you know what? I agree. It'd be a big distraction.
54:59
Emer Kanner teaches there. And so I got no problem with that at all.
55:05
But, you know, I was told, well, we're just going another direction. I don't know how word faith movement is a different direction of an apologetics conference than Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses, especially when none of the other speakers have been changed and other topics have been changed.
55:19
But it's obvious what the reason was, even if it's not stated. But I wanted to ask you about this parliamentary format, because I remember reading somewhere about it in one of the emails, perhaps, or I can't.
55:33
And I remember when I read it, it sounds like there's a period of time. It's not exactly cross examination, but it's kind of like you can interrupt the other guy while he's speaking or something like that.
55:44
Your first and last 10 minute speeches cannot be interrupted.
55:49
But those between that, which I haven't sat down and figure this out yet, but there can't be that many of them because it's only a two and a half hour debate.
55:56
But those in between them can be interrupted to to ask an interrogative and you can choose to accept the interruption or not accept the interruption, depending.
56:06
And that's one of the big questions, of course, that I have is how many. And that's why there needs to be a rule book.
56:13
And I'm going to I'm just going to John Meany has written a number of books on the subject of parliamentary debate.
56:19
And so I'm just going to sort of have to throw my hands up near and say, I'll tell you what, this is the text I'm going to be using.
56:24
It is generally available. It is generally accepted. And according to this, here are the ground rules. Here are the ground rules as to how often you can ask the interrogative.
56:33
Here are the ground rules as to as to whether anyone ever has to, you know, yield to the question, accept the question.
56:44
Because obviously, for me, I and I make this statement in the materials that I've just posted.
56:51
I am very, very much concerned and, in fact, now convinced that what's going on here is the canners do not want to expose themselves to cross examination that would involve driving them into the text itself.
57:06
Yeah, that's what I was going to suggest. They don't want to have to answer, like you said, about Esau or look at John six or anything like that.
57:14
So if if the rules are right now, not knowing the rules, it sounds like from what you just said, they could reject every single one of your questions.
57:22
Well, and I think, obviously, when when one side rejects every possible question that that's supposed to have some kind of an impact upon the grading of the debate or whatever else it might be.
57:33
I don't know. Obviously, from my perspective, as long as the time frames are equal,
57:39
I simply have to trust that people are going to observe this. And if one side is consistently running from questions, running from from interaction, running from a line and anything to really take place,
57:51
I have to trust that people are going to see that and that they're going to judge accordingly.
57:57
Are there going to be people who just turn a blind eye to all of it and just go, oh, arrogant, arrogant? Yeah. There's nothing
58:02
I can do about that. There never was a thing. They're ready to turn out the light. All right. Well, I'm good.
58:10
You do that. Thanks a lot. Talk to you later. Yeah. Somebody needs to put a cover over the lights in case
58:18
Alan is there, because it could get really dark and that would be really scary. You know, six thousand people and all some lights go out.
58:25
That would not be a good thing. Thanks for listening to the Dividing Line today. Let's see. Yep. Lord, well, we'll be back next
58:30
Tuesday at our regular time, our regular time, 11 a .m. our time instead of the afternoon thing here on The Dividing Line.
58:36
See you then. God bless. Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:36
If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
59:41
Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the worldwide web at aomin .org,
59:48
that's a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.