Demythologizing Scholarship: James Brownson Examined

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:32

Well greetings and welcome to the dividing line today on the program we will finally begin a

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Review and a study that has been too long and coming. I apologize for that It part of the reason is

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I take it very seriously. I think it's it's important We we did a five -hour response to Matthew Vines We've done a five -hour response to David Gushy But today it's very obvious as those of you who followed this particular subject

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Matthew Vines when he did his initial presentation primarily was pulling from Individuals such as John Boswell, Skenzonian, Mollenkot, Skaggs, Daniel Hominiak, etc, etc.

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The sort of standard Group of what we would call revisionist scholars who are seeking to revise the understanding of the

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Bible and the message of the Bible in regards to sexual ethics and morality and things like that and That was what 2011 something like that 2012 and Then when his book came out just last year

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It was very clear that his arguments had evolved and changed and They had evolved and changed

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Because he became enamored with and was now borrowing from the scholarship of James Brownson Brownson wrote a book which unfortunately

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I left in the other room Entitled the Bible Gender and sexuality is something along those lines and No, you're not gonna be able to find it if you're going to look for it

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It's not sitting on a desk or anything like that. So it's it's in the bookshelf anyway and Brownson In comparison to a

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John Boswell who himself was a homosexual who was homosexual activist, you know Very much way out on the left much of what he has said has been

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Thoroughly refuted by sound scholarship. He made many many mistakes Brownson from the world's perspective is a conservative scholar reformed biblical scholar

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Now, of course from our perspective. He's good bit to our left more of a mainstream type

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Theological bent certainly not as The same view of Scripture as we would hold but certainly less liberal than Brownson would then

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Boswell would be or something like that When now, of course We've mentioned this in the past So many people gushy's sister came out as homosexual

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Brownson's son came out as a homosexual so many of these individuals Brownson had published on this subject before From a quote -unquote

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Traditionalist perspective. In other words, his scholarship had never led him to believe there wasn't any issues

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Until something happened in personal life, then all of a sudden there's changes now people it was not fair to to mention that Twitter why are you wearing blue spaghetti?

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This is a this now now my my Ukrainian friends are gonna be offended that my daughter just asked me in Twitter Why am

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I wearing blue spaghetti? This is not blue spaghetti. This is a stylized Ukrainian flag.

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I'm going to Kiev in just a matter of weeks and so my friends there in Ukraine gave me a

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Ukraine shirt, so I don't have a Zurich shirt yet Maybe I'll get one when

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I go to Zurich first, but I've not been to Zurich before but I will be going back to Kiev and so therefore

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I'm wearing my Ukrainian shirt, but I see I Introduce I'm here in the middle of this vitally important study

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And well, it's summer's fault she you know, she knows if she's gonna throw something in Twitter at me and ask why

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I'm wearing blue spaghetti that You know, I have to I have to respond to these things, you know, it's just a matter of Notice there's yellow spaghetti too.

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So it's you sort of put all together anyway Now I was gonna actually start off by thanking my

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Ukrainian friend I've worn this shirt before but I was gonna thank my Ukrainian friends for For the gift that I got last time

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I was there And just please ask that this time we have electricity in the course of the class, that'd be good it will be able to get so much more done if We have if we have electricity the whole class

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Well It was December last time so that you know, there's a lot more like electrical demand warming stuff right now

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It's like 70 degrees, you know, that's pretty nice. So looking forward to that. Anyways Back to what we were talking about here.

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So many of these individuals who who change their perspectives do so And some might say well, you know, it's not fair to bring that up.

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I think it is I think when you see a constant when you see this

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Regular thing that people hold one view and then all sudden. Oh something makes them change your mind

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Well, what is it? Was it because the of the overwhelming? Strength of the arguments the other side.

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No, it was Someone close to me has adopted this lifestyle and up to this point

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I thought the Bible said this lifestyle would not bring you life, but is an act of rebellion against God.

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So, uh, I think I need to change my views. How am I gonna do that now?

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They're gonna tell you no, no, no No, that's that's not what I did. No, no, no. No, I this just gave this just gave me fresh insight

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Okay, well, I think it's perfectly fair to raise the issue I think it would be far more relevant if someone stood against This put this perspective and Then had someone close to them come out and then stayed consistent or had always taken another viewpoint and then

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Someone in their family comes out and you know, it's consistency for me is a is a big thing It's not the kind of consistency where you you don't listen to the side.

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We're gonna listen to the side, but this happened in Brownson's experience and his book has become the

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Bible of The quote -unquote gay Christian movement. There is no such thing as gay

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Christianity, of course Anymore than there is adulterous Christianity lying Christianity angry

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Christianity Gluttonous Christianity or anything else you you do not identify the

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Christian faith by a sin or by a confused sexual behavior either one and by the way

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If certain people in state legislatures and in the government United States have their way We want to be able to say what

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I just said in a very short period of time there I mean within months people are already moving to Completely Overthrow the

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First Amendment freedom of speech and the ability to even discuss this subject. So another reason we need to get this done Because and when you when you watch this

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Download it. I use a program called airy on on Mac There's lots of them out there lots of programs that will grab stuff save it

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You better download it because I just don't expect it to be there very long. I really don't

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Um Anyway So what

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I want to do today what we're gonna do is we're gonna we're gonna go through He spoke.

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Dr. Brownson spoke at last year's Matthew Vines Reformation conference the most misnomered misnamed thing on the planet and He spoke on Romans 1 and if you look at his book some of the endorsements on the book

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Say, you know, this is the most insightful Amazing exegesis of Romans 1 and you know all the rest this kind of stuff and and I'm perfectly honest with you

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I did not find it at all compelling Contextual or anything like that, but the endorsers aren't exactly going to be critical in a situation like that but for many people here is

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Well, this is the best they have Brownson's the best they have and so If we deal with the best they have then everything else is going to be on a lower level

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And if you're prepared for the best Then you're gonna be in the best position to be able to give answers for everything that it's actually not as good as that That's one of the reasons we need to do this

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But while we're gonna go through it what I want to start with today in just a normal sized program is a an appeal to Our listeners and I think our listeners who our listeners are strange

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But our listeners are a are a mixture of people. We have all sorts of folks who listen who?

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Completely disagree and are doing this for research purposes. Okay, I get that. That's fun. I do that to others all the time

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But if you're one of the people who takes the time to watch this program

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Listen to this while you're on the treadmill at the gym riding a bike like I do you know, whatever else it might be and you're doing it because You want to be a

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Christian? Who still takes advantage of the freedoms that we yet have?

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Wants to be someone who testifies the truth in this culture that is in such a state of open warfare against the truth and against itself

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Most especially you want to do this in such a way that you are always Seeking to allow

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God to speak in Scripture. What do I mean by that? Well when we don't do serious exegesis when we do not

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When we do not handle the Word of God, all right We do not put forth the effort to be balanced in our in our dealing with scriptures

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Then we we can't say this is God speaking It's me speaking because I'm just using the text to as a container for my thoughts and my ideas

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And and we see this in preaching all the time you know, I've used for forever the illustration could never find again, but but Paula White on TBN.

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I was I was making dinner years ago. There were a decade ago and and Just for giggles.

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I I turned on the Trash and Blasphemy Network and Here's Paula White Preaching quote -unquote from Psalm 69

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About how you need to send her $69 All right

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Not only is the numeration of the Psalter different now than it was in the age of hope but the the whole thing was just so Completely disconnected completely

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Disconnected from the actual meaning of the psalm in the first place that it was a gross abuse of The scriptures.

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I mean, I mean just just indefensible absolutely indefensible That's not

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God speaking. That's Paula White speaking pretending the guy's speaking, but it's actually Paula White speaking if we don't do serious exegesis if we don't learn to To recognize when someone is mishandling the

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Word of God We're not gonna be in a position to really speak with with authority what

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I want to do today is I want to give you a demonstration an illustration of how a scholar a trained biblical scholar can twist the meaning of a text

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You need to be able to learn to recognize I see a lot of people go through life going well He teaches

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Greek, he knows he knows the original languages and as soon as someone knows the original languages all of a sudden

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They have some magical power. I have people coming up to me all the time I've pointed this out many times people go with me

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You know, I've always wondered about this particular text and you've taught Greek a number of times.

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So Tell me what is this text? Actually, what does it really say in Greek?

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And they're so very disappointed that most the time I response that is the same thing it says in English This this there isn't anything magical there are times

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Obviously the best commentary on the Greek New Testament is the New Testament in Greek. There's no question about that I am

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NOT for a second saying that we should lessen the standards Well as if that already isn't happening

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I bemoan the fact that for most Seminaries today the standards of biblical language knowledge have gone.

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I Mean, there's lots of seminaries. They we can fulfill your your Greek requirements in a jan turn class

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That's called learning how to use Bible works. That's that's all that is. That's not learning

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Greek. It's just So I'm not arguing any of that at all. It's bothering you that the lava lamp, but you're the one that didn't start it

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So don't don't don't look at me and you know, I wasn't gonna leave the towel over it They'll then there everybody's going wonder what's going on over there.

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So just it'll it'll do its boot thing here Then it'll freeze and people are gonna complain and you're gonna get to answer all the complaints.

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So just just okay It's the live program. That's the way it is. All right, we continue on I'm not downplaying the importance of original languages.

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What I am saying is the scholars scholars at times Utilize their craft to misrepresent the truth shocking as it may be shocking as it may be

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I'm gonna illustrate this. I mean what I want to do today is teach you to demythologize scholarship demythologize scholarship because there is this myth that you as a spirit born regenerated

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Serious follower of Jesus Christ are just simply left to go Well, whatever they say, you know, and that's

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I've never promoted that. I don't believe that we must demythologize scholarship

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So, how do we do that well we learn to recognize when someone is

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Tweaking the evidence we've seen this over and over again with Bart Ehrman, you know I've said over and over again

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Bart Ehrman when he's giving the facts is generally accurate It's in the interpretation and the balancing of those facts and the drawing of conclusions from those facts that's where things get just a little bit on the odd side and that's what we need to Recognize that even in kindly older men like James Brownson So what

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I want to do is I want to start with a quick I'm not gonna be able to go as in -depth as I have in the past but a a quick run through Romans 1 to remind us what the issues are and What the flow of the text is about?

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then we're gonna listen to Brownson and I want you to listen to his presentation and Listen to it carefully not with such a level of bias and prejudice

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I mean some people that I can't even listen to him. Oh, no You've got to hear them out to be able to in a meaningful sense document their errors

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It really bothers me when people are just I just can't well, you know, I I Guess I understand that in some context, but not in this context we've got to Be able to understand so let's remind ourselves grab a

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Bible if you can if you're running in the treadmill that might not be a good idea, but Let's remind ourselves

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Romans chapter 1, you know the beginning of verse 18 Paul begins his explanation of the bad news

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He's introduced the gospel but to be able to explain what the gospel is the gospel is the good news, but the only way to understand the good news is you've got to start with the bad news and The bad news is that man

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Universally is under sin and in Romans 1 you have the general condemnation not just of the

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Gentiles but of all mankind now

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People can people a lot of a lot of people I think completely confused this because they go Well Romans 1 he goes after the

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Gentiles and Romans 2 he goes after the Jews No, he goes after all of mankind in Romans 1 but the condemnation that he brings is

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Consistent with the entire Jewish worldview it is soaked in the biblical worldview of God as creator it derives its its very foundation from Genesis chapter 1 and So the

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Jewish person Hearing Romans 1 is going. Yeah go Paul, you know, keep whacking away at them

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Gentiles and Paul has to turn to them and say hey just because you possess

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God's law doesn't make you righteous before God simply possessing it and not doing it only brings you greater condemnation and so you have to then move on from that point and Recognize that he he then deals the

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Jewish issue and then in chapter 3 he ties it all together and his conclusion is

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We conclude that God has has subjected all people under sin

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Jew and Gentile his whole point is he he does not want there to be

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Any basis for there being a Jewish Christian Church and a Gentile Christian Church Paul over and over again emphasizes in fact the very

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Background of Romans chapter 3 when it says all sin come short of the glory of God the whole point there is he's the all

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There is not Universal sinfulness like we always use it. It's Jew and Gentile we've all fallen short of the glory of God and He wants to make sure there is absolutely positively no foundation

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For any concept that there would be a Jewish Christian Church and a Gentile Christian Church very very important to recognize that he's doing that so I Guess I should switch sources for you here.

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I apologize And give you Accordance here so you can see that is is that working for you?

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You got okay. Sorry about that I forgot about that But I figure if I'm gonna be reading the text quickly it'd be good to be able to throw that up there as well

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Got it. All right good So let's take a look at at the text here

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And I'm again not gonna be able to go as fully Into this as I would like but There you go.

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Oh you went and switched right back to me while I was silencing my phone. Thank you ever so much Really appreciate that Nothing like looking at the camera before you switch back over there.

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All right For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness again

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The wrath of God is being revealed at all times It is not just simply something that is going to be in the eschaton.

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It is is present tense It is being revealed right now And it is against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men not just Gentiles But of men now someone might say oh, yeah

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But they are the men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness which is this just must be the Gentiles and not the Jews Again that's

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I think of a gross misreading of Paul and it in it is overthrown by his own conclusion in in chapter 3

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But the description of men is those who and you'll notice in the Greek the the truth in unrighteousness

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Suppressing ones and so when you use the article here this article goes with this

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Phrase right this term right here And so when you have an article the part is simple at the end you've stuffed stuff in between It's a really cool way of of making it very descriptive

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And so it's the the truth and unrighteousness suppressing ones And so here is this description and since God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness so everyone who sins is involved in this suppression of The truth in unrighteousness and as I've pointed out many many times before that phrase katakon tone

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Indicates that God's truth has been made made known. It's not something we have to go searching for it's something that is available to us right now and therefore it is it is something that Can be held down and and man is accountable for that and that's exactly what

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Paul goes on to say for That which is known about God is Evident within them or you may notice it's an

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Altoise amongst them so it could be in them internally it can be amongst them as a people so there is a

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General revelation, which is what's gonna be discussed in the next verse but of course the witness of the conscience the witness of The universe around us this is all part of what general revelation is and It's God who has made it evident to them.

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So so this is something that God has done God has been the one who has revealed himself

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God is not hiding on a mountain someplace and we have to climb up a mountain find him God is the one who has has manifested himself in the creation of the world

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And that's why verse 21 says for since the creation of the world his invisible attributes his eternal power and Divine nature.

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So his eternal power and divine nature Have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made and then here's a very important phrase here at the end

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So that they are on a Paula gay tooth. They are without an apologetic

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That does not mean that they do not have arguments. That does not mean that they cannot, you know Engage in some kind of of defense their position, but what it does mean is they cannot provide a consistent defense of their position because of the fact that they live in God's world and therefore to Live in rebellion reject

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God You're gonna have to come up with a worldview. That's really not gonna fit with the world around you

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You're gonna have to borrow things From the truth that you're suppressing to hold your system together and that's what it means that they are without an excuse

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It doesn't mean that they won't make excuses But it does mean that they cannot give a consistent excuse for even though Even though they knew

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God not not and some people think that this is a theoretical thing They might they couldn't they could know about God Or even though they knew

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God they did not honor him as God or give thanks they did not The term there is dachshund.

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So to give to to glorify God To honor God and then of course there you see give thanks is the term from which we get

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Eucharist. It's a beautiful word it's been stolen from us by its abuse by Romanism, but They did not glorify

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God or give thanks But instead the things that that the general revelation would have held them accountable to do the general revelation that would have

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Held them accountable for honoring God glorifying God giving. Thanks to God being thankful Instead the adversity of use of a law, but they became futile

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They became empty in their in their Translation here in the

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NSB of speculations, but you can see the term is the term which we transliterate as dialogue the the reasonings of the mind the thinking of the mind, so this is the very innermost part of of mankind the if you will not do what general relation would demand of you to do the result is

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You will be fundamentally altered in the deepest part of your being in the deepest part of your being and so It said that that they are made futile and That they're there and then foolish heart.

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Yeah, but it's a Sunni toss means lack the term with the alpha privative is

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Is understanding so Non -understanding, it's not foolish in the sense that we frequently use that term.

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But but they're they're Non -understanding heart becomes darkened and so We we are on very solid ground to recognize that what

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Paul is talking about here is the fundamental result of Sin in The experience of the he who is created in the image of God mankind is created in the image of God the result of that is

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That man is not left undamaged but instead in the very center of man's being there is a

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Darkening a foolishness a futility So that professing to be wise they become fools.

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And so they think they're Safoy They think that they are, you know philosophy the love of wisdom.

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They believe them. They're professing themselves. They view themselves as wise but instead

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They have become more or not more more loss is the descriptive term.

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They have become fools This is the very The same contrast that Paul uses in first Corinthians chapter 1 between the wisdom of the world the foolishness of the gospel

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The wisdom of God versus the foolishness of the world and so on and so forth. And so they're very quick to call themselves wise

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But in fact, they become fools and here's the here's vitally important term they exchange the glory of the incorruptible

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God For an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four -footed animals and crawling creatures.

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And so here it's very very important because of this Effect of Those who bear the image of God suppressing that knowledge and Suppressing the truth about God There is an inevitable

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Reaction in the creature the creature Exchanges the glory of the incorruptible

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God for something else for Idolatry and what do all these things an image in the form of corruptible man birds four -footed animals and crawling creatures

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What do all of these things have in common with one another? They are a part of the created order

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Man's worship is to be oriented toward God But when he suppresses the knowledge of that God, he doesn't cease being a worshipping creature

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He still will worship but instead he will turn the object of that worship away from God and to the created order and The created order then is defined in the very language that you would expect the

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Apostle Paul to use and That is he uses the very language of Genesis 1.

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I Mean, where do we read about? Man, where do we read about birds?

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Where do we read about four -footed animals? Where do we read about crawling creatures? Anyone Especially today and Brownson knows this by the way anyone who does

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New Testament work today is aware of the importance of what are what is called intertextual studies intertextual studies the

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It is it is an absolute given in any serious study of Paul that the primary first order milieu of his background the origin of his thought is the

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Tanakh the Torah Nevi 'im and Ketuvim the Old Testament scriptures as we call them and Furthermore it is unquestionable that the primary bedrock of his study is the

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Greek Septuagint Why well because he keeps using that language he uses the language drawn directly from the

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Greek Septuagint now, we are not saying that Paul is an insulated

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Hebrew speaking only Pharisee in Jerusalem. He grew up in in Tarsus of Cilicia He he can quote pagan philosophers.

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He is a man of the world. He understands those things But the bedrock the first place you go is

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The Old Testament and so anyone looking at this if they do not have other

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Reasons for avoiding this It's the same issue that we have we look at Arsene Coitus and Brownson's gonna try to address this and from a scholarly perspective produce a complete base plant

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At the end of this video. Well, it'll be one of the last things we see. He's gonna leave Romans 1 He's gonna look at Arsene Coitus and he is going, you know, and his defenders will say

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I just didn't have enough time Fine the fact the matter is from a scholarly perspective from any meaningful perspective as to asking

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What did Paul mean? Would love to debate that one that's never gonna happen.

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Believe me Dr. Brownson knows that there's standing challenges for him to debate a number of people Bob Gagnon Michael Brown myself

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We all have standing challenges at any time. Dr. Brownson will we will arrange it. We will come to where you are

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And and you know, we standing standing invitation at Matthew Vines Reformation Conference We will come

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We will pay our own way and we will debate you and Matthew Vines an amazing thing at one point here

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He refers to Matthew Vines as a commentator and scholar. I thought he dropped out of college.

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I thought he was 25 It's like Wow didn't realize that you could do that.

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But anyway We'll do it At the end we will see just how

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Horribly, he handles Arsene Coitus, but the point is when we look at that term for screened in six What's the first any honest exegete?

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What's the first thing you're gonna do? They're gonna go to the Old Testament and say where this come from and it's obvious where it come or it came from even

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Pro -homosexual scholars and Commentators all recognize that Arsene Coitus is derived from Leviticus 18 and 20 from the very language of the

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Greek Septuagint used there There's no question about that No No one seriously disputes that but when you find people quoting stuff from 600 years after Paul to try to Find a way to say what we really don't know what it means.

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You're looking at simple scholarly dishonesty Is what you're looking at because we do know what it means

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There's a question about what it means and if it was any other subject There wouldn't be any dispute about it all same thing here.

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Same thing here We'd look at this and intertextual studies would make us go. Whoa. Wow creation language

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Genesis 1 ding ding ding it did just be very very obvious as You're gonna see that Causes a real problem with Brownson's theory and his means of getting around Romans chapter 1

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But if it was any other subject and I can pretty much guarantee you prior to Certain personal experiences in Brownson's family.

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He wouldn't have had any problem with that But now all of a sudden everything changes clear indication of a misuse of scholarly sources when that kind of thing happens and so what's

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Paul doing You have the Idolatry you have Genesis language you have man birds four -foot animals crawling creatures coming straight out of Genesis 1 and 2 therefore

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God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them and so you you have their somata their bodies and You have uncleanness or impurity and This is in the epithumi ice tone

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Cardione the lusts of their hearts, so Is there a consistency here?

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Yes The dialogues of their hearts we just saw up above So you have the the diet there there there they're thinking they're reasoning they're

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Non -understanding hearts are darkened and So if you will not have the light of God in your heart well, then your heart is going to be darkened and The what should be true desires of the heart for God Instead God gives them over paradiddle me same term that's used of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas given over God gives them over and the results is that their heart is filled with lusts and if your heart

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Doesn't have desires for God instead. These are gonna become evil desires and so that they are turned over to impurity and Their bodies are dishonored amongst them

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Now he's gonna talk a lot about dishonoring Where should we first go to understand what it means to disarm to be dishonored

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The first place we should go for Paul is to look at the wisdom literature of the

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Old Testament To look at the creation narratives to understand what it means

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From the biblical perspective to honor God to be honored by God.

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These should be the first places These will be the exact places that Brownson will refuse to go

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He has to but again Follow the argument follow

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Paul's argument. You'll notice that it's there's no there's no big huge break in here he's talking about what the result of Suppressing the truth of God is and there being a break

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Between the creature who bears the image of God and God himself and so remember there's been an exchange

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They exchanged verse 23 the the glory of the incorruptible God Therefore God gives them over their dishonor in their bodies and then verse 24 25 for they exchange

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There it is same root again the truth of God for the lie

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The truth of God for the lie and they worshipped interesting form of the term for worship and Then let true.

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Oh the highest form of worship. They the worship in the very temple itself. They worshipped and served what?

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the creature para tan tisanta

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Rather than the Creator who is blessed forever so Here is a almost restatement very clear continuation of the same thought

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When you exchange the truth of God for a lie, it's going to have an impact upon you

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Internally all of you your body your mind your heart your speculation

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Man cannot be divided up into little parts and well this stays pure and this does not the

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Gnostics are all wrong about that No Instead the result is when you when you make that exchange when you when you exchange the truth of God for the lie

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You're gonna worship and serve the creation rather than the Creator that can be no syncretism

39:16

You can't can't that's not how God's worship works who is blessed forever For this reason so there's there's no break here

39:26

Diya to talk continues this for this reason God Gave them over paradiddle me once again

39:36

To degrading passions Literally, it's dishonoring because the tomato is to honor so degrading passions

39:47

So God gave them over for this reason. It has to do with sin. It has to do with worshiping

39:55

Engaging in idolatry, etc. Etc. Gave them over to degrading passions for even their women

40:05

Exchanged there is exchanged again. There is that very same third third time now we've seen it the natural function for that which is para fusen

40:17

Now well, let's go ahead and read 27 so we can address all of it together likewise in the same fashion

40:26

You can't you can't break it break this up. Likewise. Also the men

40:33

Abandoning the natural function of The woman

40:41

Burned in their desire ice ale loose. This is not pederasty

40:48

This is not an older man with a younger man. This is a A Mutual relationship ice ale loose one to another men with men committing indecent acts

41:07

Indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error now

41:15

Many many homosexual scholars will admit That what we have here without question is a discussion not only of male homosexuality

41:29

But verse 26 may well be the only place in scripture where we have a direct reference to lesbianism to female homosexuality and There there are many that we could we could point to Bob Gagnon has done the yeoman's work and putting all this together

41:47

Where he will quote numerous lesbian scholars Male homosexual scholars who say there isn't any question about what

41:56

Paul's talking about here He is talking about homosexual relationships male and female and that they are indecent and that's why we just simply have to Contextualize Paul and say that was then this is now we move on from there

42:08

They don't even try to do the revisionist saying well Brownson can't do that Brownson is in a context.

42:15

That's not gonna that's not gonna work. There's gotta be some other way to do this got me some other way to do this and That's gonna be on the basis of what natural is now.

42:25

It's rather obvious in the context that we're talking about the natural use of The woman and the natural use of the man that this has biological components

42:39

There's all sorts of components that there would be involved in this but That what

42:45

Paul is doing Remember diya to talk for this reason. It's it's right there at verse 26

42:53

Why does Paul Raise this issue. Well, it is an example of the paradiddle me that results from the metal axon the

43:04

Exchanging of the truth of God for a lie and All the way through Romans 1 he's been saying this suppression of the truth of God results in a fundamental change

43:18

Inwardly in man and he uses as an example this nothing can be more more basic than the sexual urge

43:27

God has placed it within us because that's how the species continues and I know we live in a day where we've all been told that we do it too many people too many people the rest of Stuff as a result, we're having population crashes and and the next 50 60 years.

43:42

You're gonna see massive problems I mean the Japanese are developing robots take care of their old people because they're not reproducing and we're gonna see what happens when we don't reproduce the the

43:54

Biggest fundamental change in the experience of human life over the past hundred years is birth control

44:01

No question about it. No Question about it We've all been impacted by every single one of us even all you

44:08

Roman Catholics sitting in the audience going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, what about us? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let's let's talk about that for a second.

44:15

Anyway What is being said in Romans chapter 1 is consistent all the way through the

44:29

Basic sexual desire that is placed within man That is not evil in of itself in any way shape or form even it can be twisted and Turned when you suppress the knowledge of God and exchange that truth of God for a lie.

44:52

That's the whole point that's the whole point the power of Of Handling the

45:01

Word of God consistently and following contextual arguments is right here

45:08

Because what you're gonna find In all the revisionist books and all the revisionist arguments that way, you know, we just I just don't know

45:16

Yeah, it's it's it's a tough passage. Well, it's you know, so many things we need to deal with Are you really telling me that the beginning of his epistle where he's laying the very foundation for everything he's gonna say that Paul purposely presented the church at Rome a

45:34

Completely inscrutable message. I'm not well, you know that Paul He just ran off into the woods someplace there in the first year chapters

45:43

We have we have no idea if we don't know what Paul's saying here Then we have no earthly idea what he's saying when he gets to justification, do we?

45:50

That's what a lot of people want to tell us that's what a lot a lot of people want to tell us And I say no

45:59

He's clear. The argument is clear. He's talking about God made man

46:05

He has revealed himself man is unapologetic without an apologetic without an excuse the the line of argument flows all the way through here and he uses

46:18

Homosexual behavior drawing from not only the creation ordinance But based upon the consistent understanding of all the

46:25

Jewish people of his day that this was sinful he's not making any attempt to run off to extra biblical sources that you have to well

46:37

You know, you have to be a part of this philosophical group to really get the Paul's argument or that philosophical group. No he is making a

46:45

Consistent argument that is clear and understandable and homosexuality is the example

46:51

He gives of how even the most basic Created needs and desires we have can be twisted and turned to futility

47:02

Because Homosexuality is futile. It does not produce life and cannot by nature

47:11

It can't what we're seeing in our society

47:17

Is such a 180 black and white Rebellion against God.

47:23

We are seeing Isaiah 5 calling white black and black white good evil and evil good is

47:29

That we are being told that we must affirm that that which only destroys life is

47:36

Actually life -affirming we are being asked to lie Isn't that what this text is all about?

47:43

exchanging the truth of God for the Lie, yeah, there we are

47:48

There we are now. I was not gonna spend majority hour on that And I apologize, but you've got to lay the foundation out with all of that in mind

48:00

Tune back in now if you've been sort of mmm. Yeah, we've heard you talk about this before and and whatever tune back in now because I need to Have you listen very carefully?

48:17

Listen all right now. I want you to listen to this portion of Brownson, this is actually in the second part of his discussion of Romans 1.

48:27

Well, why go there first? He wants to start talking about what natural means and he knows

48:38

I'm telling you something right now. He even mentions gag none once just sort of in passing and What it shows is all of this is in response to gag none all of it is even though he doesn't come out and say

48:51

Now I'm gonna respond to gag none Because I know that Bob gag none's work is what I've got to deal with. No, no, he doesn't doesn't do that But everybody knows if you know the field anyways listen to what he says and Hopefully now with this background you'll be able to go.

49:09

Wow. I can see what he's doing now And if not, we'll discuss it. Here we go But there's something in all of this

49:18

I think that is important for us to remember and That is the larger context of Roman of this particular verse in the overall argument of Romans Paul is arguing when he makes the argument from nature.

49:38

Listen here about Gentile sinfulness and in order for his argument to have any force

49:48

He can't by definition appeal to Scripture he can't appeal to the book of Genesis because Gentiles haven't read the book of Genesis and Don't know what it says and therefore they're not without excuse if the problem is that they have failed to properly interpret the book of Genesis now

50:11

I Wasn't gonna stop it, but I have to Did you catch that? This is their best person

50:19

This is a PhD in New Testament And he just told his audience Paul cannot appeal to Scripture in talking about Gentiles Hello Really What's the whole point of Romans 1?

50:39

God has revealed himself And are you seriously suggesting?

50:46

That when Paul talks about what God has done his purposes, he's not gonna draw from the scriptures.

50:52

What's he gonna draw from? Listen, see once you why is he doing this? Because if this if the background of this is

50:59

Romans 1 what natural is open and shut case done No way gay

51:05

Christianity survives. He's got to do this because you see he's got a goal He's got a goal.

51:11

He's got to get to his goal It really doesn't matter what the text you've got it You got to work with the text to get it out of the way to get to your goal

51:20

Yeah, even scholars do it and we've got to recognize it. We've got to recognize it

51:27

All right. So the whole force of Paul's argument depends on him not appealing

51:34

To the book of Genesis, but rather to commonly held assumptions about what nature means

51:44

So we need to we need to remember that the larger structure of Paul's argument requires that this appeal to nature while it may have a

51:55

Secondary allusion to the Genesis accounts. I wouldn't deny that the now that again,

52:00

I'm sorry. I'm I'm afraid that I'm gonna forget these points and That's why

52:06

I'm starting and stopping it. This is scholars speak All right, you need to recognize scholars speak because this man knows

52:16

I Guess I should go There this this man knows

52:24

That's sort of weird to do this man knows how strongly

52:31

His opposition his opponents, which he has not exposed himself to doing debates against but he knows how strongly the intertextual argument can be made and So this is called covering your base, well there might be a might be a secondary reference

52:47

What do you mean a secondary reference? It's one of the other you just told everybody he can't appeal the

52:53

Bible because the Gentiles then they wouldn't be on Apollo Gatews They're on Apollo Gatews because not of the clarity of scripture because the clarity of general revelation.

53:01

That's a Romans one said God has revealed himself so clearly that they're without an excuse

53:07

But that doesn't change the fact that then when Paul says this is how God created man that he draws directly from the

53:13

Genesis account He's he's he's it's a sleight of hand here. I got to close the door on Genesis So I can bring in another defining source

53:24

For what natural means that will allow me to undo?

53:30

Verses 26 and 27 That's what's going on here And I honestly believe without a shadow of a doubt that that's why

53:40

James Brownson will not debate people who could expose this Who know exactly what he's doing?

53:47

That's why I'm awfully glad in God's providence That when I first went to seminary,

53:52

I did my first master's degree. Where'd I go? Wasn't by choice. It was totally because it was the only option

53:59

I had polar theological seminary And so I had to learn oh man fuller back then was not nearly as liberal as it is now

54:07

But it was a whole lot more liberal than I was and what I learned was to listen

54:14

Understand Even appreciate some of the things that people who are way to my left say because sometimes they've got perspectives that are helpful

54:29

But to recognize when they start doing the scholar speak thing And say well, you know, there might be this secondary application thing

54:41

What do you mean by that? Because What he's gonna do is

54:47

He's gonna bring in an entire Instead of the Old Testament because he's gonna point out correctly the term foo sis nature

54:57

Doesn't appear in the Greek Septuagint Now he's gonna say there's no corollary to it. I'm gonna go what?

55:03

I'll stop then but his argument as you can see in a moment is

55:09

That the entire Background that we must supply here to Paul's statements ready for this

55:17

Is Stoic philosophy not Genesis not the

55:22

Septuagint Stoicism because once you've got that as your background

55:27

Then you can then what Nat Nat nature means you can change all of that and all of a sudden

55:36

Homosexuality And of course, he's gonna do what they all have to do read in the concept of loving monogamous homosexual relationships

55:49

All of a sudden that becomes irrelevant and Romans 1 is taken care of by making the background

55:55

Stoic philosophy That's how you do it. I Very illusion cannot be to the

56:03

Genesis accounts because to the extent that it is primary to that extent Paul's argument falls apart

56:10

Because it gives the Gentiles an excuse because they haven't read the book of Genesis and they can't be held

56:16

Responsible for that because it wasn't given to them Okay Furthermore the particular

56:25

Greek word that Paul uses for nature here is the word foo sis and if you just do a

56:34

Search for that word in the Septuagint now the Septuagint is the early

56:41

Translation of the Hebrew Old Testament Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew the translation of that into Greek That was done before the time of Jesus and all

56:52

Greek speaking Jews Regularly referred to the Septuagint. Okay, you search for the word foo sis in the

57:00

Septuagint You will not find a single use of the

57:05

Hebrew the Greek word for nature in the whole Old Testament and There really is no

57:12

Hebrew word. That is the equivalent of nature in the Old Testament now just very briefly because we're already going over time and I was going to try to fit this only in one hour, but Notice how quickly you said that there is no equivalent

57:31

Is there no equivalent concept? Hebrew uses let me use an illustration

57:42

We have in the New Testament numerous words for love. Oh, I got babe blah blah blah blah

57:50

You have compassion you have all sorts of words like that Some people have tried to say well, you know that that's primarily a

57:58

New Testament revelation. I completely reject that We have Semitic languages use try little roots that will have amazingly

58:10

Wide Semantic domains mean ranges of meaning dependent upon the context in which they're used.

58:16

So you have the glorious term chesed Which we sometimes either blandly translate as loving kindness

58:24

But it it really goes beyond that and it really you can find places where chesed

58:31

God's covenant faithfulness his loving kindness it starts Moving into the area of mercy in some context things like that.

58:39

You can find in those big block terms in the Old Testament Parts of all sorts of the

58:48

Greek terms that become more explicit in the New Testament in the same way

58:56

When we start talking about God's purposes in creation, are you telling me? That talking about wisdom and justice talking about God creating for his glory and for the accomplishment of his purposes

59:17

You're talking about all that stuff in the in the trial the false gods and Isaiah 40 to 48 does not have correspondence to the idea of Fusus That would be an area that would be of tremendous dispute in a proper debate with dr.

59:36

Brownson, right? This is a concept that simply is not found in the

59:43

Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament but the word nature does appear very commonly beginning about 200

59:52

BC and onward in Jewish writings and it appears Particularly in Jewish writers that are trying to explain

01:00:02

Jewish categories in terms that Gentiles would understand and in particular this notion of nature or Fusus is a basic pervasive category within Stoic philosophy and Stoic philosophy was the most common form of Philosophical discourse that we see in the

01:00:26

Greco -Roman world of Paul's day. Okay, so there's your big argument That we should not interpret

01:00:35

Paul on the basis of the creation account

01:00:41

We should not interpret Paul Because because the Gentiles wouldn't have read

01:00:46

Genesis so so Genesis is locked out instead

01:00:52

It's Stoic philosophy and so we're gonna we're gonna look to Stoic philosophy to define

01:01:00

Fusus in Regards the argument that Paul is making in Romans 1 just wanna make sure

01:01:06

I'm not refuting that right now I think we already have but I'm not refuting that right now. I'm just making sure everyone knows this is this is where he's going

01:01:13

Okay, so When Paul uses the word the way that his readers would naturally think of it is not

01:01:22

Fundamentally shaped by the Hebrew Bible since the word never occurs in the Hebrew Bible. It's fundamentally shaped by Stoicism and The way that the word is developed in that whole philosophical tradition.

01:01:35

All right, I'm gonna go ahead and stop right there Because I think we've seen enough to We've already gone over time as it is, but let me just sort of Wrap this up here and then we will press forward from the from the beginning as we have in the past, but I wanted

01:01:51

I Wanted to let you watch this and hear this

01:01:58

So that once again You will recognize that First you have to hear what the other side saying

01:02:10

How many people have you heard? I mean let this man's book has been influencing the flood of books and The decisions being made by evangelical churches to affirm homosexuality gay marriage everything else for Two and a half years now

01:02:31

Came out in 2013. So right around two two and a half years It's had a huge impact.

01:02:39

No question about it. Where have you heard anyone? Dealing with the specifics

01:02:48

Of Brownson's argument almost nobody almost nobody

01:02:55

We've mentioned him a number of times we've we've there's there's specific things there. There are specific holes in Brownson's case

01:03:03

We're gonna obviously get to them here in Romans 1 we're gonna get to it in regards to arson coit taste

01:03:10

Here in Romans 1 also, we're gonna be dealing with a the emphasis that he utilizes on the idea of excessive passion

01:03:18

Which then becomes clearly reflected if any of you read Matthew vines book Come straight out there

01:03:27

These are issues that have to be addressed in a straightforward manner and That's we do in this program for as long as God gives us freedom to do so But you also recognize that's why programs like this are directly on the hit list of the left

01:03:44

Because they can't respond to what we have to say. That's why they won't debate us they the only way that they can win is to silence and That's exactly what they're gonna try to do.

01:03:56

That's why I say again Once you watch this if this is useful to you don't expect it to stay on the web

01:04:05

Download it and save it All of our computer hard drives are huge anymore. I mean,

01:04:11

I could I remember that I remember, you know Going from floppy disks to my first 20 megabyte hard drive

01:04:17

Okay, so when I've got Portable two terabyte things you can download some videos and archive them away

01:04:27

Save this stuff Because it's the only way that it's gonna be able to be distributed in the future is person -to -person on furtively handed out jump drives

01:04:39

Because I'm telling you The left Cannot win the argument.

01:04:45

They have to suppress the argument. They have to suppress debate and So save it save save the material, but most importantly

01:04:55

The reason we believe we believe is because we engage in God -honoring exegesis of the text of Scripture That's the only reason to continue doing saying the things that we say and doing the things we do as good because we believe

01:05:07

God has spoken and When you allow the text to speak

01:05:14

When you've worked through it yourself, then you're gonna automatically recognize when someone is trying to find a way to maneuver their way around the text rather than actually listening to what it says and It can be done by scholars and when it's done by scholars like this that it's learned

01:05:32

By others who listen to them and they repeat it over and over again and you may talk to people who?

01:05:39

Don't know that what they're telling you is coming from Brownson But it did it's gone through three or four people in the process.

01:05:46

So they they don't even know Brownson knows what he's doing. You bet he knows what he's doing.

01:05:53

It's purposeful but you may talk to all sorts of folks that They've just been now deceived

01:06:01

But they don't know that it's actually deception in the sense of knowing the process that Brownson went through To produce this kind of perspective this kind of teaching

01:06:11

And you think about the people sitting in front of him? He's teaching people to go into churches and present this stuff.

01:06:18

That's the whole purpose of the Reformation project Which should which should really be the revisionist project or the overthrow the gospel project or whatever else you want to call it?

01:06:30

But that's what these people are doing and they're going out and they're taking this and they're teaching other people and other people and other people and that's why we have to know

01:06:40

What's? What's there? I just got a request from a

01:06:47

Friend and Twitter I mentioned a program earlier

01:06:53

Let me let me see if I if I yep, there it is here

01:07:02

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, remind me later. Let me change over to This you can see it here the program that I use and I will let you see it here if it will allow me to there is called airy a

01:07:16

I are why can you show it? There is airy

01:07:23

And you just plop your YouTube. Oh, sorry, you plop your

01:07:28

YouTube URL in there and then it will give you a I'm not sure if I had no, it'll give you a dialog box here as to what?

01:07:40

Resolution you want? and You don't then just hit download and voila you have it in Fully usable form normally as you can see here mp4s

01:07:53

And then you can click on this and show and finder and open page of origin Where it was originally found stuff like that, so there is there is airy a

01:08:02

I are why I pretty certain I purchased it in the App Store on on Mac If I recall correctly, but that's the program that I use to be able to grab

01:08:12

YouTube videos So there you go and says I keep telling people download Give you to give there's there's dozens of them, but that's just one that I've found to be updated maintained and To work well for me as I try to grab this stuff because I don't have a

01:08:27

Secretary or somebody to do that kind of stuff for me all right All right, thank you very much for listening to program today.

01:08:34

I hope it's been useful to you Lord willing We'll be back on Thursday And then that'll be the last time we'll be together for a while unless we can arrange some way of doing it from overseas

01:08:43

But given the schedule I'm gonna be teaching and stuff. That's highly unlikely first appreciated for the trip to Zurich and Kiev and Then shortly thereafter that South Africa as well, so we'll see you on Thursday Lord willing