A Biblical Apologetic Mentality, Reconciliation Vs. Talk, Open Phones

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is good to be back in my own studio.

It's good to be back in Phoenix for about 12 days, 13 days, something like that.

Don't have anything on the screen, Rich, but hello.

Yes, you are aware of that, okay. Good to be back. I don't know how this is going to work.

We're having net problems, and I predict disaster, but I hope it works because I'd like to be able to discuss a few things.

I'd like to be able to have open phones toward the end, so we'll see. But to be honest with you, when you have this internet thing where you can bring up some websites, but not other websites, that's always a bad thing.

That's always a bad thing. And so there you go. So we'll see what happens. But welcome to the program anyways.

My thanks to everyone who has sat in for me. It was sort of cool to do

The Dividing Line from John MacArthur's Master's Seminary office. It's not that he ever uses it, is what they told me, but it says

John MacArthur on it, and it has all these rare Bibles and stuff in it that are behind lock and key and things like that.

So that just happened to be the place with the best internet connection that was quiet. So that's where we did it.

And I was at Master's for a week, and I did not see John during that time.

I did see him this week, actually on his birthday, and a number of us were together, and that was really good cake.

He wasn't expecting that. It was a red velvet with a real nice sort of vanilla.

And the thing I appreciate, look, if you're gonna do a cake, do real frosting. Why in the world bother with these fluffy, sugar -free, light...

It's a cake! I mean, you're already destroying your carb intake for the day. Why even pretend to go all the way?

And it was. It was really good. It was really good. Phil Johnson did not partake of the cake.

He's lost a lot of weight. He's down a lot, and he's looking pretty svelte and trim, and he exercised self -control.

I had run a 10k the two preceding mornings, so I didn't feel overly guilty.

I mean, I'm really heavy right now for me. But hopefully within a month, we'll be in much lighter shape, especially having gotten up this morning at 2 a .m.,

on bike by 245, and 100k done. And the nice thing was it wasn't super hot.

It's gonna be 110 here, but right now it's still ridiculously dry, which means it still cools off at night.

That's not gonna last long. But I am headed up to, by the way, before we get to the super important stuff to talk about today, headed up to Salt Lake City, and I'm not sure if Jason has put something up yet.

He probably has, and has probably sent it to me, and being the extremely busy person

I've been over the past five weeks, basically, I'm a little over halfway through this stint.

We're looking at July 6th.

Yeah, July 6th, 7th, and 8th, I will be at Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna, Utah.

If you all know the Salt Lake area, it's out way out on the west side of stuff. West side of stuff?

Yeah, west side of stuff. And on the evening of the 6th,

Alma Allred and I are gonna be doing an interesting dialogue slash debate. I'm gonna present three, and I don't know what the time frames are yet,

I haven't heard back from Alma on this yet. Alma is one of the three Nephites, by the way, just in case you were wondering. At least he looks like it now.

He didn't when I first met him, but he, you put a robe on him, doesn't he, he looks like what?

I don't look like what? I don't look like one of the three Nephites, but he looks Well, I don't look like I did.

No, neither one of us look like, he looks much more like he did back then. He still has his hair. But We're gonna,

I'm gonna present, I'm not sure if we're gonna do three and then three, or mix them up, or do one and the other.

I don't know, we haven't decided that yet, but I'm gonna present my three strongest reasons why Mormonism is not true, and he's gonna present his three strongest reasons why

Mormonism is true. Or my three biggest objections, and the three things he thinks makes

Mormonism great, type of a thing. So my assumption is you're gonna have a fairly short period of time, present your idea, then the other person responds, and you have back and forth, and you do move on to the next one,

I assume. I'm not, we haven't figured all that out yet, but anyway, that's gonna be on the 6th of July, and then on the 7th and 8th sort of a little mini -conference like we've been doing up there at Christ Presbyterian Church in Magna.

And so if you're in the Salt Lake area, feel free to join with us. I was sent some possible topics, and haven't decided all of them yet, but we'll try to make it something very useful.

And we always try to do something that's useful specifically in the Salt Lake area, because if you want a mixture of weird theology and teaching, well, remember

I was there last time. What I was there last time for was the little televised debate we had.

So yeah, there's a lot of strange stuff in Salt Lake City, a lot of strange stuff. And then we'll be heading up to Colorado, and I'll be doing some programs from up there, as we have for years.

And so yeah, there we go. So it's gonna be right at another 20 days away but this time not overseas, which makes things a little bit easier to handle.

So got that coming up, and hopefully that will be useful to everyone.

Now, as I mentioned, I was gone. Even when you're doing, you know,

Skype DLs or Skype DLs, you know, you just don't feel like you have quite as much control over things, and we can't really do the phone calls and stuff like that.

And obviously we did some programs when

I got back from Africa and the UK, and they caused all sorts of controversy.

And so I really haven't had the opportunity to be commenting on that controversy since that time.

So what I would like to do today is do what you cannot do in social media.

I have seen a tremendous amount of extremely disappointing stuff in social media over the past number of weeks, quite obviously.

You know, I've had a number of people say, for example, in regards to the

Islamicize Me video series, well, hey, you started it. It sounds like you just got dragged in by your ear off the playground in fifth grade, and who started it?

But at the same time, I just go, I didn't have anything to do with the production of these videos.

The gang, as they call themselves, in their own video in defense of it, specifically said we knew it was going to be controversial.

And don't tell me that every single individual knew exactly how

I was going to respond to it. I don't know how you can...

And other people said, yeah, you're just picking fights. You shouldn't. This is just not something you should get. You know, just another fight, just another thing.

And it's like you could just left this one alone. Could we think about something here?

Let's see. Let's look at the gang, okay? Sam Schmoon's been on this program before.

Long history of Sam Schmoon. Been on the Aramaic Broadcasting Network with Sam Schmoon.

But you know, I'll take that back. I'm not sure it's Sam. I think it was. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

I think so. That's my recollection. I think we have. And I know

I've been on with David on Aramaic Broadcasting Network, IBM. And it was a number of years ago, but we have.

I've been on the same stage with David in debates. I play a clip, for example, from the 2008 debate with Jalal Abu Alrub in almost all my

Islamic presentations where he

Jalal says that I was insulted twice today. Once, the terrible things my opponent said about the

Prophet Muhammad, putting fabricated words in his mouth, and then the ascription of a son to Allah.

And I almost always have to stop and go, now, by the way, that wasn't me. I didn't debate.

Yeah, Sam just actually. It's sort of cool. My watch somehow,

I know how it worked. It was from Facebook. But Sam was saying, yes, we were on ABN. So I didn't remember who was on, if it was remote or just how it was.

Anyway. So I have to stop the video and say, by the way, the guy he's talking about when he says the stuff about Muhammad, that was

David Wood. Because they, you know, when you think back on it, that was a long day for Jalal.

He had done minimally two debates that day, if I recall correctly.

And the first debate was on whether Muhammad was a prophet. And that was with David Wood. And then the evening debate was with me on the deity of Christ.

So I normally have to stop that and go, by the way, that's what was going on. So we've been involved in the same debate series together.

David's not been on this program, to my recollection, anyway. But we've debated a lot of the same people, so on and so forth.

Volkab was on at the end of last year, in December, sat right there.

And we did the thing on Matthew 28, 19 -20, Codex Washingtonianus, Black Hebrew Israelites, etc, etc.

He has sat in this chair and filled in for me only last, within the past year, because I remember

I was up in Colorado when he did stuff on Black Hebrew Israelites. The only guy that I did not know was

John McCrae. I just don't know him. He didn't know me. I didn't know him. So there you go.

So if you sit there and say, you could have just ignored it, maybe you could have.

But the fact of the matter is, if I start naming off Muslim names of Muslim apologists who are active right now, with, especially with David and Sam, they'd know all the names.

They've interacted with them. I interact with them. We all have contact with the same people.

Do you really think I could just pretend it didn't happen? That no one would ever ask me?

And then when I am asked, the question is, why didn't you say anything about it?

What am I supposed to do? Reverse the situation. Let's say somebody on the other side produced a corresponding mockumentary focusing on all sorts of things.

We can go with the Old Testament laws. We can go with some of the stuff that you can dig out of the

Old Testament. Stuff you can, attacking the Apostle Paul, whatever.

A mockumentary on the same level of presentation.

And I were to say to one of those individuals, hey, why didn't you speak out?

They'd expect me to do that because I have, for many, many years, emphasized what?

You can go right now and you can watch my debate with Yusuf Ismail, and no one's gonna call my debate with Yusuf Ismail in the

Juma Masjid in Durban, South Africa, Akhmed Didat's mosque in Durban.

A love fest. Okay, it wasn't some ecumenical holding hands, you know, and the stuff

I've been accused of by people, it's just been ridiculous. You can go watch that.

And I remember from the mind's eye camera perspective, the

Imam of the mosque. See it on the floor right over there, just to the left of center from where I was speaking.

Because I sort of focused upon him because he was clearly listening carefully, and I strongly emphasized the need for equal scales.

Equal scales. Because clearly Yusuf Ismail does not use equal scales in his arguments against the deity of Christ in his defense of the

Quran. And so if I have years of experience emphasizing not just with Islam, but all the way back into the years dealing with Mormonism.

You can go back to the, was it KTKK radio?

In Salt Lake City, where we did a debate with a

Mormon attorney as the host, and two BYU profs against me, and all the callers were

Mormons. So I mean it was the biggest unfair stack job ever done. And what was

I talking about there? Applying the same standards to the Book of Mormon that you apply to the

Bible as far as its historicity, things like that are concerned. I've been doing this for years.

And so everybody knew how I was going to respond. There wasn't anything shocking about this.

There's no reason to pretend that it was some, oh, I just can't believe that you would do that. No, I didn't start this.

Everybody knew how I was going to respond, how I would need to respond in light of what

I've said, and in light of how I have behaved. Even in debates with people as bad as Nader Ahmed, you know,

I mean, wow. I mean, scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel.

But there's still, I believe, a necessary standard of Christian behavior that we are given in Scripture.

So I'm gonna stand on that. I don't see why anybody would be shocked by that.

And by the way, I hear a lot all the time about my followers.

How about how James White followers are just the worst people in the world and all the rest of this stuff.

I have seen such vile, nasty, dishonest, delusional stuff in social media over the past couple of weeks aimed at me.

Just stuff that is just so dishonest. It's not even on the radar screen from people.

About how I'm, you know, promoting Islam and holding hands with Muslims and all the rest.

It's so compromised and all the rest of this stuff. And of course, it's never documented. You never back it up if they try to.

It's some ridiculous, absurd thing they don't even understand what they're talking about. But it's never crossed my mind to go,

Oh, these are David Wood followers, or these are vocabulary followers, or these are, you know, somehow try to hold somebody else accountable for who knows where these people are coming from in Twitter.

Why do I have to be berated for anything that anybody says to the other side?

But the other side can say anything it wants and you know, that's perfectly fine.

Don't get it. One of my disadvantages in any type of tweet war,

Twitter war, or whatever they want to call the thing, is I'm just not gonna engage in that kind of stuff. It's beneath me to do that, and I'm just not gonna do it.

But there was a lot of that that kind of stuff going on. As to why

I took this on is I was forced to by the close

Well, there just aren't that many of us involved in in doing this kind of work, first of all. I mean, add up the number of people that you know that have done more than 20 moderated public debates with leading

Islamic proponents in the English -speaking world. It's a small group. It's a very small group and when more than one of them gets together and puts together a video series like this, it is pretty obvious that that has a major impact upon what you can expect in the future for the level of non -interaction that's going to be taking place, because it's not going to be opening doors for discussion, not with serious people on the other side.

It really raises the question of who you're trying to reach, what your audience is, and of course the big thing that I've already mentioned in the program is it raises very serious issues about what is the power of that has been given to us?

What is Christian apologetics versus political polemics or even religious polemics?

You know, the issue of just getting people to leave Islam, that's better.

Even if they don't get saved and still end up in hell, it's better that they be religiously burned out than be a

Muslim type idea, versus the idea that the only commission that I've been given as a

Christian is to be a faithful presenter of the gospel and to trust in the power of the

Holy Spirit to make that gospel to come alive in the hearts and minds of people to whom

I am given the opportunity of being an ambassador for Christ. I cannot take off my ambassador for Christ nametag.

My ambassador for Christ shirt. I can't do it. I can't lay it aside, engage in one kind of behavior, and then turn around and put it back on and expect to be taken seriously.

I can't do that. So this bifurcation of the purpose of apologetics where you, well, we want to just attack

Islam. Again, this is,

I don't have much sympathy for the view because long before a lot of these guys were doing anything with Islam, I saw the result of that attitude not with Islam, but with Mormonism.

I saw the attitude of people who saw Mormonism behind everything and they would use any type of argumentation, no matter how unfair it was.

And if you want to go back, if you want to say, well, you sure you're being consistent? Yeah, I'm sure

I'm being consistent. Not only can I take you back to August of 1990 in Long Beach, my first debate with Jerry Madetix 28 years ago coming up on, and my attempts to be consistent in my argumentation with him, but I can go before that.

Over three decades now and point out where we were willing to,

I mean, and this was when Alpha and Omega was a tiny, tiny, well, we're still tiny, tiny.

Okay, so we're still, okay, we were utterly unknown. We're not unknown anymore. Okay, that's the main thing that's different,

I guess. We were just always on the brink of non -existence.

We, when Godmakers 2 came out, reviewed it and said, yeah, it says some good stuff, but, and we had to go against the powers that be.

That could have gotten us more speaking engagements and stuff like that and we went against it.

Why? The very same reason that we reviewed the Islamocytes meme and said we've got a real problem with the approach here and what's being said.

We've been pretty consistent about this for a long, long time. Whether it's with Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism.

Wow, man, I mean, we firmly critiqued the the jack -chick -style flaming anti -Catholic bigotry that was out there when we started engaging with Roman Catholicism.

So there's nothing new here. There's nothing new at all. I guess I can understand some people coming in who don't know what our history is, but the fact of the matter is a lot of people who know our history just don't have a leg to stand on to say, well, you know, why would you do something like this?

Well, because we've been doing this for 30 years. So let's keep that in mind.

So anyway, what I wanted to do was I would like to take some time, since I haven't had a lot of time to do this, to go to the

Word of God and to just simply lay a foundation. I mean, this is what we do.

This is why we do what we do. And I did not see.

I was very concerned with the argumentation that I saw and argumentation in social media, by nature, is argumentation in social media.

It's what it is. I was very concerned with what I was seeing. I expect our audience, anyways, to understand what exegesis is, but not everybody is in our audience.

And the things that I was seeing being called exegesis or interpretation were really frightening to see this from people who are practicing apologists or at least supporters of practicing apologists.

Tremendous amount of emotion going on as well. But still, it was a little scary to see some of the stuff that I was seeing.

Again, social media isn't really good for doing exegesis. I want to, and this is a somewhat artificial methodology,

I'm going to tell you right away, but there is a term in the

Greek language that I would like to trace through the New Testament because it keeps coming up in the relevant texts.

In Matthew 5 .5. Oh, I didn't even,

I wasn't even, I think people should probably just, I'm not going to be pointing stuff.

I'm not really gonna be looking at much there. So if I change my mind, I'll let you know. But in Matthew 5 .5,

you're familiar with the phraseology, blessed are the meek. But the term there, praeis, praos, praotetos, is the family of words that are used there.

Jesus is described as praos in Matthew 11 .29

when he says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am hati praos ai me, kai tapinas te kardia, because I am gentle and tapinas, tapinas of rune, is humility of mind.

So I am gentle and humble in heart. Now, what do those terms mean?

What does it mean for Jesus to identify himself as praos and tapinas?

Now, we know tapinas of rune is an incredibly important term in the Carmen Christian, Philippians 2 .5

-11. I mean, that to me is one of the key exegetical contexts that helps us to get on the right track in the interpretation of that key

Christological text. There, it is ascribed to Jesus again.

So at the very minimum, even if we didn't have commands in Scripture that we are to be this way, that we are to cultivate humility and kindness and gentleness, the fact that it is ascribed to our

Savior would be enough in and of itself to make us want to understand this and to emulate this as best we can as his followers.

So this term refers, as humility often does, it's not being a doormat.

It's not being a wimp. Jesus wasn't a wimp. It's not just laying down.

It's not never saying anything strong. I couldn't believe how many times in what I saw in social media, people are saying, well, you're saying we should never say anything strong.

Never said anything even close to that. The number of logical fallacies that inflict even the minds of Christians in social media is astounding.

I had dinner with Jason Lyle a couple nights ago, and we were talking about he's just finished up a new book on Logic for a homeschooling curriculum.

I'm looking forward to getting it. I'll definitely be buying copies to send up to Eric and Summer for the kids for homeschooling because the number of times where people emoted rather than reasoned in response to me as Christians was very disappointing.

You're saying we should never say anything. I'm never saying the kind, and if you thought logically you would never think that I said any of the kind.

You would never think it. There are many Christians who have a very worldly way of thinking, and they've just slathered some religiosity on top of it.

It's an issue. It's a problem that I've addressed for years, and it's only getting worse, not getting better.

Anyway, there is no contradiction between Jesus being gentle and humble and the

Jesus who drove people out of the temple. There's no contradiction there.

There's no contradiction between the Apostle Paul who can write 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and the

Apostle Paul who can write Galatians 1. The issue is the fundamental orientation of the mind and the heart and the topic under address and the context in which that topic is being addressed.

And so this gentleness as it was understood in Greek culture and hence what it would have communicated is not a weak, it's not a gentleness that is due to the weakness of one's character.

It is a gentleness that is due to the strength and maturity and the discipline, discipline, self -discipline of one's character.

This is what we're talking about when we talk about this particular term.

And so in, for example, in 1 Corinthians 4 21, when

Paul's dealing with a very difficult issue, that is he's there's some major problems in Corinth.

There was major problems in the church in Corinth. There could be church discipline in the church in Corinth. He says, what do you wish?

Shall I come to you with a rod or with love in a spirit of prautetos, gentleness.

Now he's coming to exercise discipline. He's coming to bring the truth, but that can be done in love with a spirit of gentleness, which is always what you want to do in the church.

It's always how you want to exercise spiritual discernment and correction and everything that the man of God needs to bring to bear in the context of the church.

It needs to be done in a spirit of gentleness. Love in a spirit of gentleness.

That's 1 Corinthians 4 21, if you're interested in making reference to that.

And then you'll notice the very next verse is about the real problem in Corinth, which was incest, which in and of itself is interesting because it's pretty obvious what

Paul was drawing from as his condemnation. That was Leviticus 18 and 20, which is relevant to our day, but we don't have time to get into that right now.

In 2 Corinthians 10, I, Paul, exhort you through the prautetos, the meekness, and the epikaios to Christou.

Meekness and gentleness here, obviously he's using synonyms, and so he's wanting to make sure we're covering the whole area of the description of the meekness and gentleness of the

Messiah. So once again, Matthew ascribes this term to Christ. Now, Paul ascribes this term to Christ and refers to Christ as meek and gentle, and yet he's also the

Lord of glory. He's the one who brings judgment upon the unrighteous, so there's no contradiction between them.

But the way that we experience Christ within the body, having been redeemed, is one who is gentle toward us, one who is loving and kind toward us.

In Galatians chapter 5, most of us have memorized the fruit of the

Spirit, singular. You know about love and joy and peace and patience.

Christatis is kindness, agathos sunne, goodness, pistis, faith.

What's the next one? Praotes. Praotes, gentleness right before enkratia, which is self -control, discipline.

There is that, when you study what's called semantic domains, there is a crossover in the semantic domains between these two terms.

There is an element of discipline and self -control in the gentleness. There is a necessary element of power, but it is a controlled power.

It is a restrained power. And so, Paul says, against such things there is no law, but this is a fruit of the

Spirit in the life of an individual is praotes.

If you don't see it, then you're either talking about an unregenerate person who is pretending to be religious, or you're talking about a very immature

Christian, and God is going to bring things into that person's life that will teach them those things.

And so, if you want to talk about the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, so on and so forth, you've got to have gentleness.

You've got to have that meekness and self -control. This is the evidence of the

Spirit of God. And what the gang needs to understand is that there have been many mature godly saints who are not, take this for what it's worth, imbalanced in that they're only dealing with one group, only dealing in apologetics.

We are talking about people who are leaders in the church, people who have to deal with a wide variety of issues, and they're not ignorant of Christian doctrine or truth or apologetics, but they have great balance, who, upon seeing not every single video, but the majority of the character and the presentation of the series, were scandalized by it.

Recognizing that a Spirit -led individual is going to struggle to behave, even in the sense of representing, in the way things were represented in those videos.

And that's why I made, it was interesting, if it was responded to, I didn't see it, didn't hear it.

There's been all sorts of videos. I'm not watching them. I don't have time to. Like I said,

I've been home less than 24, well, no, I've been home 24 hours. And no,

I'm not listening to stuff on the plane either. I'm sorry. So maybe this criticism has been addressed, but in the first video response, the two -plus -hour one that David predominated in,

I never once heard the Spirit of God mentioned. Not once. I never heard a reference.

And I put it out there. I might have missed something, because I mentioned how I'd caught the middle half while driving home, and then

I listened to the whole thing on a lengthy bike ride, but I even talked about one of the things that interrupted me on the bike ride, that I could have missed something then.

It's possible. But if there was any mention made, if the

Spirit of God was ever mentioned, it was a very minor thing. A very minor thing. And I think that does reflect on something.

And I think the gang should step back long enough to go, why would it be?

You know, are we really comfortable saying that all of these mature

Christian leaders who are scandalized by our behavior, is that really because we know so much more than they do?

Or maybe the possibility exists that we've lost our balance?

That all those excessive hours we've spent in Twitter and Facebook and online forums and pal talk, being abused and attacked and threatened, has made us imbalanced in our responses, maybe?

You might want to think about it, might want to consider it. Through the

Spirit, generalists, self -control. Galatians 6 .1,

Brethren, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a the hoi pneumaticoi, the spiritual ones, should restore such one, en pneumati prautetas, a spirit of gentleness or meekness.

But notice, it's in the exercise of power, restoration. And then it says, keeping watch to yourselves that you may not be tempted.

Anyone who's involved in church leadership knows how easy it is when you're having to deal with the sin of others to be tempted by that sin.

Not only be tempted by the authority you've been given, but you have to keep an eye on yourself, that you do not become tempted as well.

But there again is, through the Spirit, generalists, self -control. This is to mark the individual.

Ephesians 4, I exhort you, bond -servant of the

Lord, to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called. I'm not going to stop and talk about kaleo and calling and Reformed Theology at the moment.

With all, and here the two terms are brought together, Taipanophratsounes is humility of mind.

That's the exact same form, exact same term, from the Carmen Christi in Philippians 2 .5.

Humility of mind and praotetos, together with patience.

And so, bearing with one another in love, with all humility and gentleness with patience, is how the

ESV renders it. But it's really humility of mind and gentleness, meekness. Now, what am

I establishing here? We haven't even gotten to some of the key. What I'm establishing is this is not a secondary, oh, there's something over here, but you really can't apply that to everything.

What I was hearing in the responses was, well, we're just going to look at these one verses. We're not going to look at what my real argument is.

And that's one of the things, and this blew up when I was I guess right as I got to teaching at Master's Seminary last week, was

I pointed out on the dividing line that David Wood had not listened to what

I said in my response. He was going on what somebody else said. And by the way, I was stunned.

I really was stunned when the argument that David used to excuse his not having done his homework was to say that if you could object to that, then you're objecting to gospel authority, because when we read the gospels, we're reading secondhand accounts.

And so since David depended on secondhand accounts from John and vocab, if we object to that, then we're objecting to the way the gospel's been given to us.

Really? I was stunned. I mean, I thought that I couldn't believe it.

I had to reread it, and then he repeated it more than once, and I'm like, the fact of the matter is

David chose to do a two and a half hour video ostensibly in response to my criticisms.

Now, I could make this personal without even showing me the respect of listening to what I had to say. I mean, that was rather disrespectful.

I would never do that to him. I didn't. I listened to his comments one and a half times at least before I responded to anything.

But then to try to draw the parallel to the inspired gospels,

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I just could not believe what I was hearing.

That really, really blew me away. So, the point being that aside from that, my argument, hopefully, if I didn't make it clear before,

I'll make it clear now. There's still some text to look at. I'm not done, but let me just lay it out for you.

We are given, as Christians, whether elders in the church or deacons or people who have not been called any particular position of service within the church, and I think there is a major issue of ecclesiology between the two sides here.

I really do think so. When the question came up during the live video feed about the relationship of the gang to the church and especially the production of the video series, it was very clear that the attitude was, why should the elders in my church care?

This doesn't have anything to do with the church, and that's the whole point. As I've pointed out, at this ministry, we believe that our only reason for existence is to serve the local church of Jesus Christ.

If there wasn't a local church to serve, we would have no reason to exist. And the idea that what we do is just off on its own, we just get to do whatever we choose to do.

We Reformed folks have something called the regulative principle, and it's generally applied to how we worship

God. God tells us what is pleasing to Him in worship. We don't get to just make up anything on the fly and say this is going to be pleasing to God.

Well, that's true in a broader sense. It's true in the ministry of the

Word. It's true in the pursuit of the ministry of the church and the vindication of God's truth.

And the pillar and foundation of the truth is not what I decided is, or what I'm going to argue it is. The pillar and foundation of truth is the church, according to the

Apostle Paul. And so if I want to be operating on the pillar and foundation of the truth, then

I need to be operating within the purview and context of the church. And in service to that.

That's what Christ has, He's given us His Spirit, He's given us His Word, He's joined us to His body,

His church. And we do have a, seems like a pretty strong ecclesiastical difference with the attitude that was expressed, at least by Dr.

Wood. Why should they care? They have more important things to be doing. Really?

I find that a very interesting perspective. So we do have differences there, but the point is that Scripture lays out for us norms for our attitudes and behaviors.

If the section on the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the

Spirit, if that doesn't provide that to us, what else would?

But it's found numerous times. It's repeated for us. It's given to us, not just once, but twice, three, four, five, six times in the

New Testament. It's repeated over and over again to different contexts, to different audiences. Well, why would the Spirit of God do that?

Because we need that information. We need to be reminded because it is not what our flesh is going to naturally lead us to.

And I believe being involved in apologetics can be extremely spiritually dangerous.

That's why you need to be a part of the church. That's why you need to be in a balanced church. That's why your ministry should be a balanced ministry.

I don't think you should just be doing apologetics. And if the vast majority of your time is spent with the worst of the other side, you will become imbalanced.

And you will even start treating Christians who oppose you in the same way you treat

Muslims who oppose you, or atheists, or Mormons, or whatever group it is that you happen to be an expert in, or feel particularly called to minister to, whatever.

That's where you lose the balance. And that balance ends up destroying the rest of your life. Ends up destroying the rest of your life.

I have seen far too many apologetically minded Christians who end up being loners, and hence drift off into error, or just drift off into the burned out zone, because they don't have the necessary, proper, biblically demanded balance that comes from a proper relationship with the church.

I've seen this for a long time. That's why when young bucks come after me and, out of ignorance, criticize me, people who were not even out of diapers when

I was doing my first debates, I don't really put much credit in what they have to say, because they've not shown themselves and proven themselves in a balanced, long -term fashion.

You know, he who endures the end shall be saved. That doesn't mean that you earn your salvation by enduring, but the point is that there is something called endurance.

There is something called, you know, when when I first became an elder at PRVC, which has been attacked also recently for absolutely zero reason, when

I first became an elder there, one of the things that my fellow elder Don Frye, who is over 20 years my senior, said was, we also believe that that term elder, there's an element of age there.

There's an element of maturity. There's an element of experience. The scripture itself says don't lay your hands upon a new convert, upon a neophyte.

And so, that experience can't just be in the one area of dealing with this one subject.

There needs to be balanced maturity. So, we are told in scripture that there are these attitudes, and so it should be a given if we have a truly

New Testament, biblical worldview. It should be a given.

That's always what we strive for, and if there's going to be an exception to that, then you need to be able to provide very strong, widely accepted argumentation that in this instance you can forego the normative attitude that is the result of the presence of the

Spirit of God within you. And simply strong words against false teachers is not what we're talking about in the

Islamicize Me videos. That's not what we're talking about. Going to Galatians 5, or going to Paul's striking of Bar -Jesus, the, you know, driving out the demons from the servant woman, whatever.

There have been a lot of different examples that have been pointed to. None of that is parallel to the kind of, and this was admitted, infantile, we were trying to be funny, representation of lewd acts.

Oh, but it was just what Muhammad said. The point is that representations were made in that context, and those strong word texts have nothing to do with that.

Have nothing to do with that. The point is that we are given positive command, and if you're going to overthrow the positive command, then you're going to need something more than just saying, well,

Ezekiel did weird stuff. Well, he did, in a specific context that is never quoted as an example for us in the

New Testament. And that also raises the question of who's doing this and under what ecclesiastical church authority is it being done so that you can have, you have to have a check upon the desires of the heart.

Because again, you may become so embroiled in one particular battle.

There's others out there. That's why you need a plurality of elders. There's others out there that aren't in the middle of that, and they can stand back and go, you know,

I appreciate your zeal. Have you thought about this? Have you looked at it from this perspective? And by talking together, you can come to an understanding, and maybe you can convince them, but then you need to be learning from them.

And that's why we're putting the body in that way. And that's why you don't go, well, the elders care less.

No, the elders shouldn't care less about something like that.

In Colossians 3 .12, we are told to, well,

Colossians 3 .11, of course, is that text we're dealing with in other areas.

There is no Greek and Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.

And because of that newness in Christ, that renewing in him that knows absolutely no ethnic element to it at all.

Put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, and patience, bearing with one another.

You know, this is the parallel to Ephesians, using the exact same language that was used in Ephesians.

These are commandments as to how the church is to behave in its normants of life.

This is the fundamental element of it. It's not just in some situations. Now, then you get into the text that you start talking about how the man of God is to be dealing with falsehood and error.

And so after listing errors of false teachers in 1st

Timothy 6, Paul says, but as for you, O man of God, flee these things and instead pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience.

Now, there's a minor textual variant here. It doesn't change the meaning. Propathion, it's a different way of expressing.

It's still the same root. Slightly different, but it's the same same root. So, patience, gentleness.

And the very next word is from agonizimai. The same term is used over in Jude that we are to agonizimai.

We are to contend earnestly for the faith. So you can have gentleness and the very next word be agonizimai, which is to strive, fight the good fight of faith.

There is no contradiction between the two, but it does restrain the natural sinful tendency of the heart of man.

Do I really have to point out that in the vast majority of instances in in any human encounter, let alone in the dehumanizing encounter of social media, that the vast majority of these encounters end up being fruitless?

Resulting in disputations and anger and frustration and everything else.

And that's because we have sinners dealing with sinners. And in that context, we need to be the ones that provide the clean air, the oxygen in the room.

Where does that come from? It doesn't come from mocking. It doesn't come from angry words.

It comes from gentleness. It comes from gentleness. We have to absorb the extra hits.

And I know you can get sick and tired of it. I know you can get sick and tired of the death threats and everything.

I get it. That's why you need balance. That's why this can't be something that is your all in all.

It will destroy your personal relationships. Love, patience, gentleness.

1 Timothy 6, 11. Fight the good faith. 1 Timothy 6, 12. And then one of the key texts that I had asked be addressed and it was not, because Dr.

Wood didn't avail himself of my full response and even what

I had written, the doulos, the servant, the slave of Christ must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient in even when wronged, in the midst of evil, patiently enduring evil, in prouteti, gentleness, correcting the ones who stand in opposition.

Now, I guess you could say, yeah, but this only has to do within the church. Well, that's its first and primary thing, but we are talking about the

Lord's bond servant in the context of teaching, patiently enduring evil, and correcting, that ESV puts, correcting his opponents with gentleness, with the reminder that God may give to them repentance under the true knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

Well, I can tell you, I bet that most people upon hearing that would go, well, that would seem to be an application to the

Muslim who has been led astray, and it would seem that what you're trying to do is you are to bring correction.

It's from Paijuanta. The Pais is a child. It is giving instruction as in a school, and so you are seeking to correct opponents of the truth, and you are to do so with prouteti, gentleness.

It is to be the overriding descriptor. Am I really saying something that is astounding, to say

I saw no prouteti in 90 % of the video series, or that it would be extremely difficult for you.

I mean, have you guys thought about the fact that you might find yourself in a one -on -one conversation with a

Muslim who has seen these videos, has responses to the various hadith, had known about these things beforehand, and now is basically looking at you and saying, how can you look at me and talk to me about truth and fairness and everything else when you've approached my faith in this way?

How are you going to turn that mocking switch off and go to this?

It's hard to do that, and I just wonder if it's not because of an imbalance in constantly dealing with this kind of jihadi mentality.

Correcting his opponents with gentleness. There you have a direct biblical command as to, and don't tell me, well,

Paul didn't do that. No, he did. It doesn't mean not using strong words, but there is a godly discipline.

There is a spirit born element here, and if you're going to sit there and say, yes, the spirit instructed us.

The spirit was definitely in the room as we did the breastfeeding scene, as we vomited, as we peed, as we ran with bottles of urine.

Yeah, the spirit was all over that. Please don't go there. Please don't do that.

If you have to, I guess you have to. Titus has to remind the

Cretans, remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, but to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

Prouteta. Well, that's just for regular old folks.

We're sort of outside the church doing our anti -Muslim thing. How do you, how do you substantiate that bifurcation into some other arena?

Where over here, we don't have to worry about that. But this is just sort of the normal thing in our, in our regular lives. That's what we're like.

But hey, these people are threatening to kill us, so we can do whatever we want over here. That's, that's dangerous.

James reminds us of something. The Orge, the wrath of man does not produce or accomplish the righteousness of God.

Therefore, because that is true, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with prouteti the implanted word.

The implanted word. Got an interesting message there.

I'm not, I'm not sure who that, I think it's a Mormon fellow. I'm gonna have to check on that one.

It passed away, but I'll check on that after the program. We'll get around to it at another point. Anyways, put away filthiness, rampant wickedness, and receive with prouteti the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

I mean there, the very attitude that we are to have in the reception of God's word is one of meekness, gentleness.

This is why it's the fruit of the spirit. So, when that then, um, well, he also uses it in 3 .13.

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in the prouteti sophias.

You want to be a philosopher? There it is, prouteti sophias, the works meekness of wisdom, gentleness of wisdom.

That's to mark everything we do, not just a part of what we do. This is to be a part of who we are.

So, isn't it interesting then, um, that that's the very term and what

I thought was the key text in all of scripture on apologetics, 1

Peter 3 .15. Now, I've discovered in the response to this, it doesn't have anything to do with doing apologetics.

That's only when people ask you the question. Well, uh, I'll admit it was, uh, it was very, um, encouraging to me.

Uh, this thing hit right as I went over to teach at Master's Seminary.

And I was teaching on this subject the first night I spent an hour on 1

Peter 3 .15 related subjects. Very large group, seminary students, people from the church.

That may be why I wasn't overly frustrated and waiting to get to the dividing line again because I'd sort of gotten to say what it needed to be said.

And I provide all the background. I went back into Isaiah and I did the Old Testament, you know, what's really going on in 1

Peter 3 .15 and identifying, you know, this is one of those places where Jesus is identified as Yahweh and, you know, what that means, uh, the kurios there and the quotation from Isaiah 8 and all the rest of that stuff.

And I was told, I'm not sure if it was this verse, uh, my dad told me that they were listening to the

Sunday sermon in Grace Church. And Nate Boussinesq was the one that preached on Sunday, who was, who attended the whole week except the last night because it was his son's birthday.

But he was sort of, um, in charge. We went out to dinner and so on and so forth.

And, uh, he brought me up in the sermon, uh, from one of the verses. It may have been this, this verse that ended up getting, uh, discussed in the

Sunday morning service at Grace Church, uh, which people were listening to. That was, that was really exciting. It, it's, it's the same term and it is in the very context of our giving a reasoned defense of our faith.

Now, I think what we heard in the video defense of Islamicize Me is we weren't doing

Christian apologetics. This is just anti -Muslim attack. And so we're really not under New Testament norms for how we do this.

Because this is only when you get around to doing the positive thing of the gospel. But we're not doing the positive thing of the gospel.

Well, they tacked it on at the end. Now they're doing videos of that. But you see that it was that bifurcation.

It was that disconnection that I'm challenging and saying, where do you get that?

Um What, what's the, what's the ultimate goal? I mean, are you really going to argue that the apostles would have argued that in their day, um, let's take one of the religions that existed in the

Roman Empire in the first century. Would it be an apostolic position to say that, you know, you can remove yourself from these commands that we give you as to what should be your standard of behavior and the the milieu, the matrix in which you behave.

You can remove yourself from that as long as you're just attacking this religion. And then hope that you may get a chance later on to talk to that person.

Now you're gonna have to change your entire approach. They may not even recognize who you are. Um, but you have to change your, but maybe you can get a chance to talk to them about the gospel later on.

I don't, I don't see that. I do not see any basis for thinking that that bifurcation would be allowed by the apostles themselves.

I don't, I don't. So there's Praotetos right there, 1st Peter 3 .16. But with Praotetos and Fabu, with meekness and fear, reverence.

It's, it's once you have the whole

New Testament context of this, then you can see that it's not just, well,

I was just in that situation. You don't have to worry about it. Yes, you do. It is all of life. It's, it's for the elders.

It's for the lay people. It's for, it's the fruit of the spirit in a person's life.

You can't just lay it aside. And that's what did not get addressed.

What was addressed was a repetitive, hey, there's all sorts of strong talk in the

Bible. Yeah, there is. But once you recognize that the strong talk is not a violation of meekness and gentleness, because we're not talking, gentleness is not wimpishness.

I have stood toe -to -toe with some very strong opponents, and I have very strongly defended

God's truth with strong words. But it was in a spirit of gentleness and meekness and self -control.

It was not through the use of youthful, quote -unquote, funny mockery.

If you're going to ask the Spirit of God to use what you do to the honor and glory of God, you don't get to determine what it is.

The Spirit of God gets to determine what the parameters of that behavior is going to be. And I, I hope you'll hear that.

I hope you'll hear that. All right. So many things more that I could talk about.

We are going to, I'm going to look at one other topic, but we are going to open the phones if they're going to work.

So, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

If you want to get online and we'll see if that works for us. So far,

I guess the feed's been okay. Well, that's, I didn't expect that.

Did not expect that. So, there's a article on the

Gospel Coalition, the TGC website, posted today. This is by Sho Baraka, and it's entitled,

We Need to Talk About Racial Issues in Our Churches. And it's talking about the

Trayvon Martin situation from a number of years ago. Was that 2013, 2014? And it's talking about how people failed to talk about it in the churches.

And then we have this line. What did we need in that moment? We needed reconciliation.

We needed to talk. Now, you can't necessarily apply scriptural standards of exegesis to a

TGC article, but it sounds to me like, in this author's words, reconciliation and talk are functioning oppositively, in apposition, one renaming the other.

But that's not what reconciliation is. That's not what reconciliation is.

And I'm really wondering if some people who are pushing the meme, the concept of racial reconciliation, if what they're meaning is more racially oriented talk in the church, rather than allowing the

Bible to define the term reconciliation. Was it

Duke Kwan, who, a couple weeks ago? I saved it. I didn't pull it up.

I was going to interact with his tweets. I may still do so. But in a series of tweets, it was before I went to masters.

So I think it was right toward the end of my time in the UK. Or it might even have been before that.

I lost track of time. But not that long ago, basically put together a thread that fundamentally said, the scriptures don't really address the issue that we're facing.

We have to bring other things in. Is that what this is about?

Is this a importation of a phrase that even though there's a perfectly sound and full biblical doctrine of what reconciliation is, we're going to use it but fill it with external meaning?

That will result in tremendous confusion. It'll result in tremendous confusion. Because when

I hear someone saying, we need racial reconciliation, my theology makes me stop and go, um, we have reconciliation.

It's sort of like the sanctification issue. Positionally sanctified, experientially being sanctified.

There is the reconciliation that takes place as the result of the work of the cross.

And then there's reconciliation with God that is an ongoing reality given the perfection of the work of Christ.

There is the only category that the

Bible can possibly give for us to even understand the phrase racial reconciliation is to see that every race, and of course, there's only one race, one blood, so every ethnicity,

I hate all that talk of race, but um that every ethnicity stands in in the exact same position before God and hence receives either justice or mercy from God and it's and it's not based upon ethnicity.

It's based upon faith and repentance and that therefore anyone can be reconciled to God and therefore are reconciled to one another because of their common salvation and being indwelt by the

Spirit of God and being redeemed the exact same way and being in possession of the exact same

Spirit of God. But how can we need to talk be the same as we needed reconciliation?

There's external biblical terminology and meaning being brought in and this is being made normative in the conversation and that's the term that's being used, conversation.

The problem is you're not allowed in the conversation unless you accept certain presuppositions.

Talk to somebody just this week they were talking to someone else who is in the racial reconciliation camp and they asked this fellow if he was a

James White guy and when asked what a

James White guy is um, that was somebody who would not accept the presupposition of the conversation that you know, all the categories of systemic racism and all the rest of the time.

Funny thing is if you go back and listen to what Votie Balcombe said to Thabiti Anyabwili in the 2014 panel where Thabiti was all alone.

It was him against everybody else including the moderator Ed Stetzer. Um didn't change the outcome, but just that because that's because that's

Votie, but if you go back and listen to what he said he's a James White guy which means

I'm not the one who should be defining these things. There's lots of us of all sorts of different colors and ethnicities that go wait a minute.

We don't we don't buy this redefinition of terms and this importation of foreign meaning and authorities um into the worldview defined by Christian scriptures.

Um but the idea being I'm not even gonna I'm not even gonna talk with you if you're one of those types of people so the conversation is an echo chamber.

The conversation is we're gonna talk but we're all gonna just affirm what we say and no other voices are going to be heard.

So it just becomes an echo chamber when you when you approach it that way. A text was pointed out to me.

I just want to look at it and then we're gonna we're gonna go to the calls. Um, if if I'm not even looking here uh,

I only got one one call online right now. So there's plenty of room eight seven seven seven five three three three four one.

Um, 2 Corinthians chapter 5 beginning of verse 14

For the love of Christ controls us uh constrains us uh surrounds us um

Having concluded um This that one huperpontone epiphenon

One died in behalf of all therefore all died now if you don't if you don't have the context of the elect of God If you don't have the context of God's electing grace

This is where you go to get universalism Um, but when you have that then you don't have any confusion

Having conclude that this that one died for all therefore all died and he died for all so that So there is a a perfect a purpose the ones living

Uh might no longer live for themselves But in behalf for him who died

And rose again in their place so This is a radical message

That you've died and while all of humankind lives to fulfill our

Fulfill their own lusts and desires Once you recognize Your participation in the death of Christ Then you don't live for yourself

All that past That now embarrasses you the things that you strove for it's all done

It's all gone You don't live for yourself anymore. You live for the one who died and rose again in your place total change of orientation total change of orientation therefore because of this total change of orientation therefore from now on We reckons recognize or know no one

Kata sarka Now literally that's according to flesh

And he explains what that is, even though we have known christ according to flesh kata sarka

Yet now we know him in this way no longer So christ has gone back to heaven

That's relevant to the whole roman idea of transcendentiation by the way, uh, but christ has gone back to heaven

And we do not know him kata sarka according to flesh So how can we say we don't know man kata sarka because you know your friend's sitting there.

He's There's this there's the flesh right there the point is

That since all the old has passed away, what's the very next verse therefore if any was in christ, he's a new creature Old things have passed away behold new things become so the basis that we have as believers

To relate to one another as believers is completely To be formed in the context of the radical

Alteration of who we are in regeneration We've died to the old things New things have come.

We don't know anyone By the fleshly categories of who they are.

This is why you had unity and peace at the lord's table

This is what I was talking about got me People calling for ecumenical counsel to make me a heretic is because i'm simply recognizing what this is saying

That the basis of our relationship as christians

Destroys all of the preceding Relationships we had kata sarka according to the flesh which includes ethnicity

Which is why colossians 3 says there ain't none of that stuff This is not closing your eyes to the reality of how god made people

But it is recognizing that how god made people In their historical ethnic social cultural political relationships

Is ultimately Transcended by the reality of their union in christ

So that's why we say, you know, no man according to the flesh according to what their history is that's why

Every ethnicity can sit together at the table The jew and the gentile the bond and the free the slave master and the slave in roman society

Sat at the same table because of the radical result

Of the work of christ it's right there it's right there

And yet if you say that There are some people Who say that you don't have a place at the table

Table of discussion Well, i'd rather have the place place the table of the lord personally And I would be very very careful about bringing your political oriented parameters and authorities

Into that place because the lord is jealous for his people in his table So Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three whoops three three four one

And now we've got a few folks there. I eschewed doing the uh

High -tech stuff. We just didn't have it's Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't

But my 1980s vintage Earpiece Normally works.

Oh Okay, so i'm i'm just i'm gonna let you all know uh i'm gonna let you all know that uh rich just said um

This this the first time we've taken collars since I played with some things

So I think that's his way of saying if this all blows up um

Don't blame me Don't blame me Maybe that's so we're gonna find out here i'm a little concerned that my earpiece is gonna blow up or you know something along those lines, but All right.

Let's try it. Let's talk to uh, I almost hit the drop button there That would have been good.

Let's talk to john. Hi john Hey, dr. White. Hey, that actually sounds pretty good

Okay Funny because i'm actually on the bus. So i'm getting off in like five minutes

So I might anyways, I'll just get to the question. Okay. Um Actually, do you mind if I provide some context?

Uh, if you've only got five minutes, you have to make it quick. Okay so um

Let's see I'm a married man. I met my wife and uh, she was raised as a roman catholic and then uh

But she fell away from the church. I was kind of church hopping. So when I met her Um, she was just church hopping.

So I got her brought into my church Uh, just a non -denominational church and I got her baptized in my church and then we got married

And then we had a baby and so now baby's eight months old But uh when we had the baby now, she something went off in her brain.

She she's just like, uh, Um, I think roman catholicism was the right religion after all so i'm kind of going head to head with that.

Um, so, uh Yeah, that's been a pretty big struggle since that's kind of like a flip

So I was kind of wondering, uh, what kind of advice would you have on a situation like this?

Well, um Obviously the the question is, um

You know getting someone baptized in a church isn't the same thing as making sure they fully

Comprehend what the issues are and obviously if someone has been raised within Um roman catholicism then there needs to be a a a special emphasis uh upon the nature of the gospel and how the gospel differs from what is taught by by rome and so, um my my question would be

Uh, why does she think that rome is the true religion all of a sudden? What uh, what has been?

uh the sources Uh That have drawn. Um, I I don't think she

Knows all the way he just claims it. I think she's read books like rome sweet home and kind of Is maybe has bought into the whole conversion stories.

Yeah, and um So I don't think she I keep telling her like sweetheart.

We haven't really looked at the evidence yet And I think she's kind of just stuck on. Yeah. Well, we'll probably look at the evidence and things will go my way and i'm like Yeah Well, um

Yeah, um well If she's only listened to one side of the evidence there there certainly are you know?

We've attempted to provide a fair number of resources on on the other side. Um, I I think there are very serious issues to be to be dealt with but it almost sounds to me like there's more of a uh emotional attachment rather than any serious emphasis upon Yeah, the doctrinal elements.

Um, and uh still goes I think she's she's pretty connected with family Yeah, we're pretty set up right now to speak with people on my side and then

I speak with people on her side um I found you just because ever since she raised this up and then

I started looking into it more because i've never Looked too hard to rome catholicism but I found you through that and you've been a really big blessing in and getting lots of good information, but Uh, yeah, we've been seeing her side and my side and I think

I just got a lot of practicing and memorizing to do well, there's uh, there's definitely uh, a a plethora of testimony books on the other side because they that's

That's the main thing. It's conversion to church conversion to church rather than conversion to christ and that is um a a major problem, but um, yeah, it you you do have your work cut out for you because the the primary thing is not so much just uh, you know, uh debates

You know, you can you can interpret things depending upon the lens that you're you're using and if there is an emotional family attached lens, uh, really what you need to be focusing upon is the gospel and uh, specifically the impossibility of salvation within rome the constant penances so on and so forth, so um, you know

When you have to deal with issues of authority even to get to the gospel great There's plenty of of stuff we've provided to respond to that But that needs to be the constant thing and prayer that she'll come to understand what that gospel is

Hello. Yes Hello I think

I think we lost john I can't hear anything. Okay. Hello You All right,

I hope you will catch the rest of it, uh on the on the on the cast there

I think we just Think you got off the bus You got off the bus. I hope someone did not throw him under the bus.

That would be that'd be bad. Um, so, uh I just looked over at twitter and just got completely um, we are now in the longest stretch of time

Since dr. Oakley 1689 has had a caller named jared So now there is a jared calling in so there is obviously a connection to what was just on twitter so Jared from long beach, so we'll see what that's all about.

Uh, okay. Let's uh, let's talk to uh, scott. Hi scott Hi, um, thank you very much for uh, all that you do with your show.

I very much appreciate um Both the show here and all the work that you do. I was actually at masters all last week for class

Oh good, but my class was six in the morning until um 10 so I didn't stick around to To check out what you had going on.

Well, that's a pretty that's pretty early class. Yeah Yeah And up and I actually live in south dakota,

I pastor a small church in south dakota Um, so I had to get all of my research done for multiple papers

So I spent all my time in the library Okay um, well my question comes down to kind of evangelism kind of um polemics apologetic

I live again in a small town where Um, everybody is a christian

And i'm part of it i've only been in this uh in this town for the past three months now and there is a ministerial that meets regularly of a lutheran church, um

A ucc church a methodist church, both of which are pastored by women and a catholic church

Oh my in in the past these um These churches have worked together on a lot of different things.

Um, like Three weeks two weeks ago now there is a town -wide vbs um that my church has traditionally been a part of I went ahead and joined in just because i'd only been here for a month and wasn't about to start making too big of changes right off the bat, but my my question would be what are the

Criteria, um, or do you have any suggestions on on how involved I can be or should be?

With things like this because i'm fairly confident that at least I mean obviously the catholic church

But um, also the ucc church and very possibly the methodist church I'm, not preaching the gospel by any means the lutheran church

I'm, kind of waiting to see how things go. Is that elca or or something else?

I'm, i'm not sure which group they're associated with. Um Yeah But well ucc left the christian faith a very very very very long time ago.

I'm i'm unaware of any holdouts Uh within the ucc. I have you're breaking up Okay, um, i'm not sure why uh, hello.

Can you hear me? Hello? Yep. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Um, So the other the other thing is that there is an independent

Baptist church in the area And they are a king james version only

And they are very opposed to working with anybody and they have a reputation of being very standoffish and This is the kind of area that When I went to go get my driver's license in the next town over the clerk recognized

The address of my house being the parsonage of the church and didn't ask just stated.

Oh, you're the new pastor at Lowry pilgrim Wow um, so What i'm worried about is garnering, you know, where where do

I draw the line between? Separating from a church or churches that I don't think are preaching the gospel but not

Damaging my ability to do evangelism in this town because they see me as coming in and just Wrecking the status quo

Now are you able to hear me? Yes. Okay. Uh, we seem to be having some trouble with the uh with it, uh going back to to folks.

Um, Well as I mentioned before is uh, ucc left the the christian faith a long time ago uh, and I don't know of any holdouts there so uh for me um

The gospel is a non -negotiable and so I I I can't see how

I can have cooperation in any kind of Religious activity that is supposed to be evangelistic without the evangel um, so um

You know, I mean I could I could do a debate with the ucc What the gospel is

I could I could engage them on their social gospel stuff or something like that But that's not what you're talking about.

You're talking about churches coming together and cooperating together and things like that And so I I can't see that with either rome or the ucc um

Depends on where the lutherans are if it's elca or something like that You'll have to sort of find out see where they are in the spectrum of things um, and there are still a few

Conservative methodist churches left so you you never know, but uh, there there aren't very many of them Um, so in all those situations, yeah, you're you're up against a fundamental conflict as to what you're communicating um, and then yeah the the king james only guys, um, sadly, uh, you you might you might have you know unity on most elements of the gospel, but that Depending on how radical they are on that Uh very very often they are so out of balance that Those things become actually secondary to the primary issue of bible translations and stuff like that.

So Yeah, you could find yourself in a situation where fidelity to the gospel and clarity of proclamation of the gospel uh becomes your guideline there,

I mean, uh, you know, it it sort of reminds me of of the the thing with uh,

Uh the actor fellow by the name of pratt, uh that um, i'm sorry. Yeah, chris pratt um that accepted a reward a couple nights ago and um,

He made some cool comments in the in passing about belief in god and uh about uh, you know made

Didn't mention jesus but sort of made reference To jesus, uh, because he makes claim of faith.

It's great. It's wonderful But there were people actually talking about how this was a gospel presentation well um, there was

That's not what it was meant to be and that's not what it was. It was it was great to hear someone take a risk like that But it wasn't a gospel presentation and and to say it was is just really confusing

People need to we we no longer live in a world where we can assume that people are going to fill in the rest

From what they already know for being americans Because being americans anymore means you don't know anything about the gospel at all

And so the time for clarity and specificity in being able to announce

The full nature of what the gospel is we're living in a secular society now people need to understand

God is their creator and wrath against sin and the justice of god and and all the rest of these things and uh,

The the days of of a watered down for spiritual laws presentation Uh just isn't isn't going to cut it and you don't you wouldn't even have a for spiritual laws level

Uh unity with any of the with well, at least with the ucc and roman catholics

You might with the lutherans and the methodists depending on where they where they are. Um, you know along those lines

So I don't see any choice but to really come to a very firm decision if i'm standing there next to a member one of these other churches in a a common outreach um

Am I going to end up getting in a fight with them? About what the gospel is when i'm proclaiming it to somebody else.

That's what you do not want having So that that seems to me to be the sort of the overriding consideration Okay And I I understand what you're saying and and I would agree with it

My my question then is is it worth being part of this ministerial? That includes these other pastors.

Is it worth? Trying to you know, just being connected to be connected with them in any way or is it

Would it be better? Just in defense of the gospel to just say look I don't think you're preaching the truth

And so I can't be part of even this ministerial association. Well, uh, if you come to the conclusion that the lutheran and the methodist um are not proclaiming the gospel

Given given the right now you have that mixture I couldn't be

I could not go to something like that as a christian minister based upon fellowship in the gospel um,

I could go to something where I could go to an interfaith discussion as long as it was open that we were going to have a discussion about Where we disagree, but it sounds when

I hear ministerial I'm assuming that we're all getting together and we're saying that we we share something in common a ministry of what?

the gospel And with the ucc in rome That's just simply not the case

So yeah, I would I personally Would have a real struggle with that. Um I I you might want to if you if you can't in good conscience uh do that then um

There's a possibility of if the lutherans and the methodists Turn out to be more conservative than they would normally be you could uh, you know get together with them

I I'd actually at least try to pursue the king james only guy. Um, the independent you never know sometimes um, you know i've i've seen situations we're getting to know someone and just simply

Demonstrating that there's life outside of their very very narrow black and white world actually ends up revolutionizing their world and stuff

You never know, uh, it's a possibility but um, yeah, uh in a ministerial type situation where the assumption is we're getting together as fellow ministers of the gospel

I can't do that with rome or the ucc and probably not with most lutherans and most methodists

That are on the liberal side of things either Okay, scott

It does make sense and I know you've said in the past you don't like recommending resources um, but do you know of anything in the way of um how to evangelize in a small town situation how

Essentially how to evangelize to prepare quote christian Um What oh

Right now it's um backordered but but um We have this track. It's called the christian message

Yeah, yeah get it through 1 million tracks Remember when we first published it we all looked at it and read it and went, you know

I know a bunch of baptists i'd love to give this to Well, yeah, we do have that track but as far as a specific book, um, i'll be honest with you, um

I I don't uh, that's not a not a situation i'm in and hence, uh, not something i've seen there

There might be something out there, but I I don't know of anything. Sorry I'm, just having a really hard time trying to find something because i'm trying to push the idea of evangelism in this church and that's

One of the reasons why I came to this area was to evangelize but i'm just having a hard time trying to figure out

How to evangelize when everybody's already a christian. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you I understand got three more calls that I get to and I only got 12 minutes left.

So Got it. Thanks. All right All right, gotta gotta be quick here guys

The questions need to be brief and the answers are going to be brief too. Let's talk to dean. Hi dean Hello Dr.

White, it's been an honor to talk to you. I want to ask you about baptismal regeneration particularly the passages in Romans 6 1 through 6 and how that could be understood in a non -sacramental way not not like there's like a

Latin term that the The daunted controversy that has its own own merits and also how that sort of relates to Romans 2 with circumcision with circumcision of the heart

I Am not sure the connection the circumcision of the heart you lost me on that one. Um, well

I I specifically ask that because it is a notion that there's a sort of internal transformation

In baptism as opposed to something that has its own power its own merits I mean it all comes from faith through grace

Okay, um Yeah, um, well Just just briefly the the fundamental, uh reformation refutation of baptism regeneration is found in a biblical anthropology, um and a biblical doctrine of the sovereign grace of god in election, um there are sacramentalists such as lutherans who hold to a different form of baptism regeneration where they would identify this as a gracious act whereby

You know either using luther's infantile faith or you know as far as pato baptism goes, uh, or um some type of connection to the exercise of faith in uh in justification that you you can somehow put these things together, but um the the fundamental refutation is a recognition of the deadness of man in sin and the incapacity of The person dead in sin to do anything that is pleasing to god

Um, which would include bringing about their own regeneration through some type of baptismal issue what's more is the place of romans 6

Coming after romans 3 4 and 5 and the very strong demonstration of justification by faith in romans 3 4 and 5

Demonstrates that to try to read that backwards into The methodology by which justification is entered into In the earlier part of romans is turning everything upside down instead of recognizing that Since baptism is a commandment of christ and since it is the initial demonstration of our obedience to christ

It is the universal experience of true believers in christ and therefore can be used in such a way as to illustrate uh the putting off of the old man and putting on the new so on and so forth, but since that is brought in after Justification by faith alone grace alone the empty hand of faith all the rest of these things

The the idea that that somehow is the mechanism Uh that brings about the regeneration

Turns turns the the flow of the text on its on its head. Um, so At least at least in in short compass

Depending on whether you're talking about sacramental uh baptism regeneration or church of christ style

Is going to depend depend on which which one of those? Where the you know, because the the church of christ style is almost a pelagian type of idea that you're you're spiritually alive

But you can bring it about by what you do Over against more of a sacramental concept where you you basically try to connect baptism and faith

Um, which normally ends up leading to a form of pedo infant baptism regeneration controversies as well

Uh, which can become very very very complicated and i've even seen major differences between the various lutheran groups as to exactly how they enunciate

These things so it can be extremely complicated to even find out What kind of baptism regeneration perspective you're dealing with?

Uh, let alone then know exactly how to how to approach that so There you go

Uh, I I I mean again, I think the phrasing being baptized into his death

May be sort of confusing because it may sort of imply that you're being united with christ as opposed to just being some sort of act well

There's there's you know, i'm i'm a good baptist. I'm not gonna i'm not going to uh, underestimate the symbolic meaning of baptism and the fact that because it is the universal experience of The followers of christ that it can be used um to to communicate tremendous spiritual truths, but The reality is that if you make that the means

By which you unite with christ you turn all of paul's argumentation upside down and backwards, especially in galatians

Uh where he's dealing with people that are already trying to add something to faith um and If you're going to interpret

Someone's teaching in such a way that their own fundamental argumentation doesn't end up working. Uh, then you've you've missed the boat.

So, um, But hey dean, i'm really sorry. We're running really short on time. Hopefully that is that is helpful

Thank you very much for your factory. Okay. Thank you. All right. All right. Bye Uh, we are really short on time here nate real quick Hi, dr.

Wei didn't explode yet. No, it's working Yeah Yeah, so quick i'll get to my question since there's not a lot of time.

Um My question is about mark 4 verses 9 through 12 But also through the end of the chapter where jesus is explaining the parables in his reasoning for giving parables

My question is particularly regarding so where it says in verse 9 he who has ears to hear let him hear

And my pastor preached a sermon on this on sunday and he interpreted this to say that the people who jesus is talking about are people who are just willing to Listen to jesus and to actually

Study what he's saying and pay attention and not necessarily people who are being called or drawn by jesus

And I wanted to get your opinion of of that well, um given that just a few verses later in verse 12 you have the um citation from isaiah 9 isaiah 6 um

Why why do you tell the parables because to you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of god To those who are outside get everything in parables

So while seeing they may see and not perceive while hearing they may hear and not hear and understand Otherwise, they might return and be forgiven

Uh, and so you you have the element of judgment Uh in the utilization of of parables, obviously the phrase

To him as ears to hear let him hear Doesn't address whether everyone has ears the point is that if you do hear

Then you find out from the rest of scripture that god gave you that ability and god's been gracious to you So on so forth and therefore you are to hear you are to use what has been given to you

Um, so there's it's just like the commandments of uh of god in scripture They they have two different functions to the to the person who is in not rebelling against god

Then they function as a curb or as the very means of their condemnation to the person who experiences god's grace

They become the very mechanism whereby I can understand what is pleasing to god. They have different functions and Let him who has ears here uh

Doesn't address how you get those ears to hear in the first place You have to go to more direct passages that address that particular subject

So i'm not sure if that's what he was saying or if that's what the background is I don't like to second guess sermons on on monday

Um, but uh given that that's followed up with that specific discussion of judgment Um, it wouldn't be good to to read anything more into that Okay.

Okay. Well, that's that's yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. Okay. Thanks nate Yeah, you too.

Have a good day. All right. God bless. Bye. Bye Got to get this last one because we got to find out why we needed to so so jared

Why did we need to break a streak, uh about uh callers named jared? I don't know about that, but uh, i'll uh, i'll take it.

Okay. Um, hey brother real quick I had an encounter with some jdubs, uh over here and um

In my area and I went up to him. I was praying the whole time like brother Jeff, uh, durbin had talked about pray for them pray for yourself to be humble

But when I got to them and I said, hey, you know, what do you guys got going on? Immediately before I even introduced who

I was they just said, you know Oh, you know, we're just trying to talk to some people about what this that salvation and I said, okay

So I said, how do I become saved? They would not give me an answer And the first thing they said was we really only talk to hispanic people and speak in spanish

And I I was like So you won't say white people and they said no, that's not the case. We just don't know the terms

Oh, and I I so I was so i was trying to get an olive branch here And I said, okay.

Well, I said i'm a christian. I'm just going to be honest and I so I tried to bring them to Uh, psalm 45.

I tried to take them to hebrews. They said our our bible is only in spanish so we couldn't tell you and For the life of me and my wife was like jared.

You're getting frustrated and so I was like, you know, um So they started packing their stuff up And i'm like, you know, i'm trying to get somewhere with them i'm trying to be as polite as I can finally they just said, you know, we have to go this is sending the wrong message

Because I they thought I was trying to be aggressive which I think just because of my size i'm a big guy Um, I said, you know, i'm trying to come here and love and just talk with you guys

But you're you're you're not willing to discuss a thing. How can I get them to open up? Well, uh in that situation,

I don't know there's anything you can do if they're if they're not comfortable uh in in speaking english, um

I I had perfect english. Well Well, okay, it may have been an excuse. Uh, they may the jehovah's witnesses do target

Uh certain kinds of people many jehovah's witnesses do not want to discuss theology They only want to teach people their theology and they find all sorts of roman catholic hispanics that that Go to confession once a year don't know what in the world they're talking about.

They're easy pickings and it's possible that that's all they wanted and They sensed in you.

Um, you know, uh an issue. Uh, that's that's quite possible and there is

Absolutely positively nothing you can do about that Oh, I guess that sums it up Yeah, there's nothing you can do about that if they're if the only reason they're out there is they've got one group they're looking for um

You know in that situation about all you can do is get in between them and the people they're talking to if you don't want them to get deceived by The jehovah's witnesses, but that that's that's a whole that's a whole different situation

So hey, if someone is not willing to talk to you, there is nothing that you can do about it

I'm, sorry, there is no magic bullet uh, I mean you can You know if you really want to try to guilt them into something but given that they were specifically looking for one particular

Language group. Yeah, that would be frustrating. Yeah, but not much you can do about it All right.

Well, thanks brother. Appreciate your time. All right. Thanks jared All right. Bye All right with that we have gone to solid hours

And we thank you for being with us today we covered a lot I hope that Especially in the first hour

Well hour and a half. We did half hour phone calls Uh that you could hear my heart and that the biblical discussion was