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

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. And 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 2 .45 and 100K done.

And it wasn't, 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 am headed up to, by the way, before we get to the important, 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.

And 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 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 timeframes 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 you put a robe on him, 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 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.

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 Skype DLs or Skype DLs, 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.

Gentleness and Meekness as the Biblical Norm for Christian Conduct

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.

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, just another fight, just another thing.

And it's like, you could have 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 I'll take that back. I'm not sure Sam, I think he 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 Jalal Abu Alrub but 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.

Vocab was on at the end of last year in December, sat right there. And we did the thing on Matthew 28, 19 to 20, Codex Washingtonianus, Black Hebrew Israelites, et cetera, et cetera. 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 McRae. 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 ignore them? 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, reverse the situation.

Let's say, let's say somebody on the other side produced a correspondingly, 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, Ahmed 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, sit 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 and 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.

Been doing this for years. And so everybody knew how I was gonna 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 gonna 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, 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. I'm just not gonna, one of my disadvantages in any type of tweet war or Twitter war or whatever they want to call the thing is I'm just not gonna engage in that kind of stuff.

It's just, it's beneath me to do that and I'm just not gonna do it. So, but there was a lot of that kind of stuff going on. So 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 doing this kind of work, first of all.

It's, 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 is a, has a major impact upon what you can expect in the future for the level of non-interaction that's gonna be taking place because it's not gonna be opening doors for discussion, not with serious people on the other side.

And 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 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 name tag, my ambassador for Christ shirt, 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. And so this bifurcation of the purpose of apologetics where you, well, we wanna, you know, 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 wanna go back, if you wanna 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 Matitix 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 is difference, 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? Very same reason that we reviewed the Islamicized Me 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 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, 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. But 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. So I want to, and this is a somewhat artificial methodology, I'm gonna 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 gonna 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, prais, praos, praotitas, 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 aimi, kai tapinas te kardia, because I am gentle and tapinas te kardia and tapinas 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 te kardia is a incredibly important term in the Carmen Christian, Philippians 2, 5 through 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. And 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.

And 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. But 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 never say anything of the kind. And if you thought logically, you would never think that I said anything 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 is no contradiction between the Apostle Paul, who can write 1 Corinthians 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, self-discipline of one's character.

This is what we're talking about when we talk about this particular term. And so, for example, in 1 Corinthians 4 .21, when Paul's dealing with a very difficult issue, that is, there's some major problems in Corinth, there was major problems in the church in Corinth.

There's going to 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 of 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 five, 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 sune, goodness, pistis, faith. What's the next one? Praotes, praotes. Gentleness right before enkrataya, 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've missed something, because I mentioned how I 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?

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 the hoi pneumatikoi, the spiritual ones, should restore such one in 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, the bondservant of the Lord, to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called. I'm not gonna stop and talk about kaleo and calling and Reformed theology at the moment.

With all, and here the two terms are brought together. Taipanophansounes 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 gonna look at these one verses.

We're not gonna 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, I 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 texts 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 people who have not been called, 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 gonna 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 gonna argue it is, the pillar and foundation of truth is the church according to the apostle Paul.

And so if I wanna be operating in 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 gift, 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 the 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.

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 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 Fry, 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.