Upcoming Events and some critiques for Travis Thomas (Church of Christ)

All right, welcome everybody to another episode of The Parish Reformed. We're gonna talk a little bit about what we have upcoming and do a little review of Jeremiah's Cousin.

We're gonna talk about that for a little bit. So I wanna introduce my guest once again, Jeremiah Nortier.

What's up, buddy? Trey, thanks for having me on, man. I'm really looking forward to talking about coming announcements with ReformCon, with some things we have going with Coltish, and you may not can see the shirt, but you and I are going to be in an up -and -coming documentary along with many other wonderful contenders in the faith, so we definitely have to get into some of that.

Oh, we will. We can. But yeah, ReformCon, you know what I'm looking forward to?

I'm looking forward to doing our podcast, our podcasts with some of these guys over at Apologia, but I'm really looking forward, you know it,

Coltish Part 2 of The Church of Christ. I get to answer some, so when I did it the first time, like a year ago,

I guess a little over a year ago, right at a year ago, there's a lot of pros and cons that people have commented on on the

YouTube video of the Coltish Church of Christ, and so we're gonna answer 20 questions of pros, 20 questions of cons, and get to talk about that, and my buddy

Jeremiah Nortier is gonna be sitting there with me, and we're gonna get to do it together. Oh, yeah. I can't wait.

I can't wait to meet Jeremy, or Jeremiah, Jerry, he's a pretty solid dude.

He's the nicest guy I've ever met, really is, love him. So, yeah,

I'm looking forward to that, and obviously the documentary, I feel very honored to be a part of that, but today

I want to talk about a few things. I do want to talk about your cousin a little bit, because he did a video on you, and he,

I can honestly say I've not watched one since, or today, I did watch a few clips of two different clips, but man, he loves you.

I think he loves me too. I mean, from the things he says, he just comes across so loving, but I do want to talk about that just to kind of give an appetizer to the things that we're gonna talk about on Cultish Part Two, you know, and this is just absolute proof to what we're saying when we're talking about this stuff, and I think the crazy thing is when you talk about the

Church of Christ, me and you believe that there are Christians within the Church of Christ.

There are Christians in the Church of Christ. It's their doctrine that they teach that is so hurtful and unscriptural and a false gospel, but there are people in the

Church of Christ who truly do have faith in Christ Jesus. They're just carrying a heavy weight on their shoulders because they don't understand

Scripture correctly because they've been taught poorly on those things, and I can say that because I was one of them, but we do believe that there are

Christians in the Church of Christ, unlike your cousin, who says there's no

Christians. I want to add to that just a little bit. We hold the teachers in the

Church of Christ to a different standard because James 3, verse 1 says they will have a stricter condemnation.

That's why many of you shouldn't be teachers because of the weight that it bears, and so I believe it's

Titus 1 -9 that says that we are actually called to rebuke those that contradict sound doctrine, so I love what you're saying is there are people within the

Church of Christ movement, and we refer to them as a denomination because they are a gathering of people that hold to a standard of teaching, so in these conversations, they're a denomination by definition, and they, a lot of times, like as we're going to get into Travis Thomas, he's simply begging the question when we're talking about who the

Church of Christ actually is. Well, we believe the ecclesia are those that are called out by God by faith, and so for them, it's totally different, so when you just read

Romans 16, 16, and we see churches of Christ, well, all you can demonstrate from the text is that is churches in the plural.

All that does is help us distinguish from the universal church where Jesus said he will build his church singular, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it, but then we do see the local church, the visible church manifested in many different wonderful congregations, but that's what the

Church of Christ is. That's telling us the nature of the ecclesia, the called -out ones by faith, so we'll get into some of that,

I'm sure. Yeah, we can, but just to point that out as well, just to drive that home a little bit more,

I guess the Church of Corinth, we're in the wrong church, in the Church of Rome, in the Church of Ephesus because that's what they were called.

Right. I'm going to show you here in a minute. You're pointing out his standard implodes on itself because if he takes that standard,

Romans 16, 16, you've got to be a church of Christ in your name. Well, that totally discounts all these other churches in the

Bible. Every one of them, but God love them, and we'll show you even the guy who started their movement, the

Church of Christ denomination, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, didn't even go to a church of Christ.

That's right. That's just what your Bible says. You're reading Alexander.

I want to point this out, okay? I want to point this out because when we talk about these things, so many people...I

heard a thing about Votie Baucom talking about how today people are so concerned about their emotions. It's all about their emotions.

It's just true. He calls it anti -intellectualism. We're opposed to that.

As long as you can say something nice, and it sounds good, and it's just uplifting and beautiful, then people are like, yes, amen to that, right?

He says in his little speech, he goes, yeah, but did you hear the heretical teachings in that? Because we don't want to think about that.

When we call someone out like this, I mean, this is very hurtful to people and to families who get sucked into this type of doctrinal teaching.

It just destroys relationships because it's a false gospel. But when we call that out and we're warning people, like the

Bible says to do, Jeremiah, you get looked at, I get looked at, so many people. Votie Baucom gets looked at as being mean and unloving just simply because we're calling this out.

But we would argue scripturally that that's the most loving thing we can do, because we fear God more than we fear man.

The reason people don't want to do that today in our culture, because we're all based on feelings and emotions, we fear man more than we fear

God, and we want their approval more than God's. It's just a warning. Tread lightly when you deal with this stuff with other people.

Just be loving. But sometimes the truth hurts, but we have to do that.

Do you agree? Absolutely. We've already received so many emails, people reaching out to us, that we have played a part by God's grace to help them see the gospel of grace, to see the legalism, this yoke of bondage that they've been expected to carry around and to put a facade on going to church, and try to live up to these standards that when people in their heart of hearts that are in these movements, they realize what they're in.

They realize that, man, you got to be good enough or you're not getting in. You've shared with me some of the emails that you've gotten.

You can just see the brokenness. I've been a part of those Zoom calls where it's just like you would not believe the church environment, and you're just like, hey,

I lived it for 18 years. I get to come in and just try to help love on them and encourage them and to say, hey, let's try to find a biblical church where you can flourish in your walk with the

Lord. And we try to find so many churches for people, and that's the thing that people don't see. They hear this, oh, they're just talking about these people.

They're so mean. Do you realize how many phone calls and emails I get, you get, of saying thank you, this helped me?

By God's grace, we get to play a part in this miracle of seeing people's eyes become open.

I mean, even church of Christ preachers, right? I've reached out to some, like, we're out.

And it's just, it's amazing to see God work in these things and hear their stories of people getting kicked out of their houses because they don't believe the church of Christ doctrine and cut off from families.

And it's just, it's so bad. But let's just jump into your cousin real quick, and let's just break down what we're talking about and just their legalism.

Go ahead. You want to say something. Can he be my little cousin? He's your first cousin. Yeah. But this is the legalism, and this is how they do things.

And so, you did an interview with Eli, right? Eli Yalla from Revealed Apologetics.

From Revealed Apologetics, and it was talking about the church of Christ. Right. The dangers of the church of Christ cult.

And a lot of people don't really understand it, right? Because it's just like, it's kind of a small sect. And a lot of people don't understand the deep teachings of the church of Christ.

And it's a Christianese language. They say all the right things, and they point to scripture and stuff like that, but they don't realize how much it's twisted.

And so, you go on the show to kind of explain that to Eli, who's a very smart, genius theologian -type guy.

And he was even kind of like, wow, right? Like kind of taken back from their teachings.

One of the things that he was really surprised at, and I know you've rightly pointed out not all church of Christ believe this, but the way they view the

Holy Spirit is not indwelling believers. I've had many conversations, Trey, with church of Christ.

They'll say, every time you read the Holy Spirit, you can just substitute the word Bible and read it. I'm like, for one, that's not good exegesis.

That's not good hermeneutics. You let the whole council of God speak. And God is with us by virtue of the

Holy Spirit indwelling His people. That kind of plays into the ecclesia. We're called out by the

Spirit of God who has regenerated us to put our faith in Christ. And so that was one of the things that Eli was just like, wow.

So when you read the Holy Spirit, really they're reading as you engage with the Word of God. And so that's perhaps an extreme, but I've come across that many times.

Yeah. Well, I just had a conversation a couple of days ago with a guy from South Carolina, Tennessee, and the guy from South Carolina is a church of Christ preacher.

We've had a lot of good talks, and he was talking about how the Holy Spirit is the Bible, right? I mean, it's just so sad.

And they're so close too, because we do believe that the Scripture is inspired by the

Holy Spirit. And as the Holy Spirit indwells us, the Holy Spirit draws us to the Word.

But you've got to have those proper categories. Right. So, all right, you ready to look at your cousin just to make some points?

Let's do it. Here we go. They worship these guys, and they just...

I'm going to back that up. I think that we started towards the end there. I like how it says more lies at the top of the screen.

Oh, yeah. Here we go. Friends, more lies. Let's look at these guys. They lie. You talk about the government lying.

These guys lie with their teeth. That's all they do is lie. That's why it's almost pointless to try to teach them, because you can't teach people.

They don't want to learn. They know it all. That's another thing today. You can't teach people who don't want to learn.

They don't want to learn. They're not interested. I'm glad you put that up here. Some of them think that because if they don't learn, then they're not accountable.

They're accountable. They're still accountable, okay? Adults are accountable.

You got to put that in there, but what I want to say first is, of course, everybody can say that. I say that.

I say the same thing. The only thing that people who think they know everything, the only thing they can't do is learn anything, right?

So, that application applies to you, too, Travis. It applies to me. It applies to you. We have to be willing to look at Scripture and learn.

So, just because you say that about Jeremiah, and I'm sure everybody else that doesn't agree with you is who you would throw into that, just know that that can be applied to you as well.

But I don't think that's ever crossed his mind. He thinks in his mind he would sit down and study with anyone and be open to God's Word, right?

But I don't think that's the case. Let's keep going. A lot of things, most Church of Christ don't see that distinction. And as we talk a little bit more about the history about Alexander Campbell and Thomas Campbell's dad, they launched essentially for the first time in 1811,

May 4th, the Church of Christ. See? Another guy on the internet lying.

Yeah. Jeremiah, why did you just make up May 4th, 1811? I don't understand his reasoning.

I'm looking at good historical documentation that's cataloged these things, and it's well attested to be true historically.

So, I'm not just making these things up out of thin air. And if people want to go look, I put in that video on my page,

I put in the show notes a lot of resources people can go look into the history of Alexander Campbell and Thomas Campbell.

So, he's painting this like I'm just making it up out of thin air. And I'm sure he's going to accuse me of reading that in the

Bible. Because you got to think, Trey, every time we say Church of Christ, he automatically assumes that they are the one true church,

God's gift to mankind. It's begging the question. Because I believe you and I are part of the

Church of Christ. Now, in their mind, they're like, no, you're not. It's not painted on your door. And we're like, we understand

Church of Christ differently. That is the nature of what the church is. It's the Church of Christ.

It's the Lord's church. And so, it's more than just a name. It's God's church. It's more than just a name painted on a sign in front of your church building.

We've had those conversations with Church of Christ on the phone. It's like you're talking to an attorney. What did you say to the last person that we talked to?

He said, it's impossible. It's grammatically impossible for me to be a church. Yeah.

And so, this is what I tell people. I just had this conversation last week with a guy from Tennessee in North Carolina or South Carolina.

The guy from Tennessee was asking him something, and he just couldn't even answer it because it was just not framed correctly.

The words were not correct. And I said, listen, let me ask the question for you because you've got to understand how to talk to them.

They're so legalistic. You can't just have a conversation with them and them have some grace and understanding of context of the conversation.

It's word, word, word. And so, I said, you have to speak to them like an attorney, like a lawyer.

You have to be very direct. You have to ask it that way.

You can't just say, like if you ask somebody in the Church of Christ, do you believe that baptism saves you? Well, they're not going to say yes.

They're going to say, no, Jesus saves you. And the normal person would be like, oh, okay, then we're good. No, no, no.

See, you didn't ask the right question. Do you believe you're saved when you get baptized? Do you believe you're saved before or after you're baptized?

See, those are you have to ask them in those type senses because they can't—it's just not honest.

So, one way that I've asked the question, I think it's really hard for Church of Christ, because they'll take me to Mark 16, 16, like I've never read it before.

And what I try to remind Church of Christ—yeah. And so, what

I remind them is, look, I agree on what the Scripture says, but we disagree on its meaning.

And so, does your water baptism justify you before God? That is a tough question for the

Church of Christ because I'm bringing in Pauline terminology, right? Well, what is justification? Well, most

Church of Christ haven't thought through what that means. They've just had drilled in their mind Mark 16, 16, or Acts 2, 38.

And so, when you get to justification, you have to account for what Paul talks about. And then they—the more—I'm trying to be nice with my words, but the

Church of Christ that have studied this a little bit more, they really want to make works always mean works of law, and that doesn't work either.

Right. So, he just said how you're a liar, right? And you just said how it started in May of 1811, and he said, you know, here's another guy on the internet lying, you know?

Here's another guy on the internet lying, Jeremiah. So, let's just see what he says. Now, we're going to look.

These guys are so ignorant, they think Alexander Campbell wrote the Bible. Wait.

So, this is how Church of Christ people do. You're so ignorant,

Jeremiah, that you and these Reformers think, they really believe, that Alexander Campbell wrote the

Bible. So, we're just going to clear this up. I'm trying to, you know, be an arbiter between you two guys. I want y 'all to get along.

Jeremiah, do you really believe Alexander Campbell wrote the Bible? Absolutely not, and it's crazy that we have to make this type of clarification, but I realize that he's putting on for a city right now.

He's trying to rally the troops, but I think, Trey, anybody truly listening just sees the absurdity of what he's saying.

Yeah. Well, and here's the thing is, what I would point out is, if we were talking, me and you, whatever,

I would understand what you're saying, and I would be like, yeah, obviously you don't think that Alexander Campbell wrote the

Bible, but they go to such an extreme to try to prove their points. I think he really does think that, because if you hear him talk, and the anger behind him, like, wow.

Because this is how they would treat you and me, right? You said this, no matter what the context was, then

I'm going to hold you to that, and you're a liar, right? So this would be like us playing his game. Oh, yeah.

Oh, Jeremiah's a liar. No, you're the liar. You're telling everybody that he thinks that Alexander Campbell and all

Reformers and all people who don't agree with you think Alexander Campbell wrote the Bible. That's what you said. That's what you said.

Now, I know what he's trying to say, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. But I'm just showing you how we can play that game with him as well.

He doesn't realize that. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. Well, I just wanted to kind of recap why he's saying that, and you can definitely chime in if you think

I'm anywhere in the ballpark, but I'm making the claim Alexander Campbell essentially, for the first time, started the

Church of Christ. Now, I'm not meaning the nature of the true ecclesia, right?

Yeah, he didn't start the historical universal Church of Christ. But they don't like it when we move past the begging of the question, and we're talking about them, as you nicely pointed out, a sect, but we're saying, y 'all are a denomination.

I realize that they don't like that term, but they are by definition, and they're really trying to do what

Rome does. They're claiming to be the one true church where it's like the Mormons, right? Yeah, because they believe all churches apostatized, and you need

Latter -day Saints to restore the true church. And so it's just unfortunate because you really do have to scale these language barriers, and I'm okay with encouraging people to understand the

Church of Christ as a denomination, because that's what they literally are by definition, and always remind them, we agree with the

Scripture says, we disagree on its meaning. That's where the conversation needs to happen. Right. So let's go back and check him out.

That's how, watch them. Just listen. Let's listen. They just continue to lie. That's why they're members.

You can't teach them because they believe they're pastors. You can't teach your members. The pastors are going around lying. They don't care about the

Bible. See, they don't want to go back to the Bible and do what it says. Basically anathematized everybody else.

And so this has a history worth looking into, and like I said, they disparage the idea of denominations.

They say that's denominational teaching. You need to get back to the Bible. And what is wrong with that?

I mean, he just said, get rid of these creed books like this one here, throw it in the garbage.

Throw it in the garbage. Give them to Jeremiah so he can teach his people. But you guys don't care.

You got Google and you got your creed books. That's all we do. We got Google and creed books. Can you pause him real quick?

So I want to encourage people. It's not that we stand up on Sunday and teach from the creed books, but we realize that Christ has been building his church for 2000 years, has gifted the saints of old with the

Holy Spirit that have good insight to the word of God. And so the creeds are just showing us that stream of the true church.

Saints that have been called out by faith, regenerated by the Holy Spirit of saying, we go back to the word of God.

These creeds are just a testimony to the wonderful work that God has been doing in his people for so long.

And so when you're sola scriptura, you have the right categories of saying scripture is the ultimate standard that everything else is judged.

But because it's the ultimate standard, it assumes that there's other standards that we look to and can learn from.

But those are not infallible standards. And here I'd point out, I don't want to show you some facts, some historical facts, but here's the deal.

If you say the creed books are horrible, throw them away, throw them away, throw them away. These are just man's opinions. Then my question to Travis would be, or anybody else for that matter in the church of Christ, well then why do y 'all write books?

Because that's just your opinion. See, if I hold you to your own standard, why are you doing a YouTube channel right now?

Why aren't you just reading scripture? Why are you trying to expound and explain things? This is all it is.

It's just really smart people in the past in the church who have passed on the teachings of the church and the doctrines of the church pointing to the scriptures to prove their teachings, right?

That's what this is. But yet they do it, but everybody else is wrong for doing it.

Like they don't even see their preconceived ideas. They only see how they break their own standards and can't even live up to their own standards, and that's the sad thing.

But I just want to show something real quick, because he just made the claim that you lied about Alexander and Thomas.

I'm so heartbroken, by the way. Yeah, you're a liar. Started the church of Christ. He's just saying how, you know, you were talking about how they're exclusive, right?

And that anybody in denominations are wrong, and he's like, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with that, right?

Well, let me just show you a little history here, and this is done by a guy I'll show you here in a minute. He did his thesis at the

University of Kansas on Church of Christ. Great, great article. Just comment on this deal, and I'll show it to you.

I'll put the link or something in it, but here, check this out. See, in 1808,

Thomas Campbell was suspended from preaching, but he continued to preach, okay? And this is where he started this thing called the

Christian Association. Uh -oh, not the Church of Christ. And the association chose a subtle motto, where the scriptures speak, we speak.

Where the scriptures are silent, we're silent. I don't know if he's ever heard that before, but that's pretty interesting.

Let's just go on down here to some things I want to... By 1811, right here, by 1811, the

Christian Association had constituted itself as the Brush Run Church. Wow.

Name for its location, Brush Run Valley in Pennsylvania. So, according to his own standard, the guy who started his religion, the

Church of Christ denomination, is not even a Christian, because he went to the

Brush Run Church, not Church of Christ. Can I chime in? Yeah, go ahead. What I love what you're doing is, we are not budging.

We acknowledge Travis is in a different worldview. So, even though every time he says the

Church of Christ, he's already assuming so much going into that, right? Well, we're not going to budge.

We're going to continue to call the Church of Christ denomination is not the true church. It's something that Alexander did start.

So, you're doing what Jude 3 said to do. Is that what you're saying? Continue for the faith, baby. The once -delivered faith, right?

And because they're going to come a lot of these Church of Christ leaders, they're going to say, well, that's

Alexander Campbell. Why do you keep reading from your little Word document there? Let's just get back to the Bible. Well, we care about how

God has interacted in history. And so, for people that are wanting to learn, we want to show you that all this funnels from Alexander Campbell.

You can see the remnants, right? We speak where the Bible speaks, and we're silent where the Bible is silent. Well, that sounds good, but that's an impossible standard.

That's actually not a biblical standard, because we're called to teach and exegete the text, to the reading of the

Scripture, to exhortation, and to the teaching. That's a preacher. And so, we do have to take into account the times and the cultures that we live in to explain, to use terminology and vernacular that exists today.

So, it's an impossible standard that they soon will break, and I think we're going to see that coming up with Travis.

There are so many standards that they have broken in among themselves. And I like in this paper, he points out, he said, isn't it ironic that the church, for one, the

Church of Christ denomination, who says you can't be a Christian unless you're in the Church of Christ, but its roots assumed that there were other

Christians, other denominations, because they were trying to all be one, right? And all Christians be united.

So, they assume that there are Christians outside, and you'll see Thomas and Alexander Campbell thought that, but as it progressed, it got more stringent, and more stringent, and more stringent, okay?

And we'll show you that. But let's look at this right here. By 1811, the Christian Association constituted itself as the

Brush Run Church, right? Not Church of Christ. How convenient is this? In the newly established

Brush Run Church, Thomas was chosen as the sole elder, and Alexander as the preacher, his son.

Well, not convenient, you know? So, then here's some Alexander Campbell stuff.

But I want to get down here just to show you this right here.

It's on page 16, I believe, of what you were just talking about, how they're exclusive, and denominations, or they think the denominations are wrong, and he's like, what's wrong with that?

What's wrong with that? Well, here's the rise of exclusivism. Although the Christian Church, the

Disciples of Christ, because it started as Disciples of Christ, then it ends up being, as you get further down in history, the

Church of Christ, right? But these are the roots. Unified movement for 75 years,

Campbell's theme of unity through restoration began to fracture as early as 1840s. So, it starts breaking up,

I mean, a few decades after it started, okay? What have you said, legalism fights itself, essentially?

Yeah, legalism, it's the Galatian heresy, right? The dogs will start eating themselves. I mean, that's just what they do.

That's what Paul says. A movement founded on the principle of uniting all Christians naturally presumed that there were other

Christians to unite outside the Christian Church, like, right there. But yet, he says no.

Check this out. In 1835, Campbell lamented that some disciples were more concerned with denouncing the errors of those in the denominations than with preaching the gospel.

He commented further on this furious zeal for orthodoxy in 1837. Some of our brethren were too much addicted to denouncing the sects and representing them in mass as holy aliens from the possibility of salvation, as wholly anti -Christian and corrupt.

These very zealous brethren gave countenance to the popular clamor that we make baptism a savior or a passport to heaven, disparaging all the private and social virtues of the professing public.

See, Alexander Campbell and Thomas Campbell actually believed that there were other Christians out there who wasn't even baptized. They believed that.

Stone, Barton Stone, because they met up and you can look at that history. Here's what

Barton Stone said. Some among ourselves were for some time zealously engaged to do away with party creeds and are yet zealously preaching against them.

But instead of a written creed of man's device, they've substituted a nondescript one and exclude good brethren from their fellowship because they dare believe differently from their opinions.

I mean, this is their own leaders, but you see how just like Mormonism, when Joseph Smith, as bad as it was, like wrong and so everything, but the people who followed him even made it more stringent in Mormonism and came up with new rules, new rules, new rules.

So it is with the church of Christ. When these guys started this, like it became worse.

Check this out. The exclusivism that both

Campbell and Stone recognized in the 1830s continued to grow over the following decades. The exclusivistic faction never comprised the majority within the whole of the restoration movement, but it did eventually dominate the

Southern churches, which became the churches of Christ. And then you can keep reading this right here.

It gets to the point where they don't even, this Austin McGray guy even questions Thomas and Alexander Campbell's baptism in their salvation because they didn't know the proper understanding of baptism.

That's not what they teach today, right? That's what they teach today, right. You have to be baptized with the knowledge and understanding that it's washing away your sin.

Acts 22, 16. Right. Yeah. And so see where restorationists had once cried, come and search with us, a smaller number began insisting, accept our position or worship in error.

As this smaller conservative faction moved into the 20th century, it became even more exclusive and sectarian, boldly proclaiming, accept our position or be lost.

And so when you study the history and the germ of just the seed planted with Alexander and Thomas Campbell, right?

Thomas and then Alexander. And as it grows and grows, it gets more legalistic. And when you get in the sixties and seventies, it becomes what a lot of people think of the church of Christ today, of just this stringent deal.

So let's just go back to the video and let's just watch this. And you guys say that, but you don't want to do what the

Bible says. You want to twist on it. Like first Peter three 21. Listen to this guy.

He's talking about the water is the judgment on the eight souls that were saved. No, they were saved by water.

And he puts a twist on Peter. What he's saying when it says baptism saves us. Cause he would say that Jesus, I would think either

I would say, Travis, does Jesus save you or does water baptism? Because the verse says baptism saves you. The wrath was not just poured on the people in the ark.

The wrath was poured on the world, but they were saved from the wrath of God because they were in the ark, just like when we're in Christ.

Right. You want to say anything to that or do you just want to? Well, you clarify. I just, I'll encourage people to go back.

I called in truth of proof. I mean, Travis actually had a good back and forth on there right after a firework show.

If I recall, somebody else called in for me. No idea who that would have been.

But people got to go back and watch it. It was excellent. But yeah, well, he's misrepresenting me here. I never said that the water was an instrument of judgment on the eight souls.

Now it was on, it was on the world. I mean, go back and read Genesis six and see how that, that whole thing transpired.

But yeah, the ark saved them. And what he's doing there is he's appealing to the King James version that says eight souls were saved by water.

And all I said was that translation is not as precise as all the other word for what translations bring out, because it says that they were brought safely through water.

Okay. Well, that changes the whole dynamic of the passage. And all I said on his channel was when we read, uh, water, uh, saved these eight souls saved by water.

We have to ask ourselves, what is the story of Noah and the ark? We have to go back to Genesis and see actually what happened, uh, because there is an antitype going on in first Peter three, 20 and 21.

The antitype is the ark. Jesus is the ark of our salvation, not water that washes away dirt from the body, but it's a good conscience in Jesus Christ.

And that would be by faith. So I go into depth, explain that. So it doesn't offend me when he misrepresents.

Um, I would, I mean, he would call me a liar, but I understand things do get lost over time.

And so I just don't feel the need to, to say that, you know, you're just a liar.

Let's keep going. Cause they don't care. You don't care. They have their man -made tradition. This guy's library is probably full of reformers.

They worship these guys. Do you worship? And they just reformed the Catholic church and they had nobody, the gospel.

That's just a bad history lesson. I've heard this a lot is reformers are really just Roman Catholics.

And this is where knowing a little bit of church history goes a long way. Um, because we are there,

I would say the true contenders against the Roman Catholic church. We get all into the correct passages.

We look at context. That's we believe in what's called imputed righteousness and Rome understands that that you can't give way to the judicial language of the book of Romans.

Cause if you do, it's, it's imputation. It's literally in the words, our version says counted, right?

But the word is to impute. Well, they have a different system. They have infused righteousness, right?

Your justification and sanctification have to be infused over time based on the righteousness of Christ that we receive.

So my point is, um, there's a rich history there when people say reformers are really just Roman Catholics modified.

And I'm just over here, like you haven't even begun to enter into that conversation. Right. Well, I like to say is to this,

I'm just redneck apologetics. I just go straight to it. Uh, we're

Catholic. Do you realize, let me see if this sounds familiar to a church of Christ person. Let me give you the doctrine of justification from Rome, the

Roman Catholic church, uh, faith plus baptism unto good works equal salvation.

Does that sound familiar? Got to add in confessing Jesus as Lord. Right. So you do those things and then you'll be saved in the end.

Right. That's, that's the church of Christ. That's exactly what they believe. The five -step formula.

And you got to be, now, you know, what's interesting. I was going to, I was going to say one, so I tell people really it's the church of Christ that sounds so similar to the

Roman Catholics. Right. Because in Roman Catholicism, that in order to enter in God's church is you do have to enter by baptism.

Right. And we won't get into this now, but with Roman Catholics, that initial baptism is to wash away original sin, right.

Which the church of Christ actually denies even a thing. Yeah. That's dumb. You made that up. The other thing is like Rome, guess, guess what?

You have to be a member of the church of Rome to go to heaven. Do you know anybody else who thinks that you have to be a member of their congregation, their denomination?

I know a few. Yeah. Here we go. They're all denominational people. It's so sad.

And it's so sad that they have good members with good hearts and these guys just lie, lie, lie.

All right. I want to say this. Seriously, go back and read the history of the church, came to be the church of Christ denomination and how it just gets worse and worse and worse, where they start throwing out all these people from other denominations and just become an exclusive group.

Go ahead. You want to say something? You know how he said all of these people have good hearts, you know, at Twelve Five Church.

I don't know if you have it in any of your clips, but he doesn't speak very favorably about the members of Twelve Five Church later on.

Do you remember some of the things that he said? No. I didn't even watch the whole thing.

I just watched that little clip. I'm like, all right, that's enough. People can go listen to it, but I mean, he goes so extra.

He said, Oh yeah, you can show me that one. Yeah, because in one clip, you know, now he said, oh, there's good people in Twelve Five.

They're just getting misled, you know, but later he's like, oh, I bet members at Twelve Five Church, they're just sleeping around with one another and drinking alcohol.

And I'm like, man, you know, he really cares about the people at Twelve Five is the message

I got from it. But let me, so again, to hold him to his own standard and how he treats people, and it's not just him.

I mean, this is just their, this is how they're trained. This is how they're trained. This is how he was trained to relate to other people.

Okay. And just show you how this works. Here's scene two from the same episode here.

See, I've debated these guys. Let me back this one up again, because I... Good boy,

Ted. Shoot with it. Here we go. Liar. See, I've debated these guys. He's a liar, too. They've had the opportunities over and over.

And you know they're fruit, and you think, man, that's mean. Well, that's what they are.

They are just lying out of their teeth. And their members are loving it.

Their members love it. Do your members love that you lie to their... However, what we've seen historically speaking is that this

Catholic Church did not start originally with Christ Himself, but rather, Alexander Campbell, his attempt to restore what he deemed to be

New Testament historical facts. Let's look here. Look here. That's what

I'm getting at. This is the Word of God, and this is their Bible. What?

So now let's hold him to his standard. He just said, now this is the Word of God, and this is their

Bible. I understand what you're saying. I understand the point you're trying to make, but if anybody else does this, they would do a clip for 100 years on that.

So let's just be really serious here. Matthew 16.

He says, this is our Bible, and it says, Alexander Campbell answered and said to him, no, mine doesn't say that.

Mine says Jesus. So what he's getting bothered about is when we say

Alexander Campbell started the Church of Christ church movement, he's assuming his definition of what the church is.

He's not grounded what the church is, the ecclesia, called out by God, by faith.

And so he's just assuming his definition and his understanding of what the Church of Christ means, and that's always where we disagree.

And so to me, he's not even meaningfully engaging in a good conversation that will edify people.

To me, he's saying a bunch of nonsense. He can't. They can't.

And I'll give you this article again. I'll post it where people can download it. It's so good. But they're so blinded to their own preconceived ideas.

They're so blinded to it. They can't even see it. It's Baconianism.

It comes from Francis Bacon's philosophy of understanding things. Which is a form of rationalism that says you can have a clean slate, no preconceived ideas, and you can just open up the

Bible and then let it teach you. So I would reject rationalism.

We all come to everything with preconceived ideas. Everything that I come to, I have preconceived ideas of a 30 -year -old man with all my background.

I do see things through a male lens. And that's why when we study the Scripture, we pray for the

Holy Spirit to teach us from the Word, to go against those preconceived ideas. But everybody has them.

It's even a presupposition that you can come to the text without presuppositions. Yeah, well, of course it is.

And Bacon was such an influence on Campbell that he says that he, in his own quotes, that he's read the

Bible in the most purest way than anybody's ever read the Bible before. He has no bents whatsoever.

It's like, what? You read the Bible more clearly than anyone who's ever read

God's Word before? I mean... It's not like something Joseph Smith would say. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of scary.

But this has been ingrained and ingrained through generations of these people who go to these churches that they really think that they just read the

Bible. They just want the Scriptures. They don't want man's opinion, yet they go to a church service every Sunday and listen to a guy give his opinion of the

Word. It's just contradicting everywhere. So just to be clear, our

Bible does not say Alexander Campbell. Let's keep going. Since they lie so much,

Alexander Campbell answered and said to him, Blessed art you, Simon Bar -Jonah, for flesh and... Time out.

Thank you again for putting that quote up. I appreciate it. Blood hath not revealed this to you, but my

Father who is in heaven, and also I say unto you, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock

I will build my church, Alexander Campbell says. Okay. Just to bypass the ignorance of that,

I do want to talk about one thing he doesn't believe, is that part right there he just said, I will build my church.

Thank you. Jesus says, I... He also doesn't believe the part before where the Father revealed this to Peter, confessing

Jesus as Lord, that wasn't of man, right? That was from God. And Jesus was a man, correct?

Jesus was a man right there, right? And Jesus tells Peter, the reason you know that I'm the

Christ is not because any man has revealed this to you. The reason, Peter, you know that I'm the

Christ is because my Father in heaven has revealed it to you. That's the only reason. Not through rationalism, not through Baconian rational understanding of your own good knowledge and your grit and your determination.

No, Peter, even though you slept with me on the ground and looked up at the stars that I created and I'm holding up, even though you walked on the water with me, even though we did ministry together, none of those reasons are why you believe

I'm the Christ. The only reason you believe is because the Father revealed it to you. And see, Jesus says this, he says,

Peter, on this rock, I will build my church. See, he doesn't need our help to build his church.

He, Jesus Christ, will build his church. We don't go make Christians. We make disciples, students of the word, teaching them, baptizing, baptizing them, disciples.

So see, the church of Christ thinks that you have to go. If it wasn't for the church of Christ, the church would die, because it's up to us to build it.

You see that? So do you want to say anything before I keep going on this clip? No, I'm glad you pointed out the two things and one of their favorite verses, and it's like, man,

I love that scripture, right? God has to do an effectual work in you to open up your eyes, to see Christ, to confess him as Lord, and that's

Ephesians 2. Faith is a gift itself, right? Then Paul elsewhere says that it's been granted to us to believe and also suffer.

And suffer. I make that point a lot. Who would free willy choose that? Hey, look, if I told you, listen,

I got two things I want to grant you, okay, to believe and suffer. Who's going to say, sign me up, sign me up.

I would love to do that. Like, no. Here we go. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Matthew 16, 17. This is Desmond, Jeremiah's, Tim's. This is the reformer's Bible. This is their

Bible. Actually, it's not. Look here. Then Alexander Campbell said to them, repent, and every one of you be baptized in the name of Alexander Campbell.

I mean, come on, dude.

I mean, but see, if I held him, if I was going to be like him, right? I'd say that right here.

You're claiming that we're lying. You're lying. You just said that this is our Bibles. This is what our

Bibles say. This is why you got to be really careful when you're studying with people. If you're going to be a teacher of God's word, don't just say stuff.

Explain it. Tell them why they would say this or why they would think that. Like what we're trying to do is when you read the church of Christ, you see it this way, but it's really talking about this.

But you're not being honest because you're trying. You want to just win some argument with your people who support you, but any honest person would say, okay, this is a little absurd, right?

So obviously our Bible doesn't say that. It says Peter said right here in verse 38,

Peter said right here, not Alexander said. So we understand. But if I was holding him to his standard, the way he does things, yet he can call you a liar, but yet he's lying.

He's a liar. But see, I understand his point he's trying to make, but man, you need to come back and explain to your people, explain to them why we might think this.

See, I have no problem explaining to people what the church of Christ believed, but I want to be fair about it and say, but this is why they believe this.

See, if you go to the scripture, if you don't understand the context, if you don't understand what's going on, it seems to say that.

But let's look deeper. Let's understand context. Let's look at all of and we know scripture doesn't contradict.

So therefore this can't mean this because that would be a complete contradiction here. And we go, we explain it to people, right?

But they just proof text, proof text, proof text. I know you got something to say to that. Well, I mean, you kind of hit the whole spectrum there.

And once again, this is coming from us saying Alexander Campbell, Thomas Campbell, and a lot of these,

I don't want to use the word reformers here, but a lot of these guys, we say started the church of Christ movement.

And so they take that as no, Jesus builds his church. These are the churches of Christ.

And so we're lying because they don't believe that. And we're saying, we understand y 'all don't believe they started the church that Christ is building, but we're saying y 'all are sick.

Y 'all are a movement and it does have a history. And so we're simply disagreeing on the history of the church that Christ is building, but Travis is not interested in clearly communicating that.

I liked what you said. I mean, he's more interested in winning arguments with his people than being fair. Yep. So let's keep going.

In the name of Alexander Campbell for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the

Holy ghost for the promises to you and your children to are a follow me as Alexander Campbell calls.

See, they don't care about the Bible. They don't care about the first gospel sermon. They say, well, it matters about the context.

Really? The context was these Jews had crucified the Lord. They were convicted in the heart and they said, what do we do?

And they were told to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. But you think Alexander Campbell said to you, you don't care about the

Bible. No, you don't care about the Bible. He was doing so good in terms of kind of bringing out the context with the

Jews. And they did ask, what shall we do? And because they're Jews, Peter is calling them to live a categorically different way of life.

And I think where the deeper argument has had in Acts 2 38 is what is the forgiveness of sins?

Who accomplished that? Who is Peter ultimately pointing them to? I believe that's a reference back to Calvary.

And it's not just simply because for can mean because of I'm saying for the forgiveness of your sin.

So he is employing the deaf and article he's pointing back as where John the Baptist used similar terminology, pointing forward

Jesus the night before his crucifixion, as he was giving the elements of the bread and the wine, he was saying for the forgiveness of sins, pointing to what he was about to accomplish on Calvary.

And so that's the deeper argument. And I like to bring up to people when they say, what must we do?

We see a more specific question later in Acts chapter 16, the jailer said, sirs, what must

I do to be saved? I want to bring that up.

Yeah. Acts 16, just keep going. Yeah. Acts 16, 30 and 31.

And the deal is absolutely him and his household got baptized as a result of hearing the word preached and trusting in Jesus.

That's what believers do. That's what Mark 16, 16 is ultimately getting at. But the point here in relation to Acts 2 38 is this is a very specific question.

And what did Paul say? He said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved, you and your household. So there's no doubt in my mind that they went and evangelized the rest of his household to hear the preaching of the word.

And they not only believe there's a result, but they were baptized at once when that's what believers do.

There's an immediacy when you're trusting in Christ. You want to declare your faith to the world. Check this out too.

In this passage, I'd like to point out, sir, what must we do to be saved? Okay. And they said, believe in the

Lord Jesus. And that word believe has a definition. It doesn't mean baptized. It doesn't mean dunked in water. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.

And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in the house. Okay. And he took, he, the jailer, took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds.

He washed their wounds, right? And he was baptized at once, he and all his family.

So if baptism is so important, like you're going to, if you don't get baptized and you die before you get baptized, you're going to go to hell.

Why did they let him wash their wounds first and take care of all that stuff before? Like, wouldn't they be like, dude, we got to get you in the water now.

Then you can wash our wounds. Then you can take care of us. But we got to get this done now. Right? So anyway.

Real quick, pull up Acts chapter two. I had an email from somebody that was really benefiting from a lot of the work that you and I are doing by God's grace and being able to explain these things.

Because when you continue to, is there any way you could bring up Acts chapter two? I can bring it up on my screen too.

Okay. So we had this context, right? Talking about Peter said, repent and be baptized everyone in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins and you'll receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Go down. Let me look at verse 42 on your screen. Okay.

Verse 47, as they, you know, all these things that are coming together, um, and fellowship and the

Lord added their number day by day to those that were being saved. And so I think the first 44 and all who believe...

Let's just look at that real quick. Who was adding the Lord was? They weren't by baptizing them.

Okay. So anyway, where, where do you, what, what part are you looking for? So, um, let me pull it up in my

Bible too. I don't want to give us dead air here.

Um, so I was just emphasizing that you see the word believe, right? How are they saved?

They were, they were believing and they were being baptized as a result. So I think it's verse 41.

So those who had received his word were baptized, right?

So they received the word and they were baptized as a result. So I think that's further clarifying what we see going on in Acts 2 38,

Acts 41, those who had received the word, that's telling us how they were saved, how they were forgiven.

Right. And then it does say that they were added that day into the church. Right. And so we understand that there's this dynamic of universal church and they're being added not only to the universal church by faith, by repentant faith, but they're also being added to the visible church, right?

These churches of Christ that manifest. We're seeing the first one happening. So that was 3000 in Acts 2, right?

I always like to point this one out. Acts 4, I guess, believing just simply believing is better because 5 ,000 were added there, you know, but many of those who heard the word believed and the number of men came to about 5 ,000.

So, I mean, if we're going to be just legalistic, looking at texts, looking at it from this logical, rational view, disregarding context and all this stuff, let's just be pragmatic about it and say, well,

I mean, 3 ,000 were saved by being baptized, but do you want to have 3 ,000 people or 5 ,000?

5 ,000? Well, then just get them to believe. Because see here, it's obviously more advantageous if you just believe.

If you're going to be consistent in their rationalistic mind, that would be, that's what I would say.

Go ahead. Well, you made a good point earlier about defining the word believe. Like, that has a definition, and it doesn't mean to be dunked in water.

And really, the war that I try to make is believed being pistouo is talking about either, depending on the context and the assent to the facts, or it's talking about trusting in the heart.

That does not involve works. Because the reason why Trachan say it's not including being dunked in water is because it's not talking about your ergon.

It's not talking about the task that you can achieve on your own merit. Because they come back, and they're going to say that, well, we're not saved by our works.

And I talked to this one gentleman. I said, listen, you're telling me our works do not save us, but we cannot be saved without our works.

I'm like, that is a flatline contradiction. But we're able to come and say, what we ought to say is, we are not in any way justified by our works, but that will flow into our sanctification that will lead to our glorification.

Oh, no contradiction there, because we can kind of look at the scripture holistically. There's your word believe.

That's it. I mean, there's no do this. That means believe.

There's no water. So in my debate with Brock Kendall back in February, it's been some months now,

I remember asking him his definition for the word faith, and he said, believing and then doing something.

And I just thought, man, they're so sneaky, because they're going to redefine these words. That's why definitions do matter.

That's why we are acquainted with the lexical use of these words. And Trey, I remember getting ready for the debate.

They said, are you planning on bringing any commentary to the stage? And they said, we don't want to commit to a debate if you're going to bring man's teaching.

And all I said was, I plan on bringing lexical sources for Greek words. I'm like, okay, that's fun.

So here's the word faith. That's why I've always asked people, you're just justified by faith, right?

Therefore, since we have been justified, saved, set apart as saved, deemed righteous, acquitted by faith, we have peace with God.

Well, what does faith mean? Well, it means this right here. That which invokes trust and faith, the state of being someone in whom confidence can be placed.

That would be Jesus. Faithfulness, reliability, fidelity, commitment. That's faith. I'll tell you where the

Roman Catholic will go, is they will go to the word faithfulness, and they will import the whole shebang into that word.

And so we're saying there's a process of faithfulness. It's the faithfulness of Jesus first imputed is righteousness on our account to be justified by faith, right?

Trusting in him like you looked at. The faithfulness belongs in sanctification. So I'm just saying we're used to fighting these deeper battles with Roman Catholicism that has a full orb systematic theology.

And so I haven't really reached out to Travis yet, but I would love to set up a debate in the near future on original sin, because that's a lot of where there's heresy.

He won't do it. I don't think he will, but I'm hoping we can maybe figure out something, or there could be another

Church of Christ, because I think the talk of original sin is so important to understanding who we are before holy, holy, holy

God. So that's where the Roman Catholics go. This is where the Church of Christ goes to redefine faith, where it says, contend for the faith, right?

And so they take this right here, the faith, that little phrase, which encompasses all the teachings of God, right, of the

Christian faith, and they import that everywhere it says faith. So you've been justified, therefore, since we've been justified by all the teachings of Jesus Christ.

See, that doesn't fit, right? So that's how they try to incorporate baptism into that. So Travis did that in y 'all's debate, right?

And I was going to say, so it's funny, because in my debate with Brock, he did the same thing and made me chuckle a little bit, because we've talked through this.

We understand kind of what's going on. But Brock used Romans 6, verse 17.

He said, But thanks be to God that those who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.

And so there's a whole lot of stock in the standard of teaching. And I remember

Brock thought— But wait, I just want to point out, they weren't baptized into the standard. They believed the standard. Well, their argument is—

Well, they were already baptized. Well, so his argument is baptism is earlier in Romans 6, so that's the standard of teaching.

And the point is that it's a physical—instead of standard, it's talking about a tangible something that can be seen with the human eye.

And I'm over here saying, yeah, God's teaching, God's precepts, His law has always been tangible and available to His people.

But the idea is it's talking about the faith that God has revealed to the saints to respond with.

And so anyway, I'm just saying it's—Travis's argument against you with Jude 3 was the same thing that I had to deal with in my debate with Brock.

But Romans 6 here, they were obedient, but what? That you were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching.

They were obedient from the heart. I like how you have the obedient from the heart in yellow because that was my huge deal.

I was like, what is Paul referring to? Outward physical obedience, but this obedience from the heart to the standard of teaching.

What that also proves—you and I have talked about this—obedience means to be in agreement with, in submission to.

Obedience doesn't entail works. Now, I do agree. Obedience most of the time refers to the works that you're doing and to all of what

Christ has commanded for us to do, like baptism. But obedience from the heart is when

Jesus says, believe in God, believe also in me, and we say, yes, Lord. Right? Our heart trusts him.

That's being obedient from the heart, and that's not our works. Here's Paul using that word, but they have not all obeyed the gospel.

Obeyed means to be, to be reliant on, to believe. Obedient from the heart, right? To believe.

They've not all obeyed the gospel for us. Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he's heard from us?

So faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of Christ. So even Paul's understanding of obeying, because the word obey there, is to be subject to, to listen, to adhere to.

He uses Isaiah believed. Yep. So the Old Testament has the same understanding, but in Travis's mind, the

Old Testament is not authoritative. Or Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. And John was not written for the reasons John said it was written, that you might believe, and by believing you have eternal life.

So anyway, these are some of the things that we're going to talk about at ReformCon. We do

Cultish Part Two. And we get to talk about some unicorns. You found a herd of unicorns out there who believe in full preterism.

Horrible. But yeah, we have a lot of good things coming up. Documentary.

That's going to be fun. And Thy Kingdom Come. And I better, I'm going to call

Kyle and say, I want my shirt. My love t -shirts. So is there anything else you want to leave us with?

It's been a fun little episode. We got to talk about with your cousin a little bit. Hopefully you'll hear from me.

I want to make another announcement. This involves you too. Next week, I will be having

Dr. Frost on to debate a full preterist. Going to be very kind to this gentleman that actually said, yeah,

I'd love to engage. Remember, we've talked about Michael Sullivan, kind of the champion unicorn.

He will not debate Dr. Frost. He is not willing to step into that arena. And so I thought he was talking all this smack about Dr.

Frost. And now he's backing out. Yeah, he really wants to debate Jeff Durbin and all them first.

And I'm like, dude, we are not going to waste Jeff's time with all that. What stinks was

I told him that if he would debate Frost that I would try to talk with Jeff coming up at ReformCon.

If he's not willing to actually stand out in a one -on -one mono -e -mono with Dr.

Frost, please don't waste Jeff's time, please. He's a busy man. He's fighting the front of end abortion now and doing so many wonderful things.

So anyway, hopefully Michael Sullivan will change his mind and accept the offer to debate

Dr. Frost. But in the meantime, we have a gentleman named Stacey that he's going to be coming on.

And I can't wait for that. And Trey, you're going to be a co -moderator.

And so you'll have a few moments to share your thoughts and opinions about how the debate's going. So I can't wait for that.

And that is next week on Friday, October 14th. I believe it's going to start at 6 p .m.

central time. I'm going to be the color commentator. I'm going to bring some redneck apologetics up in there. That's all

I'm going to do. But all right, guys, thanks for watching The Parish Reformed. And if you're watching on my channel or on Jeremiah's channel,

The Apologetic Dog, we appreciate it. Hit the like, subscribe button. We really appreciate that.

And hopefully we'll have some more content coming out. I know Jeremiah will have a lot more coming out before me. I'm very sporadic.

So y 'all be good. Love you guys. And see y 'all. Praying for you. Bye -bye.