September 7, 2016 Show with Latayne C. Scott on “The Heart’s Door: Hospitality in the Bible”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this seventh day of September 2016 and I'm so delighted to have back on the program today an old friend of mine,

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Dr. Latane C. Scott. She has been on this program a number of times and she is a

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Mormon convert to Christianity by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. She is the author of 16 published books including a classic titled

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The Mormon Mirage. A former member looks at the Mormon church today and she's a recipient of the

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Distinguished Christian Service Award by Pepperdine University in Malibu, California and she's also an award -winning poet and today we're going to be addressing her latest book just recently published,

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The Heart Store, Hospitality and the Bible, and we're also going to be addressing a book of poetry that was published back in February of this year,

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Passion Power Proxy Release, and I remember how incredibly moved

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I was nearby when we were celebrating Resurrection Day, Easter season as many call it, and when

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I saw this poem that she had written, our guest Latane had written, it totally blew me away for lack of better terms and she is truly an extraordinarily gifted sister in Christ and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.

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Latane C. Scott. Dr. Latane C. Scott Thank you, Chris. Always a privilege to be on your show and I just appreciate your ministry so much.

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Thank you. Well, thank you and it's amazing to me over the years how I am discovering that we have mutual friends in common and the longer

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I do this show I'll find out that the guest I'm interviewing knows you and it's just amazing and was delighted to hear of your friendship with Rosaria Butterfield who

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I've interviewed a couple of times and was delighted to hear that brother in Christ over at the

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Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, David Murray, had interviewed you, a really remarkable interview that you were involved in with him on abortion and so I really find it amazing how small the world really is.

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But before we even go into our topic, let me just announce to our listeners our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question.

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Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com and if you could, please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA and if you feel some need to remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable, we will honor that request.

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I just want to, right off the bat, read some of the commendations that your book on poetry has received.

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First of all, we have a commendation from Don Taylor, author of Dust and Diamond, Poems of Earth and Beyond, Latain C.

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Scott's depth of scriptural knowledge and her poignant awareness of the inevitable shortfall of human longings enable an exceptionally moving portrayal of human suffering and Christians' expectation of release through resurrection in Christ, a must -read for serious

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Christians. And we also have an endorsement from Jeanette Thomason from Whitestone Publishing.

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What is it like to reawaken from the dead? What happens to your body, heart, and soul? Latain Scott gives you the experience with this beautiful collection in four short but powerful parts of profound contemplation on the life, suffering, resurrection, and meaning of Jesus Christ.

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Sixty meditations each use scripture, poetry, and reflection to make real the wonder of your dry bones being refixed to Christ, the astonishment of God allowing sacrifice like Abraham and Isaac.

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Oh, where is the angel, where is the ram, and the ecstasy of rising reborn?

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I hear these sounds across two thousand years, Jesus rising again in my heart.

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You will turn the last page quickened in your love at being saved, and then you will turn to the start again for an experience of God that plums the mysteries of his love.

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You didn't have to, you didn't have to, you wanted to. A book to draw you closer to your maker and redeemer and ignite a new passion for life.

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And last but not least, we have Patti Hill, author of Goodness and Mercy.

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I've long been an admirer of Latain Scott's poetry. No one excites images quite like her.

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To match her poetry with her scriptural insights in Passion, Power, Proxy, and Release creates a devotional of unparalleled power for renewal.

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The intimacy with which she reflects on the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ will forever color my communion experience.

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I will never settle for routine or ceremony again. Wow, that's pretty powerful.

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That includes the ordinance, one of the two ordinances that our Lord has given us, and I look forward to hearing some of these poems later on.

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But before we even venture into your latest book on hospitality and the book on poetry, just wanted to chat with you a bit about certain things.

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Someone who you also know, Tim Challies, he was actually my guest on this program last

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Friday. Tim Challies, he's a Reformed writer who has decided to conduct his writing as a patron supported ministry.

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What does that mean, and why have you decided to pursue it as well? Well, I'm actually a supporter of Tim Challies, and he, as most people know, he's a blogger, he's involved with radio ministry, he has some books out, and he decided that being a local pastor, although it's very fulfilling for him, was not conducive to him being able to pursue his ministry of writing.

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And so he prayed about it and thought about it for a while, and asked a friend of his who was involved with a website called

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Patreon, P -A -T -R -E -O -N .com, and Tim sent out an announcement that he was going to resign from his job as a minister, and that he was going to devote himself to full -time writing.

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But to do that, he would need support, and so he talked about the practice that's been going on for hundreds of years with Christian artists, writers, musicians called patronage, and this was very prominent back in the

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Middle Ages, you know, Michelangelo, da Vinci, others actually had patrons, and usually they were a pope or another very wealthy person, who would support them financially while they pursued their creative endeavors.

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In the case of an artist, of course, you have a piece of art that becomes part of the culture, but in the case of a writer or a musician, that writer or musician needs time alone, needs time to study, time to compose, and this may come as a big surprise to many of your readers, but most

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Christian writers can't buy their groceries on their book royalties, so supporting oneself as a writer, as a

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Christian writer in today's economy, very rarely happens. So Tim just asked people, would you be willing to pay $5 a month through this

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Patreon site to support me in my ministry? And of course, I think Tim Challies is terrific.

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He sends out a daily email of wonderful selections from the web and very thought -provoking things, and so I said, man, you more than deserve what

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I can afford, and I said, I will support you. And so I signed up to support him, and then

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I thought, you know what? Here I am, holding down four part -time jobs, and one of which is writing, one of which was teaching, one of which was being an online writing coach for a

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Christian university, and the other was being a writing coach to individual authors.

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I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could quit the most time -consuming of those, which was teaching in a classical

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Christian school, and just devote myself to the purely writing -related things? And I followed

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Tim Challies' example, and to my great delight, I'm supported by a number of individuals, some of whom do it through the

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Patreon site, and some who just support me individually, and also my church supports me financially so that I can continue my ministry of writing.

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Now you might say, well, does that mean I sit around and think up things to write? The fact is that I have 17 completed books which are either out of print or have never been published, and this gives me the luxury of being able to publish them and get them out into the hands of people who need them.

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One of the most exciting things that has happened recently is Eastern European Missions, which supplies

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Bibles and other materials to people in the Ukraine mainly, has several of my books under consideration to translate them into some of those

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Eastern European languages, so that people can have some good materials.

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Now, I can do that because I'm being supported, and I can give that away, which is a great pleasure to me, to give the foreign rights away to someone who will translate them into the language of someone who truly needs them.

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Wow, that's something. Yeah, I know a number of people, a number of Christians who have adopted children from Ukraine and make trips there, and it's also sad to see how many of the children that have been adopted have a lot to overcome in their lives because of the horrible circumstances they were involved in, either through their biological parents or from the orphanages that they were in.

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But I remembered something very valuable, as not to offend any

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Ukrainians. I've learned that you never say, the Ukraine, as people here in America are in a habit of saying.

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It's just Ukraine, not the Ukraine. Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, I've heard that that is taken as an insult because it's almost a disparaging way of referring to the country, and apparently that's the way used to refer to it.

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But now you were saying that you are supported by your local church. Is it unusual for a local

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Church of Christ to support a woman writer financially in ministry? Now this is dabbling in a little bit of controversy here, but is that unusual?

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Well I've taken, throughout my 42 years as a Christian, I've taken very seriously the idea of biblical authority, and the authority of male leadership in a church.

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And so I worship in a church in which male authority is practiced, and even though I might have more degrees than perhaps a speaker or something else,

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I always find that the Lord helps me learn something from everyone who teaches. So it doesn't bother me that I have more education or perhaps more speaking experience than some of the people there.

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So it's been a pleasure to me to exemplify this biblical example of authority where Christ is over the church, and that male leadership is under female leadership.

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And I realize that might be, I mean male leadership is over female practice, not because of lack of equality, but just as a matter of practice.

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The complementarianism it's basically referred to in my circle. Complementarianism, yes. And I realize that might be offensive to some of your readers, and some of your listeners, but it's just the way

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I've conducted my life. Yeah well most of my listeners would not be offended by that. They would be offended if I started endorsing the opposite view.

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Well we're safe then. We're safe then. But in the Churches of Christ, historically, male leadership has been in place.

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And so for a Church of Christ to support, to partially support a woman writer, now sometimes they support women missionaries, but I don't know of a single

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Church of Christ in the nation or in the world that has done what the Mountainside Church of Christ in Albuquerque, New Mexico has done, and I'm just so grateful to my elders that they saw the need for quality

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Christian literature, Bible studies, as well as other types of literature.

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And these people are giving me the ability to devote myself to that kind of writing, so that I can give it to Eastern European missions, for instance, to translate, or that I can spend my time not having to go seek a publisher, although I do have one, and we'll talk about that a little bit later.

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I can devote myself to the ministry of writing, which God has given me the ability to, and I'm just so grateful.

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Well praise God. And obviously it is very difficult in the 21st century especially to pigeonhole

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Church of Christ congregations. It might have been more easy years ago to guess or presume accurately what a church stood for, but you happen to be somebody who is a very irenic

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Christian who doesn't seem to have the stereotypical judgmentalism that has been unfortunately a caricature of some in that fellowship, and unfortunately also a rightfully earned reputation of, you know, looking upon themselves as the only true believers on the face of the earth and that kind of thing.

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How do you respond to my description of the situation, and of you personally as well?

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Well you know, coming out of Mormonism, I felt that Biblical Christianity that only depended on the

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Bible was like a slimmed down version of religion, and I was blissfully unaware of many of the things that I think have characterized the

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Church of Christ in the past, because the congregation that I've worshipped with for 43 years, other than a small period of time that Dan and I and my husband lived in Colorado, has been extremely accepting of other people.

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That's one of the beauties of our church, I think it is that there is no racial prejudice that I have ever seen, and there's also no prejudice against people who are mentally ill, who are poorer than others, that sort of thing.

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So I've not seen that personally, although I do understand that's been a feature, that idea that we're the only ones and no one else is going into heaven but us, is still a feature of some churches of Christ, or some people in the churches of Christ.

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But it's not of mine, and it's certainly not my opinion at all, because I figure God would let me in heaven, the sinner that I am,

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He won't let anybody in according to His own rules and standards, and not mine.

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So yes, I am accepting of other people outside our denomination, and it is a denomination.

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And it's interesting that you also identified it that way, because that was the old slogan, is that they claimed not to be a denomination of any kind.

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Well, because they have no central headquarters, they don't have that in common with other denominations, but I think that the kind of concretizing of their doctrines and practices over the last 75 years or so, makes them so distinctive that they can correctly be identified as a denomination.

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That's just my opinion. Well, you are certainly one of the most actively involved members of that fellowship, who are very frequently cooperating and building friendships with theologically reformed

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Christians, which is a very unusual thing that I have witnessed. I keep getting surrounded by you guys.

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I met you when I was in Grand Rapids, coming into contact with David Murray, which led me to Tim Challies.

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And then the school that I taught at was a classical Christian school that uses materials from Veritas Publishing Company, and the theological stance of most of the materials that our school used.

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And this is Oak Grove Classical Academy in Albuquerque, which is just a fine, fine organization.

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But most of the materials are from a reformed perspective, so you got me surrounded here. Well, what other projects are you working on?

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I had just finished a book in which a man and his wife can read through the

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Bible with specific passages, separately during the week, and answer questions.

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And then the idea is that the man and his wife get together one night a week, they get a babysitter for the kids, and they sit down and discuss those things.

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And I'll tell you why I wrote the book. I wrote the book, and it was actually in use at Sunset School of Preaching, which is a

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Church of Christ preacher training facility in Lubbock, Texas, because so many of these guys were getting their theological education, but they didn't have a touchpoint with their wives.

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And this way, at least for part of the day, each of them is looking at the same materials, answering some of the same questions, and then getting together to talk about how the issues in Genesis or Matthew or whatever they're reading that week, what they have to do with their relationship to one another, what they have to do with their relationship to the

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Lord. And that way, the husband and the wife are talking about the same things to one another, deliberately, prayerfully, and reverentially, including the

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Lord in their conversation. And it was in use at that school for a while. And then, as we often say, life happens, and I went on to other things, but I have rewritten the book to make it more user -friendly, and it should be out in late

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November of this year, and I'm hoping that people will consider giving the gift of scriptural knowledge to each other, that couples will do that for Christmas this year.

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That's my great hope. Well, I promise my listeners I will eventually get to the book on hospitality and the book on poetry, but I just have a few more questions

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I'd like to ask before we reach that point. We already have a couple of people who have written to ask about the hospitality issue.

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But you said that Trinity Southwest University, which is headed by Dr.

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Stephen Collins, and by the way, I want our listeners to write down on their calendars that I will be interviewing

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Dr. Stephen Collins on October the 4th.

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He is an archaeologist, and he has discovered the site of Sodom.

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And I know that he is very, very certain of this. I've seen videos of him discussing this fascinating discovery, where he doesn't say that he thinks he discovered the site of Sodom, he is absolutely certain he's discovered the site of Sodom.

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And this is an interview

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I'm looking forward to revisiting, because I did interview Dr. Collins many years ago, I'd say somewhere between 2006 and 2010, so I guess it's not that many years ago, but it's quite a number of years ago.

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And I'm looking forward to his return. But he, I believe, is the dean of that school, and he is partnering with you in publishing your books.

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Tell us about that. Well, it's one thing in my own publishing ministry to self -publish books, but Steve and I were talking, and he said,

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I would really like to bring your writing under the aegis of Trinity Southwest University.

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And so this new hospitality book is TSU Press, and most of my books from now on will be published by TSU Press.

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I am the dean of the College of Biblical Representational Research there, which is an area of theology that I've developed along with a colleague.

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And then we're also going to begin a writing school. And I think this might be of interest to your listeners,

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Chris, because many of the writing institutes for Christian writing are focused toward getting you to sell things, being able to sell your work, which is an admirable and good end goal for publishing or for writing in the

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Christian market. But sometimes I think they sacrifice, and I'm being perhaps a little bit judgmental here, they sacrifice the craft of writing to the idea of getting your face or your work known to the public.

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And what we'd like to do is be able to train people through seminars and also through online training at Trinity, is how do you effectively write a memoir, for instance?

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How do you, and since I have been involved with writing several people's memoirs, as well as my own in the

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Mormon Mirage, I've got some experience with that. But coming under the aegis, the shield and protection of Trinity Southwest University is going to be able to allow them and me to be able to use the first fruits and the produce of my life experience writing.

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My first book came out in 1979. Was that the Mormon Mirage? Yes, it came out in 1979.

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And so we're going to be able to, I think, help people achieve their dreams of effectively writing what is in the heart of each one that God has put there.

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So I'm very excited about that. Well, praise God. And I just want to repeat our email address.

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It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. And actually, I'm going to go to our first station break right now.

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And I hope that when we return, we have some more of our listeners joining us with questions for Latane C.

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Scott. So don't go away. Hi, I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine.

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That's wrbc .us Welcome back, this is

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Chris Arns and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is Dr. Latane C.

29:43

Scott, a Mormon convert to Christianity, author of 16 published books, including the classic work,

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The Mormon Mirage, a former Mormon, looks at the Mormon church today. And today we are eventually going to be addressing two of her books,

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The Heart's Door, Hospitality in the Bible, which is hot off the press, and also her book of Collected Poetic Writings, Passion, Power, Proxy, and Release.

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And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com

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And as I said earlier, please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the

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USA. And as I always say, if it really makes you feel more comfortable and you prefer to remain anonymous, you may do so.

30:38

And tell us about the projected work that Kriegel is publishing involving you and three other ex -Mormon

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PhDs. I'm sure that's going to be fascinating for our listeners to hear about. And by the way, people may be wondering why

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I am kind of gliding right over that very critical aspect of your life, the fact that you are a

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Mormon. We, Latane and I, have discussed this on a number of occasions on Iron, Sharp, and Ziron, and you can find out more about her experiences as a

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Mormon, her conversion to Christianity, and also her initial conversion to Mormonism.

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But you can find out more about her testimony by going to ironsharpenzironradio .com

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ironsharpenzironradio .com ironsharpenzironradio .com and going to the archives where we have past interviews there.

31:33

And eventually I'm even going to get, God willing, and if my new webmaster eventually finds the time, we would love to get the old

31:43

Iron, Sharp, and Ziron programs archived on the new website as well, because there is six, seven years of really great programs that are currently not available to the public.

31:58

So hopefully those will be back on an archive. But tell us something about this exciting new work that Kriegel is publishing, as I mentioned, involving ex -Mormon

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PhDs, including yourself. I'm not I don't know if you're familiar,

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Chris, with Corey Miller, who is the head of Ratio Crispi, which is a campus -based, or university -based...

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I am on his email list, so I know of him. I just have never directly dialogued with him as of yet.

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Well, he is an ex -Mormon and a PhD, and he got this idea that it would be a great thing to publish a book that was written by several people who had once been

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Mormons, and who had left it, and who had gotten their doctorates. Well, there are very, very, very few of us.

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And the reason for that is that many, many thinking people when they leave Mormonism, and they've been deeply involved with it, are so soured on religion that they don't become

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Christians, they don't become anything. And Chris, you and I have discussed this particular phenomenon.

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The sense of betrayal, and the sense of loss of equilibrium and confidence in your own ability to make good spiritual decisions causes many people who've been deeply involved with Mormonism, once they find out that the

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Joseph Smith story, and the Book of Mormon, and the Pulpit Price, and Continuing Revelation, and temple worship, and all that is just a figment of someone's imagination, and not anything you can put your soul's salvation on.

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They just walk away and say, I'm done. I'm done. So, it was difficult for Corey to find other people who had left

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Mormon Church and were PhDs. And one of them is Lynn Miller, Wilder, I'm sorry,

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Lynn Miller. Yeah, she was just on the program recently. Exactly, Unveiling Grace. Her story was published by Zonderman about as a tenured professor at Brigham Young University, she left

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Mormonism when her son and actually left the

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Mormon Church on his mission after reading the Bible. After just reading the Bible. And so, her story is in there, my story is in there, and then also the story of Dr.

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Vince Eccles, who is an example of someone who left

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Mormonism, loves the Lord Jesus Christ, but is a little bit church -shy, gun -shy of churches, because of some experiences he had after leaving

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Mormonism. So, it's a real good mix of personalities, and we all bring to bear on the issue of Mormonism our different expertise that we have as PhDs.

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And I think it's going to be an interesting book. There's certainly never been anything like it published ever before, and Craigel has put their weight behind it, and I'm very, very pleased that they're going to publish it.

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Oh, great. In fact, there is a local Orthodox Presbyterian pastor who was a former

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Mormon. He was raised in the Mormon Church. His family is still Mormon, that is his parents, and I'm not sure if he had siblings, but I know that his parents are still

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Mormon. But he is not, and as I said, is an Orthodox Presbyterian pastor here locally in Karla.

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But that is indefinitely a fascinating issue that I will certainly follow up on, and God -willing have an interview with you on, and some of the other contributors to that.

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Now, going back to the issue of poetry, why is

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Christian poetry so ignored by Christians unless it is in song lyrics and things like that?

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And of course, in greeting cards. Exactly. Well, you think about it.

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You go into a Christian bookstore, and what percentage of the books there are Christian poetry?

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Publishers don't publish it, readers won't buy it, and yet if you ask people, they will have probably a favorite poem, a favorite

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Christian poem, but it's probably from the 1700s, you know, That Are My Heart, That Whole Three -Person

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God, John Donne, or William Blake, or someone from... Streams in the

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Desert has some wonderful old poems in there. Exactly, but nobody is promoting

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Christian poetry today. And, you know, Chris, years ago I read

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Bob Reiner's Roaring Lambs. Are you familiar with that book? No, I'm not. It's a book in which a man who had been in the entertainment industry said,

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Why are we turning over to the secular world the arts?

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Why are we turning the arts over to them? Why don't we have great Christian artists? Why don't we have great Christian poets? Why don't we have great

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Christian filmmakers? And of course, that's changing. That's really changing in the last four or five years.

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But Christians as a whole don't support the arts. They're not willing to pay for it.

37:21

And so, it's a phenomenon I think is very odd, and yet confronted with certain

37:29

Christian poems, people have the same reaction that you mentioned earlier. They're deeply moved.

37:35

They're deeply touched because poetry is actually the language of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit spoke in poetry through His prophet in the writing of the

37:48

Bible. I mean, I think something like a third of the Old Testament is poetry.

37:55

That's the Holy Spirit's language. And yet, people don't think of poetry as being something legitimate and necessary in their lives.

38:06

And it certainly is. Well, why is it that there is some snobbery or perhaps even some rightful criticism of those involved in the literary field specifically in regard to Christian poetry?

38:26

I think because many people who are writing poetry today are emphasizing so much rhythm and rhyme that they have forgotten that today's contemporary reader is not reading poetry that many times that rhymes.

38:47

They're reading poetry that has poetic language and poetic imagery in it. And also so many things have been written about our

38:57

Lord Jesus Christ and His suffering and other things that sometimes it's very difficult to be original and not be repetitive.

39:06

And so if you look at the poets of the past, the great poets of the past, many of the great poets of the past were writing on Christian themes.

39:16

Nobody who is the poet laureate of any state that I know of, no one who is being asked to speak at the

39:25

White House and read their poetry, none of those people are primarily known as Christian poets.

39:30

And I think it's just a shame. And I believe, like Bob Reiner says, we need to take back those aspects of the arts for the

39:39

Lord and Savior and the Holy Spirit who inspire such things. And I don't mean inspiration in a sense, revelation.

39:47

Yeah, I don't mean in the sense of revelation, but who quicken our minds to be able to sing

39:53

His praise. Yeah, by the way, I do, it really bothers me when I, and I'm sure you have heard this too, and I don't want to be too broad -brushing here because I know that maybe some people are sincere when they say this, but it bothers me when someone who is

40:10

Christian with the appearance of trying to reveal that they are humble will say,

40:21

I didn't write a word of this, this is all of God, this is all of the

40:26

Holy Spirit, which in reality, they're not humbling themselves, they're exalting themselves as a modern -day prophet.

40:33

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I never thought of that, but yeah, I see why you say that. But anyway,

40:38

I'm sorry I interrupted you. No, that's okay. That's okay, but I would,

40:44

I've actually, because I have the freedom of time to do it and the resources, I've actually entered several secular poetry contests that are going on right now with the hope that perhaps people can be intrigued by hearing the

41:05

Gospel presented in poetry in a way that tickles their imagination, or makes them think about Christianity and the

41:16

Lord Jesus Christ in a way they had not done before. And so, that's one of the things that I'm doing in this patron -supported ministry, is to be able to do that, which

41:29

I never could have done without the support of individuals who are behind me in doing that. And your book, some of those that have written endorsements of it, since I only have heard, or read

41:43

I should say, the one poem, and we're going to have you read some of these poems by the way, so our listeners will have their appetites whetted.

41:52

But there seems to be, according to your admirers, those who have enjoyed this book of poetry,

42:03

Passion, Power, Proxy, Release, they have described it as a communion devotional.

42:10

And why is there in your estimation a need for devotionals to emphasize communion, or the

42:16

Lord's Supper? Well, I'm not sure. In the Reformed tradition, is communion served weekly, quarterly?

42:27

Oh, in the Reformed tradition, there are all kinds of differences of opinion. In fact, he hotly debated differences of opinion because you have those congregations like mine that have it once a month.

42:42

You have those Reformed congregations that insist that it must be every

42:47

Lord's Day. You have some that insist that it has to be done at night because of the

42:53

Last Supper being an evening meal. You have all different kinds of views.

43:00

You even have some differences of opinion as to whether this is purely a memorial supper.

43:09

That would be a view that in the Reformation Zwingli held to. Or if there is much more of a spiritual significance and presence of Christ, as Calvin held to and other

43:24

Reformers. You cannot pigeonhole Calvinists or Reformed Christians on the

43:29

Lord's Supper at all. There is even a group that I adamantly oppose that has even adopted infant communion, which

43:39

I am, just as the Eastern Orthodox practice, but I am very opposed to that. But anyway, I'm sorry.

43:45

Oh my goodness. Well, that's okay. I've learned a lot through that.

43:51

In my own fellowship, we have communion every Lord's Day. Something that's being done 52 times a year and is part of a worship service can sometimes become routine, shall we say.

44:07

I'm going to speak for myself. Sometimes it becomes routine for me. I'm not going to speak for everyone else.

44:13

I have set out for years to write poems that many of which address precisely and specifically the taking of the

44:26

Lord's Supper and my attitude toward it and what's going on in it. And so as I began compiling these poems,

44:33

I thought, you know, I bet other people would benefit from this. And I started thinking, as I started putting my poems together, that many of them were about the passion of Christ, His suffering on the cross.

44:48

In fact, for many years, every Good Friday, I wrote a poem about Christ's suffering. Others were about the feeling of power that I believe is imparted to believers as they come together to worship and to pray.

45:08

Other poems were about my feeling of identification with the

45:14

Lord Jesus Christ through pain. You know, He was a man in one sense and God in the other sense, and because of that He can intercede for us, as the

45:27

Book of Hebrews tells us. And then the last group of the poems had to do with the idea of resurrection and the idea that all of this suffering and pain came to an end where the

45:43

Lord Jesus Christ then was punctuated by His resurrection and His glory.

45:52

And when I figured that out, I realized that that was exactly what Philippians 3, 10 -11 says.

45:58

It says that I wanted to know Christ, to know the power of His resurrection, participation in His suffering, becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

46:10

And hence the title of this book, Passion, Power, Proxy, and Release. The idea that from Philippians that all of those things could be addressed with poetry.

46:20

So I wrote this book where I would give a scripture, then a poem, and then a devotional thought.

46:29

And I have found that many people have told me since they've gotten this book, that they will take this book into the communion experience with them.

46:39

They'll have it with their Bibles. And during the communion, they'll read one of these poems and contemplate things about the

46:46

Lord Jesus that kind of helps focus their mind. One of the people from Howard Publishing Company years ago used to take the manuscript of this book everywhere he went to speak and would read at least one of the poems there.

46:59

And you think about it, Chris, when was the last time you heard a poem read in a worship service? Yeah, you're right.

47:05

Other than something that was straight out of the scriptures. Exactly. And yet we will read, as your ad just said, you know,

47:13

Spurgeon said the person who the person who doesn't quote shouldn't think to be quoted.

47:20

The person who doesn't read doesn't think to be read. You know? So we have these resources and yet I find that poetry is indeed as it's said in secular terms, it's a stepchild of the arts.

47:36

It's not invited in, you know, for these things. Well that kind of changed when the largest hymnal for the

47:43

Churches of Christ, which has sold millions and millions of copies, the same man who had been carrying my manuscript around put two of my poems in a

47:52

Church of Christ songbook. Now that is extraordinary. And I will many times

48:00

I'll be visiting another church and someone will, without even knowing I'm there, will open up the hymnal and read from one of my poems, especially on during what we call the

48:11

Easter season. So it's very rewarding. Very rewarding. Amen. Well, I would actually like you, if you can, read some of these poems, maybe three.

48:26

And this is something that I've always been a big admirer of your voice, actually.

48:34

In fact, I have had listeners even going back to the old program comment about how soothing your voice is.

48:44

Have you already or do you plan on creating this as an audio book? I never thought of it.

48:51

Thank you. I might actually do that. Well, I think that's something you should seriously consider, because obviously poetry is something that is perfect for an audio book.

49:02

But if you could provide some of that, your examples of poetry for listeners.

49:10

Well, I'll start, Chris, with a poem that was sparked in my mind by reading something in William Barclay when he mentioned that there were, that one way we could know how many people were in Jerusalem when

49:25

Jesus died on the cross by the number of lambs that were killed in the temple.

49:32

And, you know, and so he also mentioned something that I never thought about, and that is that the big altar on which these

49:43

Paschal or Passover lambs were killed, were slaughtered, had a channel from it that ran from the altar down into the

49:56

Kidron Brook, which, of course, was the brook that Jesus crossed on his way to the

50:02

Mount of Olives. And so this poem, I will read the Scripture and then the poem, and then the devotional thought with that in mind.

50:12

Scripture is John 18 .1 When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the

50:20

Kidron Valley. On the other side there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it.

50:28

The poem is The Conduit. In the temple now they are killing the lambs.

50:36

There 270 ,000 will die. The air of Jerusalem has been filled with their bleating all day, as red -sleeved priests perform their duty of meting out death.

50:54

One by one, white throats are slit. The temple has the hot, moist smell of blood about it.

51:04

A conduit drains from the great brass altar down to the Kidron. But in the dusk light of this

51:13

Thursday, the leaves of the olive trees tremble as the wind heaves and lunges into them.

51:21

Men approach the blood -swollen creek and cross this bridge, hurrying toward the shade they seek.

51:31

Why has this lone man stooped at the Kidron before he crosses, his finger just touching the red water, and pauses, pauses.

51:47

Praise God. That is intense. By the way, for those of you listening who are wondering who

51:55

William Barclay was, who inspired that poem, he was a Church of Scotland minister and he went home to be with the

52:02

Lord probably about 40 years ago, somewhere around that neighborhood of time in the 1970s.

52:12

And I know that my pastor, David Campbell, who is from Scotland and educated in the

52:19

Church of Scotland seminary, I'm sure that he would be happy to hear that he was,

52:26

William Barclay was an inspiration to that poem. I would love for... May I...

52:32

I'm sorry? May I read the devotional thought that comes after that? Oh yeah, definitely. We often speak with passion about the privilege we have of making contact with the blood of Christ, that point at which we achieve salvation through His blood.

52:50

We know it symbolizes something at a terrible price. Just how great that price would have seemed to Jesus as He made contact with the blood that would symbolize

53:02

His own death. Praise God. I would love for you to read the poem other than the one that you just read, is the only one that I have read so far since I don't have the book yet, the devotional, about the resurrection of Christ that I had first read somewhere in the neighborhood of Easter of this year.

53:34

I think I know which one you're talking about. Yes. I'm happy to read that,

53:41

Chris. Thank you. That honors me that you remember it. Yes, when you were running your hands on the stone.

53:49

That's the one, that's the one. I've got it right here. Well, the Scripture to accompany this poem is

53:54

Romans 6, 4 -5. We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the

54:06

Father, we too may live a new life. For if we had been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

54:19

And here is the poem that accompanies that. It is the whisper of the first breath drawn through cracked unused lips.

54:32

It is the rustle of grave clothes being laid aside, folded and squared on a cold ledge.

54:42

It is the sound of fingertips brushing along a hewn wall in pre -dawn darkness.

54:52

It is the rest of a stone wheel grating in its track.

54:59

What unearthly stillness greets this once corpse as he surveys the earth that had been his torture chamber.

55:11

I hear these sounds across two thousand years and my lips straying to speak to him.

55:18

I want to tear away my garments of death. I grope through my darkness, my shoulder failing against the weight.

55:30

The sound I hear, the sound I hear, is the sound of my

55:35

Jesus rising again in my heart. Praise God.

55:42

Praise God. I love that poem. Thank you. Thank you. And...

55:48

I'm sorry. That's okay. Would you like for me to read the devotional thought that went with that?

55:53

Yes, sure. The resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact attested to by more direct evidence by eyewitnesses to the risen

56:05

Lord than any other event of ancient history. It happened at a certain time in a real place and its effects were witnessed by as many as 500 people at a time.

56:17

But Jesus draws us to him one person at a time. Each person who wants to show faith in him must mimic his death and resurrection,

56:28

Romans 6, in order to be able to have fellowship with him and to be called his child.

56:33

But the resurrection of the soul doesn't take place only in the waters of baptism.

56:39

It must take place internally as well in the depth of each soul enthroned from there.

56:48

Amen. I have a listener that has a question for you about your poetry and let's see.

56:58

I just had it here a second ago. And in fact, it is a 12 -year -old girl from Hilltop, Texas.

57:09

Her name is Abigail and her mom writes her mom is

57:15

Linda in Hilltop, Texas and she writes my 12 -year -old granddaughter Abigail is very interested in writing poetry.

57:24

And here are her questions. Where do you get your inspiration and is writing poetry more like a labor for you or do things just come to you?

57:36

Those are very perceptive questions and I really appreciate them.

57:42

I actually got my first award for writing in the third grade so I've been writing forever but not writing poetry until I got in high school.

57:53

So her first question was where do I get my ideas? I think was that the gist of the first question

57:59

Chris? Yes. What's your inspiration? What's my inspiration? Quite often a phrase or an image will just suddenly appear in my mind and in the case of the poem

58:14

I just read, I was trying to think about what it would have been like for Jesus awakening in the tomb and it would have been completely dark and not from the point of view of what he could see because he couldn't see anything but what he could feel and what he could hear and that's why the image of his fingers along a stone wall and listening to the rasp of the wheel and those things.

58:40

So quite often that there's an image or phrase or just a little snippet of something and if I will be obedient to the spirit and sit down and use that prompt to write a poem quite often it's a satisfying poem.

58:57

Now your question about writing poetry is a chore. It has never ever once been a chore.

59:04

Sometimes it is painful because sometimes it involves kind of dragging out of myself some things that perhaps

59:14

I don't want to deal with or don't haven't dealt with. Like somebody writing a autobiography and a part of their life is a very disturbing dark part that it might even be revealing secrets that they don't want anybody to know but feel compelled to write about them.

59:30

Well I want to tell Abigail that if she's like most pre -teens and teenagers, there are parts of themselves they want to keep secret and poetry is a very good way to do that because you can write the poem and it can be in someone else's voice so to speak it can be on behalf of someone else and it doesn't have to be like an autobiography where you're telling things that are true about yourself.

59:55

Poetry will always reveal something about the writer but it doesn't always have to be about the writer or for the writer or the writer's own opinion.

01:00:05

Sometimes I write poems that may express something on behalf of someone else just because I can be their voice.

01:00:15

Well guess what Abigail? You're getting a free copy of Latane C. Scott's book on hospitality.

01:00:23

We don't have the poetic collection available for you but we're going to have that book shipped out to your grandma and she can share that with you and read that with you.

01:00:35

For Abigail, she needs a copy of the poetry book. I'll make sure she gets that. Oh great. Let's do that for her.

01:00:43

Terrific, we'll do that. So you're getting two books Abigail. Thank you so much for wanting to write that question today and guess what

01:00:50

Abigail? Since you're a first time questioner on Iron Sharpens Iron you're also going to get a brand new

01:00:57

New American Standard Bible and it's a really beautiful edition of the New American Standard Bible with an embossed cross on the cover and it's a really perfect size for carrying around and it's a little bit bigger than pocket size but it's a handy Bible.

01:01:16

A woman could easily carry it in her purse and so you're getting three books for contributing to our program today

01:01:25

Abigail and just make sure your grandma gives us your mailing address.

01:01:32

We're going to another break right now and if you'd like to join us on the air our email address is

01:01:37

ChrisOrenson at gmail .com. There have been a couple of other people waiting very patiently and as my former co -host used to say to me, how do you know that they're waiting patiently?

01:01:47

Well actually I don't I just haven't heard any nasty comments about them having to wait.

01:01:53

But I appreciate you waiting to have your questions asked and answered and we'll get to you as soon as we can but we have to go to a word from our sponsors now who make this program possible so we look forward to receiving your questions after these words from our sponsors and I look forward to further discussion.

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01:05:13

That's lynnbrookbaptist .org Welcome back, this is Chris Arns and if you just tuned us in, our guest today is an old friend of mine,

01:05:20

Dr. Latane C. Scott, who is a Mormon convert to Christianity, author of 16 published books, including the classic work,

01:05:28

The Mormon Mirage. A former member looks at the Mormon Church today. She's also a recipient of the

01:05:34

Distinguished Christian Service Award by Pepperdine University, and an award winning poet. We are addressing her books,

01:05:41

The Heart's Door, Hospitality in the Bible, and we're also discussing her collection of poetry,

01:05:48

Passion Power Proxy Release, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:05:56

chrisarnsen at gmail .com Now let's start to discuss for a bit your book on hospitality.

01:06:03

Now, it's interesting that the circles that I travel in predominantly, the theologically reformed,

01:06:13

Calvinist folks, they might hear something like that, they might hear a topic like that, hospitality in the

01:06:21

Bible, and they might instinctively react like the church lady on Saturday Night Live, well isn't that special?

01:06:29

They might think isn't this just a cute, quaint thing and I can't wait to let my wife or my grandmother hear about this book, but the issue is a very serious one,

01:06:44

I think, because I don't think that Christians and leaders of churches, elders and so on may never realize how many people were visiting their congregations and left never to return because they were ignored because no one greeted them warmly no one invited them over their home and who knows what may have happened with those people, where they may have wound up and it's interesting that although it is very true that Sodom was

01:07:28

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of the wickedness of homosexuality, that is certainly true, and liberals try to undermine that by referring to the lack of hospitality and charity that Sodom and Gomorrah had, but very often conservatives and Bible -believing

01:07:49

Christians undermine the very thing that the liberals say is indeed a part of the reason that God destroyed

01:07:59

Sodom and Gomorrah and in fact we have in Ezekiel 16 starting in verse 49 and I should have my glasses on, but I don't.

01:08:14

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom she and her daughters had arrogance abundant food and careless ease but she did not help the poor and needy, thus they were haughty and committed abominations before me therefore

01:08:29

I removed them when I saw it and so it wasn't exclusively the wickedness of homosexuality which is indeed a major part that cannot be overlooked but as I said, don't you think that we who are

01:08:44

Bible -believing Christians who have a very strong view of biblical morality, we often overlook a sin such as lacking hospitality as something trivial when it is indeed something that God hates how would you respond to that?

01:09:03

I agree with you. I agree with that completely. In fact one of the secrets of hospitality is inviting people that are not like you to your home

01:09:14

See, I think what I observe among the

01:09:19

Christians that I know of my own fellowship and others is that they're very good about having their friends over and their families over but they don't think to invite the people who are not like them and Rosaria Butterfield you know my one of my personal heroines of the faith she made a big deal in her book

01:09:42

Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert where she told about how she went from being a committed lesbian professor, very active in the gay community to being a

01:09:55

New Testament Christian and the major index or link between her former life and her present life was a pastor a minister who treated her courteously and respectfully and invited her to his home and that she's never gotten over his vulnerability and his kindness in doing that and she now has reciprocated by making her home an open door policy to people who come to her home and I just admire her and respect her so much for that because she's showing that the thing that got her attention and touched her heart is something that she can also do for others.

01:10:39

As a matter of fact, almost anybody can do it. I can think of very few circumstances in which you can't open your home and have someone come in and give them a cup of coffee or pop some popcorn or something and let them see your your willingness to listen to them and share your life with them.

01:10:58

Very, very important. Yeah, in fact it is somewhat providential that not only did you write this book in hospitality but you also did co -author with Dr.

01:11:08

Stephen Collins the book Discovering Sodom. Discovering the City of Sodom. There you go.

01:11:14

And let me repeat that on October 4th we have

01:11:19

Dr. Stephen Collins on Iron Sharpens Iron. That is a Tuesday October 4th from 4 to 6 p .m.

01:11:26

I'm sure you'll be fascinated by his archaeological discovery and discussion of that and our guest today co -authored the book about that discovery.

01:11:36

Discovering the City of Sodom. So we hope that you join us. Now this

01:11:45

I don't know if you've ever read Jerry Bridges' book Respectable Sins.

01:11:51

Jerry Bridges was a Reformed pastor, a

01:11:57

Presbyterian pastor who just went home to be with the Lord, I don't know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 or 6 months ago.

01:12:03

It wasn't that long ago. And he was a phenomenal writer. He wrote Trusting God Even When Life Hurts and Respectable Sins is just another one of them.

01:12:15

But this seems to fall under the category of something that I hinted on before.

01:12:22

This area of lacking hospitality. Because you could have people who are in many respects in their lives exemplary

01:12:31

Christians. People who are very godly, who are very devoted to prayer and might even be devoted to charitable and benevolent deeds from a distance.

01:12:41

You know, they may even send a great portion of their income to missionary work and they may do a lot of things.

01:12:49

But the lacking of hospitality that sin seems to be something that can creep into nearly any

01:12:57

Christian's life no matter how godly they may be in many other spheres of living.

01:13:04

And it has become a respectable sin, just as Jerry Bridges coined that phrase in his title.

01:13:11

Well, you know, Jesus addressed this head on in Matthew 25 when he told the parable about who you're serving.

01:13:21

And if you're serving people that are like you and serving people that can give you something back, even the world does that.

01:13:32

That's no big deal. And I've been so convicted,

01:13:39

Chris, in preparing this book again. Of course, this book was in print with Zondervan and sold almost 30 ,000 copies.

01:13:47

So over 30 ,000 people went through this course of study. And I have multiple letters from,

01:13:55

I mean, files of letters from people who said, you know, this changed the way I looked at hospitality. Because I realized it wasn't about entertaining, it was about being godly and doing what

01:14:07

God does when he invites us into his household, when he adopts us. And Jesus says that hospitality is that which you give to somebody that's unlike you, who can't repay you, and who needs what you can give them as a mature and loving

01:14:27

Christian. And it's just, it's not optional. That's the conclusion I came to.

01:14:33

Hospitality is not optional for Christians. I'll say it again, it's not optional.

01:14:40

Amen. Amen. And obviously there are certain circumstances that a

01:14:49

Christian may be in where they do not own the home that they live in or something, but hospitality can be creatively displayed and expressed in different ways.

01:15:02

For instance, you know, inviting even people out to a restaurant or what have you. It could be multiple ways that even somebody who doesn't have their own home can demonstrate that, can they not?

01:15:14

Yes, they can. And your home is your extension of yourself, and whatever way that you can do that.

01:15:21

Some of the most lovely hospitality I ever received was a couple in our congregation who ran upon hard financial times, sold their home, and bought a travel trailer, and yet they would have people over to their travel trailer in a

01:15:36

KOA type thing to cook out and sit in lawn chairs and visit.

01:15:43

Because they were determined to show, to share whatever they had.

01:15:50

And I think sometimes we look at what we have and we say, well, this doesn't allow me to entertain like so -and -so, or this doesn't allow me to host someone, or my house is not as clean as that person's house might be, or whatever.

01:16:03

And the people that I've had in my home who seem to be the most touched were those who didn't see me as trying to be the perfect hostess, but trying to be someone who would accommodate them.

01:16:16

I'll tell you a story. Do you want to hear a funny story about that? Oh yeah, definitely. Well, you know the singing group

01:16:22

Acapella, and you've admired them for a long time. I even hired them for a fundraising concert back in the late 1980s.

01:16:32

Well, one of the other groups, AVB, that was... Oh yeah, Acapella Vocal Group.

01:16:38

Yeah, that was... They had been invited to Albuquerque to do a concert, and somehow or another the person who invited them did not get the word to them that the concert had to be canceled.

01:16:52

And so, I had told the guys, you know, everybody in that ministry knows that the

01:16:59

Scott's house is an open house for them. Well, I didn't know about the concert that was going on because my husband was in the hospital, and I'd been down at the hospital for days.

01:17:08

And I'd come home, and in the interim, my garbage disposal had broken, and I had dirty dishes sitting all over my kitchen.

01:17:16

And these guys rang my doorbell and said, guess what? We don't have a place to stay. And I said to them, come on in and go out in my garden and pick anything that's growing and eatable.

01:17:29

Somebody else go to my freezer. If you see meat in there that looks good, let's thaw it out. And we just...

01:17:35

I cooked whatever I had, and I... Somebody came over and fixed the garbage disposal.

01:17:41

But my house was dirty. I had dirty dishes in the sink. I had no food prepared.

01:17:46

But what meant the most to them was not what they saw, but what they saw in somebody who was willing to accommodate them, even when things were not particularly convenient for me.

01:17:57

Now, I'm not patting myself on the back. I'm going to say that I rose to the occasion in that particular thing.

01:18:03

But it just shows me that people are touched by... are more often touched by your willingness and your openness and your loving attitude than they ever are with whether or not your table is dusted or, you know, your toilet got scrubbed just the way they thought it ought to.

01:18:21

They know that if you're willing to open your life to someone else, they're willing to overlook a lot of other things about your house.

01:18:33

Yeah, that is very true. And obviously, if one of your failures in life or your flaws is being perhaps overly untidy, that is a motivation to change that.

01:18:49

Exactly, yeah. That's right. And let's see, we have another listener.

01:18:56

And this is Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, who says,

01:19:05

Oh, you know what?

01:19:19

Tyler is thinking just the way I think. Way to go, Tyler. Yes, this entire book, I went through the entire

01:19:26

Bible before I wrote this book, and I chose every single example I could find in there of anybody opening up their home to someone else.

01:19:34

And that is an example of it, and it's a great example because this man had been, well, you know, a tax collector was like the scum of the earth to most of the

01:19:45

Jews in Jerusalem, and yet he was willing to hope that the

01:19:51

Lord would overlook that his previous life and look at his motivations and look at his heart, which is exactly what he did.

01:19:58

Way to go, Tyler. Good catch. Well, Tyler, guess what?

01:20:03

You're getting a free copy of Latainsi Scott's book, The Heart Store, Hospitality in the

01:20:10

Bible, so make sure you get us your mailing address, and we'll have that shipped out to you. And by the way, we thank our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

01:20:22

who mail out all of our winner's books to those who have submitted questions, and so we ask of you to, whenever you're hearing, actually, an author being interviewed, and you're wondering, where can

01:20:38

I get this book, you can go to cvbbs .com, because if they don't already have it, they will get it for you, and they will sell it to you at a very competitively reasonable price, in fact, perhaps even cheaper than most places that you would get that.

01:20:58

And you'll also be helping Iron Sharpens Iron, because they sponsor this program. God bless them.

01:21:05

God bless them. Yes, cvbbs .com, and we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for sponsoring us for such a long time, and I gotta admit,

01:21:18

Lataine, you have me a little tongue -tied today, because I'm being, I'm kind of embarrassed interviewing somebody who has such a grasp of the

01:21:27

English language, and I'm perhaps worried about making a fool of myself, but then again,

01:21:34

I should be used to that, because I do that every day, so. Not true at all.

01:21:43

We all have our off days, by the way. We have

01:21:50

CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, who says,

01:21:56

I understand that we are to be hospitable to those who disagree with us on things, and those who are different from us, but what about the warnings in 2

01:22:08

John chapter 1, not to invite false teachers into our home?

01:22:15

Oh, that's very perceptive, very perceptive. I actually believe that that admonition in 2

01:22:22

John would prevent me as a Christian believer from having a Mormon or a

01:22:27

Jehovah's Witness in my home, and I think the reason for that is, the home is such a sacred place of such vulnerability that a

01:22:35

Christian cannot open it up to someone who comes claiming to and advocating false doctrine.

01:22:43

The person, in fact, Mormon missionaries are commanded to teach and not be taught.

01:22:49

So they're not coming for a discussion or an interchange with you, they're coming to teach you, and I think that passage in 2

01:22:57

John, I agree with you 100%, precludes a Christian believer becoming vulnerable to a false teacher who comes with the aim of teaching them false doctrine.

01:23:08

Really? That's interesting. Now, would you, for instance,

01:23:14

I have friends who are apologists who readily welcome Jehovah's Witnesses into their home because they know

01:23:22

Greek and there is not a a even a remote chance that these cult members are going to deceive these individuals with a lie and they really do want to win these people for Christ and expose the error and give them the truth.

01:23:40

Would you say that that is a blanket rule for every Christian or do you think that that is only for those who may be susceptible new believers and also perhaps you could comment on this.

01:23:54

I have heard that interpreted as we are not to let somebody actually live in our home for a season and if you will, set up shop as a place where they are proselytizing false teaching to not only our family members, but our neighbors at least even for a season of time that we are not to permit that.

01:24:19

But if you could comment on both those questions. Well, first of all, with Mormons, I almost always know more about Mormonism than the young men who show up at my door.

01:24:33

So that your amount of knowledge that you have the other person, I don't think is the issue. Here's what

01:24:38

I think is the issue, Chris. After studying hospitality so in depth and looking at everything

01:24:44

I could find in the Bible about it, I've concluded that your home is a sacred place. When you open it up, you're opening yourself up and showing vulnerability to the person that's coming here.

01:24:55

And because of that symbol, I don't believe a Christian should invite someone who comes with the purpose of bringing false doctrine to you into your home.

01:25:04

Now, what I do for instance when the Mormon missionaries come to my door, which they don't very often because I've been excommunicated, but when they come to my door

01:25:12

I tell them, you know what, I love the Lord Jesus Christ, I love my faith, and I am an ex -Mormon, and I would love to take you to any restaurant in town that you want to go to.

01:25:23

I'll buy you the biggest steak you can eat, and you can ask me any question you want to. And if you're uncomfortable you can get up and leave, and if I'm uncomfortable

01:25:30

I can get up and leave, and there you are. Because a restaurant is not a place of extreme vulnerability like your home is.

01:25:39

A restaurant is not the symbol that your home is. Your home is something sacred.

01:25:45

A home is something that when you invite somebody into it you're opening yourself, by definition you are opening yourself up to them.

01:25:53

So, I don't condemn anybody who invites people into their homes because they know that they are bringing false doctrine, but I would never do it.

01:26:01

Never. Wow. That's interesting. Well, we also have

01:26:08

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, I heard earlier your guest say that she is a great admirer of Rosaria Butterfield, the former lesbian.

01:26:23

And one thing that is confusing me right now is if you reject having people with false teaching into your home, how could you have invited homosexuals into your home who may try to proselytize that as an acceptable and in fact wonderful way of living, and that's what

01:26:45

Rosaria compels us to do, is to invite those involved in that behavior into her home so that the

01:26:52

Lord could use us to win them to Christ. Ah, that's a good question.

01:26:58

I would say that what I'm reading in 2 John is that this is someone who's bringing something doctrinal to you, who's teaching something about Jesus.

01:27:07

I'm going to get 2 John out here and read it again just so that I don't... While you're looking it up,

01:27:13

I'm going to repeat our email address. It's chrisarnzen at gmail dot com C -H -R -I -S

01:27:19

A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com and please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence and you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable and have you found the text?

01:27:34

I did. In 2 John, I'm going to read verses 7 through 11. Many deceivers have gone out into the world who don't confess

01:27:42

Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that we don't lose those things we work for that we may receive a full reward.

01:27:55

Whoever transgresses and doesn't abide in the doctrine of Christ, in other words, the assumption is this is somebody that you're supposed to have some level ground with in terms of an understanding of Christ doesn't have

01:28:08

God. He abides in the doctrine of Christ, has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and doesn't bring this doctrine, in other words, to me that said we're talking not about nonbelievers.

01:28:22

We're talking about people that are bringing false doctrine about the Lord into your home. Do not receive him into your house nor greet him for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.

01:28:34

So to answer the question that the listener had, I don't see that having an agnostic or atheistic lesbian or homosexual in my home violates that.

01:28:49

It would be if I had someone who was a lesbian supposed

01:28:56

Christian minister. Like a Matthew Vines who was a male homosexual minister and he is like a part of a movement of quote -unquote evangelical homosexuality.

01:29:09

If Matthew Vines wanted to come to my home, I would tell him that's not an appropriate place to talk about these things.

01:29:15

I would treat him like I would a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness or someone else of that ilk.

01:29:21

Someone who wants to use our terminology of Christianity but wants to bring a false message and it does not abide in the doctrine of Christ.

01:29:31

And by the way, Arnie, you're getting a free copy of Latane C. Scott's book as well,

01:29:37

The Heart Store Hospitality in the Bible, so please give us your full mailing address as soon as possible.

01:29:45

In fact, we have to break right now for our final commercial break and if you'd like to join us,

01:29:50

I can't believe the time has flown by so quickly. We've only got a half hour, actually less than a half hour left.

01:29:56

But if you have any questions, I would send them as soon as you can to chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com

01:30:05

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01:35:32

This is Chris Arndzin if yoo tuned in for the last 90 minutes in the next half hour to come.

01:35:39

Our guest today has been Dr. Latane C. Scott, Mormon convert to Christianity, author of 16 published books, including the

01:35:47

Mormon Mirage, a former member of LOOKS at the Mormon Church Today, recipient of the

01:35:52

Distinguished Christian Service Award by Pepperdine University, an award -winning poet. We have been discussing her poetry and also her latest book,

01:36:02

The Heart's Door, Hospitality in the Bible, which according to you Latane, this was actually in print years ago with Zonervan and you are bringing it back into print.

01:36:12

Well, I'm also doing something else with it, Chris. It was written mainly toward women back when it was first published.

01:36:21

I'm trying to make it more applicable to singles and to even men so that this can be studied in a group setting by not just women but men, families, individuals.

01:36:38

There are weekly studies with a leader's guide so that the answers are provided, but then there are exercises to focus on during the week, a short reading for every day of the week if someone chooses to do that.

01:36:53

Well that's a remarkable providence because within seconds prior to you saying that update on the book,

01:37:01

I have a question from Indianapolis, Indiana on the very issue that you just addressed.

01:37:08

Erin from Indianapolis, Indiana asks, does Latane have different advice or cautions for an unmarried hostess versus a married couple or family or am

01:37:18

I being too cautious to remain above reproach? Oh, I think there's a solution to that and that is just to partner with another single woman or and I'm assuming this is from the point of view of a woman, is to invite someone to help you with the load and do it together, do it on the buddy system, partner in that and perhaps one person is better cook and somebody else is better with icebreaker questions, but that could easily be done and I know of women who have done that.

01:37:52

I've never heard of men doing that but I don't know why they couldn't, you know, if men wanted to, a single man wanted to have a family over and he wasn't confident of his cooking skills or if he wanted to reach out to someone, he could partner with a family, you know, let's do this together.

01:38:15

Well great, great suggestions and Aaron you're also getting a free copy of Latane C. Scott's book,

01:38:21

The Heart Store Hospitality in the Bible. Thank you for contributing that question to us and before I move on I just have to give a plug from one of our sponsors.

01:38:32

The G3 conference is coming up January 19th through the 21st and thanks be to God and his kindness and grace and benevolence to me and thanks also to those running this conference including

01:38:46

Pastor Josh Bice of the Praise Mill Baptist Church. I am going to this conference at no charge to me.

01:38:55

I'm having an exhibitors booth there to promote Iron Sharpens Iron and I am also in great debt to my dear friends and sponsors at Linbrook Baptist Church on Long Island who have paid for all of my other expenses to be there and it is just a thrill for me to be at this event and some of the speakers there include people we have actually brought up in conversation today who are mutual friends of mine and Latane C.

01:39:27

Scott. Tim Challies is one of the speakers. Rosaria Butterfield is one of the speakers and other speakers include

01:39:35

Paul Washer, Stephen J. Lawson, D .A. Carson, Voti Baucom, Dr.

01:39:40

James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries has been my dear friend since 1995. Conrad M.

01:39:47

Bayway who is one of the most powerful preachers on the planet Earth. I strongly urge you to get in a train, plane, or automobile and hear him preach anytime that you have the capability of doing so because he is an extraordinary preacher of the gospel.

01:40:04

He actually rightly deserves a nickname that he has received, the Spurgeon of Africa.

01:40:10

He is pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa and I have been friends with him since 1995 and he has preached here in the

01:40:20

States on a number of occasions. It seems like more and more he is coming out to the

01:40:26

States several times a year now where it used to be it was even rare to see him once a year now he's coming several times a year all over the country.

01:40:37

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio and a host of others that's not even half the number of folks who are going to be speaking.

01:40:47

Phil Johnson is just another one who is the executive director of John MacArthur's ministry and if you want more details on this go to g3conference .com

01:40:56

g3conference .com If you register I'm asking you please to tell them that you heard about the

01:41:04

G3 conference from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and if you're wondering what

01:41:10

G3 stands for it's grace gospel and glory the three pillars that this conference annual conference is built upon so we hope that you can attend that conference.

01:41:25

We have Christian in Carlisle Pennsylvania who wants to know if Aquila and Priscilla were huge influences on you to not only begin hospitality in your own life but also to write this book.

01:41:45

Yes in fact Chris I think you know this but I've actually written a book that postulates in fictional form whether or not

01:41:56

Priscilla was actually the author of the book of Hebrews which several scholars have advanced that theory in times past so I've been kind of companioning with Priscilla for many years now but yes and I'll tell you why and I appreciate this listener bringing this up why another reason this is so significant is my theological education has exceeded my husband's theological education and that did not preclude us being able to have people in our home and to talk to them without me usurping any of his authority.

01:42:36

Do you see what I'm saying? So Priscilla she's mentioned of the six or seven times she's mentioned with Aquila or Aquila in the

01:42:45

New Testament she's mentioned her name is mentioned before his and apparently she was it is supposed perhaps even more learned than Aquila because their names indicate someone who in her case was perhaps more well -educated or more culturally advantaged.

01:43:10

So you have here two people who are not just exactly lockstep in their theological ability and yet they can be a host and a hostess and yet they can bring people in and yet they can talk to people in a home setting in a way that each one can share their gifts so yes indeed

01:43:29

Priscilla is also one of my heroines I cannot wait to meet her in heaven. Well praise be to God and obviously we should reiterate something that you said earlier just because you had this theory about Priscilla does not mean that you do not believe in male headship in the church and home, complementarianism as it is called.

01:43:53

We're equal before Christ but different roles, correct? Yes, that's exactly right.

01:44:00

And I don't know if it was your comment about being inspired by William Barclay that summoned this question all the way from Scotland.

01:44:12

We have a listener in Kinross Scotland, Murray, who says would you say that the move away from church meetings in homes to public buildings has encouraged us to think less of using our homes more naturally as a means for evangelizing the lost and encouraging the saved and he has a side comment by the way many years ago

01:44:40

I heard Dick Kaufman minister on hospitality evangelism and the message you are bringing is convicting me just as much as I was back then.

01:45:01

Oh how do you say that the move away from churches meeting in homes to public buildings obviously in the

01:45:07

New Testament era the the predominant way that Christians gathered for their weekly worship was in homes and of course

01:45:16

Paul did preach in synagogues and things like that but it was mainly in homes where people gathered and he was wondering if the move from that to church buildings has encouraged us to think less of using our homes more naturally as a means for evangelizing the lost and encouraging the saved.

01:45:36

Well this may come as a surprise to you but I'm very much an introvert and going to church is someplace where I can kind of hide.

01:45:45

In fact our preacher once described me to a visitor when I was out of town as the woman walking around trying to be invisible.

01:45:58

So those of us who are introverts can kind of get lost in a big setting where we can't in a smaller setting and so I think the move, the emphasis on individuality for good or for ill has caused us to see the church as a place where you don't have to be individual, you're part of a whole, which is good and is bad both.

01:46:28

But as your listener aptly observed, and as you mentioned earlier

01:46:35

Chris, sometimes people can come into a church and this has happened to me visiting churches, sit through the entire service and not a single human being say a word to you, much less invite you over to eat.

01:46:48

So I think that is a disadvantage of large corporate worship that in our own congregation we kind of give the option for Sunday night and Wednesday night services, the smaller services, for people to meet in small group

01:47:05

Bible studies. And I can say that the small group Bible studies that met in our home and in the homes of others have been a tremendous encouragement and help to me as my husband and I into a very horrible five -year period with my husband's health.

01:47:20

And the relationships that were formed, cemented and forged in small group

01:47:29

Bible studies are very precious, very precious. And by the way ladies and gentlemen, if you hear something that sounds like gunfire or static in the background, we are in the middle of a enormous thunderstorm right now here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, so hopefully we don't lose power before the end of the program.

01:47:52

But Murray in Kinross, Scotland, thank you so much with the, not only the great question, but the wonderful encouraging comment to Latane.

01:48:02

And I know that we typically have a rule about not sending books overseas because of the shipping costs, but we're going to make an exception with you,

01:48:12

Murray, and we're going to have that book sent out to you as soon as possible. And that book again is

01:48:19

Latane C. Scott's new book, The Heart Store Hospitality in the Bible. When I say new book, a new edition of it that is now hot off the press.

01:48:30

And we do have a listener. We have

01:48:38

Robert in White Plains, New York, who says, going back to your original discussion on poetry, you were mentioning that modern poetry does not include rhymes as it used to be known for.

01:48:57

But I was a bit puzzled by that, since one of the most popular and prevalent forms of poetry in our day and age in the 21st century is rap music, and that is completely built upon rhymes.

01:49:14

Do you have any comment about that? That's very interesting insight. And I happen to, the only thing that I hate,

01:49:22

I despise with a passion about rap music, is the very wicked attachment to the personification of arrogance that is very often accompanied by rap.

01:49:38

The thick gold chains and the attitude of pride and arrogance and haughtiness.

01:49:45

And of course you have, in many rap songs for secular rap artists, you have very vulgar language being used and misogyny.

01:49:57

And it's amazing how many women love these groups when they are really, in the lyrics of these songs, being treated like dirt.

01:50:04

But other than that, there are, as you know Latane, many Christians who have adopted rap as a form of singing and even evangelizing messages from the gospel, from the

01:50:16

Word of God. Although I don't personally believe it belongs in a worship service,

01:50:23

I have no problem with a Christian who behaves in a decent and respectful manner, who is devoid of the arrogant personification in his singing and performing.

01:50:38

Because it's really, when it boils down to it, it is really just rhyming. So I don't know how somebody could say it innately is sinful to incorporate the gospel into that when it really is just rhyming, sometimes set to music.

01:50:53

What is your opinion on that? Well, one of the things that I said, and I appreciate your listener bringing this up, one of the things that I said was that the

01:51:06

Christian poetry is ignored by Christians unless it's in song lyrics. Unless it's in song lyrics.

01:51:12

And since it is in song lyrics, that includes rap. But your listeners also write about something, and that is that rhyming is pleasing to the ear unless it's forced or trite or trivialized.

01:51:29

And if it's put with music, it's more acceptable to have rhymes that are not, perhaps not, that we wouldn't think were good poetry if they were aside from music.

01:51:43

But the direction of modern poetry as an art, not song lyrics, but poetry itself, standalone poetry, has been away from rhyme and toward imagery for the past hundred years or so in world, in what's considered the classics of world poetry.

01:52:03

So I'm not even going to touch with a 10 -foot pole my opinions on rap. My son, who is a godly good

01:52:14

Christian man, loves rap. And so I just say live and let live with that, but it's not for me.

01:52:22

Yeah, and you can't really pigeonhole rap either because although most of the music that I have personally heard that is under that umbrella

01:52:33

I would view as garbage, but on occasion I have heard quite articulate and I would even say brilliant Christians who are very steeped in biblical theology and who really very artfully have created rap songs that are really, in essence, poetry.

01:52:58

Because very often they don't even have music behind it. And I find it hard to find fault with people like that, especially if they do not, as I keep repeating, have the baggage of arrogance and have the glorification of violent and greedy and sexually perverse or loose people, which even sometimes

01:53:26

Christian rappers adopt the whole imagery when they are, just like Christian rock groups have done in a different way.

01:53:35

But anyway, I want to make sure that you have a good five minutes of time to really unburden your heart and leave our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds today before they leave the program.

01:53:51

Well, I'd like to say something about each of the books which you've been kind enough to let me talk about.

01:53:57

One is that the heart's door is studies in Christian and biblical hospitality, and I think people will learn things they never knew before.

01:54:06

For instance, there are verses in the Bible that we just pass right over, don't even think about. One of those is in Acts when

01:54:14

Peter stayed with Simon the Tanner, and what an extraordinary hospitality it was for Simon to invite him and for Peter to accept.

01:54:27

And I explain why that was such an extraordinary thing in the help to the leaders at the back of the book, and then

01:54:34

I think it also addresses that idea, you know, can a guy be a host? And he can.

01:54:40

And if you, it's okay with you, Chris, if we have the time, I'd like to read one more poem from my

01:54:45

Passion Power Proxy release, and it's a little bit longer poem, so it'll probably take us pretty near to the end.

01:54:54

I wondered what it was like for the two men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, to prepare the body of Christ for burial.

01:55:03

So I will read the scripture and then the poem and then the devotional thought, if there's time.

01:55:09

And Chris, if you need to stop me, you just go right ahead, okay? The scripture is John 19, 38 -39.

01:55:17

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was the disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the

01:55:26

Jewish leaders. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, a man who had earlier visited

01:55:35

Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds.

01:55:41

The poem is Joseph and Nicodemus. What a disheveled heap this bled -out bone bag makes, crusted with spit and sweat, entrusted with threats to the two of us.

01:55:58

The workman's wiry muscles now slack are pitiful as they break through the flayed skin.

01:56:06

But the blood, it is all gone, tired of flowing, clotted and forgotten at the dirt splitter of the flogging pole, and of course that cross.

01:56:18

We avert from each other, but we cannot stop our own tears, squeezed out between our eyelids that should shield us from what we see here, the candle -wack hallowed.

01:56:34

The shamed nakedness we wash and cover first, to give the modesty the audience denied.

01:56:42

Our towels dipped in the pots we lugged down the stairs. The water peaks now in the lamplight.

01:56:52

Part by part, limb by limb, we dampen and rub away all the vestiges on the shell of a delivered over -spirit.

01:57:03

One of the winding cloths rolls below the edges. We reel it in and wrap his arms from the swaddles on our grizzled forearms.

01:57:14

We have grown wrinkles under our tears. The weight is almost beyond our old man's strength.

01:57:22

We heft and lean, balance and wrap. The acrid spices, the confined space, bring more tears, more tears.

01:57:35

We find we do not need the water anymore. And Chris, do we have another couple of minutes?

01:57:45

Yes, we do. We actually have just two minutes. And that was beautiful and powerful.

01:57:51

Thank you. The devotional thought I wrote to accompany this poem is that true friendship means standing by someone in all the stages of life, and even in the final stage of death.

01:58:05

Even though the lifeless body of Jesus could no longer bless and heal, his friends treated it with respect, preparing it for a final resting place.

01:58:17

Little did they know that it would soon be walking and talking and leaving those grave clothes behind.

01:58:26

Chris, thank you so much for letting me share that. I really appreciate it. Well, thank you for sharing it.

01:58:32

And I just want to remind our listeners that Latayne C. Scott's website is very easy to remember.

01:58:40

It's just her name, latayne .com, L -A -T -A -Y -N -E dot com.

01:58:46

And I don't know anybody else on the planet with that name. Perhaps you do. Yes, I do.

01:58:51

Okay. And go to latayne .com. I want to thank all of our listeners.

01:58:57

In fact, I just got an email from Abigail's grandma who says,

01:59:04

Abigail is so excited to receive her books. She's really a sweet girl being homeschooled by her mom along with her two younger brothers.

01:59:14

Abigail is daughter of Caleb, pastor of a Presbyterian bilingual church.

01:59:20

They do a lot of fellowship in their home for their church. And I believe the hospitality book will speak to them all.

01:59:28

Also giving them the boundaries Dr. Scott spoke of.

01:59:36

I'm really appreciating this interview with you and Dr. Scott and learning much.

01:59:42

And I know it will encourage Abigail in her writing. And she is becoming a voracious reader and has a desire to write.

01:59:51

Well, anyway, I want to thank everybody for listening. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater