Snowed in Road Trip DL!

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:34

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line from a very cold and snowy

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Salt Lake City. Yes, I'm still in Salt Lake City after the debate on Saturday. I spoke at Christ Presbyterian Church on Sunday morning at Apologia's church plant in sort of the southern part of the

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Salt Lake Valley on Sunday afternoon. And I'll tell you a little about last night here in a moment.

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And I'm from Phoenix. What is this stuff? I'm watching, I was just telling

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Rich, I'm watching the icicle, a huge icicle that has formed on the, there's this drain thing that comes off the roof at the back of the unit.

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And it's over a foot long and I don't know, about three, four inches wide.

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And I have to get all this ice and stuff off this thing tomorrow morning. It's finally supposed to stop snowing overnight.

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And I have to get to my next stop on the way home. The wife has scheduled pictures this weekend.

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I have to risk my life, if you know what I mean, I have to risk my life to be home on time for pictures, family pictures, you know, with the grandkids, you have to die to get there.

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That's cool. We'll put you in a box and take the picture. Anyway, so I'm sitting here watching outside and it's just been snowing for two days.

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And it's April 4th for crying out loud. Once again, I really think that all of us should consider a class action lawsuit against the

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Nobel Prize Committee and Al Gore, who promised us long, long ago that our children would have no idea what snowfall was.

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He said that by 2016, I think there'd be no snow on Kilimanjaro.

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There's snow in Kilimanjaro. Here in Salt Lake, when

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I've been here in July's in the past, I would ride my bike up and down Little Cottonwood Canyon and Big Cottonwood Canyon up to Alta and some of the ski areas up there.

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And last year, Alta had a grand total for the season, 428 inches of snow.

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Yesterday, when I checked, they had 814 inches for the season, and they picked up over 30 inches in the past 24 hours.

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So pretty much in record territory, massive amounts of snow. I don't think it's gotten above freezing yet.

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So my big challenge tomorrow, I'm looking out at my electrical connection. My big challenge tomorrow is

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I have to, we were going to, we had ordered and we're supposed to be able to install these covers to cover my slide outs.

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So I wouldn't have to do exactly what I'm going to have to do tomorrow. But the place we ordered them from completely mis -made them.

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I mean, not even close. Like I think one of them wasn't like 42 inches off, 48 inches off, it was total screw up on their part.

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And so I don't have the covers on the slide outs, and so I'm going to be putting a ladder up against the side of this thing in these icy, frozen, snowy conditions, climbing up the ladder and knocking, knocking icicles off.

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You got to get the ice out of the gears. Thankfully, this is a little better unit than the last one we had.

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So only one of the two slide outs has the type of gears that would get all jammed up with ice in them.

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And get the snow off. If you know, this could be the last dividing line, folks, it really could be the last one because I'm just,

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I'm just thinking about how exactly how stable can that ladder be sitting on ice that really does make you go, hmm, could be an interesting morning.

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Really, really could be. How many broken bones can I survive and still drive? That's the question.

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So for a Phoenix boy, I've seen enough snow over the past, well, it snowed once in Cedar City.

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Didn't really stick. It's very pretty, sort of like Christmas card type stuff. You know what? After about two days of that,

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I'm done with this. And I'm in a very large

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RV park here. I mean, really large. I started doing some walks when I first got here before it started snowing, and I just couldn't believe how big this place is.

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And so many of the people here are month to month. So they're long -termers. Some of them, this is where they live.

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And it's big, it's huge. And if I've been living with this kind of stuff since like back in October, yeah, no.

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Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. It's back to Coogee's for me. In fact, I wish I had my,

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I had brought one of my cashmere, I have two cashmere Coogee's, two or three.

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I remember. They are super warm, and they would have been perfect in this situation, but I didn't bring them.

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So this is a cotton one. It's fine as long as you layer it. It's good. We'll live, but, and this new, one last thing about all this, this new unit, when

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Rich first told me about it, I was sort of like, okay, that's cute. That's sort of cute -ish type thing. It has a fireplace in it now.

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It's a electric fireplace, which means you can change like the color of the coals that are glowing and the flames are fake.

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They're digitally produced, but it does produce heat. You've got a high and a low setting on it.

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And at first I was like, oh, I'm so glad I have that. It is wonderful.

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It looks so much better than just plain old space heater, first of all, but it works well. And you can set it for different temperature levels and how long it'll run.

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It's right next to where I sleep. So I didn't know how much

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I would love that thing. Now, you know, in July, hey, you can turn it on and not have the heat on.

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So it's always looks really cool. Great nightlight and stuff like that. But yeah, that's a big, big, big plus.

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I'm very, very, very, very happy about that. Anyway, so a lot of important stuff to do on the program today.

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But hey, I'm sitting here watching the snow spinning around us while a gust of wind will come and a bunch of snow will fly off the top of the unit and fly around us.

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Oh, and yet there are robins. There are robins hopping all over the place, seemingly really enjoying this mess.

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So I, prayers, please, for tomorrow morning safety and getting out and getting on the road and and a long, long day tomorrow because I had to cancel the first stop.

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I'm going to have to go two stops tomorrow. So double the distance I was planning on doing. So prayers appreciated.

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Um, you know, I have had the opportunity over the years to get to know ministers, the gospel literally all over the world.

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And it's one thing to meet somebody, you know, have dinner, hey, you're cool, that's great.

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But then there are certain folks that you just become fast friends with.

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You just, you have so much in common. And you have so much, you're pulling the same direction, let's put it that way.

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And you can see many of the same things happening around and you just have so much in common.

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And it's a beautiful, well, it's a fellowship of ministry. You know,

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I think of Tom Buck and Lyndale, you know, people that you could call at any time.

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You know, if you had a close death in the family, these would be the type of people you could, you know, you could talk to at any point.

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Tom Buck and Lyndale, Derek Melton and Pryor, I'll be at Derek's church in, well, next month in May, actually.

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And he was one of those so, so, so helpful in getting us started with the

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RV stuff. So you can blame him if you don't like it, I suppose. But so, so very helpful along those lines.

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And just such a dear brother. It's been a number of years since we've even talked, but Doug McMaster's up in New York.

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When you ride 100 miles with somebody on a bike, and it's way too hot to be doing it, like Doug and I did years and years ago, that forms a bond.

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Eric Ellis up in Boulder, another fellow cyclist up in Boulder, Colorado.

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Overseas, Peter Schilt, Tobias Riemenschneger in Frankfurt.

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Just got to say it the right way. By the way, I'm not sure if they've released it yet, but I hope they have.

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But Tobias has a great singing voice. Let me just put it that way. I'm not going to say anything more about it, but I've heard a song that's been recorded with another good ministerial friend of mine, who you hear every time we do

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Radio Free Geneva. And again, Tim Cantrell down Randberg, South Africa.

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The late Jim Handyside. I don't think I've mentioned that I found out just recently

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Jim Handyside passed away. I was deeply saddened by that. Jim Handyside up in Annie's Land, a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, passed away.

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There was a Scotsman, if there ever was one. Oh my. In the spirit of John Knox, truly, he was something else.

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And what a brutally Scottish sense of humor he had. He's the one,

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I've got to tell, I'm sorry if I mentioned Jim, I've got to tell you this. He's the one, I was preaching at his church, it was the first time

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I was up there. Roger and I had gone up there, another dear brother.

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And after I preached at his church, during the sermon, I had broken into a

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Scottish accent. And so we're sitting around and Chrissy's making us like cheese toast and tea or something like that after the service at the house.

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And we're sitting around and Jim's in his favorite comfy chair. And I said,

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Brother Handyside, what did you think of my Scottish accent? And he was so dead, deadpan, dry a sense of humor on the planet.

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And he sort of moved himself in his chair and he goes, well, this is, to me, it sounded like a mixture of Pakistani and Italian.

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Just brutal, just brutal. Oh, it was so good.

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The only way I ever got his respect is I memorized some Rabi bands. And I came down to breakfast one morning and quoted a portion of a poem.

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And then I got his respect from that point onward. But, ah, the late

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Jim Handyside. And of course, the great Nick Needham. Nick, they put the fifth volume of his church history series out.

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I know he's working on a volume six. And everybody's excited about that.

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But what a dear brother up there in Inverness. And so I say all this. I say all these folks and so many more wonderful privileges to get to know these folks.

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Last evening I got to go and I wasn't able to stay for the whole thing. I was a little concerned

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I was coming down with something yesterday. A lot of handshaking, a lot of selfie taking in Cedar City.

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And in Salt Lake after the debate and stuff like that. And stuff was happening that sometimes means

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I'm coming down with something. I just didn't want to be typhoid Mary and pass stuff around. So I was only there for a certain period of time.

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But I got to see the video presentations. And I got to say a little something and hear other people say some things.

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At the church out in Magnet where I've spoken so many times, we've done debates there.

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We did a debate just a few years ago there. Jason Wallace was celebrating 25 years in ministry.

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And, you know, 25 years is a decent amount of time.

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A quarter of a century. And as I said at the beginning of my comments, studies have shown that 25 years of ministry in Salt Lake City is worth 75 years of ministry anyplace else.

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Or not sure worth is the right term. Will have the effect upon you of 75 years of ministry anyplace else.

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And there's an element of truth to that. This valley, the Salt Lake Valley, is a spiritual zoo, a spiritual menagerie.

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And it's only getting worse. It was bad enough back when you first came here.

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But it's much worse now, in my opinion. Because so many Mormons are disconnected and just wandering about here, there, and everywhere.

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And so I got to say a few things and some other people said some things.

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Ed Romine was there from up in Provo. Up in Provo? It's down in Provo.

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Depends on how you look at it. He came up from Provo to be a part of it.

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And one of the things that was so wonderful to me was how most, what most everybody said was how much they looked up to Jason and saw

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Jason as a source of wisdom for them. And many of them were

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Baptists, by the way. I'm not sure exactly how Jason feels about that. But he's put up with me for all these years.

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And by the way, for those that were interested, the debate last month between Zach Lautenschlager, who is a member of that church, and my son -in -law,

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Eric Yeager, there was a connection at that point, too, as well, which was,

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I think, really neat. Anyway, all these people saying the same thing, that they found in Jason someone that they could derive so much wisdom from.

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And that is, that's the legacy you want.

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I mean, I could name some people that we would all recognize. I can't believe the snow.

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It's almost a blizzard out there right now. This is ridiculous. I could name some people right now that people would come to your mind right now of people who didn't finish well, did not finish well.

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Their legacy ruined. And many of them were far, far better known than Jason Wallace will ever be or I will ever be or most of the men that I've mentioned will ever be.

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But once this world is over, there is going to be a reckoning of what took place in time.

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There's going to be a judgment, you know, 1 Corinthians 3. And the motivations of the heart are going to be laid bare.

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And there are going to be so many people we've never even heard of, that the world's never heard of, that we're going to find out were giants.

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And the people we thought were giants were pipsqueaks. And one thing

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I know, I know Jason has gone through a lot up here. A lot of trials.

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A lot of heartaches. A lot of difficulties. And I know Rich and I made the decision,

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I remember a number of years ago, what was that, about seven, seven, eight years ago. We made the decision we were going to try to be as much help as we could at that particular point in time in Jason's ministry up here.

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And I came up and did a bunch of stuff at the church. And we have always tried to direct people to the church and things like that.

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Anyway, you go through hard times in ministry.

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And for some people, it sours them and they leave and that's it.

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For those that go through the heartache without becoming bitter, and that's,

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I'm going to tell you something, that's one of the hardest things. That's one of the hardest things. You invest yourself in people.

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You invest yourself in a congregation. And elders can just end up being brutalized at times.

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And the only way you can keep going is the spirit healing those wounds without allowing them to become, without allowing your heart to become so hard that you can no longer care or empathize or do anything.

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And that's where real abiding deep wisdom comes from.

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It comes from surviving that. Enduring that, pressing on through that. Sure, you become weary, but you look to the

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Lord as your source and your strength and you press on. Almost all the real wisdom in ministry that I've ever obtained, it was, that's where it came from.

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And it was real clear to me last night that there was an example, you know,

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Jason's gone through a lot. But I think he'd tell you the exact same thing if he hadn't gone through all that.

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Would those younger men have been sitting there going, I know I can always call

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Jason and get real meaningful wisdom and insight?

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Probably not. Probably not. I mean, I think of, I'm thinking of one man in my own experience as a young person who had all the notoriety, had all the fame, but you would have never thought to go to him if you needed wisdom.

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There was someone else in that church you went to if you needed wisdom. Even back then you could tell the difference.

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And it's endurance, it's steadfastness that gives you that ability.

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And it gives you that capacity to offer that wisdom to others.

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And so I'm very thankful that we have, over the years, I don't know, Jason was talking more than 20 debates up here?

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I don't know. I don't know. But Jason has always been trying to find ways of reaching the

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Mormon people and everybody else in this valley. And I said when the religious history, the

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Christian history of this valley is written, and I don't mean in a book in this life, but in eternity itself, his name's going to be right there.

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And so it was a special time. It really was. And that's a good way to transition.

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Jason's the one that put together the debate that we did on Saturday evening. Jeff Durbin and I, our second debate together.

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I'm proud to announce there were no engine coolants or oil substances or anything introduced during the debate, though some of you did see, and this was

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Jason again. Jason's Scottish. I'm Scottish. So maybe it's one of the reasons we get along is we just, you know, we have the same perverted

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Scottish sense of humor, and, you know, we're never going to hug because Scotsmen don't do that.

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And stuff like that. So you get it goes. In fact, my blessing for him at the end of my talk was may the wind never blow your kilt up.

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Now, sorry how that went. But Jason had been planning this for three years, because this debate was supposed to take place three years ago.

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This is supposed to be the follow -up debate to the radiator fluid debate in October of 2019.

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This was supposed to happen March of 2020, three years late. We finally got around to it. And so I come walking in and sitting next to our microphones, speaking of which, they looked a little bit like this microphone.

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Anyway, we're two clear plastic drinking cups of bright green fluid.

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And the first thing I do is I smell it. Because last time

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I was in this room, we had the antifreeze experience in the atheism debate.

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And I couldn't smell anything. And Jason's over there cackling. And then he asked me don't say anything until Jeff comes down here.

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And we took pictures and stuff as we drank it. And it was some type of lemon lime pop or something that he had had to look around to find the right color to have this thing sitting there.

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So that's how we started off. But Jason set up this debate, again, at the

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University of Utah. Same room for the atheism debate, same room for the debate, not debate, but the dialogue with Alma Allred, at least one of them.

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My goodness, it's a blizzard out there. It's just, it's been nice knowing you all.

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This may never end. This is incredible. I mean, literally, the

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RV across the little road is disappearing. Because the wind is blowing and stuff's coming out of the trees.

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And it's just like, okay, all right. I'm supposed to leave tomorrow morning, huh?

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Okay, well, we'll see. Anyway, so same room at the University of Utah. Seats about, we had about 325.

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There were only a few seats open. We had more people at this than we had at the last debate.

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And so it was well attended. The technical problem we had, which you won't have, thankfully, if you watch it online, once it's posted.

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It should be posted fairly soon. The speakers in the room are so old and have been so beaten up that if you push the volume, they start distorting.

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So they just need to be replaced. But, you know, no one, not sure exactly when that's going to happen.

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Dr. Dean Chatterjee, who was on staff at the University of Utah, taught ethics.

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I mean, he's a part of some Oxford group and all the rest of this stuff.

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So published and part of UN stuff on peace.

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And I don't know all the stuff. And then Jared Anderson. Jared Anderson actually studied under Bart Ehrman at the

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University of UNC. They were the other side.

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And the question was, is ethics possible without God? And we were saying we went first.

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No, we're saying no. God is required for ethics. Dr. Chatterjee is

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Indian, as in from India. And every time I listened to things that he had done, obviously in preparation for this.

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And he's not always easy to understand. He does not have a projecting voice. He does not enunciate well.

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And so the problem was they just couldn't push his microphone without it distorting. And so a lot of people said we just couldn't understand what he was saying.

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So, you know, that's going to impact the debate. The reason I say that probably won't be an issue for you is we had a microphone on him feeding only the cameras.

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So the camera feed should be considerably clearer than the actual live sound was.

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And Dr. Chatterjee took up most of the time with their presentation. He left Jared in their 10 -minute rebuttal.

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He left Jared 90 seconds. And Jared was much more interactive and thoughtful, in my opinion, than Dr.

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Chatterjee was. So that didn't help their side much. It was a lopsided debate. But I think this could be a very useful debate because there is a fair amount of honesty on the other side.

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And, you know, they basically admitted there is no absolute reason why you should love your neighbor rather than eat your neighbor.

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And it was painfully obvious to me that Dr. Chatterjee, what you'll see with Dr.

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Chatterjee, which maybe some of the people that night did not, what you'll see with Dr.

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Chatterjee is the result of what it's like to live in academia and not really in the real world.

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Now, the interesting thing is Jared Anderson is a humanist chaplain. Now, I didn't get into everything

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I could have with him because I was a chaplain. I just didn't think there was enough time to maybe engage some of the things that he wanted to.

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And I got the feeling that we might be able to do some more things with him in the future. I don't think Dr. Chatterjee is going to be interested in that.

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I'm not sure there will be, to be perfectly honest with you. Because he just did not seem reflective.

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He did not seem to hear what we were saying or be able to really interact with it. And that was the point of here's what it's like to exist in the academy.

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He's never even seriously interacted with Christian claims at all.

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Or at least with believing Christian claims. And it was a lot of people,

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I think the vast majority of people that were there were like, that was really lopsided.

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That was pretty amazing. And it was much more lively than I expected it to be.

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I really wasn't sure how the two of them would work together. And they didn't really work together well.

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But I just wasn't certain how this particular topic would function real well.

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But it did. And I think it's going to be really, really useful. Let me put it this way. That was my 181st

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Moderated Public Debate. Very proud to get to do that with Jeff.

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Second time we've done that together. And by the way, Jeff had many reasons to be off his game that night.

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Jeff's mom is not doing well. She's in intensive care. And he had just changed his flights to get back as quickly as he could.

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So, I mean, there could have been lots of reasons for him to be anything but sharp. But he was on fire.

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And he was focused. And I'm just so proud of that young man that I don't know how to express it.

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But such an honor to sit with him and to be able to just say, like, we only had five -minute closing statements.

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So, we divided the 20 -minute opening statement and the 10 -minute rebuttals. We just divided them pretty much in half.

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I actually took about eight, eight -and -a -half minutes in the opening to give him plenty of time.

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Because when you go in second, there may be some things you need to rephrase because it's already been said by the other person.

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But we pretty much just split up our time. And we worked real well with that. With five -minute closing statement,

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I was concerned, honestly, that was just so short, that trying to split it up would actually distract the audience from the point being made by whoever did the closing.

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And so, I said, go for it. And had Jeff do the closing statement. But we worked really well during the cross -examination.

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You'll notice that when, by the way, since Jared Anderson studied under Bart Ehrman, he decided to go for the, well, how do you know what

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Jesus actually said route? And, A, Jeff immediately, like, all yours.

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And, B, as soon as I said to Jared, so you haven't seen my debate with Dr. Ehrman on this subject?

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That pretty much ended that direction. It's like, uh -oh, danger, Will Robertson, another direction, go, go.

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It's like, yeah, go ahead and try to do the misquoting Jesus routine with me.

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That's not going to work well for you at all. So, we just, again, we worked really, really well together.

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Jeff did a tremendous job in light of the distractions that were there.

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We had, you know, our team come up. Luke was there. Just a, it was a really, really good evening.

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And debate number 181 was worth a whole lot more than 180 was.

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Let's put it that way. 180 will be watched by 12 people, and that's the end of that. And that's because when one side doesn't want a debate to actually work, then they can actually sort of make that happen.

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But, yeah, that was very useful. And, again, Jason did the moderation. And though he did,

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Jason knows this, he let the other side go, I would say, about three minutes long on their opening statement.

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About three minutes long on their opening statement. And I was sort of looking back, and he's sort of looking over there. But part of it was because Chatterjee had gone so long, and the point was

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Jared was the one that was understandable. So it was sort of like, eh, let him say what he needs to say.

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We'll figure out how to make up the time someplace else. So once that's edited, and especially the sound is made as best it can be, look for that.

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I think you'll find it to be very useful, very helpful. I mean, today especially, I mean, who even does ethics anymore?

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In any kind of meaningful fashion? Our nation has abandoned any kind of ethical or moral formation amongst its citizens.

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So, yeah, it was a very useful debate. No two ways about it. So, all right, some interesting stuff has been going on online recently, and I have not been able to participate all that much.

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I have been, like I said, rather busy. But let me just briefly mention this one.

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Something tells me that the G3 pre -conference being sponsored by and involving

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Grace Bible Theological Seminary, where I'm on staff, there is a conference going on,

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I think it's the Thursday before G3 begins. And it's going to be on eschatology,

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God's law, Christian nationalism, all that stuff. And I have somewhat humorously asked the leadership of the seminary, am

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I the sacrificial lamb? Because I am the only theonomic post -millennialist on staff, and yet I'm going to be one of the speakers.

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And so there's been conversation going on about this.

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And I just want to remind people, Doug and I did a sweater vest dialogue last year.

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Yeah, last year. Well, it was right when that Christian nationalism book came out. We did a sweater vest dialogue.

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And I pretty much laid out where I'm coming from in my understanding from a post -millennial perspective and as a

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Baptist. Because there are a lot of people who don't believe you cannot be a theonomic post -millennial Baptist. And this was also triggered because of Brother Rigney and the situation at Bethlehem College.

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And all these people are saying, well, see, you know, once you go that direction, you have to become a

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Presbyterian. I'm like, no, I don't. How is that determinative of what

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Scripture teaches on the nature of the new covenant and the nature of the covenant signs?

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I mean, not only have I done two major debates as a

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Reformed Baptist on that subject, but the 13,

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I think it's 13, maybe 14 part sermon series I did on baptism at Apologia, I did as a theonomic post -millennialist.

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And I'm like, well, sure. I get the idea that as long as you're going for the

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I'm doing all this stuff because I've got this hero or that hero or something like that.

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All right. If that's why you hold the views, do you do a baptism or something? Okay. I don't hold my views for those reasons.

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Because of who I am, I have to believe that I can defend a position that I take dogmatically in debate.

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And if I recognize that, you know, I could take the opposite on this position and have just as good a shot as taking the positive to it.

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Then, you know, that's going to be something that I have to allow for other people to have differences of opinion on issues like that.

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And so, you know, people were saying, well, yeah, you have to do this, this, and this, and that will take you over to this position there.

38:32

And I'm like, no, no. And I think

38:37

Joel Levin and I are going to have some interesting conversations next month in Texas because he said a few things.

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I'm just sort of going. Don't think so. We can talk about that, too.

38:52

So but in my conversation with Doug, we agreed that the only way you can have what is being identified as Christian nationalism is as a result of a massive work of the spirit of God.

39:12

You know, just as you have general equity theonomy, my understanding of the only way that there could be a truly

39:23

Christian nation is if the hearts of the people in that nation have been changed. And I see that as the fulfillment of the promise of the father to the son to give the nations to him, the coastlands coming, seeking his law, all those fulfillment texts that if you're an amillennialist, you spiritualize and say it's fulfilled solely in the church.

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But if you go, you know what, God can change hearts and minds and maybe

40:00

Abraham's offspring will be as numerous as the sand of the sea. And that's the issue.

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So the G3 pre -conference should prove to be very interesting as we talk about stuff like that.

40:16

But along the same, well, not along the same lines, but along social media lines, there were a couple of items posted just this morning by Matthew Barrett at Midwestern.

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And I just, I would just honestly say to Dr.

40:48

Barrett's students, to Dr. Barrett himself, I really wonder, because Dr.

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Barrett wrote a book in 2016, it was published in 2016. So it's probably written in 2015. So you're talking seven, eight years ago, almost a decade ago on scriptural sufficiency, solo scriptura.

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There was nothing in it that had anything close to a great tradition theme, any tomism.

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Thomas doesn't even, I mean, he's mentioned in passing, but clearly no,

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Dr. Barrett was not yet a Thomist at this point, was not influenced by it in the writing of this book.

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And I would just say, I would imagine that if Dr.

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Barrett were to write that book today, it would be very, very different in tone and conclusion.

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And one of the reasons I say that is in some tweets, which have to be provided to me because I'm blocked.

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In some tweets, he said this morning, I believe, myth,

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Calvin was biblical. Later Calvinists were scholastic traditionalists.

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Truth, Calvin detested extremists, extremists, should be extremists, who radicalized sola into nuda scriptura.

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He used scholastic methods to teach the Bible with church universal. And then in another tweet, the grammatical historical method alone produces less than biblical results.

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The classical method does not just pursue knowledge, but wisdom.

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It's participatory exegesis. Through revelation, we have communion with God.

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And then J .V. Fesco, his Twitter handle is put there.

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There aren't any quotations, so I don't know if it's actually a quotation of J .V. Fesco. It's blizzarding.

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What is going on? I mean, there's nearly a foot of snow on the table out there now.

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He said, nice knowing you all. I don't know if this is a quotation of Fesco or not.

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I can't tell. It's not written well enough to know. It would be nice if you would do that.

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I wanted to interact with some of what's being said here. First of all, the myth,

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Calvin was biblical. Later Calvinists were scholastic traditionalists. All you have to do is present something in an imbalanced fashion, and then you can make a point correcting the imbalance.

43:52

It's easy to do. But Calvin was biblical. And one of the arguments that's being made by the other side is that, for example,

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Calvin was being accused of being a Judaizer. Actually, Judaizer back then was

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Pharisee to us today. So in other words, it's so easy to make that accusation.

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And we rarely, we're more technical in using Judaizer today. That normally has something to do.

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The unit across the way is about to completely disappear from my sight. I hope the

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Internet keeps working. Electricity goes out, and it's going to get real interesting. Judaizer for us is almost always much more technical in regards to legal, becoming a legalist, denying grace type of thing.

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Pharisee is more how we today would say what they were saying back then as a

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Judaizer. So Calvin was called a Judaizer because in his commentaries on the

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Old Testament, he would very often agree with the

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Jews as to what the original meaning of a text was over against medieval scholasticism that started reading all sorts of things into Old Testament texts that the

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New Testament gave you no warrant for doing. And so which is it going to be?

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Because he was willing to separate himself from what people today are calling the great tradition and say, no, that's not what that text was talking about in the first place.

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Here's what the prophet was addressing, and here's what it means. That doesn't mean that he didn't believe in prophecy, but he allowed the

46:08

New Testament authors, he allowed the apostles to define what the fulfillment of prophetic text is supposed to be rather than coming up with new stuff on our own.

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And so which is it going to be?

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When he goes on to say, Calvin detested extremists who radicalized

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Sola into New Descriptura, well, all the reformers did. And there's almost no one that I can think of.

46:51

I mean, there are a few people who call themselves Anabaptists today. But if you know history, you know who was being referred to in a statement like that.

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For Luther, it would be the Zwickau prophets, even though when they first came into town, he was a little bit more open -minded to them until about 1525.

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But you have to remember something. And again, here I go providing context and stuff.

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But Calvin's view of Anabaptists and the quote -unquote radicals was very much influenced by Munster.

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Calvin's converted in the early 1530s, and Munster takes place 1534 -1535. All of Europe heard about Munster.

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And once again, if you've not heard the two -part series

47:58

I did with my dear daughter, Summer, and her dear friend, Joy, on Sheologians in 2019, the bloody streets of Munster, you're missing out on what is, in my opinion, unquestionably, the wildest, craziest story, most fascinating story in all of church history.

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I can't think of anything that makes you just sit back and go, no.

48:31

What? They did? Then what? It's astonishing. And Calvin comes after that.

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And honestly, the Reformed, well, there are Reformed to this day who were poisoned by Munster.

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I've met them. As long as you're a Baptist, they just figure, well, it's another

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Munsterite, and that's it. The mind closes down. The shutters come down. That's it. If you're that dumb, that's it.

49:03

We're done with you. So that has to be kept in mind. And when people start talking about nuda scriptura, solo scriptura, all that kind of stuff, you really have to start digging into what they're really referring to.

49:24

What I've referred to as Reformed Biblicalism certainly is not anywhere near that. And, of course, when

49:30

I presented that idea, I did it on the basis of Calvin's response to Sataletto.

49:40

You can go back and listen to that. I think if you just search for Sataletto on our

49:48

Dividing Line archives, you'll pull it up. And so I was using Calvin's own example as the foundation was saying here's what they were doing.

50:01

So when it says he used scholastic methods, you have to, again, ask what do you mean? Do you mean like Thomas?

50:12

Abelard? Who? What do you mean by scholastic methods?

50:19

Are you talking about how you, Dr. Barrett, offers scholarships to students who can present papers in the same form as Thomas Aquinas?

50:30

Because that is not what Calvin did, and you know it. And I know it, too. Anyone who reads

50:38

Calvin's, Thomas's writings, whether it's contragentiles, whether it's theology, whether it's his commentaries, and then reads

50:51

Calvin, you know there's a vast difference, vast difference between the two. In fact,

50:58

I forgot to pull it up, and I'm not sure if it'll, if it pops up, I'll grab it and use it here.

51:08

But there is a huge, huge, huge difference in methodology between how

51:15

Calvin presents, can't find a way to turn that off.

51:23

Yes, it popped right up. Thank you. I was looking at Thomas's commentary on, let me see here real quick, make sure we're not missing anything in Signal Note, looks like we're good.

51:42

I was looking at his commentary on Isaiah, and there was a section about a woman giving birth, and it wasn't

51:50

Isaiah 7, it's later on, chapter 66 section. And I just happened to run across this part from Thomas.

52:05

Mystically, this is interpreted as concerning the labor of the blessed virgin, and the labor of the church in the conversion of the faithful, and the labor of eternal begetting.

52:23

So you have one phrase in the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 66, and mystically, you can interpret that as the labor of the blessed virgin, which for Thomas would be a little bit different than for modern

52:46

Roman Catholicism, in that the concept of the

52:54

Immaculate Conception had not yet been defined, that's 1854, Thomas is long before that.

53:02

But the labor of the blessed virgin is prophesied in chapter 66 mystically, as is the labor of the church in the conversion of the faithful.

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Now those are two very, very, very, very different things. And then the labor of eternal begetting, that would be of the father begetting the son, as Thomas would understand that.

53:36

How can it be all three? Well, because it's mystical. So mystically, again, as long as the word is used, labor, as in giving birth, you can fill that word with all sorts of meaning.

53:56

This is participatory exegesis. He doesn't bother here to...

54:17

Well, it looks like we've got a frozen Zoom here real quick. Let me see if I can recover this. Oh, James just disconnected.

54:24

Let's see if Zoom, did Zoom crash on me completely? Oh, there he is. Hello. Hang on.

54:33

Zoom crashed on us. Go ahead and keep talking and I'll adjust this thing.

54:45

You'll adjust it? What do you mean? Oh, the screen's all wonky, but we'll get it fixed. Okay. But everybody can see you and hear you, so keep on rolling.

54:55

Okay. I wonder where that sound was coming from. Now I'm hearing something else.

55:02

Are you still talking to me? Yes? No? Maybe? Okay. So I'll wrap this up if we're having technical issues.

55:09

Could be the snow. I don't know. I am entombed in ice at the moment, so maybe that interferes with things.

55:17

I don't know. The grammatical historical method alone produces less than biblical results.

55:26

How would you define biblical results? How are you even using this term?

55:36

But how could it? It's that term alone.

55:43

Okay. What do you want to add it to? Is there something that comes before it?

55:49

Because that's the argument of Craig Carter. You have to have Nicene presuppositions before you can start doing ex

55:57

Jesus. So is it a presupposition that comes before doing grammatical historical interpretation?

56:08

What does it mean by alone? Is that the nuda scriptura?

56:15

I don't know anyone in this conversation. I certainly don't present that. I certainly believe firmly in recognizing that it's not me and my

56:29

Bible under a tree. That's been the misrepresentation of Roman Catholicism of us for a long time.

56:35

Now it's the misrepresentation of the Neotomists of us. Which should tell you something about where all this leads.

56:43

But the classical method does not just pursue knowledge but wisdom.

56:49

That sounds wonderful. What does it mean? What does that mean?

56:55

Because the next phrase is it's participatory exegesis through revelation we have communion with God.

57:05

It's participatory exegesis. Now I could come up with a perfectly orthodox and biblical definition of participatory exegesis.

57:18

I think that when you rightly handle the word of God, you are when you stand before the people of God as a minister of God and you rightly handle that word and you seek to not give to the people your words and thoughts but God's words and thoughts as found in Scripture.

57:49

Then we are participating in the context of the same spirit of God that gave those words is now making those words to come alive in the hearts of the ones speaking them and the ones receiving them.

58:09

And I've seen that happen. That's the wonderful miracle of what happens in the spirit of God meets with us when we gather in the name of Christ to obediently hear his word.

58:21

And people are changed and their hearts are changed and their minds are changed and they're rooted and grounded in the truth.

58:33

And I could define participatory exegesis in that way. But I'm not sure that's what's being said and I doubt that's what's being said.

58:43

Because I couldn't help but be reminded of a quote that I've read to you.

58:50

It's only 195 words long. But I'm going to read it again. It's from Craig Carter.

58:59

The great tradition was a three -legged stool made up of spiritual exegesis,

59:04

Nicene dogma, and Christian Platonist metaphysics. By pressing deep into the meaning of the text contemplatively, spiritual exegesis yielded the

59:16

Trinitarian and Christological dogmas which in turn generated certain metaphysical doctrines such as creation, ex nihilo, and the reality of the spiritual realm.

59:25

The metaphysics then created a hospitable context for further spiritual exegesis in which the interpreter penetrated through the literal sense to that to which the text referred, the spiritual or heavenly realities that led upward eventually to participation in the divine radiance.

59:49

It was all based on a sacramental ontology in which creaturely things, words, were taken up into the divine and made into signs which conveyed the reality to which they pointed.

01:00:01

Great tradition exegesis was and is a profoundly spiritual and moral act in which the interpreter who succeeds in grasping the true res or subject matter of the text is irrevocably transformed in the process, sanctified, and turned into one who possesses eternal life.

01:00:21

Craig A. Carter, Interpreting Scripture with a Great Tradition, Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis, page 111.

01:00:29

Same language. Same language. And we are in a day where we are going to have to make decisions concerning whether we are going to embrace that as the understanding of what we're doing in exegesis or what we've always done in the past.

01:00:55

But we, sorry, we reformed people who 10 years ago were all on the same page on the subject but aren't any longer.

01:01:10

If you're seriously looking at Craig Carter, you're seriously looking at that great tradition concept, you're the ones changed, not us.

01:01:24

And you can say, well, we were just wrong back then, and so you just need to come along. Okay, fine. But just admit, 10 years ago, in any reformed

01:01:35

Baptist school, 10 years ago, if I had read this, everybody would have recognized, whoa, that's what?

01:01:46

What the, ooh, that, hmm? Really? That's the reality.

01:01:52

And that's what I'm hearing when I hear participatory exegesis. At a

01:01:57

Southern Baptist school. At a Southern Baptist school. Where is that going to go?

01:02:10

Of necessity is the question. What does it lead to of necessity?

01:02:19

Again, that is the question that we need to deal with. Well, hopefully,

01:02:25

Rich has once again applied packing tape and chewing gum and string to the feed.

01:02:39

And hopefully we'll get it all up onto the web. And hopefully it will be of assistance to folks.

01:02:47

Once again, tomorrow morning, if you would like to say a prayer for the desert rat that's going to be bundled up, wearing gloves, climbing up ladders in ice and snow to try to get this fifth wheel prepped to head down the road,

01:03:06

I will appreciate that. You know, if I was smart, you know what

01:03:14

I would do? I'd set up my iPhone or camera or something to record this.

01:03:23

Because if it is my demise, then Rich could post it on YouTube and monetize it.

01:03:32

Pay for my funeral. Right there. Boom. It's taken care of. That's what we should do.

01:03:40

Look at all that snow. It's amazing. Most of it was gone this morning.

01:03:47

But it's back now. It's actually lightened up now, thankfully.

01:03:52

So real quick here. Uh -huh. Yes. Just want to mention the

01:03:58

AO Mobile Studio Fund. We are sitting in it. Yes, you're sitting in it.

01:04:05

But when you get back, if you get back, we will be getting the next phase, converting the front room into a sound video studio.

01:04:19

And we're not going to do it on the cheap. We're going to make it right and do a good job of it.

01:04:26

And so where you're sitting at the kitchen table now, eventually that's going to become that studio up front.

01:04:32

And you'll be able to basically have a nice studio wherever you go. Right. I mean, in other words, this will be where I eat food.

01:04:41

Well, yes. And that's the only thing I'll be doing here.

01:04:46

Yeah, right. Right. And if anyone cares, it's that away. That's where the studio will be.

01:04:53

Yes, I'm very much looking forward to that. And so you can help us to do that by going to AOMIN .org.

01:04:59

Go to the donate page. Pull down the menu. Down at the bottom, there's three options. At least last time I looked, there were three options.

01:05:06

And the bottom option is the AOMIN Mobile Studio. And so we need to be doing backgrounds and cameras.

01:05:13

And I've been talking about the fact we've got to find some way of doing this to where the –

01:05:20

I'm not sure how to do this yet. But the cameras can't be really firmly attached all the time because this thing bounces.

01:05:30

I mean, it's an earthquake. And so they've got to be protected. So it's going to take some work.

01:05:38

And I'm really glad that you're doing it, Rich. Oh, he's gone.

01:05:44

Okay. That was just his way of reminding me that I hadn't mentioned anything about the fact that we still have costs to cover.

01:05:51

And we appreciate everyone who has made it possible for us to do all these things. And so, yes, we'll be doing that when we get back.

01:05:59

In fact, one of the projects is get the bed out. You would think that would be easy. Not really. Not really.

01:06:06

But we will be doing that hopefully, I think, on Friday if I recall correctly. So thanks for watching the program today.

01:06:15

Lord willing, we'll be talking to you next week from sunny, warm Phoenix, Arizona, where we've never, ever, ever seen anything like this in the entire history of the city of Phoenix.

01:06:27

And don't really want to, to be honest with you. But that's hopefully where we'll be.