Philippians 1:27 and Open Phones

around the world from the desert. This is The Dividing Line. Good afternoon.

Welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. It is our Thursday evening version of The Dividing Line.

Currently 34 people in channel. That's not really true. Two of those are bots, so I guess it doesn't really count.

32 then. And who knows how many of them are actually active. I don't know. But anyways, it's good to have you with us this evening.

Just a reminder, next week we will have a debate during this time.

I actually haven't seen my opponent in channel for a while. Probably need to track him down and make sure that we can do so.

We can barely hear you. That's interesting. Well, hopefully we fixed all that. Anyways, everybody is saying sounds faint and things like that.

I'm not faint. I'm actually speaking very loudly. But anyways, we're supposed to have a debate a week from tonight with Aquinas.

And Aquinas is a Roman Catholic apologist. Says that he's, how do you put it?

Officially given authority by the church to teach Catholic doctrine.

And we're going to be talking about the Apocrypha and the issue of the Canon and things like that. It will probably go more than an hour, obviously.

We'll be working on the details of that. So that will be a week from tonight, obviously, on our Tuesday morning version coming up next

Tuesday morning. We will give you more details exactly as to how that's going to all work out.

But first things first, here on The Dividing Line, we are a family -friendly program.

And so we have a family of folks that gather together electronically in our chat channel.

And it's a widespread family of people. Well, we've got folks down in Australia and all over the

United States. And today happens to be a special day. One of our ops has a birthday today.

And it's sort of sad. I'm almost, not quite, almost old enough to be this ops' father.

That's what's so frightening about all these things, talking to all these young people. But Julie Staples has a birthday today.

And so what I did, and I did this on a short notice, and so I want to thank the folks who are joining me now online.

We have, we'll just go, since we're actually going to sing, we'll just go with our, how about we just go with our nicks and channel.

That way we can have a certain level of anonymity here. But I'm joined here somewhat locally anyways on the phone by Moomy Goon and also long distance on our toll -free number by CDS.

Now, the reason I asked Monogon and CDS to call in is that I've heard both of them sing and I know that they can.

And so if you take them and mix them with me, hopefully that will sort of even everything out and everything will be fine.

But we just wanted to say a happy birthday to Julie Staples.

And to do so, we're all going to get to sing happy birthday. And those of you in the channel, if you'd like to join in, you feel free to do so.

Just realizing, oh, I just got disconnected. What perfect timing to get moved off of the system.

But right now as I get disconnected, isn't that wonderful? Well, hopefully everybody else can still hear us, even though I'm not going to get to see any of the reaction here because it takes, like,

I don't know how long for this system to get back in there. But we cannot hold on forever. Colin, would you like to say hi to everyone?

I'm sorry, CDS. I have no idea who Colin is. You've blown it now. I know.

They wouldn't have been able to tell otherwise. I sound so American. Oh, you do sound so American, yes.

You don't slur anything, anything like that at all. And, of course, everyone probably is wondering what a

Moomigoon would sound like anyways. That requires saying, well, a

Moomigoon sounds like a normal person does or anything like that. Well, I try to be normal.

You try to be normal. I try really hard. Not a whole lot of normal folks actually take part in our channel anyways, so that's really not it.

Well, anyways, I guess I'm going to have to be the one, though, because I've got the big microphone here and you guys are on the phone lines.

I'm going to have to be the one who starts this. Now, Colin, you're not anywhere near a piano, are you?

Actually, I'm not at the moment. You do have a piano, don't you? Yes, I do. You're probably on a landline, so you can't move it.

I was going to say, isn't the worst thing about singing Happy Birthday the fact that no one ever starts at the exact same place?

The first three words are just everyone slowly, you know, the different keys coming together into one thing.

So I guess I'm going to have to try to get us started, huh? Just don't start us too high, please.

I'm a bass. I never start any... Not really low. I know. Maybe I'll do it.

Yeah, well, you know, that might not be a bad idea. You know, we're taking a long time on this because I still haven't gotten into the channel yet.

I cannot see what's going on here, and it's really, really bothering me. Are you guys still in? Yes. I think so.

I'm not in front of the computer at the moment. Oh, okay. I'm hearing Rich yelling something at me as if... You know, this is funny. He knows

I'm wearing headphones. He's on the other side of a wall, and he's yelling at me as if I was supposed to... It's called a NetSplit.

It's called a NetSplit? No, it's not a NetSplit because... Well, Yarmouth just took a walk to buy, and you're on it.

Well, I'm not on anything. I'm disconnected. I'm completely... I'm gone. Play a different server.

I can't do that while talking and singing at the same time. That doesn't work. Hey, do we know if they can actually hear each other?

This is a great sound test for the new phone. It is a sound test. You can hear each other? Yeah. That will be important.

Oh, yeah. That will be important, though, because if you can't hear each other, you can only hear me, and then you're going to have to go off me, and that's a terrible thing.

So, anyways, let's just go ahead and get this taken care of. Julie, happy birthday to you. So we're going to sing happy birthday here on the

Divine. I'm not going to do it like Barry Manilow or John Denver.

I'm going to stick right with the normal American way of doing things, okay? All right. Let's sing happy birthday.

Happy birthday to you. Turn it down.

Turn it down. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. I'm doing a solo now, dear

Julie. Happy birthday to you. All right. Well, we just discovered one thing about the phone system.

The phone system is not designed for use on singing.

So we will now establish a new rule for all callers. Do not sing. It sounded great at the beginning.

I don't know what happened, how we got feedback into it, but now, unfortunately, Balthazar and MDH and all the rest of those people will have me soloing, and I'm going to see these things showing up on my family, and it's going to be a terrible, horrible thing.

Can we not get them back at all now? Hello? I'm trying. I don't know what has happened here.

You guys have blown the circuits on our brand -new, expensive... Is there any smoke coming out from behind the thing?

Okay, I can hear someone. Nope. Oh, we've... That really sounds really, really bad,

Rich. It's an alien invasion.

Why don't you turn your microphone off there, Rich, while we let you figure that out, and we will move on from there.

Hey, CDS and Monogon, I really appreciate... Turn that thing off.

I appreciate your calling in. I just hope that Rich does not die in the inferno of exploding circuits and equipment.

You guys sounded great right up to the point where I started singing. It's probably my fault. I will confess.

It's probably my fault whatever happened. Now I've got... Oh, this is lovely.

I've had 36 firewall connections refused so far. Everything fell apart at once.

Well, we need to find out what's going on so that we can make it work for the debate next week.

You've got to play around with these kind of things. Well, anyways, happy birthday, Julie. You're probably completely embarrassed now that we spent the first 10 minutes of the program messing around like this.

But hey, that's what happens when you're as faithful and op as Julie is in the channel.

So happy birthday to you. Well, for all the rest of you who are wondering what in the world we're doing here anyways, welcome to the program.

If you ever want to hear us or not hear us sing happy birthday to you, then you sort of have to get involved with the ongoing discussions that take place in the chat channel,

I suppose. Lots of stuff going on in the world today. Lots of rumors running around.

I think I'm going head to head with the president right now, if I'm not actually mistaken. I saw something about a 7 o 'clock news conference or something.

I'm really not sure. Development's going on there that may impact the number of folks who end up calling in today, which you can do.

Well, I'm not sure if you can do now or not, actually. The phone number is 877 -753 -3341, but I honestly don't know what's going on.

I don't know if the person on the other side of the wall is still alive. I have really no idea because we haven't cut a hole through the wall yet so I can actually look over there and see what's going on, which would be highly distracting anyways.

And since I can't get back into the chat channel, I don't know what's going on there either. So I'm just sort of flying blind here.

I have absolutely no idea what's taking place. So it's lots of fun.

I suppose I could try a different ROCH.

There we go. See if we can pop in there. But anyways, lots of stuff going on in the world.

Lots of discussion about Islam and about terrorism and all those other things.

Sadly, in the vast majority of instances, again, nothing overly accurate being put forth there.

But putting that aside since that seems to be what absolutely positively takes over our thinking these days,

I did want to bring up a passage of Scripture that I have certainly been thinking about myself a lot recently.

It's found in Philippians chapter 1. Philippians, of course, the epistle of joy.

I have to admit it must be nice, it must have been nice for the

Apostle Paul to be able to write an epistle in which he did not have to directly engage false teachings, problems within the fellowship, sin within the fellowship, all the rest of that stuff.

It must have been very nice for that to take place on his part.

Because the older I get and the more I have to deal with that kind of thing within the context of the church, the more unpleasant it really is.

There's no two ways about it. So here is an epistle that is about joy, it's about rejoicing.

It's a wonderful epistle to read and I would recommend it to your frequent examination, your frequent source of joy itself, truly.

Especially Philippians chapter 1 verse 27, which reads in the New American Standard Bible, Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you, or remain absent,

I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.

And that's not even an entire sentence in and of itself. It goes on to say,

In no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too from God.

Now, that kind of discussion is a little unusual in the church today.

We don't talk about having opponents. We're all on the same team or we're all trying to do the same thing, certainly from a worldly perspective.

The idea of even confessing that we view someone as an opponent is considered to be close -minded and unloving.

But in reality, when Paul writes to the Philippians, they certainly understand that there were those who opposed them.

Indeed, the very next verse, Philippians 1 verse 29 says, For it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now here to be in me.

There is conflict in the Christian life. There is opposition. There is battle, striving, hardship.

And it is in that context that Paul writes to the Corinthians, and he commands them to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

And we see that term, worthy, and we tend to shy away from it in some fashion.

We tend to, in essence, not want to really ponder what it means to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel.

But the gospel is something that is so tremendously valuable, it is so precious, that to be in possession of it, let alone to be the object of its redemptive message, is truly to be placed in a position where we must live in such a manner as to reflect our own recognition of its worth and of our salvation by it.

A person who thinks that the gospel, that you can embrace the gospel, and that you can remain unchanged by such a life -shattering encounter with God, certainly does not understand what

God's purpose is in our life. It is his purpose to conform us to the image of Christ. It is his purpose to change us.

And certainly, when we fight with false doctrines and we have to defend the truths of justification by faith and distinguish between justification and sanctification, we can sometimes become so focused upon those particular things that we lose sight of the reality that we need to live in a manner worthy of the gospel, that there is indeed an application of these things in our life.

And so Paul says to the Philippians that we are to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent,

I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, and striving together for the faith of the gospel.

So there is a result that comes from recognizing the value of the gospel.

And Paul wants to know, he wants to recognize, that when we have got, this is very, very strange if anyone can hear me,

I am sitting all alone on one server, nobody else around, and guess who shows up but someone with the nick of Thinker.

Someone tell me what server I can get on here so I can get back into a discussion. Philippians 1 .27,

I am sitting here playing games with Thinker, popping into the channel anyways. You know,

I just, this is very frustrating to have this thing, this going on.

It truly, truly is. So maybe someone can tell me what other servers are working.

That would be nice. Houston. Houston. All right, so Houston is working.

All right. Let's see if... Disconnected.

Connecting. Attempting to rejoin. Hey. Hey. Still no one.

Hey, there is everybody. Hi. I am waving at everyone now. Good night. Oh, that was fun.

Unfortunately, I probably just abandoned, I probably just abandoned. Prasapala Gion, Rochester is now run by Thinker.

And for those of you who have no idea, now I will be able to continue on with what I was saying.

Good grief. Anyways. Houston does not have a problem.

That is true. Yes. I have been found. I feel like the lost sheep. I have been brought back into the proper, yes,

I can see everybody now. It is nice to be back. I was feeling very, very unloved and so on and so forth.

Oh, that is funny. Anyways, going back to the passage. And by the way, now that I can see

AO Min, I have been hearing phones ringing and everything else. Have we recovered anything over there?

Did anything blow up? You know, I was just sort of sitting over here talking.

And I don't know if there's people online. I don't know. Zip. Zero nada.

And I still don't, because it's very quiet. So I guess I'm not going to find out how. So we'll just continue on with Philippians 127.

You're most welcome, Julie. We will have to do a little adjustment with the first call. There is a first call.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Well, I don't know if there is a first call.

So, yes, there is a first call. We just don't know who the first call is.

But, hey, I love it when the, wow, man.

Oh, goodness. Look at, oh, what a mess.

What a complete and total mess that was. That's funny. Anyways, I just took care of that particular problem.

Anyways, do we have a caller or am I going to be going on with Philippians 1? I just sort of need a up or down, in and out, you know, whatever.

You know, I'm just over here talking and nobody is talking to me back.

Yes, we have a caller. Thank you. Thank you. This is the keyboard and you type, yeah, man.

Yeah, man. Okay, well, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and don't know who the caller is, don't know what he's asking about.

Well, we're going to take a shot at it and see if we can blow the headphones right off of my head here.

Unknown anonymous caller, what can we do for you today? There are those days when the wheels just sort of fall off of everything.

It's sort of like in one of those cartoons, you know, where you hit the car and everything just falls off of it.

Everything worked fine when we had bailing wire and chewing gum on Tuesday.

But now they have no other accent. I can do a

German accent very well, actually, but now he's Caribbean. Anyways, well, we're going to skip the caller and go back to Philippians chapter one.

And Thinker is DCCing me constantly. The whole world has lost its mind.

I think we're under some sort of loony attack at the moment. So anyhow, I was attempting before all of this stuff went absolutely crazy on me to make some sort of meaningful comments.

Unfortunately, I want everyone to think for a moment what it's like to try to talk about Philippians 127 when a

DCC chat box keeps opening up from Lynn slash Thinker right on top of your text there.

It's a very strange thing. Anyways, we were discussing Paul's words in Philippians 127.

And he wanted to see from the Philippians a church that he himself had...

Hey! Hello! Hey! Hi there! Alright, we finally got through.

I guess so, even though we've got static and stuff's bailing in and out in the whole nine yards.

Yeah, can you hear me? I can hear you. Who's this? This is Dave from Kentucky. Hi, Dave from Kentucky.

How are you? Great. Thanks for taking my call. I finally got through. Yes, sir. What can we do for you?

Well, I've got a question for you. I wanted to get your view on Christians and taking oaths in light of James 5 .12

and the words of Jesus in Matthew 5 .33 and 34.

Is there a context in which oaths are acceptable or is it a complete commandment to never take an oath?

What it sounds like, especially in James. Well, boy, every time

I talk back to you, I hear all sorts of static and stuff like that. I'm not sure if I'm talking too loud or what

I'm doing. To be perfectly honest with you, I've never done a study of it.

I've heard folks who've been very, very concerned about it. I've heard some discussions about it, but to be perfectly honest with you,

I have no idea. I've not had any problem, for example, serving on a jury where you have to take an oath to abide by the law or something like that.

I think just looking at James 5 .12 here, swearing by heaven or by earth,

I'd have to look into what was involved in oaths in those days.

I just haven't looked into it. It's not an issue that's ever come up. So I hate to have to say,

I don't know, but I'm not comfortable making stuff up. Basically, it's sort of one of the same issues that comes up in channel when people see me there.

They'll ask me about basically everything under the sun, and not only do I generally not really have time to answer every question under the sun, but the problem is if I do answer a question, it ends up on a website someplace as if it was the solid conclusion of years of study on my part.

I'm sure there are some great sermons out there and great studies on the subject of oaths. I probably have heard some discussions of it, but it's just not something that I've ever really put a whole lot of effort into.

So I apologize, but I don't know. I respect your honesty. Well, I try to be that.

Well, thanks for making it through despite all of our major difficulties today. And if you run across something that's down my line, feel free to call again.

Okay, sure. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. God bless. Thanks. Bye. I'm almost afraid to say 877 -753 -3341 because I don't know what's going on.

But anyways, are there any other brave people who have attempted to get through that particular number?

I do not know. I seem to have... Hang on. Yes, hang on. Well, you know, hanging on is easier for you than it is for me because, you know,

I'm the one with the open microphone here. See, the problem is if I begin going back to Philippians 1, then all of a sudden in the middle of a sentence

I hear someone talking to me. That makes things just a little bit difficult. So Steve in New Jersey.

Okay, well, let's go ahead and talk to Steve in New Jersey or try to talk to Steve in New Jersey.

Are you there, Steve? I'm here. Your voice went down a little bit. The volume goes down when you come on the phone, but you're there and clear.

Yeah, well, we're fighting through. You know, some days it works just perfectly and then you can have everything set up the exact same way it had last time and poof, everything goes kaflooey.

So anyways, what can we do for you, Steve? Well, I was listening to the Bible Answer Man program earlier this evening and I can't remember the gentleman who the guest was, but he wrote a book,

So That's Your Interpretation, and it's apparently designed to help people deal with skeptics. And he sort of takes what he called the corporate view of election.

I think that's what he put it. And they say that he tries to deal with everybody's perspective from their presuppositions, including the

Arminians' presuppositions and the Calvinists' presuppositions and everything. My question is, and this is just sort of I'm just expressing a frustration, what are my presuppositions?

I don't know what they are. Yeah, well, I didn't hear it.

I'm still working on this chapter I've been working on forever and I'm sort of seeing the daylight at the end of the tunnel, so I didn't have the program on today.

My assumption would be that what he's talking about is the difference between how you would respond to issues either from a starting point of libertarian free will, which is where he would be starting from,

I would assume, or from a position of total depravity. I don't know how you could put those both together in one book, to be honest with you, unless you have, well,

Calvinists respond to this skeptical question by saying this and Arminians respond by saying this, that would actually highlight more the contrast between the two positions than it would,

I think, do anything else. But since I didn't hear the context in which he used that particular terminology,

I really am not sure how to answer the question as to what he was referring to. Someone mentioned in Channel, and I think he's correct,

I think it was Paul Copan, I had heard yesterday that there was a program coming up.

I just did not have the opportunity of listening to it today because I've got other things going on. But it is interesting.

I will note one thing in passing. I just found out today, I'm not sure if you've heard the debate that I did in April of last year with George Bryson of Calvary Chapel on the subject of Calvinism, but I just heard that George is putting out another book.

He had written a booklet -slash -pamphlet entitled The Five Points of Calvinism Wade and Found Wanting, which

I addressed a number of times in the debate that we did. Now it's a book, I'm not sure if it's a different book or whatever it is, but I found the name of the book fascinating.

The Dark Side of Calvinism. And I don't know,

I'm maybe getting a little jaded, but it would be really nice if instead of that kind of title, maybe there could be something along the lines of presenting a positive case, instead of just simply defining everything negatively in regards to what we allegedly do.

But I almost feel like putting on a Darth Vader suit, and just, predestination, that kind of thing.

Wear your motorcycle helmet. Yes, I could do that. Would someone tell

Thinker to quit trying to DCC chat me? What in the world is her problem? Anyways, I'm really hoping that there will be,

I can't get any farther than this, but let's just say I'm really hoping that within the next 90 days, there will be a national discussion on this subject.

Hint, hint, hint. And we can go from there. We'll see what happens.

Yeah, well to me presuppositions is something you bring to the table, but that's not on the table.

Yeah, technically. You still there? Yeah, I'm still here. Technically that's true. That's how we use it philosophically speaking.

But I think most of the time in a context like that, they would be talking about theological presuppositions prior to the apologetic encounter, rather than what you and I would think of presuppositions as in presuppositional apologetics or something like that.

That would just be my guess. But again, without having heard what exactly he said, that's what my assumption would be if I'm sort of guessing the nature of the conversation correctly.

Yeah, I keep hearing that. Well, you've got presuppositions, but nobody ever tells me what they are. Well, that's true.

I hear that all the time when you just read Romans chapter 9 to somebody, and they go, well, that's just your interpretation.

Well, I'm sorry, but no, I just read you Romans chapter 9.

I didn't even bother interpreting it yet. That kind of thing happens all the time. Anyways, well, thank you,

Steve, for fighting through our technical difficulties this evening, and I appreciate your input.

Take care. All right, God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341. We're going to see if we can actually take a break here.

Hey, I hear music in the background. Yay! And I'm going to refocus myself here, and we'll be back for the second half hour right after this.

It's all worth righteousness, you know. Answering those who claim that only the

King James Version is the Word of God, James White, in his book, The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt

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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomen

.org. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen but Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?

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Here I stand, on the ones who have all delivered me.

On the Word, it's all above His holy name.

And welcome back to Dividing Line. We are establishing the dividing line between knowing what we're doing and not really knowing what we're doing actually at the moment.

Well, at least we have fun with it. I was just noting in channel that was the longest 30 minutes of my entire adult life actually.

Oh, gracious. That was interesting. We will definitely avoid the conference thing.

Well, you know, we can't avoid the conference thing because if we're going to have guests on and they're going to hear other folks, then that's what we got to do.

So we'll keep working on that and make it function correctly.

We have the technology. We can fix it. It's just a matter of reading the directions, which we don't really like doing.

It's a lot more fun just to play with stuff and see what happens. That's how guys do it again. Anyways, we do have some other callers who have called in to rescue us from ourselves.

Very funny. Yeah, well, no, not really. But anyways, Lynn just joined

Apologetics. Oh, Gutenberg's not off. That's the problem. Anyways, let us go ahead and talk to Richard in Norwalk, California.

Hey, Richard. How are you doing in the land of fruits and nuts? Hey, Dr. White.

How are you doing? I'm doing well. All right. How are things in California? Pretty good. You got electricity?

Oh, absolutely. We're doing okay in that area. The weather's pretty good also. Well, it tends to be.

We're not scorching right now. Give it time. It's only 66 here, too. It's been rather cool for a while.

All right. Anyways, what can we do for you, sir? I did have a question. I'm at work here and I'm listening to you online.

I'm very sorry about the last half hour. I'm sure I'll catch it at the archive.

Yes. But I did have a question, and it's regarding John 539. My pastor, he really likes to give spiritual interpretations of a lot of scriptures.

And he uses, and I have to agree with him a little bit, but he uses passages such as John 539 or Luke 24,

I think it's 27, verse 44. And it's really interpreting the Old Testament.

And for instance, John 539, And so he would say, for instance, go to,

I can see Christ in the Old Testament. I can go to Genesis 3 .15 or I can go to Exodus 12 and see him as the

Lamb. But at times, like for instance, he's going over Jeremiah right now, and at times he'll say

Israel, when it's speaking of Israel, he'll say that's Christ. It's difficult for me to swallow all this, especially ever since I've been under your teaching for a while and away from the, well, just getting a more academic teaching of scripture rather than what my pastor's been giving me.

Well, you know, it may be very academic, in fact, because there is a controversy that, again,

I've sort of stayed out of it for the basic reason that it has not become an issue within the local church where I minister.

There's no one who has raised this or asked about this or anything else. And so I sort of left it on the fringe.

But I have been in churches that were actually being split by this controversy.

So in some quarters it's extremely strong. And in essence, it is the idea that the

Old Testament needs to be viewed in such a way that everything that you encounter needs to be presented as a

Christological teaching. And when you preach from the Old Testament, the only preaching from the

Old Testament that you can truly do is preaching that ends up in a

Christological presentation, that you should never go to the

Old Testament, for example, and derive moral applications from the usage of, say, well, to give an example, we do preach from the

Old Testament on Sunday evenings in our church. And the pastor has been going through, for example, the story of the life of Noah.

And just as an example, he'll speak of the amount of time that the ark was in preparation, and he'll draw from that an application of the

Christian life, and that is that God's people need to be patient in obeying the commands of God, even when we do not see the immediate fulfillment of what those commands are all about.

So Noah was the object of the disdain of all those around him, the mockery of those around him, and therefore you can derive the proper lesson that since Noah was a godly man, and he is commended by Scripture, that we too should be patient in obeying the commands of the

Lord, even when we are mocked for so doing. Well, there are those who would say, no, you've completely missed the point.

Instead, what you should try to find in Noah is how he is a picture of Christ.

And, you know, I will again, as a previous scholar, I like to be very, very, very open about these types of things.

This is not an area that I have sat down and read all the requisite material on both sides of the aisle.

So I'm not going to say, well, yes, I am an expert on this, and I've read everything that can be propounded on the other side.

However, I look at something like John 539, and I would suggest that when it says the

Scriptures testify about me, testify concerning me, that does not mean,

I don't think that Jesus was attempting to communicate to them that if they had just paid more attention to the genealogical lists, that they would have been able to see that they pointed to Jesus of Nazareth.

I don't think that that, I think it's going just a little bit too far. Yes, they do testify concerning him.

They give testimony concerning the character of his ministry and, of course, his teaching, which specifically would address the proper application of the law, loving your neighbors, yourself, etc.,

etc. I think that's what he's talking about there, and I think that when the Lord Jesus took the disciples that he met on the road to Emmaus through the

Old Testament, it was not an exhaustive word -by -word, every single term in the

Old Testament pointing to him. I think it was much more we see in the apostolic preaching, where you go to the

Messianic Psalms, and you go to Deuteronomy 18, you go to Genesis 3, and things like that.

And so my feeling is that there's got to be a balance here someplace, and that the balance has been lost when you exclude deriving benefit and moral guidance from how

God worked with his people in the past. I think that's where my frustration lies, is that during these Bible studies, it's as if when they go over Jeremiah 30 or 31, they go through every single verse, and they'll come up with the spiritual interpretation, and I say, well, what is the whole chapter talking about first?

Let's at least look at the historical view. And a lot of them, they say, well, Richard, don't you want to find out the spiritual nature of where Christ is?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I want to do it in every area of my life, in every area of the scriptures, but when,

I think it was Stephen, when he preached, or when he gave his sermon somewhere,

I'm sorry, I don't have my Bible with me. Acts 7. Yeah, he was giving a historical narrative, right, was he not?

Yes, he was. And I brought that up, but it's dismissed, and I don't know,

I was having a difficult time with my Bible studies. It's like I'm avoiding fellowship just in the morning, and I don't want to do that.

I want everybody to, well, anyways, I want to fellowship with the believers, but I can't sit there and drink all this in.

I've got to speak up, and I've got to say something. But the more I do, the more the whole Bible study is taken away, because I start bringing up these questions.

Well, you know, it would seem to me, at least right off the bat, that simply to have any kind of meaningful basis upon which everyone can agree concerning the meaning of a passage, you have to start with what it meant to those who heard it initially.

Yes, that's exactly what I believe. And if you don't start there, then honestly, how far away are you from Harold Camping's allegorical interpretation where you see anything you want to see?

There lies the crux also. He's been at our church a few times, a few years ago, but obviously my pastor didn't accept his new teaching.

And that's what really, to be honest with you, because of that was what got me listening to you. I said, who is this guy? And lo and behold, a couple of years later,

I'm still tuning in. It's been great. Well, you know, if you could see Rich and I sitting here in our little teeny tiny offices behind our little teeny tiny computer screens, you'd be downright amazed at what the

Lord can do with not a whole lot of anything, actually. So the Lord is good, and he has blessed us.

It's very encouraging to me when I travel, when I encounter folks like yourself. People come up to me, and they'll say, you know,

I listen as often as I can. I catch the archives and things like that. It just absolutely amazes me.

I just really try to focus on that and go, man, the Lord is good to allow fat, bald guys like myself to get to do anything for the kingdom's sake.

But I understand your frustrations, and I'm concerned about that movement when it becomes all -encompassing.

It would be one thing if someone said, you know, this is something to consider.

We need not fear looking for Christ in the scriptures that he himself inspired through his spirit.

That's one thing. But the thing that bothers me is in most of the situations, and again,

I'm not claiming to be an expert on all of them, but when I've run into this, it's always been couched in the context, this is the only way.

It's not an option. It's not something to add on. This replaces historical grammatical interpretation of the text in the context in which it was originally written in.

When it's thrown in that way, it becomes troubling. It really does.

So, well, press on, brother. I've had a pretty rough week myself, so we all experience that kind of difficulty.

Lower ups and downs, but like you say, press on. The good thing was I gave my pastor a copy of your debate against Bryson.

He came back next week and shook my hand and said thank you. That was awesome. Well, I'm really looking forward to,

I'm not sure if you heard the first half of the program, but I just heard today that George Bryson is publishing a book entitled

The Dark Side of Calvinism. Oh, get out of here. And so I actually have an idea.

Predestination. Isn't that what you hear when you hear The Dark Side of Calvinism?

Be careful of Calvinists there, actually. Beware of the dark side. Anyways, well, thanks a lot,

Richard, for calling. Oh, well, thank you, Dr. White. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341.

We got anybody else hanging around out there? I don't know if anyone else has called in, because I think my call screener is probably flat on his back underneath all the equipment beating on connections and going, now, wait a minute, it worked just fine before.

But since I'm not getting any indication of that, I'm going to assume I don't see any lights.

What? Really? We have that same place?

We have two callers from the same place? No. That looked funny.

You know, I'm sitting there going, no, wait a minute. No, wait a minute. The chances of all that being oh, okay.

Now, see, someone from Texas would have been extremely offended if I had said he was in California.

I mean, those are almost fighting words, so we've got to be really careful about that. Let's go ahead and talk with Steve in DeSoto, Texas.

Is it DeSoto? Yes, it is DeSoto, but it's Mike from DeSoto, Texas. Well, you know, as soon as.

As much confusion as is going on right now, it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me. As soon as that phone system started screaming when we started singing,

I think Rich completely lost his mind. So the screener apologizes profusely.

I'm just reading this on the thing. So initially you were Steve in Norwalk, California.

Yes, I can be anybody you want, Steve. Okay, well, you just go ahead, and we'll try to figure out what you're talking about from there.

I want to talk to you this evening. I recently watched Fox News, one of their news shows,

Hannity and Combs, and Franklin Graham was on, and he was trying to defend action against Iraq, and I think he was using 1

Samuel 17, the David and Goliath text. And now that I'm on a national radio show,

I wish I would have watched the entire thing to see how he was trying to interpret it to fit the case.

But the resident liberal on the show, Combs, chimed in, and he said that there were others using the

Bible to stop a possible war with Iraq, which Franklin Graham, I think he sort of almost halted in his tracks, and I didn't get to see his response.

But what I wanted to ask and what concerns me is that the Christian almost seems irrelevant when he is asked to make opinion on policies of his government simply because there is not necessarily a hermeneutic, and I hope that's the proper word in Scripture, for how he is to deal with that.

Well, you know, that is a very large area of discussion, and I think you've put your finger on something.

I don't know that it's so much the lack of scriptural teaching as it is the lack of consideration on the subject by those of us who read the

Scriptures. I mean, in this area, it's very difficult for us to separate our political perspectives, whatever they may be, from the reading of Scripture, and we tend to see

Scripture becoming used to support a particular political agenda rather than starting off with foundational issues concerning...

Well, for example, I would suggest, and again, I don't claim to be an expert in this area either.

I don't know why you're calling me at all! I'm just stupid! But if my words have any semblance of meaning whatsoever, one thing that I would say is that one of the clearest biblical teachings that bears upon political philosophy, and it used to be a part of political dialogue, but is absolutely, positively prohibited from even being uttered, even on Fox News, is the subject of the depravity of man.

I mean, when you think about our own government, I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb here to say that one of the reasons that our government was designed the way it was is that people who were part of the

Founding Fathers recognized the depravity of the heart of man, and therefore they wanted to design a government that would preclude someone like Saddam Hussein or the

North Korean leader from having absolute power, and that the checks and balances were first and foremost to check and balance the corruption of the human nature.

And you are not allowed. That's one of the inherent contradictions in the fact that we as a, and I'm speaking of Americans here, and I know we have people who listen outside of the

United States, but part of our governmental structure is built upon that idea, but we have in essence contradicted that with our establishment of, in essence, naturalistic humanism as the status quo religious perspective of our governmental agencies.

Yes, go ahead. When I speak to my elders about this, I often use the term a

Puritan imprint, which is necessarily what our founders had. I mean, we had a very large

Puritan influence in the early nation, and that carried over into the founding.

However, the question is necessarily, I often hear men like D.

James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell talk about this being a Christian nation. However, the problem becomes if the idea of Christ is not written directly into your doctrines, then necessarily it's not going to make a difference whether there's a

Puritan imprint or not. Eventually, as you stated, the depravity of man, eventually you're going to fall away.

Is that not correct? Well, sadly, there is entropy in the natural universe, and there's entropy in the structures of man.

There's entropy in the structures of denominations and seminaries and everything else.

Yes, unless there is a constant renewal of passion for Christ, there's going to be that kind of degradation.

Yes, I would agree. And I have to wonder if that wasn't a mistake by our founding fathers not to have seen that and to make that necessarily a part of our founding doctrine.

Well, you know, I don't know that I would have done nearly as well as they did, even at that.

But we certainly have to have the ability of looking back and making corrections in our structures and in the course based upon what we see happening.

Unfortunately, what has happened is the people who have taken the lead in doing that are trying to move us farther and farther away from the foundation we were once built upon.

And I don't think that what's being built can stand upon that foundation.

It's left without a foundation. That does greatly concern me. But in just the few moments we have left, if I could just basically from my perspective say, you know,

I think one of the reasons that we Christians, as I think the way you expressed it was, frequently do not have a voice or do not apply our theology in these issues.

I think part of it's out of apathy. I think part of it's a Western mindset where we chicken hole our world view and we put our political philosophy over here in one area.

And in some ways we're scared because we've seen some folks who in essence try to use the

Bible to press a particular political philosophy without a whole lot of concern about whether it being accurate in handling the text of Scripture.

You know, there's certainly people who have overdone it on those levels, certainly. But I think for a lot of folks that I know, we just simply find it more comfortable not to have to apply those things because it may require some changes on our part.

And that's difficult. But I really do think we should think about that a lot more than we do.

And I, sitting here, confess that I probably fit into that category myself.

I as well. Maybe your call will help all of us to think a little bit more reflectively as Christians and to do so in such a way that we think under the

Lordship of Christ in all aspects of our life, including how we view what's going on. I mean, I think you could make an argument that, you know, when you look at what happened in something like World War II, things were a little bit easier to draw the lines than they are now, unfortunately.

So, hey, thank you very much for calling and I hope things are going well for you there in Texas and next time we'll get your name right.

Okay. God bless. God bless. Bye -bye. Well, folks, we made it through, but only because the clock just keeps on ticking.

You keep breathing long enough, you'll get through an hour one way or the other. All right. We're heading back your direction,

Lord willing, next Tuesday morning at 10 a .m. or 11 a .m.

11 a .m. Whatever time it is. And we'll hopefully have everything set up and ready to go for the debate a week from tonight with Aquinas.

The object of the apocrypha just disappeared. And it's going to be fun, folks.

Thanks for sticking with us. Thanks for listening. God bless. We'll see you later. Phoenix, Arizona, 85069.

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