Are there True Christians in Multiple Denominations? | Debate Review w/ Tim Tant!

The Apologetic Dog

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So again, one body, which is the body, his body, which is his church, the

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Church of Christ. I mean, man, if you just had some little bit of common sense, you'd think he drove by these denominations where it says

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Grandma's Church, Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Life Church. I mean, he drove an hour and 20 minutes here, and they act like they give

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God the glory and Jesus. I mean, Grandma's Church, Baptist Church, Presbyterian Church, Church of Christ.

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Again, they deny redemption. Man, if you just had some little bit of common sense.

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Very sad. Very sad. To the apologetic dog.

01:01

This is an apologetics ministry where we're guarding the gospel of grace. And so, 1 Timothy 6 .20

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is the verse that I really wanted to ground this ministry in, where Paul tells Timothy, Oh, Timothy, guard the deposit that's been entrusted to you.

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And so, hopefully, you've gotten a kick out of the logo of the apologetic dog. It's a dog, but it's a guard dog.

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And I had to keep the beard in there with it. But this is a message for all

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Christians that we're to guard the gospel of grace. And we do that by warring against pagan philosophy.

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And we expose those worldviews that claim to have knowledge, but they possess internal contradictions.

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And so, I just want to encourage you to please like and subscribe this channel. When you like and subscribe and you even share this content, it helps the algorithm.

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And I really want people to be equipped for the good work for the faith that's been once delivered to all the saints.

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And so, I'd like to also remind you of one announcement.

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In just a couple—next week, in fact, January 31st, I will be airing with Trey Fisher on Cultish.

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Now, this is a really big honor to be on Cultish and to talk about the church of Christ.

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And so, we did talk about the church of Christ and how they are essentially a cult that they've deviated from the true gospel, the one true gospel that can save.

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And so, Trey and I attempted to do this with grace and humility, and we both carry very interesting perspectives.

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Trey was actually a member of the church of Christ, I want to say, for about 18 years. And so,

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I'm in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and there's church of Christ churches all in my front yard.

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And so, for the past decade or even more, I have been learning more of their lingo and the things that they mean because they claim to be

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Christians, but the words that they use when they talk about grace, when they talk about the gospel, they mean very different things.

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And so, please be on the lookout for this episode that will be airing next week, and I am excited about that.

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And so, with that being said, today I have a very special guest on the Apologetic Dog, where we're going to be doing a debate review.

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And so, I would love to introduce to you Mr. Tim Tant. Now, I have referred to your interlocutor,

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Travis Thomas, as old TT, but you're the other TT, as I was thinking about.

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I was like, this is interesting. That's me. I have heard that throughout my life. Well, Mr.

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Tim, where can people find your ministry, your content? How can they find all of your stuff?

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Yeah, thanks Jeremiah for having me on. So, I have a ministry called Conversations with Christians. We have a ministry on YouTube, a presence there, and then also on Facebook.

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You can find us under Conversations with Christians. And we are generally an apologetic ministry, but kind of the mission of what

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I want to do is encourage Christians to engage in dialogue, means to talk about your faith, be outspoken, ask questions, to grow as a disciple, and then to defend the faith.

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Those are the kind of threefold goals that I have with that. And then we do stuff in person as well. I organize a evangelism.

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I even had a booth at the State Fair last year for 10 days. That was an awesome experience. So, you're an apologetics ministry too.

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So, I'm so glad that God's providence brought us together because I hope that we can do many more things together.

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And I was so excited for watching you participate in this debate. So, Tim, you have to tell us.

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How did all this come together? Tell us a little bit about your background.

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Why do you feel passionately about evangelizing the Church of Christ community? Well, first of all,

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I love debates. I listen to them all the time when I can, when I'm working or driving in a car.

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There are some long ones out there, three -plus hours, so it's good driving material. And if I'm doing busy work, all kinds of topics.

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I've gotten a lot out of it in terms of just hearing two perspectives, oftentimes between brothers in Christ, that come together and talk about why they believe what they believe.

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And it has sharpened me listening to those. And then I just got this itch to where I wanted to try my hand at it and step into the ring.

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And so, I don't remember exactly where I got connected with Travis.

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It may have been through Desmond's group in some of the streams that he puts together.

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But then Travis and I connected one -on -one through Messenger on the side once. We did some Zoom studies together, at least one, for two or three hours.

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And that was kind of our introduction. And then from there, over the past year, we just had different communications every now and then.

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It would ebb and flow. We'd reach out through Messenger and exchange some questions. He'd talk about me on his show, about some of the questions that he would ask.

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Do you have a background with the Church of Christ in any way, like maybe personally or people that you know?

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Yeah, actually, on both sides of my family, we have Church of Christ membership.

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It's been a big part of our family tree. And actually, I was just helping my grandmother move out of her house in her attic and found this news article from back in the 1930s.

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And this would have been a great uncle of mine. And she said he was a preacher. So, I just went and Googled his name.

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And I found an article about him on restorationist .com. So, he probably would be disappointed on the position

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I took on this debate. My alma mater, my college is also a long -time

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Church of Christ school. I'm David Lipscomb. It's not a problem to say that.

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But it has come a long way, probably drifted away from that kind of hardline position that they originated from.

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But David Lipscomb was a very prominent figure in the restorationist movement in churches kind of around the turn of the 1900s.

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So, this sits home with you. And that's what

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I love about this because our friend Trey Fisher, he was in Church of Christ for a number of years.

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And so, I carry a little bit different perspective. I didn't grow up in the Church of Christ. I've grown up in Jonesboro, Arkansas my whole life.

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And I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church. Love my SBC brothers, Tim. And so, but I just, as I would share the faith, the gospel with friends and people that I'd meet that were

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Church of Christ, it was like, man, we are talking two different languages. When we start talking about the good news, in their mind the good news is only when you make contact with the water, which they would say is making contact with the blood, and when you come out.

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And, you know, what was drilled into me was, you know, we're saved by grace through faith, not of your works, right, lest any man should boast.

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And that's very consistent with what Jesus himself taught. And so, this has hit my heart as well.

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That's why when people look at a lot of the content at The Apologetic Dog, I have a lot of content debating the

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Church of Christ. And I don't know if you've received this criticism yet, Tim, but a lot of people tell me, why debate?

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That's just divisive, right? It's just causing more problems than good. And that's not been my experience.

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I have a very similar experience to you. Very big James White fan. And so I've watched and learned so much as he debates

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Mormons, as he debates Roman Catholics, as he debates cheap grace or anti -lordship positions.

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I just get to see two different world views kind of hash, go at it and just hash it out. And so when we look in the

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Bible, Acts 15, there was no small disputes. There was debate going on the very gospel itself.

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And so a verse that just sits near and dear in my heart, I believe it's Ephesians 4 .15 that says, we should speak the truth in love.

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And so I think a lot of people have a misperception on what debate is. They think about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton just clashing.

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And to me that is unfruitful, right? That's just rallying each side. But when it's done in love, when it's done in charity, when it's done in grace, then you can learn a whole lot.

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And so that's been your experience is you've been able to learn a whole lot from debates. Yeah, and I think some of the best debates are, like I mentioned before, debates that are done between friends because they can approach things differently.

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And this, what we did on Saturday, what you've done before is not that.

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Not that it can't be, not that it's not charitable and things like that, but there is a different nature about it. I think it's street preaching as a common example, because everyone can think of a time where you've heard a street preacher in some form or fashion.

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And it turns a lot of people off, but I think street preaching can be done well.

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I think publicly evangelizing like that, there is a biblical precedent for it, but there's a good way to do it and there's a not good way to do it.

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And it's important that we not drape a single blanket over what can draw real fruit for the kingdom, over all of it.

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Yeah. Todd, for real friend, wretched by chance? Yeah, yeah. I've always thought

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Friel and Ray Comfort, they do a good job, because Todd Friel would go out to the fairs and evangelize.

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Yeah, the fairs, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, he does it with love. And yeah, some people get mad, but draws a crowd and really gets to hear conflicting ideas.

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And I think that's a gifting, Tim. I've seen it done poorly. I've seen street preachers come to my campus and just blast everybody and call them every name in the book and say, you're going straight to hell.

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No grace. And even when you approach them, they said, you better believe a holy life. And you're just like, oh, this isn't even the ballpark.

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It's probably the Pelagians. Yeah, so tell me a little bit more about how this came about with Travis, because you went to the old spaceship, as me and Trey Fisher like to say, because usually he's in a little newsroom, right?

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And we like to poke fun at Travis, and we mean it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I told him,

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I was like, I like your spaceship. He goes, it's a newsroom, get it right. And I'm like, chill out a little bit.

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And so you weren't in the spaceship. Y 'all had a really cool backdrop. So tell me, y 'all have something in common.

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And so I'd love for you to tell the audience a little bit about that. Yeah, well, when we first started chatting on Zoom, you know, we realized pretty quickly that we are in the same neighborhood, per se, in the terms of like the internet world.

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So we were about an hour and a half from each other, which is very close, you know, compared to a lot of people that you can connect with through online avenues.

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And we had some exchanges back and forth. There was a time where Travis kind of got tired of talking to me.

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He blocked me. And I only stayed blocked for a little bit before Travis came knocking again.

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And that's when I had just been thinking about debating. It had kind of been on my heart. And I said, all right, let's do it.

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And we were so close. It was a unique opportunity to do it in person. And so that's when

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I offered to come over to his house. I think online debates are great.

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I think the internet is an amazing, can be an amazing grace from God in the way we use it.

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But for my online ministry, I really want the focus to be things that I do in person and my efforts online to supplement that.

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So we had opportunity to meet up, to shake hands, to talk together in a room, and then share that with the world was an opportunity

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I didn't want to pass up. Tim, and I've told you this, just in our correspondence, I think you're a champion to the glory of God.

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Because when I heard about this, I'm just like, I cannot wait. I'm pumped about this. And you conducted yourself with love.

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I mean, you shook his hand and you could tell, even when some weird things went on during the debate, which we'll get into,

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I think you handled it so well. And it's in person. It's not just over the internet like we are. It's in your face.

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And so I will post a link to the debate that's on your channel. And so I want to encourage people, go over to Tim's channel, like and subscribe his stuff as well.

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And please look forward to more stuff that me and Tim get to come together with Trey Fish, the T -Bone,

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T -Fish, as we continue to... Yeah, go ahead. I gotta say, I'm excited about the cultish episode next week.

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That is my favorite podcast. And I've listened to episode one.

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I can't tell you how many times. And so I was checking today to see if today would be the day because they release on Tuesdays.

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And it is not. So you said next week? Next Tuesday. I think next Tuesday is the 31st. Awesome. Awesome.

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I love cultish. I'm a longtime fan of Apologia and getting to meet Durbin and the crew a couple months ago.

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It was just phenomenal. And I've known Dr. White a little bit longer. He's actually come to 12 .5 Church.

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Yeah. He got to preach up there. And so we have a good relationship with him. And just praise God for the camaraderie and the coming together for continuing for the gospel.

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And speaking of James White, he will be debating at the Open Air Theology Conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

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So if anybody watches that and you're going, I will be there too, hanging out, enjoying the different sessions.

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So shoot me a message on Facebook and we can connect while we're there. Man, thanks for that plug.

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I'm trying to think who's hosting it. The gentleman's name that makes the problems. Rice. Jeffrey Rice.

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Jeffrey Rice. That's it. Yeah. Believe it or not, he reached out to me not too long ago. And he has a lot of family in the Church of Christ.

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And so he sent me something saying, hey, brother, I figured you'd like this. So I was like, Jeffrey Rice reaching out to me.

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And so hopefully we continue to network and grow and grow with all of our resources and connections.

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Yeah. And so I won't give it away here, but there's a big announcement also coming out on the

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Cultish episode that Trey and I have started. And it's going to be a way for everyone that wants to help the

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Church of Christ community, people that are coming out of it and don't know what to do. We have a big announcement coming up on Cultish.

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So be looking forward to that. So with that being said, there's a couple, there's a few topics,

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Tim, that I would love to get into. And I have some clips. And so if you don't mind, I want to play those.

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And then I'd love for us to talk about that because you were there in the spaceship. And so I get to talk to the man that witnessed it firsthand.

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So let me play this first clip. Oh, go ahead. I'll say this will be the first time that I've really kind of slowed down and really kind of digested what happened on Saturday.

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I've looked at it a little bit because some of the comments I was curious about, I couldn't see the comments as they were coming in. I also couldn't see

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Travis's slides that he had up, which is one interesting thing. So I'm excited to kind of digest these with Jeremiah and let's get into it.

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Yeah, so be thinking about this. He spent a lot of time talking about how denominations denied the blood of Jesus.

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So let me cue up this first clip and then we'll get into it. One body, which is the body, his body, which is his church, the church of Christ.

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I mean, man, if you just had some little bit of common sense, you drove down the road. He drove an hour and 20 minutes here.

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You think he drove by these denominations where it says Grandma's Church, Life Church, Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, Church of Christ?

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You mean those people actually want to be affiliated with being described as the church of Jesus Christ?

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And they act like they give God the glory and Jesus? Ephesians 1, 7, In whom we have redemption through his blood.

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Again, they deny redemption is salvation. Remission, forgiveness of sins.

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That's a synonym, same thing. They deny the blood of Jesus. Revelation 1, 5, washed us from our sins in his own blood.

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Denominations deny the blood because they deny his church. All right.

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So there was a lot there that I thought was important to talk about because when he just says denominations deny the blood, it's like that is the furthest thing from the truth.

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And so it's worth people actually listening to his argument. But just on the surface level, it's just so not true because literally all denominations that claim to be

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Christianity are going to explain why the blood, they've come in contact with the blood and therefore say, but what was your initial thoughts when you heard him talk about them?

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Well, one thing to note is that I talked to a few people that were pretty upset by Travis's representation here over the denominational and I'm using that language in our, you know, how we would define it, which we'll talk about, the denominational perspective on the blood and him suggesting that the denominations don't need the blood of Jesus is so antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to how we see that.

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And it's a spin on some language that he would use called, he said it here, contacting the blood and that ministers like Travis, you'll hear them say things like that.

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It's kind of a key catchphrase, contacting the blood. You need to contact the blood and they build this case, as you can see from these handful of verses that Travis put together and said you've got to contact it and baptism in his view is the way you contact the blood.

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So one of the things I said there is that you don't need to contact the blood and Travis ran with that by saying,

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I think he brought up maybe even again later that we think we don't need the blood.

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So Travis uses the language contacting the blood and he builds that case by pulling a few different verses together and it's linked with baptism and the way he builds it and says that we must contact it and that is language that I wanted to pull away from the debate because there's no prescription or command to contact

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Christ's blood. So I said something along those lines and Travis spins that kind of for his audience to say, see these guys don't need the blood of Christ which is just a horrific statement to make.

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So correct me if I'm wrong here but the church of Christ, they talk about going into the watery graves of baptism to contact the blood and then you come out being regenerated, redeemed, forgiven of all your past sins, right?

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And so this is where I hear this standard and it sounds good on one hand but they say they speak where the

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Bible speaks and they're silent where the Bible's silent. So I'm over here like when you talk about coming in contact with the blood,

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I'm like book, chapter, and verse. You can't find it. Now they're gonna read into Ephesians 1, 7.

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They're gonna read into Acts 20. They're gonna read into the verse in Revelation and they kind of have those three verses that they go to about how

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Jesus purchased the church with his blood, right? I wanted to show you something real fast because I've noticed in these contexts, there's a verse that seems to get overlooked a lot in contact with the blood.

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And so Paul's talking about there's no distinction between Jew and Gentile for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by baptism,

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Tim. Oh, sorry, I meant faith there. And I'm like, that seems like a pretty good verse to try to show how you come in contact with the blood.

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But to me, it's just a total misunderstanding of the atonement, what Jesus did at Calvary.

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And so obviously, Paul's starting to build the case of substitutionary atonement, a double imputation that when you look to Jesus by faith, faith alone meaning apart from looking to yourself and anything in this world, and when you look to Christ, all of your sin, and I can get into more of the nuances of Romans 4, but the blessed man whom the

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Lord will not impute sin and never will impute sin. So all of your sin like Colossians 2 and 1

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John 1, past, present, and future get put on the cross of Calvary, goes back in time, gets put on the cross, totally dealt with.

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That's the proper understanding of Colossians 2. And then in exchange, you get the perfect righteousness of Christ.

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And I just tell people that's so easy to understand that if the perfect righteousness of Christ is covering your account, that's why you can't lose your salvation.

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Church of Christ listening, that's a totally different topic, but it's because of who Christ is. It's because of the promises of God that we can have those proper categories.

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But Romans 3 talks about that happens by faith. So I don't know if you want to add to that at all. No, that's beautiful.

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And what you mentioned about salvation is really important and our own ability to lose that is an important perspective to keep in line with works.

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Because I think a lot of folks out there just kind of have an assumption that you can lose it.

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And then when you kind of stop and process the relationship of works with salvation, works do not justify us and works do not sustain our salvation either, which is a point that I brought against Travis during the debate.

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That's good. Now, he also seemed to say that you were saying, oh, well,

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Tim believes that Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, are denominations, almost to say in the same sense that we see maybe the

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Presbyterians, right? Yeah. So I don't know if you wanted to address that at all as well.

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When he said that, I was doing the Jeremiah smile sitting back against the wall.

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So I was sitting on the couch he's got and I've got my laptop up, and he presents that in his opening statement.

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And I'll tell you why it's so bizarre. Because I'm not, as we've established so far, I'm not the first person kind of of this vein that Travis has interaction with.

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I mean, countless. You're a big one, for sure. And so as Travis is giving his opening statement, and then he associates

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Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons with denominations, as if I would include them as a denomination, was pretty shocking.

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And I would have expected Travis to have at least understood better our position around that.

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And so I had to take time during the rebuttal and explain that I'm not a universalist and that I do not consider

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Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses as a denomination. So I don't know if it was intentional, but I thought it was a pretty gross representation of the view that I would bring.

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And so I was pretty shocked. I was pretty shocked when that came across. Because from the Church of Christ perspective, everything that differs with them is denominational, teach man -made tradition.

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So for them, I get it. From his perspective, we're all in the same boat. You know what I mean? And I get that.

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Because in some way, guess what? We believe in the gospel of grace that we are justified by faith apart from works.

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And we think Christianity is unique in that. And all false religions fall in that category.

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So I do understand why he easily puts all of us in the same boat. But what he failed to do is properly represent your position in doing that.

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You gotta steel man someone's argument instead of straw manning it. Because anybody can set a flame to a scarecrow and it's like, guess what?

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We disagreed with that as well. Yeah, and he made the point in his opening,

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I believe it was, that I associated Travis with the Mormons and Jehovah's Witness.

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So there's a little bit of a finger pointing going back and forth. The reason I think he included them with me is because, like you just mentioned, it's him and everyone else.

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Everyone else is in the same boat. The reason I associated Travis or made a link there is because there is a true historical link in the restorationist movement between the establishing of the

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Church of Christ that Joseph Smith, who founded Mormonism, was affiliated with, and all of the other restorationist movements of the 20th century, or 19th century.

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But Tim, they have the Book of Mormon. We just used the Bible. And so when he says that,

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I'm like, you missed the common property that he was actually saying. He wasn't saying y 'all have the same revelation that y 'all appeal to.

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But rather, historically, they all emerged out of this restoration movement. I think the

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Seventh -day Adventist kind of fit in there too. And I could be wrong on that. The 19th century, if I ever went after a

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PhD one day, and I can't imagine that I would, but I feel like I would want to write a dissertation on 19th century religion in the

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United States because it was bonkers with all the movements that were popping up.

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We've talked about the Church of Christ was one. You've got the Mormons. You've got the

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Jehovah's Witnesses. You've got all the offshoots of those. And then you've got Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy.

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You've got the Seventh -day Adventists. You've got the Black Hebrew Israelites that popped up later there.

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I mean, the list goes on and on and on, and it was a crazy time. And I would actually say that Alexander Campbell and his group there, leading this restoration movement, while he didn't intend it, was kind of laid the bedwork for a lot of those other restorationist claims that popped up.

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Yeah, so you're making a different leak in terms of the revelation that they all appeal to. They all appeal to different kinds of God's will,

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Scriptures. But you're really keying in on the historic time frame, and then we'd further say something else that links all them together is a works -based righteousness.

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And we can continue to debate these things out, but that's to properly represent our view, right?

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Yeah, and actually, I mentioned that. I said that to Travis in the debate, that in that aspect, the works righteousness that the

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Mormons, that the Latter -day Saints seek to produce, is more closely aligned with salvation in Travis's eyes.

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Because actually, the Mormons would argue for baptism in the same way that Travis would argue for baptism.

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So, and I'll bring this up again later, but I think what Travis is the king of is begging the question, which is a formal, logical fallacy.

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And what I mean is, just because he says he's a Christian, just because Church of Christ is on their church building, and you remember earlier, he said,

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Grandma's church, Baptist church. Oh, then you got the Church of Christ. You mean they actually wanna honor

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Christ's name? And his point is, they gotta be the one true church. It's like, look, everyone that claims to be a

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Christian is also claiming to be the true church. You just can't say because that's your name, or you profess to be a

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Christian. Because some of Travis's argumentation is, Tim, you claim to be a Baptist. And I believe the one point you made was the

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Baptist denomination doesn't go around saying, we are the one true church without every form of doctrine figured out.

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Because your point is, we lock arms on the gospel of grace, something that Orthodox denominations share, right?

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And those who are called out by faith, apart from their works, that's the true church that's worldwide and for all time, which we're about to get into.

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So I'm gonna bring that up later, but I believe one of the biggest Achilles heel in Travis's argument, almost from any angle, is that he begs the question.

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And so I don't know if you wanna say one last thing to that, but I do wanna get into this idea of the true church.

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Yeah, so just to kind of show you that Travis should get it by this point. He should understand where we're coming from by this point.

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But when he and I were arranging this debate, and I didn't really wanna do, I didn't wanna do baptism or faith alone.

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I just felt like that had been done a lot recently with Travis. So I wanted to know, what's something different that we can talk about that would be interesting and matter?

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And so I was thinking about how can we come at the church? So we started talking about different themes or different, tussling around different theses that we could do.

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And we came up with this one. He asked me, he said, so are you gonna be arguing that the Baptist church is, he said,

30:18

I'm gonna argue that the church of Christ is the one church, and you're gonna be arguing that the Baptist church is the one true church. And I said, no, man, no, that's not my position.

30:28

But as we saw - Which he takes to say, oh, Tim doesn't even believe that he's in the right true church.

30:34

And you're like, oh, you didn't understand at all the argument. By the end of the debate, during his closing few minutes, he comes back to, you can't find the

30:44

Baptist church in the Bible, which is not something I have ever tried to argue. Right, so let's get into that.

30:51

Let me play this next clip where I believe from beginning to end, Travis conflates the local church understanding with the universal church understanding.

31:03

And a lot of this goes back to Matthew 16, verse 10. Let me play this clip. And I say unto thee, thou art

31:11

Peter, upon this rock I will build. I will build. When's he going to build it?

31:16

He built it in Abraham's day? And Noah? Really? We just read in my first presentation about how there was a beginning at Jerusalem and Christ was going to establish his church.

31:29

The terms were there in Acts chapter two, friends. So I don't know what he's talking about, how

31:35

Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were added to the

31:41

Lord's church in the Old Testament when we see Jesus says, I will build my church.

31:47

And he did that in Acts chapter two. What were you talking about,

31:53

Tim? Abraham was a part of Christ's church. I was loving it.

32:00

I got to watch this baby. I was holding my three -month -old baby and I'm like, you're going to learn from these things one day, son.

32:06

But Travis was surprised that you believe there's a dynamic to the church that reaches farther back than Acts two.

32:15

Would you like to talk about that a little bit? Yeah. So the first thing is that Travis approaches the church as the view of an institution.

32:21

So this would be pretty much anyone that claims a one true church perspective.

32:30

So you think about it, you just name it. So that'd be the Mormon church, it'd be the Eastern Orthodox, the Catholic church.

32:35

Anyone that says we are the true church thinks of the universal church as an institution. So that institution, and in a sense, in one sense,

32:45

I would agree, Christ establishes the new covenant. So we see the new covenant expression of the church, which is the local churches that we participate in today.

32:56

But on the other hand, all that were saved and called out, as we talked about being the definition of ecclesia, in the called out ones, they go back to Adam, Abraham.

33:08

We know that the gospel was preached to Abraham before Moses, before David, before all of that.

33:15

Abraham understood what the gospel was and that is how he was saved. So the church, the true ecclesia, includes all of those who were called out by faith since the beginning of the old covenant to our current position under the new.

33:34

And that's just, Travis just doesn't think that way. In terms of what the church is.

33:40

Yeah, so I kind of want to bring up a few of these scriptures. So I was thinking about this because we're making a distinction between the universal church, like you just beautifully said, all those that are called out by faith and theologically that would be apart from their works.

33:56

Go read Hebrews 11 to see that these were called out by faith, not that they do works that demonstrate their faith.

34:03

Oh yeah, right? But one thing to consider in Acts chapter 7 where Stephen is giving his speech before the

34:11

Sanhedrin and he gets stoned. I believe it's here in verse 38. He references Israel traveling around in the wilderness.

34:18

He says this is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai.

34:28

And so Stephen's point is there was a gathering of people, an assembly, which was the same word for church, in the

34:35

Old Testament. Now this is just pointing to a visible manifestation of them. And so this goes back to a principle that you just got in saying.

34:44

There's something tangibly that we share with Abraham and those people in the

34:49

Old Testament and it's all those that are called out by faith apart from works. And so there's another passage and there's probably a number that we could do.

35:00

Yeah. Hebrews 2 .12 is one that comes to mind. So this is where you were just quoting

35:06

Hebrews. And it's actually the author here is referring back to something that Jesus said. And Jesus, he's quoting

35:12

Jesus here during the incarnation. And Jesus says, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the

35:18

Ecclesia, I will sing your praise. So this is another reference of Christ and his Ecclesia. Now it translates it in the

35:24

ESV congregation, just like you were talking about, but a reference to the Ecclesia nonetheless.

35:30

Absolutely. Pre -Pentecost. And tell our viewers again,

35:35

Hebrews 2 verse. Hebrews 2 .12. So this is something that Jesus was singing actually.

35:42

And in the words that he sings here, he sings of his Ecclesia. Now tell me,

35:48

I feel like this goes hand in hand with what you were talking about. So here in 1

35:53

Corinthians chapter 10, we see the unity that Israel, as they're going through the sea, they were immersed into the leadership of Moses.

36:01

They were baptized, but not a wet immersion. But then it goes on to say that they all ate of the same spiritual food.

36:08

They all drank the same spiritual drink for they had drank from the spiritual rock that followed them.

36:13

And that rock was Christ. And so I love the point there because Jesus in Matthew chapter 16 is talking about upon this rock,

36:25

I will build my church. Now if anybody understands the context very well, they understand that the confession that Peter confessed

36:32

Jesus as Lord, that's what's building the church. And I loved what you said in the debate.

36:38

Just because he says I will build my church doesn't negate a reality that there's this universal body that unifies us all together.

36:45

And so I think what started at Pentecost was a new, fresh understanding.

36:54

And this kind of goes back to Ephesians 2. There's no longer a wall of hostility between the Commonwealth of Israel and the

37:00

Gentiles. And so yes, the church is now a new man that's starting at Pentecost.

37:06

And there's no divide between Jew and Gentile. Any time we look to the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, and the

37:12

New Covenant, and the New Testament, there is what we call continuity and discontinuity. And so the universal church is the continuity that binds us all together in Christ who is the spiritual rock, right?

37:24

And who is the rock of the new church. And so the discontinuity is, yeah, after Christ fulfilled the ceremonial law, we're not bound to the judicial precepts and ceremonial parts of the law, right?

37:37

And the biggest part of Pentecost is we now have the Spirit being poured out on all flesh. And so I thought you did a fantastic job of making those category distinctions.

37:46

I could see that it was just flying right by Travis. And you could tell when he would get fired up, and you're just like, man, he's not properly representing

37:56

Tim in this exchange. But that's okay. That's the nature kind of, you know, face -to -face in the moment debate.

38:03

Yeah. And kind of talking about describing the church from that going that far back and kind of demonstrating how the ecclesia looked like in the

38:15

Old Covenant was actually not something I was really planning on doing that night. But I thought it was an important distinguishing make and the opportunity came up.

38:24

So we hit it on it, hit on it kind of briefly. Yeah. Did anybody influence you, your thinking to take that route?

38:35

Gosh. We had some pretty good conversations beforehand. We did. We did. You, I talked to Trey briefly and Paul.

38:45

Yeah. I did. Preparing for an engagement like that, any engagement in life really, but especially something like that, just the wisdom of others is so helpful because you guys helped me consider some things that I had not considered, angles

39:02

I hadn't considered that are important. And we're going to talk about one tonight that Paul pointed out for me.

39:07

Yes. And so that's why I'd like to bring up next because I noticed you brought out this understanding in Acts 21.

39:14

And as more I hear, I heard you talk about this type of worship that Paul was calling the

39:20

Jews to. He wasn't telling them to forsake the ceremonies that they grew accustomed to.

39:26

If anything, he's like, do all these unto Christ. Right? So you brought this up in the debate.

39:32

I had to think on it some more and I love it. So let me play this clip and let's get into it. Wrong in Acts 21 to encourage the converted

39:39

Jews that it was okay to keep practicing the law, Moses. Well, that view, do

39:46

I think it was wrong? Now, to give you some of the context

39:52

I would consider here is that these were Jews coming together to worship and doing so in adherence with the law of Moses.

39:59

They were Christ believers following the law of Moses. Well, this is about like when you're saying one of your opinions, when you would ask about what is some opinions, well, that particular scripture, you could say even the

40:12

Apostle Peter, he sinned. So you could say that Paul had sinned when he did that.

40:17

Would you say that? Would I say that? I haven't really studied that position within that context right there so much to make a claim right now, but I don't think there's anything in there that he did sin or that you could just continue to do as far as,

40:38

I forget how you word it, but basically the customs of the law, certain customs and things of that nature were in a process of being removed or,

40:51

I mean, if you were raised a Jew, there might be certain things you may not continue to eat and that wouldn't be wrong, but it wouldn't matter.

41:01

Sure. So there might be some things within that. Would you agree that the worship service in that context in the church in Jerusalem probably looked very different than the worship service in the church that you're a part of?

41:12

Well, in Acts 21, I don't believe that would mean the Christians would sin.

41:18

That was the Jews going to the synagogues at that time. It's converted believers. Converted believers.

41:23

So Christians. So I want to start by saying you tripped him up big time here.

41:30

I could see the glaze over his eyes like, oh man, we're going past Acts 2 .38,

41:36

Acts 22 .16. I could see the wheels like, what is going on in Acts 21?

41:42

Now, you brought up a very unique context where Paul is sharing a report of all the

41:48

Gentiles that are converting to Christ, and these Jews are hearing this and they're all glorifying the

41:54

Lord. So these are converted Jews like you talked about. I was like, I'm so glad Tim brought this up, and you said you talked to Brother Paul, one of our friends, that really pointed out this unique context.

42:05

The context is talking about them glorifying God. So this is, in some meaningful way, they are giving honor and worship to God, but what

42:15

Paul is doing there is he's not telling these Jews to forsake their purification rites.

42:20

I believe even some commentaries talk about how Paul was probably partaking in a Nazarite vow.

42:26

So is there anything else in the context you want to bring up from Acts 21? Yeah, that's what...

42:32

So Paul gets back to Jerusalem. He encounters James and the elders there, and they've got a problem.

42:37

The problem is that a rumor is spreading, like Jeremiah just said, that Paul is telling people they have to abandon

42:44

Moses, that they have to turn away from their reverence for Moses and everything that Moses had them do.

42:51

And what the elders charge him with is say, no, no, no, go with these guys, show them that you don't have to abandon that, that you follow these laws and clear the air.

43:01

And so what he does is he goes with them to the synagogue, and they see him following the laws of Moses.

43:11

Now, an important distinction that I drew here is this is not the same as the Galatians 1 problem, the Judaizers. This is a very important distinction to make, because the

43:21

Judaizers were saying that you had to do this in order to be saved, that you must be circumcised, which adds to the gospel, which is a serious, serious heresy.

43:32

But essentially what the elders asked Paul to demonstrate is that if you want to continue to follow these ceremonies, you're free to do so.

43:41

And the reason that this is a problem for Travis and his camp is because what they are permitted to do as far as the church building and worship is limited in their view to what they see patterned, especially in Acts.

43:59

And so the reason I drew attention to Acts 21 is because these were

44:05

Christians or about to be Christians, and Paul was demonstrating that you can still be very

44:11

Jewish about your worship, because whether or not they were going to the synagogue here on a

44:18

Sunday, which Travis strictly prescribes as the Lord's Day, or Saturday or any other of the week, they were going into a worshipful setting and participating in these ceremonies.

44:30

Paul was. So this is a problem because what they would be doing would be very different and impermissible, the second time

44:40

I've used that word tonight, in Travis's mind. Yeah, and to me this comes out in a few different parts here in Acts 21.

44:47

But notice verse 24. He's telling them to purify themselves. Well, he's hearkening back in their mind of purification ceremonies.

44:55

And then at the end, he's saying, look, you yourselves also live in obedience to the law.

45:02

Now, tell me if you think I'm in the ballpark on this, but Paul is basically coming alongside weak -minded brethren, right?

45:13

I'm thinking about Romans 14, where he's like, don't eat stuff that's going to cause other brothers to stumble.

45:18

In that context, even though he's free to eat whatever he wants because it's all to the glory of God and all things are made clean.

45:25

That's why God told Peter, rise, Peter, kill and eat. All things are clean, representing even the Gentiles are worth pursuing to share the gospel.

45:33

Paul understands that reality. But Jewish converts struggle in their conscience. They might be looking to Jesus, resting in him.

45:40

But in their mind, when they think about certain dietary restrictions, it causes them to stumble, right?

45:48

That's what Paul's getting at here. I'm actually going to pull up another passage. But the reason why this is so important, especially in you bringing it up, is because the

45:56

Church of Christ are not able to think in these categories. Because one of their mantras is, if you follow the pattern of the

46:03

Christians in the New Testament, then you're a Christian. And we're over here saying, time out. Context is king.

46:10

You've got to do the grammatical historical method of interpretation. Acts is a narrative book. Not everything is prescribed.

46:15

We're reading a lot of things that are narrative. We're not trying to look for a

46:22

Pentecost experience every time that someone is baptized. There are certain, we might say, groups of people that try to recreate a whole

46:32

Pentecostal experience. And we're over here saying, that's not what that's meant to be. So there's just kind of arbitrariness going on, you know, cherry -picking.

46:40

But we understand. You have to interpret the book of Acts in light of the didactic epistles that Paul and the other writers gave to the churches.

46:48

That's how we can glean proper principles from that. But yeah, I want you to speak to that a little bit more.

46:55

Why is this such a big problem with the Church of Christ reading what Paul is saying to the

47:01

Jews here? Because in their mind, and help me out, Paul has to be wrong. Perhaps he is doing something that is sinful.

47:08

Yeah. And if that's the case, it's not just Paul that's in sin here. It's probably all the other elders in the

47:17

Church of Jerusalem that were charging Paul with this. And Scripture doesn't address that as sinful in any way.

47:25

You will find people with bad theology in Scripture.

47:31

Okay, there are stories of folks that do things in a way that they shouldn't do them. But Scripture doesn't let the reader get away with believing.

47:40

It always addresses it within a particular context. So if Paul was in sin here, it doesn't read that way.

47:49

It's left for the reader to assume. And I don't think a proper hermeneutic, an honest hermeneutic can get to that conclusion.

47:57

Absolutely. And they can infer that and not speak where the Bible speaks. But you and I, we're going to let

48:04

Scripture interpret Scripture and so here, without question, this is what's going on with Paul.

48:09

Paul is speaking. He says, For though I am free from all. He's not constrained by the law. He's free in Christ and has liberty.

48:15

I have made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them.

48:21

In evangelism. To the Jews I became a Jew in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law.

48:29

Because he understands his liberty in Christ. But he does this, that I might win those under the law. This is exactly what we see in Acts 21.

48:37

In verse 21 here, he says, To those outside the law, Gentiles, I became as one outside the law.

48:44

And then he says, Not being outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law.

48:51

To the weak I became weak, like these Jewish Christians that are struggling, letting go of dietary restrictions and purification rights.

48:59

He says, I become weak that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that by all means

49:06

I might save some. That's what's going on here. But you know what? They can't, I really don't think they can read

49:13

Acts 21 and come away with that conclusion because Paul is patting him on the back saying, It's okay. Because he understands the liberty we have in Christ.

49:20

But there's no liberty in the Church of Christ world. It's rank legalism, right? Yeah, that's right.

49:26

Yeah, he wasn't trying to say, the evangelistic issue that he's facing here is number one,

49:32

Paul has a big hurdle to convince them to drop the laws of Moses and then get to Christ.

49:39

But that's not necessary. He wants to show them who Christ is first. And then afterwards, if they want to drop the laws of Moses, which maybe they would over time because it's burdensome, they would do so.

49:51

But it's not a self, it's not a salvific issue. He says, let's get all that stuff off the table.

49:58

Now I'll say something that makes me think of this and some of my other evangelistic brothers may disagree.

50:06

And certainly Kim Ham. Love Kim Ham. Answers Genesis. Awesome place. I do hold to a literal

50:12

Genesis. But when I go out and do evangelism, I don't want to talk about evolution. Like, I don't want to get hung up on that.

50:21

Like, let's talk about the gospel and Jesus and what he did. And then maybe later we can talk about and hash out

50:29

Genesis. You know, that's something else. And I think that's exactly what Paul is going for here. Let's, hey, law of Moses.

50:36

Let's talk about that later. Let me tell you what Jesus has accomplished, which is everything. And then we can talk about if you want to still keep doing it or if it's really necessary.

50:46

But the, sorry, man, my mind is rolling. I mentioned in the debate that there's a thousand things that Travis thinks you have to do to be a

50:54

Christian. And one of the things, we didn't talk about this in our, as we were preparing for this, but one of my favorite points is that I asked

51:02

Travis, is there anything that's a salvation issue? Or what did I say? Is there anything that's commanded that is not a salvation issue?

51:11

And he cannot name one. He cannot name one. There's a lot commanded.

51:18

Okay. There's a lot that's involved with loving God and loving our neighbors. Okay. That's, you know, being a summary of the law, but in Travis's mind, everything is a salvation issue.

51:28

Your salvation is hinged upon how well you do everything. So, he can't have a separate category for that because it all matters.

51:39

It all matters. Well, Tim, I thought that was good. And it was, it was

51:44

Paul. I hope, I hope Paul, shout out to Paul. Is it Paul? It was Paul. Yeah. What's his last name?

51:50

What's his, Paul Day? Does he have a YouTube channel? Paul Day. People can just look up Paul Day. He does.

51:57

Oh man, I wish I was prepared to give him a shout out because he actually has, let's see if I can find it here in the next 10 seconds, a fantastic testimony video because he used to be in a similar church situation.

52:11

Yeah, it's just called Paul Day. His channel is just called Paul Day and he has several stuff up there, but a phenomenal testimony video to kind of hear his story and his experience.

52:22

So, plug that. Tim, what I enjoy about, you know, getting ready for debate and getting on to the internet and social media is

52:30

God has blessed me with meeting new guys like you, even meeting Trey Fisher in preparation for my debate last, almost a year ago with the

52:37

Church of Christ and getting to meet guys like Paul. And so, that's really neat. But, tell me, were you surprised that you realized this debate, you were actually stepping in some crossfire going on outside of the debate?

52:52

Did you start to realize that you were stepping into something else a little bit disconnected? I did.

52:58

There were some things that Travis kind of brought up right out of the gate during his cross -exam and he was just chomping at the bit to get to between...

53:08

So, if you watched the debate and this is your first time meeting Jeremiah in this video,

53:15

Jeremiah is the one who was hung up on. So, that is going to be kind of an infamous act that I was pretty taken, that kind of infuriated me in the moment.

53:26

I thought it was extremely inappropriate. You look shocked. You look shocked when you do it like, really? Is this going on?

53:32

And to kind of give people a little bit of context, I think it was his first cross -examination question he asked you is, you know, if somebody tells a lie and they don't repent, basically, are they lost or something like that?

53:44

And you're like, yeah, lying is a sin. I've got no problem saying that.

53:50

and you're like, the difference is, we believe those who are truly regenerate or in Christ will repent and do those things, right?

53:55

And so, what he was trying, and you're like, and then eventually you start realizing, okay, this is not pertaining to the debate at all and it's because, and we're going to play a clip here in a second of me getting hung up on the infamous moment, but there's been some accusations thrown at me from him and I love

54:13

Travis to death and I've tried to communicate with him as long as I possibly could. He has blocked me, banned me multiple times and came back knocking at my door and I'm just like, hey,

54:23

I've not went anywhere. I've been here the whole time. And so, I want to play this because you start realizing, okay, he's trying to take this elsewhere and like you said, you were starting to clue in that, oh, he's trying to pit you against me.

54:36

That's what he's trying to do and I could not wait because I really wanted to ask him a question.

54:42

Actually, I wanted to ask him two questions and so when I called him on my phone, it was blocked and I'm like, oh, I got more phones, baby.

54:48

I'm about to go in the room and get one real fast. And so, check this clip out. Hey, I have two questions if I'm allowed to ask two and they're for Travis.

55:00

Well, are you going to openly repent? Look at your face real quick.

55:08

You're just like, what? What? I recognize your voice. I knew who it was.

55:14

And then look at Travis. He's like, oh, yeah, we're going this. We're going this. Well, you can see if you're watching this video, if you go back and rewind it, you can see

55:21

Travis's eyebrows like, boop, when it clicks with him who's calling. Hi, I'm going to back it up because you're right.

55:28

I remember watching it too. Go ahead, caller. Hey, I have two questions if I'm allowed to ask two

55:35

Bam. And then watch this. He looks at you like, uh -oh, this is about to go down.

55:40

Because he knows what he's about to do and he knows he shouldn't have done it or he knows he shouldn't do it.

55:47

Yeah, because we're going to see that it's unfair. You didn't get a list of people that you could prohibit.

55:53

Yeah, so, sorry. We didn't have a moderator and I felt fine with doing that because I, as many debates

56:02

I've watched, I feel like I know the rules. Like, I'm going to respect time. I'm going to, you know, during the cross -examination,

56:10

I'm going to do my best to just ask questions. You know, not my time to make statements, but to ask questions. So, and generally,

56:16

I think we did okay on that. but I didn't think we would have a situation like this, which is where, uh, we probably should have had a moderator handling the phone calls.

56:26

Right. So, check it out. Well, uh, are you going to, are you going to openly repent?

56:33

This is Jeremiah Nortier and you're the one that was on Desmond's, you were on Desmond's YouTube and you said that I wouldn't debate you and you laughed about it when

56:43

I sent you a text two days before. So, I mean, and, and Tim already said that if you don't repent, you'll probably never say.

56:50

just let him ask the question, man. All right. We're not taking Jeremiah Nortier's call or Trey.

56:58

Well, you didn't give me a list of people I could prohibit from calling. Well, I'm sorry. It's my show.

57:03

That's what he says. He goes, I'm sorry. My show. My show. So, oh yeah, he did.

57:10

I was like, yes, because people don't know this. I was, I, I told some other people, anytime he brings up my name, I'll do 20 pushups.

57:16

And so, he only mentioned my name explicitly once in the debate. So, I did 20 pushups and then he alluded to me in the debate one time and I'm like, it didn't count.

57:25

He didn't say my name, but he knew I'd called in and it's like, man, I'm going to support my brother here and, you know,

57:31

I've, I've kind of stepped into, inside of Travis's mind. No, thanks. And so I'm like,

57:36

I want to find the best questions that he has to account for and if anybody's curious, the first question

57:42

I was going to ask him was, I would like for him to give us the definition of what begging the question means.

57:49

Just to see if he could because I have a feeling I don't think he would know how to define that and then it, then it would go over to you to explain.

57:57

This is, this is the paradigm of the Church of Christ. They're just assuming because they have the name

58:02

Church of Christ so they say that they're a Christian, they therefore are. Not all would do that, but Travis is the king of begging the question.

58:10

And so I would, I was just wanting to see if on the spot he could define it. Talking about how when you assume, you make an assumption in your argument, meaning you have a conclusion that you're smuggling into one of the premises.

58:22

So that was going to be number one and number two, I was, I was going to ask him because their whole deal is you got to do something, right, in order to be saved.

58:31

Faith is really belief in action and that's where you got to be equipped with a definition of words and I was going to ask him, what works and what did the paralytic do in Luke 5 when he said, your sins are forgiven because last

58:43

I checked, he was a paralytic and couldn't do anything and it's in the same passage where he loves to say that Jesus saw their faith, meaning their works, but it was just his friends bringing him down through the roof but the one whose sins were forgiven, which

58:55

I do think it was a collective deal, he didn't do anything and so I wanted, I wasn't going to argue with him.

59:00

You know what I mean? I was just going to throw that grenade out there and be like, all right, y 'all have fun. So I did want to bring some clarity real quick,

59:08

Tim, on this because he's saying that I'm a liar, I said, and I'm going to pull the message up but basically, just to kind of bring people up to speed is

59:18

I made a comment that Travis won't debate me. I've tried many, many times, challenged him to debate original sin, talking about the sovereignty of God.

59:27

At one point, I was like, hey, you wanted to debate John 3, 5, let's do it and he told me repeatedly, no, it'll be a waste of time.

59:35

I'm not interested. We've done this, blah, blah, blah. And then, I don't know how this came about but Travis and a member at 12 -5 church,

59:46

Adam Carmichael, he won't mind me saying his name, they were able to connect and I think it was Travis reached out to him and said, hey,

59:51

I'm ready for a debate. Would you like to do it? And Adam said, yes, only one place though, the apologetic dog.

59:57

And Travis was like, okay. And so, we were super kind to one another and our correspondents and I'm like, dude,

01:00:04

I'll be a moderator. My main job is to keep time and make sure there's not ad hominem name calling going on and we were all cordial.

01:00:13

And then, the day before his, the day before the debate, he messaged me saying, basically, your boy

01:00:21

Adam might not be ready so you may have to step in for him and debate for him and I'll give you more time.

01:00:27

I don't want people to make the excuse that I didn't debate a pastor and I was like, yeah, he said that but I take that as a pure insult towards Adam.

01:00:37

Like, Adam's preparing for this and I'm obviously his overseer and we're holding each other accountable and so, when

01:00:44

I say that he won't debate me, I'm telling people me offering a challenge to him to debate X, Y, and Z.

01:00:49

He's always turned that down. I don't consider this truly him saying, hey, I'd love to debate.

01:00:55

Can we talk about a proposition that we would like to hash out? To me, I see this as a strategy or a tactic of trying to divide me and Adam.

01:01:04

Me saying, hey, Adam, step aside. Let me get in there and let me do this for you. It's like, who do you think you are type thing.

01:01:11

I was trying to think of an analogy. Tell me if this works. If somebody refused to play basketball one -on -one and they said, but if you tie your arm behind your back then

01:01:19

I'll play and then you just walk off saying, yeah, this dude's not serious and then you tell people he won't play me one -on -one and he's like, he's a liar.

01:01:26

He's a liar. I said I would. It's like, yeah, if the rules were changed a little bit in your favor.

01:01:31

You know what I mean? That's what was going on behind the scenes that I'm a liar and I'm over here like, you have shot down every time

01:01:40

I've challenged you to a debate and so I wanted to bring this on the screen. This is where it all started. Desmond, I encourage people to go check out

01:01:47

The Knights of God made this very very inviting graphic of Travis.

01:01:54

I did not make this but you can see towards the top he tagged me in it and he was just saying, hey, go check out this debate where this individual does a debate and things like that so I'm tagged in it and then in the comments you'll see this is what

01:02:09

I said. This is initially what I said to him. There's two paragraphs but I had just the first paragraph for a matter of minutes.

01:02:15

I said, yeah, Travis doesn't like to talk about the Campbellite history. I've asked him to debate a number of times and he tells me it would be a waste of time but he doesn't mind to debate one of the members at my church and people get mad at me for putting a laugh and that's just who

01:02:30

I am. I chuckle and it's like sometimes you either get mad and frustrated or you're just going to laugh.

01:02:36

I'm just like, dude doesn't mind coming on the Apollo Jack Dog but it's not to debate me. When he did that he was so mad and he sent me a text message and so I edited it and I said for whatever reason

01:02:50

Travis texted me super mad and did not that I did not include him asking me the day before his debate with Adam if I would fill in for Adam because he couldn't handle it.

01:03:02

I said, yeah right. That is actually accepting my challenge to debate and so just to show people the correspondence there this is what he said to me.

01:03:10

Dude, you're a dishonest false teacher. Man, you look stupid letting me destroy your false doctrine. That's why all these ignorant faith alone guys are coming out.

01:03:18

You are done. No contact me. You are a waste of energy like them.

01:03:25

And so that's how he's constantly treated me is saying things like that and I don't get online and make a big deal and make a fuss about it.

01:03:32

I mean, you've been a part of his little roast videos. I call them the highlight reel and you know he's free to do that and I'm not going to get bent out of shape and I just told him in our text message

01:03:41

I've asked you a number of times to debate different topics. I even challenged you on standing for truth and then crickets you know and then him getting mad.

01:03:49

So, sorry you had to step into the crossfire a little bit there but you handled it well

01:03:57

I thought. Yeah, well, I knew of the situation because Travis had messaged me like two days after he and Adam's debate kind of explaining that he would debate

01:04:10

Jeremiah and that he did offer to switch opponents which I immediately recognized that as kind of an inappropriate move but it was kind of a way to arrange the pieces like you mentioned to say that he would in fact debate you and that you were being dishonest and it was totally inappropriate to not only hang up your phone call but to try to pit that against me in the debate to pit you and I against one another which was absolutely his goal.

01:04:37

He was trying to do that garden path like you and I have talked about to where eventually he gets to say well

01:04:43

Jeremiah you know and so when he started talking about it in some details when I said

01:04:48

I'm not gonna comment on this. You handled that very well and I just like to everybody

01:04:56

I mean anybody that's watching this probably understands what would be a lie as if I said oh he never said that to me he never said

01:05:03

I mean that would be a straight lie. I'm saying I don't buy that as him actually wanting to debate me and it's not an accepting of any one of my challenges to debate.

01:05:11

To me I see it as very tactical on his part to try to pit me and Adam. So anyway I don't take it very personally and you knew that about me.

01:05:21

I'm over here like I love Travis and I like having a good time and having fun and I do like to change gears and be serious and talk about truth and the gospel when we need to do that.

01:05:33

He does by the way there will be another opportunity to ask Travis some questions.

01:05:38

He has a I believe a Faith Alone debate coming up on Standing for Truth in February. So there will be an opportunity for some super chats to get some questions to Travis.

01:05:51

It will be a moderated debate and he will not be able to end the call with those questions coming.

01:05:58

Well Tim thanks for coming on. I want to respect your time. I know you got to hop off here. What we didn't get to do was we didn't get to talk about when

01:06:06

Abraham was justified which y 'all got brought out in your debate. So you know what that means? We just got to do this again.

01:06:14

So thank you so much for coming on. Like I said I think you represented

01:06:20

Christ well the faith well and showing other people how to have disagreement in love in your debate stepping into the spaceship and so it was very entertaining for me to watch even though some things went sideways

01:06:32

I think you handled it spectacular. I had a great time. It was a like I've said before it was a very rewarding experience for me.

01:06:42

It was a good challenge. I appreciate Travis being willing to invite me over to his home.

01:06:48

You know we never met before so that was no small thing to have kind of a virtual stranger over to your house and around your family and so I really appreciate that and that trust that he extended to me and I'm grateful for the opportunity that he and I had to kind of step in the ring together and cross swords.

01:07:06

Absolutely. Well Tim thanks for coming on to the Apologetic Dog. We'll have to do this again and perhaps we can talk about Abraham and when he exactly was justified before God and so I look forward to that.

01:07:17

So you have a wonderful rest of the evening Tim. Thanks man. Have a good night. Alright I just want to thank you all for tuning in to the

01:07:24

Apologetic Dog. Once again I want to encourage you to go check out the debate that Tim had not too long ago with Travis Thomas.

01:07:32

Very good. I think you were able to clearly see between the two sides. One that was offering a gospel of grace.

01:07:38

One that we are saved not by the things that we do and we bring to the table and another position that just says if you are not obeying all the commandments then you are not getting in heaven.

01:07:50

We already know that if you stumble at one point of the law then you are guilty of all of it. So thank you again for tuning in and be looking out for the episode of Cultist coming out next week on January 31st.

01:08:04

God Bless. God Bless.