Matt Slick Live: December 13, 2024

The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network.

It's Matt Slick Live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry found online at karm .org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

Here's Matt Slick.

Right, a good welcome to the show. Hope you're all gonna have a good time listening today, whatever happens. We had a good call yesterday. We interviewed Dr. Stan, oh, I'm so bad with names, and we just discussed the issue of neurotheology, which I hadn't even heard of before, and wow, it's really bad.

It's really got some serious problems. But hey, look, today is a lovely Friday the 13th, or 12 -13 -24, December 13th, 2024. If you wanna give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877 207 -2276, and we can talk.

It's easy to do. Also, we're being broadcast on Rumble. You just go to rumble .com forward slash Matt Slick Live. We're also on Facebook. I think Karm, which Facebook are we on?

Karm .org, I don't know.

So many things, they'll tell me in the text here, in a private chat. And is it Facebook?

Karm .org.

We're there. We're also on YouTube. Karm .org, C-A-R-M-O-R-G, one word. So we're on a bunch of different things, but you can, I think you can just find us on karm .org forward slash social, social media, and you'll find it.

All right, and matching funds donation for the month of December. So if you were to support us, which we're hoping you will do, then whatever you donate this month will be doubled. So if you donate five, it'll become 10.

Real simple. We do ask that you set up a monthly donation of say $5 or $10 a month. We don't need a lot, but we just need enough. And if that sounds good to you, if you want to do something like that in order to help us out, that would be greatly appreciated.

So if you were to do, for example, $5 a month for newbies, if you start off new doing that, then that's $60 for the coming year, and that gets doubled. That's how we've worked it out, so there you go.

All right, we can also, if you're interested, you can send me an email at info at karm .org, info at karm .org, and I would check it out. You can send an email there, just put radio comment, radio question, and we get to them.

In fact, I'm looking at radio questions. We've got a few in there, so I can get to it. Easy, see, easy. All right, let's get to Chuck from Dayton, Ohio. Chuck, welcome, you're on the air.

Hi, yeah, I was calling to ask, what do you think about the Legacy Standard Bible?

It's pretty good. Oh, excuse me. It's good, I like it. Let me verify. Cough, man, I suddenly got a cough. I want to verify something and make sure it's the one I'm thinking of, but yes, it is. If I switch from the NESB, it'll be to the Legacy, and the reason is because it includes the word Lord as Yahweh.

So if I were to go to, for example, Genesis 19 .24, and it says there, it says, Yahweh reigned on Sodom and Gomorrah, but I'm still in fire from Yahweh out of heaven. I love that. So that's one, I mean, I'm not used to the NESB, but man, I guess you're going over to that one, the Legacy.

It's the NESB, and even better is what it comes down to. How about that?

Okay.

Are you there?

Okay, all right. Yeah, also, doesn't it seem like some of the other, just in general, that it's easy to read?

Oh, yeah, it's like the NESB. See, the NESB is a little wooden, but it's perfectly legible. It's just the translators try to stay true to the original text, the original meaning as much as possible, and it's a little wooden in some places, but it's still quite legible.

It's not as smoothed out as a looser translation might be, but I use the NESB a lot, every day, and I have for decades, okay?

All right.

Okay, yeah, thank you.

You're welcome. All right, well, good, good stuff. All right, then. All right, let's get to Jermaine from California. Jermaine, welcome. You're on the air.

Oh, hi, Matt.

Killing, Murder, and Just War

Yeah, I am. So I had a question about killing versus murder, and I know there's a difference, but does the Bible really specify when and when not a war situation is arising? And I ask this because I've seen family members and other people who are, they're in combat situations, and some people I've heard give their depictions of war.

It's like they, in other situations, they'd be classified as serial killers, but I know that's not the case. It is a war, but I've never really done a study on what's exactly allowed and whatnot, but what would you say about that?

All right, so killing is not always murder, but all murder is killing. Murder is the unlawful taking of life. Killing is just, is killing, and it can be of different kinds, but it can also be unlawful.

I mean, killing is lawful, but murder is unlawful. So all murder is killing, but not all killing is murder. So if someone comes into my house, for example, and is about to take a bat to my wife, and I shoot that individual, that's not murder.

That's self-defense, and it's the defense of others. That's justified. Not that I ever wanted that to happen. I certainly don't, but that's justified. If someone is threatening to kill me, for example, into my house, and they're coming at me with a knife, and I shoot them and kill that person, then that's justified.

Now, if I don't like the person's shirt, because maybe I'm a wacko Democrat who doesn't like Trump and wants to kill somebody, like some of these ladies have talked about using poison to kill men who voted for Trump.

Well, that's ill-intent, not lawful, and it's murder if they carry that out. And so that's just one of the distinguishing marks. Now, now we get into the issue of self-defense. So let's just look at it this way.

Let's use our house as an example. We have an invading force coming into our house. We have the right of self-defense and to do what's necessary to stop an invading force. It'd be one person, 10 people in our house.

And that's in order to protect ourselves, our property, and those in the house under our care. So we could extend that to war. If someone was invading the United States with intent to destroy, to kill, to take over, we have that right then to defend ourselves and kill people in the process.

And it's not that we wanna do it willy-nilly and, hey, I don't like you, and I'll kill you. You know, we don't wanna do that. It has to be done with proper ethics. Now, let's look at our neighbor's house.

A neighbor's having a fight over there.

Now, what do we do?

We hear yelling. There's a disturbance over there. And if they're just yelling, we hear them every night yelling, well, that's just the way it goes. But what if you hear someone say, put that gun away in the middle of a fight?

Now it's a different situation. So now we have, there are different rules, different things you do. I mean, you call the cops. I mean, come on, call the cops. But let's just say then that one woman there is screaming for help.

And you get your gun, and you go over and knock on the door. And she comes running out, and the guy points a gun at you, and you shoot him. Now, what you've done then is gone into some other situation, and it's justified if he was gonna kill you in that situation where you went to go help somebody else.

Now, we extend that to war, and this seems to be a justifiable option for war. If there's a situation where we have a pact, an agreement with a party, a covenant with a party, treaty with a party, a nation, and then we have libeled, not libeled, but we have covenanted ourselves into a situation to go in under certain conditions.

And this is covenant work, and it's the same thing that was done in the Old Testament. It was suzerain-vassal treaty pattern of defense, self-defense, aiding others. So it's a biblical pattern. And so we could go in and, under a war situation, defend people and the interests of that party that may or may not affect us in certain ways.

I guess more complicated than that, but we have that right. Now, what if there was another house down the street? I just want to go in there and just take over the house. There's no reason. I'm not being threatened.

My resources are not being threatened. No one in the house, my house is being threatened. I just go over and do that. That's unjust. What if there's a nation? We want its resources. Why? Because we just want its resources.

And we go attack that. That's an unjust war. Then we, as Christians, can't participate in that war. We can't say, I will sign up and go attack that other nation that's done nothing wrong in any way, shape, or form.

We just want its resources. Then we, Christians, are not to do that. So, I use the house analogy and neighbor's analogy to kind of go, oh, I guess it makes sense. It makes sense. And then we extend it to the issue of wars between nations.

Now, let's just say, whatever circumstance, we're in a war with somebody. And we have the opportunity to capture someone alive. And we decide, nah, I just want to kill somebody because I want to kill somebody.

And you shoot them. That's not permitted. Not in Christian thought, not in Christianity. The idea is to preserve life as much as possible. We want to shoot and destroy and break things only for the greater preservation.

And these are the kinds of things that we want to do. Remember the movie Sergeant York. He was a pacifist and he ended up going to war and he ended up shooting a lot of Germans. And the reason he did this was to save more lives, to stop them from hurting others.

And so, it was justified. So, this is not just an easy situation, easy thing. But there's a lot of variables and stuff, okay? That help any?

Yeah, that helped a lot. And that was a great analogy. Can I ask a follow-up real quick?

Sure, sure.

So, and I get every situation's unique and I know God's gonna judge individually. That's what he's good at. But some of these people like, say a Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was in on an assassination attempt of Hitler.

I never hear people say, oh, Dietrich was wrong. And in my own heart, it's like, yeah, I wouldn't, I can't find anything wrong because this person was like a homicidal maniac. So, would you say something like that could be justified in certain situations?

Yes. There is a sense in which you destroy a life to save lives. And sometimes it's necessary to do that. So, you know, and situations can vary. And one slight variable differentiation could make something right or wrong.

And what if you had a time machine and you go back to when Hitler was 12 years old and you had the opportunity to kill him, should you do it? He was an innocent little boy, relatively speaking. You'd be killing an innocent boy for something he hadn't done.

And if you kill him, there'd be no crime that he'd have committed. So, what justifies doing it? You see, it's the philosophy, the ethics, the logic becomes very problematic. There was a movie actually made along this line where some Nazi sympathizers after the war had gotten some genetics of Hitler and had impregnated women.

And there were these children that were then born in different places of the world. They were causing the children to have the same situations to them that happened to Hitler as he's growing up. And so if at 12 years old this happened to him, then they would do that.

So that he was shaped, each one of them was shaped the same way. And then, I'll tell you what happened at the end of the movie because it was really interesting. And we'll talk about this stuff, there's a break.

So hold on, I'll tell you what happened and then we'll go on some more. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned.

It's Matt Slick Live! Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right, welcome back to the show. Jermaine, are you still there?

Oh, yes I am.

All right, well just to finish the thought from before the thing. In the movie, they thwarted everything by simply stopping the people who were training the child that way. They stopped them all from doing it so each child would have its own life and wouldn't be Hitler anymore.

It was just different, it was good. So anyway, it's a tough question and there's just a lot of variables and Christians have written on this. What's a just war? The best analogy is your house, your neighbor's house, neighbor's neighbor's house and things like this in different situations.

That's a good analogy, okay?

Yeah, and thank you for being willing to answer the tough questions. Why. I support the ministry. I appreciate it. Up there in the hot seat every day and I think it's interesting how some people would not, they would condemn those who were in combat but they don't have any condemnation towards the abortion industry.

So I just find it very morally interesting. But thank you, appreciate you, Matt.

You're welcome, you're welcome. That reminds me, there was a few years ago when I think it was Desert Storm, one of those was there in Afghanistan and I don't know enough to know which category of appropriateness it was for our country to be involved with another nation in war.

There were some variables I don't know about but that's not the issue. The issue is, I remember talking to a guy who was a Marine and we'd known him for a while and he had a little PTSD but he was managing it pretty well and we just got talking one day because I never would ask him questions about being over there.

None of my business. If he wants to tell me, he tells me. I never asked him if he killed anybody, hurt anybody, what he had to do. I just said, look, thank you for being over there and I just say thanks.

And after about a year, we finally had a conversation and he thanked me for not asking him. He says, a lot of people just ask these dumb questions like this. He says, I mean, you killed this? And I said, no, no, no, it's not like that.

It's not easy. And he said, you're right. Because my dad was in the service and I grew up with different military bases and heard conversations. So I knew, you don't talk like that. But he did ask and he said if by chance he had been involved with killing anybody.

You know, he was just looking at me and he said, how would that be? He says, I have a problem with it. And I said, well, if it's the case that you did in a war situation, you're innocent as long as it wasn't a malicious intent.

You had someone safe under your gun and you could just, you know, you could tie him up and take him away as a prisoner and you just killed him anyway. That, you know, and anyway, long story short, we went through it and it helped him a lot.

So there you go. Hey, if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276. You can also email me, info at carm .org, C-A-R-M dot O-R-G. Let's get to Tom from Florida. Tom, welcome. You're on the air.

Hello, Matt. Thank you for the great show. Thank you for your commitment to the Sola Scriptora. I appreciate that.

Oh, boy, you just caused me to relax. Oh, Sola Scriptora, oh, good for you.

All right.

Foreknowledge and Predestination in Romans 8:29

Actually, I'm not calling to argue. I'm calling to get your perspective on a particular verse that is riddled with controversy with respect to the Arminian view versus the sovereign election view. And that is that you all know it's Romans 8, 29.

Those he got predestined is preceded by those he foreknew. And my question is about that word foreknew. And I know you have studied Greek. And can you comment on the meaning of that word foreknew? Is it active, et cetera?

Thank you.

All right, so yes, I know there's a controversy about this. There's two main views. And then I'm gonna show you something. I'll give you my opinion. So the foreknew, the Arminians will generally say that God knows what you're gonna choose in the future and he predestined you because of that.

That's a loose thing. So it would be translated like this then. Those who before knew, he looked into the future to see who'd pick him and he predestined them because he knows what they're gonna do. But that would mean that God had to learn and it would mean that God's choices are based on man's choices and that reduces the sovereignty of God.

And in Arminianism, in this sense, it exalts man and reduces God. And that's, of course, a fault.

You shouldn't do that.

On the other hand, the reform view says that they were known ahead of time and that they are the same group. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined. So now they're the same group. It does not say of those whom he foreknew, some he predestined who he knew would pick him.

It says those whom he foreknew, he also predestined. They're the same group. So what does this foreknowing mean? Well, let me give you my opinion by going someplace else and then come back to here. Matthew 7, 22 and 23, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name?

In your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles and I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Now, the word to not know, I mean, I never knew you is gnosco, gnosco.

The word foreknow in Romans 8, 29 is prognosco, prognosco, just P-R-O in front of the same word. Now, I'm gonna go to Jeremiah 1, 5. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you.

Now, it's a different Hebrew word for know. Good is Hebrew, not Greek. Interesting. Now, let's go to Galatians 4, 8. However, at that time when you did not know God or you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods, verse nine, but now that you've come to know God or rather to be known by God, how is it that you have turned your back?

Now, that word there is that you're known by God. That's also the word gnosco, okay, to know. Foreknow is prognosco. But now that you've come to know God or rather to be known by God, those whom he foreknew he also predestined.

Now, I'm gonna go to John 10, 27. My sheep hear my voice and I know them, gnosco, again. And they follow me and I give eternal life to them. Okay, what I believe, this is my opinion. On the day of judgment, if God says to you, I don't know you, that's really bad for us.

It means we're going to hell. If he says, I know you, it means you're his sheep. Those whom he foreknew he also predestined. The ones he had known in a salvific way beforehand he predestined to become conformed to the image of his son that he would be the firstborn among many brethren.

And those whom he predestined, past tense, he also called, that's past tense, that word right there is past tense and it comes from the Greek kaleo, to call. And those whom he called, past tense, he also justified, past tense, and those whom he justified, he also glorified, past tense.

Wait, how were we glorified? Now, we could make the case that glorification's a future thing, it hasn't happened yet. So, because 1 Corinthians 15, 35 through 45, the glorification of the body. But if that's the case, why is it spoken of in the past tense?

Because the foreknown ones are the predestined called and glorified. Because God doesn't make any mistakes in his decrees. And so when I look at this, I say the ones he foreknew means the ones he's known in a saving way.

Those are also the ones he predestined to be saved. So hold on, buddy, we've got a break. And we'll be right back in comment after the break. Okay, hold on. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

If you want, give me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

Be right back.

It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right, and welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, the number's 877 -207 -2276. All right, Tom, you're back on, buddy.

Okay, thanks. Thanks for the explanation. Please allow me to quickly contrast the two views and see if this is what you said. The Arminian view would interpret the word foreknown as, hey, God knew about you and your behaviors and choices of the future.

That might be an Arminian view.

Yeah, more or less.

The Pauline view, yeah. Or the Pauline view here, associated with sovereign election, uses that word new to actually mean selected for or reserved for salvation.

Kind of.

Okay.

Look at it. It's there, but there's more. See, God is faithful through whom you're called in the fellowship with his son, Christ Jesus, 1 Corinthians 1. He desires to be among his people. And he said, build a tabernacle so I can dwell among my people.

Exodus 25, eight. Jesus says he lives in us, along with the Father, John 14, 23. There's this relationship, this intimacy, foreknow. It deals with the knowing of God in that saving relationship that he's gonna have with those who he's called and given to the son.

And so it's what you said, but think also of a loving relationship that he's worked through Christ so that

I see.

You're known.

Right. Okay.

And he would not have that with a non-believer, obviously.

Correct.

He says to the unbeliever, I never knew you.

Get away from me.

Yep.

He never knew you nor foreknew you.

Right, or foreknown in that sense.

Right.

In that sense, right. He knew about, if you will, because he's God, but yeah, I'm with you, Eric.

Right.

Well, thank you.

Now, a little bit more info. I'll let you Give us more info on this, okay? Because the word foreknow, oh, I had it right here.

Where'd it go?

I did it during the break. The word progenosko only occurs five times, or six times, excuse me, in the New Testament. In Acts 26 .5, and this is how we find out what the word means. We look at its semantic domain, its context.

So in Acts 6 .25, since they have known about me for a long time, that's what the, in verse four, it said, all Jews know my manner of life, youth of which the beginning was spent among your own nation at Jerusalem.

Since then, you've known about me for a long time. That's progenosko. That's foreknow. But it's not used in that sense of a loving relationship, a God-saving work. It's just how it's used, that you've known me.

But it's interesting that it's not a knowing in the future, it's a knowing in the present, in that context. And then Romans 8 .29, the thing we've been looking at. And then in Romans 11 .2, God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

Or do you not know that the scripture says in the passage about Elijah how he pleads with God against Israel? So he's foreknown his people, interesting. And then in 1 Peter 1 .20, let me get the previous verse.

But with precious blood as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For he, that's Christ, was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.

Woo.

So now we see in that part of the word, there is certainly a relationship aspect of foreknowed, but also causation is foreknown before the foundation of the world. But it's appeared in these last times.

So that would be consistent with the ones who are foreknown who are predestined. And then the last verse is 2 Peter 3 .17. And I'll read the previous verse for context. In all his letters, Peter's saying about Paul's writing, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort as they do the rest of the scriptures.

Peter's calling Paul's writing scripture. Rest of the scriptures to their own destruction. Verse 17, you therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guards that you cannot carry it away. So here, now it means you can know beforehand something.

And that's fine. So the word has a range of meanings. So it's not, so in this, it was called a semantic domain, but we don't wanna take the meaning of one place and transfer it to the meaning of another.

And this is why Romans 8 .29 is so critical. When I say to them, the foreknown ones are also the predestined ones. So if it's foreknowing everybody, then he predestined some that would not fit because it says those of me foreknew, he also predestined.

They're the same group. So the Arminian or any position that would say that God knows who will pick him and all that, anything like that is simply not correct according to the scripture right there in Romans 8 .29.

Okay?

Very good, thank you. The context and the use of foreknown or foreknew in Romans 8 .29 is reserved for the saved, the elect.

Yes, in that one, yes it is, because they're the same group. Yes, those of me foreknew, he also predestined.

Because the same group by that association and the way you expressed the tenses. Well, thank you. I'll let you get to the next caller. Appreciate everything you do.

Hey, you're welcome.

Have a good night.

All right, God bless.

All right, God bless. Bye-bye.

All right, all right. Now we have nobody waiting right now. If you want to call, the number is 8772072276. Okay, today's Friday the 13th. Why is it a bad number? Why is it a bad day? Why is it an unlucky day?

Well, my wife was born on Friday the 13th, which explains why she married me. But aside from stuff like that, why is it considered a bad day? Well, here's a potential reason, potential. Now, there is something in scripture called gematria.

And what it means is mathematical values of words. And so, in Hebrew and in Greek, Old Testament's Hebrew, New Testament's Greek, when they wrote, they only had one set of characters. They had one set that was both numbers and letters.

That's for Greek and that's for Hebrew also. So when they would do that, that was just one set, okay? So if you wrote a word, you're also writing a set of numbers. So the Greek word for fish, ikthus, has a mathematical value of 1 ,224.

That's just information, okay? That means all the letters, which are also numbers,.

Added up being that.

Okay, well, the reason I'm bringing this up is because it turns out, and I haven't verified this, but I read it someplace, that whenever it talks about Satan in the Old Testament, the section of scripture, when you add up all the letters, it divisible by 13 exactly.

Interesting. All right, well, here's some more trivia. So during the Jewish calendar, let's just say six o 'clock, and then the non-Jewish calendar, we're gonna say at midnight. So six p .m. and midnight, we're just gonna use those.

But in the Jewish calendar, the day changed at sunset. So sunset could be five o 'clock, six o 'clock, seven o 'clock, eight o 'clock. You know, it depends on the year, time of the year. But just for the illustration, I'm gonna say, let's say in this particular time, it was at six p .m., that that's when it shifted from the 13th to the 14th.

The day 13, now it's the 14th. Well, that would mean then that for other people, it's still the 14th. So at three hours after six p .m., nine p .m., it's the following day for the Jews. But for the Egyptians, for example, it would still be the 13th.

The 14th of Nisan is when the angel of death came over, Israel, and killed the Egyptians, the firstborn. But it was the 13th for the Egyptians, okay? So some think that it happened on that Friday, the 13th for the Egyptians, a bad day, but it was the 14th of Nisan for the Jews, which would make sense.

The Sabbath, the rest, atonement, things like that. So that's one of the theories about that, okay? Hey, there you go. How about that, isn't that fun? Each year, I talk about that. Let's get to Jeff from South Carolina.

Jeff, welcome, you're on the air.

Good evening, Matt. My mom's in the hospital. Had her, she injured her hip the other day, and she's at the Pineville, Atrium Pineville, and I was reading the Bible a lot. I was reading Matthew, I think it's six.

I'm on the road now, I can't read it, but about the eye being single. If the eye was evil, then the whole body single, and then, I don't, I mean, I've read that a lot, and it always intrigued me. I couldn't quite, is it what you're looking at, or I couldn't quite understand it.

You mean, so Matthew six, let me find the passage, okay? And so the lamp is, this is Matthew 6, 22. The lamp, the eye is the lamp of the body, so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

If your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. It's just, there's a word for it in linguistics, where one thing represents the whole. So if your eye, the thing you're seeing is bad, what you're viewing and what you're contemplating is evil stuff, and you're viewing it, participating in it, your whole body's gonna be affected, your whole soul, everything about it is affected.

And if what you're doing is good, you're viewing those good things, then metaphorically, everything's gonna be good. These are generic wisdom statements, is what they are, from Jesus.

Okay.

That's all that's going on, okay?

So it's what you're looking at, you're entertaining yourself with,.

And things like that.

So if you're looking at porn, you're looking at stuff like that, it'll fill your heart and your mind, you'll be dirty.

Right.

And so that's why the Philippians four, six through eight, I think it is, says to, you know, in verse eight, focus on the good things, what's right, pure, and love, and let your mind dwell on these things, okay?

We gotta break. All right, buddy.

Okay.

Hope that helps, God bless.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, Jeff, God bless. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned.