Defending Calvinism: Perseverance of the Saints

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I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified

00:10

Jesus in the public square. Use humanistic principles. It's the same idea. Well, I would say the answer is yes. I would say that. Same answer.

00:15

I would say, what's the problem with stardust bumping into stardust? In the cosmic picture? None. There's no problem.

00:21

Oh, right. In the cosmic picture, it won't matter. No, Mr.

00:27

President. You are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year.

00:47

I'm sorry, my friends, but I am tired of seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar.

00:56

He is a powerful savior. And the gospel is not a suggestion.

01:01

It is a command. Reverend Haller, don't you sympathize with that?

01:11

I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living God. But I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ, and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it.

01:23

An amazing adventure.

01:29

We will explore the spiritual abyss. You have not experienced this before.

01:38

You're going to love it. First Corinthians 15, 58.

01:52

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

01:58

Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. What's up, everybody?

02:04

Welcome back to the Gospel Heard Around the World. This is, once again, Apologia Radio. You can get more at apologiastudios .com.

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You're going to be so, so blessed. You're going to learn so much. That's Luke the Bear. What up?

04:59

I'm Jeff, they call me the Ninja. And that is Zachary Conover, Director of Communications for End Abortion Now.

05:06

A big thank you to everybody who continues to pray for, support, and engage with End Abortion Now. We're in the midst of this first session.

05:14

Just got to throw it out there so you know what to pray for. This first session of the year, we have bills happening across the country. We need your continued prayers.

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It is active everywhere in this nation. And so our work is in many ways just beginning with an even better foundation right now with the church involved the way that it is.

06:32

So we are going to jump into today's episode. Jump right into one of my favorite people.

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It is the son of Dr. Greg Bonson. And his name is

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David Bonson. You've probably seen him a time or two on Apologia Radio, but you've also probably seen him on the major TV news networks talking about financial stuff.

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He is world -renowned in this area, respected. And I think I appreciate that so much about him is that the world wants to listen to his advice as well because it's very, very good.

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And David's done some great work. I don't even know how he finds the time. I don't know how,

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David, you find the time to do what you do and write these books. I think it's probably the influence of your dad getting up at 4 in the morning.

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Good genes. Typing away. But David Bonson, thank you for joining us on Apologia Radio.

07:24

Thanks so much for having me. I absolutely love being with you guys. It's always a pleasure, brother. So David, you wrote a new book.

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Again, don't know how you have the time to do this, but you did. And it's fantastic as always.

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The book is Full Time. And the book was actually in, was it

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Barnes & Noble? I don't know which camera we got going on. It's right there. The Full Time, Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bonson.

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And I saw a picture. Was this in the front of Barnes & Noble's in New York City? It was.

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They did a whole window display for the book, believe it or not, on 5th Avenue. That is a big deal.

08:02

How did you trick them? Yeah. I will promise you from the bottom of my heart, there was no trickery and no payment.

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They just love the theological chapter so much. I don't know. I feel like David, and I don't know, maybe I'm wrong with this, but to my mind, that means that you've really made it as an author when in New York City, Barnes &

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Noble has your book on display in the window. That's next level. It's very cool.

08:29

All right, David. So I want to give you enough time to talk about the book and have everyone get the book.

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So Full Time, Work and the Meaning of Life. David, what's the main point you wanted to get across in this book?

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It was essentially that there is a deficient view of work in our society and then it parlays into that there is a deficient view of work in the church.

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And if I were only writing about one and not the other, I may not have been animated enough to write the book.

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But because I view this as a situation in which the culture at large is getting it wrong and the church is not there as a prophetic antidote or a prophetic backstop, it's an issue that fires me up because I don't think we're going to get this corrected when in my mind the church is more or less making it worse

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Sunday by Sunday. So it has this unique blend of being a cultural problem that I care about as a

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Kuyperian that is not being remedied by the institution of church that I care about as a

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Christian. And that was really the animating driver behind me writing the book.

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So for our listeners that may be unfamiliar with that, I want to dive into both those things and talk through them and get your chance to sort of explain so we can whet everyone's appetite to get the book themselves.

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But you mentioned the word Kuyperian and a lot of our listeners probably have no clue what you're talking about.

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So I think it's important because it does create the passion that you have and it's a catalyst for what you do.

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So what does it mean to be a Kuyperian? At the most simple level, which is really the way this should be explained, it means that I believe

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Christ is Lord of all. I mean that's the one sentence definition. Now why the word

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Kuyperian for that? Abraham Kuyper, the deceased former prime minister in Holland and theologian and pastor and journalist and commentariat extraordinaire famously said there was not one square inch that Christ had not said belonged to him.

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He didn't famously say mine. And so I could delve deeper into why

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I'm such a fan of Kuyper. But ultimately as a Calvinist and as a child of the

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Reformation, I believe in the priesthood of all believers. I believe in repudiating the secular sacred distinction.

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These are all distinctly Protestant notions that I think guys like John Calvin lived out.

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And then I view Kuyper as the heir of Calvin. And so I identify as a Kuyperian because I think there's such an extraordinary need today for us to proclaim the crown rights of Jesus in all domains of life.

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And there's very few who have done that better in the last 150 years than Abraham Kuyper. That's right.

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I'd like to get everyone excited about going to read Kuyper for sure. I'm glad it's a perfect description. So this

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I think will help people to contextualize what your life is about, David. One of the things

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I said to Conover as we started the show was like, you write the book, so how would you describe it? And he said, work is worship.

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Work is worship. And I love that sentence. And it goes into what you just described for the listeners about this problem with the secular sacred divide.

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Because let me have you explain that. Why is that a problem to have a secular sacred divide?

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Well, because it doesn't exist in the world. If God is Lord over all, he did not make some things like church and pulpits and missions to be sacred and then other things like plumbing and technology and Wall Street to be secular.

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If he's Lord over all, then that distinction is fictitious. So this is a comment on the sovereignty of God.

12:51

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that that I would challenge our listeners because it is something that is so much a part of even your father's theology and his work and his teaching that got you there, obviously, and got us there.

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I think it's important for our listeners to really stop and meditate on just that point as they think about what your point is in this book, the sovereignty of God, the rule of God over all things.

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There is no area of this world and in this life that isn't under the rule and the authority of the triune

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God of Holy Scripture. And so all of life is Christ's. Everything belongs to him. And that makes work, even if it's not work in, quote, the church, all valuable, all able to glorify

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God, all something that is something you can pursue as worship. And so,

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David, you made the point that you're approaching this from the two lanes. One is the problem that we have in the culture at large.

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And then the problem that the church doesn't have a prophetic voice in this area. We've lost our way in some way.

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So I guess maybe just speak to maybe what might even be obvious to a lot of people, and that's the problem in the world right now with how they view work.

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What is your point there? I think that this is a more recent phenomena, that in modern culture, recently pop psychology is winning out.

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And the kind of traditional forces in the

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American ethos of the work ethic, right, of free enterprise, these were things that were very integral to the founding of our country.

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There was this sort of Puritan heritage of hard work, of industriousness. The U .S.

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embraced free markets even quicker than the European scholars who wrote about free markets in the 18th century.

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Adam Smith and the great classical economists were writing across the pond, and we were putting it into practice quicker than they were.

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And when the Industrial Revolution happened, economic growth went up all over the world, but it went up exponentially more in the

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United States. We had a harder work ethic. Tocqueville talked about the kind of strong communities we had.

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There was a risk -taking culture, an entrepreneurial culture. It was wedded to some degree of a religious fervor and moral ethos.

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There were a lot of mistakes and sins, but the juxtaposition of religious liberty and economic liberty was a real one.

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And so it gave us a big advantage. And then you fast forward to today, there's still an incredible productivity in America.

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Silicon Valley may not be a place in which they're proclaiming the crown rights of Jesus, but they sure invent a lot of things, create a lot of things, innovate.

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There's productivity, but now what you have is this insidious

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Phariseeism that is in reverse, where people refuse to preach what they practice.

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So someone who has a flourishing career, who makes good money, who works really hard, who does really well writing at the

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Atlantic, can write an article about how horrible work is. With this great career and fulfilling life they have, and they can talk about all this stress and anxiety that is weighing people down.

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And so we've sort of turned the pop psychology forces against work, and I think that's the error

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I see in the world. I think that the church's problem is categorically different, and so in a lot of ways

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I feel like I'm fighting on two fronts. Excellent. Well, I actually just started Kuyper's—forgive me,

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I don't know how to say it. Maybe you know, Pro Reg, Rege, Regi, Regi? Well, when it's Latin, you can pronounce it however you want because it is a spoken language.

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So you just make something up. No one can fact check you. It's really good anyways, and it just means Latin for the king, so it's excellent.

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Just a little plug for that book, Volume 1. But it's funny. I was going to tell you,

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David, Jeff knows this. Probably last year sometime, we were talking with Joe Boot, and I was like, can you please do a book on the

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Puritan work ethic? Because that's a major issue, just work ethic in general, what you touch in his book.

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And he was like, yeah, maybe if I could get to it, which I know he's super busy. So I was thrilled when

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I saw this come out because I was like, this is great. I've been wanting something like this, so thank you. But I was just going to say,

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I think I anticipated this being a purely theological book, and I was very much blown away and impressed.

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It seemed like almost the first half of it was just pure science. It was just numbers, data, and I was like, wow, this is really, really good.

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It really blew me away. So I wanted to thank you for that, and I don't know if you want to touch on any of that. But that was really cool to see that, to see you kind of lay out the argument, just again from pure science, from pure numbers, and then be like, oh, and this is why, because scripture.

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Well, I appreciate you saying that. It's funny because I've had others say we were really hoping it was going to be all economics and all data, and we were really disappointed by how much

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Hebrew and Greek exegesis there was from scripture. So it did give me a chance to harmonize a lot of my passions.

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I'm not a theologian. I'm just the son of one, but I love the Word of God, and I've probably studied systematic theology a little bit more than I pretend

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I have. But I don't do a lot of writing where I'm actually exegeting scripture this way, and this book gave me a chance to put on a theological hat, but it did allow me to also play to my strengths professionally around the economics of work, the basic telos of work, being productivity.

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And then what you're talking about, the data, is the sociological dynamic. I'm really grateful to a gentleman by the name of Nick Eberstadt, who has a lot of material out there on this that is unique to men.

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I think we have a crisis of work in our culture, but prime working -age men is where the tragedy is.

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Now, there's a war on teenage unemployment that's a real problem, and I think the baby boomer concept of retirement is a perversion, but there's nothing more distressing than a 30 -year -old able -bodied man who's living at his mom's couch who won't get a job.

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That, to me, that's the epicenter of this situation. I appreciate that.

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As pastors, that's something that we encounter quite often. Unfortunately, the culture's leaked into the church from that aspect, especially since COVID.

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No one wants to work now because of the government funding they're getting to sit on their couches. We know people that literally could have gone back to work, but they're like, why make more from the government sitting on my rear end?

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What is going on here? So many young men, they're not working, they're lazy, they're complaining.

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You can go just about anywhere and get a job right now, at least here in Phoenix, and make money you shouldn't be making because people are desperate to hire, just to have people show up to work.

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So yeah, I appreciate that. That's a major, major issue in our culture, for sure, and the church.

20:38

So thank you. Can I say something about when people come to you guys as pastors and they say,

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I can make more money from the government than I can working, I think that it is more than just semantics to point out that they're not making a dollar from the government.

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The government doesn't have any money. They're making money that someone else worked to make.

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So it's a transfer payment. So what they are is they're sponsored by somebody.

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Well, there's other words for it too that become more inflammatory, but you get the idea. So at this point, it enables us to talk about it pastorally, spiritually, ethically, biblically.

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It's not merely the economics of the unsustainability of it, the lack of productivity, but it also speaks to the ontological reality that our being and our essence come from us being image bearers of God who was a worker.

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If anyone had the ability to just wave a wand and have things sort of happen in the world, it would have been him.

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He worked to create the world and then made us to be his agents in the world working with the creation.

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It's funny. One of the last times I was on your show, I used the expression co -creators, and I never, ever, ever read any comments about anything on social media,

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YouTube, anything. Me neither. Because I believe in preserving my sanity. Amen. But I just happened to notice one comment where someone thought that that was inappropriate to refer to us as co -creators with God.

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And I can't fathom what's theologically controversial about that, that God made out of nothing, ex nihilo, and that we make out of something, ex noturum, out of the nature and creation of what

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God made. And I think it's a really important point that we were called by God before sin entered the world to create, and that he did not make the world finished.

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On day one, we didn't have the Brooklyn Bridge. We didn't have a wheel. To my knowledge, they didn't even have fire.

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Mankind had to figure out how to start a fire. I mean, there's all of these artifacts of culture that come about from mankind acting as a co -creator with God.

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And I think that when people say, I can get paid by the government, they simply mean someone else will act as a co -creator of God and I'll get some of the money from it.

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And there ought to be some really, really harsh words for that. Amen. That's very good,

23:31

David. I know that, Mr. Bunsen, the problem that you pose is just what you're talking about in the book.

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This is the issue, is voluntary worklessness. I think you even call it an epidemic. That's the problem that we're facing.

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It's voluntary. And we know that human beings are inescapably religious creatures geared towards worship.

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That's what your chapter on Genesis is all about and the theological basis for work. That's why when

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Jeff says, you know, he's relaying to you how I would summarize your book, work is worship, just a few minutes ago, my question is how much of our problem with a lack of desire to work is owing to our problem or misunderstanding of what it means to be a worshiper of God?

24:14

Because you mentioned that the problem is also that the institutional church doesn't have a recovery of the

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Protestant work ethic and a view of life that says everything is holy unto the Lord. We're missing that foundational grounding reality of Genesis and creational normativity and the reason for our existence, right?

24:37

Full -time work and the meaning of life. How much of this is owing to our deficient view of worship, not only in the culture, but in the

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Christian church? Well, I think that they're one in the same and they feed off each other negatively.

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That a deficient view of worship leads to a deficient view of work and a deficient view of work leads to a deficient view of worship.

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And your summary of my book's message that work is worship is more than just an encapsulation of the message.

25:07

It's grammatical in the Hebrew scripture that avodah is literally translated as work and as worship.

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When God said in the fourth commandment, six days shalt thou work and do all thy labor, the context is obviously vocational work.

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And that's the word avodah. And when the word is interpreted in the Hebrew scripture and the

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Hebrew prefix avo repeatedly in a context of worship, including temple worship, we are not just given a framework of interpretation about work and worship.

25:49

We're given the actual grammar and translation of work and worship.

25:55

The book of Joshua says, choose this day whom you will serve. That's avodah.

26:01

The same word for working in the garden. The same word for six days, shalt thou work.

26:07

I love it. Well, David, maybe as we get into the problem with the church, can you help people understand that who are just starting to think

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Kuyperian thoughts? They're just starting to think in a way that's more consistent and comprehensive.

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When you say work is worship, somebody goes playing basketball for a living, painting a house.

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You mentioned plumbing, like seriously plumbing, worship, labor of some kind. I mean, it didn't feel like a worship service when

26:41

I'm digging into that, that hole down there. Somebody says, you know, really?

26:47

So, so building a house is worship to God or being a stockbroker is worship to God.

26:54

And they might ask the question, David, how could you possibly explain these seemingly at times mundane things?

27:01

And not church kind of things. How could you make that into worship?

27:07

How does someone make that a worship experience? Well, I start with an economic question.

27:13

But see, my view of economics is distinctly Christian, Jeff. Give me an example of a job or an endeavor, including all the examples you just gave, where the activity is not reducing goods and services that meet the needs of humanity.

27:32

There is no example. Nobody is going to pay you to go dig a hole in the ground right in front of you for no reason.

27:39

There is some need that is being met in the work, or there isn't a job.

27:46

And it could be, it could feel mundane and tedious. It could also be laborious and physical. On this side of the curse, there is the sweat of the brow.

27:55

But when we talk about worship, I start with what the work is. That it is us meeting, having our needs met by meeting the needs of others.

28:07

Now, what is financial markets? What is Wall Street? What is it that I do for a living? I am putting capital into things to have the needs of those who have capital met by them meeting the needs of risk -takers and entrepreneurs and producers who they themselves cannot have their needs met without meeting the needs of some end -user, some consumer, someone they are delivering value to.

28:34

There is a pro -cyclical nature to all of this. This is how I believe markets work.

28:39

It is how social cooperation works. This is the very fundamental belief that a

28:45

Christian has about engaging in a marketplace. So how is it worshipful?

28:50

It is because we are the subject of the work. We're the workers. We're doing the work, and we're doing it transitively.

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What I mean by that is our work doesn't exist in isolation. It doesn't exist in a closet.

29:06

It isn't private. The work is extended towards an object. Who is the object?

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The person who's benefiting from the work. So I believe that God loves the worker, and I believe

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God loves the person being worked for. Therefore, I believe God loves the line between those two dots.

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If I believe God loves the worker and the person being worked for, then I must believe God loves the work, and that is worship.

29:38

Very good. That was excellent. In a way, I don't know if it would be too much of a stretch to say, but we are the agents of God's providential care in the world.

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He's the ultimate provider as Father of his creation, and then his subjects, his creatures, are the ones that are the means by which that providence comes to bear.

29:59

So there's this beautiful interconnectedness that we all have together. We all depend upon one another for these goods and services, but ultimately, we are ultimately dependent upon the provider of all of it, and that has to be rooted in worship.

30:19

Oh, yeah. Amen. Very good. I was going to change the subject, so if you want to.

30:24

Well, I was just going to get to, okay, so first of all, I would just do a quick little spot here to point people to more really valuable work, but then go into the issue of the church and the lack of prophetic vision and speaking into the culture on these issues, because we just don't know.

30:40

We don't even have a biblical view of life and work, generally speaking, within the church, and so we don't have a voice that can speak into these issues with any kind of meaning.

30:50

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32:46

They're going to give you a discount, and they help to support the show. So go to ionlayer .com to get started with that and invest in your health and your well -being.

32:55

Is that part of their promise that you'll live forever? There's only one person that promises that, and he will deliver for sure.

33:05

But, yeah, just go research it. Just type in NAD health benefits, and you'll just see so much of the science behind this.

33:12

It is really, really amazing, and it's a great way to do what people talk about today when they talk about biohacking.

33:18

It is a great way to get into your system and basically use the systems, the way that God designed them to work.

33:27

And I think it's very post -Mill, in my mind, of the preservation and protection of human life.

33:35

And that's, by the way, why I really love ionlayer, because I see it like that. This is one of those things that's just like part of the Christian worldview is to find a way to protect and preserve human life and to bless it, and that's what it does.

33:47

So I love it. I do it all the time. My wife does it all the time. And I think you should give it a shot.

33:53

Go ahead. Next one. Well, real quickly, because I know David has a little bit of time, I just wanted to point everyone, again, to shop .apologyofstudios

34:00

.com where you can get these sweet, awesome tracks that we have and some coffee and some cool shirts.

34:07

And we'll do the others later. Go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say, do you want to jump into the church issue?

34:12

I can ask a question on that. Well, actually, let me ask this real quick. This is actually a great question for David.

34:19

Someone in the chat said, honest question, is it godly to mix commercials with the work of the kingdom of God? Is it godly to mix commercials with the work of the kingdom of God?

34:30

Yeah. The implication in the question, respectfully and charitably, there's an implication in the question that is dualist.

34:43

Because why are the commercials not part of the kingdom of God? Why are the things that are being advertised not part of the kingdom of God?

34:52

The endeavors in the marketplace, whether it be part of the marketing that helps to support the show that leads to the overall kind of ecosystem of all these activities, they're part of the kingdom of God.

35:04

And so I think that that's what I meant earlier by Kuyperion, and I don't mean to throw proper nouns at it instead of just describing it, but that's all

35:12

I'm referring to, guys, is the theology of kingdom. And the theology of kingdom includes church, but it is not limited to church.

35:23

And David, that nails it right there. That gets us right into the problem of the lack of prophetic vision and ministry in this area is that people will see the spiritual things are the churchy things, the things that relate to the house of God, they relate to the worship service, they relate to a

35:41

Christian ministry. That's where real value is found. You want real spiritual meaning and real spiritual value, it's going to be within the walls of the church or it'll be with those

35:50

Christian ministries. They're doing the work of the kingdom. All this other stuff out here is just worldly and not truly spiritual in nature.

35:59

And so when you talk about dualism, I think that's what you're getting at, and Christians need to understand that dualism is not compatible with Christianity.

36:09

And though we've adopted it, and though it's popular, and it's all the rage within evangelicalism, it is certainly not biblical.

36:16

And that gets us into the problem. So David, you do describe in your book that second issue that you're very passionate about is this lack of prophetic vision coming from the church in this area.

36:25

So there's no salt and no light coming from the church, generally speaking, in this area of work because we don't even have a good theological understanding of it in the first place.

36:35

So what do you attack first when you go against the problem of the church? So I believe first I want to look to kind of the origins of it.

36:44

Where did it come from? And when I had Doug Wilson on my podcast that I did for this book, we were talking about even the dualism had a source.

36:55

And I think that much of this is born out of an ancient Gnostic heresy.

37:01

That the Gnosticism in early centuries that essentially said that there was a superior value in spirituality than the material universe.

37:17

That in my mind, it is an implicit denial of the incarnation of Christ.

37:23

I believe in a son of God who is fully God and fully man. And I believe that God made embodied people.

37:31

And that we have souls that can never die. We have an eternal destiny. But we also are made with bodies that will be raised up again.

37:40

And that God sent his son not merely as a deity and spirit, but as man.

37:48

He became fully man. This is to me an incarnational truth that speaks to the fact that God cares about the spiritual or immaterial universe and the physical or material universe.

38:03

And when we believe that there is a superiority in that which is spiritual or metaphysical and an inferiority in that which is physical, that to me is the

38:17

Gnostic heresy. And dualism falls out of Gnosticism very easily.

38:23

That was to me an ancient error. Now, here's the problem with the last 100 years.

38:31

So we're all byproducts of somewhere in the last 50 -ish years.

38:37

Okay, I'm going to turn 50 next month, so I'll speak for myself. I believe that there's two things that have happened since, let's call it, the turn of the 20th century that were both catastrophic errors from the church when it comes to work.

38:52

About 100 years ago, give or take, there was a mass retreatism from the church, a pietism, a fundamentalism that was getting its tail whipped by modernism that was anti -intellectual, that was anti -cultural engagement, and it led to a very significant pietism in the church, reasonably focused on some form of soul -saving, but quite explicit and self -conscious about being against Christian engagement in politics, media, the arts, technology, education, and, yes, the marketplace, commerce, commercial society.

39:41

So, guys, what I think happened a little over 40 years ago now is a really good thing in that we began to reverse part of that.

39:53

I think that the church in, let's call it, the late 70s, early 80s, largely for survival, said, okay, this whole thing about being out of politics is not going very well.

40:04

And whether it was issues of life or issues of marriage, I don't think that we've handled our political engagement very intelligently all the time, and I certainly don't think we handle it faithfully all the time, and I don't think we're handling it faithfully right now all the time, but the

40:22

Christian church did more or less abandon retreatism, that there's still a general consensus across a lot of evangelicalism that, okay,

40:32

Christians need to be back in the game a little bit in politics. And the other great example is education.

40:38

In 1978, there were zero homeschoolers, more or less. It wasn't measurable.

40:44

Now, you're talking about millions of people in the last 40 years that have gone into classical school,

40:54

Christian school, homeschool, millions of people that have re -embraced

41:01

Christian engagement in education. So what I think was first a broad error of retreatism is now isolated to where, okay, in my lifetime, from the time

41:15

I was about in kindergarten until now, we've started to course correct a little bit. We have a long way to go in politics and education.

41:24

But in the marketplace, the church has had a pretty robust faith and work movement for about 30 years that is still constricted by this pietism, constricted by this idea of, oh, yeah, you should go to work so you can tithe to your church, so you can give to missionaries, so you can witness to people at the water cooler.

41:46

They have not gotten into this full -orbed idea of, no, Christians should engage in the marketplace and excel in the marketplace because God cares about the marketplace.

41:59

We're still missing that. Yeah. That's powerful stuff. Guys, you've got to get the book.

42:05

You have to get the book. It is not overwhelming. Take a look at that. It's not overwhelming at all. You're going to learn a whole lot, full -time, work in the meaning of life.

42:13

David Bonson, you've got to have this in your library. You really do. This is one of those necessary correctives today.

42:20

If we're going to bless the world with a full -orbed portrait of the gospel and the Christian worldview, you need to have things like this that address the problem.

42:28

David, I really love how you said that. I don't think you and I have talked about this particular issue together, at least not in this way.

42:36

That's one of the main things that I've constantly said, even over the last couple of years, I've tried to emphasize that early on in the history of the church, literally in the pages of Scripture, the deadliest enemies of the

42:49

Christian faith were these Gnostics, the Gnostic heresy. You've got the Apostle Paul addressing the issue.

42:55

You've got the Apostle John addressing the issue. There's even external stuff related to the

43:01

Apostle John, not recorded in Scripture. There's a famous story in history of the

43:07

Apostle John was going into a local bathing house, which is what they did at the time, community bathing things, and a very well -known

43:15

Gnostic heretic was in there. The story, the church history goes that the Apostle John comes running out of the bathhouse, essentially naked, pleading with everyone to leave the place because God was going to cause the roof to cave in upon this deadly heretic.

43:30

They saw them as the great arch enemies of the Christian faith. And you see, even into the second century of the church, the church is having to make war against Gnosticism.

43:40

And if you want to have... Well, give me an expression of that. What would it look like today?

43:46

Well, Gnosticism is alive and well today within the church and in the world. And it is demonstrated clearly in everything that David just said in terms of how you view the world, how you view work.

43:57

And many Christians, I think, just don't understand today that they hold to a perspective, a worldview perspective about work and the world.

44:04

And you've got this area over here that doesn't matter to God very much. It's not very important. It's tainted by sin. And this over here, the spiritual, like David says, the metaphysical, this gassy existence, the spiritual existence, that's what matters before God.

44:18

It's like you don't even realize that you're spewing Gnosticism. And yeah,

44:23

I think that is a major issue within the church. I've said it for a long time. Gnosticism is alive and well within the church.

44:29

And it's time that we overcame it. And this book is one of the ways that you can overcome it.

44:35

It's the theological way of addressing overcoming that error. And here's the deal. Why does it matter?

44:41

Because you were created to worship God. And if work is worship, then get busy worshiping.

44:47

And see your work as pleasurable work of worship.

44:53

See it as a joy. See it as a spiritual experience. Every aspect of it, because it is that gift from God.

45:00

And so I think we, so I'll just, I'll leave it there. We need to have that corrective. We need to have that happen.

45:06

And it will lead to blessing the world with the Christian worldview.

45:11

I mean, I've said so many times, I think one of the major problems that we have is, we've got many, and I've got many, and this is not pointing a finger just out there at the world.

45:22

It's just saying this is a major problem, is that we don't understand what the good news of the kingdom is.

45:28

That's what Jesus was preaching when he left the wilderness. He comes out proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom.

45:34

We don't really know what that means. Like we know what gospel means in terms of like we go, oh, that means like I'm justified by faith in Jesus Christ.

45:40

I have a relationship with God. I have peace with God. And the answer is yes, yes, and amen to all that. It's true.

45:45

But that's the truncated view of the gospel, because the gospel is also the gospel of the kingdom. It's the good news of the rule of the

45:51

Messiah in the world. And the Jews understood because they knew their Old Testament, same Old Testament we have, what this kingdom was going to bring in the world.

45:59

And there's no way out of it. The texts from the Old Testament clearly, clearly, clearly display that the

46:06

Messiah's kingdom is not just this gassy experience out there somewhere, but the

46:11

Messiah's kingdom had something to do with this life, this world, promoting human flourishing, bringing justice, establishing righteousness.

46:19

And it was going to be comprehensive. It was going to be as the waters cover the sea, it was going to be, he shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.

46:28

He shall establish justice in the earth. He won't grow faint or weary until he's done so. And so the gospel of the kingdom is this comprehensive view of all of life under the rule of the

46:39

Messiah. The Jews understood that. That's what Messiah was bringing the Christians today. Many times we've lost that.

46:45

Not all Christians, not all Christians, not the real Christian history. But right now we're in a space where it's like, we think

46:51

Jesus is Lord over there, but not so much over here. And we need to get back to it. And this book's going to help.

46:56

So, yeah. So to change the subject kind of, I'm just curious, David, obviously you've made a living dealing with economics and people have you on Fox news and stuff like that.

47:08

Talk about economics. You've been on a lot of shows, secular shows. You mentioned you did an interview or had a conversation with some heretics before.

47:16

Like what has been the response? Because obviously it's a bestseller right now.

47:21

What has been the response from the secular world to, to the theological aspect of this book?

47:29

Well, it's funny. I just think that sometimes subversion is an effective tactic in, in, in the foolishness to the

47:39

Greeks because I don't think these people know about the exegesis. They know that they know that I'm a free marketeer and they know that I can capably discuss markets and economics.

47:54

I have built some relationships with people and, and they respect me,

48:02

I guess for the time being. And then I get to put a book out there that spends several chapters exegeting

48:09

Genesis one and talking about Abraham Kuyper and, and the quotes Dorothy Sayers 10 times and a whole bunch of other, you know,

48:17

Christian people. And so, you know, I think it's a blessing that that audience is there.

48:25

But you know, like a lot of subjects, Luke, there's, people sometimes hear what they want to hear. And I think a lot of Christians right now are excited to hear that there's a theology of work and someone saying we need to work harder and that all things belong to the

48:39

Lord. And then they may not want to hear the part where I'm saying, Hey, retirement isn't a biblical idea.

48:45

Right. And then there's maybe people who aren't Christians who like enjoy me saying we're not going to get the productivity we need for economic growth if we don't get more people in the labor participation force.

48:56

So they like these sort of wonky economic ideas, but they don't like me saying that work is worship.

49:02

You know, I get to synthesize the message because, you know,

49:08

I'm sort of untouchable economically. Like they can't hurt me in that way. I don't need to sell books. I don't really, but, but, but then

49:15

I was just wired to tell the truth. That's just, I just, that's all I want to do is wake up every day and be faithful.

49:22

And if some people like it, I'm happy. And if they don't like it, I'm still happy. Well, it's good. I think it's a good point to, to be made that when you're good at your work, when you're good at what you do and people respect you for it, you have a better opportunity to have, to have their ear so that they'll listen because they respect the work and they respect what you can produce.

49:45

If we keep putting out shoddy work, if we do everything poorly as Christians, if we don't invest in it as worship and do it to the glory of God and do it, if you said something,

49:56

David, that stuck with me and I thought it was just a great way to encapsulate it. We talked about Genesis, God as creator. He was innovative.

50:02

He was creative and he was good. And, and that, that's a beautiful, beautiful way of putting that the beginning of the story, right?

50:09

And we should be like God in that way. So we need to be innovative in our work and creative in our work and good like God.

50:15

We're image bearers of God. He expects us to be like him. If we're doing that in our work in the world and blessing the world, we'll do things like build cathedrals and amazing architecture and beautiful music.

50:26

Like we used to do as Christians. And now, you know, because, and I think this is a consequence that you're pointing to David, because we don't view work as worship and we see this divide of secular and sacred

50:37

Christians put out really garbage movies. Christians put out really garbage art.

50:43

You know, Christians aren't invested in beautifying the world to the glory of God. Like we have been in the past.

50:50

So recapturing that you're not saying, here's the thing crazy, David, you're not saying anything new, right?

50:56

That's what's beautiful about it is that you're not, you're not saying anything new. You're taking something that is a biblical theme that's seen throughout

51:04

Christian history. And you're saying, Hey guys, let's get back to this. This is what blesses the world. This is what places was pleasing to God.

51:10

Let's get back to this. We're wrong right now. And so, yeah, there's consequences to, to our theology and to our worldviews and our praxis.

51:18

And this, this is very important. So what you were just saying reminds me of the, I could be wrong. I think it's Martin Luther who said the

51:24

Christian shoemaker isn't a Christian shoemaker because he puts crosses on his shoes, but because he makes the best shoes that money can buy.

51:31

Yeah. Yeah. There you go. That's what it reminds me of. And I was just, I was just going to mention, I was, this conversation always makes me think of Proverbs 22, 29.

51:41

Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before Kings. He will not stand before obscure men, you know, so in regards to your book, that I feel like that perfectly defines you.

51:50

You've, you've proven yourself skillful in your industry, you know, so you will stand before Kings.

51:56

You'll stand before the biggest people in that industry. And here you have an opportunity to execute

52:01

Genesis one because of the hard work you've put in. So anyways, I love that verse. I think it applies. And I think what's should be motivating.

52:08

I'll just say this quickly here, David, I think we should be motivating to anybody when they hear what, what Luke just said is what's underneath all that, uh, success and respect and honor in your industry is that you believe that work is worship.

52:22

And that's, that's what, that's what it motivates you and drives you is it's work. If someone says, well, how do

52:28

I do that? Like, give me the, give me the, give me the book on how do I get that in my life? Well, it's right here. It's right here.

52:33

And it's explained here that work is worship and that's what you need to get to get about doing. So, well, yeah.

52:39

And even going back and then I'll shut up. But, uh, even going back to Genesis one, you know, after the fall, it's not like God was like, now you're going to have to work at them.

52:49

It was like, he was already doing the work. It's just going to suck. No, it's going to hurt. It's going to be painful. Like, you know, so I think we miss that.

52:57

A lot of Christians miss that. It's like, Oh, because I've said now we got to work. It's like, no, you already should have been working. Well, and there's a really easy way to properly exegete that passage, which is to look at all of it instead of half of it.

53:09

Does anyone think, does anyone think babies are a curse? Well, I guess I shouldn't say that because some maybe do, but Christians, there's no

53:16

Christian who would say babies are a curse. Children are a curse. Well, the Genesis chapter three, verse 16, he starts with the curse being given to Eve after the fall and said that they will now suffer the pains of childbirth and your husband will rule over you.

53:33

Husbands are not curses. Children are not a curse. Then in verse 17 it switches to work and what my dad said, and I didn't find this sermon from my dad until after I'd written the book.

53:43

And I have a podcast coming out tomorrow called on the hook that I go through 34 different sermons from my dad where I went and extracted little audio clips.

53:56

Oh, okay. And, and, and we, and so I'm going through and talking and then we're playing clips from my dad and it's basically this sort of conversation put together between my, myself and, and my late dad with materials from the seventies and eighties and everything.

54:12

But first of all, Luke, he quotes proverbs 22, 29. He talks about that very verse and the idea, which today

54:18

I think we would say is elitist or establishment or something, but it's right in the Bible that people will end up with respect of folks that have influence and status.

54:28

And that can be a good thing when used to the kingdom of God. But that, that issue about the curse, my dad said work was not a curse.

54:39

The sweat was right. The children are not a curse. The pains of childbirth were, this is the only possible hermeneutical interpretation that makes sense.

54:53

The notion that work was created before the sin, that it was blessed before it was presented before, and then it was presented after, but attached to a curse and the worst most to conclude that work itself is a curse is totally incoherent scripturally.

55:11

Yeah. One thing I've noticed is when people ask, have asked me as a pastor and I don't have any grand insight here because scripture doesn't give a lot of details about what the eternal state will be like in terms of like mechanical things, the day to day kind of stuff.

55:27

But I think people have been shocked at times when I'll say, well, you need to stop thinking about heaven. And our eternal state is like this gassy existence out there where we're just sitting around doing nothing.

55:37

You need to think about it in terms of what the garden was like, where the physical and the spiritual are again, reunited in the way that God intended it.

55:43

And people will say, well, what do we do in heaven? I'm like, well, what were they doing in the garden? They were building, they were creating, they were learning, they were growing.

55:50

And so I imagine the eternal state in heaven, when heaven and earth are fully reunited again to be, to be a restoration of all that.

55:59

So I anticipate in heaven working, building, creating, learning, growing for all eternity.

56:06

If you think heaven is going to be us sitting around and occasionally getting up to go to a worship service or something like, you know, you're thinking about the way that God made us wrongly.

56:17

God created us to be like him. God is, is innovative, creative. He's good at what he does.

56:23

He creates, he made us to do the same things and he made us to work. So I'm excited about heaven in terms of like learning, growing, building, creating art, finally learning how to sing, you know, like whatever.

56:36

That might take an eternity. It might be able to take an eternity. Maybe it'll never be accomplished. Hey, that's perfect.

56:41

But Pastor, where did people get, you're a hundred percent right in what people do.

56:48

And I don't, and maybe some of it is harmless, you know, you form sort of mental imagery as a kid usually, right?

56:56

Where did people get a visual image of heaven that is gassy, that is sitting around, that is maybe singing in a service and then going back to when the imagery in the

57:10

Bible is a celestial city. Now this is another piece I found in a sermon from my dad and it is so incredibly connected to his views of antithesis.

57:21

The city of God did not begin at sin. It began at creation.

57:28

Wow. This is a pure Augustinian idea. The city of God began at creation.

57:36

And I believe that heaven is the restored, redeemed city of God.

57:44

If people, there's two things, I think many Christians are going to have to get real used to before heaven.

57:52

They're going to have to learn how to get along with other Christians and they're not very good at doing that.

57:58

And they're going to have to learn to work. Amen. Yeah. And that look, that'll ruffle feathers.

58:04

That'll, that'll really be like a thorn in someone's side when they, when they've thought about having a certain way and you start saying, no, heaven's going to be a restoration of what was.

58:13

And so there'll be work and creation is going to be beautiful and it's without the curse, but you're not going to be sitting around for all eternity, doing nothing.

58:20

God, God actually has a lot to say about lazy bones. And we're not in heaven being lazy bones. You know what

58:25

I'm saying? Think about the verse that you read at the beginning. First Corinthians 15, your work in the Lord is not in vain. Well, that comes in a chapter about the resurrection.

58:33

Right. Yeah. Really interesting that in some sense, our work follows us like out of the grave and into eternity.

58:41

Like otherwise Paul wouldn't be talking about a foundation being laid. And then that foundation at the last day being revealed by fire.

58:47

There's a lot you can say to this. Like, I mean, I wanted to read at the beginning of the show, the parable of the talents. It's just, it's just a long section about taking so much up of the time of the show parable of talents.

58:57

When the master comes back to the servants, you know, he's given, he's given talents, bags of gold to certain people based upon what they're able to produce with it.

59:06

And so some receive more, some receive less, but he gives the bag of talents and he expects them to actually produce something with it.

59:13

Right. And what is the challenging part of that section of the parable of talents? It's when he's talks to this wicked and unprofitable servant, he calls them wicked because the unprofitable servant takes the gift of God, this bag of gold and buries.

59:26

It does nothing with it. He produces nothing. And so I just, I know you're this, you know, you know, harsh master.

59:33

And you know, you, I look, I didn't do anything with it. It's still there. You still got what you gave me. And he calls him wicked and unprofitable.

59:40

And, but what does he say to the people who took the bags of gold and actually produced more with it, created more with it, developed more with it.

59:48

Well done. He gives them charge over more. Now, if that's a portrait of what God's going to do towards us in the future,

59:57

Hey, I gave you a bag of gold. Look what you produced with it. I'm going to give you charge over more. I take that to mean that in heaven, there's some degree, there's going to be something about the rewards and gifts of God based upon the labor and worship that you did here.

01:00:12

Now I'm going to give you a charge over all of this. I'll give you charge over all of this. Now, if that's a portrait of what God's going to do for us on the last day and in heaven, one day, that means that there are things that we're going to be doing in heaven, working with in heaven, producing more for God in heaven.

01:00:27

Do I have a full picture of what that looks like? I certainly don't, but I know the principle behind it and it's, it's biblically secure.

01:00:33

That principle is all right, David, thank you for joining us today. Love you, brother. So much.

01:00:39

Yeah. So full time, everyone work in the meeting of life. I, I, what I, what do I say, David, does everyone go to Amazon and buy it?

01:00:45

Where should, where should I? Yeah. Amazon is probably where most people are going. A full time book .com

01:00:52

has reviews and clips and excerpts. And then there's links to buy it there through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, whatever.

01:00:59

Everyone get the book, David, I'm sure we're going to have you on again. So looking forward to it, brother. Thank you so much for everything you do.

01:01:05

All right, everybody. So at this look, the show is, I think going to bless a lot of people. I think it's very, very important.

01:01:12

This is a necessary corrective for the church and the world today. So get the book.

01:01:17

It is fantastic. We love David. And one of the things that I always inspires me when I, I get the chance to get a chance to sit down or talk with David is it encourages me to see the value of being a good father and be a good, a good godly model for your sons and daughters.

01:01:35

Because what's that? What's Jesus say? Wisdom is justified by her children.

01:01:41

Right. And what's that mean? If you want to see what, if you want to literally, if you want to see what wisdom is, then it'll be vindicated by what it produces.

01:01:48

Right. So if you want to see if someone is truly wise, well, let's see what they produce. And I think, I think Greg produced a great one.

01:01:56

And so David Bonson, full -time work in the meaning of life. Just real quickly. We have one more thing to point people to.

01:02:03

Actually, I mean, so talking about hard workers, right? People work in the glory of God.

01:02:08

I got to just, you know, I keep mentioning Amtek blades, bill rapier. It's one of the hardest working men

01:02:13

I know. And he does it the glory of God. And he makes these blades to the glory of God. Let me tell you. So if you want a really sweet, awesome blade and go to amtechblades .com,

01:02:21

put apology in the coupon code. You get a little bit of a discount there. So, and then of course, a heritage defense .org.

01:02:29

Please. I keep saying this. I mean it, please, please, please. If your homeschooling family sign up now, you need it, especially the way the culture is going.

01:02:38

You need, you need, you need a legal defense in case any, any three letter agency comes to your door and wants to talk to you and take your kids.

01:02:46

and it is ridiculously stupidly cheap. And again, apology in the coupon code for a month free.

01:02:53

That's right. That's right. And we've been very encouraged to get reports back from them about how many people are signing up.

01:02:59

And it's been, it's been quite a bit. So that encourages us because you need to be a part of that as a Christian, particularly Christian homeschooling families.

01:03:05

You need to have them for sure. And so do we have any superchats?

01:03:12

Is there? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Wally West. Wally, thanks for your support. I showed my dad the

01:03:18

Calvinist movie. He has this understanding that we reform Christians, believe that someone can come to God for salvation and God will turn them away.

01:03:25

How do I biblically explain the doctrines of grace? Oh, well, actually we just did a great series on the doctrines of grace.

01:03:31

Yeah. I'd refer you to those first. Definitely look through the episodes we did. We also have a sermon series teaching through the doctrines of grace, uh, apologies studios right here on YouTube.

01:03:41

Go through that sermon series or the recent series. We're still going to do one more on it. And that's responding to objections, uh, for defending

01:03:48

Calvinism. So we got to do that at some point in the future. Um, and, uh, hopefully, uh, hopefully next week

01:03:54

I wanted to actually review the latent flowers. I was going to say, you can also view that debate. Yeah. So I would say, uh, first of all, nobody is, nobody is coming to God, uh, for salvation who isn't being drawn by God.

01:04:05

Uh, it doesn't happen. And, and there's a number of ways you can prove that in Romans chapter three, the apostle Paul gives the indictment upon Jew and Gentile.

01:04:12

And he said, there is no God seeker. There is none who does good. There is none righteous. No, not one. So scripture is really clear that there is no

01:04:19

God seeker. Nobody is seeking for God. So God doesn't turn people away. Everybody already is turned away.

01:04:26

That's the nature of humanity. And in the fall, as everybody has already turned away, God doesn't turn people away.

01:04:32

They are turned away because they are haters of God. They're enemies of God. There are, they are dead in their sins and trespasses.

01:04:38

So if somebody is turning to Christ to trust in him, that is, well, as an example,

01:04:45

John six, no man, unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up. Jesus says he raises up the one the father draws.

01:04:52

So no one is able. No one can. The father draws and Jesus raises them up. That's a more biblical way to express that.

01:05:00

God doesn't turn people away for salvation because nobody wants salvation. Apart from the grace of God, who mercy of God doesn't happen.

01:05:07

According to scripture, that's a biblical worldview. So thank you guys for everything. Thank you guys for supporting apology or radio.

01:05:13

Grateful for all that you guys do to participate with us in ministry. Go get your all access account with us at apology of studios .com.

01:05:22

Party with us in this ministry. That's Luke the bear. Peace out. I'm Jeff, the common ninja and that's Zachary Conover, director of communications with end abortion.